Alciato’s Local Livy

Andrea Alciato’s Rerum patriae libri IV, a local history of Mediolanum (modern-day Milan), is an excellent example of the particular kind of early modern historiography which recounted the history of Rome from the perspective of her subject towns. This article offers some thoughts on Alciato’s historiographical method and what his approach may teach us about ancient reading habits. The practice of combing through ancient historiography and excerpting passages pertaining to specific colonies was evidently familiar to the ancients. Livy, one of Alciato’s main sources for Roman colonization during the Republican period, seems to have crafted his narrative with keen awareness that his readers viewed his text in precisely this way.