Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 12.djvu/402

* LIVONIA. 358 LIVY. Knights Swordbearers was broken bj' the on- slaughts of the Russians, their grand master ceded Livonia to Lithuania (q.v.). Early in the seventeenth century Gustavus Adolphus of Swe- den overran and conquered the country, but it was not until lUGO that it was definitively relin- quished by Poland in the Peace of Oliva. At the beginning of the eighteenth century Peter the Great of Russia wrested Livonia from Sweden, which formally renounced its possession in 1721. In recent times the Russian Government has been pursuing a relentless course of Russification in Livonia. Consult Winkelmann, Bibliotlicca Li- voniw Uistorica (2d ed., Berlin, 1878). LIVOBNO, 16-vor'nd. The Italian name for Leghorn ( q.v. ). LI'VBE, Fr. pron. le'vr' (OF., pound). The name of an ancient French coin. There were livres of dillcreut values, the most important being the Hire tournois (of Tours), which was considered the standard, and the livrc parisis (of Paris), which was equal to a livre tournois and one-fourth. In 1795 the livre was super- seded by the franc (SO francs = 81 livres tour- nois. — Livre was also the ancient unit of weiffht, and was ecjua! to 17.2fi7 oz. avoirdupois; the kilo- gram (see Metric System I has taken its place. LIVS, or LIVO'NIANS. A Finnish tribe, formerly living in Esthonia and Norlli Livonia, now nearly extinct, holding only a narrow strip of forest land along the Baltic at the norlli point of C'ourland. The}' were supplanted by the Letts (q.v.). They are classed with the Baltic Finns and number 2000. Their language has nearly disappeared, and the jieople speak a Lettish patois. LIVY, liv'I (B.C. o9-..n. 17). The great Ro- man historian, Titus Livius, is witliout a history, for we have no ancient biography of him, and very little information is obtained either from his own writings or from allusions in other authors. He was born at Pataviura (Padua), the chief city of Venetia. in B.C. 59 (a date given in Saint Je- rome's Chronicle of Eusebitis), consequently at the beginning of the most important period of Roman history, for Cwsar had just obtained the govern- ment of Gaul. The place and period of his birth had great influence upon his career. Padua was a city of considerable importance, with a tradi- tional history going back to Antenor. and Livy, a Paduan at heart, felt deep sympathy with the municipalities which preserved the old independ- ent spirit of Italy: nevertheless he was in a larger sense a Roman, and recognized the advan- tage of association with a people who had con- quered the early enemies of his native town, and who were his fellow-citizens, the Paduans having long possessed the Roman franchise. On the evi- dence of some inscriptions (Corpus Inncriptionum Latinarum, v. 2865, 2975) and of the general aristocratic spirit of his writings there is reason to believe that he belonged to a noble family. He undoubtedly received training in philosophy, rhetoric, and literature. When Ca>sar wag slain and Cicero gave voice to his Philippics, Livy was fifteen years of age. He was familiar, then, with the great struggle for liberty, and with all the events of that stir- ring time, and in consequence was a republican. He came to Rome about B.C. 31, the year of the battle of -Actium. and there he resided until shortly before his death. Although he formed a friendship with Augustus (whom, however, he mentions only twice, once to give a date and once to prove a fact), he admired Brutus and Cassius, nevertheless, and dared to say that it was a ques- tion whether or not Cicsar had been of service to his country, .ugustus called him a Pompeian, perhaps in a spirit of pleasantry, as the purpose and aim of the historian must have been satis- factorj' to him; for while Livy idealized the Re- ])ublic, he was entirely satisfied with the exist- ing Imperial Government. Suetonius {('lnudius 41) remarks that Livy advised the future Emperor Claudius to write history, and that Caligula [Caliyula 34) charged him with being negligent. This accusation was undoubtedly due to his evident ignorance of mili- tary detail and of Roman law, which resulted in errors in his description of wars and of constitu- tional changes. He, however, had a great reputa- tion in his own day, of which he himself was cog- nizant : for he is said to have declared that he had obtained sulUcient glory, but continued writ- ing because he should miss the em])loyment. After the accession of Tiberius Livy returned to Padua, where he died in a.d. 17. In the letters of Seneca (100, 9) there is a reference to Livy's writing dialogues, half philosophical and half rhetorical, and Quintilian (x. 1, 39) and Seneca the Elder mention a letter addressed to his son, in which he urged him to study the speeches of Demosthenes and Cicero; but these have disap- peared. His history of Rome was begun early in his life, for in book -i. 19 we have a reference to the fact that the temple of Janus had been shut twice since the time of Xuma — once after the First Punic War, and again after the battle of Aetium; the third closing occurred in B.C. 25, so that the writing of the first book must fall between B.C. 29 and 25, and as Livy also uses here the title Augustus, which was conferred in January c.c. 27, we may place the date about B.C. 2i5. There is also evidence that the work did not appear as a whole, but in sections, which contained a varying number of books. Certain passages are clearly prefaces to new parts of the history, e.g. at the beginning of books 6, 21, and 31. It is noticeable that book 5 ends with the burning of Rome by the Gauls, so that book G begins a new epoch; also book 15 be- gins the First Punic War, and book 21 the Second Punic War. These facts point to a publication of decades or .semi-decades, but it is doubtful if Livv held to this arrangement, for in the best JIS'S. we find that books 109-116 are treated in one periocha, or summary, under the title Bellum Civile. The division into decades is first mentioned about the close of the fifth century, and is prob- ably the work of copyists. The entire work con- sisted of 142 books, of which 35 are extant, the first (to B.C. 293). third, fourth, and half of the fifth decade (B.C. 218-217). We have a few frag- ments obtained from such writers as Servius, Valerius Maximus. and Saint Augustine, and a page or so from book 91. preserved in a Vatican palimpsest. We have also from some unknown author epitomes, periochw or argumciita, of all the books except 136 and 137. The epitomes show that the last year recorded was n.c. 9. and this seems to indicate that Livy did not finish his his- tory, as the event of that year, the death of Drusus, was not of sufficient importance to form the conclusion of a great work, and there is some