The Augustan Succession: An Historical Commentary on Cassius Dio's Roman History Books 55-56 (9 B.C.-A.D. 14) (American Classical Studies)

An Historical Commentary on Cassius Dio’s Roman History general editor: peter michael swan Volume 7.2 Books 55–56 (9 b...

Author: Peter Michael Swan

17 downloads 1057 Views 2MB Size Report

This content was uploaded by our users and we assume good faith they have the permission to share this book. If you own the copyright to this book and it is wrongfully on our website, we offer a simple DMCA procedure to remove your content from our site. Start by pressing the button below!

Report copyright / DMCA form

DOWNLOAD PDF

An Historical Commentary on Cassius Dio’s Roman History general editor: peter michael swan Volume 7.2 Books 55–56 (9 b.c.–a.d. 14) Peter Michael Swan

AMERICAN PHILOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION american classical studies volume 47 Series Editor Donald J. Mastronarde

Studies in Classical History and Society Meyer Reinhold

Sextus Empiricus The Transmission and Recovery of Pyrrhonism Luciano Floridi

The Augustan Succession An Historical Commentary on Cassius Dio’s Roman History Books 55–56 (9 b.c.–a.d. 14) Peter Michael Swan

The Augustan Succession: An Historical Commentary on Cassius Dio’s Roman History Books 55–56 (9 b.c.–a.d. 14) Peter Michael Swan

1 2004

3

Oxford New York Auckland Bangkok Buenos Aires Cape Town Chennai Dar es Salaam Delhi Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kolkata Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Mumbai Nairobi São Paulo Shanghai Taipei Tokyo Toronto

Copyright © 2004 by The American Philological Association Published by Oxford University Press, Inc. 198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York, 10016 www.oup.com Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Swan, Peter Michael, 1931– The Augustan succession : an historical commentary on Cassius Dio’s Roman history, Books 55–56 (9 b.c.–a.d. 14 ) / Peter Michael Swan. p. cm.—(American classical studies ; vol. 47) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-19-516774-0 1. Cassius Dio Cocceianus. Roman history. Book 55–56 2. Rome—History—Augustus, 30 b.c.–14 a.d. I. Title. II. Series. DG279.S93 2004 937'.07—dc21 2003050672

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

To Margaret

This page intentionally left blank

Series Preface

It was in the nature of the cosmopolitan age of the Severan emperors that Cassius Dio, a Greek from Nicaea in Bithynia, should twice be consul in Rome; equally so that he should write, in Atticizing Greek yet mainly in the form of Roman annals and from the perspective of a Roman senator, a history of Rome from its beginnings down to a.d. 229, the year of his retirement. The eighty-book Roman History, though sadly reduced in the wreck of ancient literature, casts a vivid light on Dio’s own age “of rust and iron,” which ushered in a century of momentous change in the ancient world—and in human history. It is also an indispensable source of our knowledge of preceding periods of Roman history and a major document of Greco-Roman historiography. Although some books of Dio have found commentators over the past century, for a commentary addressing the whole History one must resort to the admirable edition of Herrmann Samuel Reimar (1694–1768), published 1750–1752 in Hamburg.1 (The commentary on Dio to which F.W. Sturz devoted volumes 5–6 of his edition [Leipzig, 1824–1825] is essentially a reprint of Reimar, supplemented by Sturz with his own and other scholars’ notes.)2 Even in Reimar’s commentary a good deal is by the hands of predecessors. He took over notes of Fulvio Orsini (Ursinus) (1582), Joannes Löwenklau (Leunclavius) (1592), and Henri de Valois (Valesius) (1634) on the fragments of Books 1–35.3 Most of the notes on Books 36–60, the best-preserved part of the History, treating 69 b.c. to a.d. 46, are by Reimar’s father-in-law, Johann Albrecht Fabricius (1688–1736), author of the monumental Bibliotheca Graeca, and were completed by 1726.4 For Books 61– 80 we have Reimar himself as our chief guide. 1. Cassii Dionis Cocceiani Historiae Romanae Quae Supersunt (2 vols., splendidly printed). It is not as an editor of Dio, however, that Reimar is best known today, but as a rationalist critic of the Scriptures. On Reimar and the theological storm provoked by his Apologie oder Schutzschrift für die vernünftigen Verehrer Gottes, withheld during his lifetime but published in excerpt after his death by Lessing, see C.H. Talbert, ed., Reimarus: Fragments (Philadelphia, 1970), 1–27. 2. On Sturz see Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie 37.56–59. The edition of Dio by E. Gros and V. Boissée with French translation (Paris, 1840–1875) is liberally annotated as far as Book 42, but sparsely thereafter. 3. Reimar did not interleave the different sets of reliquiae so as to reproduce the original order of Dio’s account in Books 1–35. The first to do so was Gros. This configuration of Reimar’s edition is related to his skepticism, later shown to be excessive, about using Books 7–9 of Zonaras’ Epitome in reconstructing Books 1–21 of Dio’s History (to 146 b.c.). 4. See Reimar vol. 1, preface sec. 21.

viii

Series Preface

It has been the plan of a team of scholars, organized under the title of An Historical Commentary on Cassius Dio, to renew Reimar’s work by preparing a commentary on the entire Dio, including, where his text is lost, the Byzantine epitomes and excerpts. It would be better, clearly, if a single commentator could do the whole. But such a desideratum is not likely to be realized, given the size and complexity of the corpus and the scope of Dio’s theme: a millennium of the history of Rome and a territory that on the modern map bears the colors of some three dozen states. We have undertaken our commentary, which is addressed to students of history and historiography, in the belief that systematic study of Dio’s usage and reliability as an historian can reveal something that inquiries into discrete passages or books cannot, and can also contribute to the elaboration of critical approaches to the History sensitive to the different sources and methods employed by Dio from segment to segment and period to period in his work. Historians, Dio’s largest audience, still lacking the sharper critical tools now available to students of Polybius, Livy, and Tacitus, are prone—though markedly less so than was the case a generation ago—to adopt an attitude of undifferentiated skepticism toward his testimony. The commentary can also perform the helpful service of collating scholarly discussions of the thousands of testimonia with which Dio’s History provides us, often uniquely—discussions often published under titles that bear no reference to Dio. Three volumes of the commentary have now been published: Meyer Reinhold’s From Republic to Principate on Books 49–52 (36–29 b.c.) (1988), Charles Leslie Murison’s Rebellion and Reconstruction: Galba to Domitian on Books 64–67 (a.d. 68–96) (1999), and the current volume, Peter Michael Swan’s The Augustan Succession on Books 55–56 (9 b.c.–a.d. 14). Projected volumes will appear as each is completed rather than seriatim. We have not been tempted to prepare a new text of the Roman History. Like Polybius, Dio came to the West cruelly dismembered, only Books 36–54 surviving intact (or virtually so). But he has been well served by his patron goddess Tyche (cf. 72.23.4) in the sortition for modern editors, from the King’s Printer Robertus Stephanus (Estienne) (1503–1559), author of the editio princeps (Paris, 1548), through Reimar, to Ursul Philip Boissevain (1855–1930), whose masterly edition (Berlin, 1895–1901) continues to hold the field. Peter Michael Swan General Editor

Preface to Volume 7.2

The Augustan Succession is an historical and historiographic commentary on Books 55–56 of Cassius Dio’s Roman History. These books treat the years 9 b.c.–a.d. 14, the latter half of the reign of Augustus, for which they are the fullest surviving historical source. Their principal, if far from sole, theme is Augustus’ endeavor to set the stage for the first imperial succession and so to consummate his project of curbing the forces that had wrecked the Republic and of fashioning the durable monarchic state that Dio advocated as a model for his own times. But they also contain many and various annalistic notices that preserve precious evidence on Roman legislative, institutional, administrative, topographic, and external history. My aims as a commentator have been, first, to establish what Dio says, giving due attention to textual problems, especially wherever our single independent manuscript breaks off and leaves the History to be reconstituted from Byzantine epitomes and excerpts; second, to explain his sense, probing, in particular, texts that reflect his formation, experiences, and views; and third, to assess his historical reliability in light of his sources and methods and of the parallel evidence of literature, inscriptions, and archaeology. I have tried to write a work that will serve both students and scholars and be convenient to use. Each Greek lemma is translated, as are many Greek and Latin quotations from other authors and from documents. The introduction treats Dio’s personality, thought, and historical modus operandi. Despite the harvest of Augustan scholarship over the past two centuries, neither Book 55 nor Book 56 has had a fresh commentary since Reimar’s Dio edition of 1750–1752—though John Rich’s fine commentary on Books 53–55.9 (28–5 b.c.) takes in the first quarter of Book 55. With this gap now closed, a continuous sequence of recent commentaries on Dio is available in English, covering well over a century of his imperial narrative. These are, besides Rich’s and my own, those of Reinhold on Books 49–52 (36–29 b.c.), Jonathan Edmondson on Books 57–63 (a.d. 14–68) (major selections), and Murison on Books 64–67 (a.d. 68–96). This book has been a long time in the making, and I have incurred many debts that it is a pleasure to register here. Members of the Dio commentary project have offered advice, criticism, and technical help unstintingly, among others, Ann Sutherland Dusing, John W. Humphrey, M. James Moscovich, C. Leslie Murison, and the late Meyer Reinhold. My colleagues in the University of Saskatchewan

x

Preface to Volume 7.2

have provided support under many forms: Donald W. Baronowski, Peter G. Bietenholz, Peter Burnell, Kevin Corrigan, Dave De Brou, Ernie J. McCullough, Tony Nuspl, John R. Porter, Robert D. Sider, Larry Stewart, and William A. Waiser. For encouragement and critical advice at various stages of my work, I am grateful to Ernst Badian, Timothy Barnes, Richard Talbert, Susan Treggiari, Colin Wells, and especially Fergus Millar, whose A Study of Cassius Dio set research on our consular historian and his work on a new path. It goes without saying that none of these can be deemed responsible for shortcomings in my commentary, however much they have reduced the toll of these. My many citations of works by the late Ronald Syme on a range of Augustan themes will show how much I have learned from his writings. Several M.A. students whose research interests intersected my own have been a source of stimulation over the years, including David Cherry, Linda Janzen, Leanne Bablitz, Paul Spafford, Tracy Deline, Tracene Harvey, Catherine Gunderson, Louis Christ, and Beverly Towstiak. I was later able to call on the expertise of the last three, Catherine for research assistance, Louis, whose ingenuity as a cartographer is on show in the maps, and Beverly, whose editorial eye has averted a multitude of errata. The University of Saskatchewan Library has always given me courteous and energetic assistance, signally the staff of Interlibrary Loans and Cheryl Whitlock in Acquisitions. Four other libraries have generously permitted me to use their collections over extended periods: the Ashmolean (now Sackler) and Bodleian Libraries in Oxford University, the Davis Library in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and the Robarts Library in the University of Toronto. I have been a beneficiary of the efficiency and scholarship of Donald Mastronarde, Chair of the American Philological Association’s Editorial Board, who read the whole manuscript, catching lapses great and small and offering an interpretation that had eluded me. Adam Blistein, the Association’s Executive Director, handled my file with courteous dispatch. The admonitions and guidance of the Association’s referees (one anonymous, the other Fergus Millar) have made this a far better work than it could have been without them. At Oxford University Press, Mary Bellino’s meticulous copyediting has done much to clear the text of error and inconsistency, while my editors Jeremy Lewis and Keith Faivre have directed the revision of the manuscript and its transformation into a book with exemplary efficiency. Grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and from the Publications Fund of the University of Saskatchewan have enabled me to advance my work in ways that would otherwise have been financially impossible. This book is dedicated to my wife Margaret, without whose patience (and impatience) I would not have finished it; to my daughter Kleis, ajnti; ta÷" e[gwujde; Ludivan pai÷san, and to the memory of my parents Peter White Swan and Jean Carolyn Dodd Swan, and of my first Classical mentor, John Francis Leddy. Peter Michael Swan

Contents

Notes for the Reader Maps 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

The Northern Frontiers Augustan Rome The East under Augustus Italy The Provinces in Dio’s Time Rebellion in Illyricum a.d. 6–9

Introduction 1. Chronology of Dio’s Life, Career, and Writings 2. How Dio Portrays Himself 3. Dio’s View of History 4. Dio on Augustus’ Place in Roman History 5. How Dio Composed His Account of Augustus’ Reign (31 b.c.– a.d. 14) 6. The Text of Books 55–56

xiii xv xvi xvii xviii xix xx 1 3 8 13 17 36

Commentary Book 55: 9 b.c.– a.d. 8 Book 56: a.d. 9–14

39 223

Appendixes 1. How Dio Visualized Trans-Rhenane Germany under Augustus 2. Dio on Tiber Floods 3. Augustan imperatores 4. Dio on Distributions of Largesse (congiaria) in Augustan Rome 5. Dio on Famines 6. One More Problem in the Fasti Praenestini of 16 January 7. Suetonius Aug. 34.1–2 and the Dates of Augustus’ Marriage Laws 8. Sources on the War in Dalmatia, a.d. 9 9. Velleius 2.115.4 on the War in Dalmatia: An Emendation 10. Sources on the Varian Disaster, a.d. 9

361 363 364 365 366 367 369 371 372 374

xii

Contents

11. On the Text of Dio 56.21.2–3 (Varian Disaster) 12. Augustus’ Last Will: Substitute Heirs 13. How Much Did Dio Alter the Editio Princeps of His History in Preparing Its Second Edition? 14. Dio 55.12.3a–5 (Xiph.-Zon.) on the Value of the Aureus and Denarius 15. How the Book Numbers Work in Boissevain’s Dio Edition, Vol. 3, Books 61–80

375 376 378 381 383

Bibliography and Abbreviations

387

Index 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

401 401 406 407 407

Disputed or New Readings Index of Selected Passages Greek Words Latin Words Persons, Places, and Institutions

Notes for the Reader

Lemma. This term is used of a text selected for comment, either a Greek original (given in bold type) or an English translation; for example: 1.5 luv k oi oi:: “Wolves around the camp.” Entry of a wolf into city or camp was an official prodigy: Luterbacher Prodigienglaube 28. References to the notes. n

refers the reader to the note(s) on a given text: e.g., 55.5.3n or 55.6.6–7n (referring to a note or notes on both 6 and 7).

on refers to an introduction; thus “see on 55.1.1–5” directs the reader to remarks on “Drusus’ Last Campaign” that head the line-by-line commentary on this text.1 References to Books 61–80. In citing passages from these books I use (for simplicity’s sake) the “standard” book numbers introduced in Leunclavius’ editions of 1592 and 1606 rather than the “reformed” book numbers preferred by Boissevain. Conveniently, Boissevain equips vol. 3 of his edition, which contains Books 61– 80, with both “standard” and “reformed” numbers. See Appendix 15, “How the Book Numbers Work in Boissevain’s Dio Edition, Vol. 3, Books 61–80.” Lines as a measure of text length. When I describe a text as so many lines long my count is based on Boissevain’s edition; for example: “After kai; tav te (partway through 56.22.2) comes a one-folio lacuna, about fifty lines long.” Abbreviations. ad loc. = at the place previously cited (from Latin ‘ad locum’). cos./coss. = consul/consuls.

1. I also use both n and on to refer to Meyer Reinhold’s commentary on Books 49–52 and Charles Leslie Murison’s on Books 64–67, as well as to my own commentary on Books 53–54 (in preparation).

xiv

Notes for the Reader

cos. ord. = “ordinary” consul, one of the first pair in each year. cos. suff. = “suffect” consul, replacement for an ordinary consul. HS = sestertius (English “sesterce”), the standard Roman bronze coin, four of which made a silver denarius. loc. cit. = in the passage previously cited (from Latin ‘loco citato’). op. cit. = in the work previously cited (from Latin ‘opere citato’). pace = despite the opinion of (used in indicating the author of a contrary view). sc. = Latin ‘scilicet,’ “namely,” “that is to say.” s.v. (plural s.vv.) = under the word or heading in question (from Latin ‘sub voce’). Coins. Dio gives monetary sums—such as donatives and retirement bonuses—in denarii, the Roman silver coin, which he renders in Greek as dracmhv (“drachma”). The main Roman denominations were exchanged in both Augustus’ time and Dio’s at an official ratio of 1 (gold) aureus = 25 (silver) denarii = 100 (bronze) sestertii. Augustus’ name. Augustus was born Gaius Octavius in 63 b.c., took the name Gaius Iulius Caesar as heir of the dictator Caesar in 44, adopted the style Imperator Caesar in the civil wars (by 38), then Imperator Caesar Augustus as Princeps (from 27). He was consecrated as Divus Augustus in a.d. 14.2 I regularly call him Augustus but sometimes resort to Octavian to distinguish the young Caesar from his adoptive father or to differentiate his early career (44–28) from his Principate.3 Dio’s name. A Roman military diploma dated by his consulship of 229 gives the name as L. Cassius Dio. The cognomen Cocceianus, long attributed to Dio by scholars (for example, in the titles of Leunclavius’ and Boissevain’s editions of 1592 and 1895), is probably spurious, a product of confusion with Dio Cocceianus (Chrysostom) of Prusa; absent from inscriptions bearing the historian’s name, it is not attested before the ninth century. Where Cocceianus appears (exceptionally) on Dio manuscripts, a late interpolation can be suspected.4 Translations. These are my own unless otherwise attributed.

2. See R. Syme, “Imperator Caesar: A Study in Nomenclature,” RP 1.361–377; Kienast Kaisertabelle 61–65. 3. The cognomen Octavianus was rarely used in antiquity: for instances see Cic. Fam. 10.33 [= SB 409] 3 (a letter of C. Asinius Pollio); Tac. Ann. 13.6.3, ‘Caesar Octavianus.’ Cf. Syme RP 1.365: Caesar’s heir chose to be known as C. Iulius Caesar, “spurning the ‘Octavianus’ that would have perpetuated the memory of his real parentage.” 4. For the diploma see M.M. Roxan, Roman Military Diplomas 1978 to 1984 (London, 1985), no. 133 = AE (1985), no. 821; cf. A.M. Gowing, “Dio’s Name,” CP 85 (1990), 49–54. Cf. AE (1971), no. 430, which gives Dio’s name as Kl! Kavssio" Divwn. Leunissen Konsuln 163 takes Kl! as a gentilicium, Claudius; Rich 1 n1 secludes the kappa as a stonecutter’s error.

xv

xvi

xvii

xviii

xix

xx

Introduction

1. CHRONOLOGY OF DIO’S LIFE, CAREER, AND WRITINGS Secure dates are underlined. 164 (165?)

L. Cassius Dio1 born in Nicaea in Bithynia,2 son of M.? Cassius Apronianus (PIR2 C 485), Roman senator and consul3

by 180

in Rome by the accession of Commodus (ruled 180–31 December 192) (72.4.2–3)

182/183?

with his father, then legate of Cilicia (69.1.3; 72.7.2; cf. Thomasson Laterculi 291; Leunissen Konsuln 285)

189 (190?)

quaestor,4 then senator (e.g., 72.16.3, cf. 18.1–4, relating events of 192)

193

designated praetor by the emperor Pertinax (ruled 1 January–28 March) (73.12.2); in the Senate both when it voted Didius Julianus emperor (28 March; 73.12.1–13.1) and later when it passed the death sentence on him and elevated Septimius Severus in his stead (1 June; 73.17.4)

194 (195?)

praetor5

1. On Dio’s life and career see above all Millar Study 5–27. For shorter lives see, for example, Reimar 2.1533– 1538; Vrind De Vocabulis 163–168; J.W. Humphrey in Reinhold Republic 1–4; Rich 1–4; Edmondson 14–24; Gowing Narratives 19–32; Hose Erneuerung 356–360; Murison Rebellion 5–8. On Dio’s name see Notes for the Reader. 2. Dio calls Nicaea his native city (patriv") at 75.15.3; cf. 80.5.2. Key to his birth year is his designation as praetor by the emperor Pertinax in 193 (73.12.2). Assuming he entered office in 194 at thirty, the standard age (52.20.1), he was born ca 164. Cf. W. Ameling, “Cassius Dio und Bithynien,” EA 4 (1984), 123–138. 3. Cf. 49.36.4, the father as legate of Dalmatia, a consular post (Millar Study 25–26; Thomasson Laterculi 94; Leunissen Konsuln 240, cf. 139). 4. Assuming he entered office at the standard age. 5. So, for example, Millar Study 16 on the natural assumption that Dio entered office the year following his designation. But cf. Barnes Phoenix 38 (1984), 242, who prefers 195 for the praetorship on the basis of 74.4.4– 5.4, where Dio, recounting the funeral of Pertinax, refers to the magistrates of 193 and the designates for 194, who carried the bier down from the Rostra, in the third person, while reserving the first person plural for senators in general: on this argument Dio was designated praetor two years in advance—extraordinarily—and did not become praetor designatus officially until 194 or praetor until 195.

2

Introduction

?

following his praetorship, proconsul of a minor province?6

196?

neutral in the civil war between Septimius Severus and his “Caesar,” Clodius Albinus (75.4.2; Introduction sec. 5.5)

197?

possibly upon Septimius Severus’ victory over Clodius Albinus (72.23.1–2), wrote and published a booklet (biblivon ti) on the dreams and signs that had inspired Severus with hopes of rule7

198?

inspired by “heaven” (to; daimovnion), in a dream prompted by Severus’ favorable response to his booklet, to compose a monograph on the “great wars and civic conflicts” of the years following Commodus’ overthrow (72.23.1–2)

200?

inspired by praise of this work from Severus and others to undertake his monumental Roman History treating “all that the Romans have done worth recording” (fr. 1.1; 72.23.3); start of a decade of research (72.23.5) done mainly in his villa at Capua (76.2.1)

204

member of the consilium of Severus at the trial of the governor of Sardinia Raecius Constans (75.16.2–4; cf. 76.17.1; PIR2 R 8)

205? or 206? suffect consul (76.16.4) prior to Severus’ departure for Britain in 2088 210?

start of twelve years spent writing the History to the death of Severus in 211 (as it turned out), sc. Books 1–76 (cf. 72.23.5)

214/215

with Caracalla at Nicomedia, capital of his native Bithynia, during the emperor’s tour of the East (77.17.3–18.4); addressed by Caracalla for the last time ever at a banquet during the Saturnalia (78.8.4–5)

217–218

in Rome and in the Senate on Macrinus’ accession in 217 (78.37.5– 6, cf. 16.2–17.1) and when word came in 218 of the insurrection against him by supporters of Elagabalus in Syria (78.38.1–2); arguably writing up Augustan history (Books 45–56) about this time

6. A rescript of Septimius Severus to one Dio (to the effect that whoever promises aid to a civitas stricken by disaster must keep that promise) is cited in Dig. 50.12.7 from Paulus’ Liber primus de officio proconsulis. Was the addressee our Dio? 7. But cf. Millar Study 29: “The setting, it seems clear, is Severus’ first stay in Rome as Emperor, in June 193 after his march from Pannonia.” 8. As consul, Dio says (76.16.4), he found 3,000 adultery cases pending, the product of new legislation of Septimius Severus against this crime; but when few prosecutors came forward the emperor ceased to concern himself personally. Dio seems to place this business—and therefore his consulship—during Severus’ main sojourn in Rome, sc. between 202 or 203 and his British expedition of 208–211. See esp. Millar Study 204–207: “The supposition that he was consul in 205 or 206 cannot be far wrong.” Millar opposes the hypothesis that Dio had fallen from favor and so achieved his first consulship only much later (e.g., Letta “Composizione” 135–137, proposing 222); cf. Leunissen Konsuln 163: “um ?205.” Dio alludes to his consulship at 60.2.3 and 43.46.5–6 (the latter text shows that it did not exceed two months).

Introduction

3

218–?221

assigned by Macrinus to supervise Pergamum and Smyrna (79.7.4, cf. 18.3)9

221?–222?

in Bithynia, where he fell ill (80.1.2)

222?

“editio princeps” of the History (Books 1–76) (see Introduction sec. 5.6)

?223/224

proconsul of Africa under Severus Alexander (ruled 222–235) (80.1.2)10

224?/228

imperial legate of Dalmatia, then Upper Pannonia, a garrisoned province (49.36.4; 80.1.3, 4.2; 55.23.5)

228

incurred the wrath of the Praetorian Guard for disciplining his troops in Upper Pannonia (80.4.2)11

229

consul II with Severus Alexander (80.5.1);12 relieved by the emperor of the expenses of his office and allowed to serve his term outside Rome safe from the Praetorians (80.5.1); retirement to his native Nicaea, aged about sixty-five and ailing (80.5.2)

230?

completion and publication of a second edition of the History, with light revision of Books 1–76 and the addition of Books 77–79 on the reigns of Caracalla (211–217), Macrinus (217–218), and Elagabalus (218–222), plus Book 80, an epilogue skimming Severus Alexander’s reign down to 229 and highlighting Dio’s own recent career13

?

death of Dio14

2. HOW DIO PORTRAYS HIMSELF Dio has left us the makings of a vital portrait of himself—in recollections, judgments, attitudes, authorial pronouncements, and in how he presents (or inadvert-

9. Dio describes his posting with the verb ejpestavthsa (“I was placed in charge of”) (79.7.4). Millar Study 23 calls him curator. On this office see in detail G.P. Burton, “The Curator Rei Publicae: Towards a Reappraisal,” Chiron 9 (1979), 465–487. Curatores in Asia, he shows, were of high social rank (though not necessarily senatorial) and were appointed by the emperor, apparently ad hoc to particular cities at particular times. As curator Dio will have had extensive powers to audit and regulate the “financial activities and policies” of Pergamum and Smyrna. 10. Africa was reserved, like Asia, for consulars; salary 1,000,000 HS (78.22.5). 11. Cf. R.L. Cleve, “Cassius Dio and Ulpian,” AncHistBull 2 (1988), 118–124, proposing that it was Pannonian soldiers, not Praetorians, who demanded Dio’s surrender. 12. For documents dated by Dio’s consulship cf. Notes for the Reader, Dio’s name; for coinage registering Severus Alexander’s consulship, his third, see BMCEmp. 6.169–174, e.g., no. 575 with plate 20. 13. For Schmidt, Dio’s silence on Severus Alexander’s expedition against Persia in 231 shows that he completed the History soon after returning to his Bithynian home in 229 (“Dio” 2638–2644). Cf. Millar Study 24: “If he lived to see the armies of Severus Alexander pass through Bithynia on the way to the East in 231 he does not record it.” Noting Dio’s sometimes bitter aspersions on the “Syrian” dynasts, Murison sees “the need for posthumous, or, at any rate, post-Severan publication” (Rebellion 11). 14. Murison Rebellion 12 n40: “There is no way of knowing when Dio died.”

4

Introduction

ently reveals) himself, above all in the books that treat his own times.15 Certain aspects of the portrait that emerges from this material are abhorrent in liberal democracies, like his faith in monarchy and a society stratified by class, race, and gender, so that his modern reader must often curb a temptation to dismiss him as reactionary. Elitist to the core, Dio regarded the Senate, of which he was a senior member, as the universal ruling order, a caste defined by class, superior cultural attainments, and a lifelong public career.16 He advertises his status by associating himself with emperors as correspondent (Septimius Severus, 72.23.1–2), counselor (Severus, 76.17.1; Caracalla, 77.17.3), and consular colleague (Severus Alexander: 80.5.1),17 and by casting himself as witness of or participant in momentous events in Senate, Forum, Circus, and Colosseum, and in the provinces,18 even injecting his privilege, as a former consul, of being borne in a covered sedan chair (60.2.3). Mentions of his career abroad leave an impression of versatile competence: he governed three provinces, one with a legionary garrison (Upper Pannonia), and represented Rome in metropolises of both the Greek East—as administrator of Smyrna and Pergamum—and the Latin West, where his seat was Carthage as proconsul of Africa.19 The posting to Smyrna and Pergamum, capitals of Greek rhetoric, accords suggestively with the prominence that Dio gives to set speeches in the History. Quite apart from their function in his narrative (cf. sec. 5.4), these imposing creations serve as a medium of self-presentation, putting on show the oratorical virtuosity that had long come to be the soul of Roman elite education, certifying an inherent capacity to rule and furnishing a prime qualification for the senator’s roles as speaker in the house, advocate in law-courts, magistrate, imperial counselor, governor, and even commander. Through the speeches Dio presents his own credentials for a high career—as well as a warrant for his audacious historiographic project. At an instinctual level the speeches can be construed as a deterrent to those who lacked an oratorical formation from trespassing on the senatorial field of ambition.20 He takes palpable satisfaction in holding up to ignominy men undone or discredited by want of paideia—like the false Sex. Quintilius Condianus, whose impersonation failed because, though he resembled the real Condianus physically and had rehearsed how to act like him, “he had not acquired his paideia” (72.6.5); or the upstart Oclatinius Adventus, who rose to be consul and City Pre-

15. Cf. Marincola Authority 199–200: “Dio exceeds any previous historian in number and scale of preserved autobiographical participatory remarks.” 16. On Dio’s social views cf. Millar Study 116–118; G. Alföldy, “The Crisis of the Third Century as Seen by Contemporaries,” GRBS 15 (1974), 89–111; L. de Blois, “The Third Century Crisis and the Greek Elite in the Roman Empire,” Historia 33 (1984), 358–377; Reinhold & Swan “Assessment” 157. 17. Also as prosecutor of Didius Julianus before the latter’s unexpected advent as emperor (73.12.2). 18. E.g., 73.8.3–5, 17.4; 76.5.1–6.3, 8.4; 78.16.2 (Senate); 73.14.4–5; 74.4.2–5.3 (Forum); 75.4.3 (Circus); 72.18.1–21.3 (Colosseum); 72.7.1–2; 79.18.1–3 (provinces). 19. On Smyrna and Pergamum as intellectual centers see, for example, Bowersock Sophists 17–29 (“Cities of the Sophists”), esp. 17–19, 60–62. 20. Gleason deconstructs oratorical skill as an instrument for achieving and maintaining “status dominance” (Making, e.g., xx–xxiii; cf. the review of S. Goldhill in BMCR 95.06.19). Cf. Swain Hellenism 64 on language “as a badge of elite identity.”

Introduction

5

fect but “could not read for want of education [apaideusia]” and “when consul was even incapable of communicating properly . . . with anyone in the Senate and for this reason feigned illness on the day of the election” (78.14.1–2).21 Not less than in the secular world, Dio appears confident about his favored status in the cosmic order of things. It was an article of faith for him that serving consuls—like himself—were veritable intermediaries of the “sympathy” linking divine with Roman affairs.22 He had as “overseer of his life’s course” (ejpivskopon th÷" tou÷ bivou diagwgh÷") the goddess Tyche, to whom his devotion is unswerving and strikingly personal (72.23.3–4). She gave him assurances, communicated in dreams, that “time would in no way dim his work” (72.23.4),23 so that writing the History became a sacred duty as well as a private obsession—in pursuit of which he acquired a villa at Capua to provide the seclusion needed for writing (76.2.1; cf. 38.28.1–2). Historiography offered Dio a prospect of immortality through the living memory of his person and achievement (rather than through survival of his soul).24 The converse of Dio’s faith in a benevolent cosmic regime (cf. sec. 3) was the fear and contempt in which he held heresy. He has “Maecenas” urge Augustus to root it out as dangerously subversive (52.36.1–2, after Cary): “Those introducing any alien practice in religion (to; qei÷on) you should abhor and punish not merely for the sake of the gods (since if a man despises these he will not hold anyone else in honor) but because such men, by bringing in new divinities in place of the old, persuade many to adopt foreign practices, from which spring up conspiracies, factions, and cabals, which are far from profitable for a monarchy. Do not, therefore, permit anybody to be an atheist (ajqevw/) or a sorcerer (govhti).” Dio’s silence on the Christians here, and throughout Books 57–80 (a.d. 14– 229), can be taken as a pointed snub.25 For all his self-assurance, Dio harbored insecurities. No less than Tacitus, he was implicated in the systemic hypocrisy of imperial politics, obliged to suppress fears, hatreds, and grievances year in and out. His own words show how far what he said about Septimius Severus during that emperor’s lifetime could diverge from what he thought,26 and how he detested, silently while they lived, the youthful emperors Caracalla and Elagabalus.27 21. Cf. Dio’s criticism of the low tastes of Caracalla, who had utterly forgotten his paideusis (77.11.2–4 with the remarks of Swain Hellenism 406–407); 52.8.8. 22. See 46.33.3–4. 23. On Dio’s divine call to history see Marincola Authority 48–51; on Tyche as a patron goddess, benevolent to her favorites, like the Roman Fortuna, cf. Weinstock Julius 112–127, at 126: “She could be, like the Daemon, the divine companion of man.” 24. On Dio’s views on immortality, which were fundamentally Stoic, cf. 52.35.3–36.1. Cf. 53.9.5; 56.2.3, 41.9n; 61.15.3–4. 25. Cf. Ameling “Intellektuelle” 2486, “Atheismus und gohteiva—worunter (Dio) wohl auch das Christentum einordnete.” The motivation of Dio’s silence is most apparent where he recounts how a heaven-sent rain saved Marcus Aurelius’ “Thundering Legion” from imminent destruction at the hands of German enemies (71.8.1–4). He gives no hint that there was a competing Christian version of the miracle. This his epitomist the monk Xiphilinus inserts on the well-founded suspicion that Dio has suppressed it (71.9.1–10.5). A pagan account “parallel” to Dio’s is sculpted on the Column of Marcus Aurelius. 26. E.g., 74.2.1–3; 75.3.2–3, 7.3–4, 8.1–3. Millar Study 138–140 cautions that, criticism notwithstanding, Dio’s judgment of Severus was on the whole favorable. 27. 78.9.1–3; 79.11.1–17.1. Cf. 78.20.1–3 and 79.2.5–6 (elite hypocrisy laid open).

6

Introduction

Sensing the vulnerability of his class to the social transformations occurring in his time, as careers and status were opened up to raw military talents, Dio shows a haughty reluctance to share the center with upstarts like P. Valerius Comazon (OCD3 1577), whose rise from army ranks to be Praetorian Prefect, consul, and City Prefect he counts “among the worst breaches of tradition” (ejn toi÷" paranomwtavtoi") (79.3.5–4.2).28 Female power made Dio anxious. In a quasi-epic scene he portrays Octavian standing steadfast against the seductive advances of Cleopatra (51.12.1–13.1)— like Aeneas, mind closed to Dido’s pleas (cf. Verg. Aen. 4.437–449). He credits the emperor Tiberius with circumscribing the political role of his mother Livia.29 Tendentiously, he counters her influence as a harmful exemplum of female ascendancy by having her play her most conspicuous part in the History as an advisor to Augustus, and this in the privacy of the imperial bedchamber rather than in any state council.30 He reproaches Caracalla’s mother Julia Domna with aspiring to rule like the legendary queens of the East (78.23.1–4; cf. 62.6.2). Conversely, Vitellius’ mother Sextilia and Trajan’s wife Plotina are applauded for not letting their heads be turned by power (65.4.5n with Tac. Ann. 2.64.2; 68.5.5). At the membrane between the senatorial and equestrian orders, where real cultural and economic differences were often the hardest to demonstrate, we find Dio standing guard like Cerberus. He has the eques “Maecenas” advise Augustus to raise the bar systematically against his own class by differentiating equites from senators by birth, character, wealth, and public métier.31 He praises the great minister for being content to live out his life as an eques (55.7.4n); in the catastrophes of the equites Sejanus and Plautianus he finds a natural consequence of their immoderate ambition. He passes ruthless judgment on the emperor Macrinus: for having the temerity to aspire to the throne without first becoming a senator, he deserved the horror and shame of his fall, regardless of his merits (78.40.3–41.4, esp. 41.3; cf. 78.14.4; 79.1.2). Deeply worrying to Dio was the state of Rome’s military system.32 Taking the stance of national security critic, he pinpoints weaknesses in both high command and rank and file. For example, he assails Caracalla’s pandering to the army, rendering it hostile to authority, economy, or discipline (78.28.1–2), and castigates those who repoliticized it as a maker of emperors, more dangerous for the state than foreign enemies.33 Among the troops at large he instances degeneration in fighting quality and discipline, cites Parthian scorn for Caracalla’s enervated invasion force 28. Cf. 77.21.2, on Theocritus, who “after slave and dancer became army commander and Praetorian Prefect [e[parco"; see 55.10.10n];” L. de Blois, “The Third Century Crisis and the Greek Elite in the Roman Empire,” Historia 33 (1984), 358–377 at 375–377. 29. 57.12.1–6. Cf. 73.7.1–2, Pertinax, one of Dio’s good emperors, withholding the name Augusta from his licentious wife. 30. In the long set dialogue in which she advocates a policy of clemency toward conspirators (55.14–22). 31. 52.19.2–4 (birth, character, wealth), 20–25 (métier). Dio concedes that an eques who has distinguished himself in “many” offices may be chosen for the Senate (52.25.6). Late, it is clear: Maecenas adds that age should not be a barrier to such a man. 32. Cf. de Blois “Authors” 3411–3412. 33. Maker of emperors: 78.29.2–30.1; cf. 73.11.2–6, auctioning off the empire in 193.

Introduction

7

(78.3.4), and laments the inadequacy of Roman legions before the threat of Sassanian Persia—an army “in such a state that some are joining Artaxerxes, some are refusing to fight” (80.4.1). As antidote he offers brave exempla of military leadership: Julius Caesar silencing a mutiny (41.26.1–36.1); Agrippa whipping his legionaries into shape (54.11.5); Galba withholding largesse (64.3.2–3n: “I am accustomed to levy soldiers, not buy them”); Macrinus’ attempt—fatal to him—at restoring discipline (78.28.3–29.2, 36.1–2); and his own strict command of his army in Upper Pannonia (ejgkratw÷" hj ¿rxa), which brought him into mortal danger (80.4.2–5.1). The qualities that Dio valued and arguably wished to embody are mirrored in his historical allegiances, not just to prodigies like Augustus and Marcus Aurelius, but to lesser models—conservative, patriotic figures distinguished for their moderation, who put the common good, ta; koinav, before themselves, like Fabius Maximus Cunctator, Scipio Aemilianus, and the incorruptible younger Cato. In his own day there was Pertinax, “dignified but not sullen, gentle but not meek, shrewd but not knavish, just but not too strict, frugal but not miserly, high-minded but not boastful.”34 Curiously, one of the warmest expressions of Dio’s austere code comes in his apologia for this emperor’s culinary restraint—despised by some but approved by “the rest of us, for whom virtue was dearer than excess” (73.3.4). Paramount among Dio’s secondary models is Agrippa, who for all his talents and influence knew that the public interest called for him to remain an adjutant. It is with Hector, a hero devoted bravely and selflessly to a higher cause, that Dio brackets himself when he quotes the Iliad at the close of his magnum opus (11.163–164, quoted in sec. 5.6).35 To what audiences did Dio direct the autobiographical element in the History? This is no simple question seeing that his project took some thirty years to complete, including most or all of five reigns. Nor has he left many clues with which to answer it. Clearly he often labored with an eye on the imperial court. Septimius Severus, we know, took a patronal interest in his work. The changing procession of his peers in the Senate and the imperial service, now penetrated by Greeks, will have been in his mind, as well as elites in Greek cities like Nicomedia, Pergamum, and Smyrna with which his life or career associated him, above all his patris Nicaea, to which he returned in illness and retirement.36 It was possibly for this readership that he occasionally glossed Roman institutions (e.g., tribunate of the plebs, triumph, censorship).37 On first reading, his statement that he wrote the History so that neither Romans nor others would lack the essential knowl34. Fabius Maximus: fr. 57.21 (“esteemed higher the saving of the city”); Scipio Aemilianus: fr. 70.4–9 (subordination of self); the younger Cato: 37.22.1–4, 57.2–3; 38.3.1; 42.57.2–3; Pertinax: e.g., 73.5.1–2; 74.5.6–7. 35. 80.5.3; cf. Marincola Authority 50–51. Negative paradigms reveal opposite qualities abhorred by Dio: note, for example, the pretender Didius Julianus (grasping, spendthrift, seditious: 73.11.2) and Caracalla (impulsive, frivolous, treacherous: 77.10.2; cf. 78.3.1, “most bold with his threats and most reckless in his undertakings, yet . . . the greatest coward in the face of danger and the greatest weakling in the presence of hardships” [Cary]). 36. Cf. Bowersock Sophists 88, 113, 117. Dio identifies himself chauvinistically with a famous Nicaean military engineer at 74.11.2 (“my fellow citizen Priscus”). On Dio’s cultural “Greekness” see Swain Hellenism 404–408 (“Cultural Loyalty”). 37. G.J.D. Aalders, “Cassius Dio and the Greek World,” Mnemosyne 39 (1986), 282–304, at 290–291, goes too far in concluding on the basis of such passages that Dio was writing for “‘ordinary Greeks’ of the many cities of the empire” who knew little of Roman state institutions.

8

Introduction

edge of Roman achievements in peace and war (fr. 1.1 [Boissevain 1.12]) is unhelpfully broad. But it should remind us that he conceived his audience not only in terms of his own immediate circles and times but in ecumenical and perpetual terms (cf. 72.23.4; 80.5.3)—not surprising for an historian whose model, Thucydides, had written 600 years earlier.38

3. DIO’S VIEW OF HISTORY Surveying past and present from the sociopolitical apex of the empire, Dio saw the history of Rome as the hegemonic action on a world stage,39 eclipsing or subordinating other histories imperially.40 He deemed its course to be a product of divine as well as secular forces, both integral in the natural order of things. For him “heaven” played an historical role, as it did not for Thucydides. It impinged on human affairs, especially in their ecumenical dimension, and was essential to include in historical explanation. In contemplating the historical roles of man and god Dio employed one and the same epistemology. His approach was empirical, mutatis mutandis like that of practitioners of then contemporary sciences such as medicine and astronomy— a Galen or a Ptolemy—who in their researches factored in not only what we define as natural phenomena but what we dismiss as supernatural.41 His reports of dreams, oracles, and signs, for example, with which the History abounds,42 were more than just an antiquarian or, as some hold, a traditional element (though they were this too),43 and more than just an irrational or superstitious element.44 They were for him a record of objective natural phenomena, documents attesting heaven’s interest and participation in Rome’s unfolding history. Provided that they

38. On Dio’s audience see, for example, Rich 5 (“perhaps . . . men like himself, Greeks who had become absorbed into the Roman governing class”); Gowing Narratives 292–293 (“Dio’s work bears the marks of a sort of political handbook whose purpose was to instruct newcomers to the Roman political scene in its history and the nature of its rule and rulers”); Hose Erneuerung 418–424 (a ruling elite, including a now cosmopolitan senatorial order); Ameling “Intellektuelle” 2491–2492 (not just the emperor, rather an oligarchy that Dio sought to influence). 39. Cf. 52.34.2 (Maecenas to Augustus as emperor-to-be): “You will live as it were in a single theater that consists of the entire world.” 40. Cf. fr. 2.4: “Roman history I will treat as fully as I can; others’ history will be recorded solely where relevant to Roman.” Dio betrays no pain in recounting Roman expansion into the Greek East of which he was a son. Cf. Millar Study 190–192; Swain Hellenism 402–408; 333–356 on the sharply different attitude of Pausanias. On Dio’s view of history see in general Gabba RSI 67 (1955), 289–333; Gabba “Historians” 70–75; Millar Study 73– 118; Liebeschuetz Continuity 224–229; Gowing Narratives 28–31; Hose Erneuerung 433–436, “Das Geschichtskonzept Dios;” Ameling “Intellektuelle” 2482–2484; de Blois “Authors” 3391–3443, at 3405–3415, 3440–3443. 41. Cf. G.E.R. Lloyd, The Revolutions of Wisdom: Studies in the Claims and Practice of Ancient Greek Science (Berkeley, 1987), 1–49 (“The Displacements of Mythology”), esp. nn161–162. 42. For Augustan examples see 45.1.2 (the dream of Octavian’s mother Atia that she had been impregnated by Apollo); 56.29.1–6 (signs attending Augustus’ death). Prodigia and dreams in the History are listed by Smilda 532–542, 631–632. 43. Pace M.-L. Freyburger & J.-M. Roddaz, Dion Cassius Histoire Romaine Livres 48 et 49 (Paris, 1994), xxxi. 44. Pace Hose Erneuerung 433–436, who identifies the “irrational” as a major element in Dio’s work, though not an element that is given an historically effective or determinative role. Millar Study 77 thinks that Dio “really believed in” portents but plays down (anachronistically?) his use of them as “harmless and trivial, not affecting his treatment of events, and hardly deserving the scorn which some have poured on it.”

Introduction

9

were soundly practiced—by experts, not charlatans—Dio counted divination, astrology, and dream interpretation as departments of science as readily as we exclude them.45 There is no lessening of his use of these “documents” as he comes, in his thousand-year history, to events of his own time. If anything, he is even more intent on divining heaven’s mood, as well as on substantiating his view of history through fresh observations. Here it is essential to note that Dio registers not any and all signs and prophecies but “true” ones—those verified rationally. He often takes pains to certify these through argument or by adducing concurrent instances—like the eight coincident portents that foreshadowed Macrinus’ death.46 Apparently he felt no need to test the validity of his epistemology through an investigation giving equal attention to contrary evidence. For him a sign that was not fulfilled was selfevidently false and so irrelevant—like false symptoms in medicine.47 Congruently with the optimistic cosmology for which the later dialogues of Plato (e.g., the Timaeus) and Stoicism had provided a general basis,48 Dio seems to have viewed universe or nature as a moral being benevolently disposed toward humankind,49 and human affairs as played out under divine providence—qeiva provnoia/theia pronoia. Portents, prophecies, and dreams could be manifestations of this tutelage. Used by Dio in only three passages, the locution theia pronoia is the counterpart, on the divine plane, of the pronoia that he attributes, on the human plane, to beneficent rulers—like Claudius, whose forethought ensured Rome’s grain supply through construction of the Ostian harbor (60.11.1).50 Although Dio nowhere propounds a teleological doctrine expressly, in his preoccupation with the “theology” of history he leaves little doubt that, under providence, history had a direction or goal, a telos toward which heaven was shepherding it—though not a fixed and final end and clearly not some eschatological meta45. It is truer to Dio’s age to speak of primitive science than of pseudoscience. Cf. T. Barton, Power and Knowledge: Astrology, Physiognomics, and Medicine under the Roman Empire (Ann Arbor, 1994), 1–25; Barton, Ancient Astrology (London, 1994). 46. 78.25.1–26.1. For other clusters of portents cf. 56.24.2–5n, nine portents which led Augustus to conclude that some kind of divine wrath prompted the Varian disaster; 78.7.1–8.6, numerous portents and a dream foreshadowing Caracalla’s death; 78.30.1, celestial phenomena portending “very clearly” the soldiers’ coup that disastrously raised Elagabalus to the throne. 47. Cf. G.E.R. Lloyd, Methods and Problems in Greek Science (Cambridge, 1991), 351, on Plato’s and Aristotle’s concentration, as teleological thinkers, on essential evidence. 48. Cf. B.D. Shaw, “The Divine Economy: Stoicism as Ideology,” Latomus 44 (1985), 16–54 at 34–37. Though no philosopher, Dio was familiar with the main schools. Cf. 71.1.3, 35.1 (Marcus Aurelius’ Stoicism); 77.7.3 (Caracalla’s hatred of Aristotelians); clearly he knew Plato’s works (cf. 43.11.2–3, a reference to the Phaedo; 56.2.3n, Plato’s diction echoed). 49. The order and bounty of the universe provided an empirical basis for this view. The role of divine providence in Dio’s History pales, however, when compared with its role in Christian historiography. 50. Three passages. (1) At fr. 57.22 Dio challenges the assumption that prophecy and astrology reveal an inevitable future; he reserves for both “human ingenuity” and “theia pronoia” some power to shape the future (for example, by averting evil), which accordingly is not wholly determined. (2) At 56.4.4 he has Augustus criticize the celibate for being heedless of divine providence (qew÷n pronoiva"), bent as they were on extinguishing the Roman nation. (3) Cf. 7.23.8 (a sign that people believed had been inspired by theia pronoia). Elsewhere one finds expressions like oujk ajqeeiv, “not without heaven’s hand” (fr. 6.5–6); ejx ejpipnoiva" tino;" qeiva", “through a kind of divine inspiration” (78.8.2); ejk qeiva" tino;" paraskeuh÷", “with a kind of divine orchestration” (79.17.3). For human pronoia see, besides Claudius: Octavian/Augustus, 45.38.2 and 53.2.4; Vespasian, 66.11.1; Hadrian, 69.5.1; Pertinax, 73.5.2.

10

Introduction

morphosis. Rather the telos of history was a state of well-being—like prosperity or health or harmony—to be striven for or maintained (or lost). For Dio it amounted to an ecumenical order under the good and secure rule of Rome—specifically a monarchic Rome once the empire achieved a magnitude and diversity that a republican constitution could not sustain.51 Dio posits, at various points in the History, heaven’s “teleological” interest in the welfare of Rome, apparently as a worthy political and moral force promoting stability and virtue. It was “not without heaven’s hand” (oujk ajqevei), he writes, that Rome had been given Romulus and Numa, the one to train it in the arts of war, the other in the ways of peace (fr. 6.5–6). He has Julius Caesar, about to join battle with Ariovistus, galvanize his officers by recalling how Tyche had supported Rome in its rise and continued to support it (38.39.3).52 He relates, as an eyewitness, how, amid the trepidation over the looming civil war between Septimius Severus and Clodius Albinus, a huge crowd in the Circus was divinely inspired (e[k tino" qeiva" ejpipnoiva" ejneqousivasan) to raise in perfect unison calls for an end to suffering and war (75.4.2–6). At other times Dio notices heaven’s anger at those who set their face against its purposes. “Justice” (to; dikai÷on) and “heaven” (to; daimovnion) together promoted the deaths of Caesar’s assassins “for slaying their very own benefactor, one who had achieved such heights of merit and fortune” (48.1.1). He discerns heaven’s hatred of tyranny in a telepathic event that he certifies as historical: Apollonius of Tyana, holy man and miracle worker, though hundreds of miles away in Asia Minor, cried out before an assembled audience at the very moment Stephanus was assassinating Domitian in Rome (a.d. 96): “Nobly done, Stephanus, well done. Strike the foul killer. You have hit him, wounded him, killed him” (67.18.1).53 Alienated by Caracalla’s evil deeds and aims, he writes, the gods closed their ears to all the offerings, sacrifices, and supplications that he made to them in hopes of recovering his physical and mental health (77.15.5–7). Heaven’s hand was also discernible when with one voice the crowd in the Circus Maximus cried out “Hail, Martialis!” to a jackdaw cawing from the obelisk—the name of the assassin who had struck down Caracalla near Carrhae, apparently just the day before, news that would still take weeks to reach Rome from Syria (78.8.1–2).54 51. Dio’s view, I suggest, did not differ fundamentally from that of Polybius, for whom Rome’s geopolitical dominance was not achieved without “the activity of a power working towards a conscious goal” (F.W. Walbank, Polybius [Berkeley, 1972], 65). Plutarch held that the preference of providence for Rome, as bringer of peace and order for human benefit, meant privileging Rome in its contests with the Greeks, necessarily to the disadvantage of the latter, at least in the short run: Swain AJPh 110 (1989), 272–302, esp. 286–298, and Hellenism 151–161 (“Divine Rule and Roman Rule”). On Augustus as heaven’s instrument in bringing about the monarchy basic to the happy conditions of Appian’s day cf. J. Carter, ed., Appian, The Civil Wars (London, 1996), xxii–xxiv, xxix–xxxi; G.S. Bucher, “The Origins, Program, and Composition of Appian’s Roman History,” TAPhA 130 (2000), 411–458 at 429–442. 52. On the distinction between Tyche qua providential Fortuna—as here—and Hellenistic Tyche qua aleatory force cf. P.G. Walsh, Livy: His Historical Aims and Methods (Cambridge, 1963), 55–58. 53. All this, Dio says, really happened, “no matter if someone doubts it a thousand times” (67.18.2). Significantly, he calls the Apollonius episode “most paradoxical” (paradoxovtaton) (67.17.1): the more paradoxical the phenomenon the more clearly it evidenced god’s hand (cf. B.P. Reardon, “The Anxious Pagan,” Classical News and Views 17 [1973], 83–84). 54. Caracalla was killed 8 April 217 (78.5.4). Dio makes clear that the jackdaw episode occurred (1) after Caracalla’s death and (2) at circuses marking the anniversary of his father’s elevation to power: iJppodromiva/ 〈th÷/〉

Introduction

11

What room did Dio’s view of history as providential and telos-oriented leave for the operation of free will? Clearly a great deal. On the one hand, he often writes of events as somehow determined—inasmuch as heaven communicates foreknowledge of them. Speaking of Domitian’s overthrow, he says that no event of such magnitude is ever “unforeseen” (ajprovopton)55 but is attended by portents manifesting heaven’s interest or attitude. Heaven knew, and indicated with signs, that Octavian and Antony would prevail over Brutus and Cassius in their civil conflict (47.40.1–41.4). The three stars suddenly visible by daylight to senators (Dio among them) as they attended the newly enthroned Didius Julianus in front of the senate house (193) connoted the rivals who would take up arms against him—Septimius Severus, Pescennius Niger, and Clodius Albinus.56 On the other hand, Dio is far from conceiving history’s course as predestined mechanistically. In a precious text recovered from a millennium-old palimpsest he questions the assumption that prophecy simply foretells what is fixedly predetermined (fr. 57.22 [Boissevain 1.220 = Cary 2.134]): “After all what is the point of prediction if a thing is going to occur in any case and there can be no averting it whether by human ingenuity or divine providence?”57 His purpose here is not to discredit prophecy, which had predictive power, but to affirm that man or god has some ability to avoid or deflect what has been prophesied. In short, Dio’s universe admits both human and divine free will, so that, if the heaven-willed telos of a well-ordered cosmopolis under good Roman emperors was to be achieved, this could come to pass only through voluntary collaboration of humankind with heaven. It was open to human agents to second heaven’s purpose or to resist it. Dio pictures Octavian, victorious at Actium and Alexandria, as having a choice whether or not to accept the monarchy proffered by Tyche (52.18.3–4). Tyche cautioned Galba in a dream to stop vacillating over whether to accept the monarchy she offered him or she would approach someone else (64.1.2); here both goddess and mortal have free will.58 The triumvirs Antony and Lepidus aimed at sole power even though omens showed heaven’s preference for Octavian (47.1.1–3). Brutus and Cassius persisted in their struggle against Antony and Octavian despite heaven’s hostility (47.40.7–8). For Dio history was a web of many threads. Events in his History can be arranged along a spectrum from the divinely caused to fully independent and voluntary human actions. Although I have found no instance in Dio of a god entering history “in person” (he would probably not have admitted such a debasement of

th÷" tou÷ Seouhvrou ajrch÷" e{neka poioumevnh/ (78.8.1). Severus’ accession day was 9 April: see R.O. Fink, A.S. Hoey, & W.F. Snyder, “The Feriale Duranum,” YClS 7 (1940), 44–45, col. II line 3: ‘v idus apriles ob imperium di[v]i pii severi d[i]vo p[i]o [s]ever[o] b(ovem) m(arem).’ 55. 67.16.1; cf. 54.29.7. 56. 73.14.3–5. 57. The context is the Roman defeat at Cannae and a Sibylline oracle which said that, no matter what was done to prevent it, the disaster would occur as and where it did (Zon. 9.1.4–6). On the palimpsest see Boissevain 1.xvi–xxi; Cary 1.xix–xx. 58. There is an underlying assumption that either way Nero was destined to fall.

12

Introduction

divinity),59 he does record divine interventions mediated through physical or human nature: the desert-bound city Hatra preserved from Trajan’s assaults through storms sent by its patron god Helios (68.31.1–4);60 Roman forces saved from the surrounding Quadi thanks to a divinely sent rain (71.8.1–4, cf. 10.1–5); the emperor Elagabalus prompted by “divine orchestration” to give the name Alexander to his cousin Bassianus on adopting him as son (79.17.2–3). Heaven could also elicit human action by communicating its counsel or attitude through signs and prophecies. These encouraged Julius Caesar to pursue Pompey into the East (41.39.2–3). They also moved him to train Octavian for rule (45.2.7). At Philippi, Octavian’s life was saved because, in response to his physician’s dream, he entered battle in person, despite being sick, thus escaping the certain death that would have overtaken him had he remained in his tent, which was taken by the enemy (47.41.3–4, cf. 46.2). Heaven’s communications might of course go unheeded. It was after the event that Augustus grasped how many portents had attended the Varian disaster (56.24.1–5). People failed to take note of signs that revealed how far Tiberius’ reign would degenerate from Augustus’ (56.45.2). The fact is that quite few divine signs registered in the History seem actually to have inspired human action, let alone made an historic difference. What one finds on most pages is a down-toearth account of deeds done by human actors independently of heaven. In this secular domain Dio presents human nature, which he conceives pessimistically in Thucydidean terms, as a powerful force implicating people in a chronic struggle between primal individualistic urges (e.g., 55.16.3–4) and the rarer communityserving virtues of figures like Agrippa and Augustus, who therefore assume a special historical importance. Human nature is the most important single source of evil in Dio’s generally friendly universe.61 A critic of ironclad determinism, as we have seen, Dio leaves plenty of room for the operations of pure chance. An aleatory tyche—to be distinguished from the guardian spirit Tyche62—is a conspicuous factor in war, prompting Dio to oppose expansion or militaristic adventure. It dispenses success and failure indiscriminately, without regard for merit, turning even the total novice Gannys, Elagabalus’ tutor, into a victorious general (78.38.3; 79.6.1).63 On Dio’s reading of history the beneficent cosmopolis that Rome became owed its rise partly to divine pronoia, which oriented history toward this end, partly to men of high virtue who set in place the monarchic regime needed to govern a vast empire, curbing centrifugal and irrational forces hostile to Rome’s salvational mission. His reading also showed him that there was no guarantee of an enduring 59. To say nothing of the evidential problem. In their debates with pagans Christians found Jesus’ humanity a disadvantage (E.R. Dodds, Pagan and Christian in an Age of Anxiety [Cambridge, 1965], 118–119). 60. See also 75.12.4, Hatra again saved by Helios, who set Septimius Severus and his troops at cross-purposes. 61. On Dio’s pessimism about human nature cf. Reinhold Republic 215–217. On the divine plane, however, he discerned no duel of good versus evil, as between Ahuramazda and Ahriman. Though heaven was capable of anger (e.g., toward Caracalla: 77.15.5–7), it seems to have been incapable of evil. 62. Cf. Swain AJPh 110 (1989), 272–276, 301 (glossary). 63. Cf. 37.20.3 (Pompey); 56.11.1–2 (Germanicus); 56.37.5 (Augustus); 67.11.1.

Introduction

13

felicity. In his own lifetime he was distressed to witness Rome’s descent, precipitated by misrule and breaches of tradition, from Marcus Aurelius’ golden reign to “one of rust and iron” (71.36.4). He did not deem this trend irreversible, however. He retained some confidence in the restorative capacity of human intelligence (cf. fr. 57.22, ajnqrwpivnh/ peritecnhvsei) and presented in his History models and exempla through which, with heaven’s help, the decline might be braked and reversed.64 It is to his model par excellence, Augustus, that we now turn.

4. DIO ON AUGUSTUS’ PLACE IN ROMAN HISTORY The program of Dio’s magnum opus offers few surprises to a reader brought up on standard political histories of Rome. From Trojan and Latin origins and the rule of kings (Books 1–2) it passes quickly to the foundation of the Republic, the creation of new institutions, wars of survival against hostile neighbors, and relentless expansion through peninsular Italy (Books 3–10, to 265 b.c.). There follow the collisions with Carthage and the other great transmarine powers whose defeat gave Rome dominion over the Mediterranean world (Books 11–21, 264–146 b.c.). Although Books 22–35 of the History (145–70 b.c.) have been lost almost entirely, their exiguous remains indicate a denser narrative fabric and a slower chronological pace, dictated by the complex domestic and external crises that marked the period from the Gracchi to the coup d’état of Pompey in 70. From 69 b.c., where we at last have the Roman History intact, Dio’s focus is on the agonies of the Republic out of which Julius Caesar emerged with monarchic power only to fall to counterrevolution in 44 b.c. (Books 36–44). The next twelve books (45– 56, 44 b.c.–a.d. 14) contain Dio’s “Augustan” account, which is climaxed by two epochal events. One is Octavian’s victory at Actium in 31 b.c., which made him militarily and politically supreme, closing a century of civil strife. The other is his death and consecration, as Divus Augustus, forty-four years later, after orchestrating the succession and the continuation of the system he had established. There follows in Books 57–76 a gallery of the reigns of his successors from the advent of Tiberius in 14 to the death of Septimius Severus in 211, the original terminus of the History. Dio was later able to extend his narrative to cover the reigns of Severus’ successors Caracalla, Macrinus, and Elegabalus (Books 77–79, 211–222), and to add a highly personal epilogue sketching events from the accession of Severus Alexander in 222 to his own retirement in 229 (Book 80). The heart of Dio’s History is Rome’s convulsive passage from Republic to Principate, to which he devoted over a third of his entire work.65 Its protagonist is 64. Though not by a simple reaction to the past, as novel reforms in the program that he has Maecenas advocate show. Cf. Ameling “Intellektuelle” 2484: “Alles in allem haben wir also wohl das Recht, die Maecenasrede als Zeichen dafür zu nehmen, dass Dio keinen zwangsläufigen Weg in den Untergang oder zu weiterer Verschlechterung sah.” 65. Although Dio’s text does not survive (even in epitome) for Books 22–35 (145–70 b.c.), we know that he treated events of 91 b.c., on the eve of the Social War, in Book 28 (fr. 96.4 = Boissevain 1.340 = Cary 2.460 = I.

14

Introduction

Augustus, whose monarchy brought deliverance: “He put a complete stop to civil strife and reorganized the state for the best, strengthening it mightily” (56.44.2). Dio’s estimate meets few protests today: indeed, the majority of scholars in the past century have taken a positive (if less zealous) view of the Augustan Principate—more under the influence of the Roman History than is sometimes acknowledged. The synoptic judgments of F.E. Adcock in CAH1 10.583–606 (1934), D. Kienast in Augustus 526–527 (1999; repeating the view of his 1982 edition), D. Shotter in Augustus Caesar (London, 1991), and N. Purcell in OCD3 216– 218 (1996) are simply a few cases in point.66 Syme’s The Roman Revolution (1939), for all its subversive impact, has not managed to unseat Augustus.67 Still, Dio’s choice of Augustus’ rule as paradigmatic for his own age should not be seen as inevitable. By the time he came to compose the History, two centuries had passed, and the canonical authority of Augustus’ achievement had receded. There were other emperors with virtues to imitate, including Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, and Marcus Aurelius.68 Also other architectural showpieces to rival Augustus’ Forum and Mausoleum—the Colosseum, the Baths and Forum of Trajan, and the Mausoleum of Hadrian. After Galba the imperial mints saw decreasing symbolic capital in references to Augustus.69 From the mid-second century the name ‘Antoninus’ acquired a charisma reminiscent of that enjoyed earlier by ‘Caesar,’ prompting Severan emperors to construct fictive Antonine descent for themselves.70 In scope and aim Dio’s developed Augustan paradigm is a departure from anything that one finds in the surviving works of his second-century Latin or Greek precursors. Tacitus’ despotic Augustus is a negative model. Suetonius focuses on

Bekker, ed., Anecdota Graeca [3 vols.; Berlin, 1814–1821], 1.136, 30), so that events from that date forward to Augustus’ death (104 years) occupied twenty-nine of his eighty books. For a book-by-book summary of the History see Hose Erneuerung 360–363. 66. Cf. J. Crook in CAH2 10.123–146 (a less biographical assessment than Adcock’s). See also the essays of Z. Yavetz & W. Eder in Raaflaub & Toher Republic; J.M. Carter, “Augustus down the Centuries,” History Today 33 (1983), 24–30. 67. On Dio’s views on Augustus and his reign see Manuwald Dio 273–284; Gabba “Historians,” esp. 70–75; Reinhold & Swan “Assessment” 155–173; Gowing Narratives 57–59, 90–93; Hose Erneuerung 427–432; de Blois “Authors” 3412–3415, 3440–3443. Cf. Millar Study 83–102. 68. According to SHA Pesc. 12.1, Pescennius Niger admired—besides Augustus—Vespasian, Titus, Trajan, Antoninus Pius, and Marcus Aurelius, a list that is germane, even if fictional (cf. A.R. Birley in ANRW 34.3.2742). Elagabalus claimed both Augustus and Marcus Aurelius as models (79.1.3). Cf. Dio’s own generally very favorable sketches of Trajan (68.6.2–7.5) and Hadrian (69.5.1–7.4); his account of the reign of Antoninus Pius is almost totally lost. Augustus was sometimes made an exemplum in bad causes. Septimius Severus’ legions demanded a donative of 10,000 HS after occupying Rome, on the ground that Octavian had given his troops this sum (SHA Sev. 7.6; 46.46.5–7, under 43 b.c.); Severus cited Augustan precedent in justifying his own harsh security provisions (75.8.1); Elagabalus likened his own precocious accession to power to Octavian’s (79.1.3). 69. Briefly, J.M. Carter, “Augustus down the Centuries,” History Today 33 (1983), 25–26. Cf., however, A.R. Birley, Hadrian: The Restless Emperor (London, 1997), 147 on Hadrian’s introduction of the style ‘Caesar Augustus’ on coins, abbreviating his previous style ‘Imp. Caesar Traianus Hadrianus Aug.’ The message was, in Birley’s view, that Hadrian “wished to be seen as a new Augustus.” 70. ‘Antoninus’ was used in the styles of Marcus Aurelius, Commodus, Caracalla, Diadumenianus (son of Macrinus), and Elagabalus. Septimius Severus advertised himself as son of Marcus Aurelius. ILS 469 traces Elagabalus’ descent back to Nerva! See Kienast Kaisertabelle. Cf. SHA Sev. 19.2–3, 22.2; Car. 8.10; Diad. 5.5; Heliog. 1.4–7.

Introduction

15

Augustus’ person and administrative style rather than, as Dio, on his transcendent role in Roman, and so universal, history.71 Florus’ portrait is a miniature— though like Dio he sees Augustus’ pacific and imperial achievements as climaxing Roman history.72 Appian discerns in Augustus’ rule the root of Antonine stability and prosperity, instancing a powerful and enduring monarchy, the name Augustus, and the succession.73 But he stops far short of Dio’s extended treatment. For Appian, the consummation of good government achieved under Antoninus Pius rendered a reformist project like Dio’s superfluous. The telos of history had already been attained in the Antonine present,74 and Appian did not survive to see the felicity ruined.75 Dio was not bound, in short, when he came to compose the History, to choose Rome’s first emperor as his exemplar. Marcus Aurelius was an obvious candidate, who despite a weak constitution “surpassed as ruler all those who ever exercised dominion” (71.34.2 [Exc. Val.: a[rista dia; pavntwn tw÷n ejn kravtei tini; genomevnwn hj r¿ xe; Xiph.]). In Dio’s Augustanism we should see, more than the continuation of a tradition, a reinvention of Augustus and his rule as the standard for the Severan age. What prompted Dio to reach back to Augustus was surely his disappointment at seeing the Antonine age of gold descend into misrule, civil war, and social distemper, and his recognition that a fresh vision was needed.76 It was to blaze a trail out of present troubles that he composed his History and, within it, explicated comprehensively the principles of the Roman imperial system (including a central role for his senatorial caste), preaching through narrative, oration, excursus, and authorial commentary an Augustan gospel which, if implemented mutatis mutandis, could reverse Rome’s decline.77 The Augustan paradigm, which may have recommended itself to Dio because it blended reality with idealism, was aimed at rejuvenating the state, once more at risk, “for the better and surer” (53.19.1). Dio stands apart in presenting Augustus’ rule not just as an historic watershed or a golden age to be visited nostalgically but as a systematic guide for the Severan 71. On Dio’s limited interest in exploring the historical personality of Augustus see Reinhold & Swan “Assessment” 173. Cf. C. Pelling, “Biographical History? Cassius Dio on the Early Principate,” in Portraits: Biographical Representation in the Greek and Latin Literature of the Roman Empire, ed. M.J. Edwards & S. Swain (Oxford, 1997), 135–144. 72. Cf. Hose Erneuerung 96–103, 122–123; Gowing Narratives 282–283. 73. E.g., Appian B Civ. 1.5–6; cf. 4.16. Cf. Gowing Narratives 57–58, 90–93; J. Carter, ed., Appian, The Civil Wars (London, 1996), esp. xxix–xxxi. 74. G.S. Bucher, “The Origins, Program, and Composition of Appian’s Roman History,” TAPhA 130 (2000), 429–442. Cf. J. Dillon, “Plutarch and the End of History,” in Plutarch and his Intellectual World: Essays on Plutarch, ed. J. Mossman (London, 1997), 233–240: Plutarch (writing over a generation before Appian) deemed that in his own day, through the success of the Roman Empire, a “perfect” world state had been achieved that put an end to strife—and so to “history.” If at any time in his life Dio embraced such a confident teleology, subsequent events disabused him of it. 75. Cf. K. Brodersen, “Appian und sein Werk,” ANRW 2.34.1.356: “Den Aufstieg der römischen Welt kannte Appian, ihren Niedergang noch nicht.” 76. In choosing Augustus over Marcus Aurelius, Dio may have reasoned that Marcus had not faced the same immense challenges and that he was a continuator more than a founder. Also, to hold up his moral perfection to an age of iron might have sounded hollow. The evil consequences of Marcus’ leaving his son Commodus to succeed him may also have given Dio pause. 77. Speech: e.g., the Agrippa-Maecenas dialogue in Book 52; excursus: notably that on the imperial “constitution” in Book 53; commentary: e.g., 56.44.2n.

16

Introduction

present, embracing imperial constitution and ethos, administration and social order, metropolis, armed forces, provinces and frontiers, and succession. The Augustan paradigm is introduced with an evangelical fanfare that the reader must not miss. Although the staple of Dio’s narrative in Books 45–56 (44 b.c.– a.d. 14) is some fifty, often jejune, annalistic year-accounts, it is less through this thread (important as it is in marshaling concrete and dated information) than through the overarching mass and configuration of the twelve-book segment that he generates his redemptive monarchy. The segment opens (following Julius Caesar’s death) with the political advent of the eighteen-year-old savior, manifestly anointed by divine favor (45.1.1–2.8, in summary): From Octavian’s lineage and the high hopes placed in him by Julius Caesar, Dio moves to an ample account of signs heralding the child’s destiny as Rome’s ruler, including dreams of his mother Atia, his father Octavius, Cicero, and Catulus, an astrological forecast of the learned senator Nigidius Figulus, and a portent signaling ominously that Octavian would have the dignity of the Senate beneath his feet—signs that persuaded Caesar to provide him with the training and education he needed “if he was to exercise such great power well and rightly.” The climax of Dio’s narrative of the passage from Republic to monarchy is Augustus’ victory at Actium (Book 50), which is presented with epic, even apocalyptic, pomp as the cardinal event in Roman history. Together with the conquest of Egypt (Book 51), it clears the way for the creation of a novus status. This is prefaced by an Olympian set debate between Agrippa and Maecenas, held in Augustus’ presence, on the issue of “Republic versus monarchy,” in which the latter cause, advocated by Maecenas, prevails (Book 52). Following an account of how the Augustan monarchy was founded and administered (Book 53) Dio proceeds in mainly annalistic mode through most of the reign (Books 53–55) before shifting, in its final years (a.d. 9–14), to a more dramatic and spacious treatment closed majestically with obsequies, consecration, and obituary judgments, including his own final verdict on Augustus (Book 56). Fundamental in Dio’s presentation of the Augustan regime, as Gabba has shown,78 is a grounding in history of the “universalist” ideal of a harmoniously integrated ecumenical state under the good king, characterized, for example, in Pliny’s Panegyricus, Dio of Prusa’s orations “On Kingship” (Or. 1–4),79 or Aelius Aristides’ To Rome. This conjunction of ideal with history gave a heightened authority to Dio’s narrative constructed from concrete materials found in his sources as well as from the Augustan heritage still legible in the institutions, law, government, military organization, and monuments—and even the taxes—of his own day.

78. Gabba “Historians” 67–75. 79. On the orations “On Kingship” cf. C.P. Jones, The Roman World of Dio Chrysostom (Cambridge, Mass., 1978), 115–123.

Introduction

17

Having chosen his model monarch, Dio faced the awkward problem of reconciling his choice with the violent and deceitful acts Augustus had perpetrated— as Octavian—in the struggle for survival and supremacy down to Actium. His solution was to allow, realistically, that good men, his model included, were capable of evil acts, given their human nature.80 There were few who could emulate Marcus Aurelius, genuinely virtuous throughout his life (71.34.5).81 We find Dio now criticizing Octavian’s conduct in his contests with Sextus Pompey, Lepidus, and Antony, now palliating it—even his part in the proscriptions—by appealing to the pressure of events: “Even though some rather violent deeds were done, as commonly happens in extraordinary circumstances, it would be fairer to blame events than Augustus.”82 Less than an exoneration, this is the apologia of a Severan age realist, himself a survivor of civil war, who acknowledged that the end could justify the means: the monarchic constitution created by Augustus was worth some cost in human suffering. His misdeeds may even have served to make him more credible as a model in the unlovely Severan age. In sum, Dio found in the mature Augustan monarchy a divinely favored, universally salutary culmination in the historical process, the best touchstone for reform in his own day, not less valid for the fact that his paradigmatic monarch had usurped power. He shared neither Livy’s nostalgia for the lost Republic nor Tacitus’ aversion to Augustus’ regime as dominatio.

5. HOW DIO COMPOSED HIS ACCOUNT OF AUGUSTUS’ REIGN (31 b.c.–a.d. 14) The reader of the Roman History from the morrow of Actium to Augustus’ death, i.e., Books 51–56, encounters a heterogeneous pastiche: some sixty year-accounts of widely variable character and length (from under twenty lines to over 500), entailing a medley of subgenres ranging from bare catalogues of events through dramatic military narratives to grandiloquent set speeches. How is one to approach this miscellany? In what follows I sketch the materials and methods that Dio used in composing it as the basis for an assessment of his historical authority that takes account of the critical adjustments needed as he shifts from subgenre to subgenre, each bringing its special problems as to source, reliability, and significance.83

5.1 Dio as a Roman Annalist The constant that more than anything else gives order to the disparate elements that constitute Dio’s narrative in Books 51–56 is the unbroken chain of year80. At 55.7.1–3 Dio presents Augustus as naturally prone to anger but reined in by the outspokenness of friends like Maecenas. Cf. 66.18.4–5 on how through good deeds done over a long life Augustus overcame his early ill repute. 81. Cf. 71.34.4, Marcus Aurelius’ view, approved by Dio, that since one cannot change people one must make use of their virtues and tolerate their vices. 82. Criticism: e.g., 49.12.1 (Lepidus), cf. 36.1; palliation: 56.44.2n. Cf. Reinhold & Swan “Assessment” 158–160. 83. Many topics treated here are handled at length in Swan “Augustan Books.”

18

Introduction

accounts, each recording a characteristic (if variable) set of state-centered events under the centuries-old structure of Roman annals, often in the dry chronicle style of that genre. These year-accounts reflect annalistic imperatives that originated in the quality and rhythms of public life under the Republic. But they are at the same time Dio’s own compositions, shaped, sometimes elaborately, by the interplay of his purposes with traditional material. His modus operandi can be defined helpfully through a comparison of year-accounts in the Roman History with those of the other two extant Roman annalists, Livy and Tacitus. Livy’s Books 21–45 (218–167 b.c.) offer our earliest surviving example of the Roman annalistic genre. He regularly orders the material of his year-accounts in three sections. After the naming of the ordinary consuls, a first section treats urban affairs, mainly public, from the New Year forward to the campaigning season. (I designate this urban section “A” in the following discussion.) A second section, the transition to which is clearly indicated, narrates external affairs, especially the summer’s military operations. (I designate this external section “B.”) The third section is a coda, for which I use the term “end chapter,”84 recording a residue of urban events, more often than not from toward the year’s close or periodically recurrent, for example, elections of magistrates for the next year and affairs of state religion such as the succession of priests, festivals, dedications of public edifices, and official prodigies. (I designate the end chapter “C.”) This presumably traditional structure of year-accounts can be summarized as follows: Registration of the eponymous consuls A Urban affairs forward from the New Year B External affairs, featuring military campaigns C Residue of urban affairs = “end chapter” The regularity with which this A B C pattern recurs in Livy can be shown by analyzing a sample of his year-accounts. If one takes arbitrarily every fifth year starting with 215 b.c., only two of ten instances prove to be variant: 205 b.c. with a structure AB1CB2 and 185 with a structure BC.85 Tacitus, while in general observing this traditional pattern, varies it far more than Livy.86 His usage in Annals suggests how the annalistic genre evolved under the Principate in the hands of different authors treating different subject matter. Sometimes he alters the standard order of sections (e.g., a.d. 19, BAC). Sometimes he omits one (or even two) of the three, notably the middle section on external affairs (B), war having ceased to be the constant it was under the Republic (e.g., a.d. 23, AC). No longer are end chapters (C) an obligatory feature, being 84. I owe this term to Ginsburg Tradition. 85. The structure of 175 b.c. is unclear because of lacunae; although the start of 170 is lost, what remains points to the traditional pattern. See in detail Swan “Augustan Books” 2535 n30. 86. On Tacitus see Ginsburg Tradition.

Introduction

19

omitted in certain years, though given prominence in others as the prime location for obituary notices. We also find Tacitus superimposing a regnal rhythm on the annual rhythm of republican history, in keeping with the dominant role the Princeps had come to play; thus Books 1 and 13 of Annals begin with an imperial accession rather than a New Year. In the nearly one hundred extant year-accounts in Dio’s History from 69 b.c. to a.d. 46 one finds, despite Greek style and Thucydidean model, basically the same annalistic organization as characterizes his Latin precursors. Vestiges of Roman annalism can also be discerned intermittently even where the History survives only in epitomes—signaled, for example, by consular dates as early as the wars against Pyrrhus and Carthage and as late as the Flavian emperors.87 Before and after this Dio appears to have followed a different plan.88 Still, Dio arranges the traditional three elements with great freedom, departing from the Livian norm even more than Tacitus. He uses the standard tripartite pattern (ABC) only very exceptionally.89 This is largely from a need to treat most years compendiously—his work covered over two centuries more than Livy’s in about half the space. Opting generally for fluent narrative as opposed to choppy chronicle, he looks for ways of mitigating the fragmentation inherent in annalistic structure. In some year-accounts he achieves this by curtailing the tripartite form (with its alternation of urban and external material) so as to present just urban material (leaving only A and C or only A). External material not treated under its proper year he may treat resumptively in the military narrative (B) of a subsequent year-account—a device also found in Tacitus. (See sec. 5.3.) The annalistic form that Dio adhered to in the greater part of the History leaves no doubt as to his reliance on annalistic sources for the schedule of dates and events fundamental in annals. It is highly improbable, given the chronological scope of his work, that he had time to work up his annals from scratch.90 That he chose to compose them Roman-style was no doubt a matter of practical convenience rather than literary preference. Whether written by senators (like Fabius Pictor or Tacitus) or others (like Livy), annals also recommended themselves to Dio as sources because in their Romanocentrism they focused on the kind of elite public history that preoccupied him, with senators and Senate as protagonists. Dio’s end chapters (C).91 A feature of Dio’s annals that corroborates our picture of him as reliant on Roman annalists and also illuminates his method of composition is how he employs the third element in the traditional year-account.

87. E.g., Zon. 8.5.7–8 from Book 10; 67.14.5. Detail in Swan “Augustan Books” 2526. 88. In Dio’s account of the Empire the regnal frame impinges progressively on the annalistic: cf. C. Questa, “Tecnica biografica e tecnica annalistica nei libri 53–68 di Cassio Dione,” Studi Urbinati 31.1–2 (1957), 37–53. By the second century a.d. it prevails without the competing annalistic cross-rhythm. 89. See Swan “Augustan Books” 2527–2529 (table 1: The structure of Dio’s Augustan year-accounts). Of the fully extant year-accounts from 31 b.c. to a.d. 14 only 8 b.c. has the standard Livian ABC structure. 90. Swan Phoenix 41 (1987), 277. 91. Extended treatment in Swan “Augustan Books” 2535–2543.

20

Introduction

It has gone largely unnoticed that end chapters exist at all in Dio’s History. Still, they can be detected in some years92 thanks to formal similarities that they share with end chapters in Livy and Tacitus, notably: 1. final position in the year-account;93 2. typical end chapter content, including: obituary notices for major figures like Octavia or Maecenas; noteworthy acts by “junior” magistrates, particularly aediles and tribunes; the successions of magistrates in midyear or of priests; portents, disasters, relief measures, dedications, public works, or festivals.94 3. use of Greek equivalents of Latin temporal phrases employed by Livy and Tacitus in introducing end chapter bulletins: e.g., ejn . . . tw÷/ e[tei ejkeivnw/ (43.48.1), kajn tw÷/ aujtw÷/ e[tei (57.16.3), ejp! ejxovdw/ h[dh tou÷ e[tou" o[nto" (48.32.1), kajn tw÷/ aujtw÷/ touvtw/ crovnw/ (54.36.1); cf. eo anno, eodem anno, in exitu iam annus erat, per idem tempus.95 These features can be found, for example, in the end chapter (C), here summarized, of Dio’s year-account for 11 b.c. (54.35.4–36.1): ejn de; tw÷/ e[tei ejkeivnw/ (cf. Latin eo anno): marriage of Julia and Tiberius; death and obsequies of Octavia kajn tw÷/ aujtw÷/ touvtw/ crovnw/ (cf. Latin per idem tempus): appointment of a Flamen Dialis; safekeeping of senate decrees transferred to quaestors from tribunes and aediles Some twenty such end chapters can be made out in Dio’s extant year-accounts between 65 b.c. and a.d. 44, on average about every fourth year.96 There are also several year-accounts in which a casual residue of standard end chapter material is discernible, though one cannot call these remnants end chapters (C) in any full and organic sense of the term.97 What flags them is the occurrence of the odd item typical, in both position in the year-account and content, of end chapters. For instance, Dio cites achievements of two subconsular urban magistrates in closing the urban section (A) of 25 b.c. (53.27.6); he closes the urban section (A)

92. See Swan “Augustan Books” 2537 n39 for a list of all identifiable end chapters in Dio; there are six in Books 51–56, under 23, 15, 11, 8 b.c., a.d. 6, and 12. 93. Note, however, that a few of Dio’s nineteen end chapters (C) occur medially, i.e., between the urban section (A) and the external section (B) rather than at the end of the year-account. The rationale for such departures, which to my knowledge are not found in Dio’s predecessors, is literary—to shift the external section (B) to the final position in the year-account so that the narrative of foreign affairs can flow without interruption into the next year, where he places foreign affairs first. In this way, for example, Dio has the Parthian campaign of Crassus bridge the year-accounts of 54 b.c. (pattern ACB) and 53 (pattern BA). See Swan “Augustan Books” 2541; cf. sec. 5.3. 94. Details in Swan “Augustan Books” 2538 and n40. 95. For a fuller list of phrases cf. Swan “Augustan Books” 2538 n41. 96. Swan “Augustan Books” 2537 n39. 97. Detail in Swan “Augustan Books” 2541–2542, including a list of remnants.

Introduction

21

of 21 b.c. with an incident occasioned by the Feriae Latinae (54.6.6), another characteristic end chapter topic.98 The intermittent occurrence of end chapters, or remnants of these, in over thirty year-accounts, taken together with their absence from the majority, is perhaps best explained on the assumption that Dio used this kind of material ad libitum as he was converting notes taken from his annalistic source(s) into narrative. Where a year-account contains no end chapter material he may simply have jettisoned the whole end chapter that he found in his source, or reworked it so radically that its signature features have been lost; sometimes his source may have presented no end chapter. What we find, in sum, is that in composing the urban sections of his annalistic year-accounts Dio’s method was rudimentary—to quarry material in annalistic predecessors, in both their main urban accounts (A) and their end chapters (C), and to reduce and reorder this to serve his purposes (for Dio’s method in composing external sections [B] see sec. 5.3). This he did with a good deal of authorial license, though without thoroughly assimilating his borrowings. His modus operandi is revealed with special clarity if one compares his curt end chapters with those of Livy and Tacitus. He did what he found it expedient to do in executing what to our knowledge was the most extensive narrative of Roman history ever written on a comparable scale. He seems not to have regarded himself as an “artistic” exponent of the annalistic tradition (as Ginsburg Tradition argues that Tacitus was). It is rather at the architectonic level that Dio most reveals his historiographic interest and program, notably in how he makes the rise and rule of Augustus the culmination of his History.

5.2 Annalistic Sources On what sort of annalistic work(s) did Dio draw in composing his account of Augustus’ reign in Books 51–56 (31 b.c.–a.d. 14)? My approach to this question has been to isolate for analysis the core of urban annalistic material in his text, secluding all material used in elaborating this core, such as anecdotes, speeches, excursuses, editorial remarks, or developed narratives—and also postponing analysis of his sections on external affairs (for which see sec. 5.3). By core I mean the characteristic, densely factual material of the same type as forms the core of the year-opening sections (A) and end chapters (C) in the Latin annalists Livy and Tacitus. Dio, I posit, did not fundamentally reconstitute this kind of annalistic material, so that we can expect his text to be closer to his source(s) here than where we find marks of extensive artistic intervention. There is wide agreement among scholars, based on the texts of Livy and Tacitus, about the inherent nature of urban annalistic material.99 Typically, it treats public affairs, presented in discrete bulletins (not fluent narrative) dry in style, dense

98. The structure of these two year-accounts might be represented as BAc and AcB respectively, with lowercase c used to indicate the vestigial end chapters. 99. Cf. Swan Phoenix 41 (1987), 273 n6.

22

Introduction

in detail, and proper to the year in question. Standard items (though these vary from Republic to Principate) are: the passage of laws, transactions in the Senate, dedications, state honors, successions of magistrates and priests, dynastica (under the Principate), festivals, spectacles, congiaria, achievements of magistrates both consular and subconsular, and elections.100 By separating out and collecting the urban annalistic material in Books 51–56 that fits this stricter definition, one can assemble a “corpus” containing (normally) one or two101 clusters taken from each of the extant year-accounts—a corpus substantial enough to be amenable to source criticism.102 From what kind of annals does this Augustan corpus derive? The refined detail, germane to Dio’s interest in high politics and administration and annually ordered, bespeaks a rich urban annalistic quarry that allowed him substantial material to draw from.103 He is able to report in their proper year esoteric events that it is hard to imagine surviving oblivion except in an ample source; for example: how many beasts of what kind were slain at whose show in 23 b.c. (53.27.6); the holding of a by-election for curule aediles in 14 b.c. (54.24.1); how in 13 b.c. Tiberius, presiding in the Senate, put the question first to Cornelius Balbus honoris causa (54.25.2); the election of supernumerary praetors in a.d. 11 (56.25.4); the assignment of lictors to various boards (54.8.4, 10.2; 55.25.2); arrangements for the midterm replacement of a plebeian aedile in 23 b.c. or a governor of Achaia in a.d. 6 (53.33.3; 55.27.6). Although we have no other annalistic account of the reign of Augustus with which to compare Dio’s, we can learn a good deal by comparing urban annalistica in his History and in Tacitus’ Annals for the two years immediately following Augustus’ death, sc. 15–16 (after which comes a large lacuna in Dio’s text). Although this brings us into the next reign, no striking disparity is apparent between the urban annalistica in Dio’s year-accounts preceding 14 and the urban annalistica in his accounts of 15 and 16.104 The latter consist of typical material, including many items of senatorial business, presented in the annalistic manner. Close comparison of Dio’s urban annalistic sections for 15 and 16 with those of Tacitus for the same years reveals that, though briefer, Dio’s are often no less dense and precise in their detail than Tacitus’. He supplements Tacitus on certain senate events that both treat;105 he also relates certain senatorial episodes that do not appear at all in Tacitus (57.14.4, 5 under 15; 57.16.1, 2 under 16).106 100. Several of these I have already noted as typical in end chapters. 101. Normally the two consist of the main urban annalistic segment (A) plus an end chapter (C). 102. For a comprehensive account of this “corpus” in Books 51–56 see Swan Phoenix 41 (1987), 273–277, 289– 291. It features votes of powers, honors and military distinctions, spectacles and benefactions, princely careers, senate reviews, creation or modification of magistracies and boards, and dedications of temples and monuments. 103. Dio sometimes indicates that he has reduced the material available to him: 53.19.6, 22.1; 54.23.8; 55.3.2; 56.27.4. 104. I exclude from this comparison Dio’s account of 14 (death of Augustus, advent of Tiberius), which bridges Books 56 and 57. Extraordinary in structure and scale, it defies an analysis that would serve any purpose here. 105. For example, in treating the Senate’s measures against astrologers following the conspiracy of Libo Drusus in 16, Dio records a motion of Cn. Calpurnius Piso (cos. 7 b.c.) vetoed by a tribune (57.15.8–9) that is not found in the corresponding text in Tac. Ann. 2.32.3. 106. Such divergence speaks against Dio’s using Tacitus as a source here.

Introduction

23

The number and quality of the details in Dio, when compared with those in Tacitus, suggest that his annalistic source for 15 and 16 cannot have been much, if at all, less ample than the account of these years in the Annals. Rather than posit that, on reaching the reign of Tiberius, Dio forthwith furnished himself with a much fuller annalistic source, we should assume that he already had a substantial source at hand when composing the preceding Augustan account—in all likelihood the same source. In fact the dense senatorial detail in his account of Augustus’ reign and of the opening years of Tiberius’, where we have (briefly) Tacitus’ Annals as a control, may warrant a hypothesis that, like Tacitus, Dio’s unknown source(s) had access to the acta senatus in some form. It would be guesswork to put a name to Dio’s main annalistic source for the reign of Augustus. A case can be made, however, for its also being a source for Suetonius’ Augustus and Tiberius. Several urban annalistic texts in Dio so closely parallel passages in these lives as to indicate a source in common,107 clearly an annalist in light of what has already been established and one who predated Suetonius. In Dio the parallel annalistic texts stand under the year in which the events they relate occurred. In Suetonius, however, they have been redistributed by theme. For example, Dio registers the renaming of the month Sextilis after Augustus under 8 b.c. (55.6.6– 7); Suetonius mentions it in his Augustus under the theme of reforms in the state religion (Aug. 31.2). Dio registers the dedication of Castor and Pollux by Tiberius under a.d. 6 (55.27.4); Suetonius includes it in his Tiberius in a section devoted to Tiberius’ career after his adoption by Augustus in a.d. 4 (Tib. 20). In Dio our parallel texts range over virtually the whole period of Augustus’ reign; in Suetonius they occur under ten different rubrics, eight in his Augustus, two in his Tiberius. This suggests systematic quarrying by both authors in a common annalist.108 That Dio’s urban annals strike the reader as thin when compared with those in Livy and Tacitus is mainly the result of his abridging his annalistic source(s), not of his lacking ample annalistic material. In fact Livy’s and Tacitus’ annalistic works offer the best available models of the kind of source Dio used (even though he appears not to have drawn on either of these authors extensively, if at all). In general scholars can afford to be less reserved about Dio’s testimony in those characteristic annalistic texts that are indispensable for our knowledge of the Augustan settlement and that provide the continuous chronological chain to which we attach the other ingredients of Augustan history found in literary sources, coins, inscriptions, papyri, and the archaeological record.

5.3 Accounts of External Affairs Dio’s external sections,109 the second element (B) in the standard three-part annalistic narrative pattern (ABC), are remarkably diverse. The twenty-three that 107. See Swan Phoenix 41 (1987), 286–288, with a table of parallels. The fact that each author supplies certain details not given by the other weakens the case for positing Suetonius as Dio’s source. 108. Our annalist is likely to have written in Latin seeing that he was a source in common to Dio and Suetonius, took close interest in senatorial minutiae, and arguably had access to the acta senatus. Cf. Swain Hellenism 404 n17, who doubts that “Dio himself used Roman historians as sources.” 109. See further Swan “Augustan Books” 2543–2548.

24

Introduction

survive in Books 51–56 range in length from six or eight lines to over 400; in genre from merest bulletin to variegated literary composite; in style from jejune to pyrotechnic; in historicity from solid reliability to plausible fiction. I use the label “abstract” of all but the most elaborate of these since they are evidently the product of Dio’s abridging fuller external accounts provided by his source(s). It is on the “abstracts” that I focus here. Factually concentrated, pedestrian in style (with few exceptions), they generally run less than fifty lines.110 Though always anchored in their proper year, they sometimes exceed its chronological limits, as Dio subsumes related events from one or more preceding years—or occasionally runs ahead to future events. His aim in doing this is to mitigate the year-to-year interruptions of narrative flow that are inherent in the annalistic genre. Concern for narrative flow also explains why he departs in many year-accounts from the standard ABC pattern (as noted in sec. 5.2), placing the external section (B) last in one year and first in the next so that his story can continue on seamlessly (except for passing notice of the installation of new consuls). One of several instances of this device (which is also found in Tacitus) can be observed in 12 and 11 b.c. (54.31.2–32.3; 54.33.1–34.7), where Dio adopts the year-account patterns AB and BAC respectively, with Drusus’ German operations bridging the two years. Tracking the history of the far-flung Roman empire in a compendious work obliged Dio to make a ruthlessly efficient selection from his collected materials and often to crowd events of more than one province or frontier into a given external account, even a brief one. The 58-line external section for 11 b.c., for example, registers events in several regions from Germany to Asia Minor (here summarized topically): 54.33.1–34.7, external section (B) under 11 b.c. Drusus’ campaign of 11 in Germany (narrative continued from 12) Tiberius’ suppression of Dalmatian and Pannonian rebellions; Dalmatia (= Illyricum here) made an imperial province “In these same times” (ejn de; dh; toi÷" aujtoi÷" touvtoi" crovnoi") a great rebellion of the Bessian Vologaeses in Thrace L. Piso (cos. 15 b.c.) sent from “Pamphylia” against the rebels Piso’s campaigns (lasting three years according to Vell. 2.98.2, plausibly 13– 11 b.c.)111 and victory honors Dio’s method has obvious disadvantages. Extreme compression leaves room for only the most rudimentary prosopography or ethnography; provincial administration and society get short shrift; accounts of wars focus on commanders in chief, generally to the exclusion of lieutenants.

110. In Books 51–56 seven accounts are under 20 lines long; nine run between 20 and 49 lines; four between 50 and 99; one each between 100 and 199, 200 and 299, 400 and 499. Detail in Swan “Augustan Books” 2545 n61. 111. For 12–10 cf. Syme RP 2.878–879.

Introduction

25

Still, something important is achieved. Dio manages to treat synoptically the various history of the evolving Roman empire through Augustus’ long reign by locating a selection of major events and developments that touch war, diplomacy, administration, cities, and dependent states in a secure geographical and chronological framework indispensable for any reconstruction of Augustan external history. Thanks to this we get some sense of the empire as an organic entity and of the tectonic changes affecting it; for example, the stiffening of ethnic resistance in the later reign of Augustus, culminating in the rebellions in Illyricum and Germany from a.d. 6, and the offsetting Roman policy shift from expansion to retrenchment. Markedly different from Dio’s “abstracts” are his extended narratives; for example, those that reach their climax in the battles of Pharsalus (41.44.1–63.6), Philippi (47.20.1–49.4), and Actium (50.6.1–35.6). These are characterized, besides their length, by elevated style and often a composite structure admitting subgenres such as the set speech or excursus. They generally involve a major artistic intrusion by Dio, sometimes Thucydidean in inspiration. For all their length they are quick to subordinate historical detail to dramatic effect whenever Dio’s overriding purpose is to charge with historical meaning an event or development that he has identified as cardinal. Here it can be a mistake to look for factual precision. The two instances of extended narratives from Augustus’ reign, both in Dio’s external section for a.d. 9, form a diptych, one recounting Tiberius’ successful siege of Andetrium, which consummated the Illyrian war of a.d. 6–9 (56.11.1– 17.3), the other the Varian disaster in Germany which followed within days and spoiled the prince’s Balkan victory (56.18.1–24.5).112 Both content and structure of Dio’s external accounts are best explained by assuming that he drew for his material mainly on the sort of annalist we have posited as the main source for his urban annalistic sections,113 an annalist who had marshaled external events in a kind of chronological-geographical grid amenable to Dio’s purpose and convenience. Plausibly the same annalist informs for the most part both external and urban sections. If this is right, he generally provided Dio with fuller external material than could be incorporated in the History114—grounds for confidence in the basic soundness of Dio’s accounts of externa. That Dio was prepared to abridge external annalistic material no less ruthlessly than urban is confirmed by a statement that he makes under a.d. 6,

112. I am uncertain why Dio chose to compose these two high-flown narratives in such close sequence. To profile events that defined the Rhine-Danube frontier for the distant future? The long external section of 30 b.c., which features Augustus’ conquest of Egypt and Alexandria (51.4.3–18.3), does not fit the same mold. It is generally much less elevated in style and more informative. Also, it fuses with external material elements that in normal times would have been registered in the urban section: for the present the Roman political capital was wherever Octavian was. 113. The generally favorable attitude toward Tiberius as a military commander in Dio’s Augustan books can suggest that his main source for the external accounts wrote in Tiberius’ reign (there are, however, certain hostile passages, on which see 55.31.1n). 114. Cf. Millar Study 90–91, suggesting similarly that where Dio treats Augustan military history his sources “were fuller than the version he gives.” Millar may not be right, however, in suggesting that Dio’s accounts of the Pannonian revolt and Varian disaster were “taken in full from Dio’s source,” given our historian’s propensity for artistic elaboration.

26

Introduction

when confronted with a surfeit of externa (55.28.2–3): “I will not go minutely into all the wars. Many events not worth mentioning occurred in each, and a detailed account would be of no value. But I will relate events that deserve to be recorded, summarizing them [keûalaiwvsa"], unless they are of great moment.”115 We can see in what follows under this year (55.28.3–30.6) how Dio implements his method. He gives the merest bulletins about the suppression of Isaurians in Asia Minor and Gaetulians in Africa and about three campaigns in Germany under Tiberius (a.d. 4–6) before presenting in detail, as an event “of great moment,” the outbreak of the vast rebellion in Illyricum that brought Rome’s northeastern frontier into jeopardy. The extreme to which Dio is prepared to carry abridgment is revealed when he records Tiberius’ third German campaign—his abortive invasion of Bohemia in 6—without naming either the Marcomanni or their king Maroboduus, who were his main targets; they are merely “Germans” (55.29.1, cf. 30.1).116

5.4 Speeches Fourteen debates, dialogues, and single speeches survive from the intact portions of Dio’s History, many others in abridgment or excerpt.117 The earliest belong to Rome’s origins, the latest is spoken by Marcus Aurelius.118 Books 51–56 contain five: the Republic-versus-monarchy debate between Agrippa and Maecenas (52), Octavian’s recusatio imperii (“abdication”) of 27 b.c. (53), the dialogue of Livia and Augustus on clemency (55), Augustus’ denunciation of childlessness (56), and Tiberius’ laudatio over the dead Augustus (56). The fact that speeches occupy about a quarter of Dio’s fully extant books (36–54) indicates how fundamental a constituent of historiography he deemed them to be. Hard to classify, they may serve to explicate a situation (e.g., the aftermath of Caesar’s assassination [Cicero versus Calenus]), monumentalize an historical turning point (e.g., Actium [Antony versus Octavian]), or profile an issue (e.g., individualistic celibacy [Augustus]).119 Far more than the narrative, which is anchored in his sources, Dio’s speeches are free creations, the subgenre of historiography that offered him the greatest evidential and literary latitude. The pains he took with them are apparent in the relentlessly elevated style, the decorous reminiscences of Plato and particularly Thucydides, and in conceits, wordplay, highly wrought sentence structure, 115. In other words he will treat these last amply. Cf. 48.13.1 (on the Perusine War): “I will omit most of the operations—those in which nothing important or notable was achieved—but will recount summarily those that most deserve mention.” 116. Velleius’ account offers a striking contrast (2.108.1–110.3). 117. Select bibliography: F. Millar, “Some Speeches in Cassius Dio,” MH 18 (1961), 11–22, esp. 11–15, a survey; Millar Study 78–83, 100–101; van Stekelenburg Redevoeringen; Gowing Narratives 225–245 (“Speeches”). Cf. A.J. Woodman, Rhetoric in Classical Historiography: Four Studies (London, 1988), 11–15 and nn (on how far speeches in ancient historiography could depart from speech-events). 118. For lists see Smilda 474–476 and Schwartz “Dio” 1718–1719 (Millar Study 78 n1 notes two omissions). 119. Cicero versus Calenus, “evidently an attempt to sum up in the two balanced speeches the complex political situation at the beginning of 43 b.c.:” Millar Study 52–55; Actium: Reinhold Republic 105–112; celibacy: on 56.2–9.

Introduction

27

displays of theatricality, and Atticism to the standard of the Second Sophistic.120 Showy productions, aimed equally at self-presentation (cf. sec. 2) and at energizing history, the speeches can strike the modern reader, who at a distance of eighteen centuries is a stranger to the ethos of performance (epideictic) oratory, as self-indulgent and hyperbolic.121 They make a better impression if read with sympathetic imagination on their own terms as an idiom of ancient rhetorical culture and historiography. The speeches set by Dio in Augustus’ reign offer a mélange of characterizations, situations, and viewpoints that makes them a challenge to interpret. Notably hard to plumb are the dynamics of Augustus’ recusatio imperii, which Dio presents archly as a charade that duped the senators into consolidating Augustus’ monarchic position; here Dio’s cold realism and irony jar with the tendency of his narrative to idealize the mature Augustus and his new regime. The flamboyant Augustus of this oration is hard to reconcile with the timorous Augustus of the clementia dialogue.122 Dio may treat the same theme from different perspectives in different speeches, certainly not always from his own. Agrippa urges Octavian to return the magistracies (ajrcav") to the People, i.e. to have popular elections (52.13.1); Maecenas urges him never to have the People assemble for trial or election or to transact any other kind of business (52.30.2); Tiberius praises the dead Augustus for preserving the prerogative of elections for the People (56.40.4, ajxivwma tw÷n ajrcairesiw÷n). Speaking for himself, Dio explains how Augustus made sure that elections went his way (53.21.6–7; cf. 55.34.2). As sources of Augustan history Dio’s speeches are of negligible value. None has an authenticated content; only two are convincingly contextualized—Augustus’ recusatio imperii and Tiberius’ funeral oration.123 The single most important source of the historical material in the speeches was evidently what Dio remembered from his own narrative. Rarely does he adduce fresh information.124 Even the references to his narrative are sparse and hackneyed. A mere two dozen Roman persons are adduced, mostly household names like Romulus, Horatius, Marius, Sertorius, Pompey, Lepidus, and Brutus. Of foreign names, apart from the ubiquitous Heracles and Alexander, all are prominent in the narrative, like Pharnaces, Juba (of Numidia), and Phraates IV. In reviewing the achievements of Augustus in his laudatio, Tiberius refers exclusively to events and institutions from the narrative.

120. On the style of the speeches see A.W. Lintott, “Cassius Dio and the History of the Late Roman Republic,” in ANRW 2.34.3.2500–2501; on Atticism, Swain Hellenism 43–64 (“The Practice of Purism”), 407. Cf. Philostr. VS 2.31.624 = Loeb p304, praising Aelian: though a Roman, he “wrote Attic like Athenians in the heartland” (hjttivkize dev, w{sper oiJ ejn th÷/ mesogeiva/ !Aqhnai÷oi). 121. Impatience with set speeches is not confined to modern readers. Diodorus Siculus, who censures their excessive or impertinent use (while including them in his own work), observes that some readers of history skip the speeches “even if they seem entirely up to standard” (20.1.4). 122. Cf. Lucian Hist. Conscr. 58: “If ever you have to introduce someone to give a speech, have him say what is especially appropriate to his character and suitable to the occasion.” 123. Dio cannot be shown to have followed an historical speech in composing the recusatio (53.3–10), though there no doubt was one. Suetonius attests Tiberius’ laudatio on Augustus (Aug. 100.3) but says nothing of its content. 124. Cf. 52.9.2, a remark on the Greek experience with republics and monarchies.

28

Introduction

The speeches do, however, have the historical function of canonizing events that Dio deems of high importance—raising his narrative to the level of these events.125 They invest the first emperor and his regime with a transcendent significance, highlighting the transition from republican to monarchic rule that set ecumenical history on a safer, better course, one for Dio’s own age to follow. They perhaps also serve to illustrate Augustus’ metamorphosis from the cunning strong man of the recusatio imperii to the ideal ruler who baffled opponents with clementia, and with paternal providentia strove to secure Rome’s future by enjoining Romans to marry and procreate. Certain Augustan speeches are vehicles of Dio’s thought, treating overarching policy concerns, as he constructs the past to instruct the present. This is the case with Maecenas’ speech in Book 52 addressing the proper quality of monarchy and monarch, and with Livia’s sermon in Book 55 presenting imperial clementia as the key in reconciling the safety of the emperor with the aspirations and liberties of senators. It would be mistaken, however, to take the speeches as intended primarily to propagate Dio’s own views.126 This is obviously not the case with the speech in which Agrippa advises Octavian to restore the Republic, to which Maecenas gives a monarchist response. Nor is it the case with the laudatio funebris on Augustus, in which Dio has Tiberius extol the achievements of the deceased emperor (as the genre demanded) to the point of conflict with his own narrative. For a consular historian who experienced as a senator the vicissitudes of eight reigns, the susceptibilities of the court, where his project was known, inevitably had an inhibiting effect on the content and tenor of set speeches. Those in Books 51–56 are nothing if not politically safe. I have detected in them no allusion demonstrably critical of any Severan emperor, even Caracalla. All the speakers belong to the regime; none challenges radically the premise that monarchy was the key to the prosperity and security of Rome’s immense empire. Agrippa’s proposition that Octavian restore the Republic is sanitized—voiced by the ever loyal adiutor in a cabinet setting. Besides, his cause is lost, and his deference to Octavian’s contrary decision underscored.

5.5 Date of Composition Writing near the seat and on the theme of imperial power, Dio was ever awake to the shifting political and social dynamics of Severan Rome. The reader of his Augustan narrative, which is pivotal in the History, needs to make as accurate a determination as possible of what these dynamics were at the time of composi125. Although Diodorus Siculus criticizes set speeches that reduce history to an annex of rhetoric, he nonetheless acknowledges their utility in conserving memorable utterances serviceable to history and in ensuring that the narrative is not unworthy of the events it relates (ouj perioratevon ejlavttona tw÷n e[rgwn ûanh÷nai to;n lovgon) (20.1.1–2.2). 126. Cf. Millar Study 78–83. Gabba “Historians” 70–71 finds Dio’s original thought “first and foremost in the speeches,” though also “in the sections describing institutions or administrative problems.”

Introduction

29

tion—a determination that entails the larger (and controversial) question of when he composed his work as a whole.127 On this larger question the best evidence is a well-known “editorial” on the genesis of the History, inserted at a watershed in the narrative between the assassination of the emperor Commodus and the ensuing time of troubles 193–197 (72.23.1–5 [Xiph.]): 1 Great wars and civic conflicts occurred after this. I composed the history of these because of the following circumstances. I had written and published a booklet on the dreams and signs that led Severus to set his hopes on imperial rule. 2 Having come upon my booklet (I had sent it to him), he wrote me a long, handsome reply. After receiving this when it was already near evening, I fell asleep, and as I slept the daimonion bade me write history. This is how I came to write about the events with which I am now concerned [sc. the “great wars and civic conflicts”]. 3 And since my account greatly pleased (among others) Severus himself, I formed at that time [tovte dh;] the desire to record everything else to do with the Romans. This is why I decided not to leave that account separate any longer but to incorporate it in this history and thus bequeath to posterity in a single treatise a written account of everything from the very beginning to whatever point suits Tyche. 4 It is seemingly my lot to have this goddess as the overseer of my life’s course, and I am accordingly her devotee. She encourages me to do history whenever I waver and shrink before the task and revives me through dreams if I am weary and ready to give up, and holds out to me fair hopes that future time will allow my history to survive and in no way bring it to oblivion. 5 I collected all the achievements of the Romans from the beginning down to the death of Severus in ten years and wrote up their history in another twelve. As for what follows, it will be recorded to whatever point this is possible. Dio explains, in sum, that he undertook the History following successes with two minor works, the first a booklet, clearly encomiastic rather than historical, on the “dreams and signs” that had inspired Septimius Severus (ruled 193–211) with the expectation of achieving the purple, the second a monograph on the civil struggle from which he emerged supreme in 197. To the History, which he composed next, 127. Select bibliography on the chronology of composition: Reimar 2.1536; Schwartz “Dio” 1686–1687; Vrind De Vocabulis 165–168; Gabba RSI 67 (1955), 289–333; Millar Study 28–40; Eisman Latomus 36 (1977), 657– 673; Letta “Composizione” 117–189; Rubin Propaganda 41–84; Barnes Phoenix 38 (1984), 240–255; Reinhold Republic 11–12; Rich 3–4; Edmondson 25–28; Hose Erneuerung 424–427; Swan “Augustan Books” 2549–2556; Schmidt “Dio” 2618–2625; Murison Rebellion 8–12.

30

Introduction

Dio tells us he devoted ten years of research, then twelve years of writing in carrying his narrative forward from Rome’s beginnings as far as Severus’ death, that is, in completing Books 1–76. Inconveniently, Dio (or his epitomist Xiphilinus) has left unsaid when these twentytwo years of research and composition began or ended, an oversight that has prompted modern scholars to propound various chronologies aimed at synchronizing Dio’s historiographic activity with political events. These chronologies of composition fall into distinct groups, “early” and “late,” between which middle ground is hard to find. Millar’s chronology represents one of two types of the “early” school. He posits 197–219 as the twenty-two years that Dio spent on research and writing, on the assumption that it was upon Severus’ conclusive victory in 197 over Clodius Albinus that he composed his civil war monograph, then, buoyed by its success, turned soon to his History (Study 28–30).128 Other chronologies of the same type have Dio launch himself into history somewhat earlier, before Severus eliminated the challenge from Albinus.129 Proponents of a second type of “early” chronology, running some years later than Millar’s, fasten onto the literal sense of Dio’s statement that he “collected all the achievements of the Romans from the beginning down to the death of Severus in ten years” (72.23.5): since he cannot (it is argued) have completed this decade of research on Severus’ reign before the emperor died in 211, he cannot have begun it before 201 or concluded his whole twenty-two-year project before ca 223. Reimar, the eighteenth-century editor of Dio, for example, dates composition 201– 222 (2.1536); Vrind posits 201–223 at the earliest (De Vocabulis 166–167), as does Rich (3–4).130 Perhaps thanks to its simplicity, this type of chronology is that most often followed. Although their method is flawed,131 its proponents have hit upon a solution that is near the mark—as I conclude below. The “late” chronologies, whose prime advocates are Letta and Barnes, diverge sharply from the “early,” generally by a decade or more. These two scholars put less weight (arguably too little) on Dio’s account of how he came to write the History than on references to contemporary events found scattered through his narrative. Book 49, under 35 b.c., provides the most remarkable instance:132 here Dio refers to the 128. For criticism cf. G.W. Bowersock, Review of Millar Study in Gnomon 37 (1965), 470–473. He stresses the fact that on Millar’s chronology “Dio will have collected the material ‘down to the death of Severus’ by 207, four years before Severus’ death.” 129. Schwartz “Dio” 1686; Gabba RSI 67 (1955), 295–301; Schmidt “Dio” 2605–2625. These date the period of composition respectively ca 194–216, 196–218, and 195–217. 130. Cf. J. Carter in Scott-Kilvert 19–20 (ca 203–ca 226); Edmondson 27 (202–222). 131. The flaw lies in using a terminus post quem of 201 for the start of composition (based on 72.23.5, “down to the death of Severus in ten years”) almost as if it were a fixed date. In fact 72.23.5 also provides by implication a terminus ante quem of 206 (at the earliest) in that Dio could have started composition in that year and still completed Books 1–76, after 22 years, in 228, and Books 77–80 by 229, when he is still attested among the living (if he lived beyond 229, a correspondingly later terminus ante quem would be implied). In crowding the inception of research toward the terminus post quem of 201, scholars are caught in a contradiction—rejecting the Millar type of early chronology but using the same evidence as he adduces (75.23.1–3) to push their own chronology as early as possible in the 201/206 range. Even their terminus post quem of 201 is open to question. Cf. Swan “Augustan Books” 2550 n82, 2555 n104. 132. For a circumspect list of “detectable references” see Barnes Phoenix 38 (1984), 247–251; cf. Letta “Composizione” 157–185, who claims to have identified “at least fifteen texts, distributed through Books 38 to 72, that cannot have been written before the reign of Severus Alexander” (183).

Introduction

31

governorships in Africa, Dalmatia, and Upper Pannonia that he held in the six or so years immediately preceding his second consulship in 229 (49.36.4; cf. sec. 1). On “early” chronologies of both types Dio had finished his twenty-two years and seventysix books (including a fortiori Book 49) before he completed these provincial posts— on chronologies of the Millar type even before he took them up. Whereas proponents of “early” chronologies must explain this reference as a revision inserted by Dio years after he completed Books 1–76, for Letta and Barnes it was made in the course of original composition. For Letta, Book 49, with its references to Dio’s later career, was composed not in the 210s (with Millar), but after Dio’s governorship in Upper Pannonia, i.e., “after 227 or 228” (“Composizione” 167). Thus the “late” chronologies set the history of composition on a radically different basis, rejecting the view that an early terminus post quem for Dio’s project can be discerned in his “editorial” at 72.23.1–5, and substituting a bold premise: “Analogy and convention imply that he [Dio] cannot have contemplated a history down to 211 (72.23) while Septimius Severus lived: history was written about dead emperors, for the living deserved panegyric—which Dio had already provided in his two quasi-historical opuscula” (Barnes Phoenix 38 [1984], 252). Making Severus’ death in 211 the terminus post quem for the start of Dio’s whole project, Barnes schedules the composition of Books 1–76 in 211–231 at the earliest, Letta in 212–234.133 Both, it follows, locate the twelve-year writing phase largely or wholly within the reign of Severus Alexander (222–235), under whom Dio’s career reached its acme in a series of provincial posts and the ordinary consulship held in 229 with the emperor as his colleague.134 The “late” chronologies are gravely vulnerable on two grounds. First, they collide with the natural sense of Dio’s editorial narrative at 72.23.1–3. This reads best on the assumption that he came to history in the turmoil or immediate aftermath of the civil wars of 193–197 that were his first historical subject, then, inspired by the approval that his civil war monograph won from Severus and others, turned to his magnum opus—soon (note tovte dhv in 72.23.3!) rather than after a pause of a decade or more during which he failed to act on the inspiration. Second, although one might readily concede to advocates of “late” chronologies that Dio would not have contemplated ending his History with events of 211 before Severus’ death in that year, they fail to uphold the presumption, essential to their view, that he cannot have started his research before 211. His project was not a biography of the emperor but a “history of all that the Romans have done worth recording both in peace and in war” (fr. 1.1 [Boissevain 1.12]).135 Also, it makes 133. Barnes dates the decade of research as 211–220 on inclusive reckoning, the twelve years of writing as 220–231; cf. Letta’s 212–222, 222–234. 134. The chronology of Barnes is endorsed by Birley Septimius 204; Swain Hellenism 402 n5. For criticism see, for example, Schmidt “Dio” 2620. 135. Letta and (more cautiously) Barnes have attempted to buttress their terminus post quem of Severus’ death by adducing Dio’s report of a dream in which the emperor encouraged him in his historical undertaking (78.10.1–2). They locate this dream after Severus’ death, during the joint rule of Caracalla and Geta in 211 (with most scholars). But I have argued in “Augustan Books” 2549–2555 (an argument too long to repeat here) that the dream with its reference to Dio’s work belongs before Severus’ death. From this it follows that his death in 211 is a terminus ante quem for the inception of the History and cannot be used as the terminus post quem. If this argument is right, it cuts the ground from under the “late” chronologies.

32

Introduction

better actuarial sense to have Dio initiate his enormous project in his mid-thirties with Millar and Reimar than at 47 or 48 with Barnes and Letta. My own provisional chronology, which I have followed in charting Dio’s life, career, and writings in sec. 1, is unequivocally of the “early” type and rests on three premises. First, the genesis of the History and of the two lesser works that preceded it is best located in the aftermath of the civil war that ended in 197. To a greater or lesser extent all three originated in Dio’s seeking and winning the approval of Septimius Severus at that juncture. Although something can be said for the view that Dio wrote his dreams-and-signs booklet to grace Severus’ accession in 193, so early a date for this act of homage is hard to square with the fact that, on the eve of the final conflict between Severus and Clodius Albinus in 197, we find Dio not in Severus’ following but still, at least ostensibly, guarding his neutrality (75.4.2: “Now with the world in turmoil on this account we senators were keeping quiet—as many as had not gone over openly to one or the other to share their perils and hopes . . .”). In short, there is reason to doubt that Dio composed his booklet before Severus’ final victory; equally to doubt that after that victory he would have let slip for long the chance to make amends for his neutrality. Second, I take Dio’s editorial at 72.23.1–3 as showing that he undertook his three works in close sequence. Third, in sec. 5.6 I will argue, partly on the basis of variance in Dio’s coverage of the two centuries after Augustus, that he completed and published Books 1– 76 ca 222, on the threshold of the reign of Severus Alexander. Should that be right, he had started work ca 200. Date of composition of Books 51–56. Whether one adopts the Millar or the Reimar variant of the “early” chronologies—or mine—Dio’s decade of research falls wholly within the reign of Septimius Severus (Millar 197–207; Reimar 201– 211), while the twelve years of writing (Millar 207–219; Reimar 211–222) overlap or coincide with the reigns of Caracalla, Macrinus, and Elagabalus. If, for the sake of argument, we assume that Dio wrote up Books 1–76 in serial order and at a steady pace, he will have produced on average six to seven books a year and will have come to Augustus’ reign and Books 51–56 after some eight years of writing, i.e., ca 215 under Caracalla on Millar’s chronology, on my chronology or Reimar’s ca 218 or 219 under Macrinus or Elagabalus. These six books should not have occupied Dio for over a year,136 so that he will have given them their final shape in the season of personal alienation attested in his embittered accounts of Caracalla and Elagabalus in Books 77–79, which he added to the History under Severus

136. Seriatim composition was not necessarily Dio’s method. According to Lucian Hist. Conscr. 48 some historians first wrote a rough draft (uJpovmnhma) which they then organized and adorned. If Dio employed this method, he may have sketched his Augustan narrative rather earlier and worked it up rather later. Cf. Barnes Phoenix 38 (1984), 251–255.

Introduction

33

Alexander (222–235). He disparages neither of these bêtes noires in his narrative of Augustus’ reign; clearly he did not dare while either ruled.137

5.6 On the Publication of Dio’s History Although Dio says nothing of his intentions regarding publication, on the act that precedes and presupposes it, the absolute completion of his work, we have his own words (80.5.2–3, after Cary): I departed for home [Nicaea in Bithynia], having been excused [by the emperor] because of an affliction of the feet, to spend all my remaining life in my native city, as heaven [to; daimovnion] surely revealed to me unmistakably when I was by this time in Bithynia. For I once dreamt that I was commanded by it to write at the very close [ajkroteleutivw/] of my work these verses: “Hector anon did Zeus lead forth out of range of the missiles, / Out of the dust and the slaying of men and the blood and the uproar” [Hom. Il. 11.163–164]. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, there is no strong reason to doubt that, after marking finis to his monumental project, Dio turned to the natural sequel, its publication, the essence of which may have been the sending of copies to friends, associates, or patrons.138 These acts need not have followed by a long interval the closing of the manuscript—though even the roughest of calculations suffices to suggest how large a scribal task would have been entailed in producing copies longhand with ancient materials and instruments. Of subsequent reproduction and circulation of the History in antiquity there is very little trace.139 But something can be made of the fact that its eighty books were at some point equipped with indexes listing the contents of each book and appending a brief chronology, which takes the form of a consular list in the surviving indexes of Books 37–57, 59, and 79.140 When the indexes were composed is uncertain. At the very latest by ca 500, since in a fragmentary uncial manuscript of that era Book 79 of

137. The latest datable contemporary reference in Books 51–56 is at 55.24.2, where Dio locates Legion I Adiutrix in Lower Pannonia, its province only after the boundary between Upper and Lower Pannonia was redrawn in 214, incorporating the legion’s base Brigetio in the latter (see on 55.24.1–4; Map 5; Millar Study 209– 210; cf. Barnes Phoenix 38 [1984], 247–251). This reference is readily explicable as originating in Dio’s twelve-year writing phase (on any “early” chronology). If, as I suspect, there is a critical allusion to the emperor Macrinus in the obituary on Maecenas under 8 b.c. at 55.7.4n, we have in his rule (217–218) a terminus post quem for composition of this passage. 138. For “publication” in this sense cf. P. Petit, “Recherches sur la publication et la diffusion des discours de Libanius,” Historia 5 (1956), 479–509 at 484: “Publier, c’est à cette époque répandre parmi ses amis un certain nombre de copies.” On publication in antiquity see in general A.F. Norman, “The Book Trade in Fourth-Century Antioch,” JHS 80 (1960), 122–126; R.J. Starr, “The Circulation of Literary Texts in the Roman World,” CQ 37 (1987), 213–223; OCD3 249–252 on “Greek and Roman books” (H. Maehler); D.S. Potter, Literary Texts and the Roman Historian (London, 1999), 29–35. 139. Nothing of Dio has survived on papyrus. 140. Many works, including histories (for example, those of Diodorus and Eusebius), were equipped with indexes in antiquity. See RE 20.1472–1475 = Pivnax (Regenbogen). Cf. the introduction to Book 55.

34

Introduction

the History is headed by an index.141 Still, the utility of indexing Dio’s huge work may not have taken so long to recognize. Possible occasions for the production of indexes were the arrivals of his work in substantial state, civic, or private libraries that had the skilled scribal and material resources needed to reproduce the eighty book-rolls, equip them with reliable keys to their contents, and encase them properly.142 The indexes seem not to be by Dio’s hand (or that of his amanuensis).143

Dio’s “Editio Princeps” As well as the “very close” (ajkroteleuvtion) of his project (80.5.3), Dio records, in his editorial on its genesis and schedule, his arrival at an earlier terminus, the completion of the History as far as the death of Septimius Severus in 211 (72.23.5): “I collected all the achievements of the Romans from the beginning down to the death of Severus in ten years and wrote up their history in another twelve. As for what follows, it will be recorded to whatever point this is possible.”144 This is the notice not just of a milestone passed but of a goal accomplished in some final sense. Having recalled, in the preceding sentences (72.23.1–4), how he came to his great enterprise, Dio now defines its execution in terms of coverage, years invested, and method. The task had been complex and immense—a millennium of history, seventy-six papyrus rolls, the equivalent of perhaps 2,500 modern pages. Except insofar as he intended to supplement it (72.23.5), this was nothing less than the realization of his monumental History, and we should see in his words a kind of farewell to the “editio princeps,” one addressed to a readership that was immediate rather than far off in the future. The idea that Dio published Books 1–76 forthwith fits what we know of him: active, extroverted, not hampered by self-doubts, with views of his own and the 141. Codex Vaticanus Graecus no. 1288 preserves the text of 78.2.2–79.8.3, covering the reigns of Caracalla (in part), Macrinus, and Elagabalus (in part). See Boissevain 3.iii–ix; C.M. Mazzucchi, “Alcune vicende della tradizione di Cassio Dione in epoca bizantina,” Aevum 53 (1979), 94–139 at 94–122. 142. G. Cavallo, “La trasmissione dei ‘moderni’ tra antichità tarda e medioevo bizantino,” Byz. Zeitschr. 80 (1987), 325–329 posits, as a vital stage in the transmission of imperial historiography, a fourth-century cultural “salvage” program under the auspices of Constantius II in Constantinople which provided for the copying of historians for preservation in the imperial library. Although we have no direct evidence that Dio was a beneficiary, such a program could have led to the equipping of his books with indexes. Cf. G.W. Houston, “The Slave and Freedman Personnel of Public Libraries in Ancient Rome,” TAPhA 132 (2002), 139–176. 143. This is the scholarly consensus, which goes back at least to Reimar 2.1538. He notes inter alia that the consuls in the indexes are often recorded “not just incorrectly but otherwise than in the very text of the History.” For an instance see 55.22.3n. But cf. A. Favuzzi, “L’ultimo libro di Cassio Dione,” Quaderni di storia 30 (1989), 189–197, who argues that the extant index of Book 80 (“reformed” book number), which treats events of 218– 222, was composed at the same time as the text, since it lists no event from Dio’s epilogue covering 222–229 (Book 80 on “standard” numbering) as might be expected if it had been compiled after the epilogue. 144. Located between the death of Commodus on the last day of 192 and the ensuing years of conflict, this editorial was clearly inserted out of time, given its reference to the completion of the History as far as 211. What ultimate event (if any) Dio originally planned to reach when he embarked on his project he nowhere states unambiguously. On “early” chronologies, which date its inception no later than ca 202, he can hardly have conceived making Severus’ future death his terminus. That he aimed at reaching some climactic point in the reign is of course a possibility. Other provisional termini cannot be ruled out, however; for example, the death of Marcus Aurelius or the death of Commodus, the sequel of which he had already treated in his civil war monograph. But the decision to complete his work as far as 211 before proceeding beyond that was no doubt prompted by the actual death of Septimius Severus. Cf. Schmidt “Dio” 2619: “Der Tod des Severus den Historiker bei seiner Arbeit überrascht— und ihm nun zugleich einen vorläufigen Endpunkt seiner ‘Römischen Geschichte’ bietet.”

Introduction

35

will and ability to communicate them, one for whom the History, to which he had devoted the prime of his life, was a sacred charge from his patron-goddess and his assurance of immortality (72.23.4). He could not know how much more history Tyche would grant him to write—as it turned out, the supplementation of the editio princeps with Books 77–80 amounted to under 5 percent. He had in any event already shown himself to be a “publisher.” Of his booklet on the signs and dreams that forecast rule for Septimius Severus he says expressly that he “published” it (ejdhmosiveusa) and dispatched a copy to the emperor (72.23.1–2). He refers indirectly to the publication of his monograph on the “great wars and civic conflicts:” it was its favorable reception by “Severus among others” that had inspired him to undertake the History (72.23.3). Still another argument bears out the notion of an editio princeps of Books 1– 76 and may provide a clue about its date. Unlike Livy, who covers events amply as he comes to the more recent past (his narrative of 91–9 b.c., the last year treated, occupies half of his 142 books), Dio, after covering the reign of Augustus, the Julio-Claudians, and the Flavians (31 b.c.–a.d. 96, Books 51–67) at an average rate of seven to eight years per book, markedly accelerates his coverage, treating the Antonine emperors (96–192, Books 68–72) at a rate of nineteen years per book. In his account of Commodus’ reign (180–192), he undertakes to treat all succeeding events of his own time (ta¿j lla pavnta ta; ejp! ejmou÷ pracqevnta) in greater detail as a participant in them (72.18.4). Yet he fails to make good consistently on this pledge. Although he devotes five books (72–76) to the thirty-one years from Commodus’ accession to the death of Severus, a substantial part of this segment is given over to the civil wars of 193–197, where he tells us that he has grafted his civil war monograph onto the History—a shortcut that suggests haste.145 On either standard or reformed book divisions (cf. Notes for the Reader) Dio devotes a single book (72, standard) to Commodus’ twelve-year reign and a single book to the last nine years of Severus’ reign (76, standard). Lack of material or loss of interest cannot explain this general acceleration. Dio was apparently hurrying against a self-imposed deadline. Did high hopes inspired by the advent of Severus Alexander in 222, supplanting the loathsome Elagabalus, inspire him to speed his work to an appropriate conclusion with the death and apotheosis of the first Severus, whose advent he had dignified with two works a quarter century earlier? No such urgency is in evidence when later Dio treats Septimius Severus’ successors Caracalla, Macrinus, and Elagabalus in his continuation of the History. Here his rate of coverage slows abruptly to four years per book (211–222; Books 77–79). In sum, Dio’s History, comprising Books 1–76 and covering events to the death of Severus in 211, was originally “published” in an editio princeps, on Millar’s chronology ca 219, on Reimar’s (or my own) ca 222. No longer extant, it is to be distinguished from a second edition comprising Books 1–80 and touching events 145. “I decided not to leave that account separate [ijdiva/] any longer but to incorporate [ejmbalei÷n] it in this history” (72.23.3). Clearly some revision was required, on which see especially Rubin Propaganda 41–84.

36

Introduction

as far as Dio’s retirement in 229—the source of the modern text of Dio, its now truncated state notwithstanding. In preparing his second edition Dio made some changes to his editio princeps. But these appear to have been few. None can be positively identified in Books 51–56. Cf. Appendix 13 (“How Much Did Dio Alter the Editio Princeps of his History in Preparing its Second Edition?”).

6. THE TEXT OF BOOKS 55–56 We owe the survival of Books 55–56 of Dio’s History to a single parchment codex of the eleventh century, now in Venice, 251 folios long, “in large and very beautiful minuscules.”146 Codex Marcianus no. 395 is truncated front and back; it is also severed by many lacunae, so that only thirty-seven (72 percent) of the original fifty-one folios devoted to Books 55–56 remain. The losses have produced four gaps in Book 55, amounting in all to ten folios (ca 500 lines), and four one-folio gaps in Book 56 (ca 200 lines in all).147 Some parts, usually small, of the missing texts can be retrieved from works of mediaeval Byzantium that used Dio’s History as a source or quarry. The most important of these are works of Xiphilinus and Zonaras, containing abridged versions of our two books, and the tenth-century Excerpta Constantiniana.148 Our main resort where the Codex Marcianus fails is the Epitome of Dio of Nicaea’s Roman History composed by the monk Johannes Xiphilinus on the commission of the Byzantine emperor Michael VII Doukas (ruled 1071–1078).149 It abridges Books 36–80 of Dio from Pompey the Great to Severus Alexander, devoting a section to each “ruler,” headed by his name.150 What most interested Xiphilinus and influenced his choice of material was the character and conduct of rulers (often as illustrated in anecdote) and the transmission of power. Hence his focus on dynastic figures in Books 55–56, including the elder Drusus, the elder Julia, the princes Gaius and Lucius, Livia, the future emperor Tiberius, and Germanicus (besides Augustus). Although he reduces Dio’s text severely, Xiphilinus reproduces nearly verbatim what he takes from it (as comparisons made where both texts are extant show).151 At the same time he does not hesitate to jettison what might not interest his eleventh-century audience, including much 146. Boissevain 1.lxviii–lxxiv. The first surviving folio starts at Dio 44.35.4, the last breaks off at 60.28.3, both in midsentence. Manuscripts of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries containing Books 55–56 have no significant independent value in establishing Dio’s text. 147. On the lacunae see the introductions to Books 55 and 56. 148. On the sources of the text of Dio’s History see in detail the introductions to Boissevain’s three volumes; in brief Cary 1.xvii–xxvi; Millar Study 1–4. 149. Editio princeps: Robert Estienne (= Stephanus), 1551. The best modern edition is Boissevain’s, printed as an appendix in vol. 3 of his Dio edition. On Xiphilinus see Krumbacher Geschichte 1.369–370. 150. Xiphilinus’ epitome assumes its greatest importance in the period from Vespasian to Severus Alexander. Here not only is Dio’s original lost; the parallel historical tradition is weak. 151. Xiphilinus was not above transcribing Dio in extenso. The Epitome reproduces nearly word for word, for example, most of the intra cubiculum set dialogue between Livia and Augustus on clemency (55.14.1–22.2), the list of Augustan legions (55.23.2–7), and the extended account of Augustus’ death and obsequies (except for the set laudatio of Tiberius) (56.29–34, 42–46).

Introduction

37

annalistic detail dear to the heart of Dio the senator. Also, the far-flung military operations of Books 55–56 get meager coverage, beyond the Varian disaster. In all, Xiphilinus reduces these two books to ca 30 percent and 20 percent respectively of Dio’s original. A second resort when the Codex Marcianus abandons us is the twelfthcentury Epitome Historiarum of Johannes Zonaras,152 which purports to embrace ecumenical history from the Judeo-Christian creation to a.d. 1118. Zonaras’ method was to synopsize a series of authors treating different periods and regions, inter alios Herodotus, Xenophon, Plutarch, Arrian, and, for Roman history, Dio. Composed after his dismissal from court and retirement to monastic life, Zonaras’ Epitome can be an indispensable source for Dio’s History where the original is lost, paramountly in the reconstruction of the entire segment treating regal and republican history down to the destruction of Carthage and Corinth in 146 b.c. (Books 1–21)—a segment not epitomized by Xiphilinus. In Books 55–60 (9 b.c.– a.d. 46) we use Zonaras, together with Xiphilinus, in patching lacunae in the Codex Marcianus. For Books 61–67 (a.d. 47–96), where Dio’s original is completely lacking, Zonaras and Xiphilinus become our principal sources for the History.153 In Books 55–56, which are our narrower concern here, although Zonaras’ epitome runs less than half as long as Xiphilinus’—reducing Dio’s original by about 90 percent over all—it occasionally preserves unique information, for example, on the Roman escape from a trans-Rhenane fort following the Varian disaster (56.22.2a–2b). Zonaras’ interests are “imperial,” like Xiphilinus’, and their selections from Dio often overlap.154 Remnants of lost parts of Dio’s Books 55–56 also survive in the Excerpta Constantiniana, a massive thesaurus commissioned by the Byzantine emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus (912–959). This project of compilation marshaled excerpts selected from a range of Greek historians, both Classical and Byzantine, including inter alios Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, Polybius, Diodorus, Appian, and Dio, with the aim of illustrating fifty-three different themes, among them “virtue and vice,” “thoughts,” and “stratagems.” The anthology of texts under a given rubric formed a discrete work in which the group of excerpts drawn from each author was presented in its turn. Within each authorial group the excerpts stand, helpfully, in the original order of the narrative from which they were taken. Of the fifty-three “works” that constituted the Excerpta Constantiniana only a few have survived substantially intact.155 Two of these help close gaps in Dio’s

152. Editio princeps: H. Wolf (Basle, 1557). Modern editions: M. Pinder & T. Büttner-Wobst, 3 vols. (Bonn, 1841–1897) and L. Dindorf, 6 vols. (Leipzig, 1868–1875). On Zonaras see Krumbacher Geschichte 1.370–376; M.J. Moscovich in Encyclopedia of Greece and the Hellenic Tradition, ed. G. Speake, 2 vols. (London, 2000), 2.1755–1756. 153. From Book 68 forward Zonaras evidently lacked the intact Dio and relied instead on Xiphilinus’ epitome: Boissevain 3.187. 154. Supplementing what he drew from Dio, Zonaras closes his segment on the reign of Augustus with a discussion, based on Christian sources, of the date of Jesus’ birth during the reign. 155. See Krumbacher Geschichte 1.258–261; J.M. Moore, The Manuscript Tradition of Polybius (Cambridge, 1965), 125–167 (“The Constantine Excerpts”).

38

Introduction

Books 55–56: Excerpta Valesiana on Virtue and Vice (= Exc. Val.), named after their first editor, Henricus Valesius (Henri de Valois),156 and Excerpta Ursiniana on Embassies of Foreigners [Gentium] to Romans (= Exc. UG), named after their first editor, Fulvius Ursinus (Fulvio Orsini).157 The compiler of the Excerpta Valesiana took six passages from Dio’s Book 55 (Exc. Val. 176–181) and two from Book 56 (Exc. Val. 182–183). Four of these eight fall wholly or partly within lacunae in the Codex Marcianus and contain material independent of what is preserved by Xiphilinus or Zonaras. Exc. Val. 180, for example, provides precious information about the military apprenticeship of Gaius Caesar (= Dio 55.10.17), while Exc. Val. 182 alone informs us about a celebrated lawsuit in which Germanicus acted as an advocate (= 56.24.7). Two items from Excerpta Ursiniana on Embassies of Foreigners [Gentium] to Romans derive from Dio’s Book 55 (none from Book 56). Of these Exc. UG 36 (= Dio 55.10.20–21) falls in a lacuna and is our sole source for the conciliatory embassy of the Armenian King Tigranes IV to Augustus that broke a standoff between Parthia and Rome in a.d. 1 during Gaius Caesar’s mission to the East. For all the repairs that Byzantine sources allow us to make in Books 55–56, grievous gaps remain. These conspire in rendering the years 6 b.c.–a.d. 4 “an obscure decade” (Syme). Under a.d. 8, moreover, the year of Tiberius’ momentous victory in rebel Pannonia, some 200 of 250 original lines are lost, of which Xiphilinus’ abridgment restores only a dozen, while Zonaras and the Excerpta Constantiniana bring no help whatsoever. In approaching Dio’s last two Augustan books with their textual challenges we are fortunate in being able to follow a trail blazed by “one of the truly great textual critics of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.” Over a century after its publication, Boissevain’s edition remains without rival. In volume introductions, apparatus criticus, and appendixes it provides sure guidance on the varied sources of the text of the Roman History and on the complex task of combining these in an intelligible reconstruction of the original.158

156. Editio princeps: Paris, 1634. 157. On his Antwerp edition of 1582 see Boissevain 1.xxxiv. 158. For helpful discussion of the challenges to reconstructing Dio’s text see Murison Rebellion 1–5; D.S. Potter, Literary Texts and the Roman Historian (London, 1999), 70–78 at 74–77 (74 for the quotation). Praise of Boissevain should not of course cast in the shade the fundamental contributions of his many precursors who labored to the same end over the centuries since the “return” of Dio to the West in the Renaissance, or of his colleagues H. Smilda and W. Nawijn, authors of the invaluable Index Historicus and Index Graecitatis, which are vols. 4 (1926) and 5 (1931) of Boissevain’s edition.

Book 55: 9 b.c.–a.d. 8

INTRODUCTION Dio’s Book 55 opens on the year with which Livy’s history ceases. It is a long book, rich in reversals of fortune: Drusus’ death, Tiberius’ eclipse and restoration, the disgrace of Augustus’ daughter Julia, the premature deaths of the Caesars Lucius and Gaius, and the internment of their brother Agrippa Postumus. It also features fiscal-military reforms and the outbreak of a great rebellion in Illyricum, as well as an invented dialogue of Augustus and Livia on clemency as the remedy for conspiracy. Text. Book 55 survives thanks to a single manuscript (Codex Marcianus no. 395), of which ten folios of an original twenty-seven are lost in four lacunae (cf. Boissevain 1.lxviii–lxxiv): from 55.9.4

(6–2 b.c.)

2 folios (ca 100 lines)

from 55.10.15 (2 b.c.–a.d. 1)

2 folios

after 55.11.2

(a.d. 2–4)

2 folios

after 55.33.2

(a.d. 8)

4 folios

Of this loss, totaling some 500 lines, only a small part can be recovered from Byzantine excerpts and epitomes. The accounts of 4 and 3 b.c. have disappeared entirely; a single sentence from 5 b.c. subsists in Zonaras (55.9.9). Among events probably related by Dio but now missing are the death of Herod the Great (55.27.6n; cf. Syme Aristocracy 324), the Roman victory over rebel Pannonia at the R. Bathinus (Bosna) in a.d. 8 (55.33.2n, 34.4n), and the fall of Augustus’ granddaughter Julia (55.27.2n).1 Index. Indexes like that which heads Book 55, consisting of a table of contents and list of consuls, were added helpfully to the Roman History, perhaps on its accession in a state library. Those for Books 37–57, 59, and 79 survive. Boissevain prints the indexes in reduced type on the assumption that they are not Dio’s own

1. Perhaps also the inauguration of the post of praefectus annonae (see Pavis d’Escurac Préfecture 29; the terminus ante quem is a.d. 14: Tac. Ann. 1.7.2).

40

Commentary on Book 55

work but were composed later. It is only from the index of Book 55 that we know it originally contained a segment, now lost, on “how the Forum of Augustus was dedicated.” See further Introduction sec. 5.6; 55.10.1an, 22.3n.

55.1.1–4.4: The Year 9 b.c. Annalistic structure of the year-account for 9 b.c.: external section—urban section.2 Drusus’ necrology dominates the external section (55.1.1–2.7): portents, advance to the Elbe, death, funeral, and memorial honors; Tiberius’ ovation is subsumed contrastively (55.2.4).3 The urban section is given over mainly to a reform of senate rules and a sketch of Augustus’ civilitas (55.3.1–4.4).

1.1 !Iouvllou . . . Fabiv o uu:: Dio names the consuls of the preceding year (10) retrospectively. On Iullus Antonius, son of the triumvir, see 54.26.2n; 55.10.14–15n. On the patrician Africanus Fabius Maximus, younger brother of the consul of 11 b.c., see PIR2 F 46; Syme Aristocracy 75 (on the name), 320, 417. Drou÷so" . . . Krispivnou ou:: These are the consuls of 9. On Drusus’ career see 4 54.10.4n. On the patrician T. Quinctius Crispinus Sulpicianus see PIR2 Q 44; RE 24.1106 = Quinctius 69 (Hanslik); Syme Aristocracy 57, 158. He was condemned in 2 b.c. for adultery with Augustus’ daughter: Vell. 2.100.5; cf. Dio 55.10.15n.

1.1–2.7: EXTERNAL AFFAIRS 1.1–5 Drusus’ Last Campaign See Map 1. The military successes of Augustus’ stepson Drusus in Germany in 12 and 11, matched in Pannonia by his elder brother Tiberius and complemented by victory in rebel Thrace, had motivated a vote in 11 to close the Temple of Janus (54.36.2n), a ritual performed only when Rome had installed peace everywhere. But the wellsprings of ethnic power on the northern frontiers annulled this reading of events. The Dacians invaded Pannonia in winter 11/10, and Dalmatians and Germans were in arms again in 10 (54.36.2–3). In Germany a ferocious campaign of Drusus in 9, his last, prosecuted by Tiberius in 8, was required before a durable settlement was achieved. 2. Here, and throughout the commentary, I use the terms “urban section,” “external section,” and “end chapter” in indicating how Dio follows or departs from the tripartite structure of year-accounts traditional in Roman annals, exemplified best in Books 21–45 of Livy. See Introduction sec. 5.1. Dio’s 9 b.c. opens unconventionally on the frontier with an external section; there is no end chapter. 3. Since the theme of Drusus’ warrior-death entails the obsequies paid to him in Rome, some urban events find their way into the external section. 4. Drusus possibly left Rome before 1 January for the German front, where he had been commander since 12: in Consol. Liv. 139–142 Livia is made to complain that she first saw her son’s consular fasces after his death. Cf. Suet. Claud. 1.3, ‘post praeturam confestim inito consulatu atque expeditione repetita,’ chronologically ambiguous.

1.1–4.4: The Year 9 b.c.

41

Sources. Dio alone provides an intelligible narrative (for Drusus’ preceding German campaigns of 12–10 see 54.32.1–3, 33.1–5, 36.3; for the sequel under Tiberius’ command see 55.6.1–5, 8.2). See also the anonymous Consol. Liv.;5 Livy Per. 142; Str. 7.291; Vell. 2.97.2–3; Suet. Tib. 7.3, Claud. 1.2–5; Flor. 2.30.23– 28 with Wells Policy 157; Tac. Ann. 3.5.1–2 with nn of Woodman & Martin; Oros. 6.21.15–16; Eutr. 7.13.1. For a full list see PIR2 C 857 (pp197–198). 1.1 Diov ": “The Temple of Capitoline Jupiter and the goddesses who share his shrine [Juno, Minerva] was damaged,” perhaps heavily (kakou÷n is used of ruinous earthquakes at 55.10.9 and 57.17.7). Consol. Liv. 401–404 registers ‘mala signa,’ as Jupiter “struck three temples with flame-wielding hand.” The relevance of these signs for Drusus was no doubt detected retrospectively. 1.2 ejsevbale kai; proh÷lqe qe:: “Drusus invaded the territory of the Chatti and advanced as far as [mevcri] Suebia.” Formerly Roman allies, the Chatti, whose territory lay north of the Rhine-Main confluence,6 had rebelled in 10 (54.36.3n). A military action against the Suebi (on whom see Appendix 1) can probably be assumed, though Dio specifies none. Consol. Liv. 17–18, 311–312 celebrates a defeat and flight of “Suevi;” cf. Flor. 2.30.23–24; Oros. 6.21.15–16. Drusus may have set out from Moguntiacum (Mainz): Eutropius (fourth century) says that he “has a monumentum near Moguntiacum” (7.13.1), a memorial that accommodates the ethnography and destiny of his last campaign. On this Roman base see Wells Policy 138–146; K.V. Decker & W. Selzer, “Moguntiacum: Mainz von der Zeit des Augustus bis zum Ende der römischen Herrschaft,” ANRW 2.5.1.464–483, 548– 549 (plates, plans). Drusus may have followed the R. Main, then the R. Wetter, the more northerly RR. Lahn and Sieg being unserviceable as invasion routes (Wells Policy 150). From “Suebia” Drusus apparently redirected his attack (metevsth) toward “Cheruscan territory” (Cerouskivda) further north on the left bank of the Weser, before making an eastward push across this river as far as the Elbe. For Timpe RhM 110 (1967), 300 the peoples of “Suebia” who faced Drusus were Quadi (RE 24.626 [Goessler]) and Marcomanni. It may have been Drusus’ offensive that impelled Maroboduus to lead his Marcomanni eastward to a refuge in Bohemia (cf. Str. 7.290; Vell. 2.108.1–2; Dio 55.10a.2n, on 28.5–7): so, for example, Wells Policy 158. Timpe conjectures that, simultaneously with Drusus’ advance, a legate neglected by a tradition which focused on Drusus attacked the Sugambri, using 5. For editions see vol. 2 of the Loeb Ovid; E. Baehrens, Poetae Latini Minores, 5 vols. (Leipzig, 1879–1883), 1.97–121; H. Schoonhoven, The Pseudo-Ovidian Ad Liviam de Morte Drusi (Groningen, 1992), with commentary; J. Amat, Consolation à Livie, Élégies à Mécène, Bucoliques d’Einsiedeln (Paris, 1997). On the date of composition there are diverse views: J. Richmond, “Doubtful Works Ascribed to Ovid,” ANRW 31.4.2773–2780 (after a.d. 12 but before a.d. 37); P.H. Schrijvers, “À propos de la datation de la Consolatio ad Liviam,” Mnemosyne 41 (1988), 381–384 (a.d. 20); Schoonhoven 37–39 (early under Nero); Amat 26–43 (9 b.c./a.d. 2, author Ovid); A. Fraschetti, “Indice analitico della Consolatio ad Liviam Augustam de morte Drusi Neronis filii eius qui in Germania de morbo periit,” MEFRA 108 (1996), 191–239 (9 b.c.). 6. Tacitus mentions Mt Taunus and the R. Eder (Adrana) in relating operations of Germanicus against the Chatti in 15: Ann. 1.56.1, 3. See 54.33.2n.

42

Commentary on Book 55

a Lippe invasion route:7 their capitulation to Tiberius in 8 (see on 55.6.1–6) is otherwise hard to explain (RhM 110 [1967], 300–304). Consol. Liv. 311 speaks of “Sicambri destroyed,” apparently in Drusus’ last campaign; cf. Flor. 2.30.23– 24; Oros. 6.21.16; Tac. Ann. 12.39.2 (‘Sugambri excisi aut in Gallias traiecti’). oujk ajtalaipwvrw" . . . ouj k aj n aimwtiv: Understatement, as at 37.40.1 and 56.21.1. Drusus’ advance entailed “heavy toil,” “heavy casualties.” As often, Dio notes the price of expansion. That Drusus met fierce resistance is confirmed by Velleius, though his emphasis is on German blood spilled (2.97.3, ‘plurimo eius gentis profuso sanguine’). Timpe RhM 110 (1967), 300–301 thinks that Drusus faced a critical situation which his two-pronged (see above) invasion met, laying the foundation for Tiberius’ German settlement in 8. His campaign of 9 probably produced Drusus’ single salutation as imperator, coincident with Tiberius’ first and Augustus’ thirteenth.8 It is commemorated in a fragmentary inscription from the base of his statue in the Forum of Augustus.9 He did not live to celebrate the triumph (clearly an ovation) for which his victory qualified him (see 55.2.5n). Cf. Consol. Liv. 206, ‘victrix templis debita laurus.’ 1.3 ejk tw÷n Oujandalikw÷n ojrw÷n: The Elbe “flows out of the Vandalic mountains and empties into the northern ocean in a great stream,” the union of three main rivers: (1) the Saale, rising in the Fichtelgebirge some 200 km west of Prague; (2) the Vltava = Moldau, rising in the Bohemian Forest 140 km southwest of Prague; (3) the Elbe proper, rising in the Riesengebirge 120 km northeast of Prague. Which does Dio conceive as flowing “out of the Vandalic Mountains”? On the assumption that he thought the Vandals lived near the mountains that bore their name, we can rule out (1) as too far west and (2) as in the heartland of the Marcomanni in southern Bohemia. (3) points plausibly to a Vandal homeland northeast of the Marcomanni, who were by turns their friends and enemies (72.2.4; 77.20.3).10 Warning: although Dio himself (note the present tense) conceived the upper and lower Elbe as we do, at 55.10a.2n he appears to take the Saale for the upper Elbe (misled by his source?). Dio’s three contemporary Vandalic references (55.1.3; 72.2.4; 77.20.3) help graph this people’s emergence into history and infamy. They are absent from Strabo; Pliny the Elder mentions them once, as one of five large German genera (HN 4.99), Tacitus once in a list of German gentes (Germ. 2.4). Cf. L. Schmidt, Geschichte der Wandalen2 (München, 1942), 1–9. peraiwqh÷nai ai:: Drusus “tried to cross (the Elbe) but could not.” Dio offers no clue about where the attempt was made. Nor does he (or any other source) ex7. Drusus had apparently taken this route in advancing to the Weser in 11 (54.33.1–4n); cf. 56.18.5n. 8. Appendix 3; but the chronology is disputed: e.g., Barnes JRS 64 (1974), 22; Syme RP 3.1200–1204. 9. “Nero Claudius Drusus Germanicus, son of Tiberius, consul, praetor urbanus, quaestor, augur, was saluted imperator in Germany” (as restored): AE (1934), no. 151 = IIt. 13.3.15–16 = EJ no. 80 = H. Vassileiou, “Drusus imperator appellatus in Germania (Ergänzung des Drususelogiums auf dem Forum Augusti),” ZPE 51 (1983), 213–214. Cf. on 55.10.1a–8, A hall of fame. 10. J.G.C. Anderson identifies Dio’s Vandalic mountains as “the range between Bohemia and Silesia:” Cornelii Taciti de origine et situ Germanorum (Oxford, 1938), 198–199.

1.1–4.4: The Year 9 b.c.

43

plain what stopped Drusus—apart from a female apparition (below). Timpe RhM 110 (1967), 295 rejects the notion that he withdrew because of a standing order of Augustus against pursuing Germans who fled beyond the Elbe (Str. 7.291): at this early stage of the Roman conquest Augustus knew too little about the German hinterland to give such an order.11 trov p aia aia:: “withdrew after setting up trophies.” See in detail Picard Trophées 301–305: Drusus’ monument played the role of “borne frontière protectrice de l’Empire” (301). Suggestive of the sort of monument Drusus may have left to mark his achievement is the mound crowned by spoils and an inscription naming conquered peoples that his son Germanicus erected a quarter century later on the battlefield at Idistaviso (Tac. Ann. 2.18.2).12 Ptolemy registers a tropaia Drousou in Geog. 2.11.13,13 giving coordinates which, despite the unreliability to which these are prone (especially longitudes), do not rule out this being our site.14 Cf. 55.10a.2n (under a.d. 1), “an altar to Augustus” erected by L. Domitius Ahenobarbus after crossing the “Elbe” (more likely the Saale). gunhv: “A woman of superhuman stature confronted him and said, ‘So where are you rushing, insatiable Drusus?’” Suetonius registers “the apparition of a barbarian woman larger than human who in Latin forbade him to advance farther, victorious though he was” (Claud. 1.2 with n of Hurley [2001]).15 Timpe notes that both the apparition and the overweening Drusus pressing on heedless of omens and carnage are absent from the Livian tradition; Dio was drawing on a Tiberian source which viewed Drusus’ impetuous generalship with reserve (RhM 110 [1967], 290–296). 1.4–5 ouj mevntoi kai; ajpistei÷n e[cw w:: “Now that such an utterance should be addressed by heaven to anyone is amazing. But I cannot withhold belief. For the thing came immediately to pass [ajpevbh]: Drusus turned back in haste and on the way died of some illness before reaching the Rhine.” I follow Rich in translating ajpevbh thus. It does not mean “he [Drusus] departed” (contra Cary, Scott-Kilvert). Dio upholds his belief on rational grounds, adducing first an historical argument (the portent was fulfilled), then the record (to; lecqevn) of four concomitant portents (55.1.5). For similar reasoning see on 56.24.2–5; cf. fr. 35.7–8. J. Puiggali, “Les démons dans l’Histoire romaine de Dion Cassius,” Latomus 43 (1984), 877– 11. In Timpe’s scenario Drusus bowed to resistance of his officers against any deeper penetration: RhM 110 (1967), 303–306. 12. Flor. 2.30.23 writes that Drusus “raised a mound and adorned it as a trophy with arms and decorations of the Marcomanni,” but his chronology is too vague to sustain the idea that this is the same trophy as Dio records. Timpe RhM 110 (1967), 289 n1 rejects identification out of hand. 13. See the edition of O. Cuntz, Die Geographie des Ptolemaeus: Galliae Germania Raetia Noricum Pannoniae Illyricum Italia (Berlin, 1923; reprint, 1975), 67; cf. RE 7A.663 = Trovpaia Drouvsou (Franke), discussing possible sites. 14. Ptolemy’s latitude for tropaia Drousou is not far off that which he gives for Vetera, the Roman base on the lower Rhine; his longitude for tropaia Drousou is not far off that which he gives for Ravenna. Cf. Map 1. For tropaia Drousou on a map of Germany with Ptolemy’s longitudes and latitudes delineated see Griechische und lateinische Quellen zur Frühgeschichte Mitteleuropas bis zur Mitte des 1. Jahrtausends u.Z., ed. J. Herrmann, Teil 3: Von Tacitus bis Ausonius (2. bis 4. Jh. u. Z.) (Berlin, 1991), Karte 2b. 15. But Suetonius attaches the episode to campaigning before 9.

44

Commentary on Book 55

883 overstates Dio’s “lack of critical sense.” He was not less rationalistic than his own age. Cf. Introduction sec. 3. teleuthvsanto" anto":: Drusus “died” on the way back to the Rhine. From Livy Per. 142 we learn that he died on the thirtieth day after breaking a leg when his horse fell on him. Dio’s omission of such details may show stylistic restraint more than ignorance (not necessarily betrayed by novsw/ tiniv). The contemporary Strabo says merely that Drusus “died” (7.291); cf. Plin. HN 7.84, ‘aegrotum;’ Suet. Claud. 1.3, ‘morbo obiit;’ Porph. on Hor. Carm. 4.4.27–28, ‘morbo;’ Manuwald Dio 251 n539. The site of the accident is unknown beyond the fact that Drusus died “in summer camp” (Suet. Claud. 1.3; cf. 55.1.5, stratovpedon), between the Saale and the Rhine (Str. 7.291). Date. Drusus’ death following a complex campaign and an unprecedented penetration of Germany is best placed in autumn 9. In Tac. Ann. 3.5.1 Augustus is said to have journeyed to Ticinum in winter (‘asperrimo hiemis’) in response to his illness (this is a tendentious passage, however, censuring the emperor Tiberius for doing less to honor the dead Germanicus than Augustus had done for Drusus; cf. Woodman & Martin ad loc. [p100]). Augustus gave his eulogy outside the pomerium, postponing his adventus until 8 (55.5.1). In Consol. Liv. 221–232 the Tiber is pictured as in full flood during the obsequies; November and December are peak months for floods in the modern era: cf. Appendix 2. On the time required for the bier to reach Rome from Germany cf. 55.2.1n. The ‘inferiae Drusi Caesaris’ in the fasti of 14 September (IIt. 13.2.510 = EJ p52) cannot belong to the elder Drusus, who was not adopted into the Julian family. 1.5 luv k oi oi:: “Wolves around the camp.” Entry of a wolf into city or camp was an official prodigy: Luterbacher Prodigienglaube 28.

2.1–3 Drusus’ Obsequies See Maps 1–2. 2.1 ouj . . . pov r rw rw:: Being “not far away,” Augustus heard of Drusus’ illness before he died. During the crisis, Tiberius came, ‘victor hostium’ (“victorious over his enemies”), to meet Augustus and Livia at Ticinum in north Italy, then raced to Drusus in Germany (Val. Max. 5.5.3).16 From where Augustus came to Ticinum is unclear, not likely Rome: he was “on campaign” in 9 (55.2.2, ejxestravteuto), and victorious formalities marked his adventus early in 8 (55.5.1–2n). kata; tavco" o":: Augustus dispatched Tiberius “in haste” to his dying brother. His journey, which became legend, included a stretch of 200 Roman miles covered by cart in a night and a day (Plin. HN 7.84; cf. Val. Max. 5.5.3), a pace possible only on a posted Roman road (cf. Suet. Aug. 49.3 with Carter’s n; Wells Policy 156). His route from Ticinum may have been west to Augusta Praetoria (Aosta), 16. Does Valerius Maximus allude to the victories celebrated in Tiberius’ ovation earlier in 9 (on which see 55.2.4n)?

1.1–4.4: The Year 9 b.c.

45

then north by a difficult track across the Alps (Str. 4.205, 208). Valerius Maximus says that he passed “through barbarian territory recently conquered, content with the guide Namantabagius as his only companion” (5.5.3).17 Cf. Consol. Liv. 89–94; Sen. Polyb. 15.5. mevcri tou÷ ceimadivouu:: Tiberius had the body borne “first to the army’s winter camp [probably at Moguntiacum: 55.1.2n] by centurions and military tribunes, from there by the leading men in each town” (cf. Suet. Claud. 1.3, ‘per municipiorum coloniarumque primores;’ Tib. 7.3). Cf. Consol. Liv. 171–177; Sen. Marc. 3.1–2. As well as Tiberius (Livy Per. 142; Suet. Tib. 7.3), Augustus (Tac. Ann. 3.5.1) and Livia (Sen. Marc. 3.2) attended the bier after it reached Italy. The cortege will have taken some weeks; that of Tiberius in a.d. 37 took thirteen days from Misenum to Rome: see on 56.31.2–33.6. Cf. Woodman & Martin on Tac. Ann. 3.2.2 (p85) for parallels in the cortege of Drusus’ son Germanicus. 2.2 diplou÷" oJ ejpitavûio" io":: “Two eulogies were given,” in what was clearly a public funeral (Kierdorf Laudatio 139; cf. Tac. Ann. 3.5.1), one by Drusus’ brother Tiberius in the Forum over the corpse, one in the Circus Flaminius outside the pomerium by Augustus, who chose to postpone the celebratory rituals which would have been required had he crossed the sacred boundary (see below, ejxestravteuto). Whether Tiberius spoke from the “old” Rostra in the northwest Forum or from the Julian Rostra of the Temple of Divus Julius is not recorded; on the assumption that he represented the gens Claudia and Augustus the state, the former is more likely (see 54.34.4–5n; 56.34.4n). Following Tiberius’ oration, the cortege passed from the Forum (route unknown; cf. 56.42.1n) to the Circus Flaminius, where Augustus waited. On his oration see Suet. Claud. 1.5, which preserves an eloquent quotation; Livy Per. 142; Consol. Liv. 209–216, 465–466; cf. Tac. Ann. 3.5.1. The Circus Flaminius was at first simply an open space in a meadow by the Tiber in the southern Campus Martius. By 9 b.c. it was loosely fenced about by shrines and monuments, including the Porticus Octaviae (cf. 55.8.1n) and the Theater of Marcellus; though used often for shows, it lacked permanent installations, even seating (cf. 55.10.8n), and served various other purposes, including the marshaling of triumphs (e.g., Livy 39.5.17; cf. Dio 49.15.3) and public meetings and speeches (e.g., Livy 27.21.1–4; Cic. Att. 1.14 [= SB 14] 1; Sest. 14.33; cf. Dio 41.15.1, 16.1, other meetings outside the pomerium, place not specified). The toponym Circus Flaminius survives on a fragment of the Severan marble plan of Rome (Rodríguez Almeida Forma 114, table XXIII). See Platner & Ashby 111– 113; G. Gatti, “Dove erano situati il Teatro di Balbo e il Circo Flaminio?” Capitolium 35 (1960), 3–12; H. Bloch, “A New Edition of the Marble Plan of Ancient Rome,” JRS 51 (1961), 151–152; Wiseman PBSR 42 (1974), 3–26; T.P. Wiseman, “Two Questions on the Circus Flaminius,” PBSR 44 (1976), 44–47; Humphrey

17. For Bellen Leibwache 28 n48 and Speidel Riding 19 Namantabagius may have been a horse guard.

46

Commentary on Book 55

Circuses 540–545; J.E. Stambaugh, The Ancient Roman City (Baltimore, 1988), 58 (plan); Richardson Dictionary 83; LTUR 1.269–272 (A. Viscogliosi). ejxestravteuto gavr: “For Augustus had gone on campaign and it would have been sacrilege for him not to perform, immediately on coming within the pomerium, the ceremonies called for by his achievement,” sc. victorious solemnities connected with his adventus (formal return). He had made his profectio (formal departure)—recalled in ejxestravteuto—some time in mid-9, having previously celebrated an adventus in winter 10/9 (see 54.36.4n). The now deferred adventus was celebrated in 8: 55.5.1–2n; cf. 56.1.1n.18 2.3 iJ p pev w nn:: Drusus “was borne into the Campus Martius by the equites, both those who belonged properly speaking to the order and those of senatorial family, and was there given to the flames, then buried in the monument of Augustus.” The equites of “senatorial family” were youths destined for a senatorial career who would soon graduate from the equestrian order; they were the “highborn youth” (‘generosa . . . iuventus’) mentioned as bearers in Consol. Liv. 207–208, cf. 463– 464. Both subgroups were equites equo publico: Demougin Ordre 262, who holds that of the equites “properly speaking” only iuniores aged up to thirty-five took part. Dio does not say how many equites participated. Augustus’ bier was carried to the pyre by magistrates designate (56.42.1n). For what was probably a military parade (decursio) around Drusus’ pyre see Consol. Liv. 217–218; cf. 56.42.2n. “In the monument of Augustus.” Cf. Livy Per. 142, ‘in tumulo C. Iulii [sic];’ Sen. Marc. 3.2, ‘tumulo;’ Suet. Claud. 1.3, ‘in campo Martio;’ Drusus was the fourth to be buried in Augustus’ Mausoleum after Marcellus (53.30.5), Agrippa (54.28.5), and Octavia: Consol. Liv. 67–74. On Drusus’ obsequies see Wesch-Klein Funus 17–18, 87–88; Flower 242–244. Germanikov": To commemorate his German achievement Drusus “was named Germanicus along with his boys.” The elder son, born 15 b.c. (55.13.2n), came to be identified by the honorary cognomen (cf. Ovid Tr. 4.2.39–40); the other was Claudius, the future emperor, born 10 b.c. (cf. 55.27.3n). Suetonius is more precise (Claud. 1.3): voted by the Senate (without precedent according to Flor. 2.30.28), the cognomen was conferred on Drusus and his (male) “posterity,” so that the yet unborn eventually took it; for example, the emperors Caligula (a grandson) and Nero (a great-grandson). See also Ovid Fasti 1.597; Consol. Liv. 337, 457; cf. Tac. Ann. 3.5.1. On other victorious cognomina cf. 55.28.4n; 56.17.2n. In general see P. Kneissl, Die Siegestitulatur der römischen Kaiser (Hypomnemata 25) (Göttingen, 1969), tracing practice to the fourth century a.d. (Drusus’ honor is treated at 27–33). eijkovnwn kai; aJyi÷do" kenotaûivou te te:: Drusus “was honored with statues, an arch, and a cenotaph on the very Rhine.” Dio exemplifies the profusion of honors already customary upon a death in the dynasty; mainly these were voted by the Senate (cf. Suet. Claud. 1.3). Cf. 53.30.6n; Talbert Senate 387–388. 18. Unlike Augustus, Tiberius could properly enter the pomerium—I assume that he had already celebrated his ovation earlier in 9 (55.2.4n).

1.1–4.4: The Year 9 b.c.

47

“Statues.” Cf. Consol. Liv. 269. Cf. Tabula Siarensis fr. (a) lines 18, 25 for statues voted by the Senate honoring Drusus’ son Germanicus on his death in a.d. 19. “Arch.” Decreed by the Senate, Drusus’ marble arch decked with spoils stood on the Via Appia (Suet. Claud. 1.3); see De Maria Archi 272–274, plate 51 (with coin evidence), figure 43, locating it just outside the Aurelian Walls. Cf. Tac. Ann. 2.83.2 and Tabula Siarensis fr. (a) lines 9–21 for an arch in the Circus Flaminius memorializing Germanicus. “Cenotaph on the very Rhine.” I take this to be the “honorary mound” (‘honorarium . . . tumulum’) that Suetonius says the army erected, clearly in Germany, where annual rites were performed by soldiers and Gallic communities (Claud. 1.3 with n of Hurley [2001]). In Dio’s one other use of the word, kenotavûion is a memorial mound (77.13.7 [Boissevain 3.389]). References to Drusus’ monument can also be discerned on Tabula Siarensis fr. (a) lines 26–34 (on which see Lebek “Mainzer Ehrungen”). Our kenotavûion/tumulus should probably be equated with the memorial of Drusus near Mainz mentioned by Eutropius (7.13.1, ‘apud Mogontiacum monumentum’), still apparently famous enough in his day (fourth century) to be used in identifying the Roman hero. For Frenz the cenotaph is none other than the ruinous “Eichelstein” in Mainz, which stands on the left bank of the Rhine on a height facing the mouth of the R. Main and originally consisted of a square base supporting a cylinder ending in a cone and reached a height of about 30 m.19 For a cenotaph of Gaius Caesar in Lycia, which Frenz holds was modeled on that of Drusus, see 55.10a.9n. It was evidently on our cenotaph in Germany (rather than on the Mausoleum of Augustus in Rome) that the verse elogium that Augustus composed for Drusus’ tumulus was inscribed (Suet. Claud. 1.5 with Lebek “Mainzer Ehrungen” 53–54; followed by Wesch-Klein Funus 18). Cf. S. Panciera in H. von Hesberg & S. Panciera, Das Mausoleum des Augustus: Der Bau und seine Inschriften (München, 1994), 76.

2.4 Tiberius’ Illyrian Ovation Out of time and in counterpoint to Drusus’ tragedy, Dio brings in Tiberius’ triumph, which marked the close of a long (13–9 b.c.) and imperially significant war in Illyricum (cf. 54.28.1–2, 31.2–4, 34.3–4, 36.2–3). Sources. Besides Dio see Vell. 2.96.2–3, a succinct notice (without date) on the ‘bellum Pannonicum . . . magnum atroxque,’ closing with ‘Nero ovans triumphavit’ (cf. 97.4, 99.1, 122.1); Suet. Tib. 9.2 (without date); Jerome Chron. p167 (under 10 b.c., but the next entry, under 9, is the death of Horace, which belongs in 8). Cf. Livy Per. 141, ‘Dalmatas et Pannonios Nero frater Drusi subegit.’ A fragmentary entry in the Fasti Praenestini of 16 January (without year) is assigned by some to Tiberius’ ovation: see below and 56.25.1n. 19. H.G. Frenz, “Zum Beginn des repräsentativen Steinbaus in Mogontiacum,” in Trier Okkupation 85–96 (with bibliography); Frenz, “The Honorary Arch at Mainz-Kastel,” JRA 2 (1989), 120–125, 416.

48

Commentary on Book 55

2.4 zw÷nto" e[ti aujtou÷: “But Tiberius, while Drusus was still alive, once again defeated the Dalmatians and Pannonians, who had made trouble, and celebrated the triumph on horseback [ejpi; tou÷ kevlhto" ejpinivkia],” i.e., an ovation.20 Dio signals that in treating Drusus’ obsequies he has bypassed Tiberius’ award. This is confirmed by what follows (55.2.5): the same victory ceremonies as were celebrated in Tiberius’ honor had been planned for Drusus, to take place during a special repetition of the Feriae Latinae, clearly in 9; tragically, he died before they could be held (proapwvleto). In short, Tiberius’ ovation should be dated before Drusus’ death but late enough in 9 to have been the reward for a fresh Illyrian victory (auj q¿ i" . . . krathvsa") in that year. This chronology coheres with the way Dio exploits the dramatic irony: Tiberius was being feted in Rome at the same time as a cruel doom hovered unseen over Drusus’ head.21 Some scholars complete a broken text in the Fasti Praenestini of 16 January (without year) (IIt. 13.2.114–115, text, cf. 398, commentary) by referring it to Tiberius’ ovation, questionably. The main solutions are printed below (for others, referring the inscription to Tiberius’ Pannonian achievements nearly two decades later, see Appendix 6; 56.1.1n). ‘Ti. Caesar ex Pan[nonia ovans urbem intr]avit’ (9 b.c.: L.R. Taylor, “Tiberius’ Ovatio and the Ara Numinis Augusti,” AJPh 58 [1937], 185–193) ‘Ti. Caesar ex Pan[nonia ovans triumph]avit’ (8 b.c.: G.M. Bersanetti, “Tiberiana,” Athenaeum 25 [1947], 3–16, esp. 4 n6, on the parallel of Vell. 2.96.3; cf. RG 4.1) ‘Ti. Caesar ex Pan[nonia ovans triumph]avit’ (9 b.c.: Syme RP 3.1215–1219) An ovation on 16 January of 9 b.c. (Taylor, Syme) would celebrate a victory won in 10 (or earlier) rather than, as Dio indicates, in 9; radically, Syme suspects that Dio’s report of Tiberius’ victory over Dalmatians and Pannonians in 9 is a “doublet” of an earlier success (RP 3.1202). Dio’s placement of the ovation under 9 weighs against 16 January of 8 (Bersanetti).22 ej d eiv p nise . . . eiJ s tiv a se se:: Tiberius “banqueted” Roman men, some on the Capitol (no doubt senators: cf. Livy 38.57.5; 45.39.13; Dio 7.21.11, mentioning porticoes), others in many different locations (required for the myriad guests); his mother and his wife Julia, Rome’s preeminent matrons, “feasted” Roman women. On public banquets (epula) celebrating high state occasions cf. 54.2.3n, 14.4, 30.5; 20. An ovatio was awarded for victories that fell short of the standard for a regular triumph (at least 5,000 enemy killed in a single battle according to Val. Max. 2.8.1; cf. Gell. 5.6.20–23; Flor. 2.7.8). The victor entered the city on horseback (e.g., 49.15.1; cf. 44.4.3) or foot (Gell. 5.6.27) rather than in a triumphal chariot. See Weinstock Julius 326–331; J.S. Richardson, “The Triumph, the Praetors and the Senate in the Early Second Century b.c.,” JRS 65 (1975), 54–57; Scullard Festivals 217–218; cf. 49.15.1n; 54.8.3; J.W. Humphrey & M. Reinhold, “Res Gestae 4.1 and the Ovations of Augustus,” ZPE 57 (1984), 60–62; Rich 182; Künzl Triumph 100–101. 21. Cf. Rich 220, who reads Dio as placing the ovation after Drusus’ death. 22. Still, the possibility that Tiberius’ ovation, though scheduled for 9, was deferred until 8 can perhaps not be dismissed completely, in the light of Drusus Caesar’s deferral of his ovation in a.d. 20 until after the trial of Cn. Piso (cos. 7 b.c.). See Tac. Ann. 3.11.1, 19.3 with Fasti Ostienses of 28 May a.d. 20 = IIt. 13.1.186–187 = EJ p41; cf. Dio 49.38.1n, Augustus’ postponement of his Illyrian triumph won in 35 b.c.—as it turned out, until 29.

1.1–4.4: The Year 9 b.c.

49

55.8.2; J.F. Donahue, Epula Publica: The Roman Community at Table during the Principate (diss. North Carolina, Chapel Hill, 1996). For Livia as hostess see also 55.8.2. On her role “as a patrona, . . . as a figurehead, indeed as a princeps” of Roman matrons see Purcell PCPS 212 (1986), 87, cf. 78. Although Livia was still in Rome when Tiberius celebrated his ovation, we later find her in northern Italy with Augustus at the time of Drusus’ death in Germany (55.2.1n).

2.5 Drusus’ Projected Ovation; Livia’s Consolation See especially Flory “Statues.” 2.5 ajnocai; deuvteron eron:: “These same festivities [ta; d! aujta; tau÷ta] were also being prepared for Drusus; in addition [kaiv ge: see Denniston 157] the Feriae Latinae were to be held a second time to honor him so that he could celebrate his triumph [nikhthvria] during the festival.” nikhthvria is used here for variety after ejpi; tou÷ kevlhto" ejpinivkia in 55.2.4 and so refers equally to an ovation. “These same festivities.” The plan was apparently to duplicate the earlier festivities for Tiberius—an ovation embellished by public banquets.23 “Feriae Latinae.” Originally a festival of the Latin League honoring Jupiter Latiaris, the Feriae Latinae was celebrated annually, not in Rome, but on the summit of Mt Albanus (Map 4 inset), regularly under the presidency of the consuls, with magistrates and Senate all in attendance, a mark of its high importance, which persisted under the Empire. Repetition of the festival in a given year was exceptional: in eight years between Augustus and Claudius when the fragments of the Fasti Feriarum Latinarum allow a determination (IIt. 13.1.150–151) only in 23 b.c. are two celebrations recorded, the second in autumn (53.33.3n, cf. 32.3n; 39.30.4). It is not known why Drusus was granted this particular honor24 or what form his ovation would have taken as a result of being grafted onto the Feriae Latinae. Triumphs of a sort are attested on Mt Albanus (exceptionally), though not ovations.25 An honor voted to Julius Caesar is suggestive—the right “of riding into the city from Mt Albanus on horseback [ejpi; kevlhto" . . . ejselauvnein] after the Feriae Latinae” (44.4.3, cf. 10.1; for the Greek cf. 54.8.3, 33.5). 23. Flory “Statues” 297 suggests that had Drusus lived his wife Antonia Minor and Livia would have hosted banquets for matrons just as Julia and Livia did in feting Tiberius (55.2.4). 24. Had Tiberius’ ovation been held during the earlier Feriae Latinae? Mommsen thinks that the repetitions of 23 and 9 b.c. were motivated by good fortune: Römische Forschungen, 2 (Berlin, 1879; reprint, Hildesheim, 1962), 107–108. 25. It is not certain that such triumphs, in which the victor led the procession to the Temple of Jupiter Latiaris on Mt Albanus rather than to Capitoline Jupiter in Rome, were held in conjunction with the Feriae Latinae (cf. Scullard Festivals 217–218). The Fasti Triumphales Capitolini under 231 b.c. register the first such celebration, by the consul C. Papirius Maso (IIt. 13.1.78–79: ‘de Corseis primus in monte Albano;’ testimonia in MRR 1.226; note especially Val. Max. 3.6.5). In 211 the captor of Syracuse M. Claudius Marcellus, having been denied a triumph in Rome but granted an ovation, celebrated a triumph on Mt Albanus one day and an ovation, with rich display of spoils, in Rome the next (Livy 26.21.2–9; Plut. Marc. 22.1–2; MRR 1.273–274). Cf. Livy 31.20.1–7 for a regular ovation. Cf. T.C. Brennan, “Triumphus in Monte Albano,” Transitions to Empire: Essays in Greco-Roman History, 360–146 b.c., in Honor of E. Badian, ed. R.W. Wallace & E.M. Harris (Norman, Okla., 1996), 315–337; A. Baudou, “Note sur Papirius Maso, le triomphe, le laurier et le myrte,” CV 41 (1997), 293–304.

50

Commentary on Book 55

Cf. RE 1.1309–1311 = Albanus Mons (Hülsen); RE 6.2213–2216 = Feriae Latinae (Samter); Degrassi in IIt. 13.1.143–144; Ogilvie 125, 665; Weinstock Julius 320–325, 322 on repetition of the Feriae Latinae; L. Bonfante Warren, “Roman Triumphs and Etruscan Kings: The Changing Face of the Triumph,” JRS 60 (1970), 49–66 at 50–51 (with bibliography); Scullard Festivals 111–115, cf. 39. eijkovnwn te ejpi; paramuqiva/ e[tuce uce:: “Livia received statues by way of consolation and was enrolled among the mothers of three children,” no doubt by senate decree. These were extraordinary distinctions, the latter completely novel; Livia had been honored publicly with statues following Augustus’ victory in Illyricum, along with Octavia (49.38.1, under 35 b.c.), though not apparently since then. If consoling Livia for her loss was one reason for fresh honors, so was acknowledgment of her dynastic importance, heightened by the recent deaths of Agrippa and Octavia. Her centrality was affected little by Drusus’ death, unlike the status of his wife Antonia Minor. Flory “Statues” shows how both statues and ius trium liberorum conferred on Livia public recognition of a kind Rome traditionally reserved for men on account of her exemplary merita to the state through childbearing as mother of Drusus (and Tiberius).

2.6–7 Ius Trium Liberorum Having recorded Livia’s enrollment as a “mother of three children” (55.2.5), Dio explains this exceptional privilege, granted through a legal fiction to men or women whom “heaven denies such fruitfulness.” As his use of the present tense shows, he writes from the vantage point of the Severan age. He alone records Livia’s honor, though Consol. Liv. 81–82 may allude to it. Serendipitously, Livia was on the threshold of fifty (born 30 January 58 b.c.), the age which closed the season of legally obligatory childbearing; attested in the Lex Papia Poppaea of a.d. 9 (Ulp. Tit. 16.1), this terminus was perhaps in effect already under the Lex Iulia of 18 b.c. See RE 10.1281–1284 = ius liberorum (Steinwenter); Hammond Monarchy 135–136; Sherwin-White 558; Astolfi Lex 78–86; Gardner Women 20–21; Treggiari Marriage 79–80. 2.6 ta; tw÷n 〈tri;"〉 [added by Xylander, perhaps unnecessarily] gegennhkovtwn dikaiwvmata carivzetai etai:: “Formerly through the Senate but now through the emperor the law grants some the rights of parents of three children.” See 56.10.2 (under a.d. 9) for the grant to the Vestal Virgins of “all the rights of those who had given birth.” Martial, though unmarried, got from Domitian “what fortune denies” (2.91, 92), as did the childless Pliny from Trajan (Ep. 10.2). Cf. 60.24.3, Claudius’ grant of the privilege (ta; tw÷n gegamhkovtwn dikaiwvmata) to soldiers, “since they could not have wives, at least legally;” Suet. Galba 14.3; Campbell Emperor 301–303. ej p itimiv o i" . . . aj qla qla: q¿ la: “So they are not subject to the penalties for childlessness and enjoy the rewards for fertility (except for a few)”—sc. under the Lex Iulia (18 b.c.) and Lex Papia Poppaea (a.d. 9) on marriage (see on 54.16.1–7 and 56.10.1–3). The main penalties for not meeting the quota for offspring were restrictions on one’s capacitas—right to inherit. Conversely, the main reward for

1.1–4.4: The Year 9 b.c.

51

meeting it was unrestricted capacitas, though there were also status or career preferments. Livia did not need the ius trium liberorum in order to receive inheritances and bequests from near relatives; this the law allowed even to the caelebs. But she could henceforth take even from unrelated testators. Already in 35 b.c. she had been freed from tutela (guardianship) in the management of her property (49.38.1n), a right for which freeborn mothers of three qualified under the Lex Iulia (cf. Gaius Inst. 1.145; P Oxy. 1467 [third century] with commentary). Augustus met the quota of three children through his daughter Julia and her sons Gaius and Lucius, whom he adopted in 17 (54.18.1); that adopted children counted is evident from Tac. Ann. 15.19.1–3. Augustus was heir or legatee of countless persons unrelated to him (Suet. Aug. 101.3, cf. 66.4; 56.32.3). For Caligula’s evasion of the incapacitas (disqualification from inheriting) that went with his celibate state see 59.15.1. 2.7 qeoiv: “Not only humans but gods acquire the rights” (of parents of three children). Few divinities seem to be in question. According to Ulp. Tit. 22.6 = FIRA 2.285 it was forbidden to make gods (‘deos’) heirs except as approved by senate decree or imperial decision. Ulpian cites nine exceptions to the general prohibition (by way of example). It was celibate divinities like “Minerva of Ilium” and “Diana of Ephesus” that most obviously needed the ius trium liberorum if they were to be beneficiaries. Deified rulers (divi) could not take bequests (Dig. 31.56– 57, citing imperial rulings of the second century; cf. Price “Consecration” 80). Five of Ulpian’s exceptions are from Asia, whence perhaps Dio’s interest; “Nemesis, who is worshipped at Smyrna” could have come to his attention as curator there from 218. Cf. Mommsen StR 2.61; B. Biondi, Successione testamentaria e donazioni2 (Milan, 1955), 128–130; Constantine permitted the Christian church to inherit, initiating an historic redistribution of wealth: J. Goody, The Development of the Family and Marriage in Europe (Cambridge, 1983), 92–96.

