He soon commenced the Sicilian war, but it was protracted by various delays
					during a long period; A.U.C. 712-718. at one time
					for the purpose of repairing his fleets, which he lost twice by storm, even in
					the summer; at another, while patching up a peace, to which he was forced by the
					clamours of the people, in consequence of a famine occasioned by Pompey's
					cutting off the supply of corn by sea. But at last, having built a new fleet,
					and obtained twenty thousand manumitted slaves, The Romans
						employed slaves in their wars only in cases of great emergency, and with
						much reluctance. After the great slaughter at the battle of Cannae , eight thousand were bought and
						armed by the republic. Augustus was the first who manumitted them, and
						employed them as rowers in his gallies. who were given him for the
					oar, he formed the Julian harbour at Baiae , by letting the sea into the Lucrine and Avernian lakes;
					and having exercised his forces there during the whole winter, he defeated
					Pompey betwixt Mylae and Naulochus;
					although just as the engagement commenced, he suddenly fell into such a profound
					sleep, that his friends were obliged to wake him to give the signal. This, I
					suppose, gave occasion for Antony's reproach: " You were not able to take a
					clear view of the fleet, when drawn up in line of battle, but lay stupidly upon
					your back, gazing at the sky; nor did you get up and let your men see you, until
					Marcus Agrippa had forced the enemies' ships to sheer off." Others imputed to
					him both a saying and an action which were indefensible; for, upon the loss of
					his fleets by storm, he is reported to have said: "I will conquer in spite of
					Neptune;" and at the next Circensian games, he would not suffer the statue of
					that God to be carried in procession as usual. Indeed he scarcely ever ran more
					or greater risks in any of his wars than in this. Having transported part of his
					army to Sicily , and being on his return
					for the rest, he was unexpectedly attacked by Demochares and Apollophanes,
					Pompey's admirals, from whom he escaped with great difficulty, and with one ship
					only. Likewise, as he was travelling on foot through the Locrian territory to
						 Rhegium , seeing two of Pompey's
					vessels passing by that coast, and supposing them to be his own, he went down to
					the shore, and was very nearly taken prisoner. On this occasion, as he was
					making his escape by some by-ways, a slave belonging to Aemilius Paulus, who
					accompanied him, owing him a grudge for the proscription of Paulus, the father
					of Aemilius, and thinking he had now an opportunity of revenging it, attempted
					to assassinate him. After the defeat of Pompey, one of his colleagues, In the triumvirate, consisting of Augustus, Mark Antony, and
						Lepidus. Marcus Lepidus, whom he had summoned to his aid from
						 Africa , affecting great
					superiority, because he was at the head of twenty legions, and claiming for
					himself the principal management of affairs in a threatening manner, he divested
					him of his command, but, upon his humble submission, granted him his life, but
					banished him for life to Circeii . The alliance between him and Antony, which had always been precarious, often
					interrupted, and ill cemented by repeated reconciliations, he at last entirely
						dissolved. A.U.C. 723 And to make it known to
					the world how far Antony had degenerated from patriotic feelings, he caused a
					will of his, which had been left at Rome , and in which he had nominated Cleopatra's children,
					amongst others, as his heirs, to be opened and read in an assembly of the
					people. Yet upon his being declared an enemy, he sent to him all his relations
					and friends, among whom were Caius Sosius and Titus Domitius, at that time
					consuls. He likewise spoke favourably in public of the people of Bologna , for joining in the association with
					the rest of Italy to support his cause,
					because they had, in former times, been under the protection of the family of
					the Antonii. And not long afterwards he defeated him in a naval engagement near
						 Actium , which was prolonged to so
					late an hour, that, after the victory, he was obliged to sleep on board his
					ship. From Actium he went to the isle
					of Samos to winter; but being alarmed
					with the accounts of a mutiny amongst the soldiers he had selected from the main
					body of his army sent to Brundisium 
					after the victory, who insisted on their being rewarded for their service and
					discharged, he returned to Italy . In
					his passage thither, he encountered two violent storms, the first between the
					promontories of Peloponnesus and
						 AEtolia , and the other about the
					Ceraunian mountains; in both of which a part of his Liburnian squadron was sunk,
					the spars and rigging of his own ship carried away, and the rudder broken in
					pieces. He remained only twenty-seven days at Brundisium , until the demands of the soldiers were settled, and
					then went, by way of Asia and
						 Syria , to Egypt , where laying siege to Alexandria , whither Antony had fled
					with Cleopatra, he made himself master of it in a short time. He drove Antony to
					kill himself, after he had used every effort to obtain conditions of peace, and
					he saw his corpse. There is no other authority for Augustus
						having viewed Antony's corpse. Plutarch informs us, that on hearing his
						death, Augustus retired into the interior of his tent, and wept over the
						fate of his colleague and friend, his associate in so many former struggles,
						both in war and the administration of affairs. Cleopatra he anxiously
					wished to save for his triumph; and when she was supposed to have been bit to
					death by an asp, he sent for the Psylli The poison proved
						fatal, as every one knows; see Velleius, ii. 27; Florus, iv. ii. The Psylli
