(E. He.)
LIVIUS ANDRONĪCUS (c. 284-204 B.C.), the founder of Roman epic poetry and drama. His name, in which the Greek Ἀνδρόνικος is combined with the gentile name of one of the great Roman houses, while indicative of his own position as a manumitted slave, is also significant of the influences by which Roman literature was fostered, viz. the culture of men who were either Greeks or “semi-Graeci” by birth and education, and the protection and favour bestowed upon them by the more enlightened members of the Roman aristocracy. He is supposed to have been a native of Tarentum, and to have been brought, while still a boy, after the capture of that town in 272, as a slave to Rome. He lived in the household of a member of the gens Livia, probably M. Livius Salinator. He determined the course which Roman literature followed for more than a century after his time. The imitation of Greek comedy, tragedy and epic poetry, which produced great results in the hands of Naevius, Plautus, Ennius and their successors, received its first impulse from him. To judge, however, from the insignificant remains of his writings, and from the opinions of Cicero and Horace, he can have had no pretension either to original genius or to artistic accomplishment. His real claim to distinction was that he was the first great schoolmaster of the Roman people. We learn from Suetonius that, like Ennius after him, he obtained his living by teaching Greek and Latin; and it was probably as a school-book, rather than as a work of literary pretension, that his translation of the Odyssey into Latin Saturnian verse was executed. This work was still used in schools in the time of Horace (Epp. ii. 1., 69), and, although faultily executed, satisfied a real want by introducing the Romans to a knowledge of Greek. Such knowledge became essential to men in a high position as a means of intercourse with Greeks, while Greek literature stimulated the minds of leading Romans. Moreover, southern Italy and Sicily afforded many opportunities for witnessing representations of Greek comedies and tragedies. The Romans and Italians had an indigenous drama of their own, known by the name of Satura, which prepared them for the reception of the more regular Greek drama. The distinction between this Satura and the plays of Euripides or Menander was that it had no regular plot. This the Latin drama first received from Livius Andronicus; but it did so at the cost of its originality. In 240, the year after the end of the first Punic War, he produced at the ludi Romani a translation of a Greek play (it is uncertain whether a comedy or tragedy or both), and this representation marks the beginning of Roman literature (Livy vii. 2). Livius himself took part in his plays, and in order to spare his voice he introduced the custom of having the solos (cantica) sung by a boy, while he himself represented the action of the song by dumb show. In his translation he discarded the native Saturnian metre, and adopted the iambic, trochaic and cretic metres, to which Latin more easily adapted itself than either to the hexameter or to the lyrical measures of a later time. He continued to produce plays for more than thirty years after this time. The titles of his tragedies—Achilles, Aegisthus, Equus Trojanus, Hermione, Tereus—are all suggestive of subjects which were treated by the later tragic poets of Rome. In the year 207, when he must have been of a great age, he was appointed to compose a hymn of thanksgiving, sung by maidens, for the victory of the Metaurus and an intercessory hymn to the Aventine Juno. As a further tribute of national recognition the “college” or “gild” of poets and actors was granted a place of meeting in the temple of Minerva on the Aventine.
See fragments in L. Müller, Livi Andronici et Cn. Naevi Fabularum Reliquiae (1885); also J. Wordsworth, Fragments and Specimens of Early Latin (1874); Mommsen, Hist. of Rome, bk. iii. ch. 14.
LIVNO, a town of Bosnia, situated on the eastern side of the fertile plain of Livno, at the foot of Mount Krug (6581 ft.). Pop. about 5000. The Dalmatian border is 7 m. W. Livno had a trade in grain, live-stock and silver filigree-work up to 1904, when a fire swept away more than 500 of the old Turkish houses, together with the Roman citadel. Remains prove that Livno occupies the site of a Roman settlement, the name of which is uncertain. The Roman Catholic convent of Gurici is 6 m. S.
LIVONIA, or Livland (Russian, Liflandia), one of the three Baltic provinces of Russia, bounded W. by the Gulf of Riga, N. by Esthonia, E. by the governments of St Petersburg, Pskov and Vitebsk, and S. by Courland. A group of islands (1110 sq. m.) at the entrance of the Gulf of Riga, of which Oesel, Mohn, Runo and Paternoster are the largest, belong to this government. It covers an area of 18,160 sq. m., but of this the part of Lake Peipus which belongs to it occupies 1090. Its surface is diversified by several plateaus, those of Haanhof and of the Livonian Aa having an average elevation of 400 to 700 ft., while several summits reach 800 to 1000 ft. or more. The edges of the plateaus are gapped by deep valleys; the hilly tract between the Dvina and its tributary the Livonian Aa has received, from its picturesque narrow valleys, thick forests and numerous lakes, the name of “Livonian Switzerland.” The plateau of Odenpäh, drained by tributaries of the Embach river, which flows for 93 m. from Lake Virz-yärvi into Lake Peipus, occupies an area of 2830 sq. m., and has an average elevation of 500 ft. More than a thousand lakes are scattered over Livonia, of which that of Virz-yärvi, having a surface of 106 sq. m. (115 ft. above sea-level), is the largest. Marshes and peat-bogs occupy one-tenth of the province. Of the numerous rivers, the Dvina, which flows for 90 m. along its frontier, the Pernau, Salis, Livonian Aa and Embach are navigable.
The Silurian formation which covers Esthonia, appears in the northern part of Livonia, the remainder of the province consisting of Devonian strata. The whole is overlaid with glacial deposits, sometimes 400 ft. thick. The typical bottom moraine, with erratics from Finland, extends all over the country. Glacial furrows, striae and elongated troughs are met with everywhere, running mostly from north-west to south-east, as well as ảsar or eskérs, which have the same direction. Sand-dunes cover large tracts on the shores of the Baltic. No traces of marine deposits are found higher than 100 or 150 ft. above the present sea-level. The soil is not very fertile. Forests cover about two-fifths of the surface. The climate is rather severe. The mean temperatures are 43° F. at Riga (winter 23°, summer 63°) and 40° at Yuriev. The winds are very variable; the average number of rainy and snowy days is 146 at Riga (rainfall 24.1 in.). Fogs are not uncommon.
The population of Livonia, which was 621,600 in 1816, reached 1,000,876 in 1870, and 1,295,231 in 1897, of whom 43.4% were Letts, 39.9% Ehsts, 7.6% Germans, 5.4% Russians, 2% Jews and 1.2% Poles. The estimated pop. in 1906 was 1,411,000. The Livs, who formerly extended east into the government of Vitebsk, have nearly all passed away. Their native language, of Finnish origin, is rapidly disappearing, their present language being a Lettish patois. In 1846 a grammar and dictionary of it were made with difficulty from the mouths of old people. The Ehsts, who resemble the Finns of Tavastland, have maintained their ethnic features, their customs, national traditions, songs and poetry, and their harmonious language. There is a marked revival of national feeling, favoured by “Young Esthonia.” The prevailing religion is the Lutheran (79.8%); 14.3% belong to the Orthodox Greek Church; of the Russians, however, a considerable proportion are Raskolniks (Nonconformists); the Roman Catholics amount to 2.3%, and the Jews to 2%. The Russian civil code was introduced in the Baltic provinces in 1835, and the use of Russian, instead of German, in official correspondence and in law courts was ordered in 1867, but not generally brought into practice.