Livy

Titus Livius, known in English as Livy, was a Roman historian who lived from 59 BC to AD 17 and came from Patavium, modern Padua. He wrote a monumental history of Rome and the Roman people titled Ab Urbe Condita, meaning From the Founding of the City, which runs from the earliest legends of Rome, before the traditional founding date of 753 BC, down through the reign of Augustus, who was alive in Livy's own lifetime. Livy was on good terms with members of the Julio-Claudian dynasty and was a friend of Augustus. He encouraged Augustus's young grandnephew, the future emperor Claudius, to take up the writing of history. The critic Asinius Pollio mocked what he called Livy's patavinity, saying that his Latin showed provincialisms frowned upon in Rome.