The Excerpts Concerning Judgments are found in a Vatican manuscript known as Codex Vaticanus Rescriptus Graecus, N. 73.  Angelo Mai first published the collection at Rome in 1826.  They consist of many narrative fragments extending over the field of Roman History from early to late times, but fall into two parts:  between these two parts there is a gap of six or more pages.  That the former set of fragments is taken directly from Dio all scholars are ready to allow.  In regard to the latter set there have been, and perhaps still are, diverse opinions.  The trouble is that on the one hand these passages do not end with the reign of Alexander Severus, where Dio manifestly ended his history, but continue down to Constantine and (since the manuscript has lost some sheets at the close) possibly much farther:  and on the other hand the style and diction differ considerably from Dio’s own.  It was once the fashion to say that as many of the fragments as come before the reign of Valerian (A.D. 253)[3] came from Dio’s composition, but that the remainder were written by an unknown author.  Now, however, it is generally agreed that all the excerpts of the second set were the work of one man, whether John of Antioch, or Peter Patricius, or some third individual.  Still, though not direct quotations from Dio, they are regarded as of value in filling out both his account and that of Xiphilinus.  The words are different, but the facts remain undoubtedly true.

[Footnote 3:  This would give Dio a considerably longer life than is commonly allowed him.]

The Excerpts Concerning Embassies are contained in somewhat less than a dozen manuscripts, all of which prove to have sprung from a Spanish archetype (since destroyed by fire) that Juan Paez de Castro owned in the sixteenth century.  Many of the copies were made by Andreas Darmarius.  The first publisher of these selections was Fulvio Orsini (= Ursinus), who brought them out at Antwerp in 1582.  As their name indicates, they are accounts of embassies sent either by the Romans to foreign tribes or by foreign tribes to the Romans.  Some of them are taken from Cassius Dio; hence their importance here.

Now it was the custom of the earlier editors to arrange the (early) fragments of Dio according to the groups from which they were taken:  (1) the so-called Fragmenta Valesia (pickings from grammarians, lexicographers, scholiasts), edited by the same Henri de Valois above mentioned; (2) the Fragmenta Peiresciana (= Excerpts Concerning Virtues and Vices); (3) the Fragmenta Ursina (= Excerpts Concerning Embassies); and finally, in the edition of Sturz[4] (4) Excerpta Vaticana (= Excerpts Concerning Judgments and the now rejected “Planudean Excerpts").  The above grouping has been abandoned and a strictly chronological order followed in all the later editions, including Bekker, Dindorf, Melber, Boissevain.

[Footnote 4:  See p. 22.]

The body of Fragments preceding Book Thirty-six cites, in addition to the collections mentioned, the following works or authors: