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Livy's Preface1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2013

John Moles
John Moles
Affiliation:
University of Durham
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Extract

Few of the many treatments of this famous preface seem to recognise the need for close reading of the text. The present paper sets out to remedy this deficiency in the hope of achieving three main aims: (1) to demonstrate the coherence and power of Livy's argument, as well as the subtlety of its exposition and the richness of its language; (2) to resolve certain specific problems; (3) to further the continuing debate on important general questions in ancient historiography.

Facturusne operae pretium sim si a primordio urbis res populi Romani perscripserim nee satis scio nec, si sciam, dicere ausim, (2) quippe qui cum ueterem turn uolgatam esse rem uideam, dum noui semper scriptores aut in rebus certius aliquid allaturos se aut scribendi arte rudem uetustatem superaturos credunt.

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society (Second Series) , Volume 39 , 1994 , pp. 141 - 168
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s). Published online by Cambridge University Press 1994

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References

NOTES

2. E.g. Dessau, H., ‘Die vorrede des Livius’, in Festschrift Otto Hirschfeld (Berlin 1903)461–66Google Scholar; Ferrero, L., ‘Attualità e tradizione nella Praefatio Liviana’, RFIC 27 (1949) 1–47Google Scholar; Leggewie, O., ‘Die Geisteshaltung der Geschichtsschreiber Sallust und Livius’, Gymnasium 60 (1953) 343–55Google Scholar; Vretska, K., ‘Die Geisteshaltung der Geschichtsschreiber Sallust und Livius’, Gymnasium 61 (1954) 191–203Google Scholar; Oppermann, H., ‘Die Einleitung zum Geschichtswerk des Livius’, AU 7 (1955) 87–98Google Scholar, reprinted in Burck, E. (ed.), Wege zu Livius (Darmstadt 1967) 169–80Google Scholar; Walsh, P. G. ‘Livy's preface and the distortion of history’, AJPh 76 (1955) 369–83Google Scholar, reprinted as ‘Die Vorrede des Livius und die Verzerrung der Geschichte’ in Wege zu Livius 181–99; Leeman, A.D., ‘Are we fair to Livy? Some thoughts on Livy's Prologue’, Helikon 1 (1961) 28–39Google Scholar, reprinted as ‘Werden wir Livius gerecht? Einige Gedanken zu der Praefatio des Livius’ in Wege zu Livius 200–14; Janson, T., Latin prose prefaces: studies in literary conventions (Stockholm 1964) 64–74Google Scholar; Ogilvie, R. M.A commentary on Livy books 1–5 (Oxford 1965; 2nd edition 1969 (not affecting the pagination)) 23–9Google Scholar; Weissenborn, W. and Müller, H. J.Titi Livi Ab urbe condita libri I 1–2 (12th edition repr. Berlin–Dublin–Zürich 1965) 75–82Google Scholar; Mazza, M., Storia e ideologia in Tito Livio. Per un'analisi storiografica delta praefatio ai Libri ab Urbe Condita (Catania 1966)Google Scholar; Ruch, M., ‘Tite-Live. Histoire Romaine. Points de vue sur la préface, Didactica Classica Gandensia 7 (1967) 74–80Google Scholar; Heurgon, J., Tite-Live. Histoires. Livre I (Paris 1970) 21–6Google Scholar; Paschalis, M., ‘Livy's Praefatio and Sallust’ (diss. Ohio State University, Columbus 1982)Google Scholar; Korpanty, J., ‘Sallust, Livius und ambitio’, Philol. 127 (1983) 61–71CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Coppola, M., ‘Augusto nella praefatio liviano?’, AFLN 26 (1983–1984) 67–70Google Scholar; Woodman, A. J.Rhetoric in classical historiography (London 1988) 128–40Google Scholar; Wheeldon, M. J. ‘“True Stories”: the reception of historiography in antiquity’, in Cameron, A. (ed.), History as text: the writing of ancient history (London 1989) 33–63, esp. 56–9Google Scholar; Henderson, J., ‘Livy and the invention of history’ in Cameron (1989) 64–85Google Scholar; Cizek, E., ‘à propos de la poétique de l'histoire chez Tite-Live’, Latomus 51 (1992) 355–64Google Scholar; there is a bibliography for the years 1933–1978 in ANRW II.30.2 (1982) 931–2Google Scholar, and a brief overview by J. E.|Phillips ibid. 1001–2. The normally valuable Herkommer, E., Die Topoi In Den Proömien Der Römischen Geschichtswerke (Stuttgart 1968)Google Scholar, is unhelpful on Livy's preface.

