After the death of Auguste (14 a. J. - C.), Tite-Live left Rome and returned in Padoue. Its History of Rome (Ab Urbe condita libri) was to go from the foundation of the city (754 av. J. - C.) to the death of Auguste, and to comprise 150 pounds. Tite-Live began its work as of 27 av. J. - C., but could not complete it (its account stops with the death of Drusus in 9 av. J. - C.). On the 142 pounds which it actually composed, we preserved only the ten first, or first decade (which go from the origins to the third war samnite), books XXI with XLV (which treat second Punic War and annexation of Macedonia) and some fragments. The width of work, difficult to reproduce in extenso, explains these important gaps. Synopses, or periochae (like that of Florus to IIe century), appeared very early, constituting “handbooks of national history” (Jean Bayet) which testify to the favor and the almost official role of the history livienne.  

The political climate and ideological of the end of the first century before the Christian era is not foreign with this design of a general History of Rome that Tite-Live knew to develop. At the time of the delicate passage of the Republic to the Empire, it not only acts, as one often wrote, to raise “a monument with the glory of Rome”, but especially to point out the seniority and continuity without fault of the history of the city. While the emperor restores the old temples, that the poets like Virgile or Horace evoke the old virtues of the people of Latium, the historian excites the antiquity of the Roman size. The history, according to Tite-Live, builds more than she does not explain. It is not objective, even if the probity of the historian is not in question. She idealizes the great men and remains full with prevention with regard to the democrats, who offer a too dangerous example.

A moral history

One often reproaches Tite-Live for resorting to the annalists who preceded it (Valerius Antias, Claudius Quadrigarius, Fabius Pictor, Caelius Antipater, Polybe), without criticizing them. But its goal was to draw up a fresco moralisatrice, and not to establish facts exactly. One makes also objection to his classicism have edulcorated the legendary or religious texts of primitive Rome. It is to forget that Latin of the time augustéenne were unable to understand the rites and the habits of antiquated times. On the other hand, its account very alive, picturesque, is often coloured. The general composition of its work, alternating carefully the heroic accounts of acts and the fictitious speeches in the manner of Greek historians, his rich, regular and majestic style (sometimes very near to the period cicéronienne) show obviously that Tite-Live wanted, above all, to make a “work oratory”. Its admiration for Démosthène and Cicéron clarifies its design of the history as a literary kind; like the speaker, the historian must touch by his dramatic eloquence.  

During all the end of Antiquity and until the modern Time (see the Speech over the first decade of Tite-Live by Machiavel), there will remain one of the great models, with Plutarque, of a history more turned towards the moral construction that towards the analysis of the change.