[In the following essay, Wardle explores Valerius's positive evocations of Julius Caesar in the Memorable Doings and Sayings, including his affirmation of the emperor's bravery and divinity and his generalized support for imperial rule.]

The career of the man who brought to an end Republican government for the Romans and who was at the same time the founder of the first imperial dynasty, Julius Caesar, posed particular problems for writers in the principates of Augustus and Tiberius.¹ Geraldine Herbert-Brown in her study of Ovid's presentation of Julius Caesar in the Fasti returns in general to the position of Syme, that after the battle of Actium Augustus restricted the profile enjoyed by Caesar, but also makes the notable suggestion that the memory of Caesar flourished, or perhaps revived, during the first decade a.d. when Rome was beset by internal difficulties and external defeats, and that Augustus may have been contrasted adversely with his late father.² For Herbert-Brown Ovid took a line far closer to Augustus' own, mentioning Caesar only to enhance by comparison the rule of Augustus. Whatever position we take, Ovid's treatment of Caesar in the Metamorphoses and above all the Fasti can offer illuminating comparisons for our purpose, principally in demonstrating alternative techniques and tactics for dealing with Caesar and most of all in connection with Caesar's divinity.³

Caesar's treatment by Valerius Maximus is accorded three pages by Wolverton, who collects usefully most of the passages relevant to a discussion; and although most recently Martin Bloomer has devoted greater attention to Caesar in his general treatment of Valerius as a writer, he presents only a few of Valerius' references and selected themes.⁴ A more comprehensive approach is called for. Basic questions have to be asked, although their answers are far from certain: for example, did the overall attitude to Caesar change between the principates of Augustus and Tiberius, or did different elements of “Caesar” become more or less acceptable; how aware was Valerius of such “imperial orthodoxies” and the subtle currents of the imperial house? I shall return to these questions specifically in the conclusion, but begin with Valerius' presentation of Caesar in its various aspects.

One does not look to Valerius for novelty or special information; indeed, in his preface he sets out a limited aim for his compilation of exempla: “facta simul ac dicta memoratu digna, quae apud alios latius diffusa sunt quam ut breviter cognosci possint, ab inlustribus electa auctoribus digerere constitui.” He adds that he can bring no adtentior cura or praestantior facundia to the task—modesty that no one has seriously questioned. It is Valerius' very conventionality and his operation within a canon of virtues and vices and with a hallowed list of historical exempla of such qualities that render him useful for discovering what could regularly and unexceptionably be said during Tiberius' reign.⁵

In an author like Valerius, who selects from various sources of different genres and attitudes and whose purpose is to illustrate individual virtues and vices, consistency in characterization is not always to be expected, as T. F. Carney has demonstrated for Marius, who appears over ninety times in the exempla.⁶ From one perspective, then, Valerius can be examined as a collector of varied material from various sources for the light his work sheds on his sources. For our purposes, however, more important is the use to which he puts his material, particularly the framework in which he casts it and interprets it and the way he manipulates the material (where we can check), as this is revealing of both Valerius as a writer and the age in which he lived.

Caesar appears, or is alluded to, far less frequently than Marius, in some thirty-five passages. Simplest to discuss are the forms of address he receives. Three forms predominate: the cognomen Caesar alone,⁷ praenomen and cognomen: C. Caesar,⁸ and Divus Iulius.⁹ The full name C. Iulius Caesar appears only once, in the words of Ser. Sulpicius Galba, and so should not be considered a Valerian form of address.¹⁰ Allusively he can be referred to by a term of family relationship, “father” or “grandfather” (Praef.; 7.6.6). The lack of formality may seem in some respects remarkable, as some relatively obscure characters receive their tria nomina, e.g., M. Cornelius Cethegus and L. Furius Bibaculus, yet abbreviated nomenclature is the rule in Valerius; and indeed the more famous the individual, the less he may need full nomenclature, as his deeds identify him best, although in families where names are repeated through generations distinguishing tags are sometimes used (1.1.4, 1.1.9, 4.5.1). It is unsurprising that Valerius' references to Augustus follow the same pattern.¹¹ While the overall pattern of Valerius' references to Caesar does not suggest deliberate variatio, the frequency of the divine form, Divus Iulius, is remarkable. This impression is reinforced when Valerius is compared with the only other extant prose writer from Tiberius' reign, Velleius Paterculus, in whom it never appears.¹²

In addition to these nouns Valerius employs the adjective Caesarianus in three instances: two are uncontroversial and are attached to milites of Caesar in an episode from the Civil War and of Octavian in 31 or 30 before he took the name Augustus (3.2.13; 1.1.19). The third, appearing in Book 9 and in the context of the lowly born who falsely attempted to join themselves to famous families, praises the imperial family with a contrast of Caesariana aequitas and Sullana violentia (9.15.5 and the continuation in 9.15. ext. 1):

Multo fortius ille, qui Cornelio Sulla rerum potiente in domum Cn. Asini Dionis inrupit filiumque eius patriis penatibus expulit vociferando non ilium, sed se Dione esse procreatum, verum postguam a Sullana violentia Caesariana aequitas (rem publicam) reduxit, gubernacula Romani imperii iustiore principe obtinente in publica custodia spiritum posuit. (9.15. ext. I) Eodem praeside rei publicae in consimili mendacio muliebris temeritas Mediolani repressa est. si quidem cum se pro Rubria quaedam, perinde ac falso credita esset incendio perisse, nihil ad se pertinentibus bonis insereret neque ei aut tractus eius splendid testes aut cohortis Augustae favor deesset, propter inexpugnabilem Caesaris constantiam inrita nefarii propositi abiit.

While recognizing the chronological difficulty of having Julius Caesar punish the usurper of the rightful son of Asinius Dio at least thirty years after his usurpation, Bloomer still takes the reference of justice to Caesar.¹³ But Valerius' introduction to the following exemplum, “eodem praeside rei publicae,” shows incontrovertibly that Caesariana aequitas belongs to this praeses; and the language in the continuation far more readily relates to Augustus. The adjective augustus is used rarely by Valerius and only once in connection with Caesar.¹⁴ Its major use is of the imperial complex on the Palatine; that is, of Augustus and his successors.¹⁵ Moreover Valerius' expressions describing the power exercised by Sulla and Caesar better fit Augustus: rerum potiri relates to Sulla's dictatorship; praeses and iustior princeps better refer not to Caesar's dictatorship but a different dispensation, Augustus' principate.¹⁶ This identification does, however, exacerbate the chronological difficulty, especially if the use of augustus is taken strictly to indicate a date after 27 b.c.

What remains now are the indisputable references to Caesar and Valerius' portrayal of him. For Bloomer there are three essential elements to his characterization: he appears “as the seal on the civil wars (so as always to remedy or balance the readers' view of that contest and those contenders) and his death will be consistently represented as parricide (both to blacken the assassins in the highest degree and to suggest the familial tie of the Caesars to the state). The epithet divus … constitutes the final element of Valerius' rhetoric of the Caesars.”¹⁷ I shall present six themes, leaving till last the most developed, those of Caesar's death and his divinity.

I. CAESAR'S BRAVERY

After two books in which he discusses religion and institutions of the Roman state, Valerius begins in Book 3 a new section on virtues. As he indicates in the Preface to Facta et dicta memorabilia, the work essentially concerns virtues and vices. His presentation of these does not adhere to any of the canons propounded by Greek philosophical schools above all in that he offers no hierarchy of virtues.¹⁸ It is probably significant, however, that for a Roman audience Valerius begins his catalogue of virtues proper with fortitudo: “nos quia iam initia procursusque virtutis patefecimus, actuary ipsum persequemur, cuius ponderosissima vis et efficacissimi lacerti in fortitudine consistunt.”¹⁹ Nor is it any accident, I suggest, that Books 3 to 5 each begin with a virtue upon which Tiberius prided himself.²⁰ Fortitudo is discussed at greater length than any other in the whole work, and fits well with the preeminence accorded military glory in the self-representation of the Roman elite. The longest individual exemplum in the chapter concerns two exploits of M. Caesius Scaeva, one of Caesar's centurions, in the Civil and Gallic Wars; while the first exploit mentions Caesar only as imperator and to provide the context, the second offers an evaluative judgment in that Caesar is called optimus virtutis aestimator (3.2.23). The one exemplum, concerning two feats of courage by Caesar himself, has a striking introduction that juxtaposes Caesar's conspicuous glory in military and civilian pursuits and in his divine assumption, and labels him as the most definite pattern of real virtue.²¹ Although the laudatory nature of this particular exemplum cannot be denied, it is notable that on this occasion mention of the imperial family does not occupy the climactic place in the chapter as a whole, an honor that befalls L. Siccus Dentatus who demonstrated unsurpassed bravery on an almost legendary number of occasions.²² Under Augustus, because his career was studded with examples of his lack of personal bravery and military success, any implied contrast of the military record of father and son would have been to the latter's disadvantage. While Caesar's victories continued to be commemorated in the calendar under Augustus, there was no particular commemoration of his military achievements.²³ Certainly under Tiberius there was little potential embarrassment in discussing bravery and military expertise, because the princeps throughout his career had demonstrated all the talents of a successful general.²⁴ For Valerius and, as far as we can guess, his contemporaries, Augustus' death may have opened a new area of panegyric of Caesar acceptable in works seeking imperial favor.

