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LIVY
literary structure of each episode and this determines his selection and emphasis
of the details.
But the enormous field of history which he had set himself to cover raised
further problems. How was the interest of the reader to be sustained over all
142 books? Quintilian characterized his style as possessing a 'milky richness'
(10.1.32, lactea ubertas) which might be thought to imply the measured pace
of a Gibbon, but, in fact, Livy is remarkable for the extreme range of styles
which he uses in his narrative in order to achieve variety. At one moment, when
recounting essentially perfunctory details he will use a matter-of-fact style,
with stock vocabulary and the minimum of syntactical subordination. A major
episode, such as the battle of Cannae, Trasimene or Cynoscephalae, will have
its own unity. There will be the indication of a temporal break (e.g. sub idem
forte tempus 'about the same time') and a summary of the scene and the actors
(e.g. 2.31.5 erat turn inter castra iuuenis Cn. Marcius nomine 'there was in the
camp at the time a young man called Cn. Marcius'). Then will follow a series
of complicated sentences which set out the preliminary dispositions, often with
participial clauses explaining the motives and thoughts of the chief figures. The
action will be described in the stereotyped language of a military communique
(especially the use of the impersonal passive) or short, staccato sentences,
employing the historic infinitive or historic present. Finally, in describing the
climax or its aftermath, Livy will allow his language to be coloured with words
which (such was the particularity of the Latin stylistic tradition) could normally
only have been used in heroic poetry. A terse comment — kaec eo anno acta
'this happened that year' —will round off the episode. By this variation Livy
was able to convey an impression not only of the military facts but also of the
emotional experience of the participants.
Livy's language has been much studied and the publication of a complete
Concordance 1 has opened new doors for the appreciation of his verbal sensitivity,
such as, for example, the realization that he uses the exclamation ' o' only once
in the surviving books, in the solemn reply of the Delphic oracle to Brutus
and the Tarquins (1.56.10). If Livy's concern was to see history as the literary
embodiment of individuals, then his success depended to a very large extent
on making those historical characters come alive and sound authentic. Earlier
historians — Thucydides, Xenophon, Philistus — had been criticized for putting
speeches into the mouths of their leading characters which did not truly bring
out their individuality (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, ad Pomp. 3.20 et a/.), but
Livy, as he himself says, was able to enter into the spirit of his characters (43.13.2
mini uetustas res scribenti nescio quo pacto antiquus fit animus). The climax of
any episode is often a passage of direct or indirect speech, which characterizes
the chief actor. In the passage analysed above (Livy 3.1—8) one of the high-
1
Packard (1968).
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