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CAMBRIDGE ANCIENT HISTORY
VOLUME X
THE AUGUSTAN EMPIRE
44 B.C.—A.D. 70
TABLE OF CONTENTS. CHAPTERS
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
THE LITERARY AUTHORITIES FOR ROMAN HISTORY
44 B.C.-A.D. 70.
The purpose of this Appendix is to give a short
valuation of the ancient literary authorities whose works have been, used in
writing the history of the period covered by this volume, 44 b.c.-a.d. 70, and also to give some
indication of the material that was available to them, though it is now lost to
us. It would, however, be impossible, save at great space, to enumerate all the
writers, and here will be found only the more important; for lesser names, and
for more elaborate treatment of Source-Criticism, the reader is referred to the
standard histories of Greek and Roman Literature and to the articles mentioned
in the bibliographies to the various chapters. No treatment of epigraphic or
numismatic material is attempted, though Augustus’ Res Gestae is regarded as a
literary document: similarly the chronographic
writers, Jerome, Eusebius, Syncellus, and the like, will not be found here. The
evidence afforded by the jurists (whose writings will be treated of in Volume
XI) is also not discussed. It should be noted, too, that as the value and
trustworthiness of an author may vary according to the period he is describing,
the verdicts here passed hold simply for the period of the present volume.
Sources that have not survived are discussed before those that are still
existent, and Latin authors before those who wrote in Greek.
Non-existent Sources
(a) Latin
For the early period one of the most important names
is that of Asinius Pollio (75 b.c.-a.d. 4), statesman, general, and patron of artists and men
of letters. He was no respecter of persons or reputations and no detractor of
his own performance. His History, which began with 60 b.c., certainly included events down to the Battle of
Philippi, and may have extended as far as the defeat and death of Sextus Pompeius, which Octavian
proclaimed as the end of Civil War. Some of his prejudices and hatreds can
still be discerned in the pages of Appian, who draws largely from him.
Livy is also completely lacking, and the meagre
Epitome helps little save to show (when compared with the Res Gestae of
Augustus) that, though he could treat Pompey with respect, he was wise enough
to be orthodox in his sympathies towards the parties that fought at Actium. It
could hardly be otherwise, yet the loss of Books CXVI-CXLVXin which he narrated fully the events between 44 and 9 b.c. is indeed grievous, and can scarcely be compensated by
the shorter account of Dio Cassius, who draws largely
upon him. Both from Pollio and from Livy we should have had a fullness of
treatment and a moderation in tone which are not to be found in their lesser
brethren.
Aufidius Bassus lived into the reign of Nero, and apparently
wrote two works, a history of the Roman wars against the Germans, and an
annalistic history; of the first work nothing is known, the second certainly
included the death of Cicero, and went down at least as far as the consulship
of Tiberius and Sejanus, a.d. 31. It may have gone
farther, possibly to a.d. 47, for from the title that
the younger Pliny gives to his unde’s History—a fine Aufidii Bassi—it has been
conjectured that Aufidius stopped at some point in the course of a reign and not at the death of a princeps.
Of his political views we know nothing, though various conjectures have been
made. A contemporary of his, M. Servilius Nonianus, who made a name for himself as an orator, also
wrote a history, but no fragments have survived unless Suetonius, Tib. 61, can
be ascribed to him. Both men probably published their works in the last years
of Claudius or early years of Nero, and both had considerable repute, but they
can be little more than names to us.
