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TheFacta et dicta memorabiliadocuments the traditions Tiberius rescues or preserves, and does its part in handing down what in Valerius’ view is ‘‘worthy to be remembered.’’ Not everything, it turns out; much may safely be forgotten. Bloomer has fully discussed the organization and thrust of the work and, t o some extent, what drives the shape and tenor of individual anecdotes.60 I am interested here in considering briefly some of the criteria for selection.

In the first place, there are temporal limitations; the bulk of the historical events to which he alludes occurred prior to the Augustan period and the battle of Actium in 31 BC. To appreciate the implications of this, imagine a compilation of the deeds of famous Americans that included no one after1940. That is roughly comparable: with few excep- tions Valerius mentions no event in the sixty years or so prior to the composition of his work.61In short, the criterion for inclusion here was essentially that you had to be dead and have lived during the Republic.

As we shall presently see via a passage cited below, Valerius will explain the apparent neglect of both the triumviral and (more interest- ingly) Augustan period. But the gap, and the handy chronological compartmentalization it seems to produce, is rendered far less obvious than it might be through the elision of time. In contrast to Velleius, who, as we saw, is quite precise about marking time, Valerius seldom provides concrete chronological clues.

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When he does, the references are usually vague (e.g., vetustas vs. saeculum nostrum,5.5.3; cf. 8.13. praef ., avorum nostrorum temporibus,6.8.1). The stories he tells are in some sense ‘‘time- less,’’ and indeed, given their moralistic aim, it simply does not matter

whena particular event occurred.63In Valerius’ moral universe, time – just

60

Bloomer (1992),17 – 58 and passim; cf. Skidmore (1996),83 – 92. 61

Bloomer (1992),204. Perhaps not coincidentally, Bayley (1966),68 – 9, remarks that in many classic nineteenth-century historical novels (e.g., Pushkin’s The Captain’s Daughter) a sixty-year ‘‘event horizon’’ represents the ideal distance in time between the narrator and his subject: at this remove in time, the past is not yet seen as ‘‘something over and done with.’’ (I owe this observation to Denis Feeney.) 62

As Bloomer (1992), 29 – 30, has demonstrated, moreover, there is no attempt to observe chronological order within a given chapter.

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Valerius’exemplatherefore lack the sort of context one expects in a historical narrative and in that sense may create a false or incomplete impression of the historical moment

as ‘‘life’’ – is immaterial. The effect is to suggest that the moral values of the Republic and of Tiberian Rome are precisely the same.64

That moral universe, however, is fashioned as much by exclusion as it is by inclusion. In his selectivity, Valerius does for Tiberian Rome what Chaplin (2000) claimed Livy did for the Augustan period, by emphasiz- ing certain exempla over others on the basis of their relevance for the times. As Chaplin argues,exemplaare flexible and mutable, adaptable to different situations.65 In this Valerius does nothing more than exactly what Augustus himself claimed to have done ( RG 8, quoted in Chap. 1

n. 58). In his case, as I have noted, the bulk of Valerius’ exempla or anecdotes is pre-Augustan; he is adamant that his interest lies inexempla

that are tradita, ‘‘handed down,’’ rather than nova, ‘‘new’’ (1.8.7). Ostensibly, then, his pose is not of someone who creates memory (as he might do were he to include men like Agrippa and Maecenas, who at a later perioddotake on the status of exempla: see Chap.3n.3) but rather hands it down. But even then there are certain events and characters he refuses to memorialize in his work. The civil war between Pompey and Caesar, for instance, causes him considerable discomfort: it is, he claims, a period whose ‘‘memory’’ is ‘‘to be loa thed’’ or ‘‘should bear adverse witness’’ (detestandam memoriam,3.3.2).66 Unpleasant events, bad peo- ple, and reprehensible acts do find their way into his work (e.g., under rubrics such as De ingratis or Dicta improba aut facta scelerata ), but generally with apologies or some special pleading (e.g.,9.2. praef .).67The ‘‘memory’’ of such people and events must be carefully controlled (e.g.,

crudelitasmust not be accordedsilentium, but rather it must be ‘‘recalled’’ [revocata] in order to be restrained, ibid.). It is equally apparent that inappropriate or unethical behavior results in a tarnished memory or the denial of memory altogether. Brutus, for instance, though a man of some quality, caused his memory to be drowned in a sea of ‘‘irreversible curses’’ (omnem nominis sui memoriam inexpiabili detestatione perfudit ,

with which theexemplumis associated. As a guide to Republican history, therefore, the value of the work is circumscribed. See David (1998b),129.