3.1–4.4: URBAN AFFAIRS 3.1–6 Reform of Senate Rules Dio expands on a subject close to his experience, the calendar of meetings and rules of order for the Senate. Part of his account is paralleled in Suet. Aug. 35.3 thanks to a common annalistic source (Introduction sec. 5.2). Generally scholars equate the Augustan reform with a law on senate procedure (‘legem . . . de senatu habendo’) that Gellius says was in effect in his day (second century a.d.) (4.10.1; cf. Plin. Ep. 5.13.5; 8.14.19, perhaps quoting the law: Sherwin-White p465). In fact Gellius identifies the law by neither author nor reign. Bibliography. J. Stroux, “Die Versäumnisbusse der Senatoren,” in Philologus 93 (Festgabe E. Schwartz) (Leipzig, 1938), 85–101; Talbert Senate 134–152 (“Members’ Attendance”), 200–216 (“The Annual Calendar of Business”), 222–

52

Commentary on Book 55

224 (“Lex Iulia”); R.J.A. Talbert, “Augustus and the Senate,” G&R 31 (1984), 55– 63; Bonnefond-Coudry Sénat 256–259, 411–413. 3.1 ejn rJhtai÷" hJmevrai" ai":: To reduce absenteeism “Augustus ordered26 that senate sittings be held on set days.” Suetonius is specific: “A regular senate meeting was not to be held more than twice a month [‘ne plus quam bis in mense legitimus senatus ageretur’], on Kalends and Ides” (Aug. 35.3); these two days were already in heavy use under the Republic (Bonnefond-Coudry Sénat 256–257). For simplicity, Suetonius omits the fact—known to him—that the Senate did not meet on the Ides of March (cf. Iul. 88). Dio, who also knew of this exception (cf. 47.19.1), got round it with a broad generalization. In the fourth-century Fasti Filocaliani the fixed days deviate from Kalends and Ides eleven times out of twentyfour: IIt. 13.2.363. The Tiberian narrative in Tacitus’ Annals suggests that extraordinary sessions could be frequent. uJ s tev r izon izon:: “were absent.” This sense is clear from Dio’s using ajpousiva as a synonym at 55.3.2 (also th÷" sunedreiva" ajpoleivpesqai). 〈duv o〉 boula;" kata; mh÷na kuriva"":: Augustus “designated two regular meetings of the Senate monthly.” Boissevain prints Casaubon’s conjecture duvo, which is based on Suet. Aug. 35.3 (quoted above). ou{" ge kai; oJ novmo" ejkavlei ei:: Senators had to attend the fixed sessions—“at any rate those whom the law summoned.” Dio implies that some senators were exempted, and certain of the grounds for exemption are known. In September and October, a main vacation period (Talbert Senate 211–212), only members designated by lot were required to attend regular meetings (Suet. Aug. 35.3). Senators beyond retirement age, perhaps sixty-five, seem to have been freely excused (Plin. Ep. 4.23.3 with Talbert Senate 152–154). For illness cf. Cyrene Edict no. 5 lines 112–116 = Sherk Documents no. 31 = EJ no. 311 = TDGR 6.13. 3.2 mhvte dikasthvrion ion:: Augustus ordered “that jury trials and other functions of senators be suspended on these occasions.” Our text is one of very few indicating that under the Principate the decuriae (panels) from which jurors were drawn for criminal trials in public courts (quaestiones) included senators. Others are Frontin. Aq. 2.101 = EJ no. 278A (citing a senate decree of 11 b.c.); Plin. Ep. 4.29.2 with Sherwin-White’s n; cf. 52.20.5. See Talbert Senate 463; A.H.M. Jones, The Criminal Courts of the Roman Republic and Principate (Oxford, 1972), 88–89; OCD3 1286–1287; cf. Demougin Ordre 443–449: by the later reign of Augustus senators were no longer being called to serve as jurors (hence the dearth of evidence), though they continued to be registered. aj r iqmo; n . . . ajnagkai÷onn:: Augustus regulated the “number required” for enacting each type of senate decree; this filled a void created in 11 b.c. when an existing quorum of 400 was suspended as unenforceable (54.35.1).27 The new 26. As often, Dio says that Augustus “ordered” what was in fact duly legislated; cf. 55.4.1. 27. How long the quorum of 400 had been in effect is unknown—possibly since the review of senate membership in 18 b.c.

1.1–4.4: The Year 9 b.c.

53

regulations presumably guided the Senate five years later when it set at 200 its quorum for composing judicial boards to hear extortion charges from provincials (Cyrene Edict no. 5 lines 106–107 = Sherk Documents no. 31 = EJ no. 311 = TDGR 6.13). Cf. 55.26.2, quorum suspended in a famine. Graduated quorums were in use later in municipal “senates:” see J. González, “The Lex Irnitana: A New Copy of the Flavian Municipal Law,” JRS 76 (1986), 209. On quorum see Talbert Senate 137–138. zhmiwvmata . . . ej p huv x j h sen sen:: “sharpened the penalties for those absent from senate sessions without good cause.” These were fines or the forfeiture of sureties. An earlier increase in penalties, reported by Dio under 17 (54.18.3), had apparently proved ineffectual (cf. 54.35.1). See in detail J. Stroux, “Die Versäumnisbusse der Senatoren,” in Philologus 93 (Festgabe E. Schwartz) (Leipzig, 1938), 97–99; Talbert Senate 138–139; Bonnefond-Coudry Sénat 366–369, part of a comprehensive study of “assiduité et absentisme,” 351–435. Did persistent absenteeism under Augustus betray senatorial dissatisfaction over mounting administrative, judicial, ceremonial, and consultative duties falling on a reduced complement (cf. 52.42.1; 54.14.1) and enforced by regulation and censorial supervision? 3.3 ajtimwvrhta hta:: “Since numerous such derelictions tend to go unpunished because of the multitude of offenders,” if many were absent, Augustus singled out by lot every fifth offender “for punishment,”28 an expedient that betrays an ingrained problem (contrast Claudius’ severity: 60.11.8). For absenteeism in Dio’s day see 77.20.1: Caracalla chided senators for missing meetings (so I take mhvte sunievnai proquvmw"; cf. 54.18.3, ajspoudei; . . . suneûoivtwn), also for not giving their sententiae individually. ej " leuv k wma wma:: As a further instrument in enforcing attendance (cf. 55.3.4) Augustus “registered the names of all the senators on a whitened tablet and posted it.” Thus originated the album senatorium from which Tacitus reports a name being erased by Tiberius (Ann. 4.42.3) and which Dio says was still revised yearly in his day. Cf. Talbert Senate 16–17.

The Auctoritas (3.4–6) Dio relates how the Senate, if prevented from making a valid decree because attendance fell below the quorum, could nonetheless deliberate and make a resolution, the so-called auctoritas, a declaration of its corporate will (bouvlhma), with moral and political though not legal force. In adding pointedly (kai; . . . ge) that the resolution would be “written up” Dio plays up how much weight was accorded even to the unofficial voice of the Senate. The senators had resorted to the auctoritas under the later Republic as a counter to tribunician vetoes of senatus consulta (e.g., Cic. Fam. 8.8 [= SB 84] 6–8; cf. Dio 41.3.1; see in detail Bonnefond-Coudry Sénat 565–569). For all the precise details Dio gives, however, no clear instance 28. ojûliskavnein aujtav [sc. ta; zhmiwvmata].

54

Commentary on Book 55

of an auctoritas is recorded under the Principate (Tac. Ann. 2.32.2 is ambiguous), and the device was obsolete in his day (55.3.6n). Cf. Talbert Senate 185 (instances of senators meeting informally), 285. Bonnefond-Coudry holds that only on “fixed days” was a senatus consultum passed in the strict sense; on others an auctoritas senatus was substituted, which would be promoted to a senate decree at a subsequent regular session (Sénat 258). But this is to misread Dio, who says that the Senate resorted to an auctoritas when it failed unpredictably to achieve quorum (55.3.4, ejk suntuciva" tinov"). 3.4 plh;n ga;r ªo{tiº oJsavki" a]n aujto;" oJ aujtokravtwr parh÷:/ “Except on days when the emperor was present in person, for virtually every question [ej" pavnta ojlivgou] the number in attendance would be accurately counted, both in Augustus’ time and later.” I think that o{ti has been inserted inadvertently by a scribe expecting plh;n o{ti (a construction that occurs, for example, at 38.4.3; 42.50.2; 57.12.3; 60.2.1, 12.4). For plhvn followed by a conditional or indefinite clause (as here) cf. 53.13.2; 54.28.4; 60.25.3; 69.2.2; Smyth Grammar no. 2966. If the emperor was present, Dio implies, there could be nothing less than a valid senate decree and therefore no count was taken—though an attendance of 301 senators is recorded in a decree of a.d. 20 arising from Cn. Piso’s trial, passed on the motion of the emperor Tiberius (SCPP line 173 with Eck’s n [pp270–272]). For other decrees recording attendance see Tabula Siarensis fr. (b) col. II line 30: 285 present (a.d. 19); ILS 6043 line 20 = Smallwood (1967) 365: 383 present (a.d. 45); Talbert Senate 149–152. 3.5 eJllhnivsai . . . ajduvnatovn ejsti ti:: “The term [sc. aujktwvrita"] has a force something like this; it is quite impossible to render in Greek.” A straight transliteration of the Latin auctoritas, it occurs only in our text to the best of my knowledge. Other such loanwords in Dio are perdouellivwn for perduellio (37.27.2), Kuiri÷tai for Quirites (36.25.1), and sevpta for Saepta (55.8.5); cf. aijravrioi (fr. 57.71). Cf. Mason Terms 3–16, esp. 6, 12; M.-L. Freyburger, “Quelques exemples de l’emprunt linguistique du grec au latin chez Dion Cassius,” Ktèma 9 (1984), 329–337; M.-L. Freyburger-Galland, “Dion Cassius et l’étymologie: auctoritas et Augustus,” REG 105 (1992), 237–246, esp. 239–241. Cf. 53.14.5–6 on the difficulty of rendering legatus (qua governor’s assistant) in Greek. to; d! aujto; tou÷to . . . ej n omiv z eto eto:: “This same practice was also followed if ever . . .” Dio notes other situations in which the senators, prevented from passing a valid decree, resorted to an auctoritas: at emergency meetings held contrary to rules on location, meeting day, or summons; and when they “could not brook the silencing of their resolution” by a tribune’s veto (here his indignation is palpable). Location. According to Varro (as cited in Gell. 14.7.7), who compiled a handbook to prepare Pompey for his consular role as president of the Senate, a valid senate decree could only be made “in a place ordained through an augur [‘in loco per augurem constituto’]” as a templum. Such a templum might be in a proper shrine or an otherwise profane structure like the Curia Iulia, the most frequent location for senate meetings. Cf. Livy 1.30.2; Varro Ling. 7.10; Serv. on Aen. 7.153,

1.1–4.4: The Year 9 b.c.

55

174; 11.235. Cf. Talbert Senate 113–120 (“Meeting Places”); Bonnefond-Coudry Sénat 25–27, 192–197; OCD3 1483 (Linderski); Vaahtera Augural Lore 128. Meeting day. It is unclear which “improper” days Dio has in mind beyond the anniversary of Julius Caesar’s assassination (55.3.1n). The record of dated sessions suggests that the days on which the Senate could not be convoked were few. For the Principate see Talbert Senate 200–216, especially 212–216, emphasizing how often the senators met in extraordinary session and how much of their time the business of the house could demand; for the Republic cf. Bonnefond-Coudry Sénat 199–260, 200–218 for a table of dated sessions. Summons. By “without lawful edict” (e[xw nomivmou paraggevlmato") Dio may mean no more than without being summoned by a qualified magistrate (a consul, praetor, or tribune, or the Princeps). A possible instance is the quasi-session on New Year’s Day a.d. 40, when in the absence of Caligula, who was sole consul (his designated colleague had died), the senators convened spontaneously in the Curia Iulia though none of the tribunes or praetors had dared issue the proper edict (59.24.2–7). They “did nothing, however [e[praxan de; oujdevn], but spent the entire day in lauding him and in prayers on his behalf.” Dio does not say that any of these effusions was framed as an auctoritas or that any of the votes passed on 12 January, when normalcy returned to the Senate, originated in an auctoritas, but this should perhaps not be ruled out. See Talbert Senate 185–189 (“Summons”); Bonnefond-Coudry Sénat 357–361. Tribune’s veto. For vetoes under the Principate see 57.15.9; Tac. Ann. 1.77.3; 6.47.1; cf. 16.26.4; Hist. 4.9.2. These texts provide no evidence of a veto countered by an auctoritas. 3.6 tou÷tov te ou oujjn¿ ijscurw÷" ejpi; plei÷ston toi÷" pavlai thrhqe;n ejxivthlon trovpon tina; h[dh gevgone, kai; to; tw÷n strathgw÷n: “This prerogative [of resorting to an auctoritas], though previously maintained resolutely and long, has now somehow become obsolete—like the prerogative of the praetors [see next n].” Did the Senate grow passive (cf. M.-L. Freyburger-Galland, “Dion Cassius et l’étymologie: auctoritas et Augustus,” REG 105 [1992], 241)? Did progressive reductions in quorum remove all call for the auctoritas? A quorum of seventy is attested for Dio’s day in SHA Alex. Sev. 16.1; cf. Cod. Theod. 6.4.9, fifty in the fourth century. That the tribunician veto (which the auctoritas had been used to circumvent) fell into abeyance is apparent from want of evidence for its continued use. mhdemiv a n gnwv m hn . . . ej s ev û eron eron:: The praetors “were vexed that, though outranking tribunes, they could not introduce motions in the Senate.”29 What precisely was the prerogative that the praetors wanted—and got—though it decayed with time? Clearly not that of making the relatio when presiding at a senate session;30 this they exercised from the Republic to Dio’s own day, regularly in the absence of the consuls (cf. 59.24.2–7; 78.37.5 under a.d. 218; Tac. Hist. 1.47.1 29. gnwvmhn ejsûevrein = Latin referre or relationem facere = “introduce a motion.” 30. I.e., introducing the subject of the session and any relevant proposal.

56

Commentary on Book 55

and 4.39.1, in both instances the praetor urbanus; for the Republic see Gell.14.7.4; cf. Cic. Fam. 10.12 [= SB 377] 3, again the praetor urbanus). Such opportunities were rare, however, and benefited a single praetor. Most likely what the praetors sought in 9 was to be able to introduce relationes in the course of sessions summoned by another magistrate—they would of course have had to wait “until presidential business was completed” (so Talbert Senate 235). This was a significant demand which, if met, would qualify any praetor to make a relatio at any session. I have found no clear instance of a praetor exercising this prerogative. But a report of Tacitus about the session presided over by the praetor urbanus following the murders of the consuls Galba and Piso in 69 is suggestive (Hist. 1.47.1): “The rest of the magistrates contended with fawning proposals.” These presumably numbered both praetors and tribunes of the plebs. Talbert suggests that the praetors were motivated by “vanity.” Possibly they were piqued by the recent admission of “upstart” equites to the tribunate (54.30.2, 12 b.c.) and so to a prerogative denied to praetors. The debate on senate reforms in 9 may have offered the opening they needed for voicing this grievance.

4.1–3 Civilis Princeps With an approving remark on how Augustus consulted senators in advance about his legislation Dio opens a section illustrating his monarch’s “unmonarchic” conduct, for him an important theme (cf. 54.10.4, 30.1; 55.34.1; 56.43.1–3). Cf. Wallace-Hadrill JRS 72 (1982), 32–48, analyzing the courtesies of emperors to senatorial “peers” and to inferiors as a “ritual of condescension” (48): “Civility both reinforced the social hierarchy by demonstrating imperial respect for it, and strengthened the autocracy by linking it with the social structure” (47). See also Yavetz Plebs 100–101, 106 n3; Talbert Senate 175–176. 4.1 ej n leukwv m asi . . . proevqhke pri;n crhmativsai ti ti:: Before introducing measures like his reform of senate rules (55.3.1–6) Augustus “posted them in the senate house, painted on whitened tablets.” Cf. 53.21.3. Dio also uses leuvkwma for Latin album at 47.3.2; 55.3.3; cf. OCD3 51 s.v. album. For crhmativzein = make a relatio cf. 53.32.5.

Augustus as Advocate (4.2–3) Still on the subject of Augustus’ civilitas, Dio relates two instances of his acting as an advocate, for a client and for a friend. Suet. Aug. 56.3–4 is broadly parallel and apparently derives from a common source. 4.2 dhmokratikov": “Unmonarchic,” “unassuming,” “popular.” Cf. 59.3.1, where dhmokratikwvtato" is used of the newly enthroned Caligula in counterpoint to monarcikwvtato", the ruler he turned out to be. tino; " tw÷ n sustrateusamev n wn wn:: “A man who had once campaigned with Augustus asked him to be his advocate,” plausibly the evocatus (cf. 45.12.2–3; 55.24.8n) named Scutarius whom Augustus assisted as advocate in a trial for

1.1–4.4: The Year 9 b.c.

57

iniuriae (abuse) (Suet. Aug. 56.4). The story is ornately told by Macrobius (2.4.27), who specifies a veteran of the Actian war (but gives no name). The Fasti of Venusia register a L. Scutarius as quaestor there from mid-32 to mid-31 and duovir in the second half of 31 (IIt. 13.1.254–255 = EJ no. 323). The coincidence of his municipal offices with the Actian war should not exclude his having served in it. Cf. L. Keppie, Colonisation and Veteran Settlement in Italy 47–14 b.c. (Rome, 1983), 113; Campbell Emperor 34. 4.3 sunexhtavsqh qh:: “He joined the defense of a certain friend who was on trial.” Dio relates how Augustus (a) first consulted the Senate, (b) then took up the cause and rescued his friend, (c) did not take offense at the outspokenness of the accuser, and (d) acquitted the latter when he was on trial (clearly later), deeming his outspokenness “indispensable” amid a general depravity. Although Dio omits the names of the protagonists except Augustus (as often), other sources supply them. From Suetonius’ parallel account in Aug. 56.3, which contains (a)–(c), though not (d), we learn that the defendant was Nonius Asprenas, the charge poisoning,31 and the accuser Cassius Severus, a man of legendary outspokenness (PIR2 C 522; cf. 56.27.1n); Suetonius gives Augustus a merely nominal role, however (“he sat on the benches for some hours, but in silence”), so that Dio can be suspected of bending the testimony of the common source, inflating Augustus’ part. The principal advocate for the defense was in fact Asinius Pollio (cos. 40 b.c.; cf. 55.5.1n): Quintilian, in recommending the study of opposing speeches, adduces a celebrated oratorical duel of Pollio versus Cassius Severus “in the trial of Asprenas” (Inst. 10.1.22; cf. 11.1.57). See also Manuwald Dio 117 and n70; Rich “Dio” 102–103; cf. Bauman Crimen 257–265 (speculative). eujqunovmenon ejpi; toi÷" trovpoi" ajûh÷ken en:: Augustus acquitted him “when he was on trial for misconduct.” No doubt the charge was based on Cassius Severus’ vituperative oratory. In using eujquvnein Dio may indicate a criminal trial rather than a censorial examination: cf. 39.63.2; 43.47.4; 54.3.1, 6. Dio prized Augustus’ tolerance of outspokenness (parrhsiva; cf. 53.21.3; 56.43.1–2). Cf. Macr. 2.4.9, Augustus once again forbearing of Cassius Severus. a[llou" ge mh;n . . . ej k ov l ase ase:: “But others who were accused of conspiring against him he did punish.” Beyond Dio’s bald report nothing is known of this plot (the aorist verb points to a particular occasion). For possible repercussions in the next year see 55.5.4n. For Dio’s views on how an emperor should deal with conspiracy see 52.31.9–10; cf. 55.18.1–4, 20.1n.

4.4 Quaestors in Italy 4.4 kai; tamiva" e[n te th÷/ paraliva/ th÷/ pro;" th÷/ povlei kai; ejn eJtevroi" tisi; th÷" !Italiva" cwrivoi" a[rcein ejpoivhse: kai; tou÷to kai; ejpi; pleivw e[th 31. The accused was no doubt L. Nonius Asprenas (PIR2 N 117), father of two consuls (a.d. 6, 8): so Syme Aristocracy 70, 315–316, table XXVI, who thinks that the scandal cost the father the consulship; cf. 56.22.2bn, 3n on the elder son; Wiseman Men 244–245. The charge arose from the death of 130 of his dinner guests: Plin. HN 35.164.

58

Commentary on Book 55

ej g ev n eto eto:: Augustus “put quaestors in charge on the coast near the city and in certain other places in Italy. This continued for many years.” Bibliography. Mommsen StR 2.570–573; RE 24.818–819 = quaestor (Wesener); H.B. Mattingly, “Suetonius Claud., 24,2 and the ‘Italian Quaestors’,” in Hommages Renard, vol. 2 (Collection Latomus 102) (Brussels, 1969), 505–511; E. Badian, “The Quaestorship of Tiberius Nero,” Mnemosyne 27 (1974), 160–172; W.V. Harris, “The Development of the Quaestorship, 267–81 b.c.,” CQ 26 (1976), 92– 106, esp. 97–101 (best introduction to the question; finds Dio’s report sound); cf. D.C. Chandler, “Quaestor Ostiensis,” Historia 27 (1978), 328–335. Under the Republic Rome had a number of provinces within Italy administered by quaestors.32 Most clearly attested are an Ostian province (e.g., Cic. Sest. 17.39; Mur. 8.18; Suet. Claud. 24.2) and calles = pastures (Suet. Iul. 19.2; Tac. Ann. 4.27.2, ‘quaestor, cui provincia vetere ex more calles evenerat;’ cf. Harris op. cit. 99–100). If Dio’s report is sound, the Italian quaestorships had somehow lapsed but were reinstated in 9. What prompted him to record this minor measure was perhaps a senator’s interest in the history of the quaestorship, the portal to the Senate. Prior to 9 the twenty quaestors elected annually included two urban quaestors, two assigned to Augustus, four to the consuls, and probably eleven to public provinces outside Italy33—nineteen in all, leaving the twentieth in surplus. Designation of three quaestorian provinces in Italy34 will have entailed an annual shortfall of quaestors and required some compensatory mechanism.35 Dio leaves the general aim of the reform vague. Was it to improve the administration of Italy—for example, the grain supply—as Harris proposes? “This continued for many years.” The quaestorian posts introduced in 9 b.c. are apparently the same as “the posts in Italy outside the city” all of which Dio says Claudius abolished in a.d. 44 at the same time as he “restored to the quaestors the administration [of the Aerarium]” which had been taken from them in 28 b.c. (60.24.3; cf. 53.2.1n, 32.2).36 Dio’s discrete annalistic report is probably the remnant of an end chapter in his source—given its final position in the year-account and its focus on the history of a lesser magistracy. This origin confirms its reliability (cf. Introduction sec. 5.1; Swan “Augustan Books” 2535–2543, esp. 2541–2542). The new measure will have been enacted by senate decree (Brunt CQ 34 [1984], 431).

32. Cf. Tac. Ann. 11.22.4–5. 33. Baetica (added ca 25 b.c.?: 53.12.4n), Sardinia-Corsica, Gallia Narbonensis (added 22 b.c.: 54.4.1), Sicily, Achaia, Macedonia, Bithynia-Pontus, Asia, Cyprus (added 22 b.c.: 54.4.1), Crete with Cyrene, and Africa. The status of Illyricum was changed from public to imperial ca 11 b.c. (54.34.4n). Cf. Talbert Senate 17. 34. Dio implies that there were at least three (lemma). 35. For example, obliging ex-quaestors to serve again (as reported by Dio under a.d. 16: 57.16.1; cf. 53.28.4). Cf. Talbert Senate 132–133. 36. Suetonius identifies two canceled posts (Claud. 24.2 with n of Hurley [2001]): Claudius “removed from the college of quaestors its Ostian and Gallic provinces [‘detractaque Ostiensi et Gallica provincia’] and gave it back the responsibility for the Aerarium Saturni.” Note Wiseman Men 156 n6: “Suetonius need not imply that there were only two Italian quaestorships.”

5.1–7.6: The Year 8 b.c.

59

55.5.1–7.6: The Year 8 b.c. Annalistic structure: urban section—external section—end chapter. The urban section features Augustus’ postponed adventus, then legislative activity, including renewal of his powers (55.5.1–6.1). The external section records his and Tiberius’ political and military achievements in Germany (55.6.1– ?7). The end chapter is an obituary for Maecenas (55.7.?1–6). I detect no suture suggesting that Dio turned here to a new annalistic source, as might be expected had he been relying on Livy, whose work ended with 9 b.c. Dio omits Augustus’ second census, completed in 8 (RG 8.3); among censorial activities it was rather reviews of the Senate (lectiones senatus) that concerned the consular historian.

5.1–6.1: URBAN AFFAIRS 5.1 !Asiv n io" . . . Mavrkio" kio":: The consul C. Asinius Gallus (PIR2 A 1229; Syme Aristocracy index) was the son of Antony’s civil war partisan C. Asinius Pollio (cos. 40), famed as orator, historian, and patron of Vergil. Gallus married Agrippa’s daughter Vipsania after Tiberius divorced her in favor of the emperor’s daughter Julia (54.31.2). In Tacitus’ Annals he is found playing a large, sometimes contentious, part in senate debates under Tiberius, who viewed him with suspicion. Caught in political toils, he was arrested and was still awaiting trial when he died in a.d. 33. The consul C. Marcius Censorinus was of ancient nobility (PIR2 M 222; Syme Aristocracy 396–397). An obituary notice of Velleius (2.102.1) signals high official approval. Cf. 56.25.6n, his proconsulship in Asia. Both consuls were accused of electoral bribery: 55.5.3n.

5.1–2 The Adventus of Augustus 5.1 (continued) a[ û ixin ixin:: Augustus “made his ceremonial return,” entering the pomerium. For his formal departure (profectio) in 9 see 55.2.2n. davûnhn nhn:: Augustus “brought the laurel to the Temple of Jupiter Feretrius” rather than, as customary, Capitoline Jupiter (cf. 54.25.4). With the gift of the laurel that wreathed his fasces—symbolizing the victories he had won with Tiberius and Drusus in 9—Augustus paid the vow that he had made to Jupiter on setting forth “on campaign” (55.2.2). Tiberius and Drusus earned their first imperatorial salutations through these victories, Augustus his thirteenth (cf. Appendix 3). The tiny ancient Temple of Jupiter Feretrius, now lost, housed the spolia opima, first won by Romulus (Livy 1.10.4–7; 4.20.2–4; Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 2.33.2–34.4). Augustus restored it from a ruinous state (Nep. Att. 20.3; Livy 4.20.7; RG 19.2). See Platner & Ashby 293–294; Richardson Dictionary 219; LTUR 3.135–136 (Coarelli). Why he now brought his laurel to it is unknown. Perhaps the Temple of Capitoline Jupiter, which suffered a lightning strike the

60

Commentary on Book 55

year before (55.1.1n), was under repair; Capitoline Jupiter received votive games nonetheless (55.5.2n). 5.2 u{ p atoi . . . sunevb alon alon:: Although Augustus, pained by the loss of Drusus, gave no festival to mark his adventus, the consuls “pitted some of the prisoners against each other.” An inscription of the consul C. Marcius Censorinus advertises his production (with his colleague) “by senate decree” of votive games to Jupiter Optimus Maximus for the emperor’s return (ILS 8894 = EJ no. 38). For other consular celebrations of Augustus’ returns see 54.27.1 (13 b.c.); 55.8.3 (7 b.c.); cf. 56.1.1 (a.d. 9, Tiberius).

5.3 Election Bribery 5.3 wJ " ej k dekasmou÷ tino" tino":: The consuls and the other magistrates “were accused of having been elected through bribery.”37 The existing penalty, legislated in a season of reform and now apparently deemed a stiff one, was a five-year disqualification from office (54.16.1n, 18 b.c.; cf. Suet. Aug. 34.1, 40.2). Dio betrays no disapproval of Augustus’ turning a blind eye—unlike Syme, who imputes “complicity” and “favouritism” (Aristocracy 79). Dio’s theory of punishment, reflected in Livia’s sermon at 55.16.1–20.8, was class-serving and pragmatic; the accused were many and included high personages (cf. 55.5.1n, !Asivnio"). For other instances of Augustus’ mitigating the rigor of his own laws cf. 54.19.2; 55.3.3. ej n ev c uron uron:: “Augustus demanded of candidates, as a kind of bond [= Latin pignus; cf. 41.37.3], a payment of money in advance” (deposited upon professing candidacy and held in the Aerarium?). Nothing is known as to amounts. The “universal” applause for Augustus’ solution probably came from senators, happy to see the career risks of electioneering reduced. That bribery was reduced is doubtful: see Tac. Ann. 1.15.1; cf. 55.34.2, electoral strife in a.d. 7 (though without explicit mention of bribery).

5.4 Testimony of Slaves against Masters Admitted Bibliography. W.W. Buckland, The Roman Law of Slavery (Cambridge, 1908), 88; RE 6A.1789 = tormenta 2 (Ehrhardt); Garnsey Status 213–216; Crook Law 274– 275; Bauman Impietas 44–45; P.A. Brunt, “Evidence Given Under Torture in the Principate,” ZRG 97 (1980), 256–259; O. Robinson, “Slaves and the Criminal Law,” ZRG 98 (1981), 213–254 at 235–243; L. Schumacher, Servus Index (Wiesbaden, 1982), 113–115; OCD3 913–914 (maiestas), 1535 (torture). 5.4 dou÷lon kata; despovtou ou:: “Although it was forbidden for a slave to be made to testify under torture against a master [in general slave testimony was legally admis37. Clearly not all electoral competition was dead, despite Dio’s registering shortages of candidates for the aedileship (53.2.2; 55.24.9) and tribunate (54.26.7, 30.2).

5.1–7.6: The Year 8 b.c.

61

sible only when given under torture], Augustus ordered that as often as circumstances required such a thing the slave be sold to the Aerarium or to him [sc. the imperial Fiscus].” In this way the traditional prohibition could be circumvented: through sale to the state slaves ceased to be property of their masters (cf. ajllovtrio"), who as a consequence lost their proprietary shield against hostile slave witnesses.38 In senate trials or public quaestiones the sale was made to the Aerarium through the actor publicus (state agent) (cf. Tac. Ann. 2.30.3 with Goodyear’s n [2.277]; 3.67.3); sale to the Fiscus occurred at trials before the emperor (on Augustus’ jurisdiction see 56.24.7n; cf. 55.7.2n). Since the new procedure was justified on grounds of state security (below), it was probably devised principally for maiestas trials: cf. Bauman Impietas 45. Impediments encountered when investigating conspiracy the year before (55.4.3) possibly actuated Augustus (or partisans).39 There was some precedent for the Augustan measure. Cicero says that, notwithstanding the general prohibition, the sagest of men deemed it necessary to examine slaves under torture “against their masters,” as in cases of incest and in investigating the Catilinarian conspiracy during his own consulship (Partitiones oratoriae 24.118; cf. Mil. 59). hj / t iw÷ n to . . . ajnagkai÷on aujto; e[ûaskon askon:: “Some charged that the law40 was going to be nullified through the change of master; but others declared the [new] measure essential since, as it was, many were conspiring against Augustus himself and against the magistrates [ejpi; tai÷" ajrcai÷"].” Has Dio here abridged the detailed account that he found in his annalistic source of a senate debate on the perennial issue of state security versus individual libertas? Invidiously, Tacitus attributes Augustus’ initiative to Tiberius, styling the latter a cunning legal innovator (Ann. 2.30.3, ‘callidus et novi iuris repertor’). But the fact that Dio’s report of Augustus’ legal stratagem is embedded in urban annalistic material seems to bear out its superior accuracy in making Augustus the innovator.41

6.1 Augustus’ Powers Renewed 6.1 hJ g emoniv a n . . . au aujj qi" th:: “Though he declared his intention of req¿ i" uJ p ev s th signing the leadership, since his second ten-year term had expired, he once more undertook it, reluctantly of course [dh÷qen], and set out on campaign against the Germans.” On the periodic renewals of Augustus’ powers see 54.12.4n; cf. 53.13.1. On the show of refusal (ajûieiv"), which was de rigueur, and on Dio’s ironic treatment of it, see 53.11.4n. Augustus’ departure from Rome was early enough that 38. Only the gravest charges seem to have been in question: cf. Tac. Ann. 2.30.3: ‘quaestio in caput domini.’ 39. How Augustus viewed the examination of slaves under torture can be gauged from an edict he issued in a.d. 8 (cited in Dig. 48.18.8): while urging discretion, he affirmed that, when the gravest offenses cannot otherwise be investigated, interrogations of slaves “are highly effective in getting at the truth” and “should be employed.” 40. novmo". Whether the traditional prohibition originated in law (Tacitus adduces a vetus senatus consultum: Ann. 2.30.3) or in the mos maiorum (Cic. Deiot. 3) is unclear. 41. The accuracy is not negated by Dio’s recording the use of slave testimony against masters under Tiberius (57.19.2).

62

Commentary on Book 55

he and Tiberius were able to earn joint imperatorial salutations in the first half of the year 8 (55.6.4n).

6.1–?7: EXTERNAL AFFAIRS 6.1–3 German Settlement of Augustus and Tiberius See Map 1. Command in Germany now passed from Drusus (cf. 55.1.1–2.3) to Tiberius. While Augustus stayed behind in Roman territory, Tiberius crossed the Rhine, precipitating a general surrender of German tribes, for which the unrelenting series of Roman offensives begun by Drusus in 12 had prepared the ground, and achieving a settlement that would hold for nearly a decade (for its end see 55.13.1an, cf. 10a.2–3n). See Timpe Saeculum 18 (1967), 279–280, 291; Wolters Eroberung 172–179. Sources. Dio’s account is jejune, selective, and intelligible only thanks to other sources: Vell. 2.97.4; Suet. Aug. 21.1, Tib. 9.2; Tac. Ann. 2.26.3, cf. 12.39.2; Cassiod. Chron. 589 (p135) under 8 b.c. = HRR 2.96 no. 3; Str. 7.290–292, an important text featuring German geography, ethnography, and history. 6.1 (continued) ej n th÷ / oij k eiv a /: Augustus “himself remained in Roman territory, but Tiberius crossed the Rhine.” At most Augustus reached cis-Rhenane Germany, the frontier of Gaul. Dio presents trans-Rhenane Germany as still a war zone. 6.2–3 oiJ bavrbaroi plh;n tw÷n Sugavmbrwn ejpekhrukeuvsanto anto:: “So in fear of Augustus and Tiberius the barbarians with the exception of the Sugambri made overtures but achieved nothing either then (Augustus declared that he would not make peace with them separately from the Sugambri) or later. For [gavr] when the Sugambri did send ambassadors as well, they so failed to accomplish anything that the whole lot [ejkeivnou" pavnta"], many and distinguished as they were, perished into the bargain.” Pace Timpe RhM 110 (1967), 298 n26, all the German envoys met their doom—arrest, internment, and suicide—not just the Sugambrian. Had Dio intended only Sugambri, he should have omitted ejkeivnou"; also, “or later” begs an explanation (provided in the next sentence, as gavr signals) and so points to a further reference to the non-Sugambrian envoys. Although foreign legati were deemed inviolate by Rome under the ius gentium (Dig. 50.7.18 [17]), and although elsewhere Dio instances Roman citizens being handed over to the enemy for breaching diplomatic sanctity (frs. 42;42 61 [Boissevain 1.292]), he seems not to disapprove of Augustus’ summary arrest of Sugambrian legati or, later, Domitian’s execution of legati of Quadi and Marcomanni (67.7.1n). He perhaps viewed these acts as justified by enemy duplicity. Cf. Caes. B Gall. 4.13, German legati detained by Caesar on grounds of double-dealing; Plut. 42. Cf. Zon. 8.7.3; Livy Per. 15; Val. Max. 6.6.5.

5.1–7.6: The Year 8 b.c.

63

Caes. 22.1–3, Caesar’s justification, as well as Cato’s proposal to hand him over to the enemy; Cato Min. 51.1. Cf. T.R.S. Broughton, “Mistreatment of Foreign Legates and the Fetial Priests: Three Roman Cases,” Phoenix 41 (1987), 50–62. hJsuvcasan asan:: The Germans “kept the peace for some time.” Although Dio says virtually nothing of the settlement that initiated this peace, other sources leave the impression that it was comprehensive. Cassiod. Chron. 589 (p135) = HRR 2.96 no. 3 registers under 8 b.c. the capitulation of “all the Germans” between the Rhine and Elbe. According to Velleius, Tiberius made Germany “virtually a tribute-paying province”—no doubt an overstatement, but suggestive.43 Suetonius describes a massive removal of Suebi and Sugambri who surrendered to the left bank of the Rhine.44 Dio’s report that the Germans now “kept the peace” fits the archaeological record, which, though desultory, points to a reorganization of military bases in Germany from 8, including the dismantling of the large base at Oberaden, whose life, on dendrochronological and other evidence, was 11–8/7.45 (This is probably the fort that Dio says Drusus built on the R. Lippe in 11; see 54.33.4n.) The sources have spawned a range of scholarly views on the nature of the Roman settlement. For Christ Chiron 7 (1977), 189–198 neither Drusus nor his successors in Germany succeeded in making the Elbe the boundary of a provincia Germania; it was rather the limit of the Roman Aktionsradius. H.-G. Simon holds that after the offensives of 12–8 b.c., which were aimed at creating a buffer zone for Gaul consisting of a network of dependent states on the model of Rome’s eastern frontier, the plan was to end major military operations: “Eroberung und Verzicht: Die römische Politik in Germanien zwischen 12 v. Chr. und 16 n. Chr.” in Baatz & Herrmann Römer 38–57 at 46–47; similarly C. Rüger in CAH2 10.526. On the other hand, Wells pictures rapid incorporation of Germany to the Elbe; notwithstanding his dismantling of the Oberaden base, Tiberius continued Augustus’ German policy of “permanent conquest.”46 Cf. Kienast Augustus 364–366, a summary of scholarship; K.-W. Welwei, “Römische Weltherrschaftsideologie und augusteische Germanienpolitik,” Gymnasium 93 (1986), 118–137.

43. Vell. 2.97.4: “Tiberius traversed victoriously all parts of Germany, without any harm befalling his army in battle, . . . and so subjugated it as to turn it virtually in formam stipendiariae provinciae. Then a second triumph and a second consulship were offered to him.” The scarcity of remains of bases found to date in interior Germany casts some doubt on Velleius’ testimony: cf. Wells Policy foldout map; Beilage 4 (Karte A) in H. Schönberger, “Die römischen Truppenlager der früheren und mittleren Kaiserzeit zwischen Nordsee und Inn,” BRGK 66 (1985), 324–344. The legionary base discovered at Marktbreit in 1985 was built later, it seems; cf. L. Wamser, “Marktbreit, ein augusteisches Truppenlager am Maindreieck,” in Trier Okkupation 109–127; M. Pietsch, “Der augusteische Legionslager Marktbreit—Aktuelles zum Forschungsstand,” in Wiegels & Woesler Arminius 41–66. 44. Suet. Aug. 21.1: “The Suebi and Sugambri who surrendered Augustus transported to Gaul, settling them on lands next to the Rhine;” Tib. 9.2: Tiberius “transported to Gaul 40,000 of those who surrendered and settled them on assigned lands beside the Rhine.” (Eutr. 7.9 and Oros. 6.21.24 derive from Suetonius; cf. R. Syme, Historia Augusta Papers [Oxford, 1983], 146–147.) Cf. Tac. Ann. 12.39.2 (a boast attributed to P. Ostorius Scapula, legate in Britain): The Silures would be blotted out “just as once the Sugambri had been butchered or transported to Gaul;” 2.26.3. 45. On the abandonment of this base, now deemed superfluous, see Trier Okkupation, especially the contributions of S. von Schnurbein, J.-S. Kühlborn, and P. Ilisch. In general see Kühlborn in KAVR 530–535 (“Die Zeit der augusteischen Angriffe gegen die rechtsrheinischen Germanenstämme”). 46. C.M. Wells Policy 156–158 and “What’s New Along the Lippe: Recent Work in North Germany,” Britannia 29 (1998), 457–464 at 460–463.

64

Commentary on Book 55

aj n tapev d osan osan:: “They later paid back the Romans with interest [ejpi; pollw÷/ 47] for their suffering.” Cf. Thuc. 3.40.7. Nowhere in the History (as extant) does Dio record how the Sugambri avenged themselves. I suggest that he refers to the Germans generally (as above, where he refers to the fate of all the German envoys, not just the Sugambrian) and the Varian disaster of a.d. 9 (56.18.1).48

6.4–7 Victory Honors 6.4 aj r guv r ion ion:: Augustus “bestowed a donative . . . on the soldiers,” apparently only those on the German frontier. By stressing the dynastic aspect of the occasion, a kind of military coming out of Augustus’ adoptive son Gaius Caesar, Dio disabuses his reader of any notion that he approves of paying donatives as rewards for victory; cf. 71.3.3–4 (= Boissevain 3.251–252 = Cary 9.12–13), commending Marcus Aurelius’ refusal to do so. For Rich, however, the donative “must have been prompted by Tiberius’ forthcoming triumph.” aujtokravtoro" o[noma oma:: Augustus “took the title imperator himself and granted it to Tiberius.” Augustus’ fourteenth salutation is attested inscriptionally in his fifteenth tribunician year, 9/8 (IRT 319 = EJ no. 105b), so he cannot have taken it later than mid-8. Tiberius’ salutation was his second; awarded at the same time as Augustus’, it is attested by 7 b.c.: ILS 95 = EJ no. 39. Cf. Syme RP 3.1203; Appendix 3. Gavion ejn tai÷" gumnasivai" i":: “Then for the first time the soldiers had Gaius joining in with them in their military exercises.” On sunexetavzesqai (“join in with”) see, for example, 60.4.4; for other references to military drills or parades cf. 36.12.2; 57.24.2; 59.2.1 (with a donative). On military exercises in general see Davies Service 96–102. Born in 20 b.c. (54.8.5), adopted by Augustus in 17 (54.18.1), Gaius had been on public display as early as the Troy Game in 13 (54.26.1, cf. 27.1). Now he was being educated for military command. Our “exercises” may be advertised on undated aurei and denarii from the Lugdunum mint bearing the reverse legend C. CAES. AVGVS. F and an image of the armed prince riding at a gallop against a background of legionary ensigns (RIC 12.54 nos. 198–199). These issues are dielinked (by obverses in common) to other issues from Lugdunum with reverses registering Augustus’ fourteenth salutation as imperator (cf. above) and showing a “cloaked figure” (a barbarian?) offering him a child, perhaps a reference to the giving of hostages on the German settlement of 8 (RIC 12.55 nos. 200–201). See Bibliothèque nationale, Catalogue des monnaies de l’Empire romain I: Auguste, ed. J.-B. Giard (Paris, 1976), pp208–210, dating our issues 8 b.c.; J. Pollini, “The Meaning and Date of the Reverse Type of Gaius Caesar on Horseback,” ANSMusN 30

47. Glossed as poluplasivw" in Suidae Lexicon, ed. A. Adler (5 parts; Leipzig, 1928–1938), 2.375 no. 2531, which quotes our passage of Dio. 48. An allusion to events lost in a lacuna (see the introduction to Book 55) cannot of course be ruled out. Nor does Dio always make good on forward references (cf. 53.24.6n).

5.1–7.6: The Year 8 b.c.

65

(1985), 113–117, arguing that the boy’s bulla worn by the mounted Gaius offers a terminus ante quem of 5 b.c., the year he was enrolled among the iuvenes (see 55.9.9n); Zanker Power 218–219. Pollini 117 suggests that the Gaius coins were used in the donative mentioned by Dio, following C.H.V. Sutherland, Coinage in Roman Imperial Policy 31 b.c.–a.d. 68 (London, 1951), 68–69. 6.5 ej" th;n tou÷ aujtokravtoro" ajrch;n ajnti; tou÷ Drouvsou ou:: “So [d! ouj n¿ is resumptive] Augustus, having advanced Tiberius to the post of commander in place of Drusus [sc. in the German theater: 55.6.1; cf. Vell. 2.97.4, ‘moles deinde eius belli translata in Neronem est’], puffed him up with that title [his second imperatorial salutation: 55.6.4n] and appointed him consul once more.” Dio distinguishes the ajrchv, “post,” of imperator (cf. 39.63.4, hJ ajrch; hJ tou÷ ajnqupavtou, “the post of proconsul”) and the ejpivklhsi", “title.” Pace K. Bringmann, “Imperium proconsulare und Mitregentschaft im frühen Prinzipat,” Chiron 7 (1977), 235, Dio does not here record the conferment on Tiberius of imperium proconsulare; that he had received in 11: 54.34.3n with 33.5n. The words “in place of Drusus” may reflect an anti-Tiberian animus that obtrudes occasionally in Dio’s Augustan account, consigning Tiberius to the shadow of his younger brother and later of his nephew Germanicus; ejgauvrwse, “puffed up,” is clearly pejorative. But the pro-Tiberian Velleius evinces no embarrassment over the transfer of command (quoted above). Cf. 55.31.1n. gravmmatav . . . pro;" to; koinovn: Augustus “had Tiberius post an edict publicly even before entering office [as consul of 7 b.c.], in the old-fashioned way.” Tiberius’ edict was of the sort that magistrates, including consuls, praetors, and provincial governors, issued on entering office, announcing the program that they would follow; it was unusual only in preceding entry: Diz. Epig. 2.2085 s.v. edictum; Mommsen StR 1.202–204, cf. 2.128–129. Perhaps Dio’s interest fastened on this revival of consular practice because he had himself been consul; he had earlier reported how the consuls designate for 49 b.c. exploited their edict for Pompey’s advantage (40.66.3). Augustus’ aim is unclear. ej p inikiv o i" i":: Augustus dignified Tiberius “with a triumph,” celebrated the next year (55.8.2n), but declined a triumph voted to himself, as on other occasions: 53.26.5; 56.17.1–2n; RG 4.1; cf. 54.11.6, 24.7 (triumphs declined by Agrippa); 54.31.4, a triumph voted to Tiberius but blocked by Augustus. 6.6 genev q lia lia:: Augustus received the honor of having his “birthday festival” celebrated with circus games in perpetuity. This festival seems originally to have been voted after Actium (51.19.2, cf. 20.4). By 8 b.c. circuses or beast hunts had come to be part of the celebrations in most years, contributed by magistrates, especially praetors, privately and without senate authorization; Dio records instances under 20, 13, and 11 b.c. (54.8.5, 26.2, 34.1–2). Only now did the circuses achieve permanent public status (and presumably funding). On the evolution and dissemination of public birthday festivals honoring imperials, beginning with that of Julius Caesar, see the excellent account of Weinstock Julius 206–211; cf. K. Argetsinger,

66

Commentary on Book 55

“Birthday Rituals: Friends and Patrons in Roman Poetry and Cult,” CA 11 (1992), 175–193 at 191–193, with bibliography; Taylor Divinity 194–195.

Pomerium Extended (6.6) 6.6 pwmhrivou o{ria ejphuvxhse hse:: Augustus “extended the limits of the pomerium,” the richly symbolic sacred boundary of Rome; cf. ‘terminos ampliavit’ on cippi marking Claudius’ extension: ILS 213 = Smallwood (1967) 44. Besides Dio the direct testimonia are Tac. Ann. 12.23.2, which cites extensions of Sulla, Augustus, and Claudius, and SHA Aurel. 21.9–11. Other sources that one would expect to record an Augustan extension are silent, however, so that its historicity is widely questioned; these include RG, Suet. Aug., and the Lex de Imperio Vespasiani (Crawford Statutes 1 no. 39 lines 14–16 = ILS 244 = EJ no. 364 = TDGR 6.82), which cites, as a precedent, not Augustus’ but Claudius’ right to extend the pomerium whenever it served the public interest.49 For the case against an Augustan extension see, for example, M.T. Griffin, “De Brevitate Vitae,” JRS 52 (1962), 109– 111; R. Syme, Historia Augusta Papers (Oxford, 1983), 131–145, who finds Dio, Tacitus, and the Historia Augusta all in error. In itself Dio’s notice offers little ground for suspicion. It is flanked by urban annalistic “bulletins” on events germane to the year 8: Tiberius’ designation as consul for 7, his edict as consul designate, conferral of a triumph for his achievements in 8 (celebrated in 7: 55.8.2), and the renaming of the eighth month from Sextilis to August (securely datable in 8: 55.6.6–7n). The historical context is apt, following conquests of Drusus and Tiberius (for enlargement of the pomerium to symbolize territorial expansion see Tac. Ann. 12.23.2); 8 was also the year of Augustus’ second census (RG 8.3)—it was as censor that Claudius and later Vespasian with Titus enlarged the pomerium (e.g., ILS 213 = Smallwood [1967] 44; Not. Scav. 9 [1933], 241 = MW 51). The absence of an Augustan precedent from Vespasian’s Lex de Imperio might mean simply that, unlike Claudius, Augustus received no permanent authorization to extend the pomerium. The brevity of Dio’s notice has little bearing on its accuracy: he gives a single line to the Secular Games of 17 b.c. Bibliography. RE 21.1873–1874 = Pomerium (Blumenthal); Bosworth Harv. Stud. 86 (1982), 168–169 (the extension was proposed maliciously by Tiberius to embarrass Augustus by parceling him with Sulla but never legislated); M.T. Boatwright, “The Pomerial Extension of Augustus,” Historia 35 (1986), 13–27 (the Augustan extension as a “fabrication” of the emperor Claudius; full discussion of sources and literature); Rich 224 (an Augustan extension unlikely); Richardson Dictionary 293–296 (skeptical); OCD3 1213–1214; Price in CAH2 818–820; Religions 1.177–181; LTUR 4.101 (M. Andreussi); Vaahtera Augural Lore 131–133. 49. Also Gell. 13.14 (a piece on the pomerium); Sen. Brev. Vit. 13.8 (mentioning Sulla as the last Roman to extend the pomerium—this in a dismissive attack on pomerium lore as an instance of morally useless information).

5.1–7.6: The Year 8 b.c.

67

The Month Sextilis Renamed August (6.6–7) Naming of a month after Augustus should be viewed, like the construction of the great sundial complex in the Campus Martius (cf. 56.25.5n), as an element in a many-sided effort to underpin the regime ideologically by integrating Augustus’ person and achievement with the cosmic order.50 We have here a rare chance to compare Dio’s report (and Suetonius’) of a senate decree with the text of the decree itself, insofar as it is preserved by Macrobius (1.12.35 = EJ no. 37, printed below). Of the original decree on the new month August certain phrases survive little altered in Dio except for translation (these are underlined in Macrobius’ text); part is abridged, part is omitted (notably the reference to legions on Janiculum). As often, Dio ignores legal niceties: ajntwnovmase (Augustus “renamed”) covers a decree of the Senate and a tribunician law in Macrobius. He also introduces what is not in the decree: a proposal, declined by Augustus, that September be named after him as his birth month. “Many great battles” (mavca" polla;" kai; megavla") is an error or exaggeration. Two victories in August are known: in Egypt in 30 b.c. and in the Alps in 15, the latter won through the agency of his stepsons Tiberius and Drusus (Hor. Carm. 4.14.34– 40; cf. Dio 54.22.3–5). There are also correspondences between Dio and Suetonius. These come from both using a common source. A phrase of Dio not represented in Suetonius (about others wanting September) seems to rule out Dio’s drawing on him. Unlike Suetonius, Dio chose not to report that the renaming of Sextilis was part of a detailed calendar revision about which Macrobius has more to say (1.14.13–15). Sources besides Dio (key words with correlatives in Dio are underlined): Macr. 1.12.35 = EJ no. 37: “Next is August, previously called Sextilis until it was assigned as an honor to Augustus by the senate decree the words of which I have given below: ‘Since in the month Sextilis Imperator Caesar Augustus entered his first consulship [‘cum imperator Caesar Augustus mense Sextili et primum consulatum inierit’] and led three triumphs into the city, and the legions brought down from Janiculum attached themselves to his auspices and good faith; and since in this month Egypt was brought under the dominion of the Roman People, and in this month the civil wars were brought to an end; since for these reasons this month is and has been most fortunate for this empire, it pleases the Senate that this month be called August [‘placere senatui ut hic mensis Augustus appelletur’].’ Similarly a plebiscite was passed on this account on the proposal of Sextus Pacuvius, tribune of the plebs.” Suet. Aug. 31.2: “He restored the calendar, reformed by Divus Iulius but afterward carelessly muddled, to its original order; in reforming it he gave his own cognomen to the month Sextilis, rather than to September the month of his birth, because it was in the former that he had won his first consulship and signal victo50. Calendric honors were in vogue. A Cypriot calendar venerates members of both the Augustan house and the mythical Julian line with month names, for example, Sebastos, Agrippaios, Oktabaios, Libaios (after Livia), Drousaios, and Aineadaios; see A.E. Samuel, Greek and Roman Chronology (München, 1972), 183. The Koinon of Asia modified its calendar ca 9 b.c., making Augustus’ birthday (23 September) its New Year’s Day and renaming the first month Caesar; see Sherk Documents no. 65 (pp328–337) with full discussion (= OGIS 458 = EJ no. 98 = TDGR 4.101).

68

Commentary on Book 55 ries [‘Sextilem mensem e suo cognomine nuncupavit, magis quam Septembrem quo erat natus, quod hoc sibi et primus consulatus et insignes victoriae optigissent’].” Censorinus DN 22: “The month called Sextilis was named August in honor of Augustus by a senate decree in the consulship of 〈C.〉 Marcius Censorinus and C. Asinius Gallus, in the twentieth year of Augustus.” Livy Per. 134: “He was given the cognomen Augustus, and the month Sextilis was named in his honor.” The context is the settlement of 27 b.c.! Macr. 1.14.13–15 (summarized): Augustus made a three-day correction in the Julian calendar required because the priests erroneously intercalated the “leap day” before rather than after each fourth year; this error had gone uncorrected for thirty-six years.51

6.6–7 mh÷na . . . Au[gouston ouston:: Augustus “changed the name of the month called Sextilis to August.” The renaming is often dated 27 b.c. on the basis of Livy Per. 134 (above). Cf. Manuwald Dio 241, who holds that the change of name was first enacted in 27 but accepted by Augustus only under 8 b.c.; Talbert Senate 360– 362. But the case for 8 b.c. is insuperable; see above all Bosworth Harv. Stud. 86 (1982), 163–166. (1) Decisively, Censorinus (above) assigns both a consular and a regnal date, each the equivalent of 8. (2) Suetonius (above) expressly links the renaming to the calendar correction that we know from Macrobius 1.14.13–15 (above) did not take place as early as 27: after Julius Caesar’s reform of 46 b.c. (texts in MRR 2.293, cf. 315), twelve three-yearly intercalations of one day each had already been made erroneously (instead of nine four-yearly intercalations) before Augustus introduced the necessary adjustment of three days, not (it follows) before 10 b.c.52 Did Dio question Augustus’ judgment in accepting a mensis Augustus? Clearly he approved Tiberius’ refusing a like honor (57.18.2) and ridiculed Commodus’ retitling of all the months variously after himself (72.15.3).

7.1–6: END CHAPTER—OBITUARY OF MAECENAS That we are now in an end chapter is shown by the characteristic material—an obituary—in final position in the year-account. 51. The priests reckoned the number of years as one would by counting from 1 Jan. 2004 (leap year) through 1 Jan. 2005 and 1 Jan. 2006 to 1 Jan. 2007 as four years so as to make 2007 the next “leap year” instead of 2008. In this way they produced inadvertently a calendar year of 3651/3 days, slightly “slower” than the natural year of 365¼ days. Over a period of thirty-six years the accumulated error was three full days. The correction entailed bringing the calendar up to date by omitting three intercalary days over the next twelve years. After that the system of Julian leap years was followed and still prevails (refined in the Gregorian Calendar of 1582). See P. Brind’Amour, Le calendrier romain: Recherches chronologiques (Ottawa, 1983), 11–15, 331–332. 52. The error in implementing the Julian calendar will have been detected at the latest through the astronomical calculations of Novius Facundus that informed the design of the sundial complex of Augustus (Plin. HN 36.72), dedicated in 10/9 (ILS 91 = EJ no. 14), which embraced even the Ara Pacis Augustae. On the Horologium (Sundial), of which the obelisk from Heliopolis now standing outside the Italian Parliament served as pointer (gnomon), see Map 2; Kienast Augustus 239–241; E. Buchner, Die Sonnenuhr des Augustus (Mainz, 1982) and “Horologium Solarium Augusti,” in KAVR 240–245; F. Rakob, “Die Urbanisierung des nördlichen Marsfeldes: Neue Forschungen im Areal des Horologium Augusti,” in Urbs 687–712; Bowersock in Raaflaub & Toher Republic 383–388; LTUR 3.35–37 (Buchner); Richardson Dictionary 190–191; CAH2 10.96 (Crook).

5.1–7.6: The Year 8 b.c.

69

On Maecenas see also 49.16.2n; 51.3.5–6; 52.1.2, 41.1; 54.3.5, 6.5, 17.5, 19.3, 6, 30.4; 56.38.3. In eulogizing Maecenas (there is no criticism), Dio counsels emperors to foster outspokenness (through which Maecenas tempered Augustus’ anger: 55.7.1–3) and to choose adjutants who accept a subordinate place and do not abuse their power. His portrait of the historical Maecenas, even when all relevant texts in the History are included, is desultory and short on substance, and hardly touches personal qualities. Maecenas’ patronage of letters goes unmentioned, as do his high ministerial services such as the reconciliation of Octavian and Antony at Brundisium (40 b.c.) or the suppression of the conspiracy of M. Lepidus, son of the triumvir (30 b.c.: cf. 54.15.4), on which Velleius expands (2.88.2–3; cf. App. B Civ. 4.50; Livy Per. 133; Suet. Aug. 19.1). Although Dio mentions a falling-out with Augustus (55.7.5; see 54.19.3, 6, cf. 3.5), he is unclear as to when or how far Maecenas’ influence declined (cf. Tac. Ann. 3.30.2–4). Much is anecdotal (55.7.2–3; cf. 54.6.5, 17.5, 30.4)—partly because the actions and rewards of equites seldom achieved mention in acta senatus or acta publica, ultimate sources of much annalistic history. There is a fair consistency between the Maecenas in Dio’s obituary and the Maecenas of the constitutional debate with Agrippa in Book 52, where his outspokenness is also on show, and where, though an eques, he advocates restraining the ambitions of equites. In praising Maecenas for “not losing his head” and for staying an eques all his life (55.7.4) Dio alludes to the opposite careers of Sejanus and Plautianus (perhaps also Macrinus: see 55.7.4n). There may also be a contrastive allusion to the parvenu Vedius Pollio, infamous for his excesses, to whom Dio has earlier given an extended, but hostile, obituary (54.23.1–6, under 15 b.c.). 7.1 a[ s tu tu:: Augustus “even put the city in Maecenas’ care for a long time though he was an eques.” On Maecenas as chargé d’affaires in Rome and Italy while Octavian campaigned against Sextus Pompey and Antony see 49.16.2n; 51.3.5n (also underlining Maecenas’ equestrian status); Vell. 2.88.1–3; Tac. Ann. 6.11.2; cf. 54.6.6n, 19.6n. oj r gh÷ " . . . parevlue kai; ej" to; hjpiwvteron meqivsth th:: The greatest benefit Maecenas conferred on Augustus was in calming him when he lost his temper. Cf. Sen. Ben. 6.32.2. Dio may echo Thuc. 2.65.1, th÷" . . . ojrgh÷" paraluvein; 2.59.3, pro;" to; hjpiwvteron . . . katasth÷sai. 7.2 ‘‘dhv dhv m ie ’: “‘Rise at last, executioner!’” This scene suggests that already before ie’: Maecenas’ death Augustus possessed a capital jurisdiction such as had belonged only to public quaestiones under the late Republic. Cf. J.M. Kelly, Princeps Iudex: Eine Untersuchung zur Entwicklung und zu den Grundlagen der kaiserlichen Gerichtsbarkeit (Weimar, 1957), esp. 43–44; J.A. Crook in CAH2 10.122–123. But for J. Bleicken our episode belongs to the triumviral period: Senatsgericht und Kaisergericht: Eine Studie zur Entwicklung des Prozessrechtes im frühen Prinzipat

70

Commentary on Book 55

(Göttingen, 1962), 77. On imperial jurisdiction see in general Hammond Principate 181–187, 359–360; Kunkel Introduction 71–72; Jones Studies 88–98; Millar Emperor 516–527, cf. 228–240; Carter on Suet. Aug. 33.1–3 (pp139–141); R.A. Bauman, Crime and Punishment in Ancient Rome (London, 1996), 50–57; 56.24.7n. Maecenas’ attempt to push his way through the bystanders and his missile tablet launched into the lap of Augustus’ toga (kovlpon) attest a remarkable indecorum at the emperor’s tribunal. R.A. Bauman, “‘Hangman, Call a Halt!’” Hermes 110 (1982), 102–110 explores possible historical and fictive origins of Dio’s anecdote, including the obscure plot of 9 b.c. (55.4.3).53 7.3 parrhsiv a / diwrqou÷ t oo:: “Whenever he flew into an unseemly rage himself through a natural propensity and the stress of affairs he was brought to reason by the outspokenness of friends.” For Dio, who “broods on the dark side of human behaviour” (Reinhold Republic 216), not even his exemplar Augustus was immune to evil impulses. 7.4 oujk ejxeûrovnhsen hsen:: Maecenas “did not lose his head but lived out his life in the order of equites.” He embodied the subservient virtues that Dio approved of in equites—and in Agrippa (cf. 54.29.2–3). Dio uses ejkûronei÷n of Sejanus, bereft of sense by extravagant honors (58.12.6), of Caligula in his divine pretensions (59.26.5), and of men in his own day who presumed to be senators (or more) despite inferior status (79.7.2); cf. 52.8.8; 53.7.3. He may also have in mind Macrinus, who “had seized the imperial office while still an eques” (78.14.4); if so, our passage was composed or revised after his reign (217–218). Cf. Vell. 2.88.2 (with Woodman’s n) on Maecenas, who “lived content with the narrow stripe.” 7.5 klhronovmon on:: “Augustus missed [ejpovqhse] Maecenas sorely [cf. 54.29.5, Agrippa missed; 56.43.4, Augustus] for these reasons and because he left him as his heir despite being resentful over his wife.” Property of Maecenas that passed to Augustus (and thus to succeeding emperors) is on record. Slaves named Maecenatiani/ae are found in the ownership of Augustus and Livia (PIR2 M 37 [p133]). It was thanks to Maecenas’ will that his gardens on the Esquiline were available to Tiberius as a residence on his return from Rhodes (Suet. Tib. 15.1, cf. Nero 38.2). The minister’s former estates in Egypt figure as imperial holdings in papyri: e.g., PIR2 M 37 (p134); G.M. Parassoglou, Imperial Estates in Roman Egypt (Amsterdam, 1978); P.J. Sijpesteijn, “Further Evidence of Imperial Estates in Roman Egypt,” ZPE 60 (1985), 279–281; L. Capponi, “Maecenas and Pollio,” ZPE 140 (2002), 181–184. In noting that “with very few exceptions” Maecenas left it to Augustus whether “to give anything to any of his friends,” Dio may refer, first, to legacies that Augustus was legally obliged to pay out of the estate (the “exceptions”), second, to a separate trust (fideicommissum) instructing him, though in a nonbinding way, to distribute something from the estate to others. Cf. 54.29.5, Augustus as heir of Agrippa. 53. But that plot generated punishments (ejkovlase), whereas the present trial evidently ended in acquittals.

8.1–9.1: The Year 7 b.c.

71

At 54.19.3 (16 b.c.) Dio reports a liaison of Augustus with Maecenas’ wife Terentia, though with reserve (“some . . . suspected”). Here he takes it as a fact, as also at 53.19.6. 7.6 prw÷tov" te kolumbhvqran ran:: The sybaritic Maecenas was “the first to construct a hot-water swimming pool” in Rome, no doubt in his own gardens (cf. 55.7.5n). This was an indoor pool, calida piscina in Latin (cf. Plin. Ep. 2.17.11; Suet. Nero 27.2), heated by a furnace—a Roman innovation. See I. Nielsen, Thermae et Balnea: The Architecture and Cultural History of Roman Public Baths, 2 vols. (Aarhus, 1990), 1.156, cf. 155. In kolumbhvqra Dio found a word with a satisfactory Attic pedigree: cf. Pl. Resp. 453d. prw÷to" shmei÷av tina tina:: Maecenas “first devised a type of shorthand signs and had them taught to many others through his freedman Aquila.” Latin shorthand is attested before this: it was used in a form invented by Cicero’s slave (later freedman) Tiro to take down Cato’s speech in the senate debate on the Catilinarian conspiracy (Plut. Cat. Min. 23.3; Isid. Etym. 1.22; cf. Cic. Att. 13.25 [= SB 333] 3). After Tiro, according to Isidore, “Vipsanius, Philargius, and Aquila, a freedman of Maecenas, added various signs.” How far the innovations can be attributed to Maecenas rather than his household is unclear. Cf. Sen. Ep. 90.25. On the development of shorthand see RE 11.2225–2226 = Kurzschrift (Weinberger); A. Mentz, “Die Entstehungsgeschichte der römischen Stenographie,” Hermes 66 (1931), 369–386; T.N. Winter, “The Publication of Apuleius’ Apology,” TAPhA 100 (1969), 607–612; H. Boge, Griechische Tachygraphie und tironische Noten (Hildesheim, 1974), 51–56; H.C. Teitler, Notarii and Exceptores: An Inquiry into Role and Significance of Shorthand Writers in the Imperial and Ecclesiastical Bureaucracy of the Roman Empire (from the Early Principate to c. 450 a.d.) (Amsterdam, 1985), 112, 172–173 (sources), 295; Talbert Senate 316–317.

55.8.1–9.1: The Year 7 b.c. Annalistic structure: urban section only. This year-account features Tiberius’ consulship and memorials of Agrippa (died 12); it also contains certain dated notices important for Rome’s architectural and administrative history. Of external affairs Dio writes merely that in Germany, to which troubles recalled Tiberius, “nothing worth mentioning occurred” (55.9.1, cf. 8.3).

8.1–3: TIBERIUS’ CONSULSHIP See Map 2. 8.1 noumhniv a /: “On the first day of the month,54 entering the consulship [his second] with Cn. Piso, Tiberius convened the Senate in the Porticus Octaviae be54. Obviously January, though noumhniva/ could indicate the first day of any month (50.2.3n). That all the events recorded in Dio’s first sentence (55.8.1–2) belong to a single winter day is questionable.

72

Commentary on Book 55

cause it was outside the pomerium.” For Tiberius’ colleague Cn. Calpurnius Piso (PIR2 C 287) see Syme Aristocracy 369–375. This is the Piso later implicated in the death of Germanicus Caesar; according to Tac. Ann. 3.16.4 his suicide note, addressed to Tiberius, hearkened back to their shared consulship; cf. 57.20.1–2. The consuls of 7 had presumably been among the first to be required to offer bonds for good behavior as candidates for election (on the new regulations see 55.5.3n). Porticus Octaviae [!Oktaouiveion Dindorf; ojktaouvion ms.]:: This portico stood just north of the Theater of Marcellus in the Campus Martius. A huge colonnaded square, richly executed (e.g., Ovid Ars 1.69–70), it enclosed various other structures, old and new. Apparently it was the work of Octavia (ibid.; Festus p188 Lindsay), though Dio says that Augustus built “the porticoes and libraries called Octavian after his sister” with Dalmatian spoils (49.43.8 under 33 b.c.), and Suetonius makes him out to be the actual builder (Aug. 29.4). The ground plan and the label Porticus Octaviae are preserved on the Severan marble map of Rome (Rodríguez Almeida Forma 114, table XXIII; Richardson Dictionary 317). The Porticus Octaviae replaced or subsumed the second-century b.c. portico of Metellus Macedonicus and, like it, enclosed the Temples of Juno Regina and Jupiter Stator (cf. Vell. 1.11.3; Plin. HN 36.42; these two temples are shown as black rectangles on Map 2).55 In convoking the Senate “outside the pomerium” in the Porticus Octaviae56 Tiberius observed the prohibition against entering the pomerium before the day of one’s triumph (to enter beforehand was to abdicate one’s imperium and so command of the victorious army): see 39.65.1; cf. 37.54.1–2; 55.2.2. The Senate had met outside the pomerium to accommodate Pompey in 52 and 49 (40.50.2; 41.3.3) and Julius Caesar in 49 (41.15.2). See Mommsen StR 3.930–931; Talbert Senate 119–120. On the pomerium, perhaps recently enlarged, cf. 55.6.6n. Bibliography. Platner & Ashby 427; Nash Dictionary 2.254–258; Wiseman PBSR 42 (1974), 3–26, esp. 5–8, 13 (on the architectural history of the southeast Campus Martius); B. Olinder, Porticus Octavia in Circo Flaminio: Topographical Studies in the Campus Region of Rome (Stockholm, 1974), reviewed by T.P. Wiseman in JRS 66 (1976), 246–247; Gros Templa 81–84; L. Richardson, “The Evolution of the Porticus Octaviae,” AJA 80 (1976), 57–64; Zanker Power 144–146 (with plan); Coarelli Roma 276–278; E. La Rocca, “L’adesione senatoriale al ‘consensus:’ I modi della propaganda augustea e tiberiana nei monumenti ‘in Circo Flaminio’,” in Urbs 347–372, esp. 357–358 (how the vicinity of the Porticus Octaviae and the Theater of Marcellus was transformed into a dynastic showplace); Bonnefond-Coudry Sénat 176–179; LTUR 4.141–145 (A. Viscogliosi). 55. The Porticus Octaviae is to be distinguished from the almost identically named Porticus Octavia, constructed by Cn. Octavius to commemorate his naval triumph over Perseus of Macedon in 167 and rebuilt by Augustus: Festus p188 Lindsay, identifying separate porticoes; Vell. 2.1.2; Plin. HN 34.13; RG 19.1, locating it ‘ad circum Flaminium;’ cf. App. Ill. 28; 49.43.8n. 56. Tiberius may have convened the session in what Pliny the Elder calls now curia Octaviae, now schola (HN 36.28–29; cf. 35.114, paintings ‘in schola in Octaviae porticibus;’ 36.22, a Praxiteles ‘nunc in scholis Octaviae positus’); schola, like curia, is used of meeting places (OLD s.v. schola 4). Or the Senate may have met in the library dedicated by Octavia to her son Marcellus (Plut. Marc. 30.6; Suet. Gram. 21.3, on a freedman assigned by Augustus “to organize the libraries in the Porticus Octaviae;” cf. 49.43.8).

8.1–9.1: The Year 7 b.c.

73

8.2 Temple of Concord [to; @Omonoveion]:: Tiberius “personally undertook to restore the Temple of Concord with the aim of inscribing his own and Drusus’ names on it.” This temple in the northwest Forum (see Map 2 inset) had been built by L. Opimius, cos. 121 b.c., after the suppression of C. Gracchus, and replaced an earlier shrine. Tiberius will now have received approval to proceed with the restoration, to be financed from spoils of German victories (Suet. Tib. 20; Ovid Fasti 1.645–648).57 The new structure was dedicated only in a.d. 10 (56.25.1n); Tiberius’ political eclipse (6 b.c.–a.d. 4) no doubt entailed some delay, though he managed to advance the undertaking even in retirement (55.9.6n). Its completion is prophesied in Consol. Liv. 287–288. On the political meaning of the Concord project see Levick Latomus 31 (1972), 803–805 (in the footsteps of the temple’s legendary founder Camillus and of Opimius, Tiberius was championing the ideal of “strong senatorial government”); also her “Concordia at Rome,” in Scripta Nummaria Romana (London, 1978), 224–225 (key motifs were fraternal concord and reconciliation of strife over the succession); Weinstock Julius 265–266; Rich 225–226; T. Hölscher in LIMC 5.1.493–494. Dio is more likely to have learned of Tiberius’ resolve to share the inscription with Drusus from an historical source than to have surmised it from reading the dedicatory text in situ. Still he no doubt knew the inscription; note his careful interest in the inscription on the Temple of Castor and Pollux dedicated by Tiberius in a.d. 6 (55.27.4n); cf. 77.1.4–5, a sacrifice voted to Concord by the Senate (with Dio present?) for harmony between Caracalla and Geta. German triumph of Tiberius: Tiberius “conducted his triumph [nikhthvria].” It had been awarded in 8 (55.6.5n). Cf. Suet. Tib. 9.2, ‘curru urbem ingressus est;’ Vell. 2.97.4; Ovid Fasti 1.647, ‘triumphatae . . . gentis;’ cf. Am. 1.14.45–50 with Syme Ovid 5. This was the first triumph by a member of the dynasty since Augustus’ triple triumph of 29 b.c. Lacey stresses its importance, part of a program “proclaiming Tiberius as the New Agrippa, and guardian of the heritage of the Caesars” (Augustus 50–53). For the pageantry of an imperial triumph58 see Jos. BJ 7.124–157, the Jewish triumph of Vespasian and Titus; also Ovid Tr. 4.2 (an imaginary triumph); cf. A.L. Kuttner, Dynasty and Empire in the Age of Augustus: The Case of the Boscoreale Cups (Berkeley, 1995), 143–154, plates 10–12, arguing that Cup II:2 portrays scenes from Tiberius’ triumph. On triumphs in general see RE 7A.493–511 = Triumphus (Ehlers); Versnel Triumphus, with the review of L. Bonfante Warren in Gnomon 46 (1974), 574–583; Weinstock Julius 60–79; Scullard Festivals 213– 218; Künzl Triumph. 57. C.J. Simpson, “Livia and the Constitution of the Aedes Concordiae: The Evidence of Fasti 1.637ff.,” Historia 40 (1991), 449–455 uses Ovid Fasti 1.649–650 to argue that, after the Senate voted its approval on 1 January, the “constitution” of the restored temple was continued in an inauguration ritual on the site, with Livia dedicating an altar there, perhaps on 16 January, the day on which the temple was dedicated sixteen years later. On the other hand Flory Historia 33 (1984), 323–324 takes Ovid’s lines as referring to a shrine of Concord in the Porticus Liviae (on which see below, s.v. Porticus Liviae). 58. By now the only kind (cf. 54.12.1–2, 24.7–8).

74

Commentary on Book 55

Porticus Liviae: See Map 2. Tiberius, “along with his mother, dedicated the so-called Livian shrine [to; temevnisma to; Livouion wjnomasmevnon].” Dio’s language is circumspect: the structure was not in fact Livia’s shrine, even if people came to label it so. He reserves temevnisma for deities like Isis and Serapis (42.26.2), Apollo (53.1.3), Janus (53.26.5), Jehovah (66.6.1), or the deified Caracalla (78.24.3); Livia, he knew, achieved that status in Rome only under Claudius: 60.5.2. Dio shared Roman reserve about publicly deifying living rulers (51.20.7–8; cf. 52.35.5); thus he approved Tiberius’ reluctance to accept any temevnisma for himself (57.9.1–2, where his Latin source may have read templum; cf. Tac. Ann. 4.37.3, 38.2). The “Livian shrine” should be identified with the Porticus Liviae in Suet. Aug. 29.4 and the peristw÷o/ n (= porticus) that Dio says Augustus built and named after Livia on the site previously occupied by Vedius Pollio’s palace, which Augustus had leveled after it passed to him under this voluptuary’s will in 15 b.c. (54.23.5– 6). See Ovid Fasti 6.637–648 under 11 June, especially 639–640: “But learn, thou age to come, that where Livia’s portico now stands once stood a palace huge” (after Cary). Although the portico has no visible remains, its ground plan and name are inscribed on the Severan marble plan of Rome—adjacent to and north of the baths of Trajan (on the Oppian Hill) (Pianta marmorea 68–69 and table XVIII; Rodríguez Almeida Forma 77–81, tables VII–VIII; Zanker Power 138); the plan suggests outside dimensions of ca 120 by 80 m. For excavations and geodesic research on subterranean remains see C. Panella, “L’organizzazione degli spazi sulle pendici settentrionali del Colle Oppio tra Augusto e i Severi,” in Urbs 611–651. In general see Platner & Ashby 423; Richardson Dictionary 314–315; LTUR 4.127–129 (Penella). Testimonials to the delights of Livia’s portico include Str. 5.236; Ovid Ars 1.71–72; Plin. HN 14.11 (vine-shaded walks); cf. Dio 68.10.2 (its use for trials). For sociopolitical connotations of Augustus’ transforming the pleasure palace of Vedius Pollio into a public park in a crowded quarter see Flory Historia 33 (1984), 309–330 at 324–330; P. Zanker, “Drei Stadtbilder aus dem augusteischen Rom,” in Urbs 480–483. Cf. Purcell PCPS 212 (1986), 88–90 (Livia’s unprecedented role as a builder who was a woman). When Ovid addresses the deity of the edifice as Concordia (Fasti 6.637–638: “To you too, Concordia, Livia consecrates a splendid shrine”), the reference is clearly not to the portico as a whole but more likely to the small structure at its center indicated by concentric squares on the marble plan. gerousivann:: Tiberius “feasted the Senate on the Capitol, Livia the wives somewhere separately [ijdiva;/ cf. 53.14.2; 72.23.2].” On such banquets (epula) marking great public occasions, including dedications and triumphs, cf. 54.2.3n; 55.2.4n. With “separately” Dio may signal approval: Livia did not presume to be the hostess of men; cf. 57.12.5, where he endorses Tiberius’ forestalling her intention of giving an epulum not just for wives but also for senators and equestrians.59 Julia had joined 59. For an emperor to host wives and husbands together seems to have been acceptable (59.7.1, Caligula, on the dedication of the Temple of Divus Augustus; 60.7.4, Claudius).

8.1–9.1: The Year 7 b.c.

75

Livia in feasting the women to celebrate her husband Tiberius’ ovation in 9 b.c. (55.2.4); is her apparent absence here a sign of the imminent rupture of their marriage (cf. 55.9.7)? 8.3 Germaniv a /: “Not long after, because of disturbances in Germany, Tiberius set forth.” With Germaniva Dio regularly specifies cis-Rhenane Germany (see 53.12.6n), so the trouble is possibly to be linked to the transplantation of Germans, especially Sugambri, to the left bank of the Rhine undertaken in 8 (55.6.1– 3n). At 55.9.1 Dio labels the year’s achievement in “Germany” (again Germaniva/) as “unremarkable.” Adventus of Augustus: In the absence of Tiberius, his consular colleague Piso together with Gaius Caesar “directed the festival celebrating the return [ejpanovdou] of Augustus,” sc. from his “campaign” of the year before (55.6.1 for his departure) which produced Tiberius’ triumph (so Halfmann Itinera 159). It follows that Tiberius had started for Germany before Augustus made his formal return—the Princeps may of course have been in Rome already, but outside the pomerium. An inscription belonging to our festival names Tiberius—styled pontifex, consul II, and imperator II—as the author of votive games to Jupiter Optimus Maximus for Augustus’ return (ILS 95 = EJ no. 39); the name of his colleague Piso has been erased, clearly following his condemnation in a.d. 20; Tiberius’ substitute Gaius Caesar is not mentioned. On other adventus of Augustus see 53.28.3; 54.25.1–5; 55.5.1–2; for other consular games see 55.5.2.

8.3–5: MEMORIALS OF AGRIPPA See Map 2. 8.3 (continued) Campus Agrippae: “Augustus himself made public property of the Campus Agrippae [pedivon to; !Agrivppeion], except the portico, and of the Diribitorium.” A large parcel of land, apparently used for a park (Gell. 14.5.1; cf. P. Grimal, Les jardins romains3 [Paris, 1984], 180–181; L. Farrar, Ancient Roman Gardens [Stroad, 2000], 179–180), the Campus had come to Augustus as Agrippa’s heir, like the Diribitorium (cf. 54.29.4–5n). Its location can only be approximated. The Notitia and Curiosum60 place it in Region VII (G. Lugli, ed., Fontes ad Topographiam Veteris Urbis Romae Pertinentes, vol. 4 [Rome, 1957], 357), therefore adjacent to the Via Lata (modern Via del Corso) on the east. Since it was the site of the Porticus Vipsania (on which see 55.8.4n), known to have stood somewhere near the Aqua Virgo (Mart. 4.18.1–4), we should look for the Campus in the northeast and/or southeast quadrants of the intersection of Via Lata and Aqua Virgo; scholars generally opt for the northeast.61 60. On these regionary catalogues see on 55.8.7. 61. That the Campus lay wholly or partly in the northeast quadrant is suggested by the testimony of the Chronographer of 354, who places Aurelian’s Temple of Sol, probably to be found in this quadrant, ‘in campo Agrippae:’ Chronica Minora Saec. IV. V. VI. VII., vol. 1 = Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Auctorum Antiquis-

76

Commentary on Book 55

plh;n th÷" stoa÷": “except for the portico.” Sc. the Porticus Vipsania (55.8.4n), perhaps not “nationalized” because still under construction (so Roddaz Agrippa 293); the Diribitorium, left unfinished by Agrippa on his death, was nationalized only now, having been completed in the interval. Diribitorium: Augustus made the “Diribitorium” public property. Dio simply transliterates the Latin as diribitwvrion (for other loanwords see 55.3.5n; contrast his translation of Campus as pedivon above). Built by Agrippa and, following his death, Augustus as a complement to the Saepta Iulia dedicated in 26 b.c. (53.23.1–2), the Diribitorium was to provide cover during the long process of sorting votes cast in the Saepta (diribitio: Cic. Planc. 6.14): L.R. Taylor, Roman Voting Assemblies: From the Hannibalic War to the Dictatorship of Caesar (Ann Arbor, 1966), 54–55. The Severan marble plan shows it as an annex to the south end of the Saepta: Pianta marmorea 97–102, table XXXI; Rodríguez Almeida Forma 129, tables XXVI–XXVII; Nash Dictionary 2.293; Roddaz Agrippa 254–255; Richardson Dictionary 109–110; LTUR 2.17–18 (M. Torelli). 8.4 oi ¿ mevgisto" oijjko" isto":: The Diribitorium “was the biggest building ever of those fitted with a single roof,” sc. supported only at its perimeter, leaving the floor beneath clear of any bearing-wall or pillar. Dio evokes a golden age whose high achievements defied emulation. For Pliny the Elder the timber roof was among the magnifica of Rome (HN 36.102, cf. 16.201). The notion that Dio may have mistaken the Diribitorium for the Saepta as the largest single-roofed building62 should be rejected: cf. 59.7.8, performances moved from the theater to the shade of the Diribitorium—not the Saepta—in hot weather. The roof may have been pulled down after the great fire of a.d. 80 (cf. 66.24.2); R. Meiggs, Trees and Timbers in the Ancient Mediterranean World (Oxford, 1982), 254–255, suggests that the obstacle to rebuilding it was a shortage of giant timbers; there was no longer a need, anyway, for a great hall for counting votes. Porticus Vipsania: “The portico [stoav] in the Campus [sc. Agrippae], which Agrippa’s sister Polla was building, . . . was not yet finished.” See 55.8.3n on its location. Pliny the Elder says that Agrippa planned it, his sister undertook its construction on his death using notes left by him, and Augustus completed it (HN 3.17), Polla, who was still alive in 7, having presumably died in the meantime. No remains have been positively identified. Suggestive of its dimensions is the fact that troops were bivouacked in it during the civil strife in 69 (Tac. Hist. 1.31.2; cf. Plut. Galba 25.5). See Platner & Ashby 430; Roddaz Agrippa 293; Richardson Dictionary 319–320; LTUR 4.151–153 (Coarelli). The Porticus Vipsania contained, in keeping with Agrippa’s plan, a map of the known world

simorum 9, ed. T. Mommsen (Berlin, 1892), p148. However, if the Porticus Vipsania is rightly placed south of the Aqua Virgo (so Coarelli Roma 241, 263 with plan on 265; followed by Roddaz Agrippa 291–293 with plan on 255), the Campus Agrippae, in which Dio says the portico stood, must have extended into the southeast quadrant. Cf. Platner & Ashby 90; Richardson Dictionary 64; LTUR 1.217 (Coarelli) with figures 118 and 126 (Campus Agrippae located inconsistently). 62. L.J. Grieve, “The Reform of the comitia centuriata,” Historia 34 (1985), 307 n136.

8.1–9.1: The Year 7 b.c.

77

(Plin. HN 3.17).63 (Vipsania) Polla is known only from our text and her anonymous mention in Pliny. tou;" drovmou" diakosmhvsasa asa:: I cannot explain this text satisfactorily. Most scholars resort to a literal translation: Polla “embellished/adorned the racecourse(s).”64 Dio’s usage of diakosmei÷n (and diakovsmhsi") is various, including “regulate” affairs in the provinces at 53.22.5 and “marshal” an army at 68.23.1; cf. Thuc. 1.20.2, pomph;n diakosmou÷nti, describing Hipparchus’ marshaling of the Panathenaic procession. Not to be ruled out is the possibility that Polla produced races in memory of Agrippa, a circus enthusiast.65 Ten years earlier Agrippa had “started” the chariots at the circuses held during the Secular Games: ‘M. Agrippa quadrigas [misit]:’ ILS 5050 (165).66 8.5 Funeral games for Agrippa: “The funeral combats [ejpitavûioi . . . oJplomacivai)] in memory of Agrippa . . . were held.” Gladiatorial shows had long served as a ritual offering of aristocratic houses to their dead. Cf. 9.10.3, combats given by Scipio Africanus in memory of his father and uncle; 37.51.4, by Faustus Sulla for his father the Dictator. To hold funeral games five years after a death was not unusual: J.W. Rich, “Agrippa and the Nobles: A Note on Dio, 54.29.6,” LCM 5.10 (1980), 219; those for Tiberius’ brother Drusus, who died in 9 b.c., were held in a.d. 6 (55.27.3n)—in this instance Tiberius’ retirement had no doubt prolonged the interval. The show for Agrippa was one of eight extraordinary munera that Augustus says he gave in his own name or the names of sons or grandsons in which “about 10,000 men fought it out” (RG 22.1; cf. 53.1.5n). See Ville Gladiature 103–104. ûaia;n ejsqh÷ta a:: “Dark clothing,” a mark of grief: cf. 56.31.2–3n. From Dio’s stressing that everyone wore mourning except Augustus67 we should infer that such homage was exceptional, a measure of Agrippa’s eminence in the national memory. It was perhaps as author of the munus that Augustus did not dress as the rest; for Price “Consecration” 68, however, “the point was surely that the emperor, as representative of the state, was not to mourn the dead nor to be in contact with death.” eJno;" pro;" e{na kai; pleiovnwn pro;" i[sou" ou":: The combats were “both oneon-one and team against equal team.” Recent German campaigns had provided 63. The map was probably rectangular and inscribed or painted (or both) on a wall of the portico. J.J. Tierney, “The Map of Agrippa,” Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 63 (1963), 151–166 discusses physical aspects of the map and the sources of our knowledge. Cf. O.A.W. Dilke, Greek and Roman Maps (Ithaca, 1985), 41–53, with collected testimonia on Agrippa’s map from Pliny the Elder; Nicolet Space 95–122 (= Inventaire 107–131). For the argument that the famous Peutinger Map derived ultimately from Agrippa’s map see Bowersock Arabia 164–186. 64. E.g., Scott-Kilvert, Rich, Cary, Humphrey Circuses 73. Humphrey suggests that Polla may have added “monuments in the arena” of the Circus Maximus. 65. C. Nicolet, L’inventaire du monde: Géographie et politique aux origines de l’Empire romain (Paris, 1988), 267 n17 translates (and glosses): “‘Polla, laquelle s’occupait aussi des jeux’ (donnés pour le retour d’Auguste cette même année)” (see 55.8.3). 66. On Agrippa’s interest in circuses cf. 49.43.2n; F.W. Shipley, Agrippa’s Building Activities in Rome (Washington University Studies, New Series Language and Literature 4) (St. Louis, 1933), 84–85. 67. Ville’s statement that Augustus’ sons did not wear mourning (Gladiature 104) results from a misreading of Dio (read correctly, however, at 440).

78

Commentary on Book 55

captives to serve as gladiators. For team combats see 43.23.3 with Suet. Iul. 39.3; 51.22.6, 8 (Suebi versus Dacians); cf. 55.10.7–8n, a naumachia reenacting Salamis. sev p toi" toi":: The “Saepta” was chosen as the venue “out of honor to Agrippa and because many of the buildings around the Forum had burned.” On Agrippa’s rich decoration of the Saepta, a huge structure, see 53.23.1–2n. For subsequent combats there see 55.10.7, 2 b.c.; 59.10.5; Suet. Aug. 43.1; Cal. 18.1; Claud. 21.4. The fire-ruined Forum, now rendered unusable for combats, had served for centuries as a sort of amphitheater: N. Purcell in LTUR 2.331–332; Coarelli Foro 2.222–230, on the complex of underground tunnels that served shows in this “arena;” for combats there see Plut. C. Gracch. 12.3–4; Plin. HN 19.23; Dio 43.23.3, pairs “in the Forum, as customarily.”

8.6–7: MUNICIPAL ROME REORGANIZED In a dense bulletin Dio registers two sweeping municipal reforms. The first was Augustus’ organization of colleges of officials—vicomagistri or vici magistri—to supervise the vici (“wards”) of Rome, of which probably some 250 were now either reconstituted out of existing vici or newly constituted. The second was the assignment of fourteen officials, selected by lot from aediles, tribunes, and praetors, to oversee fourteen new regiones (Regions) into which he now divided Rome. These reforms created a new municipal map—one that Dio notes was still in effect in his day—and entailed pervasive administrative and cultic changes. What motivated the reorganization Dio does not say, though he connects it (weakly) with the recent fire in the vicinity of the Forum. Suetonius gives a parallel account (Aug. 30.1): Augustus “divided the area of the city into regiones and vici and arranged for annual magistrates selected by lot to supervise the former, and magistrates elected from the plebs of each neighborhood the latter.”

Vici and Vicomagistri 8.6 ajpokovywsiv ti ti:: Blame for the fire that had ravaged buildings around the Forum (55.8.5) “was being laid on debtors [ej" tou;" crewûeivla"68 ajnaûevreto] on the suspicion that they had set it in order to get rid of some of their debts by seeming to have suffered huge losses.” Some scholars place this fire in an earlier year, either 14 b.c. (on the basis of 54.24.2, where Dio records a conflagration that swept from the Basilica of Paullus [‘Basilica Paulli,’ formerly ‘Basilica Aemilia’] to the Temple of Vesta) or 9 b.c. (on the basis of 55.1.1, where he reports devastation from storm and lightning to many buildings including Capitoline Jupiter). For 9 68. Not in LSJ. Pace Cary I see no reason to translate this as “the debtor class.” crewûeilevth", which LSJ does register, seems to mean simply debtor in Plut. Caes. 5.4 (the debt-ridden Julius Caesar) and Galba 8.1.

8.1–9.1: The Year 7 b.c.

79

see Coarelli Foro 2.225–227; Purcell CAH2 9.338. Coarelli thinks that the Basilica Iulia was among the casualties of 9 (Foro 225 n34); late in life Augustus wrote that he was restoring this edifice following its destruction by fire (RG 20.3, without date: ‘consumptam incendio’).69 But 9 (or 14) seems less plausible than 7: Dio’s report under 9 does not specify fire, whereas our lemma does, evidently as a current event (note inter alia the imperfect tense); also, a fire in 7 offers an urgent reason for holding the munus for Agrippa in a novel venue (55.8.5)—particularly if the fire destroyed the Basilica Iulia: this building constituted the south side of the Forum’s “amphitheater,” so that its ruin would have both gravely diminished the prestige of the site and demolished the spaces for spectators in its balconies (maeniana) (cf. Vitr. 5.1.1– 2; Coarelli Foro 2.143–146, 201–209). Destruction of this basilica can perhaps help explain how suspicion of arson fell on persons who had themselves suffered losses: were the suspects indebted owners or operators of businesses in tabernae in or near the it?70 How arson could have offered an escape from their financial plight is unclear.71 The suspicions of arson may of course have been as baseless as those directed against Christians under Nero. e[tucon de; ejkei÷noi me;n oujdenov", oiJ de; dh; stenwpoi; ejpimelhtw÷n tinwn ejk tou÷ dhvmou, ou}" kai; stenwpavrcou" kalou÷men en:: “But the debtors gained nothing; the vici, on the other hand, gained supervisors drawn from the people, whom we call vicomagistri.” Greek stenwpov" = Latin vicus, “street” or “ward” (e.g., Plut. Quaest. Rom. 264c, ejn tw÷/ kaloumevnw/ Patrikivw/ stenwpw÷/).72 A vicus was generally named after its main street. Vici and vicomagistri had republican antecedents (in Rome and other cities): Niebling Historia 5 (1956), 306–309; Treggiari Freedmen 198–200. Consistently with Dio’s annual chronology, inscriptions explicated in Niebling Historia 5 (1956), 323–328 show that the era of the Augustan vicomagistri began 1 August of 7 b.c. Thus the Fasti Magistrorum Vici (IIt. 13.1.279–290), from an unknown vicus, register ‘magistri primi’ under this year; ILS 9250 = EJ no. 140 is a dedication to the Lares Augusti of another vicus by vicoministri (below) of “year VI” dated 18 September of 2 b.c. The number of Augustan vici is nowhere attested; in the day of Pliny the Elder there were 265 (HN 3.66). Each had a college of four vicomagistri (IIt. 13.1.285; cf. ILS 6073), selected annually (how is not known) from the neighborhood (Suet. Aug. 30.1, ‘magistri e plebe cuiusque viciniae lecti;’ cf. Dio’s ejk tou÷ dhvmou). These entered office 1 August (IIt. 13.1.290). Freedmen were eligible from the start. The Fasti Magistrorum Vici records two ingenui and two liberti for the first year of the college; after that liberti are the rule: IIt. 13.1.285–286; cf. ILS 3308 = EJ 69. See 56.27.5n under a.d. 12. 70. On tabernae under the Republic cf. G. Lugli, Roma Antica: Il Centro Monumentale (Rome, 1968), 74–75 and tavola III; N. Purcell discusses their key integrative role in the economic life of Rome in CAH2 9.658–673. 71. On the possibility that debtors were less severely treated under the law if they lost what they owed to their creditors as a result of disaster rather than profligacy cf. Crook Law 174–175. 72. A loanword bei÷ko", sc. ouji÷ko", is attested: IGRR 4.1459; cf. Mason Terms 72.

80

Commentary on Book 55

no. 141. Magistri were assisted by vicoministri, who were slaves. The average population of single vici can hardly have exceeded a few thousand. Firefighting is the single security function that Dio specifies for vicomagistri. That they also had administrative duties may or may not be implied by the term ejpimelhtw÷n, “supervisors” (lemma). Suetonius says that Augustus enumerated the people by vicus (plausibly in connection with the grain dole): Aug. 40.2; cf. Iul. 41.3. Perhaps he enlisted the aid of vicus officials. Cf. Nicolet Space 194– 197 (= Inventaire 210–213). Dio ignores the fact, significant in community-building and the propagation of Roman ruler worship at the grass roots, that, under the Augustan reform, the compita (crossroads) of each vicus became the site for worship of its twin tutelary Lares, now designated “Augustan,” and “of a new and third god,” the Genius Augusti. In this worship the vicomagistri had the leading public role. See especially Ovid Fasti 5.129–146; Gradel 116–128 (“The Compital Cults and their Impact”), 117 (quoted). Impressive remains of an Augustan shrine of the compital gods of the vicus centered on the ‘Compitum Acilium’ (“Acilian Crossroads”) were uncovered during construction of the Via dei Fori Imperiali: see Nash Dictionary 1.290–291; M. Dondin-Payre, “Topographie et propagande gentilice: Le compitum Acilium et l’origine des Acilii Glabriones,” in Urbs 87–109; H. v. Hesberg in KAVR 398–400. For a catalogue of vicus altars see T. Hölscher, “Historische Reliefs,” in KAVR 390–398. Dio’s remark that the debtors “gained nothing” but the vici “gained supervisors” (sc. against arson) has the priggish tone of our champion of public order. He no doubt knew the turbulent history of vici in the late Republic, before Augustus managed to co-opt plebeian leaders as “part of the cultural and administrative infrastructure of the new order:” cf. W. Nippel, Public Order in Ancient Rome (Cambridge, 1995), 72–73, 86 for the quote; A.W. Lintott, Violence in Republican Rome (Oxford, 1968; 2nd ed., 1999), 77–83; Treggiari Freedmen 168–177. Further bibliography. J. Marquardt, Römische Staatsverwaltung3, 3 vols. (Darmstadt, 1957—reprint of the second edition of 1881–1885), 3.203–207; RE 8A.2480–2483 = vici magister (Bleicken); Fishwick Cult 1.84–85; H. Kunckel, Der römische Genius (Heidelberg, 1974), esp. 22–26; Robinson Rome 11–13; Richardson Dictionary 329, 413–414, 421–430 (with accounts of some one hundred vici); CAH2 10.822–824 (S.R.F. Price); OCD3 1597 s.v. vicomagistri; Religions 1.184–187; LTUR 5.151–201 (accounts of individual vici). 8.7 ej s qh÷ t i . . . rJabdouvcoi" oi":: Vicomagistri “were granted use of magisterial dress [the purple-bordered toga praetexta] and two lictors.” These were traditional privileges, but they were now newly authorized and regulated. For republican vicomagistri with praetexta and lictors see in combination Cic. Pis. 4.8 and 10.23 with Asconius 7 Clark.73 Use of the insignia was restricted by Augustus to the 73. Vicomagistri, praetexta notwithstanding, are disdainfully labeled infimum genus in Livy 34.7.2; cf. the n of J. Briscoe, A Commentary on Livy Books XXXIV–XXXVII (Oxford, 1981), 60–61.

8.1–9.1: The Year 7 b.c.

81

vicus itself and to “certain days.” These will have included 1 August, when the vicomagistri entered office, 3–5 January (IIt. 13.2.390–391), the festival of the Compitalia, and probably 1 May.74 A lictor is sculpted on an altar of the Lares Augusti from the Vicus Aescletus in a scene of vicomagistri about to sacrifice a pig to the Lares Augusti and a bull to the Genius Augusti: Zanker Power figure 108; Niebling Historia 5 (1956), 322; Gradel 121. douleiva . . . tw÷n ejmpimpramevnwn e{neka eka:: The vicomagistri “were entrusted with the slaves attached to the aediles for firefighting, . . .” On this force of public slaves, originally 600 in number, see 54.2.4. If they were now dispersed among more than 200 vici, they will have been able to respond from nearby but with limited effect. By contrast, the Vigiles, the permanent professional fire brigade organized by Augustus in a.d. 6, would number seven cohorts, probably 3,500 men, quartered in permanent stations (55.26.4–5n). Dio closes his report on municipal reorganization (55.8.7, end) with the statement that “this is still the case now” (o} kai; nu÷n givgnetai), possibly implying that the two forces coexisted in his lifetime, the slaves distributed among vici, the Vigiles among Regions (each cohort covering two). But scholars have not taken this implication, and the silence of the sources is on their side: e.g., Kienast Augustus 196; Robinson Rome 106; Nippel Aufruhr 168.75

The Fourteen Regions Superseding the four republican Regions, Augustus’ fourteen Regions embraced the built-up area of the city (cf. Tac. Ann. 15.40.2). Established in the same year as the new system of vici and linked with them administratively (as inscriptions show), they would survive into the early Middle Ages. The regionary boundaries are well known from two fourth-century handbooks, the Notitia Regionum Urbis XIV and the Curiosum Urbis Regionum XIV, which catalogue the monuments of each Region; for texts see H. Jordan, Topographie der Stadt Rom im Alterthum, 2 vols. in 4 (Berlin, 1871–1907); Codice Topografico della città di Roma (Fonti per la storia d’Italia), 4 vols., ed. R. Valentini & G. Zucchetti (Rome, 1940–1953), 63–192, with ample commentary; A. Nordh, ed., Libellus de regionibus urbis Romae (Lund, 1949). Bibliography. RE 1A.482–485 = Regiones (Graffunder); Platner & Ashby 444– 447; Nicolet Space 197–204 (= Inventaire 209–223); Rich 226–227; Richardson Dictionary 331–332 (with descriptions of each Region); Robinson Rome 9–11, 63–66 (regionary officials), 106–108 (Vigiles and the Regions); LTUR 4.197–204 (A. Fraschetti, D. Palombi). 8.7 (continued) dekatevssara mevrh nemhqei÷san an:: “. . . although aediles (ejkeivnwn), tribunes, and praetors were by lot assigned responsibility for the whole city, di74. Cf. Suet. Aug. 31.4: Augustus “began the practice of having the Lares Compitales adorned twice yearly, with spring and summer flowers;” Ovid Fasti 5.129–130 and 145–148 point respectively to 1 May and an unspecified day in August (surely the first). 75. Nicolet Space 196 (= Inventaire 211) assumes that the ‘familia public(a) reg(ionis) VIII’ on ILS 1964 from Rome (undated) was part of the force transferred to the vicomagistri.

82

Commentary on Book 55

vided into fourteen parts. This is still the case now.” That a single magistrate was selected for each Region can be inferred from a Flavian inscription (ILS 4914 = MW 442 = TDGR 6.99): ‘ut praetor, cui haec regio sorti obvenerit, . . .’ In all there were six aediles, ten tribunes, and probably twelve praetors (56.25.4n). The responsibilities of the fourteen annual regionary officials are little known, though they appear on inscriptions later as superintending cultic actions of vicomagistri (e.g., ILS 3616–3617; cf. 3772). These may have included firefighting, at least until the formation of the Vigiles in a.d. 6 (cf. Dig. 1.15.1). Caligula crudely reprimanded Vespasian as aedile for failing to keep the streets clean (59.12.3; Suet. Vesp. 5.3), but it is more likely that he found the future emperor delinquent in his capacity as a Roman aedile with responsibilities for streets generally (so Robinson Rome 71) than as the supervisor of a single Region allotted to him as aedile. 9.1 oujde;n a[xion mnhvmh" h":: “Nothing worth mentioning” occurred in cis-Rhenane Germany. Dio recalls the troubles that had summoned Tiberius from the city earlier in the year (55.8.3n).

55.9.1–8: The Year 6 b.c. Annalistic structure: urban section—? Fifteen lines into the year at 55.9.4 Dio’s text disappears in a lacuna of two folios (ca 100 lines) in the Codex Marcianus. When we recover it he is treating 2 b.c. Of the lost segment some parts can be reclaimed from the Excerpta Valesiana, Xiphilinus, and Zonaras. What survives is more narrative in character than annalistic and has a dynastic theme, the colliding careers of Tiberius and the ascendant Caesars Gaius and Lucius. On the events see Syme Revolution 416–418 and Aristocracy 82–85; Sattler “Julia” 16–23; Seager Tiberius 29–31; Levick Latomus 31 (1972), 779–813 and Tiberius 31–46; Kienast Augustus 128–130; Crook in CAH2 10.100–101.

9.1 (continued) !Antivstio" . . . Laiv l io" io":: The consul C. Antistius Vetus was the son of the like-named suffect consul of 30 b.c. and legate of Nearer Spain 27– 24 b.c. (53.25.7). Velleius praises him as a model of integrity (2.43.4); two sons achieved the consulship under Tiberius. See PIR2 A 771; Syme Aristocracy 425– 426. On D. Laelius Balbus, a new man, see PIR2 L 47; Syme Aristocracy 78. One of our men will have presided at the momentous comitia that elected the fourteenyear-old Gaius Caesar consul (see 55.9.2n); cf. Levick Latomus 31 (1972), 789.

9.1–4: THE YOUNG CAESARS ASCENDANT Augustus voiced high expectations of his adopted sons Gaius and Lucius in his eulogy on Drusus in 9 b.c. (Suet. Claud. 1.5; cf. 55.2.2). Now (says Dio) he found reason to worry.

9.1–8: The Year 6 b.c.

83

9.1 (continued) Gav i on . . . Louv k ion ion:: “Augustus was vexed to see that for their part Gaius and Lucius, considering that they were being raised to rule, were far from emulating his own conduct. Not only were they behaving self-indulgently; they were presumptuous—once Lucius actually entered the theater alone.” With Lucius’ headstrong soloing into the theater contrast the youthful Augustus’ close confinement at home (Nic. Dam. Vit. Caes. 4.10 with Sattler “Julia” 16–17), the ban on young men (iuvenes) and women attending shows at night during the Secular Games of 17 b.c. unless accompanied by an adult relative (Suet. Aug. 31.4), and the separate seating for praetextati (boys who had not yet assumed the toga virilis) in the theater, next to that for their paedagogi (a reform of Augustus: Suet. Aug. 44.2). Cf. E.R. Parker, “The Education of Heirs in the Julio-Claudian Family,” AJPh 67 (1946), 35–38; J. Kolendo, “La répartition des places aux spectacles et la stratification sociale dans l’Empire Romain: À propos des inscriptions sur les gradins des amphithéâtres et théâtres,” Ktèma 6 (1981), 304. 9.2 pro;" pavntwn tw÷n ejn th÷/ povlei . . . kolakeuomevnou" ou":: Augustus was also vexed “that they were being flattered by everybody in the city.” On popular enthusiasm for Gaius cf. 54.27.1, 13 b.c.; Suet. Aug. 56.2 (a standing ovation in the theater, decried by Augustus). Dio’s 100-word period, underscoring Augustus’ indignation, echoes conventional Roman views about the susceptibilities of imperial youths (cf. E. Eyben, Restless Youth in Ancient Rome [London, 1993], 67– 68). He will have had in mind errant princes of his own time like Commodus (born 161, cos. 177) and Caracalla (born 188, cos. 202). He has Maecenas ask (52.20.1, on the right age for entering the Senate): “Is it not shameful and risky, when we do not entrust domestic affairs to anyone under this age [twenty-five], to put public affairs in the hands of even younger men?” In 218 the fourteen-year-old Elagabalus adduced Augustus’ youthful advent to power in justifying his own (79.1.3–4). 9.2–3 proeceiriv s anto [Reiske, followed by Boissevain; proeceirivsato ms.]:: “Among other things they elected Gaius consul before he had even reached the age of manhood.” In Dio proceirivzesqai often means to appoint or elect a magistrate (or board) of extraordinary power, or in an extraordinary manner. For example, he uses it of the appointment of dictators (fr. 23.2; 7.17.9; 36.34.2); of Julius Caesar’s creation of successive colleges of magistrates to serve during his absence while campaigning against the Parthians (43.51.3); of designation of magistri equitum, including Octavius (later Augustus), “though still a lad at the time” (43.51.7); of the clamored-for elevation of Augustus as dictator in 22 b.c. (54.1.3); cf. 7.15.1; 39.9.3; 40.49.5. On Dio’s testimony, then, Gaius Caesar was somehow anomalously elected consul in 6. Augustus opposed the election, however, uttering a prayer that circumstances never again (as in his own case) require a consul aged less than twenty, and asserting, when people persisted, that the right age for the consulship was when one could “both avoid errors of one’s own and withstand the passions of the people.” This (I suggest) was a recusatio rather than a veto and left the door open for Gaius

84

Commentary on Book 55

to take the consulship at about the same age as the young Augustus (short of his twentieth birthday); in effect, Augustus submitted to popular demand, but insisted on a commutation of the year of Gaius’ consulship. That a proper designation ensued, presumably after Gaius formally entered manhood the next year (5), can be inferred from the sanitized account in RG 14.1: while Gaius and Lucius were fourteen (6/5 b.c. in the case of Gaius, born 20 b.c.), the Senate and People, to honor Augustus, “designated them consuls on the understanding that they would enter that office after five years [‘post quinquennium’];”76 Gaius was consul in a.d. 1. Who was behind Gaius’ “election”? Dio attributes it to the general flattery of the Caesars, perhaps oversimply.77 Tacitus unmasks Augustus’ untimely promotion of the youths ruthlessly: “under the pretense of declining [‘specie recusantis’] he had passionately wanted Gaius and Lucius, before they had even laid aside the praetexta of boyhood [cf. Dio’s mhde; ej" ejûhvbou" pw telou÷nta], to be named Principes Iuventutis and predestined as consuls” (Ann. 1.3.2). It is puzzling that Dio does not do the same, given the irony with which he treats recusationes (55.6.1; 55.12.3; 56.28.1). Rich 227 suggests that he was taken in. But Dio, who no doubt endorsed Augustus’ remonstrations against premature advancement (cf. 55.9.2n), may have preferred not to bring these in question by alleging hypocrisy. 9.4 iJerwsuvnhn mevn tina tina:: “After this Augustus granted Gaius a priesthood . . .” Dio simplifies, suppressing the formalities (on which see Talbert Senate 345–346) and the detail that Gaius got the Pontificate (e.g., ILS 131, 134; cf. Tac. Ann. 1.3.1, Marcellus, also Pontifex). ej" to; sunevdrion sumûoivthsin hsin:: “. . . and the privileges of attending the Senate and sitting among the senators at shows and banquets.” Dio records Augustus’ actual introduction of Gaius in the Senate under the next year (5), when he assumed the toga of manhood (55.9.9n). As often he omits the Senate’s legislative role; cf. RG 14.1: “The Senate decreed that from the day they [Gaius and Lucius] were introduced in the Forum they should attend state councils.”78 On senatorial seating privileges see 54.14.4n; 55.22.4n; cf. 53.25.1n. For grants to other princes cf. 55.9.10n (Lucius Caesar); 56.17.3n (Drusus, son of Tiberius); Talbert Senate 156.79

76. For Gaius as consul designate cf. ILS 106, 131; CIL 6.36893: ‘pr[i]mus om[nium ann. nat.] quattuordecim c[onsul creatus est].’ 77. Still, a spontaneous popular movement among voters assembled in the Saepta Iulia to elect the consuls for 5 b.c. cannot be ruled out, inspired by seeing Augustus, the youngest consul ever, standing as a candidate himself after an interval of eighteen years, with the express purpose, while in office, of introducing his son to public life (Suet. Aug. 26.2). Levick Latomus 31 (1972), 786–794 points to Tiberius’ alienated wife Julia and an attempt to undercut his ascendancy. 78. Augustus appears to be treating the same measure as Dio; for Mommsen Res Gestae p54, however, there were two distinct measures. 79. Why do Dio and Augustus highlight Gaius’ privilege of attending the Senate when, according to Suetonius, Augustus “permitted the children of senators, immediately they donned the toga virilis, to wear the broad stripe [on their tunics] and attend the Senate” (Aug. 38.2)? Presumably something more than the norm was accorded to Gaius, perhaps a right to speak. That such a right could be accommodated is suggested by the traditional formula “senators or those with the right to express their opinion in the Senate,” found, for example, in a senate decree of 4 b.c. cited in the fifth Cyrene Edict (Sherk Documents no. 31 lines 110–111 = EJ no. 311 = TDGR 4.102) and on the Tabula Hebana lines 9–10. Cf. Talbert Senate 187 n23.

9.1–8: The Year 6 b.c.

85

ej x ousiv a n th; n dhmarcikh; n . . . !Armeniv a n [Xiph.-Zon.]:: Augustus “conferred tribunician power for five years on Tiberius and assigned him Armenia.” See also Suet. Tib. 9.3; cf. RG 6.2. For renewals of Tiberius’ tribunicia potestas in a.d. 4, on his return to public life, and in 13 see 55.13.2n. With his first grant of tribunician power and the enhancement of his proconsular imperium (below), Tiberius achieved a constitutional position on a par with that of Agrippa (54.12.4n, 28.1n under 18 and 13 b.c.). Like Agrippa, he was also the consort of Augustus’ daughter Julia (cf. 54.31.2, 35.4). For Velleius, writing (tendentiously) in the later reign of Tiberius, he was now “made the peer of Augustus by sharing the tribunician power, most eminent of citizens save one (and this because he wished it)” (2.99.1). Unlike Agrippa, Tiberius was not the father of the Caesars—a liability destined to grow exponentially with their years. Dio does not mention Tiberius’ proconsular imperium specifically. First granted in 11 b.c. (54.34.3n with 33.5n), it was no doubt now renewed and upgraded (so Levick Tiberius 35–36: “proconsulare imperium maius over the eastern provinces”). Dio writes “Armenia,” the target of Tiberius’ mission, as shorthand for the wider sphere of his extraordinary imperium, just as he does in recording Agrippa’s mission to “Syria” in 23 b.c. (53.32.1), or to “Pannonia” in 12 (54.28.1, where his imperium is defined as superior to that of governors in general). At RG 11 Augustus describes his own return from an extensive tour of the East 22–19 b.c. as ‘ex Syria.’ Dio fails again to mention Tiberius’ imperium when recording grants of tribunician power at 55.13.2 and 56.28.1 (a.d. 4 and 13). Dio’s notion that Augustus gave Tiberius tribunician power to bring Gaius and Lucius to their senses trivializes Augustus’ modus operandi and understates Tiberius’ importance. Levick Latomus 31 (1972), 785–786 thinks that it was rather Tiberius’ progressive advancement, in keeping with Augustus’ design, that triggered the misconduct of the princes; similarly J.H. Corbett, “The Succession Policy of Augustus,” Latomus 33 (1974), 90–91. For other scholars, however, Tiberius was an instrument of Augustus’ dynastic ambition. For Syme Revolution 416–417 he was to be Augustus’ shield against conspiracy while he advanced his sons at Tiberius’ expense; for Crook CAH2 10.100–101 Augustus promoted Tiberius to stop him from retiring in protest against being “type-cast as collega imperii, the new Agrippa”—the supporting role Augustus had all along wanted him to play. ajllotrioumevnhn meta; to;n tou÷ Tigravnou qavnaton [Xiph.-Zon.]:: Tiberius’ mission was to Armenia, “which was growing hostile after the death of Tigranes [III],” who had been installed on the Armenian throne by Tiberius in 20 b.c. (54.9.4–5). Our text provides a terminus ante quem in 6 b.c. for his death after “no long reign” (Tac. Ann. 2.3.2). Ultimately Armenian alienation became rebellion, abetted by Parthia, as Augustus refused recognition to Tigranes IV and Erato, son and daughter of Tigranes III—also husband and wife. On the mounting crisis that, within five years, prompted Augustus to launch an eastern expedition under Gaius Caesar, see 55.10.18–19.

86

Commentary on Book 55

9.5–8: TIBERIUS’ WITHDRAWAL TO RHODES See Map 3. Sources. Besides Dio (who survives here only in excerpt and epitome), Vell. 2.99.1– 2; Suet. Tib. 10.1–11.1, 5; Tac. Ann. 1.53.1; cf. 6.51.1–2. “Every possible conjecture was made,” says Dio (55.9.8), as to the reasons behind Tiberius’ abrupt resignation from his high station and his retirement from Rome to Rhodes. Of our sources he alone gives fear of angering the Caesars Gaius and Lucius as the prime explanation—implausibly: this theory has the look of being conjured up some five years after the event by courtiers of Gaius Caesar during his expedition to the East, when Tiberius, then in his Rhodian “exile,” came under a dangerous cloud of suspicion (Suet. Tib. 12.2–13.2; cf. 55.10.19n). Dio also seems to give some weight to Tiberius’ alienation from Julia (with Suet. Tib. 10.1)— which for Tacitus is a prime cause (Ann. 1.53.1, ‘nec alia tam intima Tiberio causa;’ cf. J.A. Weller, “Tacitus and Tiberius’ Rhodian Exile,” Phoenix 12 [1958], 31– 35). In presenting Tiberius’ retirement as a product of fear (on Rhodes he could be entirely out of the princes’ way: 55.9.5), Dio has taken little note of signs of Tiberius’ mental anguish (cf. Suet. Tib. 10.2–11.1), including his unfilial intransigence in face of Livia’s pleas and Augustus’ complaints (even in the Senate), a four-day fast, and a sullen leave-taking (at Ostia, the quickest exit to solitude). Have we here an ancient case of mental “burnout”? Suetonius transmits an explanation given by Tiberius himself after his return (and by some others) that he had resigned voluntarily lest he be seen through his presence as an obstacle to or critic of the Caesars, emulating Agrippa, who had departed for Mytilene in deference to the youthful Marcellus (Tib. 10.1–2, similarly 11.5). The loyal Velleius adheres to this official line: Tiberius’ true motive, disguised at the time as a desire for rest from constant toils, was devotion to Augustus (pietas)—lest his own distinction impede the young Caesars’ careers (‘ne fulgor suus orientium iuvenum obstaret initiis’) (2.99.2). Modern theories on Tiberius’ motivation stress neither fear (with Dio) nor selfeffacing duty (with Velleius and Suetonius). See Syme Revolution 416–418 and Aristocracy 82–85 (“Tiberius revolted” against the blatantly monarchic elevation of Gaius Caesar80 and against his own exploitation by Augustus); Levick Latomus 31 (1972), 789–793 (Tiberius withdrew out of injured pride “because the people had been induced to pass a vote of no confidence in him and had shown their decided preference for Gaius,” sc. by electing him consul [55.9.2–3], this through machinations of Julia). 9.5 mavthn proskrou÷sai [Xiph.]:: “It befell Augustus to collide, with no good result,” with his adoptive sons and Tiberius. Dio’s account of events in 6 b.c. seems too consistently favorable to Augustus for mavthn to mean “needlessly” here (cf. Cary, Rich). In Zonaras’ version Augustus “achieved no benefit” (oujde;n . . . ajpwvnato). 80. Syme gives the constitutional grievance less weight in Aristocracy.

9.1–8: The Year 6 b.c.

87

aj m ev l ei [Xiph.]:: “The proof is that . . .” To show that Tiberius “feared the anger” of Gaius and Lucius, Dio adduces his pretense (note wJ" kaiv) of a cultural retirement, his omission of companions and entourage (cf. Tac. Ann. 4.15.1), his traveling “like a private citizen” (ijdiwtikw÷" [Exc. Val.]), and his unassuming conduct on Rhodes. 9.6 @Estiva" a[galma [Exc. Val.]:: Tiberius “forced the Parians to sell him the cult statue of Hestia (Vesta) so that it could be set up in the Temple of Concord.” This he had undertaken in 7 b.c. to restore (55.8.2; cf. 56.25.1, its dedication in a.d. 10). There was possibly a political factor in Tiberius’ acquisition of Hestia: Sattler “Julia” 22–23 suggests that he was appealing obliquely to Livia, as the embodiment of Vesta, for support; cf. Levick Latomus 31 (1972), 792–793, 805, who elaborates. Tiberius no doubt had a powerful aesthetic motive as well; he was a connoisseur: cf. A.F. Stewart, “To Entertain an Emperor: Sperlonga, Laokoon and Tiberius at the Dinner-Table,” JRS 67 (1977), 83–84. Concord was to be not only a temple but a great gallery (cf. Zanker Power 115 on the opening of temples to exhibit dedicated works). Pliny the Elder identifies many of the sculptures and paintings that adorned it (for lists see Platner & Ashby 139; Richardson Dictionary 99). Among the Parians, famous for marble and sculpture,81 the statue of Hestia, the preeminent object of their worship (on the term agalma cf. 56.46.4n), will have been esteemed as a sacred treasure beyond price, like the Athene of the Parthenon. Even if the report that Tiberius bullied the Parians into parting with her was circulated by his enemies during his exilic years (see 55.10.19n), it is hard not to view his expropriation (not his only such act: cf. Plin. HN 34.62) as a case of force majeure82 and grounds for local grievance. 9.7 hJ me; n ou oujj n¿ ajlhqestavth aijtiva [Exc. Val. 177]:: “Now this is the truest reason for his withdrawal,” namely, Tiberius’ fear of the young Caesars (55.9.5–6). Dio echoes Thuc. 1.23.6 on the ajlhqestavthn provûasin of the Peloponnesian War. lovgon dev tina e[cei [Xiph.]:: “But there is some reason to think that he did this because of his wife Julia, finding her insufferable, and the fact is that he left her behind in Rome.” Dio seemingly ranks next in importance what was for Tacitus a prime cause: “Tiberius had no more deep-seated reason for withdrawing to Rhodes” than bad relations with Julia (Ann. 1.53.1; cf. Syme Aristocracy 84). Although I have here translated lovgon . . . e[cei as “there is reason to think,” on the parallel of 38.20.2,83 the sense “there is a story” is also available, on the parallel of 55.11.2, where Dio’s kai; lovgon ge e[cei becomes kai; lovgo" ge e[cei or levgetai gou÷n in the versions of Xiphilinus and Zonaras (this is to assume that Dio’s text is sound and that he did not write lovgo" . . . e[cei originally). Should 81. Cf. Verg. G. 3.34, ‘Parii lapides, spirantia signa;’ RE 18.1829, 1847 = Paros (Rubensohn); PECS 677– 678. 82. Whether exercised through auctoritas or through purchase. For the suggestion that Tiberius resorted to his tribunicia potestas, which he had not resigned, see Sattler “Julia” 22 n65; cf. Hammond Principate 247 n20. 83. I am indebted to Donald Mastronarde for suggesting this.

88

Commentary on Book 55

this sense be right, Dio apparently gave less credit to alienation from Julia as a factor in Tiberius’ resignation than I have just suggested. By inserting the lemmatized sentence of Xiphilinus where he does, in the middle of Exc. Val. 177, Boissevain has produced awkward Greek. Having lovgon dev (Xiph.) answer hJ me;n ajlhqestavth . . . aijtiva (Exc. Val., above) severs oiJ de; e[ûasan . . . oiJ dev (Exc. Val., below) from the preceding mevn that the construction presupposes. Boissevain does in fact entertain alternative insertion points, specifically, after ejkblhqh÷nai, or ejgevneto (55.9.8). oiJ de; e[ûasan caleph÷nai aujto;n o{ti mh; kai; Kai÷sar ajpedeivcqh oiJ de; . . . ejkblhqh÷nai [Exc. Val. 177]:: “But some said that he was offended because he had not also been designated Caesar, some that he was exiled by Augustus himself on the ground that he was plotting against his sons.” The view that Tiberius took offense—arguably a more plausible explanation than Dio admits—made it Tiberius’ grievance that Augustus had not adopted him, as he had Agrippa’s two elder sons, so as to mark him out similarly for the succession (cf. 53.18.2).84 Augustus did adopt Tiberius later—but only after both Lucius and Gaius were dead (55.13.2). 9.8 o{ti me;n ga;r ou[te paideiva" e{neka ou[t! ajboulhvsa" ta; dedogmevna [Exc. Val. 177]:: “That Tiberius did not withdraw for study or because he objected to what had been voted to him [cf. 55.9.4] was made plain not only by his later conduct but by his then and there unsealing his will and reading it to his mother and Augustus; people were, however, making every possible conjecture [kateikavzeto mevntoi (my insert) pavnq! o{sa ejnedevceto].” mevn in me;n gavr anticipates a following mevntoi (Denniston 404–405, cf. 359; e.g., 53.21.5n), which has apparently been dropped by the excerptor after kateikavzeto. Dio’s point throughout this sentence is that fear of the Caesars above all else motivated Tiberius’ withdrawal. The “later conduct” that revealed this was his comporting himself assiduously as a privatus (55.9.5–6, cf. 10.19n for the timorous Tiberius at the court of Gaius during the latter’s eastern progress); by divulging the contents of his will85 he evidently sought to clear himself of dangerous suspicions of disloyalty (note the report in 55.9.7 about his conspiring against the princes).

55.9.9–?10: The Year 5 b.c. Annalistic structure. A single sentence of Zonaras (Dio 55.9.9 = Zon. 10.35 [p447 lines 6–10 Dindorf]) is all of Dio’s account that survives for certain. The chronology of Zonaras’ next two sentences (Dio 55.9.10 = Zon. 10.35 [p447 lines 10–16 Dindorf]) is problematic. 84. This explanation is at the heart of Sattler’s account (“Julia” 20–22): Tiberius asked Augustus to adopt him as a Caesar, like Gaius and Lucius; rebuffed, he threatened to resign, but Augustus was obdurate, leaving the proud Tiberius no alternative but to make good on his threat, ruinous though this was for his own prospects. Thanks in large part to his own military successes in Illyricum and Germany (12–8 b.c.), Tiberius was now less indispensable as a commander; Augustus could think of managing without him. 85. Levick speculates on what its provisions were in Latomus 31 (1972), 790.

9.9–?10: The Year 5 b.c.

89

9.9 eij" tou;" ejûhvbou" [Zon.]:: “The next year, as consul XII, Augustus enrolled Gaius among the iuvenes.” Cf. Sherk Documents no. 68 lines 22–27 = EJ no. 99 = TDGR 4.104 B, a letter of Augustus dated 5/4 b.c., acknowledging a decree of the boule of Sardes, congratulating him on “the attainment of manhood by the elder of my children.” Dio refers to the observances when a Roman boy of elite family entered manhood formally. These included a family rite in which he doffed his toga praetexta (a long purple-bordered toga) and bulla (locket, worn, for example, by children of the dynasty depicted on the frieze of the Ara Pacis Augustae [photograph in Simon Augustus plate 90b]), and donned the plain toga virilis. A young man destined for the Senate would wear under his toga, but still partly visible, a tunic with a broad purple stripe (latus clavus) (cf. Ovid Tr. 4.10.28–29; Suet. Aug. 38.2). There was also a public ceremony, the deductio in forum, in which he was escorted by his father (or guardian) and an entourage of kindred and adherents to the Forum. He was now registered as a full citizen, no doubt (if in Rome) in the Tabularium, located on the Capitoline (Richardson Dictionary 376–377; OCD3 1468). For senatebound youth this was the start of a civic apprenticeship, the tirocinium fori (a term also used of the debut itself). It was to dignify Gaius’ debut that Augustus actively sought the consulship for this year; he would take it again for 2 b.c. to introduce Lucius Caesar (Suet. Aug. 26.2; 55.9.10). Both occasions were celebrated with distributions of money (congiaria) in Rome (55.10.1n and Appendix 4). The minimum legal age for taking the toga virilis was fourteen. In practice one took it at fifteen or sixteen, dynastic youth usually a little earlier (Marquardt Vie privée 1.150–153, with instances). Gaius was fourteen or fifteen, Lucius the same, their brother Agrippa Postumus fifteen or sixteen (55.22.4n). Exceptionally, Caligula was at least eighteen (Suet. Cal. 10.1; cf. 59.2.2), Nero thirteen (PIR2 D 129). The Liberalia on 17 March was the traditional occasion for taking the toga virilis (Ovid Fasti 3.771–788), but exceptions are readily found, for example, Augustus (18 October: IIt. 13.2.523 = EJ p53), Tiberius (24 April: IIt. 13.2.448 = EJ p48), and Galba (1 January: 56.29.5). Bibliography. See in general Marquardt Vie privée 1.144–157, amply documented; RE 5A.4–9 = Clavus (Hula); RE 6A.1450–1453 = Tirocinium fori (J. Regner); Sherwin-White on Plin. Ep. 1.9.2 (p106); J.P.V.D. Balsdon, Life and Leisure in Ancient Rome (New York, 1969), 119–121; J.-P. Néraudau, La jeunesse dans la littérature et les institutions de la Rome républicaine (Paris, 1979), 147– 163; OLD clauus 4; Rawson Family 40–41; A. Fraschetti, “Roman Youth,” in G. Levi & J.-C. Schmitt, eds., A History of Young People in the West, 1: Ancient and Medieval Rites of Passage (Cambridge, Mass., 1997), 51–82 at 65–70. ej" to; bouleuthvrion [Zon.]:: Augustus “at the same time introduced Gaius to the Senate.” Cf. 55.9.4n. provkriton . . . th÷" neovthto" [Zon.]:: Augustus appointed Gaius “Princeps Iuventutis,” i.e., chief of the iuniores of the equestrian order. Dio uses the same or similar translations of the Latin at 59.8.1 and 78.17.1, but provkrito" th÷" iJppavdo" at 71.35.5; cf. 53.1.3, provkrito" th÷" gerousiva" = princeps senatus. Cf.

90

Commentary on Book 55

RG 14.2: “The Roman Equites as a body gave them each [Gaius and Lucius] a silver shield and spear [cf. 55.12.1n] and saluted each Princeps Iuventutis [Greek: hJgemovna neovthto"].” Dio disregards the corporate action of the equites in acclaiming Gaius their leader. The Iuventus that Gaius now headed included both equites proper and youths (mainly of senatorial family) destined for a senatorial career. Those who entered the Senate, regularly in their mid-twenties after holding the quaestorship, left the equestrian order. The other iuniores remained active as horsemen until age thirtyfive, after which they were permitted to retire (cf. Suet. Aug. 38.3), becoming seniores. These retained their equestrian status for life and might continue to perform public duties, notably as jurors, but ceased to participate in the quasi-military activities such as the transvectio equitum (below, i[larcon). See Demougin Ordre 213–217. Gaius’ appointment, a novel one, was of high political import with its implication that the Princeps Iuventutis was destined to succeed the Princeps (cf. Gell. 15.7.3; ILS 140 lines 13–14 = EJ no. 69 = TDGR 6.19). Ovid deftly implies as much in addressing Gaius as “now chief of the youth, hereafter to be chief of the elders” (‘nunc iuvenum princeps, deinde future senum’) (Ars 1.194 with Hollis’s n). Tacitus claims that, though feigning reluctance, Augustus “passionately” (‘flagrantissime’) desired his sons to have this appellation (Ann. 1.3.2). J. González argues that Augustus motivated communities empirewide to take oaths of allegiance to himself, his sons Gaius and Lucius, and his grandson Agrippa Postumus at this very time (or to devise equivalent forms of homage) with a view to fostering recognition of his sons as heirs apparent: “The First Oath pro salute Augusti Found in Baetica,” ZPE 72 (1988), 113–127. That Gaius ceased to be Princeps Iuventutis once he became a senator (by virtue of his consulship of a.d. 1) can perhaps be inferred from ILS 107 (7, 8) = EJ no. 61, where he is not so titled though Lucius is.86 For a list of Principes Iuventutis, including Marcus Aurelius (71.35.5) and the young son of Macrinus (78.17.1), see RE 22.2999–2307 (Beringer). i[ l arcov n te ûulh÷ " [Zon.]:: Augustus “permitted Gaius to be made horsecommander of a division,” sc. a sevir turmae, leader of one of the six squadrons (turmae) in which all equites equo publico were registered and in which the iuniores of the order were marshaled in military formation for public ceremonies, notably the transvectio equitum on 15 July, an annual parade and inspection revived by Augustus (55.31.2n), of which Dionysius of Halicarnassus gives a colorful description (Ant. Rom. 6.13.4). Cf. Tac. Ann. 2.83.4 (the turmae to be led by an image of the dead Germanicus on 15 July); Plin. HN 15.19 (turmae equitum crowned with olive on 15 July); 33.30 (‘turmis equorum publicorum’); Suet. Aug. 38.3. On the socially distinguished seviri turmae see Demougin Ordre 217–243, with a catalogue of those who held the office in the first three centuries a.d.; cf. 55.10.4n, severi turmae producing a festival—clearly young men of substantial family. On Augustus’ pro86. I disregard Sen. Polyb. 15.4, where rhetorical license may be in play: ‘Gaius Caesar . . . Lucium fratrem carissimum sibi princeps iuventutis principem eiusdem iuventutis amisit in apparatu Parthici belli’ (a.d. 2).

10.1–16: The Year 2 b.c.

91

gram of recalling the youth of Rome to the standard of its glorious military past, with Gaius and Lucius Caesar as models, see G. Pfister, Die Erneuerung der römischen iuventus durch Augustus (diss. Regensburg, 1976; published Bochum, 1977); Kienast Augustus 184–185. On the term i[larco" cf. Mason Terms 164–165. 9.10 met! ejniautovn [Zon.]:: “After a year Lucius also received the same honors as had been given to his brother.” Although Boissevain places this passage under 2 b.c., it may belong under Dio’s account of 5, the now lost text of which perhaps ran ahead here beyond the strict limits of the year, treating the debuts of both princes together, even though these were separated by three years. Zonaras records, in any case, not Lucius’ assumption of his honors (this came in 2 b.c.), but the voting of them, which occurred “after a year” (i.e., in 4 b.c.). Dio treats the deaths and funerals of the princes together under a.d. 2 (55.10a.9, 12.1n [Xiph.]) even though these also fell in different years (a.d. 2 and 4). The promotion of Gaius and Lucius to be Principes Iuventutis is attested widely in inscriptions (e.g., ILS vol. 4 p260) and coins (e.g., RIC 12.55–56; cf. Kienast Augustus 393; Zanker Power 218–219). dhv m ou . . . dhmavrcou" [Zon.]:: “The people, having assembled and wanting certain reforms, sent the tribunes on this account to Augustus.”87 The occasion is unknown. For such popular corporate actions cf. 55.13.1; Suet. Aug. 58.1.

The Years 4–3 b.c. Dio’s text for these years is lost without trace, even in Byzantine excerpts and epitomes.

55.10.1–16: The Year 2 b.c. Annalistic structure: urban section only? Both head and foot are lost of Dio’s account of this momentous year, featuring (as it stands) the dedication of the Temple of Mars Ultor, Augustus’ exaltation as Pater Patriae, and his daughter’s catastrophe. In all some 100 lines of the urban section remain, half from Dio’s extant text, half in epitome or excerpt. There is no sign of an external section. On the lacunae in our sole manuscript see the introduction to Book 55.

10.1: PLEBS FRUMENTARIA REDUCED 10.1 to; tou÷ dhvmou tou÷ sitodotoumevnou plh÷qo" ajovriston o]n ej" ei[ k osi muriavda" katevkleise [Xiph.]:: Boissevain (followed by Cary) has inadvertently dropped dhvmou tou÷ from his text. These words stand in Boissevain’s text of Xiphili87. Dio might more precisely have written plhvqou" (= Plebs) than dhvmou (= Populus)—on the assumption that what he is reporting is a meeting of the Plebs under the presidency of tribunes; cf. 53.21.6–7n; 58.20.4. But he does not always distinguish the words strictly (Yavetz Plebs 141–155, esp. 145).

92

Commentary on Book 55

nus (3.534 line 2 of his Dio edition). Translate: “The number of the plebs frumentaria [those receiving the grain dole],88 then unlimited, Augustus closed at 200,000, and, as some say, gave them 240 HS each.” Augustus registers this congiarium, for which the new limit on recipients was apparently in effect, in RG 15.4: “In my thirteenth consulship I gave sixty denarii [240 HS] each to the plebs which was then receiving public grain [‘plebei, quae tum frumentum publicum accipiebat’]; they numbered slightly more than 200,000.” Clearly the occasion was the public debut of Lucius Caesar in 2 b.c. (55.9.10n; cf. 59.2.2, a congiarium of 240 HS for Caligula’s debut); cf. RG 15.2 for the corresponding distribution of sixty denarii on the debut of Gaius Caesar (55.9.9n) in the first half of 5 b.c., when, however, the recipients numbered “320,000 of the plebs urbana.”89 Cf. Appendix 4, “Dio on Distributions of Largesse (congiaria) in Augustan Rome.” Bibliography. Essential are van Berchem Distributions; Rea “Corn Dole;” Virlouvet Tessera 163–371, 369–371 for a summary. See also P. Veyne, Bread and Circuses: Historical Sociology and Political Pluralism (London, 1990), 236–245; C. Nicolet, The World of the Citizen in Republican Rome (Berkeley, 1980), 186– 205 (broad historical treatment); Nicolet “Tabula Siarensis;” G. Rickman, The Grain Supply of Ancient Rome (Oxford, 1980), 177–185; Kienast Augustus 198– 200; Robinson Rome 151–155. The regular monthly frumentationes (distributions of grain) in Rome (e.g., 53.2.1; cf. 55.26.3) together with special—mainly dynastic—congiaria drew massively on the resources of state and Princeps. Our text of Dio shows that Augustus now reduced and capped expenditures by limiting the number eligible (rather than by cutting the size or frequency of distributions), as Julius Caesar had once done after a vicus-by-vicus enumeration (Suet. Iul. 41.3; 43.21.4), though without permanent effect.90 With a fixed quota came the problem of how to fill vacancies created by death or other causes. The solution appears to have been subsortitio, a periodic selection by lot of the number in deficit from those not on the roll but eligible for addition to it (cf. Sen. Ben. 4.28.2, apparently referring to an inscribed register; Plin. Pan. 25.3).91 Introduced previously by Julius Caesar as a corollary to his quota (Suet. Iul. 41.3),

88. Elsewhere Dio terms the plebs frumentaria oJ sitodotouvmeno" o[clo" (43.21.3, cf. 4, to; plh÷qo" to; to;n si÷ton ûevron) or oJ o{milo" oJ sitodotouvmeno" (76.1.1); cf. Yavetz Plebs 143–146. Dio chose not to write tou÷ sitodotoumevnou plhvqou" at 55.10.1 (using his “technical” word for plebs as at 53.21.6–7 and 58.20.4) since he needed plh÷qo" to express “number.” 89. The number of the plebs frumentaria is fundamental to estimates of the population of urban Rome: e.g., Hopkins Conquerors 96–98 (800,000–1,000,000); cf. Brunt Manpower 376–388. 90. In reorganizing the vici in 7 b.c. (55.8.6–7) Augustus may have had in view a scaling back of the costs of frumentationes and congiaria. Cf. Suet. Aug. 40.2, an Augustan vicus-by-vicus enumeration, apparently of the plebs frumentaria (without date). 91. This was not the only problem to be faced; Suet. Aug. 42.2 mentions importunate popular demands for congiaria and difficulties with interlopers. Dionysius of Halicarnassus complains that under Augustus Roman masters freed slaves to qualify them (as freedmen) for the monthly grain dole and for congiaria, then diverted the benefits to themselves (Ant. Rom. 4.24.5; cf. Pers. Sat. 5.73–75). But Virlouvet Tessera stresses the barriers to liberti, arguing that they were admitted only exceptionally (235–241, 370). Although Dio describes the grain dole of the turbulent 50s b.c. as for “the poor” (toi÷" ajpovroi") (38.13.1; cf. Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 4.24.5), evidence for exclusion of the wealthy is lacking (van Berchem Distributions 22–23).

10.1–16: The Year 2 b.c.

93

subsortitio soon lapsed along with it (above), opening the door for an “unlimited” (cf. lemma) number of recipients that rose to at least 320,000, the total that received the congiarium for Gaius Caesar. Arguably Augustus reintroduced subsortitio, though there is no direct evidence. The Corn Dole Archive, showing a municipal dole on the Roman model in operation in Egyptian Oxyrhynchus in the third century, with subsortitio as a feature, should go back ultimately to this origin (cf. Rea “Corn Dole,” esp. 1, 8–9; Virlouvet Tessera 204–205). Xiphilinus’ bald report reveals nothing of Dio’s attitude to Augustus’ “disenfranchisement” of over 100,000 dole recipients. That it was favorable can be surmised, however, from his evident approval of Julius Caesar’s corresponding reform (43.21.4).

10.1 a–8: FORUM OF AUGUSTUS AND TEMPLE OF MARS ULTOR DEDICATED See Map 2. Sources. The main texts are Dio 55.10.1–9, cf. 54.8.3; RG 21.1–2; 29.2; 35.1; Ovid Fasti 5.545–598; Vell. 2.100.2; Suet. Aug. 29.1–2; 31.5; 56.2; Macr. 2.4.9. For a comprehensive list of the various testimonia with a summary see Platner & Ashby 220–221; for selected sources in translation, D.R. Dudley, Urbs Roma: A Source Book of Classical Texts on the City and its Monuments (London, 1967), 123–129. On the archaeological evidence the convenient place to start is LTUR 2.289–295 (V. Kockel). Bibliography. A detailed historical guide is Anderson Topography 65–100. J. Ganzert and V. Kockel treat architecture, ideology, and the history and state of archaeology on the site (“Augustusforum und Mars-Ultor-Tempel,” in KAVR 149– 199). Nicolet Space 41–45 sees the forum, with its images and elogia, as an expression of ecumenical ambition. For Zanker Power 192–215 the forum and temple are mythopoeic, integrating Roman history, culminating in the Augustan present, with Roman mythology. See also Weinstock Julius 128–132 (the idea of a shrine to Mars Ultor for vengeance against the Parthians goes back to Julius Caesar); Bonnefond “Transferts” 251–278 (including ideological analysis of the lex templi); CAH2 10.192–193, 833–834 (ideology); D.G. Favro, The Urban Image of Augustan Rome (Cambridge, 1996), 150–153, 175–176, 180–181 (style, plan, scale, and the viewer’s experience); K. Galinsky, Augustan Culture: An Interpretive Introduction (Princeton, 1996), 197–213; Flower 224–236 (the imagines); Claridge Rome 158–161. Background. Octavian had vowed a temple to Mars before the Battle of Philippi in 42 b.c., to be erected if he succeeded in avenging his murdered father (Suet. Aug. 29.2; Ovid Fasti 5.569–578). He was able, however, thanks to the civic reconciliation achieved over the long interval before he paid this vow in full, to make of the avenging war god less a personal champion against domestic enemies (though this function persisted: e.g., Tac. Ann. 3.18.2; Suet. Cal. 24.3) than a

94

Commentary on Book 55

national champion against foreign enemies. When he prompted the Senate to vote construction of a temple to Mars Ultor on the Capitoline (so Dio, under 20 b.c.), his intention was to house in it the Roman military standards he had just recovered from the Parthians, avenging their defeats of Crassus and others (54.8.3n; cf. Ovid Fasti 5.579–595). Whether this Capitoline temple was ever completed (or even begun) is debated inconclusively. Certainly it was overtaken by the new Forum Augustum with its Temple of Mars Ultor, which Augustus built on private land with proceeds from booty (RG 21.1; Suet. Aug. 56.2) and dedicated in 2 b.c. At the practical level this huge enterprise was motivated by the need to accommodate legal and other activities overflowing from the Roman Forum and the Forum of Julius Caesar (Suet. Aug. 29.1).92 A hall of fame.93 The crown of Augustan monuments—for Pliny the Elder among the most beautiful structures of all time (HN 36.102)—the Forum Augustum had as its centerpiece, aloft on a podium, the shrine of Mars Ultor, who was now accorded a parity with Capitoline Jupiter and Palatine Apollo (cf. 55.10.4–5n); a statue of Augustus mounted in a quadriga and entitled Pater Patriae (RG 35.1) dominated the piazza below. In niches in the back walls of the porticoes and exedrae that enfolded the forum (perhaps also between their columns) stood statues of Rome’s heroes (Gell. 9.11.10), notably triumphatores (though not exclusively: fragments survive of togate sculptures), with inscriptions commemorating their achievements (two for each figure, one a simple cursus honorum on the statue base, the other a laudatory elogium).94 Augustus’ publicly declared intention was that citizens should measure him and ‘principes’ of ages to come against the standard of these men (Suet. Aug. 31.5).95 Pride of place went to ascendants of Augustus as far back as Romulus, the Alban kings, and Aeneas. Thus the entire history of Rome was brought (and would continue to be brought: Tac. Ann. 2.64.1) under the tutelage of Mars Ultor and Augustus Pater Patriae. For photographs, floor plans, and reconstructions of the porticoes see Nash Dictionary 1.404–405; P. Zanker, Forum Augustum: Das Bildprogramm (Tübingen, 1967), foldout; KAVR 185–189 (H. Bauer), cf. 194–199 (M. Hofter). For examples of honorary inscriptions see IIt. 13.3.1–36; CIL 12.20 (Aeneas); Not. Scav. (1933), 460 = EJ no. 80 (Drusus); cf. Ovid Fasti 5.566; Plin. HN 22.13. Cf. G. Lahusen, Untersuchungen zur Ehrenstatue in Rom: literarische und epigraphische Zeugnisse (Rome, 1983), 23–26. 92. For use of the porticoes for legal proceedings see Anderson Topography 91–93; G. Camodeca, “Una nuova fonte sulla topografia del foro d’Augusto (TPSulp. 19 = TP. 84 = 102),” Athenaeum 74 (1986), 505–508, with references; cf. Suet. Claud. 33.1. 93. Cf. Rowell MAAR 17 (1940), 131–143, defining the Forum Augustum as the “first great national Hall of Fame” (140). 94. Between their columns: Camodeca Athenaeum 74 (1986), 507–508, on the basis of Camodeca TPSulp. no. 19 (p72), a waxed tablet certifying that a litigant has made a court appearance, as guaranteed, ‘[Rom]ae in foro Augusto [ante] statuam Gracci [ad colum]nam quar[tam prox]ume gradus [hora n]ona.’ Camodeca identifies the ‘Graccus’ of the statue as the triumphator Ti. Sempronius Gracchus (cos. 177, 163 b.c.), father of the tribunes. 95. Cf. T.J. Luce, “Livy, Augustus, and the Forum Augustum,” in Raaflaub & Toher Republic 123–138 (Livy’s history did not influence much Augustus’ choice of summi viri).

10.1–16: The Year 2 b.c.

95

The forum and the temple were also a “museum” for classic sculptures (e.g., the cult statue of Athena Alea from Arcadia: Paus. 8.46.1, 4–5) and paintings (e.g., by Apelles: Plin. HN 35.93–94 with 27; cf. Serv. on Aen. 1.294). 10.1a @W" hJ Aujgouvstou ajgora; kaqierwvqh [Index of Book 55]:: “How the Forum of Augustus was dedicated.” This lemma and the next, which treats the dedication of the Temple of Mars Ultor, are the rubrics for 2 b.c. from the thirteenrubric index of Book 55. Dio’s account of the dedication of the forum is lost in the lacuna between 55.9.4 and 55.10.2; it may have been an ample one, to judge from what survives of his account of the dedication of Mars Ultor (55.10.2–8). Xiphilinus and Zonaras ignore both dedications. Long delayed in construction (Macr. 2.4.9), the forum was opened for judicial use before the temple was finished: Suet. Aug. 29.1; cf. Gros Templa 66–67. 10.1b @W" oJ tou÷ #Arew" nao;" oJ ejn aujth÷/ w]n kaqierwvqh [Index of Book 55]:: “How the Temple of Mars in it [the Forum of Augustus] was dedicated.” For a hypothetical reconstruction of the dedicatory inscription see G. Alföldy, Studi sull’epigrafia augustea e tiberiana di Roma (Vetera 8) (Rome, 1992), 17–34, esp. 27–30, figure 17. Date of the dedication of Mars Ultor. Vell. 2.100.2 fixes the year as 2 b.c. with a consular date; Dio gives the day in a passage illustrating the emperor Claudius’ moderation (60.5.3): “On the first of August, his birthday, there were circuses; they were not given in his honor, however, but because on this day the Temple of Mars had been dedicated and consequently dignified with anniversary contests.” This is the standard chronology, from which it follows (disquietingly) that there were henceforth two productions each year of circus games in Mars’ honor: on 1 August as the anniversary of the dedication and at the Ludi Martiales, given for the first time in 2 b.c. (RG 22.2), on 12 May (IIt. 13.2.456; Ovid Fasti 5.597– 598; cf. ILS 9349 = EJ no. 362, a chariot victory in the Ludi Martiales of a.d. 15 before 1 July). C.J. Simpson, “The Date of the Dedication of the Temple of Mars Ultor,” JRS 67 (1977), 91–94 dismisses Dio 60.5.3 and dates the dedication 12 May, mainly on the evidence of Ovid, who recounts the origins of our temple (though not explicitly its dedication) under that day in Fasti 5.545–598 (esp. 550– 552). Simpson’s chronology has been quite widely adopted, for example, by Anderson Topography 168–169 and Richardson Dictionary 160.96 Certain weaknesses in the case for dating the temple dedication simultaneously with the inception of the Ludi Martiales on 12 May should be noted: (1) Dio says (55.10.6) that Gaius and Lucius produced the circuses on the occasion of the dedication (th;n . . . iJppodromivan aujtoi; tovte dievqesan); this seems to set the dedicatory games apart from the first Ludi Martiales, which Augustus says he produced (‘primus feci’) as consul XIII (RG 22.2). (2) Ovid says nothing, under 12 May in Fasti, about the great dedicatory naumachia (Dio 55.10.7), upon which 96. Against: R. Riedl, Mars Ultor in Ovids Fasten (Heuremata 10) (Amsterdam, 1989), 74–85.

96

Commentary on Book 55

he dilates in Ars 1.171–176 and about which Augustus has more to say than about any other spectacle (RG 23; cf. Vell. 2.100.2). (3) If Dio erred in giving the dedication date as 1 August (60.5.3), how did he settle confidently on that specific wrong day?97

10.2–5 The Lex Templi of Mars Ultor After the lacuna Dio’s text resumes with clauses from the “charter” of the new shrine. 10.2 #Aºrei #Aºrei:: “to Mars.” This truncated word heads the recto of the 176th folio of the Codex Marcianus. ej" tou;" ejûhvbou" ou":: It was enacted “that those being enrolled as iuvenes without exception go there,” sc. to the Temple of Mars Ultor, clearly for some ritual purpose. Dio leaves vague to which youths the clause applied. Those of the dynasty alone? Youths entering the equestrian order (cf. 55.9.9n)? If so, all or senate-bound equites (laticlavii) alone?98 Our clause can hardly have applied to all citizen youths. Cf. Anderson Topography 94–96; Bonnefond “Transferts” 262–265. ajrca;" ta;" ejkdhvmou" ou":: “. . . that those being dispatched to commands abroad set forth from there, . . .” Cf. Suet. Aug. 29.2, ‘provincias cum imperio petituri.’ Bonnefond “Transferts” 256–258 proposes, on the basis of Plin. Pan. 5.2–4 (Trajan’s “traditional [‘de more’] ascent to the Capitol” before setting out “to the army”), that Augustus retained the customary pronouncement of vota (vows) to Capitoline Jupiter but added a second pronouncement to Mars Ultor. Neither Dio nor Suetonius specifies which “commands” this clause covered. No doubt independent commands like Gaius Caesar’s in the East, voted shortly (55.10.18n), or Tiberius Caesar’s in Germany, voted a.d. 4; perhaps also the proconsulship of Africa, which alone of public provinces still had a legionary garrison (cf. C.F. Konrad, “Proconsuls of Africa, the Future Emperor Galba, and the togatus in the Villa Massimo,” JRA 7 [1994], 155–159). Legates who had delegated rather than independent imperium were perhaps ineligible. 10.3 peri; tw÷ n nikhthriv w nn:: “. . . that the Senate take its votes on triumphs there, . . .” Caligula sent a triumphant dispatch from Germany to be delivered to the consuls at a senate meeting in Mars Ultor (Suet. Cal. 44.2); beyond this, however, there is no evidence of triumphs being voted in the temple (Talbert Senate 117). Augustus used the temple for swearing treaties with foreign chiefs (Suet. Aug. 21.2). Cf. Bonnefond “Transferts” 254–256 on transfers to Mars Ultor of legislative and ritual functions relative to war and victory previously conducted elsewhere. 97. He writes (60.5.1–3) that Claudius, on his accession, honored his parents Drusus and Antonia and his grandmother Livia with circuses on their birthdays but took no such honor for his own on 1 August. He then explains that there were circuses on 1 August but these marked the anniversary of the dedication of the Temple of Mars Ultor. 98. Was Lucius Caesar, whose deductio in forum belongs in this year, the first of all to go?

10.1–16: The Year 2 b.c.

97

tw÷ / #Arei touv t w/ kai; to; skh÷ p tron kai; to; n stev û anon aj n atiqev n ai ai:: “. . . that those who led triumphs offer their scepter and wreath to this Mars, . . .” In distinguishing the new Mars temple from any other shrine of the god (note touvtw/, “this”), our lemma may just imply the existence of the temple of Mars on the Capitoline voted in 20 (54.8.3n); but Mars had still other shrines: cf. Weinstock Julius 128; 56.24.3n, “the temple of Mars in his Campus.” The triumphator bore an eagle-topped scepter (cf. Val. Max. 4.4.5; Juv. 10.43).99 The “wreath” should be a laurel crown (cf. 7.21.5), not the “crown of gems set in gold” held over the victor’s head by a state slave during the procession (cf. 7.21.9).100 What we know of triumphs subsequent to the dedication of Mars Ultor cannot be harmonized readily with this clause. Tiberius in a.d. 12, Claudius in 43, and Vespasian and Titus in 70 all mounted the Capitol in triumph (Suet. Tib. 20.1; Dio 60.23.1; Jos. BJ 7.153–155, where the sacrifices to Jupiter are described as the end of the ceremony). Bonnefond “Transferts” 258–260 suggests that Augustus retained the traditional ceremony, with triumphatores (all now members of the imperial house) presenting the triumphal insignia to Jupiter on the Capitol but then proceeding with them to Mars Ultor, to whose keeping they were entrusted. ejn th÷/ ajgora÷/ calkou÷" i{stasqai tasqai:: “. . . that bronze statues be set up in the Forum [sc. of Augustus]” of those who celebrated triumphs and those awarded triumphalia ornamenta (cf. 54.24.8n). We have seen already (on 55.10.1a–8, Background) that Augustus installed triumphal statues of Rome’s historic duces “in both porticoes of his forum” (Suet. Aug. 31.5). By contrast, this provision of the lex templi was for the future. For its implementation see, for example, Tac. Ann. 15.72.1, triumphal statues “in the forum” voted to Nerva (the future emperor) and the Praetorian Prefect Tigellinus for their part in suppressing the Pisonian conspiracy against Nero; ILS 1023 = Smallwood (1966) 202, under Trajan. Remarkably, another of our triumphal statues turns up as an “address” in two waxed tablets recording vadimonia (bail contracts) executed in the reign of Claudius, almost certainly at Puteoli. In each instance, the litigant, an Alexandrian, guarantees that he will appear on a fixed day at a fixed hour in the court located “at Rome in the Augustan Forum before the triumphal statue (‘statuam . . . triumphalem’) of Cn. Sentius Saturninus:” see Camodeca TPSulp. nos. 13–14 (pp66–67). Consul a.d. 41, Saturninus earned his memorial in the conquest of Britain (cf. Eutr. 7.13.2; A.R. Birley, The Fasti of Roman Britain [Oxford, 1981], 360–361).

99. Oddly, Dio does not mention the scepter in his long account of the Roman triumph (7.21.4–11), though he specifies it elsewhere among insignia of Romulus (fr. 6.1a) and Tarquinius Priscus (7.8.7). 100. Among uses of laurel in the triumphal ritual note also the intertwining of the victor’s fasces with laurel shoots immediately following his victory (cf. 7.21.4); in celebrating his adventus in 13 b.c. Augustus placed these in the lap of Capitoline Jupiter (54.25.4n; cf. 55.5.1n, Jupiter Feretrius, exceptionally). Cf. Suet. Galba 1.1 on the miraculous laurel stock from which the Caesars got their victory boughs. See in general RE 7A.493–511, esp. 510 = Triumphus (Ehlers).

98

Commentary on Book 55

10.4 shmei÷a stratiwtikav: “. . . that if military standards taken by the enemy were recovered they be placed in the temple, . . .” Those lost by Crassus, Decidius Saxa, and Antony but recovered from the Parthians in 20 were now placed “in the inner shrine in the Temple of Mars Ultor” (RG 29.2). Cf. 54.8.1–3. panhvgurivn tina . . . uJpo; tw÷n ajei; ijlarcouvntwn poiei'sqai qai: “. . . that a festival be given near the temple steps by the current horse commanders,” sc. the six seviri turmae who commanded the equites equo publico on parade and included Gaius and Lucius: see 55.9.9–10n. For photographs of the temple steps see Nash Dictionary 1.401; for a floor plan of the forum P. Zanker, Forum Augustum: Das Bildprogramm (Tübingen, 1967), foldout, or Coarelli Roma 98–99. Bonnefond “Transferts” 267–268 sees Dio’s panegyris not as a festival but as a ceremony added to the annual transvectio equitum (on which see 55.31.2n); she suggests that the traditional parade route, ending at the Capitol, was modified to include the Forum of Augustus. But Dio is surely reporting a discrete festival to be produced by the seviri, young men of family and substance (55.9.9n). For panhvgurin poiei÷n cf. 55.10.11, a festival produced by Pylades the pantomime; 56.27.4, by pantomimes and owners of chariot teams. hJ ¿ l on . . . prosphvgnusqai nusqai:: “. . . that a nail be fixed in the temple by those who had held the census, . . .” Dio alone records Augustus’ provision of a rite of “driving the nail” (‘clavi figendi’) for the Temple of Mars Ultor. This rite had a prior history independent of Mars, having been performed at the Temple of Capitoline Jupiter in the earliest Republic. According to Livy (7.3.5, 8), a ‘lex vetusta’ prescribed that whoever was ‘praetor maximus’ was to “drive the nail [sc. into the temple wall] on the Ides of September,” the day on which the consul M. Horatius dedicated the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus in the year following the expulsion of the kings. For L.A. Foresti, “Zur Zeremonie der Nagelschlagung in Rom und in Etrurien,” AJAH 4 (1979), 144–158 the rite had a grave religious purpose, to “fix” inalterably the favor of cosmic powers and so the well-being of the Roman state. The series of annual nails, Livy says (7.3.6–7), served, in a primitive age, as a tally of the years (cf. Festus 49 Lindsay s.v. ‘clavus annalis’). The annual Capitoline ritual apparently fell into disuse, though it was revived occasionally as an apotropaic measure in times of crisis, for example, during a plague in 363 b.c., when a dictator clavi figendi causa was appointed (Livy 7.3.3–4; IIt. 13.1.32–33; the function of the praetor maximus had by now come to reside with a dictator). In his new clavus rite, which I infer was to be performed not each year but after each censorial lustrum, Augustus clearly found one more device for bringing Mars Ultor onto an equality with Jupiter Optimus Maximus. See also RE 4.1–4 = clavus (Premerstein); Anderson Topography 94 (skeptical of Dio’s testimony); Bonnefond “Transferts” 265–267; S.P. Oakley, A Commentary on Livy Books VI–X, 3 vols. (Oxford, 1997–), 2.73–82. 10.5 ejrgolabei÷n: “. . . that senators be permitted to take the contracts for supplying horses to compete in the circus games [ej" th;n iJppodromivan ajgwnioumevnwn] and for upkeep of the temple [naou÷ ûulakh;n], just as had been enacted in the case

10.1–16: The Year 2 b.c.

99

of Apollo and of Capitoline Jupiter.” Dio’s circumstantial report shows that, notwithstanding a general prohibition against senators’ contracting for tax collection, owning ships for gain, or providing chariot horses (so Pauli Sententiarum Fragmentum Leidense, ed. G.G. Archi et al. [Leiden, 1956], 3), they enjoyed exceptionally the right to provide, under public contract, horses for the circus races at the Ludi Apollinares, Ludi Romani, and the new Ludi Martiales, as well as the upkeep of the temples of Palatine Apollo, Jupiter Capitolinus, and now Mars Ultor. For the linking of these disparate contracts as early as 214 b.c. see Livy 24.18.10–11 (‘locationibus . . . aedium sacrarum tuendarum curuliumque equorum praebendorum’). For the eligibility of senators for such contracts in Cicero’s day cf. Asconius Tog. 93 Clark with B.A. Marshall, A Historical Commentary on Asconius (Columbia, Mo., 1985), 314–315. E. Badian posits that senators possessed this prerogative from very early times and retained it even after their order was debarred in general from taking public contracts: Publicans and Sinners: Private Enterprise in the Service of the Roman Republic (Ithaca, 1983), 16, 120 n16. See in detail E. Rawson, “Chariot-Racing in the Roman Republic,” PBSR 49 (1981), 1–16; cf. C. Nicolet, L’ordre équestre à l’époque républicaine (312–43 av. J.-C.) (Paris, 1974), 1.327–330. On Dio’s source. The accounts of the lex templi in Dio and Suetonius exhibit close verbal parallels. Compare: Dio 55.10.2–3 kai; tou;" ejpi; ta;" ajrca;" ta;" ejkdhvmou" stellomevnou" ejkei÷qen ajûorma÷sqai,

Suet. Aug. 29.2 ‘ut de bellis triumphisque hic consuleretur senatus,

tav" te gnwvma" ta;" peri; tw÷n nikhthrivwn ejkei÷ th;n boulh;n poiei÷sqai,

provincias cum imperio petituri hinc deducerentur,

kai; tou;" pevmyanta" aujta; tw÷/ #Arei touvtw/ kai; to; skh÷ptron kai; to;n stevûanon ajnatiqevnai.

quique victores redissent, huc insignia triumphorum conferrent.’

Either text could pass almost as a translation of the other, beyond minor departures: the first two clauses cited are in opposite order; Dio fails to mention ‘bella;’ Suetonius’ third clause is abridged. Together correspondence and divergence point to a source in common, probably a Latin annalist (Introduction sec. 5.2), here transcribed by Suetonius, translated by Dio.101

10.6–8 Celebratory Shows 10.6 iJerou÷n ejpitrevya" uJpatikh÷/ tini ajrch÷/ kata; to; palaio;n crwmevnoi" oi":: Augustus “consecrated this shrine (to; mevgaron ejkei÷no) despite having granted

101. For concentration of legal provisions in an extant Latin historian cf. Tac. Ann. 2.32.1–3; 3.17.4; 15.74.1, cf. 2, citing the acta senatus as source.

100

Commentary on Book 55

Gaius and Lucius once and for all the right to make all such dedications, employing a kind of consular office in line with ancient tradition.” An obscure report. Dio’s point may be that Augustus attached such importance to the new temple that he resumed exceptionally the leading role in its dedication (he emphasizes that the princes did produce the circuses “themselves”). Mommsen holds that they had been elected to the ancient office of duoviri aedi dedicandae and that it was they who dedicated Mars Ultor: StR 2.624, cf. 621 n1.102 Troivann:: “Leading [prw÷toi] boys rode in the so-called Troy Game with Agrippa,” the brother of the Caesars. On the lusus Troiae see 53.1.4n. Its performance evoked the epic origins of the Julian house, complementing the dynastic claims of the Mars Ultor complex. Agrippa Postumus (54.29.5), aged nine or ten, was now on display as the child Gaius had been when the Theater of Marcellus was dedicated in 13 (54.26.1). 10.7 oJplomaciva: “A gladiatorial show was given in the Saepta,” one of eight that Augustus says he gave in either his own name or those of his sons and grandsons (RG 22.1 with 53.1.5n). For Velleius this was, like the naumachia (below), a magnificentissimum spectaculum (2.100.2). For gladiators in the Saepta cf. 55.8.5. Cf. Ville Gladiature 104–105. naumaciv a: “and a naval battle between ‘Persians and Athenians’ in the place where vestiges [shmei÷a] of it are still pointed out today.” Julius Caesar had given a naumachia in celebrating his triumph in 46 b.c. (43.23.4–5; Plut. Caes. 55.2; Suet. Iul. 39.4; cf. Dio 48.19.1, a naumachia of Sextus Pompey). Xiphilinus preserves Dio’s reports of six later naumachiae under Claudius, Nero, Titus, and Domitian (60.33.3–4; 61.9.5; 62.15.1; 66.25.2–4n [two productions]; 67.8.2). See in general RE 16.1970–1974 = Naumachie (Bernert); K.M. Coleman, “Launching into History: Aquatic Displays in the Early Empire,” JRS 83 (1993), 48–74. Augustus boasts of his naumachia in RG 23: “I offered the people the spectacle of a naval battle beyond the Tiber where the grove of the Caesars is now found. Here an excavation was made 1,800 feet long and 1,200 wide, in which thirty beaked ships of the trireme or bireme class as well as still more numerous smaller boats joined battle. In these ships about 3,000 men, excluding rowers, fought.” The naumachia was on the right bank of the Tiber across from the Aventine Hill; see Map 2; Coleman op. cit. figures 1–2 (pp52, 54). Frontinus believed that the Aqua Alsietina was constructed to provide water for it (Aq. 1.22); cf. Nash Dictionary 1.35–36 for remains of the aqueduct; R. Taylor, “Torrent or Trickle? The Aqua Alsietina, the Naumachia Augusti, and the Transtiberim,” AJA 101 (1997), 465–492, esp. 475–482, “Locating the Naumachia,” with map. See

102. Cf. Brunt CQ 34 (1984), 439: the grant to Gaius and Lucius will have been made by the Senate, perhaps also the People. G. Alföldy finds significance in Dio’s use of the word mevgaron (see lemma) rather than naov" (cf. 55.10.1b, 4, 5): Augustus consecrated the cella specifically, Gaius and Lucius the rest of the shrine (Studi sull’epigrafia augustea e tiberiana di Roma [Vetera 8] [Rome, 1992], 28–29). But here at least Dio seems to have chosen mevgaron simply to vary naov" (even though it evidently means cella at 69.4.4)—why else would he speak of “this cella” (lemma) rather than “the cella”?

10.1–16: The Year 2 b.c.

101

also Ovid Ars 1.171–176; Vell. 2.100.2; Tac. Ann. 14.15.2; Suet. Aug. 43.1; Jerome Chron. p168; cf. Tac. Ann. 12.56.1–3 (Claudius’ still more ambitious naumachia on the Fucine Lake with 19,000 men); Platner & Ashby 357–358; Gagé on RG 23; Richardson Dictionary 265; LTUR 3.337 (Naumachia Augusti), 340 (Nemus Caesarum). Details in Dio’s account of how Titus reused the Augustan installations are so precise as to suggest that the historian had visited the naumachia site himself (66.25.3–4; cf.61. 20.5). Augustus’ reenactment of Salamis, pitting West against East, can be seen as a multivalent allusion to his triumph over Cleopatra at Actium, his “subjugation” of Parthia through recovery of the captured Roman standards, and, prospectively, exploits of Gaius Caesar against the Parthians (cf. Ovid Ars 1.177–228; D. Kienast, “Augustus und Alexander,” Gymnasium 76 [1969], 454–455). Still, if the victory of the West (“the Athenians won then too”) was “fixed” as an omen of Gaius’ success, Dio does not seem to say so (K.M. Coleman, “Fatal Charades,” JRS 80 [1990], 71). Battles like Salamis were stock themes of naumachiae: Persians and Athenians again under Nero (61.9.5); under Titus, Corcyraeans against Corinthians, as well as Athenians (victorious!) against Syracusans (66.25.3–4). Cf. Bowersock “Succession” 174–176 (production of the Salamis naumachia in the capital served to celebrate Rome as “protector of the Greeks against the present menace in the Iranian heartland”); R.M. Schneider, Bunte Barbaren (Worms, 1986), 63–67. 10.8 u{dwr ejshvcqh qh:: “After this the Circus Flaminius was flooded and thirty-six crocodiles slaughtered there.” Only Dio records this spectacle, though it may figure anonymously in the venationes in RG 22.3. For crocodiles brought to Rome for display see Plin. HN 8.96 (the first occasion, 58 b.c.); Str. 17.814–815; J.M.C. Toynbee, Animals in Roman Life and Art (Ithaca, 1973), 218–220 (Roman fascination with crocodiles); K.M. Coleman, “Ptolemy Philadelphus and the Roman Amphitheater,” in Roman Theater and Society (E. Togo Salmon Papers 1), ed. W.J. Slater (Ann Arbor, 1996), 49–68, esp. 61–63. Temporary excavation or damming of the Circus Flaminius to contain a pool, as well as temporary seating, were required: cf. Wiseman PBSR 42 (1974), 4, 8; 55.2.2n, Augustus’ funeral oration for Drusus given there in 9 b.c. ouj . . . uJ p av t eusen eusen:: “However, Augustus did not remain consul through all these days but having held office a short time [ejp! ojlivgon a[rxa"] gave the title consul to another.” He had been in office since 1 January. The terminus post quem for his resignation is either 12 May (when he inaugurated the Ludi Martiales as consul [RG 22.2]) or 1 August (if Dio is right in dating his dedication of Mars Ultor then: see 55.10.1bn). Augustus was succeeded by C. Fufius Geminus, coauthor with L. Caninius Gallus, cos. suff., of the Lex Fufia Caninia on testamentary manumission (cf. 55.13.7n). 10.9 Sebasta founded in Naples: See Map 4. “Now the preceding celebration was for Mars, but for Augustus himself sacred games [ajgwvn te iJerov"] in Naples in Campania were voted [ejyhûivsqh].” Dio records (I posit) a senate decree granting

102

Commentary on Book 55

the Neapolitans permission to establish municipal games. Cf. 51.20.9 (29 b.c.): “The Pergamenians received permission to hold the so-called sacred games [to;n ajgw÷na to;n iJerovn] in order to dignify Octavian’s temple.” Bibliography. R.M. Geer, “The Greek Games at Naples,” TAPhA 66 (1935), 208–221; Rieks “Sebasta;” cf. L. Robert, “Enterrements et épitaphes,” AC 37 (1968), 406–417 (decree honoring a competitor who died during the Sebasta); Reinhold Republic 226 (on “sacred games” in general), cf. 120, 233. The Neapolitan games were entitled Sebasta (= Latin Augusta), in full ‘Italika Romaia Sebasta Isolympia,’ and featured Greek events. The contemporary Strabo (5.246) describes them as quadrennial,103 musical as well as athletic (cf. Dio 60.6.2), several days in duration, and “vying with the most famous games in Greece.” In mentioning only athletic competitions Velleius (2.123.1) and Suetonius (Aug. 98.5) may be simplifying: a notable inscription (from Olympia) mentions, besides athletic events of the Neapolitan Sebasta such as footraces, horse races, boxing, wrestling, and pentathlon, artistic events including lyreplaying, flute-playing, and comic and tragic acting: Olympia: Die Ergebnisse der von dem Deutschen Reich veranstalteten Ausgrabung, 5: Die Inschriften von Olympia, ed. W. Dittenberger & K. Purgold (Berlin, 1896; reprint, Amsterdam, 1966), no. 56 = D. Morelli & G. Nenci, “Fonti per la storia di Napoli antica,” PP 7 (1952), 406–407. The Naples Sebasta were unique in Italy (cf. Suet. Nero 12.3–4), and inscriptions of winners put victories there on a par with Actian, Pythian, and Olympic victories (see, e.g., L. Moretti, Iscrizioni agonistiche greche [Rome, 1953], no. 69, of a boxer). The rituals included sacrifice “to Augustus Caesar” (quvªsºante" de; Sebastw÷/ Kaivsarªi) (Dittenberger & Purgold loc. cit., line 52). Such worship of the living emperor is widely and unambiguously attested in municipalities of Italy from the reign of Augustus—notwithstanding its inadmissibility in Roman state cult. See especially Gradel 73–108 (“Beyond Rome: ‘By Municipal Deification’”), noting his fresh exegesis of Dio 51.20.6–8. Dio’s chronology. Greek in culture and owner of a villa at Capua (76.2.1), Dio no doubt knew the Sebasta at nearby Naples well, still celebrated in his day. Yet he is often taken to have misdated our report, since he later attests a celebration of the quadrennial Sebasta in a.d. 14 (56.29.2), as do Velleius (2.123.1) and Suetonius (Aug. 98.5, where the competition is called ‘quinquennale’ by inclusive reckoning). A first celebration in 2 b.c., fifteen years earlier, is ruled out. An inscription commemorating a victory in the forty-third Italis,104 apparently of a.d. 170 (CIG 3.5805 with Rieks “Sebasta” 100), points to a first celebration in a.d. 2. But it is surely the senate decree authorizing the games rather than their first celebration that Dio registers under 2 b.c. (ejyhûivsqh). Given the preeminence of the figure to be honored, the need to construct or refurbish facilities, and the time required for publicizing and organizing a new ecumenical event, an

103. He calls the Sebasta a “five-yearly sacred contest” (pentethriko;" iJero;" ajgwvn), using inclusive reckoning. 104. The Italis (!Italiv") was the four-year period running from one celebration of the Sebasta to the next— like an Olympiad (!Olumpiav").

10.1–16: The Year 2 b.c.

103

interval of two clear years between “constitution” and celebration is unremarkable. The Roman Actian Games in honor of Augustus, first celebrated 28 b.c. (53.1.4–5), had been voted two or three years earlier (51.19.2). If we date the first celebration a.d. 2 with R.M. Geer, “The Greek Games at Naples,” TAPhA 66 (1935), 216, and Rieks “Sebasta” 100, two difficulties remain: first, under the consuls of a.d. 41, not a year for Sebasta, Dio describes how Claudius comported himself at this very festival (60.6.1–2—note the imperfect tenses; cf. Suet. Claud. 11.2); second, he reports that Nero was informed about the revolt of Vindex, an event of 68, not a year for Sebasta, “while viewing the athletic competitions in Naples” (63.26.1; cf. Suet. Nero 40.4). The first difficulty can be got round by observing that Dio is writing thematically (illustrating Claudius’ unassuming conduct) (cf. Geer 214). As for the second, since Nero heard about the revolt at the time of the Quinquatrus, in late March (Suet. Nero 40.4 with Tac. Ann. 14.12.1; cf. 54.28.3n), whereas the Sebasta belongs to the summer (not long before 19 August since Augustus attended it in a.d. 14 shortly before his death on that date: cf. Suet. Aug. 98.5), the games in question cannot be the Sebasta. ta; tw÷n @Ellhvnwn movnoi . . . ej z hv l oun oun:: “Of people in the region only the Neapolitans were in any way interested in Greek accomplishments,” sc. rather than in the circuses and gladiatorial spectacles that were followed with a universal passion in the Latin West. Dio’s insistence on the unique Greekness of the Neapolitans is borne out by earlier sources. Strabo says of Naples (5.246) that “very many traces of Greek culture are preserved there—gymnasia, ephebeia, phratriae, and Greek terms, though the people are Romans” (after Jones [Loeb]). Velleius notes the city’s careful preservation of its “ancestral ways” (‘ritus patrii’) (1.4.2). For his own vocal performances Nero “chose Naples as like a Greek city” (Tac. Ann. 15.33.1–2). Cf. CAH2 10.981–983 (“Survival of Greek Language and Institutions”). 10.10 hJ ejpwnumiva hJ tou' patrov": “The title of father [sc. Pater Patriae; cf. 57.8.1, oJ path;r th÷" patrivdo"] was officially granted to him,” for Augustus the pinnacle of his career. He records this honor at the close of the Res Gestae (35.1): “During my thirteenth consulship the Senate and the Equestrian Order and the entire Roman People titled me Pater Patriae and resolved that this be inscribed on the porch of my house [cf. 53.16.4], in the Curia Iulia, and in the Forum Augustum on the base of the chariot located there in my honor by senate decree.” Ovid also describes the consensus of Plebs, Equites, and Senate (Fasti 2.127– 128: ‘sancte pater patriae, tibi plebs, tibi curia nomen / hoc dedit, hoc dedimus nos tibi nomen, eques;’ cf. Suet. Aug. 58.1, where the Equites are elided). In the Senate the title was conferred, not through decree or acclamation (despite the implication in Dio that there was a vote), but through an address by a chosen spokesman, the venerable M. Valerius Messalla Corvinus (cos. 31 b.c.; cf. 53.27.5n); Augustus’ grateful response was that he now had nothing more to pray for from the gods (Suet. Aug. 58.1–2, quoting from Messalla’s salutation and

104

Commentary on Book 55

the acceptance). The Fasti Praenestini give the date, 5 February: IIt. 13.2.118– 119 = EJ p47. Pater Patriae became forthwith an element in Augustus’ titulature. In the decree of the decurions of Pisa on posthumous honors for Lucius Caesar he is styled ‘Imperator Caesar Augustus Pater Patriae Pontifex Maximus tribuniciae potestatis XXV’ (a.d. 2/3) (ILS 139 lines 34–35 = EJ no. 68); for PATER PATRIAE on coins see RIC 12.55–58. Bestowed voluntarily in a renewed consensus universorum (cf. RG 34.1–2, recalling the conferral of the name Augustus in 27 b.c.), the new title communicated a palpably monarchic authority, underpinned by the analogy with paterfamilias and patria potestas. For this powerful message cf. Ovid’s treatment of 5 February in his Fasti (2.119–144). A. Alföldi has uncovered the vast Machtinhalt of the title, deriving from recognition of Augustus, on various levels (civic, military, and religious), as national parent, patron, champion, and savior: “Die Geburt der kaiserlichen Bildsymbolik,” MH 7 (1950), 1–13; 8 (1951), 190–215; 9 (1952), 204–243; 10 (1953), 103–124; 11 (1954), 131–159 (159 for a handy peroration); the series of articles is collected in Alföldi, Der Vater des Vaterlandes im römischen Denken (Darmstadt, 1978). See J. Béranger, Recherches sur l’aspect idéologique du principat (Basel, 1953), 276–278; Weinstock Julius 200–205; Lacey Antichthon 14 (1980), 129–132 or Augustus 193–197 (detailed reconstruction of events, discussion of procedural questions); Kienast Augustus 132–133; Carter 179–180; T.R. Stevenson, “The Ideal Benefactor and the Father Analogy in Greek and Roman Thought,” CQ 42 (1992), 435–436; Ando Ideology 398–405; cf. 53.18.3n. provteron ga;r a[llw" a[neu yhfivsmato" ejpeûhmivzeto eto:: “Previously the title was used anyway without a vote.” Cf. 54.33.5, ejpiûhmivzein applied to an unofficial salutation as imperator. For earlier use of pater (or parens) patriae of Augustus see ILS 96 (6/5 b.c.) (= EJ no. 60) and 6755; cf. Hor. Carm. 3.24.27; RIC 12.48, the coin legend S P Q R PARENTI CONS(ERVATORI) SUO employed already ca 18 b.c. Prior to 5 February of 2 Augustus had declined offers of the title from the Plebs (Suet. Aug. 58.1). Although Cicero was called pater patriae in the Senate by the princeps senatus Q. Catulus for suppressing the Catilinarian conspiracy (Cic. Pis. 3.6),105 his was far from the state title and status that Augustus now assumed. Pater Patriae was pressed on Augustus’ successor Tiberius, but he refused it (57.8.1; 58.12.8; Tac. Ann. 1.72.1; 2.87). Caligula, though he declined at first, soon took it (59.3.2; Dio is critical); Claudius did the same (60.3.2). Dio records the conferral of Augustus’ new title (in February) out of time after the dedications of the Forum of Augustus and Mars Ultor (the latter in May or August), probably for compositional reasons (pace Syme Aristocracy 113 n56, cf. 300 n7, who imputes error): the honor is one item in a heterogeneous cluster of discrete annalistic reports that Dio disposes of conveniently (55.10.9–11) in pass105. The first so honored according to Plin. HN 7.117; cf. App. B Civ. 2.7; Weinstock Julius 202. Among a plethora of honors conferred on Julius Caesar Dio reports that “they titled him Father of the Country” (patevra . . . th÷" patrivdo") (44.4.4); cf. Suet. Iul. 85, a memorial column erected in the Forum by the Plebs with the inscription ‘parenti patriae.’

10.1–16: The Year 2 b.c.

105

ing from the theme of Augustus’ brilliant new monuments (55.10.1a–8) to its antithesis, the disgrace of his daughter Julia (55.10.12–16). ejpavrcou" tw÷n doruûovrwn wn:: “Also [kai; mevntoi kaiv: Denniston 413–414] he then for the first time appointed Prefects of the Praetorians.” Chosen by the emperor from the equites for competence and loyalty and retained at his pleasure, the Praetorian Prefects (praefecti praetorio) increasingly assumed responsibilities not only for the emperor’s security but also for military, policing, administrative, cabinet, and (in time) judicial functions. Some, like Sejanus and Macro under Tiberius or Plautianus under Septimius Severus, exercised power as sole prefects which was at times viceregal. Augustus’ creation of two prefects may reflect the tradition of magisterial collegiality (Durry Cohortes 158) or be linked to the promotion in this year of Augustus’ heir designate Gaius Caesar to an independent command on the distant eastern front. “Duality meant that one Prefect could remain at Rome, while another was deployed elsewhere” (Brunt JRS 73 [1983], 60). Reversing Dio’s order of events, Syme Aristocracy 300–301 suggests that Augustus created the prefecture in response to dangers attendant on Julia’s fall (55.10.12–16).106 Dio’s emphasis on the appointment of two prefects may have a contemporary point. Convinced that sole prefects like Plautianus possessed inordinate influence, he advocated curtailing their powers (52.24.1–6n, 5n: two was the proper number). See Durry Cohortes 359–403 (history of the Praetorian Guard); Millar Emperor 61–62; Campbell Emperor 109–120; Robinson Rome 181–188; Keppie Athenaeum 84 (1996), 101–124. Dio treats the Praetorian Guard under Augustus at 53.11.5; 54.25.6; 55.23.1n (terms of service and retirement praemia), 24.6n (complement); 56.32.2 (congiarium under Augustus’ will). Skapouvlan . . . #Apron #Apron:: For Q. Ostorius Scapula see PIR2 O 167, with a tentative stemma of Ostorii Scapulae. He was probably a brother of P. Ostorius Scapula, prefect of Egypt between a.d. 3 and 10/11 (PIR2 O 165). See A.E. Hanson, “Publius Ostorius Scapula: Augustan Prefect of Egypt,” ZPE 47 (1982), 243–253; Syme Aristocracy 301, who also treats the colleague, P. Salvius Aper. Dio’s discrete annalistic report, providing the tria nomina of the first prefects, is chronologically unimpeachable as to year (which he alone supplies); little can be inferred from his order of events, however, as to when in the year they were appointed. movnou" tw÷n ejparcovntwn [delete Boissevain’s comma before ejparcovntwn]:: “Of those who hold some prefecture I for my part [kai; ejgwv: see 55.12.4] use eparchos only of these [sc. Praetorian Prefects], seeing that the term has become current.” Dio is true to his word (e.g., 60.23.2; 71.5.2; 78.11.3; cf. 52.33.1n). For 106. Tradition: If tradition lay behind the dual prefecture, it was soon breached: Seius Strabo was sole prefect when Tiberius came to power (Tac. Ann. 1.7.2, 24.2). Gaius Caesar: The fact that a military tribune of the Praetorian Guard was on active service in the East concurrently with Gaius’ command there (see 55.10a.1n) can suggest that the prince was himself attended by one of the new prefects (though no source records this). Cf. Tac. Ann. 1.24.1–2 (a.d. 14), Sejanus made colleague with his father Seius Strabo in the prefecture and sent as rector for Tiberius’ son Drusus Caesar in his mission to quell the legionary mutiny in Pannonia. Drusus’ force included two Praetorian cohorts and Praetorian horse.

