page_title: Ab Urbe Condita Libri
section_title: First decade
hierarchical_section_title: Ab Urbe Condita Libri / Manuscripts / First decade
caption_attribution_description: Italiano: Ab urbe condita (italiano). Segue: Leonardo Bruni: De primo bello Punico (italiano). - Stampate nella inclita cittade di Venetia&#160;: per Zovane Vercellense ad istancia del nobile ser Luca Antonio Zonta fiorentino, nel anno MCCCCLXXXXIII adi XI del mese di febraio. - 140, 122, 120 c.&#160;; [*]⁸, [**]¹⁰, a-o⁸, p¹⁰, aa-oo⁸, pp¹⁰, A-P⁸&#160;; fol. - Marca tipografica nell'explicit. - Manca la c. dd4 .
context_page_description: The book History of Rome, sometimes referred to as Ab Urbe Condita, is a monumental history of ancient Rome, written in Latin between 27 and 9 BC by the historian Titus Livius, or "Livy", as he is usually known in English. The work covers the period from the legends concerning the arrival of Aeneas and the refugees from the fall of Troy, to the city's founding in 753, the expulsion of the Kings in 509, and down to Livy's own time, during the reign of the emperor Augustus. The last event covered by Livy is the death of Drusus in 9 BC. About 25% of the work survives. The surviving books deal with the events down to 293 BC, and from 219 to 166 BC.
context_section_description: All of the manuscripts (except one) of the first ten books (first decade) of Ab Urbe Condita Libri, which were copied through the Middle Ages and were used in the first printed editions, are derived from a single recension commissioned by Quintus Aurelius Symmachus, consul, AD 391. A recension is made by comparing extant manuscripts and producing a new version, an emendation, based on the text that seems best to the editor. The latter then "subscribed" to the new MS by noting on it that he had emended it.
  Symmachus, probably using the authority of his office, commissioned Tascius Victorianus to emend the first decade. Books I–IX bear the subscription Victorianus emendabam dominis Symmachis, "I Victorianus emended (this) by the authority of Symmachus." Books VI–VIII include another subscription preceding it, that of Symmachus' son-in-law, Nicomachus Flavianus, and Books III–V were also emended by Flavianus' son, Appius Nicomachus Dexter, who says he used his relative Clementianus' copy. This recension and family of descendant MSS is called the Nicomachean, after two of the subscribers. From it several MSS descend (incomplete list):
  Epigraphists go on to identify several hands and lines of descent. A second family of the first decade consists of the Verona Palimpsest, reconstructed and published by Theodore Mommsen, 1868; hence the Veronensis MSS. It includes 60 leaves of Livy fragments covering Books III-VI. The handwriting style is dated to the 4th century, only a few centuries after Livy.
  In the Middle Ages there were constant rumors that the complete books of the History of Livy lay hidden in the library of a Danish or German Monastery. One individual even affirmed under oath in the court of Martin V that he had seen the whole work, written in Lombardic script, in a monastery in Denmark. All of these rumors were later found to be unsubstantiated.
caption: Ab urbe condita, 1493
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