E-text prepared by Ted Garvin, Linda Cantoni, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net/)
An Historical Narrative Originally Composed in Greek During the Reigns of Septimius Severus, Geta and Caracalla, Macrinus, Elagabalus and Alexander Severus: And Now Presented in English Form
A.B. (Harvard), Ph.D. (Johns Hopkins), Acting Professor of Greek in Lehigh University
I. The Epitome of Books 1-21 arranged by Ioannes Zonaras, Soldier and Secretary, in the Monastery of Mt. Athos, about 1130 A.D.
Troy New York Pafraets Book Company 1905 Copyright 1905 Pafraets Book Company Troy New York
Who Has Won to the Age of Greek Lore even as to the Youth of Greek Life
Magazine Articles and Notes on Dio (1884-1904) 49
Plan of the Entire Work (as Conjectured by A. von Gutschmid) 61
An Epitome of the Lost Books 1-21 (by Ioannes Zonaras) 67
Fragments of Books 22-35 (from various sources) 329
Cassius Dio, one of the three original sources for Roman history to be found in Greek literature, has been accessible these many years to the reader of German, of French, and even of Italian, but never before has he been clothed complete in English dress. In the Harvard College Library is deposited the fruit of a slight effort in that direction, a diminutive volume dated two centuries back, the title page of which (agog with queer italics) reads as follows:
The most considerable Passages under the _Roman_ emperors from the time of _Pompey_ the Great, to the Reign of _Alexander Severus_.
Tametsi haudquaquam par gloria sequatur Scriptorem, & Authorem rerum, tamen in primis arduum videtur res gestas scribere. Salust.
_London_: Printed for _A._ and _J. Churchill_, in _Paternoster Row_, 1704.
Four hundred and seven small pages, over and above the Epistle Dedicatory, are contained in Volume One. Really, however, this is not the true Dio at all, but merely his shadow, seized and distorted to satisfy the ideas of his epitomizer, the monk Xiphilinus, who was separated from him by a thousand years in the flesh and another thousand in the spirit. Of the little specimens here and there translated for this man's or that man's convenience no mention need here be made. Hence, practically speaking, Dio now for the first time emerges in his impressive stature before the English-speaking public after there has elapsed since his own day a period twice as long as then constituted the extent of that history which was his theme.