The Tarquins being expelled, political power fell into the hands of the patricians, under whose government the city slowly increased in wealth and population, but it was the heroic...
We come now to consider those States which grew into importance about the middle of the eighth century before Christ, at the close of the legendary period. The most important of th...
The peace between the Carthaginians and Romans was a mere truce. Though it lasted twenty-one years, new sources of quarrel were accumulating, and forces were being prepared for a m...
After Sparta and Athens, no State of Greece arrived at pre-eminence, until the Macedonian empire arose, except Thebes, the capital of Boeotia; and the empire of this city was short...
When Joseph was sold by the Midianites to Potiphar, Egypt was probably ruled by the Shepherd kings, who were called Pharaoh, like all the other kings, by the Jewish writers. Pitiph...
Octavius, now master of the world, is generally called Augustus Caesar--the name he assumed. He was the first of that great line of potentates whom we call emperors. Let us, before...
The fall of the Gracchi restored Rome to the rule of the oligarchy. The government of the Senate was resumed, and a war of prosecution was carried on against the followers of Gracc...
The peace between Carthage and Rome, after the second Punic war, lasted fifty years, during which the Carthaginians gave the Romans no cause of complaint. Carthage, in the enjoymen...
Able or virtuous princes had now ruled the Roman world, with a few exceptions, from Julius Caesar to Commodus, a period of more than two hundred years. Among these were some odious...
I have already shown that Sparta, after a battle with the Argives, B.C. 547, obtained the ascendency in the southern part of the Peloponnesus, and became the leading military State...
We have seen that the Oriental-world, so favored by nature, so rich in fields, in flocks, and fruits, failed to realize the higher destiny of man. In spite of all the advantages of...
A contest greater than with Pyrrhus and the Greek cities, more memorable in its incidents, and more important in its consequences, now awaited the Romans. This was with Carthage, t...
Hitherto, the Romans, after the expulsion of the kings, were involved in wars with their immediate neighbors, and exposed to great calamities. All they could do for one hundred and...
After the death of Constantine, the decline was rapid, and new dangers multiplied. Warlike emperors had staved off the barbarians, and done all that man could do to avert ruin. But...
There reigned at this time in Pontus, the northeastern State of Asia Minor, bordered on the south by Cappadocia, on the east by Armenia, and the north by the Euxine, a powerful pri...
Scarcely was Rome left to recover from the exhaustion of the long and desperate war with Hannibal, before she was involved in a new war with Macedonia, which led to very important...