Page:Charactersevents00ferriala.djvu/298

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"The Most BHUiant Historical Work of Years'* The Greatness and Decline of Rome By Guglielmo Ferrero Authorized Edition. 5 Volumes, 8vo. Each $2.^0 net Student's Edition, 5 volumes, Cr. 8vo. $8.00 per set (Separately $1.75 per volume) Vol. I. The Empire Builders Vol. ill. Tfie Fall of an Aristocracy Vol. II. Julius Caesar Vol. IV. Rome and Egypt Vol. V. The Republic of Augustus Uniform with " The Greatness and Decline of Rome ^ Characters and Events of Roman History Prom Ctesar to Nero (60 B.C.— 70 A.D.) Autbofixed Translatioa by Frances Lance Ferrero Svo. With Portrait. $2.^0 net " It is the work at once of a scholar and of an artist ; it is based upon founda- tions of the most solid erudition, and it is marked on every page by the traces of a brilliant, imaginative, and exceedingly original mind. Signer Ferrero's genius is less reflective than dramatic ; the picture which he unrolls before us is crowded with vivid figures, impelled towards sinister conflicts and strange dooms, strug- gling now with one another, now with the culminating fury of forces far greater than themselves, to be swept at last to a common ruin ; and as we look we seem to be watching one of those Elizabethan tragedies in which the wickedness and the horror are mingled with a mysterious exaltation of despair. ' Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? Declare if thou hast understanding.' That is the text of which Signor Ferrero's history is the commentary, — the text of the littleness of man. The greatest names seem to lose their lustre upon his pages ; he shows us the ignorance of the wise, the weakness of the strong, the folly of the prudent, the helplessness of the well-meaning ; the rest is darkness and fate." — London Spectator. " His largeness of vision, his sound scholarship, his sense of proportion, his power to measure life that has been by his observation of life that is — his posses- sion of the true historical sense. . . . He is a bold, not to say audacious, proponent of new theories and conclusions wholly at variance from those of his innumerable predecessors in this most industriously cultivated of all historic fields. The translation is competent and more than that, and the history is good reading throughout. There are no dry pages." — N. V. Times. Send for complete descriptive drcvJar Q. P. PUTNAM'S SONS New York London