Chapter XIII: Front Matter (13)

In spite of his sufferings and the many compulsory delays, Livingstone's discoveries during these last years were both extensive and of prime importance as leading to a solution of African hydrography. No single African explorer has ever done so much for African geography as Livingstone during his thirty years' work. His travels covered one-third of the continent, extending from the Cape to near the equator, and from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean. Livingstone was no hurried traveller; he did his journeying leisurely, carefully observing and recording all that was worthy of note, with rare geographical instinct and the eye of a trained scientific observer, studying the ways of the people, eating their food, living in their huts, and sympathizing with their joys and sorrows. In all the countries through which he travelled his memory is cherished by the native tribes who, almost without exception, treated Livingstone as a superior being; his treatment of them was always tender, gentle and gentlemanly. By the Arab slavers whom he opposed he was also greatly admired, and was by them styled "the very great doctor." "In the annals of exploration of the Dark Continent," wrote Stanley many years after the death of the missionary explorer, "we look in vain among other nationalities for a name such as Livingstone's. He stands pre-eminent above all; he unites in himself all the best qualities of other explorers. ... Britain ... excelled herself even when she produced the strong and perseverant Scotchman, Livingstone." But the direct gains to geography and science are perhaps not the greatest results of Livingstone's journeys. His example and his death acted like an inspiration, filling Africa with an army of explorers and missionaries, and raising in Europe so powerful a feeling against the slave trade that through him it may be considered as having received its deathblow. Personally Livingstone was a pure and tender-hearted man, full of humanity and sympathy, simple-minded as a child. The motto of his life was the advice he gave to some school children in Scotland--"Fear God, and work hard."

See, besides his own narratives and W. G. Blaikie's _Life_ (1880), the
publications of the London Missionary Society from 1840, the _Journal
and Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society_, the despatches to
the Foreign Office sent home by Livingstone during his last two
expeditions, and Stanley's _Autobiography_ (1909) and _How I Found
Livingstone_ (1872). (J. S. K.)

LIVINGSTONE MOUNTAINS, a band of highlands in German East Africa, forming the eastern border of the rift-valley of Lake Nyasa, at the northern end of the lake. In parts these highlands, known also under their native name of Kinga, present rather the character of a plateau than of a true mountain range, but the latter name may be justified by the fact that they form a comparatively narrow belt of country, which falls considerably to the east as well as to the west. The northern end is well marked in 8° 50´ S. by an escarpment falling to the Ruaha valley, which is regarded as a north-eastern branch of the main rift-valley. Southwards the Livingstone range terminates in the deep valley of the Ruhuhu in 10° 30´ S., the first decided break in the highlands that is reached from the north, on the east coast of Nyasa. Geologically the range is formed on the side of the lake by a zone of gneiss running in a series of ridges and valleys generally parallel to its axis. The ridge nearest the lake (which in Mount Jamimbi or Chamembe, 9° 41´ S., rises to an absolute height of 7870 ft., or 6200 ft. above Nyasa) falls almost sheer to the water, the same steep slope being continued beneath the surface. Towards the south the range appears to have a width of some 20 m. only, but northwards it widens out to about 40 m., though broken here by the depression, drained towards the Ruaha, of Buanyi, on the south side of which is the highest known summit of the range (9600 ft.). North and east of Buanyi, as in the eastern half of the range generally, table-topped mountains occur, composed above of horizontally bedded quartzites, sandstones and conglomerates. The uplands are generally clothed in rich grass, forest occurring principally in the hollows, while the slopes towards the lake are covered with poor scrub. Native settlements are scattered over the whole range, and German mission stations have been established at Bulongwa and Mtandala, a little north of the north end of Nyasa. The climate is here healthy, and night frosts occur in the cold season. European crops are raised with success. At the foot of the mountains on Lake Nyasa are the ports of Wiedhafen, at the mouth of the Ruhuhu, and Old Langenburg, at the north-east corner of the lake. (E. He.)

