Ab Urbe Condita Research Articles

From withdrawal to return in the first decade of the Ab Vrbe condita: An example of Livian dialectic of contrasts

AbstractLivy's narrative, far from being a faithful and scrupulous account of historical facts, is first and foremost a piece of literary, a narration, a collection of exempla that should serve as models or anti-models for readers, as Livy himself says in his Praefatio (Liv. Praef. 10). In his writing work, he follows guiding principles, the most important of which is the dialectic of contrasts, inspired by oratory and rhetoric. On the basis of different examples from the first decade of Ab Urbe condita, the objective of this article is to examine how this principle of writing was applied to the theme of Returns (a motif well known in the imaginary and literature of classical Antiquity). Thus, it appears that each episode of return or attempt to return is systematically preceded by an episode of withdrawal from the civic community, with which it is contrasted in various ways. Examples of such withdrawal-return antagonist pairs are numerous, and they concern both individual characters (Tarquin the Proud, Coriolanus, Cincinnatus, Kaeso Quinctius, etc.) and collective ensembles (in the form of a secessio of an entire ordo).

Breviarium rerum gestarum populi romani в отечественной и зарубежной историографии: к вопросу об источниках Феста

The transformative processes within the Roman Empire during the late 3rd and early 4th centuries brought about significant changes across various aspects of societal life, including the educational sphere. The proliferation of Christianity played a pivotal role in reshaping existing pedagogical prac-tices, ideologies, and standards, particularly among the elite class. With the emergence of a new political landscape during the dominatum era, there arose a demand for revised didactic norms. These norms aimed to provide administrators and officials with comprehensive insights into the history of Rome, its allies, and adversaries. During the 360s, concise didactic guides or “Breviaries” were developed. Notable among them is Flavius Eutropius' “Breviarium ab Urbe condita” (“Breviary from the Founding of the City”), recognized as a prominent textbook on Late Antiquity history in contempo-rary scholarship. Another significant work is the “Breviarium rerum ges-tarum populi Romani” (“Breviary of the Deeds of the Roman People”), compiled by an individual known as Festus (? – ca. 380). However, this text remained on the fringes of scholarly discourse for some time due to its brev-ity and the author’s heavy reliance on predecessors. Most scholars agree that Festus' "Breviarium" serves as a didactic compendium intended for both the emperor, who may not have been highly educated, and the officials of his empire. While there is little doubt among researchers regarding the peda-gogical nature of this work, several other questions, such as those concern-ing Festus' sources and the degree of the author's independence, remain un-resolved in historiography. Currently, there exist two approaches to address-ing the issue of identifying and studying Festus' sources. The first, positivist approach (endorsed by R. Jacoby, E. Wölfflin, A. Bettendorff, D.V. Kareev), states that Festus' sources can be easily identified by comparing parallels between his texts and those of his predecessors. However, there are differing views within historiography regarding the number and composition of the sources used by Festus in creating the “Breviary.” The second, critical ap-proach (advocated by D. Büer), denies the possibility of compiling an ex-haustive list of the sources of the “Breviary” due to the limited tradition of creating texts of this genre that have reached us. This article examines the evolution of historians' judgments regarding the possibilities and methods of identifying and interpreting Festus' sources in the composition of the “Breviary,” as well as discussing methodological approaches to studying this work.

Machiavelli Against Sovereignty: Emergency Powers and the Decemvirate

This article argues that Machiavelli’s chapters on the Decemvirate ( D 1.35, 1.40-45) advance an internal critique of the juridical discourse of sovereignty. I first contextualize these chapters in relation to several of Machiavelli’s potential sources, including Livy’s Ab urbe condita, Dionysius of Halicarnassus’s Roman Antiquities, and the antiquarian writings of Andrea Fiocchi and Giulio Pomponio Leto. I then analyze Machiavelli’s claim that the decemvirs held “absolute authority” ( autorità assoluta)—an authority that was unconstrained by either laws or countervailing magistrates. I proceed to argue that Machiavelli’s account of the decemvirs’ election contains a web of allusions to the lex regia, the “royal law” by which the Roman people were thought to have conveyed their sovereign power to an emperor. By modeling the decemvirs’ election on the lex regia, Machiavelli reveals the political limitations of the doctrine of popular sovereignty; moreover, he illustrates that even free and fair elections can easily give rise to tyranny.

