Dio's Rome, Volume 3: 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 3: 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
They have been named so either for this or for some other reason; but
certain of the Greeks who were ignorant of the truth have spoken of them
as Paeones, which is an old word but does not belong there, but rather
applies to Rhodope, close to the present Macedonia, as far as the sea.
Wherefore I shall call the dwellers in the latter district Paeones, but
the others Pannonians, just as they themselves and as the Romans do.
[-37-] It was against this people, then, that Caesar at that time
conducted a campaign. At first he did not devastate or plunder at all,
although they abandoned their villages in the plain. He hoped to make
them his subjects of their free will. But when they harassed him as he
advanced to Siscia, he became angry, burned their land, and took all
the booty he could. When he drew near the city the natives for a moment
listened to their rulers and made terms with him and gave hostages, but
afterward shut their gates and accepted a state of siege. They possessed
strong walls and were in general encouraged by the presence of two
navigable rivers. The one named the Colops[56] flows past the very
circuit of the wall and empties into the Savus not far distant: it
has now encircled the entire city, for Tiberius gave it this shape by
constructing a great canal through which it rejoins its ancient course.
At that time between the Colops on the one hand, which flowed on past
the very walls, and the Savus on the other, which flowed at a little
distance, an empty space had been left which had been buttressed with
palisades and ditches. Caesar secured boats made by the allies in that
vicinity, and after towing them through the Ister into the Savus, and
through that stream into the Colops, he assailed the enemy with infantry
and ships together, and had some naval battles on the river. For the
barbarians prepared in turn some boats made of one piece of wood with
which they risked a conflict; and on the river they killed besides many
others Menas the freedman of Sextus, and on the land they vigorously
repulsed the invader until they ascertained that some of their allies had
been ambushed and destroyed. Then in dejection they yielded. When they
had thus been captured the remainder of Pannonian territory was induced
to capitulate.
[-38-] After this he left Fufius Geminus there with a small force and
himself returned to Rome. The triumph which had been voted to him
he deferred, but granted Octavia and Livia images, the right of
administering their own affairs without a supervisor, and freedom from
fear and inviolability equally with the tribunes.
[B.C. 34 (_a. u._ 720)]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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