Roman History (Historia Romana)

II.

ON THE NATURE OF VELLEIUS'S WORK.

The index of Velleius’s work, 'Roman History to the Consul M. Vinicius, Book II,' under which it was first edited by Beatus Rhenanus, seems to have been prefixed either to the individual pages of the codex or at the beginning of the second book by the hand of a certain grammarian who did not fully grasp the scope of the small work and measured it by the more prominent subject matter. For it appears from the fragments of the first book that Velleius pursued the affairs not only of the Romans in the immediate sense, but also of foreigners, according to the scope of the work undertaken. For since it begins immediately from the beginning, as much as remains, from the fortune and vicissitudes of Greece after the destruction of Troy, and continues them, with the origins of cities, both Italian (I. 1, 4, 7) and barbarian (I. 2, 6), interspersed in their own place and time, until the age of the founding of the City, from which an enormous gap has swallowed up the greater part of the first book and a long series of events and years, up to Perseus, King of Macedonia, who was defeated in the year 580 A.U.C. 168 BC; it is probable that Velleius included the origins and changes of the entire ancient world, especially the Greek and Italian world, which it was most important for his citizens to know, until he reached those times when, just as the Roman empire swallowed up the entire globe, so its history absorbed the deeds of other peoples, as if it had comprised them within itself. And these are indeed those times when, with the kingdom of the Macedonians destroyed, and Carthage and Corinth razed, the Romans subjected the rest of the world to their empire and governed the fortune of all peoples. Thus, from the defeat of Perseus, the continuous narrative of Roman affairs proceeds up to the death of Livia, in the year 782 A.U.C. 29 AD.

In the mutilated former part of Velleius’s work, it is clear first of all from the very remnants of this part—which are filled predominantly with the affairs of the Greeks up to the founding of the City—that the Greeks played the more important roles; and then from a fragment of Velleius preserved by Priscian (Book VI, p. 706): 'Nor was the son of Miltiades, Cimon, less famous in that era.' At that time, also, the Greek nation filled the entire world, and Italy and the Roman city, with its glory of bravely performed deeds, as well as with its colonies, commerce, way of life, customs, inventions, arts, and learning.