Customer Reviews

Dio Cassius: Roman History, Volume VIII, Books 61-70 (Loeb Classical Library No. 176)

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As it is, I've been reading Dio piecemeal, having read his account of Augustus' reign in the Penguin edition and now his books on the reigns of the emperors from Claudius to Hadrian. Fact is, the latter are not Dio's original work, but an epitome composed by two Byzantines, Zonaras & Xiphilinius, one thousand years after original composition (and, at the time, Dio's books on the reign of Antoninus Pius had already been lost). I'm aware of the fact that many historians complain about the absence of Dio's originals, but, in my humble opinion, this is something that must be taken with a grain of salt. Judging from the passages for which we have the original text, Dio was hopellessly verbose, had a very bad taste for the most turgid rhetoric, and, as I 've said elsewhere, he has a tendency to narrate real events (viz. the Battle of Actium) as if he were composing an script for a Xena episode, but without neither the sense of humour nor Lucy Lawless at his disposal. Therefore the fact that I suspect that the Byzantine digest is best, as it seems to convey all that had actual importance in the original and to spare us the tedious flowery Late Antique rethorics and the hackwork that Dio's invented speechs are (yes, I know that every Ancient historian did the same, but what I'm complaining about is not the reality of the speeches, but about their intrinsic intellectual value, and, sorry, Dio is no Thucydides). Be as it is, the Digest has preserved an anecdote that is the best in the whole volume, of the quite deaf emperor Claudius listening to complaints against his governor of Bythinia, and, being told by one of his freedmen that the delegation was offering stormy applause to said governor, decided that "then he is going to be their procurator for two more years!".

Since there are so many of these darn things the review shall be divided into three sections. First, a brief description of the Loeb series of books and their advantages/disadvantages. Second shall be my thoughts on the author himself, his accuracy, as well as his style and the style of his translator. This is of course only my opinion and should be treated as such. The final part shall review what this particular book actually covers.

The Loeb series date back to the turn of the last century. They are designed for people with at least some knowledge of Greek or Latin. They are a sort of compromise between a straight English translation and an annotated copy of the original text. On the left page is printed the text in Greek or Latin depending on the language of the writer and on the right side is the text in English. For somebody who knows even a little Greek or Latin these texts are invaluable. You can try to read the text in the original language knowing that you can correct yourself by looking on the next page or you can read the text in translation and check the translation with the original for more detail. While some of the translations are excellent mostly they are merely serviceable since they are designed more as an aid to translation rather than a translation in themselves. Most of them follow the Greek or Latin very closely. These books are also very small, maybe just over a quarter the size of your average hardcover book. This means that you'll need to buy more than just one book to read a complete work. They are also somewhat pricey considering their size. The Loeb Collection is very large but most of the more famous works can be found in better (and cheaper) translations elsewhere. If you want to read a rarer book or read one in the original language then you can't do better than the Loeb Editions.

Cassius Dio's History is available in nine books in the Loeb series. Dio was a senator in the early third century who wrote a history from the beginning of Rome through to his own times. His last political position was that of consul under Alexander Severus. Apart from that there's pretty much nothing known of Dio's life. For the second and third century his is the biggest voice. For the first century AD his work fills in a lot of the gaps left by the fragmented state of Tacitus. For the late Republican and early Imperial period his work survives mostly intact and offers the best continuous narrative we have. All of his earlier stuff is rubbish. There are many problems with his work. To start with the most obvious, his work is mostly lost. The portions that survive are fragmented or epitomes of his actual work. The main epitomators are Zonaras and John Xiphilinus, who wrote in the 11th and 12th Century. The only section that survived relatively intact is the part dealing with the later Republic. Obviously this is a problem when dealing with an ancient author since you don't know what details his epitomator misunderstood or left out. The other major problem is his vagueness. Unlike earlier historians (all of whom covered a smaller period) Dio is not as precise as might be liked, often including phrases like "a few years later" or "a great many." This is a problem common with a lot of later historians. So much history is based off Dio that it is scary how little of his actual words survive. Another useful source for this period is Tacitus (Volume II, Volume III, Volume IV, Volume V). His work is better, but it too is fragmented so you need both to fill in the gaps.

This volume covers the years 47-138 AD. We're back to dealing with epitomes again. This time the period covered is from Claudius to Hadrian. That's a lot to cover. Still, while it might be depressingly brief the epitome is at least easy to read and filed with information.

I bought this book as one of materials for history at Hadrian's reign, which objective was totally satisfied.