Livy, Licinius Macer and the Libri Lintei

Abstract

C. Licinius Macer is little known outside the citations by Livy and Dionysius of Halicarnassus. Cicero classifies him among the Roman historians but says nothing about the scope or contents of his work. From the fragments we can see that it dealt with the whole field of Roman history from the earliest times, evidently in the conventional manner used by Annalists and with considerable detail. Livy cites him seven times but not beyond the first Decade since he appears to prefer other Annalists for later history. These citations, however, are of great value because they reveal what sources Licinius himself quoted, e.g. 4, 7, 12, ‘Licinius Macer auctor est et in foedere Ardeatino et in linteis libris ad Monetae inventa’; 23,1 ‘… et Tubero et Macer libros linteos auctores profitentur … Licinio libros haud dubie sequi linteos placet’; 20, 8 ‘libri quos linteos in aede repositos Monetae Macer Licinius citat identidem auctores’. Thus we are taken behind our surviving authorities to the question of their information in the Roman historical tradition.

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