This article is concerned with the shaping of the annual narrative in historical writers working in the Roman annalistic tradition and contests the view that Livy and his predecessors conformed to a standard pattern from which Tacitus departed. It is true that Livy in Books 21-45 employs a regular internal-external-internal pattern based on the consuls' movements between Rome and their provinces, with copious details on routine matters in the opening and closing domestic sections. However, Livy manipulates this framework freely for his own purposes, especially when incorporating Polybian material. Moreover, the pattern is characteristic only of his account of the Middle Republic: the annual narratives of Books 1-10 do not conform to it, and Livy probably abandoned it when dealing with events from the Social War on. It seems likely that the annual narratives of most of Livy's predecessors were varied and informal, like those of Livy Books 1-10, and this is corroborated by fragments of Claudius Quadrigarius and Sallust's Histories. Livy probably derived his mid-republican pattern from Valerius Antias: it will have been an innovatory feature of his work, based on documentary research, especially in the archives of the senate. Assessment of Tacitus' handling of his annual narratives should take account of the wide range of models available to him within the annalistic tradition.
By comparison with historians today, Roman historical writers had little freedom to decide what to write about and how to organize their material. For those who aspired to write full-dress Roman history the choice was largely made by the tradition in which they worked. They could, if they wished, write a monograph, normally on a war. Alternatively, they would follow the majority of their predecessors in writing annalistically, and in that case their subject matter was clearly defined as the deeds of the Roman people, at home and at war (domi militiae), arranged by consular years. The aspiring annalistic historian had merely to decide which of the two main branches of that tradition he should join - whether, like Livy, to take as his subject the whole history of the Roman people from the origins to their own time, or, like Tacitus, to confine himself to a limited period of relatively recent history.
Their handling of the formal requirements of the genre is therefore a topic of central importance for the understanding of writers working within the Roman annalistic tradition. It is accordingly surprising that there has been comparatively little detailed study of how such historians shaped their material within the framework of the consular year. The most important contribution is Judith Ginsburg's excellent monograph on Tacitus, which mainly confines itself to the first six books of the Annals (Ginsburg 1981). Regrettably, there has been nothing comparable on Livy. Studies of Livy's compositional techniques, like those of Burck (1934, 1950) and Luce (1977), have focused primarily on the shaping of individual books and groups of books and deal only incidentally with his treatment of the consular year. The main reason for this neglect is, I suspect, the general assumption that there is no problem to be examined, that we understand perfectly well how Livy handled the consular year. In what follows I hope to dispel this complacency and to show that received ideas on the matter are badly in need of revision.
The generally accepted view may be summarized as follows.[1] Livy, it is held, organizes his annual narratives on a standard pattern structured round the consuls' movements, with a central section of external events sandwiched between opening and closing domestic sections, and these domestic sections include detailed accounts of various recurrent topics, some of a ceremonial character. This standard pattern is perceived as playing an important part in setting the tone of Livy's work: although it was monotonous and much of the recurrent material was jejune, it made an appeal to Roman tradition, emphasized the regularity of Rome's constitutional processes and served to lower the tension between the great episodes. Livy, it is supposed, took the pattern over from his annalistic predecessors, and it has usually been thought that it derived ultimately from the Annales Maximi, the record of events kept by the pontifex maximus. Until recently it was held that the full impact of the Annales Maximi on the historical tradition followed their publication by P. Mucius Scaevola in the 120's, but Frier (1979) has refuted the theory that, when Scaevola stopped the keeping of the record, he also undertook its publication.[2]
This view of traditional annalistic practice, as exemplified by Livy, is adopted by Ginsburg and plays an important part in her argument.[3] Tacitus' methods, as she well shows, are quite different from those she attributes to Livy. Livy, she holds, adhered to chronological order and faithfully recorded recurrent domestic events, whereas Tacitus sometimes departs sharply from chronological order and reports routine items only when it suits him. Moreover, while he sometimes uses Livy's internal-external-internal pattern, Tacitus also deploys a variety of other patterns for the ordering of internal and external sections within the annual narratives. Tacitus, Ginsburg concludes, was adhering to the annalistic form only to subvert it. Annalistic form was traditionally associated with the Republican past, but in his hands it served to demonstrate the hollowness of the façade of republican government in the early principate.
I have no quarrel with Ginsburg's analysis of Tacitus' selection and ordering of his material or with her demonstration of the way in which he used these techniques to reinforce his historical interpretation. However, I hope to show that her conception of Livy's practice and of the annalistic tradition needs reconsideration.
Let us begin by looking at Livy's methods in the later extant books, namely Books 21-45, covering the years 218-167. As examples, analyses of Livy's narratives of three years from the fourth decade, 193, 189 and 184, are given in Appendix 1 below. Each of these sample narratives exhibits some of the principal features which have customarily been identified as characteristic of the 'annalistic form', and the same is true of all the annual narratives in Books 21-45. For each year covered in these books the activities of the consuls provides a chronological and structural framework, from their entry into office, which at this period took place on 15 March, and their early activity in Rome, to their departure to their provinces and activity there, and finally to the return of one or both consuls to Rome and the election of their successors. A number of routine topics regularly figure in the domestic sections of these annual narratives. For virtually every year Livy supplies information on the initial disposition of provinces and armies and on the election of consuls and praetors. Other topics which frequently appear include the reporting and expiation of prodigies, the games and other activities of the aediles, and the death and replacement of priests. Prodigies are usually reported in the opening domestic section, as having been dealt with before the consuls' departure, while the notices about the aediles and the priests usually occur at the end, out of chronological sequence, as further events occurring eo anno.
Livy's practice is, nevertheless, a good deal more flexible than some modern accounts suggest. There is plenty of variety even within those parts of the annual narratives which derive from his annalistic sources, and Livy uses this material freely to serve his own compositional purposes.[4]
Levene (1993) has recently shown how much variation there is in the selection, location and treatment of the prodigy notices. He tends, I think, to underestimate the extent to which these variations may derive from Livy's sources, but he must be right in explaining at least some of them as narrative devices of Livy himself. Study of other categories of routine material would yield similar results.[5] The notices of the deaths and replacement of priests may serve as an example. These are not always confined to the end-of-year location and are sometimes linked to a broader theme, as when the deaths of three pontifices at Cannae are grouped with other consequences of the disaster (23.21.7) or priestly deaths form part of a pestilence narrative (41.21.8-9). The bald death notice is occasionally elaborated, as for Fabius Maximus, who is accorded a laudatory obituary (30.26.7-10), or for Q. Fulvius Flaccus, of whose death we are given grim details (42.28.10-12). Livy gives a nearly complete record of changes to the pontifical college, but a number of deaths and appointments of augurs and rather more of decemviri sacris faciundis must have been omitted.[6] Between 196/5 (33.42.1-6, 44.3) and 184/3 (39.45.8-46.1) there are no priestly notices, except for the appointment of Q. Fabius Pictor (the historian's son) as Flamen Quirinalis, only mentioned à propos of his election to the praetorship (37.47.8). This lengthy gap must owe something to authorial choice as well as the accidents of mortality.
Although some years do fall into a simple internal-external-internal pattern, the alternation between internal and external events is often more complex even within the sections deriving wholly from annalistic sources. Accounts of developments in war zones sometimes break into the opening domestic section before the consuls' departure.[7] Sometimes the scene shifts back to Rome during their absence.[8] Reports of one or both consuls' activities in their province sometimes dwindle almost to vanishing point.[9] Livy's account of the year 193 (see Appendix 1) is an extreme example of what Luce (1977, 52) has termed 'interlocking' structure.
Some events are reported as occurring simply eo anno, but most purport to be narrated in chronological sequence. Sometimes Livy gives precise dates or (more rarely) intervals, but usually he just gives vague indicators of time (e.g. principio anni, ea aestate, exitu prope anni) or links events by loose temporal connectives (e.g. per eos dies, sub idem tempus, inde). All this serves to convey the impression that the narrative is moving through the busy and varied events of the Roman year, but this is to some extent an illusionistic effect. In the sections deriving from annalistic sources, we seldom have the evidence to control Livy's chronology, but, when we do, we are sometimes able to puncture the illusion, revealing Livy as ready to invent chronological links or displace events within the narrative when it suited him.[10] Two of our sample years supply examples. Calendars show that the shrine of Victoria Virgo was dedicated on 1 August 193, less than half way through the consular year, but Livy mentions the dedication near the end of his account of the year (35.9.6). This in itself is not misleading, for the only explicit indication of time Livy gives for the dedication is that it occurred 'in the same days' as the procurement of some prodigies, which are themselves reported merely as occurring eo anno (35.9.2-5). However, one may doubt whether there was any basis for the chronological link between the prodigies and the dedication, and in any case, it tells the reader nothing, since the prodigies are undated.[11] For 189 Livy reports the foundation of Bononia and the triumphs of L. Cornelius Scipio and L. Aemilius Regillus in the opening domestic section, yet he himself supplies the dates of these events, all of which occurred near the end of the consular year (37.57.7-8, 58.3-59.6).[12] His reason for extending the opening section so far was evidently to get the triumphs of Scipio and Regillus out of the way before narrating the activity of their successors in the command against Antiochus.[13] A false link to another domestic event slips in: Regillus' triumph is said to occur at the same period (per eos dies) as the censorial elections, but these must in fact have happened earlier, since Livy later reports the censors' activity during the year (37.57.9-58.2; 38.28.1-4).
