Chapter 54

superimposita fuit, quam tempestate disiectam nuper vidimus ipsi.'

He died at his native town, A.D. 17: Jerome yr. Abr. 2033, 'Livius historicus Patavii moritur.'

He had at least one son (Quint. x. 1, 39, 'apud Livium in epistula ad filium scripta'), and one daughter (Sen. _Contr._ x. praef. 2, 'L. Magius gener T. Livi').

Livy wrote philosophical works, probably popular treatises like Cicero's, some of them in the form of dialogues.

Sen. _Ep._ 100, 9, 'Nomina adhuc T. Livium. Scripsit enim et dialogos, quos non magis philosophiae adnumerare possis quam historiae, et ex professo philosophiam continentis libros.'

A book on rhetoric was known to Quintilian and Seneca the elder, apparently in the form of a letter addressed to the author's son (Quint. x. 1, 39, above).

Quint. ii. 5, 20, 'quemadmodum Livius praecipit' (on models of style); Sen. _Contr._ ix. 2, 26, 'Livius de oratoribus ... aiebat' (on obscurity of expression); Sen. _Contr._ ix. 1, 14, 'T. Livius tam iniquus Sallustio fuit ut hanc ipsam sententiam ... obiceret Sallustio.'

These minor works have perished, and of his great history only a portion survives.

Its title, according to the oldest MSS., the summaries of the lost Books, and the grammarians, was _Ab urbe condita libri_; and this is corroborated by Livy's own language: i. praef. 1, 'si a primordio urbis res populi Romani perscripserim'; and by Pliny, _N.H._ praef. 16, 'T. Livium ... in historiarum suarum, quas repetit ab origine urbis, quodam volumine.' Livy refers to it loosely as _meos annales_ (xliii. 13, 2). Separate parts may have had special titles: thus Books cix-cxvi. were known as _Civilis belli libri_ viii. (Codex Nazarenus of the Periochae).

The number of Books now extant is thirty-five, viz., i.-x., which carry the history down to B.C. 293, and xxi.-xlv., covering the period B.C. 218-167. Of these xli. and xliii. are incomplete. But we possess summaries (_Periochae_ or _Argumenta_) of Books i.-cxlii., except cxxxvi. and cxxxvii., which show that the narrative was continued to the death of Drusus in B.C. 9. There is no evidence that it actually went further; but as the death of Drusus is hardly an event of sufficient importance to form the conclusion of so great a work, it has been thought that Livy may have intended to finish with the death of Augustus--the point from which Tacitus starts. The total number of Books would then have been probably one hundred and fifty.

The division into Books (_libri_ or _volumina_) is due to the author: