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POMPEIUS THE SILENT IN VALERIUS MAXIMUS’ FACTA ET DICTA MEMORABILIA 6.2

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 December 2025

Viola Periti
Viola Periti*
Affiliation:
University of Liverpool
*
viola.periti@liverpool.ac.uk
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Abstract

This article is a study of Valerius Maximus’ understanding and rewriting of late republican history through his portrayal of Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus in chapter 6.2 of the Facta et dicta memorabilia. In chapter 6.2, ‘on the freely spoken and freely done’, Pompeius is mentioned in six consecutive exempla as the addressee of public criticism in episodes set between the 60s and 51 b.c. By offering a close reading of this chapter and by investigating its organizational criteria and themes, particularly Pompeius’ power, his silence and libertas, this article argues that Valerius aims to display how crucial the years of the ‘first triumvirate’ were in the development towards an inevitable autocracy. It suggests, moreover, that Valerius envisions the Facta et dicta as a work closer to historiography than usually appreciated.

Keywords

PompeiusValerius Maximusfree speechlibertasexemplarityCaesar

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Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 75 , Issue 1 , May 2025 , pp. 393 - 407
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This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited.
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© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association

A fascinating perspective on Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus and his life comes from Valerius Maximus’ Facta et dicta memorabilia, a nine-book collection of more than a thousand exempla (anecdotes from Roman and non-Roman history) assembled between the 20s and the 30s a.d. under the Emperor Tiberius and arranged in chapters dedicated to virtues and vices.Footnote 1 We do not know much about Valerius and the little biographical information we have comes from his work.Footnote 2 Valerius’ presence in the canon of Latin literature fluctuated over time. From the second half of the twentieth century, research on Valerius increased significantly: the influential monograph by W. Martin Bloomer, Valerius Maximus and the Rhetoric of the New Nobility, marked a turning point, and scholars started to consider the Facta et dicta a work of literature in its own right and to focus on Valerius’ working methods, intentions and audience, as well as on the contextualization of his work within the Tiberian period and in the light of the ‘genre’ of exemplarity.Footnote 3 That Valerius does not write history, but works ‘on the margins of history proper’ is well established.Footnote 4 More can still be said, however, on Valerius’ attitude as historian, a posture he embraces in several passages.Footnote 5 Valerius’ goal of offering more than rhetoric and a work that is closer to history emerges from my case study of chapter 6.2, transmitted with the title libere dicta aut facta, specifically from his treatment of Pompeius.Footnote 6 In this chapter, I suggest, Valerius’ exemplary portrayal of Pompeius is not that of a dehistoricized ‘cardboard hero’.Footnote 7 On the contrary, Valerius deals with him as a historical individual, understanding some events of Pompeius’ biography in their time and political context and appreciating the relevance of his role in Rome in the 60s and 50s b.c. Footnote 8

Mentioned over thirty times, Pompeius is one of the most recurrent exemplary figures of the Facta et dicta. Around twenty exempla are significant: in these episodes Pompeius is the exemplary protagonist or, even if he is not the protagonist of the exemplum, he is mentioned in a way that adds nuances to his characterization in the work.Footnote 9 Pompeius is both praised and criticized throughout the Facta et dicta. However, he is mostly described in a more nuanced light than the other Civil War leaders, such as Marcus Antonius or Marcus Iunius Brutus, whose portrayals are more straightforwardly negative.Footnote 10 Certain elements of Pompeius’ legacy, such as his triumphs and great military achievements, were embraced under Augustus and his successor.Footnote 11 Pompeius’ life, which elucidated how a person could reach the highest fortune and suffer the most ruinous fall, was amply treated in poetry.Footnote 12 Not by chance was Pompeius’ imago borne in procession at the funeral of Augustus, unlike Caesar’s (cf. Cass. Dio 56.34.3).Footnote 13 In line with this, several exempla of the Facta et dicta are about Pompeius’ inability to foresee the outcome of the Civil War and his impending defeat (1.5.6, 1.6.12), as well as about the change of fortune which led to his fall (4.5.5, 5.1.10). Pompeius’ undeniable achievements in the East are remembered (5.1.9, 5.7.ext.2), and so is the broken family bond that had tied him to Caesar through the marriage with Julia, Caesar’s daughter (4.6.4).

But Pompeius, the man who ‘was raised up to the highest rank of the state through so many extraordinary commands’Footnote 14 (Vell. Pat. 2.30.3 per tot extraordinaria imperia in summum fastigium euectum) was more: first and foremost, he was the most powerful man in the post-Sullan political landscape in Rome. Caesar and Pompeius were equally embodiments of the shifts towards autocracy in Rome in the second half of the first century b.c., but in different guises.Footnote 15 Consequently, the treatment of the two men in the Facta et dicta differs. As forerunner of the Principate, Caesar must be praised (and he is, in fact, often celebrated).Footnote 16 Unlike Caesar, however, Pompeius was not the deified father of the deified Augustus and founder of the current ruling family. He was, therefore, an appropriate exemplary figure to think with regarding the transition between republic and autocracy, especially under Augustus’ successor Tiberius.Footnote 17

