people, the enemy making a sudden attack, while he was sacrificing to
Mars, he immediately snatched the entrails of the victim from off the
fire, and offered them half raw upon the altar; after which, marching out
to battle, he returned victorious. This incident gave rise to a law, by
which it was enacted, that in all future times the entrails should be
offered to Mars in the same manner; and the rest of the victim be carried
to the Octavii.

II. This family, as well as several in Rome, was admitted into the
senate by Tarquinius Priscus, and soon afterwards placed by Servius
Tullius among the patricians; but in process of time it transferred
itself to the plebeian order, and, after the lapse of a long interval,
was restored by Julius Caesar to the rank of patricians. The first
person of the family raised by the suffrages of the people to the
magistracy, was Caius Rufus. He obtained the quaestorship, and had two
sons, Cneius and Caius; from whom are descended the two branches of the
Octavian family, which have had very different fortunes. For Cneius, and
his descendants in uninterrupted succession, held all the highest offices
of the state; whilst Caius and his posterity, whether from their
circumstances or their choice, remained in the equestrian order until the
father of Augustus. The great-grandfather of Augustus served as a
military tribune in the second Punic war in Sicily, under the command of
Aemilius Pappus. His grandfather contented himself with bearing the
public offices of his own municipality, and grew old in the tranquil
enjoyment of an ample patrimony. Such is the account given (72) by
different authors. Augustus himself, however, tells us nothing more than
that he was descended of an equestrian family, both ancient and rich, of
which his father was the first who obtained the rank of senator. Mark
Antony upbraidingly tells him that his great-grandfather was a freedman
of the territory of Thurium [107], and a rope-maker, and his grandfather