LIVIUS ANDRONICUS (c. 284-204 B.C.), the founder of Roman epic poetry and drama. His name, in which the Greek [Greek: Andronikos] is combined with the gentile name of one of the great Roman houses, while indicative of his own position as a manumitted slave, is also significant of the influences by which Roman literature was fostered, viz. the culture of men who were either Greeks or "semi-Graeci" by birth and education, and the protection and favour bestowed upon them by the more enlightened members of the Roman aristocracy. He is supposed to have been a native of Tarentum, and to have been brought, while still a boy, after the capture of that town in 272, as a slave to Rome. He lived in the household of a member of the gens Livia, probably M. Livius Salinator. He determined the course which Roman literature followed for more than a century after his time. The imitation of Greek comedy, tragedy and epic poetry, which produced great results in the hands of Naevius, Plautus, Ennius and their successors, received its first impulse from him. To judge, however, from the insignificant remains of his writings, and from the opinions of Cicero and Horace, he can have had no pretension either to original genius or to artistic accomplishment. His real claim to distinction was that he was the first great schoolmaster of the Roman people. We learn from Suetonius that, like Ennius after him, he obtained his living by teaching Greek and Latin; and it was probably as a school-book, rather than as a work of literary pretension, that his translation of the _Odyssey_ into Latin Saturnian verse was executed. This work was still used in schools in the time of Horace (_Epp._ ii. 1., 69), and, although faultily executed, satisfied a real want by introducing the Romans to a knowledge of Greek. Such knowledge became essential to men in a high position as a means of intercourse with Greeks, while Greek literature stimulated the minds of leading Romans. Moreover, southern Italy and Sicily afforded many opportunities for witnessing representations of Greek comedies and tragedies. The Romans and Italians had an indigenous drama of their own, known by the name of _Satura_, which prepared them for the reception of the more regular Greek drama. The distinction between this _Satura_ and the plays of Euripides or Menander was that it had no regular plot. This the Latin drama first received from Livius Andronicus; but it did so at the cost of its originality. In 240, the year after the end of the first Punic War, he produced at the ludi Romani a translation of a Greek play (it is uncertain whether a comedy or tragedy or both), and this representation marks the beginning of Roman literature (Livy vii. 2). Livius himself took part in his plays, and in order to spare his voice he introduced the custom of having the solos (_cantica_) sung by a boy, while he himself represented the action of the song by dumb show. In his translation he discarded the native Saturnian metre, and adopted the iambic, trochaic and cretic metres, to which Latin more easily adapted itself than either to the hexameter or to the lyrical measures of a later time. He continued to produce plays for more than thirty years after this time. The titles of his tragedies--_Achilles_, _Aegisthus_, _Equus Trojanus_, _Hermione_, _Tereus_--are all suggestive of subjects which were treated by the later tragic poets of Rome. In the year 207, when he must have been of a great age, he was appointed to compose a hymn of thanksgiving, sung by maidens, for the victory of the Metaurus and an intercessory hymn to the Aventine Juno. As a further tribute of national recognition the "college" or "gild" of poets and actors was granted a place of meeting in the temple of Minerva on the Aventine.

See fragments in L. Müller, _Livi Andronici et Cn. Naevi Fabularum
Reliquiae_ (1885); also J. Wordsworth, _Fragments and Specimens of
Early Latin_ (1874); Mommsen, _Hist. of Rome_, bk. iii. ch. 14.

LIVNO, a town of Bosnia, situated on the eastern side of the fertile plain of Livno, at the foot of Mount Krug (6581 ft.). Pop. about 5000. The Dalmatian border is 7 m. W. Livno had a trade in grain, live-stock and silver filigree-work up to 1904, when a fire swept away more than 500 of the old Turkish houses, together with the Roman citadel. Remains prove that Livno occupies the site of a Roman settlement, the name of which is uncertain. The Roman Catholic convent of Gurici is 6 m. S.

LIVONIA, or LIVLAND (Russian, _Liflandia_), one of the three Baltic provinces of Russia, bounded W. by the Gulf of Riga, N. by Esthonia, E. by the governments of St Petersburg, Pskov and Vitebsk, and S. by Courland. A group of islands (1110 sq. m.) at the entrance of the Gulf of Riga, of which Oesel, Mohn, Runo and Paternoster are the largest, belong to this government. It covers an area of 18,160 sq. m., but of this the part of Lake Peipus which belongs to it occupies 1090. Its surface is diversified by several plateaus, those of Haanhof and of the Livonian Aa having an average elevation of 400 to 700 ft., while several summits reach 800 to 1000 ft. or more. The edges of the plateaus are gapped by deep valleys; the hilly tract between the Dvina and its tributary the Livonian Aa has received, from its picturesque narrow valleys, thick forests and numerous lakes, the name of "Livonian Switzerland." The plateau of Odenpäh, drained by tributaries of the Embach river, which flows for 93 m. from Lake Virz-yärvi into Lake Peipus, occupies an area of 2830 sq. m., and has an average elevation of 500 ft. More than a thousand lakes are scattered over Livonia, of which that of Virz-yärvi, having a surface of 106 sq. m. (115 ft. above sea-level), is the largest. Marshes and peat-bogs occupy one-tenth of the province. Of the numerous rivers, the Dvina, which flows for 90 m. along its frontier, the Pernau, Salis, Livonian Aa and Embach are navigable.

The Silurian formation which covers Esthonia, appears in the northern part of Livonia, the remainder of the province consisting of Devonian strata. The whole is overlaid with glacial deposits, sometimes 400 ft. thick. The typical bottom moraine, with erratics from Finland, extends all over the country. Glacial furrows, striae and elongated troughs are met with everywhere, running mostly from north-west to south-east, as well as _asar_ or _eskérs_, which have the same direction. Sand-dunes cover large tracts on the shores of the Baltic. No traces of marine deposits are found higher than 100 or 150 ft. above the present sea-level. The soil is not very fertile. Forests cover about two-fifths of the surface. The climate is rather severe. The mean temperatures are 43° F. at Riga (winter 23°, summer 63°) and 40° at Yuriev. The winds are very variable; the average number of rainy and snowy days is 146 at Riga (rainfall 24.1 in.). Fogs are not uncommon.

