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- Herausgeber: DigiCat
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Sprache: Englisch
Livy's "The History of Rome" (Volumes 1-4) offers a sweeping narrative that chronicles the rise and fall of Rome from its legendary foundation through the early republic. Written in a rich, eloquent Latin prose, Livy's work is characterized by its moral reflection and engaging storytelling, drawing on both historical and mythological elements. His vivid descriptions and detailed accounts invite readers into the heart of Roman civilization, providing insights into its political, social, and military evolution while situating the narrative within the broader framework of Mediterranean history and Roman values. Titus Livius, known as Livy, was born in 59 BCE in Patavium (modern Padua, Italy). His life coincided with the turbulent transition from the Roman Republic to the Empire, experiences that profoundly influenced his perspective. Writing during the reign of Emperor Augustus, Livy sought to instill a sense of Roman identity and virtue amidst the backdrop of political upheaval, reflecting both nostalgia for the Republic's values and an understanding of contemporary shifts. This monumental work is essential for readers interested in classical history and the foundations of Western civilization. Livy's eloquent prose and keen analytical insights not only entertain but also provoke deep reflections on human nature and governance. "The History of Rome" remains a vital source for scholars and enthusiasts alike, illuminating the struggles and triumphs of one of history's greatest civilizations. In this enriched edition, we have carefully created added value for your reading experience: - A succinct Introduction situates the work's timeless appeal and themes. - The Synopsis outlines the central plot, highlighting key developments without spoiling critical twists. - A detailed Historical Context immerses you in the era's events and influences that shaped the writing. - An Author Biography reveals milestones in the author's life, illuminating the personal insights behind the text. - A thorough Analysis dissects symbols, motifs, and character arcs to unearth underlying meanings. - Reflection questions prompt you to engage personally with the work's messages, connecting them to modern life. - Hand‐picked Memorable Quotes shine a spotlight on moments of literary brilliance. - Interactive footnotes clarify unusual references, historical allusions, and archaic phrases for an effortless, more informed read.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023
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The History of Rome (Vol. 1-4)
Table of Contents
Introduction
A small hilltown learns to rule itself before it dares to rule the world. In The History of Rome (Vol. 1-4), Livy begins the immense narrative of a society testing the terms of authority, duty, and survival. These opening volumes follow Rome from legendary beginnings into the formative years of the Republic, when institutions are invented, boundaries are tested, and a civic identity takes shape. Livy’s focus is not simply on events, but on the character of a people learning, often painfully, how to balance tradition with necessity. The result is a story at once intimate and monumental, a portrait of public life under constant pressure.
This work holds classic status because it unites historical ambition with literary artistry. Ab Urbe Condita—Livy’s title in Latin, meaning “From the Founding of the City”—weaves chronology into drama, crafting scenes and speeches that illuminate motives as well as outcomes. The narrative’s scale is epic, yet its episodes are sharply drawn, allowing readers to grasp how individual choices echo through institutions and generations. Livy’s prose, measured and dignified, set a standard for historical style in Latin. The History of Rome has endured not merely as a record, but as an exemplar of how narrative can clarify civic ideals and the costs of abandoning them.
The enduring themes that animate these volumes—leadership and legitimacy, liberty and order, courage and restraint—have influenced thinkers far beyond antiquity. Renaissance humanists treated Livy as a master of moral and political instruction. Niccolò Machiavelli’s Discourses on Livy is a famous early modern engagement with these histories, using them to probe republican practice and corruption. Scholars, educators, and statesmen have repeatedly returned to Livy for case studies in constitutional balance, public virtue, and the dynamics of collective memory. The book’s imprint is visible in historical writing that measures empires not only by territory or conquest, but by the strength of their laws, customs, and civic spirit.
Titus Livius, known in English as Livy, was born in Patavium (modern Padua) around 59 BCE and died in 17 CE. He composed his history during the reign of Augustus, beginning in the late first century BCE and continuing for decades. The project’s scale is extraordinary: 142 books were written, of which 35 survive intact, with excerpts and summaries preserving portions of others. Livy’s intention was comprehensive—to recount Rome’s story from its legendary origins to events near his own time. The first part of that design, gathered in Vol. 1-4 in many modern editions, sets the foundations by narrating the city’s emergence and early republican evolution.
The central premise is straightforward yet profound: to trace the growth of Rome as a moral and political community. These initial volumes move from the city’s mythic foundation toward the establishment of republican offices and procedures, and then through early tests of cohesion—pressures from within and without. Livy presents formative struggles as proving grounds where practices are refined and norms solidified. He invites readers to watch how rituals, laws, and leadership habits acquire authority, and how social tensions are negotiated. Without presuming modern certainty, he shows a polity learning to adapt without losing the core of its identity.
Livy’s method blends annalistic order with interpretive storytelling. He arranges events by years and magistracies, yet he pauses for set speeches and carefully framed episodes that reveal character and motive. For the earliest eras, he openly draws on legend and earlier Roman annalists, reflecting the limited records available for those distant centuries. Readers thus encounter a conscious mixture: myth and memory on the one hand, institutional detail on the other. What emerges is not a bare chronicle, but a reflective account, attentive to causes and consequences and to the exemplary power of stories in shaping civic behavior.
The literary texture of these volumes is richly varied. Public ceremonies and council debates alternate with scenes of hardship and recovery, lending rhythm and contrast to the narrative. Livy fashions characters who stand for postures toward law, religion, and authority—figures who embody discipline or rashness, conciliation or defiance—so that choices become intelligible as moral stances. His Latin is stately without stiffness, capable of rising to solemnity or pressing urgency. The cumulative effect is a history that reads like an education in citizenship, not through abstract treatise, but through the unfolding of consequential actions over time.
As a classic, The History of Rome shaped later historiography by modeling how to balance scope with selectivity. Its year-by-year framework grounds readers, while its thematic emphases invite reflection beyond immediate events. Early modern editors, teachers, and statesmen treated Livy as a touchstone for political vocabulary and civic ethics. His method of presenting crises through speeches helped legitimate rhetorical analysis as a tool of historical inquiry. That influence persists in modern narratives that seek coherence across long spans, using emblematic episodes to illuminate structural change without losing the human drama that makes such change comprehensible.
