The History of Early Rome

"The History of Rome" in Four Volumes #1

by Livy, Aubrey de Sélincourt (Translator), Raffaele Scorzelli (Illustrator)

No ISBN
PUBLISHER'S PREFACE
IF two thousand years of popularity among serious readers can make a book a classic, Livy's History of Rome from Its Foundation is a classic. The Roman historian was a contemporary of the Emperor Augustus, the most famous of the many Romans who greatly admired Livy's work. If the History did not always attain the degree of scholarly accuracy demanded of modern historians, it had the praiseworthy virtues of style and readability.

Livy has been universally commended for his imaginative sympathy, which lends vivacity and an impression of reality to his writing. This is true whether he is describing a warlike scene such as the sack of Rome by the Gauls, a domestic incident such as the violation and suicide of Lucretia, or a dramatic event such as that of Mucius Scaevola thrusting his right hand into the flame to prove his fortitude.

It was the purpose of Titus Livius (to give him his Latin name) to preserve the memory of the noble deeds of the Roman people and to point out conspicuous examples of good and evil acts. His success was due in part to the deep enthusiasm he brought to the task, which he undertook around 26 B.C., in his thirty-third year, and continued almost until his death in A.D. 17.

The History opens with the end of the Trojan War, the wanderings of Aeneas exiled from Troy and settling in Italy, the birth of Romulus and Remus, and the legendary founding of Rome by Romulus in 753 B.C. It proceeds with the first Roman kings, their overthrow, and the beginnings of the Republic. Livy actually carried his narrative all the way into his own times, ending with the events of A.D. 9. The vast completed text came to 142 "books," though only 35 are extant. In this volume, The History of Early Rome, consisting of Books I-V, the chronicle stops shortly after 390 B.C., when Rome was sacked by the Gauls.

Some of Livy's prefatory remarks ring a bell today. After praising his country and his countrymen he expresses a regret that "of late years wealth has made us greedy, and self-indulgence has brought us, through every form of sensual excess," to what contemporary observers have called an alienation from life.

The excellent translation used in this volume was made by Aubrey de Selincourt, an Oxford-trained classics scholar, whose introduction to the book reveals him to have been a man of wit and perspicacity.

"Much nonsense has been talked about the art of translation," he declares. "Translators have claimed to reproduce the 'spirit' of the original: i.e., the subtlest inmost essence of Livy's style. It cannot be done: that subtlest essence lies within the words themselves; change the words and it, too, is inevitably changed. . . . To try to imitate the style of a foreign author who has been dead two thousand years is plain silly. The truth is that every writer, whether he is translating or not, can write in one style only: his own." The combination of the two writing styles of Titus Livius and Aubrey de Selincourt makes for an admirably readable text.

Genres: History, Classics, Nonfiction, Ancient History, Roman, Ancient, Roman History

500 pages, Leather Bound

First published January 1, 30

About the author

Titus Livius (Patavinus) (64 or 59 BC – AD 17)—known as Livy in English, and Tite-Live in French—was a Roman historian who wrote a monumental history of Rome and the Roman people – Ab Urbe Condita Libri (Books from the Foundation of the City) – covering the period from the earliest legends of Rome before the traditional foundation in 753 BC through the reign of Augustus in Livy's own time. He was on familiar terms with the Julio-Claudian dynasty, advising Augustus's grandnephew, the future emperor Claudius, as a young man not long before 14 AD in a letter to take up the writing of history. Livy and Augustus's wife, Livia, were from the same clan in different locations, although not related by blood.

Reviews

[Jan-Maat]

If you've ever planned to gather together a gaggle of car thieves and dognappers to found your own city on a hill founded on the firm principle of taking whatever ever you want, fairly and squarely, by force of armsor seven with a view to growing to become one of the world's pre-eminent states then Livy's history of the first 400 odd years of Rome's history contains plenty of warnings, firstly you may struggle to establish any kind of dynasty over the city you founded even if you do kill your own brother. Even once a firm constitutional order has been established you are apt to get caught up in century long wars with neighbouring cities all within a day's walk of your own. And of course you have to be careful not to cook your goose for fear of the Gauls even without magic potions.

What Livy offers is a set of Roman fairy stories to begin his epic history of the city of Rome, written in the early days of the First Citizen and chief of the armies: Augustus, who is emphatically not a King, because as Livy shows kings are unRoman (frequently literally so, men of foreign birth). There are many familiar stories here, Romulus and Remus, Horatius and the bridge, Coriolanus, Cinncinnatus, the geese who saved Rome, Camilus and the school teacher, thematically there is a strong emphasis on sexual violence as a historical motive force (Romulus and Remus, Lucretia,the rape of the Sabine women, the fall of the Decemvirs), and on fraternal violence (Romulus and Remus, unending struggle between Patricians and plebeians) ( a pertinent theme in the days after civil war), and the importance of religious observance, Rome is strong when the rituals are correctly performed and promises to the gods (amusingly their religious practises are all imports - mostly from the Etruscans - literally when they carry off Juno from Veii to Rome) are honoured, no accident then that Augustus was also Pontifex maximus, the chief priest was the guardian of the Roman universe, so long as the ritual tent was correctly pitched for the observation of omens prior to elections then life would flow smoothly, if not, as Livy shows, the Capitol would be crawling with hairy Gauls. As these are fairy stories they all exist in an eternal present. There are hardly any historical indications as in details of how society actual functioned in 400 or so BC for example Livy mention sums of money, but it becomes clear later on when he mentions patriotic Senators delivering bars of bronze to the treasury that Rome presumably didn't have any kind of currency or physical coinage at this remote and dreamlike period, unlike his account of the war against Hannibal these stories exist outside of history, despite being presented as the historical foundation of the present (which is now our past).

Livy makes his purpose clear: "The study of history is the best medicine for a sick mind; for in history you have a record of the infinite variety of human experience plainly set out for all to see:and in that record you can find for yourself and your country both examples and warnings; fine things to take as models, base things rotten through and through, to avoid" (p30). Livy's history is not meant to be historical, it is meant to provide examples for the reader to follow or to shun, it is didactic and designed as a response to the author's perception of Rome as being in a a state of Moral decline (ibid) although considering the city was founded by a fratricide who led a bunch of outlaws, who obtained wives by kidnapping and raping them, one can't say that it stated from the moral high ground, if anything a low moral level was the only consistent point in Roman history.

Structurally Romulus ( the child of the rape of a vestal virgin) founds Rome after having been suckled either by a wolf or a prostitute ( this apparently makes better sense in Latin than in English), this is mirrored at the end by Camillus who gets to re-start Rome after recapturing it from the Gauls. In the middle the Plebeians revolt, wander off to another hill and think about starting their own city (fed up after having been obliged to fight, at their own expense, annually against all comers, but not getting any share of the spoils of war, or protection from debt slavery) until they are persuaded to return by a story of how in ancient times, the parts of the body rebelled against the stomach which appeared to do nothing only to find without it that the separate parts withered and died, convinced by this analogy the Plebeians return, yet it is hard to see any useful function provided by the Patricians to them save for the tax-day loans they give out, ensnaring people into poverty. The space between these events are filled by interchangeable battles and campaigns that until the end of the book seem to fail to achieve anything - in this way another contrast with the description of the war with Hannibal which has a simpler narrative drive although confused by fighting in different theatres of war. Hard by the end of Livy's fifth volume to see how Rome will emerge as leading Italian power let alone a world class empire.

