Roman History (Historia Romana)

Regarding the effects of the deeds performed, they are primarily the new things themselves pertaining to the public state, whether arising from those that preceded (see, for example, II. 2, 15, 22 ff., 103, etc.); for these offer a great opportunity for connecting the parts of the work and joining subsequent events with the prior ones. Next, Velleius noted other things pertaining either to the public discipline of customs (see, for example, I. 13, II. 1 ff., 3 ff., 22), or to public institutions, and those that are sacred (see, for example, II. 25, 27), or to the persons of individual men, their fortune (2 ff., 71, 77, 86), and their customs, assumed from the outcome of the undertakings (see, for example, II. 25, 28 ff., 52, 91, etc.).

Even though Velleius, in following brevity, had to busy himself with the most serious matters, and those that are public, he nevertheless distinguished his work with a knowledge of various individual events that affect readers through their antiquity, novelty, and magnitude. Of this kind are those things which he mixed in, either concerning the singular manner in which famous men behaved themselves in administering a certain matter (see, for example, II. 37, 45, 55, 114); or concerning deeds done laudably or basely, whether by those who played secondary parts in events (see, for example, II. 16, 51, 63, 85, 87, 116, 119, 120, etc.), or by those who entered into a partnership of fortune (see, for example, II. 26, 71, 76, 88, 120); or concerning the fortune of these same people, ennobled by a certain singular fact or chance (see, for example, II. 7, 74, 116 ff.).