Livy’s Roman History and the Construction of National Founding Myths in Nigerian Nationalist Discourse

National founding myths perform a vital political function by legitimating state authority, defining communal identity, and constructing a usable national past. Livy's Ab Urbe Condita (History of Rome from the Foundation of the City) is a seminal example of how historical narrative can be deliberately shaped to construct a coherent national founding myth. This study examines how Livy's myth-making strategies compare with the construction of Nigerian nationalist founding narratives in official discourse, schoolbooks, and public monuments from independence to the present. A comparative rhetorical-historical methodology was adopted, analysing Livy's Books I through V alongside selected Nigerian secondary school history textbooks (from 2015 to 2023 editions), official government historical narratives, and public monument inscriptions from Abuja. Findings reveal that Nigerian nationalist narratives, like Livy's, emphasise unity-in-diversity as a founding value, deploy heroic founding figures (Lugard, Nnamdi Azikiwe, Obafemi Awolowo), and selectively suppress the violence and coercion involved in national formation. The study identifies significant parallels in the use of selective memory, the elevation of mythic ancestors, and the rhetorical suppression of divisive historical episodes. The analysis concludes that Livy's myth-making methodology remains analytically productive for critiquing nationalist historiography globally, including Nigeria, and recommends classical historical rhetoric as a component of Nigerian history and social studies teacher education.

Keywords: Livy, founding myths, Nigerian nationalism, historiography, national identity