mountain; thirty thousand men being constantly employed in the work for eleven years 508. He formed the harbour at Ostia, by carrying out circular piers on the right and on the left, with (312) a mole protecting, in deep water, the entrance of the port 509. To secure the foundation of this mole, he sunk the vessel in which the great obelisk 510 had been brought from Egypt 511; and built upon piles a very lofty tower, in imitation of the Pharos at Alexandria, on which lights were burnt to direct mariners in the night.
XXI. He often distributed largesses of corn and money among the people, and entertained them with a great variety of public magnificent spectacles, not only such as were usual, and in the accustomed places, but some of new invention, and others revived from ancient models, and exhibited in places where nothing of the kind had been ever before attempted. In the games which he presented at the dedication of Pompey’s theatre 512, which had been burnt down, and was rebuilt by him, he presided upon a tribunal erected for him in the orchestra; having first paid his devotions, in the temple above, and then coming down through the centre of the circle, while all the people kept their seats in profound silence 513. He likewise (313) exhibited the secular games 514, giving out that Augustus had anticipated the regular period; though he himself says in his history, “That they had been omitted before the age of Augustus, who had calculated the years with great exactness, and again brought them to their regular period.” 515 The crier was therefore ridiculed, when he invited people in the usual form, “to games which no person had ever before seen, nor ever would again;” when many were still living who had already seen them; and some of the performers who had formerly acted in them, were now again brought upon the stage.