The History of Rome. Book III

All these works, while not coming up to the Greek conception of history[58], were, as contrasted with the mere detached notices of the book of A

In the legendary period the history of the origin of the city of Rome was set forth with great minuteness; and in its case the peculiar difficulty had to be surmounted, that there were, as we have already shown[59], two wholly irreconcileable versions of it in circulation: the national version, which, in its leading outlines at least, was probably already embodied in the book of A

Apart from the fable of the origin of the city, the Greek historiographers had otherwise given themselves little or no concern as to the Roman commonwealth; so that the presentation of the further course of the national history must have been chiefly derived from native sources. But the scanty information that has reached us does not enable us to discern distinctly what sort of traditions, in addition to the book of A

The current story led with some measure of co

Contemporary history, again, was treated in a co

Contemporaneously with historical literature, and in some sense as an appendage to it, arose the literature of speeches and letters. This in like ma