TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE * Italics are denoted by underscores as in _italics_. * Bold text is denoted by equals as in =bold=. * Small caps are represented in upper case as in SMALL CAPS. * Obvious printer errors have been silently corrected. * Original spelling was kept, but variant spellings were made consistent when a predominant usage was found. THE CHIEF PERIODS OF EUROPEAN HISTORY _FREEMAN_ [Illustration] THE CHIEF PERIODS OF EUROPEAN HISTORY SIX LECTURES READ IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD IN TRINITY TERM, 1885 _WITH AN ESSAY_ ON GREEK CITIES UNDER ROMAN RULE BY EDWARD A. FREEMAN, M.A., HON. D.C.L. & LL.D. REGIUS PROFESSOR OF MODERN HISTORY FELLOW OF ORIEL COLLEGE HONORARY FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE London MACMILLAN AND CO. AND NEW YORK 1886 [_All rights reserved_] Oxford PRINTED BY HORACE HART, PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY PREFACE. These are the Lectures referred to in the last paragraph of the Preface to the course on the “Methods of Historical Study,” lately published. I have added to them the second of two articles which appeared in the Contemporary Review for 1884. The former of them, “Some Neglected Periods of European History,” I have not reprinted, as its substance will be found in the present course. The second, “Greek Cities under Roman Rule,” as dealing somewhat more in detail with some points which are barely glanced at in the present course, seemed to make a fitting Appendix to it. I find that the same thought as to the political result of modern scientific inventions which is brought out at pp. 184, 185 of these Lectures is also brought out in the Lecture at Edinburgh, reprinted in my little book “Greater Greece and Greater Britain,” published last May. This kind of thing is always likely to happen in lectures given in different places. It seemed to me that the thought came naturally in both lectures, and that either would lose something by its being struck out. As for those who may be so unlucky as to read both, I can only say that a thought which is worth suggesting once is worth suggesting twice. At least I have often found it so in the writings of others, specially in those of Mr. Grote.