It was from one or more of his Roman annalistic predecessors that Livy drew the chronological sequence which gave him the structure of his annual narratives in Books 21-45. However, much of his material in these books came from sources of a different kind, and it was above all this blending of material from such diverse sources that gave his history of the period its novel character. Books 21-30 are dominated by the great campaign narratives of the Second Punic War, much of them taken from Coelius Antipater's monograph on the war and from Polybius, whom, in my heterodox view, he used directly from Book 21 on. In Books 31-45 their place is taken by the copious material which Livy drew from Polybius on the Greek East. Now Polybius' history was itself organized annalistically, but his years began in the autumn and were subdivided by regions. Incorporating material from this work into his own structure based on the consular year posed considerable problems for Livy. To cope with these problems, he devised a range of strategies, which have been well analysed by Luce (1977).
The chronological indications with which Livy links Polybian to annalistic sections are frequently misleading. Thus when, as he often does, Livy starts a Polybian section with a reference to winter, he sometimes correctly brings out which winter is intended (e.g. 33.27.6), but elsewhere conveys the impression that the events took place a year later than their true date (32.32.1 ff; 35.13.4 ff). Notoriously, Livy implies that Galba and Villius campaigned in Macedonia during their consulships in 200 and 199 respectively, whereas their campaigns actually took place a year later.[14] Livy links his account of the triumphs of L. Scipio and L. Regillus, which, as we saw above, occurred towards the end of the consular year 189, with his Polybian narrative of their successors' arrival in Asia by the words eodem fere tempore (37.60.1), but in reality he has reverted at this point to the early part of the year. These and other similar chronological misstatements have earned Livy a good deal of criticism, and he clearly did not find chronology easy.[15] However, the main reason why such false chronologies occur so frequently is surely not incompetence, but the fact that chronological accuracy was not of great importance to him. Livy was more concerned in Books 31-45 with conveying the impression of the interweaving of Eastern and other events.
Only five year narratives in these books contain no Eastern material (and one of these is lacunose), and several have two Eastern sections.[16] The majority of the Eastern passages are located in the central external section of the annual narratives, but Eastern material occurs in other locations as well. In several of the year narratives of the 190's Livy interrupts the opening or closing domestic sections with an Eastern passage.[17] For 193 and 192 he brings the final domestic section to what Levene (1993, 85) has called a 'false close', and then adds Eastern material pointing ahead to the coming war with Antiochus (35.12-19, 42-51).[18] For the years 185-181 Livy develops a new technique by which a report of Eastern embassies at Rome at the start of the year leads into an extended Eastern section, and this serves to unfold the story of the last years of Philip.[19]
As Luce (1977, 3-9) has shown, Livy planned Books 31-45 as a single span, whose principal theme was the defeat of Macedon and the extension of Roman supremacy over the Greek East. The wide range of techniques which he deployed for interweaving Eastern and Western events all served to emphasize the primacy of the Eastern theme. The framework of the consular year which Livy took over from his Roman source or sources divided events according to the traditional polarities of domi and militiae - civil and military affairs. Livy in effect superimposed a new set of polarities: East and West. This becomes explicit in the remarkable narrative for 184, which opens with an extended Greek and Macedonian section and then returns to make a new beginning for the other events of the year (see Appendix 1).
Thus, to my mind, even for Books 21-45 the contrast which Ginsburg draws between Livy and Tacitus is too sharp. It is true that throughout those books Livy's annual narratives are structured round the chronological sequence of the consular year and include a good deal of routine domestic detail. But Livy manipulates this framework with a much freer hand than Ginsburg suggests and makes it serve his narrative purposes.
In Books 21-45, then, Livy took over a standard pattern from one or more of his annalistic sources but deployed it flexibly, notably in the way in which he combined it with Polybian material. This gives his account considerable diversity, but the underlying framework is nonetheless unmistakeably present. The consuls' movements between Rome and their provinces provide a chronological structure, ensuring that the main accounts of domestic events generally come at the beginning and end of the year, and these domestic sections contain extensive routine material. It is commonly implied that Livy used the same structure for the annual narratives in the rest of his work. 'We find this pattern in any book of Livy', wrote McDonald in what is perhaps the classic statement of the orthodox view of the 'annalistic form'. We must now consider the validity of this claim.[20]
McDonald's statement is patently not true for Book 1, on the kings, for which Livy does not use an annalistic framework at all. But is it true for Books 2-10? If we read these books without preconceptions, the answer must be negative.[21]
From Book 2 on Livy's narrative does provide an annalistic record of the civil and military affairs of the Roman people arranged by the years of office of the chief magistrates. This is announced in programmatic fashion at the beginning of Book 2, associating the transition to the annalistic mode with the establishment of political liberty (2.1.1): liberi iam hinc populi Romani res pace belloque gestas, annuos magistratus ... peragam ('Henceforth I shall recount the achievements of the now free Roman people, their annual magistrates ....'). Only at two points in Books 2-10 does Livy not record the year transitions, namely the Coriolanus saga, where he omits the consuls of 490 and 489 (2.34-9), and the anarchy preceding the Licinio-Sextian reforms, in which for a quinquennium only plebeian magistrates are said to have been elected (6.35.10). The significance of the latter case is well brought out by Kraus (1994, 281): 'Without (annual magistrates) there can be no historiographical narrative .... By eliminating the authorities by whom time is measured the tribunes effectively take control of narrative authority as well.'[22]
There are, however, striking differences between the annual narratives of Books 2-10 and those of Books 21-45. In important respects the first decade year narratives do not conform to the pattern familiar from the later books. Indeed, they do not exhibit a standard pattern at all.
Elections are frequently noticed, but the other recurrent domestic topics which get such detailed treatment in the later books play much less part in the first decade. It is true that the machinery and responsibilities of the Roman state in the period covered by the first decade were much simpler than later, and so there was no occasion for such detailed information on provinces and armies. However, this explanation cannot account for the fact that only twenty year narratives in Books 2-10 yield prodigy reports, with many of those being much more integrated into the surrounding narrative than in the later books.[23] Deaths of priests are reported only twice, each time in pestilence narratives, while it is only in Book 10 that we start to get reports of aediles' activities comparable to those in the later books.[24]
It is true that many of the year narratives in these books do purport to narrate events in chronological sequence, and it is not uncommon for us to find narratives which offer in embryonic form a pattern not unlike that found in the later books. Many year narratives end with reports of elections. An account of a campaign may open with information on the sharing of commands between the consuls or consular tribunes and on the conduct of the levy and close with the commander's return in triumph. A number of the year narratives consist of accounts of campaigns followed by notices of internal events which took place in the same year. Year narratives of this type are sometimes heavily compressed, as for 332 (8.17.5-12), sometimes relatively lavish, as for several years of the Third Samnite War in Book 10.[25]
However, many of the year narratives of these books conform to quite different patterns. There is, for example, what one might call the minimalist model: heavily compressed notices which merely list a few items in a sentence or two, with little or no attempt to establish a chronological or thematic sequence.[26] Twice Livy merely reports that nothing worth mentioning happened.[27]
The extreme variety of the year narratives is in fact one of the hallmarks of the first decade. The amount of space accorded to individual years varies hugely: Livy passes rapidly over some years and sometimes over a whole series of years in order to make space available for extended treatment of key episodes. Livy feels under no obligation to report both internal and external events under each year, and for many years only a single topic is mentioned. When he does include both internal and external sections, there is no set order of presentation. In the first pentad, where the relationship between internal discord and external threats is a key theme, the narratives of individual years sometimes switch repeatedly between domestic and external settings. By contrast, the second pentad is heavily dominated by external events.[28]
To illustrate some of these points I give an analysis of Book 4 below as Appendix 2. This book covers 42 years, the longest span of any of Books 2-10. No year gets very extended treatment, but the narrative alternates between episodes of moderate length and highly compressed passages. A number of the year narratives deal with just one topic, and twice a single topic extends over two years (440-39, 417-6). By Roman standards there was comparatively little warfare in these years, and so many of the year narratives deal only with internal affairs, although the book closes with two years for which only external events are recorded (405-4). Several of the year narratives which include both internal and external events fall into an internal-external-internal pattern (443, 432, 409, 406), but a variety of other patterns also occur.[29] Since, on Livy's view, elections were highly controversial in this period, a good deal of space is devoted to them. There is, however, only a modest number of notices of other domestic administrative matters.[30]
Thus the year narratives of Books 2-10 do not conform even in rudimentary fashion or as a norm to the standard pattern for the year narratives which we know from Livy's later extant books, with its regular internal-external-internal structure based on the consuls' movements and copious routine domestic detail. There was in fact no standard pattern to the year narratives in this part of his work. Traces of the pattern familiar from the later decades begin to appear in the Third Samnite War narratives in Book 10, and no doubt it emerged as standard in the course of the lost second decade.
The difference in the structure of Livy's year narratives for the Early and for the Middle Republic is obviously related to the discrepancy in their scale. The Middle Republic narratives are generally extended accounts covering a wide variety of topics, whereas those for the Early Republic are usually much more modest in their size and range. There are a number of reasons for these differences in the scale and structure of the year narratives for the two periods.
One factor is the scope of Livy's work. He must have decided from the outset to allot less space to the early history of Rome, and this obliged him to select and compress his material much more than for later periods. Comparison with the parallel account of Dionysius reveals numerous occasions where Livy must have shortened what he found in his sources. It has often been held that his brief notices of events derive, albeit indirectly, with little alteration from the Annales Maximi, but this is a questionable assumption, and their compression may often owe much to Livy himself. However, there is no reason to think that a standard pattern like that of Livy's later books could be found in any of his predecessors, and so the explanation for its absence must be sought mainly in the nature of the available material.
