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See also:LIVY [Thus L1v1us] (59 B.C.—A.D: 17) , See also:Roman historian was See also:born at See also:Patavium (See also:Padua) . The See also:ancient connexion between his native See also:city and See also:Rome helped to turn his See also:attention to the study which became the See also:work of his See also:life . For Padua claimed, like Rome, a Trojan origin, and See also:Livy is careful to See also:place its founder See also:Antenor See also:side by side with See also:Aeneas . A more real See also:bond of See also:union was found in the dangers to which both had been exposed from the assaults of the Celts (Livy x . 2), and Padua must have been See also:drawn to Rome as the conqueror of her hereditary foes . Moreover, at the See also:time of Livy's See also:birth, Padua had See also:long been in See also:possession of the full Roman See also:franchise, and the historian's See also:family name may have been taken by one of his ancestors out of compliment to the See also:great Livian gens at Rome, whose connexion with Cisalpine See also:Gaul is well-established (See also:Suet . Tib . 3), and by one of whom his family may have been enfranchized . Livy's easy See also:independent life at Rome, and his aristocratic leanings in politics seem to show that he was the son of well-born and opulent parents; he was certainly well educated, being widely read in See also:Greek literature, and a student both of See also:rhetoric and See also:philosophy . We have also See also:evidence in his writings that he had prepared himself for his great work by researches into the See also:history of his native See also:town . His youth and See also:early manhood, spent perhaps chiefly at Padua, were See also:cast in stormy times, and the impression which they See also:left upon his mind was ineffaceable . In the See also:Civil See also:War his See also:personal sympathies were with See also:Pompey and the republican party (Tac . See also:Ann. iv . 34) ; but far more lasting in its effects was his experience of the See also:licence, anarchy and confusion of these dark days . The See also:rule of See also:Augustus he seems to have accepted as a See also:necessity, but he could not, like See also:Horace and See also:Virgil, welcome it as inaugurating a new and glorious era . He writes of it with despondency as a degenerate and declining See also:age; and, instead of triumphant prophecies of See also:world-wide rule, such as we find in Horace, Livy contents himself with pointing out the dangers which already threatened Rome, and exhorting his contemporaries to learn, in See also:good time, the lessons which the past history of the See also:state had to See also:teach . It was probably about the time of the See also:battle of See also:Actium that Livy established himself in Rome, and there he seems chiefly to have resided until his retirement to Padua shortly before his See also:death . We have no evidence that he travelled much, though he must have paid at least one visit to See also:Campania (xxxviii . 56), and he never, so far as we know, took any See also:part in See also:political life, Nor, though he enjoyed the personal friendship and patronage of Augustus (Tac . Ann. iv . 34) and stimulated the See also:historical zeal of the future See also:emperor See also:Claudius (Suet . Claud. xli.), can we detect in him anything of the courtier . There is not in his history a trace of that rather See also:gross adulation in which even Virgil does not disdain to indulge . His republican sympathies were freely expressed, and as freely pardoned by Augustus . We must imagine him devoted to the great task which he had set himself to perform, with a mind See also:free from all disturbing cares, and' in the enjoyment of all the facilities for study afforded by the Rome of Augustus, with its liberal encouragement of letters, its newly-founded See also:libraries and its brilliant See also:literary circles . As his work went on, the fame which he had never coveted came to him in ample measure . He is said to have declared in one See also:volume of his history that he had already won See also:glory enough, and the younger See also:Pliny (Epist. ii . 3) relates that a Spaniard came all the way from Gades merely to see him, and, this accomplished, at once returned See also:home satisfied . The See also:accession of Tiberius (A.D . 14) materially altered for the worse the prospects of literature in Rome, and Livy retired to Padua, where he died . He had at least one son (Quintil. x . 1 . 39), who also was possibly an author (Pliny, Nat . Hist. i . 5 . 6), and a daughter married to a certain L . Magius, a rhetorician of no great merit (See also:Seneca, Controv. x . 29 . 2) . Nothing further is known of his personal history . See also:Analysis of the History.