Interesting to compare are three citations from an unknown Byzantine writer (in Excerpta cod. Paris, suppl. Gr. 607 A, edited by M.
Treu, Ohlau, 1880, p. 29 ff.), who seems to have used Dio as a source:
1
The events, however, run over into the following year.
2
Interesting to compare are three citations from an unknown Byzantine writer (in Excerpta cod. Paris, suppl. Gr. 607 A, edited by M.
Treu, Ohlau, 1880, p. 29 ff.), who seems to have used Dio as a source:
a) The mother of Augustus just one day previous to her travail beheld in a dream how her womb was snatched away and carried up into heaven.
b) And in the same night as Octavius was born his father thought that the sun rose from his wife's entrails.
c) And a certain senator, Nigidius Figulus, who was an astrologer, asked Octavius, the father of Augustus, why he was so slow in leaving his house. The latter replied that a son had been born to him. Nigidius thereupon exclaimed: "Ah, what hast thou done? Thou hast begotten a master for us!" The other believing it and being disturbed wished to make away with the child. But Nigidius said to him: "Thou hast not the power. For it hath not been granted thee to do this."
3
Suetonius in relating this anecdote (Life of Augustus, chapter 5) says that the senate-meeting in question was called to consider the conspiracy of Catiline. Since, however, Augustus is on all hands admitted to have been born a. d. IX. Kal. Octobr. and mention of Catiline's conspiracy was first made in the senate a. d. XII. Kal. Nov. (Cicero, Against Catiline, I, 3, 7), the claim of coincidence is evidently based on error.
4
Compare again the same Byzantine writer quoted in footnote to chapter 1,—two excerpts:
d) Again, while he was growing up in the country, an eagle swooping down snatched from his hands the loaf of bread and again returning replaced it in his hands.
e) Again, during his boyhood, Cicero saw in a dream Octavius himself fastened to a golden chain and wielding a whip being let down from the sky to the summit of the Capitol.
5
Compare Súetonius, Life of Augustus, chapter 94
6
See footnote to Book Forty-three, chapter 42.
7
The senate-house already mentioned in Book Forty, chapter 50.
8
This word is inserted by Boissevain on the authority of a symbol in the manuscript's margin, indicating a gap.
9
Inserting with Reimar [Greek: proihemenos], to complete the sense.
10
See Roscher I, col. 1458, on the Puperci Iulii. And compare Suetonius, Life of Caesar, chapter 76.
11
For further particulars about Sex. Clodius and the ager Leontinus (held to be the best in Sicily, Cicero, Against Verres, III, 46) see Suetonius, On Rhetoric, 5; Arnobuis, V, 18; Cicero, Philippics, II, 4, 8; II, 17; II, 34, 84; II, 39, 101; III, 9, 22.
12
Compare here (and particularly with, reference to the plural Spurii) the passage in Cicero, Philippics, III, 44, 114:
Quod si se ipsos illi nostri liberatores e conspectu nostro abstulerunt, at exemplum facti reliquerunt: illi, quod nemo fecerat, fecerunt: Tarquinium Brutus bello est persecutus, qui tum rex fuit, cum esse Romae licebat; Sp. Cassius, Sp. Maelius, M. Manlius propter suspitionem regni appetendi sunt necati; hi primum cum gladiis non in regnum appetentem, sed in regnum impetum fecerunt.
13
For the figure, compare Aristophanes, The Acharnians, vv. 380-381 (about Cleon):
[Greek: dieballe chai pseudae chateglottise mou chachychloborei chaplunen.]
14
Dio has in this sentence imitated almost word for word the utterance of Demosthenes, inveighing against Aischines, in the speech on the crown (Demosthenes XVIII, 129).
15
Compare Book Forty-five, chapter 30.
16
There is a play on words here which can not be exactly rendered. The Greek verb [Greek: pheaegein] means either "to flee" or "to be exiled."
17
Various diminutive endings, expressing contempt.
18
The MS. reading is not wholly satisfactory here. Bekker, by a slight change, would produce (after "Bambalio"): "nor by declaring war because of," etc.
19
The Greek word is [Greek: obolos] a coin which in the fifth century B.C. would have amounted to considerably more than the Roman as; but as time went on the value of the [Greek: obolos] diminished indefinitely, so that glossaries eventually translate it a