Note: Translator Pauline Bancroft Flach died in 1966, less than 70 years ago. Therefore, this work is protected by copyright, restricting your legal rights to reproduce it. However, you are welcome to view it on screen, as you do now. Read more about copyright.
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During that night the beasts of prey did not hunt,
the serpents did not sting, the dogs did not bay.
And what was even more wonderful, none of the
inanimate things would have disturbed the holiness
of the night by lending themselves to an evil deed.
No false key could open a lock, and no knife could
shed blood.
In Rome, on that very night, a little group of
people came down from the emperor’s palace on the
Palatine and made their way over the Forum to the
Capitol. During the day just completed his
councillors had asked the emperor if they might not raise
a temple to him on Rome’s holy mountain. But
Augustus had not immediately given his consent.
He did not know if it would be pleasing to the
gods for him to possess a temple next to theirs, and
he had answered that he wished first to discover by
a nocturnal sacrifice to his genius what their wishes
were. Followed by a few faithful retainers, he was
now on his way to perform that sacrifice.
Augustus was carried in his litter, for he was
old, and the long stairs to the Capitol fatigued him.
He held the cage of doves which was his offering.
Neither priests, nor soldiers, nor councillors
accompanied him; only his nearest friends. Torch-bearers
walked in front of him, as if to force a way through
the darkness of the night, and behind him followed
slaves, carrying the tripod, the charcoal, the knives,
the holy fire, and everything needed for the sacrifice.
On the way the emperor chatted gayly with his
retainers, and none of them noticed the infinite
silence and calm of the night. It was only on
reaching the open place on the top of the Capitol, which
had been thought of for the new temple, that it
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