3. The suggestion of Luce, T. J.TAPA 96 (1965) 234–7Google Scholar, that the emendation is Livy's own response to criticism seems to me untenable: as Luce admits, (1) it runs counter to Quintilian's testimony and (2) hardly accords with Livy's known opinionatedness; more important (3), the hexameter opening forcefully introduces a debate about the relationship between poetry and historiography which is integral to the preface.

4. a primordio urbis begins the story before the foundation of the city (cf. 7 primorida urbium and p. 148).

5. E.g. Hdt.praef.; Thuc. 1.1.1–2,1.22.4;Polyb. 1.1.4,1.2.8;Sall. BC 3.1–2,4.3;BJ 4.1–4,5.1; Diod. 1.1.1. Despite imprecise formulations, Ogilvie (1965) 24 is essentially right on Livy's deviation from the norm, pace Henderson (1989) 69, even though the emphasis on the task's magnitude is itself a commonplace (e.g. Thuc. 1.22.3; Sail. BC 3.2; Ogilvie (1969) addenda). In fact the closest parallels for Livy's sentiment are in various works of Cicero, especially the preface to the Orator (1.1–3), which conceivably infuenced Livy directly (Janson (1964) 70).

6. TLL 2.1243.8ff., 1248.3ff., 1256.22ff.; Brink, C. O.Horace on poetry: the ‘Ars Poetica; (Cambridge 1971) 92Google Scholar; Macleod, C., CQ 27 (1977) 362CrossRefGoogle Scholar n. 14 = Collected essays (Oxford 1983) 265 n. 14Google ScholarPubMed.

7. Wheeldon (1989) 56.

8. As also in 5.21.9 (quoted p. 148).

9. For Livy's opening words as a quotation from Ennius see Lundström, V., ‘Nya Enniusfragment’, Eranos 15 (1915) 1–24Google Scholar; cf. also Liv. 3.26.7 operae pretium est audire qui omnia prae diuitiis humana spernunt.

10. See n. 60.

11. ‘Suspension of thought’: e.g. the scholars cited by Woodman (1988) 147 n. 13; ‘putting down a marker’ / ‘anticipating a solution’: Moles, , PLLS Fifth Volume (Liverpool 1986) 37–8, 56 n. 29Google Scholar; PLLS Sixth Volume (Leeds 1990), 373 n. 125Google Scholar.

12. Note that literary audacia (which Livy claims to lack) characteristically concerns originality (n. 6).

13. E.g. Weissenborn-Müller (1965) 76: ‘dum] ist hier nicht reine Zeit-partikel, sondern bildet die begründende Erlauterung … des unbestimmten vulgatam rent’.

14. Woodman (1988) 130 and 151 n. 56.

15. This interpretation is entailed by the suggestions that noui… scriptores alludes to Nepos and Cicero (Bayet, J. and Baillet, G., Tite-Live: Histoire Romaine Livre I (Paris 1947) 1 n. 1)Google Scholar, or Pollio (Mazza (1966) 72; Heurgon (1970) 22), or Sallust (Mazza (1966) 72; Girod, R., in Chevallier, R. (ed.), Colloque, Histoire et historiographie (Paris 1980) 69Google Scholar, cf. Cizek (1992) 359). In fact, as we shall see, the idea that noui scriptores makes any specific references is excluded by semper.

16. Ogilvie (1965), 25–26; cf. in general Badian, E., ‘The early historians’, in Dorey, T. A. (ed.), The Latin historians (London 1966) 1–38Google Scholar.

17. Cf. n. 42.

18. E.g. Hecataeus, FGH 1 F 1; Thuc. 1.20.3, 22.2–3; Sail. BJ 94.2; Tac. Hist. 1.1.2–3, Ann. 1.1.2–3. Note that Livy assumes that this is a central purpose of some historians, pace the general argument of Woodman (1988).

19. Cf. e.g. (besides the present passage) Hdt. Praef.; Thuc. 1.22.4; Sall. BC 1.1–4, 3.1–2; BJ 1.3, 2.4, 4.1; Plin. Ep. 5.8.1–2; Lucn. Hist. Conscr. 5. Ultimately, of course, Livy got that fama and freely admitted that gloria was part of his motivation: Plin. NH Praef. 16.

20. I disagree therefore with Phillips (1982) 1002 and with Wheeldon (1989) 58, who sees in magnitudine the implication ‘greatness of value’. See also p. 55 on 11 maior.

