PREFACE. THIS volume is an attempt to present in simple and convenient form the assistance needed by young students making their first acquaintance with Livy. Much has been stated that would seem unnecessary, had not the editor's experience in the class-room shown him the contrary. On the other hand, that fulness of illustration which apparently aims to supersede the function of the teacher has been carefully avoided. The text is that of Weissenborn (cura H. J. Müller), Weidmann, Berlin; a very few changes are mentioned in the notes as they occur. To that edition the present editor acknowledges his chief indebtedness in the preparation of the Introduction and Notes, though he has also availed himself freely of the assistance of other books and editors, especially those cited at the end of the introduction. There has been no attempt to make the orthography absolutely uniform, or to adopt always the so-called "classical" spelling. Such an orthography represents a state of things which never existed in ancient times; and the very variety of spelling should be instructive to the student who has progressed far enough to read Livy. The selection of the three books contained in this volume is not merely sanctioned by long usage, but rests upon good reason. Book I. forms a unit by itself, a "prose epic," dealing with the mythical age of the Roman kings, while Books XXI. and XXII. not only exhibit the author's style in its mature perfection, but also deal with the most thrilling and momentous crisis of the Roman republic. PRINCETON, N. J., November, 1890. INTRODUCTION. THE life of the Romans was intensely practical politics were their national pursuits, and during centuries of the republic their exclusive pursuit therefore natural that the nation's best days were over before the national literature fairly began; natural, likewise, that when at last literature did begin its career, history was one of the earliest d to be cultivated. It is not to be understood that there were 1 before this time. Soon after the establishment of lic the chief pontiffs began to keep official T records, called the Annales Maximi, containing r a list of the magistrates, the prodigies, and the ch of each year, all expressed in the briefest mann were annually exposed to public view on a white front of the pontiff's official residence, and when fi lected and published, formed eighty books. But the house with all its archives had perished in the b Rome by the Gauls in 390 B. C., so that the st about the earlier period must have been restored fro ory. The libri lintei, “linen books," were lists of ma earlier than 390 B. C., preserved in the temple Moneta in the Capitol, which had survived the cat that overwhelmed the rest of the city. |