Thus far I have spoken of Livy’s work as affected by his aims and methods. What is even more important for the reader who uses Livy is to comprehend the varying quality of the available sources. For the long period before 200 B.C. there was of course no writing of history at Rome. Very meager records existed for most of the obscure period, 500-280, and these had been exploited by Fabius, but they made no story that could be told in a consecutive form. Hence their data were welded together with the help of legend during the second century before Christ. Of the story of the Samnite wars the mere skeleton is all we can accept as firm history. And that was as true before Livy wrote as after. Neither he nor anyone else could mend matters. For the Pyrrhic and First Punic War the sources were good but the corresponding part of Livy is lost. For books 21-30 the sources were full. Here two responsible participants, Fabius and Cincius, told the story from the Roman viewpoint, while three companions of Hannibal told the same story as they saw it from the Punic camp.[12] Any tendency to exaggerate on either side could at once be checked from the reports that came from the other, and the excellent Greek historian Polybius came soon after and did a great deal of checking. Here Livy had only to be diligent, fair, and honest to be able to write reliably. The third decade of Livy is accordingly as dependable history as we have of any ancient war. It is only in the brief Spanish portion, for which there was no Punic account, and where Polybius himself had written too enthusiastically of Scipio’s work, that we touch quicksands.