Dio\'s Rome, Vol VI. by Cassius Dio
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Cassius Dio >> Dio\'s Rome, Vol VI.
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16 DIO'S ROME
AN
HISTORICAL NARRATIVE
ORIGINALLY COMPOSED IN GREEK
DURING THE REIGNS OF
SEPTIMIUS SEVERUS, GETA
AND CARACALLA, MACRINUS,
ELAGABALUS AND ALEXANDER SEVERUS:
AND
NOW PRESENTED IN ENGLISH FORM
BY
HERBERT BALDWIN FOSTER,
A.B. (Harvard), Ph.D. (Johns Hopkins),
Acting Professor of Greek in Lehigh University
SIXTH VOLUME
I. Books 77-80 (A.D. 211-229).
II. Fragments of Books 1-21 (Melber's Arrangement).
III. Glossary of Latin Terms.
IV. General Index.
1905
PAFRAETS BOOK COMPANY
TROY NEW YORK
DIO'S ROMAN HISTORY
77
Antoninus begins his reign by having various persons assassinated,
among them his brother Geta (chapters 1-3).
Cruelty of Antoninus toward Papinianus, Cilo, and others (chapters
4-6).
Antoninus as emulator of Alexander of Macedon (chapters 7, 8).
His levies and extravagance (chapters 9-11).
His treachery toward Abgarus of Osrhoene, toward the Armenian king,
the Parthian king, and the Germans (chapters 12, 13).
The Cenni conquer Antoninus in battle (chapter 14).
He strives to drive out his disease of mind by consulting spirits and
oracles (chapter 15).
Slaughter of vestals, insults to the senate, demise of others contrary
to his mother's wishes (chapters 16-18).
Antoninus's Parthian war (chapters 19-21).
Massacres of Alexandrians caused by Antoninus (chapters 22-24).
DURATION OF TIME.
Q. Epidius Rufus Lollianus Gentianus, Pomponius Bassus (A.D. 211 = a.
u. 964 = First of Antoninus, from Feb. 4th).
C. Iulius Asper (II), C. Iulius Asper. (A.D. 212 = a.u. 965 = Second
of Antoninus.)
Antoninus Aug. (IV), D. Coelius Balbinus (II). (A.D. 213 = a.u. 966 =
Third of Antoninus.)
Silius Messala, Sabinus. (A.D. 214 = a.u. 967 = Fourth of Antoninus.)
Laetus (II), Cerealis. (A.D. 215 = a.u. 968 = Fifth of Antoninus.)
C. Attius Sabinus (II), Cornelius Annullinus. (A.D. 216 = a.u. 969 =
Sixth of Antoninus.)
(_BOOK 78, BOISSEVAIN_.)
[Sidenote: A.D. 211 (_a.u._ 964)] [Sidenote:--1--] After this Antoninus
secured the entire power. Nominally he ruled with his brother, but in
reality alone and at once. With the enemy he came to terms, withdrew
from their country, and abandoned the forts. But his own people he
either dismissed (as Papinianus the prefect) or else killed (as Euodus,
his nurse, Castor, and his wife Plautilla, and the latter's brother
Plautius). In Rome itself he also executed a man who was renowned for no
other reason than his profession, which made him very conspicuous. This
was Euprepes, the charioteer; he killed him when the man dared to show
enthusiasm for a cause that the emperor opposed. So Euprepes died in
old age after having been crowned in an endless number of horse-races.
He had won seven hundred and eighty-two of them,--a record equaled by
none other.
Antoninus had first had the desire to murder his brother while his
father was still alive, but had been unable to do so at that time
because of Severus, or later, on the road, because of the legions. The
men felt very kindly toward the younger son, especially because in
appearance he was the very image of his father. But when Antoninus
arrived in Rome, he got rid of this rival also. The two pretended to
love and commend each other, but their actions proved quite the reverse
to be true, and anybody could see that some catastrophe would result
from their relations. This fact was recognized even prior to their
reaching Rome. When it had been voted by the senate to sacrifice in
behalf of their harmony both to the other gods and to Harmony herself,
the assistants made ready a victim to be sacrificed to Harmony and the
consul arrived to do the slaughtering; yet he could not find them, nor
could the assistants find the consul. They spent nearly the whole night
looking for each other, so that the sacrifice could not be performed on
that occasion. The next day two wolves climbed the Capitol, but were
chased away from that region: one of them was next encountered somewhere
in the Forum, and the other was later slain outside the pomerium. This
is the story about those two animals.