Interestingly the kings are rather unkinglike, but more similar to the tyrants of the Greek city states - there is no dynasty for instance, they come in offering specific answers to certain problems providing either military leadership or religious guidance. However unlike in the Greek cities soldiers don't seem to own their own arms - although they are divided into five classes for conscription purposes on the basis of armaments, since several times weapons are described as being distributed from stores, so there is no 'hoplite revolution' as in the Greek states, instead the aristocrats dominate as a caste. Reading I was reminded of my no doubt deeply biased impression of the history of the USA, not so much the warfare and search for domination over neighbours, more the adherence to the ancestral constitution over social equity. Plain though is the cultural influence of these stories whether from Livy or via Plutarch, the idea of(the perpetual?) moral decline of a state, that suicide is an appropriate response to rape ( or more broadly that women's lives are expendable to preserve men's honour), various degrees of double standards- selling women and children into slavery is ok, but waging war against them isn't, in this way, Rome is eternal, an empire of the mind, on the plus side, the positive example of Livy's Rome, one might think of the Cincinnati which perhaps made the difference between the young republic in north America and its southern cousins, or indeed the strict commitment to constutionalism, here even to a ridiculous extent when Camilus having got together an army won't march on Rome and attack the Gauls who are occupying Rome without authorisation from the Senate who are besieged by the Gauls on the Capitol naturally this constitutional impasse is resolved through an act of heroism .

[Jon · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read the reviews of Livy's History and I see that his writing has been badly misunderstood. Critics make two charges against it; one worthless, and one worthwhile.

The first is that Livy is reliant on myth and miraculous stories. He includes tales that are not possibly true, or have been pilfered from the Greeks. They complain also that Livy is too credulous about fantastic occurrences like, for example, when he observes talking cows or phenomenal weather.

But this charge is frankly stupid. It is preposterous to expect of ancient historians sensibilities that are modern. And, in any case, it presumes to judge what is the method best equipped for recounting a political story. This entry then will waste no more time answering charges of this sort. They do not deserve the dignity of a reply, let alone a serious one.

There is however a second criticism of Livy, one that must be answered. It says that Livy's History is flat; it is shaped to read as "And then... And then... And then...", one consul after another, and has no arc or great complication that it builds to. Livy, they say, is giving epic history, but without epic form. And by that reason his History is boring. It is tedious and dull, and at times almost admittedly so--when, for example, Livy emphasizes "once again" the Aequians and the Volscians are pillaging the Roman hinterland, since such, like his History, are routine in pattern.

This criticism is partly right, but mostly wrong. I concede his History is arranged in unepic form, but this is by design, not by accident. And when one reflects upon it, it's usage is actually quite ingenious.

If one wants to read the Rise of Rome, you must turn to Polybius. This is where Rome's rise as such is given in the classic history. Not however with Livy. His is the History of the Republic of Rome. They are different--the Rise and the Republic. And where the first might require epic arrangement, the second does not. Instead Livy has organized his narrative as a montage. The origin and life of Romulus, for example, is really a collection of unrelated accounts, but each to a purpose. First there is the story of Romulus's and Remus's adolescence; then their revenge against a wicked king; then the foundation of Rome and Remus's death; then a comparison between Hercules and Romulus; then the abduction of Sabine women; then the betrayal of a Roman fort by Tarpeius's daughter; then the intervention of Sabine women; and finally Romulus's strange disappearance. The narrative here does not aggregate into something larger. Though it progresses with time, each is a story of its own, adjoined only by the coincidence of their Roman association.

This technique of story-making is distinctive. And readers may be wrongly expecting from Livy qualities of the larger Roman genre of history that is dominated by the Polybian style. In Tacitus, in Gibbon--there you see the epic form of history told.

The question then should not be why Livy went wrong in his recount. That question, I have just argued, is a misapprehension of his History. Instead the question should be what motive Livy had to write the way that he did? Why the anti-epic? Was it a repudiation of Caesarian politics? Was Livy nostalgic for the Republic? Was it that he wanted to designify the great moments in their relation to the little? Did he want to elevate the ordinary travails of republican life to the level of the extra-ordinary? Or was his meaning purely moral? And does the History figure then only as a stage on which to portray the famous life lessons of Roman virtue?

These are questions to which I have not the answer. But they are questions that are fair to ask. And those who wait for Livy to ascend to lofty themes rather than attend to the small, will have had an experience similar to having heard something without listening to it.

[Roy Lotz · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book has been in my sights since I finished Gibbon; but I was wary of beginning another interminably long history series. Luckily, as I soon discovered, Livy is a lucid and engaging writer, so the reader has little need to fear getting bogged down, as one sometimes does with Gibbon. As one might expect, the English and the Roman historians are worlds apart. Livy is almost exclusively a dramatic historian; and the book often feels quite like a novel. There is little attempt at analysis. Nor is Livy drawn to the vaguer sort of philosophical moralizing that historians sometimes indulge in.

The closest that Livy gets to analysis is in his speeches. As in Thucydides, Livy puts long orations into the mouths of his principle characters, all of which are pure fabrications. For the most part these speeches are dramatic devices, allowing us to see why the Romans acted in a certain way; but the reader often notes the opinion of Livy himself creeping into these orations—the historian’s strong sense of what is right and proper for Romans to do. Of course we poor Anglophones can only guess at the true merit of these compositions, as Livy is considered to be one of the great Latin stylists. Even with much of the rhetorical beauty stripped away, however, they are rousing pieces.

Livy’s stated aim in writing his history was to escape his degraded present into a glorious past. A thoroughgoing Republican, he mourned the birth of the Empire, though he did see why a strong hand was needed amid the political chaos of recent years. The result is a kind of prose poem, a sequel to Virgil’s epic, telling the heroic story of Rome’s rise from a small city-state to a world power. Livy explains this ascent like a true patriot: as the consequences of a particularly Roman virtue, a manly courage and intelligence which saw the Roman people through innumerable obstacles. Dominion is the only fitting reward.

These first five books cover the city’s mythical founding by Romulus up to the sacking of the city by the Gauls, in 390 BCE. During this time the monarchy gave way to the republic, which soon found itself embroiled in a thousand wars, big and small, with Rome’s neighbors on the Italian peninsula. The annalistic recounting of the elections of tribunes and consuls, the battles fought and won, can get tiresome at times. More interesting, to me, were the conflicts between the patricians and the plebeians—a proto-Marxist story of class conflict. In general, Livy’s eye turns to wherever there is turmoil; and the final impression is of an endless battle. One wonders whether the Romans are doing anything else, such as farming or trading or making music.

