CHAP. XXXIII. Oppian. OPPIAN was born at Anazarba, in Cilicia, in the early part of the reign of Commodus, who ascended the imperial throne, A. D. 180. The poet was of high family, enjoyed the advantage of a good education, and was distinguished for his filial affection. By the offerings of his muse he conciliated the favour of Severus. He wrote two poems, one on fishing, the other on hunting, and a piece on fowling, which though unpublished, is supposed to be still extant in some library in Italy. Different sentiments have been entertained with respect to his poetry: it is certainly not deficient in interest, or spirit, though it must be admitted to have few claims to be brought in competition with that of Virgil, to which it has been somctimes considered as but little inferior. Io his poem on hunting there is a spirited description of a horse, which some have thought to have been borrowed in part from the admired representation of this animal in the xxxixth chapter of the book of Job. There is a passage in the poem also which tends to prove, that the account of Jacob's contrivance to encrease the number of the speckled and spotted sheep was agreeable to physical circumstances, ascertained by experience in other instances +. • De Venatione, lib. i. 1. 182. et seq. + See xuvy, lib. i. There is a relation in Ælian, which still more directly establishes the fact described in Genesis, CHAP. XXXV. Dion Cassius Cocceianus. DION CASSIUS was born at Nice, in Bithynia. He was the son of Apronianus, a man of consular dignity, who was successively governor of Cilicia and Dalmatia, under the reigns of Trajan and Adrian. Dion Cassius himself was advanced to the dignity of senator and consul, and exercised his office under the Emperor Alexander Severus, the son of Mammæa, A. D. 226, having previously had a command at Pergamus and Smyrna, and in Africa and Pannonia. The history composed by this distinguished author, includes the time from the landing of Æneas in Italy, to the year of Rome 982, when Alexander Severus entered on the consulship the third time, A. D. 228. It was written in eighty books, forty-six of which remain; the thirty-sixth is the first of those which are entire; only part of the thirty-fifth having escaped the ravage of time. From this to the sixtieth the work is nearly complete, but of the last twenty, merely a compendium remains, composed by Xiphilinus, a monk of Constantinople, who published an epitome from the thirty-fifth to the eightieth, nearly in the words of the original author. Dion Cassius professed to be excited by a Divine dream, to write his history *. He appears to have been addicted to superstition, if we are to judge from the abridgment of Xiphilinus; and he seems to have sacrificed truth to flattery, or to have been the dupe of an improbable tale, when he asserted that Vespasian restored a blind man to sight, by anointing his eyes with spittle, and that he also cured another person who was lame in his hand, by placing his foot upon it. The historian represents both these men to have been forewarned in dreams, that they should experience these benefits from the Emperor, who probably was not unwilling to be thought to work miracles, concerted it should seem in imitation of those which were performed by Christ +. • Commodus, L. 72. p. 1223. and Xyland. Præf, vol. ii ̧ p. 1386. Edit. Fabricii. Vespasian, L. 6. vol. ii. p. 1082. Dion gives also a strange account of Apol lonius Tyanæus having seen at Ephesus all that passed on the death of Domitian, at Rome, at the very instant that the tyrant was under the hands of the assassin, so that he uttered the word Stephanus, which was the ruffian's name, bidding him strike boldly. This seems to have been somewhat similar to what is reported of the superstition which prevails concerning second sight among the Highlanders *. The historian speaks of the Jews as a people who worshipped the ineffable and invisible God, without any image, exceeding the rest of mankind in their religious services, having built a temple of great magnitude and beauty, and abstaining on the Sabbath from all labour and action. He gives some striking proofs of the devotion, with which they incurred any danger rather than defend themselves on the Sabbath-day. He mentions them as a people different from the rest of mankind, and states them to have encreased so much at Rome, as to be scarcely within the controul of the laws. Baronius accuses him of having expressed Domit. L. 67. vol. ii. p. 1116. and see Johnson's Journey to the Western Islands, p. 243. + L. 37. § 17. vol. i. p. 122. Justin. 36. 2, 2.1 |