Cassius Dio Cocceianus

“ Who would not choose to be safe without trouble, to be prosperous without danger, to enjoy unsparingly the blessings of government and not to be disturbed by cares for its maintenance? Who was there that could rule even his private possessions better than Augustus, to say nothing of the goods of so many human beings? He accepted the trying and hostile provinces for his own portion to guard and preserve, but restored to you all such others as were peaceful and free from danger. ”

“ I hate a civil war, even though I conquer: and I love all Romans, even though they do not side with me. Let Vitellius be victor, since this has pleased the gods; and let the lives of his soldiers also be spared, since this pleases me. It is far better and more just that one should perish for all, rather than many for one, and that I should refuse on account of one single man to embroil the Roman people and cause so great a mass of human beings to perish. ”

“ At this moment the men rose from ambush on both sides, Hannibal with his cavalry charged the front ranks, the enemy confused the Romans on every hand, the wind and the dust cloud assailed their faces violently, causing perplexity, and interfered with their breathing, which was already growing quick and labored from exertion, so that deprived of sight, deprived of voice, they perished in a wild mêlée, preserving no semblance of order. ”

“ Will you not send out against the pirates one, now an ex-consul, whom before he could yet properly hold office you elected against Sertorius? Rather, do not for a moment adopt any other course; and Pompey, do you heed your country, and me. By her you were borne, by her you were reared. You must be a slave to whatever is for her advantage, not shrinking from any hardship or danger to secure it. And should it become necessary for you to lose your life, you must in that case not await your fated day but embrace whatever death meets you. ”

“ Who was ignorant that I was chosen a partner and colleague of Caesar and received charge of the management of public affairs equally with him, received similar honors and offices, and have been a great while now in possession of them? Yet of all of them, so far as is in his power, I have been deprived; I have become a private citizen instead of a leader, an outcast from the franchise instead of consul, and this not by the action of the people or the senate but by his own act and that of his adherents, who do not comprehend that they are preparing a sovereign for themselves first of all. ”

“ I may of course meet with some catastrophe, as happens to many; for it is not possible for a man to please everybody, especially when he has been involved in so great wars, some foreign and some civil, and has had affairs of such magnitude entrusted to him: yet even so, I am quite ready to choose to die as a private citizen before my appointed time rather than to become immortal as a sole ruler. That very circumstance will bring me fame,—that I not only murdered no one in order to hold possession of the sovereignty but even died untimely in order to avoid becoming monarch. ”

“ Even dying is not free from expense among them, and you know what fees we deposit on behalf of the dead. Throughout the rest of mankind death frees even those who are in slavery; only in the case of the Romans do the very dead live for their profit. Why is it that though none of us has any money,--and how or whence should we get it?,--we are stripped and despoiled like a murderer's victims? How should the Romans grow milder in process of time, when they have conducted themselves so toward us at the very start,--a period when all men show consideration for even newly captured beasts? ”

“ Who is so silly as to decide whether a man is making war on us or not by his words rather than by his deeds? I do not say that now for the first time is he unfriendly to us, when he has abandoned the City and made a campaign against allies and is assailing Brutus and besieging the cities; but on the basis of his former evil and licentious behavior, not only after Caesar's death but even in the latter's lifetime, I decide that he has shown himself an enemy of our government and liberty and a plotter against them. ”

“ Every one who is acquainted with our numbers and progress refers the errors of the few to us all; and thus though we do not share in their gains, we bear an equal share of their reproach. Who would not be indignant at hearing that we had the name of Romans, but did deeds of the Celtae? Who would not lament the sight of Italy ravaged like Britain? Is it not outrageous for us to cease injuring the possessions of the Gauls, because they are subdued, and then to devastate the property of dwellers south of the Alps, as if they were some Epirots, or Carthaginians, or Cimbi? ”

“ At last so great a multitude of Roman warriors fell that Hannibal, the general, in sending to Sicily the finger-rings of the generals and the other men of repute filled many bushel and peck measures—so great a multitude that the noble, foremost Roman women ran lamenting to the temples in Rome and with the hairs of their heads cleansed the statues there;—and later had intercourse with both slaves and barbarians (because the Roman land had been utterly impoverished of men) , to the end that their race might not be every whit extirpated. ”

