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48-476: Livy , writing some 200 years after the event, offers a scandalized and extremely colourful account of the Bacchanalia, with frenzied rites, sexually violent initiations of both sexes, all ages and all social classes; he represents the cult as a murderous instrument of conspiracy against the state. Livy claims that seven thousand cult leaders and followers were arrested, and that most were executed. Livy believed

96-400: A Scotsman involved in the first Jacobite uprising of 1715 was recaptured (and executed) because, having escaped, he yet lingered near the place of his captivity in "the hope of recovering his favourite Titus Livius ". The authority supplying information from which possible vital data on Livy can be deduced is Eusebius of Caesarea , a bishop of the early Christian Church . One of his works

144-620: A book on geography and a daughter married Lucius Magius, a rhetorician. Titus Livius died at his home city of Patavium in AD 17. The tombstone of Livy and his wife might have been found in Padua. Livy's only surviving work is commonly known as History of Rome (or Ab Urbe Condita , 'From the Founding of the City';). Together with Polybius it is considered one of the main accounts of

192-503: A century after Livy's time, described the Emperor Augustus as his friend. Describing the trial of Cremutius Cordus , Tacitus represents him as defending 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 Cn. Pompeius in such

240-442: A common pastime. He was familiar with the emperor Augustus and the imperial family. Augustus was considered by later Romans to have been the greatest Roman emperor, benefiting Livy's reputation long after his death. Suetonius described how Livy encouraged the future emperor Claudius , who was born in 10 BC, to write historiographical works during his childhood. Livy's most famous work was his history of Rome . In it he narrates

288-502: A complete history of the city of Rome, from its foundation to the death of Augustus. Because he was writing under the reign of Augustus, Livy's history emphasizes the great triumphs of Rome. 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. 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

336-502: 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. Quintus Marcius Philippus (consul 186 BC) Quintus Marcius Philippus , also Quintus Marcius L. f. Q. n. Philippus (born c. 229 BC), was a Roman consul in 186 BC and again in 169 BC. During his first consulship, he aided his co-consul Spurius Postumius Albinus in

384-584: A large degree of nudity among the figures. Livy Titus Livius ( Latin: [ˈtɪtʊs ˈliːwiʊs] ; 59 BC – AD 17), known in English as Livy ( / ˈ l ɪ v i / LIV -ee ), was a Roman historian. He wrote a monumental history of Rome and the Roman people, titled Ab Urbe Condita , ''From the Founding of the City'', covering the period from the earliest legends of Rome before

432-473: A panegyric that Augustus called him Pompeianus, and yet this was no obstacle to their friendship. Livy's reasons for returning to Padua after the death of Augustus (if he did) are unclear, but the circumstances of Tiberius 's reign certainly allow for speculation. During the Middle Ages , due to the length of the work, the literate class was already reading summaries rather than the work itself, which

480-416: 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. All sources use the same first Olympiad , 776/775–773/772 BC by the modern calendar. By

528-653: A search for the now missing books. Laurentius Valla published an amended 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. Walter Scott reports in Waverley (1814) as an historical fact that

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576-656: 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 manuscripts is that, between them, they often give different dates for

624-822: The Senatus consultum de Bacchanalibus , it brought the Bacchanalia under control of the Senate, and thus of the Roman pontifices . The existing cult chapters and colleges were dismantled. Congregations of mixed gender were permitted, but were limited to no more than two men and three women, and any Bacchanalia gathering must seek prior permission from the Senate. Men were forbidden Bacchus's priesthood. Despite their official suppression, illicit Bacchanals persisted covertly for many years, particularly in Southern Italy, their likely place of origin. The reformed, officially approved Bacchic cults would have borne little resemblance to

672-621: The Boeotian League and delayed Perseus’ war on Rome. Philippus was reelected consul in 169 BC and lead the Roman army during the third year of the Third Macedonian War . In 164 BC Philippus was elected censor with Lucius Aemilius Paullus Macedonicus , during which he set up a public sundial in the Rostra next to a previous one by Manius Valerius Maximus Messalla . This article about an Ancient Roman politician

