Livy
Titus Livius (fictitious portrait)
Born	ca. 59 BC Padua
Died	ca. AD 17
Occupation	Historian
Genres	History
Subjects	History, biography, oratory
Literary movement	Golden Age of Latin

Titus Livius Patavinus (59 BC – AD 17) — known as Livy in English — was a Roman historian who wrote a monumental history of Rome and the Roman people. Ab Urbe Condita Libri, "Books from the Foundation of the City," covering the period from the earliest legends of Rome well before the traditional foundation in 753 BC through the reign of Augustus in Livy's own time. He was on familiar terms with the Julio-Claudian family, advising Augustus's grandnephew, the future emperor Claudius, as a young man not long before 14 AD in a letter to take up the writing of history.^[1] Livy and Augustus's wife, Livia, were from the same clan in different locations, although not related by blood.

Life[link]

Livy was born as Titus Livius in Patavium in northern Italy, now modern Padua. There is a debate about the year of Titus Livius' birth, 64 BC or more likely 59 BC. At the time of Livy’s birth, his home city of Patavium was the second wealthiest city in the Italian peninsula. Patavium was a part of the province of Cisalpine Gaul at the time. In his works, Livy often expressed his deep affection and pride for Patavium, and the city was well known for its conservative values in morality and politics.^[2]

Livy’s teen years were during the 40s BC, a time that coincided with the civil wars that were occurring throughout the Roman world. The governor of Cisalpine Gaul at the time, a man called Asinius Pollio, had tried to bring Patavium into the camp of Marcus Antonius (Mark Antony), who was one of the three men in the fight for control over Rome. The wealthier citizens of Patavium refused to contribute money and arms to Asinius Pollio and went into hiding. Asinius Pollio then attempted to bribe the slaves of the wealthy citizens of Patavium to expose the whereabouts of their masters. Asinius Pollio's bribery did not work, and the citizens of Patavium pledged their allegiance to conservatism and the senate instead. Therefore, Livy and the other citizens of Patavium did not end up supporting Marcus Antonius in his campaign for control over Rome. It is likely, then, that the Roman civil wars prevented Livy from pursuing a higher education in Rome or going on a Grand Tour of Greece, which was common for adolescent males during the time. Later on, Asinius Pollio made a jibe at Livy's "patavinity," saying that Livy's Latin showed certain "provincialisms" frowned on at Rome. His jibe at Livy and his "patavinity", however, may have been said because of the fact that the city of Patavium had rejected Asinius Pollio, and he still harboured harsh feelings toward the city as a whole.^[3]

Titus Livius probably went to Rome in the 30s BC, and it is likely that he spent a large amount of time in the city after this, although it may not have been his primary home. During his time in Rome, he was never a senator nor held any other governmental position. His elementary mistakes in military matters show that he was never a soldier. However, he was educated in philosophy and rhetoric. It seems that Livy had the financial resources and means to live an independent life. He devoted a large part of his life to his writings, which he was able to do because of his financial freedom.^[4]

Livy was known to give recitations to small audiences, but he was not heard of to engage in declamation, which was a common pastime. He was familiar with the emperor Augustus, formerly Octavian, and the imperial family. Octavian was one of the three men fighting for the control of Rome during the Civil Wars in the 40s BC. Octavian gained power after defeating Marcus Antonius and Cleopatra, and was later given the honorary name of Augustus. Considering Augustus came to be known as the greatest Roman Emperor in the eyes of the Romans, being a historian under Augustus was very beneficial to Livy’s career even after his death. It is said that Livy was the one who encouraged the future emperor Claudius, who was born in 10 BC, to explore the writing of history during his childhood. Livy himself was married and had at least one daughter and one son.^[4]

Perhaps Livy’s most famous work was his history of Rome. In it he explains the complete history of the city of Rome, from its foundation to the death of Augustus. Because he was writing under the emperor Augustus, Livy’s history emphasizes the great triumphs of Rome.^[5] He wrote his history with embellished accounts of Roman heroism in order to promote the new type of government implemented by Augustus when he became emperor.^[6] In Livy’s preface to his history, he said that he did not care whether his personal fame remained in darkness, as long as his work helped to “preserve the memory of the deeds of the world’s preeminent nation.”^[7] Because Livy was writing about events that had occurred hundreds of years beforehand, the value of his history was questionable, although many Romans came to believe what he wrote to be the true history of Rome’s foundation.^[8] He had also written other works, including an essay in the form of a letter to his son, and numerous dialogues, most likely using Cicero as a model.^[9]