“ It is you who without pausing to reflect on the foresight of the gods or the care of your forefathers are bent upon annihilating your whole race and making it in truth mortal, upon destroying and ending the whole Roman nation. What seed of human beings would be left, if all the remainder of mankind should do the same as you? You are their leaders and may rightly bear the responsibility for universal destruction. Or, even if no others emulate you, will you not be justly hated for the very reason that you overlook what no one else would overlook, and neglect what no one else would neglect? ”

“ Why rage against Fate, that is all-powerful? But perchance it is needful to bewail the lot of those who are undeservedly unfortunate, a lot which is now mine. Is it not afflicting for us to meet war after war? Is it not absurd to be involved in civil conflict? Are not both these conditions surpassed in affliction and in absurdity by the proof before us that there is naught to be trusted among mankind, since I have been plotted against by my dearest friend and have been thrust into a conflict against my will, though I have committed no crime nor even error? ”

“ In the midst of the Romans' uncertainty an oracle was given them to the effect that the aperture could in no way be closed except they should throw into the chasm their best possession and that which was the chief source of their strength: then the thing would cease, and the city should command power inextinguishable. Still the uncertainty remained unresolved, for the oracle was obscure. But Marcus Curtius, a patrician, young in years, of a remarkably beautiful appearance, powerful physique, and courageous spirit, conspicuous also for intelligence, comprehended the meaning of the oracle. ”

“ Do you think that he is not eager for the tyrant's power, that he does not pray to obtain it some day, or that he will put the pursuit of it out of his thoughts, when he has once allowed it a resting-place in his mind, and that he will ever abandon the hope of sole rulership for which he has spoken and acted so impudently without punishment! What human being who, while master of his own voice, would undertake to help some one else secure an honor, would not appropriate it himself when he became powerful? ”

“ At the end of this speech of his Cicero rejoined:—"There seems to you, then, to be no great evil in dishonor and exile and not living at home nor being with your friends, but instead being expelled with violence from your country, existing in a foreign land, and wandering about with the name of exile, causing laughter to your enemies and disgrace to your connections."
"Not a trace of evil, so far as I can see," declared Philiscus. "There are two elements of which we are constituted,—soul and body,—and definite blessings and evils are given to each of the two by Nature herself. ”

“ Up, men of Rome! Show these pests how much even in misfortune we surpass them. It is a shame for you now to lose ingloriously what but a short while ago you gained by your valor. Often have we ourselves and also our fathers with far fewer numbers than we have at the present conquered far more numerous antagonists. Fear not the host of them or their rebellion: their boldness rests on nothing better than headlong rashness unaided by arms and exercise. ”

“ For if Horatius, Mucius, Curtius, Regulus, the Decii wished to encounter danger and death with the object of seeming to have done a great and noble deed, why should I not even more desire to do this as a result of which I shall while alive excel both them and all the rest of mankind in glory? No one of you should think that whereas the ancient Romans pursued excellence and good repute, all manliness has now become extinct in the city. ”

“ Who would not be glad to be deprived of such men, and who would not pray that such soldiers might belong to his rival, seeing that they are not content with what is given and are not obedient to orders, but that simulating old age in the midst of youth and in strength simulating weakness they claim the right to lord it over their rulers and to tyrannize over their leaders? I had ten thousand times rather be reconciled with Pompey on any terms whatever or suffer any other conceivable fate than do anything unworthy of my native thought or of my own deliberate policy. ”

“ How could I call myself a good ruler over you if I should endure seeing you becoming constantly fewer? How could I any longer be rightfully named your father, if you rear no children? Therefore, if you really have a regard for me and have given me this title not out of flattery but as an honor, desire yourselves to become men and fathers. ”

“ There is only one thing I fear, fellow-soldiers (you shall be told the whole truth) , and that is that he may either kill himself because ashamed to come into our presence, or some one else upon learning that I shall come and am setting out against him may do it. Then should I be deprived of a great prize both of war and of victory, and of a magnitude such as no human being ever yet obtained. What is this? Why, to forgive a man that has done you an injury, to remain a friend to one who has transgressed friendship, to continue faithful to one who has broken faith. ”

