London: CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS WAREHOUSE, 17, PATERNOSTER ROW. Cambridge: DEIGHTON, BELL, AND CO. issue merely a text with explanatory notes, or to attempt to grapple with all the many difficulties that environ the subject. The former of these would be useless, and no middle course seemed profitable. I have therefore made the ambitious attempt to find some sound solution of all the difficulties: but I am well aware that in so doing I have undertaken an enterprise beyond my powers. The speech is unique, and involves constitutional and legal questions of the first importance to students of Roman history, which have for the most part to be answered by painful examination of meagre and sometimes conflicting evidence. In the collection of this, and in the consultation of the lengthy and often ill-arranged treatises of modern writers on the subject, I have found the volume of matter increase upon me daily; and have at last been compelled to leave off with the knowledge that some parts of my work are in a painfully crude state. And this probably applies far more widely than I am aware. |