Titus Livius is said to have died in the year AD 17 (three years after the death of the emperor Augustus) in his home city of Patavium.^[2]

Works[link]

Bust of Caesar Augustus from the Musei Capitolini, Rome

Livy's only surviving work is the "History of Rome" (Ab Urbe Condita), which was his career from an age in middle life, probably 32, until he left Rome for Padua in old age, probably after the death of Augustus in the reign of Tiberius. When he began this work he was already past his youth; presumably, events in his life prior to that time had led to his intense activity as a historian. Seneca the Younger gives brief mention that he was also known as an orator and philosopher and had written some treatises in those fields from a historical point of view.^[10]

Reception[link]

In Roman Empire[link]

Livy's History of Rome was in demand from the publication of the first packet. Livy became so famous that a man from Cadiz travelled to Rome just to see him, and once he had seen, returned home.^[11] The popularity of the work continued through the entire classical period. A number of Roman authors used Livy, including Aurelius Victor, Cassiodorus, Eutropius, Festus, Florus, Granius Licinianus and Orosius. Julius Obsequens used Livy, or a source with access to Livy, to compose his De Prodigiis, an account of supernatural events in Rome, from the consulship of Scipio and Laelius to that of Paulus Fabius and Quintus Aelius.

Livy wrote during the reign of Augustus, who came to power after a civil war with generals and consuls claiming to be defending the Roman Republic, such as Pompey. Patavium had been pro-Pompey. To clarify his status, the victor of the civil war, Octavian Caesar, had wanted to take the title Romulus (the first king of Rome) but in the end accepted the senate proposal of Augustus. He did not abolish the republic de facto but adapted its institutions into the empire.

Livy's enthusiasm for the republic is evident from the first pentade of his work, and yet the Julio-Claudian family (the imperial family) were as much fans of Livy as anyone. He could not have been an advocate of any sort of sedition in favor of restoring the Republic; he would have been put on trial for treason and executed, as many had been and would be. He must have been viewed as a harmless and relevant advocate of the ancient morality, which was a known public stance of the citizens of Patavium. His relationship to Augustus is defined primarily by a passage from Tacitus^[12] in which Cremutius Cordus is put on trial for his life for offenses no worse than Livy's and defends himself face-to-face with the frowning Tiberius as follows:

"I am said to have praised Brutus and Cassius, whose careers many have described and no one mentioned without eulogy. Titus Livius, pre-eminently famous for eloquence and truthfulness, extolled Cneius Pompeius in such a panegyric that Augustus called him Pompeianus, and yet this was no obstacle to their friendship.

To avoid conviction, while waiting for a verdict Cordus committed suicide by self-starvation. His worst fears were realized in absentia: his books were sentenced to be burned by the aediles, but they performed the task without zeal and many escaped. Livy's reasons for returning to Padua after the death of Augustus (if he did) are unclear, but the circumstances of Tiberius' reign certainly allow for speculation.

Later[link]

During the Middle Ages interest in Livy declined.^[13] Due to the length of the work the literate class were already reading summaries rather than the work itself, which was tedious to copy, expensive, and required a lot of storage space. It must have been during this period, if not before, that manuscripts began to be lost without replacement.

The Renaissance was a time of intense revival; the population discovered that Livy was being lost and large amounts of money changed hands in the rush to collect Livy manuscripts. The poet Beccadelli sold a country home for the money to purchase one manuscript copied by Poggio.^[13] Petrarch and Pope Nicholas V launched a search for the now missing books. Laurentius Valla published an emended text initiating the field of Livy scholarship. Dante speaks highly of him in his poetry, and Francis I of France commissioned extensive artwork treating Livian themes; Niccolò Machiavelli's work on republics, the Discourses on Livy is presented as a commentary on the History of Rome. Respect for Livy rose to lofty heights.