						were a people of Africa , celebrated
						for sucking the poison from wounds inflicted by serpents with which that
						country anciently abounded. They pretended to be endowed with an antidote,
						which rendered their bodies insensible to the virulence of that species of
						poison; and the ignorance of those times gave credit to the physical
						immunity which they arrogated. But Celsus, who flourished about fifty years
						after the period we speak of, has exploded the vulgar prejudice which
						prevailed in their favour. He justly observes, that the venom of serpents,
						like some other kinds of poison, proves noxious only when applied to the
						naked fibre; and that, provided there is no ulcer in the gums or palate, the
						poison may be received into the mouth with perfect safety. to
					endeavour to suck out the poison. He allowed them to be buried together in the
					same grave, and ordered a mausoleum, begun by themselves, to be completed. The
					eldest of Antony's two sons by Fulvia he commanded to be taken by force from the
					statue of Julius Caesar, to which he had fled, after many fruitless
					supplications for his life, and put him to death. The same fate attended
					Caesario, Cleopatra's son by Caesar, as he pretended, who had fled for his life,
					but was retaken. The children which Antony had by Cleopatra he saved, and
					brought up and cherished in a manner suitable to their rank, just as if they had
					been his own relations. At this time he had a desire to see the sarcophagus and body of Alexander the
					Great, which, for that purpose, were taken out of the cell in which they
						rested; Strabo informs us that Ptolemy caused it to be
						deposited in a golden sarcophagus, which was afterwards exchanged for one of
						glass, in which probably Augustus saw the remains. and after viewing
					them for some time, he paid honours to the memory of that prince, by offering a
					golden crown, and scattering flowers upon the body. A
						custom of all ages and of people the most remote from each other. 
					Being asked if he wished to see the tombs of the Ptolemies also; he replied, "I
					wish to see a king, not dead men." Meaning the degenerate
						race of the Ptolemean kings. He reduced Egypt into the form of a province; and to render it more
					fertile, and more capable of supplying Rome with corn, he employed his army to scour the canals, into
					which the Nile , upon its rise,
					discharges itself; but which during a long series of years had become nearly
					choked up with mud. To perpetuate the glory of his victory at Actium , he built the city of Nicopolis on that part of the coast, and
					established games to be celebrated there every five years; enlarging likewise an
					old temple of Apollo, he ornamented with naval trophies The
						naval trophies were formed of the prows of ships. the spot on which
					he had pitched his camp, and consecrated it to Neptune and Mars. He afterwards A. U. C. 721. quashed several tumults
					and insurrections, as well as several conspiracies against his life, which were
					discovered, by the confession of accomplices, before they were ripe for
					execution; and others subsequently. Such were those of the younger Lepidus, of
					Varro Muraena, and Fannius Caepio; then that of Marcus Egnatius, afterwards that
					of Plautius Rufus, and of Lucius Paulus, his grand-daughter's husband; and
					besides these, another of Lucius Audasius, an old feeble man, who was under
					prosecution for forgery; as also of Asinius Epicadus, a Parthinian mongrel, Because his father was a Roman and his mother of the race of
						the Parthini, an Illyrian tribe. and at last that of Telephus, a
					lady's prompter; It was usual at Rome , before the elections, for the
						candidates to endeavour to gain popularity by the usual arts. They would
						therefore go to the houses of the citizens, shake hands with those they met,
						and address them in a kindly manner. It being of great consequence, upon
						those occasions, to know the names of persons, they were commonly attended
						by a nomenclator, who whispered into their ears that information, wherever
						it was wanted. Though this kind of officer was generally an attendant on
						men, we meet with instances of their having been likewise employed in the
						service of ladies; either with the view of serving candidates to whom they
						were allied, or of gaining the affections of the people. for he was
					in danger of his life from the plots and conspiracies of some of the lowest of
					the people against him. Audasius and Epicadus had formed the design of carrying
					off to the armies his daughter Julia, and his grandson Agrippa, from the islands
					in which they were confined. Telephus, wildly dreaming that the government was
					destined to him by the fates, proposed to fall both upon Octavius and the
					senate. Nay, once, a soldier's servant belonging to the army in Illyricum , having passed the porters
					unobserved, was found in the night-time standing before his chamber-door, armed
					with a hunting-dagger. Whether the person was really disordered in the head, or
					only counterfeited madness, is uncertain; for no confession was obtained from
					him by torture. He conducted in person only two foreign wars; the Dalmatian, whilst he was yet
					but a youth; and, after Antony's final defeat, the Cantabrian. He was wounded in
					the former of these wars; in one battle he received a contusion in the right
					knee from a stone, and in another, he was much hurt in one leg and both arms, by
					the fall of a bridge. Not a bridge over a river, but a
						military engine used for gaining admittance into a fortress. His
					other wars he carried on by his lieutenants; but occasionally visited the army,
					in some of the wars of Pannonia and
						 Germany , or remained at no great
					distance, proceeding from Rome as far
					as Ravenna , Milan , or Aquileia .