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[14] As there are three books which treat of the numerous exploits of the Romans in Italy, these three must together be considered the Italian Roman history; but on account of the great number of events in them the division has been made. The first of these will show the events that took place in successive reigns while they had kings, of whom there were seven, and this I shall call the history of Rome under the kings. Next in order will be the history of the rest of Italy except the part along the Adriatic. This, by way of distinction from the former, will be called the second Italian book of Roman history. With the last nation, the Samnites, who dwelt on the Adriatic, the Romans struggled eighty years under the greatest difficulties, but finally they subjugated them and the neighbors who were allied with them, and also the Greeks who had settled in Italy. This, by way of distinction from the former, will be called the Samnite Roman history. The rest will be named according to its subject, the Celtic, Sicilian, Spanish, Hannibalic, Carthaginian, Macedonian, and so on. The order of these histories with respect to each other is according to the time when the Romans began to be embroiled in war with each nation, even though many other things intervened before that nation came to its end. The internal seditions and civil wars of the Romans--to them the most calamitous of all--will be designated under the names of their chief actors, as the wars of Marius and Sulla, those of Pompey and Caesar, those of Antony and the second Caesar, surnamed Augustus, against the murderers of the first Caesar, and those of Antony and Augustus against each other. At the end of this last of the civil wars Egypt passed under the Roman sway, and the Roman government itself became a monarchy.


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