Dio's Rome, Volume 6: 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 6: 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
[Sidenote: B.C. 189 (_a.u._ 565)] ¶ Many were jealous of the Scipios
because the two brothers of excellent stock and trained in virtue had
accomplished all that has been related and had secured such titles. That
these victors could not be charged with wrongdoing is made plain by my
former statements and was shown still more conclusively on the occasion
of the confiscation of the property of Asiaticus,--which was found to
consist merely of his original inheritance,--or again by the retirement
of Africanus to Liternum and the security that he enjoyed there to the
end of his life. At first he did appear in court, [Footnote: Political
enemies of P. Cornelius Scipio Africanus summoned him to court on
trumped-up charges.] thinking that he would be saved by the genuineness
of his good behavior. (Valesius, p. 609. Zonaras, 9, 20.)
[Frag. LXI]
¶ The Romans, when they had had a taste of Asiatic luxury and had
spent some time in the possessions of the vanquished amid the
abundance of spoils and the license granted by success in arms,
rapidly came to emulate their prodigality and ere long to trample
under foot their ancestral traditions. Thus this terrible influence,
arising from that source, fell also upon the city. (Valesius, p. 609.)
[Frag. LXII]
¶ Gracchus was thoroughly a man of the people and a very fluent public
speaker, but his disposition was very different from Cato's. Although
he had an enmity of long standing against the Scipios, he would not
endure what was taking place but spoke in defence of Africanus, who
was accused while absent, and exerted himself to prevent any smirch
from attaching to that leader; and he prevented the imprisonment of
Asiaticus. Consequently the Scipios, too, relinquished their hatred of
him and made a family alliance, Africanus bestowing upon him his own
daughter. (Valesius, p. 610.)
[Frag. LXIII]
[Sidenote: B.C. 187 (_a.u._ 567)] ¶ Some youths who had insulted the
Carthaginian envoys that had come to Rome were sent to Carthage and
delivered up to the people; they received no injury, however, at the
hands of the citizens and were released. (Ursinus, p. 381.)
[Frag. LXIV]
[Sidenote: B.C. 183 (_a.u._ 571)] ¶ He himself [i.e. Hannibal] died by
drinking poison near Bithynia, in a certain place called Libyssa by
name; though he thought to die in Libyssa his own proper country. For an
oracle had once been written down for Hannibal to the following effect:
"A Libyssan clod shall hide the form of Hannibal." Later the Roman
Emperor Severus, being of Libyan birth, interred in a tomb of white
marble this man, the general Hannibal. (Tzetzes. Hist. 1, 798-805. Cp.
Zonaras, 9, 21.)
[Frag. LXV]
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