Dio's Rome, Volume 3

42

Compare Book Forty three, chapter 9 (§4).

43

Compare the first chapter of this Book.

44

Compare Book Forty-three, chapter 47 (and see also XLVIII, 33, and LII, 41).

45

This is an error either of Dio or of some copyist. The person made king of the Jews at this time was in reality Antigonus the son of Aristobulus and nephew of Hyrcanus. Compare chapter 41 of this book, and Book Forty-nine, chapter 22.

In this same sentence I read [Greek: echthos] (as Boissevain and the MSS.) in place of [Greek: ethos].

46

Hurling from the Tarpeian rock was a punishment that might be inflicted only upon freemen. Slaves would commonly be crucified or put out of the way by some method involving similar disgrace.

47

After "Menas advised it" Zonaras in his version of Dio has: "bidding him cut the ship's cable, if he liked, and sail away."

48

Suetonius (Life of Augustus, chapter 83) also mentions this fashion.

49

Verb suggested by Leunclavius.

50

This is the well known Gnosos in Crete. For further information in regard to the matter see Strabo X, 4, 9 (p. 477) and Velleius Paterculus, II, 81, 2.

51

There is at this point a gap of one line in the MSS.

52

Using Naber's emendation [Greek: probeblaemenoi].

53

The Latin word testudo, represented in Greek by the precisely equivalent [Greek: chelonae] in Dio's narrative, means "tortoise."

54

The amount is not given in the MSS. The traditional sum, incorporated in most editions to fill the gap and complete the sense, is thirty-five. "One hundred" is a clever conjecture of Boissevain's.

55

Probably in A.D. 227.

56

Called Colapis by Strabo and Pliny.

57

A marginal note in Reimar's edition suggests amending the rather abrupt [Greek: loipois] at this point to [Greek: Libournois] ("waged war with (i. e., against) thee Liburni"); and we might be tempted to follow it, but for the fact that Appian uses language almost identical with Dio's in his Illyrian Wars, chapter 27 ("He [Augustus] left Statilius Taurus to finish the war").

58

The gymnasiarch was an essentially Greek official, but might be found outside of Hellas in such cities as had come under Greek influence. In Athens he exercised complete supervision of the gymnasium, paying for training and incidentals, arranging the details of contests, and empowered to eject unsuitable persons from the enclosure. We have comparatively little information about his duties and general standing elsewhere, but probably they were nearly the same. The office was commonly an annual one.

Antony did not limit to Alexandria his performance of the functions of gymnasiarch. We read in Plutarch (Life of Antony, chapter 33) that at Athens on one occasion he laid aside the insignia of a Roman general to assume the purple mantle, white shoes, and the rods of this official; and in Strabo (XIV, 5, 14) that he promised the people of Tarsos to preside in a similar manner at some of their games, but the time came sent a representative instead.—See Krause, Gymnnastik und Agonistik der Hellenen, page 196.

59

See Book Forty-eight, chapter 35.

60

Chapter 4 of this book.

61

Cp. Book Forty-seven, chapter 11.

62

Sc. of denarii.

63

L. Tarius Rufus.

64

Dio in some unknown manner has at this point evidently made a very striking mistake. Sosius was not killed in the encounter but survived to be pardoned by Octavius after the latter's victory. And our historian, who here says he perished, speaks in the next book (chapter 2) of the amnesty accorded.

65

Canopus was only fifteen miles distant from Alexandria (hence its pertinence here) and was noted for its many festivals and bad morals,—the latter being superinduced by the presence in the city of a large floating population of foreigners and sailors. The atmosphere of the town (to compare small things with great) was, in a word, that of Corinth.