Dio's Rome, Volume 4: 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 4: 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
[-28-] He passed away at Misenum before he could learn anything of this.
He had been sick for a considerable time, but expecting to live, as
Thrasyllus had foretold, he neither consulted physicians nor changed his
way of life; wasting away gradually as he was, in old age and subject to
a sickness that was not severe, he would often all but expire and then
recover strength again. These changes would cause Gaius and the rest
first great pleasure, when they thought he was going to die, and then
great fear, when they thought he would live. His successor, therefore,
fearing that his health might actually be restored, refused his requests
for anything to eat, on the ground that he would be injured, and
pretending that he needed warmth wrapped many thick cloths about him. In
this way he smothered him, with a certain amount of help, to be sure,
from Macro. The latter, as Tiberius was already seriously ill, was paying
his court to the young man, particularly as he had before this succeeded
in making him fall in love with his own wife, Ennia Thrasylla. Tiberius
suspecting this had once said: "You understand well when to abandon the
setting, and hasten to the rising sun."
So Tiberius, who possessed the most varied virtues, the most varied
vices, and followed each set in turn as if the other did not exist,
passed away in this fashion on the twenty-sixth day of March.[17] He had
lived seventy-seven years, four months, nine days, of which he had spent
as ruler twenty-two years, seven months and seven days. A public funeral
was accorded him and a eulogy, delivered by Gaius.
[Footnote 1: Supplying here (as did Sylburgius, to fill a gap in the
sense) ... [GREEK: echeleuse chahi tae boulae]....]
[Footnote 2: The consul of A.D. 30, either _C. Cassius Longinus_ or his
brother _L. Cassius Longinus_.]
[Footnote 3: A gap in the MS. exists, as indicated.]
[Footnote 4: A corrupt reading for which no wholly satisfactory
substitute has been offered.]
[Footnote 5: The predicate of this clause has fallen out in the MS., and
the restoration is on lines suggested by Bekker.]
[Footnote 6: Reading (with Mommsen) [Greek: outo] for [Greek: auto].]
[Footnote 7: Reading [Greek: aedae polu] (Stephanus, Boissevain).]
[Footnote 8: Using Boissevain's reading [Greek: adikousaes] (from Reiske)
in preference to the MS. [Greek: diadikousaes].]
[Footnote 9: A small gap. The text filled and context amended by Kuiper.]
[Footnote 10: Evidently the previous reference was in a passage now lost,
between Bk. 57, ch. 17, sect. 8, and Bk. 58, ch. 7, sect. 2 of the Codex
Marcianus (Boissevain).]
[Footnote 11: Compare Book Fifty-seven, chapter eight.]
[Footnote 12: Cæsianus and Cæsiani are conjectures of Boissevain, the MS.
being corrupt. The person meant is _L. Apronius Cæsianus_ (consul A.D.
39).]
[Footnote 13: A correction of Casaubon's for "the army" (MS.), which
seems senseless.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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