106

Commentary on Book 55

other prefects he uses different terms (e.g., 52.21.1; 54.6.6) or circumlocutions (e.g., 51.17.1; 55.25.2n; 72.13.1); see in detail Vrind De Vocabulis 97–99, cf. 9. Cf. Mason Terms 138–140; Freyburger-Galland Vocabulaire 181. 10.11 Pulavdh" h":: I paraphrase: “Pylades the pantomime produced a festival, in which he himself played no part as an actor, being very old, but wore the dress and met the expenses that a magistrate would.” On this superstar, plainly wealthy, see 54.17.4–5n; PIR2 P 1093; E.J. Jory, “The Literary Evidence for the Beginnings of Imperial Pantomime,” BICS 28 (1981), 147–161. Pylades wore the purplebordered praetexta as festival president; cf. 55.8.7, use of “magisterial dress” (ejsqh÷ti th÷/ ajrcikh÷/) by magistrorum vici. Kuiv n tio" [Kuvinto" ms.] Krispi÷no" strathgov": “Quinctius Crispinus also produced a festival, as praetor.” T. Quinctius Crispinus Valerianus, a patrician by adoption, was suffect consul suo anno three years later (a.d. 2) (PIR2 Q 45; RE 24.1106–1107 = Quinctius 70 [Hanslik]; Syme Aristocracy 158). He may have been urban praetor, and his festival the Ludi Apollinares: cf. 53.2.3n, 27.6n. lev g w de; ouj tou÷ t o aj l l! l!:: “This is not the important thing [that Crispinus produced a festival] but that equites and women of distinction were brought on stage under his presidency.” On the lemma cf. Boissevain ad loc.; 43.51.4; 47.39.4. On legislation, clearly ineffectual (e.g., Suet. Nero 4), denying the stage or arena to men and women of high estate cf. 54.2.5; 56.25.7–8n.

10.12–16: THE FALL OF AUGUSTUS’ DAUGHTER JULIA Introduction. Even if people had their suspicions about Julia’s libertine conduct, they can hardly have expected, in a year of dynastic jubilation, the scandalous revelations now made about her and her paramours, names resonant with Roman history. Dio drew his account of the catastrophe from a source attuned to the governmental version of events. That this version entered the historical tradition early is evident from parallels between his testimony and that of Velleius and Seneca the Younger. Much in Dio may derive ultimately from the libellus in which Augustus communicated the scandal to the Senate (see 55.10.14n). Scholars generally see in the crisis of 2 b.c. more of a political threat to the Princeps than do the ancient sources (at least when these are taken at face value). The evidence of a dynastic conspiracy is in fact far from compelling, and some of it no doubt the product of prosecutorial construction or sensationalist writing. Thus Seneca in Brev. Vit. 4.6 evokes an aged Augustus terror-stricken by “his daughter and a band of noble young men bound to her by adultery as if by an oath of allegiance.” Tellingly, Suetonius in Aug. 19.1 omits the prime suspect, Iullus Antonius, altogether from his list of the conspirators against Augustus. Still, even if their

10.1–16: The Year 2 b.c.

107

offenses were less political than moral or ideological, Julia and her cohort ran grave risks in flaunting an insouciant hedonism in defiance of a paternal authority that now comprehended patria as well as familia. Dio’s sympathies are with Augustus, not the fallen, and he cares little whether they were punished for moral or political transgressions. Sources. Dio 55.10.12–16, 13.1, cf. 9.7; 56.32.4; Vell. 2.100.3–5; Sen. Ben. 6.32.1–2; Brev. Vit. 4.6; Clem. 1.10.3; Plin. HN 7.149; 21.9; Suet. Aug. 65.1–4; Tib. 11.4; Tac. Ann. 1.53; 3.24.2; 4.13.3, 44.3; Macr. 1.11.17; 2.5.2–6, 9; Jerome Chron. p168. Bibliography. There is a legion of ingenious studies; in brief selection: Meise Untersuchungen 5–34 (the immorality alleged against Julia and her circle was chiefly governmental fiction, intended to divert attention from a plot to supplant Augustus); Syme RP 3.912–936 = The Crisis of 2 b.c. (Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften, philosophisch-historische Klasse, Sitzungsberichte, 1974, Heft 7) (München, 1974) and Syme Ovid 194–196 (Augustus’ advancing age, Tiberius’ withdrawal, and the youth of the heirs called for a vigilant “council of regency” to guarantee Julia’s own position and the smooth succession of her sons in the event of Augustus’ death; it involved Iullus Antonius and a group of the high nobility; Augustus struck against this intrigue); Raaflaub & Samons “Opposition” 428–430 (distinguishing a dynastic power struggle, which this was, from conspiracy against Augustus’ life, which it was not); R.A. Bauman, Women and Politics in Ancient Rome (London, 1992), 108–119 (Julia did not fall because she conspired but as the focus of defiant resistance to Augustus’ conservative moral program and his “new charisma” [117] as Pater Patriae). See also Levick Latomus 35 (1976), 301–339; Lacey Antichthon 14 (1980), 136–142 (by condemning Julia’s recent misconduct Augustus diverted attention from earlier promiscuity that his enemies could use to impugn the paternity of the Caesars and their claim to succeed); Kienast Augustus 133– 134; L.F. Raditsa, “Augustus’ Legislation Concerning Marriage, Procreation, Love Affairs and Adultery,” ANRW 2.13.290–295 (detects a “life and death struggle between father and daughter”—psychological and ideological rather than political). 10.12 qugatevra ajselgaivnousan ousan:: “But Augustus took no account of this [elite persons appearing on stage], yet was outraged when at long last he discovered that his daughter Julia was behaving so dissolutely that by night she reveled and caroused in the Forum, indeed on the very Rostra [kai; ejp! aujtou÷ ge tou÷ bhvmato"].” Dio also contrasts Augustus’ severity in punishing kindred with his leniency toward others at 55.10.16; 56.40.6, cf. 32.4. Seneca’s sketch of Julia’s excesses (Ben. 6.32.1) comes from the same tradition as Dio’s, for example: “the whole city, the very Forum and the Rostra, from which her father had carried his law on adultery, were the scene of nocturnal revels.”107 Cf. Syme Ovid 193. 107. In Dio’s “on the very Rostra” the emphatic aujtou' corresponds vestigially to Seneca’s detail about the Rostra.

108

Commentary on Book 55

10.13 ouj mevntoi kai; ejpivsteuen teuen:: “He guessed even before this [kateivkaze me;n ga;r kai; provteron, answered in 55.10.14 by tovte d! ou÷jn maqwvn etc.] that she was not living uprightly, but was not sure.” Dio follows a source which palliated Augustus’ condoning of Julia’s misconduct. That he had some prior knowledge is suggested by Macr. 2.5.2–6. 10.14 th÷/ gerousiva/ koinw÷sai ai:: Augustus “was so incensed that he could not keep the matter quiet but communicated it to the Senate”—not in person (out of shame) but through a libellus read out by his quaestor (Suet. Aug. 65.2). This may be the litterae mentioned by Plin. HN 21.9 (while contrasting the sanctity of wreaths among Romans with their use by carousing Athenians): “Among us Romans the paradigm of this sort of excess is none other than the daughter of Divus Augustus; a letter of that god laments how through her wantonness the statue of Marsyas was garlanded by night.” Cf. Sen. Ben. 6.32.1–2: ‘flagitia principalis domus in publicum emisit. . . . parum potens irae publicaverat.’ kajk touvtou . . . uJperwrivsqh qh:: “In the sequel she was exiled to Pandateria.”108 Cf. Vell. 2.100.5, ‘relegata in insulam;’ Sen. Ben. 6.32.1, ‘relegavit;’ Tac. Ann. 1.53.1, “interned by her father Augustus on the island Pandateria.” Julia was later moved to Rhegium (55.13.1n), where she died in 14 soon after Tiberius’ accession. Pandateria (modern Ventotene) lay some 55 km west of Misenum, the base of a great “praetorian” fleet. The minuscule isle was later the place of exile for the elder Agrippina (Suet. Tib. 1.53.2) and Nero’s wife Octavia (Tac. Ann. 14.63.1). See Map 4. For Dio, Julia’s material offense appears to have been adultery. He uses the diction of immorality: ajselgaivnousan (55.10.12), oujk ojrqw÷" . . . biou÷n (55.10.13), as do the other sources mainly, for example, Sen. Ben. 6.32.1: ‘impudicam,’ ‘flagitia,’ ‘admissos gregatim adulteros,’ ‘adultera;’ Tac. Ann. 1.53.1 and 3.24.2: ‘impudicitiam;’ cf. 4.44.3: Iullus Antonius, “punished with death for adultery with Julia;” Suet. Tib. 11.4: ‘ob libidines et adulteria damnatam;’ Macr. 1.11.17; Jerome Chron. p168: ‘in adulterio deprehensam damnat exilio.’ Against Dio, Meise Untersuchungen 18 argues, on the basis of Plin. HN 7.149, ‘adulterium filiae et consilia parricidae palam facta,’ an item in a tendentious catalogue of troubles faced by Augustus through his life, that Julia’s offense was also to have plotted the murder of her father. ‘Parricidae’ should refer, however, not to Julia but anonymously to Iullus Antonius as would-be assassin of the head of state (and now Pater Patriae). For parricida used of the murderers of Julius Caesar see Val. Max. 4.5.6; Tac. Ann. 4.34.3; cf. Sen. Clem. 1.9.11. Pliny’s phrase “adultery once again in the granddaughter’s case” (‘aliud in nepte adulterium’), which follows shortly in the catalogue of troubles, would be anticlimactic after attempted patricide by the daughter. Pliny’s Julia is a reveler at HN 21.9, not an assassin. Skribwniva hJ mhvthr hr:: Julia’s “mother Scribonia voluntarily sailed with her.” On Augustus’ first wife, whom he married in 40 b.c. in forging an alliance with 108. Though this sentence follows directly one describing the revelation of Julia’s enormities to the Senate, kajk touvtou cannot be pressed to show that she was judged there.

10.1–16: The Year 2 b.c.

109

Sextus Pompey but divorced the day she bore Julia in 39, see 48.16.3, 33.3; Syme Aristocracy 247–249, 256, with table XIV. Velleius highlights the mother’s constancy in remaining a voluntary companion of her daughter’s exile throughout (2.100.5); cf. Linderski “Julia” 194–196, adducing suggestively a fragmentary inscription that mentions Scribonia, clearly from the vicinity of Rhegium, where Julia was later transferred; 55.13.1n. 10.15 wJ " kai; [Dio] | ejpi; th÷/ monarciva/ tou÷to pravxa", ajpevqane met! a[llwn tinw÷n ejpiûanw÷n ajndrw÷n [Exc. Val.; Xiph.]:: Of Julia’s adulterers “Iullus Antonius was executed, along with certain other distinguished men, as having done this in a bid for monarchy.”109 After wJ" kai; begins a lacuna of two folios in Dio’s text, ending at 55.10a.1. On Iullus Antonius see 54.26.2n. Son of the triumvir, he had married Augustus’ niece the elder Marcella (cf. Vell. 2.100.5) after Agrippa divorced her to marry Julia (54.6.5); Marcella’s son by Iullus was now interned (cf. below). Our lemma is the foundation of most “conspiracy theories,” but a fragile one. On a natural reading of Dio, it was not actual conspiracy that led to Iullus’ death but a promotion of his “dynastic adultery” to treason (possibly by accusers in a senate trial: cf. below). The statutory punishment for an adulterer was merely relegatio in insulam with confiscation of half his property (Paulus Sent. 2.26.14; Bauman Crimen 202). Tacitus is explicit: Augustus “infringed his own laws” (‘suas . . . ipse leges egrediebatur’) in punishing his daughter’s and granddaughter’s adulterers, treating their offense with a gravity worthy of sacrilege or treason (Ann. 3.24.2 with nn of Woodman & Martin [pp225–229]; cf. 1.10.4); Iullus Antonius was “punished with death for adultery with Julia” (Ann. 4.44.3). The loyalist Velleius, closest of our sources to the event, registers no political act, and appears to parry criticism of Augustus for exceeding the adultery statute: Antonius, “violator of Augustus’ house,” himself avenged his crime through suicide (‘ipse sceleris a se commissi ultor fuit’); the others “paid the penalties that they would have paid for violating anyone’s wife, though it was Caesar’s daughter and Nero’s wife they had violated” (2.100.5). There is virtually no evidence as to where the accused were tried. In Macr. 1.11.7 the trial of one Demosthenes, accused of adultery with Julia, reads like a cognitio. But use of different courts for different defendants must not be ruled out. Trials in the aftermath of Sejanus’ fall, for example, were held both in the Senate (Tac. Ann. 5.8–9) and before Tiberius on Capri (Suet. Tib. 62.1). If the charges against senators implicated with Julia were heard in the Senate, as I think probable, there may have been outbursts of loyalist indignation such as marked proceedings against Cornelius Gallus early in Augustus’ reign (53.23.7n) and, under Tiberius, the trials of M. Scribonius Libo Drusus (Tac. Ann. 2.32.1–2) and Cn. Calpurnius Piso (Ann. 3.17.4–18.2), with exaggeration of offenses and aggravation of penalties a result. The internment of Iullus Antonius’ son at Massilia 109. Dio possibly indicates a formal charge (cf. 54.3.5). This is not to say that he credits it; for wJ" kaiv signaling pretense cf. 50.2.2; 53.12.2, 29.2. He was skeptical of all reports of plots (cf. 54.15.1–3).

110

Commentary on Book 55

is consistent with the father’s adultery being promoted to maiestas (Tac. Ann. 4.44.3). “Along with certain other distinguished men” (met! a[llwn tinw÷n ejpiûanw÷n ajndrw÷n). Dio perhaps abridges a list of names from his annalistic source. In any case he has fallen into error: the notables are probably the same four that Velleius names as Julia’s adulterers (2.100.5), whose punishment was exile, not death. These were T. Quinctius Crispinus Sulpicianus (cos. 9 b.c.), elder brother of the serving praetor Quinctius Crispinus (55.10.11 with Syme Aristocracy 158; they share the praenomen Titus through adoption by the same man), Appius Claudius, Cornelius Scipio, all patricians, and the “determined adulterer” Sempronius Gracchus (cf. Tac. Ann. 1.53.3–6; 4.13.3; Syme Aristocracy 91). Pace Dio, there was at most a single death sentence. pri; n diav r xai [diarpavsai ms.] [Exc. Val.]:: A tribune of the plebs “was not tried until he had completed his term.” That would be on 9 December of 2 b.c., terminus ante quem for Julia’s fall. Roman law forbade prosecuting a magistrate with imperium before his term expired or he resigned: Dig. 2.4.2; 47.10.32; K.M.T. Atkinson, “Constitutional and Legal Aspects of the Trials of Marcus Primus and Varro Murena,” Historia 9 (1960), 461–462; Talbert Senate 481. The same principle was observed scrupulously here, though a tribune held potestas rather than imperium.110 The unknown tribune is less likely to be the noble Sempronius Gracchus (cf. Goodyear on Tac. Ann. 1.53.4 [1.326]) than one of the “others of lesser name” in Vell. 2.100.5. 10.16 crovnon tina; ajûwvrisen [Exc. Val.; Xiph.]:: As for the many women brought up after this on similar charges, Augustus “did not entertain all the accusations, but set a time limit so that there could be no meddling in what had been done before that.” The Julian law on adultery had a statute of limitation forbidding prosecution of offenses over five years old: Dig. 48.5.30.5–6. Augustus may simply have reaffirmed it. Cf. 53.2.5, another such statute. Foiv b h [Exc. Val.; Xiph.]:: “Phoebe, Julia’s freedwoman and accomplice, anticipated punishment by taking her own life voluntarily, for which very reason Augustus praised her.” Cf. Suet. Aug. 65.2: “When one of her accomplices, the freedwoman Phoebe, took her own life by hanging [‘suspendio’], Augustus said that he would rather have been Phoebe’s father.” The correspondences with Dio are so close that, except for his omitting (out of restraint?) the detail about Phoebe hanging herself, he might be thought to have translated Suetonius. More likely, however, they had a source in common: cf. on 55.10.2–5. For noble actions of women of inferior status used as exempla cf. 62.27.3; Tac. Ann. 15.57.1–2; Jos. AJ 19.32–36. 110. Dio highlights his model emperor’s respect for the law—inconsistently, since he has just recorded his punishing adulterers with death in contravention of the law. That Dio knew the legal penalty is not in question: he denounces Caracalla for slaying adulterers “in violation of the laws” (para; ta; nenomismevna) (77.16.4).

10.17?–13.1?: The Years 1 b.c.–a.d. 3

111

55.10.17?–13.1?: The Years 1 b.c.–a.d. 3 Annalistic structure. Since the fragmentary state of Dio’s text for 1 b.c.–a.d. 3 obscures where most year-accounts begin or end, I have treated them together rather than singly. A single folio (some fifty lines) survives of Dio’s account for these years, which when intact filled most of the five folios of the Codex Marcianus between 55.10.15 (toward the close of 2 b.c.) and 55.13.2 (partway through a.d. 4). In part this huge loss can be repaired with material from Zonaras, Xiphilinus, Excerpta Valesiana on Virtue and Vice, and Excerpta Ursiniana on Ambassadors of Foreigners to Romans. These witnesses and fragments, together with the surviving folio, represent perhaps half of what Dio wrote. They also provide, when collated, clues about the structure of his original account since they generally record events in parallel order. Dio’s focus in these four year-accounts is on the succession, notably Gaius Caesar’s ill-fated eastern command, which affected it pivotally. The biographical interest prompts a break from a strict annual chronology: under a.d. 2, having recorded the outbreak of war in Armenia (55.10a.5), Dio carries his narrative forward under the same consuls to the wounding of Gaius before the fortress Artagira, probably in 3, and then to his death and obsequies in 4 (55.10a.6, 9, 12.1). Only after this come the accounts proper of 3 (55.12.3?–13.1?) and 4 (55.13.1a–22.2). The death of Lucius Caesar and the recall of Tiberius from Rhodes, both in 2, are articulated with the story of Gaius’ misfortune. Sources. For parallel accounts see Vell. 2.101.1–102.3, based in part on eyewitness; Flor. 2.32.42–45; cf. Festus Breviarium 19.1–2, with confusion of Tiberius and Gaius Caesar; Tac. Ann. 2.3.2–4.2 (important).

10.17?–10a.4: THE YEARS 1 b.c.–a.d. 1 Where the break comes between 1 b.c. and a.d. 1 is uncertain; but see 55.10.19n, ajpelqwvn.

10.17 Gaius Caesar Visits the Danube Armies 10.17 Gavio" ta; stratovpeda ta; pro;" tw÷/ #Istrw/ eijrhnikw÷" ejphv/ei [Exc. Val. 180]:: “Gaius was making peaceable visits to the armies by the Danube.111 He fought no war, not because there was none but because he was learning in quiet and safety how to command while the dangerous assignments were being given to others.” With “by the Danube” Dio refers broadly to the frontier region, certainly including Illyricum, though possibly also Moesia or even Raetia (for Augustan legionary garrisons cf. 55.23.2–6n and 7n with table 5). For prov" with the dative of rivers see I. De Jongh, De praepositionis PROS Usu et Significatione

111. Contrast Cary’s “Gaius assumed command of the legions on the Ister with peaceful intent.”

112

Commentary on Book 55

apud Cassium Dionem (Amsterdam, 1925), 11–12; e.g., 53.12.6, th;n pro;" tw÷/ @Rhvnw/ Belgikhvn; 55.2.3, 10a.2n; 56.18.4. Our lemma belongs in the first instance somewhere between 55.10.16 (= Exc. Val. 179; Xiph. 101.23–32), on the aftermath of Julia’s fall in 2 b.c., and 55.27.5 under a.d. 6 (from which Exc. Val. 181 derives). But the limits can be narrowed. Velleius suggests a context, the military apprenticeship of Gaius: “Only a short time passed after this [sc. the debacle of Julia] when Gaius Caesar, having previously visited . . . other provinces [‘aliis provinciis . . . obitis’], was sent to Syria . . .” (2.101.1). With ‘obitis’ compare ejphv/ei. In other words, Velleius has the provincial visits (which fit Dio’s description of Gaius as “learning how to command”) precede Augustus’ dispatching him from Rome to his eastern command, probably 1 b.c. (55.10.19n). A further clue to the location of Exc. Val. 180 is its series of imperfect tenses— ejphv/ei, ejmavnqanen, prosetavssonto (“was making visits,” “was learning,” “assignments were being given”); these suggest that in his intact text Dio was coordinating Gaius’ apprenticeship with some other event, plausibly the mounting troubles in Parthia and Armenia, introduced at 55.10.18 (Zon.). In recombining the fragments of Dio’s narrative it sharpens the sense to place the apprenticeship after the eastern troubles, which serve as context for it. To place the troubles after the apprenticeship, with Boissevain, renders otiose the subsequent remark that “Gaius and Lucius happened to be young and inexperienced in affairs,” nevoi kai; pragmavtwn . . . a[peiroi (55.10.18 [Zon.]). I therefore suggest that Exc. Val. 180 (= 55.10.17) with its sketch of Gaius’ military apprenticeship should be relocated directly after these words, as an explanation of them.112 Dio presents Gaius’ frontier tour not as a stage of his eastern expedition but as preliminary to it (pace F.E. Romer, “A Numismatic Date for the Departure of C. Caesar?” TAPhA 108 [1978], esp. 201–202; Syme Aristocracy 89; Herz “Gaius Caesar” 120).113 Nothing in his report indicates more than training for imperial responsibilities. Precisely how this provincial activity is to be coordinated with other activities before his departure, including his part in celebrating the dedication of the Temple of Mars Ultor in 2 b.c. (55.10.6), is unclear; apparently it began seriously once he was designated consul in 5 b.c. (for a.d. 1); Suetonius says that Augustus dispatched Gaius and his brother “as consuls designate” around provinces and armies (Aug. 64.1; cf. 55.10a.9n).

10.18–19 Gaius Caesar Sent to the East (1 b.c.) See Map 3. In 20 b.c. Augustus had brought Armenia Maior within the Roman orbit, replacing the pro-Parthian King Artaxias II with his brother Tigranes III; on the latter’s death his secessionist son Tigranes IV occupied the vacant throne (by 6 b.c.: 112. Boissevain entertains this order but does not adopt it. 113. For the holder of proconsular imperium (55.10.18) juvenile training “in quiet and safety,” with “the dangerous assignments” going to others (Exc. Val. 180), would in any case have been infra dignitatem. For the situation on the northern frontiers cf. 55.10a.2–3n.

10.17?–13.1?: The Years 1 b.c.–a.d. 3

113

55.9.4n). He was now abetted by the Parthian Phrataces (Phraates V), who had recently supplanted his philo-Roman father Phraates IV (died 3/2 b.c.). Against them Augustus dispatched his adopted son, supported by estimable counselors. In the ensuing diplomatic and military contests, as Rome sought to reassert control over Armenia, both the Roman prince and the Armenian king, destined to be last in the Artaxiad line of Tigranes II “the Great,” fell victims. On the cast of eastern royals involved in this crisis see Tables 1 and 2. Bibliography. On Roman relations with Armenia and Parthia in the critical decade of Tiberius’ retirement (6 b.c.–a.d. 4) see J.G.C. Anderson, “The Revolt of Armenia and the Mission of Gaius Caesar,” in CAH1 10.273–277, cf. 253– 254; N.C. Debevoise, A Political History of Parthia (Chicago, 1938; reprint, 1968), 143–151; K.-H. Ziegler, Die Beziehungen zwischen Rom und dem Partherreich: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des Völkerrechts (Wiesbaden, 1964), 51–57; P.Z. Bedoukian, “A Classification of the Coins of the Artaxiad Dynasty of Armenia,” ANSMusN 14 (1968), 41–66, supplemented by “Coinage of the Later Artaxiads,” ANSMusN 17 (1971), 137–139 (fundamental articles on the coin evidence); M. Pani, Roma e i re d’oriente da Augusto a Tiberio (Cappadocia, Armenia, Media Atropatene) (Bari, 1972), esp. 44–55; Syme Ovid 8–12; Sherwin-White Policy 325– 328; Chaumont “Arménie” 73–84; M.R. Cimma, Reges socii et amici populi romani (Milano, 1976), 324–330; A.D.H. Bivar in Cambridge History of Iran, 3: The Seleucid, Parthian and Sasanian Periods, ed. E. Yarshater (Cambridge, 1983), 66–68; E. Dabrowa, La politique de l’état parthe à l’égard de Rome—d’Artaban II à Vologèse I (ca 11–ca 79 de n.è.)—et les facteurs qui la conditionnaient (Krakow, 1983), 42–45 (detailed documentation; elicits the Armenian and Parthian perspectives); Sullivan Royalty 291; cf. Brunt Themes 456–464; Gruen in CAH2 10.160–163. On Gaius Caesar’s itinerary see Herz “Gaius Caesar” 118–126; Halfmann Itinera 166–167. Cf. A.K. Goldsworthy, The Roman Army at War 100 bc–ad 200 (Oxford, 1996), 60–68 on the Parthians as military opponents; B. Campbell, “War and Diplomacy: Rome and Parthia, 31 bc–ad 235,” in War and Society in the Roman World, ed. J. Rich and G. Shipley (London, 1993), 213–240. 10.18 tw÷ n !Armeniv w n de; newterisav n twn kai; tw÷ n Pav r qwn auj t oi÷ " sunergouv n twn [Zon.]:: “with the Armenians in revolt and the Parthians helping them.” Through Zonaras’ summary we can glimpse Dio setting the stage for Gaius’ eastern command. Cf. RG 27.2, describing Armenia as “defecting and revolting” (without mention of Parthia); Vell. 2.100.1: “The Parthians, abandoning their alliance with Rome, seized Armenia.” On the death of Rome’s client Tigranes III, his son Tigranes IV (55.10.20n) and daughter Erato (55.10a.5n) occupied his throne, apparently without Rome’s sanction, precipitating a crisis to which Augustus assigned Tiberius only to see him withdraw into private life in 6 (55.9.4n). Then or soon after Augustus sought to supplant the royal pair with Artavasdes III, perhaps a son of the Armenian Artavasdes II captured by Antony in 34 b.c. (cf. 55.10.20n, !Artabavzou). But the Armenians backed by Parthia deposed Artavasdes III: according to Tacitus’

114

Commentary on Book 55

Table 1 Some Rulers of Armenia Maior and Media Atropatene Artavasdes II of Armenia Maior ruled ca 53–34 b.c.

Artaxias II ruled 34–20

Artavasdes I of Atropatene expelled late 30s b.c. ruled Armenia Minor ?–20 b.c.

Tigranes III Artavasdes III ruled 20–before 6

Ariobarzanes II of Atropatene ruled Atropatene 20–a.d. 4? and Armenia Maior 3–4? Artavasdes II of Atropatene ruled Atropatene and Armenia Maior 4–6?

Tigranes IV = Erato ruled before 6– a.d. 1

curt summary “Artavasdes was enthroned by order of Augustus and overthrown with heavy Roman losses” (Ann. 2.4.1). The rebellions recorded by Tacitus and Dio-Zonaras (lemma) should be the same: both say that Rome’s response was to appoint Gaius Caesar to command of the theater. For an aide-mémoire on the various kings called Artavasdes see table 3. Although neither Zonaras nor Xiphilinus mentions here the insubordinate Parthian king Phrataces (see 55.10.20–21, 10a.4), Dio himself may have done so. At 55.10.20 (Exc. UG, normally close to Dio’s text) he is named without the gloss usual for a new persona. This points to an earlier mention, natural at the start of Dio’s eastern narrative. nevoi kai; pragmavtwn . . . a[ p eiroi [Zon.]:: “Gaius and Lucius happened to be young and inexperienced in affairs.” Gaius turned nineteen, Lucius sixteen, in 1 b.c. On their civic and military exposure and apprenticeship see 54.26.1; 55.6.4, 8.3, 9.9–10, 10.6, 10.17n, 10a.9; Jos. AJ 17.229 and BJ 2.25, Gaius in the consilium of Augustus at a meeting on the Jewish succession following Herod’s death; cf. 54.27.1; 55.9.1–5. Gav ion ei{leto [Zon.]:: “Under pressure of necessity Augustus chose Gaius.” Zonaras does not define his mission. Xiphilinus says that he “was dispatched to the war against the Armenians” (stalevnto" eij" to;n pro;" !Armenivou" povlemon), words dropped questionably by Boissevain from his reconstituted text of Dio (cf. Tac. Ann. 2.4.1, ‘C. Caesar componendae Armeniae deligitur;’ 3.48.1, ‘C. Caesari

Table 2 Some Rulers of Parthia Musa concubine

= | Phrataces (Phraates V) ruled 3/2–a.d. 4

Phraates IV = ? ruled 38–3/2 b.c. | four legitimate sons

10.17?–13.1?: The Years 1 b.c.–a.d. 3

115

Table 3 Four Rulers Named Artavasdes Distinguish: 1. Artavasdes I, ruler of Media Atropatene and (later) Armenia Minor. Adversary of Antony, then his ally against Artavasdes II of Armenia Maior (2. below); driven from his throne by Parthian and Armenian enemies in the late 30s B.C. (49.33.4), he was made ruler of Armenia Minor by Augustus; father of Ariobarzanes II (cf. 4. below). By 20 B.C. he was dead, and Augustus bestowed Armenia Minor on Archelaus I of Cappadocia (54.9.2n, where Artavasdes I is “the Mede”). Artavasdes I’s son Ariobarzanes II was installed on his paternal throne in Media Atropatene by Augustus (20 B.C.?), who later (by A.D. 3?) enthroned him in Armenia Maior as well (55.10a.5n, 7n). 2. Artavasdes II of Armenia Maior. Taken into Egyptian captivity in 34 by Antony, whom he had betrayed during the latter’s Parthian expedition of 36, he was executed by Cleopatra (49.40.2–3; 50.1.2; 51.5.5). Not related to Artavasdes I (1. above). 3. Artavasdes III. Briefly (from ca 6 B.C.) nominee of Augustus for the throne of Armenia Maior (cf. 55.10.20n), rivaling Tigranes IV; perhaps a son of the Armenian Artavasdes II (2. above). 4. Artavasdes II of Media Atropatene and Armenia Maior. Son of Ariobarzanes II and his successor in these kingdoms, which he ruled 4–6? (55.10a.7n). Artavasdes I of Media Atropatene (1. above) was his grandfather. Note: Rulers are enumerated as in Sullivan Royalty stemma 9.

Armeniam obtinenti’). There is no mention of a “Parthian war” in the vestiges of Dio until after Gaius’ departure for the East; it makes its appearance then as something feared (55.10.21) or looming (55.10a.3, cf. 4) rather than as the goal of the campaign. For Ovid, however, writing around the time of Gaius’ departure, Parthia was the prospective target far more than Armenia (Ars 1.177–228 with Syme Ovid 8–9). “Set forth for the Euphrates, child of Zeus,” writes Antipater of Thessalonica; “already the Parthians of the East desert to you with eager feet” (Anth. Pal. 9.297 lines 1–2 = Gow-Page GP lines 325–326 [no. 47]; cf. Bowersock “Succession” 172). Hopes of successes against Parthia were either inflated or disappointed. Augustus records an Armenian achievement alone (RG 27.2). For echoes of a more ambitious enterprise cf. Plin. HN 6.141 (Gaius bound for Armenia ‘ad Parthicas Arabicasque res’); Suet. Tib. 12.2, ‘Gaium Orienti praepositum;’ Tac. Ann. 2.42.2. ej x ousiv a n . . . ajnquvpaton kai; gunai÷ka [Zon.]:: “Augustus gave Gaius proconsular imperium and a wife” to enhance his standing (ajxivwma). Rather than one of general scope, Gaius’ imperium was presumably of the type held by Augustus’ stepson Drusus and by Germanicus in the year before their consulships (54.33.5n; 56.25.2n, cf. 28.1n). Nawijn s.v. takes ajxivwma as equivalent to Latin dignitas; cf. the Greek version of RG 34.3, where it translates auctoritas. Cf. 54.6.5, Agrippa married to Julia to enhance his ajxivwma. Gaius’ wife was Livia (Livilla), daughter of the elder Drusus (Tac. Ann. 4.40.4): PIR2 L 303. Sister of Germanicus and Claudius, she became, after Gaius’ death, the wife of Tiberius’ son Drusus (whom few doubted she murdered for the sake of Sejanus). She was born ca 14 b.c.—after her brother Germanicus, born 15

116

Commentary on Book 55

(55.13.2n), but early enough to have reached twelve, the minimum age (54.16.7), when she married Gaius (cf. 53.27.5n, Augustus’ daughter Julia married at fourteen). The nuptials were no doubt solemnized in Rome, therefore before the departure of Gaius; cf. Swan Phoenix 43 (1989), 184. sumbouvlou" [Zon.]:: Augustus “appointed advisors for Gaius,” an action that Dio adduces approvingly: cf. 52.33.3; 53.21.4; 77.11.5 (Caracalla criticized for using no counselor); Boissevain 3.477 no. 2. Gaius’ consilium, on which see Halfmann Itinera 245–246, included M. Lollius, cos. 21 b.c. (Vell. 2.102.1, ‘veluti moderatorem;’ Suet. Tib. 12.2, ‘comitis et rectoris;’ cf. Tac. Ann. 3.48.2; Plin. HN 9.118) and P. Sulpicius Quirinius, cos. 12 b.c. (Tac. Ann. 3.48.1: ‘datusque rector C. Caesari Armeniam obtinenti’).114 Suetonius (Nero 5.1) erroneously names the emperor Nero’s father, Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus (cos. a.d. 32), as ‘comes ad orientem C. Caesaris iuvenis.’ But he was at most a child at the time, given the date of his consulship. Nor is the father, L. Domitius Ahenobarbus (cos. 16 b.c.), a possibility; he was serving at the time as legate on the northern frontiers (55.10a.2–3n). Syme Aristocracy 155–156, cf. 142, posits confusion with an elder brother portrayed on the Ara Pacis Augustae who did not long survive. Crook Consilium 35 remarks on the care taken over the selection of comites. Gaius was also equipped with geographic treatises by Dionysius (perhaps rather Isidorus: RE 9.2065 = Isidorus 20 [Weissbach]) of Charax and the learned Juba II, king of Mauretania (53.26.2n): cf. Plin. HN 6.141; 12.56; 32.10. 10.19 aj û wrmhv q h [Zon.]:: Gaius “set out . . .” Nothing in Dio indicates whether the year was 2 or 1 b.c. But see P. Herz, “Die Aufbruch des Gaius Caesar in den Osten,” ZPE 39 (1980), 285–290 (cf. AE [1980], no. 214) for a plausible restoration of the Fasti Praenestini placing the departure on 29 January: ‘Feriae ex [s(enatus) c(onsulto) quod eo die] ab Imp(eratore) Caes[are Augusto pont(ifice)] | maxi[mo C. Caesar princ(eps) iuvent(utis) ad provincias trans-] | marina[s ordinand(as) missus est].’ (Cf. IIt. 13.2.117 = EJ p46 for a standard text.) On the assumption that the day is right, the year must be 1 b.c. (Gaius was still in Rome well past January of 2 b.c.; by a.d. 1 he was already in the provinciae transmarinae). Herz is followed by Syme Aristocracy 89 n55; cf. F.E. Romer, “A Numismatic Date for the Departure of C. Caesar?” TAPhA 108 (1978), 187–202 (departure in mid-2 b.c.); Bowersock “Succession” 170–171 (Gaius in the East by late 2 b.c.). ej n tiv m w" [Zon.]:: “. . . and was welcomed with honors by all, . . .” For inscriptions attesting his reception see Romer op. cit. 201–202 and “Gaius Caesar’s Military Diplomacy in the East,” TAPhA 109 (1979), 199–214 at 203 n14; Halfmann Itinera 167. Cf. 57.17.4 (King Archelaus of Cappadocia paid him court). e[ggono" h] kai; pai÷" [Zon.]:: “. . . being acknowledged as the emperor’s grandson or son.” The tone of h] kaiv is arch (cf. 59.8.2), perhaps betraying Dio’s disdain 114. Cf. Syme Aristocracy 337–338, who suggests that, as well as counselors of Gaius, Lollius until his fall (Vell. 2.102.1; Plin. HN 9.118; cf. Suet. Tib. 13.2) and then Quirinius may have been legates of Syria on the pattern of Cn. Calpurnius Piso (cos. 7 b.c.), Germanicus’ unwelcome adiutor.

10.17?–13.1?: The Years 1 b.c.–a.d. 3

117

for dynastic “genealogies.” Gaius is son, not grandson, on inscriptions, e.g., ILS 140 = EJ no. 69; A. Balland, Fouilles de Xanthos, vol. 7 (Paris, 1981), 48. ej " Civon ejlqwvn [Xiph., Zon.]:: “Tiberius, having come to Chios, paid court to Gaius.” Dio errs on the place. Suetonius says Samos (Tib. 12.2; cf. Vell. 2.101.1, recording the audience but not the place), and his testimony is confirmed by a Samian inscription honoring Tiberius as eujergevth" while holding tribunician power for the fifth time (2/1 b.c.): IGRR 4.959, improved in MDAI(A) 49 (1924), 43.115 ej t apeiv n ou . . . eJ a utov n [Xiph., Zon.]:: Tiberius “abased himself” before Gaius and his courtiers. Gaius’ rector Lollius may have been among those who spawned this canard; twenty years after Lollius’ disgrace and death (which followed shortly) Tiberius branded him as “the author of Gaius Caesar’s perverse hostility:” Tac. Ann. 3.48.2 under a.d. 21; cf. Vell. 2.102.1; Suet. Tib. 12.2. Tiberius’ unforeseen restoration to favor prompted palliation of the story: for Velleius, he had merely shown due deference to Gaius (2.101.1, Woodman’s text). The old libel about Tiberius bowing and scraping will have resurfaced after his death, and Dio was apparently taken in by it. Cf. Bowersock “Succession” 176–184 on how the reversals of fortune of Gaius and Tiberius affected their adherents. ajpelqw;n de; eij" th;n Surivan kai; mhde;n mevga katwrqwkw;" ejtrwvqh [Zon.]:: “Having gone to Syria and having achieved nothing of importance, Gaius was wounded.” With this sentence Zonaras leaps to the next theme that interests him, the misadventure and death of Gaius, omitting inter alia Parthian and Armenian affairs to which Xiphilinus gives some ten lines, the truncated and excerpted Dio over forty. The thematic break before ajpelqwvn in Zonaras and a similar break in Xiphilinus where he shifts from Tiberius’ groveling to the cold war between Augustus and King Phrataces of Parthia suggest that the boundary between 1 b.c. and a.d. 1 may belong here (somewhat earlier than Boissevain indicates).

10.20 Cold War with Parthia 10.20 ejpistrateivan tou÷ Gai?ou [Exc. UG 36]:: “When the barbarians learned of Gaius’ expedition, . . .” Preserved in a Byzantine collection of excerpts on embassies of foreign nations to the Romans (Introduction sec. 6), this text provides a brief diplomatic history of the eastern crisis, featuring acerbic correspondence between Augustus and Phrataces. It is in part resumptive: the apologia and demands of the Parthian king may go back to 2 b.c., when Gaius’ projected eastern expedition was already a theme of Roman propaganda (55.10.18n); it also brings the story up to the present, with Augustus seeking a diplomatic resolution, though poised on the brink of war. Fratav k h" . . . aj p ologouv m eno" [Exc. UG 36; Xiph.; both spell the name Fratavkth"; for Fratavkh" see Dio’s text at 55.10a.4]:: “. . . Phrataces sent to 115. Summer 1 b.c. is a probable date for the audience. According to Suetonius, Tiberius’ worst anxieties over Gaius’ hostility, incited by Lollius, lasted virtually two years (‘fere biennio’) and ended only with Tiberius’ recall to Rome (Tib. 12.2–13.2). Velleius (2.103.1) sets Tiberius’ arrival in Rome in the consulship of P. Vinicius, therefore in a.d. 2 before 1 July, though not long before, given his apparent pains to distance Tiberius’ return from the death of Lucius Caesar on 20 August (IIt. 13.2.499 = EJ p51).

118

Commentary on Book 55

Augustus, justifying his actions and demanding the return of his brothers as a condition of peace.” See table 2. Phrataces = Phraataces (Jos. AJ 18.39–42) = King Phraates V of Parthia: PIR2 P 394; RE 18.4.2000–2002 = Parthia (Schur); A.S. Hollis, “Ovid, A.A. 1.197–198: The Wrong Phraates,” CR 20 (1970), 141– 142; Karrass-Klapproth Studien 145–147. In the intact Dio, Phrataces may have been mentioned before this: 55.10.18n. Bastard son of Phraates IV by the Italian concubine Musa, he killed his father, with whom Augustus had reason to be content, and seized the throne. The earliest of his coins as king are dated 3/2 b.c., the latest a.d. 3/4 (Musa appears on some as “heavenly goddess” and “queen”): BMCParthia xl–lxi, 136–141; D. Sellwood, An Introduction to the Coinage of Parthia2 (London, 1980), 182–190, cf. 15–17 on calculating dates. Among actions that Phrataces had to justify were, besides patricide, usurpation of the Parthian throne and the fomenting of rebellion in Armenia. For his exile and death see Jos. AJ 18.43–44; possibly RG 32.1 (if the Phraates here is identified as Phrataces, as by K.-H. Ziegler, Die Beziehungen zwischen Rom und dem Partherreich: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des Völkerrechts [Wiesbaden, 1964], 56); cf. Tac. Ann. 2.2.1. The “brothers” that Phrataces demanded be delivered up were four legitimate sons of Phraates IV, who had placed them in Augustus’ custody (RG 32.2; on the date, while M. Titius was legate of Syria, cf. Thomasson Laterculi 1.304; Syme Aristocracy 321). According to Strabo, Phraates wanted to prevent their being enlisted by his enemies in an attempt on his throne—no coup stood much chance of success without a claimant belonging to the ruling Arsacid dynasty (16.748– 749; cf. Tac. Ann. 2.1.2). Josephus says that Phrataces’ mother Musa, promoted from mistress to wife of Phraates, contrived their removal as obstacles to her own son’s ascension; once on the throne Phrataces made her consort (AJ 18.40–42 with BMCParthia 139–141). The legitimate sons, who had stronger formal claims than Phrataces, lived in Rome at public expense (Str. 16.748–749; cf. Ovid Ars 1.195–200 with Hollis’s nn). Augustus calls the brothers “pledges” (‘pignora’) of friendship (RG 32.2), Velleius (2.94.4) and Suetonius (Aug. 21.3, 43.4) “hostages;” cf. Just. Epit. 42.5.12; Oros. 6.21.29. Cf. Encyclopaedia Iranica, ed. E. Yarshater (London, 1985–), 2.525–546 (the Arsacid dynasty of Parthia). Strabo names the brothers (16.748): Seraspadanes and Rhodaspes (both appear on a Latin funeral inscription from Rome, ILS 842 = EJ no. 183); Phraates, whom Tiberius sought in vain to install on the Parthian throne ca a.d. 35 (Tac. Ann. 6.31.2–32.2; Dio 58.26.2); and Vonones, the eldest (Tac. Ann. 2.1.2, 2.1), who achieved his rightful throne later in Augustus’ reign but was soon expelled by Artabanus (ruled a.d. 10/11–38; OCD3 181). See Sherwin-White Policy 326– 327; E. Nedergaard, “The Four Sons of Phraates IV in Rome,” Acta Hyperborea 1: East and West Cultural Relations in the Ancient World (Copenhagen, 1988), 102–115. ej p iklhv s ew" [Exc. UG 36; Xiph.]:: Augustus omitted “the title of king” in addressing Phrataces in his reply. His style, Dio notes, was “king of kings;” on coins he is basileu;" basilevwn !Arsavkh" eujergevth" divkaio" ejpiûanh;" ûilevllhn

10.17?–13.1?: The Years 1 b.c.–a.d. 3

119

(BMCParthia 136–137; D. Sellwood, An Introduction to the Coinage of Parthia2 [London, 1980], 183, 186–187); cf. 66.11.3. tov . . . o[noma to; basiliko;n kataqevsqai [Exc. UG 36]:: Augustus “commanded him to lay down his kingly title and withdraw from Armenia.” Lacking a legal basis for the former demand (unlike the latter), Augustus could nonetheless justify it on the strength of his amicitia with Phraates IV and the superior royal claims of the legitimate sons under his protection. Kaivsara movnon ojnomavsa" [Exc. UG 36; Xiph.]:: Phrataces wrote back scornfully, “titling himself as king of kings but Augustus merely as Caesar.” Compare Augustus’ style in a letter to Sardes of 5 b.c. (Sherk Documents no. 68 = EJ no. 99): Aujtokravtwr Kai÷sar qeou÷ uiJo;" Sebastov", ajrciereuv", dhmarcikh÷" ejkxousiva" iqV.

10.20–21 Negotiations with Tigranes IV of Armenia (?1 b.c.–?a.d. 1) Leaving Augustus and Phrataces of Parthia on the threshold of war, Dio brings his reader up to date on Armenian affairs. 10.20 (continued) Tigrav n h" [Exc. UG 36]:: “Tigranes did not send an embassy immediately.” This is Tigranes IV, son of Tigranes III, whom Tiberius had enthroned in 20 b.c. (54.9.4–5). He succeeded his father toward 6 b.c. but was denied Roman recognition (55.9.4n). The only literary sources on Tigranes IV besides the present text are 55.10a.5 and Tac. Ann. 2.3.2 (anonymous, but clearly referring to him and Erato, his sister and queen, “joined in marriage and rule in the foreign manner”). See RE 6A.980 = Tigranes 4 (Geyer); PIR1 T 148. On Erato see 55.10a.5n. Mentioned here without identification, Tigranes may have made an earlier appearance in Dio’s text, perhaps around Dio-Zon. 55.10.18 (“with the Armenians in revolt . . .”). !Artabavzou . . . teleuthvsanto" [Exc. UG 36]:: “But when Artavasdes [III] later died of illness, Tigranes sent gifts to Augustus.” Dio’s !Artabavzh" (on the variance among authors, aggravated by scribes, in writing this name see Boissevain 1.510) is Tacitus’ Artavasdes (Ann. 2.4.1). He may have been a son of the Artavasdes II of Armenia captured by Antony (34 b.c.), thus a brother of Artaxias II (died 20 b.c.) and Tigranes III and an uncle of Tigranes IV. See table 1; PIR2 A 1163; Goodyear on Tac. Ann. 2.3.2 (2.195); Sullivan Royalty stemma 9. Augustus had commanded the enthronement of Artavasdes III as Armenian king in 6 b.c. (when Dio records troubles in Armenia: 55.9.4n), or soon after, in the effort to supplant Tigranes IV and Erato. But Artavasdes was forcibly driven out (cf. Tac. Ann. 2.4.1, ‘non sine clade nostra deiectus’), presumably by supporters of Tigranes IV backed by Parthia: one of the objectives of Gaius’ expedition was to reinstate him. Augustus in RG is silent on Artavasdes III, having failed to enthrone him securely (Chaumont “Arménie” 76). aj n tipav l ou [Exc. UG 36]:: “Since his rival [Artavasdes III] had been removed,” Tigranes IV sent Augustus gifts and a letter, from which he omitted his own royal

120

Commentary on Book 55

title, “petitioning” (dh÷qen signals irony) for the Armenian throne. In thus allowing Augustus to save face, Tigranes calculated to obtain Roman recognition of what was his de facto. 10.21 pov l emon . . . Parqikov n [Exc. UG 36]:: “Influenced by this [the conciliatory conduct of Tigranes IV] and at the same time fearing war with Parthia, Augustus accepted the gifts . . .” In doing so he effectively acceded to Tigranes’ petition for the Armenian throne. For gifts as standard etiquette in eastern diplomacy cf. 54.9.8; 68.17.2–18.2; 75.1.2–3; 78.27.1; Jos. AJ 18.40, 103; Tac. Ann. 15.25.3; Millar Emperor 139. Helpfully, Dio synchronizes the détente between Augustus and Tigranes IV, the imminence of war with Parthia, and Gaius’ presence in Syria (below). Later he synchronizes the threat of war with Gaius’ presence in Syria as consul of a.d. 1 (55.10a.3–4). Tigranes’ volte-face is best placed in this year. ej" th;n Surivan pro;" to;n Gavion [Exc. UG 36]:: “. . . and bade him [Tigranes IV] approach Gaius in Syria with good hopes”—in an unequivocal demonstration of his new loyalty. Doubts as to whether he went to Syria (e.g., Chaumont “Arménie” 80) are probably unwarranted. When and where he was crowned is not known. For Gaius to enter Armenia to crown him was to invite war with Parthia. Only later did Phrataces agree to “withdraw from Armenia” (55.10a.4). Having already anticipated the coronation here, Dio did not necessarily register it in its own right later.116 In any event the story of Tigranes’ elevation ends abruptly in Dio’s Byzantine excerptor, whose theme was envoys. For the Armenian-Parthian sequel see 55.10a.4–7.

10a.1 The Marmaric War (under a.d. 1) See Map 5. Despite a broken text with a single proper name (Egypt), the war that Dio recounts here can be identified as against the nomadic Marmaridae on the frontier of Cyrenaica. Apart from Dio, the essential sources are inscriptions of Cyrene, notably SEG 9.63 (with p121) and OGIS 767. Flor. 2.31.41 may be pertinent. See especially Desanges “Drame africain” 197–213 with bibliography; J. Reynolds & J.A. Lloyd in CAH2 10.635–636, 1091–1093 (bibliography). 10a.1: . . . eJtevrou" ejk th÷" Aijguvptou ejpistrateuvsantav" sûisin ajpewvsanto anto:: “. . . repelled others who had marched against them from Egypt.” Thus begins the single extant folio from Dio’s account of the years 1 b.c.–a.d. 3. Since he registers the consuls of 2 shortly (55.10a.5), we are under a.d. 1. The lost subject of “repelled” should be rebels or invaders who had launched raids (katadromav") rather 116. For Chaumont “Arménie” 80, cf. 77, a bronze coin with portraits of Augustus and a basileu;" mevga" nevo" Tigravnh" (“new Tigranes, great king”), a legend which also appears on a coin shared by !Eratw; basilevw" Tigravnou ajdelûhv (“Erato, sister of king Tigranes”), shows that Tigranes IV (III on her enumeration) was enthroned in due course. For a different interpretation, that the “new Tigranes” was the later non-Artaxiad Tigranes V, and that he too married Erato, cf. 55.10a.5n, !Ariobarzavnei.

10.17?–13.1?: The Years 1 b.c.–a.d. 3

121

than any sustained operation (cf. 40.15.5, 36.2; 55.30.6), and had long evaded retribution for these. Clearly, their target was a public rather than an imperial province—only in a public province is an eques likely to have replaced a senator as governor (see below) in a military crisis. A rescue by forces “from Egypt” suggests Cyrenaica, with its “cities” (povlewn),117 even though these were some 800 km from Alexandria. From eJtevrou", “others” or “[the] others,” it can be inferred that, besides the force based on Egypt, another defensive force had been defeated earlier; Desanges “Drame africain” 206 suggests units from Legion III Augusta in Africa (similarly Le Bohec Légion 339). ouj provterovn te ejnevdosan pri;n cilivarcovn tina ejk tou÷ doruûorikou÷ ejp! aujtou;" pemûqh÷nai ai:: The enemy “admitted defeat only after a certain military tribune from the Praetorian Guard was sent against them.” On intransitive ejndidovnai cf. 49.37.6; 56.15.2; 60.21.1; Thuc. 2.65.12 (kai; ouj provteron . . . ejnevdosan h[), 81.6. For cilivarco" = tribunus militum (as regularly in Dio) see 55.2.1; 78.5.2; cf. 7.15.2–3; Mason Terms 99. For pevmpein = “send on a military mission” cf. 54.22.3; 55.10a.9, 31.1. For equestrian military specialists substituting for proconsuls see also 55.28.1n under a.d. 6, Sardinia. The military tribune dispatched to Cyrenaica possibly bore the title pro legato, attested in Sardinia in a.d. 13/14 (ILS 105 = EJ no. 232a) (Desanges “Drame africain” 208).118 I suggest that he may have been sent, supported in force, from a detachment of the Praetorian Guard accompanying Gaius Caesar, now in the East (cf. 55.10.19), rather than from Rome (cf. Tac. Ann. 1.24.1, two cohorts of the Guard sent with Drusus Caesar to Illyricum in a.d. 14; 2.16.3, 20.3, two with Germanicus at the Battle of Idistaviso in Germany in 16). Cf. Keppie Athenaeum 84 (1996), 119– 123, underscoring the provincial role of the Guard; 55.10.10n, ejpavrcou" tw÷n doruûovrwn. kai; ejkei÷no" de; ejn crovnw/ ta;" katadromav": “It was he who over a period [cf. 51.27.2 for this sense] stopped their raids, and so for a long time no senator [bouleuth;n] governed the cities there.” On the governors of Cyrenaica see Desanges “Drame africain” 206–208; Thomasson Laterculi 1.361–362. Dio’s fragmentary account is illuminated brilliantly by inscriptions of Cyrene. One presents a relief of a reclining banqueter, a prose dedication, and a six-line epigram. Dated “year 33” of the Cyrenian Actian era (= a.d. 2/3), it honors Pausanias to;n lusipovlemon, “the one who brought release from war,” inasmuch as he was the eponymous priest of Apollo “when the din of the Marmaric war ceased and the people of Battus’ city119 rejoiced greatly” (SEG 9.63 = EJ no. 46 = Braund Sourcebook no. 50).120 A date of 2/3 for the end of this evidently protracted

117. Notably the Pentapolis—Cyrene, Apollonia, Ptolemais, Tauchira (Arsinoe), and Berenice. For detailed maps see TIR H.I 34 (Cyrene); BAtlas 38. 118. For an equestrian military officer serving (it is argued) as ‘pro [legato]’ in Cyprus cf. H.-G. Pflaum, Les carrières procuratoriennes équestres sous le Haut-Empire romain, 4 vols. (Paris, 1960–1961), 1.7–11. 119. Battus was Cyrene’s colonial founder. 120. In the last line of Braund’s translation replace “has passed away” with “has left troubles behind.”

122

Commentary on Book 55

conflict can be reconciled with Dio’s Marmaric report under a.d. 1, given his flexible method of composing external accounts, which are often resumptive and sometimes prospective: Introduction sec. 5.3. Our inscription clinches the identity of Dio’s anonymous invaders as Marmaridae. Strabo locates this people east from the Garamantes (cf. Map 5), bordering extensively on Cyrenaica and stretching as far as Ammon (the oasis Siwa) (17.838, cf. 837 for anonymous nomads who destroyed the precious silphium plants on the frontiers of Cyrenaica, identified as Marmaridae by Desanges “Drame africain” 206).121 See especially L. Robert, “Épigramme de Cyrène,” Hellenica 1 (1940), 7–17; cf. Hellenica 2 (1946), 142–145 with plate 2.122 Our second inscription, though undated, evokes the crisis. It honors Phaos because as ambassador for his city during the Marmaric war he offered himself to the dangers of winter storms at sea and “brought a most timely relief force [summacivan] vital to the salvation of his city” (OGIS 767 = IGRR 1.1041 = EJ no. 47 = Braund Sourcebook no. 51; cf. SEG 9.6). Desanges “Drame africain” 205– 206 identifies the “relief force” as that commanded by the military tribune in Dio.123 Flor. 2.31.41 says that Augustus assigned the suppression of Marmaridae and Garamantes to (P. Sulpicius) Quirinius (cos. 12 b.c.) and that but for his modesty he “could have returned with the title Marmaricus.” He gives no date. Syme entertains the possibility that Quirinius was involved in our Marmaric war as proconsul of Africa (Aristocracy 320; he discounts Florus’ mention of Garamantes as a literary embellishment). Desanges “Drame africain” 208–213 posits (implausibly) a later Marmaric conflict ca 6 or 7 when Quirinius was legate in Syria.

10a.2–3 Domitius Ahenobarbus in Germany (under a.d. 1) See Map 1. Perhaps for the first time since Tiberius’ victory and settlement in 8 b.c. (55.6.1– 6, cf. 8.2) Dio returns to affairs in Germany, focusing on operations of L. Domitius Ahenobarbus in the huge tract between the Rhine and the Elbe, first as legate of Illyricum, then as legate in Germany. Sources besides Dio. Tac. Ann. 4.44.2; Suet. Nero 4. (For ensuing German wars down to a.d. 6 cf. 55.13.1a–2, 28.5–29.1.) Brief bibliography. Syme in CAH1 10.365–366; Timpe Saeculum 18 (1967), 278–291; Timpe Arminius 71–74; Wells Policy 158–159; Christ Chiron 7 (1977), 181–182; Schön Beginn 76–79; CAH2 10.182–183 (Gruen), 526 (Wilkes). 10a.2 ejkainwvqh h:: “The preceding disturbances [the Marmaric war] coincided with disturbances among the Germans,” specifically a reverse suffered by Domitius in his Rhine command in a.d. 1 concurrent with the looming threat of war with 121. An inscription of a.d. 268/269 (SEG 9.9) celebrates a check administered to “the chronic audacity of the Marmaridae” (th;n polucrovnion Marmaritw÷n qrasuvthta). 122. Robert demonstrates that Pausanias earned the epithet lusipovlemo" not through military service but through a piety shown to be pleasing to Apollo by the return of peace in his year as priest. 123. Robert Hellenica 2 (1946), 144–145 argues that, although Phaos held the eponymous priesthood of Apollo, it was not in his year as priest but earlier that he undertook his mission.

10.17?–13.1?: The Years 1 b.c.–a.d. 3

123

Parthia and the presence of Gaius Caesar in the East (55.10a.3–4, cf. 10.18–21). Dio’s (L.) Domitius (Ahenobarbus), cos. 16 b.c. and grandfather of Nero (PIR2 D 128; RE 5.1343–1346 [Groag]; Syme Aristocracy index, 325), was son of the consul of 32 b.c. who led the exodus of Antonian senators to the East (50.2.2–7). The son nonetheless won Augustus’ favor and is portrayed with his wife, the elder Antonia, on the Ara Pacis. He governed Illyricum for some years before 1 b.c. (Thomasson Laterculi 1.88), then was transferred to Germany, where Dio locates him in a.d. 1 and where he was succeeded by M. Vinicius (cos. suff. 19 b.c.), at the latest in a.d. 2 (55.13.1an; R. Syme, “Military Geography at Rome,” CA 7 [1988], 247–248). Dio’s use of the gentilicium Domitius alone possibly points to an earlier mention (not merely as consul), now lost in a lacuna. e{w" e[ti tw÷n pro;" tw÷/ #Istrw/ cwrivwn h hjj r¿ ce ce:: “Previously, while Domitius was still governing the region by the Danube, . . .” On this sense of prov" cf. 55.10.17n. Dio segregates explicitly Domitius’ “Danube” and “Rhine” commands, i.e., of Illyricum and in Germany, though interior Germany was an operational focus of both; it was in the Danube (rather than the Rhine) command that he was operating when he resettled the Hermunduri and made his Elbe crossing (below, !Albivan). So Syme in CAH1 10.365–366 (but cagily: “he was, or rather perhaps had just been, legate of Illyricum”); Christ Chiron 7 (1977), 181–183, with critical discussion of other views.124 These earlier events evidently preceded a.d. 1 (by which date Domitius was already active in his “Rhine” command: 55.10a.3), perhaps by some years. @Ermoundouvrou" . . . ejn mevrei th÷" Markomannivdo" o":: “. . . taking in hand [cf. Xen. An. 1.1.7] the Hermunduri, driven I know not how from their own land and wandering in search of new, he settled them in a part of Marcomannic territory,” sc. territory formerly held by the Marcomanni. Neither Dio nor other sources make clear where this was. Strabo, in a passage revised ca a.d. 17 or 18, speaks of Hermunduri (and Langobardi) as refugees beyond the Elbe (7.290–291, televw" eij" th;n peraivan, “entirely on the far side”). Velleius, writing a decade later, says— ambiguously—that the Elbe “flows past” (‘praeterfluit’) the territory of Semnones and Hermunduri (2.106.2). Tacitus locates the Hermunduri across the Danube from Raetia, at the headwaters of the Elbe (‘in Hermunduris Albis oritur’) (Germ. 41.1–42.1). These refractory testimonia are perhaps best accommodated by positing that what Strabo and Tacitus call the Elbe was, in its upper reaches, not the modern Elbe but its tributary the Saale, and that the Hermunduri settled not far from the sources of the latter in territory around the upper Main, whence the Marcomanni had migrated to Bohemia in face of Roman expansion (cf. 55.1.2n): Wells Policy 158–159 and foldout map, following Syme CAH1 10.365–366 with map facing 347. On the Hermunduri see also RE 8.906–908 (Haug); cf. C. Rüger in CAH2 10.525–526 with map on 519. 124. The matter is controversial. H.-G. Simon holds, by contrast, that though Domitius was formerly legate of Illyricum, only later, as legate in Germany, did he resettle the Hermunduri and cross the Elbe: “Eroberung und Verzicht: Die römische Politik in Germanien zwischen 12 v. Chr. und 16 n. Chr.,” in Baatz & Herrmann Römer 49. Schön Beginn 76–79 argues that Ahenobarbus was legate in Germany ca 6 b.c.–a.d. 1, never of Illyricum; cf. Wilkes in CAH2 10.526, generally similar.

124

Commentary on Book 55

Our passage contains Dio’s sole reference by name to the Marcomanni before the reign of Domitian (cf. 67.7.1–2); at 55.29.1 he registers Tiberius’ a.d. 6 invasion of Maroboduus’ Marcomannic kingdom in Bohemia without naming king or people. For Syme the Roman purpose in resettling the Hermunduri was to “cut off Maroboduus from the Chatti and facilitate an invasion of Bohemia from the west” (DP 31); note a later war between Chatti and Hermunduri (Tac. Ann. 13.57.1, under a.d. 58). On the Marcomanni see RE 14.1613–1614 (Franke); B. Krüger et al., Die Germanen: Geschichte und Kultur der germanischen Stämme in Mitteleuropa, vol. 14 (Berlin, 1983), index s.v. Markomannen, esp. 278–281; TIR M33 Praha 55– 58; BAtlas 2 F3; L.F. Pitts, “Relations between Rome and the German ‘Kings’ on the Middle Danube in the First to Fourth Centuries a.d.,” JRS 79 (1989), 45–58. !Albivan . . . diabav ": Domitius “crossed the Elbe unopposed, . . .” apparently here the modern Saale (see above, @Ermoundouvrou"), though at 55.1.3n Dio conceives the upper Elbe just as we do (cf. Map 1). Once past the “Elbe” (sc. Saale), Domitius may have been operating in the angle formed by the Saale to his northwest and the modern Elbe to his northeast. He will have crossed the Danube into Germany from Raetia. A crossing further downstream from Illyricum would have brought him face-to-face with the Marcomanni, who now occupied Bohemia (Syme in CAH1 10.366; Christ Chiron 7 [1977], 181–182). Velleius, expatiating on a rendezvous on the Elbe of Tiberius’ fleet and army in a.d. 5 (2.106.2–3), presents his achievement as unprecedented, and is silent on Domitius’ earlier “Elbe” crossing, for which he won triumphal honors (Suet. Nero 4.1; Tac. Ann. 4.44.2). Why? Not apparently out of hostility toward Domitius (cf. Vell. 2.72.3). Because different rivers were involved (Elbe versus Saale)? Because the operations were dissimilar (that of Tiberius being amphibious) (cf. Woodman on 2.106.2 [p144])? Cf. Syme RP 3.1099–1103. ûiliv a n . . . sunev q eto eto:: “. . . struck a treaty of friendship with the barbarians there, . . .” Cf. fr. 43.1, using the same formula of a treaty struck by the Romans with King Hiero of Syracuse; Sherk Documents no. 70 line 16 (= TDGR 4.108), citing the philia (= amicitia) between Rome and the free state of Chios. The equal treaty implied by Dio’s words is a sign that the German peoples in the upper “Elbe” region were at or beyond the current limit of Roman expansion. bwmov n: “. . . and set up an altar to Augustus on it,” sc. the river “Elbe.” The altar was perhaps to Rome and Augustus, like the altar at Lugdunum (54.32.1n), which Dio also designates realistically as “of Augustus.” Representing Rome’s imperial claims in trans-Rhenane and trans-Danubian Germany, it may have been monumental. Fishwick ventures that “an altar to Roma and Augustus may have been set up as the intended hub of a regional cult”—on the principle that “the wilder a province, the greater the likelihood it would have received a provincial cult at an early stage of its development” (Cult 1.145, 148).125 Cf. K.-W. Welwei, “Römische Weltherrschaftsideologie und augusteische Germanienpolitik,” Gymnasium 93 (1986), 118–137, at 131–132. 125. See Fishwick Cult 1.137–139 on the somewhat earlier Ara Ubiorum (at Cologne), “planned as the religious and political hub of a future Roman Germany.” Cf. Picard Trophées 304.

10.17?–13.1?: The Years 1 b.c.–a.d. 3

125

10a.3 tovte de; prov" te to;n @Rh÷non metelqwvn . . . ejdustuvchse hse:: tovte dev answers provteron mevn in 55.10a.2. “But at that time [a.d. 1], having moved to the Rhine command [from Illyricum], Domitius met a great failure in trying through others to restore some of the Cherusci who had been exiled, . . .” “Cherusci.” On this people see 54.33.1; 55.1.2. Timpe suggests that there was strife between Cheruscan aristocratic factions, one of which was expelled and appealed to Rome; Domitius resorted to mediation through some third party (Arminius 71–74). But we should rather think of a restoration attempted directly (and, I suggest, forcibly) by Rome—through lieutenants of Domitius, as is clear from Dio’s usage of di! eJtevrwn (“through others”). See, for example, 40.26.3, the Parthian Surenas’ insistence on negotiating a truce, not through Crassus’ lieutenants, di! eJtevrwn, but with the man himself; 51.26.6, M. Licinius Crassus bringing rebel Mysians back to loyalty “through lieutenants,” di! eJtevrwn; 55.29.4, a wounded rebel leader conducting operations “by dispatching lieutenants,” eJtevrou" . . . pevmya", and engaging the Romans “through them,” di! aujtw÷n; cf. 55.13.4. For a vestige of Domitius’ operations among the Cherusci see Tac. Ann. 1.63.4, “a narrow track amid vast marshes, once thrown up by L. Domitius.” kataûronh÷ s aiv sûwn sûwn:: “. . . causing the rest of the barbarians [besides the Cherusci] to scorn them,” sc. Domitius and the Romans: Timpe Saeculum 18 (1967), 281 n21. Pace Wells Policy 159, Domitius suffered worse than “a diplomatic reverse in negotiations with the Cherusci,” given Dio’s use of dustucei÷n of grave military defeats, like Pompey’s at Pharsalus in 48 b.c. and Antony’s in Media in 36 (46.12.3; 49.17.5). Domitius’ failure possibly explains his replacement in the German command by M. Vinicius (cos. suff. 19 b.c.). In noting Roman loss of face before “the barbarians” Dio may foreshadow the ‘immensum . . . bellum’ which exploded under Vinicius (Vell. 2.104.2), possibly even the rebellion against Varus in a.d. 9: Timpe Saeculum 18 (1967), 284–285, cf. 282. Dio’s account of the “immense war” (if he treated it) is lost in the lacuna from 55.11.2 to 55.13.1a (a.d. 2–4). tw÷/ e[tei ejkeivnw/: “However, Domitius took no further action in the year in question since at the time, with war against Parthia looming, no heed was paid to the Germans.” By “the year in question” Dio means that of the Cheruscan debacle, a.d. 1 (the consuls of 2 are named at 55.10a.5). The phrase “with war against Parthia looming” parallels “fearing war with Parthia” in 55.10.21, and helps synchronize Armenian, Parthian, and German events registered in our two texts. Timpe thinks that Roman passivity in Germany, a reflection of Augustus’ “limitation of goals and careful escalation of risks,” fostered the rebellion under Vinicius (Arminius 72–73) that in a.d. 4 brought Tiberius to the German front (55.28.5–7).

10 a.4 Gaius Caesar in Syria; Détente with Parthia (under a.d. 1) See Map 3. Dio resumes his Parthian-Armenian narrative; its preceding segment ended somewhere in the gap (perhaps a small one) between 55.10.21 (Exc. UG 36) and

126

Commentary on Book 55

55.10a.1. The international situation has changed little—war with Parthia is still imminent, and Gaius is still in Syria. In treating events from Gaius’ consulship in a.d. 1 to his death in 4, I follow the chronology in table 4. In it I posit that he entered Armenia in late a.d. 1 to punish those who had killed Rome’s nominee Tigranes IV (cf. 55.10a.5). I articulate Dio’s account with three testimonia. (1) We know from the honors voted posthumously to Gaius by the decurions of Pisa that he was campaigning late in a.d. 1, since he had closed his consulship (‘peregerat’) while “waging war successfully beyond the furthest borders of the Roman People . . . after vanquishing or restoring to allegiance highly warlike and powerful peoples” (ILS 140 lines 9–11 = EJ no. 69 = TDGR 6.19). (2) A Messenian inscription, for which a.d. 1 offers the natural context, celebrates news that “Gaius the son of Augustus, who was fighting against the barbarians for the safety of all mankind, was well and had avenged himself [ajntitetimwrh÷sqai] upon the enemy, having escaped dangers” (Zetzel GRBS 11 [1970], 259–260 = TDGR 6.18).126 (3) Following the Euphrates summit meeting of Gaius and Phrataces, Velleius registers Gaius’ warlike entry into Armenia, “where he succeeded with the first part of his invasion” (‘Armeniam deinde 〈Gaius〉 ingressus prima parte introitus prospere 〈rem〉 gessit’ [2.102.2, Woodman’s text]). Our constellation of testimonia points, I suggest, to Armenia, late a.d. 1, and some action that redressed a wrong against Rome, plausibly the insurrection, perhaps nationalist, possibly Parthian-backed, that took the life of Tigranes IV (cf. 55.10a.5n).127 G.W. Bowersock refers (1), from the Pisa inscription, to a campaign of Gaius against “nomadic invaders pushing northward from Saudi Arabia” into the Nabataean kingdom (“A Report on Arabia Provincia,” JRS 61 [1971], 227–228; Bowersock Arabia 56); Barnes holds that such an Arabian campaign produced Augustus’ fifteenth imperatorial salutation (JRS 64 [1974], 22–23; endorsed in Syme RP 3.1205). But the hypothesis of an Arabian victory rests precariously on oblique and undated testimonia in Pliny the Elder. Pliny does write that an expeditio Arabica was in prospect when Gaius set out for the East (HN 6.141) and that the prince visited in person the Arabicus sinus (modern Gulf of Aqaba) while res gerens (2.168), but solid evidence of military or administrative action is wanting. Gaius

126. Sherk, the editor of TDGR 6, gives a date of a.d. 2. But note, in support of Zetzel’s date of a.d. 1, that establishment—recorded in the inscription—of anniversary ceremonies commemorating Gaius’ designation as consul was more timely in the year of his consulship than later; the reference to vengeance exacted appears to rule out the preceding year, 1 b.c., which provides no suitable context. 127. For a similar chronology cf. M. Pani, Roma e i re d’oriente da Augusto a Tiberio (Bari, 1972), 50–52; A.R. Marotta d’Agata, Decreta Pisana (CIL, XI, 1420–21) (Pisa, 1980), 42–43.

10.17?–13.1?: The Years 1 b.c.–a.d. 3

127

Table 4 The Eastern Command of Gaius Caesar a.d. 1–4: Tentative Order of Events Gaius Caesar consul: 1 January a.d. 1 Gaius in Syria as consul (55.10a.4) Tigranes IV of Armenia, turned Roman client, in Syria with Gaius (cf. 55.10.21) Phrataces (Phraates V) of Parthia backs down, agrees to vacate Armenia (55.10a.4); summit meeting of Gaius and Phrataces on the Euphrates (Vell. 2.101.1–102.1) Tigranes IV killed in a war among “barbarians” (55.10a.5) Gaius enters Armenia in force (Vell. 2.102.2) Gaius closes his consulship waging war (ILS 140 lines 9–10 = EJ no. 69 = TDGR 6.19; cf. Zetzel GRBS 11 [1970], 259–260, lines 11–13), plausibly against those responsible for the death of Tigranes IV P. Vinicius and P. Alfenus Varus consuls of a.d. 2 (55.10a.5) Rome prepares to enthrone Ariobarzanes II in Armenia (55.10a.5) Revolt in Armenia, incited or condoned by Parthia (55.10a.5–6; cf. Sen. Polyb. 15.4) Death of Lucius Caesar in the West 20 August a.d. 2 (55.10a.9n) at the same time as Gaius is mounting a “Parthian” war (Sen. Polyb. 15.4) Gaius wounded at Artagira in Armenia, 9 September a.d. 3 (55.10a.6n) Fall of Artagira to the Romans (55.10a.7) Imperatorial salutations of Augustus and Gaius (55.10a.7) Enthronement of Ariobarzanes II (55.10a.7) Death of Gaius, 21 February a.d. 4 (55.10a.9, cf. 6n) Note: Fixed dates are underlined.

“merely surveyed Arabia” (‘prospexit tantum Arabiam’) (6.160) and “sought glory there” (‘inde gloriam petiit’) (12.55). The silence in Dio, Velleius (2.101.1–102.3), and Florus (2.30.42–45), our main accounts, weighs against an Arabian victory. Cf. Appendix 3. 10a.4 ouj mh;n oujde; toi÷" Pavrqoi" ejpolemhvqh h:: “Nor did the war against the Parthians come about.” Dio answers expectations raised at 55.10.21 and 10a.3.128 uJpateuvonta nta:: “Phrataces [Phraates V] heard that Gaius was in Syria and consul.” Does the emphasis on Gaius’ consulship originate in Roman propaganda aimed at offsetting his youth (he turned twenty in a.d. 1)? uJpotophvsa" a":: Phrataces, “who suspected that even before this his own subjects were disaffected, . . .” Josephus records the revulsion at Phrataces’ patricide and rumored incest with his mother (AJ 18.42–43). Cf. Antipater of Thessalonica in Anth. Pal. 9.297 lines 1–2 = Gow-Page GP lines 325–326 (quoted at 55.10.18n, Gavion). prokathllavgh h:: “. . . came to terms short of war.” In yielding to the threat of force Phrataces bought for Parthia a treaty of friendship with Rome and for himself recognition as the legitimate Parthian ruler. Dio registers Phrataces’ retreat

128. The imminence of war with Parthia in a.d. 1 is an obstacle to the notion of Herz “Gaius Caesar” 123– 124 that Gaius made an expedition to the Egyptian and Arabian theater in spring or early summer of this year; he adduces Suet. Aug. 93, which records, without date, Gaius’ passing by Judaea—whether on a warlike or a peaceable mission is left unsaid. Rather than in 1, Gaius’ progress to Egypt and Arabia might be placed early in 2 in the cool season.

128

Commentary on Book 55

explicitly under 1 (the consuls of 2 are named in his next sentence, 55.10a.5), and the Euphrates summit no doubt followed soon. A military tribune at the time, the young Velleius witnessed the congress of the two “preeminent leaders of empires and men” on an island in the Euphrates, the boundary of the empires (2.101.1–3). For Augustus and Gaius this was a signal victory, thanks to which the repentant Tigranes IV took the Armenian throne as a dependent, giving Rome access once more—at least formally—to a base from which to threaten Parthia’s northern flank. Was it this Parthian “victory” that occasioned Augustus’ fifteenth imperatorial salutation (and Gaius’ first?)? See 55.10a.7n; Appendix 3. For analysis, presenting the Euphrates treaty more as a draw than as a Roman victory, see B. Campbell, “War and Diplomacy: Rome and Parthia, 31 bc–ad 235,” in War and Society in the Roman World, ed. J. Rich & G. Shipley (London, 1993), 223–228. !Armeniva" ajposth÷nai ai:: Phrataces undertook “to withdraw from Armenia.” In accommodating Tigranes IV (55.10.20–21), Augustus had severed the Armenian’s alliance with Phrataces, thus acquiring a lever with which to loosen the Parthian king’s grip on Armenia. aj d elûouv ": It was agreed that Phrataces’ brothers “stay beyond the sea.” These were the four legitimate sons of Phraates IV whose extradition from Rome Phrataces had demanded (55.10.20n). This was a compromise: although the four remained under Augustus’ tutelage, he apparently undertook to prevent their sojourning in the East, where they could undermine Phrataces’ throne. Cf. Tac. Ann. 2.58.1 (under a.d. 18), a request of King Artabanus of Parthia to Tiberius that the claimant Vonones—eldest of the four brothers—be removed from Syria.

10a.5–12.2?: THE YEAR a.d. 2 See Map 3. Under the consuls of 2 Dio not only treats events of the year proper but carries his dynastic narrative forward as far as the death of Gaius Caesar in 4. The only parallel narrative is that of Florus (2.32.42–45). 10a.5 oi{ ge mh;n !Armevnioi ioi:: “The Armenians, however,” although their throne was vacant after the death of Tigranes IV and the abdication of Erato, and Rome could be expected to enthrone a successor in its protectorate (cf. 55.10.21), responded to the Roman attempt to install Ariobarzanes II by going to war “the next year.” Contra Herz “Gaius Caesar” 124, Dio does not intend with “the next year” to locate in 2 all the events of 55.10a.5, starting with the war in which Rome’s new client Tigranes IV fell. Rather it is the rebellion provoked by Rome’s elevating the Median Ariobarzanes II in place of Tigranes and Erato that he fixes in 2. This rebellion serves as a terminus ante quem for the other events, which Dio presents resumptively, so that the earliest of these, the death of Tigranes IV in a “barbarian war” (ejk polevmou tino;" barbarikou÷), can have occurred in a.d. 1 within months of his enthronement. This “barbarian war,” one pitting barbarians against

10.17?–13.1?: The Years 1 b.c.–a.d. 3

129

barbarians, was arguably an internal revolt of Armenians alienated when Tigranes IV became a Roman puppet; it should be Tigranes’ death that Gaius is praised for avenging in our Messenian inscription of a.d. 1, and Tigranes’ Armenian enemies that the Pisa inscription describes Gaius as “vanquishing or restoring to allegiance” (cf. on 55.10a.4). This success offers still another possible occasion for Augustus’ fifteenth imperatorial salutation (and Gaius’ first?); cf. 55.10a.4n, 7n. !Eratou÷ ": “Erato having abdicated her rule.” On the sister and consort of Tigranes IV see PIR2 E 85; RE 6.355–356 = Erato 9 (Stein); cf. 55.10.18n (tw÷n !Armenivwn), 20n (Tigravnh"). In literary sources she is named only here and in Tac. Ann. 2.4.2. Her appearance here seems too abrupt to have been her first in Dio’s text. !Ariobarzavnei tini; Mhvdw/ . . . paredivdonto onto:: The Armenians “were being handed over to one Ariobarzanes, a Mede.” On Ariobarzanes II of Media Atropatene see table 1; PIR2 A 1044; Sullivan Royalty 299 with stemma 9. Besides Dio the sources are RG 27.2, cf. 33; Tac. Ann. 2.4.1–2. He was the son of Artavasdes I, king of Media Atropatene, whose vicissitudes he no doubt shared. Artavasdes I (table 3; PIR2 A 1162) fought on the side of Parthia during Antony’s invasion of 36 but shortly switched loyalties, becoming Antony’s ally against Phraates IV of Parthia and Artaxias II of Armenia (and Octavian). Overthrown and captured by his regional enemies (49.44.4), he escaped, now kingdomless, eventually finding his way to Octavian (51.16.2, cf. 5.5), who made him ruler in Armenia Minor (cf. 54.9.2n, where he is called simply “the Mede”). The son Ariobarzanes II also escaped to safety (and eventually employment) in the Roman empire in 30/29 in company with Tiridates II, a defeated pretender to the Parthian throne of Phraates IV (see 51.18.1–3 and on 53.33.1–2). King designate of Armenia Maior after Erato’s abdication, Ariobarzanes II was already king of Media Atropatene (RG 27.2, 33), perhaps since Augustus’ eastern settlement of 20 b.c. (54.9.2n).129 Mommsen Res Gestae p114 thinks that Dio’s use of tiniv (lemma) shows he was ignorant of this fact—implausibly: cf. 49.16.2, Gaviov" ti" Maikhvna"; 49.22.6, @Hrwvdh/ tiniv. On Dio’s testimony possession of Ariobarzanes’ new Armenian kingdom had to await the Roman victory at Artagira (55.10a.7), probably a.d. 3. It is not clear how to harmonize Dio’s account with Tacitus’ notice (Ann. 2.4.1) that Gaius “placed Ariobarzanes, a Mede by origin, over the Armenians, who consented thanks to his physical beauty and magnificence of character.” Dio mentions no such enthusiasm for the Mede. Perhaps Tacitus presents the attitude of the pro-Roman element (so Mommsen Res Gestae pp114–115).130 129. Dio does not report how Ariobarzanes recovered his ancestral domain of Media Atropatene. In RG 33 Augustus says that he granted the Medes as king ‘Ariobarzanem, regis Artavazdis filium, regis Ariobarzanis nepotem,’ but gives no date. 130. Tacitus goes on to say (Ann. 2.4.2) that, after the death of Ariobarzanes II and the rejection by the Armenians of his line as successors (‘stirpem eius haud toleravere’), Erato assumed the throne only to be driven from it. This creates a major difficulty—the need to posit a second period of rule for her, subsequent to her abdication. P.Z. Bedoukian, “Coinage of the Later Artaxiads,” ANSMusN 17 (1971), 137–139 proffers a solution based on coins shared by the Artaxiad Erato with (1) a heavily bearded “great king, Tigranes” (IV), the last male Artaxiad,

130

Commentary on Book 55

ejpolevmhsavn sûisi sûisi:: The Armenians “made war on them [the Romans] the next year, when P. Vinicius and P. Varus were consuls.” Seneca no doubt refers to this war when he says that Gaius learned of his brother Lucius’ death (on 20 August of 2: 55.10a.9n) while he was mounting a war against Parthia (‘in apparatu Parthici belli’) (Polyb. 15.4); Parthian involvement is recorded by Dio (55.10a.6n), and also, it seems, by Florus in a problematic text (2.32.44). “Consuls” of a.d. 2. P. Vinicius was a son of Augustus’ friend and longstanding adjutant M. Vinicius, cos. suff. 19 b.c. (cf. 53.26.4n). Velleius served him in Thrace and Macedonia (2.101.3) and dedicated his history to his son M. Vinicius (cos. ord. a.d. 30). See Syme RP 3.1093 and Aristocracy 289, 426. P. Alfenus Varus was the son or grandson of the like-named jurist (cos. suff. 39 b.c.); see OCD3 63; PIR2 A 523. 10a.6 #Addwn . . . ta; !Artavgeira katevcwn wn:: “A certain Addon, who was occupying Artagira, lured Gaius to the fort.” See Map 3. On Addon = !Adwvr (Str. 11.529) = Adduus (Vell. 2.102.2) = Donnes (Flor. 2.32.44; Festus Breviarium 19.2) see PIR2 A 104. Chaumont “Arménie” 81 suggests that Addon may be a Semitic title meaning “lord” rather than a proper name. Strabo calls him ûrouvrarco" (garrison commander) and says that he caused Artagira to defect.131 For Addon’s duplicitous offer to betray a Parthian secret (below) to be plausible to Gaius (as it clearly was) the Parthians had already to be visibly or ostensibly behind the rebellion—notwithstanding the recent Euphrates entente (55.10a.4). Dio calls Artagira a tei÷co", a word he uses of Dalmatian Andetrium (56.12.3), long besieged by Tiberius in a.d. 9, a natural stronghold bolstered by fortifications. He cannot mean that Addon “induced Gaius to come up close to the wall” (Cary). Rather he drew Gaius into the Armenian interior to Artagira, where the prince failed to anticipate treachery at a parley that he had “rashly” undertaken to attend (Vell. 2.102.2; cf. 55.9.1–2 on Gaius’ character). Velleius locates the attempt on Gaius ‘circa Artageram.’ Other testimonia on Artagira: ‘[Ar]ta[g]iram Ar[meniae oppidum]’ in Fasti Cuprenses (IIt. 13.1.245 = EJ p39); Str. 11.529, locating it on the Euphrates; cf. Ptol. Geog. 5.13.22, an Artagigarta in Armenia Maior. If Ammianus’ Artogerassa, a fortified Armenian town taken with difficulty by the Persian King Shapur II in 369 (27.12.5–12), is the same place, it stood ‘in asperitate montana.’ For identification of Artogerassa with Geçvan, located on a steep height between ravines tributary to the R. Araxes, some 150 km northwest of the peak of Mt Ararat, see T.A. Sinclair, Eastern Turkey: An Architectural and Archaeological

and (2) a less hirsute “great king, new Tigranes” (V), “new” because he was a non-Artaxiad. His brilliant ascendants included Archelaus of Cappadocia and Herod the Great (the grandfathers) though they offered only a collateral Artaxiad connection (exaggerated in RG 27.2). Erato may thus have been consort to two Armenian kings, Tigranes IV and V, bolstering with her own Artaxiad blood the lack of it in Tigranes V: M. Pani, “Documenti sulle relazioni fra Augusto e i re d’Armenia,” in Festschrift Eugenio Manni 5 (Rome, 1980), 1683–1684. Cf. Chaumont “Arménie” 82–83 (cautious). On Tigranes V see Sullivan Royalty 291 and stemma 8; Kokkinos Dynasty 262–263. 131. For N.C. Debevoise, A Political History of Parthia (Chicago, 1938; reprint, 1968), 149–150, Addon was perhaps a Parthian satrap; for Chaumont “Arménie” 82 he was “l’un des grands feudataires de la couronne arménienne, véritables souverains à l’intérieur de leurs domaines;” OCD3 171 lists him among rulers of Armenia.

10.17?–13.1?: The Years 1 b.c.–a.d. 3

131

Survey, 3 vols. (London, 1987–1989), 1.413–416 with plates 112–113 and foldout map facing p454; cf. the review of O. Nicholson in JRA 6 (1993), 472 with helpful map on 470. Cf. Chaumont “Arménie” 78 (map), 81. On the geography cf. B.H. Isaac, The Limits of Empire: The Roman Army in the East (Oxford, 1990), 10–11; S. Sherwin-White & A. Kuhrt, From Samarkhand to Sardis: A New Approach to the Seleucid Empire (Berkeley, 1993), 17, to be read with the relief map in Sherwin-White Policy 343. ajporrhvtwn wn:: Addon pretended that “he would reveal to Gaius one of the secrets of the Parthian [sc. Phrataces].” According to Flor. 2.32.44 (cf. Festus Breviarium 19.1) Addon, feigning betrayal of the king’s cause, suddenly drew a weapon and attacked the prince “while he was preoccupied with a document he had himself handed him, supposedly containing accounts of treasures.” Cf. Str. 11.529 and Dio 49.39.5, Armenian forts as treasuries. e[ t rwsen rwsen:: Addon “wounded him.” Cf. Vell. 2.102.2: ‘graviter . . . vulneratus;’ ILS 140 lines 11–12 = EJ no. 69, the Pisa inscription: “wounds suffered for the state.” When was Gaius wounded? That he died 21 February of 4 the Pisa inscription attests (lines 25, 52); but whether he suffered his fatal wound in 3 or 2 is debated,132 though the day, 9 September, is known from the Fasti Cuprenses (IIt. 13.1.245 = EJ p39): [VIIII k. Mart. C. Caesar] Aug(usti) f. dec[essit in Lycia annum agens XXI]II. Romae iustit[ium indictum est,] donec ossa eius in [ma]esol[aeum inlata sunt.] V eid. Sept. bellum cum [hostibus p(opuli) R(omani) gerens] in Armenia percuss[us est, dum obsidet Ar]ta[g]iram, Ar[meniae oppidum]. 21 February: C. Caesar son of Augustus died in Lycia in his twenty-third year. In Rome a cessation of public business was proclaimed until his bones were laid in the Mausoleum. 9 September: He was struck down waging war in Armenia against enemies of the Roman People while he was besieging Artagira, a town in Armenia. Appended out of chronological order, the notice for 9 September serves to explain the circumstances of Gaius’ death registered in the preceding entry. In the absence of any indication to the contrary it points most naturally to the September immediately before Gaius died, that is to a.d. 3 rather than 2. Moreover, had Gaius been felled by Addon on 9 September of 2, we could expect some source to note that his brother Lucius had died just twenty days before this, on 20 August of 2 (55.10a.9n). But none does. The absence of any awareness of simultaneous national disasters in Sen. Polyb. 15.4 is telling. Seneca remarks that the mental wound Gaius suffered through Lucius’ death was far more grievous than the physi132. On the question of 3 versus 2 Levick canvasses scholarly views in Latomus 35 (1976), 311 n42; OCD3 782 opts for 2; CAH2 10.104 inclines toward 3.

132

Commentary on Book 55

cal wound he suffered “later” (‘postea’). Yet Gaius could not even have known Lucius was dead before he was himself struck down at Artagira—given its remoteness—unless this happened in 3. Cf. Suet. Aug. 65.1: “In the space of eighteen months Augustus lost them both, Gaius having died in Lycia, Lucius at Massilia.” poliorkhqei;" ejpi; plei÷ston ajntevscen cen:: “Laid under siege, Addon held out for a very long time.” Cf. Str. 11.529: “The commanders [strathgoiv] of Caesar133 destroyed Artagira, having besieged it for a long time, and leveled the walls.” If the siege began in 3 following the assault on Gaius on 9 September, it can have lasted at most some months. Flor. 2.32.45 records the suicide of the Armenian commandant by sword and fire. 10a.7 aujtokravtoro" oro":: Augustus and Gaius “took the title imperator” on the capture of Artagira. On the tentative enumeration followed here this was Augustus’ sixteenth salutation and Gaius’ second (for a different enumeration see below); cf. Appendix 3. Augustus’ fourteenth salutation belongs clearly to 8 b.c. and Germany (55.6.4n), his seventeenth to a.d. 5, Germany again (55.28.6n). Between these must be fitted two problematic salutations. Augustus’ fifteenth followed June of 2 b.c. (CIL 12.5668: ‘tr. pot. XXII [2/1] imp. XIV’) and preceded July of a.d. 3 (CIL 10.3827: ‘imp. XV tr. pot. XXV [2/3]’). On the assumption that he took salutations only for his own or family members’ achievements, the fifteenth and sixteenth are plausibly to be linked with Gaius’ campaigns (Tiberius being in retirement 6 b.c.–a.d. 4), hence the possibility of a victory of Gaius—Arabian, Parthian, or Armenian (on 55.10a.4, 4n, 5n [!Armevnioi])—in a.d. 1/2 in addition to the victory at Artagira in 3/4. An impediment to the former salutation is that Gaius is nowhere described as imperator for the second time. For imperator without number see ILS 107 (7) = EJ no. 61; CIL 13.2942; A. Vassileiou, “La dédicace d’un monument de Reims élevé en l’honneur de Caius et Lucius Caesar,” ZPE 47 (1982), 119–129. Schumacher Historia 34 (1985), 216–217, cf. 221–222 links Augustus’ fifteenth salutation and Gaius’ first (and in his view sole) salutation with the capture of Artagira; Augustus’ sixteenth and Tiberius’ third with successes in Germany in a.d. 6; Augustus’ seventeenth (questionably) with achievements not of Tiberius but of Cossus Cornelius Lentulus (cos. 1 b.c.) against the Gaetulians while proconsul in Africa 6–8 (see 55.28.4n). A weakness in Schumacher’s scheme is that, in having Augustus take his fifteenth salutation on the fall of Artagira, he implies that it fell before July of 3 (see above, noting CIL 10.3827) and so that Gaius incurred his mortal wound on 9 September of 2 (contra 55.10a.6n) rather than 3. !Armeniv a n . . . !Ariobarzavnh" h":: “Ariobarzanes [II] at this time received Armenia from Augustus and the Senate as, on his death not long after, did his son Artabazus [= Artavasdes II].” See tables 1 and 3. It was Rome’s attempt to enthrone the Mede Ariobarzanes II in Armenia that had ignited rebellion there in 2 (55.10a.5). Like Dio, Augustus in RG 27.2 places the secure enthronement of 133. To whom the disabled Gaius will have entrusted operations.

10.17?–13.1?: The Years 1 b.c.–a.d. 3

133

Ariobarzanes after the victory in Armenia (winter 3/4): “When the same nation [Armenia] was vanquished through my son Gaius, I entrusted it to King Ariobarzanes, son of King Artabazus [= Artavasdes I] of the Medes, to rule and, after his death, to his son Artavasdes [II]” (cf. Tac. Ann. 2.4.1–2). Unlike Augustus, Dio takes pains to note that Ariobarzanes II received Armenia from both Augustus and the Senate (cf. 53.33.1–2; Talbert Senate 429). Tacitus says that Ariobarzanes died ‘morte fortuita.’ On the son Artabazus = Artavasdes II, who no doubt succeeded to his father’s Median throne as well, see PIR2 A 1164; Chaumont “Arménie” 82– 83; 55.10.18n; he would fall victim to Armenian opposition (RG 27.2; Tac. Ann. 2.4.2). Sullivan Royalty posits reigns of a.d. 2–4 and 4–6 for Ariobarzanes II and Artavasdes II (stemma 9); cf. 297–300 for a dynastic overview.

10 a.8–9 Death of Gaius Caesar (a.d. 4) Dio registers this event out of time under the consuls of 2. 10a.8 oJ d! ou oujj n¿ Gav i o" o":: “Now Gaius fell ill from his wound and since he did not have a sound constitution anyway—this is precisely why [uJû! ou{per kaiv] he lacked mental vigor—he was incapacitated all the more.” d! ouj ¿n is resumptive: Dio has run ahead in treating the Armenian succession; now he picks up the thread of Gaius’ woes. His report, which calls in question Gaius’ fitness for rule, complements testimony of Velleius, who participated in the prince’s eastern expedition: the wound, as well as handicapping Gaius physically, rendered him mentally less fit for state service (2.102.2–3); cf. Sen. Polyb. 15.4; Flor. 2.32.44 (Gaius recovered temporarily); Tac. Ann. 1.3.3; Sumner Harv. Stud. 24 (1970), 267–268. perialghvsanta anta:: “and so Augustus, heart-stricken, communicated Gaius’ wish to the Senate . . .” For Dio trouble and suffering were a leader’s lot: cf. 53.25.6– 7; 55.10.18; 56.12.3n. With imperfect tenses (hjxivou, h[qelen) he underscores the urgency of Gaius’ pleas for release from public office and for a retirement in Syria. These un-Roman impulses Velleius attributes to character weakness fed by flattering courtiers (2.102.3). !Italiv a nn:: “. . . and urged him at least to come to Italy and there do whatever he wanted.” Despite his preference “to live to old age [‘consenescere’] in the farthest, most remote corner of the world rather than return to Rome,” the prince later yielded, with great reluctance (Vell. 2.102.3). Even as an invalid he would have posed a risk to security if permitted to reside in the East. 10a.9 ta; th÷" ajrch÷" ajûeiv": “Having straightway resigned all the perquisites of his position, . . .” Gaius held proconsular imperium (55.10.18), but not tribunician power. When Tiberius withdrew to Rhodes in 6 b.c., he no doubt abdicated the proconsular imperium implicit in the eastern command voted to him shortly before (55.9.4n, cf. 8); but he retained his tribunician power for its five-year term (55.10.19n, ej" Civon ejlqwvn). ej" Lukivan ejn oJlkavdi parevpleuse . . . ejn Limuvroi" methvllaxe laxe:: “. . . he sailed along the coast to Lycia in a freighter and died there in Limyra.” Cf. Vell.

134

Commentary on Book 55

2.102.3: “He died of illness in a city of Lycia called Limyra.” Winter voyage and utilitarian vessel suggest urgency (cf. 66.9.2a, Vespasian sailing in a “freighter”). A monumental cenotaph some 20 m high was built in Limyra for Gaius: J. Ganzert, Das Kenotaph für Gaius Caesar in Limyra (Tübingen, 1984); reviewed by P. Gros in Gnomon 57 (1985), 352–357; photograph in Simon Augustus 73. The cenotaph erected in honor of Augustus’ stepson Drusus at Mainz in Germany was possibly the model for Gaius’ cenotaph (55.2.3n). For the date of Gaius’ death, 21 February a.d. 4, see 55.10a.6n, e[trwsen. Dio, who gives neither year nor day, has here run ahead kata genos; he was not of course ignorant of the chronology (pace Flower 242 n86).

10a.9–10 Death of Lucius Caesar (a.d. 2) 10a.9 (continued) Louvkio" . . . proapevsbh bh:: “Before Gaius passed away, Lucius had already died in Massilia,” suddenly of illness, not without suspicion falling on Livia, as Dio adds at 55.10a.10. Cf. Tac. Ann. 1.3.3, also casting suspicion on her. For the date, 20 August of a.d. 2, see IIt. 13.1.257–258, 13.2.499; EJ pp39, 51. Cf. Vell. 2.102.3; Suet. Aug. 65.1. pempovmeno" hjskei÷too:: “Dispatched at different times to many different places, Lucius too was being trained” for rule. Cf. 55.10.17 for Gaius’ apprenticeship, referred to here with “too.” Lucius died on a mission to the Spanish armies (Vell. 2.102.3; Tac. Ann. 1.3.3; cf. Suet. Aug. 64.1). Contra Syme Aristocracy 408, I doubt that Lucius held proconsular imperium, assumed by Gaius only in the year before his consulship (cf. 55.10.18n). ej p istolav ": “Lucius would personally read the dispatches from Gaius in the Senate as often as he was present.” Lucius’ absences in the provinces belong to the years after he assumed the toga of manhood in 2 b.c. (55.9.9n–10), years when Gaius was in the East. 10a.10 ej n tw÷ / crov n w/ touv t w/: “at this time.” The phrase signals a rough synchronization (as usual) of Tiberius’ return, not long before 1 July of 2 (55.10.19n, ej" Civon ejlqwvn), with the deaths of Augustus’ sons in August of 2 and February of 4.

11.1–3 Tiberius and his Astrologer Professional astrology appealed to the educated as a scientific form of divination buttressed by astronomy, mathematics, and philosophy, especially Stoic determinism. Dio believed in its power to unlock the future (e.g., 65.1.4; cf. 64.4.3), as his admiration for Thrasyllus reveals (besides the present text see 58.27.1–3; cf. 45.1.3–4, on the adept M. Nigidius Figulus, praetor 58 b.c.). At the same time he approved the repression of charlatans (see on 56.25.5). 11.1 th÷" dia; tw÷n a[strwn mantikh÷": Tiberius was “highly adept at divination through the stars.” Dio’s usage of mavnti" and mantikhv is usually neutral or favorable; cf. 52.36.3; 53.20.1; 56.25.5. It was while on Rhodes that Tiberius became expert, instructed by Thrasyllus (Tac. Ann. 6.20.2).

10.17?–13.1?: The Years 1 b.c.–a.d. 3

135

Qrav s ullon a[ndra a:: Tiberius “had with n dra pav s h" aj s trologiv a " diapeûukov t a him Thrasyllus, a man highly skilled in all astrology.” On the Alexandrian Ti. Claudius Thrasyllus, Platonic philosopher and renowned mathematicus (Schol. Iuv. 6.576; Suet. Tib. 14.4), visible as Tiberius’ companion at the court of the aged Augustus (Suet. Aug. 98.4) and a force in Tiberius’ reign (e.g., Suet. Tib. 63.4; Cal. 19.3), see PIR1 T 137; RE 6A.581–584 = Thrasyllus 7 (Gundl); OCD3 195, 343; A.H. Krappe, “Tiberius and Thrasyllus,” AJPh 48 (1927), 359–366; F.H. Cramer, Astrology in Roman Law and Politics (Philadelphia, 1954), 92– 108; MacMullen Enemies 140–141 (on Thrasyllus’ brilliant connections and descendants); Levick Tiberius 18, 231–232; R.P. Oliver, “Thrasyllus in Tacitus (Ann. 6.21),” ICS 5 (1980), 130–148, with critical comparison of Tacitus, Dio, and Suetonius; H. Tarrant, Thrasyllan Platonism (Ithaca, 1993), 4–11, 215–249 (collected testimonia of Thrasyllus); D. Potter, Prophets and Emperors: Human and Divine Authority from Augustus to Theodosius (Cambridge, Mass., 1994), 158–160. Cf. Liebeschuetz Continuity 122–126, astrology in thought and politics; in general T. Barton, Ancient Astrology (London, 1994). pavnta . . . peprwmevna a:: “Tiberius knew in detail everything destined for himself and for them (Lucius and Gaius).” Dio questions neither the fixity of the Caesars’ destinies nor Tiberius’ ability to discover them through horoscopes; cf. 53.30.4, where he disparages the power of medicine to cheat destiny. But he was no utter determinist: cf. Introduction sec. 3. 11.2 mellhvsa" . . . w[ s ein ein:: “What is more there is a story [kai; lovgon ge e[cei] that once in Rhodes, when Tiberius was on the point of pushing Thrasyllus off the wall as the one person aware of all his thoughts . . .” For more circumstantial versions cf. Suet. Tib. 14.4; Tac. Ann. 6.21.1–3. kivndunovn tina uJpopteuvein in:: Thrasyllus replied that “he suspected some peril was about to overtake him.” R.P. Oliver, “Thrasyllus in Tacitus (Ann. 6.21),” ICS 5 (1980), 143–145 suggests that, since Thrasyllus cannot have grasped so immediate a peril through astrological calculation, Dio may have turned here to a source that “discounted the claims of astrology or, at least, could not believe that Thrasyllus had been warned of his danger by the stars.” More likely, however, Dio omitted Thrasyllus’ astrological calculation—which is featured in Tac. Ann. 6.21.1–3— when abridging his source. Certainly it was not his intent to discount Thrasyllus’ powers. o{ t i kai; th; n mev l lhsin th÷ " ej p iboulh÷ " [Dio] | 〈proei÷ d en [Boissevain]〉〉, ûulavxai . . . hjqevlhsen [Zon.]:: “Amazed that Thrasyllus 〈had foreseen〉 the mere threat of treachery, Tiberius decided to keep him for his own purposes in light of his aspirations.” After ejpiboulh÷" begins a lacuna of two folios. We recover Dio’s text at 55.13.3. 11.3 parav te th÷" mhtrov" [Xiph.]:: Thrasyllus foretold the message that the boat was bringing to Tiberius “from his mother and Augustus about his return to Rome.” Since Xiphilinus’ epitome continues the Thrasyllus theme in progress when

136

Commentary on Book 55

Dio’s text breaks off at 55.11.2, we are clearly still under the consuls of 2. Whereas Dio apparently treated Thrasyllus’ escape from aerial death and his prediction about the messenger ship as separate events, Suetonius melds the two, less plausibly: the prediction rescued Thrasyllus in the nick of time from Tiberius’ decision to kill him (Tib. 14.4). Tacitus omits the prediction. On Livia’s part in achieving the recall of Tiberius cf. Suet. Tib. 13.2.

12.1 Funeral Honors of Lucius and Gaius Caesar See Map 4. It is clear from Xiphilinus’ version that, just as Dio presented the princes’ deaths together though they occurred in different years, 2 and 4 (55.10a.9–10), he did the same with their funerals. 12.1 swv m ata . . . ej k omiv s qh [Xiph.]:: “The corpses of Lucius and Gaius were borne to Rome by military tribunes and by leading men of each city.” The corteges were probably modeled on that of Drusus: see 55.2.1n, 9 b.c.; cf. 56.31.2n (Augustus). A meager, undated, and anonymous fragment of the fasti of Ostia may record the passage of Lucius’ cortege through the harbor city on its way to Rome (IIt. 13.1.181–183; L. Vidman, Fasti Ostienses [Praha, 1982], 40, cf. 56–57; note esp. ‘pulla[ti]’ = “in dark dress”), in which case the corpse will have been transported by sea, plausibly from Massilia or Forum Iulii (modern Fréjus). The princes’ deaths prompted effusions of public grief memorialized, for example, in the inscribed decrees of the decurions of Pisa (ILS 139–140 = EJ nos. 68–69) and in the remarkable novelty, instituted through the Lex Valeria Cornelia of a.d. 5, of grafting honorary voting centuries bearing the names of the dead princes onto the traditional formation of the Roman Assembly when it met to elect consuls and praetors. For the decrees see A.R. Marotta D’Agata, Decreta Pisana (CIL, XI, 1420– 21) (Pisa, 1980); cf. TDGR 6.19. Extensive citations of the Lex Valeria Cornelia are preserved on the Tabula Hebana (= Crawford Statutes 1 no. 37). Cf. Zanker Power 221–223 on posthumous monuments, which included the Basilica Gai et Luci, i.e., Basilica Iulia, and the Maison Carrée at Nîmes (Nemausus); cf. 55.10a.9n, the cenotaph of Gaius at Limyra.134 pev l tai . . . dov r ata [Xiph.]:: “The shields and spears of gold which they had received from the equites on being enrolled in the iuvenes were set up in the senate house,” sc. the Curia Iulia (on its decoration see Talbert Senate 127–128). That the metal was silver, not gold, we have Augustus’ own testimony (RG 14.2). Conferred on Gaius and Lucius in 5 and 2 b.c. respectively, these arms symbolized their designation by the Equestrian Order as Principes Iuventutis, Leaders of the Youth, and implicitly their status as presumptive heirs of Augustus (see 55.9.9–10n). For images of shield and spear see RIC 12.55 no. 207 with plate 4; Sutherland History 22–27; Zanker Power 218–219; Simon Augustus 68 (gem). 134. See 56.27.5n on the Basilica; R. Amy & P. Gros, La Maison Carrée de Nîmes, 2 vols. (Paris, 1979), vol. 1, 177–194; vol. 2, plate 41 (inscription).

10.17?–13.1?: The Years 1 b.c.–a.d. 3

137

12.2 despovth" [Xiph., Zon.]:: “Having been addressed as dominus by the people, Augustus not only forbade anyone to use this epithet of him . . .” Suet. Aug. 53.1 provides the context: an audience in the theater picked up from an actor the words ‘o dominum aequum et bonum!’ (“What a fair and good master!”) and turned them enthusiastically to Augustus, who was present; he “checked their unseemly flatteries” then and there by gesture and the next day censured them in an edict. On the sometimes odious connotation of dominus cf. 67.4.7, 13.4 (Domitian).135 This episode is subtly analyzed by M.B. Roller, Constructing Autocracy: Aristocrats and Emperors in Julio-Claudian Rome (Princeton, 2001), 253–258. Whether Dio registered it under 2 (with what precedes) or 3 (with what follows) is uncertain.

12.3?–13.1?: THE YEAR a.d. 3 Since nothing of Dio’s text survives for 3, we rely mainly on Xiphilinus; he preserves just four items, all urban, only the first firmly dated in 3 rather than 4. 12.3 hJgemonivan . . . to; tevtarton [Xiph.]:: “His third decade completed, Augustus undertook the leadership now for the fourth time, naturally [dh÷qen] under compulsion.” On the “ritual” recusatio imperii performed by Augustus whenever his powers were renewed and on Dio’s ironic treatment cf. 53.11.4n. If one assumes strict ten-year renewals from 18 b.c., this item belongs under a.d. 3: see 54.12.4n. The fact that Dio places the next decennial renewal—that of 13 (56.28.1)—first in its year speaks for locating this text (rather than the preceding one [55.12.2]) first among the fragments of 3.136 12.3a toi÷" deomevnoi" daneivsa" (Zon.):: “For loaning 15,000,000 denarii [dracmw÷n] interest-free for three years to those in need Augustus was praised and adored by all.” Dio regularly states monetary sums in denarii, which he translates as “drachmas.” 15,000,000 denarii = 60,000,000 HS. Zonaras provides no context for this report (which follows his report about Augustus’ rejecting the appellation dominus) and so leaves unclear who “those in need” were. Nicolet “Propertied Classes” 114–115 suggests that this was one of the occasions Suetonius had in mind when he related how Augustus used surplus funds—the product of confiscations from the condemned—in making interest-free loans to people who could provide double security (Aug. 41.1). If this is right, “those in need” were not the destitute, which can help explain why the fiscally conservative Dio chose to register Augustus’ generosity and the approval it earned. Cf. in general Yavetz Plebs 94–96. 135. Tiberius too rejected dominus, “harshly” (Tac. Ann. 2.87 with Goodyear’s n [2.444–445]; cf. Suet. Tib. 27; 57.8.1–2). 136. The syntax and logic of 55.12.3 are questionable. Is its second clause, beginning pra/ovterov" te, a separate report about Augustus’ mellowing with old age? Or does it continue the topic of his recusatio? If the latter, Dio (or Xiphilinus) is guilty of inconsistency: since Augustus regularly declined to undertake the Principate only to give in, how can his doing the same thing now be taken as a mark of old age?

138

Commentary on Book 55

12.4 ejmprhsmou÷ [Xiph.]:: “A fire having previously [pote] destroyed the palace, though many people were making many donations, Augustus accepted nothing beyond an aureus [crusou÷n] from cities [dhvmwn] and a denarius [dracmhvn] from individuals.” The fire was surely the same as consumed the nearby Temple of Cybele on the Palatine in a.d. 3 (Val. Max. 1.8.11, with consular date). See Map 2 inset. On Augustus’ reluctance to take more than token gifts see M.B. Roller, Constructing Autocracy: Aristocrats and Emperors in Julio-Claudian Rome (Princeton, 2001), 202–203: the emperor “should systematically dispense gifts significantly larger than those he receives. If he does not, or cannot, his authority is at risk.” Cf. Suet. Aug. 57.2: “veterans, decuriae, tribes [‘tribus’], and even individuals from the general population contributed money voluntarily, each according to his ability.”137 crusou÷ n . . . kata; to; ejpicwvrion [Xiph.]:: “For I myself [sc. Dio] call the coin worth twenty-five denarii [dracmav"] a chrysous [= aureus], imitating the local [Latin] term; . . .”138 Cf. Dio 60.11.5, on Portus: oJ . . . limh;n oJ kai; nu÷n ou{tw katav ge to; ejpicwvrion ojnomazovmeno". Dio uses a masculine noun crusou÷" to translate Latin aureus (cf. 79.14.2, Elagabalus “begging for aurei [crusou÷", accusative plural]”). The 1:25 ratio of gold aureus to silver denarii standardized under Augustus was still in effect when Dio wrote, as our text in the present tense shows. I see little to recommend in the hypothesis of W. Kubitschek that in recording this very ratio Dio reveals that it was obsolete by the time he wrote, evidence that the third-century monetary crisis had already set in: “Rundschau über das letztverflossene Quinquennium der antiken Numismatik (1890–4),” Jahresberichte d. K. K. Staatsgymasiums etc. (1896), 103–105 (not available to me but quoted in extenso in Buttrey “Aureus”), refuted by Buttrey. 12.5 ej p i; tw÷ / aj t tikiv z ein [Xiph.]:: “. . . even certain of the Greeks [cf. 49.36.6] whose books we read to acquire an Attic style so named it.” Chrysous is a calque on Latin aureus, like German Wasserstoff on “Greek” hydrogen. A prime purpose of Dio’s digression on the aureus is stylistic—to justify his Greek translation of it as above reproach. Buttrey “Aureus” 44 suggests that Dio’s “Greeks” were “Attic lexicographers who figured so importantly in the Greek rhetoric of the empire;” cf. Millar Study 13–14, 41; W. Ameling, “Cassius Dio und Bithynien,” EA 4 (1984), 127–129 (“Dio als Sophist”). Dio uses ajttikivzein only here. His own Atticism, conspicuous in echoes of Thucydides and Plato, is pure and pervasive (cf. Introduction sec. 5.4).

137. Cf. C. Nicolet, “Plèbe et tribus: Les statues de Lucius Antonius et le testament d’Auguste,” MEFRA 97 (1985), 835–836: given Suetonius’ mention of ‘tribus,’ Dio’s term dhvmwn (lemma) can be taken broadly as covering the “tribes” qua corporations (see 56.32.2n), as well as other “collectivités publiques” like municipalities and colonies. 138. Zonaras’ corresponding text reads: “Among Romans [para; @Rwmaivoi"] twenty-five denarii [dracmaiv] are worth one gold coin.” Whereas Xiphilinus glosses chrysous in the context of the palace fire, no doubt following Dio, Zonaras glosses denarii (drachmai) in the context of Augustus making interest-free loans. The texts of Xiphilinus and Zonaras melded by Boissevain as Dio 55.12.3a–5 are translated separately in Appendix 14. For the standard rate of 1 aureus = 25 denarii (= 100 HS) cf. 71.32.1, on a congiarium by Marcus Aurelius.

10.17?–13.1?: The Years 1 b.c.–a.d. 3

139

para; de; toi÷ " $Ellhsin ei[ k osi dracmw÷ n oJ Div w n ûhsi; to; crusou÷ n aj l lav s sesqai nov m isma [Zon.]:: “Among the Greeks Dio says the gold coin is exchanged for twenty denarii [dracmw÷n].” Conservatively, I translate dracmw÷n as “denarii,” the same sense that Zonaras gives dracmaiv in his immediately preceding sentence (“among Romans twenty-five denarii [dracmaiv] are worth one gold coin;” cf. Appendix 14). But Kubitschek op. cit. holds that our lemma refers “selfevidently” not to the aureus but to the gold stater of Philip II of Macedon of 500 years earlier in its relation to the Attic drachma of the time. Buttrey accepts Kubitschek’s identification of the coins as Macedonian stater and Attic drachmas, but argues that our text does not belong to Dio’s Book 55 at all: in citing Dio nominatim Zonaras shows that he has imported “a piece of information which he found elsewhere in Dio, . . . from one of the early, fragmentary books” (“Aureus” 43).139 On either hypothesis our lemma tells us nothing about the aureus-to-denarius ratio or the monetary situation when Dio was writing. But it is hard to see why Dio, writing up Book 55 ca a.d. 218 (Introduction sec. 5.5), would burden his narrative with ancient numismatic bric-a-brac; equally hard (pace Buttrey) to imagine why Zonaras would have transposed to an Augustan context an exotic item of information apparently from Dio’s account of the early Republic. It may therefore be worth inquiring, before capitulating to either of these neat and final solutions, whether the 1:20 ratio between to; crusou÷n . . . novmisma and dracmw÷n might have obtained in some region of the Greek East when Dio wrote. In other words, were monetary conditions such that the aureus could have had an official Roman valuation of 25 denarii but at one and the same time could have traded sharply lower “among the Greeks” at 20 denarii? See further Appendix 14, where I treat this question at greater length. ejdhmosivwse [Xiph.]:: Augustus “had his house rebuilt and the whole made public property, either on account of the contribution [suntevleian] made to him by the people or, since he was Pontifex Maximus, so that he could dwell in private and public quarters simultaneously.” Dio (Xiph.) returns to the topic of the destruction of Augustus’ house, introduced at 55.12.4, ejmprhsmou÷. On the restored palace, located adjacent to the Temple of Apollo (Map 1 inset), see Richardson Dictionary 117–118; LTUR 2.46–48 (I. Iacopi). Ovid Tr. 3.1.33–40 describes its entrance, perhaps now reoriented toward instead of away from the Forum (T.P. Wiseman, “Conspicui postes tectaque digna deo: The Public Image of Aristocratic and Imperial Houses in the Late Republic and Early Empire,” in Urbs 403–405). Augustus had nationalized a part of his former house upon election as Pontifex Maximus for use in priestly duties (54.27.2–3, under 13 b.c.). Cf. M. Royo, Domus imperatoriae: topographie, formation et imaginaire des palais impériaux du Palatin (IIe siècle av. J.-C.–Ier siècle ap. J.-C.) (Rome, 1999), 157–159 on the progressive sacralization and nationalization of Augustus’ house (on which Dio provides key testimonia), bringing it onto a par with the Assembly and Senate as a political center. 139. J. Guey in BSFN 16 (1961), 51–52 also takes Zonaras to refer to the stater (“par exemple celui de Philippe”) and Attic drachmas.

140

Commentary on Book 55

13.1 qugatevra [Xiph.]:: “The people pressed Augustus hard to restore his daughter” (exiled 2 b.c. to Pandateria: 55.10.14n). Their remonstrances bore fruit “later,” Dio says, when she was moved “to the mainland at any rate”—to Rhegium (Map 4). See further Suet. Aug. 65.3; Tac. Ann. 1.53.1. Suetonius dates the move “five years” after Julia’s fall (‘post quinquennium demum’), consistently with Dio’s placing it under a.d. 3 or 4; cf. 55.13.1an. On this new phase of Julia’s internment, scarcely if at all milder, see Linderski “Julia” 181–200 (illuminating).140 How did the people voice their demands? Through spontaneous demonstrations in the theater (cf. 55.12.2n)? Through a formal delegation such as sought reforms a few years earlier (55.9.10) or such as had journeyed to Antium to press the title Pater Patriae on him (Suet. Aug. 58.1)? The calls of Julia’s supporters for her restoration were a natural response to Tiberius’ restoration from Rhodes (Levick Latomus 35 [1976], 310).

55.13.1a–22.2: The Year a.d. 4 Annalistic structure: ?—urban section. The start of Dio’s year-account is lost in the lacuna of two folios from 55.11.2. What remains consists of urban affairs treated in standard annalistic fashion (55.13.2–7), followed by a long set dialogue of Livia and Augustus, prompted by the conspiracy of Cornelius Cinna, on the efficacy of executions in curbing opposition (55.14.1–21.4). If Dio included an external section, it came at the head of the year. The war in Germany to which Tiberius was dispatched on being adopted by Augustus and granted tribunician power (55.13.1a–2) is subsumed under the urban section.

13.1a–2: TIBERIUS ADOPTED BY AUGUSTUS The death of Gaius Caesar left the aging Augustus without a political heir. In summer 4 he unveiled a carefully orchestrated dynastic scheme under which Tiberius, after a decade sequestered on Rhodes and then in the gardens of Maecenas, vaulted to the second place in the world, adopted as Augustus’ son and invested with tribunicia potestas and proconsular imperium. Sources. 55.13.1a–2, 27.4; Vell. 2.103.1–104.2 (celebratory), 112.7; Suet. Aug. 65.1; Tib. 15.2–16.1, 21.2–3; Tac. Ann. 1.3.3–5; Inst. Iust. 1.1.11; Jerome Chron. p169 under a.d. 1. Select bibliography. Levick Latomus 25 (1966), 227–244, Latomus 35 (1976), 309–315, and Tiberius 49–51; Sumner Latomus 26 (1967), 430–434; Birch “Settlement” 443–448, 455; Syme Aristocracy 93–94. 13.1a Keltikou÷ polevmou kekinhmevnou [Zon.]:: “a German war having broken out.” No doubt the immensum bellum which Velleius (2.104.2), treating Tiberius’ 140. Linderski notes (183–184) that, in his wars against Sextus Pompey, Octavian had won the allegiance of Rhegium by exempting it from the confiscation for which the triumvirs had targeted it, and so the city could be relied on (cf. App. B Civ. 4.3, 86).

13.1a–22.2: The Year a.d. 4

141

adoption, says burst into flame ‘ante triennium’ under M. Vinicius (cos. suff. 19 b.c.). The date was a.d. 1 or 2 (on inclusive reckoning, as at Vell. 2.122.2). On antecedent events in Germany see 55.10a.2–3n; on Tiberius’ campaigns there 4– 6 see 55.28.5–29.1. uJpo; th÷" !Iouliva" ajnapeisqeiv" [Zon.]:: “Partly compelled by circumstances, partly persuaded by Julia,” Augustus adopted Tiberius. Zonaras is confused: Augustus will not have consulted his disgraced and interned daughter about the succession. The epitomist may have been misled by the same sort of corruption in his copy of Dio as can be observed in our sole manuscript at 55.32.2, which erroneously reads !Ioulivan for Liouivan. In Dio’s autograph it was no doubt Livia who persuaded Augustus: cf. Suet. Tib. 21.2; Tac. Ann. 4.57.3. The corruption is likely to have arisen from visual error rather than confusion caused by Livia’s taking the name Iulia (Augusta) on Augustus’ death (56.46.1): Boissevain 2.515 (on 55.32.2); cf. 56.27.5n. The parenthetical note about Julia’s “having by now been restored from banishment” seems to come from Zonaras’ mistaking her transfer from Pandateria to the mainland (55.13.1n) for a restoration: Linderski “Julia” 183. 13.2 Tibevrion kai; ejpoihvsato ato:: Augustus “adopted Tiberius.” With these words we recover Dio’s text after the lacuna from 55.11.2. Augustus adopted his grandson Agrippa Postumus the same day (Vell. 2.104.1; cf. Suet. Aug. 65.1, Tib. 15.2). Brother of the dead Caesars Lucius and Gaius (cf. 54.29.5n; 55.22.4, 32.1–2n), he could hardly be bypassed, despite his youth—he turned fifteen in 4. Cf. Birch “Settlement” 446–448: to exclude the last male descendant of the great Agrippa was “politically risky;” Augustus may also have seen his grandson as “an insurance policy, should the main line of succession fail.”141 Dio’s report of Agrippa’s adoption is probably lost in the lacuna preceding our passage (pace Levick Latomus 25 [1966], 229–230, who thinks that Dio ignores Agrippa): Agrippa’s slandering of Livia as “stepmother” at 55.32.2 (under a.d. 7) is comprehensible only if Dio has already referred to his adoption; there is no such reference between 55.13.2 and 55.32.2 and no break in the text. The form of Tiberius’ (and Agrippa’s) adoption by Augustus was adrogatio, through which a person sui iuris (legally independent) passed voluntarily under the patria potestas of another—property, children (if any), and all (cf. Gaius Inst. 1.99, 107).142 Suetonius explains the legal consequences (Tib. 15.2): “Tiberius did not make gifts, free slaves, or even receive any inheritance or legacies without entering them as paid into his peculium [see OCD31130];” cf. Linderski “Julia” 185–186. The adrogatio was enacted in the Comitia Curiata of the Roman People in the Forum (Suet. Aug. 65.1) under the presidency of the Pontifices; Gell. 5.19 details the procedure. See in general J.A. Crook, “Patria Potestas,” CQ 17 (1967), 141. Cf. C.J. Simpson, “Legal Restriction and Excusable Elitism: Brief Comments on the Adoptions of 17 b.c. and a.d. 4,” Mnemosyne 49 (1996), 328–334: in adopting Agrippa, Augustus’ aim was less to secure the succession than to extinguish any threat from the ignoble gens Vipsania to the hegemony of the gens Iulia. 142. Augustus’ adoption of Tiberius offers a classic illustration of the formal scope of patria potestas (e.g., Rawson Family 16–17).

142

Commentary on Book 55

113, 119–122 and Law 111–112. In adopting Tiberius, Augustus declared under oath (cf. Gell. 5.19.6) that he was acting “for the sake of the state” (‘hoc . . . rei publicae causa facio’) (Vell. 2.104.1, quoting Augustus’ “very words”—a counter to hostile constructions; Suet. Tib. 21.3; cf. Tac. Ann. 1.10.7, impugning Augustus’ motives). As Augustus’ adopted son, Tiberius now took the name Caesar (cf. 55.27.4n), as did Agrippa. The date was 26 June: Fasti Amiternini in IIt. 13.2.187, 473–474 = EJ p49; cf. Vell. 2.103.3 (but read ‘VI Kal. Iul.’ with Woodman). Tiberius’ adoption was the key move in a wholesale renovation of the Julian dynasty (already an artificial structure), prompted by the collapse of Augustus’ earlier plans. Tiberius consented, before he was himself adopted, to adopt his nephew Germanicus, bringing him onto familial parity with his own son Drusus (see below on these princes). To adopt Germanicus, Tiberius had to be sui iuris, something he would cease to be once he passed under the potestas of Augustus. The order is clear from Inst. Iust. 1.11.11 (as it is not from Dio): “Divus Augustus did not adopt Tiberius until Tiberius adopted Germanicus, so that immediately Tiberius’ adoption took place Germanicus would commence to be Augustus’ grandson.” In all Augustus acquired new sons in Tiberius and Agrippa (though unlike Gaius and Lucius they were anything but a team, Agrippa being cast in the shade by Tiberius’ seniority, experience, and indispensable military competence) and new grandsons in Germanicus and Tiberius’ natural son Drusus. All of these were now Caesars, as would be sons born to any of them, like the three sons born to Germanicus during Augustus’ lifetime, who represented a fourth “generation” of living Caesars and were named heirs in the second degree in Augustus’ will along with Germanicus and Drusus. The marriages of Germanicus to Augustus’ granddaughter Agrippina and of Drusus to Germanicus’ sister Livilla, widow of Gaius Caesar, were a corollary to the adoptions. ejpi; tou;" Keltou;" 〈ejxevpemye emye〉〉, th;n ejxousivan aujtw÷/ th;n dhmarcikh;n ej" devka e[th douv": “Augustus dispatched Tiberius against the Germans, having granted him tribunician power for ten years.” Cf. Suet. Tib. 16.1, Tiberius “once more given tribunician power for five years [‘in quinquennium’] and assigned the responsibility of pacifying Germany;” Vell. 2.103.3, 104.2. As a requisite for his command, Tiberius will also have been voted proconsular imperium superior to the imperium of proconsuls (though inferior to that of Augustus): cf. 56.28.1n; 55.9.4n. A terminus ante quem of 1 July for Tiberius’ assumption of tribunician power can perhaps be inferred from the fact that his twentieth anniversary of rule in 34 was celebrated by the ordinary consuls, therefore before 1 July (58.24.1; cf. IIt. 13.1.188–189). This celebration cannot have been on the anniversary of his dies imperii, which was in September of 14. But it may have been on the anniversary of his tribunician day in 14, and this last may itself have been the tenth anniversary of his assuming tribunician power in 4.143 143. It is often inferred from Vell. 2.103.3 that Tiberius received tribunicia potestas on the day he was adopted, 26 June of 4 (e.g., Degrassi in IIt. 13.1.218, cf. 157; 13.2.474); but Velleius can equally be read as implying distinct dates for adoption and conferral of tribunician power. Certainly the legal processes were distinct: the adoption was executed in the Comitia Curiata; tribunician power was voted by the Senate (RG 6.2; cf. Koenen ZPE 5 [1970], 226, 230 = EJ no. 366 = TDGR 6.12).

13.1a–22.2: The Year a.d. 4

143

Generally scholars prefer Dio’s report of a ten-year term for Tiberius’ tribunician power over Suetonius’ report of a five-year term (Tib. 16.1); it fits Augustus’ statement in RG 6.2 that the Senate granted him a colleague in the tribunicia potestas five times, sc. Agrippa in 18 and 13 b.c. (five years each) and Tiberius in 6 b.c. (five years), a.d. 4 (ten years), and 14 (the vote having preceded in 13: 56.28.1n). See Levick Tiberius 49.144 uJpopteuvsa" a":: “What is more, suspecting that Tiberius would somehow lose his head [ejkfronhvsein; cf. 55.7.4n], and fearing that he might even attempt a coup, Augustus had him adopt his nephew Germanicus, though he had a son of his own.” Dio also has Augustus harbor suspicions about Tiberius’ appetite for power at 55.31.1n. Cf. Suet. Tib. 15.2: Tiberius was adopted by Augustus only after being compelled (‘coactus’) to adopt Germanicus first; Tac. Ann. 1.3.5: though Tiberius had an adult son of his own in Drusus, Augustus, to buttress his own position, “commanded” (‘iussit’) him to adopt Germanicus. “His nephew Germanicus.” See PIR2 I 221. This was the elder son of Tiberius’ brother Drusus and brother of the future emperor Claudius; on the name Germanicus see 55.2.3n. He was born 24 May (IIt. 13.2.461 = EJ p49), probably 15 b.c.: Suetonius says that on his death (autumn 19) he was in his 34th year (Cal. 1.2); see Sumner Latomus 26 (1967), 413–427; Wardle 105; cf. Levick Latomus 25 (1966), 238–240 (proposing 16 b.c.). “Though Tiberius had a son of his own.” Drusus (PIR2 I 219) was an only son, by Agrippa’s daughter Vipsania. He was born 7 October (IIt. 13.2.518 = EJ p53) 14 b.c. (Sumner Latomus 26 [1967], 427–430) or 13 (Levick Latomus 25 [1966], 236–240, who separates the births of Germanicus and Drusus by the same three-year interval as separated their first consulships, held in a.d. 12 and 15).145 For Drusus’ career see 56.17.3n, 25.4n, 28.1n (compared with Germanicus’). The fact that Germanicus held the quaestorship and consulship at an earlier age than Drusus (in the years he turned 21 and 26 versus 24 and 28 in Drusus’ case) supports the view that, as the price for his own adoption by Augustus, Tiberius acquiesced in his son’s eclipse by the nephew; see Sumner Latomus 26 (1967), 430–434; Syme Aristocracy 93–94; against: Levick Latomus 25 (1966), 227–244. 144. To save Suetonius’ ‘in quinquennium’ (Tib. 16.1) one must postulate that Dio has conflated two quinquennia, running from 4 and 9, a fourth and a fifth grant (cf. 54.12.4–5, conflation of quinquennia in Augustus’ case), and that, when Augustus revised RG for the last time (between 23 September of 13 and his death on 19 August of 14: see 56.33.1n), he did not update the count of his requests for tribunician colleagues, and so failed to record a sixth request, made in 13. This hypothesis accommodates a report in Tacitus that Augustus petitioned the Senate for tribunicia potestas for Tiberius “once more” a few years before the latter’s accession in 14 (Ann. 1.10.7). Tacitus’ ‘paucis ante annis’ suits a renewal in 9, not 4 or 13. So, for example, Furneaux ad. loc. (1.197); undecided: W.K. Lacey, “Summi Fastigii Vocabulum: The Story of a Title,” JRS 69 (1979), 33 n37; Goodyear on Tac. Ann. 1.3.3 (1.112). 145. Suetonius puts Drusus’ tirocinium fori, the entry to public life customary between 14, the legal age of majority, and 16 (cf. 55.9.9n), directly on Tiberius’ return to Rome from Rhodes (Tib. 15.1). Is there a clue here to Drusus’ birth year? Tiberius’ return is dated by Velleius a.d. 2, before 1 July (2.103.1 with IIt. 13.1.526). On the assumption that Drusus made his debut in the interval before his birthday on 7 October and that he had already turned 14 (or more) on 7 October of the preceding year (a.d. 1), 14 b.c. is the latest possible year for his birth. This weighs against Levick’s 13 b.c.

144

Commentary on Book 55

13.3–7: CENSORIAL PROJECTS Dio registers a string of discrete annalistic reports that include a review of the Senate, a census, and a law regulating manumission of slaves. That these represent a program of censorial activities with a coherent rationale is possible but beyond proof.

13.3 Review of the Senate “Heartened by having successors and adjutants, Augustus decided to review the Senate once more.” This should be the last of three reviews noted in RG 8.2 (‘senatum ter legi;’ the earlier were in 29 and 18 b.c.). There had also been two lesser reviews, one in 13 b.c. concerned especially with recruitment (54.26.3, 8– 9), the other in 11, which is scarcely known (54.35.1). See on 54.13.1–14.5. Dio links the present review, like that of 18 b.c., with Augustus’ co-opting of a colleague in the tribunician power (Tiberius now, Agrippa then). That adherents of the heir presumptive were favored in the review, and adversaries targeted, is a reasonable supposition: cf. Syme Revolution 434–438; Levick Tiberius 51. There may in any event have been a pressing need, twenty-one years having elapsed since the last major review, to take stock of the Senate’s membership. trei÷" ajp! aujtw÷n ejxetasta;" ajpevdeixen eixen:: “Having nominated ten senators whom he respected above all, Augustus designated as examiners three of them chosen by lot.” On probavllesqai = “nominate” see 53.21.6–7n. Suetonius includes our board of three, ‘triumviratum legendi senatus,’ among “new offices” devised by Augustus (Aug. 37.1). The aim of the Princeps may have been to involve more in government (so Suetonius); certainly he wanted to avoid the cumbersome collegial process used in the review of 18 b.c. (which broke down before the end: 54.13.4) as well as the odium of conducting the review alone or with Tiberius.146 On senatorial committees see Talbert Senate 287–288. ou[te prokatevgnwsavn sûwn . . . ou[t! a[konte" ajphlivûhsan hsan:: “Not many, however, disqualified themselves voluntarily when allowed to do so (as previously [52.42.2, 29 b.c.; cf. 54.13.2]) or were struck from the role against their will.” This is a puzzling report. Having launched a review with a reformed process, Augustus achieved minimal results. Why then have a review at all? Was it a screen for the “surgical” removal of a small number of undesirables? Levick seeks to resolve the contradiction in Latomus 35 (1976), 320: “there was a purge of the senate” but “tough men” somehow survived it, relying on the patronage of Agrippa Postumus. 13.4–6 Census of the Wealthy in Italy Of the three regular censuses of Roman citizens Augustus says he conducted— in 28, 8 b.c., and a.d. 14 (RG 8.2–4; cf. Suet. Aug. 27.5, Tib. 21.1)—Dio records 146. The first-person singular in RG 8.2 (“I selected the Senate three times”) is not inconsistent with Augustus’ leaving the review to a board.

13.1a–22.2: The Year a.d. 4

145

only the first (cf. 53.1.3). But he records (as no other source) two limited censuses, under 11 b.c. (54.35.1n) and now a.d. 4, the latter affecting only wealthier citizens. 13.4 aujto;" de; ajpograûav": “But for his part [while the board of three reviewed the Senate] Augustus conducted a census.” What purpose it served, limited as it was to citizens resident in Italy rated at 200,000 HS or more, Dio does not say.147 Jones Studies 23, 41 connects it with Augustus’ creation (undated) of a fourth jury-panel (decuria) of ducenarii (men rated at 200,000 HS) to hear cases involving smaller sums (Suet. Aug. 32.3; Plin. HN 33.30; cf. OCD3 1286–1287 s.v. quaestiones).148 Brunt Manpower 115 n4 thinks that Augustus was preparing to levy the inheritance tax (vicesima), introduced shortly to fund soldiers’ pensions (55.25.5–6, cf. 23.1n, 24.9n–25.4); against: Eck Organisation 125 n62. Cf. T.P. Wiseman, “The Census in the First Century b.c.,” JRS 59 (1969), 59–75, esp. 60–61, 71. deivsa" mh; newterivswsiv ti ti:: Augustus did not compel humbler people or those outside Italy to register “for fear of provoking an uprising.” Through the terror of conscription into the northern armies? So T. Wiedemann, “The Political Background to Ovid’s Tristia 2,” CQ 25 (1975), 265–266. 13.5 wJ" timhthv": “Furthermore, so as not to seem to be acting as censor, for the reason I gave before,149 Augustus took proconsular imperium [ajnquvpaton ejxousivan150] to close the census and perform the purification.” Our text raises insoluble difficulties. Dio is at pains to note that Augustus assumed proconsular imperium to conduct the closing formalities of tevlo" and kaqavrsion (sc. lustrum condere and lustrum facere; cf. 54.28.4n) but fails to say by what power he conducted the census proper. And why take proconsular imperium which he had already held for twenty-six years (cf. 53.32.5n)? In RG 8.3–4 Augustus says that he used consular imperium in conducting the lustrum for the censuses in 8 b.c. and a.d. 14: ‘consulari cum imperio lustrum . . . feci.’ 13.6 tw÷n neanivskwn kwn:: “Since many of the young men, both those of senatorial family and those belonging to the equites proper, were impoverished through no fault of their own, . . .” With Nicolet JRS 66 (1976), 35–38 I take neanivskoi to be iuniores of the equites equo publico; these consisted of two elements: equites laticlavii, young men mainly of senatorial stock destined for the Senate who would cease to be equites on entering that body, generally in their mid-twenties, and equites angusticlavii up to age thirty-five. It is the latter that Dio here designates 147. Cf. 50.10.4, a civil war levy on freedmen worth 200,000 HS or more. 148. But Demougin Ordre 443–452 puts this judicial reform some two decades earlier, when distinct census qualifications for senators and equites were fixed. 149. The reference may be to Augustus’ declining election as censor for life in 22 b.c. so as to avoid the office’s odious repute (54.1.5–2.1). 150. For ajnquvpato" ejxousiva in this sense see also 41.34.2, where it denotes Julius Caesar’s command in Gaul; 55.10.18.

146

Commentary on Book 55

as belonging to “the equites proper” (tw÷n a[llwn iJppevvwn). Cf. 53.15.2; 55.2.3n; A. Chastagnol, “La naissance de l’ordo senatorius,” MEFRA 85 (1973), 592. tiv m hma hma:: “. . . for most Augustus made up the required worth; . . .” This secured their standing in the equestrian order. The minimum equestrian census was 400,000 HS, the minimum senatorial census 1,000,000 (54.17.3n, 26.3n; Tac. Ann. 1.75.3). oj g dohv k onta onta:: “. . . for eighty, however, he even increased their worth to 1,200,000 HS.” Through this liberality Augustus will have augmented substantially the pool from which senators-to-be might be drawn, seeing that only twenty quaestorships (the qualifying magistracy) were filled annually. Cf. Tac. Ann. 2.37– 38. Suetonius errs in taking 1,200,000 HS to be a new minimum senatorial census (Aug. 41.1): A. Chastagnol, “La naissance de l’ordo senatorius,” MEFRA 85 (1973), 588; Nicolet JRS 66 (1976), 31–32 and “Propertied Classes” 91–92.

13.7 Manumission of Slaves Regulated The law on manumission which Dio here ascribes to Augustus was the Lex Aelia Sentia, a statute of wide scope bearing the names of the ordinary consuls of a.d. 4. Although he does not name the law, his account of it so corresponds with references to the Aelia Sentia in the jurist Gaius (notably Inst. 1.18, 38, treating age restrictions) as to make identification certain. Five years earlier the Lex Fufia Caninia had restricted manumission of slaves through their masters’ wills (Gaius Inst. 1.42– 46). The new law extended the restrictive regime, eliminating the rule that a slave freed by a master who was a Roman citizen acquired citizenship automatically; it established requirements for both slave and master if the libertus was to be a citizen on manumission (Suet. Aug. 40.4); other liberti achieved in general only an inferior status, notably those with a record of crime or immorality, who were equated legally with “foreigners who had surrendered” (‘peregrini dediticii’) and were barred from citizenship forever (Gaius Inst. 1.13–15, 25–27; cf. Duff Freedmen 72–75). Sources. On the diverse sources for the Lex Aelia Sentia see RE 12.2321–2322 = Lex Aelia Sentia (R. Leonhard); Diz. Epigr. 4.736–737 (Barbieri); for selected sources in translation, Wiedemann Slavery pp23–30, 70–73. Fundamental is Gaius Inst. 1.13–41, 47; see also Suet. Aug. 40.3–4 (with Carter’s n [pp154–155]). Select bibliography. W.W. Buckland, The Roman Law of Slavery (Cambridge, 1908), 537–546; Treggiari Freedmen 31–36 (on numbers of freedmen); Hopkins Conquerors 115–132 (the motivation for freeing slaves was more economic than humanitarian); T.E.J. Wiedemann, “The Regularity of Manumission at Rome,” CQ 35 (1985), 162–175, esp. 167–168; K.R. Bradley, Slaves and Masters in the Roman Empire: A Study in Social Control (New York, 1987), 86–93, cf. 148–149 (Augustus’ aim, rather than merely to reduce the number of slaves freed, especially foreign slaves, was to sift out those unfit to become citizens while holding out citizenship as the reward for others who succeeded in “assimilating themselves within the existing social status quo” [93]); J.F. Gardner, “The Purpose of the Lex Fufia Caninia,” CV 35 (1991), 21–39; W. Scheidel, “Quantifying the Sources of Slaves in the Early Roman Empire,” JRS 87 (1997), 156–169, esp. 167–168.

13.1a–22.2: The Year a.d. 4

147

In Dio’s conservative view slaves and freedmen were properly impeded from rising unduly above their social level. Throughout the History he visits their insubordinate and criminal acts and registers condign checks and punishments: for references see Smilda pp396–397, 623–624 s.vv. libertinus, servi; cf. 56.33.3n, where Dio highlights a purported injunction in an annex to Augustus’ will against freeing “many slaves” lest the city be filled “with a promiscuous throng.” 13.7 aj k riv t w" [ajkribw÷" ms.] ejleuqerouvntwn twn:: “Since many masters were indiscriminately freeing many slaves, . . .” Dionysius of Halicarnassus, writing in Rome in the first half of Augustus’ reign (Ant. Rom. 1.3.4, 7.2), clamored for curbs on manumission (including testamentary manumission) through which corrupt and criminal slaves were achieving freedom and automatic Roman citizenship, while former masters tapped the grain distributions and congiaria for which their liberti qualified now that they were citizens (4.24.4–8; cf. Dio 39.24.1; 55.10.1n). Suetonius says that it was to keep the Roman people free of “all contamination . . . of servile blood” that Augustus “set a limit to manumission,” placing obstacles between slaves and libertas, especially libertas iusta, the freedom that brought Roman citizenship (Aug. 40.3–4). hJ l ikiv a nn:: “. . . Augustus regulated how old a master must be to free a slave and a slave to be freed by him, . . .” Cf. Gaius Inst. 1.18–21, 38–41: the normal minimum for a master was twenty, for a slave thirty, with exceptions being carefully monitored. dikaiwvmata ata:: “. . . and the rights which their former masters (among others) were themselves to possess in the case of those being set free.” On patronal rights, summed up in the concepts obsequium and officium, see Duff Freedmen 36–49; Crook Law 51–55; Hopkins Conquerors 129–131; S.R. Joshel, Work, Identity, and Legal Status at Rome: A Study of the Occupational Inscriptions (Norman, Okla., 1992), 32–35. These rights extended (depending on circumstances) to inheriting the estate of a freedman (Gaius Inst. 3.39–76, esp. 74–76) or even laying a criminal charge of “ingratitude” punishable by loss of freedom (Dig. 37.14.5; 40.9.30; 50.16.70; Suet. Claud. 25.1; cf. W.W. Buckland, The Roman Law of Slavery [Cambridge, 1908], 422–424).

14.1–22.2: THE CONSPIRACY OF CN. CORNELIUS The highlight of Dio’s account of 4 is a failed attempt on Augustus’ life by Cn. Cornelius (Cinna Magnus), subsequently cos. a.d. 5, and unnamed accomplices. Although Dio gives (and perhaps knew) few details of this attempt, he makes it the occasion for a long dialogue in cubiculo in which Livia converts Augustus to the idea of requiting the conspirators with clemency rather than death. Dio’s source. Seneca also relates our event, the only source besides Dio to do so, in his essay on imperial clemency addressed to the young Nero (Clem. 1.9.1– 12; cf. Ben. 4.30.2). Although Seneca sets it in a totally different time and place

148

Commentary on Book 55

from Dio, he tells essentially the same story. The mover of the plot was a dense young (‘adulescentem’) aristocrat, Lucius (Gnaeus according to Dio: 55.14.1n) Cinna, who would have gone to his death had not Livia interceded. Following a long private audience with the would-be assassin, Augustus dismissed him unpunished. “After this he conferred the consulship unbidden [‘post hoc detulit ultro consulatum’] on Cinna, complaining because he had not dared stand for election. Augustus found in him a close and loyal friend, and was his sole heir. No further plots were directed against him by anyone” (Clem. 1.9.12). There is little in Dio that cannot be explained on the assumption that Seneca was his sole source. Close correspondences both general and particular point this way (compare especially 55.22.1–2 with the passage just quoted). As for the departures in Dio, such as his omission of the conspirator’s audience with Augustus, which has a big place in Seneca (cf. Rich “Dio” 103), they can be ascribed to his reworking of Senecan material. Although Dio has elaborated the episode at much greater length, he introduces only one solid fact not also found in Seneca, namely that the conspirator was the daughter’s son (qugatridou÷") of Pompey the Great (55.14.1n; Seneca simply calls him grandson, ‘Cn. Pompei nepotem’ [Clem. 1.9.3]). Even this Dio may have inferred, for example, from Cornelius Cinna’s name in a consular list (cf. Fasti Capitolini in IIt. 13.1.60–61: ‘Cn. Cornelius L. f. Magni Pompei n. Cinna Mag(nus)’); also, he had some knowledge of the Pompeii (48.16.3, 38.3; 51.2.5; cf. 42.13.3 with Boissevain’s n and Caes. B. Afr. 95). That Dio had read works of Seneca can be inferred from 60.35.3–4 (Apocolocyntosis) and 61.10.2 (Polyb.). On the question of Dio’s source(s) see M. Adler, “Die Verschwörung des Cn. Cornelius Cinna bei Seneca und Cassius Dio,” ZÖG 60 (1909), 193–208 (documenting Dio’s dependency on Seneca but detecting an intermediary source); Millar Study 78–79 (Dio used Seneca directly); van Stekelenburg Redevoeringen 159 (Dio used Seneca through an intermediary rhetorical work); M.T. Griffin, Seneca: A Philosopher in Politics (Oxford, 1976), 411; Manuwald Dio 120–127 at 125 (positing a rhetorical source intermediate between Seneca and Dio which dropped indications of chronology, leading Dio to posit a date of a.d. 4). Senecan source and inspiration notwithstanding, Dio has left his own stamp on the clementia dialogue. To him belong, for example, the high style (cf. Introduction sec. 5.4; Rich “Dio” 103, hostile but to the point), the dark view of human nature (e.g., 55.14.4–7), the sensibility to the political realities confronting the ruler of a vast empire, the sane acknowledgment that treason was sometimes too dangerous to warrant clementia, and the larger role given to Livia, possibly reflecting the influence of imperial women under the Severan dynasty. But Dio’s authorial hand is nowhere more apparent than in where and when he locates the conspiracy. History or edifying fiction? Dio and Seneca give settings for the conspiracy that are mutually exclusive. For Dio it occurred in Rome in a.d. 4, for Seneca in Gaul (Clem. 1.9.2) “after Augustus had passed his fortieth year” (‘cum annum quadragensimum transisset’), i.e., between 23 b.c. (when he turned forty) and 13 (when

13.1a–22.2: The Year a.d. 4

149

he turned fifty). Seneca’s dating has the merit of fitting an historical sojourn of Augustus in Gaul, but his assertion that there were no plots after Cinna’s (Clem. 1.9.12) is demonstrably false. Certainly it contradicted what Dio knew from his own reading—there were plots real or ostensible in 9 b.c. (55.4.3) and 2 (55.10.15) at the least. It was perhaps this contradiction that led him to override Seneca’s chronology, most notably by manipulating his words “after this Augustus conferred the consulship unbidden” (Clem. 1.9.12) so as to transpose Cornelius Cinna’s conspiracy all the way to a.d. 4 (when he was designated consul for 5) and from Gaul to Rome (where Augustus was then occupied, as his narrative shows, especially 55.14.1, pravssonti de; aujtw÷/ tau÷ta ejpebouvleusan). That Dio dared to contrive so theatrical a peripeteia—translating his doomed conspirator directly to consul designate—shows how weak the historical tradition on the Cornelius Cinna affair was when he wrote; it may always have been so: Suetonius is silent on the event, notably at Aug. 19.1–2, where he lists the plots against Augustus, as is Tacitus (notably at Ann. 1.10). On the historical question see, for example, H.R.W. Smith, Problems Historical and Numismatic in the Reign of Augustus (University of California Publications in Classical Archaeology 2.4 [1951]), 183–193, 205–210, a suggestive attempt at teasing history from “the false precision” of Seneca and Dio’s “inflation” (192); what emerges is a recidivist Pompeian plot, “the anticlimax of Pharsalus and Naulochus,” for which the “proximate cause . . . lay in the census and lectio” of a.d. 4 (207); W. Speyer, “Zur Verschwörung des Cn. Cornelius Cinna,” RhM 99 (1956), 277–284: Seneca, our sole source, Dio being derivative from him, has not invented the plot; Bauman Crimen 193–197: pace Dio, the conspirator was the father, L. Cornelius Cinna (cf. 55.14.1n), the date 22 b.c., and the place Gallia Narbonensis (cf. Sherwin-White Gnomon 41 [1969], 292); D.C.A. Shotter, “Cn. Cornelius Cinna Magnus and the Adoption of Tiberius,” Latomus 33 (1974), 306– 313; Manuwald Dio 122–123, who stops short of denying historicity and prefers Seneca’s dating; Kienast Augustus 139 n200, bibliography; P. Grimal, “La conjuration de Cinna, mythe ou réalité?” in Mélanges offerts à Monsieur Michel Labrousse (Pallas [hors série 1986]), ed. J.-M. Pailler, 49–57: the plot was an insignificant but historical episode in the conflict between Augustus and the aristocracy, to be dated ca 16–13 b.c. during Augustus’ sojourn in Gaul; Barrett Livia 131–133. Purpose. Dio did not rework Seneca’s Cinna episode merely to illuminate Augustan history. He found in it the germ of an idea how, from the security of an historical setting, he could press the case before a contemporary audience, which included the court, that, more than a visionary abstraction, a policy of clementia offered a practicable response to conspiracy.151 During four decades as a senator Dio steered an anxious course through plots, civil war, and purges before retiring to the haven of his patria Nicaea (80.5.3). 151. Cf. M.A. Giua, “Clemenza del sovrano e monarchia illuminata in Cassio Dione 55.14–22,” Athenaeum 59 (1981), 317–337 at 324–325.

150

Commentary on Book 55

The toll of his peers executed for political offenses was an inescapable personal concern which surfaces often in the History. As early as Book 8, in treating the trial of the magister equitum Q. Fabius Maximus Rullianus on a charge of disobeying orders (325 b.c.; cf. MRR 1.147–148), he presented, through a set speech of the accused’s father, arguments against capital punishment that anticipate Livia’s closely: fr. 36.1–4 with Millar Study 78–79; cf. 55.20.4. Elsewhere he fastens on the record of emperors in destroying or sparing senatorial conspirators: e.g., 68.5.2, 6.4 (Trajan); 69.2.4–6 (Hadrian); 71.28.2–30.4 (Marcus Aurelius); 74.2.1–2 (Severus); 78.12.2–3, 21.2–3 (Macrinus); 79.4.4–6 (Elagabalus). He has the exemplary Marcus Aurelius proclaim his desire, as “the prize of war and victory,” to pardon the rebel Avidius Cassius (71.24.1–26.4 [26.2 quoted], cf. 30.4). What Dio apparently wished to recommend to contemporary rulers, whose formation and instruction were a constant (and less than altruistic) concern, is, first, vigilance in preventing conspiracies (55.14.8, 15.3), then, if conspiracies arise, calibrated responses ranging from execution (to be resorted to rarely) through exile and degradation to full pardon (55.18.1–4)—a policy aimed at preserving both the security of the emperor and the lives of all but his most determined senatorial opponents. Cf. Manuwald Dio 126–127. Date of composition. There are several contacts of the clementia dialogue with the Agrippa-Maecenas dialogue (Book 52), Augustus’ recusatio speech (Book 53), and Tiberius’ funeral eulogy on Augustus (Book 56) (e.g., 55.14.4n, 17.1n, 18.1n, 3n, 22.1–2n). These are consistent with the proposition that all four were composed in the same season as the Augustan narrative, in which they are delivered, perhaps ca 218 (Introduction sec. 5.5). 14.1 Gnai÷o" Kornhvlio" io":: “A plot was formed against Augustus around Gnaeus Cornelius, maternal grandson of Pompey the Great.” Dio’s conspirator is Cn. Cornelius Cinna Magnus, cos. ord. a.d. 5 (PIR2 C 1339; 55.22.1, cf. 3n). His father, L. Cornelius Cinna, was cos. suff. 32 b.c., his mother Pompeia the daughter of Pompey the Great by Mucia; their marriage took place at the earliest in 45 (Cic. Att. 12.11 [= SB 249]). As a boy Cornelius Cinna was with his mother in the camp of her brother Sextus Pompey (Suet. Tib. 6.3; cf. Sen. Ben. 4.30.2, Clem. 1.9.11); that could not be after 35 b.c. For the family see Syme Aristocracy 46–47 (on the cognomen Magnus derived through the maternal line), 99–100 (suggesting that Tiberius Caesar favored Cinna’s promotion to the consulship), 257, 264–267, table XIV. In misnaming the conspirator Lucius (Clem. 1.9.2), Seneca perhaps confused the praenomina of son and father.

14.2–16.2 Augustus and Livia, 1: Conversation Livia’s argument: For the ruler, however just, of a large empire conspiracies are inevitable given the irrepressible impulses of human nature, even in excellent men (cf. 52.18.1). Fear of punishment is ineffectual as a deterrent, and neither vigilance nor armed guards can protect him from enemies within his court.

13.1a–22.2: The Year a.d. 4

151

14.2 ajporou÷nti ti:: “distracted over what to do.” Cf. Sen. Clem. 1.9.3–5. Dio no doubt intends the image of Augustus consumed with a ruler’s cares as positive. Cf. 53.25.6–7n; 56.12.3n. 14.3 kai; ejmoi; kai; th÷/ ajrch÷/ hJmw÷n: Augustus: “Don’t you see how many are attacking me and our [not ‘my’] rule?” Cf. 55.14.8, e[cwmen, again the first person plural. Is Dio accommodating Severan sensibilities by admitting (contrary to his own view: Introduction sec. 2) a notion of female corulership? Cf. 55.16.1–2n. 14.4 ajrevskein kein:: Livia: “For a ruler to please everyone is assuredly impossible; even the completely upright king is bound to be hated by many.” Resigned realism in face of intractable human nature and the demands of ruling a huge empire mark Livia’s advice throughout; for the attitude, which Dio shares, cf. 53.9.3; 56.40.7. 14.7 ou[te novmo" ou[te ûovbo" o":: Livia: “No law, no terror can overcome natural impulses.” For the sentiment see also fr. 36.1–2. Dio’s views on human nature are surveyed in Reinhold Republic 215–217. The Thucydidean influence is too obvious to need comment. Manuwald Dio 123–126 detects a contradiction in Dio’s having Livia emphasize, in this passage (55.14.7–8), the impossibility of preventing political crimes and hence the need for security, whereas in her extended speech (55.16.3–21.4) she advocates clementia because of its efficacy in prevention. He puts this down to Dio’s relying on Thucydides here, on Seneca there; cf. Giua Athenaeum 59 (1981), 321 (similar). 14.8 sûovdra kolavzein . . . sûovdra ûulavssein sein:: Livia: “so as to keep your rule secure not by strict punishments but by strict vigilance.” The lemmatized words are quoted from Thuc. 3.46.6, Diodotus’ speech. 15.4 ejn tai÷" monarcivai" calepwvtaton aton:: Augustus: “The hardest thing about monarchies is that we fear not only our enemies, like others, but our friends.” Giua notes that in Sen. Clem. 1.13.1–3 such fear is the lot of the tyrant, in Dio of rulers generally, including the good (55.15.7); Dio’s view is thus more realistic than the “teorico schema senecano di opposizione re-tiranno” (Athenaeum 59 [1981], 320). 15.6 deino;n me;n th;n ejrhmivan deino;n de; kai; to; plh÷qo" o":: Augustus: “So for us solitude is forever dreadful, equally dreadful a crowd, to be without guards terrifying, most terrifying of all the very guards . . .” Dio indulges in a series of anaphorae and antitheses. 16.1–2 gunh; ouj÷s a tolmw÷: Livia: “I have advice for you . . . unless you object to a woman being so bold as to counsel you in a way no one else even of your closest friends would, not because they cannot but because they dare not.” Cf. Sen. Clem. 1.9.6: “Will you accept a woman’s advice?” Dio has Livia elevate this motif almost

152

Commentary on Book 55

to a doctrine on the role of the empress consort who, having an equal stake in the emperor’s fortunes (kai; ta; ajgaqa; kai; ta; kaka; ejk tou÷ i[sou soi e[cousa) and a share in ruling (kai; aujth; to; mevro" a[rcousa [cf. 55.14.3n]), gives the honest counsel that only one whose salvation is inextricably linked to his can.

16.3–21.4 Augustus and Livia, 2: Livia’s Speech 16.3–17.4, Livia’s speech begun: If no penalty can deter men from conspiracy, and self-defense only does harm by provoking fear and hatred, why not try clemency? Like the physician, the ruler should not resort to surgery and cautery, except rarely, but employ a gentle remedy—forgiveness instead of retribution.

16.3–4 ûuvsi" hJ ajnqrwpivnh h:: “human nature.” In this mammoth sentence, which serves as the premise for her doctrine on clemency, Livia takes the view that conspiracies are inevitable. Human nature moves some irresistibly to conspire; once aroused to action it cannot be reined in. Not only vices but even distinctions (like nobility, wealth, honor, valor, and power) can motivate wrongdoing; yet it is impossible to nullify men’s excellence, and unjust to curtail their wealth or aspirations with the idea of forestalling conspiracy, if they have committed no offense. Preventive measures inevitably bring their authors pain and odium. 16.4 to; e[mûron a[noun oun:: “if one cannot make what is noble ignoble, what is valiant cowardly, or what is wise foolish.” Livia’s point is that a ruler cannot, for security’s sake, render null the noble traits that may spawn conspiracy, since these are inextinguishable (cf. fr. 70.2). Her assumption that human character is immutable squares with Dio’s stoicist thought (cf. Gowing Narratives 30 n38). Giua hears an echo of Dio’s experiences under Commodus, who destroyed men “because of brilliant wealth or distinguished family or outstanding education or some other form of excellence” (72.7.3): Athenaeum 59 (1981), 321–322. 17.1–2 ij a troiv: “Don’t you see that physicians rarely use surgery and cautery on patients for fear of aggravating their condition?” The metaphor of the ruler who treats people’s souls as a physician their bodies recurs at 55.18.1 and 20.3 (and in other speeches: 56.6.1, 39.2; cf. Sen. Clem. 1.9.6). 17.4 aj l ov g wn zwv / w nn:: “Each of the two approaches [sc. the gentle and the harsh] has a dynamic so sure that even among dumb animals devoid of intelligence many of the most powerful and savage are tamed by petting and mastered by lures, while many of the most cowardly and weak are infuriated and galvanized by pain and terror.” Cf. Sen. Clem. 1.16.4–17.1. 18.1–19.6, Livia’s speech continued: Although the death penalty is not to be ruled out for incorrigible offenders (cf. 55.20.1n), for the rest moderate punishments graduated according to the offense are better—rebukes, threats, exile,

13.1a–22.2: The Year a.d. 4

153

loss of status or wealth, internment, career disappointments, the stigma of disfavor. In this way we can avoid the reproach or suspicion, common as things stand now, of killing innocent men out of base motives on trumped up charges —and do so without impairing our security. You must, as a ruler, avoid not only unjust acts but even the suspicion of them that breeds fear and hatred, proving to your subjects that you wrong no one.

18.1 aj n hkev s tw/ . . . ponhriv a /: The man of “incurable and chronic wickedness” is to be amputated like body parts utterly beyond cure. Cf. 52.31.9–10, where “Maecenas,” having urged the greatest possible moderation toward convicted conspirators, asserts that anyone who launches open and armed rebellion is to be executed without trial like a foreign enemy; 56.40.7. 18.3 ûugh÷ / . . . aj t imiv a / . . . crhv m asi asi:: Except in the case of incorrigible offenders, “you run no risk in using moderation, punishing some with exile, some with loss of status [cf. Levick “Larinum SC” 108], some with loss of wealth.” Dio saves, as far as practicable, the time-honored principle that no senator should be put to death. Cf. 52.7.1, 31.3. 18.4 e{ d rai . . . stav s ei" ei":: “seats lacking distinction, places implying disgrace.” Livia refers to mild public degradations, which are worse than death for the noble or courageous person and therefore more efficacious as a deterrent, yet bring no infamy to the ruler or suspicion that he or others have fabricated charges maliciously. Cf. 52.34.7–8. 19.1 ajll! ou[ti ge kai; proshvkontav ejstin tin:: On ajlla; . . . ge here and in 55.19.3 see LSJ s.v. ajllav I.2; cf. Denniston 119. “I could relate any number of such rumors which however true they may be should still not be pried into in free society or brought to your attention.” 20.1–21.4, Livia’s speech concluded: The part of a ruler is to preserve all his subjects from harm by teaching them moderation, preventing wrongdoing, and healing any distemper. When a man offends, he should be brought to his senses by a lesser penalty than death, for instance internment, which suffices for security. The sword not only destroys its victim, it alienates others’ minds. By contrast, a man who is forgiven will repent and reciprocate richly. Through a policy of clemency you will show that the harsh deeds you did in leading Rome from Republic to monarchy you did not of your own volition but of necessity.

20.1 kinduneuvw kai; pantelw÷ " aj p eipei÷ n: “I can almost tell you categorically not to execute anyone on such a charge.” Dio has Livia stop just short of advocating clemency without exception for conspirators; she has previously (55.18.1) conceded the necessity of the death penalty in the case of incorrigible offenders.

154

Commentary on Book 55

20.4 ûronhvsew" kai; dunavmew" e[rgon gon:: “Forbearance of the offenses of the multitude is a mark of exceeding wisdom and strength.” Cf. fr. 36.4, from the father’s plea for the life of his son Fabius Maximus Rullianus: “The mark of the greatest valor and power is not killing someone (often the act of the utterly cowardly and weak) but sparing and preserving him.” 20.5 ej" nh÷son katakleisqeiv": “What harm could a person do shut up on an island or in some country town, not only lacking any supply of slaves or money but, if need be, also under guard?” Cf. 56.27.2–3 under a.d. 12, Augustus’ regulation of exiles, including limits on the slaves and money that they were permitted to take with them. 21.3 eu eujj ¿ paqov n ta ta:: Livia argues sophistically that those who are forgiven repay their benefactors in expectation that they will be still better treated in return: there is no limit to what someone who has been granted life in requital for a wrong expects to receive from a benefactor “who has been treated well [euj ¿ paqovnta].” Cf. 55.16.5. 21.4 aj n av g kh/: “In this way you will seem to have taken all your harsh actions on other occasions out of necessity.” Livia’s prediction is made good in the obituary judgments on Augustus at 56.44.1–2, where a similar distinction is made between his actions taken under pressure of circumstances (pragmavtwn ajnavgkh/) and actions reflecting his true character (gnwvmhn); cf. Rich “Dio” 103. For Augustus’ civil war conduct as justified by circumstances cf. 56.37.1–3. 22.1–2 The conspirators freed; Cornelius Cinna made consul: Augustus took Livia’s advice,152 released the accused with a mere scolding, and “even designated Cornelius consul. In this way he so won him and other people over that no one else plotted against him again either actually or ostensibly [cf. 54.15.3].” Dio’s words closely parallel Sen. Clem. 1.9.12 (quoted above on 55.14.1–22.2, Dio’s source). In his eulogy on Augustus, Tiberius echoes the claim about Augustus’ success in inhibiting plots (56.40.7). When Dio says that “no one else [tw÷n a[llwn] plotted . . . again” he means no one else but Livia. He was bemused by the paradox—a product of utterly antagonistic traditions—that Livia, who was “most responsible for Cornelius’ safety,” would herself be deemed responsible for Augustus’ death. See 56.30.1–2n, where he relates the rumor that she poisoned her husband, though he is noncommittal about her guilt. Cf. E. Badian, “Notes on Some Documents from Aphrodisias Concerning Octavian,” GRBS 25 (1984), 169, discerning in Dio’s “showpiece” “the official image of Livia . . . as a regular advocate of kindness and mercy.” In undercutting the image he has just projected, Dio perhaps simply gave in to the impulse to be clever. 152. Has Dio given us in Augustus’ compliance with Livia’s counsel (55.22.1) a foil for Caracalla’s rejection of his mother’s advice (77.18.2)? So van Stekelenburg Redevoeringen 137, followed by Giua Athenaeum 59 (1981), 336.

22.3–24.9: The Year a.d. 5

155

Suet. Aug. 19 lists plots against Augustus that occurred after the date Dio gives for Cornelius Cinna’s plot; cf. on 55.27.1–3.

55.22.3–24.9: The Year a.d. 5 Annalistic structure: urban section only. Dio records a typical series of state events: portents, dynastic and priestly affairs, senate deliberations on the terms of military service, and elections. Attached to the item on terms of service is a survey of Augustan armed forces (55.23.2–24.8).

22.3–23.1: URBAN AFFAIRS See Map 2. 22.3 Kornhlivou . . . Messavlou ou:: On the consul Cn. Cornelius Cinna Magnus see 55.14.1n. On L. Valerius Messalla Volesus see RE 8A.170–171 = Valerius 270 (Hanslik); Syme Aristocracy 229, 266; he was later condemned for violent conduct as proconsul of Asia (Tac. Ann. 3.68.1; Sen. Ira 2.5.5). Both consuls were patricians. They gave their names to the Lex Valeria Cornelia of this year cited at length in a bill (rogatio) of a.d. 19 on posthumous honors to Germanicus, preserved in the Tabula Hebana (= Crawford Statutes 1 no. 37); their law elaborated novel election procedures commemorating the dead Caesars Gaius and Lucius. The index of Dio’s Book 55 gives the consuls’ names in the opposite order, a clue that the compiler of the index was not Dio (cf. introduction to Book 55). For collected citations of the consuls of 5 in fasti and documents see IIt. 13.1.528– 529. Tiv b eri" eri":: “The Tiber swept away the bridge and made the city navigable for seven days, . . .” On the Pons Sublicius, built entirely of wood, see 53.33.5n; Richardson Dictionary 299; LTUR 4.112–113 (Coarelli). Cassiod. Chron. 604 (p136) also records the inundation in a notice under the consuls of 5 attributed by Peter to Aufidius Bassus (HRR 2.97).153 Given the season of Tiber floods (fall through winter: Appendix 2) the disaster no doubt belongs early in the year, like the eclipse and famine that Dio registers presently. tou÷ te hJlivou ti ejklipe;" ejgevneto eto:: “. . . there was a partial eclipse of the sun, . . .” Cf. Thuc. 4.52.1, nearly identical. The eclipse was possibly visible in Rome in late afternoon 28 March a.d. 5: RE 6.2329–2364 at 2260 = Finsternisse (Boll); but a sighting in Roman Africa communicated to Rome is more likely (the central path of the eclipse intersected the longitude of Italy over the Sahara): see D.J. Schove (with A. Fletcher), Chronology of Eclipses and Comets ad 1–1000 (Woodbridge, Suffolk, 1984), 3–4. On Dio’s basically sound, if limited, knowl153. ‘His conss. per dies octo [cf. Dio’s “seven days”] Tiberis impetu miseranda clades hominum domorumque fuit.’

156

Commentary on Book 55

edge of lunar and solar eclipses see 60.26.1–5; cf. 56.29.3n; Smilda 207 lists eclipses in the History. limov ": “. . . and a famine occurred,” presumably in Rome. a.d. 5 is the first of three consecutive years in which Dio registers famine: see also 55.26.1–3, 27.1 (6), 31.3 (7), cf. 33.4n. Since grain supplies would fall to their lowest level just before the sailing season opened in spring (cf. 54.1.3n), Dio’s juxtaposition of a famine and a March eclipse rings true. 22.4 ej " ej û hv b ou" ou":: “In this same year Agrippa was enrolled among the iuvenes,” probably with formalities in the new Temple of Mars Ultor (55.10.2n). Having been adopted by Augustus the year before (55.13.2n), he was now a Caesar. Cf. 55.9.9–10n, the debuts of his brothers, the Caesars Gaius and Lucius. They had joined the iuvenes in the year they turned fifteen, 5 b.c. and 2 respectively; Agrippa turned sixteen in a.d. 5 (on the delay cf. Levick Latomus 35 [1976], 310–311). Augustus had taken the consulship to mark the older brothers’ debuts; in not dignifying Agrippa’s debut equally he betrayed the youth’s inferior standing relative to that of Tiberius (cf. 55.13.2n). cwri;" me;n oiJ bouleutai; cwri;" de; oiJ iJpph÷" . . . ei eijjdon don: d¿ on: “Senators and equites each viewed the circus games separately, and apart from the people at large, as now happens.” Dio records an Augustan innovation, no doubt authorized by senate decree (Brunt CQ 34 [1984], 427 n15). Although he leaves its precise nature uncertain, it apparently amounted to the introduction of a ius spectandi for senators and equites in the Circus: cf. M. Trannoy-Coltelloni, “La place des sénateurs au cirque: une réforme de l’empereur Claude,” REA 101 (1999), 487– 498. Under Claudius’ reign, surely with our passage in mind, Dio registers a further step in the evolution of the seating arrangements that would determine where he himself sat as a Severan senator (60.7.3–4): “Prior to this, it seems, senators, equites, and plebs had viewed proceedings in the Circus each in a separate group— ever since this practice was established. They had not, however, been assigned set places. But at this time Claudius reserved for senators the section that is now theirs;” cf. Suet. Claud. 21.3: ‘propria senatoribus constituit loca promiscue spectare solitis’). It was Nero who first “located the section of the equites Romani in front of the seats of the plebs in the Circus” (Tac. Ann. 15.32.1, under 63; cf. Suet. Nero 11.1).154 In the theater senators sat in the orchestra, equites in fourteen rows next to it: 54.14.4n. Cf. Levick “Larinum SC” 114–115 on Augustus’ effort to renew the Roman social order, buttressing it with publicly enacted privileges and distinctions; J.C. Edmondson, “Dynamic Arenas: Gladiatorial Presentations in the City of Rome and the Construction of Roman Society during the Early Empire,” in Roman 154. E. Rawson, “Discrimina Ordinum: The Lex Julia Theatralis,” PBSR 55 (1987), 112–113 argues that Augustus and Claudius “met with limited success” in segregating the classes in the Circus. Even so, it may have suited Dio, who deplored the erosion of social distinctions in his own day, to record their measures. Bollinger Licentia 10–11 holds that some form of separation of senators, equites, and others in the Circus was already in effect by a.d. 5: Dio mistook a casual notice for an innovation. See also Humphrey Circuses 77, 101–102.

22.3–24.9: The Year a.d. 5

157

Theater and Society: E. Togo Salmon Papers, 1, ed. W.J. Slater (Ann Arbor, 1996), 69–112. 22.5 @Estiva" iJerateivann:: “Since the highborn were reluctant to contribute their daughters for the priesthood of Vesta, it was enacted that daughters of freedmen also be priestesses.” A single vacancy created by the death of one of the six Vestal Virgins was in question here (cf. Suet. Aug. 31.3). As Pontifex Maximus, Augustus was seeking to compose the requisite slate of twenty candidates, one of whom would be chosen by lot. Candidates had to be between six and ten, free of physical defect, and, except for the measure now enacted, born of Roman parents who had not been slaves and were still living. See Gell. 1.12.1–12, with details of pontifical law drawn from the Augustan jurists Antistius Labeo and Ateius Capito; cf. Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 2.67.1–2; Tac. Ann. 2.86.1–2. Faced with resistance from fathers,155 Augustus swore that had one of his own granddaughters been the right age he would have offered her (Suet. Aug. 31.3; but cf. Gell. 1.12.6–9), then resorted to the extreme expedient of admitting even daughters of liberti (ejx ajpeleuqevrwn gegennhmevna"; cf. 54.23.1 for the phrase). The shortage may have been aggravated by an exemption for daughters of fathers with three children (Gell. 1.12.8), plausibly authorized under the Lex Iulia on marriage of 18 b.c. Both Augustus and Tiberius sought to make the Vestal priesthood a more attractive vocation (56.10.2n, Vestal Virgins granted the ius trium liberorum; Suet. Aug. 31.3; Tac. Ann. 4.16.4, cf. 2.86.2). On Vestal Virgins see RE 8A.1732–1753, esp. 1744 = Vesta (Koch); J.P.V.D. Balsdon, Roman Women: Their History and Habits (London, 1962), 235–242 (236 on election); M. Beard, “The Sexual Status of Vestal Virgins,” JRS 70 (1980), 12– 27 and “Priesthood in the Roman Republic,” in M. Beard & J. North, Pagan Priests: Religion and Power in the Ancient World (London, 1990), 19–25 (general); Gardner Women 22–26; A. Staples, From Good Goddess to Vestal Virgins: Sex and Category in Roman Religion (London, 1998), 129–156; Religions 1.51–54. oJ klh÷ro" aujtw÷n . . . ej n tw÷ / sunedriv w /: “The casting of lots in their case [sc. the daughters of freedmen], seeing that there were still other candidates [sc. the daughters of freeborn fathers], took place in the Senate156 with the fathers in attendance—at least insofar as these were equites;157 however, it was not a freedman’s daughter who was elected.” Clearly the freedman fathers were barred from attending the sortition. The rule was that liberti, however wealthy, could not become equites; exceptions were rare (cf. 53.30.3n, the freedman physician Antonius Musa, granted the equestrian gold ring for saving Augustus’ life). The aversion of

155. The reasons for this reluctance are not attested. Despite the recruitment crisis here related by Dio, M.T. Raepsaet-Charlier shows that in general the Roman nobility continued to reserve the Vestal priesthood for itself under the Principate just as it had done under the Republic: “L’origine sociale des vestales sous le Haut-Empire,” Mnhvmh G.A. Petropoulou (Athens, 1984), 253–270. 156. Dio refers to the Curia Iulia without name (as at 54.1.3 or 56.29.3); under the Republic the sortition of Vestal Virgins took place ‘in contione’ (“in an assembly”), probably the Comitia Calata (Gell. 1.12.11–12; 15.27.1). 157. It goes without saying that fathers who were senators attended.

158

Commentary on Book 55

senators to admitting freedmen to the public sphere is laid bare by their excluding the very men who were vying to meet a civic responsibility shirked by elite fathers. Has Dio recorded this snub as an underhand hit at later intrusions by imperial liberti in the Senate (cf. 60.16.3–5; 73.8.4)? 23.1 a[qlwn smikrovthta hta:: “Since the soldiers were greatly distressed over how meager their retirement rewards [praemia] were, considering the wars being fought at the time, and since none of them was willing to bear arms beyond the period of service stipulated, it was voted . . .” For aj ¿qla = praemia cf. 56.41.6; 77.24.1. These were paid in land or cash. Following large-scale discharges in 14 b.c. (RG 16.1) new legionaries were recruited for terms of sixteen years (see on 54.25.5–6, under 13 b.c.). By a.d. 5 many of these were overdue for discharge and (as our text shows) declining further service. These time-elapsed veterans were presumably being retained sub vexillo, “under a standard,” at least ostensibly with relief from the most menial duties but nonetheless on active service; on this practice see L.J.F. Keppie, “Vexilla Veteranorum,” PBSR 41 (1973), 8–17; cf. Brunt Manpower 333– 335. The discontent impelled the state to raise praemia, though apparently only in return for extension of the period of service (below). It also foreshadowed the mutinies in Germany and Pannonia on Tiberius’ accession in 14, when exploitive service sub vexillo was a main grievance (see Tac. Ann. 1.17.2–3, 26.1–2, 36.3). Although it was Augustus who now took the initiative in revising the terms of service, last fixed in 13 b.c., formally this was senate business: note ejyhûivsqh (“it was voted”); cf. 54.25.5; 55.24.9; Tac. Ann. 1.25.3. The new terms included, for the Praetorian Guard, retirement rewards of “5,000 drachmas” = 20,000 HS after sixteen years (up from twelve); for legionaries, “3,000 drachmas” = 12,000 HS after twenty years (up from sixteen). The previous, obviously lower, scale of praemia is not known. On pay, probably left unchanged at 900 HS per annum for legionaries and 3,000 HS for Praetorians (the sources are silent), see 53.11.5n; on 54.25.5–6; 56.32.2n, stratiwvtai"; M.A. Speidel, “Roman Army Pay Scales,” JRS 82 (1992), 87–106; cf. R. Alston, “Roman Military Pay from Caesar to Diocletian,” JRS 84 (1994), 112–123. Enhanced praemia notwithstanding, Augustus had to resort to conscription in meeting military crises in Illyricum and Germany in the following years: cf. 55.31.1n; 56.23.2–3n. Cf. H.-C. Schneider, Das Problem der Veteranenversorgung in der späteren römischen Republik (Bonn, 1977), 236–244; Corbier “Aerarium militare” 207–213.

23.2–24.8: EXCURSUS ON ARMED FORCES UNDER AUGUSTUS See Map 5. Between Augustus’ revision of the terms of service for Praetorians and legionaries (55.23.1) and his proposal to the Senate to establish “an adequate and permanent revenue source” for the armed forces (55.24.9), Dio inserts a survey of these

22.3–24.9: The Year a.d. 5

159

forces. Though skeletal, it is both comprehensive and dated (a.d. 5), and offers much unique information valuable in reconstructing their history, especially that of the legions. The survey consists of: (1) a list of nineteen Augustan legions still extant in Dio’s day (55.23.2–6; in fact there were only eighteen: see below on Legion XX〈II〉); (2) a note on Augustan legions destroyed or dissolved before Dio’s day (55.23.7); (3) a list of fourteen legions formed after Augustus and still in service (55.24.1–4; in fact there were fifteen: see on Legion XX〈II〉); (4) the merest sketch of non-legionary forces, for example, auxiliaries and Praetorians (55.24.5–8). The perspective of the survey is that of Dio’s own age. For him the past was relevant insofar as it shaped or instructed the present. No legion not still in service is named. Moreover, he states where legions were stationed currently (214 at the earliest: see on Legion I Adiutrix under 55.24.1–4), not where they had been under Augustus or in the interval. Reliability. Except that he imports one post-Augustan legion into his Augustan list (Legion XX〈II〉), Dio’s survey is generally accurate where it can be tested against other evidence, as the following commentary will show. No location given for the thirty-three legions extant when he wrote can be confuted. Total of Augustan legions. Dio is mistaken, however, on the number of legions in service in a.d. 5. He offers two possible totals: “At that time twenty-three or, as others say, twenty-five citizen legions were maintained” (55.23.2). The complement was in fact twenty-eight, of which three were lost with Varus in 9, leaving twenty-five; cf. Tac. Ann. 4.5.1–3, twenty-five legions in a.d. 23. Dio repeats his error at 55.24.5. Sources. Being in doubt and error as to their total, Dio can have had no list of Augustan legions before him. On the other hand, his source(s) enabled him to identify the extant Severan legions whose history went back to (or beyond) Augustus, as well as to name the founders of extant post-Augustan legions. Clearly he did not have to work up a Severan register from scratch. The legionary catalogue was not an historiographic novelty. Appian promises in the preface of his Roman History (pr. 15) to include an account of Roman forces, though he seems never to have done this (cf. RE 2.216–217 = Appianus [Schwartz]). A Severan inscription (ILS 2288 = Campbell Army no. 144 = Lewis & Reinhold 2.446) reproduces an Antonine list of legions arranged in geographic order “clockwise” around the Mediterranean, beginning with Britain and ending with Spain.158 Bibliography. RE 12.1211–1829 = legio (Ritterling), comprehensive and still fundamental; Kromayer & Veith 470–568; H.M.D. Parker, The Roman Legions (Oxford, 1928; reprint, Cambridge, 1958 with a bibliography by G.R. Watson); 158. The locations are those of the mid-second century. Annexed out of geographic order are five legions formed later by Marcus Aurelius (II and III Italicae) and Septimius Severus (I, II, and III Parthicae).

160

Commentary on Book 55

Syme JRS 23 (1933), 14–33; Diz. Epig. 4 (1949–1950), 549–624, esp. 555–565 = legio (Passerini); G. Forni, Reclutamento and Esercito e marina di Roma antica: Raccolti di contributi (Mavors 5), ed. M.P. Speidel (Stuttgart, 1992); A. von Domaszewski, Die Rangordnung des römischen Heeres, 2nd ed., rev. by B. Dobson (Köln, 1967); Mann Recruitment; Campbell Emperor 88–93 (on legionary titles) and Army, with helpful maps on 86–87; Keppie Making, esp. 134–198, 205– 215 (lists of early imperial legions); Webster Army; Le Bohec Army; J. Roth, “The Size and Organization of the Roman Imperial Legion,” Historia 43 (1994), 346– 362; CAH2 10.371–396 (Keppie); OCD3 839–842 s.v. legion (Campbell); Wilkes “Legions;” Légions de Rome, with the review article of J.J. Wilkes, “The Legions in the Principate: Updating Ritterling,” JRA 15 (2002), 528–535.

