1. For ancient theories of the utility of history and the rise of the concept of history as a source of patterns of behavior, see Fornara 1983: 104–20.

2. On this notion, see Kraus 1994b, esp. 269 f., and Jaeger 1993: 362–63. For this passage as an adaptation of Thuc. 1.1.3, see Kraus 1994a: 84 f.; for the importance of the device of presenting past events as a visible “landscape” in ancient technologies of memory, see Kraus (ibid.) and esp. Vasaly 1993: 100 ff.

3. The suggestion that the contents of the first pentad are not sufficiently clearly seen is itself somewhat problematic. Livy’s account of the period down to the Gallic sack may not have achieved the gargantuan proportions reached either by the narratives of some of his predecessors (e.g., Cn. Gellius, who took 14 books to cover the same ground) or by Dionysius of Halicarnassus’s. And in comparison to the scale of the later 137 books, the first 5, which describe the events of almost eight hundred years, may indeed seem cursory. Nevertheless, considering the general economy of Livy’s narrative, especially his restraint in the composition of speeches, which make up so much of the bulk of Dionysius’s work, his treatment of the period must be considered a comparatively full and detailed one, and the individual episodes of which the first pentad is composed are often represented in ways that make them fully accessible to the reader’s gaze. For accounts of the growth of annalistic accounts of early Roman history in the second and first century B.C.E., see esp. Badian 1966: 11–36, Wiseman 1979: 16–26, 113–39, and Cornell 1986b.

4. For this purpose, I assume, with Kraus 1994a: 13–14, and Moles 1993: 152, that when Livy speaks of tuae rei publicae (praef. 10), he is using the second person rhetorically, to engage the reader and emphasize his involvement in the subject of the work. He is not imagining a hypothetical new republic to take the place of Rome after its final, inevitable collapse.

5. The frequency with which Livy’s work is described as bright or vivid was observed by A. D. Leeman (1961: 28; 1963: 192), who collects and discusses the examples.

6. The elder Seneca also employs the adjective candidissimus in describing Livy’s moral judgment (natura candidissimus omnium magnorum ingeniorum aestimator [Suas. 6.22]).

7. Other Greek terms are ἔκφρασιςand ὑποτύπωσις. For a history and definitions of the various terms, see Zanker 1981 and Vasaly 1993: 20 and 90, n. 4, with further bibliography.

8. Rhet. ad Herr. 4.68: demonstratio est cum ita verbis res exprimitur ut geri negotium et res ante oculos esse videatur,. Cf. also, e.g., Quint. Inst. 9.2.40, and Dion. Hal. Lys. 7.

9. Cic. Part. 20: inlustris est autem oratio si et verba gravitate dilecta ponuntur et translata et supralata et ad nomen adiuncta et duplicata et idem significantia atque ab ipsa actione atque imitatione rerum non abhorrentia. est enim haec pars orationis quae rem constituat paene ante oculos.

10. Cic. Brut. 261: tum videtur tamquam tabulas bene pictas collocare in bono lumine.

11. Plut. De glor. Ath. 347A: καὶ τῶν ἰστορικῶν κράτιστος ὁ τὴν διήγησιν ὥσπερ γραφὴν πάθεσι καὶ προσώποις ἐιδωλοποιήσας . For a fuller discussion of the aims of mimesis in historical writing, see Fornara 1983: 120–37, and Woodman 1988: 25–27.

12. For history as a spectacle, θεωρῆμα, see 1.2.1. Thus universal history, like Polybius’s, brings all the actions of fortune “under one and the same gaze” (1.4.1). By contrast, readers who think to gain an understanding of history from reading only accounts of particular events or places are likened to those who “beholding the scattered parts of a once living and beautiful body suppose they are sufficient witnesses of the energy and beauty of the living creature” (1.4.7). For the gaze in Polybius, see Davidson 1991.

13. See esp. the recent treatment of this subject by Miles 1995: 10 ff., to which this discussion is particularly indebted.

14. For Herodotus, cf. Candaules’ comment on the reliability of the eyes (1.8); and see also 2.29, 2.99, 2.156, and 4.16, and Hartog 1988: 261 ff. For Thucydides, see 1.22.2, although in the next sentence he goes on to point out that even eyewitness accounts could be distorted by bias or faulty memory (on this topic, see Woodman 1988: 15–20).

15. 1.22.4: τῶν τε γενομένων τὸ σαφὲς σκοπεῖν καὶ τῶν μελλόντων.

16. A point emphasized in this context by Sacks 1981: 49 f., cited in Miles 1995: 10. As Woodman 1988: 26, notes, in Thucydides’ case, “clear vision” contrasts with the merely auditory stimulations provided by “storytelling” (τὸ μυθῶδες).

17. See Miles 1995: 16–17, although he goes on to show how Livy continually undercuts the assertion that monumenta make possible objective knowledge about the past. For further implications of the opposition between history and fabulae, see ch. 5.

18. For another discussion of this passage as a Thucydidean allusion, see Moles 1993: 154.

19. The phrase is Walsh’s (1961a: 170), although the sentiment does not do justice to his own nuanced and suggestive interpretation of Livy’s use of such scenes.

20. Burck 1964b: 176–233.

21. See the discussion of this passage by Burck 1964b: 195.

22. This is the conclusion of Walbank’s analysis of the relationship between history and tragedy (1960).

23. In the most explicit programmatic statement to survive from any of these writers (and again it is important not to assume that historians who are claimed to have used “tragic” effects constituted a school with shared aims), Duris of Samos seems to couple attention to “mimesis” with the desire to give pleasure, claiming that the historians Ephorus and Theopompus have an interest “neither in mimesis nor in pleasure in their narrative, but concern themselves only with the writing” (FGrH 76 F1). However, out of context, the statement is ambiguous and does not necessarily imply a connection between mimesis and pleasure as such. The point could be that they care neither for mimesis (i.e., the representation of “truth”) nor for their readers’ pleasure. In any case, Duris’s essential criticism of these writers, that “they fall short of events” ( τῶν γενομένων ἀπολείφθησαν) recalls the standard terms in which Timaeus and Polybius criticize their rivals. For an introduction to the scholarly controversies surrounding Duris, see Walbank 1960 and 1972: 34–38, and Fornara 1983: 124 ff., who offers a possibly overoptimistic reconstruction of Duris’s theories of pleasure and historiography.

