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The Style of Livy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2012

A. H. McDonald
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Extract

The immense detail of the work that was devoted to the study of Livy's style during the last century brought Livian scholarship almost to a standstill, as it were, by its own bulk. Historians still needed to analyse his subject-matter, and there was scope for examination of the manuscript tradition; but the literary critic who considered treating Livy's style, syntax, and diction could hardly expect to do more than refine on the results of his predecessors. And who, unaided, would set himself alongside Madvig or Weissenborn ? More recently, however, three separate lines of research have given us a fresh perspective.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Roman Studies , Volume 47 , Issue 1-2 , November 1957 , pp. 155 - 172
Copyright
Copyright ©A. H. McDonald 1957. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

1 Based on a paper read to the Joint Meeting of Greek and Roman Societies at Oxford in August, 1955. The writer would express his thanks to Prof. U. Kahrstedt, Prof. Sir Frank Adcock, and Prof. E. Fraenkel for the benefit of discussion and advice over many years, while the material was being developed. As the aim is to work directly from the original evidence, bibliographical references have been limited to those which are immediately relevant. For a survey of the recent work on the subject (with a fuller bibliography) see the writer in Fifty Years [of Classical Scholarship], ed. M. Platnauer, 1954, ch.xiii.

2 Peter, H., Hist. Rom. Rel., I 2 iiiGoogle Scholar ff.; Rosenberg, A., Einleitung und Quellenkunde zur röm. Geschichte, 113 ff.Google Scholar; Gelzer, M., Hermes, 69 (1934), 46Google Scholar; ibid., 82 (1954), 342; cf. Crake, J. E. A., Class. Phil., 35 (1940), 375CrossRefGoogle Scholar; McDonald, Oxford Class. Diet., s.v. ‘Annals.’ See also Fraccaro, above pp. 59 ff.

3 Peter, o.c., I2, XXV ff.; cf. H. Nissen, Krit. Untersuchungen über die Quellen der 4 und 5 Dekade des Livius, ch. 5; U. Kahrstedt, Die Annalistik von Livius, B. 31–45, ch. 2 (aptly naming the pattern ‘Jahreswechsel’).

4 W. Kroll, Studien zum Verständnis der röm. Literatur, 362, 370.

5 Gelzer, o.c., above, n. 2; Hermes, 70 (1935), 269Google Scholar.

6 Rosenberg, o.c., 139 ff.

7 McDonald, Fifty Years, 396, 409–10.

8 cf. L. Halkin, La supplication d'action de grâces chez les Romains (1953).

9 Peter, o.c., I2, XXVII–XXVIII.

10 Malcovati, H., Or. Rom. Frag. 2, 7–8Google Scholar; Scullard, H. H., Roman Politics, 230–150 B.C., 298–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11 Marouzeau, J., Rev. de Phil., 45 (1921), 165–6Google Scholar.

12 Peter, o.c., 1, 211–12 (but not Claudius Quadrigarius); Marouzeau, o.c., 164–5. In using the Annalistic passage to illustrate archaic Latin, as Mr. R. M. Ogilvie has pointed out to me, one must take more account than hitherto of Greek influence on the vocabulary and style, possibly through the rendering of a Greek original.

13 Norden, E., Die antike Kunstprosa, I, 234Google Scholar.

14 Gelzer, , Hermes, 69 (1934), 53Google Scholar.

15 Rambaud, M., Cicéron et l'histoire romaine, 9 ff., 121Google Scholar.

16 Bömer, F., Hermes, 81 (1953), 210Google Scholar; McDonald, o.c., 393; cf. F. E. Adcock, Caesar as Man of Letters, 7ff.

17 H. Nissen, o.c., ch. 2; Witte, K., Rhein. Mus., 65 (1910), 270, 359Google Scholar; cf. Walsh, P. G., Rhein. Mus., 97 (1954), 97Google Scholar; A.J. Phil., 76 (1955), 369Google Scholar.

18 Ci. Plathner, H.-G., Die Schlachtschilderungen bei Livius. Diss. Breslau, 1934Google Scholar; Bruckmann, H., Die röm. Niederlagen im Geschichtswerk des T. Livius, Diss. Münster, 1936Google Scholar.

19 Nissen, o.c., 31 ff.; cf. McDonald, o.c., 387.

20 cf. Holleaux, M., REG 36 (1923), 115CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

21 cf. McDonald, , JRS 45 (1955), 177–8Google Scholar.

