The Historical Attitude of Livy

R. B. Steele here reconstructs the philosophical attitudes of the historian Livy, whose Ab Urbe Condita written in the time of Augustus is the source for the majority of our knowledge of Roman history and historical mythology from the founding of Rome until the middle Republic. Although such attempts to determine the 'real opinions' of a long dead-author are often doomed to failure, but Steele's insistence on sticking to Livy's methology and narrative preferences avoid the pitfalls of other such efforts, providing a useful and interesting portrait of a historian's philosophy of writing history. Anyone who has an interest in Roman history will find this an illuminating companion to Livy's history.