Online Encyclopedia
Search over 40,000 articles from the original, classic Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th Edition.
VALERIUS MAXIMUS
Online EncyclopediaEncyclopedia Home :: TUM-VAN
del.icio.us it!
|
See also:VALERIUS See also:MAXIMUS , Latin writer, author of a collection of See also:historical anecdotes, flourished in the reign of Tiberius. Nothing is known of his See also:personal See also:history except that his See also:family was poor and undistinguished, and that he owed everything to Sextus Pompeius (See also:consul A.D. 14), proconsul of See also:Asia, whom he accompanied to the See also:East in 27. This Pompeius was a See also:kind of See also:minor See also:Maecenas, and the centre of a See also:literary circle to which See also:Ovid belonged; he was also the intimate of the most literary See also:prince of the imperial family, Germanicus. The See also:style of Valerius's writings seems to indicate that he was a professional rhetorician. In his See also:preface he intimates that his See also:work is in-tended as a See also:commonplace See also:book of historical anecdotes for use in the See also:schools of See also:rhetoric, where the pupils were trained in the See also:art of embellishing speeches by references to history. According to the See also:MSS., its See also:title is. Nine Books of Memorable Deeds and Sayings. The stories are loosely and irregularly arranged, each book being divided into sections, and each See also:section bearing as its title the topic, most commonly some virtue or See also:vice, or some merit or demerit, which the stories in the section are intended to illustrate. Most of the tales are from See also:Roman history, but each section has an appendix consisting of extracts from the See also:annals of other peoples, principally the Greeks. The exposition exhibits strongly the two currents of feeling which are intermingled by almost every Roman writer of the See also:empire—the feeling that the See also:Romans of the writer's own See also:day are degenerate creatures when confronted with their own republican predecessors, and the feeling that, however degenerate, the latter-day Romans still See also:tower above the other peoples of the See also:world, and in particular are morally See also:superior to the Greeks. The author's See also:chief See also:sources are See also:Cicero, See also:Livy, See also:Sallust and Pompeius See also:Trogus, especially the first two. Valerius's treatment of his material is careless and unintelligent in the extreme; but in spite of his confusions, contradictions and anachronisms, the excerpts are See also:apt illustrations, from the rhetorician's point of view, of the circumstance or quality they were intended to illustrate. And even on the historical sides we owe something to Valerius. He often used sources now lost, and where he touches on his own See also:time he affords us some glimpses of the much debated and very imperfectly recorded reign of Tiberius. His attitude towards the imperial See also:household has often been misunderstood, and he has been represented as a mean flatterer of the same type with See also:Martial. But, if the references to the imperial See also:administration be carefully scanned, they will be seen to he extravagant neither in kind nor in number. Few will now grudge Tiberius, when his whole See also:action as a ruler is taken into See also:account, such a title as salutaris princeps, which seemed to a former See also:generation a specimen of shameless adulation. The few allusions to See also:Caesar's murderers and to See also:Augustus hardly pass beyond the conventional style of the writer's day. The only passage which can fairly be called fulsome is the violently rhetorical tirade against See also:Sejanus. But it is as a See also:chapter in the history of the Latin See also:language that the work of Valerius chiefly deserves study. Without it our view of the transition from classical to See also:silver Latin would be much more imperfect than it is. In Valerius are presented to us, in a See also:rude and palpable See also:form, all the rhetorical tendencies of the See also:age, unsobered by the sanity of See also:Quintilian and unrefined by the See also:taste and subtlety of See also:Tacitus. See also:Direct and See also:simple statement is eschewed and novelty pursued at any See also:price. The barrier between the diction of See also:poetry and that of See also:prose is broken down; the uses of words are strained; monstrous metaphors are invented; there are startling contrasts, dark innuendoes and highly coloured epithets; the most unnatural See also:variations are played upon the artificial See also:scale of grammatical and rhetorical figures of speech. It is an instructive See also:lesson in the history of Latin to compare minutely a passage of Valerius with its counterpart in Cicero or Livy. In the MSS. of Valerius a tenth book is given, which consists of the so-called See also:Liber de Praenominibus, the work of some grammarian of a much later date. The collection of Valerius was much used for school purposes, and its popularity in the See also:middle ages is attested by the large number of MSS. in which it has been preserved. Like other schoolbooks it was epitomated. One See also:complete See also:epitome, probably of the 4th or 5th See also:century, bearing the name of See also:Julius See also:Paris, has come down to us; also a portion of another by See also:Januarius Nepotianus. See also:Editions by C. See also:Halm (1865), C. Kempf (1888), contain the epitomes of Paris and Nepotianus. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
» Add information or comments to this article.
Please link directly to this article:
Highlight the code below, right click, and select "copy." Then paste it into your website, email, or other HTML. Site content, images, and layout Copyright © 2006 - Net Industries, worldwide. |
|
|
[back] VALERIC ACID, or VALERIANIC ACID |
[next] VALERIUS, PUBLIUS |