DIO’S ROMAN HISTORY

44

The following is contained in the Forty-fourth of Dio’s Rome.

About the decrees passed in honor of Caesar (chapters 1-11).

About the conspiracy formed against him (chapters 12-18).

How Caesar was murdered (chapters 19-22).

How a decree was passed that the people should not bear malice against one another (chapters 23-34).

About the burial of Caesar and the oration delivered over him (chapters 35-53).

Duration of time, to the end of the 5th dictatorship of Julius Caesar, held in company with Aemilius Lepidus as Master of the Horse, and to the end of his 5th consulship, shared with Marcus Antonius. (B.C. 44 = a.u. 710).

(BOOK 44, BOISSEVAIN.)

[B.C. 44 (a.u. 710)]

[-1-] This Caesar did as a preliminary step to making a campaign against the Parthians, but a baleful frenzy which fell upon certain men through jealousy of his onward progress and hatred of his being esteemed above others caused the death of the leader by unlawful means, while it added a new name to the annals of infamy; it scattered decrees to the winds and brought upon the Romans seditions again and civil wars after a state of harmony.  They declared that they had proved themselves both destroyers of Caesar and liberators of the people, but in fact their plot against him was one of fiendish malice, and they threw the city into disorder when at last it possessed a stable government. [-2-] Democracy has a fair appearing name which conveys the impression of bringing equal rights to all from equal laws, but its results are seen not to agree at all with its title.  Monarchy, on the contrary, strikes the ear unpleasantly, but is a very excellent government to live under.  It is easier to find one single excellent man than many, and if even this seems to some a difficult feat, it is quite inevitable that the other proposition be acknowledged to be impossible; for the acquirement of virtue is not a characteristic of the majority of men.  And again, even though one reprobate should obtain supreme power, yet he is preferable to a multitude of such persons, as the history of the Greeks and barbarians and of the Romans themselves proves.  For successes have always been greater and more in number in the case both of cities and of individuals under kings than under popular rule, and disasters do not happen so easily in monarchies as in ochlocracies.  In cases where a democracy has flourished anywhere, it has nevertheless reached its prime during a short period when the people had neither size nor strength that abuses should spring up among them from good fortune or jealousies from ambition.  For a city so large as this, ruling the finest and the greatest part of the known world, containing men of many and diverse natures, holding many huge fortunes, occupied with every imaginable pursuit, enjoying every imaginable fortune, both individually