The textual story of Livy’s work also strengthened its status. Medieval manuscripts preserved substantial portions, and the Renaissance revived and printed the text, ensuring broad circulation. Translations in numerous languages have since made these volumes accessible to readers with interests ranging from classical studies to political thought. Editorial practices typically group the earliest books in the opening volumes of modern sets, allowing one to follow the arc from foundation tales into the solidifying Republic. That continuity of transmission has kept Livy present in classrooms and libraries, where his blend of narrative and reflection remains instructive.
Reading Vol. 1-4 demands attention to Livy’s context as an Augustan-era writer, even as he depicts much earlier centuries. He writes with a keen sense of the moral uses of history, selecting and shaping material to clarify civic lessons without claiming omniscience. The earliest chapters rely on traditions that Romans themselves cherished, and he treats them respectfully, as stories with explanatory power. At the same time, the annalistic framework and institutional details anchor the narrative. The interplay between legend and record does not confuse the reader; it dramatizes how communities remember, justify, and reform themselves.
The appeal of these volumes lies in their union of urgency and patience. The urgency comes from crises that force choices—about command, obligation, and the terms of liberty. The patience comes from Livy’s long view, which shows how incremental adjustments in law, ritual, and leadership build a durable political culture. The result is an account that rewards careful reading: patterns emerge, temperaments reveal themselves, and institutions grow sturdier or falter accordingly. Even without foreknowledge of later centuries, the reader feels the weight of beginnings—moments when Rome decides who it will be and how it will live together.
Today, Livy’s first four volumes remain relevant because they explore perennial questions: how a society secures consent, manages ambition, disciplines power, and tells its own story responsibly. They illuminate the risks of fear and the uses of courage, the necessity of institutional memory, and the fragile compact between leaders and citizens. Modern readers can see in these pages how communities withstand shocks by reaffirming or reforming their principles. The History of Rome endures as both literature and civic meditation, offering a compelling invitation to reflect on the foundations of public life and on the narratives that sustain it.
Synopsis
Livy (Titus Livius), an Augustan-era Roman historian, composed The History of Rome to narrate the city’s development from its legendary beginnings through his own time. In four-volume English presentations, the early and middle portions unfold in annalistic order, blending mythic tradition, documentary traces, and interpretive speeches. Livy’s stated aims include preserving memory of deeds and examining civic character and institutions. His method juxtaposes public crises with private example, probing causes, decisions, and consequences. Across these volumes, he emphasizes formation of authority, military trials, and moral testing, establishing themes—piety, discipline, ambition, and fortune—that recur as the commonwealth expands, consolidates power, and confronts increasingly complex external rivals.
Livy opens with Trojan and Italian traditions to frame Rome’s origins. He recounts the lineage that leads from Aeneas to Alba Longa, culminating in the storied birth of Romulus and Remus and the founding of the city. The narrative presents institutions attributed to the founders—assemblies, the senate, and religious rites—alongside episodes that dramatize early inclusion and conflict, such as the union with the Sabines. Even in these legendary chapters, Livy points to choices about law, ritual, and leadership that will echo throughout the work. The mythic beginnings set the tone: Rome’s destiny is shaped by ritual observance, political invention, and contentious integration.
With the line of kings, Livy moves from foundation to the construction of civic order. He highlights rulers associated with distinct contributions—religious regulation and priesthoods, martial discipline, legal ordering, and civic works—while also presenting tensions between just governance and overreach. The census-based structuring of civic responsibilities and assemblies is credited to reforming authority, and leads to debates about status and obligation. The final monarch is depicted as ruling through fear and exclusion, catalyzing a crisis of legitimacy. By charting the arc from virtuous precedent to perceived tyranny, Livy prepares the transition from personal rule to collective magistracies and a renewed commitment to public consent.
After the expulsion of kings, the Republic emerges with annually elected magistrates, a strengthened senate, and evolving popular assemblies. Livy’s attention turns to how authority is divided, restrained, and contested. Social conflict between patricians and plebeians becomes a recurring motor of the narrative: debt, land, and access to office generate secessions, negotiations, and new offices designed to protect the vulnerable. Legal codification, including the earliest comprehensive statutes, anchors standards for both private relations and public conduct. The historian maps how law, oath, and precedent gradually channel conflict into institutions, while showing that emergency powers and extraordinary commands remain permanently within reach.
Parallel to domestic bargaining, the early Republic fights persistent wars with neighboring peoples. Livy interlaces campaigns with civic debate, showing how levies, taxation, discipline, and command are justified or resisted at home. Episodes of individual resolve, self-sacrifice, and cunning serve as moral touchstones, yet decisions often turn on procedural authority and collective endurance. Extended sieges and shifting alliances illustrate Rome’s cautious consolidation in Latium and beyond, while defeats expose vulnerabilities in organization and supply. The historian’s pacing underscores the reciprocity between internal order and external success: political cohesion enables victories, and victories, when shared equitably, reinforce a broader sense of civic belonging.
A major crisis arrives with a northern incursion that overwhelms Rome’s defenses and forces a reckoning with institutional resilience. Livy’s account emphasizes the shock of defeat, the sanctity of rites preserved amid disruption, and the labor of rebuilding civic and military capacity. Subsequent reforms refine recruitment, finance, and command collaboration between magistrates and senate. Intermittent relief measures and political compromises seek to integrate plebeian demands without dissolving aristocratic leadership. The narrative recurs to the tension between exemplary austerity and the allure of personal glory, presenting recovery not as inevitable, but as the product of persistent discipline, renewed legal order, and communal investment.
As Rome extends its reach across central and southern Italy, Livy portrays prolonged, grinding wars that force tactical adaptation and strategic patience. Campaigns against formidable highland coalitions and rival leagues test the flexibility of command and the capacity to sustain multiple fronts. The historian traces how colonization, treaties, and graded citizenship knit conquered communities into a durable alliance system, giving Rome manpower and logistical depth. Setbacks punctuate advances, prompting debates over caution versus audacity. The portrayal of senate deliberation, assemblies, and field improvisation reveals a polity learning to synchronize political consent, civic sacrifice, and military method on an ever-widening scale.
