With regard to chronology, I have followed throughout the same uniform plan of computing time, viz. to and from the birth of Christ. By preferring this method, so convenient and certain, to the inconvenient and uncertain one of reckoning from the year of the world, I hope I have deserved the thanks of my readers. I relinquish, on the other hand, all claim to merit on the score of having more accurately defined the chronology of events which occur before the time of Cyrus. I have, on the contrary, in this part of my labour, often stated round numbers, where, in many modern publications, precise dates may be found. Exact determinations of time are only necessary, in my opinion, where a continuous development of circumstances takes place; not where unconnected facts are recorded. The transactions of our own times have thrown a light upon ancient history, and given it an interest which it could not formerly possess. A knowledge of history, if not the only, is at least the most certain means of obtaining a clear and unprejudiced view of the great drama now performing around us. All direct comparisons, notwithstanding the many opportunities which have tempted me, I considered as foreign to my plan; but if, notwithstanding in some chapters of my work, particularly in the history of the Roman republic, I may be thought to make a reference to the transactions of the ten years during which this work has been published, I do not consider it necessary to offer any excuse for so doing. Of what use is the study of history if it do not make us wiser and better? unless the knowledge of the past teach us to judge more correctly of the present? Should I have contributed in any measure to promote this object, and should I be so fortunate as to lead the minds of my young friends to a deeper study of a science which can only in this way reward its admirers, I shall esteem it the most delightful recompense my labour can receive. GOETTINGEN, Sept. 23, 1799. PREFACE TO THE SECOND AND FOLLOWING EDITIONS.