Sextilis [163], by his own name, August, rather than September, in which
he was born; because in it he had obtained his first consulship, and all
his most considerable victories [164]. He increased the number, dignity,
and revenues of the priests, and especially those of the Vestal Virgins.
And when, upon the death of one of them, a new one was to be taken [165],
and many persons made interest that their daughters' names might be
omitted in the lists for election, he replied with an oath, "If either of
my own grand-daughters were old enough, I would have proposed her."

He likewise revived some old religious customs, which had become
obsolete; as the augury of public health [166], the office of (96) high
priest of Jupiter, the religious solemnity of the Lupercalia, with the
Secular, and Compitalian games. He prohibited young boys from running in
the Lupercalia; and in respect of the Secular games, issued an order,
that no young persons of either sex should appear at any public
diversions in the night-time, unless in the company of some elderly
relation. He ordered the household gods to be decked twice a year with
spring and summer flowers [167], in the Compitalian festival.

Next to the immortal gods, he paid the highest honours to the memory of
those generals who had raised the Roman state from its low origin to the
highest pitch of grandeur. He accordingly repaired or rebuilt the public
edifices erected by them; preserving the former inscriptions, and placing
statues of them all, with triumphal emblems, in both the porticos of his
forum, issuing an edict on the occasion, in which he made the following
declaration: "My design in so doing is, that the Roman people may require
from me, and all succeeding princes, a conformity to those illustrious
examples." He likewise removed the statue of Pompey from the
senate-house, in which Caius Caesar had been killed, and placed it under
a marble arch, fronting the palace attached to Pompey's theatre.