A HISTORY OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE FROM ITS FOUNDATION TO THE DEATH OF MARCUS AURELIUS. (27 B.C.-180 A.D.) By J. B. BURY, MA., PROFESSOR OF MODERN HISTORY, TRINITY COLLEGe, dublin. THIRD IMPRESSION. LONDON: JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. 1900. PREFACE. It is well known that for the period of Roman history, which is of all its periods perhaps the most important the first two centuries of the Empire-there exists no English handbook suitable for use in Universities and Schools. The consequence of this want in our educational course is that the knowledge of Roman history possessed by students, who are otherwise men of considerable attainments in classical literature, comes to a sudden end at the Battle of Actium. At least, their systematic knowledge ends there; of the subsequent history they know only isolated facts gathered at haphazard from Horace, Juvenal and Tacitus. This much-felt need will, it is hoped, be met by the present volume, which bridges the gap between the Student's Rome and the Student's Gibbon. This work has been written directly from the original sources. But it is almost unnecessary to say that the author is under deep obligations to many modern guides, He is indebted above all to Mommsen's Römisches Staatsrecht, and to the fifth volume of the same historian's Römische Geschichte. He must also acknowledge the constant aid which he has derived from Merivale's History of the Romans under the Empire, Schiller's Geschichte der römischen Kaiserzeit, and Herzog's Geschichte und System der römischen Staatsverfassung. Duruy's History of Rome has been occasionally useful. The lesser and more special books which have been consulted with advantage are too numerous to mention. Gardthausen's (as yet incomplete) work on Augustus, Lehmann's monograph on Claudius 278311 |