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The general history of the wars of the Romans
The general history of the wars of the Romans Author:Polybius Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: could escape, made haste to deprive a people whom they had destined toi be slaves, of the assistance and support of every citizen, whose courage or abilities see... more »med likely to spread wide a contagious spirit and, together with the love of freedom, to inspire also, by degrees, a strength sufficient to shake off the yoke. Thibanishment, which wns decreed in common to all the inhabitant! frPeloponnesus whose virtue was become their crime, as it was honourable: to. Polybius, proved highly beueiici.il likewise to all future tunes. Torn by violence from the service of his country, and fixed to a long abede'iri'that great city, which was the fountain of all the counsels that directed and sustained the Roman empire, he had now both leisure and the means to draw together the instruction that was requisite for carrying-into execution the design which he had-formed ; to compare observation: with fact and icertainty ; to ropy the detail of all great events from authentic monuments, and from the rrtemoirs of those illustrious persons who had'been the chief actors in the scene ; to view closely, and without disguise, the manners, temper, inclinations, and whole conduct of atpeople'who had thus forced the most powerful kingdoms to receive their laws ; to inspect all themovements of that regulated wisdom which had saved their state from imminent ruirt; and to trace to their soiirces those internal springs of strength and vigour, which had nourished and enlarged its growth ; in aword,' to compose that history, which, piercing through the clouds of ignorancetand error, assigned to every incident its own. genuine motive ; unfolded the most complicated causes ; anil, by joining to an exact and accurate description of wars, embassies, and treaties, a full and-distinct display of the councils, maxims...« less