Dios Rome, Vol. 6 | Page 6

translation of an incorrect reading. The various
editors of Dio have a few substitutes to propose, but as all the
interpretations seem to me extremely lumbering I have turned the MS.
[Greek] chêlidoysthai (taken as a passive) in a way that may be not
quite beyond the bounds of possibility. The noun [Greek] chêlhist like
the English "stain," often passes from its original sense of "blemish" to
that of the consequent "disgrace."] of murder still rested on him.
The above describes him in general terms.
[Sidenote: A.D. 213(?)] [Sidenote:--12--] Now we shall state what sort
of person he showed himself in war. [Abgarus, king of the Osrhoeni,
when he had once got control of the kindred tribes, inflicted the most
outrageous treatment upon his superiors. Nominally he was compelling
them to change to Roman customs, but in fact he was making the most
of his authority over them in an unjustifiable way.] He tricked the king
of the Osrhoeni, Abgarus, inducing him to visit him as a friend, and
then arrested and imprisoned him. This left Osrhoene without a ruler
and he subdued it.
The king of the Armenians had a dispute with his own children and

Antoninus summoned him in a friendly letter with the avowed purpose
of making peace between them: he treated these princes in the same
fashion as he had Abgarus. The Armenians, however, instead of
yielding to him had recourse to arms and not one of them thereafter
would trust him in the slightest particular. Thus he was brought by
experience to understand how great the penalty is for an emperor's
practicing deceit toward friends. [The same ruler assumed the utmost
credit for the fact that at the death of Vologæsus, king of the Parthians,
his children proceeded to fight about the sovereignty; what was purely
accidental he pretended had come about through his own connivance.
He ever took vehement delight in the actions and dissensions of the
brothers and generally in the mutual slaughter of foreign potentates.]
He did not hesitate, either, to write to the senate regarding the rulers of
the Parthians (who were brothers and at variance) that the brothers'
quarrel would work great harm to the Parthian state. Just as if barbarian
governments could be destroyed by such procedure and yet the Roman
state had been preserved! Just as if it had not been, on the contrary,
almost utterly overthrown! It was not merely that the great sums of
blood money given under such conditions to the soldiers for his
brother's murder served to demoralize mankind: in addition, vast
numbers of citizens had information laid against them,--not only those
who had sent the brother letters or had brought him presents [Footnote:
Reading [Greek: dôrophorhêsantest] (Reimar) for the MS. [Greek:
doruphoraesantes].] when he was still Cæsar or again after he had
become emperor, but all the rest who had never had any dealings with
him. If anybody even so much as wrote the name of Geta, or spoke it,
that was the end of him then and there. Hence the poets no longer used
it even in comedies. [Footnote: Geta was a common name for slaves in
Latin comedy. It came into Rome through Greek channels and was
originally merely the national adjective applied to a tribe of northern
barbarians.] The property, too, of all those in whose wills the name was
found written was confiscated.
[Many of his acts were committed with a view to getting money. And
he exhibited his hatred for his dead brother by abolishing the honor
paid to his birthday, by getting angry at the stones which had supported
his images, and by melting up the coinage that displayed his features.
Not even this sufficed him, but more than ever from this time he began

his practice of unholy rites and often forced others to share his
pollution by making a kind of annual offering to his brother's Manes.]
[Sidenote: A.D. 213 (_a.u._ 966)] [Sidenote:--13--] Though holding
such views and behaving in such a way with regard to the latter's
murder he took delight in the dissension of the barbarian brothers, on
the ground that the Parthians would suffer some great injury as a result
of it.
[The Celtic nations, however, afforded him neither pleasure nor any
pretence of cleverness or courage but proved him to be nothing more
nor less than a cheat, a simpleton, and an arrant coward. Antoninus
made a campaign among the Alamanni and wherever he saw a spot
suitable for habitation he would order: "There let a fort be erected:
there let a city be built." To those spots he applied names relating to
himself, yet the local designations did not get changed; for some of the
people were unaware of the new appellations and others thought he was
joking. Consequently he came to