A. Cremutius Cordus, a Senator who lived through the reign of Augustus,
later apparently offended Sejanus by his outspokenness and wit, and in his old
age was put on trial by two of the Prefect’s creatures (a.d. 25). He was accused of praising Brutus and of calling Cassius the last of the
Romans’: he defended the independent attitude he had adopted,
but preferred to commit suicide rather than await the issue of the
trial. His Annales seem to have embraced the period of the Civil Wars and of
Augustus, and to have been moderately Republican in tone, but if he really ‘proscribentis in aeternum proscripsit’
(Seneca, ad Marciam, 26, 1), he cannot have been
quite as inoffensive as our sources suggest. Greater interest attaches to Cluvius Rufus. Born about the beginning of the Christian
era, an orator of distinction, favoured by Nero but
not abusing his influence, he took part in the Civil Warsof 68—70, and probably wrote his History after Vespasian’s accession. If we accept
Mommsen’s hypothesis that Josephus, Ant. Jud. XIX, 1-270, is based upon him, we
possess something whereby to judge his attitude and manner: combining this with
other fragments we may conjecture that his history, like his life, showed a
prudent moderation towards the Principate, and that he would not repeat the
worst even about Gaius or Nero; its limits are unknown but may plausibly be
reckoned from the death of Augustus to the accession of Vespasian. His work was
certainly used later by Tacitus, Suetonius, and Dio Cassius, and was probably of major importance. Less known is an elder
contemporary of Tacitus and the younger Pliny, Fabius Rusticus,
a distinguished orator and a protege of Seneca. The surviving fragments suggest
that he consistently upheld Seneca’s character and blackened Nero’s. His work
was probably published some time between 74 and 83—he
seems unaware that Britain is an island—and it has been conjectured that it
comprised events between the battle of Actium and the death of Nero.
Among these shadowy personalities C. Plinius Secundus (the Elder Pliny) stands out in strong contrast, a
useful public servant and an indefatigable worker and writer, whose life
extended from a.d. 23-4 to 79. In history his two important
works were Bellorum Germaniae libri XX and a fine Aufidii Bassi XXXI. From the surviving fragments of them and from the historical allusions in
his encyclopaedic Historia Naturalis it is not
difficult to guess his outlook: moderate and practical, he approved the rule of
Augustus, Claudius and Vespasian, regarded Tiberius as
‘the gloomiest of mortals,’ and reserved his severer judgments for the
extravagance of Gaius, and especially of Nero, ‘faex generis humani et hostis.’
It is possible that his thirty-one books a fine Aufidii Bassi began c. a.d. 47, and
went down to 70 or 71. There can be no doubt that he was one of the main
sources for Tacitus in the later books of the Annals (see Ann. xin, 20, where Cluvius Rufus and
Fabius Rusticus are also mentioned), even though
Tacitus apparently sneers at his passion for trivial detail or'improbable rumours (Ann. xin, 31; xv,
53), and it is extremely likely that he is the authority who underlies the
remarkable agreement observable between Plutarch, Tacitus and Suetonius, in
narrating the events of 69 and 70. The fullness of his work and the fact that
he was contemporary with the happenings that he described, the good
geographical information contained in the Historic Naturalis and the
tantalizing occasional references there, make the total loss of this work
grievous indeed.
A few other writers are mentioned in our surviving
sources: Bruttedius Niger, Cn. Cornelius Lentulus Gaetulicus, the Elder
Seneca, Julius Secundus (to whom Plutarch owes some
details about Otho), Pompeius Planta (who wrote of
the Civil War of a.d. 69—70), and Tib. Claudius Balbillus, a prefect of Egypt. Yet though the Elder Seneca
wrote Histories, it remains extremely doubtful if they were ever published, and
the fragments usually ascribed to him may really be his son’s. And whether the
others were writing history or occasional pieces is difficult to ascertain, and cannot be decided unless fresh evidence is
discovered.
