Livy and the Translation of Polybius

Abstract

This thesis seeks to understand those moments of Livy‟s text where he undertakes a translation from Polybius. Rather than evaluating his translations according to their fidelity to the original text, cultural translation studies, the school of thought used in this thesis, understands translation as something which is theorised differently in each culture, and seeks to situate translations in their discourse. This thesis puts Livy in a Roman translational context where fidelity to an original text is relatively unimportant, and instead the translator had a great deal of freedom in expressing what they wanted from the original text. There was also great scope to use the original text for the improvement of the Roman world. Following this discussion of Roman translation, three case studies are undertaken to show that Livy makes Polybius‟ text more appropriate for his Augustan audience, reflecting their concerns throughout. The second chapter covers the translation of Polybius‟ tyche with the word fortuna, where it is seen that Livy includes an ethical layer to his text that is not in Polybius‟ work. The third chapter discusses the translation of battlefield topography. Here it is seen that Livy includes both an ethnographical and an ethical reading, while Polybius is more interested only in the presentation of terrain for a didactic purpose. Finally, the fourth chapter discusses Livy‟s translation of Polybius‟ logismos, with Livy translating in a way that removes the important meaning that this word has in Polybius, while not replacing it with anything specifically. This will show that part of Livy‟s translation involves removing things from Polybius which are not appropriate in his context. Ultimately it will be seen that Livy‟s relationship with Polybius can be understood in the context of Roman translation, where translators made Greek cultural output appropriate for a Roman audience.