Unfortunately the entente cordiale between ruler and historian did not long endure.  Severus grew disappointing to Dio through his severity, visited first upon Niger and later upon Caesar Clodius Albinus:  and Dio came to be persona non grata to Severus for this reason among others, that the emperor changed his mind completely about Commodus, and since he had begun to revere, if not to imitate him, what Dio had written concerning his predecessor could be no longer palatable.  The estrangement seems to be marked by the fact that until Severus’s death Dio went abroad on no important military or diplomatic mission, but remained constantly in Italy.  He was sometimes in Rome, but more commonly resided at his country-seat in Capua (Book 76, 2).  In a very vague Passage in Book 76, 16 Dio speaks of finding “when I was consul” three thousand indictments for adultery inscribed on the records.  This leads most scholars to assume that he was consul before the death of Severus.  Reimar thought differently, and produces arguments to support his view.  I do not deem many of the passages which he cites entirely apposite, and yet some of the points urged are important.  I can only say that the impression left in my mind by a rapid reading of the Greek is that Dio was consul while Severus reigned; if such be the case, he probably held the rank of consul suffectus ("honorary” or “substitute").  All who refuse to admit that he could have obtained so high an office at that time place the date of his first consulship anywhere from 219 to 223 A.D. because of his own statement that in 224 he was appointed to the (regularly proconsular) governorship of Africa.

The son of Severus, Caracalla or Antoninus, drew Dio from his homekeeping and took him with him on an eastern expedition in 216, so that our historian passed the winter of 216-217 as a member of Caracalla’s retinue at Nicomedea (Book 77, 17 and 18) and joined there in the annual celebration of the Saturnalia (Book 78, 8).  Dio takes occasion to deplore the emperor’s bestial behavior as well as the considerable pecuniary outlay to which he was personally subjected, but at the same time he evidently did not allow his convictions to become indiscreetly audible.  Much farther than Nicomedea Dio cannot have accompanied his master; for he did not go to the Parthian war, presently undertaken, and he was not present either at Caracalla’s death (217) or at the overthrow of Macrinus (218).  This Macrinus, one of the short-time emperors, gave Dio the post of curator ad corrigendum statum civitatium, with administrative powers over the cities of Pergamum and Smyrna (Book 79, 7), and his appointee remained in active service during much of the reign of Elagabalus,—­possibly, indeed, until the accession of Alexander Severus (see Book 78, 18, end).  Mammaea, the mother of the new sovereign, surrounded her son with skilled helpers of proved value, and it was possibly due to her wisdom