With the consolidation of Italy, the narrative widens to entanglements with greater Mediterranean powers. Livy presents maritime ventures, protracted sieges, and distant theaters that demand new forms of command and supply. Naval experimentation and coalition diplomacy become necessary, while prolonged warfare strains finances and tests constitutional custom. The historian highlights how prodigies, vows, and auspices are invoked to frame risk and decision, and how celebrated commanders are alternately empowered and constrained by law and tradition. The extended conflicts dramatize the costs of expansion and the adaptation of Roman institutions to unprecedented pressures, even as the community asserts a distinctive identity among rival states.
Throughout, Livy’s history remains both narrative and inquiry—into the conditions of civic greatness, the fragility of order, and the uses of memory. His selective speeches interpret motive and policy; his episodes of virtue and failure function as instructive examples. The four-volume arc closes without a simple moral, but with a sustained demonstration of how law, ritual, consent, and discipline can magnify or squander collective power. By setting Rome’s ascent within a frame of ethical reflection and institutional experiment, the work endures as a study of statecraft and citizenship, inviting readers to weigh ambition against restraint and fortune against foresight.
Historical Context
The History of Rome’s opening books, often issued in four modern volumes, situate readers in early central Italy and the city on the Tiber that will become Rome. Livy writes in the age of Augustus (late first century BCE to early first century CE), but his narrative ranges from Rome’s legendary foundations through the early Republic and the fourth century BCE. Dominant institutions framing the story include the monarchy and, later, the Republic’s Senate, popular assemblies, magistracies, priestly colleges, and the customary code called the mos maiorum. Livy treats these institutions both as narrative actors and as repositories of collective memory and civic norms.
Livy’s project is expansive: roughly 142 books from the city’s founding to his own day, though only parts survive. The early books blend myth, antiquarian lore, and annalistic history. He often signals uncertainty in archaic episodes, distinguishing between tradition and what records permit. Drawing on earlier Roman annalists (such as Fabius Pictor) and Greek historians, he arranges events year by year and composes speeches to illuminate motives. Writing as a layman from Patavium (modern Padua), not a senator or general, Livy pursues moral and civic instruction. His history aims to recover exemplary character amid Rome’s crises and subsequent Augustan stabilization.
The monarchical period provides the scaffolding of Roman identity. Livy recounts Romulus and the early kings, culminating with the Tarquins, whose reigns are narrated within a recognizable central Italian world shaped by Latin, Sabine, and Etruscan interactions. Monumental works—such as the Capitol’s temple to Jupiter Optimus Maximus and the great urban drain (the Cloaca Maxima)—anchor the narrative in verifiable material landmarks. Royal insignia, triumphal rites, and urban engineering bear Etruscan marks, a point consistent with broader archaeological and literary evidence. Livy uses this royal past both to explain later institutions and to frame the Republic’s abiding suspicion of one-man rule.
Religion in Livy’s early books is institutional, public, and pervasive. The second king, Numa Pompilius, symbolizes the founding of priesthoods and rites: pontiffs, augurs, Vestals, and flamines. Auspices structure decision-making; vows (vota) bind commanders and communities to the gods; prodigies and expiations require authoritative interpretation. These features mirror what we know of Republican religious life, where priestly colleges, ritual calendars, and sacred law bound civic action. Writing under Augustus—who famously restored temples and rituals—Livy foregrounds the antiquity, order, and utility of Roman cult, not as propaganda but as a historical explanation of how piety and procedure stabilized early politics and warfare.
Livy credits Servius Tullius with reforms that organize citizens by wealth into classes and centuries, forming the comitia centuriata for elections and war. He describes the census, the levy, and tribal divisions that later frame voting and taxation. A massive circuit of fortification—the so‑called Servian Wall—figures in his narrative, while archaeology places its main construction after the Gallic sack. Livy’s account uses the Servian system to explain how military obligation and political voice correlate with property. Whatever the exact chronology, the linkage among census, army, and assembly is central to Rome’s development as a citizen commonwealth able to mobilize large manpower.
The transition from monarchy to republic (traditionally 509 BCE) structures Livy’s explanation of Roman liberty. The expulsion of Tarquinius Superbus, the establishment of annually elected consuls, and the oath against kingship articulate the Republic’s values of collegiality and limited tenure. Early Valerian laws protect the right of appeal (provocatio) against magistrates’ coercion. The office of dictator, appointed in emergencies, provides temporary concentration of authority balanced by strict term limits. Livy’s narrative emphasizes a constitutional ethos: recurring moments of crisis test whether Romans will submit to personal domination or reaffirm norms that disperse power and elevate lawful procedure.
Domestic tensions drive much of Books 2–4. Debt bondage (nexum), arrears after campaigns, and unequal access to land spark the first secession of the plebs to the Sacred Mount (494 BCE). Livy recounts the creation of plebeian tribunes and aediles, with tribunes’ sacrosanctity defended by a shared religious pledge (lex sacrata). The tribunate provides institutional advocacy for commoners within a patrician-dominated system. Livy shows conflict as chronic yet productive: agitation yields new offices and safeguards while preserving a framework of shared civic identity. His portraits of tribunes and senators offer a measured view of elite negotiation and plebeian pressure.
Legal codification becomes a watershed. Livy narrates the appointment of decemvirs to produce the Twelve Tables (451–450 BCE), Rome’s earliest public law code. The tables regulate private and public matters, offering transparency to all citizens. The decemvirs’ overreach, culminating in Appius Claudius’ abuse and the tragedy of Verginia, triggers the second secession (449 BCE). The Valerio-Horatian laws restore the right of appeal, reaffirm the inviolability of tribunes, and accord greater force to plebiscites. Livy’s account underscores two lessons: publicity of law curbs arbitrary power, and constitutional restoration after emergency is essential to preserving liberty.
Adjustments continue through mid-fifth century BCE. The Lex Canuleia (445 BCE) legalizes intermarriage between patricians and plebeians, weakening hereditary barriers. Periodic resort to “military tribunes with consular power” reflects a flexible compromise over access to high office before the consulship fully opens to plebeians. The creation of the censorship (443 BCE) separates the census and moral oversight from consuls and anchors the five-year lustrum. Livy punctuates these institutional changes with household exempla—Lucretia, Cloelia, and others—illustrating ideals of chastity, courage, and filial duty that inform everyday relations under the paterfamilias and the reciprocity of patron and client.
