Nine Books of Memorable Deeds and Sayings

Before we pursue these matters, it is consistent to briefly inquire which sources Valerius primarily used.

ON THE SOURCES OF VALERIUS MAXIMUS.

It has already been mentioned again and again that Valerius did not write with the intention of setting forth the history of his own or past times through memorable sayings and deeds, but to establish a collection of examples for the use, above all, of those making speeches and declaiming, which might supply arguments and testimonies sought from the most famous men of both domestic and foreign history for various oratorical subjects. Since he had decided, as he himself confesses, to excerpt these examples from the illustrious works of earlier writers, it happened that he rarely took account of events that occurred in his own age and for the most part depended entirely on the authority of those authors 1. There are, however, certain reported matters that he had either seen occur with his own eyes or had received communicated by his contemporaries. To pass over those which he wove in to capture the prince's favor concerning the piety of Tiberius toward his brother Drusus (V, 5, 3), the marital faith and abstinence of Drusus and his wife Antonia (IIII, 3, 3), the treachery of Sejanus (IX, 11, ext. 4), and some others already mentioned, there is of this kind a small narrative about the voluntary and spectacular death of a woman on the island of Ceos, at which he was present as a spectator with Sex. Pompeius (II, 6, 8). Certain things pertaining to the divine Augustus belong in the same category; thus, I think, those things which are told about the ungrateful spirit toward him of T. Marius (unless there is an error in this name) in VII, 8, 6; those which are reported about the rashness of a certain man who tried to insert himself into the emperor's own family by saying he was born of Octavia, the sister of Augustus (IX, 15, 3), regarding which matter I very much wonder that other writers were silent; and then two external examples that are recorded in this chapter. Likewise, I refer to the personal testimony of Valerius what is handed down concerning Acilius Aviola in I, 8, 12, who, when he was believed to be dead falsely, was cremated alive, if indeed he is the same Acilius Aviola whom Tacitus...

1) Cf. Preface to Book I; I, 8, 7.