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Three Millennia of Greek Literature
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Please note that Mommsen uses the AUC chronology (Ab Urbe Condita), i.e. from the founding of the City of Rome. You can use this reference table to have the B.C. dates

THE HISTORY OF OLD ROME

IV. The Revolution

From: The History of Rome, by Theodor Mommsen
Translated with the sanction of the author by William Purdie Dickson


The History of Old Rome

Chapter XIII - Literature and Art

ELPENOR EDITIONS IN PRINT

The Original Greek New Testament

» Contents of this Chapter

Page 40

It was the task of his life to write the history of the union of the Mediterranean states under the hegemony of Rome. From the first Punic war down to the destruction of Carthage and Corinth his work embraces the fortunes of all the civilized states--namely Greece, Macedonia, Asia Minor, Syria, Egypt, Carthage, and Italy--and exhibits in causal connection the mode in which they came under the Roman protectorate; in so far he describes it as his object to demonstrate the fitness and reasonableness of the Roman hegemony. In design as in execution, this history stands in clear and distinct contrast with the contemporary Roman as well as with the contemporary Greek historiography.

In Rome history still remained wholly at the stage of chronicle; there existed doubtless important historical materials, but what was called historical composition was restricted--with the exception of the very respectable but purely individual writings of Cato, which at any rate did not reach beyond the rudiments of research and narration--partly to nursery tales, partly to collections of notices. The Greeks had certainly exhibited historical research and had written history; but the conceptions of nation and state had been so completely lost amidst the distracted times of the Diadochi, that none of the numerous historians succeeded in following the steps of the great Attic masters in spirit and in truth, or in treating from a general point of view the matter of world-wide interest in the history of the times.

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Reference address : https://ellopos.net/elpenor/rome/4-13-literature-art.asp?pg=40