questions
with even approximate fairness--I can not but feel that of all
military exploits this invasion of Italy, which we shall read of here,
was the most remarkable; that of all commanders Hannibal has shown
himself to be the greatest. Some of Livy's charges against him as a
man are doubtless true. Avarice was in his blood; and cruelty also,
though it ill became a Roman to chide an enemy on that score. Besides,
Livy himself tells how Hannibal had sought for the bodies of the
generals he had slain, that he might give them the rites of honourable
sepulture; tells it, and in the next breath relates how the Roman
commander mutilated the corpse of the fallen Hasdrubal and threw the
head into his brother's camp. So, too, his naive explanation that
Hannibal's "more than Punic perfidy" consisted mainly of ambushes
and similar military strategies goes to show, as I have said, that
whatever is unjust in our author's estimate was rather the result of
the prejudiced deductions of national egotism than of facts wilfully
or carelessly distorted by partisan spite.

To the reader who bears well in mind the points I have ventured to
make, I predict profit hardly less than pleasure in these pages; for
Livy is perhaps the only historian who may be said to have been honest
enough to furnish much of the material for criticism of himself, and
to be, to a very considerable extent, self-adjusting.

DUFFIELD OSBORNE.

THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE [1]

Whether in tracing the history of the Roman people, from the
foundation of the city, I shall employ myself to a useful purpose, I
am neither very certain, nor, if I were, dare I say; inasmuch as I
observe that it is both an old and hackneyed practice, later authors
always supposing that they will either adduce something more authentic
in the facts, or, that they will excel the less polished ancients in
their style of writing. Be that as it may, it will, at all events,
be a satisfaction to me that I too have contributed my share to
perpetuate the achievements of a people, the lords of the world; and
if, amid so great a number of historians, my reputation should remain
in obscurity, I may console myself with the celebrity and lustre of
those who shall stand in the way of my fame. Moreover, the subject is
of immense labour, as being one which must be traced back for more
than seven hundred years, and which, having set out from small
beginnings, has increased to such a degree that it is now distre