Note 54 — 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

These games were first held in 726, and every fourth year thereafter. The expression “every fifth year” counts the year of the games as the fifth of the old series and also the first of the new. The consuls, or rather the consul Agrippa, Augustus not holding games in his own honor, celebrated the games of 726, the pontifices those of 730, the augurs those of 734, the quindecemvirs those of 738, and the septemvirs those of 742. Cf. c. 7, N. 6. These games are mentioned by Dio, LIII, 1, 2; LIV, 19; Pliny, Hist. Nat. VII, 48, 158; Suet. Aug. 44. They came to a close with the life of Augustus. We do not hear of them in connection with any subsequent emperor. Vows for his good health had a special fitness, for according to Suetonius, Aug. LXXXI, he was almost an invalid. “During his whole course of life he suffered at times dangerous fits of sickness. He was subject to fits of sickness at stated times every year, for about his birthday he was commonly indisposed. In the beginning of spring he was attacked with an inflammation of the midriff; and when the wind was southerly, with a cold in his head. By all these complaints his constitution was so shattered that he could not readily bear heat or cold.”