Some learned researches respecting the principal points of the Roman constitution, as Sigonius and Gruchius de comitiis Romanorum, Zamocius de Senatu Romano, etc. will be found collected in the first two vols, of Grævius, Antiq. Roman.
For the popular assemblies of the Romans, an antiquarian essay by Chr. Ferd. Schulze, Gotha, 1815, chiefly according to Niebuhr, may be consulted.
Among the numerous manuals of Roman antiquities, Nieuport, explicatio rituum Romanorum, ed. Gesner. Berol. 1743, promises at least as much as it performs. Of those which profess to treat of Roman antiquities in general, none have yet risen above mediocrity. Jurisprudence, however, has been much more successfully handled. We cite the two following excellent compendiums:
Bachii, Historia Jurisprudentiæ Romanæ. Lips. 1754. 1796.
† C. Hugo, Elements of the Roman Law; 7th edit. Berlin, 1820.
SECOND PERIOD.
From the commencement of the war with Carthage to the rise of the civil broils under the Gracchi, B. C. 264—134. Year of Rome, 490—620.
Sources. The principal writer for this highly interesting period, in which was laid the foundation of the universal dominion of Rome, is Polybius as far as the year 146, not only in the complete books preserved to us, which come down to 216, but also in the fragments. He is frequently followed by Livy, lib. xxi—xlv. 218—166. Appian, who comes next, does not confine himself merely to the history of the war; Florus gives us only an abridgement. The lives of Plutarch which relate to this portion of history, are Fabius Maximus, P. Æmilius, Marcellus, M. Cato, and Flaminius.