II. EXPANSIONISM

If the question of Caesarian bravery raised no problems for an author writing under Tiberius, that of extending the Empire's boundaries would seem more dangerous. According to the literary sources, Augustus' testament contained a document that advocated a policy, in Tacitus' phrase, “imperil intraterminos coercendi.” Tiberius followed the advice with sufficient faithfulness to earn description as “princeps proferendi imperi incuriosus.”²⁵ Some Valerian formulations suggest that an ethos of non-expansion was readily promulgated and even that Valerius himself warmly supported it.²⁶ The appearance of an uncorroborated exemplum in which the great Roman hero Scipio Aemilianus, while censor in 142 b.c., altered the words of the censors' prayer, which usually included the request that the gods “populi Romani res meliores amplioresque facerent,” by substituting “satis bonae et magnae sunt: itaque precor ut eas perpetuo incolumes servent,” so as to reject further imperial expansion, has seemed suspicious. It has been argued that the actual change to the formula was made during Augustus' reign.²⁷ Better, however, the change suits the ideology of Tiberius' reign. Valerius' only words on this topic in connection with Caesar are non-controversial. In setting the context for Scaeva's second feat of courage he writes (3.2.23): “bello namque, quo C. Caesar non contentus opera sue litoribus Oceani claudere Britannicae insulae caelestis iniecit manus.” The use of caelestis, which ties the invasions to Caesar's unimpeachable divine nature, on the one hand excludes criticism of Caesar, but on the other may exculpate Tiberius from criticism for passivity, in its implication that expansionism was the work of a god.²⁸ So Valerius manages to comment without hostility on this while still applauding and supporting with conspicuous favor the key Tiberian notion of tranquillitas, the importance of which is confirmed by the opening words of the first gratulatio in the senatus consultum de Pisone Patre.²⁹

III. CAESAR AND THE CIVIL WAR

The great Civil War of the first century b.c. was crucial in the historiographical tradition: Asinius Pollio's Historiae traced its cause to the agreement between Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus.³⁰ This war terminated Rome's Republican system of government, and the domination of Caesar, which it ushered in, was the forerunner of the imperial system under which Valerius lived. Tiberius' reign could be a dangerous period in which to discuss these distant events, as the successful prosecution of Cremutius Cordus in a.d. 25 showed, perhaps more clearly to his contemporaries than to us. Even if slights to the imperial favorite Sejanus contributed to the prosecution and conviction of Cremutius,³¹ that a literary production could be the grounds of criminal conviction illustrates the possible constraints upon Valerius. If Augustus' earlier indulgence towards the portrayal of Pompey was not expressly revoked by Tiberius, to have praised Caesar's murderers was fatal (Tact Ann. 4.33-34). However, Cremutius' fate is most strictly relevant to Valerius' practice only if the traditional date of Facta et dicta memorabilia (after 31) is upheld and the unnamed conspirator who attracts Valerius' wrath in Book 9 is Sejanus. This dating certainly gives the best interpretation of the internal evidence,³² and puts much of Valerius' output, particularly the early books, in the immediate aftermath of Cremutius' trial. One might, then, expect a particular sensitivity to the portrayal of Caesar, the Civil War, and the animosities that it aroused, even from a writer whose enthusiastic support of Caesar and his descendants is beyond question.

Valerius approaches the Civil War of 49-45 b.c. in a variety of ways. For example, he can describe incidents that occurred during the war without specifying the context: the feats of bravery by Acilius, Caesius Scaeva, and Titius;³³ individual campaigns can be mentioned with no edge: “Cn. Pompeio adulescente in Hispania oppresso” as the context for other actions (9.15.1), and Caesar's victory can be used as a temporal device: “consummatis victoriis” sets the context for Ser. Sulpicius Galba's libertas, heightening his bravery and in turn the mansuetudo of Caesar (6.2.11). Pompey's defeat at Pharsalus can be mentioned factually as the context for an exemplum: “Pompeius vero Magnus in acie Pharsalica victus a Caesare” (1.5.6). It is disputable whether Valerius needs to add “a Caesare,” but comparatio between the protagonists to Caesar's advantage is a persistent feature, demonstrated by an exemplum with a similar introduction:³⁴

Pompeius Magnus Pharsalica acie victus a Caesare, cum postero die Larisam intraret, oppidique illius universus populus obviam ei processisset, “ite” inquit “et istud officium praestate victor),” dicerem, non dignus qui vinceretur, nisi a Caesare esset superatus, certe modestus in calamitate: nam quia dignitate sue uti iam non poterat, usus est verecundia.

Valerius grants Pompey the virtue of modesty (verecundia), but in such a way that Pompey's quality is overwhelmed by Caesar's superiority.³⁵ We see a similar role played in the exemplum of the eques Caesetius: his refusal of Caesar's command to disinherit his son was made to one “omnium iam et externorum (et) domesticorum hostium victore”; his courage was outstanding, “humano ingenio maius ausum putet, quod cui totus terrarum orbis succubuerat non cessit?” in Valerius' words, but matched by Caesar's clementia, which governs the sentence (5.7.2). More interesting is the presentation of an episode that could easily have been portrayed in a hostile manner. Under the rubric of necessitas occurs a gruesome incident from the Spanish campaign of 45 b.c. (7.6.5):

Divi Iull exercitus, id est invicti ducis invicta dextera, cum armis Mundam clausisset aggerique extruendo materia deficeretur, congerie hostilium cadaverum quam desideraverat altitudinem instruxit eamque tragulis et pills, quia roboreae sudes deerant, magistra novae molitionis necessitate usus vallavit.

Valerius attaches no blame to Caesar—his exercitus perpetrates the deed—nor uses any emotive moral terms for the abuse of the corpses of Roman dead, whereas Florus considers the action “foedum etiam in barbaros”; the latter's language may give an indication of the slant in Livy's account and the anti-Caesarian tradition, which Valerius ignores.³⁶ In his Fasti Ovid omits any mention of Munda, although its celebration is attested in contemporary calendars; Caesar's victory in Africa in 46 is included only briefly, as a defeat of the non-Roman Juba.³⁷ There are clear signs that Valerius found the Munda episode problematic and realized the need for an apologia: 1) he explains the action (“quia roboreae sudes deerant”), invoking necessitas as an apologist would do, and 2) he attempts to swamp the exemplum with his introduction both to this, “id est invicti ducts invicta dextera,” and to the next, which involves Augustus and an episode of a dire military threat to the empire from the Parthians.

For any author discussing Caesar and the Civil Wars, a fundamental problem was the attribution of guilt for what could not be represented as other than a disastrous episode in Roman history. When illustrating conjugal love by the exemplum of Pompey's wife fainting on seeing his bloodstained clothes and suffering a miscarriage, Valerius has the opportunity to confront this problem (4.6.4). While he stresses the disaster of the Civil Wars to the whole world and characterizes them as fury or madness (furor), he abstains from blaming either Caesar or Pompey—the death of Julia's baby removed a tie of kinship that might have prevented the fatal rupture. In an exemplum of the visit of Appius Claudius to the Pythian priestess, which occurred during the Civil War, he sets the historical context as (1.8.10):

bello Civili, quo se Cn. Pompeius a Caesaris concordia pestifero sibi nec rei publicae utili consilio abruperat.

Valerius' desire for a public/private antithesis has resulted in a feeble formulation of the consequences for the state; yet the guilt and responsibility lay wholly with Pompey. So from exemplum to exemplum we have an inconsistency caused by the rhetorical needs of the individual instance, a practice unexceptionable in the rhetorician demonstrating his ability to manipulate.³⁸

While, given the complexity of the issues at stake and the slow breakdown of the agreement between Caesar and Pompey, the version Valerius presents here may seem tendentious, it was undoubtedly the official version. It ties in with an earlier passage concerning one element of the war, the decisive military action between the two protagonists at Pharsalus (1.6.12):

Cn. etiam Pompeium Iuppiter omnipotens abunde monuerat ne cum C. Caesare ultimam fortunam experiri contendere, egresso e Dyrrachio adverse agmini eius fulmina iaciens … palmam viridem Trallibus in aede Victoriae sub Caesaris statue inter coagmenta lapidum iustae magnitudinis enatam, quibus apparel caelestium numen et Caesaris gloriae favisse et Pompei errorem inhibere voluisse.

While the bulk of this long section is a list of the various prodigies preceding and following the battle, in the prominent introduction and conclusion, which mark the author's most visible entry into the text, Valerius emphasizes heavily the responsibility of Pompey; the blame for beginning the decisive engagement lies squarely with him for ignoring a series of prodigies sent by almighty Jupiter. The concluding material, adapted very closely from Caesar's own account, contains prodigies announcing Caesar's victory. Valerius' conclusion, which owes nothing to any source, has the gods foretell Caesar's victory while failing to restrain Pompey. By this juxtaposition of ideas Valerius can present Caesar as the gods' chosen one, exculpate the gods for Pompey's fall, and perhaps also display some moderation towards Pompey in describing his course of action by error rather than by some loaded term such as impietas, or the vaesana perseverantia earned by C. Hostilius Mancinus' similar actions five exempla earlier in the chapter. There is nothing to which Tiberius or any sensitive critic could object—Valerius appears to have learned from Cremutius' fate.

IV. CAESAR'S CLEMENTIA

In the actions of his dictatorships and in the subsequent representations of Caesar, the quality of his clementia, his generous treatment of political enemies and criminals, looms large; it is perhaps his principal civilian virtue.³⁹ However laudable such clementia was in contrast to suevitia or ira, it remained a controversial virtue in connection with Caesar because of the context in which it was exercised: Caesar had secured dominion of the Roman state by illegal means and many of those who received his clementia had fought only to preserve the state from Caesar's rule. It was at best a tarnished virtue. In his treatise De clementia, written to instruct the young emperor Nero, Seneca carefully eschews use of Caesar as an exemplum.⁴⁰ Valerius' handling of the theme reveals that he is aware of the problem. Book 5 begins with a chapter on humanitas and clementia in which Valerius presents seventeen Roman exempla of these related virtues: only three examples do not contain at least one of the key terms, or a cognate form—two of these concern Caesar.⁴¹ In the first Pompey has been treacherously slain and his head brought to Caesar:⁴²

ut enim id Caesar aspexit, oblitus hostis soceri vultum ac Pompeio cum proprias tum et filiae suae lacrimas reddidit, caput autem plurimis et pretiosissimis odoribus cremandum curavit. quod si non tam mansuetus animus divini principis extitisset, paulo ante Romani imperil columen habitum—sic mortalium negotia fortune versat—inhumatum iacuisset. Catonis quoque morte Caesar audita et se illius gloriae invidere et ilium suae invidisse dixit patrimoniumque eius liberis ipsius incolume servavit, et hercle divinorum Caesaris operum non parve pars Catonis salus fuisset.

