This book is the substance of a course of lectures, delivered to the two highest Forms in Sherborne School. It is meant to be a help towards bridging over the gulf between the two sections Of history, which are popularly supposed to divide a little after the Christian era into ancient and modern. Such a division, however, produces error and con fusion, by obscuring the unity and continuity Of history; the teaching of which loses half its value, if we forget that Ancient is the parent of Medi aeva and therefore Of Modern history, and that Imperial Rome is the centre and meeting-point of all history an Universal Empire in which all earlier history loses itself, and out of which all later history grew.1 The position of Theodoric, Charles, or Frederick cannot be understood without reference to that earlier Empire Of Theodosius, Constantine, and Trajan, of which the later was a direct conse quence.