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STORIES FROM HISTORY SERIES
EDITED BY JOHN LANG
STORIES FROM ROMAN HISTORY
BY
LENA DALKEITH
WITH PICTURES BY
PAUL WOODROFFE
LONDON: T. C. & E. C. JACK
NEW YORK: E P. DUTTON & CO.
TO
ROBERT HUSTED CHAMBERS
ABOUT THIS BOOK
This book is not big enough to hold all the stories that might be written about the Romans, and at first it was puzzling to know how to choose. One day after reading and reading Roman history, I shut the book more puzzled than ever. Then I must have fallen asleep; I dreamt I was in Rome. To me as I stood in the great city there came an old man, saying, 'I know why you are here, and I can help you to choose.' He led me into a beautiful temple where there were many men gathered together, all clad in flowing togas and crowned with wreaths of laurel.
'Who are these?' I asked. 'They are the heroes of the
Roman Republic,' answered the old man. 'Mark well those to whom I give greeting,'
and he began to wend his way from one end of the building to the other. Romulus,
Horatius, Coriolanus, the Scipios, the Gracchi, Pompey, Julius Caesar, they
were all there, and many more, and he greeted them each in turn, but when
we came to Julius Caesar, he sighed deeply. 'What chance had the Republic
against such a man!' be said; then turning to me, he added: 'Write your stories
about these men-heroes of the greatest Republic that ever was, and leave
the Empire and its tyrants to the history books.' 'Who are you?' I asked
wonderingly. He smiled. 'I have written the stories of all these great men,'
he said. 'You are Plutarch!' I cried. . . and awoke, and lo! the stories
were chosen. My dream had done this for me together with gentle Plutarch,
whose book you will surely read one day-that is to say if you like this one,
as I hope you will.
LENA DALKEITH.
CONTENTS
III. Of Caius Marcius Coriolanus VIII. Of Scipio Aemilianus Africanus XII. Of Julius Caesar: Soldier XIII. Of Julius Caesar and Pompey |
LIST OF PICTURES
Coriolanus at the Gates of Rome
Fabius calms the fears of the Romans