Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology/Livius

​LI'VIUS, the Roman historian, was born at Patavium, in the consulship of Caesar and Bibulus, B. c. 59. The greater part of his life appeara to have been spent in the metropolis, but he returned to his native town before his death, which happened at the age of 76, in the fourth year of Tiberius, A. D. 17. We know that he was married, and that he had at least two children, for a certain L. Magius, a rhetorician, is named as the husband of his daugh- ter, by Seneca {Prooem. Conirov- lib. v.), and a sentence from a letter addressed to a son, whom he urges to study Demosthenes and Cicero, is quoted by Quintilian (x. 1. § 39). His literary talents secured the patronage and friendship of Augustus (Tacit. Atin. iv. 34) ; he became a person of con- sideration at court, and by his advice Claudius, after- wards emperor, was induced in early life to attempt historical composition (Suet. Claiul. 41), but there is no ground for the assertion that Livy acted as preceptor to the j'oung prince. Eventually his re- putation rose so high niid became so widely diffused that, as we are assured by Pliny (Epist. ii. 3), a Spaniard travelled from Cadiz to Rome, solely for the purpose of beholding him, and having gratified his curiosity in this one particular, immediately returned home. Although expressly termed Patavinus by ancient writers, some doubts have been entertained with regard to the precise spot of his birth, in consequence of a line in Martial {Ep. i. 62) : — • Verona docti syllabas amat vatis, Marone felix Mantua est, Censetur Apona Livio suo tellus, Stellaque nee Flacco minus from which it has been inferred that the famous hot-springs, the Patavinae Aqtiae, of which the chief was Aponus fons, situated about six miles to the south of Patavium, and now known as the Bagni cTAbano^ ought to be regarded as the place of his nativity. According to this supposition he was styled Patavinus^ just as Virgil was called Man- iuanus, although in reality belonging to Andes ; but Cluverius and the best geographers believe that Apona tellus is here equivalent to Patavina tellus^ and that no village Apontis or Aponus vicus existed in the days of the epigrammatist. In like manner Statius (Silv. iv. 7) designates him as '* Timavi alumnum," words which merely indicate his trans- padane extraction. The above particulars, few and meagre as they are, embrace every circumstance for which we can appeal to the testimony of ancient writers. The bulky and minute biography by Tomasinus, and similar productions, which communicate in turgid language a series of details which could have been ascertained by no one but a contemporary, are purely works of imagination. The greater number of the statements derived from such sources have gradually disappeared from all works of authority, but one or two of the more plausible still linger even in the most recent histories of literature. Thus we are assured that Livy commenced his career as a rhetorician and wrot&.upon rhetoric ; that he was twice married, and had two sons and several daughters ; that he was in the habit of spending much of his time at Naples ; that he first recom- mended himself to Octavianus by presenting some dialogues on philosophy, and that he was tutor to LIVIUS. Claudius. The first of these assertions is entitled to respect, since it has been adopted by Niebulir, but seems to rest entirely upon a few notices in Quintilian, from which we gather that the Epistola ad Eilium, alluded to above, contained some precepts upon style (Quintil. ii. 5. § 20, viii.2. § 18, x. 1. § 39). The second assertion, in so far as it affirms the existence of two sons, involves the very broad assumption that the following inscription, which is said to have been preserved at Venice, but with regard to whose history nothing has been recorded, neither the time when, nor the place where, nor the circumstances under which it was found, must refer to the great historian and to no one else: T. Livius . C. F. SIBI . ET . SUIS . T. LIVIO . T. F. FRISCO . F. T. LIVIO . T. F. LOXGO . ET . CASSIAE . SEX. P. PRIMAE . uxoRi ; while the number of daughters depends upon another inscription of a still more doubtful character, to which we shall advert hereafter. The third assertion is advanced because it has been deemed certain that since Virgil, Horace, and various otJier personages of wit and fashion were wont in that age to resort to the Campanian court, Livy must have done the like. With respect to the fourth assertion, we are informed by Seneca (Stmsor, 100) that Livy wrote dialogues which might be regarded as belonging to history as much as to philosophy {Scripsit enim et dial'xjos quos non ma()is PhilosopJiiae annumerare possis quam His- toriae), and books which professed to treat of phi- losophic subjects (cei? professo PhUosophiam conti- nentes lihros) ; but the story of the presentation to Octavianus is an absolute fabrication. The fifth assertion we have already contradicted, and not without reason, as will be seen from Suetonius {Claud. 