How Many Manuscripts of Livy Are There? About 473

This was so much easier than counting up the manuscripts of Vergil, which I don't seem to be anywhere close to finished doing.

Actually, Marielle de Franchis counted them up for me, in Chapter 1, "Livian Manuscript Tradition," of the Blackwell Companion to Livy, which was published in 2015, and a copy of which arrived for me via inter-library loan today.



Franchis mentions on p 5 "all the manuscripts of the First Decade (about 200) available today." 1 manuscript of a fragment of the Second Decade was found at Oxyrhynchus. On p 9, Franchis writes that "More than 170 manuscripts that transmitted the Third Decade between the fifth and the fifteenth cantury are still extant." On p 14, she tells us that the Forth Decade "has survived in about 100 manuscripts." There is 1 manuscript of the Fifth Decade containing books 41-45, and 1 containing a fragment of the Tenth Decade.

200 + 1 +170 + 100 + 1 + 1 = 473. The number is more likely to rise than to fall. By how much? I don't know.

I have admitted on this blog that I hope that many more missing parts of Livy's text will be discovered, and that I am aware that such hopes often make people chuckle who are much more learned on the subject of Livy than I. How much more learned? Well, for example, I have read Professor Michael Reeve's article "The Vetus Carnotensis of Livy Unmasked," in Studies in Latin Literature and its Tradition in Honour of C. O. Brink, ed Diggle, Hall & Jocelyn (1989), which Reeve wrote in my native language, English, read it several times, with the greatest interest, and I still am very far from comprehending its content.



So understand that my opinions on such matters, when they are not supported by citations of professionals, are decidedly amateur. My opinion that study of 6th-century Europe made lead to great discoveries of currently-missing parts of Livy's text? Amateur. I wouldn't be at all surprised if it would make the experts chuckle.

I think that they would be somewhat less inclined to chuckle (It doesn't hurt my feelings when they chuckle. Really, it doesn't) when I say that the number of manuscripts of Livy will rise from about 473, although the manuscripts added to the list will mostly (Here they may chuckle again, because I said "mostly" in stead of "all." It's okay) contain text currently known.

Faithful readers of this blog may have noticed that I've written a lot about the transmission of Livy's text, and almost nothing about the text itself. They may be thinking, "Heck, Steve -- what's so great about Livy anyhow?!" I may eventually write some answers to that question. I really do think that Livy is great: a wonderful writer who tells exciting stories, and occasionally underrated as an historian -- but even those who have called him worthless as an historian have agreed that he gives you a great read.

Two Manuscripts Of The Third Decade Of Livy (Hannibal Versus Rome)

By "the third decade" I mean books 21-30 of Livy's 142-book history of Rome. The first decade contains books 1-10, which cover the history of Rome from its mythical beginnings up until the early third century BC and the late stages of the Samnite Wars; the second decade, books 11 through 20, continue the story up until just before the Second Punic War. Books 11-20 are missing, except for a scrap of papyrus containing 41 words of book 11, found by archaeologists in Egypt in the 1980's.

The third decade, books 21-30, covers the Second Punic War, Rome's war against Carthage under its brilliant leader Hannibal, who actually came pretty close to conquering Rome, occupying much of Italy for well over 10 years before ha was finally defeated, hunted down and killed and Rome defeated Carthage for the 2nd of 3 times. (The 3rd time, Rome destroyed Carthage.)

It's debated these days just how good an historian Livy really is, how reliable the historical information is we get from him, how careful he is to get all the facts right. But even some of those who most emphatically denigrate him as an historian still praise him highly as an author. Apart from how accurate the tales he tells are as history, they are dramatic, exciting, gripping tales well-told. Livy is a great read. And of the surviving parts of his history, Livy's third decade seems to be the most popular, considered to be the most exciting reading. I would say that it's up there with ancient Rome's most renowned verse. Michael Reeve, a professor of Classics at Cambridge, said, at a colloquium in 1987, of a passage from Livy's book 23, that it "makes me wonder why our pupils spend so much of their time reading verse." ( Studies in Latin literature and its tradition: In honour of C.O. Brink,pp 103-104. )

The third decade seems to have been one of the best-loved parts of Livy's history right from the start, which may have everything to do with why we still have a lot of manuscripts of it. (154 manuscripts of the third decade, according to Reeve, p 107, but that was in the late 1980's, the total may be higher now.) I've come across 2 web pages, each dedicated to one of those manuscripts: this 15th-century manuscript in the University of Glasgow may not be the most important one from the point of view of preserving our closest guesses as to Livy's original text, but it's very nice to look at, with illustrations like this:



Then there's the Codex Puteanus of Livy's second decade, perhaps the single most important manuscript for transmitting the text. (There are many famous Codices Puteani, all named after their former owner Claude Dupuy, so when discussing this one make sure everyone understands that you're referring to the 5th-century Codex Puteanus of Livy's second decade.) This link leads to a page on the website of the Bibliothèque nationale de France where you can click through high-quality color pictures of all 900+ pages of the Codex Puteanus. You have to click for a while to get to the interesting stuff, but don't worry, the actual manuscript really is in there. It starts on Screen 11. That's a 5th-century manuscript, folks. Pay no attention to the BnF website telling you otherwise. The BnF has a tremendous amount of wonderful manuscripts, and they have excellent librarians working there too. It's a magnificent place. But the people who make their website are unfortunately still, in the year Two Thousand and For Crying Out Loud, not geniuses. You have no idea what I went through to get you that link showing you the Codex Puteanus. That codex should be right up on the library's homepage or very near it. Anyway... I found it, eventually, but only because I AM a genius, and wanted very badly to show it to you. Enjoy.