Dio

“ Dio. I'le tell ye who I am: I am your husband.
Aur. Husband to me?
Dio. To you. I am Dioclesian.
Max. More of this sport, and I am made, old Mother:
Effect but this thou hast begun.
Dio. I am he, Lady,
Reveng'd your Brothers death; slew cruel Aper;
I am he the Souldier courts, the Empire honours,
Your Brother loves; am he (my lovely Mistriss)
Will make you Empress of the World.
Max. Still excellent;
Now I see too, mine Uncle may be cozen'd:
An Emperour may suffer like another. ”

“ Is there a Zeus in Lydia, who begets new gods?
Dio. No, [28] but the Zeus who married Semele in Hellas.
Pen. Was it by night or in the face of day that he constrained thee?
Dio. ’Twas face to face he intrusted his mysteries to me.
Pen. Pray, what special feature stamps thy rites?
Dio. That is a secret to be hidden from the uninitiated.
Pen. What profit bring they to their votaries?
Dio. Thou must not be told, though ’tis well worth knowing.
Pen. A pretty piece of trickery, to excite my curiosity!
Dio. A man of godless life is an abomination to the rites of the god. ”

“ I'le go sit and see ye. [Exeunt.
Enter Diocles, and Drusilla.
Del. Do; and be ready an hour hence, and bring 'em;
For in the Grove you'l find him.
Dio. Come Drusilla,
The partner of my best contents: I hope now
You dare believe me.
Dru. Yes, and dare say to ye,
I think ye now most happie.
Dio. You say true, Sweet,
For by my ——, I find now by experience,
Content was never Courtier.
Dru. I pray ye walk on, Sir;
The cool shades of the Grove invite ye.
[Pg 385]
Dio. O my Dearest!
When man has cast off his ambitious greatness,
And sunk into the sweetness of himself ”

“ Pick up the traps, my lad, and follow me. DIO. Hi! stop! you're not in earnest, just because I dressed you up, in fun, as Heracles? Come, don't keep fooling, Xanthias, but lift And carry in the traps yourself. XAN. Why! what! You are never going to strip me of these togs You gave me! DIO. Going to? No, I'm doing it now. Off with that lion-skin. XAN. Bear witness all The gods shall judge between us. DIO. Gods indeed! Why how could you (the vain and foolish thought!) A slave, a mortal, act Alcmena's son? ”

“ EUR. Well then I'll turn me to your prologues now, Beginning first to test the first beginning Of this fine poet's plays. Why he's obscure Even in the enunciation of the facts. DIO. Which of them will you test? EUR. Many: but first give as that famous one from the Oresteia. DIO. St! Silence all! Now, Aeschylus, begin. AESCH. Grave Hermes, witnessing a father's power. Be thou my saviour and mine aid to-day, For here I come and hither I return. DIO. Any fault there? EUR. A dozen faults and more. DIO. Eh! why the lines are only three in all. EUR. But every one contains a score of faults. ”

“ HER. A man? DIO. Ah! ah! HER. Was it for Cleisthenes? DIO. Don't mock me, brother; on my life I am In a bad way: such fierce desire consumes me. HER. Aye, little brother? how? DIO. I can't describe it. But yet I'll tell you in a riddling way. Have you e'er felt a sudden lust for soup? HER. Soup! Zeus-a-mercy, yes, ten thousand times. DIO. Is the thing clear, or must I speak again? HER. Not of the soup: I'm clear about the soup. DIO. Well, just that sort of pang devours my heart For lost Euripides. HER. A dead man too. DIO. And no one shall persuade me not to go after the man. ”

“ At times when the temple of Janus was shut, and then only, certain divinations were made, preparatory to solemn supplication for the public health, "as if," says Dio, "even that could not be implored from the gods, unless the signs were propitious." ”

“ Dio! What a lot of meanings! "The man in the moon . . . the hairs on the tail of an elephant . . . an empty egg-shell" . . . Who ever heard the like? There is no sense in such a number! And No. 4—what does No. ”

“ On the basis of these citations, compared with the epitomes, von Gutschmid and Boissevain independently attempted to determine the points of division between the lost books of Dio, and reached essentially the same results. Yet in several places the evidence is insufficient to constitute more than a reasonable probability. ”

