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. 384 (_a.u._ 370)] 1. ¶ The populace passed sentence
against Capitolinus, his house was razed to the ground, his money
confiscated, and his name and even likeness, if such anywhere existed,
were erased and destroyed. At the present day, too, all these
punishments, except the razing to the ground, are visited upon those who
conspire against the commonwealth. They gave judgment also that no
patrician should dwell upon the height because Capitolinus happened to
have had his house there. And his kinsmen among the Manlii prohibited
any one of their number from being named Marcus, since that appellation
had been his.
Capitolinus at any rate underwent a great reversal, both in his
character and in his fortune. Having made a specialty of warfare he
did not understand how to remain at peace; the Capitol he had once
saved he occupied for the purpose of establishing a tyranny; although
a patrician he became the prey of a house-servant; and whereas he was
deemed a warrior, he was arrested after the manner of a slave and
hurled down the very rock from which he had repulsed the Gauls.
(Valesius, p.582. Cp. Zonaras, 7, 24.)
2. ¶ Capitolinus was thrown headlong down the rock by the Romans. So
true it is that nothing in the affairs of men,--generally
speaking,--remains at it was; and success, in particular, leads many
people on into catastrophes equally serious. It raises their hopes,
makes them continually strive after like or greater results and, if
they fail, casts them into just the opposite condition. (Mai, p. 155.
Cp. Zonaras, 7, 24.)
3. This Marcus Manlius, who was once termed also Capitolinus, and fell
through seeking the tyranny, when about to be put to death by vote of
all the jurors was saved by their looking just then at the Capitol,
where he himself had performed famous deeds of valor,--until the one
who spoke against him, perceiving the cause, transferred the assembly
to another court-house from which the Capitol could not be seen at all
and so a remembrance spring up of his trophies. Then they kill him.
But on the other hand, even so, through the whole period the populace
of Rome wore black, recompensing the graces of his valor and the
inimitable manner of his distinguished behavior. (Tzetzes, Hist. 3,
843-855. Cp. Zonaras, 7, 24.)
[Frag. XXVI]
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