The Early History of Rome (Books I-V)

Rome is burning, and the oldest senators sit in the forecourts of their houses in their robes of office, waiting for the Gauls to kill them. Livy set down the first centuries of his city while the free state those centuries built was being quietly folded up around him, and he says on his opening page that he turns back partly to look away from an age that can endure neither its vices nor their cure..