Book VI of Livy's Ab urbe condita covers the history of Rome from 390 to 367 BC, a period during which the city, while in the process of recovering from being sacked by the Gauls, faced serious civil disturbance, the resolution of which fundamentally changed the structure of Roman society. This edition considers the historical text from a literary and historiographical perspective: the Commentary contains a detailed analysis of Livy's narrative style and structure, with particular focus on his language and use of commonplaces, while the Introduction discusses the didactic nature of the Ab urbe condita and situates Livy's sophisticated and challenging work in the ancient historiographical tradition. Special attention is paid to the role of the reader, and to the relationship between the style and the kind of history being written. Issues of contemporary Augustan politics are also discussed.

In recent years, the discipline of Classics has been experiencing a profound transformation affecting not only its methodologies and hermeneutic practices - how classicists read and interpret ancient literature - but also, and more importantly, the objects of classical study themselves. One of the most important factors has been the establishment of reception studies, examining the ways in which classical literature and culture have been appropriated or responded to in later ages and/or non-western cultures. This temporal and cultural expansion beyond the 'traditional' remit of the field has had many salutary effects, but reception studies are not without limitations: of particular consequence is a tendency to focus almost exclusively on the most canonical Greek and Latin texts which is partly due to the sheer scale on which they have been received, adapted, discussed, and alluded to since antiquity. By definition, reception studies are uninterested in texts which have had no 'success', but the result of an implicit adoption of canonicity as an unspoken criterion is the marginalization of other texts which, despite their inherent value, have not experienced so significant a Nachleben. This volume seeks to move beyond the questions of what is central, what is marginal, and why, to explore instead the range and significance of the classical canon and the processes by which it is shaped and changed by its reception in different academic and cultural environments. By examining the academic study of Classics from the interrelated titular perspectives of marginality, canonicity, and passion, it aims to unveil their many subtle implications and reopen a discussion not only about what makes the discipline unique, but also about what direction it might take in the future.