366

Fragment CVIII 368

CONCERNING THE TRANSLATION

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

HISTORY

OF

DION CASSIUS

ABBRIDG'D BY XIPHILIN

CONTAINING

The most considerable Passages under the _Roman_ emperors from the
time of _Pompey_ the Great, to the Reign of _Alexander Severus_.

* * * * *

In Two Volumes

* * * * *

Done from the _Greek_, by Mr. Manning

* * * * *

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.

The present version, begun while I was serving as Acting Professor of
Greek at St. Stephen's College, Annandale, N.Y., has been carried
forward during such intervals of leisure as I could snatch from an
overflowing schedule at the University of South Dakota. It has been my
companion on many journeys and six states have witnessed its progress
toward completion. In spite of the time consumed it seems in
retrospect not far short of presumptuous to have tried in three or
four years to put