Translator's preface
THE Latin text of this volume has been set up
from that of the ninth edition (1908) of Book I.,
and the eighth edition (1894) of Book II., by Weissenborn and Müller, except that the
Periochae have
been reprinted from the text of Rossbach (1910).
But the spelling is that adopted by Professors
Conway and Walters in their critical edition of
Books I.-V. (Oxford, 1914), which is the source also
of a number of readings which differ from those given
in the Weissenborn-Müller text, and has furnished,
besides, the materials from which the textual notes
have been drawn up. I have aimed to indicate
every instance where the reading printed does not
rest on the authority of one or more of the good
MSS., and to give the author of the emendation.
The MSS. are often cited by the symbols given in
the Oxford edition, but for brevity's sake I have
usually employed two of my own, viz.
ω and
ς.
The former means “ such of the good MSS. as are
not cited for other readings,” the latter “one or
more of the inferior MSS. and early printed editions.” Anyone who wishes more specific information regarding the source of a variant will consult
[p. viii]
the elaborate apparatus of the Oxford text, whose
editors have placed all students of the first decade
under lasting obligations by their thorough and
minute report of the MSS. With the publication
of their second volume there will be available for
the first time an adequate diplomatic basis for the
criticism of Books I.-X.
I have utilized throughout the translations by
Philemon Holland, George Baker, and Canon
Roberts, and have occasionally borrowed a happy
expression from the commentaries of Edwards,
Conway, and others, mentioned in the introduction.
The unpretentious notes in the college edition of
my former teacher, the late Professor Greenough,
have been particularly useful in pointing out the
significance of the word-order.
Acknowledgments are also due to my colleagues,
Professors Fairclough, Hempl, Cooper, and Briggs,
and to Professor Noyes of the University of California, each of whom has given me some good
suggestions.
B. O. F.
Stanford University, California.
1919.
[p. ix]
Introduction
I
From entries in Jerome's re-working of the
Chronicle of Eusebius we learn that Titus Livius the
Patavian was born in 59 B.C., the year of Caesar's
first consulship, and died in his native town (the
modern Padua) in 17 A.D. Of his parents nothing is
known. They were presumably well-to-do, for their
son received the training in Greek and Latin
literature and in rhetoric which constituted the
standard curriculum of that time, and was afterwards
able to devote a long life to the unremunerative work
of writing. That he was by birth an aristocrat is no
more than an inference from his outstanding sympathy with the senatorial party. Livy's childhood
witnessed the conquest of Gaul and Caesar's rapid
rise to lordship over the Roman world. These early
years he doubtless passed in his northern home.
Patavium laid claim to great antiquity. Livy tells
us himself in his opening chapter the legend of its
founding by the Trojan Antenor, and elsewhere
describes with unmistakable satisfaction the vain
attempt of the Spartan Cleonymus (in 302 B.C.) to
[p. x]
subdue the Patavians.
1 They defended themselves
with equal vigour and success against the aggressions
of the Etruscans and the inroads of the Gauls, and
in the war with Hannibal cast in their lot with
Rome. In 49 B.C., when Livy was ten years old, the
town became a Roman municipality and its citizens
were enrolled in the Fabian tribe. The place was a
great centre of trade, especially in wool,
2 and under
Augustus was perhaps the wealthiest city in Italy,
next to Rome,
3 to which in some respects it presented a striking contrast, since the Patavians
maintained the simple manners and strict morality
which had long gone out of fashion in the cosmopolitan capital.
4 We cannot say how old Livy was
when he left Patavium, but it is probable that his
tastes and character had been permanently influenced
by the old-world traditions of his native town. Did he
go to Rome with the intention of pursuing there the
career of a rhetorician and subsequently become
interested in historical studies? It may have been
[p. xi]
so. Perhaps he had already resolved to write
history and wished to make use of the libraries and
other sources of information which were lacking in a
provincial town. Certain passages in his earlier
books
5 indicate that he was already familiar with the City when he began his great work, about 27 B.C.,
6 and a reference to a conversation with Augustus in
Book IV. seems to argue that it was not long till he
was on a friendly footing with the Emperor.