The Republic's business was itself less complex in the early period than in the Middle Republic when the Romans had imperial responsibilities and were commonly fighting on several fronts at once. In addition, the quantity of archival material available must have been much smaller. Livy himself evidently consulted only earlier historical writers, but the chronological structure and the wealth of domestic detail which he provides for the Middle Republic must derive ultimately from archival sources, exploited by one or more annalistic intermediaries and with a good deal of distortion and invention creeping in in the process.[31] It is likely enough that such material was preserved in increasing quantity from about 300 BC on.[32] It may be, as has often been suggested, that the Annales Maximi became more detailed from about that time. However, the Annales Maximi were at most only one of the archival sources from which Livy's Middle Republican material derived. Much of it is cast in the form of reports of the decisions of the senate, and the record of senatorial decrees was probably the most important archival source.[33] It may well be that few or no senatorial decrees survived from the period covered by the first decade.
We must now go on to enquire how long Livy continued to conform to the standard pattern established for the Middle Republic year narratives in the lost books from 46 on. The answer to this question is largely a matter of speculation, although some help is afforded by the brief summaries of the individual books in the Periochae. Study of the Periochae for the extant books shows that they are generally accurate on the assignment of events to books but sometimes re-arrange events within books.[34]
For the period 167-91 BC, covered in Books 46-70, Livy's year narratives probably continued to conform to his mid-republican pattern. In the later second century internal discord will once again have played a larger part in his account, and the activity of the Gracchi and Saturninus was accorded extensive treatment. However, there was as yet no fundamental change in the workings of the Roman state.
The outbreak of the Social War in 91 B.C. came nearly half way through Livy's work. From now on the scale of the narrative became much ampler, particularly for the periods of civil war: the remaining books (71-142) covered just 84 years. In view of this change of scale and still more the nature of the subject matter, the structure of Livy's annual narratives must now have undergone radical modification. Livy doubtless continued to record routine administrative items, although with some changes: for example, traditional prodigy reports will have become less frequent, since expiation appears to have declined in the Late Republic, and Livy himself represented them as redolent of antiquity.[35] However, the standard internal-external-internal pattern based on the consuls' movements would henceforth have been quite unsuited to the character of Livy's material.
Livy devoted no less than twenty books (Books 71-90) to the period from the outbreak of the Social War to the death of Sulla in 78 and the ensuing revolt of Lepidus. Most of this ample narrative was taken up with the internecine warfare in Rome and Italy and the conflict with Mithridates in the East. Republican institutions were in disarray in those years, and it would have been wholly inappropriate, and indeed impossible, to retain the old regular pattern for the annual narratives. Moreover, there are indications that in this part of his work Livy may have permitted himself, probably for the first time, to depart occasionally from the strict annalistic principle to narrate in a single section events taking place in one region over two or more years.[36] Book 90, which was otherwise concerned with events of 78-77, seems to have included a flashback of the Sertorian war in Spain from c. 80.[37] The Periochae of Books 79-83 suggest that Livy may have used the same technique on a more extended scale in narrating the Italian and Eastern events of 87-84.[38]
A superficial stability returned between Sulla's death and the renewal of civil war in 49, and the Periochae indicate that for this period Livy adhered once again to the strict annalistic principle, dividing the campaigns of Pompey, Caesar and others into annual sections. However, changes in administrative practice will have prevented Livy from reverting to the old internal-external-internal pattern based on the consuls' movements between Rome and their provinces, for the consuls now spent most or all of their year of office in Rome, and the elections were normally held in July, in the middle rather than near the end of the consular year (which since 153 had begun on 1 January).[39] For many of these years Livy may have contented himself with a single urban section.
All semblance of republican order collapsed once again in 49, and for much of the ensuing period of civil war and despotism (again narrated by Livy on a very ample scale) Rome and the republican political institutions played only a peripheral role. Livy could, if he chose, have reverted to a more traditional narrative mode to recount Augustus' new order, but how far he did so we cannot say. The meagre Periochae of the Augustan books are concerned mainly with external events.[40]
From Book 2 on Livy's work was a record of the domestic and external affairs of the Roman people arranged by the years of office of the chief magistrates. Although his later books charted both the collapse of political liberty and a corresponding reduction in the magistrates' importance, he doubtless continued to organize his material in this way to the end of his work, noting the transition to the new consuls and narrating events under their consular year, with only occasional departures from this strict annalistic principle. However, the foregoing discussion has, I hope, shown that the character and structure of Livy's annual narratives varied considerably between the different parts of his work. One factor making for change was Livy's use of different sources and the nature of the material available to his sources. However, the most important factor was the nature of the events themselves: the vast changes in the fortunes of the Roman people had their necessary counterpart in the structure of Livy's annual record.
The standard pattern for the annual narrative which is familiar to us from Books 21-45, with its underlying internal-external-structure based on the consular year and wealth of routine detail in the opening and closing domestic sections, was not, as is commonly supposed, a norm which Livy attempted to observe throughout his work. It was rather a distinctive feature of Livy's account of the period from the early third century to the Social War, and so of about two-fifths of his 142 books. Its adoption for his account of the Middle Republic helped him to convey the special character of that period, in which Rome's affairs were more complex than they had been in the early centuries and the republican system was more stable than in both the earlier and later periods. The collapse of republican order from 91 BC on was reflected in the narrative structure.
Livy took over his annual pattern for the Middle Republic, with its regular chronological structure centred on the consuls' movements and mass of routine domestic detail, from one or more of his predecessors. In origin it was a literary creation. Although it must have been based on documentary research, the archival material did not supply the pattern. As we have already noticed, the usual view that the pattern derived from the Annales Maximi probably exaggerates its importance as a source, and in any case it disregards the likely character of the pontifical record. As Cicero (de Orat. 2.52) and Servius (Aen. 1.373) tell us, the pontifex maximus kept the record on a whitened board. From these boards it must have been transferred to a more compact and durable format.[41] According to Servius, the pontifex maximus 'had been accustomed to note down events worthy of record which happened at home and at war, on land and on sea, day by day' (digna memoratu notare consueuerat domi militiaeque, terra marique gesta per singulos dies). Thus the pontifical record probably consisted of a series of notices of events, recorded simply in the order in which they occurred (or the pontifex maximus learned of them) with no grouping by topic or distinction between domestic and external matters.
The annalist who first established the pattern not only undertook a good deal of archival research, but also imposed thematic and chronological order on the results. Two further, related questions now arise: to which writer should this considerable achievement be credited, and from which source or sources did Livy himself derive the pattern? Some may regard this as excessively speculative, but I think that these questions can be answered.
The first history of Rome was written in Greek by Q. Fabius Pictor at the close of the third century, and over the following half century three further Roman histories in Greek appeared, by L. Cincius Alimentus, C. Acilius and A. Postumius Albinus. Fabius Pictor's is the best known of these histories, but the character even of this work is obscure and vigorously disputed.[42] It has often been supposed that Fabius' history was not organized by consular years at all, at least for the early Republic. This has been contested by Frier (1979, 255 ff), who identifies Fabius as the originator of 'annalistic form'. We have in fact virtually no evidence on the economy of Fabius' work (no book numbers survive). However, it seems most unlikely that either Fabius or his immediate successors will have served up extensive reports of routine domestic procedures in a work written in Greek and surely designed at least partly for Greek readers.
The first history of Rome in Latin was Cato's highly individual Origines. The early Republic was either treated very briefly or passed over altogether. There is no indication that Cato's account of the period from the First Punic War on, which occupied Books 4-7 of the Origines, was organized annalistically, and a fragment (77 P) records his disdain for the trivial matters such as high corn prices and eclipses which were to be found in the Annales Maximi.[43]
Other Roman histories in Latin followed later in the second century. The earliest was perhaps that of Cassius Hemina, and for him too there is no firm evidence of annalistic organization. The first Roman historian whom we know for certain to have organized his work by the years of office of the chief magistrates is L. Calpurnius Piso and very likely he was the first to have done so consistently throughout his account of the Republic. The annalistic structure of his work is shown both by the way in which it is cited by later writers and by a number of fragments giving a consular date (24, 36, 39 P).[44] However, although Piso doubtless exploited archival sources, it is unlikely that he was the originator of Livy's Middle Republic pattern, for he wrote on too small a scale: citations show that he covered the period from 304 to 158 in just four books.[45] The same objection applies to Cassius Hemina, who took only four books to reach the Second Punic War.