720-530: The Peloponnese in 183 BC, observing the actions of the Achaean League , and he incited the senate's fears of King Perseus in his report the following year. In 180 BC, Philippus replaced Gaius Servilius Geminus as decemvir sacrorum following Geminus’ death. In 172 BC he led an embassy to Greece to attract support in the growing conflict with Perseus, during which they successfully dismantled

768-887: The Principate of the Roman Imperial era . The Bacchanalia were Roman festivals of Bacchus, the Greco-Roman god of wine, freedom, intoxication and ecstasy. They were based on the Greek Dionysia and the Dionysian Mysteries , and probably arrived in Rome c. 200 BC via the Greek colonies in southern Italy, and from Etruria , Rome's northern neighbour. Tenney Frank suggests that some form of Dionysian worship may have been introduced to Rome by captives from

816-478: The Roman army . However, he was educated in philosophy and rhetoric. It seems that Livy had the financial resources and means to live an independent life, though the origin of that wealth is unknown. He devoted a large part of his life to his writings, which he was able to do because of his financial freedom. Livy was known to give recitations to small audiences, but he was not heard of to engage in declamation , then

864-610: The Second Punic War . When he began this work he was already past his youth, probably 33; presumably, events in his life prior to that time had led to his intense activity as a historian. He continued working on it until he left Rome for Padua in his old age, probably in the reign of Tiberius after the death of Augustus. Seneca the Younger says he was an orator and philosopher and had written some historical treatises in those fields. History of Rome also served as

912-565: The Senatus consultum as a piece of Realpolitik , a display of the Roman senate's authority to its Italian allies after the Second Punic War, and a reminder to any Roman politician, populist and would-be generalissimo that the Senate's collective authority trumped all personal ambition. Nevertheless, the extent and ferocity of the official response to the Bacchanalia was probably unprecedented, and betrays some form of moral panic on

960-422: The 40s BC, a period of civil wars throughout the Roman world . The governor of Cisalpine Gaul at the time, Asinius Pollio , tried to sway Patavium into supporting Marcus Antonius (Mark Antony) , the leader of one of the warring factions during Caesar's Civil War (49-45 BC). The wealthy citizens of Patavium refused to contribute money and arms to Asinius Pollio, and went into hiding. Pollio then attempted to bribe

1008-430: The 5th century BC, and Rome's acquisition of foreign cults—Greek or otherwise—through the alliance, treaty, capture or conquest was a cornerstone of its foreign policy, and an essential feature of its eventual hegemony. While the pace of such introductions had gathered rapidly during the 3rd century, contemporary evidence of the Bacchanalia reform betrays no anti-Greek or anti-foreign policy or sentiment. Gruen interprets

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1056-502: The Athenian Dionysia competition in 405 BC. The Bacchanalia may have had mystery elements and public elements; religious dramas which were performed in public, and private rites performed by acolytes and priests of the deity. Livy , the principal Roman literary source on the early Bacchanalia, names Paculla Annia , a Campanian priestess of Bacchus, as the founder of a private, unofficial Bacchanalia cult in Rome, based at

1104-447: The Bacchanalia has been described as "tendentious to say the least". As a political and social conservative, he had a deep mistrust of mystery religions, and probably understood any form of Bacchanalia as a sign of Roman degeneracy. Though most of his dramatis personae are known historical figures, their speeches are implausibly circumstantial, and his characters, tropes and plot developments draw more from Roman satyr plays than from

1152-448: The Bacchanalia scandal to be one of several indications of Rome's inexorable moral decay. A modern scholar takes a skeptical approach to Livy's allegations. The cult was not banned. Senatorial legislation to reform the Bacchanalia in 186 BC attempted to control their size, organisation, and priesthoods, under threat of the death penalty. This may have been motivated less by the kind of lurid and dramatic rumours that Livy describes than by

