Text

theses

This dissertation explores the process of history-writing by Dio Cassius through comparative literary historiographic analysis. By examining Dio’s Roman History as an integral historiographic endeavor, the dissertation attempts to reconstruct Dio’s overarching methodology. This task is achieved through the analysis of Dio’s own editorial asides and the comparison of Dio with parallel historical accounts, as well as by means of observing consistent features in Dio’s compositional design. The dissertation addresses such aspects of Dio’s methodology as his critical approach to sources, his principles involved in selection, reworking, and presentation of the historical material, his treatment of variant versions, and his use of literary allusions. A more in-depth discussion is devoted both to the role which dreams, portents, and prodigies, as well as wisdom expressions play in the system of causation developed by Dio, and to the historiography of Dio’s speeches. The dissertation revisits the traditional preconceptions regarding Dio’s extensive reliance on Thucydides, and in particular subjects to a systematic critique the hypothesis that Dio shared a Thucydidean pessimistic view of human nature, perceived as a constant. The dissertation analyzes the multi-step procedure of Dio’s causation and his emphasis on retrospective logical analysis of the motivations of influential individuals which determine the outcomes of the historical events. A systematic treatment of the typology, function, and patterns of presentation of speeches in Dio is undertaken in the concluding part of the study. This discussion revisits the traditional dichotomy in interpretation of Dio’s speeches (whether they are just rhetorical set-pieces akin to the progymnasmata of the rhetorical schools or they truly represent the author’s own views) and points toward new interpretative directions which take into consideration other types of intellectual discourse of the period, including those formed by the system of formal rhetorical education. The dissertation draws a portrait of the historical work of Dio Cassius as a mirror of the intellectual and cultural preoccupations of his own time. It treats the Roman History of Dio Cassius as belonging simultaneously to many intellectual orbits: in cultural sense, to both the Greek and the Roman worlds; in generic, linguistic, and literary sense — both to the traditions of classical Attic historiography and to new intellectual trends brought forth by the spirit of the Second Sophistic.

ETD_6137

Ph.D.

Includes bibliographical references

by Andriy Fomin

doi:10.7282/T3HD7XB6

ETD doctoral

The author owns the copyright to this work.