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Updated: June 21, 2025
The right of augury in origin simply the inspection of the heavens was theirs alone, and it was exercised particularly on the annual occasions mentioned and at the installation of priests, of which we get a typical instance in Livy's account of the consecration of Numa. Here the augur's functions were merely preparatory and advisory.
If we glance over the latter part of the book of prodigies, compiled by the otherwise unknown writer Julius Obsequens from the records of the pontifices quoted in Livy's history, we can get a fair idea of the kind of portent that was troubling the popular mind.
The epitome of Livy's history, or rather the wars of it, from the foundation of Rome to the era of Augustus, in two short books, is a pretentious and smartly written work. But it shows no independent investigation, and no power of impartial judgment. Its views of the constitution are even more superficial than those of Livy.
The account of Polybius throws light upon many discrepant statements, and all of them, not even excepting Livy's fairy-tale-like embellishment, may be explained by means of it.
Reverting for a moment to Livy's honesty and frankness, so far as his intent might govern such qualities, I think no stronger evidence in his favour can be found than his avowed republican leanings at the court of Augustus and his just estimate of Cicero's character in the face of the favour of a prince by whose consent the great orator had been assassinated.
In the introductory chapters which serve the purpose of prefaces to the Jugurtha and Catiline of Sallust, we find something of the same sad tone, but it does not ring true like Livy's exordium; Sallust was a man of altogether coarser fibre, and seems to be rather assuming than expressing the genuine feeling of a saddened onlooker.
Livy understood the spirit of ancient times, making it real to modern minds because he possest "antiquity of soul." In his own day Livy's popularity was almost limitless. Pliny the Younger recalled that a man once traveled to Rome from Cadiz with the express purpose of seeing Livy. Translated by D. Spillan and Cyrus Edmonds. "Cocles" was a nick-name meaning the "one-eyed."
The state of letters at Rome, while unfavourable to strictly political history, was ripe for the production of a work like Livy's. Augustus, Agrippa, and Pollio, had founded public libraries in which the older works were accessible.
Deeply was he wounded that day by the unconscious charmer, who would as soon have thought of inspiring love in the bosom of the broken-nosed saint by the wayside as in the heart that beat under the blue blouse. I regret to say that 'the infants, as Madame C. always called Miss Livy's charges, behaved themselves with less decorum than could have been wished.
Where Livy's pictured narrative had been, you found only a dull wearisome legend. Where the thunder of Homer's lyre or the sweet notes of Virgil's muse had resounded, you heard now a dismal croak or a lugubrious chant.
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