7 He doubtless continued to reside in Rome, with occasional visits to Patavium and other places in Italy, till near the end of his long life.
Livy seems never to have held any public office,
but to have given himself up entirely to literature.
Seneca says that he wrote dialogues which one
might classify under history as well as under philosophy, besides books which were professedly philosophical.
8 And Quintilian quotes a letter from Livy to his son which was very likely an essay on the
training of the orator, for in the passage cited he
advises the young man to read Demosthenes and
Cicero, and then such as most nearly resembled
[p. xii]
them.
9 So, in another place, Quintilian tells us that he finds in Livy that there was a certain teacher who bade his pupils
obscure what they said.
10 It may have been in this same essay that he made the criticism on Sallust which seemed to the elder Seneca to be unjust,—that he had not only appropriated a sentence from Thucydides but had spoilt
it in the process.
11 And there is another passage in Seneca where Livy is credited with having quoted approvingly a
mot of the rhetorician Miltiades against orators who affected archaic and sordid words, which may also be an echo of the letter.
12 If Livy was about thirty-two years old when he began to write history it is probable that this essay was composed some years later, for it is unlikely to have been written before the son was about sixteen.
13 We may therefore think of the historian as putting aside his magnum opus for a season, to be of use in the education of the boy, who, whether or no he profited by his father's instructions in rhetoric, at all events became a writer, and is twice named by the elder Pliny as one of his authorities, in Books V. and
VI. of the
Natural History, which deal with geography.
In a sepulchral inscription found in Padua, which
may be that of our Livy, two sons are named—Titus
Livius Priscus and Titus Livius Longus,—and their
[p. xiii]
mother's name is given as Cassia.
14 The only other item of information we possess about the family is supplied by the elder Seneca, who mentions a son-inlaw, named Lucius Magius, as a declaimer who had some following for a time, though men rather endured him for the sake of his father-in-law than praised him for his own.
15
Of Livy's social life in Rome we know nothing more
than that he enjoyed the friendship of Augustus, and
probably, as we have seen, from an early date in his
stay in Rome.
16 The intimacy was apparently maintained till the end of the Emperor's life, for it cannot
have been much before A.D. 14 that Livy, as related
by Suetonius,
17 advised his patron's grand-nephew Claudius (born 9 B.C.) to take up the writing of history.
The good relations subsisting between the Emperor
and the historian do honour to the sense and candour of
both. Livy gloried in the history of the republic,
yet he could but acquiesce in the new order of things.
And the moral and religious reforms of Augustus,
his wish to revive the traditions of an elder day, his
respect for the forms inherited from a time when
Rome was really governed by a senate, must have
commanded Livy's hearty approval. On the other
[p. xiv]
side, when Livy's great history was appealing to men's
patriotism and displaying the ideal Rome as no other
literary work (with the possible exception of the
contemporaneous
Aeneid) had ever done, it was easy
for the Emperor to smile at the scholar's exaggerated
admiration of Pompey,
18 and even to overlook the
frankness of his query whether more of good or of
harm had come to the state from the birth of Julius
Caesar.
19 Livy died three years after Augustus, in 17 A.D., at the ripe age of 76. If he continued working at his history up to the last he had devoted more than 40 years to the gigantic enterprise. Jerome says
that he died in Patavium. We can only conjecture
whether he was overtaken by death while making a
visit to his old home, or had retired thither, with the
coming in of the new regime, to spend his declining
years. The latter is perhaps the more likely assumption. The character of Tiberius can have possessed
little claim to the sympathy of Livy, and life in Rome
may well have lost its charm for him, now that his
old patron was no more.
[p. xv]
II
Livy seems to have called his history simply
Ab
Urbe Condita, “From the Founding of the City,”
20 just as Tacitus was later to call his Annals
Ab
Excessu Divi Augusti, “From the death of the Divine
Augustus.” He began with the legend of Aeneas,
and brought his narrative down to the death of Drusus
(and the defeat of Quintilius Varus?
21 ) in 9 B.C. There is no reason to think that Livy intended, as
some have supposed, to go on to the death of
Augustus. In the preface to one of the lost books
he remarked that he had already earned enough of
reputation and might have ceased to write, were
it not that his restless spirit was sustained by
work.