23.2–6: (1) Augustan Legions Extant in Dio’s Day “Now only nineteen of them [the Augustan legions] remain” (55.23.2).159 Dio here registers Severan legions that he has traced back at least to Augustus, one erroneously (Legion XX〈II〉). He presents them in the order of their numbers; when two or three share a number, he evidently orders these in “clockwise” geographic sequence (cf. ILS 2288, noted on 55.23.2–24.8, Sources), based on their Severan locations, apparently beginning with Spain and ending with Africa. Thus the three Legions III are given in the sequence Syria Phoenice, Arabia, Numidia. Dio is not punctilious about using original Augustan titles (on which see Keppie Making 136–139), often adding a title earned by a legion only later. I list these nineteen legions, giving their Augustan locations, no doubt generally unknown to Dio, and quoting him on their Severan locations. II Augusta. In Spain for most of Augustus’ reign, where it fought in the northwest (cf. 53.25.5–26.1, 29.1–2; 54.5.1–3, 11.2–5, 20.3), it was in upper Germany on his death (Tac. Ann. 1.37.3), having been transferred there after the loss of Varus’ legions (RE 12.1458). See Syme JRS 23 (1933), 22–23, 33 and RP 2.849–851.160 Severan location: “wintering in Upper Britain.” III Gallica. In Syria under Augustus; earlier it had served Antony with distinction in Parthia: RE 12.1517–1519; cf. Plut. Ant. 42.4. See Dio 65.14.3n on its part in the Flavian victory in the “second battle of Bedriacum” (a.d. 69). Severan location: “in [Syria] Phoenice;” cf. 79.7.1–3, its commander executed for insurrection under Elagabalus. III Cyrenaica. In Egypt under Augustus: EJ no. 232. See RE 12.1506; Syme JRS 23 (1933), 31–33; H.A. Sanders, “The Origin of the Third Cyrenaic Legion,” AJPh 62 (1941), 84–87.161 Severan location: “in Arabia.”

159. Note: Dio usually translates Latin legio with stratovpedon. But he also uses tei÷co" for variatio, both alone (e.g., 79.7.1) and with qualifiers (e.g. 53.15.2, politika; teivch [= citizen units] distinguished from xenikav sc. teivch [= auxiliary units]). See in detail A. Favuzzi, “Una peculiarità semantica nel lessico militare dioneo,” Chiron 23 (1993), 53–61. 160. Le Roux Armée 84–85 argues for a transfer during Augustus’ administrative tour of the western provinces 16–13 b.c., in preparation for Drusus’ offensive in Germany in 12. 161. Cf. Mitchell CQ 26 (1976), 300–301; M.P. Speidel, “Augustus’ Deployment of the Legions in Egypt,” Chronique d’Égypte 57 (1982), 120–124.

22.3–24.9: The Year a.d. 5

161

III Augusta. In Africa in a.d. 14 (ILS 151 = EJ no. 290) and no doubt well before that: RE 12.1494; Syme JRS 23 (1933), 31, 33. No source provides an earlier terminus ante quem for its creation than Dio’s a.d. 5. It will have fought in the Gaetulian war under Cossus Cornelius Lentulus, proconsul of Africa ca 6–8 (see on 55.28.3–4). See Le Bohec Légion, esp. 335–343. Severan location: “in Numidia;” cf. 59.20.7 with Edmondson 171. IV Scythica. In Macedonia, then Moesia under Augustus, it perhaps earned its title in the Balkan campaigns of M. Licinius Crassus (51.23.2–27.3, under 29 b.c.): RE 12.1556–1557. It served under Tiberius’ command in the Illyrian rebellion of 6– 9: 55.32.3–4n, cf. 29.3n, 30.3–4n. For its presence in Moesia in his reign see ILS 2281 = EJ no. 267 (a.d. 33/34); Wilkes “Legions” 108. Severan location: “in [Coele] Syria;” cf. 79.7.1–3, its legate executed for insurrection under Elagabalus. V Macedonica. In Macedonia and Moesia under Augustus on Ritterling’s view (RE 12.1573; similarly Keppie Making 207; OCD3 840). But a good case can be made for its being stationed in the East in the earlier reign (Syme JRS 23 [1933], 29–33). Mitchell CQ 26 (1976), 301–303, 307–308 proposes that V and VII were based in Galatia-Pamphylia when they fought in the Thracian war (ca 13–11 b.c.) under L. Piso (Pontifex), earning the title Macedonica then (cf. 54.34.6n). Both legions were brought up from Galatia-Pamphylia in a.d. 7 to support Tiberius’ operations against insurgents in Illyricum (55.32.3–4n), after which V Macedonica was located in Moesia. See now K. Strobel, “Zur Geschichte der Legiones V (Macedonica) und VII (Claudia pia fidelis) in der frühen Kaiserzeit und zur Stellung der Provinz Galatia in der augusteischen Heeresgeschichte,” in Légions de Rome 515– 528. Severan location: “in Dacia.” VI Victrix. In Spain under Augustus, where it fought in the northwest (cf. II Augusta): RE 12.1599–1600; Syme JRS 23 (1933), 22–23, 33 and RP 2.849–851.162 Severan location: “in Lower Britain.” VI Ferrata. No doubt in Syria under Augustus, though not attested as an imperial legion until a.d. 19, when Germanicus’ antagonist Cn. Calpurnius Piso tried to corrupt it: Tac. Ann. 2.79.2, cf. 81.1. See RE 12.1589; Syme JRS 23 (1933), 31–33. Severan location: “in Judaea” (ejn !Ioudaiva/). Dio perhaps writes “Judaea” not just as the equivalent of the Severan provincial name Syria Palaestina but to indicate that VI Ferrata garrisoned the Jewish heartland of the province. Its base was in Galilee (RE 12.1591); cf. 55.27.6n. Cf. Legion X (Fretensis). VII Claudia. Arguably while based in Galatia-Pamphylia, possibly from the foundation of the province ca 25 b.c., it fought in the Thracian war ca 13–11 b.c., perhaps then earning the title Macedonica (cf. V Macedonica), later superseded. In a.d. 7 it was sent from Galatia-Pamphylia to reinforce Tiberius’ command in Illyricum (55.32.3– 4n). Dalmatia became its permanent station from ca 9—and that of XI (cf. ILS 2280 = EJ no. 265, from 18/19). See especially Mitchell CQ 26 (1976), 298–308 at 301– 303. Legion VII—along with XI—was retitled ‘Claudia Pia Fidelis’ as a reward for standing with Claudius against the rebel legate of Dalmatia L. Arruntius Camillus Scribonianus in 42 (55.23.3–4; 60.15.2–4).163 Severan location: “in Upper Moesia.” 162. For a coin referring to the settlement of veterans of VI Victrix in a colony in Spain see RPC 1 no. 325 (Caesaraugusta); cf. 54.23.7n. This was Galba’s single legion when he rebelled against Nero as legate of Hispania Tarraconensis (Tac. Hist. 5.16.3; cf. 1.16.2). 163. Cf. P.M. Swan, “Josephus, A.J. XIX, 251–252: Opposition to Gaius and Claudius,” AJPh 91 (1970), 159–164.

162

Commentary on Book 55 VIII Augusta. From its base in Moesia it served under Tiberius’ command in the Illyrian rebellion of 6–9: 55.32.3–4n, cf. 29.3n, 30.3–4n; stationed in Pannonia by 14, it joined the legionary mutiny on Tiberius’ accession (Tac. Ann. 1.23.5, 30.4). See RE 12.1645; Syme JRS 23 (1933), 31–33. Severan location: “in Upper Germany.” X Gemina.164 In Spain under Augustus, it shared in the conquest of the northwest (cf. II Augusta) and is attested on coins marking the foundation of the colonies Emerita and Caesaraugusta (e.g., RPC 1 nos. 16, 325; EJ nos. 343, 342; ILS 2707; cf. Dio 53.26.1). See RE 12.1678–1680; Syme JRS 23 (1933), 22–23 and RP 2.849–851. Severan location: “in Upper Pannonia,” where, along with XIV Gemina, it would taste Dio’s discipline (80.4.2). X (Fretensis). Attested in Macedonia under L. Tarius Rufus ‘pro praetore’ ca 17 b.c. (AE [1936], 18 = EJ no. 268; Dio 54.20.3n), and in Syria in a.d. 18 (Tac. Ann. 2.57.2), where it had probably been stationed already by the later reign of Augustus. Why Dio omits its title Fretensis, current from Augustan times (for example, in the Tarius inscription), is unclear. See E. Dabrowa, Legio X Fretensis: A Prosopographical Study of its Officers (I–III c. a.d.) (Stuttgart, 1993), 11–21 (history of the legion). Severan location: “In Judaea,” in the Severan province Syria Palaestina. Its base was Jerusalem from the city’s fall to Titus in 70. Cf. VI Ferrata. XI Claudia. At Actium with Octavian (ILS 2243 = EJ no. 254). Stationed in Moesia when the Illyrian rebellion of 6–9 broke out, it came to Tiberius’ aid along with IV Scythica and VIII Augusta (55.32.3–4n, cf. 29.3n, 30.3–4n). After ca 9 it was based in Dalmatia. For its title ‘Claudia Pia Fidelis,’ acquired later, cf. VII Claudia. See Syme JRS 23 (1933), 29–31. Severan location: “in Lower Moesia.” XII Fulminata, which Dio translates as to; dwdevkaton . . . to; keraunoûovron. In Syria before a.d. 14: RE 12.1706; Syme JRS 23 (1933), 31–33, cf. 25, conjecturing service in Africa as late as a.d. 6 as a second legion in that province, required by frontier troubles (same notion in Aristocracy 162, 319; cf. Le Bohec Légion 340, suspending judgment); see III Augusta. Dio-Xiph. 71.8.1–4, 10.1–5 recounts (anonymously) the survival of XII Fulminata in the war of Marcus Aurelius against the Quadi, thanks to a “rain miracle;” cf. 71.9.1–6, where Xiphilinus inserts a corrective Christian version of the miracle, naming our legion (as keraunobovlon) and citing Dio’s “catalogue” of legions, but assigning a false origin to the title ‘Fulminata.’ The story, which has evoked much skepticism, may refer to a detachment rather than the whole of XII Fulminata, since inscriptional evidence is wanting for the legion’s presence on the northern front. Cf. A.R. Birley, Marcus Aurelius: A Biography2 (New Haven, 1987), 172–173 on these problematic texts. Severan location: “in Cappadocia.” XIII Gemina. Part of the garrison of Illyricum, it fought under Tiberius’ command in the rebellion of 6–9 (55.29.1n, 32.3n). In upper Germany in autumn 14, where it swore allegiance to the new emperor (Tac. Ann. 1.37.3), it had evidently been transferred there following the Varian disaster in 9. See Syme JRS 23 (1933), 29–31.165 Severan location: “in Dacia.”

164. On the title “Gemina,” given to a legion formed by melding two existing legions, see “A Note on the Title ‘Gemina’,” in Birley Papers 311–315 = JRS 18 (1928), 56–60. 165. Cf. in general Schön Beginn 94–102. He holds that XIII was relocated in Raetia rather than Germany in 9 and was still based in Raetia in 14 (despite then serving in upper Germany) before being finally transferred to upper Germany in 15/16.

22.3–24.9: The Year a.d. 5

163

XIV Gemina. Like XIII Gemina, it fought in the rebellion of 6–9 as part of the garrison of Illyricum (55.29.1n, 32.3n; cf. ILS 2649). Transferred to upper Germany following the Varian disaster, it wavered but did not join the mutinies on Tiberius’ accession (Tac. Ann. 1.37.3). See Syme JRS 23 (1933), 29, 31. Severan location: “in Upper Pannonia,” where it would come under Dio’s strict command (80.4.2) like X Gemina. XV Apollinaris. Apparently formed early by Octavian under a title honoring his divine patron,166 it fought in the rebellion of 6–9 in Illyricum as part of the province’s garrison (55.29.1n, 32.3n); in Pannonia in 14, it mutinied on Tiberius’ accession (Tac. Ann. 1.23.5, 30.4). See RE 12.1747–1749; Syme JRS 23 (1933), 29–31; E.L. Wheeler, “Legio XV Apollinaris: From Carnuntum to Satala—and Beyond,” in Légions de Rome 259–308. Severan location: “in Cappadocia.” XX Valeria Victrix. The title, often abbreviated VV, is post-Augustan.167 Although the history of XX in Augustus’ earlier reign is obscure (for possible service in Spain see RE 12.1769–1770; but cf. S. Perea Yébenes, “Hispania y la legio XX,” in Légions de Rome 581–587), it was stationed in Illyricum during the rebellion of 6–9 (55.29.1n, 32.3n), in which it performed heroic service (Vell. 2.112.2; cf. 55.30.1n). Transferred to lower Germany following the Varian disaster, it mutinied on Tiberius’ accession (Tac. Ann. 1.31.3). See Syme JRS 23 (1933), 29. It was stationed in Britain from the invasion of 43; see W.H. Manning, “The Fortresses of Legio XX,” in Brewer Fortresses 69–81. Severan location: “in Upper Britain.” I translate the conclusion of Dio’s list of Augustan legions (55.23.6): “. . . and XX Valeria Victrix [kai; Oujaleriveioi kai; nikhvtore"], which is stationed in Upper Britain. This legion [ou{stina"], in addition to XX〈II〉, which is based in Upper Germany, Augustus in my view took over and retained; I disregard the fact it was not called Valeria by everyone168 and today no longer uses this title.”169 Here Dio affirms his view (ejmoi; dokei÷n) that XX Valeria Victrix—as well as XX〈II〉—was Augustan, variable nomenclature notwithstanding. He is mistaken, however, about Legion XX〈II〉. XX II〉〉 [eijkostou÷ ms.; deutevrou kai; eijkostou÷ Mommsen].. The emendation XX〈〈II meets the difficulty that Dio’s text as it stands presupposes an otherwise unattested second Augustan XX beyond the well-attested XX (Valeria Victrix). The order of his list, in which this is the final item, suggests a number above XX. There being no apposite Augustan legion available (neither XXI Rapax nor XXII Deioteriana survived to Dio’s time), we are left to conclude that Dio mistook as Augustan the postAugustan XXII Primigeneia, formed under Caligula (RE 12.1798; Keppie Making

166. L. Keppie, Colonisation and Veteran Settlement in Italy 47–14 b.c. (Rome, 1983), inscription no. 68 from Cremona (p219, cf. 192) registers a veteran of ‘X[V] Apollin[aris]’ plausibly settled there after Philippi (fought 42 b.c.). 167. On the epigraphic record see R. McPake, “A Note on the Cognomina of Legio XX,” Britannia 12 (1981), 293–295, who observes that the appellation Valeria Victrix is not attested before a.d. 60. Valeria is not a personal epithet (he holds) deriving (as some propose) from M. Valerius Messalla Messallinus, the victorious adjutant of Tiberius in the Illyrian rebellion (see 55.29.1n, 30.1–2; 56.17.2); more likely the double epithet means valorous and victorious, and was awarded for a legionary exploit in Boudicca’s revolt of 61. Followed by Keppie Making 138–139. 168. True: see ILS vol. 4, p459. 169. False. See ILS 2667, ‘leg. XX Val. Vict.,’ inscribed a.d. 208; 9293, ‘leg. XX Val. V. Severae,’ inscribed under Severus Alexander; cf. 2764 (of Severan date), giving the title without abbreviation: ‘leg. XX Valeriae Victricis.’

164

Commentary on Book 55 196–197, 213) and still extant (e.g., ILS 419 = Campbell Legions no. 134; 9184). To correct Dio’s error would require dropping XX〈II〉 from his Augustan list, which would thus be reduced from nineteen to eighteen legions, and adding it to his postAugustan list, which would thus rise from fourteen to fifteen. Severan location: “wintering in Upper Germany.”

23.7: (2) Augustan Legions Dissolved between a.d. 5 and Dio’s Day Of the remaining Augustan legions “some were completely abolished,” says Dio, “while some were melded with others by Augustus himself and by other emperors—whence the practice of legions being called Geminae.” Dio names none of the defunct legions since they did not survive to his own time. The Augustan amalgamations that resulted in the Geminae in Dio’s list—X, XIII, XIV—were prior to a.d. 5. His statement that Augustan legions were melded by later emperors cannot be substantiated. I list ten Augustan legions later destroyed (for example, in the Varian disaster) or disbanded. These plus the eighteen that survived to Dio’s time made up the total of twenty-eight legions in service in a.d. 5. For a summary of all twenty-eight see table 5. Cf. Syme JRS 23 (1933), 33; Keppie Making 214–215; Map 5. I. Possibly the mutinous legion stripped of its title Augusta by Agrippa in Spain in 19 b.c. (54.11.5), and, if so, subsequently transferred to Germany: a Legion I joined the mutiny in lower Germany on Tiberius’ accession (Tac. Ann. 1.31.3, 37.2, 39, 42.3, 44.2).170 Dissolved by Vespasian following the civil wars of 69–70: not only had the main body joined the Vitellian invasion of Italy, the garrison left in Germany defected to the secessionist Iulius Civilis. See RE 12.1379–1380; Syme JRS 23 (1933), 15–17, 33; Keppie Making 138, 156–157, 205; CAH2 10.280–281; M.P. Garcia-Bellido, “Lingots estampillés en Espagne avec des marques de légions et d’Agrippa,” in Légions de Rome 685–698. IV Macedonica. In Spain under Augustus (e.g., RPC 1 nos. 319, 325). Transferred to upper Germany in the mobilization of forces preceding Roman expansion into Britain; apparently reconstituted by Vespasian as IV Flavia (below) on account of its complicity in the insurrection of Iulius Civilis (cf. I). See RE 12.1550– 1554; Syme JRS 23 (1933), 22–23, 33; Le Roux Armée 85. V Alaudae. In Spain, then Gaul, where it lost its eagle in the Lollian disaster of ?17 b.c. (Vell. 2.97.1; on 54.20.4–6), it was one of the mutinous legions of lower Germany on Tiberius’ accession (Tac. Ann. 1.31.3, 45.1), no doubt having been transferred there from upper Germany after the Varian disaster of a.d. 9. It did not survive the Flavian period. See RE 12.1569–1570; Syme JRS 23 (1933), 17–19; Le Roux Armée 84; Keppie Army 214; K. Strobel, “Die Legio V Alaudae in Moesien: Eine Phantomtruppe der römischen Militärgeschichte,” Historia 37 (1988), 504–508; Wilkes “Legions” 108. IX Hispana. In Spain, then Illyricum (cf. 55.29.1n, 32.3n) under Augustus. It joined the mutiny in Pannonia on Tiberius’ accession (Tac. Ann. 1.23.5, 30.4). See 170. Presumably its transfer was not initially to lower Germany since it outlived the legions annihilated there under Varus in a.d. 9. At some point it earned the title Germanica: e.g., ILS 2342, ‘leg. prim. Germanic.;’ AE (1976), no. 515, ‘IG;’ cf. ILS 2245, ‘leg. I.’

22.3–24.9: The Year a.d. 5

165

Table 5 Summary of Augustan Legions, A.D. 5 (Total: 28) LOCATION (AND TOTAL NUMBER)

LEGIONS

Spain Raetia Upper Germany Lower Germany Illyricum

(4) (2) (2) (3) (5)

Moesia Galatia-Pamphylia Syria Egypt Africa

(3) (2) (4) (2) (1)

II Augusta, IV Macedonica, VI Victrix, X Gemina XVI Gallica, XXI Rapax I, V Alaudae XVII, XVIII, XIX IX Hispana, XIII Gemina, XIV Gemina, XV Apollinaris, XX [later Valeria Victrix] IV Scythica, VIII Augusta, XI [later Claudia] V Macedonica, VII ?Macedonica [later Claudia] III Gallica, VI Ferrata, X (Fretensis), XII Fulminata III Cyrenaica, XXII Deiotariana III Augusta

Cf. Map 5 inset.

Syme JRS 23 (1933), 22–23, 29–30; stationed in Britain from the invasion in 43, it was evidently transferred to Lower Germany in the early second century, after which it disappears from history (it is missing from the Antonine catalogue of legions in ILS 2288).171 XVI Gallica. After service in Raetia, transferred to upper Germany, at the latest following the Varian disaster of a.d. 9 (cf. Tac. Ann. 1.37.3); reconstituted by Vespasian as XVI Flavia (below) on account of its complicity in the defection of Iulius Civilis (cf. IV Macedonica). See Syme JRS 23 (1933), 28–29, 33; cf. Schön Beginn 100–102, entertaining a move of XVI Gallica from Raetia to Germany before 9. XVII. Though its number is nowhere attested, a Legion XVII is generally held to have fallen in lower Germany in a.d. 9, together with XVIII and XIX and their commander Quinctilius Varus. See RE 12.1767–1768; L. Keppie, “Legiones XVII, XVIII, XIX: Exercitus Omnium Fortissimus,” in Roman Frontier Studies 1995 (Proceedings of the XVth International Congress of Roman Frontier Studies) (Oxford, 1997), 393–397; R. Wiegels, “Legiones XVII, XVIII, XIX,” in Légions de Rome 75– 81; 56.19.1n, 22.1n. XVIII. Destroyed in the Varian disaster. See especially ILS 2244 = EJ no. 45 = TDGR 6.23. Cf. XVII. XIX. Destroyed in the Varian disaster; see Tac. Ann. 1.60.3. Cf. XVII. XXI Rapax. After service in Raetia (cf. XVI Gallica), transferred to lower Germany following the Varian disaster, where it mutinied on Tiberius’ accession (Tac. Ann. 1.31.3, 45.1). It did not survive the Flavian period. See RE 12.1781–1782, 1788–1790; Syme JRS 23 (1933), 28–29, 33; Schön Beginn 96–102; K. Strobel, Die Donaukriege Domitians (Bonn, 1989), 99–101 (destroyed by Iazyges in 92; cf. Suet. Dom. 6.1 with n of B.W. Jones, Suetonius Domitian [Bristol, 1996]). XXII Deiotariana. In Egypt under Augustus (S. Daris, Documenti per la storia dell’ esercito romano in Egitto [Milano, 1964], no. 66 = Campbell Army no. 185, 171. On the history and disappearance of IX Hispana, “a legion in search of a disaster,” a good place to start is L. Keppie, “Legio VIIII in Britain: the Beginning and the End,” in Brewer Fortresses 83–100, with bibliography; cf. Birley Papers 316–325 (“The Fate of the Ninth Legion”), proposing that it was destroyed by Chosroes of Parthia at Elegeia in Armenia in 161 (cf. Dio 71.2.1).

166

Commentary on Book 55 3/2 b.c.; it is documented simply as Legion XXII). It survived into the second century, perhaps to be destroyed in the Bar Kokhba rebellion under Hadrian (though the case for this is purely circumstantial).172

24.1–4: (3) Legions Formed after Augustus (Digression) To his list of legions in service in a.d. 5 and still extant when he wrote (see on 55.23.2–6) Dio now adds a list of fourteen legions created after Augustus in seasons of crisis or expansion. I briefly identify these below following Dio’s order, which is chronological by date of formation, quoting him on the location of each when he wrote. The two lists together make up the Severan total of thirty-three legions.173 Legion XX〈II〉, which Dio took erroneously to be Augustan (see above s.v.) should properly head the following list. Cf. the helpful table 33 in Mann Recruitment, facing 160. I Italica. “Wintering in Lower Moesia.” Formed by Nero with Italian recruits for his projected expedition “to the Caspian Gates” (Suet. Nero 19.2; cf. Tac. Hist. 1.6.2), it fought on the losing Vitellian side in the civil wars of 68–69. Vespasian stationed it in Moesia. For its service in Lower Moesia in Dio’s time see ILS 2295 (a.d. 224) = Campbell Army no. 217. See RE 12.1407–1417; Wilkes “Legions” 105–106. I Adiutrix. Stationed “in Lower Pannonia.” It was Galba who under stress of events formally constituted I Adiutrix as a standing legion, though originally Nero had assembled it from noncitizen personnel in the Roman fleet as an emergency force against Galba: see D. Kienast, Untersuchungen zu den Kriegsflotten der römischen Kaiserzeit (Bonn, 1966), 61–62; H.F. Millar, “Legio I Adjutrix,” G&R 28 (1981), 73–80; cf. ILS 1988; Tac. Hist. 1.6.2; 2.43.1. Wilkes “Legions” 105 gives a brief history. This entry in Dio’s legionary list provides an important clue as to when he composed the History. Through a redrawing of the border between Upper and Lower Pannonia in 214, Brigetio, the base of I Adiutrix, previously in Upper Pannonia, was annexed to Lower Pannonia (see Map 5). In locating I Adiutrix in Lower Pannonia, Dio shows that he did not compose our entry (or, apparently, the rest of the excursus) before 214. See Barnes Phoenix 38 (1984), 251; Millar Study 210 with references; Mócsy Pannonia 198 and figure 59 (foldout map).174 VII Gemina. “In Spain.” Formed as VII Hispana by Galba in his crusade against Nero (AE [1972], 203; Tac. Hist. 1.6.2; 2.11.1). Reconstituted as VII Gemina by

172. On XXII Deiotariana see RE 12.1791–1795; Syme JRS 23 (1933), 19–21; Mitchell CQ 26 (1976), 299– 301; M.P. Speidel, “Augustus’ Deployment of the Legions in Egypt,” Chronique d’Égypte 57 (1982), 120–124; L.F.J. Keppie, “The History and Disappearance of the Legion XXII Deiotariana,” in Greece and Rome in Eretz Israel, ed. A. Kasher, U. Rappaport, & G. Fuchs (Jerusalem, 1990), 54–61; A.R. Birley, Hadrian: The Restless Emperor (London, 1997), 268–269. Cf. M. Mor, “Two Legions—the Same Fate? (The Disappearance of the Legions IX Hispana and XXII Deiotariana),” ZPE 62 (1986), 267–278 (rejecting destruction in the Bar Kokhba rebellion). 173. Characteristically Dio takes the trouble to provide a comprehensive account: “having all the legions listed in one place will make it easy for anyone wanting information about them to get it” (55.24.1). Compare his surveys of the provincial system and monarchic institutions established by Augustus (53.12.1–16.3, 17.1–18.5). 174. For I Adiutrix as one of three legions in Upper Pannonia in a.d. 212 (with X Gemina and XIV Gemina) see ILS 2382, from Carnuntum, with 2288 (and Dessau’s nn); for I Adiutrix as one of two legions in Lower Pannonia in a.d. 228 (with II Adiutrix) see ILS 2375, from Aquincum.

22.3–24.9: The Year a.d. 5

167

Vespasian, apparently after heavy civil war losses (e.g., Tac. Hist. 3.22.4), it was based permanently in Spain (RE 12.1629–1632). For its presence there in Dio’s time see ILS 1176 (222/235).175 II Adiutrix. “In Lower Pannonia” from the division of Pannonia into two provinces early in the second century (RE 12.1445–1446); see ILS 9084 (Aquincum), 2410 (Aquincum, a.d. 210). Formed mainly of men from the Ravenna fleet who in 69 took the side of Vespasian against Vitellius, thus earning legionary status (RE 12.1438–1440; Wilkes “Legions” 106). IV Flavia. “In Upper Moesia.” Reconstituted from the unsound IV Macedonica by Vespasian (see on 55.23.7); stationed permanently in Upper Moesia from ca 86, where its base was Singidunum. See RE 12.1542–1544; Wilkes “Legions” 107– 108. Severan age inscription: ILS 2377 (a.d. 226). XVI Flavia. “In [Coele] Syria.” Reconstituted from the unsound XVI Gallica (above) by Vespasian (cf. IV Flavia). On its service in Cappadocia, then Syria, where Samosata had long been its base when Dio wrote (e.g., ILS 1142), see T.B. Mitford, “Some Inscriptions from the Cappadocian Limes,” JRS 64 (1974), 166–167; RE 12.1765–1766. I Minervia. “In Lower Germany.” Dio gives the sole direct testimony that Domitian founded this legion (cf. ILS 2279); its title honored the emperor’s patron deity (cf. XV Apollinaris, above). Stationed at Bonn in Lower Germany throughout its history, though serving temporarily elsewhere, for example, in Trajan’s Dacian wars. See RE 12.1420–1430. Severan age inscriptions from Bonn: ILS 9083 (a.d. 203), 9083a. II Traiana. Raised by Trajan, apparently like XXX Ulpia, for the war in Dacia; posted in Egypt from Hadrian’s reign, hence Dio’s label “the Egyptian Second” (not a title). II Traiana and XXX Ulpia “he named after himself,” sc. as M. Ulpius Traianus. See RE 12.1484–1489. Severan age inscriptions: ILS 2304 (Alexandria, a.d. 194) = Campbell Army no. 249; 8919 (Syene; inscribed under Macrinus’ prefect of Egypt Iulius Basilianus, whose fall Dio relates at 78.35.1–3). XXX Ulpia. Formed by Trajan for his war in Dacia; the number signals the raising of the complement of legions to thirty. Stationed permanently in Lower Germany from Hadrian’s reign, whence Dio’s label “the German Thirtieth” (not a title; cf. II Traiana). See RE 12.1822–1823; Wilkes “Legions” 113. Severan age inscription: ILS 4312 (a.d. 211, Cologne). II Italica. “In Noricum.” Raised like III Italica in Italy by Marcus Aurelius (Dio provides the only direct testimony; cf. ILS 2288 = Campbell Army no. 144), plausibly against the imminent threat on the northern frontiers. Stationed permanently in Noricum. See RE 12.1468–1470; G. Winkler, “Noricum und Rom,” ANRW 2.6.220–234; Mann Recruitment 63; Wilkes “Legions” 106–107. Severan age inscription: ILS 4853 (Noricum, under Elagabalus). III Italica. “In Raetia,” where it was permanently stationed. Cf. II Italica; RE 12.1532–1536; Wilkes “Legions” 107. I Parthica. “In Mesopotamia.” Raised by Septimius Severus, along with II and III Parthicae, for service against Parthia, it became, with III, the permanent garrison of the new province Mesopotamia, where it was stationed at Sangara (cf. ILS 9477 with Amm. Marc. 20.6.8). See RE 12.1435–1436; Forni Reclutamento 97– 175. Cf. R.F.J. Jones, “The Roman Military Occupation of North-West Spain,” JRS 66 (1976), 45–66 at 51–54.

168

Commentary on Book 55 99; J.C. Mann, “The Raising of New Legions Under the Principate,” Hermes 91 (1963), 484–486; Webster Army 93–95. III Parthica. “In Mesopotamia.” Cf. I Parthica. Stationed at Rhesainae. See RE 12.1539–1540. II Parthica. “In Italy.” Cf. I Parthica. From 202 II Parthica had its permanent base south of Rome on Mt Albanus (Map 4 inset),176 but it regularly accompanied the emperor on campaign, serving as a mobile praetorian (rather than a provincial) legion. Our knowledge of it has been enriched by excavations at Apamea in Syria, its station during imperial progresses and campaigns in the East, for example, of Caracalla and Severus Alexander; see J.C. Balty, “Apamea in Syria in the Second and Third Centuries a.d.,” JRS 78 (1988), 97–102. The disloyalty of II Parthica, stationed at the time at Apamea, was ruinous to Macrinus (cf. 78.34.2–5). See RE 12.1476–1480; Mann Recruitment 48, 63; C. Ricci, “Legio II Parthica,” in Légions de Rome 397–460.

24.5–8: (4) Augustan Forces besides Legions Following the digression on post-Augustan legions (55.24.1–4) Dio concludes his survey of Augustan forces. 24.5–8 nu÷n me;n dh; tosau÷ta teivch . . . tovte de; ejpi; tou÷ Aujgouvstou tou:: At present there are this many [sc. thirty-three] legions of men under arms from the register [tw÷n ejk tou÷ katalovgou strateuomevnwn], not counting the Urban Cohorts [tou÷ ajstikou÷] and the Praetorians [tou÷ doruûorikou÷]. In Augustus’ time, however, either twenty-three or twenty-five [cf. on 55.23.2–24.8] were maintained, as well as however many auxiliary forces— infantry, cavalry, and naval—there were (I do not know the exact numbers), plus Praetorian Guards 10,000 strong and organized in ten units, city guards [oiJ th÷" povlew" ûrouroiv] 6,000 strong and organized in four units, and foreign select cavalrymen who go by the name Batavians. . . . I cannot give a precise number for these last, however, or for the evocati. With ejk tou÷ katalovgou Dio seems to refer to an official register of standing legions or legionaries serving in them. The phrase recurs at 40.18.1 (an eagle is installed “in all the legions from the register”), 65.1; 59.2.3 (Caligula “paid the bequests to those outside Italy who were from the register”); cf. 41.55.2.177 24.5 Auxiliaries [summacikav]: Under this head Dio apparently includes noncitizen cohortes of infantry (some articulated with cavalry), alae of cavalry, imperial fleets, tribal contingents (the last often levied ad hoc: cf. 55.29.2; 56.19.4n), and forces furnished by dependent rulers like Juba of Mauretania, Herod the Great of Judaea, 176. Dio once calls it the “Alban legion” (78.13.4; cf. 78.34.2; 79.2.3, 4.3). 177. Suidae Lexicon, ed. A. Adler (5 parts; Leipzig, 1928–1938), 3.49 no. 630 glosses katavlogo" as “the register of those liable for military service” (hJ ajpograûh; tw÷n ojûeilovntwn strateuvesqai) or “the register on which they inscribed the names of those in service” (oJ pivnax ejû! ouJ ÷ ejnevgraûon tw÷n ejkstrateuomevnwn ta; ojnovmata). For the usage of katavlogo" in Greek states cf. RE 10.2470–2471 = Katavlogo" (Lammert).

22.3–24.9: The Year a.d. 5

169

and Rhoemetalces of Thrace. All together these may have made up some half the total military establishment (cf. Tac. Ann. 4.5.4, under 23). Garrisoning the vast Roman empire required far more, and more heterogeneous, manpower than its citizen population could provide. The most crucial requirements met with auxiliaries were for cavalry and archers. Select bibliography. G.L. Cheesman, The Auxilia of the Roman Imperial Army (Oxford, 1914); D.B. Saddington, “The Development of the Roman Auxiliary Forces from Augustus to Trajan,” ANRW 2.3.176–201 and The Development of the Roman Auxiliary Forces from Caesar to Vespasian (49 b.c.–a.d. 79) (Harare, 1982); P.A. Holder, Studies in the Auxilia of the Roman Army from Augustus to Trajan (BAR International Series 570) (Oxford, 1980); Kienast Augustus 325– 326; Keppie in CAH2 10.379–383; Webster Army 141–156; K.R. Dixon & P. Southern, The Roman Cavalry: From the First to the Third Century ad (London, 1992); OCD3 224–225. On the permanent fleets created under Augustus see C.G. Starr, The Roman Imperial Navy 31 b.c.–a.d. 3243 (Chicago, 1993; only slightly revised from the editions of 1941 and 1960); D. Kienast, Untersuchungen zu den Kriegsflotten der römischen Kaiserzeit (Bonn, 1966) and Augustus 326– 328; Webster Army 157–166; M. Reddé, Mare Nostrum: Les infrastructures, le dispositif et l’histoire de la marine militaire sous l’Empire romain (Bibliothèque des Écoles Françaises d’Athènes et de Rome 260) (Rome, 1986), 164–197 (main harbors), 470–502 (creation of permanent fleets); Keppie in CAH2 10.383–384. The most important naval bases were Misenum and Ravenna (cf. 55.33.3n); cf. Tac. Ann. 4.5.1 for Forum Iulii (Fréjus) in Gallia Narbonensis. to; aj k ribev ": “I do not know the exact numbers” of auxiliary forces. For similar admissions of ignorance cf. 55.23.2, 24.8. Tacitus resigned the attempt to determine auxiliary manpower under Tiberius: such forces were constantly on the move, and their numbers fluctuated (Ann. 4.5.4). 24.6 Praetorian Guards [swmatoûuvlake"178]:: Dio’s manpower figures for the Guard, “10,000 strong and organized in ten units” (muvrioi o[nte" kai; dekach÷/ tetagmevnoi) are evidently anachronistic—Severan rather than Augustan. Tacitus specifies only nine cohorts early under Tiberius (Ann. 4.5.3, a.d. 23). The number fluctuated subsequently (e.g., ILS 2701, a tribune of cohors XII praetoria under Nero; Tac. Hist. 2.93.2, sixteen cohorts under Vitellius),179 but there is no evidence, other than our text, for a complement of ten until the reign of Domitian, after which this was the standard (Durry Cohortes 77–81). For 500 effectives in each cohort under Augustus, rather than Dio’s 1,000, see Durry Cohortes 82–89; Keppie Athenaeum 84 (1996), 101–124 at 111–112, arguing from the limited capacity of the Praetorian camp.180 D.L. Kennedy, “Some 178. oiJ swmatoûuvlake" is variatio for to; doruûorikovn at 55.24.5; the Praetorians are doruûovroi at 55.10.10. 179. An inscription of Tiberian date naming a military tribune ‘cohort(ium) XI et IIII praetoriar(um)’ (AE [1978], no. 286) may mean, for example, that Tacitus’ figure of nine cohorts for 23 is wrong or that Tiberius increased the number after 23. But cf. Keppie Athenaeum 84 (1996), 107–111, resisting both these possibilities. 180. Tiberius’ prefect Sejanus consolidated the cohorts, previously dispersed (on their locations see Keppie 114–116), in a permanent camp on the northeast of the city (Tac. Ann. 4.2.1).

170

Commentary on Book 55

Observations on the Praetorian Guard,” Anc. Soc. 9 (1978), 275–301 at 275–276 holds that, although there may have been some pre-Flavian milliary (1,000 strong) cohorts, our Dio text is not evidence for milliary Praetorian cohorts under Augustus; rather Dio has erroneously retrojected to an Augustan origin the Antonine effective of “ten cohorts, each of milliary strength” which he had observed “during his own early life.” Further bibliography. A. Passerini, Le coorti pretorie (Rome, 1939); E. Birley, “Septimius Severus and the Roman Army,” Epigr. Studien 8 (1969), 63–82 [= Birley Papers 21–40] at 64; Kienast Augustus 329–330 with references; Campbell Emperor 109–120 (the Guard’s role in securing the emperor); Webster Army 96– 98; W. Nippel Aufruhr 161–171 (“Die neuen Ordnungsapparate des Principats”), esp. 161–165, and Public Order in Ancient Rome (Cambridge, 1995), 90–94; Robinson Rome 181–188; CAH2 10.384–385; Dio 53.11.5n; 55.10.11n. Urban Cohorts [oiJ th÷" povlew" ûrouroiv]: With “city guards” Dio refers exclusively to the Urban Cohorts (cohortes urbanae). His survey correctly omits the Vigiles (= nuktoûuvlake"), formed only the next year and numbering seven cohorts (55.26.4–5). Cf. 55.24.5 and 59.2.3, where he designates the cohortes urbanae as to; ajstikovn and oiJ ajstikoiv respectively. Created “to secure the city” (Suet. Aug. 49.1), the Roman “police force” was recruited from citizens and was commanded by the City Prefect (praefectus urbi).181 In describing it as “6,000 strong and organized in four units” (55.24.6), Dio has given figures from his own day. Under Augustus there were three cohorts (cf. Tac. Ann. 4.5.3), designated X, XI, and XII in sequence after the nine Praetorian cohorts; these were certainly quingenary (500 each), given prevailing military usage.182 See Keppie Athenaeum 84 (1996), 109–112; cf. above on the Praetorian Guards. Since Dio includes the Urban Cohorts in his survey, while omitting the Vigiles established a.d. 6, they were clearly in service by 5.183 The relative status of men in the Urban Cohorts is signaled by their receiving 500 HS each under Augustus’ will compared with 300 HS and 1,000 HS bequeathed to legionaries and Praetorians—one-third of a year’s pay in every case (56.32.2n; cf. 59.2.3; Suet. Aug. 101.2). Select bibliography. Durry Cohortes 12–16 (history); H. Freis, Die cohortes urbanae (Epigraphische Studien 2) (Köln, 1967), with comprehensive epigraphical appendix; RE Suppl. 10.1125–1140 = Urbanae cohortes (Freis); E. Echols, “The Roman City Police: Origin and Development,” CJ 53 (1957–1958), 377–385; Nippel Aufruhr 165–167; Robinson Rome 181–188; OCD3 356 (Campbell).

181. Dio records a single action of the urbani: they joined the outcry that prevented the execution, on orders given covertly by Caracalla, of the illustrious L. Fabius Cilo, a former praefectus urbi (PIR2 F 27) (77.4.2–5). 182. Since none of Dio’s figures for the number of Praetorian and Urban Cohorts (respectively ten and four) and their effectives (respectively 10,000 and 6,000) is beyond challenge for the Augustan period, it may be better not to put these down to error but to think that he has deliberately given contemporary figures to smooth the path for his reader. Should we perhaps take oi{ te swmatoûuvlake" muvrioi o[nte" kai; dekach÷/ tetagmevnoi to mean “the Praetorians, who number 10,000 and form ten units” (rather than “numbered” and “formed”), despite the grammatical strain? 183. For the range of views on when the Urban Cohorts were formed see Kienast Augustus 330–331; there is no direct evidence.

22.3–24.9: The Year a.d. 5

171

24.7 Equites singulares [iJpph÷" ejpivlektoi184]:: “and the foreign select cavalrymen who, purely because [o{ti dh;185] they are excellent horsemen, go by the name Batavians—from Batava, the island in the Rhine.” The equites singulares Augusti were the emperor’s personal mounted bodyguard—not to be confused with the horse of the Praetorian Guard (cf. 56.42.2n; Tac. Ann. 1.24.2; Speidel Riding 31– 35). Dio merely translates the title in use in his day, ignoring an earlier one. Other sources show that once in sole power Augustus relied on a German bodyguard— except in the panic following the Varian disaster of a.d. 9 (Suet. Aug. 49.1; Tac. Ann. 1.24.2 with Dio 56.23.4n). Their designation was (or soon became) Germani corporis custodes (cf. Suet. Cal. 55.2; 58.3; Speidel Riding 26); their complement was perhaps 500.186 From Augustus through Nero the largest ethnic component in the horse guard was Batavians (Bellen Leibwache 34–57), famous for equestrian and fighting prowess (Tac. Germ. 29.1; Hist. 4.12.3), with the result that the unit as a whole came to be known popularly as “the Batavians” (cf. Suet. Cal. 43, numerus Batavorum). Galba dissolved the German guard (Suet. Galba 12.2), and Vespasian, who faced insurrections on the Rhine, had little reason to reverse that decision. But Trajan reverted to a German bodyguard, henceforth officially designated equites singulares Augusti, and the appellation “Batavians” returned to use, clearly persisting, as our lemma shows, even when the proportion of Germans fell, especially under the Severan emperors, who drew recruits mainly from alae of the Danubian provinces (cf. Speidel Riding 81–86 at 83).187 Besides Bellen Leibwache and Speidel Riding cf. RE 3.118–121 = Batavi (Ihm); Durry Cohortes 22–23; Millar Emperor 62–63, antecedents of Augustus’ bodyguard; Webster Army 101–102; W. Will, “Römische ‘Klientel-Randstaaten’ am Rhein? Eine Bestandsaufnahme,” BJ 187 (1987), 1–61 at 4–10; M.P. Speidel, Die Denkmäler der Kaiserreiter: Equites singulares Augusti (Beiheft der Bonner Jahrbücher 50) (Köln, 1994) (fundamental). 24.8 Evocati [ajnavklhtoi]:: With ajnavklhtoi, from ajnakalei÷n (“recall”),188 Dio refers broadly to soldiers who, on completing their statutory term, were invited by a commander for further service under enhanced terms and conditions. Here and at 45.12.2–3 he traces the origins of the evocati Augusti of his time back to Octavian’s recalling of 10,000 legionary veterans of Julius Caesar to arms against Antony (cf. App. B Civ. 3.40).189 Under the Empire, however, evocati were recruited individually rather than en bloc (formally by the emperor) and, until the third century, mainly 184. On Dio’s translation of the Latin cf. Mason Terms s.v. ejpivlekto" and pp5, 16. 185. For dhv in causal clauses, “implying that the reason given is inadequate,” see Denniston 231. Here it fails to explain why the ethnic “Batavian” was used of a unit in which, by Dio’s time, Batavians had ceased to be a main element. 186. Bellen Leibwache 53–55 posits a minimum of 500. For a precursor German bodyguard of Julius Caesar numbering 400 see Caes. B Gall. 7.13.1; Speidel Riding 10–15. 187. Note also 69.9.6, where Dio labels Hadrian’s equites singulares (who were swimming the Danube in arms) as the “so-called Batavian cavalry” (cf. ILS 2558 on the same event; Speidel Riding 45–46, 122–123). 188. A loan translation (calque) rather than the loanword hjouoka÷tai that Dio uses at 45.12.3; cf. Mason Terms 5–6 and s.vv. 189. Still earlier Pompey had distributed 2,000 evocati through his whole battle line at Pharsalus (Caes. B Civ. 3.88.5).

172

Commentary on Book 55

from the Praetorian Guard; see, for example, ILS 2034 = Campbell Army no. 63.190 The suvsthma i[dion191 (= “separate unit”) to which evocati belonged was a small one, drawn selectively from retiring principales, “junior officers” ranking below the centurionate. Evocati carried staffs (rJabv dou" = Latin vites), Dio tells us, “like centurions” and were often promoted to the centurionate, mainly in the legions. Caracalla’s assassin Iulius Martialis was an evocatus (ejn . . . toi÷" ajnaklhvtoi"), aggrieved because he had been denied such a promotion (78.5.3; Speidel Riding 65–66). The assignments of evocati, though most often in Rome, could also be in provincial armies, and were various and responsible. They might, for example, be administrative, judicial, technical (e.g., librator = surveyor, architectus armamentarii = master builder in the armory), or instructional (e.g., exercitator equitum praetorianorum = trainer of Praetorian cavalry) (cf. Speidel Riding 148–151). See also RE 6.1145–1152 = Evocati (Fiebiger); Durry Cohortes 117–126; A. von Domaszewski, Die Rangordnung des römischen Heeres, 2nd ed., rev. by B. Dobson (Köln, 1967), 75–78; E. Birley, “Evocati Aug.: A Review,” ZPE 43 (1981), 25–29 = Papers 326–330.

55.24.9: URBAN AFFAIRS (CONTINUED) Resuming his narrative proper from 55.23.1—the new regime in soldiers’ retirement rewards—Dio now registers the first move in Augustus’ farsighted initiative of establishing permanent funding for their “maintenance and rewards.” This would lead, in the next year, to the institution of the Aerarium Militare (Military Treasury) as well as a new tax on inheritances, the proceeds of which would flow into the new treasury. Dio’s account of this initiative bridges the years 5–6 (cf. on 55.25.1–6). 24.9 povron tina; diarkh÷ kai; ajeivnwn wn:: Lacking money on this account, Augustus made a motion [gnwvmhn = relatio; cf. 55.3.6n] in the Senate that an adequate and permanent revenue source [cf. 52.28.4] be established to ensure that soldiers received maintenance [troûhvn] and rewards [gevra] abundantly from fixed revenues, without injury to any other party. “Rewards.” gevra = retirement praemia here (as also at 42.53.6; 48.8.5), though aj ¿qla is a more precise term (see 56.41.6). 190. Cf. J. Linderski, “Rome, Aphrodisias and the Res Gestae: The Genera Militiae and the Status of Octavian,” JRS 74 (1984), 78: “Cassius Dio is guilty of a grave but venial inaccuracy. He confused the imperial evocati with the republican emergency soldiers.” 191. suvsthma (other instances: 61.20.3; 74.4.6) seems to be Dio’s equivalent of Latin numerus, the broad term used of any military unit under a single command, in the case of evocati Augusti that of the Praetorian Prefect(s); numerus is most commonly used of native units bearing ethnic names, for example, numerus Syrorum sagittariorum (AE [1983], no. 976). Cf. RE 17.1327–1329 = Numerus (H.T. Rowell); P. Southern, “The Numeri of the Imperial Roman Army,” Britannia 20 (1989), 81–140, esp. 83–84, 131–132.

22.3–24.9: The Year a.d. 5

173

In a parallel text clearly deriving from a source shared with Dio (cf. Swan Phoenix 41 [1987], 286–288), Suetonius says that the Aerarium Militare was established “so that funds to maintain and reward the soldiers would be available permanently and without trouble” (‘ut . . . perpetuo ac sine difficultate sumptus ad tuendos eos prosequendosque suppeteret’) (Aug. 49.2). Brunt thinks that our Dio passage (in fact 55.24.9–27.5 in general) goes back ultimately to the acta of the Senate (CQ 34 [1984], 440 n85), which still had a voice in this aspect of military affairs. Dio apparently believed that Augustus was seeking a source that would fund soldiers’ pay as well as their pensions. If so, he was mistaken.192 Augustus in RG 17.2 says explicitly that the Aerarium Militare was established to pay retirement praemia, and is silent on any other purpose. The revenues dedicated to the new treasury would not in any case have sufficed to fund pay (Corbier “Aerarium militare” 198–199). Perhaps Dio’s misconception goes back to Augustus’ speech in the Senate and a platitude about supporting soldiers from enlistment to retirement, a notion discernible in Suetonius’ words ‘ad tuendos eos prosequendosque’ (Aug. 49.2). What Augustus said in advocating his project may not have matched altogether what the Aerarium Militare turned out to be. “Without injury to any other party” (mhdeno;" e[xwqen mhde;n lupoumevnou), sc. through exorbitant or violent exactions such as had marked Rome’s civil wars. See, for example, 47.17.4–6; 48.6.3 (under 42–41 b.c.). Cf. 56.41.6, where Tiberius, eulogizing the dead Augustus, recalls how he bestowed praemia on the soldiers “without harm to any other element” (a[neu tino;" eJtevrou blavbh"). It was thanks to the windfall from the capture of Egypt in 30 b.c. that Augustus was able to pension off the veterans of the Actian and Alexandrian campaigns without resorting to oppressive exactions (cf. 51.4.2–8n). In RG 16 he records expenditures, ostensibly his own, on praemia to a total of 1,260,000,000 HS, the earliest in 30 b.c., the latest in 2 (cf. Suet. Aug. 101.3). ajgoranomh÷sai ai:: “Since no one agreed of his own accord to be aedile, men drawn by lot from former quaestors and tribunes were obliged to serve.” The aedileship lost its prestige after the traditional responsibility of aediles for festivals and gladiatorial munera was transferred to praetors in 22 b.c. (54.2.3–4n). The fact that senators no longer had to fear the once burdensome expense of the office (53.2.2n) seems not to have attracted candidates. For tribunes who subsequently held the aedileship see ILS 906, 915 = EJ nos. 193, 197; CIL 10.6082. Cf. Cichorius Studien 288–289; Jones Studies 32; Frei-Stolba Untersuchungen 114. For shortages of candidates for the tribunate, which also had lost its former potency, cf. 54.26.7, 30.2. By final position in Dio’s year-account and by theme (junior magistracies) this discrete report looks like something that he has drawn from an end chapter in an annalistic source. 192. It is hard to think what else he can have intended by “maintenance” (troûhv), though his usual word for pay is misqoûorav (see 9.10.4, 10.8; 40.15.6; 41.28.1; 47.17.5; 67.3.5; 78.12.7, 17.3, 28.2; cf. 53.15.4) rather than troûhv, which he uses more broadly of “financial support” (42.49.4–5; 52.6.1; 55.31.4). Brunt and Moore (60) suggest that Dio mistakenly believed pay, as well as pensions, came from the Aerarium Militare.

174

Commentary on Book 55

55.25.1–30.6: The Year a.d. 6 Annalistic structure: urban section—end chapter—external section. The urban section (55.25.1–27.5) features new imperial institutions: the Aerarium Militare, an inheritance tax, and the Vigiles. The external section (55.28.1–30.6) summarizes far-flung troubles with Isaurians in Anatolia and Gaetulians in Africa, among others, touches on Tiberius’ campaigns of 4–6 in Germany, and expands on the outbreak of the great rebellion of Dalmatians and Pannonians. By locating the end chapter medially (55.27.6) and the external account last Dio is able to carry the rebellion narrative forward into 7 without a break.

25.1–27.5: URBAN AFFAIRS 25.1–6 Aerarium Militare (Military Treasury) Dio continues from 55.24.9 his account of Augustus’ quest for a “permanent revenue source” to fund soldiers’ “maintenance and rewards.” As noted there, however, we know from RG 17.2 that his project addressed retirement praemia alone, not, as Dio’s word “maintenance” suggests, pay in addition to praemia. Frustrated by widespread hostility to his fiscal initiative (55.25.1; cf. 56.28.4– 6), Augustus now forced the issue by establishing the Aerarium Militare. He made a start-up contribution of his own, and accepted contributions from certain others (55.25.2n, cf. 32.2n). Since these fell far short of meeting expenses, after inviting individual briefs from senators, he prevailed on them to institute his own solution, the vicesima hereditatium, a 5 percent tax on inheritances. Dio’s approving account of how Augustus addressed the crisis in military finance (55.25.3–6) corresponds contrastively with his assault on Caracalla’s grubbing of funds to lavish on his soldiers (77.9.3–7): cities offered Augustus money, Caracalla demanded it; Augustus declined individuals’ contributions, Caracalla exacted them; Augustus set the inheritance tax at 5 percent, Caracalla doubled it (and the 5 percent tax on manumissions); Augustus exempted close relatives of the testator, Caracalla made them liable; Augustus exempted the poor (but cf. 55.25.5n), Caracalla taxed every legacy; Augustus established a board to reduce government expenses, Caracalla was utterly spendthrift. Sources. Dio 55.24.9–25.6, 32.2n; RG 17.2; Suet. Aug. 49.2; Tac. Ann. 1.78; inscriptions (Corbier Aerarium 735–744 for a list). For sources and bibliography on the vicesima hereditatium see on 55.25.5–6. Bibliography. RE 1.672–674 = Aerarium militare (Kubitschek); Diz. Epigr. 1.302–303; RE 22.1257–1258 = praefectus aerarii militaris (Ensslin); Corbier Aerarium, esp. 664–669, 699–705, and “Aerarium militare” 197–234 (on the treasury budget); H.-C. Schneider, Das Problem der Veteranenversorgung in der späteren römischen Republik (Bonn, 1977), 236–244; Campbell Emperor 157– 176 at 172–173. 25.1 Lepivdou . . . !Arrountivouu:: On the consul M. Aemilius Lepidus see 56.12.2n. On L. Arruntius see PIR2 A 1130; Syme Aristocracy 260–263, 268–269, index.

25.1–30.6: The Year a.d. 6

175

Tacitus cites a tradition that the moribund Augustus judged both these consulars capable of ruling (Ann. 1.13.1–3).193 mhdei; " pov r o" o":: “Since no source of revenue could be found acceptable to anyone, rather all without exception were distressed that one was even being sought, . . .” The deadlock bridged 5 (cf. 55.24.9) and 6. 25.2 tamiei÷on . . . stratiwtikovn: “. . . Augustus contributed money on his own behalf and Tiberius’ to what he called the Military Treasury.” At RG 17.2 Augustus says that in a.d. 6 he paid 170,000,000 HS from his “patrimony” into the ‘aerarium militare’ (Greek: stratiwtiko;n aijravrion), set up on his recommendation (‘ex consilio m[eo] co[ns]titutum’) to pay praemia to soldiers who had served twenty or more campaigns; he makes no mention of Tiberius, whose property was legally in his control as paterfamilias (55.13.2n). By itself Augustus’ contribution could not last long, given a pension of 12,000 HS per discharged legionary (55.23.1). According to Dio, Augustus undertook to make yearly contributions (55.25.3), but neither Dio nor any other source says that he actually did so. (Did tax revenue eventually suffice?) Agrippa Postumus’ property was ceded to the Aerarium Militare after he fell from grace the next year (55.32.2n).194 Suetonius is silent on Augustus’ munificence (Aug. 49.2): ‘aerarium militare cum vectigalibus novis constituit.’ The Aerarium Militare was located on the Capitol, if not from the start, then at the latest by the reign of Nero. A military diploma of a.d. 65 certifies that its text was transcribed from a bronze tablet posted ‘Romae in Capitolio ante aerarium militare:’ AE (1978), no. 658 = M.M. Roxan, Roman Military Diplomas 1978 to 1984 (London, 1985), no. 79. trisi; tw÷n ejstrathghkovtwn wn:: Augustus assigned administration (dioikei÷n) of the Aerarium Militare “to three ex-praetors selected by lot for a three-year term.” For lists of these praefecti aerarii militaris see Corbier Aerarium 569–574; H.-G. Kolbe, “Der Cursus honorum eines unbekannten Senators aus Praeneste,” Chiron 2 (1972), 416–428. For individual prefects see, for example, ILS 3782 (perhaps a.d. 10: Corbier Aerarium 348–351); 2927 = Smallwood (1966) 230 (Pliny the Younger; cf. Syme Tacitus 77); 478 (Sex. Varius Marcellus, father of Elagabalus; cf. Corbier 437–448). Our sources, even Pliny the Younger, who held the post for three years, say nothing about prefects’ duties.195 Possibly, like bankers, they oversaw the security of the treasury (cf. Tac. Ann. 5.8.1) and the keeping of accounts of sums flowing through it; they were not concerned with collecting taxes to sustain it (Eck Organisation 129–132); cf. Corbier Aerarium 702–705. 193. Dio refers to L. Arruntius anonymously as an enemy of Sejanus (58.8.3; cf. Tac. Ann. 6.27.3; Dig. 48.2.12; R.S. Rogers, “Lucius Arruntius,” CP 26 [1931], 31–45); later he records his resolute suicide (58.27.4; cf. Tac. Ann. 6.48.1–3). An adopted son, L. Arruntius Camillus Scribonianus (cos. 32; PIR2 A 1140), rebelled against Claudius in 42: 60.15.2–3; for the natural father, M. Furius Camillus, cos. a.d. 8, cf. 55.33.1n. 194. H. Aigner, “Bemerkungen zu Kapitel 17 der Res Gestae Divi Augusti,” Grazer Beiträge 8 (1979), 173– 183 argues that the creation of the Aerarium Militare and the contributions to it by emperor and heir apparent were important in binding the military to the imperial house and securing the succession. 195. Pliny does sketch his duties as prefect of the Aerarium Saturni (Ep. 1.10.9–10 with Sherwin-White’s n).

176

Commentary on Book 55

Administration of the new treasury by a collegiate board of senators drawn by lot and attended by lictors (below) accords with its having been created by a senate decree, no doubt confirmed by a lex. While forcing the Senate’s hand on the issue, Augustus nonetheless respected its formal authority over the terms of military service (cf. 54.25.5–6; 55.23.1n; Tac. Ann. 1.25.3). rJ a bdouv c oi" . . . uJ p hresiv a /: The prefects of the Aerarium Militare had “two lictors each and the other staff they needed.” Dio’s interest never flags in entitlements of officials to lictors as public badges of power and status (cf. Frontin. Aq. 2.101): e.g., 54.8.4, 10.2; 55.8.7; 56.46.2; cf. Smilda 402–403. 25.3 nu÷n ga;r kai; aiJrou÷ntai tai:: Although the Augustan mode of electing prefects for the Aerarium Militare continued, Dio says, for many years, “now they are actually chosen by the emperor of the day and go about their business unattended by lictors,” changes that disclose the later monarchic inflection of the Principate. When selection passed from Senate to emperor is not attested; Corbier Aerarium 665 suggests under Claudius. ej q elontiv: “Though many private persons made contributions voluntarily (so they said at any rate), Augustus accepted none,” sensitive no doubt to the risks (apparent from his own career) in having soldiers look to privati rather than the state for their welfare. Gifts of cities (dhvmwn) and dependent kings posed less risk. Cf. 52.6.3–4; K. Raaflaub, “Die Militärreformen des Augustus und die politische Problematik des frühen Prinzipats,” in Saeculum Augustum 1, ed. G. Binder (Darmstadt, 1987), 268–269. In imputing hypocrisy to the individual donors Dio targets not them (I suggest) but the likes of Caracalla who exacted “voluntary” contributions (77.9.6–7, from Dio’s own bitter experience). 25.4–5 prosevtaxe . . . oujde;n ejdokivmase ase:: Augustus “instructed” senators to devise new revenue sources individually and to communicate these to him privately in writing. Dio pictures him as controlling events with masterful duplicity and takes the fact that he “did not approve a single one” of the senators’ proposals as “proof” (ajmevlei) that he had his own solution in mind all along—the vicesima. Cf. Reinhold & Swan “Assessment” 167–168.

Vicesima Hereditatium: 5 Percent Tax on Inheritances (25.5–6) Sources. Essential are Dio 55.25.4–6, cf. 27.1; 56.28.4–6; 77.9.4–5; 78.12.2; Plin. Pan. 37–40; cf. Ep. 7.11, 14; Suet. Aug. 49.2; Mosaicarum et Romanarum Legum Collatio 16.9.3 (Ulpian) = FIRA 2.589; Paulus Sent. 4.6 = FIRA 2.375–376. For collected sources see ADA 219–223; G. Rotondi, Leges publicae populi Romani (Milano, 1922; reprint, Hildesheim, 1962), 457. Bibliography. M.R. Cagnat, Étude historique sur les impôts indirects chez les Romains jusqu’aux invasions des barbares, d’après les documents littéraires et épigraphiques (Paris, 1882), 175–226, ample treatment of inscriptions; M. Rostowzew (Rostovtzeff), Geschichte der Staatspacht in der römischen Kaiserzeit bis Diokletian

25.1–30.6: The Year a.d. 6

177

(Leipzig, 1902), 55–57 (collection of the tax); Hirschfeld Verwaltungsbeamten 96– 105 (organization and personnel); RE 8A.2471–2477 = vicesima hereditatium (Wesener); S.J. De Laet, “Note sur l’organisation et la nature juridique de la ‘vigesima hereditatium’,” AC 16 (1947), 29–36 (arguing, against Rostovtzeff, that Augustus’ models in creating the vicesima were Roman rather than Ptolemaic); J.F. Gilliam, “The Minimum Subject to the Vicesima Hereditatium,” AJPh 73 (1952), 397–405; Corbier “Aerarium militare” 227–232; Neesen Staatsabgaben 136–140, with bibliography; Kienast Augustus 405–406; Brunt Themes 402– 406 (collection by publicans). Cf. Corbier Aerarium 701–702; Eck Organisation 125–128. 25.5 th;n d! eijkosth;n tw÷n te klhvrwn kai; tw÷n dwrew÷n, a}" a]n oiJ teleutw÷ntev" tisi plh;n tw÷n pavnu suggenw÷n h] kai; penhvtwn kataleivpwsi, katesthvsato ato:: Augustus “established the vicesima [tax of one-twentieth] on inheritances and legacies left by the dying to anyone except the closely related or poor.” The new tax was authorized by a lex (cf. Gaius Inst. 3.125), certainly based on a senate decree. Only citizens’ estates were subject to it: Pliny speaks of the tax as a liability of becoming a Roman citizen (Pan. 37.5); Dio says that Caracalla’s extension of Roman citizenship was aimed at making more people subject to taxes like the vicesima (77.9.5).196 The heir was responsible for payment of the vicesima, which was normally deducted from the estate (e.g., ILS 305, 5598; cf. Plin. Ep. 7.14 with Sherwin-White’s n). “Except the closely related . . .” Dio leaves unclear who qualified for this immunity (cf. 77.9.4–5, also imprecise). That only the first “grade of kinship” (gradus cognationis), that between parents and children, was exempted by Augustus can perhaps be inferred from Plin. Pan. 37.3–39.1, praising Nerva and Trajan for extending a first-degree exemption, enjoyed heretofore only by “citizens of long standing” (‘veteribus civibus’), to new citizens (for example, those who acquired citizenship per Latium or beneficio principis).197 For an inheritance of 200,000 HS immune from vicesima on kinship grounds see P Oxy. 1114 (third century a.d.), daughters heirs of their mother = Loeb Select Papryi vol. 2 no. 326.198 “. . . or poor.” Dio’s idea that heirs and legatees were exempted on grounds of their poverty appears unworkable; it would have required all potentially exempt beneficiaries to be assessed before vicesima on their portions could be waived. More likely estates below a set valuation qualified all beneficiaries for exemption. 196. For the notion that with the vicesima Augustus sought to equalize the tax burdens of peregrini and Roman citizens, the latter having been virtually exempt from direct taxation since the second century b.c., see Neesen Staatsabgaben 141–142; cf. Kienast Augustus 406 n94. 197. Trajan’s further exemption of inheritances to relatives in the second degree—siblings, grandparents, and grandchildren—seems to have applied to all citizens, not just those “of long standing” (Plin. Pan. 39.1–5); cf. Corbier “Aerarium militare” 228–229. 198. Wallace-Hadrill PCPS 207 (1981), 63–64 compares the exemption, under Augustus’ marriage laws, for nearer celibate or childless relatives of the testator from the penalty of incapacitas (disqualification from receiving inheritances and legacies); such exemptions (he holds) bespeak an ingrained Roman resistance to invasion of the family domain by the res publica.

178

Commentary on Book 55

Plin. Pan. 39.5–40.1 praises Trajan for establishing a minimum taxable summa so that “the small and meager inheritance [‘hereditas’]” would escape the burden of the vicesima. Possibly a similar exemption by Augustus, represented simplistically by Dio as an exemption of “the poor,” had fallen into disuse or been repealed in the interval (so J.F. Gilliam, “The Minimum Subject to the Vicesima Hereditatium,” AJPh 73 [1952], 397–405). Cf. Corbier “Aerarium militare” 229–230. Millions of heirs and legatees eventually felt the tentacles of the vicesima.199 Its administration became empirewide, as grave inscriptions of those who served in it show: see, for example, the index at ILS 3.1.431, 438–439; cf. Millar Empire 91 (general); Eck Organisation 129–145 (Italy). The jurist Paulus, writing on the vicesima, sketches the legal requirements for the opening, reading, and copying of the will, including preservation of the original under public seal in an archivum (Sent. 4.6).200 A letter of Pliny touching his five-twelfths share as coheir to an aggregation of farms in the Lake Como region suggests the complexities that collection of the tax—by publicani—could entail (Ep. 7.14, cf. 11). Dio’s brief reports show that the vicesima was seen from the start as a monster (55.26.1, 27.1; 56.28.4–6n).201 Kaivsaro" uJpomnhvmasi asi:: Augustus alleged that he had found the idea of a succession tax in “the acta of [Julius] Caesar.”202 I see no compelling reason to doubt this unique report, embedded as it is in a circumstantial annalistic section and possibly traceable to the proceedings of the Senate. 25.6 provterovn pote pote:: The tax “had been introduced once before, but was later canceled and was now introduced again.” Dio nowhere else mentions an earlier occasion, but Appian records a violent reaction when Octavian and Antony proclaimed a levy on inheritances (B Civ. 5.67, 40 b.c.). ajnalwvmata ata:: “Now while Augustus increased revenues thus, he reduced some expenditures and altogether eliminated others through a board of three ex-consuls designated by lot.” To my knowledge, no other source attests this board. The fact that its members were selected by lot suggests that it was established by a senatus consultum, and that its function was to devise economies in public rather than imperial administration. By placing his notice of a senior cost-cutting board in the prominent final position in a long segment devoted to public finance (from 55.23.1) the frugal Dio scotches any notion that Augustus increased revenues merely to squander them. Other commissions of ex-consuls established in this 199. Cf. R.O. Fink, Roman Military Records on Papyrus (Case Western Reserve University, 1971), no. 77, papyrus receipts for legacies of 100 HS subject to deductions of 5 HS for vicesima. 200. The vicesima was the subject of books by the jurist Aemilius Macer (Dig. 2.15.13; 11.7.37 pr.). 201. If it was under Augustus that the ill-attested 1 percent tax on goods sold at auction (centesima rerum venalium) was first channeled into the Aerarium Militare, Dio seems not to have recorded this; his mention of the tax at 58.16.2 under a.d. 31 sounds like his first. Already in a.d. 15, however, according to Tacitus, Tiberius defended the 1 percent tax, introduced “following the civil wars,” as a mainstay of the Aerarium Militare: Ann. 1.78.2; cf. 2.42.4; Corbier “Aerarium militare” 223–227; Sutherland History 49–51. Cf. 55.31.4n, a 2 percent tax on the sale of slaves introduced to fund the Vigiles. 202. These were decisions and plans left unexecuted by the dictator on his death (and in which Antony subsequently trafficked: cf. 45.23.6).

25.1–30.6: The Year a.d. 6

179

season of exceptional administrative activity were a board for the rationing of grain and bread (55.26.2n, a.d. 6), grain curators (55.31.4n, a.d. 7), and a board to hear embassies (55.33.5n, a.d. 8). Cf. F. Millar, “The Aerarium and its Officials under the Empire,” JRS 54 (1964), 40; Corbier Aerarium 686–687.

26.1–3 Famine in Rome Cf. Appendix 5. 26.1 limo;" ijscurov": “A violent famine” added to the Romans’ distress; Dio also uses ijscurov" of the famine that moved Claudius to construct his harbor at Ostia (60.11.1). This is the second of three consecutive years in which Dio registers famines: cf. 55.22.3 (5), 31.3 (7). Correspondences and divergences between his report and that of Suetonius (Aug. 42.3, citing a great sterilitas, “crop failure;” followed in Oros. 7.3.6) reflect in part their different selections from a common annalistic account going back ultimately to a senate decree—whence the “senatorial” provisions in Dio for recessing trials, allowing members to travel freely, and suspending quorum. Dio shows no knowledge of the document cited by Suetonius (Aug. 42.3 with Carter’s n) in which Augustus wrote that following the famine he considered abolishing the grain dole once and for all. The emergency removal of gladiators and slaves for sale (below), besides answering fears about public order, stretched urban food stocks by making the distant countryside provide for deportees. The effects in Rome of crop failure (Suetonius’ sterilitas) in exporting territories could be exacerbated by adverse sailing conditions, inadequate harbor or storage facilities, or deficiencies of distribution. See Brunt Manpower 703–706; P. Garnsey, “Famine in Rome,” in Trade and Famine in Classical Antiquity (Cambridge Philological Society suppl. vol. 8 [Cambridge, 1983]), 58, entertaining a link between the crisis in Rome and “Nomadic incursions into Africa Proconsularis” (cf. 55.28.3–4); Garnsey, Famine and Food Supply in the Graeco-Roman World: Responses to Risk and Crisis (Cambridge, 1988), 220–222. monomacou÷nta" . . . ajndravpoda ta; w[nia . . . qerapeiv a "":: “Because of it gladiators and slaves for sale were removed beyond 750 stades [= 100 miles, sc. from Rome], and Augustus and the rest sent away the greater part of their households, . . .” Cf. Suet. Aug. 42.3, “when he had expelled from the city gangs of slaves for sale, troops of gladiators, all foreigners except doctors and teachers, and some of the slaves [‘servitiorum’].” On Dio’s conversion of Roman miles into Greek see 56.27.2n. The gladiators were perhaps destined for a show in Drusus’ memory: 55.27.3n. dikw÷n ajnoca;" genevsqai qai:: “. . . and the courts were recessed, . . .” Clearly a reference to standing public quaestiones with their juries composed of men of substance. ej k dhmei÷ n: “. . . and senators were permitted to travel wherever they wished.” Since 29 b.c. they had been forbidden to leave Italy without instruction or permission from Augustus: 52.42.6–7n; cf. 60.25.6–7; Talbert Senate 139–140.

180

Commentary on Book 55

26.2 kuvria pavnta ta:: “So that there could be no obstacle from this to the passage of senate decrees, it was ordained that all decisions taken by those present at any session should be valid.” On senate quorum rules, now suspended, see 55.3.2n. ejpiv te tou÷ sivtou kai; ejpi; tou÷ a[rtou tou:: “Moreover, men of consular rank were put in charge of grain and bread to ensure that a set amount was sold to each person.” Under the next year (7) Dio reports that “in view of the dearth of grain Augustus again appointed two of the consulars as grain curators [ejpimelhta;" tou÷ sivtou], attended by lictors” (55.31.4). Levick Latomus 35 (1976), 307 n26 suspects that Dio’s two reports are a doublet. But his added mention of lictors under 7 can suggest a board somehow distinct in status (public, i.e., created by the Senate, rather than imperial?). The new officials, for whom Dio is the sole source, disappear from history after 7. As described by Dio, our board’s mandate was to ration grain and bread, apparently in the private-sector market, where hoarding and extortionate pricing may have been rife.203 It will not have been charged with distributing the monthly doles to the plebs frumentaria—the work of praefecti frumenti dandi of praetorian rank (54.17.1n). How far it was responsible for the supply of grain Dio leaves unclear, though scholars generally see in its creation a step in the evolution of the imperial annona from Augustus’ cura annonae undertaken in the famine of 22 b.c. (54.1.3– 4n) to the permanent praefectura annonae, which we first encounter, already in operation, in a.d. 14 under C. Turranius, a former prefect of Egypt (Tac. Ann. 1.7.2). Pavis d’Escurac Préfecture 17–19, 26–28 thinks that Augustus held a permanent cura from 22 b.c., but that it was still two aediles Ceriales created by Julius Caesar (43.51.3) who were formally charged with the grain supply until they proved inadequate in a.d. 6 and were superseded by consular officials. Brunt JRS 73 (1983), 60 argues that Augustus’ cura was temporary; the consular board was formed strictly to meet the emergencies of 6 and 7 and had responsibility for grain procurement; the equestrian prefecture of the annona first held by Turranius, though destined to become a permanent institution, may at first have been created only provisionally. See also P. Herz, Studien zur römischen Wirtschaftsgesetzgebung: Die Lebensmittelversorgung (Historia Einzelschriften 55) (Stuttgart, 1988), 53–87, esp. 70–71.204 26.3 ejpevdwke wke:: “Although [mevn in me;n gavr is concessive, as, for example, at 53.21.5] Augustus donated free to recipients of the grain dole as much again as they got regularly [sc. monthly], when that failed to satisfy them, he even forbade their 203. Jerome Chron. p170 registers an exorbitant famine-driven grain price in Rome under the previous year (5), when Dio records a famine but says nothing of its severity (55.22.3). Should Jerome’s fames ingens be identified with Dio’s “violent famine” in 6 and dated a year later? The price Jerome cites is 110 HS for five modii (this was the monthly distribution to a member of the plebs frumentaria). Cf. R. Duncan-Jones, The Economy of the Roman Empire: Quantitative Studies2 (Cambridge, 1982), 345–347 (“Prices at Rome”). 204. Dio does not record the inauguration of the praefectura annonae (unless in a now lost passage of Book 55 or 56), but he anticipates it at 52.24.6 (29 b.c.) when he has Maecenas advise Augustus to put a leading eques “in charge of grain and the market generally” (ejpi; tou÷ sivtou th÷" te ajgora÷" th÷" loiph÷"). For a list of Praefecti Annonae from Augustus to Hadrian see K.R. Bradley, “Claudius Athenodorus,” Historia 27 (1978), 339–342.

25.1–30.6: The Year a.d. 6

181

being banqueted at state expense on the occasion of his birthday festival.” In righteous indignation? To drive home the gravity of the situation? Augustus does not record this extraordinary dole (as he does one of 23 b.c.) in RG 15 (possibly never updated: Brunt & Moore 59–60). Suetonius perhaps subsumes it when he says that “during grain shortages Augustus distributed grain per man, often very cheap, sometimes free, doubling the number of tokens [‘tesseras . . . nummarias’]” (Aug. 41.2 with Carter’s n); cf. van Berchem Distributions 86–88. C. Virlouvet, Famines et émeutes à Rome des origines de la République à la mort de Néron (Rome, 1985), 115 n80, 116 n83 doubts the historicity of the double dole of 6 (also in Tessera 315–317); but the notion (basic to her doubts) that Dio here had Suetonius alone as a source cannot, I think, stand (cf. 55.26.1n). On the Augustan grain dole see also 53.2.1n; 55.10.1n. Augustus’ “birthday festival.” For testimonia on this festival see IIt. 13.2.512– 514; cf. 54.8.5n; 55.6.6n. The date (23 September) can suggest that the grain shortage persisted far into the season of maritime shipping and agricultural production, compromising the accumulation of stocks for the next winter (6/7). Its onset will have occurred during the suspension of the sailing season for winter 5/6. For its abatement cf. 55.27.3. Cf. G. Rickman, The Corn Supply of Ancient Rome (Oxford, 1980), 15, 128–131, 202; P. Garnsey, “Famine in Rome,” in Trade and Famine in Classical Antiquity (Cambridge Philological Society suppl. vol. 8 [Cambridge, 1983]), 61–63.

26.4–5 Vigiles Formed, a.d. 6 Sources. Dio 55.26.4–5, 31.4 (a new tax on the sale of slaves to fund the Vigiles); Str. 5.235; Suet. Aug. 30.1, cf. 25.2; App. B Civ. 5.132 (erroneously finding the Vigiles’ origin in a force created by Octavian to suppress brigandage in Rome and Italy); Dig. 1.15.1–5, “On the Office of the Prefect of the Vigiles,” a key text based on the Severan jurists Paulus and Ulpian that sketches the history of firefighting in Rome down to Augustus’ establishment of the Vigiles and describes the prefect’s security, policing, and judicial responsibilities. Bibliography. Baillie Reynolds Vigiles; Durry Cohortes 16–20; Hirschfeld Verwaltungsbeamten 252–257; RE 22.1340–1347 = praefectus (Ensslin); J.S. Rainbird, The Vigiles of Rome (diss. Durham, 1976) (non vidi); O. Robinson, “Fire Prevention at Rome,” RIDA 24 (1977), 377–388 (survey); Robinson Rome 106– 110, cf. 105–106 (firefighting before the Vigiles), 184–195 (the prefect’s jurisdiction, enforcement of law and order); Webster Army 99–101; Nippel Aufruhr 161–171, esp. 167–169, and Public Order in Ancient Rome (Cambridge, 1995), 96–98; Sablayrolles Vigiles, esp. 24–37. Introduction. Already before this Augustus had prompted public measures aimed at protecting Rome from fire. In 26 b.c. the main responsibility was entrusted to the aediles, in 22 specifically the curule aediles supported by 600 public slaves (53.24.6; 54.2.4n; cf. Dig. 1.15.1). In 7 b.c., with the administrative reorganization of Rome into fourteen Regions embracing over two hundred vici

182

Commentary on Book 55

(“wards”), this force was transferred to the colleges of vicomagistri (55.8.7n).205 In a.d. 6, however, after far-flung fires showed existing measures to be inadequate, Augustus stepped in imperially, creating the Vigiles, a standing professional brigade of perhaps 3,500 freedmen under an equestrian prefect appointed by himself (cf. Dig. 1.2.2.33). Its purpose was above all to secure the city against fire, though it also had some responsibility for public order (cf. 55.26.4n on the duties of the prefect), assisting in this domain Rome’s primary police force, the Urban Cohorts, already in existence by this time (55.24.6n). 26.4 puri; dieûqavrh h:: “Since about this time many parts of the city were destroyed by fire, . . .” Probably these are the “several fires that broke out in a single day” that Paulus says motivated Augustus to take fire protection into his own hands (Dig. 1.15.1–3). ejxeleuqevrou" eJptach÷/: “. . . Augustus enlisted freedmen in seven units to protect it . . .” Cf. Str. 5.235 (contemporary): “he formed a military force of freedmen to fight fires;” Suet. Aug. 25.2; Tac. Ann. 13.27.1.206 The seven cohorts were presumably quingenary (500 men each), though there is no direct evidence for this, rather than, as later, milliary (1,000 men each) or larger (cf. 55.24.6n). According to Paulus (Dig. 1.15.3 pr.) Augustus stationed them “in suitable locations so that each cohort guards two Regions of the city.” Dio contrasts the concentration of the Praetorian cohorts in a single fort (tei÷co") by Sejanus with the continuing dispersion of the Vigiles (57.19.6, under 20). The fact that Vigiles received the same sum as legionaries under Tiberius’ will shows that, at least by then, they earned the same pay, 900 HS per annum (59.2.3; cf. 56.32.2n). See Baillie Reynolds Vigiles 22–28; Durry Cohortes 18; Robinson Rome 185 with references; Sablayrolles Vigiles 27–37. a[rconta iJppeva: “. . . and placed an eques in command of them, . . .” This is the prefect of the Vigiles, praefectus vigilum. An e[parco" . . . nuktoûuvlax (“nightwatch prefect”) is among equestrian officers that Dio has Maecenas advise Augustus to create (52.24.4, 6; cf. 52.33.1; 58.9.3). In time the prefect’s duties included, besides fighting fires and fire prevention (enforceable through corporal punishment), jurisdiction in cases of arson, theft, looting, fraud by bath attendants, etc.; protection of apartments and granaries against breaking and entering; and recovery of runaway slaves (Paulus in Dig. 1.15). See Sablayrolles Vigiles 67– 136, “La préfecture des vigiles, 475–525 for a list of prefects. 205. The quota of each vicus will have amounted to only two or three slaves if the 600 were distributed vicus by vicus. It might be better to imagine larger groups strategically located (anticipating the stations of the Vigiles?) with vicomagistri calling on the nearest when facing a local emergency. 206. Who were initially recruited as Vigiles? Sablayrolles Vigiles 35–42 thinks that a majority were Junian Latins, a category of freedmen who lacked the full rights of Roman citizenship enjoyed by those freed under the stringent conditions of the Lex Aelia Sentia of a.d. 4. The minimum age for manumission under this law was thirty (55.13.7n), past the prime season for enlistment in the Vigiles, so that few liberti created under it are likely to have entered the force. The Lex Visellia of a.d. 24 provided for promotion of Junian Latins to Roman citizenship after six years of service in the Vigiles: Gaius Inst. 1.32b; Ulp. Tit. 3.5 = FIRA 2.267. An available source of experienced firefighters was the 600 public slaves attached to the vici. Were they manumitted and incorporated in the Vigiles?

25.1–30.6: The Year a.d. 6

183

wJ " kai; . . . dialuv s wn wn:: “. . . as if intending to disband them soon.” If this was ever Augustus’ intent, he shortly abandoned it: the next year he introduced a tax on the sale of slaves at auction to provide a permanent revenue source for the Vigiles (55.31.4n). 26.5 kai; nu÷ n: “These Vigiles exist even now as a kind of separate force, though formed no longer just of freedmen but also of others, and have forts in the city and receive pay from the Aerarium [dhmosivou],” sc. the Aerarium Saturni, no doubt the source of their pay since the brigade’s creation by Augustus. More freeborn than freedman Vigiles are attested on a bronze tablet of Severan date from the station of the fourth cohort (ILS 2163). The “forts [teivch] in the city” are the seven permanent stationes of the cohorts. These are attested in inscriptions, and some remains have been located, clearly post-Augustan: see Baillie Reynolds Vigiles 43–63; J.S. Rainbird, “The Fire Stations of Imperial Rome,” PBSR 54 (1986), 147–169 (fundamental); also Richardson Dictionary 92–93; LTUR 1.292–294 (Ramieri); cf. Platner & Ashby 128–130; Nash Dictionary 1.264–267. Dio has written a characteristic note on the survival and modification of an Augustan institution through the two intervening centuries.

27.1–3 Turmoil in Rome, a.d. 6 Scholars differ on whether we have here a discrete episode or one linked to a protracted dynastic conflict which between 6 and 8 led to the internment of Augustus’ grandchildren Agrippa Postumus and Julia, condemnation of Julia’s husband L. Aemilius Paullus, and relegation of her paramour D. Iunius Silanus and (possibly) the poet Ovid. Dio names none of these casualties here. Bibliography, in brief selection: F. Norwood, “The Riddle of Ovid’s Relegatio,” CP 58 (1963), 150–163; Bauman Impietas 25–51 (an attempt at combining the literary evidence for the troubles of 6–8 with testimonia of jurists on the creation of law on verbal treason); Levick Tiberius 54–61 and Latomus 35 (1976), 301– 339 (linking our disturbances with an intrigue aimed at reactivating the Julian cause around Agrippa Postumus and Julia neptis); Syme Ovid 205–212, cf. Aristocracy 115–127 (severing the turmoil in 6 from the fall, in 8, of Julia neptis and her husband); Kienast Augustus 143–144; Birch “Settlement” 450–451 (close to Levick); G. Muciaccia, “In tema di repressione delle opere infamanti (Dio 55.27),” in Studi in onore di Arnaldo Biscardi, 5 (Milano, 1984), 61–78; R.D. Weigel, “Augustus’ Relations with the Aemilii Lepidi—Persecution and Patronage,” RhM 128 (1985), 185–186; Raaflaub & Samons “Opposition” 430– 431; Mette-Dittmann Ehegesetze 97–100. 27.1 o{ m ilo" . . . h[ s calle calle:: “The people were restive, afflicted by the famine [55.26.1–3], the tax [55.25.5–6, the vicesima], and their losses from the fire [55.26.4], . . .” Dio simply parcels available troubles together, so that the focus of the turmoil can only be guessed. It is anything but clear how he thought the inheritance tax, which he says exempted the poor (55.25.5n), exercised the com-

184

Commentary on Book 55

mon people (on o{milo" cf. Yavetz Plebs 141–142);207 the fire may have preceded the present year (note the approximate ejn tw÷/ crovnw/ touvtw/ at 55.26.4)—in any event Augustus’ formation of the Vigiles should have served to undercut protests on this score. dielavloun oun:: “. . . and they engaged in a lot of revolutionary talk, even openly, but still more they posted pamphlets under cover of night.” dialalei÷n fits furtive utterances of the troubled or dissident: cf. 42.28.1; 65.13.2. Carter 177 takes Suet. Aug. 55, commending Augustus’ restrained response to defamatory pamphleteers, as referring to the same event; if this is right, the affair seems to have posed no major threat. 27.2 Pouplivou tino;" @Rouvûou ou:: “The rumor was that these things were happening through the intrigue of a certain Publius Rufus [tinov" does not signal obscurity: cf. 49.16.2, 22.6]; suspicion pointed elsewhere, however. Since Rufus was incapable of either conceiving or carrying out any of them,208 others were thought to be using his name falsely for seditious ends.” Scholars generally identify Dio’s Publius Rufus with the Plautius Rufus in Suetonius’ list of conspirators against Augustus (Aug. 19.1), where Plautius Rufus is linked with Lucius Paul(l)us, the emperor’s “grandson-in-law” (‘exin Plauti Rufi Lucique Pauli progeneri sui’). They accordingly posit a conspiracy in 6 of a Publius Plautius Rufus with Lucius Aemilius Paullus (cos. a.d. 1; PIR2 A 391), husband of Julia neptis. See, for example, Boissevain ad loc.; Levick Latomus 35 (1976), 304; Meise Untersuchungen 35–48. From this flow all manner of theories as to the nature of the plot and its involvement of others, notably the younger Julia, depending on how the various testimonia are worked in, especially Suet. Aug. 65.1, 4, 72.3, 101.3; Claud. 26.1; Plin. HN 7.149–150; Tac. Ann. 3.24.3–4; 4.71.4; Schol. Iuv. 6.158. Cf. Levick Latomus 35 (1976), 306–309. But the hypothesis leaguing Dio’s Publius Rufus and Suetonius’ Lucius Paul(l)us in conspiracy in 6 is fragile. First, Julia neptis evidently fell from grace not then but in 8, seeing that she died in 28 after twenty years of exile (Tac. Ann. 4.71.4); the attempt to set her husband Paullus’ fall two years earlier, thus segregating it from hers, collides with Suet. Claud. 26.1, which links their transgressions: the young Claudius (emperor-to-be) dissolved his betrothal to their daughter because “they had offended Augustus.” Second, Dio’s failure to mention the momentous names of Julia and Paullus under 6 suggests that they do not belong here and that their ruin may be lost in the huge lacuna in the sole manuscript containing Dio’s account of 8.209

207. There were popular pleas in a.d. 15 for relief from the 1 percent tax on sales at auction (Tac. Ann. 1.78.2; cf. 55.25.5n). 208. For inertia as evidence of innocence cf. Suet. Dom. 15.1. 209. Syme proposes that Paullus, on being condemned in 8, was exiled, not executed, since he was succeeded as Arval Brother only in May of 14, conceivably after being eliminated to secure the succession of Tiberius—as was Agrippa Postumus on Augustus’ death in August of 14. See J. Scheid, Les frères arvales: Recruitement et origine sociale sous les empereurs julio-claudiens (Paris, 1975), 89–93; Syme Ovid 210–211 and Aristocracy 123–125.

25.1–30.6: The Year a.d. 6

185

27.3 zhv t hsi" . . . mhv n utra . . . mhnuv s ei" ei":: “On this account a search for the suspects [aujtw÷n] was decreed, and rewards for informants advertised. Informations were being laid, and the city remained in an uproar over these too until the grain shortage [55.26.1–3] ended, and gladiatorial contests in Drusus’ honor were given by Germanicus Caesar and Ti. Claudius Nero, his sons.” “Gladiatorial contests.” Cf. Suet. Claud. 2.2; Plin. HN 2.96 (a meteor visible during the spectacle), 8.4 (dancing elephants); Ville Gladiature 105–106, 112– 113. Apparently the show belongs in the latter part of the year following the protracted famine (cf. 55.26.3n).210 The interval of fourteen years since Drusus’ death in 9 b.c. resulted in part from his brother Tiberius’ political eclipse (6 b.c.–a.d. 4). Gladiatorial combats in memory of Agrippa followed his death by five years (55.8.5n). Claudius, the later emperor, who turned fifteen in 6, is now mentioned by Dio for the first time (hence tria nomina).211 27.4 Dedication of the Temple of Castor and Pollux: “Tiberius dedicated the temple of the Dioscuri [Dioskovreion], inscribing on it not only his own name but also that of Drusus.” See Map 2. The original shrine (cf. 37.8.2) had been erected in the fifth century b.c. and restored in the second. Tiberius now rebuilt it anew with proceeds from booty (Suet. Tib. 20), clearly from Germany, where he and his brother, the new “Dioscuri,” had campaigned. The parallel between divine brothers and princely dedicators is drawn explicitly by Ovid (Fasti 1.707–708): ‘fratribus . . . deis fratres de gente deorum;’ also Val. Max. 5.5.3. The three surviving columns and high podium of the temple evoke the magnificence of Tiberius’ project. Tiberius also dedicated the restored Temple of Concord in Drusus’ name as well as his own (56.25.1n, under a.d. 10; Suet. Tib. 20). See Platner & Ashby 102–105; Nash Dictionary 1.210–213; Coarelli Roma 69– 70; S. Sande and J. Zahle in KAVR 213–224 (with a summary of findings from the 1983–1987 excavations); Richardson Dictionary 74–75; B. Poulsen, “The Dioscuri and Ruler Ideology,” SO 66 (1991), 110–146; LTUR 1.242–245 (I. Nielsen). On Caligula’s vainglorious annexation of the temple as an “entryway to the palace” (59.28.5; cf. 60.6.8) cf. Barrett Caligula 207–210. The dedication date of 27 January a.d. 6 is arrived at by combining (1) the testimony of the Fasti Praenestini (IIt. 13.2.116–117, 403–404 = EJ p46) and Ovid Fasti 1.705–708, which give the day, though not the year, with (2) Dio’s lemmatized report under the consuls of 6. See, for example, Syme Ovid 29. Levick Latomus 35 (1976), 327 n102 proposes 7 (at the earliest) on the ground that Dio places the dedication after the worst of the famine, therefore not in January of 6.212 I 210. Birch “Settlement” 451–452 places it in the next year (7), questionably; his date rests on Levick’s transposition of the dedication of the Temple of Castor and Pollux from 6 to 7 (cf. 55.27.4n). In RG 22.1 Augustus says that he gave eight gladiatorial shows (munera) in his own name or ‘filiorum meorum aut nepotum nomine’ (cf. 53.1.5n). The show honoring Drusus may well be one of these, seeing that Germanicus was by now Augustus’ adoptive grandson (55.13.2n), even though Claudius was not (detailed discussion in Ville Gladiature 105–106). 211. Despite Dio’s silence, Claudius had also been granted the cognomen Germanicus like his elder brother: 55.2.3. 212. Cf. J. Schwartz, “Recherches sur les dernières années du règne d’Auguste (4–14),” Rev. Phil. 19 (1945), 52, 89, keeping the dedication in January of 6 but moving the famine which Dio relates under 6 back to 5.

186

Commentary on Book 55

suggest, however, that, while recording the dedication under its proper year, within the year Dio has located it thematically rather than chronologically—the theme being posthumous honors to Drusus (memorial show and temple inscription bearing his name).213 Klaudianovn: “calling himself Claudianus instead of Claudius.” In dedicating the restored temple on his own and his brother Drusus’ behalf (cf. Suet. Tib. 20) Tiberius used his adoptive name but also advertised his Claudian ancestry, apparently styling himself Ti. Iulius Caesar Claudianus in the dedicatory inscription. No extant inscription attests this style; for Ti. Iulius Caesar Augustus cf. Crawford Statutes 1 no. 39 line 2 (= ILS 244 = EJ no. 364). Consol. Liv. 283–288 prophesies (ex eventu: cf. on 55.1.1–5) the restoration of Castor and Pollux and the inscription of Drusus’ name. For a hypothetical reconstruction of the inscription, based on exiguous fragments plus Dio’s text and Suet. Tib. 20, see G. Alföldy, Studi sull’epigrafia augustea e tiberiana di Roma (Vetera 8) (Rome, 1992), 39–58, esp. 53, figures 18, 79. 27.5 ej s eûoiv t a a:: Tiberius “was continually visiting the city.” Dio explains how, though on active service, Tiberius could attend the dedication. According to Velleius, he was in Germany until December of a.d. 4, then home, then back in Germany in early spring of 5 (2.105.3), then home again from Germany in winter 5/6 (2.107.3). The Illyrian rebellion may have prevented his returning to Rome in winter 6/7 (cf. 55.30.4–31.1). Cf. 56.1.1. ûobouv m eno" eno":: “mostly fearing that Augustus would promote someone else during his absence.” Dio credits an anti-Tiberian source; cf. 55.13.2, 31.1n. Levick Latomus 35 (1976), 326–327 detects Tiberius exercising vigilance against partisans of Julia neptis and Agrippa Postumus.

27.6: END CHAPTER On Dio’s placement of the end chapter medially in his year-account see the introduction to a.d. 6. 27.6 !Acai?a" a[rcwn cwn:: “The foregoing happened in this year [ejn tw÷/ e[tei touvtw/]. Also, when the governor of Achaia died, apparently in midterm, the parts on this side of the Isthmus214 [ejnto;" tou÷ ijsqmou÷] were assigned to his quaestor [tamiva/] to administer and the remainder to his assessor [parevdrw/]—whom we call a legatus [presbeuthvn], as I have mentioned.”215 A public province, Achaia was adminis213. Dio 55.27.4–5 may contain material displaced from its chronological home early in 6 by the narrative of administrative measures, famine, and political trouble in 55.25.1–27.3. 214. Sc. south of the Isthmus of Corinth: Dio views Achaia from a Mediterranean rather than a European perspective. 215. At 53.14.5–6 Dio explains his preference for pavredro" (assessor) over presbeuthv" (envoy) as a Greek equivalent for a proconsul’s legatus: a main function of the legatus was as a judicial advisor. The formal title was legatus pro praetore (e.g., ILS 1026: ‘leg. pro pr. provinciae Ponti et Bithyniae proconsulatu patris sui’), to be distinguished from legatus Augusti pro praetore, the title of a gubernatorial legatus in an imperial province (e.g., ILS 8704a, Agricola in Britain). Cf. Vrind De Vocabulis 91–92; Mason Terms 154; Rich 146.

25.1–30.6: The Year a.d. 6

187

tered by a proconsul of praetorian rank, assisted by a quaestor, typically aged twenty-five, who was assigned to the province by lot, and a legatus, whom the proconsul chose himself and who would often be related or socially connected to him. Cf. 53.14.5–7.216 For a similar expedient adopted on the death of a proconsul of Crete [sc. with Cyrene] under Tiberius see 57.14.4. The domain of the quaestor became the Peloponnesus, that of the legatus central Greece (on the territory constituting Achaia cf. 53.12.4n). Cf. E. Groag, Die römischen Reichsbeamten von Achaia bis auf Diokletian (Schriften der Balkankommission, Antiquarische Abteilung, 9) (Wien, 1939; reprint, 1976), 17, 157–162, esp. 157. This is a standard end chapter item, the death and succession of a magistrate (cf. 48.32.3; 53.33.3), introduced by a characteristic temporal phrase; see Introduction sec. 5.1. o{ te @Hrwvdh" oJ Palaisti÷no" o":: “Herod of Palestine, having been accused by his brothers, was exiled beyond the Alps, . . .” Cf. Str. 16.765: “He lived out his days in exile, having been allowed to reside among the Allobrogian Gauls”—specifically at Vienne (Jos. BJ 2.111; AJ 17.344). See Map 1. This is Herod the Great’s son Archelaus (PIR2 A 1025), whom Augustus had made ethnarch of Judaea, Samaria, and Idumaea (with the prospect of promotion to king) on the partition of the father’s kingdom on his death ca 4 b.c. (Jos. AJ 17.317–320; BJ 2.93– 100; Nic. Dam. in FGrH 2 A pp424–425). He is @Hrwvdh" ejqnavrch" on coins: Y. Meshorer, Ancient Jewish Coinage, 2 vols. (Dix Hills, N.Y., 1982), 2.31–34.217 See S. Safrai & M. Stern, The Jewish People in the First Century, 2 vols. (Assen, 1974–1976), 1.277–283; Schürer History 1.353–357; E.M. Smallwood, The Jews under Roman Rule: From Pompey to Diocletian (Leiden, 1976), 114–119; F. Millar, The Roman Near East, 31 bc–ad 337 (Cambridge, Mass., 1993), 41–43; Kokkinos Dynasty 225–229. “Of Palestine.” Dio apparently labels Herod/Archelaus “Palestinian” as ruler not only of the Jews proper (for whom he generally reserves the ethnic !Ioudai÷o") but of a larger, ethnically diverse entity (cf. Jos. AJ 17.319).218 He uses “Palestine” broadly (much as we do “Judaea”) of the whole kingdom (48.26.2; cf. 37.16.5), ethnarchy (as here), or province (e.g., 66.1.1), rather than of the national heartland (cf. 37.16.5–17.1). Thus Titus assumes the consulship of 70 in “Palestine” while campaigning against the “Jews” (66.1.1, 4.1; cf. 39.56.6). “Brothers.” These were Antipas, tetrarch of Galilee and Peraea (PIR2 A 746), and Philip, tetrarch of the northeast districts with his capital at Caesarea Philippi (PIR2 P 354; cf. 54.9.3n). Dio may err in saying that the brothers brought the charges against Herod/Archelaus: Josephus gives that role to delegates of the Jews and Samaritans whose accounts of repression impelled Augustus to try, and then 216. In general legates in provinces of praetorian status like Achaia went on to less distinguished careers than did legates in Africa and Asia, the consular provinces: W. Eck, “Zu den prokonsularen Legationen in der Kaiserzeit,” Epigr. Studien 9 (1972), 24–36 and “Beförderungskriterien innerhalb der senatorischen Laufbahn, dargestellt an der Zeit von 69 bis 138 n. Chr.,” ANRW 2.1.181–183. 217. For the argument that Herod now became a dynastic title—like Caesar—see H.W. Hoehner, Herod Antipas (Cambridge, 1972), 105–109; Kokkinos Dynasty 226 n78. 218. Cf. 60.8.2, King Agrippa I called “the Palestinian Agrippa.”

188

Commentary on Book 55

depose, the ethnarch (Jos. BJ 2.111; AJ 17.342–344). On the other hand, Strabo’s statement (16.765) that Herod the Great’s children “became enmeshed in accusations, with one living out his days in exile,” can be seen as supporting Dio. H.W. Hoehner, Herod Antipas (Cambridge, 1972), 104 thinks that Josephus may subsume the brothers anonymously among the leading Jews (AJ 17.342, oiJ prw÷toi) who accused the ethnarch. The fact that the removal of Herod/Archelaus stands in an end chapter is a sign that Dio has got the year right; Josephus sets the ensuing census in Judaea “in the thirty-seventh year” after Actium, i.e., 6/7 (AJ 18.26). to; mevro" th÷" ajrch÷" aujtou÷ ejdhmosiwvqh h:: “. . . and his part of the domain was annexed,” sc. his entire ethnarchy. For dhmosiou÷n in this sense cf. 38.30.5; 41.41.3. Whether Augustus now made Judaea a discrete province or attached it to Syria, he appointed the Roman eques Coponius to govern it, equipping him with the ius gladii; he also subjected it to a census conducted simultaneously in Judaea and Syria under the latter’s legate, P. Sulpicius Quirinius (cos. 12 b.c.). See Jos. BJ 2.117–118; AJ 17.355; 18.1–4, 26; cf. Luke 2.2; ILS 2683 = EJ no. 231 = TDGR 6.22. Cf. Syme RP 3.881–883; F. Millar, “State and Subject: The Impact of Monarchy,” in Millar & Segal Augustus 43–44; M. Ghiretti, “Lo ‘status’ della Giudea dell’età Augustea all’età Claudia,” Latomus 44 (1985), 751– 766; H.M. Cotton, “Some Aspects of the Roman Administration of Judaea/ Syria-Palaestina,” in Lokale Autonomie und römische Ordnungsmacht in den kaiserzeitlichen Provinzen vom 1. bis 3. Jahrhundert, ed. W. Eck with E. MüllerLuckner (München, 1999), 75–91 at 75–81. Against the general view, Cotton doubts that on Archelaus’ fall Judaea was reduced to an independent province, notwithstanding the advent of direct Roman rule with the installation of Coponius as its first praefectus;219 rather it became an appendix to Syria, as Josephus describes it at AJ 17.355 and 18.2 (th;n !Ioudaivan prosqhvkhn th÷" Suriva" genomevnhn; but cf. BJ 2.117), a status consistent with the frequent interventions in Judaea by legates of Syria; the promotion of Judaea to full provincial status, under a praesidial procurator, seems to Cotton to have come in 44, upon the restoration of Roman rule following the three-year reign of King Agrippa I. Augustus’ annexation of Judaea, including the sale of Herodian properties (e.g., AJ 18.26), may have been motivated partly by the same financial exigencies as prompted him to introduce the 5 percent inheritance tax in this year (55.25.4–6). Dio has contextualized his report of Herod/Archelaus’ fall so inadequately here that it is tempting to think that he has previously recorded the death of Herod the Great (ca 4 b.c.)220 and the succession to his henceforth segmented realm—logically in the lacuna after 55.9.7 that has erased events between 6 and 2 b.c.

219. His title can be inferred from that of Pontius Pilate, who governed Judaea a.d. 26–36 and is attested epigraphically as ‘[praef]ectus Iuda[eae]’ (AE [1963], no. 104 = EJ no. 369). 220. Last mentioned at 54.9.3 under 20 b.c.; on the chronology cf. Kokkinos Dynasty 372–373.

25.1–30.6: The Year a.d. 6

189

28.1–30.6: EXTERNAL AFFAIRS With kajn toi÷" aujtoi÷" touvtoi" crovnoi" (“in these same times”) Dio synchronizes broadly the events of 6 thus far narrated and the “many wars” he is about to recount (cf. 54.20.1). The earliest datable event in this often resumptive section is Tiberius’ invasion of Germany in 4 (55.28.5 with Vell. 2.105.1, cf. 103.3, 104.3).

28.1 Sardinia 28.1 lh/ s taiv: “For brigands were overrunning many places, so that in some years Sardinia [Sardwv] did not get a senator as governor . . .” A province “of the People and Senate” which at least to the present included Corsica (Str. 17.840; Dio 53.12.4), Sardinia now needed military specialists and a garrison and so came under the direct control of Augustus. Although Dio’s “in some years” suggests that these episodes were intermittent, Sardinia apparently acquired permanent imperial status before long inasmuch as Nero restored the province to the Roman People to compensate it for the loss of Achaia when he “freed” the latter in 67 (Paus. 7.17.3; cf. ILS 5947). On transfers of provinces between emperor and People cf. Talbert Senate 395; Brunt CQ 34 (1984), 432. Sardinia had a history of brigandage: e.g., Varro Rust. 1.16.2; Livy 40.34.13 (‘gente ne nunc quidem omni parte pacata’); Str. 5.225; Tac. Ann. 2.85.4. Cf. S.L. Dyson, The Creation of the Roman Frontier (Princeton, 1985), 259–263; in general, B.D. Shaw, “Bandits in the Roman Empire,” P&P 105 (1984), 3–52; R.J.A. Wilson in CAH2 10.442–445. stratiavrcai" iJppeu÷sin in:: “. . . but was entrusted to soldiers under equestrian commanders.” Dio uses a general term for the new governors; precisely how these were designated is unclear: a milestone dated 13/14 attests an official entitled pro leg(ato) (ILS 105 = EJ no. 232a); AE (1921), no. 86 records a ‘[prae]f(ectus) provincia[e Sardiniae]’ of Augustan date. Cf. H.-G. Pflaum, Les carrières procuratoriennes équestres sous le Haut-Empire romain, 4 vols. (Paris, 1960–1961), 1.10; P. Meloni, La Sardegna romana (Sassari, 1975), 129–133, 299–301 and “La provincia romana di Sardegna, I. I secoli I–III,” ANRW 2.11.466–467; R.J.A. Wilson in CAH2 10.443 n38. Cf. 55.10a.1n (under a.d. 1), a military commander sent to Cyrene, its cities having come under attack by Marmaridae. Also among the “many places” that Dio says brigands overran was no doubt Judaea, where the advent of direct Roman rule in 6 kindled rebellion under Judas the Galilaean.221 28.2 ej newtevr izon izon:: “And numerous cities were in revolt, so that the same men governed the People’s provinces for two years—what is more, after selection rather 221. Jos. BJ 2.117–118, cf. 433; 7.253; AJ 18.1–10; E.M. Smallwood, The Jews under Roman Rule: From Pompey to Diocletian (Leiden, 1976), 150–156.

190

Commentary on Book 55

than sortition.” Which cities these were is unknown. On the possibility of Athens, a free city in Achaia (Str. 9.398), cf. Syme RP 3.1188. An annual term and sortition were the rule for proconsuls: 53.13.2; on exceptions, which were no doubt authorized by senate decree, cf. 53.14.4n.222 The exceptional arrangements were presumably made only for troubled public provinces, not all; cf. 55.28.4n, Africa as a possible case in point. Cf. 54.30.3n; 60.25.6; Tac. Ann. 3.35.1–3. ejpi; pleivw crovnon on:: “Caesar’s provinces were assigned at all events to the same men for a longer period.” Cf. 53.13.6. 28.2–3 ouj . . . peri; pavntwn twn:: “However, I will not go minutely into all the wars. Many events not worth mentioning occurred in each, and a detailed account would be of no value. But I will relate events that deserve to be recorded, summarizing them, unless they are of great moment.” This prospectus sheds helpful light on how Dio wrote Augustan military history—and not only in the later reign but from Actium forward. With the exception of the narratives of Tiberius’ Dalmatian victory and Varus’ German debacle (both a.d. 9), which qualified as “very important” and so receive fuller treatment, Dio relates provincial and frontier wars mainly in jejune epitomes that abridge his annalistic source(s) severely. See Introduction sec. 5.3. For other statements by Dio on his method cf. on 53.19.1–6 and 54.19.1–3. 28.3 #Isauroi . . . katedamavsqhsan qhsan:: “Starting with brigandage, the Isaurians plunged into the horror of warfare until reduced to subjection.” See Map 3. Dio uses katadamavzein three times, always of taming the defiant forcibly (and properly) (cf. 50.10.4, freedmen; 78.39.4, soldiers); cf. Thuc. 7.81.5. No other source records this conflict, as far as I know. The Isaurians were a people of the Taurus Mts in the south of “GalatiaPamphylia” (on which see 53.26.3n), inland from Cilicia Tracheia and eastern neighbors of the Homanadensians (cf. S. Mitchell, Anatolia: Land, Men, and Gods in Asia Minor, 2 vols. [Oxford, 1993], vol. 1, endmap 5). Their conqueror was evidently M. Plautius Silvanus (cos. 2 b.c.), legate of Galatia-Pamphylia (SEG 6.646 = EJ no. 201; cf. Thomasson Laterculi 1.254), who in a.d. 7 would lead two legions westward into Europe against the rebels in Illyricum: 55.32.3n, 34.6n; cf. R. Syme, “Observations on the Province of Cilicia,” RP 1.147; Mitchell CQ 26 (1976), 298–303. On the Isaurians see B. Levick, Roman Colonies in Southern Asia Minor (Oxford, 1967), 203–206 and index; R. Syme, “Isaura and Isauria: Some Problems,” RP 6.287– 303 at 292–293; Mitchell op. cit. 1.73–79 (“The Pacification of the Taurus”), esp. 78; 2.152; OCD3 767–768 (Mitchell); cf. B.D. Shaw, “Bandit Highlands and Lowland Peace: The Mountains of Isauria-Cilicia,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 33 (1990), 199–233, 237–270. 222. For epigraphically attested exceptions note, for example, P. Paquius Scaeva, proconsul II, “sent exempt from the lot on the authority of Augustus Caesar and by senate decree to settle affairs for the future in the province of Cyprus” (ILS 915 = EJ no. 197; cf. Thomasson Laterculi 1.295); L. Nonius Asprenas (cos. suff. a.d. 6), proconsul of Africa for three years (IRT 346; cf. Thomasson Laterculi 1.373); C. Vibius Postumus (cos. suff. a.d. 5), proconsul of Asia for three years (OGIS 469; cf. Thomasson Laterculi 1.209).

25.1–30.6: The Year a.d. 6

191

28.3–4 Cornelius Cossus’ Victory over the Gaetulians Dio reports summarily on a war against “Gaetulians” on the southern frontiers of Roman Africa (cf. Map 5), no doubt a protracted struggle involving military and logistical challenges familiar from the Jugurthine war a century before. No Gaetulian adversary is known by name. Although the Roman satellite Juba II of Mauretania was the lightning rod of the war, its underlying cause was Rome’s inexorable and rapacious encroachments on the sphere and lives of border peoples: Africa yielded a harvest of triumphs, triumphal honors, and booty under Augustus (e.g., IIt. 13.1.569–571). The reign of Tiberius would see another African war (17– 24), against Tacfarinas, chief of the Musulami. Sources. Essential besides Dio are: IRT 301 = EJ no. 43 = TDGR 6.20 E: “Dedication to Mars Augustus by the civitas Lepcitana [Lepcis Magna] on the province Africa being freed from the Gaetulian war under the auspices [‘auspiciis’] of Imperator Caesar Augustus, Pontifex Maximus, Pater Patriae, and through the generalship [‘ductu’] of Cossus Lentulus, consul, XVvir Sacris Faciundis, proconsul.” Vell. 2.116.2, on Cossus’ winning ornamenta triumphalia in Africa and an honorific cognomen (‘Gaetulicus’) for his son as testimony of his victory. Flor. 2.31.40: “In the south there were disturbances rather than war. He (Augustus) suppressed the Musulami and Gaetulians, who dwell near the Syrtes, through the generalship of Cossus [‘Cosso duce’]. This is how Cossus got the name Gaetulicus, which overstates his victory.” Oros. 6.21.18 = TDGR 6.20 D: “In Africa Caesar’s general [‘dux’] Cossus confined the Musolani and Gaetulians, who were ranging far and wide, within a limited area and frightened them into keeping away from the Roman frontier.” Bibliography. Desanges “Drame africain” 197–213; Syme RP 1.220–224; M. Benabou, La résistance africaine à la romanisation (Paris, 1976), 43–66; Kienast Augustus 349–350; A. Gutsfeld, Römische Herrschaft und einheimischer Widerstand in Nordafrika: Militärische Auseinandersetzungen Roms mit den Nomaden (Stuttgart, 1989), 33–38 (“Das bellum Gaetulicum,” with analysis of the sources); M. Coltelloni-Trannoy, Le royaume de Maurétanie sous Juba II et Ptolémée (25 av. J.-C.–40 ap. J.-C.) (Paris, 1997), 47–54. In general see M. Rachet, Rome et les Berbères: Un problème militaire d’Auguste à Dioclétien (Brussels, 1970), 57– 81; D. Fushöller, Tunisien und Ostalgerien in der Römerzeit: Zur historischen Geographie des östlichen Atlasafrika vom Fall Karthagos bis auf Hadrians Limesbau (Bonn, 1979), 180–238 (esp. 210–214), 459–462; B.D. Shaw, “Fear and Loathing: The Nomadic Menace in Roman Africa,” in Roman Africa: The Vanier Lectures 1980, ed. C.M. Wells (Ottawa, 1982), 25–46, sympathetic to the nomads; Le Bohec Légion 335–343; S. Raven, Rome in Africa3 (London, 1993); C.R. Whittaker in CAH2 10.591–593 (“Augustan Expansion”), cf. 593–596. 28.3 (continued) !Iouv b a/ . . . aj c qov m enoi enoi:: “Gaetulians, angry at Juba their king and at the same time disdaining to be ruled like others by the Romans, rebelled against him.” On this highly favored ruler of Mauretania (who was also a scholar)

192

Commentary on Book 55

see 53.26.2n. Imprecisely, Dio writes as if all Gaetulians were Juba’s subjects. Gaetulian tribes ranged widely to the south not only of Mauretania but also of the province Africa, clearly beyond Juba’s purview.223 Dio evidently subsumes the Musulami, who are cited as confederates of the Gaetulians in Flor. 2.31.40 and Oros. 6.21.18, under the comprehensive Gaetulian name—the sphere of the Musulami was south of the Roman province. On the location of both peoples see J. Desanges, “Les territoires gétules de Juba II,” REA 66 (1964), 33–47; Syme RP 1.220–222. 28.4 Kov s son . . . timav" te ejpinikivou" kai; ejpwnumivan ajp! aujtw÷n labei÷n: “so that Cossus Cornelius, their conqueror, received triumphal honors and a cognomen based on their name.” On Cossus Cornelius Lentulus (cos. 1 b.c.; praefectus urbi a.d. 33–36) see RE 4.1364–1365 = Cornelius 182 (Groag); PIR2 C 1380; Syme Aristocracy 296–299. He served as proconsul of Africa 6–8 (5–7?).224 Cf. IRT 301 (quoted above, on 55.28.3–4) for commemoration in Lepcis Magna of his African achievement. Velleius registers his ornamenta triumphalia (2.116.2) but appears to indicate (against Dio and Flor. 2.31.40) that he earned the cognomen Gaetulicus for his descendants without being entitled to it himself. His younger son, cos. 26 (later executed for conspiring against Caligula: 59.22.5), bore this cognomen as Cn. Cornelius Lentulus Gaetulicus. See Talbert Senate 364, stressing the rarity of such honors outside the imperial house; P. Kneissl, Die Siegestitulatur der römischen Kaiser (Hypomnemata 23) (Göttingen, 1969), 24– 25, 32–33, questioning how hard and fast was the exclusion of the father. Cf. 55.2.3n, the cognomen Germanicus awarded to the elder Drusus posthumously and to his descendants. The award of triumphal ornaments to Cossus rather than a triumph proper illustrates the progressive exclusion of privati from the triumph under Augustus. In bringing the main theaters of war under his own command in the settlement of 27 b.c., Augustus set at three the number of garrisoned public provinces (Africa, Illyricum, Macedonia) and of proconsuls with the independent imperium and forces requisite for a triumph (cf. 54.12.1–2n). By Cossus’ day Africa alone of public provinces had a garrison—of a single legion (or at most two: cf. Syme JRS 23 [1933], 25). Agrippa’s refusals of triumphs voted to him in 19 and 14 b.c. discouraged proconsuls, whose achievements and prestige were inferior to his, from applying for triumphs (or the Senate from voting them): 54.11.6n, 24.7–8n. The triumphal fasti record only two triumphs of proconsuls earned after 27, both in Africa. Celebrated in 21 and 19, they were the last ever by privati. Apparently without legislation to this effect, triumphs were awarded henceforth only to members of the dynasty (under Augustus to Tiberius alone, in 7 b.c. and a.d. 12). It was to compensate for the withdrawal of the magnetic distinction of the triumph that ornamenta triumphalia were devised, entitling recipients, who might be legates 223. Under Augustus the province Africa included Numidia. 224. These spans are based on Dio’s annalistic date for Cossus’ success plus the assumption that he was one of the proconsuls given two-year terms in troubled provinces at this time (cf. 55.28.2). Cf. Thomasson Laterculi 1.173.

25.1–30.6: The Year a.d. 6

193

of Augustus as well as proconsuls, to visible insignia of the triumphator (for example, distinctions of dress and a public triumphal statue) though not to the full pomp and status (cf. 54.24.8n).225 Coins of Juba II of a.d. 6/7 and 7/8 bear triumphant images, no doubt advertising his part in the same war as brought Cossus distinction: J. Mazard, Corpus Nummorum Numidiae Mauretaniaeque (Paris, 1955), nos. 196–201, 282. J. Desanges, “Les territoires gétules de Juba II,” REA 66 (1964), 34–36, 46–47, with map following 40, deems Juba’s achievement to have been the suppression of Gaetulians, not in the region of the Syrtes (where Cossus operated: cf. Flor. 2.31.40; IRT 301, from Lepcis Magna), but far to the west—in or near his Mauretanian kingdom.

28.5–7 Germany: Campaigns of Tiberius 4–6 See Maps 1, 6 inset. Augustus sent his newly adopted son Tiberius to Germany in 4, where Velleius says an immensum bellum had broken out two or three years earlier (2.104.2; cf. 55.13.1an). Here Tiberius campaigned until 6, when the exploding rebellion in Illyricum demanded his presence there, aborting the invasion he had just launched against the Marcomannic kingdom of Maroboduus in Bohemia. Dio crowds the campaigns of 4–6 into a few sentences. He faced an embarrassment of military riches in treating Augustus’ last decade, and his solution was in general to abridge his material drastically, only occasionally narrating an episode at length and in style (for example, the clades Variana of a.d. 9); cf. 55.28.2– 3. In the present text he gives the barest notice of Tiberius’ penetration of Germany to the Elbe, victory honors, and two treaties struck with the “Germans,” who are treated as a monolith. Only from Velleius, who served Tiberius in Germany as praefectus equitum (2.104.3), do we learn that the advance to the Elbe entailed two campaigns, in 4 and 5, or discover names of German peoples subdued, won back (cf. Timpe Arminius 74–75), or encountered—including Bructeri, Cherusci, Chauci, Langobardi, Semnones, Hermunduri, and Marcomanni: 2.105.1–109.4, cf. 122.2. Dio refers only obliquely and anonymously to the campaign against Maroboduus in 6, on which Velleius expatiates (2.108.1–110.3). 28.5 tau÷tav te a{ma ejgivgneto, kaiv: “While these events were occurring, other commanders made campaigns against the Germans, and so did Tiberius.” Dio resumes his account of German operations from 55.13.1a–2 under a.d. 4, where he simply reported Tiberius’ assignment to the theater. Among “other command225. A few years before Cossus, another proconsul of Africa, L. Passienus Rufus (cos. 4 b.c.), earned not only the triumphal ornaments but an imperatorial salutation, perhaps in an earlier phase of the same conflict: Vell. 2.116.2 with Syme Aristocracy 162; ILS 120 = EJ no. 127 (a vow paid to Juno Livia, ‘L. Passieno Rufo imperatore Africam obtinente’); cf. RPC 1 no. 808 (a coin from Thaena styling him imp(erator)); Thomasson Laterculi 1.372–373. Schumacher Historia 34 (1985), 215–220 argues that, unlike Cossus, who operated under the auspices of Augustus (IRT 301) and so was not saluted imperator, Passienus Rufus had operated under his own auspices and could in fact have applied for a proper triumph—but did not. Schumacher discerns a watershed here. Though proconsul and imperator, Passienus settled for triumphal ornaments. Thereafter no victorious proconsul aspired to a triumph or (in the normal course of events) received the imperatorial salutation prerequisite for it. Cossus’ victory, Schumacher holds, provides a case in point. Cf. 55.10a.7n.

194

Commentary on Book 55

ers” were certainly the legati Augusti C. Sentius Saturninus (55.28.6n) and Valerius Messallinus (55.29.1n). Oujisouvrgou . . . !Albiv o uu:: Tiberius “advanced first to the R. Weser then right to the Elbe.” The first advance belongs in 4 (cf. Vell. 2.105.1, recording a crossing of the Weser), the next in 5 (Vell. 2.106.2–3). In 4, we learn from Velleius, the Bructeri (among others) were reduced, the Cherusci recalled to loyalty, and Tiberius enabled to make his winter camp in the heart of Germany (‘in . . . mediis finibus’)—“at the source of the R. Lippe” (‘ad caput Lupiae [Iuliae ms.] fluminis’), if Lipsius’ conjecture is sound (2.105.3).226 Sentius Saturninus conducted complementary operations (2.105.1–2). All this can suggest a double advance from Vetera by Tiberius and Moguntiacum (Mainz) by Sentius, asserting Roman control.227 The Augustan legionary base discovered in 1985 at Marktbreit on the R. Main sheds light on the scope and aims of Roman operations in these years. Cf. M. Pietsch, “Das augusteische Legionslager Marktbreit: Aktuelles zum Forschungsstand,” in Wiegels & Woesler Arminius 41– 66, suggesting (at 55–56) that Marktbreit was an important link in a communications chain (still to be unearthed) that penetrated Germany eastward from Moguntiacum like the chain along the Lippe; H. Cüppers, ed., Die Römer in Rheinland-Pfalz (Stuttgart, 1990), 83 with plan; L. Wamser, “Marktbreit, ein augusteisches Truppenlager am Maindreieck,” in Trier Okkupation 109–127; CAH2 10.526 (C. Rüger). On the Roman achievements in 5 that Velleius extols, including far-flung German peoples conquered, won back, disarmed, or broken (2.106.1–107.3), Dio is all but silent, notably on a spectacular rendezvous on the Elbe of Tiberius’ army with a Roman fleet that had perhaps set sail from Vechten on the lower Rhine. ouj mevntoi kai; ajxiomnhmovneutovn ti tovte ge ge:: “However, nothing worth recording was achieved at that time, . . .” Not necessarily a slight to Tiberius: at 56.26.1 Dio says much the same thing of the beloved Germanicus. The argument of the whole sentence (ending with ejspeivsanto in 55.28.6) seems to be this: despite the penetration of Germany (nuanced positively with kai; . . . ge) and the conferral of victory honors, no military action worth recording occurred since the enemy took fright and came to terms short of war. Dio’s sober report offsets Velleius’ effusions (above).228 28.6 auj t okrav t oro" oro":: “. . . though not only Augustus but Tiberius was saluted imperator for these achievements [ejp! aujtoi÷"; cf. 62.23.4; 66.20.3], . . .” On the 226. Kühlborn Germaniam proposes that the camp was at Anreppen; for critical discussion cf. C. Wells, “What’s New Along the Lippe: Recent Work in North Germany,” Britannia 29 (1998), 457–464 at 461. But W. Hartke, “Das Winterlager des Tiberius in Germanien im Jahre 4/5 u.Z.,” Philologus 128 (1984), 117 holds that Velleius wrote ‘ad caput Amisiae’ and intended the mouth of the Ems (for this usage see OLD s.v. 10 b versus 11 a). 227. H.-G. Simon, “Eroberung und Verzicht: Die römische Politik in Germanien zwischen 12 v. Chr. und 16 n. Chr.,” in Baatz & Herrmann Römer 49–50 argues that Rome now abandoned its policy of creating a network of dependent German states aimed at ensuring the security of Gaul for a policy of creating a trans-Rhenane provincia Germania. 228. Timpe Saeculum 18 (1967), 286–288 finds behind Dio’s report here (and at 55.10a.3) an historian who was critical of Rome’s failure to prosecute the war against the Germans on the Elbe and saw this as contributing to the collapse of the Roman frontier in 9.

25.1–30.6: The Year a.d. 6

195

standard enumeration, Augustus’ seventeenth and Tiberius’ third salutation. Cf. ILS 107 = EJ no. 61, where Augustus is ‘imp. XVII tribunic. potest. XXX [a.d. 7/8]’ and Tiberius ‘imp. ter.’ Appendix 3. For a different enumeration cf. 55.10a.7n. Although Dio registers the salutation under 6, because he does so in a resumptive passage, Syme RP 3.1205–1206 proposes a date in the second half of 5, when Velleius proclaims the subjugation of northwest Germany (2.107.3–108.1). The year 6 offers no victorious occasion. Dio reaches German events proper to 6 only when he comes, at 55.28.7–29.1, to what he marks as Tiberius’ second expedition (to; deuvteron ejstravteuse), involving a new German enemy (the Marcomanni, as comparison with Velleius shows). tima;" ejpinikivou" u":: “. . . and Gaius Sentius (Saturninus), governor of Germany, received triumphal honors . . .” Anachronistically, Dio writes as if Germany were a province. Consul 19 b.c. (54.10.1), Sentius was legate 4–6 or 7 (Vell. 2.105.1, 109.5), succeeding M. Vinicius (cos. suff. 19 b.c.). Cf. C. Eilers, “C. Sentius Saturninus, Piso Pontifex, and the titulus Tiburtinus,” ZPE 110 (1996), 212–215 (“Saturninus’ achievements in Germany”). ejspeivsanto anto:: “. . . since, in fear of them, the Germans made peace not just once but twice.” “Them” (aujtouv") = Augustus, Tiberius, and Sentius. The two peaces correspond to victories advertised by Velleius after the campaigns of 4 and 5 (2.105.3, “the reward of an immense victory;” 2.107.3, “victor over every people and region”). 28.7 di! ojlivgou au aujj qi" ai:: “And the reason [ai[tia, neuter q¿ i" th;n eijrhvnhn doqh÷nai plural adjective] for the Germans’ shortly being granted peace once more [sc. a third time] despite having broken their treaty [paraspondhvsasi] was the serious disturbances among the Dalmatians and Pannonians which demanded urgent attention.” This third peace—specifically with Maroboduus and the Marcomanni—belongs in 6: it enabled Tiberius to withdraw forces needed to meet the Illyrian crisis (Vell. 2.110.3; cf. Tac. Ann. 2.26.3 [Tiberius’ words], “Maroboduus was tied down by peace,” 46.2 [Maroboduus’ words], “they settled on equal terms”). Conceivably German treaty breaking had been alleged as a casus belli justifying invasion of Bohemia. Through extreme abridgment Dio fails culpably to identify either the Marcomanni or their modernist ruler Maroboduus (who appears nowhere in the extant History). On the king, noted for centralizing political and military power, see Vell. 2.108.1–109.4; RE 14.1907–1910 = Maroboduus (Stein); PIR2 M 329; J. Dobiáš, “King Maroboduus as a Politician,” Klio 38 (1960), 155–166; G. Kossack, “The Germans,” in Millar Empire 296–298; L.F. Pitts, “Relations between Rome and the German ‘Kings’ on the Middle Danube in the First to Fourth Centuries a.d.,” JRS 79 (1989), 45–58 at 46–47. On the Marcomanni cf. 55.10a.2n. See further 55.29.1n.

29.1–30.6 Outbreak of the Illyrian Rebellion of 6–9 This rebellion tested, and the comprehensive Roman reconquest consolidated, the Balkan frontiers from Italy and the Alpine provinces through Illyricum to Moesia,

196

Commentary on Book 55

Macedonia, and Thrace. Draining heavily the resources of the empire (cf. 56.16.4n), it engaged ten of twenty-eight Roman legions, including two from Asia Minor, at the height of the crisis (55.32.3n). It offers our best-documented example of the capacity of the Augustan army to respond as a system to a regional crisis. Equipped with Dio’s four annalistic segments and Velleius’ often firsthand testimony, we are better informed about this conflict than any other since Actium. The strategic abilities of Tiberius, the architect of the Pannonian frontier, who now had the task of saving it, are revealed in a way denied by the dearth of sources on the Bellum Pannonicum of 13–9 b.c. (cf. 54.28.1n). Apart from sporadic intrusions of hostile material, Dio views Tiberius favorably in this military role. Cf. 55.31.1n. Sources. Here I give the chief sources for all four years of the rebellion (to be supplemented in the commentary on each year): Dio 55.28.7–30.6 (a.d. 6); 55.30.6–32.4 (7); 55.33.1–3, 34.3–7 (8); 56.1.1, 11.1–17.2 (9); Vell. 2.110.1– 117.1; Suet. Tib. 16.1–17.2, 20; cf. 21.4–7 (quoting letters from Augustus to Tiberius perhaps datable during the rebellion); Festus Breviarium 7.5. Select bibliography (for the whole rebellion). O. Hirschfeld, “Zur Geschichte des pannonisch-dalmatischen Krieges,” in Kleine Schriften (Berlin, 1913; reprint, 1975), 387–397 = Hermes 25 (1890), 351–362; R. Rau, “Zur Geschichte des pannonischdalmatischen Krieges der Jahre 6–9 n. Chr.,” Klio 19 (1925), 313–346; Syme JRS 23 (1933), 25–28 and in CAH1 10.369–373 (still important); Koestermann Hermes 81 (1953), 345–378 (fundamental in many respects, especially topography); Alföldy Bevölkerung (location, ethnicity, and social structure of peoples in Dalmatia); Mócsy Pannonia 37–39 and “The Civilized Pannonians of Velleius,” in Northern Provinces 169–178; Woodman on Vell. 2.110–116 (pp153–188); Kienast Augustus 370–371; Šašel Kos Outline 178–190. Contributions of J.J. Wilkes deserve special attention: AAntHung 13 (1965), 111–125 (helpful on sources and strategy); “The Military Achievement of Augustus in Europe: with Special Reference to Illyricum,” University of Birmingham Historical Journal 10 (1965), 1–27; Dalmatia xxi–xxvii (geography), 66–77; Illyrians, esp. 183–218, extensive bibliography; “The Danubian and Balkan Provinces” in CAH2 10.545–585. 29.1 ejsûorai÷" tw÷n crhmavtwn oiJ Delmavtai barunovmenoi enoi:: “The Dalmatians, 229 though vexed over levies of money, had until now kept the peace—reluctantly.” Cf. 56.16.3n, under a.d. 9, where Dio has the rebel leader Bato lay the blame for the rebellion on the Romans: “You send not dogs or shepherds to guard your flocks but wolves.” Since the campaigns of 35–33 b.c. (49.38.3–4n, 43.8n), which produced Octavian’s Pannonian-Dalmatian triumph of 29 (51.21.5n), Dio has graphed troubles in Dalmatia under 16 (54.20.3), 11 (54.34.3–4), and 10 b.c. (54.36.2–3, a rebellion against “exactions of money” [ejspravxei" tw÷n crhmavtwn]; cf. 55.2.4 under 9); Pannonian troubles under 16 (54.20.2), 14 (54.24.3), 13 (54.28.1–2), 12 (54.31.2–3), 11 (54.34.3–4), and 10 b.c. (54.36.2; cf. 55.2.4 under 9). 229. In qualifying ejsûorai÷" with crhmavtwn Dio merely prepares the reader for the mention of a levy of men. Cf. 46.32.1: kai; tai÷" strateivai" a{ma kai; tai÷" ejsûorai÷" barouvmenoi.

25.1–30.6: The Year a.d. 6

197

Dio here identifies the rebels as Dalmatians because their home was in what in his day was the province Dalmatia. In doing so he blurs the ethnic picture: the prime movers appear to have been Desidiates, who were ethnically Pannonian (55.29.2n). See Map 6. On Dio’s various usage of Delmativa and Delmavtai see on 56.11.1–17.3, “Note.” to; deuvteron ejstravteuse euse:: “But when Tiberius made a second expedition against the Germans, and Valerius Messallinus, the then governor of both Dalmatia and Pannonia, set out in person with him, leading forth the bulk of his forces, . . .” This is Tiberius’ abortive German invasion of 6 launched across the Danube against Maroboduus and the Marcomanni (cf. 55.28.7n).230 See Map 6 inset. It was “a second expedition” in that it was launched on a new front in southern Germany: Dio has condensed Tiberius’ advances of 4 and 5 in northwest Germany into a single first expedition (55.28.5). On the invasion of 6 see also Vell. 2.108.1–110.3, fundamental though flagrantly pro-Tiberian; Tac. Ann. 2.46.2, cf. 26.3. Cf. Syme CAH1 10.364–369 (a synthesis of Roman operations on the northern frontiers 7 b.c.–a.d. 6) and “Military Geography at Rome,” CA 7 (1988), 248–249; J. Dobiáš, “King Maroboduus as a Politician,” Klio 38 (1960), 155–166; Timpe Saeculum 18 (1967), 286–287; Wells Policy 159–161; Kienast Augustus 369–370. “Messallinus.” On the patrician M. Valerius Messalla Messallinus (cos. 3 b.c.), son of Messalla Corvinus, the illustrious civil war marshal, orator, and patron of letters, see RE 8A.159–162 = Valerius 264 (v. Lunzer); Syme Ovid 117–130 and Aristocracy 230–234. Cf. 56.28.2–3n, Messallinus as advisor of Augustus; Tac. Ann. 3.34.2, heir to his father’s eloquence. “Both Dalmatia and Pannonia.” Messallinus’ province was in fact Illyricum, for which Dio substitutes equivalent provincial names of his own day. He is ‘praepositus Illyrico’ in Velleius (2.112.2; cf. ‘praepositus Dalmatiae’ at 2.116.2, referring to the legate of the separate province Dalmatia created (or soon to be created) through the division of Illyricum into two provinces [56.15.3n]). Cf. Map 5. “The bulk of the forces.” The garrison of Illyricum from which Messallinus drew troops for Tiberius’ expedition included five legions: IX Hispana, XIII Gemina, XIV Gemina, XV Apollinaris, XX. Cf. 55.32.3n. Strategy. Tiberius planned a pincer invasion targeting Bohemia, with C. Sentius Saturninus, legate in Germany (55.28.6n), marching eastward from Moguntiacum (Mainz), plausibly via Marktbreit, while he himself marched from Carnuntum on the Danube (downstream from modern Vienna) (Vell. 2.109.5). See Map 6 inset. On the invasion routes see Wells Policy 159–161; T. Kolník, “Zu den ersten Römern und Germanen an der mittleren Donau im Zusammenhang mit den geplanten römischen Angriffen gegen Marbod 6 n. Chr.,” in Trier Okkupation 71–84, esp. 75, with map on 72. Kolník finds in an isolated onetime deposit of small Roman remains at Bratislava-Devín (on the left bank of the Danube at its confluence with the R. March, some 10 km downstream from Carnuntum) a clue that Tiberius’ army crossed the Danube at this point before advancing northward 230. Tiberius had returned to Rome from northwest Germany in winter 5/6 (55.27.5n).

198

Commentary on Book 55

up the valley of the March and then turning westward toward the Marcomannic heartland and a juncture with Sentius Saturninus. On excavations of a Roman fortress at Mušov-Burgstall on the R. Dyje (Thaya) ca 90 km north of Carnuntum, plausibly built as a base on Tiberius’ invasion route in 6, see M. Bálek and O.U. Šedo, “Das frühkaiserzeitliche Lager bei Mušov—Zeugnis eines augusteischen Feldzugs ins Marchgebiet?” Germania 74 (1996), 399–414. 29.2 sunh÷lqon qon:: The Dalmatians, ordered to contribute an auxiliary force, “had assembled for this purpose when they grasped the strength of their youth [cf. 49.13.1].” Apparently Messallinus had already left for the front, opening the door to rebellion. Bav t wnov " tino" Dhsidiav t ou ou:: “especially at the instigation of one Bato, a 2 Desidiatian.” See PIR B 94; RE 3.142–143 = Bato 5 (Henze). On this common Illyrian name see Alföldy Personennamen 163–164. Bato is probably not a title as is sometimes suggested. The preconquest social structure of Dalmatians and Pannonians was based on kinship and, generally, not much stratified or differentiated, though there were aristocratic families of great prestige from which leaders like Bato emerged in wartime: Alföldy Bevölkerung 166–171. Bato’s military expertise (cf. Vell. 2.110.4, ‘peritissimis ducibus’) may have come from serving Rome as an auxiliary officer. Astute in war and politics, he grasped brilliantly the potential for rebellion and tested Tiberius’ strategic ability to its limit. He was “ahead” of his followers in the degree to which he put loyalty to self first: he took the Breucian Bato (55.29.3n) as an ally against Rome (55.30.2), killed him when he became a Roman puppet (55.34.4–5), yet later made a separate peace with Rome himself, abandoning his own more fanatic troops (56.13.2–3, 16.1–3; cf. Suet. Tib. 20). Ethnically the Desidiates were Pannonians dwelling around the sources of the R. Bosna near modern Sarajevo in the northern part of the province-to-be Dalmatia (this is why Dio calls the Desidiatian Bato a “Dalmatian” at 55.29.4). See Map 6. Strabo identifies, as Pannonian tribes, “Breuci, Andizetii, Ditiones, Perustae, Mazaei, and Desidiates, whose leader was Bato” (7.314). Key to locating the Desidiates is an inscription found at Bréza, north of Sarajevo, dedicated by a tribal chief, ‘Valens Varron(is) f(ilius) princeps Desitiati(um).’ See Spomenik 93 (1940), 141–142 no. 10 (Bréza); cf. Koestermann Hermes 81 (1953), 348 and n1; Alföldy Bevölkerung 53; Wilkes Dalmatia 170–171, 453, 18 (map). See also RE 4.1982– 1983 = Daesitiates (Patsch); Kl. Pauly 1.1358. The rebellion did not break out everywhere at once according to Dio: first “a certain few” rebelled in “Dalmatia,” urged on by the Desidiatian Bato; only upon a Roman defeat did the remaining “Dalmatians” follow; the march of the Pannonian Breuci against Sirmium under a second Bato (55.29.3n) came “after this.” Just how the Pannonian uprising developed Dio does not specify, and it is risky to assume that the trouble started first in “Dalmatia.” Vell. 2.110.2 gives the lead to the Pannonians but possibly without chronological implication: cf. Woodman ad loc. (p157) or Koestermann Hermes 81 (1953), 347. A. Mócsy, “The Civilized

25.1–30.6: The Year a.d. 6

199

Pannonians of Velleius,” in Northern Provinces 172–175 offers a scenario of the opening phase, with emphasis on how much rebel leaders and troops had assimilated Roman military arts. 29.3 Breu÷koi Pannoniko;n e[qno" no":: “Breucians, a Pannonian people, also putting a Bato—a second one—at their head, moved on Sirmium,” the Roman base on the lower R. Save some 70 km upstream from Singidunum (modern Belgrade). On the Breucians, first mentioned here by Dio, see RE 3.831 = Breuci (Patsch); Mócsy Pannonia index. Strabo lists them among Pannonian tribes (7.314, quoted 55.29.2n). Pliny the Elder says that the Save flowed through their territory (HN 3.147; cf. Ptol. Geog. 2.15.2).231 “Bato.” On the rebel Breucian chief see RE 3.141–142 = Bato 4 (Henze); PIR2 B 93. He would later turn Roman collaborator (55.34.4–5n). “Sirmium.” Modern Sremska Mitrovica. Events of the Illyrian rebellion reveal how important this Roman base had become since the continental route linking Italy and the West with the Balkan and eastern provinces was opened up through the Bellum Pannonicum of 13–9 b.c. (cf. 54.31.3n). In the third and fourth centuries Sirmium would become an imperial headquarters and capital. See RE 3A.351–353 = Sirmium (Fluss); Millar Emperor 4–6, 47–48; OCD3 1413. Kaikivna" Seouh÷ro" oJ th÷" plhsiocwvrou Musiva" a[rcwn cwn:: “[A.] Caecina Severus, governor of neighboring Moesia,” moved against the rebel Breuci. On this novus homo (cos. suff. 1 b.c.) of old-fashioned character (cf. Tac. Ann. 3.33.1– 4), with a long military career ahead of him (cf. Ann. 1.64.4), see PIR2 C 106; RE 3.1241–1243 = Caecina 24 (Groag); Thomasson Laterculi 1.121; 55.32.3–4n. Moesia, still a frontier zone more than a province, had in him its “first clearly attested legate” (Syme Revolution 394 n3; cf. OCD3 993 [Wilkes]); cf. 55.28.6, where Dio styles C. Sentius Saturninus “governor of Germany” when no province yet existed. On the Moesian garrison of three legions (IV Scythica, VIII Augusta, XI) cf. 55.32.3–4n. peri; to;n Dravouon potamovn: Caecina Severus “made a sudden attack on them when they were around the R. Drave,” defeating them in a sanguinary set battle. How the Breuci, who were marching against Sirmium, came to be overtaken this far off a direct line between their territory and their target is unclear.232 29.4 ejpi; Savlwna strateuvsa" a":: “Meanwhile, the Dalmatian [sc. Desidiatian: 55.29.2n] Bato, having marched on Salona, . . .” Koestermann Hermes 81 (1953), 349, cf. 348 n1, posits a route from the heartland of the Desidiates near modern Sarajevo, across the Ivan Sedlo pass, down the valley of the R. Neretva (ancient 231. Cartographers differ on where along the Save to locate the Breucians: e.g., TIR L 33, near the juncture with the R. Vrbas; TIR L 34, near the juncture with the Bosna (Bathinus); cf. Wilkes CAH2 10.560 (map 12); BAtlas 20 D4. 232. Koestermann thinks that Dio may have confused Drave (Dravouon) and Save (Savouon): Hermes 81 (1953), 351–352. But it is safer to take Dio at his word, given the general solidity of his geography. According to Wilkes the Breucians attacked, but failed to take, Sirmium and were then defeated at the Drave (Dalmatia 70).

200

Commentary on Book 55

Naro) to the vicinity of Mostar, then westward (the geological grain runs generally east-west), leaving the Neretva, to the Adriatic littoral and Salona. There was no ancient road through the Neretva gorge (Wilkes Dalmatia xxvi). Bato appears to have controlled this trans-Dinaric route throughout the war. A prime Adriatic port, Salona was also linked to the Dalmatian hinterland. Site of a Roman colony, it became the capital of Dalmatia on the formation of the separate province. See RE 1A.2003–2006 = Salona ; PECS 799; Wilkes Dalmatia 220–238. mev c ri th÷ " !Apollwniv a "":: “. . . ravaged the whole coastal region as far as Apollonia.” This city was the gateway (with Dyrrhachium further north) to Macedonia along the Via Egnatia: RE Suppl. 13.1666–1667 (Radke); OCD3 1595. In the absence of Roman forces called away for the Marcomannic campaign, and given the intervening shield of the Dinaric Alps, Bato could operate in the south with relative impunity. The range of insurgent raids, from Salona to Apollonia, was over 400 km. Some may have been the work of mountaineers, launching themselves southward from the interior, like Bato on Salona, rather than solely of rebel forces advancing from Salona through the difficult terrain of the Adriatic rim or using commandeered ships. Dio knew the Apollonia region firsthand: 41.45.1–5. Cf. Vell. 2.110.4 (“some had burst into Macedonia”), 6 (“Macedonia seized by armed force”), possibly referring to our event. hJ t thqeiv " [ms.; prohtthqeiv" Polak]:: “Despite a defeat, Bato won a victory in his turn.” Only Dio records these engagements, fought in the vicinity of Apollonia by Bato’s lieutenants (eJtevrou" . . . tina"; on this usage see 55.10a.3n). 30.1 kai; ej" th;n !Italivann:: Tiberius, “fearing that they would invade Italy, . . .” Dio may mean a seaborne invasion: only ca 125 km separated Brundisium from Apollonia (for an Adriatic crossing from here cf. 45.3.2). More likely he means the land invasion that Velleius says the rebels planned to launch against Italy from the northeast (2.110.4): a shaken Augustus warned the Senate “that failing countermeasures the enemy could be within sight of Rome in ten days” (2.110.6–111.1; cf. Sumner Harv. Stud. 74 [1970], 271–272). On Italy’s vulnerability to invasion from Illyricum cf. Syme CAH1 10.352. ej k . . . th÷" Keltikh÷" ajnevstreye treye:: “. . . turned back from Germany,” abandoning his invasion of Bohemia only days short of achieving the rendezvous with Sentius Saturninus (Vell. 2.110.1–3; cf. 55.29.1n). Both Dalmatia and Pannonia were by now aflame (Vell. 2.110.2–6). Messali÷non propevmya" ya":: “Having sent Messallinus [55.29.1n] ahead,” i.e., back against the rebels in Illyricum, “Tiberius was himself following with the main force.” Both Dio and Velleius have Messallinus snatch a victory from the jaws of defeat, evidently one and the same victory, though their accounts are hard to articulate. Dio says that the Desidiatian Bato, still convalescing from a wound suffered in his assault on Salona (cf. 55.29.4), prevailed over Messallinus in a set battle only to be ambushed and defeated in turn, after which he joined forces with the Breucian Bato. Velleius, without naming the Desidiatian Bato, says that Messallinus, “having been surrounded along with the half-manned Legion XX by an enemy army

25.1–30.6: The Year a.d. 6

201

in a sudden uprising [‘subita rebellione’], routed and put to flight over 20,000 of the enemy and for this was honored with triumphal ornaments” (2.112.2). Has the ingratiating Velleius suppressed the setback that preceded Messallinus’ success? On the ground that the “sudden uprising” in Velleius fits the very start of the rebellion (as the operations of the returning Messallinus in Dio do not), Koestermann Hermes 81 (1953), 350 rejects Dio’s testimony: Messallinus had been in rebel territory all along, not away seconding Tiberius. But Dio could not indicate more explicitly that Messallinus left his province with most of his army (cf. Vell. 2.109.5) in support of Tiberius (55.29.1, aujtov" te su;n ejkeivnw/) or that both returned from the Marcomannic front (55.30.2: it was on perceiving their approach, th÷" prosovdou aujtw÷n, that Bato advanced to meet Messallinus). With ‘subita rebellione’ Velleius possibly refers to a fresh outbreak fomented by Bato in a population previously still loyal to Rome. Cf. Woodman on Vell. 2.112.2, refuting Koestermann. Where Bato and Messallinus fought can only be guessed. The predictability of the legate’s return route, plausibly via Carnuntum to Siscia, will have exposed him to blockade or ambush (cf. Vell. 2.112.2, ‘circumdatus’). He and Tiberius were based at Siscia later in the year (55.30.4). “With the main force.” Essentially the five legions of Illyricum (55.29.1n), less the “half-manned Legion XX” sent back with Messallinus (Vell. 2.112.2). 30.2 koinwsavmeno" . . . to; n pov l emon emon:: The Desidiatian Bato now joined the Breucian Bato, “shared the war command” with him, and occupied Mt Alma (below). Arguably too late: Syme CAH1 10.370, followed by Šašel Kos Outline 182, deems the Desidiatian’s Adriatic offensive a strategic blunder that doomed the rebellion by giving Tiberius time to secure his base at Siscia. The rebel alliance proved fragile: although the leaders brought a huge Roman army to the brink of disaster at the battle of the Volcaean Marshes in 7 (55.32.3n), by 8 they were deadly enemies (55.34.4). !Almavn: “a certain Mt Alma.” Surely Fruška Gora (= Frankish Mountain), a massif rising to 600 m, extending ca 50 km along the right bank of the Danube and approaching within some 15 km of Sirmium on the north. See Map 6. Eutropius 9.17.2 mentions a “Mt Alma by Sirmium” (‘Almam montem apud Sirmium’). Cf. RE 1.1588 = Alma 1 (Tomaschek); Jugoslavia 1.42 with figures 18–19; Koestermann Hermes 81 (1953), 360–361; Wilkes Dalmatia 70, 72, 18 (map); TIR L 34; BAtlas 21 B4.233 30.3 hJtthvqhsan hsan:: Here (Mt Alma) the Batos “were defeated in a light engagement by Rhoemetalces the Thracian, who had been sent ahead against them by 233. Velleius does not mention Mt Alma. The Mons Claudius where he says a rebel force harried by Tiberius fortified itself (2.112.3) is clearly not the same. He brings in Mons Claudius only in connection with events of 7; moreover he distinguishes the rebels there from those who, also in 7, ambushed the Roman army advancing into Illyricum from Moesia (2.112.3–6 with Woodman’s nn). The latter rebel force was clearly the same as had seized Mt Alma in 6 (55.32.3n). Koestermann notes that Mt Alma (sc. Fruška Gora) was too far from Tiberius’ headquarters at Siscia to be his target. Among possible locations for Mons Claudius he suggests, at less than half the distance, the Papuk mountains east of Siscia.

202

Commentary on Book 55

[Caecina] Severus [legate in Moesia: 55.29.3n], but they put up powerful resistance against Severus himself.” King Rhoemetalces, a serviceable dependent of Rome, will soon be found in action again: 55.30.6 (winter 6/7), 32.3n with Vell. 2.112.4–5 (summer 7). His forces had a Roman military training (Flor. 2.27.17). Dio has last mentioned him under 11 b.c. in relating the murder of Rhascuporis, the young Thracian king (or king elect), by rebellious Bessi and their violent expulsion of Rhoemetalces, who was his regent and uncle (54.34.5n, cf. 20.3n). The present text assumes that Rhoemetalces was subsequently restored and enthroned, though the History (as extant) nowhere records this. 30.4 summacivda sûw÷n ejpevdramon kai; sucnou;" prosapevsthsan thsan:: “After this, when [Caecina] Severus marched away to Moesia because both Dacians and Sarmatians were pillaging it, and Tiberius and Messallinus remained in Siscia, the Batos overran their allies and caused many more to defect.” “Dacians and Sarmatians.” The Dacians, whose domain at this time included the angle formed by the Danube as it heads southeast after subsuming the R. Drave (RE 4.1952–1953, 1963–1964 [Brandis]), were positioned to attack either Moesia (as they now did in the absence of its garrison in Pannonia) or Pannonia (as they had done in 11/10 b.c.: 54.36.2n).234 For earlier troubles with Sarmatians, who dwelt further east, cf. 54.20.3n (under 16 b.c.). “Remained [ejgcronisavntwn] in Siscia.” These words may echo complaints of inaction leveled against Tiberius at the time: so Koestermann Hermes 81 (1953), 354; cf. 55.31.1n. Conceivably Velleius answers such complaints at 2.111.4.235 Dio sometimes uses ejgcronivzein pejoratively: e.g., 44.46.2 (Caesar dallying in Alexandria); 53.15.6; 60.11.6 (governors tarrying in their provinces after expiration of their terms or departing from Rome late). But his usage can also be neutral or positive: e.g., 49.34.1 (Octavian putting off embarkation because of bad weather); 57.6.1 (Germanicus prolonging a campaign with a view to forestalling mutiny). Cf. Syme JRS 23 (1933), 26: “Meanwhile Tiberius stood firm in Siscia, waiting for reinforcements and taking no risks.” “Overran their allies.” The Batos, no longer hemmed in on Mt Alma (we are no longer in the campaigning season), were able to attack allies of the absent Tiberius, Messallinus, and Caecina Severus (summacivda sûw÷n), causing still more to defect to the rebel cause. sûw÷n (“their”) is not reflexive here (for parallels see fr. 5.5; 39.4.4; 56.11.3; contrast 55.30.6n under a.d. 7; 56.22.1). On summaciv" cf. 9.10.4, 15.8; 36.22.1; 40.33.1. 30.5 au aujj qi" alon:: “They once more attacked Macedonia.” The previous atq¿ i" ejnevbalon tack should be the Desidiatian Bato’s raids on the Adriatic littoral as far south as 234. For a later Dacian invasion of Moesia, left exposed when Antonius Primus, espousing the Flavian cause, led the garrisons of the Balkan provinces into Italy against the Vitellians (a.d. 69), cf. Murison Rebellion on Dio 65.9.3. 235. Pace Koestermann Hermes 81 (1953), 359, this text should be referred to 6 rather than 7: see Woodman’s n (p163).

30.6–32.4: The Year a.d. 7

203

Apollonia (55.29.4n). Given the current concentration of rebel operations in Pannonia (55.30.2), this fresh attack was perhaps launched against interior Macedonia, for example, up the valley of the lower R. Morava, once most Roman forces had retired to winter camps. 30.6 @Rumhtavlkh" . . . @Raskuvpori" ori":: “Rhoemetalces [55.30.3n] and his brother Rhascuporis overcame them in battle.” For the king’s brother, who later succeeded to part of the Thracian realm, see Tac. Ann. 2.64.2–67.3; PIR2 R 60; Kl. Pauly 4.1391 = Rhaskuporis (Volkmann); R.D. Sullivan, “Thrace in the Eastern Dynastic Network,” ANRW 2.7.1.198–204 with stemma facing 192. On oiJ de; dh; a[lloi (= the other Roman allies) see 55.30.6n, under a.d. 7.

55.30.6–32.4: The Year a.d. 7 Annalistic structure: urban section—external section. Dio imposes a kind of unity on the urban section (55.31.1–32.2) by connecting its several items to the Illyrian rebellion; even Agrippa Postumus’ banishment is made to serve this theme. The external section (55.32.3–4) resumes the account of the war in Illyricum.

30.6 (continued) oiJ de; dh; a[lloi th÷/ me;n cwvra/ sûw÷n porqoumevnh/: “But the others did not defend their territory when later it was ravaged in the consulship of Caecilius Metellus and Licinius Silanus [sic].” Dio means that, unlike the royal Thracian brothers Rhoemetalces and Rhascuporis, who attacked the rebels invading Macedonia in winter 6/7 (55.30.5–6n, under 6), Rome’s other allies shunned battle except in forays launched from strongholds on high ground. Once it is recognized that “the others” refers to allies, not rebels, there is no need to view this text as “very confused” (Wilkes Dalmatia 71 n2): Dio is elaborating his point that “once winter set in, the rebels caused even wider devastation” (55.30.5), in the end prompting Augustus (55.31.1) to dispatch Germanicus to Illyricum with reinforcements. “Consulship.” (Q.) Caecilius Metellus (Creticus Silanus) was born a Iunius Silanus, but adopted by a descendant of the optimate Metellus Creticus (cos. 69 b.c.). Legate of Syria 13–17, he was succeeded by Germanicus’ adversary, Cn. Calpurnius Piso (cos. 7 b.c.). His daughter was betrothed to Germanicus’ eldest son Nero (Tac. Ann. 2.43.2). See PIR2 C 64; Syme Aristocracy 253; Thomasson Laterculi 1.305. The consul (A.) Licinius (Nerva) Silianus (Silanou÷ ms.) was a son of P. Silius Nerva, cos. 20 b.c. (on whose military achievements see 54.20.1– 2). His name shows that he was adopted by a Licinius, otherwise unknown. Brother of P. Silius, cos. suff. a.d. 3, and C. Silius Caecina Largus, cos. 13, he earns high praise from Velleius, who reveals, however, that he died prematurely (2.116.4). See PIR2 L 224; Syme Aristocracy 52, 101.

204

Commentary on Book 55

31.1–32.2: URBAN AFFAIRS 31.1 pev m pei to; n Germanikov n: “Suspecting that Tiberius could have quickly defeated the enemy but was delaying deliberately, . . . Augustus sent Germanicus [to Illyricum], although he was quaestor, . . .” In implying that the dispatch of the youthful Caesar, whose office marks him as an assistant, could alter the course of the war, Dio succumbs to the bias of an anti-Tiberian source, perhaps the same source whose hostility surfaces rudely elsewhere (e.g., 54.9.5–6; 55.13.2, 27.5). Clearly this was not Dio’s main source on the Illyrian rebellion.236 To read through all four years of his war narrative237 to the victorious conclusion in 9 with the storming of Andetrium and the voting of triumphal honors is to discover a preponderantly favorable portrait of Tiberius as master general,238 plausibly given shape by an historian who wrote during his reign. On the possibility of Aufidius Bassus cf. the circumspect discussion in Syme Tacitus 274–276, Appendix 38; Noè Storiografia 78–82. The suspicions about Tiberius imputed to Augustus carry little conviction: having campaigned in Illyricum himself (35–33 b.c.), he knew well the challenges facing his general.239 “Quaestor.” Dio’s point is that Germanicus was dispatched to the front despite having state duties in Rome, not that he was advanced precociously to military command: Levick Latomus 35 (1976), 317; for a parallel cf. 54.19.6. Sumner’s suggestion that he was quaestor for 6 rather than 7 (Latomus 26 [1967], 426) founders on Dio’s explicit chronology. Germanicus presumably set out early in 7. euj g enei÷ " . . . ejxeleuqevrou" ou":: “. . . giving him not only freeborn but freedman soldiers, . . .” No other literary source specifies a levy of the freeborn (ingenui), though Velleius apparently assumes one (2.111.1, ‘habiti . . . dilectus’); cf. Plin. HN 7.149, “rebellion in Illyricum, a levy of slaves, a dearth of young men” (‘rebellio Illyrici, servitiorum dilectus, iuventutis penuria’); Macr. 1.11.32. An epigraphically attested “levy of the freeborn” (‘dilectus ingenuorum’) that ‘Augustus et Tib(erius) Caesar’ held at Rome (J.M. Cook, The Troad: An Archaeological and Topographical Study [Oxford, 1973], 412 no. 50 = EJ no. 368 = TDGR 6.21 with bibliography) belongs either here (Brunt ZPE 13 [1974], 173–176) or after the Varian disaster of 9 (cf. 56.23.2; Syme RP 3.1207–1208). 236. Overacutely, Koestermann Hermes 81 (1953), 358 detects the presence of such a source throughout Dio’s narrative (similarly H. Haupt, “Jahresberichte, 49: Dio Cassius,” Philologus 44 [1885], 159–160). 237. Although Tiberius is missing from what survives of Dio’s narrative of the campaign of 8, a retrospective reference in his first sentence under 9 (56.1.1n, cf. 17.1n) shows that he figured in the once intact text. 238. Dio is well disposed on the whole to Tiberius during Germanicus’ lifetime. For him it was this prince’s death that explained Tiberius’ metamorphosis into a tyrant: his rival having been removed, his true nature came to the fore. The prominence given by Dio to Germanicus’ exploits should not be taken routinely as detracting from Tiberius; it can simply reflect the fact that his main source espoused a tradition shaped while it was still politic to write enthusiastically of both—before the schism that rent the imperial house following Germanicus’ death in 19. In Pont. 2.1 Ovid applauds, from Tomis, the Illyrian achievements of both. 239. Cf. Syme CAH110.371: “Augustus cannot have wavered in his confidence in a general whose principles of warfare were his own”—confidence given expression in a letter of Augustus to Tiberius, arguably written at the height of the rebellion, though not precisely datable (quoted in Suet. Tib. 21.5). For Seager Tiberius 41–42, however, the context was later, after the crisis; for Koestermann Hermes 81 (1953), 358 n2 it was Tiberius’ operations in Germany after the Varian disaster of 9.

30.6–32.4: The Year a.d. 7

205

Velleius puts the levies in the year the rebellion broke out, 6, and registers his own service in conducting part of the force from Rome to Tiberius (2.111.1, 3). labw;n hjleuqevrwsen wsen:: “. . . including those whom he had freed after getting them as slaves—along with six months’ sustenance240—from both men and women according to their rated wealth [pro;" ta; timhvmata].” Other testimonia: Vell. 2.111.1: “men and women obliged to provide freedmen soldiers according to their rated wealth [‘ex censu’];” Suet. Aug. 25.2 (referring to both Illyrian and Varian crises): “men still in servitude levied on wealthier [‘pecuniosioribus’] men and women and immediately manumitted.” Since the law forbade enlisting slaves, they first passed to their new owner, the state, which freed and inducted them (so Dio— though Velleius’ report can suggest that the owners freed them). In basing this levy on wealth Augustus perhaps used the recent assessment of citizens in Italy rated at 200,000 HS or more (see on 55.13.4–6, under a.d. 4). Augustus resorted to using freedman soldiers only twice (Suet. Aug. 25.2, but cf. 16.1 for slaves freed to serve as rowers); for the second instance, following the destruction of Varus’ three legions in 9, see 56.23.3n. For a careful discussion see K.-W. Welwei, Unfreie im antiken Kriegsdienst, 3: Rom (Forschungen zur antiken Sklaverei 21) (Stuttgart, 1988), 18–22; cf. Brunt Manpower 414; N. Rouland, Les esclaves romains en temps de guerre (Brussels, 1977), 59–60. Cf. 55.32.3n. 31.2 ej x ev t asin . . . aj n ebav l eto eto:: Augustus “postponed the review of the equites held in the Forum,” clearly the annual transvectio equitum on 15 July (Plin. HN 15.19; cf. Dio 63.13.3, ejthsiva/ . . . ejxetavsei), a military parade in which equites equo publico rode from the Temple of Honos and Virtus near the Porta Capena (east of the Circus Maximus) to the Capitol via the Forum, passing the Temple of Castor and Pollux, whom the event honored especially. Cf. Map 2. The transvectio included a formal inspection, often conducted by Augustus himself (Suet. Aug. 38.3; Ovid Tr. 2.89–90, 541–542). Moribund in the late Republic, the transvectio was revived by Augustus (Suet. Aug. 38.3; its old-time severity was mitigated), part of a program of integrating equites in the sociopolitical hierarchy and reanimating the military culture of the Roman elite, which had once manned Rome’s cavalry—a role now filled mainly by auxiliaries. In an enthusiastic description of the transvectio under Augustus, Dionysius of Halicarnassus writes, apparently as an eyewitness, that 5,000 sometimes rode in it, wearing the trabea, the “purple, crimson-bordered” knee-length form of toga that was the uniform of the order, an olive crown, and war decorations (Ant. Rom. 6.13.4; cf. Val. Max. 2.2.9; Plin. HN 15.19; De vir. ill. 32.3; Demougin Ordre 786, plate 3). See RE 6A.2178–2187 = Transvectio equitum (Weinstock); Scullard Festivals 164–165; Carter 150. How the transvectio was related to censorial reviews of the membership of the equestrian order (recognitiones equitum) is debated. Full institutional and historical discussion 240. troûh÷/. This word suggests sustenance in a broad sense rather than military pay specifically, for which Dio’s usual word is misqoûorav; see 55.24.9n.

206

Commentary on Book 55

in Demougin Ordre 135–175, who segregates the formal and administrative processes.241 Dio’s leaves unclear how Augustus served the war effort (th;n tou÷ polevmou creivan) by postponing the transvectio. T. Wiedemann, “The Political Background to Ovid’s Tristia 2,” CQ 25 (1975), 264–271 at 266–267 suggests that he wanted to forestall a financially motivated protest. Cf. 55.31.1, levies on the wealthy; 56.1.2, a protest of equites in 9. katav te th÷" panhguvrew" th÷" megavlh" hu[xato, o{ti gunhv ti" ej" to;n bracivona gravmmata a[tta ejntemou÷sa ejqeivasev tina tina:: Augustus “vowed the ludi magni [see below] because a woman, cutting some sort of letters into her arm, made certain prophecies.” For eu[cesqai meaning “vow” followed by katav and the genitive of the thing vowed (TGL 4.2522 s.v.; LSJ s.v. II.3) see Dem. Ep. 1.16, “vowing victory offerings to them all [sc. the gods];” Plut. Marius 26.2, “Marius vowed a hecatomb to the gods;” Dio 48.19.4, the Vestals “vowed sacrificial offerings.” Contra Cary and Scott-Kilvert, hJ panhvguri" hJ megavlh does not mean Ludi Megalenses, for which Dio’s term is ta; Megalhvsia (37.8.1; 43.48.4; 59.11.3). Nor, I submit, can Dio mean Ludi Romani (even though these are sometimes called Ludi Magni), for which his term is ta; @Rwmai÷a (37.8.1) or hJ tw÷n @Rwmaivwn panhvguri" (48.52.2; 53.30.6). What he refers to are not annual games but “special votive games” (OLD s.v. ludus 3; cf. Smilda 413 s.v.), offered in payment of a vow made in response to a crisis. For instances of ludi magni in this sense see Livy 4.27.1; 5.19.6 (vow for the capture of Veii); 7.11.4; 27.33.8; 30.2.8; Tac. Ann. 3.64.3–4 (vow for Livia’s recovery from illness); cf. Ogilvie on Livy 1.35.8 (p149). In 7 the vow may have been for victory in Illyricum or an end to famine—or, as after the Varian disaster, ‘si res p(ublica) in meliorem statum vertisset’ (Suet. Aug. 23.2; cf. 56.24.5n [Lacuna]). Dio uses ejntevmnein only here and at 62.26.4 (of Thrasea Paetus opening a vein in suicide). Cf. Hdt. 8.22.1 (“inscribe” on stones). For qeiavzein = “to prophesy” cf. 41.14.4; 54.34.5; Thuc. 8.1.1. 31.3 oujk ejk qeou÷ katevschto chto:: Augustus discerned that the woman “was not divinely possessed” (cf. 41.14.4, kavtocoiv tev tine" gignovmenoi sucna; ejqeivazon). Dio held that there could be genuine divine possession (as at 49.15.2), but he dismisses this instance as an imposture. He may have found repulsive the very idea that Augustus would give credence to this outlandish form of divination. ejplavtteto teto:: He “pretended to believe the reports too and deemed it necessary to do anything that would comfort the crowd,” distressed as it was by war 241. Certainly Augustus’ examination, assisted by ten senators, of the ‘rationem vitae’ of each eques (Suet. Aug. 39, without date) cannot have been completed as part of a one-day transvectio, given thousands of equites to be adjudicated. The function of the triumviratus recognoscendi turmas equitum created by Augustus “whenever needed” (Suet. Aug. 37, without date; cf. ILS 9483 = EJ no. 209) is unclear. Did this board “for reviewing the turmae of equites” preside at the transvectio in Augustus’ absence? Did he delegate to it the task of revising the register of equites equo publico? Dio uses the broad term ejxevtasi" (“examination”) or the like of both transvectio (here and at 63.13.3) and senate membership reviews (e.g., 52.42.1 and 54.13.1, 26.3).

30.6–32.4: The Year a.d. 7

207

and recurrent famine (cf. 55.26.1–3n, 27.1). Dio justifies Augustus’ imposture as dictated by state interest. Among measures taken in addressing the famine was the voting, on 10 August of this year, of altars to Ceres Mater and Ops Augusta in payment of a vow (IIt. 13.2.493 = EJ p50; the Fasti Amiternini name the consuls); cf. LTUR 1.261–262 (Palombi). 31.4 ej p imelhtav ": “Moreover, owing to the dearth of grain he again appointed two consulars as grain curators and gave them lictors.” Cf. 55.26.2n on a board “in charge of grain and bread” appointed the year before. Dio evinces no curiosity as to what administrative support the curators might need. penthkosth÷" [ms., followed by Boissevain, i.e., “one-fiftieth;” penteikosth÷" Lipsius, i.e., “one twenty-fifth,” on the basis of Tac. Ann. 13.31.2,242 under a.d. 57]:: “Needing money for the wars and for maintenance [troûhvn: cf. 55.24.9n] of the Vigiles, he both introduced the one-fiftieth (2 percent) tax on the sale of slaves [ajndrapovdwn] . . .” An inscription of 43/44 shows that the rate was then 4 percent,243 apparently after one or more increases (if Dio’s text is sound). The tax was remitted under Nero, though only in that the vendor was made responsible for paying it instead of the purchaser; that is, it became a “value-added tax,” driving up prices (Tac. Ann. 13.31.2). Proceeds of the new tax, which will have been authorized by the Senate (cf. 55.24.9), clearly went to the Aerarium Saturni, from which the Vigiles were paid even in Dio’s day (55.26.5n). See M.R. Cagnat, Étude historique sur les impôts chez les Romains (Paris, 1882), 232–234 (Augustus set the tax at 4 percent); Hirschfeld Verwaltungsbeamten 95; Eck Organisation 113– 114 (4 percent); W.V. Harris, “Towards a Study of the Roman Slave Trade,” MAAR 36 (1980), 121 (2 percent). mhkevt! ajnalivskesqai kesqai:: “. . . and ordered that the money paid from the Aerarium to the praetors producing gladiatorial combats no longer be expended.” With te . . . kaiv Dio accents the complementary benefits of increasing tax revenue and cutting costs. Two praetors chosen by lot were responsible for producing one or two public munera annually (59.14.2; 54.2.4; cf. 56.25.8; 60.5.6; Ville Gladiature 119–121;244 Cavallaro Spese 34–35). Withdrawal of the subsidy did not lead to suspension of these munera: there were gladiatorial combats under the presidency of praetors in a.d. 11 (56.25.8), who now apparently met the full cost themselves.

32.1–2 Agrippa Postumus Banished Agrippa Postumus was born 12 b.c. to Augustus’ daughter Julia and (posthumously) his adjutant Marcus Agrippa. Augustus adopted him in a.d. 4 along with his stepson Tiberius. Fatherless from birth, all but motherless after Julia was exiled (2 b.c.), bereft of his brothers Lucius and Gaius (a.d. 2, 4), the prince was

242. ‘Vectigal quoque quintae et vicesimae venalium mancipiorum remissum.’ Lipsius assumed that the tax was one twenty-fifth from the start. Boissevain denies that penteikosth÷" is Greek. 243. ILS 203 = Smallwood (1967) 431: ‘XXV venal[ium].’ 244. Ville holds that there was a single official praetorian munus annually, at the Quinquatrus.

208

Commentary on Book 55

now engulfed in dynastic conflict. Cf. 54.29.5n; 55.13.2n. Dio, following proAugustan sources, recounts pitilessly the stages of his fall. Sources. Dio 55.32.1–2; 56.30.1–2 (Augustus’ supposed visit to the exiled Agrippa); 57.3.5–6 (Agrippa’s death in 14), cf. 16.3–4 (a false Agrippa); Fasti Ostienses of a.d. 6 (quoted below); Vell. 2.112.7; Plin. HN 7.150; Tac. Ann. 1.3.4, 4.3, 6.1–3; 2.39–40; Suet. Aug. 19.2, 65.1, 4, cf. 51.1; Tib. 15.2; Schol. Iuv. 6.158 (problematic). Select bibliography. Works of Levick are fundamental: Historia 21 (1972), 674– 697; “Atrox Fortuna,” CR 22 (1972), 310–311; Latomus 35 (1976), 301–339, esp. 326–339; Tiberius 56–61. See also Syme Ovid 206; Jameson Historia 24 (1975), 287–314; Woodman on Vell. 2.112.7 (pp170–171); Birch “Settlement” 448–456 (the prince was a casualty of surging Claudian influence and Julian machinations to check it). For a bust of Agrippa see Zanker Power 221. Dates. Augustus took two momentous actions against the refractory Agrippa: (1) he disowned him, secluding him at Surrentum (Suet. Aug. 65.1: ‘abdicavit seposuitque245 Surrentum;’ cf. Tib. 15.2); (2) he interned him permanently under guard on the island Planasia by senate decree (Suet. Aug. 65.4; cf. 55.32.2). That (1) and (2) were separate measures is apparent from the catalogue of Augustus’ troubles in Plin. HN 7.150: “disowning Agrippa Postumus after adopting him, pining for him after banishing him.” The internment on Planasia belongs in 7.246 The abdicatio is less securely datable. Scholars generally place it in 6 on the basis of a fragmentary entry in the fasti of Ostia for that year, as completed by Degrassi: ‘Agrippa Caesar [abdicatus est?]’ (IIt. 13.1.183). But L. Vidman, Fasti Ostienses (Praha, 1982), 57–58 (followed by Syme Aristocracy 113 n57 in a change of mind from Ovid 206 n2) argues that the fasti may record an honor, perhaps Agrippa’s election as duumvir quinquennalis of Ostia (a.d. 6 fits the city’s five-year censorial cycle); he does not print a completion. That a notice of Agrippa’s repudiation would retain the name Caesar (or be entered at all) can be doubted. If Vidman is right, the entry provides not a date but a terminus post quem for Agrippa’s abdicatio, which therefore belongs in either 6 or 7. 32.1 ajll! ouj to;n !Agrivppan pan:: Augustus “dispatched Germanicus, but not Agrippa, to the war . . .” This formulation may be pure Dio, invented to make the transition to Agrippa’s fall and, if so, worthless as evidence that Augustus promoted Germanicus over the head of his grandson—his junior by about three years. But cf. Birch “Settlement” 449 (“a command of some kind conferred in 6” on Agrippa). douloprephv": “. . . because the latter was slavelike . . .” sc. less than a freeman (cf. 61.15.3), unfit for high station (cf. 52.8.5). Cf. Tac. Ann. 1.3.4, ‘rudem 245. Seponere connotes de facto rather than legal confinement: cf. Suet. Otho 3.2; Tac. Hist. 1.10.1; Ann. 4.44.3. 246. Placed last in Dio’s summary account of the dissension and last in his section on urban affairs for 7. A characteristic annalist’s transition to the year’s external affairs follows (“these were the events in the city, but when Germanicus arrived in Pannonia . . .”). Consistently with this chronology, Velleius sandwiches his dissembling account of Agrippa’s fall, climaxing a biennium of degeneration, between passages treating military events of 7 in Illyricum (2.112.7).

30.6–32.4: The Year a.d. 7

209

sane bonarum artium et robore corporis stolide ferocem;’ Suet. Aug. 65.1, ‘ingenium sordidum et ferox.’ On the question whether Agrippa was mentally and socially unfit or was merely so portrayed by enemies see Levick Tiberius 58 and n43 (she is of the latter view). hJlieuveto to:: “. . . and spent most of his time fishing, which is why he called himself Poseidon.” A string of verbs in the imperfect tense intensifies the image of Agrippa’s irreparably ignoble nature. For Dio obsessive fishing was apparently infra dignitatem, ill-suited to produce the mental and physical vigor desired in elite youth (cf. 52.20.1). He gives no hint of the awkward fact that Augustus fished (Suet. Aug. 83.1). The nickname Neptune evoked the god of Agrippa’s admiral father: A.E. Pappano, “Agrippa Postumus,” CPh 36 (1941), 35; cf. 53.27.1 (25 b.c.), the father’s construction of a stoa of Neptune “marking his naval victories.” ojrgh÷/ propetei÷ ejcrh÷too:: “He had an impetuous temper . . .” Cf. Vell. 2.112.7, ‘mira pravitate animi atque ingenii in praecipitia conversus;’ Tac. Ann. 1.4.2, ‘trucem;’ Schol. Iuv. 6.158, ‘morum feritatem.’ 32.2 Liouiv a n [Lipsius, endorsed though not printed by Boissevain; !Ioulivan ms.] ei: “. . . and slandered Livia as a stepmother wJ" mhtruia;n dievballen . . . ejpekavlei and even [aujtw÷/] against Augustus often leveled accusations over his patrimony [uJpe;r tw÷n patrwv/wn].” Livia became Agrippa’s stepmother in fact and metaphor when Augustus adopted him along with her natural son Tiberius. On the possibility that Agrippa tried to bring formal charges against Augustus of defrauding him see Levick Historia 21 (1972), 695–696; cf. Jameson Historia 24 (1975), 295– 300. Hostile to the young prince, these indignant reports, which only Dio preserves, should be traced to an official or loyalist origin (cf. Vell. 2.112.7). For Dio, Agrippa’s defiance justified stern measures. ouj ga;r ejswûronivzeto eto:: Since, as his conduct showed, he “was not of sound mind, . . .” Cf. Vell. 2.112.7, ‘furore suo;’ Suet. Aug. 65.4: ‘in dies . . . amentiorem.’ ajpekhruvcqh qh:: “. . . he was disowned, . . .” Sc. by Augustus (on the date, 6 or 7, see on 55.32.1–2). For the Greek cf. Pl. Leg. 929c: ejxevstw tw÷/ patri; to;n uiJo;n ajpokhruvttein. The Latin equivalent is abdicare: cf. Plin. HN 7.150, ‘abdicatio Postumi Agrippae post adoptionem;’ Suet. Aug. 65.1, ‘Agrippam . . . abdicavit.’ Levick Historia 21 (1972) defines abdicatio as “a father’s formal renunciation or disowning of a child after due process of consultation of a consilium of friends and relations, taking effect through the technique of emancipatio” (690);247 in Agrippa’s case this meant formal exclusion from the Julian family into which he had been adopted by Augustus, and in effect disinheritance by Augustus (690– 697, detail).248 247. Emancipatio, the releasing of a child from his father’s potestas, might be a liberation. But it could also be a penalty, dissolving the child’s relationship with and rights within the agnatic family, including inheritance rights. 248. Jameson Historia 24 (1975) doubts that abdicatio involved an irrevocable legal repudiation (292); it rather served in Agrippa’s case as a threat, followed, when this proved ineffectual, by relegation to Surrentum, “effected in virtue of patria potestas,” then by aqua et igni interdictio with loss of civic rights, confiscation of property, and deportation to Planasia (302–309). Cf. R.P. Saller, Patriarchy, Property, and Death in the Roman Family (Cambridge, 1994), 118. Champlin Judgments 107–108 stresses how seldom living parents repudiated children.

210

Commentary on Book 55

ouj s iv a . . . ej d ov q h h:: “. . . his property was given to the Military Treasury, . . .” Dio alone records this. On this new treasury cf. 55.25.1–4. On Agrippa Postumus’ patrimony, of which inscriptions offer glimpses,249 see G. Fabre & J.-M. Roddaz, “Recherches sur la ‘familia’ de M. Agrippa,” Athenaeum 60 (1982), 87–89: Augustus was no doubt the boy’s tutor (guardian) from his father’s death; on his adoption what had been his property (though under Augustus’ supervision) became peculium, with ownership passing technically to Augustus as adoptive father, as the parallel case of Agrippa’s adoptive brother Tiberius shows (Suet. Tib. 15.2). When Augustus disowned him, Agrippa lost his chief legal claim to the patrimony. By directing the patrimony to a public purpose, Augustus may have blunted suspicions that he had defrauded Agrippa.250 Augustus had earlier made a large grant to the Military Treasury on his own and Tiberius’ behalf (in 6, according to Dio 55.25.2). Why not also a simultaneous grant on behalf of Agrippa Caesar, his other adopted son? Had Agrippa balked, unlike Tiberius? Was it pressure to comply that occasioned Agrippa’s accusations “over his patrimony”? ejneblhvqh h:: “. . . and he was himself exiled to Planasia [modern Pianosa], the island near Corsica.” Cf. Aug. 65.4: Augustus “even provided through a senate decree that he be confined in the same place in perpetuum.” See Map 4; PECS 717. In writing ejneblhvqh Dio avoids the overtones of victimization in Tacitus’ report that Augustus “cast Agrippa out” (‘proiecerit’) on Planasia (Ann. 1.3.4); he uses ejmbavllein when illustrating Marcus Aurelius’ restraint in punishing rebels: 71.28.3; cf. 62.29.3.

32.3–4: EXTERNAL AFFAIRS—THE WAR IN ILLYRICUM (CONTINUED) See Map 6. Dio’s account of the campaign of 7 can on the whole be articulated with that of Velleius (2.112.3–6, 113.1–3, cf. 114.4). Together they show how the Augustan system of standing frontier garrisons responded to its most serious challenge to date by assembling far-flung military resources in the Illyrian theater. 32.3 Pannoniv a nn:: “With Germanicus now in Pannonia . . .” Probably in the vicinity of Siscia on the upper Save after a march overland via Emona (modern Ljubljana). As often, Dio uses “Pannonia” to designate the northern part of the Augustan province Illyricum—as he uses “Dalmatia” to designate the southern (cf. 54.28.1n; 55.29.1–3n). Of the newly levied forces, both freeborn and liberti, conducted by Germanicus (55.31.1n), the liberti were installed as garrisons in colonies on the Italian-Illyrian frontier (Suet. Aug. 25.2). 249. For instance: ‘Dama pup(illi) Agrippae,’ “Dama [sc. slave] of ward Agrippa,” in CIL 10.924 of 7 b.c.; cf. CIL 6.18548: ‘Artemis pupilli Agrippae l(iberta).’ 250. Jameson Historia 24 (1975), 295 thinks that in using oujsiva rather than patrw÷/a Dio wished to distinguish “between the property bequeathed to Agrippa by his own father, and property, in some way, his own.”

30.6–32.4: The Year a.d. 7

211

strateumavtwn . . . suniovntwn twn:: “. . . and with armies251 assembling there from many sides, . . .” Velleius gives an enthusiastic account of the forces now marshaled in Illyricum (2.113.1), perhaps 100,000 strong: “a single camp” at one point held ten legions, over seventy cohorts of auxiliaries, over 10,000 veterans, a large contingent of voluntarii, and the “numerous royal cavalry” of Rhoemetalces of Thrace—“all in all an army such as had not been assembled anywhere since the civil wars.” The camp was perhaps at Tiberius’ base Siscia, but more likely, I suggest, in the heartland of the Breucian enemy, on whom the Roman pincers had now closed from west and east. Suetonius says that Tiberius commanded fifteen legions, with an equal force of auxiliaries (Tib. 16.1), inaccurately: to concentrate such a host in Illyricum, over half of the empire’s twenty-eight legions, would have left other frontiers gravely exposed (cf. Syme JRS 23 [1933], 27–28). Velleius’ figure of ten legions includes five legions composing the regular garrison of Illyricum (IX Hispana, XIII Gemina, XIV Gemina, XV Apollinaris, and XX), three from Moesia (IV Scythica, VIII Augusta, and XI), which had already seen action the year before under A. Caecina Severus (55.29.3n, 30.3–4), and two led from Galatia-Pamphylia by M. Plautius Silvanus (V and VII, both perhaps titled Macedonica: see 54.36.4n; 55.23.2–6n s.vv.; the first mention of Silvanus in the History as extant comes only at 55.34.6n, under a.d. 8). See Syme JRS 23 (1933), 21–33, esp. 30–31, with Mitchell CQ 26 (1976), 298–308;252 cf. Wilkes Dalmatia 92–95. Because Tiberius immediately split up this huge force (Vell. 2.113.2), Koestermann Hermes 81 (1953), 362–363 thinks that Augustus, impatient to bring the rebellion to an early end (cf. 55.31.1), had thrust upon Tiberius reinforcements he did not want; Sumner Harv. Stud. 74 (1970), 272 suggests that Augustus panicked in the crisis. But how plausible is a strategic disagreement so profound that Tiberius was unwillingly reinforced by legions from distant Galatia-Pamphylia? These eastern legions remained permanently in Europe. ej p ev p eson auj t w÷ / aj p rosdov k htoi htoi:: “. . . the Batos, having lain in wait for [Caecina] Severus as he was approaching from Moesia, fell on him by surprise . . .” Cf. Thuc. 2.93.4, ajprosdokhvtoi" ejpipesovnte". The year before Caecina Severus had rescued Sirmium from the Breucian Bato (55.29.3) but had been unable to subdue his and the Desidiatian Bato’s combined forces based on Mt Alma (55.30.3). Velleius’ account of the ambush (2.112.4–5) supplements Dio on several points. Plautius Silvanus (above) shared the command with Caecina Severus of five

251. stravteuma is a general term which Dio applies often—but not always (cf. 55.34.5)—to legions, for which his standard term is stratovpedon (e.g., 55.23.2, 24.1) or sometimes tei÷co" (e.g., 79.7.1; cf. on 55.23.2– 6). That the general sense operates here is suggested by Velleius’ parallel account, mentioning a variety of forces. 252. On the historical importance of military communications and movements between Anatolia and the Balkans, entailing the development of the great military highway (visible here in a nascent stage) from Aquileia through Siscia and Sirmium to Byzantium, overshadowing the Via Egnatia, see S. Mitchell, “The Balkans, Anatolia, and Roman Armies across Asia Minor,” in Armies and Frontiers in Roman and Byzantine Anatolia: Proceedings of a Colloquium Held at University College, Swansea, in April 1981, ed. S. Mitchell (BAR International Series 156 [Oxford, 1983]), 131–133.