24. Cf., e.g., the link between pathos and “truth” in Diodorus Siculus’s intriguing discussion of the separation between the actual experience of events and the mere imitation of them that a historical narrative can offer: “Whereas the experience (pathos) of events contains the truth, written history deprived of such an ability (viz. of representing disparate events simultaneously) merely imitates what happened and falls far short of the true arrangement” (Diod. 20.43.7). Although Diodorus explicitly denies the possibility that a narrative can ever bridge this gap, it is easy to imagine how the connection between truth and real experience could equally be used to justify a highly vivid style of writing that aims precisely to capture the pathos where truth resides.

25. Walsh 1961a:170.

26. Ibid.:171. So, too, Burck stresses that Livy’s “dramatization” of significant episodes has a functional, rather than purely aesthetic, motive, which Burck associates specifically with the historian’s ethical aims. It provides a means both of highlighting moral and political themes and imparting them to the reader with the greatest possible power: “Die dramatische Form aber dient genau wie bei Vergil dazu, den Leser so stark als nur irgend möglich in den Kreis jenes psychischen Kräftespiels einzubeziehen und damit unter den Eindruck der grossen virtutes zu stellen, die Rom vorwärts gebracht haben und die er als lebendige Kräfte in seinem Volke wiedererwecken will” (Burck 1935=1967: 143). Cf. also the conclusion of Borzsák 1973: 66, that Livy uses the visualization of events as a means of emphasizing ethically significant moments in his narrative so that they stand out within the vast structure of his history.

27. 42.49.1–6: Per hos forte dies P. Licinius consul, votis in Capitolio nuncupatis, paludatus ab urbe profectus est. Semper quidem ea res cum magna dignitate ac maiestate +quaeritur+; praecipue convertit oculos animosque cum ad magnum nobilemque aut virtute aut fortuna hostem euntem consulem prosequuntur. contrahit enim non officii modo cura, sed etiam studium spectaculi, ut videant ducem suum, cuius imperio consilioque summam rem publicam tuendam permiserunt. subit deinde cogitatio animos qui belli casus, quam incertus fortunae eventus communisque Mars belli sit; adversa secundaque, quae inscitia et temeritate ducum clades saepe acciderint, quae contra bona prudentia et virtus attulerit. quem scire mortalium utrius mentis utrius fortunae consulem ad bellum mittant? triumphantemne mox cum exercitu victore scandentem in Capitolium ad eosdem deos a quibus proficiscatur visuri, an hostibus eam praebituri laetitiam sint?

28. Nor is Licinius Crassus himself an especially exemplary figure. Since he had once claimed as praetor that “he was prevented by solemn sacrifices from going to his province” (41.15.9), his acceptance of a proconsulship technically involves a violation of his vow (as his colleague and bitter rival, C. Cassius, points out [42.32.2–4]). Subsequently, he will behave cruelly and illegally in the administration of Macedonia (Per. 43); see Levene 1993: 112–14. However, it is not Licinius’s own conduct that is at issue here, but rather his capacity as consul to provide a visual link between the spectators and the gods, and concomitantly to recall by his actions the behavior of earlier magistrates.

29. For a more general discussion of how ecphrases in ancient historiography offer a “text within a text” and concomitantly generate a link between the internal spectator and the reader himself, see Walker 1993, esp. 361–63, who describes the device with the tools of modern narratology and shows that the idea is consistent with ancient literary theory.

30. On the basis of its etymology, Miles 1995: 17, defines monumentum as “something that makes one think.” For the Romans, the fundamental task of a monumentum was to act as a prompt for memory, to remind; Varro defines the primary sense of monimenta (sic) as funeral markers or physical monuments, and from there extends the term to include “other things done or written for the sake of memory” (cetera quae scripta aut facta memoriae causa [LL 6.49, cited and discussed by Rouveret 1991: 3051–52]).

31. Cf. also the comments of Cizek 1992: 356, on this phenomenon: “Tite-Live attire son attention sur le fait que les bons et les mauvais exemples sont placés sur un monument illustre.…Il n’empêche que, à notre sens, ce monument est du même coup l’histoire de Rome et le récit qui en parle: l’ensemble des événements et le discours qui les concerne.”

32. The pervasiveness of spectacle and its importance as a medium of political participation in the Late Republic is thoroughly described by Nicolet 1980: 343–82, and also by Dupont 1985: 19–42.

33. See esp. Wallace-Hadrill 1994: 3–16.

34. For a fuller description of the salutatio and adsectatio, with testimonia, and a description of their political value, see Rouland 1979: 484–88.

35. Gibbon, Decline and Fall, ch. 13. My attention was directed to this passage by its quotation in MacCormack 1981: 9.

36. Syme 1939: 459–75.

37. Geertz 1983: 122–23.

38. Ibid.: 124.

39. See Price 1984, esp. 7–11, 239–48.

40. Ibid.: 11.

41. See ibid.: 9, on the methodological issues involved in the “literal” approach to ritual.

42. This could, of course, be a controversial issue. Livy’s own narrative, particularly of the period following the Second Punic War, is punctuated with accounts of debates about whether a commander who had petitioned for a triumph met the requisite criteria (see Phillips 1974). The various theories of modern scholars on the regulations for the awarding of a triumph are thoroughly analyzed by Versnel 1970: 164–95.