So much for historians proper. There remains a long
list of others who, while they did not write professed history, yet provided
materials for historians by composing Commentary memoirs or ‘experiences’, as
they might now be called. Chief among them is the Emperor Augustus who wrote an
account of his own life and deeds in thirteen books down to the Cantabrian War
(probably to the end of 25 b.c.). The few surviving
fragments suggest that the work was intended (naturally enough) to promote his
fame and good name, but it is rash to infer (as some critics do) that therefore
Augustus’ account must invariably be wrong and that of his enemies right. Its
influence must have been immense on Augustan writers, such as Nicolaus of
Damascus, Livy and Velleius; later, Plutarch, Pliny,
Suetonius, Appian and Dio Cassius all quote from it
with varying comments. The Emperor Tiberius also composed a Memoir (which was
Domitian’s favourite reading) ‘summatim breviterque’ in his old age, again justificatory,
though Suetonius (Tib, 61) rejects the one statement he specifically quotes
from it. More important were those of the Emperor Claudius, who described his
own early days, and probably the first years of his reign: it is perhaps to
these that Suetonius owes the detailed knowledge he displays of his legislation
and measures. His other numerous learned works, though used by the elder Pliny
and Tacitus, were not concerned with the history of the period. The Emperor
Vespasian, too, wrote an account of his life and exploits, including possibly
those in Britain, and certainly those in Judaea. Another of the imperial
writers was Agrippina the Younger, ‘quae Neronis principis mater vitam suam et casus suorum posteris memoravit’ (Tacitus, Ann, iv, 53). It is reasonable to
suppose that a writer who is cited by Tacitus for Tiberius’ rudeness to the
elder Agrippina, and by Pliny for an incident of the birth of Nero, is largely
responsible for the favourable picture of Germanicus
and the darker one of Tiberius that have survived in later writers, and that as
she glorified her father, so she did what she could to augment the fame of her
son Nero, by stories about his sun-blest birth and miraculous escapes from
dangers (Suetonius, Nero 6 and Tacitus, Ann, xi, 11).
There must now be noticed a number
of men who served with distinction in war and were prepared to record
it. Q. Dellius, an officer who knew when to desert a
losing cause, was an eyewitness of Antony’s campaigns against Parthia, for
which he was drawn upon by Plutarch, and helped to swell the chorus of hate and
detraction against Cleopatra. C. Suetonius Paulinus is cited for details of his Mauretanian campaigns (though not of his British), by
Pliny, as is Cn. Domitius Corbulo,
one of Nero’s most distinguished victims, for details of his campaigns in
Armenia, both by Pliny and Tacitus. It is possible that C. Licinius Mucianus contributed information about the campaigns
of a.d. 68-70, in which he was the champion of the
Flavian cause, but Pliny only cites him for marvels and wonders. Finally, M. Vipstanus Messalla, who also took
the Flavian side in the Civil War, is quoted once by.Tacitus, and Antonius Julianus, who was a
commander in the Jewish war under Titus, apparently commemorated his
experiences in a book de Iudaeis. Tenuous though much
of the evidence is, it yet possesses importance as helping to show how vast a
mass of literature there must have been to read through, consult and criticize,
before Tacitus could begin writing his Histories or
his Annals, or Suetonius his Lives,
A class of its own is formed by pamphlets or
broadsheets in praise of or attacking some prominent figure,
or written for a party purpose. The Philippics of Cicero are an
outstanding example of this class, but there were many more, now fortunately
unknown: Antony in his de ebrietate sua and Augustus in his de vita sua did not hesitate, while defending their own conduct, to throw the vilest
charges at one another. They were naturally backed up, and often outdone, by
their supporters. Antony had Cassius of Parma, and possibly such men as Aquilius Niger and Julius Satuminus,
whom Suetonius quotes for charges against Augustus (Jug. 11 and 27). Augustus
had the support of the constant Caesarian C. Oppius,
and of those who deserted to him, Q. Dellius, Sextus Titius and Munatius Plancus, while Cornelius
Nepos (? in his Exempla) praised his temperance, Julius Marathus and C. Drusus recounted the wonders that had accompanied his birth and
childhood, and Baebius Macer told of the sidus Iulium that was thought to have appeared for his glory. But there were not wanting men
to glorify the lost cause of the aristocratic Republic and its last champions:
L. Calpurnius Bibulus, P. Volumnius,
and a Greek rhetorician, Empylus, all wrote praises
of Brutus, and in the reign of Tiberius praise of Brutus and Cassius proved
fatal to Cremutius Cordus,
as did a Life of Cato to P. Clodius Thrasea Paetus in Nero’s reign.
Indeed, Thrasea Paetus and
others of Nero’s victims in their turn found biographers and admirers, for L.
Junius Arulenus Rusticus wrote a life of Thrasea which roused the anger of
Domitian, and Pliny the Younger laments the untimely death of C. Fannius, who was composing a monograph on the fate of those
‘occisorum aut relegatorum a Nerone.’ How much
of this pamphleteering underlies Tacitus’ Annals we can only guess, but it
certainly has a share.