21. For the epic topic see Harrison, S. J.Vergil: Aeneid 10 (Oxford 1991) 268Google Scholar on Aen. 10.829–31 and Bömer on Ov. Met. 5.191 and 10.80–81.

22. 1 noui semper scriptores and 3 nobilitate … consoler themselves suffice to disprove Ogilive's celebrated contention ((1965) 4) that ‘no touches of humour are to be found in the history’.

23. On the slide see Weissenborn–Müller (1965) 77 and cf. 7.29.2 quanta rerum moles! quotiens in extrema periculorum uentum, ut in hanc magnitudinem quae uix sustinetur erigi imperium posset! Note also that iam magnitudine laboret sua, with reference to the Roman state, subverts Sall. BC 53.5 res publica magnitudine sui imperatorum atque magistratuum uitia sustentabat. Some scholars seem to see in quae ab exigui … laboret sua an allusion to the physical text (e.g. Wheeldon (1989) 58; Henderson (1989) 69); because of iam laboret such a reading seems to me impossible at the time when Livy was at the beginning of his vast project (even though 4 festinantibus ad haec noua has a (looser) proleptic function in relation to Livy's History), but perfectly plausible once Livy had produced several decades and indeed inevitable by the time Livy's History had reached the period described in magnitudine laboret sua. On the interpretative point see p. 150. On the general theme of Rome's organic growth see Ruch, M., ‘Le thème de la croissance organique dans le livre I de Tite-Livre’, Studii Clasice 10 (1968) 123–31Google Scholar.

24. In primae origines proximaque originibus one might detect a sly allusion to an already-existing treatment, Cato's Origines, whose aesthetic merits were disparaged by Cicero (Leg. 1.6, De or. 2.53).

25. Oppermann (1967) 171. Cf. also n. 23.

26. Sallust: e.g. BC 6.5, 27.2; BJ 39.2, 55.3, 66.1, 76.4, 102.9; Hist. frr. 2.46,4.34M; excessive speech: TLL 6.1.617ff.

27. I owe this suggestion to Ruth Morello.

28. As noted by Woodman (1988) 151 n. 55. The availability of Cicero's correspondence in Livy's time and later is an old problem, but (a) Shackleton Bailey's case for Neronian publication of Ad Atticum (Cicero's letters to Atticus (Cambridge 1965) I 59–73Google Scholar seems (to me) over-dismissive of earlier evidence; (b) Velleius certainly used Cicero's correspondence directly (Woodman, A. J.Velleius Paterculus: the Caesarian and Augustan narrative (2.41–93) (Cambridge 1983) 115Google Scholar; (c) even Shackleton Bailey finds the availability of Ad fam. much less problematic (Cicero: Epistulae ad familiares (Cambridge 1977) I 24)Google Scholar.

29. The letter to Lucceius raises questions about the nature of ancient historiography too large for proper consideration here. Nevertheless, whether or not Livy is responding to the letter, enough has been said to show that a major ancient historian could entertain conceptions of historiography altogether more serious and profound, alike on an intellectual, moral and emotional plane, than anything there suggested by Cicero. This analysis also suggests that the conventional picture of Livy ‘the Ciceronian’ requires considerable modification.

30. See p. 161.

31. Ogilvie's folksy rendering ((1965) 26) of the colloquial tantisper.

32. Wheeldon (1989) 56 interprets this section rather differently: Livy creates ‘in the authorial persona itself a model of the kind of reader he would wish his audience to imitate’; while there is something in this formulation (since Livy certainly represents his attitude here as superior to that of the majority of his readers and since his whole ‘virile’ historical project has itself exemplary vaue (p. 146), it neglects (a) the illusory quality of the escapism here envisaged, and (b) the fact that Livy's own ‘definition’ of ‘the past’ is modified as the preface progresses.

33. On the face of it omnis expers curae quae scribentis animum, etsi non flectere a uero, sollicitum tamen efficere posset supports the thesis that truth in ancient historiography consisted largely in impartiality (Woodman (1988) 71–4, 79–80, 82–3, 86, 93, 101–2, 105–6, 111, 194, cf. also Cizek, , ‘La poétique cicéronienne de l'histoire’, Bulletin de l'Association Guillaume Budé (1988) 18–20Google Scholar), but (a) the impartiality requirement does not exclude other requirements such as accuracy, judicious assessment of sources etc.; (b) it is itself largely invoked in connection with contemporary or near-contemporary history (Luce, T. J. ‘Ancient views on the causes of bias in historical writing’, CPh 84 (1989) 16–31Google Scholar), as by Livy here, and therefore does not apply to remoter periods. A different attempt to play down Livy's emphasis on truth is that of Wheeldon (1989) 56 n. 63: ‘Livy's claim to veracity arises almost en passant, perhaps indicating a desire to seem not to protest the claim too much.’ But, as will become clear, Livy's truth claim is given ever more weight as the preface proceeds.