43. Pol. 6.15.8. Indeed, Polybius uses the same terms for the spectacular aspects of the procession that he elsewhere uses for the visual effects created by historical narratives; they, too, rely on enargeia, and set events before the eyes ( ὑπὸ τὴν ὄψιν [1.4.1]) of the reader.

44. For a fuller discussion of the importance of the triumph as spectacle, see Nicolet 1980: 352–56.

45. See Versnel 1970, esp. 356–97. Versnel, whose work is heavily influenced by Wagenvoort’s theory, argues that the influence exerted by the triumphator derives from his own person and is not bestowed by the gods. But for our purposes the precise source of this influence is not an issue.

46. MacCormack 1981: 10.

47. Vasaly 1993: 88–104.

48. Quint. Inst. 6.2.32: quam non tam dicere videtur quam ostendere, et adfectus non aliter quam si rebus ipsis intersimus sequentur (citation and translation in Vasaly 1993: 96).

49. Syme 1939: 459–75.

50. See Syme 1959, esp. 74–76.

51. As Deininger 1985: 265, puts it, “almost every theoretically conceivable position [sc. on the relationship between Livy and Augustus] seems to have found its advocates.” Deininger himself offers a thorough survey of this range of views, from those who present Livy as an Augustan apologist to those for whom he is an arch-Republican (esp. Hoffmann 1954 and Petersen 1961). See also the survey in Phillips 1982: 1033 ff. Notable recent contributions to this debate are those of Badian 1993, who argues that Livy’s lost account of Augustus’s regime was far from flattering; Burck 1991, who defines Livy’s relationship to the princeps as respectful and sympathetic, but distant, and Cizek 1992, who portrays Livy as a spirited Augustan polemicist, whose zeal for reform aimed at inspiring the princeps himself. See also the conclusions of Luce 1977: 290 ff., who recognizes a similarity in agenda between the historian and the princeps, but also points out significant differences between their outlooks. The positions of Kraus 1994a; Luce 1990, and Miles 1995 are discussed below.

52. Particularly important in this debate has been Luce’s demonstration (1990) that Livy’s narrative differs in many details from the elogia inscribed under the statues of great men in the Forum Augustum, a fact that makes it very difficult to claim that Livy’s was somehow the official account of the Roman past.

53. Kraus 1994a: 8.

54. We know no other details about his political career. The fullest treatment of Fabius Pictor’s role in the development of Roman historiography, together with complete biographical details is to be found in Frier 1979: 227–84. On Hemina, see Rawson 1976.

55. On the backgrounds of these historians, see especially the overviews of Badian 1966 and Frier 1979: 201–24, together with the fragments and testimonia in Peter 1914.

56. This aspect of early Latin historiography is, however, very controversial, as are most others, given the fragmentary nature of the evidence and the cumulative weight of scholarly interpretation it has had to bear. Badian 1966: 9, argues that Cato’s Origines began a long tradition of using written history for personal political ends; Fornara 1983: 100–101, disagrees on the grounds that such strong expressions of bias would undermine the credibility of the authorial voice of the historian. Livy, in a passage that seems to refer specifically to the Origines seems to recognize a self-glorifying tendency when he refers to Cato as “someone who by no means takes anything away from his own praises” (haud sane detrectator laudum suarum [34.15.9]). (For the argument that the Catonian source Livy describes is in fact the Origines and not a speech de consulatu suo, see Astin 1978: 302–7.)

For some examples of how antiquarian scholarship was used to advance a contemporary political agenda among some of the early annalists, particularly in the Gracchan era, see Frier 1979, esp. 211–14.

57. Even the form of Cato’s work can be related to his own political status as a novus homo. By emphasizing recent events at the expense of the early centuries of the republic, Cato not only increases his own role in his text but omits the series of ancestral accomplishments on which the status of many a noble rival might have depended. His unparalleled procedure of leaving out proper names of military leaders and referring to them only by the public office they held also contrasts strikingly with the idea that these offices served precisely to enhance the glory of one’s clan. Astin 1978: 219, however, is skeptical about assigning a political motive to any of these features, given how little remains of the work. He also argues that Cato’s omission, or compression, of the Early Republic resulted simply from a lack of information about this period in the second century and notes that Fabius’s own treatment of the era was very brief (Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 1.6.2). For a full discussion of the evidence and a survey of scholarship on these issues, see Astin 1978: 211–39.

58. Semp. As. fr. 2 Peter: Nam neque alacriores ad rem publicam defendundam neque segniores ad rem perperam faciundam annales libri commovere quicquam possent. The influence of Polybian notions of the utility of history, which have been attributed to direct personal influence—we know that Asellio was military tribune at the siege of Numantia, where Polybius was also present—does not diminish the significance of the sentiment. For an interesting appraisal of Asellio as a historian who wrote “with the auctoritas of [a] statesm[a]n hoping to explain, anticipate, and forestall political disaster,” see Fornara 1983: 69–70.

Speculation on the motives of Cato himself is hampered by the inconclusive nature of the fragments of the preface, but some have suggested an interest in fostering a sense of the development of the Roman state as the product of collective endeavor on the part of all its citizens, rather than the creation of a few outstanding individuals. For discussion of this theory and bibliography, see Astin 1978: 225–26.

59. Recent work on Livy and other Latin historians demonstrates a renewed interest in the relationship between written history and physical memorials. Wiseman 1986 has shown the importance of such monuments as a source of information for literary historians. Both Miles 1995: 9–74, and Jaeger 1993, with different emphases, have analyzed how Livy ultimately distinguishes his own work from these physical monuments and casts doubt on the veracity and value of the record they provide. Also very relevant to this topic are Kraus 1994b and Rouveret 1991’s analysis of Tacitus’s use of monumenta.