Greek
In the Eastern half of the Empire there must have been
many—local historians, city-chroniclers, collectors of the marvellous—who
served as sources for existent writers. Here it is only necessary to mention
three of the chief, Nicolaus, Timagenes,
and Phlegon.
Nicolaus was a learned Greek from Damascus, who wrote
on a variety of topics, including an Universal History
in 144 books, and received the compliment of being chosen by Herod the Great to
be his secretary, spokesman, and chronicler. The post must have called for
talents and dexterity of no common order, but Nicolaus was successful. Josephus
plainly relies on him largely for Books xiv-xvii of his Jewish Antiquities and
much of his style here probably reproduces that of Nicolaus. Fragments of
another work of his on the youth and training of Augustus are extant; they are
good journalism but not necessarily untrue. Timagenes of Alexandria was less
fortunate: he lived at Rome from about 50 b.c., but his scurrility and attacks
upon Augustus and Livia finally lost him the imperial favour and he took refuge
with Asinius Pollio. There, in revenge, he burnt the account he had written of
Augustus’ deeds. Little is known about his other Histories, but there can be
small doubt that they provided much of the scandalous and sensational gossip
that crops up in Suetonius and others about Augustus and his private life.
Lastly, Phlegon of Tralles, a freedman of the Emperor Hadrian, compiled various
erudite treatises, including some on history (the Olympiads) and on Marvels and
Wonders, from surviving fragments of this last work we learn of the statue
dedicated to Tiberius by the cities of Asia after a.d. 17, and an eclipse which
he mentioned in the thirteenth Book of his Olympiads is thought to be
identifiable with the ‘great darkness’ recorded as following the Crucifixion.
Existing Sources
Latin
Among surviving writers the
earliest is Cicero. His own letters give a full and vivid picture of what was
happening in the Roman world between March 44 and June 43 b.c., then they fail.
His Philippics, too, are contemporary documents of importance: much of the
abuse of Antony and praise of Octavian contained in them came in very
opportunely for Augustus later, in much the same way as Cicero’s de Republica
and de legibus gave material and precedent to Augustus for his legislation and
acts. The collected correspondence of Cicero also preserves (in the ad
familiares) some highly characteristic letters from Lepidus, Asinius Pollio,
Munatius Plancus and others. The two books of letters between Cicero and M.
Brutus (the genuineness of which seems now agreed) are important not only for
the historical details they contain but also for the light they throw on
Brutus’ character. The same cannot be said of the Greek letters of Brutus; though
most scholars now accept the authenticity of those going under his name they
add little to our knowledge, and the answers appear to be simply a literary
exercise of first-century date.
Of the compositions of Augustus the only one that has survived in almost complete form is his own account of
his achievements, the Res Gestae. A copy in Greek and Latin known as the
Monumentum Ancyranum still stands on the walls of what was the Augusteum at
Ancyra in Galatia: four fragments of the Greek version were found at Apollonia
in Galatia, and considerable and important fragments of the Latin at
Antioch-by-Pisidia. It gives a list of the various honours conferred upon
Augustus, of the sum of money he spent upon the State, and lastly of his
achievements in war and peace, and the original was set up outside the
Mausoleum that Augustus built for his family. Though he gave some final touches
to the document as late as a.d. 12-13 there can be little doubt that in
substance it was complete by a.d. 6, and that the greater part even of this had
received its first form by 8 b.c. If there were earlier draftings than this it is impossible to fix them with any certainty.
Moreover, though Augustus from time to time made additions, alterations, and
corrections to his first draft of 8 b.c. he revised and worked over the whole
with care, so that slight discrepancies of style and order alone indicate
different stages in its composition. In its proud consciousness of achievement
and in its severe reserve it is no unworthy monument of the Emperor,
and its plain and lucid style illustrates well his aimsensum animi quam
apertissime exprimere’ (Suetonius, Jug. 86).
