CHAPTER LXVIII

RESOLUTION OF THE ARMY TO CONFER THENCE-FORWARD THE TITLE OF AUGUSTUS ON HIS SONS

MEANWHILE the tribunes selected from the troops under their command those officers whose fidelity and zeal had long been known to the emperor, and despatched them to the Cæsars with intelligence of the late event. This service they accordingly performed. As soon, however, as the soldiery throughout the provinces received the tidings of the emperor’s decease, they all, as if by a supernatural impulse, resolved with one consent (as though their great emperor had been yet alive) to acknowledge none other than his sons as sovereigns of the Roman world: and these they soon after determined should no longer retain the name of Cæsar, but should each be honoured with the title of Augustus, a name which indicates the highest supremacy of imperial power. Such were the measures adopted by the army; and these resolutions they communicated to each other by letter, so that the unanimous desire of the legions became known at the same point of time throughout the whole extent of the empire.