Roman History (Historia Romana)

...in office, with the 'allotment of the province set aside,' he was sent again as a legate of Tiberius to Pannonia, and he took part in all his expeditions, not only as a 'spectator,' but also as an 'assistant.' See II. 111.

The Pannonian War having been barely finished in the year 761 A.U.C. 8 AD and the Dalmatian War the following year, that foul slaughter of Varus occurred in Germany (see II. 117). When Tiberius was called away from Dalmatia to avenge it, and set out for Germany from the City in the year 763 A.U.C. 10 AD (see II. 120), Velleius, having performed the duty of a legate, followed the same camp once again. For his narrative concerning the slaughter of Varus, the fortune of the individual commanders, and the achievements of his own emperor descends to such individual details that he seems to have learned of them nowhere else but in Germany. Then, with this service added to his previous tours of duty, that nine-year period during which Velleius was an assistant to Tiberius’s operations is completed. Two years later, with Germany and the Gauls settled, in the year 765 A.U.C. 12 AD, Tiberius, returning in triumph, honored Velleius with gifts. See II. 121.

From this year on, our author seems to have held the magistracies through which the path to the praetorship lay open, unless he obtained a dispensation to seek the praetorship directly from the quaestorship. This is not improbable, since he had been prohibited from holding the magistracies through which one ascended to the praetorship—either the tribunate of the plebs or the aedileship (for such had Augustus ordained; see Dio Cassius LII. 20)—due to his long-term military service. He was recommended by Augustus and Tiberius among the candidates for the praetorship in the year 767 A.U.C. 14 AD, with only one year intervening between his military service and his petition for the praetorship. See II. 124, end. Thereafter, no mention is made by him of any tribunate or aedileship, though he passed over no other honors.

However, in the same year in which Augustus died and Tiberius succeeded him, our author was recommended to the people by both Princes and was designated praetor. See II. 124, end. Thus, he held the praetorship in the year 768 A.U.C. 15 AD. There is no testimony, neither from himself nor from any other author, that he ascended beyond this to the consulship.

Nor is anything certain known about the rest of his life after the praetorship, except for what may be gathered from the time of the written work itself, through the reasoning applied to that, and from conjecture about his death based on the chronology of the times.