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12Such was the character of this man; but others both strove for triumphs and celebrated them, not only for no exploits comparable to his, but merely for arresting robbers or for restoring harmony to cities that were torn by factious strife. 2For Augustus, at least in the beginning, bestowed these rewards lavishly upon certain men, and those whom he honoured by public funerals were very many. Accordingly, while these men gained lustre through such distinctions, Agrippa was promoted to the supreme power, one might say, by him. 3For Augustus saw that the public business required strict attention, and feared that he himself might, as often happens to men of his position, fall victim to a plot. (As for the breastplate which he often wore beneath his dress, even when he entered the senate, he believed that it would be of but scanty and slight assistance to him.) 4He therefore first added five years to his own term as princeps, since his ten-year period was about to expire (this was in the consulship of Publius and Gnaeus Lentulus), and then he granted to Agrippa many privileges almost equal to his own, especially the tribunician power for the same length of time. 5For that number of years, he said at the time, would be enough for them; though not long afterward he obtained the other five years of his imperial power in addition, so that the total number became ten again.
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