Brill’s Companion to Cassius Dio

Jesper Majbom Madsen, Professor, University of Southern Denmark, is co-editor of Brill’s Historiography of Rome and Its Empire Series. He is the author of Eager to be Roman: Greek Response to Roman Rule in Pontus and Bithynia (2009) and is the co-editor of Roman Rule in Greek and Latin Writing: Double Vision (2014). Apart from the co-edited volume Cassius Dio: Greek Intellectual and Roman Politician (2016) he has published extensively on Cassius Dio including “Cassius Dio and the Cult of Iulius and Roma at Ephesus and Nicaea (51.20.6–8)” (Classical Quarterly 66/1 [2016]) and Cassius Dio (2020). His latest book From Trophy Towns to City-States; Urban Civilization and Cultural Identities in Roman Pontus (2020) was recently published.Andrew G. Scott in an Associate Professor of Classical Studies, Villanova University (Villanova, PA, USA). He is the author of Emperors and Usurpers: an historical commentary on Cassius Dio's Roman history, books 79 (78)-80 (80) (217-229 CE) (OUP 2018) and co-editor (with Carsten H. Lange) of Cassius Dio: The Impact of Violence, War, and Civil War (Brill 2020). He has also written numerous articles and book chapters on the histories of Cassius Dio and Herodian, as well as on various aspects of Spartan social history.Contributors are: Tønnes Bekker-Nielsen, Sulochana R. Asirvatham, Luke Pitcher, Caillan Davenport, Christopher T. Mallan, Josiah Osgood, Adam M. Kemezis, Christopher Baron, Estelle Bertrand, Jesper Majbom Madsen, Eleanor Cowan, Antonio Pistellato, Andrew G. Scott, Marianne Coudry, Christopher Burden-Strevens, Roger Rees, Caitlin C. Gillespie, Carsten H. Lange

"... the volume overall is a great success and fully achieves its stated aims. The quality of the individual chapters is high, and many make important contributions. Each chapter includes a survey of recent work on its topic, and this, together with Kemezis’ masterly overview, makes the volume an admirable guide to the recent Dio explosion, to which it is itself a most valuable addition." - John Rich, in: BMCR 2025.07.42"The volumes under discussion are invaluable contributions to the scholarship on Dio’s intellectual landscape, narrative technique, and theory of empire. (...) Brill’s Companion offers an exciting and up-to-date reflection of the complexity and sophistication of the debate, (...). Finally, what strikes the reader of these volumes as a whole is that all chapters are extremely well-written and well-edited." - Leanne Jansen, Department of Classics, Groningen University, in: "Literary Technique in the Roman History", Mnemosyne 78.3 (2025)"Da qualche anno a questa parte si assiste a un curioso e per certi versi enigmatico fenomeno di “riscoperta” di Cassio Dione, con una crescita a dir poco tumultuosa e sovrabbondante della letteratura scientifica in materia [...]. Non si può dunque negare l’utilità di un volume complessivo – volutamente di ampio respiro – che possa fornire un orientamento aggiornato e affidabile sui risultati fin qui raggiunti dalla ricerca. In tal senso la scelta dei due studiosi quali responsabili del progetto è sicuramente azzeccata e quanto mai felice. [...]La visione d’insieme che si ricava dalla lettura di questo Companion to Cassius Dio è indubbiamente stimolante e ricca di spunti fecondi. Tutti i contributi sono di alto livello e suscitano un forte interesse; molti appaiono scritti con eleganza, alcuni riescono nella non facile impresa diproporre risultati nuovi e originali su questioni fin qui poco frequentate dalla critica. [...] In tal senso la raccolta di saggi di Madsen e Scott – la prima del suo genere dedicata interamente al colto senatore della Bitinia – dev’essere salutata con vivo favore perché viene a colmare un evidente vuoto editoriale, specialmente alla luce dell’enorme fioritura di studi dell’ultimo periodo. Tommaso Leoni, in: Bollettino di Studi Latini Anno LV - fascicolo II - Luglio-Dicembre 2025.

• Notes on ContributorsIntroduction: Reviewing Cassius DioJesper Majbom Madsen and Andrew G. ScottPart 1 Cassius Dio, Greek Intellectual and Roman Politician1 Cassius Dio’s Bithynian BackgroundTønnes Bekker-Nielsen2 Cassius Dio’s Greek and Roman IdentitySulochana R. Asirvatham3 Cassius Dio and Greco-Roman HistoriographyLuke Pitcher4 The Senator’s StoryCaillan DavenportPart 2 Text and Reception5 From Deconstruction to Reconstruction: Cassius Dio’s Roman History in Western Europe, 1421–1750Christopher T. Mallan6 Cassius Dio in GibbonJosiah Osgood7 A Survey of Recent Scholarship on Cassius DioAdam M. KemezisPart 3 Chronological Surveys8 The Lost Books of Cassius Dio’s Roman History (1–35)Christopher Baron9 Cassius Dio and the Last Decad(e)s of the Roman Republic: Understanding the Collapse of the Republican Regime (Books 21–50)Estelle Bertrand10 The Almost Flawless Princeps: Cassius Dio’s Idealized Portrait of Octavian-AugustusJesper Majbom Madsen11 Cassius Dio and the Julio-Claudians: Fear and Loathing in the Early PrincipateEleanor Cowan12 Cassius Dio and the Emperors: From the Flavians to the AntoninesAntonio Pistellato13 Cassius Dio and the Age of Iron and RustAndrew G. ScottPart 4 Key Themes14 The Republican SpeechesMarianne Coudry15 The Agrippa-Maecenas DebateChristopher Burden-Strevens16 “To Bury Caesar”: The Poetics and Polemics of Funerary Oratory in Cassius DioRoger Rees17 Women, Politics, and Morality in Cassius Dio’s Roman HistoryCaitlin C. Gillespie18 Cassius Dio on Civil War: Between History and TheoryCarsten H. LangeIndex