As with any ancient historian, Livy falls far short of the accuracy and transparency that is expected of modern historians. And since he is a patriotic writer, this is doubly true. Even so, this is a tremendously valuable historical document, and a thrilling read to boot.

[Paul Haspel · Rating 5 out of 5]

The early passages of this book may seem to partake of myth rather than history, particularly in those chapters that deal with Romulus, the at-least-partially mythic or legendary founder of Rome. Yet Livy was a meticulous student of history, and any reader who values historical studies that seek to “stick to the facts” is likely to appreciate Livy’s dedication to telling the truth about his society.

Livy’s Ab Urbe Condita (From the Founding of the City) is so vast in scope – even though only about a quarter of Livy’s own original work has survived – that most modern publishers have printed Livy’s work in manageable installments that are arranged chronologically and/or thematically. And thus it is that Penguin Books, London, has published these early books of Livy’s Ab Urbe Condita under the title of The Early History of Rome.

Livy’s life encompassed the massive changes that accompanied Rome’s move from republic to empire. When he was born in 59 B.C., Julius Caesar was one of two consuls of a Roman Republic torn by the turbulent years of fighting among power-hungry leaders like Marius and Sulla. Livy lived through the years of the assassination of Julius Caesar, the deaths of arch-assassins Brutus and Cassius, the suicides of Antony and Cleopatra, and the metamorphosis of Caesar’s nephew Octavian into the emperor Augustus; and Livy even lived to see Augustus be succeeded as emperor by Tiberius. No wonder Livy wanted to write history!

Like Plutarch after him, Livy tries to walk a fine line between acknowledging the importance of the legendary Romulus in Rome’s sense of itself, and distancing himself from the more openly mythical accounts Romulus’ life and deeds. The early passages also include well-known legendary accounts like that of the Romans conducting a mass abduction of Sabine women in order that they might have wives for themselves and mothers for their children – a grotesque tableau that “inspired” some extraordinarily creepy paintings back in the day.

Violence against women is also a theme in another of the most famous stories from The Early History of Rome. The last king of Rome, before Rome became a republic in 509 B.C., was Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, or “Tarquin the Proud,” and he ruled about as tyrannically as someone with a name like that could be expected to do.

Tarquin’s son Sextus, in one of history’s most flagrant cases of the apple not falling far from the tree, raped a noblewoman named Lucretia, believing perhaps that shame would make Lucretia keep quiet about the crime. But Sextus was as wrong as he was wicked. Lucretia told her husband what Sextus had done, and then she carried out a final act of renunciation against Sextus’ attempts to control her life and her destiny:

One after another, they tried to comfort her. They told her she was helpless, and therefore innocent – that he alone was guilty. It was the mind, they said, that sinned – not the body: without intention, there could never be guilt. “What is due to him,” Lucretia said, “is for you to decide. As for me, I am innocent of fault, but I will take my punishment. Never shall Lucretia provide a precedent for unchaste women to escape what they deserve.” With these words, she drew a knife from under her robe, drove it into her heart, and fell forward, dead. (p. 101)

It is, to say the least, an influential story in Western culture. Different elements of Lucretia’s story were painted by Botticelli, Dürer, Raphael, Rembrandt, and Titian, and were treated in literature by Ovid, Saint Augustine, Chaucer, Dante, Machiavelli, and Shakespeare. It is also important for the response of Lucius Junius Brutus, friend of Lucretia’s husband and nephew of the tyrannical Tarquin:

Brutus drew the bloody knife from Lucretia’s body, and, holding it before him, cried: “By this girl’s blood – none more chaste till a tyrant wronged her – and by the gods, I swear that with sword and fire, and whatever else can lend strength to my arm, I will pursue Lucius Tarquinius the Proud, his wicked wife, and all his children, and never again will I let them or any other man be King in Rome!” (p. 101)

The year was 509 B.C., and Brutus was true to his word. He deposed Tarquin, and set up a Roman Republic in the place of Tarquin’s kingdom, and Rome remained a republic for the next five centuries. And at the end of that 500-year period of republican government, a descendant of Brutus, sharing his illustrious ancestor’s exact name, would decide that he too needed to stop a king from tyrannizing over Rome – and thus it was, on the Ides of March in the year 44 B.C., that Brutus wielded one of the knives that slew Julius Caesar.

What is past is prologue.

In spite of his frequent denunciations of diminished virtue among the Romans of his day, Livy does seem to believe that there may be some sort of divine dispensation working on behalf of Rome and her people. Of the time of a Volscian attack on Rome, around 461 B.C., Livy writes that “Her strength gone, and with no one to lead her, Rome lay helpless. Only her tutelary gods could save her”; but he then adds that Latin and Hernici allies of Rome were “Ashamed to allow a common enemy to march on Rome without making any effort to stop him”; and therefore, they “joined forces and proceeded to the scene of action” (p. 201). In the ensuing battle, the Volscians were all but annihilated.

Another of the most notable passages from The Early History of Rome involves a figure whom Livy seems to have regarded as a personification of lost Roman virtue. Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus may be best remembered as a model of someone who accepted power in a time of crisis and then willingly gave it back to the people.

In 458 B.C., Rome was entangled in a seemingly unwinnable war against an Italic tribe called the Aequi. Cincinnatus, a former consul, had retired to farming, and was called from his plow by the desperate Romans, who gave him absolute power under the title of dictator. Cincinnatus led a seemingly beaten Roman army to an overwhelming surprise victory over the Aequi at the Battle of Mount Algidus. Having won this seemingly impossible victory – with absolute power in his hands, and the world at his feet – Cincinnatus returned power to the civilian government of the republic, and returned to his plow.

Cincinnatus has occupied an important place in American culture since the beginnings of the U.S.A. George Washington, who led the Continental Army to an improbable victory over Great Britain and could have been a king, elected instead to return to Mount Vernon and get back to planting tobacco, and he was known ever after as “the American Cincinnatus.” A hereditary society of veterans of the American Revolution and their descendants is called the Society of the Cincinnati – and that name was also, of course, given to a lovely Midwestern city on the north bank of the Ohio River.

But Livy would have told you that Cincinnatus’ positive contributions to Roman life did not end when he defeated the Aequi, gave up dictatorial power, and went back to plowing his farm. Twenty years after the Battle of Mount Algidus, a man named Maelius conspired to seize absolute power in Rome, and the Romans found themselves turning once again to Cincinnatus, in hopes that the old farmer-turned-soldier-turned-farmer could save the city, and the republic, once again.

Cincinnatus, like George Washington centuries later, didn’t want the job – “Cincinnatus, hesitating to accept the burden of responsibility, asked what the Senate was thinking of to wish to expose an old man like him to what must prove the sternest of struggles” (p. 307); but the Senate and the people insisted, and once again Cincinnatus’ wisdom and courage carried the day, as the Maelian conspiracy was exposed and Maelius was killed. Livy, who often denounces the cowardice and venality he sees in the Romans of his day, presents Cincinnatus as the kind of Roman he wishes was still a fixture of Roman society.

