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“slaVes to a Bad lyre-Player”: cassiUs dio’s sPeech of BoUdica cassiUs dio’s “neo-thUcydidean” orations; the historicity of the BoUdica oration Though the crafting of orations was clearly one of Cassius Dio’s major preoccupations in his history, comparatively little attention has been paid to most of them. As we mentioned above,1 modern scholars have proved unlikely to conclude that Dio’s speeches are concerned with much more than ostentatious displays of philosophical musings and oratorical commonplaces.2 Accordingly , Dio’s orations directly pertaining to Roman behavior in the provinces —unlike Tacitus’ corollaries in his historical works—have not merited much attention. Rather, the great weight of scholarship on Dio’s speeches focuses on the orations of Agrippa (52.2–13) and Maecenas (52.14–40), which contemplate the best way to rule an empire.3 As we shall see in this chapter, however, Dio’s Boudica speech (62.3–6), though a pell-mell creation, presents some powerful indictments of Roman rule more specific than the generalities that Tacitus’ Boudica musters. Although reflecting upon the nature of Roman rule was not a chief concern for him, we shall see that Dio was capable of calling into question the justness of Rome’s foreign policy. Additionally, through an analysis of this address we can detect how Dio portrayed Roman colonialism and Western barbarians, among other topics. In this case, at least, it seems incorrect to assume that Dio’s orations merely reflect an interest in rhetorical showmanship. This remains an important argument to convey, since far more attention has been paid to the literary influences detectable in Dio’s speeches. In addition , it has bearing on the potential historicity of Dio’s Boudica oration, to which we now turn. First, we must note that Dio’s account of Boudica’s revolt —which includes Boudica’s speech—has survived from antiquity only in the form of an eleventh-century Byzantine epitome penned by Ioannes Xiphilinus .4 Although it was once assumed that Xiphilinus was a fairly comprehensive and accurate copyist,5 this no longer seems tenable. In fact, it appears likely that Xiphilinus drastically shortened the material he excerpted from Chapter 6 142 BoUdica and Britain Dio by excising what he found uninteresting.6 Although it is possible—perhaps even likely—that Xiphilinus copied Dio’s speech of Boudica verbatim (or close to verbatim), it seems even more probable that he has cut and/or altered the context in which this oration appears. This is important, since the context can drastically change our conclusions concerning the strength and efficacy of a given oration. Nor is this the only issue that has an effect on our conclusions about the historicity of Dio’s Boudica oration. As was the case with Tacitus,7 we lack sufficient evidence to present supportable conclusions regarding the (now lost) source(s) Dio consulted when crafting his version of the Iceni rebellion. With Dio’s source(s) not extant, their naming amounts to educated guesswork .8 As we shall highlight below, too many discrepancies between Tacitus’ and Dio’s versions of the Boudica revolt exist for the former to be the ultimate source of the latter.9 Accordingly, it appears as if these two authors had at least one differing history at their fingertips for their respective discussions of the Iceni rebellion. Naturally, it would be foolhardy to assume that the sentiments in these compositions necessarily reflect their authors’ opinions on the topics discussed . This may be particularly the case regarding Dio’s speech, since his devotion to the literary strictures of the Second Sophistic led him to punctuate his orations with stylistic imitations of Attic writers,10 particularly Thucydides .11 As such, perhaps we have even more reason to conclude that Dio’s Boudica oration is essentially the invention of its author and does not attempt to reflect sentiments the Iceni leader may have mustered in addressing her fellow rebels. dio on BoUdica’s reVolt Before turning to the speech itself—or to the counterpoised orations Dio puts in the mouth of Suetonius Paulinus (62.8.3–11.5)—we must consider Dio’s account of the rebellion (62.1–12). Xiphilinus/Dio introduce the narrative of the revolt by noting that it included the sack of two cities and the deaths of 80,000 Romans and allies (62.1.1).12 One immediately notes a discrepancy between Tacitus’ and Dio’s accounts: the former posited the sack of three cities (Camulodunum, Londinium...

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