Ab Urbe condita (Livy)
Також відомий як: Ab Urbe condita, Tite-Live, mon Tite-Live, Tive-Live, Histoire romaine de Tite-Live, Histoire romaine (Tite-Live)
Overview
Ab Urbe condita libri ("From the founding of the City"), in the French of Marie's day l'Histoire romaine of Tite-Live, is the history of Rome from its legendary beginnings to 9 BC by Titus Livius (Livy, 59 BC - AD 17). It was written in Latin between about 27 and 9 BC in 142 books, of which 35 survive: books 1-10 (to 293 BC) and 21-45 (219-166 BC). (Wikipedia, "History of Rome (Livy)".) Book IV, on which Marie took notes, covers the early Republic (the fifth century BC).
Marie and this work
Livy is the one ancient author Marie reads with a pen in her hand, and he is tied to her love for Rome.
- Self-portrait as a student (2 July 1876, 062.0842). She lists the historians with whom she began her study of history after the Bible: "Hérodote, Tite-Live, Diodore de Sicile, Denys d'Halicarnasse, Pline". (She wrote "Tive-Live"; the RSR note records the print's spelling.)
- "Aussi intéressant qu'Alexandre Dumas" (11 December 1876). She is "pétrifiée devant ce Tite-Live de malheur" (067.1544) and a few lines later asks: "Aimez-vous comme moi Tite-Live ? Je le trouve aussi intéressant qu'Alexandre Dumas. Ne riez pas de la comparaison..." (067.1557).
- *After Les Horaces (1 February 1877, 068.0915). After hearing Agar in Corneille's Horace* at the Théâtre-Français in Nice, whose subject comes from Livy's Book I, she goes home and reads Livy: "Les héros, les plis des toges... le Capitole, la Coupole...".
- Travel library (23 August 1877, 074.0053). "Mon Tite-Live gros vert" is among the books she carries everywhere, with her four red dictionaries.
- Soden, July-September 1878. A sustained reading programme. On 9 July she takes notes every evening and "needs to read Roman history" (081.0393); on 11 July she is about to finish "les notes sur le IVe livre" (081.0416); on 13 July she has read only 42 pages of her quarto Livy, against a plan of 100 a day, then to reread him without notes "pour m'amuser" (081.0427). On 2 August: "Le vieux Tite-Live raconte si bien et lorsque dans certains passages on sent qu'il travestit une défaite ou excuse une humiliation... c'est presque touchant... jusqu'à présent je n'ai jamais aimé que Rome !" (081.0598). On 23 September she says that when she has finished Livy she will read Michelet's Histoire de France, then the Greeks (082.0442).
Marie does not say in which language or translation she reads. The LAN note at 081.0395 ("reads in Latin") is an assumption; the "gros vert" quarto (in-4) could as well be the French translation of Nisard in the series of Firmin-Didot, which is the likely standard edition of her day.
Sources
- Wikipedia, "History of Rome (Livy)" (extent, survival, dates).
- fr.wikisource, Histoire romaine (Tite-Live), translation by Désiré Nisard.
- Diary paragraphs as cited above.
Supersedes (author-type stub): `people/mentioned/TITE_LIVE.md`.