Good decisions by the Roman senate and people – like bringing the tested-and-proven Cincinnatus back to power in a time of crisis – have good consequences. Bad decisions have comparably bad consequences. The Roman general Marcus Furius Camillus proved his strategic and tactical acumen when he captured the Etruscan city of Veii in 396 B.C.; but then he was accused of some sort of financial impropriety, and he went into exile. Of this episode, Livy states disapprovingly that “The man whose presence would certainly – if anything in life is certain – have made the capture of Rome impossible, was gone; and calamity was drawing nearer and nearer to the doomed city” (p. 407).

Livy subsequently provides a hair-raising account of the sack of Rome by Brennus the Gaul and his Senones, while emphasizing that, in the wake of the sack, the once-disgraced Camillus returned at the head of his troops, vanquished the Gauls, and recovered the ransom that the Romans had paid to spare their city and its people further calamity. None of this need have happened, Livy states, if only the Roman people had trusted an effective leader rather than listening to the 4th-century B.C. equivalent of tabloid rumour-mongering.

Livy, in The Early History of Rome, shows us Rome moving toward the position of global ascendancy that would be hers for many centuries. And if reading this book leaves you wanting more of Livy’s gifts for conveying the sweep and drama of history, you may want to go straight on to more of those volumes of Ab Urbe Condita that still survive – his account of the Romans’ wars against Hannibal of Carthage, for example.

[Darwin8u · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm reading primarily the Penguin Livy (Four Vol) and the Loeb Classics Livy (14 Volumes), but I'm primarily reviewing the Loeb versions. So for the Early History of Rome please see my reviews of:

1. Livy I: History of Rome, Books 1-2
2. Livy II: History of Rome, Books 3-4
3. Livy III: History of Rome, Books 5-7

Otherwise:

Look, that you may see how cheap they hold their bodies whose eyes are fixed upon renown!"
- Livy, Book II, xii 13

"Oratory was invented for doubtful matters"
- Livy, Book III, lv 3

"Vae victis!"
- Livy, Book V. xlviii. 9

Book 1 (Rome Under the Kings) & Book 2 (The Beginnings of the Republic)

This might be the first book to bankrupt me. Or rather books. I own several versions of Livy (Folio, The first Penguin (Books 1-5), second (Books 6-10), and third (Hannibal; Books 21-30), plus the first six volumes of the Loeb's History of Rome by Livy). I've decided to track and read through the Loeb, while listening to Audible, but that is going to require me to buy another 8 volumes. The good from that is, well, eight more little red books. The bad? Well, these little books retail for $26 (although you can usually find either really good used copies or new copies for $12-$18). So I'm looking at almost $200 to finish purchasing these books and I've already spent about $60. So, why read the Loeb version?

Quod est in Latinam verso | Because Latin is on the left
Et lingua mea sedenti in recto | And English sits on the right *

Now those who know me, KNOW I don't read or speak Latin. So, why is having Livy in Latin and English that important? Because some day I DO want to read Latin. Because it pleases me. Because if I read on the recto side a phrase that strikes my fancy, like:

"Their name was irksome and a menace to liberty."
- Livy, Book II. ii. 4

I can go almost straight across and discover what that was in Latin:

"Non placere nomen, periculosum libertati esse."

It delights me. I know that probably sounds a bit affected and effete, but hell it entertains me. I don't complain that American consumers spend more than $25.3 billion a year on video games. So, let me have my 14 little red books. I'm not sure how fast I'll get through all of them. I think for my family's financial stability I'll drip and drab these out through-out the year.

* I kill me.
______________________________

Book 3 (The Patricians at Bay) & Book 4 (War and Politics)

My second (of fourteen) Livy's History of Rome covers books 3 and 4 (467-404BC). It largely deals with early growing pains in Rome as its second census shows its population swollen beyond 100,000. The tensions between the plebs (represented politically by the tribunes) and the patricians (represented politically by the senate). My favorite parts of Book 3 dealt with Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus, the machinations of the decemvirs, and Appius Claudius claiming Verginius' daughter Verginia as a slave.

My favorite part of Book 4 was the debate over a law about marriage between patricians and plebeians and the right for plebeians to be consuls. Canuleius' speech from this section was brilliant, and could easily have been used 2000+ years later when debating a woman's right to vote, etc.. Here are some of Livy's best lines:

'When we raise the question of making a plebeian consul, is it the same as if we were to say that a slave or a freedman should attain that office? Have you any conception of the contempt in which you are held? They would take from you, were it possible, a part of the daylight. That you breathe, that you speak, that you have the shape of men, fills them with resentment." (Book IV, iii 7-8)

"'But,' you say, 'from the time the kings were expelled no plebeian has ever been consul.' Well, what then? Must no new institution be adopted? Ought that which has not yet been done -- and in a new nation many things have not yet been done -- never to be put in practice, even if it be expedient?" (Book IV, iv 1).

"Finally, I would ask, is it you, or the Roman People, who have supreme authority? Did the banishment of the kings bring you dominion, or to all men equal liberty?" (Book IV, v 1).

______________________________

Book 5 (Gauls at Rome)

One of my favorite characters in the book is Marcus Furius Camillus, one of Rome's great, early generals. He was given at his death the title of Second Founder of Rome after he helped to defend a sacked Rome against the Senoni chieftain Brennus and his gallic warriors.

Some men are generals. Some are statesmen. Others just seem to have it all. Camellus is one of those men who seem destined to lead, protect, and inspire. These three books are filled with battles, wars, and manly, martial speeches. I think one of the best parts of these early Roman histories of Livy are his speeches. Obviously, he is embellishing things and probably making a great deal up, but still -- this is damn good stuff. Here are some of Livy's best lines:

'Do we think the bodies of our soldiers so effeminate, their hearts so faint, that they cannot endure to be one winter in camp, away from home; that like sailors they must wage war with an eye on the weather, observing the seasons, incapable of withstanding heat or cold?" (Book V, vi 4)

"The gods themselves never laid hands upon the guilty; it was enough if they armed with an opportunity for vengeance those who had been wronged." (Book V, xi 16).

"...since it commonly turned out that in proportion as a man was prone to seek a leading share of toil and danger, he was slow in plundering." (Book V, xx 6).

[Tristram Shandy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Vae victis!

These are the words the Gaul chieftain Brennus is reported to have said when the last few Romans who had fled on the Capitol eventually capitulated and agreed to pay a certain amount of gold. Seeing, however, that the Gauls had manipulated the scales, they expostulated, and Brennus reacted by throwing his own sword on the scales and uttering these words. A little later, however, he came to realize that this works both ways when the Roman dictator Camillus came from Veii with fresh forces, pouncing upon the undisciplined Gauls. The sack of Rome in 390 B.C., which nearly meant the fall of the city, and Rome’s rescue in the nick of time by Marcus Furius Camillus is the coda of the first five books of Livy’s monumental Roman history entitled Ab urbe condita, of whose 142 books only 35 are still extant.