Alexander was great, but Rome is greater: Considering Livy's depiction of Alexander

AbstractThe Romans were conquerors, and it is unsurprising that they looked favorably upon the greatest conqueror of antiquity, Alexander the Great. In Livy's Ab Urbe Condita, there are several passages in which he uses the image of Alexander to help craft his own concept of Rome's place within the wider Hellenistic world, especially within the eastern Mediterranean. Livy, despite his generally positive opinion of Alexander, ultimately created scenarios where he portrayed the Romans as superior to the Macedonian king, first, because of the primary focus of Livy's history, namely the rise of Rome to Mediterranean dominance, and second, because of the political atmosphere in which Livy was writing, namely the complete submission of the Mediterranean basin under Augustus' empire. Although scattered throughout Livy's extensive writing, when analyzed together these passages illustrate a persistent and connected motif that influences Livy's larger narrative: Alexander was great, but Rome is greater.

Servile Stories and Contested Histories: Empire, Memory, and Criticism in Livy’s Ab Urbe Condita

Abstract Scholars often turn to Livy’s famous digression on Aulus Cossus and the spolia opima (4.17–20) to shed light on his larger political inclinations. These readings generally regard Livy as either an Augustan (or at least a patriotic Roman) or an apolitical skeptic. Yet neither view, I argue, fully explains the Cossus affair. What is needed is an interpretation that recognizes the political nature of the Cossus digression and its skepticism toward Augustus. Attending to Livy’s rhetorical strategy in the digression allows us to see it as an instance of oblique criticism of Augustus and his control over Roman life. The explanatory power of this reading extends to episodes from the life of Romulus as well. I argue Livy uses these stories to make a theoretical argument about the nature of despotism, namely, that it seeks to control narratives of the past just as much as it aims for political domination.

Primary sclerosing cholangitis-A long night's journey into day.

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Los estereotipos étnicos en Ab urbe condita: un estado de la cuestión

This paper proposes a state of the matter on the scholarship about ethnic stereotypes in Ab urbe condita from the classic work by Walsh written in 1961 to nowadays. With this goal in mind, the paper is divided in five parts. The first part shows how the analyses of the subject matter became more complex as the ethnographic tradition with which Livy dealt, as well as the Roman identity and the notion itself of stereotype became an issue. In the second part, this article criticizes binary conceptions of otherness and suggests a wider gradation of it. The third part deals with some interesting observations made by Moore in 1989 that were later disregarded. In the fourth, it reviews Levene’s suggestion based on ethnic identity studies that we should look for a non-Romancentric view within Livy’s work. Finally, it studies the relevance of considering three kinds of contexts —the genre of the work, episodic and temporal frameworks— while analyzing the ethnic stereotypes in Ab urbe condita.