“ Although I said this, I was well aware that there were many dangers to which Dio might have been exposed. Wolves or bears while prowling about might have found him asleep, or he might have fallen into the hands of Indians, or he might have been discovered by white men, who, suspecting him to be a runaway slave, might have secured him in the hope of obtaining a reward for bringing him back. There was also the possibility, should he have finished his provisions, that he might have been afraid of going out in search of more, and that he might be suffering from starvation. ”

“ The Angel, not deigning to hear, continued in his melodious voice: "I have delved deep into Oriental antiquities and also into those of Greece [88] and Rome. I have devoured the works of theologians, philosophers, physicists, geologists, and naturalists. I have learnt. I have thought. I have lost my faith."
"What? You no longer believe in God?"
"I believe in Him, since my existence depends on His, and if He should fail to exist, I myself should fall into nothingness. I believe in Him, even as the Satyrs and the Mænads believed in Dionysus and for the same reason. ”

“ I have myself beheld Romulus ascending to the sky. Dio, Book I. "When, at the risk not only of his safety but even of his life, he encountered danger in your behalf." [3]
Numa dwelt on the hill called Quirinal, because was he a Sabine, but he had his official residence on the Sacred Way; he used to spend his time near the temple of Vesta, although occasionally he would remain in the country.
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
loann. ”

“ Many, for example, as if raised unexpectedly to some great height, have not endured their elevation, but being overcome with giddiness, have fallen and not only brought disaster to themselves but at the same time shattered all the interests of their subjects.
Dio, Book III. "It is done not merely by the actual men who rule them, but also by those who share the power with those rulers." ”

“ Sallust was almost certainly not among Dio's sources, and it is not probable that Caesar's Commentaries were used, at least to any extent. For the period of the empire Tacitus has been confidently claimed by some as an important source, particularly for the reign and characterization of Tiberius; others, with less probability, have denied any such influence. A few isolated parallels between Dio and Sallust, also Pliny the Elder, have been pointed out; but they are not of sufficient importance to establish any direct influence. ”

“ Caracalla, the successor of Severus, took Dio along as a member of his retinue on his Eastern expedition in 216, and the following winter was spent at Nicomedia; [10] but Dio did not accompany the emperor to the Parthian war. By Macrinus he was placed over the cities of Pergamum and Smyrna as curator ad corrigendum stalum civitatium, [11] and he was continued in this position by Elagabalus. Under Alexander Severus he became proconsul of Africa, and upon his return was sent out as governor successively of Dalmatia and Upper Pannonia, [12] both imperial provinces. ”

“ Subitochè se gli fù inginocchiata innanzi, ricevè una ferita al cuore d’immenso amore di Dio, con una vista così chiara delle sue miserie e diffetti e della bontà di Dio, che nè fù quasi per cascare in terra. ”

“ DIO. How alarmed He is. XAN. Aye truly, lest you've lost your wits. HER. O by Demeter, I can't choose but laugh. Biting my lips won't stop me. Ha! ha! ha! DIO. Pray you, come hither, I have need of you. HER. I vow I can't help laughing, I can't help it. A lion's hide upon a yellow silk, a club and buskin! What's it all about? Where were you going? DIO. I was serving lately aboard the—Cleisthenes. HER. And fought? DIO. And sank more than a dozen of the enemy's ships. HER. You two? ”

“ Dio followed the annalistic order of treatment, so popular among the Romans, according to which all the events of a given year, in whatever part of the world they occurred, were grouped together. The eponymous consuls of each year are regularly named at the appropiate points in the text, and in addition there is prefixed to each book, even for the imperial age, a table of the consuls for the period covered. When he comes to the empire, moreover, he is very careful to specify to a day the exact duration of each emperor's reign, and in certain other matters aims at equal exactness. ”

“ That the former set of fragments is taken from Dio none will deny. The later collection, however, extends much beyond the reign of Alexander Severus, where Dio ended his history; furthermore, the style and diction are considerably different from Dio's own. It is now generally agreed that all the excerpts of this second set were the work of one man, whom Boissevain, following Niebuhr, would identify with Petrus Patricius, a historian of the sixth century. Nevertheless, though not direct quotations from Dio, they are of value in filling out both his account and that of Xiphilinus. ”

