Title

Cassius Dio and the Principate

Description

In the Imperial books of his Roman History, Cassius Dio focuses on individual emperors and imperial institutions to promote a political framework for the ideal monarchy, and to theorise autocracy’s typical problems and their solutions. The distinctive narrative structure of Dio’s work creates a unique sense of the past and allows us to see Roman history through a specific lens: that of a man who witnessed the Principate from the Antonines to the Severans. When Dio was writing, the Principate was a full-fledged historical fact, having experienced more than two hundred years of history, good and bad emperors, and three major civil wars. This collection of seven essays sets out to address these issues, and to see Dio not as an ‘adherent’ to or ‘advocate’ of monarchy, but rather as a theorist of its development and execution.

Subject

Ideal Government | The Flavian dynasty | Roman History | Caracalla | Contemporary historiography | Augustus | Mixed Constitution Theory | Commodus and Pertinax | Civilitas Principis | Vespasian | Imperator | Imperial Historiography | Macrinus | Titus | Ideal emperor | Cassius Dio | Senate | Cicero | Pertinax | Domitian | Severan dynasty | Stoicism | Emperor-Senate relationships | Monarchy | Elagabalus | Caligula and Claudius | Septimius Severus | Virtue | Ancient Rome | Political structure | Cassius Dio’s contemporary history | Principate | Consilium | Iron age | Dynastic succession | Caesar

Publisher

Fondazione Università Ca' Foscari

Date

2020

Identifier

DOI: https://doi.org/10.30687/978-88-6969-472-1

Type

Text

Format

PDF

Language

en

it

Source

https://directory.doabooks.org/handle/20.500.12854/134430

Relation

Lexis Supplementi 50

Rights

CC BY 4.0

Educational Level

Higher education | research

Interactivity Type

Expositive