(patavinitas), properly the mode of speaking peculiar to the people of Patavium, is a term employed by literary critics, to denote generally any provincial idiom. The word takes its origin from the alleged provincialisms to be found in the writings of Livy, who was a native of Patavium, a provincial town belonging to the Roman empire. According to Quintilian (i. 5, § 56; viii. 1, § 3), Pallio censured the historian for this alleged defect, but it does not appear that any critic has ever pointed out precisely in what the patavinity of Livy really consists. It was perhaps of so subtle and delicate a nature that we are no longer in a position to detect it. Niebuhr simplifies the matter by altogether disbelieving Quintilian's story.