Original research article
Palamedes

Cassius Dio (53.27.2–3), the Pantheon and the ‘Former Caesar’ (Ὁ ΠΡΌΤΕΡΌΣ ΚΑῖΣΑΡ)

2019/2020, TOM 13

Lechosław Olszewski

0000-0003-1498-5480

Uniwersytet Adama Mickiewicza w Poznaniu

Publication date

12.09.2026

Publishing model

open access

License type

CC BY 4.0 Int.

Field

Humanities

Discipline

history

Language of publication

English

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Abstract

Agrippa’s Pantheon remains the subject of lively debates. A much-discussed passage is found in Cassius Dio’s 'Roman History' (53.27.2-3), which is most often treated as a stand-alone, self-explanatory whole. However, in order to be comprehensible, each text needs a broader range of reference points in order for meaning to be extracted. In this paper, I analyze part of that contextual spectrum (including Dio’s attitude to the so-called imperial cult and the roles played in his narrative by the cults of both Augustus and Caesar), and I argue that we should view his account of the Pantheon with considerable caution. That account contains three different narrative threads: one based on the annalist tradition, but also one which drew on the author’s own experiences, and one that constituted a literary and rhetorical overlay aimed at realizing the general objectives of the 'Roman History'. In this account, the ‘former Caesar’ has been placed in between twice over: between the author’s historical knowledge and his present circumstances, and between the realms of gods and humans. That imprecise nature of this expression was no accident. I believe the expression was not so much a reference to a specific statue as a figure of speech emphasizing the difference, fundamental from Dio’s perspective, between the incumbent emperor and his deceased predecessor.

Keywords:

Roman religion,imperial cult,Augustus,Pantheon,Cassius Dio

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