Velleius Paterculus, in his short history composed to
celebrate the consulship of his patron M. Vinicius in a.d. 30, devotes some
seventy chapters of Book II (58-131) to events following 44 b.c., based largely
on the official Augustan account, as a comparison with the Epitome of Livy and
with the Res Gestae shows. He had served as an officer under Tiberius and
becomes panegyrical when he contemplates the campaigns of his general and his
achievements as princeps, he is equally full of praise for his minister
Sejanus. Apart from his account of the later German and Pannonian campaigns
(a.d. 4—12) Velleius’ work is important in two ways: it gives a favourable
picture of Tiberius as a soldier and general, and it reveals how even an honest
man, as Velleius was, could hardly escape the growing tendency of the times to
flatter the princeps and his helpers. This tendency is plainer still in
Valerius Maximus, who dedicated his nine-volume collection of Exempla of
virtues and vices to the heavenly providence of Tiberius, and who retails some
scraps of information about victims of the Proscription of 43-42, and about
famous men of the Augustan principate. The younger Seneca lived through the
reigns of Tiberius, Gaius and Claudius, and most of
Nero’s, and though he wrote no professed historical work, his numerous
moralizing treatises contain first-hand contemporary information, often of real
value. But his feelings change with the times, and his early flattery of
Claudius, or of his freedmen, turns into bitter mockery of the Emperor when dead. Few things could exceed the savagery of
the Apocolocyntosis divi Claudil (which is almost universally acknowledged to
be Seneca’s), where every feature of Claudius’ person is ridiculed, and he
himself damned by the verdict of the very Emperor,
Augustus, whom he professed to hold as his model. Such are treatises
written ‘recentibus odiis’
Very different is the work of our most important
surviving authority, Cornelius Tacitus—the praenomen is still uncertain—though
here only essentials can be mentioned. He was born probably early in the reign
of Nero (c a.d. 55), married the daughter of Agricola in 77, and passed through
most of the stages in the official career under the Flavian emperors. Praetor
in 88, he was then away from Rome for four years in some provincial post; he
returned to find his father-in-law dead—it was rumoured that Domitian had
poisoned him—and to witness the tyranny of the last years of Domitian’s reign;
on his death he attained the consulship in 97, with the Emperor Nerva as his
colleague. He was proconsul of Asia about 112, and died probably early in Hadrian’s reign. Thus he had an
advantage denied to many of the historians mentioned here, of knowing the
workings of the system he was to describe. He had received the thorough
training in rhetoric common to the time, he was an impressive orator, and he
had already completed three studies in different genres before he undertook the
writing of his two great historical works: these were the Histories covering
the years from 68 to 96, probably in twelve books, of which only the first four
and a few chapters of the fifth survive, and the Annals, from 14 to 68,
probably in eighteen books, of which we now possess Books i-iv, a fragment ofV,
VI, about half of Book XI, the whole of XII-XV, and a few chapters of Book XVI.
Of the three preliminary studies the Dialogus de oratoribus (now generally
agreed to be his and possibly published as early as a.d. 81), discusses the
reasons for the admitted decline of oratory under the Principate, and finds
them in the lack of party strife and politics and in the all-pervading
influence of the princeps, the de vita Julii Agricolae is a biography of his
father-in-law, published in 98, when his hatred of Domitian could find free
vent; and the de origine et situ Germanorum published in the same year as his
Agricola but later, is a study of the land and climate of Germany and of the
history and social and religious structure of the German tribes. The value of
these last two works for the early history of Roman Britain and of the Germans
needs no underlining.
It is clear therefore that Tacitus had an experienced
pen, practical knowledge, and personal experience; to this he added a grasp of
the literature and a thoroughness in investigating sources which his friend the
younger Pliny unreservedly admired. But he approached his task with certain
inevitable preconceptions; his reading of history combined with his own
experience showed him that since the Republic had been superseded by the
Principate, two men, emerging victorious from bloody Civil Wars, had founded
dynasties that began with a programme of peace, reconciliation, and
restoration, of security, and yet went down in cruelty and bloodshed. One
emperor alone had changed for the better, Vespasian (Hist. 1, 50): on all the
others, power had exercised a demoralizing effect (cf. Jnn. vi, 48 and xv, 53).