1200-406: The Bacchanalia themselves. Paculla Annia is unlikely to have introduced all the changes he attributes to her. For Livy, the cult's greatest offences arose from indiscriminate mixing of freeborn Romans of both sexes and all ages at night, a time when passions are easily aroused, especially given wine and unrestricted opportunity. Women at these gatherings, he says, outnumbered men; and his account has

1248-497: The Senate's determination to assert its civil, moral and religious authority over Rome and its allies, after the prolonged social, political and military crisis of the Second Punic War (218–201 BC). The reformed Bacchanalia rites may have been merged with the Liberalia festival. Bacchus, Liber and Dionysus became virtually interchangeable from the late Republican era (133 BC and onward), and their mystery cults persisted well into

1296-597: The Senate's response no more than any other cause. Livy's consistent negative description of the cult's Greek origins and low moral character—not even Bacchus is exempt from this judgment—may have sought to justify its suppression as a sudden "infiltration of too many Greek elements into Roman worship". The cult had, however, been active in Rome for many years before its supposedly abrupt discovery, and Bacchic and Dionysiac cults had been part of life in Roman and allied, Greek-speaking Italy for many decades. Greek cults and Greek influences had been part of Rome's religious life since

1344-421: The behest of those who secretly controlled the cult, right in the heart of Rome. Livy claims that the cult held particular appeal to those of uneducated and fickle mind ( levitas animi ), such as the young, plebeians, women and "men most like women", and that most of the city's population was involved, even some members of Rome's highest class. The Legislation of 186 survives in the form of an inscription. Known as

1392-444: The consul Postumius stress the overwhelmingly female nature and organization of the cult. Yet the Senatus consultum de Bacchanalibus itself allows women to outnumber men, by three to two, at any permitted gathering; and it expressly forbids Bacchic priesthoods to men. Livy's own narrative names all but one of the offending cult leaders as male, which seems to eliminate any perceived "conspiracy of women". Gender seems to have motivated

1440-534: The driving force behind the "northern theory" regarding the Etruscans' origins. This is because in the book Livy states, "The Greeks also call them the 'Tyrrhene' and the 'Adriatic ... The Alpine tribes are undoubtedly of the same kind, especially the Raetii, who had through the nature of their country become so uncivilized that they retained no trace of their original condition except their language, and even this

1488-402: The earlier crowded, ecstatic and uninhibited Bacchanalia. Similar attrition may have been imposed on Liber's cults; his perceived or actual association with the Bacchanalia may be the reason that his Liberalia ludi of 17 March were temporarily moved to Ceres' Cerealia of 12–19 April. They were restored when the ferocity of reaction eased, but in approved, much modified form. Livy's account of

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1536-444: The earliest version of the Bacchanalia was open to women only, and held on three days of the year, in daylight; while in nearby Etruria, north of Rome, a "Greek of humble origin, versed in sacrifices and soothsaying" had established a nocturnal version, added wine and feasting to the mix, and thus acquired an enthusiastic following of women and men. The nocturnal version of the Bacchanalia involved wine-drinking to excess, drunkenness and

1584-478: The formerly Greek city of Tarentum in southern Italy, captured from the Carthaginians in 209 BC. Like all mystery cults , the Bacchanalia were held in strict privacy, and initiates were bound to secrecy; what little is known of the cult and its rites derives from Greek and Roman literature, plays, statuary and paintings. One of the earliest sources is Greek playwright Euripides 's The Bacchae , which won

1632-560: The free mingling of the sexes and classes; the rites also involved loud music. According to Livy's account, Publius Aebutius of the gens Aebutia was warned against the cult and its excesses by a courtesan, Hispala Faecenia . The Senate appointed Spurius Postumius Albinus and Quintus Marcius Philippus to investigate the cult. The inquiry claimed that under the cover of religion, priests and acolytes broke civil, moral and religious laws with impunity; weak-minded individuals could be persuaded to commit ritual or political murders undetected, at

