of history have shed upon his position and his
doings, that his name and the incidents of his life have been brought
out very conspicuously to view, and attract very strongly the
attention of mankind.

* * * * *

The history of Rome is usually made to begin with the story of AEneas.
In order that the reader may understand in what light that romantic
tale is to be regarded, it is necessary to premise some statements in
respect to the general condition of society in ancient days, and to
the nature of the strange narrations, circulated in those early
periods among mankind, out of which in later ages, when the art of
writing came to be introduced, learned men compiled and recorded what
they termed history.

The countries which formed the shores of the Mediterranean sea were as
verdant and beautiful, in those ancient days, and perhaps as fruitful
and as densely populated as in modern times. The same Italy and Greece
were there then as now. There were the same blue and beautiful seas,
the same mountains, the same picturesque and enchanting shores, the
same smiling valleys, and the same serene and genial sky. The level
lands were tilled industriously by a rural population corresponding
in all essential points of character with the peasantry of modern
times; and shepherds and herdsmen, then as now, hunted the wild
beasts, and watched their flocks and herds on the declivities of the
mountains. In a word, the appearance of the face of nature, and the
performance of the great function of the social state, namely, the
procuring of food and clothing for man by the artificial cultivation
of animal and vegetable life, were substantially the same on the
shores of the Mediterranean two thousand years ago as now. Even the
plants and the animals themselves which the ancient inhabitants
reared, have undergone no essential change. Their sheep and oxen and
horses were the same as ours. So were their grapes, their apples, and
their corn.

If, however, we leave the humbler classes and occupations of society,
and turn our attention to those which represent the refinement, the
cultivation, and the power, of the two respective periods, we shall
find that almost all analogy fails. There was an aristocracy then as
now, ruling over the widely extended communities of peaceful
agriculturalists and herdsmen, but the members of it were entirely
different in their character, their tastes, their ideas, and their
occup