Res Gestae

The Romans were long ignorant of all this, since their realm was not yet widely extended, and for many centuries they were involved in obscure difficulties; and they wandered in still deeper darkness of error when they gave over the power of intercalation to the priests, who lawlessly served the advantage of tax-collectors or of parties in litigation by arbitrarily subtracting or adding days.

From this beginning many other errors arose, which I think it superfluous to mention here. These were done away with by Octavianus Augustus[*](Actually it was Julius Caesar; cf. Suet., Jul. 40; Aug. 31, 2; though Augustus corrected a misinterpretation of Caesar’s scheme.) who, following the Greeks, corrected the confusion and brought order into this inconsistency by adopting after great deliberation the arrangement of twelve months and six hours, during which the sun in its

This reason for the bisextile year[*](See note 2, p. 571; bisextile is the correct spelling.) Rome, which will live even through the centuries, with the aid of the divine power approved and firmly established. Now let us go on to the rest of our narrative.

When the day unfavourable (as some think) for beginning great enterprises had passed, just as evening was coming on, at the motion of the prefect Salutius it was promptly and unanimously decided that, under penalty of death, no one who held high authority, or had been suspected of aiming at a higher station, should appear in public on the following morning.

And when to the chagrin of many, tormented by their vain hopes, the night ended and day at last appeared, the whole army was assembled. Then Valentinian appeared on the plain, was allowed to mount a tribunal raised on high and after the custom of elections was chosen by the favourable votes of all present as a man of serious purpose, to be the ruler of the empire.

Then, wearing the imperial robes and a coronet, with all the praises which the charm of novelty could call forth he was hailed as Augustus, and was already getting ready to make the speech he had prepared. But as he