Valerius Maximus

Valerius Maximus (/vəˈlɪəriəs ˈmæksɪməs/) was a 1st-century Latin writer and author of a collection of historical anecdotes: Factorum et dictorum memorabilium libri IX [it] ("Nine books of memorable deeds and sayings", also known as De factis dictisque memorabilibus or Facta et dicta memorabilia).

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.

[6] Chisholm also maintained that the few allusions to 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.

[7] 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.

[3] 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.

[12] The collection of Valerius was much used for school purposes, and its popularity throughout the Middle Ages is attested by the large number of manuscripts in which it has been preserved: indeed, B. G. Niebuhr went so far as to claim that it was then "the most important book next to the Bible".

A translation into Dutch was published in 1614,[18] and was read by Rembrandt and other artists (and their patrons), stimulating interest in some new subjects such as Artemisia drinking her husband's ashes.