Herodian's history, first printed 1502, was edited by Henri Estienne using the Latin of Angelo Poliziano. It was dedicated to the English poet and courtier Sir Philip Sidney, whom Estienne had befriended some years earlier. The second publication Estienne had dedicated to Sidney, "...he was concerned lest Sidney should be dissipating his intellectual gifts in the futile life of the court, and begins his dedication with three lines adapted from an epistle of Horace warning him against throwing away the gifts Apollo gave..." (Buxton). The second part is the editio princeps of Zosimus' history, albeit only the first two books. Described by Gibbon as "a very questionable judge of merit", Zosimus wrote in Constantinople around 500 AD. The second work is also an editio princeps, of Xiphilanus' abridgement of books 61-80 of Dio Cassius' history, originally produced in the 12th century and the only source for this part of the work. It is beautifully printed by Robert Estienne (Henri's father) almost entirely in the Grec du Roi type designed for him by Garamond. Three years earlier Estienne had first published the surviving text of the rest of the work. The third work, a later printing of Cassius Dio's history, is, like the Herodian and Zosimus, printed in double column, Greek and Latin parallel. A splendid collection of three early historians.