Charles du Fresne Du Cange, a French lexicographer, was born at Amiens in 1610. His life was devoted to research into antiquity and the Middle Ages, and he merited the surname of the French Varro. His works are very valuable to the student of ancient or mediæval history.
Dümmler, Ernst, Geschichte des ostfränkischen Reiches, Leipsic, 1887-1888, 3 vols.—Dunham, S. Astley, History of Europe in the Middle Ages, London, 1837.—Duruy, Jean-Victor, Histoire romaine depuis les temps les plus reculés jusqu’à la mort de Théodose, Paris, 1879-1885, 7 vols.; Histoire romaine, Paris, 1889-1891; Histoire romaine jusqu’à l’invasion des barbares, Paris, 1899.—Dyer, T. H., A History of the City of Rome, its structures and monuments, from its foundation to the end of the Middle Ages, London, 1865; History of the Kings of Rome, London, 1868.
Thomas Henry Dyer, born at London, May 4th, 1804; died at Bath, Jan. 30, 1888. He was for some time employed as a clerk in the West India House, but eventually devoted himself entirely to literature. In his history he finds fault with the scepticism of writers like Niebuhr, being himself inclined to accept early Roman history as definite. When he deals with later historic times, however, he becomes judicious and trustworthy, but the book has to do with antiquities rather than institutions and is not so much political as archæological.
Ebert, A., Geschichte der christlich-lateinischen Litteratur, Leipsic, 1874-1880, 2 vols.; French translation of vol. II by Aymeric and Condamin, Paris, 1882, 2 vols.—Eichhorn, Karl Friedrich, Deutsche Staats- und Rechts-Geschichte, Göttingen, 1843-1845, 4 vols.—Enmann, A., Zur römischen Königsgeschichte, St. Petersburg, 1892.—Esmein, J. P. H. E. A., Mélanges d’histoire, du droit et de critique, Paris, 1887.
Fabia, P., Les sources de Tacite dans les histoires et les annales, Paris, 1893.—Farrer, T., Paganism and Christianity, London, 1891.—Favé, Ildephonse, L’ancienne Rome, Paris, 1880; L’empire des Francs depuis sa fondation jusqu’à son démembrement, Paris, 1889.—Finlay, George, Greece under the Romans, London, 1857; The History of Greece from its conquest by the Crusaders to its conquest by the Turks, and of the Empire of Trebizond, London, 1851; History of the Byzantine and the Greek Empires from 716-1453, Edinburgh and London, 1853-1854, 2 vols.; History of Greece from its Conquest by the Romans to the present time, edited by H. F. Tozer, Oxford, 1877, 7 vols.—Fisher, G. P., The Beginnings of Christianity, New York, 1877.—Fiske, George Converse, The Politics of the Patrician Claudii, in the Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, vol. XII, Cambridge, Mass., 1902.—Flasch, F. M., Constantin der Grosse, Würzburg, 1891.—Förstemann, Ernst Wilhelm, Geschichte des deutschen Sprachstamms, Nordhausen, 1874-1875, 2 vols.—Forsyth, William, Life of Marcus Tullius Cicero, London, 1867.—Fountain, F. O., Defence of Nero, Chiswick, 1892.—Freeman, E. A., General Sketch of European History, London, 1872; Cornelius, Sulla, and Flavian Cæsars (in Essays, ser. II), London, 1872; Illyrian Emperors (Essays, ser. III), London, 1880; History of Federal Government in Greece and Italy, edited by J. B. Bury, London, 1893.—Friedländer, Ludwig, Über den Kunstsinn der Römer in der Kaiserzeit, Königsberg, 1852; Über die Spiele der alten Römer, in Marquardt’s Römische Staatsverwaltung, Leipsic, 1873-1878; Darstellungen aus der Sittengeschichte Roms, Leipsic, 1888-1890, 3 vols.
Ludwig Friedländer’s works represent the cultural side of Roman life rather than the political. His Darstellungen aus der Sittengeschichte Roms is one of the most important books on the subject. In it we get a lifelike picture of the more important aspects of Roman civilisation during the first two centuries of the empire.
Froude, J. A., Cæsar, London and New York, 1866.—Fuchs, J., Der zweite punische Krieg und seine Quellen, Polybius und Livius, Wiener-Neustadt, 1894.—Furchheim, Fr., Bibliografia di Pompei, Ercolano e Stabia, Naples, 1892.—Fustel de Coulanges, N. D., La cité antique, Paris, 1864.
Gaillard, Gabriel H., Histoire de Charlemagne, Paris, 1782, 4 vols.—Gardner, A., Julian and the last Struggle of Paganism, London and New York, 1895.—Gardthausen, Victor, Augustus und seine Zeit, Leipsic, 1891, 2 vols.—Geffcken, H., Staat und Kirche in ihrem Verhältniss geschichtlich entwickelt, Berlin, 1875; English translation, Church and State, their relations historically considered, London, 1877.—Gell, William (in collaboration with John P. Gandy), Pompeiana: the Topography, Edifices and Ornaments of Pompeii, London, 1821.—Gelzer, H., Abriss der byzantinischen Kaisergeschichte, in Karl Krumbacher’s Geschichte der byzantinischen Litteratur, Munich, 1897.—Gerard, Histoire des Francs d’Austrasie, Brussels, 1865, 2 vols.—Gerdes, Heinrich, Geschichte des deutschen Volkes, Leipsic, 1891-1898, 2 vols.—Gerlach, F. D., Die Geschichtsschreiber der Römer bis auf Orosius, Stuttgart, 1855.—Gfrörer, August Friedrich, Geschichte der ost- und westfränkischen Karolinger, Freiburg, 1848, 2 vols.; Byzantinische Geschichten, edited by Weiss, Gratz, 1872-1874, 2 vols.—Gibbon, Edward, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, London, 1776-1788, 6 vols.; edited by H. H. Milman, London, 1838-1839, 12 vols.; edited by an English Churchman, London, 1853, 7 vols.; edited by W. Smith, London, 1854-1855, 8 vols.; edited by J. B. Bury, London, 1896-1900, 7 vols. (see Prolegomena).
Edward Gibbon, the most eminent of English historians, was born at Putney, 1737. His delicate constitution interfered with his early studies, but at fifteen he entered Magdalen College, Oxford. In his autobiography he speaks of the fourteen months he spent there as “the most idle and unprofitable of his whole life.” Becoming at this time a convert to Romanism, his father sent him to Lausanne, Switzerland, where he studied for five years under a Calvinist minister, who won him back to Protestantism. He returned to England in 1758, and in 1761 published his first work, Essay on the Study of Literature, in French, with which language he was at the time, as he himself says in his autobiography, more familiar than with English. His visit to Rome about 1763 first suggested to him the idea of writing his famous history. The work was finished in 1787, after the author had spent eighteen years of labour upon it. It covers the whole period from Trajan to the conquest of Constantinople, relating not only the political events and situation, but representing all phases of life in a wonderfully attractive, frequently dramatic, manner. His strong bias against Christianity is the only point upon which he has been attacked. Otherwise, so thorough and exact were his investigations that although the book was completed over a century ago, few errors have been brought to light in it by the steady researches of a century. In 1783 he retired to Lausanne, where he lived for the remainder of his life. He died in London in 1794, on one of his visits to England.