Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 2.djvu/804

Rh 790 LIVIUS. made with the Samnites at Caudiura. (Liv. ix. 8.) LI'VIUS, the Roman historian, was born at Patavium, in the consulship of Caesar and Bibulus, B. c. 59. The greater part of his life appeara to have been spent in the metropolis, but he returned to his native town before his death, which happened at the age of 76, in the fourth year of Tiberius, A. D. 17. We know that he was married, and that he had at least two children, for a certain L. Magius, a rhetorician, is named as the husband of his daugh- ter, by Seneca {Prooem. Conirov- lib. v.), and a sentence from a letter addressed to a son, whom he urges to study Demosthenes and Cicero, is quoted by Quintilian (x. 1. § 39). His literary talents secured the patronage and friendship of Augustus (Tacit. Atin. iv. 34) ; he became a person of con- sideration at court, and by his advice Claudius, after- wards emperor, was induced in early life to attempt historical composition (Suet. Claiul. 41), but there is no ground for the assertion that Livy acted as preceptor to the j'oung prince. Eventually his re- putation rose so high niid became so widely diffused that, as we are assured by Pliny (Epist. ii. 3), a Spaniard travelled from Cadiz to Rome, solely for the purpose of beholding him, and having gratified his curiosity in this one particular, immediately returned home. Although expressly termed Patavinus by ancient writers, some doubts have been entertained with regard to the precise spot of his birth, in consequence of a line in Martial {Ep. i. 62) : — • Verona docti syllabas amat vatis, Marone felix Mantua est, Censetur Apona Livio suo tellus, Stellaque nee Flacco minus from which it has been inferred that the famous hot-springs, the Patavinae Aqtiae, of which the chief was Aponus fons, situated about six miles to the south of Patavium, and now known as the Bagni cTAbano^ ought to be regarded as the place of his nativity. According to this supposition he was styled Patavinus^ just as Virgil was called Man- iuanus, although in reality belonging to Andes ; but Cluverius and the best geographers believe that Apona tellus is here equivalent to Patavina tellus^ and that no village Apontis or Aponus vicus existed in the days of the epigrammatist. In like manner Statius (Silv. iv. 7) designates him as '* Timavi alumnum," words which merely indicate his trans- padane extraction. The above particulars, few and meagre as they are, embrace every circumstance for which we can appeal to the testimony of ancient writers. The bulky and minute biography by Tomasinus, and similar productions, which communicate in turgid language a series of details which could have been ascertained by no one but a contemporary, are purely works of imagination. The greater number of the statements derived from such sources have gradually disappeared from all works of authority, but one or two of the more plausible still linger even in the most recent histories of literature. Thus we are assured that Livy commenced his career as a rhetorician and wrot&.upon rhetoric ; that he was twice married, and had two sons and several daughters ; that he was in the habit of spending much of his time at Naples ; that he first recom- mended himself to Octavianus by presenting some dialogues on philosophy, and that he was tutor to LIVIUS. Claudius. The first of these assertions is entitled to respect, since it has been adopted by Niebulir, but seems to rest entirely upon a few notices in Quintilian, from which we gather that the Epistola ad Eilium, alluded to above, contained some precepts upon style (Quintil. ii. 5. § 20, viii.2. § 18, x. 1. § 39). The second assertion, in so far as it affirms the existence of two sons, involves the very broad assumption that the following inscription, which is said to have been preserved at Venice, but with regard to whose history nothing has been recorded, neither the time when, nor the place where, nor the circumstances under which it was found, must refer to the great historian and to no one else: T. Livius. C. F. SIBI. ET. SUIS. T. LIVIO. T. F. FRISCO. F. T. LIVIO. T. F. LOXGO. ET. CASSIAE. SEX. P. PRIMAE. uxoRi ; while the number of daughters depends upon another inscription of a still more doubtful character, to which we shall advert hereafter. The third assertion is advanced because it has been deemed certain that since Virgil, Horace, and various otJier personages of wit and fashion were wont in that age to resort to the Campanian court, Livy must have done the like. With respect to the fourth assertion, we are informed by Seneca (Stmsor, 100) that Livy wrote dialogues which might be regarded as belonging to history as much as to philosophy {Scripsit enim et dial'xjos quos non mais PhilosopJiiae annumerare possis quam His- toriae), and books which professed to treat of phi- losophic subjects (cei? professo PhUosophiam conti- nentes lihros) ; but the story of the presentation to Octavianus is an absolute fabrication. The fifth assertion we have already contradicted, and not without reason, as will be seen from Suetonius {Claud. 41). The memoirs of most men terminate with their death ; but this is by no means the case with our historian, since some circumstances closely con- nected with what may be fairly termed his per- sonal history, excited no small commotion in his native city many centuries after his decease. About the year 1 360 a tablet was dug up at Padua, within the monastery of St. Justina, which occupied the site of an ancient temple of Jupiter, or of Juno, or of Concordia, according to the conflicting hypotheses of local antiquaries. The stone bore the following inscription, v. f. t. livius. liviae. t. f. quartae. L. HALYS.CONCORDIALIS. FATA VI. SIBI. ET. SUIS. OMNIBUS, which was at first interpreted to mean Vivus fecit Titus Livius Liviae Titi JUiae quartae^ (sc. uxori) Lucii Halys Concordialis Patavi sibi et suis omnibus. Some imagined that quartae. L. HALYS denoted Quartae legionis Halys, but this opinion was overthrown without difficulty, because even at that time it was well known that L. is seldom if ever used in inscriptions as an abbreviation of legio, and secondly because the fourth legion was entitled Scythica and not Halys. It was then de- cided that QUARTAE must indicate the fourth daughter of Livius, and that L. halys must be the name of her husband ; and ingenious persons endeavoured to show that in all probability he was identical with the L. Magius mentioned by Seneca. They also persuaded themselves that Livy, upon his return home, had been installed by his country- men in the dignified office of priest of the goddess Concord, and had erected this monument within the walls of her sanctuary, marking the place of sepulture of himself and his family. At all events, whatever difficulties might seem to embarrdSa the