The potential of Pompeius’ exemplary portrayal does not escape Valerius, who makes him the key-figure of chapter 6.2, ‘on the freely spoken and freely done’. Here Valerius does not stick to events of the more remote past, but investigates the potentially problematic topic of libertas in episodes mostly dating to crucial years of late republican history (from the 60s to 42 b.c.). Caesar is present in the chapter, and so is Augustus (although referred to as one of the triumvirs) at the end of the Roman section of the chapter, therefore in significant positions.Footnote 18 However, chapter 6.2, comprising twelve Roman and three external exempla, revolves around Pompeius, who is represented in six consecutive exempla, as a victim (more or less passive) of freedom of speech. The cluster of Pompeius’ exempla dates between the 60s and 52/51 b.c., hence from around the time of his campaigns in the East to his sole consulship. Five of the six exempla are set in the years that saw the formation and consolidation of the pact of amicitia between Pompeius, Caesar and Crassus (the so-called ‘first triumvirate’), while one exemplum dates shortly before this time.Footnote 19 These exempla, although not arranged chronologically, embrace a period of great power for Pompeius, but also of great instability and of countless attempts at sabotage orchestrated by his political adversaries and those hostile to the triumvirs. But why is there such an emphasis on Pompeius and on this period of his life in the chapter?

Two methodological premises inform my reading of chapter 6.2. First, recent studies, particularly by Rebecca Langlands and Sarah Lawrence, have demonstrated that Valerius’ strategy is precisely to let often thought-provoking ideas emerge from the text by arranging the material in a certain way. The chapter is usually the key narrative unit in which Valerius displays what Langlands has effectively called a ‘provocative lack of fit’.Footnote 20 Valerius organizes his exempla in a way that does not aim at rigidly instructing readers, but at prompting them so that they can reach their own interpretation. Valerius offers a ‘pause for thought’, as Langlands again puts it, to work through sometimes controversial topics.Footnote 21 Second, reading Valerius’ exempla in sequence (a seemingly counterintuitive way to approach a text organized thematically and not chronologically) often sheds light on his authorial attitude.Footnote 22 Valerius’ ‘disembodied material’ does not prevent us from spotting a narrative coherence.Footnote 23 This emerges well from the Pompeius exempla in chapter 6.2. In this article I argue that an investigation of these exempla, of their arrangement and of their sequential reading in the chapter reveals Valerius’ awareness of the historical relevance that the late 60s and the 50s b.c. had in Pompeius’ biography, in the development of late republican history, and in the formation of an autocracy. I suggest, moreover, that this was, according to Valerius and as emerges from chapter 6.2, an inevitable evolution of Roman history.Footnote 24 The article is divided into two parts: in the first, I give an overview of the cluster of Pompeius exempla in 6.2. In the second, I investigate them by focussing on Pompeius’ power, on his reaction to his critics (or lack thereof) and on the way in which the word libertas appears and disappears in the chapter.

POMPEIUS IN VAL. MAX. 6.2

Let us turn to 6.2. A brief preface presents libertas as a force characterized by an ambivalent nature (inter uirtutem uitiumque posita).Footnote 25 The Roman section of the chapter is not arranged chronologically: exemplum 6.2.1 is about the discussion between the Senate and one of the leaders of Privernum after the city was taken in 329 b.c. and, subsequently, about the exchange between the same leader and the consul Plautius Venno. exemplum 6.2.2 similarly stages one individual’s exercise of free speech against the Senate in 91 b.c. exemplum 6.2.3, set in 131 b.c., concerns Scipio Aemilianus’ confrontation with the people after Tiberius Gracchus’ murder. exempla 6.2.4–6.2.9 all revolve around Pompeius. In all these exempla, not arranged chronologically, Pompeius is not the exemplar but the silent victim of various reiterated attacks by his critics. exemplum 6.2.10 describes the magistrate Marcus Castricius’ bold reply to the consul Gnaeus Papirius Carbo (c.85 b.c.). Finally, exempla 6.2.11 and 6.2.12 concern Caesar (45 b.c.) and the triumvirs (42 b.c.), and how they dealt with free speech.Footnote 26

Turning now to Pompeius, the prosecution described in exemplum 6.2.4, the first of the cluster dedicated to him, is known only from Valerius’ account and is of uncertain date: it is probably set in 69/68 or 62 b.c., either before Pompeius departed for his eastern campaigns or after his return. If the earlier date is correct, Pompeius’ critic is to be identified with Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso, Marcus Licinius Crassus’ ally and quaestor pro praetore in Spain between 65 and 64 b.c., who prosecuted Manilius Crispus, probably (but not certainly) the author of the lex Manilia of 66 b.c.Footnote 27 We do not know exactly what Pompeius’ role in the trial was and what effect his influence (gratia) had on Manilius’ acquittal.Footnote 28 Valerius relates Pompeius’ power to his role as disruptor of the civil harmony, as emerges from Piso’s answers to Pompeius:

interrogatus deinde ab eo cur non se quoque accusaret, ‘da’ inquit ‘praedes rei publicae te, si postulatus fueris, ciuile bellum non excitaturum, et iam de tuo prius quam de Manili capite in consilium iudices mittam.’

