, he immediately removed from Pompey's house, in the Carinae, to the
gardens of Mecaenas, on the Esquiline [317], and resigned himself
entirely to his ease, performing only the common offices of civility in
private life, without any preferment in the government. But Caius and
Lucius being both carried off in the space of three years, he was adopted
by Augustus, along with their brother Agrippa; being obliged in the first
place to adopt Germanicus, his brother's son. After his adoption, he
never more acted as master of a (204) family, nor exercised, in the
smallest degree, the rights which he had lost by it. For he neither
disposed of anything in the way of gift, nor manumitted a slave; nor so
much as received any estate left him by will, nor any legacy, without
reckoning it as a part of his peculium or property held under his father.
From that day forward, nothing was omitted that might contribute to the
advancement of his grandeur, and much more, when, upon Agrippa being
discarded and banished, it was evident that the hope of succession rested
upon him alone.

XVI. The tribunitian authority was again conferred upon him for five
years [318], and a commission given him to settle the affairs of Germany.
The ambassadors of the Parthians, after having had an audience of
Augustus, were ordered to apply to him likewise in his province. But on
receiving intelligence of an insurrection in Illyricum [319], he went
over to superintend the management of that new war, which proved the most
serious of all the foreign wars since the Carthaginian. This he
conducted during three years, with fifteen legions and an equal number of
auxiliary forces, under great difficulties, and an extreme scarcity of
corn. And though he was several times recalled, he nevertheless
persisted; fearing lest an enemy so powerful, and so near, should fall
upon the army in their retreat. This resolution was attended with good
success; for he at last reduced to complete subjection all Illyricum,
lying between Italy and the kingdom of Noricum, Thrace, Macedonia, the
river Danube, and the Adriatic gulf.

XVII. The glory he acquired by these successes received an increase from
the conjuncture in which they happened. For almost about that very time
[320] Quintilius Varus was cut off with three legions in Germany; and it
was generally believed that the victorious Germans would have joined the
Pannonians, had not the war of Illyricum been previously conclude