The population of Livonia, which was 621,600 in 1816, reached 1,000,876 in 1870, and 1,295,231 in 1897, of whom 43.4% were Letts, 39.9% Ehsts, 7.6% Germans, 5.4% Russians, 2% Jews and 1.2% Poles. The estimated pop. in 1906 was 1,411,000. The Livs, who formerly extended east into the government of Vitebsk, have nearly all passed away. Their native language, of Finnish origin, is rapidly disappearing, their present language being a Lettish patois. In 1846 a grammar and dictionary of it were made with difficulty from the mouths of old people. The Ehsts, who resemble the Finns of Tavastland, have maintained their ethnic features, their customs, national traditions, songs and poetry, and their harmonious language. There is a marked revival of national feeling, favoured by "Young Esthonia." The prevailing religion is the Lutheran (79.8%); 14.3% belong to the Orthodox Greek Church; of the Russians, however, a considerable proportion are Raskolniks (Nonconformists); the Roman Catholics amount to 2.3%, and the Jews to 2%. The Russian civil code was introduced in the Baltic provinces in 1835, and the use of Russian, instead of German, in official correspondence and in law courts was ordered in 1867, but not generally brought into practice.

Nearly all the soil belongs to the nobility, the extent of the
peasants' estates being only 15% of the entire area of the government.
Serfdom was abolished in 1819, but the peasants remained under the
jurisdiction of their landlords. The class of peasant proprietors
being restricted to a small number of wealthy peasants, the bulk have
remained tenants at will; they are very miserable, and about
one-fourth of them are continually wandering in search of work. From
time to time the emigration takes the shape of a mass movement, which
the government stops by forcible measures. The average size of the
landed estates is 9500 to 11,000 acres, far above the general average
for Russia. Agriculture has reached a high degree of perfection on the
estates of the landlords. The principal crops are rye, oats, barley,
flax and potatoes, with some wheat, hemp and buckwheat. Dairy-farming
and gardening are on the increase. Fishing in Lake Peipus gives
occupation to nearly 100,000 persons, and is also carried on in the
Gulf of Riga and in the rivers. Woollen, cloth, cotton and flax mills,
steam flour and saw mills, distilleries and breweries, machinery
works, paper mills, furniture, tobacco, soap, candle and hardware
works are among the chief industrial establishments. Livonia carries
on a large export trade, especially through Riga and Pernau, in
petroleum, wool, oilcake, flax, linseed, hemp, grain, timber and
wooden wares; the Dvina is the chief channel for this trade.

Education stands on a much higher level than elsewhere in Russia, no
less than 87% of the children receiving regular instruction. The
higher educational institutions include Yuriev (Dorpat) University,
Riga polytechnic and a high school for the clergy.

The government is divided into nine districts, the chief towns of
which, with their populations in 1897, are: Riga, capital of the
government (282,943); Arensburg, in the island of Oesel (4621); Yuriev
or Dorpat (42,421); Fellin (7659); Pernau (12,856); Walk (10,139);
Wenden (6327); Werro (4154); and Wolmar (5124). The capital of the
government is Riga.

Coins of the time of Alexander the Great, found on the island of Oesel, show that the coasts of the Baltic were at an early period in commercial relation with the civilized world. The chronicle of Nestor mentions as inhabitants of the Baltic coast the Chudes, the Livs, the Narova, Letgola, Semigallians and Kors. It was probably about the 9th century that the Chudes became tributary to the Varangian-Russian states. As they reacquired their independence, Yaroslav I. undertook in 1030 a campaign against them, and founded Yuriev (Dorpat). The Germans first penetrated into Livonia in the 11th century, and in 1158 several Lübeck and Visby merchants landed at the mouth of the Dvina. In 1186 the emissaries of the archbishop of Bremen began to preach Christianity among the Ehsts and Letts, and in 1201 the bishop of Livonia established his residence at Riga. In 1202 or 1204 Innocent III. recognized the order of Brothers of the Sword, the residence of its grand master being at Wenden; and the order, spreading the Christian religion by the sword among the natives, carried on from that time a series of uninterrupted wars against the Russian republics and Lithuania, as well as a struggle against the archbishop of Riga, Riga having become a centre for trade, intermediate between the Hanseatic towns and those of Novgorod, Pskov and Polotsk. The first active interference of Lithuania in the affairs of Livonia took place immediately after the great outbreak of the peasants on Oesel; Olgierd then devastated all southern Livonia. The order, having purchased the Danish part of Esthonia, in 1347, began a war against the bishop of Riga, as well as against Lithuania, Poland and Russia. The wars against those powers were terminated respectively in 1435, 1466 and 1483. About the end of the 15th century the master of the order, Plettenberg, acquired a position of great importance, and in 1527 he was recognized as a prince of the empire by Charles V. On the other hand, the authority of the bishops of Riga was soon completely destroyed (1566). The war of the order with Ivan IV. of Russia in 1558 led to a division of Livonia, its northern part, Dorpat included, being taken by Russia, and the southern part falling under the dominion of Poland. From that time (1561) Livonia formed a subject of dispute between Poland and Russia, the latter only formally abdicating its rights to the country in 1582. In 1621 it was the theatre of a war between Poland and Sweden, and was conquered by the latter power, enjoying thus for twenty-five years a milder rule. In 1654, and again at the beginning of the 18th century, it became the theatre of war between Poland, Russia and Sweden, and was finally conquered by Russia. The official concession was confirmed by the treaty of Nystad in 1721.

See E. Seraphim, _Geschichte Liv-, Esth-, und Kurlands_ (2nd ed.,
Revel, 1897-1904) and _Geschichte von Livland_ (Gotha, 1905, &c.).
(P. A. K.; J. T. Be.)

