I consider that a statement I often made at the outset of this work thus receives confirmation from actual facts,
I mean my assertion that it is impossible to get from writers who deal in particular episodes a general view of the whole process of history.
For how by the bare reading of events in <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Sicily&groupId=973&placeId=1724">Sicily</a> or in <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Spain&groupId=983&placeId=1735">Spain</a> can we hope to learn and understand either the magnitude of the occurrences or the thing of greatest moment, what means and what form of government Fortune has employed to accomplish the most surprising feat she has performed in our times, that is, to bring all the known parts of the world under one rule and dominion, a thing absolutely without precedent?
For how the Romans took <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Syracuse&groupId=994&placeId=1753">Syracuse</a> and how they occupied <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Spain&groupId=983&placeId=1735">Spain</a> may possibly be learnt from the perusal of such particular histories;
but how they attained to universal empire and what particular circumstances obstructed their grand design, or again how and at what time circumstances contributed to its execution is difficult to discern without a general history.
Nor for the same reason is it easy otherwise to perceive the greatness of their achievements and the value of their system of polity.
It would not be surprising in itself that the Romans had designs on <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Spain&groupId=983&placeId=1735">Spain</a> and <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Sicily&groupId=973&placeId=1724">Sicily</a> and made military and naval expeditions to these two countries;
but when we realize how at the same time that these projects and countless others were being carried out by the government of a single state, this same people who had all this on their hands were exposed in their own country to wars and other perils, then only will the events appear in their just light and really call forth admiration, and only thus are they likely to obtain the attention they deserve.
So much for those who suppose that by a study of separate histories they will become familiar with the general history of the world as a whole.
Walbank Commentary