Entered, according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1848, by

THOMAS, COWPERTHWAIT & CO.

In the clerk's office of the District Court of the United States for
the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

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PREFACE.

The researches of Niebuhr and several other distinguished German
scholars have thrown a new light on Roman History, and enabled us to
discover the true constitution of that republic which once ruled the
destinies of the known world, and the influence of whose literature
and laws is still powerful in every civilized state, and will probably
continue to be felt to the remotest posterity. These discoveries have,
however, been hitherto useless to junior students in this country; the
works of the German critics being unsuited to the purposes of schools,
not only from their price, but also from the extensive learning
requisite to follow them through their laborious disquisitions. The
editor has, therefore, thought that it would be no unacceptable
service, to prefix a few Introductory Chapters, detailing such results