ABSTRACT
Livy’s imagery here is striking: history, his history, is represented as a highly visible monument that can function as medicine for the state by having us, its readers, look at the images it presents and take those images as models for our own positive behaviour and as warnings against lapses from that high standard. The key Latin word in this passage is exempla – the images or ‘object-lessons’. Exemplarity, the presentation of precedents and patterns of moral behaviour, is a key concept in Roman historiography. This reflects the ideology of the Roman elite generally. A young man of an eminent family saw the death masks (imagines) of his ancestors displayed in the atrium (the public reception room) of his house every day and so was continually reminded of their qualities and achievements. On the occasion of a family funeral, these masks were worn by individuals impersonating the ancestors in a public procession through the streets of Rome that culminated in a speech in the Forum praising the virtues of the dead man and his ancestors. In other words, the ancestors were very much alive. Every effort was made to encourage the well-born young Roman to conform to the positive patterns embodied in his ancestors, as we saw above in the case of Aeneas advising his son (1.13). This was not a society that encouraged the individualism that marks modern Western societies.
