Ixvi
MANUSCRIPTS OF LIVY.
Eutropius did. Livy was the Stator of the history of Rome.
After him no one wrote a Roman history except in very brief
outlines such as Floras; but even he used no sources beyond
Livy, except in one passage in which he gives a different account
from that of Livy. Others, as Orosius and Eutropius, had
read absolutely no history but Livy’s ; and as regards Orosius
it is not even quite certain whether he did not draw up his
sketch from some other epitome of Livy. I for one believe
that he did compile his history from some abridgment of Livy.
The Greeks had no such historian.16 Silius Italicus, the most
wretched of all poets, made only a paraphrase of Livy. I
once went through this poetaster very carefully; and the result
of my examination was the conviction that he had taken
everything from Livy.
Livy was read in the schools of the grammarians, and more
especially, it would seem, the first and third decads. These
schools, generally speaking, not only survived the seventh
century at Rome, but continued to exist in some places, as at
Ravenna, down to the eleventh. The principal prose works
that were read and commented upon in these schools, were
Livy and Cicero’s orations against Catiline. It is, however,
surprising, that all the manuscripts of the first decad of Livy
depend upon one single original copy, which was written in
the fourth century by Nicomachus for Symmachus and his
family; but it is very bad. There exists no manuscript con-
taining all the extant books of Livy : those in which we find
the first, third, and fourth decads, do not contain the fourth
entire ; of the latter in fact, we have no manuscript older than
the fourteenth century. From this we see, that in the middle
ages, Livy was little read, the most trivial abridgments being
thought sufficient. Of the first books, however, we have
manuscripts as old as the tenth century. The literary history
of a work ought not to be given without that of the text.
The “ Bibliotheca Latina ” of Fabricius is deficient in this
respect; and a work which shall combine the two is yet to be
written. At the time of the revival of letters, persons again
began to turn their attention to Livy; they found the first and
third decads in a tolerable number of manuscripts, but the
fourth only in a few, and these very mutilated ones. The
fourth decad was not brought to light during the first period
*β Compare vol. ɪ. p. 4.
THE EXTANT PARTS OE LIVY⅛ WORK. Ixvii
after the invention of the art of printing; but still we see
from a novella of Francesco Sacchetti, that it was known and
read during the fourteenth century, though several parts of it
were wanting, such as the whole of the thirty-third book, and
the latter parts of the fortieth, from chapter xxxvii, which was
supplied in 1518 from a manuscript of Mainz, while the thirty-
third book was still wanting. The last five books, from 41 to
45, were published in the edition of Basle of the year 1531,
from a manuscript of the convent of Lorsch (codex Laurisha-
mensis) written in the seventh or eighth century, which is now
at Vienna. The first sixteen chapters of the thirty-third book
were published at Rome in 1616 from a Bamberg manuscript.
Goller of Cologne has lately compared this manuscript and pub-
lished very valuable readings from it17. The codex Lauri-
shamensis for the last five books also has been collated by
Kopitar, who has published important various readings; but
they still have many gaps.
Thus we have thirty books complete, and by far the greater
part of the next five. After the work had gradually been
completed thus far, great hopes were excited of discovering
the whole. Everybody turned his attention to Livy and was
anxious to make new discoveries, and many a one allowed
himself to be imposed upon by the strangest tales and reports.
In the time of Louis XlV especially, several adventurers came
forward, and pretended to know where the missing books of
Livy were to be found. Some said they existed in the Seraglio
at Constantinople18, others that they were to be found in
Chios ; and some even pretended to know that there existed a
complete Arabic translation of Livy in the library of Fez.
Some time ago, there was a report that a translation was found
at Saragossa. But the Arabs never translated historians. We
know that at one time there existed at Lausanne a manuscript
containing the whole of the fifth decad, but it is now lost.
A real discovery was made by Bruns, a countryman of mine,
who resided at Rome in the years 1772 and 1773. Attention
', The work to which Niebuhr here alludes is entitled: “ Livii, liber xxxiii.
auctus αtquc emend:itus, cum Fr. Jacobsii suisque notɪs ex cod. Bamberg, ed.
F. Goller,” 1812.
's It is true, that some books from the library of the Greek emperors were
left behind at Constantinople at the time when the city was taken possession of
h the Tmks, but all of them probably pushed m the great fire.—N.
/2