travel, the degree of their personal safety and liberty. Then we
should descend to earth in the middle of Rome itself, and become for
the time being inhabitants of that city, privileged to take part in
its public business and its public pleasures, to enter the houses of
what may be called its representative citizens, to share in the
various elements of its social day, and to estimate the moral,
intellectual, and artistic cultivation of Roman society.

Such would be the ideal. Here it must suffice, to select the most
essential or interesting matters, and to present them with such
vividness as the necessary brevity will permit. Very little
preliminary knowledge will be taken for granted; the use of Latin or
technical terms will be shunned, and every topic will be dealt with,
as far as possible, in the plainest of English.

Nevertheless, while aiming at entire lucidity, the following chapters
will aim even more scrupulously at telling the truth. There are
doubtless a number of matters--though generally of relatively small
moment--about which we are, and probably always shall be, uncertain.
The best way to deal with these, in a work which is descriptive rather
than argumentative, is to omit them. For the rest it must be expected
of any one whose professional concern it has been to saturate himself
for many years in the literature of the times, and to study carefully
their monumental remains, that he should occasionally make some
statement, drop some passing remark or judgment, which may appear to
be in conflict with assertions made in other quarters. If a few
examples are met with in the present book, they may be taken as made
with all deference, but with deliberation.

It is perhaps well to say this with some emphasis, in view of the