LIVIVS, TITUS, the most celebrated of the Roman historians, was descended from an illustrious family which had given several consuls to Rome. Only a few particulars of his life have been transmitted to us. He was born at Patavium, now Padua, in the N. of Italy, B.C. 59, the year before Cicero was driven into banishment; and died at the advanced age of seventy-six, A.D. 17, the same year as Ovid. He resided during the greater part of his life at Rome; and, if we may credit a statement of Suetonius (in Claud. 41), became the instructor of the Emperor Claudius. His history was written partly at Rome and partly at Naples, and it is said that his reputation was so widely diffused, that a native of Gades, now Cadiz, in Spain, actually visited Rome for no other purpose than to have the pleasure of forming an acquaintance with the historian. (Plin. Ep. ii. 3.) From some inscriptions found at Padua (in 1413), it has been asserted that Livy was twice married, and had two sons and four daughters; but this must rest merely on conjecture, as there were no doubt many of the same name in Padua. Seneca (Procm. v. Contrav.), indeed,
states that one of his daughters was married to L. Magius, the rhetorician.
Besides his history, we are acquainted with the titles of three other works of which he was the author; but not a fragment of them has been preserved. These were,—Epistola ad Filium scripta, mentioned by Quintilian (i. 10); Dialogi, which Seneca (Epist. c.) hesitates whether he ought to class amongst historical or philosophical works; and Libri ex professo Philosophiam continentes. The loss, however, of these works is less a subject of regret than that of the greater part of his Roman History, or, as he himself modestly entitles it, Annals of the Roman People. This work extends from the building of the city to the year 744 (B.C. 9), when Drusus was carrying on war in Germany, and in which he died. Livy undertook this work probably at the suggestion of Augustus, when he was already far advanced in years. It consisted of 142 books, of which only thirty-five remain; and some of these (lib. xli. xlvi. xlv.) are in a very imperfect state. The first ten contain the history of Rome from its foundation to B.C. 294; the others (xxi.-xlvi.) from B.C. 219 to B.C. 167, or from the beginning of the second Punic war to the end of the wars with Perseus and Gentius. Of the remaining books we possess only considerable fragments, with short epitomes, which have been supposed, though without any sufficient reason, to have been composed by the writer Florus. The whole were not discovered at one time, but were supplied partly from MS. belonging to the cathedral church of St Martin at Mayence, partly from one found in the convent of Lorsch, near Worms, and partly from a palimpsest in the Vatican, of which Niebuhr published a full copy at Berlin in 1820. No MS. has yet been discovered containing all the books now extant. There is, indeed, no loss that has befallen us in Roman literature at all to be compared to that which has left this history imperfect.
Livy follows a chronological arrangement in his history, and, like Dionysius of Halicarnassus, has adopted the Cætonian era for his basis. He therefore supposed the city of Rome to have been founded B.C. 751, whereas Varro placed it two years earlier, B.C. 753. The sources from which he derived his information, more particularly for the earlier parts of his history, seem less worthy of belief, though he probably had recourse to the best within his reach. All the more ancient historical records had no doubt disappeared, and he could therefore only be acquainted with their statements through the medium of later annalists. For this early period he had recourse to the works of no Greek historian, unless we include amongst them that of L. Cincius Alimentus, who, though a Roman, wrote in the Greek language. This author served in the second Punic war, and he is called by Livy (vii. 3) a most diligent investigator of ancient monuments. In the early part of the war he fell into the hands of Hannibal, and from him he received an account of his passage through Gaul and across the Alps, which he incorporated in his history. To the works of this writer Livy acknowledges himself much indebted. As to the sources from which he drew his materials for the second decade (xi.-xx.), which is lost, all that can be said is only matter of conjecture; but we know that Polybius was the principal writer whom he consulted, and that he followed that writer generally both in the arrangement of his materials and in the development of the story. It is not a sufficient answer to this that Livy seldom alludes to Polybius as his authority, since he does not think it necessary to cite the writer upon whom he depends for his information, unless on occasions where there is a difference of opinion. There is no doubt, that wherever he has adopted the statements of Polybius, we may place perfect confidence in the account; and yet, where they differ, we must not condemn Livy, who evidently consulted Roman authorities of undoubted credi-
Livius. lity, and who may, upon due examination, have come to the conclusion that Polybius was mistaken. The difference in the accounts given by the two historians of Hannibal's passage across the Alps is an example of this, though the balance of probability is greatly in favour of that of Polybius.
