Читать книгу The Natural History of Pliny (Vol. 1-6) - Pliny the Elder - Страница 360

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In the life of the now deified emperor Augustus even, whom the whole world would certainly agree to place in this class,1226 if we carefully examine it in all its features, we shall find remarkable vicissitudes of human fate. There was his rejection from the post of master of the horse, by his uncle,1227 and the preference which was given to Lepidus, and that, too, in opposition to his own requests; the hatred produced by the proscription; his alliance in the Triumvirate1228 with some among the very worst of the citizens, and that, too, with an unequal share of influence, he himself being entirely borne down by the power of Antony; his illness1229 at the battle of Philippi; his flight, and his having to remain three days concealed in a marsh,1230 though suffering from sickness, and, according to the account of Agrippa and Mecænas, labouring under a dropsy; his shipwreck1231 on the coast of Sicily, where he was again under the necessity of concealing himself in a cave; his desperation, which caused him even to beg Proculeius1232 to put him to death, when he was hard-pressed by the enemy in a naval engagement;1233 his alarm about the rising at Perusia;1234 his anxiety at the battle of Actium;1235 the extreme danger he was in from the falling of a tower during the Pannonian war;1236 seditions so numerous among his soldiers; so many attacks by dangerous diseases;1237 the suspicions which he entertained respecting the intentions of Marcellus;1238 the disgraceful banishment, as it were, of Agrippa;1239 the many plots against his life;1240 the deaths of his own children,1241 of which he was accused, and his heavy sorrows, caused not merely by their loss;1242 the adultery1243 of his daughter, and the discovery of her parricidal designs; the insulting retreat of his son-in-law, Nero;1244 another adultery, that of his grand-daughter;1245 to which there were added numerous other evils, such as the want of money to pay his soldiers; the revolt of Illyria;1246 the necessity of levying the slaves; the sad deficiency of young men;1247 the pestilence that raged in the City;1248 the famine in Italy; the design which he had formed of putting an end to his life, and the fast of four days, which brought him within a hair’s breadth of death. And then, added to all this, the slaughter of Varus;1249 the base slanders1250 whispered against his authority; the rejection of Posthumius Agrippa, after his adoption,1251 and the regret to which Augustus was a prey after his banishment;1252 the suspicions too respecting Fabius, to the effect that he had betrayed his secrets; and then, last of all, the machinations of his wife and of Tiberius, the thoughts of which occupied his last moments. In fine, this same god,1253 who was raised to heaven, I am at a loss to say whether deservedly or not, died, leaving the son of his own enemy his heir.1254