For his date of birth, various dates between
A.D. 155 and 164 have been suggested. If his praetorship of
A.D. 194 was held in or after his thirtieth year, as was customary, he could not have been born after 164. His family was distinguished both for imperial service and literary composition. He was the son of Cassius Apronianus, who held the office of
suffect (substitute) consul before serving as the proconsul of Lycia and Pamphylia and then became the governor of Cilicia in 182-183. Dio's name also suggests that he was a relative, presumably through his mother, of the epideictic orator Dio Cocceianus Chrysostom of Prusa. Dio would have received the standard rhetorical education of all senatorial youth; he mentions, for example, unnamed Greek writers "whose books we read with the object of acquiring a pure Attic style" (translated by Earnest Cary in
Dio's Roman History, 1914-1927. All subsequent translations are by Cary; all subsequent quotations from Dio refer to this same edition of Dio's work.).
By the beginning of the reign of Commodus, Dio was in Rome with his father; he was therefore a firsthand observer of events at Rome, especially in the senate, beginning about 180.
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