from pretence or to gather any advantage, as others in large numbers
have displayed humaneness, the greatest evidence is that everywhere and
under all circumstances he showed himself the same: anger did not
brutalize him nor good fortune corrupt him; power did not alter, nor
authority change him. Yet it is very difficult when tested in so many
enterprises of such a scope and following one another in quick
succession at a time when one has been successful in some, is still
engaged in conducting others, and only suspects the existence of others,
to prove equally efficient on all occasions and to refrain from wishing
to do anything harsh or frightful, if not out of vengeance for the past,
at least as a measure of safeguard for the future. This, then, is enough
to prove his excellence. He was so truly a scion of gods that he
understood but one thing, to save those that could be saved. But if you
want more evidence, it lies in this, that he took care to have those who
warred against him chastised by no other hands than his own, and that he
won back those who in former times had slipped away. He had amnesty
granted to all who had been followers of Lepidus and Sertorius, and next
arranged that safety should be afforded all the survivors among those
proscribed by Sulla; somewhat later he brought them home from exile and
bestowed honors and offices upon the children of all who had been slain
by that tyrant. Greatest of all, he burned absolutely every one of the
letters containing secret information that was found in the tent of
either Pompey or Scipio, not reading or noticing any portion of them, in
order that no one else might derive from them the power to play the
rogue. That this was not only what he said, but what he did, his acts
show clearly. No one as a result of those letters was even frightened,
let alone suffering any great calamity. And no one knows those who
escaped this danger except the men themselves. This is most astonishing
and has nothing to surpass it, that they were spared before being
accused, and saved before encountering danger, and that not even he who
saved their lives learned who it was he pitied.
[-48-] "For these and all his other acts of lawmaking and
reconstruction, great in themselves, but likely to be deemed small in
comparison with those others into which one cannot enter minutely, you
loved him as a father and cherished him as a benefactor, you glorified
him with such honors as you bestowed on no one else and desired him to
be continual head of the city and of the whole domain. You did not
dispute at all about titles, but applied them all to him as being still
less than his merits, with the purpose that whatever was lacking in each
one of them of what was considered a proper expression of the most
complete honor and authority might be made up by what the rest
contributed. Therefore, as regards the gods he was appointed high
priest, as regards us consul, as regards the soldiers imperator, and as
regards the enemy dictator. But why do I enumerate these details, when
in one phrase you called him father of his country,--not to mention the
rest of his titles?
[-49-] "Yet this father, this high priest, this inviolable being, hero,
god, is dead, alas, dead not by the violence of some disease, nor
exhausted by old age, nor wounded abroad somewhere in some war, nor
snatched away irresistibly by some supernatural force: but plotted
against here within the walls--the man that safely led an army into
Britain; ambushed in this city--the man who had increased its circuit;
struck down in the senate-house--the man that had reared another such
edifice at his own charge; unarmed the brave warrior; defenceless the
promoter of peace; the judge beside the court of justice; the governor
beside the seat of government; at the hands of the citizens--he whom
none of the enemy had been able to kill even when he fell into the sea;
at the hands of his comrades--he who had often taken pity on them.
Where, Caesar, was your humaneness, where your inviolability, where the
laws? You enacted many laws to prevent any one's being killed by
personal foes, yet see how mercilessly your friends killed you, and now
slain you lie before us in that Forum through which you often crowned
led triumphal marches, wounded unto death you have been cast down upon
that rostra from which you often addressed the people. Woe for the
blood-bespattered locks of gray, alas for the rent robe, which you
assumed, it seems, only to the end that you might be slain in it!"
[-50-] At this deliverance of Antony's the throng was at first excited,
then enraged, and finally so inflamed with passion that they sought his
murderers and reproached the senators besides, because the former had
killed and the latter had beheld without protest the death of a man in
whose behalf they had voted to offer yearly prayers, by whose Health and
Fortune they took oaths, and whom they had made sacrosanct equally with
the tribunes. Then, seizing his body, some wished to convey it to the
room in which he had been slaughtered, and others to the Capitol and to
burn it there: but being prevented by the soldiers, who feared that the
theatres and temples would be burned to the ground at the same time,
they placed it upon a pyre there in the Forum, just as they were. Even
under these circumstances many of the surrounding buildings would have
been destroyed, had not the soldiers presented an obstacle, and some of
the bolder spirits the consuls forced over the cliffs of the Capitol.
