Tuesday, February 16, 2010



Cassius Dio: Roman History

Dio will never let you forget he was a Roman senator!

Since, however, our author was not Italian, but Greek, I've greyed out the modern Monument to Victor Emmanuel in the far background; nor is there any evidence that he might have been Christian, so the church of SS. Luca and Martina in the closer background is also greyed out.

In fact, though, the building that remains — the Curia as we have it today — Dio Cassius never saw. The Curia Julia he knew burnt to the ground about fifty years after he died; it was replaced by the one you see. The details, and the original undoctored version of this photo, are in an article in Platner and Ashby's Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome.
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For the little we know of Dio, filled out with a bit of reasonable conjecture, as well as a brief analysis and critique of the History and a somewhat longer account of the tangled manuscript situation, see Prof. Cary's Introduction.
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Dio the Roman says that Janus, an ancient hero, because of his entertainment of Saturn, received the knowledge of the future and of the past, and that on this account he was represented with two faces by the Romans. From him the month of January was named, and the year takes its beginning from this same month.
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At any rate, it is quite tempting to believe Dio and set the foundation of Rome in the spring of 748 B.C. when eclipse-born Romulus had turned 17. This is only five years off the usual date; and here too, something to remember: even among the ancients, there were competing chronologies differing by a few years.

A word of caution still remains. Dio wrote in the 2c A.D., many centuries after the events, at a time by which Greek scientists were able to compute eclipse dates, possibly even predict them. Certainly, Varro (1c B.C.), whose antiquarian interests led him to concern himself with the chronology of early Rome, is reported by Censorinus (21.5) as doing historical research with tables of eclipses. At any rate, writing after the fact, and armed, in one way or another, with the knowledge of two eclipse dates, it would have been an easy thing for Dio to fit the reign of a semi-mythical king neatly between them.

... 748 not too far from 753, year 1 AUC ...

# posted by intcoex : 3:51 AM




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