Between Civilitas and Tyranny: Cassius Dio’s Biographical Narrative of the

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DC Field	Value
dc.identifier	ECF_chapter_4545
dc.contributor.author	Madsen Jesper Majbom
dc.title	Between Civilitas and Tyranny: Cassius Dio’s Biographical Narrative of the Flavian Dynasty
dc.type	Chapter
dc.language.iso	en
dc.description.abstract	In Cassius Dio’s account of imperial Rome, the Flavian Dynasty represents all the strengths and weaknesses of monarchical rule. The strength is represented with Vespasian, his display of modesty and understanding of the need to cooperate and share power with the senatorial elite. The weakness is described through the nepotism, betrayal, and uncontrolled ambition for glory and prestige that helped Domitian to power and forced the return of tyrannical rule upon the Romans. In this chapter, I shall discuss the way in which the Flavian narrative serves as a microcosm in the Roman History to demonstrate the reason for which dynastic succession was incapable of providing the stability needed for monarchical rule to reach its full constitutional and political potential.
dc.relation.ispartof	Lexis Supplements
dc.relation.ispartof	Lexis Studies in Greek and Latin Literature
dc.publisher	Edizioni Ca’ Foscari - Digital Publishing, Fondazione Università Ca’ Foscari
dc.issued	2020-12-21
dc.dateAccepted	2020-11-10
dc.dateSubmitted	2020-09-08
dc.identifier.uri	http://edizionicafoscari.it/en/edizioni4/libri/978-88-6969-473-8/between-civilitas-and-tyranny-cassius-dios-biograp/
dc.identifier.doi	10.30687/978-88-6969-472-1/004
dc.identifier.issn	2210-8866
dc.identifier.eissn	2724-3362
dc.identifier.isbn	978-88-6969-473-8
dc.identifier.eisbn	978-88-6969-472-1
dc.rights	Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License
dc.rights.uri	http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
item.fulltext	with fulltext
item.grantfulltext	open
dc.peer-review	yes
dc.subject	Cassius Dio
dc.subject	Cassius Dio
dc.subject	Domitian
dc.subject	Domitian
dc.subject	Dynastic succession
dc.subject	Dynastic succession
dc.subject	Principate
dc.subject	Principate
dc.subject	The Flavian dynasty
dc.subject	The Flavian dynasty
dc.subject	Titus
dc.subject	Titus
dc.subject	Vespasian
dc.subject	Vespasian

Chapter
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Between Civilitas and Tyranny: Cassius Dio’s Biographical Narrative of the Flavian Dynasty

Jesper Majbom Madsen Syddansk Universitet, Danmark

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abstract

In Cassius Dio’s account of imperial Rome, the Flavian Dynasty represents all the strengths and weaknesses of monarchical rule. The strength is represented with Vespasian, his display of modesty and understanding of the need to cooperate and share power with the senatorial elite. The weakness is described through the nepotism, betrayal, and uncontrolled ambition for glory and prestige that helped Domitian to power and forced the return of tyrannical rule upon the Romans. In this chapter, I shall discuss the way in which the Flavian narrative serves as a microcosm in the Roman History to demonstrate the reason for which dynastic succession was incapable of providing the stability needed for monarchical rule to reach its full constitutional and political potential.

Published

Dec. 21, 2020

Accepted

Nov. 10, 2020

Submitted

Sept. 8, 2020

Language

ISBN (PRINT)

978-88-6969-473-8

ISBN (EBOOK)

978-88-6969-472-1

Keywords: Vespasian • Cassius Dio • Domitian • Principate • Dynastic succession • The Flavian dynasty • Titus

permalink: http://doi.org/10.30687/978-88-6969-472-1/004

Copyright: © 2020 Jesper Majbom Madsen. 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.

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