Ab urbe condita libri — often shortened to Ab urbe condita — is a monumental history of ancient Rome

Rome

Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

 written in Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

 sometime between 27 and 25 BC by the historian Titus Livius. The work covers the time from the stories of Aeneas

Aeneas

Aeneas , in Greco-Roman mythology, was a Trojan hero, the son of the prince Anchises and the goddess Aphrodite. His father was the second cousin of King Priam of Troy, making Aeneas Priam's second cousin, once removed. The journey of Aeneas from Troy , which led to the founding a hamlet south of...

, the earliest legendary period from before the city's founding in c. 753 BC, to Livy's own times in the reign of the emperor Augustus

Augustus

Augustus ;23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14) is considered the first emperor of the Roman Empire, which he ruled alone from 27 BC until his death in 14 AD.The dates of his rule are contemporary dates; Augustus lived under two calendars, the Roman Republican until 45 BC, and the Julian...

. The Latin title can be literally translated as "Books since the city's founding". Less literally it is referred to in English as History of Rome. The last year covered by Livy is 745 AUC

Ab urbe condita

Ab urbe condita is Latin for "from the founding of the City ", traditionally set in 753 BC. AUC is a year-numbering system used by some ancient Roman historians to identify particular Roman years...

, or 9 BC, the death of Drusus

Nero Claudius Drusus

Nero Claudius Drusus Germanicus , born Decimus Claudius Drusus also called Drusus, Drusus I, Nero Drusus, or Drusus the Elder was a Roman politician and military commander. He was a fully patrician Claudian on his father's side but his maternal grandmother was from a plebeian family...

. About 25% of the work survives.

Corpus

Ab urbe condita libri originally comprized 142 "books" (libri) which in modern terminology would be considered "chapters." Thirty-five of these — Books 1-10 with the Preface and Books 21-45 — still exist in reasonably complete form. Damage to a manuscript of the 5th century CE resulted in large gaps (lacunae

Lacuna (manuscripts)

A lacunaPlural lacunae. From Latin lacūna , diminutive form of lacus . is a gap in a manuscript, inscription, text, painting, or a musical work...

) in Books 41 and 43-45 (small lacunae exist elsewhere); that is, the material is not covered in any source of Livy's text.

A fragmentary palimpsest

Palimpsest

A palimpsest is a manuscript page from a scroll or book from which the text has been scraped off and which can be used again. The word "palimpsest" comes through Latin palimpsēstus from Ancient Greek παλίμψηστος originally compounded from πάλιν and ψάω literally meaning “scraped...

 of the 91st book was discovered in the Vatican Library

Vatican Library

The Vatican Library is the library of the Holy See, currently located in Vatican City. It is one of the oldest libraries in the world and contains one of the most significant collections of historical texts. Formally established in 1475, though in fact much older, it has 75,000 codices from...

 in 1772, containing about a thousand words, and several papyrus fragments of previously unknown material, much smaller, have been found in Egypt since 1900, most recently about 40 words from Book 11, unearthed in the 1980s.

Abridgements

Livy was abridged, in antiquity, to an epitome

Epitome

An epitome is a summary or miniature form; an instance that represents a larger reality, also used as a synonym for embodiment....

, which survives for Book 1, but was itself abridged into the so-called Periochae, which is simply a list of contents, but which survives. An epitome of Books 37–40 and 48–55 was also uncovered at Oxyrhynchus

Oxyrhynchus

Oxyrhynchus is a city in Upper Egypt, located about 160 km south-southwest of Cairo, in the governorate of Al Minya. It is also an archaeological site, considered one of the most important ever discovered...

. So some idea of the topics Livy covered in the lost books exists, if often not what he said about them. The remaining books are preserved by a 4th century summary entitled Periochae, except for book 136 and 137. However, these were not compiled from Livy's original text but from an abridged edition that is now lost. In the Egyptian town Oxyrhynchus

Oxyrhynchus

Oxyrhynchus is a city in Upper Egypt, located about 160 km south-southwest of Cairo, in the governorate of Al Minya. It is also an archaeological site, considered one of the most important ever discovered...