This feeling, coupled with the strong impress left by the Stoic circles among
which he moved, makes him take a moral view of the function of history. But
though this view naturally affects his presentation of events and colours his
painting of the emperors, he never forgoes the first duty of a historian,
laborious and critical investigation of evidence in order to reach a true and impartial account. Though occasionally he appears to group
events more with a view to literary effect than to their strict sequence in
time, it would be difficult to produce an instance where he has deliberately
misstated or falsified facts, and easy to cite passages where he carefully
rejects and passes over versions and rumours which might suit his book better,
but which he eschews. His portrait of the slow degeneration of Tiberius or
Claudius is severe, but with his preconceptions, and on the evidence before
him, he could not write otherwise: he depicted Tiberius as he does because the
evidence before him all pointed that way. Modern research tends ultimately not
so much to prove Tacitus false or malignant, but rather to illustrate and
stress aspects of the history of the Empire in which Tacitus was not
interested.
Thus it comes about that the facts he reports are usually
accurate enough and rarely refuted by modern discoveries, but his
interpretation must often be challenged. For some three generations Tacitus has
been subjected to the most merciless and often unfair analytical scrutiny, even
accused of l’hystérie du mensonge, but the trend of present-day scholarship is
towards the recognition of his integrity and essential greatness. He is by far
the most complete and the most trustworthy author that we possess for the early
Principate.
From Tacitus it is a long descent to C. Suetonius
Tranquillus, yet his writings contain much that is useful and illuminating. A
humbler friend in the younger Pliny’s circle, a born researcher and
antiquarian, for a short time he was secretary to Hadrian; but the rest of his
life was uneventful, devoted to learning and to writing. Save for a few
literary biographies. The Lives of the Twelve Caesars alone survives from his
voluminous output. It is obvious that he read widely and gathered information
everywhere: he often quotes from or bases his view upon official or semi-official
documents, e.g., the Res Gestae, speeches and letters of various emperors, yet
he often reproduces the merest gossip, or popular songs, or rumours perpetuated
in hostile antiCaesarian literature. In consequence The Lives is a curious
patchwork, for Suetonius makes no organic whole of them, but arranges each
under a series of Rubrics or Headings (e.g. Public
Life and Offices, Campaigns, Treatment of Friends, Virtues, Vices, etc.), in
which good and worthless elements may be juxtaposed. So the value of a life varies greatly according to the material available: he is
excellent on Augustus and good on Claudius (where it has been conjectured that
he used Claudius’ own account of his life), fairly balanced upon Tiberius,
though with a good deal of sensational detail, and definitely hostile to Gaius
and Nero, against whom obviously an evil tradition existed. It is likely
enough that for the Year of the Four Emperors (a.d. 69) he used the same basic
source (perhaps Pliny) as Tacitus and Plutarch, and a comparison of what
Tacitus omits and what Suetonius retains is instructive. One great merit he
has, that he often preserves speeches and utterances unaltered and material
uncontaminated, whereas more consciously literary authors, such as Tacitus and
Dio, are too apt for reasons of style or regard for ‘the dignity of
history’ to avoid direct quotation, and work the
substance into their narrative. Occasionally he takes trouble over a disputed
question, such as the birthplace of Gaius, at another time he can complacently
exclaim, ‘at quod discrepat in medio sit’. Yet within his limits he preserves
material of great value.
There remain for final mention some late epitomators,
Florus, Eutropius, Aurelius Victor, and Orosius. Under the name of Julius Florus we possess four (perhaps originally two) books
on the Wars of the Romans, rhetorical and inaccurate, probably composed during
the reign of Hadrian. To the fourth century belongs the Breviarium of
Eutropius, an epitome of Roman History from Romulus down to the emperor Valens,
to whom the work was dedicated: so too a couple of biographical works, de viris
illustrious and Caesares usually ascribed to a certain Sextus Aurelius Victor.
Paulus Orosius, a Spaniard and pupil of St Augustine,
published in 417 the seven books of his Historiae adversus Paganos, compiled
with the genial aim of proving that the miseries of his Christian times were no
more than those of the Pagan centuries. All these epitomes derive whatever
value they possess for the early period of this volume from the fact that they
all used an abridged version of the lost books of Livy; occasionally, but only
occasionally, they preserve figures or facts of some worth. For the period
after Augustus they merely repeat monotonously the
tradition that was finally fixed after the time of Tacitus and Suetonius.
