DIONE CASSIO (Δίων ὁ Κάσσιος). — Historian, born at Nicaea ca. 155 A.D., died there at nearly eighty between 230 and 240. He began his political career in Rome. He was proconsul of Africa and consul twice.
He wrote in Greek, in 80 books, a History of Rome ('Ρωμαινὴ Ἰστορία') from Aeneas to 229 A.D. Only 25 remain (from XXXVI to LX), covering the period from 68 B.C. to 47 B.C., together with various fragments, the most important of which is that containing the two books LXXVIII–LXXIX, covering the years 216 to 219. The narrative follows an annalistic arrangement; it is extensive and diligent, but offers no new reconsideration of Roman history. He is particularly interested in the civil organization of the city and shows little sensitivity to spiritual phenomena. Christianity is absent from his panorama, although the author lived in the time of Marcus Aurelius and the Severans, to whose period books LXXVIII and LXXIX refer.
Two items of information, however, are reported there: the condemnation of the consul Flavius Clemens and his wife Flavia Domitilla, respectively to death and relegation to the island of Pandateria, as guilty of impiety toward the gods (that is, of Christianity); and that of Acilius Glabrio (Hist. Rom., LXVII, 14). Nor should one forget the episode of the Thunderstruck Legion, preserved in the Excerpta of Xiphilinus (71, 8) and also narrated by Tertullian (Ad Scap., 4) and Eusebius (Hist. eccl., V, 5, 2-6).
His work was epitomized by Byzantine historians, especially by Xiphilinus (11th century) and Zonaras (14th century); for them, as for the other chroniclers of Byzantium, D. C. is the principal text for the history of Rome.