Δημοκρατεῖσθαι or μοναρχεῖσθαι, That is the Question: Cassius Dio and

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DC Field	Value
dc.identifier	ECF_chapter_4548
dc.contributor.author	Pistellato Antonio
dc.title	Δημοκρατεῖσθαι or μοναρχεῖσθαι, That is the Question: Cassius Dio and the Senatorial Principate
dc.type	Chapter
dc.language.iso	en
dc.description.abstract	Cassius Dio’s account of Caligula’s principate pivots on the divide between Caligula’s ‘democratic’ debut and his later decline into despotism. As Dio reports, the murder of the emperor in 41 CE polarised the Senate on the question of whether to abolish the Principate or to confirm it. It is likely that Dio’s interest in such a crucial passage depends on his own experience of the end of Commodus and the accession of Pertinax in 192-193 CE. The underpinning of his political thought is Stoic: when the relationship between the princeps and the Senate collapses, the solution is not so much ‘republicanism’ as a ‘republican spirit’, to be intended as a fruitful cooperation between the two.
dc.relation.ispartof	Lexis Supplements
dc.relation.ispartof	Lexis Studies in Greek and Latin Literature
dc.publisher	Edizioni Ca’ Foscari - Digital Publishing, Fondazione Università Ca’ Foscari
dc.issued	2020-12-21
dc.dateAccepted	2020-10-13
dc.dateSubmitted	2020-09-08
dc.identifier.uri	http://edizionicafoscari.it/en/edizioni4/libri/978-88-6969-473-8/or-that-is-the-question-cassius-dio-and-the-senato/
dc.identifier.doi	10.30687/978-88-6969-472-1/005
dc.identifier.issn	2210-8866
dc.identifier.eissn	2724-3362
dc.identifier.isbn	978-88-6969-473-8
dc.identifier.eisbn	978-88-6969-472-1
dc.rights	Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License
dc.rights.uri	http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
item.fulltext	with fulltext
item.grantfulltext	open
dc.peer-review	yes
dc.subject	Caligula and Claudius
dc.subject	Caligula and Claudius
dc.subject	Cassius Dio
dc.subject	Cassius Dio
dc.subject	Cicero
dc.subject	Cicero
dc.subject	Commodus and Pertinax
dc.subject	Commodus and Pertinax
dc.subject	Roman History
dc.subject	Roman History
dc.subject	Stoicism
dc.subject	Stoicism

Chapter
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Δημοκρατεῖσθαι or μοναρχεῖσθαι, That is the Question: Cassius Dio and the Senatorial Principate

Antonio Pistellato Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia, Italia

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abstract

Cassius Dio’s account of Caligula’s principate pivots on the divide between Caligula’s ‘democratic’ debut and his later decline into despotism. As Dio reports, the murder of the emperor in 41 CE polarised the Senate on the question of whether to abolish the Principate or to confirm it. It is likely that Dio’s interest in such a crucial passage depends on his own experience of the end of Commodus and the accession of Pertinax in 192-193 CE. The underpinning of his political thought is Stoic: when the relationship between the princeps and the Senate collapses, the solution is not so much ‘republicanism’ as a ‘republican spirit’, to be intended as a fruitful cooperation between the two.

Published

Dec. 21, 2020

Accepted

Oct. 13, 2020

Submitted

Sept. 8, 2020

Language

ISBN (PRINT)

978-88-6969-473-8

ISBN (EBOOK)

978-88-6969-472-1

Keywords: Roman History • Cassius Dio • Cicero • Commodus and Pertinax • Caligula and Claudius • Stoicism

permalink: http://doi.org/10.30687/978-88-6969-472-1/005

Copyright: © 2020 Antonio Pistellato. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

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