The office of Pontifex Maximus, of which he could not decently deprive Lepidus as
					long as he lived, It had formed a sort of honourable
						retirement in which Lepidus was shelved, to use a familiar expression, when
						Augustus got rid of him quietly from the Triumvirate. Augustus assumed it
						A.U.C. 740, thus. centring the last of all the great offices of the state in
						his own person; that of Pontifex Maximus, being of high importance, from the
						sanctity attached to it, and the influence it gave him over the whole system
						of religion. he assumed as soon as he was dead. He then caused all
					prophetical books, both in Latin and Greek, the authors of which were either
					unknown, or of no great authority, to be brought in; and the whole collection,
					amounting to upwards of two thousand volumes, he committed to the flames,
					preserving only the Sibylline oracles; but not even those without a strict
					examination, to ascertain which were genuine. This being done, he deposited them
					in two gilt coffers, under the pedestal of the statue of the Palatine Apollo. He
					restored the calendar, which had been corrected by Julius Caesar, but through
					negligence was again fallen into confusion, In the
						thirty-six years since the calendar was corrected by Julius Casar, the
						priests had erroneously intercalated eleven days instead of nine. See
						JULIUS, c. xl. to its former regularity; and upon that occasion,
					called the month Sextilis, Sextilis, the sixth month,
						reckoning from March, in which the year of Romulus commenced. by his
					own name, August, rather than September, in which he was born; because in it he
					had obtained his first consulship, and all his most considerable victories.
						 So Cicero called the day on which he returned from
						exile, the day of his "nativity" and his "new birth," παλιγεννεσίαν , a word which had afterwards a
						theological sense, from its use in the New Testament. He increased
					the number, dignity, and revenues of the priests, and especially those of the
					Vestal Virgins. And when, upon the death of one of them, a new one was to be
					taken, Capi . There is a peculiar force in the word
						here adopted by Suetonius; the form used by the Pontifex Maximus, when he
						took the novice from the hand of her father, being Te
							capio amata , "I have you, my dear," implying the forcible
						breach of former ties, as in the case of a captive taken in war. and
					many persons made interest that their daughters names might be omitted in the
					lists for election, he replied with an oath, "If either of my own
					grand-daughters were old enough, I would have proposed her." He likewise revived some old religious customs, which had become obsolete; as the
					augury of public health, At times when the temple of Janus
						was shut, and then only, certain divinations were made, preparatory to
						solemn supplication for the public health, "as if," says Dio, " even that
						could not be implored from the gods, unless the signs were propitious." It
						would be an inquiry of some interest, now that the care of the public health
						is becoming a department of the state, with what sanatory measures these
						becoming solemnities were attended. the office of high priest of
					Jupiter, the religious solemnity of the Lupercalia, with the Secular, and
					Compitalian games. He prohibited young boys from running in the Lupercalia; and
					in respect of the Secular games, issued an order, that no young persons of
					either sex should appear at any public diversions in the night-time, unless in
					the company of some elderly relation. He ordered the household gods to be decked
					twice a year with spring and summer flowers, Theophrastus
						mentions the spring and summer flowers most suited for these chaplets. Among
						the former, were hyacinths, roses, and white violets; among the latter,
						lychinis, amaryllis, iris, and some species of lilies. in the
					Compitalian festival. Next to the immortal gods, he paid the highest honours to the memory of those
					generals who had raised the Roman state from its low origin to the highest pitch
					of grandeur. He accordingly repaired or rebuilt the public edifices erected by
					them; preserving the former inscriptions, and placing statues of them all, with
					triumphal emblems, in both the porticos of his forum, issuing an edict on the
					occasion, in which he made the following declaration: "My design in so doing is,
					that the Roman people may require from me, and all succeeding princes, a
					conformity to those illustrious examples." He likewise removed the statue of
					Pompey from the senate-house, in which Caius Caesar had been killed, and placed
					it under a marble arch, fronting the palace attached to Pompey's theatre. He corrected many ill practices, which, to the detriment of the public, had
					either survived the licentious habits of the late civil wars, or else originated
					in the long peace. Bands of robbers shewed themselves openly, completely armed,
					under colour of self-defence; and in different parts of the country, travellers,
					freemen and slaves without distinction, were forcibly carried off, and kept to
					work in the houses of correction. Ergastulis . These were subterranean strong rooms, with narrow
						windows, like dungeons, in the country houses, where incorrigible slaves
						were confined in fetters, in the intervals of the severe tasks in grinding
						at the hand-mills, quarrying stones, drawing water, and other hard
						agricultural labour in which they were employed. Several
					associations were formed under the specious name of a new college, which banded
					together for the perpetration of all kinds of villany. The banditti he quelled
					by establishing posts of soldiers in suitable stations for the purpose; the
					houses of correction were subjected to a strict superintendence; all
					associations, those only excepted which were of ancient standing, and recognised
					by the laws, were dissolved. He burnt all the notes of those who had been a long
					time in arrear with the treasury, as being the principal source of vexatious
					suits and prosecutions. Places in the city claimed by the public, where the
					right was doubtful, he adjudged to the actual possessors. He struck out of the
					list of criminals the names of those over whom prosecutions had been long
					impending, where nothing further was intended by the informers than to gratify
					their own malice, by seeing their enemies humiliated; laying it down as a rule,
					that if any one chose to renew a prosecution, he should incur the risk of the
					punishment which he sought to inflict. And that crimes might not escape
					punishment, nor business be neglected by delay, he ordered the courts to sit
					during the thirty days which were spent in celebrating honorary games. To the
					three classes of judges then existing, he added a.fourth, consisting of persons
					of inferior order, who were called Ducenarii, and decided all litigations about
					trifling sums. He chose judges from the age of thirty years and upwards; that is
					five years younger than had been usual before. And a great many declining the
					office, he was with much difficulty prevailed upon to allow each class of judges
					a twelve-month's vacation in turn: and the courts to be shut during the months
					of November and December. These months were not only "the
						Long Vacation" of the lawyers, but during them there was a general cessation
						of business at Rome ; the calendar
						exhibiting a constant succession of festivals. The month of December, in
						particular, was devoted to pleasure and relaxation. He was himself assiduous in his functions as a judge, and would sometimes prolong
					his sittings even into the night: Causes are mentioned, the
						hearing of which was so protracted that lights were required in the court;
						and sometimes they lasted, we are told, as long as eleven or twelve days.
