Livy

Titus Livius (Classical Latin: [ˈtɪ.tʊs ˈliː.wi.ʊs]; 64 or 59 BC – AD 17)—known as Livy /ˈlɪvi/ in English—was a Roman historian who wrote a monumental history of Rome and the Roman people – Ab Urbe Condita Libri (Books from the Foundation of the City) – covering the period from the earliest legends of Rome before the traditional foundation in 753 BC through the reign of Augustus in Livy's own time. He was on familiar terms with the Julio-Claudian dynasty, advising Augustus's grandnephew, the future emperor Claudius, as a young man not long before 14 AD in a letter to take up the writing of history.^[1] Livy and Augustus's wife, Livia, were from the same clan in different locations, although not related by blood.

Life

Livy was born as Titus Livius in Patavium in northern Italy, now modern Padua. There is a debate about the year of Titus Livius' birth, 64 BC or more likely 59 BC. At the time of his birth, his home city of Patavium was the second wealthiest on the Italian peninsula. Patavium was a part of the province of Cisalpine Gaul at the time. In his works, Livy often expressed his deep affection and pride for Patavium, and the city was well known for its conservative values in morality and politics.^[2] "He was by nature a recluse, mild in temperament and averse to violence; the restorative peace of his time gave him the opportunity to turn all his imaginative passion to the legendary and historical past of the country he loved."^[3]

Livy’s teen years were during the 40s BC, a time that coincided with the civil wars that were occurring throughout the Roman world. The governor of Cisalpine Gaul at the time, a man called Asinius Pollio, had tried to bring Patavium into the camp of Marcus Antonius, who was one of the three men in the fight for control over Rome. The wealthier citizens of Patavium refused to contribute money and arms to Asinius Pollio and went into hiding. Pollio then attempted to bribe the slaves of the wealthy citizens of Patavium to expose the whereabouts of their masters; his bribery did not work, and the citizens pledged their allegiance to conservatism and the Senate instead. Therefore, Livy and the other residents of Patavium did not end up supporting Marcus Antonius in his campaign for control over Rome. It is likely, then, that the Roman civil wars prevented Livy from pursuing a higher education in Rome or going on a Grand Tour of Greece, which was common for adolescent males of the nobility at the time. Later on, Asinius Pollio made a jibe at Livy's "patavinity", saying that Livy's Latin showed certain "provincialisms" frowned on at Rome. His jibe at Livy and his "patavinity", however, may have been said because the city of Patavium had rejected Asinius Pollio, and he still harboured harsh feelings toward the city as a whole.^[4]

Titus Livius probably went to Rome in the 30s BC, and it is likely that he spent a large amount of time in the city after this, although it may not have been his primary home. During his time in Rome, he was never a senator nor held any other governmental position. His elementary mistakes in military matters show that he was never a soldier. However, he was educated in philosophy and rhetoric. It seems that Livy had the financial resources and means to live an independent life. He devoted a large part of his life to his writings, which he was able to do because of his financial freedom.^[5]

Livy was known to give recitations to small audiences, but he was not heard of to engage in declamation, which was a common pastime. He was familiar with the emperor Augustus, formerly Octavian, and the imperial family. Octavian was one of the three men fighting for the control of Rome during the Civil Wars in the 40s BC. Octavian gained power after defeating Marcus Antonius and Cleopatra, and was later given the honorary name of Augustus. Considering that Augustus came to be known as the greatest Roman emperor in the eyes of the Romans, being a historian under Augustus was very beneficial to Livy’s career even after his death. It is said that Livy was the one who encouraged the future emperor Claudius, who was born in 10 BC, to explore the writing of history during his childhood. Livy himself was married and had at least one daughter and one son.^[5]

Livy’s most famous work was his history of Rome. In it he explains the complete history of the city of Rome, from its foundation to the death of Augustus. Because he was writing under the emperor Augustus, Livy’s history emphasizes the great triumphs of Rome.^[6] He wrote his history with embellished accounts of Roman heroism in order to promote the new type of government implemented by Augustus when he became emperor.^[7] In Livy’s preface to his history, he said that he did not care whether his personal fame remained in darkness, as long as his work helped to “preserve the memory of the deeds of the world’s preeminent nation.”^[8] Because Livy was writing about events that had occurred hundreds of years earlier, the value of his history was questionable, although many Romans came to believe what he wrote to be the true history of Rome’s foundation.^[9] He had also written other works, including an essay in the form of a letter to his son, and numerous dialogues, most likely using Cicero as a model.^[10]