After a few hundred years of Livy being studied by the youth of every Western population, moderns have developed their own views of Livy and his place in the ancient world, which were not current in ancient times. For example, one text on western civilization pronounces: "Livy was the prose counterpart of Vergil", as both have been standard in the study of Golden Age Latin literature.^[14] Golden Age Latin was not known as such in classical times and the ancient reader could choose from a vastly larger bibliography; but in fact, private reading was a privilege of the literate few, who had the wealth to buy manuscripts or have them copied and had the time for library research. Public readings of works, however, were common and were the main way in which an author became known.

Dates[link]

The authority supplying information from which possible vital data on Livy can be deduced is Eusebius of Caesaria, an early Christian-era bishop. One of his works was a summary of world history in ancient Greek, termed the Chronikon, dating from the early 4th century. This work was lost except for fragments (mainly excerpts), but not before it had been translated in whole and in part by various authors such as St. Jerome. The entire work survives in Armenian. St. Jerome wrote in Latin. Fragments in Syriac exist.^[15]

Eusebius' work consists of two books, the Chronographia, a summary of history in annalist form, and the Chronikoi Kanones, tables of years and events. St. Jerome translated the tables into Latin as the Chronicon, probably adding some information of his own from unknown sources. Livy's dates appear in Jerome's Chronicon.

The main problem with the information given in the MSS is that between them they often give different dates for the same events or different events, do not include the same material entirely and reformat what they do include. A date may be in Ab urbe condita or in Olympiads or in some other form, such as age. These variations may have occurred through scribal error or scribal license. Some material has been inserted under the aegis of Eusebius.

The topic of manuscript variants is a large and specialized one, on which authors of works on Livy seldom care to linger. As a result standard information in a standard rendition is used, which gives the impression of a standard set of dates for Livy. There are no such dates. A typical presumption is of a birth in the 2nd year of the 180th Olympiad and a death in the first year of the 199th Olympiad, which are coded 180.2 and 199.1 respectively.^[16] All sources use the same first Olympiad, 776/775-773/772 BC by the modern calendar. By a complex formula (made so by the 0 reference point not falling on the border of an Olympiad) these codes correspond to 59 BC for the birth, 17 AD for the death. In another manuscript the birth is in 180.4, or 57 BC.^[17]

Jerome says that Livy was born the same year as Marcus Valerius Messala Corvinus and died the same year as Ovid.^[16] Messala, however, was born earlier, in 64 BC, and Ovid's death, usually taken to be the same year as Livy's, is more uncertain. As an alternative view, Ronald Syme argues for 64 BC-12 AD as a range for Livy, setting the death of Ovid at 12.^[18] A death date of 12, however, removes Livy from Augustus' best years and makes him depart for Padua without the good reason of the second emperor, Tiberius, being not as tolerant of his republicanism. The contradiction remains.

Notes[link]

Bibliography[link]

• Foster, B.O. (2008) [1874]. Livy. Trollope Press. ISBN 0-674-99256-3. 
• Livy; Christina Shuttleworth Kraus (Editor) (1994). Ab vrbe condita Book VI. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-41002-9. 

Additional reading[link]

• Dorey, T.A., ed. (1971). London & Toronto: Routledge & K. Paul 
• Fotheringham, John Knight (1905). The Bodleian Manuscript of Jerome's Version of the Chronicles of Eusebius. Oxford: The Clarendon Press. 
• Hornblower, Simon; Spawforth, Antony, eds. (2003). The Oxford Classical Dictionary. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-860641-3. 
• Kraus, C. S.; Woodman, A. J. (2006). Latin Historians. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-922293-3. 
• Syme, Ronald (1959). "Livy and Augustus". Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 64: 27–87. DOI:10.2307/310937. JSTOR 310937.  Also in Badian, E., ed. (1979). I. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 400–454 .
• Walsh, P.G. (1966). Dorey, Thomas Alan; Thompson, E.A.. eds. Ch 5 Livy. Studies in Latin Literature and its Influence. London: Routledge & K. Paul. pp. 115–142 

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Livy

Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article Livy.

