A man of Padua who held no office and commanded no army — the first Roman on this shelf to write Rome from the library rather than the senate or the camp. From his early books' events he stood centuries away, working from annalists, priestly records, and family archives he himself calls burned and falsified; the emperor watched him work, and the record says it made no trouble between them.
Titus Livius of Patavium
59 BCE – 17 CE · life dates conventional · 1 work served · 1,763 episodes · 833,116 words receipt — the witness cards
The pair of years is the late chronicle tradition's, not anything the shelf can quote; his own book places him under Augustus, close enough for the emperor to read him and near enough to name him a Pompeian.
Patavium, 59 BCE – 17 CE: the chronicle tradition's entry, not the record's. The years rest on Jerome's chronicle, which is not on this shelf; the served record never introduces him — he arrives, as he did in Rome, already famous. The fame itself is receipted below, from Tacitus' pen.
He worked from named predecessors and weighed them by jurisdiction — on Greek affairs, follow the Greek.
we have followed Polybius, who is no untrustworthy authority on Roman history especially when the scene of it is in Greece.Liv. 33.10 The History of Rome · Livy
He states the floor of early Roman history plainly: the archives burned with the city.
even what did exist in the pontifical commentaries and public and private archives nearly all perished in the conflagration of the City.Liv. 6.1 The History of Rome · Livy
And names the corrupters: funeral orations and lying ancestor-busts — source criticism aimed at Rome's own mantelpieces.
I believe that the true history has been falsified by funeral orations and lying inscriptions on the family busts, since each family appropriates to itself an imaginary record of noble deeds and official distinctions. It is at all events owing to this cause that so much confusion has been introduced into the records of private careers and public events.Liv. 8.40 The History of Rome · Livy
The method in motion: authorities cited, compared, and overruled on the evidence — by a man checking names against a censor's roll.
According to Polybius and Rutilius this was the year in which Scipio died. I do not agree with either of these writersLiv. 39.52 The History of Rome · Livy
Book 21 opens with the historian's oldest boast, knowingly filed as what 'most writers' claim — and then earned.
the war I am about to describe is the most memorable of any that have ever been waged, I mean the war which the Carthaginians, under Hannibal's leadership, waged with RomeLiv. 21.1 The History of Rome · Livy
The famous preface — the whole program in his own words — is not in the served record. The Roberts text the shelf serves opens at Book 1, chapter 1, with Aeneas; the preface travels separately in the editions. The house paraphrases nothing it cannot serve: the program statement waits for an edition that carries it, and this line is the honest placeholder the charter asked for.
The verdict of the record's sharpest critic: eloquence, truthfulness, a Pompeian streak — and an emperor who let it pass.
Titus Livius, pre-eminently famous for eloquence and truthfulness, extolled Cneius Pompeius in such a panegyric that Augustus called him Pompeianus, and yet this was no obstacle to their friendship.Tac. Ann. 4.34 The Annals · Tacitus
correction
Niebuhr against the legend of early Rome — 1811–32; Hare & Thirlwall translation, new edition 1851–60
read by Barthold Georg Niebuhr
the record itself
He also stands inside the record — named by the other witnesses. Livy, the figure.
The record here: 166 works · 12,119 episodes served · profiles carry claims, claims carry grounds — episode, page, or an honest open
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