Note 17 — 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

The text here is conjectural. Mommsen is almost alone in holding to “surviving,” Zumpt, in his edition of 1869, had read “suppliant” (supplicibus), Bergk, in 1873, “asking pardon” (deprecantibus). Hirschfeld, the same sense, (veniam petentibus). Seeck insists on the latter reading, in spite of Mommsen’s arguments for his own choice. Augustus did not spare all surviving citizens either after Philippi or Actium, cf. Dio LI, 2: After Actium “of the senators and knights, and other leading men, who in any way had helped Antony, he fined some, many he killed, some he spared.” For his conduct after Philippi, cf. Suet. Aug. 13. But a coin of 727 (Eckhel VI, 88, Cohen I, p. 66, No. 30), has Cæsar cos vii Civibus Servateis, “Cæsar for the seventh time consul, the citizens having been preserved.” It commemorates the civic crown given to Augustus, cf. c. XXXIV. There are other coins with Ob Cives Servatos, “On account of the preservation of the citizens.”