PROLEGOMENA.

119.); or concerning the sayings of the greatest men, whether honest, brave, or clever, which declare their virtue and character (see, for example, I. 10, 11, 4, 14, etc., 27, 33, 77, 86, etc.); or concerning the more notable fortune of nations and families, especially those still noble in the age of Velleius (see, for example, I. 11, etc., II. 10, compare 72, 11); or concerning matters pertaining entirely to antiquity, whether the vicissitudes of dignities and commands (see, for example, 2, 30, 32, 16, 89), or the abandonment of legal custom by eminent men (see, for example, II. 12, 30), or concerning the ancient and stricter discipline, whether public, as much domestic (I. 10, end, 15, II. 8, 10), as military (II. 5, 78), or private (II. 14, 114, 126), or concerning the monuments of the most celebrated buildings, enduring even to the times of Velleius (I. 11, etc., II. 1, 8, 48, compare 130, 31), or concerning the origin of things held in esteem. See, for example, II. 7.

Besides these, Velleius varied his work—for he followed whatever was most worthy of being known and most useful—with digressions. In these, he encompassed certain kinds of such things, plucked from individual ages, gathered under a single species. After a long and continuous narration of the events of a certain age, where it was permissible to pause, he provides rest and diversions for readers, and supplies a deeper knowledge of the nature of these things themselves. He explains the plan for this in I. 14. There are two main types of matters which he explored while departing from the perpetual and straight path of his narrative: the one pertaining to the state of literature through various ages among the Greeks and Romans; the other pertaining to the spread of the borders of the Roman state and empire. Thus, he diverges both to colonies founded and cities gifted with the rights of Roman citizens, with the narrative brought up to the destruction of Carthage (I. 14); and also to the provinces of the Roman empire, having found the opportunity from Syria, which was subdued by the virtue of Pompeius (II. 38 and 39). He begins indeed from the origins of these things, but runs further to the extremes, where the times ended, so that he might encompass in these two places whatever colonies were founded, and whatever provinces were created up to his own age. As for Greek and Roman literature, first,