Andrew G Scott
I am a historian of ancient Greece and Rome whose work focuses on two areas, the social history of ancient Sparta and the historiography of the Severan period, primarily Cassius Dio's Roman history. I hold an MA and PhD in Classics and Ancient History from Rutgers University (New Brunswick, NJ) and a BA in Classics from the College of the Holy Cross (Worcester, MA). I am currently an associate professor of Classical Studies at Villanova University (Villanova, PA).
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Strikingly, the work ends not with some event of importance to Roman history or with the end of a particular reign, but rather with Cassius Dio's own retirement from public life. The uniqueness of this endpoint is enhanced by the closing words of the work, which were not Dio's own, but rather a quotation from the eleventh book of Homer's Iliad. In this passage, which Dio says was sent to him in a dream, Hector is removed from the battlefield and saved from the destruction of war by Zeus. This quotation brings both a personal and menacing sense to the end of the history. Dio appears to implicitly compare himself to Hector, and if the lines from Homer mentioned only some monumental struggle, we might assume that Dio was simply relieved to have completed such a grand work under the protection of the gods. The slaughter, blood, and din of battle, however, give us the impression that Dio is thankful to distance himself from the subject matter, specifically the final eight books of his history. The reader of books 73(72)-80(80) would hardly be surprised by this quotation. Dio calls this period one of iron and rust, describing it as generally devoid of any positive aspects and characterized by turmoil and instability.
The personal nature of both the end of the work and the contemporary portion as a whole begs further analysis. Commentators on Dio's contemporary history have observed that this section reads like a memoir and have suggested that Dio serves as a sort of alternative to the debased world in which he lives. Others, however, have noted a more pessimistic aspect of the function of Dio's character in his text. Dio's political survival through this period, especially with his final reference to Hector's departure from the battlefield, on the surface suggests that he be viewed as a valorous hero under the protection of the gods. Dio's history, on the other hand, is a highly critical narrative of his own era and can therefore be read as a reflection on his participation in the political life of this period, as well as a corrective to it. The memoir-like nature of the text suggests that Dio carved out for himself a dual identity, as both senator and then annalist, participant and then critic. Through this identity, Dio attempts to claim authority as a historian.
Strikingly, the work ends not with some event of importance to Roman history or with the end of a particular reign, but rather with Cassius Dio's own retirement from public life. The uniqueness of this endpoint is enhanced by the closing words of the work, which were not Dio's own, but rather a quotation from the eleventh book of Homer's Iliad. In this passage, which Dio says was sent to him in a dream, Hector is removed from the battlefield and saved from the destruction of war by Zeus. This quotation brings both a personal and menacing sense to the end of the history. Dio appears to implicitly compare himself to Hector, and if the lines from Homer mentioned only some monumental struggle, we might assume that Dio was simply relieved to have completed such a grand work under the protection of the gods. The slaughter, blood, and din of battle, however, give us the impression that Dio is thankful to distance himself from the subject matter, specifically the final eight books of his history. The reader of books 73(72)-80(80) would hardly be surprised by this quotation. Dio calls this period one of iron and rust, describing it as generally devoid of any positive aspects and characterized by turmoil and instability.
The personal nature of both the end of the work and the contemporary portion as a whole begs further analysis. Commentators on Dio's contemporary history have observed that this section reads like a memoir and have suggested that Dio serves as a sort of alternative to the debased world in which he lives. Others, however, have noted a more pessimistic aspect of the function of Dio's character in his text. Dio's political survival through this period, especially with his final reference to Hector's departure from the battlefield, on the surface suggests that he be viewed as a valorous hero under the protection of the gods. Dio's history, on the other hand, is a highly critical narrative of his own era and can therefore be read as a reflection on his participation in the political life of this period, as well as a corrective to it. The memoir-like nature of the text suggests that Dio carved out for himself a dual identity, as both senator and then annalist, participant and then critic. Through this identity, Dio attempts to claim authority as a historian.
Historical writing about Rome in both Latin and Greek forms an integrated topic. There are two strands in ancient writing about the Romans and their empire: (a) the Romans’ own tradition of histories of the deeds of the Roman people at home and at war, and (b) Greek historical responses, some developing their own models (Polybius, Josephus) and the others building on what both the Roman historians and earlier Greeks had written (Dionysius, Appian, Cassius Dio). Whereas older scholarship tended to privilege a small group of ‘great historians’ (the likes of Sallust, Livy, Tacitus), recent work has rightly brought out the diversity of the traditions and recognized that even ‘minor’ writers are worth exploring not just as sources, but for their own concerns and reinterpretation of their material (such as The Fragments of the Roman Historians (2013), and the collected volumes on Velleius Paterculus (Cowan 2011) and Appian (Welch 2015)). The study of these historiographical traditions is essential as a counterbalance to the traditional use of ancient authors as a handy resource, with scholars looking at isolated sections of their structure. This fragmentary use of the ancient evidence makes us forget to reflect on their work in its textual and contextual entirety.