delay on their return, but to be back within three months.

[-16-] These matters were so ordained at that time,--or, at least, one
might say so. In reality Cæsar himself was destined to hold absolute
control of all of them for all time, because he commanded the soldiers
and was master of the money; nominally the public funds had been
separated from his own, but in fact he spent the former also as he saw
fit.

When his decade had come to an end, there was voted him another five
years, then five more, after that ten, and again another ten, and a like
number the fifth time,[5] so that by a succession of ten-year periods he
continued monarch for life. Consequently the subsequent emperors, though
no longer appointed for a specified period but for their whole life at
once, nevertheless have been wont to hold a festival every ten years as
if then renewing their sovereignty once more: this is done even at the
present day.

Cæsar had received many honors previously, when the matter of declining
the sovereignty and that regarding the division of the provinces were
under discussion. For the right to fasten the laurel in front of his
royal residence and to hang the oak-leaf crown above the doors was then
voted him to symbolize the fact that he was always victorious over
enemies and preserved the citizens. The royal building is called
Palatium, not because it was ever decreed that that should be its name,
but because Cæsar dwelt on the Palatine and had his headquarters there;
and his house secured some renown from the mount as a whole by reason
of the former habitation of Romulus there. Hence, even if the emperor
resides somewhere else, his dwelling retains the name of Palatium.