Asked by him, then, why he did not sue himself as well, he answered: ‘Guarantee to the state that, if you are accused, you will not start a civil war and at this very time I will have the judges consult about the capital indictment against you too ahead of Manilius.’Footnote 29

In 6.2.4 a significant manipulation of memories is put in place: in the exemplum, Piso accuses Pompeius of something which he has not yet done (causing a civil war) and which will happen many years later. This opinion is given by Valerius’ Piso on the basis of a retrospective judgement of the dangerous early years of Pompeius’ career and would reinforce the hypothesis of the episode’s earlier dating, thus between 69 and 68 b.c.Footnote 30 However, through Piso’s fears, Valerius’ early imperial reader would also be reminded of the successive surge of conflicts, in a temporal back and forth. Regardless of the precise date, this is one of only two exempla of the chapter set in the 60s, a time when Pompeius’ successes, linked to his campaigns in the East, increased significantly and consequently increased suspicion that he would return with dangerous aspirations and revolutionary intentions.Footnote 31

exemplum 6.2.5 brings us to the late 50s, after Publius Clodius Pulcher’s assassination and around the time of Pompeius’ sole consulship.Footnote 32 Pompeius’ consulship sine collega of 52 b.c., a new and unprecedented role, was proposed by Marcus Calpurnius Bibulus and endorsed by Marcus Porcius Cato, in order to give Pompeius free hand to deal with the chaos and violence in the city; it was also strategically orchestrated to not make him a dictator, while polarizing forces against Caesar.Footnote 33 The tribune Titus Munatius Plancus, friend of Clodius and supporter of Pompeius, was accused in late 52 or early 51 b.c. of burning the senate house, following Clodius’ assassination and attempting to cremate his body (Cass. Dio 47.48–55).Footnote 34 The tribune was prosecuted under the lex de ui. Pompeius, who could not attend Plancus’ trial in person, sent a eulogy which Cato, sitting among the jurors, refused to read, since this went against the requirements of Pompeius’ own law.Footnote 35 This episode was probably not a turning point in the cooperation between Pompeius and Cato, but the inconsistent behaviour of Pompeius, who had not intervened in the previous trail against Milo, also accused of a crime contra rem publicam (Clodius’ murder on the Via Appia) as Plancus, was noted.Footnote 36 With these first two exempla (6.2.4–5) Valerius sets up the temporal frame within which all further episodes about Pompeius take place.

exemplum 6.2.6 immediately breaches chronological order and brings the reader back in time. Here the consul Lentulus Marcellinus criticizes Pompeius’ excessive power, indicated twice as potentia, in front of the approving people through the provocative statement: ‘acclamate’ … ‘acclamate, Quirites, dum licet: iam enim uobis impune facere non licebit’ (‘Applaud,’ … ‘citizens, applaud while it is still allowed: for soon you will not be permitted to do it freely’). If the year is indeed 56 b.c., the episode is set at the time of the Luca conference (mid April), which rekindled the alliance between Pompeius, Caesar and Crassus, and culminated in Pompeius’ candidature for the consulship of the following year alongside Crassus.Footnote 37 Lentulus Marcellinus, whose family had supported Pompeius during the 60s, was fervently opposed to the three men’s alliance.Footnote 38

The year 55 will return in the chapter, but not immediately. exemplum 6.2.7 once again disrupts the chronological order of events. In this episode Marcus Favonius, aedile in 53 or 52 b.c. and imitator of Cato, is Pompeius’ critic.Footnote 39 Referring to a white bandage (candida fascia) worn by Pompeius, Favonius comments: ‘non refert’ … ‘qua in parte sit corporis diadema’, ‘It does not matter on what part of your body you have the diadem’. The date is 60 b.c., a year marked by the death or loss of political relevance of three principes senatus who had great power in previous decades (Quintus Lutatius Catulus, Quintus Hortensius and Lucius Licinius Lucullus). The stage was at that point open for a new generation of imposing figures and the alliance between Caesar, Pompeius and Crassus could come into being.Footnote 40 The white bandage which Favonius describes as his diadem hints at Pompeius’ thirst for kingly powers (regiae uires) in line with the perception of Pompeius’ ambitions after his return from the East in full power.Footnote 41 The term diadema employed in this context recalls exempla 5.1.9 and 5.7.ext.2 about the kings of the East whom Pompeius defeated and then raised up (usually by placing a diadema on their head), but in a contrasting key. Elsewhere, Caesar too is associated with monarchical aspirations in even more explicit terms (5.7.2 through the charged expression regnum adfectari).Footnote 42

As explained in 6.2.7, Pompeius showed a lenient disposition towards those critics who belonged to a lower social class: eaque patientia inferioris etiam generis et fortunae hominibus aditum aduersus se dedit. exemplum 6.2.8 is representative of this: it revolves around Helvius Mancia, the elderly son of a freedman from Formiae, whose modest upbringing is carefully emphasized in contrast to Pompeius’.Footnote 43 Mancia is mentioned twice by Cicero in the De oratore (2.266, 2.274). However, the account of his meeting with Pompeius, which probably happened in 55 b.c., the year of Pompeius’ consulship with Crassus, is only found in the Facta et dicta.Footnote 44 The confrontation occurred during a censorial hearing against Pompeius’ close ally Lucius Scribonius Libo, in which Pompeius represented him.Footnote 45 The accuser was precisely this Helvius Mancia. In this case, Pompeius starts the confrontation by mocking Mancia for his social status and old age. Mancia, however, uses Pompeius’ ungracious remark to respond intelligently. Asked by Pompeius if he had returned from the underworld to accuse him, Mancia surprisingly answers yes:Footnote 46

‘non mentiris’ inquit, ‘Pompei: uenio enim ab inferis, in L. Libonem accusator uenio. sed dum illic moror, uidi cruentum Cn. Domitium Ahenobarbum deflentem quod summo genere natus, integerrimae uitae, amantissimus patriae in ipso iuuentae flore tuo iussu esset occisus. uidi pari claritate conspicuum M. Brutum ferro laceratum, querentem id sibi prius perfidia, deinde etiam crudelitate tua accidisse. uidi Cn. Carbonem, acerrimum pueritiae tuae bonorumque patris tui defensorem, in tertio consulatu catenis, quas tu ei inici iusseras, uinctum, obtestantem se aduersus omne fas ac nefas, cum in summo esset imperio, a te equite Romano trucidatum. uidi eodem habitu et quiritatu praetorium uirum Perpernam saeuitiam tuam exsecrantem, omnesque eos una uoce indignantes quod indemnati sub te adulescentulo carnifice occidissent.’