—For us the See also:interest of Livy's life centres in the work to which the greater part of it was devoted, the history of Rome from its See also:foundation down to the death of See also:Drusus (9 B.C.) . Its proper See also:title was Ab urbe condita libri (also called lzistoriae and At/tales) . Various indications point to the See also:period from 27 to 20 B.C., as that during which the first See also:decade was written . In the first See also:book (19 . 3) the emperor is called Augustus, a title which he assumed early in 27 B.C., and in ix . 18 the omission of all reference to the restoration, in 20 B.C., of the See also:standards taken at Carrhae seems to justify the inference that the passage was written before that date . In the See also:epitome of book lix. there is a reference to a See also:law of Augustus which was passed in 18 B.C . The books dealing with the civil See also:wars must have been written during Augustus's lifetime, as they were read by him (Tac . Ann. iv . 34), while there is some evidence that the last part, from book cxxi. onwards, was published after his death A.D . 14 . The work begins with the landing of Aeneas in See also:Italy, and closes with the death of Drusus, 9 B.C., though it is possible that the author intended to continue it as far as the death of Augustus . The See also:division into decades is certainly not due to the author himself, and is first heard of at the end of the 5th See also:century; on the other See also:hand, the division into libri or volumina seems to be See also:original . That the books were grouped and possibly published in sets is rendered probable both by the prefaces which introduce new divisions of the work (vi . 1, xxi . 1, xxxi . 1) and by the description in one MS. of books cix.-cxvi. as " bellorum civilium libri octo." Such arrangement and publication in parts were, moreover, See also:common with ancient authors, and in the See also:case of a lengthy work almost a necessity . Of the 142 libri composing the history, the first 15 carry us down to the See also:eve of the great struggle with See also:Carthage, a period, as Livy reckons it, of 488 years (xxxi . 1); 15 more (xvi–See also:xxx.) See also:cover the 63 years of the two great Punic wars . With the See also:close of book xlv. we reach the See also:conquest of See also:Macedonia in 167 B.C . Book lviii. described the tribunate of Tiberius See also:Gracchus, 133 B.C . In book lxxxix. we have the dictatorship of See also:Sulla (81 B.C.), in ciii . See also:Caesar's first consulship (59 B.c.), in cix.-cxvi. the civil wars to the death of Caesar (44 B.C.), in cxxiv. the defeat of See also:Brutus and See also:Cassius at See also:Philippi, in cxxxiii. and cxxxiv. the battleof Actium and the accession of Augustus . The remaining eight books give the history of the first twenty years of Augustus's reign . Of this vast work only a small portion has come down to See also:modern times; only See also:thirty-five books are now extant (i.-x., xxi.-xlv.), and of these xli. and xliii. are incomplete . The lost books seem to have disappeared between the 7th century and the revival of letters in the 15th— a fact sufficiently accounted for by the difficulty of transmitting so voluminous a work in times when See also:printing was unknown, for the See also:story that See also:Pope See also:Gregory I. burnt all the copies of Livy he could See also:lay his hands on rests on no good evidence . Only one important fragment has since been recovered—the portion of book xci. discovered in the Vatican in 1772, and edited by See also:Niebuhr in 1820 . Very much no doubt of the substance of the lost books has been preserved both by such writers as See also:Plutarch and Dio Cassius, and by epitomizers like See also:Florus and See also:Eutropius . But our know-ledge of their contents is chiefly derived from the so-called perioclzae or epitomes, of which we have fortunately a nearly See also:complete See also:series, the epitomes of books cxxxvi. and cxxxvii. being the only ones missing.' These epitomes have been ascribed without sufficient See also:reason to Florus (and century); but, though they are probably of even later date, and are disappointingly meagre, they may be taken as giving, so far as they go, a fairly See also:authentic description of the original . They have been See also:expanded with great ingenuity and learning by See also:Freinsheim in See also:Drakenborch's edition of Livy ? The Prodigia of See also:Julius See also:Obsequens and the See also:list of consuls in the Chronica of See also:Cassiodorus are taken directly from Livy, and to that extent reproduce the contents of the lost books . It is probable that Obsequens, Cassiodorus and the compiler of the epitomes did not use the original work but an abridgment .
