I have undertaken to write the history of Rome; from the earliest times of the city, unto the period when the sovranty of Augustus over the Roman world was undisputedly acknowledged. I begin, where a new people arose out of the confluent settlements of divers nations; my goal lies, where this people had incorporated millions with itself, and had imparted to them its language and its laws; where it ruled from the rising unto the setting sun, and the last of the kingdoms that proceeded from Alexander's conquests, was become one of its provinces. Long before any historical record of particular individuals occurs in those times, the forms under which the commonwealth existed, may be recognized with certainty: so firmly, and for centuries indelibly, were they impressed upon every thing, and so entirely was the individual identified with the community. At the close of the time which I purpose to embrace, the nation resolves itself into a fermenting mass, in which the form, now that the soul has abandoned it, daily becomes more indistinct and decays.

Numberless are the events and the changes through which the Romans passed from one of these limits to the opposite: vast destinies, mighty deeds, and men who were worthy to wield a gigantic power, have preserved the memory of much in the story of Rome, even during the most ignorant ages.