‘You do not lie, Pompeius,’ he said. ‘I come from the underworld and I come back as L. Libo’s accuser. But while I lingered there, I saw Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus bloodstained, crying because he, a man of the noblest birth, the most dignified life, most ardent lover of the country, had been put to death by your order in the very flower of his youth. I saw Marcus Brutus, remarkable for equal dignity, lacerated with steel, lamenting that this happened to him first by your treachery, then too by your cruelty. I saw Gnaeus Carbo, the fierce defender of your youth and of your father’s property, in his third consulship bound in chains which you ordered be put on him, affirming that, against all things lawful and unlawful, he was slaughtered when his authority was at its peak, by you, when you were only a Roman knight. I saw the ex-Praetor Perperna, in the same guise and protesting in the same way, cursing your savagery, all of them with one voice indignant that, although unsentenced, they fell at your hands, the youthful butcher.’

Mancia recounts all the victims who had been put to death by Pompeius over a ten-year timeframe during Sulla’s dictatorship and the campaigns to suppress the remaining Marian supporters in Africa.Footnote 47 Among the victims, he remembers Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus, Marcus Iunius Brutus, Gnaeus Papirius Carbo and Marcus Perperna, without following the chronological order of executions.Footnote 48 The consequences of Pompeius’ power on people’s lives (and bodies) are graphically shown and made more vivid by the emphasis on Mancia’s act of seeing these victims conveyed by the repeated uidi. While Mancia’s invective does not accurately portray who Pompeius was, this anecdote shows the impact of Pompeius’ involvement with Sulla on his later reputation and attests the challenges posed in courts by those who were hostile to the triumvirs.Footnote 49

Pompeius makes his last appearance as object of public criticism in exemplum 6.2.9 at the hands of the tragic actor Diphilus, who during the ludi Apollinares delivered various polemical verses pointing at Pompeius: ‘miseria nostra magnus es’ (‘to our misfortune you are great’), and ‘uirtutem istam ueniet tempus cum grauiter gemes’ (‘But there will come a time in which you will bitterly lament that same virtue’). Pompeius, however, was not there, since he was in Capua at that time. At the same event, people seem to have ignored Caesar’s entrance and cheered at the arrival of young Scribonius Curio, at that point part of Cato’s circle. The event took place in 59 b.c., another crucial year: that of Caesar’s consulship.Footnote 50

POMPEIUS WITHIN CHAPTER 6.2 OVERALL

Having given an outline of the Pompeius exempla and reconstructed their historical context, let us now try to single out a rationale for their apparent disorganized arrangement, investigating how this makes sense in the chapter overall, and revealing Valerius’ understanding and rewriting of history.

The main organizational principle of the Pompeius exempla seems to be the decreasing social status of those exercising libertas against him, as emerges in the last three exempla. Valerius makes clear that this is the key to the chapter by noting Diphilus’ status in 6.2.9, the closing exemplum of the cluster. Pompeius’ opponents are men of high standing in the first examples, including a consul, then there is an aedile, a citizen and a non-citizen.Footnote 51 As Catherine Steel suggests, this might hint at the fact that, at that time, everyone could potentially engage in open confrontation with Rome’s most powerful citizens.Footnote 52 But this is not the only interpretative key. All episodes are in fact dated to crucial moments from Pompeius’ life and his troubled alliance with Caesar and Crassus: Pompeius’ mission in (or return from) the East (6.2.4), his sole consulship (6.2.5), the conference of Luca (6.2.6) and the formation of the alliance (6.2.7), his consulship with Crassus (6.2.8) and the year of Caesar’s consulship (6.2.9). The decreasing social status of Pompeius’ opponents can be read as more firmly anchored to the historical context in which these episodes took place: Pompeius’ alliances shifted from the 60s to the 50s. If in the 60s he had illustrious members of Rome’s elite families on his side, in the 50s he needed affiliations with less prominent individuals.Footnote 53 Valerius may be hinting at this.

The paradox of Pompeius’ power and the struggle to maintain it against the shift of alliances and the many barbs aimed by his enemies (particularly in Cato’s senatorial circle) emerge further if other criteria of arrangement are analysed. First, there is Pompeius’ extraordinary power. Linguistically, his power is presented through a negative climax. In 6.2.4 Piso questions his ‘influence’, gratia, during a trial. In 6.2.6, Marcellinus criticizes Pompeius’ ‘excessive power’, nimia potentia. In 6.2.7, Favonius stretches the polemic further, suggesting his monarchical ambition through the expressions diadema and regiae uires. Pompeius’ nimia potentia is described as intolerabilis, ‘unbearable’, in the Diphilus episode (6.2.9). But things are not as they appear. Valerius arranges his material in a way that attests the distinctive ‘lack of fit’ of the Facta et dicta.Footnote 54 At a closer reading, Pompeius’ increasing power seems to be rather fickle, as it does not equate to his increasing ability to respond to his critics’ attacks. Let us take a step back: Pompeius’ passivity in terms of the art of speaking is made immediately clear by a second intratextual preface meant to introduce him to the reader in 6.2.4.Footnote 55 Underlining his authority and patience, Valerius draws attention to the way in which Pompeius bears the attacks quieta fronte. However, he refers to the verbal attacks as reiterated mockery (licentiae ludibrio) and Pompeius’ power is described as fighting with freedom (amplissima … auctoritas totiens cum libertate luctata est).

