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The Fall of Perennis: Dio-Xiphilinus 72. 9. 2

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

P. A. Brunt
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Extract

Dio-Xiphilinus, Herodian, and the Historia Augusta give three apparently contradictory accounts of the circumstances in which Commodus' all-powerful praetorian prefect, Sex. Tigidius Perennis, was overthrown in A.D. 185. My purpose here is not to try to decide between them, but primarily to correct what I think a patent misinterpretation, now current, of a crucial statement in that given by Xiphilinus in his epitome of Dio.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 23 , Issue 1 , May 1973 , pp. 172 - 177
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1973

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References

page 172 note 1 e.g. Bersanetti, G. M., Athen. xxix (1951), 555Google Scholar ff.; Birley, A. R., Septimius Severus (London, 1971),CrossRefGoogle Scholar p. 121 (‘legionary legates, or rather ex-legates’; the alternative suggestion results from a conflation of Xiphilinus, misunderstood, and the Histories Augusta, see below). Xiphilinus was rightly inter preted by J. M. Heer, Der historische Wert der Vita Commodi (Philol. Supplementband, ix [1904]), 65 ff., whatever be thought of his historical reconstruction (Stein, R.E. Vitt. 953 f. follows Heer), and recently by Frere, S. S., Britannia (1967), p. 166.Google Scholar

page 173 note 1 Boissevain, U. P., Hermes, xxvi (1891), 440ffGoogle Scholar

page 173 note 2 In 48. 14.1 it refers to Agrippa and Salvidienus Rufus in the Perusine war; their status is not known. In 52. 24. 4 it embraces all military officers in Italy, whom Dio (Maecenas) would subordinate to the praetorian prefects. 62. 23. 6 is another clear case in which a man called hypostrategos is also termed hyparchos, to bring out his subordination to the governor. In 46. 46. s Pedius is described as hyparchos rather than as colleague of Octavian in the consulship; the Latin source was perhaps reminiscent of Sallust, Hist. 4. 48: ‘collegam minorem et sui cultorem expectans’.

page 174 note 1 He did not necessarily trouble to understand what he found in his source.

page 175 note 1 Cf. Birley, cited p. 172 n. I.

page 176 note 1 e.g. Heer (p. 172 n. I).

page 176 note 2 Ap. Heer, n. 149a.

page 176 note 3 Dio-Xiph. 72. 8. We do not know when or why he was tried for his life (Grosso's date of 184 [pp. 183 f.] seems too early to me), but perhaps he was blamed for the breakdown of discipline; he was hardly still governor in 185.

page 176 note 4 Hdn. 2. 2. 5, 2. 4. I and 4 etc. (all making nonsense of the judgement in 2.6. 14 that the soldiers were first corrupted by the circumstances in which Didius Iulianus was proclaimed emperor); cf. Dio 73. 8; H.A. Pert. 5. 7, 6. 3.

page 176 note 5 Dio 71. II. 2 and 4, 72. 2. 2. For desertion see Dig. 49. 16. 3 passim, h.t. 4. 9 and 13, 5 passim, 7 (Tarrutenius Paternus, Marcus' praetorian prefect: ‘proditores <et> transfugae plerumque capite puniuntur et exauctorati torquentur: nam pro hoste, non pro milite habentur’), 10. I, 13. 5 f., 14, 15. Naturally desertion would at any time have figured prominently in writings on martial law, but desertion to the enemy, barbarians outside the empire, is less expected; for this, besides 7, see 3. 10–12 (Modestinus), 5. 5 ff. (Arrius Menander, citing Hadrian), cf. 6. 4 (for betrayals by exploratores.) It is not so strange that deserters should turn into common criminals, 5. 2. The juristic evidence is mostly Severan (as usual), but the texts of Dio show that it may be carried back into the second century. See also Grosso, 235 ff., 435 ff. (whose use of statements in the lives of Niger and Albinus appears to me injudicious).