rages of the people to the
magistracy, was Caius Rufus. He obtained the quaestorship, and had two
sons, Cneius and Caius; from whom are descended the two branches of the
Octavian family, which have had very different fortunes. For Cneius, and
his descendants in uninterrupted succession, held all the highest offices
of the state; whilst Caius and his posterity, whether from their
circumstances or their choice, remained in the equestrian order until the
father of Augustus. The great-grandfather of Augustus served as a
military tribune in the second Punic war in Sicily, under the command of
Aemilius Pappus. His grandfather contented himself with bearing the
public offices of his own municipality, and grew old in the tranquil
enjoyment of an ample patrimony. Such is the account given (72) by
different authors. Augustus himself, however, tells us nothing more than
that he was descended of an equestrian family, both ancient and rich, of
which his father was the first who obtained the rank of senator. Mark
Antony upbraidingly tells him that his great-grandfather was a freedman
of the territory of Thurium [107], and a rope-maker, and his grandfather
a usurer. This is all the information I have any where met with,
respecting the ancestors of Augustus by the father's side.

III. His father Caius Octavius was, from his earliest years, a person
both of opulence and distinction: for which reason I am surprised at
those who say that he was a money-dealer [108], and was employed in
scattering bribes, and canvassing for the candidates at elections, in the
Campus Martius. For being bred up in all the affluence of a great
estate, he attained with ease to honourable posts, and discharged the
duties of them with much distinction. After his praetorship, he obtained
by lot the province of Macedonia; in his way to which he cut off some
banditti, the relics of the armies of Spartacus and Catiline, who had
possessed themselves of the territory of Thurium; having received from
the senate an extraordinary commission for that purpose. In his
government of the province, he conducted himself with equal justice and
resolution; for he defeated the Bessians and Thracians in a great battle,
and treated the allies of the republic in such a manner, that there are
extant letters from M. Tullius Cicero, in which he advises and exhorts
his brother Quintus, who then held the proconsulship of Asia with no
great reputation, to imitate the example of