Pompeius does, in fact, struggle to keep the freedom of his opponents under control, at least according to Valerius, who does not allow him to reply in the text. In the first three exempla, Valerius portrays Pompeius as silent: he makes no response to Piso, Cato (in this case he was not present) and Marcellinus. In the fourth exemplum (6.2.7), not only is there no verbal response to Favonius, who attacks him through a witty remark, but here Valerius says something more. After hearing Favonius’ joke, Pompeius avoids showing either amusement or anger: the display of either emotion would have revealed that he knew that, if he laughed, he would be seen to be making light of the allegation of kingship or of the danger itself. If he got angry, then he could be seen to be acting like a true king: at is neutra<m> in parte<m> mutato uultu utrumque cauit, ne aut hilari fronte libenter agnoscere potentiam aut <tristi iram> profiteri uideretur. As we know from different ancient sources, such as Cicero (Brut. 239) and Velleius Paterculus (Vell. Pat. 2.29.3–4), and as Henriette van der Blom has argued, Pompeius was extremely careful not to be too confrontational in his public speaking, and he skilfully mastered the art of deception in order not to lose the favour of different parties and the people.Footnote 56 Not surprisingly, for example, in the overall positive description of his character and customs, Velleius (2.29.3) states that Pompeius was only a moderately good orator (eloquentia medius), while he excelled in other virtues both as private and as public figure. Therefore, Pompeius’ reaction to Favonius’ joke in 6.2.7 seems consistent with what we know about the historical Pompeius, regardless of whether we interpret Pompeius’ oratorical attitude as a ‘flaw or a tactic’.Footnote 57 In 6.2.9, Valerius appears to invent a situation in which Pompeius remains silent when even his magnificent cognomen is ridiculed. One could argue that Valerius’ Pompeius chooses silence because that was his best option: his policy was often, after all, one of extreme cautiousness. But Pompeius’ silence may hint too at the historical reality of the struggles to define and negotiate his power in the face of those who sided against him in those years, especially after his return from the East.Footnote 58

Vigorously present in the chapter with his authorial comments, Valerius draws attention to Pompeius’ silence by emphasizing his critics’ words and voices: professio (6.2.4), recitare (6.2.5), querere, clara uox, querella, lamentatio (6.2.6), cauillatio (6.2.7), accusare, reuocare, obtestari (6.2.8), sententia (6.2.9). In 6.2.8, in the only instance in which Pompeius attacks his critic, Mancia turns Pompeius’ disrespectful statement to his own advantage, evoking the memory of Pompeius’ past as adulescentulus carnifex and specifically his murders of high-ranking Romans, even magistrates in office. The power of Mancia’s voice is made explicit particularly by his ability to bring back the memory of the Civil Wars of the 80s (obducta iam uetustis cicatricibus bellorum ciuilium uastissima uolnera … impune reuocare licuit): while the wounds were at that point covered by old scars, Valerius suggests that these may be reopened. As seen for 6.2.4, he enacts a temporal back and forth which activates traumatic memories both within the text (Mancia’s audience, remembering the 80s) and outside of it (Valerius’ early imperial reader recalling the successive Civil Wars of the 40s and 30s).

exemplum 6.2.3, preceding the long sequence of Pompeius exempla in the chapter, makes Pompeius’ silence stand out even more and suggests, I believe, Valerius’ overall negative evaluation of Pompeius’ strategy of silence.Footnote 59 exemplum 6.2.3 concerns Scipio Aemilianus. The event here described occurred in 131 b.c. (or late 132 b.c.), on Scipio’s return from Numantia (133 b.c.).Footnote 60 As he arrived in Rome, Scipio was approached by Gaius Carbo, at that time tribune of the plebs, and was interrogated about the death of Tiberius Gracchus.Footnote 61 Scipio replied that he considered Tiberius’ slaughter justifiable in consideration of the fact that, during his life, the latter had been a threat to the state. An argument between Scipio and the people follows. Scipio’s punch-line to the people is given in direct speech: ‘let them be silent, those to whom Italy is a step-mother’ (‘taceant’ … ‘quibus Italia nouerca est’). He proves his superiority in speaking skills and reduces the people to silence (the mouth of the whole Forum is shut by the memory of Scipio’s and his family’s deeds—fori ora clauserunt). Scipio and the people challenge each other through freedom, but Scipio’s voice emerges over the people’s murmur (plebs Romana libertati Scipionis libera non fuit). The contrast between Pompeius’ and Scipio’s attitude is strongly suggested by reading their exempla in sequence: while Pompeius’ power does not imply skill in the art of speaking, Scipio’s authority does, and we cannot but think back to Scipio’s exemplum, when reading the long list of Pompeius episodes.