Foreign wars shape inner reform. Livy details recurring conflicts with Veii, the Volsci, and the Aequi. The long siege of Veii (406–396 BCE) is a turning point: he reports the introduction of regular pay (stipendium) for soldiers and describes new siege techniques. The commander Marcus Furius Camillus becomes an exemplar of strict discipline and pious leadership. While some particulars in this cycle are debated today, Livy uses Veii to show how sustained warfare compelled fiscal innovation, institutional adaptation, and integration of conquered territory. War spoils, vows to deities, and colonial foundations connect expansion to the Republic’s economic and religious life.
The Gallic sack (ca. 390/387 BCE) is Livy’s archetype of catastrophe and recovery. He narrates the defeat at the Allia, Rome’s occupation, and a ransom narrowly averted in his telling by Camillus’ dramatic intervention. Whatever the precise details, the aftermath included large-scale rebuilding, the strengthening of city walls, and renewed civic rituals to expiate prodigies. Livy also preserves memorable folklore—Capitoline geese, the “woe to the vanquished” cry—that became moral shorthand for vigilance and steadfastness. The episode re-centers Roman identity on endurance, presenting collapse and reconstruction as formative experiences that temper later institutions and ambitions.
Livy attributes a major constitutional settlement to the Licinio-Sextian reforms (367 BCE): the opening of the consulship to plebeians, limitations on holding public land (ager publicus), and the concurrent creation of the praetorship and curule aedileship as patrician-predominant offices. The first plebeian consul, L. Sextius Lateranus (366 BCE), symbolizes the new balance. Livy’s narrative highlights persistent elite resistance, repeated attempts at compromise, and the tribunate’s strategic persistence. These reforms, as he presents them, complete a long arc from exclusion to shared governance without abolishing aristocratic leadership, thereby embedding plebeian advancement within a conservative, law-governed framework.
Relations with the Latins culminate in the Latin War (340–338 BCE). Livy depicts allied demands for parity and Rome’s insistence on leadership. The decisive battles include the famous devotio of Publius Decius Mus at Vesuvius, offering himself to the gods to secure victory—an episode fusing piety, civic duty, and military success. The postwar settlement dissolves the Latin League; communities receive differentiated statuses, from full citizenship to citizenship without the vote (civitas sine suffragio), while some become colonies. Livy’s account aligns with known Roman practices of graded incorporation, showing how military victory and calibrated legal integration built a durable confederation.
The Samnite conflicts frame the later portion of these volumes. The First Samnite War (343–341 BCE) intertwines with Campanian politics, and a renewed struggle begins in 326 BCE. Livy’s most dramatic episode here is the Caudine Forks (321 BCE), where Roman armies are trapped and compelled to pass under the yoke. He explores issues of fides—whether oaths by commanders bind the state—and honors public law over personal pledges. Tradition associates these mountain wars with the emergence of the manipular legion, tactically suited to rough terrain, a theme Livy leverages to discuss adaptability, training, and the relationship between citizen-soldiers and command.
Economic realities underlie Livy’s politics. Smallholder agriculture, property qualifications for military service, and repeated disputes over ager publicus drive reform. He notes the abolition of nexum by the Lex Poetelia Papiria (traditionally 326 BCE), curbing debt bondage and reshaping creditor-debtor relations. Bronze by weight (aes rude) predominates before standardized coinage; stipends, booty, and land allotments sustain armies and veterans. Enslavement of captives, manumission, and clientage configure labor and dependency. Livy presents debt crises not as isolated abuses but as structural strains produced by protracted campaigning and uneven access to the benefits of conquest.
Livy’s early Rome is also a culture of memory. He cites the pontifical annals, family records, inscriptions, and monuments; funeral orations and imagines in aristocratic houses transmit exempla across generations. He occasionally compares written testimony with material evidence, as in his discussion of the spolia opima dedicated in the temple of Jupiter Feretrius. The speeches he crafts aim to convey character and civic reasoning rather than stenographic accuracy. This memorializing method resonates with Augustan Rome’s antiquarian interests and restoration programs, where recovering, cataloging, and monumentalizing the past served both scholarship and the ethical education of citizens.
Livy wrote after a century of civil wars, during a political settlement that promoted peace, fertility, and ancestral morals. His preoccupation with concordia, lawful magistracy, and piety mirrors Augustan themes without collapsing into court history. The early books criticize arrogance, faction, and extra-legal violence, while praising modesty, consultation, and rule-bound command. By choosing archaic episodes that dramatize popular protest within constitutional channels and elite leadership under religious sanction, Livy offers a usable past: a mirror in which his contemporaries could see the costs of discord and the benefits of discipline. The result is both a national epic and a civic manual.
Author Biography
Titus Livius, known as Livy, was a Roman historian from Patavium (modern Padua) who lived during the transition from Republic to Empire. Born in the mid-first century BCE and dying in the early first century CE, he wrote under the principate of Augustus, a period of political consolidation and cultural renewal. Livy’s monumental history of Rome, Ab Urbe Condita, sought to narrate the city’s past from its legendary foundation to his own time. His work became a touchstone for Roman identity, offering narratives of virtue, vice, and civic duty that shaped later understandings of Rome’s origins and the moral lessons to be drawn from history.
Little secure evidence survives about Livy’s education, but his prose reveals training in rhetoric typical of learned Romans of his era. Augustan intellectual currents emphasized moral exempla and renewed traditions, a climate that shaped his historiographical aims. Livy drew on earlier Roman annalists and Greek historians; Polybius, in particular, informed his account of the Punic Wars. He also absorbed stylistic practices from Roman oratory, employing periodic sentences and set-piece speeches. Rather than technical antiquarianism, his orientation was literary and ethical, aiming to provide readers with models of conduct and a sense of Rome’s communal past.
