He divided the city into regions and districts, ordaining that the annual magistrates should take by lot the charge of the former; and that the latter should be superintended by wardens chosen out of the people of each neighbourhood. He appointed a nightly watch to be on their guard against accidents from fire; and, to prevent the frequent inundations, he widened and cleansed the bed of the Tiber, which had in the course of years been almost dammed up with rubbish, and the channel narrowed by the ruins of houses.1 To render the approaches to the city more commodious, he took upon himself the charge of repairing the Flaminian way as far as Ariminum, 2 and distributed the repairs of the other roads amongst several persons who had obtained the honour of a triumph; to be defrayed out of the money arising from the spoils of war. Temples decayed by time, or destroyed by fire, he either repaired or rebuilt; and enriched them, as well as many others, with splendid offerings. On a single occasion, he deposited in the cell of the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, sixteen thousand pounds of gold, with jewels and pearls to the amount of fifty millions of sesterces.
1 To whatever extent Augustus may have cleared out the bed of the Tiber, the process of its being encumbered with an alluvium of ruins and mud has been constantly going on. Not many years ago, a scheme was set on foot for clearing it by private enterprise, principally for the sake of the valuable remains of art which it is supposed to contain.
2 The Via Flaminia was probably undertaken by the censor Caius Flaminius, and finished by his son of the same name, who was consul A.U.C. 566, and employed his soldiers in forming it after subduing the Ligurians. It led from the Flumentan gate, now the Porta del Popolo, through Etruria and Umbria into the Cisalpine Gaul, ending at Ariminum, the frontier town of the territories of the republic, now Rimini, on the Adriatic; and is travelled by every tourist who takes the route, north of the Appenines, through the States of the Church, to Rome. Every one knows that the great highways, not only in Italy but in the provinces, were among the most magnificent and enduring works of the Roman people.
Suetonius: The Lives of the Twelve Caesars; An English Translation, Augmented with the Biographies of Contemporary Statesmen, Orators, Poets, and Other Associates. Suetonius. Publishing Editor. J. Eugene Reed. Alexander Thomson. Philadelphia. Gebbie & Co. 1889.
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