Roman History (Historia Romana)

Since it was customary for young Romans, after assuming the toga of manhood and before taking up honors, to perform military service—specifically ten years of it—and since Velleius entered the quaestorship while in his twenty-fifth year, it is clear that he passed from boyhood at about the age of fourteen (for in this matter, as in many others under the Emperors, the rule was undoubtedly relaxed) and began his military service. He began to serve as a military tribune in Thrace and Macedonia under P. Vinicius, the father of the consul to whom he sent his work, and P. Silius (see II. 101). Then, serving in the same rank of tribune, he was received into the retinue of C. Caesar in Achaia, and he seems to have visited other overseas provinces with him; he certainly took part in the expedition (754 A.U.C.) 1 AD against the Parthians and Armenia (see II. 101). After Gaius died in Lycia in 757 A.U.C. 4 AD, Velleius followed the camp of Tiberius, who had been adopted by Augustus and immediately sent into Germany, serving as 'prefect of the cavalry, successor to his father’s office' (see II. 102 and 104). In these camps, he served for the remaining time until his quaestorship, and after it, in the Pannonian and Dalmatian war, and again in Germany after the Varianam cladem the slaughter of Varus, i.e., the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest under the same commander for nine years; that is, until the year 765 A.U.C. 12 AD, when he was adorned with military gifts by the triumphing Tiberius (see II. 104 and 121).

Indeed, when Tiberius returned to Rome from the previous German war in 758 A.U.C. 5 AD and was preparing an expedition for the following year against Maroboduus, King of the Marcomanni, Velleius seems to have remained at home to seek the quaestorship. Meanwhile, however, the Pannonians and Dalmatians, who were rebelling and threatening Italy itself, recalled Tiberius from the Marcomanni so that, reinforced by an army recently raised throughout Italy, he might quell these disturbances. Velleius, as quaestor-designate, led these reinforcements to Tiberius by order of Augustus; having completed this service, he returned to the City and held the quaestorship in 760 A.U.C. 7 AD (see II. 108 and 111). But in this very magistracy...