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The other Greek contemporary is Herodian, the facts of whose life are by no means certain. Kreutzer[16] thinks that he came to Rome about the beginning of the third century, and subsequently held some minor administrative posts in the government. He stands on a different plane from Dio, as he possessed very small qualifications as a historian. He narrates, it is true, salient features of court life and current foreign affairs, though he has small conception of their bearing and less regard for their chronology. In this matter it is only fair to remember that the ignorant emendations of Bonus Accursius and a tribe of mediaeval scholars may account for much that now looks so outrageous.

As regards the sources from which Dio and Herodian took their facts, much has been written, though the attempts[17] made since 1881 to show that both used Maximus are at best poor and inconclusive. Mueller[18] in 1870 pointed out with some considerable weight that the similarities which exist between the parallel accounts found in Herodian and the Scriptores were probably due to the fact that both had used Maximus. This line of argument was developed by Giambelli and Plew[19] on the basis of a supposition that Herodian had been worked over before he was used by the Scriptores, thus endeavouring to account for the discrepancies between Herodian and Maximus, and supporting the Maximus-as-root-base theory of both authors. Boehme[20] in 1882 introduced the name of Dexippus as the probable intermediate writer, and pointed out that the references made by certain Scriptores to Herodian, under the name of Arrianus, are hard to understand if the scriptor had the correct name before him. Certain passages can however be shown to have been taken direct from Herodian, on account of which Peter[21] entirely rejected the Dexippus intermediary theory a few years later. In the main, however, the general authenticity of the sources, whether Greek or Latin, was accepted up to the year 1889, though one or two discoveries had been made which weakened their hold and prepared the way for the general attack.