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Cassius Dio Cocceianus, Roman senator and prætor, when about forty years of age delivered himself of a pamphlet describing the dreams and omens that had led the general Septimius Severus to hope for the imperial office which he actually secured. One evening there came to the author a note of thanks from the prince; and the temporary satisfaction of the recipient was continued in his dreams, wherein his guiding angel seemed to urge him to write a detailed account of the reign of the unworthy Commodus (Book Seventy-two), just ended. Once again did Dio glow beneath the imperial felicitations and those of the public. Inoculated with the bacillus of publication and animated by a strong desire for immortality,—a wish happily realized,—he undertook the prodigious task of giving to the world a complete account of Roman events from the beginning to so late a date as Fortune might vouchsafe. Forthwith he began the accumulation of materials, a task in which ten active years (A.D. 200 to 210) were utilized. The actual labor of composition, continued for twelve years more at intervals of respite from duties of state, brought him in his narrative to the inception of the reign of his original patron, the first Severus.—All the foregoing facts are given us as Dio's own statement, in what is at present the twenty-third chapter of the seventy-second book, by that painter in miniature, Ioannes Xiphilinus.

It was now the year A.D. 223, Dio was either consul for the first time (as some assert) or had the consular office behind him, the world was richer by the loss of Elagabalus, and Alexander Severus reigned in his stead. Under this emperor the remaining books (Seventy-three to Eighty, inclusive) must have been composed, for Dio puts the finishing touches on his history in 229. Since by that time he was nearly eighty years of age and since he has written of no reign subsequent to Alexander's, we may conclude that he did not survive his master, who died in 235. The sum total of his efforts, then, as he left it, consisted of eighty books, covering a period from 1064 B.C. to 229 A.D. At present there are extant of that number complete only Books Thirty-six to Sixty inclusive, treating the events of the years 68 B.C. to 47 A.D. The last twenty books, Sixty-one to Eighty, appear in fairly reliable excerpts and epitomes, but for the first thirty-five books we are dependent upon the merest scraps and fragments. How and by what steps this great work disintegrated, and in what form it has been preserved to modern times, this it is to be our next business to trace.

It seems that Dio's work had no immediate influence, but "Time brings roses", and in the Byzantine age we find that he had come to be regarded as the canonical example of the way in which Roman History should be written. Before this desirable result, however, had been brought to pass, Books Twenty-two to Thirty-five inclusive had disappeared. These gave the events of the years from the destruction of Carthage and Corinth (in the middle of the second century B.C.) to the activity of Lucullus in 69. A like fate befell Books Seventy and Seventy-one at an early date. The first twenty-one books and the last forty-five (save the two above noted) seem to have been extant in their original forms at least as late as the twelfth century. Which end of the already syncopated composition was the first to go the way of all flesh (and parchment, too,) it would not be an easy matter to determine. It is regarded by most scholars as certain that Ioannes Zonaras, who lived in the twelfth century, had the first twenty-one and the last forty-five for his epitomes. Hultsch, to be sure, advances the opinion[1] that Books One to Twenty-one had by that time fallen into a condensed form, the only one accessible; but the majority of scholars are against him. After Zonaras's day both One to Twenty-one and Sixty-one to Eighty suffer the corruption of moth and of worm.

The world has, then, in this twentieth century, those entire books of Dio which have already been mentioned,—Thirty-six to Sixty,—and something more. Let us first consider, accordingly, the condition in which this intact remnant has come down to the immediate present, and afterward the sources on which we have to depend for a knowledge of the lost portion.

There are eleven manuscripts for this torso of Roman History, taking their names from the library of final deposit, but they are not all, by any means, of equal value. First come Mediceus A (referred to in this book as Ma), Vaticanus A, Parisinus A, and Venetus A (Va) of the first class; then Mediceus B of the second class; finally, Parisinus B, Escorialensis, Turinensis, Vaticanus B, and Venetus B, with the mongrel Vesontinus, which occupies a position in this group best designated, perhaps, as 2-1/2.

Vaticanus A has been copied from Mediceus A, and Parisinus A from Vaticanus A, so that they are practically one with their archetype. Venetus A is of equal age and authority with Mediceus A. One can not now get back of these two codices. There is none of remoter date for Dio save the parchment Cod. Vat. 1288, containing most of Books Seventy-eight and Seventy-nine,—a portion of the work for the moment not under discussion. Coming to the second class, Mediceus B is a joint product of copying from the two principal MSS. just mentioned. In the third class, Parisinus B is a copy of Mediceus B with a little at the opening taken from Mediceus A. This was the version selected as a guide by Robert Estienne in the first important edition of Dio ever published (A.D. 1548). All the rest, Escorialensis, Turinensis, Vaticanus B, and Venetus B are mere offshoots of Parisinus B. The Vesontinus codex is derived partly from Venetus A and partly from some manuscript of the third class.

The parchment manuscript to which allusion was made above is only some three centuries later than the time of Dio himself. It covers the ground from Book 78, 2, 2, to 79, 8, 3 inclusive (ordinary division). It belonged to Orsini, and after his death (A.D. 1600) became the property of the Vatican Library. It is square in shape and consists of thirteen leaves, each containing three columns of uncials. In spite of its age it is fairly overflowing with errors of every sort, many of which have been emended by an unknown corrector who also wrote in uncials; this same corrector would appear to have added the last leaf. And there are a few additions in minuscules by a still later hand. The leaves are very thin and in some places the ink has completely faded, showing only the impression of the pen. For specimen illustrations of this codex see Silvestre (Paléographie Universelle II, plate 7), Tischendorf (cod. Sinait. plate 20) and Boissevain's Cassius Dio (Vol. III).

The dates of these codices (centuries indicated by Arabic numerals) are about as follows: