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. Above all, it must have been a fearless and honest man who could swing the scourge with which he lashed his degenerate countrymen in those stinging words, "The present times, when we can endure neither our vices nor their remedies."
Nevertheless, and despite the facts that Livy means to be honest and that he questions much on grounds that would not shame the repute of many of his modern critics, the charge is doubtless true that his writings are not free from prejudice in favour of his country. That he definitely regarded history rather as a moral agency and a lesson for the future than as an irrefutable narrative of the past, I consider highly hypothetical; but it is probable that his mind was not of the type that is most diligent in the close, exhaustive, and logical study so necessary to the historian of today. "Superficial," if we could eliminate the reproach in the word, would perhaps go far toward describing him. He is what we would call a popular rather than a scientific writer, and, since we think somewhat lightly of such when they write on what we consider scientific subjects, we are too apt to transfer their light repute to an author who wrote popularly at a time when this treatment was best adapted to his audience, his aims, and the material at his command. That he has survived through all these centuries, and has enjoyed, despite all criticism, the position in the literature of the world which his very critics have united in conceding to him, is perhaps a stronger commendation than any technical approval.
From the standpoint of the present work it was felt that selections aggregating seven books would accomplish all the purposes of a complete presentation. The editors have chosen the first three books of the first decade as telling what no one can better tell than Livy: the stories and legends connected with the foundation and early life of Rome. Here, as I have said, there was nothing for him to do but cut loose from all trammels and hang breathless, pen in hand, upon the lips of tradition. None can hold but that her faithful scribe has writ down her words with all their ancient colour, with reverence reigning over his heart; however doubts might lurk within his brain. These books close with the restoration of the consular power, after the downfall of the tyrannical rule of the Decemvirs, the revolution following upon the attempt of Appius Claudius to seize Virginia, the daughter of a citizen who, rather than see his child fall into the clutches of the cruel patrician, killed her with his own hand in the marketplace, and, rushing into the camp with the bloody knife, caused the soldiers to revolt. The second section comprises Books XXI-XXIV, a part of the narrative of the second Punic war, a military exploit the most remarkable the world has ever seen.