VALERIUS MAXIMUS

MEMORABLE DEEDS AND SAYINGS

BOOK ONE.

I have resolved to select and arrange from illustrious authors the deeds and sayings of the city of Rome and of foreign nations that are worthy of remembrance, which are spread too widely among others to be quickly known, so that the labor of long research may be absent for those who wish to draw forth examples. Nor did the desire to encompass everything take hold of me: for who could comprise the deeds of all time in a modest number of volumes, or what man in his right mind could hope to hand down the series of domestic and foreign history, composed by the fortunate style of predecessors, with either more attentive care or more outstanding eloquence? Therefore, Caesar, I invoke you for this undertaking, in whose hands the consensus of men and gods has willed the governance of sea and land to reside, most certain salvation of the fatherland, by whose heavenly providence virtues, of which I am about to speak, are most kindly fostered, and vices are most severely punished. For if ancient orators began well by calling upon Jupiter Optimus Maximus, if most excellent poets drew their beginnings from some divinity, my lowliness will have descended to your favor all the more justly, in that other divinity is gathered by opinion, while yours seems equal to the paternal and ancestral star by present faith, by whose extraordinary radiance much has been added to our sacred rites of renowned brilliance: for the rest

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