Part 8
[Sidenote:--3--] Many uprisings were made by many persons, some of which caused serious alarm, but they were all checked. But affairs in Mesopotamia were still more terrifying, and provoked in the hearts of all, not merely the men of Rome but the rest of mankind, a fear that had a truer foundation. Artaxerxes, a Persian, having conquered the Parthians in three battles and killed their king, Artabanus, [made a campaign against Hatra, which he endeavored to take as a base for attacking the Romans. He did make a breach in the wall but, as he lost a number of soldiers through an ambuscade, he transferred his position into Media. Of this district, as also of Parthia, he acquired no small portion, partly by force and partly by intimidation, and then] marched against Armenia. Here he suffered a reverse at the hands of the natives, some Medes, and the children of Artabanus, and either fled (as some say) or (as others assert) retired to prepare a larger expedition. [Sidenote:--4--] He accordingly became a source of fear to us; for he was encamped with a large army over against not Mesopotamia only but Syria also and boasted that he would win back everything that the ancient Persians had once held, as far as the Grecian Sea. It was, he said, his rightful inheritance from his forefathers. He was of no particular account himself, but our military affairs are in such a condition that some joined his cause and others refused to defend themselves. The troops are so distinguished by wantonness, and arrogance, and freedom from reproof, that those in Mesopotamia dared to kill their commander, Flavius Heracleo, and the Pretorians found fault with me before Ulpianus because I ruled the soldiers in Pannonia with a strong hand; and they demanded my surrender, through fear that some one might compel them to submit to a régime similar to that of the Pannonian troops.
[Sidenote:--5--] Alexander, however, paid no attention to them, but promoted me in various ways, appointing me to be consul for the second time, as his colleague, and taking upon himself personally the responsibility of meeting the expenditures of my office. As the malcontents evinced displeasure at this, he became afraid that they might kill me if they saw me in the insignia of my office, and he bade me spend the period of my consulship in Italy, somewhere outside of Rome. Later, accordingly, I came both to Rome and to Campania to visit him. After spending a few days in his company, during which the soldiers saw me without offering to do me any harm, I started for home, being released on account of the trouble with my feet. Consequently, I expect to spend all the remainder of my life in my own country, as the Divine Presence revealed to me most clearly at the time I was in Bithynia. Once, in a dream there, I thought I saw myself commanded by it to write at the close of my work the following verses:
"Hector was led of Zeus far out of the range of the missiles, Out of the dust and the slaying of men, out of blood and of uproar."
[Footnote: From Homer's Iliad, XI, verses 163-4.]
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PRESERVED FROM BOOKS PRECEDING No. 36.
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(The "Fragments" of Dio.)
[Frag. I]
1. Dio says: "I am anxious to write a history of all (that is worth remembering) done by the Romans both at peace and in war, so as to have nothing essential lacking, either of those matters or of others. (Valesius, p. 569.)
2[lacuna] everything about them, so to speak, that has been written by any persons, and I have put in my history not everything but what I have selected. However, let no one entertain any suspicions (as has happened in the case of some other writers), regarding the truth of it merely because I have used elaborate diction to whatever extent the subject matter permitted; for I have been anxious to be equally perfect in both respects so far as was possible. I will begin at the point where I have obtained the clearest accounts of what is reported to have taken place in this land which we inhabit.
This territory in which the city of Rome has been built" [Lacuna] (Mai, p. 135.)
[Frag. II]
1. Ausonia, as Dio Cocceianus writes, is properly the land of the Aurunci only, lying between the Campanians and Volsci along the sea-coast. Many persons, however, thought that Ausonia extended even as far as Latium, so that all of Italy was called from it Ausonia. (Isaac Tzetzes on Lycophron, 44. and 615, 702.)
2. Where now Chone is there was formerly a district called Oenotria, in which Philoctetes settled after the sack of Troy as Dionysius and Dio Cocceianus and all those who write the story of Rome relate. (Idem, v. 912.)