22 He probably toiled on till his strength failed him, with no fixed goal in view, giving his
history to the public in parts, as these were severally
completed. The following table, taken from Schanz,
23 is an attempt to reconstruct these instalments:
- Books I.-V. From the founding of the City to its
conquest by the Gauls (387-386 B.C.).
[p. xvi]
- VI.-XV. To the subjugation of Italy (265 B.C.).
- XVI.-XX. The Punic wars to the beginning of
the war with Hannibal (219 B.C.).
- XXI.-XXX. The war with Hannibal (to 201 B.C.).
- XXXI.-XL. To the death of King Philip of
Macedon (179 B.C.).
- XLI.-LXX. To the outbreak of the Social War
(91 B.C.).
- LXXI.-LXXX. The Social War to the death of
Marius (86 B.C.).
- LXXXI.-XC. To the death of Sulla (78 B.C.).
- XCI.-CVIII. From the war with Sertorius to the
Gallic War (58 B.C.).
- CIX.-CXVI. From the beginning of the Civil
Wars to the death of Caesar (44 B.C.).
- CXVII.-CXXXIII. To the death of Antony and
Cleopatra (30 B.C.).
- CXXXIV-CXLII. The principate of Augustus
to the death of Drusus (9 B.C.).
It will be noticed that certain portions fall natureally into decades (notably XXI.-XXX.), or pentads
(
e.g. I.-V.). Elsewhere, and particularly in that part
of the work which deals with the writer's own times,
no such symmetry is discernible. Later however it
became the uniform practice of the copyists to
divide the history into decades. This is clearly seen
in the wholly distinct and independent MS. tradition
of the several surviving sections.
Only about a quarter of the whole work has been
[p. xvii]
preserved. We have the Preface and Books I.-X.,
covering the period from Aeneas to the year 293 B.C.;
Books XXI.-XXX. describing the Second Punic
War; and Books XXXI.-XLV., which continue the
story of Rome's conquests down to the year 167 B.C.
and the victories of Lucius Aemilius Paulus.
24
For the loss of the other books the existence from
the first century of our era of a handy abridgment
is no doubt largely responsible. It is to this Martial
alludes in the following distich (XIV. cxc.):
Pellibus exiguis artatur Livius ingens,
Quem mea non totum bibliotheca capit.
25
If we had this
Epitome26 it would be some slight
compensation for the disappearance of the original
books, but we have only a compend of it, the
so-called
Periochae, and certain excerpts thought to
have been made from another summary of it, no
longer extant, which scholars refer to as the
Chronicon, to wit, the fragments of the
Oxyrhynchus
Papyrus, the
Prodigiorum Liber of Obsequens, and
the consular lists of Cassiodorius.
The
Periochae, or summaries of the several Books
(only CXXXVI. and CXXXVII. are wanting), are the
[p. xviii]
most valuable of these sources for supplying the gaps
in our text of Livy. Their author narrates briefly
what seem to him the leading events in each book,
adding a reference to other matters treated in the
original.
27 The
Periochae are thus a kind of compromise between a book of excerpts for the use of readers who for any reason could not or would not go
to the unabridged Livy, and a table of contents
for the convenience of those who did.
28 They are usually printed with editions of Livy, and are included in this one. It may be noted here that
Per. I exists in a double recension, of which B
appears from its style to be of a piece with those
of all the other books, while A is thought to have
come from the
Chronicon.
In 1903 a papyrus was discovered at Oxyrhynchus
which contained fragments of a compend of Roman
history which was based on Livy, though it seems
not to have been taken from Livy directly but from
the
Chronicon, which was also, as we have said,
the source of Obsequens and Cassiodorius. The
MS. is assigned to the third century, and the book
must therefore have been composed in that or a still
earlier period. It contains eight columns of uncial
writing. Of these 1-3 preserve a selection of the
events recorded in Livy, Books XXXVII.-XL.,
(which we have), while 4-8 deal with the
[p. xix]
subjectmatter of Books XLVIII.-LV. But there is a
column gone between column 6 and column 7, which
treated of the years 143 and 142 B.C.
Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorius Senator lived about
480 to 575, and was Consul in 514, under Theodoric.