For all that the remainder did not cease their disturbance, but rushed
to the houses of the murderers, and during the excitement they killed
without reason Helvius Cinna, a tribune, and some others; this man had
not only not plotted against Caesar, but was one of his most devoted
friends. Their error was due to the fact that Cornelius Cinna the praetor
had a share in the attack. [-51-] After this the consuls forbade any one
outside the ranks of soldiers to carry arms. They accordingly refrained
from assassinations, but set up a kind of altar on the site of the
pyre--his bones the freedmen had previously taken up and deposited in
the ancestral tomb--and undertook to sacrifice upon it and offer victims
to Caesar, as to a god. This the consuls overturned and punished some who
showed displeasure at the act, also publishing a law that no one should
ever again be dictator. In fact they invoked curses and proclaimed death
as the penalty upon any man who should propose or support such a
measure, and furthermore they fined the present malcontents directly. In
making this provision for the future they seemed to assume that the
shamefulness of the deeds consisted in the names, whereas these
occurrences really arose from the supremacy of arms and the character of
each individual, and degraded the titles of authority in whatever
capacity exercised. For the time being they despatched immediately to
the colonies such as held allotments of land previously assigned by
Caesar; this was from fear that they might cause some disturbance. Of
Caesar's slayers they sent out some, who had obtained governorships, to
the provinces, and the rest to various different places on one pretext
or another: and these persons were honored by many persons as
benefactors.
[-52-] In this way Caesar disappeared from the scene. Inasmuch as he had
been slain in Pompey's edifice and near his statue which at that time
stood there, he seemed in a way to have afforded his rival his revenge;
and this idea gained ground from the fact that tremendous thunder and a
furious rain occurred. In the midst of that excitement there also took
place the following incident, not unworthy of mention. One Gaius Casca,
a tribune, seeing that Cinna had perished as a result of his name being
similar to the praetor's, and fearing that he too might be killed,
because Publius Servilius Casca was one of the tribunes and also one of
the assassins, issued a book which showed that they had in common only
one and the same name and pointed out their difference of disposition.
Neither of them suffered any harm (for Servilius was strongly guarded)
and Gaius won some consideration, so that he is remembered by this act.
[-53-] These were the proceedings, at that time, of the consuls and the
rest. Dolabella was invested with his office by Antony, who feared that
he might cause a sedition, although he was at first not disposed to take
such action, on the ground that Dolabella had not yet the right to it.
When, however, the excitement subsided, and Antony himself was charged
with investigating the acts of Caesar's administration and carrying out
all the latter's behests, he no longer kept within bounds. As soon as he
had got hold of the dead man's documents, he made many erasures, and
many substitutions,--inserting laws as well as other matter. Moreover,
he deprived some of money and offices, which in turn he gave to others,
pretending that in so doing he was carrying out Caesar's directions. Next
he made many seizures on the spot, and collected large sums of money
from individuals, peoples and kings, selling to some land, to others
liberty, to others citizenships, to others exemption from taxes. This
was done in spite of the fact that the senate at first had voted that no
tablet should be set up on account of any contract that Caesar had made
(all such transactions were inscribed on bronze tablets), and later,
when Antony persisted, declaring that many urgent matters had been
provided for by his chief, it had ordered that all the foremost citizens
should join in passing upon them. He, however, paid no attention to
this, and had an utter contempt for Octavius, who as a stripling and
inexperienced in business had declined the inheritance because it was
troublesome and hard to manage: and Antony himself, assuming to be the
heir not only of the property but also of the supremacy of Caesar,
managed everything. One of his acts was to restore some exiles. And
since Lepidus had great power and caused him considerable fear, he gave
his daughter in marriage to this leader's son and made arrangements to
have the latter appointed high priest, so as to prevent any meddling
with enterprises which he had on foot. In order to carry out this plan
with greater ease, he diverted the choice of high priest from the people
back to the priests, and in company with the latter he consecrated him,
performing few or none of the accustomed rites, though he might have
secured the priesthood for himself.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: As far as chapter 20 this argument of Leunclavius will be
found to follow a different division of Book Thirty-six from that
adopted by Melber and employed in the present translation.]
[Footnote 2: His death occurred early in the year.]
[Footnote 3: This man's name is given as Sextilius by Plutarch (Life of
Lucullus, chapter 25) and Appian (Mithridatic Wars, chapter 84).]
