This dissertation reads Livy's Ab Urbe Condita as literature and focuses on the portrayal of one ethnic group, the Campanians, in several episodes in the history. The inhabitants of Capua are famous for their luxury, arrogance, and treachery; the city defects to Hannibal during the Second Punic War. Livy's portrait of Capua, however, does not simply make the Capuans villains. While he includes elements of ethnic stereotyping in his characterization of the Capuans, and expresses a fear that Capua threatens the Roman character, he also, at times, makes the Capuans appear sympathetic. Livy's attitude toward the Capuans, therefore, is best described as one of ambivalence.

After characterizing the accounts of Capua and Campania in Livy's predecessors, the dissertation explores the functions which enemies perform in Livy's history. Next, the first major appearance of Capua in the history, the deditio of Capua to Rome during the First Samnite War, illustrates Livy's anxieties that Roman expansion threatens Roman discipline and fides. Although this episode stresses the otherness of Capua, another episode, the defection of Capua to Hannibal, stresses the similarities between Rome and Capua, emphasizing Capua's republican institutions and presenting the heroic figures of Pacuvius Calavius's son and Decius Magius, both of whom defend the Roman cause. While Livy never loses sight of the enormity of Capua's crime, in his account of the fall of Capua, he also takes a sympathetic attitude toward the Capuans' suffering. Finally, the dissertation explores the memory of Capua in Livy's history, finding that foreign characters use the punishment of Capua to condemn Roman imperialism, and arguing that Livy himself shows discomfort with Rome's expansionist activity.