1680-713: The grove of Stimula , where the western slope of the Aventine Hill descends to the Tiber . The Aventine was an ethnically mixed district, strongly identified with Rome's plebeian class and the ingress of new and foreign cults. The wine and fertility god Liber Pater ("The Free Father"), divine patron of plebeian rights, freedoms and augury , had a long-established official cult in the nearby temple he shared with Ceres and Libera . Most Roman sources describe him as Rome's equivalent to Dionysus and Bacchus, both of whom were sometimes titled Eleutherios (liberator). Livy claims

1728-508: The memory of the deeds of the world’s preeminent nation." Because Livy was mostly writing about events that had occurred hundreds of years earlier, the historical value of his work was questionable, although many Romans came to believe his account to be true. Livy was married and had at least one daughter and one son. He also produced other works, including an essay in the form of a letter to his son, and numerous dialogues, most likely modelled on similar works by Cicero . One of his sons wrote

1776-489: The part of Roman authorities; Burkert finds "nothing comparable in religious history before the persecutions of Christians ". In modern usage, bacchanalia can mean any uninhibited or drunken revelry. The bacchanal in art describes any small group of revelers, often including satyrs and perhaps Bacchus or Silenus, usually in a landscape setting. The subject was popular from the Renaissance onwards, and usually included

1824-569: 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 . Rather than abolishing the republic, he adapted it and its institutions to imperial rule. The historian Tacitus , writing about

1872-475: The result of bad feelings he harboured toward the city of Patavium from his experiences there during the civil wars. Livy 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 a government position. His writings contain elementary mistakes on military matters, indicating that he probably never served in

1920-590: 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

1968-613: The slaves of those wealthy citizens to expose the whereabouts of their masters; his bribery did not work, and the citizens instead pledged their allegiance to the Senate . It is therefore likely that the Roman civil wars prevented Livy from pursuing a higher education in Rome or going on a tour of Greece , which was common for adolescent males of the nobility at the time. Many years later, Asinius Pollio derisively commented on Livy's "patavinity", saying that Livy's Latin showed certain "provincialisms" frowned on at Rome. Pollio's dig may have been

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2016-530: The suppression of the Bacchanalia and the drafting of the senatus consultum de Bacchanalibus . According to the historian Titus Livius , he was badly defeated by the Apuan Ligures in a 186 BC battle with Saltus Marcius , fought, probably, in the territory of Seravezza . He was elected praetor in 188 BC and received Sicily as his purview. He served as an ambassador to Macedonia and

2064-607: The traditional founding in 753 BC through the reign of Augustus in Livy's own lifetime. He was on good terms with members of the Julio-Claudian dynasty and was a friend of Augustus , whose young grandnephew, the future emperor Claudius , he encouraged to take up the writing of history. Livy was born in Patavium in northern Italy , now modern Padua , probably in 59 BC. At the time of his birth, his home city of Patavium

2112-649: Was a summary of world history in ancient Greek , termed the Chronikon , dating from the early 4th century AD. 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 two separate manuscripts, Armenian and Greek (Christesen and Martirosova-Torlone 2006). St. Jerome wrote in Latin. Fragments in Syriac exist. Eusebius ' work consists of two books:

2160-533: Was not free from corruption". Thus, many scholars, like Karl Otfried Müller, utilized this statement as evidence that the Etruscans or the Tyrrhenians migrated from the north and were descendants of an Alpine tribe known as the Raeti. Livy's History of Rome was in high demand from the time it was published and remained so during the early years of the empire. Pliny the Younger reported that Livy's celebrity

2208-503: Was so widespread, a man from Cádiz travelled to Rome and back for the sole purpose of meeting him. Livy's work was a source for the later works of 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

2256-511: 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's work was being lost and large amounts of money changed hands in the rush to collect Livian manuscripts. The poet Beccadelli sold a country home for funding to purchase one manuscript copied by Poggio . Petrarch and Pope Nicholas V launched

2304-558: Was the second wealthiest on the Italian peninsula, and the largest in the province of Cisalpine Gaul (northern Italy). Cisalpine Gaul was merged in Italy proper during his lifetime and its inhabitants were given Roman citizenship by Julius Caesar . 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. Livy's teenage years were during

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