Historical Stand point.—If we are to See also:form a correct See also:judgment on the merits of Livy's history, we must, above all things, See also:bear in mind what his aim was in See also:writing it, and this he has told us himself in the celebrated See also:preface
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He set himself the task of recording the history of the Roman See also:people, " the first in the world," from the beginning
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The task was a great one, and the fame to be won by it uncertain, yet it would be something to have made the See also:attempt, and the labour itself would bring a welcome See also:relief from the contemplation of See also:present evils; for his readers, too, this See also:record will, he says, be full of instruction; they are invited to See also:note especially the moral lessons taught by the story of Rome, to observe how Rome See also:rose to greatness by the See also:simple virtues and unselfish devotion of her citizens, and how on the decay of these qualities followed degeneracy and decline
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He does not, therefore, write, as See also:Polybius wrote, for students of history
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With Polybius the greatness of Rome is a phenomenon to be critically studied and scientifically explained; the rise of Rome forms an important See also:chapter in universal history, and must be dealt with, not as an isolated fact, but in connexion with the See also:general See also: H . See also:Moore, " The Oxyrhynchus Epitome of Livy in relation to Obsequens and Cassiodorus," in See also:American See also:Journal of See also:Philology (1904), 241 . 2 The various rumours once current of complete copies of Livy in See also:Constantinople, See also:Chios and elsewhere, are noticed by B . G . Niebuhr, Lectures on the History of Rome from the first Punic War (ed . I . Schmitz, 1844), i . 65 . See also:pride in Rome, for, though her earliest authors took the form and often the language of their writings from See also:Greece, it was the greatness of Rome that inspired the best of them, and it was from the See also:annals of Rome that their themes were taken . And this is naturally true in an especial sense of the Roman historians; the long list of See also:annalists begins at the moment when the great struggle with Carthage had for the first time brought Rome into See also:direct connexion with the historic peoples of the ancient world, and when Romans themselves awoke to the importance of the part reserved for Rome to See also:play in universal history . To write the annals of Rome became at once a task worthy of the best of her citizens . Though other forms of literature might be thought unbecoming to the dignity of a free-born See also:citizen, this was never so with history . On the contrary, men of high See also:rank and tried statesmanship were on that very See also:account thought all the fitter to write the See also:chronicles of the state they had served . And history in Rome never lost either its social See also:prestige or its intimate and exclusive connexion with the fortunes of the Roman people . It was well enough for Greeks to busy them-selves with the See also:manners, institutions and deeds of the " peoples outside." The Roman historians, from See also:Fabius Pictor to See also:Tacitus, cared for none of these things . This exclusive interest in Rome was doubtless encouraged by the See also:peculiar characteristics of the history of the state . The Roman annalist had not, like the Greek, to See also:deal with the varying fortunes and See also:separate doings of a number of See also:petty communities, but with the continuous life of a single city . Nor was his attention drawn from the See also:main lines of political history by the claims of See also:art, literature and philosophy, for just as the tie which See also:bound Romans together was that of citizenship, not of race or culture, so the history of Rome is that of the state, of its political constitution, its wars and conquests, its military and administrative See also:system . Livy's own circumstances were all such as to render these views natural to him . He began to write at a time when, after a century of disturbance, the See also:mass of men had been contented to See also:purchase See also:peace at the See also:price of See also:liberty . The present was at least inglorious, the future doubtful, and many turned gladly to the past for See also:consolation . This retrospective tendency was favourably regarded by the See also:government . It was the policy of Augustus to obliterate all traces of See also:recent revolution, and to connect the new imperial regime as closely as possible with the ancient traditions and institutions of Rome and Italy . The