One late second century historian of Rome did write at greater length, namely Cn. Gellius, whose work appears to have been on a more ample scale than that of Livy himself: he had already reached Book 33 by 216 BC (fr. 26) and his cited book numbers go up to 97 (fr. 29). This obscure writer is thus a possible candidate to be the originator of the annual pattern for the Middle Republic used by Livy. However, Livy can hardly have derived it from Gellius directly: since Livy never cites him, it is unlikely that he made much use of his work and may well not have consulted it at all. Moreover, other possible explanations are available for the huge scale of Gellius' work: it may simply be the result of rhetorical invention and elaboration.[46]
Livy must, therefore, have taken his annual pattern for the Middle Republic from one or more of the first century annalists, and this narrows the choice to Valerius Antias and Claudius Quadrigarius, the only such writers cited by Livy in Books 21-45. It is usually supposed that Valerius' and Claudius' works were broadly similar in character and that both organized their year narratives on the pattern with which we are familiar from the later extant books of Livy. In the heyday of Quellenforschung it was generally held that Livy switched between these sources with no radical alteration to the character of his narrative.[47] Scholars such as Kahrstedt (1913) made elaborate attempts to attribute individual sections to their source on the basis of minor discrepancies. Klotz argued instead that Livy used a single main annalistic source over several books: in his view Livy followed Valerius for Books 31-38 and then switched to Claudius out of disgust at Valerius' treatment of the Trials of the Scipios.[48] Such theories have now been discredited, and it is widely recognized that Livy is unlikely to have operated so mechanically and may not always have confined himself to a single main source.[49] Yet it is still generally accepted that Valerius' and Claudius' works were broadly alike.[50]
It is, however, unlikely in principle that the two works were as similar as is supposed, and what little we know about them suggests that they were not. Valerius' work began with the origins of Rome, but Claudius seems to have taken the original step of starting with the Gallic Sack.[51] Claudius found a distinctive source in his second-century predecessor C. Acilius.[52] Transmitted book numbers suggest that Valerius wrote on a more ample scale than Claudius: the episode of the foedus Mancinum in 137 figured in Book 9 of Claudius (fr. 73) and in Book 22 of Valerius (fr. 57), and only a few of Valerius' additional books can have been devoted to the early period omitted by Claudius. Fronto singled out Claudius' style for praise, saying that he wrote lepide, but criticized Valerius for writing invenuste.[53] Fronto's friend Aulus Gellius shared his taste for Claudius and gives a number of verbatim extracts, which reveal him to have been an attractively simple and vivid writer.[54]
One of Gellius' extracts happens to include a transition to a new consular year. The passage recounts the famous meeting of the great Fabius with his son when the latter was consul in 213 (fr. 57 P = Gell. 2.2.13). It opens as follows:
Deinde facti consules Sempronius Graccus iterum Q. Fabius Maximus, filius eius, qui priore anno erat consul. Ei consuli pater proconsul obuiam in equo uehens uenit neque descendere uoluit, quod pater erat ....
Then were made consuls Sempronius Gracchus for the second time and Quintus Fabius Maximus, the son of the man who was consul the previous year. His father, as proconsul, came to meet that consul riding on a horse and did not want to dismount, because he was his father ....
Claudius passes straight from the younger Fabius' election to the story of their meeting. However, the meeting took place after the consul Fabius' arrival in his province, and thus in Livy's narrative, in his usual manner, it is separated from the notice of his election by a chapter of information on administrative arrangements at the end of the old and start of the new year, as follows:
24.43.5-6 Election of Fabius and Gracchus and of the praetors for 213
24.43.7-8 Games in 214
24.43.9-44.6 Entry into office of consuls of 213; provinces and armies
24.44.7-8 Prodigies expiated
24.44.9-10 Departure of consuls for their provinces. Pater filio legatus ad Suessulam in castra uenit. Cum obuiam filius progrederetur ...
Thus Claudius handled this year transition in a fashion quite different from the standard pattern used by Livy for the Middle Republic. A single passage cannot in itself be conclusive, since it might be untypical. However, it seems unlikely that an annalist whose year transitions were normally a record of administrative formalities would have treated such matters with the cavalier disregard which Claudius shows here. Thus, in the light of this passage and the other considerations about the two authors noted above, we should in my view conclude that it was only Valerius, and not Claudius, who organized his annual narratives for the Middle Republic on the uniform pattern which Livy took over. I suspect that Claudius, and probably also earlier annalists such as Piso, treated the period in a manner much more like Livy's first decade, with its lack of fixed pattern for the annual narratives and less comprehensive coverage of routine domestic affairs.
Valerius Antias was thus Livy's source both for the bulk of his domestic material on the Middle Republic and for the chronological framework of the consular year. Livy will, of course, have used other Roman authorities as well on domestic events, just as he drew on Polybius for events at Rome relating to the Greek East. Occasionally we may detect Livy blending domestic material from other annalists with his Valerian framework, as in his notices on dramatic festivals in the 190's.[55]
The question remains whether it was Valerius himself who did the archival research and subsequent shaping of material needed to produce annual narratives with the standard pattern and copious domestic detail which Livy took over from him or whether he himself was following Cn. Gellius, who, as we have seen, is the only possible candidate among earlier annalists. The fragments of Gellius' work contain nothing to suggest that he deserves the credit, but are too meagre to decide the question. I suspect, though, that, if Valerius was so heavily dependent on Gellius, Gellius' work would have had wider influence and Livy would have used him directly. Thus on balance it seems more likely that Valerius did the work himself.
If this conclusion is correct, Valerius Antias emerges as a much more remarkable figure than is commonly allowed: he was all too ready to distort and invent, but combined this with diligent research in the archives, which he then turned to creative use. It now becomes easier to comprehend Livy's heavy dependence on Valerius, despite the mistrust which he more than once expresses. Valerius, like Polybius, offered Livy a much more detailed account of the Middle Republic than was provided by the other annalists Livy consulted, and much of this account had at least the appearance of reliability.
In my view, then, the treatment of the consular year in the Roman annalistic tradition was not nearly as monotonously uniform as is customarily supposed. In the light of this analysis, Tacitus' handling of his annual narratives may appear not quite so novel as Ginsburg claimed. As always in assessing Tacitus' originality we are hampered by our almost complete ignorance of his direct predecessors, the first annalistic historians of the early principate. However, there is one further avenue which can be explored, namely the practice of Republican writers who belonged to the same branch of annalistic historiography as Tacitus, taking a limited period of recent history as their theme.
The earliest of them may have been C. Fannius, who reached the consulship in 122 with C. Gracchus' backing and then turned against him. All the dateable citations from his work concern contemporary events. His work is usually cited as annales, and so was presumably organized by consular years.[56]
Fannius' younger contemporary Sempronius Asellio almost certainly limited himself to recent history: he dealt with events of 133 (fr. 6 P: death of Tiberius Gracchus) in Book 5 and of 91 (fr. 11 P: death of Livius Drusus, the last dateable citation) in Book 14. Asellio served as a military tribune under Scipio Aemilianus at Numantia (Gell. 2.13.3), where he probably met Polybius. It is sometimes suggested that he began his history in 146, where Polybius stopped. Asellio echoed Polybius' conception of pragmatic history in the famous criticism of annales in his first book (frs. 1-2 P = Gell. 5.18). Writers of annales, he tells us (fr. 1), merely reported 'what happened and in which year it occurred' (quod factum quoque anno gestum sit), whereas those who, like him, sought to recount the res gestae of the Romans, aimed not only to tell what happened but also to explain the planning and reasoning behind it (quo consilio quaque ratione gesta essent). More follows in the same vein (fr. 2):
Scribere autem, bellum initum quo consule et quo confectum sit et quis triumphans introierit, et eo libro, quae in bello gesta sint, non praedicare autem interea quid senatus decreuerit aut quae lex rogatioue lata sit, neque quibus consiliis ea gesta sint, iterare: id fabulas pueris est narrare, non historias scribere. [57]
However, to write in that book under which consul a war was begun and completed, who entered in triumph and what happened in the war, but not to state what the senate decreed or which law or bill was passed or what the reasoning behind these actions was: that is to tell stories to boys, not to write history.
Asellio may have had Piso particularly in mind when making these criticisms. Since Piso covered republican history down to 158 in just six books and said something about every year of the Republic, many of his annual narratives must have been very brief. Asellio's objections would not have applied to the much fuller version of annales later developed by Antias, with its copious details of senatorial decisions.
We have no information about how Asellio organized his history. However, we should not infer from this polemic that he did not arrange it by years. That, after all, was how his mentor Polybius had organized his work.
The next Roman writer of recent history was L. Cornelius Sisenna, whose subject was the Social War and the ensuing civil wars.[58] His Historiae (the title is well attested) may, as has often been suggested, have been a continuation of Asellio's work. A fair number of fragments survive from this important work. A few of these deal with earlier events, particularly the Aeneas story (frs. 1-4 P): these probably come from the preamble or an excursus. One fragment (127 P) is concerned with Sisenna's arrangement of his material:
Nos una aestate in Asia et Graecia gesta litteris idcirco continentia mandauimus, ne uellicatim aut saltuatim scribendo lectorum animos impediremus.
I have treated together the events which occurred in Asia and Greece in a single summer, to avoid confusing readers by picking out items or hopping about.
It follows from this that Sisenna arranged his material by years, and within the year by regions. For other years he may have treated Asia and Greece as separate regions, but at least for this summer (probably 88 BC, when revolt from Rome spread from Asia to Greece) he found it preferable to treat them together. This arrangement by year and regions was consistent with established annalistic practice, though Sisenna may also have been influenced in this respect by Polybius.[59]
Next in this tradition come the Histories of Sallust, composed a generation after Sisenna's and very likely conceived as a continuation of his work. Here we are on much firmer ground, for about five hundred fragments survive from the five books of Sallust's Histories, many with book numbers.[60] The work's opening words (1.1) declared its scope precisely and in traditional annalistic terms as the civil and military deeds of the Roman people from 78 BC: res populi Romani M. Lepido Q. Catulo consulibus ac deinde militiae et domi gestas conposui ('I have compiled the military and civil history of the Roman people for the consular year of M. Lepidus and Q. Catulus, and for the years thereafter'). The fragments show that much of Book 1 was taken up with prefatory material, including a survey of the Social War and the ensuing civil wars, but thereafter the work consisted of an account of the period from 78 to 67 BC organized by consular years. Although the possibility cannot be excluded that for some minor wars Sallust chose to narrate together events of a single region over more than one year, it is clear that in general, and certainly for the major wars, he adhered to strict annalistic arrangement, assigning events to the appropriate year narrative.[61]
For the rest of the work we know little about how Sallust organized his year narratives, but portions of three bifolia, or double leaves, surviving from a palimpsest give us remarkable evidence for the structure of the closing section of Book 2 and the beginning of Book 3, covering the period from the end of 76 to early 74 BC. The relationship of the bifolia (of which the later two come from the same gathering) has been painstakingly reconstructed by scholars from Hauler to Perl, and the results may be tabulated as follows (using Maurenbrecher's numeration of the fragments, followed by McGushin's in brackets): [62]
2.42 (40) End of 76 BC; entry into office of consuls of 75.
