The great merit of this book, which has been beautifully produced by the American arm of Cambridge University Press and which I thoroughly enjoyed reading (not least because of V.'s clear and unpretentious style), is that it takes seriously the didactic aims that Livy proclaims in his preface.

An introduction places Livy's life in its contemporary context; V. observes that his outlook on politics must have been formed before most of the reforms introduced in Augustus’ principate. Chapter 1 examines Livy's first pentad in the light of both other historians’ discussions of myth and remote periods of history and earlier discussions of the development of the Roman constitution, principally those found in Polybius and Cicero's De re publica. Chapter 2 includes a good discussion of Livy's preface and the didactic aims espoused in it and an account of Livy's working methods which keeps a nice balance between recognising that there were things that Livy could not change and that he had considerable artistic freedom. I should have liked a slightly greater stress on Livy's brevity (easily proved by a comparison with the Roman Antiquities of Dionysius) and the note of detached irony to which it so often leads. A good brief discussion of the episode of Manlius’ killing of his Gaul, in which Livy adapts Quadrigarius, is used to illustrate this freedom; V.'s remarks (pp. 34–5) on what Livy gained by postponing his reference to the Gaul's sticking out his tongue are the best that I have seen on this subject. Chapter 3 is a sensible introduction to Livy's account of Rome's kings and the characteristics of their reigns. Chapter 4 starts with an excellent discussion of 2.1.1–6, alert to both its metaphorical language and didactic lessons. A discussion of the Roman penchant for making members of some families behave in the same way follows. This introduces the Appii Claudii, and V. shows how each of the first three Appii is worse than his father, the last leading the tyranny of the decemvirs. The chapter ends with an excellent discussion of the structure of the first pentad. Chapter 5 discusses the Quinctii, who are seen as a counterbalance to the Claudii. There is a fine treatment of T. Quinctius Capitolinus, whose importance is well brought out throughout the book, although V. does not convince me that there was a Quinctian stereotype in the same way that there was a Valerian or Claudian stereotype, largely because I read differently the episodes involving Caeso Quinctius and Cincinnatus (see below). Chapter 6 is the best account of Livy's characterisation of the Roman populace that I have read. V. well analyses the people's leaders – the patrician demagogues, the turbulent tribunes of the plebs, the sympathetic patricians (often Valerii) and the bluff soldiers whose politics are firm but reasonable (in which context Sex. Tempanius [4.37.3–42.1] could perhaps have been discussed). A good discussion of Canuleius’ tribunate of 445 and his famous speech rightly emphasises the didactic thrust of 4.6.11–12. In her conclusion V. asks what suggestions Livy implicitly offers for remedying his own troubled times; his text is compared and contrasted with the political writings of Cicero, which half a generation earlier addressed very similar troubles. On the dangers of tyranny, V. argues that Livy shows the importance of having the remit and duration of magistracies carefully defined (in contrast to the not properly defined decemvirate) and that the Roman people cannot be trusted on their own to look after their own long-term well-being; on political oratory, that he reveals its dangers time and again but that the authority of his most admirable characters such as Quinctius Capitolinus arises ‘naturally from the transparent reflection within the speech of the speaker's own virtue and auctoritas’ (p. 131), an ideal that she regards as evoking Cato more than Cicero; and on the divide between radical tribunes and more conservative senate, that he commends those who selflessly put aside personal interests for the greater common good.

On some matters one may wish for a different emphasis. Despite V.'s remarks on, for example, p. 125, I worry that she sometimes gives a greater emphasis to Livy's thought about the efficacy of political institutions than Livy himself did, especially in her comparisons with Cicero. No one could overemphasise his interest in behaviour (advertised at Praef. 9–10), which makes the absence of a proper discussion of Coriolanus surprising.

V. generally seems reasonably confident that she can divine clear lessons from the behaviour of Livy's characters. But having repented of a view of Livy's moralising that made his characters seem like cardboard cut-outs, I prefer to stress its subtlety, the way in which the tales that he tells invite diverse responses. Sometimes Livy's authorial voice suggests an interpretation (see, e.g., V.'s remarks on pp. 135–6), but surprisingly often readers are left to make up their own minds, and this tallies well with the second person singulars at Praef. 10. Moreover, V.'s interpretative strategy of concentrating on the behaviour of select characters involves some losses: had she presented full discussions of some key episodes and thereby shown how the reader is presented with different voices and points of view, it might have been easier to bring out the ambiguities and subtleties of Livy's didacticism.

The episodes involving Cincinnatus and his son Caeso Quinctius may be read rather differently. In 461, when the tribunes wish to introduce codification of the law and the patricians resist (with no thought for the well-being of the plebs) and when foreign enemies threaten the state and the tribunes block the patrician levy (with no thought for the well-being of the state), Caeso leads the patrician youth who riot recklessly in the tribunician assembles. The tribunes realise that the law will be passed only if Caeso is removed, and he is prosecuted by A. Verginius. In response, he harries the tribune (3.11.9) uelut iusto … bello (focalised ambiguously, but probably primarily through Caeso), and the tribunes provoke him further, hoping for more material with which to charge him. In the trial various patrician worthies speak on his behalf (for example, the consular L. Lucretius says that time would moderate Caeso's behaviour), but decisive for his condemnation is the testimony of M. Volscius Fictor, who states that Caeso had killed his brother in a brawl. Livy later reveals that Fictor's testimony was invented. V. (p. 85) claims that this changes the reader's assessment of Caeso's character, that L. Lucretius was right, that ‘Caeso is no longer to be seen as an aberration from the Quinctian stereotype but as a worthy inheritor of the greatness of the line’, and that Livy's readers are schooled in the dangers of demagogic rhetoric. In fact, this is one of those episodes in which the lack of an explicit invitation from Livy's authorial voice to draw a moral conclusion allows a variety of responses. Another might dwell longer on Caeso's atrox ingenium (11.9), ponder whether Verginius’ view that he libertati obstat (11.13) is not as just as Lucretius’, and observe how well Livy brings out the immaturity and irresponsibility shown by both sides of the political divide. Other possible lessons are that a flaw in character can ruin a potentially glittering public career; and that, if someone regularly behaves as a thug, others are likely to believe even untrue reports of his violent behaviour.

For V., Cincinnatus is a paragon of a Roman statesman. Certainly there is much to admire and be moved by in his poverty, lack of personal ambition and respect for the law; but ideal he may not be. Vehemens is used regularly of him (3.19.4, 21.3, 26.12), but ‘forcefulness’ is not always the best quality for healing a fractured body politic. When one recalls Cincinnatus’ ignoring the promise of the dead consul Valerius (18.6) to allow voting on the same tribunician law once he had explained its flaws (21.2 and elsewhere), his claim that all patrician virtue had been lost with his son's exile (19.5) and his threat to coerce the plebeians by appointing a dictator who was not subject to prouocatio (20.8), the view of the plebs on his appointment as dictator in 458 (26.12 et imperium nimium et uirum in ipso imperio uehementiorem) does not seem absurd. A great and honest man, then, but not ideally suited for office-holding in all political circumstances.

Some slips need correction before a paperback edition. P. 82: at 3.3.7 it is not Quinctius but his colleague Fabius who ‘destroys the retreating forces of the enemy’. P. 84: 3.24.3–6 takes place in 459 not 458. P. 163 n. 25: the references in Dionysius Books 5–7 to Ap. Claudius are to the first.