Ancient Books

CHAPTER I. ~~ THE STORY OF ROMULUS AND OF NUMA. Æneas of Troy, coming to the land of Italy, took to wife Lavinia, daughter of King Latinus, and built him a city, which he called Lavinium, after the name of his wife. And, after thirty years, his son Ascanius went forth from Lavinium with much people, and built him a new city, which he called Alba. In this city reigned kings of the house and lineage of... more...

CHAPTER I—THE CRUSADERS IN EGYPT The Ideal of the Crusader: Saladin's Campaign: Richard I. in Palestine: Siege of Damietta: St. Louis in Egypt: The Mamluks: Beybars' Policy. The traditional history of the Christian Church has generally maintained that the Crusades were due solely to religious influence and sprang from ideal and moral motives: those hundreds of thousands of warriors who went... more...

BOOK I. The coming of Æneas into Italy, and his achievements there; the reign of Ascanius in Alba, and of the other Sylvian kings. Romulus and Remus born. Amulius killed. Romulus builds Rome; forms a senate; makes war upon the Sabines; presents the opima spolia to Jupiter Feretrius; divides the people into curiæ; his victories; is deified. Numa institutes the rites of religious worship; builds a... more...

BOOK IX.B.C. 321-304 23 Titus Veturius and Spurius Postumius, with their army, surrounded by the Samnites at the Caudine forks; enter into a treaty, give six hundred hostages, and are sent under the yoke. The treaty declared invalid; the two generals and the other sureties sent back to the Samnites, but are not accepted. Not long after, Papirius Cursor obliterates this disgrace, by vanquishing the... more...

BOOK XXVII. Cneius Fulvius, proconsul, defeated by Hannibal and slain; the consul, Claudius Marcellus, engages him with better success. Hannibal, raising his camp, retires; Marcellus pursues, and forces him to an engagement. They fight twice; in the first battle, Hannibal gains the advantage; in the second, Marcellus. Tarentum betrayed to Fabius Maximus, the consul. Scipio engages with Hasdrubal, the... more...

CHAPTER I. GENERAL VIEW OF THE COUNTRY. "Behold the land of the Chaldaeans."—ISAIAH xxiii. 13. The broad belt of desert which traverses the eastern hemisphere, in a general direction from west to east (or, speaking more exactly, of W. S. W. to N. E. E.), reaching from the Atlantic on the one hand nearly to the Yellow Sea on the other, is interrupted about its centre by a strip of rich... more...

INTRODUCTION Tacitus held the consulship under Nerva in the year 97. At this point he closed his public career. He had reached the goal of a politician's ambition and had become known as one of the best speakers of his time, but he seems to have realized that under the Principate politics was a dull farce, and that oratory was of little value in a time of peace and strong government. The rest of... more...

CHAPTER I The State of Greece from the earliest Times to the Commencement of the Peloponnesian War Thucydides, an Athenian, wrote the history of the war between the Peloponnesians and the Athenians, beginning at the moment that it broke out, and believing that it would be a great war and more worthy of relation than any that had preceded it. This belief was not without its grounds. The preparations of... more...