“ What did Pompey, what did this Caesar himself do?—not to mention here Catiline or Clodius. Did they not at first fight against each other, and that in spite of their relationship, and then fill full of countless evils not only our own city or even the rest of Italy, but practically the entire world? Well, after Pompey's death and that great destruction of the citizens, did any quiet appear? Whence could it? By no means. Africa knows, Spain knows the multitudes who perished in each of those lands. ”

“ I have, in general, never been afraid of death as a consequence of my outspokenness, and now I fear it least of all. That accounts, indeed, for my overwhelming success, the proof of which lies in the fact that you decreed a sacrifice and festival in memory of the deeds done in my consulship,—an honor which had never before been granted to any one, even to one who had achieved some great end in war. Death, if it befell me, would not be at all unseasonable, especially when you consider that my consulship was so many years ago ”

“ Is it not most blessed on departing from life to leave behind a successor to and inheritor of one's substance and family, something that is one's own, sprung from one's self? And to have only one's human part waste away, but to live through the child as successor? We need not be in the hands of aliens, as in war, nor perish utterly, as in war. ”

“ I entertain the highest hopes of victory for our side, counting on the following factors: first, the assistance of the gods; they usually cooperate with the party that has been wronged: second, our inherited bravery; we are Romans and have shown ourselves superior to all mankind in various instances of valor: next, our experience; we have defeated and subdued these very men that are now arrayed against us: last, our good name; it is not worthy opponents but our slaves with whom we are coming in conflict, persons who enjoyed freedom and self-government only so far as we allowed it. ”

“ When a man possesses conspicuously a body that is most enduring and a soul that is most steadfast in the face of all contingencies alike of peace and war, is it not inevitable that he must have been reared in the best possible way? And I tell you it is difficult for any man surpassingly beautiful to show himself most enduring, and difficult for one who is strong in body to attain greatest prudence, but most difficult of all for the same man to shine both in words and in deeds. ”

“ But when a man who is a Roman and a consul has dared to name any one King of the Romans in the Roman Forum, close to the rostra of liberty, in the presence of the entire people and the entire senate, and straightway to set the diadem upon his head and further to affirm falsely in the hearing of us all that we ourselves bade him say and do this, what most outrageous deed will that man not dare, and from what action, however revolting, will he refrain? ”

“ It became strikingly clear that Vespasian hated Helvidius Priscus not so much for personal affronts or on account of the friends that the man had abused as because he was a turbulent fellow that cultivated the favor of the rabble, was forever denouncing royalty and praising democracy. Helvidius's behavior, moreover, was consistent with his principles; he banded various men together, as if it were the function of philosophy to insult those in power, to stir up the multitudes, to overthrow the established order of things, and to incite people to revolution. ”

“ How can one forget a man who was in private life poor, in public life rich, saving in his own case but liberal of expenditures for others?—one who even endured all toil and danger for you but would not submit to your escorting him when he went forth on any expedition or to your meeting him when he returned: one who on festivals admitted even the populace to his home, but on other days greeted even the senate only in its chambers? ”

“ I speak to you who know these facts and make you who hear them my witnesses not in the intention of uttering idle boasts about myself,—your consciousness of the truth being sufficient glory for me,—but to the end that you may in this way bring home to yourselves how much better we are equipped than our opponents. For, while they are inferior to us in quantity both of soldiers and of money and in diversity of equipment, in no one respect are they so strikingly lacking as in the age and inexperience of their general. ”

“ She was a woman of surpassing beauty, especially conspicuous at that time because in the prime of youth, with a most delicious voice and a knowledge of how to make herself agreeable to every one. Being brilliant to look upon and to listen to, with the power to subjugate even a cold natured or elderly person, she thought that she might prove exactly to Caesar's tastes and reposed in her beauty all her claims to advancement. ”

“ And I can tell you nothing else greater than that prize which lies within your grasp,—namely, to preserve the renown of your forefathers, to guard your individual pride, to take vengeance on those in revolt against us, to repulse those who insult you, to conquer and rule all mankind, to allow no woman to make herself equal to a man. ”

