Compared to the myriad studies on titans of ancient historiography such as Tacitus, modern scholars have been dismissive of Cassius Dio. Even in F. Millar's famous study, praise for Dio's Roman History is often muted: ‘If the work is not a masterpiece, its author still deserves attention’ (A Study of Cassius Dio [1964], p. 72). While there is an increasing number of studies devoted to Dio's career, the primary thrust of Dio scholarship has been in the form of commentaries (e.g. P.M. Swan, The Augustan Succession [2004]). Recently, however, there has been a surge in interest, thanks largely to the international Cassius Dio Network, of which the present volume is a part. The Network's mission is to reconsider Dio as ‘a politician and intellectual steeped in Roman history and historiography’ (p. 1). The Network aims to achieve this goal through a self-consciously varied approach to Dio's opus, analysing it from historiographical, literary and rhetorical perspectives, offering a reading unparalleled in depth.
This volume represents the proceedings of the Network's first conference, held in 2014. It consists of sixteen papers focusing on areas that the network considers to have been overlooked traditionally. Following an introduction outlining the aims of the volume (more on this below), the book is divided into three sections: republican history, imperial history, and speeches and rhetoric. While a detailed examination of every contribution would be impractical, a brief synopsis of the salient arguments can be provided here.
Part 1 begins with G. Urso's consideration of Sulla as a Dionian exemplum of both cruelty and the lawful dictator. He notes that Sulla functions as an archetype of cruel behaviour, forming a contrast to the clemency shown by Caesar. Going further, though, Urso notes that Dio's response to the Sullan dictatorship is more nuanced, emphasising its legality compared to Caesar's eventual regime.
M. Coudry argues for the importance of viewing Dio's treatment of the lex Gabinia and Pompey's extraordinary commands as a wider, structural statement on the downfall of the Republic. While there is a question over how far Dio's speeches were adapted from sources or fictionalised, Coudry sees the juxtaposing of Pompey’s and Catulus’ orations as a harbinger of empire, the moment when personal ambition overcame the political harmony of the preceding dêmokratia.
R. Westall considers the nature of Dio's sources for the civil wars (49–30 bc). While denser than the other papers of this section, Westall presents an impressive array of information. He highlights Dio's interest in minutiae, offering a comparison between the historian and records of triumphs contained in the Fasti Capitolini and Fasti Barbarini, for example, noting how Dio ‘often preserves information of the greatest importance’ (p. 62). More significant, however, is his argument that Dio appears to have been influenced by the writings of Cremutius Cordus. While Westall cannot prove a direct link (since Dio never cites him as a source), he argues persuasively for evidence of the annalist's influence on Dio's prose.
In the following chapter, S.L. Sørensen considers the famous passage recording Augustus allowing eastern communities to engage in emperor worship. While issues abound regarding this passage, Sørensen devotes attention to the identity of the ‘Hellenes’ permitted to participate in imperial cult. He argues that the label reflects Dio's projection of the Hellenic koina from his own era onto his narrative, but places this within the context of Dio's attempt to create an idealised history of the imperial cult.
The first section closes with L. on Dio's treatment of the triumph and triumph-like celebrations. L. outlines Dio's peculiarly detailed coverage of divergent practices, and his resulting value in demonstrating historical variation within the ritual. On one level, L. views this as indicative of increasing uncertainty regarding what qualified as a triumph, highlighting Dio's distaste for any abuse of the ritual. L. is also careful to emphasise, though, that Dio's position shifts on these triumphal events, since he manipulates them primarily to suit his narrative purpose.
The imperial section begins with A. Gowing on Dio's relationship with the city of Rome. Gowing shows clearly that the senator did not hold so numinous a view of the capital as many of his counterparts. He demonstrates that, in fact, Dio's history is noteworthy for the absence of discussion surrounding Rome's structures. They are only employed as a background to specific narrative points or as a backdrop for portents. This chapter is enjoyable for its humanising of Dio, whose time in Rome, Gowing suggests, was far from happy.
This conclusion dovetails neatly with M.’s contribution on Dio's critical assessment of the Severan emperors, in which he attempts to establish why the senator so despised the regime that he served closely. M. is effective in identifying the author's vexation with dynastic succession, culminating with Septimius Severus, whose reign Dio deems a case of wasted potential, following the emperor's initially warm overtures towards the senators.
J. Rantala considers the case of Septimius Severus in more detail, exploring senatorial anger at the purge of Albinian supporters in 197 ce. Rantala offers an intriguing interpretation of this as a phase shift, signalling an end to Severan clemency. The result was an environment in which senatorial writing, such as Dio's, was an act of resistance, albeit subtle. While the date of composition must have a large bearing on this case, Rantala provides an intriguing picture of Dio attempting to ‘defend old political ideas’ (p. 176).