41). The memoirs of most men terminate with their death ; but this is by no means the case with our historian, since some circumstances closely con- nected with what may be fairly termed his per- sonal history, excited no small commotion in his native city many centuries after his decease. About the year 1 360 a tablet was dug up at Padua, within the monastery of St. Justina, which occupied the site of an ancient temple of Jupiter, or of Juno, or of Concordia, according to the conflicting hypotheses of local antiquaries. The stone bore the following inscription, v. f. t. livius . liviae . t. f. quartae. L. HALYS.CONCORDIALIS. FATA VI . SIBI . ET. SUIS. OMNIBUS, which was at first interpreted to mean Vivus fecit Titus Livius Liviae Titi JUiae quartae^ (sc. uxori) Lucii Halys Concordialis Patavi sibi et suis omnibus. Some imagined that quartae . L. HALYS denoted Quartae legionis Halys, but this opinion was overthrown without difficulty, because even at that time it was well known that L. is seldom if ever used in inscriptions as an abbreviation of legio, and secondly because the fourth legion was entitled Scythica and not Halys. It was then de- cided that QUARTAE must indicate the fourth daughter of Livius, and that L. halys must be the name of her husband ; and ingenious persons endeavoured to show that in all probability he was identical with the L. Magius mentioned by Seneca. They also persuaded themselves that Livy, upon his return home, had been installed by his country- men in the dignified office of priest of the goddess Concord, and had erected this monument within the walls of her sanctuary, marking the place of sepulture of himself and his family. At all events, whatever difficulties might seem to embarrdSa the ​LIVIUS. explaiKition of some of the words and abbreTOHtions in the inscription, no doubt seems for a moment to have been entertained that it was a genuine me- morial of the historian. Accordingly, tiie Bene- dictine fathers of the monastery transported the tablet to the vestibule of their chapel, and caused a portrait of Livy to be painted beside it. In 1413, about fifty years after the discovery just described, in digging the foundations for the erection of new buildings in connection with the monastery, the workmen reached an ancient pavement com- posed of square bricks cemented with lime. This having been broken through, a leaden coffin became visible, which was found to contain human bones. An old monk declared that this was the very spot above which the tablet had been found, when im- mediately the cry rose that the remains of Livy had been brought to light, a report which filled the whole city with extravagant joy. The new-found treasure was deposited in the town hall, and to the ancient tablet a modern epitaph was affixed. At a subsequent period a costly monument was added as a further tribute to his memory. Here, it might have been supposed, these weary bones would at length have been permitted to rest in peace. But in 1451, Alphonso of Arragon preferred a request to the Paduans, that they would be pleased to bestow upon him the bone of Livy's right arm, in order that he might possess the limb by which the immortal narrative had been actually penned. This petition was at last complied with ; but just as the valuable relic reached Naples, Al- phonso died, and the Sicilian fell heir to the prize. Eventually it passed into the hands of Joannes Jo- vianus Pontanus, by whom it was enshrined with an appropriate legend. So far all was well. In the lapse of time, however, it was perceived, upon comparing the tablet dug up in the monastery of St. Justina, with others of a similar description, tltat the contractions had been erroneously ex- plained, and consequently the whole tenor of the words misunderstood. It was clearly proved that L. did not stand for Lucius but for libertus, and that the principal person named was Titus Livius Haly.% freedman of Livia, the fourth daugh- ter of a Titus Livius, that he had in accordance with the usual custom adopted the designation of his former master, that he had been a priest of Concord at Padua, an office which it appeared from other records had often been filled by persons in his station, and that he had set up this stone to mark the burying-ground of himself and his kindred. Now since the supposition that the skeleton in the leaden coffin was that of the historian rested solely upon the authority of the inscription, when this support was withdrawn, the whole fabric of con- jecture fell to the ground, and it became evident the relics were those of an obscure freedman. The great and only extant work of Livy is a History of Rome, termed by himself Amiales (xliii. l;5), extending from the foundation of the dty to the death of Drusus, u. c. 9, comprised in 142 books: of these thirty-five have descended to U3 ; but of the whole, with the exception of two, we possess summaries, which, although in them- selves dry and lifeless, are by no means destitute of value, since they afford a complete index or table of contents, and are occasionally our sole authorities for the transactions of particular periods. The Cduipilfr of these Epitomes^ as they are generally called, is unknown ; but they must have proceeded LIVIUS. 791 from one who was well acquainted with his sul)j'.