“Vis verbi”: Varrone e le etimologie nel primo libro delle “Storie” di Tito Livio

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to demonstrate the connection between the etymological material of the fifth book of Varro’s De lingua Latina and the attention devoted to names of place in the first book of Livy’s Ab urbe condita: the rich etymological texture of this Livian section is evident from I 3 and it is undoubtedly strongly connected to the symbolic value of the space of the Urbs. Livius focuses more attention than has been revealed so far on the names of the places where past meets present: simple indications of toponymy are sometimes combined with clarifications of an etymological nature on which critics have not yet sufficiently concentrated their attention. This analysis can shed new light on the one hand on the Livy’s sources, on the other on the reception of Varronian antiquarian-etymological material in the Augustan texts.

DOI: 10.4424/lam102021-1