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The history of Titus Livius, with the entire supplement of J. Freinsheim
The history of Titus Livius with the entire supplement of J Freinsheim Author:Titus Livius Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE PREFACE OF THE TRANSLATORS. THE disagreement among historians and chronologers, concerning the year of the foundation of Rome, makes it impossible to asce... more »rtain the true aera thereof. Timaeus, the Sicilian, places it 38 years before the first olympiad ; L. Cincius, in the fourth year of the twelfth olympiad ; Polybius, and Diodorus Siculus fix it in the second, and Portius Cato, Dionysius Hal. Solinus, Clem. Alexandrinus, and Eusebius, in the first year of the seventh olympiad. Dionysius Hal. in his second boook mentions an eclipse of the sun, that happened on the day of the death of Romulus, and Plutarch another, which happened the day on which Rome was founded. And from this astronomers have laboured in vain to fix the exact year. Verrius Flaccus places it in the fourth year of the sixth olympiad; but Varro, who has been followed by the majority of Roman writers, says, that Rome was founded near the end of the third year of the sixth olympiad ; that is, in the year 3961 of the Julian period, which is commonly reckoned to exceed that of the world by 710 years. Upon which supposition, Rome was built in 3251 of the world. Notwithstanding the uncertainty of the exact year in which Rome was founded, it is generally agreed, that the Romans began to build on the 21st of April, a day that was consecrated to Pales, goddess of shepherds. And thus her festival and that of the foundation of the city were ever after celebrated on the same day. As every man chose the ground he fancied best to build on, without any regard to ornament or regularity, the streets were narrow and crooked. The houses, about one thousand in number, were very mean, and had no upper stories. Nay, even the palace of Romulus is said to have been built of rushes, and covered with thatch. Her first inhabitants we...« less