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41 6 Reviezc's of Books the command of Professor Mahaffy with the overflowing wealth of that with which Professor Dill operates, our debt to the Hellenist seems all the greater. B. Perrin. Le Fonfi cd I Tempi dcllo Inccndio Ncroniano. Per Attilio Profumo. (Rome, Forzani e C, 1905, pp. x, 748.) In this ponderous volume the author discusses the sources of our knowledge of the great fire of 64 A. D., the persecution of the Christians, and everything in the circum- stances of the period that might have any possible bearing upon that disaster. The results at which he believes that he has arrived are briefly these : The sources fall into four classes, fonti derivate indirctte, Eusebius. Eutropius, Aurelius Victor, Sulpicius Severus, and Orosius ; fonti derivate prossime, Dio Cassius; fonti derivate prossimiori, Suetonius and Tacitus; and fofiti prime, Fabius Rusticus, Cluvius Rufus, and the elder Pliny. The authority of the last two is paramount, and their evidence, as well as that of the others except Tacitus, points definitely to Nero as the culprit. His reason for setting fire to the city was that he might have an opportunity to rebuild a large part of it and to carry out his idea of developing the Rome of the Republic into a new Neropolis. The fire occurred in July, 64, and during the few months following the popular outcry against the emperor as the author of the disaster became so vigorous that he felt it necessary to divert the attention of the populace. This he did by arousing such feeling, " abolendo rumori ", as resulted in the persecution of 65. That the Christians had nothing to do with the fire itself is shown by the fact that at no time were any legal proceedings instituted against them on that ground. The court version was that the fire was accidental, and this is the alternative explanation offered by Tacitus in his famous nar- rative. While all other allusions in Tacitus show that he shared the universal belief in Nero's guilt, he felt obliged to admit the official version as a possibility on account of his intimacy with Nerva and the court of Trajan. The author's method is exhaustive and minute in the extreme, em- bracing lengthy discussions of many topics by no means germane to the subject, but there is some good work in the book, and the evidence in support of his various theses has been unquestionably marshalled as never before. In the nature of the case, however, certainty will never be reached, for men will never agree entirely in their estimate of the value of Tacitus's statements. The style is prolix and involved, and the page is disfigured by in- numerable parentheses, quotation-marks, points of exclamation and in- terrogation, italics, and heavy-faced type. The book would be infinitely more useful and valuable if it were one-quarter of its present size. S. B. P. An Introduction to the Englisli Historians. By Charles A. Beard, Ph.D., Lecturer in History and Political Science, Columbia University.