, a similar summary of books 37-40 and 48-55 was found on a scroll of papyrus that is now in the British Museum

British Museum

The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...

. However the Oxyrhynchus Epitome is damaged and incomplete.

Topics

The first book starts with Aeneas landing in Italy and the founding of Rome by Romulus and Remus and ends with Lucius Junius Brutus

Lucius Junius Brutus

Lucius Junius Brutus was the founder of the Roman Republic and traditionally one of the first consuls in 509 BC. He was claimed as an ancestor of the Roman gens Junia, including Marcus Junius Brutus, the most famous of Caesar's assassins.- Background :...

 and Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus

Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus

Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus was one of the four leaders of the revolution which overthrew the Roman monarchy, and became one of the first two consuls of Rome in 509 BC, together with Lucius Junius Brutus...

 being elected as consuls in 502 BCE according to Livy's own chronology (509 BCE according to the Varronian chronology). There are a number of chronologies; these two dates represent an approximate range. Books 2-10 deal with the history of the Roman Republic to the Samnite Wars

Samnite Wars

The First, Second, and Third Samnite Wars, between the early Roman Republic and the tribes of Samnium, extended over half a century, involving almost all the states of Italy, and ended in Roman domination of the Samnites...

, while books 21-45 tell of the Second Punic War

Second Punic War

The Second Punic War, also referred to as The Hannibalic War and The War Against Hannibal, lasted from 218 to 201 BC and involved combatants in the western and eastern Mediterranean. This was the second major war between Carthage and the Roman Republic, with the participation of the Berbers on...

 and end with the war against Perseus of Macedon

Perseus of Macedon

Perseus was the last king of the Antigonid dynasty, who ruled the successor state in Macedon created upon the death of Alexander the Great...

.

Books 46-70 deal with the time up to the Social War in 91 BC

91 BC

Year 91 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Philippus and Caesar...

. Book 89 includes the dictatorship of Sulla in 81 BC

81 BC

Year 81 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Decula and Dolabella...

 and book 103 contains a description of Gaius Julius Caesar's first consulship. Book 142 ends with the death of Nero Claudius Drusus

Nero Claudius Drusus

Nero Claudius Drusus Germanicus , born Decimus Claudius Drusus also called Drusus, Drusus I, Nero Drusus, or Drusus the Elder was a Roman politician and military commander. He was a fully patrician Claudian on his father's side but his maternal grandmother was from a plebeian family...

 in 9 BC

9 BC

Year 9 BC was either a common year starting on Wednesday, Thursday or Friday or a leap year starting on Thursday of the Julian calendar and a leap year starting on Monday of the Proleptic Julian calendar...

. While the first ten books concern a period of over 600 years, once Livy started writing about the 1st century BCE, he devoted almost a whole book to each year.

Style

Livy wrote in a mixture of annual chronology

Chronology

Chronology is the science of arranging events in their order of occurrence in time, such as the use of a timeline or sequence of events. It is also "the determination of the actual temporal sequence of past events".Chronology is part of periodization...

 and narrative

Narrative

A narrative is a constructive format that describes a sequence of non-fictional or fictional events. The word derives from the Latin verb narrare, "to recount", and is related to the adjective gnarus, "knowing" or "skilled"...

—often having to interrupt a story to announce the elections of new consul

Consul

Consul was the highest elected office of the Roman Republic and an appointive office under the Empire. The title was also used in other city states and also revived in modern states, notably in the First French Republic...

s. Collins defines the "annalistic method" as "naming the public officers and recording the events of each succeeding year." It is an expansion of the fasti

Fasti

In ancient Rome, the fasti were chronological or calendar-based lists, or other diachronic records or plans of official and religiously sanctioned events...

, 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

Annalists

Annalists , is the name given to a class of writers on Roman history, the period of whose literary activity lasted from the time of the Second Punic War to that of Sulla...

.

