city, Dinocrates the architect came and showed him how he might build it
on Mount Athos, which not only offered a strong position, but could be
handled that the city built there might present a semblance of the human
form, which would be a thing strange and striking, and worthy of so
great a monarch. But on Alexander asking how the inhabitants were to
live, Dinocrates answered that he had not thought of that. Whereupon,
Alexander laughed, and leaving Mount Athos as it stood, built
Alexandria; where, the fruitfulness of the soil, and the vicinity of the
Nile and the sea, might attract many to take up their abode.

To him, therefore, who inquires into the origin of Rome, if he assign
its beginning to Æneas, it will seem to be of those cities which were
founded by strangers if to Romulus, then of those founded by the natives
of the country. But in whichever class we place it, it will be seen to
have had its beginning in freedom, and not in subjection to another
State. It will be seen, too, as hereafter shall be noted, how strict was
the discipline which the laws instituted by Romulus, Numa, and its other
founders made compulsory upon it; so that neither its fertility, the
proximity of the sea, the number of its victories, nor the extent of its
dominion, could for many centuries corrupt it, but, on the contrary,
maintained it replete with such virtues as were never matched in any
other commonwealth.

And because the things done by Rome, and which Titus Livius has
celebrated, were effected at home or abroad by public or by private
wisdom, I shall begin by treating, and noting the consequences of those
things done at home in accordance with the public voice, which seem most
to merit attention; and to this object the whole of this first Book or
first Part of my Discourses, shall be directed.