Livy

The thing you have to realise about Livy – the fact that makes everything about him drop into place – is that he was the JK Rowling of his day. Romans had been saying that they wanted a Roman historian to write a Roman History of Rome … and in stepped Livy, with the 142 books of his Ab Urbe Condita ('From the Founding of the City'). It became a best seller and made Livy famous – and that was because it was WRITTEN to be a best-seller, and to make Livy famous.

And that explains everything.

Livy was a scholar, not a statesman or a general, and did not really understand politics or warfare. He had never been outside Italy, and his geography was wishy-washy at best. Like JK Rowling he got to meet important people, but he was never ‘mates’ with them. In fact, he was a fairly ordinary – if clever – chap, and he wrote for ordinary, educated, Romans.


Livy as an Historian
Livy's History was not a philosophical exercise, or a dry, dull-as-ditchwater analysis of what-really-happened. He wrote to entertain.

•  The emphasis was on literary excellence, and on ‘ripping yarns’ infused with the Greek idea of energeia (‘animated’ writing). 

•  Like the dramatist, he encapsulated his heroes' thoughts and feelings in exciting, well-crafted speeches, rather than writing about them in an abstract, impersonal way. 

•  He used one source at a time (this is called ‘Nissen’s Law’, after the 19th century German historian who first realised this), selecting what he considered the ‘best’ source for the story. 

•  Where he discovered that he had made a mistake, he changed succeeding stories to fit his ‘facts’, rather than go back and correct the error. 

Above all, Livy was a Roman who wrote Roman history desgined to appeal to the predilections of Roman readers: 

•  A Roman bias runs throughout his work. ‘Roman virtues' always shine through … and even the Romans, despite setbacks, win in the end. 

•  His Roman bias also affected his choice of sources (more than accuracy or reliability); he often preferred Coelius Antipater and even Valerias Antias to Polybius because they were more ‘Roman’ in their attitudes, and more exciting. 

1. Strengths of Livy

•  Ab Urbe Condita was a literary masterpiece, a huge work, which was incredibly popular and became a classic of Roman writing

•  He simplified (though not always accurately), difficult and complicated issues, battles etc. for a general readership

•  He filled all his text with 'energeia' - making it interesting and entertaining - 'a page-turner'

•  He was accurate where his sources were accurate

2. Weaknesses of Livy

•  'Nissen's Law': his book was not a blend but a conglomeration, paraphrasing from one source, then another, in turn = the book lacks cohesion, its accuracy varies, and he sometimes repeats himself (e.g. he describes the route from the Rhine to the Alps twice)

•  His focus on old-fashioned 'Roman virtue' so contorted history that it ended up more of a fantasy world, the world as it should have been rather than the world as it was (e.g. his heroes Scipio and Fabius are very wooden and one-dimensional 'true-Roman' characters).

•  He had no experience of war or politics = he sometimes makes mistakes and his book is simplistic and stereotyped - which was of course the way his readers, similarly ignorant, liked it!

•  He had no concept of the 'validity' of a source - he chose his sources according to how 'Roman', or how exciting they were and, where numbers were concerned, tended to 'go down the middle' with no thought about which was the more reliable source (e.g. discussing the numbers lost by Hannibal over the Alps, he prefers Coelius to Polybius)

•  His geography was 'like a rambler whose compass has gone haywire' (e.g. when he makes Hannibal 'turn left' and go south at the Rhone)

•  He did no original research, but mainly copied/paraphrased others ... and he didn't even do that very carefully (e.g. when he transcribed CXL and CLX in the Battle of the Scouting Parties, or when he mistook the Greek word thureos ('shields') as thuras ('doors') and reduced the account of one battle to nonsense)

•  He was biased - against Hannibal (e.g. Livy ignores the prayers Hannibal offered before his campaign, presumably because he wanted to reinforce Hannibal's impietas).