>c% and were probably drawn up not long after the appearance of the volumes which they abridge. By some they have been ascribed to Liv}'- himself, by others to Floras ; but there is nothing in the Ian guage or context to warrant either of these con elusions ; and external evidence is altogether wanting. From the circumstance that a short introduction or preface is found at the beginning of books 1, 21, and 31, and that each of these marks the com- mencement of an important epoch, the whole work has been divided into decades, or groups, contain- ing ten books each, although there is no good, reason to believe that any such division was intro- duced until after the fifth or sixth century, for Priscian and Diomedes, who quote repeatedly from particular books, never allude to any such distribu- tion. The commencement of book xli. is lost, but there is certainly no remarkable crisis at this place which invalidates one part of the argument in favour of the antiquity of the arrangement. The first decade (bks. i — x.) is entire. It em- braces the period from the foundation of the city to the year b. c. 294, when the subjugation of the Samnites may be said to have been completed. The second decade (bks. xi — xx.) is altogether lost. It embraced the period from B. c. 294 to B.C. 219, comprising an account of the extension of the Roman dominion over the whole of Southern Italy and a portion of Gallia Cisalpina ; of the invasion of Pyrrhus ; of the first Punic war; of the expedition against the Illyrian pirates, and of other matters which fell out between the conclusion of the peace with Carthage and the siege of Saguntum. The third decade (bks. xxi — xxx.) is entire. It embraces the period from b. c. 219 to B.C. 201, comprehending the whole of the second Punic war, and the contemporaneous struggles in Spain and Greece. The fourth decade (bks. xxxi — xl.) is entire, and also one half of the fifth (bks. xli — xlv.). These fifteen books embrace the period from B.C. 201 to B. c. 167, and develope the progress of the Roman arms in Cisalpine Gaul, in Macedonia, Greece and Asia, ending with the triumph of Aemilius Paul- lus, in which Perseus and his three sons were ex- hibited as captives. Of the remaining books nothing remains except inconsiderable fragments, the most notable being a few chapters of the 91st book, concerning the fortunes of Sertorius. The whole of the above were not brought t» light at once. The earliest editions contain 29 books only, namely, i — x., xxi — xxxii., xxxiv — xl., the last breaking off abruptly in the middle of chapter 37, with the word edixeru7it. In 1518 the latter portion of bk. xxxiii., beginning in chapter 17th with artis /aucibus, together with what was wanting of bk. xl, were supplied from a MS. be- longing to the cathedral church of St. Martin at Mayence. In 1531 bks. xli. — xlv. were discovered by Grynaeus in the convent of Lorsch, near Worms, and were published forthwith at Basle by Frobe- nius ; and finally, in 1615, a MS. was found at Bamberg, which filled up the gap remaining in bk. xxxiii. ; and this appeared complete for the first time at Rome in 1616. The fragment of bk. xci. was copied from a palimpsest in the Vatican by Paulus Jacobus Bruns in 1772, and printed in the 3k 4 ​792 LTVIUS. {ollowing year at Rome, Leipzig, and Hamburgh. A small portion which he failed to decypher was afterwards made out by Niebuhr, who also sup- plied some words which had been cut away, and published the whole in his Cicero?iis pro M. Funteio et C. Rahirio Orat. Fragm.^ Berlin, 1820. Two short fragments possessing much interest, since they describe the death and character of Cicero, are preserved in the sixth Suasoria of Seneca. P'rom the revival of letters until the reign of Louis XIV. the hopes of the learned were perpe- tually excited and tantalised by reports with regard to complete MSS. of the great historian. Strenuous exertions were made by Leo X. and many other European potentates in their efforts to procure a perfect copy, which at one time was said to be de- posited at lona in the Hebrides, at another in Chios, at another in the monastery of Mount Athos, at another in the seraglio of the grand signor, while it has been confidently maintained that such a treasure was destroyed at the sack of Magdeburg ; and there can be no doubt that a MS. contaijiing the whole of the fifth decade at least was once in existence at Lausanne. Tales too were circulated and eagerly believed of leaves or volumes having been seen or heard of under strange and romantic circumstances ; but the prize, although apparently often within reach, always eluded the grasp, and the pursuit has long since been abandoned in despair. We remarked that two of the Epitomes had been lost. This deficiency was not at first detected, since the numbers follow each other in regular succession from 1 up to 140; and hence the total number of books was supposed not to exceed that amount. Upon more careful examination, how- ever, it was perceived that while the epitome of bk. cxxxv. closed with the conquest of the Salassi, which belongs to B.C. 25, the epitome of bk. cxxxvi. opened with the subjugation of the Rhaeti, by Tiberius, Nero, and Drusus, in B. c. 1 5, thus leav- ing a blank of nine years, an interval marked by the shutting of Janus, the celebration of the secular games, the acceptance of the tribunitian power by Augustus, and other occurrences which would scarcely have been passed over in silence by the abbreviator. Sigonius and Drakenborch, whose reasonings have been generally admitted by scholars, agree that two books were devoted to tliis space, and hence the epitomes which stand as cxxxvi., cxxxvii., cxxxviii., cxxxix., cxl., ought to be marked cxxxviii., cxxxix., cxl., cxli., cxlii., re- spectively. It was little probable, a priori^ that an under- taking so vast should have been brought to a close before any part of it was given to the world ; and in point of fact we find indications here and there which throw some light upon the epochs when dif- ferent sections were composed and published. Thus in book first (c. 19) it is stated that the temple of Janus had been closed twice only since the reign of Nuraa, for the first time in the consulship of T. Manlius (b. c. 235), a few years after the termi- nation of the first Punic war ; for the second time by Augustus Caesar, after the