His history of rome became a classic in his own lifetime and exercised a profound influence on the style and philosophy of historical writing down to the 18th century. Titus livius, commonly known as livy, was one of the greatest historians of ancient rome His monumental work, ab urbe condita (from the founding of the city), chronicles the history of rome from its legendary beginnings to his contemporary period during the reign of augustus. Without arrian or diodorus, how would anyone know of the military campaigns of alexander the great Livy lived through one of the most tumultuous periods in roman history The assassination of julius caesar, the civil wars, and the eventual rise of augustus as the first emperor all occurred during his lifetime.
At times he is quite florid, rivaling cicero in periodic structures At others he is straightforward, even plain, as befits an historian of military affairs As with all authors, the style and vocabulary become more easily absorbed as the work progresses. Roman historian, author of the authorized version of the history of the roman republic. Livy’s approach to historical writing was unique and harkened to the writings of aristotle and thucydides His writing focuses on the characters of persons rather than simple, annalistic approaches of his predecessors, who were largely influenced by politics.
He may have lived mostly in rome but died at patavium, in 12 or 17 ce Livy's only extant work is part of his history of rome from the foundation of the city to 9 bce. Livy employed annalistic features to associate his history with the dominant traditional of roman history, which was to write these annalistic chronicles In so doing, he imbued his history with an aura of continuity and stability along with pontifical authority.
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