The Roman History is an 80-book narrative of Rome composed in Greek by the Roman senator Dio Cassius of Nicaea during the early third century CE. Encompassing nearly a millennium, the work traces events from the city's legendary foundation through to the author's own lifetime, concluding in 229 CE. Dio structured his history annalistically, organising the narrative according to the annual consular years of the Roman Republic and, later, the reigns of emperors.
The text survives in a fragmentary condition. Books 1–35, from the beginnings of Rome through the wars of the Republic, survive only as excerpts and quotations in later works. Books 36–60, from the war in Crete and Lucullus at Tigranocerta through the fall of the Republic to the death of Claudius, survive directly, nearly complete as far as Book 54 (10 BCE) and with gaps after it. Books 61–80, from Nero's accession to the end, are known mainly from the epitome made by John Xiphilinus in the eleventh century.
Dio wrote as a senator who held the consulship twice. The last books record events of his own career, and the history closes with his second consulship, his retirement to Bithynia, and the Homeric lines a dream told him to add at the end.
Dio Cassius of Nicaea Roman History: summary and contents (PDF)
Dio Cassius of Nicaea Roman History: summary and contents (Markdown)
Contents
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Αʹ–ΛΕʹ Books 1–35
The first thirty-five books survive only as excerpts and quotations in later works. Dio's preface says he read nearly everything written on Rome but recorded only what he chose, and the fragments run from the land where the city was founded and the quarrel of Romulus and Remus through the wars of the Republic: Aemilius leading armed Insubrian captives up the Capitol, and the Illyrian Demetrius harassing his neighbours. The last fragments show the senate demanding prisoners, deserters, hostages and ships of an enemy.
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ΛϚʹ–Ξʹ Books 36–60
Books 36 to 60 open with the war in Crete and Lucullus besieging Tigranocerta, where Tigranes scoffed that the Romans were too few for an army and too many for an embassy. The narrative runs through the fall of the Republic, including the triumvirs' division of the provinces after Philippi, to the death of Claudius: Agrippina and Nero feigning grief, Gallio's joke that he was hauled to heaven on a hook, and Nero calling mushrooms the food of the gods.
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ΞΑʹ–Πʹ Books 61–80
Nero's accession opens the last twenty books, which survive mainly in an eleventh-century epitome: Britannicus killed, and Agrippina answering the prophecy that her son would rule and kill her with 'let him kill me, so long as he rules'. In a war of Marcus Aurelius the epitomator rejects Dio's story that the Egyptian magician Arnuphis brought the saving rain. The history ends with Dio's second consulship, his retirement to Bithynia, and the Homeric lines a dream told him to add at the end of his work.