Chaucer and the Fantasy of Retroactive Consent

Chaucer and the Fantasy of Retroactive Consent Leah Schwebel In the short comic "Trigger Warning: Breakfast," the artist describes cooking for a man who has assaulted her the evening before.1 "The morning after I was raped, I made my rapist breakfast," she explains. Eggs, medium well; toast; and bacon. Still, "there is another story that I like better" than the one with this ending, she notes. In this preferred version, she does not make her rapist breakfast, or prepare him eggs the way she herself likes them cooked. Instead, "I fight. I spit at him. I struggle." Attempting to change the devastating significance of the previous night by way of her own response to it—that is, by making him breakfast in the morning—the artist seeks a kind of revisionist agency: "I thought I could have another story. We go out. He says I'm beautiful. The next morning, I make him breakfast. If I didn't say no, it's just a romance." In reality, she suggests, "I am a bad victim. I am a bad story."2 "Trigger Warning" illustrates what I will refer to here as a fantasy of retroactive consent, in which an assault is rescripted by its author, perpetrator, or victim as a consensual act. I have chosen the term "retroactive consent" because it evokes Laura Kipnis's anxiety over women retroactively withdrawing consent in order to brand their lovers as rapists. "Sexual consent can now be retroactively withdrawn (with official sanction) years [End Page 337] later," Kipnis laments, "based on changing feelings or residual ambivalence, or new circumstances. … This makes anyone who's ever had sex a potential rapist."3 As Jonathan Jenkins Ichikawa observes, the danger in Kipnis's remarks lies in the relation between time and causality. "Kipnis's language suggests a kind of 'backwards causation'—one can reach back into history and create rapes that weren't there by removing the consent." This "absurd metaphysics" reinforces one of the pillars of rape culture, as Ichikawa further points out: "the fallacy that if one has consented to anything" (and, we might add, at any point), "then one has consented to everything."4 Kipnis's remarks are premised on the dangerous assumption that a notable number of individuals are more likely to fabricate assaults than to accept unsatisfying sexual unions. This essay will consider a problem of "backwards causation" contrary to that which Kipnis imagines, and one that I suspect is far more common, in which a victim warps a sequence of events to reshape their assault as consensual. We see this scenario in "Trigger Warning": the artist describes her attempt to recast the previous night as a romance by making her rapist breakfast. She imagines herself as a character in a different story, and she records her desire to inhabit this alternative reality for the reader. But this fantasy (and it is indeed a fantasy) of retroactive consent can also be imposed on a victim externally. In De civitate Dei, for example, Augustine considers Lucretia's rape at the hands of the king's son, Tarquin, as Livy describes it in Ab urbe condita. Insisting on her innocence, and further demanding that no woman use her tragic plight to justify their own adultery, Lucretia dies by suicide, using her body as a warrant: "corpus est tantum violatum, animus insons; mors testis erit" ("my body only has been violated; my heart is guiltless, as death shall be my witness").5 Despite the extreme measures the Roman matron takes to corroborate her unwillingness, Augustine questions the legitimacy of her denial, and, relatedly, her motivation for killing herself. Perhaps she was not guiltless after all, he speculates, but rather consented in her mind to the assault: [End Page 338] An forte ideo ibi non est quia non insontem, sed male sibi consciam, se peremit? Quid si enim (quod ipsa tantummodo nosse poterat) quamvis iuveni violenter inruenti etiam sua libidine inlecta consentit idque in se puniens ita doluit ut morte putaret expiandum? [Perhaps, however, she is not there because she slew herself, not innocently, but conscious of her guilt? What if—but she herself alone could know—she was seduced by her own...

An Exemplary Defense: Livy's Illustrative Exemplum in Thomas More's Apology

In this article, I intend to show how Thomas More's use of a seemingly obscure episode from Livy's Ab Urbe Condita in his Apology provides important insights into the major themes of the polemical project that was to consume his final years. More's adaptation of the episode situates him among other Renaissance luminaries who saw in it a means to explore how group dynamics affect individual judgement and shape common opinion. The adaptation also serves to provide thematic cohesion in a polemic long considered excessively excursive and without merit, literary or otherwise. This exploration will further shed light upon the ways in which Renaissance authors appropriated classical histories to address contemporary concerns.

“Quasi ad verbum”: problemi di traduzione nei Discorsi di Machiavelli

This article offers a case study on the translation of Ab urbe condita in Machiavelli’s Discorsi [Discourses on Livy]. The study focuses on two syntagmata in particular - “guardia della libertà” [protector of freedom] and “legge dell’ambizione” [the law of ambition] - in order to reveal how Machiavelli’s rendering of these two terms taken from Roman legal language is bent not simply on conveying the meaning of the original, but rather as an argumentative tool aimed at redirecting the historical narrative. It is proposed that Machiavelli intends Livy’s words as thought bites which though taken from ancient times can also help to understand contemporary history (e.g. the plebeian tribune as a key to understanding some of the Gonfalonier’s prerogatives). The study thus aims to show how from the first chapter of the work dedicated to a commentary on Livy’s writings, the Discorsi establish a dynamic relationship with the source, one that is more interested in transferring some of the concepts to the current political sphere than in providing a philologically accurate rendering of them.

Julius Obsequens’s book, Liber Prodigiorum: A Roman era record of meteorite falls, fireballs, and other celestial phenomena

AbstractJulius Obsequens was the pseudonym of a Roman historian presumably living in the 4th century ad, whose life is shrouded in mystery. All that is known about Obsequens’s biography is that he was the author of a book entitled Liber Prodigiorum (Book of Prodigies), a collection of prodigies deduced from Livy’s Ab Urbe Condita Libri (Books from the Founding of the City). The Liber Prodigiorum covered the period from 190 to 11 bc and gathered a chronological list of portents of various kinds (e.g., births of monstrous animals or men, statues that shed blood, voices from beyond the grave, epidemics, earthquakes, unidentified flying objects). Among these extraordinary reports, chronicles of celestial phenomena were also included. The interdisciplinary approach adopted in this research has clarified the nature of the events described in the text and has enabled the identification of new Italian meteorite falls that are not included in the Meteoritical Bulletin Database.