The first and third decades of Livy's work are written so well that Livy has become a sine qua non

Sine qua non

Sine qua non or condicio sine qua non refers to an indispensable and essential action, condition, or ingredient...

of curricula in Golden Age Latin. Subsequently the quality of his writing began to decline. He contradicts himself and becomes repetitious and wordy. Of the 91st book Niebuhr says "repetitions are here so frequent in the small compass of four pages and the prolixity so great, that we should hardly believe it to belong to Livy...." Niebuhr accounts for the decline by supposing "the writer has grown old and become loquacious...," going so far as to conjecture that the later books were lost because copyists refused to copy such low-quality work.

A digression

Digression

Digression is a section of a composition or speech that is an intentional change of subject. In Classical rhetoric since Corax of Syracuse, especially in Institutio Oratoria of Quintilian, the digression was a regular part of any oration or composition...

 in Book 9, Sections 17–19, suggests that the Romans would have beaten Alexander the Great if he had lived longer and had turned west to attack the Romans, making this digression the oldest known alternate history.

Livy's publication

The first five books were published between 27 and 25 BCE. The first date mentioned is the year Augustus

Augustus

Augustus ;23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14) is considered the first emperor of the Roman Empire, which he ruled alone from 27 BC until his death in 14 AD.The dates of his rule are contemporary dates; Augustus lived under two calendars, the Roman Republican until 45 BC, and the Julian...

 received that title: twice in the first five books Livy uses it. For the second date, Livy lists the closings of the temple of Janus

Janus

-General:*Janus , the two-faced Roman god of gates, doors, doorways, beginnings, and endings*Janus , a moon of Saturn*Janus Patera, a shallow volcanic crater on Io, a moon of Jupiter...

 but omits the closing of 25 BCE (it had not happened yet).

Livy continued to work on the History 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 5 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 did not come out until 9 BCE or after, some 16 years after the first pentade. In Book IX Livy states that the Cimminian Forest

Silva Ciminia

The Silva Ciminia, the Ciminian Forest, was the unbroken primeval forest that separated Ancient Rome from Etruria. According to the Roman historian Livy it was, in the 4th century BCE, a feared, pathless wilderness in which few dared tread. The Ciminian Forest received its name from the Monti...

 was more impassible than the German had been recently, referring to the Hercynian Forest

Hercynian Forest

The Hercynian Forest was an ancient and dense forest that stretched eastward from the Rhine River across southern Germany and formed the northern boundary of that part of Europe known to writers of antiquity. The ancient sources are equivocal about how far east it extended...

 (Black Forest) first opened by Drusus

Drusus

Drusus was a cognomen in Ancient Rome originating with the Livii. Under the Republic, it was the intellectual property and diagnostic of the Livii Drusi. Under the empire and owing to the influence of an empress, Livia Drusilla, the name was used for a branch of the Claudii into which she had...

 and Ahenobarbus

Ahenobarbus

Ahenobarbus was the name of a plebeian family of the Domitia gens in the late Republic and early Principate of ancient Rome. The name means "red-beard" in Latin...

. One can only presume that in the interval Livy's first pentade had been such a success that he had to yield to the demand for more.

Manuscripts

There is no uniform system of classifying and naming manuscripts. Often the relationship of one MSS to another remains unknown or changes as perceptions of the handwriting change. Livy's release of chapters by packet diachronically encouraged copyists to copy by decade. Each decade has its own conventions, which do not necessarily respect the conventions of any other decade. A family of MSS descend through copying from the same MSS (typically lost). MSS vary widely; to produce an emendation or a printed edition was and is a major task. Usually variant readings are given in footnotes.

First decade

All of the manuscripts (except one) of the first ten books (first decade) of Ab Urbe Condita Libri, which were copied through the Middle Ages and were used in the first printed editions, are derived from a single recension

Recension

Recension is the practice of editing or revising a text based on critical analysis. When referring to manuscripts, this may be a revision by another author...

 commissioned by Quintus Aurelius Symmachus

Quintus Aurelius Symmachus

Quintus Aurelius Symmachus was a Roman statesman, orator, and man of letters. He held the offices of governor of Africa in 373, urban prefect of Rome in 384 and 385, and consul in 391...