About 200 characters missing.
2.43 (41) Despatch of quaestor P. Lentulus Marcellinus to Cyrene. About 200 characters missing.
2.45 (42) Consuls chased by plebs rioting over corn.
About 200 characters missing.
2.47 (44) Speech of Cotta
* * * * *
2.87 (69) Servilius Isauricus' campaign in Cilicia
Missing: equivalent of about 80 Teubner lines
2.92-3 (75-6) Operations of Pompey in Spain
Missing: equivalent of about 70 Teubner lines
2.98 (82) Letter of Pompey to the senate; reception of the letter at Rome at the start of 74 BC
Missing: equivalent of about 80 Teubner lines
3.5-6 (6-7) Operations of M. Antonius against pirates in the West
Sallust's account of the year 76 ends with obscure external events, and he then passes by an abrupt transition to the opening of the new year at Rome. The mention of the consuls of 75 leads not to administrative details, but to some characteristically mordant comments on their personalities (2.42 [40]):
* * * <apud> quem exercitus fuerat legionem misit dispecta uanitate, idque illi in sapientiam cesserat. Dein L. Octavius et C. Cotta consulatum ingressi, quorum Octavius languide et incuriose fuit, Cotta promptius sed ambitione tum ingenio largit.... cupiens gratia singulorum * * *
... who had commanded the army, sent one legion in spite of the contempt he felt for his lack of judgement, a gesture which had earned for him a reputation for wisdom. Then L. Octavius and C. Cotta entered upon their consulship. Of these, Octavius conducted himself in a careless and apathetic manner; Cotta was more quick to act, but was through ambition and by nature a briber, desirous of the favour of individuals.
Further domestic events follow, and in a very short space Sallust has reached the corn riot and the speech of the consul Cotta. Since the riot occurred when both consuls were escorting a candidate for the praetorship, this episode probably took place about June, shortly before the elections and half way through the consular year.[63] Thus in this opening section Sallust may have been grouping together notable domestic events of the year rather than attempting to follow a chronological sequence. Very likely this was the only domestic section in his narrative of the year.
A gap of indefinite length follows in which Sallust passed from domestic to external events. This missing portion included an account of the activity of the new governor C. Scribonius Curio in Macedonia, of which the opening has survived in a fragment (2.80 [60]) cited by Nonius Marcellus: [64]
Eodem anno in Macedonia C. Curio principio ueris cum omni exercitu profectus in Dardaniam, quibus potuit modis, pecunias Appio dictas coegit.
In the same year in Macedonia at the beginning of spring C. Curio set out for Dardania with his whole army, and collected by whatever means he could the payments agreed upon with Appius.
We may note that Sallust linked this section with what preceded it simply by eodem anno, without attempting to establish a more precise chronological relationship.
The fragments from the other two bifolia open with warfare in Cilicia and this is followed by operations by Pompey in Spain. It is usually supposed that this Spanish section dealt simply with winter events and that events in Spain earlier in the year had been treated separately in the missing portion before the section on Cilicia. The traditional basis for this view is the assumption that the three battles of Valentia, Sucro and Segontia took place in 75, evidently more than could be accommodated in the short gap between 2.87 (69) and 2.92 (75). However, Konrad (1995) has demonstrated that these battles should be dated to 76. Konrad still supposes that Sallust had two Spanish sections for 75, since he dates the first defections from Sertorius and the ensuing sieges of Pallantia and Calagurris to that year. This may be correct, but it seems to me impossible to decide with confidence between Konrad's chronology and the alternative of Frassinetti (1975), on which those events are dated to 74. On Frassinetti's view, there is no need to postulate two Spanish sections in Sallust's account of the year 75.
The supposed two Spanish sections for the year 75 were used by Perl as the basis for a wide-ranging theory about the structure of the Histories, namely that Sallust throughout divided his military narratives into summer and winter sections on the example of Thucydides.[65] This is a most implausible notion. There is no other evidence for such seasonal sections in the Histories, and an attempt to match a Thucydidean campaigning year based on the seasons with a consular year starting on 1 January would surely have proved impossibly cumbersome. If Sallust did include two Spanish sections in his account of the year 75, there is no need to adduce Thucydides in explanation. It would have been natural enough to divide the events of a particular region into two sections occasionally, when circumstances made it appropriate, and earlier Roman annalistic writers probably resorted to this device. Livy certainly did so, not only with Polybian but also with annalistic material, as in his account of the year 193, which contains two sections on warfare in both Spain and Liguria (see Appendix 1). A number of scholars have been attracted by the suggestion that the structure of Sallust's Histories was influenced by Thucydides, but no cogent arguments have been adduced in its support. [66] Structurally, the Histories belong firmly in the Roman annalistic tradition. In this work as in the monographs, Sallust owed much to Thucydides, but the debt was not in matters of structure but in style and thought. [67]
Although a short section is missing after 2.92-3 (75-6), this account of Pompey's Spanish operations evidently led into his celebrated letter to the senate demanding supplies. From this Sallust passes to the letter's reception at Rome at the start of the year 74 (2.98 [82] D):
Hae litterae principio sequentis anni recitatae in senatu. Sed consules decretas a patribus prouincias inter se parauere: Cotta Galliam citeriorem habuit, Ciliciam Octavius. Dein proxumi consules L. Lucullus et M. Cotta litteris nuntiisque Pompei grauiter perculsi, cum summae rei gratia tum ne exercitu in Italiam deducto neque laus sua neque dignitas esset, omni modo stipendium et supplementum parauere ....
This letter was read in the senate at the beginning of the following year. The consuls agreed among themselves on the provinces which had been allotted to them by the senate: Cotta took Cisalpine Gaul, Octavius Cilicia. Then their successors, L. Lucullus and M. Cotta, greatly disturbed by Pompeius' letter and messages, both because of the interest of the state and because they were afraid that, if he led an army into Italy, they themselves would have neither glory nor status, used every means to provide him with pay and reinforcements ....
The letter affords a neat transition back to Rome and the new consular year. However, Sallust rather confusingly prefaces his account of the response to the letter with a report of the share-out of provinces between C. Cotta and Octavius, the consuls of 75, which must surely have been arranged earlier. Sallust probably reserved his mention of the agreement until this point because of its relevance to the intriguing over commands which broke out early in 74, in the aftermath of Pompey's letter and with the renewed war against Mithridates in prospect. [68] The connection is pointed up by the parallelism which Sallust's language draws between the two pairs of consuls, with repetition of parauere and chiasmic arrangement of the names of the brothers Cotta. [69]
Firm conclusions about how Sallust organized his material can hardly be drawn from the fragmentary remains of one year narrative. Nonetheless, this evidence does give us some indications about his procedures. The basic principle was the grouping of events into regional sections. It is not clear to what extent, if at all, these were arranged to form a narrative which purported to show the progression of events through the consular year. If there were two Spanish sections for the year 75, this would imply some overall chronological progression. However, there may, as we have seen, have been only one Spanish section. There was probably only one domestic section for 75, and both 76 and 75 ended with external events. When dealing with domestic material, Sallust's concern was with politics and personalities, and he shows no interest in matters of routine administration. Such material is omitted altogether in what survives of the domestic section for 75, and the distribution of provinces between the consuls of that year is postponed to the following year narrative for political effect. The overall impression is of a writer handling his year narratives with a freedom and informality which contrasts markedly with the manner which Livy adopted from Valerius Antias for the Middle Republic.
If the arguments advanced above are correct, the handling of the consular year in the Roman historical tradition developed on broadly the following lines.
Piso, in the later second century, may have been the first historian of Rome to organize his account of the Republic on consistently annalistic principles. He doubtless drew his material not only from earlier historians but also from archival sources such as the pontifical record, supplemented by his own imagination. Among Piso's immediate successors and perhaps in response to his work, various trends can be discerned: Cn. Gellius wrote a history of Rome on a much more ample scale than Piso's, probably achieving this expansion mainly by rhetorical invention; Sempronius Asellio scorned annales in favour of recent history, although he may nonetheless have organized his material by years; L. Coelius Antipater wrote the first Roman historical monograph, on the Second Punic War.
Piso's year narratives, it may be surmised, followed no fixed pattern and varied between extended episodes and brief notices, whose style perhaps echoed that of the Annales Maximi themselves. Much the same was true of some of his first-century successors, such as Claudius Quadrigarius. However, the work of Valerius Antias constituted a major new departure. By diligent research in the archives, particularly of the senate, he amassed a good deal of new material, much of it concerned with matters of routine domestic administration and ceremonial, for the years from about 300 BC on. Valerius incorporated this into his work along with much distortion and invention and shaped it into a narrative with a regular, formal structure which purported to follow the progression of events through the consular year and in particular the consuls' movements between Rome and their provinces.
