A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology. By various writers. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.

799 LIVIUS.. LIVIUS.
following year at Rome, Leipzig, and Hamburgh. tempt has been made to render these limits still
A small portion which he failed to decypher was narrower, from the consideration that the emperor
afterwards made out by Niebuhr, who also sup- is here spoken of as Augustus, a title not conferred
plied- some words which had been cut away, and until the year B. c. 27; but this will only prove
published the whole in his Ciceronisjpro M. Fonteio that the passage could not have been published
et C. Rabirio Orat. Fragm., Berlin, 1820. Two before that date, since, although written previously,
short fragments possessing much interest, since the honorary epithe t might have been inserted
they describe the death and character of Cicero, here and elsewhere at any time before publication.
are preserved in the sixth Suasoria of Seneca. Again, we gather from the epitome that bk. lix.. From the revival of letters until the reign of contained a reference to the law of Augustus, De
-Louis XIV. the hopes of the learned were perpe- Maritandis Ordinibus, from which it has been contually excited and tantalised by reports with regard cluded that the book in question must have been
to complete MSS. of the great historian. Strenuous written after B. c. 18; but this is by no means:exertions were made by Leo X. and many other certain, since it can be proved that a legislative
*-European potentates in their efforts to procure a enactment upon this subject was proposed as early
-perfect copy, which at one time was said to be de- as B. C. 28. Since, however, the obsequies of
posited at Iona in the Hebrides, at another in Chios,. Drusus were commemorated in bk. cxlii. it is eviat another in the monastery of Mount Athos, at dent, at the very lowest computation, that the task
another in the seraglio of the grand signor, while must have been spread over seventeen years, and
it has' been'confidently maintained that such a. probably occupied a much longer time. We must
treasure was destroyed at the sack of Magdeburg; not omit to notice that Niebuhr takes a very difand there can be no doubt that a MS. containing ferent view of this matter. He is confident that
the whole of the fifth decade at least was once in Livy did not begin his labours until he had attained
existence at Lausanne. Tales too were circulated the age of fifty (B. c. 9), and that he had not fully
and eagerly believed of leaves or volumes having accomplished his design at the close of his life.
been seen or heard' of under strange and romantic He builds chiefly upon a passage in.ix. 36, where
*circumstances; but the prize, although apparently it is said that the Ciminian wood was in these days
often within reach, always eluded the grasp,. and as impenetrable "quam nuper fuere Germanici
the pursuit has long since been abandoned in saltus," words which, it is urged, could not have
despair. been used before the forests of Germany had been:We.remarked that two of the Epitomes had:opened up by the campaigns of Drusus_(B. c. 12been lost.' This deficiency was not at first detected, 9); and upon another in iv. 20, where, after it is
since the numbers follow each other in regular recorded that Augustus had repaired the shrine of
succession from 1 up to 140; and hence the total Jupiter Feretrius, he is termed "templorum omnumber of books was supposed not to exceed that nium conditorem aut restitutorem," a description
amount. Upon more careful examination, how- which could not have been applied to him in an
*ever, it was perceived that while the epitome of early part of his career. Now, without insisting.bk. cxxxv. closed with the conquest of the Salassi, that casual remarks such as these might have been
which belongs to B. C. 25, the epitome of bk. cxxxvi. introduced during a revision of the text, it must be:opened with the subjugation of the Rhaeti, by evident that the remarks themselves are much too
Tiberius, Nero, and Drusus, in B. C. 15, thus leav- vague to serve as the basis of a chronological theory,
ing a blank of nine years, an interval marked by except in so far as they relate to the restoration of the
the shutting of Janus; the celebration of the secular shrine of Jupiter Feretrius; but this we know was
games,.the acceptance of the tribunitian power by undertaken at the suggestion of Atticus (Cornel.
Augustus, and: other occurrences'which would Nep. Att. c. 20), and Atticus died B. c. 32. On
~scarcely have been passed over in silence by the the other hand, the reasoning grounded on the
-abbreviator.. Sigonius and Drakenborch, whose shutting of the temple of Janus must be held, in so
reasonings have been generallyadmitted by scholars, far as bk. i. is involved, to be absolutely impregnable;
agree that two books were devoted to this space, and we can scarcely imagine that the eighth book
land hence the epitomes'which stand as cxxxvi., was not finished until sixteen years after the first,
cxxxvii., cxxxviii., cxxxix., cxl., ought to be In attempting to form an estimate of any great
marked cxxxviii., cxxxix., cxl., cxli., cxlii., re- historical production, our attention is naturally and
spectively. necessarily directed to two points, which may be: It was little probable, a priori, that an under- kept perfectly distinct: first, the substance, that is,
taking so vast should have been brought to a close the truth or falsehood of what is set down; and
before any part of it was given to the world; and secondly, its character merely as a literary compo-'in point of fact we find indications here and there sition.
which throw some light upon the epochs when dif- As to the latter subject, Livy has little to fear'ferent. sections were composed and published. Thus from positive censure or from faint praise. His
in book first (c. 19) it is stated that the'temple of style may be pronounced almost faultless; and a
Janus had been closed twice only since the reign great proof of its excellence is, that the charms with
-of Numa, for the first time in the consulship of which it is invested are so little salient, and so
T. Manlius (B. C. 235), a few years after the termi- equally diffused, that no one feature can be selected.nation of the first Punic war; for the second time for special eulogy, but the whole unite to produce
by Augustus Caesar, after the battle of Actium, in a form of singular beauty and grace. The narrative
aB. C. 29, as we learn from other sources. But we flows on in a calm, but strong current, clear and.are told by Dion Cassius that it was shut again by sparkling, but deep and unbroken; the'diction dis-.Augustus. after the conquest of the Cantabrians, in plays richness without heaviness, and simplicity
B. c. 25; and hence it is evident that the first book withouttameness. The feelings of the reader are not
must have been written, and must have gone forth laboriously worked up from time to time by a
between the years B. C. 29 and B. a. 25. An at- grand effort, while he is suffered to languish