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45Though the people understood all this during his lifetime, they nevertheless realized it more fully after he was gone; for human nature is so constituted that in good fortune it does not so fully perceive its happiness as it misses it when misfortune has come. This is what happened at that time in the case of Augustus. For when they found his successor Tiberius a different sort of man, they yearned for him who was gone. 2Indeed, it was possible at once for people of any intelligence to foresee the change in conditions. For the consul Pompeius, upon going out to meet the men who were bearing the body of Augustus, received a blow on the leg and had to be carried back on a litter with the body; and an owl sat on the roof of the senate-house again at the very first meeting of the senate after his death and uttered many ill-omened cries. 3At all events, the two emperors differed so completely from each other, that some suspected that Augustus, with full knowledge of Tiberius’ character, had purposely appointed him his successor that his own glory might be enhanced thereby.
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