34. In the event Livy may have been deterred by sollicitudo to the extent of postponing publication of books 121–42 until after Augustus' death, but I cannot go into that insoluble question. What matters in this context is that the preface does commit Livy to going down to ‘the present’ at the time of writing.

35. While section 6 begins the enumeration of contents, it is linked thematically in a number of ways with 4–5. The discussion of pre-AUC material arises naturally from the allusion in 4 to the distaste of the majority of his readers for primae origines (if not pleasurable, such material has at least the positive quality of making augustiora the primordia urbium), from the allusion to prisca illa in 5, and from the implication, in his allusion to contemporary history (5), that he is concerned to record the truth (so is the pre-AUC material true and does its truth matter?).

36. Cf. also n. 33.

37. E.g. Ferrero (1949) 19 n. 1; Mazza (1966) 91 n. 18.

38. antiquitati has the same double reference as 3 uetustatem, = both ‘ancient history’ and ‘ancient historians’.

39. The thesis of Coppola, M., ‘Augusto nella praefatio liviano?’ AFLN 26 (1983–1984) 67–70Google Scholar, that 7 augustiora … auctores and 9 auctum allude to Augustus must be rejected, not only because an honorific allusion to Augustus in the preface would sit ill with the emphasis on contemporary crisis, but also because of the explicit reference to Augustus in 1.19.3, especially if that reference is a later insertion (p. 151), which would entail a pre-27 date for the preface.

40. Cic. De inv. 1.23 recommends this mingling as a way of securing the favourable attention of readers (Ogilvie (1965) 27).

41. And sometimes post-AUC fabulae: 5.21.9 (quoted p. 148).

42. 8 utcumque corresponds structurally to 3 utcumque and fulfils the same function: to characterise the preceding material as relatively unimportant by comparison with what follows.

43. 9 intendat animum and sequatur animo contrast with 8 animaduersa and 6 nec … in animo, thus distinguishing between the things to which one should direct one's mind and those to which one should not. Pace Cizek (1992) 352, these animus-contrasts, and the parallel and contrast between pro se quisque and 3 pro uirili pane et ipsum consuluisse, exclude any formal allusion here to the historian (though of course Livy the historian will in fact have to do this).

44. To the famous moribus antiquis res stat Romana uirisque (156(500)**i). This allusion helps to anticipate the subsequent Rome/building imagery. On the four pillars of Roman greatness – uita, mores, uiri and artes – see Ruch (1967) and paper cited in n. 23.

45. Henderson (1989).

46. I deliberately leave this reference unexplained: the fact that it will mean nothing to those unfamiliar with ‘revelations’ made in 1992 by the British gutter press is precisely the point.

47. Kraus, C. S.Livy: Ab urbe condita book VI (Cambridge 1994)Google Scholar Introduction.

48. Luce, T. J. ‘The dating of Livy's first decade’, TAPA 96 (1965) 209–40Google Scholar.

49. Following Dessau (1903) and Weissenborn–Müller (1965) 80.

50. Badian, E., ‘A phantom marrriage law’, Philologus 129 (1985) 82–98CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

51. Woodman (1988) 132–4 and nn. 65–79 on 152–4; Woodman does not commit himself on the question of the historicity of the attempted marriage legislation.

52. von Haehling, R., Zeitbezüge des T. Livius in der ersten Dekade seines Geschichtswerkes: nec vitia nostra nec remedia pati possumus (Stuttgart 1989) 19, 213–15Google Scholar.

53. Haehling (n. 52) 191–215; Briscoe, J., Göttingischen Gelehrten Anzeigen 242 (1990) 195–971)Google Scholar (reviewing Haehling).

54. Nor is Williams, G. in Raaflaub, K. A. and Toher, M. (edd.), Between Republic and Empire: interpretation of Augustus and his principate (1990) 267Google Scholar n. 19: ‘his [Badian's] argument needs (and will receive) a reply’.

55. Haehling (n. 52) 20 (without specific reference to the present passage) reasonably regards ‘the present’ for Livy as consisting of the period between Caesar's dictatorship and the late 20s.

