Real Roman History

Works Cited Primary Sources Cassius Dio.  Roman History , Book 67. Surviving through the eleventh-century epitome of John Xiphilinus. The Domitianic narrative is heavily filtered through the Tacitean tradition and the broader senatorial hostility. Particularly important for the assassination chronology and the Sarmatian campaign of 92, where Dio preserves details not in Suetonius. Epictetus.  Disc...

Works Cited Primary Sources Cassius Dio.  Roman History , Book 67. Surviving through the eleventh-century epitome of John Xiphilinus. The Domitianic narrative is heavily filtered through the Tacitean tradition and the broader senatorial hostility. The treatment of the Chatti campaign as fraudulent and the Dacian settlement as humiliating both come from this source and should be read as senatorial...

Works Cited Primary Sources Acts of the Apostles, Chapter 25, verse 23. Used in Part Two for the early biographical context of Berenice. She appears at Caesarea with her brother Agrippa II to hear Paul's defence before the Roman governor Festus, establishing her as a recognised political figure in the eastern Mediterranean from her early adulthood. Aurelius Victor.  Liber de Caesaribus , Chapt...

Works Cited Primary Sources Cassius Dio.  Roman History , Books 59, 73, 78, 79. For Caligula's Incitatus stories (Book 59), Commodus's faction allegiance (Book 73), and Caracalla and Elagabalus (Books 78–79). Surviving through the eleventh-century epitome of John Xiphilinus. Flagged where the epitome is the only source. Juvenal.  Satires , Satire 10. The original source of the famous panem...

Works Cited Primary Sources Cassius Dio.  Roman History , Books 66.25 and 73. Book 66.25 for the Colosseum dedication and the 9,000-animals figure for the inaugural games; Book 73 for Commodus in the arena, used here as contextual reference. Surviving through the eleventh-century epitome of John Xiphilinus. The 9,000-animals figure should be treated as rough order of magnitude rather than precise...

Works Cited Primary Sources Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, Volume IV. Edited by Karl Zangemeister with Richard Schoene, Berlin, Walter de Gruyter, 1871; supplementary volumes throughout the twentieth century. The principal printed source for the Pompeian graffiti, with over eleven thousand individual inscriptions catalogued. Specific items cited in the episode include CIL IV 1645 (Successus the w...

Works Cited Primary Sources Cassius Dio.  Roman History , Books 66.21–66.23. The eruption account, surviving only through the eleventh-century epitome by John Xiphilinus. Includes legendary elements about giants emerging from Vesuvius and visions in the air, which should be read as later cultural processing of the event rather than primary testimony. Pliny the Younger.  Letters , 6.16 and 6.20. Th...

Works Cited Primary Sources Cassius Dio.  Roman History , Books 65–66. Surviving only through the eleventh-century epitome compiled by the Byzantine monk John Xiphilinus. The narrative continuity for the reign depends substantially on Xiphilinus's selection and compression, and is flagged where relied on. Cassius Dio's original treatment was almost certainly considerably more extensive tha...

Works Cited Primary Sources Cassius Dio.  Roman History . Greek narrative of the early Flavian period. Includes brief reference to Josephus's prediction at Dio 66.1. Josephus, Flavius.  Antiquitates Judaicae , or Antiquities of the Jews. The twenty-book history of the Jewish people from creation through the outbreak of the war in 66 CE. Composed across the 80s and early 90s and published in 93...

Works Cited Primary Sources The Arch of Titus. The triumphal arch on the Sacred Way in the Roman Forum, completed under Domitian after Titus's death in 81 CE. The relief panels on the inner walls preserve the visual representation of the triumph including the spoils from the Temple. Cassius Dio.  Roman History , Books 65 and 66. Greek narrative of the early Flavian period preserved in epitome...

Works Cited Primary Sources Cassius Dio.  Roman History , Books 65 and 66. Greek narrative covering the early Flavian period. The lex de imperio Vespasiani. Surviving in bronze-tablet form in the Capitoline Museums in Rome. The principal direct source for the formal-legal structure of the early Flavian principate. The surviving text preserves approximately the second half of the original inscripti...

Works Cited Primary Sources Cassius Dio.  Roman History , Books 64 and 65. Greek narrative covering the early Flavian period. Useful as a comparison to the Tacitean account, with substantial independent material on the suppression operation. Pliny the Elder.  Natural History . Various passages on the Germanic peoples and the Rhine frontier. Pliny had served in the Rhine command during portions of...

