Nine Books of Memorable Deeds and Sayings

Sex. Pompeius certainly did not obtain the lot of Asia in this year (778) 1, nor in the following year, 779, in which Tacitus (Annals IV, 56) is the authority that M. Lepidus administered that province. This M. Lepidus appears to be the same man who, having been offered the province of Africa in 774, had excused himself quite intensely, pleading bodily health, the age of his children, and a marriageable daughter, while in reality he was ceding the place to Iunius Blaesus, the uncle of Sejanus (Tacitus, Annals III, 35); therefore, it is not to be wondered at that the proconsular command, having been refused once, had come to him only in the twentieth year after his consulship (759). Finally, it is likely that Sex. Pompeius succeeded him in the same dignity in the year 780, which is the fourteenth from his consulship. Certainly, he could not have obtained the province before that year. These matters seemed to require more full and accurate exposition, because they are of no small moment in determining the time when the work we are discussing was composed.

Valerius Maximus was therefore joined with this Sex. Pompeius by the tightest bond of mutual love and friendship. He proclaims that in Pompeius's soul, as if in the heart of the most loving parents, the happier state of his own life had flourished and the sadder had found rest, that he had received from him the increments of all benefits offered spontaneously, and that under his guidance and auspices his own studies had been rendered more clear and active. He himself compares—I shall not investigate how appropriately—that association with the intimacy of Alexander and Hephaestion, and he claims Pompeius for himself as a second Alexander, as if he were another Hephaestion. However, whatever the fruit was that he perceived from that relationship, it was not lacking the envy of some, who, believing themselves to have been pushed aside or excluded by the favor of so illustrious and grand a man, did not cease to carp at and harass Valerius until after the death of Pompeius, and they are accused of having displayed, not very secretly, the joy born from this loss of his 2.

The one work of this writer that remains for us, and which he appears to have been the only one to publish, is the Nine Books of Memorable Deeds and Sayings (for the tenth book, on praenomina first names, will be shown in a separate discussion to be neither a part of this work nor by Valerius at all)...

1) I would not grant this even if that ambition of Maluginensis had pertained to the year 775, and therefore the following proconsuls had obtained the province one year before they were established. For there would remain at least two consulars to be inserted into that two-year period. To this is added that only in the preceding year, 777, did Cornelius Dolabella, who had served his consulship four years before Sex. Pompeius, procure Africa. Cf. Tacitus, Annals IV, 23.
2) Cf. IV, 7, ext. 2.