Book-bot.com - read famous books online for free

Dio's Rome, Volume 4 - An Historical Narrative Originally Composed in Greek During the - Reigns of Septimius Severus, Geta and Caracalla, Macrinus, - Elagabalus and Alexander Severus: and Now Presented in English Form by Cassius Dio
page 43 of 363 (11%)
senate as a result of the civil wars, so that the total of that body
amounted to a thousand. These he wished to remove, but did not himself
erase any of their names, urging them to become their own judges out of
the consciousness of their family and their life. So first he persuaded
fifty of them to retire voluntarily from the assemblage and then
compelled one hundred and forty others to imitate their example. He
disenfranchised none of them, but posted the names of the second
division. In the case of the first, because they had not delayed but had
straightway obeyed him, he remitted the reproach and their identity was
not made public. These accordingly returned willingly to private life. He
ousted Quintus Statilius, very much against the latter's will, from the
tribuneship to which he had been appointed. Some others he made senators,
and he counted among the ex-consuls two men of the senatorial class,--a
certain Cluvius and Gaius Furnius,--because they had been appointed
first, though certain others had taken possession of their offices
so that they were unable to become consuls. He added to the class of
patricians, the senate allowing him to do this because most of its
members had perished. No element is exhausted so fast in civil wars as
the nobility or is deemed to be so necessary for the continuance of
ancestral customs. In addition to the above measures he forbade all
persons in the senate to go outside of Italy, unless he himself should
order or permit any one of them to do so. This custom is still kept up at
the present day. Except that he may visit Sicily and Gallia Narbonensis
no senator is allowed to go anywhere out of the country. As these regions
are close at hand and the population is unarmed and peaceful, those who
have any possessions there have been granted the right to take trips to
them as often as they like, without asking leave.--Since also he saw that
many of the senators and of the others who had been devoted to Antony
still maintained an attitude of suspicion toward him, and as he was
afraid they might cause some uprising, he announced that all the letters
DigitalOcean Referral Badge