LIVY [TITUS LIVIUS] (59 B.C.-A.D. 17), Roman historian, was born at Patavium (Padua). The ancient connexion between his native city and Rome helped to turn his attention to the study which became the work of his life. For Padua claimed, like Rome, a Trojan origin, and Livy is careful to place its founder Antenor side by side with Aeneas. A more real bond of union was found in the dangers to which both had been exposed from the assaults of the Celts (Livy x. 2), and Padua must have been drawn to Rome as the conqueror of her hereditary foes. Moreover, at the time of Livy's birth, Padua had long been in possession of the full Roman franchise, and the historian's family name may have been taken by one of his ancestors out of compliment to the great Livian gens at Rome, whose connexion with Cisalpine Gaul is well-established (Suet. _Tib._ 3), and by one of whom his family may have been enfranchized.

Livy's easy independent life at Rome, and his aristocratic leanings in politics seem to show that he was the son of well-born and opulent parents; he was certainly well educated, being widely read in Greek literature, and a student both of rhetoric and philosophy. We have also evidence in his writings that he had prepared himself for his great work by researches into the history of his native town. His youth and early manhood, spent perhaps chiefly at Padua, were cast in stormy times, and the impression which they left upon his mind was ineffaceable. In the Civil War his personal sympathies were with Pompey and the republican party (Tac. _Ann._ iv. 34); but far more lasting in its effects was his experience of the licence, anarchy and confusion of these dark days. The rule of Augustus he seems to have accepted as a necessity, but he could not, like Horace and Virgil, welcome it as inaugurating a new and glorious era. He writes of it with despondency as a degenerate and declining age; and, instead of triumphant prophecies of world-wide rule, such as we find in Horace, Livy contents himself with pointing out the dangers which already threatened Rome, and exhorting his contemporaries to learn, in good time, the lessons which the past history of the state had to teach.

It was probably about the time of the battle of Actium that Livy established himself in Rome, and there he seems chiefly to have resided until his retirement to Padua shortly before his death. We have no evidence that he travelled much, though he must have paid at least one visit to Campania (xxxviii. 56), and he never, so far as we know, took any part in political life. Nor, though he enjoyed the personal friendship and patronage of Augustus (Tac. _Ann._ iv. 34) and stimulated the historical zeal of the future emperor Claudius (Suet. _Claud._ xli.), can we detect in him anything of the courtier. There is not in his history a trace of that rather gross adulation in which even Virgil does not disdain to indulge. His republican sympathies were freely expressed, and as freely pardoned by Augustus. We must imagine him devoted to the great task which he had set himself to perform, with a mind free from all disturbing cares, and in the enjoyment of all the facilities for study afforded by the Rome of Augustus, with its liberal encouragement of letters, its newly-founded libraries and its brilliant literary circles. As his work went on, the fame which he had never coveted came to him in ample measure. He is said to have declared in one volume of his history that he had already won glory enough, and the younger Pliny (_Epist._ ii. 3) relates that a Spaniard came all the way from Gades merely to see him, and, this accomplished, at once returned home satisfied. The accession of Tiberius (A.D. 14) materially altered for the worse the prospects of literature in Rome, and Livy retired to Padua, where he died. He had at least one son (Quintil. x. 1. 39), who also was possibly an author (Pliny, _Nat. Hist._ i. 5. 6), and a daughter married to a certain L. Magius, a rhetorician of no great merit (Seneca, _Controv._ x. 29. 2). Nothing further is known of his personal history.

_Analysis of the History._--For us the interest of Livy's life centres in the work to which the greater part of it was devoted, the history of Rome from its foundation down to the death of Drusus (9 B.C.). Its proper title was _Ab urbe condita libri_ (also called _historiae_ and _annales_). Various indications point to the period from 27 to 20 B.C., as that during which the first decade was written. In the first book (19. 3) the emperor is called Augustus, a title which he assumed early in 27 B.C., and in ix. 18 the omission of all reference to the restoration, in 20 B.C., of the standards taken at Carrhae seems to justify the inference that the passage was written before that date. In the epitome of book lix. there is a reference to a law of Augustus which was passed in 18 B.C. The books dealing with the civil wars must have been written during Augustus's lifetime, as they were read by him (Tac. _Ann._ iv. 34), while there is some evidence that the last part, from book cxxi. onwards, was published after his death A.D. 14.

The work begins with the landing of Aeneas in Italy, and closes with the death of Drusus, 9 B.C., though it is possible that the author intended to continue it as far as the death of Augustus. The division into decades is certainly not due to the author himself, and is first heard of at the end of the 5th century; on the other hand, the division into _libri_ or _volumina_ seems to be original. That the books were grouped and possibly published in sets is rendered probable both by the prefaces which introduce new divisions of the work (vi. 1, xxi. 1, xxxi. 1) and by the description in one MS. of books cix.-cxvi. as "bellorum civilium libri octo." Such arrangement and publication in parts were, moreover, common with ancient authors, and in the case of a lengthy work almost a necessity.