A brief account only need be given here of some
technical or semi-technical works. Vitruvius Pollio published, probably about
14 b.c., the ten books of his de Architecturai which contain some valuable information
about the period when Rome was being transformed and beautified by the building
works of Augustus and of his friends. Sextus Julius Frontinus, who was praetor
urbanus in 70, governor of Britain between 74 and 77, and finally curator
aquarum under Nerva in 97, was the author of several treatises: of these the
four books of Strategemata (published in the late years of Domitian) afford
some items of interest for our period, and a monograph, possibly originally
entitled Commentarius de aquis and published about a.d. ioo, gives important
information about the water-supply of Rome and its organization under the early
Empire. Some three hundred years later Flavius Vegetius Renatus compiled from
various sources, including the Elder Cato and Frontinus, an Epitoma ret
militaris which, in spite of inaccuracies and
uncertain chronology, provides material of some value for the history of the
imperial armies.
Strabo, of Amasia (r. 40 b.c.-a.d. 25), a Greek who
spent much of his time in Rome, and had realized that henceforth Greek and
Roman were one culture, wrote, in addition to the seventeen books of his Geography , a history of which unfortunately only fragments
remain.. But his geographical books, which were completed in first draft by
about 6 b.c., and then later apparently roughly revised so as
to include some of the events of the first ten years of Tiberius, are a
mine of information for the whole of the Empire, based on excellent sources. On
the Northern frontier wars, on relations with Parthia, on the Arabian
expedition of Aelius Gallus, on the internal conditions of Italy and the
provinces, and on the Principate as it looked to the world of his day, he gives
the most valuable evidence, disinterested and (for the time) accurate.
Philo, of Alexandria (c. 30 b.c.-a.d. 45), uncle of
Tiberius Alexander was a wealthy Jew, steeped in Greek, and especially
Platonic, philosophy, who devoted most of his large output to explaining and
allegorizing the books of the Bible, but two nearly complete parts remain from
a treatise on ‘The Wonderful Works of God’. These, despite an overload of
declamation, contain an extremely graphic picture of the famous Jew-hunt of
Alexandria’ in a.d. 38 and of an embassy of Alexandrian Jews, of which Philo
himself was a member, to the Emperor Gaius. But the rhetoric is strong:
Tiberius is praised with enthusiasm to make Gaius’ wickedness appear the
blacker, and the figure of King Agrippa I, though possibly more moral, is less
natural than in the pages of Josephus. But when the necessary deductions have
been made, his evidence is not unimportant.
The Jewish general and Roman citizen, Flavius Josephus
(a.d. 37-? 100), provides material of great interest in this period, not only
for affairs in Judaea and Syria—he is practically the sole source for the reign
of Herod the Great and for the history of his descendants—but also for affairs
in Rome. Not only does he preserve, usually in an abbreviated form, edicts and
rescripts of various emperors concerning the Jews, but he also gives an
interesting account of the last days of Tiberius and of the assassination of
Gaius, that clearly derives from a good Roman original (possibly Cluvius
Rufus); in the earlier part his view of Cleopatra derives from Herod’s
defender, Nicolaus. More important still is his narrative of the events that
led up to the Jewish revolt, and of the actual course of the revolt itself, in
much of which he played a leading part; but in his writings he has the
difficult task of portraying himself satisfactorily as at once a pious Jew and
patriot, and yet a friend and supporter of the Romans. Whatever the exact
purpose of his Jewish Antiquities, in twenty books, from Creation to a.d. 66,
published in 94, his Vita published later is frankly apologetic against the
attacks of his enemies, and his Jewish War, in seven books, which was published
earlier, and apparently first written in Aramaic, is a pro-Roman document, and
issued, as he declares, under official approval. But where his own personal
attitude or behaviour is not in question, he is a source of undeniable merit.
