Everything about Livy totally explained
Titus Livius (traditionally 59 BC – AD 17), known as
Livy in
English, was a
Roman historian who wrote a monumental history of Rome,
Ab Urbe Condita, from its founding (traditionally dated to 753 BC) through the reign of
Augustus in Livy's own time.
Life and works
The title of his most famous work,
Ab Urbe Condita ("From the Founding of the City"), expresses the scope and magnitude of Livy's undertaking. He wrote in a mixture of annual
chronology and
narrative—often having to interrupt a story to announce the elections of new
consuls as this was the way that the Romans kept track of the years. Livy claims that lack of historical data prior to the sacking of Rome in 387 BC by the
Gauls made his task more difficult.
Livy wrote the majority of his works during the reign of
Augustus. However, he's often identified with an attachment to the
Roman Republic and a desire for its restoration. Since the later books discussing the end of the
Republic and the rise of Augustus didn't survive, this is a moot point. Certainly Livy questioned some of the values of the new regime but it's likely that his position was more complex than a simple "republic/empire" preference. Augustus doesn't seem to have held these views against Livy, and entrusted his great-nephew, the future emperor
Claudius, to his tutelage. His effect on Claudius was apparent during the latter's reign, as the emperor's oratory closely adheres to Livy's account of Roman history.
Livy's writing style was poetic and archaic in contrast to Caesar's and Cicero's styles. Also, he often wrote from the Romans' opponent's point of view in order to accent the Romans' virtues in their conquest of Italy and the Mediterranean. In keeping with his poetic tendencies, he did little to distinguish between fact and fiction. Although he frequently plagiarized previous authors, he hoped that moral lessons from the past would serve to advance the Roman society of his day.
Livy's work was originally composed of 142 books, of which only 35 are
extant; these are Books 1–10 and 21–45 (with major
lacunae in 40–45). A fragmentary
palimpsest of the 91st book was discovered in the
Vatican Library in 1772, containing about a thousand words, and several papyrus fragments of previously unknown material, much smaller, have been found in Egypt since 1900, most recently about forty words from Book 11, unearthed in the 1980s. Livy was abridged, in antiquity, to an
epitome, which survives for Book 1, but was itself abridged into the so-called
Periochae, which is simply a list of contents, but which survives. An epitome of Books 37–40 and 48–55 was also uncovered at
Oxyrhynchus. So we've some idea of the topics Livy covered in the lost books, if often not what he said about them.
His sources include the
annalists, including
Quintus Fabius Pictor,
Quintus Claudius Quadrigarius,
Sempronius Asellio and
Valerius Antias.
In turn, a number of Roman authors used Livy, including
Aurelius Victor,
Cassiodorus,
Eutropius,
Festus,
Florus,
Granius Licinianus and
Orosius.
Julius Obsequens used Livy, or a source with access to Livy, to compose his
De Prodigiis, an account of
supernatural events in Rome, from the consulship of
Scipio and
Laelius to that of
Paulus Fabius and
Quintus Aelius.
A
digression in Book 9, Sections 17–19, suggests that the Romans would have beaten
Alexander the Great if he lived longer and turned west to attack the Romans, making this the oldest known
alternate history.
Reception
Livy's work met with instant acclaim. His books were published in sets of ten, although when entirely completed, his whole work was available for sale in its entirety. His highly literary approach to his historical writing renders his works very entertaining, and they remained constantly popular from his own day, through the Middle Ages, and into the modern world.
Dante speaks highly of him in his poetry, and
Francis I of France commissioned extensive artwork treating Livian themes. That he was chosen by Rome's first emperor to be the private tutor to his eventual successor indicates Livy's renown as a great writer and sage. As topics from his history appear to have been used for writing topics in Roman schools, it's more than likely that his works, or sections, were used as textbooks. The two ten-book sets that remained popular throughout the millennia are the first ten books, describing the founding of Rome and its conquest of Italy, and the third set of ten books (XXI to XXX) recounting the war with
Hannibal, which he himself indicates is his greatest theme. He can be looked upon as the prose counterpart of
Vergil in Golden Age Latin literature.
Politics
Many of Livy's comments on Roman politics seem surprisingly modern today. For example, he wrote (of the year 445 BC):
References and further reading
- Burck, E (1934), Die Erzählungskunst des T. Livius (Berlin)
- Chaplin, J (2000), Livy's Exemplary History (Oxford)
- Ed. Hornblower, Simon, and Antony Spawforth (2003), The Oxford Classical Dictionary (Oxford)
- Feldherr, A (1998), Spectacle and Society in Livy's History (Berkeley and London)
- Jaeger, M (1997), Livy's Written Rome (Ann Arbor)
- Kamm, Antony (1995), The Romans (London)
- Kraus, C S and Woodman, A J (1997), Latin Historians (Oxford)
- Lipovsky, James P (1984), A Historiographical Study of Livy: Books VI-X
- Luce, T J (1977), Livy: The Composition of his History (Princeton)
- Mackail, J.W. (1895), Latin Literature (New York)
- Miles, Gary B. Livy: Reconstructing Early Rome. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1997 (paperback, ISBN 0-8014-8426-X).
- Oakley, S P (1996-2005), A Commentary on Livy, Books VI-X, 4 vols. (Oxford)
- Ogilvie, R M (1965), A Commentary on Livy Books 1 to 5 (Oxford)
Further Information
Get more info on 'Livy'.
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