Religion in Cassius Dio’s Republic
I argue that Dio in fact created a highly distinctive portrayal of the Republic and that religious elements were an important tool used in this presentation: through a highly selective use of religious elements, Dio breaks decisively with the common idealisation of the earlier Republic as he incorporates unparalleled, critical inclusions related to religion. Most often, the critical religious inclusions centre on excessive political competition, which demonstrates that this was a problematic area even in the normally idealised Early and Mid-Republic. In the Late Republic, Dio uses religious elements as a tool to show how this competition became fundamentally destructive and the central cause for the downfall of the Republic. Thus, through a focus on religious elements across Dio’s Republican narrative, his sophisticated and distinctive interpretation of this period centred on political competition emerges.