 He was on familiar terms with members of the Julio-Claudian dynasty and even in friendship with Augustus, whose young grandnephew, the future emperor Claudius, he exhorted to take up the writing of history.Livy was born in Patavium in northern Italy, now modern Padua.There is a debate about the year of his birth – either in 64 BC, or more likely, in 59 BC (see below).