3. ¶ About the Etruscans Dio says: "These facts about them required to be written at this point in the narrative, and elsewhere something else and later some still different fact will be told as occasion demands, in whatever way the course of the history may chance to prepare the point temporarily under discussion. Let this same explanation be sufficient [Footnote: The MS. here has [Greek: ekontes] = "being (plural) sufficient." I have adopted the reading [Greek: eketo], suggested by Melber.] to cover also the remaining matters of importance. For I shall recount to the best of my ability all the exploits of the Romans, but as to the rest only what has a bearing on the Romans will be written." (Mai, p. 136.)
[Frag. III]
1. Dio and Dionysius give the story of Cacus (Tzetzes, History, 5, 21).
2. In this way the country was called Italy. Picus was the first king of it, and after him his son Faunus, when Heracles came there with the rest of the kine of Geryon. And he begat Latinus by the wife of Faunus, who was king of the people there, and from him all were called Latins. In the fifty-fifth year after Heracles this Æneas, subsequent to the capture of Troy, came, as we have remarked, to Italy and the Latins. He landed near Laurentum, called also Troy, near the River Numicius along with his own son by Creusa, Ascanius or Ilus. There his followers ate their tables, which were of parsley or of the harder portions of bread loaves (they had no real tables), and likewise a white sow leaped from his boat and running to the Alban mount, named from her, gave birth to a litter of thirty, by which she indicated that in the thirtieth year his children should get fuller possession of both land and sovereignty. As he had heard of this beforehand from an oracle he ceased his wanderings, sacrificed the sow, and prepared to found a city. Latinus would not put up with him, but being defeated in war gave Æneas his daughter Lavinia in marriage. Æneas then founded a city and called it Lavinium. When Latinus and Thurnus, king of the Rutuli, perished in war each at the other's hands, Æneas became king. After Æneas had been killed in war at Laurentum by the same Rutuli and Mezentius the Etruscan, and Lavinia the wife of Æneas was pregnant (of Silvius [Footnote: Reimar thinks this word a later interpolation.]), Ascanius the child of Creusa was king. He finally conquered Mezentius, who had opposed him in war and had refused to receive his embassies but sought to command all the dependents of Latinus for an annual tribute. When the Latins had grown strong because of the arrival of the thirtieth year, they scorned Lavinium and founded a second city named from the sow Alba Longa, i. e. "long white,"--and likewise called the mountain there Albanus. Only, the images from Troy turned back a second time to Lavinium.
After the death of Ascanius it was not Ascanius's son Iulus who became king, but Æneas's son by Lavinia, Silvius,--or, according to some Ascanius's son Silvius. Silvius again begat another Æneas, and he Latinus, and he Capys. Capys had a child Tiberinus, whose son was Amulius, whose son was Aventinus.
So far regarding Alba and Albanians. The story of Rome follows. Aventinus begat Numitor and Amulius. Numitor while king was driven out by Amulius, who killed Numitor's son Ægestes in a hunting party and made the sister of Ægestes, daughter of the aforesaid Numitor, Silvia or Rhea Ilia, a priestess of Vesta, so that she might remain a virgin. He stood in terror of an oracle which foretold his death at the hands of the children of Numitor. For this reason he had killed Ægestes and made the other a priestess of Vesta, that she might continue a virgin and childless. But she while drawing water in Mars's grove conceived, and bore Romulus and Remus. The daughter of Amulius by supplication rescued her from being put to death, but the babes she gave to Faustulus, a shepherd, husband of Laurentia, to expose in the vicinity of the river Tiber. These the shepherd's wife took and reared up; for it happened that she had about that time brought forth a still-born infant.
When Romulus and Remus were grown they kept flocks in the fields of Amulius, but as they killed some of the shepherds of their grandfather Numitor a watch was set for them. Remus being arrested, Romulus ran and told Faustulus, and he ran to narrate everything to Numitor. Finally Numitor recognized them to be his own daughter's children. They with the assistance of many persons killed Amulius, and after bestowing the kingdom of Alba on their grandfather Numitor themselves made a beginning of founding Rome in the eighteenth year of Romulus's life. Prior to this great Rome, which Romulus founded on the Palatine mount about the dwelling of Faustulus, another Rome in the form of a square had been founded by a Romulus and Remus older than these.
