Biography
Titus Livius, known as Livy, wrote his monumental history of Rome during the age of Augustus. Beginning with the city’s legendary foundation, he presented Rome’s past as a sequence of moral examples, constitutional conflicts and military trials.
Major Works
Read the Original
The surviving books can be read in an older public-domain English translation. The linked edition provides navigation through the work.
Reliability and Caution
Livy wrote centuries after Rome’s earliest history and relied on annalists, family traditions and literary reconstruction. His account is indispensable for Roman historical memory, but the earliest books cannot be treated as straightforward contemporary evidence.
How Livarva Uses This Source
Livarva uses Livy for the traditional story of Rome, the expulsion of the kings, the growth of republican institutions, the Punic Wars and the moral examples through which Romans understood their past.