Chronological Errors in Dio's Account of the Claudian Invasion

Abstract

HE Roman invasion of Britain in A.D. 43 was an event of great importance both for the future history of the island and for the emperor Claudius' attempt to establish for himself a reputation as a great military commander, and it is unfortunate that there is not more reliable information on the campaign. The chapters of Tacitus' Annals that covered the years A.D. 37-47 are missing, and the summary of events in Britain in the Agricola says very little about the invasion. Suetonius' review of the campaign (Claud. 17) is very brief and (to Claudius) extremely hostile. Accordingly, so far as literary evidence is concerned, we must rely almost entirely on the account provided by Dio (6o. 19-24). His description of the campaign seems relatively straightforward, but there are places where modern historians have felt inclined to treat his judgement with caution. For example, his apparent acceptance at face value of the arrangement that Claudius would come to the aid of Plautius in the event of a genuine emergency seems naive. However, the possible weaknesses of Dio's judgement on this and similar points are not too difficult to discern; it is in points of detail that his errors have, in fact, been most misleading, and it might be useful to draw attention to two chronological errors in his account of the invasion that have escaped comment. The first is a relatively minor detail. Dio tells us that on his departure for Britain Claudius handed over control of affairs in Rome to L. Vitellius, who, with Claudius, had held the

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 40 citations exist upstream.