Cassius Dio - Reign of Augustus

Cassius Dio was born to a famous family around 150 AD in Nicaea, Bithynia, the Roman province bordering the southern coast of the Black Sea in what is now Turkey, and lived until 235. His father was the governor of Dalmatia and Cilicia under Marcus Aurelius, and his grandfather was the esteemed Greek philosopher and rhetorician Dio Chrisostom. By 180 he went to Rome and entered the Senate, the highest class of Roman society. The emperor Macrinus appointed him administrator of Pergamum and Syria, and he then became a Consul, an office that lacked the power it had under the Republic but still was the highest office under the emperor. He then served in high-ranking positions in the provinces befitting his standing and was appointed Consul a second time under the emperor Severus Alexander. Understanding his lofty status and position in society is a great aid to modern readers in appreciating his viewpoint in his work.

Like his fellow Greeks Polybius and Appian, Cassius Dio wrote his history in Greek, not Latin. He originally produced 80 books, of which Books 36-60 survive largely intact. The remainder of his work is preserved in epitome form as produced by the Byzantine historians Xiphilinus and Zonaras. All the extant text of Cassius Dio is available online at various sites which recreate the 1914 English translation by Earnest Cary, Ph.D. Some online versions were created by Optical Character Recognition, which can include text recognition errors. Modern OCR tends to substitute wrong words in poorly recognized text, which is more jarring and confusing than simple character misrecognition errors. The version at https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Cassius_Dio/home.html was manually captured and proofread by Bill Thayer, providing optimal accuracy. Cary’s work was based on Roman Histories of Cassius Dio translated by Herbert Baldwin Foster. Foster’s original work is available from Delphi Classics in Kindle Edition at Amazon.com priced at $1.99 as of this writing.

This chapter relies on the Penguin Classics edition of Cassius Dio – The Roman History: The Reign of Augustus – Books 50-56, published by Penguin Group in 1987, with translation and notes by Ian Scott-Kilvert, Dir. of English Literature at the British Council. This edition includes a tremendously educational Introduction by John Carter of Royal Holloway College, University of London. Prof. Carter also produced the translation, introduction and 50 pages of notes for Appian – The Civil Wars which we covered in the previous chapter. This chapter begins at the point in history where the last ended with Antony and Octavian’s defeat of Brutus and Cassius at Philippi.

In the Thayer rendition, Cassius Dio begins his work by explaining both his goals and sources.

1 Dio says: "It is my desire to write a history of all the memorable achievements of the Romans, as well in time of peace as in war, so that no one, whether Roman or non-Roman, shall look in vain for any of the essential facts."

2 Although I have read pretty nearly everything about them that has been written by anybody, I have not included it all in my history, but only what I have seen fit to select.

??????????????? Like other historians do, and as does Virgil in his epic poem The Aeneid, Cassius Dio begins his Roman History with the mythical origin story of Rome (preserved in epitome by Zonaras, Thayer’s version). It is a measure of the vast difference between our time and the second century Roman Empire that a highly educated writer, an esteemed soldier and statesman who had held the highest offices in government and served directly under multiple emperors, should deem it necessary and appropriate to respectfully refer to mythology.

Aeneas after the Trojan war came to the Aborigines, who were the former inhabitants of the land wherein Rome has been built and who were at that time ruled by Latinus, the son of Faunus. He came ashore at Laurentum, by the mouth of the river Numicius, where in obedience to some oracle he is said to have made preparations to dwell. The ruler of the land, Latinus, tried to prevent his settling in the land, and joined in a battle with him, but was defeated. Then, as the result of dreams that appeared to both leaders, they effected a reconciliation, and Latinus both granted the other a settlement there and gave him his daughter Lavinia in marriage. Thereupon Aeneas founded a city, which he named Lavinium; and the country was called Latium, and the people there were termed Latins.

