A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology

the Roman historian, was born at Patavium, in the consulship of Caesar and Bibulus, B. C. 59. The greater part of his life appears 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 daughter, by Seneca (Prooem. Controv. lib. v.), and a sentence from a letter addressed to a son, whom he urges to study Demosthenes and Cicero, is quoted by Quintilian (10.1.39). His literary talents secured the patronage and friendship of Augustus (Tac. Ann. 4.34); he became a person of consideration at court, and by his advice Claudius, afterwards emperor, was induced in early life to attempt historical composition (Suet. Cl. 41), but there is no ground for the assertion that Livy acted as preceptor to the young prince. Eventually his reputation rose so high and became so widely diffused that, as we are assured by Pliny (Plin. Ep. 2.3), 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 (Mart. 1.62):__

1. Verona docti syllabas amat vatis,
2. Marone felix Mantua est,
3. Censetur Apona Livio suo tellus,
4. Stellaque nec Flacco minus

from which it has been inferred that the famous hot-springs, the Patavinae Aquae, of which the chief was Aponusfons, situated about six miles to the south of Patavium, and now known as the Bagni d'Abano, ought to be regarded as the place of his nativity. According to this supposition he was styled Patavinus, just as Virgil was called Mantuanus, 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 Aponus or Aponus vicus existed in the days of the epigrammatist. In like manner Statius (Stat. Silv. 4.7) designates him as " Timavi alumnum," words which merely indicate his transpadane 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 wrote 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 recommended himself to Octavianus by presenting some dialogues on philosophy, and that he was tutor to Claudius. The first of these assertions is entitled to respect, since it has been adopted by Niebuhr, but seems to rest entirely upon a few notices in Quintilian, from which we gather that the Epistola ad Filium, alluded to above, contained some precepts upon style (Quint. Inst. 2.5.20, 8.2.18, 10.1.39). 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 . PRISCO. F. T. LIVIO. T. F. LONGO. ET . CSSIAE . SEX. F. PRIMAE . UXORI; while the number of daughters depends upon another inscription of a still more doubtflll character, to which we shall advert hereafter. The third assertion is advanced because it has been deemed certain that since Virgil, Horace, and various other 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 (Suasor. 100) that Livy wrote dialogues which might be regarded as belonging to history as much as to philosophy (Scripsit enim et dialogos quos non magis Philosophiae annumerare possis quam Historiae), and books which professed to treat of philosophic subjects (ex professo Philosophiam continentes libros); 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 (Suet. Cl. 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 connected with what may be fairly termed his personal history, excited no small commotion in his native city many centuries after his decease. About the year 1360 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. PATAVI . SIBI. ET. SUIS. OMNIBUS, which was at first interpreted to mean Virus fecit Titus Livius Liviae Titi filiae quarlae, (sc. uxori) Lucii Halys Concordialis Patavi sibi et suis omnibus. Some imagined that QUARTAE . L. HALYS denoted Quartue 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 decided 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 countrymen 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 embarrass the

explanation of some of the words and abbreviations in the inscription, no doubt seems fora moment to have been entertained that it was a genuine memorial of the historian. Accordingly, the Benedictine fathers of the monastery transported the tablet to the vestibule of their chapel, and caused a portrait of Livy to be painted beside it. In 1413, about fifty years after the discovery just described, in digging the foundations for the erection of new buildings in connection with the monastery, the workmen reached an ancient pavement composed of square bricks cemented with lime. This having been broken through, a leaden coffin became visible, which was found to contain human bones. An old monk declared that this was the very spot above which the tablet had been found, when immediately the cry rose that the remains of Livy had been brought to light, a report which filled the whole city with extravagant joy. The new-found treasure was deposited in the town hall, and to the ancient tablet a modern epitaph was affixed. At a subsequent period a costly monument was added as a further tribute to his memory. Here, it might have been supposed, these weary bones would at length have been permitted to rest in peace. But in 1451, Alphonso of Arragon preferred a request to the Paduans, that they would be pleased to bestow upon him the bone of Livy's right arm, in order that he might possess the limb by which the immortal narrative had been actually penned. This petition was at last complied with; but just as the valuable relic reached Naples, Alphonso died, and the Sicilian fell heir to the prize. Eventually it passed into the hands of Joannes Jovianus Pontanus, by whom it was enshrined with an appropriate legend. So far all was well. In the lapse of time, however, it was perceived, upon comparing the tablet dug up in the monastery of St. Justina, with others of a similar description, that the contractions had been erroneously explained, and consequently the whole tenor of the words misunderstood. It was clearly proved that L. did not stand for LUCIUS but for LIBERTUS, and that the principal person named was Titus Livius Halys, freedman of Livia, the fourth daughter of a Titus Livius, that he had in accordance with the usual custom adopted the designation of his former master, that he had been a priest of Concord at Padua, an office which it appeared from other records had often been filled by persons in his station, and that he had set up this stone to mark the burying-ground of himself and his kindred. Now since the supposition that the skeleton in the leaden coffin was that of the historian rested solely upon the authority of the inscription, when this support was withdrawn, the whole fabric of conjecture fell to the ground, and it became evident the relics were those of an obscure freedman.

[W.R]