A Companion to Livy

A Companion to Livy is a collection of essays representing the most up-to-date international scholarship on the life and works of the Roman historian Livy. Featuring contributions by some of the world’s top contemporary Livian scholars, essays shed important new light on myriad aspects of Livy while exploring the complexity and originality of his monumental study of Roman history and the people of Rome. Collectively, essays offer powerful evidence to support the elevation of Livy’s Ab Urbe Condita from a history book to a literary masterpiece centred on a particular moment in time and space—the end of Rome’s civil wars and the establishment of the principate under Augustus—that expresses a unique philosophical approach to history. A ground-breaking new interpretation of Livy’s historical philosophy, one based on a cyclical conception of the life of cities, is also presented for the first time in this collection. Innovative and thought-provoking, A Companion to Livy offers illuminating insights into one of the greatest Roman historians while setting a new standard in contemporary Livian scholarship.