I. OF Livy the man little is known, except that he wrote one of the most delightful histories in the world. To him, more perhaps than to any other writer, is due the traditional fame. of the Romans for traits of high character. Roman virtue is not wholly a figment of fancy; for of virtue, in the antique sense of that word, the Romans, with the Spartans, certainly possessed a large share. But Livy is of all men the man who supplies the historic or mythologic material out of which the current lofty ideal of Roman character has been constructed. Cato, who lived before Livy, said that there were Roman stories as well worthy of immortal remembrance as any stories told of the Greeks-there wanted to Rome only the genius of some great writer to tell those stories properly. That occasion of reproach Livy took away. Ti'tus Liv'i-us Pat-a-vi'nus we know was born at Pad'u-a, in Italy. His last name was derived from the original Latin designation, Pa-ta'vi-um, for that city. He was the great prose poet of the reign of Augustus. Horace and Virgil were coevals of his. He was a boy of fifteen years when Cæsar fell at the base of Pompey's statue. Besides being an historian, Livy was something of a philosopher. The things, however, that he wrote as philosopher survive only in the mention of Sen'e-ca. The two functions, that of philosopher and that of historian, he kept quite distinct. He did not write history philosophically. Livy's history was a majestic work, covering the whole subject of the fortunes of Rome from the founding of the city down almost to the beginning of the Christian era. What an epic in prose was there! But of the hundred and fifty-two books in which the work was written, only thirtyfive books remain. What we have is highly interesting; but what we have not, as well in quality as in quantity, would be a far more precious possession. We have lost we know not what; but we guess with certainty that Livy's account of the Italian War and his account of the Civil War between Marius and Sulla, which are among the many things missing, would have thrown on those great chapters of Roman story such a light as now is not to be collected from all other sources taken together. Livy apparently published his work in installments. He must have been occupied not less than twenty years in the composition. This we gather from the fact that in the last parts of the history there are events recorded that did not take place until some twenty years subsequently to the issue of the first installment. The history has been divided up into sets of books, ten each in number, hence called "decades." The thirty-five books that remain give us the first decade, the third, and the fourth, entire, with half of the fifth. There are detached fragments from the rest. The first decade deals with about five hundred years of history, from the founding of Rome to the subjugation by Rome of the Sam'nites. This portion of the work has little claim, and it makes little claim, to the character of history. It is confessedly mythical and legendary, rather than historical. But most entertaining narrative Livy makes of his material. "The brave days of old" live again, with power —a power communicated from vivific style-in his glowing pages. Take for a single specimen of the anecdotes of patriotic, if pagan, self-devotion, with which the annals of mythical Rome are profusely illuminated, but which nowhere else are so vividly brilliant as in Livy's telling-this famous legend of left-handed Mu'ci-us. "Lars Por'se-na of Clu'si-um," as every boy knows out of Macaulay's "Lays of Ancient Rome," was marked out by a patriot adventurer from the city for death by assassination. A high-born Roman youth, Mucius by name, resolved, with the approval of the senate, to penetrate the enemy's lines, and, getting access to Porsena's [Porsen'na's] person, to slay him with a sudden stroke in the midst of his friends. By mistake Porsena's secretary was vicariously slain; and now let Livy tell the rest. We use Mr. Collins's translation, given in the volume on Livy in Ancient Classics for English Readers: He [Mucius] was moving off, making a way for himself through the crowd with his bloody weapon, when the clamor made the king's guards run up, who seized him and dragged him back. Set before the king where he sat in state, even in that imminent peril he spoke as if the king, and not he, had need to tremble. "I am a citizen of Rome; men call me Caius Mucius. I sought to slay mine enemy. And I have as good heart to suffer death as I had to inflict it: our Roman fashion is to do and suffer stoutly. Nor is it I alone who bear in my mind this intent toward thee: there follows after me a long succession of claimants for this glory. Wherefore prepare thyself at once for this conflict: to be in jeopardy of life from hour to hour-to find an enemy at the very threshold of thy chamber. Such is the war we Roman youth declare against thee. Thou hast not to dread the battle or the open field; the struggle for thee will be in person against each single antagonist." When the king, alike furious with anger and alarmed at the peril, threatened him with torture by fire unless he forthwith revealed the plot at which he thus darkly hinted—“Lo, here,” said he, "that you may understand how cheap they hold all pains of the body, who see a grand renown in prospect "-and he thrust his hand into the fire on the altar just kindled for sacrifice. When he held it there to be consumed, as quite unconscious of any sense of pain, the king, well-nigh astounded at the marvel, leapt from his seat and bade him be moved away from the altar. The hated Etruscan was not incapable of generosity. He suffered Mucius-thenceforward known in legend by the surname Sca'vo-la, (Left-handed)—to escape punishment. Scævola, according to Livy, went off muttering, “by way of |