Livy was a Roman writer of history. His Latin name was Titus Livius. He lived from 59 BC to AD 17, in the years when Rome was moving from rule by many leaders toward rule by emperors. He spent a huge part of his life on one work: a very long history of Rome, from the old stories of how the city began down through later wars and public life. Though actually a lot of that work is lost now; what we still have was still enough to shape how later people wrote history — grand scenes, moral lessons, Rome as a story with a character. He is not a modern news writer checking every small fact in the way we hope to now. You meet the name in history class and in notes on later books. It is a person’s name, always with a capital L, and English almost always uses this short form Livy rather than the full Latin.