built of cards; and the theory becomes one more added to the list
of those that are apocryphal. If on examination it should be
agreed that the theory in this book is without a flaw, I conceived
that I shall have done not a small, but a considerable service to
the cause of true history.

LONDON, _April_ 3, 1878.





CONTENTS.


BOOK THE FIRST.

TACITUS.

CHAPTER I.

TACITUS COULD BARELY HAVE WRITTEN THE ANNALS.

I. From the chronological point of view.
II. The silence preserved about that work by all writers till
the fifteenth century.
III. The age of the MSS. containing the Annals.


CHAPTER II.