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DIO'S ROME

AN

HISTORICAL NARRATIVE ORIGINALLY COMPOSED IN GREEK

DURING THE REIGNS OF SEPTIMIUS SEVERUS, GETA

AND CARACALLA, MACRINUS, ELAGABALUS

AND ALEXANDER SEVERUS:

AND

NOW PRESENTED IN ENGLISH FORM

BY

HERBERT BALDWIN FOSTER, A.B. (Harvard), Ph. D. (Johns Hopkins), Acting
Professor of Greek in Lehigh University

FOURTH VOLUME

Extant Books 52-60 (B.C. 29-A.D. 54).

1905

PAFRAETS BOOK COMPANY TROY NEW YOKK

VOLUME CONTENTS

Book Fifty-twoBook Fifty-threeBook Fifty-fourBook Fifty-fiveBook Fifty-sixBook Fifty-sevenBook Fifty-eightBook Fifty-nineBook Sixty

DIO'S ROMAN HISTORY

VOL. 4-1

The following is contained in the Fifty-second of Dio's Rome:

How Cæsar formed a plan to lay aside his sovereignty (chapters 1-40).

How he began to be called emperor (chapters 41-43).

Duration of time, the remainder of the consulship of Cæsar (5th) and
Sextus Apuleius. (B.C. 29 = a. u. 725.)

(BOOK 52, BOISSEVAIN)

[-1-] My record has so far stated what the Romans both did and enduredfor seven hundred and twenty-five years under the monarchy, as ademocracy, and beneath the rule of a few. After this they reverted tonothing more nor less than a state of monarchy again, although Cæsar hada plan to lay down his arms and entrust affairs to the senate and thepopulace. He held a consultation on the subject with Agrippa and Mæcenas,to whom he communicated all his secrets. Agrippa, first of the two,answered him as follows:—

[-2-] "Be not surprised, Cæsar, if I try to turn your mind away frommonarchy, in spite of the fact that I might enjoy many advantages from itif you held the place. If it were going to prove serviceable to you, Ishould be thoroughly enthusiastic for it. But those who hold supremepower are not in a like position with their friends: the latter withoutincurring jealousy or danger reap all the benefits they please, whereasjealousies and dangers are the lot of the former. I have thought itright, as in other cases, to look forward not for my own interest but foryours and the public's. Let us consider leisurely all the features of thesystem of government and turn whichever way our reflection may direct us.For it will not be asserted that we ought to choose it under any and allcircumstances, even if it be not advantageous. Otherwise we shall seem tohave been unable to bear good fortune and to have gone mad through oursuccesses, or else to have been aiming at it long since, to have used ourfather and our devotion to him as a mere screen, to have put "the peopleand the senate" forward as an excuse. Our object will seem to have beennot to free them from conspirators but to enslave them to ourselves.Either supposition entails censure. Who would not be indignant to seethat we had spoken words of one tenor, but to ascertain that we had hadsomething different in mind? How much more would he hate us now than ifwe had at the outset laid bare our desires and aimed straight at themonarchy! It has come to be generally believed that to adop

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