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CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY
1. The history of Rome first meets us in the dim legendary
story of a small community planted on the left bank of the
Tiber. We can fix no certain date for its beginning, nor is it
easy to say when it ended. It is not the history of a nation,
but of a government. The last remains of a government con-
tinuously descended from that of ancient Rome did not disappear
till 1453 A.D., when Constantinople was taken by the Turks.
But Roman law, the supreme product of Roman government,
is still living, for it is the foundation of many of the legal systems
still in force. We may divide Roman history for convenience
sake into periods according to the form of government in use.
1. Regal period, our knowledge of which is very slight and
indirect.
2. Republican period.
3. Imperial period.

It is with the second of these that we are concerned. The
states of the ancient world, great or small, seem all to have been
originally governed by kings, and the rise of republics was not
found consistent with great and permanent extension of territory.
The history of the free states of Greece is the stock instance of
politics on a small scale. The city-states (πóλεις) of Hellas were
weak from want of size and mutual jealousy. The loose cantonal
unions lacked the cohesion necessary for exerting joint power
with effect. No large political unit was efficiently organized in
the Greek world until the rise of the national kingdom of
Macedon. In the East large monarchies were the rule. The
conquest of the Persian empire by Alexander made no change

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Publication Information: Book Title: A Short History of the Roman Republic. Contributors: W. E. Heitland - author. Publisher: Cambridge University Press. Place of Publication: Cambridge, England. Publication Year: 1911. Page Number: 1.
    
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