Livy has been accused of a wilful perversion of the truth, of an undue partiality for his own country, and a desire to recommend himself to the favour of the nobility, by flattering their pride by the manner in which he records the deeds of their ancestors. But if he represents the characters of his countrymen in a different light from other writers, might he not suppose himself better able to appreciate their conduct? and if his love of country led him to conceal whatever might be prejudicial to them in the eyes of posterity, it was a fault for which he may be forgiven, though it certainly must be allowed to detract considerably from the value of his work. He has been accused also of superstition, because he has reported faithfully all the prodigies and omens in which those early ages abounded, and which seemed to have formed the principal part of their religion; but he has several times observed, that he narrates those wonderful events because he found them in the ancient annalists whom he consulted, without meaning to vouch for their accuracy. Livy was evidently gifted by nature with a brilliant talent for narration, and for seizing the characteristic features of humanity. He was a poet, though without the power or perhaps the love of versifying. His rhetorical powers, too, were of the highest order; and, in the palmy state of the republic, he would have ranked among the first orators of his age. The periods of Livy are full and well rounded, in imitation of the style of Cicero; and indeed the age in which he lived would have tolerated no other mode of writing. It is strange that there should be any difficulty in discovering the political sentiments of the historian; but he felt that he was writing under the eye of a despot, however amiable, and he thought himself obliged to suppress many sentiments to which he would, in other circumstances, have given utterance. He was fully sensible of the degeneracy of his own days, and was glad to forget it by reviving the recollection of all that was glorious and noble in the past. He might also imagine that he could excite in the breasts of his countrymen a desire to emulate the heroic deeds of their ancestors, and might thus be the means of restoring the constitution of his country to its ancient form and strength. It is said that Augustus accused him of being too favourable to the party of Pompey (Tacit. Ann. iv. 34); and we may therefore conclude that he was in his heart a partisan of the republic. It has been much disputed what Asinius Pollio (Quintil. viii. 1) meant by the accusation he brought against Livy of Patavincity (Patavincatas); but it seems the most likely conjecture that it was some provincialism in the language and style, perceptible to the refined ear of a Roman critic, though we can no longer discern it.
Livy's history was first printed at Rome, about the year 1469, by Sweynheym and Pannartz, in folio. Of this rare edition Lord Spencer is in possession of a fine copy; but the most exquisite one is that printed on vellum, which formerly belonged to the Imperial Library at Vienna, but was afterwards acquired by a private collector in England. Among the subsequent editions of the history may be mentioned that of Gronovius, who first placed the text upon a satisfactory basis by a collation of many MSS., of which the best edition is printed by Elzevir, 3 vols. 8vo, 1679; that of Leclerc, 10 vols. 8vo, Amsterdam, 1710, containing the supplements of Freinsheimius entire; that of Crevier, 6 vols. 4to, Paris, 1735. The standard edition is considered to be by Drakenborch, published at Leyden, in 7 vols. 4to, 1738-46. Later editions, by Ruperti, Göttingen, 1807; and of Bekker and Raschig,
Leipsic, 1829, are of less value. There is a new edition by Alchevski, Berlin, 8vo, 1841, brought down to the end of the first decade; but perhaps Drakenborch, with the Commentaries of Lachmann, supplies every assistance necessary for the scholar. (See Schweiger's Handbuch der Classischen Bibliographie, 8vo, Leipsic, 1832.) There are the following English translations:—Philemon Holland, folio, London, 1600-1659; Baker's, in many editions; and one published by John Hayes (London, 1744-45, 6 vols. 8vo), said to be executed by several hands; also one in Bohn's Classical Library, 1850.