, consul, 391 AD. A recension is made by comparing extant manuscripts and producing a new version, an emendation, based on the text that seems best to the editor. The latter then "subscribed" to the new MSS

Manuscript

A manuscript or handwrite is written information that has been manually created by someone or some people, such as a hand-written letter, as opposed to being printed or reproduced some other way...

 by noting on it that he had emended it.

Symmachus, probably using the authority of his office, 391 CE, commissioned Tascius Victorianus to emend the first decade. Books I-IX bear the subscription Victorianus emendabam dominis Symmachis, "I Victorianus emended (this) by the authority of Symmachus." Books VI-VIII include another subscription preceding it, that of Symmachus' son-in-law, Nicomachus Flavianus

Nicomachus Flavianus (son)

Nicomachus Flavianus , sometimes referred to as Flavianus the younger, was a grammarian and a politician of the Roman Empire. He was the son of Virius Nicomachus Flavianus...

, and Books III-V were also emended by Flavianus' son, Appius Nicomachus Dexter

Appius Nicomachus Dexter

Appius Nicomachus Dexter was a politician of the Western Roman Empire.- Biography :Dexter belonged to the Nicomachi, an influential family of senatorial rank...

, who says he used his relative Clementianus' copy. This recension and family of descendant MSS

Manuscript

A manuscript or handwrite is written information that has been manually created by someone or some people, such as a hand-written letter, as opposed to being printed or reproduced some other way...

 is called the Nicomachean after two of the subscribers. From it several MSS descend (incomplete list):

Nicomachean Family of MSS

Manuscript

A manuscript or handwrite is written information that has been manually created by someone or some people, such as a hand-written letter, as opposed to being printed or reproduced some other way...

Identifying Letter	Location & Number	Name	Date
V		Veronensis rescriptus	10th cent.
H		Harleianus	10th cent.
E		Einsiedlensis	10th cent.
F	Paris 5724	Floriacensis	10th cent.
P	Paris 5725	Parisiensis	9th/10th cent.
M		Mediceus-Laurentianus	10th/11th cent.
U		Upsaliensis	10th/11th cent.
R	Vaticanus 3329	Romanus	11th cent.
O	Bodleianus 20631	Oxoniensis	11th cent.
D	Florentinus-Marcianus	Dominicanus	12th cent.
A		Agennensis Petrarch's copy	12th-14th cent.

Epigraphists

Epigraphy

Epigraphy Epigraphy Epigraphy (from the , literally "on-writing", is the study of inscriptions or epigraphs as writing; that is, the science of identifying the graphemes and of classifying their use as to cultural context and date, elucidating their meaning and assessing what conclusions can be...

 go on to identify several hands and lines of descent. A second family of the first decade consists of the Verona Palimpsest

Palimpsest

A palimpsest is a manuscript page from a scroll or book from which the text has been scraped off and which can be used again. The word "palimpsest" comes through Latin palimpsēstus from Ancient Greek παλίμψηστος originally compounded from πάλιν and ψάω literally meaning “scraped...

, reconstructed and published by Theodore Mommsen, 1868; hence the Veronensis MSS. It includes 60 leaves of Livy fragments covering Books III-VI. The handwriting style is dated to the 4th century AD, only a few centuries after Livy.

Historicity

The details of Livy's History of Rome vary from mythical or legendary stories at the beginning to detailed and authentic accounts of apparently real events toward the end. 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."

