The sentiments expressed by Dionysius of Halicarnassus, concerning Fabius Pictor’s relation of events, in the early ages of Rome, and those of Polybius(145), on the occurrences of which he was himself an eye-witness, enable us to form a pretty accurate estimate of the credit due to his whole history. Dionysius having himself written on the antiquities of Rome, was competent to deliver an opinion as to the works of those who had preceded him in the same undertaking; and it would rather have been favourable to the general view which he has adopted, to have established the credibility of Fabius. We may also safely rely on the judgment which Polybius has passed, concerning this old annalist’s relation of the events of the age in which he lived, since Polybius had spared no pains to be thoroughly informed of whatever could render his own account of them complete and unexceptionable. The opinion which must now be naturally formed from the sentiments entertained by these two eminent historians, is rather confirmed by the few and unconnected fragments that remain of the Annals of Fabius Pictor, as they exhibit a spirit of trifling and credulity quite unworthy the historian of a great republic. One passage is about a person who saw a magpie; another about a man who had a message brought to him by a swallow; and a third concerning a party of _loup garous_, who, after being transformed into wolves, recovered their own figures, and, what is more, got back their cast-off clothes, provided they had abstained for nine years from preying on human flesh!