battle of Actium, in B. c. 29, as we learn from other sources. But we are told by Dion Cassius that it was shut again by Augustus after the conquest of the Cantabrians, in H. c. 25 ; and hence it is evident that the first book must have been written, and must have gone forth bctweeji the! years B. c. 29 and b. c. 25. An at- LIVIUS. tempt has been made to render these limits still narrower, from the consideration that the emperor is here spoken of as Augustus^ a title not conferred until the year b. c. 27 ; but this will only prove that the passage could not have been published before that date, since, although written previously, the honorary' epithet might have been inserted here and elsewhere at any time before publication. Again, we gather from the epitome that bk. lix. contained a reference to the law of Augustus, De Maritandis OrdiiiiLus^ from which it has been con- cluded that the book in question must have been written after b. c. 18 ; but this is by no means certain, since it can be proved that a legislative enactment upon this subject was proposed as early as B. c. 28. Since, however, the obsequies of Drusus were commemorated in bk. cxlii. it is evi- dent, at the very lowest computation, that the task must have been spread over seventeen years, and probably occupied a much longer time. We must not omit to notice that Niebuhr takes a very dif- ferent view of this matter. He is confident that Livy did not begin his labours until he had attained the age of fifty (b. c. 9), and that he had not fully accomplished his design at the close of his life. He builds chiefly upon a passage in ix. 3G, where it is said that the Ciminian wood was in these days as impenetrable "quara nuper fuere Gennanici saltus, words which, it is urged, could not have been used before the forests of Germany had been opened up by the campaigns of Drusus (b, c. 12 — 9) ; and upon another in iv. 20, where, after it is recorded that Augustus had repaired the shrine of Jupiter Feretrius, he is termed "■ tiimplorum om- nium conditorem aut restitutorem," a description which could not have been applied to him in an early part of his career. Now, without insisting that casual remarks such as these might have been introduced during a revision of the text, it must be evident that the remarks themselves are much too vague to serve as the basis of a chronological theory, except in so far as they relate to the restoration of the shrine of Jupiter Feretrius ; but this we know was undertaken at the suggestion of Atticus (Cornel. Nep. Alt. c. 20), and Atticus died B. c. 32. On the other hand, the reasoning grounded on the shutting of the temple of Janus must be held, in so far as bk. i. is involved, to be absolutely impregnable ; and we can scarcely imagine that the eighth book was not finished until sixteen years after the first. In attempting to form an estimate of any great historical production, our attention is naturally and necessarilj'^ directed to two points, which may be kept perfectly distinct : first, the substance, that is, the truth or falsehood of what is set down ; and secondly, its character merely as a literary compo- sition. As to the latter subject, Livy has little to fear from positive censure or from faint praise. His style may be pronounced almost faultless ; and a great proof of its excellence is, that the clianns with which it is invested are so little salient, and so equally diffused, that no one feature can be selected for special eulogy, but the whole unite to produce a form of singular beauty and grace. The narrative flows on in a calm, but strong current, clear and sparkling, but deep and unbroken ; the diction dis- plays richness without heaviness, and simplicity without tameness. The feelings of the reader are not laboriously worked up from time to time by a grand effort, while he is suffered to languish ​LIVIUS. through long intervals of dullness, but a sort of gentle excitement is steadily maintained : the atten- tion never droops ; and while the great results appear in full relief, the minor incidents, which often conduce so materially to these results, are brought plainly into view. Nor is his art as a painter less wonderful. There is a distinctness of outline and a warmth of colouring in all his de- lineations, whether of living men in action, or of things inanimate, which never fail to call up the ■whole scene, with all its adjuncts, before our eyes. In a gallery of masterpieces, it is difficult to make a selection, but we doubt whether any artist, an- cient or modern, ever finished a more wonderful series of pictures than those which are found at the conclusion of the 27th book, representing the state of the public mind at Rome, when intelligence was first received of the daring expedition of the consul Claudius Nero, the agonising suspense which pre- vailed while the success of this hazardous project was yet uncertain, and the almost frantic joy which hailed the intelligence of the great victory on the Metaurus. The only point involving a question of taste from which we should feel inclined to with- hold warm commendation is one which has called forth the warmest admiration on the part of many critics. We mean tlie numerous orations by which tlie course of the narrative is diversified, and which are frequently made the vehicle of political dis- quisition. Not but that these are in themselves models of eloquence ; but they are too often out of keeping with the very moderate degree of mental cultivation enjoyed by the speakers, and are fre- quently little adapted to the times when they were