Ancient Books

LIVY'S ROMAN HISTORY BOOK I[1] THE PERIOD OF THE KINGS To begin with, it is generally admitted that, after the taking of Troy, while all the other Trojans were treated with severity, in the case of two, Æneas and Antenor, the Greeks forbore to exercise the full rights of war, both on account of an ancient tie of hospitality, and because they had persistently recommended peace and the restoration... more...

CHAPTER I—THE ASSYRIAN REVIVAL AND THE STRUGGLE FOR SYRIA Assur-nazir-pal (885-860) and Shalmaneser III. (860-825)—The kingdom of Urartu and its conquering princes: Menuas and Argistis. Assyria was the first to reappear on the scene of action. Less hampered by an ancient past than Egypt and Chaldæa, she was the sooner able to recover her strength after any disastrous crisis, and to assume again... more...

CHAPTER I. A ROMAN BOY. A Roman father's first duty to his boy, after lifting him up in his arms in token that he was a true son of the house, was to furnish him with a first name out of the scanty list (just seventeen) to which his choice was limited. This naming was done on the eighth day after birth, and was accompanied with some religious ceremonies, and with a feast to which kinsfolk were... more...

Address to the Mummy. "And thou hast walked about, (how strange a story!)In Thebes' streets three thousand years ago,When the Memnonium was in all its glory,And time had not begun to overthrowThose temples, palaces and piles stupendous,Of which the very ruins are tremendous."Perhaps that very hand now pinioned flat,Has hob-a-nobbed with Pharaoh, glass to glass;Or dropped a half-penny in... more...

CHAPTER I. GEOGRAPHICAL OUTLINE OF ITALY. Italia! oh, Italia! thou who hastThe fatal gift of beauty, which becameA funeral dower of present woes and past,On thy sweet brow is sorrow plough'd by shame,And annals traced in characters of flame.—Byron. 1. The outline of Italy presents a geographical unity and completeness which naturally would lead us to believe that it was regarded as a whole, and... more...

HISTORY OF THE WARS: BOOK V I Such, then, were the fortunes of the Romans in Libya. I shall now proceed to the Gothic War, first telling all that befell the Goths and Italians before this war. 474-491 a.d.During the reign of Zeno Byzantium the power in the West was held by Augustus, whom the Romans used to call by the diminutive name Augustulus because he took over the empire while still a lad,July 31,... more...

CHAPTER I. GIBBON'S EARLY LIFE UP TO THE TIME OF HIS LEAVING OXFORD. Edward Gibbon was born at Putney, near London, on 27th April in the year 1737. After the reformation of the calendar his birthday became the 8th of May. He was the eldest of a family of seven children; but his five brothers and only sister all died in early infancy, and he could remember in after life his sister alone, whom he... more...

BOOK 45, BOSSEVAIN.) [B.C. 44 (a. u.710)] [-1-] This was Antony's course of procedure.—Gaius Octavius Copia,—this was the name of the son of Caesar's niece, Attia,—came from Velitrae in the Volscian country, and having been left without a protector by the death of his father Octavius he was brought up in the house of his mother and her husband, Lucius... more...

CHAPTER I. DESCRIPTION OF THE COUNTRY. Along the eastern flank of the great Mesopotamian lowland, curving round it on the north, and stretching beyond it to the south and the south-east, lies a vast elevated region, or highland, no portion of which appears to be less than 3000 feet above the sea-level. This region may be divided, broadly, into two tracts, one consisting of lofty mountainous ridges,... more...

CADMUS. B.C. 1500Different kinds of greatness.Some men are renowned in history on account of the extraordinary powers and capacities which they exhibited in the course of their career, or the intrinsic greatness of the deeds which they performed. Others, without having really achieved any thing in itself very great or wonderful, have become widely known to mankind by reason of the vast consequences... more...