Among his writings was a chronicle, from Adam to
A.D. 519. For the earlier periods he used Eusebius
and Jerome, but from the expulsion of Tarquinius
to A.D. 31 he names as his authorities Titus Livius
and Aufidius Bassus. His list of consuls for this
period shows kinship with the
Oxyrhynchus Papyrus
and Obsequens.
In his
Prodigiorum Liber Julius Obsequens
enumerates in chronological order the portents
which occurred from the year 190 to the year
12 B.C. In its original form the catalogue probably
began, as the title in the MS. indicates,
29 with the year 249. The little book is of unknown date:
Schanz thinks it is a product of the fourth century
of our era, when paganism made its last struggle
against Christianity.
30 Rossbach inclines to a somewhat earlier date.
31 In any case Rossbach has shown that the author was a believer in prodigies, and therefore a pagan.
[p. xx]
III
In his preface to the whole work Livy gives a satisfactory account of his conception of history and the
ends he himself had in view. He begins with an
apology for adding to the already large number of
Roman histories. Those who attempt this theme
hope, he says, to surpass their predecessors either in
accuracy or style, and it is doing Livy no injustice to
infer that in his own case it was the belief that he
could make the story of Rome more vivid and readable than anyone had yet done which gave him the
courage to undertake the task. But whether he succeeds or not, he will be glad, he tells us, to have done
what he could for the memory of the foremost people
of the world. He recognizes the immense labour
which confronts him, in consequence of the more
than seven hundred years which he must deal with,
and admits that it will be labour thrown away on
most of his readers, who will have little patience with
the earlier history in their eagerness to be reading of
the civil wars and the events of their own generation.
“I myself, on the contrary,” he continues—and the
sentiment reveals at once the man's romantic spirit—
“shall seek in this an additional reward for my toil,
that I may turn my back upon the evils which our
age has witnessed for so many years, so long at least as
I am absorbed in the recollection of the brave days
[p. xxi]
of old.”
32 He refers to the marvellous tales which
were associated with the founding of the City as to
matters of no great consequence. He declines to
vouch for their authenticity, though he means to set
them down as he finds them; and he apparently regards them as possessing a certain symbolic truth, at
least. But the really important thing in Rome's
history is the way her power was founded on morality
and discipline, waxed mighty with the maintenance of
these, and was now fallen upon evil days through
their decay. For the use of historical study lies in
its application to life. The story of a great people
is fraught with examples and warnings, both for the
individual and for the state. And no nation is better
worth studying than Rome, for in none did righteousness and primitive simplicity so long resist the encroachments of wealth and luxury.
It was the ethical aspect of history then that chiefly
appealed to Livy, and he chose Rome for his subject
because the rise of the Roman empire seemed to him
the best example of the fruition of those qualities
which he wished to inculcate. To do this he must
first of all win the interest of his readers, and if
morality is his goal style is certainly the road by
which he hopes to lead men towards it. We must
therefore fix our attention on these two things if we
would approach Livy's work in the spirit of his
[p. xxii]
ancient readers, and understand their almost unqualified approval of it.
For Livy's success was both immediate and lasting.
I have already referred to the frank way in which he
himself recognized his fame, in the preface to one of
the books of his History, and the younger Pliny tells
a delightful story of an enthusiastic Spanish admirer
who travelled from Cadiz to Rome solely to behold
the great writer, and having gratified his curiosity
returned forthwith to his home.
33 Livy's magnanimity was warmly praised by the elder Seneca, who said
that he was by nature a most candid judge of all
great talents,
34 and it is a striking testimony to the justice of this observation that the modern reader's admiration for Hannibal is largely a reflection of
Livy's, which all his prejudice against Rome's most
formidable enemy could not altogether stifle. Tacitus
too admired Livy, whom he considered the most eloquent of the older historians, as Fabius Rusticus was
of the more recent.
35 Quintilian compared him with Herodotus, and spoke of the wonderful fascination of his narrative, his great fairness, and the inexpressible eloquence of the speeches, in which everything was suited not only to the circumstances but to
the speaker.
