Textus Originalis

Traduzione

usually known as the Hannibalic War. This, as I stated at the outset, is the date at which I purpose to begin my history itself, and, now bidding goodbye for the present to the West, I must turn to the affairs of Greece, so that everywhere alike I may bring down this preliminary or introductory sketch to the same date, and, having done so, start on my detailed narrative. For as I am not, like former historians, dealing with the history of one nation, such as Greece or Persia, but have undertaken to describe the events occurring in all known parts of the world—my own times having, as I will more clearly explain elsewhere, materially contributed to my purpose—I must, before entering on the main portion of my work, touch briefly on the state of the principal and best known nations and countries of the world. As for Asia and Egypt, it will suffice to mention what took place there after the above date, since their previous history has been written by many and is familiar to all, besides which in our own times Fortune has wrought no such surprising change in these countries as to render any notice of their past necessary. But as regards the Achaean nation and the royal house of Macedon it will be proper to refer briefly to earlier events, since our times have seen, in the case of the latter, its complete destruction, and in the case of the Achaeans, as I said above, a growth of power and a political union in the highest degree remarkable. For while many