Livy’s career centers on Ab Urbe Condita, which he composed over several decades during the Augustan age. The original work comprised 142 books, arranged annalistically, tracing Rome from mythic beginnings through republican struggles and wars to events approaching his lifetime. Its preface announces a didactic aim: to display examples, good and bad, for moral reflection. While sometimes aligning with Augustan themes of renewal, the history maintains an independent voice, lamenting decline as well as celebrating achievement. Contemporary readers valued both his narrative sweep and his ability to crystallize character through episodes that illustrated courage, ambition, and the burdens of civic responsibility.
The surviving portion of Ab Urbe Condita is substantial but incomplete. Books 1–10 present royal and early republican history; Books 21–45, with gaps, cover the Second Punic War and subsequent decades. The remainder is lost, though later summaries preserve outlines of many missing books. Livy’s method combines year-by-year annals with extended episodes and speeches attributed to historical figures, a standard literary device rather than verbatim record. For early periods he relied on legend and later traditions; for the middle Republic he drew more heavily on historians such as Polybius. His carefully balanced structure interleaves domestic politics, foreign campaigns, and moral exempla.
Biographical particulars are scarce. Ancient testimony places Livy for periods in Rome, where his work was known at the highest levels. Some reports connect him with Augustan intellectual life, but there is no evidence of official appointment or political office. Suetonius writes that Livy encouraged the young Claudius to undertake historical writing, a sign of his stature among Roman literati. Aside from Ab Urbe Condita, no other works survive with secure attribution, and he appears to have devoted his mature decades chiefly to the history. He is reported to have spent his final years in Patavium, maintaining the outlook of an Italian outside the senatorial elite.
Reception in antiquity was mixed but often admiring. Readers praised the elegance and richness of his style, while some critics remarked on a Patavine coloring in his language. His narrative gifts made him a principal source for later historians and compilers. Medieval transmission preserved part of the text and summaries of the rest, ensuring continuity of influence. In the Renaissance, renewed access to Livy shaped political thought and historical method; Niccolo Machiavelli’s Discourses engaged his republican narratives to reflect on civic virtue and the dynamics of power. Modern scholars value Livy’s testimony while scrutinizing his sources, aims, and rhetorical shaping of events.
Livy spent his final years in Patavium, where he died in the early first century CE. Although much of Ab Urbe Condita is lost, the surviving books remain indispensable for early Roman legend, republican institutions, and especially the Hannibalic War. His emphasis on character, fortune, and moral causation continues to inform debates about the purposes of history. Livy’s synthesis of patriotic narrative and ethical reflection influenced Roman historiography and later European literature, political theory, and education. Today he stands as both a principal witness to Rome’s remembered past and a case study in how historical writing can shape collective memory across centuries.
The History of Rome (Vol. 1-4)
The History of Rome Vol. 1
Book I
The coming of Æneas[1] into Italy, and his achievements there; the reign of Ascanius in Alba, and of the other Sylvian kings. Romulus[4] and Remus[5] born. Amulius killed. Romulus builds Rome; forms a senate; makes war upon the Sabines; presents the opima spolia to Jupiter Feretrius[11]; divides the people into curiæ[9]; his victories; is deified. Numa institutes the rites of religious worship; builds a temple to Janus; and having made peace with all his neighbours, closes it for the first time; enjoys a peaceful reign, and is succeeded by Tullus Hostilius. War with the Albans; combat of the Horatii and Curiatii. Alba demolished, and the Albans made citizens of Rome. War declared against the Sabines; Tullus killed by lightning. Ancus Marcius renews the religious institutions of Numa; conquers the Latins, confers on them the right of citizenship, and assigns them the Aventine hill to dwell on; adds the hill Janiculum to the city; enlarges the bounds of the empire. In his reign Lucumo comes to Rome; assumes the name of Tarquinius; and, after the death of Ancus, is raised to the throne. He increases the senate, by adding to it a hundred new senators; defeats the Latins and Sabines; augments the centuries of knights; builds a wall round the city; makes the common sewers; is slain by the sons of Ancus after a reign of thirty-eight years; and is succeeded by Servius Tullius. He institutes the census; closes the lustrum, in which eighty thousand citizens are said to have been enrolled; divides the people into classes and centuries; enlarges the Pomœrium[14], and adds the Quirinal, Viminal, and Esquiline hills to the city; after a reign of forty years, is murdered by L. Tarquin, afterwards surnamed Superbus. He usurps the crown. Tarquin makes war on the Volsci, and, with the plunder taken from them, builds a temple to Jupiter Capitolinus. By a stratagem of his son, Sextus Tarquin, he reduces the city of Gabii; after a reign of twenty-five years is dethroned and banished, in consequence of the forcible violation of the person of Lucretia by his son Sextus. L. Junius Brutus and L. Tarquinius Collatinus first created consuls.