36 Quintilian also praised his
[p. xxiii]
representation of the emotions, particularly the gentler ones,
in which field he said he had no superior. Livy
shared with Virgil the honour of being the most
widely read of Latin writers, and in consequence
incurred the resentment of the mad Caligula, who
lacked but little of casting out their works and their
portraits from all the libraries, alleging of Livy that
he was verbose and careless.
37 Even Quintilian could tax him with prolixity,
38 though he seems to have owned that it was but the defect of a quality, for he elsewhere speaks of his “milky richness.”
39 The only other jarring note in the general chorus of admiration is sounded by the critic Asinius Pollio, who reproached Livy's style with “ Patavinity,” by which he perhaps meant that it was tainted with an occasional word or idiom peculiar to the historian's native dialect.
40 Owing chiefly to its intrinsic excellence, but partly no doubt to the accidental circumstance that it covered the whole field of Roman History, Livy's work became the standard source-book from which later writers were to draw their materials. We have already seen how it was epitomized and excerpted. Other writers who took their historical data from Livy were Lucan
[p. xxiv]
and Silius Italicus, Asconius, Valerius Maximus,
Frontinus, Florus, and the Greeks Cassius Dio and
Plutarch. Avienus, in the fourth century, turned
Livy into iambic senarii, a
tour deforce which has not
come down to us.
41 In the fifth he is cited by Pope Gelasius,
42 and the grammarian Priscian used him in the sixth. Comparatively little read in the Middle Ages, Livy found a warm admirer in Dante, who used him in the second book of his
De Monarchia, and in the
Divina Commnedia refers to him naively as “ Livio , . . che non erra.”
43 The Italians of the Renaissance seized upon Livy's History with avidity. The poet Beccadelli sold a country-place to enable him to purchase a copy by the hand of Poggio. Petrarch was among those who hoped for the recovery of the lost decades, and Pope Nicholas V. exerted himself without avail to discover them. With the emendations in Books XXI.-XXVI. by Laurentius Valla
44 the critical study of the text was inaugurated. The year 1469 saw the first printed edition of the History, which was produced in Rome. Early in the sixteenth century Machiavelli wrote his famous
Discorsi sul Primo Libro delle Deche di Tito Livio. It is not too much to say that from the Revival of Learning to the present time Livy has been generally recognized as one of the world's great writers. The English scholar Munro pronounced him owner of what is
[p. xxv]
“perhaps the greatest prose style that has ever been
written in any age or language,”
45 and his history seemed to Niebuhr a “a colossal masterpiece.”
46
The qualities which gave Livy his lofty place in
literature are easily discovered. He was a high-minded patriot, inspired with a genuine desire to
promote the welfare of his country. An idealist of
the most pronounced type, he was endowed—as not
all idealists are—with a breadth of sympathy which
enabled him to judge men with charity, and to discern
in the most diverse characters whatever admirable
traits they might possess. In him a passionate love
of noble deeds and a rare insight into the workings
of the mind and heart were united with a strength of
imagination which enabled him to clothe the shadowy
names of Rome's old worthies with the flesh and blood
of living men. Finally, his mastery of all the resources
of language is only equalled by his never-failing tact
and sense of fitness in the use of them.
47 It is difficult
to describe in a few words so complex an instrument
[p. xxvi]
as Livy's style. Perhaps it might fairly be said that
it is distinguished by the attributes of warmth and
amplitude. The Livian period, less formal and
regular than that of Cicero, whom Livy so greatly admired,
48 is fully as intricate, and reveals an amazing sensitiveness to the rhetorical possibilities inherent
in word-order.
49 To the first decade, and especially
Book I., Livy has, consciously no doubt, given a
slightly archaic and poetical colour, in keeping with
the subject-matter
50 ; and his extraordinary faculty for visualizing and dramatizing the men and events of Roman story reminds us even more insistently
of Quintilian's dictum that history is a kind of
prose poetry.
51
Yet despite his many remarkable gifts it is only too
clear that Livy was deficient in some of the most
essential qualifications for producing such a history of
Rome as would satisfy the standards of our own day.