Livy starts in the days of legend and lore, with Aenias‘ arrival in Latium, the foundation of Rome (753 B.C.) and the seven kings (Book 1), and then he concentrates on centuries of warfare against neighbouring towns and tribes, especially the Roman arch-enemy Veii, the most powerful Etruscan city, which was finally captured in 396 B.C. Since my Latin is no longer good enough, I read the first five books in an English translation by T.J. Luce, and if the translation mirrors the original correctly, Livy must have been a master of his language: It is true that there could be a danger of monotony because Livy wrote annals rather than history, i.e. he preferred a year-by-year-approach, starting each year by announcing the consuls and other magistrates of the last elections, and his narration is chronological rather than theory-based – save, maybe, from the assumption that as long as the Romans observe their religious rites and pay homage to the gods – quite a lot of them imported, like Juno from the fallen Veii – they will be successful in their enterprises and against their foes. This mainly chronological approach leaves it to the reader to see a pattern in the overall fabric of threads, and lots of these threads are wars with neighbours. It seems that every other year the Romans had a bone to pick with either the Volsci, the Aequi, or the Veientes, or with two or all three of them, and from time to time other names appear in the list of enemies. Usually these wars were short and limited to the summer months, but when it was do or die against Veii, the consuls finally went on to a war of siege and contrition, which meant that Roman soldiers had to spend the winter in arms – a matter that started muttering and disgruntlement.

Despite the seeming monotony of all this, not a page of Livy’s history actually was boring at all – and this is thanks to his intriguing style and way of telling the story of Rome. Again and again, he interlaces stories of individuals into his chronological account, such as, of course, the competition between Romulus and Remus, the rape of Lucrece and its political consequences, the legendary Horatius Cocles defending the bridge towards Rome against the Etruscans single-handedly, the rise and fall of the arrogant Coriolanus, and lots of others, up to the cackling geese on the Capitol. Livy also enlivens his history by allowing historical figures to speak directly, as when he renders long speeches made by politicians, either in direct or in indirect speech. These speeches are often a pleasure to read aloud. What also adds a lot of interest to Livy’s account is the ongoing strife between patricians and plebeians, between senators and consuls on the one hand, and tribunes on the other. Again and again, the same topics become bones of contention, such as the question of how the land that Roman soldiers conquer, risking their lives and paying for their own equipment, is to be distributed. Interestingly, as today, the ruling classes always look for ways of distracting the plebeians’ legitimate interests, for instance by appealing to solidarity and virtue, or by pointing out external threats (of which there was no lack). It is this inner political strife, the tug-of-war between plebs and patricians, in the description of which Livy remains admirably neutral, all in all, that made reading those five books so compelling to me. In this context, Livy also makes memorable observations like,

”No force is more contemptible or inform than when people contemn it; it is great and terrifying because people think it is.” (II, 55)

“So difficult it is to steer a moderate course in safeguarding freedom. Each man pretends to want equality but strives to better himself at the expense of his fellows; and in taking steps to prevent themselves feeling fear they makes themselves feared, and, as if it were necessary either to inflict or suffer wrong, the injuries we escape we visit upon others.” (III, 65)

Livy wrote the history of Rome in order to set examples to his readers as to how men lived and behaved and how their actions and behaviour affected the course of their own state. I don’t know if you can really take moral lessons from his account, but you will surely recognize patterns and details that you are familiar with from our day and age.

[Justin Evans · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm going to read as much of Livy as I can stomach over the summer. My stomach comes into it because I don't have the patience for or the interest in military hijinx to see me through every page. And I fear that this volume is setting a high bar for those to follow. There's war here, sure, but a real stress on internal matters instead.

And those internal matters are, essentially, what people who haven't read Marx think Marx is: the patricians will come up with any excuse to maintain their privileges (inter alia, patriotism, security, religion, dignity, tradition...), and the plebeians will fold sometimes, but always come back and demand better treatment. The early history of Rome, as told by Livy, is class warfare. This is fascinating stuff, if a little repetitive (tribunes introduce a law to give the plebes more land; the senate rejects it; scuffles; appeals to the Greatness of Our State by the senate; plebes let it lie for a while so they can beat up on the Aequii or whomever; the law gets passed; the patricians find a new way to screw over the plebes; repeat from the top). But the repetition is made bearable by some great stories, and the overall pace. We move pretty quickly from year to year.

I was also surprized by Livy's ability to think critically about his sources. Everyone says Livy just reports miracles and tall tales as if they were true; in my experience, he's pretty good about highlighting when that's going on. On the other hand, he has no interest in making his story cohere, which is a bit sad. On the other hand, that lack of coherence means the reader can judge for herself why things happened as they did, and Livy's occasional moralizing never seems to heavy handed, or to influence his actual presentation. Looking forward to the second set of five.

Oh, one thing: the translation is kind of funny. Luce delights in using uncommon words when there's no real need for it; no doubt it's meant to represent archaisms in Livy himself, but it might annoy you.

[Alex Pler · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lectura densa donde Tito Livio mezcla historia y leyenda para narrar los convulsos inicios de Roma. Gana cuando se centra en describir hechos concretos, más allá de nombres y fechas. 2.500 años después seguimos con la misma lucha de clases y perversión de términos como libertad.

[Crito · Rating 3 out of 5]

Babe it's 4 PM, time to fight the Volscians again.

[Roman Clodia · Rating 4 out of 5]

This has sometimes been dismissed because of the 'inaccuracy' of the history, but the very idea of history in classical times was different from our definition: there was no strict divide between literature, history and (moral) philosophy and so we shouldn't judge ancient works by the same criteria that we might use of modern history books. Livy, writing under Augustus, was, like his contemporary Vergil, mythologising about the foundation of Rome, and his story of where the Romans came from and how the Roman character was formed, tells us more about Roman self-identity (or the way they wanted to see themselves) at the turning point between the Republic and the principate than about the past.

Having said that, Livy tells a fabulous story: from the early kings to their expulsion by the first Marcus Brutus and the beginning of the Republic, from Rome's small beginnings to her conquests and domination of Italy, it's all here. All the familiar stories of Romulus and Remus mothered by the wolf, Horatius at the bridge, the rape and suicide of Lucretia, the tragic story of Corialanus and his mother are here, and it's fascinating to read them in their original context.

Livy is lively, tragic, vivid and witty and that all comes over in the translation. Read this together with Vergil and compare their creative conception of what it means to be Roman, where they have come from and where they are going.