??????????????? Before engaging with the focus of this chapter, to get a sense of the sensitive, moving writing style of Cassius Dio, here are a few quotes from the Delphi Classics version on Kindle in the original translation of Baldwin Foster. This is recounting the Battle of Pharsalus, where Roman troops face one another under the command of former allies who have become deadly enemies, Pompey the Great and Julius Caesar. In his Civil Wars, Caesar himself has reported on this battle, giving us brilliant analysis of the plans and tactics he employed to win this decisive confrontation. But he was the commanding general writing his Commentaria to be reported to the Senate, so he is restrained and factual. And of course, the last thing Caesar wants to dramatize is the tragedy of civil war, Roman armies in combat, Roman troops killing Roman troops. Appian also covers this same tragic scenario, with more personal feeling for the emotionally devastating horror of the situation. Here are selections of Baldwin Foster’s translation of Dio’s Book 41, first the thoughts of Pompey and Caesar, who with Crassus had formed the First Triumvirate. In happier times, Caesar had given his beautiful and virtuous young daughter Julia to Pompey in marriage to assure their alliance.

Why should any one then lament the fate of others involved, when those very men, who were all things to each other, and had shared many secret words, many similar exploits, who had once been concerned in a marriage and loved the same child, one as a father, the other as a grandfather, nevertheless fought? All the ties that nature by mingling their blood had created, they now, directed by insatiate lust of power, hastened to break, tear, and cleave asunder. Because of them Rome was forced to encounter danger for herself against herself, and though victor be worsted.

In words that closely echo Appian’s description of these specific moments, Cassio Dio portrays the incipient nightmare about to begin, and then shows us the heartbreaking experiences of the soldiers in combat.

They did not, however, immediately come to close quarters. Sprung from the same country and the same hearth, with almost identical weapons and the same formations, each side shrank from beginning the battle, shrank from slaying anyone. … Both orders were obeyed, but the contestants were so far from being imbued with courage, that at the similar sound of the trumpeter’s call and at their own outcry in the same language, they felt their affinity and were impressed with their kinship, and so fell into tears and wailing. At length the allied troops began the battle, and the rest joined in combat … Those whose part in the conflict was a distant one were less sensible of the horror; they threw, shot, hurled javelins, discharged slings without knowing who they hit: but the heavy armed and the cavalry had a fearful experience, as they were close to each other and could even speak a little back and forth … Many sent messages home through their very destroyers.

??????????????? The Penguin Classic book that is the focus of this chapter is entitled Cassius Dio’s The Roman History: The Reign of Augustus because it is comprised of Books 50-56, which cover the period immediately after the combined armies of Antony and Octavian have crushed the proponents of restoring the democracy of the Roman Republic. In these books we will see Octavian seize all power and transform the Republic into a new world-dominating Empire, all while employing inspired genius to maintain the structure, or the appearance of the structure, of the government that had been in place for most of the previous five centuries. Dio makes this new ruling power explicit in the first sentence of Book 50.

Although the Roman people’s republican form of government had been taken away from them, they had still not reached the situation, strictly speaking, of being ruled by a monarchy. Antony and Octavian, who controlled the affairs of state, did so with equal authority, since they had divided by lot most of the functions of government. … But later … the two men openly turned against one another, and the Roman people was undeniably enslaved.

??????????????? In the ever-increasing struggle, Antony went to Egypt, abandoning and eventually divorcing his faithful wife Octavia, the sister of Octavian who had served to keep the two men in barely civil relationship, while he was infatuated living with Cleopatra, queen of Egypt, the only great power in the Mediterranean still capable of resisting Rome. Complicating matters even further, Cleopatra had a young son fathered by Julius Caesar, called Caesarion, who could be considered a legitimate heir to the rulership of Rome. The final death throes of the ancient Roman Republic, already doomed, occurred in the great sea battle between Octavian’s fleet and the combined fleet of Antony and Cleopatra. The decisive battle occurred in 31 BC on the western coast of Greece, south of modern Corfu, near the Roman colony of Actium. Octavian’s forces were led by his brilliant military genius Agrippa, a lifelong ally and winner of many battles on land and sea.

??????????????? This was a hard-fought engagement, momentum going back and forth between hundreds of ships on each side. At Book 50.33, Dio recounts the shocking, decisive climax. The great Antony, who had fought and won so many wars for both Julius Caesar and Rome and had almost lost his life in several near disasters, behaved in a way that seems foreign to everything we know about him.

