reader.

September 1894.

Notes for Preface

1. It has, I believe, been largely in use at Oxford for the last
thirty years; but it has not apparently had the good fortune to
have come to the knowledge of the writer of an article on "Roman
History" published in the Encyclopedia Britannica in 1886, which at
least makes no mention of its existence, or yet of Mr. Baring-Gould,
who in his Tragedy of the Caesars (vol. 1. p. 104f.) has presented
Dr. Mommsen's well-known "character" of Caesar in an independent
version. His rendering is often more spirited than accurate. While
in several cases important words, clauses, or even sentences, are
omitted, in others the meaning is loosely or imperfectly conveyed--e.g.
in "Hellenistic" for "Hellenic"; "success" for "plenitude of power";
"attempts" or "operations" for "achievements"; "prompt to recover"
for "ready to strike"; "swashbuckler" for "brilliant"; "many" for
"unyielding"; "accessible to all" for "complaisant towards every
one"; "smallest fibre" for "Inmost core"; "ideas" for "ideals";
"unstained with blood" for "as bloodless as possible"; "described"
for "apprehended"; "purity" for "clearness"; "smug" for "plain"
(or homely); "avoid" for "avert"; "taking his dark course" for
"stealing towards his aim by paths of darkness"; "rose" for "transformed
himself"; "checked everything like a praetorian domination" for
"allowed no hierarchy of marshals or government of praetorians
to come into existence"; and in one case the meaning is exactly
reversed, when "never sought to soothe, where he could not cure,
intractable evils" stands for "never disdained at least to mitigate
by palliatives evils that were incurable."

INTRODUCTORY NOTE BY DR. MOMMSEN

The Varronian computation by years of the City is retained in the
text; the figures on the margin indicate the corresponding year
before the birth of Christ.

In calculating the corresponding years, the year 1 of the City has
been assumed as identical with the year 753 B.C., and with Olymp.
6, 4; although, if we take into account the circumstance that the
Roman solar year began with the 1st day of March, and the Greek
with the 1st day of July, the year 1 of the City would, according
to more exact calculation, correspond to the last ten months of 753
and the first two months of 752 B.C., and to the last four months
of Ol. 6, 3 and the first eight of Ol. 6, 4.

The Roman and Greek money has uniformly been commu