Of the 142 _libri_ composing the history, the first 15 carry us down to the eve of the great struggle with Carthage, a period, as Livy reckons it, of 488 years (xxxi. 1); 15 more (xvi-xxx.) cover the 63 years of the two great Punic wars. With the close of book xlv. we reach the conquest of Macedonia in 167 B.C. Book lviii. described the tribunate of Tiberius Gracchus, 133 B.C. In book lxxxix. we have the dictatorship of Sulla (81 B.C.), in ciii. Caesar's first consulship (59 B.C.), in cix.-cxvi. the civil wars to the death of Caesar (44 B.C.), in cxxiv. the defeat of Brutus and Cassius at Philippi, in cxxxiii. and cxxxiv. the battle of Actium and the accession of Augustus. The remaining eight books give the history of the first twenty years of Augustus's reign.

Of this vast work only a small portion has come down to modern times; only thirty-five books are now extant (i.-x., xxi.-xlv.), and of these xli. and xliii. are incomplete. The lost books seem to have disappeared between the 7th century and the revival of letters in the 15th--a fact sufficiently accounted for by the difficulty of transmitting so voluminous a work in times when printing was unknown, for the story that Pope Gregory I. burnt all the copies of Livy he could lay his hands on rests on no good evidence. Only one important fragment has since been recovered--the portion of book xci. discovered in the Vatican in 1772, and edited by Niebuhr in 1820. Very much no doubt of the substance of the lost books has been preserved both by such writers as Plutarch and Dio Cassius, and by epitomizers like Florus and Eutropius. But our knowledge of their contents is chiefly derived from the so-called _periochae_ or epitomes, of which we have fortunately a nearly complete series, the epitomes of books cxxxvi. and cxxxvii. being the only ones missing.[1] These epitomes have been ascribed without sufficient reason to Florus (2nd century); but, though they are probably of even later date, and are disappointingly meagre, they may be taken as giving, so far as they go, a fairly authentic description of the original. They have been expanded with great ingenuity and learning by Freinsheim in Drakenborch's edition of Livy.[2] The _Prodigio_ of Julius Obsequens and the list of consuls in the _Chronica_ of Cassiodorus are taken directly from Livy, and to that extent reproduce the contents of the lost books. It is probable that Obsequens, Cassiodorus and the compiler of the epitomes did not use the original work but an abridgment.

_Historical Standpoint._--If we are to form a correct judgment on the merits of Livy's history, we must, above all things, bear in mind what his aim was in writing it, and this he has told us himself in the celebrated preface. He set himself the task of recording the history of the Roman people, "the first in the world," from the beginning. The task was a great one, and the fame to be won by it uncertain, yet it would be something to have made the attempt, and the labour itself would bring a welcome relief from the contemplation of present evils; for his readers, too, this record will, he says, be full of instruction; they are invited to note especially the moral lessons taught by the story of Rome, to observe how Rome rose to greatness by the simple virtues and unselfish devotion of her citizens, and how on the decay of these qualities followed degeneracy and decline.

He does not, therefore, write, as Polybius wrote, for students of history. With Polybius the greatness of Rome is a phenomenon to be critically studied and scientifically explained; the rise of Rome forms an important chapter in universal history, and must be dealt with, not as an isolated fact, but in connexion with the general march of events in the civilized world. Still less has Livy anything in common with the naïve anxiety of Dionysius of Halicarnassus to make it clear to his fellow Greeks that the irresistible people who had mastered them was in origin, in race and in language Hellenic like themselves.

Livy writes as a Roman, to raise a monument worthy of the greatness of Rome, and to keep alive, for the guidance and the warning of Romans, the recollection alike of the virtues which had made Rome great and of the vices which had threatened her with destruction. In so writing he was in close agreement with the traditions of Roman literature, as well as with the conception of the nature and objects of history current in his time. To a large extent Roman literature grew out of pride in Rome, for, though her earliest authors took the form and often the language of their writings from Greece, it was the greatness of Rome that inspired the best of them, and it was from the annals of Rome that their themes were taken. And this is naturally true in an especial sense of the Roman historians; the long list of annalists begins at the moment when the great struggle with Carthage had for the first time brought Rome into direct connexion with the historic peoples of the ancient world, and when Romans themselves awoke to the importance of the part reserved for Rome to play in universal history. To write the annals of Rome became at once a task worthy of the best of her citizens. Though other forms of literature might be thought unbecoming to the dignity of a free-born citizen, this was never so with history. On the contrary, men of high rank and tried statesmanship were on that very account thought all the fitter to write the chronicles of the state they had served. And history in Rome never lost either its social prestige or its intimate and exclusive connexion with the fortunes of the Roman people. It was well enough for Greeks to busy themselves with the manners, institutions and deeds of the "peoples outside." The Roman historians, from Fabius Pictor to Tacitus, cared for none of these things. This exclusive interest in Rome was doubtless encouraged by the peculiar characteristics of the history of the state. The Roman annalist had not, like the Greek, to deal with the varying fortunes and separate doings of a number of petty communities, but with the continuous life of a single city. Nor was his attention drawn from the main lines of political history by the claims of art, literature and philosophy, for just as the tie which bound Romans together was that of citizenship, not of race or culture, so the history of Rome is that of the state, of its political constitution, its wars and conquests, its military and administrative system.

