During the past forty years the dominant preoccupation of scholars writing on Livy has been the relationship between the historian and the emperor Augustus, and its effects on the Ab Urbe Condita. Tacitus’ testimony that the two were on friendly terms, and Suetonius’ revelation that Livy found time to encourage the historical studies of the future emperor Claudius, appeared to have ominous overtones to scholars writing against the political backcloth of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. Though the subject had not been wholly ignored previously, the success of the German cultural propaganda-machine stimulated a spate of approving or critical treatments. While some were hailing Livy as the historian whose work signalled and glorified the new order, others following a similar interpretation were markedly scathing.