Liviana: Studies on Livy by John Briscoe

Reviewed by: Liviana: Studies on Livy by John Briscoe Seth Kendall John Briscoe. Liviana: Studies on Livy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018. Pp. xiii, 255. $78.00. ISBN 978-0-19-882468-8. As the author himself explains in his preface, the idea for John Briscoe's Liviana began to take shape in 2012 when, having just completed his commentary on Livy 41–45, he proposed to the Oxford University Press the formation of what became his Oxford Classical Text of Livy 21–25. In that proposal, Briscoe noted that, in keeping with the usual tendency in Oxford Classical Texts, he would have a briefer apparatus than was customary for Teubner editions. A dialogue with the press ensued, in which it was suggested that what he was compelled to omit from his apparatus might perhaps be included in a companion volume. This material alone, Briscoe avers, would not have been sufficient to fill a volume on its own, but it could be supplemented with a brief history of the printed editions of Livy, a few essays on some controversies in the identification of certain manuscripts, some corrections of and additions to his commentaries on books 38–40 and 41–45, some emendations to his Teubner volumes, and a correction to a point he made in his contributions to The Fragments of the Roman Historians (Oxford 2014). The result is the current volume under review, which, while not as expansive as a full-fledged commentary on books 21–25—Briscoe himself suggests that he came to consider parts of Liviana as something of an "embryo commentary" on those books—nevertheless succeeds admirably as a supplement to his OCT and, indeed, to all of his recent works on the text of Livy. As hinted at above, the majority of the space in Liviana is devoted to textual matters. These consist of observations of varying lengths on some of the more troublesome passages, made with the unparalleled knowledge of Latin and of [End Page 229] Livy, the editorial acumen, and the sharp eye for discerning textual soundness that are so typical of Briscoe. On these sections little needs to be added here beyond the certainty that for serious classicists, and especially for students of Livy, consultation of these notes will prove exceedingly worthwhile. In addition to this wealth of textual material, Briscoe provides an overview of editions of the Ab Urbe Condita from incunabula all the way down to the twenty-first century. He also proffers evaluations of these editions—an overview that is at points trenchant, especially about those produced in the twentieth century: Briscoe is unsparing in his praise for the excellence that he perceives in these works, but is also unflinching in his assessments when that excellence is harder to find. The same bluntness and vigor are found in later chapters, particularly one that discusses some additions to a manuscript (Harley 2493) that Briscoe, breaking with received wisdom, attributes not to Lorenzo Valla but to a hand that he designates Az. This attribution has not gone unchallenged, and Briscoe takes the opportunity to expand upon his reasoning for it in what are often very direct terms. For the specialist, particularly for the philologist looking to delve deeply into Livy, it cannot be doubted that Liviana will be of great utility. The book will therefore make a welcome addition to the personal libraries of such users, and will obviously be indispensable as a research tool in academic libraries. Further, the committed historian investigating Livy's account of the opening years of the Hannibalic War will find this book to be of considerable use, though it should be understood that strictly historical investigations in Liviana are quite limited, and that textual exegesis receives the bulk of the space. On the other hand, the reader might also question whether it would be of equal use to those whose academic interests do not require such a tight textual focus. As may be anticipated, Liviana presupposes an extensive knowledge of the text of Livy, and was almost certainly written for persons possessing this. In sum, Liviana will probably be of limited relevance to the generalist, but for its intended audience it will certainly be...

Inscriptional Intermediality in Livy

Abstract The term monumentum is used in Latin literature to describe a range of monuments across media, including temples, literary works, statues, and inscriptions. This article surveys the variety of monumenta in Livy’s Ab urbe condita, which range from the text itself to victory inscriptions and bronze sculptures meant to commemorate military as well as political achievements. The borders between historiography and physical artefacts are often blurred by Livy through inscriptional intermediality, a phenomenon defined as the mixing of visual and textual media. By outlining how Livy achieves this combination, and demonstrating how the specific ratio of literary, linguistic, and topographical features in his ekphrases generate unique impressions of real-world monuments, this chapter re-reads Livy’s history from the perspective of intermedial theory. This process not only advances our understanding of the Ab urbe condita as a literary work, but also thrusts individual aspects of Livy’s narrative technique – including visuality and unique formulae such as the introductory formula tabula … cum indice hoc posita est (Livy 41.28.8) – into the spotlight.