Aeneid of Virgil, the See also:Fasti of See also:Ovid, suited well with his own restoration of the ancient temples, his revival of such ancient ceremonies as the Ludi Saeculares, his efforts to check the un-Roman luxury of the See also:day, and his jealous regard for the purity of the Roman stock . And, though we are nowhere told that Livy undertook his history at the emperor's See also:suggestion, it is certain that Augustus read parts of it with See also:pleasure, and even honoured the writer with his assistance and friendship . Livy was deeply penetrated with a sense of the greatness of Rome . From first to last its See also:majesty and high destiny are present to his mind . Aeneas is led to Italy by the Fates that he may be the founder of Rome . See also:Romulus after his See also:ascension declares it to be the will of See also:heaven that Rome should be See also:mistress of the world; and See also:Hannibal See also:marches into Italy, that he may " set free the world " from Roman rule . But, if this ever-present consciousness often gives dignity and See also:elevation to his narrative, it is also responsible for some of its defects . It leads him occasion-ally into exaggerated language (e.g. xxii . 33, " nullius usquam terrarum rei cura See also:Romanos effugiebat "), or into such misstatements as his explanation of the course taken by the Romans in renewing war with Carthage, that " it seemed more suitable to the dignity of the Roman people." Often his See also:jealousy for the See also:honour of Rome makes him unfair and one-sided . In all her wars not only success but See also:justice is with Rome . To the same general attitude is also due the omission by Livy of all that has no direct bearing on the fortunes of the Roman people . " I have resolved," he says (xxxix . 48), " only to See also:touch on See also:foreign affairs so far as they are bound up with those of Rome." As the result, we get from Livy very defective accounts even of the See also:Italic peoples most closely connected with Rome . Ofthe past history and the See also:internal See also:condition of the more distant nations she encountered he tells us little or nothing, even when he found such details carefully given by Polybius . Scarcely less strong than his interest in Rome is his interest in the moral lessons which her history seemed to him so well qualified to teach . This didactic view of history was a prevalent one in antiquity, and it was confirmed no doubt by those rhetorical studies which in Rome as in Greece formed the See also:chief part of See also:education, and which taught men to look on history as little more than a storehouse of illustrations and themes for declamation . But it suited also the See also:practical See also:bent of the Roman mind, with its See also:comparative indifference to abstract See also:speculation or purely scientific See also:research . It is in the highest degree natural that Livy should have sought for the See also:secret of the rise of Rome, not in any large historical causes, but in the moral qualities of the people themselves, and that he should have looked upon the contemplation of these as the best remedy for the vices of his own degenerate days . He dwells with delight on the unselfish patriotism of the old heroes of the See also:republic . In those times See also:children obeyed their parents, the gods were still sincerely worshipped, poverty was no disgrace, sceptical philosophies and foreign fashions in See also:religion and in daily life were unknown . But this ethical interest is closely bound up with his Roman sympathies . His moral ideal is no abstract one, and the virtues he praises are those which in his view made up the truly Roman type of See also:character . The prominence thus given to the moral aspects of the history tends to obscure in some degree the true relations and real importance of the events narrated, but it does so in Livy to a far less extent than in some other writers . He is much too skilful an artist either to resolve his history into a See also:mere bundle of examples, or to overload it, as Tacitus is sometimes inclined to do, with reflections and axioms . The moral he wishes to enforce is usually either conveyed by the story itself, with the aid perhaps of a single See also:sentence of comment, or put as a speech into the mouth of one of his characters (e.g. xxii . 49; the devotion of See also:Decius, viii. to, cf. vii . 40; and the speech of See also:Camillus, v . 54); and what little his narrative thus loses in accuracy it gains in dignity and warmth of feeling . In his portraits of the typical Romans of the old See also:style, such as Q . Fabius See also:Maximus, in his descriptions of the unshaken firmness and See also:calm courage shown by the fathers of the state in the See also:hour of trial, Livy is at his best; and he is so largely in virtue of his genuine appreciation of character as a powerful force in the affairs of men . This See also:enthusiasm for Rome and for Roman virtues is, moreover, saved from degenerating into gross partiality by the genuine candour of Livy's mind and by his wide sympathies with every thing great and good . Seneca (Suasoriae vi . 