Translation Results Requested Through Conyac Made Public

Octavian knew that these citizens were suffering injustice, but he was without means to prevent it, for there was no money to pay the value of the land to the cultivators, nor could the rewards to the soldiers be postponed, on account of wars which were still on foot. Pompeius ruled the sea and was reducing the city to famine by cutting off supplies: the soldiers would be less zealous in the future if they were not paid for their former service. It was a matter of much importance that the five years' term of office was running out, and that the good-will of the soldiers was needed to renew it, for which reason he was willing to overlook for the time being their insolence and arrogance. Once in the theatre when he was present, a soldier, not finding his own seat, went and took one in the place reserved for the knights. The people pointed him out and Octavian had him removed. The soldiers were angry. They gathered around Octavian as he was going away from the theatre and demanded their comrade, for, as they did not see him, they thought that he had been put to death. When he was produced before them they supposed that he had been brought from prison, but he denied that he had been imprisoned and related p403what had taken place. They said that he had been instructed to tell a lie and reproached him for betraying their common interests. Such was the example of their insolence in the theatre. Having been called, about that time, to the Campus Martius for a division of the land, they came in haste while it was still night, and they grew angry because Octavian delayed his coming. Nonius, a centurion, chided them with considerable freedom, urging decent treatment of the commander by the commanded, and saying that the cause of the delay was Octavian's illness, not any disregard of them. They first jeered at him as a sycophant; then, as the excitement waxed hot on both sides, they reviled him, threw stones at him, and pursued him when he fled. Finally he plunged into the river and they pulled him out and killed him and threw his body into the road where Octavian was about to pass along.