THE STUDENT'S MERIVALE. A GENERAL HISTORY OF ROME FROM THE FOUNDATION OF THE CITY B.C. 753-A.D. 476. BY CHARLES MERIVALE, D.D., DEAN OF ELY. Historia scribitur ad narrandum non ad probandum." QUINTILIAN, Inst. Orat. x. i. 31. NEW YORK: HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE. Any of the above books sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of the United States or Canada, on receipt of the price. PREFACE. THE Breviary or Compendium of Roman affairs by Eutropius extends from the foundation of Rome to the reign of Jovian, in the year of the city 1117, as commonly reckoned, or a.d. 364. The summary which is now offered to the reader reaches more than a century further, and. terminates A.U.c. 1229, a.d. 476. This, it will be allowed, is a long period to embrace within the limits of a single volume, to which it seems convenient to confine it. It will be well to preface the work with a few words in explanation of its object and its method. The title of a General History is given to this book, first, because it is addressed to no special class of readers, but rather to the reading public in general, who may desire to be informed of the most noted incidents in the Roman annals, the most remarkable characters which play their part upon the Roman stage, and the main course of events, together with their causes and consequences. With this object directly in view the writer has no occasion to load his pages with references, or justify his statements by notes and critical discussions, for which his prescribed limits would allow him no room. It is for the orator, says the great critic of antiquity, to argue and persuade; the historian may confine himself to narration. But in cutting myself off from the resource of notes and references, I must at the same time refrain from disquisitions and speculations which cannot be conducted safely or fairly without them. These I must leave to the critical inquirer and the professed student; my pages are addressed, as I have said, to the general reader, |