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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 August 2015
In the opening chapter of his thirty-sixth oration, Dio Chrysostom tells his listeners how in the course of a journey ‘through the lands of the Scythians to that of the Getae’, he stopped over in the city of Borysthenes (Olbia) ‘in the summer after my exile’ (τὸ θέρος … μετὰ τὴν φυγήν). Dio had been exiled by Domitian, probably in a.d. 83 or 84; since his exile ended after the death of Domitian in September 96, it is generally accepted that his visit to Borysthenes took place in the summer of 97.
1 Or. 36.1. In the article, Dio will be quoted after the edition of H. von Arnim (Berlin, 1893–6). The translations of Dio and other authors are our own.
2 The scholarly debate on Dio's exile is extensive; see, most recently, F. Stini, Plenum exiliis mare: Untersuchungen zum Exil in der römischen Kaiserzeit (Geographica Historica, 27) (Stuttgart, 2011), 233, with references to the older literature.
3 Thus H. von Arnim, Leben und Werke des Dio von Prusa (Berlin, 1898), 302: ‘der durch die Borysthenica selbst §25 bezeugten Thatsache, dass Dio als Verbannter nach Borysthenes kam. Das εὖ πράξαντα οἴκαδε κατελθεῖν τὴν ταχίστην kann nur auf die Restitution bezogen werden’; C. Bost-Pouderon, Dion de Pruse dit Dion Chrysostome. Œuvres (Paris, 2011), 212: ‘Ce souhait formulé par Hiéroson donne a comprendre que le séjour de Dion à Borysthène a eu lieu pendant l'exil du rheteur’. Though Hieroson's words have been interpreted as a uaticinium ex euentu (von Arnim (this note), 301; D.A. Russell, Dio Chrysostom Orations VII, XII, XXXVI [Cambridge, 1992], 211; H.-G. Nesselrath, Dion von Prusa, Menschliche Gemeinschaft und göttliche Ordnung: die Borysthenes-Rede [SAPERE, 6] [Darmstadt, 2003], 12), they may be no more than a conventional formula: in the opening lines of the Iliad, for instance, Chryses addresses a similar sentiment to Agamemnon (Il. 1.19), though Homer's audience knows well enough that the king's homecoming will not be a happy one. See also Ventrella, G., ‘Dione di Prusa fu realmente esiliato? L'orazione tredicesima tra idealizzazione letteraria e ricostruzione storico-giuridica’, Emerita 77 (2009), 33–56 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 46 n. 26.
4 Compare the self-deprecation in the introduction to the ‘Euboian’ oration, Or. 7.1. The year of Dio's birth is not known; probably no later than 50, possibly as early as 40 (C.P. Jones, The Roman World of Dio Chrysostom [Cambridge, MA, 1978], 133: ‘ca. A.D. 40–50’; Sidebottom, H., ‘Dio of Prusa and the Flavian dynasty’, CQ 46 [1996], 447–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 450: around 41; M. Weißenberger, Der Neue Pauly 3.621: ‘um 40’). Surrounded by tough, battle-hardened soldiers and recently enlisted recruits still in their teens, even a forty-year-old who by his own admission was unable to use a spade would have good reason to feel that he had ‘a weak body and an advanced age’.
5 Cf. Or. 12.25. According to H.-J. Klauck, Dion von Prusa, Olympische Rede oder über die erste Erkenntnis Gottes (SAPERE, 3) (Darmstadt, 2002), Or. 12.18–20 describes preparations for a campaign and, therefore, the speech must have been held in a year when the Romans were at war with the Dacians, but the activities described by Dio were part of a military routine that could have been observed in any army camp; in any case, a state of continual tension existed along the Danube border. Dio's passing reference to ‘our enemies, the Getae’ in Or. 48.5 (not 43.5), which was held in 105/6, hardly refers to his experiences ten or twenty years earlier.
6 A. Emperius, Dionis Chrysostomi Opera Graece (Brunswick, 1844), 501; Russell (n. 3), 211; Nesselrath (n. 3), 66; also Bost-Pouderon (n. 3), 203: ‘probable interpolation’.
7 Von Arnim (n. 3), 302.
8 Von Arnim (n. 3), 305.
9 Nesselrath (n. 3), 13.
10 Jones (n. 4), 51.
11 Jones (n. 4), 53; cf. Bost-Pouderon (n. 3), 203. That Dio travelled in Trajan's party is, however, difficult to reconcile with his claim to have moved unnoticed among the soldiers; nor would a member of the imperial entourage be expected to cut wood or dig trenches.
12 Briefly, P. Desideri, Dione di Prusa: un intellettuale Greco nell'impero Romano (Messina, 1978), 361 n. 4. T. Whitmarsh, ‘Greece is the world: exile and identity in the Second Sophistic’, in S. Goldhill (ed.), Being Greek under Rome: Cultural Identity, the Second Sophistic and the Development of Empire (Cambridge, 2001), 293 n. 109; rejected by Nesselrath (n. 3), 66 n. 4: ‘doch ist eine solche Auffassung der Worte weder natürlich noch nahe liegend’. Ventrella argues for dating the visit to Borysthenes ‘nello stesso anno in cui ebbe inizio la sua φυγή’ ([n. 3], 46 n. 26) and that Dio was never formally exiled ([n. 3], 49); cf. T. Bekker-Nielsen, ‘Die Wanderjahre des Dion von Prusa’, in E. Olshausen, V. Sauer (edd.), Mobilität in den Kulturen der antiken Mittelmeerwelt (Geographica Historica, 31) (Stuttgart, 2014), 9.
13 LSJ s.v. III.3 ‘go into exile, live in banishment’.
14 The example has been taken from the internet (retrieved 8 August 2014 from http://pages.towson.edu/quick/romeoandjuliet/act5.htm).
15 Russell (n. 3), 211.
16 On the other hand, in Plut. Cic. 33.7 φυγή does in fact indicate a single event fifteen months before the person's return.
17 Philostr. VS 488.
18 Von Arnim (n. 3), 305–6.
19 Cf. how Philostratus casts Dio in the role of philosophical advisor to the emperor, VS 488.
20 Or. 13.9.
21 Suet. Dom. 10.
22 e.g. Philostratus will have us believe that, while riding in the emperor's golden chariot, Trajan told Dio that he loved him ‘more than myself’ (VS 488); yet in the same emperor's letter to Pliny concerning a court case against Dio (Ep. 10.82) there is nothing whatever to confirm that the two were on intimate terms.
23 Synesius, Dio ch. 2. He suggests that one add either πρὸ τῆς φυγῆς or μετὰ τὴν φυγήν to the title of all of Dio's speeches (allegedly, as it was found in some cases).
24 Or. 19.1.