60. The point is made and emphasized by Wiseman 1986: 89, who cites in support Cato’s description of the rewards that came to Leonidas after Thermopylae (propter eius virtutes omnis Graecia gloriam atque gratiam praecipuam claritudinis inclitissimae decoravere monumentis: signis, statuis, elogiis, historiis, aliisque rebus [Cato Orig. fr. 83 Peter]) and Festus’s definition of monumentum (quicquid ob memoriam alicuius factum est, ut fana, porticus, scripta et carmina [Festus 123L]).

61. For imagines as a physical presence, see Dupont 1989.

62. The first Roman painter that Pliny records was Fabius Pictor, “the Painter,” both a member of the high nobility and a direct ancestor of that other Fabius Pictor who was the first Roman to produce written history. We do not know the subjects of his paintings, which decorated the temple of Salus erected in 311 B.C.E.; nor do we know of any particular accomplishment of Fabius himself worthy of such commemoration—the most likely subject is perhaps the battle of Bovianum at which the temple was vowed by the consul C. Junius Bubulcus, who later as dictator dedicated the temple itself. Even if this painting did not record his own deeds, Fabius advertised his connection with the work by signing his name to it. As Rouveret 1987–89: 107, argues, it is mistaken to regard Pictor’s interest in painting merely as an eccentric pastime, much less as a source of scandal (so also Gruen 1992: 92). Valerius Maximus (8.14.6) may use the episode to exemplify the pursuit of glory by unworthy means, but nothing in his account suggests that it was so viewed at the time. On the contrary, Pliny suggests precisely that when it was first introduced at Rome, painting was regarded as an honorable activity (HN 35.19). For more on Fabius, see Frier 1979: 227–28. An attempt to establish a closer connection between the works of the two Fabii Pictores is made by Mazzarino 1966: 2.102–4.

63. Pliny HN 35.23. For the political importance of such displays, see esp. Hölscher 1980 and Rouveret 1986–9.

64. 41.28.8–10: Ti. Semproni Gracchi imperio auspicioque legio exercitusque populi Romani Sardiniam subegit. In ea provincia hostium caesa aut capta supra octoginta milia. Re publica felicissime gesta atque liberatis[…]vectigalibus restitutis, exercitum salvum atque incolumem plenissimum praeda domum reportavit; iterum triumphans in urbem Romam rediit. cuius rei ergo hanc tabulam donum Iovi dedit.

65. On the various kinds of significance conveyed by the public proclamation of the dedication itself, see Veyne 1983.

66. Cf., e.g., 6.29.8–9, 8.14.12, 10.46.7 (see ch. 2, sec. I), and 24.16.19 (see below, sec. III).

67. Cf. the comments of Rouveret 1986–89: 108: “Aux débuts de l’art pictural à Rome…on peut mettre en lumière un véritable système qui repose sur un va-et-vient entre les édifices publics, temples et forum, la domus aristocratique et la tombeau. La peinture y intervient à double titre, comme peinture historique et comme peinture des portraits, ces deux types de peinture ont leur pendant dans deux cérémonies complémentaires: le tromphe et les funérailles.”

Even if it is not the case that every such artifact originally appeared in one of these rituals—the map displayed by Mancinus, for example, almost certainly did not form a part of Scipio Aemilanus’s triumph—nevertheless it is fair to say, as the Pliny passage shows, that the triumph could provide an idealized context for such displays and established the semiotic framework through which they could be interpreted. On the effect of Mancinus’s painting, see Zinserling 1960: 410.

68. Zinserling 1960: 414.

69. And the use of Hellenistic artistic devices in the Late Republic to enhance the capacity of such monumenta to convey a sense of the presence of the acts they represented offers a close parallel to Livy’s deployment of enargeia as a technique of literary description. Hölscher 1980: 353–55, describes how the paintings displayed in triumphs acquired an increasingly sensational character during the early the first century B.C.E. The representations focused on violent scenes of extreme emotion—for example, the death of Mithridates surrounded by maidens who had chosen to die with him (App. B. Mith. 117; see Zinserling 1960: 411). Hellenistic descriptive devices, like personification, allowed the artist emphasize the physical circumstances in which actions took place, as in the painting of Mithridates besieged displayed in Pompey’s triumph of 61 B.C.E., where both night and silence were personified. These applications of the language of Hellenistic narrative art—which Hölscher compares explicitly to the innovations of “tragic” historians—served to increase the Roman audience’s emotional engagement in the scenes depicted. It was precisely the resulting sense that the scene was taking place before the eyes of the viewers that allowed these images, within the context of the triumph, to communicate the power and energy of the triumphator. Narrative forms and techniques borrowed from the Greeks operated within a distinctively Roman system of visual communication.

70. The notion that these representations must “become” the acts they represent is also stressed by Zinserling 1960: 416: “Diese Identifizierung von bildlicher Darstellung und tatsächlichen Geschehen ist…nicht nur als äusserliche Gleichsetzung zu verstehen, sondern ist tiefer begründet, hat gewissermassen noch etwas vom magischen Identitätszauber längst vergangener Kulturepochen an sich.” As in the case of Wagenvoort’s work, the significance of Zinserling’s observations does not depend upon his explanation of this phenomenon as the legacy of an earlier belief in sympathetic magic.

71. In what follows I do not mean to imply that historians chose the annalistic form as a way of compensating for their own lack of status. The earliest annalists, especially Piso (cos. 133), were among the most powerful men to write history at Rome, and Frier 1979: 278–79, has shown the extent to which the stylistic choices made by Fabius Pictor were designed to bolster further the authority of his narrative. Badian’s (1966: 15, 18) assertion that in the early first century, annales became “socially degraded” by being taken up by men from outside the aristocracy has been called into question by Cornell 1986b: 78–79, who points out that there is no factual basis for the assumption that these annalists were not members of the Senate.

