A source-book of ancient history - The Search For Mecca

3i6 Introduction to the Sources
The Augustan
Age,
31 B.C.-14
A.D.
Livy.
Books i-x
and xxi-xlv,
with mere
summaries
of the remaining
books, have
alone come
down to us,
and are our
chief source
for the earlier
periods.
Dionysius of
Halicarnassus.
brilliant poet of the same age, wrote beautiful lyrics on
subjects of love and life, and some bitter lampoons.
The principate of Augustus is considered the golden
age of Roman literature. A most interesting and valuable
document from this period is Augustus' own account
of his administration preserved in an inscription.
Scholars
term it the Monumentum Ancyranum because it was
found on a temple in Ancyra, Asia Minor, though we may
designate it simply as his Deeds. The most eminent
author of prose in this age was Livy, who wrote a History
of Rome in a hundred and forty-two books. The military
and personal details in the early books are largely mythical;
yet even in this part the author expresses vividly and
accurately the character of Rome and of her citizens and
institutions.
From the time of the Punic Wars, the details
of every kind are in a high degree trustworthy.
Though in his conception of the aim and method of history
he was far inferior to Polybius, whom he had read, he
loved what he supposed to be the truth and the right.
His sympathies were intensely republican; but he consented
to work for Augustus.
His love of law and order,
his hatred of violence and vulgarity, served the interests
of his patron, while the vast compass and the stately
style of his history, like the splendid public works of
the age, helped make the imperial government magnificent.
While Livy was writing his great work, Dionysius of
Halicarnassus was compiling a detailed history of Rome
from the earliest times to the beginning of the Punic Wars.
As an historian he is on the whole inferior to Livy; and
yet his work is a valuable source for the life and institutions
of early Rome.
Strabo the geographer, who wrote under Augustus and