[Footnote 4: Cobet's (Greek: _metepepempto_) in place of Vat. A (Greek:
_metepempeto_).]
[Footnote 5: "Valerians" was a name given to the Twentieth Legion. (See
Livy VI, 9.)]
[Footnote 6: _Q. Marcius Rex._]
[Footnote 7: The subject must be Quintus Caecilius Metellus. This is the
point at which the Medicean manuscript (see Introduction) now begins,
and between what goes before and what follows there is an obvious gap of
some kind. A few details touching upon the close of the Cretan war may
be found in Xiphilinus (p. 1, 12-20), as follows:
"And [Metellus] subjugated the entire island, albeit he was hindered and
restrained by Pompey the Great, who was now lord of the whole sea and of
the mainland for a three days' march from the coast; for Pompey asserted
that the islands also belonged to him. Nevertheless, in spite of
Pompey's opposition, Metellus put an end to the Cretan war, conducted a
triumph in memory thereof, and was given the title of Creticus."
It should be noted in passing that J. Hilberg (Zeitschrift f. oest.
Gymn., 1889, p. 213) thinks that the proper place for the chapter
numbered 16 is after 17, instead of before it.]
[Footnote 8: A leaf is here torn out of the first quaternion of the
Medicean MS. An idea of the matter omitted may be gained by comparing
Xiphilinus (p. 5):--"Catulus, one of the foremost men, had said to the
populace: 'If he fail after being sent out on this errand (as not
infrequently happens in many contests, especially on the sea) whom else
will you find in place of him for still more pressing business?' Thereat
the entire throng as if by previous agreement lifted their voices and
exclaimed: 'You!' Thus Pompey secured command of the sea and of the
islands and of the mainland for four hundred etades inland from the
sea."]
[Footnote 9: Some half dozen words are wanting at this point in the MS.
Those most easily supplied afford the translation here given.]
[Footnote 10: I.e., "City of Victory."]
[Footnote 11: Harmastica (==arx dei Armazi) is meant.]
[Footnote 12: The words [Greek: tou Kurnou pararreontos, enthen de],
required to fill a gap in the sense, supplied by Bekker on the basis of
a previous suggestion by Reiske.]
[Footnote 13: The words [Greek: ho de Pompêios] at the opening of chapter
6 were supplied by Bekker.]
[Footnote 14: Properly called Sinoria.]
[Footnote 15: A gap exists in the Medicean MS. because the first leaf in
the third quaternion is lacking. The omission may be partly filled out
from Xiphilinus (p. 7):
"He returned from Armenia and arbitrated disputes besides conducting
other business for kings and potentates who came to him. He confirmed
some in possession of their kingdoms, added to the principalities of
others, and curtailed and humbled the excessive powers of a few. Hollow
Syria and Phoenicia which had lately ridden themselves of their rulers
and had been made the prey of the Arabians and Tigranes were united.
Antiochus had dared to ask them back, but he did not secure them.
Instead, they were combined into one province and received laws so that
their government was carried on in the Roman fashion."
As to the words at the end of chapter 7, "although her child was with,"
an inkling of their significance may be had from Appian, Mithridates,
chapter 107. Stratonice had betrayed to Pompey a treasurehouse on the
sole condition that if he should capture Xiphares, a favorite son of
hers, he should spare him. This disloyalty to Mithridates enraged the
latter, who gained possession of the youth and slew him, while the
mother beheld the deed of revenge from a distance.]
[Footnote 16: L. _Annius Bellienus_.]
[Footnote 17: L. _Luscius_.]
[Footnote 18: Or "and these were" (according to the MS. reading
selected).]
[Footnote 19: Xiphilinus adds: "after approaching and offering him
this."]
[Footnote 20: I.e., Jehovah.]
[Footnote 21: Sol and Luna: or the sun and moon. The words appear in the
text without any article and may be personified.]
[Footnote 22: Dio attempts in chapters 18 and 19 to explain why the days
of the week are associated with the names of the planets. It should be
borne in mind that the order of the planets with reference to their
distance from the earth (counting from farthest to nearest) is as
follows: Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury, Moon. The custom of
naming the days may then have arisen, he says, (1) by regarding the gods
as originally presiding over separate _days_ assigned by the principle
of the tetrachord (I.e., skipping two stars in your count each time as
you go over the list) so that you get this order: the day of Saturn, of
the Sun, of the Moon, of Mars, of Mercury, of Jupiter, of Venus
(Saturday to Friday, inclusive); or (2) by regarding the gods as
properly gods of the _hours_, which are assigned in order, beginning
with Saturn, as in the list above,--and allowing it to be understood
that that god who is found by this system to preside over the _first
hour_ shall also give his name to the day in question.]