72. The extent of the early annalists’ debt to Greek models is a controversial subject. Frier 1979: 206, who provides the crucial bibliography, describes the first local histories of Rome as “clearly the offshoot of Hellenistic local history.” Fornara 1983: 27, stresses the indigenous elements of the genre but concedes that “Greek influence seems undeniable.”

73. For the tabula dealbata and the process by which the belief in an official pontifical chronicle came into being at Rome, see Frier 1979, esp. 107–60, 161–78. On the patriotic connotations of the annalistic form, see Frier 1979: 201 ff., and Ginsburg 1981: 96–100.

74. Cf. the accusation made by his contemporary and fellow Sabine, Varro, and its elaboration by Aulus Gellius (NA 17.18): “M. Varro, in litteris atque vita fide homo multa et gravis…C. Sallustium scriptorem seriae illius et severae orationis, in cuius historia notiones censorias fieri atque exerceri videmus, in adulterio deprehensum ab Annio Milone loris bene caesum dicit et, cum dedisset pecuniam, dimissum.” For a full catalogue and discussion of the attacks made on Sallust’s character, see Syme 1964: 274–79.

75. Cf. the more extensive rejection of a political career at Iug. 3.1. Sallust’s comments have perhaps led scholars to overestimate the extent of his political debacle. He was, it must be remembered, not expelled from the Senate after the extortion charge and, as Syme 1964: 39, points out, had gone about as far in politics as he was likely to. Thus Sallust seems deliberately to have overemphasized his lack of success.

76. On the praise and (unequal) glory that attends the historian, cf. Cat. 3.1: et qui fecere et qui facta aliorum scripsere multi laudantur.

77. Iug. 4.4: “If [those who accuse me of inactivity] will reflect on the times in which I gained office, and what sort of men were unable to attain this, and what species of men afterwards entered the Senate, they will surely consider that I changed my intentions rightly, and not out of cowardice, and that more benefit will come to the Republic from what I do in my leisure [otio] than from the others’ performance of their duty [negotio].”

78. Iug. 4.5–6.

79. For recent overviews of the evidence about Livy’s life and the range of interpretations that has been applied to it, see Kraus 1994a: 1–9, and Badian 1993. The importance of Livy’s ties to his native city are stressed by Leeman 1961 and especially Bonjour 1975b: 185, 249–50. Within the History, Paduan local traditions emerge particularly at 1.1 (see ch. 4), and also in the description of the failed Laconian expedition into Paduan territory at 10.2.4–15, commemorated both by the spoils displayed at Padua in the temple of Juno, and by an annual reenactment of the naval battle. More strikingly, in his account of the battle of Pharsalus, Livy includes a description of the prodigies that announced the battle at Padua, and were interpreted by a local augur, C. Cornelius, who was a relative of the historian’s (Plut. Caes. 47). The consequences of Livy’s status as an outsider for the aims and methods of his historical work are analyzed by Miles 1995: 47 ff. (see below, n. 88).

80. Jerome ab Abr. a. A.2033. The extent of Livy’s life that was spent in Rome has been a subject of debate. Walsh 1961a:4–5, suggests that he could only have worked in Rome, and moved there before beginning his History. By contrast, Lundström, cited in Leeman 1961: 35–36, uses Livy’s errors of geographical detail and failure to consult available public records as a sign that he visited the capital very rarely. This view has won the support both of Leeman and of Mensching 1986, but see Badian 1993: 31–32 n. 12.

81. Augustus’s joking description of Livy as a Pompeianus (Tac. Ann. 4.34.3) was based on the historian’s account of the civil wars, which he did not reach until bk. 109. Similarly, Livy’s encouragement of the future emperor Claudius’s historiographic activities (Suet. Claud. 41.1) dates from comparatively late in his career; Claudius was only born in 10 B.C.E. As Badian 1993: 14–16, points out, the language with which Livy reports Augustus’s assertions about A. Cornelius Cossus (4.20.7) cannot be used to establish that there was any personal connection between the princeps and the historian in the early twenties B.C.E.

82. τοῦ γε μὴν Λιβίου ὀλίγους[sc. ἀκούειν], ἀλλὰ ὧν τι ὄφελος ἦν καὶ ἐν κάλλει ψυχῆς καὶ ἐν εὐγλωττίᾳ παιδείας, Suidas, s.v. Κορνοῦτος.

83. For a full discussion of this passage and an attempt to identify the Cornutus referred to, see Cichorius 1922: 261–69. It seems difficult to use this passage as evidence of Livy’s “initial success among the best people” (Badian 1993: 16), since the point of the anecdote is precisely Livy’s failure to win a reputation immediately. The audience described here is unlikely to have included Augustus himself, as Cichorius suggests; rather, perhaps, we should think primarily of the leading rhetoricians with whom we know Livy to have been connected (see Kraus 1994a: 9 ff.).

84. Quint. Inst. 1.5.56, 8.1.3. The scholarship on the precise implications of this charge is vast. A recent survey will be found in Flobert 1981, who argues that the primary thrust of the term lies in its contrast not to latinitas but to urbanitas (so, in a different sense, Syme 1959: 76). For the significance of this anecdote and a further analysis of the kinds of pressures to which Livy’s background may have subjected him, see Miles 1995: 51.

85. Cf. Quint. Inst. 8.1.3: et in Tito Livio, mirae facundiae viro, putat inesse Pollio Asinius quandam patavinitatem.

86. Pollio was himself born outside of Rome, in the Abruzzi, and is so vulnerable to the same charge; cf. Syme 1959: 54: “No evidence survives of a retort from Patavium to Teate of the Marrucini.”

