DION Cassius, a native of Nicæa, in Bithynia, whose father's name was Apronianus. He was raised to the greatest offices of state in the Roman empire by Pertinax and his three successors. Being naturally fond of study, he improved himself by unwearied application, and spent ten years in collecting materials for a history of Rome, which he published in eighty books, after a laborious employment of twelve years in composing it. This valuable history commenced with the arrival of Æneas in Italy, and extended to the reign of the Emperor Alexander Severus. The first thirty-four books are totally lost; the twenty following, that is, from the thirty-fifth to the fifty-fourth, remain entire; the six following are mutilated; and fragments are all that we possess of the last twenty. In the compilation of this extensive history, Dion proposed to himself Thucydides as a model, but he is not perfectly happy in his imitation. His style is pure and elegant, his narrations are judiciously managed, and his reflections are generally learned; but, upon the whole, he is credulous, and the bigoted slave of partiality, satire, and flattery. He inveighs against the republican principles of Brutus and Cicero, and extols the cause of Cæsar. Seneca is the object of his satire, and is represented by the historian as debauched and licentious in his morals.