[Footnote 23: See Book Thirty-six, chapter 43.]
[Footnote 24: After "join him" there is a gap in the MS. The words
necessary to complete this sentence and to begin the next were supplied
by Reiske.]
[Footnote 25: Cobet (Mnemosyne N.S., X, p. 195) thinks that there is
here a reminiscence of Cicero, _Ad Atticum_, I, 16, 5.]
[Footnote 26: Or _Solo_ (according to the Epitome of the one hundred and
third Book of Livy).]
[Footnote 27: Supplying [Greek: to misein] (as v. Herwerden,
Boissevain).]
[Footnote 28: The following sentence: "For these reasons, then, he had
both united them and won them over" is probably an explanatory
insertion, made by some copyist. (So Bekker.)]
[Footnote 29: Reading [Greek: proskatastanton] (as Boissevain).]
[Footnote 30: The reading here has been subjected to criticism (compare
Naber in Mnemosyne, XVI, p. 109), but see Cicero, _De Lege Agraria_ 2,
9, 24 and Mommsen, _Staatsrecht_, I^2, 468, 3.]
[Footnote 31: The words [Greek: epeidae outoi] are supplied here by
Reiske.]
[Footnote 32: In regard to this matter see Mnemosyne N.S. XIX, p. 106,
note 2. The article in question is by I.M.J. Valeton, who agrees with
Mommsen's conclusions (_Staatsrecht_, III, p. 1058, note 2).]
[Footnote 33: Reading [Greek: pote] with Boissevain. There is apparently
a reference to the year B.C. 100, and to the refusal of Metellus
Numidicus to swear to the _lex Appuleia_.]
[Footnote 34: Following Reiske's arrangement: [Greek: os mentoi ae
aemera aechen, en emellon ...].]
[Footnote 35: The verb is supplied by Reiske.]
[Footnote 36: Following Reiske's reading: _[Greek: ae ina ta mellonta
cholotheiae]_]
[Footnote 37: Gaps in the text supplied by Reiske.]
[Footnote 38: Gaps in the text supplied by Reiske.]
[Footnote 39: Gaps in the text supplied by Reiske.]
[Footnote 40: Gaps in the text supplied by Reiske.]
[Footnote 41: The suggestion of Boissevain (euthus) or of Mommsen
(authicha) is here adopted in preference to the MS. authis (evidently
erroneous).]
[Footnote 42: Verb supplied by Xylander.]
[Footnote 43: Or five hundred miles, since Dio reckons a mile as
equivalent to seven and one-half instead of eight stades.]
[Footnote 44: The MS. is corrupt. Perhaps Hannibal is meant, perhaps
Aeneas.]
[Footnote 45: Reading [Greek: epithumian] (with Boissevain).]
[Footnote 46: Reading [Greek: enaellonto], proposed in Mnemosyne N.S. X,
p. 196, by Cobet, who compares Caesar's Gallic War I, 52, 5; and adopted
by Boissevain.]
[Footnote 47: Two words to fill a gap are suggested by Bekker.]
[Footnote 48: Four words to fill a gap supplied by Reiske.]
[Footnote 49: Reading [Greek: paraen] (as Boissevain).]
[Footnote 50: Words equivalent to "the more insistent" are easily
supplied from the context, as suggested by v. Herwerden, Wagner, and
Leunclavius.]
[Footnote 51: This is a younger brother of that Ptolemy Auletes who was
expelled from Egypt and subsequently restored (see chapter 55), and is
the same one mentioned in Book Thirty-eight, chapter 30.]
[Footnote 52: This statement of Dio's appears to be erroneous. See
Cicero, _Ad Familiares_ I, 7, 10, and Mommsen, _Staatsrecht_, 22, 672.]
[Footnote 53: Gap in the MS. supplied by Bekker's conjecture.]
[Footnote 54: Suetonius says "five years" (Life of Caesar, chapter 24),
and Plutarch and Appian make a similar statement of the time. (Plutarch,
Caesar, chapter 21, and Pompey, chapters 51, 52. Appian, Civil War, II,
17.)]
