Book 1
19
Has a man been exalted to the tribuneship? All who meet him offer their congratulations: one kisses his eyes, another the neck, and the slaves kiss his hands.Hand-kissing was in those times of tyranny the duty of a slave, not of a free man. This servile practice still exists among men called free. He goes to his house, he finds torches lighted. He ascends the Capitol: he offers a sacrifice on the occasion. Now who ever sacrificed for having had good desires? for having acted conformably to nature? For in fact we thank the gods for those things in which we place our good.Schweighaeuser says that he has introduced into the text Lord Shaftesbury’s emendation, ὅπου. The emendation ὅπου is good, but Schweighaeuser has not put it in his text: he has οἷ τὸ ἀγαθὸν τιθέμεθα. Matthew vi. 21, for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. So these people show by thanking God, what it is for which they are thankful. A person was talking to me to-day about the priesthood of Augustus.Casaubon, in a learned note on Suetonius, Augustus, c. 18, informs us that divine honours were paid to Augustus at Nicopolis, which town he founded after the victory at Actium. The priesthood of Augustus at Nicopolis was a high office, and the priest gave his name to the year; that is, when it was intended in any writing to fix the year, either in any writing which related to public matters, or in instruments used in private affairs, the name of the priest of Augustus was used, and this was also the practice in most Greek cities. In order to establish the sense of this passage, Casaubon changed the text from τὰς φωνάς into τὰ σύμφωνα, which emendation Schweighaeuser has admitted into his text. I say to him: Man, let the thing alone: you will spend much for no purpose. But he replies, Those who draw up agreements will write my name. Do you then stand by those who read them, and say to such persons It is I whose name is written there? And if you can now be present on all such occasions, what will you do when you are dead? My name will remain.— Write it on a stone, and it will remain. But come, what remembrance of you will there be beyond Nicopolis?—But I shall wear a crown of gold.—If you desire a crown at all, take a crown of roses and put it on, for it will be more elegant in appearance.
