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
merely looked down on us and insulted us with overweening words, what
must we expect him to do when he lays hold of some real project? For
when a man has shown such disdain in matters where he was not going to
gain anything, how has he not been convicted of entire injustice in
intention and in performance?
"Still, he was not satisfied with this, but further bade me come to him,
if I wanted anything of him. [-43-] Do not, I beg of you, regard this
addition as slight. It is really a good indication of his disposition.
That he should have refused to visit me a person speaking in his defence
might refer to shrinking and sickness and fear. But that he should send
a summons to me admits of no excuse, and furthermore proves him to have
acted from no other impulse than a readiness to yield me obedience in no
point and a determination to impose corresponding demands in every case.
With now much insolence and abuse does this very course of his teem! The
proconsul of the Romans summons a man and the latter does not come: then
one of the Allobroges [_sic_] summons the proconsul of the Romans. Do
not think this a small matter and of little moment in that it was I,
Caesar, whom he failed to obey, or because he called me Caesar. It was not
I that summoned him, but the Roman, the proconsul, the rods, the
dignity, the legions: it was not I that was summoned by him, but all of
these. Privately I have no dealings with him, but in common we have all
spoken and acted, received his retort and suffered.
[-44-] "Therefore the more that anybody asserts that he has been
registered among our friends and among our allies, the more he will
prove him to deserve our hatred. Why? Because acts such as not even any
of our admittedly bitterest foes has ever ventured to perform have been
committed by Ariovistus under the titles of friendship and of alliance;
it looks as though he had secured them for the very purpose of having a
chance to wrong us with impunity. On the other hand, our former treaty
with him was not made with the idea of being insulted and plotted
against, nor will it now be we who break the truce. For we sent envoys
to him as to one who was still a friend and ally, but he--well you see
how he has used us. Accordingly just as when he chose to benefit us and
desired to be well treated in return he justly obtained his wishes, so
now, too, when he does the opposite of that in everything, with thorough
justice would he be held in the position of a foe. Do not be surprised
that whereas once upon a time I myself did some little business in his
behalf both in the senate and before the people I now speak in this way.
So far as I am concerned my sentiments are the same now as then: I am
not changing front. And what are they? To honor and reward the good and
faithful, but to dishonor and punish the evil and unfaithful. It is he
that is changing front, in that he makes an unfair and improper use of
the privileges bestowed by us.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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