Preface
Whether in tracing the history of the Roman people, from the foundation of the city, I shall employ myself to a useful purpose,1 I am neither very certain, nor, if I were, dare I say: inasmuch as I observe, that it is both an old and hackneyed practice,2 later authors always supposing that they will either adduce something more authentic in the facts, or, that they will excel the less polished ancients in their style of writing. Be that as it may, it will, at all events, be a satisfaction to me, that I too have contributed my share3 to perpetuate the achievements of a people, the lords of the world; and if, amidst so great a number of historians,4 my reputation should remain in obscurity, I may console myself with the celebrity and lustre of those who shall stand in the way of my fame. Moreover, the subject is both of immense labour, as being one which must be traced back for more than seven hundred years, and which, having set out from small beginnings, has increased to such a degree that it is now distressed by its own magnitude. And, to most readers, I doubt not but that the first origin and the events immediately succeeding, will afford but little pleasure, while they will be hastening to these later times,5 in which the strength of this overgrown people has for a long period been working its own destruction. I, on the contrary, shall seek this, as a reward of my labour, viz. to withdraw myself from the view of the calamities, which our age has witnessed for so many years, so long as I am reviewing with my whole attention these ancient times, being free from every care6 that may distract a writer's mind, though it cannot warp it from the truth. The traditions which have come down to us of what happened before the building of the city, or before its building was contemplated, as being suitable rather to the fictions of poetry than to the genuine records of history, I have no intention either to affirm or refute. This indulgence is conceded to antiquity, that by blending things human with divine, it may make the origin of cities appear more venerable: and if any people might be allowed to consecrate their origin, and to ascribe it to the gods as its authors, such is the renown of the Roman people in war, that when they represent Mars, in particular, as their own parent and that of their founder, the nations of the world may submit to this as patiently as they submit to their sovereignty.—But in whatever way these and such like matters shall be attended to, or judged of, I shall not deem of great importance. I would have every man apply his mind seriously to consider these points, viz. what their life and what their manners were; through what men and by what measures, both in peace and in war, their empire was acquired7 and extended; then, as discipline gradually declined, let him follow in his thoughts their morals, at first as slightly giving way, anon how they sunk more and more, then began to fall headlong, until he reaches the present times, when we can neither endure our vices, nor their remedies. This it is which is particularly salutary and profitable in the study of history, that you behold instances of every variety of conduct displayed on a conspicuous monument; that from thence you may select for yourself and for your country that which you may imitate; thence note what is shameful in the undertaking, and shameful in the result, which you may avoid. But either a fond partiality for the task I have undertaken deceives me, or there never was any state either greater, or more moral, or richer in good examples, nor one into which luxury and avarice made their entrance so late, and where poverty and frugality were so much and so long honoured; so that the less wealth there was, the less desire was there. Of late, riches have introduced avarice, and excessive pleasures a longing for them, amidst luxury and a passion for ruining ourselves and destroying every thing else. But let complaints, which will not be agreeable even then, when perhaps they will be also necessary, be kept aloof at least from the first stage of commencing so great a work. We should rather, if it was usual with us (historians) as it is with poets, begin with good omens, vows and prayers to the gods and goddesses to vouchsafe good success to our efforts in so arduous an undertaking.
1
Now first of all it is sufficiently established that, Troy having been taken, the utmost severity was shown to all the other Trojans; but that towards two, Æneas and Antenor, the Greeks forbore all the rights of war, both in accordance with an ancient tie of hospitality, and because they had ever been the advisers of peace, and of the restoration of Helen—then that Antenor after various vicissitudes came into the innermost bay of the Adriatic Sea, with a body of the Heneti, who having been driven from Paphlagonia in consequence of a civil commotion, were in quest both of a settlement and a leader, their king Pylæmenes having been lost at Troy; and that the Heneti and Trojans, having expelled the Euganei, who dwelt between the sea and the Alps, took possession of the country; and the place where they first landed is called Troy; from whence also the name of Trojan is given to the canton; but the nation in general is called Veneti: that Æneas was driven from home by a similar calamity, but the fates leading him to the founding of a greater empire, he came first to Macedonia: that he sailed from thence to Sicily in quest of a settlement: that from Sicily he made for the Laurentine territory; this place also has the name of Troy. When the Trojans, having disembarked there, were driving plunder from the lands,—as being persons to whom, after their almost immeasurable wandering, nothing was left but their arms and ships,—Latinus the king, and the Aborigines, who then occupied those places, assembled in arms from the city and country to repel the violence of the new-comers. On this point the tradition is two-fold: some say, that Latinus, after being overcome in battle, made first a peace, and then an alliance with Æneas: others, that when the armies were drawn out in battle-array, before the signals were sounded, Latinus advanced to the front of the troops and invited the leader of the adventurers to a conference. That he then inquired who they were, whence (they had come), or by what casualty they had left their home, and in quest of what they had landed on the Laurentine territory: after he heard that the host were Trojans, their chief Æneas, the son of Anchises and Venus, and that, driven from their own country and their homes, which had been destroyed by fire, they were seeking a settlement and a place for building a town, struck with admiration of the noble origin of the nation and of the hero, and their spirit, alike prepared for peace or war, he confirmed the assurance of future friendship by giving his right hand: that upon this a compact was struck between the chiefs, and mutual greetings passed between the armies: that Æneas was hospitably entertained by Latinus: that Latinus, in the presence of his household gods, added a family league to the public one, by giving Æneas his daughter in marriage. This event confirms the Trojans in the hope of at length terminating their wanderings by a fixed and permanent settlement. They build a town. Æneas calls it Lavinium[2], after the name of his wife. In a short time, too, a son was the issue of the new marriage, to whom his parents gave the name of Ascanius.
2
The Aborigines and Trojans were soon after attacked together in war. Turnus, king of the Rutulians, to whom Lavinia had been affianced before the coming of Æneas, enraged that a stranger had been preferred to himself, made war on Æneas and Latinus together. Neither side came off from that contest with cause for rejoicing. The Rutulians were vanquished; the victorious Aborigines and Trojans lost their leader Latinus. Upon this Turnus and the Rutulians, diffident of their strength, have recourse to the flourishing state of the Etruscans, and their king Mezentius; who holding his court at Cœre, at that time an opulent town, being by no means pleased, even from the commencement, at the founding of the new city, and then considering that the Trojan power was increasing much more than was altogether consistent with the safety of the neighbouring states, without reluctance joined his forces in alliance with the Rutulians. Æneas, in order to conciliate the minds of the Aborigines to meet the terror of so serious a war, called both nations Latins, so that they might all be not only under the same laws, but also the same name. Nor after that did the Aborigines yield to the Trojans in zeal and fidelity towards their king Æneas; relying therefore on this disposition of the two nations, who were now daily coalescing more and more, although Etruria was so powerful, that it filled with the fame of its prowess not only the land, but the sea also, through the whole length of Italy, from the Alps to the Sicilian Strait, though he might have repelled the war by means of fortifications, yet he led out his forces to the field. Upon this a battle ensued successful to the Latins, the last also of the mortal acts of Æneas. He was buried, by whatever name human and divine laws require him to be called,8 on the banks of the river Numicius. They call him Jupiter Indiges.
