Livy

Gary B. Miles reveals in Livy's history a creative interplay between traditional stories, contemporary ideological assumptions, and the historian's own perspective at the margins of Roman aristocracy.

Gary B. Miles is Professor of History at Cowell College at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He is also the author of Virgil's Georgics: A New Interpretation.

Miles's book is well informed by an excellent knowledge of Roman culture and literature for the period ca. 60–20 B.C.

A brilliant and convincing analysis. This lucid study... takes its place beside other basic works.... Highly recommended.

T. James Luce, Princeton University:

In this challenging book Miles argues that Livy's picture of early Rome is a reflection of the ideals, tensions, and concerns of his own day. Rome coped with changes by casting them as continuities with the past; Livy in his idiosyncratic reinterpretation sees the contradictions, ambiguities, and positive lessons in those continuities.

Judith Ginsburg, Cornell University:

A very important work. Miles goes further than his predecessors, giving us a Livy who is not merely in control of the structure of his history as a whole and of its individual episodes, but one who demonstrates originality as a thinker and interpreter.