In the first Caesar is mansuetus; the second has no terms connected with the rubric, and is simply the apodosis of an unfulfilled conditional. The absence of clementia seems deliberate, particularly given the special connection of that word with Caesar and the title of the chapter; a desire for variatio seems unlikely, given the importance of examples from the imperial family. Moreover the reader may be struck by the fact that Caesar displays the virtue in a limited way only: he refrained from mistreating his enemies posthumously or persecuting their posterity; by comparison, in the Republican exempla that begin the chapter, captured foreign enemies of the state, Syphax of Numidia and Perseus of Macedonia, received funerals at state expense. Although Caesar's actions were preferable to Sulla's, for example, and enemies in civil wars were treated more viciously than foreign, the reader might still find Caesar wanting. In reality it was the deaths of Pompey and Cato that prevented their being beneficiaries (or victims) of Caesar's clementia—Pompey's corpse met with Caesarian mansuetudo; Cato's was out of his reach. Valerius' conclusion to the Roman examples of the chapter may seem even more remarkable, as he chooses to present comparable humanitas by M. Antonius towards the corpse of Brutus, who appears here without any of the usual references to his parricide of Caesar (5.1.11). Exempla featuring Caesar were otherwise “capped” very infrequently, except by Augustus.⁴³ Caesar's pardoning of his erstwhile opponent M. Claudius Marcellus, a paradigmatic instance of his clementia, as Cicero's speech of gratitude points out repeatedly, is mentioned only in passing, again without use of clementia.⁴⁴ Outside this particular chapter, however, Valerius is not unwilling to use clementia of Caesar's actions. In an exemplum from a chapter on parents' love for their children (5.7.2):

Non tam speciosa Caeseti equitis Romani sors patria, sed par indulgentia, qui ab Caesare omnium iam et externorum let) domesticorum hostium victore cum abdicare filium suum iuberetur, quod is tribunus pl. cum Marullo college invidiam ei tamquam regnum adfectanti fecerat, in hunc modum respondere sustinuit: “celerius tu mihi, Caesar, omnes filios meos eripies quam ex his ego unum note mea pellam.” habebat autem duos praeterea optimae indolis filios, quibus Caesar se incrementa dignitatis benigne daturum pollicebatur. hunc patrem tametsi summa divini principis clementia tutum praestitit, quis tamen non humano ingenio maius ausum putet, quod cui totus terrarum oris succubuerat non cessit?

Yet the sense of clementia here is far from flattering on even the slightest examination. The father had committed no crime; he had simply refused to obey a tyrant's command.⁴⁵ The son too had tradition if not law on his side in his opposition to monarchical honors for Caesar. In revenge for their opposition Caesar had the tribunes dismissed from office and expelled from the senate.⁴⁶ Caesar's further step of revenge, in commanding the father of the tribune to disinherit his son, which only Valerius preserves, lies outside the area of public law, criminal or civil—Caesar had no legal power to issue his order. Here clementia is the tyrant's failure to do wrong, or at best his refusal to take the harsher course. If we attribute any consciousness to Valerius of the questionable nature of Caesar's action, we might argue that by defining the clementia as that of a divinus princeps he was attempting to anticipate and undercut criticism. Alternatively, it seems more plausible that when his and his readers' minds are concentrated on a specific subject Valerius can be aware of sensitive issues and present them carefully, but that at other times, outside a specific rubric, he can use terms of praise of Caesar in ways that stand up to scrutiny less well.

If the date of publication of Facta et dicta memorabilia could be known with any degree of certainty, beyond the reasonable probability that Book 9 alludes to Sejanust conspiracy of a.d. 31,⁴⁷ we would speculate more convincingly about possible problems for an author discussing clementia in Tiberian Rome. To judge by the extant historical accounts, Tiberius had greatest opportunity for displaying the virtue towards those convicted of maiestas, yet rarely did, and even when he did, attracted criticism for insincerity.⁴⁸ However, his coinage is the first during the Empire until Vitellius to celebrate clementia (combined with moderatio): the issues appeared probably around a.d. 22/23,⁴⁹ and in a.d. 28 an altar was dedicated to his clementia.⁵⁰ The sensitive author writing on virtues could scarcely ignore the topic or fail to realize its controversial nature. Valerius, however, chose to protect himself by using exempla from the Republican period only. Not only did this offer convenient temporal distancing, but fundamental changes in the political system and the institution of senatorial and above all imperial jurisdiction had changed the areas in which clementia was exercised. Under the Republic the most frequent beneficiaries of clementia, as Valerius presents them, were Rome's enemies captured or defeated in war, that is, non-citizens, or the dead; under the Empire, beginning under Caesar's domination of the state, the emphasis shifted principally to the legal (or quasi-legal) sphere, where the princeps could extend mercy to one who had been convicted. Valerius' examples were, then, non-controversial. His choice, however, and above all his decision to exclude Caesarian exempla, may not have been fortuitous, but a deliberate, authorial choice. This conclusion is reinforced, I believe, by comparison with Velleius Paterculus who parades the very exempla and the term clementia that Valerius avoids.⁵¹

V. CAESAR'S DEATH

Of the eight passages that mention the death of Caesar five describe his assassination as parricide: three by the noun parricidium of the crime itself, twice by labelling his assassins parricidae.⁵² The crime of parricide, murder of a relative and especially of a parent, was considered particularly shocking by the Romans and in historical times attracted the extreme punishment of the culleus.⁵³ Apparently in a senatus consultum passed during the propaganda struggle immediately after the assassination, Caesar's murder was classed as parricide.⁵⁴ This continued through the early principate, and is seen notably in Tacitust presentation of the trial of Cremutius Cordus (Ann. 4.34.3). The term was chosen to recall Caesar's title of parens patriae.⁵⁵ Although the Roman laws on parricide did not give grounds for the classification, later the murder of or plots against the emperor could be described as parricide.⁵⁶ It is no accident that Tiberius appears as “princeps parensque noster” in Valerius' denunciation of the unnamed conspirator.⁵⁷ Against this background Valerius' language may seem less pure literary rhetoric and more an accurate reflection of the attitudes of his own day, indeed of what was officially promulgated throughout the Empire by senate and emperor.

The question of the responsibility for Caesar's death could have afforded Valerius and the reader the opportunity for controversial reflection. It is possible to draw from Valerius' references material to support a negative assessment of Caesar's behavior leading up to his assassination, but Valerius adapts the material so that Caesar escapes blame. Three passages show that Caesar ignored divine warnings of his impending doom.

(1) Under the chapter Quam magni effectus artium sint Valerius presents the prophecy of the haruspex Spurinna:⁵⁸

Spurinnae quoque in coniectandis deorum monitis efficacior scientia apparuit quam urbs Romana voluit, praedixerat C. Caesari ut proximos XXX dies quasi fatales caveret, quorum ultimus erat idus Marriae, eo cum forte mane uterque in domum Calvini Domiti ad officium convenisset, Caesar spurinnae “ecquid scis Idus iam Martias venisse?” at is “ecquid scis illas nondum praeterisse?” abiecerat alter timorem tamquam exacto tempore suspecto, alter ne extremam quidem eius partem periculo vacuam esse arbitratus est. utinam haruspicem potius augurium quam patriae parentem securitas fefellisset!

The conclusion expressed in the form of a wish attributes to Caesar nothing more damning than securitas. The word is capable of a wide range of connotations from the enviable tranquility of philosophers, through carelessness to complacent negligence, and it cannot be assumed that Valerius takes the harshest here. Moreover I hope that it is not fanciful to add that by his use of the abstract noun as subject, without any possessive adjective, a use that is rare in even his more rhetorical moments, Valerius damns securitas, not Caesar, who is rather the victim.

(2) In the chapter De prodigiis Caesar's death is the climactic example (1.6.13):

te enim accepimus eo die quo purpurea veste velatus aurea in sella consedisti, ne maximo studio senatus exquisitum et delatum honorem sprevisse videreris, priusquam exoptatum civium oculis conspectum tui offerres, cultui religionis in quam mox eras transiturus, vacasse mactatoque opimo hove cor in extis non reperisse, ac responsum tibi ab spurinna aruspice pertinere id signum ad vitam et consilium tuum, quod utraque haec corde continerentur. erupit deinde eorum parricidium, qui dum te hominum numero subtrahere volunt, deorum concilio adiecerunt.

