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2At this time also Livia passed away at the age of eighty-six. Tiberius neither paid her any visits during her illness nor did he himself lay out her body; in fact, he made no arrangements at all in her honour except for the public funeral and images and some other matters of no importance. As for her being deified, he forbade that absolutely. 2The senate, however, did not content itself with voting merely the measures that he had commanded, but ordered mourning for her during the whole year on the part of the women, although it approved the course of Tiberius in not abandoning the conduct of the public business even at this time. 3They furthermore voted an arch in her honour—a distinction conferred upon no other woman—because she had saved the lives of not a few of them, had reared the children of many, and had helped many to pay their daughters’ dowries, in consequence of all which some were calling her Mother of her Country. She was buried in the mausoleum of Augustus.
4Among the many excellent utterances of hers that are reported are the following. Once, when some naked men met her and were to be put to death in consequence, she saved their lives by saying that to chaste women such men are no whit different from statues. 5When someone asked her how and by what course of action she had obtained such a commanding influence over Augustus, she answered that it was by being scrupulously chaste herself, doing gladly whatever pleased him, not meddling with any of his affairs, and, in particular, by pretending neither to hear of nor to notice the favourites that were the objects of his passion. 6Such was the character of Livia. The arch voted to her, however, was not built, for the reason that Tiberius promised to construct it at his own expense; for, as he hesitated to annul the decree in so many words, he made it void in this way, by not allowing the work to be done at public expense nor yet attending to it himself.
7Sejanus was rising to still greater heights. It was voted that his birthday should be publicly observed, and the multitude of statues that the senate and the equestrian order, the tribes and the foremost citizens set up, would have passed anyone’s power to count. 8Separate envoys were sent to him and to Tiberius by the senate, by the knights, and also by the people, who selected theirs from the tribunes and from the plebeian aediles. For both of them alike they offered prayers and sacrifices and they took oaths by their Fortunes.
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