Nevertheless, according to the tradition of writing history at the time, he felt obliged to relate what he read (or heard) without passing judgement 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 legendary and non-legendary events. The traditional modern view is that buildings, inscriptions, monuments and libraries prior to the sack of Rome

Battle of the Allia

The Battle of the Allia was a battle of the first Gallic invasion of Rome. The battle was fought near the Allia river: the defeat of the Roman army opened the route for the Gauls to sack Rome. It was fought in 390/387 BC.-Background:...

 in 387 BCE by the Gauls

Gauls

The Gauls were a Celtic people living in Gaul, the region roughly corresponding to what is now France, Belgium, Switzerland and Northern Italy, from the Iron Age through the Roman period. They mostly spoke the Continental Celtic language called Gaulish....

 under Brennus

Brennus (4th century BC)

Brennus was a chieftain of the Senones, a Gallic tribe originating from the modern areas of France known as Seine-et-Marne, Loiret, and Yonne, but which had expanded to occupy northern Italy....

 were destroyed by that sack and made unavailable to Livy and his sources. His credible history therefore must begin with that date. A layer of ash over the lowest pavement of the comitium

Comitium

The Comitium in Rome is the location of the original founding of the city. The area is marked by a number of shrines, temples, altars and churches today from throughout its history. The location was lost due to the cities growth and development over a thousand years, but was excavated at the turn...

 believed to date from that time seemed to confirm a city-wide destruction.

A new view by Tim Cornell

Tim Cornell

Tim J. Cornell is British historian specializing in ancient Rome. He teaches at the University of Manchester.Cornell received his Bachelor's Degree in Ancient History, with first class honours, from University College London and his PhD in History from the University of London...

, however, deemphasizes the damage caused by the Gauls under Brennus. Among other reasons, he asserts that the Gauls' interest in movable plunder, rather than destruction, kept damage to a minimum. The burnt layer under the comitium

Comitium

The Comitium in Rome is the location of the original founding of the city. The area is marked by a number of shrines, temples, altars and churches today from throughout its history. The location was lost due to the cities growth and development over a thousand years, but was excavated at the turn...

 is now dated to the 6th century BC. There apparently is no archaeological evidence of a widespread destruction of Rome by the Gauls. Cornell uses this information to affirm the historicity of Livy's 4th- and 5th-century-BCE events.

Livy's sources

For the first decade, Livy perused the works of a group of historians in or near his own times, who, rightly or wrongly, have been called "the annalists

Annalists

Annalists , is the name given to a class of writers on Roman history, the period of whose literary activity lasted from the time of the Second Punic War to that of Sulla...

." Some twelve historians in this category are named by Livy in Book I as sources on the monarchy. In order of time interval backward from Livy they are: Gaius Licinius Macer

Licinius Macer

Gaius Licinius Macer was an official and annalist of ancient Rome.A member of the ancient plebeian gens Licinia, he was tribune in 73 BC; Sallust mentions him agitating for the people's rights...

, Quintus Claudius Quadrigarius

Quintus Claudius Quadrigarius

Quintus Claudius Quadrigarius, Roman annalist, living probably in the 1st century BC, wrote a history, in at least twenty-three books, which began with the conquest of Rome by the Gauls and went on to the death of Sulla or perhaps later....

, Valerius Antias

Valerius Antias

Valerius Antias was an ancient Roman annalist whom Livy mentions as a source. No complete works of his survive but from the sixty-five fragments said to be his in the works of other authors it has been deduced that he wrote a chronicle of ancient Rome in at least seventy-five books...

, Gnaius Gellius, Gaius Sempronius Tuditanus (consul 129 BC)

Gaius Sempronius Tuditanus (consul 129 BC)

Gaius Sempronius Tuditanus was a politician and historian of the Roman Republic. He was consul in 129 BC.- Biography :Gaius Sempronius Tuditanus was a member of the plebeian gens Sempronia. His father had the same name and was senator and in 146 BC member of a commission of ten men who had to...

, Lucius Cassius Hemina

Lucius Cassius Hemina

Lucius Cassius Hemina, Roman annalist, composed his annals in the period between the death of Terence and the revolution of the Gracchi.He wrote in Latin around 146 BC, including the earliest chronicle concerning the career of Mucius Scaevola....

, Lucius Calpurnius Piso

Lucius Calpurnius Piso

Four notables of ancient Rome were named Lucius Calpurnius Piso:*Lucius Calpurnius Piso , pontifex*Lucius Calpurnius Piso , augur*Lucius Calpurnius Piso *Lucius Calpurnius Piso See also:...

