THE PERCEPTION OF EMPEROR AND EMPIRE IN CASSIUS DIO’S ROMAN HISTORY In two articles, one on Sallust’s view of Roman expansion and another on Plutarch’s perception of Roman politics, I proposed that these authors only recorded the final outcome of historical processes, showing their awareness of the observable facts without establishing connections that in our view are obvious. They explained the facts in a general moralistic way, employing traditional views and clichés to put things in order and interpreting historical reality on the basis of ideologically or philosophi- cally biased explanations 1 . In other words, they put perceptive individual observations into the perspective of oversimplified traditional reasoning. In this paper I want to answer the following questions: did Cassius Dio in his Roman History perceive the Roman Empire, its emperors and imperial authority in a similar way? What factors, mental attitudes, interests and vicissitudes guided his perception? A discussion of this kind entails an awkward problem: the interpreta- tion of traditional commonplaces, used in a third-century context. Com- monplaces are here regarded as a kind of language which can reveal an author’s views through the emphases and choices made within this tra- ditional complex. Clichés were a means for getting a grasp on and inter- preting reality. Even if an author used his sources only to compile tradi- tional loci communes his preferences may be derived from the emphases he lays, the topics on which he provides detailed information, and of course commentating passages. Dio was a Greek as well as a Roman, a senator from Nicaea in Bithy- nia, an insider in Roman politics who was acquainted with emperors and other powerful men, as well as a cultured Greek author of the period of the Second Sophistic 2 . From 180 onwards Dio regularly spent time in 1 See L. DE BLOIS, The Perception of Expansion in the Works of Sallust, Latomus 47 (1988), p. 604-619; ID., The Perception of Politics in Plutarch’s Roman Lives, in ANRW II 33.6 (1992), p. 4568-4615. The author has written two more articles on this topic: Tradi- tional Virtues and New Spiritual Qualities in Third Century Views of Empire, Emperorship and Practical Politics, Mnemosyne 47 (1994), p. 166-176, a short article with a completely different focus, and Emperors and Empire in the Works of Greek-Speaking Authors of the Third Century AD, in ANRW II 34.4 (1997), a much longer encyclopaedic survey. 2 See G.J.D. AALDERS, Cassius Dio and the Greek World, Mnemosyne 39 (1986), p. 291-302; S. SWAIN, Hellenism and Empire. Language, Classicism and Power in the Greek World AD 50-250, Oxford 1996, p. 402-408.