Livy used Valerius Antias' work as the framework for his own account of the Middle Republic, although he also drew on other annalists and introduced much material from Coelius and Polybius. His year narratives for the period exhibit the regular pattern and wealth of routine domestic detail which he took over from Valerius, but he also manipulated the pattern for his own purposes and in Books 31-45 transformed its character by combining it with extensive Polybian material on the Greek East. In the rest of Livy's work, his year narratives had a different character. Those for the Early Republic have no fixed pattern, and are probably closer in manner to those of Piso and Claudius. (Valerius' narratives for this period were probably much the same). We cannot tell how Livy organized his annual narratives for the period from the Social War on, but a number of factors will have ensured that they differed from those for the Middle Republic: the use of different sources, the still ampler scale of Livy's account, and above all the collapse of republican order and stability, of which the uniform pattern of Livy's third and second century year narratives had served as an emblem. v
Livy's work was the culmination of the long tradition of histories of Rome from the foundation. However, before Livy wrote, the alternative models of the monograph and the history of a limited recent period pioneered respectively by Coelius and Asellio had each found a great practitioner in Sallust. What survives of Sallust's Histories suggests that the year narratives in that work had a free and informal structure quite unlike the regular Valerian pattern.
When Tacitus came to write annalistic history, he undoubtedly devised his own ways of handling the annalistic form and made it serve his own purposes. However, he should not be thought of as reacting against a uniform traditional pattern. A wide range of models was available to him of how the annual narrative might be structured, most notably in Sallust's Histories, in the different phases of Livy's work and (the most obscure to us) in the earlier historians of the principate.
34.55.1-4 Principio anni, earthquakes and their expiation
34.55.6-56 Provinces and armies; bad news from Liguria leads to emergency measures; departure of consuls
34.57-59 Reception of eastern embassies, especially those from Antiochus [from Polybius' Res Italiae]
34.60-62 Embassy from Carthage reports Hannibal's despatch of Aristo and complains about Masinissa; Roman embassy sent out [largely Polybian]
35.1 Warfare in Spain principio anni
35.2 C. Flaminius, the praetor appointed to Hispania Citerior, fails to get additional troops in response to this news
35.3-5 The consuls' warfare against the Ligurians and Boii
35.6-7.1 Despatches from the consuls and resulting senatorial discussions
35.7.2-5 Measures to alleviate debt
(35.7.6 haec in Italia domi militiae acta. in Hispania ...)
35.7.6-8 Warfare by the praetors
35.8 Consul L. Cornelius Merula returns to hold elections; unsuccessfully seeks triumph
35.9.1 Censors close lustrum
35.9.2-5 Prodigies eo anno
35.9.6 Cato dedicates shrine of Victoria Virgo iisdem diebus [calendars give its dies natalis as kal. Aug.]
35.9.7-8 Foundation of Latin colony eodem anno
35.10.1-11 In exitu iam annus erat: election of consuls and praetors
35.10.11-12 Aedilitas insignis eo anno of Lepidus and Paullus: many pecuarii fined and public works constructed with the proceeds
35.11 Extremo eius anni, the consul Q. Minucius Thermus twice escapes from serious danger
35.12-13.3 Aetolian approaches to Antiochus, Philip and Nabis [from Polybius' Res Graeciae for 194/3]
35.13.4-19 Roman embassy to Antiochus; his war council. 13.4-5 ea hieme ... principio ueris ... implies that we have now moved into 192, and so there is no explicit reference to the consuls' entry into office at 35.20, but in fact this section is from Polybius' Res Asiae of 194/3
37.48-49 Rumours of setbacks in the East; Aetolian embassy rebuffed
37.50-51.7 Provinces and armies; dispute over flamen Quirinalis; departure of consuls and praetors
37.51.8-56 News of battle of Magnesia; embassies from L. Scipio, Antiochus and others; senatorial decisions on the peace settlement
37.57.1-6 Per eos dies report of defeat and death in Liguria of L. Baebius on way to Spain; successor sent
37.57.5-6 Victory of L. Aemilius Paullus
37.57.7-8 Eodem anno Bononia founded, a.d. iii. kal. Ian.
37.57.9-58.2 Eodem anno censorial elections
37.58.3-59 Per eos dies return and triumph of L. Aemilius Regillus (kal. Feb.) and L. Scipio (mens. intercal. pr. kal. Mart.), with supplicatio for Paullus between them
(from Polybius' Res Graeciae and Res Asiae for 190/89)
37.60.1 Eodem tempore et Cn. Manlius consul in Asiam et Q. Fabius Labeo praetor ad classem uenit [in fact doubling back to summer 189]
37.60.2-7 Naval activity of Q. Fabius Labeo
38.1-11 Events in Aetolia: the war there ended by consul M. Fulvius Nobilior
38.12-27 Cn. Manlius Vulso's Galatian campaign
38.28.1 Dum haec in Asia geruntur, in ceteris prouinciis tranquillae res fuerunt.
38.28.1-4 Activities of censors
38.28.4 Floods
38.28.5-34 Activity of Fulvius Nobilior, the Achaeans etc [from Polybius' Res Graeciae for first half of 189/8] [70]
38.35.1-4 Return of Fulvius; elections; prorogation of Fulvius and Manlius
38.35.4-6 Dedications eo anno by the consul Fulvius, by a Cornelius and by the aediles from fines on corn-hoarders. Games repeated
39.33 Returning Roman embassy and embassies from Philip and Greeks heard in senate principio ... anni; new Roman embassy despatched.
39.34-35.4 Activity of Philip; the Roman embassy's dealings with him
39.35.5-37.21 Developments in Achaea; the ambassador Ap. Claudius there
[This section is from Polybius' Res Italiae, Res Macedoniae and Res Graeciae for 185/4]
39.38 Romae principio eius anni, provinces and armies; envoys from Spanish commanders
39.39 Subinde, election of a suffect praetor abandoned after dispute over eligibility of flamen Dialis
39.40-41.4 Censorial elections
39.41.5 Departure of magistrates
39.41.5-7 Two praetors hold quaestiones into poisoning, conspiracies of shepherds, and Bacchanalia
39.42.1 Activity of the incoming commanders
39.42.2-4 Triumphs of returning commanders from Spain, following their victory in 185
39.42.5-44.9 Activity of the censors Cato and Valerius Flaccus
39.44.10 Colonies founded at Potentia and Pisaurum eodem anno
39.44.11 Consules eius anni nec domi nec militiae memorabile quicquam egerunt
39.45.1 Consular elections. (Names of praetors postponed after year break (at 45.2), as also replacement of augur (45.8))
Year Chapters
445 1-6 INTERNAL: disputes frustrate levy, resolved by granting
of patrician-plebeian intermarriage and introduction of
consular tribunes
444 7 INTERNAL: consular tribunes declared uitio creati and
replaced by consuls; renewal of treaty with Ardea; et
foris ... et domi otium
443 8 INTERNAL: institution of censorship
9-10.6 EXTERNAL: Roman intervention in Ardea
10.7-9 INTERNAL: triumph of consul Geganius; his colleague's
success in maintaining concordia
442 11 Colony to Ardea; pax domi forisque fuit et hoc et
insequente anno
441 12.1-5 INTERNAL: ludi; tribunician agitation
440 12.6-13.5 INTERNAL: corn crisis; Sp. Maelius aims at regnum
439 13.6-16.8 INTERNAL: Sp. Maelius put to death
438 17.1-6 EXTERNAL: Fidenae defects to Veii; Roman ambassadors
killed
17.7 INTERNAL: elections
437 18-20 War against Veii and Fidenae: consul wins costly
victory; Mam. Aemilius appointed dictator; Roman victory
in which Cossus, tribunus militum, kills king of Veii;
triumph and dedication of spolia opima; source conflict
over Cossus
436 21.1-2 EXTERNAL: raid on Veientine and Faliscan territory
21.3-5 INTERNAL: tribunician agitation; pestilence and
prodigies
435 21.6-22.6 EXTERNAL. Veii war continues: enemy raid up to walls of
Rome, but driven back; Fidenae captured
22.7 INTERNAL: Censors contruct uilla publica and hold census
434 23.1-3 Source conflict over magistrates
23.4-24.1 EXTERNAL: Etruscan assembly summoned, prompting Roman
appointment of Mam. Aemilius as dictator; other
Etruscans refuse to help Veii
24.2-25.1 INTERNAL: dictator passes law limiting censors' tenure;
elections
433 25.2-5 INTERNAL: pestilence and famine; temple vowed to Apollo
432 25.6 INTERNAL: end of pestilence and corn shortage
25.7-8 EXTERNAL: enemy meetings
25.9-14 INTERNAL: tribunician agitation over elections
431 26-29.6 War against Aequi and Volsci at the Algidus: disturbing
news from front leads to appointment of A. Postumius
Tubertus as dictator; his victory and triumph; some
report that he executed his son for leaving his post to
29.7 fight
29.8 INTERNAL: dedication of temple of Apollo
30.1 FOREIGN: first Carthaginian expedition to Sicily
INTERNAL: tribunician agitation over elections
430 30.1-2 EXTERNAL: Aequi granted indutiae; Volsci dispute amongst
themselves
30.3 INTERNAL: law about fines
429 30.4 Nihil dignum dictu actum
428 30.5-6 EXTERNAL: Veientine raids on Roman territory; consequent
Roman measures about Fidenae
30.7-11 INTERNAL: drought, leading to pestilence; novel
religious remedies spread, leading to ban
427 30.12-16 War declared against Veii; elections
426 31-34 War against Veii, joined by Fidenae: consular tribunes'
defeat leads to appointment of Mam. Aemilius as
dictator; his victory, capture of Fidenae and triumph
425 35.1-2 Indutiae granted to Veii and Aequi
424 35-36 INTERNAL: votive ludi celebrated; tribunician agitation
37.1-2 FOREIGN: Samnites capture Capua
423 37.3-42.2 War against Volscians. Negligence of consul C.