(Is. Tzetzes on Lycophron, 1232. Consequently Dio must have written what is found in Zonaras 7, 3 [vol. II, p. 91, 7-10:]) "Romulus has been described as eighteen years old when he joined in settling Rome. He founded it around the dwelling of Faustulus. The place had been named Palatium."
3. I have related previously at some length the story how Æneas founded Lavinium, though these ignorant persons say Rome. See how _they_ tell the story. Æneas received an oracle to found the city on the spot where his companions should devour their own tables. Now when they came to Italy and were in want of tables they used loaves instead of tables. Finally they ate also the tables--or the loaves. Æneas, consequently, understanding the oracle founded there the Lavinian city, even if the ignorant do say Rome. (Is. Tzetz. on Lycophr. 1250.) (Cp. Frag. III, 4.)
4. ¶Rome is part of the Latin country and the Latins have the same name as Latinus, who is said to be the son of Odysseus and Circe, and the Tiber, once called Albulus, received its change of name from the fact that King Tiberius lost his life in it; this is proclaimed by Dio's history among others. The Tiberius here meant by the history is not the one subsequent to Augustus, but another who came earlier. He, they say, died in battle and was carried away by the stream, and so left his own name to the river. (Eustathius on Dionysius, 350.)
5. Arceisius--Lærtes was a son of Arceisius who was so called either from [Greek: arkeo arkeso] [Footnote: These are the first two principal parts of a Greek verb meaning "to be sufficient."] as if he were able merely to be sufficient ([Greek: eparkeo]), whence comes the epithet [Greek: podarkaes] (sufficient with the feet) or else because an _arkos_ or _arktos_ (bear) suckled him, just as some one else was suckled by a horse or goat, and still others by a wolf, among whom were also the Roman chiefs (according to Dio),--Remus, that is to say, and Romulus, whom a wolf (lykaina) suckled, called by the Italians _lupa_; this name has been aptly used metaphorically as a title for the _demi-monde_. (Eustathius on the Odyssey, p. 1961, 13-16.)
[Frag. IV]
1. [Lacuna] [lacuna] (for it is not possible that one who is a mortal should either foresee everything, or find a way to turn aside what is destined to occur) children to punish his wrongdoing were born [infinitive] of that maiden. [Footnote: I.e., Rhea Sylvia.] (Mai, p. 136.)
2. ¶Romulus and Remus, by their quarrel together, made it plain that some can bear dangers straight through life altogether more easily than good fortune. (Mai, p. 136.)
3. On Romulus and Remus Dionysius of Halicarnassus makes remarks in his History, and so do Dio and Diodorus. (Scholia of Io. Tzetzes in Exeg. Hom. II. p. 141, 20.)
4. After they had set about the building of the city a dispute arose between the brothers regarding the sovereignty and regarding the city, and they got into a conflict in which Remus was killed. (Zonaras, 7, 3, vol. II, p-90, 7 sqq.) (Cp. Haupt, _Hermes_ XIV.)
5. Whence also the custom arose that he who dared to cross the trench of the camp otherwise than by the usual paths should be put to death. (Zonaras, ib., p. 90, 16-18.)
6. They themselves [Footnote: The Cæninenses, Crustumini, and Antemnates are meant (Bekker).--Compare Livy, I, 10, 11.] learned well and taught others the lesson that those who take vengeance on others are not certainly right merely because the others have previously done wrong, and that those who make demands on stronger men do not necessarily get them, but often lose the rest besides. (Mai, p. 136.)
