In the spring of 1906, the Collège de France invited me to deliver, during November of that year, a course of lectures on Roman history. I accepted, giving a résumé, in eight lectures, of the history of the government of Augustus from the end of the civil wars to his death; that is, a résumé of the matter contained in the fourth and fifth volumes of the English edition of my work, _The Greatness and Decline of Rome_. Following these lectures came a request from M. Emilio Mitre, Editor of the chief newspaper of the Argentine Republic, the Nacion, and one from the Academia Brazileira.
