This volume, published in the Brill series Historiography of Rome and its Empire, is a revised version of the author’s doctoral thesis. In line with the aim of the series, Burden-Strevens defends the literary and historico-political value of Cassius Dio’s Roman History, in particular the speeches. Arguing against the dominant view that direct speech in the Roman History is no more than rhetorical display,[1] Burden-Strevens’ book offers a novel interpretation which proves that scholars have seriously and systematically underestimated Dio’s compositional skills as well as his political thought.
Burden-Strevens focuses on the narrative of the Republican period and Rome’s transition into Empire, beginning in book 3 with L. Junius Brutus’ speech to the people and ending with Tiberius’ funeral oration for Augustus in book 56. The chapters are preceded by a superbly helpful overview of the speeches in book 3–56, including bibliographical notes, which will surely stimulate further research. In the Introduction (1–35), Burden-Strevens sets out his provocative argument that the speeches, rather than the narrative, form the cornerstone of Dio’s theory about the reasons why the Republic fell: “speeches mattered—sometimes even more than battles” (p. 4). According to Burden-Strevens, the Roman History relies on a consistent theoretical framework explaining the causes of the Republic’s failure, which the author summarises (pp. 14–21) as 1) the corruptness of republican oratory (or, “the problem of rhetoric”, p. 15), 2) republican morality, 3) the failure of the republican institutions, and 4) the problems arising from Rome’s ever increasing Empire abroad. Chapters 3–5, to which I will turn below, deal with Dio’s discussion of each of these four causes. The Introduction also takes care to present Dio as a Roman intellectual and politician, who was fully immersed in Roman civic life and had been educated in the Latin tradition as much as in the Greek. Burden-Strevens’ research here adheres to the latest insights in Dionean studies, to which he himself has contributed a great deal already.[2]
Chapter 2, ‘Method’, is the pièce de resistance of the book. The reader should therefore forgive me for taking a good deal of space to discuss its premises. In this methodical chapter, Burden-Strevens presents several close-readings of well-known speeches in the Roman History, such as the Agrippa-Maecenas dialogue, Caesar’s speech at Vesontio, and the debate about the lex Gabinia of 67 BC. These close-readings demonstrate that Cassius Dio employed the speeches as vehicles for theoretical reflection. By discussing the close relationship between narrative and speech, Dio’s use of Latin rhetorical and historiographical sources, and the moral argument of the speeches, Burden-Strevens is able to dissect the historiographical method by means of which Dio (re)constructed the disintegration of the republican state.
In the latter part of chapter 2, Burden-Strevens pays special attention to the influence of rhetorical education on Dio’s historiography. This part uncovers, in my opinion, both the strength and the weakness of Burden-Strevens’ approach. For him, the “crux” of the “moral dimension” in classical historiography is “rhetorical education” (p. 114). Dio’s literary method, he argues, resembles the didactic structure of the progymnasmata. This is evidenced by the frequent use of moral maxims (sententiae) as well as by Dio’s remarkable tendency to structure his narrative episodes according to the principle of the fable, or epimythium. Burden-Strevens is one of the first to explain the moral-didactic structure of Dio’s work as an essential part of his literary method rather than as a lesser aspect of his historiographical value. However, despite remarks that scholars fail to appreciate properly the rhetorical artistry in and of the speeches, the Dio presented by Burden-Strevens is not able to free himself from the image of the historiographer repeating somewhat slavishly the rules of declamatory education. Moreover, Burden-Strevens’ interpretation also reveals the difference in modern conceptual approaches to Latin or Greek historiography. I am quite sure that what Burden-Strevens defines as ‘fable’ would be called an ‘exemplum’ in the Latin historiographers. The definition and function of the exemplum, i.e. a self-contained narrative which features a historical hero and presents a moral lesson (often phrased as a maxim), probably fit Dio’s practice better than the fable (which usually presents animals, not historical personalities). Chapter 2 would therefore have benefited from discussion of the recent work of, for example, Teresa Morgan and Rebecca Langlands, the latter of whom has now widened her view to Greek literature of the Empire.[3]
Having prepared the ground for a more in-depth discussion of the speeches in the Roman History, in chapters 3 to 5 Burden-Strevens explores different elements of Dio’s political theory: oratory, morality, institutions, and Empire. Chapter 3 focuses on oratory. Here, Burden-Strevens argues that speech is employed exclusively as a negative vehicle, and represents a primary cause for the demise of the Republic (pp. 150–152). The chapter demonstrates in particular “one of Dio’s favoured techniques”, namely “to create a direct and explicit antithesis between what his actors say in the formal orations, and what they do in the factual narrative” (p. 158). Two conclusions of this chapter stand out. The first is that Dio, in comparison with the Livian tradition, presents from the outset an ambiguous vision of the early Republic: the narrative shows the potential for the corruption which would come to full bloom in the final century BC. The second conclusion is that after the reign of Augustus, the set speech as literary technique disappears almost completely. Rather than offering a kind of Tacitean message that oratory dies with the advent of monarchy, Dio appears to suggest that private counsel with the emperor is a beneficial replacement for public oratory.