Cleopatra, whose ship was riding at anchor behind the battle lines, could not endure the long hours of uncertainty while the issue hung in the balance: both as a woman and as an Egyptian she found herself stretched to the breaking-point … Suddenly she made her choice – to flee – and made the signal for the others, her own subjects. … Antony supposed that they were turning tail, not on Cleopatra’s orders, but out of fear because they felt themselves to have been defeated, and so he followed them.

??????????????? Antony’s abandoned navy was defeated, and Octavian emerged the victor in the long-fought war for single leadership of all Roman power. Dio spells it out clearly and eloquently in the opening of Book 51. He starts out by stating the date of September 2, 31 BC, and remarking that he does not usually state dates, which is something he is criticized for by modern historians. But here, he has a special purpose.

The reason is that at this point for the first time Octavian alone held all the power of the state in his hands, and accordingly the account of the years of his reign should, strictly speaking, be made from that day.

??????????????? One of the techniques employed by all the great historians is to present debates and intellectual considerations of politics and philosophy in formal speeches by primary actors in the midst of pivotal events. Unforgettable examples of this are provided by Herodotus in Themistocles’ speech before the Battle of Salamis and Thucydides’ incomparable delivery of Pericles’ Funeral Oration at the beginning of the Peloponnesian War. In Book 52, Cassius Dio uses a pair of dialectical speeches, put in the mouths of Octavian’s two irreplaceable advisors Agrippa and Maecenas, arguing about how the new, unchallenged ruler should govern Rome going forward. Dio helpfully provides a thumbnail recap of history as he has written it in 52.1.

We have now surveyed the record of events – what the Roman people achieved and what they suffered – under the rule of kings, of the republic and of the warlords over a period of seven hundred and twenty-five years. ?After this they began again with what was, strictly speaking, a monarchy, although Octavian intended to lay down his arms and entrust the direction of affairs to the Senate and the people.

??????????????? This quick synopsis of over seven centuries of Roman governance eerily echoes the philosophical analysis of the natural forms of government as explained by Plato, Aristotle, and Polybius. They had described the three natural forms as monarchy, aristocracy and democracy, and the debased forms of each as tyranny, oligarchy, and mob rule. In Dio’s simple summary above, we see all of those quickly noted in the history of Rome. And as Polybius made clear, once mob rule devolves into the nightmare of anarchy, the people seek a tyrant to end the pain. Ideally, the tyrant is a noble king, dedicated to the good of the people. From Cassius Dio’s viewpoint when he is writing this, in about 225 AD, he has lived through life under the terrible emperors Caracalla and Elagabulus. As he looks back to this time in 27 BC, where Octavian and his advisors are deciding on the best way to rule Rome, the soon to be Divine Augustus must have appeared, if not the ideal philosopher-king of Plato’s Republic, a great savior compared to the nightmarish century of civil wars that had preceded him. The two speeches he gives to Agrippa and Maecenas compare the two forms of government, monarchy and democracy. It is a fraught subject, Romans will never accept a king, as proven when Octavian’s adoptive father Julius Caesar’s declaration of himself as a perpetual dictator had quickly become a death sentence. Agrippa begins at 52.2.

‘You must not be surprised, Caesar, if I try to dissuade you from the idea of making yourself sole ruler, even though I personally should enjoy many advantages if you occupied that position. … the effects of monarchy upon those who exercise it … are exposed to jealousies and dangers.

??????????????? We can assume a highly learned Greek scholar will have had the opportunity to read Plato who meditates on the unhappy life of the tyrant in “The Republic,” so Dio writes in lofty prose that suggest more than just the practical danger suffered by Julius Caesar on the Ides of March. In 52.4 Agrippa uses themes and terms that remind us of Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence, and of course the Founders in the 17th century were well schooled in the classics.

… the human race all over the world, since it originated from the gods and will return to the gods, turns its eyes upwards and will not consent to be ruled for ever by the same person, nor will it submit to sharing the hardships, the dangers and sacrifices, while at the same time it is excluded from sharing the advantages. … it will hate the regime which has imposed them, and if it can find occasion, revenge itself upon what it hates.

??????????????? At 52.9, Agrippa refers specifically to the great benefits to society of giving the people the power to govern rather than hopelessly try to oppress them in tyranny.

… that democracies are greatly superior to monarchies, is shown by the example of Greece. So long as the peoples of Greece were subject to monarchies, they achieved nothing of consequence, but once they began to live under popular rule, their fame spread throughout the world.