Livy's own circumstances were all such as to render these views natural to him. He began to write at a time when, after a century of disturbance, the mass of men had been contented to purchase peace at the price of liberty. The present was at least inglorious, the future doubtful, and many turned gladly to the past for consolation. This retrospective tendency was favourably regarded by the government. It was the policy of Augustus to obliterate all traces of recent revolution, and to connect the new imperial régime as closely as possible with the ancient traditions and institutions of Rome and Italy. The _Aeneid_ of Virgil, the _Fasti_ of Ovid, suited well with his own restoration of the ancient temples, his revival of such ancient ceremonies as the Ludi Saeculares, his efforts to check the un-Roman luxury of the day, and his jealous regard for the purity of the Roman stock. And, though we are nowhere told that Livy undertook his history at the emperor's suggestion, it is certain that Augustus read parts of it with pleasure, and even honoured the writer with his assistance and friendship.

Livy was deeply penetrated with a sense of the greatness of Rome. From first to last its majesty and high destiny are present to his mind. Aeneas is led to Italy by the Fates that he may be the founder of Rome. Romulus after his ascension declares it to be the will of heaven that Rome should be mistress of the world; and Hannibal marches into Italy, that he may "set free the world" from Roman rule. But, if this ever-present consciousness often gives dignity and elevation to his narrative, it is also responsible for some of its defects. It leads him occasionally into exaggerated language (e.g. xxii. 33, "nullius usquam terrarum rei cura Romanos effugiebat"), or into such mis-statements as his explanation of the course taken by the Romans in renewing war with Carthage, that "it seemed more suitable to the dignity of the Roman people." Often his jealousy for the honour of Rome makes him unfair and one-sided. In all her wars not only success but justice is with Rome. To the same general attitude is also due the omission by Livy of all that has no direct bearing on the fortunes of the Roman people. "I have resolved," he says (xxxix. 48), "only to touch on foreign affairs so far as they are bound up with those of Rome." As the result, we get from Livy very defective accounts even of the Italic peoples most closely connected with Rome. Of the past history and the internal condition of the more distant nations she encountered he tells us little or nothing, even when he found such details carefully given by Polybius.

Scarcely less strong than his interest in Rome is his interest in the moral lessons which her history seemed to him so well qualified to teach. This didactic view of history was a prevalent one in antiquity, and it was confirmed no doubt by those rhetorical studies which in Rome as in Greece formed the chief part of education, and which taught men to look on history as little more than a storehouse of illustrations and themes for declamation. But it suited also the practical bent of the Roman mind, with its comparative indifference to abstract speculation or purely scientific research. It is in the highest degree natural that Livy should have sought for the secret of the rise of Rome, not in any large historical causes, but in the moral qualities of the people themselves, and that he should have looked upon the contemplation of these as the best remedy for the vices of his own degenerate days. He dwells with delight on the unselfish patriotism of the old heroes of the republic. In those times children obeyed their parents, the gods were still sincerely worshipped, poverty was no disgrace, sceptical philosophies and foreign fashions in religion and in daily life were unknown. But this ethical interest is closely bound up with his Roman sympathies. His moral ideal is no abstract one, and the virtues he praises are those which in his view made up the truly Roman type of character. The prominence thus given to the moral aspects of the history tends to obscure in some degree the true relations and real importance of the events narrated, but it does so in Livy to a far less extent than in some other writers. He is much too skilful an artist either to resolve his history into a mere bundle of examples, or to overload it, as Tacitus is sometimes inclined to do, with reflections and axioms. The moral he wishes to enforce is usually either conveyed by the story itself, with the aid perhaps of a single sentence of comment, or put as a speech into the mouth of one of his characters (e.g. xxiii. 49; the devotion of Decius, viii. 10, cf. vii. 40; and the speech of Camillus, v. 54); and what little his narrative thus loses in accuracy it gains in dignity and warmth of feeling. In his portraits of the typical Romans of the old style, such as Q. Fabius Maximus, in his descriptions of the unshaken firmness and calm courage shown by the fathers of the state in the hour of trial, Livy is at his best; and he is so largely in virtue of his genuine appreciation of character as a powerful force in the affairs of men.

This enthusiasm for Rome and for Roman virtues is, moreover, saved from degenerating into gross partiality by the genuine candour of Livy's mind and by his wide sympathies with every thing great and good. Seneca (_Suasoriae_ vi. 22) and Quintilian (x. 1. 101) bear witness to his impartiality. Thus, Hasdrubal's devotion and valour at the battle on the Metaurus are described in terms of eloquent praise; and even in Hannibal, the lifelong enemy of Rome, he frankly recognizes the great qualities that balanced his faults. Nor, though his sympathies are unmistakably with the aristocratic party, does he scruple to censure the pride, cruelty and selfishness which too often marked their conduct (ii. 54; the speech of Canuleius, iv. 3; of Sextius and Licinius, vi. 36); and, though he feels acutely that the times are out of joint, and has apparently little hope of the future, he still believes in justice and goodness. He is often righteously indignant, but never satirical, and such a pessimism as that of Tacitus and Juvenal is wholly foreign to his nature.

Though he studied and even wrote on philosophy (Seneca, _Ep._ 100. 9), Livy is by no means a philosophic historian. We learn indeed from incidental notices that he inclined to Stoicism and disliked the Epicurean system. With the scepticism that despised the gods (x. 40) and denied that they meddled with the affairs of men (xliii. 13) he has no sympathy. The immortal gods are everywhere the same; they govern the world (xxxvii. 45) and reveal the future to men by signs and wonders (xliii. 13), but only a debased superstition will look for their hand in every petty incident, or abandon itself to an indiscriminate belief in the portents and miracles in which popular credulity delights. The ancient state religion of Rome, with its temples, priests and auguries, he not only reverences as an integral part of the Roman constitution, with a sympathy which grows as he studies it, but, like Varro, and in true Stoic fashion, he regards it as a valuable instrument of government (i. 19. 21), indispensable in a well-ordered community. As distinctly Stoical is the doctrine of a fate to which even the gods must yield (ix. 4), which disposes the plans of men (i. 42) and blinds their minds (v. 37), yet leaves their wills free (xxxvii. 45).

