A HISTORY OF THE WORLD, FROM THE PUBL EARLIEST RECORDS TO THE PRESENT TIME. FROM BY PHILIP SMITH, B.A., ONE OF THE PRINCIPAL CONTRIBUTORS TO THE DICTIONARIES OF GREEK AND ROMAN VOL. III. ANCIENT HISTORY. THE TRIUMVIRATE OF TIBERIUS GRACCHUS TO THE FALL Illustrated by Maps and Plans. NEW YORK: D. APPLETON & CO., 443 & 445 BROADWAY. 1866. TO THE READER. WITHIN the space of two years from the announcement of the plan of the "History of the World," the Author has been permitted, by the help which he desires devoutedly to acknowledge, to complete the First Division of the work. In a design of such magnitude, experience must of necessity have a large place; and the redemption of the two-fold pledge,―to avoid the dry baldness of an epitome, and to give to each nation of the Ancient World a space proportioned to its importance, has increased this section to Three Volumes. Within that moderate compass the Reader has now offered to him, for the first time in English Literature, a complete ANCIENT HISTORY, from the Creation of the World to the Fall of the Western Empire, treated as a continuous narrative and with unity of purpose. Besides its place in the whole scheme of the History of the World, this division may be regarded as forming a complete and independent work, which may occupy the place once filled by the Ancient History of Rollin. That work, however deservedly popular in its time, not only regarded the despotisms of the Ancient World from a point of view inconsistent with those doctrines of well-regulated freedom which Englishmen of all parties cherish for themselves and desire to teach their children, but it omitted the important sections of Sacred History and Roman History, which are included in this work. Of the progress made, since the time of Rollin, in the researches on which the value of any historical work must mainly depend, it is superfluous to speak of the use made of such researches in the present work, the reader may judge in part by the authorities quoted or referred to, though the author has carefully refrained from a parade of learned references. The execution of such a work has, like the History of the World itself; epochs, at which a pause may be made to review the past and to survey the future, and the accomplishment of the History of the Ancient World seems a fit breathing-place both for the author and his readers. The present work is offered as supplying the want so long felt, of a complete Ancient History. In like manner the second and third divisions are intended to form complete Medieval and Modern Histories; each History being an independent work, without detriment to the unity of the whole. August 10th, 1865. P. S. |