r of soldiers, belonging to the praetorian cohort, carried out his
corpse.

He expired in the same room in which his father Octavius had died,
when the two Sextus's, Pompey and Apuleius, were Consuls, upon the
fourteenth of the calends of September [the 19th August], at the ninth
hour of the day, being seventy-six years of age, wanting only
thirty-five days. His remains were carried by the magistrates of the
municipal towns and colonies, from Nola to Bovillae,[148] and in the
night-time because of the season of the year. During the intervals,
the body lay in some basilica, or great temple, of each town. At
Bovillae it was met by the Equestrian Order, who carried it to the
city, and deposited it in the vestibule of his own house. The senate
proceeded with so much zeal in the arrangement of his funeral, and
paying honor to his memory, that, among several other proposals, some
were for having the funeral procession made through the triumphal
gate, preceded by the image of Victory which is in the senate-house,
and the children of highest rank and of both sexes singing the funeral
dirge. Others proposed, that on the day of the funeral, they should
lay aside their gold rings, and wear rings of iron; and others, that
his bones should be collected by the priests of the principal
colleges. One likewise proposed to transfer the name of August to
September, because he was born in the latter, but died in the former.
Another moved, that the whole period of time, from his birth to his
death, should be called the Augustan age, and be inserted in the
calendar under that title. But at last it was judged proper to be
moderate in the honors paid to his memory. Two funeral orations were
pronounced in his praise, one before the temple of Julius, by
Tiberius; and the other before the rostra, under the old shops, by
Drusus, Tiberius's son. The body was then carried upon the shoulders
of senators into the Campus Martius, and there burned. A man of
praetorian rank affirmed upon oath, that he saw his spirit ascend from
the funeral pile to heaven. The most distinguished persons of the
equestrian order, barefooted, and with their tunics loose, gathered up
his relics, and deposited them in the mausoleum[149] which had been
built in his sixth consulship between the Flaminian Way and the bank
of the Tiber; at which time likewise he gave the groves and walks
about it for the use of the people.

II

THE GOOD DEEDS OF NERO[150]

He was sev