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regular Greek custom is to place the gentile name, or even the praenomen, _after_ the cognomen: but the regular Latin custom (and after all Dio has more of the Roman in his makeup than of the Greek) is to observe the order _praenomen_, _nomen_, _cognomen_. It is objected, first, that the Greeks _sometimes_ followed the regular Latin order, and, second, that the Romans _sometimes_ followed the regular Greek order (e.g., Cicero, in his _Letters_). But the Greek exception cannot here make Dio the _nomen_ and Cassius the _cognomen_: we _know_ that the historian belonged to the gens Cassia (his father was Cassius Apronianus) and that he took Dio as cognomen from his grandfather, Dio Chrysostom. And the Latin exception simply offers us the alternative of following a common usage or an uncommon usage. The real question is whether Dio should be regarded rather as Greek or as Roman. To be logical, we must say either Dion Kassios or Cassius Dio. Considering the historian's times and his _habitat_, not merely his birthplace and literary dialect, I must prefer Cassius Dio as his official appellation. Yet, because the opposite arrangement has the sanction of usage, I deem it desirable to employ as often as possible the unvexed single name _Dio_. Dio's praenomen is unknown, but he had still another cognomen, Cocceianus, which he derived along with the _Dio_ from his maternal grandfather. The latter, known as Dio of Prusa from his birthplace in Bithynia, is renowned for his speeches, which contain perhaps more philosophy than oratory and won for him from posterity the title of Chrysostom,--"Golden Mouth." Dio of Prusa was exiled by the tyrant Domitian, but recalled and showered with favors by the emperor Cocceius Nerva (96-98 A.D.); from this patron he took the cognomen mentioned, Cocceianus, which he handed down to his illustrious grandson. Besides this distinguished ancestor on his mother's side Dio the historian had a father, Cassius Apronianus, of no mean importance. He was a Roman senator and had been governor of Dalmatia and Cilicia; to the latter post Dio bore his father company (Books 49, 36; 69, 1; 72, 7). The date of the historian's birth is determined approximately as somewhere from 150 to 162 A.D., that is, during the last part of the reign of Antoninus Pius or at the beginning of the reign of Marcus Aurelius. The town where he first saw the light was Nicaea in Bithynia. The careful education which the youth must h
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