delivered, or to the audiences to whom they were addressed. Instead of being the shrewd out-pour- ings of homely wisdom, or the violent expression of rude passion, they have too much the air of polished rhetorical declamations. Before proceeding to examine and to judge the matter or substance of the work, we are bound to ascertain, if possible, the end which the author proposed to himself. Now no one who reads the pages of Livy with attention can for a moment suppose that he ever conceived the project of draw- ing up a critical history of Rome. He desired indeed to extend the fame of the Roman people, and to establish his own reputation ; but he evi- dently had neither the inclination nor the ability to enter upon laborious original investigations with regard to the foreign and domestic relations of the republic in remote ages. Hia aim was to offer to his countrymen a clear and pleasing narrative, which, while it gratified their vanity, should con- tain no startling improbabilities nor gross amplifi- cations, such as would have shocked his fastidious contemporaries. To effect this purpose he studied with care some of the more celebrated historians who had already trodden the path upon which he was about to enter, comparing and remodelling the materials which they afforded. He communicated warmth and ease to the cold constrained records of the more ancient chronicles, he expunged most of the monstrous and puerile fables with which the pages of his predecessors were overloaded, retaining those fictions only which were clothed with a cer- tain poetical seemliness, or such as had obtained so firm a hold upon the public mind as to have become articles in the national faith ; he rejected the clumsy exaggerations in which Valerius Antias and others of the siime school had loved to revel- LIVIUS. 793 and he moulded what had before been a collection of heavy, rude, incongruous masses, into one com- manding figure, symmetrical in all its proportions, full of vigorous life and manly dignity. Where his authorities were in accordance with each other, and with common sense, he generally rested satis- fied with this agreement ; where their testimony was irreconcilable, he was content to point out their want of harmony, and occasionally to offer an opinion on their comparative credibility. But, however turbid the current of his information, in no case did he ever dream of ascending to the fountain head. Never did he seek to confirm or to confute the assertion of others by exploring the sources from which their knowledge was derived. He never attempted to test their accuracy by ex- amining monuments of remote antiquity, of which not a few were accessible to every inhabitant of the metropolis. He never thought it necessary to inquire how far the various religious rites and ceremonies still observed might throw light upon the institutions of a distant epoch ; nor did he en- deavour to illustrate the social divisions of the early Romans, and the progress of the Roman constitu- tion, by investigating the antiquities of the various Italian tribes, most of wliom possessed their own records and traditions. It may perhaps be objected that we have no right to assume that Livy did not make use of such ancient monuments or documents as were available in his age, and that in point of fact he actually refers to several. We shall soon discover, how- ever, upon close scrutiny, that in all such cases he does not speak from personal investigation, but from intelligence received through the medium of the annalists. Thus he is satisfied with quoting Licinius Macer for the contents of the Foedus Ardeatimim (iv. 7) ; the " Lex vetusta priscis Uteris verbisque scripta" (vii, 3), and the circum- stances connected with the usage there commemo- rated are evidently taken upon trust from Cincius Alimentus ; and although he appeals (viii, 20) to the Foedus Neapolitanum, he does not pretend to have seen it. On the other hand, we have many positive proofs of his negligence or indifference. When he hesitates between two different versions of the Libri Lintei given by two different writers (iv. 23), we might be inclined, with Dr. Arnold, charitably to believe that they were no longer in existence, rather than to suppose that he was so indolent that he would not take the trouble of walking from one quarter of the city to another for the sake of consulting them, had he not himself a few pages previously given us to understand that he had never inspected the writing on the breast- plate of Cossus (iv. 20), and had he not elsewhere completely misrepresented the Icilian law (iii. 31), although it was inscribed on a column of bronze in the temple of Diana, where it was examined by Dionysius, to whom we are indebted for an accu- rate account of its purport : nay, more, it is per- fectly clear that he had never read the Leges Regiae, nor the Commentaries of Servius Tullius, nor even the Licinian Rogations ; and, stranger still, that he had never studied with care the laws of the twelve tables, not to mention the vast col- lection of decrees of the senate, ordinances of the plebs, treaties and other state papers, extending back almost to the foundation of the city, which had been engraven on tablets of brass, and were consumed to the number of three thousand in tho ​794 LI VI US. destruction of the capital by the Vitellians, (Sueton. Vesp. 8 ; Tacit. Bist. iii. 71.) The inquiry with regard to the authorities whom he actually did follow would be simple had these authorities been preserved, or had they been regu- larly referred to as the work