212

Commentary on Book 55

Roman legions (from Galatia-Pamphylia and Moesia), auxiliaries, and a large cavalry arm under King Rhoemetalces of Thrace (cf. 55.30.3n, 6n). Disaster was narrowly averted. “The formation of the royal cavalry was scattered, the mounted auxiliaries routed, the auxiliary foot put to flight; even at the standards of the legions there was alarm.” Velleius chides Caecina Severus and Silvanus for lax military intelligence (paralleled in Dio’s “by surprise”?) and credits the legionaries with saving the day (2.112.5–6). Cf. Syme Aristocracy 430; Koestermann Hermes 81 (1953), 361–362. Seager sets the battle “late in 7” (Tiberius 42). But Dio offers little support for that season: his placement of Illyrian operations toward the end of the year-account may well be structural rather than chronological. stratopedeuomevnw/ pro;" toi÷" Oujolkaivoi" e{lesi esi:: “. . . while he was making camp near the Volcaean Marshes . . .” I take the present tense of the participle strictly rather than in the sense “while the army was in its camp” (Wilkes Dalmatia 72), for which the perfect might be expected (as at 37.39.2)—though Dio’s usage is not always so discriminating (cf. 36.54.1). Syme proposes that a praefectus castrorum killed in the attack (Vell. 2.112.6) may have fallen while discharging responsibilities for laying out the camp (RP 1.39, adducing Veg. Mil. 2.10); cf. 56.22.2an. Velleius does not name the Volcaean Marshes, and their location is unknown, though open to plausible conjecture: once past Singidunum (Belgrade) and Sirmium in their march to Tiberius, the five legions had to traverse lowlands between the Save (cf. Jugoslavia 1.42 on the modern topography) and Mt Alma (= Fruška Gora), on which the rebels had their base (see 55.30.2n). One possible battle site is Cibalae (= modern Vinkovci), beyond the western end of this formation: in 314 Constantine defeated Licinius ‘apud Cibalas iuxta paludem Hiulcam’ (“near Cibalae by the Hiulcan [= Volcaean?] marsh”) (Epit. de Caes. 41.5). So Saria in RE 9A.541–542; Koestermann Hermes 81 (1953), 361–362; Wilkes Dalmatia 72; cf. TIR L 34 s.v. Hiulca Palus (pp64–65) and foldout map; BAtlas 21 A4 or 20 F4. kathvraxan ej" aujtov: “. . . and, terrifying those outside the earthworks, burst into the camp; but they were defeated when those on the inside engaged them.” Caecina Severus’ experience served him later when, on sodden ground, he faced intrepidly the assaults of Arminius and his Cherusci (cf. Tac. Ann. 1.64.4, a.d. 14), earning the triumphal insignia that eluded him in the Illyrian war (Tac. Ann. 1.72.1; cf. 56.17.2n). 32.4 nemhqevnte", o{pw" pollach÷/ a{ma th÷" cwvra" katatrevcwsin wsin:: “After this the Romans formed into detachments in order to ravage many parts of the country simultaneously.” Though discontinuous to a fault, Dio’s account meshes with Velleius’ (2.113.1–3) once it is seen that, between the battle of the Volcaean Marshes and the detailed operations to which he immediately turns, he omits253 an event on which Velleius lavishes attention as a participant in the campaign of 253. The omission is covered by meta; tou÷q! (“after this”).

30.6–32.4: The Year a.d. 7

213

7. This is the concentration in a single camp of Tiberius’ huge ingathered army, including the five legions under Caecina Severus and Plautius Silvanus (Vell. 2.113.1; cf. 55.32.3n). The synchronized raids on enemy territory that Dio records (though skimpily and without toponyms) should be identified with the “long, toilsome, and indescribably difficult march” eastward, described by Velleius, in which Tiberius escorted the newly arrived forces back part of the way they had come before returning to Siscia himself “at the start of a very bitter winter [7/8]” (2.113.3). What particularly links Roman operations in Velleius with the raids in Dio is Velleius’ remark that the rebels, pinned down as they were by the need to protect their own territories, were unable to make a combined attack (‘universi’) on any part of the Roman forces when these separated (sc. into detachments) (‘partem digredientium, suorum quisque metu finium, universi temptare non possent’).254 The purpose of the detailed Roman operations was surely to consolidate control of the vital Save-Drave corridor between Sirmium and Siscia, closed by the insurgents but reopened in the breakthrough of the legions under Caecina Severus and Plautius Silvanus to a juncture with Tiberius.255 Caecina Severus now returned to Moesia, otherwise vulnerable (as the year before: 55.30.4, cf. 5–6), apparently taking with him Legions IV Scythica and V Macedonica as its garrison, while Plautius Silvanus halted at Sirmium, to be his base against the Breuci in the next year’s campaign (cf. 55.34.6), when he probably commanded legions VII Macedonica, VIII Augusta, and XI. Cf. Syme JRS 23 (1933), 25–33, esp. 27, 30–31, and in CAH1 10.372; Wilkes Dalmatia 93, 95. oujde;n a[xion lovgou ou:: “Although the rest accomplished nothing remarkable, at least then, Germanicus defeated the Mazaei, a Dalmatian people, in battle and plundered their territory.” With “nothing remarkable” Dio refers obliquely to the “Fabian” raids launched with detachments from Tiberius’ main force, which involved no major engagement. “Germanicus.” Dio is always partial to the young prince (see, for example, the obituary judgment at 57.18.6–8). But partiality does not explain Germanicus’ appearance here (or the silence on Tiberius) any more than does the fact that he now made his debut as a battle commander (cf. 55.31.1n)—Dio regularly organizes military narratives around dynastic figures. Nor is Germanicus’ victory to be written off as mere panegyric (cf. Syme Ovid 41); even his achievement could be “unremarkable” for Dio (56.26.1, cf. 25.2; 55.28.5n). “Mazaei.” In calling the Mazaei (or Maezaei) a “Dalmatian people” (Delmatiko;n e[qno") Dio indicates not their ethnicity but their location in what later became (cf. 56.15.3n) the province Dalmatia (its boundary with Pannonia was not drawn on tribal lines). The Mazaei were in fact one of several Pannonian peoples (Str. 254. In summary the order of events is: battle of the Volcaean Marshes (Dio, Velleius), rendezvous (Velleius only), detailed operations (Dio, Velleius). 255. Nagy “Zweiteilung” 461–462 with n11 grasps the purpose of the operations (though underrating their achievement): to sever the Breuci from the mountain tribes to the south. Koestermann, by contrast, sees mainly a strategic withdrawal; to elude the Batos, Tiberius avoided an exposed route near the Save, traversing instead the mountainous terrain to the south of the river; it was in protecting the flank of the departing forces that Germanicus attacked the Mazaei (Hermes 81 [1953], 363–364 and nn).

214

Commentary on Book 55

7.314, quoted at 55.29.2n). Their home was south of Siscia around the upper valleys of the RR. Una and Vrbas, which flow northward out of the Dinaric Alps into the Save; the territory of the Iapodes lay to their west, that of the Desidiates (55.29.2n) to their east. Apparently they were populous: Plin. HN 3.142 says that they made up 269 decuriae (which I take as a kind of census unit), approaching the total of 342 for the Dalmatae. See Alföldy AAntHung 10 (1962), 7–8, 5 (map) and Bevölkerung 52–53, cf. 35; Wilkes Dalmatia 168–169, 18 (map). Germanicus’ pillaging (ejkavkwsen) served Tiberius’ strategy of starving the rebels into submission (cf. Vell. 2.112.3); for its effects see 55.33.1, under 8.

55.33.1–34.7: The Year a.d. 8 Annalistic structure: external section (fragmentary)—urban section (fragmentary)—external section. When intact, Dio’s account was about 250 lines long, of which only the first ten and last thirty-two are extant. Lines from Xiphilinus close the gap a little. On what has been lost cf. 55.33.2n, Lacuna.

33.1 Fourivou . . . Nwniv o uu:: Of the consuls, M. Furius Camillus was from a patrician line, long in eclipse, which now enjoyed a final brief renaisssance. He would win triumphal ornaments as proconsul of Africa under Tiberius in the war against Tacfarinas (Tac. Ann. 2.52.3–4, under a.d. 17). See PIR2 F 576; Syme Aristocracy 97–98, 259. A son, L. Arruntius Camillus Scribonianus (who was adopted by the eminent L. Arruntius, cos. a.d. 6 [cf. 55.25.1n]), would die as a rebel against Claudius in 42 (60.15.2–3). Sex. Nonius Quinctilianus was a nephew of P. Quinctilius Varus, who fell before Arminius the next year, and a brother of L. Nonius Asprenas, cos. suff. a.d. 6 (56.22.2bn). See PIR2 N 118; Syme Aristocracy table XXVI.

33.1–3: EXTERNAL AFFAIRS (FRAGMENTARY)— THE WAR IN ILLYRICUM (CONTINUED) 33.1 (continued) limw÷ / . . . nov s w/: Dalmatians and Pannonians were suffering “first from famine, then from disease arising from it.” Insofar as it was a product of Tiberius’ strategy, the famine was more likely local than general. The famine mentioned in 55.33.4n (clearly in Rome) does not belong in 8. pov a i" . . . rJ i v z ai" ai":: They were reduced to eating “strange plants and roots.” At Dio-Zon. 8.6.16 pova is what cattle eat; cf. 41.45.2, distinguishing pova" from devndra (“trees”). Dio has Boudicca boast of the hardiness of British warriors: “Every plant, every root [pa÷sa . . . pova kai; rJivza] is our grain” (62.5.5); cf. Caes. B Civ. 3.48. 33.2 Skenov b arbov " [suggested by Boissevain; Skenovbardov" ms.] te tevv ti" prospoihsavmeno" metasthvsesqai esqai:: “A certain Scenobarbus made as if to de-

33.1–34.7: The Year a.d. 8

215

fect” to the Romans. Only Dio mentions this man. Rather than Scenobardus (ms.), he surely bore the Illyrian name Scenobarbus, attested in inscriptions: e.g., ILS 2901, ‘C. Ravonius Celer, qui et Bato Scenobarbi, nation. Dal[m.];’ CIL 3.8437. See Alföldy Personennamen 289; Syme RP 2.816; RE 2A.368 = Scenobardus (Stein). pro; " Mav n ion #Ennion ûrouv r arcon Siskiv a "":: He communicated “with Manius Ennius, garrison commander of Siscia, saying that he was ready to desert but afraid he would come to harm before . . . [lacuna].” Koestermann suggests that this episode may belong during Tiberius’ absence in winter 7/8 (Hermes 81 [1953], 365 n1). Our “garrison commander” is probably the same M’. Ennius (ms. ‘mennius’) who six years later as praefectus castrorum cowed a mutinous legionary detachment serving among the Chauci in lower Germany and led them back to their winter camp (Tac. Ann. 1.38.1–2); cf. 55.32.3n; 56.22.2an. Lacuna. Cf. introduction to a.d. 8. Following mh; propavqh/ . . . begins a lacuna of four folios—about 200 lines—in our manuscript. We regain Dio’s text at 55.34.1, 〈ouj〉 mevntoi. He is recounting the war in Illyricum where it breaks off, urban affairs when it resumes. Certain military events lost in the lacuna can be recovered from retrospective references (for example, the Breucian Bato’s defection to Rome [55.34.4n]) or inferred from other sources (for example, the general surrender of Pannonians at the R. Bathinus [Vell. 2.114.4–5] on 3 August,256 evidently the occasion of Augustus’ eighteenth and Tiberius’ fourth salutation as imperator; cf. 56.17.1n). Lost urban events may have included the fall of the younger Julia, granddaughter of Augustus, usually dated in this year on the basis of Tac. Ann. 4.71.4 (cf. 55.27.2n). 33.3 Dione referente [Jord. Get. 29.150257]:: “so Dio relates.” Jordanes cites “Dio” as a source in his description of Ravenna, which by his day (sixth century) had ceased to be a port, overtaken by the advancing coastline: “The Po, or Eridanus, called king of rivers on the soil of Italy,258 was deepened by the emperor Augustus with a canal of great breadth (the seventh branch of this river flows in through the heart of the city), providing a most charming harbor at its mouth, and supposedly once sheltered a fleet of 250 ships, so Dio relates, in altogether secure anchorage.” See Map 4; BAtlas 40. The harbor proper, later named Classis, was a few km downstream from Ravenna, near the coast (cf. G. Radke, “Die Strasse des Konsuls P. Popillius in Oberitalien,” Latomus 24 [1965], 817–818). Although Augustus’ contemporary Strabo makes no explicit reference to canal or harbor, 256. The Bathinus cannot be identified with any certainty. Koestermann Hermes 81 (1953), 365 n4 suggests that it is the modern Bosut (which flows eastward, draining lowlands north of the R. Save before emptying into it near the site of ancient Sirmium) or the Bosna; Wilkes Dalmatia 73 favors the Bosna. For the day cf. Fasti Antiates Ministrorum Domus Augustae in IIt. 13.2.208, 491 = EJ p50, ‘Ti. Aug(ustus) 〈in〉 Inlyrico vic(it);’ Koestermann 367. But cf. Woodman on Vell. 2.114.4 (p178). 257. Text in T. Mommsen, ed., Iordanis Romana et Getica, in Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Auctores Antiquissimi 5,1 (Berlin, 1882; reprint, München, 1982). 258. Cf. Verg. G. 1.482: ‘fluviorum rex Eridanus;’ Plin. HN 3.117.

216

Commentary on Book 55

describing the Po as “hard to enter” (duseivsbolo"), its mouth as “blocked” (tuûlovn) (cf. Plut. Sulla 20.5), and Ravenna as “the biggest city in the marshes” (5.212– 213), Augustus is generally thought to have established the naval base early, given important military and naval operations in the Adriatic region through the 30s b.c., climaxing with Actium. Suetonius credits him with installing the Ravenna fleet but gives no date (Aug. 49.1). Tacitus includes the fleet in his synopsis of Roman armed forces under a.d. 23 (Ann. 4.5.1).259 Cf. 56.16.3n, the Desidiatian Bato interned at Ravenna. That the “Dio” of Get. 29.150 is our Dio is less than sure. Jordanes names “Dio” as a source in four other passages. Although at Get. 2.14 verbal parallels with Cassius Dio 76.12.1 (on British tribal names) show the Roman History to be his source, at Get. 5.40, 9.58, and 10.65 “Dio” is apparently the orator-philosopher Dio (Chrysostom) of Prusa, who lived a century before Cassius Dio. For example, at 5.40 Jordanes attributes recherché information on the Goths that Cassius Dio would have eschewed to a “Dio who wrote histories on them and annals in the Greek manner.”260 Cassius Dio composed no monograph that we know of on the Goths, but Dio of Prusa did (Philostr. V S 1.7.487).261 Still some part, though scarcely all, of Get. 29.150 may derive from Cassius Dio. His Roman History was a serviceable quarry for facts and exempla in late antiquity—as it is now. Moreover, great harbors interested him (48.50.1–4, 51.5, Portus Iulius on the Bay of Naples; 60.11.1–5, Ostia; 74.10.1–2, Byzantium), as did canals (51.18.1; 49.37.3–4, Tiberius’ canal at Siscia; 60.30.6; cf. 68.28.1).262 It is hard to find fault with Boissevain’s placement of the Jordanes passage under a.d. 8 in the lacuna following 55.33.2, though none of the several other lacunae in Dio’s account of Augustus’ reign can be ruled out completely, the first under 6–2 b.c., the last under a.d. 14. A remark on Ravenna’s harbor fits attractively the context of the Illyrian war, in which its fleet is likely to have been a factor, for example, as a shield against a rebel invasion of Italy from the northeast (cf. 55.30.1n). On Jordanes’ sources cf. B. Croke, “Cassiodorus and the Getica of Jordanes,” CP 82 (1987), 117–134 with references, esp. 119–124.

259. On Ravenna and its environs cf. Vitr. 1.4.11; 2.9.10–11, 16; Plin. HN 3.117–121, esp. 119, ‘Augusta fossa;’ 36.83; App. B Civ. 5.80; Veg. Mil. 4.31–32. On Ravenna’s history as naval base and port see G.E.F. Chilver, Cisalpine Gaul: Social and Economic History from 49 b.c. to the Death of Trajan (Oxford, 1941), 18–19, 28–29; C.G. Starr, The Roman Imperial Navy 31 b.c.–a.d. 3243 (Chicago, 1993), 21–24; Kl. Pauly 4.1342–1343 (G. Radke); R. Chevallier, La romanisation de la Celtique du Pô (Bibliothèque des Écoles Françaises d’Athènes et de Rome 249) (Rome, 1983), 24–27 (archaeology); M. Reddé, Mare Nostrum (Bibliothèque des Écoles Françaises d’Athènes et de Rome 260) (Rome, 1986), 177–186 (valuable survey, with plan), esp. 183 (Jordanes’ 250 ships cannot be assumed to be exclusively military). 260. ‘Dio, qui historias eorum annalesque Greco stilo composuit.’ 261. Its subject was the Dacians conquered by his patron Trajan (C.P. Jones, The Roman World of Dio Chrysostom [Cambridge, Mass., 1978], 122–123). 262. Boissevain 2.516–517 finds it improbable that Cassius Dio, who treats amply Agrippa’s development of a great harbor in Campania, would be silent on Ravenna’s famous naval station. On the other hand, the chauvinistic enthusiasm for Ravenna in Jordanes cannot come from Cassius Dio. Jordanes has evidently confused under a single identity the Dio (of Prusa) who wrote Getic “histories” and the (Cassius) Dio who wrote “annals in the Greek manner”—a prosopographic conflation also attested in Byzantium (A.M. Gowing, “Dio’s Name,” CP 85 [1990], 49–54).

33.1–34.7: The Year a.d. 8

217

33.4–34.3: URBAN AFFAIRS (FRAGMENTARY) This section is partly annalistic (55.33.4), partly biographic (55.33.5–34.3, on Augustus as he aged). 33.4 lwûhvsanto" dev pote tou÷ limou÷, ejpiv te tw÷/ tou÷ Germanikou÷ ojnovmati, o} " hj÷n tou÷ Drouvsou pai÷", kai; ejpi; tw÷/ tou÷ ajdelûou÷ aujtou÷, | iJppodromiva" ejpoihvse, kai; ejn aujtai÷" ejlevûa" te rJinokevrwta katemacevsato kai; ajnh;r iJppeu;" plouvtw/ pote; proenegkw;n ejmonomavchse [Xiph.]:: “The famine having at length abated, in the name of Germanicus, Drusus’ son, and his brother [Claudius], | he [Augustus] produced circuses, in which an elephant subdued a rhinoceros and a man who was an eques and once of exceeding wealth fought as a gladiator.” This text bristles with difficulties. “The famine.” For Xiphilinus this is the limo;" ijscurov" (“violent famine”) in his preceding sentence (114 Dindorf = Boissevain 3.541), which is taken word for word from the intact text of Dio at 55.26.1, under 6. No evidence here, it follows, of a famine in 8.263 “In the name of.” In identifying those who presided Xiphilinus echoes Dio 55.27.3—on a gladiatorial munus in 6 in Drusus’ memory—an echo clear enough to show that he has taken the identities from this earlier passage, not from a now lost passage of Dio under 8.264 “Produced circuses.” “Circuses” cannot refer to a gladiatorial munus. I posit that, starting with iJppodromiva" ejpoihvse, Xiphilinus has attached material about circuses from Dio’s account of 8 onto material about the munus for Drusus from Dio’s account of 6—a bizarre conflation apparently occasioned by his reducing to a mere twenty lines the over 400 lines of Dio’s text for 6–8 (55.25.1–34.7). I have marked the splice with a vertical bar (|). “Elephant . . . rhinoceros . . . eques.” Since these details from Xiphilinus match nothing in Dio’s complete accounts of 6 and 7—or in his nearly complete account of 9—they must derive from the now lost portion of his account of 8. The animal and human combats were perhaps interludes in the program of circus races (cf. 57.14.4; 59.20.1; 60.23.5; Suet. Claud. 21.2) the novelty of which prompted Dio (and then Xiphilinus) to record them. In sum, Dio-Xiphilinus 55.33.4, which Boissevain places under 8, epitomizes Dio’s text from both 6 and 8. The twenty-two words lwûhvsanto" . . . aujtou÷ (as far as the vertical bar), transcribed nearly verbatim from Dio’s account of 6, should

263. Pace J. Schwartz, “Recherches sur les dernières années du règne d’Auguste (4–14),” Rev. Phil. 19 (1945), 60, cf. 51–53; Syme Ovid 205; Kienast Augustus 141–142; cf. C. Virlouvet, Famines et émeutes à Rome des origines de la République à la mort de Néron (Rome, 1985), 18 (normalcy restored in the course of 8); OCD3 586 s.v. famine: “food shortages . . . AD 5–9.” 264. Cf. Dio 55.27.3: h{ te sitodeiva ejpauvsato, kai; monomaciva" ajgw÷ne" ejpi; tw÷/ Drouvsw/ prov" te tou÷ Germanikou÷ tou÷ Kaivsaro" kai; pro;" Tiberivou Klaudivou Nevrwno", tw÷n uiJevwn aujtou÷, ejgevnonto. The corresponding phrase on which Xiphilinus drew is underlined. Cf. Suet. Claud. 2.2, ‘gladiatorio munere, quod simul cum fratre memoriae patris edebat [sc. Claudius].’

218

Commentary on Book 55

be cut from Boissevain’s text; what follows these words (and the bar) should be retained as a fragment of his account of 8. “Fought as a gladiator.” Because he was impoverished and needed the fee? Though legally banned, gladiation by equites was condoned occasionally. See 56.25.7–8n.

33.5–34.3 The Aged Augustus Dio describes how Augustus reduced his public activities with the onset of old age, notably by hearing cases from a tribunal conveniently located on the Palatine, delegating most hearings of embassies to a panel of consulars, and absenting himself from trials in the Senate and elections in the Assembly. Dio records further adjustments under 12 and 13 (56.26.2–3, 28.2–3). On Augustus’ manner of rule in his prime cf. 53.21.1–7. 33.5 ghv r a/ kai; . . . ajsqeneiva/ e[kamnen [Xiph.]:: “was worn out with old age and physical weakness . . .” Dio has already pictured Augustus thus under a.d. 4 (55.13.1a). Cf. 49.23.3 (King Orodes of Parthia); 64.3.2 (Galba). crhmativzein [Xiph.]:: “. . . and so could not give a hearing to everyone wanting something from him.” On the incessant demand for imperial decisions (even in minor cases like the disputed wills in Val. Max. 7.7.3–4) cf. Suet. Aug. 97.3. For Millar Emperor 228–240 (“Imperial Hearings”) at 240 the “routine nature and often insignificant subject matter” of these hearings reveals how subjects conceived the emperor “as a source of law and justice.” Dio reports, with apparent approval, similar public hearings of Tiberius (57.7.2), Claudius (60.4.3–4), and other emperors (66.10.5, Vespasian; 68.10.2, Trajan; 69.7.1, Hadrian), often at tribunals in the Forum. On Augustus’ jurisdiction see also 55.7.2n; 56.24.7n; cf. 53.21.5n. meta; tw÷n sunevdrwn . . . ejpi; bhvmato" prokaqhvmeno" [Xiph.]:: “would in person, along with his counselors, conduct investigations and render judgment on the Palatine, presiding at a tribunal.” On the role of counselors see Millar Emperor 230, 235–239. Having served as an assessor at the tribunals of both the sedulous Septimius Severus (75.16.4; 76.17.1–2) and the distracted Caracalla (77.17.3–4), Dio was able to appreciate Augustus’ unremitting work as a judge and his reliance on senatorial counselors. ta;" de; dh; presbeiva" [Xiph.]:: “But he entrusted embassies arriving from cities and kings to three of the ex-consuls . . .” A board on embassies of the same or similar composition is mentioned at 56.25.7 under a.d. 11. On the huge volume of embassies cf. Millar Emperor 375, 385; on the Senate’s role in receiving them cf. 53.21.6, 33.1–2; Talbert Senate 411–425, esp. 412. diakouv e in . . . ej p idiakriv n ein [Xiph.]:: “. . . who would each hear any envoys [tinw÷n] separately and give a response to them,” though it was sometimes necessary for the Senate and the emperor “to review” a petition before a decision was given. Dio uses diakouvein only here and at 36.53.2 (Pompey adjudicating competing claims), ejpidiakrivnein only here and at 57.20.4 (imperial review of death sentences pronounced by the Senate).

33.1–34.7: The Year a.d. 8

219

34.1–2 . . . 〈ouj〉265 | mevntoi kai; ejn toi÷" prwvtoi" ajll! ejn toi÷" uJstavtoi" aj p eûaiv n eto eto:: [34.1] . . . he did 〈not〉, however, give his opinion266 among the first to do so but among the last, so that all would be free to think for themselves, and none of them, as if under some compulsion to agree with him, would abandon his own opinion [gnwvmh" . . . ejxivstaito]. And he would frequently join magistrates in judging cases—moreover, whenever their counselors were divided, his vote [yh÷ûo"] would count the same as anyone else’s. [34.2] Now, however [tovte de;], he would let the Senate judge most cases without him. And he no longer attended the Assembly. In fact the previous year he designated all the magistrates himself, since there was electoral strife, and in this and subsequent years he posted notices commending those he supported to Plebs and People. As far as ejxivstaito, 55.34.1 so parallels Dio’s account of Tiberius’ conduct in the Senate (57.7.2–5,267 at 4) as to show that to this point he is treating Augustus’ senatorial conduct. Next follow brief remarks on Augustus’ conduct as a counselor at the tribunals of others. Then at 55.34.2 with tovte dev268 Dio turns to Augustus’ reduced participation in senate trials and popular elections. “Would frequently join magistrates in judging cases [sunedivkaze].” Cf. 57.7.6: Tiberius “would attend the courts of magistrates, both when invited by them and uninvited.” Dio uses sundikavzein in three other passages, always of judicial consiliarii of Septimius Severus: 74.9.2; 75.16.4; 76.17.1. Cf. Tac. Ann. 1.75.1 (with Goodyear’s n). “Whenever their counselors [oiJ paredreuvontev" sûisin] were divided.” We are still at the tribunals of magistrates, with Augustus serving as consiliarius— and content with this role (Dio’s point)—not at Augustus’ own tribunal (cf. 55.33.5). For paredreuvein used of proconsuls’ legati, who served as consiliarii, see 53.14.5–7; cf. 57.7.6, pavredro" = consiliarius. “Would let the Senate judge most cases without him.” Dio assumes that the Senate now functioned regularly as a court. Cf. Talbert Senate 460–461; 53.21.6n, 23.7n. “No longer attended the Assembly,” sc. for elections (ej" de; to;n dh÷mon oujkevti parhv/ei). Here Dio uses dh÷mo" to cover both Centuriate and Tribal Assemblies; but he differentiates them below (as also at 53.21.6–7).

265. From ajll! it can be inferred that mevntoi kaiv was preceded by a now lost ouj. ouj mevntoi kaiv qualifies (without negating) a previous statement introduced by mevn (e.g., 53.21.6; 55.10.13; 57.7.2). See Boissevain ad loc. 266. ajpeûaivneto = gnwvmhn ajpeûaivneto (as at 37.36.2) = sententiam dicebat. 267. This passage is sometimes misconstrued as describing in the main the emperor Tiberius’ conduct at his tribunal. Key to a right reading is recognizing that the brief segment ejpepoivhto me;n ga;r bh÷ma . . . parelavmbanen is concessive (sc. admittedly he did have a tribunal of his own etc.) but that, except for this segment, Dio’s topic is Tiberius’ modus operandi in the Senate. 268. Answering mevn in the preceding text, now lost.

220

Commentary on Book 55

“The previous year [sc. 7] he designated [ajpevdeixe] all the magistrates himself [sc. for 8], since there was electoral strife.” “All” is an exaggeration, implying intervention in the elections of every magistracy. Despite the imperious “designated . . . himself” (cf. 53.2.3n), Augustus will not have acted without sanction from the Senate. The least obtrusive way of appointing “all the magistrates” for a given office was to effect an equality of candidates with places—a slate. For reduction of the number of candidates when election rivalry got out of hand see 58.20.4; Tac. Ann. 14.28.1.269 “Posted notices commending [sunivsth] those he supported to Plebs and People.” For sunistavnai = commendare cf. 37.44.3 (Pompey recommending M. Pupius Piso to the electorate as consul for 61 b.c.) and 58.20.3 (Tiberius commending candidates to the Senate, “who were elected by all”). Cf. Tac. Ann. 1.15.1;270 Lex de Imperio Vespasiani (Crawford Statutes 1 no. 39 lines 10–13 = ILS 244 = EJ no. 364 = TDGR 6.82). Did the change now introduced by Augustus amount simply to supporting his favored candidates in absentia even when he was in Rome271 through a formal posting of their names for the information of voters?272 Meager as it is, Dio’s report on elections in 7 and 8 suffices to show how tight Augustus’ grip on them had become; it may also cast light on the genesis of imperial commendatio (binding recommendation of selected candidates), a feature of elections in evidence at the start of Tiberius’ reign. Full discussion in Frei-Stolba Untersuchungen 115–120. Here, as in his general sketches of elections under Augustus (53.21.6–7n) and Tiberius (58.20.1–5), Dio (like Tacitus) is silent on the destinatio centuries created in memory of Gaius and Lucius Caesar under the Lex Valeria Cornelia of a.d. 5 (a year for which we have the History intact).273 But cf. 56.40.4n. 34.3 pro;" mevntoi ta;" tw÷n polevmwn diaceirivsei" ou{tw" e[rrwto rwto:: “However, Augustus was so energetic in the management of wars that he set out for Ariminum [Map 4] so as to be able to give from near at hand all necessary counsel regarding the Dalmatians and Pannonians.” Levick suggests that Augustus undertook his journey more to consult Tiberius on the dynastic conspiracy of 8 that precipitated the fall of Julia neptis than to advise him on the Illyrian war: The Ancient Historian and his Materials (Farnborough, U.K., 1975), 128 and Latomus 35 (1976), 334. Wilkes thinks that the journey may have taken place one or two years earlier than 8 (Dalmatia 72 n1)—unlikely, given the apparently sure chronology of 55.34.2, 4. Cf. Suet. Aug. 20. 269. Levick Latomus 35 (1976), 331–332 links the electoral troubles of 7 with pro-Julian intrigue aimed at regenerating the fortunes of Agrippa Postumus. 270. “Tiberius limited himself to commending no more than four candidates [for praetor], who would be elected without risking defeat or having to campaign” (‘moderante Tiberio ne plures quam quattuor candidatos commendaret, sine repulsa et ambitu designandos’). 271. Having ceased attending the comitia in person. Previously, we know, he canvassed on behalf of “his candidates” in the republican manner whenever he attended (Suet. Aug. 56.1). 272. Fifty years earlier the dictator Caesar had “commended” favored candidates in libellis sent to all tribes: Suet. Iul. 41.2. 273. Details of this enactment survive on the Tabula Hebana (= Crawford Statutes 1 no. 37).

33.1–34.7: The Year a.d. 8

221

qusiv a ii:: “On his departure vows were made, and on his return sacrifices performed as if he had come back from some enemy land,” i.e., Augustus’ peregrination occasioned an official profectio and an official adventus.

34.4–7: EXTERNAL AFFAIRS—END OF THE REBELLION IN PANNONIA See Map 6. Dio resumes his war narrative of 8, the earlier section of which has mostly disappeared in the lacuna following 55.33.2n. 34.4 tau÷ta me;n ejn th÷/ @Rwvmh/ ejpravcqh, ejn de; touvtw/ . . . : “These were the events in Rome. Meanwhile . . .” A typical annalistic transition from urban to external affairs. Cf. 53.29.1; 56.11.1. Pivnnhn prodouv": “. . . Bato the Breucian, who had betrayed Pinnes and as a reward for this had been made ruler of the Breucians [by Rome], was captured and killed by the other Bato [sc. the Desidiatian].” A Pannonian (cf. Vell. 2.114.4), Pinnes274 had long shared the rebel command with the two Batos (Vell. 2.110.4), though Dio does not mention him under 6 or 7. Introduced here without identification, Pinnes may have made an earlier appearance in the History, possibly in a now lost report of the Pannonian capitulation at the R. Bathinus on 3 August of 8 (cf. 55.33.2n).275 34.5 ej" to; stravteuma euma:: The Desidiatian Bato brought the captive Breucian traitor to trial “before the army,” the rump of the rebel forces that the two of them had united in 6 on Mt Alma north of Sirmium (55.30.2, cf. 32.3). After a predictable verdict the Desidiatian “had him killed on the spot” (ajpoqanei÷n ejn cersi;n ejpoivhse; cf. 36.54.4; 78.35.3). 34.6 Silouano;" . . . Breuvkou" ejnivkhse hse:: Faced with a fresh Pannonian insurgency inspired by the overthrow of the Roman puppet, Silvanus “defeated the Breucians,” having apparently marched from Sirmium, where he was now in command of three legions (55.32.4n).276 A major figure, well-connected at court (his mother was a friend of Livia), M. Plautius Silvanus had been consul in 2 b.c. (as a new man) with Augustus as colleague: PIR2 P 478; RE 21.30–33 = Plautius 43 (Hofmann); Syme Aristocracy 87–88, 339–340, 430. Dio’s use of the cognomen 274. On the name, which is Illyrian, see Alföldy Personennamen 264–265. 275. Disingenuously (since they brought no credit to Tiberius), Velleius is silent on the Breucian Bato’s duplicity and its wages (2.114.4): ‘Batonem . . . et Pinnetem excelsissimos duces, captum alterum, 〈alterum〉 a se deditum.’ The word order is chiastic: of the “grand chiefs” Pinnes was taken captive, Bato surrendered voluntarily. 276. Velleius omits the renewed outbreak, perhaps lest it detract from Tiberius’ Pannonian victory, as when he suppresses how inconclusive the successes over Tacfarinas in Africa were for which Tiberius had been saluted imperator in 22 (contrast Vell. 2.129.4 with Tac. Ann. 3.73–74, 4.23–26). Koestermann Hermes 81 (1953), 366 n1 puts the omission down to Velleius’ hostility to Silvanus (cf. 2.112.5).

222

Commentary on Book 55

alone should mean that Silvanus was mentioned earlier, if so, in the lacuna following 55.33.2 (under 8). Having brought an army from his province of GalatiaPamphylia (Thomasson Laterculi 1.254) into the Balkan theater in 7, he shared with Caecina Severus, legate in Moesia (55.29.3n), command of the force of five legions and auxiliaries that survived a rebel ambush at the Volcaean Marshes (Vell. 2.112.4–6; 55.32.3n, without mention of Silvanus). On his operations in 9 and victory honors see 56.12.2–3, cf.17.2n. ejsovdou" ûrourai÷" dialabwvn: After Silvanus’ defeat of the Breuci, the Desidiatian Bato “despaired totally of Pannonia but occupied the passes from there [ejx aujth÷"] into Dalmatia with guard posts and began pillaging it [ejkeivnhn, sc. Delmativan].” These passes led southward into mountainous Bosnia. Koestermann Hermes 81 (1953), 367 suggests apt locations along the RR. Vrbas, Bosna, and Drina, all flowing northward from the mountains into the R. Save between Siscia and Sirmium. In places the river valleys were impassible even without garrisoning. See Map 6. What were the targets of Bato’s Dalmatian raids? Clearly not his Desidiatian kinsmen in Bosnia. Perhaps Dalmatians south of the Dinaric watershed who had taken the Roman side, inhabitants of mountain-enclosed alluvial plains (poljes) such as those north of Salona.277 Cf. Wilkes AAntHung 13 (1965), 115 for a similar view; on the possibility of a guerrilla presence in this vicinity through the war cf. 56.12.4n. 34.7 wJmolovghsan hsan:: “And in this way the rest of the Pannonians . . . also made terms.” Of the Pannonians who had renewed the rebellion, repudiating the Bathinus surrender, Silvanus vanquished the Breucians and won over “some” of the others by peaceful means, impelling the Desidiatian Bato to resign Pannonia (55.34.6). Now “the rest of the Pannonians,” guerrillas excepted, seeing their territory ravaged by Silvanus, also submitted. lh/ s tikav: “brigand bands278 . . . continued their destructive work for a long time.” This report, the last of Book 55, is continued at the head of Book 56 with tau÷ta [= lh/stikav] me;n a[lloi kaqhvr/ oun. Cf. 56.1.1n. If Dio’s remark in the present tense on the Pannonian predilection for brigandage echoes his experiences as legate of Upper Pannonia ca 226–228 (cf. 49.36.4; 80.1.3, 4.2; Introduction sec. 1), it is a late insertion, like 49.36.2–4.

277. On Dio’s usage of the names Delmativa and Delmavtai see on 56.11.1–17.3, “Note.” 278. lh/stikav also occurs in this sense at 36.20.3; 37.52.1; 39.56.1.

Book 56: a.d. 9–14

INTRODUCTION After the string of stock year-accounts, brief and stylistically restrained, that compose his Augustan narrative from 26 b.c. to a.d. 8 (only a.d. 4 with its set dialogue is an exception), Dio moves to a higher plane with a.d. 9 and Book 56, as his history of the first principate swells to a monumental close. A few events, narrated in lofty style, dominate the book, notably the Varian disaster (under 9) and the obsequies of Augustus (under 14). We owe what survives of Book 56 to Codex Marcianus no. 395, of which four folios (ca 200 lines) out of an original twenty-four are lost (cf. Boissevain 1.lxviii– lxxiv): from 56.22.2 (a.d. 9); after 56.24.5 (9–10); from 56.28.6 (13–14); after 56.31.3 (14). In part these losses can be made good from Byzantine epitomes and excerpts.

56.1.1–24.5: The Year a.d. 9 Annalistic structure: urban section—external section. The external section is interrupted by two lacunae (see above). If there was an end chapter, no trace remains. Dio’s account is on a grand scale, like that of 27 b.c., treating the birth of the Principate. When intact it ran to some twenty Boissevain pages (by contrast the four year-accounts of 10–13 together run to little more than a half dozen pages). It features three events: passage of the Lex Papia Poppaea on marriage (56.1.2–10.3, mostly given over to speeches of Augustus), Tiberius’ reconquest of Dalmatia (56.11.1–17.3), and the Varian disaster (56.18.1–24.5). The transition from urbana to externa is marked at 56.11.1.

1.1: URBAN AFFAIRS—TIBERIUS’ RETURN FROM ILLYRICUM Following the capitulation of the Pannonians at the R. Bathinus in August of 8, Tiberius had remained in Illyricum through winter 8/9, presumably occupying himself with the Dalmatian theater, where the war would continue through summer 9 (see on 56.11.1–17.3). He revisited Rome in the spring, where he celebrated his Pannonian victory, returning to the Dalmatian front later (56.12.1).

224

Commentary on Book 56

1.1 kai; tau÷ta me;n a[lloi kaqhv/roun oun:: “While others subdued these, Tiberius returned to Rome after the winter in which Q. Sulpicius and C. Sabinus became consuls.” The antecedent of “these” is the Pannonian “brigand bands” (lh/stikav) in the last sentence of Book 55 (55.34.7n).1 “After the winter” (meta; to;n ceimw÷na). For January as midwinter see 49.24.1; cf. 51.4.3 with Suet. Aug. 26.3; events from early in the campaigning season are dated “after winter” in 9.16.1 (Zon.); 49.38.2. In short, Tiberius’ return to Rome was in spring and cannot therefore be the event registered in the Fasti Praenestini under 16 January (year unspecified), ‘Ti. Caesar ex Pa[- - - - - - - -]avit’ = “Ti. Caesar [- - - -]ed from Pa[- - - -]” (IIt. 13.2.114–115; cf. EJ p45). Cf. 55.2.4n; Appendix 6. “Consuls” of 9. On the patrician Q. Sulpicius Camerinus see Syme Aristocracy 97–98. On C. Poppaeus Sabinus, a new man trusted by Augustus and Tiberius (cf. Tac. Ann. 6.39.3), see PIR2 P 847; RE 22.82–84 = Poppaeus 1 (Hanslik); he was not the author of the Lex Papia Poppaea of this year (cf. 56.10.3n). Nero’s wife Poppaea was his granddaughter. to;n dh÷mon hjspavsato ato:: “Meeting Tiberius in the suburbs, Augustus came with him to the Saepta and there saluted the People from a tribunal.” On the Saepta Iulia, a huge enclosure for assemblies, see 53.23.1–2n; Map 2. The solemnities were those of an adventus in honor of Tiberius’ Pannonian victory (Vell. 2.114.4), which had produced his fourth imperatorial salutation and Augustus’ eighteenth: cf. 56.17.1n; Appendix 3. For other adventus see 54.25.4; 55.5.1–2n, cf. 2.2n. Cf. in general Talbert Senate 70–72; Lacey Augustus 17–56. Suetonius also records an adventus of Tiberius (Tib. 17.2), though problematically: He himself put off his triumph because of the national mourning over the Varian disaster; nonetheless he entered [‘intravit’] the city wearing the praetexta and crowned with laurel, mounted a tribunal set up in the Saepta with the Senate in attendance and took his seat along with Augustus between the two consuls; from here, after exchanging salutations with the People, he was escorted [‘deductus est’] around the temples. Prima facie this adventus solemnized Tiberius’ final victory in Illyricum of summer 9, too late to be the adventus in the spring of 9 for his Pannonian victory in 8.2 But such a reading overlooks how many elements there are in common between Dio 56.1.1–2 and both Suet. Tib. 17.2 (quoted above) and Suet. Aug. 34.2 (quoted below at 56.1.2n). (Correspondences with Dio are underlined in both Suetonius texts.) The common elements suggest that all three texts treat one and the same adventus and derive from an annalist used by both Suetonius and Dio. Dio’s ac1. Pace Wilkes AAntHung 13 (1965), 115–116, who identifies tau÷ta as strongholds in Dalmatia that he believes were mentioned in a now lost passage under 8. 2. Thus for Syme RP 3.1216–1218 there were “two adventus in the year 9, . . . the first in the spring, the second toward the end of the year.”

1.1–24.5: The Year a.d. 9

225

count of Tiberius’ return “after the winter” of 8/9 (56.1.1–2) parallels Suet. Tib. 17.2 with respect to details of the salutation and Aug. 34.2 with respect to a public protest by equites against Augustus’ marriage laws. Inadvertently, Suetonius has created chronological problems by distributing between two biographies (Augustus and Tiberius) matter that he has drawn from a single source, adapting this matter to the biographic purpose at hand. At Tib. 17.2 he has chosen to present Tiberius’ adventus of spring 9, without regard for chronological order, as a kind of prospective solace for the postponement, in a season of national grief over the Varian disaster, of the triumph he was voted in the summer of 9. This inversion of events simply did not concern Suetonius as a biographer. See also Vogt on Suet. Tib. 17.2 (p95); Swan Phoenix 41 (1987), 286–288. ta; proshvkonta onta:: “After this, as well as doing the other things required by such occasions, Augustus gave victory shows through the consuls.” “Other things” may include the ceremonious visitation of temples reported in Suet. Tib. 17.2 (quoted above). The victory shows (qeva" ejpinikivou") match the “public show” (‘publico spectaculo’) in Suet. Aug. 34.2 (quoted below) at which the equites demanded relief from the law on the marriage of the orders. On the responsibilities of consuls for shows see Talbert Senate 60; cf. 55.5.2n.

1.2–10.3: URBAN AFFAIRS (CONTINUED)— AUGUSTUS’ ADDRESSES ON MARRIAGE AND PROCREATION; THE LEX PAPIA POPPAEA The Lex Iulia de Maritandis Ordinibus of 18 b.c. had made it a citizen’s public duty to marry. It penalized celibacy in men between twenty-five and sixty, in women between twenty and fifty (Ulp. Tit. 16.1), while rewarding marriage and procreation (see on 54.16.1–7). From the start the law met opposition and evasion (Suet. Aug. 34.1–2 with Appendix 7; 54.16.7n). Now, from a quarter century later, Dio reports a protest of equites demanding its abolition (56.1.2) and makes this the setting for two speeches of Augustus urging men to marry and multiply, after which he registers the passage of the Lex Papia Poppaea (56.10.1–3). The protest belongs in spring 9, enactment of the law on or after 1 July (its authors were suffect consuls: 56.10.3n). Bibliography. Brunt Manpower 558–566; van Stekelenburg Redevoeringen 141– 148; M. Humbert, Le remariage à Rome: Étude d’histoire juridique et sociale (Milano, 1972), 138–178; P. Csillag, The Augustan Laws on Family Relations (Budapest, 1976); G.W. Williams, Change and Decline: Roman Literature in the Early Empire (Berkeley, 1978), 59–61 (in banishing the younger Julia and Ovid in 8 Augustus was “cleaning up Rome in preparation for the final instalment of the moral legislation in the next year”); Wallace-Hadrill PCPS 207 (1981), 58–80; Astolfi Lex, esp. 304–353 (historical significance of the marriage laws); Treggiari Marriage 60–80 (with careful review of sources) and in CAH2 10.887–889; Mette-

226

Commentary on Book 56

Dittmann Ehegesetze, esp. 162–165 (differences between the Lex Iulia and the Lex Papia Poppaea). For collected sources see ADA 166–198; cf. Furneaux 1.483– 488 (“Excursus on the ‘Lex Papia Poppaea’”). 1.2 iJ p ph÷ ": At the victory shows “the equites vehemently demanded annulment of the law concerning those who do not marry and have children.” The protesters were equites equo publico, both young laticlavii of senatorial stock and angusticlavii (equites strictly speaking): cf. 55.13.6n. They will have been seated in a body—I assume that the show (56.1.1) was in a theater (54.14.4n; W.J. Slater, “Pantomime Riots,” CA 13 [1994], 129–131). On shows as functional “assemblies,” displacing moribund comitia, cf. T. Bollinger, Theatralis Licentia: Die Publikumsdemonstrationen an den öffentlichen Spielen im Rom der früheren Kaiserzeit und ihre Bedeutung im politischen Leben (Winterthur, 1969), 72–73; Wallace-Hadrill JRS 72 (1982), 37–38. Suetonius gives a parallel account (Aug. 34.2), drawing on a common source (correspondences with Dio underlined; cf. Appendix 7): When despite this the equites stubbornly demanded at a public show that it [the law on marriage] be annulled [‘abolitionem eius publico spectaculo pertinaciter postulante equite’], Augustus called for Germanicus’ children and showed them off as they sat in his own lap and their father’s, indicating through gesture and expression that they should not deem it a burden to emulate the young man’s example. From this text we learn that, besides Tiberius, Germanicus Caesar was home from Illyricum. Two infant children of his (Nero, Drusus) are attested at this time: Syme Aristocracy 96 n6, 133; cf. J. Humphrey, “The Three Daughters of Agrippina Maior,” AJAH 4 (1979), 125–143. He returned to the front shortly (cf. 56.11.1), Tiberius later (56.12.1; cf. Vell. 2.115.2–3). “The law concerning those who do not marry and have children” (to;n novmon to;n peri; tw÷n mhvte [mh; ms.] gamouvntwn mhvte teknouvntwn). Pace Jörs Ehegesetze 55, who sees here a “law concerning caelibes and orbi” (both those who do not marry and those who marry but do not have children), Dio’s words can refer simply to a “law concerning caelibes,” sc. the Lex Iulia. In the speech which Dio has Augustus address to the caelibes (56.4.1–9.3) they are frequently presented as not marrying and not having children (see various formulations at 56.6.4–6, 7.4, 8.2– 4, 9.1–3) rather than merely as not marrying. See further 56.7.3n. h[qroisen roisen:: Augustus “convened” the equites in the Forum and addressed them in two groups: the unmarried (caelibes), and the married, both those without children (orbi) and those with.3 No other source records this meeting, and it is presumably fictional. Whether the aged Augustus was equal to an open-air address is questionable (cf. van Stekelenburg Redevoeringen 144): by 8 he had stopped 3. Inconsistently, Dio here groups the orbi with the fathers as meritorious, but at 56.10.1–2, in recording provisions of the Lex Papia Poppaea, he groups orbi with caelibes as punishable.

1.1–24.5: The Year a.d. 9

227

attending electoral assemblies and most judicial sessions of the Senate (55.34.2); by 12 he could no longer make himself heard in the Senate (56.26.2); cf. Suet. Aug. 84.2.

2.1–9.3 Augustus’ Addresses on Marriage and Procreation Jörs observed over a century ago that in these speeches, first to husbands and fathers, then to the unmarried, we have mainly Dio, not Augustus (Ehegesetze 53).4 Still, Dio may have been inspired by knowledge that in advocating his legislation “on the marriage of the orders” Augustus recited to the Senate (and published by edict) a speech “on increasing offspring” (‘de prole augenda’) of Q. Caecilius Metellus (clearly Macedonicus, censor 131/130 b.c.), who proposed—‘censuit,’ so apparently to the Senate—that all be compelled to marry “for the sake of rearing children” (‘liberorum creandorum causa’) (Livy Per. 59; Suet. Aug. 89.2). If this was the germ of Dio’s compositions, he has taken a chronological liberty (as he also did in composing the Cornelius Cinna dialogue: see on 55.14.1–22.2): Augustus clearly gave his Metellus recitation in the debate not on the Lex Papia Poppaea but on the Lex Iulia of 18 b.c. since Livy recorded the event in his Book 59, composed long before the Lex Papia Poppaea was enacted in a.d. 9.5 For Dio’s Augustus marriage and childrearing are part of a natural and divine order—Stoic in spirit—to which humankind must conform if individual and community are to prosper (cf. Astolfi Lex 330); they also offer a kind of immortality through descendants (56.3.1–8). Celibacy, in subverting this order, is not only careless of the future; it is unnatural, antisocial, and impious (note the invective at 56.5.1– 3). For analysis of Augustus’ addresses see Mette-Dittman Ehegesetze 21–22. Augustus’ Address to Husbands and Fathers (2.1–3.9) Summary: I commend you for adopting the ways that enabled the Romans to surpass all other peoples in valor and number. There are many private joys and benefits in matrimony for husbands and fathers, including the survival of family, property, and self through children. The state, moreover, especially our imperial state, depends in both peace and war on an abundant population. 4. Dio will have had an abundant didactic tradition on which to draw for such addresses. Advocacy of marriage and childrearing and denunciation of celibacy were commonplace in Greek and Roman writers on ethics and politics; for a collection of texts see N. Geurts, Het huwelijk bij de Griekse en Romeinse moralisten (diss. Utrecht; Amsterdam, 1928), 1–35, cf. 168–172 (German summary). 5. On the chronology of composition of Livy’s history cf. P.G. Walsh, Livy: His Historical Aims and Methods (Cambridge, 1963), 8. The question of Dio’s source for Augustus’ addresses is complicated by the fact that Gellius (fl. second century a.d.) knew an ‘oratio . . . de ducendis uxoribus [“on taking wives”]’ given before a different audience (the Roman People) by a different censorial Q. Caecilius Metellus—Numidicus, who held office 102/ 101 (1.6.1–8, esp. 1). Possibly Gellius has erred (so van Stekelenburg Redevoeringen 144–146). Still a double lapse—as to both speaker and audience—is hard to credit, and M. McDonnell, “The Speech of Numidicus at Gellius, N.A. 1.6,” AJPh 108 (1987), 81–94 argues for two speeches by two Metelli. He is followed by E. Badian, “Which Metellus?” AJAH 13 (1988 [1997]), 106–112 (arguing in detail that ‘censuit’ in Livy Per. 59 signals a senate speech). Thematic or verbal correspondences between the speech known to Gellius and Augustus’ address to the unmarried in Dio (e.g., at 56.5.2n and 8.1n, 2n) perhaps originate from the same speech—by Metellus Macedonicus. Still we may simply have a sharing of commonplaces.

228

Commentary on Book 56

2.1 th;n patrivda sumplhquvete: “I am deeply grateful to you for your compliance in augmenting your nation.” The manpower theme recurs at 56.2.2, 3.7, 4.3– 4, 8.1. 2.3 aj i div w / diadoch÷ / genw÷ n: Mortals offset their mortality “through an eternal series of generations—like torches.” For the metaphor of the torch race cf. Pl. Leg. 776b. 2.4 qeov ": “That first and greatest god, who fashioned us, divided the mortal race in two.” A notion more Stoic than Augustan: humankind is duty-bound to obey nature’s plan of perpetuating it through sexual procreation. Cf. in general B. Shaw, “The Divine Economy: Stoicism as Ideology,” Latomus 44 (1985), 17–54. 3.3 gunhv: A text significant for its portrait of the dutiful and selfless Roman “wife:” modest, stay-at-home (cf. 7.10.1; 8.4.11), housekeeper, mother, her husband’s joy in health, nurse in sickness, companion in prosperity, solace in adversity, and moderator of his passionate youth and irascible old age. Cf. Treggiari Marriage 205–228 (“Graeco-Roman Theories of Marriage”) at 227. 3.5 makaristovn: Hapax legomenon in Dio. What is “blessed above all” on departing life is to bequeath lineage and property to one’s own born heir and thus survive the body’s dissolution. Cf. Pl. Leg. 721b–c. 3.8 oJ m oiv w " ej m oiv: “(For you are as worthy to have this title [of father] as I.)” An allusion to Augustus’ title Pater Patriae (for another, 56.9.3). Cf. 55.10.10n; 53.18.3. a[qloi" loi":: “While exalting you through the rewards that I have already established [under the Lex Iulia: see on 54.16.1–7], I will magnify you with still further honors and offices, enabling you to reap great benefits yourselves and bequeath them undiminished to your children.”

Augustus’ Address to the Unmarried (4.1–9.3) Summary: You transgress gravely against the next generation, which is left unborn, obliterate the memory and honor of your forefathers, abolish the worship of the gods by extinguishing humankind, and subvert the Roman state. Although I added penalties and rewards to the laws on marriage that existed from early times and relaxed some requirements, I did so in vain. You have trampled on the law in pursuit of a libertine and antisocial existence. The requirements of manpower, vital to the survival of family and state, are neglected. Admittedly, marriage has its disadvantages, but its rewards, conferred by nature and by the state, far outweigh these.

5.2 aj s ebei÷ t ee:: “You are guilty of sacrilege.” The censor Metellus Numidicus (see on 56.2.1–9.3) argued that to spurn marriage was to alienate the gods by squan-

1.1–24.5: The Year a.d. 9

229

dering the salus perpetua attainable through reproduction (Gell. 1.6.1–2, 7–8). Augustus promotes celibacy from the order of prodigality to a heinous crime against humankind and heaven (miaiûonei÷te . . . ajnosiourgei÷te . . . ajsebei÷te). 5.3 a[nqrwpoi gavr pou povli" ejstivn: “People make a city, not houses, not porticoes, not forums devoid of men.” An echo of Thuc. 7.77.7. 5.5 Kouvrtio" tio":: “Imagine how outraged Curtius would be, who endured death so that husbands would not be bereft of their wives!” Dio’s “Curtius” is apparently a Roman killed fighting against the Sabines who came to recover their daughters who had been seized by the Romans as brides. Yet tradition holds that the Curtius who fought in this conflict was a Sabine champion, Mettius Curtius: beaten back by the Romans, he made his escape through a marshy lake in what was later the Roman Forum—hence one etiology for Lacus Curtius (Varro Ling. 5.149; Livy 1.12.2, 8–10, 13.5 with Ogilvie’s nn; Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 2.42.2–6, 46.3; Plut. Rom. 18.4). For a Roman hero Curtius one looks naturally to the Marcus Curtius who centuries later devoted himself to close a portentous chasm in the Forum, hence a second etiology for Lacus Curtius: Livy 7.6.1–6, esp. 5 with S.P. Oakley, A Commentary on Livy Books VI–X, vol. 2 (Oxford, 1998), 96–102; Varro Ling. 5.148; Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 14.11.1–5; Dio-Zon. 7.25.1–6; Dio fr. 30.1; Val. Max. 5.6.2; Plin. HN 15.78. Dio introduces Curtiuses—without praenomen—in other speeches to symbolize patriotic self-sacrifice (44.30.4–5; 45.32.4; 53.8.3; 64.13.2 with Murison’s n). Did his memory, on which he relied heavily in composing speeches (Introduction sec. 5.4), desert him when he wrote our passage, injecting confusion of identities and events? Cf. Richardson Dictionary 229–230 s.v. Lacus Curtius; LTUR 3.166–167 (Giuliani); OCD3 415. !Ersiliv a: “How outraged Hersilia would be, who accompanied her daughter [to Rome] and introduced all our marriage customs!” Dio gives her the leading role in the reconciliation by the Sabine women of their warring Roman husbands and Sabine fathers (fr. 5.5–7). On the various traditions about Hersilia, including her marriage to Romulus (cf. Livy 1.11.2; Ovid Met. 14.829–851), see RE 8.1149 = Hersilia (Otto); Ogilvie 73–74. Only Dio credits her with introducing “marriage customs” (ta; gamikav). According to Plut. Rom. 14.6–7 she was the only married woman seized in the rape of the Sabine maidens. 5.7 a]n ajselgaivnhtev ti ti:: Irony: if your motive for subverting marriage is to live without sexual union like Vestals Virgins, then agree to be punished just like them “if you are at all unchaste.” Dio will have had in mind, as he wrote this, the execution, not many years before, of three Vestals (a fourth committed suicide), probably in winter 213/214 (77.16.1–3, with names; Hdn. 4.6.4; Millar Study 155).6 On the traditional punishments of unchaste Vestals (entombment alive) and their violators (scourging to death), see fr. 6.2a, 2b (= Loeb 1.26–27); 7.8.11–12 6. Cf. Introduction sec. 5.5, “Date of Composition.”

230

Commentary on Book 56

(Zon.) (= Loeb 1.50–53), with reference to Dio’s time; fr. 87.1–5; 67.3.32–41 with Murison’s n; 77.16.3; 79.9.4; cf. Livy 22.57.2–3; Plut. Numa 10.4–7; Suet. Dom. 8.3–4; T.J. Cornell, “Some Observations on the ‘Crimen Incesti’,” in Le délit religieux dans la cité antique (Collection de l’École Française de Rome 48) (Rome, 1981), 27–37; A. Staples, From Good Goddess to Vestal Virgins: Sex and Category in Roman Religion (London, 1998), 129–138. 6.1 kaiv o nte" . . . tevmnonte" nonte":: “Physicians treat many with cautery and surgery whenever they cannot otherwise be healed.” The metaphor of ruler as physician recurs in other set speeches (see 55.17.1–2n). 6.4 aj p ! aj r ch÷ ": “Right from the start, with the very foundation of the state, strict laws were enacted concerning them.” Dio draws on a tradition that childrearing and marriage were regulated already by Romulus: cf. Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 2.15.1– 2, 25.1–7; 9.22.2. Cf. Dio 56.5.5n. 6.5 ej p itiv m ia . . . a ajj qla qla: q¿ la: “I increased the penalties for the disobedient, . . . and even established rewards for the obedient,” sc. in the Lex Iulia of 18 b.c. 6.6–7.2 ûatev: “You say you have espoused7 this untrammeled and free way of life without wives and children; in fact you are no different from the most savage brigands and beasts.” Dio dignifies the imperial wrath with recherché diction: e.g., eu[zwnon, monauliva,/ mellonumûivwn, oijkwûelw÷", all hapax legomena in the History. 7.2 mhdevpw gavmwn wJraiva"":: “I let you woo still tender maidens not yet ripe for marriage [sc. below the legal age of twelve] so that under the title of husbandsto-be you might lead a life profitable to your house,” sc. without incurring incapacitas (ineligibility for inheritances and legacies). The Lex Iulia treated the betrothed as equivalent to married (in numero maritorum), therefore eligible for the legal rewards of husbands and exempt from the penalties of celibacy. Betrothals could not exceed two years (54.16.7n). ejxeleuqevra" a":: “Those of you outside the senatorial order [the equites angusticlavii] I permitted to marry freedwomen,” sc. under the Lex Iulia (54.16.2n). 7.3 triva e[th o{la . . . duv o: “First I gave you three full years to prepare, then two.” Dio apparently refers to periods of grace following enactment of the Lex Iulia in 18 b.c., though not all the law’s provisions were suspended since in 17 a ban on the “not yet married” (‘nondum . . . mariti’) had to be lifted by senate decree to enable them to attend the Secular Games (G.B. Pighi, ed., De Ludis Saecularibus Populi Romani Quiritium2 [Amsterdam, 1965], lines 52–57 = EJ no. 30 = FIRA 1 no. 40 = TDGR 6.11). Cf. 56.10.1n, a year’s grace following passage of the Lex Papia Poppaea in a.d. 9. 7. ejpanh/rh÷sqai (the iota subscript has fallen out in Boissevain’s text).

1.1–24.5: The Year a.d. 9

231

But Jörs Ehegesetze 49–63 disconnects the two- and three-year grace periods from the Lex Iulia (cf. 32), linking them instead with a subsequent overhaul of marriage law which he dates a.d. 4, i.e., between the Lex Iulia and the Lex Papia Poppaea, an overhaul that he holds is recorded in Suet. Aug. 34.1:8 “When he had reformed this last [law] rather more strictly than the others, he could not get it passed for the uproar from its opponents until he finally removed or mitigated some of the penalties, granted a three-year period of grace, and increased the rewards.”9 For Jörs the “three-year period of grace” in Suetonius is identical to the “three full years” in Dio to which two further years were added (lemma); the combined grace period (he argues) serves to date the overhaul five years before Augustus’ address to the caelibes in a.d. 9. Thus the law assailed by the equites in 9 was not the Lex Iulia of 18 b.c. (as most assume) but a stricter successor law enacted in a.d. 4 targeting not just caelibes but caelibes and orbi (so Jörs takes to;n novmon to;n peri; tw÷n mhvte gamouvntwn mhvte teknouvntwn in 56.1.2n), penalizing orbi with the same total incapacitas to which caelibes were already subject under the Lex Iulia. It was this increased rigor that provoked the “uproar,” to which Augustus responded by granting first three years of grace (Suetonius and Dio), then two (Dio), and finally by passing the Lex Papia Poppaea, which removed or mitigated some penalties and increased the rewards (Suetonius). The mitigation, Jörs argues, entailed reducing the incapacitas of orbi to half, their penalty under the Lex Papia Poppaea (Gaius Inst. 2.286a, cf. 111), a solution consonant with Dio’s report that in this law Augustus “separated the married [sc. but childless] from the unmarried by a difference in penalties” (56.10.1). Jörs’ hypothesis has the virtue, on which I build below (56.10.1n), of not importing into the Lex Iulia a penalty of incapacitas for orbi that no source attests (sympathetic discussion in Astolfi Lex 326–330). Its manifest weakness is that his law of a.d. 4 is nowhere attested; in particular, his contention that the Lex Papia Poppaea mitigated preceding legislation is hard to square with the testimony of Gaius, who links punishment of orbi through incapacitas solely with the Lex Papia Poppaea (Inst. 2.286a, cf. 111). 7.5 $Ellhsin h] kai; barbavroi" oi":: It is a sacrilege and a disgrace “for our city to be abandoned to some other population—Greeks or even barbarians.” Augustus’ “Greeks” are non-Roman but Hellenized peoples of the East (cf. 51.20.7). 7.6 ajp! ajrch÷" @Rwmai÷oii:: “when you who are yourselves Romans from our origins . . .” Augustus exposes the fallacy in Rome’s making new citizens of slaves and allies in order to swell its population (mevn) when at the same time “aboriginal Romans” are bent on extinguishing themselves, their families, and their names (d!). Given their irony, his words should not be taken as showing manumission of

8. Cf. Appendix 7, “Suetonius Aug. 34.1–2 and the Dates of Augustus’ Marriage Laws.” 9. ‘Hanc cum aliquanto severius quam ceteras emendasset, prae tumultu recusantium perferre non potuit nisi adempta demum lenitave parte poenarum et vacatione trienni data auctisque praemiis.’

232

Commentary on Book 56

slaves or enfranchisement of allies in a good light.10 For Augustus’ conservative citizenship policy, which Dio found congenial, cf. on 55.13.7; Suet. Aug. 40.3–4. progovnou" ejkeivnou" ou":: “. . . and number as ancestors the famous Marcii, Fabii, Quinctii, Valerii and Iulii [!Iouvllou" ms., retained by Boissevain against !Ioulivou" R. Stephanus].” Dio has picked gentes whose members figure more in his account of republican than of Augustan Rome (e.g., Marcius Coriolanus, Fabius Maximus Cunctator, Quinctius Cincinnatus, Valerius Poplicola, consul in the first year of the Republic). 8.1 swqh÷nai th;n povlin in:: Given deaths from disease and war, “the city cannot be preserved” without replenishing its population by a series of new births. Cf. 56.7.4: “How can the state be perpetuated [pw÷" d! a]n to; koino;n diaswqeivh] unless we marry and rear children?” Also Gell. 1.6.6, from Metellus Numidicus’ speech: “the state cannot survive without an abundance of marriages” (‘civitatem salvam esse sine matrimoniorum frequentia non posse’). 8.2 duscerh÷ . . . luphrav: “None of you should think me unaware of certain annoying and painful aspects of both marriage and childrearing.” A theme shared with Numidicus’ speech (Gell. 1.6.2–3, 6)—one on which the father of Julia could speak from experience. 8.4 pro; " . . . toi÷" a[lloi" ajgaqoi÷" toi÷" ûuvsei prosou÷sin aujtoi÷": “Over and above the other benefits naturally inherent in them, the rewards provided by the laws . . . ought to induce everyone to heed me.” For the antecedent of “them”— marriage and childrearing—see 56.8.3, kai; ejn tw÷/ gh÷mai kai; ejn tw÷/ teknw÷sai. 9.2 ejk tou÷ i[sou paraballovmenoi enoi:: “and joining together stake our all equally, and equally realize our hopes for what we have at stake.” Dio echoes and varies Thuc. 2.44.3, pai÷da" ejk tou÷ oJmoivou paraballovmenoi, from Pericles’ funeral oration.

10.1–3 Lex Papia Poppaea From Augustus’ addresses on marriage, which he sets in the spring of 9 (56.1.1– 2n), Dio moves to the enactment, some time in the second half of the year, of a new marriage law. 10.1 diecwv r ise ise:: Augustus “separated orbi [tou;" gegamhkovta", the married but childless] from caelibes [tw÷n ajguvnwn, the unmarried] by a difference in penalties.” The penalties were semi-incapacitas for orbi (Gaius Inst. 2.286a) and total incapacitas for caelibes (unchanged from the Lex Iulia of 18 b.c.: cf. Gaius Inst. 2.111, 144). Heirs and legatees related to the testator within three degrees (pos10. Pace Cary, Scott-Kilvert.

1.1–24.5: The Year a.d. 9

233

sibly more) were exempted from the penalty of incapacitas.11 See the full discussions in Wallace-Hadrill PCPS 207 (1981), 73–76 (Appendix: Exceptae Personae); Mette-Dittmann Ehegesetze 156–158. Cf. 55.25.5n, exemption of near relatives from the 5 percent inheritance tax (vicesima). Scholars have generally concluded that the Lex Iulia penalized both caelibes and orbi with incapacitas but that the Lex Papia Poppaea eased the regimen somewhat by reducing the penalty for orbi. They assume that, if the later law differentiated the penalties for caelibes and orbi, these must have been similar under the earlier law, also that the Lex Papia Poppaea must have offered some relief from the Lex Iulia, having been passed following protests against it. See, for instance, H. Last in CAH1 10.452–456, cf. 441–443; Kienast Augustus 165–166; MetteDittmann Ehegesetze 152, 164.12 This conclusion is vulnerable, however, in not explaining how so vehement a protest came to be directed against a law that had been in effect for a quarter century. Still more telling, no source states that the Lex Iulia penalized orbi with incapacitas, full or half.13 Against the standard view I suggest that the silence of the sources on orbi being penalized with incapacitas under the Lex Iulia means simply that they were not penalized. Now Augustus sometimes posted legislation in draft, inviting criticism and entertaining amendments—so Dio tells us in a sketch of the emperor’s modus imperandi (53.21.3; cf. 55.4.1, posting of measures in the senate house). The protest of equites in spring 9, I posit, was directed not against the quartercentury-old Lex Iulia (or a revision of it such as Jörs proposes was passed in a.d. 4: 56.7.3n) but against a draft law of 9 prescribing total incapacitas for the heretofore exempt orbi.14 The semi-incapacitas for orbi in the Lex Papia Poppaea (passed later in the year) was a retreat by Augustus before these protests from the greater rigor of his draft bill. He gave ground now just as he had given ground in 18 b.c. in order to carry the Lex Iulia (Suet. Aug. 34.1.)15 The net result, however, was that the Lex Papia Poppaea extended the penalty of ineligibility from the unmarried, the prime target of the Lex Iulia, to the married but childless— though only to the extent of half of the bequests otherwise due to them. 11. For a table illustrating degrees of relationship see H.J. Roby, Roman Private Law in the Times of Cicero and of the Antonines, 2 vols. (Cambridge, 1902), 1.263–264. Simply defined, the first degree includes one’s father, mother, son, daughter; the second degree a grandparent, grandchild, brother, sister; the third degree a greatgrandparent, great-grandchild, uncle, aunt, niece, nephew. 12. Cf. S. Treggiari in CAH2 10.887: “Opposition to the marriage law was not stifled when it was passed: Augustus apparently had to make various modifications (Suet. Aug. 34, Dio 56.10). Major revision (with some concessions) took place in the crisis year a.d. 9, when the suffect consuls Papius and Poppaeus updated the Julian law.” 13. Key texts from Gaius Inst. are: “Caelibes, who are prohibited by the Lex Iulia from taking inheritances and legacies” (2.286); “orbi, who by the Lex Papia, because they do not have children, lose a half share of inheritances and legacies” (2.286a); “caelibes, who by the Lex Iulia are forbidden to take inheritances and legacies, likewise orbi, i.e., those who do not have children, whom the Lex [lacuna]” (2.111). 14. Note how, with meta; de; dh; tou÷to (56.10.1), Dio severs the passage of the Lex Papia Poppaea chronologically from the speeches with which he has Augustus answer the protesters. 15. “Such was the uproar from opponents [sc. of the Lex Iulia] that he could not get it passed” [‘prae tumultu recusantium perferre non potuit’] until he made concessions. See Appendix 7.

234

Commentary on Book 56

This conclusion squares with the testimony of Gaius Inst. that under the Lex Iulia caelibes were penalized with total incapacitas (2.111, 286; the Lex Papia Poppaea made no change in this) and that the Lex Papia Poppaea penalized orbi with semi-incapacitas (2.286a). It accommodates equally Dio’s statement in the lemma that Augustus “separated orbi from caelibes by a difference in penalties” (sc. through the Lex Papia Poppaea). A Lex Papia Poppaea that initiated, rather than mitigated, punishment of orbi fits the stringent and mercenary character that Tacitus assigns to this law and that a decade later led Tiberius to temper it (Ann. 3.25.1, 28.3–4).16 In light of Augustus’ recent levies of new taxes, including the vicesima on inheritances and legacies (55.25.5–6n, 31.4n), and the huge cost of suppressing the rebellion of 6–9 in Illyricum (56.16.4n), a fiscal motive (among others) for the new law cannot be excluded (cf. Brunt Manpower 566). Even while failing to overcome rooted resistance to childrearing (Tac. Ann. 3.25.1: ‘praevalida orbitate’), it helped sustain the Aerarium through caduca—property that passed to the state because there were no legally eligible heirs or legatees (as a consequence of their incapacitas)— and through confiscations resulting from prosecutions.17 More delinquency, more potential for revenue. Often refurbished by senate decrees, legal interpretations, and imperial constitutions, the Lex Papia Poppaea remained long in effect: e.g., Cod. Theod. 13.5.7, exemption for shipmasters under Constantine; Treggiari Marriage 77–80. ej n iautov n: Augustus gave still another (prosepevdwke) “year” of grace to both caelibes and orbi in which to comply, sc. in addition to a three-year, then a twoyear vacatio in the case of the Lex Iulia (cf. 56.7.3n). 10.2 kai; para; to; n Ouj o kwv n eion nov m on, kaq! o} n ouj d emia÷ / auj t w÷ n ouj d eno; " uJ p e; r duv o h{ m isu muriav d a" ouj s iv a " klhronomei÷ n ej x h÷ n: Augustus “permitted certain of the women to accept inheritances despite the Lex Voconia [169 b.c.], which forbade any of them to be heir to anyone’s estate valued above 25,000 drachmas [= 100,000 HS].”18 Dio here registers (I hold) another provision of the Lex Papia Poppaea (though he has Augustus alone enact it, “realistically”), reducing a vexatious stumbling block in the Lex Voconia (cf. Gardner Women 173–174). Ways around the law had been devised heretofore, for example, through usufructs or trusts (fideicommissa) or by making a woman legatee (since she could not be heir) to a substantial portion (up to half the estate was permissible). Although how women now qualified to be heirs of wealthy testators is

16. Mercenary: Ann. 3.25.1, ‘augendo aerario;’ 3.28.3, actuation of accusers through rewards; cf. Suet. Nero 10.1: ‘praemia delatorum Papiae legis ad quartas redegit.’ 17. On caduca cf. Tac. Ann. 3.28.3: “If people failed to embrace the rewards of parenthood, the state, everyone’s parent so to speak, would take what was left ownerless” (‘si a privilegiis parentum cessaretur, velut parens omnium populus vacantia teneret’). Tacitus says that prosecutions ruined many. 18. For the genitive used of both testator and inheritance cf. 46.23.2, tw÷/ klhronomou÷nti aujtou÷ th÷" oujsiva". Cf. Gaius Inst. 2.274, placing the onus for compliance on the testator: ‘Item mulier . . . ab eo, qui centum milia aeris census est, per legem Voconiam heres institui non potest’ (“Again, by the Lex Voconia a woman . . . cannot be instituted as heir by a person who has been assessed at 100,000 in bronze money”).

1.1–24.5: The Year a.d. 9

235

not attested, it was no doubt by virtue of bearing children.19 Cf. 56.32.1n (the case of Livia). On the Lex Voconia see RE 12.2418–2430 = Lex Voconia (Steinwenter); A. Watson, The Law of Succession in the Later Roman Republic (Oxford, 1971), 29– 31; Brunt Manpower 563–564; S. Dixon, “Breaking the Law to Do the Right Thing: The Gradual Erosion of the Voconian Law in Ancient Rome,” Adelaide Law Review 9 (1983–1985), 519–534; J.A. Crook, “Women in Roman Succession,” in Rawson Family 65–67; Gardner Women 170–178; Astolfi Lex 301–302, cf. 323–325. pavnq! o{saper aiJ tekou÷sai ai:: Augustus “granted Vestal Virgins all the privileges of mothers.” The Vestals, already extraordinarily privileged (e.g., Gaius Inst. 1.145), probably now received the ius trium liberorum (cf. 55.2.5–7n). This exempted them from the incapacitas to which they had become liable under the Lex Iulia, being caelibes (cf. Gardner Women 24). Cf. 55.22.5n on a scarcity of highborn candidates for Vesta’s priesthood. 10.3 kajk touvtou ou:: “And thus was enacted the Lex Papia Poppaea.” Apparently Dio recapitulates his whole account, which began with the protest of equites at 56.1.1; I take the provisions in 56.10.1–2 to be from the new law (with Astolfi Lex 301–302; pace Cary, who takes kajk touvtou to mean “after this”). The titular legislators were the suffect consuls 1 July–31 December, M. Papius Mutilus and Q. Poppaeus Secundus (differentiate C. Poppaeus Sabinus, the ordinary consul). kai; sunevbh gavr . . . e[ c ein ein:: An anticipatory gavr clause, which “instead of following the clause which it explains, precedes it” (Denniston 68). Literally: “Since it happened that neither had child or even wife, through this very fact [kai; ajp! aujtou÷ touvtou] the need for the law was revealed.” For a parallel cf. 53.33.5.

11.1–17.3: EXTERNAL AFFAIRS—THE WAR IN DALMATIA, a.d. 9 See Map 6. note. Dio uses Delmativa, Delmavtai, and Delmatikovn in various senses (on the spelling cf. Boissevain 1.304n): (1) of the Dalmatian heartland, the region bounded by the watershed of the Dinaric Alps on the north, the Adriatic on the south, the R. Krka on the west, and the R. Neretva on the east; (2) of a “greater” Dalmatia, broadly coincident with the province Dalmatia created later (not before a.d. 8 or 9), embracing Dalmatian and other peoples, including Pannonians on the northern Dinaric slopes such as the Desidiates;20 (3) of the province Illyricum before its division into Dalmatia and Pannonia (e.g., 53.12.4, 7);

19. However much circumscribed, the Lex Voconia continued to operate: cf. Plin. Pan. 42.1. 20. Or the Pannonian Mazaei, whom Dio calls a “Dalmatian people” (Delmatiko;n e[qno", 55.32.4n).

236

Commentary on Book 56 (4) of the province Dalmatia (cf. Map 5), where both Dio and his father were legates (49.36.4). Cf. 55.29.1–2n. I use the name Bosnia (anachronistically) to refer broadly to the mountainous hinterland north of the Adriatic littoral of modern Croatia and south of the R. Save valley.

Dio resumes his account of the Illyrian rebellion of 6–9 (cf. 55.28.7–32.4, 33.1– 3, 34.3–7; 56.1.1). Having subdued Pannonia in 8 (55.33.2n, 34.6–7), the Romans now targeted rebel peoples to the south in “greater” Dalmatia (see “Note,” sense [2]), for whom warfare meant “holding out in a fortress, while the invader dissipated his energies with futile attacks in a terrain where supplies were difficult” (Wilkes Dalmatia 337–338). Dio features the actions of the young Germanicus (56.11.1–2, 3n, 15.1–3) and Tiberius (56.12.1–14.7, 16.1–3), the latter’s more impressively. Helpfully, he also notices Tiberius’ legates (e.g., 56.12.2, 15.3, cf. 17.2n). Sources. For a full list see Appendix 8, “Sources on the War in Dalmatia, a.d. 9.” Basic besides Dio is Vell. 2.115.1–116.4. Select bibliography (cf. on 55.29.1–30.6). M. Gelzer in RE 10.492–493 = Iulius 154; R. Rau, “Zur Geschichte des pannonisch-dalmatischen Krieges der Jahre 6– 9 n. Chr.,” Klio 19 (1925), 313–346 at 336–346; R. Syme in CAH1 10.373 (important); Šašel “Serevtion;” Koestermann Hermes 81 (1953), 345–378 at 368–378 (important); Alföldy AAntHung 10 (1962), 3–12; Wilkes AAntHung 13 (1965), 111–125 (important) and Dalmatia 74–77; Nagy “Zweiteilung;” Sumner Harv. Stud. 74 (1970), 273–274; Seager Tiberius 42–44; Woodman on Vell. 2.115–116 (pp180–188); Šašel Kos Outline 187–190; CAH2 10.177–178 (Gruen), 553–554 (Wilkes). argument. A central problem in making strategic sense of the Dalmatian war is how to harmonize the apparently divergent accounts of Velleius (praetor a.d. 15), a knowledgeable participant (e.g., 2.115.5, 104.4), and Dio, two centuries removed. Standard treatments fall short in this, particularly in underrating Velleius. In what follows I review the main scholarly positions, then offer a new interpretation, as the basis of my line-by-line commentary. Koestermann’s is the most influential strategic study of the Dalmatian war from the past century (Hermes 81 [1953], 368–378). Applying a knowledge of military topography gained as a German officer in Yugoslavia in World War II, he argues that the Desidiatian Bato’s blockade of passes leading from Pannonia southward into Bosnia in winter 8/9 (cf. 55.34.6n) precluded invasion from the north by the Romans. This obliged them, in 9, to transfer forces massively from Pannonia southward to Dalmatia proper (see “Note,” sense [1], above) through circuitous flanking marches via the northwest perimeter of the war theater; it was from the Dalmatian littoral that Tiberius, returning to the front from Rome, after a juncture there with his legates, launched a northward offensive, targeting Bato himself, while they undertook complementary assignments (cf. 56.12.1– 2). Subjugation of the Bosnian interior had to wait. Bato eluded Tiberius among

1.1–24.5: The Year a.d. 9

237

the Dalmatian mountain ridges until finally cornered in Andetrium, a fortress only some 20 km from Salona; although he escaped before the place fell to Tiberius after a difficult siege, he soon surrendered (cf. 56.12.3–14.7, 16.1–3). Only after this did the rebels of central and southeast Bosnia yield—without need for a full-scale Roman invasion. For all its topographic wealth, Koestermann’s account is vulnerable insofar as it overrides a key text of Velleius21 that locates operations by Tiberius himself in the remote Bosnian homeland of the “Perustae22 and Desidiates” (2.115.4): This campaign brought the momentous war to a successful conclusion; for the Perustae and Desidiates, Dalmatian peoples [‘Perustae ac Desidiates Dalmatae’], who were almost unconquerable on account of the position of their strongholds in the mountains, their warlike temper, their wonderful knowledge of fighting, and, above all, the narrow passes in which they lived, were then at last pacified, not now under the mere generalship, but by the armed prowess of Caesar himself [‘non iam ductu sed manibus atque armis ipsius Caesaris’], and then only when they were almost entirely exterminated.23 Neglect of Velleius produces a serious inconsequence in Koestermann’s ordering of events: he has the Desidiatian Bato make a final stand at Andetrium while his Bosnian homeland remains free of Roman occupation. Bato’s flight to Andetrium (related by Dio but not Velleius) would make better sense if it followed a Roman invasion of the territory of Perustae and Desidiates. Syme’s still valuable narrative in CAH1 10.373 (1934) supplies the missing logic.24 In the “final conquest,” he holds, while armies of the prince’s legates “entered Bosnia from the north, Tiberius in the south hunted down the indomitable Bato,” pushed out of Bosnia by the Roman southward invasion. Syme’s construction has a shortcoming, however: although he registers the stamping out of rebellion among “the Daesidiates in the neighborhood of Sarajevo and the Pirustae of Montenegro,” he does not, despite Velleius, make these operations Tiberius’ own— presumably because Dio locates the prince’s heroics so visibly at Andetrium. My construction, which is more reliant on Velleius than Koestermann’s or Syme’s, rests on the following argument. (1) Velleius provides a chronological and topographical anchor for the campaign of 9 when he records the fighting march of the legate M. Aemilius Lepidus (cf. 56.12.2n) “at the beginning of summer . . . from his win21. Among Velleius’ informants was his brother Magius Celer Velleianus, a legatus of Tiberius in the Dalmatian theater in 9 (2.115.1). Velleius may have been stationed there too, though he does not say this explicitly (2.115.5); certainly he was serving somewhere in Illyricum (2.104.3). 22. The Perustae (for the spelling Pirustae cf. Caes. B Gall. 5.1; Livy 45.26.13) dwelt in the southeast of greater Dalmatia, toward Montenegro, near the tributaries of the R. Drina. See Alföldy Bevölkerung 56–60 and Wilkes Dalmatia 173–176 (also CAH2 10.578). On the Desidiates see 55.29.2n. 23. This is F.W. Shipley’s Loeb translation; for the Latin original see Appendix 9. 24. A quite similar strategic conception can be found in Wilkes AAntHung 13 (1965), 120–121.

238

Commentary on Book 56

ter camp” at Siscia, where Tiberius had placed him in command in autumn 8, to a juncture with his imperator (2.114.5–115.3). (2) Velleius does not state where this juncture with Tiberius occurred. But the Bosnian heartland (cf. 55.29.2n), where the Desidiates and Bato had lit the fires of rebellion three years earlier and where Bato had withdrawn in defeat from Pannonia in autumn 8 (55.34.6n), is indicated,25 first by Lepidus’ making his scorched-earth advance through rebel territory as yet unscathed by war (‘per gentes integras immunesque adhuc clade belli et eo feroces ac truces’), second by Velleius’ testimony that Tiberius campaigned in person in “Bosnia” in 9. This is to take at face value his statement (2.115.4) that the Perustae and Desidiates were crushed in their home territory “by the armed prowess of Caesar himself.”26 (3) Dio’s narrative (56.12.1–2n) can be combined intelligibly with particulars from Velleius. Tiberius was dispatched (spring/summer 9) from Rome to “Dalmatia,” sc. “greater” Dalmatia.27 In launching the final offensive, we learn, he “divided his troops in three” (trich÷/ diei÷len aujtouv") among his legates Lepidus and M. Plautius Silvanus, the latter based at Sirmium (55.34.6n, cf. 32.3–4n), and himself. This threefold operation, I posit, entailed an invasion of Bosnia from the north by the two legates and a concentration of their forces there, as well as a juncture there with Tiberius. Although most details elude us, including Tiberius’ itinerary,28 we should subsume under the mobilization in Bosnia the juncture of Lepidus with Tiberius described by Velleius.29 In other words, the legates penetrated Bosnia in a pincer invasion—a favorite maneuver of Tiberius (cf. 55.29.1n, Strategy). While Lepidus struck southeast from Siscia toward the rendezvous with Tiberius, Silvanus’ army marched south, no doubt parallel to the R. Drina on its west, turning any passes that Bato had occupied against the Roman advance (55.34.6). Once concentrated in Bosnia 25. Rather than a location on the margin of the war theater, such as Burnum (with Syme and others), or the Adriatic littoral (with Koestermann). 26. The ethne sculptures from the Sebasteion of Aphrodisias-Plerasa in Asia Minor, which commemorate the range of Augustus’ conquests (and so also Tiberius’), include a female figure representing the Perustae: Smith “Ethne,” esp. figure 3 and plates 1, 8. 27. See on 56.11.1–17.3, “Note,” sense (2). 28. An advance from the south into Bosnia from Salona or Narona using the valley of the R. Neretva and its tributaries would have been fraught with difficulties. See Syme, “Augustus and the South Slav Lands,” DP 21; Wilkes AAntHung 13 (1965), 124–125, adducing possibilities as well as difficulties; cf. Wilkes Dalmatia 452– 455 (cf. 81–82), on roads constructed after the war. Tiberius is more likely to have traveled from Rome via Aquileia and Siscia. He had perhaps established an advance base in Bosnia in winter 8/9 (cf. 56.1.1n) before departing for Rome in spring 9. Velleius says that in autumn 8, after putting M. Aemilius Lepidus in command of the victorious Roman army in its winter camp at Siscia (2.114.5), Tiberius redirected his mind and arms to the Dalmatian war (2.115.1: ‘Caesar ad alteram belli Dalmatici molem animum atque arma contulit’). Only after this does Velleius signal the start of his narrative of 9 (2.115.2, ‘initio aestatis’). So there may have been winter operations preparatory to the next summer’s campaign. 29. Velleius is silent on Silvanus. A possible reason is hostility toward the legate, on show at 2.112.5 (cf. Dio 56.17.2n).

1.1–24.5: The Year a.d. 9

239

under Tiberius’ direct command (cf. Velleius’ ‘manibus atque armis ipsius Caesaris’),30 Roman forces were in a position to operate on internal lines against the Desidiates and Perustae, with Lepidus and Silvanus reducing the enemy fort by fort, while Tiberius pursued the Desidiatian Bato “through the whole region,” flushed him out of Bosnia southward into Dalmatia proper, and cornered him in distant Andetrium. Besieged there, Bato escaped before the fortress fell but later surrendered to Tiberius (56.12.3–14.7, 16.1–3). For corroboration of this account see Appendix 9, where I show that in Vell. 2.115.4 the standard text ‘Perustae ac Desidiates Dalmatae’ (“the Perustae and Desidiates, Dalmatian peoples”) has been corrupted in transmission and should read ‘Perustae Desidiates Dalmatae’ (“the Perustae, Desidiates, and Dalmatians”). On this new reading ‘Dalmatae’ ceases to be a useless gloss on ‘Perustae ac Desidiates’31 and becomes instead a third distinct ethnic element, parallel to ‘Perustae’ and ‘Desidiates’ in a triple asyndeton. That is to say, Velleius names the Dalmatae as a separate target of Tiberius’ savage campaign in 9. Historical advantages accrue from this. Velleius is shown not to have focused exclusively on Tiberius’ operations in Bosnia but also to have subsumed his achievement in Dalmatia proper to the south, highlighted in Dio’s account of the siege of Andetrium and the surrender of Bato. Moreover, the order of peoples in Velleius’ list at 2.115.4 can suggest an order for the campaign in 9, with the defeat of Perustae and Desidiates preceding the final Dalmatian conflict centered on Andetrium (as argued above). A geographical thread ties in here. The lay of the land in Illyricum has always raised formidable obstacles against the conquest of Bosnia from the Adriatic side, while allowing it, if grudgingly, from the Pannonian side.32 11.1 ej n me; n ou oujj n¿ th÷/ @Rwvmh/ tau÷t! ejpravcqh, Germaniko;" de; ejn touvtw/ a[lla eiJJ le on:: “These were the events in Rome; te cwriva Delmatika; ei l¿ e kai; Splau÷non meanwhile Germanicus took Splonum among other Dalmatian places.” Dio marks the change of theater from Pannonia to (“greater”) Dalmatia. Both Germanicus and Tiberius were in Rome in spring 9 (56.1.2n). Now back at the front, Germanicus was “sent ahead [‘praemissus’] against many difficult places” (Vell. 2.116.1). For Tiberius’ return to the front later see 56.12.1. Wilkes AAntHung 13 (1965), 115–116 takes Dio’s “other Dalmatian places” to be “the strongholds referred to at the beginning of the book [sc. 56.1.1], which Tiberius left others to reduce.” But the latter were brigand nests (lh/stikav) in Pannonia, not Dalmatia: see 55.34.7n–56.1.1n. Some infer from ejn touvtw/ (“meanwhile”) that Germanicus had been campaigning all along and did not visit Rome in winter 8/9 (despite Suet. Aug. 34.2;

30. Cf. Wilkes AAntHung 13 (1965), 116–118, who has Tiberius operate from the Adriatic side of Dalmatia in 9. 31. Desidiates and Perustae are two of six tribes identified by Strabo as Pannonians (7.314). So they are not Dalmatae in an ethnic sense. They might be called Dalmatae in a geographic sense, i.e., as dwelling in “greater” Dalmatia. But what would Velleius’ point be in saying this? 32. Cf. Syme CAH1 10.355: “From the coast the interior cannot be conquered and has never been conquered— the huge mass of the Dinaric Alps severs Dalmatia from Bosnia.”

240

Commentary on Book 56

cf. 56.1.2n): e.g., T. Wiedemann, “The Political Background to Ovid’s Tristia 2,” CQ 25 (1975), 265 n4. But this is to assign an unintended precision to Dio’s phrase, which he uses to coordinate broadly the urban events just related (56.1.1–10.3) with the overlapping, rather than strictly synchronous, external events to which he now turns (cf. 53.27.1). “Splonum.” For the name see ILS 7153, cf. 7162, 7163. No doubt one of the “many difficult places” that Velleius says Germanicus was sent to attack. Its location is unknown, Dio’s description of little help. For conjectures see Koestermann Hermes 81 (1953), 371, near Stari-Majdan, in the valley of the R. Sana; Alföldy AAntHung 10 (1962), 3–12, with map on 5, at Šipovo on the R. Pliva, a tributary of the Vrbas. Wilkes, by contrast, places Splonum far to the east at Plevlje on the R. C"ehotina, a tributary of the Drina: AAntHung 13 (1965), 111–125 and Dalmatia 281–282. 11.2 iJppeu;" Keltov": “A German cavalryman” named Pusio brought down with a missile stone a section of the battlements along with a defender, starting a panic. Timpe thinks that Pusio belonged to an auxiliary cavalry unit (Arminius 44); for auxiliaries in the Illyrian war cf. Vell. 2.113.1; 56.19.2n. Speidel suggests that he was in a contingent of Augustus’ German horse guards (55.24.7n) attending Germanicus (Riding 18 and n9). Dio’s Splonum account betrays no obvious proGermanicus bias (cf. 55.31.1n): the heavily defended place fell by a fluke (ejk . . . suntuciva": cf. 42.58.2; 74.7.7). For chance as a factor in war in Dio cf. 37.20.3; 56.37.5. 11.3 ejnteu÷qen de; ejpi; @Raivtinon inon:: “Having moved from here to Raetinium, they fared differently,” sc. badly (litotes). The place is no doubt the Raetinium (precise location unknown) named on the gravestone in Mainz of an eques of the ala Claudia called Andes (ILS 2504, ‘cives [sic] Raetinio’ = CIL 13.7023). The name Andes is native among the Iapodes in the west of “greater” Dalmatia around Bihac; (Wilkes Dalmatia 267), and that is where our cavalryman was apparently recruited: an inscription found at Golubic;, a few km up the R. Una from Bihac;, indicates that the ala Claudia was stationed in the vicinity (CIL 3.10033 with prefatory discussion) before being transferred to Germany (by 74: ILS 1992). See RE 1.1237–1238 = Ala (Cichorius); RE 1A.62 = Raetinum (Oberhummer); Alföldy AAntHung 10 (1962), 3, map at 5; Wilkes Dalmatia 267, cf. 145, maps at 18 and 268. Locating Raetinium helps delimit the whereabouts of Splonum (56.11.1n) and Seretium (56.12.1n), since Dio links the sieges of the three—though Wilkes is prepared to place Splonum some 300 km distant in northern Montenegro (56.11.1n). The plural verb here (“having moved from here to Raetinium, they . . .”) and the passive at 56.12.1 (“Seretium was overpowered”) can suggest that Germanicus played no significant part in these two sieges. But in bringing the prince in pivotally at the head of the section on external affairs (56.11.1) Dio may assume his presence throughout—until Tiberius takes center stage on returning to the war (56.12.1).

1.1–24.5: The Year a.d. 9

241

e[" te to;n kuvklon pevrix ix:: “They deliberately set fire to the whole perimeter wall and the buildings next to it.” Dio uses kuvklo" of the circuit of defensive walls at Lilybaeum (8.15.9), Nisibis (36.7.3), Jerusalem (66.5.2, 6.1, also fired to hold up besiegers), and Byzantium (74.10.4). 11.5–7 ejn panti; kinduvnou ejgevnonto onto:: The Romans “found themselves in extreme peril,” trapped between enemy and inferno. An artificial passage, serving rhetoric more than history—though the caves in which the defeated took refuge may be an authentic detail (on the karst around Bihac; cf. Jugoslavia 1.56–58). 12.1 Serev t ion de; , o{ p er pote; oJ Tibev r io" poliorkhv s a" ouj c hJ / r hv k ei, ej c eirwv q h h:: “Seretium, which very place Tiberius had once besieged without taking it, was overpowered.” Named only by Dio, its location is unknown, though generally thought to be in western Bosnia, possibly around the upper R. Una;33 cf. 56.11.3n. “Once.” For most scholars Dio’s pote suggests an event beyond the immediate past, perhaps in a.d. 7 (so Šašel “Serevtion” 266; Koestermann Hermes 81 [1953], 363 n3). But under 35 b.c. Dio uses pote of an honor granted to Octavian just the year before (49.18.6, recalling 49.15.1).34 So a siege of Seretium in 8 cannot be ruled out entirely. Cf. Wilkes AAntHung 13 (1965), 116, entertaining the idea that Tiberius besieged Seretium while mounting the Dalmatian war late in 8, with its capture by Germanicus being “the successful termination of a winter blockade.” “Without taking it.” Dio does not overstate Tiberius’ failure at Seretium invidiously (cf. 55.31.1n). His account is carefully balanced: in contrast to the taking of Raetinium (ejkei÷ mevn), where the Romans (under Germanicus) suffered unexpected losses and the defenders escaped (56.11.3–7), their capture of Seretium (dev) was plainly a positive achievement, for it had withstood Tiberius himself, and its fall led to the capture of other places; as the sequel showed, however, Tiberius was still needed at the front. ajntairovntwn twn:: “Now [d! ouj ¿n] since even so [kai; w{"—sc. despite the success at Seretium; cf. 53.12.1] the remaining places were rebelling and the war was dragging on, and because of it there was famine especially in Italy, Augustus once more sent Tiberius to Dalmatia.” d! ouj ¿n “leads back to the main topic, which has temporarily been lost sight of” (Denniston 463–464): Dio now returns to his main actors, Augustus and Tiberius. Cf. Suet. Tib. 16.2, Tiberius’ perseverantia in pursuing the war despite often being recalled to Rome. “Famine.” How did the war aggravate it? Through diversion of grain supplies and transport? Stocks in Rome were probably still low after famines 5–7 (55.22.3, 26.1, 31.3; cf. 33.1, 4n; cf. Plin. HN 7.149; Suet. Tib. 16.1). 33. E.g., RE 2A.1683 = Serevtion (Fluss); Šašel “Serevtion” 266–267; Koestermann Hermes 81 (1953), 371; Alföldy AAntHung 10 (1962), 3. 34. The construction—w{sper pote; kai; aujtw÷/ ejyhvûisto—parallels that of our lemma: relative intensified with -per, pote, pluperfect verb.

242

Commentary on Book 56

“Once more sent Tiberius.” Pace Koestermann Hermes 81 (1953), 370–372 (also Wilkes Dalmatia 74), Tiberius had not resigned the general command in favor of Germanicus on the conclusion of the Pannonian war only to resume it now— no matter if Augustus hoped that the young prince, who had gone ahead (56.11.1n), and the legates on the spot could finish the Dalmatian war. Cf. 56.17.2n, Germanicus awarded triumphal ornaments like Tiberius’ legati, proof of his subordinate status; Vell. 2.115.4, assuming that the command (ductus) belonged to Tiberius even in his absence. “To Dalmatia,” sc. “greater” Dalmatia, the new theater of war. Compare Germanicus’ coming “to Pannonia” when Roman forces were being marshaled in the vicinity of Siscia in 7 (55.32.3; cf. 54.28.1). 12.2 diapolemh÷saiv pw" pw":: Tiberius, “seeing that the soldiers would brook delay no longer but were impatient, danger and all, somehow to finish the war, . . .” Frustration would flare up again at the siege of Andetrium (56.13.1n).35 Cf. Tac. Hist. 3.26.3, ‘miles periculi quam morae patientior.’ kai; ûobhqei;" mh; kai; kaq! e}n o[nte" stasiavswsi, trich÷/ diei÷len aujtouv": “. . . and fearing that, being together,36 they might mutiny, divided them in three [cf. 60.19.4], placing some under Silvanus and some under Marcus Lepidus, and with the rest moved against Bato along with Germanicus.” A passage suggestive of Tiberius’ strategy: having brought the two armies based on Sirmium and Siscia into the rebel heartland in Bosnia in a pincer invasion (see on 56.11.1–17.3, “Argument”), he now redeployed them in three divisions (trich÷/) in the new war theater.37 On M. (Aemilius) Lepidus (cos. a.d. 6), the legate from Siscia, see PIR2 A 369; R. Syme, “Marcus Lepidus, Capax Imperii,” JRS 45 (1955), 22–33 and Aristocracy 128–140; R.D. Weigel, “Augustus’ Relations with the Aemilii Lepidi—Persecution and Patronage,” RhM 128 (1985), 180–191 at 186–187. Apparently Lepidus succeeded the legate of Illyricum, M. Valerius Messalla Messallinus (55.29.1n; Thomasson Laterculi 1.88), in winter 8/9 (Vell. 2.114.5; cf. A. Dobó, Die Verwaltung der römischen Provinz Pannonien von Augustus bis Diocletianus [Amsterdam, 1968], 22–23; Thomasson Laterculi 1.99). Cf. 56.15.3n on the question whether Lepidus’ post was as legate of a now newly established provincia Pannonia. 12.3 katestrevyanto anto:: Lepidus and Silvanus “subdued their adversaries in battles without difficulty.” Lepidus’ part in this, since it followed Tiberius’ division of the 35. Augustus just possibly refers to the morale problem in a letter to Tiberius quoted in Suet. Tib. 21.5 (without date and perhaps to be linked instead with Tiberius’ operations in Germany after the Varian disaster of 9): “Amid so many difficulties and such malaise among the troops ªtosauvthn ajpoqumªeºivan tw÷n strateuomevnwnº I think that no one could have comported himself with more wisdom than you.” 36. I translate kaq! e}n o[nte" literally. Still, a different inflection is possible, for example: “fearing that, if they were together, they might mutiny, . . .” 37. Sumner Harv. Stud. 74 (1970), 273 n103 finds fear of mutiny “a strange reason for the tripartite division of forces.” Did Dio’s obsession with military discipline cause him to overlook Tiberius’ strategy? Did he see here a harbinger of the mutiny of Pannonian legions on Tiberius’ accession (57.4.1)? Cf. Vell. 2.113.2.

1.1–24.5: The Year a.d. 9

243

combined forces, should not be equated with his heroic march from Siscia to the rendezvous with Tiberius (described in Vell. 2.115.2–3). dia; pav s h" . . . th÷ " cwv r a" a":: “But Tiberius himself ranged over virtually the whole land.” Rather than ethnic Dalmatia alone, where his pursuit of Bato ended at Andetrium, Dio indicates the entire region where Tiberius—with his legates— fought “Perustae, Desidiates, and Dalmatae” (Vell. 2.115.4 as emended: see Appendix 9).38 See on 56.11.1–17.3, “Argument.” kataûugovnti . . . ej " !Andhv t rion [Boissevain; aj n dhv r ion ms.]:: Bato “finally took refuge in Andetrium, a fort located close to Salona itself [aujth÷/].” On the name Andetrium, made famous by battle (Plin. HN 3.142), see Boissevain 2.528. For location of the fort at modern Muc;, ca 20 km north of Salona, see T. Mommsen in CIL 3 p361; RE 1.2124 = Andetrium (Tomaschek); Koestermann Hermes 81 (1953), 374; Wilkes Dalmatia 75, 240.39 Dio underscores how near the rebel peril was to the Adriatic port and Roman colony (cf. 55.29.4n). deinw÷ " ej p ov n hse hse:: Tiberius “encountered terrible difficulty.” Dio, for whom endurance was a virtue, intends no slight. Cf. 72.2.2, Commodus, “who hated toil” (misovpono"); 78.3.1, Caracalla, “incapable of toil” (ajsqenevstato" ponh÷sai). Dio has Marcus Aurelius say: “I will continue toiling [ponw÷n] and running risks for the commonwealth” (71.24.4). 12.4 ûrouvrion ion:: “The fort had been built on a rocky eminence, very easy to defend and hard to approach, enclosed by deep chasms containing violent streams”40 (ûavragxi baqeivai" potamou;" ceimavrrou" ejcouvsai" ejgkekleimevnon). Dio embroiders the obstacles confronting Tiberius (cf. 56.13.5). For similar diction cf. 9.24.1 (Zon.); Hom. Il. 4.452, wJ" d! o{te ceimarroi; potamoi; kat! o[resûi rJevonte"; Aesch. PV 15; Eur. Tro. 448–449. Strabo calls Andetrium ejrumno;n cwrivon, “a stronghold” (7.315; cf. Dio 56.13.3, pro;" aujto; to; ejrumnovn). On Dalmatian hill forts built on mountain spurs secured by narrow approaches and steep ascents or ravines see Wilkes Illyrians 190–192. ejpithvdeia . . . proesenhnovcesan esan:: “People had either stockpiled all their supplies or were bringing them in from the mountains they controlled.” Apparently the rebels were able to keep open a route to Andetrium from the hinterland; they may have held the fort from the first year of the war, when they attacked nearby Salona (55.29.4n). It was not enough to occupy Dalmatia on a single plane: rebel strongholds might hold out long after Rome had gained control of lower-lying terrain. 12.5 sitopompivann:: “By setting ambushes they were impeding Roman transport of grain,” no doubt from Salona. Supply trains were exposed to surveillance and attack from the heights. Cf. Wilkes Illyrians 190–191 with figure 20. 38. Koestermann grasped the challenges facing Tiberius: “What marches over such terrain entail only someone who . . . has experienced fighting against the mountaineers can imagine” (Hermes 81 [1953], 373 n2). 39. Muc; is in the upper C"ikola valley on the modern road between Sinj and Drniš, which passes south of the Svilaja range: Jugoslavia 1.59 with figures 64–65. 40. A detail found “entirely meaningless” by Koestermann Hermes 81 (1953), 374 n2 since stream beds were no doubt all but dry at the season in question.

244

Commentary on Book 56

13.1 ajporou÷nto" to":: Tiberius “being at a loss.” There is no malice here. Dio underscores the despair that it was the commander’s duty to face, setting the scene for a sudden turn of fortune. Cf. 53.25.6, Augustus “entirely at a loss.” ejqoruvbhsan hsan:: “The soldiers made a noisy protest.” Tiberius’ angry reaction was over their indiscipline (Dio’s aversion), his pleasure over the enemy’s panicking at the noise. Cf. 57.4.1, ejqoruvbhsan used of troops mutinying on Tiberius’ accession. 13.2 kata; cwvran hJsucavzwn e[meine eine:: Tiberius “neither became rash [because the enemy had retreated] nor raised the siege41 [because his troops were restive] but remained unperturbed where he was.” Cf. Vell. 2.115.5, praise of Tiberius’ generalship, just possibly subsuming our event. duvnami" . . . hjlattou÷too:: With the fall of the other strongholds “except a few” Bato’s “forces were becoming inferior to those now facing him.” Dio skims over operations that shifted the balance decisively. 13.3 ej g katev l ipen ipen:: Bato “abandoned” Andetrium, defenders and all, but did not go over to the Romans. Since he received many appeals for aid from former partisans (all ignored), he evidently took a force with him (cf. 56.16.1). His surrender (56.16.1–3) came after the fall of Andetrium to Tiberius and independently of it. He had no doubt moved to another Dalmatian fortress, not (pace Koestermann Hermes 81 [1953], 374) to his Desidiatian homeland, now in Roman control. aj n aimwtiv: “thinking that he would defeat them without loss of blood.” On Tiberius’ care to keep casualties low cf. Vell. 2.115.5 with Woodman’s n. 13.4 ejpi; bhvmato" ato":: As the Romans advanced uphill over rugged terrain, Tiberius mounted a “platform” on high ground so that the troops would fight more ardently, sensing his eye on them. Koestermann Hermes 81 (1953), 374 scorns this detail, questionably. For an opposite view see Goldsworthy Army 150–154 at 153 (but read Andetrium for Seretium). 13.5 ejn plaisivw/ puk puknnw÷:/ The main force proceeded uphill “in a densely manned [cf. 50.31.4] hollow rectangle.” Dio apparently uses plaivsion (only here in the extant History) of the Roman agmen quadratum. This “marching fortress” apparently consisted of flanking columns separated by a substantial interval closed at either end by a forward and a rear guard. It had an open center where supplies and noncombatants could be sheltered. Cf. Kromayer & Veith 547–548. Caecina Severus employed this formation in extricating his army when trapped on marshy ground by Arminius in 15 (Tac. Ann. 1.64.4–65.7). For the plaivsion in Greek warfare see Thuc. 6.67.1; 7.78.2 (Athenians in retreat from Syracuse); cf. Kromayer & Veith 82. diespavsqhsan qhsan:: Those in the plaivsion “were pulled apart” on the steep and broken ground. Cf. 8.19.1, Hamilcar’s forces thrown into disarray by a ruse; Thuc. 6.98.3; 7.44.5. 41. ajpanevsth. Cf. Thuc. 1.139.1; Dio 49.35.3; 56.22.2b.

1.1–24.5: The Year a.d. 9

245

14.1 trocouv " . . . aJ m av x a" . . . kibwtouv ": “Some launched wheels, others entire wagons full of rocks, others round baskets . . . crammed with stones.” The asyndeton evokes an incessant rain of missiles. 14.2 kataûerovmena diesûendona÷too:: “All these missiles came hurtling down at once with great force, rocketing every which way.” Dio strives for effects possibly suggested by Xen. An. 4.2.3. diasûendona÷n is hapax legomenon in the History. sunhvlou [ms.; sunhlova Reiske, approved by Boissevain]:: The missiles “smashed in” the Roman formation. sunaloa÷n = “crush, grind to a powder” (LSJ; cf. Theocr. Id. 22.128, Amycus’ cheeks smashed in by Polydeuces in their boxing match); in Dio only here and in fr. 12.9. 14.3–4 pollh; me;n tw÷n macomevnwn ûilotimiva: “Great was the rivalry among the combatants.” Seeding his account set in rugged Dalmatia with reminiscences of Thucydides’ tableau of the naval battle in the harbor of Syracuse in 413 b.c. (7.70.7–71.7), Dio pictures the intense actions and emotions that caught up fighting men and onlookers on either side. Cf. Reinhold Republic 29. 14.5 tou;" polemivou" eJtevrwn hwh÷i [tinw÷n, hJ ¿/ Kuiper]] ajnivthton ej" to; cwrivon ej k pleiv o no" perielqou÷ s in h} n [h÷jn, Kuiper] peripev m yei ej t av r axe axe:: This is Boissevain’s text, reproducing the manuscript (2.529). Kuiper’s conjectures give the following sense: “by sending some others around to where there was a way up to the place if one made a wide circuit he threw the enemy into confusion.” ajnivthton, if sound, occurs only here to my knowledge (not in LSJ). 14.7 ej n tai÷ " u{ l ai" ai":: “Most of them they found hiding in the woods and killed like animals.” Cf. Koestermann Hermes 81 (1953), 374, noting peaks in the vicinity “which even today are still heavily treed in places.” For unabashed Roman brutality see also Vell. 2.115.2. 15.1 aujtovmoloi oloi:: While Tiberius implemented the conditions accepted by those in Andetrium, Germanicus attacked still insurgent strongholds where “deserters, who were many,” were stopping local populations from coming to terms. These may have numbered auxiliaries (as at Tac. Ann. 2.52.1; 4.23.1, cf. 48.3) as well as legionaries; cf. 66.5.4, linking desertion with protracted sieges; 68.9.5; 71.11.2; 72.2.2. #Ardouban #Ardouban:: Germanicus “subjugated a place called Arduba.” The site is unknown. Dio’s narrative suggests that he was now operating not far from Andetrium and Tiberius, therefore probably in ethnic Dalmatia: he had joined at the start Tiberius’ pursuit of Bato (56.12.2–3), and after taking Arduba and nearby places he “returned to Tiberius” (56.15.3).42 Tomaschek, on the other hand, puts Arduba 42. I hesitate to take Dio’s statement that “a torrential stream flows around Arduba’s base, all but encircling it” for autopsy—despite the present tense. He seems, to judge from his silence, not to have accompanied his father when the latter was governor of Dalmatia (49.36.4). His own governorship there (49.36.4; cf. 80.1.3) came after the editio princeps of the History (see Introduction sec. 5.6); he is not likely to have troubled to make a later revision of so little consequence.

246

Commentary on Book 56

in the territory of the Desidiates (RE 2.616);43 Koestermann, who thinks that Bato had withdrawn from Andetrium into Bosnia (still rebel-occupied, he holds), puts it east of the Neretva (Hermes 81 [1953], 375 n1), beyond the eastern limit of ethnic Dalmatia.44 15.2 para; th;n tw÷n ajndrw÷n gnwvmhn hn:: “Despite the resolve of their husbands [to surrender on terms], the women wanted freedom.” More than esteem for female nature, Dio’s admiration for the wives of Arduba attests his scorn for men outdone by women in hatred of slavery. Cf. 51.7.2, noble conduct of ignoble gladiators. 15.3 Postouvmio" [so the ms., erroneously]:: “Postumius subjugated the remaining places.” In fact our man was a Postumus (Vell. 2.116.2), the novus homo C. Vibius Postumus, cos. suff. a.d. 5 (RE 8A.1978–1979 [Hanslik]; Syme Aristocracy 128). Since Dio gives only the cognomen here, Postumus has perhaps made an earlier appearance under 8, the text of which is now mostly lost. Vell. 2.116.2, treating events of 9, describes him as “in charge of Dalmatia” (‘praepositus Dalmatiae’). This may mark him out as the first governor of the province of Dalmatia, evidently created now or soon after, along with the province of Pannonia, through partition of the hitherto undivided province of Illyricum. For the preceding administrative situation cf. Vell. 2.112.2 (a.d. 6), where M. Valerius Messalla Messallinus is described as “in charge of Illyricum” (‘praepositus Illyrico’); also 55.29.1n.45 What Postumus achieved can only be guessed. From Velleius we know that he won triumphal ornaments (2.116.2; cf. 56.17.2n), also that he had L. Apronius (cos. suff. a.d. 8) on his staff (2.116.3). According to Flor. 2.25.11–12 Augustus assigned the “breaking in” of the Dalmatians to Postumus (‘perdomandos Vibio mandat’), who “forced the savage race to delve in the earth and wash gold from its veins.” I take this as referring to Postumus’ civil administration of reconquered Dalmatia.46 16.1 Skeua÷ n: “Bato sent his son Sceuas to Tiberius, promising to surrender himself and all his followers if the son were granted immunity [ajdeiva"].” Dio resumes 43. Dio’s description, he notes, fits more than one place there. 44. Broadly similar is O. Hirschfeld, “Zur Geschichte des dalmatisch-pannonischen Krieges,” in Kleine Schriften (Berlin, 1913; reprint, 1975), 392–393. Without venturing to locate Arduba positively, Wilkes Dalmatia 75 appears to associate its fall with operations of Germanicus and Vibius Postumus among Desidiates and Perustae. 45. For division of Illyricum in 9 see Nagy “Zweiteilung,” esp. 465–466 (1970; with a survey of scholarship). He bases his case on literary texts (Vell. 2.116.2; Flor. 2.25.11–12; Dio 56.15.3). Epigraphic evidence supporting so early a date is lacking; see especially G. Novak, “La province Illyricum était-elle au temps d’Octavien Auguste et de Tibère divisée en Superior provincia Illyricum et Inferior provincia Illyricum?” in Mélanges d’archéologie et d’histoire offerts à André Piganiol, ed. R. Chevallier, vol. 3 (Paris, 1966), 1359–1366 (demolishing the traditional reconstruction of CIL 3.1741). J. Fitz, “La division d’Illyricum,” Latomus 47 (1988), 13–25 doubts that division was feasible before the Marcomannic threat on the northern frontier of Illyricum was neutralized with the expulsion of Maroboduus in 19, orchestrated by Tiberius and Drusus Caesar; cf. R. Gordon in JRS 83 (1993), 140, skeptical. Cf. Wilkes Dalmatia 442 (governors of Dalmatia), 78–80 (boundaries); Wilkes in CAH2 10.554 (“division of Illyricum probably in a.d. 9”), cf. 565 n47 (“the date of the division of Illyricum . . . remains a problem”). 46. Perdomare also admits the meaning “subjugate” (OLD s.v.). But had this been Florus’ sense he might rather have used domare, as just before at 2.24.8 (‘In hos [sc. Pannonios] domandos Vinnium misit’).

1.1–24.5: The Year a.d. 9

247

Bato’s story from 56.13.3n, his abandonment of Andetrium. Sceuas may be a corruption of the Illyrian Scenus or Scenas: A. Mayer, Die Sprache der alten Illyrier, 1 (Wien, 1957), 313, cf. 81; cf. Alföldy Personennamen 289; PIR2 B 94, suggesting Scaeva. 16.2 bhvmato" ato":: Bato was brought before Tiberius’ “tribunal.” Cf. Millar Emperor 229 on imperial hearings during campaigns. 16.3 ‘‘luv luvkou" pevmpete ’: “‘You Romans are to blame for this, for you send not pete’: dogs or shepherds to guard your flocks but wolves’” (cf. 57.10.5; Suet. Tib. 32.2). Dio relishes the inversion of the captive outlaw lecturing the prince on how to rule; cf. 76.10.7 (the brigand Bulla before the Praetorian Prefect Papinian). In blaming Roman exactions Bato echoes what Dio has stated at 55.29.1. On bons mots from imperial hearings see Millar Emperor 236–237. Bato never reappears in the History, and the votes of victory honors in the next chapter (56.17) are apparently Dio’s last word on the Illyrian rebellion. He is silent on the celebration of Tiberius’ long postponed triumph (56.17.1n), in which Bato was led captive, though his life was spared (Ovid Pont. 2.1.43–46; cf. Vell. 2.121.2– 3). Bato was interned honorably at Ravenna, according to Suetonius in recompense for having let Tiberius and his army escape from a tight spot (Tib. 20; nothing is known of this event);47 the naval base (cf. 55.33.3n) guaranteed secure confinement (cf. Tac. Ann. 1.58.6, internment there of a son of Arminius; 2.63.4, of King Maroboduus of the Marcomanni). See further Braund King 170–172. 16.4 aj n drw÷ n . . . crhmav t wn wn:: “So ended the war, with heavy loss of men but especially money since numerous legions were maintained, and very little booty was taken.” Dio refers to the entire conflict of 6–9.48 That the price was a high one is borne out by a list of the main Roman military actions that the extant History records,49 though such a list understates how much of the war was fought in detailed operations. On the forces engaged see 55.32.3–4n, cf. 29.1n, 3n, 34.6n. Of the total of twenty-eight Roman legions then in service eight were in Illyricum in 6, the first year of war, ten in 7, and eight in 8. The number is not likely to have been much lower in 9 given participation in the campaign of three consular

47. Suetonius calls the internee a “Pannonian leader,” no doubt because he confused him with the Breucian Bato, who did not survive the war (Dio 55.34.4), rather than because he knew that the Desidiatian Bato was, strictly speaking, Pannonian (55.29.2n). 48. This is clear from the context: Tiberius has just asked Bato, “What possessed you to rebel and to make war for so long a time?” 49. a.d. 6: 55.29.2, defeat in Dalmatia; 55.29.3, victory of Caecina Severus with heavy losses near Sirmium; 55.29.4, victory and defeat on the Adriatic littoral; 55.30.2, defeat and victory of Valerius Messallinus in northwest Illyricum; 55.30.3, victory at Mt Alma, followed by an unsuccessful assault; 55.30.6, victory in Macedonia. 7: 55.32.3, near disaster and victory at the Volcaean Marshes; 55.32.4, victory over Mazaei. 8 (fragmentary): 55.34.6, victory of Silvanus over Breucians, again insurgent (cf. 55.33.2n). 9: 56.11.1, Splonum taken by siege by Germanicus; 56.11.3–7, Raetinium taken with substantial losses; 56.12.1, Seretium taken by siege; 56.12.2, victories in Bosnia of Lepidus and Silvanus; 56.12.3–14.7, the fortress Andetrium taken by Tiberius after a difficult siege; 56.15.1–3, Arduba taken by Germanicus.

248

Commentary on Book 56

legates (Lepidus, Silvanus, Vibius Postumus) in addition to Tiberius, assisted by Germanicus. The financial cost struck Dio even more than the casualties (pleivstwn versus pollw÷n; cf. 55.31.1, 4). Neither Dalmatia nor Pannonia had an economy that could quickly compensate Rome for its trouble: cf. Wilkes Dalmatia 177–182; J. Fitz in The Archaeology of Roman Pannonia, ed. A. Lengyel & G.T.B. Radan (Lexington, Ky., 1980), 323. Still the “diligent” Vibius Postumus (Vell. 2.116.2) was quick to exploit Dalmatia’s mines and miners (cf. 56.15.3n). “Very little booty was taken.” Plausible, given a predominantly rural and underdeveloped region—notwithstanding Dio’s wont to underscore the unprofitability of war (cf. Reinhold & Swan “Assessment” 162–163) and Velleius’ contrary report of a great haul of booty made by Lepidus in 9 (2.115.2, ‘praedaque onustus’).50 17.1 aujtokravtoro" o[noma . . . ejpinivkia ia:: It was granted to Augustus and Tiberius “to take the title imperator and to celebrate a triumph . . .” The salutations were Augustus’ nineteenth, Tiberius’ fifth. See Appendix 3. Tiberius is imperator for the fifth time on coins of 10/11; see RIC 12.78 nos. 469–470. Barnes JRS 64 (1974), 23–24 holds that Augustus’ eighteenth salutation and Tiberius’ fourth, which are not attested, marked the Pannonian capitulation (Vell. 2.114.4), a victory lost in the lacuna in Dio’s account of 8 (after 55.33.2n; cf. 56.1.1n) but assumed in the present text: “Germanicus brought word of the victory then too,” i.e., on the Dalmatian defeat just as after the capitulation the year before at the R. Bathinus. For kai; tovte = “then too” see 54.2.5 (referring to 53.31.3) and 54.35.4 (referring to 54.28.3). Cf. 60.21.5, Claudius’ “sons-in-law” bringing Rome news of his British victory. Having mentioned Tiberius’ triumph when it was awarded, Dio economically passes over its celebration later. The Fasti Praenestini (IIt. 13.2.134–135, 524– 525 = EJ p54) give an Illyrian triumph of Tiberius under 23 October (‘Ti. Caesar curru triumphavit ex Ilurico’). The year was probably 12. From Suet. Tib. 17.1– 18.1 it can be inferred that he went to Germany in 10, the year following his final Illyrian victory (‘proximo anno’), and from Tib. 20 that he returned from Germany two years after that (‘post biennium’) and celebrated “the triumph that he had postponed.”51 On Tiberius’ triumph see also Vell. 2.121.2–3 (“over Pannonians and Dalmatians”); RIC 12.56 nos. 221–224 (coins of 13/14 showing him in a triumphal chariot). Augustus had not celebrated a triumph since his triple triumph of 29 b.c.; the silence of the Fasti Praenestini and RG 4.1 shows that he did not in fact celebrate the one now granted him (cf. 56.17.2n).52 50. Velleius has perhaps singled out an exceptional instance so as to parry depreciation of Tiberius’ achievement. 51. Cf. 56.24.6n; Syme Ovid 37–42. 52. The Gemma Augustea may evoke Tiberius’ triumph (less likely his victorious adventus in 9). In its upper band Tiberius, crowned with laurel, descends from a chariot into the presence of the goddess Roma and a divinized Augustus; a youth in military dress, apparently Germanicus, stands at Roma’s right. In its lower band a Roman trophy is being erected in the homeland of the vanquished. See Picard Trophées 304–310 (the lower band represents Tiberius’ reconquest of Pannonia); T. Hölscher in KAVR 371–373 (executed a.d. 10, the gem refers to Tiberius’ Illyrian victories but also alludes presumptively to future success in Germany); Zanker Power 230–232

1.1–24.5: The Year a.d. 9

249

aJyi÷de" e":: “. . . among other honors including two triumphal arches in Pannonia.” Only Dio mentions the arches. For other Augustan arches outside Rome cf. 51.19.1, Brundisium; 53.22.2, Ariminum as terminus of the Via Flaminia; 53.26.5, “in the Alps,” probably at Augusta Praetoria (Aosta). 17.2 ajpo; pollw÷n tw÷n yhûisqevntwn sûivsin in:: “(Augustus accepted these honors out of many voted to them.)” On the Senate’s practice of voting multiple honors from which the Princeps made a selection see 56.47.1n. Dio is unaware that Augustus either declined the triumph voted him or at any rate failed to celebrate it (56.17.1n). Augustus blocked proposals from various senators to name Tiberius ‘Pannonicus,’ ‘Invictus,’ or ‘Pius:’ Suet. Tib. 17.2; cf. P. Kneissl, Die Siegestitulatur der römischen Kaiser: Untersuchungen zu den Siegerbeinamen des ersten und zweiten Jahrhunderts (Hypomnemata 23) (Göttingen, 1969), 28–30, who finds here no slight to Tiberius. The cognomen Germanicus conferred on Tiberius’ brother Drusus in 9 b.c. was a posthumous honor (55.2.3n). nikhthvrioi . . . strathgikaiv: “Germanicus received ornamenta triumphalia (as of course did the other generals), ornamenta praetoria, and the right to give his sententia first after the consulars and to assume the consulship earlier than customary.” On ornamenta triumphalia cf. 54.24.8n; 55.28.4n; Talbert Senate 362– 363. On magisterial ornamenta cf. 53.28.3n; Talbert 366–367; on voting order, 240–243. Germanicus became consul in 12 without holding the praetorship (56.26.1). Cf. 56.28.1n, his career summarized. The decorated generals were M. Valerius Messalla Messallinus (Vell. 2.112.1– 2; Ovid Pont. 2.2.85–90; cf. 55.29.1n); M. Plautius Silvanus (ILS 921 = EJ no. 200 = TDGR 6.5 G; cf. 55.34.6n; 56.12.2n); M. Aemilius Lepidus (Vell. 2.115.2– 3; cf. 56.12.2n); C. Vibius Postumus (Vell. 2.116.2; cf. 56.15.3n). Cf. Ovid Pont. 2.1.30; Vell. 2.121.3; Suet. Tib. 20. Velleius is silent on Plautius Silvanus, perhaps disparagingly (see the harsh criticism of his generalship at 2.112.5). 17.3 Drouv s w/: “Drusus” Caesar, Tiberius’ son born 14 b.c. (cf. 55.13.2n), was voted “the right to attend the Senate before he became a senator and, once he held the quaestorship, to give his sententia before the ex-praetors.” Drusus’ voting privilege presumably took effect only on the conclusion of his term as quaestor (cf. Talbert Senate 150). Cf. 55.9.4n, privileges of the young Gaius Caesar. By the time our vote was taken at war’s end Drusus had perhaps missed the quaestorian election in 9 (for 10) and thus could stand for election only in the next year, so as to enter office 5 December of 10 (56.25.4), in effect to be quaestor for 11: Levick Latomus 35 (1976), 319. I infer from the precedence over ex-praetors as-

(erratum: on 230 read a.d. 10 for 10 b.c.). But cf. Z. Kiss, L’iconographie des princes julio-claudiens au temps d’Auguste et de Tibère (Warsaw, 1975), 45–46, 52, plates 76–77 and 186: the youth in the upper band is Gaius Caesar (Germanicus in his mid twenties would have been shown as older), and the context is Tiberius’ triumph of 7 b.c.; Simon Augustus 156–161 with Tafel 11, resisting overprecise historical interpretation. Victory in Illyricum also informs imperialist ideology in the monumental gallery of 190 reliefs personifying subject peoples in the Sebasteion of Aphrodisias; cf. Smith “Ethne” 70–77.

250

Commentary on Book 56

signed to him in the voting order that he was granted ornamenta praetoria, to be assumed in 12. Cf. 56.28.1n, his career summarized.

18.1–24.5: EXTERNAL AFFAIRS (CONTINUED)— THE VARIAN DISASTER See Map 1. The German rebellion of 9, masterminded by the Cheruscan noble Arminius, was for Rome a repulse no less sudden and unforeseen than the Illyrian rebellion. Tiberius had brought northwest Germany sufficiently under control in campaigns of 4–5 to be able to draw on its garrison in invading Marcomannic Bohemia in 6. Even while the Illyrian war raged, German peoples kept their peace. Now at a blow rebels annihilated three legions commanded by the legate P. Quinctilius Varus, throwing into reverse two decades of Roman expansion beyond the Rhine. Like the Batos in Illyricum, Arminius exploited modes of organization and warfare adapted from the conqueror, turning against imperial Rome the native manpower that it was wont to enlist against its enemies. Dio provides our only synoptic narrative of the disaster. Having sketched how Varus undermined the stability of trans-Rhenane Germany through aggressive Romanization (56.18.1–4), he expands on the disaster itself: the conspiracy hatched by the Cheruscans Arminius and Segimer, Varus’ negligence, the ambush, the death throes of the legions (56.18.5–22.2). Here a one-folio gap intervenes in our manuscript, after which come events of the aftermath: the fall of forts on the right bank of the Rhine, Augustus’ provisions for domestic security and the rearming of the frontier (56.22.2a–23.4), and his reflections on whether divine anger lay behind the catastrophe (56.24.1–5). Although order of events, geography, and chronology are generally reliable, Dio’s account is poor in details. He names few actors beyond the protagonists, few locations beyond those as obvious as the Rhine or Weser. Velleius and Tacitus offer important, but selective, supplementation (see, for example, 56.19.5n). Finds since 1987 in the Kalkriese-Niewedder Senke (hereafter Kalkriese) near Osnabruck have enriched the archaeological record dramatically. Dio’s sources. See F.A. Marx, “Die Quellen der Germanenkriege bei Tacitus und Dio,” Klio 26 (1933), 323–329 and “Germanenkriege” 202–218; Syme Tacitus 274–276, 697–700; Timpe Arminius 120–126; Manuwald Dio 257–258; Noè Storiografia 78–82; Introduction sec. 5.3. Marx has provided the most durable hypothesis, entailing two steps. First is his proposition that Aufidius Bassus (who died an old man under Nero [cf. Sen. Ep. 30]) provided Dio with the annalistic framework for his narrative of Augustus’ reign.53 Something can be said for this.54 We know that Aufidius’ annals covered 53. On Dio’s unknown annalistic source see Swan Phoenix 41 (1987), esp. 286–288. 54. Reserve is in order, however, given our nearly total ignorance of the content and aims of Aufidius’ work.

1.1–24.5: The Year a.d. 9

251

at least 8 b.c.–a.d. 31 since they were the source of the consular list for this period in Cassiodorus’ Chronicon.55 Aufidius appears to have written under Tiberius: Seneca the Elder, who died under Caligula (PIR2 A 616), cites him (presumably his annals) on the death of Cicero (Suas. 6.18, 23). This season of composition could explain why Dio’s twinned narratives on the Dalmatian and Varian wars bear a generally favorable attitude not just to Augustus and his regime but also to his heir apparent and master general Tiberius (see 55.31.1n). They show only sporadically the influence of the virulent anti-Tiberian historiography that later infects Dio’s narrative, particularly from the death of Germanicus. See further 56.18.1n. Marx’s second proposition is that the length of Dio’s Varian narrative, compared with his short reports on other German wars,56 shows that he here (alone) turned to Aufidius Bassus’ libri belli Germanici, a specialized monograph, as his source, setting aside the same author’s annals, which was a general work.57 This is questionable. Not only is nothing known of the monograph beyond its existence;58 variance in length in Dio’s external accounts reflects his shifting historical purposes more than rigid adhesion to the scale of treatment in his source.59 Were mere narrative length a valid index of source length we ought to be searching, on Marx’s reasoning, for a special source for Dio’s ample Dalmatian narrative (56.11–17) no less than for his Varian narrative (56.18–24). Our sources on the Varian disaster. For a detailed list see Appendix 10. The fundamental literary sources are Dio 56.18.1–24.5; Vell. 2.117.1–120.6; Suet. Aug. 23.1–2; key references are embedded in Tacitus’ accounts of campaigns by Germanicus and his legates in Germany: Ann. 1.49.4–51.4 (a.d. 14); 1.55.1–71.1 (15); 2.5.1–26.5 (16); cf. 2.41.1–3. Select bibliography. Gardthausen’s overview of scholarship on the Varian disaster, compiled a century ago, contained over 150 items (Augustus 2.808–815). Nothing has stemmed the flow since then—and the conclusive discoveries at Kalkriese have spawned an extensive new literature. A short list of important and helpful works follows, headed by contributions of W. Schlüter, the excavator of Kalkriese: Römer, a concise survey of the finds; Germania 70 (1992), 307–402 (fundamental), 327–329 (summary), 396–402 (coins; by F. Berger); “Battle” (1999; 55. Cassiod. Chron. 587, 634 (pp135–136); see, under 8 b.c., the notation ‘annales Livii finiunt, incipiunt Bassi,’ under a.d. 31, ‘finis annalium Bassi,’ after which Cassiodorus necessarily turned to another source, perhaps Pliny the Elder’s history, which began ‘a fine Aufidii’ (Plin. Ep. 3.5.6; cf. Plin. NH praef. 20). 56. For example, he treats three years of campaigning in Germany by Tiberius resumptively under a.d. 6 at 55.28.5–7. As much as we can tell from what survives of his original, Dio treated Germanicus’ campaigns of 15– 16 resumptively under 17 (cf. 57.18.1 [Xiph.] with Syme Tacitus 698); by contrast Tacitus treats these extensively under their proper years. 57. For the monograph see Quint. Inst. 10.1.103. 58. This is not to deny that Dio may have consulted it. But if he used the libri belli Germanici for the Varian disaster, why not also for other German wars? 59. The short external accounts seem generally to be a product of Dio’s reducing material in his source, often ruthlessly. The long external narratives, typically marking historic watersheds, do not necessarily originate in rich new veins of material. Either less reduction or more rhetorical exaedificatio (a forte of Dio)—or both—can account equally for their length. On Dio’s modus operandi in composing external accounts see Introduction sec. 5.3; Swan “Augustan Books” 2543–2548.

252

Commentary on Book 56

on the Kalkriese finds—the place to start for readers of English); “Neue Erkentnisse zur Örtlichkeit der Varusschlacht?” in Wiegels & Woesler Arminius 67–95; Schlüter & Wiegels Kalkrieser Kongress, with articles by F. Berger, R. Wolters, and D. Timpe inter alios. See also T. Mommsen, Die Örtlichkeit der Varusschlacht (Berlin, 1885) = Gesammelte Schriften 4 (Berlin, 1906; reprint, 1965), 200–246 (vindicated wonderfully by the new Kalkriese finds); W.A. Oldfather & H.V. Canter, The Defeat of Varus and the German Frontier Policy of Augustus (University of Illinois Studies in the Social Sciences 4.2) (Urbana, 1915); Syme in CAH1 10.373–381, Tacitus 697–698, and Aristocracy 313–328 (on Varus, rehabilitative); three works of Timpe: Saeculum 18 (1967), 278–293, esp. 290–293; Arminius, a scholarly watershed; and “Faktoren” 13–27 (viewing the clades in a panoramic geographical and political context); C.M. Wells Policy 238–245 and “What’s New Along the Lippe: Recent Work in North Germany,” Britannia 29 (1998), 457–464 (incisive review of recent German archaeology); Kienast Augustus 372–375; H.-G. Simon, “Eroberung und Verzicht: Die römische Politik in Germanien zwischen 12 v. Chr. und 16 n. Chr.,” in Baatz & Herrmann Römer 38–57; R. Wolters Eroberung 199– 238 and “Varusschlachten—oder: Neues zur Örtlichkeit der Varusschlacht,” Die Kunde 44 (1993), 167–183; B. Tonnies, “Die Ausgrabungen in Kalkriese und Tac. Ann. 1.60.3. Eine Lösung für die Varusschlachtfrage in Sicht?” Hermes 120 (1992), 461–465; Todd Germans, esp. 33–35, 52–53, 84–86; Wiegels & Woesler Arminius passim; CAH2 10.184–187 (E. Gruen on Rome’s German policy), 525–527 (C. Rüger on patterns of penetration and Romanization).60 18.1 a[rti te tau÷ta ejdevdokto, kai; ajggeliva deinh; ejk th÷" Germaniva"":: “These decrees had barely been passed when terrible news arrived from Germany,” suspending celebrations for the Illyrian victory. Vell. 2.117.1 corresponds strikingly: “Caesar had barely closed the book on the Pannonian and Dalmatian war when within five days of his accomplishing this great task grim dispatches from Germany . . .”61 This match may indicate a source in common, composed at the very latest toward 30, since Velleius dedicated his work to M. Vinicius as consul in that year (2.96.2).62 There could just be an allusion to this source in Velleius’ undertaking to treat the calamity amply in a future work—“like other authors” (‘ut alii’) (2.119.1, but with Woodman’s n). This is a point of departure for Marx’s unprovable proposition that Velleius, as well as Dio, used Aufidius Bassus’ libri belli Germanici as a source for his Varian account (“Germanenkriege” 205).

60. Cf. S. Schama, Landscape and Memory (New York, 1995), 100–134, on the powerful, still living, German national myth generated by the Varian disaster—in large part inspired by Dio’s narrative. 61. ‘Tantum quod ultimam imposuerat Pannonico ac Dalmatico bello Caesar manum, cum intra quinque consummati tanti operis dies funestae ex Germania epistulae . . .’ 62. Cf. Timpe Arminius 122–125, who argues that Dio’s portrait of Varus originates in a source composed in the twenties, after Germanicus’ recall from Germany (since loss of trans-Rhenane Germany is assumed) but before Varus’ failings were caricatured out of all proportion by Velleius—a thing possible only after Varus’ wife and a son fell from grace in 26 and 27 (Tac. Ann. 4.52, 66; cf. Syme Aristocracy 327–328).

1.1–24.5: The Year a.d. 9

253

The dispatches came from the Roman side of the Rhine, for which Dio uses Germaniva strictly (see 53.12.6n). John dates the disaster in late September, plausibly (RE 24.955–956); the rebellion in Dalmatia had just been extinguished after an extended summer campaign. ej n th÷ / Keltikh÷ /: “in that same period in trans-Rhenane Germany.” Dio updates the reader on events since Tiberius’ invasion of Maroboduus’ kingdom in a.d. 6 (cf. 55.28.5–7n). e i j cov c¿ ovn tina oiJ @Rwmai÷oi aujth÷": “The Romans held certain tracts of it [th÷" Keltikh÷"], not in a block [ajqrova] but apparently [pou kaiv—cf. 43.46.1; 53.12.8] as they chanced to be subdued.” For tina cf. 60.23.1, on Roman penetration of Britain in the year of Claudius’ invasion; 53.26.2; for ajqrova cf. 49.17.3; 56.21.2; 57.11.1; 60.4.1. The archaeological record fits Dio’s picture of piecemeal conquest (e.g., Christ Chiron 7 [1977], 194–198; Kienast Augustus 365; Rüger in CAH2 10.525–526) better than it does Velleius’ claim that “nothing remained in Germany to be conquered except the nation of the Marcomanni” (2.108.1); cf. 55.6.1–3n, 28.5–7n. But cf. Timpe Arminius 83–85: what Dio (or his source) thought of as not yet subdued was the more distant Germans in middle Europe, for example, Marcomanni and tribes beyond the Elbe. oujde; ej" iJstoriva" mnhvmhn hn:: The parts held by Rome “did not even enter the historical record.” Apparently the pattern of occupation was so broken that the historians Dio read failed to designate localities nominatim. Also limiting knowledge was the brevity of Roman occupation. Even Tacitus’ ampler narrative of Germanicus’ operations of 14–16 gives few toponyms beyond tribes or natural features (particularly rivers),63 even though he had read Pliny the Elder, “the historian of the German wars” (Tac. Ann. 1.69.2), and written his own Germania. 18.2 stratiw÷taiv te aujtw÷n ejkei÷ ejceivmazon azon:: “Roman soldiers were wintering there, . . .” Dio reveals nothing about how many these were. Suggestive are excavated Augustan forts on major military routes reaching into the interior, in particular, from Vetera/Xanten along the Lippe and from Moguntiacum/Mainz. For overviews of Roman bases on the Rhine and in interior Germany see Wells Policy endmap; H. Schönberger, “Die römischen Truppenlager der früheren und mittleren Kaiserzeit zwischen Nordsee und Inn,” BRGK 66 (1985), 324–344, Beilage 4 (Karte A); M. Pietsch, “Das augusteische Legionslager Marktbreit: Aktuelles zum Forschungsstand,” in Wiegels & Woesler Arminius 58 (map); C. Rüger in CAH2 10.517–528, map on 518–519. pov l ei ei" sunw/ k iv z onto onto:: “. . . and cities were being founded.” These can have been at most rudimentary centers among scattered tribal populations (cf. Timpe Arminius 87, 116 n105). Strabo describes Germany beyond the Rhine as peopled by poor pastoral tribes prone to migrate (7.291, cf. 4.196). sunoikivzein connotes creation of a community where none existed (cf. Thuc. 2.15.2, 16.1–2); 63. E.g., Mattium, caput of the Chatti (Ann. 1.56.4), the ager Batavus (2.6.4), a forest sacred to Hercules (2.12.1), and the plain (and battle site) Idistaviso (2.16.1).

254

Commentary on Book 56

Dio uses it of resettlements either voluntary (36.37.6, 50.3; 48.14.6) or forcible (51.1.3). “Urbanization” would serve to weaken traditional associations and tribal authority. meterruqmivzonto onto:: “The barbarians were being reformed on the Roman pattern . . .” Cf. 60.6.7, metarruqmivzein used of reforming low-class lifestyle; Xen. Oec. 11.3. ajgora;" ejnovmizon izon:: “. . . and were learning the ways of the forum.” Dio contrasts the civil processes of law and diplomacy with the ingrained warrior independence of the Germans. Cf. Vell. 2.118.1 (Germans feign gratitude for the boon of Roman justice); Flor. 2.30.31–37 (German hatred of Roman law and lawyers). th÷" te ejk tw÷n o{plwn ejxousiva"":: But they had not forgotten “the power that arms confer.” Cf. Flor. 2.30.32. The lemmatized expression recurs at fr. 64.1; 42.29.3; 44.29.1 (pejorative in every case). Timpe finds support here for the idea that it was on Tiberius’ arrival in a.d. 4 that Rome disarmed German tribes, no longer levying men for emergencies but creating regular auxiliary units (Arminius 76–77; endorsed by E.W. Gray in CR 23 [1973], 61). 18.3 Ouj a ÷ r o" o":: On P. Quinctilius “Varus,” cos. 13 b.c. with Tiberius, at the time his brother-in-law (54.25.1n), see RE 24.907–908 (John); Syme Aristocracy 313– 328, table XXVI; OCD3 1288; PIR2 Q 30 (1999); E. Ritterling, Fasti des römischen Deutschland unter dem Prinzipat (Beiträge zur Verwaltungs- und Heeresgeschichte von Gallien und Germanien 2) (Wien, 1932), 10–11. His command, probably from 7,64 will have included the frontier zone of cis-Rhenane and trans-Rhenane Germany (Dio’s Germaniva and Keltikhv respectively). For Thomasson Legatus 35– 37 he seems actually to have been governor of a provincia Germania. For modern assessments of Varus’ competence see, for example, Wells Policy 238–239 (appointed optimistically as a civil administrator, not a general, “he was made the scapegoat for his superiors’ mistakes”); Syme Aristocracy 321–328, stressing his qualifications, including military experience, for the German command. In Dio’s view responsibility for the clades Variana lay not with the process of Romanization, which worked so long as it was gradual (tevw" me;n kata; bracuv), but with Varus, who forced the pace oppressively (ejpei; d! oJ Oujar÷ o" . . . e[speusen), provoking his subjects beyond endurance, while self-assurance and military laxity left him open to treachery. But how can there have been the kind of progress that Dio says Varus wrecked? Germany had been a war theater in the years leading up to his arrival (cf. Timpe Arminius 83). thvn te hJgemonivan th÷" Germaniva" labw;n kai; ta; par! ejkeivnoi" ejk th÷" aj r ch÷ " dioikw÷ n: “having assumed the government of cis-Rhenane Germany, and by virtue of his office [cf. Boissevain 3.118: ajrchv = imperium in provincia] administering affairs among them [the trans-Rhenane ‘barbarians’].” Dio describes Varus’ post in terms comprehensible in his own day, when the German frontier was markedly different: cis-Rhenane Germany then consisted of two proper prov64. His predecessor as legate, C. Sentius Saturninus (cos. 19 b.c.; cf. 55.28.6n), commanded the eastward advance into interior Germany against Maroboduus in 6 (55.29.1n).

1.1–24.5: The Year a.d. 9

255

inces, Germania Superior and Germania Inferior, while trans-Rhenane Germany had been vacated, except for land enclosed by the Rhine-Danube limes (cf. Map 5). On the history of Roman Germany from Augustan conquest and Tiberian retrenchment to the formation of official provinces under the Flavians, see C. Rüger in CAH2 10.515–534. ej p ev t atte . . . ejsevprassen rassen:: “ordered them about as if they were slaves and exacted their wealth [crhvmata] as if they were subjects [uJphkovwn].” Fiercely independent (cf. 56.18.2, aujtonovmou diaivth"), they brooked neither status. Dio evinces some sympathy for the Germans, but for Velleius they were brutes, and Varus was naive to think that they could be civilized by law when they could not be tamed by arms (2.117.3–4). Varus’ mandate possibly included making Germany pay more of its own way, though no source says this. Revenue may have been his forte, proved in Syria: cf. C.J. Howgego, “Coinage and Military Finance: The Imperial Bronze Coinage of the Augustan East,” NC 142 (1982), 7–8. In “exacted their wealth” (lemma) Timpe sees a reference to tribute and suggests that a census may have provoked unrest (Arminius 88); against: P.A. Brunt, “The Revenues of Rome,” JRS 71 (1981), 171 (table, column I); Wolters Eroberung 216–219. Certainly Augustus was in financial straits by a.d. 5–6, when he established the Military Treasury and introduced the 5 percent tax (vicesima) on inheritances despite vehement opposition (55.24.9– 25.6). After the catastrophe it was easy to label Varus extortionate. Cf. Vell. 2.117.2, alleging a predatory governorship of Syria. Dio pins the blame for the German rebellion on Varus only a page after having Bato blame the Illyrian rebellion on Rome for sending out “wolves” as governors (56.16.3). 18.4 prw÷ t oi . . . plhv q h h:: “the leading men longing for their former ascendancy, the mass preferring the familiar regime to foreign domination.” protimw÷nte" qualifies neuter plhvqh, sense overriding strict grammar: cf. Smyth Grammar nos. 926, 1013. On the German “social fabric” see in general Todd Germans 29–36. 18.5 prohvgagon aujtovn: They “led him far from the Rhine to Cheruscan territory and the vicinity of the Weser [pro;" to;n Oujivsourgon].” Although John RE 24.926 takes prov" in the sense “to the Weser” (“zur Weser hin”) and suggests that Varus occupied a summer camp there,65 one might rather expect mevcri (“as far as”) were this Dio’s intended sense: cf. 49.25.1; 54.33.1; 55.1.2 (“as far as” the Euphrates, Weser, and Elbe respectively); also 55.28.5. Cf. 55.10a.3, prov" te to;n @Rh÷non metelqwvn, Domitius Ahenobarbus’ transfer “to the vicinity of the Rhine,” sc. to the Rhine command, from his command of “the region by the Danube” (tw÷n pro;" tw÷/ #Istrw/ cwrivwn). Although no source says so, it is a natural assumption that Varus set out from Vetera, a main legionary base near the Rhine-Lippe confluence, and advanced east65. Rather than a simple removal of Varus’ whole army from winter to summer camp, Timpe visualizes “a differentiated operation” entailing dispersion of detachments (Arminius 109); the summer camp was a communications node not an isolated bastion (“Faktoren” 25).

256

Commentary on Book 56

ward from there by the major military artery paralleling the Lippe (so John in RE 24.951). This is also suggested by how his legate L. Nonius Asprenas, commanding two legions in upper Germany, reacted later on learning of Varus’ fate. Keeping his own army clear of the calamity, Asprenas proceeded with dispatch to the winter camps in lower Germany (‘matureque ad inferiora hiberna descendendo’) (Vell. 2.120.3); of these hiberna, now depleted and exposed to attack, Vetera was key as the terminus of the Lippe artery and was surely the base from which Asprenas himself operated when he shortly afterward came to the rescue of refugees from the fort Aliso—probably Haltern on the Lippe (see 56.22.2a–4n). pivstin aujtw÷/ parevscon con:: Cf. 47.7.4. “They led him to believe that they were ready to be slaves even without a garrison.” On the Cheruscan deception cf. Vell. 2.117.4–118.1; Str. 7.291. Cf. 40.26.1–3, Crassus’ fatal credulity. 19.1 w{ s per eij k o; " hj ÷ n ej n polemiv a /: “So he did not [ou[t!] keep his forces [strateuvmata66] together as one should in enemy territory but [kaiv] distributed many of them.” Dio’s censure of Varus reiterates Tiberius’ verdict pronounced after taking command in Germany in 10: the calamity had resulted from “the general’s rashness and negligence” (‘temeritate et neglegentia’) (Suet. Tib. 18.1). Cf. Str. 7.291, prescribing distrust as the sound policy when dealing with Germans (ajpistiva mevga o[ûelo"); Sen. Contr. 1.3.10, Varus’ neglegentia derided. That Varus’ army included three legions (XVII, XVIII, and XIX: 55.23.7n) we know from Manilius 1.900; Str. 7.291; Tac. Germ. 37.4; Ann. 1.61.2; Suet. Aug. 23.1; Tib. 17.1. Dio’s label “enemy territory” notwithstanding, the Cherusci were evidently a gens foederata at this time, according to Timpe bound by treaty to provide a standing auxiliary force: Arminius 74–76, citing, e.g., Str. 7.291–292, “treaty breach [paraspondhvsei] with Quinctilius Varus;” Manilius 1.898 (‘foedere rupto’); Tac. Ann. 1.58.2 (‘violatorem foederis vestri Arminium’). Cf. 55.28.6–7n, treaties struck with Germans 4–6. ej pi; ûulakh÷/ cwrivw n tinw÷ n: Varus sent many of his troops “to garrison sundry places.” Ex eventu criticism of Varus for not keeping these troops with his main force seems unfair. On the manifold functions of detachments of Roman soldiers see R.W. Davies, “The Daily Life of the Roman Soldier under the Principate,” ANRW 2.1.299–338; cf. von Schnurbein BRGK 62 (1981), 90–91. 19.2 !Armhvnio" kai; Shgivmero" ero":: “Those who above all banded together and took the lead in plot and war were among others Arminius and Segimer, who were constantly in Varus’ company and often his dinner guests.” These two are no doubt among the four nameless rebel leaders whom Ovid imagines being led in triumph in Tr. 4.2.29–36; the ‘hortator pugnae consiliumque’ is Arminius. Strabo names other rebels actually paraded in Germanicus’ triumph in 17 (7.291–292). 66. A general term that can be used of either legions (e.g., 52.22.4) or other forces (e.g., 55.34.5, a rebel army).

1.1–24.5: The Year a.d. 9

257

“Arminius.” Dio names this figure of history and myth only here. Key sources are Vell. 2.118.2: son of a German chief, a Roman eques, and a constant participant in previous Roman campaigning (‘adsiduus militiae nostrae prioris comes’); Tac. Ann. 1.55.2–3, 58.2–3; 2.10.3: Arminius’ service in the Roman army “as leader of his countrymen” (‘ductor popularium’); 2.88.1–2: “beyond question the liberator of Germany” (from Tacitus’ obituary notice); Flor. 2.30.32; Str. 7.292. Arminius was perhaps twenty-five when he annihilated Varus’ legions (Tac. Ann. 2.88.3 with Goodyear’s n). See PIR2 A 1063; RE 2.1190–1200 = Arminius 1 (von Rhoden); H. Glaesener, “Arminius, Ségeste et Thusnelda,” LEC 22 (1954), 31–48; H. von Petrikovits, “Arminius,” BJ 166 (1966), 175–193; Timpe Arminius; S.L. Dyson, “Native Revolts in the Roman Empire,” Historia 20 (1971), 239–274 at 253–258.67 Timpe, in his 1970 monograph Arminius-Studien, which controverts the claims of a chauvinist German tradition, argues that Arminius was prefect of an ethnically homogeneous force of Cheruscan auxiliaries which returned to Germany after fighting in Pannonia 6–8. It was as an apostate Roman officer rather than a tribal leader that he raised the flag of rebellion.68 “Segimer.” Also attested as ‘Sigimer.’ His identity is problematic. For Velleius, Arminius was a son of Sigimer, a German chief (‘Sigimeri principis gentis eius’) (2.118.2), but he does not make the father out to be a conspirator. According to Tac. Ann. 1.71.1, Arminius’ father-in-law Segestes had a brother Segimer who rebelled. Stein thinks that the archconspirators were father and son (RE 2A.1073); but Timpe doubts that Dio’s source would have failed to remark on such a fact and opts for the brother of Segestes—as do most scholars—or some other Segimer: Arminius 47–48; cf. 109, suggesting that the rebel Segimer and the “others” (lemma) were, like Arminius, “auxiliary officers.” “Constantly in Varus’ company.” On the basis of Velleius’ description of Arminius as ‘adsiduus militiae nostrae prioris comes’ (2.118.2), Timpe hypothesizes that he had won Tiberius’ confidence while serving in the Pannonian war of 6–8 and that it was thanks to Tiberius’ influence that he earned his posting to Germany and high standing with Varus, who was the prince’s friend (Arminius 44–48). But cf. U. Schillinger-Häfele, “Varus und Arminius in der Überlieferung: Zwei Quellenbeobachtungen,” Historia 32 (1983), 123–126, arguing that Velleius’ words refer strictly to Arminius’ association with Varus and to his fateful march into the Teutoburger Wald. 19.3 qarsou÷ n to" to":: “While Varus was full of confidence, . . . had no inkling of danger, . . . disbelieved all who suspected what was going on and urged him to beware, . . . would chide them for worrying needlessly themselves and for maligning 67. Sources vary on the name. Velleius, who perhaps knew the man (cf. 2.104.3, 118.2) gives ‘Arminius,’ also Tacitus (nearly always); in Strabo he is !Armevnio". Full discussion in Goodyear on Tac. Ann. 1.55.1 (1.72). Derivation of the names Arminius and Herrmann from a Germanic prototype has not been demonstrated: cf. von Petrikovits 176–177. 68. For Timpe’s brilliantly developed hypothesis see Arminius 21–48, summarized 49. For positive assessment see E.W. Gray in CR 23 (1973), 60–63; D.B. Saddington, “The Development of the Roman Auxiliary Forces from Augustus to Trajan,” ANRW 2.3.187–189; cf. C.M. Wells, American Classical Review 1 (1971), 252, resistant.

258

Commentary on Book 56

the others [ejkeivnou" = Arminius and Segimer], . . .” On the same events cf. Str. 7.292; Vell. 2.118.4; Tac. Ann. 1.55.1–3, 58.1–2; Flor. 2.30.33. All these treat a futile attempt of Segestes (RE 2A.1070–1071 [Stein]) to expose his son-in-law Arminius as a traitor before Varus. Although Dio nowhere names Segestes, he apparently has him in mind here. Father-in-law of one archconspirator and (for some) brother of the other, he could have been cognizant of the plot—or even invited to join it. Cf. H. Labuske, “Segestes—Verräter oder Lügner,” Klio 66 (1984), 183–191: Segestes was in the plot but later fell out with Arminius; early in Tiberius’ reign, in securing a safe haven for himself in Rome,69 he fabricated the story that he had denounced the turbator Germaniae before Varus. ejpanivstantaiv tine" prw÷toi oi:: “. . . first some of those dwelling at a distance from him rebel by arrangement.” Found only in Dio, this ruse is generally accepted as historical, for example, by John, who identifies the insurgents as the ‘ultimos Bructerorum’ of Tac. Ann. 1.60.3 (RE 24.953). Seeking a name or even a location for the rebels is a questionable project (so Timpe Arminius 105; but cf. K. Tausend, “Wohin wollte Varus?” Klio 79 (1997), 379–381, suggesting Angrivarii —not the first to do so). Even if Dio knew the name, he is as likely as not to have omitted such a detail as unnecessary for history. 19.4 proevpemyan . . . ejxormw÷nta ta:: The plotters “escorted Varus as he set out.” ejxorma÷n (or ejxorma÷sqai) implies some definite place of departure,70 here possibly a summer camp (cf. 56.18.5n). Factoring in manpower requirements of garrisons and detachments (e.g., 56.19.1, 22.2a), Timpe shows that Varus’ three legions cannot have been marching at full strength (Arminius 109). wJ" kai; ta; summacika; paraskeuavsonte" onte":: They obtained Varus’ leave “ostensibly to assemble the auxiliary forces.” A text crucial in Timpe’s thesis that standing auxiliary forces rather than tribal irregulars were the soul of the rebellion (Arminius 106–108); he holds that paraskeuavzein can refer to mobilizing existing troops (as at 40.66.1, legions) and that summacikav does not exclude standing units (he cites 55.24.5, Dio’s catalogue of Augustan armed forces). 19.5 dunavmei" ejn eJtoivmw/ pou ou[sa" a":: “They took command of their forces, which were clearly at the ready.” For Timpe a coup carried out within the Roman military structure best explains how a force sufficient to overpower Varus’ army could be mobilized undetected: insurgent leaders did not have to muster an illicit host of tribal warriors but by seizing the auxiliary command were able promptly to eliminate local detachments of Roman troops (cf. 56.19.1) and to launch auxiliary forces against Varus from their encampments (Arminius 108–110). Awkward for Timpe’s hypothesis is the fact that three alae and six cohorts of auxiliaries 69. On Segestes’ defection see Tac. Ann. 1.55–59; Str. 7.292; for that of his brother Segimer about the same time, Tac. Ann. 1.71.1. 70. E.g., 53.15.6, a governor departing his province immediately his successor arrives; 32.1, Agrippa the city for the East; 55.34.3, Augustus Rome for Ariminum; 56.45.2, a consul Rome to meet Augustus’ cortege; 78.5.4, Caracalla Edessa for Carrhae; 80.1.3, Dio Rome and Campania for home.

1.1–24.5: The Year a.d. 9

259

(perhaps 500 each if at full strength) are known not to have defected but to have fallen with Varus (Vell. 2.117.1; cf. Suet. Aug. 23.1, who says that all the auxiliaries were killed).71 Arminius will have needed a huge force, notwithstanding advantages of surprise and terrain, to take on both loyal auxiliaries and legions. Can he have mustered enough apostate auxiliaries to achieve what he did without the support of popular insurgents?72 ejn u{lai" h[dh dusekbavtoi" oi":: “by now in an all but inescapable forest.” How far Varus was escorted along the route to the staged rebellion or proceeded without escort before being ambushed Dio does not say. Perhaps not far—surprise was everything for the conspirators. Nor can he have managed long marches once under constant attack on adverse ground: whatever day or days in the travails of his army it represents, the Kalkriese battlefield (below, Archaeology) cannot have been a great distance from where the Germans sprang the trap. Topography of the disaster. Dio had a sound, if general, mental map of the region between the Rhine and Weser in which the disaster unfolded (see Appendix 1). But the want of toponyms diminishes the utility of his narrative. He fails to identify Varus’ Rhine base, his route into the interior, the locale to which the conspirators drew him near the Weser (56.18.5), the insurgents against whom he marched from there (56.19.3–4), or the disaster site.73 One topographical fact can be inferred, it is true, from his report that the legate’s outward march took him “to Cheruscan territory and the vicinity of the Weser:” if not the staged rebellion (56.19.3–4), then the German ambush will have impelled him westward in quest of deliverance (cf. Vell. 2.119.4, the attempt of a deserting legate to reach the Rhine). But to ground the events of Dio’s narrative in their proper landscape we must turn to the testimony of archaeology and Tacitus. Archaeology. One site of the Roman tragedy and German triumph has now at last been located securely—at Kalkriese, near Osnabruck (Map 1, inset).74 Here numerous metal remains of armor, weaponry, and other equipment found in situ together with coins prove the presence of legionary and auxiliary forces.75 Their

71. Timpe counters that Suetonius may here transmit official hyperbole—a “Stalingrad-Version” (Arminius 120). 72. It is true that very large complements of auxiliary forces are found operating under Germanicus’ command in his invasions of lower Germany early in Tiberius’ reign: cf. Tac. Ann. 1.49.4, twenty-six cohorts and eight alae supporting 12,000 legionaries; 1.56.1, 15,000 auxiliaries plus irregulars supporting eight legions. 73. Cf. H. Callies, “Bemerkungen zu Aussagen und Aussagehaltung antiker Quellen und neuerer Literatur zur Varusschlacht und ihrer Lokalisierung,” in Wiegels & Woesler Arminius 175–183 at 177: “Topographische Informationen bei Cassius Dio sind so allgemein, dass man damit nicht viel anfangen kann. Aussagen zur Geographie finden sich bei him nicht.” 74. Superannuating E.W. Gray’s lament on the debate over where Varus fell—a “morass that has engulfed whole legions of German scholars” (CR 23 [1973], 62). Kalkriese is some 75 km northwest of Detmold, where the heroic statue of Arminius stands! But the “correct” solution had long had proponents, notably Mommsen, but also E. Koestermann, in “Die Feldzüge des Germanicus 14–16 n. Chr.,” Historia 6 (1957), 429–479 at 441–443, and Wells Policy 240–241. Timpe “Faktoren” 26–27 emphasizes that the Kalkriese disaster site was not at the ends of the earth (as literature conspires to portray it) but probably on a significant route linking the Ems seaway and the Weser. 75. These include chain mail clasps and buckles, items of horse harness, a stylus, weights, a surgical instrument for setting bones, spear heads, javelin tips, and sling bullets. See in detail Schlüter Römer 19–52 and Germania 70 (1992), 349–383 (by G. Franzius), 383–396 (by R. Wiegels).

260

Commentary on Book 56

dispersion points to a protracted military action: see W. Schlüter, “Zum Stand der archäologischen Erforschung der Kalkrieser-Niewedder Senke,” in Schlüter & Wiegels Kalkrieser Kongress Karte 2 (p30), showing coins and military objects scattered over a tract some 5 km long.76 The scarcity of Roman ceramic remains rules out a campsite occupied for any substantial time (Schlüter Römer 50). Among concentrations of material the greatest is in a naturally funneled eastwest passage which at its western extremity narrows to under 2 km (much of this unviable) between the Kalkrieser Berg on the south and a moor on the north (detailed topography in Schlüter Germania 70 [1992]).77 Hundreds of coins found on this site, not only since 1987 but over the previous three centuries, were manifestly lost in a.d. 9 since all are of issues first minted no later than this, with heavy representation of the latest, for example, the well-known denarii portraying the Caesars Gaius and Lucius as Principes Iuventutis with their honorary shields and spears (RIC 12.55–56, reverses; cf. 55.9.9n, 12.1n). An identical numismatic cutoff exists at the Haltern base destroyed in the ensuing rebellion (see 56.22.2a–4n). Of the copper coins a number bear the Roman legate’s countermark ‘VAR(US).’78 On the coinage see F. Berger’s contributions in Schlüter Römer 63–66 and Germania 70 (1992), 396–402; also his Untersuchungen zu römerzeitlichen Münzfunden in Nordwestdeutschland (Studien zu Fundmünzen der Antike 9) (Berlin, 1992), 79–119, with historical conclusions 119–121, and his catalogue, Kalkriese 1. Die römischen Fundmünzen (Römisch-Germanische Forschungen 55) (Mainz, 1996), 51–53, cf. 47–49 (on countermarks). The Kalkriese finds, it should be noted, represent a single site of the disaster, plausibly but not necessarily the final one, inasmuch as the denouement entailed days of fighting (four are posited below at 56.20.4–22.2n). Tacitus. Although the clades Variana fell outside the period of his Annals, Tacitus recounts in some detail a visit under arms by Germanicus to sites of the tragedy (Ann. 1.60.2–62.2):79 Summary: In 15, having marshaled on the Ems an army that included four legions he had brought by ship via the coast of the North Sea, Germanicus made a sweep, apparently southeast, “to the most distant of the Bructeri” [‘ad ultimos Bructerorum’80], where the area lying between the rivers Ems 76. Cf. Suet. Cal. 3.2, ‘caesorum clade Variana . . . dispersas reliquias.’ See also Schlüter Germania 70 (1992), Beilagen 1–2. The daylong battle of Idistaviso ranged over ten miles: Tac. Ann. 2.18.1. 77. Remnants have been found of “a 500 m-long segment” of “piecemeal fortification” of sod and sand along the north foot of the Kalkrieser Berg parallel to the track followed by the Romans. Schlüter “Battle” 130–131 argues that the Germans used this rampart, plausibly located on the boundary between forest and open lowland, as a redoubt from which to attack the Romans as they marched by in column. 78. At Kalkriese the ratio of gold and silver to copper coins in terms of total value is markedly higher than at Haltern (or other permanent camps). This fits soldiers on campaign trying to lighten their packs: so F. Berger, following Mommsen, in Schlüter Germania 70 (1992), 401–402. 79. See nn of Furneaux (1.388–389), Koestermann (1.208–214), and Goodyear (2.91–101). Cf. Dio-Xiph. 57.18.1, a parallel account. 80. In a side operation a lieutenant recaptured from Bructeri the eagle of Legion XIX lost with Varus.

1.1–24.5: The Year a.d. 9

261

and Lippe was ravaged, not far from the Teutoburgiensis saltus,81 in which the remains of Varus and his legions were said to lie unburied.” To bury their bones Germanicus now made a dutiful trek through forest, swamp, and moor to the “mournful sites,” among which he came upon a well-built camp, Varus’ “first,” and later the makeshift camp of the battered remnants of the army (cf. on Dio 56.21.1–22.1n). There is no longer much room for doubt that the Kalkriese battleground and the two encampments in Tacitus were points on Varus’ line of retreat. Although Tacitus does not say by what route Germanicus got from the pillaged Bructeran territory to the vicinity of the disaster, the order in which he has the prince come upon Varus’ camps indicates that he was at this point following the path taken by the retreating Roman army.82 I suggest that he had set out from deep in the angle between Ems and Lippe, crossed the Teutoburgiensis saltus—including the Wiehengebirge83—northward in the direction of the Weser (in the vicinity of modern Minden), then turned westward along the northern margin of the Wiehengebirge seeking the track taken earlier by Varus.84 polevmioi ajnq! uJphkovwnn:: “revealed themselves as enemies instead of subjects.” Dio marks the peripeteia by recalling Varus’ treatment of the Germans as “subjects” (56.18.3). 20.1 o[rh kai; ûaraggwvdh kai; ajnwvmala ala:: Dio’s “rough mountains full of defiles,” reminiscent of his Dalmatian landscape (cf. 56.13.5, ajnwmaliva", ûavragga"), exaggerates the ruggedness of the terrain around Kalkriese.85 Salient physical features in other sources are forests (omnipresent in Dio) and marshes (not mentioned by him but consistent with Varus’ bridge building): Vell. 2.119.2, ‘silvis, paludibus;’ Flor. 2.30.36. oJdopoiou÷nta" geûurou÷ntav" te te:: Having told how the German trap was sprung, Dio flashes back to the Roman column toiling unwittingly into it (56.20.1–3). They were “making roads and bridges”—like a force under Caecina Severus six years later in the same general vicinity, sent ahead to build “bridges and causeways” 81. ‘quantumque Amisiam et Lupiam amnes inter vastatum, haud procul Teutoburgiensi saltu.’ Jutting northwestward from the massif of the Weser Bergland, the heights of the Teutoburger Wald dominate the surrounding lowlands before subsiding beyond Osnabruck. I assume that the ancient formation designated Teutoburgiensis saltus by Tacitus coincides generally with its modern namesake (historical continuity cannot in fact be demonstrated). 82. I assume that Tacitus narrates Germanicus’ movements essentially in historical sequence (Ann. 1.61.2) and has not reordered them for literary effect. But cf. R. Wolters, “Varusschlachten—oder: Neues zur Örtlichkeit der Varusschlacht,” Die Kunde 44 (1993), 167–183 at 175. 83. The Wiehengebirge is the parallel formation north of the Teutoburger Wald strictly defined (Osnabruck lies between the two). Since the Kalkriese site is on its northern flank, the Wiehengebirge was apparently considered in antiquity to be part of the Teutoburgiensis saltus. Cf. OCD3 1489. 84. Germanicus’ route was cleared in advance by his legate A. Caecina Severus (Tac. Ann. 1.61.1; cf. 55.29.3n). 85. This is not to fault Dio’s use of the word o[ro", which he applies equally to Mt Vesuvius (66.21.1) and to hills as modest as those between Misenum and Puteoli (48.50.1) or the Palatine (53.27.5), all known to him firsthand.

262

Commentary on Book 56

(‘pontes . . . et aggeres’) across “sodden marsh and treacherous moor” (Tac. Ann. 1.61.1 with Goodyear’s n). Cf. B. Isaac, “The Meaning of the Terms Limes and Limitanei,” JRS 78 (1988), 126–128 (but read Dio LVI, 20, 1 for “LVI, 19, 1”). 20.2 aJmavxa" a":: “They were bringing many wagons and many beasts of burden.” The uses of pack animals and draft animals, including asses, mules, horses, and oxen, are illustrated on Trajan’s column: see F. Lepper & S. Frere, Trajan’s Column: A New Edition of the Cichorius Plates (Gloucester, 1988), 268–269 with plates; I. Richmond, Trajan’s Army on Trajan’s Column (London, 1982), 12–13, 26–27 with plates 2, 8. For finds of animal (and human) remains at Kalkriese see Schlüter “Battle” 135–136; S. Wilbers-Rost, “Die Ausgrabungen auf dem ‘Oberesch’ in Kalkriese,” in Schlüter & Wiegels Kalkrieser Kongress 61–89. A reading of J.P. Roth, The Logistics of the Roman Army at War (264 b.c.–a.d. 235) (Columbia Studies in the Classical Tradition 23) (Leiden, 1999), 68–116 (“Packs, Trains and Servants”) serves as a caution against underestimating how large a train accompanied the army of Varus. Cf. Goldsworthy Army 105–111, order of march and baggage trains in the Roman army. pai÷ d e" . . . gunai÷ k e" . . . qerapeiv a: “There followed numerous children and women [cf. 56.22.2n] and also the throng of servants.” Legionary and auxiliary soldiers had slaves or freedmen responsible for chores, baggage, caring for animals, even fighting (cf. 78.26.5–6). The numbers of these could be high: see, for instance, Tac. Hist. 2.87.1, clearly abnormal, however; M.P. Speidel, “The Soldiers’ Servants,” Anc. Soc. 20 (1989), 239–247. Whether all servants were personal rather than public is debated: survey of evidence and views in Roth op. cit. 102–105. For reflections on our passage cf. L. Allason-Jones, “Women and the Roman Army in Britain,” in The Roman Army as a Community, ed. A. Goldsworthy & I. Haynes (JRA Supplementary Series 34) (Portsmouth, R.I., 1999), 47. 20.3 uJeto;" kai; a[nemo" poluv": “heavy rain and wind.” Another storm would befall them later (56.21.3). Both storms are reminiscent of that which afflicted the Athenians retreating from Syracuse (Thuc. 7.79.3); cf. G.M. Paul, “Two Battles in Thucydides,” CV 6 (1987), 310–312 on natural phenomena used in “focusing attention on the emotions of those involved” in combat. See F. Borca, “La clades Variana in Velleio Patercolo, Tacito, Floro e Cassio Dione: osservazioni su una retorica della disfatta,” Aufidus 30 (1996), 37–52 at 45–51 (Dio’s narrative art analyzed).

20.4–22.2 The German Ambush Day 1 and Camp 1 20.4 bavrbaroi baroi:: “From all sides at once the barbarians, suddenly bursting right through the very thickest cover, . . . hemmed them in.” Having set a mood of distraction, Dio brings the enemy explosively onto the scene, separating the subject bavrbaroi suspensefully from its verb periestoicivsanto by fourteen words.

1.1–24.5: The Year a.d. 9

263

e[ b allon allon:: “They shot from a distance at first.” The casting of spears was a feature of German warfare. Cf. Tac. Germ. 6.1 with Rives’ nn, summarizing the archaeological evidence; Ann. 1.64.2, “the Cherusci had huge spears capable of inflicting wounds at very long range;” Dio 38.49.1 (Suebi). See in general Todd Germans 36–46 (“Armament and Warfare”). Cf. C.B.R. Pelling in CR 32 (1982), 147 on Dio’s stereotypical descriptions of German fighting. On Germans as opponents see Goldsworthy Army 42–53. hj m uv n eto . . . ouj d eiv ": “Since no one was offering resistance, and many were suffering wounds, the Germans came to close quarters.” Possibly parallel to Vell. 2.119.2, blaming Varus for forbidding his troops to engage. But Dio mentions no such order here—or at 56.20.5, where Roman passivity is the product of complete unpreparedness. Cf. Timpe Arminius 110 n88; Woodman on Vell. 2.119.2 (pp199–201). 20.5 e[pascon me;n pollav, ajntevdrwn de; oujdevn: “They were suffering many casualties but inflicting none in return.” For the commonplace cf. 49.6.4; Xen. Cyr. 7.1.40. 21.1 ejstratopedeuvsanto anto:: “So they encamped on the spot, having seized some suitable ground—such as a wooded mountain affords.” Thus Day 1 of the Roman ordeal closed with the building of a camp, after which all but the absolutely essential baggage was burnt or abandoned with a view to proceeding more expeditiously on the morrow. For the difficulties of making camp under attack cf. Tac. Ann. 1.63.5–64.3 (Caecina Severus beleaguered by Arminius in 15); 55.32.3n. This should be what Tacitus, in relating Germanicus’ pilgrimage to sites of the disaster, calls “the first camp of Varus” (‘prima Vari castra’), which “with its wide circuit and surveyed headquarters revealed the work of three legions” (Ann. 1.61.2). Although Tacitus does not say so explicitly, that there was fighting around Camp 1 is suggested by his including it among “mournful sites [‘maestos locos’] hideous to see and recall.”86

Day 2 and Camp 2 th÷/ uJsteraiva/ ejporeuvqhsan, w{ste kai; ej" yilovn ti cwrivon procwrh÷sai ai:: “Next day they proceeded87 somehow in better order and were able to advance to some open ground, but they did not get off without bloodshed,” sc. they took heavy casualties (ouj . . . ajnaimwtiv is litotes).88 That the army now in fact encamped— 86. Cf., however, W.A. Oldfather & H.V. Canter, The Defeat of Varus and the German Frontier Policy of Augustus (Urbana, 1915), 25–26, rejecting any attempt to resolve such discrepancies: “Detailed examination of the several accounts . . . reveals so many inconsistencies and improbabilities that we are scarcely justified in accepting more than the bare defeat of Varus.” 87. Dio’s testimony is attacked by W. John, who views the continuation of the march the next day after the burning of the baggage as “absolutely the greatest folly Varus could commit” (Die Örtlichkeit der Varusschlacht bei Tacitus: Eine Quellenuntersuchung [Göttingen, 1950], 22 n22). By contrast, Goodyear on Tac. Ann. 1.61.2 holds that Varus had nothing to gain by delaying. Why would Dio invent the immediate advance? 88. Dio also uses the expression of the annihilation of the desperate Catilinarian army in 62 b.c. (37.40.1; cf. 55.1.2).

264

Commentary on Book 56

for the second time since the ambush—can be inferred from how Dio relates the subsequent advance (see 56.21.2n). This camp was presumably the second of the two Varian camps visited by Germanicus: “Next they could tell from a crumbling rampart and a shallow ditch where the now battered remnants had encamped [‘accisae iam reliquiae consedisse’]” (Tac. Ann. 1.61.2). Harmonizing what follows in Dio’s and Tacitus’ accounts is a challenge: Dio records the annihilation of the army and the suicide of Varus on “the fourth day” after two days of flight beyond Camp 2; Tacitus concludes his description of the “mournful sites” without mentioning a third or fourth day (Ann. 1.61.2–4): On the open ground [‘medio campi’] lay bleaching bones scattered or heaped accordingly as men had fled or made a stand. Nearby were shattered spears and horses’ limbs, also skulls mounted on tree trunks. In neighboring groves were the barbaric altars at which tribunes and chief centurions had been sacrificed. Survivors of the disaster, who had escaped battle or captivity, were recounting where the legates fell, where the eagles were seized, where Varus was first hit, where he met death by a self-inflicted stroke of his ill-fated right hand. . . . It is tempting to take Tacitus’ ‘medio campi’ as referring to terrain between Camps 1 and 2 and to equate this with Dio’s “open ground” (yilovn ti cwrivon), to which the legions advanced with heavy casualties on Day 2, in which case the remains still visible ‘medio campi’ after six years were of men who fell in getting to where Camp 2 was thrown up or in building and defending it.89 But this entails an intolerable contradiction in having Tacitus locate the annihilation in or around Camp 2, while Dio records two days of flight beyond Camp 2. I suggest that with ‘medio campi’ Tacitus shifts his focus beyond Camp 2 and so to the field of combat of Days 3 and 4 without differentiating these. If there are reflexes in the historians of the Kalkriese event that archaeology has now revealed, they are perhaps to be found in Dio’s further two days of flight, Tacitus’ ‘medio campi’ tableau, and the destructive ‘acies’ in Velleius.90

Day 3 21.2 ejnteu÷qen de; a[rante" ante":: “Setting out from there, they plunged again into the forest.” Dio marks a new advance, clearly on the third day (cf. 56.21.3). He uses ai[rein regularly to describe a setting forth, after a stay, from a camp, base, or anchorage. See 40.25.4, Crassus attempting escape from Carrhae; 41.51.1, Caesar setting out for Thessaly after abandoning the siege of Pompey at Dyrrhachium; 49.6.3, Cornificius, under siege at Tauromenium, setting out overland in quest

89. On the range of scholarly hypotheses cf. nn ad loc. of Koestermann (1.211) and Goodyear (2.95–96). 90. Vell. 2.119.4, “when battle had destroyed far the greatest part of them” (‘cum longe maximam partem absumpsisset acies’).

1.1–24.5: The Year a.d. 9

265

of safety; cf. Thuc. 7.79.1, a[rante", on breaking camp during the Athenian retreat from Syracuse. Cf. Nawijn 18 s.v. ai[rw. sustreûovmenoi enoi:: Cf. 56.20.5; 71.7.3. “Forming up densely in a confined space so that cavalry and infantry could attack the enemy together in mass, they were being tripped up, often by one another, often also by trees.” Dio is perhaps describing a failed attempt to coordinate an infantry attack in force (now the only alternative to annihilation through attrition?) with cavalry cover. For John RE 24.929–930, however, his description is comic. Tacitus’ account of how in 15 Caecina Severus broke through encircling forces of Arminius in the forest and marsh on the nearby pontes longi (Ann. 1.63.3–68.5) offers suggestive parallels. At first Caecina advanced in a dense “hollow rectangle” formation (cf. 56.13.5n) in order to clear the enemy from his path. When this failed because the legions on the flanks did not stay in formation (Ann. 1.65.3; cf. Vell. 2.119.2), he resorted to drawing the enemy into a heavy engagement (Ann. 1.67.1–68.5)—the opposite of what Arminius wanted, according to Tacitus (Ann. 1.68.1). Also instructive is 54.33.3–4 (Drusus trapped, 11 b.c.). Cf. Timpe “Faktoren” 26: Tacitus’ account of Caecina’s running battle with Arminius can be read as a “typologische Parallele” to Varus’.

Day 4 21.3 tetavrth te hJmevra [Dindorf; tovte ga;r ‘th÷i’ ‘te’ hJmevrai ms.] poreuomevnoi" a":: sûivsin ejgevneto, kai; aujtoi÷" uJetov" te auj÷ qi" qi" lavbro" kai; a[nemo" mevga" “A fourth dawn found them on the march when [kaiv]91 a violent downpour and a gale once more assailed them, preventing them from either making any advance or taking a solid stand [i{stasqai pagivw"; cf. Tac. Ann. 1.64.2, ‘locus . . . ad gradum instabilis procedentibus lubricus’].” Dindorf’s conjecture is brilliant and, I think, right. Cf. Appendix 11. Although Dio does not specify a third day, he has related its events, as shown at 56.21.2n. diabrovcoi" ou[sai" ai":: The storm “made their arms unserviceable: for they could not effectively wield their bows or javelins or even their shields, which were soaked.” Grip, footing, mobility, aim will all have suffered. The detail about the shields is defended by H. von Petrikovits, “Arminius,” BJ 166 (1966), 190 n19 with references; Dio has in mind the scutum of plywood covered with leather— on which cf. Livy 23.19.13; Polyb. 6.23.2–5; RE 2A.914–920 = scutum (Fiebiger); M.C. Bishop & J.C.N. Coulston, Roman Military Equipment from the Punic Wars to the Fall of Rome (London, 1993), 81–82, 149–151, 194 with references. 21.4 ej p i; th÷ / leiv a /: Many others who previously had been waiting and watching now joined in “for the booty.” A detail scorned by John (RE 24.930): the baggage 91. For parataxis with te . . . kaiv see Smyth Grammar nos. 2168–2169. For examples see 45.1.3; 56.18.1 (“These decrees had barely been passed when [kaiv] terrible news arrived from Germany”); Hdt. 8.56, 83.1; Xen. An. 3.2.1. For hJmevra givgnesqai = “dawn came” see Dio 40.25.4; for ordinal without article cf. Xen. An. 6.4.9, ejpeidh; de; uJstevra hJmevra ejgevneto. Cf. Verg. Aen. 3.8–9.

