The Third Constitutional Settlement occurred in 19 BC. In that year, Augustus again declined to take up the office after it had been kept open for him. But when it came to selecting his replacement, the city became divided up by factions, disorders broke out and murders were committed, and so the senators decreed that a bodyguard should be appointed for Sentius, but he refused. After that, they sent two envoys to Augustus who was in Athens, each attended by two lictors. When Augustus learnt of the distress in Rome, he understood that the trouble would continue if something wasn’t done to stop it. So Augustus appointed one of the envoys, Quintus Lucretius to the consulship although he used to be on the proscribed list. After that, Augustus returned to Rome.
When he had returned, many honours were given to him because of the measures he had taken when he was abroad. Augustus declined all of these honours, except the founding of an altar to Fortuna Redux, and they decreed that the day that Augustus had returned to Rome to be a public holiday and it was to be called Augustalia. He then moved Tiberius on the ranks of praetor and allowed Drusus to stand for various offices of state five years before the normal age.
Then Augustus agreed to be elected to the position of overseer of morals for five years. He also accepted the authority of censor for the same period and that of consul for life, to the extent that he even gained the right to be attended by twelve lictors at all times and places, and to sit in the curule chair between the two men who were then serving as consuls. The laws that Augustus then passed were called the Augustan laws.
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