[Yann · Rating 5 out of 5]

Passionnant ! La naissance de Rome. Au delà des épisodes connus (Remus et Romulus, les Horaces et les Curiaces, Numa,Tarquin, Lucrèce, Brennus, ... ), outre les peintures de bravoures ou de félonies, des guerres incessante, Tite-Live dessine la constitution d'un espace politique caractérisé par une rivalité permanente entre plébéiens et patriciens. Ballotés de périls en périls, Rome tire profit de ses expériences et créé petit à petit les institutions qui permettent de conserver au mieux l'équilibre et le bien public. C'est centré sur Rome , donc on voyage moins qu'avec Hérodote, les situations ne sont pas aussi complexes et instructives que dans Thucydide, mais on ne s'ennuie jamais, grâce à un style clair et agréable, à un sujet grandiose et édifiant.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

This year I have determined to read a number of books written during the Roman Republic and Empire. I have started with Livy's The Early History of Rome, which covers the period from the founding of Rome to the sacking of the city by the Gauls in 386 B.C.

Although Livy was no match for the dark power of Tacitus, the story he tells is one of war all the time. From its founding, Rome was constantly at war with the Etruscans, the Sabines, the Volsci, and other nearby peoples. At the same time, from early in their existence, the patrician classes and the common people (or plebs) were at each other's throats. For the most part, the classes would come to some agreement when war threatened -- but not always.

It is interesting to speculate how it was that the Romans became so powerful after the Punic Wars with the Carthaginians. Could it be that they were so used to war that, over the centuries, they developed a superior military that was able to take on all comers?

[AB · Rating 4 out of 5]

Livy's first 5 books managed to be both a quite boring and a quite exciting experience. I have never read Roman history in a format quite like Livy's before. He is almost the epitome of Annalistic writing (I know that's probably not the right thing to describe this as). He painstakingly discusses almost every year from the foundation of Rome to the expulsion and defeat of the Gauls. It does not matter if no events occur in that year, Livy makes sure to give you the names of the Consuls/Military Tribunes and a statement that nothing happened. This annalistic approach is what made parts of the book so sluggish to me. I would be interested in the themes that Livy was presenting and arguably casting onto this early period but at the same time I would be bogged down by the constant and repetitive flow of information. Large chunks of the book, especially books 3 and 4 would consist of very little beyond tribunician agitation, patricians fighting back and then a quick resolution due to an invasion by the Aequi, Volsci, and/or Veii.
That being said, this book contained so much interesting information that would keep me constantly engaged with the work. I feel that there is more to dissect in Livy's work here than in any other work by an ancient author that I have read before. There are layers and layers of information and symbolic/poetic devices to dig into. If you like thinking about obscure and no longer extant narratives of Roman/Italian history than Livy is your man. Not only does Livy quote early Roman historians but it also appears that he quotes Etruscan sources. These diverging narratives are seen throughout, the most readily able to be called to mind being a discussion of Etruscan and Gaulic interactions in the 7th and 6th centuries BC.
Another interesting aspect for me was Livy's desire (?) to describe the beginnings of things. The entire Monarchy gives explanations for a wide variety of things and this continues all the way until the end of book 5. For me, the most interesting aspect of this was what appears to be Livy's penchant to be anachronistic. The struggle of the orders begins almost instantly and so to does tribunican abuse of power that other writers would say started with the Gracchi. Tied into this is the Roman ideal of teaching by example. The struggle of the orders is really keyed into this idea of cohesion and peace being necessary for Rome to be stable and victorious abroad
For me, the best part of this Volume is by far book 5. The destruction of Veii being presented as somewhat analogous to the Trojan war and the subsequent sacking of Rome were very well done. Coming from books 1-4 you could really see the growth of Livy as a writer. The speeches of Appius Claudius and Camillus are much better than the earlier attempts at speeches. There is more of a flare for the dramatic while still attempting to 'properly' describe events that may of occurred that I can really appreciate. Book 5 made up for any feelings of disinterest that I picked up in the preceding books and has really made me excited to continue on with Livy.

[Dylan Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

Selincourt translations are always pretty readable, and Livy definitely covers early Rome to its sacking in 390 BC with great detail and storytelling

[Aiden Hunt · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first five books of Livy's History cover the period from the legendary founding of Rome in 753 BC to it's sack and destruction by the Gauls in 390 BC. Since I am reading Roman literature in conjunction with lectures and modern texts on Roman history, it's clear to me that Livy's value as a historian in the modern sense is limited, but his literary value is greater.

Livy tells a detailed chronicle of early Rome; it's citizens, politics and wars brought to life by great personalities and speeches. Obviously, we cannot take the words he puts into his historical figures mouths as exactly what was said, but as pure storytelling, his telling of the back and forth between the aristocracy, the commons and the Senate is gripping.

[Vlăduțu Alexandru · Rating 5 out of 5]

Se simte ca un roman, foarte ușor de citit.

[J · Rating 5 out of 5]

Straight forward and enjoyable, there are none of those 20 page long digressions which plague the greek historians. The real draw of this is that it shows how a small settlement in the ancient world developed and gained power until it became an entire civilization. It's obvious that Livy really really loves Rome, and at times it can feel like pure propoganda, but its balanced out with some very even-handed depictions of major conflicts and crazy personal ambitions. In their early stages, you can't help but root for these scrappy guys and their big dreams.

[Marijan Šiško · Rating 4 out of 5]

kao i većina povijesnih izvora-negdje brže, negdje sporije, ovdje govor, ondje klasna borba, tu i tamo 'i iduće godine volščani i sabinjani su harali po selima' i tako. tko voli povijest Rima, dobro je za pročitati.

[Drew Norwood · Rating 5 out of 5]

Things I learned from this first volume of Livy:

1. Rome’s first two revolutions in government (the fall of the original monarchy and, later, the fall of the decimvirs) were both brought about by similar moral failures in leadership. The rape of Lucretia led to King Tarquin’s downfall and the rape and adduction of Virginia led to downfall of Appius (and the decimvirate by extension).

2. Though the broad structure of government in the early republic was relatively stable, the Romans routinely appointed “dictators” (e.g., Cincinnatus, Camillus) for times of war and other emergencies. These dictators, remarkably, passed the fasciis on after the emergency ended.

3. The early republic faced disaster and ruin on a regularly basis, it seems, but always had heroes step up—whether the hero be an individual soldier, such as Horatius, or Scaevola, or military or political leader who stood up and faced down a mob and suppressed the popular frenzy.

4. War was a continual reality, whether for the monarchy or early republic. The Veii, Volscians, Aequii, Etruscans, Gauls, and other surrounding peoples were constantly invading or threatening.

5. Triumphs were a glorious affair--feasting, singing, gifts, and all kinds of pomp and circumstances showered on the victorious military leader. Camillus' first two Triumphs--his total victory over Veii and then his bloodless victory (by way of his honorable conduct) over the Falerii--were particularly noteworthy.

[The Nutmeg · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really like Rome. Not the Roman Empire, but the Roman Republic.

Thomas Babington Macauley probably has something to do with it. But Livy has reinforced my fondness, even though he was intensely painful to read at some points. (Some of those tribunes of the plebs, man. Talk about guts and glamour.)