Neither well informed nor specially interested in
politics or the art of war, and lacking even such
practical knowledge of constitutional matters as scores
of his contemporaries must have gained from participating in the actual business of the state, he undertook to trace the development of the greatest military
[p. xxvii]
power (save one) that the world has ever seen, and
the growth of an empire which has taught the
principles of organization and government to all
succeeding ages. Nor was this lack of technical knowledge the only or indeed the heaviest handicap that
Livy was compelled to carry. His mind was fundamentally uncritical, and he was unable to subject his
authorities to such a judicial examination as might
have made it possible for him to choose the safer guides
and reject the less trustworthy. Towards original
documents he manifests an almost incredible indifference.
52 As regards the earlier period, he himself
remarks that the Gauls in burning Rome had swept
away the “pontifical commentaries” and pretty much
all the other public and private records,
53 but there is nothing to indicate that he made much use of even
such shreds of evidence as survived the fire, or that
he referred, in writing of a later period, to so
important a source as the
Annales Maximi, though
they had been published in 123 B.C., in eighty books,
by P. Mucius Scaevola. He excuses himself from
transcribing the expiatory hymn composed by Livius
Andronicus, and publicly sung, in the year 207 B.C.,
by a chorus of girls, as a thing too uncouth for
modern taste.
54 He seems never to have bothered
[p. xxviii]
to examine the terrain of so important a battle as
Cannae, and his account of the operations there
shows that he had no very clear notion of the topography of the field. It would be easy to multiply
instances. There is an example at ii. xli. 10, where
he refers to an inscription, but without having himself consulted it, as his contemporary, Dionysius of
Halicarnassus, did.
55
Livy's history supplanted the works of the annalists,
which have consequently perished, so that it is impossible to ascertain with exactness his relation to
his sources. His own references to them are rather
casual. He makes no attempt to indicate his authorities systematically, but cites them in certain cases
where they conflict with one another, or where he is
sceptical of their statements and does not choose to
assume the responsibility for them.
56 Often he does
not give names, but contents himself with a phrase
like, “men say,” or “ I find in certain writers.” For
the first decade he derived his materials from a number of annalists. The oldest were Q. Fabius Pictor and
L. Cincius Alimentus. Both men wrote in Greek and
lived in the time of the war with Hannibal, in which
both men fought. Another was L. Calpurnius Piso
Frugi, who opposed the Gracchi and was consul in
[p. xxix]
133.
57 Cato's valuable history, the
Origines,58 he seems not to have used until he came to treat of the events
in which Cato himself played a part. It was to writers
who lived nearer his own day, whose style caused
Livy to rank them above their less sophisticated but
no doubt far more trustworthy predecessors that he
mainly resorted. Such were Valerius Antias, whose
seventy-five books were certainly the most abundant
source available, and are thought to have covered the
history of Rome to the death of Sulla; C. Licinius
Macer, tribune of the plebs in 73, who wrote from
the democratic standpoint; and Q. Aelius Tubero,
who took part in the Civil War on the side of
Pompey, and brought down his annals to his own
times.
For the third decade Livy used Polybius,
59 though
whether directly or through a Roman intermediary,
and whether for the whole or only a part of the ten
books, are questions still
sub iudice. For this decade
he also drew upon L. Coelius Antipater, a writer
whose treatise on the Second Punic War in seven
[p. xxx]
books
60 had introduced into Roman literature the genre of the historical monograph.
In the fourth and fifth decades Livy's main reliance
seems to have been Polybius, in describing eastern
affairs, and the annalists Q. Claudius Quadrigarius
61 and Valerius Antias, in treating of Italy and Spain.
A recent critic
62 has found reason for thinking that Livy used Valerius as his chief authority for western
matters (controlling his statements however by those
of Claudius) until, coming to the prosecution of Scipio
(see Book XXXVIII), he found so much in Valerius
that was incredible that his mistrust, which had
hitherto been confined to that annalist's reports of
numbers (see
e.g. XXXIII. x. 8.) caused him to take
Claudius thenceforth for his principal guide.
This unscientific attitude towards the sources was
the product partly of Livy's own characteristics, partly
of the conception of history as a means of edification
and entertainment prevalent in ancient times.
