aking it beyond the power of the rascal to inform against a person at
least whom he had not previously known.

Thus we see that most men emulate the exploits of others, though they be
evil, instead of guarding against their fate. So also at this time there
was Marcus Egnatius Rufus, who had been an aedile: the majority of his
deeds had been good, and with his own slaves and with some others that
were hired he lent aid to the houses that took fire during his year of
office. In return he received from the people the expenses incurred in
his position and by a suspension of the law was made praetor. Elated at
these marks of favor he despised Augustus so much as to record that he
(Rufus) had delivered the City unimpaired and entire to his successor.
All the foremost men, and Augustus himself most of all, became indignant
at this. He prepared therefore to teach the upstart a lesson in the near
future not to exalt his mind above the mass of men. For the time being
he issued an edict to the aediles to see to it that no building took fire
and, if aught of the kind did happen, to extinguish the blaze.

[-25-] In this same year also Polemon, who was king of Pontus, was
enrolled among the friends and allies of the Roman People; front seats
for the senators were provided in all the theatres of the emperor's whole
domain. Augustus, finding that the Britons would not come to terms,
wished to make an expedition into their country, but was detained by the
Salassi, who had revolted against him, and by the Cantabri and Astures,
who had been made hostile. The former dwell close under the Alps, as
has been herein stated,[7] whereas both of the latter tribes hold the
strongest region of the Pyrenees on the Spanish side and the plain which
is below it. For these reasons Augustus, now in his ninth consulship with
Marcus Silanus, sent Terentius Varro against the Salassi.

[B.C. 25 (_a. u._ 729)]

The latter invaded their territory at many points at once in order that
they might not unite and become harder to subdue, and had a very easy
time in conquering them because they attacked him only in small groups.
Having forced them to capitulate he demanded a fixed sum of money,
allowing it to be supposed that he would impose no other punishment.
After that he sent soldiers everywhere, apparently to attend to the
collection of the indemnity and arrested those of military age, whom he
sold under an agreement that none of them should be liberated with