INTRODUCTION. 21 



hero-kings and their rude aristocracies, who held their 

 ancient sway over the scattered Argive or Ionic tribes, 

 from sandy Pylos and the blue waves of the Mediterranean 

 waters to the broad plains of Thessaly and the far hills, 



That look along Epirus' valleys, 

 Where freedom still at moments rallies 

 And pays in blood oppression's ills. 



In like manner, those great world-conquerors, the Ro- 

 mans though, after they had attained to greatness, and 

 become, for the most part, city-dwellers, they were too 

 much occupied in the forum or the field, too busy in the 

 struggle for existence, or in the pursuit of empire, to give 

 much time to mere amusements, however manly or martial 

 in their tendencies always continued in some degree to 

 hold the sports of the field in esteem and honor ; and no 

 young man was thought much the worse, if he did at times 

 neglect forensic duties and the "long business of his 

 clients," to couch him in the open field " beneath the 

 frigid Jupiter," awaiting the first gleam of the wintry 

 dawn, when he might hope 



" latitantem excipere aprum fruticeto."* 



It was not, however, until the advent of the Northern 

 deluge of invaders, Scythians, Huns, Scandinavians, Teu- 

 tons, Norsemen, that the hunting mania took permanent 



* " To receive upon his spear the lurking wild boar, when it rushes 

 from the thicket." Hor. 