266

Commentary on Book 56

had been burned or abandoned. But what had not would be precious, including money, arms, armor, and captives (cf. 56.22.4, prisoners ransomed). Timpe, having attributed the original attack to apostate auxiliaries, thinks that tribal elements were now taking the rebel side, sensing victory (Arminius 109–110). 21.5 tou;" logimwtavtou" ou":: “And so Varus and the others of highest rank,92 fearing they would either be taken alive or be killed by their bitterest foes (they had in fact been wounded), found the resolve for an awful but necessary deed.” Pathos and admiration also resonate in Tac. Ann. 1.61.4 and Flor. 2.30.35–38. For Velleius, Varus’ courageous suicide did not make up for military failure: “the general had more heart for dying than fighting” (2.119.3). Although the thoughts of Varus and his officers in extremis perished with them, Dio suggests what a Roman notable would have dreaded in such straits—a helpless and degrading captivity or death; cf. Vell. 2.119.4, 120.6; Tac. Ann. 1.61.3– 4; Flor. 2.30.24, 37; Dio (Zon.) 8.13.8, 15.7 (Regulus). Dio marks the fact that Varus and the others were wounded: precisely because further armed resistance was now out of the question, it was both urgent and above reproach for them to determine their own destiny while this was still in their power. Cf. 40.27.2, where it is part of the tragedy of the triumvir Crassus that he lost this power and was killed either by one of his own men to prevent his being taken alive or, “being badly wounded,” by the Parthian enemy; 47.30.5–6. Cf. G. Grisé, Le suicide dans la Rome antique (Montréal, 1982), 60–63, on suicides of escape. aujtoi; ga;r eJautou;" ajpevkteinan teinan:: “They killed themselves by their own hand.” With these blunt words Dio punctuates the intricate and suspenseful seventyword period that precedes. Cf. Vell. 2.119.3, ‘se ipse transfixit;’ Tac. Ann. 1.61.4, ‘suo ictu mortem invenerit.’ Varus’ corpse was mutilated by the victors, and the severed head sent to King Maroboduus, who forwarded it to Augustus; it was buried with honor in the tomb of the Quinctilii (Vell. 2.119.5; cf. Tac. Ann. 1.71.1; Flor. 2.30.38; Timpe Arminius 114, discerning an attempt by Arminius to co-opt the Marcomannic king). 22.1 ejpevtrepovn sûa" sûa":: “They let anyone who wanted slaughter them,” apparently any German. The massacre described in the next sentence rules out mutual suicide. 22.2 Lacuna. After kai; tav te comes a one-folio lacuna, about fifty lines long. Part of what is lost can be recovered from Zonaras, part surmised; for example, the fate of captives, including atrocities (Vell. 2.119.5; Tac. Ann. 1.61.3–4; cf. Flor. 2.30.36–38), and the capture of legionary eagles (aquilae). Tacitus reports recovery of the eagle of Legion XIX in 15 from the Bructeri (Ann. 1.60.3, cf. 59.3) 92. “The others” will certainly have included legionary legates: see Tac. Ann. 1.61.4, “survivors were recounting where the legates fell.” Varus’ legate Numonius Vala (PIR2 N 243) was not one of them, however: he fled the battlefield and made for the Rhine—but was killed anyway (Vell. 2.119.4). Tacitus has Arminius boast that three legions and three legates fell before him (Ann. 1.59.3 with Goodyear’s n).

1.1–24.5: The Year a.d. 9

267

and of another in 16 from the Marsi (Ann. 2.25.1–2); Dio records under 41 (60.8.7) the recovery of “the single military eagle still in enemy hands from the disaster of Varus.”93 On the lost legions (XVII, XVIII, XIX) cf. 55.23.7n.

22.2 a–4 The Escape from Aliso (?Haltern) 22.2a ejruvmata [Zon.]:: “The barbarians seized all the forts except one.” On e[ruma in Dio see Timpe Arminius 110 n89; he compares the massacre of vexillations in Illyricum in the rebellion of a.d. 6 (Vell. 2.110.6). The unique fort was Aliso, where Velleius tells how a resourceful praefectus castrorum,94 L. Caedicius,95 and those trapped with him by a huge German force staved off capture and starvation until, exploiting enemy laxity, they managed to break out for the Rhine96 and salvation (2.120.4; cf. Frontin. Str. 2.9.4; 3.15.4; 4.7.8). Aliso’s location is uncertain. But its brief reemergence into history seven years later provides a helpful clue: in 16, commanding a huge force operating in the Lippe region, Germanicus refurbished the corridor between ‘castellum Alisonem’ and the Rhine with roads and causeways (Tac. Ann. 2.7.1–3). As the far terminus of his project, Aliso apparently stood on a major route into interior Germany and seems likely to have been one of the Roman forts along the Lippe uncovered by archaeology at Holsterhausen, Haltern, Oberaden, and Anreppen (proceeding upstream). That the fugitives could have made their way back through rebelheld territory from distant Anreppen, near the sources of the Lippe, is unlikely. Oberaden cannot be Aliso, having been decommissioned after the Roman victory of 8 b.c. under Tiberius (54.33.4n; cf. on 55.6.1–3). Holsterhausen, only ca 25 km from the Rhine, is at best an outside possibility.97 The best match for Caedicius’ Aliso is the “Hauptlager” (main camp) at Haltern, ca 45 km from the Rhine, a permanent stronghold built after the closure of Oberaden and accommodating up to 5,000 legionaries and auxiliaries combined. This fort was strong and compact enough to withstand the kind of blockade the Germans mounted against Aliso; a sheer break in the numismatic record in 9 fits its eventual abandonment by the besieged (56.22.2b). See Wells Policy 152–153, 163–211; von Schnurbein BRGK 62 (1981), 33–86, esp. 79–86 (“Das Aliso-Problem”), 95–97 (historical conclusions).98 93. Timpe squares his hypothesis of a rebellion of auxiliaries with the fact that the legionary eagles ended up in the possession of various tribes by positing that they were distributed as “invitations” to join the cause (Arminius 111). 94. On praefecti castrorum, officers of equestrian rank with long military experience and special technical competence, for example, in siege warfare, third in the chain of command of a legion, see Veg. Mil. 2.10 (the prefect’s many duties); RE 22.1285–1290 = praefectus (Ensslin); Keppie Making 176–177; Webster Army 113; cf. 55.32.3n, stratopedeuomevnw/; 33.2n. 95. PIR2 C 113; R. Syme, “Praefecti Castrorum,” RP 6.18–21 = Germania 16 (1932), 109–111. 96. That the defenders made their escape toward the Rhine can be inferred from Vell. 2.120.4, ‘ad suos.’ 97. Excavations at Holsterhausen have so far revealed only a marching camp, with perimeter fortifications longer and weaker than those of the Hauptlager at Haltern (areas enclosed: Holsterhausen, ca 50 ha; Haltern Hauptlager, ca 20 ha). Cf. Wells Policy 161–162; von Schnurbein BRGK 62 (1981), 26–28. 98. The case for identifying Aliso with Haltern has certain shortcomings. One is the lack of physical evidence showing that Haltern was reoccupied in 16, as was the case with Germanicus’ terminus Aliso (von Schnurbein BRGK 62 [1981], 96–97 suggests that Germanicus may have occupied a different location in the same vicinity).

268

Commentary on Book 56

ouj d ! . . . hjdunhvqhsan [Zon.]:: “That fort they proved unable to reduce since they did not know how to conduct a siege, . . .” Timpe, who views the rebellion as the work of auxiliaries, finds this statement misleading: the rebels were able to take the other forts (above); even here they maintained the siege for a long time, using a sophisticated system of pickets (cf. below, 56.22.2n) (Arminius 113–114 and n102).99 Their failure at Aliso may nonetheless have been technical if auxiliaries lacked siege engines, as argued by D. Baatz, “Zur Geschützbewaffnung römischer Auxiliartruppen in der frühen und mittleren Kaiserzeit,” BJ 166 (1966), 194–207. Cf. V.A. Maxfield, “Pre-Flavian Forts and Their Garrisons,” Britannia 17 (1986), 71–72, playing down differences in equipment between auxiliaries and legionaries; cf. D.B. Campbell, “Auxiliary Artillery Revisited,” BJ 186 (1986), 117–132. toxovtai" [Zon.]:: “. . . whereas the Romans employed a great many archers.” The presence of archers in Dio’s fort (sc. Aliso) and finds of some arrowheads in the “Hauptlager” at Haltern are consistent with identification of the two: von Schnurbein BRGK 62 (1981), 48–51, 96. Given its perimeter of ca 1,500 m (cf. Wells Policy 178), the “Hauptlager” would have been hard to hold against a massive assault without either a large garrison (more easily starved out) or the missile advantage of archers. For archers in Roman service in Germany cf. Tac. Ann. 2.16.3, 17. 4, 6. 22.2b ûulakh;n tou÷ @Rhvnou [Zon.]:: The Germans, “on learning that the Romans had picketed the Rhine . . .” L. Nonius Asprenas (cos. suff. a.d. 6), Varus’ nephew and legate commanding two legions on the upper Rhine, had marched promptly to the winter camps downstream (e.g., Vetera), confirming the wavering loyalty of peoples on the left bank (Vell. 2.120.3 with Syme Aristocracy 431, table XXVI; cf. 56.18.5n). Though Zonaras omits Asprenas’ name here, the intact Dio may have given it (perhaps supplying more than the mere cognomen used at 56.22.3). See RE 17.867–872 = Nonius 16 (Groag); PIR2 N 118; cf. 55.4.3n on the father. Regarrisoning of the frontier is mentioned again at 56.24.1, but from the perspective of Augustus in Rome rather than of the Germans. Tibev r ion su; n barei÷ proselauv n ein strateuv m ati [Zon.]:: “. . . and that Tiberius was marching up with a menacing force, . . .” Tiberius’ dispatch to the German front is also registered at 56.23.3; his departure belongs after 16 January of 10, when he dedicated the Temple of Concord in Rome (cf. 56.25.1n). ajpanevsthsan [Zon.]:: “. . . for the most part gave up besieging the fort.” On ajpanivstasqai, used of raising a siege, cf. 56.13.2n. The defenders had until now faced a horde of besiegers (Vell. 2.120.4).

Another is the fact that no source explicitly locates Aliso on the Lippe (where Haltern stood). Tacitus may offer a helpful clue when he reports that Germanicus’ first action across the Rhine in 16 was to drive off a German force attacking “a fort located by the Lippe” (‘castellum Lupiae flumini adpositum’) (Ann. 2.7.1). Some scholars (e.g., Wells Policy 152) believe that this anonymous Lippe fort was the castellum Aliso named a few lines later (Ann. 2.7.3), but this is beyond proof (cf. von Schnurbein BRGK 62 [1981], 84, suspending judgment on the equation of Tacitus’ two castella, though on other grounds he thinks Aliso may be Haltern). 99. Dio records how the Gallic rebel Ambiorix used acquired Roman siege technics against Q. Cicero (40.7.2).

1.1–24.5: The Year a.d. 9

269

spav n ei sitiv w n [Zon.]:: “expecting that they would take them through dearth of food.” Cf. Vell. 2.120.4, ‘inopia rerum;’ Frontin. Str. 3.15.4: defenders (clearly of Aliso) dampened enemy expectations of an early capitulation by parading prisoners around granaries, then releasing them, minus their hands. ejxh÷lqon nuvkta thrhvsante" ceimevrion [Zon.]:: “Having watched for a stormy night, they set out.” Cf. Thuc. 3.22.1, the escape from Plataea: thrhvsante" nuvkta ceimevrion . . . ejxh÷/san; Vell. 2.120.4, ‘speculatique opportunitatem.’100 22.2 (continued) pro; " tw÷ / triv t w/: “when they got near the third outpost.” With these words we recover Dio’s text following the lacuna that splits 56.22.2. Apparently the Germans (sûwn) had set up concentric rings of pickets (Timpe Arminius 114 n102). Presence of women and children among the fugitives squares with evidence of canabae101 at Haltern (cf. Wells Policy 191–192). Cf. 56.20.2, women, children, and servants in the train of Varus’ army. 22.3 trocai÷ovn ti sumbohvsante" ante":: The fugitives would all have suffered death or capture had not the Germans been intent on seizing booty, since the strongest of the troops had pulled away far ahead of the rest. But the trumpeters with the latter, “by sounding together some command for a double-quick march” (after Cary), caused the enemy to imagine (dovxan . . . parevscon) that a force had arrived dispatched “by Asprenas,” so that they checked their pursuit. Cf. Polyb. 10.20.2, soldiers conditioned by “doing a four-mile double-quick march [trocavzein] under arms.” For bugle commands cf. 36.49.1: “First the trumpeters all together at a signal sounded the battle command [to; polemikovn];” 47.43.1–2 (various trumpet commands). On military musicians (a legion employed some dozens of trumpet and horn players) and musical signals cf. RE 4.1602–1603 = Cornicines (Fiebiger); 7A.750–752 = Tuba and 754–755 = Tubicen (Lammert); Webster Army 140; Le Bohec Army 49–50; J. Peddie, The Roman War Machine (Stroud, 1994), 19–37. “Asprenas.” Velleius, while attesting the critical importance of Asprenas’ energetic response to the crisis in bringing his two legions into lower Germany (2.120.3; cf. 56.22.2bn), is silent on his part in the Aliso escape (next n). 22.4 ejpekouvrhse hse:: Informed of what was happening, “Asprenas really [o[ntw"; cf. dovxan at 56.22.3n] came to their rescue.” Dio is vague on how (or how soon) Asprenas got word (von Schnurbein BRGK 62 [1981], 82 suggests a rider dispatched from, or Roman spies dispatched toward, Aliso). That the trumpet ruse (an old one: cf. Frontin. Str. 1.5.17) was plausible to the Germans perhaps indicates that Asprenas was already operating on the right bank of the Rhine. The fugitives may in any event have had to fight against Germans standing between them and him: Velleius says that they won their return ‘ad suos’ “with the sword” (2.120.4). 100. E. Litsch, De Cassio Dione imitatore Thucydidis (diss. Freiburg, 1893), 17–18 collects other echoes of Thucydides’ Plataean narrative in Dio (e.g., 36.7.1–2). 101. Dwellings of civilians, including soldiers’ families and traders, around military forts.

270

Commentary on Book 56

aj n ekomiv s qhsan qhsan:: Later certain even of the captives “returned safe,” thanks to kinsmen who were granted permission to ransom them on condition that the redeemed men stayed outside Italy. For prisoners not ransomed see Tac. Ann. 12.27.2–3, Varian soldiers recaptured from the Chatti after forty years of servitude. After Cannae in 216 b.c. the Senate had refused adamantly to ransom prisoners despite a manpower shortage (Livy 22.58–61); private ransoming of relatives was apparently allowed, however, though the vast majority went unredeemed and were sold into slavery by Hannibal (Livy 34.50.3–7, 194 b.c.; cf. Val. Max. 5.2.6).

23.1–24.1 Augustus’ Response to the Clades Variana 23.1 tou÷to me;n u{steron . . . tov t e dev: This happened later. At that time, however, on learning what had befallen Varus, Augustus tore his garment (some say) and was stricken with grief over the fallen and over the peril to the Germanies [Germaniw÷n] and the Gallic provinces, but most of all because he expected the enemy to march against Italy and Rome itself at a time when he had no citizen youth left worth mentioning, and the auxiliaries who were of any use had been ruined. Having carried the narrative forward continuously from the antecedents of the rebellion to the Aliso escape (56.22.4), i.e., into events of 10 (cf. 56.22.2bn, Tibevrion),102 Dio now turns back (tovte dev) and treats Augustus’ emotional, practical, and intellectual responses to the calamity. “Tore his garment (some say).” See Suet. Aug. 23.2: “They say that he was so shaken that for months on end he let his beard and hair grow and would sometimes beat his head on a door, shouting, ‘Quinctilius Varus, give back my legions;’” Oros. 6.21.27; cf. Suet. Iul. 67.2.103 “Germanies . . . Gallic provinces.” By “Germanies” Dio means the frontier zones—in his day provinces—on the left bank of the Rhine: cf. 56.18.1n, 3n. Timpe suggests that through long experience of Roman command Arminius had formed an analytical grasp of the underpinnings of the imperial power and a realizable strategy of employing his unified force of German auxiliaries to demolish Rome’s main communications artery along the Lippe, then its bases on the Rhine, and to set in motion an apostasy of Gallic peoples (Arminius 111–115). “Against Italy and Rome itself.” Cf. Vell. 2.120.1: “threatened Italy with a Cimbrian and Teuton army;” Suet. Aug. 23.2; Dio 55.30.1n for similar fears during the Illyrian rebellion. 102. All the while under the consuls of 9. 103. R. Till links Plin. HN 7.150, ‘Variana clades et maiestatis eius foeda suggillatio’ (“the Varian disaster and the shameful battering of his majesty”), with Augustus’ intemperate reaction: “Plinius über Augustus (nat. hist. 7.147–150),” WJA 3 (1977), 134–135.

1.1–24.5: The Year a.d. 9

271

“No citizen youth.” Augustus’ complaint clearly applied to volunteers since “much larger forces could readily have been mobilized by conscription of the kind familiar in the 80s and 40s:” Brunt “Conscription” 97. “Auxiliaries . . . ruined.” Probably a reference to standing auxiliaries (so Timpe Arminius 107), notably Illyrian or German tribal contingents whose loyalty recent rebellions had compromised. 23.2 katalecqh÷nai ai:: “since no one of military age wanted to enlist.” Not only had difficult warfare on the northern frontiers muted any appeal of the military vocation; straitened state finances precluded improvements in conditions of service.104 Although by an ancient rule men were liable for conscription from seventeen to forty-six (Polyb. 6.19.2; Gell. 10.28.1), those under thirty-five were much preferred (cf. Livy 22.11.9, a levy after Trasimene, 217 b.c.; Veg. Mil. 1.4),105 and their evasion was now more severely punished (next n). On conscription see in general Brunt Manpower 391–415, 635–638; Davies Service 3–30 (“Joining the Roman Army”). hj t iv m wse wse:: Augustus chose by lot every fifth evader under thirty-five and every tenth above, then “confiscated their property and degraded them,” presumably by virtue of his imperium (Brunt ZPE 13 [1974], 162–173).106 How many he made an example of “to encourage the others” is unknown. On republican punishments see Cic. Caecin. 99 (sale into slavery; cf. Dig. 49.16.10); Val. Max. 6.3.4 (confiscation of property). Augustus sold an eques, estate and all, who had cut off the thumbs of two sons to prevent their conscription (Aug. 24.1, undated); cf. Suet. Tib. 8. 23.3 ajpevkteinev tina" tina":: “Since a great many entirely ignored him even then, he executed some,” an extreme example that Dio is apparently at pains to justify, though a rigorist in military discipline. These measures generated recruits, though Dio does not say so here: at the heart of the legionary mutiny in lower Germany in 14 he identifies men “from the city mob [ajstikou÷ o[clou] whom Augustus conscripted by way of supplement [proskatevlexen] after Varus’ disaster” (57.5.4); for Tacitus the instigators were the same—the “homegrown crowd from the recent levy in Rome” (‘vernacula multitudo, nuper acto in urbe dilectu’) (Ann. 1.31.4). For an inscription recording a “levy of the freeborn” (‘dilectus ingenuorum’) by Augustus and Tiberius at Rome that may be our levy cf. 55.31.1n. 104. For Brunt “Conscription” 201–204 major deterrents were “length and remoteness of service.” The period of service for legionaries had been raised from sixteen to twenty years in a.d. 5 (55.23.1n). 105. Cf. Davies Service 7: “Analysis of the ages in some 500 legionary careers has shown that the men enlisted between the ages of 13 and 36, and of these three out of four had joined between the ages of 18 and 23” (based on Forni Reclutamento 26–27, 135–141). 106. ajtimou÷n (like ajtimiva) is used of various punishments, for instance, Augustus’ exclusion of Cornelius Gallus from his provinces (53.23.6), Agrippa’s disgracing of soldiers after a defeat (54.11.5), or damnatio memoriae of emperors (47.18.3). See Levick “Larinum SC” 108, who takes ajtimivaÉajtimou÷n to refer, in the case of the exiled Cicero, to “the complete deprivation of citizenship rights.”

272

Commentary on Book 56

ejstrateumevnwn . . . ejxeleuqevrwn wn:: “Selecting by lot as many as he could from men already discharged107 and from freedmen, he enlisted them and straightway sent them in haste with Tiberius to Germany [Germanivan].”108 Enlistment took the pattern followed earlier in the Illyrian crisis, when “levies were held, veterans recalled, . . . and men and women compelled to donate freedmen soldiers” (Vell. 2.111.1). About the freedmen recruited in 9 we learn from Suetonius that Augustus laid on the wealthy a contribution of slaves, whom he then freed, enlisted, and sent to guard the Rhine—like those sent to garrison colonies in Illyricum in 7 (Aug. 25.2; cf. 55.31.1n). Freedmen units were permanently segregated from freeborn legionaries and differentiated by their arms (Suet. Aug. 25.2). See K.-W. Welwei, Unfreie im antiken Kriegsdienst, 3: Rom (Forschungen zur antiken Sklaverei 21) (Stuttgart, 1988), 19–21. Although Dio emphasizes Augustus’ haste, some months had elapsed since the disaster—Tiberius left for the front after 16 January of 10 (56.25.1n). Velleius exaggerates Tiberius’ speed in meeting the crisis (2.120.1–2; cf. 56.24.6n). 23.4 ejn tw÷/ doruûorikw÷/: Fearing an insurrection of Gauls (Galavtai) and Germans (Keltoiv) in Rome, who were many, Augustus sent those serving “in the bodyguard” to sundry islands (cf. Suet. Aug. 49.1) and ordered civilians to leave the city. Although doruûorikovn is Dio’s usual term for the Praetorian Guard, here it refers (pace Cary) to Augustus’ foreign bodyguard, composed mainly of Batavian cavalrymen (see 55.24.7n). Cf. Suet. Aug. 23.1, patrols (excubiae) to secure the city against insurrection (tumultus). Timpe suggests that Augustus feared not a nonexistent German national solidarity but “internal military links” between the bodyguard and the auxiliary prefect Arminius (Arminius 114–115). Although now ostensibly “disbanded” (Suet. Aug. 49.1, ‘dimissa’), the German bodyguard is found back in service in 14 (Tac. Ann. 1.24.2; cf. Suet. Galba 12.2; Bellen Leibwache 40–41, 85). 24.1 panhguvrei" ei":: “nor were the festivals solemnized.” Apparently regular festivals rather than, with Reimar ad loc. (2.823), Illyrian victory celebrations, whose postponement Dio has already recorded (56.18.1n, cf. 17.1n). Germanivai ejûrourhvqhsan hsan:: “later, hearing word that some of the soldiers had reached safety and that the Germanies had been garrisoned,” sc. the left bank of the upper and lower Rhine. These events have already been narrated in 56.22.2b– 4. For ûrourei÷n of garrisoning on a large scale cf. 41.44.3 (blockade of the Adriatic Sea); 56.40.2 (imperial provinces).

24.2–5 Divine Intervention in the Clades Variana Augustus surmised that heaven was behind the Roman calamity, says Dio, plausibly, since the notion was already current at the time. The Stoic Manilius wrote 107. Cf. 48.8.5; 51.4.1; Mason Terms 50. 108. Taken literally, Dio’s words seem to mean that these two groups marched with Tiberius, but not the urban conscripts. It may be better to assume that he intends all three. Cf. 56.22.2b, Tiberius’ “menacing force.”

1.1–24.5: The Year a.d. 9

273

that astral signs heralded and nature produced the disaster (1.901–902); Velleius saw divine agency in Varus’ ruin: “When about to change a man’s fortuna, god generally corrupts his judgment and brings it to pass . . . that he seems to have deserved what has befallen him” (2.118.4). Still, the high-flown proof that Dio ascribes to the emperor is in some measure a product of his own natural philosophy (Introduction sec. 3) and style (nine prodigies,109 in Rome and abroad, celestial and terrestrial, mobilized in a single sentence). 24.2 oujk a[neu daimonivou tino;" ojrgh÷": No calamity so great and total, Augustus thought, could have happened “failing some kind of divine wrath.” Dio manages to absolve Augustus of responsibility: celestial anger was at work; the burden of human guilt fell on Varus (56.18.3); the Princeps responded energetically to the crisis (e.g., 56.23.2–4). 24.3 #Arew" naov": “The temple of Mars in his Campus was struck by lightning.” Dio distinguishes which of Mars’ temples he means—clearly not that of Mars Ultor in the Forum of Augustus (on which see 55.10.1a–8). The precise location in the Campus Martius is debated. Cf. Platner & Ashby 329; Richardson Dictionary 245 (Dio refers, if anything, to the temple of Mars in the Circus Flaminius); F. Coarelli, Il Campo Marzio: dalle origini alla fine della Repubblica (Rome, 1997), 187–195 (in the Campus proper, just east of the Saepta Iulia, near the Ara Martis); LTUR 3.223–226 (Coarelli). ajttevleboi . . . uJpo; celidovnwn ajnhlwvqhsan hsan:: “Numerous locusts flying right into the city were destroyed by swallows.” Cf. LSJ s.v. celidwvn: “the twittering of the swallow was prov[erbially] used of barbarous tongues by the Greeks” (e.g., Aesch. Ag. 1050–1051). korufai; . . . sumpeptwkevnai ai:: “The peaks of the Alps gave the appearance of collapsing onto one another, sending up three fiery pillars.” Cf. 8.25.7 (Zon.), mountains splitting open, collapsing (sunevpesen), and blocking up chasms in an earthquake during the battle at Trasimene. 24.4 ajstevre" te komh÷tai . . . kai; dovrata ajp! a[rktou ktou:: “Many comets were visible at the same time, and shafts flying from the north seemed to strike the camps of the Romans.” It is hard to tell what natural phenomena might have given rise to Dio’s report. Ancient authors fail generally to distinguish adequately between comet and meteor portents.110 Moreover, their astronomical vocabulary, based mainly on superficial appearances, is unhelpfully various and metaphorical.111 “Many comets.” Fabricius’ comment, written by 1726, still serves well (printed in Reimar 2.823 [= Sturz 6.212 no. 81]; cf. 1.xxviii): “It will seem strange to star109. For clusters of republican prodigies cf. the “Index of Prodigies” in B. MacBain, Prodigy and Expiation: A Study in Religion and Politics in Republican Rome (Brussels, 1982), 82–106. 110. Exceptionally, Sen. NQ 7.23.3 differentiates precisely between the stable visibility of comets and the transitory spectacle of meteors; cf. Dio 60.35.1, ajsth;r oJ komhvth" ejpi; plei÷ston ojûqeiv". 111. For meteors designated as trabes, globi, faces, and ardores see Sen. NQ 1.1.5; cf. Plin. HN 2.96–97 for faces, lampades, bolides, and trabes. For a various vocabulary of comets see Plin. HN 2.89–90.

274

Commentary on Book 56

gazers that many comets should have presented themselves to view in the sky at one time. Nowadays, when with telescopes comets can certainly be seen more often than previously without, they are never seen except singly. But perhaps Dio counted fiery meteors as comets.” Pliny the Elder notes appositely that, though Aristotle speaks of a number of comets being seen at one time (Mete. 344b lines 26–27), to his own knowledge no one else has found this to be so (HN 2.91). Dio’s “shafts flying from the north” can hardly be anything but meteors, plausibly a meteor shower. A broadly similar trio of celestial signs—burning sky (cf. 56.24.3), “fiery timbers [xuvla] falling from it,” and comets (plural!) attended Augustus’ death, according to Dio (56.29.3n). khvria ia:: “Bees were making honeycombs” around the altars in Roman camps. For similar portents cf. 74.6.3 (on military standards, on images of Pescennius Niger); 78.25.1 (in the Forum Boarium). Cf. 54.33.2 and 60.35.1, swarms in Roman camps, also portending evil. On altars in camps cf. Webster Army 276–278. Nivkh" ti a[galma alma:: “A statue of Victory in [cis-Rhenane] Germany which faced enemy territory turned toward Italy.” For parallels cf. 8.1.2–3 (Zon.): a statue (a[galma) of Victory in the Forum came down from its base and stood looking to where the Gauls were advancing from (295 b.c.); 41.61.4: on the day of Pharsalus the statue (a[galma) of Victory in her temple in Tralles turned sideways toward an image of Julius Caesar—ominously for Pompeians in the city (cf. Bowersock Augustus 8–9; Caes. B Civ. 3.105); Suet. Vesp. 5.7: as the emperor Galba entered the comitia for his election as consul for 69 a statue of Divus Iulius turned to the east, portending the rise of Vespasian.112 Implied in all these portents is a shifting of divine tutelage, though it is not clear in every case why the statues turned where they did. 24.5 mavch kai; ajgwnismo;" . . . dia; kenh÷ ": Paraphrase: Once, as if the eagles in their camps were under attack by barbarians, the soldiers “joined delusively113 in armed struggle” around these against a nonexistent enemy. Lacuna. Our manuscript breaks off after touvtwn te ouj ¿n e{neka kai; o{ti kaiv . . . (“now on this account and because . . .”). Dio perhaps went on, following his list of prodigies evidencing divine anger (cf. 56.24.2), to record expiatory measures like Augustus’ vow of ‘magnos ludos’ to Jupiter Optimus Maximus “if the condition of the Roman state changed for the better” (Suet. Aug. 23.2; cf. 55.31.2n on ludi magni). Lost is one folio (ca fifty lines). Dio’s text resumes at 56.25.1, which closes his year-account of 10. The now missing segment contained operations on the Rhine front in 10 (epitomized by Zonaras at 56.24.6) and a remainder of urban events, evidently from both 9 and 10 (see 56.25.1n). Little of Dio’s account of the Varian disaster can have been lost here: he has already run ahead out of time into 10 in recounting the escape from Aliso and the ransoming of prisoners (56.22.2a–4). 112. Cf. Tac. Hist. 1.86.1 and Plut. Otho 4.4, similar but naming Otho, not Galba, and locating the statue on an island in the Tiber. 113. On dia; kenh÷", “pointlessly,” “in vain,” “emptily,” cf. Thuc. 4.126.5, the brandishing of weapons as a threat, dia; kenh÷" ejpanavseisi" tw÷n o{plwn.

24.6–25.1: The Year a.d. 10

275

56.24.6–25.1: The Year a.d. 10 Annalistic structure: external section?—urban section. Of Dio’s text, which probably ran less than fifty lines, all but the last four lines, treating urban affairs, is lost in the one-folio lacuna following 56.24.5. A small part of this loss can be made good from Zonaras and from a Byzantine excerpt best located here.

24.6: EXTERNAL AFFAIRS (FRAGMENTARY): TIBERIUS IN GERMANY 24.6 ouj k e[ k rinen [Zon.]:: Zonaras’ report that Tiberius “resolved not to cross the Rhine” and that the Germans, learning of his arrival, did not dare cross either is soundly placed here. In his text the standoff comes between Asprenas’ rescue of Roman survivors trapped beyond the Rhine in winter 9/10 (drawn from Dio 56.22.4) and the invasion of Germany in 11 by Tiberius and Germanicus (from Dio 56.25.2). It necessarily follows Tiberius’ dispatch to the German front at 56.23.3, cf. 22.2b. On the basis of Vell. 2.120.1–2 Woodman thinks that Tiberius was already campaigning across the Rhine in 10 and rejects Dio’s testimony here (ad loc. [p207, cf. 203–204]). But Velleius exaggerates how promptly Tiberius retaliated against the Germans (Syme RP 3.1100–1101). Sumner CP 74 (1979), 67 tries to save both sources: Dio refers to hesitation early in 10, Velleius to an invasion later in the year. Against a Rhine crossing in 10 are, first, the absence in Dio’s report on the invasion in 11 (56.25.2–3) of any hint about a prior crossing; second, Tiberius’ and Germanicus’ fear in 11 of once more (auj ¿qi") meeting a disaster, sc. another Varian disaster (56.25.2n), a fear that fits a first crossing. Suetonius’ account of Tiberius’ German mission of 10–12, though it contains certain explicit indications of date, manages to leave the year of the Rhine crossing unclear (Tib. 18.1–20).114 On Roman aims in the aftermath of the Varian disaster see D. Timpe, Der Triumph des Germanicus: Untersuchungen zu den Feldzügen der Jahre 14–16 n. Chr. in Germanien (Bonn, 1968), 30–38 (reconquest); Wells Policy 239–242 (retrenchment); Kienast Augustus 373–375, with references; H.-G. Simon, “Eroberung und Verzicht: Die römische Politik in Germanien zwischen 12 v. Chr. und 16 n. Chr.,” in Baatz & Herrmann Römer 39–57 at 54–57 (any aim of reconquering interior Germany was abandoned finally after Germanicus’ inconclusive campaigns of 15–16).

114. I paraphrase: “‘Proximo anno [sc. 10] repetita Germania’ Tiberius saw that the disaster had resulted from the general’s rash and careless conduct and took every precaution. His invasion of trans-Rhenane Germany was prepared and conducted meticulously; discipline was severe; little was risked in battle. Returning to the city from Germany after two years [‘post biennium’], he celebrated the Illyrian triumph [23 October of 12: 56.17.1n] that he had postponed.” Suetonius’ first four words date Tiberius’ German incursion either (1) “in the next year, after his return to Germany,” or (2) “after his return to Germany in the next year.” Sense (1) locates the Rhine crossing in 10; sense (2) simply gives Tiberius’ return to Germany in 10 as a terminus post quem for what follows and so accommodates a crossing in 11.

276

Commentary on Book 56

24.7–25.1: URBAN AFFAIRS 24.7 wj/keiou÷to tw÷/ plhvqei [Exc. Val. 182]:: “For many reasons Germanicus was winning the people’s affection, particularly by acting as an advocate in various cases.” This fragment corresponds to no extant passage of the History. On the argument for placing it here (and on its flawed text) see Boissevain ad loc. (2.536– 537).115 para; tw÷/ Aujgouvstw/ dikasqh÷nai mavthn hjqevlhsen [Exc. Val. 182]:: The accuser wanted “his case to be tried before Augustus—in vain.” The order of events of this no doubt celebrated trial was as follows: an accuser laid a charge of homicide against a quaestor (both are nameless); the accuser feared, on learning that Germanicus would be the defense advocate, that the jurors would vote for acquittal out of deference to the prince, and so asked that the case be heard at Augustus’ tribunal rather than in the standing homicide court; this petition was granted, but in vain, for he lost the case anyway (ouj ga;r ejkravthsen). Our text provides further evidence that Augustus had a capital jurisdiction in Rome (see also 55.7.2n, under 8 b.c.), though not necessarily parallel to that of public quaestiones. What we seem to have here is a kind of “appeal to Caesar”— though by accuser rather than accused—from the regular jurisdiction of a public quaestio. For a partial parallel cf. Tac. Ann. 3.10.1–3. Millar Emperor 523–524 adduces our case in arguing that “the court of the emperor functioned as an alternative to other courts.” Cf. P. Garnsey, “The Lex Iulia and Appeal under the Empire,” JRS 56 (1966), 183. On Augustus as judge cf. 55.4.3, 33.5n, 34.1n; Suet. Aug. 33. Cf. J. Bleicken, Senatsgericht und Kaisergericht. Eine Studie zur Entwicklung des Prozessrechtes im frühen Prinzipat (Göttingen, 1962), 77 n4, who takes ouj ga;r ejkravthsen to mean that the accuser failed in his attempt to have Augustus hear the case.116 This cannot be right: Dio (Exc. Val. 182) brings in the quaestor’s trial as an instance of Germanicus actually pleading before Augustus (ejp! aujtou÷ tou÷ Aujgouvstou). 25.1 . . . | meta; th;n strathgivan e[cwn [Dio’s text resumes after the lacuna]:: “. . . | he held after the praetorship.” An event of 9 is in question since directly below Dio introduces the dedication of the Temple of Concord, which belongs in 10, with tw÷/ de; deutevrw/ (“in the second [sc. year]”)—answering a preceding, but now lost, “in the first year” (or the like). Whose praetorship he refers to is unknown. Not Germanicus’, who skipped the office (56.26.1, 28.1n).117 We may 115. Exc. Val. 182 clearly belongs between 55.27.5 (a.d. 6) and 56.43.1–45.1 (a.d. 14), from which Exc. Val. 181 and 183 are drawn respectively. Furthermore, it apparently precedes 56.26.1n (a.d. 12), where Dio writes of Germanicus as “once again” (kai; tovte) acting as advocate. Note: Cary here adopts emendations of Bekker deemed audacious by Boissevain. 116. In Bleicken’s view Augustus was not a judge of the first instance and declined to intrude himself in the regular judicial process. 117. The missing object of e[cwn (lemma) might be a provincial or urban post. Cf. 37.52.1; 43.1.1; 58.24.3 (governorships held meta; th;n strathgivan).

25.2–8: The Year a.d. 11

277

have here the vestige of a “double” end chapter similar to that at 48.32.1–33.5, combining (while distinguishing) events of two years;118 see Swan “Augustan Books” 2535–2543. @Omonov e ion ion:: “The Temple of Concord [officially Concordia Augusta] was dedicated by Tiberius.” See Map 2. The date 16 January of 10—anniversary of the day Octavian took the name Augustus—is attested in the Fasti Praenestini (IIt. 13.2.114–115 = EJ p45). Cf. Ovid Fasti 1.637–650; Suet. Tib. 20 (loosely juxtaposing the dedication with Tiberius’ triumph of 12). Tiberius now fulfilled his undertaking of 7 b.c. to restore the temple “with the aim of inscribing his own and Drusus’ names on it” (55.8.2n). On Concord’s “snow-white temple” (Ovid Fasti 1.637) and its ruins see Platner & Ashby 138–140; Nash Dictionary 1.292–294; Richardson Dictionary 98–99 (preferring a date of 12); LTUR 1.316– 320 (A.M. Ferroni), summarizing recent excavations; T. Hölscher in LIMC 5.1.489, 493–494; RIC 12.98 no. 67 with plate 12 for a coin image; cf. B.A. Kellum, “The City Adorned: Programmatic Display at the Aedes Concordiae Augustae,” in Raaflaub & Toher Republic 276–307 (292–296 for the idea that the philosopher-astrologer Thrasyllus was the “chief designer” of the temple’s visual program). For a senate meeting in the temple see 58.11.4 (condemnation of Sejanus) with Talbert Senate 118–119; Bonnefond-Coudry Sénat 106– 108.119

56.25.2–8: The Year a.d. 11 Annalistic structure: external section—urban section. Following brief treatment of events on the German front (56.25.2–3), the words “but in Rome” (ejn de; dh; th÷/ @Rwvmh/) mark the shift to urban affairs (56.25.4–8).

25.2–3: EXTERNAL AFFAIRS—TIBERIUS AND GERMANICUS IN GERMANY 25.2 Aij m iliv o u . . . Statilivouu:: On the consul Manius (Dio gives Marcus in error) Aemilius Lepidus, grandson of the triumvir, see Syme Aristocracy 98, 129– 130; on his quietism, Tac. Ann. 3.32.2 under 21. On T. Statilius Taurus see Syme Aristocracy 376–377, who shows that he was a son rather than (as usually held) a grandson of Augustus’ like-named civil war marshal and praefectus urbi (cf. 49.14.6n; 54.19.6n). Tibevrio" me;n kai; Germanikov": “Tiberius and Germanicus” invaded Germany, the first trans-Rhenane invasion since the Varian disaster: 56.24.6n. Velleius treats our event at 2.120.1–2, cf. 121.1 (without clear annual chronology). 118. In this instance the coordinate phrases are ejn tw÷/ e[tei ejkeivnw/, “in that year” (40 b.c.), and ejn tw÷/ pro; touvtou e[tei, “in the year before this” (41 b.c.); also the order of the two years is reversed. 119. Note that in placing the external section for a.d. 10 before the urban section Dio registers the dedication of Concord after Tiberius’ departure for Germany (cf. 56.24.6). In fact the dedication preceded.

278

Commentary on Book 56

ajnti; uJpavtou a[rcwn cwn:: “holding proconsular office.” Against Dio, Brunt ZPE 13 (1974), 185 (cf. 179–180) and Syme Ovid 57 think that Germanicus could not have held proconsular imperium in 11 because he was operating under the high command of Tiberius. But it is risky to reject Dio’s explicit testimony. Germanicus’ father Drusus assumed proconsular imperium in the year before his consulship (54.33.5n), as did Gaius Caesar (55.10.18n, ejxousivan). Destined for the consulship in 12, Germanicus was probably promoted on the same pattern; cf. 56.28.1n, uJpateivan. I posit three graduated independent imperia—of Augustus, Tiberius, and Germanicus. This hierarchy paralleled—mutatis mutandis—that framed in law for Germanicus’ later mission to the East under Tiberius (17–19), which entailed imperia of Tiberius (qua Princeps), Germanicus, and provincial proconsuls (Augustus having died, the surviving principals had moved up one level): Germanicus was then “proconsul, concerning whom a law had been passed to the effect that in whatever province he sojourned, his imperium should be greater than that of whoever held the province as proconsul, provided that in every regard the imperium of Tiberius Caesar Augustus should be greater than that of Germanicus” (SCPP lines 33–36).120 Dio, in relating the campaign of 11, presents Tiberius and Germanicus as a team—consistently with both having proconsular imperium. Ovid, however, is more precise: while imagining them as a victorious team (‘victores Caesar uterque’), he differentiates the dux (Tiberius) from the proximus duci (Germanicus) (Tr. 4.2.8, 28; cf. Syme Ovid 38–39).121 25.3 sumûora÷/ au aujj qi" qi": q¿ i": “fearing that they would once again meet disaster.” Sc. a second Varian disaster (of which sumûorav is used at 57.5.4; 60.8.7). It is assumed that there had been no Roman counteroffensive the year before (10); cf. 56.24.6n. ouj pavnu povrrw rw:: “did not advance far at all beyond the Rhine.” Consistently with Dio’s account of a tentative Roman operation, Suetonius emphasizes how stringently Tiberius enforced security (Tib. 18.1–19). Velleius (2.120.1–2) has it both ways: Tiberius boldly crossed the Rhine and penetrated Germany but took no casualties. mevcri tou÷ metopwvrou ou:: “after staying until autumn and celebrating Augustus’ birthday,” 23 September. For Dio metovpwron is the season preceding winter (41.10.4; 50.9.3; 78.26.8; cf. Thuc. 7.79.3: the Athenian retreat from Syracuse in mid-September of 413 b.c. took place tou÷ e[tou" pro;" metovpwron h[dh o[nto"). The Roman invasion, with its “defiant celebration of Augustus’ birthday in . . . enemy territory” (Levick Tiberius 62), probably produced Tiberius’ sixth salutation as imperator and Augustus’ twentieth (Appendix 3; Barnes JRS 64 [1974], 25, where “thirty-third” year of tribunicia potestas should read “thirty-fourth;” Syme RP 3.1206–1207). 120. ‘pro co(n)s(ule), de quo lex ad populum lata esset, ut in quamcumq(ue) provinciam venisset, maius ei imperium quam ei, qui eam provinciam proco(n)s(ule) optineret, esset, dum in omni re maius imperium Ti. Caesari Aug(usto) quam Germanico Caesari esset.’ Eck discusses these imperia at SCPP pp160–161. 121. For the Tiberian partisan Velleius, Germanicus was an apprentice (2.129.2, cf. 123.1).

25.2–8: The Year a.d. 11

279

iJppodromivann:: Tiberius and Germanicus gave “some kind of circus games under the direction of the centurions” in connection with the birthday festival. For shows at the front after a victorious campaign cf. 53.26.1 (Spain, 25 b.c.). On off-duty activities of soldiers cf. R.W. Davies, “The Daily Life of the Roman Soldier under the Principate,” ANRW 2.1.332. It was from the Rhine that the Caesars had marched forth (proh÷lqon) and to the Rhine that they now returned (ejpanh÷lqon), not “to Italy,” pace Sumner Harv. Stud. 74 (1970), 274 n107. The immediately following words, ejn de; dh; th÷/ @Rwvmh/ Drou÷so" (56.25.4), answering Tibevrio" me;n kai; Germaniko;" (56.25.2), set what precedes clearly at the German front. Cf. Syme Ovid 64.

25.4–8: URBAN AFFAIRS 25.4 ej t amiv e use use:: Tiberius’ son Drusus Caesar “took office as quaestor.” The inaugural date was 5 December of 10. Probably born 7 October of 14 b.c., Drusus was twenty-three (55.13.2n). See 56.17.3n on his voting privileges upon becoming a senator, 28.1n on his career. strathgoi; eJ k kaiv d eka eka:: “Sixteen praetors entered office.” The complement of praetors, set at eight by Sulla, trended upward, reaching sixteen under Julius Caesar (once even sixty-seven under the triumvirs). Augustus reduced it in 23 b.c. to a norm of ten (Sulla’s eight plus two praetores aerarii) that prevailed “for many years” (53.32.2n; cf. Vell. 2.89.3)—how many is unknown. The election of sixteen praetors for 11 was clearly exceptional: “The same thing,” Dio says, “did not happen in the following years, but twelve [oiJ dwvdeka] became standard for a long time.”122 This was the complement on Tiberius’ accession in 14 (cf. Tac. Ann. 1.14.4). The pressure to which Augustus had yielded momentarily in 11 could not be reined in indefinitely. Sixteen became the norm by 32, later eighteen: P.M. Swan, “Cassius Dio LVIII, 20, 4–5 and LIX, 20, 5,” in Studies in Latin Literature and Roman History, ed. C. Deroux, vol. 1 (Brussels, 1979), 376–378; cf. Smilda 534 (collected references in Dio to the number of praetors); J. Morris, “Leges Annales under the Principate,” List. Fil. 87 (1964), 322–323; Talbert Senate 19–20: the pressure to increase the number of praetorships arose “because this was the earliest stage at which the number of candidates would significantly exceed the number of places available;” also the praetorship was a formal qualification for many posts in the public and imperial services, for example, as provincial governor or legionary legate; OCD3 1240– 1241. Electing extra praetors intensified competition for the consulship subsequently (cf. Syme Aristocracy 79).

122. Dig. 1.2.2.32 mistakes the exception for the rule: ‘Divus deinde Augustus sedecim praetores constituit’ (“next Divus Augustus set the number of praetors at sixteen”). Cf. Suet. Aug. 37.1: Augustus “increased the number of praetors.”

280

Commentary on Book 56

25.5 Prophecy Regulated Under 29 b.c. Dio has Maecenas advise Octavian (52.36.2–3) that, though the state must appoint its haruspices and augurs, false prophecy practiced by sorcerer or magician (govh" or mageuthv") must be prohibited as subversive, like false religion. Dio now shows Augustus “implementing” his minister’s advice. 25.5 mavntesin ajphgoreuvqh h:: “Seers were forbidden to prophesy to anyone either alone or, on the subject of death, even in the presence of others.” Although this measure, no doubt from a senate decree, was directed at private seers in general,123 mention of Augustus’ horoscope (below) suggests that astrologers were a prime target. It should perhaps be identified with the undated “earlier decree” (provteron dovgma) which Dio recalls under 16 in his account of punishments meted out to practitioners in the wake of the conspiracy of Libo Drusus (57.15.8– 9, cf. 5), though the “earlier decree” had supposedly banned private prophetic activities in Rome without exception. ajstevrwn diavtaxin axin:: “Yet Augustus was so wholly indifferent where he was himself concerned that he published by edict [prograûh÷"] for all to know the arrangement of the stars under which he had been born.” For such an arrangement in a horoscope see D. Pingree, ed., Hephaestionis Thebani Apotelesmatica, 2 vols. (Leipzig, 1973–1974), Epitoma 4.26.52–55 (vol. 2, p231) = TDGR 6.159. Publication perhaps served to counter rumors that Augustus’ death was imminent (cf. Liebeschuetz Continuity 123). He is not likely to have disclosed every detail. Septimius Severus had the ceilings of two public rooms in the palace adorned with paintings of the stars “under which he had been born” (uJû! wJ n¿ ejgegevnnhto), but withheld the hour of his birth, essential for predicting death: 76.11.1 with Rubin Propaganda 33–34. Although Augustus once facetiously questioned the omniscience of Tiberius’ astrologer Thrasyllus (Suet. Aug. 98.4), he was far from being a skeptic. His faith in the interaction of astral events and the destinies of individuals is placed beyond doubt by research on his monumental sundial in the Campus Martius (whose pointer was the Egyptian obelisk now standing in the Piazza di Montecitorio), which linked his birth, status, and achievement (for example, as a bringer of peace) with the cosmic order revealed by astral movements in the zodiacal band: see E. Buchner, Die Sonnenuhr des Augustus (Mainz, 1982), 37–38; Kienast Augustus 240–241; G.W. Bowersock, “The Pontificate of Augustus,” in Raaflaub & Toher Republic 383–388; cf. 55.6.6–7n (Sextilis renamed August). Dio too accepted the predictive power of astrology. Thanks to it Tiberius knew that he would be restored from his Rhodian seclusion (55.10.10–11.1), Septimius Severus that he would never leave Britain (76.11.1–2). Still, Dio was no simple enthusiast. Astrology must meet the test of science by making true predictions 123. With mavntesin Dio perhaps represents shorthand a formula such as was used in legislation against prophetic arts following the Libo Drusus conspiracy five years later: ‘mathematicis Chaldaeis ariolis et ceteris, qui simile inceptum fecerunt’ (Coll. Leg. Mos. et Rom. 15.2.1 = FIRA 2.579); cf. 57.15.8: “astrologers and sorcerers and any other type of seer whatsoever;” Tac. Ann. 2.32.3 with Goodyear’s n; Suet. Tib. 36.

25.2–8: The Year a.d. 11

281

(e.g., 55.11.2–3; 65.1.4). It must also conform to law and state security, a curb implicit in his several reports of expulsions and punishments of astrologers: 49.43.5; 57.15.7–9; 60.33.3b; 65.1.4; 66.9.2; cf. 52.36.1–4. Cf. Introduction sec. 3. See in general F. Cumont, Astrology and Religion among the Greeks and Romans (New York, 1912; reprint, 1960); F.H. Cramer, Astrology in Roman Law and Politics (Memoirs of the American Philosophical Society 37) (Philadelphia, 1954), 233–234, 249–251; MacMullen Enemies 128–142 (important); Liebeschuetz Continuity 119–139; Rubin Propaganda 27–38; D. Potter, Prophets and Emperors: Human and Divine Authority from Augustus to Theodosius (Cambridge, Mass., 1994); T. Barton, Ancient Astrology (London, 1994); Religions 1.231–233; Dio 55.11.1–3n. 25.6 ouj mh;n ajll! ejkei÷nov te ajpei÷pee:: “Still Augustus did issue the prohibition in question . . .” Cf. Denniston 28: ouj mh;n ajllav marks “the deliberate surmounting of an obstacle recognized as considerable”—in this case the apparent inconsistency between Augustus’ nonchalance about his own horoscope and his edict controlling prophecy.

25.6 Honors to Provincial Governors Restricted tw÷/ uJphkovw/ prosparhvggeile geile:: “. . . and also published an edict124 to provincials against giving any honor to any of their assigned governors either during their term of office or within the sixty days following their departure.” Augustus is less likely to be promulgating a new regulation than reaffirming an existing one. Already in the Lex Coloniae Genetivae (or Ursonensis) of Caesarian date we find a prohibition of like spirit against nominating a patron for the colony who was not “in Italy without imperium and a private person” (130 = FIRA 1.196 = Crawford Statutes 1.416, 431). Augustus’ aim was to deter delinquent governors from using honors voted to them by communities or provincial assemblies to baffle charges of maladministration.125 Cf. Tac. Ann. 15.22.1 (with 20.1–21.4), a senate decree of 62 which forbade proposing a vote of thanks “in a provincial assembly” (‘ad concilium sociorum’) for transmission to the Senate; Talbert Senate 413–414. Cf. also Tac. Ann. 13.31.3, under 57, an edict of Nero (‘edixit Caesar’) of similar intent directed against provision of gladiatorial or other shows by provincial governors. Bowersock holds that Augustus’ measure had another purpose besides thwarting corruption: “Competition with the imperial house in the receipt of honors had to be controlled” (Augustus 119–121, important; cf. 150–151). The effects of imperial monopolization can be read in the fact that no instance of a new 124. For paravggelma = edictum see Mason Terms s.v.; note the variatio of ejk prograûh÷" (56.25.5). Brunt CQ 34 (1984), 434 suggests that Augustus used his edict to publish a senate decree in the provinces, as he had done in the fifth Cyrene Edict of 4 b.c. (SEG 9.8 lines 72–83 = EJ no. 311 = TDGR 6.13); cf. F. Millar, “The Emperor, the Senate and the Provinces,” JRS 56 (1966), 160. 125. J. Nicols, “Patrons of Greek Cities in the Early Principate,” ZPE 80 (1990), 81–100 at 84–88, 92–93 takes Dio’s nontechnical tw÷/ uJphkovw/ as covering “‘non-citizens’ including individual provincials, civitates, provincial assemblies or any combination thereof,” but excluding citizen communities, which were subject to comparable regulations in their charters.

282

Commentary on Book 56

cult of a governor is attested after C. Marcius Censorinus (cos. 8 b.c.), proconsul of Asia (SEG 2.549; on the date see Syme Aristocracy 405–406; Thomasson Laterculi 1.209, not after ca a.d. 2). Cf. C. Habicht, “Die augusteische Zeit und das erste Jahrhundert nach Christi Geburt,” in Le culte des souverains dans l’Empire romain (Entretiens sur l’antiquité classique 19) (Genève, 1973), 48– 49; Price Rituals 51; Fishwick Cult 1.1.130. Cf. 55.28.4n, appropriation of the triumph by the dynasty. 25.7 trei÷ " . . . bouleutaiv: “Again at this time [on kai; tovte see 56.17.1n] three senators dealt with embassies.” Dio apparently recalls the board of three consulars created in a.d. 8 to relieve the aging Augustus’ workload by hearing embassies “from cities and kings” (55.33.5n).

25.7–8 Equites in the Arena Dio registers with astonishment a suspension of the standing prohibition against equites fighting as gladiators. This suspension is all the more remarkable in that we now know that under a senate decree of this same year freeborn women under twenty and freeborn men under twenty-five were barred from the stage and the arena; otherwise unknown, the decree of 11 is cited in a senate decree of 19 that systematically restricted public performances by the highborn. The later decree is partly preserved on a fragmentary bronze tablet from the Italian town of Larinum; see Levick “Larinum SC” 97–115 (text, translation, interpretation); Lebek “Tabula Larinas” 37–96 (improved text, German translation, commentary).126 25.7–8 iJ p peu÷ s in . . . monomacei÷n ejpetravph h:: [25.7] Equites, astonishing as it may seem, were given permission to fight as gladiators. The reason was that certain of them were holding in contempt the loss of rights [ajtimivan] that was the penalty for this: since no good was coming from the ban on such activity [th÷" ajporrhvsew"], and they were thought to deserve a worse punishment—one by which [h/J÷ kai; Lebek “Tabula Larinas” 53; h] kai; ms.127] it was imagined they would be deterred—they were allowed to have their way. [25.8] And thus instead of loss of rights death was their punishment. For they entered the arena not a bit less, especially since their combats were exceedingly popular—even Augustus watched with the praetors who produced them [sûa" = tou;" ajgw÷na" (Nawijn 9 s.v. ajgwnoqetw÷)]. “Equites.” These will have included, besides equites proper designated by the narrow purple stripe (angusticlavii), equites designated by the broad purple stripe 126. Further elaboration of the text, which was first published in 1978, can be found in W.D. Lebek, “Das SC der Tabula Larinas: Rittermusterung und andere Probleme,” ZPE 85 (1991), 41–70. 127. The ms. reading gives passable, if awkward, sense: “they were thought to deserve a worse punishment— or else it was imagined they would be deterred.”

25.2–8: The Year a.d. 11

283

(laticlavii) who were destined to become senators, normally ca twenty-five. See 55.13.6n. “Astonishing.” Public performances in the arena and on stage, long officially stigmatized,128 were by now banned outright for equites, and a fortiori for senators, as well as for their relatives to specified degrees—and also, as our text shows, liable to punishment. The prior history of the ban, as much as it can be recovered from spotty evidence, points to a progressive imposition of legal controls intended to buttress the dignity of the superior orders against degenerate ambitions. For instance, Dio records under 38 b.c. an enactment denying the arena to senators (48.43.2–3) and under 22, in the wake of stage appearances by equites and women of distinction, an embargo against doing “anything of the sort” applicable to senators’ sons (an embargo actually in effect even before this) and e[ggonoi (descendants, at the very least grandsons) who were equites (54.2.5).129 In drafting the Larinum SC of a.d. 19 the consuls reviewed senate decrees regulating arena and stage “passed in earlier years” (lines 4–6) that may have included the enactments of 38 and 22 b.c. When notables did perform in the arena, they appear to have done so by way of an exemption (plausibly the case in a.d. 11) or in defiance of the ban. Whether the self-assertive L. Domitius Ahenobarbus obtained permission before bringing Roman equites and matrons on stage in shows marking his praetorship and consulship (16 b.c.) Suetonius does not say (Nero 4). But Dio makes clear that a praetor of 2 b.c. did not: Augustus connived at his featuring “equites and women of distinction” (55.10.11–12). Tiberius also appears to have connived (by absenting himself) when a pair of equites fought in a show produced by his son Drusus in 15. Only after one of these was killed did he intervene, forbidding the other to fight as a gladiator again (57.14.3). It was the notoriety of performances like these that secured their place in the historical record (as Dio acknowledges at 55.10.11). On the history of the ban see Ville Gladiature 255–262; Levick “Larinum SC” 105–108; E. Baltrusch, Regimen Morum: Die Reglementierung des Privatlebens der Senatoren und Ritter in der römischen Republik und frühen Kaiserzeit (Vestigia 41), (München, 1989), 145–153; Lebek “Tabula Larinas” 43–58.

128. A municipal law of Caesarian date, partly preserved on the Tabula Heracleensis, disqualifies from membership in municipal “senates” anyone who has hired himself out as a gladiator (Crawford Statutes 2 no. 24 lines 108–125 = ILS 6085 = FIRA 1 no. 13). The stigma on acting can be illustrated, for Julius Caesar’s day, with the vicissitudes of D. Laberius (Sen. Contr. 7.3.9; Suet. Iul. 39.2; Macr. 2.3.10)—or, for late antiquity, from the Theodosian Code (e.g., 15.7, 12). Cf. Tac. Hist. 2.62.2. 129. “Anything of the sort” probably covers arena as well as stage: cf. Suet. Aug. 43.3, perhaps referring to the same event: ‘ad scaenicas quoque et gladiatorias operas et equitibus Romanis aliquando usus est, verum prius quam senatus consulto interdiceretur.’ Although neither Dio nor Suetonius says that the prohibition applied to “equestrian” women, their silence may be a simplification. The ban of the Larinum SC of a.d. 19 extended to “a senator’s son, daughter, grandson, granddaughter, greatgrandson, great-granddaughter, or any male whose father or grandfather, whether paternal or maternal, or brother, or any female whose husband or father or grandfather, whether paternal or maternal, or brother had ever possessed the right of sitting in the seats reserved for the knights” (lines 7–9, Levick’s translation, her restorations underlined).

284

Commentary on Book 56

“Holding in contempt the loss of rights [ajtimivan].” This was apparently the standing penalty for those who by breaking the ban incurred a famosum iudicium, “a verdict bringing official disgrace” (cf. Suet. Tib. 35.2; Larinum SC line 13). Levick “Larinum SC” 108–110 takes ajtimivan as equivalent to Latin infamia, “a concept used to justify a variety of forms of disqualification and discrimination,” in our case probably entailing expulsion from the equestrian order and from the seats reserved for equites equo publico in theater and circus. “No good was coming from prohibition.” On the heroic aspirations that impelled highborn youth to enter the arena see K. Hopkins, Death and Renewal (Cambridge, 1983), 20–27; E. Gunderson, “The Ideology of the Arena,” CA 15 (1996), 136–142. On the ingenuity of iuvenes in circumventing legal obstacles to their performing see W.J. Slater, “Pantomime Riots,” CA 13 (1994), 140–143. T. Wiedemann, Emperors and Gladiators (London, 1992), 26–30 explores the contradictory attitudes of Romans toward gladiators. “A worse punishment.” Sc. death in the arena, which would become a real prospect for equites on the lifting of the ban. No death is registered at this time, but see 57.14.3 under a.d. 15. “Allowed to have their way.” Probably through a senate decree, the normal instrument for regulating arena and stage (as the Larinum SC shows). How much was conceded? Levick conceives a broad exemption for equites: “the ban had become so discredited that it was lifted,” with permission being granted on application to perform without incurring infamia (“Larinum SC” 107–108; cf. Demougin Ordre 569–572: the previous ban was reaffirmed but it was open to the emperor to grant exemptions; Lebek “Tabula Larinas” 53–54). Whatever the concession, it expired at the very latest with passage of the Larinum SC of a.d. 19, an obviously systematic enactment aimed at halting defections by elite youth to theater and arena once and for all. As was noted above (on 56.25.7–8), among the earlier senate decrees cited in the Larinum SC is one passed in a.d. 11 (under the presidency of the ordinary consuls, on whom cf. 56.25.2n) that denied stage or arena to freeborn women under twenty and freeborn men under twenty-five (lines 17–21). The coincidence in one and the same year of this restrictive measure and the permissive measure related by Dio (lemma) is puzzling. It would help to know in what order the two were enacted, or whether they belong to a single decree that combined a permissive element (noticed by Dio) with restrictions (preserved in the fragmentary Larinum SC), a possibility considered by Levick “Larinum SC” 107. E. Baltrusch, Regimen Morum (München, 1989), 148–149 detects a tug-of-war between senatorial conservatism and Augustus’ ambition of offering brilliant shows; what Dio reports may be an imperial edict (rather than a senate decree) which flew in the face of the Senate’s restrictive policy. “Augustus watched with the praetors.” Presumably after the lifting of the ban. Ville thinks that the show was part of the Quinquatrus (Gladiature 106, 119–120); cf. 55.31.4n.

26.1–27.5: The Year a.d. 12

285

56.26.1–27.5: The Year a.d. 12 Annalistic structure: urban section—end chapter.

26.1–27.3: URBAN AFFAIRS 26.1–2 u{paton ajrchvn: After this Germanicus assumed the consulship, though he had not been praetor, and held it through the whole year, not by virtue of his rank, but as some others were apparently still doing at that time. He himself [mevn] did nothing worthy of note—beyond once again acting as advocate. And yet [cf. LSJ s.v. ejpeiv B.4] his colleague C. Capito was deemed altogether a failure [kai; pavnu th;n a[llw" hjriqmei÷to]. Augustus, however [dev], giving old age as the reason, entrusted Germanicus to the Senate’s care and the Senate to Tiberius’. On Germanicus’ career cf. 55.31.1n; 56.17.2n, 25.2n, 28.1n. Dio is right that suffect consulships were not yet the rule (though he overstates the case): see also a.d. 6, 7, 11, 13, 14. Cf. 53.32.3 (23 b.c.) on Augustus’ wish to have “as many as possible hold the consulship.” The judgment that Germanicus’ consulship was unremarkable runs counter to the notice about lavish beast hunts at 56.27.4–5. “Once again acted as advocate [uJperedivkhsen].” For earlier activity see 56.24.7n. For Germanicus’ repute as an orator cf. Ovid Fasti 1.21–22, where he is described as bearing “civic arms on behalf of frightened defendants;” Suet. Cal. 3.1–2; Tac. Ann. 2.83.3. On C. Fonteius Capito, of recent nobility, consul through June, see PIR2 F 470; Syme Aristocracy 97; Tac. Ann. 4.36.2. “Was deemed altogether a failure.” On th;n a[llw" (= th;n a[llw" a[gousan oJdovn), “in vain,” cf. LSJ s.v. a[llw" II.3; Nawijn s.v. (p34). “Entrusted Germanicus to the Senate’s care.”130 If this trusteeship forecast the succession, its omission of Drusus Caesar speaks for the priority of Germanicus at the time; cf. Sumner Latomus 26 (1967), 431–432. There is a remarkable monarchic presumption in Augustus’ entrusting the venerable Senate to the tutelage of his heir apparent Tiberius. On the publicly acknowledged frailty of Augustus cf. 55.33.5, 34.2–3. 26.2 bibliv o nn:: “The communication was read not by Augustus himself (he could not make himself heard) but by Germanicus, as usual.” It was thanks to his dynastic status that Germanicus read; normally this was the duty of a quaestor Augusti 130. In a.d. 23 the aging emperor Tiberius entrusted the sons of Germanicus to the Senate following the death of their uncle Drusus Caesar, their protector since they lost their father in 19: ‘suscipite regite, vestram meamque vicem explete. hi vobis, Nero et Druse, parentum loco’ (Tac. Ann. 4.8.3–5; Dio 57.22.4a).

286

Commentary on Book 56

(54.25.5n; Talbert Senate 167). For biblivon = libellus in the sense of a formal communication see 56.28.4–5 (Augustus to the Senate, senators to Augustus); 77.18.2 (“petitions” to Caracalla handled by his mother). Cf. 56.27.1, bibliva used of libelous works, 33.1, of annexes to Augustus’ will (the volumina in Suet. Aug. 101.4). Cf. Nawijn 148–149 s.v. Keltikou÷ polev m ou ou:: The fact that Augustus gave “the German war” as the reason for begging off certain duties clashes with the scant attention Dio gives to it between the Varian disaster in 9 and the legionary mutiny on Tiberius’ accession in 14 (even when allowance is made for lacunae under 10 and 13). The pertinent “German” texts are 56.24.6n (Zon.) under 10 and 56.25.2–3 under 11. mhvt! oi[koi aujto;n ajspavzesqai esqai:: “not to pay their respects to him at home or take offense if he no longer joined them at state banquets.” On salutatio see Talbert Senate 68–70; cf. 54.30.1; 56.41.5. On state banquets (epula) see 54.2.3n; 55.2.4n. Dio continues with an imposing sentence evoking the ubiquitous attentions pressed on Augustus by high and low. 27.1 para; tou÷too:: For this phrase cf. 45.23.3; 57.7.5. “For all that [sc. his reduction of public appearances], however, Augustus in no way reduced his administrative activities.” Instances of these follow. dhmarcivan aijth÷sai ai:: “permitted equites to stand for the tribunate of the plebs.” On the chronic shortage of candidates for this office and on earlier solutions in 13 and 12 b.c. see 54.26.7n, 30.2n. Perhaps the door was now opened (through a senate decree) for equites to stand directly for as many of the ten tribunates as could not be filled with senatorial candidates. No doubt a senatorial census of 1,000,000 HS was requisite. Having already mentioned such a qualification under 12 b.c., when equites were admitted as candidates for uncontested tribunates (54.30.2), it would be unlike Dio to repeat himself here. The fact that Claudius enacted a similar measure (60.11.8) shows that the door was not held open indefinitely. Cf. Demougin Ordre 170–171. bibliva a[tta ejû! u{brei tinw÷n: “When Augustus learned that works were being composed defaming certain persons, he had a search made for them. When these were discovered, some in the city by the aediles, others elsewhere by the officials in each place, he had them burned, and he punished some of the authors.” “Burned.” Although Dio makes Augustus the prime actor, search and firing will have been authorized by senate decree, as in the celebrated contemporary cases of T. Labienus, Cassius Severus, and Cremutius Cordus, whose writings were destroyed ‘senatus consultis’ (Suet. Cal. 16.1). The burning of works, whether as censorship or as a kind of of damnatio memoriae, was an invention of the Augustan age, and the intemperate orator Labienus (PIR2 L 19) was the first to suffer it (Sen. Contr. 10 pr. 5–8). Dio’s report of the dragnet for the works of the historian Cremutius Cordus (PIR2 C 1565), condemned under Tiberius for praising Brutus and calling Cassius the last of the Romans (Tac. Ann. 4.34–35; Suet. Tib. 61.3), parallels our lemma closely: his books were searched for and burned, those discovered in the city by the aediles, those found outside it by the officials in each

26.1–27.5: The Year a.d. 12

287

place (57.24.4; cf. Tac. Ann. 4.35.4: “The fathers decreed the burning of the books by the aediles”). “Punished some of the authors.” Some scholars identify the repressive measures in our lemma with the proceedings against the formidable orator Cassius Severus (PIR2 C 522; cf. 55.4.3n), who so provoked Augustus through works defaming illustrious men and women that he was tried for maiestas, now extended to cover famosi libelli, and exiled to Crete, then, since he would not desist, deported to Seriphus, a desolate island west of Paros (Tac. Ann. 1.72.3; 4.21.3, under a.d. 24).131 This identification is open to question, however, since Jerome registers Severus’ death under 32 in his twenty-fifth year of exile (Chron. p176), which points to condemnation ca 8, whereas Dio anchors our event firmly under 12 in a characteristic cluster of urban annalistic reports (56.26.1–2, 27.1–5). Prima facie Jerome and Dio register discrete events—unless Jerome has erred. Syme Aristocracy 411–412 thinks that Dio may have treated Severus’ trial in a passage now lost in the lacuna after 55.33.2 under 8; preferred by Wardle 169. Cf. C.A. Forbes, “Books for the Burning,” TAPhA 67 (1936), 114–125; F.H. Cramer, “Bookburning and Censorship in Ancient Rome: A Chapter from the History of Freedom of Speech,” JHI 6 (1945), 157–196; Raaflaub & Samons “Opposition” 439–441 and n102.

27.2–3 Restrictions on Exiles It was traditional Roman practice to allow an accused person of standing to avoid a legal penalty, including death, by going into exile voluntarily before a verdict could be pronounced. The accused conspirators Fannius Caepio and Licinius Murena, in fleeing before their trial, hoped to find refuge in this tradition, though they were executed anyway (54.3.5, 22 b.c.). Exile, whether voluntary or sanctioned, could be enforced, as in Cicero’s case (58 b.c.), through aqua et igni interdictio, literally a “ban from water and fire.” In denying condemned persons the necessities of life, this sanction effectively rendered them outlaws if they returned or left a place or zone of exile to which they had been confined.132 Under the Principate exile came to be a legal penalty in its own right (rather than an alternative to one). Relegatio, a milder form, either removed offenders to a distance, while permitting them freedom of movement beyond this, or consigned them to a definite locale, as Ovid to Tomis; it was not necessarily permanent (cf. Tac. Ann. 3.17.4, a ten-year relegation) and did not entail loss of one’s rights as a citizen. Deportatio, a severer form, consigned offenders permanently to a harsh place of exile, like Cassius Severus’ rocky Seriphus (56.27.1n), and deprived them of a citizen’s rights (cf. Gaius Inst. 1.128). B.M. Levick sees the new restrictions 131. See A. Stein in PIR2 C 522, who makes the linkage explicit; J. Crook in CAH2 10.110–111: “Dates are uncertain, but this year is quite likely that of the banishment of the abrasive, witty barrister Cassius Severus.” Goodyear on Tac. Ann. 1.72.2–3 (2.151–152) suspends judgment. 132. Cf. 38.17.7: Cicero “was banished 3,750 stades [500 miles; on the conversion see 56.27.2n] from Rome; it was further proclaimed that, if he ever turned up nearer than this, both he and whoever took him in were to be destroyed with impunity.”

288

Commentary on Book 56

registered by Dio (but no other source) as a stage along the way toward the rigors of deportatio: “Poena Legis Maiestatis,”Historia 28 (1979), 358–379, esp. 376– 379. See in general Garnsey Status 111–122; A.H.M. Jones, The Criminal Courts of the Roman Republic and Principate (Oxford, 1972), 73–74, 109–110. For Dio exile was a subject near home. As a member of the senatorial court, he will have condemned many to this fate—and feared suffering the same himself. But better exile than death. A fragment from his Neronian narrative preserves the sententia of Thrasea Paetus that “for a man who is senator the extreme penalty should be exile” (62.15.1a). In the dialogue on clemency in Book 55 he has Livia recommend exile as an alternative to death even for conspirators (e.g., 55.18.3, 20.5–8). He was pragmatic enough, however, to concede an emperor the prerogative of punishing a rebellious commander with death, “like a foreign enemy,” untried (52.31.10, where he puts this view on the lips of Maecenas). Toward contemporary exiles Dio’s attitude is discriminating. He shows sympathy for the exiled children of Plautianus (76.6.3) but condemns a general amnesty of Caracalla, who “emptied the islands of exiles, granting pardon even to the basest of convicts” (77.3.3; cf. 78.33.1–2). Cf. Dig. 48.22 (‘De Interdictis et Relegatis et Deportatis’). 27.2 sucnoi; ûugavde" e":: “Since many exiles were sojourning133 outside the places to which they had been banished, while many others were living in the designated places but too luxuriously, . . .” For a list of places of exile, mainly under the early Empire, see J.P.V.D. Balsdon, Romans and Aliens (London, 1979), 113–115. Cf. Juvenal’s rocky Aegean islands “crowded with great exiles” (13.246–247). mhdev n a puro; " kai; u{ d ato" eij r cqev n ta ta:: “. . . Augustus forbade anyone under ban from fire and water [= igni et aqua interdictum] to live on the mainland or on an island less than 400 stades from the mainland, . . .” Although Gaius, writing in the second century, uses aqua et igni interdictio of “capital exile,” entailing loss of Roman citizenship (Inst. 1.128; cf. Garnsey Status 111, quoted), Dio’s use of the equivalent formula here may represent earlier usage, covering exiles more generally, including those merely relegated (cf. Garnsey 112 n5). The penalty under the Augustan adultery law was relegation to an island (with partial confiscation of property), apparently without loss of citizenship (cf. Paulus Sent. 2.26.14 = FIRA 2.352). The high number of exiles moving too freely and living too luxuriously for Augustus can be explained in part as a consequence of this law. What Dio records as an order of Augustus no doubt originated in a senate decree whose wording, with its legal distinctions and qualifications, is reflected in our text, the fundamentally annalistic character of which is overlooked in Garnsey’s suggestion that “perhaps we have before us an amalgam of regulations issued at several times, and tied only loosely to a.d. 12.”

133. diatriba;" ejpoiou÷nto. For other instances of this phrase see 54.7.2 (Livia dwelling among the Lacedaemonians as a refugee); 58.5.1 (Tiberius residing on Capri). Dio uses diatrivbein alone in the same sense just below.

26.1–27.5: The Year a.d. 12

289

Dio does not say that errant exiles were obliged to return to their prescribed places, but this can perhaps be assumed. S. Jameson, “Augustus and Agrippa Postumus,” Historia 24 (1975), 311–313 suggests that through a restrictive policy on exiles Augustus may have been attempting to ensure the unchallenged succession of Tiberius. The downfalls of the two Julias and Agrippa Postumus will have spawned their share of disaffected exiles. “Less than 400 stades.” In the Latin enactment the minimum distance will have been fifty Roman miles. Dio has made the common conversion of one Roman mile = eight stades rather than his usual (and unique) conversion of one mile = 7.5 stades, on which see 51.19.6–7n; 54.6.6; 55.26.1. But see also 36.36a (Xiph.) (with Vell. 2.31.2) for the 1:8 ratio, again with a figure of 400 stades; cf. 68.27.1a. See J.W. Humphrey, “A Note on stavdion in Cassius Dio,” AHB 4 (1990), 17–22. Humphrey (22) observes that where Dio uses the 1:8 ratio we seem to have “a clear indication of a Greek source,” though he notes that it is precisely here, where the historian is dealing with Roman regulations, that one would expect him to have used a Latin source. I suggest, however, that, rather than adhesion to a source, Dio’s literary taste is at work here: having found fifty miles in his Latin source, he preferred, in converting this distance into stades, to use the round figure tetrakosivwn (400) over the cumbersome and gratuitously punctilious triakosivwn kai; eJbdomhvkonta kai; pevnte (375) that strict application of a 1:7.5 ratio would have introduced in an already dense sentence. plh;n Kw÷ te kai; @Rovdou Savmou [Boissevain; sardou÷" ms.] te kai; Levsbou bou:: “. . . except Cos, Rhodes, Samos, and Lesbos.” Boissevain’s conjecture removes an obvious anomaly. Sardinia was far distant from the other islands, and being more than the minimum fifty miles from the mainland there was no reason to make an exception of it. Residence on one of these four islands was in itself no grievous punishment. Junius Gallio’s choice of Lesbos, insula nobilis et amoena, as his place of exile when expelled from Italy in a.d. 32 produced outrage (Tac. Ann. 6.3.3). ouj k oi ¿ : “Why he made only these exceptions I do not know.” For other adoijjd! d!: missions of ignorance by Dio cf. 53.1.2; 54.28.4; 55.10a.2, 24.5, 8. 27.3 peraiou÷sqaiv poi a[llose lose:: The exiles were forbidden “to cross to anywhere else, . . .” Apparently even within their assigned exilic zone. Thus for exiles on the four Aegean islands named in 56.27.2, coastal Asia and even nearby islands were off-limits. mhvte ploi÷a pleivw ûortikou÷ te eJno;" cilioûovrou kai; kwphvrwn duvo kekth÷sqai qai:: “. . . or to possess more ships than a single 1,000-jar freighter and two boats equipped with oars, . . .”134 Dig. 49.15.2 (Marcellus) distinguishes naves longae (warships), naves onerariae, naves piscatoriae, and naves actuariae (which might be ‘voluptatis causa’). Perhaps our enactment conceded exiles an oneraria (freighter) and two actuariae (oar-driven galleys suitable for passengers). The freighter may have been rated in modii, the measure used in the Digest in stating 134. Cf. Thuc. 4.118.5: kwphvrei ploivw/.

290

Commentary on Book 56

the capacity of grain transports qualifying owners for immunity from compulsory public services if put at the disposal of the annona, the state grain supply (Dig. 50.5.3, Scaevola; cf. Gaius Inst. 1.32c). Compared with the vessels of 10,000 or 50,000 modii stipulated in the Digest (which are rated at 68 and 340 tons respectively by L. Casson, Ships and Seamanship in the Ancient World [Princeton, 1971], 171 n23), freighters of 1,000 modii would be small, less serviceable on the open sea. Dio normally uses oJlkav" of merchant ships (e.g., 52.16.3; 55.10a.9). douvloi" h] kai; ajpeleuqevroi" oi":: “. . . or to employ more than twenty slaves or freedmen . . .” Great exiles will have been straitened by such a limit. When C. Calpurnius Piso (PIR2 C 284), on being exiled by Caligula, was permitted only ten slaves, he appealed for and got more (though with a warning that an equal number of soldiers would accompany him) (59.8.7). oujsivann:: “. . . or to have property worth over 125,000 (drachmas),” i.e., 500,000 HS. This provision seems to have been directed against exiles who lived “too luxuriously” (56.27.2), having brought the apparatus of wealth with them. It set a limit on what they could have with them, not on how much property they could retain after any confiscation that was part of their punishment. Since under the adultery law, for example, a man lost only half his property, a woman only half her dowry and one-third of her property (Paulus Sent. 2.26.14 = FIRA 2.352), some exiles will clearly have been worth far more than 500,000 HS. Cf. Dig. 48.20 (‘De Bonis Damnatorum’); Tac. Ann. 3.17.4, a son of Cn. Calpurnius Piso (cos. 7 b.c.; 55.8.1n) granted 5,000,000 HS from his father’s property despite being relegated for ten years as his accomplice. Seneca the Younger remarks, sermonizing on the vanity of wealth, that in his time the “travel allowance” (‘viaticum’) of exiles surpassed the estates of leading men of old (Helv. 12.4). timwrhqhvsesqai esqai:: Augustus “added the threat of punishment” against offenders and those who abetted them in any way. Suggestive, though from a century later, is Hadrian’s edict that “a person who after relegation to an island has left it be deported to an island; a person who after deportation to an island has escaped be executed [‘capite puniatur’]” (Dig. 48.19.28.13).

27.4–5: END CHAPTER 27.4 o{sa ge kai; ej" iJstorivan ajnagkai÷a: “These measures (as many as are essential for history) were thus enacted, . . .” Dio has apparently abridged a more detailed account from an annalistic source. ojrchstw÷n . . . iJ p potrov û wn wn:: “. . . and a special festival was produced by the pantomimes and the owners of chariot teams.” For iJppotrovûoi = domini factionum cf. Smilda 215; A. Cameron, Circus Factions (Oxford, 1976), 6–7, 202–203. The domini were private owners of racing corporations supplying chariot teams for profit—horses, vehicles, drivers, equipment, staff, and all (cf. ILS 5313)—to the producers of circus races, typically the magistrates responsible for public festivals. As a private benefaction, actors and owners now offered ludi scaenici and

26.1–27.5: The Year a.d. 12

291

circenses over and above those in the state calendar, emulating aristocratic euergetism135 in a remarkable disclosure of the economic and charismatic power of the Roman “entertainment industry.” The legendary pantomime Pylades had offered a festival at his own expense in 2 b.c. (55.10.11n; for another festival by theatrical artists cf. 60.23.6). In a.d. 14 a pantomimic superstar striking for higher pay would bring the state to its knees (56.47.2n). For Dio’s hostility toward domini factionum see 61.6.2–3, 8.2; cf. 60.6.4–5, apparently casting them (anonymously) as scheming and self-serving. He disapproves vehemently of the addiction of emperors to charioteers and their art (59.2.5, 5.2–5, Caligula; 61.6.1, Nero; 65.2.1, Vitellius; 77.10.2–3, cf. 76.7.1–2, Caracalla), and approves of emperors who exercised restraint (60.6.4–5, Claudius; 69.16.3, Hadrian; cf. 52.30.7–8n). #Areia #Areia:: “At this time, because the Tiber had flooded the Circus, the Ludi Martiales were celebrated in the Forum of Augustus with horse races of a sort and beast hunts. However, they were held a second time in the customary way; what is more, Germanicus had 200 lions slaughtered in the Circus for the occasion.” See Map 2. That the Forum of Augustus offered some, if limited, space for races and audience is apparent from the lex templi of the Temple of Mars Ultor (55.10.4n). On the requirement of repeating a festival when there was a deficiency in the initial production cf. fr. 51 (Boissevain 1.185); 60.6.4–5 (with Edmondson’s n [p197]). Germanicus will have presided in his capacity as consul (RG 22.2). Since their regular date was 12 May, the flood which displaced the Ludi Martiales appears to have been unseasonably late: see Appendix 2. On the susceptibility of the Circus Maximus to flooding cf. Humphrey Circuses 68–69. On the Ludi Martiales, founded 2 b.c. by Augustus (RG 22.2), cf. on 55.10.2–5. Cf. Ville Gladiature 113–115. 27.5 h{ te stoa; hJ !Iouliva [Merkel; see Boissevain ad loc.; Liouiva ms.] kaloumevnh wj/kodomhvqh te ej" timh;n tou÷ te Gai?ou kai; tou÷ Loukivou tw÷n Kaisavrwn, kai; tovte kaqierwvqh h:: “The so-called Julian [Livian ms.] stoa, which was built in honor of Gaius Caesar and Lucius Caesar, was then dedicated.” Dio uses stoav equally for porticus or basilica. In what follows I uphold the standard view that he refers to the monumental Basilica Iulia in the southwest Forum. See Map 2. The manuscript reading Liouiva is highly questionable because we lack any major monument dedicated late in Augustus’ reign that could be called “the Livian stoa.”136 The vast Porticus Liviae had been erected already: Ovid mentions it in Ars 1.71– 72, composed by a.d. 2 (Syme Ovid 8–13); cf. 55.8.2n, dating the dedication 7 b.c.137 135. On “voluntary gift-giving to the ancient community” cf. OCD3 566 (A.J.S. Spawforth). 136. A “Livian stoa” is also to be found in the index of Book 56, which reads @W" hJ Liouiva" stoa; kaqierwvqh (“How the stoa of Livia was dedicated”). So the error of calling the stoa Livian rather than Julian had already entered the tradition before the indexes were composed (probably not by Dio), at the latest by ca 500, though possibly much earlier (Introduction sec. 5.6). 137. Confusion of Liouiva and !Iouliva seems also to have occurred (though in reverse) at 55.32.2 (cf. 55.13.1an); the fact that Livia took the name Julia (Augusta) on Augustus’ death (56.46.1) and that in Greek the two names share all their letters invited this.

292

Commentary on Book 56

On a Julian stoa that fits the bill, however, we have Augustus’ own testimony (RG 20.3): “I completed the Forum Iulium and the basilica which was between the Temple of Castor and the Temple of Saturn [‘basilicam quae fuit inter aedem Castoris et aedem Saturni’]—works begun and advanced by my father. When this same basilica was destroyed by fire, after enlarging the grounds, I began rebuilding it with an inscription naming my sons [Gaius and Lucius] and left orders for my heirs to finish it if I did not live to do so.” Identifying Dio’s Julian stoa with Augustus’ basilica requires getting around a chronological difficulty: Augustus writes as if the basilica was still under construction when he composed his latest version of RG some time after his last birthday in September of 13; yet Dio reports the dedication under 12, and the preceding item in his account, the Ludi Martiales under Germanicus’ presidency as consul, belongs strictly in this year—placement of the dedication report in an annalistic end chapter also confirms this date. A possible solution is to posit that Augustus, having composed his sentences on the Basilica Iulia (Dio’s stoa) in an earlier version of RG 20.3, did not bother to revise it in writing his latest version (cf. 56.33.1n). Another is to posit that the dedication of the Basilica Iulia preceded its completion, to which Augustus still looked forward (‘perfecissem,’ ‘perfici’). In RG Augustus never records dedicating or consecrating monuments, only building or restoring them (his words are ‘feci,’ ‘refeci,’ ‘perfeci,’ and the like), so that he would not necessarily have recorded a dedication in 12. Also, Dio (lemma) links the adverb tovte with kaqierwvqh, distancing it from wj/kodomhvqh, a word that may be broad enough (unlike, for example, ejxepoihvqh, “was finished off,” in 51.23.1 or 53.1.3) to cover construction that went on before, during, and after 12. This can suggest that Augustus, health declining, advanced the dedication though construction continued. Julius Caesar seems to have had the original Basilica Iulia dedicated without waiting to complete it: Jerome Chron. p156 dates the solemnities in 46 b.c. (‘Romae basilica Iulia dedicata’); as RG 20.3 reveals, Octavian was in fact left to complete it. The names of Gaius and Lucius Caesar given to the Basilica Iulia by Augustus failed to overtake the name of the original builder, for it was under the old name that the new structure was known in antiquity (testimonia in Platner & Ashby 78– 80); the Severan marble map of Rome reads ‘B[ASILICA I]ULIA’ (Rodríguez Almeida Forma 96–98). There are other relevant, if problematic, testimonia on the Basilica Iulia (on which see the works in the bibliography below). Suetonius cites, among monuments built by Augustus under others’ names, the “porticus and basilica of Gaius and Lucius” (‘porticum basilicamque Gai et Luci’) (Aug. 29.4). Two structures are apparently in question here, whether separate or associated. The porticus Iulia mentioned by the scholiast on Persius Sat. 4.49 may or may not be a third structure.138

138. “The moneylenders used to take their stand by the well of Scribonius Libo, which is in the Porticus Iulia by the Arcus Fabianus” (‘faeneratores ad puteal Scriboni Libonis, quod est in porticu Iulia ad Fabianum arcum, consistere solebant’).

28.1–29.1: The Year a.d. 13

293

Bibliography. E. Welin, Studien zur Topographie des Forum Romanum (Lund, 1953), 53–56; Coarelli Foro 2.173–175 (identifying Dio’s stoa with the basilica in RG 20.3 and the ‘basilicam . . . Gai et Luci’ in Suet. Aug. 29.4; he equates Suetonius’ ‘porticum . . . Gai et Luci’ in Aug. 29.4 with the ‘porticu Iulia’ in schol. Pers. Sat. 4.49 as a different structure, a colonnade located on the south side of the Basilica Aemilia [= Basilica Paulli]); Nash Dictionary 1.186–189, cf. 2.244– 251; Gros Templa 84–91; B.G. Ackroyd, “Porticus Julia or Porticus Liviae? The Reading of Dio 56.27.5,” Athenaeum 80 (1992), 196–199 (upholding against most scholars the ms. reading Liouiva [see lemma] and identifying the dedicated monument as the Porticus Liviae despite Dio 55.8.2n);139 Richardson Dictionary 52– 53, cf. 313–314; LTUR 1.177–179, figures 92–93 (C.F. Giuliani, P. Verduchi).

56.28.1–29.1: The Year a.d. 13 Annalistic structure: urban section—? After twenty-eight lines Dio’s text for 13 (and for the start of 14) disappears in a one-folio lacuna (about fifty lines). A small part of what is lost survives in Xiphilinus and Zonaras.

28.1–29.1: URBAN AFFAIRS (FRAGMENTARY) 28.1 Mounativou . . . Siliv o uu:: The consul L. Munatius Plancus was a grandson (PIR2 M 729) or son (Syme Aristocracy 343) of the like-named consul of 42 b.c. on whose motion Octavian was named Augustus in 27 b.c. C. Silius A. Caecina Largus (on the full name see Syme Aristocracy 97) was the son of P. Silius Nerva, consul 20 b.c. (on whose generalship see 54.20.1–2n). Under Tiberius he was “commander for seven years of a huge army” in upper Germany, where he won triumphal ornaments (Tac. Ann. 1.72.1; 4.18.1, quoted; Thomasson Laterculi 1.47); he took his own life in 24, anticipating condemnation for extortion and maiestas (Tac. Ann. 4.18.1–20.4). Dio apparently narrated his fall in a now lost part of the History since he mentions “the Silius killed by Tiberius” when relating the notorious liaison of the son C. Silius (consul designate for 48) with the empress Messallina (60.31.3–5). See RE 3A.74–77 = Silius 12 (Nagl); Syme Aristocracy index. prostasivan tw÷n koinw÷n . . . th; n pev m pthn pthn:: “Augustus accepted his fifth ten-year period of state leadership, reluctantly of course, . . .” On prostasiva tw÷n koinw÷n cf. 53.12.1 and on 53.11.5–12.2; on Augustus’ renewals of power see 54.12.4n; on his “ritual” recusatio imperii acted out before each renewal (and on Dio’s ironic treatment) see 53.11.4n. As emperor, Tiberius also received decennial renewals of power on the Augustan pattern, purely formal though these had become (58.24.1, under 34, on the close of his “second decennium”).

139. Ackroyd reiterates her conclusion in “The Porticus Gai et Luci. The Porticus Philippi. The Porticus Liviae,” Athenaeum 89 (2001), 563–580.

294

Commentary on Book 56

ej x ousiv a n . . . dhmarcikhv n: “. . . and once more gave Tiberius tribunician power, . . .” Tiberius had held it from 6 b.c. for a term of five years (55.9.4n) and from a.d. 4 for a term of ten years (55.13.2, but see n). Dio apparently thought the length of the new term not worth mentioning. Since Tiberius was tribunicia potestate XV in 13/14, the renewal, though enacted in 13, took effect only in 14. Was the early renewal intended to anticipate a constitutional difficulty in the event that Augustus died inconveniently? It was probably at this same time that the Senate and People voted Tiberius imperium equal to that of Augustus in all provinces and armies (‘aequum ei ius in omnibus provinciis exercitibusque:’ Vell. 2.121.1; Suet. Tib. 21.1; cf. 55.13.2n on the lesser scope of Tiberius’ imperium heretofore). The indications of year are admittedly inconclusive. Velleius relates Tiberius’ Illyrian triumph, probably held 23 October of 12 (cf. 56.17.1n), after the vote of imperium (though his order of events is not manifestly chronological). Suet. Tib. 20–21.1 makes the triumph a terminus post quem for a lex on Tiberius’ imperium. Neither specifies the tribunician grant. I date the new grant of imperium in 13 on the assumption that it coincided with the tribunician grant dated annalistically in that year by Dio. Augustus seems on other occasions to have conferred tribunician power and proconsular imperium on his adjutants for coincident terms (54.28.1n, cf. 12.4n; 55.9.4n, cf. 13.2n).140 Cf. Brunt ZPE 13 (1974), 170–173 (helpful); Woodman on Vell. 2.121.1 (pp210–211); Vogt on Suet. Tib. 20–21.1 (pp101–102). uJ p ateiv a nn:: “. . . and granted Drusus, Tiberius’ son, permission to stand for the consulship in the third year [15] and without first being praetor.” Dio informs readers carefully on the careers of the young Caesars through a series of annalistic reports that are collected in table 6. Dio does not record a grant of proconsular imperium to Drusus Caesar as he does in the case of the elder Drusus (54.33.5n), Gaius Caesar (55.10.18n), and Germanicus (56.25.2n), effective in each case (it seems) in the year before the consulship. However, Drusus’ mission of quelling the mutinous legions of Pannonia in 14 presupposes his holding proconsular imperium then—again the year before the consulship. Q. Iunius Blaesus (PIR2 I 738), legatus Augusti pro praetore in Pannonia, is described by Velleius as the prince’s adiutor (2.125.5; cf. SCPP lines 29–30: Cn. Calpurnius Piso, legate of Syria, as ‘adiutor’ of Germanicus Caesar); Drusus’ potent consilium (Tac. Ann. 1.24.1–2, primores civitatis and the Praetorian Prefect Sejanus) will have detracted nothing from his legal authority (cf. 55.10.18n, the consilium of Gaius Caesar). Note Tac. Ann. 1.25.1, Drusus’ tribunal; 1.29.4, executions ordered by him (where Tacitus calls him dux).

28.2–3 Augustus’ Provisional Consilium Augustus’ declining health was often accommodated by having the Senate meet in the Temple of Apollo on the Palatine (Suet. Aug. 29.3 with Bonnefond-Coudry 140. Consistent with a date of 13 for the grant of equal imperium is the fact that Suet. Tib. 21.1 assigns to one and the same law provisions that Augustus and Tiberius jointly administer the provinces and jointly conduct a census that we know was completed in 14 (RG 8.4; cf. 56.28.6n, Lacuna).

28.1–29.1: The Year a.d. 13

295

Table 6 References in Dio to the Careers of Germanicus and Drusus CAREER STAGE

GERMANICUS CAESAR

DRUSUS CAESAR

Quaestor Ornamenta praetoria Allowed to omit praetorship Imperium proconsulare Consul

a.d. 7 9 9? 11 12

a.d. 11 56.25.4 12? 56.17.3n 13 56.28.1 14? cf. 56.28.1n 15 57.14.1; cf. 56.28.1

55.31.1 56.17.2 cf. 56.17.2, 26.1 56.25.2n 56.26.1

Sénat 179–182). But he absented himself more and more frequently (55.34.2; cf. 55.33.5n; 56.26.2), and by now seldom attended. The Senate therefore empowered him, jointly with a newly constituted consilium, to enact measures having the force of senate decrees. The rotating senatorial consilium formed early in his Principate (53.21.4–5n) was probouleutic. Crook sees the new consilium as a “synthesis” of the old body and Augustus’ cabinet of powerful amici (Consilium 16). 28.2 sumbouvlou" . . . ei[kosin ejthsivou" u":: “Because of his age, on account of which he was no longer attending the Senate except very rarely, he asked for twenty annual counselors. Previously he would take fifteen every six months.” The new consilium seems intended to meet the immediate situation, not to be a permanent institution (Crook Consilium 16–17). For Tiberius’ consilium see Suet. Tib. 55 with Crook 18–19. 28.2–3 proseyhûivsqh qh:: “It was also voted that all measures should be valid, as if resolved upon by the whole Senate, that had been ordained by Augustus in consultation with Tiberius, the aforementioned [twenty counselors], the consuls in office, the consuls designate, his grandsons (the adoptive ones obviously), and as many others as he might include on each occasion.” The precise, legalistic formulation echoes the original decree. Dio does not say whether the lot was used in selecting the twenty counselors (as it had been earlier for the fifteen) or whether magistracies below the consulship were represented systematically. As described, the consilium numbered a minimum of twenty-seven, comprising, in addition to the twenty members at large, Tiberius, Germanicus Caesar, and Drusus Caesar (Agrippa Postumus, a third grandson, natural rather than adoptive, was in internment on Planasia [55.32.2]), the consuls Plancus and Silius (56.28.1n), and the consuls designate Sex. Appuleius and Sex. Pompeius (56.29.2n), both close to the dynasty. A papyrus (P Oxy. 2435 verso [pp108–110, cf. 104–105] = EJ no. 379 = TDGR 4.111 or 6.25) preserves fragmentary minutes of what may be an audience of Alexandrian envoys before our consilium in the Roman library of the Temple of Apollo on the Palatine (cf. Map 2). The proceedings are datable a.d. 12/13. The Senate had continued to receive embassies under Augustus, though not exclusively (53.21.6, cf. 33.1–2), and the consilium may now have undertaken such duties pro senatu. The names of Augustus and perhaps seven counselors are vis-

296

Commentary on Book 56

ible on the papyrus, including Tiberius, Drusus, and M. Valerius Messalla Messallinus (cos. 3 b.c.; cf. 55.29.1n). The absence of Germanicus’ name is perhaps to be explained by his being on campaign in Germany (Suet. Cal. 8.3; Vell. 2.123.1); but cf. 56.28.5. Cf. 55.33.5 and 56.25.7 for boards of three consulars who assisted the aging Augustus by hearing or screening embassies “from cities and kings.” See also Hammond Principate 168–169; A.K. Bowman, “Papyri and Roman Imperial History, 1960–1975,” JRS 66 (1976), 154. Talbert sees in the formula “valid, as if resolved upon by the whole Senate” a “crowning blow” to senatorial authority (Senate 488). Dio senses no such loss: Augustus acquired through the decree (ejk tou÷ dovgmato") “what he in fact clearly had anyway.” I suggest that Dio here portrays Augustus as constitutionally correct and respectful in his dealings with the Senate (cf. 56.41.3n, a favorable reference, apparently to our event, in Tiberius’ funeral oration). There is no reason to think that the Senate now ceased sitting—as Dio’s very next report shows (I assume that it stands in chronological order).

28.4–6 Opposition to the Vicesima (5 Percent Tax) on Inheritances The precise details that Dio adduces in treating a challenge in this year to the Lex Vicesima Hereditatium of a.d. 6 (55.25.5–6n) suggest that he had an extended annalistic account before him. If so, he has cut through this material by maintaining a biographic focus, portraying Augustus—approvingly—as a master puppeteer who used the same duplicity in defending the vicesima (56.28.4) as he had used in creating it (55.25.4). Dio’s interest arose, in part, from the doubling of the vicesima by Caracalla (77.9.4–5), an increase revoked by Macrinus (78.12.2); cf. Millar Study 153. 28.4 ejbaruvnonto onto:: “since virtually everybody was disturbed about the vicesima, and an uprising seemed imminent.” Why the trouble welled up now is unclear. Although there had been resistance to the tax from the start (cf. 55.25.1, 27.1), it perhaps took some years for enough heirs to be adversely affected to fuel a crisis. C. Nicolet suggests that the senators considered the vicesima, as a tax on capital, to be something fit for subjects, “a badge of servitude” not to be endured by Romans; he finds in the tax a natural outcome of Rome’s evolution “from a ‘civic’ to a ‘monarchic’ system:” The World of the Citizen in Republican Rome (Berkeley, 1980), 184–185. 28.5 gnwv m hn tinav: “Also to keep them [the senators] from suspecting that some view of Germanicus or Drusus had been uttered on his instructions and from preferring it uncritically, Augustus ordered them both to say nothing.” ejlevcqh me;n pollav, kaiv tina kai; dia; biblivwn tw÷/ Aujgouvstw/ ejdhlwvqh h:: “Many views were stated; some were also communicated to Augustus in libelli.” With “many views” Dio may be abridging a longer account of the senate debate from his annalistic source. The libelli were no doubt individual briefs submitted

28.1–29.1: The Year a.d. 13

297

for Augustus’ consideration in response to a general invitation—like those invited before the vicesima was originally enacted (55.25.4). 28.6 suntevleian h[gage age:: On discovering that the senators were ready to submit to any tax rather than the vicesima, Augustus “transferred the levy to lands and buildings [sc. from inheritances and legacies] and forthwith, without a word about how much or how they would pay, sent men all over to register the properties of individuals and cities.” With this “census” he ostensibly took the first step in reintroducing tribute on Romans, a direct tax on the assessed value of lands and domiciles of the kind the vanquished paid and from which Romans had been all but free141 since their lucrative victory over Perseus of Macedon in 168 b.c. (Plin. HN 33.56). The threat of a tax even more odious than the vicesima was (in Dio’s version) Augustus’ trump card, and the senators opted for the evil they knew. P.A. Brunt, “The Lex Valeria Cornelia,” JRS 51 (1961), 83 suggests a connection between the assessments now set in motion and the census of 13/14 (see below, Lacuna). Kienast Augustus 407 thinks that Augustus planned to replace the vicesima with tribute but was obliged to retreat—in short, he was not bluffing (contra Dio). Lacuna. Dio’s text, which breaks off after ijdiwtw÷n kaiv, resumes at 56.29.3 under 14; cf. introduction to a.d. 13. Possible lost events not recoverable from Xiphilinus or Zonaras are: Under 13. Campaigning by Tiberius and Germanicus on the Rhine front (Suet. Cal. 8.3; cf. Vell. 2.123.1). Cf. Barnes JRS 64 (1974), 24–26, finding here the occasion of Augustus’ twenty-first and Tiberius’ seventh imperatorial salutations, probably also Germanicus’ first; Syme RP 3.1207–1210; Appendix 3. Note that Germanicus was in Rome during the debate on the vicesima (56.28.5). Under 14. Closing of the third Augustan census of citizens (though Dio omits the second, closed in 8 b.c.) (RG 8.4; IIt. 13.1.184–185 = EJ p40; Suet. Tib. 21.1; cf. Aug. 97.1). Tiberius’ departure for Illyricum (cf. Vell. 2.123.1; Suet. Aug. 97.3, 98.5; Tib. 21.1; Dio 56.31.1n). Cf. Syme Ovid 56. 29.1 iJppodromiva" de; teloumevnh" ejn [Zon.]142 | th÷/ tw÷n Aujgoustalivwn qeva/ h{ti" ejpi; toi÷" aujtou÷ geneqlivoi" ejgivgneto, ajnhvr ti" ejmmanhv" [Xiph.] . . . : “while circus races were being conducted as part of | the Augustalia spectacle, which marked his birthday, a deranged man . . .” A problematic text. Do the circuses at which the madman sat on Julius Caesar’s chair and put on his crown belong to the Augustalia proper in October (54.10.3n; RG 11) or to Augustus’ birthday festival on 23 September? Some scholars assume that Dio has erred through confusion of these two festivals and that the later date is right rather than the birthday (so Furneaux and Koestermann on Tac. Ann. 1.15.2; Degrassi in IIt. 13.2.516). But was Dio susceptible to such confusion? He knows the birthday in his next chapter (56.30.5), and presumably also the date of the Augustalia, still 141. The civil wars occasioned emergency levies: e.g., 47.14.2, 16.3–5. 142. Zonaras continues: toi÷" geneqlivoi" aujtou÷ ejmmanhv" ti" ajnhvr. . . .

298

Commentary on Book 56

celebrated in his own day (see 54.34.2, where he distinguishes the two festivals); cf. 56.46.4–5n. For Boissevain our text refers to circuses marking Augustus’ birthday: Dio takes pains to distinguish the September natal “Augustalia” (using this term generically) from the Augustalia strictly speaking, held on the anniversary of Augustus’ return from the East on 12 October 19 b.c. This view is developed at length by Cavallaro Spese 250–259.143 Zonaras’ summary drops the word Augustalia altogether (“while circuses were being conducted as part of his birthday festival”): he apparently read Dio as referring solely to the birthday. div û ron [Xiph.-Zon.]:: “. . . sat on the chair set up honoring Julius Caesar, took his crown, and put it on.”144 A senate decree made shortly before Caesar’s death ordained that his gilt chair (clearly a sella curulis) and crown adorned with jewels and gold be borne into the theaters—putting him on a par with the gods—and that at circus races a ceremonial wagon (ojcov" = Latin tensa)145 be drawn into the Circus (44.6.3, cf. 1).146 That Caesar was voted a gilt chair and crown to be displayed in the Circus as well as in theaters is the clear implication of our passage, though this is attested nowhere else. These are divine honors, symbolizing his “spiritual . . . presence” (Weinstock Julius 281–285)—like the chair and golden image of the deified Faustina set up in the theater whenever her surviving husband Marcus Aurelius was in attendance (71.31.2), or the gilt chair bearing Commodus’ lion skin and club, his divine attributes (72.17.4). Cf. T. Schäfer, Imperii insignia: Sella curulis und Fasces: Zur Repräsentation römischer Magistrate (Mainz, 1989), 114–122.

56.29.2–47.2: The Year a.d. 14 (To Augustus’ Consecration) Annalistic structure. Rather than a standard year-account, Dio has composed a monumental necrology, closing his twelve-book Augustan segment, which opened with the youthful C. Octavius taking center stage following Julius Caesar’s murder (45.1.1). Through it he restates a prime doctrine of the History: Rome’s salvation lay in monarchy on the Augustan model. He treats events of 14 following Augustus’ consecration on 17 September only selectively (e.g., at 56.47.2, from October), deferring to Book 57 whatever is not essential to his Augustan theme—notably Tiberius’ accession, including the legionary mutinies in Pannonia and Germany (57.2.1–7.1). The start of 14, along with the end of 13, is lost in a one-folio lacuna (about fifty lines) (see 56.28.6n). There is also a one-folio lacuna following 56.31.3n.

143. Nawijn 207, under post, takes ejpiv as “after,” producing the following sense: “While circuses races were being conducted as part of | the Augustalia spectacle [12 October], which was held after his birthday [23 September], a deranged man. . . .” 144. Dio reports another portent involving a “madman” and “the former Caesar’s crown” in the theater in the year of Actium: 50.10.2. 145. A tensa was a two-wheeled gabled wagon drawn by four horses that bore the exuviae (attributes, mementos) of a god in processions. Cf. S.G. Szidat, Teile eines historischen Frieses in der Casa de Pilatos in Sevilla mit einem Exkurs zur Tensa (München, 1997), esp. 24–31; reviewed by G. Koepel in JRA 12 (1999), 596–599. 146. Cf. Cic. Att. 15.3 (= SB 380) 2 with Shackleton Bailey’s n; Suet. Iul. 76.1.

29.2–47.2: The Year a.d. 14 (To Augustus’ Consecration)

299

Chronology. This is problematic for the weeks following Augustus’ death on 19 August. Two events can be fixed: his consecration on 17 September (fasti) and a lunar eclipse toward dawn on 27 September exploited by Drusus Caesar in cowing a mutiny in Pannonia (Tac. Ann. 1.28.1–6; Dio 57.4.4; Schove Chronology 4–5), where he had been dispatched by Tiberius after taking part in Augustus’ obsequies. See table 7.

29.2–31.1: THE DEATH OF AUGUSTUS Sources besides Dio. Vell. 2.123; Suet. Aug. 97.1–100.1, cf. Tib. 21.1; Tac. Ann. 1.5.1–4, 9.1; Eutr. 7.8.4; fasti in IIt. 13.1.184–185, 328; 13.2.190–191, 208, 499. 29.2 !Apoulev i o" . . . Pomphv i o" [Xiph.]:: On the consul Sex. Appuleius see PIR2 A 962; Syme Aristocracy 316–317, table III. Son of the like-named consul of 29 b.c., he was a nephew of the ill-fated Quinctilius Varus, and a grandson of Augustus’ half sister the elder Octavia. On Sex. Pompeius see PIR2 P 584; Syme Ovid 156–162 and Aristocracy 414. Ovid addressed Book 4 of his Ex Ponto to him as patron and consul-elect (4.1.1– 2; also 4.4 and 4.5, the latter imagining him in office).147 For a mishap of Pompeius while consul see 56.45.2n. Dio says that he was related to Augustus (56.29.5)— how is not known. Table 7 From Augustus’ Death to his Consecration: Tentative Chronology Bibliography. E. Hohl, “Wann hat Tiberius das Prinzipat übernommen?” Hermes 68 (1933), 106–115; Wellesley “Dies Imperii” (an “early” chronology, heterodox but important in demonstrating how fragile the standard chronologies are); Levick Tiberius 68–81; Sage “Accession.” Cf. T.E.J. Wiedemann in CAH2 10.200–209. Augustus dies at Nola: 19 Aug. A.D. 14 Cortege and Tiberius reach Rome: ca 3 Sept. (e.g., Levick, Sage; cf. Wellesley, 31 Aug.) First senate meeting with reading of Augustus’ will and votes of funeral honors: “on the morrow” of Tiberius’ arrival (56.31.2) Funeral: ca 8 Sept. (Levick; cf. Hohl, ca 11 Sept.; Sage, 6 Sept.; Wellesley, by ca 4 Sept.) Livia’s five-day vigil at the pyre; burial of Augustus in the Mausoleum (56.42.4) Second senate meeting: consecration of Augustus voted; formal accession of Tiberius?: 17 Sept. (cf. Wellesley, dating Tiberius’ dies imperii 3 Sept.) Drusus Caesar still in Rome on 17 Sept. (Tac. Ann. 1.14.3) Drusus Caesar dispatched urgently to the mutiny in Pannonia on or immediately after 17 Sept. (Tac. Ann. 1.24.1–2), his troops having been sent ahead well before (Levick; cf. Wellesley, 4 Sept.; Sage, 7 Sept.) Drusus reaches the mutinous army: 26 Sept. Eclipse of the moon visible in Pannonia before dawn on 27 Sept. Note: Secure dates are underlined. 147. Pompeius was also the patron of Valerius Maximus and had him in his entourage when proconsul of Asia (2.6.8).

300

Commentary on Book 56

ejn Nwvlh/ methvllaxe [Xiph.]:: “Having attended to the games in Naples, he died after that in Nola.” See also Vell. 2.123.1–2; Suet. Aug. 98.5; Tac. Ann. 1.5.3; Eutr. 7.8.4 (giving Atella instead of Nola and specifying a natural death). The games were the Sebasta, held in midsummer 14; cf. 55.10.9n. Augustus had a villa at Nola (cf. Millar Emperor 25), inherited from his father C. Octavius, who had died in the very same room (Suet. Aug. 100.1; Tac. Ann. 1.9.1). Cf. 56.46.3n. See Map 4 inset. tev rata [Xiph.-Zon.]:: “There had been portents, neither few nor hard to read, pointing to his end.” Alive to heaven’s interest in human history (cf. on 56.24.2–5), Dio fastens on signs attending the deaths of emperors or vice-regents: e.g., Agrippa (54.29.7–8), Sejanus (58.5.5–7), Claudius (60.35.1), Plautianus (75.16.5), Macrinus (78.25.1–5, cf. 30.1); cf. Smilda 541–542. He attaches epochal importance to Augustus’ death, citing various cosmic portents besides those given by Suetonius (Aug. 97.1–2). Cf. Syme Tacitus 522–523. 29.3 h{ l io" a{ p a" [Xiph.-Zon.]:: “The sun was totally eclipsed.” No solar eclipse was visible in Rome in 14: Schove Chronology 5–6; cf. RE 6.2359–2360 = Finsternisse (Boll). In assuming a “sympathy” between the celestial and human planes, Dio was prone to discover links between eclipses and historic events— and so susceptible to spurious reports. Cf. 41.14.2–3, the civil war between Pompey and Caesar that broke out in 49 presaged by an eclipse datable 7 March 51 (RE 6.2359); 61.16.4, Nero’s matricide associated with an eclipse that Plin. HN 2.180 dates later than the crime (cf. Tac. Ann. 14.12.1–2; RE 6.2360); 78.30.1, Macrinus’ death portended by an eclipse that followed it by some months: RE 6.2362 (cf. Millar Study 166 n3: “Dio must simply have forgotten”). Cf. 55.22.3n. Dio understood the natural causes of solar and lunar eclipses: 60.26.1–5. kaivesqai e[doxe [Xiph.-Zon.]:: “Most of the sky seemed to be on fire,” a prodigy frequently reported: e.g., Livy 3.5.14 (464 b.c.) with Ogilvie’s n; Obsequens 51 (94 b.c.); Dio 8.20.4; 56.24.3; 60.33.22; 75.4.6. Various natural events can produce such a spectacle.148 Seneca the Younger, remarking that “we often read in histories that the sky seemed to be ablaze,” says that the the fire is sometimes high “as if among the very stars,” sometimes low, as when the Vigiles responded to a celestial conflagration in the mistaken belief that Ostia was in flames (NQ 1.15.5). xuvla te diavpura [Xiph.] . . . ajstevre" komh÷tai kai; aiJmatwvdei" [Xiph.Zon.]:: The “fiery timbers” falling from the sky were perhaps a meteor shower. On “comets” as presaging evil cf. 54.29.7–8. Cf. 56.24.4n, celestial phenomena portending the Varian disaster. Sen. NQ 1.1.3 records a meteoric fireball attending Augustus’ death that has no reflex in Dio. tov te sunevdrion kekleimevnon [Dio’s text resumes after the lacuna]:: “The senate house [sc. Curia Iulia: cf. 54.1.3; Map 2 inset] was found locked,” signify148. For two modern “burning sky” reports (following eruptions of Mt Pelé on Martinique) cf. Luterbacher Prodigienglaube 22 n27. Something as common as ground fire reflected on clouds can create this appearance.

29.2–47.2: The Year a.d. 14 (To Augustus’ Consecration)

301

ing the futility of the vows for Augustus’ health that the senators had come to make, clearly during his final illness (cf. Suet. Claud. 45, vows for the dying Claudius). Perhaps the custodian had failed to turn up with the keys (cf. Talbert Senate 128–129). buv a "":: “An owl perching on the senate house hooted.” “An owl [bubo] seen in cities (or anywhere in daylight) is a dire portent” that often presages death (Plin. HN 10.34–35)—like its calls (Verg. Aen. 4.462–463; 56.45.2). Owls portended the deaths of Agrippa (54.29.7) and Commodus (72.24.1), also Crassus’ defeat at Carrhae (40.17.1). Cf. 40.47.2; 41.14.2; 50.8.2; R. Laffineur, “Le symbolisme funéraire de la chouette,” AC 50 (1981), 433–434; Rosenberger Götter 112–113, 131–132 (the owl as intruder, representing what was outside the res publica— the uncivilized, the hidden, and death). 29.4 keraunov ": “Lightning struck a statue of Augustus that stood on the Capitol, erasing the first letter of the name Caesar.” For lightning strikes as portents of death see 54.29.7, Agrippa; 60.35.1, Claudius; 63.27.3, Nero; 78.25.2–4, Macrinus. Millar Study 86 suggests that Dio has given a “direct translation” of Suet. Aug. 97.2. But the clause “which stood on the Capitol,” having no counterpart in Suetonius, shows that Dio used a common source independently. mav n tei" tei":: The “seers” who declared that Augustus would achieve some divine state on the hundredth day were apparently haruspices (soothsayers); cf. Suet. Aug. 97.2, ‘responsum est;’ Dio uses the generic mavntei" of soothsayers at 46.33.2. He registers a similar portent of Septimius Severus’ death (76.11.2). qeov n: “All the rest of the name [sc. ‘aesar’] means ‘god’ in Etruscan.” This is perhaps confirmed by words in Italic dialects. C.D. Buck, Der Vocalismus der oskischen Sprache (Leipzig, 1892), 146 holds that aesar is an Italic word borrowed by Etruscan; similarly D. Steinbauer, “Etruskisch-ostitalische Lehnbeziehungen,” in H. Rix, ed., Oskisch-Umbrisch Texte und Grammatik (Wiesbaden, 1993), 288– 289. Cf. G. Bottiglioni, Manuale dei dialetti italici (Bologna, l954), 345 s.v. aisis, aisusis. 29.5–6 suggenei÷" ph/ tou÷ Aujgouvstou . . . Gav l ba" ba":: Having registered the transparent portents, Dio notes a coincidence whose prophetic significance was divined only later: “The aforementioned [Appuleius and Pompeius: 56.29.2n], who were somehow related to Augustus, were the consuls when [te . . . kaiv: 56.21.3n] Galba, the later emperor, was now enrolled among the iuvenes on the very first day of the year [cf. 50.2.3n]. The fact that he was the first among other Romans to rule following the line of Augustus prompted some to say [cf. 54.19.4] that these things occurred when they did [consulships and debut] not accidentally but through heavenly forethought.” As relatives of Augustus, the consuls symbolized the dynasty that the new iuvenis Galba was destined eventually to succeed. This has the ring of far-fetched ex post facto propaganda aimed at justifying Galba’s occupation of Nero’s throne. Although Dio stops short of declaring heaven’s hand at work here, elsewhere he endorses signs of Galba’s imperial destiny, including

302

Commentary on Book 56

a dream that Tyche was spurring him on (57.19.4; 64.1.1–3; cf. Suet. Galba 4.3)— not unlike his own dreams in which she urged him to persevere with his History (72.23.4). On the introduction of Roman youths to public life see 55.9.9n. 30.1 noshvsa" methvllaxe laxe:: “So Augustus, falling ill, died.” Having expanded on the attendant omens and signs, Dio again registers Augustus’ death (cf. 56.29.2, ejn Nwvlh/ methvllaxe), now bringing in a final illness and the suspicion of Livia’s complicity, of which Robert Graves makes much in I, Claudius. For methvllaxe still a third time see 56.30.5, where the date of Augustus’ death is highlighted. uJ p oyiv a nn:: “Livia incurred some suspicion over his death.” Cf. Tac. Ann. 1.5.1, “Some suspected foul play by his wife.” Dio draws here on a tradition scandalously inimical to Livia that surfaces intermittently in the History (e.g., 53.33.4, death of Marcellus; 55.10a.10, deaths of the Caesars Lucius and Gaius; 55.22.2). Its seeds no doubt lay in the later reign of Augustus, when one by one the dynastic obstacles to her son’s succession fell. Purcell suggests that in assuming an imperial role Livia attracted gossip on an imperial scale: she was alleged to have done what she had the power to do: PCPS 212 (1986), 94–95. Dio and Tacitus (Ann. 1.5.1–2) both transmit a story of how a secret voyage of reconciliation by Augustus to his exiled grandson Agrippa Postumus prompted a murderous response from Livia. For all that they have in common, their versions diverge somewhat. Dio says nothing of Fabius Maximus (cos. 11 b.c.),149 who in Tacitus accompanied Augustus to Agrippa’s place of exile on Planasia,150 then heedlessly divulged the emperor’s secret to his wife Marcia, who told Livia. Dio accepts the voyage without demur,151 whereas Tacitus relates it as ‘rumor’—notwithstanding the circumstantial details that he adduces. Like Tacitus (Ann. 1.5.3, ‘utcumque se ea res habuit’), Dio suspends judgment on Livia’s guilt: “suspicion,” “they say,” “whether from this cause or some other, Augustus fell ill;” unlike Tacitus, he does not refrain from mentioning poison. Other authors tap the sinister tradition about Livia. See Plin. HN 7.150, from a list of vicissitudes in Augustus’ life: “. . . the sense of loss that followed Agrippa’s banishment; then the suspicion that Fabius had betrayed his secret; next the intrigues of his wife and Tiberius that tormented his latest days” (after Rackham in Loeb).152 See also Plut. De garr. 508a–b = Loeb Moralia vol. 6 pp428–431, on how Fulvius (sc. Fabius) committed suicide out of shame at having betrayed Augustus’ secret plan of recalling Agrippa Postumus. There is no voyage to Planasia and no poison in Plutarch. Cf. Epit. de Caes. 1.26–28. Suetonius shuns the hos149. Perhaps through abridgment: Syme Ovid 150. 150. Merely “the island” in Dio; but cf. 55.32.2. 151. The story was hard to refute since the protagonists Fabius, Augustus, and Agrippa Postumus were all dead within months. 152. Pliny’s is the earliest mention of the reconciliation story, but it had no doubt been long in circulation. The slave Clemens, who in 16 impersonated the by then dead Agrippa Postumus and launched a plot aimed at recovering his “grandfather’s throne” (57.16.3–4; Tac. Ann. 2.39.1–40.3), had good reason to propagate it in promoting his imposture.

29.2–47.2: The Year a.d. 14 (To Augustus’ Consecration)

303

tile tradition, which would have contradicted his picture of Augustus dying in Livia’s embrace (Aug. 99.1) and his insistence on Augustus’ esteem for Tiberius (Tib. 21). Velleius too is silent. Modern views on our episode abound.153 30.2 ejpi; th÷/ monarciva/ aujto;n katagavgh/: Livia feared (they say) that Augustus “would restore Agrippa as his successor.” It is hard to imagine anything persuading Augustus to revoke Agrippa’s internment, enacted in perpetuum by senate decree (Suet. Aug. 65.4; 55.32.1–2n), let alone risk supplanting Tiberius, already registered as his principal heir (with Livia as coheir) in his last will made 3 April the year before (cf. 56.32.1an). Augustus’ innocence in Agrippa’s execution, carried out immediately on his own death, is not clear despite Tac. Ann. 1.6.1–3, which incriminates Tiberius and Livia (cf. Crook in CAH2 10.109, 112). Even in death Agrippa proved a threat: see Tac. Ann. 2.39.1–40.3 and Dio 57.16.3–4 (under 16) on Clemens, the false Agrippa; cf. Suet. Aug. 19.2. su÷ k av tina . . . e[ c rise rise:: “Livia smeared some figs that were still on the tree with poison.” Augustus loved fresh figs: Suet. Aug. 76.1. Pliny the Elder mentions a variety of fig named after Livia—innocently (HN 15.70; cf. Columella 5.10.11, 10.413–414). Cf. Questa P&P 14 (1959), 48–51. 30.3 eJtaivrou" sunekavlese ese:: Augustus “summoned his intimate friends, said what he needed to, and spoke his last words.” To what extent these are authentic rather than edifying constructions is open to question. Of his utterances, (a) the boast that he was bequeathing Rome “in stone” having received it “in brick” and (b) his self-deprecating appeal for friends’ applause, like an actor leaving the stage of life, are paralleled in Suetonius. But the biographer locates them differently, the boast—without the friends—under the rubric of Augustus’ architectural transformation of Rome and his provisions for urban security (Aug. 28.3–30.1), the appeal for applause in a deathbed scene, as in Dio, but with additional elements, namely, (c) questions put by Augustus to people newly arrived from Rome about the health of Drusus Caesar’s daughter, and (d) his expiry in Livia’s arms with the last words, “Live mindful of our marriage, Livia, and fare well” (Aug. 99.1). Dio and Suetonius have both (I suggest) drawn on a common source which recounted (a), (b), (c), and (d) continuously (as sequential and contextual links suggest). But Suetonius, employing his thematic method (cf. A. Wallace-Hadrill, Suetonius: The Scholar and his Caesars [London, 1983], 13), has segregated (a), the boast, from 153. Some examples: M.P. Charlesworth, “Tiberius and the Death of Augustus,” AJPh 44 (1923), 145–157 rejects both voyage and murder as unhistorical constructions emanating “from the personal enemies of Tiberius, that is, Julia and Agrippina and their adherents.” Questa PP 14 (1959), 41–55 holds that in treating Augustus’ voyage and Livia’s method of poisoning (there is no trace of these in first-century sources) Dio was influenced by a romanticist fiction inspired by innuendo in Tacitus; Velleius and Suetonius, rather than Dio, preserve “la versione autentica” of Augustus’ death (44). Levick accepts the voyage but not the reconciliation or the murder of Augustus: Tiberius 64–65, 245 n66 with bibliography. For Syme “the story about Fabius and Marcia is a fable:” Ovid 149– 151; also Aristocracy 414–416; cf. Tacitus 482–483 (as much as suspicions about Agrippina’s role in the death of Claudius in 54 informed the hostile tradition about Livia, it originated before that), 688–689. Cf. Barrett Livia 62–67.

304

Commentary on Book 56

the other glimpses of Augustus in extremis. Dio has omitted (c) and (d) altogether. He perhaps deemed (c) historically unremarkable. Did he find (d), the tender scene with Livia, false, given the murderous suspicion about her recorded at 56.30.1– 2? See Manuwald Dio 262; cf. Millar Study 86. ghiv n hn . . . liqiv n hn hn:: “in brick [cf. Xen. An. 7.8.14, a wall of plivnqwn ghivnwn] . . . in stone.” Cf. Suet. Aug. 28.3: “Augustus rightly boasted that having inherited a city of brick [‘latericiam’] he was bequeathing one of marble [‘marmoream’].” Dio (56.30.4) takes Augustus’ declaration as referring metaphorically to imperial might (to; th÷" ajrch÷" ijscurovn) rather than architectural perfection. Cf. Gros Templa 50–51. 30.4 diev s kwye kwye:: “On the other hand, he asked them for applause like a comic actor, as if at the close of some mime, thereby mocking utterly the whole life of mankind.” Augustus made his request in Greek, in a pair of iambic trimeters quoted by Suetonius (Aug. 99.1).154 Dio’s intent is not critical—to reveal Augustus as a hypocrite (pace P. Fornaro, “Una vita senza maschera: Suet. Aug. XCIX.1,” Civiltà classica e cristiana 9 [1988], 155–167)—but to show through a memorable instance of modesty, balancing the preceding boast (mevn . . . dev), that he kept to the last the self-effacing civilitas of the model emperor (cf. 55.4.1–3n). Cf. Manuwald Dio 159–161, 261–262 (Dio and Suetonius follow a tradition favorable to Augustus, drawing independently on common material); A.B. Breebart, “Augustus’ Behaviour: Role-Play and Expectations,” in Clio and Antiquity: History and Historiography of the Greek and Roman World (Hilversum, 1987), 89– 108, esp. 89–91; A.I. Kessissoglu, “Mimus Vitae,” Mnemosyne 41 (1988), 385–388 (a study of Suet. Aug. 99.1). Cf. 52.34.2 (Maecenas advising Augustus): “You will live as it were on a single stage that is the whole world.” th÷/ ejnneakaidekavth/ tou÷ Aujgouvstou . . . methv l laxe laxe:: “He died 19 August, the day he had first assumed the consulship, having lived seventy-five years, ten months, and twenty-six days . . .” Cf. Tac. Ann. 1.9.1: ‘idem dies accepti quondam imperii princeps et vitae supremus;’ IIt. 13.2.179 = EJ p50; Suet. Aug. 100.1. Dio gives precise dates only for cardinal events (e.g., 51.1.1, Actium). For Augustus’ birthday, 23 September (= IX Kal. Oct.) 63 b.c., cf. IIt. 13.2.512–513. Dio’s “twenty-six days” for the period 23 July–19 August of 14 can been arrived at in either of two ways: (1) through “exclusive reckoning” using the modern calendar (counting neither 23 July nor 19 August);155 (2) through “compensative reckoning” using the Roman calendar (excluding IX Kal. Aug. [= 24 July] and including XIV Kal. Sept. [= 19 August]). See in detail W.F. Snyder, “On Chronology in the Imperial Books of Cassius Dio’s Roman History,” Klio 33 (1940), 39–56, esp. 43–45. 154. E. Voutiras finds Augustus’ life-mime metaphor paralleled in trimeters from the fragmentary tomb inscription of the actor Eucharistos in Lycia: “Tevlo" e[cei to; paivgnion: Der Tod eines Mimus,” EA 24 (1995), 61– 72, esp. 69–71. 155. By “inclusive reckoning” with the modern calendar (counting both 23 July and 19 August) one would get a figure of twenty-eight days; by “compensative reckoning” (not counting 23 July but counting 19 August) one would get twenty-seven days. “Exclusive,” “inclusive,” and “compensative” are the three possible types of calculation used in reckoning intervals. Dio does not use any one of them consistently.

29.2–47.2: The Year a.d. 14 (To Augustus’ Consecration)

305

monarchvsa" a":: “. . . and having ruled forty-four years less thirteen days from his victory at Actium,” 2 September 31 b.c. Dio’s “thirteen days” are 20 August– 1 September (from the day after Augustus’ death to the day before the anniversary of Actium)—here he uses exclusive reckoning. For Actium as the effective beginning of Augustus’ rule cf. 51.1.1–2 with Reinhold Republic 118–119. 31.1 Tiberivou ejn th÷/ Delmativa/ e[t! o[nto" to":: “Livia feared that as long as Tiberius was in Illyricum156 there could be an uprising and so concealed Augustus’ death until he arrived.” Tiberius’ departure is lost in the lacuna from 56.28.6n; he had taken leave of Augustus at Beneventum (Vell. 2.123.1; Suet. Aug. 97.3). Cf. Tac. Ann. 1.5.3: Tiberius learned of Augustus’ death “having barely reached Illyricum” (‘vixdum Illyricum ingressus’); Suet. Tib. 21.1: “immediately called back while en route” (‘statim ex itinere revocatus’) (similarly Aug. 98.5). Syme finds Dio inaccurate (Ovid 56): Tiberius could not “still be” (e[t! o[nto") where he had not (or had barely) arrived. But Dio here presents not so much narrative detail as the anxious perspective of Livia, whose dispatch about Augustus’ death would take time to overtake Tiberius. “Concealed Augustus’ death.” Officially, Tiberius “flew back” to Augustus in time for an affectionate reunion and private deliberations (Vell. 2.123.1–2; Suet. Aug. 98.5; Tib. 21.1). But Dio the realist rejects this edifying version, following “the majority and the more trustworthy” of authors. Tacitus elaborates on how Livia orchestrated secrecy and publicity in securing the transmission of power (Ann. 1.5.3–4); he does not exclude the possibility that Tiberius saw Augustus before he died and so may not be among Dio’s “more trustworthy” sources. On hostility to Livia in Dio cf. 56.30.1–3n. Cf. R.A. Bauman, “Tanaquil-Livia and the Death of Augustus,” Historia 43 (1994), 177–178 (Livia’s machinations are historical).

31.2–33.6: SENATE MEETING ON TIBERIUS’ ARRIVAL IN ROME Sources besides Dio: Tac. Ann. 1.8.1–5, cf. 7.3–4; Suet. Aug. 100.2–3, 101.1–4, Tib. 23, 70.3. Select bibliography. Weber Princeps 39–76 and nn (copious detail); G. Kampff, “Three Senate Meetings in the Early Principate,” Phoenix 17 (1963), 25–58 at 27–32; Timpe Untersuchungen 27–56 (“Der Regierungswechsel des Jahres 14 n. Chr.”) at 40–48. 31.2 sw÷ m a a:: “Now the corpse of Augustus was borne from Nola by the leading men of each city in turn. When it reached Rome, however, the equites took it up and brought it by night into the city.” Cf. Suet. Aug. 100.2, parallel but with pre156. For this usage of Delmativa cf. 53.12.7; on 56.11.1–17.3, “Note.”

306

Commentary on Book 56

cise details, for example: “. . . as far as Bovillae the decurions of the municipia and colonies bore the corpse. . . . From Bovillae the equestrian order took it up. . . .” Claudius, the future emperor, had championed the equites’ request to the consuls for permission to perform this crowning service (Suet. Claud. 6.1). On the route see Map 4 inset; detailed itinerary in Levick Tiberius 69–70 with 246–247 n4 and 303 (map); cf. BAtlas 44. The cortege proceeded only by night “because of the season” (‘propter anni tempus’) (Suet. Aug. 100.2). In order to spare the bearers from the daytime heat? to slow decomposition of the corpse?157 The procession entered Rome “by night” (Dio), perhaps to save people the trouble of coming out en masse to pay their respects, and made its way to Augustus’ house, where his corpse was then laid out in state (cf. 56.34.2n). For other long-distance corteges see App. B Civ. 1.105–106 (Sulla); Dio 55.2.1 (Drusus), 12.1 (the Caesars Lucius and Gaius); Tac. Ann. 3.2.1–3 with nn of Woodman & Martin (Germanicus). th÷/ te uJsteraiva/: The Senate met “on the morrow” of Tiberius’ arrival with the corpse, in the curia (Suet. Tib. 70.3—the Curia Iulia since Dio mentions permanent seating); Tiberius had summoned the senators by virtue of his tribunicia potestas (Tac. Ann. 1.7.3; Suet. Tib. 23; 56.28.1n). This is the same session that Tacitus sets “on the first day of the Senate” (‘primo senatus die’), when Tiberius limited deliberations to funeral honors (Ann. 1.8.1, cf. 7.4). The date is variously calculated. The corpse of Augustus’ successor Tiberius, who died at Misenum 16 March of 37, reached Rome 29 March (Fasti Ostienses in IIt. 13.1.190–191= EJ p43); the distance was about the same as from Nola to Rome. Using this parallel and counting the number of coloniae and municipia on the Nola-Rome route (Augustus’ body was placed “in daytime in the basilica or the most important of the sacred shrines of each town:” Suet. Aug. 100.2), Levick estimates that Augustus’ corpse reached Rome fifteen days after his death on 19 August, and that the Senate met the next day, 4 September (Tiberius 69–70 and n4); similarly Sage “Accession” 295–296, 306. Cf. Wellesley “Dies Imperii” 27: 31 August.158 31.2–3 th;n iJppavda stolh;n . . . th;n bouleutikh;n plh;n tw÷n iJmativwn tw÷n periporûuvrwn . . . ûaiavn, to;n ajgorai÷on trovpon pepoihmevnhn hn:: To mark 157. But why not embalm the body? Cf. Levick Tiberius 70: “it was probably partially embalmed before it left Nola.” The practice was known in Rome. See D.B. Counts, “Regum Externorum Consuetudine: The Nature and Function of Embalming in Rome,” CA 15 (1996), 189–202, esp. 192–195. Cf. C.J. Poulson & T.K. Marshall, The Disposal of the Dead3 (London, 1975), 319–323 (“Putrefaction”); R.W. Mann, W.M. Bass, & L. Meadows, “Time Since Death and Decomposition of the Human Body: Variables and Observations in Case and Experimental Field Studies,” Journal of Forensic Sciences 35.1 (1990), 103–111: temperature is the most important single factor of the many affecting the rate of decomposition; embalming slows greatly the rate of decay, preserving, in particular, the face, which otherwise deteriorates quickly. 158. The basis of this and other “early” dates in Wellesley’s chronology is his calculation (resting on known rates of courier and military travel) that 23 days were required, following Augustus’ funeral, for Drusus and his force, composed of Praetorian foot and horse plus German bodyguards, to cover the distance from Rome to the camp of mutinous legions in Pannonia by 26 September (a date that is above suspicion). Wellesley assumes that Drusus traveled with, rather than followed, this force. In short, he must have left Rome by ca 4 September, so that the funeral, at which he delivered a eulogy, and our senate session, which he attended (Tac. Ann. 1.14.3), must have preceded. See introduction to a.d. 14.

29.2–47.2: The Year a.d. 14 (To Augustus’ Consecration)

307

their grief, (a) the senators at large wore “equestrian dress,” (b) the magistrates wore “senatorial dress though not the toga praetexta,” (c) Tiberius and Drusus wore “dark dress, made in forum style.” See in general L.M. Wilson, The Clothing of the Ancient Romans (Baltimore, 1938), 36–38; Talbert Senate 216–220 (“Senatorial Dress”); Scheid “Contraria facere” 117–139; C. Vout, “The Myth of the Toga: Understanding the History of Roman Dress,” G&R 43 (1996), 204–220 (on the gulf between the toga of iconography and literature and the practical Roman world “of tunics, trousers, and cloaks”); OCD3 1533; DNP 12.1.765–768 s.vv. Trauer and Trauerkleidung. Re (a). What was the “equestrian dress” into which Dio says senators changed? For Talbert Senate 218 (with Wilson op. cit. 105) it was probably the “sagum, a heavy cloak of dark color.”159 This is surely right.160 The senatorial practice of changing out of the toga to symbolize distress over a national crisis is well attested. Dio reports, for example, that the consuls of 53 b.c., aggrieved by rampant civic violence, laid aside their senatorial dress (th;n bouleutikh;n ejsqh÷ta) “and were summoning the Senate in equestrian dress [kajn th÷/ iJppavdi] as if over some great misfortune” (40.46.1).161 Although Dio does not specify the sagum, several passages in Cicero suggest that this was the garment in question: Phil. 5.31 (‘tumultum decerni, iustitium edici, saga sumi dico oportere’); 6.9 (‘vos saga parate’); 7.21; 8.32; 12.16; see J. Heskel, “Cicero as Evidence for Attitudes to Dress in the Late Republic,” in Sebesta & Bonfante Costume 141–143.162 Senators will not have changed into the trabea, a shorter purple or red toga of ancient and military origin which was the parade costume of equites163 and entirely distinct from a cloak like the sagum.164 Speaking of his own day, Dio notes that senators wore both equestrian dress (stolh; hJ iJppav") and an overcoat (manduvh) in the amphitheater165 when an emperor had died (72.21.3; cf. SHA Comm. 16.6), so the manduvh was apparently an extra garment worn over the sagum out of doors and therefore different from it (cf. 57.13.5: Tiberius put on a dark manduvh as a raincoat during a festival; 67.8.3).166 Re (b), “senatorial dress though not the toga praetexta.” The magistrates presumably wore simply a white toga. For iJmavtion peripovrûuron = praetexta cf. 58.11.2, 12.7; 76.8.5–6. Magistrates had omitted the purple-fringed toga praetexta 159. Cf. Potthoff Kleidungsbezeichnungen 168–172. 160. It is a minor difficulty that the sagum is not expressly equestrian. Cf. Cic. Pis. 23.55 (lictors in sagula); Phil. 8.32 (‘cum est in sagis civitas’). 161. On the eve of civil war between Pompey and Caesar, the senators, defied by tribunes acting as Caesar’s agents, changed their dress, signaling a state of emergency and their resolve to rid themselves of their enemies (41.3.1–2 under 49 b.c.). Cf. 38.14.7. 162. The senators may also have changed shoes, another badge of their status (Talbert Senate 219–220; cf. Cic. Mil. 28). 163. See Tabula Hebana line 57; Tac. Ann. 3.2.2, ‘trabeati equites;’ Suet. Dom. 14.3. Cf. RE 6A.1860–1862 (Schuppe); Ogilvie 164 on Livy 1.41.6; Demougin Ordre 782–789: the trabea was “le véritable uniforme des chevaliers romains”—it was not mourning dress (268 n248); cf. Potthoff Kleidungsbezeichnungen 201–206. 164. H. Wrede, “Zur Trabea,” JDAI 103 (1988), 381–400 at 381. 165. Though Dio writes qevatron, the context shows that he here means amphitheater, as at 66.25.1–2 and elsewhere. 166. According to Herodian the whole Senate would sit dressed in “black mantles” (melaivnai" ejûestrivsi) at the lying in state of an emperor (in effigy) “in the palace entrance” (4.2.3). Were these saga?

308

Commentary on Book 56

(also, perhaps, the latus clavus on their tunics) in mourning Drusus’ death in 9 b.c. (Consol. Liv. 186: “nowhere in the Forum is purple to be seen;” cf. Livy 9.7.8: ‘iustitiumque in foro sua sponte coeptum prius quam indictum; lati clavi, anuli aurei positi;’ Tac. Ann. 3.4.1, ‘sine insignibus magistratus’). Re (c), “dark dress, made in forum style.” Dio describes the costume of Roman ambassadors to Tarentum (third century b.c.) as “the city dress that we use for the forum” (hJ ajstikh; [sc. stolhv], h/J ÷ kat! ajgora;n crwvmeqa) (fr. 39.7). He also tells how L. Antonius, who both celebrated a triumph and assumed the consulship on 1 January 41 b.c., boasted of doffing voluntarily—unlike Marius—his triumphal regalia and convoking the Senate in “forum” dress (ejn th÷/ ajgoraivw/ stolh÷)/ (48.4.5); and how Nero clothed superannuated circus horses, like men, “in forum dress” (61.6.1, stolh÷/ . . . ajgoraivw/). So in our senate session Tiberius and Drusus were apparently wearing “forum” togas, left unbleached or possibly made of darker wool or dyed darker, perhaps the same togae pullae as officials of Pisa wore in solemnizing anniversaries of Lucius Caesar’s death: ILS 139 line 18 = EJ no. 68; cf. Tabula Siarensis (on memorial honors for Germanicus) fr. (b) col. I line 3, ‘p[ullis] amictos togis’ (note the variation in the next line, where I take ‘sui coloris togam’ to be “a toga of original color,” i.e., unbleached; cf. Quint. Inst. 2.5.12, ‘non suo colore,’ used of the cosmeticized human body). Cf. 54.35.5; 55.8.5.167 31.3 libanwtou÷ kai; aujtoiv: “Like the others they offered incense, but they omitted the flute player,” another mark of Tiberius’ and Drusus’ special bereavement. For a parallel text from a common source see Suet. Tib. 70.3—which differs, however, in treating only Tiberius and in also mentioning a libation. Whereas Dio has kept the report in its narrative context, the biographer has transposed it to a thematic section on Tiberius’ zeal for learning: in omitting the flute he imitated pedantically what King Minos had done on learning of his son Androgeos’ death (cf. Apollod. Bibl. 3.15.7; Plut. De tuenda sanitate praecepta 132f = Loeb Moralia vol. 2 pp268–269). Augustus had made it the rule for senators, whenever they convened, to offer incense (54.30.1) and wine (Suet. Aug. 35.3)—on the evidence of our text, to flute accompaniment. Cf. Talbert Senate 224–225. See F.R.D. Goodyear, “Tiberius and Gaius: Their Influence and Views on Literature,” ANRW 2.32.1.603–610 at 605–606 on Tiberius’ literary tastes; generally, M. Billerbeck, “Philology at the Imperial Court,” G&R 37 (1990), 191–203.

167. Is it possible that the senate session “on the morrow” of Tiberius’ arrival was not the very first since Augustus’ death, and that the senators now wore mourning as specified in a decree made at a prior meeting (cf. 41.3.1) rather than spontaneously or in accordance with Tiberius’ edict? By positing a senate session once word that Augustus was dead reached Rome one can better accommodate certain testimonia. (a) Tacitus remarks that in Rome, apparently before Tiberius arrived, “consuls, senators, and equites plunged into servility” (Ann. 1.7.1). This can suggest corporate action by the senators (apart from taking their oath of loyalty to Tiberius before the consuls [Ann. 1.7.2, 8.4]); we know of corporate action by the Equites before Tiberius arrived: Suet. Claud. 6.1; Demougin Ordre 862–863. (b) Velleius recalls the senatus trepidatio occasioned by Augustus’ death (2.124.1)— he had been a junior senator at the time. Did pietas not require the Senate to convene out of respect for the deceased emperor and the heir apparent? It had met to offer vows for Augustus’ recovery during his final illness: 56.29.3. Cf. Suet. Tit. 11.

29.2–47.2: The Year a.d. 14 (To Augustus’ Consecration)

309

kavtw ejn toi÷" bavqroi" roi":: The two consuls sat “below on the benches” of praetors and tribunes respectively (possibly at floor level) rather than on curule chairs on their tribunal (cf. 60.6.1). For the tribunician bench see 49.15.6–16.1; cf. 53.27.6; for the praetorian, 60.12.3. See Talbert Senate 121–124. On Drusus Caesar’s death in 23, the consuls sat with the senators at large (‘sede vulgari’) (Tac. Ann. 4.8.2), a more extreme gesture. The consul Sex. Pompeius attended despite a recently broken leg (56.45.2n). a[deia ejdovqh, o{ti tou÷ te nekrou÷, oujk ejxo;n dhv, h{yato kai; sumparevpemyen auj t ov n ((kaiv kaivt oi ta;" | . . . : “Tiberius was granted absolution for having touched the corpse (forbidden of course) and for escorting it (though the | . . .” Such acts of pietas168 were taboo for Tiberius, whether as emperor (at least de facto) or as holder of proconsular imperium (cf. 56.28.1n).169 Even visual contact could pollute—hence the interposing of a veil between emperor as laudator and corpse at the funerals of Augustus’ son-in-law Agrippa and sister Octavia in 12 and 11 b.c. (54.28.3, 35.4) and of Tiberius’ son Drusus in a.d. 23 (Sen. Marc. 15.3, “in order to shield his eyes as priest from the corpse” [‘quod pontificis oculos a funere arceret’]; cf. Plut. Numa 10.4, cf. 7). Tiberius perhaps asked for absolution in his relatio as president of our senate session.170 Lacuna. A single folio of the Codex Marcianus is lost after kaivtoi ta;". Nearly the whole of the missing segment can be salvaged from Xiphilinus and Zonaras; see Boissevain 2.544–545. We recover Dio’s text at 56.34.2.

32.1 a–4 Augustus’ Will Arguably this is the most important will ever made. Sources. Dio 56.32.1a–4; 57.2.1, 5.3, 14.1–3, 18.11; RG 20.3; Tac. Ann. 1.8.1– 2; Suet. Aug. 101.1–4, priceless details; Tib. 23, 50.1; Claud. 4.7; Nero 4; Charisius Gramm. 1 p132 Barwick = Malcovati p101 no. xxxiv. Select bibliography. Weber Princeps 45–76; Hohl Klio 30 (1937), 323–342; Timpe Untersuchungen 42–45 (the will served Augustus’ purposes as both aristocratic dynast and head of state); Kienast Augustus 147–148; Linderski “Julia” 189– 194; Champlin RhM 132 (1989), 154–165; in general, Champlin Judgments. 32.1a diaqhvka" [Zon.]:: “Drusus received Augustus’ will from Vesta’s ever-virgin priestesses, to whom it had been entrusted, and brought it into the Senate [sunevdrion].” Suetonius says that they “produced the will deposited with them” 168. In his edict summoning the Senate Tiberius declared his intention not to leave the corpse (‘neque abscedere a corpore’) (Tac. Ann. 1.7.4). 169. In 15 Tiberius criticized Germanicus for taking part in interring the dead on the site of the Varian disaster: “an imperator invested with the augurate and ritual functions of great antiquity should not have handled remains of the dead” (‘neque imperatorem auguratu et vetustissimis caerimoniis praeditum adtrectare feralia debuisse’) (Tac. Ann. 1.62.1–2 with Goodyear’s nn; cf. Suet. Cal. 3.2; Timpe Untersuchungen 41–42; Price “Consecration” 66). 170. Weber Princeps 40–43 connects with our text an obviously related if somewhat confused entry from Suidas s.v. Au[gousto": “When Augustus Caesar died, Tiberius and Drusus led the mourning [prohgou÷nto tou÷ pevnqou"], entirely without touching the corpse; for this was forbidden for rulers [ouj ga;r ejxo;n toi÷" monarcou÷sin]” (Suidae Lexicon, ed. A. Adler [5 parts; Leipzig, 1928–1938], 1.410–411).

310

Commentary on Book 56

(Aug. 101.1, where ‘apud se’ can suggest the house of the Vestals rather than Vesta’s shrine). There were precedents for entrusting the priestesses with wills, public compacts, and valuables: e.g., Julius Caesar’s will, committed to the eldest (a Vestal might be as young as six: 55.22.5n) (Suet. Iul. 83); a compact between Antony and Octavian (48.12.1–2); the treaty of Misenum (48.37.1, 46.2; App. B Civ. 5.73); Antony’s will (Plut. Ant. 58.4–8; cf. Dio 50.3.3–5). Cf. Tac. Ann. 1.8.1, ‘testamentum inlatum per virgines Vestae;’ Suet. Tib. 23. Caligula sent the Praetorian Prefect Sutorius Macro to the Senate with Tiberius’ will in 37 (59.1.2). oiJ katashmhnavmenoi [Zon.]:: “The signatories inspected their seals, and the will was read in the hearing of the Senate [sunedrivou].” The annexed documents were sealed the same as the will (Suet. Aug. 101.1). Seven citizen signatories were required (Gaius Inst. 2.147), a majority of whom had normally to be present at the opening (Paulus Sent. 4.6.1 = FIRA 2.375). The nonsenatorial witnesses had to inspect their seals outside the senate house (Suet. Tib. 23; cf. Talbert Senate 156–157). Cf. RE 2A.2399–2408 = Signum (Versiegelung) (Kubitschek). One signatory is known, L. Domitius Ahenobarbus (cos. 16 b.c.; see 55.10a.2n); Suet. Nero 4 says that he played the part of emptor familiae pecuniaeque (“purchaser of family and property”), to whom the testator, through an ancient legal ceremony per aes et libram, notionally sold his estate pending his own death. On the procedure see Gaius Inst. 2.102–108, esp. 104; Crook Law 128; Watson Law 11–21. 32.1 Poluvbiov" ti" kaisavreio" [Xiph.]:: “Polybius, an imperial freedman, read his will.” It was contained in ‘duobus codicibus,’ i.e., two hinged books, each made up of several waxed wooden tablets (cf. Suet. Iul. 83.2; Gaius Inst. 2.104); the books will have been placed together, then bound shut by a long cord passed through perforations in the margins of the wooden “pages” and tied on the back “cover” of the second book; the tie will have been secured with wax on which the signatories imprinted their seals (cf. L. Bablitz, “The Last Will and Testament of Augustus” [master’s thesis, University of Saskatchewan, 1996], 28–35 and plates I–III for a reconstruction). Written with a stylus partly in Augustus’ hand, partly in those of Polybius and another freedman, Hilarion, the will was dated 3 April a.d. 13 (Suet. Aug. 101.1). It began: “Since cruel fortune has snatched away my sons Gaius and Lucius, let Tiberius Caesar be my heir to a two-thirds share [‘Tiberius Caesar mihi ex parte dimidia et sextante heres esto’]” (Suet. Tib. 23; cf. RG 14.1). Augustus will have gone on next to institute Livia as coheir (surprisingly, Suet. Tib. omits this): Roman legal practice required that the institution of the heir(s) head the will (Gaius Inst. 2.229 with Watson Law 40–41). On Polybius (not Claudius’ like-named freedman) see PIR2 I 475; RE 21.1578– 1579 (Hanslik); on kaisavreio" see 52.24.4n; Vrind De Vocabulis 129–133. Millar Emperor 72–73 finds in his role “clear evidence of the semi-professional ‘secretarial’ functions henceforward performed by the freedmen.” See in general Duff Freedmen 151–152; Boulvert Esclaves 39–40; P.R.C. Weaver, Familia Caesaris: A Social Study of the Emperor’s Freedmen and Slaves (Cambridge, 1972).

29.2–47.2: The Year a.d. 14 (To Augustus’ Consecration)

311

mh; prev p on [Xiph.]:: “since it was improper for a senator to read such a thing.” Macro (cf. 56.32.1an), an eques, read Tiberius’ will in the Senate (59.1.3). The taboo was perhaps against reading a dead man’s will: Augustus had once offered to read his own will in the Senate (53.31.1). Nothing prevented Tiberius’ son Drusus, a senator, from reading out annexes to the will (56.33.1). duv o mev r h [Xiph.]:: “Two-thirds of the inheritance was left to Tiberius, the rest to Livia, as some say.” Suet. Aug. 101.2 gives the same proportions but mentions no variance in the sources; cf. Tac. Ann. 1.8.1: the will “had Tiberius and Livia as heirs.” para; to;n novmon katalipei÷n [Xiph.]:: “So that Livia too might derive some benefit from his property, Augustus asked the Senate for leave, despite the law, to bequeath this much [a third] to her.” The unnamed law is the Voconian of 169 b.c., which forbade any testator whose wealth exceeded 100,000 HS to institute a woman as heir (see 56.10.2n). Augustus probably made his request not in his will (as Dio’s account can suggest) but earlier.171 Already in a.d. 9 (56.10.2), provision had been made for “certain of the women” to take the previously banned inheritances; the context—passage of the Lex Papia Poppaea—suggests that these were women qualified by fertility to inherit if only testators were allowed to name them. It was plausibly then that Augustus had asked to be exempted for Livia’s sake.172 Dio has failed to make clear that the legal issue was not whether Augustus could leave a third to Livia but whether he could name her heir at all. Even without exemption from the Lex Voconia, he could have bequeathed her up to one-half as a legatee while making Tiberius sole heir.173 But his aim was to make her heir, a status that conferred honor without parallel, a publicly rendered personal judgment on her incomparable role as imperial consort and as mother, grandmother, and (through the will: 57.18.11) great-grandmother of Caesars. Provided that she survived to see Tiberius succeed, this status would also buttress her auctoritas as a kind of “mother consort” (cf. Suet. Tib. 50.2–3). Although Livia was sui iuris and so technically competent to dispose of her onethird as she wished, I assume that her portion was to revert to Tiberius or his heir(s) on her death, perhaps under the terms of a fideicommissum. See in general S. Dixon, The Roman Mother (London, 1988), 47–48; Champlin Judgments 126, 120–124, 178–180; R.P. Saller, Patriarchy, Property, and Death in the Roman Family (Cambridge, 1994), 168–180 (“Strategies of succession in Roman families”). 32.2 klhrov n omoi . . . ou ¿ ouJJtoi [Xiph.]:: “The above were entered as heirs,” i.e., Tiberius and Livia. Dio omits the substitute heirs (as historically insignificant since they did not succeed?). Heirs in the second degree were Augustus’ grandsons— 171. So Champlin RhM 132 (1989), 156 n7: “Augustus had [note the pluperfect] scrupulously obtained exemption.” 172. Livia was capax in her own right by virtue of ius trium liberorum, granted to her in 9 b.c. (55.2.5). 173. The Lex Voconia provided that “no one was permitted to take more as a legacy . . . than the heirs took” (Gaius Inst. 2.226); the Lex Falcidia that the heir have at least a quarter share (2.227). Cf. Gardner Women 170–178.

312

Commentary on Book 56

through adoption—Drusus Caesar and Germanicus Caesar and his three natural great-grandsons, children of Agrippina and Germanicus (Suet. Aug. 101.2). Despite Dio’s silence (but cf. 57.18.11) their choice offers a key to Augustus’ testamentary strategy: cf. Appendix 12. In the third degree were “many relatives and friends” (Suet. Aug. 101.2), including the future emperor Claudius for a one-sixth share (Suet. Claud. 4.7).174 Having been formally disowned in 7 (55.32.2n), Augustus’ grandson and adopted son Agrippa Postumus had no claim as heir and so could be excluded without being disinherited nominatim (otherwise required in the case of a son: Gaius Inst. 2.123, 127): B.M. Levick, “Atrox Fortuna,” CR 22 (1972), 310–311; but cf. Champlin “Testament” 156 n8. On the status of Augustus’ disgraced daughter Julia in the will see 56.32.4n. kthvmata . . . crhvmata [Xiph.]:: Augustus willed “many possessions and sums of money” as legacies to relatives and others. Cf. Suet. Aug. 101.3; Champlin RhM 132 (1989), 161–163. These included personal articles cited by the fourth-century grammarian Charisius (Gramm. 1 p132 Barwick = Malcovati p101 no. xxxiv). Among the relatives (proshkovntwn) Claudius got some 800,000 HS (Suet. Claud. 4.7). basileu÷si [Xiph.]:: “to kings.” These could take bequests thanks to the now developed practice of granting Roman citizenship to client rulers: Braund King 155 with n116. dhv m w/ [Xiph.]:: “to the People a thousand myriads,” 10,000,000 denarii = 40,000,000 HS. Suetonius says that Augustus bequeathed (‘legavit’) this sum to the Roman People plus 3,500,000 HS “to the tribes” (Aug. 101.2), Tacitus 43,500,000 HS to People and Plebs (Ann. 1.8.2 with Goodyear’s n [1.144–145]). With “to the People” Dio cannot mean all Roman citizens everywhere. Augustus’ bequest did not suffice for generosity on such a scale (cf. RG 8.4). Rather the beneficiaries were the recipients of the grain dole in Rome, the plebs frumentaria (cf. 55.10.1n; Appendix 4). The bequest, Dio informs us later, was paid in 15 and amounted to sixty-five denarii = 260 HS per person (57.14.2). At this rate 40,000,000 HS will have provided for 153,861 recipients. A difficulty to be got round is the fact that as recently as 2 b.c. the plebs frumentaria numbered ca 200,000 (RG 15.4; 55.10.1n). Van Berchem Distributions 29, 144–147 argues that their total had by now fallen toward 150,000, the number to whom Tiberius’ viritim legacy of 300 HS was paid by Caligula in 37 (59.2.2 with Fasti Ostienses in IIt. 13.1.190–191 = EJ p43; cf. Suet. Tib. 76; Cal. 17.2).175 The smaller legacy of 3,500,000 HS “to the tribes” (‘tribubus’) (Suet. Aug. 101.2; cf. Tac. Ann. 1.8.2, ‘plebi’) was probably to be divided equally among thirty-five corporations, each consisting of the plebeian residents of Rome in a given tribe, 174. Cf. Tac. Ann. 1.8.1: “In the third degree Augustus had enrolled leading public figures, many of them anathema to him.” 175. Van Berchem holds that Augustus reduced the number of those entitled through laws limiting manumission (cf. 55.13.7n), by substituting origo for domus as a qualification, and with tight control (30–54). Cf. Virlouvet Tessera 186–196: after fixing the plebs frumentaria at ca 200,000 in 2 b.c., Augustus made a still further reduction to ca 150,000 (through the recensus in Suet. Aug. 40.2; this is undated), probably in the aftermath of the famines of 5–7 (cf. Suet. Aug. 42.3; 55.26.1–3n).

29.2–47.2: The Year a.d. 14 (To Augustus’ Consecration)

313

for use toward corporate benefits or projects. See Nicolet “Tabula Siarensis” 115– 127, esp. 123. The thirty-five are called collectively ‘pleps urbana quinque et triginta tribuum’ (“the urban plebs of the thirty-five tribes”) in ILS 176, a dedication to Germanicus Caesar; cf. 168. The plebs frumentaria, whose members received 260 HS each, was a subset of the plebs urbana. Omission of the bequest “to the tribes” in Dio’s text may result from simplification—his own or Xiphilinus’ (so Boissevain ad loc. [2.545]).176 On group legacies cf. Champlin Judgments 157–168. stratiwvtai" [Xiph.]:: The bequests “to the soldiers” in Dio and Suet. Aug. 101.2 correspond: for men in the Praetorian Guard 1,000 HS each, in the Urban Cohorts 500 (cf. 55.24.6n), in the legions 300. Tacitus gives identical figures for Praetorians and legionaries; with the latter he groups “cohorts of Roman citizens” fighting as auxiliary units (Ann. 1.8.2). Dio accommodates the existence of these non-legionary citizen units by writing “to the remaining citizen complement;” cf. 59.2.3. The Vigiles, recruited from freedmen (55.26.4–5n), are not mentioned by our sources; under Tiberius’ will they received the same sum as legionaries (59.2.3). The bequests to men in the three different forces amounted to one-third of a year’s pay: 55.23.1n; G.R. Watson, The Roman Soldier (London, 1969), 97– 98. Bequests to civilians and soldiers were to be paid forthwith from funds previously set aside (Suet. Aug. 101.2); this was done the next year (57.14.1–3; cf. Suet. Tib. 57.2). Cf. 64.3.3n, 9.1n. 32.3 paisiv n [Xiph.]:: “What is more, he ordered children from whose fathers he had inherited while they were still small to be repaid in full with interest whenever they reached manhood. This was also his habit while alive.” Suet. Aug. 66.4 gives a parallel account. Dio has Tiberius laud Augustus’ practice in his funeral eulogy (56.41.8). The will no doubt contained a general instruction, not the schedule of names and properties needed to execute it. For friends’ bequests that Augustus retained cf. Suet. Aug. 101.3 (“1,400,000,000 HS from the wills of friends in his last twenty years”!) with I. Shatzman, Senatorial Wealth and Roman Politics (Brussels, 1975), 361–362. 32.4 ajllotrivou" pai÷da" . . . qugatevra [Xiph.]:: “While treating others’ children in this way, he did not restore his daughter—though he did deem her worthy of legacies [kaivper kai; dwrew÷n ajxiwvsa"]—but forbade her to be buried in his own tomb.” Dio relishes the paradox, though he is not, I suggest, critical of Augustus, whom he has Tiberius praise for his strictness toward close kin (56.40.6). As Augustus’ daughter, Julia qualified as his heir under the law: Linderski “Julia” 188–190; cf. Watson Law 41–42. The fact that the will did not name her as an heir shows that it disinherited her, perhaps expressly, but more likely through a general exheredatio clause such as regularly followed the institution of heirs.177 176. Cf. C. Nicolet, “Plèbe et tribus: les statues de Lucius Antonius et le testament d’Auguste,” MEFRA 97 (1985), 799–839; Nicolet Space 197–198; Carter on Suet. Aug. 101.2. 177. See FIRA 3.130, the will of Antonius Silvanus: ‘ceteri ali omnes exheredes sunto’ (“let all others be disinherited”). Cf. Crook Law 122.

314

Commentary on Book 56

Without exheredatio she would have inherited even if passed over in the will (cf. Gaius Inst. 2.124). Disinheritance did not disqualify her as a legatee. Linderski holds, however (“Julia” 184–190, esp. 185 n11), that Augustus “left Julia no legacy;” rather Dio has here made a “garbled reference” to the peculium which Augustus, as paterfamilias, had granted her during his own lifetime but which now passed not to her but to Tiberius and Livia as heirs, failing any provision in the will. According to Suet. Tib. 50.1, besides other inhumanity to his ex-wife, Tiberius “even cheated her of the peculium and annual allowance granted by her father, on the ground Augustus had made no provision for these in his will.” It is a difficulty in Linderski’s view that Dio’s word dwreva regularly means “legacy” in testamentary contexts (cf. 55.25.5n). Only by an explicit exclusion in the will could Julia’s right to be buried in Augustus’ Mausoleum be abrogated under Roman sepulchral law; this was the case even if she was disinherited (Linderski “Julia” 190–192). From Suet. Aug. 101.3 we learn that, as well as Julia filia, Augustus’ will barred his granddaughter Julia from burial in the Mausoleum.178

33.1–6 Annexes to the Will Read Four other documents (bibliva), says Dio (cf. Suet. Aug. 101.1, 4: “three”), were now brought into the Senate, where they were read by Drusus: (a) burial instructions; (b) an account of Augustus’ achievements (sc. his Res Gestae) with orders for a permanent record; (c) a summary of state manpower and fiscal resources; (d) admonitions for Tiberius and the state. Suetonius’ designation of the annexes as volumina shows that they were rolls (rather than, like the will, waxed tablets), a sense that Dio’s term biblia accommodates. Table 8 compares Dio’s account of the annexes with the accounts of Suetonius and Tacitus. Dio places the reading of all the testamentary annexes explicitly in the senate session before the funeral (56.34.1). His report is paralleled in Suet. Aug. 101.1– 2 (where [d] is omitted, however): “everything was opened and read out in the Senate,” specifically the will plus “three volumina sealed the same” as the will. But Suetonius does not state in which senate session they were read, turning to the will and its annexes only after relating Augustus’ obsequies (perhaps for compositional reasons). Many scholars forsake Dio’s order of events because Tacitus reports that (c) was read (with its addendum partly paralleling [d] in Dio) in the senate session following Augustus’ interment, when Tiberius ordered the reading in response to senators’ pleas that he shoulder the Principate (Ann. 1.11.1–4; Tacitus nowhere registers [a] or [b]). See, for example, Hohl Klio 30 (1937), 325–328, highly critical of Dio: (c), the breviarium, was read only on 17 September; (d), the political testament, is “an invention;” Goodyear on Tac. Ann. 1.11.3 (1.178); M.M. Sage, “Tacitus and the Accession of Tiberius,” Anc. Soc. 13/14 (1982/1983), 296 n20, 310 n96. On the other hand, Klingner thinks that the breviarium totius imperii 178. On Julia neptis, not mentioned in the extant History, see 55.27.1–3n.

29.2–47.2: The Year a.d. 14 (To Augustus’ Consecration)

315

Table 8 Annexes to the Will of Augustus: Testimonia of Dio, Suetonius, and Tacitus

Dio 56.33.1–6: Four biblia, all read in the session before the funeral.

Suetonius Aug. 101.1, 4: Three volumina, all apparently read in the session before the funeral.

Tacitus Ann. 1.11.3–4: One libellus in Augustus’ hand plus an addition, read in a session after the funeral.

(a) “what pertained to the burial”

“instructions for the funeral” (‘mandata de funere suo’)

———

(b) “all the deeds he had done”

“a summary of his achievements” (‘indicem rerum a se gestarum’)

———

(c) “soldiers, state revenues, and expenses . . .”

“a survey of the entire empire” (‘breviarium totius imperii’)

“state resources, . . . the number of citizens and allies under arms . . .”

(d) “instructions and admonitions”

———

“he had added his advice to keep the empire within present boundaries”

was read out in the first session as well as being introduced at the next (Tacitus 27–28). Timpe mediates: at the earlier session the existence of all the documents was announced but only what concerned honors for Augustus was read out (cf. Tac. Ann. 1.7.4, ‘de honoribus parentis consulturum,’ 8.1), sc. (a) and (b) plus the will (Untersuchungen 45, cf. 52–53). Tacitus’ segregation of the breviarium contrary to Suetonius and Dio suggests to me that Tiberius called for a second reading on 17 September, some two weeks having passed since its first reading along with the will. Although Tacitus introduces it in detail as if for its debut, that may result from his having Tiberius’ rather than Augustus’ reign as his subject. When Augustus composed the breviarium as an adjunct to his will, writing it out himself (Tac. Ann. 1.11.4: ‘sua manu perscripserat’), he no doubt had in mind an audience and an occasion for its recitation. The fact that Tiberius forbade the transaction of business at the earlier session except with regard to Augustus’ obsequies (‘nihil . . . agi passus nisi de supremis,’ Tac. Ann. 1.8.1) does not rule out a reading of the breviarium. Tacitus recounts the 17 September reading as arising spontaneously out of the debate, rather than as a planned first public reading. Champlin RhM 132 (1989), 163–164 insists that the three volumina in Suet. Aug. 101.1, 4 were codicils to the will rather than independent documents. 33.1 aujta; oJ Drou÷so" ajnevgnw [Xiph.]:: “Drusus read them,” the annexes to the will. The session had opened with an address of Tiberius, which Drusus finished reading when grief overcame his father (Suet. Tib. 23).

316

Commentary on Book 56

(a) First Annex: Instructions for the Funeral o{sa th÷" taûh÷" ei[ceto [Xiph.]:: The first annex contained “what pertained to the burial.” Its reading spawned a series of senate decrees, recognizable in Dio’s funeral narrative as these were implemented (56.34.4, 42.1, 3, 43.1) or in sententiae of senators in Suet. Aug. 100.2–3 and Tac. Ann. 1.8.3–5. See Weber Princeps 82–83, identifying the various proposals; Arce Funus 37–40. Rowell MAAR 17 (1940), 131–132, 142–143 looks for the substance of Augustus’ mandata in elements of the funeral not mentioned in senate decrees, for example, the novel procession of great Romans unrelated to Augustus. On registering instructions for one’s own funeral cf. Flower 116–117. (b) Second Annex: Augustus’ Achievements ta; e[rga a} e[praxe . . . ej" calka÷" sthvla" [Xiph.]:: In the second annex were recorded “all his achievements, which he ordered inscribed on bronze tablets set up at his shrine [hJrwv/w/].”179 This is the Res Gestae Divi Augusti, of which a virtually intact marble copy is extant (with Greek translation) on the walls of the Temple of Rome and Augustus at Ancyra (modern Ankara) in Galatia.180 The now lost original, declares the title of the Ancyran inscription, was set up in Rome, “engraved on two bronze pillars” (Latin, ‘aheneis pilis;’ Greek, calkai÷" sthvlai"); cf. Suet. Aug. 101.4, ‘aeneis tabulis.’ Against Dio, Suetonius says (no doubt correctly) that Augustus wanted the inscription in front of his Mausoleum (Aug. 101.4), not at his shrine. Dio has also falsely made Augustus take his own consecration for granted. The Temple of Divus Augustus was voted only on 17 September and took Tiberius’ whole reign to complete (56.46.3n; 59.7.1). Dio’s “at his shrine [hJrwv/w/]” cannot refer to the Mausoleum, for which his word is mnhmei÷on: 53.30.5; 54.28.5; 55.2.3; 56.32.4, 42.4; 58.22.5; 64.3.4c; 66.17.2; cf. 59.3.5, mnh÷ma. He uses hJrw÷o/ n regularly of the shrine of a deified mortal: Julius Caesar (51.22.2; 54.35.4; 51.15.5, Alexandria); Augustus (56.46.4; 59.7.1); Apollonius of Tyana (77.18.4); Pertinax (74.4.1). (c) Third Annex: State Resources 33.2 to; trivton [Xiph.]:: “The third document,” a “breviarium of the whole empire” (Suet. Aug. 101.4), is the only annex described by all of Dio, Suetonius, and Tacitus. Correspondences are frequent, for example, ta; . . . tw÷n stratiwtw÷n (Dio), ‘quantum militum sub signis ubique esset’ (Suet.), ‘quantum civium sociorumque in armis’ (Tac.). This was not the first such digest Augustus had prepared: when 179. For sthvlh used of an inscribed tablet cf. 44.7.1, 53.4; 59.16.8; 60.10.2. 180. On the composition of the second annex see Gagé 16–23: although Augustus may have composed the earliest version of RG in the years following the settlement of 27 b.c., it took its “forme quasi définitive” ca 8–2 b.c., after which he made only minor, scattered revisions (e.g., references to his last year at 4.4, 8.4, and 35.2); Brunt & Moore 6: composition was progressive; cf. E.S. Ramage, “The Date of Augustus’ Res Gestae,” Chiron 18 (1988), 71–82: the whole was a unitary composition of summer 14. Cf. Ramage, The Nature and Purpose of Augustus’ “Res Gestae” (Historia Einzelschriften 54) (Wiesbaden, 1987), 117–157 at 132–135, on “date and genesis;” Bosworth “Apotheosis.”

29.2–47.2: The Year a.d. 14 (To Augustus’ Consecration)

317

near death in 23 b.c., after convening magistrates and leading men in his home, he handed the consul Cn. Calpurnius Piso a ‘rationarium imperii’ enumerating armed forces and public revenues (Suet. Aug. 28.1; 53.30.1–2). Augustus’ schedules of state resources were an extraordinary initiative, one that subsequent emperors other than Caligula appear not to have emulated (cf. Suet. Cal. 16.1): F. Millar, “The Aerarium and its Officials under the Empire,” JRS 54 (1964), 38– 39 and Emperor 267–268. Cf. Nicolet Space 178–183; Ando Ideology 149–152; M.A. Speidel, “Geld und Macht. Die Neurodnung des staatlichen Finanzwesens unter Augustus,” in La Révolution Romaine après Ronald Syme: Bilans et perspectives (Entretiens sur l’antiquité classique 46) (Genève, 2000), 113–166. ej n toi÷ " qhsauroi÷ " [Xiph.]:: “The amount of money in the treasuries.” Cf. Suet. Aug. 101.4, distinguishing monies in the treasury, in fiscs (provincial: Carter ad loc.; cf. OCD3 598–599), and in the form of outstanding taxes (‘vectigaliorum residuis;’ cf. OLD s.v. residuus 2 b).

(d) Fourth Annex: Social and Political Advice 33.3 to; tevtarton [Xiph.]:: “The fourth document” tendered advice “to Tiberius and the commonwealth:”181 to limit manumission and citizenship extension; to entrust affairs to all men of intelligence and ability rather than rely on one man; and not to enlarge the empire. Tacitus does not specify a separate fourth document, but after describing a libellus that was clearly Dio’s third document (and Suetonius’ handwritten breviarium) he notes that Augustus “had added his advice to keep the empire within present boundaries” (‘addideratque consilium coercendi intra terminos imperii’) (Ann. 1.11.4; cf. Agr. 13.2). Suetonius mentions neither a fourth document nor an addition to the third (Aug. 101.4).182 His silence, falling after an unimpeachable account of the first three documents that parallels Dio’s, weighs heavily against the latter’s report of a fourth. Perhaps Dio followed a source in common with Suetonius as far as the third document, then resorted to a weaker tradition (shared with Tacitus) that offered an irresistible chance to edify his contemporaries. Although Dio’s fourth biblion refers palpably to certain Augustan policies, such as restraint in manumission and parsimony in granting Roman citizenship, it also evokes suspiciously Dio’s own contemporary aversions: Rome awash with naturalized barbarians, ignoramuses in government, rulers who isolated themselves from the wisdom of senatorial helpers, and frontier adventurism. Emulating Hohl’s skepticism (cf. on 56.33.1–6), Ober “Testament” 313–324 argues that “Dio himself created the political testament as a covert means of criti-

181. Anachronistically, as if the succession had already been ratified (Timpe Untersuchungen 52). 182. Woodman argues (pp225–227) that the ‘ordinatio comitiorum’ that Augustus wrote out in his own hand and left for Tiberius (Vell. 2.124.3, cf. 126.2) “formed part of the fourth book which Aug. left on his death (Dio 56.34.3), or, if Dio is not to be believed, possibly an addition to the third book, the breviarium totius imperii mentioned by Suet. Aug. 101.4.” The ordinatio contained instructions (Woodman holds) for the reform that Tiberius implemented later in 14, effectively shifting a major electoral role from comitia to Senate.

318

Commentary on Book 56

cizing certain of Caracalla’s policies he found objectionable (321).183 Among scholars who accept the idea that Augustus did leave a “political testament” such as Dio records see Weber Princeps 67–75 (repudiated by Hohl); Timpe Untersuchungen 52–53, more circumspect. For an inventory of scholarly positions see Ober “Testament” 308–309 and nn. mhvt! ajpeleuqerw÷si pollouv" . . . mhv t ! au aujj ¿ ej" th;n politeivan sucnou;" ej s grav û wsin [Xiph.]:: “not to free a great many slaves, filling the city with a motley rabble, or to enroll a great many new citizens, rather keeping the distinction clear between Romans and subjects.” Cf. Suet. Aug. 40.3: “Thinking it . . . of high importance to keep the people undefiled by any contamination of foreign and servile blood [‘colluvione peregrini ac servilis sanguinis’], Augustus granted Roman citizenship very sparingly and set limits to manumission.” For his laws limiting manumission see 55.13.7n. On his citizenship policy, one of gradualist extension, see A.N. Sherwin-White, The Roman Citizenship2 (Oxford, 1973), 225–236; Carter on Suet. Aug. 40.3–4 (pp153–155). On Dio’s socially exclusive attitudes see Ober “Testament” 315. 33.4 tav te koina; pa÷ s i toi÷ " dunamev n oi" kai; eij d ev n ai kai; prav t tein ej p itrev p ein, kai; ej " mhdev n a 〈e{ n a a〉〉 [Reimar,184 Boissevain] aj n arta÷ n auj t av [Xiph.]:: Augustus “urged them to entrust the commonwealth to all men of intelligence and achievement and not have it depend on any one person; in this way no one would aspire to tyranny nor if something untoward befell the ruler would the state be ruined.” An historically improbable report bearing marks of authorial reworking. The call for the elite to be taken into partnership with the emperor sounds like an oblique hint to the Severan court on behalf of a marginalized Senate (cf. Ober “Testament” 315–317); the delicately proffered security advantages of power sharing accord ill with the well-stocked dynasty at Tiberius’ accession (cf. Tac. Ann. 1.8.6). Still, those scholars are right who reject Hohl’s judgment that Dio has simply invented Augustus’ advice. See especially Klingner Tacitus 27–30: Tiberius’ appeal to the senators in their session of 17 September “not to impose the whole burden on one person” (Tac. Ann. 1.11.1) makes sense as a sequel to Augustus’ testamentary advice about sharing the government—both Tiberius and, posthumously, Augustus were playing out a tortuous “republican” ritual in solemnizing the first political succession; also G. Kampff, “Three Senate Meetings in the Early Principate,” Phoenix 17 (1963), 30–32; B. Parsi-Magdelain, “L’avènement de Tibère,” RHDFE 56 (1978), 410–413; Brunt CQ 34 (1984), 425.

183. Dio drew the material for the spurious testament (Ober holds) not out of the air but from his sources. Augustus’ conservative citizenship and manumission policies were well known to him; the germ for the advice against placing the government entirely in one man’s hands may have come from Tiberius’ recusatio imperii in the Senate on 17 September (317); the consilium coercendi possibly originated in Tiberius’ misappropriating the dead emperor’s name to palliate his own policy of imperial retrenchment (324–328). 184. An alternative to Reimar’s emendation would be to read kai; mh; ej" e{na tina; ajnarta÷n aujtav on the basis of 53.8.7: kai; ta; koina; koinw÷" a]n polu; bevltion a{te kai; uJpo; pollw÷n a{ma diagovmena kai; mh; ej" e{na tina; ajnhrthmevna dioikoi÷to (“the commonwealth would be far better administered in common, since it would be directed by many at once and not depend on any one person”).

29.2–47.2: The Year a.d. 14 (To Augustus’ Consecration)

319

33.5 mhdamw÷" ejpi; plei÷on th;n ajrchvn [Xiph.]:: Augustus “advised them to be content with what they had and under no circumstances to want to expand their empire further.” Vulnerable as is Augustus’ “political testament” to critical assaults (cf. 56.33.3–4n), this injunction at least is corroborated by Tac. Ann. 1.11.4, ‘consilium coercendi intra terminos imperii.’ This consilium flies in the face of Augustus’ career with its unrivaled record of conquest. But it makes some sense as a response to the grave checks to expansion recently delivered by the rebellions in Illyricum and Germany led by the Batos and Arminius. It also fits the resignation of trans-Rhenane ambitions by Tiberius. 33.6 lov g w/ . . . e[ r gw/ [Xiph.]:: “Actually Augustus always [ajeiv pote185] observed this principle himself in both word and deed: though he might have acquired many other barbarian territories [proskthvsasqai], he declined to do so.” Speaking in his own person, Dio echoes a dispatch of Augustus to the Senate in 20 b.c. that discountenanced the annexation of allied or client states or the launching of fresh conquests (54.9.1n). But in his enthusiasm for restraint in frontier policy he has elevated that earlier pronouncement, which addressed the circumstances of the moment in the East, into a permanent and general policy, inconsistently with his narrative of intervening expansionary wars, notably those fought by Drusus and Tiberius on the northern frontiers down to a.d. 6. No less falsely he has Tiberius praise Augustus in his funeral oration for always being content with essential acquisitions and unwilling to risk further conquests (56.41.7n). Cf. 53.10.4.

34.1–42.4: THE FUNERAL OF AUGUSTUS See Map 2. With condescending Romanocentrism Dio evokes the panorama of the first imperial funeral—the train of ancestral and national imagines, laudationes in the Forum, and the cremation pageant in the Campus Martius. For him the Rome bequeathed by Augustus evinced order, consensus, and permanence. Contrast Tacitus’ cynicism and brevity (Ann. 1.8.6, 10.8, ‘sepultura more perfecta’). Dio’s interest arose in part from witnessing, as a young senator, the funeral of Pertinax in 193, which he recounts graphically at 74.4.2–5.5, a passage composed originally for his civil war monograph (Introduction sec. 5.5). Sources. Besides Dio, Suet. Aug. 100.2–4; Tac. Ann. 1.8.3–6, cf. 10.8. Select bibliography. Weber Princeps 76–86 and nn (microscopic commentary on texts); Rowell MAAR 17 (1940), 131–143; Toynbee Death 56–60; Price “Consecration” 56–105 (imperial obsequies blended funeral traditions of aristocratic houses [cf. Polyb. 6.53–54] with ruler cult “calqued on the cult of the gods” [79]); Arce Funus (funerals from republican aristocrats to Christian emperors, featuring material evidence); Demougin Ordre 261–272 (role of the equestrian order); 185. Emphatic: cf. 54.25.5; 56.41.3, 41.7; Denniston 12–13; Thuc. 6.82.2.

320

Commentary on Book 56

Wesch-Klein Funus, esp. 19–38 (imperial funerals surveyed), 91–101 (mourning); Flower (essential); Gradel, esp. 261–371. For comparative material cf. P. Metcalf & R. Huntington, Celebrations of Death: The Anthropology of Mortuary Ritual2 (Cambridge, 1991). Augustus’ funeral was prefigured by Sulla’s in its magnificence (App. B Civ. 1.105–106)186 and by Julius Caesar’s with its “clear indication that Caesar would achieve divinity” (App. B Civ. 2.136, 143–148; Suet. Iul. 84.1–4; cf. Weinstock Julius 346–355; Arce Funus 33–34, quoted; Flower 125–126). It was rehearsed in funerals for Marcellus (23 b.c.), Agrippa (12; see 54.28.5), Octavia (11), Drusus (9), Lucius Caesar (a.d. 2), and Gaius Caesar (4), and was normative for later imperial funerals (e.g., 60.35.2). See Price “Consecration” 60, a table comparing the best-known imperial funerals—of Augustus, Pertinax (74.4.2–5.5; SHA Pert. 14.6–15.5), and Septimius Severus (Hdn. 3.15.7; 4.1.3–4, 2.1–3.1; Dio 76.15.3– 4; SHA Sev. 19.3–4, 24.1–2). The day of Augustus’ funeral is unknown. On the parallel of Tiberius’ obsequies in 37187 Levick posits 8 September, allowing four clear days following the entry into Rome, which she dates 3 September, for the lying in state (Tiberius 70); Sage, believing that “the season of the year would have dictated seemly haste,” prefers 6 September (“Accession” 297, 306); Wellesley “Dies Imperii” 27 assumes that the funeral preceded Drusus’ departure for Pannonia, which he dates 4 September at the latest.188 34.1 klivnh [Xiph.]:: “There was a couch made of ivory and gold and adorned with gold-embroidered purple coverings. The corpse was concealed underneath in a chest, . . .” Augustus’ regal bier—like Sulla’s (App. B Civ. 1.105, ejpi; klivnh" crushlavtou kai; kovsmou basilikou÷) or Julius Caesar’s (Suet. Iul. 84.1, ‘lectus eburneus auro ac purpura stratus’)—would have shocked an earlier age.189 It apparently headed rather than closed the procession of imagines (cf. 56.34.2), for Flower “a striking dramatization of his claim to outshine the merits of past leaders” (244–245; cf. M. Bettini, Anthropology and Roman Culture: Kinship, Time, Images of the Soul [Baltimore, 1991], 177–178). For the traditional order, with bier following the procession of ancestral imagines, cf. Tac. Ann. 3.76.2 with n of Woodman & Martin.190 eij k w; n . . . khrivnh ejn ejpinikivw/ stolh÷/ [Xiph.]:: “. . . but a wax image of it in triumphal dress was open to view.” Wax was the medium for lifelike portraiture: Plin. HN 35.6 with Polyb. 6.53.5; cf. F.W. Walbank, A Historical Commentary 186. See Arce Funus 17–33, who finds in its megalomania, surpassing the restraints of mos and lex, “el modelo perfecto y apropiado para los Emperadores” (27). 187. Arrival of the corpse in Rome 29 March, funeral 3 April: Fasti Ostienses in IIt. 13.1.190–191 = EJ p43. 188. He seems to contradict this chronology in his table of events (“Dies Imperii” 26), where he gives outside limits of 2/10 September for the funeral. 189. M. Aemilius Lepidus, who died 152 b.c. having being twice consul (187, 175 b.c.), Pontifex Maximus, censor, and princeps senatus, instructed his sons not to spread his funeral couch with purple (Livy Per. 48); on legislation limiting funeral expenditures and ostentation see Flower 117–121. 190. The foremost placement of Augustus’ bier was perhaps not unprecedented. On Arce’s reconstruction, Sulla’s bier (except for trumpeters) headed the procession (Funus 20–21)—though our sources make no mention of the ancestral imagines in it.