(Oh and I read it for school.)

[Gabe Herrmann · Rating 5 out of 5]

As far as history books go, this was well-written. Besides the bias, and the (obvious?) copying of Thucydides, in certain parts. I didn't get to read more then 10 of the books in his long series, but if you were studying Rome then go for it, its good stuff.

[Jordan (Forever Lost in Literature)]

Been reading through these early books of Livy for a class I'm taking on Livy--now to move forward to Hannibal next!

[Gustavo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Livy (59 BC – 17 AD) – The Early History of Rome (Books I – V, Translated by Aubrey de Sélincourt – Penguin Classics, 402p.)

“The study of history is the best medicine for a sick mind; for in history you have a record of the infinite variety of human experience plainly set out for all to see; and in that record you can find for yourself and your country both examples and warnings; fine things to take as models, base things, rotten through and through, to avoid.
I hope my passion for Rome's past has not impaired my judgement, for I do honestly believe that no country has ever been greater or purer than ours or richer in good citizens and noble deeds...” 

Titus Livy’s Ab Urbe Condita tells the story of Rome from its backwater/mythological origins all the way to the reign of Augustus. Out of its 142 books only 35 have survived, and here I am going to focus on its first five books. Livy was born in Patavium (modern day Padua), a city known at the time for its conservative values both in morality and in politics – something which has left an unmistakable mark upon him. History back in Livy’s day was quite far from what we would acknowledge as a historical work by today’s standards, but that is totally beside the point – his gift as a writer surpasses anything his detractors may say. He devoted his whole life to the writing of his history, and his strong moral sense is reflected in the way in which he portrays certain characters/events, while at the same time maintaining a structural and verbal finesse which has garnered him the title of quintessential Republican writer of Rome’s extensive history (Tacitus being the main writer of its Empire).
 
Book I kicks off with the arrival of Aeneas from Troy (out of the Virgilian Epic), followed by foundation of the city by Romulus, and the next six monarchs which ruled it. At this stage we see an intermingling of fables and facts, and Rome is still very much a blot on the Italian map. After the expulsion of Tarquinius Superbus (the last king who became famous for his tyrannical acts), we see the city change its government into a republic, a transformation that becomes the main point of Livy’s narrative until Book V - and here is where we see a wide variety of conflicts, from wars against many other nations around Italy, the clash between plebeians and patricians (tribunes vs senate), plagues, disease, famine, treachery, treason, betrayals and countless political struggles all magnificently woven throughout this work. His grand finale centers on the capture of Rome by the Gauls in 386 BC and their subsequent massacre in the hands of a previously exiled consul, Camillus, who after his victory was then hailed as “New Romulus”. A vast array of characters, persuasive speeches, and elaborate reports provide us with many details of the city’s economy, class system, and religious habits – we witness the annual changes within Rome’s political structure while also following its military conquests and exploits. 

The rape of the Sabine women, Horatius Cocles fighting against a whole  Etruscan army in a bridge battle, the story of Coriolanus (which became a play by Bill Shakespeare), the lust of Appius Claudius which led to the murder of Verginia – these memorable passages show us that Livy is a full-fledged storyteller, and his keen eye for dramatic development have earned him much praise over many centuries now – From Machiavelli to the historian Michael Grant (who called him “an epic poet in prose”). I firmly believe that you cannot go wrong when picking certain authors of Ancient History, and Livy proved to be even better than what I expected. Get into this time machine of a book, you wont regret it. 

[Pete daPixie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I thought Livy's 'The Rise of Rome' Books 1-5 to be some of the hardest reading I've done for quite some time. Like eating cardboard. The more I read, the harder it was to digest the thing. A historian whose work I read recently, my colander brain prevents recall of who this was, advocated strongly for reading the literature of a period to fully understand the history. So I met the advice half way in deciding to read this book.
Titus Livius wrote 142 books in this monster series of his history of Rome, from it's foundation in 753bc to 9bc. Only 35 books survive. (Thank the gods for that!) This series from 1-5 covers the formation of the city of Aeneas, after the fall of Troy, with guest appearances from Hercules and the dynamic duo of Romulus and Remus. Book 5 ends with the sack of the city by the Gauls in 390bc.
What is incredible about Livius' work is that all of this data was available at all in the first century bc. As well as consulting earlier historical writings from Fabius Pictor, Licinius Macer or Valerius Antias, he was also able to access histories recorded in the Linen Books kept in the Temple of Juno Moneta. (This was also home to Rome's mint, hence our money.)
Occasionally the narrative contains a gem. Information of the first settlements on Rome's hills, or the founding of temples or the mythical creation of the Isola Tiberina. However the bulk of this work covers the almost continuous attrition between the city and her neighbours, the Sabines, Etruscans, Volsci, Aequi, Fabii, Veii, etc. Or who were consuls for the year. What politics occupied the senate. Who stabbed who in the back, or who was sent into exile. Who offended the plebs.
As Livius states, 'the fates ordained the founding of this great city and the beginning of the world's mightiest empire, second only to the power of the gods.' On the subject of gods, Romulus and Remus were born from a Vestal virgin, the father was Mars. The children were cast adrift in a basket to be reared by a she wolf. It is also interesting to learn that Romulus ascended bodily to heaven and that Rome was bidden to perform rituals by a voice from heaven on Mount Alba. All very familiar.

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

Even for a huge Latinophile, this history is a bit hard-going. I've probably been spoiled having read Tacitus and Plutarch in the past, with their endlessly entertaining sassy character assassinations. Livy is a lot more... sober.

I suppose it's mainly because so little is actually known about the history of early Rome. For the first book in this volume, this actually makes for a fascinating weaving of fact and myth: the almost certainly mythological figures of Aeneas, Hercules (and maybe Romulus and Remus?) make their appearances, augurs proclaim their divinations, Sabine women are kidnapped, and an Island is created in the Tiber out of discarded wheat stalks from the Campus Martius. This is all great.

However, the next four books are unbearably dry, consisting mainly of recounts of cyclical campaigns against the various peoples surrounding early Rome - interchangeable nations such as the Aequii, Volscii, Veii, Etruscans, Sabines... Livy isn't interested in telling us much about these peoples, or about the Roman people for that matter. I would have liked a more thorough discussion about every day life in early Rome, but this is limited to the odd account of agrarian reform (a particular bugbear of Roman Republican patricians), uppity tribunes and rowdy plebs. This is interesting enough the first few times around, but I get the impression that early Roman history was of a cut-and-paste kind: military campaign, pleb uprising, new consuls appointed, rinse and repeat.

But one can't be too harsh on Livy. He was writing history for a very different audience and for different reasons than modern historians, so we must be lenient if the style is not to our tastes. The great historian E.H. Carr wrote that works of history tell you more about the writer's contemporary time than they do about their subject matter, and I'm a great believer in this. It is a privilege to be able to read the words of a man who is separated from us by two millennia.