[Sidenote:--2---] It was Antoninus's wish to murder his brother at the
Saturnalia, but he was not able to carry out his intention. The danger
had already grown too evident to be concealed. As a consequence, there
were many violent meetings between the two,--both feeling that they were
being plotted against,--and many precautionary measures were taken on
both sides. As many soldiers and athletes, abroad and at home, day and
night, were guarding Geta, Antoninus persuaded his mother to send for
him and his brother and have them come along to her house with a view to
being reconciled. Geta without distrust went in with him. When they were
well inside, some centurions suborned by Antoninus rushed in a body.
Geta on seeing them had run to his mother, and as he hung upon her neck
and clung to her bosom and breasts he was cut down, bewailing his fate
and crying out: "Mother that bore me, mother that bore me, help! I am
slain!!"
[Sidenote: A.D. 212 (_a.u._ 965)] Tricked in this way, she beheld her son
perishing by most unholy violence in her very lap, and, as it were,
received his death into her womb whence she had borne him. She was all
covered with blood, so that she made no account of the wound she had
received in her hand. She might neither mourn nor weep for her son,
although, untimely he had met so miserable an end (he was only
twenty-two years and nine months old): on the contrary, she was
compelled to rejoice and laugh as though enjoying some great piece of
luck. All her words, gestures, and changes of color were watched with
the utmost narrowness. She alone, Augusta, wife of the emperor, mother
of emperors, was not permitted to shed tears even in private over so
great a calamity.
[Sidenote:--3--] Antoninus, although it was evening, took possession of
the legions after bawling all the way along the road that he had been
the object of a plot and was in danger. On entering the fortifications,
he exclaimed: "Rejoice, fellow-soldiers, for now I have a chance to
benefit you!" Before they heard the whole story he had stopped their
mouths with so many and so great promises that they could neither think
nor speak anything decent. "I am one of you," he said, "it is on your
account alone that I care to live, that so I may afford you much
happiness. All the treasuries are yours." Indeed, he said this also: "I
pray if possible to live with you, but if not, at any rate to die with
you. I do not fear death in any form, and it is my desire to end my days
in warfare. There should a man die, or nowhere!"
To the senate on the following day he made various remarks and after
rising from his seat he went towards the door and said: "Listen to a
great announcement from me. That the whole world may be glad, let all
the exiles, who have been condemned on any complaint whatever in any way
whatever, be restored to full rights." Thus did he empty the islands of
exiles and grant pardon to the worst condemned criminals, but before
long he had the isles full again.
[Sidenote:--4--] The Caesarians and the soldiers that had been with Geta
were suddenly put to death to the number of twenty thousand, men and
women alike, wherever in the palace any of them happened to be.
Antoninus slew also various distinguished men, among them Papinianus.
¶While the Pretorians accused Papianus (_sic_) and Patruinus
[Footnote: This is Valerius Patruinus.] for certain actions,
Antoninus allowed the complainants to kill them, and added the
following remark: "I hold sway for your advantage and not for my
own; therefore, I defer to you both as accusers and as judges."
He rebuked the murderer of Papinianus for using an axe instead of a
sword to give the finishing stroke.
He had also desired to deprive of life Cilo, his nurse and benefactor,
who had served as prefect of the city during his father's reign, whom he
had also often called father. The soldiers sent against him plundered
his silver plate, his robes, his money, and everything else that
belonged to him. Cilo himself they conducted along the Sacred Way,
making the palace their destination, where they prepared to give him his
quietus. He had low slippers [Footnote: Reading [Greek: blahytast] in the
place of the MS. [Greek: chlhapast]. This emendation is favored by Cobet
(Mnemosyne, N.S., X, p. 211) and Naber (Mnemosyne, N.S., XVI, p. 113).]
on his feet, since he had chanced to be in the bath when apprehended,
and wore an abbreviated tunic. The men rent his clothing open and
disfigured his face, so that the people and the soldiers stationed in
the city made clamorous objections. Therefore Antoninus, out of respect
and fear for them, met the party, and, shielding Cilo with his cavalry
cloak,--he was wearing military garb,--cried out: "Insult not my father!
Strike not my nurse!" The tribune charged with slaying him and the
soldiers in his contingent lost their lives, nominally for making plots
but really for not having killed their victim.
[Sidenote:--5--] [But Antoninus was so anxious to appear to love Cilo
that he declared: "Those who have plotted against him have plotted
against me." Commended for this by the bystanders, he proceeded: "Call
me neither Hercules nor the name of any other god;" not that he was
unwilling to be termed a god, but because he wished to do nothing worthy
of a god. He was naturally capricious in all matters, and would bestow
great honors upon people and then suddenly disgrace them, quite without
reason. He would save those who least deserved it and punish those whom
one would never have expected.
