Valerius Maximus
The collector of memorable deeds
b. fl. c. AD 14–37
Valerius Maximus was a Roman writer of the early first century AD. His Facta et Dicta Memorabilia (Memorable Deeds and Sayings) in nine books is a vast collection of historical anecdotes arranged by moral category — on courage, gratitude, cruelty, and dozens of other topics.
The work was designed as a handbook for orators needing historical examples. It was enormously successful — one of the most widely read Latin prose works in the Middle Ages, with over 700 surviving manuscripts. Valerius Maximus preserves valuable historical anecdotes from now-lost sources and gives us an unvarnished picture of the moral categories through which Romans understood their own history.
Nine books of memorable deeds and sayings, organised by moral category — courage, justice, cruelty, ingratitude. A handbook of exempla for orators, dr...