PREFACE

For Master Valens Gothicus Maximus Perpetuus Augustus

In accordance with the wish of your Clemency, I have compiled, in a short narrative and in chronological order, those events in Roman history which are conspicuous in war and peace, from the founding of the city until our own time, and have briefly added those occurrences which stand out as extraordinary in the lives of the leading men, in order that the divine mind of your Serenity may rejoice that it has followed the actions of illustrious men in managing the empire, before it learned of them from reading.