3
Ascanius, the son of Æneas, was not yet old enough to take the government upon him; that government, however, remained secure for him till the age of maturity. In the interim, the Latin state and the kingdom of his grandfather and father was secured for the boy under the regency of his mother (such capacity was there in Lavinia). I have some doubts (for who can state as certain a matter of such antiquity) whether this was the Ascanius, or one older than he, born of Creusa before the fall of Troy, and the companion of his father in his flight from thence, the same whom, being called Iulus, the Julian family call the author of their name. This Ascanius, wheresoever and of whatever mother born, (it is at least certain that he was the son of Æneas,) Lavinium being overstocked with inhabitants, left that flourishing and, considering these times, wealthy city to his mother or step-mother, and built for himself a new one at the foot of Mount Alba, which, being extended on the ridge of a hill, was, from its situation, called Longa Alba[3]. Between the founding of Lavinium and the transplanting this colony to Longa Alba, about thirty years intervened. Yet its power had increased to such a degree, especially after the defeat of the Etrurians, that not even upon the death of Æneas, nor after that, during the regency of Lavinia, and the first essays of the young prince's reign, did Mezentius, the Etrurians, or any other of its neighbours dare to take up arms against it. A peace had been concluded between the two nations on these terms, that the river Albula, now called Tiber, should be the common boundary between the Etrurians and Latins. After him Sylvius, the son of Ascanius, born by some accident in a wood, ascends the throne. He was the father of Æneas Sylvius, who afterwards begot Latinus Sylvius. By him several colonies, called the ancient Latins, were transplanted. From this time, all the princes, who reigned at Alba, had the surname of Sylvius. From Latinus sprung Alba; from Alba, Atys; from Atys, Capys; from Capys, Capetus; from Capetus, Tiberinus, who, being drowned in crossing the river Albula, gave it a name famous with posterity. Then Agrippa, the son of Tiberinus; after Agrippa, Romulus Silvius ascends the throne, in succession to his father. The latter, having been killed by a thunderbolt, left the kingdom to Aventinus, who being buried on that hill, which is now part of the city of Rome, gave his name to it. After him reigns Proca; he begets Numitor and Amulius. To Numitor, his eldest son, he bequeaths the ancient kingdom of the Sylvian family. But force prevailed more than the father's will or the respect due to seniority: for Amulius, having expelled his brother, seizes the kingdom; he adds crime to crime, murders his brother's male issue; and under pretence of doing his brother's daughter, Rhea Sylvia, honour, having made her a vestal virgin[6], by obliging her to perpetual virginity he deprives her of all hopes of issue.
4
But, in my opinion, the origin of so great a city, and the establishment of an empire next in power to that of the gods, was due to the Fates. The vestal Rhea, being deflowered by force, when she had brought forth twins, declares Mars to be the father of her illegitimate offspring, either because she believed it to be so, or because a god was a more creditable author of her offence. But neither gods nor men protect her or her children from the king's cruelty: the priestess is bound and thrown into prison; the children he commands to be thrown into the current of the river. By some interposition of providence,9 the Tiber having overflowed its banks in stagnant pools, did not admit of any access to the regular bed of the river; and the bearers supposed that the infants could be drowned in water however still; thus, as if they had effectually executed the king's orders, they expose the boys in the nearest land-flood, where now stands the ficus Ruminalis (they say that it was called Romularis). The country thereabout was then a vast wilderness. The tradition is, that when the water, subsiding, had left the floating trough, in which the children had been exposed, on dry ground, a thirsty she-wolf, coming from the neighbouring mountains, directed her course to the cries of the infants, and that she held down her dugs to them with so much gentleness, that the keeper of the king's flock found her licking the boys with her tongue. It is said his name was Faustulus; and that they were carried by him to his homestead to be nursed by his wife Laurentia. Some are of opinion that she was called Lupa among the shepherds, from her being a common prostitute, and that this gave rise to the surprising story. The children thus born and thus brought up, when arrived at the years of manhood, did not loiter away their time in tending the folds or following the flocks, but roamed and hunted in the forests. Having by this exercise improved their strength and courage, they not only encountered wild beasts, but even attacked robbers laden with plunder, and afterwards divided the spoil among the shepherds. And in company with these, the number of their young associates daily increasing, they carried on their business and their sports.
5
They say, that the festival of the lupercal[7], as now celebrated, was even at that time solemnized on the Palatine hill, which, from Palanteum, a city of Arcadia, was first called Palatium, and afterwards Mount Palatine. There they say that Evander, who belonged to the tribe of Arcadians,10 that for many years before had possessed that country, appointed the observance of a feast, introduced from Arcadia, in such manner, that young men ran about naked in sport and wantonness, doing honour to Pan Lycæus, whom the Romans afterwards called Inuus. That the robbers, through rage at the loss of their booty, having lain in wait for them whilst intent on this sport, as the festival was now well known, whilst Romulus vigorously defended himself, took Remus prisoner; that they delivered him up, when taken, to king Amulius, accusing him with the utmost effrontery. They principally alleged it as a charge against them, that they had made incursions upon Numitor's lands, and plundered them in a hostile manner, having assembled a band of young men for the purpose. Upon this Remus was delivered to Numitor to be punished. Now, from the very first, Faustulus had entertained hopes that the boys whom he was bringing up were of the blood royal; for he both knew that the children had been exposed by the king's orders, and that the time at which he had taken them up agreed exactly with that period: but he had been unwilling that the matter, as not being yet ripe for discovery, should be disclosed, till either a fit opportunity or necessity should arise. Necessity came first; accordingly, compelled by fear, he discovers the whole affair to Romulus. By accident also, whilst he had Remus in custody, and had heard that the brothers were twins, on comparing their age, and observing their turn of mind entirely free from servility, the recollection of his grand-children struck Numitor; and on making inquiries11 he arrived at the same conclusion, so that he was well nigh recognising Remus. Thus a plot is concerted for the king on all sides. Romulus, not accompanied by a body of young men, (for he was unequal to open force,) but having commanded the shepherds to come to the palace by different roads at a fixed time, forces his way to the king; and Remus, with another party from Numitor's house, assists his brother, and so they kill the king.