Works Cited Primary Sources Cassius Dio.  Roman History , Books 64 and 65. Greek narrative covering the full Year of Four Emperors and the early Flavian period. Josephus.  The Jewish War , particularly Books 4 and 5, which cover the political and military context in the east and the relationship between the Jewish War and the Flavian elevation. Suetonius.  Life of Vitellius  and  Life of Vespasian...

Works Cited Primary Sources Cassius Dio.  Roman History , Books 63 and 64. Greek narrative covering the full Year of Four Emperors, surviving partly in epitome form. Useful as a comparison to the Tacitean account. Plutarch.  Life of Galba  and  Life of Otho . Greek-language biographical material composed in the early second century, with the Otho biography preserving substantial material on the Fi...

Works Cited Primary Sources Cassius Dio.  Roman History , particularly the books covering the Julio-Claudian period, with substantial geographic-administrative material throughout. The inscriptional record. The legionary establishment data is principally from the dedicatory inscriptions, military diplomas, and other epigraphic sources that preserve the locations and identities of the legionary uni...

Works Cited Primary Sources Josephus.  The Jewish War , Books 2 and 3. The principal source for this episode and, for most of it, the only source. Book 2 covers the procuratorships, the Caesarea dispute, the seventeen talents, the Upper Market killings, Agrippa the Second's speech, the ending of the sacrifice, the factional killings in Jerusalem, and the destruction of Cestius Gallus's col...

Works Cited Primary Sources Cassius Dio.  Roman History , especially Books 59, 60, and 61. Greek narrative incorporating the developed hostile tradition. Particularly useful for the late-Claudian and early-Neronian political background. Pliny the Elder.  Natural History , 7.71. The principal reference to Agrippina's own writing about her family. Suetonius.  Life of Caligula ,  Life of Claudius...

Works Cited Primary Sources Acts of the Apostles, chapter 18. Preserves the encounter between Seneca's brother Gallio and Paul of Tarsus at Corinth. Cassius Dio.  Roman History , especially Books 61 and 62. Particularly hostile to Seneca, with detailed accusations of hypocrisy and political opportunism. Useful as the most developed form of the hostile reading. Seneca's own writings. The  E...

Works Cited Primary Sources Cassius Dio.  Roman History , Books 62 and 63. Greek-language narrative covering the full reign with substantial material on the late reign that complements Suetonius. Suetonius.  Life of Nero . The principal source for the late reign material that Tacitus's Annals do not preserve. Includes the Greek tour material, the Sporus and Pythagoras episodes, the death scene...

Works Cited Primary Sources The book of Acts. Composed approximately 80 to 90 CE by the same author as the Gospel of Luke. The principal narrative source for the early Christian community in Jerusalem and the missionary work of Paul. The four canonical Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Composed between approximately 70 and 110 CE. The principal sources for Jesus's life and teaching, with...

Works Cited Primary Sources The Hebrew Bible (the Tanakh). The principal source for the pre-Hellenistic period of the Jewish religious tradition. The five books of Torah preserve the foundational material on the covenant and the Israelite religious framework. The historical books—Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings—preserve the narrative of the Israelite kingdoms. The prophetic books preserve the religi...

Works Cited Primary Sources Cassius Dio.  Roman History , Book 62. Greek-language narrative covering this period. Hostile, late, dependent on earlier sources we cannot fully reconstruct. Useful as a check on the Tacitean account where the two diverge. Seneca.  Epistulae Morales . Seneca's own writings from the period of his withdrawal from court. The letters are addressed to Lucilius but are c...

Works Cited Primary Sources Archaeology. The destruction layers at the three burned cities—Camulodunum, Londinium, and Verulamium—constitute the most substantially preserved single-event archaeological horizon in Roman provincial Britain. The Boudican destruction horizon is dated to 60 or 61 CE, and is one of the clearest archaeological confirmations we have of any event in early imperial history....

Works Cited Primary Sources Aurelius Victor.  De Caesaribus , 5.2. The late-fourth-century source preserving the Trajanic remark about the quinquennium Neronis. The attribution is uncertain and modern scholarship treats it with appropriate skepticism. Cassius Dio.  Roman History , Book 61. Greek-language continuous narrative for the period. Preserves some details not in Tacitus and is the principa...

Works Cited Primary Sources Archaeology. The body of archaeological evidence for the Roman conquest of Britain is substantial. The destruction layers at the hill forts of the West Country, including Maiden Castle's war cemetery, are foundational. The road and fort network is preserved across the modern English landscape and is the subject of ongoing scholarly investigation. The bog bodies—Lind...