It is an essential part of the vocation I have chosen,—in clearing up the history of Rome, so far as my powers and the existing resources allow, in such a manner, that it may become no less familiar and perceptible than that of modern times, in which we have not lived ourselves,—to give such a representation of the nations and states, with which Rome came into contact in the extension of her empire either in relations of friendship or in war, that the reader instead of a mere name, such as that of Epirots or Ætolians, may know in general outlines, what was then the extent of their state, what their power, and what their constitution and mode of living. These representations are in general the fruits of an attention directed from early life to all notices respecting nations and periods that have been despised and overlookt; and in some cases of enquiries not less laborious than those, by which I have brought into order the chaos of the early times of Rome, but with which I shall avoid increasing the size of a work, whose unavoidable expansion leaves me on the borders of old age little hope of completing it.

The expedition of king Alexander of Epirus to Italy gives occasion to such a digression; an event, which had, it is true, no immediate connexion with Roman history, with the exception of a treaty that produced no results, and respecting the indirect effects of which little can be ascertained with certainty in consequence of the confusion in the relations of Magna Græcia, but which nevertheless had an influence that affected the relations of the Romans to the people of those countries.