63 Another shortcoming, which would have to be insisted
on if we were criticising him as though he were a
contemporary, is his inability to clear his mind of
ideas belonging to his own day in considering the
men and institutions of the past,—though this again
is a limitation which he shares with his age.
[p. xxxi]
It is evident that the student of history must use
Livy with caution, especially in those portions of his
work where his statements cannot be tested by comparison with those of Polybius. Yet, quite apart
from his claims upon our attention as a supreme
literary artist, it would be hard to overrate his importance as an historian, which is chiefly of two sorts.
In the first place, uncritical though he is, we have
no one to put in his place, and his pages are
our best authority for long stretches of Roman
history. In the second place he possesses a very
positive excellence to add to this accidental one, in
the fidelity and spirit with which he depicts for
us the Roman's own idea of Rome. Any one of half
a dozen annalists would have served as well as Livy
to tell us what the Romans
did, but it required genius
to make us realize as Livy does what the Romans
were. No mere critical use of documents could ever
make the Roman character live again as it lives for
us in his “ pictured page.” The People and the State
are idealized no doubt by the patriotic imagination
of this extraordinary writer,—but a people's ideals
are surely not the least significant part of their
history.
64
[p. xxxii]
IV
We have seen that each of the extant decades was
handed down in a separate tradition. The manuscripts of the later portions will be briefly described
in introductory notes to the volumes in which they
are contained. Books I.-X. are preserved in a twofold MS. tradition. One family is represented by a
single MS., the Verona palimpsest (V). The portion
of this codex which contains the Livy consists of
sixty leaves, on which are preserved fragments of
Books III.-VI., written in uncial characters of the
fourth century. These fragments were deciphered
and published by Mommsen in 1868. The
other family is the so-called Nichorachean.
This edition, as it may be called, of the first decade
was produced under the auspices of Q. Aurelius
Symmachus, who was consul in 391 A.D. He appears
to have commissioned Tascius Victorianus to prepare
an amended copy of Books I.-X., and the latter's
subscription (
Victorianus emendabam dominis Symmachis）
is found after every book as far as the ninth. In
Books VI.-VIII. the subscription of Victorianus is
preceded by one of Nichomachus Flavianus, son-inlaw of Symmachus (
Nichomachus Flavianus v. c. III.
Praefect, urbis emendavi apud Hennam), and in Books
III.-V. by one of Nichomachus Dexter, a son of
Flavianus (
Titi Livi Nichomachus Dexter v.c. emendavi ab
[p. xxxiii]
urbe condita), who adds the information, in subscribing
Book V., that he had used the copy of his kinsman
Clementianus. To this origin all the MSS. now extant
are referred, with the exception of the
Veronensis.
The most famous member of the family is the
Mediceus,
a minuscule codex of the tenth or eleventh century
containing the ten books and written with great
fidelity—even in absurdities—to its exemplar. It
has been shown to be the work of at least three
scribes. The MS. abounds with dittographies and
other errors, but is possibly the most valuable of its
class, because of its honesty. For a full description
of this and the other Nichomachean MSS. the reader
should consult the Oxford edition of Livy, Books I.-V.,
by Conway and Walters. A list of all the MSS. used
in that edition is given at the end of this introduction.
The
editio princeps, edited by Andreas, afterwards
Bishop of Aleria, was issued in Rome in 1469. In
1518 came the Aldine edition. The first complete
edition of all the books now extant was also brought
out at Rome, in 1616, by Lusignanus. Of modern
editions may be mentioned those of Gronovius,
Leyden, 1645 and 1679; Drakenborch (with notes
of Duker and others, and the supplements of
Freinsheimius), Leyden, 1738-1746; Alschefski, Berlin, 1841-1846 (critical edition of Books I.-X. and
XXI.-XXIII.), and Berlin, 1843-44 (text of Books
I.-X. and XXI.-XXX.); Madvig and Ussing, Copenhagen4, 1886 if. (Madvig's
Emendationes Livianae—a
[p. xxxiv]
classic of criticism—had appeared at Copenhagen
in 1860); Hertz, Leipsic, 1857-1863; Weissenborn
(Teubner text, revised by M. Müller and W. Heraeus)
Leipsic, 1881 if.; Luchs, Books XXI.-XXV. and
XXVI.-XXX., Berlin, 1888-1889 (best critical apparatus for third decade); Zingerle, Leipsic, 1888—
1908; Weissenborn and H. J. Müller, Berlin, 1880—
1909 (best explanatory edition of the whole of Livy,
with German notes; the several volumes are more
or less frequently republished in revised editions);
M. Müller, F. Luterbacher, E. Wolfflin, H. J. Müller,
and F. Friedersdorff (Books I.-X. and XXI.-XXX.,
separate volumes, with German notes) Leipsic, various
dates; Books I. and II. are in their second edition
(II. by W. Heraeus).
