Publication year
2021Author(s)
Publisher
Leiden : Brill
Series
Historiography of Rome and Its Empire ; 11
ISBN
9789004499409
In
Murray, J.; Wardle, D. (ed.), Reading by Example: Valerius Maximus and the Historiography of Exempla, pp. 287-315Publication type
Part of book or chapter of book

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Editor(s)
Murray, J.
Wardle, D.
Organization
Latijnse Taal- en Letterkunde
Languages used
English (eng)
Book title
Murray, J.; Wardle, D. (ed.), Reading by Example: Valerius Maximus and the Historiography of Exempla
Page start
p. 287
Page end
p. 315
Subject
Historiography of Rome and Its Empire; Europe in a Changing World; The Ancient WorldAbstract
The Facta et dicta memorabilia contains, as the title suggests, the “Memorable Deeds and Sayings” of famous men both Roman and foreign, penned by its author Valerius Maximus about whom little is known apart from his time of writing somewhere in the middle of the emperor Tiberius’ reign. The work offers to the reader, ancient and modern alike, a treasure trove of anecdotes that can comfortably be used by authors to illustrate behaviour or to add spice to a description. Indeed, the exempla, as the anecdotes are normally categorised in a rhetorical sense, are most likely to have been used by authors from the fields of declamation, historiography, or biography. What, however, does this practice – the mining of a text rich in exempla – tell us about the original goal of the work from which the exempla were taken? I will examine closely the authorial comments that Valerius makes, most conspicuous in the preface to the Facta et dicta memorabilia, but also noticeable throughout the work. From this I will show that Valerius uses key language that enables us to perceive a connection with the genre of works entitled De viris illustribus, a branch of Latin literature akin to biography, and which permits us to posit that the Facta may be a sub-species of biography.
This item appears in the following Collection(s)
- Academic publications [227900]
- Faculty of Arts [28769]
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