J. Osgood treats Dio's history of Elagabalus. Osgood rejects the traditional dismissal of this section as a hyperbolic stereotype. Instead, he argues that Dio's extreme treatment of the emperor (using nicknames, effeminate imagery and sarcasm) was part of a deliberate attempt to emphasise not only how far Elagabalus strayed from the ideal behaviour of an emperor, but also how the dynastic succession of the Severans had caused ‘irreparable damage’ to the Principate (p. 188). Osgood thus offers a more rational explanation of the apparent change in Dio's style.
The final section commences with a pair of chapters by C. Burden-Strevens and A. Fomin. In the former, Burden-Strevens views Dio's speeches as a component part in his analysis of the collapse of the Republic and the rise of the Principate. He identifies a number of speeches that emphasise the moral failings of envy and habituation to authority. That these occur in large concentrations around the end of the republican narrative makes Burden-Strevens's interpretation persuasive.
Following this, however, A. Fomin offers a counter-argument, suggesting that Dio's speeches were entirely rhetorical in character, ‘ars gratia artis’ (p. 237). Contrary to the prevailing consensus, Fomin emphasises the epideictic quality of the speeches, and the sense that they are divorced from the historical narrative within which they appear. While this contrasting image may not convince everyone, it is an intriguing foil to the communis opinio.
A. Kemezis focuses on Dio's version of Caesar's speech concerning the Vesontio mutineers. This passage is noteworthy since it can be compared with Caesar's own version. While Dio accepts the importance of persuasive rhetoric in the political arena, Kemezis reads much of Dio's version of events as a response to Caesar's: the general is viewed as a selfish and manipulative figure, symptomatic of the decline of the Republic. Kemezis thus succeeds in balancing the competing Dionian elements of narrative purpose and rhetorical elan outlined in the preceding chapters.
C. Mallan explores the importance of ‘frank speech’ (parrhêsia) to Dio's work. Operating from the position that Dio considered parrhêsia to be a central aspect of his senatorial identity, Mallan uses various exempla to demonstrate that Dio regarded parrhêsia as a fundamentally important republican concept. He pushes the argument further, however, suggesting that Dio's emphasis shifted with the dawn of the Empire to examine how emperors responded to outbursts of frank speech.
V. Schulz considers Dio's historiographical response to imperial self-presentation and panegyric representations of ‘bad’ emperors. Using Domitian as a case study, Schulz identifies a process of ‘deconstruction of imperial representation’ (p. 276), through which the previously lauded aspects of past emperors were subverted: official messages into criticisms, ‘bad’ emperors into tyrants. In this respect, Schulz's paper reads doubly effectively in combination with Kemezis's chapter, the former demonstrating that Dio continued to manipulate his subject matter throughout the imperial books.
B. Jones compels us to consider Dio as an active participant in the literary milieu of the Second Sophistic, demonstrating the author's familiarity with the precedents and styles of this movement, ultimately presenting himself as possessing considerable paideia. Jones combines this concept with Dio's political philosophy regarding the Principate. At the heart of Jones's paper is an argument that Dio is hardly an unquestioning supporter of the imperial monarchy, but rather judges emperors on an individual basis and in paideutic terms.
The final chapter is a survey of Dionian references to Alexander the Great by J. Carlsen. Given the sparse number of allusions to the Macedonian found in Dio, Carlsen is effective in showing that Dio's Alexander is a figure of dichotomies: on the one hand a link to Dio's Hellenistic heritage, on the other a convenient comparison case to Roman imperial politics. Within this latter aspect, Alexander is again divided: the successful conqueror on one level, the despotic king on another. Much of Carlsen's argument is cautionary, advising against viewing a homogeneous use of Alexander throughout Dio's history. The Macedonian appears to have been a far more flexible tool for the Bithynian.
To return now to the beginning, the volume is prefaced with a concise yet informative introduction to the subject matter and contributions. This prepares the reader for the papers that follow but, to stress a relatively minor criticism, the lack of an afterword in a volume of such variety is arguably a missed opportunity to recapitulate the important themes and ideas that have arisen from these chapters, many of which clearly synergise and benefit from being studied together. One can understand why this might have seemed superfluous but, nevertheless, there might also be a sense that the book ends too abruptly. This concern does not, however, undermine the high level of interest that can be derived from this publication.
The volume is well presented and well edited. Indeed, I was only able to identify one typo (p. 173: ‘6th century ce’ instead of ‘bce’). The editors are to be commended on marshalling such an impressive range of material.
This monograph will be of great value to those interested in the historiography of the Principate, but it also has much to recommend to historians of the High Empire and beyond, containing a wealth of material on political matters as much as literary. Overall, then, this book is a success and will hopefully prove to be the first of many new publications reconsidering Dio's position within the ancient literary pantheon.