29.2–47.2: The Year a.d. 14 (To Augustus’ Consecration)

321

on Polybius, vol. 1 (Oxford, 1957), 737–740. Dio leaves basic questions unanswered: in what posture was the image displayed?191 Did a mannequin or an actor wear mask and garment? Augustus’ dress as triumphator signaled his highest career distinction. He will have worn a toga picta (purple with embroidered designs) over a tunica palmata (purple with palm-leaf motifs) (see, in particular, Festus 228 Lindsay).192 The embroidery was of gold: Polyb. 6.53.7; cf. App. Lib. 66 (stars on the purple triumphal costume of the elder Scipio Africanus). The painted figure of Vel Sathies in the François Tomb, Vulci, gives some notion of how the toga picta was embroidered: L. Bonfante Warren, “Roman Triumphs and Etruscan Kings: The Changing Face of the Triumph,” JRS 60 (1970), plate 8 (3) with p64. 34.2 ejk tou÷ palativou pro;" tw÷n ej" nevwta ajr|cov cov n twn [Xiph., then Dio’s text, which resumes here following the lacuna after 56.31.3]:: Now the bier, image and all, was borne from “the palace,” where it had been laid out in the forecourt (‘in vestibulo’) of Augustus’ house (Suet. Aug. 100.2; cf. Hdn. 4.2.2–3),193 to the Forum (cf. 56.42.1n) “by the magistrates designate” for 15. How many designati participated as bearers, or how actively, is unclear. At Nola, where Augustus died, forty Praetorian guardsmen carried him out (‘extulerunt’) to public view (Suet. Aug. 99.2). But these presumably numbered attendant as well as active bearers (cf. 56.42.1, sunexevûeren). Eight active bearers are depicted on an anonymous funeral relief from Amiternum: Weinstock Julius plate 23.3 facing 360 or Flower plate 6. The twelve praetors for 15 had not yet been elected (Vell. 2.124.3–4). ejk tou÷ bouleuthrivou . . . ejû! a{rmato" pompikou÷: “a second image, of gold, from the senate house, and still another on a triumphal chariot.” These were apt symbols of Augustus’ preeminence domi et militiae. The golden image, clearly manufactured in Augustus’ lifetime, can perhaps be taken as intimating divinity (cf. Fishwick Cult 2.1.543–545: excellence). Weber Princeps 76–77 holds that it was to this image (‘effigiem’) that senators later made protestations in pressing Tiberius to rule (Tac. Ann. 1.11.3). Cf. 59.11.2, a golden image in the senate chamber voted upon her apotheosis for Caligula’s sister Drusilla, the next imperial to be consecrated. The chariot is one of a number of features of the funeral that assimilate a triumphal procession,194 including the differentiated portraits 191. In Polybius’ day the deceased would sometimes be borne to the Rostra “upright in clear view” (eJstw;" ejnarghv"), very occasionally “lying down” (katakeklimevno") (6.53.1); Flower 129–130 glosses eJstwv" as “propped up in a sitting position,” following Walbank. But why not rather standing, the literal sense? A wax likeness of Julius Caesar, which even depicted his twenty-three wounds, was held aloft over his bier and rotated mechanically (meanwhile his corpse lay out of sight face up on the bier): App. B Civ. 2.147; cf. Dio 44.35.4. 192. Cf. Livy 10.7.9–11 (speech of P. Decius Mus), citing the insignia of a triumphator as tunica palmata, toga picta, corona triumphalis, and laurel; 30.15.11–12. Certain sources seem to amalgamate the two garments under the locution toga palmata: Mart. 7.2.8; Apul. Apol. 22. 193. On the lying in state (collocatio) in Roman obsequies see Flower 93–95. 194. Actors are attested playing the deceased at funerals: for L. Aemilius Paullus (Perseus’ conqueror) see Diod. 31.25.2; for Vespasian, Suet. Vesp. 19.2. But no source records such a thing in Augustus’ case. If anyone did play him—like the archimimus Favor who Suetonius reports acted and spoke as Vespasian at his funeral—it was perhaps an actor bearing the image in the triumphal chariot. On the theatricality of aristocratic and imperial funerals see Flower 104–106.

322

Commentary on Book 56

symbolizing vanquished nations (56.34.3n), the routing of the cortege through the Porta Triumphalis (56.42.1n), and the participation of soldiers (56.42.2n). See Richard “Funérailles” 1122–1125. meta; tauvta" ai{ te tw÷n propatovrwn aujtou÷ kai; aiJ tw÷n a[llwn suggenw÷n: Following these were borne the images of his primogenitors, his other dead relatives (except Caesar, since he had been enrolled among the divi), and other Romans who had excelled in any endeavor, starting with Romulus himself. “Images.” These were the lifelike imagines maiorum to which only those were entitled who had achieved high public office in their lifetime (at least the aedileship: Cic. Verr. 5.36 with Flower 53–59). Although no actual imago or representation of one survives, literary sources, especially Polyb. 6.53.4–54.2 and Plin. HN 35.6–8, tell us much; cf. Flower 5–9, 36–40. Imagines were normally kept in the atria of great houses, in individual cupboards that would be opened on special occasions to exhibit them; but they were also taken out to dignify funeral processions in a visual evocation of family history and greatness (cf. Flower 185–222, esp. 206–209). Men who resembled the dead ancestors in bearing donned the masks195 as well as garments that signified their status—purple-bordered if the forebear had been consul or praetor, all purple if censor, gold-embroidered if he had triumphed. Insignia of office, for example, fasces and axes, were also displayed. When the “reincarnated” took their places on the Rostra for the laudatio funebris, they sat on curule chairs: Polyb. 6.53.7–9; Diod. 31.25.2. The imagines were apparently paraded in chronological order, senior preceding junior (Tac. Ann. 4.9.2; cf. Polyb. 6.54.1). “Primogenitors.” With propatovrwn Dio probably refers to ancient legendary figures like Aeneas as distinct from more recent forefathers. Cf. 44.37.4, propavtore" of Julius Caesar who achieved godhead through excellence; 8.3.5 (Zon.), propavtwr used of Mars. “Other dead relatives.” Above all, ascendants in the gens Iulia into which Augustus had been adopted. But not these alone. Augustus’ natural father, C. Octavius, having achieved the office requisite for an imago, deserved a place among his son’s ancestors—even if his gens “would not have made a very brave showing.”196 The cortege of Tiberius’ son Drusus Caesar in a.d. 23 advertised his Claudian birth lineage as well as his adoptive Julian lineage (Tac. Ann. 4.9.2). Descent, adoption, and marriage could all furnish imagines for a funeral procession (cf. Flower 103). Julii had distinguished the cortege of the elder Drusus, a Claudian (Tac. Ann. 3.5.1), thanks to his mother Livia’s remarriage to Augustus. “Images of twenty brilliant families” dignified the funeral of Junia, sister of Brutus and wife of Cassius, in a.d. 22 (Tac. Ann. 3.76.2). 195. Imagines functioned like theatrical masks, “having eye holes and allowing the actor to breathe and surely also to speak, if that was required or usual” (Flower 37). 196. Rowell MAAR 17 (1940), 138–139, who questions whether the Octavii were represented.

29.2–47.2: The Year a.d. 14 (To Augustus’ Consecration)

323

“Except Caesar, since . . . enrolled among the divi [h{rwa"].” Dio regularly translates Latin divus as h{rw" (e.g., 51.20.6, h{rwa . . . !Iouvlion; 56.34.2; 56.41.9; 67.2.6; 69.2.5; 73.17.4; 75.7.4; 78.9.2, 17.2; cf. 44.6.4); see Gradel 63–64; cf. Mason Terms 124–125. Caesar’s image was excluded under a prohibition enacted on his deification in 42 b.c. (and no doubt implemented at funerals in the intervening half century). Its absence was calculated to raise Divus Iulius above and beyond the company of Augustus’ dead ancestors “as being truly a kind of god” (kaqavper qeou÷ tino" wJ" ajlhqw÷" o[nto") (47.19.2). Cf. Weinstock Julius 393–394; Bickermann “Consecratio” 15–16; Syme Tacitus 433. For exclusion of the deified Augustus’ image from funeral processions see 56.46.4. Cf. Flower 103–104, 243 n94.197 “Other Romans who had excelled in any endeavor.” No such series of imagines featuring Roman “pioneers” is previously attested.198 Dio records one at the funeral of Pertinax—“men credited with some brilliant exploit, invention, or art” (74.4.6).199 “Starting with Romulus.” Apparently the order was chronological.200 It is not clear, however, why the city’s founder is placed among “Romans who had excelled” rather than among Augustus’ Julian primogenitors. Tacitus seems to include his imago among the latter in describing the funeral procession of Drusus Caesar in 23 (Ann. 4.9.2; but cf. Flower 253–254). One may ask why Romulus’ imago appeared at all since, like Julius Caesar, he had been deified, as the god Quirinus (cf. fr. 6.1aa = Boissevain 1.10–12 = Cary 1.22–25; 54.19.4); his apotheosis was in fact one model for Augustus’ (56.46.2n; cf. 53.16.7).201 On the parade of imagines see Price “Consecration” 64–65; M. Bettini, Anthropology and Roman Culture: Kinship, Time, Images of the Soul (Baltimore, 1991), 167–183 at 176–179; in detail Flower, esp. 91–127, 223–255 (imagines and funerals under Augustus and Tiberius). 34.3 Pomphivouu:: “Even Pompey the Great’s image was there to see, and all the nations [e[qnh] that he annexed [Pompey, not Augustus] were paraded, each in a native likeness.” In illustrating the range of men celebrated from outside Augustus’ line, Dio’s selects a figure he himself approved (cf. 37.20.3–21.1).202 Each nation was perhaps represented by a masked actor in native costume, perhaps by a statuary figure. Bronze images of subject nations in native dress embellished the cortege of Pertinax (74.4.5). Suggestive are the reliefs of conquered nations adorning the monumental first-century Sebasteion of Aphrodisias197. Masks of those damned to oblivion could also be banned: SCPP lines 76–82; cf. Tac. Ann. 3.76.2. 198. Flower 238–240 suggests that Agrippa’s funeral may have contained the first such series. 199. Rowell MAAR 17 (1940), 142–143 posits that, following Augustus’ mandata de funere (56.33.1), his procession imitated the programmatic series of statues of summi viri in the new Forum of Augustus (cf. on 55.10a.1–8). 200. Cf. Flower 109–114, exploring parallels between funeral processions and the parade of heroic souls closed by Marcellus in Verg. Aen. 6.756–886. 201. Cf. Richard “Énée, Romulus, César:” the inclusion of Romulus’ image served to highlight the absence, and thus the divinity, of Julius Caesar; as for Romulus’ divinity, it was too ancient and established to be diminished by the presence of his image. 202. Flower thinks that Pompey was included “as an ancestor of Augustus” (258 n8; cf. 245 and 358–359 [family tree] on the genealogical link, which is a slender one).

324

Commentary on Book 56

Plerasa in Asia, where each nation is represented by a single differentiated female figure: see Smith “Ethne,” especially 70–77, linking the designs to a statuary series in the Porticus ad Nationes in Rome203 (location uncertain) and to images in Augustus’ funeral procession, for which Smith suggests the bronze statues from the Porticus may have been used.204 kajk touvtou kai; ta; a[lla aujtoi÷", o{sa ejn toi÷" a[nw lovgoi" ei[rhtai, ej û ev s peto peto:: “Next after them came the other nations whose annexation has been recounted above.”205 Here conquests of Julius Caesar and Augustus were presumably represented (so Boissevain ad loc. [2.546], following Reimar). If so, how identified as theirs? Through imagines, as in Pompey’s case? Nothing, I think, rules out an imago of Augustus, perhaps that described by Dio as borne in a chariot (56.34.2). But given the prohibition against use of the deified Caesar’s imago “in the funerals of relatives” (47.19.2; cf. 56.34.2n), any representation of him is questionable, even in this novel adjunct to the traditional funeral procession.206 34.4 dhmhgorikou÷ bhvmato" . . . ejmbovlwn tw÷n !Ioulieivwnn:: “When the bier had been displayed on the speaker’s platform, Drusus read something from there; from the other—Julian—Rostra Tiberius gave, as decreed [by the Senate: cf. 56.35.1], a public oration in Augustus’ honor of the following sort.” Dio distinguishes the Rostra, in the northwest Forum, from the Julian Rostra before the Temple of Divus Iulius. Cf. Suet. Aug. 100.3: Augustus “was eulogized in two places, at the Temple of Divus Iulius by Tiberius and at the old Rostra [‘pro rostris veteribus’] by Tiberius’ son Drusus.”207 See Map 2 inset. Drusus’ oration was in the tradition of aristocratic familial laudationes (cf. 56.35.1), delivered by the nearest male relative (Polyb. 6.53.2; Kierdorf Laudatio 154–158, cf. 137–149 for a list of funeral orations).208 It will have treated inter alia Augustus’ ancestry (cf. Polyb. 6.54.1–2), no doubt including divine forbears in the Julian house—a theme that finds no place in Tiberius’ address in Dio, which focuses on Augustus’ service to the state in public offices. Cf. 54.28.3, 35.5; 55.2.2 for eulogies on Agrippa, Octavia, and the elder Drusus. Caligula gave the state 203. The series is mentioned by Servius on Verg. Aen. 8.721, glossing a prophetic reference to Augustus’ triple triumph on Aeneas’ shield; cf. Plin. HN 36.39. 204. Statues of “nations” also decorated the Theater of Pompey: Plin. HN 36.41 (‘quattuordecim nationes quae sunt circa Pompeium’); Suet. Nero 46.1. See further R.R.R. Smith, “The Imperial Reliefs from the Sebasteion at Aphrodisias,” JRS 77 (1987), 88–138, at 95–96. Coarelli in LTUR 4.138–139 holds that the statues of the Porticus ad Nationes and those near Pompey’s theater are the same, giving a location for the portico beside the latter in the Campus Martius; against: Richardson Dictionary 316–317. 205. With ejn toi÷" a[nw lovgoi" Dio appears to refer to more than the immediately preceding text (pace Cary: “after these followed all the other objects mentioned above”). Cf. 53.14.6; Pl. Resp. 603d. 206. I do not know how to dovetail with Dio’s account the proposal made in the Senate by L. Arruntius “that the titles of laws passed and the names of nations conquered by Augustus be borne in front [‘praeferrentur’]” (Tac. Ann. 1.8.3). Were these placards to be displayed all together before the bier as it was borne from the palace (cf. 56.34.1–2)? 207. On these platforms see Richardson Dictionary 213–214 (s.v. Iulius, Divus, Aedes) and 335–336 (s.v. Rostra Augusti); LTUR 3.116–119 (P. Gros); 4.214–217 (P. Verduchi); cf. 54.35.4–5n; R.B. Ulrich, The Roman Orator and the Sacred Stage: The Roman Templum Rostratum (Brussels, 1994), 186–187. 208. In lieu of Augustus’ adopted son Tiberius, whom duty called to be the state’s orator, Drusus qualified as a grandson (55.13.2n). Germanicus, also a grandson thanks to his adoption by Tiberius (55.13.2), would normally have had precedence as Drusus’ senior but was away in Germany (Tac. Ann. 1.14.3; cf. 57.3.1).

29.2–47.2: The Year a.d. 14 (To Augustus’ Consecration)

325

oration for Tiberius in 37 (58.28.5; 59.3.8; Suet. Cal. 15.1; cf. Jos. AJ 18.236). For Septimius Severus’ eulogy on Pertinax cf. 74.5.1; SHA Pert. 15.1.

35.1–41.9 Tiberius’ Funeral Oration on Augustus Standing in obituary prominence at the close of twelve books dominated by the figure of Augustus (45–56), Tiberius’ laudatio is the counterpart of Antony’s on Julius Caesar (44.36–49), which culminated Books 38–44 and set the stage for the advent of Caesar’s heir. These are the only two pagan laudationes funebres to survive in full from Roman antiquity (Kierdorf Laudatio 150).209 Bibliography. Van Stekelenburg Redevoeringen 149–151, 159; Manuwald Dio 133–140; Kierdorf Laudatio, esp. 150–158 (on the pervasive application of principles of encomiastic rhetoric in Dio’s funeral speeches); Giua Athenaeum 61 (1983), 439–456 (in the Augustus of Tiberius’ laudatio Dio offered a model for rulers in his own age). Cf. Quint. Inst. 3.7.1–28 (on panegyric oratory), esp. 3, 15–18; M. Durry, “Laudatio funebris et rhétorique,” RPh 16 (1942), 105–114; Koenen ZPE 5 (1970), 243–256 (on Augustus’ laudatio for Agrippa as a speech); N. Horsfall, “Some Problems in the ‘Laudatio Turiae’,” BICS 30 (1983), 85–98 at 89–91; Flower 128–158. Dio’s sources. Other than Dio, only Suetonius mentions Tiberius’ historical funeral oration on Augustus (Aug. 100.3); neither details its content. The speech in Dio is essentially his own composition: Tiberius gave “the following sort of speech” (lovgon . . . toiovnde) (56.34.4).210 Dio drew the material for it mainly from his own narrative of Books 45–56, introducing little if any fresh information (see Millar Study 101 n5). One corrective clue to the nature of Tiberius’ actual laudatio can perhaps be found in a papyrus fragment preserving in Greek translation a dozen lines from Augustus’ laudatio on Agrippa (for which see Koenen ZPE 5 [1970], 217–283 and 6 [1971], 239–243 = EJ no. 366 = TDGR 6.12). The fragment records grants of imperium to Agrippa with fastidious precision as to term, scope, date, and source in law; Dio’s “Tiberius,” on the other hand, describes comparable grants to Augustus in broad terms disencumbered of technicality: “You (Romans) compelled him to become your leader at least for a time. . . . Again you forced him to continue in charge of state affairs a second, third, fourth, and fifth time” (56.39.6). Since the Agrippa laudatio (insofar as it is preserved) addresses the deceased directly (like the Laudatio Turiae) rather than its audience, the historical laudatio on Augustus may have done the same, at least in some measure, even though Dio’s version does not.211 In the laudatio on Julius Caesar, Dio has Antony make a brief 209. Cf. Gowing Narratives 233–234. 210. Cf. van Stekelenburg Redevoeringen 159; Kierdorf Laudatio 157–158: a free elaboration, not influenced by the historical laudatio but skillfully adapted to historical circumstances; Manuwald Dio 136–139: the speech presents a propagandistic Augustus free of shadow—better than the Augustus of the narrative—an ideal that Dio juxtaposes dissonantly with his own more measured judgment (56.43–45), thus playing on the contrast of appearance and reality central in his political analysis; C.B.R. Pelling, Review of Manuwald Dio in Gnomon 55 (1983), 224–225 doubts that Dio was so subtle: the speech is “simply a piece of rhetoric: it is not an official version, it is a rhetorically possible version.” 211. Koenen shows that it was not unusual for an orator to address audience and deceased alternately (ZPE 5 [1970], 248–252).

326

Commentary on Book 56

apostrophe to the dead Caesar while otherwise addressing the mourners (44.49.3– 4); there is also an apostrophe in Appian’s version (B Civ. 2.146). Dio’s purpose. Tiberius’ oration bears imprints of various influences. One of these is Thucydidean, manifest in echoes of Pericles’ epitaphios on the Athenian dead, notably in the exordium. The biographic recital of Augustus’ virtues and achievements that form the heart of the speech is in the tradition of the Roman laudatio funebris as sketched by Polybius (cf. 6.53.1–3, esp. 2, ajreta;" kai; . . . pravxei").212 The sophistication of rhetoric is on show everywhere, supremely in the peroration (56.41). What Dio has written for Tiberius is an encomium in high style, aimed at monumentalizing to perfection the unique excellence of his subject, winning him an “imperishable glory” in the hearts of his audience (56.41.2), while palliating opposite qualities and conduct. Augustus’ incomparable exploits as a youth cast Alexander, Romulus, and Heracles in the dark (56.36); even the exemplary constitutionalism of a Metellus or a Pompey pales beside his (56.39.1– 4); superlative formulations abound: “deeds performed by no one else among mankind” (56.37.6); “two qualities joined in no other one man” (56.38.3); “who could have ruled better than Augustus?” (56.40.1). At the same time, Augustus’ illegal and violent actions are extenuated ingeniously, construed as performed reluctantly, but for the general good, or at the dictate of heaven (e.g., 56.37.1–3, 38.1). Contrary indications are suppressed: there is no word of electoral troubles, careers ruined by lectiones senatus, marriage laws resented or evaded. The Augustus of Tiberius’ encomium cannot be squared with the realistic Augustus of Dio’s narrative, and is of little historical value—a judgment that would have puzzled Dio, for whom a laudatio on the cardinal figure of all Roman history demanded a demonstration of the oratorical virtuosity that was the qualification of an historian no less than it was the badge of elite status. This personal motivation helps answer Manuwald’s question (Dio 135 n18) why, having already found in the historiographic source he shared with Tacitus the famous “final judgment” of contemporaries on Augustus (cf. 56.43–45; Tac. Ann. 1.9–10), Dio nonetheless chose to write a laudatio in direct speech with its distinct estimate. This was a challenge he could not decline.213 Historically irrelevant as Tiberius’ long fictional address has seemed to many (beginning with Xiphilinus and Zonaras, who omitted it from their epitomes), one end that Dio wanted to achieve through it, I suggest, was to transport his readers to a living theater of Roman and world history at a moment of epochal transition in a way that was beyond the possibilities of mere narrative. Chapter 35 (introduction): No speech can do justice to Augustus. 212. For the view that the laudatio funebris was a native Roman genre, plain in style, which long resisted the “séductions” of Greek rhetoric see M. Durry, “Laudatio funebris et rhétorique,” RPh 16 (1942), 105–114. Polybius appears to have found it singular in his time (second century b.c.). 213. Giua, who finds Dio’s thought in his speeches more than in his narrative with its perplexity and ambiguities, sees the laudatio as endorsing the Augustan paradigm for the historian’s own time: Athenaeum 61 (1983), 439–456. There is some merit in this view, but it is undercut by a paucity of Severan allusions (of which there is no lack, by contrast, in Maecenas’ speech in Book 52). But cf. 56.38.4n.

29.2–47.2: The Year a.d. 14 (To Augustus’ Consecration)

327

35.1 ej p i; tw÷ / qeiv w / ej k eiv n w/ Auj g ouv s tw/: “What needed to be said about yonder divine Augustus214 in a private capacity and on behalf of relatives we have heard from Drusus.” With these words, I suggest, Dio pictures Tiberius gesturing from the speaker’s platform at the Temple of Divus Iulius toward the bier located on the Rostra at the far end of the Forum. In judging Augustus worthy of a “public oration” (dhmosiva" . . . ûwnh÷") and in entrusting this office to Tiberius, the Senate was exercising, however nominally, its traditional authority over public funerals (cf. Wesch-Klein Funus 83–84). On Tiberius’ describing Augustus unhistorically as already deified cf. 56.41.9n. 35.2 diadovcou ou:: “Who would be more appropriately entrusted with his eulogy than I, his child and successor?” If by diavdoco" Dio means successor in a constitutional sense, he has erred—at least in the view of most scholars, who hold that Tiberius’ succession was not voted before 17 September, the day Augustus was deified (56.46.1n), i.e., after the funeral. But too much should not be made of Dio’s “bad mistake” (Millar Study 101). He had already characterized Tiberius and Germanicus realistically as diavdocoi under a.d. 4 (55.13.3), Gaius and Lucius Caesar still earlier (54.18.1); cf. 53.30.1; 56.45.3; 58.8.1; 60.34.1. As for Tiberius’ formal acceptance of power, Dio describes it as reluctant and late (57.2.1–7, 7.1). wJ" ouj polu; katadeevstero" tero":: “Yet I cannot be sure of not falling far short of what you want for him and what he deserves.” Cf. Thuc. 2.35.2, from Pericles’ funeral oration: o{ te ga;r xuneidw;" kai; eu[nou" ajkroath;" tavc! a[n ti ejndeestevrw" pro;" a} bouvletaiv te kai; ejpivstatai nomivseie dhlou÷sqai. 35.4 koino; n . . . para; pavntwn to;n e[painon genevsqai qai:: “You will assist me as I speak by filling in what I miss with your recollections of events, and so all of you will in this way have a part in praising him.” For the funeral orator as a representative of the whole people see also “Antony’s” laudatio on Caesar (44.36.2; similarly App. B Civ. 2.144); cf. Polyb. 6.53.3: through the laudatio the loss is made to seem no longer just that of a family but one shared by the whole people (koino;n tou÷ dhvmou). Chapter 36: Despite his youth and the threats of enemies he avenged his father and rescued the state.

36.1 a[ r xomai . . . ajpo; th÷" prwvth" hJlikiva" aujtou÷: “I shall start from the very moment he began his public career, that is from his earliest manhood.” Dio 214. For Gradel 63 Dio here uses qei÷o" Au[gousto" as “the original and official translation into Greek” of Divus Augustus. But the meticulous Nawijn cites no other instances or parallels in Dio, who consistently employs h{rw" in translating divus. Although qei÷o" Au[gousto" occurs in Joseph. AJ 19.289, quoting an edict of Claudius, the standard Greek translation of divus is qeov": e.g., RG title (Sebastou÷ qeou÷), 19.1 (qevou !Ioulivou); ILS 8804, describing Marcus Aurelius as qeou÷ !Anªtºwneivnou uiJovn, qeou÷ ª@Aºdrianou÷ uiJwnovn, qeou÷ Traianou÷ Parqªiºkou÷ e[ggonon, qeªou÷º Nevrba ajpovgonon. See D. Magie, De Romanorum Iuris Publici Sacrique Vocabulis Sollemnibus in Graecum Sermonem Conversis (Leipzig, 1905; reprint, 1973), 31, 66; Mason Terms 124–125, cf. 53 s.vv. qei÷o", qeov". Cf. S.R.F. Price, “Gods and Emperors: The Greek Language of the Roman Imperial Cult,” JHS 104 (1984), 79–95.

328

Commentary on Book 56

advertises his Thucydidean pedigree, echoing a clause from Pericles’ funeral oration used at the corresponding structural point, following the speaker’s preface (2.36.1: a[rxomai de; ajpo; tw÷n progovnwn prw÷ton). He does a similar thing at the same point in Antony’s laudatio for Julius Caesar (44.37.1: levxw de; peri; tou÷ gevnou" aujtou÷ prw÷ton). For close comparison of the exordia of Dio’s and Thucydides’ funeral orations see Kyhnitzsch De Contionibus 44–53. Anachronistically, Weber Princeps 78 heaps scorn on Tiberius’ laudatio as uninspired and derivative. 36.1–2 e[k te tw÷n paivdwn ejxelhluqwv": This is among Augustus’ greatest achievements that, having just emerged from boyhood and now entering on a man’s estate, he applied himself to his education so long as public affairs were being administered excellently by the demigod [hJmiqevou] Caesar, but once Caesar fell to a plot and the whole state was thrown into turmoil he at one and the same time avenged his father amply and brought you vital support. He did not fear the host of his enemies or shun the weight of affairs or hesitate because of his youth. At the time of Caesar’s murder the young Octavius was studying at Apollonia (western terminus of the Via Egnatia: 55.29.4n; Map 6), from where he was to have accompanied the dictator on Balkan and Parthian campaigns: 45.3.1; Vell. 2.59.4; Plut. Brut. 22.2; Suet. Aug. 8.2, 89.1 (the aged rhetorician Apollodorus of Pergamum was with him), cf. 94.12; App. B Civ. 3.9 (he was also being trained in “the arts of war,” ta; polevmia). “The demigod Caesar.” Prima facie a puzzling expression, twice paralleled earlier in the History. In 46 b.c., says Dio, the Senate voted Caesar a bronze statue, clearly on the Capitol, mounted on an image of the world, with an inscription designating him hJmivqeo", an honor that he accepted (43.14.6–7), though he later had the inscription erased (43.21.2). Dio uses this word nowhere else. Since in all three instances it refers to Caesar in his lifetime, and since Dio normally employs h{rw" as the equivalent of divus, i.e., an emperor deified after his death (56.34.2n), hJmivqeo" here connotes something different from h{rw"/divus (pace Mason Terms 52 s.v., 124). Presumably Dio uses it to distinguish Caesar’s designation as divine while still alive from his designation as divus (h{rw") posthumously (47.18.4–19.4, under 42 b.c.). See Gradel 63–65, who interprets Dio’s usage similarly. He conjectures that the inscription on Caesar’s statue read, in part, ‘divo Caesari.’ Divus, he holds, had not yet acquired in Caesar’s day the specialized sense of a dead ruler deified which was current when Dio wrote and which he consistently conveyed in Greek with h{rw"; encountering Latin divus in the sense of a living ruler deified in his source(s) on 46 b.c., Dio resorted to hJmivqeo" in order to differentiate the divinity attributed to Caesar by the authors of his statue from the divinity of imperial divi. The altruism of the youthful Octavian of the laudatio who avenges his father and rescues Rome runs against the grain of Dio’s narrative, which exposes his selfserving motivation (Manuwald Dio 137, adducing 45.12.2; 46.34.4).

29.2–47.2: The Year a.d. 14 (To Augustus’ Consecration)

329

36.3 !Alevxandro" oJ Makedwvn: “What did the Macedonian Alexander or our Romulus . . . achieve to match this?” The ethnic “Macedonian” seems otiose. Can Dio have used it to avert confusion with Alexander Severus (ruled 222–235), who took the name Alexander on his adoption by Elagabalus in 221 (79.17.2–3)? If so, we have a terminus post quem for the composition or (more likely) revision of our passage. At 79.17.3–18.1 “the Macedonian” is required to distinguish conqueror from prince in Dio’s account of an apparition of Alexander the Great that portended Alexander Severus’ accession.215 On the chronology of composition of the History cf. Introduction sec. 5.5. 36.4–5 @Hrakleva: “Only by comparing Augustus to Hercules and his exploits in this very regard [sc. youthful achievement] would I seem near the mark. Still I would fall far short of my goal [of showing Augustus’ greatness], for whereas Hercules killed serpents as a child and as a man some hind or other and a boar, and by Jove even a lion [kai; nh; Diva kai; levonta]—reluctantly and on command— Augustus faced not beasts but men—and this of his own volition—and as warrior and legislator truly saved the state and won glory in his own right.” Through Tiberius’ invidious comparison of Hercules with the young Augustus, does Dio intend an oblique swipe at Commodus? On this emperor’s Hercules mania cf. 72.15.2–16.1, 20.2, 22.3–3a. Dio also mentions Hercules’ infant heroics in recounting an oracle that portended Commodus’ execution of the consular Quintilii brothers by strangulation (72.7.2). “And by Jove even a lion.” Irony. For nh; Diva marking a climax (as here) see 50.28.4; 52.11.1 (ironic), 32.3; 77.7.4. For a medallion of Commodus as Hercules Romanus with the pelts of the Nemean lion, which was his badge, and the Calydonian boar, see J.P.C. Kent, Roman Coins (London, 1978), no. 364 reverse, p302; A. Birley, Marcus Aurelius (London, 1966), plate 8b. 36.5 strathgovn . . . u{ p aton aton:: “This is the reason216 you both elected him praetor and declared him consul at an age when some refuse even to be soldiers.” In fact Octavian was made pro praetore by the Senate (RG 1.2–3; Cic. Phil. 5.46, 14.37; Suet. Aug. 10.3). Dio sometimes speaks of the holder of promagisterial power as if he held the magistracy proper (e.g., 53.32.5–6). Cf. 46.29.5 on the same event: the Senate conferred on him “a kind of praetor’s office” (strathgou÷ tina ajrchvn). “Consul.” Tiberius’ assertion that Octavian was made consul for saving the state is contradicted by Dio’s narrative, which shows that he was elected through the threat of arms (46.45.2–5). Cf. RG 1.4. Chapter 37: He used his rivals shrewdly against one another, but for the public good, not his own. I pass over his exploits in civil and foreign wars to focus 215. Of numerous passages in the History referring to the great Alexander (Smilda 24–25 s.v.) in these two alone is he titled “the Macedonian.” Normally he is simply “Alexander.” 216. toigavrtoi [“strongly emphatic:” Denniston 566] dia; tau÷ta.

330

Commentary on Book 56 on his unique achievement—rescuing the state from dangers and making it richer and more powerful.

37.3 katepolevmhse met! aujtw÷n tou;" eJtevrou" ou":: “Taking as allies the powerful men who were besetting Rome itself [Antony and Lepidus], he joined them in making war on the others [Brutus and Cassius]. Once the latter were out of the way, he liberated us in turn from the former too.” ojlivgou" tina;" kai; a[kwn wn:: To rescue the majority Octavian chose to surrender “a certain few, reluctantly,” to Antony and Lepidus. Tiberius’ claim is consonant with the part that Dio assigns to Octavian in the proscriptions. In general Dio condemns these “murders” (sûagaiv) vehemently (47.3.1–15.4) but lays the blame mainly at the door of Octavian’s colleagues, particularly Antony (47.8.1– 5), while presenting the future Princeps as driven by circumstances: his true character was revealed in his very different conduct once he rid himself of Lepidus and Antony and exercised power alone. Even as it was, says Dio, he “killed no great number and even saved a great many” (47.7.1–8.1, 7.3 for the quote). This extenuating construction recurs in the valedictory judgment that climaxes Dio’s whole Augustan narrative (56.44.1). It belongs to a tradition also visible in Vell. 2.66.1–2 (he resisted “but in vain against two”); Flor. 2.16 (4.6.6) (he was content with proscribing his father’s murderers); Tac. Ann. 1.9.3–4. Suetonius had sources that portrayed Octavian as harsher than his triumviral colleagues despite initial hesitations (Aug. 27.1–2; cf. Sen. Clem. 1.11.1). Appian’s full account of the proscriptions (B Civ. 4.17–51) apportions the guilt indifferently among the triumvirs (Gowing Narratives 247–269, esp. 256, 267–268). 37.4 ouj d e; n ij d iv a / ej k ev r danen danen:: “He gained nothing from this privately, but all of us benefited conspicuously.” Paralleled in Augustus’ resignation speech under 27 b.c. (53.5.4). ta; me;n kata; tou;" polevmou" . . . e[rga aujtou÷ tiv a[n ti" makrhgoroivh: “As for his feats in wars civil and foreign, why go on about them, especially seeing that the former should never have been necessary at all, and the latter, thanks to the acquisitions, provide benefits far too obvious to need reciting at all?” 37.5 th÷" tuvch" to; plei÷ston o[nta ta:: “Besides, such feats are mainly the result of chance and are performed with the aid of numerous citizens and allies; so they bring a repute that he must share with them217 and are not necessarily beyond comparison with others’ deeds.” Tiberius’ downplaying of military accomplishments matches Dio’s own thinking (cf. 37.20.3, Pompey; 67.11.1). 37.6 mavlista aujtou÷ te tou÷ Aujgouvstou e[rga ga:: “What are peculiarly Augustus’ own achievements, matched by no mortal, . . . these alone I shall recount.” Tiberius 217. koinh;n pro;" ejkeivnou" th;n aijtivan aujtw÷/ e[cei: The subject is Augustus’ e[rga (“feats”) in 56.37.4. For aijtiva = repute cf. Pl. Resp. 435e; Vrind De Vocabulis 21; for the koinov" construction, Dion. Hal. Thuc. 4.

29.2–47.2: The Year a.d. 14 (To Augustus’ Consecration)

331

applies a rule of encomiastic rhetoric enunciated in Quint. Inst. 3.7.16—singling out for praise what the person honored has achieved uniquely (Kierdorf Laudatio 155 n20). Cf. Flower 139. 37.7 newtevroi" didaskalivann:: A recital of Augustus’ achievements “will provide the youth with a perfect lesson in the character and constitution of the state.” Similarly Tiberius judged the libellus that he read in the Senate five years later, commemorating the excellence of the dead Germanicus, to be “beneficial to the youth [‘utile iuventuti’] of this and later generations:” Tabula Siarensis fr. (b) col. II lines 13–17. Cf. Polyb. 6.53.9–54.3, noting the impact of funeral spectacle and speech on the youth; Thuc. 2.42.1, didaskalivan. Chapter 38: After the civil wars, in which he did and suffered not what he wanted himself but what heaven decreed, he proved himself merciful and restrained his partisans.

38.1 ejn mhdeni; to;n Suvllan mimhsavmeno" eno":: “Most of his opponents who survived battle he let live, in no way emulating Sulla.” Contrast Dio’s narrative at 51.2.4–6n, where there is more emphasis on those not spared (cf. 51.16.1); also 48.14.3–5. On Sulla cf. 56.38.4n. 38.2 Sov s sion . . . Skau÷ r on . . . Lev p idon idon:: Tiberius cites “Sosius,” “Scaurus,” and “Lepidus” as beneficiaries par excellence of Augustus’ clemency. Dio draws all these examples from his narrative. C. Sosius, cos. 32 b.c. (RE 3A.1176– 1180), led the secession of senators to Antony and the East (50.2.2–7n) and commanded a wing of his fleet at Actium (Vell. 2.85.2). For his pardon see 51.2.4n.218 M. (Aemilius) Scaurus was a half brother of Sextus Pompey by their common mother, Mucia, Pompey’s third wife (PIR2 A 405; Syme Aristocracy 264). A partisan of Sextus in Sicily, he fled with him upon their defeat by Agrippa and Octavian but soon betrayed Sextus and went over to Antony (App. B Civ. 5.142). On Antony’s side at Actium, he was condemned to death but pardoned by Octavian “for the sake of his mother” (51.2.4–5). M. Aemilius Lepidus. “And who does not know of Lepidus himself, who survived his defeat for so long and through the whole time continued as Pontifex Maximus?” True to the encomiastic genre, Dio has Tiberius omit the indignities endured by the deposed triumvir (50.20.3; 54.15.4–8). On Lepidus’ fall in 36 b.c. see 49.12.3–4n, cf. 15.3; on his death, probably 13 b.c., 54.27.2. He is also an example of Augustus’ clemency in Sen. Clem. 1.10.1. 218. Dio 50.14.1–2 gives a patently (and inexplicably) false report of Sosius’ death in 31 before Actium and before any possibility of clemency. In fact Sosius lived to be among the XVviri Sacris Faciundis who superintended the Secular Games of 17 b.c. (note, however, that his priesthood was Antony’s gift: Syme Aristocracy 48); on his putative restoration of the Temple of Apollo (Sosianus) cf. Zanker Power 66–69; Richardson Dictionary 12–13.

332

Commentary on Book 56

38.4 Suvlla" . . . Mavrio" . . . Pomphvio" . . . Kai÷sar ar:: “Sulla and Marius hated even the children of their adversaries;219 . . . Pompey and Caesar, though generally they refrained from such hatred, let their friends do many things inconsistent with their own principles.”220 Tiberius’ point is that, like no one else, Augustus managed consistently to combine clemency to defeated enemies with a generosity to victorious partisans like Maecenas and Agrippa that did not corrupt them. In having Tiberius dissociate Augustus from the vindictiveness of Sulla (cf. 56.38.1) and Marius, Dio implicitly corrects Septimius Severus, who in a speech to the Senate in 197 following his victory over Clodius Albinus at Lugdunum praised the “severity and cruelty” of Sulla, Marius, and Augustus as the safe policy, while heaping scorn on the clemency of Pompey and Julius Caesar that had proved their undoing (75.8.1). There may also be a critical allusion here to Caracalla, who emulated Sulla’s cruelty (cf. 77.13.7 = Exc. Val. 376). For Giua Athenaeum 61 (1983), 447–449 Dio’s reworking of Severus’ five exempla (Marius, Sulla, Pompey, Caesar, Augustus) in the laudatio is no coincidence; it shows that Tiberius’ speech, rather than simply a specimen of rhetoric, conveyed Dio’s view of how rulers should and should not comport themselves. Chapter 39: When Augustus might have been indisputably sole master of all (56.39.1), he restored the state to you—a gift that in your wisdom you refused, compelling him to be your leader.

39.2 ijatro;" ajgaqov": “Like a good physician who has taken in hand a diseased body and healed it, he restored everything to you after returning it to health.” Tiberius construes Augustus’ proffered restoration of power to the state in 27 b.c. (e.g., 53.5.4) as a high-minded benefaction. In Dio’s narrative it is a ruse calculated to win public consent for monarchy (53.2.6–7, 11.1–12.1). For the ruler as physician cf. 55.17.1–18.1, 20.3; 56.6.1. ejqelontai; diaûh÷kan an:: “voluntarily disbanded the armies they had led in war.” Tiberius’ point is that Augustus far surpassed the admired constitutionality of Pompey and of “the Metellus who flourished at that time.” Pompey disbanded his forces in 62 b.c. on reaching Italy after his brilliant eastern command (37.20.3– 6).221 Previously, Metellus (probably Q. Caecilius Metellus Pius, cos. 80 b.c., though his identity is debated: 52.13.2–4n) had disbanded his army when he returned victorious from Spain in 71 on the conclusion of his and Pompey’s war against Sertorius (MRR 2.123; Dio’s account is lost)—something Pompey did not do on this prior occasion. 39.3 th÷" Aujgouvstou megaloûrosuvnh" h":: “How could one find words for Augustus’ magnanimity, who, . . .” Tiberius echoes an overweening boast in Augustus’ 219. Dio’s main treatment of these events is lost, though Sulla’s exclusion of sons of the proscribed from office is recalled at 41.18.2 (under 49 b.c.). 220. The historical Tiberius would not have voiced this criticism of Augustus’ deified father in a funeral eulogy (cf. 56.36.2). Cf. 64.2.2–3n, Galba’s lax supervision of freedmen and lieutenants. 221. Tiberius’ dismissive attitude toward Pompey’s correct conduct jars with Dio’s enthusiasm for it in his narrative.

29.2–47.2: The Year a.d. 14 (To Augustus’ Consecration)

333

resignation speech of 13 January 27 b.c. (53.8.1–2): “Who could be found more magnanimous [megaloyucovtero"] than I?” 39.4 pavntwn sunepainouvntwn movnw/ a[rcein cein:: “. . . when he could have ruled alone with universal consent, . . .” Comparing RG 34.1, ‘per consensum universorum potitus rerum omnium,’ Fadinger222 derives Dio’s formulation from the lost autobiography of Augustus (on which see Suet. Aug. 85.1; 44.35.3 for a citation). o{ p la . . . e[ q nh . . . crhvmata ata:: “. . . placed arms and provinces and money at your disposal?” Cf. Augustus’ recusatio imperii at 53.4.3 (o{pla . . . novmou" . . . e[qnh) and 5.4 (ejleuqerivan . . . dhmokrativan . . . o{pla . . . e[qnh). 39.5 ijdiwteu÷sai ai:: “You did not suffer or allow him to return to private life but, . . .” Tiberius recalls how the senators resisted Augustus’ recusatio, not how many did so hypocritically (53.11.1–5). dhmokrativa . . . prostasiva: “. . . knowing full well that a republic [cf. 52.1.1n; 53.5.4] would never work for so great a state, whereas leadership by one man would probably save it, . . .” Cf. Tac. Ann. 1.9.4, ‘non aliud discordantis patriae remedium fuisse quam ut ab uno regeretur.’ For Dio’s own view, similar to Tiberius’ here, cf. 53.19.1. 39.6 crovnon gev tina tina:: “. . . you compelled him to become your leader at least for a time.” Cf. 53.11.4, 12.1–2, 13.1. For decennial renewals of Augustus’ power in 18, 8 b.c., a.d. 3, and 13 see 54.12.4–5; 55.6.1, 12.3; 56.28.1.223 Chapter 40: No one could have governed his own house, let alone so many other people, better than did Augustus on becoming your ruler.

Having shown how the youthful Augustus launched himself into the political maelstrom following Julius Caesar’s assassination (56.36) and sketched his career down to the settlement of 27 b.c. (56.37–39), Tiberius now surveys the prime achievements and qualities of his rule. 40.2 ejpivpona kai; ejmpolevmia e[qnh nh:: He undertook, says Tiberius, “to guard and preserve the toilsome and warlike provinces,” sc. the imperial provinces governed by legati Augusti pro praetore. Elsewhere, speaking with his own voice, Dio says that Augustus actually (e[rgw/) kept them so as to leave the senators militarily impotent—a[oploi kai; a[macoi (53.12.2–3). Cf. Millar Study 101 n5. eijrhnai÷a kai; ajkivnduna duna:: “The rest, which were peaceful and secure, he restored to you,” sc. the public provinces governed by proconsuls. aj o v p lou" aj p olev m ou" ou":: He made his soldiers fearsome guardians against external enemies but “unarmed and unwarlike” toward compatriots. Tiberius 222. V. Fadinger, Die Begründung des Prinzipats: Quellenkritische und staatsrechtliche Untersuchungen zu Cassius Dio und der Parallelüberlieferung (Berlin, 1969), 317. 223. In having Tiberius mention four renewals, Dio economically lets pass the fact that the term of the first renewal in 18 b.c. was initially five years though it was soon extended to ten (54.12.5).

334

Commentary on Book 56

lauds Augustus’ achievement in creating and maintaining a large standing army (tosouvtou" ajqanavtou"), a champion of the state, not a bane as in the civil wars. 40.3 ejn tai÷" hJgemonivai" i":: “As for governorships, he did not take away senators’ right of sortition but provided them as well with rewards for excellence [aj q¿ la . . . th÷" ajreth÷"], . . .” Tiberius refers first to proconsulships in public provinces, which were assigned by lot (53.13.2–3, 14.3; 55.28.2; cf. Suet. Aug. 47; Talbert Senate 353), then to appointments as legates of imperial provinces, made by Augustus. Dio also uses “rewards for excellence” for administrative appointments at 52.25.5, where Maecenas designates provincial fiscal posts assigned to imperial freedmen as “a kind of reward for excellence,” aj q¿ lovn ti ajreth÷". ejxousivan th÷" diayhûivsew" . . . ajsûavleian th÷" parrhsiva"":: “. . . nor did he abolish their power of deciding matters by vote [cf. 52.31.4] in their deliberations [diagnwvmai"] but beyond that gave them the security to speak freely.” For senate voting through individual expressions of opinion (sententiae) see 54.15.5–6, 25.2–3; for voting through a division and count of members, 41.2.1; cf. 56.41.3. Cf. Talbert Senate 279–285, “The Taking of Votes.” For parrhsiva in the Senate under Augustus cf. 54.15.7–8, 16.3–5; Suet. Aug. 54–55. 40.4 dhvmou . . . dikasthrivwnn:: “transferred the difficult business of making judgments in trials from the People to the courts with their careful scrutiny.” Precisely which reform Tiberius refers to is unknown. Its effect was apparently to deprive the People of its direct judicial role (obsolete in practice though theoretically great). Tiberius may voice Dio’s own approval here: in a long and indignant narrative of the trials of C. Rabirius in 63 b.c. for the murder of the demagogue L. Appuleius Saturninus over thirty years earlier, including a trial before the Assembly, Dio leaves no doubt that he thought the People, as a court, represented a revolutionary threat to the authority of the Senate and its decrees, above all the senatus consultum ultimum (37.26.1–28.4);224 cf. 52.30.2, where he has Maecenas urge abolition of judicial and electoral—indeed all—popular assemblies. Cf. CAH2 9.352 (T.P. Wiseman). ajrcairesiw÷n: For the People he “preserved the dignity of elections.” Cf. Suet. Aug. 40.2. Did Dio intend the historical irony of having Tiberius praise Augustus for preserving elections when Tiberius would himself shortly oversee a substantial transfer of this prerogative to the Senate (Tac. Ann. 1.15.1, cf. 81.1–2, consonant with Dio’s narrative at 58.20.1–5 and 59.20.3–5)? In claiming that Augustus taught Romans to renounce electoral faction, Tiberius disingenuously ignores the election troubles of a.d. 7 (55.34.2). For Dio popular elections were palatable only because Augustus saw to it that nothing went amiss (53.21.6–7n). C. Nicolet argues ingeniously, but, I suggest, with undue confidence in the historical preci-

224. On these trials see W.B. Tyrrell, A Legal and Historical Commentary to Cicero’s Oratio Pro C. Rabirio Perduellionis Reo (Amsterdam, 1978); E.J. Phillips, “The Prosecution of C. Rabirius in 63 b.c.,” Klio 56 (1974), 87–101.

29.2–47.2: The Year a.d. 14 (To Augustus’ Consecration)

335

sion of Dio’s set speeches, that the words e[k te tou÷ dhvmou to; duvskriton ejn tai÷" diagnwvsesin ej" th;n tw÷n dikasthrivwn ajkrivbeian metasthvsa" refer to an electoral rather than a judicial reform, specifically the transfer of the deciding voice in elections from the People to the destinatio centuries created under the Lex Valeria Cornelia of a.d. 5. For Nicolet, the new centuries are here represented by the term dikasteria because they were composed of ‘senatores et equites omnium decuriarum quae iudicior. publicor. caussa constitutae sunt erun[t’ (Tabula Hebana lines 8–9): “La destinatio à la lumière de la Tabula Siarensis et de Dion Cassius,” in La commemorazione di Germanico nella documentazione epigrafica: Convegno Internazionale di Studi Cassino 21–24 ottobre 1991, ed. A. Fraschetti (Rome, 2000), 221–263 at 254–263. to; pleonektikovn: “eliminated greed even from the electoral campaigns.” Sc. through measures against bribery (54.16.1; 55.5.3). aj n hv l isken isken:: “He spent his own money, which he increased only modestly, on public purposes; . . .” See, for example, 53.2.1 and 55.25.3, grants to the Aerarium and Military Treasury—not to mention congiaria, monuments, and shows. He wrote in his will that he had spent nearly all his inherited wealth on the state (Suet. Aug. 101.3), a claim corroborated in the Res Gestae (e.g., app. 1). His private wealth was nonetheless entirely off the aristocratic scale (Timpe Untersuchungen 43). koinw÷ n wJ " ij d iv w nn:: “. . . public money he husbanded as if it were his own while keeping his hands off it as if it were someone else’s.” A well-worn conceit; cf. 53.10.4. 40.5 e[rga ta; peponhkovta a:: “Having restored all the monuments that were in disrepair, he deprived none of the original builders of their recognition.” On Augustus’ respect for others’ claims to fame see 53.2.5 (but cf. 54.23.6); RG 19.1, 20.1; Suet. Aug. 29.4. For opposite conduct of Septimius Severus, perhaps alluded to here, see 76.16.3. Against official claims about Augustus’ modesty M. Corbier sets the systematic advertisement of his dynasty in monuments: “L’ écriture dans l’espace public romain,” in Urbs 47–48. On competition for the kudos of a public inscription cf. 37.44.1–2; 43.14.6–7. 40.6 ajparaithvtw" ejpexiwvn: 225 “while punishing inexorably depravity in close family members [oijkeiotavtwn].” This is a positive feature in Tiberius’ portrait of Augustus (cf. 56.32.4) more than a concession, notwithstanding the fact that the main theme here is Augustus’ forbearance and clemency. The historical Tiberius would not have risked an allusion to his ex-wife Julia, languishing in exile, or to Agrippa Postumus, executed (or soon to be) to secure the succession (57.3.5–6; Tac. Ann. 1.6.1–3). Cf. 56.38.2–5, Augustus’ tight rein on political associates. a[llw" pw" biou÷nta" oujk h[legcen egcen:: “He did not reprove those who pursued some purposeless lifestyle”—a dubious claim when set against Augustus’ straitlaced legislative and censorial programs. 225. Cf. Thuc. 3.84.1, ajparaithvtw" ejpevlqoien.

336

Commentary on Book 56

40.7 tw÷n ejpibouleusavntwn twn:: “As well,226 he punished only those conspirators who would themselves have found it fruitless to live, and dealt with the rest in such a way that for the longest time no one incurred a charge of plotting either true or false.”227 Another dubious claim, like that made by Dio himself in capping the Cornelius Cinna dialogue on clemency (55.22.1–2n). For executions of conspirators under Augustus see 54.3.5, 15.4; cf. 55.10.15. Chapter 41 (peroration): These highlights will prompt you to recall much else about Augustus. Who could forget how he magnified his senators and made them partners in rule? or his beneficence to Romans, allies, and subjects? Who could forget the judiciousness of his laws, the privileges for those who marry and have children, and the rewards for soldiers? Then there is his being content with necessary acquisitions and not wanting to make further conquests, his always sharing pleasure and pain with intimate friends, and how he esteemed those who spoke the truth, but hated flatterers. It was for reasons like these that you made him leader, father of the nation, and finally divus.

41.1 wj ¿ Kuiri÷ t ai ai:: “I have spoken, Quirites, of the most important and splendid things.” Cf. OLD s.v. Quirites: “A name given to the citizens of Rome collectively in their peacetime functions (esp. in solemn addresses and appeals).” Dio also has Antony address his laudatio on Julius Caesar to Kuiri÷tai (44.36.1),228 and has three speakers address the Assembly thus in the deliberations on Pompey’s command against the pirates (36.25.1, 27.1, 31.1). See also 38.5.1; cf. 42.53.3–4, Quirites not used of soldiers; fr. 6.1aa = Boissevain 1.11. Q. Fabius Maximus Allobrogicus (cos. 121) addresses “Quirites” in a Latin fragment of his laudatio on Scipio Aemilianus (Malcovati ORF no. 20 fr. 22 [pp121–122, cf. 199]).229 41.2 oujde; ga;r a[llw" kovmpou tino;" e{nee〈〈ka ou[〉t! ejgw; to;n [Bekker; ejn eJtevroi" toi÷" ms.] peri; aujtou÷ lovgon ou[q! uJmei÷" th;n ajkrovasin pepoivhsqe sqe:: Boissevain approves Bekker’s emendation but does not adopt it. “For I have not made my speech on Augustus as a vain display, nor have you listened to it as such, but out of a desire that his deeds, many and good, find inextinguishable glory in your hearts.” A parenthetical sentence. 41.3 aj l uv p w" aj û elwv n: “Painlessly removing from the Senate’s ranks the bad element that had come to the top [ejpipolavsan]230 thanks to civic strife, . . .” Tiberius recalls, in particular, the comprehensive membership reviews of 29 and 226. ajlla; kaiv, progressive rather than adversative; cf. Denniston 21–22. 227. mhvt! oujn¿ ajlhqh÷ mhvte yeudh÷ aijtivan ejpiqevsew", where ouj n¿ suggests indifference, i.e., “that the fact does not greatly matter for immediate purposes” (Denniston 418–419). Cf. 54.15.1: sucnoi; . . . ejpibouleu÷sai, ei[t! ouj ¿n ajlhqw÷" ei[te kai; yeudw÷", aijtivan e[scon. 228. Appian uses poli÷tai (“citizens”) in his version at B Civ. 2.144. 229. C. Laelius (cos. 140 b.c.) composed the oration, Fabius Maximus delivered it as Scipio’s nearest agnate male relative. 230. On ejpipolavzein cf. 64.3.41; Polyb. 30.13.2.

29.2–47.2: The Year a.d. 14 (To Augustus’ Consecration)

337

18 b.c. (52.42.1–4n; 54.13.1–14.5). For parvenus in the Senate see 43.47.3; 48.22.3, 34.4–35.1; 52.42.1. To call lectiones painless is false (cf. 54.15.1, plots following that in 18). aujxhvsei tou÷ timhvmato" ato":: “. . . he exalted the remainder by this very act, dignified them by raising the census requirement, and enriched them with money gifts.” On the census increase—to 1,000,000 HS—see 54.17.3, 26.3; for subsidies, 54.17.3; 55.13.6; cf. 52.19.2. gnwv m hn ej d iv d ou . . . summeqivstato tato:: “He would also give his own sententia on an equal basis with them and join them in voting by division.” Cf. 55.34.1n. pavnta ta; mevgista ista:: To the senators “he always [cf. 56.33.6n] communicated all the most important and urgent business either in the senate house or, when aged and physically weak, at home, convening different senators at different times.” Nostalgically, Dio has Tiberius play up the partnership of Princeps and Senate; cf. 52.19.2–3; 56.33.4n; Reinhold & Swan “Assessment” 166–167. It was a small provisional consilium constituted in a.d. 13, not the full Senate, that met in Augustus’ house: 56.28.2–3n; cf. Crook Consilium 17–18. 41.4 e[rga ga:: For Romans at large he provided “monuments [cf. 56.40.5], money, spectacles, festivals, asylum [a[deian], an abundance of staples, security [ajsûavleian] not only from enemies and malefactors but also from heaven-sent calamities both by day and by night [cf. 55.26.4–5, creation of the Vigiles].” Tiberius gives a generic list of Augustus’ benefactions to Romans in the city. Cf. 52.30.1, Octavian exhorted by Maecenas to adorn Rome lavishly and to magnify it with every kind of festival. “Asylum.” On asylum cf. Weinstock Julius 395, 397; Bauman Impietas 85–92. Here, I suggest, Dio has Tiberius refer to a provision, made in conjunction with Julius Caesar’s deification in 42 b.c., that “no one who took refuge in his shrine seeking asylum should be driven or carried away” (47.19.2).231 As befits a laudatio, Tiberius overstates his case, which has already been undercut by Dio’s narrative in a powerful historical irony: once men began to congregate at the Temple of Divus Julius (dedicated 29 b.c.: 52.22.2–3) in quest of immunity, access to it was restricted “so that no longer could any one enter it at all” (47.19.3).232 ej l euqeriv a n . . . summaciv a nn:: “Who could forget the allies whose liberty he rendered free of risk and alliance free of expense?” Tiberius describes the happy condition of Rome’s allied liberae civitates under Augustus (cf. OCD3 609 s.v. free cities; 54.7.6n). 41.5 pevnhto" . . . plousivou . . . oijkonomikou÷ . . . ajnalwtikou÷: “privately poor yet rich for the state, personally frugal yet lavish toward others.” Such antitheses are the common stock of historians: Sall. Cat. 5.4 (Dio knew Sallust’s works: 43.9.2–3; R. Syme, Sallust [Oxford, 1964], 290–291); Tac. Germ. 31.3; Hist. 1.49.3. For oijkonomikov" = parcus see 71.32.3; 74.5.7. 231. This asylum seems to have been extended to images of Divus Julius: Weinstock Julius 397. 232. Dio has also recorded how Antony’s son Antyllus was executed despite having sought asylum in a shrine (hJrw÷/on) of Julius Caesar, clearly in Alexandria (51.15.5, 30 b.c.; cf. Suet. Aug. 17.5).

338

Commentary on Book 56

aj p iov n ta . . . ej p aniov n ti ti:: “not so much as bothering you to attend him as he departed for some place or to meet him as he returned.” For example, 51.20.4, cf. 19.2; 54.10.4, 25.3–4; cf. Suet. Aug. 53.2. dh÷ m on . . . gerousiv a nn:: “during festivals receiving even the people in his house, on other days greeting even the Senate just in the senate house.” Tiberius instances Augustus’ courtesy toward Romans of every station. In the senators’ case his concern was that they not have to pay their respects at the palace on days when he would be attending the Senate anyway. Cf. 54.30.1; 56.26.2–3; Suet. Aug. 53.2–3. 41.6 gerw÷ n: “the rewards offered for those who marry and produce children.” See 54.16.1; 56.10.1; cf. 55.2.6. Tiberius forgets the penalties for celibacy and childlessness. a[ q lwn . . . a[neu tino;" eJtevrou blavbh" h":: “praemia [retirement benefits] given to the soldiers without doing harm to any other element,” for example, through confiscation of land. See 55.24.9–25.5;233 cf. 51.4.5–8; 54.25.5–6. Tiberius forgets the hated inheritance tax created to fund praemia. 41.7–8 tiv dev; 234 to; toi÷" a{pax ajnagkaivw" kthqei÷sin ajrkesqh÷nai ai:: “Then there is the fact that he was content with necessary acquisitions made once and for all235 and did not want to add any further conquest [proskatergavsasqai236], . . .” This praise of Augustus’ frontier policy echoes a dispatch he sent to the Senate from the East ca 20 b.c. advising against further annexations (54.9.1n) as well as his testamentary advice to keep the empire intra terminos (56.33.5–6n). Tiberius makes Augustus out to be “more pacific than he really was” (P.A. Brunt in JRS 53 [1963], 172), subsuming disingenuously under “necessary acquisitions” vast conquests on the northern frontiers from Spain to Moesia. There may be a critical allusion here to Septimius Severus’ aggressive eastern policy: cf. 75.3.2–3; R. Bering-Staschewski, Römische Zeitgeschichte bei Cassius Dio (Bochum, 1981), 72–75; Reinhold & Swan “Assessment” 162–164. 41.8 toi÷" wjûevlimovn ti ejpinoh÷sai dunasqei÷si parrhsiavsasqai asqai:: “. . . that he allowed positively all who could come up with some beneficial idea to speak freely, . . .” Cf. 53.21.3, from a sketch of Augustus’ modus imperandi: “he encouraged anyone at all to give him advice who came up with some better idea [ei[ tiv" ti a[meinon . . . ejpinohvseien], and he provided them ample freedom to speak [parrhsivan . . . pollhvn].”

233. Note mhdeno;" e[xwqen mhde;n lupoumevnou at 55.24.9. 234. LSJ s.v. ti", ti B.I.8.f: “serving quickly to pass on to a fresh point.” 235. Dio has Tiberius use a string of articular infinitives in recalling facets of Augustus’ conduct, beginning with ajrkesqh÷nai. 236. Cf. 38.38.1; 41.32.2.

29.2–47.2: The Year a.d. 14 (To Augustus’ Consecration)

339

ajlhqizomevnou" tina; ejpainevsai . . . kolakeuvonta" mish÷sai ai:: “. . . that he praised those who spoke the truth, but hated flatterers, . . .” For Augustus’ aversion to flattery see 54.13.1; cf. 52.3.3; 55.9.2. ta; kataleiûqev n ta . . . aj p odou÷ n ai ai:: “. . . that he restored to the children themselves any bequests left him by their parents.” See 56.32.3n. 41.9 prostavthn . . . patevra dhmovsion . . . h{ r wa . . . ajqavnaton aton:: “These are the reasons you rightly made him your leader and state father . . . and finally designated him Divus and declared him immortal.” “Leader.” On prostavth" see Mason Terms 81–82; Nawijn 700; the reference is clearly to the foundation of the Principate, but I doubt that Dio is translating princeps (cf. Weber Princeps 79) or patronus (cf. Woodman on Vell. 2.120.1 [pp204–205]). Cf. on 53.11.5–12.2. “State father.” On Augustus’ designation as Pater Patriae in 2 b.c. see 55.10.10; cf. 53.18.1; 56.9.3. “Divus and immortal.” In using h{rw", his regular equivalent of divus (56.34.2n), rather than qeov" Dio observes the Roman distinction between a mortal consecrated posthumously and a sempiternal deus. On the evolving usage of divus in emperor worship see Gradel 63–68; cf. Price Rituals 75, 220. Tiberius commends Augustus to an immortality consonant with Dio’s own thinking—achieved through virtue and good deeds and sustained in the grateful memory of men (52.35.3– 36.1; 53.9.5; 56.41.2; cf. Tac. Ann. 4.38.1–3).237 Why does Dio have Tiberius speak of Augustus as already deified (cf. 56.35.1) when in his narrative consecration follows the funeral (56.46.1n)? The anachronism (for another cf. 56.35.2n) is variously explained: as a mark of Dio’s indifference to the solemnities of the imperial cult—he was hostile to any contamination of the divine plane with the human (D.M. Pippidi, Autour de Tibère [Bucharest, 1944; reprint, Rome, 1965], 133–145); as an error imported inadvertently from a careless rhetorical source (Manuwald Dio 133–135); as a retrojection of the later practice (current in Dio’s time: e.g., Hdn. 4.2.11–3.1) of voting apotheosis before the public funeral (Kierdorf Chiron 16 [1986], 56–57). For extenuation of Dio’s inversion of events cf. 56.42.3n (ajetov"). sw÷ m a . . . yuchv n: “What becomes us is not to mourn him but, after now repaying his body to nature,238 to magnify [ajgavllein] his soul forever like a god’s.” Cf. Vell. 2.123.2 with Woodman’s n: the dying Augustus, “dissolving into the elements from which he sprang, gave back to heaven his heavenly soul” (‘in sua resolutus initia . . . animam caelestem caelo reddidit’) (after Shipley in Loeb). The duality of body and soul was commonplace for Dio’s readers (cf. R. Turcan, “Le culte impérial au IIIe siècle,” ANRW 2.16.2.1006–1008). 237. Dio has Thrasea Paetus assert that if his opposition to Nero brings death it will also bring a lasting fame (61.15.3). He sees in his laborious Roman History an investment in his own immortality (cf. 72.23.4; 38.28.1–2, the immortality of Xenophon and Thucydides). 238. Cf. 61.15.3, where Thrasea Paetus speaks of his own death as “repaying nature what it is owed.”

340

Commentary on Book 56

42.1–4 Cremation and Burial See Map 2. 42.1 dia; tw÷ n ej p inikiv w n pulw÷ n: “The very same men as before [magistrates designate for 15: 56.34.2] took up the bier and carried it through the triumphal gates, as the Senate had decreed.” Use of designati as bearers from Forum to pyre is without attested parallel. Sulla’s bier was carried by “robust men from the Senate” (App. B Civ. 1.106); the elder Drusus’ by equites (55.2.3); that of Pertinax by equites, after being brought down from the Rostra by priests, magistrates in office, and magistrates designate (74.5.2). Suetonius says broadly that Augustus was “borne to the Campus (Martius) on the shoulders of senators” (Aug. 100.3).239 “Triumphal gates” = Porta Triumphalis, through which triumphs entered the walls (Cic. Pis. 23.55), but through which Augustus’ procession now moved out, as a mark of honor (cf. Suet. Aug. 100.2; Tac. Ann. 1.8.3). Normally corteges left through the Porta Carmentalis (or scelerata porta, a sobriquet perhaps derived from this function). The Porta Triumphalis has not been found. Fundamental on its location is Jos. BJ 7.124–131: Vespasian, preparing to solemnize his Jewish triumph, retired from the Porticus Octaviae toward “the gate which is named from the triumphs that are always conducted through it.” This points to the southeast Campus Martius, and suggests that Augustus’ cortege, in proceeding from the Forum, circled the southern base of the Capitoline, then turned northward toward its destination.240 “As the Senate had decreed,” sc. on Tiberius’ arrival in Rome with the corpse of Augustus (Tac. Ann. 1.8.3; 56.31.2). See especially 56.33.1n. It was the eminent C. Asinius Gallus (cos. 8 b.c.; 55.5.1n) who proposed the route, which was apparently unique (Arce Funus 43). Substitution of the triumphal exit for the scelerata via with its mortal associations pointed transparently to Augustus’ apotheosis. The Senate also decreed that the procession be headed by the statue par excellence of the goddess Victory, which Augustus, after prevailing at Actium and Alexandria, had set up in the Curia Iulia,241 and be accompanied by children of leading families singing a dirge (Suet. Aug. 100.2; cf. Arce Funus 46–47).

239. Neither Dio’s nor Suetonius’ testimony is readily harmonized with Tacitus’ report that, when the senators called for the body to be borne to the pyre on their shoulders, Tiberius ‘remisit’ with haughty reserve, and in an edict disabused the people of any notion of cremating Augustus in the Forum like Julius Caesar (Ann. 1.8.5). Syme thinks that Tiberius “declined” the senate proposal (Tacitus 316; also Koestermann ad loc., imputing error to Suetonius and Dio). Furneaux ad loc. suggests that Tiberius “excused” the senators from the service they wanted to perform, but they insisted; similarly Goodyear ad loc.; cf. P. Wuilleumier, ed., Tacite Annales Livres I–III (Paris, 1974), ad loc.: “César consentit avec une réserve hautaine.” 240. Coarelli posits a double gate (cf. Livy 2.49.8 with Ogilvie’s n; Ovid Fasti 2.201) at the foot of the Capitoline accommodating both the Porta Carmentalis and the Porta Triumphalis (LTUR 3.333–334). Cf. Versnel Triumphus 122, 132–163: the Porta Triumphalis served exclusively for an “entry-rite” of the triumphator (compare the entry of Greek athletic victors through an opening made ad hoc in their city’s wall), after whose passage it was “closed and not reopened until the celebration of the next triumph” (162); Goodyear on Tac. Ann. 1.8.3 (1.147); Arce Funus 41–43; Künzl Triumph 30–40; De Maria Archi 41–42; Richardson Dictionary 301 (helpful). 241. 51.22.1–2n; cf. Künzl Triumph 123–131.

29.2–47.2: The Year a.d. 14 (To Augustus’ Consecration)

341

42.2 purav n: “When he had been placed on the pyre in the Campus Martius, . . .” Strabo describes Augustus’ kaustra (‘crematorium’ or ‘ustrinum’) as an enclosure “in midplain” (ejn mevsw/ . . . tw÷/ pedivw/) surrounded by a wall (perivbolo") of white stone and a circular iron fence and treed with black poplars (5.236). It is generally located just east of the Mausoleum, where cippi bearing names of various imperials have been found (e.g., ILS 181a: ‘Ti. Caesar Germanici Caesaris f. hic crematus est’). See Platner & Ashby 545; Richardson Dictionary 404; LTUR 1 figures 118, 126. But V. Jolivet deems a location near the Mausoleum toward the northern extreme of the Campus Martius inconsistent with Strabo’s “in midplain” and proposes a site south of the Horologium (Sundial) in the vicinity of Montecitorio: LTUR 5.97 s.v. Ustrinum Augusti with figure 59; cf. J.R. Patterson, “The City of Rome: From Republic to Empire,” JRS 82 (1992), 199, approving the latter location; Wesch-Klein Funus 88. Much can be learned about pyres in general (and corpses) from D. Noy, “‘Half-burnt on an Emergency Pyre:’ Roman Cremations Which Went Wrong,” G&R 47 (2000), 186–196. Whether Augustus’ pyre resembled the “step pyramidal” pyres of later emperors portrayed on coins and reliefs (see Arce Funus 140–145) is not known. Dio describes the pyre of Pertinax as “like a three-tiered tower” (purgoeidh;" trivbolo", 74.5.3). Lying outside the pomerium, the Campus Martius was permitted as a place of cremation and burial, though now clearly subject to state restriction (e.g., 48.53.5– 6; 54.28.5; cf. Toynbee Death 49). Sulla was buried there (Plut. Sulla 38.4; App. B Civ. 1.106), as were the consuls of 43 b.c. Hirtius and Pansa after a state funeral (Livy Per. 119.5; Vell. 2.62.4; cf. ILS 8890; Val. Max. 5.2.10; Nash Dictionary 2.341–343; Richardson Dictionary 356, 358), but before Sulla only Roman kings (App. B Civ. 1.106). Julius Caesar’s plan to be cremated and, apparently, buried there was overtaken by turbulent popular grief (Suet. Iul. 84.1; 44.51.1). Although Agrippa had been granted a memorial of his own in the Campus, Augustus interred him in the Mausoleum (54.28.5). perih÷ l qon . . . periev d ramon ramon:: “. . . first all the priests circled it, then the equites (both those from the order and the others) and the infantry of the Guard [ûrourikovn, variatio of doruûorikovn in 56.42.1] paraded round, . . .” perievdramon translates Latin decurrere, to perform the decursio, a “military exercise organized . . . as a pageant on ceremonial occasions” (OLD s.v. [p495]). Dio uses the noun peridromhv of a decursio at Septimius Severus’ pyre in Britain (76.15.3; cf. 77.16.7, Achilles honored with peridromaiv by Caracalla). Other decursiones are attested: by “the equites and the army” at Sulla’s pyre (App. B Civ. 1.106, perievdramon); by the army at a cenotaph for the elder Drusus on the German frontier242 (Suet. Claud. 1.3, ‘decurreret;’ cf. Consol. Liv. 217–218, apparently referring to a decursio at his pyre in Rome); by “the Praetorians and their prefect and, separately, the equites of the ordo [oiJ iJpph÷" to; tevlo"]”—among others—at the obsequies for Drusilla, Caligula’s sister (59.11.2, fragmentary); by “the magistrates, the equites of the ordo, . . . the military equites, and the infantry” at the pyre of Pertinax 242. Cf. 55.2.3n, “cenotaph on the very Rhine.”

342

Commentary on Book 56

(74.5.5); for a second decursio in honor of Septimius Severus, in Rome, cf. Hdn. 4.2.9–10. A decursio is depicted on the Column of Antoninus Pius (Nash Dictionary 1.272–273). Cf. Verg. Aen. 11.184–202; Tabula Hebana lines 54–57; Lucan 8.729–742, esp. 734–735 (the decursio Pompey was not honored with); Tac. Ann. 2.7.3. See RE 4.2354 = Decursio 2 (Fiebiger); Kleine Pauly 1.1420; Richard “Aspects militaires” 313–316. “The equites (both those from the order and the others).” Nicolet JRS 66 (1976), 36–38 thinks that “those from the order” were iuniores of equestrian family (angusticlavii), “the others” iuniores of senatorial fathers (laticlavii), who remained in the equestrian order only until they entered the Senate (cf. 54.26.5). On my reading, however, Dio here distinguishes between a formation combining laticlavii with angusticlavii and a formation of professional Praetorian horse.243 In recounting the funeral of Pertinax (74.5.5) he distinguishes the equites of the order, hJ iJppa;" to; tevlo", from professional cavalrymen, oi{ . . . iJppei÷" oiJ stratiw÷tai. That the same distinction is intended in our text by oi{ te ejk tou÷ tevlou" kai; oiJ a[lloi is confirmed by his registering “the Praetorian foot” (to; oJplitiko;n to; ûrourikovn) immediately after “the others.” Visualizing the parade, Dio couples the Praetorian cavalry (its existence in 14 is proved by Tac. Ann. 1.24.2) with the socially elite equites because both were mounted. I doubt that he would refer to laticlavii merely as “the others;” cf. 53.15.2; 55.13.6. Nor would mounted Praetorians have been excluded from the decursio while Praetorian infantry participated. In sum, the equites “from the ordo” (ejk tou÷ tevlou") included both laticlavii and angusticlavii, so that “the other equites” (oiJ a[lloi) must be found outside it. Demougin Ordre 263–269 reaches a similar conclusion; contrast T.P. Wiseman, “The Definition of ‘Eques Romanus’ in the Late Republic and Early Empire,” Historia 19 (1970), 76, 83. nikhthvria ia:: “. . . throwing on it all the victory decorations any of them had ever received from Augustus for valor.” Consecrated to their imperator as funeral offerings, these will have included phalerae (sculptured metal bosses worn on the chest), torques (metal collars), and coronae (Suet. Aug. 25.3; all had long been standard: e.g., Cic. Verr. 3.185).244 During the decursio for Septimius Severus in Britain his men threw on the pyre such dona militaria (dw÷ra ta; stratiwtikav) as they had to hand (76.15.3); for arms and decorations thrown on Julius Caesar’s pyre in the Forum cf. App. B Civ. 2.148, steûavnou", ajristei÷a; Suet. Iul. 84.4. Soldiers appear to have viewed dona militaria as awarded by the emperor whether or not they were earned under his direct command (Campbell Emperor 198–203). Cf. V.A. Maxfield, The Military Decorations of the Roman Army (London, 1981), 55–100 with numerous illustrations; Webster Army 132–133; Richard “Aspects militaires” 317–319. 243. The latter must be distinguished in their turn from the German, especially Batavian, horse that served as Augustus’ personal bodyguard; see 55.24.7n; Speidel Riding 31–35 on Praetorian equites, 15–18 on the Germans. 244. All three adorn the sculpted image of the centurion M. Caelius, who “fell in the Varian war” (a pair of torques hang on his chest at shoulder level above the phalerae): see Webster Army plate VI; KAVR 566; cf. ILS 2244 = EJ no. 45. On the variety of coronae cf. Gell. 5.6.

29.2–47.2: The Year a.d. 14 (To Augustus’ Consecration)

343

Cf. 74.4.6, 5.4, funerary gifts (ejntavûia) of senators, leading equites, communities, and city military units (susthvmata: 55.24.8n) heaped on the pyre of Pertinax; Verg. Aen. 11.195–196. 42.3 da÷ / d a" a":: “Centurions took torches and lit the pyre,” probably a pair. Two men in arms lit Julius Caesar’s pyre (Suet. Iul. 84.3), consuls that of Pertinax (74.5.5), Caracalla and Geta their father’s (76.15.3; cf. Hdn. 4.2.10). aj e tov ": “An eagle released from the pyre flew up, as if [wJ" kai; dhv] bearing Augustus’ soul aloft into the sky.” Dio records a similar spectacle at the funeral of Pertinax (74.5.5), as does Herodian in a general description of apotheosis in the context of Septimius Severus’ funeral (4.2.11): “An eagle is released to rise into the sky with the flames; this the Romans believe bears the soul of the emperor from earth to heaven, after which he is worshipped with the rest of the gods.” These are the only literary references to an eagle device at emperors’ funerals. Cf. SHA Sev. 22.1. For sculptures and coins linking the eagle with apotheosis see Arce Funus 131–140 with plates 42–49.245 Dio’s report of the release of an eagle at Augustus’ funeral is widely discredited as importing a practice not current before the second century a.d. By his day consecratio was normally voted before the funus publicum,246 and scholars generally hold that he mistakenly imagined that this was also the case in a.d.14 (even though he reports Augustus’ consecration after the funeral: 56.46.1n) and so authored an unhistorical doublet, with apotheosis, implicit in the eagle rite, voted before the funeral and its cultic implementation voted after. Neither Suet. Aug. 100 nor Tac. Ann. 1.8–10 records an eagle at the funeral. See, for example, Richard “Funérailles” 1125–1129 at 1128 n36; Liebeschuetz Continuity 74; Price “Consecration” 95; Kierdorf Chiron 16 (1986), 57. Arce Funus 131–140 seeks to accommodate Dio’s eagle by treating it as purely symbolic of a body-soul dualism rather than as historical: in fact no real-life eagle was launched from Augustus’ pyre, or for that matter from the pyre of later emperors, even in Dio’s own time, however frequently the eagle motif occurred in artistic representations. Against the general skepticism about Dio’s eagle is the apparent association of eagle and apotheosis on a public image of Augustus’ reign. One of the sculpted scenes of Roman myth and history on the “Belvedere” Altar, dated 12/?2 b.c., presents an eagle soaring above a chariot drawn by four winged horses in which the deceased—variously identified as Romulus, Julius Caesar, Agrippa, or Augustus—is about to take off heavenward (sharp plates in Zanker Power fig245. Classic examples are: BMCEmp. 3.362 no. 955 with plate 66 = Smallwood (1966) 145, showing Diva Augusta Sabina, Hadrian’s wife, borne by an eagle in flight, over the legend ‘CONSECRATIO;’ the base of the Column of Antoninus Pius, portraying him and his wife Faustina heaven bound, attended by eagles (Nash Dictionary 1.272–273; LTUR 1.298–300 (S. Maffei). 246. This had arguably been the case at least from the reign of Trajan. According to the Fasti Ostienses of 112 the emperor’s sister Marciana Augusta, having died and been named Diva on 29 August, was buried five (possibly thirteen) days later (IIt. 13.1.201 lines 40–43 = Smallwood [1966] 22). Kierdorf Chiron 16 (1986) argues that the practice of decreeing consecratio before the funeral began with Claudius in 54.

344

Commentary on Book 56

ure 177; Arce Funus figures 42–43).247 For Weinstock the scene contradicts the view that Dio’s eagle is anachronistic (Julius 359 n16). Is it inconceivable that a live eagle was released from the pyre, not to advertise an apotheosis already enacted, but as a pious forecast of apotheosis to follow?248 Gradel 291–295 takes Dio’s eagle rite to be historical, voted by the Senate among other funeral honors on the morrow of Tiberius’ arrival in Rome with Augustus’ corpse (56.33.1n).249 He adduces as evidence Tiberian coins, most cogently a type that presents, on the obverse, Augustus’ head with radiate crown (symbolic of divinity) and the legend DIVVS AVGVSTVS PATER, on the reverse an eagle on a globe (with flanking SC), “standing frontally with outspread wings and head raised heavenwards, as if about to soar aloft” (293; for an example see RIC 12.99 no. 82 with plate 12); minted late in Tiberius’ reign, the coinage in question heralded the dedication of the Temple of Divus Augustus, voted in 14 and under construction for over two decades; its imagery, moreover, “suggests that an eagle was in fact employed at Augustus’ funeral” (294). On Gradel’s view, the Senate had in effect ratified Augustus’ apotheosis before the funeral; its votes of honores caelestes on 17 September (cf. 56.46.1n) served to add the apparatus of worship—priests, temple, and ceremonial; Suetonius omitted the eagle rite simply because by his day it was too familiar a feature of imperial funerals to be worth mentioning to his readers. Although it is generally believed that Rome adopted the eagle motif from the Hellenistic East (e.g., F. Cumont, After Life in Roman Paganism [New Haven, 1923], 148–169 at 157–160), for Gradel the rite with the eagle as the carrier of the soul was “a Roman invention, thought out by Augustus, or the people who, with the Senate’s approval, arranged his last rites” (316–317). 42.4 oj s ta÷: “Livia stayed five days at the site in the company of leading equites, then collected his bones and placed them in the tomb.” Cf. Suet. Aug. 100.4: “Leading men of the equestrian order, wearing unbelted tunics [‘tunicati et discincti’] and barefoot, collected the remains and buried them in the Mausoleum.”250 Suetonius omits Livia’s role. The equites can be seen as representatives of the grieving national family. Demougin Ordre 264–265 suggests that they were eminent seniores who had not participated in the decursio at the pyre (56.42.2n). A 247. The badly effaced image of the eagle can be identified from furrows representing its feathered wings. Date. The panel on the reverse of the apotheosis scene portrays a winged Victory fixing a shield on a pillar flanked by laurel trees. The shield bears an inscribed dedication, ‘senatus populusq. Romanus imp. Caesari divi f. Augusto pontif. maxum. imp. (space) cos. (space) trib. potestat. (space)’ (ILS 83 = EJ no. 23), necessarily composed after Augustus’ election as Pontifex Maximus in 12 b.c. Absence of the title Pater Patriae suggests a terminus ante quem of 2 b.c. Another panel features the cult of the Lares Augusti, founded 7 b.c. (cf. 55.8.7n). The deified: Augustus (Taylor Divinity 186–189); Julius Caesar (Weinstock Julius 359, though with reserve; Zanker Power 220–221, figure 177); Agrippa (A. Fraschetti, “La mort d’Agrippa et l’autel du Belvédère: un certain type d’hommage,” MEFRA 92 [1980], 957–976); Romulus (T. Hölscher in KAVR 394–396). 248. Not that this hypothesis suffices to palliate Dio’s license in having Tiberius address the mourners in the Forum as if they had already designated Augustus a god (56.41.9n). 249. He leaves open whether the rite originated in the instructions annexed to Augustus’ will or in the sententiae of senators. 250. On the tunic, normally worn belted, see N. Goldman, “Reconstructing Roman Clothing,” in Sebesta & Bonfante Costume 221–223; on going barefoot cf. 105 (from Goldman’s “Roman Footwear”).

29.2–47.2: The Year a.d. 14 (To Augustus’ Consecration)

345

proposal made in the Senate that “priests of the highest colleges” collect the bones (Suet. Aug. 100.2) had evidently not found favor. On the ceremonious services tendered to remains of the dead see RE 3.356– 357 = Bestattung (Mau) and 18.1600 = Ossilegium (G. Rohde); DNP 2.590–592 s.v. Bestattung (W. Kierdorf); above all note the evocative passage in which Lygdamus imagines his wife and mother-in-law collecting his remains: Tib. 3.2.9–25;251 cf. 1.3.5–9. Cf. 53.30.5, 54.28.5, and 55.2.3, Augustus’ burial of Marcellus, Agrippa, and Drusus in his Mausoleum; 56.32.4n, his exclusion of the Julias from it.

43.1–45.3: AUGUSTUS ESTIMATED Dio sketches how contemporaries estimated Augustus’ character and achievement. Favorable as their judgments were (negative judgments are parried at 56.44.1–2, 46.1), he notes ironically that only later, on comparing Augustus with his successor, did people truly grasp his excellence (56.43.1, 45.1). Dio includes his own summary estimate at 56.44.2. There are palpable contacts in substance and wording between our retrospect and the positive of two antithetical retrospects on Augustus in Tac. Ann. (1.9, positive; 1.10, negative; cf. 1.2–3). These contacts plus Dio’s use of the same device as Tacitus—viewing the deceased through survivors’ eyes—have led most scholars to posit a source in common (a view I share). But they debate whether the common source offered contrasting judgments like Tacitus or, like Dio, a predominantly positive judgment, or “occupied a middle position, less enthusiastic than Dio, less skeptical than Tacitus” (C.B.R. Pelling in Gnomon 55 [1983], 225). Syme cautions against underestimating the complexity of the tradition or the freedom with which each author adapted it (Tacitus 272–274). For Schwartz, the idea of having contemporaries give contrasting retrospects on Augustus derived from a gifted historian writing in the aftermath of Tiberius’ reign; both Dio and Tacitus emulated him, but Dio adopted only the positive judgment (“Dio” 1716–1717). For Klingner the common source presented a fundamentally positive judgment; this Dio followed in the main, while Tacitus worked up the negative case to subvert it, the first to do so (Tacitus 3–45 at 18–26). These are the classic positions. For criticism and variants cf. H. Tränkle, “Augustus bei Tacitus, Cassius Dio und dem älteren Plinius,” WS 3 (1969), 108– 130 (pace Klingner, both positive and negative judgments were already current in Julio-Claudian historiography; although Tacitus crystallized the negative, his originality in this respect should not be overstated); Goodyear on Ann. 1.9–10 (1.154–156); D. Flach, Tacitus in der Tradition der antiken Geschichtsschreibung (Hypomnemata 39) (Göttingen, 1973), 126–138; Manuwald Dio 131–167 (the common source contained an altogether positive retrospect, which Dio followed 251. Lygdamus’ elegies are preserved in Book 3 of the Tibullan corpus.

346

Commentary on Book 56

closely); Giua Athenaeum 61 (1983), 450–456 (in the positive retrospect in Tacitus the new regime is deemed at best as a way out of the disorders of the Republic, in Dio it is the best form of government “in senso assoluto” [453]); Noè Storiografia 40 n110; A.B. Breebart, “Augustus’ Behaviour: Role-Play and Expectations,” in Clio and Antiquity: History and Historiography of the Greek and Roman World (Hilversum, 1987), 89–108 at 103–105; Rich “Dio” 104–108. On whether Dio used Tacitus see Syme Tacitus 690–691; Goodyear 1.154–156. There is a good deal in our retrospect that is Dio’s own, distinct from what he took from the source he shared with Tacitus:252 references to his narrative, for example, in the sketch of Augustus’ personal qualities (56.43.1n); some entirely fresh material (not much), notably anecdotes about Athenodorus and Corocotta (56.43.2– 3); his own definitive endorsement of Augustus’ constitution (56.44.2); a characteristic interpretation of signs that portended a sea change under Tiberius (56.45.2). In Manuwald’s view Dio’s positive retrospect puts so high a value on Augustus’ overall political achievement as to contradict the darker Augustus of the narrative, a contradiction that Dio tries, with limited success, to resolve by palliating Augustus’ appeals to force: Dio 140–167, summarized 166–167, cf. 274–275. If Dio subscribed to the Stoic theory that human character was fixed for life (so Gowing Narratives 258 n34, cf. 30–31, 266–269), he may have found it easier to condone the violence of Augustus’ early career, including the proscriptions, as done under the pressure of circumstances: Augustus had always been the good man he turned out to be in the end.

43.1–3 AUGUSTUS’ CHARACTER 43.1 pev n qo" . . . ejk tou÷ nov mou . . . aj l hqev ": “The legally prescribed mourning men observed for a few days, women for a whole year, by senate decree. Genuine grief few felt immediately, later everyone.” For public mourning on the death of dynastic figures cf. Consol. Liv. 65–66, luctus publicus (Augustus’ nephew Marcellus; the elder Drusus); 54.35.5, dhmovsion . . . pevnqo" (Augustus’ sister Octavia, mother of Marcellus). The chief insignia of mourning were changes in dress. According to Paulus Sent. 1.21.14 = FIRA 2.335, “a person in mourning should abstain from banquets, ornaments, purple, and white dress.” Prohibition of white may have applied only to men: according to Hdn. 4.2.3 notable women wore plain white, while omitting necklaces and gold ornaments; cf. Plut. Quaest. Rom. 270d. For the laying aside of gold or purple by matrons see Livy 34.7.9–10; Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 5.48.4; 9.27.2; for senators in mourning dress, see 54.35.5; 56.31.2–3n. Our sources focus on the affluent. Cf. DS 2.2.1401–1402; H. Blümner, Die römischen Privataltertümer (München, 1911), 496–497 = Handbuch der klassischen AltertumsWissenschaft 4.2.2; RE 13.1697–1705 = Luctus (Kübler); Arce Funus 54–57 (“El duelo”); SCPP pp192–193. 252. From the common source come, for example, the notion that length of rule was fundamental to Augustus’ glory (56.44.3–4) and the invidious comparison with Tiberius (56.45.3).

29.2–47.2: The Year a.d. 14 (To Augustus’ Consecration)

347

“Days.” Perhaps nine, the period that Dio says Hadrian wore mourning (melaneimonh÷sai) for Trajan’s widow Plotina as an exceptional honor (69.10.31)— also the interval between burial and the cena novendialis, the funeral feast of the family at the grave (Toynbee Death 50–51). Cf. Blümner op. cit. 509–511; D.P. Harmon, “The Family Festivals of Rome,” ANRW 2.16.2.1592–1603 at 1600– 1603 (“Funeral and Rites for the Dead”).253 “Whole year.” A year’s public mourning was observed exceptionally by matrons for the liberator Brutus (Livy 2.7.4, “as for a parent”), Sulla,254 and Livia (58.2.2); cf. Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 5.48.4; 9.27.2; Wesch-Klein Funus 99.255 euj p rov s odo" odo":: “approachable to all alike.” For example, 54.35.2–3; 56.26.3; cf. 56.41.5; Suet. Aug. 53.2–3. Here and below Dio derives his portrait of Augustus mainly from his own narrative. ej p hv r kei kei:: “aided many financially.” For example, 53.2.1–2; 55.12.3a, 13.6; cf. 56.41.8. ej t iv m a a:: “showed high honor to friends.” For example, Agrippa (53.1.2, 23.3–4, 27.4–5; 54.12.1–5) and Maecenas (54.30.4; 55.7.1). 43.2 pro;" toi÷" eijrhmevnoi" oi":: “Beyond instances already related” of the pleasure Augustus took in friends’ outspokenness (e.g., 52.41.1; 55.7.3) Dio recounts Athenodorus’ outrageous masquerade as an assassin, calculated to expose the laxity of imperial security, and how the emperor, far from reacting angrily, thanked him for the object lesson. On this famous Stoic philosopher of Tarsus, teacher of the youthful Octavian (cf. 52.36.4) and later his agent in that city (Str. 14.674–675), see PIR2 A 1288; Cichorius Studien 279–282; P. Grimal, “Auguste et Athénodore,” REA 47 (1945), 261–273 (reconstruction of Athenodorus’ life, dating his birth ca 95 b.c.); 48 (1946), 62–79 (thought, influence on Augustus); Bowersock Augustus 32, 34, 39; Syme Aristocracy 347. For other anecdotes in Dio’s account of Augustus’ reign— not a prominent feature—cf. 54.4.2–4, 17.5, 23.2–6; 55.4.2–3, 7.2. 43.3 Korokov t tan tan:: “Corocotta,” “Hyena,”256 a powerful Spanish brigand who brazenly turned himself in and collected the 1,000,000 HS reward Augustus had 253. Periods of domestic mourning could vary somewhat, depending inter alia on how old the deceased was and how related to the mourner. For the testimonia, which are not altogether consistent, see RE 13.1700–1703 = Luctus (Kübler). 254. Grani Liciniani Quae Supersunt, ed. M. Flemisch (Stuttgart, 1966), p33 lines 2–3 = Sources for Roman History 133–70 b.c.,2 ed. A.H.J. Greenidge & A.M. Clay, rev. by E.W. Gray (Oxford, 1960), p232. 255. Since different periods were prescribed for men and women, pevnqo" (“mourning”) cannot refer strictly to a iustitium, the legal suspension of state business and of private business conducted in public (for instance, in shops) declared originally in response to national emergencies (as apparently during the Gracchan constitutional crisis of 133 b.c. [Dio fr. 83.6]) but later, especially under the Empire, on the loss of great national figures. Though evidence for this is lacking, a iustitium may well have been declared on receipt of word about Augustus’ death (cf. Tac. Ann. 1.16.2, 50.1), perhaps by the consuls (cf. 1.7.3), lasting until he was buried—on the parallel of the iustitium declared at Rome for Gaius Caesar (a.d. 4), effective “until his bones were laid in the Mausoleum” (‘donec ossa eius in [ma]esol[aeum inlata sunt]’) (IIt. 13.1.245 = EJ p39); cf. Suet. Cal. 24.2, iustitium for Caligula’s sister Drusilla. Cf. in detail Wesch-Klein Funus 91–101 (“Iustitium, luctus publicus und inferiae”). 256. The corocotta, writes Pliny the Elder, was a cross of a hyena with a lioness: HN 8.107, cf. 72 and SHA Antoninus Pius 10.9. Dio 76.1.4 describes one killed in a beast hunt in Rome in 202 as combining features of lion, tiger, dog, and fox.

348

Commentary on Book 56

offered for his capture. Dio uses the story to demonstrate Augustus’ matchless self-control and good faith. For Giua Athenaeum 61 (1983), 455 the Athenodorus and Corocotta anecdotes were meant to show up Septimius Severus’ lack of these virtues (cf. 75.7.3–4, vindictiveness toward Clodius Albinus; 74.2.1–2, failure to keep a promise not to execute any senator). Cf. Manuwald Dio 144–145. On the identity of Corocotta (attested only here) see F. Diego Santos, “Die Integration Nord- und Nordwestspaniens als römische Provinz in der Reichspolitik des Augustus,” ANRW 2.3.547 (a Cantabrian guerrilla leader; his surrender possibly belongs to Augustus’ sojourn in Spain ca 15–14 b.c.); D. Braund, “Corocottas: Bandit and Hyena,” LCM 5 (1980), 13–14; B.D. Shaw, “Bandits in the Roman Empire,” P&P 105 (1984), 44.257

43.4–44.4 On Augustus’ Political Achievement This section combines (at times inextricably) final judgments on Augustus by his contemporaries and by Dio himself. 43.4 th;n monarcivan th÷/ dhmokrativa/ mivxa" a":: “For these reasons and because, by blending monarchy with Republic, he preserved their freedom for them and brought them order and security as well, . . . they missed [ejpovqoun] Augustus terribly.” The antithetical schema of the “mixed constitution” with which Dio says people credited Augustus has less substance than style (this is palpably Thucydidean: cf. 2.40.1). Abstract and simplistic, it fails to suggest how the virtues of monarchy and Republic were retained while the vices of each disappeared. Against Millar Study 74–76, who sees here Dio’s own view, Manuwald Dio 24–25 thinks that Dio is conveying a general view he found in the source he shared with Tacitus. “Missed . . . terribly.” High tribute. Dio also uses poqei÷n of the sense of loss on the deaths of Scipio Aemilianus (fr. 84.1), Agrippa (54.29.5), Maecenas (55.7.5), and Pertinax (73.13.4). 44.1 pragmavtwn ajnavgkh/: “For if people brought up what had happened earlier, in the civil wars, they would put this down to the pressure of circumstances; they rather thought it right to assess his character [gnwvmhn] starting from when he achieved undisputed power; for he made the difference truly obvious.” Dio offers a like justification below, in his own person (56.44.2, cf. 37.3n).258 44.2 metekovsmhse mhse:: “One could show this in detail [the obvious difference once Augustus achieved sole rule] by studying his actions singly. But to sum them all up I would say [gravûw] that he brought a complete end to civil strife and reor-

257. The outlaw testator of the Testamentum Porcelli had the name M. Grunnius Corocotta: E. Champlin, “The Testament of the Piglet,” Phoenix 41 (1987), 174–183. 258. A similar justification also surfaces in the positive retrospect in Tac. Ann. 1.9.3 (cf. 1.10.1–3, an opposite perspective). For Manuwald, who thinks that the source shared by Tacitus and Dio presented only a positive portrait of Augustus (Tacitus being the first to develop the negative), those who brought up his civil war conduct were supporters, not critics (Dio 145–146).

29.2–47.2: The Year a.d. 14 (To Augustus’ Consecration)

349

ganized [metekovsmhse] the state for the best [cf. 52.14.1; 53.19.1], strengthening it greatly. So, even though some rather violent deeds [biaiovterovn ti] were done, as commonly happens in situations that defy rational calculation [ejn toi÷" paralovgoi"; cf. fr. 70.5; 48.29.3; Thuc. 1.78.1], it would be fairer to blame the circumstances themselves than him.” This is Dio’s own final judgment—highly favorable but less idealistic and abstract than that ascribed to Augustus’ contemporaries (56.43.4–44.1). It simply offsets the violence in his youthful career—which is not denied—with his achievement in building a better state, end justifying means. Dio betrays a cool insouciance on the question of Augustus’ civil war guilt. Writing disinterestedly from a cosmic perspective, he does not weigh heavily the human cost of the proscriptions in an historical process that ended well. Manuwald stresses Dio’s belief, overriding contrary evidence and judgments in his narrative, in the historical necessity of monarchy and Augustus’ merits as a model monarch (Dio 24–26, 145– 148, 274–275, 284).259 44.3–4 to; polucrovnion ion:: “A main factor contributing to his good repute was the length of his rule.” In elaborating this point Dio parallels texts of Tacitus: Tac. Ann. 1.3.7: ‘quotus quisque reliquus,qui rem publicam vidisset?’

Dio 56.44.4: oiJ d! u{steroi ejkeivnh" [th÷" dhmokrativa"] me;n oujde;n eijdovte"

Ann. 1.2.1: ‘tuta et praesentia quam vetera et periculosa mallent’

56.44.4: beltivw kai; ajdeevstera aujta; [ta; parovnta] wJ ¿n h[kouon oJrw÷nte" o[nta

Tacitus’ texts are not, however, from his paired retrospects in Ann. 1.9–10; he has distributed this material from their common stock more widely than Dio (Syme Tacitus 273; cf. Manuwald Dio 149 n69).

45.1–3 Descent to Tiberius 45.1–2 hjpivstanto . . . e[gnwsan nwsan:: “They knew this [how well off they were under Augustus] even while he was alive, yet it came home to them more when he was gone.” Human nature (to; ajnqrwvpeion), explains Dio, is slower to appreciate its happiness in good times than to recognize its loss in bad. To illustrate this failing he records two premonitory signs through which, “had people been percipient [e[mûrosi], it would have been possible260 to foresee immediately the fundamental change” (56.45.2) from Augustus to Tiberius. On Dio’s ubiquitous pessimism about human nature see Reinhold Republic 215–217.

259. Gowing, by contrast, finds Dio’s palliation of Augustus’ part in the proscriptions “contrived and inserted almost as an afterthought” (Narratives 267–269). 260. Cf. Smyth Grammar no. 2313 on apodosis without a[n.

350

Commentary on Book 56

45.2 u{ p ato" ato":: “The consul Pompeius . . . broke his leg” while on his way261 to meet Augustus’ cortege (cf. 56.31.2) and was brought back to Rome in a litter, along with the corpse. The ex-consul Dio deemed this event a readable sign of the change in store under Tiberius: what befell a public magistrate (as distinct from a privatus) could have prophetic significance for the state (46.33.3). For Sex. Pompeius see 56.29.2n. Only Dio mentions his accident. buva" a auuj q¿ i" i":: “And once more [cf. 56.29.3n] an owl alighted on the senate house, during the very first senate session after Augustus’ death, and uttered many illomened calls.” No other source records this surely fictitious second sign. The session in question was presumably that held following Tiberius’ arrival in Rome with the corpse in early September and presided over by him (see on 56.31.2–33.6). 45.3 i{na aujto;" eujdoxhvsh/: “They differed so completely from one another that some even suspected Augustus of deliberately making Tiberius his successor, though he knew full well what sort he was, so as to enhance his own fame.” Dio does not use this allegation to criticize Augustus (Manuwald Dio 150) but as a mark of his superiority. Tacitus, on the other hand, includes it unreservedly in the negative retrospect on Augustus: “he sought to glorify himself by offering the worst of comparisons [‘comparatione deterrima’]” in his successor (Ann. 1.10.7). Suetonius had read allegations that Augustus chose Tiberius “so that with a successor like him he would himself be missed all the more eventually” but rejected these vehemently (Tib. 21.2–3), perhaps correcting Tacitus (so Goodyear on Tac. Ann. 1.10.7 [1.166–168]). Cf. 58.23.3–4: Tiberius allegedly hoped to profit from a comparatio deterrima in choosing Caligula to succeed.

46.1–47.2: THE WORSHIP OF DIVUS AUGUSTUS For Appian the determinative event in Roman emperor-worship was Octavian’s consecration of Julius Caesar in 42 (B Civ. 2.148). For Dio, however, it was Augustus’ consecration, and he pays close attention to it, more than any other source, as he also does to the consecration of Caligula’s sister Drusilla, the first imperial woman to be deified (59.11.2–4; cf. P. Herz, “Diva Drusilla: Ägyptisches und Römisches im Herrscherkult zur Zeit Caligulas,” Historia 30 [1981], 324–336). Select bibliography. Taylor Divinity 228–232; Hammond Monarchy 203–209 (deifications from Augustus to Severus Alexander); Bickermann “Consecratio” 3– 37; Hopkins Conquerors 197–242 (“Divine Emperors or the Symbolic Unity of the Roman Empire”); Kierdorf Chiron 16 (1986), 43–69; Fishwick Cult 1.158– 168 (emphasizing the importance of Augustus’ consecration together with Tiberius’ single-minded promotion of his cult in permanently founding the “collective worship of divi” [158]); Arce Funus 125–157; Price “Consecration” 71–82; Bosworth 261. Pace Syme Aristocracy 317, ejxormhvsa" does not imply haste.

29.2–47.2: The Year a.d. 14 (To Augustus’ Consecration)

351

“Apotheosis;”262 Gradel 261–371, a systematic rethinking of the theology and sociology of apotheosis. 46.1 tovte de; ajqanativsante" ante":: “This story [about Augustus’ choosing Tiberius as a foil for his own excellence] they began spreading263 later, but at that time they made him immortal and in his honor created Sodales,264 sacred rites, and a priestess in the person of Livia, now called Julia and Augusta.” The lemma refers not to Augustus’ symbolical ascension at his funeral but to the 17 September vote of apotheosis, to which measures for celebrating the cult of the new divus were subjoined.265 Cf. Fasti Amiternini under 17 September in IIt. 13.2.510 = EJ p52 = TDGR 6.1 L (p2), “heavenly honors [‘honores caelestes’] voted by the Senate;” Tac. Ann. 1.10.8, “a temple and heavenly rites [‘caelestes religiones’] are decreed,” cf. 54.1; cf. Vell. 2.124.3, ‘corpus eius humanis honoribus, nomen divinis honoratum;’ Plin. Pan. 11.1; 56.41.9n. “Sodales.” The Sodales Augustales formed a priestly college of the new cult, numbering “twenty-one drawn by lot from the elite of the state,266 to whom Tiberius, Drusus, Claudius, and Germanicus were added” (Tac. Ann. 1.54.1; cf. Suet. Claud. 6.2).267 The new brotherhood ranked with the four most august priesthoods268 (Ann. 3.64.3–4; Dio 58.12.5; cf. 53.1.5) and became the model for sodalitates of divi of later dynasties, for example, Sodales Flaviales and Sodales Antoniniani (ILS 1010; 1112).269 See RE Suppl. 7.1219–1220 = Sodales Augustales (Strasburger). Despite Dio’s “in his honor” (oiJ), other members of the imperial family besides Augustus came within the purview of the Sodales Augustales: cf. Tabula Siarensis fr. (b) col. I lines 1–5 (as restored), the priesthood’s responsibilities for offerings

262. Bosworth argues that, in line with Euhemerist doctrine, Augustus aspired to godhead on the basis of his achievements as conqueror and benefactor; he composed the Res Gestae as the record of the deserts that qualified him for heaven: “The language . . . and the political setting of its first reading [in the senate session following arrival of Augustus’ cortege in Rome: cf. 56.31.2, 33.1] left no doubt that its subject was now a god, made immortal by his achievements on earth” (12). 263. diaqroei÷n: cf. 53.19.4; 61.8.5. 264. qiaswvta" (so translated only in Dio: Mason Terms 117). 265. Dio uses ajqanativzw in three other passages: (1) The most germane is from his account of the obsequies and apotheosis of Caligula’s favorite sister Drusilla (59.11.1–4). A series of clauses apparently abridges an enactment on honores caelestes, starting with her apotheosis proper (it was voted “that she be made immortal [ajqanatisqh÷/]”), followed by provisions for a golden statue in the Senate, a cult statue, a shrine, priests and priestesses, oaths by her divinity, and a festival. (2) 58.2.1: Tiberius “absolutely forbade Livia’s being made immortal [ajqanatisqh÷nai].” (3) 74.5.5: “An eagle flew up from the pyre. Thus Pertinax was made immortal [hjqanativsqh].” Dio apparently uses the latter sentence, not to make the apotheosis result directly from the eagle rite, but to sum up his whole narrative of Pertinax’s honores caelestes (shrine, image, etc.) and funeral (74.4.1–5.5). 266. Cf. J. Scheid, “Les prêtres officiels sous les empereurs julio-claudiens,” ANRW 2.16.1.610–654, esp. 618, 639 (the Sodales Augustales were drawn for long from men who already held other priesthoods), 642, 648– 649. 267. Tiberius’ friend, later Germanicus’ adversary, Cn. Calpurnius Piso (cos. 7 b.c.) was a sodalis (SCPP lines 82–84 with Eck’s n [pp197–198]). 268. Pontifices, Augurs, Quindecimviri Sacris Faciundis, and Septemviri Epulones. 269. Cf. SHA Pert. 15.4: “The Sodales Marciani, who administered the sacra of Divus Marcus, were called Helviani [sc. Sodales Marciani Helviani] on account of Helvius Pertinax;” Sev. 7.8.

352

Commentary on Book 56

to the Manes of the Caesars Lucius, Gaius, and Germanicus on the anniversaries of their deaths; Tac. Ann. 3.64.4, ludi magni (see 55.31.2n) vowed for Livia’s convalescence, to be offered by the four major priesthoods plus the Sodales Augustales—as the “special priesthood of the house on behalf of which the vows were to be paid;” Tac. Hist. 2.95.1, Sodales Augustales as participants in offerings to the dead Nero! See in general Taylor Divinity 230; Hoffman Lewis Priests 116–117, 133–136; Price “Consecration” 77–79; J. Scheid, Romulus et ses frères: Le collège des Frères Arvales, modèle du culte public dans la Rome des empereurs (Bibliothèque des Écoles Françaises d’Athènes et de Rome 275) (Rome, 1990), 257–258. “Priestess.” Livia’s title seems to have been sacerdos.270 Her successor, the younger Antonia (59.3.4), is called sacerdos Divi Augusti on coins (e.g., RIC 12.124 no. 67) and inscriptions (e.g., ILS 222 = Smallwood [1967] 100); Velleius says that he saw Livia “as wife of Augustus and, when he had ascended to the gods, as his priestess and daughter [‘sacerdotem ac filiam’]” (2.75.3; cf. Ovid Pont. 4.9.107, ‘sacerdos’). Coins of 15 may portray her as priestess: e.g., RIC 12.87, 96 no. 33; RPC 1 no. 711. Cf. M. Grant, Aspects of the Principate of Tiberius: Historical Comments on the Colonial Coinage Issued outside Spain (New York, 1950), 115– 117; E. Bartman, Portraits of Livia: Imaging the Imperial Woman in Augustan Rome (Cambridge, 1999), 102–105.271 “Now named Julia and Augusta [Au[goustan].” Under Augustus’ will (cf. 56.32.1a–4) Livia was “adopted into the Julian family and took the Augustan name” (‘in familiam Iuliam nomenque Augustum adsumebatur’) (Tac. Ann. 1.8.1). For the new nomenclature see e.g., RIC 12.96–97 no. 51; CIL 2.2038 = EJ no. 123;272 Tac. Ann. 1.13.6, 14.1; PIR2 L 301 (pp75–76); Bartman op. cit. 203–211 for ‘Iulia Augusta’ and !Iouliva Sebasthv in inscriptions. Dio regularly uses the transliteration Au[gousta rather than the translation Sebasthv. Although Velleius describes Livia as “daughter” of the deified Augustus (above), she was adopted, not in the normal legal sense, but nominally: she assumed Augustus’ nomen and cognomen as a condition (condicio nominis ferendi) of entering her one-third inheritance under Augustus’ will. Cf. Champlin Judgments 144–146; C.F. Konrad, “Notes on Roman Also-Rans,” in Imperium Sine Fine: T. Robert S. Broughton and the Roman Republic, ed. J. Linderski (Historia Einzelschriften 105) (Stuttgart, 1996), 124–127, cf. 149–151 (Linderski). M.B. Flory, “The Meaning of Augusta in the Julio-Claudian Period,” AJAH 13 (1988 [1997]), 113–138 argues that it was by virtue of being mother of Tiberius, Augustus’ (adopted) son and successor, rather than consort of Augustus, that Livia 270. Flaminica is a possibility, however, synonymous but more specific (cf. Gradel 85–86). In constituting the cult of Divus Claudius the Senate voted the younger Agrippina a flamonium Claudiale: Tac. Ann. 13.2.3. 271. Dio does not report that a priest of Divus Augustus, the flamen Augustalis, was created in the person of Germanicus (e.g., ILS 177, 178; cf. Tac. Ann. 2.83.1). Cf. 44.6.4, a temple decreed to Julius Caesar and his Clemency, with Antony designated as priest—“like some flamen Dialis [tina; Diavlion];” Cic. Phil. 2.110; Weinstock Julius 305–308 (precedents for the flaminate of Augustus); Fishwick Cult 1.161–162. 272. “To Iulia Augusta, daughter of Drusus, wife of Divus Augustus, mother of Tiberius Caesar Augustus Princeps.”

29.2–47.2: The Year a.d. 14 (To Augustus’ Consecration)

353

was named (not titled) Augusta; in “adopting” her into the gens Iulia Augustus kept the Augustan cognomen exclusive to it.273 Cf. Barrett Livia 146–173 (“Mother of the Emperor”). 46.2 rJabdouvcw/: “They [sc. the Senate] granted her the use of a lictor in her priestly duties,” a public distinction heretofore accorded, among women, only to the Vestal Virgins, who since 42 b.c. had been attended by one lictor each (cf. 47.19.4; Mommsen StR 1.391). Tacitus says that Tiberius, taking promotion of Livia as a slight to himself, “did not even allow a lictor to be voted to her” (Ann. 1.14.2). But he has perhaps misconstrued as a rejection what was only a restriction—implicit in Dio’s report—on when she could use her lictor (i.e., when acting as priestess).274 The widowed Agrippina the Younger was granted two lictors (Tac. Ann. 13.2.3), plausibly as a priestess of two divi, Augustus and Claudius.275 Au[gouston ej" to;n oujranovn . . . ajniovnta ta:: “swore that he had seen Augustus ascending to the sky (as is told about Proculus and Romulus).” The praetorian senator Numerius Atticus (PIR2 N 201) no doubt gave his testimony in the Senate on 17 September (the context is votes respecting Augustus’ consecration: cf. 56.46.1n). What he had seen, according to Suetonius, was “a likeness [effigies] of the cremated man” (Aug. 100.4), a version that accommodates the duality of burying Augustus’ body while consecrating his spirit better than the version ascribed to Numerius by Dio (lemma).276 Twenty-four years later the senator Livius Geminus (PIR2 L 296) swore (‘in senatu:’ Sen. Apoc. 1) that he had seen Caligula’s sister Drusilla “ascending to the sky and keeping company with the gods” (59.11.4).277 In both cases the sworn testimony of an estimable eyewitness was perhaps the evidential basis for the consecration decree. Cf. Price “Consecration” 73: “The senate was not seen to create a deity arbitrarily; like the Roman Catholic Church deliberating about a candidate for canonisation, the senate was recognising a state of affairs.” But Gradel, a critic of the canonization model (e.g., 262 n2, review of scholarship; 288–304) rejects the idea that the witness was a sine qua non of deification, which on his view had for most intents and purposes been decided before the funeral (cf. 56.42.3n); Numerius’ testimony, prompted 273. “If we take Livia as the model, an incipient idea of the name Augusta emerges: she is a mother, worthy of special societal esteem, worthy in fact to be put on the same social (but not political) level as the Augustus, because she has borne the successor. She is, moreover, the link—both biological and sacral—between the deified father and the living son” (122). 274. Pace Fishwick Cult 1.162–163, I doubt that Livia was granted, then denied, a lictor. She is not likely to have lacked this distinction in 23 when the Senate decreed that “Augusta” join the Vestals (each attended by a lictor) in their seats whenever she entered the theater (Tac. Ann. 4.16.4). 275. The younger Antonia probably acquired a lictor on Caligula’s accession in 37, when she was named Augusta and priestess of Divus Augustus and granted “all together the privileges enjoyed by the Vestals” (59.3.4; cf. Suet. Cal. 15.2 with n of Hurley [1993]). 276. For T.E.J. Wiedemann what was attested was “that Augustus’ spirit had been seen rising to heaven in the form of an eagle while the body was being cremated” (CAH2 10.204). Dio does not make clear that he took Augustus’ ascent as witnessed by Numerius Atticus (56.46.2) and the ascent of the eagle from the pyre “as if bearing his soul into the sky” (56.42.3n) to be one and the same event. 277. C. Habicht argues that, though the sources are silent, an eyewitness will also have attested the ascension of Julius Caesar: “Die augusteische Zeit und das erste Jahrhundert nach Christi Geburt,” in Le culte des souverains dans l’Empire romain (Entretiens sur l’Antiquité classique 19) (Genève, 1973), 72–74.

354

Commentary on Book 56

by the legend about Proculus, who declared that he had witnessed the ascension of Romulus, was spontaneous and accessory rather than essential (295–297). On sententiae of senators under oath see Talbert Senate 261–262. Given the scorn heaped on Livius Geminus’ testimony by Seneca (Apoc. 1) and the silence of the sources on any later use of this procedure, it was perhaps abandoned: Kierdorf Chiron 16 (1986), 59. Iconographic portrayal of ascendant divi was not inhibited, however: Arce Funus 131–140 with plates. In recounting Numerius Atticus’ sworn testimony Dio is under no illusion that the senator had witnessed Augustus’ ascension in the objective sense. Still he mounts no skeptical challenge: consecration of good rulers was for him an essential constituent in a cosmic myth that buttressed monarchy and empire, subsuming these under a divine and eternal scheme. “Proculus and Romulus.” Dio recalls his own narrative (fr. 6.1aa = Boissevain 1.10–11 = Cary 1.22–25) of how, on the disappearance of Romulus, who had been murdered by senators, “a certain Iulius Proculus” calmed the distraught people by bearing witness that he had seen Romulus “ascending to the sky:” Romulus, he declared, had been deified as Quirinus; they should elect another king and continue the monarchy; immediately they built a temple to Quirinus. For variants (in which Romulus’ murder is respectively rumor or fabrication) cf. Livy 1.16.1–8; Ovid Fasti 2.475–512.278 46.3 hJrw÷/onn:: “A shrine was created for him in Rome, voted by the Senate but built by Livia and Tiberius.” Cf. Tac. Ann. 1.10.6, 8: ‘templum et caelestes religiones decernuntur.’ No trace remains of the Temple of Divus Augustus, though it is no doubt the hexastyle shrine portrayed on the reverse of sestertii of Caligula of 37/ 38 with the legend DIVO AVG SC: e.g., RIC 12.111 no. 36 with plate 13; carefully described in Hänlein-Schäfer Veneratio 126, cf. 75–76; for a sharp image see Fishwick Cult 2.1 plate LXXXVII a. It is generally thought to have stood in the valley between the Palatine and the Capitoline since Suetonius says that Caligula linked these hills with a bridge passing over the temple: Cal. 22.4 with nn of Hurley (1993) (p91) and Wardle (p217); Hänlein-Schäfer Veneratio 36– 37, 123–124, plate 1 a, positing a location south of and parallel to the Basilica Iulia). Cf. Map 2 inset. Velleius wrote ca 30 that Tiberius was pursuing construction of the temple ‘pia munificentia’ (2.130.1); Tacitus says that he finished but did not dedicate it (Ann. 6.45.1; cf. 57.10.2); Suetonius that he left it incomplete (Tib. 47; if only just: cf. 74.1), and Caligula finished it (Cal. 21.1 with n of Hurley [1993]); Plin. HN 12.94 credits Livia alone with building it. Caligula dedicated the temple in summer 37 with grand celebrations (59.7.1–4); in 38 the Acta Fratrum Arvalium record a sacrifice there on Augustus’ birthday: Smallwood (1967) 5 = Braund Sourcebook 278. On the elaboration of traditions about Romulus’ apotheosis and Iulius Proculus (the latter is first attested in Cic. Rep. 2.10.20 and Leg. 1.1.3) see Ogilvie on Livy 1.16 (pp84–85); Price “Consecration” 73–74. For what is probably the earliest reference to Romulus’ apotheosis see The Annals of Q. Ennius, ed. O. Skutsch (Oxford, 1985), lines 54–55 (= 65–66 Vahlen) with n on p205.

29.2–47.2: The Year a.d. 14 (To Augustus’ Consecration)

355

189.279 Cf. 60.5.2 (under 41), the new cult of Livia as Diva Augusta instituted there.280 See Platner & Ashby 62–65; Nash Dictionary 2.164; B. Tamm, Auditorium and Palatium: A Study on Assembly-Rooms in Roman Palaces during the 1st Century b.c. and the 1st Century a.d. (Stockholm, 1963), 65–71; Hänlein-Schäfer Veneratio 113–128 (testimonia, topography, history, architecture); Barrett Caligula 69–70; Fishwick “Temple” (arguing on the basis of Prudent. C. Symm. 245–250 that Augustus’ temple was modeled on that of Capitoline Jupiter); Richardson Dictionary 45–46; cf. M. Torelli in LTUR 1.145–146 (heterodox). dhv m wn wn:: Dio says that many “cities” undertook to build temples to Augustus posthumously. Cf. 57.10.1. Hänlein-Schäfer Veneratio 19 identifies six municipal shrines, for example, at Ostia, Nola (see below), and Gytheum; cf. 13–15 for five posthumous provincial shrines, for example, at Tarraco in Hispania Tarraconensis (Tac. Ann. 1.78.1; cf. Fishwick Cult 1.150–158). In noting that some performed this service reluctantly, Dio possibly generalizes from Cyzicus’ failure to complete the temple (hJrw÷/on) that it had begun—for which it was punished (57.24.6; cf. Tac. Ann. 4.36.2, under 25: ‘obiecta publice Cyzicenis incuria caerimoniarum divi Augusti’). In undercutting ironically the sincerity of communities that built temples with ostensible good grace (eJkovntwn dhv, “willingly of course”) Dio may be retrojecting his bitterness over imperial burdens thrust upon cities, above all their elites, in his own day (cf. 77.9.1, 4). hJ ej n th÷ / Nwv l h/ oij k iv a . . . ej t emeniv s qh qh:: “Also the house in Nola in which he died [56.29.2n] was consecrated to him.” Arguably this was the templum near Nola that Tiberius dedicated “to Augustus” in 26 (Tac. Ann. 4.57.1,281 cf. 67.1; Suet. Tib. 40). Hänlein-Schäfer posits separate sites, however—a sacrarium (Dio) and a templum (Tac., Suet.): Veneratio 129–130, cf. 119–120. 46.4 ej" to;n tou÷ #Arew" naovn: “Now while the shrine [hJrw÷/on] in Rome was being built, they placed his image [eijkovna] in gold on a couch [klivnh"] in the Temple of Mars.”282 This image—its metal signifying divinity—was to serve until Augustus’ a[galma (“cult statue”) could be housed in the cella of its proper temple; cf. Price Rituals 176–179 (with discussion of the terms eijkwvn, ajndriva", a[galma); Fishwick Cult 1.58–59, 161. The “couch” may have been a lectisternium (HänleinSchäfer Veneratio 124–125). For ajgavlmata of other deified imperials cf. 59.11.2, Caligula’s sister Drusilla; 60.5.2, Livia. For a subsequent use of the Temple of Mars Ultor as a cultic repository pending completion of the Temple of Divus Augustus see the rogatio of 19 on honors for the dead Germanicus (Tabula Hebana lines 52–53). 279. The Acta use the designation templum divi Augusti novum. On why novum see Fishwick “Temple” 249; cf. 57.10.2: Tiberius “erected no completely new [ejk kainh÷"] building except the Augusteum.” 280. Cf. ILS 4995 = EJ no. 125. Two cult statues are shown within the Temple of Divus Augustus on the reverse of sestertii of Antoninus Pius issued to celebrate the shrine’s restoration (RIC 3.149 no. 1004 with plate vi.114; cf. Hänlein-Schäfer Veneratio 86–87, 127–128, and plate 1 c). 281. Furneaux ad loc. suggests that Tiberius was acting in his capacity as Pontifex Maximus. 282. Precisely, Dio distinguishes hJrw÷/on, temple of a divus, and naov", temple of a deus.

356

Commentary on Book 56

mhvt! eijkwvn: It was voted in the Senate “that no image of Augustus be included in anyone’s funeral procession, that the consuls celebrate his birthday festival [genevsia] on a par with the Ludi Martiales, and that the tribunes of the plebs, as sacrosanct, produce the Augustalia [Aujgoustavlia].” On exclusion of images of divi from funeral processions cf. 56.34.2n. “Birthday festival.” Held 23 September. On its evolution cf. 55.6.6n. Before this a praetor had been in charge. On the eminence of the Ludi Martiales, of which the birthday festival was now made the peer, cf. 55.10.5n and on 10.2–5. Cf. Cavallaro Spese 251–252. “Augustalia.” Originally celebrated as an anniversarium sacrificium commemorating Augustus’ return from the East on 12 October 19 b.c.: see RG 11 and 54.10.3, in both of which “Augustalia” refers to the day. In our text, however, Augustalia refers to the Ludi Augustales, now instituted permanently and registered in the fasti (Tac. Ann. 1.15.2, 54.2, ‘ludos Augustales tunc primum coeptos;’ IIt. 13.2.516). The new ludi consisted of scaenici 5–11 October and circenses 12 October: Fasti Amiternini in IIt. 13.2.194–195; on later modifications (apparently short-lived) of these dates, reflected in the Fasti Antiates Ministrorum Domus Augustae (IIt. 13.2.209), see W.D. Lebek, “Augustalspiele und Landestrauer (Tab. Siar. frg. II col. A 11–14),” ZPE 75 (1988), 59–71.283 The tribunes were apparently conceded the presidency of the Ludi Augustales by virtue of sharing tribunician sacrosancity with Augustus (cf. RG 10.1; 49.15.5– 6n). Neither Dio nor Tacitus says how many from the college of ten actually officiated in 14. Their attempt to reclaim the dormant prestige of the tribunate, exploiting their right of summoning the Senate and introducing proposals (55.3.6n),284 clearly met determined resistance from the senatorial establishment—games presidencies being a preserve of consuls and praetors. Funding of the new ludi was restricted by the Senate (below); the presidential distinctions were circumscribed (56.46.5n); finally, the tribunician presidency was itself eliminated when the ludi of 15 were transferred to the praetor peregrinus (Tac. Ann. 1.15.3), this in the aftermath of theatralis licentia during the tribunes’ games in 14 (56.47.2n). Although the tribunician presidents proposed to meet the costs of the games themselves (Tac. Ann. 1.15.2), the Senate decided to vote funds from the Aerarium. How inadequate these were is suggested by the sequel—a strike for higher pay by a pantomime and popular riots, perhaps of his fans (56.47.2n; cf. Tac. Ann. 1.54.2, ‘discordia ex certamine histrionum’). The calendar of the Fasti Antiates Ministrorum Domus Augustae, composed early in 37, registers under 3 October a grant of 10,000 HS for Ludi Augustales (IIt. 13.2.209); this meager sum contrasts with 380,000 HS for the Ludi Apollinares, 760,000 for the Ludi 283. Ludi Augustales of some lesser standing had been held before the “riordinamento definitivo” of a.d. 14, apparently since 11 b.c. (54.34.2 with Cavallaro Spese 121 n2, 126 for the quote). This fact helps explain how eight days of ludi (5–12 October) could be organized and mounted ostensibly de novo so soon after Augustus’ funeral and consecration. 284. Did the enterprising tribunes include plutocratic equites admitted directly to candidacy for the tribunate under a measure introduced two years earlier (56.27.1n)?

29.2–47.2: The Year a.d. 14 (To Augustus’ Consecration)

357

Romani, and 600,000 for the Ludi Plebei (13.2.208–210): see in detail Cavallaro Spese 121–130.285 46.5 ouj mevntoi kai; tou÷ a{rmato" ejpevbhsan hsan:: The tribunes “wore triumphal dress at the circus races” but “they did not mount the chariot.” Cf. Tac. Ann. 1.15.2: the Senate decreed “that they wear triumphal dress in the Circus; they were not allowed to ride in a chariot.”286 In other words the tribunes led the pompa circensis into the Circus Maximus clothed no less magnificently than praetorian or consular (or, formerly, aedilician) games presidents but unlike these proceeded on foot rather than in the usual two-horse chariot (biga) (cf. Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 5.75.5; Plin. HN 34.20; Juv. 10.36–46; 11.193–195). For the first time the images of gods borne in the great procession will have included that of Divus Augustus, in a currus drawn by elephants (Suet. Claud. 11.2; 61.16.4, aJrmavmaxan; cf. 59.13.8, ejn aJrmamavxh/; 74.4.1, ejû! a{rmato"; P. Herz, “Diva Drusilla: Ägyptisches und Römisches im Herrscherkult zur Zeit Caligulas,” Historia 30 [1981], 332–334; cf. RIC 12.150 no. 6 with plate 17 (quadriga of elephants bearing Divus Claudius and Divus Augustus). On the pompa circensis see Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 7.72.1–18, the richest surviving account (esp. 13); cf. Tert. De spect. 7; Suet. Iul. 76.1; Fishwick Cult 553–556, with references; DNP 2.1215–1216 s.v. Circus (A. Hönle). panhvgurin . . . ej n tw÷ / palativ w /: “Livia held a kind of private festival in his honor on the Palatine, lasting three days”—the Ludi Palatini. In registering the first celebration among other posthumous honors to Augustus, Dio ignores the fact that it fell in January of the next year, 15. The festival, he notes, continued to be celebrated in succeeding reigns, and he had no doubt himself attended it: cf. 76.3.3, “shows held on the Palatine in honor of divi” under Septimius Severus. So he will have known the month. The fourth-century Fasti Furii Filocali and fifthcentury Fasti Polemii Silvii specify 17 January as the first day (IIt. 13.2.239, 264, 400–401). If this was the case originally (the day was the anniversary of Augustus’ marriage to Livia: Fasti Verulani = IIt. 13.2.160–161), the festival ran 17–19 January in 15.287 Much of what we know of the Ludi Palatini derives from accounts of Caligula’s murder. They were ludi scaenici, featuring pantomime performances, and were given in a temporary theater. See especially Jos. AJ 19.75–114; Suet. Cal. 56.2– 58.3; Dio 59.29.5–7; cf. Tac. Ann. 1.73.3 with Goodyear’s n. Cf. B. Tamm, Audi285. The 10,000 HS may reveal a later, even more austere, policy toward actors and their fans, who had been indulged by Augustus, than Tiberius was prepared to enforce in the opening weeks of his reign—however adverse his attitude toward the stage (cf. Tac. Ann. 1.54.2: ‘populum per tot annos molliter habitum nondum audebat ad duriora vertere’). 286. Coincidences in substance and wording suggest that both Dio’s annalistic source and Tacitus may have consulted the acta senatus (though whereas Tacitus registers enactments Dio registers their implementation). That Dio has not used Tacitus as a source here follows from his specifying, as Tacitus does not, that the tribunes laid claim to the presidency on grounds of their sacrosanctity. 287. But Dio’s figure of “three days” here is less than certain, being hard to square with reports (including his own) of the Ludi Palatini of 41, at which Caligula was murdered: 59.29.5–6, “five days,” to which the emperor had impulsively added “three;” Suet. Cal. 58.1, dating the murder 24 January; cf. Jos. AJ 19.77, “three regular days.” Careful discussion in Cavallaro Spese 46–48.

358

Commentary on Book 56

torium and Palatium: A Study on Assembly-Rooms in Roman Palaces during the 1st Century b.c. and the 1st Century a.d. (Stockholm, 1963), 66–67; T.P. Wiseman, “Josephus on the Palatine,” in his Roman Studies Literary and Historical (Liverpool, 1987), 167–175; Barrett Caligula 169–171 and Livia 329–330; Hurley (1993) pp205–209 on theatrical aspects. 47.1 lovgw/ me;n uJpo; th÷" gerousiva"":: “Now these many honors were instituted for Augustus, formally by the Senate but in fact by Tiberius and by Livia. For it was resolved, seeing that various senators were making various proposals [a[llwn . . . a[lla ejshgoumevnwn], that Tiberius accept libelli [bibliva] from them and select as many honors as he wanted.”288 A like procedure, with the Senate authorizing a plethora of honors from which the palace made its selection, was followed five years later on Germanicus’ death and is preserved in documentary detail in a bronze inscription from Spain: “. . . that an abundance of sententiae be provided for him [sc. Tiberius], and that with his characteristic [- - -] he choose, from all the honors that the Senate decreed should be granted, whichever ones he himself, his mother Iulia Augusta, Drusus Caesar, and the mother of Germanicus Caesar (the latter’s wife, if possible, having been included by them in this deliberation) thought could appropriately be granted” (Tabula Siarensis fr. (a) lines 4– 8).289 For earlier parallels see 43.14.7, 46.1–2; 44.7.2 (honors for Julius Caesar); 49.15.3n; 51.19.1, 20.4 (Octavian); 56.17.2 (Augustus and Tiberius); cf. 56.28.5n; App. B Civ. 5.130. wJ" kai; aujtarcou÷sa a:: “I have added Livia’s name because she too was laying claim to power as if she were ruling.” Dio anticipates a remarkable passage on Livia’s preeminence, “surpassing all previous women,” in his next book (57.12.1– 6).290 Once again we see how weakly integrated his portrait of her is: the imperatrix in our text turns up elsewhere as the paradigmatic consort (55.14.1–22.1), elsewhere as a murder suspect (53.33.4; 55.10a.10, 22.2; 56.30.1–3n; 57.3.6). 47.2 ejstasivase se:: “The crowd rioted” when a certain pantomime—clearly a star— refused to perform at the Augustalia for “the set fee.” Having noted certain arrangements for the new ludi, in particular, the circenses held the last day, 12 October (56.46.4–5n), Dio now registers disturbances over the scaenici held 5– 11 October. These continued, he says, until the tribunes convened the Senate291 in emergency session (aujqhmerovn) and sought permission to spend more than the 288. Cf. 55.25.4–5 for similar diction. 289. ‘. . . uti] copia sententiarum ipsi fieret atque is adsueta sibi [- - - ex omnibus iis] honoribus quos habendos esse censebat senatus leger〈e〉t eo[s quoscumque ipse et Iulia] Augusta mater eius et Drusus Caesar materque Germanici Ca[esaris, uxore eius, si posset,] adhibita ab eis e〈i〉 deliberationi, satis apte posse haberi existu[marent.’ 290. Note especially 57.12.3: “Except that she was never so bold as to enter the senate house, military camps, or assemblies, she would try, as if she were ruling [wJ" kai; aujtarcou÷sa], to manage everything else.” As much as Dio was critical of Livia’s intrusions into the male sphere and appreciative of Tiberius’ attempts to check or evade them, his intent was not utterly to disparage female power, which was inherent in the monarchy that he upheld steadfastly. He was content if that power was exercised with restraint. He betrays no unease that his autographed remark (lemma) might affront an empress or empress-mother at the Severan court. 291. Their right: 59.24.2; 60.16.8; 78.37.5; Talbert Senate 186–187.

29.2–47.2: The Year a.d. 14 (To Augustus’ Consecration)

359

prescribed amount.292 The implication is that the Senate relented. Did they now allow the tribunes to pay the extra themselves? This is the first violent manifestation of theatralis licentia that Dio records. He soon revisits the subject, under not only Tiberius, whose regulatory measures he approved, but Caligula, whose infatuation with actors and their art he decried.293 How serious the disorders of 14 were is suggested by a recurrence in 15 that cost lives of civilians and soldiers (Tac. Ann. 1.77). Dio seems not to consider the possibility that the conflagrations of 14 and 15 were fueled by his model emperor’s generally indulgent attitude toward pantomimes, some of whom achieved phenomenal wealth and social prominence during his reign (54.17.4–5; 55.10.11n; 56.27.4n)—a possibility that did not escape Tacitus (Ann. 1.54.2; cf. Suet. Aug. 45.3–4). For social analysis see E.J. Jory, “The Early Pantomime Riots,” in Maistor: Classical, Byzantine and Renaissance Studies for Robert Browning (Canberra, 1984), 57–66 (treating the inflammatory content of performances and the fanatical rivalries of partisans of individual star performers); W.J. Slater, “Three Problems in the History of Drama,” Phoenix 47 (1993), 205–212 (elite Roman youths, themselves highly trained amateurs in balletic arts and devotees of luminary professionals, had a part in instigating the theatrical troubles); Slater, “Pantomime Riots,” CA 13 (1994), 120–143.294 Dio’s report on the riots that, within weeks of Augustus’ consecration, disturbed the Augustalia is his very last in Book 56 and in his entire twelve-book Augustan segment. With it he breaks irreverently the mood of veneration that he has set in the necrology on Augustus—the realist historian’s reminder of the latent forces of unreason and a harbinger of decline?

292. On the Senate’s role in regulating expenditure on the Augustalia cf. Tac. Ann. 1.15.2, 77.4 with Goodyear’s n; Cavallaro Spese 121–130 (“Lucar e ludi Augustales”). 293. 57.21.3, cf. 11.6, 14.10; 59.2.5, 5.2–5, cf. 21.2, 27.1. Cf. Vell. 2.126.2, ‘compressa theatralis seditio;’ Suet. Tib. 34.1, 37.2; Tac. Ann. 1.54.2, 77.1–4; 4.14.3; Dio 73.13.1. 294. Cf. in general H. Bollinger, Theatralis Licentia: Die Publikumsdemonstrationem an den öffentlichen Spielen im Rom der früheren Kaiserzeit und ihre Bedeutung im politischen Leben (Winterthur, 1969); Yavetz Plebs 9–37 (“Various Forms of the Reactions of Urban Crowds”); Millar Emperor 368–375; A. Cameron, Circus Factions: Blues and Greens at Rome and Byzantium (Oxford, 1976), 157–192, 223–225; C. Schnurr, “The lex Julia theatralis of Augustus: Some Remarks on Seating Problems in Theatre, Amphitheatre and Circus,” LCM 17 (1992), 147– 160 at 154–157 (theater disturbances as a reflex of the withdrawal of a political role from popular assemblies).

This page intentionally left blank

Appendixes

1. HOW DIO VISUALIZED TRANS-RHENANE GERMANY UNDER AUGUSTUS See Map 1. See on 54.32.1–3, 33.1–5; 55.1.1–5; 56.18.1–24.5. By assembling like mosaic pieces Dio’s references to geographic and ethnographic features of trans-Rhenane Germany in the age of Julius Caesar and Augustus one can generate a sketchmap which, though poor in detail (lacking even major bases like Vetera and Moguntiacum), is intelligible as far as it goes. This mental map, which probably understates Dio’s knowledge, comes into clearer focus the nearer one approaches the confluence of the RR. Rhine and Lippe, a zone where critical events were played out. Regions toward the North Sea, the south, or eastward beyond the Weser are more dimly visible. Dio’s map is virtually static, taking little or no cognizance of Agrippa’s and Tiberius’ transplantations of Ubii and Sugambri to the left bank of the Rhine and of the migration of Marcomanni eastward into Bohemia. Dio plots the course of the Rhine from its Alpine sources to “Ocean” recognizably enough (if simplistically and overstating its westward orientation: 39.49.1– 2; cf. Caes. B Gall. 4.10; Tac. Germ. 1.2). He is able to gloss the Elbe soundly (55.1.3n). References to the Weser (54.33.1–2; 55.1.2, 28.5; 56.18.5) and Lippe (54.33.1, 4) are secure. Within this framework of waterways one can discern approximately his orientation of major trans-Rhenane peoples: Usipetes: Their territory lay along the Rhine from the Lippe, their frontier with the Sugambri (54.33.1),1 westward (downstream) at least as far as the island of the Batavians, from which Drusus launched an invasion of Usipetan territory in 12 b.c. (54.32.2). Dio does not name their neighbors to the north or east. Sugambri: South of the Lippe (which Drusus bridged in invading Sugambrian territory from the territory of the Usipetes in 11 b.c.: 54.33.1) 1. Dio links Usipetes with Tencteri and Sugambri as adversaries of Julius Caesar (39.47.1–48.5; cf. Caes. B Gall. 4.1, 4–19) and as perpetrators of the clades Lolliana (54.20.4–6, under 16 b.c.).

362

Appendixes

and adjacent to the Rhine (cf. 39.48.3–5); to their east were Cherusci (54.33.1), to the south Chatti (54.33.2, cf. 4, 36.3). This all changed with the forcible relocation of the Sugambri across the Rhine by Tiberius in 8 b.c. (see on 55.6.1–3). Cherusci: East of the Sugambri, their territory stretching to, and probably beyond, the Weser (54.33.1; 55.1.2; 56.18.5); how far they ranged to the north Dio leaves unclear; to their south were the Chatti.2 Chatti: South of the Sugambri (54.33.2, cf. 4, 36.3), their territory apparently extending far enough eastward into the interior to serve as the corridor for a flank attack on the Cherusci by Drusus in 9 b.c. (55.1.2). Suebi: Described by Dio as “Germans [Kevltoi] . . . dwelling across the Rhine” (51.22.6, under 29 b.c.).3 Apparently he visualized the western reaches of their territory as east of the Chatti. In his invasion of Chattan territory in 9 b.c. (cf. above), Drusus advanced with heavy fighting “as far as Suebia” (mevcri th÷" Souhbiva"), then redirected his attack against the Cherusci, clearly northward, crossed the Weser, and pillaged all the way to the Elbe (55.1.2n). Earlier the Suebi had been more aggressive, attacking German peoples nearer the Rhine, even crossing into Gaul (39.47.1, under 55 b.c.; 51.21.6, under 29).4 What were the origins of Dio’s mental map? Not autopsy, of which I detect no signs such as surface elsewhere in the History (e.g., 50.12.2–8n on the topography of Actium). Certainly reading. Caesar’s Bellum Gallicum, which was one of his sources (see I. McDougall, “Dio and his Sources for Caesar’s Campaign in Gaul,” Latomus 50 [1991], 616–638, with bibliography), offered a rich vein of geographic and ethnographic information.5 Dio could of course take advantage of contemporary oral information that a senator was well placed to acquire. That he learned something from maps cannot be shown or ruled out. On the tribes see Reallexikon der germanischen Altertumskunde2, vol. 4 (Berlin, 1981), 377–391 (Chatten), 430–435 (Cherusker); W. Will, “Römische ‘Klientel-Randstaaten’ am Rhein? Eine Bestandsaufnahme,” BJ 187 (1987), 44– 55 (Cherusker); R. Wolters, Römische Eroberung und Herrschaftsorganisation in Gallien und Germanien: Zur Entstehung und Bedeutung der sogenannten Klientel-Randstaaten (Bochum, 1990); Rives 246–248 (Chatti), 252–254

2. I assume that the Cherusci stayed put between Drusus’ day and Varus’. 3. Dio distinguishes these, for him the Suebi proper, from the “many others” who “claim the name.” On the ubiquitous application of the Suebian name in various authors and periods, notably to peoples in the region of the Elbe, see Rives 282–286. 4. Julius Caesar took them seriously: 39.48.5; 40.32.2. 5. Dio cannot be shown to have read Strabo’s synopsis of German geography (7.290–295) or Tacitus’ Germania.

Appendixes

363

(Usipetes), 268–269 (Cherusci), 282–286 (Suebi); R. Wiegels in DNP 11.1091 (Sugambri). On mental maps see R.K. Sherk, “Roman Geographical Exploration and Military Maps,” ANRW 2.1.534–562, esp. 534–543 (on how geographical discoveries were fed back to Rome through dispatches or memoirs of generals and works by authors in their entourage); F. Millar, “Emperors, Frontiers and Foreign Relations, 31 b.c. to a.d. 378,” Britannia 13 (1982), 1–23, esp. 15–20 (“Information and Conceptual Frameworks”); O.A.W. Dilke, Greek and Roman Maps (Ithaca, 1985), with the review of R.J.A. Talbert in JRS 77 (1987), 210–212; cf. R. Syme, “Military Geography at Rome,” CA 7 (1988), 227–251 = RP 6.372– 397 (Roman historians generally took more literary than scientific interest in geography; generals may have relied less on maps than on experienced officers); A.C. Bertrand, “Stumbling through Gaul: Maps, Intelligence, and Caesar’s Bellum Gallicum,” AHB 11 (1997), 107–122, with extensive bibliography (a network of lines, especially as formed by routes and rivers, characterized Caesar’s mental map; “strategically valuable maps were unavailable to Roman commanders, who gathered information about geography and topography while on campaign” [120]).

2. DIO ON TIBER FLOODS Taken together, Dio’s reports on Tiber floods in Rome make up a homogeneous little corpus—apt for testing his reliability. In all he registers ten, which are listed below. Three are confirmed by other sources, and he cannot be shown to have missed any remarkable inundation of the period 69 b.c.–a.d. 46 for which the History is in the main extant.6 His placement of these reports in his year-accounts, together with certain positive indications of date, indicate that a high proportion of the floods occurred in autumn or winter. This is consistent with modern flood records, which give the following distribution for forty-seven major inundations 1870–1930: October, one; November, ten; December, twelve; January, eight; February, five; March, four; April, five; May, two. Of these the eleven worst occurred November-March (Le Gall Tibre 15). Bibliography. Fundamental is Le Gall Tibre, esp. 14–17 and 29–33 on floods (29 for literary testimonia); cf. RE 6A.800–802 = Tiberis (Philipp); C. D’Onofrio, Il Tevere: L’isola tiberina, le inondazioni, i molini, i porti, le rive, i muraglioni, i ponti di Roma2 (Rome, 1980).

6. Le Gall Tibre 29 cites a flood of 44 b.c. on the basis of Hor. Carm. 1.2.13–20, mistakenly: see R.G.M. Nisbet & M. Hubbard, A Commentary on Horace: Odes Book 1 (Oxford, 1970), 17–19. The frequency of Dio’s flood reports compares with Livy’s, who records floods in six of the fifty-two years 218–167 b.c. (Books 21–45): 24.9.6, two floods; 30.26.5; 30.38.10–11; 35.9.2; 35.21.5–6; 38.28.4). Tacitus reports a single flood in each of Annals (1.76.1, a.d. 15) and Histories (1.86.2–3, 69).

364

Appendixes

Ten Floods in Dio’s History Year

Text

Chronological Note

54 b.c.

39.61.1–4, cf. 63.3

27

53.20.1

23 22 13

53.33.5 54.1.1 54.25.2

a.d. 5

55.22.3

12 15

56.27.4 57.14.7–8

36 217

58.26.5 78.25.2–5

October/November: cf. Cic. QFr. SB 25.8 and n (p220); RE 7.429–430 = Gabinius 11 (Vonder Mühll)7 Night of 16/17 January, following conferral of the name Augustus Late in the year: last item of Dio’s year-account Early in the year: first item of Dio’s year-account Linked to the receipt in Rome of news that Augustus would be returning from his sojourn in Spain and Gaul (16–13); item near the head of Dio’s yearaccount8 Early in the year; second item of Dio’s year-account; the third is an astronomically dated eclipse of 28 March; cf. Cassiod. Chron. 604 (p136) Prior to the Ludi Martiales, held 12 May Early in the year: note ceimw÷no"; cf. Tac. Ann. 1.76.1 with Goodyear’s n (1.170) Early in the year: first item of Dio’s year-account On the day of the Volcanalia, 23 August, so out of season; evidently a flash flood precipitated by a freak summer storm

3. AUGUSTAN IMPERATORES I list here, in some instances tentatively, imperatorial salutations of Augustus, Tiberius, and Gaius Caesar recorded by Dio; also other salutations of these same victors—and of the elder Drusus and Germanicus—which Dio does not record but which are discussed in notes on the passages cited in parentheses. Bibliography. Barnes JRS 64 (1974), 21–26; Syme RP 3.1198–1219; cf. Talbert Senate 362–364. For a contextualization of Augustus’ salutations XV–XVIII radically different from that posited by Barnes and Syme cf. Schumacher Historia 34 (1985), 191–222.

7. This is the date on the republican calendar, which in 54 b.c. was running less than a month in advance of the solar calendar: cf. P. Brind’Amour, Le Calendrier Romain (Ottawa, 1983), 47–48, 116. So the date on the modern calendar will have been September/October. 8. Le Gall Tibre 30 surely errs in dating this flood “vers le 4 juillet 13.” He assumes, on the basis of 54.25.1– 3, that the inundation coincided with Augustus’ arrival in Rome, which he dates ca 4 July since the Ara Pacis Augustae was constituted on that day in honor of Augustus’ return (Fasti Amiternini in IIt. 13.2.476 = EJ p49: ‘fer. ex s.c. q. e. d. ara Pacis Aug. in camp. Mar. constituta est Nerone et Varo cos.;’ cf. RG 12.2). Two things undercut this chronology. First, the climatological odds against a July flood are great. Second, Dio has news of Augustus’ coming (ajggeliva th÷" ajûivxew" aujtou÷) reach Rome during the flood, not Augustus himself.

Appendixes

365

Imperatorial Salutations under Augustus Augustus imperator Passages in Dio

Year

VIII

53.26.4n

25 b.c.

IX X

(54.8.3n, 9.4n) 54.25.4n, cf. 22.1–5

20 15

XI

54.31.4, 33.5, cf. 34.3 54.33.5 (55.1.2n, cf. 2.4–5n)

12?

XII XIII XIV XV XVI XVII XVIII XIX XX XXI

55.6.4–5 (on 55.10a.4, 4–5n, 7n) 55.10a.7n 55.28.6 (55.33.2n; 56.17.1n) 56.17.1 (56.25.3n) (56.28.6n)

11 9

War Theater Other (Commander on imperator(es) the Spot) Germany (M. Vinicius); but cf. Barnes JRS 64 (1974), 21 Parthia, Armenia Raetia (Tiberius and Drusus) Illyricum (Tiberius) Germany (Drusus) Illyricum Germany Germany Parthia and Armenia? Arabia? C. Caesar II? Armenia—Artagira Tiberius III Germany Tiberius IV Pannonia—R. Bathinus Tiberius V Dalmatia Tiberius VI Germany Tiberius VII Germany Germanicus I? Germany

Tiberius I Drusus I 8 Tiberius II a.d. 1/2 C. Caesar I? 3 5 8 9 11 13

4. DIO ON DISTRIBUTIONS OF LARGESSE (CONGIARIA) IN AUGUSTAN ROME See 51.21.3; 53.28.1; 54.29.4; 55.10.1; cf. 44.35.3. Bibliography. Van Berchem Distributions 119–179 (142–144 for a summary of Augustan congiaria with a chronological table); Rea “Corn Dole” (explicates P Oxy. 2892–2940, papyri illustrating the dole of Oxyrhynchus, which operated on the model of Rome’s); Virlouvet Tessera (fundamental; the title refers to the documentary token presented to prove one’s entitlement to a ration of grain or a congiarium).9 Under Augustus and his successors congiaria, regularly distributed in cash rather than kind, enhanced events such as triumphs, debuts of heirs apparent, and successions; under Antonine and Severan emperors adoptions, marriages, anniversaries of rule, even consulships might occasion largesse. Five congiaria of Octavian/Augustus are attested in Dio’s History: 300 HS under Julius Caesar’s will in 44 b.c. (44.35.3 with RG 15.1); 400 on Octavian’s triumph in 29 (51.21.3n); 400 on his return from Spain in 24 (53.28.1); 400 in 12, follow-

9. See also Mommsen Res Gestae 59–62; Yavetz Plebs 141–155 (on terms for the common people in Roman writers); C. Nicolet, The World of the Citizen in Republican Rome (Berkeley, 1980), 186–205; Nicolet “Tabula Siarensis;” cf. OCD3 1488 s.v. tessera.

366

Appendixes

ing Agrippa’s death (54.29.4); 240 in 2, clearly on the deductio in forum of Lucius Caesar (55.10.1n; cf. 59.2.2). In RG 15.1–4, an account of benefactions that probably includes all his notable congiaria, Augustus records a sixth congiarium, in the amount of 240 HS, in 5 b.c., a year for which Dio’s account is lost, no doubt for the deductio of Gaius Caesar. Suetonius mentions a congiarium on Tiberius’ triumph of 12 (cf. 56.17.1n), given, however, in the victor’s own name (Tib. 20).10 Only the plebs frumentaria—consisting of those citizens receiving the regular doles of grain (frumentationes)—was eligible for congiaria, not the whole citizenry (Fronto Princ. Hist. p210 Naber = Loeb 2.216, a fragmentary text: ‘congiariis frumentariam modo plebem singillatim placari ac nominatim, spectaculis universum ?<populum>’). Although Julius Caesar reduced their number from 320,000 to 150,000 (Suet. Iul. 41.3; Dio 43.21.4), his quota evidently lapsed; in 2 b.c. (Dio tells us) Augustus “closed at 200,000 the number of the plebs frumentaria, which was without limit” (55.10.1). As recently as 5 b.c. 320,000 beneficiaries had received the congiarium celebrating Gaius Caesar’s public debut (cf. RG 15.2). Eligibility for the plebs frumentaria was restricted to adult male citizens resident in the capital. New recipients were admitted by lot (subsortitio) to places left vacant through death or other causes (Rea “Corn Dole” 8–9).11 Dio’s careful record of Augustan congiaria should alert us to his concern over the increasing amounts and frequency of imperial congiaria in his own time (for a list of these see van Berchem Distributions 157–161, including some two dozen from Dio’s forty years as a senator). But he seems not to have disapproved of congiaria as an institution, provided they were moderate and conformed to tradition, perhaps regarding them as among “necessary expenditures” that it would have been unworthy of an emperor to stint (cf. 71.32.3). He notices warmly the record congiarium of 800 HS given by Marcus Aurelius after eight years away from Rome (71.32.1–3) and clearly approves the modest congiarium of 400 HS granted by Pertinax, though he found the fiscus exhausted (73.5.4, cf. 2). On the other hand he targets Commodus for “often” giving congiaria of 560 HS (72.16.2) and presents the congiarium of 1,000 HS marking the decennalia of Severus as vainglorious (76.1.1).

5. DIO ON FAMINES Dio’s History records numerous famines, almost all in Rome or Italy (Smilda 243 for a list). They range from the time of Coriolanus (fr. 18.4–5), through Sextus Pompey’s blockade of Italy (48.7.4, 18.1, 31.1), to the siege of Byzantium by forces of Septimius Severus (74.12.5–6). Five are Augustan.12 10. Dio’s record of congiaria perhaps goes back through his annalistic source(s) to the acta diurna. For congiaria registered in fasti see IIt. 13.1.245, 187, 191 (= EJ pp37, 41, 43) under 12 b.c., a.d. 20, 37. 11. Cf. Yavetz Plebs 145: “The distribution of corn to the masses in Rome never bore the character of social welfare assistance.” 12. 22 b.c. (54.1.1–4), a.d. 5 (55.22.3), 6 (55.26.1–3, 27.1, 3; cf. 55.33.4n), 7 (55.31.3), and 9 (56.12.1).

Appendixes

367

Conscious though he could be of the lot of the starving (for example, those besieged in Byzantium), what engrossed Dio’s attention was the explosive political potential of famines in the imperial capital, which was almost totally dependent on imported grain.13 He was about twenty-five (and more likely than not in Rome) when a popular demonstration precipitated by famine so scared Commodus that he offered up to the crowd his Praetorian Prefect Cleander, whose body the Romans “dragged about and abused, carrying his head through the whole city on a pole” (72.13.1–6).14 So Dio could readily grasp how a hunger-driven populace could tempt Spurius Maelius to make an attempt on power (439 b.c.; 7.20.1–4), or open the door for Augustus to assume a cura annonae (22 b.c.; 54.1.1–5),15 or necessitate his removing part of Rome’s population to the country in a.d. 6 to stretch food stocks and forestall violence (55.26.1, 27.1–3).16 It is in this same light that Dio’s high praise of Claudius for constructing his artificial harbor at Ostia should be seen, taking action not simply against the scarcity of the moment but “for all succeeding time,” a project “worthy of the ambition and greatness of Rome” (60.11.1–5). Cf. Tac. Ann. 6.13.1–2; 12.43.1–2; Suet. Claud. 18–20. See C. Virlouvet, Famine et émeutes à Rome des origines de la République à la mort de Néron (Rome, 1985); P. Garnsey, Famine and Food Supply in the GraecoRoman World: Responses to Crisis (Cambridge, 1988), esp. 218–243.

6. ONE MORE PROBLEM IN THE FASTI PRAENESTINI OF 16 JANUARY See 56.1.1n; cf. 55.2.4n. Under 16 January the Praenestine fasti preserve three fragmentary notices (IIt. 13.2.114–115): (1) Imp. Caesar [Augustus est a]ppell[a]tus ipso VII et Agrip[pa III co(n)s(ulibus)]. | (2) Concordiae Au[gustae aedis dedicat]a est P. Dolabella C. Silano co[(n)s(ulibus)]. | (3) Ti. Caesar ex Pa[- - - - - - - -]avit. | (1) Imperator Caesar was named Augustus in his own seventh and Agrippa’s third consulship. | (2) The Temple of Concordia Augusta was dedicated in the consulship of P. Dolabella and C. Silanus. | (3) Tiberius Caesar [- - - -]ed from Pa[- - - -]. | 13. ejpesavktou . . . panto;" wJ" eijpei÷n tou÷ sivtou toi÷" @Rwmaivoi" o[nto" (60.11.2). 14. Cf. C.R. Whittaker, “The Revolt of Papyrius Dionysius a.d. 190,” Historia 13 (1964), 348–369. 15. Cf. Pompey’s cura of 57 b.c., also a solution to famine: 39.9.2–3. Both curae were in part responses to dire popular threats against the Senate. 16. Dio also links urban unrest with the famine of a.d. 7 (55.31.3).

368

Appendixes

Scholars have debated variously what event notice (3) records. Degrassi proposes the completion ‘Ti. Caesar ex Pa[nnonia reversus dedic]avit’ (“Tiberius Caesar, having returned from Pannonia, dedicated it”)17 (IIt. 13.2.115, cf. 398– 400 with discussion of other completions). This gives a date of 16 January in a.d. 10, the year the Temple of Concord was dedicated (56.25.1n). There is, however, no independent evidence of an adventus of Tiberius in 10. Hohl, while opting for the same date as Degrassi, proposes a different completion, ‘Ti. Caesar ex Pan[nonia rediens p. R. salut]avit’ (“Tiberius Caesar, in returning from Pannonia, saluted the Roman People”).18 He adduces a report in Suet. Tib. 17.2 of a victorious entry by Tiberius ostensibly following the conclusion of the Illyrian war of 6–9. But Suetonius’ report should in fact be referred to Tiberius’ adventus “after the winter” of 8/9, i.e., the year before (see 56.1.1n). Other scholars link notice (3) with Tiberius’ ovation earned two decades earlier in the Pannonian war of 13–9 b.c. Taylor, for instance, proposes ‘Ti. Caesar ex Pan[nonia ovans urbem intr]avit’ (“Tiberius Caesar entered the city in ovation from Pannonia”) and a date of 16 January 9 b.c.19 On this and similar solutions see 55.2.4n; they presuppose (rightly) that notice (3) is out of chronological order, since there is no event subsequent to the dedication of the Temple of Concord in a.d. 10 to which it can be referred.20 Entries (2) and (3) are among several additions made to the Fasti Praenestini subsequent to the calendar’s original execution a.d. 6/9 (on which see IIt. 13.2.141–142). Most of these feature Tiberius’ advancements and achievements going back even to his youth and no doubt were made thanks to his elevation to the throne in 14.21 This is the origin of notice (3). Notice (2), however, though inscribed—like (3)—by a later hand, lacks any reference to Tiberius and had presumably been added already before his accession. Despite their superior attractions, chronologies like Taylor’s remain problematic: although Dio records Tiberius’ ovation under 9 b.c., he has it follow a fresh action in Illyricum in that year, thus evidently excluding a triumphal date as early as 16 January (see 55.2.4n). One more problem still. To my knowledge all scholars take it for granted that the Fasti Praenestini originally read ‘ex Pannonia.’ But how certain is this? Although Degrassi’s commentary reads ‘Pan[’ (IIt. 13.2.398), his text, corroborated photographically (IIt. 13.2.114–115 with plates XXXIV, XXXVI), does not show the letter n at all. So it may be prudent to consider still other possibilities. Why not, for 17. Sc. the Temple of Concordia Augusta in notice (2). 18. E. Hohl, “Die Siegesfeiern des Tiberius und das Datum der Schlacht im Teutoburger Wald,” Sitz. Berlin 1952 No. 1, 1–24, with a chart of conjectures on 24. Note that Hohl reads ‘Ti. Caesar ex Pan[’ versus ‘Ti. Caesar ex Pa[’ in Degrassi’s text. 19. L.R. Taylor, “Tiberius’ Ovatio and the Ara Numinis Augusti,” AJPh 58 (1937), 185–193. Like Hohl, Taylor reads ‘ex Pan[’ versus Degrassi’s ‘ex Pa[’. 20. On their reading, the prior notice (2) on the dedication of Concord records an event eighteen years later than notice (3). The Fasti Praenestini register Tiberius’ later triumph (a.d. 12—for victories in the Illyrian war of 6–9) on October 23. A celebration on that date cannot have figured in our problematic entry for 16 January (see 56.17.1n). 21. They call Tiberius ‘Caesar’ even when recording events prior to his taking that name in a.d. 4 upon his adoption by Augustus. Cf., however, ‘Ti(berius) Augustus’ used in recording an event of a.d. 22—a still later addition (IIt. 13.2.131, cf. 447).

Appendixes

369

example, entertain completions beginning ‘Ti. Caesar ex Pa[rthia - - - - - -]avit’? After all, the youthful Tiberius played a signal role in the Armenian-Parthian theater ca 20 b.c. (e.g., RG 27.2). Once he succeeded to the purple, his early eastern achievements were arguably no less eligible for promotion to the fasti than his assumption of the toga virilis in 27 b.c., registered under 24 April. Instructive on retroactive aggrandizement of Tiberius’ early career are Vell. 2.94.4 and 122.1.

7. SUETONIUS AUG. 34.1–2 AND THE DATES OF AUGUSTUS’ MARRIAGE LAWS See on 54.16.1–7 (Lex Iulia, 18 b.c.); 56.10.1–3n (Lex Papia Poppaea, a.d. 9). Bibliography. Jörs Ehegesetze, with the introduction by Spagnuolo Vigorita to the 1985 reissue (vii–xlviii; this contains a critical review of scholarship since the original publication in 1894); Carter on Suet. Aug. 34.1–2 (pp141–145); Astolfi Lex 328–329; Mette-Dittmann Ehegesetze 17. In this appendix, which takes the form of a commentary, I try to articulate Suetonius’ undated account of Augustus’ marriage legislation with Dio’s annalistic reports. Text [34.1] [a] Leges retractavit et quasdam ex integro sanxit, ut sumptuariam et de adulteriis et de pudicitia, de ambitu, de maritandis ordinibus. [b, i] hanc cum aliquanto severius quam ceteras emendasset, prae tumultu recusantium perferre non potuit nisi adempta demum lenitave parte poenarum et vacatione trienni data auctisque praemiis. [34.2] [b, ii] sic quoque abolitionem eius publico spectaculo pertinaciter postulante equite, accitos Germanici liberos receptosque partim ad se partim22 in patris gremium ostentavit, manu vultuque significans ne gravarentur imitari iuvenis exemplum. [c] cumque etiam inmaturitate sponsarum et matrimoniorum crebra mutatione vim legis eludi sentiret, tempus sponsas habendi coartavit, divortiis modum imposuit. Translation [34.1] [a] He reworked the laws, enacting some afresh, for example, those on luxury, adultery and morality, bribery, and marriage of the orders. [b, i] When he had reformed this last rather more strictly than the others, he could not get it passed for the uproar from its opponents until he finally removed or mitigated some of the penalties, granted a three-year period of grace, and increased the rewards. [34.2] [b, ii] When despite this the equites stubbornly demanded at a public show that it be annulled, Augustus called for Ger22. Germanicus apparently had only two children in 9, his infant sons Nero and Drusus, so that ‘partim . . . partim’ is imprecise or exaggerated—though a third son was just possibly alive at the time (one of three who died very young): cf. T. Mommsen, “Die Familie des Germanicus,” Hermes 13 (1878), 247–248; J.W. Humphrey, “The Three Daughters of Agrippina Maior,” AJAH 4 (1979), 125–143 at 136 n12; Wardle 123.

370

Appendixes

manicus’ children and, after he and their father had taken them in their arms, showed them off to the protesters, indicating through gesture and expression that they should not deem it a burden to emulate the young man’s example. [c] When he saw that the force of the law was even being baffled through betrothals with underage girls and through repeated remarriages, he restricted the period of betrothals and placed limits on divorces. Commentary Leges retractavit [a]:: These words refer to Augustus’ legislated reforms in general; with ‘quasdam ex integro sanxit’ Suetonius specifies the most thoroughgoing or novel of these, adducing four examples (with Jörs Ehegesetzte 36–37 and Carter ad loc., I take ‘de adulteriis et de pudicitia’ together as one title). hanc cum aliquanto severius quam ceteras emendasset [b, i]:: ‘emendasset’ applies not only to the marriage law (‘hanc’) but also to the three other just named laws (‘ceteras’), and so connotes “reform” rather than merely “amend,” i.e., it is synonymous with ‘retractavit’ or ‘ex integro sanxit.’ Our lemma (I posit) refers to the proposed text of the Lex Iulia on marriage (18 b.c.) posted in advance of formal consideration by the Senate so as to permit criticism and revision: for this legislative practice under Augustus see Dio 53.21.3; there is no reference here to revision after passage.23 The harshness of this draft law provoked protests so vehement that they prevented Augustus from getting it passed (‘perferre non potuit;’ cf. OLD s.v. perfero 6). That the three-year period of grace (vacatio trienni) belongs to the Lex Iulia rather than the Lex Papia Poppaea can be inferred from Dio 56.7.3 (under a.d. 9, but see the n ad loc.): here Dio has Augustus, in a set speech, refer to vacationes conceded in the past, including a three-year vacatio, then a two-year one. Only a one-year vacatio was allowed in the case of the Lex Papia Poppaea (56.10.1). sic quoque abolitionem eius publico spectaculo pertinaciter postulante equite [b, ii]:: As parallels at Suet. Aug. 78.2, Tib. 65.2, and Claud. 24.1 show, ‘sic quoque’ here means “despite this” or “even so.” Paraphrase: “But even though the law [sc. Lex Iulia] was mitigated in this way, the equites stubbornly demanded its abolition.” Their public demonstration belongs in this case a quarter century after passage of the law, as Germanicus’ presence as a father confirms (born 15 b.c.: 55.13.2n). Suetonius, writing thematically (his method), found the later protest useful in illustrating the earlier resistance to the marriage regime and overlooked the chronological leap. A thematic shift—from resistance to evasion— comes only in the following sentence [c]. Its opening word ‘cumque’ is a coordinate of ‘cum’ in [b, i] (so also Jörs Ehegesetze 37). In other words Suetonius coordinates [b, i] and [b, ii], taken together, with [c]. Despite the lateness of the event recounted in [b, ii], [c], which treats evasion, belongs chronologically with [b, i]. 23. Pace Jörs, who finds in our lemma, besides the original marriage law as passed and implemented (‘hanc’), another law, otherwise unknown, of a.d. 4 that overhauled the original, stiffening it, but was blocked from passage until ultimately its provisions were relaxed and sweetened in the Lex Papia Poppaea of 9 (Ehegesetze 49–61). See the discussion at 56.7.3n.

Appendixes

371

When is the corrective measure against evasion [c] to be dated? Suetonius offers little help. Dio, however, registers both the problem of evasion through premature betrothals and Augustus’ countermeasure under 18 b.c. (54.16.7). It would be risky to date the corrective much later than that year (so also Jörs Ehegesetze 38). Although Suetonius records the protest of equites of a.d. 9 which in Dio is an antecedent to passage of the Lex Papia Poppaea (56.1.2, 10.1–3), he mentions neither the law nor its provisions specifically.

8. SOURCES ON THE WAR IN DALMATIA, a.d. 9 See on 56.11.1–17.3. Fundamental are Dio 56.11.1–17.3 and Vell. 2.115.1–116.4. See also: Ovid Tr. 2 (written in 9 before word came of the Varian disaster; cf. Syme Ovid 38) lines 169–178 (anticipating victory in Illyricum); Pont. 2.1 (addressing Germanicus; celebrating Tiberius’ Illyrian triumph of 12, on which see 56.17.1n), esp. lines 37–46 (the procession, exhibiting rebel oppida wrought in silver, also captive chieftains led in chains, including the Desidiatian Bato), 49–52 (oppida captured by Germanicus); Pont. 2.2 (to Messallinus, Tiberius’ legate [55.29.1n], esp. lines 75–92 (subjugation of Paeones [= Pannonians], montana Dalmatia, and Illyris; Tiberius’ triumph). Syme Ovid is the best guide to these texts. Suet. Aug. 21.1; Tib. 16.1–2; 17.1–2 (victory honors: cf. Dio 56.17.1–2n); 20 (Tiberius’ triumph). Tac. Ann. 6.37.3 (on a Parthian noble, Ornospades, who served Tiberius in Dalmatia). Flor. 2.25.10–12 (‘Vibius,’ sc. C. Vibius Postumus [Dio 56.15.3n], entrusted by Augustus with subjugation of the Dalmatae, forest dwellers prone to brigandage). Inscriptions: RG is silent (for want of revision?). ILS 921 = EJ no. 200 = TDGR 6.5 G (triumphal ornaments of M. Plautius Silvanus: cf. 56.17.2n). ILS 2673 (from Verona): ‘. . . bello] Batoniano praefuit / Iapudiai et Liburn(iai) / sibi et libertis / t(estamento) f(ieri) i(ussit)’ = “. . . was prefect of Iapudia and Liburnia in the [war] with Bato . . .” (apparently a reference to the Roman campaign of 8–9 against the Desidiatian Bato,24 though operations in 6 cannot be excluded—or in the war of 6–9 as a whole). ILS 3320 (a man decorated by Tiberius for valor “in the Dalmatian war”). Coins: RIC 12.78 nos. 469–470 (Tiberius imperator for the fifth time), 56 nos. 221–224 (a.d. 13/14; Tiberius in a triumphal chariot). The Gemma Augustea may have as its theme the Illyrian triumph of Tiberius (cf. 56.17.1n). For geography and ethnography cf. Str. 7.314–316; Plin. HN 3.141–143; 7.149; App. Ill., where Tiberius’ tactics in 9 are suggested by Octavian’s in 35 and 24. Appointment of a prefect over the Iapodes and Liburnians can suggest an entrenched Roman position on the western margin of the war theater, hemming the rebels in there, just as the conquest of Pannonia in 8 hemmed them in on the north. Cf. Koestermann Hermes 81 (1953), 369 n1.

372

Appendixes

34 b.c. against the Iapodes in northwest Dalmatia (for example, occupation of ridges parallel to a line of advance along lower ground [4.18]; a crosswall; simultaneous attacks on enemy-held hills; a forty-stade circumvallation [5.25–27]).

9. VELLEIUS 2.115.4 ON THE WAR IN DALMATIA: AN EMENDATION See on 56.11.1–17.3. Vell. 2.115.4 is a key testimonium for any account of how Tiberius consummated the Dalmatian war, the closing chapter in the Illyrian rebellion of 6–9. I print below Woodman’s text, which matches the consensus of modern editors.25 Illa aestas maximi belli consummavit effectus: quippe Perustae ac Desidiates Dalmatae, situ locorum ac montium, ingeniorum ferocia, mira etiam pugnandi scientia et praecipue angustiis saltuum paene inexpugnabiles, non iam ductu sed manibus atque armis ipsius Caesaris tum demum pacati sunt cum paene funditus eversi forent.26 Apparatus after Woodman: perusia aedesitiales A || Perusia aede siciales P || Perustae ac Vossius (1639/1703) || Desidiates Gelenius (1546) The underlined words single out two rebel peoples vanquished by Tiberius— the Perustae and Desidiates—and identify them as Dalmatian. There are substantial reasons for suspecting this reading, however, despite its currency. First is the tenuous manuscript tradition, rendering any conjecture tentative. A single badly corrupted eighth-century manuscript of Velleius (= M) survived the middle ages. A copy of this (= R) was the basis of the 1520 editio princeps of Beatus Rhenanus (= P). Both M and R have gone missing, so that now texts must be based on P, a copy of R made in 1516 by Bonifacius Amerbach (= A), and a collation of P with M (or a copy of M) prepared by J.A. Burer in 1520 (= B).27 In A, the earliest surviving descendant of the lost manuscript M, our phrase reads, meaninglessly: ia ae perusia aedesitiales Dalmatae (problematic letters in bold) P offers no improvement: ‘Perusia aede siciales Dalmatae.’ Second, in attempting to restore the original Velleius, modern editors have posited a corruption both extensive and difficult to explain. They identify the cluster 25. Cf. the Velleius editions of R. Ellis (Oxford, 1898); C. Stegmann von Pritzwald (Teubner: 1933; reprint, Stuttgart, 1965); J. Hellegouarc’h (Budé: Paris, 1982); W.S. Watt (Teubner: Leipzig, 1988); M. Elefante (Olms: Hildesheim, 1997), 1–16 on the manuscript tradition. Different editors prefer different spellings of Desidiates and Dalmatae, but these do not affect the present discussion. 26. For a translation see on 56.11.1–17.3. 27. See in detail Woodman 3–28 (1977 volume) and 1–2 with stemma codicum (1983 volume).

Appendixes

373

of four letters in bold above as the crux and offer the cluster of five letters in bold below as the solution: Perustae tae ac Desidiates Dalmatae (prevailing modern repair in bold) Third, the restored text gives weak ethnographic sense. Ethnically, the Desidiates and Perustae were not Dalmatian but Pannonian (Str. 7.314; cf. Dio 55.29.2n). Although Velleius could have styled them Dalmatian in a broad territorial or provincial sense (see on 56.11.1–17.3, “Note”), to do so in a passage already dedicated to the Dalmatian war (cf. 2.114.4, 115.1) would have been pointless. A fourth ground for suspicion is a stylistic inconsequence. Velleius’ phrase stands in a climactic passage rich in rhetorical turns. Amid verbal pomp a lackluster gloss identifying “Perustae and Desidiates” as “Dalmatian peoples” is out of place. Is there a sounder restoration? I propose the following text, indicating the pertinent changes from A (above) with bold letters: Perusta tae Desidiates Dalmatae ta ta = perusta taedesidiatesdalmatae (without word divisions) This emendation, which produces the sense “Perustae, Desidiates, and Dalmatae,” has clear advantages. First, it entails a simpler repair and produces a text that could plausibly have been corrupted into the form it took in A. A defeated scribe improved ‘Perustae,’ deeming it mistaken, by substituting the familiar city name ‘Perusia’ (he had twice copied ‘Perusiam’ earlier: 2.74.3–4.). He refrained, however, from breaking up the cluster ‘. . . aede . . .’, which was ostensibly meaningful,28 and so wrote ‘perusia aedesitiales’ (interpolating an a). Second, the proposed emendation produces a phrase without conjunctions— asyndeton: ‘Perustae, Desidiates, Dalmatae.’ This device, a favorite of Velleius, matches the elevated tone of the whole passage. A classic instance can be found in his portrait of Pompey the Great (2.29.2–4). But other asyndeta abound (e.g., 2.67.2, 73.1, 103.5), including two with national or tribal names: 2.40.1: ‘Penetratae cum victoria Media, Albani, Hiberia’29 (“Attacks on Media, the Albanians, and Iberia brought victories”) 2.105.1: ‘Intrata protinus Germania, subacti Canninefates, Attuarii, Bructeri, recepti Cherusci . . .’ (“Germany was immediately invaded, Canninefates, Attuarii, and Bructeri were subdued, Cherusci were reconquered . . .”) Third is an historical advantage. ‘Dalmatae’ ceases to be a feeble gloss on ‘Perustae’ and ‘Desidiates.’ Rather it records a main historical event, the conquest 28. In fact P, the editio princeps, prints ‘aede’ as a separate word. 29. Text of M. Elefante (Olms: Hildesheim, 1997).

374

Appendixes

of a third rebel enclave “by the armed prowess of Caesar himself,” in addition to Perustae and Desidiates. Finally, we can now better harmonize Velleius’ and Dio’s accounts of the Dalmatian war. In the standard text of Velleius the ethnic Dalmatae do not figure in the conclusion of the war—this despite Dio’s focusing it at Andetrium in ethnic Dalmatia. In our text as emended, by contrast, we have the Dalmatae at center stage as rebel protagonists alongside the Perustae and Desidiates. Indeed our asyndetic ethnic triad should perhaps be taken as more than just a list of rebel peoples. It may reveal something of the order in which Tiberius fought the campaign of 9—first among the Perustae and Desidiates in Bosnia, then among the Dalmatae to their south, in which case Velleius too, like Dio, places the conclusive phase of the war in Dalmatia proper.

10. SOURCES ON THE VARIAN DISASTER, a.d. 9 See on 56.18.1–24.5. Dio 56.18.1–24.5; 57.18.1 (remains of the Roman dead buried by Germanicus; standards recovered); 60.8.7 (eagle recovered); cf. 57.5.4, 20.1–2. Ovid Tr. 3.12.45–48; 4.2 (belying the gravity of the disaster). Str. 7.291–292 (German nobles led in Germanicus’ triumph over Cherusci and other tribes, 26 May of 17; Strabo takes the official line that Germanicus had fully requited the rebels). Manilius 1.896–905 (portents). Sen. Contr. 1.3.10 (Varus’ neglegentia). Vell. 2.117.1–120.6 (cf. Timpe Arminius 124–125 on Velleius’ overcharged denigration of Varus). Sen. Ep. 47.10 (vicissitudes of fortune). Plin. HN 7.150. Suet. Aug. 23.1–2, 49.1, cf. 25.2; Tib. 17.1–2, 18–19 (neglegentia of Varus; Tiberius’ countermeasures in Germany); Cal. 3.2, cf. 31.1. Tac. Ann. Tacitus often refers to the disaster and its antecedents in recounting campaigns of Germanicus and his legates in the same region 14–16;30 in particular, he informs us on tribal society and politics and on events and sites of the tragedy: e.g., Ann. 1.55.2 (Segestes’ attempt to expose his son-in-law Arminius as a traitor; cf. 1.58.1–3); 1.57.2 (defection of Segestes’ son Segimundus, priest at the altar of the Ubii, to the German rebels), 5 (spoils from the disaster recovered); 1.60.3 (eagle of Legion XIX recaptured); 1.61.1–4 (scenes of massacre; cf. 1.71.1); 1.63.1–68.5 (landscape, German tactics); 2.7.1–3 (castellum Aliso [cf. Dio 56.22.2an]; tumulus in which Germanicus interred the fallen destroyed by Germans [cf. 1.62.1–2; Suet. Cal. 3.2; Dio 57.18.1]); 2.10.3 (Arminius’ service as commander of Cheruscan auxiliaries, ‘Romanis in castris ductor popularium’); 30. Ann. 1.49.4–51.4 (14); 1.55.1–72.1 (15); 2.5.1–26.5 (16); cf. 2.41.1–3.

Appendixes

375

2.15.3 (German view on Roman oppression); 2.25.1–2 (buried legionary eagle recovered from the Marsi; cf. 2.41.1). See also Tac. Germ. 37.4; Ann. 1.10.4; 12.27.3 (Roman survivors rescued from German captivity after forty years). Flor. 2.30.29–39. Frontin. Str. 2.9.4; 3.15.4; 4.7.8 (Roman fort—evidently Aliso—besieged by Germans). Oros. 6.21.26–27. Inscriptions: ILS 2244 = EJ no. 45 = TDGR 6.23 (cenotaph at Vetera of a centurion of Legion XVIII who “fell in the Varian war”); for inscriptions on a fastener for a chain mail shirt (Panzerhemdverschluss) from Kalkriese see R. Wiegels in Schlüter Germania 70 (1992), 383–396. Archaeology: Basic is Schlüter Germania 70 (1992), 307–402. Coins: F. Berger, Kalkriese 1: Die römischen Fundmünzen (Römisch-germanische Forschungen 55) (Mainz, 1996); cf. his contributions in Schlüter Römer 63–69 and Schlüter Germania 70 (1992), 396–402. Cf. PIR2 Q 30 s.v. P. Quintilius Varus (published 1999).

11. ON THE TEXT OF DIO 56.21.2–3 (VARIAN DISASTER) This problematic passage is significant for what it can show about how many days elapsed between the first German attack on Varus and the destruction of his army. . . . peri; toi÷" devndroi" ejsûavllonto. tetavrth te hJmevra [tovte ga;r @th÷i! @te! hJmevrai ms.] poreuomevnoi" sfivsin ejgevneto, kai; aujtoi÷" uJetov" te aujq¿ i" lavbro" kai; a[nemo" mevga" . . . They were being tripped up, often by one another,31 often also by trees. A fourth dawn found them on the march, when [kai;] a violent downpour and a gale once more assailed them, preventing them from either making any advance or taking a solid stand. This is Boissevain’s text, based here on a gifted conjecture of Dindorf. How sound is this restored “original”? Can its degradation into the received text in our sole manuscript be explained? Tentatively and exempli gratia, I posit the following steps in the transmission, starting with our putative original, of which the pertinent seven words are reproduced here without diacritical marks or word divisions: “Original”: esûallontotetarthtehmeraporeuomenoissûisinegeneto

31. Cf. 39.45.6; 40.18.4; 62.16.6.

376

Appendixes

First step. A scribe took the to in esûallonto together with the following te as tote, then inadvertently wrote the entire “word” tote after esûallonto, producing esûallontotote. Result: esûallontototetarthtehmeraporeuomenoissûisinegeneto Second step. esûallontototetar suggested to a later scribe a correction of totetar to tote gar. He also added iotas in an attempt to make sense of the now unGreek thtehmera, producing thitehmerai, sc. th÷i te hJmevrai. Result: esûallontototegarthitehmeraiporeuomenoissûisinegeneto Third step. A still later scribe, baffled by difficulties, secluded thi and te (to indicate word divisions?). Result: esûallontototegar‘thi’‘te’hmeraiporeuomenoissûisinegeneto In full: . . . peri; toi÷" devndroi" ejsûavllonto. tovte ga;r @th÷i! @te! hJmevrai poreuomevnoi" sûivsin ejgevneto kai; aujtoi÷" uJetov" te auj q¿ i" lavbro" kai; a[nemo" mevga" . . . This is the manuscript version, which offers only limited sense. Summary of the Transmission (Successive scribal changes underlined.) “Original”: Step 1: Step 2: Step 3:

esûallontotetarthtehmeraporeuomenoissûisinegeneto . . . esûallontototetarthtehmeraporeuomenoissûisinegeneto . . . esûallontototegarthitehmeraiporeuomenoissûisinegeneto . . . esûallontototegar@thi!@te!hmeraiporeuomenoissûisinegeneto . . .

“Original” gives the reading of Boissevain’s text; Step 3 gives the corrupt reading of our manuscript.