Titus Livius is said to have died in the year AD 17 (three years after the death of the emperor Augustus) in his home city of Patavium.^[2]

Works

Bust of Caesar Augustus from the Musei Capitolini, Rome

Livy's only surviving work is the "History of Rome" (Ab Urbe Condita), which was his career from an age in middle life, probably 32, until he left Rome for Padua in old age, probably after the death of Augustus in the reign of Tiberius. When he began this work he was already past his youth; presumably, events in his life prior to that time had led to his intense activity as a historian. Seneca the Younger gives brief mention that he was also known as an orator and philosopher and had written some treatises in those fields from a historical point of view.^[11]

Reception

In the Roman Empire

Livy's History of Rome was in demand from the publication of the first packet. Livy became so famous that a man from Cadiz travelled to Rome just to see him, and once he had met with him, returned home.^[12] The popularity of the work continued through the entire Republic and early imperial period. 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.

Livy wrote during the reign of Augustus, who came to power after a civil war with generals and consuls claiming to be defending the Roman Republic, such as Pompey. Patavium had been pro-Pompey. To clarify his status, the victor of the civil war, Octavian Caesar, had wanted to take the title Romulus (the first king of Rome) but in the end accepted the senate proposal of Augustus. He did not abolish the republic de facto but adapted its institutions into the empire.

Livy's enthusiasm for the Republic is evident from the first pentade of his work, and yet the Julio-Claudian family (the imperial family) were as much fans of Livy as anyone. He could not have been an advocate of any sort of sedition in favor of restoring the Republic; he would have been put on trial for treason and executed, as many had been and would be. He must have been viewed as a harmless and relevant advocate of the ancient morality, which was a known public stance of the citizens of Patavium. His relationship to Augustus is defined primarily by a passage from Tacitus^[13] in which Cremutius Cordus is put on trial for his life for offenses no worse than Livy's and defends himself face-to-face with the frowning Tiberius as follows:

I am said to have praised Brutus and Cassius, whose careers many have described and no one mentioned without eulogy. Titus Livius, pre-eminently famous for eloquence and truthfulness, extolled Cnaeus Pompeius in such a panegyric that Augustus called him Pompeianus, and yet this was no obstacle to their friendship.

To avoid conviction, while waiting for a verdict, Cordus committed suicide by self-starvation. His worst fears were realized in absentia: his books were sentenced to be burned by the aediles, but the task was performed without zeal and many books escaped. Livy's reasons for returning to Padua after the death of Augustus (if he did) are unclear, but the circumstances of Tiberius' reign certainly allow for speculation.

Later

During the Middle Ages, interest in Livy declined.^[14] Due to the length of the work, the literate class was already reading summaries rather than the work itself, which was tedious to copy, expensive, and required a lot of storage space. It must have been during this period, if not before, that manuscripts began to be lost without replacement.

The Renaissance was a time of intense revival; the population discovered that Livy's work was being lost and large amounts of money changed hands in the rush to collect Livian manuscripts. The poet Beccadelli sold a country home for funding to purchase one manuscript copied by Poggio.^[14] Petrarch and Pope Nicholas V launched a search for the now missing books. Laurentius Valla published an amended text initiating the field of Livy scholarship. Dante speaks highly of him in his poetry, and Francis I of France commissioned extensive artwork treating Livian themes; Niccolò Machiavelli's work on republics, the Discourses on Livy is presented as a commentary on the History of Rome. Respect for Livy rose to lofty heights.

After a few hundred years of Livy being studied by the youth of every Western population, moderns have developed their own views of Livy and his place in the ancient world, which were not current in ancient times. For example, one text on western civilization pronounces: "Livy was the prose counterpart of Vergil," as both have been standard in the study of Golden Age Latin literature.^[15] Golden Age Latin was not known as such in classical times and the ancient reader could choose from a vastly larger bibliography; but, in fact, private reading was a privilege of the literate few, who had the wealth to buy manuscripts or have them copied and had the time for library research. Public readings of works, however, were common and the usual method in which an author became known.

