VALERIUS MAXIMUS was descended of a Patrician family; but we learn nothing more concerning him, than that for some time he followed a military life under Sextus Pompey. He afterwards betook himself to writing, and has left an account, in nine books, of the memorable apophthegms and actions of eminent persons; first of the Romans, and afterwards of foreign nations.
The subjects are of various kinds, political, moral, and natural, ranged into distinct classes. His transitions from one subject to another are often performed with gracefulness; and where he offers any remarks, they generally show the author to be a man of judgment and observation.
Valerius Maximus is chargeable with no affectation of style, but is sometimes deficient in that purity of language which might be expected in the age of Tiberius, to whom the work is addressed. What inducement the author had to this dedication, we know not; but as it is evident from a passage in the ninth book, that the compliment was paid after the death of Sejanus, and consequently in the most shameful period of Tiberius’s reign, we cannot entertain any high opinion of the independent spirit of Valerius Maximus, who could submit to flatter a tyrant, in the zenith of infamy and detestation. But we cannot ascribe the cause to any delicate artifice, of conveying to Tiberius, indirectly, an admonition to reform his conduct. Such an expedient would have only provoked the severest resentment from his jealousy.——