THE EMPIRE IN THE EPITOME: FLORUS AND THE CONQUEST OF HISTORIOGRAPHY

Sorting out just what Florus’ condensed work of history is has proved a significant impediment to an understanding of what it might mean. F.R.D. Goodyear's terse précis of Florus ‘The historian’—carefully decoupled from ‘The orator’ and ‘The poet’—in the Cambridge History of Classical Literature begins tellingly: ‘Florus’ outline of Roman history, ending with Augustus, was in late antiquity inaccurately described as an epitome of Livy.’ This is accurate enough. Despite the transmitted title, Epitoma(e) de Tito Liuio (also Bellorum omnium annorum septingentorum libri n. duo), Florus’ work is notably distinct from, say, Justin's abridgment of Pompeius Trogus or the Livian Periochae. Livy looms large in Florus’ history, but at no point in the text is he signaled by name, and numerous structural and thematic features mark this diminutive work's divergence from its huge predecessor. Florus’ Tableau (Jal's chosen title) simply doesn't read as mere paraphrase of Ab urbe condita. He frequently reshuffles, omits, or contradicts material found in Livy, or covers content that Livy does not include, or does not reach chronologically. Alongside Livy, Cato, Caesar, Sallust, Virgil, Seneca the Elder, Lucan, and (seemingly) Tacitus are conspicuous presences in Florus. Much has been said about how Florus fails to be a proper epitome. However, and perhaps more significantly as regards the reception of Florus’ quirky historiography, Goodyear's emphatic non-definition reinforces a summary dismissal of Florus’ value as a text. That is to say, in such a portrayal (and in that of many others), Florus suffers double punishment. He ‘has little to say which is new or remarkable’, but at the same time definitely fails as a reliable compiler. Derivative, and yet faithless: whatever Florus may be, he is something worse than epitome.

The Eclipses in Livy's Ab Urbe Condita

Titus Livius (Livy) is mentioning some eclipses in his monumental history of Rome, entitled Ab Urbe Condita Libri. For two of these eclipses, Livy is also reporting the dates. One occurred during the Ludi Apollinares, in the year of the consulship of Lucius Cornelius. Livy dated the eclipse 11 Quintilis. Astronomy dated it 14 March 190 BC (Julian date). The other eclipse is that at the time of the Pydna battle and it is the lunar eclipse of 21 June 168 BC (Julian date). Livy tells that it occurred during the night between 3 and 4 September. The differences between astronomical and historical dates are due to the manner the lunisolar Roman republican calendar was managed in that period by the college of Roman pontifices. Here we discuss the eclipses reported by Livy to point out the problems of the Roman chronology, when it is involving the republican calendar.

La proibizione dei bacchanalia tra la Magna Grecia e l'Etruria

Summary In the Greek world, the celebrations of Dionysus were different: the Rural Dionysia and the City Dionysia, the Lenee, the Antestèrie, the Oscofòrie, the Ascalia and the Bacchanalia. During the Bacchanalia, women ran, danced and screamed in the woods, and fell prey to Dionysian inebriation. In 186 BC, the Roman Senate issued a decree that limited the cult of Bacchus Dionysus in Rome and in Italy, because of sexual abuses (see Livy, Ab Urbe condita 39. 8 – 39. 18). The diffusion of Bacchanalia was a risk for people and for the dignitas of Rome. In 1640 in Tiriolo, Calabria, during the excavation for the foundations of the so-called Palazzo Cicala, a bronze inscription and fragments of columns were found; the inscription had the original text of Senatus Consultum de Bacchanalibus with which, in 186 BC, the Roman Senate forbade the Bacchanalia. In Latium, during the excavation of the so-called Domus delle Pitture in Bolsena, directed by the École Française de Rome, between 1964 and 1982, a fragment of a throne's base and a cherub's leg were found in a layer of ashes in an underground room. Another 150 pieces of the throne, including ribbons and fragments of a panther head, were recovered in a specific spot of the room. Fragments, carefully restored and reassembled, compose an object called Trono delle Pantere of Bolsena, datable between the end of the 3rd century BC and the early years of the 2nd century BC. The left and rear sides are better preserved. The first represents a panther sitting on a throne with a cherub on his knees while it grabs at the ears of beast; the rear side represents a pattern with wings blocked by ribbons. The front side is completely destroyed. The throne has different sets of problems on its religious meaning and its decoration, where the Dionysiac theme is clear. The panther, the cherubs and the ribbons recall the Dionysus sphere, during which he was hidden inside a cave. Indeed, the underground room of Bolsena was appropriated to Bacchanalia. This paper intends to link Tiriolo and Bolsena, through the specific cases of two cities; in the first we have a proof of the enforcement of the law in 186 BC, and in the second we have an evidence of its application, with the destruction of a throne and of a Bacchic shrine.

