A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology

the celebrated historian of Rome. He probably derived the gentile name of Cassius from one of his ancestors, who, on receiving the Roman franchise, had been adopted into the Cassia gens; for his father, Cassius Apronianus, had already borne it. He appears to have adopted the cognomen of Cocceianus from Dion Chrysostomus Cocceianus, the orator, who, according to Reimarus, was his grandfather on his mother's side. Dio Cassius Cocceianus, or as he is more commonly called Dio Cassius, was born, about A. D. 155, at Nicaea in Bithynia. He was educated with great care, and was trained in the rhetorical schools of the time, and in the study of the classical writers of ancient Greece. After the completion of his literary studies, he appears to have accompanied his father to Cilicia, of which he had the administration, and after his father's death, about A. D. 180, he went to Rome; so that he arrived there either in the last year of the reign of M. Aurelius, or in the first of that of Commodus. He had then attained the senatorial age of twentyfive, and was raised to the rank of a Roman senator ; but he did not obtain any honours under Commodus, except the aedileship and quaestorship, and it was not till A. D. 193, in the reign of Pertinax, that he gained the office of praetor. During the thirteen years of the reign of Commodus, Dio Cassius remained at Rome, and devoted his time partly to pleading in the courts of justice, and thus assisting his friends, and partly in collecting materials for a history of Commodus, of whose actions he was a constant eye-witness. After the fall of this emperor, Dion, with the other senators, voted for the elevation of Pertinax, A. D. 193, who was his friend, and who immediately promoted him to the praetorship, which however he did not enter upon till the year following, the first of the reign of Septimius Severus. During the short reign of Pertinax Dio Cassius enjoyed the emperor's friendship, and

conducted himself on all occasions as nn upright and virtuous man. The accession of Septimius Severus raised great hopes in Dion of being further promoted; but these hopes were not realized, notwithstanding the favour which Severus shewed him in the beginning of his reign. Soon after the accession of Severus, Dion wrote a work on the dreams and prodigies which had announced the elevation of this emperor, and which he presented to Severus, who thanked him for it in a long epistle. The night after he had received this epistle, Dion was called upon in a dream to write the history of his own time, which induced him to work out the materials he had already collected for a history of Commodus. A similar dream or vision afterwards led him to write the history of Septimius Severus and Caracalla. When the history of Commodus was completed, Dion read it to the emperor, who received it with so much approbation. that Dion was encouraged to write a history of Rome from the earliest times, and to insert in it what he had already written about the reign of Commodus. The next ten years, therefore, were spent in making the preparatory studies and collecting materials, and twelve years more, during the greater part of which he lived in quiet retirement at Capua, were employed in composing the work. It was his intention to carry the history as far down as possible, and to add an account of the reigns of the emperors succeeding Severus, so far as he might witness them. Reimarus conceives that Dion began collecting his materials in A. D. 201, and that after the death of Severus, in A. D. 211, he commenced the composition of his work, which would thus have been completed in A. D. 222.

The reason why Severus did not promote Dion is probably owing to the emperor's change of opinion respecting Commodus; for, during the latter part of his reign, he admired Commodus as much as he had before detested him; and what Dion had written about him could not be satisfactory to an admirer of the tyrant. Dion thus remained in Italy for many years, without any new dignity being conferred upon him. In the reign of Caracalla it became customary for a select number of senators to accompany the emperor in his expeditions and travels, and Dion was one of them. He bitterly complains of having been compelled in consequence to spend immense sums of money, and not only to witness the tyrant's disgraceful conduct, but to some extent to be an accomplice in it. In the company of the emperor, Dion thus visited Nicomedeia; but he does not appear to have gone any further; for of the subsequent events in Asia and Egypt he does not speak as an eye-witness, but only appeals to reports. Macrinus, however, appears to have again called him to Asia, and to have entrusted to him the administration of the free cities of Pergamus and Smyrna, which had shortly before revolted. Dion went to this post about A. D. 218, and seems to have remained there for about three years, on account of the various points which had to be settled. At the expiration of his office, however, he did not return to Rome, but went to Nicaea in Bithynia. On his arrival there he was taken ill, but notwithstanding was raised, during his absence, to the consulship, either A. D. 219 or 220. After this he obtained the proconsulship of Africa, which, however, cannot have been earlier than A. D. 224. After his return to Italy, he was sent, in A. D. 226, as legate to Dalmatia, and the year after to Pannonia. In the latter province he restored strict discipline among the troops; and on his return to Rome, the praetorians began to fear lest he should use his influence for the purpose of interfering with their conduct likewise, and in order to prevent this, they demanded of the emperor Alexander Severus to put him to death. But the emperor not only disregarded their clamour, but raised Dion, A. D. 229, to his second consulship, in which Alexander himself was his colleague. Alexander also conferred other distinctions upon him, and undertook out of his own purse to defray the expenses which the dignity of consul demanded of Dion. However, as Dion could not feel safe at Rome under these circumstances, the emperor requested him to take up his residence somewhere in Italy at a distance from the city. After the expiration of his consulship, Dion returned to Rome, and spent some time with the emperor in Campania ; but he appears at length to have become tired of the precarious life at Rome, and under the pretext of suffering from a bad foot, he asked and obtained permission to return to his native place, and there to spend the remainder of his life in quiet retirement. At Nicaea Dion completed his history, and there he also died. The time of his death is unknown. Respecting his family nothing is recorded, except that in two passages he just mentions his wife and children; and it may be that the Dio Cassius whom we find consul in A. D. 291 was a grandson of our historian. The account we have here given of the life of Dio Cassius is derived from scattered passages of his own work, and from a short article in Suidas.

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