Roman History (Historia Romana)

...riished, however, was Sejanus in the year 784 A.U.C. 31 AD, that is, the year after Velleius had sent his little work to Vinicius. For since Tiberius raged against everyone who was not only a partner in the plans of Sejanus but also his friends, or even those who seemed to be such (see Dio, LVIII. 14), and since informers, excited by the greatest rewards and honors from Tiberius, brought every associate of Sejanus into suspicion and dragged them to punishment (see Dio, loco citato), it easily came to pass that someone, hostile to Velleius due to private enmity and enticed by rewards, would denounce him and lead him to his destruction. It was not difficult to make our author suspect of Sejanus’s friendship, since he had exalted that man with immense praise in his work. See II. 127 and 128. Nor was it more difficult for the informer to stir the cruelty of Tiberius—who was suspicious and deeply anxious about his empire and his life—against the same man who had, throughout the former part of his history, provided proof of a most free spirit (cf. II. 49, 72, etc.). For such freedom of writing under Tiberius destroyed, among others, the historian Cremutius Cordus, who had greatly praised Brutus and Cassius in his annals. See Tacitus, Annals IV. 34ff; cf. also Suetonius, Tiberius 61. If Velleius thus perished in the same year as Sejanus, he reached the age of 49 or 50.

And thus it happened that he was prevented by the chance of death from writing a more extensive historical work, for which he excuses the brevity of the work he left behind, having promised it since the time of narrating the deeds of Julius Caesar (II. 48). See II. 99, 103, 114, and 119.

But with his life, all memory of him among posterity almost perished. For neither of the later historians, nor any of the rhetoricians, praised Velleius—the former as the leader of a new form of historical work, the latter as a witness to the deeds performed.

Regarding the genius of Velleius, which must be judged from his work, we must deal with it after we have discussed this. And since we must also dispute his reliability, which many have called into question, and because that must be evaluated in part from the morals of the author, we have thought this to be the proper place to describe these below.