• Works by Livy at Project Gutenberg
• Lendering, Jona (2006-2009). "Livy (1): Life". Livius Articles on Ancient History. Livius.org. http://www.livius.org/li-ln/livy/livy.htm. Retrieved 13 August 2009. 

Taylor Swift
Swift performing during the Australian leg of her Speak Now Tour in 2012
Background information
Birth name	Taylor Alison Swift
Born	(1989-12-13) December 13, 1989 (age 22) Reading, Pennsylvania, United States
Genres	Country-pop, pop, country, alternative rock
Occupations	Singer-songwriter, actress
Instruments	Vocals, guitar, banjo, ukulele, piano
Years active	2006–present
Labels	Big Machine
Website	TaylorSwift.com

Taylor Alison Swift (born December 13, 1989) is an American singer-songwriter and occasional actress. Raised in Wyomissing, Pennsylvania, Swift moved to Nashville, Tennessee at the age of fourteen to pursue a career in country music. She signed to the independent label Big Machine Records and became the youngest songwriter ever hired by the Sony/ATV Music publishing house. The release of Swift's self-titled debut album in 2006 established her as a country music star. "Our Song", her third single, made her the youngest sole writer and singer of a number one song on the country chart. She received a Best New Artist nomination at the 50th Grammy Awards.

Swift's second album, Fearless, was released in late 2008. Buoyed by the chart success of the singles "Love Story" and "You Belong with Me", Fearless attracted a crossover audience and became the top-selling album of 2009. The record won four Grammy Awards, with Swift becoming the youngest ever Album of the Year winner. Fearless also received Album of the Year plaudits at the American Music Awards, Academy of Country Music Awards and Country Music Association Awards, making it the most awarded album in country music history. In 2010, Swift released her third album, Speak Now, which sold over one million copies in its first week. She then embarked on the 111-date Speak Now World Tour, which was attended by over 1.6 million fans and has become one of the highest-grossing concert tours of all time. The album's third single, "Mean", won two Grammy Awards for Best Country Song and Best Country Solo Performance. Swift is currently recording her fourth studio album, due for release in the fall of 2012.

Swift's work has earned her numerous accolades, including six Grammy Awards, ten AMAs, seven CMAs, six ACMs and 13 BMI Awards. She has sold over 22 million albums and 50 million song downloads worldwide, making her one of the best-selling music artists of all time. Swift has endorsement deals with Target, CoverGirl, Sony, Elizabeth Arden, Walmart and American Greetings. As a philanthropist, Swift has placed particular emphasis on arts education, children's literacy and natural disaster relief funds. In addition to her music career, Swift has appeared as an actress in the crime drama CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (2009), the romantic comedy Valentine's Day (2010) and the animated film The Lorax (2012).

Early life[link]

Taylor Alison Swift was born on December 13, 1989 in Reading, Pennsylvania.^[1] She is the daughter of Scott Swift, a Merrill Lynch financial adviser,^[2][3] and Andrea (née Gardner), a homemaker who previously worked as a mutual fund marketing executive.^[1][4] Swift was named after singer James Taylor; her mother believed a gender-neutral name would help her forge a successful business career.^[5][6] She has a younger brother, Austin, who attends Vanderbilt University.^[7] She spent the early years of her life on an eleven-acre Christmas tree farm in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania and was educated at the fee-paying Wyndcroft School.^[8] When Swift was nine years old, the family moved to Wyomissing, Pennsylvania,^[9][10] where she attended Wyomissing Area Junior/Senior High School.^[11] Swift spent her summers at her parent's vacation home in Stone Harbor, New Jersey^[12] and has described it as the place "where most of my childhood memories were formed".^[10]

Swift's first hobby was English horse riding. Her mother Andrea put her in a saddle when Swift was nine months old and she later competed in horse shows.^[13][14] Her family owned several Quarter horses and a Shetland pony.^[14] At the age of nine, Swift turned her attention to musical theatre and performed in Berks Youth Theatre Academy productions of Grease, Annie, Bye Bye Birdie and The Sound of Music.^[15][8] She travelled regularly to Broadway, New York for vocal and acting lessons. However, "after a few years of auditioning in New York and not getting anything”, Swift became interested in country music.^[16] She was inspired by LeAnn Rimes's Blue^[17] and her maternal grandmother, Marjorie Finlay, an opera singer.^[8] When she was in fourth grade, Swift won a national poetry contest with a three-page poem, "Monster in My Closet".^[18] At the age of eleven, after many attempts,^[19] Swift won a local talent competition by singing a rendition of LeAnn Rimes’s “Big Deal”, and was given the opportunity to appear as the opening act for Charlie Daniels at a Strausstown amphitheater.^[15] She spent her weekends performing at local festivals, fairs, coffeehouses, karaoke contests, garden clubs and Boy Scout meetings.^[20][4] This interest in country music isolated Swift from her middle school peers.^[21][22]