56. This paper is concerned with the interpretation of the preface rather than with problems of dating, but, since the former cannot be entirely divorced from the latter, I should perhaps clarify my position on chronology: (a) book 1 and hence the preface are pre-27 (because 1.19.3 is an insertion); (b) the references in the preface to haec tempora and the remedium of monarchy do not guarantee a pre-Actium dating; (c) book 1 cannot be much earlier than 2–5 (1–5 being in some sense a unit); (d) there are post-27 elements in 2–5; (e) I have to conclude that book 1 was originally published separately, in (say) 29–28. A less messy picture emerges if one jettisons (d), but I do not think one can.

57. Chronology prevents Livy's monumentum from being influenced by the Forum Augustum, with its statues and elogia of great Romans of the past; rather, these elogia in some respects contested Livy's version of events: Luce, T. J. ‘Livy, Augustus, and the Forum Augustum’, in Raaflaub, and Toher, (n. 54) 123–38Google Scholar. On the other hand, the common observation that Livy's ‘exemplary’ History accords with the general Zeitgeist is reasonable, provided that it does not obscure the fact that section 10 is the culmination of a complex argument.

58. 10.31.15 quinam sit Me, quem pigeat onginquitatis bellorum scribendo legendoque, quae gerentes non fatigauerunt is a good parallel for the tripartite union of writer, reader and historical agent.

59. Mazza (1966) 92 n. 19 well cites Cicero ap. Non., 47L: sed ego quae monumenti ratio sit, nomine ipso admoneor, ad memoriam magis spectare debet posteritatis, quam ad praesentis temporis gratiam.

60. We should also, I believe, at some level hear the voice of Sall. BC 12.3 (quoted p. 142), with its contrast between ‘decadent’ modern buildings and the temples of old.

61. Note also Cicero's use of intueor in the letter to Lucceius (Fam. 5.12.5 ceteris uero nulla perfunctis propria molestia, casus autem alienos sine ullo dolore intuentibus, etiam ipsa misericordia est iuncunda): if Livy's allusion to the letter is granted (p. 146), there would be further contrasts between Livy's conception of history and that there advocated by Cicero: serious moral contemplation and intense moral identification replace an emotional arousal which is merely pleasurable and which partly depends on alienation.

62. Cf. Wheeldon (1989) 59; Cizek (1992) 356.

63. Woodman (1988) 25–28, 30, 59–60, 89–90, 108 (restricting such ideas to ‘vivid’, ‘probable’, ‘realistic’). I do not deny that descriptions exhibiting such qualities are in fact very often merely imaginative reconstructions or that sub oculos subiectio (vel sim.) was a recognised rhetorical technique often exploited by ancient historians, as by others, or that the implications of ancient historians‘ rendering their narratives in visual terms can be very complex, cf. e.g. Hartog, F.Le Miroir d'Hérodote: essai sur la représentation de l'autre (Paris 1980)Google Scholar, tr. Lloyd, J. as The mirror of Herodotus: the representation of the other in the writing of history (Berkeley 1988)Google Scholar; Davidson, J., ‘The gaze in Polybius’ Histories', JRS 81 (1991) 10–24Google Scholar (whose insights could usefully be retrojected to earlier historians and applied also to aspects of Livy); Feldherr, A. M. ‘Spectacle and society in Livy's History’ (diss. Berkeley 1991)Google Scholar; Morgan, J. in Gill, C. and Wiseman, T. P. (edd.), Lies and fiction in the ancient world (Exeter 1993) 184–5Google Scholar (on Duris of Samos). I do, however, argue that sometimes (as in Livy here and in 6.1.1–3 (n. 65) and in Thuc. 1.22.4) the use of light/sight words makes a strong and serious truth-claim. See my ‘Truth and untruth in Herodotus and Thucydides’, in Gill and Wiseman (1993) 88–121 at 107 and 109–10.

64. Cf. Kraus (n. 47) on 6.14.2 for other historiograpical examples of intueri.

65. Quae ab condita urbe Roma ad captam eandem Romani sub regibus primum, consulibus deinde ac dictatoribus decemuirisque ac tribunis consularibus gessere, foris bella, domi seditiones, quinque libris exposui, res cum uetustate nimia obscuras, uelut quae magno ex interuallo loci uix cernuntur [cf. Thuc. 1.1.3, tum quod paruae et rarae per eadem tempora litterae fuere, una custodia fidelis memoriae rerum gestarum, et quod, etiam si quae in commentariis pontificum aliisque publicis priuatisque erant monumentis, incensa urbe pleraeque interiere. clarioraque deinceps certioraque ab secunda origine uelut ab stirpibus laetius feraciusque renatae urbis gesta domi militiaeque exponentur. For discussion see Weissenborn–Müller and Kraus (n. 47) ad loc. It is important to understand the nature of Livy's ‘redefinition’ of his project in this passage: he has changed the application of his terminology, not the terminology itself, whose implications remain constant.

