this was the Greek name for the Sallentines. Already from the eighth book, Livy must have made use of Dionysius.--Let no one say that his history has too much freshness for it to be deemed the work of an old man: this depends entirely upon the character of the individual. He had yet, even with his mode of working, nearly thirty years’ time for the accomplishment of his immense undertaking. That he did not cut it off where it finishes, but that he died before he had reached his goal, is evident from several circumstances. His history consisted of a hundred and forty-two books, and ended with the death of Drusus without any marked close. The feeling against disproportion in a division by numbers was among the ancients quite decided and developed, and therefore the number itself bears witness to the books not having been completed. There can be no question, but that the division into decades is an original one, and we might see it yet more clearly if we had the second decade left. Even the Greek word _decas_ would not have been invented in later times. The twentieth book must have been double the size of the rest, in order that the war with Hannibal might not begin with the twenty-second book. At the end of the war with Hannibal, the books are extremely short, in order that it might finish with the thirtieth book. He cannot therefore have intended to close the work in the middle of a decade. At least the epitome reaches only as far as book 142, so that at all events we should be obliged to assume, that as two books in the middle, thus also at the conclusion some are still wanting.