87. Praef. 3.

88. Miles 1995: 52–53, interprets the attitude expressed here as one of deference to the social status of potential rivals, coupled with the suggestion that status alone will not make their historical works better than his. This accords with Miles’s overall argument that what had been regarded as the historian’s cavalier attitude to evidence in fact forms part of a larger historiographic strategy, which is in turn the product of Livy’s particular social position (Miles 1995: 74): “In exposing the impossibility of wresting factual certainty from Roman tradition, it allows Livy to undercut attempts to monopolize the past without confronting directly the aristocracy whose position was served by that monopoly.” Livy’s attempt to make his History a monumentum, as I discuss below, is consistent with this view of the historian’s aims and represents one other means by which Livy’s work can compete with the historical productions of nobiles and the emperor himself.

89. Cf., e.g., Caes. BC iv.1.6, Cic. Cat. 3.13, and, for the procedure, Mommsen 1889: 3.1003 ff. The verb also helps define Livy’s place in the historiographic tradition as well: Sempronius Asellio in his preface (fr. 1 Peter) contrasts authors of historiae, who attempt to narrate events thoroughly (perscribere) with the producers of annales, which merely recount “what was done and in what year it happened.”

90. He will begin a later book with the claim that he “has achieved enough glory for himself and could cease to write, but his restless mind is nourished by work” (Pliny HN, praef. 16). Pliny approves his rejection of personal glory as a motive for writing, but suggests that he ought to have persevered for the sake of the glory of the Roman people rather than a desire for occupation.

91. So Cizek 1992: 361–62, who explains Livy’s sentiments toward his fellow historians as motivated by a sort of “Judas complex” combining jealousy with timidity. Moles 1993: 145 f., also speaks of Livy’s irony here, but also goes on to stress the “positive claims” made by the sentence.

92. Cf. the story told by Pliny the Younger (Ep. 2.3.8) about the man who, “inspired by Livy’s name and gloria,” came all the way from Cadiz to Rome just to see the historian and, when he had seen him, immediately went back.

93. A similar opposition between the diffidence of the author and the “monumentality” of his endeavor is developed with different emphases by Wheeldon 1989: 55–59, who claims that the growth in confidence of the authorial voice and the shaping of a confused and daunting mass of material into a monument provide a model for the process that Livy’s reader undergoes in approaching the work.

94. Wheeldon 1989: 56, notes that “of the fourteen instances of the first person verb [sc. in the preface], six come in the first sentence.”

95. In reference to this phenomenon, Henderson 1989: 77, describes Livy as “the Palinurus of the Augustan mission.”

96. Correspondingly, perhaps, Sallust’s link to the authority of the past comes not so much through the visual recreation of scenes—in which his work is notably poorer than that of Livy or Tacitus (although cf. Cat. 58–61, the account of Cataline’s final battle, and Hist. 2 fr. 70)—as through his style, which emulates the language of the past, and above all that of Cato the Elder.

97. This was suggested by Strong 1928: 1.58, cited by Zinserling 1960: 405, who raises the possibility that painting might have shown not just the victory feast but the entire course of the battle.

98. For the use of physical monuments as sources, see esp. Wiseman 1986.

99. Within the context of the episode, this celebratory scene also compensates for and supplants the grisly consequences of Gracchus’s unfortunate first attempt to inspire his troops; cf. Livy’s treatment of Tullus Hostilius’s effort to convert the execution of Mettius Fufetius into a documentum (1.28) discussed in ch. 4, sec. V.

100. On this phenomenon, see Torelli 1982: 132–33.

101. For a thorough discussion of the role of such education in Augustus’s self-representation, see Yavetz 1984, esp.14–20.

102. 2.126.4: nam facere recte civis suos princeps optimus faciendo docet, cumque sit imperio maximus, exemplo maior est.

103. This description and interpretation of the Forum Augustum is based primarily on Zanker 1988: 193–95, and 210–15. For the relationship between this monument and Livy’s account of Roman history, see Luce 1990.

104. Suet. Aug. 31.5: qui imperium populi Romani ex minimo maximum redidissent.

105. Praef. 9: ad illa mihi pro se quisque acriter intendat animos, quae vita, qui mores fuerint, per quos viros quibusque artibus domi militiaeque et partum et auctum imperium sit. Livy goes on to draw attention to the subsequent decline of this imperium, and far from representing his own day as the culmination of a continuous process of growth, describes the moment at which he writes as past remedy. Again, I am not arguing that Livy shared the view of the past commemorated in the Forum—Luce 1990 points out discrepancies large and small between the two programs—but that the Forum can provide an analogy for the type of historical representation to which Livy’s text aspires.

106. Suet. Aug. 31.5: commentum id se ut ad illorum[…]velut ad exemplar, et ipse dum viveret et insequentium aetatium principes exigerentur a civibus.

107. Nicolet 1991: 15–24.

108. For other discussions of cosmological significance in Augustus’s building programs, see Bowersock 1990, Kellum 1990, Zanker 1988: 144, and Feldherr 1995.

109. Veyne 1983: 289.

110. See Zanker 1988: 22–24.

111. On the scale and political significance of the horti Lucullani, see Coarelli 1983: 200 ff.

112. Cic. Acad. 1.9: nam nos in nostra urbe perigrinantis errantisque tamquam hospites tui libri quasi domum reduxerunt.

113. Zanker 1988: 3.

114. This aspect of Zanker’s view of the reception of Augustan art, in particular his treatment of Augustan artistic productions as the bearers of precise ideological meanings, has been questioned by Elsner 1991: 51–52, who rightly emphasizes that such “meanings” were not the intrinsic properties of the images themselves but were determined by the viewers. He sees a visual monument such as the Ara Pacis as involving the viewer himself in “a cultural process,” to which his responses will necessarily vary according to his background, perspective, and circumstances. On this issue, see ch. 4.

115. “[Varro] feared lest [the gods] perish, not from an enemy attack but by the negligence of the citizens, and said that he had freed them from this negligence, as if from ruin, and reestablished them [recondi] in the memory of good men through his books and saved them with a more useful care than Metellus had saved the sacra Vestalia from fire or Aeneas the Penates from the destruction of Troy” (Ant. rer. div. fr. 2a Cardauns [= Augustine De civ. D. 6.2.6–13] cited by Zanker 1988: 103).

