Editing Valerius Maximus (section)

==Biography==
Nothing is known of his life except that his family was poor and undistinguished, and that he owed everything to [[Sextus Pompeius (consul 14)|Sextus Pompeius]] ([[consul]] AD 14),<ref>H J Rose, ''A Handbook of Latin Literature'' (London 1966) p. 356</ref> proconsul of Asia, whom he accompanied to the East in 27. Pompeius was the center of a literary circle to which [[Ovid]] belonged; he was also an intimate friend of the most literary prince of the imperial family, [[Germanicus]].{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}} Although he shared the same name as a prestigious family of the [[Roman Republic|Republic]], John Briscoe says "it is unlikely in the extreme" that Valerius Maximus belonged to the [[Patrician (ancient Rome)|patrician]] [[Valeria gens|Valerii]] Maximi. He suggests instead that he was either a descendant of the plebeian Valerii Tappones or Triarii, or earned the Roman citizenship thanks to the patronage of a Valerius of the Republic.<ref>Briscoe, ''Valerius Maximus'', p. 1.</ref>

His attitude towards the imperial household is controversial: he has been represented as a mean flatterer of Tiberius,<ref>H Nettleship, ''A Dictionary of Classical Antiquities'' (London 1891) p. 664</ref> of the same type as [[Martial]]. Chisholm in 1911 argued however that, if the references to the imperial administration are carefully scanned, they will be seen to be extravagant neither in kind nor in number: few will now grudge Tiberius, when his whole action as a ruler is taken into account, such a title as ''salutaris princeps'', which seemed to a former generation a specimen of shameless adulation.  A quarter of a century later still, however, [[H J Rose]] claimed that Valerius "cares nothing for historical truth if by neglecting it he can flatter Tiberius, which he does most fulsomely".<ref>H J Rose, ''A Handbook of Latin Literature'' (London 1966) p. 356</ref> 

Chisholm also maintained that the few allusions to [[Julius Caesar|Caesar]]'s murderers and to [[Augustus]] hardly pass beyond the conventional style of the writer's day; and that the only passage which can fairly be called fulsome is the violently rhetorical tirade against [[Sejanus]].{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}}