Copy 1, Volume 1

History of Rome / [Thomas Arnold].

  • Thomas Arnold
Date:
1840-1848
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: History of Rome / [Thomas Arnold]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    expedition of Laches consisted only of twenty ships, and its operations were so insignificant that it cannot be con- ceived to have attracted the attention of the Romans. But the Carthaginian expedition which Hannibal led against Selinus consisted, according to the lowest computation, of one hundred thousand men, and sixty ships of war; and his great success in the destruction of so powerful a city as Selinus, was likely to have spread terror through all the neighbouring countries. Yet how is it possible to make the ninety-second Olympiad synchronise with the consulship of T, Quinctius and C. lulius, that is, with the year 323 or 324 .of Rome ? Note. I have said that Livy places the beginning of the decemvirate in the year 302. His words are “ Anno tre- centesimo altero quam condita Roma erat.” III. 33. But Sigonius understands this to mean the year 301, although he finds it difficult to make out nine years in Livy’s nar- rative between the first decemvirate and the institution of the military tribuneship, which Livy places beyond all dis- pute in the year 310. As to the grammatical question, although I am aware that the point has been contested, yet it seems to me certain that “ Anno trecentesimo altero ” must signify the year 302 and not 301. For “ alter ” must immediately precede “ tertius,” and there can be no doubt that “ Anno trecentesimo tertio ” would signify the year 303. The confusion seems to have arisen from such ex- pressions as “ alter ab undecimo,” which, although Servius interprets even this to mean the “ thirteenth,” may yet, I suppose, be fairly understood to be the twelfth, because here the inclusive system of reckoning is followed, and the eleventh year itself is counted as the first, the twelfth as the second from the eleventh, the thirteenth as the third, and so on. Tims the thirteenth of March is, according to the Roman reckoning, the third day before the Ides, or fifteenth, VOL. I. p r,