??????????????? Maecenas takes up the other side of the argument, proposing more structured control of power. He agrees that sharing power with men of good judgement is the ideal solution, but power “exercised by the misguided leads to disaster.” To avoid this, he recommends Octavian keep power in his own hands and in the hands of those other citizens who are “best qualified.” At the same time, he recommends a maintaining a professional paid army, and in general each class of citizens will happily perform the tasks that fit their station. At 52.14 Dio has Maecenas again echo the cycle of governments as Polybius put it in his writing on Rome’s Constitution.

The truth is that the supposed freedom of the mob provides in reality to be the bitterest servitude, under which the better elements suffer at the hands of the worse, until in the end both are destroyed.

??????????????? Maecenas continues at great length, and by 52.26 he seems almost to be quoting Plato’s “Republic” in his plans for managing the citizens lives to achieve the ideal state. And to some readers, Plato himself seemed to be describing a slightly idealized version of the Spartan agoge which had been operative for centuries going back to the Lycurgus, the Law Giver.

First, while they are still children, they should attend schools. Next, when they enter adolescence they should turn their attention to riding and the use of weapons … they will have received from childhood … all that will be required of them when they arrive at manhood, and so will be of greater service to you … The best ruler, the one who is of real value … should provide for … his subjects, so that they can develop their virtues to the full.? At the same time you must allow nobody any excuse, on the ground either of wealth, or nobility of birth, or any other form of excellence, for behavior which is indolent….

??????????????? At 53.3-10 Dio recounts a speech that Octavian gave to the Senate offering to relinquish all his powers, which has the result of cementing his rule.

I lay down my office in its entirety and return to you all authority absolutely – authority over the army, the laws and the provinces … my deeds in themselves shall bear witness to the fact from the very beginning I had no desire to rule, but in truth wished to avenge my father … and to rescue the state from the terrible evils which continuously assailed it.

??????????????? When Octavian is finished, Dio tell us the reactions of his audience in the Senate, some understand what he is doing, some are suspicious, some applaud continuously, they are variously struck by his astuteness and his scheming, all are astonished. In the end, the Senate and people beg Octavian, their noble savior and protector, to maintain his position leading Rome. Dio tells us that “Octavian had set his heart strongly on being named Romulus,” but this reeked of kingship, so he “adopted the title of Augustus, as signifying he was something more than human.” At 53.17, Dio officially declares the epochal change that occurred in 27 BC.

Thus the constitution was reformed at that time, as I have explained, for the better, and greater security was thereby achieved: it would indeed have been impossible for the people to have lived in safety under a republic.

??????????????? Dio carries on his detailed history of the years of Augustus’ reign, and we find frequent reminders of the ruler’s constant memory of deeds in history to be rewarded and rebuked. In 20 BC, he has traveled to Sicily and established Roman colonies in the ancient Greek city of Syracuse and crosses over to Greece. At 54.7 we learn how he felt about the two greatest cities of classical Greece.

He paid honor to Sparta by giving them the island of Cythera, and attending their mess-room. He did this because Livia, when she had fled from Italy with her husband and son, had stayed in Sparta for some time. But he deprived the Athenians of Aegina and Eretria, from which they received tribute, because they had taken the side of Antony.

??????????????? Regarding Livia and her son fleeing to Sparta, that event had been Octavian’s troops besieging Perugia in 40 BC in conflict with troops loyal to Antony. This is Octavian’s third wife, Livia Drusilla, who he married in 38, after ordering her divorce with the above-mentioned husband. They reigned together until his death in 14 AD. The son mentioned is Tiberius, Augustus’ successor, and second Emperor of Rome. Athens earned their punishment through their unfortunate decision prior to the Battle of Actium in 31 BC.

??????????????? Augustus’ faithful lifelong advisor and magnificent general Agrippa died in 12 BC. Augustus himself took personal care in his funeral arrangements that would be the same used for his own ceremonies and buried his comrade in his tomb. At 54.29, Cassius Dio provides a glowing eulogy for Agrippa which recalls the positions the general took in his speech of advice to adopt a non-monarchical form of government he gave to Octavian 15 years earlier to open Book 52.

