judicial authority. In general, however, their departments were distinct. Of Comites there were various orders, with distinct official powers; as, Comes cubiculi, chamberlain; Comes stabuli, constable, &c. These various officers were the proceres or grandees of the kingdom, by whose advice the -sovereign conducted himself in important matters of government, or in the nomination of his successor : but we do not find that they had a voice in the framing of laws, or in the imposition of taxes; and the prince himself had the sole nomination to all offices of government, magistracies, and dignities.

XLIX.

METHOD OF STUDYING ANCIENT HISTORY.

1. A GENERAL and concise view of ancient history may be acquired by the perusal of a very few books; as that part of the Cours d'Etude of the Abbé Cordillac which regards the history of the nations of antiquity; the Elements of General History by the Abbé Millot, part I.; the Epitome of Turselline, with the Notes of L'Agneau, part I.; or the excellent Compendium Historia Universalis, by Professor Offerhaus of Groningen. The two first of these works have the merit of uniting a spirit of reflection with a judicious selection of events. The notes of L'Agneau to the Epitome of Turselline, contain a great store of geographical and biographical information; and the work of Offerhaus is peculiarly valuable, as uniting sacred with profane history, and containing most ample references to the ancient authors. The Discours sur l'Histoire Universelle, by the Bishop of Meaux, though a work of high merit, is rather useful to those who have already studied history in detail, for uniting in the mind the great current of events, and recalling to the memory their

order and connexion, than fitted to convey information to the uninstructed.

But the student who wishes to derive the most complete advantage from history, must not confine himself to such general or compendious views; he must resort to the original historians of ancient times, and the modern writers who have treated with amplitude of particular periods. It may be useful to such students to point out the order in which those historians may be most profitably perused.

2. Next to the historical books of the Old Testament, the most ancient history worthy of perusal is that of Herodotus, which comprehends the annals of Lydia, Ionia, Lycia, Egypt, Persia, Greece, and Macedonia, during above 230 years preceding 479

A.C.

Book 1. contains the History of Lydia from Gyges to Crœsus; Ancient Ionia; Manners of the Persians, Babylonians, &c.; History of Cyrus the Elder.

B. 2. History of Egypt, and Manners of the Egyptians.

B. 3. History of Cambyses.-Persian Monarchy under Darius Hystaspes.

B. 4. History of Scythia.

B. 5. Persian Embassy to Macedon; Athens, Lacedæmon, Corinth, at the same period.

B. 6. Kings of Lacedæmon.-War of Persia against Greece, to the battle of Marathon.

B. 7. The same war, to the battle of Thermopylæ.

B. 8. The naval battle of Salamis.

B. 9. The defeat and expulsion of the Persians from Greece.

(The merits of Herodotus are shortly characterized supra, Sect. XXII. § 1.)

3. A more particular account of the periods treated by Herodotus may be found in Justin, lib. 1, 2. 3, and 7; the Cyropædia of Xenophon; the lives of Aristides, Themistocles, Cimon, Miltiades, and

Pausanias, written by Plutarch and Cornelius Nepos; and those of Anaximander, Zeno, Empedocles, Heraclitus, and Democritus, by Diogenes Laertius.

4. The Grecian History is taken up by Thucydides from the period where Herodotus ends, and is continued for seventy years, to the twenty-first of the Peloponnesian war. (This work characterized, Sect. XXII. § 2.) The period he treats of is more amply illustrated by perusing the eleventh and twelfth books of Diodorus Siculus; the lives of Alcibiades, Chabrias, Thrasybulus, and Lysias, by Plutarch and Nepos; the second, third, fourth, and fifth books of Justin, and fourteenth and fifteenth chapters of the first book of Orosius.

5. Next to Thucydides, the student ought to peruse the first and second books of Xenophon's History of Greece, which comprehend the narrative of the Peloponnesian war, with the contemporary history of the Medes and Persians; then the expedition of Cyrus (Anabasis), and the continuation of the history to its conclusion with the battle of Mantinea. (Xenophon characterized, Sect. XXII. $ 3.) For illustrating this period, we have the Lives of Lysander, Agesilaus, Artaxerxes, Conon, and Datames, by Plutarch and Nepos; the fourth, fifth, and sixth books of Justin; and the thirteenth and fourteenth of Diodorus Siculus.