7. ¶Hersilia and the rest of the women of her kin on discovering them one day drawn up in opposing ranks ran down from the Palatine with their little children (children had already been born), and rushing suddenly into the space between the armies aroused much pity by their words and their actions. Looking now at the one side and now at the other they cried: "Why, fathers, do you do this? Why, husbands, do you do it? When will you stop fighting? When will you stop hating each other? Make peace with your sons-in-law! Make peace with your fathers-in-law! For Pan's sake spare your children, for Quirinus's sake your grandchildren! Pity your daughters, pity your wives! For if you refuse to make peace and some bolt of madness has fallen upon your heads to drive you to frenzy, then kill at once us, the causes of your contention, and slay at once the little children whom you hate, that with no longer any name or bond of kinship between you you may gain the greatest of evils--to slay the grandsires of your children and the fathers of your grandchildren." As they said this they tore open their garments and exposed their breasts and abdomens, while some pressed themselves against the swords and others threw their children against them. Moved by such sounds and sights the men began to weep, so that they desisted from battle and came together for a conference there, just as they were, in the _comitium_, which received its name from this very event. (Mai, p. 137.)
8. Tribous Trittys; or a third part. Romulus's heavy-armed men, three thousand in number (as Dio tells us in the first book of his History), were divided into three sections called _tribous_, i. e. trittyes, which the Greeks also termed "tribes." Each trittys was separated into ten _Curiæ_ or "thinking bodies"--_cura_ meaning thoughtfulness--and the men who were appointed to each particular _curia_ came together and thought out the business in hand.
Among the Greeks the _curiae_ are called _phratriae_ and _phatriae_--in other words _associations, brotherhoods unions, guilds_--from the fact that men of the same _phratry phrased_ or revealed to one another their own intentions without scruple or fear. Hence fathers or kinsmen or teachers are _phrators_,--those who share in the same _phratry_. But possibly it was derived from the Roman word _frater_, which signifies "brother." (--Glossar. Nom. Labbaei.)
9. (And he named the people _populus_.) Hence in the Law Books the popular assembly has the name _popularia_. (Zonaras 7, 3 (vol. 11, p. 91, 17 and 18.) Cp. Haupt, _Hermes_ XIV.)
10. She [i. e. Tarpeia] having come down for water was seized and brought to Tatius, and was induced to betray the fathers. (Zonaras, ib., p. 93, 15-17.)
11. It is far better for them [senate-houses?] to be established anew than having existed previously to be named over. (Mai, p. 137.)
12. ¶Romulus assumed a rather harsh attitude toward the senate and behaved toward it rather like a tyrant, and the hostages of the Veientes he returned [Footnote: Mai supplies the missing verb.] on his own responsibility and not by common consent, as was usually done. When he perceived them vexed at this he made a number of unpleasant remarks, and finally said: "I have chosen you, Fathers, not for the purpose of your ruling me, but that I might give directions to you." (Mai, p. 138.)
[What is said of Romulus in John of Antioch, Frag. 32 (Mueller) to have been drawn from the extant books of Dio. Cp. Haupt, _Hermes_ XIV.]
13. Dio I: "Thus by nature, doubtless, mankind will not endure to be ruled by what is similar and ordinary partly through jealousy, partly through contempt of it." [Footnote: This is probably a remark in regard to the quarrels of the Roman elders over the kingdom after the death of Romulus.--Compare Livy. I, 17.] (--Bekker, Anecd. p. 164, 15.)
14. Dio in I: "What time he threw both body and soul into the balance, encountering danger in your behalf." [Footnote: Perhaps a reference to the father of Horatius defending his son, or even to Romulus.] (Ib. p. 165, 27.)
[Frag. V] 1. Romulus had a crown and a sceptre with an eagle on the top and a white cloak reaching to the feet striped with purple embroideries from the shoulders to the feet: the name of the cloak was toga, i. e. "covering," from _tegere_ the corresponding verb (this is the word the Romans use for "cover") and a purple shoe which was called _cothurnus_, as Cocceius says. (Io. Laur. Lydus, De Magis. Reip. Rom. 1, pp. 20-22.)
Therefore the words of Zonaras II, p. 96, 5, may be attributed to Dio: "(Romulus) also used red sandals."
2. "Shedding ashes from the hearth over the earth, they skillfully traced the prophesies with this wand, as they gazed at the sun and foretold the future. This wand Plutarch terms _lituos_, but _lituoi_ is what Cocceianus Cassius Dio says." (Io. Tzetzes, Alleg. Iliadis 1, 28.)