advanced. But un- fortunately not one of the writers employed by Livy in his first decade has descended to us entire or nearly entire, and he seldom gives any indica- tion of the sources from whence his statements are derived, except in those cases where he encoun- tered inexplicable contradictions or palpable blun- ders. The first five books contain very few allusions to preceding historians, but a considerable number of fragments relating to this period have been pre- served by Dionysius, Plutarch, and the gramma- rians. On the other hand, scarcely any fragments have been preserved relating to the period embraced by the five last books of this decade ; but here we find frequent notices of preceding historians. We are thus enabled to decide with considerable cer- tainty that he depended chiefly upon Ennius, Fabius Pictor, Cincius Alimentus, and Calpurnius Piso ; and to these must be added, after the com- mencement of the Gallic war, Claudius Quadrigarius ; while he occasionally, but with less confidence, made use of Valerius Antias, Licinius Macer, and Aelius Tubero. We can discern no traces of Sul- picius Galba, nor of Scribonius Libo, nor of Cassius Hemina, nor of Sempronius Tuditanus, who were not altogether destitute of weight: we need not lament that he passed over Postumius Albinus and Cn. Gellius, to the latter of whom especially Dio- nysius was indebted for a load of trash ; but it must ever be a source of regret that he should have neglected the Annals and Antiquities of Varro, as well as the Origines of Cato, works from which he might have obtained stores of knowledge upon those departments of constitutional history in which he is conspicuously defective. From the com- mencement of the third decade he reposes upon a much more firm sup'port. Polybius now becomes the guide whom, for the most part, he follows closely and almost exclusively. Occasionally indeed he quits him for a time, in order to make room for those representations of particular occurrences by the Latin annalists which he deemed likely to be more palatable to his readers ; but he quickly re- turns to the beaten path, and treads steadily in the footsteps of the Greek. It will be seen from these remarks that when Livy professes to give the testimony of all pre- ceding authors {omnes atictores), these words must be intended to denote those only which happened to be before him at the moment, and must not by any means be understood to imply that he had con- sulted every author accessible, nor even such as were most deserving of credit. And not only does he fail to consult all the authors to whom he might have resorted with advantage, but he does not avail himself in the most judicious manner of the aid of those in whom he reposed trust. He does not seem at any time to have taken a broad and comprehensive view of his subject, but to have performed his task piecemeal. A small section was taken in hand, different accounts were compared, and the most plausible was adopted ; the same system was adhered to in the succeeding portions, so that each considered by itself, without reference to the rest, was executed with care ; but the wit- nesses who were rejected in one place were ad- LIVIUS. mitted in another, without sufficient attention being paid to the dependence and the connection of the events. Hence the immerous contradictions and inconsistencies which have been detected by sharp- eyed critics like Perizonius and Glareanus ; and although these seldom affect materially the leading incidents, yet by their frequent recurrence they shake our faith in the trustworthiness of the whole. Other mistakes also are found in abundance, arising from his want of anything like practical knowledge of the world, from his never having acquired even the elements of the military art, of jurisprudence, or of political economy, and above all, from his singular ignorance of geography. It is well known that his account of the disaster at the Caudine Forks, of the march of Hannibal into Etruria, of the engagement on the Thrasymene Lake, and of the passage of the Alps by the Carthaginians, do not tally with the natural features of the regions in question, and yet the whole of these were within the limits or on the borders of Italy, and the localities might all have been visited within the space of a few weeks. Wiiile we fully acknowledge the justice of the censures directed against Livy on the score of these and other deficiencies, we cannot admit that his general good faith has ever been impugned with any show of justice. We are assured (Tacit. Ann. iv. 34) that he was fair and liberal upon matters of contemporary history, where, from his position about court, he had the greatest temptation to flatter those in power by depreciating their former adver- saries ; we know that he did not scruple to pay a high tribute to the talents and patriotism of such men as Cassius and Brutus, that his character of Cicero is a high eulogium, and that he spoke so warmly of the unsuccessful leader in the great civil war, that he was sportively styled a Pompeian by Augustus, who to his honour did not look coldly on the historian in consequence of his boldness and candour. It is true that in recounting the domestic strife which agitated the republic for nearly two cen- turies, he represents the plebeians and their leaders in the most unfavourable light ; and whilst he at times almost allows that they were struggling for their just rights against the oppression of the pa- tricians, he contrives to render their proceedings odious. This arose, not from any wish to pervert the