[Footnote 55: The two kinds of naval tactics mentioned here (Greek:
periplous] and [Greek: diechplous]) consist respectively (1) in
describing a semi-circle and making a broadside attack with the purpose
of ramming an opposing vessel, and (2) in dashing through the hostile
ranks, breaking the oars of some ship and then returning to ram it when
disabled. Both methods were employed in early Greek as well as in Roman
warfare.]
[Footnote 56: Dio has evidently imitated at this point a sentence in
Herodotos, VIII, 6 (as shown by the phraseology), where it is remarked
that "the Persians [at Artemisium] were minded not to let a single soul"
of the Greeks escape. The expression is, in general, a proverbial one,
applied to utter destruction, especially in warfare. Its source is
Greek, and lies in the custom of the Spartans (see Xenophon, Polity of
the Lacedaemonians, chapter 13, section 2), which required the presence
in their army of a priest carrying fire kindled at the shrine of Zeus
the Leader, in Sparta, this sacred fire being absolutely essential to
the proper conduct of important sacrifices. Victors would naturally
spare such a priest on account of his sacred character; he regularly
possessed the inviolability attaching also to heralds and envoys: and
the proverb that represents him as being slain is (as Suidas notes) an
effective bit of epigrammatic exaggeration. Other references to this
proverb may be found (by those interested) in Rawlinson's note on the
above passage of Herodotos, in one of the scholia on the Phoenician
Maidens of Euripides (verse 1377), in Sturz's Xenophontean Lexicon, in
Stobaios's _Florilegium_ (XLIV, 41, excerpt from Nicolaos in
Damascenos), in Zenobios's _Centuria_ (V, 34), and finally in the
dictionaries of Suidas and Hesychios.
The following slight variations as to the origin of the phrase are to be
found in the above. The scholiast on Euripides states that in early
times before the trumpet was invented, it was customary for a
torch-bearer to perform the duties of a trumpeter. Each of any two
opposing armies would have one, and the two priests advancing in front
of their respective armies would cast their torches into the intervening
space and then be allowed to retire unmolested before the clash
occurred. Zenobios, a gatherer of proverbs, uses the word "seer" instead
of priest. That the saying was an extremely common one seems to be
indicated by the rather naïve definition of Hesychios: _Fire-Bearer._ The
man bearing fire. Also, the only man saved in war.
Of course, this may be simply the unskillful condensation of an
authority.]
[Footnote 57: Reading [Greek: autas] (as Boissevain) in preference to
[Greek: autous] ("upon them").]
[Footnote 58: About sixty miles. It is interesting to compare here
Caesar's (probably less accurate) estimate of _thirty_ miles in his
Gallic War (V, 2, 3).]
[Footnote 59: The exact time, daybreak, is indicated in Caesar's Gallic
War, V, 31, 6.]
[Footnote 60: Compare Caesar's Gallic War, V, 54, 1.]
[Footnote 61: cp. LXXX, 3.]
[Footnote 62: Verb supplied by Reiske.]
[Footnote 63: "Zeugma" signifies a "fastening together" (of boats or
other material) to make a bridge.]
[Footnote 64: A gap here is filled by following approximately Bekker's
conjecture.]
[Footnote 65: Verb supplied by Oddey.]
[Footnote 66: Twenty days according to Caesar's Gallic War (VII, 90).
Reimar thinks "sixty" an error of the copyists.]
[Footnote 67: The Words "of Marcus" were added by Leunclavius to make
the statement of the sentence correspond with fact. Their omission would
seem to be obviously due to haplography. The confusion about the
relationship which might well have arisen by Dio's time, is very
possibly the consequence of the idiomatic Latin "frater patruelis" used
by Suetonius (for instance) in chapter 29 of his Life of Caesar. The two
men were in fact, first cousins. Again in Appian (Civil Wars, Book Two,
chapter 26), we read of "Claudius Marcellus, cousin of the previous
Marcus." Both had the gentile name Claudius, one being Marcus Claudius,
and the other Gaius Claudius, Marcellus.]
[Footnote 68: Small gaps occur in this sentence, filled by conjectures
of Bekker and Reiske.]
[Footnote 69: Verb suggested by Xylander, Reiske, Bekker.]
[Footnote 70: Compare Book Thirty-seven, chapter 52.]
[Footnote 71: I.e., "Temple" or "Place of the Nymphs."]