He had in general proved himself beyond doubt the noblest of all the men of his time, and he had treated Augustus’ friendship in such a way as to bring the greatest benefit both to the emperor and the state. … he supported his friend in establishing the monarchy as though he himself were a champion of autocratic rule, and he won the hearts of the people through his benefactions as if he were an ardent supporter of popular government.

??????????????? Cassius Dio is respected as a dependable historian, faithful to the facts as best he could determine them. Here we learn that high-ranking Roman officers depended on paranormal means to support their decisions in a story from 4 AD. Modern readers may find it startling to come across reports of mystical events, not just omens seen in Nature or strange glimpses of future events in dreams, but even paranormal powers exhibited by historic figures. We see an example of this in 55.11 in a story about the future emperor and powerful general Tiberius with his most trusted astrologer and fortune-teller, Thrasyllus. That name might be familiar to students of Plato, as his complete works came down to us from antiquity and were probably taught with the dialogues in an arrangement established by Thrasyllus. The passage below establishes a very close call the astrologer faced, and how his apparent clairvoyance saved him.

It seems that Tiberius possessed much experience in the art of divination by means of the stars, and had with him Thrasyllus, an expert in all aspects of astrology … The story goes that on one occasion in Rhodes he was minded to push Thrasyllus over the walls, because the latter was the only man who knew all of Tiberius’ thoughts … when he was asked why his expression was melancholy, Thrasyllus replied that he had a premonition that some danger threatened … Tiberius was greatly impressed that the other could foresee his intended action … Thrasyllus possessed so clear a vision of all affairs then when he first caught sight in the distance of the ship … he foretold to his master what news it would deliver.

??????????????? One of the greatest disasters ever suffered by the Roman military occurred in 9 AD, the massacre in the Teutoberg Forest at the hands of Germanic tribes under Arminius. This ambush was especially disastrous because it was masterminded by a leader of the Roman auxiliary, trained and intimately familiar with the vulnerability of troops strung out in travelling formation in the wilderness. We learn that the commander of the legions was the Roman governor of this less-than-settled German province, Quintillius Varus. The leaders of the attackers were “Arminius and Segermerus; these men were constantly in Varus’ company and often present in his mess.” This is the spectacular, if historically inaccurate, battle that opens the 2000 Ridley Scott movie “Gladiator.” For example, the film doesn’t depict the burdened wagons carrying all the camp equipment, or the women and children included in the baggage train. From 52.19-21 we read the terrible details of the ambush.

… they fell upon Varus in the midst of the forests, which at this point in his march were almost impenetrable. … the Romans, even before the enemy fell upon them, were hard pressed by the necessity of felling trees, clearing the tracks, and bridging difficult stretches … While the Romans were struggling against the elements, the barbarians suddenly surrounded them on all sides at once…. And so Varus, and all the senior officers, fearing that they would either be taken alive or slaughtered by their bitterest enemies … took their own lives.

??????????????? In 14 AD, after a long reign as Rome’s first Emperor, Augustus died. Cassius Dio provides this brief, factual obituary at 56.30.

So on the nineteenth day of August, the very day on which he had first become consul, Augustus passed away. He had lived for seventy-five years, ten months and twenty-six days – he had been born on the twenty-third of September – and had been sole ruler, reckoning from the time of his victory at Actium, for forty-four years, less thirteen days.

??????????????? The funeral for Augustus was as grand a ceremony as the Roman Empire could create. While his body rested in a coffin, three wax effigies were displayed. One clad in triumphal clothing sat in a couch of ivory and gold covered in a pall of purple and gold, another representation in gold was carried from the Senate, the third was placed in a triumphal chariot. Livia’s son and Augustus’ successor as emperor, Tiberius, was chosen to deliver the final eulogy, standing at the Rostra in the Senate.

“We all understand that even if all mankind were gathered together, they could not pronounce a tribute worthy of him; for your part you will gladly yield to him his triumphs, and so far from feeling envious that not one of you could equal him, will rather rejoice in the fact of his surpassing greatness. … This, then, was why you had good reason to make him your leader and the father of the people … why you finally made him a demi-god and declared him immortal. And so it is right that we should not mourn for him, but that while we now return his body to nature, we should glorify his spirit for all time as that of a divine being.”

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