Reading the exempla in sequence reveals another crucial interpretative key to the chapter’s arrangement and to Valerius’ understanding of late republican history:

As stands out from the table, we notice the disappearance of the term libertas in the chapter in combination with the cluster of Pompeius exempla: libertas, threatened, is brought up in 6.2.4 in an episode of uncertain dating, but most likely set in the early 60s, hence long before the formation of the ‘triumvirate’. exemplum 6.2.5, set much later, presents the term too, but is employed for characterizing Cato, in line with the exemplary persona of defender of liberty (and, in this case, literal embodiment of it: quid ergo? libertas sine Catone? non magis quam Cato sine libertate). In the remaining exempla, all set between 60 and 55 b.c., hence at the heart of the triumviral years, libertas disappears.Footnote 62 This seems to hint at the perilous state of libertas in the years from the formation of the ‘triumvirate’ to its consolidation in Pompeius’ consulship with Crassus. The fact that these exempla are not organized chronologically and seem disorganized, I argue, is consistent with Valerius’ ‘lack of fit’ method.Footnote 63 This disorganization, however, is instrumental to Valerius’ writing of history. Its importance is signalled by Valerius through the similar lack of chronology in the list of executed men given by Helvius Mancia, as seen above. Lack of chronology conveys the idea of confusion, secret scheming and shifting alliances which characterized Rome’s political landscape in those years. Valerius disrupts history. In the meantime, however, he evokes the development of history in the mind of his readers through the way in which he organizes his exempla.

The emphasis on Pompeius, the extremely powerful individual constantly challenged by his opponents, makes Valerius’ silence on Julius Caesar stand out.Footnote 64 Caesar was equally a protagonist of these years. Caesar’s popularity and authority increased steadily in the 50s.Footnote 65 While the 60s were Pompeius’ decade, the 50s were Caesar’s, who had more interest in keeping the alliance with Pompeius and Crassus stable.Footnote 66 As Caesar was absent from Rome for his Gallic campaigns from 58 to 50 b.c., so Valerius’ Caesar is absent from the cluster of Pompeius’ exempla all set in Rome. Caesar returns in the chapter in full power in exemplum 6.2.11 ready to step in decisively.Footnote 67

exemplum 6.2.10 offers a break from the Pompeius series. The episode brings the reader back in time. Set in 85 or 84 b.c., the exemplum is about words exchanged between the consul Gnaeus Carbo (the most illustrious of those put to death by younger Pompeius, as readers were reminded by Helvius Mancia in 6.2.8) and M. Castricius, magistrate of Placentia. The disruption of chronological and thematic sequence signals a significant change and thus the Carbo exemplum, only apparently out of context here, becomes meaningful.Footnote 68 The fact that this exemplum closes the chapter and marks a new time is emphasized by the expression inflammatus animus, which recalls the same wording in exemplum 6.2.1. Valerius wants readers to pay attention. After looking back to the 80s, by the time the reader arrives at exemplum 6.2.11, things have indeed changed. The sequence of exempla signals also the passing of time: Pompeius is dead and Caesar is the powerful individual now dealing with free speech.

exemplum 6.2.11 concerns Caesar’s reaction to the words of Servius Sulpicius Galba in 45 b.c.Footnote 69 As has been argued by W. Martin Bloomer, Valerius usually pairs Pompeius with Caesar, who is almost always mentioned towards the end of each chapter to underline his pre-eminence.Footnote 70 In 6.2.11, Caesar’s authority is not publicly questioned: Pompeius had owed Galba some money, but was not able to pay his debt before he was murdered. Caesar (here mentioned anachronistically as Diuus Iulius according to Valerius’ practice), who had sold Pompeius’ property, was therefore criticized by Galba.Footnote 71 Even if full of temeritas, Caesar responded to Galba’s postulatio and agreed to pay the debt left by Pompeius. He did that, Valerius says with words of approval, because his heart was milder than gentleness itself (illud ipsa mansuetudine mitius pectus).Footnote 72

How one interprets Caesar’s incursion in the chapter after the long series of Pompeius exempla is, as often when it comes to the Facta et dicta, up to the reader: one possible interpretation is that, under Caesar, the people’s excessive libertas exemplified by Pompeius’ critics (leaning towards licentia) has fallen back in line and that after the chaos of the 50s b.c. things became calmer. Caesar can be interpreted as a better leader, because he manages to control what Pompeius had struggled to contain. The two leaders’ posture is, however, different. While Pompeius is suspected of aspiring to monarchy, Caesar acts precisely as a ruler: he is represented, in fact, as in foro ius dicentem, ‘legislating in the forum’. It is true that Galba does not restrain himself in reproaching Caesar and his course of action, and it is equally true that Galba’s temeritas may be judged positively precisely because of whom he chooses to question, in line with the chapter’s preface: libertas is more often safe because of the indulgence of someone else, rather than because of its own precaution (utpote frequentius aliena uenia quam sua prouidentia tuta).Footnote 73 But Galba’s criticism of Caesar is undeniably not mockery or provocation, but it ends up being a postulatio, a request, which only Caesar can decide to fulfil or not.Footnote 74 The arrangement of chapter 6.2, in line with how I have analysed it here, reveals that Valerius understands how late republican history developed: Pompeius was the most imposing figure in Rome for over a decade, but Caesar, initially less prominent, managed to play his cards better, both during and after his alliance with Pompeius and Crassus, and eventually emerged on top. Like other imperial writers, Valerius sees Pompeius and Caesar ultimately as two different faces of the same coin, the inevitable outcome of the trajectory of history during the 50s b.c. This is signalled by the (purposeful) disappearance of the word libertas which, after emerging again in the chapter in exemplum 6.2.9, fades in the Caesar exemplum as it did in the exempla about Pompeius.

