# BOOK I

BOOK I.


PREFACE.


Albeit the jealous temper of mankind, ever more disposed to censure
than to praise the work of others, has constantly made the pursuit of
new methods and systems no less perilous than the search after unknown
lands and seas; nevertheless, prompted by that desire which nature has
implanted in me, fearlessly to undertake whatsoever I think offers a
common benefit to all, I enter on a path which, being hitherto
untrodden by any, though it involve me in trouble and fatigue, may yet
win me thanks from those who judge my efforts in a friendly spirit. And
although my feeble discernment, my slender experience of current
affairs, and imperfect knowledge of ancient events, render these
efforts of mine defective and of no great utility, they may at least
open the way to some other, who, with better parts and sounder
reasoning and judgment, shall carry out my design; whereby, if I gain
no credit, at all events I ought to incur no blame.

When I see antiquity held in such reverence, that to omit other
instances, the mere fragment of some ancient statue is often bought at
a great price, in order that the purchaser may keep it by him to adorn
his house, or to have it copied by those who take delight in this art;
and how these, again, strive with all their skill to imitate it in
their various works; and when, on the other hand, I find those noble
labours which history shows to have been wrought on behalf of the
monarchies and republics of old times, by kings, captains, citizens,
lawgivers, and others who have toiled for the good of their country,
rather admired than followed, nay, so absolutely renounced by every one
that not a trace of that antique worth is now left among us, I cannot
but at once marvel and grieve; at this inconsistency; and all the more
because I perceive that, in civil disputes between citizens, and in the
bodily disorders into which men fall, recourse is always had to the
decisions and remedies, pronounced or prescribed by the ancients.

For the civil law is no more than the opinions delivered by the ancient
jurisconsults, which, being reduced to a system, teach the
jurisconsults of our own times how to determine; while the healing art
is simply the recorded experience of the old physicians, on which our
modern physicians found their practice. And yet, in giving laws to a
commonwealth, in maintaining States and governing kingdoms, in
organizing armies and conducting wars, in dealing with subject nations,
and in extending a State’s dominions, we find no prince, no republic,
no captain, and no citizen who resorts to the example of the ancients.

This I persuade myself is due, not so much to the feebleness to which
the present methods of education have brought the world, or to the
injury which a pervading apathy has wrought in many provinces and
cities of Christendom, as to the want of a right intelligence of
History, which renders men incapable in reading it to extract its true
meaning or to relish its flavour. Whence it happens that by far the
greater number of those who read History, take pleasure in following
the variety of incidents which it presents, without a thought to
imitate them; judging such imitation to be not only difficult but
impossible; as though the heavens, the sun, the elements, and man
himself were no longer the same as they formerly were as regards
motion, order, and power.

Desiring to rescue men from this error, I have thought fit to note down
with respect to all those books of Titus Livius which have escaped the
malignity of Time, whatever seems to me essential to a right
understanding of ancient and modern affairs; so that any who shall read
these remarks of mine, may reap from them that profit for the sake of
which a knowledge of History is to be sought. And although the task be
arduous, still, with the help of those at whose instance I assumed the
burthen, I hope to carry it forward so far, that another shall have no
long way to go to bring it to its destination.