But we find no trace in Livy of any systematic application of philosophy to the facts of history. He is as innocent of the leading ideas which shaped the work of Polybius as he is of the cheap theorizing which wearies us in the pages of Dionysius. The events are graphically, if not always accurately, described; but of the larger causes at work in producing them, of their subtle action and reaction upon each other, and of the general conditions amid which the history worked itself out, he takes no thought at all. Nor has Livy much acquaintance with either the theory or the practice of politics. He exhibits, it is true, political sympathies and antipathies. He is on the whole for the nobles and against the commons; and, though the unfavourable colours in which he paints the leaders of the latter are possibly reflected from the authorities he followed, it is evident that he despised and disliked the multitude. Of monarchy he speaks with a genuine Roman hatred, and we know that in the last days of the republic his sympathies were wholly with those who strove in vain to save it. He betrays, too, an insight into the evils which were destined finally to undermine the imposing fabric of Roman empire. The decline of the free population, the spread of slavery (vi. 12, vii. 25), the universal craving for wealth (iii. 26), the employment of foreign mercenaries (xxv. 33), the corruption of Roman race and Roman manners by mixture with aliens (xxxix. 3), are all noticed in tones of solemn warning. But his retired life had given him no wide experience of men and things. It is not surprising, therefore, to find that he fails altogether to present a clear and coherent picture of the history and working of the Roman constitution, or that his handling of intricate questions of policy is weak and inadequate.

_Sources._--If from the general aim and spirit of Livy's history we pass to consider his method of workmanship, we are struck at once by the very different measure of success attained by him in the two great departments of an historian's labour. He is a consummate artist, but an unskilled and often careless investigator and critic. The materials which lay ready to his hand may be roughly classed under two heads: (1) the original evidence of monuments, inscriptions, &c., (2) the written tradition as found in the works of previous authors. It is on the second of these two kinds of evidence that Livy almost exclusively relies. Yet that even for the very early times a certain amount of original evidence still existed is proved by the use which was made of it by Dionysius, who mentions at least three important inscriptions, two dating from the regal period and one from the first years of the republic (iv. 26, iv. 58, x. 32). We know from Livy himself (iv. 20) that the breastplate dedicated by Aulus Cornelius Cossus (428 B.C.) was to be seen in his own day in the temple of Jupiter Feretrius, nor is there any reason to suppose that the _libri lintei_, quoted by Licinius Macer, were not extant when Livy wrote. For more recent times the materials were plentiful, and a rich field of research lay open to the student in the long series of laws, decrees of the senate, and official registers, reaching back, as it probably did, at least to the beginning of the 3rd century B.C. Nevertheless it seems certain that Livy never realized the duty of consulting these relics of the past, even in order to verify the statements of his authorities. Many of them he never mentions; the others (e.g. the _libri lintei_) he evidently describes at second hand. Antiquarian studies were popular in his day, but the instances are very few in which he has turned their results to account. There is no sign that he had ever read Varro; and he never alludes to Verrius Flaccus. The haziness and inaccuracy of his topography make it clear that he did not attempt to familiarize himself with the actual scenes of events even that took place in Italy. Not only does he confuse Thermon, the capital of Aetolia, with Thermopylae (xxxiii. 35), but his accounts of the Roman campaigns against Volsci, Aequi and Samnites swarm with confusions and difficulties; nor are even his descriptions of Hannibal's movements free from an occasional vagueness which betrays the absence of an exact knowledge of localities.

The consequence of this indifference to original research and patient
verification might have been less serious had the written tradition on
which Livy preferred to rely been more trustworthy. But neither the
materials out of which it was composed, nor the manner in which it had
been put together, were such as to make it a safe guide. It was indeed
represented by a long line of respectable names. The majority of the
Roman annalists were men of high birth and education, with a long
experience of affairs, and their defects did not arise from seclusion
of life or ignorance of letters. It is rather in the conditions under
which they wrote and in the rules and traditions of their craft that
the causes of their shortcomings must be sought.

The Annalists.

