Cassius Dio on the Origins of Rome's External Wars Under The

chapter 3 Causation and Morality: Cassius Dio on the Origins of Rome’s External Wars under the Republic

John Rich

The fully extant part of Cassius Dio’s eighty-book Roman History opens in 69 BCE, with Book 36, and is dominated by the collapse of the Republic, the ensuing civil wars and the transition to the monarchy of the emperors. Dio’s first thirty-five books survive only in the meagre epitome of Zonaras and in Byzantine collections of excerpts, of which the most important are the Constantinian Excerpts, and particularly the so-called Excerpta de sententiis, preserved in a single defective manuscript (hereafter, ES).1 External wars bulked large in these books, and Roman imperial expansion will have been one of their principal themes. However, their limited preservation has meant that this aspect of Dio’s work has received comparatively little attention. Dio’s view of the origins of Rome’s Republican wars and the related issues of ethics and policy has prompted a few (mostly brief) discussions, but the topic deserves a fresh look.2

1 Authorial Comments on Early Wars

Issues relating to war and its ethics were an established feature of the historio- graphical tradition on the first four kings, and fragments from this part of Dio’s narrative preserve a number of authorial observations on such topics. One of the first surviving fragments relates to Romulus’ defeat of Caenina, Antemnae and Crustumerium, three of the communities from which his new citizens had seized wives. Dio remarks that “they learned themselves and taught others that those who seek to avenge their wrongs do not always succeed just

1 On Dio’s early books see now the studies collected in Burden-Strevens & Lindholmer 2019. I discuss the structure and coverage of these books at Rich 2016 and their speeches at Rich 2019. On Dio’s sources in these books see Schwartz 1899, 1692–1697; Urso 2019; and the papers at Fromentin et al. 2016, 125–231. 2 Discussions include Gabba 1955, 301–311; Fechner 1986, 216–246; Hose 1994, 364–384; Urso 2002; Bertrand 2016, 2019; Adler forthcoming.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/9789004434431_005 66 Rich because they have suffered injury, and that those who make demands from the stronger often not only do not get what they ask, but lose the rest” (frg. 5.4: καὶ αὐτοί τε ἐξέμαθον καὶ τοὺς ἄλλους ἐξεδίδαξαν ὅτι οὔθ’ οἱ τιμωρούμενοί τινας κατορθοῦσι πάντως, ὅτι προηδίκηνται, οὔθ’ οἱ παρὰ τῶν κρειττόνων ἀπαιτοῦντές τινα ἀπολαμβάνουσιν αὐτά, ἀλλὰ πολλάκις καὶ τὰ λοιπὰ προσαπολλύουσιν).3 Thus for Dio in these, their very first, wars the Romans were in the wrong, but their vic- tories demonstrated the principle, to which he frequently reverts, that being in the right is no guarantee of success in war. Meagre traces survive of Dio’s account of Romulus and Numa, since Zonaras preferred to use Plutarch as his main source for their reigns. However, a fragment (frg. 6.6) shows that Dio, like his predecessors, presented Romulus as the warrior founder and Numa as teaching the Romans the arts of peace. Like Dionysius, Dio may have credited Numa with the institution of the fetiales and their procedure for declaring war, and he may also have mentioned his closure of the shrine of Janus as a mark of general peace.4 According to tradition, the pacific Numa was followed by the warrior Tullus Hostilius, the conqueror of Alba. An unsuccessful attempt was said to have been made to reach agreement between the Romans and the Albans as to which should rule the other. Dio explains its failure as arising from what for him were two of the most notable constants in human nature, “men’s innate rivalry with those like themselves and desire to rule others” (frg. 7.3: τῆς ἐμφύτου τοῖς ἀνθρώποις πρός τε τὸ ὅμοιον φιλονεικίας καὶ πρὸς τὸ ἄρχειν ἑτέρων ἐπιθυμίας).5 The tradition made the fourth king, Ancus Marcius, a composite of his two predecessors: he was naturally pacific, like his grandfather Numa, but the Latins’ raiding and rebuff of his mission seeking redress obliged him to resort to war.6 Dio’s version survives in Zonaras (7.7.1–2) and more fully in a fragment (frg. 8). His distinctive contribution is a characteristic speculation on the par- ties’ motivation. The Latins’ behaviour, rather than being presented as simply aggressive, is attributed to resentment and fear arising from the fate of Alba, and Ancus’ resort to war is explained as resulting from his recognizing what

3 I have taken my translations of Dio from the Loeb edition of E. Cary, with some modifications. 4 Dio’s first extant references to these institutions (50.4.5, 51.20.4) suggest that he had mentioned them before. Numa’s institution of the fetiales: Dion. Hal. 2.72; Plut. Num. 12.4–8 (following Dionysius). 5 Cf. Zonar. 7.6.2. For the incident see also Dion. Hal. 3.9.7–12.1 (with speeches). For similars’ rivalry see also frg. 5.12; 41.53.3. On these factors’ central place in Dio’s conception of human nature see Fechner 1986, 211–213; Kuhn-Chen 2001, 169–171; Rees 2011, 14, 21–23, 28; Burden- Strevens 2015, 201. 6 So Dion. Hal. 3.37.1–3; Livy 1.32.1–4. At this point Livy inserts his account of the fetial procedure for declaring war, following a tradition attributing it to Ancus (Livy 1.32.5–14; Rich 2011, 187–188, 199–209).