Page:The history of Rome. Translated with the author's sanction and additions.djvu/13

Rh in particular towards the too numerous traces of the German idiom, which, on glancing over the sheets, I find it still to retain.

The reader may perhaps be startled by the occurrence now and then of modes of expression more familiar and colloquial than is usually the case in historical works. This, however, is a characteristic feature of the original, to which in fact it owes not a little of its charm. Dr. Mommsen often uses expressions that are not to be found in the dictionary, and he freely takes advantage of the unlimited facilities afforded by the German language for the coinage or the combination of words. I have not unfrequently, in deference to his wishes, used such combinations as "Carthagino-Sicilian, Romano-Hellenic," &c, although less congenial to our English idiom, for the sake of avoiding longer periphrases.

In Dr. Mommsen's book, as in every other German work that has occasion to touch on abstract matters, there occur sentences couched in a peculiar terminology and not very susceptible of translation. There are one or two sentences of this sort, more especially in the chapter on Religion in the 1st volume, and in the critique of Euripides in the last chapter of the 2nd volume, as to which I am not very confident that I have seized or succeeded in expressing the meaning. In these cases I have translated literally.

In the spelling of proper names I have generally adopted the Latin orthography as more familiar to scholars in this country, except in cases where the spelling adopted by Dr. Mommsen is marked by any special peculiarity. At the same time entire uniformity in this respect has not been aimed at.

I have ventured in various instances to break up the paragraphs of the original and to furnish them with additional marginal headings, and have carried out more fully the notation of the years on the margin.

Two more volumes of still deeper interest bring down the history to the fall of the Republic. Dr. Mommsen has expressed his intention of resuming the work and narrating the History of the Empire, but the execution of this plan has