Tag: Velleius Paterculus

Great Deeds Require Great Assistance (PS: Sejanus, I Love You) Velleius Paterculus 2.127

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“It is rare for eminent men to guide their fortunes without making use of great assistants—as the two Scipios needed the two Laelii whom they treated as equal to themselves in everything or as the divine Augustus used Marcus Agrippa and then Statilius Taurus after him. For these men the newness of their families was certainly not any serious obstacle to selections to their multiple consulships, triumphs or priesthoods. For great deeds need great helpers and it is crucial to that state that those who are needed by it receive adequate rank and that their usefulness is fortified by authority.

With these men as examples, Tiberius Caesar elevated Seianus Aelius as his sole assistant in the burdens of the principate, a son of a father from a lofty equestrian family and on his mother’s side related to famous ancient men distinguished as well by their public service, a man who also had brothers, cousins and an uncle as consuls and who was himself a man most dedicated to loyalty and service, endowed with sufficient physical strength to match his mental ability, a man happily stern and strictly cheerful, busy though seeming at leisure, a man who neither acquires nor pursues anything for himself, and whose belief in himself always falls below the estimation of others, calm in his appearance and life though vigilant in his mind.”

Raro eminentes viri non magnis adiutoribus ad gubernandam fortunam suam usi sunt, ut duo Scipiones duobus Laeliis, quos per omnia aequaverunt sibi, ut divus Augustus M. Agrippa et proxime ab eo Statilio Tauro, quibus novitas familiae haut obstitit quominus ad multiplicis consulatus triumphosque et complura eveherentur sacerdotia. 2 Etenim magna negotia magnis adiutoribus egent interestque rei publicae quod usu necessariurn est, dignitate eminere utilitatemque auctoritate muniri. 3 Sub his exemplis Ti. Caesar Seianum Aelium, principe equestris ordinis patre natum, materno vero genere clarissimas veteresque et insignes honoribus complexum familias, habentem consularis fratres, consobrinos, avunculum, ipsum vero laboris ac fidei capacissimum, sufficiente etiam vigori animi compage corporis, singularem principalium onerum adiutorem in omnia habuit atque habet, 4virum severitatis laetissimae, hilaritatis priscae, actu otiosis simillimum, nihil sibi vindicantem eoque adsequentem omnia, semperque infra aliorum aestimationes se metientem, vultu vitaque tranquillum, animo exsomnem.

The last sentence seems to go on a bit suspiciously long for Sejanus, the leader of the Praetorian guard who ran the Roman Empire after Tiberius withdrew to Capri. Things did not go well forever for Sejanus–he was executed in 31 CE.

Sulla As Dictator: Velleius Paterculus 2.28

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“The evils of the civil war seemed to have ended when they were rekindled by Sulla’s cruelty. Once he was made dictator—and this honor had been avoided for a hundred and twenty years since the last time it had been used was one year after Hannibal quit Italy—and it is obvious that the fear which prompted the Roman people to want a dictator was less than how much they feared his power. As dictator, Sulla applied the power which earlier dictators had used only to save the country from the greatest dangers with unmeasured degrees of savagery. He was the first—and I wish he had been the last—to discover the model of proscription with the result that in the same state in which legal recourse is available to an actor booed from the stage, in that state a price was set for the murder of a Roman citizen: he would have the most who killed the most! The reward for the killing of an enemy would be no greater than for the murder of a citizen. In essence, each man was valued for the price of his own death. Such savagery was applied not only to those who had carried arms against them, but against many innocents too. In addition to this, the goods of the proscribed were offered for sale: children already deprived of their father’s goods were also prohibited from the right of seeking public office and, the most unjust thing of all, they had to maintain the standards of their social rank without recourse to the rights.”

Videbantur finita belli civilis mala, cum Sullae crudelitate aucta sunt. Quippe dictator creatus (cuius honoris usurpatio per annos centum et viginti intermissa; nam proximus post annum quam Hannibal Italia excesserat, uti adpareat populum Romanum usum dictatoris haud metu desiderasse tali quo timuisset potestatem) imperio, quo priores ad vindicandam maximis periculis rem publicam olim usi erant, eo in inmodicae crudelitatis licentiam usus est.3 Primus ille, et utinam ultimus, exemplum proscriptionis invenit, ut in qua civitate petularitis convicii iudicium histrioni ex albo redditur, in ea iugulati civis Romani publice constitueretur auctoramentum, plurimumque haberet, qui plurimos interemisset, neque occisi hostis quam civis uberius foret praemium Geretque quisque merces mortis suae.4 Nec tantum in eos, qui contra arma tulerant, sed in multos insontis saevitum. Adiectum etiam, ut bona proscriptorum venirent exclusique paternis opibus liberi etiam petendorum honorum iure prohiberentur simulque, quod indignissimum est, senatorum filii et onera ordinis sustinerent et iura perderent.

F. W. Shipley’s Kind Introduction to Velleius Paterculus

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“Velleius Paterculus does not rank among the great Olympians of classical literature either as stylist or as historian. But, as Pliny the elder says, no book is so poor that one cannot get some good out of it, and there is much in this comparatively neglected author that is worth reading once, at least in translation. In its aim to include all that is of value and interest in Greek and Latin literature from the days of Homer to the Fall of Constantinople the Loeb Library is performing what is perhaps its most valuable service in making more generally available the content of those comparatively unknown authors who, for stylistic or other reasons, are not to be reckoned among the great classics or do not deserve a careful study in the original.”

“Dicere enim solebat nullum esse librum tam malum ut non aliqua parte prodesset.“ Pliny, Ep. III.5.10, quoting a saying of his uncle.

I copied this text from the inimitable Lacus Curtius who prints the Loeb from 1924.