22) and See also:Quintilian (x. r. rot) bear See also:witness to his impartiality . Thus, See also:Hasdrubal's devotion and valour at the battle on the Metaurus are described in terms of eloquent praise; and even in Hannibal, the lifelong enemy of Rome, he frankly recognizes the great qualities that balanced his faults . Nor, though his sympathies are unmistakably with the aristocratic party, does he See also:scruple to censure the pride, See also:cruelty and selfishness which too often marked their conduct (ii . 54; the speech of Canuleius, iv . 3; of Sextius and See also:Licinius, vi . 36); and, though he feels acutely that the times are out of See also:joint, and has apparently little See also:hope of the future, he still believes in justice and goodness . He is often righteously indignant, but never satirical, and such a See also:pessimism as that of Tacitus and See also:Juvenal is wholly foreign to his nature . Though he studied and even wrote on philosophy (Seneca, Ep. too. g), Livy is by no means a philosophic historian . We learn indeed from incidental notices that he inclined to Stoicism and disliked the Epicurean system . With the See also:scepticism that despised the gods (x . 40) and denied that they meddled with the affairs of men (xliii . 13) he has no sympathy . The immortal gods are everywhere the same; they govern the world (See also:xxxvii . 45) and reveal the future to men by signs and wonders (xliii . 13), but only a debased superstition will look for their hand in every petty incident, or abandon itself to an indiscriminate belief in the portents and miracles in which popular credulity delights . The ancient state religion of Rome, with its temples, priests and auguries, he not only reverences as an integral part of the Roman constitution, with a sympathy which grows as he studies it, but, like See also:Varro, and in true Stoic See also:fashion, he regards it as a valuable See also:instrument of government (i . 19 . 21), indispensable in a well-ordered community . As distinctly Stoical is the See also:doctrine of a See also:fate to which even the gods must yield (ix . 4), which disposes the plans of men (i . 42) and blinds their minds (v . 37), yet leaves their See also:wills free (xxxvii . 45) . But we find no trace in Livy of any systematic application of philosophy to the facts of history . He is as See also:innocent of the leading ideas which shaped the work of Polybius as he is of the cheap theorizing which wearies us in the pages of Dionysius . The events are graphically, if not always accurately, described; but of the larger causes at work in producing them, of their subtle See also:action and reaction upon each other, and of the general conditions amid which the history worked itself out, he takes no thought at all . Nor has Livy much acquaintance with either the theory or the practice of politics . He exhibits, it is true, political sympathies and antipathies . He is on the whole for the nobles and against the See also:commons; and, though the unfavourable See also:colours in which he paints the leaders of the latter are possibly reflected from the authorities he followed, it is evident that he despised and disliked the multitude . Of See also:monarchy he speaks with a genuine Roman hatred, and we know that in the last days of the republic his sympathies were wholly with those who strove in vain to See also:save it . He betrays, too, an insight into the evils which were destined finally to undermine the imposing fabric of Roman See also:empire . The decline of the free See also:population, the spread of See also:slavery (vi . 12, vii . 25), the universal craving for See also:wealth (iii . 26), the employment of foreign mercenaries (See also:xxv . 33), the corruption of Roman race and Roman manners by mixture with aliens (xxxix . 3), are all noticed in tones of See also:solemn warning . But his retired life had given him no wide experience of men and things . It is not surprising, therefore, to find that he fails altogether to present a clear and coherent picture of the history and working of the Roman constitution, or that his handling of intricate questions of policy is weak and inadequate . See also:Sources.—If from the general aim and spirit of Livy's history we pass to consider his method of workmanship, we are struck at once by the very different measure of success attained by him in the two great departments of an historian's labour . - He is a consummate artist, but an unskilled and often careless investigator and critic .
