The second portion, opening with Book Fifty-two, ends at the death of
Marcus Aurelius (180 B.C.). In LXXI, 36, 4 Dio admits that the old
splendor ended with Marcus and was not renewed. His history, he says,
makes here a sheer descent ([Greek: katapiptei]) from the golden to
the iron age. It fades, as it were, into the light of common day in a
double sense: for the events succeeding this reign Dio himself was
able to observe as an intelligent eyewitness.

The third section, then, extends from the beginning of Book
Seventy-two to the end of the work. Here Dio breaks away oftener than
before from his servility to the Dignity of History, only to display a
far more contemptible servility to his imperial masters. According to
his own account he stood by and passively allowed atrocities to be
multiplied about him, nor does he venture to express any forceful
indignation at the performance of such deeds. Had he protested, the
world's knowledge of Rome's degenerate tyrants would undoubtedly have
been less complete than it now is; and Dio was quite enough of an
egotist to believe that his own life and work were of paramount
importance. If we compare him unfavorably with Epictetus, we must
remember that the latter was obscure enough to be ignored.

In both the second and the third parts, that is to say throughout the
entire imperial period, Dio is conceded to have committed an error in
his point of view by making the relations of the emperor to the senate
the leading idea in his narrative and subordinating other events to
that relation. Senator as he was, he naturally magnified its
importance, and in an impartial estimate of his account one must allow
for personal bias.

Our historian's sources for the earlier part of his work are not