Page:Dio's Roman History, tr. Cary - Volume 1.djvu/24

 quotations from Dio, they are of value in filling out both his account and that of Xiphilinus.

The Excerpts De Legationibus—Embassies (a) of Foreign Nations to the Romans (UG), and (b) of the Romans to Foreign Nations (UR)—appear in nine Mss., all derived from a Spanish archetype (since destroyed by fire) owned by Juan Paez de Castro in the sixteenth century. First published by Fulvio Orsini in 1582, and hence called Excerpta Ursiniana.

The three collections thus far named are known collectively as the Excerpta Constantiniana. They formed a small part of a great encyclopedia of more than fifty subjects, compiled under the direction of Constantine VII. Porphyrogennetus (A.D. 912—59). They have recently been reedited by Boissevain, de Boor, and Büttner-Wobst (Berhn, 1903-06).

The Florilegium (Flor.) of Maximus the Confessor contains excerpts from various authors, arranged under seventy-one categories, the first of which is Virtue and Vice. Mai first published a number of fragments of Dio from this collection (from a Vatican Ms.), but inserted several which have since been rejected. There are at least six Mss. of the Florilegium containing excerpts from Dio. From one of these (Parisinus 1169, of the fourteenth or fifteenth century) Boissevain adds to the previous fragments No. 55, 3a and 3b.