Valerius praises Caesar for making time in his busy schedule for a sacrifice, in effect presenting him as a religious man, not what the reader would suspect from his ultimate behavior or the persistent tradition of him as a sceptic.⁵⁹ Moreover, the portent was striking and the interpretation clear, but Caesar took no heed. Similar behavior even by great figures of the Republic like Marcellus, which brought in its train disaster and death, is labelled as temeritas, and stubborn persistence in the face of divine portents earns Crassus the conclusion “sic deorum spreti monitus excandescunt, sic humane consilia castigantur, ubi se caelestibus praeferunt” (cf. 1.6.6-9; 1.6.11). Here no word of blame is attached to Caesar, and “erupit … eorum parricidium” appears to give an independent life to the assassination. Moreover, there is no involvement of fate or the gods, since Valerius can scarcely present the gods as willing Caesar's fate when they had warned him by a portent.⁶⁰ Other aspects illustrate the degree of manipulation in this episode. The context is elaborated: “eo die … offerres.” Caesar had been granted the use of triumphal dress for all occasions in 45, but this purple and the throne were the regal dress granted in 44.⁶¹ Rather than hint at the view later expressed, that the acceptance of inflated honors due only to royalty or gods raised the hostility that led to his assassination, Valerius highlights Caesar's civilitas towards the senate and people (cf. Suet. Iul. 76.1; Cass. Dio 44.3.1-3). Also, his stress that the honors were bestowed by the senate might undercut criticism of their impropriety.

(3) Thirdly, the gods warned Caesar's wife Calpurnia in a dream (1.7.2). As Valerius stresses in the conclusion to the exemplum, “quapropter ab hoc tantummodo impendentem mutationem status cognosci ab illo etiam deferri, dii immortales voluerunt, ut aliud caelo decus daretur, aliud promitteretur,” they wanted him to be aware of his impending death. For Valerius the gods discharge their duty and there is no problem in the crucial distinction between knowing the future and being able to protect oneself against it, which appears in philosophical discussions of divination as a powerful argument against the phenomenon.⁶² Furthermore the possibility of any hint of blame attaching to the gods is swept away by their purpose of bringing greater glory to heaven. Although the motivation for Caesar's action, that he should not be thought to have been swayed by a woman's dream, would seem less creditable, again no hint of criticism attaches to him.⁶³

Even in the manner of his dying Caesar displays virtue and provides the climactic Roman exemplum to the chapter on verecundia. At the very moment of death he was concerned to let down his toga so that his lower body should remain decently covered (4.5.6). Even if modesty in death is a topos that goes back to Euripides' description of Polyxena and was appropriated by Augustan writers for Caesar and Lucretia, no other instance involves the idea of deity.⁶⁴ Again Valerius' use of violatus with its usual moral overtones of ill-treatment of something sacred or quasi-sacred heightens the portrayal of enormity.⁶⁵ He uses the same idea in attacking Cassius: “sea mortal adhuc corpore utentem violando meruisti ut eum infestum haberes deum” with a clearer application of the sacred aspect (1.8.8). So in addition to parricide Valerius introduces the idea of sacrilege to Caesar's death.

VI. CAESAR'S DIVINITY

For Valerius a man becoming a god was unproblematic. He accepted the ancient theory that virtutes could secure divinity; he says so explicitly for Caesar and Augustus and implies it for Tiberius.⁶⁶ That this subject is crucial to Valerius' picture of Caesar is clear from its appearance in twenty of the thirty-five references to Caesar and, more importantly, in the various types of elaboration with which the idea is treated; of these twenty references in only two does the ascription of deity to Caesar depend on the use of his divine name Divus Julius.⁶⁷ His divinity is described in varied vocabulary: deus, divus, divinitas, divinus, caelestis, numen, sidus. Flexibility can be seen within single passages—for example a shift from divus to deus.⁶⁸ This involves no subtle promotion of Caesar from a lower status of divinity to higher: for Valerius deus, divus, and divinitas are the same. This is seen most prominently in the preface to Facta et dicta memorabilia itself, in the invocation of Tiberius:

mea parvitas eo iustius ad favorem tuum decucurrerit, quo cetera divinitas opinione colligitur, tua praesenti fide paterno avitove sideri par videtur, quorum eximio fulgore multum caerimoniis nostris inclitae claritatis accessit: reliquos enim deos accepimus, Caesares dedimus.

In the context Tiberius is being described as a praesens deus, with an obvious divinitas equal to that of Caesar and Augustus (who were formally divi); the final sentence further equates, at the least, divinitas and dei. Valerius is pressing to the limit the convention in official documents and early imperial prose that divus and not deus is conjoined with the imperial name. He recognizes a restriction on what can be said, but by every means shows the empty nature of that restriction.⁶⁹

At the same time we must note another feature that illustrates a development in the use of such language. Even in his public speeches Cicero had used the adjective divinus freely of individuals and legions, although sometimes with qualification,⁷⁰ but Valerius restricts its use to the gods and their affairs, to the imperial family, that is to the family of the divi, and to the literary and intellectual genius of those long dead.⁷¹ Overall this gives far more prominence to the imperial family and above all to the divi. Valerius, then, has probably been influenced by the institution and growth of imperial cult, which makes less surprising the prominence he gives to this area.

A striking passage, which inspired comment from Stefan Weinstock on the exceptional and puzzling nature of Valerius' warm devotion to Caesar, is an invocation that has seemed to be more than a straightforwardly rhetorical apostrophe:⁷²

tuas aras tuaque sanctissima temple, dive Iuli, veneratus oro, ut propitio ac faventi numine tantorum casus virorum sub tui exempli praesidio ac tutela delitescere patiaris.

Having revered your altar and your most holy temples, o god Julius, I pray that by your propitious and favoring power you may allow the fates of such great men to disappear beneath the protection and safekeeping of your example.

This has been used by Duncan Fishwick as an example of a prayer to a divus.⁷³ Although he argues convincingly that prayers were made to divi (dead emperors), as to other gods, in expectation of supernatural response, this passage should not be used as an example of such prayers. The key religious terms from the sentence, “veneratus oro, ut propitio ac faventi numine” suggest that this is a “real prayer,”⁷⁴ but crucial is the subject-matter of the prayer and its context rather than the form. Valerius requests that Caesar allow the deaths of the many great men who died in the Civil War at Pharsalus to lie hidden beneath his example. It is not, then, a prayer for a material or spiritual blessing, but a wish that the fate of those of Pompey's forces who fell because Pompey ignored the gods' dramatic warnings should pale before the pious example of Caesar who gave time for the gods even during the last days of his life.⁷⁵ It is not in any truly religious sense a prayer, but a rhetorical turn by Valerius to praise Caesar, and functions as another example of comparatio.⁷⁶

If we have to surrender the notion of a prayer to Caesar, what remains is a remarkable persistence by Valerius of importing Caesar's divinity into his earthly career and in particular of presenting him as an incarnate god, a deus praesens.⁷⁷ At the outset it must be stressed that Valerius did not have to present Caesar in this way-indeed Ovid in the Fasti studiously avoids contamination of the human and divine Caesars, as does Velleius Paterculus.⁷⁸ The earliest incident from Caesar's life in Valerius is his capture by pirates and punishment of them, which appears in the chapter De mutatione morum aut fortunae:⁷⁹

C. autem Caesar, cuius virtutes aditum sibi in caelum struxerunt, inter primae iuventae initia privatus Asiam peters, a maritimis praedonibus circa insulam Pharmacusam exceptus L se talentis redemit, parve igitur summa clarissimum mundi sidus in piratico myoparone rependi fortune voluit, quid est ergo quod amplius de ea queramur, si ne consortibus quidem divinitatis suae parcit? sed caeleste numen se a iniuria vindicavit: continuo enim captos praedones crucibus adfixit.

At one level the interweaving of the human and the divine in this episode illustrates profoundly the theme of the chapter: What greater change of fortune could there be than between divinity and captivity? The final element “caeleste numen se ab iniuria vindicavit,” however, suggests that his divinity was contemporary with the events. A similar use of the divine motif appears in an incident from 59 b.c. on the maiestas of M. Porcius Cato (2.10.7): Caesar ordered his lictors to take Cato from the curia to the career for speaking against a measure sponsored by Caesar, Crassus, and Pompey, and the whole senate followed him to jail. This unpromising episode is cast so as to secure some credit for Caesar: “quae res divini animi perseverantiam flexit.” Bloomer comments well: “unconstitutional behaviour has become an abstract virtue, a severe steadfastness; the temporary failure of political violence is memorialised as a concession granted by the divine.”⁸⁰ As more explicit passages will show, Valerius means the reader to understand that Caesar's divine nature was a reality in 59 and throughout his “human” life.⁸¹

Valerius' personal contributions to two exempla set out the idea of Caesar the praesens deus most plainly. First, during the battle of Philippi an epiphany of the god Caesar charged Cassius, causing him to despair and retreat (1.8.8):

divus Iulius, fausta proles eius [Albae Longae], se nobis offest. quem C. Cassius numquam sine praefatione publici parricidii nominandus, cum (in) acie Philippensi ardentissimo animo perstaret, vidit humano habitu augustiorem, purpureo paludamento amictum minaci vultu et concitato equo in se impetum facientem. quo aspectu perterritus tergum hosti dedit voce illa prius emissa: “quid enim amplius agam, si occidisse parum est?” non occideras tu quidem, Cassi, Caesarem, neque enim ulla extingui divinitas potest, sed mortali adhuc corpore utentem violando meruisti ut eum infestum haberes deum.

Only Valerius reports this episode, which may go back to Augustus' Autobiography or to some other early pro-Augustan propaganda: Caesar's epiphany robs M. Antonius of the credit for the defeat of Cassius, which other accounts accord him.⁸² The exemplum itself, as opposed to Valerius' theologizing conclusion, imposes no view of Caesar's divine existence before his assassination. In the conclusion we have to deal with Valerian rhetoric at its best and follow its logic. Specifically, if Caesar's divinity could not be extinguished, it preexisted the attempt, that is, existed in his human body; the subsequent expression of “using his human body” compounds the sense.

Secondly the description of the dying Caesar (4.5.6):

conpluribus enim parricidarum violatus mucronibus inter ipsum illud tempus, quo divinus spiritus mortali discernebatur a corpore, ne tribus quidem et XX vulneribus quin verecundiae obsequeretur absterreri potuit, si quidem utraque togam menu demisit, ut inferior pars corporis tecta conlaberetur. in hunc modum non homines expirant, sed di immortales sedes suas repetunt.