“ Dio's point of view is thoroughly Roman. He writes from the standpoint of a senator who, while jealous of the prerogatives of his order, is at the same time a thorough believer in the monarchy; in fact he makes the relations of the emperors to the senate the central idea in his account of the empire. His impatience with all opposition to the monarchy is probably responsible for the almost bitter hostility shown towards Cicero. He has a poor opinion of the common people, and he resents the great power and influence of the praetorian guard. ”

“ Hierarchical power appertains to the angels, inasmuch as they also are between God and man, as Dionysius explains (Coel. Hier. ix) , so that the priest himself, as being between God and man, is called an angel, according to Malachi 2:7: "He is the angel of the Lord of hosts." Now Christ was greater than the angels, not only in His Godhead, but also in His humanity, as having the fulness of grace and glory. ”

“ XIPHILINUS, JOANNES, epitomator of Dio Cassius, lived at Constantinople during the latter half of the 11th century A.D. He was a monk and the nephew of the patriarch of Constantinople of the same name, a well-known preacher (Migne, Patrologia Graeca, cxx.) . The epitome (ἐκλογαί) of Dio was prepared by order of Michael Parapinaces (1071–1078) , but is unfortunately incomplete. It comprises books 36–80, the period included being from the times of Pompey and Caesar down to Alexander Severus. ”

“ The work for which Dio is known to the modern world is his Roman History (Ῥωραἴκὴ ιστορία or Ῥωραἴκά) , originally in eighty books, covering the period from the landing of Aeneas down to the year of his own (second) consulship in 229 A.D. The last seven years, however, were treated very summarily, having been added, apparently, as an afterthought. He informs us that he spent ten years in gathering his material for the period down to Severus' death, [14] that he had read everything of importance on the subject, [15] and that twelve years was the time occupied in composing the work. ”

“ Dio exerted no appreciable influence on his immediate successors in the field of Roman history. But among the Byzantines he became the standard authority on the subject, a circumstance to which we doubtless owe the preservation of such a large portion of his work. ”

“ It was for this cause most of all that that first and greatest god who fashioned us divided the race of mortals in twain, rendering one half of it male and the other female, and added love and the compulsion of their intercourse together, making their association fruitful, that by the young continually born he might in a way render mortality eternal. Even of the gods themselves some are believed to be male, the rest female: and the tradition prevails that some have begotten others and certain ones have been born of others. ”

“ In a few instances Dio refers to the memoirs of emperors (Augustus, Hadrian, and Severus) , as if he had consulted them. He excels the other historians of Rome in the attention paid to constitutional and administrative matters, and it has been argued that he must have consulted some of the public records, at least the lists of magistrates. In general it may be said that his history gives evidence of being based on various sources for a given period, [22] and he seems to have made an honest attempt to arrive at the truth. ”

“ On the other hand the historian was never to forget that he was at the same time a rhetorician; if the bare facts were lacking in effectiveness, they could be adorned, modified, or variously combined in the interest of a more dramatic presentation. These two principles, as applied by Dio, have resulted all too frequently in a somewhat vague, impressionistic picture of events, in which precisely those data which the modern historian eagerly looks for are either largely wanting or else blurred and confused. ”

“ This attitude is most clearly seen in the scandalous literary productions which alone disgrace the name of Elagabalus, all issued from [19] the pens of Cassius Dio, Herodian, and Maximus,—or Lollius Urbicus,—all three servants and bedesmen of Alexander and his female relatives.
Surely if it had been possible to give proof of cruelty, tyranny, bloodthirstiness, deceit, or guile, the record of these deeds would have filled the pages of the paid traducers; but contemporaries, who loved Elagabalus too well for his generosity, charm, and beauty, would know better. ”

“ Zonaras is therefore of great importance for Books I-XXI, and to a lesser degree for Books XLIV-LXVII, where he occasionally supplements our Mss. of Dio or the epitome of Xiphilinus. There are numerous Mss. of Zonaras, five of which are cited by Boissevain ”