Book
200
Roman History
Cassius Dio
A senator who served under several emperors argues Rome's stability at its height under rulers like Trajan and Hadrian rested on personal virtue at the top rather than any constitutional safeguard, and shows how quickly it curdled once that virtue was absent.
Read itBefore you start
- This edition
- Only Books 36 to 60 survive as Dio wrote them. Everything else is known through Byzantine epitomes made centuries later by Xiphilinus and Zonaras — so for much of this work you are reading a medieval monk's summary of Dio, not Dio.
- This translation
- Earnest Cary's Loeb translation, via LacusCurtius.
FreeAdvancedlink checked 17 Sept 2026
Filed under Ancient Rome in History.