“Divinus spiritus mortali discernebatur a corpore” on its own could be understood as “the spirit of the one who was to become a god,” but the final phrase “di immortales sedes sues repetunt,” and especially the prefix of “repetunt,” “immortal gods return to their place,” imposes the interpretation that Caesar's divine spirit had come from heaven to indwell his body until death brought about a separation and the spirit returned to heaven.⁸³

This notion should not be seen as Valerius' invention, but as reflecting a widespread belief, however poorly conceptualized in theological language. A dedicatory inscription from Acerrae, probably to the imperial Lares combined with statues to Augustus' grandsons Gaius and Lucius, and which thus predates the latter's death in a.d. 2, employs very similar language to Valerius', but clearly applied to the reigning emperor Augustus:⁸⁴

Nam quom te, Caesa, tempus exposcet deum
caeloque repetes sedem, qua mundum reges,
sint hei tua quei sorte terrae huic imperent
regantque nos felicibus voteis sueis.

Contemporary poetry of greater literary merit presents the same idea. A member of the imperial family, Germanicus writes in his Phaenomena:⁸⁵

hic, Auguste, tuum genitali corpore numen
attonitas inter gentis patriamque paventem
in caelum tulit et maternis reddidit astris.

Manilius, writing under Augustus, again presents the idea in relation to Caesar:⁸⁶

ille etiam caelo genitus caeloque receptus,
cum bene compositis victor civilibus armis
iura togae regeret, totiens praedicta cavere
vulnera non potuit: toto spectante senatu
indicium dextra retinens nomenque, cruore
delevit proprio, possent ut vincere fate.

Manilius was clearly influenced by the Platonic and Stoic thought (seen most clearly in Cicero's Somnium Scipionis and Macrobius' commentary on it), which sets out the basic doctrine that human souls come from the stars and return there.⁸⁷ It is notable that, for Manilius, Caesar's place in heaven was that of the gods proper—he and (in due course) Augustus were not to occupy the position of the good and great from Greek and Roman history. Valerius similarly elevates Caesar into the council of the gods. While we can see, for example, that Ovid's greatest work, the Metamorphoses, is framed around the deification of human beings and culminates in the metamorphosis of Caesar into a god,⁸⁸ Valerius' presentation of the incarnate Caesar is remarkable, in that he formulates the idea far more boldly than Ovid and in a form that has some relation to serious philosophical thought.⁸⁹

Proof of Caesar's deification rested subjectively in his epiphany at Philippi, but objectively in its physical manifestation, in the celestial phenomenon that coincided with Octavian's games for Caesar's victories in July 44. A comet blazed in the sky (e.g., Suet. Iul. 88). Octavian described the phenomenon as a star rather than a comet, because of the popular belief that comets portended disaster.⁹⁰ The sight was taken to prove Julius Caesar's ascension to heaven and his divinity.⁹¹ For Scott, “most important is the manner of the apotheosis of Julius as recounted by Valerius, for it coincides with the version of Ovid and beyond doubt with the official theory desired by Augustus.”⁹² But what this “official theory” was is unclear in a crucial theological aspect: Augustus' Autobiography, as it is quoted by the Elder Pliny in his discussion of Caesar's comet, mentions only the popular belief, “eo sidere significari vulgus credidit Caesaris animam inter deorum inmortalium numina receptam” (HN 2.94; cf. Servius Aen. 8.681: “persuadente Augusto”), whereas Servius goes further, “ipse animam patris sui esse voluit.”⁹³ It is very difficult to believe that Octavian, even in the heat of the moment, sponsored the doctrine of catasterism, that is, that Caesar became a star, not least because the comet disappeared—whereas a true catasterism remained permanently in the heavens for all to see. At most the phenomenon revealed that Caesar's soul had been received into heaven.⁹⁴ Valerius may refer to the sidus Iulium,⁹⁵ but not in such a way as to suggest catasterism. Indeed in the most prominent example, in the Preface to Facta et dicta memorabilia, he imputes to the living emperor Tiberius a sidus equal to those of Caesar and Augustus: “tua praesenti fide paterno avitove sideri par videtur, quorum eximio fulgore multum caerimoniis nostris inclitae claritatis accessit”; here sidus is principally metaphorical, a symbol of glory and splendor. The same is plausible for the appearance of the divi at the climax of a list of Roman greats suitable for educating the young: “inde oriebantur Camilli, Scipiones, Fabricii, Marcelli, Fabii, ac ne singula imperil nostri lumina simul percurrendo sim longior, inde, inquam, caeli clarissima pars, divi fulserunt Caesares”; the metaphorical use is strengthened by the choice of lumina to describe the others (2.1.10).

To facilitate some comparison with Valerius, in contemporary poetry Ovid offers two versions of Caesar's translation to heaven. First, in the Fasti (3.699-702) Vesta snatched Caesar's soul from his body before it was killed:

… meus fuit ille sacerdos
sacrilegae tells me petiere manus
ipsa virum rapui simulacraque nuda reliqui:
quae cecidit ferro, Caesaris umbra fuit.

Secondly, in the climactic example of the Metamorphoses, Jupiter orders Venus (15.840-42):

hanc animam interea caeso de corpore raptam
fac iubar, ut semper Capitolia nostra forumque
divus ab excelsa prospectet Iulius aede! …

She took the recens anima, that is immediately after the fatal blows had been dealt to Caesar's body, and carried it to the stars where it flew away and became the famous comet. It is not clear that Ovid and Valerius are telling the same story: Valerius never says that Caesar's soul became the celestial phenomenon, Ovid never has a divine soul pre-existing in the human body.

Lastly it is interesting to examine how Valerius treats Caesar and Augustus together, as comparatio is a key element of Valerius' entire method. Frequently his exempla are connected by overtly comparative formulae that alternatively invite and instruct the reader to rank them or to perceive the element of similarity or difference.⁹⁶ When Pompey is allowed to receive praise he is frequently compared with Caesar and overshadowed by the latter's virtues.⁹⁷ Where any comparison was to be made between members of the imperial family and in particular its first (and at this time only) deified members, the terms of comparison and aspects chosen might deserve particular attention from Valerius. Valerius joins them at the climax of a list of heroes from Republican history, whose praises are worthy to be sung and whose works are to be imitated (2.1.10): “caeli clarissima pars, divi fulserunt Caesares.” No distinction is made between them, but their superiority to their forebears is clear. At the end of a chapter De necessitate stand exempla of Caesar and Augustus, the one a story of an inhuman use of corpses necessitated by war, the other of the alleviation of hardships brought by famine (7.6.5-6). The link of the two exempla, which have nothing in common beyond the family relation, displays Valerius' rhetorical ability, “atque ut divinam filii mentionem caelesti patris recordationi subnectam,” but again permits no differentiation between the two. More opportunity is offered by the clearest comparatio (1.7.2):

non est inter patrem et filium ullius rei conparationem fieri praesertim divinitatis fastigio iunctos, sed iam alter operibus suis aditum sibi ad caelum struxerat, alteri longus adhuc terrestrium virtutum orbis restabat. quapropter ab hoc tantummodo pendentem mutationem status cognosci, ab illo etiam deferri dii immortales voluerunt, ut aliud caelo decus daretur, aliud promitteretur.

Despite the minor textual problem of the introductory words,⁹⁸ the sense is clear and technically a comparatio is made. However, the comparison concerns the timing of the warning they received from the gods in a dream, not any difference between Caesar and Augustus. Rather their close connection is stressed: both shared divinitas, which was earned by opera and virtutes, a stylistic rather than substantive distinction. There is none of the vaunting of Augustus' superiority that marks the conclusion to Ovid's Metamorphoses and is a persistent feature during Augustus' lifetime.⁹⁹ As both were dead it could be argued that Valerius had no pressing need to laud one more than the other. It may be plausible, on the basis of his presentation of Caesar's whole career by comparison with that of Augustus, to suggest that Valerius deliberately resists the tendency to subordinate Caesar.

VII. CONCLUSION

Valerius' Julius Caesar is a striking character, and by no means an embarrassment to the author, a figure he has been obliged to include. Instead the scale and intensity of his treatment by Valerius indicates some warming to the task. Insofar as the exemplary method tends to make pale abstractions out of all historical figures by its essential moralizing and by the loss of context and developed narrative, it does so to Caesar. But Valerius' Caesar is far from “relegated to the stars,” as Ramage put it.¹⁰⁰ Rather his godhead is both prominent and efficacious.

The challenge is to assess Valerius' presentation of Caesar. An obvious temptation, given the paucity of extant literature from Tiberius' reign, is to overemphasize and overinterpret what Valerius says because his emphases appear different. It would be splendid to have in Valerius a subtle contemporary who has picked up a reassessment of Caesar made possible by the passing of Augustus. To say for certain that the presentation of Julius Caesar changed either globally or in key aspects, the extant literary works from the reigns of Augustus and Tiberius, from which any conclusions have to be drawn, would have to be representative of their genres and contemporary literature in general. As neither of these conditions are met, it is only with extreme caution that any comparison of Caesar's presentation in the two reigns can be made and any conclusions be drawn. From this study we can point to the topic of Caesar's bravery as one where a clear change between reigns can be posited on grounds of general probability: Augustus was sensitive about his own military achievements, whereas Tiberius feared comparison with no one. The non-problematic consecration of Augustus, which Tiberius had dutifully seen into law, and the subsequent incorporation of his worship into the state religion, in which Tiberius and the imperial family played a prominent part,¹⁰¹ may well have made it easier for Valerius to highlight the deified Caesar. This, rather than a radical reassessment of Caesar's divinity, or that of the imperial family, may best explain Valerius' picture. While comparison with Velleius shows Valerius to be more insistent on this aspect of Caesar, nothing secures it as more than a personal perspective.