6
Numitor, at the beginning of the fray, having given out that enemies had invaded the city, and assaulted the palace, after he had drawn off the Alban youth to secure the citadel with a garrison and arms, when he saw the young men, after they had killed the king, advancing to congratulate him, immediately called an assembly of the people, and represented to them the unnatural behaviour of his brother towards him, the extraction of his grand-children, the manner of their birth and education, and how they came to be discovered; then he informed them of the king's death, and that he was killed by his orders. When the young princes, coming up with their band through the middle of the assembly, saluted their grandfather king, an approving shout, following from all the people present, ratified to him both that title and the sovereignty. Thus the government of Alba being committed to Numitor, a desire seized Romulus and Remus to build a city on the spot where they had been exposed and brought up. And there was an overflowing population of Albans and of Latins. The shepherds too had come into that design, and all these readily inspired hopes, that Alba and Lavinium would be but petty places in comparison with the city which they intended to build. But ambition of the sovereignty, the bane of their grandfather, interrupted these designs, and thence arose a shameful quarrel from a beginning sufficiently amicable. For as they were twins, and the respect due to seniority could not determine the point, they agreed to leave to the tutelary gods of the place to choose, by augury, which should give a name to the new city, which govern it when built.
7
Romulus chose the Palatine and Remus the Aventine hill as their stands to make their observations. It is said, that to Remus an omen came first, six vultures; and now, the omen having been declared, when double the number presented itself to Romulus, his own party saluted each king; the former claimed the kingdom on the ground of priority of time, the latter on account of the number of birds. Upon this, having met in an altercation, from the contest of angry feelings they turn to bloodshed; there Remus fell from a blow received in the crowd. A more common account is, that Remus, in derision of his brother, leaped over his new-built wall, and was, for that reason, slain by Romulus in a passion; who, after sharply chiding him, added words to this effect: "So shall every one fare, who shall dare to leap over my fortifications."12 Thus Romulus got the sovereignty to himself; the city, when built, was called after the name of its founder. His first work was to fortify the Palatine hill where he had been educated. To the other gods he offers sacrifices according to the Alban rite; to Hercules, according to the Grecian rite, as they had been instituted by Evander. There is a tradition, that Hercules, having killed Geryon, drove his oxen, which were extremely beautiful, into those places; and that, after swimming over the Tiber, and driving the cattle before him, being fatigued with travelling, he laid himself down on the banks of the river, in a grassy place, to refresh them with rest and rich pasture. When sleep had overpowered him, satiated with food and wine, a shepherd of the place, named Cacus, presuming on his strength, and charmed with the beauty of the oxen, wished to purloin that booty, but because, if he had driven them forward into the cave, their footsteps would have guided the search of their owner thither, he therefore drew the most beautiful of them, one by one, by the tails, backwards into a cave. Hercules, awaking at day-break, when he had surveyed his herd, and observed that some of them were missing, goes directly to the nearest cave, to see if by chance their footsteps would lead him thither. But when he observed that they were all turned from it, and directed him no other way, confounded, and not knowing what to do, he began to drive his cattle out of that unlucky place. Upon this, some of the cows, as they usually do, lowed on missing those that were left; and the lowings of those that were confined being returned from the cave, made Hercules turn that way. And when Cacus attempted to prevent him by force, as he was proceeding to the cave, being struck with a club, he was slain, vainly imploring the assistance of the shepherds. At that time Evander, who had fled from the Peloponnesus, ruled this country more by his credit and reputation than absolute sway. He was a person highly revered for his wondrous knowledge of letters,13 a discovery that was entirely new and surprising to men ignorant of every art; but more highly respected on account of the supposed divinity of his mother Carmenta, whom these nations had admired as a prophetess, before the coming of the Sibyl into Italy. This prince, alarmed by the concourse of the shepherds hastily crowding round the stranger, whom they charged with open murder, after he heard the act and the cause of the act, observing the person and mien of the hero to be larger, and his gait more majestic, than human, asked who he was? As soon as he was informed of his name, his father, and his native country, he said, "Hail! Hercules! son of Jupiter, my mother, a truth-telling interpreter of the gods, has revealed to me, that thou shalt increase the number of the celestials; and that to thee an altar shall be dedicated here, which some ages hence the most powerful people on earth shall call Ara Maxima, and honour according to thy own institution." Hercules having given him his right hand, said, "That he accepted the omen, and would fulfil the predictions of the fates, by building and consecrating an altar." There for the first time a sacrifice was offered to Hercules of a chosen heifer, taken from the herd, the Potitii and Pinarii[12], who were then the most distinguished families that inhabited these parts, having been invited to the service and the entertainment. It so happened that the Potitii were present in due time, and the entrails were set before them; when they were eaten up, the Pinarii came to the remainder of the feast. From this time it was ordained, that while the Pinarian family subsisted, none of them should eat of the entrails of the solemn sacrifices. The Potitii, being instructed by Evander, discharged this sacred function as priests for many ages, until the office, solemnly appropriated to their family, being delegated to public slaves, their whole race became extinct. This was the only foreign religious institution which Romulus adopted, being even then an abettor of immortality attained by merit, to which his own destinies were conducting him.
8
The duties of religion having been duly performed, and the multitude summoned to a meeting, as they could be incorporated into one people by no other means than fixed rules, he gave them a code of laws, and judging that these would be best respected by this rude class of men, if he made himself dignified by the insignia of authority, he assumed a more majestic appearance both in his other appointments, and especially by taking twelve lictors[10] to attend him. Some think that he chose this number of officers from that of the birds, which in the augury had portended the kingdom to him. I do not object to be of the opinion of those who will have it that the apparitors (in general), and this particular class of them,14 and even their number, was taken from their neighbours the Etrurians, from whom were borrowed the curule chair, and the gown edged with purple; and that the Etrurians adopted that number, because their king being elected in common from twelve states, each state assigned him one lictor. Meanwhile the city increased by their taking in various lots of ground for buildings, whilst they built rather with a view to future numbers, than for the population15 which they then had. Then, lest the size of the city might be of no avail, in order to augment the population, according to the ancient policy of the founders of cities, who, after drawing together to them an obscure and mean multitude, used to feign that their offspring sprung out of the earth, he opened as a sanctuary, a place which is now enclosed as you go down "to the two groves."16 Hither fled from the neighbouring states, without distinction whether freemen or slaves, crowds of all sorts, desirous of change: and this was the first accession of strength to their rising greatness. When he was now not dissatisfied with his strength, he next sets about forming some means of directing that strength. He creates one hundred senators, either because that number was sufficient, or because there were only one hundred who could name their fathers. They certainly were called Fathers, through respect, and their descendants, Patricians.17
