Livy

Titus Livius was born in 59 BC in Patavium — modern Padua — and died there in 17 AD. Between those dates he wrote the Ab Urbe Condita, a history of Rome from its foundation to his own time, in 142 books. It was the most ambitious work of narrative history ever attempted in Latin, and one of the longest works of prose literature in any language.

Thirty-five books survive: 1–10, covering the regal period and early Republic to 293 BC, and 21–45, covering the Second Punic War and Rome's expansion into the eastern Mediterranean to 167 BC. The lost books are known from summaries (the Periochae) and from fragments quoted by later authors.

Livy is Rome's great storyteller. His history reads like a novel — or rather like a series of novels, each with its own heroes, crises, and moral lessons. Romulus and Remus, the rape of Lucretia, Horatius at the bridge, Cincinnatus called from the plough, Hannibal crossing the Alps, Scipio Africanus at Zama: these stories became the founding myths of Western civilisation largely because Livy told them so well.

His method is frankly patriotic and moralistic. He writes history, he says, so that his readers can see 'what kind of lives the Romans led, what kind of men they were, and by what policies, at home and in the field, their empire was won and extended.' He does not claim the cold analytical rigour of Thucydides. What he offers instead is narrative power, psychological insight, and an unshakeable belief that character determines destiny.