It is more profitable to analyze Valerius' portrayal of Caesar against the background of Tiberius' principate alone and to ask to what degree and by what means Valerius was aware of “key issues.” Here an almost total ignorance about Valerius himself, his location within the Roman world, and his social and literary connections hampers any conjecture, let alone statement, about his sources of knowledge of the imperial family. Even if, as has been argued recently, Valerius was a member of a Roman patrician family and turned to writing when he did not secure a political career,¹⁰² that is no indication of access to privileged information or of greater literary or political sensitivity. We are on safest ground with the topic of clementia, which was advertised as a Tiberian virtue on the coinage and in a public altar at Rome, thus a virtue of which general awareness can be posited. Valerius shows himself to be sensitive to this controversial virtue, and under the specific rubric presents Caesar in a way that could not reflect adversely on Tiberius. Again, because of the fate of Cremutius Cordus, a notorious victim of maiestas under Tiberius, literary discussions of the civil war must have taken on a high profile, or at least have been recognized as requiring particular care. Valerius' handling of this too would seem unobjectionable. There is nothing to suggest special knowledge of imperial politics. Indeed, if we claim a special subtlety for Valerius in dealing with Caesar this may in some ways be difficult to square with much of his work in which his exempla are commonplace and presented with little subtlety.

The other extreme is to see Valerius as the purveyor of flattery, operating with a rhetorical blunderbuss: “If it's in the imperial family and not disgraced, praise it for all you're worth.”¹⁰³ Yet Valerius should not be dismissed as simply crass, seeing that he can display sensitivity to issues such as clementia. It is best to see him as representative of a wide class of loyalists to the imperial house, which could easily be seen as a dynasty beginning with Caesar. Let us not forget that Suetonius included a Divus Julius in his imperial Lives. Valerius and those for whom he spoke had no ideological axe to grind about the Republic and would readily praise the benefits of imperial rule. As, for example, the burghers of Pisa in their commemoration of the untimely deceased Gaius Caesar in a.d. 4, Valerius' language ignores the niceties of constitutional law and he can respond to the undoubted reality of imperial rule and the triumph of the imperial house. From the preface onwards Caesar is an element of this. To say that his prominence was programmatic would unnecessarily credit Valerius with importance in the formulation and promulgation of this response to the imperial house and give undue emphasis to a small part of his overall work. Even as a follower of fashion he is important for revealing the ideology of his times.

Notes

1. I will not be dealing with the representation of Julius Caesar in art or on the coinage. Although as princeps Augustus initially reduced references to Caesar, moneyers of the mint at Rome could represent Augustus crowning a statue of Caesar (12 B.C. BMCRE [Coins of the Roman Empire in the British Museum] 1, p. 26. no 124) and Caesar's deification (17 B.C. BMCRE 1, p 13, nos. 69-73). See P. Zanker, The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus (Ann Arbor, MI,-37, 193, 220-21.

2. G. Herbert-Brown (Ovid and the Fasti: An Historical Study [Oxford, 1994] 109-28) reacts to the views of P. White, “Julius Caesar in Augustan Rome” Phoenix 42 (1988) 334-56 and E. S. Ramage, “Augustus' Treatment of Julius Caesar,” Historia 34 (1985) 223-45. See also J. Briscoe, “Some Notes on Valerius Maximus” Sileno 19 (1993): 403-6 and R. F. Dobbin, “Julius Caesar in Jupiter's Prophecy in the Aeneid,” CA [Classical Antiquity] 14 (1995): esp. 21-23. How Caesar's image fared under the subsequent Julio-Claudian emperors has received only the barest treatment, e.g., L. C. Duxbury, “Some Attitudes to Julius Caesar in the Roman Republic: Catullus, Cicero and Sallust” (Ph.D. diss., Oxford, 1988).

3. A possibility suggested by F. G. B. Millar, “Ovid and the domus augusta: Rome seen from Tomoi,” JRS [Journal of Roman Studies] 83 (1993): 4.

4. R. E. Wolverton. “Speculum Caesaris,” in Laudatores temporis acti: Studies in Memory of Wallace Everett Caldwell, ed. M. F. Gyles and E. W. Davis (Chapel Hill, NC, 1964), 84-85: W. M. Bloomer, Valerius Maximus and the Rhetoric of the New Nobility (London, 1992) 207-26.

5. Cf. Millar, “Ovid,” 4, on the preface: “Precisely because it is intended to represent conventional wisdom, its importance for the ideology of the period can hardly be exaggerated.”

6. T. F. Carney, “The Picture of Marius in Valerius Maximus,” RhM [Rheinisches Museum] 150 (1962) 289-337.

7. Praef. 1.5.6, 1.8.8, 1.8.10, 2.1.10, 3.2.15, 3.8.7, 4.5.5, 5.1.10, 5.7.2, 9.2.4, 9.9.1, 9.11.4. To these definite instances should probably be added 6.2.12 if the supplement by Kempf is correct. The use of the shortest form in exempla where Caesar has been introduced with a longer form (e.g., 1.8.8, 9.9.1) is intelligible and not significant. C. Rubincam (“The Nomenclature of Julius Caesar and the Later Augustus in the Triumviral Period” Historia 41 [1992] 88-103) omits Valerius completely.

8. 1.6.12, 2.10.7, 3.2.22, 3.2.23, 4.5.6, 4.6.4, 6.6.15, 8.3.2, 8.11.2, 9.8.2, 9.9.1, 9.15.1.

9. 1.6.13, 1.7.1, 1.8.8, 3.2.19, 3.2.23, 6.2.11, 6.8.4, 7.6.5, 8.8.3.

10. 6.2.11, a story otherwise alluded to only in Cicero's letters (Fam 6.18.3).

11. Caesar: 1.1.19, 1.7.1, 1.7.7, 9.15. ext. 1; Augustus: 1.7.2, 4.3.3, 7.6.6; Divus Augustus: 1.7.1, 3.8.8, 7.7.3, 7.7.4, 7.8.6, 9.15.2.

12. Cf. Seneca's Controversiae and Suasoriae, where divus is used by Labenus and Tuscus as well as by Seneca himself (Controv 7.3.9; Suas 2.22; Controv. 10. praef 16).

13. Valerius Maximus, 209.

14. Here I read “Augustae,” following Kempf's second edition. If Valerius use of Augustus at 1.8.8, of the ghost of Julius Caesar that routed Brutus at the battle of Philippi, derives from Augustus' autobiography, the choice of adjective is significant.

15. 2.8.7; 6.1. praef; 8.11. ext. 5; 8.15. praef: cf. 9.11. ext. 4 “augusto capite” of Tiberius.

16. When Valerius uses princeps of Caesar the adjective divinus is attached (5.1.10, 5.7.2). The comparative absence of princeps in connection with Augustus (total if the identification at 9.15. ext. 1 is rejected) is perhaps surprising when it forms Valerius, most frequent description of Tiberius (2. praef; 5.5.3, 9.11 ext. 4).

17. According to Bloomer, “[e]ven the tersest allusion to Julius Caesar has two of the three essential elements of valerius characterisation” (p. 208), but see e.g. 1.5.6 or 8.3.2.

18. This 15 argued in more detail in section 3 of the introduction, On Valerius Maximus: Memorable Deeds and Sayings Book I (Oxford, 1998). contra F. Romer, “Zum Aufbau der Exemplasammlung des Valerius Maximus,” WS [Wiener Studien] 103 (1990): 100-101 and R. Combes, Valere Maxime: Faits et dits memorables livres I-III (Pans 1995) 24-25.

19. 3.2. praef. As these words make plain Valerius considers his brief opening chapter on indoles, natural aptitude, rather as a prelude to the real discussion.

20. B. M. Levick (“Mercy and Moderation on the Coinage of Tiberius:” in The Ancient Historian and his Materials, ed. B. M. Levick [Farnborough, 1975] 128) can write that two cardinal virtues of Tiberius mark his two preoccupations as Princeps.”

21. 3.2.19. Even if Caesar is Valerius' direct source for the first incident (BGall. [Bellum Gallicum] 2.25.2-3. cf. Plut. Caes. 20.5), he has recast the episode completely. The second is linked somewhat loosely to the African campaign of 46 b.c. by Plutarch (Caes. 52.6, Suet. Iul. 62) and more securely by Appian (BCiv. 2.95).

22. Cf. Bloomer, Valerius Maximus, 207.

23. Fasti evidence is set out at Herbert-Brown, Ovid, 111.

24. E.g., Suet. Tib. 9.1-2, 16.1-2, 18-19.

25. Tac. Ann. 1.11.4, 4.32.2, See J. Ober, “Tiberius and the Political Testament of Augustus,” Historia 31 (1982): esp. 318-28. end T. J. Corbeil, “The End of Roman Imperial Expansion.” in War and Society in the Roman World, ed. J. W. Rich (London, 1993), 149-50. Cf. A. T. Corbeill, “Augustus' libellus.” in Studies in Roman History and Latin Literature, vol. 5, ed. C. Deroux (Brussels, 1989), esp. 274-75.

26. Cf. 2.7 praef, Valerius' praise of military discipline: “in cuius sinu ac tutela serenus tranquillusque beatae pacts status adquiescit.” There is no mention of the role of military discipline in the winning of the Empire.

27. 41.10. See W. V. Hams, War and Imperialism in Republican Rome 327-70 B.C. (Oxford, 1979), 118-20.