6. After Xenophon, let the student read the fifteenth and sixteenth books of Diodorus, which contain the history of Greece and Persia, from the battle of Mantinea, to the reign of Alexander the Great. (Diodorus characterized, Sect. XXII. § 5.) To complete this period, let him read the lives of Dion, Iphicrates, Timotheus, Phocion, and Timoleon, by Nepos.

7. For the history of Alexander the Great, we have the admirable works of Arrian and Quintus Curtius (the former characterized, Sect. XXII. § 8). Curtius possesses great judgment in the selection of facts, with much elegance and perspicuity of

diction. He is a good moralist and a good patriot: but his passion for embellishment derogates from the purity of history, and renders his authority suspicious.

8. For the continuation of the history of Greece from the death of Alexander, we have the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth books of Diodorus; and the history of Justin from the thirteenth book downwards; together with the lives of the principal personages, written by Plutarch. The history of Justin is a most judicious abridgment of a much larger work by Trojus Pompeius, which is lost. Justin excels in the delineation of characters, and in purity of style.

He

9. I have mentioned the lives of Plutarch and Cornelius Nepos as the best supplement to the account of particular periods of ancient history. It is the highest praise of Plutarch, that his writings breathe the most admirable morality, and furnish the most instructive lessons of active virtue. makes us familiarly acquainted with the great men of antiquity, and chiefly delights in painting their private character and manners. The short lives written by Nepos shew great judgment, and a most happy selection of such facts as display the genius and character of his heroes. They are written likewise with great purity and elegance.

10. For the Roman history in its early periods, we have, first, the Antiquities of Dionysius of Halicarnassus, which bring down the history of Rome to 412 A.U.C. They are chiefly valuable, as illustrating the manners and customs, the rites, civil and religious, and the laws of the Roman state. But the writer is too apt to frame hypotheses, and to give views instead of narratives. We look for these in the modern writers who treat of ancient times, but we cannot tolerate them in the sources of history.

11. The work of Livy is infinitely more valuable; a perfect model of history, both as to matter and composition (characterized Sect. XXXVI. § 10).

Of 132 books, we have only remaining thirty-five, and these interrupted by a considerable chasm. The first decade (or ten books) treats of a period of 460 years; the second decade, containing seventy-five years, is lost; the third contains the second Punic war, including eighteen years; the fourth contains the war against Philip of Macedon, and the Asiatic war against Antiochus, a space of twenty-three years; of the fifth decade there are only five books; and the remainder, which reaches to the death of Drusus (746 A.U.C.), has, together with the second decade, been supplied by Freinshemius. To supply the chasm of the second decade, the student ought to read, together with the epitome of those lost books, the first and second books of Polybius; the seventeenth, eighteenth, twenty-second, and twenty-third books of Justin; the lives of Marcellus and Fabius Maximus by Plutarch; and the Punic and Illyrian wars by Appian.

12. But the history of Polybius demands a sepa rate and attentive perusal, as an admirable compendium of political and military instruction. Of forty books of general history we have only five entire, and excerpts of the following twelve. The matter of which he treats is the history of the Romans, and the nations with whom they were at war, from the beginning of the second Punic war to the beginning of the war with Macedonia, comprising in all a period of about fifty years. Of the high estimation in which Polybius stood with the authors of antiquity, we have sufficient proof in the encomiums bestowed on him by Cicero, Strabo, Josephus, and Plutarch; and in the use which Livy has made of his history, in adopting his narratives in many parts of his work, by an almost literal translation.

13. The work of Appian, which originally consisted of twenty books, from the earliest period of the Roman history down to the age of Adrian, is greatly mutilated; there remaining only his account of the Syrian, Parthian, Mithridatic, Spanish, Punic,