Monumentum Ancyranum

Note 115 — Below is a copy of the deeds of the divine Augustus, by which he subjected the whole world to the dominion of the Roman people, and of the amounts which he expended upon the commonwealth and the Roman people, as engraved upon two brazen columns which are set up at Rome.1

Reading edition

Velleius II, 100, writes: “The divine Augustus in the year when he was consul with Gallus Caninius (752) sated the minds and the eyes of the Roman people at the dedication of the temple of Mars with the most magnificent gladiatorial shows and naval battles.” Dio, LV, 10, says that traces of the excavation could be seen in his time (c. 200 A. D.), and that the fight represented a battle of Athenians and Persians, in which the former were victorious. Cf. Suet. Aug. 43; Ovid, Ars Am. I, 171.

Claudius gave a similar exhibition on the Fucine Lake, but with a hundred triremes and quadriremes, and a force of nineteen thousand men, “as once Augustus did in a pond by the Tiber, but with lighter vessels and a smaller force.” Cf. Tac. Ann. XII, 56; Suet. Claud., 21; Dio, LX, 33.

Return to Below is a copy of the deeds of the divine Augustus, by which he subjected the whole world to the dominion of the Roman people, and of the amounts which he expended upon the commonwealth and the Roman people, as engraved upon two brazen columns which are set up at Rome.1