64

Levick (1976),91. 65

Cf. Farrell (1997), 383, referring (in connection with Roman memory) to the ‘‘plasticity’’ of Roman stories.

66

Cf.2.7.12,2.8.7,6.2.8. Bloomer (1992),53 – 4; Wardle (1997),328 – 31. 67

Bloomer (1992),163 – 4.

6.4.5); the magnitude of Pompey’s ruina is such that though Valerius recalls it he cannot narrate it (

. . .

ruinam eius [sc. fortunae] maiorem esse quam ut manu mea attemptari debeat memini , 5.3.5); Hannibal would have enjoyed insignem

. . .

memoriam had it not been for his erratic beha- vior (9.6. ext.2); the only event in the life of the litigious Carfania worthy of memoria was her death (8.3.2); Damasippus’ foul character causes his

memoria to be ‘‘constricted’’ or ‘‘damaged’’ ( perstringitur, 9.2.3); the Ephesians rightly abolished by decree the memory of the utterly foul man who plotted to burn the temple of Diana ( ac bene consuluerant Ephesii decreto memoriam taeterrimi hominis abolendo , 8.14. ext. 5) – Valerius colludes in this by concealing the man’s name. 68 Given this unease, he religiously separates the good from the bad, clearly more interested in ‘‘honorable people,’’ the honesti , whose memory must be kept distinct from that accorded ‘‘base people’’ (infimi , 5.2.10; cf. 8.14.

ext. 3). He therefore tends to privilege positive exempla over negative (cf. the sentiment expressed at 5.4. praef . or 9.3. ext. praef .). ‘‘Good words and deeds’’ enjoy the ‘‘endless power’’ (viribus aeternis) of ‘‘tena- cious memory’’ ( pertinax memoria,6.4. praef .).

What is to be gained by reading the Facta et dicta memorabilia? In part, moral edification. Valerius’ exempla serve much the same function as the familyimaginesdisplayed in Roman atria (at one point he actually equates his exempla with imagines, 9.11. praef .). Together with the accompanying tituli (reading, in other words, is a component of the process), these imagines prompt the viewer to emulate the virtues of the viewed (effigies maiorum cum titulis suis idcirco in prima parte aedium poni solere ut eorum virtutes posteri non solum legerent sed etiam imitar-

entur, 5.8.3). Imagines, and thus exempla, also bring the past forcefully into the present, compelling us to recall ‘‘old events’’ as though they were ‘‘fresh’’ (vetera pro recentibus

. . .

recordari ,5.4. ext. 1).69But they serve a more public, civic purpose as well. The scrutiny of and respect for the past – specifically, the prisca ac memorabilia instituta – will benefit the present. For it is through such activity that his citizen-readers come to grasp the elementa or the ‘‘building blocks’’ of their current condition under Tiberius (2. praef .). The remembered exempla of the past provide

68

As he goes on to explain, despite the Ephesians’ efforts, the man’s name was nonetheless included in Theopompus’ Histories.

69

Skidmore (1996),84 – 6.

correctives for the shortcomings of the present; through ‘‘gazing’’ (respi- cere) at the heroes of the past, we are ‘‘lifted up’’ ( exsurgamus) and ‘‘remade’’ (recreemus).70 The Republican past here is not distinct from an imperial present, but rather constitutive of it.

That continuity is evident in another statement about the benefits of contemplating the past, when Valerius specifically compares the educa- tional systems of Greece and Rome, praising the latter for the degree to which its poetry induces the young ‘‘to imitate the noteworthy deeds of their ancestors,’’ egregia superiorum opera. This, he argues, is what gave rise to the Camilli, Scipios, the Fabricii, the Marcelli, the Fabii

. . .

and the divine Caesars ( inde oriebantur Camilli Scipiones Fabricii Marcelli Fabii, ac ne singula imperii nostri lumina simul percurrendo sim longior, inde, inquam, caeli clarissima pars, divi fulserunt Caesares,2.1.10). Thus under a single heading (imperium nostrum) Valerius lumps Rome’s lead- ing Republican ‘‘lights’’ together with the ‘‘Caesars.’’ To be sure, an important distinction is made: the Caesars warrant the epithet divi

whereas the others do not. This is related to the phenomenon we observed in his Preface to Book 1; and, rather more interestingly, in Horace C . 1.12 discussed in Chapter 1, which trots out several of the same characters, thereby suggesting some continuity of perspective between the Augustan and Tiberian periods.