148 ROMAN HISTORY: 



outline of Eoman history, even from its origin* In any case, 

 to render such a summary clear> just, and effective for its 

 purpose, is the highest test to which an historian can be put. 

 In the case of Eome, the difficulty exceeds perhaps that of 

 any other. We think ourselves familiar with its history from 

 the teaching of schools ; though this knowledge is usually but 

 of events only. Few comprehend at all distinctly the strangely 

 interwoven elements of Eoman government and internal 

 polity ; the progressive changes therein ; the mutual effects 

 of these changes ; the influence of foreign conquest on the 

 social and political condition of the State; or those other 

 more secret and subtle causes which are ever at work, alter- 

 ing or undermining all human institutions. If the reader 

 has at any period devoted himself to such studies, the sum- 

 mary in the first of these chapters may be sufficient to refresh 

 his memory of all that is most essential. But we have some 

 doubts whether it will adequately instruct those who come 

 only half informed to the subject, and for whom it is the 

 duty as well as profit of the historian to smoothen the road 

 to the threshold of his work. 



Mr. Merivale opens his volume with a somewhat ambitious 

 description of the topography of the Seven Hills ; and 

 depictures the isolation and fierceness of the Eoman cha- 

 racter, as connected with the solitary wildness of this locality. 

 'Such a position,' he says, 'was admirably adapted for a 

 place of retreat, and offered an impregnable shelter to crime 

 and rapine. It seemed created by Nature herself to be the 

 stronghold of a people of reserved character and predatory 

 habits. It was destined to become the den of the wolves of 

 Italy.' Our author is hardly justified in thus describing the 

 earlv Eomans by the phrase of a defeated enemy. Nor have 

 we much faith in the inferences here drawn. The Seven 

 Hills, even if they offered shelter to the infant city, did not 

 nurture it into greatness. They owe everything to Eome 



