The History of Rome, perhaps originally titled Annales, and frequently referred to as Ab Urbe Condita (English: From the Founding of the City),^[1] is a monumental history of ancient Rome, written in Latin between 27 and 9 BC by the Roman historian Titus Livius, better known in English as "Livy".^[a] The work covers the period from the legends concerning the arrival of Aeneas and the refugees from the fall of Troy, to the city's founding in 753 BC, the expulsion of the Kings in 509 BC, and down to Livy's own time, during the reign of the emperor Augustus.^[b][c] The last event covered by Livy is the death of Drusus in 9 BC.^[1] 35 of 142 books, about a quarter of the work, are still extant.^[3] The surviving books deal with the events down to 293 BC (books 1–10), and from 219 to 166 BC (books 21–45).

Contents

Corpus

The History of Rome originally comprised 142 "books", 35 of which—Books 1–10 with the Preface and Books 21–45—still exist in reasonably complete form.^[1] Damage to a manuscript of the 5th century resulted in large gaps (lacunae) in Books 41 and 43–45 (small lacunae exist elsewhere); that is, the material is not covered in any source of Livy's text.^[4]

A fragmentary palimpsest of the 91st book was discovered in the Vatican Library in 1772, containing about a thousand words (roughly three paragraphs), and several papyrus fragments of previously unknown material, much smaller, have been found in Egypt since 1900, most recently about 40 words from Book 11, unearthed in 1986.^[5]

Some passages are nevertheless known thanks to quotes from ancient authors, the most famous being on the death of Cicero, quoted by Seneca the Elder.

Abridgements

Livy was abridged, in antiquity, to an epitome, which survives for Book 1, but was itself abridged in the fourth century into the so-called Periochae, which is simply a list of contents. The Periochae survive for the entire work, except for books 136 and 137.^[6]

In Oxyrhynchus, a similar summary of books 37–40, 47–55, and only small fragments of 88 was found on a roll of papyrus that is now in the British Museum classified as P.Oxy.IV 0668.^[7] There is another fragment, named P.Oxy.XI 1379, which represents a passage from the first book (I, 6) and that shows a high level of correctness.^[8] However, the Oxyrhynchus Epitome is damaged and incomplete.

Chronology

The entire work covers the following periods:^[1][9]

Books 1–5 – The legendary founding of Rome (including the landing of Aeneas in Italy and the founding of the city by Romulus), the period of the kings, and the early republic down to its conquest by the Gauls in 390 BC.^[d]

Books 6–10 – Wars with the Aequi, Volsci, Etruscans, and Samnites, down to 292 BC.

Books 11–20 – The period from 292 to 218, including the First Punic War (lost).

Books 21–30 – The Second Punic War, from 218 to 202.

Books 31–45 – The Macedonian and other eastern wars from 201 to 167.

Books 46 to 142 are all lost:

Books 46–70 – The period from 167 to the outbreak of the Social War in 91.

Books 71–90 – The civil wars between Marius and Sulla, to the death of Sulla in 78.

Books 91–108 – From 78 BC through the end of the Gallic War, in 50.

Books 109–116 – From the Civil War to the death of Caesar (49–44).

Books 117–133 – The wars of the triumvirs down to the death of Antonius (44–30).

Books 134–142 – The rule of Augustus down to the death of Drusus (9).

Table of contents