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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 December 2013
The town of Prusa, of which Dio was a native, stood in a fertile valley in Western Bithynia near Mt. Olympus. To this day the country round Brusa is remarkably rich and beautiful and here were situated the vineyards and farms which belonged to Dio's family. His grandfather was a distinguished sophist, τὴν γὰρ οὐσίαν ἣν εἴχε πατρῴαν καὶ παππῴαν ἅπασαν εἰς φιλοτιμίαν ἀναλώσας, ὥστε μηδὲν ἔχειν λοιπόν, ἑτέραν ἐκτήσατο ἀπò παιδείας καì παρὰ τῶν αὐτοκρατόρων: and the sophistical or rhetorical bias of Dio's education is clearly reflected in his earlier speeches. It mattered little that the study of the classics formed part of the average education: his reading everywhere would be directed by teachers who held the ordinary sophistical view that exact thinking and deep study unfit a man for practical life and that success is achieved by those who have acquired the art of making a skilful and impressive use of ideas which do not differ materially from those of the ordinary citizen. In the view of this school philosophical epideixis was only a small part of sophistic, and Stoics, Cynics, Epicureans, Platonists, and Peripatetics were only dry-as-dust schoolmasters and pedants who, differing in everything else, united in disparaging the universal culture of the Sophists.
1 In a bad season, says Dio, , ἔστι μοι ἡ πᾶσα ἐπικαρπία ἐξ οἴνου καὶ βοσκημάτων (Or. 46 p. 126Google Scholar; § 8) but compared with other cities corn is always cheap at Prusa, (Or. 46Google Scholar; § 10). ‘The environs are of great beauty; the mountain, with its marked zones of vegetation rises up from the town, and there are many charming drives and walks in the chestnut, oak, and other woods.’ SirWilson, Charles, in Murray's, Handbook to Constantinople, &c p. 125Google Scholar.
2 Or. 46 p. 125; § 3.
3 Cf. the tradition that Dio met Vespasian in Egypt in 69 A.D. not as a youth but as a man with a reputation.
4 Esp., Or. 13Google Scholar.
5 H. v. Arnim, Leben und Werke des Dio von Prusa 1898 p. 311Google Scholar.
6 The invective against Athens is incompatible with a post-exile date: after 96 many scattered allusions and the whole of Or. 13 show quite a different feeling.
7 Or. 31 p. 382; § 13; the phrase ἔγγιστο ἐφ’ ἡμῶν indicates that Dio was no longer a youth in 66 A.D. and presupposes for the year of his birth a date not later than 50.
8 Or. 44, p. 117; § 12.
9 Perhaps the name Cocceianus (cf. Pliny, , Ad Trajanum 81, 1)Google Scholar.
10 Until the year 99 A.D. Trajan was in Germany and in 101 he was preparing for the first Dacian war. In this latter year may have occurred the second embassy sent by discontented Prusans and coldly received by the Emperor.
11 In striking contrast is his treatment elsewhere, ἔπειτα συνηθείας οὔσης μοι πρὺς τὸν αὐτο κράτορα καὶ πρὸς ἄλλους πολλοὺς τοὺς δυνατω τάτους σχεδόν τι ῾Ρωμαίων, ἐκείνοις συνεῖναι τιμώμενον καὶ θαυμαζόμενον εἰ δὲ ἄρα ἀποδημῶν ἦδομαι, τὰς μεγίστας πόλεις ὀπιέναι μετὰ πολλοῦ ζήλου καὶ φιλοτιμίας παραπεμπομένων, χάριν εἰδότων μοιπαρ᾿ οὖς ἄν ἀφίκωμαι καὶ δεομέννω λέγειν καὶ συμβουλεύειν καὶ ἐπὶ τὰς ἐμὰς θύρας ἰόντων ἐξ έωθινοῦ μηδὲν ὰναλώσαντα μηδὲ προσ τιθέντα ὤστε θαυμάζειν ἄπαντας καὶ τυχὸν ἄν εἰπεῖν τινὰς
ὦ πόποι, ὡς ὄδε πᾶσι φίλος καὶ τίμιος ἐστὶν ἀνθρώποις, ὅτεών τε πόλιν καὶ δῆμον ἴκηται (Or. 47 p. 136; § 22).
12 In the interval between his restoration and the embassy 96–100 A.D. Dio had been actively engaged in improving the city. He would gladly have emulated Theseus and Epaminondas but prudently limited himself to a stoa and an aqueduct (Or. 45 p. 123; § 12); and even these were not completed without immense trouble. The δῆμος took up the scheme readily and after thorough discussion contributions were promised and the work of building begun: but a group of malcontents attempted to frustrate his plans, διδόναι μηδένα ἐῶντες καὶ τοῖς ἔργοις ἐμποδὼν γιγνόμενοι, οὔτως ἐμὲ διέθηκαν ὤστε ὀλίγου φυγὴν ἐμοῦ καταψηφίσασθαι and thus after weathering the storms of exile nearly caused him to make a ridiculous shipwreck in harbour (Or. 40 p. 92; § 12).
