Intellectual Climate of Cassius Dio

Adam Kemezis, Ph.D. (2006) is Associate Professor in the Department of History, Classics and Religion at the University of Alberta. He is the author of Greek Narratives of the Roman Empire under the Severans: Cassius Dio, Philostratus and Herodian (Cambridge, 2014) and a number of articles on Dio and other authors and topics in Imperial Roman historiography and literature.Colin Bailey, Ph.D. (2006) is Associate Professor of Classics at MacEwan University. He has published papers on Dio Chrysostom, Plutarch of Chaeronea, and Roman Republican history. His research interests focus on early imperial Greek literature and interactions between Greece and Rome.Beatrice Poletti, Ph.D. (2018) is Adjunct Assistant Professor of Classics at Queen’s University. She has written several papers on Dionysius of Halicarnassus and Augustan historiography and religion. Her interests include historiography of Rome, Augustan literature, and Roman religion.

• AcknowledgementsList of Figures and TablesNotes on ContributorsHistoriography of Rome and Its Empire SeriesCarsten H. Lange and Jesper M. MadsenIntroduction: Conversations with the AuthorAdam Kemezis, Colin Bailey and Beatrice Polettipart 1: Political Theory and Commentary1 Dio and Pompey: Explaining the Failure of the RepublicDavid S. Potter2 “Safety First”: Cassius Dio on the Augustan SenateJonathan Scott Perry3 Cassius Dio and the Ideal ConstitutionJasper Majbom Madsen4 Monarchy as “True Democracy” in Cassius Dio and the Second Sophistic Authors: Irony, Utopia, or Ideal?Konstantin V. Markov5 Antoninum habemus, omnia habemus: The nomen Antoninorum Issue between the Historia Augusta and Cassius DioAntonio Pistellatopart 2: Rome and the Imperial Court6 Contested Constructions: Cassius Dio and the Framing of Female Participation as BuildersKarin S. Tate7 Dio and the Dowager Empresses, Part 2: Julia Domna, the Senate, and SuccessionJulie Langford8 Cassius Dio and the Imperial AdmissionMads Ortving Lindholmer9 Cassius Dio and the Imitatio AlexandriFrances Pownall10 Cassius Dio, Julia Maesa and the Omens Foretelling the Rise of Elagabalus and Severus AlexanderRiccardo Bertolazzi11 Imperial Fortunes: Portents, Prodigies and Dio’s Astrology of the StateSelina Stewartpart 3: Literary Heritage12 The Novel World of Cassius DioBrandon Jones13 Telling Tales of Macrinus: Strategies of Fiction in Dio’s Contemporary HistoryJoel Allen14 Dio and the Failed Politician CiceroRobert Porod15 Cameo Roles: Dio’s Portrayal of Earlier Senatorial HistoriansAdam M. Kemezispart 4: Hellenic Culture16 Bilingualism and Authority in Cassius DioSulochana Asirvatham17 Cassius Dio’s Asia Minor: Biography and HistoriographyChristina T. Kuhn18 Dio, Severus, and the Ludi Saeculares of 204 ceJeremy Rossiter and Bethany BrothersIndex

"The volumes under discussion are invaluable contributions to the scholarship on Dio’s intellectual landscape, narrative technique, and theory of empire. The Intellectual Climate of Cassius Dio makes an irresistible case for reading the Roman History intertextually and interculturally."- Leanne Jansen, Department of Classics, Groningen University, in: "Literary Technique in the Roman History", Mnemosyne 78 (2025)"Through the diverse cases studied, the volume's authors propose to show the originality and the coherence of Dio's project by setting it against literary tradition. Neither do they refrain from outlining the shadowy side or the preconceptions of an author who is also a public figure mindful of his career and reputation. The authors offer thorough case studies and thereby contribute to a better understanding of some specific themes (...) The aim to cast new light on an author currently enjoying many recent publications was ambitious and is partly successful, notably in Parts 3 and 4 more clearly dedicated to Dio's literary choices and his position as a writer; the chapters by Jones, Kemezis and Asirvatham are novel on this score and deserve special mention within the context of this volume, which brings to a useful conclusion a programme whose outcomes will have increased the knowledge of Cassius Dio's Roman History significantly." - Estrelle Bertrand, in: The Classical Review 75.1