INTRODUCTION. a1 
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. 
