Titus Livy - The History of Rome

Translated by B. O. Foster (Books 1 to 22) and William A. McDevitte (Books 23 to Fragments)

Ab urbe condita libri , Livys only surviving work, was commenced midway through the historians career, c. 27 BC, and completed when he left Rome for Padua in old age, following the death of Augustus, during the reign of Tiberius. It is a monumental history of ancient Rome, spanning the time from the stories of Aeneas, the earliest legendary period, before the citys founding in c. 753 BC, to Livys own times in the reign of the emperor Augustus, up to 9 BC, finishing with the death of Drusus. The Latin title can be literally translated as Books since the citys founding. Less literally in English, it is now known as History of Rome. Sadly only 25% of the work survives, though summaries of the missing books have survived from antiquity. Books 11 to 20 and books 46 to 140 are lost, leaving only 35 books extant, with 105 lost in total.

The first book of Ab urbe condita libri starts with Aeneas landing in Italy and the founding of Rome by Romulus and Remus, culminating with Lucius Junius Brutus and Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus being elected as consuls in 502 BC according to Livys own chronology (509 BCE according to more traditional chronology). There are a number of chronologies; these two dates represent an approximate range. Books 2 to 10 deal with the history of the RomanRepublic to the Samnite Wars, while books 21 to 45 concern the Second Punic War and finish with the war against Perseus of Macedon. Books 46 to 70 deal with the time up to the Social War in 91 BC. Book 89 includes the dictatorship of Sulla in 81 BC and book 103 contains a description of Julius Caesars first consulship. Book 142 concludes with the death of Nero Claudius Drusus in 9 BC. Though the first ten books concern a period of over 600 years, once Livy started writing about the 1st century BC, he devoted almost a whole book to each year.

Livys style can be viewed as a mixture of annual chronology and narrative, where he often interrupts a story to announce the elections of new consuls. His history therefore is an expansion of the fasti , the official public chronicle kept by the magistrates, which was a primary source for Roman historians. Those who seem to have been more influenced by the method have been termed annalists. Nevertheless, Livy was criticised for contradicting himself in his History and for becoming repetitious and verbose in the later books. One particular infamous digression in Book 9 suggested that the Romans would have beaten Alexander the Great if he had lived longer and had turned west to attack the Romans, causing much wry amusement for modern critics.

The first five books of the Ab urbe condita libri were published between 27 and 25 BC. Livy continued to work on the project for much of the rest of his life, publishing new material by popular demand. This necessity explains why the work falls naturally into 12 packets, mainly groups of 10 books, or decades, sometimes of five books (pentads) and the rest without any packet order. The scheme of dividing it entirely into decades is a later innovation of copyists. The second pentade was not released until c. 9 BC, some 16 years following the first pentade.

The subject material of Livys history can vary from mythical or legendary stories at the beginning to detailed and authentic accounts of apparently real events toward the end of the great work. He himself noted the difficulty of finding information about events some 700 years or more removed from the author. Of his material on early Rome he said, The traditions of what happened prior to the foundation of the City or whilst it was being built, are more fitted to adorn the creations of the poet than the authentic records of the historian. Nonetheless, according to the tradition of history writing at the time, Livy felt compelled to relate what he read without passing judgment as to its truth or untruth. One of the problems of modern scholarship is to ascertain where in the work the line is to be drawn between legends and true historic events. The traditional modern view is that buildings, inscriptions, monuments and libraries prior to the sack of Rome in 387 BC by the Gauls under Brennus were destroyed by that sack and made unavailable to Livy and his sources. His credible history therefore is likely to begin with that date.

Ab urbe condita libri was enormously successful. Livy became so famous that a man from Cadiz reportedly traveled to Rome just to see the historian and once he had met with him, returned home. The popularity of the work continued through the entire classical period. A number of Roman authors used Livy as a basis for their own works, including Aurelius Victor, Cassiodorus, Eutropius, Festus, Florus, Granius Licinianus and Orosius.