TWO GREAT REPUBLICS
RUINS OF THE ROMAN FORUMTHE TWO GREAT REPUBLICS
ROME AND THE
UNITED STATES
By
JAMES HAMILTON LEWIS
RAND McNALLY & COMPANY
CHICAGO NEW YORK
Copyright, 1913,
By Rand, McNally & Company
The Rand-McNally Press
Chicago
PREFACE
In this book I have proposed to compare conditionsrecorded in Roman history with thoseexisting in America that should warn, by reason ofthe results at Rome. It is not the purpose of thisvolume to offer a mere textbook or a scholastic essayon historical events. It is not the purpose merely torecord those events which led to the destruction ofthe Roman republic, and with this end our work.The main purpose of this book is to compare events asthey transpired in the one republic and in the other.
The political history of the Roman republic isthroughout its whole course a continuous contestbetween radicals and conservatives. The striking resemblancesbetween the basis of the political controversiesof Ancient Rome and the modern political andeconomic problems render it almost impossible for anyhistorian to approach the political history of Romeentirely free from prejudice. The bias of the historian,whether toward the liberal or the conservativeside in politics, is sure to affect to a greater or lessdegree the pictures which he paints of the events andactors in Roman history. To indicate to some extentthese varying views, and to present to the reader someof the ideas of prominent writers on Roman history, anumber of extracts from the works of other authorshave been inserted, as occasion demanded, in this work.[6]In the majority of cases such an insertion should beunderstood as an attempt to present all sides of somecontroverted historical question rather than as indicatingthe approval by the author of the viewsexpressed therein.
In arranging the perspective of this book, its mainobject has been kept constantly in mind. The importanceof events has been weighed from the standpointof their effect upon the decay and collapse ofthe free political institutions of Rome; with the resultthat many subjects, to which considerable space wouldbe devoted in a general Roman history, have beenpassed over with a mere notice, while other events,perhaps of less popular interest, have been treated atlength.
I would be false to the first sense of justice did Inot here acknowledge the aid I have obtained fromProfessor Albert H. Putney, dean of the WebsterCollege of Law, Chicago, and a lawyer of the state ofIllinois at the city of Chicago (my home), who hasbeen the principal contributor from whom I havereceived assistance, and much that can be found inthis book in the nature of real historical data, and ofthe philosophy of reasoning from this data, is due tohim, and I desire to acknowledge my indebtednessand to give full credit for the value of this work.
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