Julianus Asper was a man by no means contemptible, on account of his
education and good sense as well. He exalted him, together with his
sons, and after Asper had walked the streets surrounded by I don't know
how many fasces he without warning insulted him outrageously and
dismissed him to his native place [Footnote: I.e., Tusculum.] with abuse
and in mighty trepidation. Laetus, too, he would have disgraced or even
killed, had this man not been extremely sick. So the emperor before the
soldiers called his sickness "wicked," because it did not allow him to
display wickedness in one more case.
Again he made way with Thrasea Priscus, a person second to none in
family or intelligence.
Many others also, previously friends of his, he put to death.]
[Sidenote:--6--]
"Nay, I could not recite nor give the names all over"
[Footnote: From Homer's Iliad, II, verse 488.] of the distinguished men
whom he killed without any right. Dio, because the slain were very well
known in those days, even makes a list of them. For me it suffices to
say that he crushed the life out of everybody he chose, without
exception,
"whether the man was guilty or whether he was not ";
[Footnote: From Homer's Iliad, XV, verse 137.] and that he simply
mutilated Rome, by rendering it bereft of excellent men. [Antoninus was
allied to three races. And he possessed not a single one of their good
points, but included in himself all their vices. The lightness, the
cowardice, and recklessness of Gaul were his, the roughness and cruelty
of Africa, the abominations of Syria (whence he was on his mother's
side).] Veering from slaughter to sports, he pursued his murderous
course no less in the latter. Of course one would pay no attention to
an elephant, rhinoceros, tiger, and hippotigris being killed in the
theatre, but he took equal pleasure in having gladiators shed the
greatest amount of one another's blood. One of them, Bato, he forced
to fight three successive men on the same day, and then, when Bato
met death at the hands of the last, he honored him with a conspicuous
burial.
[Sidenote:--7--] He had Alexander on the brain to such an extent that he
used certain weapons and cups which purported to have belonged to the
great conqueror, and furthermore he set up many representations of him
both among the legions and in Rome itself. He organized a phalanx,
sixteen thousand men, of Macedonians alone, named it "Alexander's
phalanx," and equipped it with the arms which warriors had used in his
day. These were: a helmet of raw oxhide, a three-ply linen breastplate,
a bronze shield, long pike, short spear, high boots, sword. Not even
this, however, satisfied him, but he called his hero "The Eastern
Augustus." Once he wrote to the senate that Alexander had come on earth
again in, the body of the Augustus, [Footnote: Antoninus meant
himself.] so that when he had finished his own brief existence he might
enjoy a larger life in the emperor's person. The so-called Aristotelian
philosophers he hated bitterly, wishing even to burn their books, and he
abolished the common messes they had in Alexandria and all the other
privileges they enjoyed: his grievance, as stated, was the tradition
that Aristotle had been an accomplice in the death of Alexander.
This was the way he behaved in those matters. And, by Jupiter, he took
around with him numbers of elephants, that in this respect, too, he
might seem to be imitating Alexander, or rather, perhaps, Dionysus.
[Sidenote:--8--] On Alexander's account he was fond of all the
Macedonians. Once after praising a Macedonian tribune because the latter
had shown agility in jumping upon his horse, he enquired of him first:
"From what country are you?" Then, learning that he was a Macedonian, he
pursued: "What is your name?" Having thereupon heard that it was
Antigonus, he further questioned: "How was your father called?" When
the father's name was found to be Philip, he declared: "I have all my
desire." He straightway bestowed upon him the whole series of exalted
military honors and before a great while appointed him one of the
senators with the rank of an ex-praetor.
There was another man who had no connection with Macedonia, but had
committed many dreadful crimes, and for this reason was tried before him
in an appealed case. His name proved to be Alexander, and when the
orator accusing him said repeatedly "the bloodthirsty Alexander, the
god-detested Alexander," the emperor became angry, as if he were
personally slandered, and spoke out: "If Alexander doesn't suit you, you
may regard yourself as dismissed."
