'The fullest text of the body of the book is to be found in Cambridge, Trinity College, MS R.10.11, in this case with a title page dated 1736. It consists of approximately a hundred pages, with a standard format. Each emperor is introduced with historical notes, carefully annotated with references at the bottom of the page, and followed by his wives and any relevant ‘socii reges’. A number of coin engravings have been stuck in at the relevant points. The commentaries generally do not mention coins, although Urbs Roma and Constantinopolis are listed correctly after Constantine, but provide details of events in the emperor’s life and his titles, appearance and character. Most are derived from Tacitus, Suetonius and Dio, and correspondingly later sources for the later periods, e.g. the Historia Augusta. There are many corrections and additions in Bell’s hand, including amendments to the coin engravings (Trajan, Pescennius and Geta), and the narrative seems to have been unfinished, reaching only as far as Valentinian III (thus for the original 400, rather than the revised 600, years?).
Bell subsequently began another new version, with a title page, now dated 1741, but it has only the first seven pages, from Pompey to Augustus, and they can have been written only shortly before Bell’s death in August of that year.' (Burnett 2020b, p. 1656)
