FOOTNOTES
[4] Niebuhr’s[h] remarks on the dates of Livy’s history (Rom. Hist. iv.) may be compared with the more common view given in Smith’s Dictionary and elsewhere. I think the beginning of the work must be placed in 29-24 B.C.; but adopting the idea that it was originally divided into decades, the fact now demonstrated, that it reached to a hundred and forty-second book, seems to show that it was not left complete according to the author’s intentions. It is also well remarked that the death of Drusus does not furnish a point of sufficient importance for the termination of the great epic of Roman history. This view is supported by the interesting statement of Pliny, that in one of his latter books Livy had declared: Satis jam sibi gloriæ quæsitum; et potuisse se desinere, nisi animus inquies pasceretur opere. (Plin. Hist. Nat. præf.) A period of more than forty years thus devoted to the elaboration of a single work is not unparalleled. Froissart was engaged forty years upon his Chronicles.
Roman Compass
(In the British Museum)
Roman Death Mask