THAT the family of the Octavii was of the first distinction in Velitrae , A town in
						the ancient Volscian territory, now called Veletri. It stands on the verge
						of the Pontine Marshes , on the road
						to Naples . is rendered
					evident by many circumstances. For in the most frequented part of the town,
					there was, not long since, a street named the Octavian; and an altar was to be
					seen, consecrated to one Octavius, who being chosen general in a war with some
					neighbouring people, the enemy making a sudden attack, while he was sacrificing
					to Mars, he immediately snatched the entrails of the victim from off the fire,
					and offered them half raw upon the altar; after which, marching out to battle,
					he returned victorious. This incident gave rise to a law, by which it was
					enacted, that in all future times the entrails should be offered to Mars in the
					same manner; and the rest of the victim be carried to the Octavii. This family, as well as several in Rome , was admitted into the senate by Tarquinius Priscus, and soon
					afterwards placed by Servius Tullius among the patricians; but in process of
					time it transferred itself to the plebeian order, and, after the lapse of a long
					interval, was restored by Julius Caesar to the rank of patricians. The first
					person of the family raised by the suffrages 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
					greatgrandfather of Augustus served as a military tribune in the second Punic
					war in Sicily , under the command of
					/Emilius 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 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 , Thorium was a
						territory in Magna Greaca, on the coast, near Tarentum . 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. 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, Argentarius ; a banker, one who dealt in
						exchanging money, as well as lent his own funds at interest to borrowers. As
						a class, they possessed great wealth, and were persons of consideration in
							 Rome at this period. 
					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 his
					neighbour Octavius, in gaining the affections of the allies of Rome . After quitting Macedonia , before he
					could declare himself a candidate for the consulship, he died suddenly, leaving
					behind him a daughter, the elder Octavia, by Ancharia; and another daughter,
					Octavia the younger, as well as Augustus, by Atia, who was the daughter of
					Marcus Atius Balbus, and Julia, sister to Caius Julius Caesar. Balbus was, by
					the father's side, of a family who were natives of Aricia , Now Laricia,
						or Riccia , a town of the Campagna di Roma . on the Appian
							Way , about ten miles from Rome . and many of whom had been in the senate. By
					the mother's side he was nearly related to Pompey the Great; and after he had
					borne the office of praetor, was one of the twenty commissioners appointed by
					the Julian law to divide the land in Campania among the people. But Mark Antony, treating with
					contempt Augustus's descent even by the mother's side, says that his great
					grand-father was of African descent, and at one time kept a perfumer's shop, and
					at another, a bake-house, in Aricia .
					And Cassius of Parma , in a letter,
					taxes Augustus with being the son not only of a baker, but a usurer. These are
					his words: "Thou art a lump of thy mother's meal, which a money-changer of
					Nerulum taking from the newest bake-house of Aricia , kneaded into some shape, with his hands all discoloured
					by the fingering of money." Augustus was born in the consulship of Marcus Tullius Cicero and Caius
						Antonius, A.U.C. 691. A.C. (before Christ) 61. 
					upon the ninth of the calends of October [the 23rd September], a little before
					sunrise, in the quarter of the Palatine
						Hill , The Palatine hill was not only the first seat of the colony of
						Romulus, but gave its name to the first and principal of the four regions
						into which the city was divided, from the time of Servius Tullius, the sixth
						king of Rome , to that of Augustus;
						the others being the Suburra, Esquilina, and Collina . and the street called The Ox-Heads, There were seven streets or quarters in the Palatine region, one of which was called
							" Ad Capita Bubula ," either from the
						butchers' stalls at which ox-heads are hung up for sale, or from their being
						sculptured on some edifice. Thus the remains of a fortification near the
						tomb of Cecilia Metella are now called Capo di Bove, from the arms of the
						Gaetani family over the gate. where now stands a chapel dedicated to
					him, and built a little after his death. For, as it is recorded in the
					proceedings of the senate, when Caius Laetorius, a young man of a patrician
					family, in pleading before the senators for a lighter sentence, upon his being
					convicted of adultery, alleged, besides his youth and quality, that he was the
					possessor, and as it were the guardian, of the ground which the Divine Augustus
					first touched upon his coming into the world; and entreated that he might find
					favour, for the sake of that deity, who was in a peculiar manner his; an act of
					the senate was passed, for the consecration of that part of his house in which
					Augustus was born.