After watching a Behind the Music episode about Faith Hill,^[23] Swift recorded a demo of karaoke covers, and travelled with her mother to Nashville, Tennessee for spring break to leave a copy of the demo with record labels along Music Row. She received label rejections and realized that "everyone in that town wanted to do what I wanted to do. So, I kept thinking to myself, I need to figure out a way to be different".^[23] Swift began performing the "The Star Spangled Banner" at many sporting events, hoping she would be offered a recording contract. On one occasion, an eleven-year-old Swift high-fived Jay-Z after singing the national anthem at a 76ers game in Philadelphia.^[24] At the age of twelve, Swift was shown by a computer repairman how to play three chords on a guitar, inspiring her to write her first song, "Lucky You".^[25][26] She then recorded a second demo of original songs.^[15] In 2003, Swift and her parents began working with music manager Dan Dymtrow, after he spotted her singing at the US Open.^[27] Swift's second demo then caught the attention of RCA Records, who offered the eight-grader an artist development deal. In 2004, Swift modelled for Abercrombie and Fitch as part of their "Rising Stars" campaign and had an original song included in a Maybelline Cosmetics compilation CD.^[28]

When Swift was fourteen, her father transferred to the Nashville office of Merrill Lynch and the family relocated to a lake-shore house in Hendersonville, Tennessee.^[1] Swift has said her parents "presented it as a move to a nice community" rather than as her chance to become a star.^[29] Her mother has said, "We've always told her that this is not about putting food on our table or making our dreams come true."^[30] In Tennessee, Swift attended Hendersonville High School for her freshman and sophomore years.^[31] Later, to accommodate her touring schedule, Swift transferred to the Aaron Academy, a private Christian school which offered homeschooling services, and earned her high school diploma in 2008.^[32]

Music career[link]

[edit] 2004–08: Nashville songwriting sessions and Taylor Swift release

Swift moved to Nashville at the age of fourteen, having secured an artist development deal with RCA Records. Her musical influences included the Dixie Chicks, Shania Twain, LeAnn Rimes, Faith Hill,^[29] Tom Petty,^[33] Sheryl Crow,^[34] Melissa Etheridge, Pat Benatar,^[35] Reba McEntire, Garth Brooks,^[36] Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn and Tammy Wynette.^[37] Swift had writing sessions with experienced songwriters such as Troy Verges, Brett Beavers, Brett James, Mac McAnally and the Warren Brothers,^[38][39] but eventually formed a lasting working relationship with Liz Rose.^[40] Swift saw Rose performing at an RCA songwriter event and suggested that they write together.^[41] They began meeting for two-hour writing sessions every Tuesday afternoon after school.^[42] Rose has said that the sessions were "some of the easiest I've ever done. Basically, I was just her editor. She'd write about what happened in school that day. She had such a clear vision of what she was trying to say. And she'd come in with the most incredible hooks".^[43][42] Swift also began recording demos with producer Nathan Chapman.^[41] After performing at a BMI Songwriter's Circle showcase at The Bitter End, New York,^[39] Swift became the youngest songwriter ever hired by the Sony/ATV Tree publishing house.^[44]

Swift performing at the Maverick Saloon & Grill in Santa Maria, California in 2006

Swift left RCA Records when she was fifteeen; the company wanted her to record the work of other songwriters and wait until she was eighteen to release an album, but she felt ready to launch her career with her own material.^[45][19] She also parted ways with manager Dan Dymtrow, who later took legal action against Swift and her parents.^[28] At an industry showcase at Nashville's The Bluebird Café in 2005, Swift caught the attention of Scott Borchetta, a Dreamworks Records executive who was preparing to form his own independent record label, Big Machine Records.^[40] Swift was one of the new label's first signings.^[40] As an introduction to the country music business, Borchetta arranged for Swift to intern at the CMA Music Festival; she acted as the artist escort for Darryl Worley.^[46][47]

