The History of Rome (Ab Urbe Condita), Book 1

Livy's History of Rome (Ab Urbe Condita), Book 1, translated by the Rev. Canon W. M. Roberts for Everyman's Library, E. P. Dutton and Co., and read here through its Wikisource digitization, is the opening book of the Roman historian's account of Rome from its legendary founding by Romulus and Remus through the reign of the last king, written around the turn of the millennium, centuries after the events it describes. Its strength is that it is the primary surviving ancient narrative source for Rome's own foundation legend and early monarchy, the account later Roman and Western tradition itself drew on. Its limit is that Livy openly worked from earlier annalists, oral tradition and outright legend for this earliest period, by his own admission not verifiable history, so a claim needing the modern archaeological or comparative historical assessment of early Rome needs a source produced outside Livy's own ancient narrative.