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Jul 18, 2017 · This paper deals with the analysis of the ancient road network around the city of Padua, attempts to reconstruct its morphology and to define its genesis and development between the second Iron...
- Overview
- Early life and career
- Livy’s history of Rome
Livy (born 59/64 bc, Patavium, Venetia [now Padua, Italy]—died ad 17, Patavium) with Sallust and Tacitus, one of the three great Roman historians. His history of Rome became a classic in his own lifetime and exercised a profound influence on the style and philosophy of historical writing down to the 18th century.
Little is known about Livy’s life and nothing about his family background. Patavium, a rich city, famous for its strict morals, suffered severely in the Civil Wars of the 40s. The wars and the unsettled condition of the Roman world after the death of Caesar in 44 bc probably prevented Livy from studying in Greece, as most educated Romans did. Although widely read in Greek literature, he made mistakes of translation that would be unnatural if he had spent any length of time in Greece and had acquired the command of Greek normal among his contemporaries. His education was based on the study of rhetoric and philosophy, and he wrote some philosophical dialogues that do not survive. There is no evidence about early career. His family apparently did not belong to the senatorial class, however distinguished it may have been in Patavium itself, and Livy does not seem to have embarked on a political or forensic profession. He is first heard of in Rome after Octavian (later known as the emperor Augustus) had restored stability and peace to the empire by his decisive naval victory at Actium in 31 bc. Internal evidence from the work itself shows that Livy had conceived the plan of writing the history of Rome in or shortly before 29 bc, and for this purpose he must have already moved to Rome, because only there were the records and information available. It is significant that another historian, the Greek Dionysius of Halicarnassus, who was to cover much the same ground as Livy, settled in Rome in 30 bc. A more secure age had dawned.
Most of his life must have been spent at Rome, and at an early stage he attracted the interest of Augustus and was even invited to supervise the literary activities of the young Claudius (the future emperor), presumably about ad 8. But he never became closely involved with the literary world of Rome—the poets Horace, Virgil, and Ovid, as well as the patron of the arts, Maecenas, and others. He is never referred to in connection with these men. He must have possessed sufficient private means not to be dependent on official patronage. Indeed, in one of the few recorded anecdotes about him, Augustus called him a “Pompeian,” implying an outspoken and independent turn of mind. His lifework was the composition of his history.
Livy began by composing and publishing in units of five books, the length of which was determined by the size of the ancient papyrus roll. As his material became more complex, however, he abandoned this symmetrical pattern and wrote 142 books. So far as it can be reconstructed, the shape of the history is as follows (books 11–20 and 46–142 have been lost):
Britannica Quiz
History Buff Quiz
•1–5 From the foundation of the city until the sack of Rome by the Gauls (386 bc)
•6–10 The Samnite wars
•11–15 The conquest of Italy
- Robert Maxwell Ogilvie
Patavium, as Padua was called by the Romans, was inhabited by the Veneti, and had been known as a Roman municipium since 45 BC. Padua, in common with the rest of north-east Italy, suffered severely from the invasion of the Huns under Attila (452 AD).
May 31, 2024 · As the Roman town Patavium—founded, according to legend, by the Trojan hero Antenor—it was first mentioned in 302 bce, according to the Roman historian Livy, who was born there (59 bce). The town prospered greatly and, in the 11th–13th century, was a leading Italian commune.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
PATAVIUM (Padua) Veneto, Italy. A city of Cisalpine Gaul, probably founded by the Veneti. Rome found in it a strong and faithful ally when, after the fall of Taranto in 272 B.C., it turned to the N.
Life. Livy was born in Patavium in northern Italy, now modern Padua, probably in 59 BC. [ii] At the time of his birth, his home city of Patavium was the second wealthiest on the Italian peninsula, and the largest in the province of Cisalpine Gaul (northern Italy).
"Quite possibly, it was under the early Julio-Claudian dynasty that Patavium adopted a local era; it perhaps attributed its long history of stability and prosperity to the effective Roman intervention at the request of the Patavians in 174 BCE, which restored order in the city.