22 Lambert, A., Die indirekte Rede als künstlerisches Stilmittel des Livius, Diss. Zurich, 1946Google Scholar.

23 H. Taine, Essai sur Tite-Live; R. Ullmann, La technique des discours dans Salluste, Tite Live, et Tacite (1927); Étude sur le style des discours de Tite Live (1929).

24 Witte, o.c., 273 (‘Einzelerzahlungen’).

25 Polyb., II, 56–63; Walbank, F. W., JHS 58 (1938), 55CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bull. Inst. Cl. Studies Univ. London, 2 (1955)Google Scholar; cf. McDonald, Fifty Years, 386–7.

26 Kroll, o.c., 351; Norden, Röm. Literatur (4th ed.), 93; Mendell, C. W., Yale Cl. Studies, 5 (1935), IGoogle Scholar.

27 E. Burck, Die Erzählungskunst des T. Livius 1934).

28 Gellius VI, 14, 3. Marouzeau, o.c., 150 ff.

29 Kroll, o.c., 366. Compare the different treatment of similar actions in Caesar, , BG IV, 14–15Google Scholar (where he dismisses the Usipetes and Tencteri from his pages in a closing ‘period’) and BG VII, 88 (where he describes the critical stage of the victory at Alesia in a striking series of short sentences).

30 Madvig, Kleine philol. Schriften, 356; O. Riemann, Études sur la langue et la grammaire de Tite-Live, 309–10.

31 R. Heinze, Virgils epische Technik (3rd ed.), 442 ff., 485 n. 1.

32 Madvig, o.c., 359–60.

33 Norden, o.c., 78.

34 Stacey, S. G., Archiv für lat. Lexikographie, 10 (1898), 38Google Scholar; Gries, K., Constancy in Livy's Latinity (Diss. New York, 1949), 60–61Google Scholar.

35 Stacey, o.c., 39–40 (cf. pp. 30–31).

36 Norden, Ennius und Vergilius, 154 ff. (after Stacey, o.c., 40). Note also the value of Norden's edition of Vergil, Aen., VI, in studying this question.

37 Eduard Wölfflin, Ausgewählte Schriften (ed. G. Meyer), 1 ff.; Stacey, o.c., 18; cf. Löfstedt, E., Syntactica, II, 294 ffGoogle Scholar.

38 Gries, o.c., 4 ff.

39 Norden, Röm. Literatur, 77; Löfstedt, o.c., II, 295.

40 Peter, o.c., 1, 208–10; Zimmerer, M., Der Annalist Qu. Claudius Quadrigarius (Diss. Munich, 1937), 88 ffGoogle Scholar.

41 Marouzeau, o.c., 160–63; cf. R. Heinze, Die Augusteische Kultur, 97 ff.

42 See now in general L. R. Palmer, The Latin Language, 118 ff.

43 Norden, , Die antike Kunstprosa, I, 164 ffGoogle Scholar.

44 Marouzeau, Quelques aspects de la formation du Latin litteraire, ch. 1; Riemann, o.c., 13 ff.; H. Borneque, Tite-Live, ch. 16.

45 Löfstedt, o.c., II, 365.

46 To take two examples. Is ‘sinere’ with the subjunctive ‘poetic’ or ‘colloquial’ (Gries, o.c., 59)? At XXXIV, 24, 2, it seems ‘sacral’. Or ‘per ambages’ —‘poetic’ (Stacey, o.c., 36) or variable in regular use (Gries, o.c., 20–21)? At XXXIV, 59, 1, it seems colloquial.

47 Wölfflin, o.c., 18.

48 See Löfstedt, o.c., ch. 12; cf. Palmer, o.c., 148–9.

49 C. Cichorius, Röm. Studien, 261 (on the popularity of Livy's readings).

50 Latte, K., Class. Phil., 35 (1940), 56CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

51 See Riemann, above, n. 44; Borneque, o.c., 194–6; R. Syme, The Roman Revolution, 485–6; and in general J. André, La vie et l'oeuvre d'Asinius Pollion, 89 ff.

52 One of the urgent needs in Latin studies is a re-examination of Livy's narrative style in detail, with reference to the particular kinds of context—formal Annalistic, rhetorical composition, dramatic, simple reporting—apart from the oratorical style of the speeches. As regards his sources of diction, Löfstedt (above, note 48) has shown the method of study; cf. Leumann, M., Mus. Helvet. IV (1947), 116Google Scholar. Consult also J. Cousin, Bibliographie de la langue latine (1951), 253, 297, 308.