Of the numerous editions of parts of the first decade
which are provided with English notes may be cited:
Book I. by Sir J. Seeley, Oxford, 1874; by H. J.
Edwards, Cambridge, 1912; Books I. and II. by J. B.
Greenough, Boston, 1891; Book II. by R. S. Conway,
Cambridge, 1901; Books II. and III. by H. M.
Stephenson, London, 1882; Book III. by P. Thoresby
Jones, Oxford, 1914; Book IV. by H. M. Stephenson,
Cambridge, 1890; Books V.-VII. by A. R. Cluer and
P. E. Matheson, Oxford, 1904.2; Book IX. by W. B.
Anderson, Cambridge, 1909.
For the first decade the critical edition by Conway
and Walters, of which the first half was published by
the Oxford University Press in 1914, is the standard.
[p. xxxv]
There are translations of the whole of Livy by
Philemon Holland, London, 1600; by George Baker,
London, 1797; and by Rev. Canon Roberts, now in
course of publication in Everyman's Library, London,
1912 ff. Books XXI.-XXV. have been done by A. J.
Church and W. J. Brodribb, London, 1890.
Of books concerned wholly or in part with Livy
the following may be mentioned: H. Taine,
Essai
sur Tile Live, Paris, 1856; J. Wight Duff,
A Literary
History of Rome, London and New York, 1909; O.
Riemann,
Etudes sur la Langue et la Grammaire de
Tite-Live, Paris, 1885; C. Wachsmuth,
Einleitung in
das Studium der alien Geschichte, Leipsic, 1895; H.
Darnley Naylor,
Latin and English Idiom, an Object
Lesson from Livy's Preface, and
More Latin and
English Idiom, Cambridge, 1909 and 1915.
For further information about the bibliography of
Livy, including the great mass of pamphlets and
periodical articles, the student may consult Schanz,
Geschichte der rimischen Litteratur ii. 1.3, Munich, 1911
(in Iwan von Muller's
Handbuch der Klassischen
Altertumswissenschaft) and the various
Jahresberichte,
by H. J. Müller and others, which Schanz lists
on p. 418.
See also: Commentary on Books I.-V. by R. M.
Ogilvie, Oxford, 1965; Complete Text of Livy by
Conway, Walters, Johnson, MacDonald, Oxford, still
in progress.
[p. xxxvi]
The Manuscripts
V=Veronensis, 4th century.
F=Floriacensis, 9th century.
P=Parisiensis, 10th century.
E=Einsiedlensis, 10th century.
H=Harleianus prior; 10th century.
B=Bambergensis, 10th or 11th century.
M=Mediceus, 10th or 11th century.
Vorm.=Vormatiensis (as reported by Rhenanus).
R=Romanus, 11th century.
U=Upsaliensis, 11th century.
D=Dominicanus, 11th or 12th century.
L=Leidensis, 12th century.
A=Aginnensis, 13th century.
M1
M2 etc. denote corrections made by the original
scribe or a later corrector. When it is
impossible to identify the corrector Mx
is employed.
ω=all or some of the above MSS.
a = later part of
A, 14th century.
ς=one or more of the inferior MSS and early
editions.
Abbreviations
Ald. (or ed. Ald.) = the Aldine edition, Venice, 1518.
Cassiod. = Cassiodorius.
Class. Quart. = The Classical Quarterly, London, 1907 ff.
C.I.L. = Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, vol. i.2 Berlin,
1893-5.
Diod. = Diodorus Siculus.
Dion. Hal. = Dionysius of Halicarnassus.
[p. 2]
