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Cassius Dio and the Principate

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open access | peer reviewed

Abstract

In the Imperial books of his Roman History, Cassius Dio focuses on individual emperors and imperial institutions to promote a political framework for the ideal monarchy, and to theorise autocracy’s typical problems and their solutions. The distinctive narrative structure of Dio’s work creates a unique sense of the past and allows us to see Roman history through a specific lens: that of a man who witnessed the Principate from the Antonines to the Severans. When Dio was writing, the Principate was a full-fledged historical fact, having experienced more than two hundred years of history, good and bad emperors, and three major civil wars. This collection of seven essays sets out to address these issues, and to see Dio not as an ‘adherent’ to or ‘advocate’ of monarchy, but rather as a theorist of its development and execution.

Keywords Contemporary historiography • Ideal Government • Ancient Rome • Imperator • Ideal emperor • Pertinax • Vespasian • Cassius Dio’s contemporary history • Iron age • Caesar • Virtue • Civilitas Principis • Monarchy • Political structure • Augustus • Consilium • Emperor-Senate relationships • Cassius Dio • Cicero • Stoicism • Macrinus • The Flavian dynasty • Domitian • Titus • Senate • Caligula and Claudius • Severan dynasty • Imperial Historiography • Commodus and Pertinax • Caracalla • Roman History • Elagabalus • Dynastic succession • Principate • Septimius Severus • Mixed Constitution Theory

Thema codes NHDA • DSB • 1QBAR • 3KB

Permalink http://doi.org/10.30687/978-88-6969-472-1 | e-ISBN 978-88-6969-472-1 | ISBN (PRINT) 978-88-6969-473-8 | Number of pages 188 | Dimensions 16x23cm | Published Dec. 21, 2020 | Language it, en

Copyright © 2020 Christopher Burden-Strevens, Jesper Majbom Madsen, Antonio Pistellato. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.