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xxviii lem with such material is often one of arrangement in chronological order or of placement in the proper position in the narrative.

From the time of Crassus onward classical sources are extensive, though, for years when no military activity aroused interest, large gaps appear. The history of Cassius Dio Cocceianus covered the period from the first contacts with Rome to the downfall of the empire. The work is invaluable, since it contains much not found elsewhere; but its accuracy must often be questioned, and portions of it are very fragmentary. The arrangement of these fragments, generally quotations from other writers, is not yet entirely satisfactory. In many cases they are probably much abridged—a condition which leads to still further complications. For the period of the downfall of the empire, with which he was contemporary, the very brief statements of Dio have unusual value. The information furnished by Plutarch in his Lives, especially those of Crassus and Antony, is based on first-rate sources. With allowance for such patriotic biases as the attempts of the military to find an excuse for the defeat of Crassus, this biographer provides us with some of our most extensive connected narratives in Parthian history.

In the letters which Cicero wrote to his friends and in his dispatches to the Senate during his governorship of Cilicia we find the only connected day-by-day account which has come down to us of any phase of