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46Now these rumours began to be current at a later date. At the time they declared Augustus immortal, assigned to him priests and sacred rites, and made Livia, who was already called Julia and Augusta, his priestess; 2they also permitted her to employ a lictor when she exercised her sacred office. On her part, she bestowed a million sesterces upon a certain Numerius Atticus, a senator and ex-praetor, because he swore that he had seen Augustus ascending to heaven after the manner of which tradition tells concerning Proculus and Romulus. 3A shrine voted by the senate and built by Livia and Tiberius was erected to the dead emperor in Rome, and others in many different places, some of the communities voluntarily building them and others unwillingly. Also the house at Nola where he passed away was dedicated to him as a precinct. 4While his shrine was being erected in Rome, they placed a golden image of him on a couch in the temple of Mars, and to this they paid all the honours that they were afterwards to give to his statue. Other votes in regard to him were, that his image should not be borne in procession at anybody’s funeral, that the consuls should celebrate his birthday with games like the Ludi Martiales, and that the tribunes, as being sacrosanct, were to have charge of the Augustalia. 5These officials conducted everything in the customary manner—even wearing the triumphal garb at the horse-race—except that they did not ride in the chariot. Besides this, Livia held a private festival in his honour for three days in the palace, and this ceremony is still continued down to the present day by whoever is emperor.
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