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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



  THIRD VOLUME _Extant Books 45-51 (B.C. 44-29)_.


  1906




  VOLUME CONTENTS

Book Forty-five

Book Forty-six

Book Forty-seven

Book Forty-eight

Book Forty-nine

Book Fifty

Book Fifty-one




DIO'S ROMAN HISTORY

45

VOL. 3.--1

The following is contained in the Forty-fifth of Dio's Rome:

About Gaius Octavius, who afterward was named Augustus (chapters 1-9).

About Sextus, the son of Pompey (chapter 10).

How Caesar and Antony entered upon a period of hostility (chapters 11-17).

How Cicero delivered a public harangue against Antony (chapters 18-47).

Duration of time, the remainder of the year of the 5th dictatorship of C.
Iulius Caesar with M. Aemilius Lepidus, Master of the Horse, and of his 5th
consulship with Marcus Antonius. (B.C. 44 = a. u. 710.)[1]


(_BOOK 45, BOSSEVAIN_.)

[B.C. 44 (_a. u_.710)]

[-1-] This was Antony's course of procedure.--Gaius Octavius Copia,--this
was the name of the son of Caesar's niece, Attia,--came from Velitrae in
the Volscian country, and having been left without a protector by the
death of his father Octavius he was brought up in the house of his mother
and her husband, Lucius Philippus, but on attaining maturity spent his
time with Caesar. The latter, who was childless, based great hopes upon
him and was devoted to him, intending to leave him as successor to his
name, authority, and supremacy. He was influenced largely by Attia's
explicit affirmation that the youth had been engendered by Apollo. While
sleeping once in his temple, she said, she thought she had intercourse
with a serpent, and through this circumstance at the end of the allotted
time bore a son. Before he came to the light of day she saw in a dream
her womb lifted to the heavens and spreading out over all the earth; and
the same night Octavius thought the sun rose from her vagina. Hardly
had the child been born when Nigidius Figulus, a senator, straightway
prophesied for him sole command of the realm. [2]

He could distinguish most accurately of his contemporaries the order of
the firmament and the mutations of the stars, what they accomplished
by separation and what by conjunctions, in their associations and
retirements, and for this reason had incurred the charge of practicing
some kind of forbidden pursuits. He accordingly met on that occasion
Octavius, who was somewhat tardy in reaching the senate on account of the
birth of the child,--there happened to be a meeting of the senate that
day,--and asked him why he was late. On learning the cause he cried out:
"You have begotten a master over us." [3] At that Octavius was alarmed and
wished to destroy the infant, but Nigidius restrained him, saying that
it was impossible for it to suffer any such fate. [-2-] This was the
conversation at that time. While the boy was growing up in the country an
eagle snatched from his hands a loaf of bread, and after soaring aloft
flew down and gave it back to him.[4] When he was a lad and staying in
Rome Cicero dreamed that the boy was let down by golden chains to the
summit of the Capitol and received a whip from Jupiter.[5] He did not
know who the youth was, but meeting him the next day on the Capitol
itself he recognized him, and told the vision to the bystanders. Catulus,
who had likewise never seen Octavius, beheld in a vision all the noble
children on the Capitol at the termination of a solemn procession to
Jupiter, and in the course of the ceremony the god cast what looked like
an image of Rome into that child's lap. Startled at this he went up into
the Capitol to offer prayers to the god, and finding there Octavius, who
had ascended the hill for some other reason, he compared his appearance
with the dream and was satisfied of the truth of the vision. When later
he had become a young man and was about to reach maturity, he was putting
on the dress of an adult when his tunic was rent on both sides from his
shoulders and fell to his feet. This event of itself not only had
no significance as forecasting any good fortune, but displeased the
spectators considerably because it had happened in his first putting on
the garb of a man: it occurred to Octavius to say: "I shall put the whole
senatorial dignity beneath my feet"; and the outcome proved in accordance
with his words. Caesar founded great hopes upon him as a result of
this, introduced him into the class of patricians and trained him for
rulership. In everything that is proper to come to the notice of one
destined to control so great a power well and worthily he educated him
with care. The youth was trained in oratorical speeches, not only in the
Latin but in this language [Greek], labored persistently in military
campaigns, and received minute instruction in politics and the science of
government.

[-3-] Now this Octavius chanced at the time that Caesar was murdered to
be in Apollonia near the Ionic Gulf, pursuing his education. He had been
sent thither in advance to look after his patron's intended campaign
against the Parthians. When he learned of the event he was naturally
grieved, but did not dare at once to take any radical measures. He had
not yet heard that he had been made Caesar's son or heir, and moreover the
first news he received was to the effect that the people were of one mind
in the affair. When, however, he had crossed to Brundusium and had been
informed about the will and the people's second thought, he made no
delay, particularly because he had considerable money and numerous
soldiers who had been sent on under his charge, but he immediately
assumed the name of Caesar, succeeded to his estate, and began to busy
himself with the situation. [-4-] At the time he seemed to some to have
acted recklessly and daringly in this, but later as a result of his
good fortune and the successes he achieved he acquired a reputation for
bravery. In many instances in history men who were wrong in undertaking
some project have been famed for wisdom because they proved fortunate in
it: others who used the best possible judgment have had to stand a charge
of folly because they did not attain their ends. He, too, acted in a
blundering and dangerous way; he was only just past boyhood,--eighteen
years of age,--and saw that the succession to the inheritance and the
family was sure to provoke jealousy and censure: yet he started in
pursuit of objects that had led to Caesar's murder, and no punishment
befell him, and he feared neither the assassins nor Lepidus and Antony.
Yet he was not thought to have planned poorly, because he became
successful. Heaven, however, indicated not obscurely all the upheaval
that would result from it. As he was entering Rome a great variegated
iris surrounded the whole sun.

[-5-] In this way he that was formerly called Octavius, but already at
this time Caesar, and subsequently Augustus, took charge of affairs and
settled them and brought them