					 if he were indisposed, his litter was placed before the tribunal, or he
					administered justice reclining on his couch at home; displaying always not only
					the greatest attention, but extreme lenity. To save a culprit, who evidently
					appeared guilty of parricide, from the extreme penalty of being sewn up in a
					sack, because none were punished in that manner but such as confessed the fact,
					he is said to have interrogated him thus: "Surely you did not kill your father,
					did you?" And when, in a trial of a cause about a forged will, all those who had
					signed it were liable to the penalty of the Cornelian law, he ordered that his colleagues on the tribunal
					should not only be furnished with the two tablets by which they decided, "guilty
					or not guilty," but with a third likewise, ignoring the offence of those who
					should appear to have given their signatures through any deception or mistake.
					All appeals in causes between inhabitants of Rome , he assigned every year to the praetor of the city; and
					where provincials were concerned, to men of consular rank, to one of whom the
					business of each province was referred. Some laws he abrogated, and he made some new ones; such as the sumptuary law,
					that relating to adultery and the violation of chastity, the law against bribery
					in elections, and likewise that for the encouragement of marriage. Having been
					more severe in his reform of this law than the rest, he found the people utterly
					averse to submit to it, unless the penalties were abolished or mitigated,
					besides allowing an interval of three years after a wife's death, and increasing
					the premiums on marriage. The equestrian order clamoured loudly, at a spectacle
					in the theatre, for its total repeal; whereupon he sent for the children of
					Germanicus, and shewed them partly sitting upon his own lap, and partly on their
					father's; intimating by his looks and gestures, that they ought not to think it
					a grievance to follow the example of that young man. But finding that the force
					of the law was eluded, by marrying girls under the age of puberty, and by
					frequent change of wives, he limited the time for consummation after espousals,
					and imposed restrictions on divorce. By two separate scrutinies he reduced to their former number and splendour the
					senate, which had been swamped by a disorderly crowd; for they were now more
					than a thousand, and some of them very mean persons, who, after Caesar's death,
					had been chosen by dint of interest and bribery, so that they had the nickname
					of Orcini among the people. Orcini . They were also called Charonites, the point of the
						sarcasm being, that they owed their elevation to a dead man, one who was
						gone to Orcus, namely Julius Caesar, after whose death Mark Antony
						introduced into the senate many persons of low rank who were designated for
						that honour in a document left by the deceased emperor. The first of
					these scrutinies was left to themselves, each senator naming another; but the
					last was conducted by himself and Agrippa. On this occasion he is believed to
					have taken his seat as he presided, with a coat of mail under his tunic, and a
					sword by his side, and with ten of the stoutest men of senatorial rank, who were
					his friends, standing round his chair. Cordus Cremutius Cordus Cremutius wrote a History of the Civil Wars, and the Times of
						Augustus, as we are informed by Dio, 6, 52. relates that no senator
					was suffered to approach him, except singly, and after having his bosom searched
					[for secreted daggers]. Some he obliged to have the grace of declining the
					office; these he allowed to retain the privileges of wearing the distinguishing
					dress, occupying the seats at the solemn spectacles, and of feasting publicly,
					reserved to the senatorial order. In front of the
						orchestra. That those who were chosen and approved of, might perform
					their functions under more solemn obligations, and with less inconvenience, he
					ordered that every senator, before he took his seat in the house, should pay his
					devotions, with an offering of frankincense and wine, at the altar of that God
					in whose temple the senate then assembled, The senate
						usually assembled in one of the temples, and there was an altar consecrated
						to some god in the curia, where they otherwise met, as that to Victory in
						the Julian Curia. and that their stated meetings should be only twice
					in the month, namely, on the calends and ides; and that in the months of
					September and October, To allow of their absence during the
						vintage, always an important season in rural affairs in wine-growing
						countries. In the middle and south of Italy , it begins in September, and, in the worst aspects,
						the grapes are generally cleared before the end of October. In elevated
						districts they hung on the trees, as we have witnessed, till the month of
						November. a certain number only, chosen by lot, such as the law
					required to give validity to a decree, should be required to attend. For
					himself, he resolved to choose every six months a new council, with whom he
					might consult previously upon such affairs as he judged proper at any time to
					lay before the full senate. He also took the votes of the senators upon any
					subject of importance, not according to custom, nor in regular order, but as he
					pleased; that every one might hold himself ready to give his opinion, rather
					than a mere vote of assent.