Friday, January 19, 2007

Images from Livy (4)


'The Death of Camilla', by Jacques-Louis David (1748-1825), black chalk with brush and gray wash on cream-colored laid paper (New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art)

Some Essential Anglophone Resources on Livy

This list is not meant to be exhaustive and does not include commentaries. Suggestions for additional resources are welcome. This is a very basic list that has a number of good places to start.

Cantor, H.V. 'Livy the Orator'. Classical Journal 9 (1913) 24-34.

McDonald, A.H. 'The Style of Livy'. Journal of Roman Studies 47 (1957) 155-72.

Syme, R. 'Livy and Augustus'. Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 64 (1959) 27-87.

Walsh, P.G. Livy. Greece and Rome. New Surveys in the Classics 8 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974).

----. Livy: His Historical Aims and Methods. Cambridge, UK: University Press, 1961.

----. 'Livy's Preface and the Distortion of History'. American Journal of Philology 76 (1955) 369-81.

Thursday, January 18, 2007

Images from Livy (3)


'The Oath of the Horatii', by Jacques-Louis David (1748-1825), 1786 (Toledo, Toledo Museum of Art)

Wednesday, January 17, 2007

Images from Livy (2)


'The Rape of the Sabines', by Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665), ca. 1637-8 (Paris, Louvre)

Some Introductory Notes on Livy

The normal dates give for Livy's life are: born 59 BC, died AD 17 (Syme has challenged this dating and has made a case for 64 BC-AD 12; see his paper 'Livy and Augustus'). He was a native of Padua, hence Asinius Pollio's recriminations over his Patavinitas, though the meaning of this accusation remains in question.

His history, Ab urbe condita, consisted originally of 142 books. Of these, 35 books are extant: books 1-10 and 21-45. Summaries (epitomes or Periochae) of most of the remaining books have come down to us (with the exception of books 136 and 137), the value of which varies. The work spans Rome's legendary beginnings to, most likely, the death of Drusus in 9 BC, or perhaps the defeat of Varro in the Teutoberg Forest in AD 9.

For those interested in Late Antiquity, it is worth noting that 'Q. Aurelius Symmachus corrected a set of manuscripts containing the whole of Livy's work, as we know from a subscription; this was a large-scale cooperative venture of the Nicomachi and Symmachi families and is the ultimate source for all surviving manuscripts of the first decade' (Conte 374).

(For very brief introductions, see the Oxford Classical Dictionary and G.B. Conte's Latin Literature, pp. 367-76 (quoted above).)

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Images from Livy (1)


'The Oath of the Horatii', by Armand Caraffe (1762-1822) (Moscow, Pushkin Museum)

Monday, January 15, 2007

Notes on Teaching Latin with 'Courses'

More than half a century ago Jacques Barzun wrote, in Teacher in America, something I feel strongly about everyday when I go to work and struggle to teach with the Cambridge Latin Course:

We have all had in our hands these little works, which start off "Wie geht's heute mit dir, teurer Hans?" and go on with chitchat, anecdotes, and pictures of Salzburg. This is chumminess misplaced. Let the teacher say "how do you do" and let the book remain what a book should be -- a systematic exposition of the subject, in which the student can find what he is looking for. Nothing is more exasperating than to have to wonder whether the subjunctive was given together with a description of Bremerhaven or later, with the sad story of Struwwelpeter. Besides, no student is better off for having all the verbs given in bits, half a tense at a time.
Instead of Bremerhaven we have the remains of Pompeii. We're not lucky enough to have Shock-headed Peter, but the ghost of a gladiator makes a brief appearance. The subjunctive will wait for the second or third year, along with probably the ablative and many other useful things. Instead of chitchat we have an unending stream of Latin in the vein of 'See Spot run': servus anulum conspectat. servus anulum capit. servus abit. *yawn*

The 'course' is useful if you have little more Latin than the book will teach you, and even less history and culture.

The problem with courses is that they're proscribed -- teach the genitive if you wish, but the kids won't see one for another year. Every time you step off the course you're bound to wonder whether you should ever step on again.

Poetry and Livy's Preface

It is interesting to me that Livy's preface begins with the first four feet of a dactylic hexameter:

Facturusne operae pretium sim...

In other words, he inaugurates his prose history with the trappings of epic. This is only the first indication in the preface that Livy has poets on his mind.

He refers again to poetry when commenting on his refusal either to attempt to substantiate or refute the accounts of Rome's earliest days:
Quae ante conditam condendamve urbem poeticis magis decora fabulis quam incorruptis rerum gestarum monumentis traduntur, ea nec adfirmare nec refellere in animo est.

And, in a nice bit of ring-composition-cum-variatio, he ends the preface with a reference to 'the poets':
Cum bonis potius omnibus votisque et precationibus deorum dearumque, si, ut poetis, nobis quoque mos esset, libentius inciperemus, ut orsis tantum operis successus prosperos darent.

This is a present contrary-to-fact condition: 'If I were a poet, I would begin...'; in other words, he's not a poet, so he won't begin in such a way.

Or will he? By raising the issue in the first place, in a sort of praeteritio, he's already put such an invocation in the minds of his readers, his denials notwithstanding. And it's not as though he hasn't been thinking about the gods in the course of this preface:
Datur haec venia antiquitati, ut miscendo humana divinis primordia urbium augustiora faciat, et si cui populo licere oportet consecrare origines suas et ad deos referre auctores, ea belli gloria est populo Romano ut, cum suum conditorisque sui parentem Martem potissimum ferat, tam et hoc gentes humanae patiantur aequo animo quam imperium patiuntur.


Some questions to ponder: what, exactly, is the relationship of Livy's history to epic poetry? Was he attempting to write 'epic in prose'? How close are the parallels we can draw between his treatment and use of foundation myths and the treatment and use of them made by Vergil?

I realize that these are questions that have probably been addressed at length in the scholarship. Nevertheless, they're some questions that came up as I was reading the preface, and it's always good to try to take a fresh look. And it's better, perhaps, to try to come up with some ideas and theories before rushing to the answers that have already been given.

As always, any comments or feedback is welcome.