Camillus as Numa: religion in Livy’s refoundation narratives

AbstractLivy’s first pentad of Ab Urbe Condita begins and ends with the founding and refounding of the city. Both are achieved first through violence and then through the establishment and re-establishment of religious authority and the restoration of Rome’s relationship with its gods. This article examines the connection Livy makes between Numa and Camillus and the place of religion within the refoundation narratives. The religious topography of Rome is essential to Camillus’ argument for the Romans to remain in the city following the Gallic sack. By citing particular priesthoods, the flamen Dialis and the Vestal Virgins in particular, both of which were established or developed by Numa, Livy not only constructs Camillus as a new Numa but also promotes these priesthoods as monumenta. Camillus’ speech forges direct connections between Rome’s conditores, the topography of the city, the devotion to its gods, and the city’s continued glory.

Giovanni Kreglianovich’s <i>Orazio</i>: An Exemplum of the Process of Rewriting

Rewriting and reinvention of previously told stories and recognizable themes build upon an established literary canon, creating new connections amongst texts, while creating increasingly hypertextual works. This article explores the nature of rewriting, the reinvention of previously existing themes within literature, and the dialectic between past, present, and future embodied within this process. The specific focus of this study is the Dalmatian author Giovanni Kreglianovich, who, with his tragedy Orazio (1797) rewrites and adapts the ancient Roman legend of the battle between the Curiatii and the Horatii to reflect the political, social, and literary changes of the late 1800s in Europe. Primary sources such as Livy’s Ab urbe condita, Aretino’s Orazia (1546), and Pierre Corneille’s Horace (1640) are compared to and contrasted with Kreglianovich’s Orazio in order to highlight the differences between these works and to bring to the fore how and why the source material was rewritten. Utilized as a vehicle to espouse contemporary concerns, Kreglianovich employed aspects of antiquity and transformed them into a means through which social and political issues pertinent to the time could be revealed. In reusing one of the most famous identity myths of ancient Rome, Kreglianovich was able to create a unique tragedy that partakes in the literary phenomenon of rewriting, while promoting patriotism, as well as a sense of identity and belonging in his fellow Dalmatian compatriots.

TYTA LIWIUSZA DZIEJE RZYMSKIE HRABIEGO OSSOLIŃSKIEGO. PIERWSZY POLSKI PRZEKŁAD AB URBE CONDITA

This article is devoted to the first, incomplete, Polish translation of Livy’s Ab Urbe condita. The translation was done by the blind count Jozef Maksymilian Ossolinski, alumnus of Jesuitic Collegium Nobilium in Warsaw. Considering the comments in the preface directed to a reader, the translator appears to be a mindful person aware of difficulties of his work. Nevertheless, his ‘translatoric operations’ fully coincide with the translation theory. The comparative analysis of the three arbitrarily chosen excerpts of Livy’s Ab Urbe condita shows the weak points of translators craft, which are: an overuse of archaic words, building too long sentences, using flowery metaphors. Although, the translation itself doesn’t live up to the modern translatoric standards, it is important to acknowledge the validity of Ossolinski’s work. As he writes in the preface, Polish historians aim was to fight for a restitution and preservation of a language purity. Through his translation Ossolinski wanted to show the richness and beauty of Polish language to his readers.

PRAEFATIONES MINORES: PROLOGI WEWNĘTRZNE W AB URBE CONDITA LIWIUSZA

Apart from the famous praefatio (maior), Livy’s introduction to the Ab Urbe Condita as a whole, there are in the extant parts of this work four internal prologues (or praefationes minores), marking the beginnings of, respectively, books 2, 6, 21 and 31. In the present paper a short overview of prologues, and especially internal prologues, in ancient historiography is followed by a more detailed discussion of the four Livian passages. Particular attention has been paid to those motifs and ideas which connect Livy’s internal prologues with his main praefatio – notably to the notions of monumentum, memoria, and the imagery of looking and perceiving. A fragment from a later book, preserved by Pliny the Elder (HN praef. 16), almost certainly comes from another internal prologue; it is probable that there were more praefationes minores in Livy’s lost books (e.g. in 121).