Footnotes

*

I would like to thank Gavin Kelly, Justin Stover, Rebecca Langlands, Donncha O’Rourke and Verena Schulz, who have read versions of this paper and gave me insightful comments, as well as the anonymous referees for their helpful feedback. I am also grateful to former colleagues at the University of Edinburgh, where I was employed when I completed this article in 2023–5 prior to the publication of the article in 2026 during my employment at the University of Liverpool.

References

1 Some references to the imperial family help to date the text. Valerius recounts Tiberius’ visit to Drusus’ deathbed in Germany (9 b.c.) in 5.5.3 and comments on Antonia’s chastity after her husband’s death in 4.3.3. Livia, addressed as Julia in a way that implies that she is still alive (before a.d. 29), is mentioned (6.1.praef.). In exemplum 9.11.ext.4 we find a harsh invective against an anonymous character almost unanimously identified as Sejanus, who died in October a.d. 31 (against identification with Sejanus, see J. Bellemore, ‘When did Valerius Maximus write the Dicta et Facta Memorabilia?’, Antichthon 23 [1989], 67–80, at 77–9). If Livia was still alive when Valerius wrote the preface to 6.1, there would be a disjuncture between this passage and exemplum 9.11.ext.4. See J. Briscoe, ‘Some notes on Valerius Maximus’, Sileno 19 (1993), 395–408, at 401.

2 The only explicitly biographical episode is 2.6.8, in which Valerius recounts his trip to the East with his patron Sextus Pompeius. For the identity of Sextus Pompeius, see R. Syme, History in Ovid (Oxford, 1978), 156–68 and again Briscoe (n. 1), 399–400. D. Wardle, Valerius Maximus, Memorable Deeds and Sayings, Book I (Oxford, 1998), 1 remarks that Valerius’ mention of Sextus Pompeius appears to be too unassuming to say with certainty that he was, in fact, his patron. See D.R. Shackleton Bailey, Valerius Maximus, Memorable Doings and Sayings, vol. 1 (Cambridge, MA, 2000), 2 for a counterargument. See also J. Briscoe, Valerius Maximus, Facta et dicta memorabilia, Book 8. Text, Introduction, and Commentary (Berlin and Boston, 2019), 2–4. It is impossible to say if other details from exempla 4.4.11 and 5.5.praef. are biographical or not: J. Murray, ‘Introduction’, in J. Murray and D. Wardle (edd.), Reading by Example: Valerius Maximus and the Historiography of Exempla (Leiden and Boston, 2022), 1–14, at 1–2.

3 Similar works of systematization of knowledge had wide popularity in later times as testified by Aulus Gellius’ Noctes Atticae and Frontinus’ Strategemata. This popularity endured until the Renaissance as, for instance, Petrarch’s Rerum memorandarum libri attests.

4 W.M. Bloomer, Valerius Maximus and the Rhetoric of the New Nobility (London, 1992), 147.

5 As in the preface, but also in chapter 1.8, de miraculis. That there is a ‘historical vision, even if there is not continuous historical narrative’ is suggested by J. Rüpke, ‘Knowledge of religion in Valerius Maximus’ exempla. Roman historiography and Tiberian memory culture’, in K. Galinksy (ed.), Memory in Ancient Rome and Early Christianity (Oxford, 2016), 82–112, at 94. For traces of historiography in Valerius’ work, see P. Desideri, ‘Fatti e detti memorabili: un progetto storiografico?’, in L. Troiani and G. Zecchini (edd.), La cultura romana nei primi due secoli dell’impero romano (Milan, 2005), 61–75 and V. Periti, ‘Dynamics of power and artistry of arrangement in Valerius Maximus’ Facta et dicta memorabilia’ (Diss., University of Edinburgh, 2023).

6 While several scholars think that the division in chapters happened at a later stage, some agree that Valerius must have left some kind of explicit division leading to the modern arrangement of the collection. Against the original division in chapters see, for instance, J. Briscoe, Valerii Maximi Facta et dicta memorabilia (Stuttgart and Leipzig, 1998), xxvii; R. Combès, Valère Maxime, Faits et dits memorables: Tome 1, Livres I–III (Paris, 1995), 24; Wardle (n. 2), 6. The Facta et dicta was at some point known in ten books, as we understand from Julius Paris (cf. Briscoe [this note], xx), one of Valerius’ epitomators, who transmits the text with an index of ten books. The tenth book, known as De praenominibus, is not by Valerius. To solve the issue of Valerius’ tenth book, J. Stover and G. Woudhuysen, ‘Historiarum libri quinque: Hegesippus between Josephus and Sallust’, Histos 16 (2022), 1–27, at 12 have suggested that Valerius’ works may have been transmitted with an index containing titles and descriptions of the chapter contents. Bloomer (n. 4), 18 suggests the possibility that the author left at least some indications in order to navigate the text.

7 As argued by A. Gowing, Empire and Memory: The Representation of the Roman Republic in Imperial Culture (Cambridge, 2005), 59–61; ‘cardboard hero’ is a definition by R. Seager, Pompey the Great (Malden, MA, 1979), 172.

8 See Bloomer (n. 4), 209 for a counterview: ‘Valerius’ abiding interest remains with individuals and not with the course of history, however imagined.’

