Roman History, 54.6

Cassius Dio  translated by Earnest Cary

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6While this was going on, Augustus went to Sicily in order to settle affairs in that island and elsewhere as far as Syria. While he was still there, the Roman populace fell to quarrelling over the election of the consuls. This incident showed clearly that it was impossible for a democratic government to be maintained among them; 2at any rate, although they had but little authority either in the matter of the elections or of the offices themselves, they fell to rioting. One of the consulships, it seems, was being kept for Augustus, and accordingly at the beginning of the year Marcus Lollius alone entered upon office; but when the emperor would not accept the position, Quintus Lepidus and Lucius Silvanus became rival candidates and threw everything into such turmoil that Augustus was summoned home by those who retained their senses. He would 3not return, however, and when the two candidates themselves came to him, he rebuked them and sent them away, giving orders that the vote should be taken during the absence of them both; thereupon the people were no more quiet than before, but fell into great strife again, until at last Lepidus was chosen. 4Augustus was displeased at the incident, for he could not devote all his time to Rome alone and did not dare to leave the city in a state of anarchy; accordingly, he sought for some one to set over it, and judged Agrippa to be most suitable for the purpose. 5And as he wished to invest him with a dignity above the ordinary, in order that he might govern the people more easily, he summoned him, compelled him to divorce his wife, although she was the emperor’s own niece, and to marry Julia; and he sent him to Rome at once to attend both to the wedding and to the administration of the city. This step is said to have been taken partly on the advice of Maecenas, who in counselling him upon these very matters said: “You have made him so great that he must either become your son-in -law or be slain.” 6Agrippa, then, checked whatever other ailments he found still festering, and curtailed the Egyptian rites which were again invading the city, forbidding anyone to perform them even in the suburbs within one mile of the city. And when a disturbance arose over the election of the prefect of the city, the official chosen on account of the Feriae, he did not succeed in quelling it, but they went through that year without this official.

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