Plutarch, of Chaeronea in Boeotia (c. a.d. 50—120),
the writer of the famous Parallel Lives, in his Cicero and Brutus offers
admirable material, based on first-hand evidence, such as that of Cicero’s
confidential secretary Tiro and of Brutus’ companions and friends. In his
Antony, however, he is obviously out of sympathy with the protagonist, though
he draws on Dellius, and towards the end on the memoirs of Cleopatra’s
physician, Olympus; even so it is one of the finest of his Lives, Of his
biographies of the emperors, apart from those of Galba and Otho (where the
elder Pliny appears to have been his principal source), nothing remains, though
some scraps in the Moralia suggest that they contained plenty of those
anecdotes and personal touches ‘reflecting character,’ that Plutarch sought
out.
A writer of considerable value for the early period is
Appian, a Greek from Alexandria, who rose to hold a minor official position
under the Antonines. In Books XV—xvii of his Roman Histories (usually numbered
as Books III-V of the Civil Wars), he covers the period from 44 to 35 b.c. with
some fullness, and in Book xxiii (the Illyrica) he recounts Octavian’s
campaigns of 35 and 34 in Dalmatia, using Octavian’s autobiography. Much of
these books, being mainly military, is admirable in facts and figures, whereas
he is uneasy and incorrect upon constitutional matters, as the end of the
Second Triumvirate. Down to the battle of Philippi he draws largely upon Asinius
Pollio, which accounts for his bias against Cicero and Munatius Plancus; after
42 B.C., it looks as though he used Messalla Corvinus and Augustus’
autobiography as well. Naturally he finds much to say in favour of Octavian,
though it is noticeable that he looks on Mark Antony and his brother L.
Antonius with sympathy. In these books Appian gives us some of his best.
Dio Cassius Cocceianus, whose floruit falls about a.d.
200, and who wrote a history of Rome, in eighty books, from the foundation of
the city to a.d. 229, is a writer of curious contradictions. Of Greek descent,
but a Roman citizen and with a distinguished career (including the consulship)
in the service of the Empire, a would-be Thucydides, an admirer of Severan
autocracy, deeply conscious of the high office of the historian, yet often
descending to puerile anecdotes and to catalogues of omens, he is almost an
epitome of the strong and weak points of the later Graeco-Roman civilization.
Books XLIV-LXV, retailing the history of the period covered by this volume, are fairly complete, save for the reign of Nero and years
of the Civil War, where we have to depend upon epitomators. From Books XLIV-LIV
Livy was probably his main source, which means that he is apt to be
pro-Augustan and anti-Antonian, though a strong secondary source, anti-Augustan
(perhaps Timagenes), crops up from time to time: for the reigns of the
Julio-Claudians no certainty can be established, but it may be noted that he
follows a tradition extremely hostile to Seneca. The lengthy speeches he
inserts in the body of his narrative are unhistorical—as, e.g., the alleged
conversation between Octavian and his advisers in Book lii, which reflects
Dio’s own age and views and not those of Octavian—and their style curiously
streaked with reminiscences of Greek drama or of Thucydides. His statements on
matters of constitutional importance in the development of the Principate are
often refuted by better evidence, and where it is not possible to check what he
says on these matters he is not to be readily credited with precision, the more
so that he is by no means consistent in his translation of Roman terms into
Greek. Yet in spite of obvious faults, we owe him
gratitude on many counts: he preserves an indispensable chronological
framework, he appears—as he claims himself—to have worked carefully at his
sources and to have formed a view of his own, and without his aid we should be
badly adrift for long sections of Roman history.
Some writers of considerably later date round off the
list. John MalaLas of Antioch in Syria compiled in the sixth century an universal history in twelve books, and much of Book X
refers to the period comprised in this volume. Malalas’ main interest naturally
lies in Eastern affairs, especially in those of his native-Antioch; indeed he shows a fine disregard for Western geography and
chronology. But amid a mass of rather trivial anecdotes he does occasionally preserve items—about building-benefactions, or about riots
between Jews and Christians—that appear to be founded on genuine
city-tradition. Among works of Byzantine scholars we
possess excerpts from the great Encyclopaedia of historical extracts which the
Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus had drawn up in the tenth century, and to
the same century probably belongs the Lexicon of Suidas, which includes
articles on the emperors. Later still, John Xiphilinus, in the eleventh
century, and John Zonaras, in the twelfth, made epitomes'of Dio Cassius, which
thus preserve the Dionic tradition where Dio himself is lacking. But all these
late works must be used with considerable caution.
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