Editing Valerius Maximus (section)

==Work==
The style of Valerius's writing seems to indicate that he was a professional [[rhetoric]]ian; and his writing represents much of the worst rhetorical tendencies of the [[Silver Latin]] age. Direct and simple statement is avoided and novelty pursued at any price, producing a clumsy obscurity.<ref>H J Rose, ''A Handbook of Latin Literature'' (London 1966) p. 356</ref>  The diction is like that of poetry; the uses of words are strained; metaphors are invented; there are startling contrasts, innuendoes and epithets; variations are played upon grammatical and rhetorical figures of speech.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}}

In his preface, Valerius intimates that his work is intended as a commonplace book of historical anecdotes for use in the schools of rhetoric, where the pupils were trained in the art of embellishing speeches by references to history. According to the manuscripts, its title is ''Factorum ac dictorum memorabilium libri IX'' (shorter title ''Facta et dicta memorabilia''), "Nine Books of Memorable Deeds and Sayings." The stories are loosely and irregularly arranged, each book being divided into sections, and each section bearing as its title the topic, most commonly some virtue or vice, or some merit or demerit, which the stories in the section are intended to illustrate.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}}

Most of the tales are from Roman history, but each section has an appendix consisting of extracts from the 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 Empire—the feeling that the Romans of the writer's own day are degenerate creatures when confronted with their own republican predecessors, and the feeling that, however degenerate, the latter-day Romans still tower above the other peoples of the world, and in particular are morally superior to the Greeks.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}}

The author's chief sources are [[Cicero]], [[Livy]], [[Sallust]] and [[Gnaeus Pompeius Trogus|Pompeius Trogus]], especially the first two.<ref>H Nettleship, ''A Dictionary of Classical Antiquities'' (London 1891) p. 664</ref> Valerius's treatment of his material is careless and inaccurate in the extreme;<ref>H J Rose, ''A Handbook of Latin Literature'' (London 1966) p. 356</ref> but in spite of his confusions, contradictions and anachronisms, the excerpts are apt illustrations, from the rhetorician's point of view, of the circumstance or quality they were intended to illustrate.<ref>[https://ore.exeter.ac.uk/repository/handle/10871/9182 Reading for the moral in Valerius Maximus]</ref> Valerius has also used sources that are now lost, preserving some glimpses into the much debated and very imperfectly recorded reign of Tiberius;{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}} as well as some fragmentary information on Hellenistic art;<ref>J Boardman ed, ''The Oxford History of the Classical World'' (1986) p. 495</ref> and a revealing glimpse into the early imperial consensus on the need for the orderly logic and stability of the ancient Roman religion, in a politically unsettled world.<ref>H-F Mueller, ''Roman Religion in Valerius Maximus'' (2002) p. 2 and p. 118</ref>