Sempronius Atratinus retrieved by cavalry officer Sex.
Tempanius. Their return home; tribunes attack Sempronius
and secure conviction for military negligence of M.
Postumius, consular tribune in 426. Elections
422 42.3-9 INTERNAL: tribunician prosecution of C. Sempronius (for
his conduct as consul 423) dropped
421 42.10-43.2 EXTERNAL: Consul Cn. Fabius easily defeats Aequi and
holds ovation on return
43.3-7 INTERNAL: tribunician agitation over plebeian
representation on increased quaestorship etc. prevents
elections
420 43.8-44.12 INTERNAL: interrex secures compromise permitting
election of consular tribunes and quaestors; C.
44.12 Sempronius (consul 423) fined; acquittal of Vestal eodem
anno
FOREIGN: Campanians capture Cumae
419 44.13-45.2 INTERNAL: slave conspiracy foiled
45.3-4
EXTERNAL: Aequi prepare war, joined by Labicani; Roman
embassy sent to Labici and Tusculum instructed to keep
watch
418 45.5-47.7 War against Aequi and Labicani. Consular tribunes'
disputes lead to appointment of Q. Servilius Priscus as
dictator. He defeats Aequi and captures Labici. Colony
to Labici
417- 47.7-48.16 INTERNAL: tribunes propose agrarian law, but thwarted by
416 tribunician veto. (N.B. two years narrated together)
415 49.1-6 Veii prevented from renewing war by Tiber flood. Raids
on Roman colony at Labici from Bola; Romans capture
Bola; tribunician proposal for colony there vetoed
414 49.7-50.8 Bola recaptured from Aequi by M. Postumius Regillensis.
He angers assembly and is murdered by troops on return
to camp. Interregnum
413 51.1-6 INTERNAL: inquiry into death of Postumius; popular
51.7-8 discontent
EXTERNAL: Romans take Ferentinum from raiding Volsci and
give it to Hernici
412 52.1-3 INTERNAL: tribunician agitation interrupted by
pestilence
411 52.4-8 INTERNAL: famine
410 53 Tribune's opposition to levy overridden. Arx Carventana
recovered from Volsci. Troops, denied booty, hostile at
consul's ovation
409 54-55.7 INTERNAL: plebeians elected to quaestorships; agitation
for election of consular tribunes and levy impeded until
concession made
55.8 EXTERNAL: campaign against Aequi and Volsci
56.1-3 INTERNAL: elections
408 56.4-57.12 Volscian war plans. Dictator appointed for the war at
Rome after dispute. Successful but unmemorable war.
Elections
407 58.1-5 EXTERNAL: exchange of embassies with Veii; Verrugo lost
to Volsci
406 58.6-14 INTERNAL: declaration of war against Veii proposed but
delayed by tribunes
59.1-10 EXTERNAL: campaign against Volsci; Anxur taken
59.10-60.9 INTERNAL: pay for soldiers introduced; war declared
against Veii
405 60.9-61.2 EXTERNAL: siege of Veii begun
404 61.3-11 EXTERNAL: siege of Veii continued; successful warfare
against Volsci
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An earlier version of this paper was delivered in a panel on Roman Historical Writing at the Classical Association Conference at Nottingham in April 1996. I have benefitted much from the comments made then and by Christina Kraus and David Levene on a subsequent draft. [Return to text]
[1] See e.g. McDonald (1957), 155-6; Walsh (1961), 30-1, 174-6, (1974), 23; Frier (1979), 270-4. Kraus (1994), 9-13, and Burck (1992), 50-2, take more nuanced views, noting variation in Livy's practice. On official notices in Livy see Packard (1969); Phillips (1974).[Return to text]
[2] Forsythe's defence (1994, 53-73) of the traditional view is unconvincing.[Return to text]
[3] For her view of Livy see especially Ginsburg (1981), 7, 29, 33-4, 53, 78-9, 84-6.[Return to text]
[4] In her notes Ginsburg concedes that Livy does vary his practice (Ginsburg 1981, 109 n.35, 111 n. 12, 117 n. 3), but she does not explore the extent and significance of this flexibility.[Return to text]
[5] Cf. Luce (1977), 191-2.[Return to text]
[6] For the membership of the priestly colleges in this period see Broughton (1951), especially 282-3, 393-4; Szemler (1972), 70 ff., 101 ff. The pontifical and augural colleges had nine members each, one fewer than the decemviri, but in Books 21-45 Livy reports the death of 21 pontifices, but only 13 augurs and 10 decemviri. The one pontifical change which Livy certainly omits is the death of Q. Fulvius Flaccus and appointment of C. Sempronius Tuditanus to his place between 207 and 196 (cf. Broughton 1951, 282, 338).[Return to text]
[7] E.g. 31.10.1-11.3; 34. 46.1; 35.1.1-12, 21.7-11; 37.57.5-6; 40.47-50.[Return to text]
[8] E.g. 35.6.1-7.5, 23-24; 36.21.6-11, 39.1-2 (doublet); 38.28.1-4.[Return to text]
[9] E.g. 32.7.7-8, 9.5, 26.1-3 (doublet); 37.46.10-47.2; 39.44.11, 56.3; 40.35.1; 42.26.1; 45.44.1.[Return to text]
[10] I cannot, however, go so far as Dr Kraus, who holds (pers. comm.) that the chronological indicators refer to 'textual' or 'narrative' rather than 'actual years'. They are surely to be taken literally - though not always seriously.[Return to text]
[11] For the calendar evidence see Inscriptiones Italiae 13.2.489; Briscoe (1981), 157. The dedication of the temple of Magna Mater in 191 is a comparable case: see Livy 36.36.3-4; Inscriptiones Italiae 13.2.438; Briscoe (1981), 274-5. The chronological link which Livy makes between that dedication and Scipio Nasica's games is probably false (contra Briscoe, who prefers to emend 36.37.1).[Return to text]
[12] The dates of the triumphs are also given by the Fasti Triumphales (omitting to state that Scipio's took place in an intercalary month): Inscr. Ital. 13.1.554.[Return to text]
[13] Cf. Luce (1977), 86-7.[Return to text]
[14] Livy 31.22.4-47.3, 32.3-6. Cf. Luce (1977), 59 ff., who seems unduly confident that Livy himself was not taken in.[Return to text]
[15] In the third decade a number of Polybian sections are assigned to the wrong year, for example those on the First Macedonian War, on which see Rich (1984).[Return to text]
[16] No Eastern material: 187, 186, 180, 177, 176 (lacuna). Two Eastern sections: 200, 196, 192, 191, 189, 171.[Return to text]
[17] Eastern events interrupting the opening domestic section: 31.14-18 (200); 33.27.6-35.12 (196); cf. the year 191, where an extended narrative of events in Greece and the consul Glabrio's campaign there (36.5-35) is followed by events at Rome before the departure of his colleague Scipio Nasica (36.36 ff.). Eastern events interrupting the closing domestic section: 33.38-41 (196); 36.41-45.8 (191).[Return to text]
[18] Two of Livy's accounts of the First Macedonian War also stood at the end of year narratives: 26.24-26.4 (211); 29.12 (205). In each case the reason is that the commander returned to assume the consulship for the following year.[Return to text]
[19] 39.23.5-29.3 (185: uniquely, the normal year opening material is omitted); 39.33-37 (184); 39.46.6-53 (183); 40.2.6-16.3 (182); 40.20-24 (181).[Return to text]
[20] McDonald (1957), 156.[Return to text]
[21] On annalistic form in the first decade see especially Kraus (1994), 9-13. Kraus recognizes some of Livy's diversity of practice, but analyses it in terms of divergences from a norm.[Return to text]
[22] Livy shows no knowledge of the 'dictator years', on which see Drummond (1978).[Return to text]
[23] MacBain (1982), 82-6.[Return to text]
[24] Priests: 3.7.6 (463); 3.32.3 (453). Aediles: 10.23.11-13 (296); 10.31.9 (295); 10.47.3-4 (293).[Return to text]
[25] See especially 10.16-23 (296) and 10.38-47 (293). [Return to text]
[26] E.g. 2.40.14 (487); 3.31.1 (456); 6.5.7-8 (387).[Return to text]
[27] 2.19.1 (500: contrast D.H. 5.52-7); 4.30.4 (429).[Return to text]
[28] Briscoe (1971), 18, gives statistics for
military and domestic material in Books 2-10. [Return to text]
[29] I have refrained from classifying a number
of campaign narratives since, although they are an external rather
than a domestic matter, the scene of action shifts between Rome
and the theatre of war. Some of the book's campaign narratives
move from war preparations at Rome to the campaign and then to
the commander's return to Rome, but they do not all fall into
this internal-external-internal pattern.[Return to text]
[30] The main topics dealt with are the censorship
(8, 22.7, 24.22-9), games (12.2, 35.3-4), the temple of Apollo
(25.3, 29.7), a law about fines (30.3), and the trial of a Vestal
(44.11-12).[Return to text]
[31] The extent to which annalists distorted
archival evidence for the Middle Republic or supplemented it by
invention is a matter of dispute, as, for example, on the much
discussed question of the legionary lists, for which see especially
Gelzer (1964), 220-55; Brunt (1971), 644-60; Gschnitzer (1981);
Seibert (1993), 368-95. However, there can be no question that
a good deal of Livy's domestic material on the period derives
ultimately from archives.[Return to text]
[32] Lack of records does not, however, appear
to be the reason for the shortage of notices of priestly appointments,
for what purported to be an inscribed list of appointments of
either augurs or pontifices extending back to the early Republic
was erected near the Regia (ILS 9338).[Return to text]
[33] So rightly Klotz (1940-1) and Bredehorn
(1968), although these writers fail to recognize the extent of
invention and distortion in apparently archival material. The
conventional doctrine that the Annales Maximi were the primary
source derives from Nissen (1863), 86 ff. Much of Livy's information
on prodigies may come ultimately from senatus consulta (Rawson
1991, 1-15, points out difficulties in ascribing this material
to the Annales Maximi, though see also MacBain 1982). His information
on aedilician activity and on priests cannot derive from the senate
record, which may explain why these notices are introduced simply
as events occurring eo anno rather than in chronological sequence.
