Produced by Alicia Williams, Jayam Subramanian and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net PINNOCK'S IMPROVED EDITION OF DR. GOLDSMITH'S HISTORY OF ROME: TO WHICH IS PREFIXED AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF ROMAN HISTORY, AND A GREAT VARIETY OF VALUABLE INFORMATION ADDED THROUGHOUT THE WORK, ON THE MANNERS, INSTITUTIONS, AND ANTIQUITIES OF THE ROMANS; WITH NUMEROUS BIOGRAPHICAL AND HISTORICAL NOTES; AND QUESTIONS FOR EXAMINATION AT THE END OF EACH SECTION. ILLUSTRATED WITH NUMEROUS ENGRAVINGS. [Illustration: Coliseum.] BY WM. C. TAYLOR, LL.D., OF TRINITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN. AUTHOR OF MANUAL OF ANCIENT AND MODERN HISTORY, ETC. ETC. THIRTY-FIFTH AMERICAN, FROM THE TWENTY-THIRD ENGLISH EDITION PHILADELPHIA: THOMAS, COWPERTHWAIT & CO. 1851. Entered, according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1848, by THOMAS, COWPERTHWAIT & CO. In the clerk's office of the District Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. PRINTED BY SMITH & PETERS, Franklin Buildings, Sixth Street below Arch, Philadelphia. PREFACE. The researches of Niebuhr and several other distinguished German scholars have thrown a new light on Roman History, and enabled us to discover the true constitution of that republic which once ruled the destinies of the known world, and the influence of whose literature and laws is still powerful in every civilized state, and will probably continue to be felt to the remotest posterity. These discoveries have, however, been hitherto useless to junior students in this country; the works of the German critics being unsuited to the purposes of schools, not only from their price, but also from the extensive learning requisite to follow them through their laborious disquisitions. The editor has, therefore, thought that it would be no unacceptable service, to prefix a few Introductory Chapters, detailing such results from their inquiries as best elucidate the character and condition of the Roman people, and explain the most important portion of the history. The struggles between the patricians and plebeians, respecting the agrarian laws have been so strangely misrepresented, even by some of the best historians, that the nature of the contest may, with truth, be said to have been wholly misunderstood before the publication of Niebuhr's work: a perfect explanation of these important matters cannot be expected in a work of this kind; the Editors trust that the brief account given here of the Roman tenure of land, and the nature of the agrarian laws, will be found sufficient for all practical purposes. After all the researches that have been made, the true origin of the Latin people, and even of the Roman city, is involved in impenetrable obscurity; the legendary traditions collected by the historians are, however, the best guides that we can