Livy

Livy (born 59/64 bc, Patavium, Venetia [now Padua, Italy]—died ad 17, Patavium) with Sallust and Tacitus, one of the three great Roman historians. His history of Rome became a classic in his own lifetime and exercised a profound influence on the style and philosophy of historical writing down to the 18th century.

Early life and career

Little is known about Livy’s life and nothing about his family background. Patavium, a rich city, famous for its strict morals, suffered severely in the Civil Wars of the 40s. The wars and the unsettled condition of the Roman world after the death of Caesar in 44 bc probably prevented Livy from studying in Greece, as most educated Romans did. Although widely read in Greek literature, he made mistakes of translation that would be unnatural if he had spent any length of time in Greece and had acquired the command of Greek normal among his contemporaries. His education was based on the study of rhetoric and philosophy, and he wrote some philosophical dialogues that do not survive. There is no evidence about early career. His family apparently did not belong to the senatorial class, however distinguished it may have been in Patavium itself, and Livy does not seem to have embarked on a political or forensic profession. He is first heard of in Rome after Octavian (later known as the emperor Augustus) had restored stability and peace to the empire by his decisive naval victory at Actium in 31 bc. Internal evidence from the work itself shows that Livy had conceived the plan of writing the history of Rome in or shortly before 29 bc, and for this purpose he must have already moved to Rome, because only there were the records and information available. It is significant that another historian, the Greek Dionysius of Halicarnassus, who was to cover much the same ground as Livy, settled in Rome in 30 bc. A more secure age had dawned.

Most of his life must have been spent at Rome, and at an early stage he attracted the interest of Augustus and was even invited to supervise the literary activities of the young Claudius (the future emperor), presumably about ad 8. But he never became closely involved with the literary world of Rome—the poets Horace, Virgil, and Ovid, as well as the patron of the arts, Maecenas, and others. He is never referred to in connection with these men. He must have possessed sufficient private means not to be dependent on official patronage. Indeed, in one of the few recorded anecdotes about him, Augustus called him a “Pompeian,” implying an outspoken and independent turn of mind. His lifework was the composition of his history.

Livy’s history of Rome

Livy began by composing and publishing in units of five books, the length of which was determined by the size of the ancient papyrus roll. As his material became more complex, however, he abandoned this symmetrical pattern and wrote 142 books. So far as it can be reconstructed, the shape of the history is as follows (books 11–20 and 46–142 have been lost):

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• 1–5 From the foundation of the city until the sack of Rome by the Gauls (386 bc)
• 6–10 The Samnite wars
• 11–15 The conquest of Italy
• 16–20 The First Punic (Carthaginian) War
• 21–30 The Second Punic War (until 201 bc)
• 31–45 Events until the end of the war with Perseus (167 bc)
• 46–70 Events until the Social War (91 bc)
• 71–80 Civil wars until the death of Marius (86bc)
• 81–90 Civil wars until the death of Sulla (78 bc)
• 91–103 Events until the triumph of Pompey in 62 bc
• 104–108 The last years of the Republic
• 109–116 The Civil War until the murder of Caesar (44 bc)
• 117–133 From the death of Caesar to the Battle of Actium
• 134–142 From 29 to 9 bc

Apart from fragments, quoted by grammarians and others, and a short section dealing with the death of the orator and politician Cicero from Book 120, the later books after Book 45 are known only from summaries. These were made from the 1st century ad onward, because the size of the complete work made it unmanageable. There were anthologies of the speeches and also concise summaries, two of which survive in part, a 3rd-century papyrus from Egypt (containing summaries of Books 37–40 and 48–55) and a 4th-century summary of contents (known as the Periochae) of the whole work. A note in the Periochae of Book 121 records that that book (and presumably those that followed) was published after Augustus’ death in ad 14. The implication is that the last 20 books dealing with the events from the Battle of Actium until 9 bc were an afterthought to the original plan and were also too politically explosive to be published with impunity in Augustus’ lifetime.

The sheer scope of the undertaking was formidable. It presupposed the composition of three books a year on average. Two stories reflect the magnitude of the task. In his letters the statesman Pliny the Younger records that Livy was tempted to abandon the enterprise but found that the task had become too fascinating to give it up; he also mentions a citizen of Cádiz who came all the way to Rome for the sole satisfaction of gazing at the great historian.