Note 235 — Chapter VIII · THE NEW CONSTITUTION, B.C. 30-23

I do not myself see any good reason to doubt that Dio has given at any rate the substance of these documents. It is not perhaps natural to us to suppose two men like Mæcenas and Agrippa solemnly reading speeches to the Emperor; but it was no unusual thing at Rome. Augustus himself is said to have done it, even to his wife, Livia, and frequently with others (Sueton., Aug. 84). Tacitus says it was the fashion of the time (Ann. 4, 37), as it seems to have been still earlier, for Cicero complains that his nephew, Quintus, had written an elaborate diatribe against him which he meant to deliver to Iulius Cæsar in Alexandria. (Ad Att. xi. 10.) For similar documents see Dio, 52, 1-40; 53, 3; 55, 15-21.