author
Livy
-58–16
Best known for his monumental history of Rome, this ancient writer set out to trace the city’s story from its legendary beginnings to his own lifetime. Though much of the work is lost, the surviving books became one of the main ways later generations imagined early Rome.
5 Audiobooks
About the author
Born in Patavium, the Roman city now called Padua, Livy became one of the great historians of the Augustan age. He is chiefly known for Ab Urbe Condita, a vast history of Rome that originally stretched across 142 books and followed the city from its foundation onward.
Only part of that enormous project survives, but the books that remain had a huge afterlife. They preserve famous episodes from early Roman history and helped shape how Romans, Renaissance readers, and modern audiences have pictured figures such as Romulus, Hannibal, and the heroes of the early Republic.
Livy was admired not just for gathering Rome’s past into a single sweeping narrative, but for telling it with clarity and drama. Even where historians debate the accuracy of early traditions, his work still matters as one of the most influential accounts of Rome ever written.