truth, but from ignorance of the exact relation of the contending parties, combined with a lively remembrance of the convulsions which he witnessed in his youth, or had heard of from those who were still alive when he had grown up to manhood. It is manifest that throughout he never can separate in his own mind the spirited plebeians of the infant commonwealth, composed of the noblest and best blood of the various neighbouring states subjugated by Rome, from the base and venal rabble which thronged the forum in the days of Mariiis and Cicero ; while in like manner he confounds those bold and honest tribunes, who were the champions of liberty, with such men as Saturninus or Sulpicius, Clodius or Vatinius. There is also perceptible a strong but not unnatural disposition to elevate the justice, mo- deration, and valour of his own countrymen in all their dealings with foreign powers, and on tho same principle to gloss over their deeds of oppression and treachery, and to explain away their defeats- But although he unquestionably attempts to put a favourable construction upon adverse facts, he does not warp or distort tlie facts themselves as he found ​LIVIUS. them recorded, and this enables the reader who is biassed by no national prepossessions to draw a correct inference for himself. Occasionally, espe- cially in the darker periods, we can scarcely doubt that he indulged in a little wilful blindness, and that when two conflicting traditions were current he did not very scrupulously weigli the evidence, but, adopting that which was most gratifying to his countrymen, passed over the other in silence. He certainly could scarcely have been altogether ignorant that his story with regard to the con- clusion of the war with Porsena was not the only one entitled to consideration, although he was pro- bably unacquainted with the treaty from which Pliny (//. N. xxxiv. 39 ; comp. Tacit. Hist. iii. 72) extracted the humiliating conditions of the peace, and he must have been aware that there were good reasons for believing that the evacuation of Rome by the Gauls took place under circumstances very different from those celebrated in the songs and funeral orations of the Furian and other patrician clans. The reproaches lavished on the alleged credulity of Livy in the matter of omens and prodigies scarcely deserve even a passing comment. No one can regret that he should have registered these curious memorials of superstition, which occupied so prominent a place in the popular faith, and formed an engine of such power in the hands of an un- scrupulous priesthood ; nor can any one who has read the simple and eloquent observation on this very topic, in the thirteenth chapter of the forty- third book, consider that either the sentiments or the conduct of the historian stand in need of further apology or explanation. (Comp. xxi. 62, xxiv. 10, 44, xxvii. 23.) We must not omit to notice a question which has been debated with great eagerness, — whether Livy had read Dionysius or Dionysius had made use of Livy. Niebuhr unhesitatingly maintains that the Archaeologia of Dionysius was published before Livy began to compose his Annals, and that the latter received considerable assistance from the former. We must hesitate, however, to acknow- ledge the certainty of this conclusion, unless there are some arguments in reserve more cogent than those brought forward in the Lectures on Roman History. For there two reasons only are advanced, the one founded upon the opinion which we have already endeavoured to prove was scarcely tenable, — that Livy did not commence his task until he had attained the age of fifty ; the other founded upon the fact that Dionysius nowhere mentions Livy, which, it must be remembered, is counter- balanced by another fact, namely, that Livy no- where mentions Dionysius, and that all attempts to prove plagiarisms or trace allusions have failed. Li reality it is most probable that while both were engaged in the same pursuit at the same time, each followed his own course independently, and both gave the result of their labours to the world with- out either having been previously acquainted with the researches of the other. There is yet one topic to which we must advert. We are told' by Quintilian twice (i. 5. § 56, viii. I. § 3) that Asi'nius Pollio had remarked a certain Patavinity in Livy. Scholars have given them- selves a vast deal of trouble to discover what this terra may indicate, and various hypotheses have been propounded ; but any one who will read the words of Quintilian with attention cannot fail to LIVIUS. 795 perceive that they are susceptible of one interpre- tation only, and that if there is any truth in the story, which Niebuhr altogether disbelieves, Pollio must have intended to censure some provincial peculiarities of expression, which we at all events are in no position to detect, as might have been anticipated, the conjectures collected and examined in the elaborate dissertation of Morhof being alike frivolous. From what has now been said it will be evident that if our estimate is accurate, Livy must have been destitute of many qualifications essential in an historian of the highest class. He was, we fully believe, amiable, honest, and single-minded, sound in head and warm in heart, but not endowed with remarkable acuteness of intellect, nor with indefatigable industry. He was as incapable of taking broad, clear, and philosophic views of the progress and connection of events, as he was indis- posed to prosecute laborious and profound inquiries at the expense of great personal