VALERIUS MAXIMUS—A REPERTORY FOR SPEAKERS

Valerius Maximus—His date—His nine books and their aim—A collection for rhetoricians—Method and arrangement—National subject-matter and spirit—Sources—Survival of his influence through abridgements—Limitations in historical outlook—Adulation of the Caesars—Moralizing and sententious reflections—His style a mirror of the period—The poetic element—Rhetorical exclamations and declamations—Balanced structure—Artificial conceits—Language—Abstractions—Vocabulary and syntax.

Little can be surmised regarding the life of Valerius Maximus,[140] the compiler of a significant repertory for rhetoricians; but that little is enough to settle his period. Vossius,[141] rejecting the suggestion that he belonged to the third century A.D., proved that he must be referred to the age of Tiberius; and there is not much to add to his arguments. Aulus Gellius, in the second century, cites from the eighth book of Valerius.[142] Further, what are almost the only explicit personal reminiscences in Valerius’s work afford evidence of date; for his great friend, the eloquent Sextus Pompeius, with whom he visited Asia and to whose kindly patronage he pays a tribute in his chapter on friendship, is identical with one of the consuls in the last year of Augustus’s and the first year of Tiberius’s reign, A.D. 14.[143] Pompeius was also a friend of Germanicus, and the patron to whom Ovid addressed certain epistles from Pontus:[144] he became proconsul of Asia about A.D. 27. Besides, the tone in which Brutus and Cassius are charged with “parricide” for their share in the assassination of Julius Caesar savours of the repressive times of Tiberius.[145] Confirmatory impressions may be derived from Valerius’s style; and, finally, if more precision in dates be desired for an author not so lavish in their use as Velleius Paterculus was, then two passages may be cited bearing on the time of composition. The prefatory remarks to his treatment of _pudicitia_ must have been written before Livia’s death in A.D. 29; and the denunciation directed against Sejanus (though it does not name him) must have been written after his downfall in A.D. 31.[146] Valerius’s work, then, appeared at latest within a few years after the publication of Paterculus’s history in A.D. 30; for its dedication to Tiberius, who is the Caesar addressed[147] and often flattered, shows that it was not subsequent to the close of his reign in A.D. 37.

His work, _Facta et Dicta Memorabilia_, consists, as we have it, of nine books; and though his epitomator, Julius Paris, implies there were ten, this is most likely an error. The author’s aim will be best understood in the light of a summary of the contents:—