Excerpt from A Brief History of Ancient Peoples: With an Account of Their Monuments, Literature, and Manners The plan of the Barnes's Brief History Series has been thoroughly tested in the books already issued - United States, and France-and their extended use and approval are evidence of its general excellence. In this work the political history, which occupies nearly, if not all, the ordinary school-text, is condensed to the salient and essential facts, in order to give room for a clear outline of the literature, religion, architecture, character, habits, etc., of each nation. Surely it is as important to know something about Plato as all about Cæsar, and to learn how the Ancients wrote their books as how they fought their battles. The chapters on Manners and Customs and the Scenes in Real Life represent the people of history as men and women subject to the same wants, hopes, and fears as ourselves, and so bring the distant past near to us. The Scenes, which are intended only for reading, are the result of a careful study of the unequalled collections of monuments in the London and "Berlin Museums, of the ruins in Rome and Pompeii, and of the latest authorities on the domestic life of ancient peoples. Though intentionally written in a semi-romantic style, they lire accurate pictures of what might have occurred, and some of them are simple transcriptions of the details sculptured in Assyrian alabaster or painted on Egyptian walls. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.