Plus, look no further than the Romans for comical names. Spurius Furius and Mettius Fufettius, I'm looking at you.

[Diem · Rating 5 out of 5]

This translation was first published in 1960 and it retains a scholarly and serious tone that tends to be abandoned in favor of a more accessible simplicity such as is found in modern translations of ancient texts. Where "accessible simplicity" means "dumbed down patter". All the same it really is accessible to all but the most simple-minded reader. How do I know? I read it with what I think was great success. I even enjoyed it and looked forward to my hour with this book and a mug of coffee every morning.

Would I have like it as much without the coffee? No.

This isn't a very serious review because, as usual, I feel utterly unqualified to review it. I've written nothing of merit. I have buried in my reading history multiple encounters with V.C. Andrews. I'm not climbing into the ring with Livy and Aubrey de Selincourt.

[Illiterate · Rating 4 out of 5]

A blend of legend and history in praise of Rome’s traditions and glories. Deftly drawn heroes and villains. Lively court intrigues and social conflicts.

[Roger Burk · Rating 5 out of 5]

Livy tells the traditional story of the first 365 years of Rome, from the wanderings of Aeneas to the sack of the city by Gauls in 386 B.C. Myth slides seamlessly into legend and then on into history. There is perhaps too much detail on who was consul each year and what inconclusive battles they fought, but the main events make a gripping story.

It seems early Rome was set up by random gangs of freebooters and riffraff who found a convenient place on top of the Palatine Hill to base their husbandry and raiding. Livy himself calls them "a rabble of vagrants, mostly runaways and refugees" (p. 105). Some of their kings were descended from slaves. Unlike Greeks, they welcomed many others, including former enemies, to join their commonwealth and receive citizenship. Around 670 B.C. (according to the tradition) they defeated the town of Alba Longa, whence their initial founders had come, and integrated the defeated into Rome, giving them citizenship and including their patricians into the Senate. But the Alba Longans had to move--the old town was demolished and all the houses pulled down (but not the temples, the Romans being a pious folk). This seems a shaky foundation for an integration of peoples on terms of equality, but the tradition assures us that it happened.

We learn that the early kings of Rome were elected by the people and confirmed by the Senate, though they served for life and their word was law. After the kings were expelled in 507 B.C., we have consuls, also elected and also having final decision authority, but two of them at a time, each a check on the other, and serving for one year only (and they could be tried and condemned after their term for what they did in office). For the following century, while the Greeks entered their Golden Age, Rome fought more or less annual inconclusive wars with their neighbors, the Sabines, Aequians, Volscians, Etruscans, and so on, most within 10 or 20 miles of Rome. The method of war was to march into hostile territory and build a defensible camp, then raid the countryside until the enemy showed up and offered battle. One side or the other got defeated and scattered and fled to their walled town. The next year they did it again.

For 427 B.C., we learn of pious Romans' antipathy towards foreign forms of worship. A new cult was deemed debased and superstitious and so banned. The ancient Roman practices of getting divine instructions from the livers of animals and the flights of birds continued.

Warfare developed little during this long century, but politics did. Roman law did not provide for bankruptcy, and insolvent debtors could literally be put in chains, Roman citizens though they were. The plebs got tired of the patrician Senate and consuls deciding such things, and got constitutional change via a remarkable use of civil disobedience. In 493 B.C. they picked up and moved out of town to the Aventine Hill, leaving the patricians in a panic over the defenseless state of the town. The plebs were granted the right to elect tribunes whose person was sacrosanct and who could veto any act of the consuls. In 451 B.C. the "Twelve Tables" of laws were posted publicly to provide a sort of government by consent of the governed. More power-sharing was demanded by the plebs, and in many years "military tribunes with consular power" were elected instead of consuls. It's not so clear what the difference was, beyond the non-patrician title and the fact that these tribunes were three or four or more in number, not two. These military tribunes could legally be plebeians (unlike consuls), but they almost never were. Livy's sympathies are pretty clearly with the patricians in all this, but he does give us the contrast with a neighboring city where similar conflicts led to civil war, much bloodletting, and finally defeat and incorporation into Rome.

As the decades passed the Romans got better at achieving decisive results in their wars. One after another, neighboring towns and peoples asked for treaties of alliance, meaning mutual raiding ceased but they accepted political subordination to Rome. Finally, around 392 B.C. the Romans decided to crack the biggest nut: Veii, the biggest Etruscan town, and only nine miles from Rome. After ten years of investing it every campaigning season, the Roman army broke through the walls and poured into the city, slaughtering every one they found. After a while the slaughter ended, and such population as survived and lay down their arms in surrender was sold into slavery. The great idol of Juno was moved from the main Veiian temple to Rome (with its own acquiescence, according to a story the Livy recounts without committing to its truth). The city was left desolate and deserted. The plebes wanted the lands divided among the people and perhaps the town repopulated with emigrants from Rome, but the Senate would have nothing to do with the idea.

I suspect Livy means us to ponder the connection between the fate of Veii and what happened to Rome a few years later. In 386 B.C. an army of Gauls appeared out of nowhere, scattered with inexplicable ease the Roman army sent to deal with it, and appeared before the walls of the defenseless city. However, they did not invest the city or assault it until the next day, giving the Senate some time to make a few decisions. The city was not provisioned for a siege and there were not enough fighting men to man the walls, so what young men were there were instructed to go with their families to the citadel on the Capitoline Hill and hold that place for as long as possible. The Vestal Virgins were instructed to preserve the sacred objects as best they could and carry on the rites as long as one was alive to do it; they buried what they could not carry and set out with the rest on foot for Caere, twenty miles away. The older senators decided to array themselves in their robes of state and sit in the courts of their houses to await their fate. The plebeians were left to flee leaderless across the Tiber and then wherever they could go.

The next day the Gauls were amazed to find the gate of Rome open before them, and inside all the houses of the rich unlocked. This bewildered them for a while, but after a while a Gaul pulled the beard of a senator sitting in his court, the senator whacked the Gaul with his ivory rod, and the Gaul then killed the senator. That broke the spell, and the usual slaughter, pillage, and burning began. However, the citadel held out for the months it took for the scattered Roman remnants and their allies to put together an army that could convince the Gauls to leave the smoking ruins. (We are assured that they were all intercepted and slaughtered before making it home, and the ransom they were paid recovered.)

In the aftermath, the plebs and tribunes tried to convince the Senate to move the town wholesale to the still-intact town of Veii. There was much deliberation, but ultimately sentimental and religious ties to the site of Rome prevailed and the city was rebuilt.

Livy cannot really say what of this is sober history and what is exaggeration or simple legend. Neither can we. All I can say is that if it didn't happen that way, it ought to have.

[Ammon Cornelius · Rating 5 out of 5]

There's really no better way to understand Roman culture than to read Livy. He remains, arguably, one of the best historians to ever wield a pen.

[katie ⋆⭒˚.⋆]

this was a freaking battle BUT I WON (honors ancient history has nothing on me😤😤)