116. Horace Carm. 3.6.4.

117. Praef. 11–12: ceterum aut me amor negotii suscepti fallit aut nulla unquam res publica nec maior nec sanctior, nec bonis exemplis ditior fuit, nec in quam tam serae avaritia luxuriaque immigraverint; nec ubi tantus ac tam diu paupertati ac parsimoniae honos fuerit. adeo quanto rerum minus, tanto minus cupiditatis: nuper divitiae avaritiam et abundantes voluptates desiderium per luxum atque libidinem pereundi perdendique omnia invexere.

118. See Edwards 1993: 176 ff., who explores the full cultural implications of Roman concerns about luxury and wealth.

119. Sall. Cat. 10.3: primo pecuniae deinde imperi cupido crevit, ea quasi materies omnium malorum fuere. The backgrounds to this idea are traced by Earl 1961: 44 ff., and Luce 1977: 271–75, to the view of Roman history developed by “Senatorial” historians of the second century. A full list of ancient and modern references will be found in Miles 1986: 3, n. 5.

120. Miles 1986: 3–4. See also Ogilvie 1965: 23–24.

121. For the depiction of avaritia as a foreign influence, infiltrating the Roman state, see Luce 1977: 273.

122. Praef. 12: nuper divitiae avaritiam et abundantes voluptates…invexere.

123. For the negative connotations of cupiditas, see OLD s.v. §2–3. Cupiditas, or the cognate cupido, is presented by Sallust as the root of both the pervasive evils of the Late Republic: avaritia is glossed as pecuniae cupido; ambitio as imperi cupido (Cat. 10.3; see Earl 1961: 13). Within Livy’s text, too, these words are often used to characterize a desire as improper or illegitimate; thus, for example, the Carthaginians accuse the Romans at the beginning of the Second Punic War of cupido regni (21.10.4). Cf. also the role of this and related phrases in the disputes between the Macedonian brothers Perseus and Demetrius (40.18.17, 40.10.1, 40.11.4, 40.11.7, 40.13.5) and between Romulus and Remus (1.6.4).

124. Praef. 5: et legentium plerisque haud dubito quin primae origines proximaque originibus minus praebitura voluptatis sint, festinantibus ad haec nova quibus iam pridem praevalentis populi vires se ipsae conficiunt.

125. For the representation of the new and the foreign as offering a challenge to traditional practices, especially religious practices, cf. the historian’s comments at 8.11.1. Livy declares that he has not thought it irrelevant to record the exact procedure for the devotio, “although the memory of every human and religious practice has faded from the continual preferment of all things new and foreign [etsi omnis divini humanique moris memoria abolevit nova peregrinaque omnia praeferendo].” Again, notice that Livy presents it as the historian’s task to resist the onslaught of the “new” by preserving the memory of the old. For a similar assertion of the gulf between the pious past and the negligent present, cf. Livy’s aside at 10.40.10.

126. The implications of the readers’ haste are also discussed by Moles 1993: 146–47.

127. Cf. Pliny’s criticism (HN 35.4) of those who decorate their homes with works of art chosen for their value as objects rather than for the people they represent, ipsi honorem non nisi in pretio ducentes.

128. HN 35.5: artes desidia perdidit.

129. See Zanker 1988: 23–24, where the passage is used to portray attitudes of the second century B.C.E., not of Livy’s time. Briscoe 1981: 39, however, makes clear that the speech is in fact a Livian composition and not simply a reworking of an extant speech by Cato. No speech by Cato is known to have been delivered on this occasion, and elsewhere Livy explicitly avoids placing a speech in the mouth of Cato when the actual oration was preserved.

130. Luce 1977: 251–53. Briscoe 1981: 41, dissents from the view that the passage can be connected with Livy’s own presentation of Rome’s decline on the grounds that Cato is treated much less sympathetically than his opponent L. Valerius, who argues successfully for the repeal of the lex Oppia. But rarely in any set of paired speeches in Livy, or any other Roman historian, are only the arguments of the winning side valid. The fact that Cato is defeated, and even to a certain extent made fun of, by Valerius in no way makes him an inappropriate vehicle for representing the particular concerns of Livy’s text. In fact the very unpopularity of Cato’s speech has a special aptness for this purpose. Like the terra-cotta statues he describes, the historical outlook Cato manifests here is continually represented as uncongenial and lacking in superficial attractiveness.

131. 34.4.2. The origins of the very word Cato uses to describe these foreign treasures, gazae, recapitulate precisely the trajectory of the decline of great empires to which he alludes. It is a word Latin takes from Greek, but that the Greeks themselves took from the Persians.

132. For important recent discussion of the structure of bk. 5, with full bibliography, see esp. Luce 1971, Miles 1986, and Kraus, 1994b.

133. Ogilvie 1965: 626; and see also Luce 1971: 268.

134. Miles 1986: 5–13.

135. Thus the idea that, by occupying the site of the enemy city, the Romans will become Veientes recurs throughout Camillus’s final speech; cf. 5.52.14, and 5.53.7.

136. A motif analyzed especially by Luce 1971: 269. Cf. in particular Livy’s remark that at the battle of the Allia, there was among the defenders nihil simile Romanis, non apud duces, non apud milites (5.38.5).

137. For a sketch of Roman stereotypes of the Gaul, see Balsdon 1979: 65–66. The history of Greek and Roman ethnographic writings about Celts is traced by Momigliano 1971: 50–73. On Livy’s portrayal of the Gauls as barbarians, and the use he makes of accounts of barbarians in bk. 5, see Kraus 1994b: 274–82.