, Aulus Postumius Albinus (consul 151 BC)

Aulus Postumius Albinus (consul 151 BC)

Aulus Postumius Albinus, apparently the son of Aulus Postumius Albinus Luscus, was praetor in 155 BC, and consul in 151 BC with Lucius Licinius Lucullus. He and his colleague were thrown into prison by the tribunes for conducting the levies with too much severity...

, Gaius Acilius Glabrio, Marcus Porcius Cato

Cato the Elder

Marcus Porcius Cato was a Roman statesman, commonly referred to as Censorius , Sapiens , Priscus , or Major, Cato the Elder, or Cato the Censor, to distinguish him from his great-grandson, Cato the Younger.He came of an ancient Plebeian family who all were noted for some...

, Lucius Cincius Alimentus

Lucius Cincius Alimentus

Lucius Cincius Alimentus was a celebrated Roman annalist and jurist, who was praetor in Sicily in 209 BC, with the command of two legions. He wrote principally in Greek. He and Fabius Pictor are considered the first two Roman historians, though both wrote in Greek as a more conventionally...

, Quintus Fabius Pictor

Quintus Fabius Pictor

Quintus Fabius Pictor was one of the earliest Roman historians and considered the first of the annalists. A member of the Fabii gens, he was the grandson of Gaius Fabius Pictor, a painter . He was a senator who fought against the Gauls in 225 BC, and against Carthage in the Second Punic War...

. Elsewhere he mentions Sempronius Asellio

Sempronius Asellio

Publius Sempronius Asellio was an early Roman historian and one of the first writers of historiographic work in Latin. He was a military tribune of P. Scipio Aemilianus Africanus at the siege of Numantia in Hispania in 134 B.C. Later he joined the circle of writers centred around Scipio Aemilianus...

. Macer, the latest of these, died in 66 BCE. Fabius, the earliest, fought in the Gallic War of 225 BCE.

Livy's sources were by no means confined to the annalists. Other historians of his times mention documents still extant then dating as far back as the kingship: treaties between Servius Tullius

Servius Tullius

Servius Tullius was the legendary sixth king of ancient Rome, and the second of its Etruscan dynasty. He reigned 578-535 BC. Roman and Greek sources describe his servile origins and later marriage to a daughter of Lucius Tarquinius Priscus, Rome's first Etruscan king, who was assassinated in 579 BC...

 and the Latins

Latins

"Latins" refers to different groups of people and the meaning of the word changes for where and when it is used.The original Latins were an Italian tribe inhabiting central and south-central Italy. Through conquest by their most populous city-state, Rome, the original Latins culturally "Romanized"...

; Lucius Tarquinius Superbus

Lucius Tarquinius Superbus

Lucius Tarquinius Superbus was the legendary seventh and final King of Rome, reigning from 535 BC until the popular uprising in 509 BC that led to the establishment of the Roman Republic. He is more commonly known by his cognomen Tarquinius Superbus and was a member of the so-called Etruscan...

 and Gabii

Gabii

Gabii was an ancient city of Latium, located due east of Rome along the Via Praenestina, which was in early times known as the Via Gabina....

; three between Rome and Carthage

Carthage

Carthage , implying it was a 'new Tyre') is a major urban centre that has existed for nearly 3,000 years on the Gulf of Tunis, developing from a Phoenician colony of the 1st millennium BC...

; Cassius and the Latins, 493 BC, which was engraved in bronze. In addition the Pontifex Maximus

Pontifex Maximus

The Pontifex Maximus was the high priest of the College of Pontiffs in ancient Rome. This was the most important position in the ancient Roman religion, open only to patricians until 254 BC, when a plebeian first occupied this post...

 kept the Annales Maximi

Annales maximi

The Annales maximi were annals kept by the Pontifex maximus in the Roman Republic. The chief priest of the Capitoline would record key public events and the names of each of the magistrates...