[Sidenote:--9--] Now this great Alexandrophile, Antoninus, [kept many
men about him, alleging reasons after reasons, all fictitious, and wars
upon wars. He had also this most frightful characteristic, that he was
fond of spending money not only upon the soldiers but for all other
projects with one sole end in view,--to] strip, despoil and grind down
all mankind, and the senators by no means least. [In the first place,
there were gold crowns that he kept demanding, on the constant pretext
that he had conquered some enemy or other (I am not speaking about the
actual manufacture of the crowns,--for what does that amount to?--but
the great sums of money constantly being given under that name by the
cities, for the "crowning" (as it is called) of their emperors). Then
there was the provisions which we were all the time levying in great
abundance from all quarters, sometimes seizing them without compensation
and sometimes spending a little something on them: all this supply he
presented or else peddled to the soldiers. And the gifts, which he
demanded from wealthy individuals and from states. And the taxes, both
the new ones which he published and the ten per cent. tax that he
instituted in place of the twenty per cent. to apply to the emancipation
of slaves, to bequests left to any one, and to all gifts; for he
abolished in such cases the right of succession and exemption from taxes
which had been accorded to those closely related to persons deceased.
This accounts for his giving the title of Romans to all the men in his
empire. Nominally it was to honor them, but his real purpose was to get
an increased income by such means, since foreigners did not have to pay
most of those taxes. But aside from all these] we were also compelled to
build at our own expense all sorts of dwellings for him whenever he took
a trip from Rome, and costly lodgings in the middle of even the very
shortest journeys. Yet not only did he never live in them but he had no
idea of so much as looking at a single one. Moreover, without receiving
any appropriation from him we constructed hunting-theatres and
race-courses at every point where he wintered or expected to winter.
They were all torn down without delay and apparently the sole purpose of
their being called into existence was to impoverish us.
[Sidenote:--10--] The emperor himself kept spending the money upon the
soldiers (as we said) and upon beasts and horses. He was forever
killing great collections of wild beasts, of horses, and also of
domestic animals, forcing us to contribute the majority of them, though
now and then he bought a few. One day he slew a hundred boars at once
with his own hands. He raced also in chariots, and then he would wear
the Blue costume. In all undertakings he was exceedingly hot-headed and
exceedingly fickle, and besides this he possessed the rascality of his
mother and of the Syrians, to which race she belonged. He would put up
some kind of freedman or other wealthy person as director of games
merely that in this occupation, too, the man might spend money. From
below he would make gestures of subservience to the audience with his
whip and would beg for gold pieces like one of the lowliest citizens. He
said that he used the same methods of chariot-driving as the Sun god,
and he took pride in the fact. Accordingly, during the whole extent of
his reign the whole earth, so far as it yielded obedience to him, was
plundered. Hence the Romans once at a horse-race uttered this among
other cries: "We are destroying the living in order to bury the dead."
The emperor would often say: "No man need have money but me, and I want
it to bestow it on the soldiers." Once when Julia chided him for his
great outlays upon them and said: "No longer is any resource, either
just or unjust, left to us," he replied, exhibiting his sword: "Cheer
up, mother: for, as long as we have this, money is not going to fail
us."
[Sidenote:--11--] To those who flattered him, however, he distributed
possessions and money.
¶Julius Paulus [Footnote: Undoubtedly a mistake for the _Julius
Paulinus_ subsequently mentioned.] was a man of consular rank,
who was a great chatterer and joker and would not refrain from
aiming his shafts of wit at the very emperors: therefore Severus
had him taken into custody, though without constraints. When he
still continued, even under guard, to make the sovereigns the
objects of his jests, Severus sent for him and swore that he
would cut off his head. But the man replied: "Yes, you can cut it
off, but as long as I have it, neither you nor I can restrain
it," and so Severus laughed and released him.
He granted to Julius Paulinus twenty-five myriads because the man, who
was a jester, had been led, though involuntarily, to make a joke upon
him. Paulinus had said that he actually resembled a man getting angry,
for somehow he was always assuming a fierce expression. [Footnote: None
of the editors, any more than the casual reader, has been able to find
anything of a sidesplitting nature in this joke. The trouble is, of
course, that the utterance sounds like a plain statement of fact.
Caracalla's natural disposition was harsh and irritable. Some have
changed the word "man" to "Pan (in anger)", but without gaining very
much. I offer for what it is worth the suggestion that a well-known
truth, especially in the case of personal characteristics, may sound
very amusing when pronounced in a quizzical or semi-ironical fashion by
a person possessing sufficient _vis comica_. Thus we may conceive
Paulinus, a professional jester, on meeting Antoninus to have blurted
out in a tone of mock surprise: "Why, anybody would really think you are
angry. You look so cross all the time!" There would then be a point in
the jest, but the point would lie not in the words but in the voice and
features of the speaker. Apart from this explanation of the possible
humor of the remark an excerpt of Peter Patricius (Exc. Vat. 143) gives
us to understand that it would be taken as a compliment by Antoninus
from the mouth of a person to whom he was accustomed to accord some
liberties, since Antoninus made a point of maintaining at all times this
character of harshness and abruptness.]--Antoninus made no account of
anything excellent: he never learned anything of the kind, as he himself
admitted. So it was that he showed a contempt for us, who possessed
something approaching education. Severus, to be sure, had trained him in
all pursuits, bar none, that tended to inculcate virtue, whether
physical or mental, so that even after he became emperor he went to
teachers and studied philosophy most of the day. He also took oil
rubbings without water and rode horseback to a distance of seven hundred
and fifty stades. Moreover, he practiced swimming even in rough water.