toil. Although a mere man of letters, knowing little of the world except from books, he was not a man of deep learn- ing, and indeed was but indiiferently versed in many ordinary- branches of a liberal education. Not only was he content to derive all he knew from secondary streams, but he usually repaired for his supplies to those which were nearest and most convenient, without being solicitous to ascertain that they were the most pure. The unbounded popularity which he has enjoyed must be ascribed partly to the fascinations of his subject, partly to his winning candour, bat chiefly to the extraordinary command which he wielded over the resources of his native tongue. No manuscript of Livy has yet been discovered containing all the books now extant. Those which comprise the first and third decades do not extend further. Of the first and third decades we have MSS.as old as the tenth century ; those of the fourth do not ascend higher than the fifteenth century. The text of the first decade depends entirely on one original copy, revised in the fourth century by Flavianus Nicomachus Dexter and Victorianus, from which all the known MSS. of this portion of the work have flowed. Of these the two best ai'e the CodeoB Mediceus or Florentinus of the eleventh century, and the Codex Parisinus^ collated by Alchefski, of the tenth century, while perhaps superior to either was the codex made use of by Rhenanus, which has now disappeared. The text of the third decade rests upon the Codex Puteanus employed by Gronovius, and which has been pro- nounced less corrupt than any MS. of the first decade. The fourth decade is derived chiefly from the Codex Dambergensis and the Codex Moguntintis, while the five books of the fifth decade are taken entirely from the MS. found at Lorsch, hence called Codex Laurishamensis^ now preserved at Vienna. The Editio Princeps of Livy was printed at Rome, in folio by Sweynheym and Pannartz, about 1469, under the inspection of Andrew, bishop of Aleria ; the second edition also was printed at Rome in folio, by Udalricus Gallus, towards the close of the same year or the beginning of 1470 ; the third was from the press of Vindelin de Spira, fol. Venet. 1470, being the first which bears a date. Of those which followed, the most notable are. that of Bernard. Herasmius, fol. Venet. 1491, with the commeutarieb of M. Antonius Sabellicua, ​796 LOCHEIA. ■which were very often reprinted ; that of Ascensius, fol. Par. 1510, 1513, 1516, 1530, 1533 ; that of Aldus, Venet. 5 torn. 8vo., 1518— 1533, including Florus, and a Latin translation of Polybius by Perotto ; that of Frobenius, fol. Basel, 1531, con- taining for the first time the five books discovered by Grynaens and the chronology of Glareanus, re- printed in 1535, with the addition of the notes of Rhenanus and Geleiiius ; that of Gryphius, Liigd. 4 vol. 8vo., 1542, with the notes of Valla, Rhe- nanus, Gelenius, and Glareanus, reprinted at Paris, 1543, with the addition of the notes of Antonius Sabellicus ; that of Manutius, fol. Venet. 1555, 1566, 1572, 1592, with the epitomes and scholia of Sigonius ; and that of Gruterus, fol. Francf. 1608^ 8vo. 1619, fol. 1628, 8vo. 1659. A new era commences with researches of Gronovius, who first placed the text upon a satisfactory basis by the collation of a vast number of MSS. His labours appear under their best form in the editions printed by Daniel Elzevir, 3 vols, 1665, 1679, forming part of the Variorum Classics in 8vo. The edition of Jo. Clericus, 10 vols. 8vo. Amst. 1710, containing the supplements of Freinsheimius entire, and of Crevier, 6 vols. 4to., Paris, 1735 — 41, are by no means destitute of value : the latter especially has always been very popular; the notes have been frequently reprinted. It was reserved, however, for Drakenborch to follow out what Gronovius had so well begun, and his most elaborate edition, pub- lished at Leyden, in 7 vols. 4to. 1738 — 46, is still considered the standard. This admirable per- formance, in addition to a text revised with uncom- mon care and judgment, comprehends everything valuable contributed by previous scholars, and forms a most ample storehouse of learning. Since that period little has been done for Livy ; for the editions of Stroth and Diiring, Goth. 1796 — 1819,of Ruperti, Getting. 1807 — 1809, and ofBekker and Raschig, Lips. 1829, cannot be regarded as possess- ing any particular weight. A new recension, re- cently commenced by Alchefski, Berol. 8vo. 1841 — 1843, and carried as far as the end of the first decade, promises to be very valuable. The edition of Drakenborch, together v^ith the excellent Commenta- tionesde Fontibus Historiarum T. Livii of Lnchmann, 4to. Getting. 1822 — 1828, will supply everything that can be desired for general illustration. To these we may perhaps add the commentary of Ruperti, which, although frequently verbose upon what is easy and altogether silent upon what is difficult, contains much matter useful to a student. A long list of dissertations on various isolated topics connected with Livy, will be found in Schweiger's Handhuch der Classichcn Bibliographies 8vo. Leip- zig, 1832, and in the Grundriss der Classiclten Bibliographie of Wagner, Breslau, 1840. The quaint old translation of Philemon Holland, fol. Lond. 1600, 1659, is far superior to the loose weak paraphrase of Baker. The version published by John Hayes (Lond. 1744—1745, 6 vols. 8vo), professing to be executed by several hands, and another which appeared anonymously (fol. Lond. 1686), embrace the supplements of Freinsheim as well as the text of Livy. [W. R.]