It was not until the 6th century from the foundation of the city that
historical writing began in Rome. The father of Roman history, Q.
Fabius Pictor, a patrician and a senator, can scarcely have published
his annals before the close of the Second Punic War, but these annals
covered the whole period from the arrival of Evander in Italy down at
least to the battle by Lake Trasimene (217 B.C.). Out of what
materials, then, did he put together his account of the earlier
history? Recent criticism has succeeded in answering this question
with some degree of certainty. A careful examination of the fragments
of Fabius (see H. Peter, _Historicorum Romanorum Relliquiae_, Leipzig,
1870; and C. W. Nitzsch, _Röm. Annalistik_, Berlin, 1873) reveals in
the first place a marked difference between the kingly period and that
which followed the establishment of the republic. The history of the
former stretches back into the regions of pure mythology. It is little
more than a collection of fables told with scarcely any attempt at
criticism, and with no more regard to chronological sequence than was
necessary to make the tale run smoothly or to fill up such gaps as
that between the flight of Aeneas from Troy and the supposed year of
the foundation of Rome. But from its very commencement the history of
the republic wears a different aspect. The mass of floating tradition,
which had come down from early days, with its tales of border raids
and forays, of valiant chiefs and deeds of patriotism, is now rudely
fitted into a framework of a wholly different kind. This framework
consists of short notices of important events, wars, prodigies,
consecration of temples, &c., all recorded with extreme brevity,
precisely dated, and couched in a somewhat archaic style. They were
taken probably from one or more of the state registers, such as the
annals of the pontiffs, or those kept by the aediles in the temple of
Ceres. This bare official outline of the past history of his city was
by Fabius filled in from the rich store of tradition that lay ready to
his hand. The manner and spirit in which he effected this combination
were no doubt wholly uncritical. Usually he seems to have transferred
both annalistic notices and popular traditions to his pages much in
the shape in which he found them. But he unquestionably gave undue
prominence to the tales of the prowess and glory of the Fabii, and
probably also allowed his own strong aristocratic sympathies to colour
his version of the early political controversies. This fault of
partiality was, according to Polybius, a conspicuous blot in Fabius's
account of his own times, which was, we are told, full and in the main
accurate, and, like the earlier portions, consisted of official
annalistic notices, supplemented, however, not from tradition, but
from his own experience and from contemporary sources. But even here
Polybius charges him with favouring Rome at the expense of Carthage,
and with the undue exaltation of the great head of his house, Q.
Fabius Cunctator.

Nevertheless the comparative fidelity with which Fabius seems to have
reproduced his materials might have made his annals the starting point
of a critical history. But unfortunately intelligent criticism was
exactly what they never received. It is true that in some respects a
decided advance upon Fabius was made by subsequent annalists. M.
Porcius Cato (234-149 B.C.) widened the scope of Roman history so as
to include that of the chief Italian cities, and made the first
serious attempt to settle the chronology. In his history of the Punic
wars Caelius Antipater (c. 130 B.C.) added fresh material, drawn
probably from the works of the Sicilian Greek Silenus, while Licinius
Macer (70 B.C.) distinguished himself by the use he made of the
ancient "linen books." No doubt, too, the later annalists, at any rate
from Caelius Antipater onwards, improved upon Fabius in treatment and
style. But in more essential points we can discern no progress. One
annalist after another quietly adopted the established tradition, as
it had been left by his predecessors, without any serious alterations
of its main outlines. Of independent research and critical analysis we
find no trace, and the general agreement upon main facts is to be
attributed simply to the regularity with which each writer copied the
one before him. But, had the later annalists contented themselves with
simply reproducing the earlier ones, we should at least have had the
old tradition before us in a simple and tolerably genuine form. As it
was, while they slavishly clung to its substance, they succeeded, as a
rule, in destroying all traces of its original form and colouring. L.
Calpurnius Piso, tribune in 149 B.C. and consul in 133 B.C., prided
himself on reducing the old legends to the level of common sense, and
importing into them valuable moral lessons for his own generation. By
Caelius Antipater the methods of rhetoric were first applied to
history, a disastrous precedent enough. He inserted speeches,
enlivened his pages with chance tales, and aimed, as Cicero tells us,
at not merely narrating facts but also at beautifying them. His
successors carried still farther the practice of dressing up the
rather bald chronicles of earlier writers with all the ornaments of
rhetoric. The old traditions were altered, almost beyond the
possibility of recognition, by exaggerations, interpolations and
additions. Fresh incidents were inserted, new motives suggested and
speeches composed in order to infuse the required life and freshness
into these dry bones of history. At the same time the political bias
of the writers, and the political ideas of their day were allowed, in
some cases perhaps half unconsciously, to affect their representations
of past events. Annalists of the Gracchan age imported into the early
struggles of patricians and plebeians the economic controversies of
their own day, and painted the first tribunes in the colours of the
two Gracchi or of Saturninus. In the next generation they dexterously
forced the venerable records of the early republic to pronounce in
favour of the ascendancy of the senate, as established by Sulla. To
political bias was added family pride, for the gratification of which
the archives of the great houses, the funeral panegyrics, or the
imagination of the writer himself supplied an ample store of doubtful
material. Pedigrees were invented, imaginary consulships and
fictitious triumphs inserted, and family traditions and family honours
were formally incorporated with the history of the state.

Things were not much better even where the annalists were dealing with
recent or contemporary events. Here, indeed, their materials were
naturally fuller and more trustworthy, and less room was left for
fanciful decoration and capricious alteration of the facts. But their
methods are in the main unchanged. What they found written they
copied; the gaps they supplied, where personal experience failed, by
imagination. No better proof of this can be given than a comparison of
the annalist's version of history with that of Polybius. In the fourth
and fifth decades of Livy the two appear side by side, and the
contrast between them is striking. Polybius, for instance, gives the
number of the slain at Cynoscephalae as 8000; the annalists raise it
as high as 40,000 (Livy xxxiii. 10). In another case (xxxii. 6)
Valerius Antias, the chief of sinners in this respect, inserts a
decisive Roman victory over the Macedonians, in which 12,000 of the
latter were slain and 2200 taken prisoner, an achievement recorded by
no other authority.