 (yearly events) on display in his house, the censors kept the Commentarii Censorum, the praetor

Praetor

Praetor was a title granted by the government of Ancient Rome to men acting in one of two official capacities: the commander of an army, usually in the field, or the named commander before mustering the army; and an elected magistratus assigned varied duties...

s kept their own records, the Commentarii

Commentarii

Commentarii are notes to assist the memory, or memoranda. This original idea of the word gave rise to a variety of meanings: notes and abstracts of speeches for the assistance of orators; family memorials, the origin of many of the legends introduced into early Roman history from a desire to...

 Pontificum

College of Pontiffs

The College of Pontiffs or Collegium Pontificum was a body of the ancient Roman state whose members were the highest-ranking priests of the polytheistic state religion. The college consisted of the Pontifex Maximus, the Vestal Virgins, the Rex Sacrorum, and the flamines...

 and Libri Augurales were available as well as all the laws on stone or brass; the fasti

Fasti

In ancient Rome, the fasti were chronological or calendar-based lists, or other diachronic records or plans of official and religiously sanctioned events...

 (list of magistrates) and the Libri Lintei

Linen Rolls

The Linen Rolls, Libri Lintei in Latin, were a collection of books written on linen, a technique attributed to the Etruscans.These were records which, according to one recent theory, originated from notes jotted by officials on their linen clothing, allegedly contained antique lists of annual state...

, historical records kept in the temple of Juno Moneta

Moneta

In Roman mythology, Moneta was a title given to two separate goddesses: the goddess of memory and an epithet of Juno, called Juno Moneta...

.

Nevertheless the accounts of Rome's early history are for the most part contradictory and therefore suspect (in this view). Seeley says, "It is when Livy's account is compared with the accounts of other writers that we become aware of the utter uncertainty which prevailed among the Romans themselves .... The traditional history, as a whole, must be rejected ...." As Livy stated that he used what he found without passing judgement on his sources (which is not quite true, as he does on occasion pass judgement), attacks on the credibility of Livy typically begin with the annalists. Opinions vary. T.J. Cornell presumes that Livy relied on "unscrupulous annalists" who "did not hesitate to invent a series of face-saving victories." Furthermore, "The annalists of the first century BC are thus seen principally as entertainers...." Cornell does not follow this view consistently, as he is willing to accept Livy as history for the 4th and 3rd centuries BC. A more positive view of the same limitations was stated by Howard:

The annalists were not modern historians, and not one of them is absolutely free from the faults attributed to Antias. That any of them, even Antias, deliberately falsified history is extremely improbable, but they were nearly all strong partisans, and of two conflicting stories it was most natural for them to choose the one which was most flattering to the Romans, or even to their own political party, and, as the principle of historical writing even in the time of Quintilian was stated to be that history was closely akin to poetry and was written to tell a story, not to prove it, we may safely assume that all writers were prone to choose the account which was most interesting and which required the least work in verification.

For the third decade, Livy followed the account of the Greek historian, Polybius

Polybius

Polybius , Greek ) was a Greek historian of the Hellenistic Period noted for his work, The Histories, which covered the period of 220–146 BC in detail. The work describes in part the rise of the Roman Republic and its gradual domination over Greece...

, as did the historical accounts of Marcus Tullius Cicero. Polybius had access to Greek sources in the eastern Mediterranean, outside the local Roman traditions.

Machiavelli and Livy

Niccolò Machiavelli

Niccolò Machiavelli

Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli was an Italian historian, philosopher, humanist, and writer based in Florence during the Renaissance. He is one of the main founders of modern political science. He was a diplomat, political philosopher, playwright, and a civil servant of the Florentine Republic...

's work on republic

Republic

A republic is a form of government in which the people, or some significant portion of them, have supreme control over the government and where offices of state are elected or chosen by elected people. In modern times, a common simplified definition of a republic is a government where the head of...

s, the Discourses on Livy

Discourses on Livy

The Discourses on Livy is a work of political history and philosophy written in the early 16th century by the Italian writer and political theorist Niccolò Machiavelli, best known as the author of The Prince...

, is presented as a commentary on the History of Rome.

External links

Primary sources

Secondary sources