13 Dio replies with dignity, ὦν τί πρὸς ἐμέ ἐστιν ἤ ὄτι τὴν οἰκίαν οἰκοδομῶ πολυτεκῶς ἀλλ᾿ οὐκ ἐῶ πίπτειν ἤ ὄτι πορφύραν αὐτὸς ἠμ φίεσμαι ἀλλ᾿ οὐ φαῦλον τριβώνιον ἀλλ᾿ ὄτι κομῶ καὶ γένεια ἔχω τοῦτο δ᾿ ἴσως οὐ τυραννικόν ἐστιν ἀλλὰ βασιλικόν. ἔφη δ᾿ οὖν τις ὄτι καὶ τὸ κακῶς ἀκούειν καλῶς ποιοῦντα καὶ τοῦτο βασιλικόν ἐστιν (Or. 47 p. 137; § 25).
14 Thus while Dio assures the Rhodians that the Romans have no desire to rule over slaves (Or. 31) and holds that a good citizen will even lay down his life ὑπὲρ χρηστοῦ βασιλέως i.e. for Caesar, (Or. 32)Google Scholar, he is revolted by gladiatorial exhibitions, a Romanising institution, in the Athenian theatre. At Borysthenes, remote as it is, καὶ τἄλλα οὐκέτι σαφῶς ἐλληνίζοντες διὰ τὸ ἐν μέσοις οἰκεῖν τοῖς βαρβάροις δμως τήν γε ᾿Ιλιἁδα ὀλίγου πάντες Ισασιν ἀπὸ στόματος and a man was accused of servility to the Romans because he shaved his beard! (Or. 36 p. 53 §§ 9, 17).
15 In Or. 3, delivered perhaps before Trajan, we may see a direct reference to Dio's commission in the words ᾧ γὰρ ἐξ ἀπάντων ἀνθρώπων ἐκλέξασθαι τοὺς πιστοτάτους ὑπάρχει, καὶ σχεδὸν οὐδείς ἐστιν ὄς οὐκ ἄν ἄσμενος ὑπακούσειεν αὐτῷ βουλομένῳ χρῆσθαι, πῶς οὐ καταγε.λαστον τὸ μὴ χρῆσθαι τοῖς σπουδαιοτάτοις (Or. 3 p. 59; § 129).
16 Or. 33 p. 8; § 24.
17 Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible, s.v. Tarsus.
18 J.H.S. 1898, vol. xviii, p. 170.
18a From a cast kindly sent by Dr. Regling.
19 Tzetzes, ad Lycophron, 881Google Scholar, Amphilochus. and Mopsus are ‘dogs of Apollo.’
20 Traces of Titans are found elsewhere in Cilicia. Adanus the founder of Adana is a Titan, son of Ouranos and Gaia (Steph. Byz. s.v. ᾿´Αδανα). The Sarus was formerly called Κοίρανος (cf. the Titan Κοῖος) and Anchialus, which lay between Mersina and the Cydnus, and was said to have been built along with Tarsus in one day by Sardanapalus, (Strabo xiv, 6, 72) is reminiscent of the nymph Anchiale, mother of the Titans, Titias and Kyllenos (Apollon. Rh. i. 1129–31, quoted by Kaibel, Gõtt. Nachr. 1901 p. 489)Google Scholar. Thus it is scarcely correct to say: von Daktylen, Titanen, Kureten, Korybanten finden sich in Asien ausserhalb der phrygischen Sphäre keine Spuren, während die Grosse Mutter weit über Phrygien hinaus nach Osten und Westen hin herrschte (Kaibel, l.c. p. 496). A special connection between Cilicia and the ‘Phrygian sphere’ is indicated by the existence of Kilikes in Thebe and Lyrnessus in the Troad (Hom., Il. vi. 415)Google Scholar. Arrian speaks of an island in the Pontus Euxinus called ἡ Κιλίκων νῆσος (Peripl. p. Pont. Eux. 16, 23). Further in historical times a district in central Cappadocia was called Κιλικία, while in the fifth century B.C. the Cilicians extended up to the Halys (Herod, v. 52, i. 28, 72). To a certain extent therefore the intimate relations remarked (Kaibel l.c. p. 499) between Troas and Cyprus may apply to Cilicia, and thus it may be possible to say in reference to the primitive inhabitants of Cilicia as of Phrygia, that since the Dactyl- and Titan-cult is found both in Asia Minor and in Greece independently (not ‘imported’ in either case) it belongs to kindred peoples who pushed from the north, on the one hand into the Grecian peninsula, and on the other hand, after sojourning in Thrace, over the Bosporus, into Asia (Gõtt. Nachr. 1901 p. 496)Google Scholar. Or we may understand by Titans merely primitive Oriental deities whose worship was adopted and Hellenised by Greek settlers about the third century B.C.