3. Numa dwelt on a hill called Quirinal, because he was a Sabine, but he had his official residence in the Sacred Way and used to spend his time near the temple of Vesta and sometimes even remained on the spot. (Valesius, p. 569.)
4. For since he understood well that the majority of mankind hold in contempt what is of like nature and consorts with them through a feeling that it is no better than themselves, but cultivate what is obscure and foreign as being superior, because they believe it divine, he dedicated a certain lot of land to the Muses [lacuna] (Mai, p. 138.)
5. ¶The gods, as guardians of peace and justice, must be pure of murder; and not listen to or look at anything pertaining to divinity in a cursory or neglectful manner, but must exist enjoying leisure from other affairs and fixing their attention on the practice of piety as the most important act.--Zonaras, 7, 5 (vol. II, p. 100).
6. Dio, Book I: "This, then, is what Numa thought" (Bekker, Anecd. p. 158, 23.)
7. Furthermore, also, that they became composed at that time through their own efforts, and took the sacred oath; after which they themselves continued at peace both with one another and with the outside tribes throughout the entire reign of Numa, and they seemed to have lighted upon him by divine guidance no less than in the case of Romulus. Men who know Sabine history best declare that he was born on the same day that Rome was founded. In this way, because of both them the city quickly became strong and well adorned: for the one gave it practice in warfare,--of necessity, since it was but newly founded,--and the other taught it besides the art of peace, so that it was equally distinguished in each of these two particulars. (Valesius, p. 569.)
8. 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 beginning of the year comes in the same month. (Cedrenus, Vol. 1, p. 295, 10, Bekker.)
9. Book 1, Dio:--"For in some beginnings, when grasping at ends, the costs that we endure are not unwelcome." (Bekker, Anecd. p. 161, 3.)
10. (Numa) having lived for a period of three more than eighty years, and having been king forty and three years.--Zonaras, 7, 5. (Cp. Haupt, _Hermes_ XIV.)
[Frag. VI]
1. Dio, Book 2: "that their [Footnote: Probably refers to the people of Alba.] reputation would stand in the way of their growth." (Bekker, Anecd., p. 139, 12.)
2. ¶Neither of the two [Tullus or Mettius] sanctioned the removal, but both championed their own pretensions. For Tullus in view of the report about Romulus and the power they possessed was elated and so was Fufetius in view of the age of Alba and because it was the mother city not only of the Romans themselves but of many others; and both felt no little pride. For these reasons they withdrew from that dispute but plunged into a new quarrel about the sovereignty: for they saw that it was impossible [Footnote: Refers to the Romans.] to keep them free from party feeling, dwelling with them in safety on fair terms; and this was due to the inherent disposition of men to quarrel with their equals, and to desire to rule others. Many claims also regarding this they preferred against each other, to see if by any means the one party would voluntarily concede either of the two favors to the other. They accomplished nothing, but formed a compact to struggle in her behalf.
(Mai, p. 139.)
3. Dio, Book 2.--"and attacking them who expected no further danger." (Bekker, Anecd. p. 139, 15.)
4. ¶Tullus was deemed most able against the enemy, but absolutely despised and neglected religion until, during the recurrence of a plague, he himself fell sick. Then, indeed, he paid the strictest regard to all the gods, and furthermore established the Salii Collini. (Valesius, p. 569.)
[Frag. VII]
¶Marcius, comprehending how it is not sufficient for men who wish to remain at peace to refrain from wrongdoing, and that refusing to molest others, without active measures, is not a means of safety, but the more one longs for it the more vulnerable does one become to the mass of mankind, changed his course. He saw that a desire for quiet was not a power for protection unless accompanied by equipment for war: he perceived also that delight in freedom from foreign broils very quickly and very easily ruined men who were unduly enthusiastic over it. For this reason he thought that war was nobler and safer, both as a preparation and as forethought, than was peace, and so whatever he was unable to obtain from the Latins with their consent, and without harming them, he took away against their will by means of a military expedition. (Mai, p. 139.)
[Frag. VIII]