Swift began working on her self-titled debut album shortly after signing her record deal. After experimenting with veteran Nashville producers, Swift persuaded Big Machine to hire her demo producer Nathan Chapman.^[19] It was his first time to record a studio album but Swift felt they had the right "chemistry".^[19] In the end, Chapman produced all but one of the tracks on Taylor Swift.^[19] She has described the album as the "diary" of her early teens^[48] and most songs were written during her freshman year of high school.^[19] As a result, the songs describe coming of age experiences such as insecurity, young love, and teenage angst.^[19] She has said that, although "it sounds like I've had 500 boyfriends", a lot of the songs are observational.^[19] Swift wrote three of the album's songs alone, including two singles, and co-wrote the remaining eight with writers such as Liz Rose, Robert Ellis Orrall and Angelo Petraglia.^[49] Musically, the album has been described as "a mix of trad-country instruments and spry rock guitars".^[50]

Taylor Swift was released in October 2006 and received generally positive reviews from music critics.^[51] PopMatters hoped Swift would be "able to find an accomodation between the country tradition and her very obvious pop sensibilities, because Taylor Swift suggests she has much to offer".^[52] The New Yorker's Sasha Frere-Jones described Swift as a "prodigy". She noted that "Our Song" "stop[ed] me in my tracks" and praised the lyrics: “He’s got a one-hand feel on the steering wheel, the other on my heart".^[53] Country Weekly felt Swift demonstrated "an honesty, intelligence and idealism with which listeners of any age will be able to connect" and noted that "the more thoughtful material suggests a talent poised to last well past high school".^[54] AllMusic stated that, while listening to the album, it was "never in doubt" that "Swift is a talent to be reckoned with".^[55] Rolling Stone described Swift as "bright-eyed but remarkably seasoned", and admired "Our Song"'s "insanely hooky sing-song melody that's as Britney as it is Patsy".^[50]

Swift performing at Yahoo HQ in Sunnyvale, California in 2007

Big Machine Records was still in its infancy upon the release of the lead single "Tim McGraw" in June 2006, and Swift and her mother helped "stuff the CD singles into envelopes to send to radio".^[30] She spent much of 2006 promoting Taylor Swift in a radio tour and later commented, "Radio tours for most artists last six weeks. Mine lasted six months."^[19] Swift painted canvases (inspired by Jackson Pollock) to gift to radio station managers who played her music.^[56] She took part in "GAC Short Cuts", a part-documentary, part-music-video series designed to introduce her to country music fans.^[57][58] She also made television appearances on Good Morning America,^[59] The Megan Mullally Show,^[59] America's Got Talent,^[60] and TRL.^[61] Swift, a self-described "kid of the internet",^[62] used MySpace to build a fanbase. She wrote her own blog posts, left comments on her fans' accounts and personally respond to the messages that were sent to her.^[63] This was, at the time, "revolutionary in country music".^[64][57] Borchetta has said that his decision to sign a sixteen year old singer-songwriter initially raised eyebrows among his record industry peers^[57] but Swift tapped into a previously unknown market: teenage girls who listen to country music.^[1][57]

Following "Tim McGraw", four further singles were released throughout 2007 and 2008: "Teardrops on My Guitar", "Our Song", "Picture to Burn" and "Should've Said No". All were highly successful on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart, with "Our Song" and "Should've Said No" both reaching number one. "Our Song" made Swift the youngest sole writer and singer of a number one country song.^[65] "Teardrops on My Guitar" became a minor pop hit; it reached number thirteen on the Billboard Hot 100.^[66][67] The album sold 39,000 copies during its first week^[68] and, as of March 2011, has sold over 5.5 million copies worldwide.^[69] Swift also released a holiday album, Sounds of the Season: The Taylor Swift Holiday Collection, in October 2007 and an EP, Beautiful Eyes, in July 2008.^[70][71]