Dio's Rome, Volume 2: 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 FormCassius Dio Cocceianus
History
Dio's Rome, Volume 2: 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
Cassius Dio Cocceianus
Rome -- History
[Footnote 77: This is one of some twenty different phases (listed in
Wissowa, _Religion und Kultus der Römer_, p. 212) under which the
goddess was worshipped. (See also Roscher 1, col. 1513.) The appropriate
Latin title was _Fortuna Respiciens_, and it certainly had a Greek
equivalent ([Greek: Tuoae hepistrephomenae] in Plutarch, _de fortuna
Romanorum_, c. 10) which it seems strange that Dio should not have
known. Moreover, our historian has apparently given a wrong
interpretation of the name, since _respicio_ in Latin, when used of the
gods, commonly means to "look favorably upon." In Plautus's _Captivi_
(verse 834) there is a play on the word _respice_ involving the goddess,
and in his _Asinaria_ (verse 716) mention is made of a closely related
divinity, Fortuna Obsequens. Cicero (_de legibus_, II, 11, 28), in
enumerating the divinities that merit human worship, includes "Fortuna,
quae est vel Huius diei--nam valet in omnis dies--vel Respiciens ad opem
ferendam, vel Fors, in quo incerti casus significantur magis" ... The
name Fortuna Respiciens has also come to light in at least three
inscriptions.]
[Footnote 78: This is the phrase commonly supplied to explain a palpable
corruption in the MS.]
[Footnote 79: It seems probable that a few words have fallen out of the
original narrative at this point. Such is the opinion of both Dindorf
and Hoelzl.]
[Footnote 80: Compare Book Thirty-six, chapters 12 and 13.]
[Footnote 81: _I.e._, "Citizens."]
[Footnote 82: Xylander and Leunclavius supply this necessary word
lacking in the MS.]
[Footnote 83: Compare Plutarch, Life of Caesar, chapter 52, and
Suetonius, Life of Caesar, chapter 59.]
[Footnote 84: Better known as the _Phaedo._]
[Footnote 85: The Greek word representing "for a second time" is not in
the MS., but is supplied with the best of reason by Schenkl and also
Cobet (see Mnemosyne N.S.X., p. 196). It was Caesar's regular custom to
spare any who were taken captive for the first time, but invariably to
put them to death if they were again caught opposing him in arms.
References in Dio are numerous: Compare Book 41, chapter 62; Book 43,
chapter 17; Book 44, chapter 45; Book 44, chapter 46. The same rule for
the treatment of captives finds mention also in the Life of Caesar by
Suetonius, chapter 75.]
[Footnote 86: The last three words of this sentence are not found in the
MS., but as a correlative clause of contrast is evidently needed to
complete the sense, this, or something similar, is supplied by most
editors.]
[Footnote 87: Reading [Greek: sunaeranto] with Bekker and Reiske in
place of [Greek: prosaeranto].]
[Footnote 88: These blatherskite jests formed a part of the ritual of
the triumph, for the purpose of averting the possible jealousy of
Heaven. Compare, in general, the interesting description of a triumph
given in Fragment 23 (volume VI).]
[Footnote 89: Reading [Greek: haetiazeto] (Cobet's preference).]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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