In consequence of this, Antoninus was, as you might say, strong, but he
paid no heed to culture, since he had never even heard the name of it.
Still, his language was not bad, nor did he lack judgment, but he showed
in almost everything a keen appreciation and talked very readily. For
through his authority and recklessness and his habit of saying right out
without reflection anything at all that occurred to him, and not being
ashamed to air his thoughts, he often stumbled upon some felicitous
expression. [But the same Antoninus made many mistakes through his
headstrong opinions. It was not enough for him to know everything: he
wanted to be the only one who knew anything. It was not enough for him
to have all power: he would be the only one with any power. Hence it
was that he employed no counselor and was jealous of such men as knew
something worth while. He never loved a single person and he hated all
those who excelled in anything; and most did he hate those whom he
affected most to love. Many of these he destroyed in some way or other.
Of course he had many men murdered openly, but others he would send to
provinces not suited to them, fatal to their physical condition, having
an unwholesome climate; thus, while pretending to honor them
excessively, he quietly got rid of them, exposing such as he did not
like to excessive heat or cold. Hence, though he spared some in so far
as not to put them to death, yet he subjected them to such hardships
that the stain [Footnote: This is very likely an incorrect translation of
an incorrect reading. The various editors of Dio have a few substitutes
to propose, but as all the interpretations seem to me extremely
lumbering I have turned the MS. [Greek] chelidoysthai (taken as a
passive) in a way that may be not quite beyond the bounds of
possibility. The noun [Greek] chelhist like the English "stain," often
passes from its original sense of "blemish" to that of the consequent
"disgrace."] of murder still rested on him.
The above describes him in general terms.
[Sidenote: A.D. 213(?)] [Sidenote:--12--] Now we shall state what sort
of person he showed himself in war. [Abgarus, king of the Osrhoeni, when
he had once got control of the kindred tribes, inflicted the most
outrageous treatment upon his superiors. Nominally he was compelling
them to change to Roman customs, but in fact he was making the most of
his authority over them in an unjustifiable way.] He tricked the king of
the Osrhoeni, Abgarus, inducing him to visit him as a friend, and then
arrested and imprisoned him. This left Osrhoene without a ruler and he
subdued it.
The king of the Armenians had a dispute with his own children and
Antoninus summoned him in a friendly letter with the avowed purpose of
making peace between them: he treated these princes in the same fashion
as he had Abgarus. The Armenians, however, instead of yielding to him
had recourse to arms and not one of them thereafter would trust him in
the slightest particular. Thus he was brought by experience to
understand how great the penalty is for an emperor's practicing deceit
toward friends. [The same ruler assumed the utmost credit for the fact
that at the death of Vologaesus, king of the Parthians, his children
proceeded to fight about the sovereignty; what was purely accidental he
pretended had come about through his own connivance. He ever took
vehement delight in the actions and dissensions of the brothers and
generally in the mutual slaughter of foreign potentates.] He did not
hesitate, either, to write to the senate regarding the rulers of the
Parthians (who were brothers and at variance) that the brothers' quarrel
would work great harm to the Parthian state. Just as if barbarian
governments could be destroyed by such procedure and yet the Roman state
had been preserved! Just as if it had not been, on the contrary, almost
utterly overthrown! It was not merely that the great sums of blood money
given under such conditions to the soldiers for his brother's murder
served to demoralize mankind: in addition, vast numbers of citizens had
information laid against them,--not only those who had sent the brother
letters or had brought him presents [Footnote: Reading [Greek:
dorophorhesantest] (Reimar) for the MS. [Greek: doruphoraesantes].] when
he was still Caesar or again after he had become emperor, but all the
rest who had never had any dealings with him. If anybody even so much as
wrote the name of Geta, or spoke it, that was the end of him then and
there. Hence the poets no longer used it even in comedies. [Footnote:
Geta was a common name for slaves in Latin comedy. It came into Rome
through Greek channels and was originally merely the national adjective
applied to a tribe of northern barbarians.] The property, too, of all
those in whose wills the name was found written was confiscated.
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