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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 January 2009
‘In the study of history’, says Livy in the preface to his work, ‘the most salutary and profitable advantage to the reader is that he sees before him examples of every kind set out in their true light. From them he may choose for his own benefit and that of his country what to imitate and what to avoid.’ Whether Livy's moralistic attitude to history is legitimate or not, the fact that he always has a moral purpose clearly in mind lends a unity to his work which bears a compelling appearance of truth. All events, all actions are recounted, interpreted, and judged according to a single norm: how far they reflect and illustrate the glory of ancient Rome or the decline of his countrymen from the Golden Age of times past. It is the purpose of this article to examine the part accorded to women in this scheme, and the history will be judged not as a factual record but, as Livy would have expected, as a work of art and moral instruction.
page 1 note 1 Of the twenty-one passages where women are specifically mentioned or play some active part (including the references to them in Cato's speech on the Oppian Law) nine occur in the first two books, and in each case the women are named. In the other thirty-three books women are named only five times.
page 1 note 2 ii. 40. 5–9.
page 1 note 3 ii. 13. 6.
page 2 note 1 iii. 44–8.
page 2 note 2 ii. 12. 2–4. Compare the romantic account of the old centurion, which is almost certainly fictitious, in ii. 23.
page 2 note 3 i. 41. 3.
page 2 note 4 xxxix. 8–19.
page 3 note 1 i. 48. 7.
page 3 note 2 i. 9. 16.
page 3 note 3 For Tarpeia see i. 11. 6–9.
page 4 note 1 iv. 9. 4–8.
page 4 note 2 xxvii. 15. 9–12. Compare also xxix. 4. 3–5.
page 4 note 3 viii. 18. 11.
page 4 note 4 xxxiv. 1. 7.
page 4 note 5 Inferior matrona suo sit, Prisce, marito: Non aliter fuerint femina virque pares. (Mart. viii. 12, vv. 3–4.)
page 4 note 6 xxxiv. 4. 15–16.
page 5 note 1 xxvi. 50.
page 5 note 2 xxxvi. 11. 2–3.
page 5 note 3 xxix. 23. 4; xxx. 12. 18.
page 6 note 1 xxx. 15. 14.
page 6 note 2 xxx. 14. 10.
page 6 note 3 xl. 4–5. 1.
page 6 note 4 For a possible exception see the story of Orgiago's wife: xxxviii. 24.
page 6 note 5 As they did a century later. See Pliny, Epist. 1. 14; Mart. xi. 168.
page 7 note 1 i. 57. 9.
page 7 note 2 See E. Wölfflin, ‘Zur Psychologie der Völker des Altertums, iv. Rom. Italien’ in Archiv für Lateinische Lexicographie und Grammatik, 1890; H. W. Litchfield, ‘National Exempla Virtutis in Roman Literature’, in Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, xxv. 1914: Anmerkungen to R. Heinze, Vom Geist des Römertums (Leipzig, 1938).
page 8 note 1 v. 27. 8.