66. Cf. Wheeldon (1989) 59.

67. Skutsch, O., The Annals of Quintus Ennius (Oxford 1985) 568Google Scholar.

68. Cf. Lucr. 5.311 monimenta uirum dilapsa, 328–9 facta uirum … aeternis famae monimentis (cited by Skutsch (1985) 568 as illustrative of the Ennian motif), H. C. 3.30.1 exegi monumentum aere perennius (!), with Lucr. 1.117–18 Ennius … perenni fronde coronam, 121 Ennius aeternis … uersibus.

69. Ogilvie (1965) 27–8; Sall. BC 7–12; BJ 4.5, 41.2, etc.

70. Woodman (1988) 131.

71. Ogilvie (1965) 24 (his second paragraph: this is strangely inconsistent with his first paragraph, which states the essential truth).

72. Oppermann's widely accepted interpretation ((1967) 179), that Livy is appealing, via Virg. Geo. 1.21–40, to Octavian, is untenable, (a) because of the plurality of reference of deorum dearumque (which echoes section 7), (b) because of 1.19.3 (p. 159): Augustus is distinct from the gods.

73. Woodman (1988) 40–4, 125–8, 205–6; cf. e.g. Sall. BJ 4.9.

74. Cf. Cizek (1992) 358: ‘bien qu'il dise qu'il n'invoque pas les dieux, Tite-Live le fait, précisément parce qu'il exprime ses regrets à ce propose’.

75. Ogilvie (1965) 29, cf. Livy 22.9.7; 38.48.14; 45.39.10.

76. Woodman (1988) 99–100, 114–16.

77. Cf. e.g. Strasburger, H. ‘Homer und die Geschichtsschreibung’, SB Heid. Ph.-Hist. KI. 1972Google Scholar = Studien zur Alien Geschichte II (Hildesheim and New York 1972) 1057–97Google Scholar; Woodman (1988) 1–7, 23–4, 40–51.

78. Formally: in practice the epic poet's voice is far more complex: see e.g. Goldhill, S., The poet's voice: essays on poetics and Greek literature (Cambridge 1991) esp. 56–68Google Scholar.

79. On this general theme see Miles, G., ‘The cycle of Roman history in Livy's first pentad’, AJP 107 (1986) 1–33Google Scholar, and ‘Maiores, conditores and Livy's perspectives on the past’, TAPA 118 (1988), 185–208Google Scholar; Serres, M., Rome: the book of foundations (tr. Stanford, 1991)Google Scholar.

80. Syme, R., Roman papers I (Oxford 1979), 361ff.Google Scholar; Horsfall, N., Cornelius Nepos: a selection, including the lives of Cato and Atticus (Oxford 1989) 103Google Scholar.

81. Though cf. n. 23.

82. On the whole topic see Ogilvie (1965) 23–9; Mazza (966) 70–5; Paschalis (1982); Korpanty (1983); Woodman (1988) 130–40.

83. Cizek (1992) 361–4.

84. Woodman (1988) 124–40.

85. Perhaps with specific allusion to the preface of Cicero's Orator (n. 5). It is sometimes suggested (e.g. by Ogilvie (1965) 26) that Livy's ‘modesty’ is to be explained by the august senatorial tradition of historiography, to which he himself does not belong. But while section 3 alludes to this tradition, it does so with irony and it is in any case only a single reference: the real motivation for Livy's ‘modesty’ lies elsewhere.

86. Livy's rivalry with Sallust acquires even more resonances if we accept Livy's engagement with Cicero's letter to Lucceius. For while Lucceius did not respond to Cicero's request for a monograph treatment of the Catilinarian affair and its aftermath, Sallust did produce a monograph on that theme but with an entirely different color from that requested by Cicero. Whether or not Sallust had read the letter (Woodman (1988) 125; ‘it is almost as if Sallust had read Cicero's letter and, in the standard rhetorical manner, treated the same subject with a different color …’ (my italics; I take it that this means ‘I think he did but I cannot prove it’)), from Livy's point of view Sallust's Bellum Catilinae is, as it were, the wrong ‘answer’ to Cicero's letter.

87. Cf. n. 19.