Page:Dio's Roman History, tr. Cary - Volume 1.djvu/26

 a couple of quotations from Herodotus. We are justified, therefore, in recognizing as an epitome of Dio whatever remains after the exclusion of the portions that are derivable from the other two sources. After narrating the destruction of Corinth Zonaras laments that he could find no ancient authorities for the remainder of the republican period; hence it is inferred that Books XXII-XXXV had even then been lost from all the Mss. He resumes his narration with the time of Sulla, and after relying on various lives of Plutarch for a time, finally follows Dio's account once more, beginning with Book XLIV, 3; but for the period subsequent to Domitian's death he used Dio only indirectly, through the epitome of Xiphilinus. Zonaras is therefore of great importance for Books I-XXI, and to a lesser degree for Books XLIV-LXVII, where he occasionally supplements our Mss. of Dio or the epitome of Xiphilinus. There are numerous Mss. of Zonaras, five of which are cited by Boissevain; but for the present edition it has seemed sufficient merely to indicate such readings as have the support of no Ms.

For Books LXI-LXXX our chief authority is Xiphilinus, a monk of Constantinople, who made an abridgment of Books XXXVI-LXXX at the request of the emperor Michael VII. Ducas (1071-78). Even in his time Books LXX and LXXI (Boissevain's division), containing the reign of Antoninus Pius