His ultimate source may have taken this material either from the
Annales Maximi or from the commentarii of the aediles and the
priestly colleges. Some of the material on censors' actions may
derive from the commentarii of the censors.[Return to text]
[34] Jal (1984), lxi-ii. On the controversial
question of the extent to which Livy's lost books were grouped
by pentads and decades see (e.g.) Syme (1959), 29-37; Stadter
(1972); Wille (1973); Luce (1977), 9-24. Stadter (1972), 304-6,
gives a table showing the years covered in each book according
to the Periochae.[Return to text]
[35] Livy 43.13.1-2; Liebeschuetz (1979), 57-8.[Return to text]
[36] Tacitus resorted to this expedient much
more freely, using it first in Ann. 6.31-7 and frequently in the
later books of the Annals.[Return to text]
[37] This arrangement of material appears not
only in the Periocha of Book 90 but in other sources deriving
from Livy (Eutropius 6.1; Orosius 5.22.16-23.4).[Return to text]
[38] Books 79-80 dealt with events in Rome and
Italy from Cinna's consulship in 87 down to Marius' death in early
86. Livy then turned back to the East, and events there from the
start of Sulla's siege of Athens in 87 down to 84 were dealt with
in Books 81-3. Events in Rome during 85-84, when Cinna and Carbo
held a two-year consulship, appear to have been dealt with together
in Book 83 (Per. 83: L. Cinna et Cn. Papirius Carbo a se ipsis
consules per biennium creati ....). As with the anarchy before
the Licinio-Sextian reforms, this interruption of the annalistic
structure based on the chief magistracy may have seemed appropriate,
for Livy doubtless agreed with Cicero (Brut. 227) that the domination
of Cinna was a period in which 'sine iure fuit et sine ulla dignitate
res publica'.[Return to text]
[39] Elections: Mommsen (1887), 584-5. Giovannini
(1983), 83-90, shows that consuls in the Late Republic sometimes
left for their provinces while still in office, but always towards
the end of their term.[Return to text]
[40] For speculation about the character of
Livy's Augustan books see Syme (1959), 57-76; Badian (1993).[Return to text]
[41] See Bucher (1987 [1995]), arguing that
bronze tablets were used for the permanent record.[Return to text]
[42] E.g. Gelzer (1964), 51-92; Timpe (1972);
Momigliano (1990), 80-108. In general on the early Roman historians
see Badian (1966); Frier (1979), 201 ff. A new edition of the
fragments to replace Peter (1914) is an urgent need.[Return to text]
[43] On the structure of the Origines see Astin
(1978), 212 ff. As Astin notes (p. 218), Nepos' statement that
Cato narrated the period from the First Punic War capitulatim
means merely that his account was summary and does not imply a
thematic arrangement,[Return to text]
[44] For Piso as the first annalist see Wiseman
(1979), 9 ff.; Forsythe (1994), 38 ff. On the later second century
historians of Rome see also Rawson (1991), 245-71.[Return to text]
vv
[45] 304: fr. 27 P (from Book 3). 158: fr. 36
P (from Book 7).[Return to text]
[46] So Wiseman (1979), 20 ff.[Return to text]
[47] An exception is Soltau (1897), 27 ff.,
who held that Claudius had no interest in domestic archival material
and that for his domestic sections Livy used Valerius Antias and
Piso. Zimmerer (1937), 19 ff., and Klotz (1940-1), 77-8, held
that Claudius was rather less formal than Valerius in his handling
of domestic archival material.[Return to text]
[48] Klotz (1915, 1940-1). Zimmerer (1937),
26 ff., attempted to reconcile the approaches of Kahrstedt and
Klotz and to differentiate more sharply between Valerius' and
Claudius' work. For criticism of her views see Klotz (1942).[Return to text]
[49] See especially Briscoe (1973), 3 ff; Luce
(1977), 139 ff.[Return to text]
[50] These writers have attracted little recent
attention, but note Badian (1966), 18-22; Timpe (1979).[Return to text]
[51] The earliest fragments deal with the Gallic
invasion, and Claudius may be identical with the Clodius mentioned
by Plut., Num. 1.2, who in a work on chronology argued that no
authentic records survived from before the Gallic Sack. See Frier
(1979), 121-6; contra Zimmerer (1937), 8-10, 14-16.[Return to text]
[52] Frs. 57a, 64a P = Livy 25.39.12, 35.14.5.
Livy's reference to 'Claudius' in these passages must be to Claudius
Quadrigarius, contra Zimmerer (1937), 10-14.[Return to text]
[53] Fronto, ad Ver. 1.1.2 (2.48 Haines). For
Fronto's admiration for Claudius see also Gell. 13.29.[Return to text]
[54] For stylistic analysis see Zimmerer (1937),
88-127.[Return to text]
[55] Livy 34.44.5, 54.3-8; 36.36.4. Asconius
70 C shows that at 34.54.3-8 Livy is combining Valerius' account
of the introduction of senatorial seating with another version,
and that he has misrepresented Valerius at 36.36.4. See Briscoe
(1981), 118, 134, 276.[Return to text]
[56] The fluid usage of the terms annales and
historiae and the lack of consistency over citation of titles
is rightly stressed by Frier (1979), 216 ff.; Forsythe (1994),
38-9.[Return to text]
[57] The text is that of P. K. Marshall's OCT
of Gellius. On the textual problems see Till (1949/50).[Return to text]
[58] On Sisenna and his Historiae see Candiloro
(1963); Rawson (1991), 363-88. For the fragments see Peter (1914),
276-97; Barbarino (1967).[Return to text]
[59] Rawson (1991), 374, wrongly takes the passage
as showing that 'Sisenna ought certainly not to be called an annalist.'
On the contrary, it shows that he arranged his material by years.[Return to text]
[60] McGushin (1992, 1994) provides a translation
and useful commentary, but his treatment of the structure of the
Histories is not wholly satisfactory: see my reviews in CR 43
(1993), 280-2; 46 (1996), 250-1 (forthcoming). For the text we
remain dependent on Maurenbrecher (1893).[Return to text]
[61] I hope to show elsewhere that the material
in Book 1 on Sertorius' early career and the first years of his
war in Spain, which is usually held to have formed an excursus
in Sallust's account of the year 77 (1.87-126 Maur. = 1.76-114
McG.), in fact belonged with the prefatory matter earlier in the
book.[Return to text]
[62] See Perl (1967-8); Konrad (1995), 162 ff.
Perl used the relationship of the hair and flesh sides of the
parchment to show that the later two bifolia must have been the
outermost and fourth in a quinio (gathering of five). Earlier
reconstructions (most clearly expounded in Bloch 1961) assumed
that the bifolia were bound in gatherings of four. Cotta's speech
and Pompey's letter, of which only portions are preserved in the
palimpsest, survive complete in Cod. Vat. Lat. 3864.[Return to text]
[63] Contra Frassinetti (1975), 384, and McGushin
(1992), 209, who assume from its location in Sallust that the
episode must have taken place early in the year. It was an unusual
step for the consuls to accompany a candidate, and the incident
surely took place at the climax of the electoral campaign.[Return to text]
[64] Nonius cites the fragment as from Book
2. This excludes the dating to 74, proposed by Pecere (1969),
67-77, since Sallust's editors are surely correct to infer from
the evidence of the palimpsest taken together with 3.3 that the
book ended shortly after the transition to 74. See McGushin (1992),
226.[Return to text]
[65] Perl (1975), followed by McGushin (1992)
13-14, (1994), 13-14. Thucydidean influence on the disposition
of Spanish material for the year 75 had already been suggested
by Bloch 1961, 71-2.[Return to text]
[66] La Penna (1963), 11-12, suggests that the
structure of the prefatory material in the first book may have
been influenced by Thucydides, but the analogy is far-fetched.[Return to text]
[67] See especially Perrochat (1949), 13 ff;
Avenarius (1957); Scanlon (1980), 166 ff.[Return to text]
[68] On the intrigue see Plut., Luc. 5-6, probably
from Sallust.[Return to text]
[69] The parallelism was pointed out to me by
Dr Kraus.[Return to text]
[70] On the chronological problems of Fulvius' movements
see Warrior (1988).[Return to text]
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