I. That the family of the Octavii was of the first distinction in Velitrae

was moderate in his habits, and free from suspicion of any kind of vice. He lived at first near the Roman Forum, above the Ring-maker’s Stairs, in a house which had once been occupied by Calvus the orator. He afterwards moved to the Palatine Hill, where he resided in a small house 217 belonging to Hortensius, no way remarkable either for size or ornament; the piazzas being but small, the pillars of Alban stone 218, and the rooms without any thing of marble, or fine paving. He continued to use the same bed-chamber, both winter and summer, during forty years 219: for though he was sensible that the city did not agree with his health in the winter, he nevertheless resided constantly in it during that season. If at any time he wished to be perfectly retired, and secure from interruption, he shut himself up in an apartment at the top of his house, which he called his Syracuse or Technophuon 220, or he went to some villa belonging to his freedmen near the city. But when he was indisposed, he commonly took up his residence in the house of Mecaenas 221. Of all the places of retirement from the city, he (126) chiefly frequented those upon the sea-coast, and the islands of Campania 222, or the towns nearest the city, such as Lanuvium, Praeneste, and Tibur 223, where he often used to sit for the administration of justice, in the porticos of the temple of Hercules. He had a particular aversion to large and sumptuous palaces; and some which had been raised at a vast expense by his grand-daughter, Julia, he levelled to the ground. Those of his own, which were far