SOURCE: Wardle, D. Introduction to Valerius Maximus: Memorable Deeds and Sayings, Book I, translated by D. Wardle, pp. 1-25. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.

In the following excerpted introduction to his translation of the Memorable Doings and Sayings, Wardle considers the composition date, content, structure, sources, and textual history of the collection.

1. the Author

There is very meagre material for a biography of Valerius Maximus; all of it is internal: he tells us that he witnessed the suicide of an old woman in the town of Iulis on the island of Ceos while he was journeying to Asia in the company of Sex. Pompeius.¹ Pompeius is usually identified with the consul of ad 14, who was proconsul of Asia in the mid-20s ad, but the casual way he is mentioned would make V. seem a very ungrateful client;² Pompeius may thus become a humble unknown and any date for...