“ Fellow soldiers, I desire to have your love, and still I should not choose on that account to participate in your errors. I am fond of you and should wish, as a father might for his children, that you should be preserved, be prosperous, and have a good repute. Do not think it is the duty of one who loves to assent to things which ought not to be done, and for which it is quite inevitable that dangers and ill-repute should fall to the lot of his beloved, but rather he must teach them the better way and keep them from the worse, both by advising and by disciplining them. ”

“ However, if you sit as judge yourself, you will be compelled to chastise many of the peers,—and this is not favorable,—and you will certainly be thought to be setting some of them right in anger rather than in justice. No one believes that those who have the power to use compulsion can execute judgment with justice, but everybody thinks that out of shame they spread out a mere phantom and rough picture of government in front of the truth, in order that under the legitimate name of court they may fulfill their desire. ”

“ I have said so much for Cicero's benefit, since it was he who began unfair argument against us. I am not generally quarrelsome, as he is, nor do I care to pry into others' misdeeds, as he continually gives himself airs for doing. Now I will tell you what advice I have to give, not favoring Antony at all nor calumniating Caesar or Brutus, but planning for the common advantage, as is proper. I declare that we ought not yet to make an enemy of either of these men in arms nor to enquire exactly what they have been doing or in what way. ”

“ It is not, besides, in general either noble or just for a man to be convicted of adopting that course for which he had rebuked those who differed from him in opinion: nor should I ever be satisfied to be compared with them through my imitation of their deeds, and to differ merely by the reputation of my complete victory. For who ought to benefit people more and more abundantly than he who has the greatest power. Who ought to err less than he who is the strongest? ”

“ It is right to educate them by laws and, favours and admonitions, that they may be right-minded and further to watch and guard them, so that even if they wish to do wrong they may not be able. And if there is anything ailing, we must cure and correct it in some way, in order that there may be no entire loss. To endure the offences of the multitude is a task requiring great prudence and force: if any one should simply punish all of them as they deserve, before he knew it he would have destroyed the majority of mankind. ”

“ You have done right, then, to imitate the gods and right to emulate your fathers, that, just as they begot you, you may also bring others into the world. Just as you deem them and name them ancestors, others will regard you and address you in similar fashion. The undertakings which they nobly achieved and handed down to you with glory you will hand on to others. The possessions which they acquired and left to you will leave to others sprung from your own loins. Surely the best of all things is a woman who is temperate, domestic, a good house-keeper, a rearer of children ”

“ Do you not see how much time we have lost in fighting one another, how many great evils we have endured meanwhile, and, what is worse than that, inflicted? And who could count the vast mass of money of which we have stripped our allies and robbed the gods, which furthermore we have contributed ourselves from what we did not possess, and then expended it against one another? ”

“ Why is it you do not sleep!"
"Wife," answered Augustus, "who could be even to the slightest degree free from care, that has so many enemies and is so constantly the object of plots of one set of men or another? Do you not see how many are attacking both me and our sovereignty? The vengeance meted out to those found guilty does not retard them: quite the contrary, as if they were pressing forward to do some noble action the rest also hasten to perish similarly."
Livia, hearing this, said: "That you should be the object of plots is not remarkable, nor is it contrary to human nature. ”

“ To the fact that you have provisions in abundance,—I am going to speak right out with no disguise: you do get your pay in full and on time and you are always and everywhere supplied with plenty of food—that you endure no inglorious toil nor useless danger; furthermore that you gather many great prizes for your bravery and are rebuked little or not at all for your errors, and yet you do not see fit to be satisfied with these things. I am speaking not of all of you, for you are not all such men, but only to those who for their own gain are casting reproach on the rest. ”

“ This is the way I advise you to treat people's offences, except the very desperate cases: and you should honor even beyond the deserts of the deed whatever they do rightly. In this way you can best make them refrain from baser conduct by kindliness and cause them to aim at what is better by liberality. Have no dread that either money or other means of rewarding those who do well will ever fail you. I think those deserving of good treatment will prove far fewer than the rewards, since you are lord of so much land and sea. ”