28. See below [sections] VI. The pace of this argument is some inconsistency on Valerius' part, as in the preface he presents Tibenus as a god, but such inconsistency is a frequent feature of his fragmented presentations. “To lay hands on” translates literally Valerius' manum inicere, which here is vivid and surely without any negative overtones (cf 2.9. praef; 8.1. damn. 1). Elsewhere too the legal notions of taking rightful possession of (41.15, 6.2.2) or of taking control of (7.2. ext. 1) are crucial. If the legal notion was foremost in Valerius' mind he may have been influenced by the contemporary view that Britain was rightfully Rome's (cf. C. E. Stevens, “Britain Between the Invasions,” in Aspects of Archaeology in Britain and Beyond, ed. W. E. Grimes [London, 1951], 332-44).

29. E.g., 8.13. praef Cf. “senatum populumq(ue). Romanum ante omnia dis immortalibus gratias agere, quod nefans consilis Cn. Pisonis pates tranquillitatem praesentis status r.p., quo melior optari non potest turbari. …” Text from W. Eck, A. Caballos, and F. Fernandez, Das senatus consultum de Cn. Pisone patre (Munich, 1996) 38.

30. See R. G. M. Nisbet and M. Hubbard, A Commentary on Horace: “Odes.” Book II (Oxford, 1978), 78.

31. See Sen. Marc 22.4.

32. See most recently Briscoe, “Some Notes,” 398-402 and R. Combes, Valere Maxime, 8-11 Contra J. Bellemore, “when Did Valerius Maximus Write Dicta et facta memorabilia?” Antichthon 23 (1989): 67-80.

33. 3.2.22, 3.2.23, 3.8.7.

34. 4.5.5. Bloomer, Valerius Maximus, 210-16.

35. Ibid, 210.

36. Florus 213.85. The three other extant accounts omit moralizing comment: B. Hisp. 32, App. BCiv. 2.434, Cass. Dio 43.38.4. Valerius' hostile presentation under the rubric of crudelitas of the barbarism of Munatius Flaccus in the same Spanish campaign (9.2.4) illustrates what could have been made of the Munda incident. Valerius' use of the adjective hostilis for the corpses may conceal the fact that they were Roman.

37. See Herbert-Brown, Ovid, 112-18.

38. The more Roman historiography is considered as governed by the criteria of forensic oratory (cf. A. J. Woodman, Rhetoric in Classical Historiography [London, 1988] esp. 83-95) the less surprising such inconsistency is.

39. See S. Weinstock, Divus Julius (Oxford, 1971), 233-42. Also A. J. Woodman, Velleius Patekulas 2.41-93 (Cambridge, 1983), 106-7.

40. 2.23.4 although in De ira he does display the virtue. See M. T. Griffin, Seneca: A Philosopher in Politics (Oxford, 1976), esp. 185-86, for an increasing emphasis on the darker side of Caesar's dictatorship over time.

41. These statistics depend on the restoration of humanitas in 5.1.7 and the acceptance of a backwards reference from 5.1.9 into 5.1.8. The exemplum of Quintius Crispinus (5.1.3) uses mansuetudo. A similar pattern emerges for the external exempla, where the climactic case of Hannibal's generous treatment of the corpses of Roman generals is described twice as mansuetudo. Rome's greatest enemy was to be denied the key term of praise.

42. 5.1.10. Kempf keeps the two Caesarian exempla together, but strictly they should be separated.

43. Cf. 3.2.23-24. On comparatio see pp. 342-43 [in Classical Philology 92, no. 4 (October 1997)].

44. 9.11.4.

45. The gloss of iaberetur as “tried … to persuade” (R. A. Bauman, The crimen maiestatis in the Roman Republic and Augustan Principate [Johannesburg, 1970], 153) is too favorable to Caesar.

46. Suet. Iul. 79.1; App. BCiv. 2.452-53; Cass. Dio 44.9.3-4. On the legal steps against the tribunes, see M. Jehne Der Stoat des Dictators Caesar (Cologne, 1987) esp. 282-85.

47. See n. 32.

48. See in particular Tac. Ann. 4.31.1-2 although it might be argued that the criticisms Tacitus notes were not contemporary.

49. Levick (“Mercy and Moderation,” 131-33) argues that the coins were issued in the autumn of a.d. 16, after the conviction of Libo Drusus for maiestas. Arguments for a date between 34 and 37 better fit the traditional date for Valerius, but do not convince (H. Gesche, “Datierung und Deutung der clementia-moderatio-Dupondien des Tiberius,” JNG [Jahrbuch fur Numismatik und Geldgeschichte] 21 [1971]: 37-80). Cf. RIC [The Roman Imperial Coinage] [1.sup.2], 88-89 “the year 22 seems most likely.”

50. See A. F. Wallace-Hadrill, “The Emperor and his Virtues” Historia 30 (1981): 323. Cf. R. S. Rogers Studies in the Reign of Tiberius (Baltimore, 1943), 35-59.

51. 2.55.2, 56.3 and 57.1. As in Valerius, in Velleius Paterculus the virtue is exercised against those defeated in war.

52. 1.6.13, 1.7.2, 1.8.8, 4.5.6, and 6.8.4. Cf. 3.1.3, an exemplum of Cassius.

53. See J. D. Cloud, “Parocidium from the lex Numae to the lex Pompeia de parrcidiis,” ZRG [Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung fur Rechtsgeschichte] 88 (1971) 1-66; cf. Y. Thomas, “Parricidium,” MEFRA [Melanges d'archeologie et d'histoire de l'Ecole Francaise de Rome] 93 (1981): 646-47 and D. Briquel, “Sur le mode d'execution en cas de parricide et en cas de perduellio,” MEFRA 92 (1980): 87-107.

54. The day of his assassination was called parricidium (Suet. Iul. 88). Cicero alludes to the charge made by the Caesarians that the Liberators were parricidae (Phil. 2.31, 13.22: Fam. 12.3.1). See A. Alfoldi, Studien über Caesars Monarchie (Lund, 1956), 46-47.

55. Once only does Valerius connect Caesar's title and the came, in relation to Cassius' suicide at Philippi (6.8.4). It is not clear why Valerius uses the expression parens patriae at 8.11.2 as the exemplum has no other reference to Caesar that leads to this.

56. Cf. R. A. Bauman, Impietas in principem: A Study of Treason against the Roman Emperor with Special Reference to the First Century A.D. (Munich, 1974), 201, 218-19.

57. Cf. Combes, Valere Maxime, 44.

58. 8.11.2; cf. Vell. Pat. 2.57.2, Suet. Iul. 81.2. Plut. Caes. 63.2, App. BCiv. 2.149 Cass. Dio 44.18.4. On the context, see E. D. Rawson, “Caesar, Etruria and the disciplina Etrusca,” JRS 68 (1978): 144.

59. E.g., Suet. Iul. 59; cf. Rawson, “Caesar,” 145.

60. Cf. Yell. Pat. 2.57.3.

61. Cass. Dio 44.16.1; Weinstock, Divus Julius, 271-73, Cicero (Div. 1.119; cf. Pliny HN [Naturalis historia] 11.186) fixes this to the first day that Caesar received the honor of regal purple, on one view at the Feriae Latinae on 26 January 44, when the prescribed sacrifice was a bull.

62. Cf. Cic. Div. 1.119, on which see A. S. Pease, M. Tulli Ciceronis “De Divinatione” Liber Primus (Urbana, 1920), 311-12.

63. Other versions make it plain that Decimus Brutus raised the specter of public ridicule (Nic. Dam. Vita Augusti 23; Plut. Caes. 64.3).

64. Eur. Hec. 568-70; cf. Ovid Fast. 2.833; Euripides' words were quoted by the Vestal Cornelia as she was executed in Domitian's reign (Pliny Ep. 4.11.9). See also 1. Mossman, Wild Justice (Oxford, 1993), 248. Suetonius (Iul. 82.2) and Appian (BCiv. 2.117) both record the detail of Caesar's modesty and that he hid his face in his toga when he saw Brutus among the assassins; Appian has him struggle like an animal. Valerius may exclude this because immortal gods should not show horror or fear.

65. Cf. in Valerius where parocidium, deus, and violo occur together (1.1.13; cf. 1.7. ext. 4), also with the idea that expiation is required.

66. 1.7.2, 6.9.15, 8.15. praef. The clear implication of the preface is that Tiberius, whose providentia is already caelestis, will follow Caesar and Augustus; see also below, p. 337 on his divinitas and sidus. Valerius shares none of Pliny's scepticism (see K. Scott, “The Elder Pliny on Emperor Worship,” TAPA [Transactions of the American Philological Association] 63 [1932]: 156-65).

67. Praef. 1.6.13, 1.7.2, 1.8.8, 2.1.10, 2.10.7, 3.2.19, 3.2.23, 4.5.6, 4.7.7, 5.1.10, 5.7.2, *6.2.11, 6.6.15, 6.8.4, *7.6.5, 7.6.6, 8.8.3, 9.2.4, 9.15.1 (* indicates simple use of Divus Julius). If 7.6.5 and 7.6.6 are considered as one reference since the second merely connects an exemplum on Augustus with the previous on Caesar, only 6.2.11 remains as an unadorned reference.

68. 1.6. 13, 1.8.8.

69. Broken first in extant Latin prose by Scribonius Largus who addresses Claudius as “deus noster Caesar” (Praef. 60 and 163). Cf. M. P. Charlesworth, “Deus noster Caesar,” CR [Classical Review] 39 (1925): 113-15.

70. Unqualified: Red. Pop. 15, Prov. Cons. 32, Planc. 77, Marc. 26, Phil. 5.23, 543, 10.11, 13.44; qualified: Red. Pop. 7, Mil. 21, Phil. 2.39, 9.10, 3.3. See W. Leschhorn in A. Alfoldi, Caesar in 44 v. Chr. (Bonn, 1985), 387-97.