Dates

Livy was likely born between 64 and 59 B.C. and died sometime between A.D. 12 to 17. He started his work sometime between 31 B.C. and 25 B.C. St. Jerome says that Livy was born the same year as Marcus Valerius Messala Corvinus and died the same year as Ovid.^[16] Messala, however, was born earlier, in 64 BC, and Ovid's death, usually taken to be the same year as Livy's, is more uncertain. As an alternative view, Ronald Syme argues for 64 BC – 12 AD as a range for Livy, setting the death of Ovid at 12.^[17] A death date of 12, however, removes Livy from Augustus' best years and makes him depart for Padua without the good reason of the second emperor, Tiberius, being not as tolerant of his republicanism. The contradiction remains.

The authority supplying information from which possible vital data on Livy can be deduced is Eusebius of Caesarea, a bishop of the early Christian Church. One of his works was a summary of world history in ancient Greek, termed the Chronikon, dating from the early 4th century AD. This work was lost except for fragments (mainly excerpts), but not before it had been translated in whole and in part by various authors such as St. Jerome. The entire work survives in two separate manuscripts, Armenian and Greek (Christesen and Martirosova-Torlone 2006). St. Jerome wrote in Latin. Fragments in Syriac exist.^[18]

Eusebius' work consists of two books: the Chronographia, a summary of history in annalist form, and the Chronikoi Kanones, tables of years and events. St. Jerome translated the tables into Latin as the Chronicon, probably adding some information of his own from unknown sources. Livy's dates appear in Jerome's Chronicon.

The main problem with the information given in the MSS is that, between them, they often give different dates for the same events or different events, do not include the same material entirely, and reformat what they do include. A date may be in Ab Urbe Condita or in Olympiads or in some other form, such as age. These variations may have occurred through scribal error or scribal license. Some material has been inserted under the aegis of Eusebius.

The topic of manuscript variants is a large and specialized one, on which authors of works on Livy seldom care to linger. As a result, standard information in a standard rendition is used, which gives the impression of a standard set of dates for Livy. There are no such dates. A typical presumption is of a birth in the 2nd year of the 180th Olympiad and a death in the first year of the 199th Olympiad, which are coded 180.2 and 199.1 respectively.^[16] All sources use the same first Olympiad, 776/775–773/772 BC by the modern calendar. By a complex formula (made so by the 0 reference point not falling on the border of an Olympiad), these codes correspond to 59 BC for the birth, 17 AD for the death. In another manuscript the birth is in 180.4, or 57 BC.^[19]

Notes

Bibliography

• Foster, B.O. (2008) [1874], Livy, Trollope Press, ISBN 0-674-99256-3 
• Livy (1998), The Rise of Rome, Books 1–5, trans. TJ Luce, Oxford: Oxford University Press .
• Livy (1994), Kraus, Christina Shuttleworth, ed., Ab vrbe condita, Book VI, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-41002-9 

Further reading

• Dorey, TA, ed. (1971), Livy, London & Toronto: Routledge & K. Paul .
• Fotheringham, John Knight (1905), The Bodleian Manuscript of Jerome's Version of the Chronicles of Eusebius, Oxford: The Clarendon Press .
• Hornblower, Simon; Spawforth, Antony, eds. (2003), The Oxford Classical Dictionary, Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-860641-3 .
• Kraus, CS; Woodman, AJ (2006), Latin Historians, Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-922293-3 .
• Syme, Ronald (1959). "Livy and Augustus". Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 64: 27–87. doi:10.2307/310937. JSTOR 310937.  Also in Badian, E, ed. (1979), Roman Papers I, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 400–54 .
• Walsh, PG (1966), "5 Livy", in Dorey, Thomas Alan; Thompson, EA, Latin Historians, Studies in Latin Literature and its Influence, London: Routledge & K Paul, pp. 115–42 .

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to: Livy

Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article Livy.

Wikisource has original works written by or about: Livy

• Works by Livy at Project Gutenberg
• Works by or about Livy at Internet Archive
• Works by Livy at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
• Lendering, Jona (2006–2009). "Livy (1): Life". Livius Articles on Ancient History. Livius.org. Retrieved 13 August 2009. 

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