21 Cf. Or. 32 at Alexandria, πάντєς δὴ ᾄδουσι, καὶ ῥήτορєς καὶ σοφισταί, καὶ πάντα πєραίνєται δι’ ᾠδῆς κ.τ.λ. (p. 423Google Scholar; § 68) and Petronius, Trimalchio pp. 21Google Scholar, 22 Bücheler: ‘tandem ergo discubuimus pueris Alexandrinis aquam in manus nivatam infundentibus aliisque insequentibus ad pedes ac paronychia cum ingenti subtilitate tollentibus. Ac ne in hoc quidem molesto tacebant officio, sed obiter cantabant. Ego experiri volui, an tota familia cantaret, itaque potionem poposci. Paratissimus puer non minus me acido cantico excepit’ etc.
22 Under the guidance of these ‘ephemeral demagogues’ who perform their six months' term of office and then do not even condescend to attend the ekklesia, the Tarsians fare no better than οἰ τοῖς ἀπογείοις, μᾶλλον δὲ τοῖς ἀπὸ τῶν γνόφων πνεύμασι πλέοντες. τὰ ἀπὸ γνόφων πνεύματα are explained by Johannes Lydus (104. 18) as follows: ὁ δὲ ἀπὸ γῆς καὶ συστροφῆς ἀέρος γνοφίας. αὖραι γὰρ καὶ αὐταὶ καὶ ῥύσεις ἀέρων τυγχάνουσιν οὖσαι, καὶ οὐκ ἀλόγως ἄνεμοι καλοῦνται, ὄτε ἤ ἀπὸ λιμνῶν ἤ ποταμῶν φέρονται ὁμοῖοι δὲ τούτων εἰσὶ καὶ οἱ ἀπόγειοι. Evidently the name would apply to the land-winds which blow off the coast of Cilicia for some part of almost every day and which enabled the trading-vessels of Alexandria once they reached the coast of Syria (in the event of their failing to make Myra direct past the west end of Cyprus) to work their way, aided by the current which sets steadily westwards along the Karamanian coast past Myra to Cnidus at the extreme south-western corner of Asia Minor (Ramsay, , St. Paul the Traveller, p. 299)Google Scholar.
23 Or. 34 p. 29; § 23 καταβάλλειν is used also in the sense of ‘depositing’ (documents, etc.), but more frequently of payment, which is the more suitable meaning here (honorarium).
24 The name λινουργοί (wrongly changed by Dindorf to λιμουργοί) ‘linen-workers,’ which is contemptuously applied to these ‘outlanders,’ is the name of a guild at Thyatira (Clerc, M.de rebus Thyatirenis p. 92)Google Scholar.
25 For this note and much other help I am indebted to Professor Ramsay.
26 On Tarsian coins from Septimius Severus to Gallienus and Valerian the letters ΓΒ are frequently inscribed and from Valerian these are replaced by ΓΓ. If the interpretations Γνώμῃ (or Γράμματι) Βουλῆς, Γερουσίας respectively are correct (Hill B.M.C., Lycaonia p. xc.), one may be permitted to see in the supersession of the Boule an illustration of the trend of things to paternal despotism. The Gerousia in Tarsus as at Hierapolis (cf. Ramsay, C. and B. of Phrygia, p. 110Google Scholar) was a social institution like a club and only of indirect political significance and such a transference of privilege marks a stage in the decay of local government.
27 οἱ γὰρ Αἰγαῖοι φιλοτιμίαν ἀνόητον ἐπανελό μενοι πρὸς ὑμᾶς τὸ περὶ τὰς ἀπογραφὰς ἐξαμαρτά νοντες κ.τ.λ. Or. 34 p. 25; § 10).
28 Communicated by Professor Ramsay.
N.B. It may be suggested that the unexplained inscriptions on Tarsian coins ΓΠ ΓΠΒ (cf. Hill B.M.C., Lycaonia, etc. p. xci.) may stand for Γνώμῃ Πρυτάνεως, Γνώμῃ Πρυτἁνεως Βουλῆς. Both at Tarsus and Anazarbus the Boule had certain rights of coinage (cf. coin types Hill p. xcvii.) and when it was necessary to authorise an issue it would naturally act on the motion (γνώμῃ) of the Prytanis. At Anazarbus, which imitated Tarsus closely, these letters are not found, nor is there any trace of a Prytanis.
