the whole way to Rome merely to see him, and as soon as he had seen him
returned home, as though Rome had no other spectacles to offer.

Roman history had hitherto been divided between the annalists and the
writers of personal and contemporary memoirs. Sallust was almost the only
example of the definite historical treatment of a single epoch or episode
of the past. As a rule each annalist set himself the same task, of
compiling, from the work of his predecessors, and such additional
information as he found accessible to him, a general history of the Roman
people from its beginnings, carried down as far towards his own day as he
found time or patience to continue it. Each successive annalist tried to
improve upon previous writers, either in elegance of style or in
copiousness of matter, and so far as he succeeded in the double task his
work replaced those already written. It was not considered unfair to
transcribe whole passages from former annalists, or even to copy their
works with additions and improvements, and bring them out as new and
original histories. The idea of literary property seems, in truth, to be
very much a creation of positive law. When no copyright existed, and when
the circulation of any book was confined within very small limits by the
cost and labour of transcription, the vaguest ideas prevailed, not at
Rome alone, on what we should now regard as the elementary morality of
plagiarism. Virgil himself transferred whole lines and passages, not
merely from earlier, but even from contemporary poets; and in prose
writing, one annalist cut up and reshaped the work of another with as
little hesitation as a mediaeval romance-writer.

In this matter Livy allowed himself full liberty; and his work absorbed,
and in a great measure blotted out, those of his predecessors. In his
general preface he speaks of the two motives which animate new
historians, as the hope that they will throw further light on events, or