12. AUGUSTUS’ LAST WILL: SUBSTITUTE HEIRS See 56.32.1–2n (under a.d. 14). Dio (as epitomized by Xiphilinus) is reticent on whom Augustus named as heirs in the second degree in his last will, dated 3 April of 13, opened and read in the Senate in September of 14. But other sources help close the gap, particularly Suet. Aug. 101.2: Heredes instituit primos, Tiberium ex parte dimidia et sextante, Liviam ex parte tertia, quos et ferre nomen suum iussit; secundos, Drusum Tiberi filium ex triente, ex partibus reliquis Germanicum liberosque eius tres sexus virilis. As primary heirs he instituted Tiberius for a two-thirds share, Livia for a one-third share, and bade them take his name; as secondary heirs he insti-

Appendixes

377

tuted Tiberius’ son Drusus for one-third, for the remaining shares Germanicus and his three male children. See also Tac. Ann. 1.8.1: “prospects in the second rank for his grandsons and greatgrandsons;” cf. Dio-Zon. 57.18.11: “Germanicus died leaving three sons, whom Augustus had named Caesars in his will.” Champlin RhM 132 (1989), 159 argues that a two-thirds block share was directed to Germanicus and his sons as they were collectively “named substitutes to Tiberius, if he failed to succeed” while “Drusus was to be the substitute for Livia.” Thus Germanicus was “clearly designated the major heir in the event of Tiberius’ intervening death or default.” Plausible as this view of Augustus’ intentions is, the testamentary design that it presupposes entailed potential outcomes so risky that I think Augustus might not have accepted them. Augustus and his two primary heirs could have died in any one of six different chronological orders. These are shown in table 9 together with the inheritances that would have resulted under Champlin’s scheme. (Had either of Augustus’ primary heirs predeceased him, it would of course have been open to him to make a new will unless his own death or infirmity prevented this.) Five of the six possible scenarios conform to Champlin’s idea that Germanicus was “clearly designated the major heir” in the event of Tiberius’ death. But the third scenario, in which Livia dies first,32 would have run directly counter to this intent, installing Tiberius and Drusus as coheirs while excluding Germanicus and his children. Augustus might also have wished to avoid the fifth scenario as inviting dynastic turbulence by excluding Drusus in favor of Germanicus’ children. Table 9 Potential Outcomes of Augustus’ Will of a.d. 13— after Champlin Possible Death Sequences of Augustus and his Primary Heirs Outcomes under Augustus’ Will Augustus, Livia, Tiberius Augustus, Tiberius, Livia Livia, Augustus, Tiberius Livia, Tiberius, Augustus Tiberius, Augustus, Livia Tiberius, Livia, Augustus

32. No remote eventuality given her age.

Tiberius two-thirds, Livia one-third Tiberius two-thirds, Livia one-third Tiberius two-thirds, Drusus one-third (substitute for Livia) Germanicus and children two-thirds (joint substitutes for Tiberius), Drusus one-third (substitute for Livia) Germanicus and children two-thirds (joint substitutes for Tiberius), Livia one-third Germanicus and children two-thirds (joint substitutes for Tiberius), Drusus one-third (substitute for Livia)

378

Appendixes

I posit an alternative testamentary design that could have avoided such potential complications. It is based on three assumptions: first, Suet. Aug. 101.2 (above) accommodates the possibility that Germanicus and his sons were assigned two separate one-third shares as substitute heirs, not a two-thirds joint share;33 second, the shares of the primary heirs Tiberius and Livia were not fixedly destined for particular secondary heirs; third, in case of the death or default of a primary heir the substitute heir(s) would have entered on the basis of career seniority (which was in Augustus’ control)—in a.d. 13, when the will was made, that order was clear: Germanicus (already consul and in a major command), then Drusus, then Germanicus’ children. Table 10 shows how the inheritances would have flowed under this scheme. Framed as I have proposed, Augustus’ will of 13 would have avoided risks inherent in Champlin’s conception of it. While defining for the present the pool of Caesars from which the next Augustus (and potentially more than the next) would be drawn, it would not have entailed future successions overprecisely. After Tiberius, Germanicus was clearly in the forefront as Augustus’ senior grandson and father of three sons, a fact that was news to no one. But the will did not anoint him as next in line. Having seen his earlier succession plans wrecked, Augustus cannot have been unaware of how incalculable the future was: his own death and those of Livia, Tiberius, Germanicus, and Drusus could occur in 120 possible orders.34

13. HOW MUCH DID DIO ALTER THE EDITIO PRINCEPS OF HIS HISTORY IN PREPARING ITS SECOND EDITION? See Introduction sec. 5.6. What most distinguished the second edition of Dio’s History—his surviving text—from the editio princeps comprising Books 1–76 (to the death of Septimius Severus in 211) was the addition of Books 77–79 (Caracalla to Elagabalus, 211– 222) and an epilogue, which is Book 80. What changes in the content and temper of Books 1–76 did the second edition entail? Books 73–76. Inconsistencies in Dio’s treatment of the reign of Septimius Severus in these books (which survive mainly in Xiphilinus’ epitome of the second edition) betray different compositional levels likely to be the product of revision—desultory rather than systematic. On the one hand, for example, the colorful tableau of Severus’ festive entry into Rome in 193 as emperor elect (74.1.4–5)

33. Had Suetonius wished to indicate a block two-thirds share, he might have used the singular ex parte reliqua instead of the plural (‘ex partibus reliquis’), as he uses the singular in describing Tiberius’ two-thirds share (‘ex parte dimidia et sextante’); see the underlined phrases. 34. Suggestive of this fact is the disparity between birth order and death order in the case of Augustus and his four adult heirs. Birth order: Augustus, Livia, Tiberius, Germanicus, Drusus. Death order: Augustus, Germanicus, Drusus, Livia, Tiberius.

Appendixes

379

Table 10 Potential Outcomes of Augustus’ Will of a.d. 13— As Proposed Possible Death Sequences of Augustus and his Primary Heirs Outcomes under Augustus’ Will Augustus, Livia, Tiberius Augustus, Tiberius, Livia Livia, Augustus, Tiberius Livia, Tiberius, Augustus Tiberius, Augustus, Livia Tiberius, Livia, Augustus

Tiberius two-thirds, Livia one-third Tiberius two-thirds, Livia one-third Tiberius two-thirds, Germanicus one-third Germanicus one-third, Drusus one-third, children of Germanicus one-third Livia one-third, Germanicus one-third, Drusus one-third Germanicus one-third, Drusus one-third, children of Germanicus one-third

verges on the panegyric (save for one ironic phrase);35 and Dio’s obituary notice on Severus (76.16.1–17.4) is by “a man who regarded the Emperor, if not with affection, at least with sincere respect.”36 On the other hand, there are highly critical texts. Dio exposes the insincerity of Severus’ oath that he would slay no senator: having legislated his own compliance on pain of outlawry, he soon broke his word (74.2.1–2). Dio rejects Severus’ version of the defeat of his rival Clodius Albinus, reproaching, in particular, his atrocious treatment of Albinus’ corpse— proof that he possessed “no quality of a good ruler” (75.7.1–4).37 That the favorable material was already present in the editio princeps can be taken for granted. Does it follow that criticisms were in the main introduced only in the second edition? One broadly datable text from Book 75 seems to offer at least part of an answer. In it Dio refutes Severus’ boast that his annexation of territory beyond the Euphrates provided a “bulwark for Syria” (75.3.2–3; cf. Birley Septimius 132): The facts themselves prove that this territory has brought us continual wars—and huge expenditures. For it yields very little and costs a great deal; and now that we have come into contact with peoples bordering the Medes and Parthians, we find ourselves as it were forever warring on these peoples’ behalf [ajei; trovpon tina; uJpe;r aujtw÷n macovmeqa]. The mention of the Parthians as a standing power in a clause in the present tense is a sign that this passage was written before that power was broken by Persians, beginning 224, probably therefore before Dio produced his second edition, which was not completed before 229 and in which he registers victories of the Persian Artaxerxes over Parthia in the course of which the Parthian king Artabanus fell

35. It clearly derives from Dio’s civil war monograph, which he grafted onto his History. See Rubin Propaganda 57–59. 36. Millar Study 139; similarly Birley Septimius 198–199. 37. Cf. Millar Study 138–143.

380

Appendixes

(80.3.2–3).38 So our passage originated in Dio’s first edition and survived revision in his second. The “continual wars” (ajei; . . . macovmeqa) to which Severus’ expansion led are best identified with the ignominious campaigns by Caracalla and Macrinus against Parthia, 216–218 (78.1.1–4.1, 26.2–27.3 with Millar Study 158– 159, 165). If Dio was able to register this denunciation of Severus’ Mesopotamian policy in his first edition, we are not compelled to assign other such animadversions in Books 73–76 exclusively to the second edition, for example, the hits at the “appetite for glory” (ejpiqumiva dovxh") that actuated Severus’ campaign against Osrhoëni, Adiabeni, and Arabians (75.1.1–2.4; cf. Birley Septimius 115), or at the failure of two attacks on the desert city Hatra (75.10.1–13.1; cf. Birley Septimius 130–133). If Severus’ foreign operations were fair game, why not other aspects of his reign? This is not to say that no critical material was introduced afresh into Books 73– 76. But we are not obliged to posit a thoroughgoing revision. Millar Study 30, 141– 142 is near the mark in assuming that nearly everything in these books, however hostile to Severus, had already been written when the manuscript of Books 1–76 was closed (in 219 on his chronology, ca 222 on mine).39 Books 1–72. The likelihood is even less that Dio’s second edition entailed extensive revision of these books. This is borne out by the scarcity in them of imprints of events later than the accession of Severus Alexander in 222.40 The single unequivocal instance is in Book 49 under 35 b.c. in the narrative of Octavian’s campaigning in Pannonia: here Dio brings in his own experiences of some 250 years later as legate in Upper Pannonia ca 226–228 and his immediately prior posts as governor of Africa and then Dalmatia, ca 223–224 and ca 224–226 (49.36.2–6)—the very three gubernatorial posts that he also mentions in his epilogue (80.1.2–3). The same highly personal motivation prompted him to feature these attainments not only in closing his magnum opus but also through a retroactive insert in his main narrative.41 The whole of 49.36.2–6 has the look of being such an insert; no doubt he embellished 49.37.3 at the same time with his autopsy of the waterways of Pannonian Siscia.42 I conclude that very little in Books 1–72 and 73–76 of the second edition originated in revision of the first. The second edition as far as the death of Severus in 211 reflects above all else the world of the editio princeps, composed ca 200–222 (on my chronology). Books 51–56 on the reign of Augustus stand today essentially as they did in the editio princeps.

38. Millar Study 30, 208, cf. 171: Artabanus killed 224, Artaxerxes enthroned 226. 39. Some scholars hold, however, that Dio’s worst criticisms could not have been written (or at least not published) until after the death of Severus’ namesake Alexander Severus in 235. For Letta a case in point is Dio’s report about Caracalla’s attempted assassination of his father (76.14.1–7): “Composizione” 188–189. 40. Cf. Millar Study 30–32, whom I follow in principle, though holding his chronology of composition to run a few years too early. 41. Cf. Marincola Authority 147. 42. For Barnes, however, these passages are not inserts. They were written in the regular course of composition, which he dates 211–231 at the earliest (in short, he conceives a single edition of the History): Phoenix 38 (1984), 240–255, esp. 248–249.

Appendixes

381

14. DIO 55.12.3a–5 (XIPH.-ZON.) ON THE VALUE OF THE AUREUS AND DENARIUS 1. What Survives of Dio’s Text Table 11 presents side by side in translation the abridgments by Xiphilinus and Zonaras that Boissevain has combined in his composite text at 55.12.3a–5 (2.497– 498). Interfiling their various reports is not a straightforward task. Although a–d in Xiphilinus offer coherent sense, this is far from true of A–D in Zonaras. Only b and B are demonstrably in common to the two epitomists. I posit that our eight items should be taken in the following order: A, a, b = B, c, C, d, D. Effectively this is Boissevain’s order, though he omits B as duplicating b. 2. Was the Aureus Ever Exchanged for Twenty Denarii in Dio’s Day? In commenting on 55.12.5 (see n) I raised the heretical question whether in recording a 1:20 ratio between to; crusou÷n . . . novmisma and dracmw÷n (text underlined in table 11) Dio referred not to the Macedonian gold stater and the Attic drachma of a half millennium earlier (as is widely held) but to a rate of Table 11 Xiphilinus and Zonaras on the Value of the Aureus and Denarius Xiphilinus 103

Zonaras 10.36 A: For loaning 15,000,000 denarii [dracmw÷n] interest free for three years to those in need Augustus was praised and adored by all.

a: A fire having previously destroyed the palace, though many people were making many donations, Augustus accepted nothing beyond an aureus [crusou÷n] from cities and a denarius [dracmhvn] from individuals. b: For I myself [sc. Dio] call the coin worth twenty-five denarii [dracmav"] a chrysous [= aureus], imitating the local [Latin] term. c: Even certain of the Greeks whose books we read to acquire an Attic style so named it.

B: Among Romans twenty-five denarii [dracmaiv] are worth one gold coin;

C: [= 55.12.5] among the Greeks Dio says the gold coin is exchanged for twenty denarii ªdracmw÷nº. para; de; toi÷" $Ellhsin ei[kosi dracmw÷n oJ Divwn ûhsi;to; crusou÷n ajllavssesqai novmisma. d: Augustus had his house rebuilt and the whole made public property . . .

D: After this a German war . . .

382

Appendixes

exchange between aureus and denarius current “among the Greeks” in his own day. No other text in Dio or elsewhere says such a thing. But two forms of contemporary coin evidence may signal the operation of economic forces sufficient to induce—regionally—the depreciation of the aureus against the denarius that is implicit in an aureus:denarius ratio of 1:20. Antoninianus and denarius. Among the most noteworthy events of numismatic history under the Roman Empire was Caracalla’s introduction in 215 of a new silver coin named the antoninianus. This—it is now generally agreed—was valued at two denarii though it contained less silver than two single denarii. A sample of the new “double denarii”/antoniniani of 215 has a mean weight of 2.55 grams of silver compared with a mean weight of 1.60 grams in a sample of single denarii of the same year (Walker Metrology 3.19–20). In creating “double denarii” Caracalla’s aim was to stretch the state’s revenues as a means of covering increased military expenditures. Among probable effects of introducing these debased two-denarius pieces two are important to note here. The first was to put upward pressure on the value of the denarius proper in relation to the antoninianus. This is far from saying that the state paid a premium on denarii that it received, for example, in taxes. In fact it can be counted on not to have done so. It can also be counted on to have made its payments, for example, to soldiers or contractors, whenever possible in overvalued antoniniani. To do otherwise would have been to renounce the profits of its new monetary regime. But in transactions conducted beyond the reach of the state, where metal content counted for more than Roman authority, exchanges may have operated differently: at the very least the intrinsically more valuable denarii will have been hoarded or, when circulated, traded at a premium. A second effect was that on the value of the aureus. In setting the value of antoniniani/“double denarii” at 12½ (sc. 25 debased “denarii”) to the aureus, the state implicitly overvalued the aureus against regular denarii with their superior metallic content. In the open market the result was presumably to drive the value of the aureus down, below its official level of 25 denarii. Imperial drachmas and their multiples. The sort of appreciation of the denarius that I have posited relative to antoninianus and aureus will have occurred mutatis mutandis in both Roman West and Greek East. But another factor simultaneously in play intensified this phenomenon “among the Greeks.” In the East, Rome minted not only silver denarii—and antoniniani in the period 215–219— but also “Greek-legend silver coinages,” notably an “imperial” drachma and its multiples (didrachm, tridrachm, tetradrachm) (Walker Metrology 3.72–105). These coins had long exchanged at par with the Roman denarius, sc. drachma for denarius, and had a similar metal content. For instance, a sample of drachmas minted at Caesarea in Cappadocia in the later reign of Septimius Severus has a mean weight of silver of 1.79 grams (Metrology 3.76–77); these match denarii minted in Rome in 210–211 having a mean weight of silver of 1.78 grams (Me-

Appendixes

383

trology 3.12). Tetradrachms (four-drachma pieces) minted at Antioch in Syria 202– 212 have a mean silver content of 7.97 grams (Metrology 3.83). But under Caracalla there occurred a “dramatic debasement of the silver coinages in the east,” probably from 215, motivated largely by the requirements of his eastern campaigns (Metrology 3.63, in detail 97–101). Walker calculates the mean silver content of his sample of Caracalla’s tetradrachms from Syrian mints, probably coined 215–217, at ca 1.15 grams per drachma versus ca 2.00 grams per drachma previously (Metrology 3.99). If ever we could expect the denarius to trade at a premium in private transactions “among the Greeks” it was arguably now. If the state used the aureus to back the official value of its debased Greek drachma coinage at par in public transactions (as I have already assumed it did in the case of antoniniani—a necessity if it was to profit from its strategy of debasement), we should not rule out the possibility that the value of the aureus now declined sharply against the standard denarius in the open market, conceivably falling as low as 20 denarii in some eastern region of which Dio had knowledge. We have seen that Dio’s remark on the official 1:25 aureus:denarius exchange rate had a literary motive (55.12.5n). What motivated him to remark on the concurrent 1:20 rate “among the Greeks”? Plausibly a profound anxiety about the meaning of this extraordinary phenomenon, one readily linked to Caracalla’s monetary adventurism, which had breached a stable regime that could be traced back beyond Augustus. What Dio records he may well have witnessed from near at hand while on imperial service in the Greek East, where he was a consiliarius of Caracalla in 214/215, then curator of Smyrna and Pergamum from 218 by appointment of Macrinus (Introduction sec. 1). If discretion kept him from criticizing Caracallan monetary policy openly when he was writing Book 55, perhaps under Elagabalus, his secret thoughts can be made out in what he wrote—intemperately—perhaps a decade later in the continuation of his History beyond the reign of Septimius Severus. Here he castigates Caracalla for rendering both silver and gold coinage counterfeit (Exc. Val. 378) (77.14.4–15.1, with Walker Metrology 3.63).

15. HOW THE BOOK NUMBERS WORK IN BOISSEVAIN’S DIO EDITION, VOL. 3, BOOKS 61–80 In editing Books 61–80 of the Roman History Boissevain adopted a “reformed” system of numbers, following in the main the book divisions posited by Gutschmid43 against the “standard” system that goes back to Leunclavius’ editions of 1592 and 1606.44 Boissevain nonetheless chose to equip his edition with stan43. A. von Gutschmid, “Aus Vorlesungen über die Geschichte der römischen Kaiserzeit,” in Kleine Schriften, ed. F. Rühl (Leipzig, 1894), 547–562 (3. “Cassius Dio Cocceianus”), esp. 549–550, 561–562. 44. On the complex problem of determining from which book epitomized and excerpted material bearing no book number derives see Boissevain 3.x–xi; cf. 1.liv–lviii, xciii–xcv; Murison Rebellion 1–5.

384

Appendixes

dard as well as reformed numbers, a decision that has generally been of help to students of Dio, though the resulting plethora of numbers can confuse the inadvertent. The following summary of his practice is intended to make his text more navigable for readers of this commentary, with its many citations of Books 61–80: (1) On the first page of each of Books 61–80 Boissevain prints, as a title, the reformed book number, for example (3.33): RELIQUIAE LIBRI LXII

|

RELIQUIAE LIBRI LXII

(2) Where reformed and standard book numbers coincide (as sometimes happens) he prints the shared book number in the header of the lefthand page, while giving chapter and section numbers in the header of the right-hand page, for example (3.184–185): RELIQUIAE LIBRI LXVII

18, 2. CAP. 16, 1–18,

|

(3) Where reformed and standard book numbers differ (as often), he prints the reformed book number in the header of the left-hand page and the standard book number(s), including chapter and section numbers, in the header of the right-hand page, for example (3.308–309): RELIQUIAE LIBRI LXXIV

|

5, 2. LXXIII 3, 1–5,

(4) To the running chapter and section numbers in outside margins Boissevain adds a standard book number when this is needed to indicate a departure from the reformed book number in the header of the lefthand page, for example (3.100–101): RELIQUIAE LIBRI LXIII

|

LXIII 29, 5–LXIV 3, 3.

5 6 LXIV 1 45 2 Cary’s Loeb edition. Cary uses solely reformed book numbers in the titles and headers of both Greek original and English translation of Books 61–80 (his vols. 8–9). When numbering books, chapters, and sections in the margin of his Greek text he follows Boissevain’s usage as in (4) above.46 45. With 1 begins Book LXIV.1.1, standard numbering. 46. But note the following errors: at Cary 9.122 read LXXIII for LXXIV; at 9.160, LXXIV for LXXV; at 9.436, LXXIX for LXXX.

Appendixes

385

When giving references to Books 61–80 some scholars provide both reformed and (in parentheses) standard book numbers: e.g., 73(72).23.5 or 61(61).8.1. (In the second instance the reformed and standard numbers happen to coincide.) Helpfully, others add a page reference to Boissevain’s vol. 3: e.g., 77.11.2–4 (385) [standard] or 78(77).11.2–4 (385) [reformed (standard)].

This page intentionally left blank

Bibliography and Abbreviations

1. Texts and Editions of Dio Reimar = H.S. Reimar. Cassii Dionis Cocceiani Historiae Romanae Quae Supersunt. 2 vols. Hamburg, 1750–1752. Sturz = F.W. Sturz. Dionis Cassii Cocceiani Historiarum Romanarum Quae Supersunt. 9 vols. (9 edited by A. Mai). Leipzig, 1824–1843. Boissevain = U.P. Boissevain. Cassii Dionis Cocceiani Historiarum Romanarum Quae Supersunt 1–3 (text), 4 (Index Historicus, ed. H. Smilda), 5 (Index Graecitatis, ed. W. Nawijn). Berlin, 1895–1931. Cary = E. Cary. Dio’s Roman History. Loeb Classical Library. 9 vols. London, 1914–1927. Scott-Kilvert = Cassius Dio. The Roman History: The Reign of Augustus. Trans. I. ScottKilvert, with introduction by J. Carter. Harmondsworth, 1987. Comprises Books 50–56. For Byzantine epitomes and excerpts of Dio’s text these abbreviations are used: Xiph. = Xiphilinus. Epitome of Dio of Nicaea’s Roman History. Zon. = Zonaras. Epitome of Histories. Exc. UG = Excerpta Ursiniana on Ambassadors of Foreigners [Gentium] to Romans. Exc. Val. = Excerpta Valesiana on Virtue and Vice.

2. Works of Reference This list is limited to the works of reference and the collections of documents used most frequently, and to certain other works cited so often as to warrant abbreviation. Standard works of reference not listed here are generally abbreviated as in The Oxford Classical Dictionary, 3rd ed. (1996), periodicals as in the latter or in L’année philologique. ADA = S. Riccobono et al. Acta Divi Augusti. Rome, 1945. ANRW = Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt. Berlin, 1972–. BAtlas = R.J.A. Talbert, ed. Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World. Atlas plus directory in 2 vols. Princeton, 2000. BMCEmp. = Coins of the Roman Empire in the British Museum. London, 1923–. BMCParthia = W. Wroth. Catalogue of the Coins of Parthia. A Catalogue of the Greek Coins in the British Museum. London, 1903; reprint, Bologna, 1964. Braund Sourcebook = D.C. Braund. Augustus to Nero: A Sourcebook on Roman History 31 bc–ad 68. Totowa, N.J., 1985. CAH1, CAH2 = The Cambridge Ancient History. 1st ed. Cambridge, 1923–1939. 2nd ed. Cambridge, 1961–. CIL = Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum. Berlin, 1862–. Crawford Statutes = M.H. Crawford, ed. Roman Statutes. 2 vols. London, 1996.

388

Bibliography and Abbreviations

Diz. Epigr. = E. de Ruggiero. Dizionario epigrafico di antichità romane. Rome, 1895–. DNP = Der Neue Pauly: Enzyklopädie der Antike. Ed. H. Cancik & H. Schneider. Stuttgart, 1996–. DS = C. Daremberg & E. Saglio. Dictionnaire des antiquités grecques et romaines d’après les textes et les monuments. Paris, 1877–1919. EJ = V. Ehrenberg & A.H.M. Jones. Documents Illustrating the Reigns of Augustus and Tiberius. 2nd ed.; reprint with addenda, Oxford, 1976. FIRA = S. Riccobono et al., eds. Fontes Iuris Romani Antejustiniani. 3 vols. Firenze, 1940– 1941. HRR = H. Peter. Historicorum Romanorum Reliquiae. Vol. 1, 2nd ed., 1914; vol. 2, 1st ed., 1906; reprint with supplements, Stuttgart, 1967. IGRR = Inscriptiones Graecae ad Res Romanas Pertinentes. Ed. R. Cagnat. 4 vols. Paris, 1911–1927; reprint, Rome, 1964. IIt. = Inscriptiones Italiae. Rome, 1931–. ILS = H. Dessau. Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae. Berlin, 1892–1916; reprint, Chicago, 1979. KAVR = Antikenmuseum Berlin. Kaiser Augustus und die verlorene Republik. Eine Ausstellung im Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin 7. Juni–14. August 1988. Mainz, 1988. Kl. Pauly = Der kleine Pauly: Lexikon der Antike. Stuttgart, 1964–1975. Lewis & Reinhold = N. Lewis & M. Reinhold, eds. Roman Civilization, 1: The Republic and the Augustan Age; 2: The Empire. 3rd. ed. New York, 1990. LIMC = Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae. 8 vols. in 16. Zürich, 1981–1997. Loeb = Loeb Classical Library. LSJ = H.G. Liddell & R. Scott. A Greek-English Lexicon. New ed. Rev. by H.S. Jones. Oxford, 1940; with supplements, 1968, 1996. LTUR = E.M. Steinby, ed. Lexicon Topographicum Urbis Romae. Rome, 1993–2000. Malcovati = H. Malcovati, ed. Imperatoris Caesaris Augusti Operum Fragmenta. 4th ed. Torino, 1967. MRR = T.R.S. Broughton. The Magistrates of the Roman Republic. Vols. 1–2. New York, 1951–1952 (Supplement, 1960). Vol. 3, Supplement. Atlanta, 1986. MW = M. McCrum & A.G. Woodhead. Select Documents of the Principates of the Flavian Emperors Including the Year of Revolution: a.d. 68–96. Cambridge, 1961. OCD3 = Oxford Classical Dictionary. 3rd ed. Oxford, 1996. OGIS = Orientis Graeci Inscriptiones Selectae. Ed. W. Dittenberger. 2 vols. Leipzig, 1903– 1905; reprint, Hildesheim, 1960. OLD = Oxford Latin Dictionary. Oxford, 1968–1982. PECS = Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites. Ed. R. Stillwell, W.L. MacDonald, & M.H. McAllister. Princeton, 1976. PIR1, PIR2 = Prosopographia Imperii Romani. 1st ed. Berlin, 1897–1898. 2nd ed. Berlin, 1933–. RE = Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft. Stuttgart, 1893–1972. RIC 12 = Roman Imperial Coinage, 1: From 31 bc to ad 69. 2nd ed. Rev. by C.H.V. Sutherland. London, 1984. RPC 1 = A.M. Burnett, M. Amandry, & Pere P. Ripollès. Roman Provincial Coinage, 1: From the Death of Caesar to the Death of Vitellius (44 bc–ad 69). 2 parts. Paris, 1992. RRC = M.H. Crawford. Roman Republican Coinage. London, 1974. SB = D.R. Shackleton Bailey, ed. Cicero’s Letters to Atticus. 7 vols. Cambridge, 1965– 1970. Cicero: Epistulae ad Familiares. 2 vols. Cambridge, 1977. Cicero: Epistulae ad Quintum Fratrem et M. Brutum. Cambridge, 1980. SCPP = W. Eck, A. Caballos, & F. Fernández. Das senatus consultum de Cn. Pisone patre. München, 1996. SEG = Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum. 1923–.

Bibliography and Abbreviations

389

Tabula Hebana = Crawford Statutes 1 no. 37 at pp519–521 (text), 530–532 (translation) = TDGR 6.36.B. Tabula Siarensis = Crawford Statutes 1 no. 37 at pp515–519 (text), 527–529 (translation) = TDGR 6.36 A. TDGR = Translated Documents of Greece and Rome. Vol. 4: Rome and the Greek East to the Death of Augustus; vol. 6: The Roman Empire: Augustus to Hadrian. Ed. R.K. Sherk. Cambridge, 1984, 1988. TGL = H. Estienne (Stephanus). Thesaurus Graecae Linguae. Geneva, 1572. New ed. in 9 vols. Paris, 1831–1865; reprint, Graz, 1954. TIR = Tabula Imperii Romani. H 34 Cyrene (Oxford, 1954); K34 Naissus (Ljubljana, 1976); L 32 Mediolanum (Rome, 1966); L 33 Trieste (Rome, 1961); L 34 Budapest (Amsterdam, 1968); M 33 Praha (Praha, 1986).

3. Select Bibliography Alföldy AAntHung 10 (1962) = G. Alföldy. “Splau÷non—Splonum.” AAntHung 10 (1962), 3–12. Alföldy Bevölkerung = G. Alföldy. Bevölkerung und Gesellschaft der römischen Provinz Dalmatien. Budapest, 1965. Alföldy Personennamen = G. Alföldy. Die Personennamen in der römischen Provinz Dalmatia. Beiträge zur Namenforschung 4. Heidelberg, 1969. Ameling “Intellektuelle” = W. Ameling. “Griechische Intellektuelle und das Imperium Romanum: Das Beispiel Cassius Dio.” ANRW 2.34.3 (1997), 2472–2496. Anderson Topography = J.C. Anderson. The Historical Topography of the Imperial Fora. Brussels, 1984. Ando Ideology = C. Ando. Imperial Ideology and Provincial Loyalty in the Roman Empire. Classics and Contemporary Thought 6. Berkeley, 2000. Arce Funus = J. Arce. Funus Imperatorum: Los funerales de los emperadores romanos. Madrid, 1988. Astolfi Lex = R. Astolfi. La Lex Iulia et Papia. 2nd ed. Padova, 1986. Baatz & Herrmann Römer = D. Baatz & F.-R. Herrmann, eds. Die Römer in Hessen. Stuttgart, 1982. Baillie Reynolds Vigiles = P.K. Baillie Reynolds. The Vigiles of Imperial Rome. London, 1926. Barnes JRS 64 (1974) = T.D. Barnes. “The Victories of Augustus.” JRS 64 (1974), 21–26. Barnes Phoenix 38 (1984) = T.D. Barnes. “The Composition of Cassius Dio’s Roman History.” Phoenix 38 (1984), 240–255. Barrett Caligula = A.A. Barrett. Caligula: The Corruption of Power. New Haven, 1989. Barrett Livia = A.A. Barrett. Livia: First Lady of Imperial Rome. New Haven, 2002. Bauman Crimen = R.A. Bauman. The Crimen Maiestatis in the Roman Republic and Augustan Principate. Johannesburg, 1967. Bauman Impietas = R.A. Bauman. Impietas in Principem: A Study of Treason against the Roman Emperor with Special Reference to the First Century a.d. München, 1974. Bellen Leibwache = H. Bellen. Die germanische Leibwache der römischen Kaiser des julischclaudischen Hauses. Wiesbaden, 1981. Bickerman “Consecratio” = E. Bickerman. “Consecratio.” In Le culte des souverains dans l’empire romain (Entretiens sur l’Antiquité classique 19) (Genève, 1973), 3–37. Birch “Settlement” = R.A. Birch. “The Settlement of 26 June a.d. 4 and its Aftermath.” CQ 31 (1981), 443–456. Birley Septimius = A.R. Birley. Septimius Severus: The African Emperor. Rev. ed. New Haven, 1988. Birley Papers = E. Birley. The Roman Army: Papers 1926–1986. Mavors 4. Amsterdam, 1988.

390

Bibliography and Abbreviations

Bollinger Licentia = T. Bollinger. Theatralis Licentia: Die Publikumsdemonstrationen an den öffentlichen Spielen im Rom der früheren Kaiserzeit und ihre Bedeutung im politischen Leben. Winterthur, 1969. Bonnefond “Transferts” = M. Bonnefond. “Transferts de fonctions et mutation idéologique: le Capitole et le Forum d’Auguste.” In Urbs 251–278. Bonnefond-Coudry Sénat = M. Bonnefond-Coudry. Le sénat de la République romaine de la guerre d’Hannibal à Auguste: Pratiques déliberatives et prise de décision. Rome, 1989. Bosworth Harv. Stud. 86 (1982) = A.B. Bosworth. “Augustus and August: Some Pitfalls of Historical Fiction.” Harv. Stud. 86 (1982), 151–170. Bosworth “Apotheosis” = A.B. Bosworth. “Augustus, the Res Gestae and Hellenistic Theories of Apotheosis.” JRS 89 (1999), 1–18. Boulvert Esclaves = G. Boulvert. Esclaves et affranchis impériaux sous le Haut-Empire romain: Rôle politique et administratif. Napoli, 1970. Bowersock Augustus = G.W. Bowersock. Augustus and the Greek World. Oxford, 1965. Bowersock Sophists = G.W. Bowersock. Greek Sophists in the Roman Empire. Oxford, 1969. Bowersock Arabia = G.W. Bowersock. Roman Arabia. Cambridge, Mass., 1983. Bowersock “Succession” = G.W. Bowersock. “Augustus and the East: The Problem of the Succession.” In Millar & Segal Augustus, 169–188. Braund King = D. Braund. Rome and the Friendly King: The Character of the Client Kingship. London, 1984. Brewer Fortresses = R.J. Brewer, ed. Roman Fortresses and their Legions. London, 2000. Brunt Manpower = P.A. Brunt. Italian Manpower 225 b.c.–a.d. 14. Oxford, 1971. Brunt ZPE 13 (1974) = P.A. Brunt. “C. Fabricius Tuscus and an Augustan Dilectus.” ZPE 13 (1974), 161–185. Brunt “Conscription” = P.A. Brunt. “Conscription and Volunteering in the Roman Imperial Army.” In Brunt Themes 188–214, 512–513 = SCI 1 (1974), 90–115. Brunt JRS 73 (1983) = P.A. Brunt. “Princeps and Equites.” JRS 73 (1983), 42–75. Brunt CQ 34 (1984) = P.A. Brunt. “The Role of the Senate in the Augustan Regime.” CQ 34 (1984), 423–444. Brunt Themes = P.A. Brunt. Roman Imperial Themes. Oxford, 1990. Brunt & Moore = P.A. Brunt & J.M. Moore. Res Gestae Divi Augusti: The Achievements of the Divine Augustus. London, 1967. Buttrey “Aureus” = T.V. Buttrey. “Dio, Zonaras and the Value of the Roman Aureus.” JRS 51 (1961), 40–45. Camodeca TPSulp. = G. Camodeca. Tabulae Pompeianae Sulpiciorum (TPSulp.): Edizione critica dell’archivio puteolano dei Sulpicii. Vetera 12. 2 vols. Rome, 1999. Campbell Emperor = J.B. Campbell. The Emperor and the Roman Army, 31 bc–ad 235. Oxford, 1984. Campbell Army = J.B. Campbell. The Roman Army, 31 bc–ad 337: A Sourcebook. London, 1994. Carter = J.M. Carter, ed. Suetonius Divus Augustus. Bristol, 1982. Cassiod. Chron. = Cassiodorus Chronica. In Chronica Minora Saec. IV. V. VI. VII. Vol. 2 (= Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Auctorum Antiquissimorum 11). Ed. T. Mommsen. Berlin, 1894; reprint, 1961. Cavallaro Spese = M.A. Cavallaro. Spese e spettacoli: Aspetti economici-strutturali degli spettacoli nella Roma giulio-claudia. Antiquitas 1.34. Bonn, 1984. Champlin RhM 132 (1989) = E. Champlin. “The Testament of Augustus.” RhM 132 (1989), 154–165. Champlin Judgments = E. Champlin. Final Judgments: Duty and Emotion in Roman Wills, 200 b.c.–a.d. 250. Berkeley, 1991.

Bibliography and Abbreviations

391

Chaumont “Arménie” = M.-L. Chaumont. “L’Arménie entre Rome et l’Iran I. De l’avènement d’Auguste à l’avènement de Dioclétian.” ANRW 2.9.1 (1976), 71–194. Christ Chiron 7 (1977) = K. Christ. “Zur augusteischen Germanienpolitik.” Chiron 7 (1977), 149–205. Cichorius Studien = C. Cichorius. Römische Studien. Leipzig, 1922; reprint, Rome, 1970. Claridge Rome = A. Claridge. Rome: An Oxford Archaeological Guide. Oxford, 1998. Coarelli Foro = F. Coarelli. Il Foro Romano. 2 vols. Rome, 1983–1985. Coarelli Roma = F. Coarelli. Roma. Guide archeologiche Laterza 6. Rome, 1985. Corbier Aerarium = M. Corbier. L’Aerarium Saturni et l’Aerarium Militare: Administration et prosopographie sénatoriale. Rome, 1974. Corbier “Aerarium militare” = M. Corbier. “L’aerarium militare.” In Armées et fiscalité dans le monde antique (Paris, 1977), 197–234. Creighton & Wilson Germany = J.D. Creighton & R.J.A. Wilson, eds. Roman Germany: Studies in Cultural Interaction. Portsmouth, R.I., 1999. Crook Consilium = J.A. Crook. Consilium Principis: Imperial Councils and Counsellors from Augustus to Diocletian. Cambridge, 1955. Crook Law = J.A. Crook. Law and Life of Rome. Ithaca, 1967. Davies Service = R.W. Davies. Service in the Roman Army. Edinburgh, 1989. de Blois “Authors” = L. de Blois. “Emperor and Empire in the Works of Greek-Speaking Authors of the Third Century ad.” ANRW 2.34.4 (1998), 3391–3443. De Maria Archi = S. De Maria. Gli archi onorari di Roma e dell’ Italia romana. Rome, 1988. Demougin Ordre = S. Demougin. L’ordre équestre sous les Julio-Claudiens. Collection de l’École Française de Rome 108. Rome, 1988. Denniston = J.D. Denniston. The Greek Particles. 2nd ed. Oxford, 1966. Desanges REA 66 (1964) = J. Desanges. “Les territoires gétules de Juba II.” REA 66 (1964), 33–47. Desanges “Drame africain” = J. Desanges. “Un drame africain sous Auguste.” Hommages à Marcel Renard 2 (Collection Latomus 102) (Brussels, 1969), 197–213. Duff Freedmen = A.M. Duff. Freedmen in the Early Roman Empire. Oxford, 1928. Durry Cohortes = M. Durry. Les cohortes prétoriennes. Bibliothèque des Écoles Françaises d’Athènes et de Rome 146. Paris, 1938. Eck Organisation = W. Eck. Die staatliche Organisation Italiens in der hohen Kaiserzeit. Vestigia: Beiträge zur Alten Geschichte 28. München, 1979. Edmondson = J.C. Edmondson. Dio: The Julio-Claudians: Selections from Books 58–63 of the Roman History of Cassius Dio. LACTOR 15. London, 1992. Eisman Latomus 36 (1977) = M.M. Eisman. “Dio and Josephus: Parallel Analyses.” Latomus 36 (1977), 657–673. Fishwick Cult = D. Fishwick. The Imperial Cult in the Latin West: Studies in the Ruler Cult of the Western Provinces of the Roman Empire. 2 vols. in 4. Leiden 1987–1992. Fishwick “Temple” = D. Fishwick. “On the Temple of Divus Augustus.” Phoenix 46 (1992), 232–255. Flory Historia 33 (1984) = M.B. Flory. “Sic exempla parantur: Livia’s Shrine to Concordia and the Porticus Liviae.” Historia 33 (1984), 309–330. Flory “Statues” = M.B. Flory. “Livia and the History of Public Honorific Statues for Women in Rome.” TAPhA 123 (1993), 287–308. Flower = H.I. Flower. Ancestor Masks and Aristocratic Power in Roman Culture. Oxford, 1996. Forni Reclutamento = G. Forni. Il reclutamento delle legioni da Augusto a Diocleziano. Milano, 1953. Frei-Stolba Untersuchungen = R. Frei-Stolba. Untersuchungen zu den Wahlen in der römischen Kaiserzeit. Zürich, 1967.

392

Bibliography and Abbreviations

Freyburger-Galland Vocabulaire = M.-L. Freyburger-Galland. Aspects du vocabulaire politique et institutionnel de Dion Cassius. Paris, 1997. Furneaux = H. Furneaux, ed. The Annals of Tacitus. 2 vols. 2nd ed. Oxford, 1896–1907. Gabba RSI 67 (1955) = E. Gabba. “Sulla Storia Romana di Cassio Dione.” RSI 67 (1955), 289–333. Gabba “Historians” = E. Gabba. “The Historians and Augustus.” In Millar & Segal Augustus, 61–88. Gagé = J. Gagé, ed. Res Gestae Divi Augusti. Paris, 1935; rev. ed., 1977. Gardner Women = J.F. Gardner. Women in Roman Law and Society. London, 1986. Gardthausen Augustus = V. Gardthausen. Augustus und seine Zeit. 2 parts in 6 vols. Leipzig, 1891–1904; reprint, Aalen, 1964. Garnsey Status = P. Garnsey. Social Status and Legal Privilege in the Roman Empire. Oxford, 1970. Ginsburg Tradition = J. Ginsburg. Tradition and Theme in the Annals of Tacitus. Monographs in Classical Studies. New York, 1981. Giua Athenaeum 59 (1981) = M.A. Giua. “Clemenza del sovrano e monarchia illuminata in Cassio Dione 55.14–22.” Athenaeum 59 (1981), 317–337. Giua Athenaeum 61 (1983) = M.A. Giua. “Augusto nel libro 56 della Storia Romana di Cassio Dione.” Athenaeum 61 (1983), 439–456. Gleason Making = M.W. Gleason. Making Men: Sophists and Self-Presentation in Ancient Rome. Princeton, 1995. Goldsworthy Army = A.K. Goldsworthy. The Roman Army at War 100 bc–ad 200. Oxford, 1996. Goodyear = F.R.D. Goodyear, ed. The Annals of Tacitus, Books 1–6. Vol. 1: Annals 1.1– 54; vol. 2: Annals 1.55–81. Cambridge, 1972, 1981. See also Woodman & Martin. Gowing Narratives = A.M. Gowing. The Triumviral Narratives of Appian and Cassius Dio. Ann Arbor, 1992. Gradel = I. Gradel. Emperor Worship and Roman Religion. Oxford, 2002. Gros Templa = P. Gros. Aurea templa: Recherches sur l’architecture religieuse de Rome à l’époque d’Auguste. Bibliothèque des Écoles Françaises d’Athènes et de Rome 231. Rome, 1976. Halfmann Itinera = H. Halfmann. Itinera Principum: Geschichte und Typologie der Kaiserreisen im Römischen Reich. Stuttgart, 1986. Hammond Principate = M. Hammond. The Augustan Principate in Theory and Practice during the Julio-Claudian Period. Cambridge, Mass., 1933; rev. ed., New York, 1968. Hammond Monarchy = M. Hammond. The Antonine Monarchy. Papers and Monographs of the American Academy in Rome 19. Rome, 1959. Hänlein-Schäfer Veneratio = H. Hänlein-Schäfer. Veneratio Augusti: Eine Studie zu den Tempeln des ersten römischen Kaisers. Archaeologica 39. Rome, 1985. Herz “Gaius Caesar” = P. Herz. “Gaius Caesar und Artavasdes.” In J. Ganzert, Das Kenotaph für Gaius Caesar in Limyra. Tübingen, 1984. Hirschfeld Verwaltungsbeamten = O. Hirschfeld. Die kaiserliche Verwaltungsbeamten bis auf Diocletian. 3rd ed. (reprint of 2nd edition of 1905). Berlin, 1963. Hoffman Lewis Priests = M.W. Hoffman Lewis. The Official Priests of Rome under the Julio-Claudians. Papers and Monographs of the American Academy in Rome 16. Rome, 1955. Hohl Klio 30 (1937) = E. Hohl. “Zu den Testamenten des Augustus.” Klio 30 (1937), 323–342. Hollis = A.S. Hollis, ed. Ovid Ars Amatoria Book 1. Oxford, 1977. Hopkins Conquerors = K. Hopkins. Conquerors and Slaves. Cambridge, 1978. Hose Erneuerung = M. Hose. Erneuerung der Vergangenheit: Die Historiker im Imperium Romanum von Florus bis Cassius Dio. Stuttgart, 1994.

Bibliography and Abbreviations

393

Humphrey Circuses = J.H. Humphrey. Roman Circuses: Arenas for Chariot Racing. Berkeley, 1986. Hurley (1993) = D.W. Hurley. An Historical and Historiographical Commentary on Suetonius’ Life of C. Caligula. American Classical Studies 32. Atlanta, 1993. Hurley (2001) = D.W. Hurley, ed. Suetonius Divus Claudius. Cambridge, 2001. Jameson Historia 24 (1975) = S. Jameson. “Augustus and Agrippa Postumus.” Historia 24 (1975), 287–314. Jerome Chron. = Eusebius Werke 7: Die Chronik des Hieronymus / Hieronymi Chronicon. Ed. R. Helm. Berlin, 1956. Jones Studies = A.H.M. Jones. Studies in Roman Government and Law. Oxford, 1968. Jörs Ehegesetze = P. Jörs. Die Ehegesetze des Augustus. Marburg, 1894; reprint in P. Jörs. ‘Iuliae rogationes:’ Due studi sulla legislazione matrimoniale augustea. Introd. by T. Spagnuolo Vigorita. Napoli, 1985. Jugoslavia = Great Britain. Naval Intelligence Division. Jugoslavia. 3 vols. London, 1944– 1945. Informative on the natural topography of what was once Dalmatia and Pannonia. Karrass-Klapproth Studien = M. Karras-Klapproth. Prosopographische Studien zur Geschichte des Partherreiches auf der Grundlage antiker literarischer Überlieferung. Bonn, 1988. Keppie Making = L. Keppie. The Making of the Roman Army: From Republic to Empire. London, 1984. Keppie Athenaeum 84 (1996) = L. Keppie. “The Praetorian Guard before Sejanus.” Athenaeum 84 (1996), 101–124. Kienast Kaisertabelle = D. Kienast. Römische Kaisertabelle: Grundzüge einer römischen Kaiserchronologie. Darmstadt, 1990. Kienast Augustus = D. Kienast. Augustus: Prinzeps und Monarch. 3rd ed. Darmstadt, 1999. Kierdorf Laudatio = W. Kierdorf. Laudatio funebris: Interpretationen und Untersuchungen zur Entwicklung der römischen Leichenrede. Beiträge zur klassischen Philologie 106. Meisenheim am Glan, 1980. Kierdorf Chiron 16 (1986) = W. Kierdorf. “‘Funus’ und ‘consecratio:’ Zu Terminologie und Ablauf der römischen Kaiserapotheose.” Chiron 16 (1986), 43–69. Klingner Tacitus = F. Klingner. Tacitus über Augustus und Tiberius: Interpretationen zum Eingang der Annalen. Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften, philosophischhistorische Klasse. Sitzungsberichte, 1953, Heft 7. München, 1954. Koenen ZPE 5 (1970) = L. Koenen. “Die ‘laudatio funebris’ des Augustus für Agrippa auf einem neuen Papyrus.” ZPE 5 (1970), 217–283. Koestermann Hermes 81 (1953) = E. Koestermann. “Der pannonisch-dalmatinische Krieg 6–9 n. Chr.” Hermes 81 (1953), 345–378. Koestermann = E. Koestermann, ed. Cornelius Tacitus Annalen. 4 vols. Heidelberg, 1963– 1968. Kokkinos Dynasty = N. Kokkinos. The Herodian Dynasty: Origins, Role in Society and Eclipse. Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha: Supplement Series 30. Sheffield, 1998. Kromayer & Veith = J. Kromayer & G. Veith. Heerwesen und Kriegführung der Griechen und Römer. Handbuch der Altertumswissenschaft 4.3.2. München, 1928. Krumbacher Geschichte = K. Krumbacher. Geschichte der byzantinischen Literatur von Justinian bis zum Ende des oströmischen Reiches (527–1453). 2nd ed. 2 vols. München, 1897. Kühlborn Germaniam = J.S. Kühlborn et al. Germaniam pacavi / Germanien habe ich befriedet: Archäologische Stätten augusteischer Okkupation. Münster, 1995. Kunkel Introduction = W. Kunkel. An Introduction to Roman Legal and Constitutional History. 2nd ed. Trans. J.M. Kelly. Oxford, 1973. Künzl Triumph = E. Künzl. Der römische Triumph: Siegesfeiern im antiken Rom. München, 1988.

394

Bibliography and Abbreviations

Kyhnitzsch De Contionibus = E. Kyhnitzsch. De Contionibus, Quas Cassius Dio Historiae Suae Intexuit, cum Thucydideis Comparatis. Leipzig, 1894. Lacey Antichthon 14 (1980) = W.K. Lacey. “2 b.c. and Julia’s Adultery.” Antichthon 14 (1980), 127–142. Lacey Augustus = W.K. Lacey. Augustus and the Principate: The Evolution of the System. Leeds, 1996. Lebek “Mainzer Ehrungen” = W.D. Lebek. “Die Mainzer Ehrungen für Germanicus, den älteren Drusus und Domitian (Tab. Siar. frg. I 26–34; Suet. Claud. 1.3).” ZPE 78 (1989), 45–82. Lebek “Tabula Larinas” = W.D. Lebek. “Standeswürde und Berufsverbot unter Tiberius: Das SC der Tabula Larinas.” ZPE 81 (1990), 37–96. Le Bohec Légion = Y. Le Bohec. La Troisième Légion Auguste. Paris, 1989. Le Bohec Army = Y. Le Bohec. The Roman Imperial Army. New York, 1994. Originally published as L’armée romaine sous le Haut-Empire. Paris, 1989. Le Gall Tibre = J. Le Gall. Le Tibre: Fleuve de Rome dans l’Antiquité. Paris, 1953. Légions de Rome = Les légions de Rome sous le Haut-Empire: Actes du Congrès de Lyon (17–19 septembre 1998). Ed. Y. Le Bohec & C. Wolff. Collection du Centre d’Études Romaines et Gallo-Romaines nouvelle série 20. 2 vols. Paris, 2000. Le Roux Armée = P. Le Roux. L’armée romaine et l’organisation des provinces ibériques d’Auguste à l’invasion de 409. Paris, 1982. Letta “Composizione” = C. Letta. “La composizione dell’opera di Cassio Dione: cronologia e sfondo storico-politico.” In Ricerche di storiografia antica, I: Ricerche di storiografia greca di età romana (Pisa, 1979), 117–189. Leunissen Konsuln = P.M.M. Leunissen. Konsuln und Konsulare in der Zeit von Commodus bis Severus Alexander (180–235 n. Chr.): Prosopographische Untersuchungen zur senatorischen Elite im römischen Kaiserreich. Amsterdam, 1989. Levick Latomus 25 (1966) = B.M. Levick. “Drusus Caesar and the Adoptions of a.d. 4.” Latomus 25 (1966), 227–244. Levick Historia 21 (1972) = B.M. Levick. “Abdication and Agrippa Postumus.” Historia 21 (1972), 674–697. Levick Latomus 31 (1972) = B.M. Levick. “Tiberius’ Retirement to Rhodes in 6 b.c.” Latomus 31 (1972), 779–813. Levick Latomus 35 (1976) = B.M. Levick. “The Fall of Julia the Younger.” Latomus 35 (1976), 301–339. Levick Tiberius = B.M. Levick. Tiberius the Politician. London, 1976. Rev. ed., 2000. Levick “Larinum SC” = B.M. Levick. “The Senatus Consultum from Larinum.” JRS 73 (1983), 97–115. Liebeschuetz Continuity = J.H.W.G. Liebeschuetz. Continuity and Change in Roman Religion. Oxford, 1979. Linderski “Julia” = J. Linderski. “Julia in Regium.” ZPE 72 (1988), 181–200. Luterbacher Prodigienglaube = F. Luterbacher. Der Prodigienglaube und Prodigienstil der Römer: Eine historisch-philologische Abhandlung. Burgdorf, 1904; reprint, Darmstadt, 1967. MacMullen Enemies = R. MacMullen. Enemies of the Roman Order: Treason, Unrest, and Alienation in the Empire. Cambridge, Mass., 1966. Mann Recruitment = J.C. Mann. Legionary Recruitment and Veteran Settlement during the Principate. Ed. M.M. Roxan. London, 1983. Manuwald Dio = B. Manuwald. Cassius Dio und Augustus: Philologische Untersuchungen zu den Büchern 45–56 des dionischen Geschichtswerkes. Palingenesia 14. Wiesbaden, 1979. Marincola Authority = J. Marincola. Authority and Tradition in Ancient Historiography. Cambridge, 1997.

Bibliography and Abbreviations

395

Marquardt Vie privée = J. Marquardt. La vie privée des Romains. 2 vols. Paris, 1892–1893. Published in German as Das Privatleben der Römer. 2 vols. 2nd ed. Leipzig, 1886; reprint, Darmstadt, 1990. Marx “Germanenkriege” = F.A. Marx. “Die Überlieferung der Germanenkriege besonders der augusteischen Zeit (Velleius und Dio).” Klio 29 (1936), 202–218. Mason Terms = H.J. Mason. Greek Terms for Roman Institutions: A Lexicon and Analysis. American Studies in Papyrology 13. Toronto, 1974. Meise Untersuchungen = E. Meise. Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der JulischClaudischen Dynastie. Vestigia: Beiträge zur alten Geschichte 10. München, 1969. Mette-Dittmann Ehegesetze = A. Mette-Dittmann. Die Ehegesetze des Augustus: Eine Untersuchung im Rahmen der Gesellschaftspolitik des Princeps. Stuttgart, 1991. Millar Study = F. Millar. A Study of Cassius Dio. Oxford, 1964. Millar Emperor = F. Millar. The Emperor in the Roman World (31 bc–ad 337). London, 1977. Millar Empire = F. Millar. The Roman Empire and its Neighbours. 2nd ed. London, 1981. Millar & Segal Augustus = Caesar Augustus: Seven Aspects. Ed. F. Millar & E. Segal. Oxford, 1984. Mitchell CQ 26 (1976) = S. Mitchell. “Legio VII and the Garrison of Augustan Galatia.” CQ 26 (1976), 298–308. Mócsy Pannonia = A. Mócsy. Pannonia and Upper Moesia: A History of the Middle Danube Provinces of the Roman Empire. London, 1974. Mommsen Res Gestae = T. Mommsen. Res Gestae Divi Augusti. Berlin, 1883. Mommsen StR = T. Mommsen. Römisches Staatsrecht. 3 vols. (1–2, 3rd ed.). Leipzig, 1887–1888; reprint, Graz, 1952–1953. Published in French as Le droit public romain. 7 vols. in 8. Paris, 1889–1896; reprint, Paris, 1984–1985, ed. C. Nicolet with pagination from the German edition in the margins. Murison Rebellion = C.L. Murison. Rebellion and Reconstruction: Galba to Domitian. An Historical Commentary on Cassius Dio’s Roman History Books 64–67 (a.d. 68–96). American Philological Association Monograph Series 37. Atlanta, 1999. Nagy “Zweiteilung” = T. Nagy. “Der Aufstand der pannonisch-dalmatinischen Völker und die Frage der Zweiteilung Illyricums.” In Adriatica Praehistorica et Antiqua: miscellanea Gregorio Novak dicata (Zagreb, 1970), 459–466. Nash Dictionary = E. Nash. Pictorial Dictionary of Ancient Rome. 2 vols. London, 1961– 1962. Nawijn = Boissevain 5, under 1. Texts and Editions of Dio, above. Neesen Staatsabgaben = L. Neesen. Untersuchungen zu den direkten Staatsabgaben der römischen Kaiserzeit (27 v. Chr.–284 n. Chr.). Bonn, 1980. Nicolet JRS 66 (1976) = C. Nicolet. “Le cens sénatorial sous la République et sous Auguste.” JRS 66 (1976), 20–33. Nicolet “Propertied Classes” = C. Nicolet. “Augustus, Government, and the Propertied Classes.” In Millar & Segal Augustus 89–128. Nicolet Space = C. Nicolet. Space, Geography, and Politics in the Early Roman Empire. Jerome Lectures 19. Ann Arbor, 1991. Originally published 1988 as L’inventaire du monde: Géographie et politique aux origines de l’Empire romain. Nicolet “Tabula Siarensis” = C. Nicolet. “La tabula Siarensis, la plèbe et les statues de Germanicus.” In Leaders and Masses in the Roman World: Studies in Honor of Zvi Yavetz, ed. I. Malkin & Z.W. Rubinsohn (Leiden , 1995), 115–127. Niebling Historia 5 (1956) = G. Niebling. “Laribus Augustis Magistri Primi: Der Beginn des Compitalkultes der Lares und des Genius Augusti.” Historia 5 (1956), 303–331. Nippel Aufruhr = W. Nippel. Aufruhr und “Polizei” in der römischen Republik. Stuttgart, 1988. Noè Storiografia = E. Noè. Storiografia imperiale pretacitiana: Linee di svolgimento. Firenze, 1984.

396

Bibliography and Abbreviations

Northern Provinces = Rome and her Northern Provinces. Ed. B. Hartley & J. Wacher. Gloucester, 1983. Ober “Testament” = J. Ober. “Tiberius and the Political Testament of Augustus.” Historia 31 (1982), 306–328. Ogilvie = R.M. Ogilvie. A Commentary on Livy Books 1–5. Oxford, 1965; reprint with Addenda, 1970. Pavis d’Escurac Préfecture = H. Pavis d’Escurac. La préfecture de l’annone: service administratif impérial d’Auguste à Constantin. Bibliothèque des Écoles Françaises d’Athènes et de Rome 226. Rome, 1976. Pianta marmorea = La pianta marmorea di Roma antica: Forma Urbis Romae. Ed. G. Carettoni, A.M. Colini, L. Cozza, & G. Gatti. Rome, 1960. Picard Trophées = G.C. Picard. Les trophées romains. Bibliothèque des Écoles Françaises d’Athènes et de Rome 187. Paris, 1957. Platner & Ashby = S.B. Platner. A Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome. Completed and revised by T. Ashby. Oxford, 1929. Potthoff Kleidungsbezeichnungen = A. Potthoff. Lateinische Kleidungsbezeichnungen in synchroner und diachroner Sicht. Innsbrucker Beiträge zur Sprachwissenschaft 70. Innsbruck, 1992. Price Rituals = S.R.F. Price. Rituals and Power: The Roman Imperial Cult in Asia Minor. Cambridge, 1984. Price “Consecration” = S.R.F. Price. “From Noble Funerals to Divine Cult: The Consecration of Roman Emperors.” In D. Cannadine & S.R.F. Price, eds., Rituals of Royalty: Power and Ceremonial in Traditional Societies (Cambridge, 1987), 56–105. Purcell PCPS 212 (1986) = N. Purcell. “Livia and the Womanhood of Rome.” PCPS 212 (1986), 78–105. Questa PP 14 (1959) = C. Questa. “La morte di Augusto secondo Cassio Dione.” PP 14 (1959), 41–55. Raaflaub & Samons “Opposition” = K.A. Raaflaub & L.J. Samons II. “Opposition to Augustus.” In Raaflaub & Toher Republic 417–454. Raaflaub & Toher Republic = K.A. Raaflaub & M. Toher, eds. Between Republic and Empire: Interpretations of Augustus and his Principate. Berkeley, 1990. Rawson Family = B. Rawson, ed. The Family in Ancient Rome: New Perspectives. Ithaca, 1986. Rea “Corn Dole” = “Corn Dole Archive.” In J.R. Rea, ed., Oxyrhynchus Papyri 40 (London, 1972), 1–116. Reinhold Republic = M. Reinhold. From Republic to Principate: An Historical Commentary on Cassius Dio’s Roman History Books 49–52 (36–29 b.c.). American Philological Association Monograph Series 34. Atlanta, 1988. Reinhold & Swan “Assessment” = M. Reinhold & P.M. Swan. “Cassius Dio’s Assessment of Augustus.” In Raaflaub & Toher Republic 155–173. Religions = M. Beard, J. North, & S.R.F. Price. Religions of Rome. Vol. 1: A History; vol. 2: A Sourcebook. Cambridge, 1998. Rich “Dio” = J.W. Rich. “Dio on Augustus.” In History as Text: The Writing of Ancient History, ed. A. Cameron (London, 1989), 86–110. Rich = J.W. Rich. Cassius Dio: The Augustan Settlement (Roman History 53–55.9). Warminster, 1990. Richard “Aspects militaires” = J.-C. Richard. “Les aspects militaires des funérailles impériales.” MEFRA 78 (1966), 313–325. Richard “Énée, Romulus, César” = J.-C. Richard. “Énée, Romulus, César et les funérailles impériales (Dion Cassius, 56,34,2; Tacite, Annales, 4,9,3).” MEFRA 78 (1966), 67– 78. Richard “Funérailles” = J.-C. Richard. “Recherches sur certains aspects du culte impérial:

Bibliography and Abbreviations

397

Les funérailles des empereurs Romains aux deux premiers siècles de notre ère.” ANRW 2.16.2 (1978), 1121–1134. Richardson Dictionary = L. Richardson, Jr. A New Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome. Baltimore, 1992. Rieks “Sebasta” = R. Rieks. “Sebasta und Aktia.” Hermes 98 (1970), 96–116. Rives = J.B. Rives. Tacitus Germania: Translated with Introduction and Commentary. Oxford, 1999. Robinson Rome = O.F. Robinson. Ancient Rome: City Planning and Administration. London, 1992. Roddaz Agrippa = J.-M. Roddaz. Marcus Agrippa. Bibliothèque des Écoles Françaises d’Athènes et de Rome 253. Rome, 1984. Rodríguez Almeida Forma = E. Rodríguez Almeida. Forma Urbis Marmorea. Rome, 1981. Rosenberger Götter = V. Rosenberger. Gezähmte Götter: Das Prodigienwesen der römischen Republik. Heidelberger Althistorische Beiträge und Epigraphische Studien, 27. Stuttgart, 1998. Rowell MAAR 17 (1940) = H.T. Rowell. “The Forum and Funeral Imagines of Augustus.” MAAR 17 (1940), 131–143. Rubin Propaganda = Z. Rubin. Civil-War Propaganda and Historiography. Collection Latomus 173. Brussels, 1980. Sablayrolles Vigiles = R. Sablayrolles. Libertinus miles: Les cohortes de vigils. Collection de l’École Française de Rome 224. Rome, 1996. Sage “Accession” = M.M. Sage. “Tacitus and the Accession of Tiberius.” Anc. Soc. 13/14 (1982/1983), 293–321. Šašel “Serevtion” = J. Šašel. “Serevtion.” Z"iva Antika 3 (1953), 262–267 (German summary 266–267). Šašel Kos Outline = M. Šašel Kos. A Historical Outline of the Region Between Aquileia, the Adriatic, and Sirmium in Cassius Dio and Herodian. Ljubljana, 1986. Sattler “Julia” = P. Sattler. “Julia und Tiberius: Beiträge zur römischen Innenpolitik zwischen den Jahren 12 v. und 2 n. Christus.” In his Studien aus dem Gebiet der alten Geschichte (Wiesbaden, 1962), 1–36. Reprinted in W. Schmitthenner, ed., Augustus (Darmstadt, 1969), 486–530. Scheid “Contraria facere” = J. Scheid. “Contraria facere: Renversements et déplacements dans les rites funéraires.” Annali dell’Istituto universitario orientale di Napoli. Sezione di archeologia e storia antica 6 (1984), 117–139. Schlüter Römer = W. Schlüter et al. Römer im Osnabrücker Land: Die archäologischen Untersuchungen in der Kalkrieser-Niewedder Senke. Bramsche, 1991. Schlüter Germania 70 (1992) = W. Schlüter et al. “Archäologische Zeugnisse zur Varusschlacht? Die Untersuchungen in der Kalkrieser-Niewedder Senke bei Osnabrück.” Germania 70 (1992), 307–402. Schlüter “Battle” = W. Schlüter. “The Battle of the Teutoburg Forest: Archaeological Research at Kalkriese near Osnabrück.” In Creighton & Wilson Germany 125–159. Schlüter & Wiegels Kalkrieser Kongress = W. Schlüter & R. Wiegels, eds. Rom, Germanien und die Ausgrabungen von Kalkriese: Internationaler Kongress der Universität Osnabrück und des Landschaftsverbandes Osnabrücker Land e.V. vom 2. bis 5. September 1996. Osnabrücker Forschungen zu Altertum und Antike-Rezeption 1. Osnabrück, 1999. Schmidt “Dio” = M.G. Schmidt. “Die ‘zeitgeschichtlichen’ Bücher im Werk des Cassius Dio—von Commodus zu Severus Alexander.” ANRW 2.34.3 (1997), 2591–2649. Schön Beginn = F. Schön. Der Beginn der römischen Herrschaft in Rätien. Sigmaringen, 1986. Schove Chronology = D.J. Schove with A. Fletcher. Chronology of Eclipses and Comets ad 1–1000. Woodbridge, Suffolk, 1984.

398

Bibliography and Abbreviations

Schumacher Historia 34 (1985) = L. Schumacher. “Die imperatorischen Akklamationen der Triumvirn und die auspicia des Augustus.” Historia 34 (1985), 191–222. Schürer History = E. Schürer. The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ (175 b.c.–a.d. 135). Rev. by G. Vermes, F. Millar, M. Black, & M. Goodman. 3 vols. in 4. Edinburgh, 1973–1987. Schwartz “Dio” = E. Schwartz in RE 3 (1899), 1684–1722 = Cassius 40. Scullard Festivals = H.H. Scullard. Festivals and Ceremonies of the Roman Republic. London, 1981. Seager Tiberius = R. Seager. Tiberius. Berkeley, 1972. Sebesta & Bonfante Costume = J.L. Sebesta & L. Bonfante, eds. The World of Roman Costume. Wisconsin Studies in Classics. Madison, 1994. Shaw P&P 105 (1984) = B.D. Shaw. “Bandits in the Roman Empire.” P&P 105 (1984), 3–52. Sherk Documents = R.K. Sherk. Roman Documents from the Greek East: Senatus Consulta and Epistulae to the Age of Augustus. Baltimore, 1969. Sherwin-White = A.N. Sherwin-White. The Letters of Pliny: A Historical and Social Commentary. Oxford, 1966. Sherwin-White Policy = A.N. Sherwin-White. Roman Foreign Policy in the East 168 b.c. to a.d. 1. Norman, Okla., 1984. Simon Augustus = E. Simon. Augustus: Kunst und Leben in Rom um die Zeitenwende. München, 1986. Smallwood (1966) = E.M. Smallwood. Documents Illustrating the Principates of Nerva, Trajan and Hadrian. Cambridge, 1966. Smallwood (1967) = E.M. Smallwood. Documents Illustrating the Principates of Gaius, Claudius and Nero. Cambridge, 1967. Smilda = Boissevain 4, under 1. Texts and Editions of Dio, above. Smith “Ethne” = R.R.R. Smith. “Simulacra Gentium: The Ethne from the Sebasteion at Aphrodisias.” JRS 78 (1988), 50–77. Smyth Grammar = H.W. Smyth. Greek Grammar. Rev. ed. Cambridge, Mass., 1956. Speidel Riding = M.P. Speidel. Riding for Caesar: The Roman Emperors’ Horse Guards. Cambridge, Mass., 1994. Sullivan Royalty = R.D. Sullivan. Near Eastern Royalty and Rome, 100–30 bc. Toronto, 1990. Sumner Latomus 26 (1967) = G.V. Sumner. “Germanicus and Drusus Caesar.” Latomus 26 (1967), 413–435. Sumner Harv. Stud. 74 (1970) = G.V. Sumner. “The Truth about Velleius Paterculus: Prolegomena.” Harv. Stud. 74 (1970), 257–297. Sutherland History = C.H.V. Sutherland. Roman History and Coinage 44 bc–ad 69: Fifty Points of Relation from Julius Caesar to Vespasian. Oxford, 1987. Swain AJPh 110 (1989) = S. Swain. “Plutarch: Chance, Providence, and History.” AJPh 110 (1989), 272–302. Swain Hellenism = S. Swain. Hellenism and Empire: Language, Classicism, and Power in the Greek World, ad 50–250. Oxford, 1996. Swan Phoenix 41 (1987) = P.M. Swan. “Cassius Dio on Augustus: A Poverty of Annalistic Sources?” Phoenix 41 (1987), 272–291. Swan “Augustan Books” = P.M. Swan. “How Cassius Dio Composed his Augustan Books: Four Studies.” ANRW 2.34.3 (1997), 2524–2557. Syme JRS 23 (1933) = R. Syme. “Some Notes on the Legions under Augustus.” JRS 23 (1933), 14–33. Syme Revolution = R. Syme. The Roman Revolution. Oxford, 1939. Syme Tacitus = R. Syme. Tacitus. 2 vols. Oxford, 1958. Syme DP = R. Syme. Danubian Papers. Bucharest, 1971.

Bibliography and Abbreviations

399

Syme Crisis = Syme RP 912–936 = R. Syme. The Crisis of 2 b.c. Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften, philosophisch-historische Klasse. Sitzungsberichte, 1974, Heft 7. München, 1974. Syme Ovid = R. Syme. History in Ovid. Oxford, 1978. Syme RP = R. Syme. Roman Papers. 7 vols. Oxford, 1979–1991. Syme Aristocracy = R. Syme. The Augustan Aristocracy. Oxford, 1986. Talbert Senate = R.J.A. Talbert. The Senate of Imperial Rome. Princeton, 1984. Taylor Divinity = L.R. Taylor. The Divinity of the Roman Emperor. American Philological Association Monograph Series 1. Middletown, Conn., 1931. Thomasson Laterculi = B.E. Thomasson. Laterculi Praesidum. 3 vols. Göteborg, 1972– 1990. Thomasson Legatus = B.E. Thomasson. Legatus: Beiträge zur römischen Verwaltungsgeschichte. Stockholm, 1991. Timpe Untersuchungen = D. Timpe. Untersuchungen zur Kontinuität des frühen Prinzipats. Wiesbaden, 1962. Timpe RhM 110 (1967) = D. Timpe. “Drusus’ Umkehr an der Elbe.” RhM 110 (1967), 289–306. Timpe Saeculum 18 (1967) = D. Timpe. “Zur Geschichte und Überlieferung der Okkupation Germaniens unter Augustus.” Saeculum 18 (1967), 278–293. Timpe Arminius = D. Timpe. Arminius-Studien. Heidelberg, 1970. Timpe “Faktoren” = D. Timpe. “Geographische Faktoren und politische Entscheidungen in der Geschichte der Varuszeit.” In Wiegels & Woesler Arminius 13–27. Todd Germans = M. Todd. The Early Germans. Oxford, 1992. Toynbee Death = J.M.C. Toynbee. Death and Burial in the Roman World. Ithaca, 1971; reprint, Baltimore, 1996. Treggiari Freedmen = S. Treggiari. Roman Freedmen during the Late Republic. Oxford, 1969. Treggiari Marriage = S. Treggiari. Roman Marriage: Iusti Coniuges from the Time of Cicero to the Time of Ulpian. Oxford, 1991. Trier Okkupation = B. Trier, ed. Die römische Okkupation nördlich der Alpen zur Zeit des Augustus. Kolloquium Bergkamen 1989: Vorträge. Bodenaltertümer Westfalens 26. Münster, 1991. Urbs = L’Urbs: Espace urbain et histoire (Ier siècle av. J.-C.—IIIe siècle ap. J.-C.). Actes du colloque international organisé par le Centre national de la recherche scientifique et l’École française de Rome (Rome, 8–12 mai 1985). Collection de l’École Française de Rome 98. Rome, 1987. Vaahtera Augural Lore = J. Vaahtera. Roman Augural Lore in Greek Historiography: A Study of the Theory and Terminology. Historia Einzelschriften 156. Stuttgart, 2001. van Berchem Distributions = D. van Berchem. Les distributions de blé et d’argent à la plèbe romaine sous l’Empire. Genève, 1939; reprint, New York, 1975. van Stekelenburg Redevoeringen = A.V. van Stekelenburg. De Redevoeringen bij Cassius Dio. Delft, 1971. Versnel Triumphus = H.S. Versnel. Triumphus: An Inquiry into the Origin, Development and Meaning of the Roman Triumph. Leiden, 1970. Ville Gladiature = G. Ville. La gladiature en occident des origines à la mort de Domitien. Bibliothèque des Écoles Françaises d’Athènes et de Rome 245. Rome, 1981. Virlouvet Tessera = C. Virlouvet. Tessera frumentaria: Les procédures de distribution du blé public à Rome à la fin de la République et au début de l’Empire. Bibliothèque des Écoles Françaises d’Athènes et de Rome 286. Rome, 1995. Vogt = W. Vogt. C. Suetonius Tranquillus Vita Tiberii: Kommentar. Diss. Würzburg, 1975. von Schnurbein BRGK 62 (1981) = S. von Schnurbein. “Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der römischen Militärlager an der Lippe.” BRGK 62 (1981), 5–101.

400

Bibliography and Abbreviations

Vrind De Vocabulis = G. Vrind. De Cassii Dionis Vocabulis Quae ad Ius Publicum Pertinent. The Hague, 1923. Walker Metrology 3 = D.R. Walker. The Metrology of Roman Silver Coinage, Part III. From Pertinax to Uranius Antoninianus. BAR Supplementary Series 40. Oxford, 1978. Wallace-Hadrill PCPS 207 (1981) = A. Wallace-Hadrill. “Family and Inheritance in the Augustan Marriage Laws.” PCPS 207 (1981), 58–80. Wallace-Hadrill JRS 72 (1982) = A. Wallace-Hadrill. “Civilis Princeps: Between Citizen and King.” JRS 72 (1982), 32–48. Wardle = D. Wardle. Suetonius’ Life of Caligula: A Commentary. Collection Latomus 225. Brussels, 1994. Watson Law = A. Watson. The Law of Succession in the Later Roman Republic. Oxford, 1971. Weber Princeps = W. Weber. Princeps: Studien zur Geschichte des Augustus. Stuttgart, 1936. Webster Army = G. Webster. The Imperial Roman Army. 3rd ed. London, 1985. Weinstock Julius = S. Weinstock. Divus Julius. Oxford, 1971. Wellesley “Dies Imperii” = K. Wellesley. “The Dies Imperii of Tiberius.” JRS 57 (1967), 23–30. Wells Policy = C.M. Wells. The German Policy of Augustus: An Examination of the Archaeological Evidence. Oxford, 1972. Wesch-Klein Funus = G. Wesch-Klein. Funus publicum: Eine Studie zur öffentlichen Beisetzung und Gewährung von Ehrengräbern in Rom und den Westprovinzen. Stuttgart, 1993. Wiedemann Slavery = T. Wiedemann. Greek and Roman Slavery. Baltimore, 1981. Wiegels & Woesler Arminius = R. Wiegels & W. Woesler, eds. Arminius und die Varusschlacht: Geschichte—Mythos—Literatur. Paderborn, 1995. Wilkes AAntHung 13 (1965) = J.J. Wilkes. “Splau÷non—Splonum Again.” AAntHung 13 (1965), 111–125. Wilkes Dalmatia = J.J. Wilkes. Dalmatia. London, 1969. Wilkes Illyrians = J.J. Wilkes. The Illyrians. Oxford, 1992. Wilkes “Legions” = J.J. Wilkes. “Roman Legions and their Fortresses in the Danube Lands (First to Third Centuries a.d.).” In Brewer Fortresses 101–119. Wiseman Men = T.P. Wiseman. New Men in the Roman Senate, 139 b.c.–a.d. 14. London, 1971. Wiseman PBSR 42 (1974) = T.P. Wiseman. “The Circus Flaminius.” PBSR 42 (1974), 3–26. Wolters Eroberung = R. Wolters. Römische Eroberung und Herrschaftsorganisation in Gallien und Germanien: Zur Entstehung und Bedeutung der sogenannten KlientelRandstaaten. Bochum, 1990. Woodman = A.J. Woodman, ed. Velleius Paterculus: The Tiberian Narrative (2.94–131). Cambridge, 1977. Velleius Paterculus: The Caesarian and Augustan Narrative (2.41– 93). Cambridge, 1983. Woodman & Martin = A.J. Woodman & W.M. Martin, eds. The Annals of Tacitus, Book 3. Cambridge, 1996. See also Goodyear. Yavetz Plebs = Z. Yavetz. Plebs and Princeps. Oxford, 1969; reprint with a new preface, New Brunswick, N.J., 1988. Zanker Power = P. Zanker. The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus. Ann Arbor, 1988. Zetzel GRBS 11 (1970) = J.E.G. Zetzel. “New Light on Gaius Caesar’s Eastern Campaign.” GRBS 11 (1970), 259–266.

Index

1. DISPUTED OR NEW READINGS Dio 55.9.7 (Exc. Val., Xiph.): 87–88 55.10.1 (Xiph.): 91–92 55.10.17 (Exc. Val.): 112 55.12.5 (Zon.): 139, 381–383 55.33.3 (Jord. Get.): 215–216 55.33.4 (Xiph.): 217–218 55.34.1–2: 219–220 56.21.3: 265, 375–376 Fasti Praenestini, 16 Jan.: 367–369, cf. 48, 224 Suet. Aug. 34.1–2: 369–371, cf. 224–225, 226, 231, 233 Vell. 2.115.4: 239, 372–374

71.36.4: 13 72.6.5: 4 72.13.1–6: 367 72.23.1–5: 29–32 72.23.4: 5, 35 72.23.5: 30 and n131, 34 75.3.2–3: 379–380 75.4.2: 32 77.9.3–7: 174 78.10.1–2: 31 n135 78.14.1–2: 5 78.40.3–41.4: 6 79.3.5–4.2: 6 80.5.2–3: 33 O THER A UTHORS

2. INDEX OF SELECTED PASSAGES C ASSIUS D IO ,

EXCEPT

B OOKS 55–56

fr. 1.1: 8 fr. 2.4: 8 n40 fr. 57.22: 9 n50, 11, 13 46.33.3: 350 47.7.1–8.1: 330 52.20.1: 83 52.31.9–10: 153 52.36.1–2: 5 53.19.1: 15 53.30.1–2: 317 54.9.1: 319, 338 54.17.4–5: 106, 359 54.25.1–3: 364 n8 57.7.2–5: 219 and n267 59.11.4: 353 59.24.2–7: 55 60.5.3: 95–96 60.11.1–5: 367 62.15.1a: 288 67.18.1: 10 and n53 71.8.1–4: 5 n25, 162 71.9.1–6: 162

Antipater of Thessalonica Anth. Pal. 9.297 lines 1–2: 115 Apollodorus (Apollod.) Bibl. 3.15.7: 308 Appian (App.) pr. 15: 159 B Civ. 1.5–6: 15 at n73 2.148: 350 4.17–51: 330 Cassiodorus (Cassiod.) Chron. 587 (p135): 251 and n55 604 (p136): 155 634 (p136): 251 and n55 Censorinus DN 22: 68 Cicero (Cic.) Partitiones oratoriae 24.118: 61 Phil. 5.31: 307 Pis. 3.6: 104 Verr. 5.36: 322

402

Index

Consolatio Liviae (Consol. Liv.) 207–208: 46 221–232: 44 283–288: 186 401–404: 41 Digesta (Dig.) 1.15.1–5: 181 31.56–57: 51 48.18.8: 61n 48.19.28.13: 290 49.15.2: 289 50.7.18 [17]: 62 50.12.7: 2 n6

2.226: 311n 2.227: 311n 2.229: 310 2.274: 234n 2.286: 233 n13, 234 2.286a: 231, 232, 233 n13, 234 3.74–76: 147 Gellius (Gell.) 1.6.1–8: 227 n5, 229 1.6.6: 232 1.12.1–12: 157 4.10.1: 51 10.28.1: 271

Diodorus Siculus (Diod.) 20.1.1–2.2: 28n 20.1.4: 27 n121 31.25.2: 321 n194, 322

Herodian (Hdn.) 4.2.11: 343

Dionysius Halicarnassensis (Dion. Hal.) Ant. Rom. 4.24.4–8: 147 4.24.5: 92 n91 6.13.4: 90, 205

Jerome Chron. p170: 180n p176: 287

Epitome de Caesaribus (Epit. de Caes.) 41.5: 212 Eutropius (Eutr.) 7.13.1: 41, 47 9.17.2: 201 Festus = Sex. Pompeius Festus (see OCD3 1215) p188 Lindsay: 72n p228 Lindsay: 321 Florus (Flor.) 2.25.11–12: 246 2.31.40: 191, 192 2.32.44: 131 2.32.45: 132 Frontinus (Frontin.) Aq. 2.101: 52, 176 Str. 3.15.4: 269 Gaius Inst. 1.13–41: 146 1.18–21: 147 1.32b: 182n 1.38–41: 147 1.42–46: 146 1.99: 141 1.107: 141 2.111: 231, 232, 233 n13, 234 2.147: 310

Institutiones Iustiniani (Inst. Iust.) 1.11.11: 142

Jordanes (Jord.) Get. 29.150: 215–216 Josephus (Jos.) AJ 17.229: 114 17.342–344: 188 17.355: 188 18.2: 188 18.26: 188 18.40–42: 118 18.42–43: 127 BJ 2.25: 114 2.111: 188 7.124–131: 340 Livy 2.7.4: 347 7.3.3–8: 98 7.6.1–6: 229 24.18.10–11: 99 Per. 59: 227 and n5 134: 68 142: 44 Macrobius (Macr.) Sat. 1.11.7: 109 1.12.35: 67 1.14.13–15: 67–68 2.4.27: 57

Index Manilius 1.898: 256 1.900: 256 1.901–902: 272–273 Martial (Mart.) 2.91, 92: 50 Orosius (Oros.) 6.21.18: 191, 192 Ovid Ars 1.171–176: 95–96 1.177–228: 101, 115 1.194: 90 Fasti 1.21–22: 285 1.649–650: 73n 1.705–708: 185 2.119–144: 104 2.127–128: 103 5.129–146: 80 5.545–598: 95 5.569–578: 93 6.637–648: 74 6.637–638: 74 Pont. 2.1: 204 n238 2.1.43–46: 247 4.1.1–2: 299 Tr. 4.2.8, 28: 278 4.2.29–36: 256 Paulus Sent. 1.21.14: 346 2.26.14: 109, 288, 290 4.6: 178 4.6.1: 310 Pliny the Elder (Plin.) HN 2.91: 274 2.180: 300 3.17: 76 3.66: 79 3.142: 214, 243 7.149: 108, 204 7.150: 208, 209, 270n, 302 10.34–35: 301 21.9: 108 33.56: 297 35.6–8: 322 35.6: 320 36.72: 68n 36.102: 76, 94

Pliny the Younger (Plin.) Ep. 3.5.6: 251 n55 7.14: 178 10.2: 50 Pan. 5.2–4: 96 37.3–39.1: 177 37.5: 177 39.5–40.1: 178 Plutarch (Plut.) Cat. Min. 23.3: 71 De garr. 508a–b: 302 De tuenda sanitate praecepta 132f: 308 Polybius (Polyb.) 6.19.2: 271 6.23.2–5: 265 6.53.1–3: 326 6.53.3: 327 6.53.4–54.2: 322 6.53.7–9: 322 6.53.9–54.3: 331 6.54.1–2: 324 10.20.2: 269 Quintilian (Quint.) Inst. 2.5.12: 308 3.7.16: 331 10.1.22: 57 10.1.103: 251 and n57 Res Gestae Divi Augusti (RG) 8.2–4: 144 8.2: 144 and n 8.3–4: 145 8.3: 59 11: 85, 297, 356 14.1: 84 14.2: 90, 136 15.1–4: 366 15.2, 4: 92 16: 173 17.2: 173, 174, 175 20.3: 79, 292–293 22.1: 77, 100, 185n 22.2: 95, 101, 291 23: 96, 100 27.2: 113, 115, 132–133 29.2: 98 33: 129 and n 34.1–2: 104 34.1: 333 35.1: 94, 103

403

404

Index

Scriptores Historiae Augustae (SHA) Sev. 7.6: 14 n68 Seneca the Elder (Sen.) Suas. 6.18, 23: 251 Seneca the Younger (Sen.) Clem. 1.9.2: 148–149 1.9.6: 151 1.9.12: 148, 149, 154 Ep. 30: 250 Marc. 15.3: 309 NQ 7.23.3: 273n Polyb. 15.4: 90 and n, 130, 131–132 Strabo (Str.) 5.212–213: 215–216 5.236: 341 5.246: 102, 103 7.291–292: 256 7.291: 43, 44, 253, 256 7.314: 198, 199, 213–214, 239n 7.315: 243 16.748–749: 118 16.765: 187, 188 17.838: 122 Suetonius (Suet.) Aug. 19: 155 19.1–2: 149 19.1: 106, 184 21.1: 63 and n44 23.2: 206, 270, 274 25.2: 205, 210, 272 28.1: 317 28.3–30.1: 303 29.2: 96, 99 29.4: 72, 74, 292, 293 31.2: 67–68 34.1–2: 225, 369–371 34.1: 231, 233 34.2: 224–225, 226 35.3: 52 40.3: 318 42.3: 179 49.2: 173 53.1: 137 56.3: 57 58.1–2: 103–104 65.1: 132, 141, 208, 209 65.2: 108, 110 65.4: 208, 210 98.5: 102, 103, 305 99.1: 303, 304 100.2: 305–306, 321, 340, 345 100.3: 324, 325

100.4: 344, 353 101.1–2: 314 101.1: 310, 314 101.2: 311, 312, 313, 376–378 101.3: 313, 314, 335 101.4: 314, 316, 317 and n Tib. 9.2: 63 and n44 10.1–2: 86 12.2–13.2: 117n 12.2: 117 14.4: 136 15.2: 141, 210 16.1: 143 and n, 211 17.1–18.1: 248 17.2: 224–225, 249 18.1–20: 275 and n 18.1–19: 278 18.1: 256 20: 73, 185, 186, 247, 248 21.2–3: 350 23: 310 50.1: 314 Cal. 44.2: 96 Claud. 1.3: 44, 46, 341 1.5: 45 24.2: 58 and n36 26.1: 184 Tacitus (Tac.) Ann. 1.2.1: 349 1.3.2: 84, 90 1.3.7: 349 1.5.3: 302, 305 1.7.1: 308n 1.8.2: 312–313 1.9: 345 1.9.4: 333 1.10: 345 1.10.7: 350 1.11.1–4: 314–315 1.11.1: 318 1.11.4: 317, 319 1.14.2: 353 1.28.1–6: 299 1.31.4: 271 1.38.1–2: 215 1.53.1: 86, 87, 108 1.54.1: 351 1.54.2: 356–357 and n285, 359 1.58.2: 256 1.60.2–62.2: 260–261and n81 1.61.1: 262 1.61.2–4: 264 1.61.2: 263, 264

Index 1.63.3–68.5: 265 1.64.4–65.7: 244 1.71.1: 257 1.72.3: 287 1.78.2: 178 n201, 184n 2.4.1: 114, 119, 129 2.4.2: 129 and n 2.7.1–3: 267 2.7.1: 267 n98 2.18.2: 43 2.88.1–2: 257 3.5.1: 44, 45, 322 3.24.2: 109 3.25.1: 234 3.28.3–4: 234 3.76.2: 320, 322 4.5.1–3: 159 4.5.3: 169, 170 4.5.4: 169 4.9.2: 322, 323 4.21.3: 287 4.42.3: 53 4.44.3: 108, 109, 110 4.71.4: 184, 215 12.23.2: 66 12.27.2–3: 270 13.31.2: 207 13.31.3: 281 15.22.1: 281 15.32.1: 156 15.72.1: 97 Hist. 1.47.1: 56 Tibullus (Tib.) 3.2.9–25 (Lygdamus): 345 Ulpian (Ulp.) Tit. 3.5: 182 n206 22.6: 51 Valerius Maximus (Val. Max.) 1.8.11: 138 5.5.3: 44–45 Velleius Paterculus (Vell.) 1.4.2: 103 2.75.3: 352 2.97.4: 63 and n43, 65 2.99.1: 85 2.99.2: 86 2.100.5: 109 2.101.1–3: 128 2.101.1: 112 2.102.2–3: 133 2.102.2: 126, 130 2.102.3: 133, 134

405

2.103.1: 117n, 143n 2.103.3: 142n 2.104.1: 141, 142 2.104.2: 125, 140–141, 193 2.105.1–109.4: 193 2.105.1–2: 194 2.105.3: 194, 195 2.106.1–107.3: 194 2.106.2–3: 124, 194 2.107.3: 195 2.107.3–108.1: 195 2.108.1–110.3: 193, 197 2.110.3: 195 2.112.2: 197, 201, 246 2.112.4–5: 211–212 2.113.1–3: 212–213 2.113.1: 211 2.114.4–5: 215 2.115.4: 237–239, 242, 243, 372–374 2.116.2: 192, 197, 246 2.117.1: 252, 259 2.118.2: 257 2.118.4: 273 2.119.3: 266 2.120.1–2: 272, 275, 278 2.120.3: 268 2.120.4: 267 2.121.1: 294 2.123.1–2: 305 2.123.1: 102 2.123.2: 339 2.124.1: 308n 2.124.3: 317n C OINS , I NSCRIPTIONS ,

AND

P APYRI

Acta Fratrum Arvalium = Smallwood (1967) 5: 354 AE (1963), no. 104 = EJ no. 369: 188n AE (1978), no. 658 = Roxan Diplomas (1985) no. 79: 175 Berger Kalkriese 1: Fundmünzen (1996), 51– 53, cf. 47–49: 260 BMCEmp. 3.362 no. 955 = Smallwood (1966) 145: 343n Camodeca TPSulp. nos. 13–14: 97 Camodeca TPSulp. no. 19: 94 n94 CIG 3.5805: 102 CIL 2.2038 = EJ no. 123: 352 CIL 3.10033: 240 CIL 6.36893: 84 n76 CIL 10.924: 210n CIL 10.3827: 132 Coll. Leg. Mos. et Rom. 15.2.1: 280n Cook Troad (1973), 412 no. 50 = EJ no. 368: 204

406

Index

Fasti Amiternini: 351, 356 Fasti Antiates Ministrorum Domus Augustae: 215n, 356 Fasti Cuprenses: 131 Fasti Feriarum Latinarum: 49 Fasti Magistrorum Vici: 79 Fasti Ostienses: 136, 208, 306, 312, 320 n187, 343n Fasti Praenestini: 48, 104, 116, 185, 224, 248, 277, 367–369 Fasti Triumphales Capitolini: 49 n25 Fasti Venusini: 57 FIRA 3.130 (will of Silvanus): 313n

RIC 12.98 no. 67: 277 RIC 12.99 no. 82: 344 RIC 12.111 no. 36: 354 RIC 12.150 no. 6: 357 RIC 3.149 no. 1004: 355 n280 Rodríguez Almeida Forma: 45, 72, 74, 76, 292 RPC 1 no. 808: 193n SCPP: 54, 278, 294 SEG 9.63 = EJ no. 46: 121 Sherk Documents no. 65 = EJ no. 98: 67n Sherk Documents no. 68 = EJ no. 99: 89, 119 Spomenik 93 (1940), 141–142 no. 10 (Bréza): 198

Herz ZPE 39 (1980), 285–290:116 IIt. 13.1.257–258 = EJ p39: 134 IIt. 13.2.179 (19 Aug.) = EJ p50: 304 IIt. 13.2.499 (20 Aug.) = EJ p51: 117n, 134 ILS 83 = EJ no. 23: 344 n247 ILS 91 = EJ no. 14: 68n ILS 95 = EJ no. 39: 75 ILS 120 = EJ no. 127: 193n ILS 139 = EJ no. 68: 136, 308 ILS 140 = EJ no. 69: 90, 126, 131, 136 ILS 906 = EJ no. 193: 173 ILS 915 = EJ no. 197: 173 ILS 2163: 183 ILS 2244 = EJ no. 45 : 342n, 375 ILS 2288: 159 ILS 2504: 240 ILS 2673: 371 ILS 4914 = MW 42: 82 ILS 9250 = EJ no. 140: 79 Inschriften von Olympia no. 56: 102 IRT 301 = EJ no. 43: 191, 193n Koenen ZPE 5 (1970), 217–283 = EJ no. 366: 325

Tabula Hebana: 136, 155, 355 Tabula Siarensis: 47, 308, 331, 351–352, 358 Vidman Fasti Ostienses (1982): 136, 208 Zetzel GRBS 11 (1970), 259–260: 126

3. GREEK WORDS a[galma: 355 ajeiv pote: 319 and n ajqanativzein: 351 and n265 aj'qla: 158 (praemia), 334 (imperial posts) ai[rein: 264–265 ajlhqestavth aijtiva: 87 ajnavklhtoi: 171 ajnquvpato" ejxousiva: 145 ajpokhruvttein: 209 ajpofaivnesqai: 219 and n266 ajtimiva/ajtimou n¿ : 271 and n, 284 Au[gousta: 352 aujktwvrita": 54 biblivon: 286, 314

Lebek “Tabula Larinas” 37–96: 282 Levick “Larinum SC” 97–115: 282 Lex de Imperio Vespasiani: 66 Lex Ursonensis 130: 281 OGIS 767 = IGRR 1.1041 = EJ no. 47: 122 Pighi De Ludis Saecularibus (1965) = EJ no. 30: 230 P Oxy. 1114: 177 P Oxy. 2435 verso = EJ no. 379: 295–296 Rea “Corn Dole”: 92–93, 365, 366 RIC 12.54 nos. 198–199: 64–65 RIC 12.55 no. 207: 136 RIC 12.56 nos. 221–224: 248 RIC 12.96–97 no. 51: 352

gevra (praemia): 172 Germaniva: 75, 253, 254–255, 270, 272 gnwvmhn ejsfevrein: 55 and n, cf. 172 Delmativa/Delmavtai/Delmatikovn: 235, 305 and n d! ou\n: 133, 241 dhv: 171 and n185 dh÷mo": 91n, 138 and n, 219 di! eJtevrwn: See e{teroi diakosmein¿ : 77 dracmhv: 138–139, 381–383 dustucein¿ : 125 ejgcronivzein: 202 ejkfronein¿ : 70

Index ejxorma÷n/ejxorma÷sqai: 258 and n ejpavrcein/e[parco": 105–106 e{teroi (= lieutenants): 125, 200 eu[cesqai katav: 206 hJmivqeo": 328 hJrw/÷on: 316 h{rw": 323, 328, 339 qeiva provnoia: 9 Keltikhv/Keltoiv: 253, 254, 272 klhronomein¿ : 234 and n kolumbhvqra: 71 kuvklo": 241

407

ceimwvn: 224 crusou÷": 138–139, 381–383 wJ" kaiv: 109n

4. LATIN WORDS abdicare/abdicatio: 209 adrogatio: 141–142 aqua et igni interdictio: 287, 288 ‘comparatio deterrima’: 350 divus: 323, 328, 339 legio. See stravteuma, stratovpedon, teic¿ o"

leuvkwma: 56 lovgon/lovgo" e[cei: 87–88, cf. 135

5. PERSONS, PLACES, AND INSTITUTIONS

mavnti"/mantikhv: 134, 280n, 301 mevgaron: 100n metovpwron: 278 misqoforav: 173n

Achaia “freed” by Nero, 189 on proconsul’s death, 186–187 acta senatus, proceedings of Senate, 23, 69, 99n, 173, 357 n286 Addon, commandant of Artagira, wounds Gaius, 130–132 aedile(s), 180, 322 burn defamatory works, 286–287 and firefighting, 81, 181 and regiones, 78, 81–82 shortage of candidates for, 173 Aelius Seianus, L., Praetorian Prefect, 6, 69, 70, 105, 169n, 182, 277 with Drusus Caesar in Pannonia, 105n, 294 Aemilius Lepidus, M., triumvir, 331 Aemilius Lepidus, M. (cos. A.D. 6), 174–175 legate of Tiberius based at Siscia, 238, 242 his fighting march to Tiberius, A.D. 9, 237– 238 subdues rebels in “Bosnia,” 238, 242–243 triumphal ornaments of, 249 Aemilius Paullus, L. (cos. A.D. 1), husband of Julia neptis conspires against Augustus, 183–184. See also Plautius Rufus; Rufus, P. Aemilius Scaurus, M., pardoned by Octavian, 331 Aerarium Militare (Military Treasury), created to pay praemia, 172–173, 174–176, 255, 335 on Capitol, 175 sources of revenue for centesima rerum venalium, 178 n201 conficscated property of Agrippa Postumus, 210 contribution of Augustus, 175 vicesima, 174

neanivskoi: 145–146 o[ro": 261 and n85 oujk ajnaimwtiv: 42, 263 and n88 ouj mh;n ajllav: 281 Palaistin¿ o": 187 panhvguri" hJ megavlh: 206 pavredro"/paredreuvein: 186–187 and n215, 219 plaivsion: 244 plh q¿ o": 91n poqein¿ : 348 ponein¿ : 243 pote: 241 provkrito" th÷" neovthto": 89–90 prov": 111–112, 123, 255 proceirivzesqai: 83 stoav: 291–292 stolhv: 306–308 stravteuma: 211 and n, 256 and n stratovpedon (legio): 160 n159 summacikav: 168–169, 258 sunistavnai: 220 sunoikivzein: 253–254 suvsthma: 172n teic¿ o": 130, 160n, 182, 183 te . . . kaiv (“ . . . when”): 265 and n, 301 temevnisma: 74 trofhv: 172–173 and n192, 205n, 207 trocaio¿ n: 269

408

Index

Aerarium Saturni, public treasury grant from, for Ludi Augustales, 356 slave witnesses sold to, 61 subsidies from, for munera, withdrawn, 207 supported by confiscations, caduca, Augustus’ generosity, 234, 335 2 percent tax on auctioned slaves flows into, 207 Vigiles paid from, 183, 207 ‘aesar,’ Etruscan for “god”? 301 Africa, public province (includes Numidia under Augustus), 161 and Gaetulian war, 191–193 proconsuls of, 3, 4, 190 and n, 192–193 and n225, 214 agmen quadratum, marching fortress, 244 Agrippa, M., adjutant of Augustus, 85, 86, 209, 343, 347, 348 Augustus his heir, 75, cf. 210 builds Diribitorium, 76 circus enthusiast, 77 disciplinarian, 7, 164, 271n funeral games for, 77–78 interred in Mausoleum of Augustus, 341, 345 laudatio of Augustus for, 309, 325 marries Julia filia, having divorced the elder Marcella, 85, 109, 115 Porticus Vipsania of, completed by Polla, Augustus, 76 proconsular imperium, tribunicia potestas of, 85, 143, 325 triumphs declined by, 65, 192 Agrippa Postumus. See Iulius Caesar, Agrippa Agrippina, the elder, wife of Germanicus, 108, 142 their sons as second-degree heirs of Augustus, 311–312 alae, auxiliary cavalry units, 171, 240, 258– 259 and n72 Albanus, Mt, 49, 168 Alexandria/Alexandrians, 97, 135, 295, 316, 337n Aliso, fort besieged by Germans A.D. 9/10, 267–269 Alma, Mt, rebel base near Sirmium, 201, 212, 221 altars, 81, 124, 207, 264, 274, 343–344 Andetrium, hill fort near Salona, 243, cf. 25, 130 Bato takes refuge in, 236–237, 243 taken by Tiberius, 243–245 Androgeos, King Minos’ grief for, emulated by Tiberius, 308 animals for show, 101, 185, 217, 291, 347 n256 Anreppen, Roman fort on R. Lippe, 194 n226, 267

Antipas, tetrarch of Galilee and Peraea, son of Herod “the Great” accuses brother Archelaus, 187–188 Antonia, the younger, 49 n23, 50, 96n, 352, 353 n275 antoninianus, new coin of Caracalla, 382–383 ANTONINUS PIUS (emperor 138–161) Column of, depicts his consecratio, and Faustina’s, 343n, cf. 342 rule of, praised by Appian, 15 Antonius, Iullus (cos. 10 B.C.), son of the triumvir, 40 dies as Julia’s adulterer, 109, cf. 107, 108 his son by the elder Marcella interned, 109–110 Antonius, L. (cos. 41 B.C.), convokes Senate in “forum” dress, 308 Antonius, M., triumvir. See Antony Antonius Musa, physician of Augustus, 157 Antonius Silvanus, will of, 313n Antony, 11, 69, 98, 125, 129, 178, 310, 330, 337n, 352n Antyllus, son of Antony, executed, 337n Aphrodisias, Sebasteion of, 238 n26, 248 n52, 323–324 Apollodorus of Pergamum, teacher of youthful Augustus, 328 Apollonia, on Via Egnatia, 200, 328 Apollonius of Tyana shrine of, 316 telepathic powers of, 10 Appuleius, Sex. (cos. A.D. 14), 295, 299, 301 Aqua Alsietina, aqueduct feeding naumachia, 100 Archelaus, ethnarch of Judaea, son of Herod “the Great” accused before Augustus, deposed, exiled, 187–188 his domain annexed, 188 Archelaus, King of Cappadocia, 116, 129n archers, key to defense of Aliso, 268, cf. 169 arches, 46–47, 249 Arduba, fort in Illyricum, taken by Germanicus, 245–246 Ariobarzanes II, king of Media Atropatene, Armenia Maior, 114 (table), 115 (table), 128–129, 132–133 Armenia Maior, contested region Tiberius’ projected mission to, 85 Parthian interference in, 113, 118–120, 125–128, 130–131 mission of Gaius to, 112–120, 125–133 Arminius, eques Romanus, son of a Cheruscan chieftain, 256–258 his revolt against Varus, 250–274 army, Roman degeneration of, in Dio’s time, 6–7 musicians as signalers in, 269

Index See also auxiliaries; evocati; horse guard, emperor’s; legion(s); legionaries; navy; Praetorians; Urban Cohorts Arruntius, L. (cos. A.D. 6), 174–175, 214, 324 n206 Arruntius Camillus Scribonianus, L., rebels against Claudius, 161, 175n, 214 Arsacids, line of Parthian kings, 118. See also Phraates IV; Phrataces Artagira, fortress in Armenia, and Gaius, 130– 132 Artavasdes I, ruler of Media Atropatene, Armenia Minor, 114 (table), 115 (table), 129, 133 Artavasdes II, Artaxiad ruler of Armenia Maior – 34 B.C), 113, 114 (table), 115 (ca 53– (table), 119 Artavasdes II, ruler of Media Atropatene, Armenia Maior, 114 (table), 115 (table), 132–133 Artavasdes III, Augustus fails to supplant Tigranes IV with, 113–114, 115 (table), 119 Artaxerxes, Sassanian king of Persia, 7, 379 Artaxiads, line of Armenian rulers, 113–114, 129n Artaxias II, pro-Parthian ruler of Armenia Maior, 112, 114 (table), 119, 129 Asinius Gallus, C. (cos. 8 B.C.), 59, cf. 60 marries Vipsania, ex-wife of Tiberius, 59 proposes route of Augustus’ funeral, 340 Asinius Pollio, C. (cos. 40 B.C.), partisan of Antony, 59 advocate of Nonius Asprenas in poisoning trial, 57 astrology, 134 regulated, 280–281 See also Claudius Thrasyllus, Ti.; Nigidius Figulus asylum, at temples of Julius Caesar, 337 and n Athenodorus, Stoic philosopher, and Augustus, 347, 348 auctoritas, unofficial senate resolution, 53–55 AUFIDIUS BASSUS, among Dio’s sources (?), 204, 250–251, 252 Augustalia, anniversary of Augustus’ return, 12 Oct. 19 B.C., 356, cf. 297–298. See also Ludi Augustales AUGUSTUS (emperor 31 B.C.–A.D. 14) [A] his life and career from 9 B.C.: and Drusus’ obsequies, 45, cf. 47 and precocious consulship of Gaius, 83–84 takes Tiberius as colleague in tribunicia potestas, assigns to Armenian theater, 85 enrolls Gaius, Lucius as iuvenes, 89, 92 Pater Patriae, 103–104

409

dedicates Forum of Augustus, Temple of Mars Ultor, 93–101 gives naumachia, 100–101 relegates Julia to Pandateria, 108 assigns Armenian theater to Gaius, 114– 115 bereft of Lucius, 132 heartsick over broken fortunes of Gaius, 133 palace of, burnt, rebuilt, nationalized, 138, 139 moves Julia to Rhegium, 140 has Tiberius adopt Germanicus, 143 adopts Tiberius, Agrippa Postumus, 141– 142, 207 takes Tiberius as colleague in tribunicia potestas, assigns to Germany, 140, 142–143 and Illyrian war, 204–206 disowns, interns Agrippa Postumus, 208, 210 cuts back activities in old age, 218–220, 286, 295 and Lex Papia Poppaea, A.D. 9, 225–235 confronted by protesting equites, 226, cf. 233 addresses of, on marriage and childrearing, 227–232 and Varian disaster, 270–273 visits Agrippa Postumus secretly? 302 attends Naples Sebasta, A.D. 14, 300 his death, 300–305 at Livia’s hands? 302–303 length of life, reign, 304–305 his cortege, Nola to Rome, 305–306 his will, 309–319 congiaria, 312–313 heirs, 310–312 and n174 and the Julias, 313–314 and n177 legacies, 312–313 silent on Agrippa Postumus, 312 strategy of, for succession, 312, 376–378 annexes to his will, 314–319 funeral instructions, 316 Res Gestae, 316 schedule of state assets, 316–317, cf. 314–315 semi-fictional injunctions, 317–319 funeral of, 319–345 parade of images, 320–324 familial laudatio of Drusus Caesar from Rostra, 324 public laudatio of Tiberius from Rostra Iulia, 324, 325–339 procession, pyre, decursio, release of eagle (?), burial, 340–345 normative for imperial funerals, 320

410

Index

AUGUSTUS (emperor 31 B.C.–A.D. 14) [A] his life and career from 9 B.C.: (continued) consecration of, as Divus Augustus, 350– 358 his ascension witnessed, 353–354 priests, priestess created, 351–352 temples erected for his worship, 354– 355 his image excluded from funerals, 356, cf. 323 his ludi, 356–357 (see also Ludi Augustales) [B] his Principate: adventus, profectiones, 46, 59–60, 75, 221 Aerarium Militare created, 175–176 birthday festival, 65, 181, 278–279, 356 confused with Augustalia, 297–298 capital jurisdiction in Rome, 61, 69–70, 276 censuses, 59, 66, 144–146, 188, 294n, 297 childrearing advocated, 227–232 congiaria and donatives, 64, 92–93, 147, 312–313, 365–366 consilium, 294–296 and conspiracies, 57, 106–110, 147–155, cf. 61 cost cutting, 92, 178, 207 cura annonae, 180, 367 defamatory works burnt, 286–287 elections, 60, 76, 83–84, 219–220 elite youth subsidized, 145–146 exile regulated, 287–290, cf. 154 expansion discountenanced, 319 Gaius and Lucius advertised as heirs apparent, 90, 136, cf. 84 and grain supply, 39n, 180–181, 207, 366– 367 honors to governors restricted, 281–282 horoscope, edict on his, 280 imperator, 64 (XIV, Germany), 126, 128, 129, 132 (XV, Arabia? Parthia? Armenia?), 132 (XVI, Armenia [Artagira]), 194–195 (XVII, Germany), 215, 224, 248 (XVIII, Pannonia), 248 (XIX, Dalmatia), 278 (XX, Germany), 297 (XXI, Germany) interest-free loans, 137 Italian quaestorships reinstated, 57–58 Julian calendar corrected, 68 and nn law on adultery overstepped, 109–110 levies in Illyrian and German crises, 204– 205, 271–272 Lex Iulia de Maritandis Ordinibus (18 B.C.), 225 Lex Papia Poppaea on marriage (A.D. 9), 232–235 manumission regulated, 146–147, 318

month renamed August, 67–68 municipal Rome reorganized, 78–82 and Phraates IV, 118–119, 128 and Phrataces (Phraates V), 117–119, 127– 128 pomerium extended? 66 Pontifex Maximus, 139, 157 praemia (soldiers’ pensions) institutionalized, 158, 172–173, 174– 175, 338 Praetorian prefecture created, 105 proconsular imperium of dynastic adjutants, 85, 115, 133, 142, 278, 294, 325 Ravenna naval base constructed, 215–216 removal of garrisons from public provinces, 192 renewals of rulership, 61, 137, 293 Roman citizenship granted sparingly, 318 Roman people, dealings with, 137, 140 schedules of state resources, 316–317 and Senate gives sententia among last in, 219, cf. 337 informs, consults, bullies, petitions, 57, 108, 133, 176, 233, 296–297, 311, cf. 337 reviews membership of, 144, cf. 336– 337 and slave testimony, 60–61 suffect consulships under, 285 taxes. See centesima rerum venalium; 2 percent tax on auctioned slaves; vicesima and Tigranes IV of Armenia, 85, 120 transvectio equitum revived, 205–206 tribunal, 69–70, 276 and Vestal Virgins, 157, 235 Vigiles formed, 181–183 [C] his character: as advocate, 56–57 averse to flattery, 339 courteous, 338 dissembles, 60, 206–207 heir of friends, 70, 313, 339 modest counselor at others’ tribunals, 219 quick-tempered, 69–70, cf. 348 respects others’ claims to fame, 335 severe toward kindred, 110, 313, 335 strictly raised, 83 tolerates outspokenness, 57, 338–339, cf. 247 “unmonarchic,” 56 [D] miscellaneous: capacitas of, as father of three, 51 detects heaven behind Varian disaster, 272– 274

Index as exemplum in bad causes, 14 n68, 83 grave illness of, 317 images/statues of, 94, 301, 320–321, 355, 357 villa of, at Nola, 300, 355 AURELIUS, MARCUS (emperor 161–180), 9 n48, 64, 90, 298, 366 clemency of, 150, 210 his excellence, 13, 15, 17, 243 aureus, gold coin worth twenty-five denarii, 138–139 sometimes traded for twenty denarii? 139, 381–383 translation of, into Greek, 138 auxiliaries, 168–169, 313 loyalty of, compromised by Varian disaster, 270–271 make up half Rome’s manpower, 169, cf. 211 in Tiberius’ army in Illyricum, 211 in Varus’ army, 258–259 and n72, cf. 257 vital as source of cavalry and archers, 169 Basilica Iulia, 291–293, cf. 136 Batavians, German people of lower Rhine equestrian prowess of, 171 their name used of emperor’s horse guard, 168, 171 Bathinus, R., Pannonians capitulate at, A.D. 8, 39, 215 Bato (1), Breucian chieftain, rebels in Pannonia, 199 occupies Mt Alma, joined by Desidiatian Bato, 201 ambushes Roman army, A.D. 7, 211–212 betrays ally Pinnes to Rome, 221 rewarded with rule of Breucians, A.D. 8, 221 executed by Desidiatian Bato, 221 Bato (2), rebel Desidiatian chieftain incites Dalmatians to rebellion, 198 his forces reach Salona, Apollonia, 199–200 battles Valerius Messalla Messallinus, 200– 201 joins Breucian Bato on Mt Alma, 201 ambushes Roman army, A.D. 7, 211–212 executes turncoat Breucian Bato, A.D. 8, 221 withdraws into “Bosnia,” 222 cornered in Andetrium, A.D. 9, 239, 243, cf. 244 brought before Tiberius, blames rebellion on Rome, 247 led in triumph, interned at Ravenna, 247 “Belvedere” Altar, apotheosis scene on, 343– 344 bodyguard. See horse guard, emperor’s

411

book burning, 286–287 “Bosnia,” invincible from Adriatic side, 239 and n Breucians, rebel Pannonian people, 199. See also Bato (1) brigands, 120–122 (Marmaridae), 189 (in Sardinia), 190 (Isaurians), 222, 224 (in Pannonia) Bructeri, eagle of Legion XIX recovered from, 260 and n80, 266–267 caduca, property confiscated by state for want of heir or legatee, 234 Caecilius Metellus Macedonicus, Q. (censor 131/130 B.C.) his oration “on increasing offspring” recited by Augustus, 227 Caecilius Metellus Numidicus, Q. (censor 102/101 B.C.) his oration “on taking wives,” 227n, 228– 229, 232 Caecilius Metellus Pius, Q., constitutionality of, 326, 332 Caecina Severus, A. (cos. 1 B.C.) legate in Moesia, 199, 213 defeats rebel Breuci near R. Drave, A.D. 6, 199 met with force by Batos on Mt Alma, 202 ambushed by Batos, A.D. 7, 211–212 juncture of, with Tiberius, 213 fights Arminius (A.D. 14), 212, 263, 265 triumphal ornaments of, 212 Caedicius, L., praefectus castrorum, masterminds defense of Aliso, 267 Caelius, M., centurion in Varus’ army, 342n, cf. 375 calendar, Julian, corrected by Augustus, 67–68 CALIGULA (emperor 37–41) his cognomen Germanicus, 46 gives laudatio for Tiberius, 324–325 pays viritim bequest of Tiberius, 312 Calpurnius Piso, C., exiled by Caligula, 290 Calpurnius Piso, Cn. (cos. 23 B.C.), handed ‘rationarium imperii’ by moribund Augustus, 317 Calpurnius Piso, Cn. (cos. 7 B.C.), 71–72 votive games of, 75 Sodalis Augustalis, 351 n267 in Senate, 22 n105 legate of Syria, ‘adiutor’ of Germanicus, 294 his fall, damnatio memoriae, 75, 109, 290 Campus Agrippae, park (?), 75 Campus Martius, as place of cremation and burial, 46, 341 capacitas, eligibility for inheritances and legacies. See incapacitas; ius trium liberorum

412

Index

Capua, 5, 102 CARACALLA (emperor 211–217) assassinated by Iulius Martialis, 10, 172 despised by Dio, 5 n21, 7 n35, 174, 243, 383 Dio in attendance on, at Nicomedia, 2 doubles vicesima, 174, 296 extends citizenship, 177 general amnesty of, for exiles, 288 mints antoninianus, worth two denarii, 382–383 Cassius Apronianus, M.?, consular senator, Dio’s father, 1, 236, 245n CASSIUS DIO, L. [A] his life, career, and writings, 1–3, 4 and n17, 380 [B] his Roman History, general: audiences of, 7–8 chronology of composition, 2–3, 28–33 composed in villa at Capua, 2, 5 dreams, omens, portents, prophecies in, 8– 12, 43–44 empirical approach to supernatural, 8–9 eyewitness of Dio in, 4, 10, 101, 319 genesis of, 2, 29 indexes of, 39–40, 95, 291n not by Dio, 33–34, 155 knowledge of Augustan and Severan legions, 158– 159 of geography, 25, 250, 361–363 literature, 7, 9 and n48, 26–27, 33, 148, 151, 245, 262, 269, 328, 337 natural causes of eclipses, 155–156, cf. 300 program of, 13 set speeches in, 26–28 Dio relies on memory in composing, 229 material for, drawn from his narrative, 27, 325 as medium of self-presentation, 4, 27 politically safe, 28 value of, as sources, limited, 27, 326 style, 21–22, 23–25, 26–27 Atticism, 27, 71, 138 time reckoning in, 304–305 translations into Greek in, 54, 76, 89–90, 105–106, 137, 138–139, 160n, 171, 186n, 323, 327n, 351 n264 two editions of, 3, 34–36 view of history, 8–13 [C] his Roman History, Books 55–56: anachronisms in, 160, 169–171, 195, 197, 270, 316, 339 annalistic character of, 17–21 compared with Livy and Tacitus, 18–19

authorial license in, 148–149, 227 end chapters in, 68, 173, 186–188, 292, cf. 19–21 chronologically reliable, 58, 188 errors, 117, 136, 155, 171–172, 177–178, 277, 285, 297–298 confusion over Curtii, 229 executions exaggerated, 109–110 Legion XX mistaken for Augustan, 160, 163–164, 166 Res Gestae inscription mislocated, 316 Rivers Elbe and Saale confused, 42, cf. 123, 124 spurious eclipses credited, 300 total of legions mistaken, 159 excursus on armed forces, 158–172 not composed before A.D. 214, 159, 166 reliability of, 159 external sections, 23–26 chronology of, 24 compression in, 24–26, 190, 193, 195, cf. 251 and n59 ignorance acknowledged, 123, 168, 169, 289 inconsistent on Augustus’ frontier policy, 319 omissions from, 64, 85, 90, 144–145, 185n, 194, 207, 212–213, 313 celebration of Tiberius’ Illyrian triumph, 247, 248 destinatio centuries, 220 legislative role of Senate, 67, 84, 288, cf. 52n Maecenas’ patronage of letters, 69 names of Marcomanni and Maroboduus, 193, 195 toponyms of Varian disaster, 259 registers historical changes, continuities in Circus seating, 156 in ius trium liberorum, 50 the legionary establishment, 160–168 praefecti aerarii militaris, 175–176 Vigiles, 183 reliability of, tested, 67–68 set dialogue of Livia and Augustus on clementia in, 147–154 its purpose, 149–150 Seneca main source for, 147–149 set laudatio of Tiberius on Augustus, 325– 339 encomiastic features of, 326, 330–331 sources of, 325 set speeches of Augustus on marriage, 225– 232 inspiration for, 227 and n source(s) of, annalistic, 21–23 in common with Suet. Aug. and Tib., 23, 67, 99, 110, 173, 179, 224–225, 226, 301, 303–304, 308, 317

Index sources of, in general, 252, 305 include a pro-Tiberian historian, 204 and n238, 251 inimical sporadically to Livia and Tiberius, 186, 204, 251, 302–303 reworked, 303–304, cf. 308 text of, 36–38 treatment of Tiberius and Germanicus in, 204, 241, 278 unique testimonia in, 37–38, 98, 101, 167, 178, 180, 190, 200, 209, 210, 214– 215, 229, 350 when composed, 28–33 [D] his views on: Actium, as historically cardinal, 16, 305 Agrippa, 7, 12 Agrippa Postumus, 208, 209 astrology, 134–135, 280–281 atheism, 5 Augustus, 174, 178, 296, 298, 304, 348– 349 civil war conduct of, palliated, 17, 330, 346, 349 his place in Roman history, 13–17 his rule paradigmatic for Severan age, 14–16 shortcomings of, condoned, 60, 62, 84, 110n, 359 Caligula, 56, 70, 104, 291, 359 Caracalla, 5 and n21, 7 n35, 10, 32, 110n, 116, 174, 243, 288, 383 Christians, 5 and n25, cf. 162 Claudius Thrasyllus, T., 134–136 Commodus, 68, 152, 243, 329, 366 consecration of emperors, 354 conspiracy, its prevention and punishment, 149–154, 288 destiny and free will, 11, 134–135, 301– 302 Didius Iulianus, 7 n35 divine intervention in history, 8–13, 272– 274 domini factionum, 291 donatives for soldiers, 64 dreams as divine communications, 5, 8–9, 29, 33, 302 Elagabalus, 5 the empress consort’s role, 152, 358 endurance as a virtue, 243 equites, 6, 70 female power, 6 Germanicus, 194, 204 n238, 213, 240, 242, cf. 208 honorific renaming of months, 68 human nature, 12, 17, 148, cf. 150–151 the ideal wife, 228 ignoramuses, upstarts in public life, 4–5, 6

413

immortality, and writing history, 5, 35 Iulia Domna, 6 liberti, 147 Livia, 6, 74, 154, 358, cf. 302 Macrinus, 6, 7 Maecenas, 6, 69 Marcus Aurelius, 13, 15, 150 military discipline, 6–7 the pain of leadership, 133, 151, 243, 244 Pertinax, 6 n29, 7, 366 Praetorian Prefects, their influence, 105 prophecy, 11, cf. 206, 280–281 Quinctilius Varus, P., 254–256 Rome’s destiny, 12–13 Senate, as universal ruling caste, 4 Septimius Severus, 332, 378–380 slaves, upward mobility of, 147 suicides of escape, 266 Tiberius as general, 204 and n238, 251 war, role of chance in, 12, 330 the world, 5, 8–10 [E] miscellaneous: focus of, on lictors as badge of status, 176 his interest in harbors and canals, 216 political and moral models of, 7 realistic, 17, 305, 326, 327, 349, 359 self-portrayal of, 3–8 strict commander, 3, 7, 162, 163 treats recusationes imperii ironically, 61, 84, 137, 293 Cassius Severus, formidable orator accuser of Nonius Asprenas in poisoning trial, 57 condemned for maiestas, his writings burned, 286–287 cavalry, 168–169, 171, 205, 211–212, 240, 265 cenotaphs, 46–47, 134, 136, 375 censuses, 144–146, 297 centesima rerum venalium, tax on auctioned goods, 178 n201, cf. 184n centurions, 45, 172, 264, 279, 342n, 375 Chatti, trans-Rhenane German people, 41, 270, 362 Cherusci, tribe in northwest Germany, 41, 125, 212, 250, 255, 256, 263, 362 Christians, Christianity, 5 and n25, 37 n154, 51, 162 CICERO, 71, 104, 287 Circus Flaminius, 101 Augustus eulogizes Drusus in, 9 B.C., 45 Circus Maximus, 10, 291 evolution of segregated seating in, 156–157 procession into, 357, cf. 298 circuses, 65, 77, 95, 98–99, 103, 217, 279, 290–291, 356–357 deranged man at, 297–298

414

Index

City Prefect, praefectus urbi. See Oclatinius Adventus, M.; Urban Cohorts; Valerius Comazon, P. clades Variana. See Varian disaster Classis. See Ravenna CLAUDIUS (emperor 41–54), son of elder Drusus, 46, 50, 66, 185, 351, 357 betrothed to daughter of Julia neptis, 184 as divus, 353, 357 games of, in father’s honor, 185, cf. 217 harbor of, at Ostia, 9, 179, 367 legatee and third-degree heir of Augustus, 312 patron of equites, 306 Claudius Drusus, Nero (cos. 9 B.C.), 40 proconsular imperium of, 278 invades Germany, 9 B.C., 41–42 meets apparition, turns back, dies, 43–44 imperator, 42 ovation awarded to, in vain, 49 and Feriae Latinae, 49 cenotaph of, by Rhine, 46–47, 134, 341 his obsequies, 44–46, 322 memorial honors for, 42, 46–47, 185 temple inscriptions, 73, 185–186, 277 Claudius Thrasyllus, Ti., astrologer, Platonic philosopher Tiberius’ companion on Rhodes, 134–136 clavus (nail), rite of driving, 98 Clemens, false Agrippa Postumus, 303, cf. 302 n152 Cleopatra, 6 Clodius Albinus, rival of Septimius Severus, 2, 10, 11, 332, 379 (Clodius) Thrasea Paetus, P., 206, 288, 339n Codex Marcianus no. 395, lacunae in, 36–38, 39, 82, 111, 223, 309 cognomen of victory, 46, 122, 191–192, 249 comets and meteors, often confused, 273–274 commendatio, electoral, 220 COMMODUS (emperor 180–192), 68, 83, 152, 243, 298, 329, 366, 367 Concordia, shrine of, in Porticus Liviae, 74 congiaria, distributions of largesse. See Augustus [B], congiaria and donatives consilium, 2 of Augustus, 114, 294–296, 337 of Gaius, 116 of Drusus Caesar, 294 Coponius, eques, praesidial praefectus of Judaea, 188 Cornelius Cinna Magnus, Cn. (cos. A.D. 5) name and lineage of, 148, 150 ostensible conspiracy of, against Augustus, 147–155 its questionable historicity, 148–149 spared by Augustus at Livia’s instance, 147– 148, 154

Cornelius Cinna, L. (cos. suff. 32 B.C.), father of the conspirator, 150, cf. 149 Cornelius Lentulus, Cossus (cos. 1 B.C.) proconsul of Africa, 191, 192 conquers Musulami and Gaetulians, 191– 193 earns triumphal ornaments, and cognomen Gaetulicus for descendants, 191–192 Cornelius Sulla, L., dictator, 66, 279, 331, 332 obsequies of, 306, 320, 340, 341, 347 Corocotta, brigand, and Augustus, 347–348 corteges of Augustus, 305–306, 320–324, 340 of the elder Drusus, 45, 46, 306, 322 Gaius and Lucius, 136 courts, 52, 94 n94, 97, 109–110, 179, 218, 219, 276, 288, 334. See also quaestiones; trials; tribunals Cremutius Cordus, his writings burned, 286– 287 Curia Iulia, 54–55, 103, 300–301 images in, 321, 340 magistrates’ benches in, 309 mourning protocol in, 306–309 silver shields, spears of Gaius and Lucius in, 136 Curtius, self-sacrificial Roman hero, 229 Cyrenaica/Cyrene military specialist substituted for proconsuls in, 121 war of, against Marmaridae, 120–122 Cyzicus, fails to complete temple to Divus Augustus, 355 Dacians, 202 Dalmatia/Dalmatians, 235–236 province of, formed through partition of Illyricum, 246, cf. 197 rebel, A.D. 6, 196–198 revolts of, listed, 196 Tiberius’ reconquest of, A.D. 9, 235–248 See also Bato (2); Desidiates decorations, military, 342 decursio, funeral pageant, 46, 341–342 deductio in forum. See toga virilis Demosthenes, accused of adultery with Julia, 109 denarius. See aureus Desidiates, rebel Pannonian people, 198, cf. 237–239. See also Bato (2) DIDIUS IULIANUS (emperor 28 Mar.–1 June 193), 1, 4 n17, 7 n35, 11 DIONYSIUS OF CHARAX, 116 DIONYSIUS OF HALICARNASSUS on corrupt manumission, 92 n91, 147 eyewitness of transvectio equitum, 90, 205

Index

415

Diribitorium, roofed hall for vote counting, 76 domini factionum, suppliers of chariot teams, 290–291 Domitius Ahenobarbus, Cn. (cos. A.D. 32), 116 Domitius Ahenobarbus, L. (cos. 16 B.C.) brings equites, matrons on stage, 283 emptor familiae pecuniaeque for Augustus’ will, 310 legate in Illyricum, then Germany, 122– 125 resettles Hermunduri in territory formerly of Marcomanni, 123–124 crosses R. “Elbe,” sets up altar to Augustus, 43, 124 costly failure of, in dealings with Cherusci, 125 Drusilla, sister of Caligula obsequies of, 341, 347 n255 consecration of, 321, 351 and n265, 353, 355 Drusus Caesar. See Iulius Caesar, Drusus Drusus the Elder. See Claudius Drusus, Nero

replace proconsuls, 121, 189 seating privileges of, in theater, Circus, 156, cf. 226, 284 subgroups of, 46, 90, 145–146, 341–342 See also praefectus annonae; praefectus castrorum; praefectus vigilum; Praetorian Prefects; seviri turmae; trabea; transvectio equitum equites singulares Augusti. See horse guard, emperor’s Erato, sister, wife, queen of Tigranes IV, 85, 113, 114 (table), 119, 129n abdicates throne, Tigranes having died, 128–129 evocati, officers recruited from Praetorian principales, 168, 171–172. See also Iulius Martialis; Scutarius Excerpta Constantiniana, Ursiniana, Valesiana, 37–38 exile, as punishment, 150, 153, 154, 287–288, 290 exiles, 108–109, 110, 184, 187–188, 210 regulation of, 287–290

eagle, and apotheosis, 343–344, 351 n265 eagles, legionary (aquilae), 164, 168, 274 of Varus’ army, lost, recovered, 264, 266– 267 eclipses, 155–156, 299, 300 edict restricting honors to governors, 281–282 ELAGABALUS (M. Aurelius Antoninus) (emperor 218–222), 2, 12, 14 n68, n70, 83 Elbe, R. confused with R. Saale, 123 Dio’s conception of, 42, 124 as a frontier, 42–43, 63, 123–124, 193– 194, 362 Ennius, Manius, commandant at Siscia, 215 epula, public banquets, 48–49, 74–75, 84, 181, 286 equites, Rome’s “second estate,” 6, 145–146 angusticlavii, 145, 226, 230, 282–283, 342 designate Gaius and Lucius principes iuventutis, 89–90, 136 and imperial obsequies, 46, 305–306, 341– 342, 344 laticlavii/latus clavus, 89, 96, 145, 226, 282–283, 342 perform on stage and in arena, 106, 217, 282–284 permitted to stand for tribunate, 56, 286 protest marriage legislation, A.D. 9, 225– 226, 233 qualifying census for, 146 recognitio equitum, censorial review of, 205–206 and n241

Fabius Maximus, Paullus (cos. 11 B.C.), and Augustus’ secret voyage to Agrippa Postumus, 302 Fabius Maximus Rullianus, Q., magister equitum, 325 B.C., and Dio on execution of senators, 150, cf. 154 famine(s), 156, 179, 207, 214, 241, cf. 217 Claudius moved by, to construct Ostia harbor, 179, cf. 9 Dio on, 366–367 emergency measures in, A.D. 6, 179–181 fasces, 59, 97n, 322 Feriae Latinae, festival on Mt Albanus, 49 fire(s), 76, 182, 292 around Forum, blamed on debtors, 78–79 in palace of Augustus, 138 fire fighting under aediles, then vicomagistri, with slave gang, 81, 181–182 See also Vigiles Fiscus, 61 floods. See Tiber, R. Fonteius Capito, C., a failure as consul, 285 Forum (Romanum), 89, 104n, 107 as amphitheater, 79 and public business, 94, 141, 218, 226 and public funerals, 45, 324, 327, 340, 342 vicinity of, damaged by fire, 78–79 Forum of Augustus, 94–95, 291 judicial use of, 94 and n94, 95, 97 a Roman hall of fame, 94 triumphal statues in, 42, 97 Forum Iulii, naval base, 169

416

Index

freedmen/freedwomen. See liberti; libertae Fulvius Plautianus, C., potent Praetorian Prefect, 6, 69, 105, 288, 300 Furius Camillus, M. (cos. A.D. 8), 214 Gaetulians, people south of Mauretania and province Africa with Musulami, rebel against Juba II, 191– 192, 193 GAIUS, emperor. See Caligula Gaius (Caesar), grandson of Augustus, 75, 83, 95, 99–100, 101 rides in lusus Troiae, 64, 100 presented to army, 64–65 anomalous designation of, as consul, 6 B.C., 83–84 Pontifex, 84 in collision with Tiberius, 86–88 dons toga virilis, 89, 92, 366 princeps iuventutis, 5 B.C., 89–90, 136, 260 sevir turmae, 90–91 his apprenticeship for rule, 84, 89, 111– 112, 114 Arminian crisis assigned to, 112–115 granted proconsular imperium, 115, 278 marries Livilla (Livia), daughter of elder Drusus, 115–116 his consilium, 116 departure from Rome, reception in East, 1 B.C., 116 Tiberius pays court to, 117 in Syria as consul, A.D. 1, 125–128, cf. 117, 120 and détente with Parthia, 127–128 enters Armenia to avenge Tigranes IV, late A.D. 1, 128–129, cf. 126 faces rebellion over Armenian succession, A.D. 2, 128–130 learns of brother Lucius’ death, 130 wounded at Artagira, 130–132, cf. 117 imperator, on its capture, A.D. 3/4, 132 debilitated, resigns imperium, 133 dies at Limyra, his cenotaph there, 133–134 obsequies, posthumous honors for, 47, 134, 136, 155, 291–293 recalled in Augustus’ will, 310 offerings to his Manes by Sodales Augustales, 351–352 GALBA (emperor 68–69), his rule portended, 301–302 Gannys, Elagabalus’ tutor, and novice general, 12 Gemina, title of legion formed by merging others, 164 Gemma Augustea, and Tiberius’ Illyrian triumph, 248n Germanicus. See Iulius Caesar, Germanicus

Germanicus, posthumous cognomen of elder Drusus, 46, cf. 185n, 249 Germans casting of spears a forte of, 263 deemed brutes by Velleius, 255 distrust as best policy with, 256 warrior mentalilty of, 254 See also Batavians; Bructeri; Chatti; Cherusci; Hermunduri; Marcomanni; Suebi; Sugambri Germany, trans-Rhenane (Dio’s Keltikhv) peopled by migratory pastoral tribes, 253 Roman control over only piecemeal, 253 Roman forts in, 63 n43, 194, 198, 253, 267–268 vacant of Romans in Dio’s day, except within limes, 255 See also Arminius; Claudius Drusus, Nero; Domitius Ahenobarbus, L.; Iulius Caesar, Germanicus; Quinctilius Varus, P.; Tiberius [A]; Vinicius, M. (1) gifts, subsidies, 119–120, 137, 138, 146, 176, 290–291, 337, 342–343. See also Augustus [B], congiaria and donatives gladiatorial performance by highborn, regulated, 282–284 gladiators, 179, 217–218, cf. 282–284. See also munus/munera grain dole. See plebs frumentaria Haltern, site of base on R. Lippe, 256, 260, 267–269. See also Aliso haruspices, 280, 301 Hector, 7, 33 Hermunduri, people of interior Germany, 123–124 Herod “the Great” of Judaea, 129 n130, 168 death of, ca 4 B.C., 39, 188 kingdom of, partitioned among sons, 187, cf. 114 Hersilia, author of marriage customs, 229 Hilarion, libertus, writes out Augustus’ will, 310 Holsterhausen, site of Roman fort on Lippe, 267 Horologium, sundial in Campus Martius, 67, 68n, 280 horse guard, emperor’s called Germani corporis custodes under Augustus, 171 Germans, esp. Batavians, serve in, 171 cashiered by Augustus, then reinstated, 171, 272, 306n cashiered by Galba, employed again under Trajan, 171 known popularly as “Batavians,” 168, 171

Index under Severans, drawn from Danubian alae, 171 titled equites singulares Augusti from Trajan’s time, 171 Illyricum, as imperial province, 58 n33 Dio’s designations for, 197, 210, cf. 235, 305 partitioned as Pannonia and Dalmatia, 197, 242, 246 and n45 imagines, in funerals, 320–324 imperatorial salutations, 364–365. See also Augustus [B], imperator imperium, proconsular, 85, 115, 133, 142, 278, 294, 309, 325 incapacitas, ineligibility for inheritances and legacies exemptions from, 230, 232–233, 235, cf. 234 penalty for celibacy, childlessness, 50, 230, 231, 232–234, 235 inheritance tax. See vicesima Isaurians, brigand people of Taurus Mts, suppressed, 190 Iulia Domna, ambition of, reproached by Dio, 6 Iulia filia, wife of Agrippa and Tiberius marriage to, alienation from, Tiberius, 48, 74–75, 85, 86, 87–88, cf. 314 her fall, 106–110 dissolute behavior, 107–108 liaison with Iullus Antonius, 109–110 more adultress than conspirator, 106– 107, 108 relegated to Pandateria, 108 accompanied in exile by mother Scribonia, 108–109 transferred to Rhegium, 140 and will of Augustus, 313–314 Iulia neptis, wife of L. Aemilius Paullus fall of, with husband, A.D. 8 (?), 183–184, 215 excluded from Mausoleum under Augustus’ will, 314, 345 Iulius Caesar, Agrippa (= Agrippa Postumus) ill-natured son of Iulia filia and M. Agrippa, 208–209 rides in lusus Troiae, 100 adopted by Augustus, A.D. 4, 141–142 assumes toga virilis, 89, 156 duumvir quinquennalis at Ostia (A.D. 6)? 208 slanders Livia as stepmother, 141, 209 levels charges at Augustus over patrimony, 209, cf. 210 disowned, interned in perpetuum, 208, 209–210, 312 property of, ceded to Aerarium Militare, 175, 210 visited secretly by Augustus? 302 executed on Augustus’ death, 303

417

impersonated by his slave Clemens, 303, cf. 302 n152 Iulius Caesar, C., dictator, 49, 55, 83, 100, 178, 274, 279, 292, 310 calendar reform of, 67–68 funeral of, 320, 321 n191, 325–326, 341, 342, 343 and plebs frumentaria, 92–93, 365–366 sella curulis and crown of, in theater, Circus, 297–298 worship of, 316, 328, 337, 350 and the young Octavian, 16, 328 Iulius Caesar, Drusus (1), Tiberius’ son, born 14 B.C., 143 tirocinium fori of, 143n marries Livilla, widow of Gaius, 115, 142, cf. 303 his career, 249–250, 279, 285, 294, 295 in Augustus’ consilium, 295–296 in vicesima debate, 296 in Senate following Augustus’ death, 307– 311, 314, 315 second-degree heir of Augustus, 311–312, cf. 376–378 gives family laudatio on Augustus, 324, 327 sent to quell mutiny in Pannonia, 294, 299, 306n granted proconsular imperium? 294 presents equites as gladiators, 283 protector of Germanicus’ sons, 285n his death and obsequies, 285 n130, 309, 322–323 Iulius Caesar, Drusus (2), son of Germanicus, 226, 312, cf. 376–378 Iulius Caesar, Germanicus, son of elder Drusus, 43, 115, 295 his name, 46, 142 adopted by Tiberius, 143, cf. 142 marries Augustus’ granddaughter Agrippina, 142 children of, 226, 312, 376–378 gives munus in father’s memory, 185, cf. 217 quaestor, dispatched to Illyrian front, A.D. 7, 204, cf. 210 defeats Pannonian Mazaei, 213–214 in Rome, spring A.D. 9, 226 adjutant of Tiberius in Dalmatia, A.D. 9, 242, cf. 248 takes Splonum, Raetinium, Seretium, Arduba, 239–241, 245 praetorian and triumphal ornaments of, 249 as advocate, 38, 276, 285 campaigns with Tiberius in Germany, 277– 279, 297 proconsular imperium of, 115, 278 cos. ord. A.D. 12, 249, 285, 291 his priority over Drusus in succession, 143, 285

418

Index

Iulius Caesar, Germanicus, son of elder Drusus (continued) in Augustus’ consilium, 295–296 in vicesima debate, 296 imperator I, Germany, A.D. 13 (?), 297 with sons, second-degree heir of Augustus, 311–312, cf. 376–378 sodalis Augustalis, flamen Augustalis, 351, 352n his pilgrimage to sites of Varian disaster, 260–261, 263–264, 309 n169, cf. 260 n80 leads confederates of Arminius in triumph, A.D. 17, 256 death, obsequies, memorial honors of, 47, 90, 155, 352, 358, cf. 331 Iulius Caesar, Nero, son of Germanicus, 226, 312, cf. 376–378 Iulius Martialis, evocatus, assassin of Caracalla, 10, 172 Iulius Proculus, witness to Romulus’ ascension, 353–354 Iunia, sister of Brutus, wife of Cassius, 322 ius trium liberorum, 50–51 granted by Senate, later by emperors, 50 of Livia, 50–51 of soldiers, conferred by Claudius, 50 of Vestal Virgins, 50, 157, 235 iuvenes/iuventus, 89, 90, 96, 136, 156, 301 JORDANES, cites a “Dio” on Ravenna, 215– 216 Juba II, king of Mauretania, 116, 168 Gaetulians rebel against, 191–192 Rome’s ally in Gaetulian war, 193 victory of, celebrated on his coinage, 193 Judaea, annexed by Augustus, 188, cf. 189 discrete province or annex of Syria? 188 See also Archelaus; Herod “the Great” Junian Latins, inferior grade of liberti, and Vigiles, 182n Jupiter Capitolinus (Optimus Maximus), 59– 60, 75, 94, 97 and n, 98–99, 274 Kalkriese, a site of Varian disaster, 250–252, 259–260, 264 laurel, as victor’s badge, 59, 97 and n, 224, 248 n52, 321 n192 law on adultery, 107, cf. 2 n8 punishments under, 109–110, 288, 290 law on election bribery, 60 legatus (legate) legatus Augusti pro praetore (governor in imperial province), 1, 3, 186n, 188, 190, 192–193, 222, 236, 237–238, 242, 250, 254, 268, 294, 333

legatus legionis (commander of legion), 161, 264, 266n, 279 legatus pro praetore (assistant, esp. judicial, of proconsul in public province), 54, 186–187, 219 legion(s) Augustan, dissolved, A.D. 5 to Dio’s day, 164–166 Augustan, as extant in Dio’s day, 160–164 Augustan, forces other than, 168–172 post-Augustan, 166–168 register of, or of legionaries in, 168 total thirty-three under Severans, 166, 168 total twenty-eight in A.D. 5 (pace Dio), 164, 165 (table), cf. 168 I, stripped of title Augusta by Agrippa (?), 164 I Adiutrix, its base Brigetio annexed to Lower Pannonia, A.D. 214, 33 n137, 166 II Parthica, raised by Septimius Severus against Parthia accompanies emperor on campaign, 168 based on Mt Albanus, 168 its disloyalty ruinous to Macrinus, 168 V Macedonica, 161, 211, 213 VII titled Macedonica under Augustus, 161, cf. 211, 213 retitled ‘Claudia Pia Fidelis’ by Claudius, 161 XII Fulminata, and “rain miracle,” 162 XVII, XVIII, XIX destroyed in Varian disaster, 165, cf. 256 eagles of, recovered, 260 n80, 266–267 XX Valeria Victrix, 163 and n167 heroic service of, in Illyrian war, A.D. 6, 163, 200–201 XX, mistaken by Dio for Augustan, 160, 163–164, 166 legionaries bequests to, under Augustus’ will, 313 disciplined, 7 levies of, in Illyrian, German crises, 158, 204–205, 210, 271–272 pay and praemia of, under Augustus, 158, 172–173, 174–175, 338 shortage of, 158, 271 Lepcis Magna, and Gaetulian war, 191 Lesbos, as place of exile, 289 Lex Aelia Sentia, A.D. 4, regulates manumission, 146–147, 182n Lex Falcidia, 40 B.C., reserves quarter of estate for heir, 311n Lex Fufia Caninia, 2 B.C., regulates testamentary manumission, 146, cf. 101

Index Lex Iulia de Maritandis Ordinibus, 18 B.C., 225–226, 227, 230–231, 232–234 meets opposition, evasion, 225–226, 369–371 orbi (childless) not punished under, 232–234 Lex Papia Poppaea, A.D. 9, 232–235, cf. 231 enriches Aerarium with caduca, confiscations, 234 its movers wifeless and childless, 235 penalizes orbi with semi-, caelibes with total, incapacitas, 232–234 Lex Valeria Cornelia, A.D. 5, on electoral centuries honoring Gaius, Lucius, 136, 155, cf. 220 Lex Visellia, A.D. 24, grants citizenship for service as Vigiles, 182n Lex Voconia, 169 B.C. forbids wealthy to name woman as heir, 234 relaxed for certain women, Livia, 234–235, 311 libertae (freedwomen), equites angusticlavii permitted to marry, 230 liberti (freedmen), 71, 334 barred from becoming equites, 157 bureaucratic function of, in palace, 310 daughters of, as candidates for Vestal Virgin, 157 exploited by former masters to tap dole, 92 n91, 147 levied as legionaries, 204–205, 272, cf. 210 among soldiers’ servants, 262 as vicomagistri, 79 in Vigiles, 182–183 See also Lex Aelia Sentia Licinius Crassus, M., triumvir, 98, 266, 301 lictor(s), perquisite of Agrippina, the younger, as priestess of divi, 353 consular grain curators, 207, cf. 180 Livia, as priestess of Divus Augustus, 353 praefecti aerarii militaris, 176 Vestal Virgins, 353 vicomagistri, 80–81 Lippe, R., military artery into interior Germany, 255–256, 267, cf. 41–42, 63, 194, 253 Livia, mother of Tiberius, wife of Augustus, 51, 67n, 347 hostess of epulum for women, on Tiberius’ ovation, 48–49 and death of son Drusus, 44–45, 50 granted ius trium liberorum, 50–51 dedicates Porticus Liviae, 74 hostess of epulum for senators’ wives, 74–75 and Tiberius’ Rhodian retirement, 86, 88, 135–136 persuades Augustus to adopt Tiberius, 141 has Augustus spare conspirator Cinna, 147– 148, 150–154

419

slandered by Agrippa Postumus, 209, cf. 141 exempted from force of Lex Voconia, 311 orchestrates transmission of power, 305 complicit in death of Augustus? 154, 302– 303 and of princes? 134, 302, 303 with Tiberius, coheir of Augustus, 310–311, 376–378 entombs Augustus’ ashes, 344–345 renamed Iulia Augusta, 351, 352–353 made priestess of Divus Augustus, 351–353 and founding of Ludi Palatini, 357–358 and Temple of Divus Augustus, 354 worshipped there as Diva Augusta, 355, cf. 351 n265 asserts power as if ruling, 358 Livilla (Livia), wife of Gaius, Drusus Caesar, 115–116, 142 Livius Geminus, senator, witness of Drusilla’s ascension, 353 Lollius, M. (cos. 21 B.C.), advisor of Gaius, incites him against Tiberius, 116, 117 lot, selection by of aediles, from ex-quaestors and extribunes, 173 of board to reduce expenditures, 178 of board to review senate membership, 144 and consilium of Augustus, 295 of fugitives from levy, for punishment, 271 of magistrates to administer regiones, 78, 81–82 praefecti aerarii militaris, 175 praetors responsible for munera, 207 quaestors and proconsuls, for provincial posts, 187, 189–190, 334 senators obliged to attend during vacation, 52 senators to be penalized for absenteeism, 53 Sodales Augustales, 351–352 Vestal Virgin, 157 veterans, liberti for military service, 272 See also subsortitio Lucius (Caesar), Augustus’ grandson, 83, 95, 100 headstrong, 83 and Tiberius, 86–88 assumes toga virilis, 89, 92, 366 princeps iuventutis, 2 B.C., 90, 91, 136, 260 designated consul aged fourteen, 84 apprenticeship for rule, 112, 114, 134 reads dispatches from Gaius in Senate, 134 dies in Massilia, on mission to armies in Spain, 130, 131–132, 134 obsequies, posthumous honors for, 136, 155, 291–293 recalled in Augustus’ will, 310 offerings to his Manes by Sodales Augustales, 351–352

420

Index

luctus publicus, state mourning, 346–347 Ludi Augustales annexed to Augustalia, 356, 358–359 include scaenici (5–11 Oct.) and circenses (12 Oct.), 356, 358 presidency of, granted to tribunes, then praetor peregrinus, 356, 358–359 strike of pantomime, disorders at, 358–359 See also Augustalia ludi magni, as payment of vow made in crisis, 206, 274, 352 Ludi Martiales, 95, 101, 291, 356 Ludi Palatini, scaenici commemorating Augustus, 357–358 Livia’s role in founding of, 357, cf. 358 Caligula murdered at, 357 lusus Troiae (Troy Game), 64, 100 MACRINUS (emperor 217–218), first nonsenator to rule appoints Dio curator of Pergamum and Smyrna, 3 preposterous ambition of, 6, 70 revokes Caracalla’s doubling of vicesima, 296 Maecenas, C., chargé d’affaires of Augustus eques throughout life, 69, 70 gardens, estates, hot-water pool of, 70, 71 liaison of his wife with Augustus, 70–71 moderating influence of, on Augustus, 69–70 will of, names Augustus heir, 70 Magius Celer Velleianus, brother of Velleius, 237 n21 maiestas, extended to adultery with Julia, famosi libelli, 109–110, 287 Maison Carrée, memorial of Gaius and Lucius, 136 marble plan of Rome, 292 (Basilica Iulia), 45 (Circus Flaminius), 76 (Diribitorium), 74 (Porticus Liviae), 72 (Porticus Octaviae) Marcius Censorinus, C. (cos. 8 B.C.), 59, 60 his cult the last attested of a provincial governor, 281–282 Marcomanni, people of interior Germany, 42 resettled in Bohemia by Maroboduus, 41, 123–124 Tiberius’ abortive attack on, 195, 197–198, cf. 193 Marktbreit, site of base on R. Main, 194, 197 Marmaridae, nomadic people of North Africa. See Cyrenaica/Cyrene Maroboduus, centralist ruler of Marcomanni, 195 his peace with Rome, A.D. 6, 195 forwards Varus’ head to Augustus, 266 interned at Ravenna, 247

Mars Ultor, Octavian vows temple to, before Philippi, 93 Marsi, eagle of Varus recovered from, 267 masters manumit slaves corruptly, 92 n91, 147 patronal relations of, with liberti, regulated, 147 See also Lex Aelia Sentia; Lex Fufia Caninia Mausoleum of Augustus burials there, 46, 131, 341, 344, 347 n255 and inscription of Res Gestae, 316 Julia filia, Julia neptis denied burial in, 313– 314 Mazaei, Pannonian people, defeated by Germanicus, 213–214 Military Treasury. See Aerarium Militare Minos, his grief emulated by Tiberius, 308 Misenum, naval base, 108, 169, 306, 310, cf. 45 Moesia, still a frontier zone in A.D. 6, 199 vulnerable to Dacians, Sarmatians, 202, cf. 213 Moguntiacum, base heading R. Main route into Germany, 41, 45, 194, 197, 253 cenotaph of elder Drusus at, 41, 47, 134 mourning dress, 77, 306–308, 346–347 Munatius Plancus, L. (cos. A.D. 13), 293, 295 munus/munera, gladiatorial shows, 207, 282– 284 aediles, later praetors, responsible for, 173, 207 in Forum, Saepta, 78, 100 in memory of Agrippa, Drusus, 77–78, 185, cf. 217 Musa, concubine of Phraates IV, mother of Phrataces, 118 musicians, 269 (signalers), 308 Musulami, people south of province Africa, 191, 192. See also Cornelius Lentulus, Cossus; Gaetulians Namantabagius, guides Tiberius to dying Drusus, 45 Naples, devoted to Greek culture, 103. See also Sebasta naumachia, on dedication of Mars Ultor, 100– 101, cf. 95–96 one of several recorded by Dio, 100–101 site of, visited by Dio, 101 navy, Roman, 108, 124, 166, 167, 168, 169, 194, 215–216, 247. See also Misenum; Ravenna NERO (emperor 54–68), 89, 97, 103, 147, 156, 189, 207, 281, 352 Nicaea, patris of Dio, 1, 3, 7, 33 Nicomedia, capital of Bithynia, Dio with Caracalla at, 2

Index Nigidius Figulus, M., senator, adept in astrology, 16, 134 Nola, Augustus dies in paternal villa at, 300, 305, 306, 321 shrine to him consecrated there, 355 Nonius Asprenas, L., trial of, for poisoning, 57 Nonius Asprenas, L. (cos. suff. A.D. 6), 190n, cf. 57n regarrisons frontier after Varian disaster, 256, 268, 269 rescues fugitives from Aliso, 256, 269 Nonius Quinctilianus, Sex. (cos. A.D. 8), 214 Novius Facundus, and Augustus’ Horologium, 68n Numerius Atticus, senator, testifies to Augustus’ ascension, 353–354 Numonius Vala, legate of Varus, killed fleeing, 266n obelisks, 10 (Circus Maximus), 68n, 280 (Horologium) Oberaden, site of Lippe base decommissioned 8/7 B.C., 63, 267 Oclatinius Adventus, M., ill-educated consul, City Prefect, 4–5 Octavia, the younger, full sister of Augustus a builder of Porticus Octaviae, 72 and n her obsequies, 46, 309, 346 Octavius, C. (praetor 61 B.C.), Augustus’ father, 16 Augustus dies in same room as, 300 image of, in Augustus’ cortege? 322 Ofonius Tigellinus, Praetorian Prefect, his triumphal ornaments, 97 ornamenta triumphalia. See triumphal ornaments Ostorius Scapula, Q., and P. Salvius Aper, first Praetorian Prefects, 2 B.C., 105 ovation, 48 n20 projected, of Drusus, 42, 49, cf. 48 of Tiberius, 47–48, cf. 368 OVID, relegatio of, 183, 225, 287 owl, as omen, 301, 350 palace of Augustus, 138, 139, 306, 338 Pandateria, Julia filia exiled to, 108, cf. 140, 141 Pannonia ethnic, geographic features of, 198–199, 201, 202, 212–214, 222, 236, 239 province of, formed by partitioning Illyricum, 246, cf. 242 Pannonians, Illyrian peoples north of Dinaric Alps capitulate to Tiberius, A.D. 8, 39, 215, 221, cf. 223, 224 ovation of Tiberius over, 9 B.C., 47–49

421

predilection of, for brigandage, 222 renewed resistance of, put down, A.D. 8, 221–222 revolts of, listed, 196 See also Bato (1); Bato (2); Breucians; Desidiates; Mazaei; Perustae pantomimes/actors/mimes, 137, 304, 321 n194, 356, 357, 358–359 offer festival, with domini factionum, 290– 291 wealth, social influence of, 106, 290–291, 358–359 Papius Mutilus, M., mover of Lex Papia Poppaea, 235 Parians, yield statue of Hestia to Tiberius, 87 Parthia/Parthians, 6–7, 101, 167, 379–380 abet rebellion in Armenia Maior, 113, 130 See also Armenia Maior; Gaius (Caesar); Phraates IV; Phrataces Passienus Rufus, L., proconsul, imperator, 193n Pater Patriae, Augustus titled, 103–105, 339, cf. 94 and Dio’s chronology, 104–105 Pausanias, eponymous priest of Apollo at Cyrene Marmaric war ends in his year, 121 peregrini dediticii, inferior class of liberti, 146 Pergamum, 3, 4, 383 PERTINAX (emperor 1 Jan.–28 Mar. A.D. 193) designates Dio praetor, 1 funeral of, 1 n5, 320, 323, 325, 340 pyre, decursio, release of eagle at, 341– 343, 351 n265 old-fashioned, 6 n29, 7 Perustae, Pannonian people toward Montenegro, 198, 237 n22 crushed by Tiberius, A.D. 9, 237–239, 372–374, cf. 243 sculpture of, in Sebasteion at Aphrodisias, 238 n26 Phaos, heroic ambassador of Cyrene, 122 Philip, tetrarch of northeast districts, son of Herod “the Great” accuses brother Archelaus, 187–188 Phoebe, liberta, her suicide praised by Augustus, 110 Phraates IV, Parthian king 38–3/2 B.C., 113, 114 (table), 129 entrusts four legitimate sons to Augustus’ custody, 118 supplanted by bastard son, Phrataces, 113, 118 Phrataces (Phraates V), Parthian king 3/2 B.C.–A.D. 3/4, 113, 114 (table) bastard son of Phraates IV by Musa, 118 kills father, seizes throne, 113, 118

422

Index

Phrataces (Phraates V) (continued) demands Augustus return brothers, 117– 118, cf. 119 ordered by Augustus to abdicate, 119 vacates Armenia, compromises over brothers, 128 meets Gaius at Euphrates, 126, 127 (table), 128 death of, 118 Pinnes, Pannonian rebel, betrayed to Rome by Breucian Bato, 221 Planasia, Agrippa Postumus interned on, 208, 210 secret voyage of Augustus to? 302 Plautius Rufus, conspires with L. Aemilius Paullus, 184 same person as P. Rufus? 184 Plautius Silvanus, M., cos. 2 B.C. with Augustus, 221–222 conquers Isaurians in Taurus Mts, 190 brings army west to rebel Illyricum, 190, 211, 222 ambushed by Batos, A.D. 7, 211–212 juncture of, with Tiberius, 213 defeats recidivist Breucians, A.D. 8, 221 in invasion of “Bosnia,” A.D. 9, 238–239, 242 triumphal ornaments of, 249 Plebs, as governmental body, 91n, 104, 219– 220 plebs frumentaria, those citizens in Rome eligible for grain dole, 366 number of, reduced, 2 B.C., 91–93, 366 during famine of A.D. 6, 180–181 bequest of Augustus to, 312 plebs urbana, Roman citizens resident in Rome, 92, 313 Polla. See (Vipsania) Polla pollution, ritual, 309 Polybius, libertus, writes out Augustus’ will, reads it in Senate, 310–311 pomerium and adventus, burials, triumphs, 45, 46, 71– 72, 341 extended by Augustus? 66 (Pompeia) Plotina, wife of Trajan, 6, 347 Pompeius, Sex. (1), son of Pompeius Magnus, 109, 150, 331, 366 Pompeius, Sex. (2), cos. A.D. 14, related to Augustus, 299, 301 in Augustus’ consilium, 295 breaks leg, 309, 350 patron of Ovid, Valerius Maximus, 299 and n Pompeius Magnus, Cn., 54, 326, 331, 332 his daughter’s son, Cn. Cornelius Cinna Magnus, 148, 150 image of, in Augustus’ funeral, 323

Pompey. See Pompeius Magnus, Cn.; Pompeius, Sex. (1) Pons Sublicius, destroyed in flood, 155 Pontius Pilatus, praefectus Iudaeae, 188n Poppaeus Secundus, Q. (cos. suff. A.D. 9), mover of Lex Papia Poppaea, 235 Populus Romanus/Populus. See Roman People/the People Porta Triumphalis, 322, 340 portents. See prodigies/portents Porticus ad Nationes, sculptures in, 324 Porticus Liviae, 74, cf. 291 Porticus Octavia, built by Cn. Octavius, victor over Perseus, 72 n55 Porticus Octaviae, 72, cf. 45, 340 built by the younger Octavia, 72 and n Porticus Vipsania, 76–77. See also Agrippa, M.; (Vipsania) Polla praefecti aerarii militaris, board to administer Military Treasury chosen by lot from ex-praetors, 175–176 emperor appoints in Dio’s day, 176 praefecti frumenti dandi, board to distribute dole to plebs frumentaria, 180 praefecti praetorio. See Praetorian Prefects praefectus (praesidial) of Judaea, 188 praefectus annonae, eques, 39n, 180. See also Turranius, C. praefectus castrorum, eques, third in command of legion, 212, 215, 267 and n94 praefectus urbi. See City Prefect praefectus vigilum, eques, appointed by emperor, 181–182 duties of, include firefighting, policing, jurisdiction, 182 praemia, soldiers’ retirement bonuses. See Aerarium Militare; legionaries praetor(s) assume festivals and munera from aediles, 173, cf. 65, 106, 207, 282, 284, 356 make relationes in Senate, 55–56 number of, Sulla to Tiberius, 279 praetor peregrinus presides at Ludi Augustales, 356 and regiones, 78, 81–82 Praetorian Prefects, equites, normally two, 105 responsible for more than emperor’s security, 105, 247 sole prefectures frowned on by Dio, 105 See also Aelius Seianus, L; Fulvius Plautianus, C.; Praetorians; Sutorius Macro; Theocritus; Valerius Comazon, P. Praetorians bequest of Augustus to, 313 complement of, under Augustus, and in Dio’s day, 168, 169–170 and n182

Index concentrated by Sejanus in single fort, 182 hostile to Dio, 3 and imperial obsequies, 321, 341–342 pay and praemia of, under Augustus, 158 provide security, military corps for imperials, 105 and n, 121, 306n See also evocati; Praetorian Prefects princeps iuventutis, used of heirs apparent, 90, 136. See also Gaius (Caesar); Lucius (Caesar) proconsuls elected by lot for year term in public province, 189–190, 334 occasionally appointed, and for longer term, 189–190 and n222 replacement of, by military specialist, 121 exclusion of, from triumphs, 192–193 prodigies/portents astronomical, 273–274, 300 deranged man donning Caesar’s crown, 297–298 erasure by lightning of ‘C’ in ‘Caesar,’ 301 forecasting deaths, disasters, 9 and n46, 43, 273–274, 300–301 See also Cassius Dio, L. [B], dreams, omens Pusio, German cavalryman, and capture of Splonum, 240 Pylades, pantomime, produces festival at own expense, 106, 291 quaestiones, 52, 60–61, 145, 179, 276 quaestors, 146 as assistants to proconsuls, 186–187 enter office 5 Dec., 249, 279 former, obliged to serve as aediles, 173 Italian, reinstated by Augustus, 57–58 quaestor Augusti reads emperor’s communications in Senate, 108, 285– 286 Quinctilius Varus, P., cos. 13 B.C., 254 as oppressive legate in Germany, A.D. 7–9, 254–255 and Arminius, Segimer, 256–258 drawn into Cheruscan territory, ambushed, 255–263 army of, pursued, massacred, 263–267 Legions XVII, XVIII, XIX lost, 165, cf. 256 suicide of, with officers, 264, 266 and n blamed by Tiberius, 256, 275n, cf. 270 head of, recovered, buried in tomb of Quinctilii, 266 See also Kalkriese; Varian disaster Quinctius Crispinus Sulpicianus, T. (cos. 9 B.C.), adulterer of Julia filia, 40, 110 Quinctius Crispinus Valerianus, T. (cos. A.D. 2), as praetor, brings equites, elite women on stage, 106

423

Quintilius Condianus, Sex., the false, betrayed by want of education, 4 Rabirius, C., 334 Raecius Constans, Dio in emperor’s consilium at trial of, 2 Raetinium, rebel stronghold, besieged by Germanicus, 240–241 “rain miracle,” 5 n25, 12, 162 Ravenna, Augustan naval base, 215–216, cf. 167 harbor Classis created at, by deepening Po branch, 215–216 foreign leaders interned at, 247 recognitio equitum. See equites recusatio imperii, ritual refusal to rule, 27, 61, 84, 137, 293, 333 regiones (Regions), fourteen districts of Rome, created 7 B.C., 78, 81–82, 182 Res Gestae, inscription of, at Mausoleum, 316 Rhascuporis. See Rhoemetalces Rhoemetalces, regent, later king, in Thrace, 201–202 auxiliary cavalry of, 168–169, 211 defeats Batos on Mt Alma, A.D. 6, 201–202 defeats rebels invading Macedonia, 203 rout of his cavalry at Volcaean Marshes, A.D. 7, 212 Roman people discontent, pamphleteering of, 183–184 press Augustus to restore Julia, 140 Roman People/the People, as governmental body, 27, 91 and n, 141, 189, 219– 220, 294, 334–335, cf. 312 ROMULUS, 10, 229, 230 ascension of, and deification as Quirinus, 353–354 image of, in funerals of Augustus, Drusus Caesar, 322, 323 Rostra, in northwest Forum, 324, 327 familial laudatio for Augustus from, 324, cf. 322 site of Julia’s revels, 107 Rostra Iulia, at Temple of Divus Iulius, 324, 327 state laudatio for Augustus from, 324 Rufus, P., rumored insurgency of, 184 same person as conspirator Plautius Rufus? 184 Saale, R., confusion of, with Elbe, 42, 123– 124 Saepta (Iulia), enclosure for elections adventus ceremonies, munera in, 78, 100, 224 and Diribitorium, 76 sagum, dark cloak, worn in mourning, 307

424

Index

Salona, Roman colony, Adriatic port Desidiatian Bato marches on, 199–200 supply base for Tiberius’ siege of Andetrium, 243 Sardinia, proconsul of, replaced by eques with garrison, 189, cf. 121 Sarmatians, pillage Moesia, 202 Scenobarbus, defecting Illyrian rebel, 214– 215 Sceuas, son of Desidiatian Bato, 246–247 Scribonia, accompanies exiled daughter Julia, 108–109 Scribonius Libo Drusus, M., senate trial of, 109, 280, cf. 22 n105 Scutarius, evocatus, Augustus acts as advocate for, 56–57 scutum, Roman shield, 265 Sebasta of Naples, voted 2 B.C., 101–103 Augustus attends, A.D. 14, 103, 300 features Greek athletic, musical events, 102 sacrifice “to Augustus Caesar” at, 102 Segestes, father-in-law of Arminius, 257–258, 374 Segimer, accomplice of Arminius, 256–258 his identity problematic, 257 sella curulis, chair of state, 298, 309, 322 Senate adopts graduated quorums, 52–53 and Aerarium Saturni, 207, 356–357 album of its members posted, 53 boards created by of consular grain curators, 207, cf. 180 of consulars to cut expenditures, 178 of consulars to hear embassies, 218, 282 of consulars to ration grain and bread, 180 praetorian praefecti aerarii militaris, 175– 176 praetorian praefecti frumenti dandi, 180 triumviratus legendi senatus, 144 as court, 219 draft legislation posted in, 56 and embassies, 218, 295 grants ius trium liberorum, 50 and installation of client kings, 132–133 meeting of, on arrival of Augustus’ cortege, 305–319 meeting places of, 71–72 (Porticus Octaviae), 96 (Temple of Mars Ultor), 277 (Temple of Concord), 294 (Temple of Apollo), 306 (Curia Iulia) and military finance, 172–173, 174–178 praetors make relationes in, 55–56 and public funerals, 327 reforms of, to counter absenteeism, 52–53 review of its membership, 144 and terms of military service, 158

tribunician veto in, 22 n105, 55 votes honors profusely for imperials, 46–47, 249, 358 votes triumphs, 96 See also acta senatus; auctoritas; senate decrees senate decrees, 46, 53–54, 60, 67–68, 84, 190n, 208, 230, 281, 282–284, 286– 287, 295–296, 298, 324, 340, 346, 351, 357, 358 senators briefs of, on revenue sources for praemia, 176, cf. 296–297 detest vicesima, 296–297 eligible to take certain state contracts, 98– 99 exclude liberti from Senate, 157–158 as jurors in quaestiones, 52 seating privileges of, in theater, Circus, 156, cf. 84 travel by, restricted, 179 Sentius Saturninus, C. (cos. 19 B.C.) legate in Germany, A.D. 4–6, 194, 195, 197–198 earns triumphal ornaments, 195 march of, toward Bohemia and Tiberius, 197–198, 200 Sentius Saturninus, Cn. (cos. A.D. 41), triumphal statue of, 97 SEPTIMIUS SEVERUS (emperor 193–211) breaks undertaking to execute no senator, 348, 379 his horoscope displayed in palace, 280 praises “severity and cruelty” of Augustus, 332 Seretium, besieged by Tiberius, taken by Germanicus, 241 SEVERUS ALEXANDER (emperor 222–235), 329 cos. ord. A.D. 229 with Dio, 3, 31 Dio’s career flourishes under, 3, 31 expedition of, against Persia, 3 n13 seviri turmae, lead squadrons of equites equo publico include Gaius and Lucius, 90, 91 produce festival near Temple of Mars Ultor, 98 Sextilia, modest mother of Vitellius, 6 shorthand, 71 Silius A. Caecina Largus, C. (cos. A.D. 13), 293, cf. 295 Sirmium, Roman base on R. Save, 199, 201, 211n, 213, 238, 242 Siscia, Roman base on R. Save, 211n, 213, 215, 216, 238, 242 Tiberius’ headquarters, A.D. 6–7, 201, 202, 213

Index slaves, 70, 71, 80, 181–182, 210n, 290, 302 n152 and ban on testifying against masters, 60– 61 indiscriminate manumission of, criticized, 92 n91, 147, 318 levied on wealthy for military service, 205, 272 manumission of, regulated, 146–147 public, employed for firefighting, 81, 181 removal of, from Rome in famine, 179 as soldiers’ servants, 262 2 percent tax on auctioned, 207 See also Lex Aelia Sentia; Lex Fufia Caninia Smyrna, 3, 4, 51, 383 Sodales Augustales, priesthood of Divus Augustus, his house, 351–352 Sosius, C. (cos. 32 B.C.), pardoned by Augustus, 331 and n Splonum, rebel fort taken by Germanicus, 239–240 stades, conversion of Roman miles into, 289 stage performance, by highborn, stigmatized, regulated, 106, 282–284 Stephanus, assassin of Domitian, 10 Stoicism, reflected in Dio’s History, 5 n24, 9, 152, 227, 228 subsortitio, qualifying lottery for plebs frumentaria, 92–93, 366 sub vexillo, military service beyond statutory term, 158 Suebi, people(s) of interior Germany, 41, 63, 362 SUETONIUS, shares annalistic source with Dio, 23. See also Cassius Dio, L. [C], source(s) of, annalistic Sugambri, trans-Rhenane German tribe, 361– 362 attacked by Drusus, 9 B.C., 41–42 legates of, seized, 8 B.C., 62 transplanted to left bank of Rhine, 63 and n44 Sulpicius Quirinius, P. (cos. 12 B.C.) in consilium of Gaius, 116 conducts census in Judaea, 188, cf. 122 Sutorius Macro, Praetorian Prefect, reads Tiberius’ will in Senate, 310–311 taxes. See centesima rerum venalium; tribute; 2 percent tax on auctioned slaves; vicesima Temple of Apollo Palatinus, 94, 99, 139, 294, 295 Apollonius of Tyana, 316 Castor and Pollux, rebuilt by Tiberius inscription of, names both Drusus and Tiberius, 185–186

425

Concord, restored, dedicated by Tiberius, 73, 87, 268, 277 inscription of, names both Drusus and Tiberius, 73, 277 Cybele on Palatine, burned A.D. 3, 138 Divus Augustus voted by Senate 17 Sept. A.D. 14, 316, 354 built by Livia and Tiberius, dedicated by Caligula, 354–355, cf. 344 cult of deified Livia instituted there, 355 Divus Iulius, 316, 324, 327, 337 Julius Caesar, at Alexandria, 316, 337n Jupiter Capitolinus (Optimus Maximus) damaged by lightning, 41 and rite of driving clavus (nail), 98 senators take contracts for upkeep of, 99 as terminus of triumphs, 97, cf. 59 Jupiter Feretrius, 59 Mars in Campus Martius, 273 Mars Ultor on Capitoline, voted, not built, 94 Mars Ultor in Forum of Augustus, 93–99 dedicated 12 May or 1 Aug., 2 B.C., 95– 96 dedicatory celebrations for, 100–101 peer of Apollo Palatinus, Jupiter Capitolinus, 94, 98–99 provisions of its charter, 96–99 used temporarily in cult of Divus Augustus, 355 See also Forum of Augustus Pertinax, 316 Rome and Augustus at Ancyra, and Res Gestae, 316 tensa, wagon bearing god’s attributes, 298 and n145 Terentia, Maecenas’ wife, her liaison with Augustus, 70–71 Teutoburgiensis saltus, and Varian disaster, 261 and n81, n83 theater deranged man in, 298 n144 as functional “assembly,” 226 seating of praetextati, equites, senators in, 83, 156 and theatralis licentia, 358–359 See also pantomimes/actors/mimes; Pylades; stage performance Theocritus, upstart, Praetorian Prefect, 6 n28 Thrasyllus. See Claudius Thrasyllus, Ti. THUCYDIDES and Dio on human nature, 12, 151 echoed stylistically in Dio, 26, 87, 138, 155, 229, 232, 245, 262, 269, 326, 328, 331, 348 Tiber, R., floods of, 44, 155, 291, 363–364

426

Index

TIBERIUS (emperor 14–37) [A] his life and career from 9 B.C.: proconsular imperium first granted to, 85 Illyrian ovation of, 9 B.C., 47–49 and death of brother Drusus, 44–45 German settlement of, 8 B.C., 62–64, cf. 65 imperator II, 64 cos. II, 7 B.C., 71–72, cf. 65 his German triumph, 65, 73 restores Temple of Concord, 73 campaigns again in Germany, 75, cf. 82 tribunicia potestas, 6 B.C., 85, cf. 294 assigned Armenian theater, 85, cf. 113 withdrawal of, to Rhodes, 6 B.C., 86–88 pays court to Gaius on Samos, 117 on Rhodes, learns astrology from Thrasyllus, 134–135 tempted to kill him, 135–136 restored to Rome, A.D. 2, 117 n115, 135 reversal of fortune on Gaius’ death, A.D. 4, 140 adopts Germanicus, adopted by Augustus, 141–142 acquiesces in eclipse of son Drusus, 143 tribunicia potestas renewed, 142–143, cf. 294 assigned to pacify Germany, 142 campaigns, peace settlements of, A.D. 4 and 5, 193–195 imperator III, 194–195 dedicates Temple of Castor and Pollux, 185–186 invades kingdom of Maroboduus, A.D. 6, 124, 195, 197–198 recalled by rebellion to Illyricum, 195, 200 secures base at Siscia, 202 draws reinforcements from far and wide, A.D. 7, 211 divides, pins down rebels, 212–213 Pannonians surrender to, at R. Bathinus, A.D. 8, 215 imperator IV, 215, 224, 248 victorious adventus of, spring A.D. 9, 224– 225 dispatched again to Illyricum, 241–242 invades “Bosnia,” 238–239, 242 defeats Perustae, Desidiates, 238–239, 243, 372–374 drives Desidiatian Bato south into Dalmatia, 239, 243 takes Andetrium, 244–245 hearing of, for captive Bato, 247 imperator V, 248 Augustus withholds honorary cognomina from, 249 dedicates Temple of Concord, 277

dispatched to Germany following Varian disaster, 268, 272, cf. 256 blames Varus, 256, 275n crosses Rhine, A.D. 11, 277, cf. 275 imperator VI, 278 his proconsular imperium, 278 Illyrian triumph of, A.D. 12 (?), 247, 248, 275n, 294 and Gemma Augustea, 248n tribunicia potestas renewed, A.D. 13, 294, cf. 306 voted imperium equal to Augustus’, 294 imperator VII, Germany, 297 takes census with Augustus, 294n, cf. 297 recalled from Illyricum by Augustus’ death, 305 in senate session on funeral honors, 307– 308, 315 absolved of touching Augustus’ corpse, 309 coheir of Augustus, with Livia, 311 gives state laudatio for Augustus, 324–339 his own obsequies, 306, 320 n187, 324– 325 bequest of, for plebs frumentaria, 312 [B] miscellaneous: adoptive name of, 186, cf. 142 attacks memory of M. Lollius, 117 careful general, 244, 275n censorious attitude of, to stage, 357n connoisseur of art, 87 contrasted invidiously with Augustus, 349– 350 forbids Livia’s consecration, 351 n265 and Julia filia, 86, 87–88, 314 Tigranes II “the Great,” ruler of Armenia, 113 Tigranes III, philo-Roman king of Armenia Maior (20–before 6 B.C.), 85, 112, 113, 114 (table) enthroned by Tiberius, 119 Tigranes IV, his son, 85, 114 (table), 119 occupies father’s throne (by 6 B.C.), 112– 113 denied recognition, breaks with Rome, 85, 119 abetted by Phrataces of Parthia, 113 Augustus tries to supplant with Artavasdes III, 113–114 seeks throne from Augustus, A.D. 1, 119– 120 enthroned by Gaius? 120 killed by Armenian enemies, A.D. 1, 126, 127 (table), 128–129 See also Erato Tigranes V, non-Artaxiad king of Armenia, 120n, 129n Tiridates II, pretender to throne of Phraates IV, 129

Index tirocinium fori. See toga virilis toga picta, of purple with gold embroidery, 321 toga praetexta, purple-bordered magisterial, 80–81, 106, 224 omitted in mourning, 307–308 as worn by boys, 83, 84, 89 toga pulla, donned in mourning, 308, cf. 136 toga virilis (of manhood), 89, cf. 83, 84 of imperials, 89 (Gaius and Lucius), 143n (Drusus Caesar), 156 (Agrippa Postumus), 301 (Galba), 369 (Tiberius) trabea, parade uniform of equites equo publico, 205, 307 transvectio equitum, annual parade of equites equo publico, 90, 205–206. See also seviri turmae trials, 2, 56–57, 61, 97, 150, 221, 276 for maiestas, 61, 109–110 in Senate, 219 See also tribunals tribes (tribus), thirty-five units of plebs urbana contribute to rebuilding palace, 138 legacy of Augustus to, 312–313 tribunals of Augustus, other emperors, 69–70, 218, 276 of magistrates, 219 tribunes of plebs bench of, in Senate, 309 equites permitted to run as, 56, 286 former, obliged to serve as aediles, 173 and plebiscite on mensis Augustus, 67 responsibility of, in overseeing regiones, 81– 82 right of, to summon Senate, introduce proposals, 55, 356, 358–359 sent by “the people” to Augustus, 91 shortage of candidates for, 173, 286 their short-lived presidency of Ludi Augustales, 356, cf. 357 veto of, 22 n105, 53, 54, 55 tribunus militum, tribune of soldiers, 45, 121, 128, 136, 264 tribute, hated direct tax on land, property, 297 triumph, 73 becomes prerogative of dynasty, 192–193 declined by Agrippa, Augustus, 65, 192, 248–249 dress, insignia of triumphator in, 97, 321 and n192 of Germanicus, 256 and imperium, 72, 192 and temples of Mars Ultor, Capitoline Jupiter, 96–97 of Tiberius, 65, 73, cf. 72, 248 of Vespasian, 340 voted by Senate, 96 See also ovation; triumphal ornaments

427

triumphal ornaments, 192–193 awarded, 191, 192, 193n, 201, 212, 214, 249, 293 proconsuls, legates eligible for, 192–193 qualify recipient for triumphal statue, 97 triumphal statues, in Forum of Augustus, 94, 97, cf. 42 triumviratus recognoscendi turmas equitum, 206n tropaia Drousou, site registered by Ptolemy, 43 tunica palmata, purple with palm-leaf motifs, 321 turma, squadron of equestrian iuniores, 90. See also seviri turmae Turranius, C., first praefectus annonae, by A.D. 14, 180 2 percent tax on auctioned slaves, 183, 207 Tyche, 10–12, 302 Dio’s patron goddess, 5, 29 Urban Cohorts, Rome’s “police,” 168, 170 bequest of Augustus to, 170, 313 commanded by City Prefect, 170 Valerius Comazon, P., Praetorian Prefect, consul, City Prefect scorned by Dio as upstart, 6 Valerius Messalla Corvinus, M. (cos. 31 B.C.) salutes Augustus as Pater Patriae, 2 B.C., 103 Valerius Messalla Messallinus, M. (cos. 3 B.C.), his son, 197 governor of Illyricum, A.D. 6, 197, 246 marches with Tiberius against Maroboduus, 197 defeated by, then defeats, Desidiatian Bato, 200–201 with Tiberius at Siscia, A.D. 6/7, 202 triumphal ornaments of, 201, 249 in consilium of Augustus, 296 See also legion(s), s.v. XX Valeria Victrix Vandals, German people, 42 Varian disaster, A.D. 9, 250–274 events of, 261–272 the Roman column, 261–262 ambush, 262–263 flight, 263–266 annihilation, 266–267 ransom, recovery of captives, 270 portended, 272–274 response of Augustus to, 270–272 site of, 259–261 archaeology of, 259–260 Dio’s mental map of, 259 Tacitus on, 260–261 sources on, 250–251, 374–375

428

Index

Vedius Pollio, opulent eques, his palace built over with Porticus Liviae, 74 VELLEIUS, praetor A.D. 15, officer, adherent of Tiberius, 63, 65, 85, 86, 117, 211, 213, 237 n21, 275, 278, 354, cf. 109, 303, 352 critical of Gaius, 133 lax military intelligence, 212, cf. 249 Varus’ suicide, 266, cf. 273 dedicates history to M. Vinicius (cos. A.D. 30), 130, 252 military service of, 130, 212–213, 237 n21 witnesses Euphrates summit of Gaius, Phrataces, 128 praefectus equitum of Tiberius in Germany, 193 leads recruits to Tiberius in Illyricum, A.D. 7, 205 underrated on Dalmatian war, 236–239 venatio (beast hunt), 101, 291 VESPASIAN (emperor 69–79), 82, 321 n194, 340 Vestal Virgin(s) attended by one lictor each, 353 Augustus’ will deposited with, 309–310 daughters of liberti as candidates for, 157 election of, in Senate, 157 executed as unchaste, A.D. 213/214, 229– 230 granted ius trium liberorum, 50, 235 Vetera, base heading R. Lippe route into Germany, 194, 253, 255–256 Vibius Postumus, C. (cos. A.D. 5) ‘praepositus Dalmatiae,’ A.D. 9, 246 exploits mines, miners, 246, 248 triumphal ornaments of, 246, 249 vicesima, 5 percent tax on inheritances, 174, 176–178 doubling of, by Caracalla, annulled by Macrinus, 296 exemptions from, 177–178 funds praemia, paid from Aerarium Militare, 172, 174 heir responsible for payment of, 177 resistance to, 296–297 vici, official “wards” of Rome, reorganized by Augustus, 78–81 number 265 in Pliny the Elder’s time, 79 under Republic, 79, 80 ruler worship at crossroads (compita) of, 80 used in enumerating population, 80, 92

vicomagistri, magistrates of Rome’s “wards,” 78–81 duties of, include firefighting, 80, 81, cf. 82 entitlement of, to toga praetexta and lictors, 80–81 era of, begins 1 Aug. 7 B.C., 79 mainly liberti, 79 supervise worship of Lares Augusti, Genius Augusti, 80 Vigiles, standing fire brigade, created A.D. 6, 181–183, cf. 81 complement of, 182 under equestrian praefectus vigilum, 182 funded by tax on auctioned slaves, 207 liberti enlisted in, 182 and n and Lex Visellia, 182n pay of, from Aerarium, and same as of legionaries, 182, 183, 207 responsibility of, for firefighting, public order, 182 Tiberius’ bequest to, 313 Vinicius, M. (1) (cos. suff. 19 B.C.), legate in Germany by A.D. 2, 123, 125, 130 immensum bellum erupts under, 125, 140– 141 Vinicius, M. (2) (cos. 30), Velleius dedicates history to, 130, 252 (Vipsania) Polla, sister of Agrippa assumes building of Porticus Vipsania on brother’s death, 76–77 and circuses, 77 Volcaean Marshes, in R. Save lowlands, 212 Roman disaster averted at, 201, 211–212, 222 votive games for Capitoline Jupiter, 60, 75, 274 vows, 93, 193n, 206, 207, 221, 301 wax, uses of, 94 n94, 97, 310, 320 will(s), 70, 74, 88, 310, 311, 313 and n, 365 of Augustus, 309–319, 335, 352, 376–378 See also Lex Falcidia; Lex Fufia Caninia; Lex Iulia de Maritandis Ordinibus; Lex Papia Poppaea; Lex Voconia; vicesima women, varia on, 50, 106, 116, 205, 225, 246, 262, 269, 272, 282–284 and n129, 311, 346–347 XIPHILINUS, Epitome of Dio, 36–37 ZONARAS, Epitome of Dio, 37