ABSTRACT
In the same year Herod was in Rome to bring Alexander and Aristobulus home (17 bce), Augustus marked the tenth anniversary of the “restoration of the Republic” with the ludi saeculares (Goldsworthy 2014, 328–33); in 27 bce he had been named princeps and had assumed the title Augustus (Schalit 1969, 554–62). In 16 bce the office of princeps was extended for another five years; “then [Augustus] conferred upon Agrippa a number of privileges which were almost equal to his own, in particular the tribunician power for the same period” (Cassius Dio 54.12). But not everything was as rosy as it seemed: Augustus imagined plots against him, he wore a breastplate beneath his tunic in the Senate, and he eliminated a number of his opponents (Cassius Dio 54.15).
