ΙΩΑΝΝΗ ΤΟΥ ΞΙΦΙΛΙΝΟΥ: Εκ του Δίωνος του Νικαέως Ρωμαικών Ιστοριών Επιτομή. Lutetiae [Paris] Ex Biblioteca Regia, 1555. EDITIO PRINCEPS in the original Greek. First edition, text only in Greek, of the famous epitome of the History of Dion, prepared by Ioannis Xiphilinos at the order of the Byzantine emperor Michael Doukas. In folio (30 × 20 cm). Complete: 357, [1] pp. Contemporary full vellum with very light wear. Text with uniform browning throughout, occasionally stronger in places, with some spotting and marginal waterstaining toward the lower part of the second section. Printed with the fine Greek letters prepared in Paris in 1540 by Garamond under special commission from François I, known as the Grecs du Roi: a masterpiece of Renaissance Greek printing with fine ornamental decoration. Xiphilinos lived in Constantinople in the late 11th century and was nephew of the patriarch of the same name. The manuscript of Dio Cassius on which he worked was already mutilated, and the complete text is now lost. His epitome remains invaluable, preserving the chief incidents of a long period of Roman history, including several travel accounts from Roman embassies, and serving as our only source for the last twenty books of Dio. The rediscovery of nearly forgotten manuscripts and the selection of Roman events epitomized the Macedonian Renaissance: a period in which Byzantine Greeks (calling themselves simply Romans, Rhomaioi) reasserted their Roman heritage. Xiphilinos sometimes altered or emended Dio’s text, shaping the narrative to the contemporary Byzantine ideology of Roman glorious ancestry. The work is particularly rich in information about Asia Minor, Dio was from Bithynia, and Xiphilinos from Pontos. References: Mortimer I, 170; Schreiber 108.