Note 50 — 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

Suetonius evidently depends on this inscription when he says, Aug. 27: “Three times he took the census of the Roman people, the first and third times with a colleague, the second time alone.” This first census was in 725-6. Cf. Dio, LII, 42; LIII, 1; C. I. L. IX, 422, imp. Cæsar VI, M. Agrippa II cos.; idem censoria potestate lustrum fecerunt.

The lustrum was strictly the expiatory offering made at the close of the census. The census had not been taken for forty-one years. The number of Roman citizens of military age in 684 had been given as but 450,000. This census of 726 reported 4,063,000. Probably the vast apparent increase rose from the fact of the earlier enumeration counting only such as presented themselves before the censors in the city, while at the later time the citizens throughout the empire were counted. Clinton, Fasti Hellenici, III, 461, estimates a total free citizenship of more than 17,000,000. The total population of the empire at this time, including citizens, allies, slaves and freedmen, has been estimated at 85,000,000. Cf. Merivale, Rom. cc. XXX, XXXIX.

The Greek of the inscription here reads erroneously 4,603,000.