Livy was one of the more well-known historians in Roman times. He lived through the civil wars that ended the Republic and created the Empire and wrote about all of it, from the founding of the Eternal City to the first years of the Principate of Augustus.

He was born Titus Livius in 59 B.C. in Patavium, what is now Padua. He had an above average education, and some sources say that he worked as a rhetoric instructor for a time. What he didn't do was serve in politics or in the army. He was known to be a personal friend of Octavian, who became Augustus, the first Emperor.

He is most well-known for writing Ab urbe condita(A History of) Rome from its foundation. He began writing his monumental work in 27 B.C. and finished it, 142 books later, in A.D. 17. He covered 365 years of Roman history in the first five books and then about five years in each of the rest of the books. Most of these books no longer exist. Only 35 survive. They are Books 1–10 and 21–45.

Livy is also credited with encouraging the emperor Claudius to write his own history works.