or less length in Roman history. He is now presented entire to the
casual reader: his veracious narrative must ever continue to interest
the historical student, who may correct him by others or others by
him, the ecclesiastic, to whom is here offered so graphic a picture of
the conditions surrounding early Christianity, and the literary man,
who finds the limpid stream of Hellenic diction far from its source
grow turbid and turgid in turning the mill wheels for this dealer in
[Greek: onkos]. Dio's faults are patent, but his excellencies,
fortunately, are patent, too; and the world may rejoice that in an age
of lust and bloodshed this serious-minded magistrate bethought him to
record with religious exactness what he believed to be the truth
respecting the Kingdom, the Republic, and the Empire of Rome even to
his own day.

I desire in conclusion to express especial gratitude and appreciation
for assistance and suggestions to Professor C.W.E. Miller of Johns
Hopkins University, Professors J.H. Wright and A.A. Howard of Harvard
University, and to Mr. A.T. Robinson of the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology. Likewise I must acknowledge my obligations, in the
elucidation of particularly vexed and corrupt passages, to the
illuminative comments of Sturz, or Wagner, or Gros, or Boissée, or all
combined. Additional thanks are due to many others who have helped or
shall yet help to make Dio in English a success.

HERBERT BALDWIN FOSTER.

BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA,
June, 1905.