138. Cf. his remark in the introduction that the Belgae are the bravest of Gauls, quod…minime…ea quae ad effeminandos animos pertinent important (BGall. 1.1.3). Livy begins his own account of the Gauls by recording a story that they were enticed into Italy by the physical pleasures it offered: “the sweetness of the fruits and especially wine” (5.33.2). Wine was something new for the Gauls, and the phrase Livy uses to describe its influence over them, nova voluptate captam, recalls the discussion of luxury in the preface. Especially interesting is the suggestion that even before the sack of Rome, the Gauls have already been “captured” by voluptas.

139. Cf. especially the descriptions of the Gallic challenger in the duel of T. Manlius Torquatus (Livy 7.10 and Claudius Quadrigarius [fr. 10^b Peter] and the contrast between the Gallus velut moles (7.10.9) and the deft maneuvers of the Roman.

140. In this and other respects, the senators can be seen as recalling, not only their own previous service, but the entire tradition of Roman history as Livy has recorded it through the previous five books. Thus in the scene where the old men watch as the young defenders go to take their place in the citadel—itself perhaps a reversal of the triumphs they have celebrated—they are described as “entrusting to the young men, whatever fortune remained for a city victorious in all wars through three hundred and sixty years” (5.40.1).

141. 5.41.2: quae augustissima vestis est tensas ducentibus triumphantibusve. And indeed in donning this clothing again, it is as though the senators are preparing themselves for a complementary set of public spectacles—their own funerals.

142. For the religious significance of augustus and its cognates, see Wagenvoort 1947: 12 ff.

143. Intuemini (5.51.5), cernentes (5.52.1), videte (5.52.8), apparet (5.53.1), apparere (5.53.2), videte (5.53.3), oculis (5.54.3).

144. 5.54.7: hic Capitolium est, ubi quondam capite humano invento responsum est eo loco caput rerum summamque imperium fore; hic cum augurato liberaretur Capitolium, Iuventas Terminusque maximo gaudio patrum vestrorum moveri se non passi; hic Vestae ignes, hic ancilia caelo demissa, hic omnes propitii manentibus vobis di.

145. For the Ciceronian applications of this technique, see Vasaly 1993: 15–87.

146. For the importance of the emotional bond to place in this speech, see esp. Bonjour 1975b: 168–69, and also ch. 4.

147. Cf. 5.51.5, and the subsequent narration.

148. For a somewhat different view of the relationship between Livy’s text and the landscape of the city, according to which, in place of a symbiosis between history and the visual stimuli offered by the physical monuments of the city, the written record appears as the only trustworthy and truly meaningful “landscape,” see Jaeger 1993.

149. Since we do not know the precise date when the first unit of Livy’s history was made available, Camillus’s restoration may not mark the exact chronological halfway point between the “now” of Livy’s first readers and the foundation of the city, but by any calculation, it would come very close to it. Indications of date are, in fact, remarkably rare in the surviving portion of Livy’s work and allow for many competing theories. The most explicit evidence is provided by Livy’s comment at 1.19.23, that Caesar Augustus closed the doors of the temple of Janus after the battle of Actium. This would seem to permit the date of this passage to be fixed between 27 B.C.E., when Octavian became Augustus, and 25 B.C.E., when he closed the doors of the temple a second time. But following on a suggestion originally made by Bayet 1940: xvi–xxii, Luce 1965 has demonstrated, to my mind convincingly, that both this passage and the account of Augustus’s “correction” of Livy’s description of Cornelius Cossus (4.20.5–11), represent later additions to the narrative, and that the first pentad could have been complete by 27 B.C.E.Syme 1959: 42–50, is tempted to push the date of composition back toward the period of Actium, but he is rightly cautious about pinning too much on the pessimism of the preface and points out that such pessimism was possible even after Actium. For similar reasons, I cannot accept Woodman’s arguments (1988: 131–34) that the ills described in the preface can only refer to civil war, and that therefore the preface must predate Actium. For an outline of the evidence and positions taken, see Walsh 1974: 6.

150. On the importance of this kind of cyclicality in Livy’s ordering of his material, see Miles 1986, who also argues that the resulting link between the end of the first pentad and the historian’s own day is enhanced by the appearance of what the historian signals as the critical issues of his time, above all avaritia, as consistent themes in the treatment of the sack of Rome.

151. Cf. the similar lists in Miles 1986: 30, and Burck 1991.

152. In addition to the works cited below, other important points of reference for the discussion of how the situation of Augustus may have influenced Livy’s treatment of Camillus (or vice versa) are Burck 1964a, Hellegouarc’h 1970, Syme 1959: 55, and Mazza 1966: 186–91 (further citations in Miles 1986: 14–15, n. 30, and Phillips 1982: 1033 ff.) It should also be noted that Walsh 1961b and others, have doubted that a specific allusion to Augustus is intended, on the grounds that, given some of the details Livy includes about Camillus, such a comparison would not have been flattering.

153. Used of Camillus in the expression with which he is saluted as triumphator: Romulus ac parens patriae conditorque alter urbis (5.49.7). For the contemporary relevance of all these terms, see Miles 1988 and Burck 1991: 276–77.

154. See 4.20.7: templorum omnium restitutorem ac conditorem.

155. Miles 1988: 207–8. Cf. also Varro’s use of the term recondi in the description of how his own books save the gods from neglect by establishing, or planting, them in the memory and compares his actions to those of Aeneas himself, saving the penates during the sack of Troy (Ant. rer. div. fr. 2a Cardauns; see above, n. 115). Again the negligent citizens of Rome are likened to an invading foreign enemy, and the antiquarian takes on the role of preserving Roman religious institutions in much the same way that Camillus will at the end of bk. 5. The verb recondere recalls the events of the sack of Rome in another sense as well: the sacred objects of Vesta are literally buried (condita) to keep them from destruction (Liv. 5.40.8).