71. The same restricted usage appears in Velleius Paterculus, but by contrast with Valerius he is very sparing in his use of divinus.

72. 1.6.13. Weinstock, Divus Julius, 391. Cf. also White, “Julius Caesar,” 345 “Caesar gets fuller and more fulsome coverage than Augustus himself.” For Valerius' use of apostrophe, see B. W. Sinclair, “Valerius Maximus and the Evolution of Silver Latin” (Ph.D. dies.. University of Cincinnati, 1980), 72-89.

73. “Prudentius and the Cult of Divus Augustus,” Historia 39 (1990): p. 484, n 59; cf. idem, “Prayer and the Living Emperor,” in The Two Worlds of the Poet: New Perspectives on Vergil, ed. R. M. Wilhelm and H. Jones (Detroit, 1992), 343-56.

74. Valerius uses old, ritual vocabulary, although substituting favens for volens to create the older formula (Serv. Georg. 1.18; cf. Livy 1.16.3, Weinstock, Divus Julius, 390-91), perhaps from the consecration ritual itself (RE [Pauly-Wissowa, Real-Encyclopädie der klassischen] XX111, 84).

75. The nuance of the key infinitive delitescere is uncertain: most uses require “hide” or “skulk.” Any pejorative sense is inappropriate here, as Valerius does not intend to belittle the noble dead of Pharsalus. Bloomer (Valerius Maximus, 215) translates “allow the slaughter of such great men sanctuary under the guard and safekeeping …,” introducing a religious metaphor, but no example is closely comparable. TLL [Thesaurus linguae latinae] (V. 468.81f.) glosses by confugere or se munire. Rather the idea of their fates' being overshadowed, and thus forgotten, is central, hence my translation of “disappear” or “be concealed.”

76. Cf. Bloomer, Valerius Maximus, 216.

77. Only K. Scott (“The sidus Iulium and the Apotheosis of Caesar,” CP [Classical Philology] 36 [1941]: 271-72) and Wolverton (“Speculum Caesaris,” 84-85) have thought to comment on this, the latter in a brief sketch of Valerius' Caesar: “Caesar was really a god incarnate.” While there is much evidence for this idea it should not be inferred from three passages used by Wolverton. In 8.9.3 the contrast between human and divine probably does not refer to the same period—Caesar's eloquence is a product of his humanum ingenium (cf. Kempf Maj., ad loc.); in 6.8.4 Caesar's wounds are caelestes because they secured his elevation to the divine; in 3.2.19 there seems a clear temporal contrast, since the star did not appear until after Caesar's death.

78. See Herbert-Brown, Ovid, 121-25.

79. 6.9.15. For simple narrative cf. Vell. Pat. 2.41.3; Plut. Caes. 1.4-2.4; Suet. Iul. 4.1-2.

80. Valerius Maximus, 216-18. His characterization of Caesar's invidious action as a “glaring illegality” is probably too strong: Caesar acted by virtue of his consular ius coercendi. Cf. Ateius Capito De Officio Senatorio (Aul. Gell. 4.10.8), Suet. Iul. 20.4, Plut. Cat. Min. 33.1-2, Cass. Dio 38.3.2-3.

81. In particular the adjective divinus is applied to Caesarian attributes and actions over a range of incidents: 3.2.19 of 57 b.c. (see above, pp. 326-27); 3.2.23 of 55 b.c.; 5.1.10 of 46 b.c.; 9.15.1 of 45 b.c. (cf. Cic. Att. 12.49.2; App. BCiv. 3.2).

82. E.g., Cass. Dio 47.45.2. The idea of the divine epiphany probably also lies behind the story of 6.8.4 where the god Julius efficaciously secured revenge against his murderer. The switch from deus to divus is again marked, but the equality of Julius undoubted.

83. A survey of Valerius' use of repetere shows that the meaning I have given to the verb is beyond dispute here. Of his twenty-two uses, from their context twelve involve a physical return to a place (1.6. ext. 1, 1.7. ext. 10, 1.8.7 2.7.10, 4.5.6, 5.8.4, 6.3.6, 6.5. ext. 4, 8.7. ext. 6, 9.5. ext. 2, 9.8. ext. 1, 9.11.4); six involve the literary idea, particularly with the expression memoria repetere (1.1.16, 1.8.7, 2.2.7, 2.2.9, 2.4.4, 2.7.2?); two contain the expression from Roman religion auspicia repetere (2.7.4, 3.2.9) and one the common legal notion of reclaiming (5.3.3).

84. ILS 137 = CIL 10.3757. The identification of the emperor with Augustus is preferable to that with Claudius (cf. H. Nissen, “Inschriften aus Campanien,” Hermes 1 [1867]: 155). S. R. F. Price, “From Noble Families to Divine Cult: the Consecration of Roman Emperors,” in Rituals of Royalty: Power and Ceremonial in Traditional Societies, ed. D. Cannadine (Cambridge 1987), esp. 76-81, collects most of these references, but ignores Valerius as a source for ideas on ruler cult.

85. 558-60. D. Possanza, “Studies in the Aratea of Germanicus Caesar” (Ph.D. diss, University of North Carolina, 1987) reasserts convincingly the case for Germanicus' authorship against D. B. Gain (The “Aratus” Ascribed to Germanicus Caesar [London, 1976]). If Tiberius were the author, Valerius' stress on the notion would argue some definite intention to toe the imperial line.

86. Astronomica 4.57-62. Cf. its use at 1.799 of the living Augustus.

87. Cic. Rep. 6.13, cf. 15 and 16. See M. Regali, Macrobio: commento al “Somnium Scipionis” Libro I (Pisa, 1983) and K. Buchner, “Somnium Scipionis”: Quellen, Gestalt, Sinn (Wiesbaden, 1977), esp. 73-81. Although R. Faranda (Valerio Massimo: Detti efatti memorabili [Turin, 1971]), adduces Cicero's De Republica Book 6 (the Somnium Scipionis) as providing parallel information on nine instances, only one instance suggests possible use by Valerius in his normal manner, which involves close fidelity to his source. If the scholiast to Juv. Sat. 6.486 (sic. Rep. 3.43) was using Cicero closely too, 9.2. ext. 9 reveals common vocabulary. Again, Valerius' probable reference to the Platonic myth of Er (1.8. ext. 1) may go back to Cicero's handling of it in a non-extant section of the Somnium Scipionis (cf. Favon. Eulog. p. 1 = Cic. Rep. 6.3 [Ziegler]).

88. See D. C. Feeney, The Gods in Epic: Poets and Critics of the Classical Tradition (Oxford, 1991), esp. 206-24 and Millar, “Ovid,” 8-9.

89. For Ovid's presentation of the emperor as a god, see the references collected by M. L. Paladini, “L'aspetto dell' imperatore-dio presso i Romani,” Contributi dell' Istituto di Filologia Classica 1 (1963): esp. 25-27. Ovid has an influential Latin predecessor in Virgil, who described the granting of his petition by Octavian (Ecl. 1.41-42). For seeing Valerius as a contemporary of Ovid, cf. Millar, “Ovid,” esp. 4.

90. See now E. Flintoff, “Comets and Confidence Tricks. A Meditation on Eclogue IX 47,” ACUSD [Acta classica Universitatis Scientiarum Debreceniensis] 28 (1992): 65-71, esp. 69.

91. For discussion, see K. Scott, “The sidus Iulium,” 257-72; F. Bomer, “Über die Himmelserscheinung nach dem Tode Caesars,” BJ [Bonner Jahrbücher] 152 (1952): 27-40; Weinstock, Divus Julius, 370-74; Dobbin, “Julius Caesar,” 28-29.

92. 271. See also I. Hahn, “Die augusteischen Interpretationen des sidus Iulium,” ACUSD 19 (1983): 57-66.

93. Ecl 9.46 in the comments of an apparent contemporary Baebius Macer (RE 1:273).

94. Cf. the formula at 9. 15.1: “postquam ille caelo receptus est.”

95. Praef 1.7.2 and 3.2.19 need mean no more than that Caesar was in heaven after his death. Similarly 6.9.15 cannot be pressed.

96. E.g., 1.1.14, 1.1.15, 1.1.19, 1.7.7, 1.7. ext 3, 1.8.3, 1.8. ext. 1.

97. See Bloomer, Valerius Maximus, 210-15.

98. As they stand Valerius' extant manuscripts preserve a difficult idea: “there is not to be made a comparison …” (cf. Combes' translation “on n'a pas le droit de faire … comparaison”). If “non est” is permitted to stand, a nominative comparatio would produce the easiest sense. Alternatively “non est” has to be supplemented so as to produce an expression that can continue with an accusative and infinitive construction. Kempf's apparatus notes four possibilities: interest, operae est, fas est, and opus est. “Non interest inter patrem et filium …” would seem very difficult and inelegant; nowhere else does Valerius follow interest with this construction. Operae est is not used by Valerius in this sense without pretium (4.7.1). Madvig's opus est appears the best supplement (cf. 2. praef.). His alternative suggestion of fas seems impossible because Valerius does go on to make a comparison of sorts.

99. 15.850-60. Cf. Herbert-Brown, Ovid. 124-25: Ramage, “Augustus' Treatment,” esp. 236-41.

100. “Augustus' Treatment,” 236.

101. E.g., Cass. Dio 56.46.1-47.1.

102. C. Skidmore, Practical Ethics for Roman Gentlemen: The Work of Valerius Maximus (Exeter, 1996).

103. The senatus consultum de Pisone patre now demonstrates the degree to which the imperial house as a whole and in its individual members could be praised formally even within the senate.