Chapter 4 “explores Dio’s contribution to the theory of moral decline in Roman historiography” (p. 195). Again, Burden-Strevens shows his innovative approach by comparing Dio’s work with the Latin tradition—in this case, Tacitus—and releasing the dominant notion of Thucydidean influence (cf. W. Rees, Cassius Dio, Human Nature, and the Late Republic (Diss. Oxford, 2011). The chapter handles Dio’s thematic treatment of the emotions φθόνος, φιλοτιμία, πλεονεξία (although the last concept does not receive individual treatment), and ἐπιθυμία. In particular envy, but also lust for honour, and desire for wealth are shown to increase their influence on Roman politics proportionate with the growing power of dynasts like Pompey and Caesar. Through the mouths of Cicero, Antony, Catulus, Maecenas and Agrippa, and even Octavian himself, Dio advertises the view that competitive feelings are indeed a problem in a republican constitution, but can be turned into positive forces under the rule of the Emperor, whose virtue is a steadying influence. While we would need more evidence to establish the uniqueness of Dio’s political analysis that the form of government was the problem, not the morals of the Romans themselves, Burden-Strevens succeeds well in illustrating the sophistication of Dio’s political thought as well as historiographical method.
Chapter 5 combines two explanatory axes of Dio’s political theory: institutions and Empire, the latter in the geographical sense of the word. According to Burden-Strevens, Dio diagnoses three particular problems in republican politics: successive office-holding, the dictatorship, and the impossibility of institutional innovations. Presenting passages from the speeches by Scipio Aemilianus, Q. Lutatius Catulus, Caesar at Vesontio, Agrippa, and Maecenas, the author not only offers a sample of some of the best of what Dio’s Roman History has to offer, but also demonstrates how the Romans themselves are made to reflect on the pitfalls of the republican system. There is a teleological aspect to this: Augustus’ monarchy is presented as the final solution in a long history of recurring problems. As Burden-Strevens puts it, “Octavian became Dio’s ethical and political benchmark of the ideal Roman monarch” (p. 298), who, morally, rejected the behaviour of his predecessors, and, politically, changed all the institutions that caused any conflict. The depth of Dio’s political thought is astonishing, as is the compositional method with which he has woven into the speeches a systematic political view on the benefits of monarchy.
The book closes with an epilogue that analyses Tiberius’ funeral speech for Augustus, and finally summarises the book’s main argument. Tiberius’ speech is central to Burden-Strevens argument, since from this point on, elaborate speeches will be exchanged for a more compressed narrative. Burden-Strevens ends on a rather unnecessarily apologetic note, defending Dio’s value as a historian: no reader of this book will still be able to deny the historiographical and political quality of the speeches in the Roman History.
Although this book is definitely pleasant reading, I am not entirely convinced that it is organised optimally. Since Burden-Strevens returns to the same speeches in each chapter, the argumentation becomes slightly redundant. Such redundancy is worsened by the lack of internal references to discussions of the same passage at other places in the book. Just so, while the main thesis of the book is crystal clear—for often revisited—I would sometimes have preferred more discussion of current scholarship as well as a greater abundance of evidence in support of the occasionally sweeping conclusions. I will give one example. In chapter 4 (p. 196) Burden-Strevens makes an important comparison between the use and function of φθόνος in Appian’s Civil Wars and Dio’s Roman History. He lists 21 instances of the morpheme -φθόν- in Appian, while I myself, after a TLG-search, count 39. Moreover, the statement that “φθόνος is mentioned over three times as much” in Dio’s narrative of books 36–53, is not very elucidating. A reference to Kuhn-Chen 2002, which he does cite on the following page, would have been helpful in order to contextualise the theme of φθόνος in Appian, as would some other bibliography on the subject.[4]
Typographical errors are few; there are some errors, though, in the accentuation of Greek words.[5] One thing especially unfortunate about the format of this book is that no Greek citations are given for English translations in the main text. In light of Burden-Strevens’ thorough and useful analysis of recurring vocabulary and topoi the editors would have done well in encouraging full Greek citations.
In conclusion, Burden-Strevens has written an indispensable study of Cassius Dio’s Roman History, which should be read carefully by any scholar of Dio, and, I would say, anyone investigating the Greek historiography of the Empire writ large.
Notes
[1] This view, as Burden-Strevens mentions himself at pp. 36–39, is represented best by Millar, F. ‘Some Speeches in Cassius Dio.’ Museum Helveticum 18 (1961): 11–22; Millar, F. 1964. A Study of Cassius Dio, Oxford: Clarendon; and Fomin, A. ‘Speeches in Cassius Dio.’ In Lange, C.H. & Madsen, J.M. (eds.). 2016. Cassius Dio. Greek Intellectual and Roman Politician, Leiden: Brill, 217–237.
[2] See esp. his 2015 article ‘“Ein völlig romanisierter Mann”’? Identity, Identification, and Integration in the Roman History of Cassius Dio and in Arrian’ in Roselaar, S.T. (ed.). Processes of Integration in the Roman Empire, Leiden: Brill, 288-307.
[3] Teresa Morgan’s 1998 monograph is mentioned in the bibliography, but not the influential 2007 study Popular Morality in the Early Roman Empire (Cambridge 2007). See also Langlands, R. 2018. Exemplary Ethics in Ancient Rome, Cambridge: CUP.
[4] See Kuhn-Chen, B. 2002. Geschichtskonzeptionen griechischer Historiker im 2. und 3. Jahrhundert n. Chr. Untersuchungen zu den Werken von Appian, Cassius Dio und Herodian, Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 79.
[5] E.g. on p. 173 τα κοινά, p. 228 ἰσχὺς (individual terms cited in the English text).