The materials which lay ready to his hand may be roughly classed under two heads: (1) the original evidence of monuments, See also:inscriptions, &c., (2) the written tradition as found in the See also:works of previous authors
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It is on the second of these two kinds of evidence that Livy almost exclusively relies
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Yet that even for the very early times a certain amount of original evidence still existed is proved by the use which was made of it by Dionysius, who mentions at least three important inscriptions, two dating from the See also:regal period and one from the first years of the republic (iv
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26, iv
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58, x
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32)
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We know from Livy himself (iv
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20) that the breastplate dedicated by Aulus See also:Cornelius Cossus (428 B.C.) was to be seen in his own day in the See also:temple of See also:Jupiter Feretrius, nor is there any reason to suppose that the libri lintei, quoted by Licinius See also:Macer, were not extant when Livy wrote
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For more recent times the materials were plentiful, and a See also:rich See also: There is no sign that he had ever read Varro; and he never alludes to Verrius See also:Flaccus . The haziness and inaccuracy of his See also:topography make it clear that he did not attempt to familiarize himself with theactual scenes of events even that took place in Italy . Not only does he confuse Thermon, the See also:capital of See also:Aetolia, with See also:Thermopylae (xxxiii . 35), but his accounts of the Roman See also:campaigns against See also:Volsci, See also:Aequi and See also:Samnites swarm with confusions and difficulties; nor are even his descriptions of Hannibal's movements free from an occasional vagueness which betrays the See also:absence of an exact knowledge of localities . The consequence of this indifference to original research and patient verification might have been less serious had the written tradition on which Livy preferred to rely been more trustworthy . But neither the materials out of which it was composed, nor the manner in which it had been put together, were such as to make it a safe See also:guide . It was indeed represented by a long See also:line of respectable names . The See also:majority of the Roman annalists were men of high birth and education, with a long experience of affairs, and their defects did not arise from seclusion of life or See also:ignorance of letters . It is rather in the conditions under which they wrote and in the rules and traditions of their See also:craft that the causes of their See also:short-comings must be sought . It was not until the 6th century from the foundation of the city that historical writing began in Rome . The See also:father of Roman history, Q . Fabius Pictor, a patrician and a senator, can scarcely have published his annals before the close of the Annalists . Second Punic War, but these annals covered the whole period from the arrival of See also:Evander in Italy down at least to the battle by See also:Lake See also:Trasimene (217 B.c.) . Out of what materials, then, did he put together his account of the earlier history ? Recent See also:criticism has succeeded in answering this question with some degree of certainty . A careful examination of the fragments of Fabius (see H . See also:Peter, Historicorum Romanorum Relliquiae, Leipzig . 1870; and C . W . See also:Nitzsch, Rom . Annalistik, See also:Berlin, 1873) reveals in the first place a marked difference between the kingly period and that which followed the See also:establishment of the republic . The history of the former stretches back into the regions of pure See also:mythology . It is little more than a collection of fables told with scarcely any attempt at criticism, and with no more regard to See also:chronological sequence than was necessary to make the See also:tale run smoothly or to fill up such gaps as that between the See also:flight of Aeneas from See also:Troy and the supposed See also:year of the foundation of Rome . But from its very commencement the history of the republic wears a different aspect . The mass of floating tradition, which had come down from early days, with its tales of border raids and forays, of valiant chiefs and deeds of patriotism, is now rudely fitted into a framework of a wholly different See also:kind . This framework consists of short notices of important events, wars, prodigies, See also:consecration of temples, &c., all recorded with extreme brevity, precisely dated, and couched in a somewhat archaic style . They were taken probably from one or more of the state registers, such as the annals of the pontiffs, or those kept by the aediles in the temple of See also:Ceres . This See also:bare official outline of the past history of his city was by Fabius filled in from the rich See also:store of tradition that lay ready to his hand . The manner and spirit in which he effected this See also:combination were no doubt wholly uncritical . Usually he seems to have transferred both annalistic notices and popular traditions to his pages much in the shape in which he found them . But he unquestionably gave undue prominence to the tales of the prowess and glory of the Fabii, and probably also allowed his own strong aristocratic sympathies to See also: |