9 David Wardle has suggested that the mention of a specific exemplary figure is not always indicative of his characterization. Therefore, one must distinguish between significant mentions and other occurrences that are helpful for reconstructing the context and for dating the single exemplum: D. Wardle, ‘Valerius Maximus and Alexander the Great’, Acta Classica 48 (2005), 144–61, at 144–6.

10 Valerius labels Antonius as an executioner or a tyrant (9.5.4, 9.13.3, 9.15.ext.2). However, some exempla about Antonius may be read positively in the Tiberian period, such as his killing of Decimus Brutus, one of Caesar’s assassins (9.13.3), as well as the removal of King Ariarathes (9.15.ext.2), since the substitution with Archelaus made things more stable in the region. On this, see R.D. Sullivan, Near Eastern Royalties and Rome, 100–30 b.c . (Toronto, 1990), 180–2. Moreover, Valerius concedes that Antonius had at least some understanding of humanitas (5.1.11). On Antonius in the Facta et dicta, see V. Periti, ‘Quale Antonio? Analisi di un “ritratto paradossale” nei Facta et dicta memorabilia di Valerio Massimo’, La Biblioteca di Classico Contemporaneo 13 (2022), 213–30. Brutus is usually labelled as a parricide (e.g. 1.5.7, 6.4.5).

11 Seager (n. 7), 172; Gowing (n. 7), 60.

12 e.g. Prop. 3.11.34–5; Ov. Pont. 4.3.41–2; Manilius 1.793–4.

13 L. Fezzi, Pompeo (Rome, 2019), 17 signals the problem of commemorating Caesar under Augustus. On this, see also D. Wardle, ‘“The sainted Julius”: Valerius Maximus and the dictator’, CPh 92 (1997), 323–45, at 323–4, 327 and 344. On Pompeius as a precedent for Augustus, see H. van der Blom, Oratory and Political Career in the Late Roman Republic (Cambridge, 2016), 140–2. On how this emerges from the Facta et dicta, see H. Westphal, ‘Valerius Maximus on exceptional honours—and the Augustan Principate (V. Max. 8.15)’, Mnemosyne 77 (2024), 839–59, at 844–5.

14 My translation.

15 Ancient authors pointed out the similarities between the two leaders: Velleius Paterculus writes that Pompeius could not bear to share the political stage with an equal (2.29.3), all the while justifying his own extraordinary power, but not that of others (2.30.3). Plutarch (Vit. Brut. 29) suggests that nobody believed that Pompeius would have given up on his power, had he won against Caesar. The Senate’s choice of siding with Pompey during the war was due not to lack of suspicion for him but to the more republican façade he displayed (App. B Ciu. 2.29). Tacitus (Hist. 2.38.1) describes Pompeius’ thirst for power as not different than that of Marius and Sulla, just more strategically dissimulated.

16 With some notable exceptions: cf. Val. Max. 5.1.10, where Caesar is denied the virtue of clementia, and 8.9 where Valerius’ handling of Caesar in a chapter about eloquence reveals a nuanced evaluation of the dictator, as noted by S.J. Lawrence, ‘Vis and seruitus. The dark side of republican oratory in Valerius Maximus’, in A. Balbo, C. Gray, R.M.A. Marshall, C. Steel (edd.), Reading Republican Oratory: Reconstructions, Contexts, Receptions (Oxford, 2018), 95–110, at 108–10. On Caesar’s portrayal and on Caesarian themes in the Facta et dicta, see Bloomer (n. 4), 204–26 and Wardle (n. 13), 323–45.

17 On Tiberius’ accession to power, see B. Levick, Tiberius the Politician (London, 19992), 47–91; on Tiberius’ power management in the early years of his career, see F.J. Vervaet, ‘Subsidia dominationi: the early careers of Tiberius Claudius Nero and Nero Claudius Drusus revisited’, Klio 102 (2020), 121–201.

18 It is Valerius’ practice to refer generally to the triumvirs without naming them when he speaks about this time of Augustus’ career (cf. 6.8.5, 6.8.7, 8.3.3).

19 On the formation of this alliance, which is set at some point between 60 and 59 b.c., and on its reactions, see E.S. Gruen, The Last Generation of the Roman Republic (Berkeley, 1974), 83–120 and F.K. Drogula, Cato the Younger. Life and Death at the End of the Republic (Oxford, 2019), 125–60. See also Fezzi (n. 13), 97–112.

20 R. Langlands, ‘Valerius Maximus’ engagement with Cicero’s Tusculan Disputations on virtue and the endurance of pain, in 3.3 De patientia’, in J. Murray and D. Wardle (edd.), Reading by Example: Valerius Maximus and the Historiography of Exempla (Leiden and Boston, 2022), 167–96, at 185. Chapters that reveal an intriguing organization of material are, for instance, 6.1 de pudicitia: R. Langlands, Sexual Morality in Ancient Rome (Cambridge, 2006), 138–91; 5.1 de humanitate et clementia: G. Maslakov, ‘Valerius Maximus and Roman historiography: a study of the exempla tradition’, ANRW 2.32.1 (1984), 437–96; 8.9 de eloquentia: Lawrence (n. 16), 95–110; 4.6 de amicitia: G. Baroud, ‘Amicitia and the politics of friendship in Valerius Maximus’, in J. Murray and D. Wardle (edd.), Reading by Example: Valerius Maximus and the Historiography of Exempla (Leiden and Boston, 2022), 197–232.

21 R. Langlands, ‘“Reading for the moral” in Valerius Maximus: the case of seueritas’, CCJ 54 (2008), 160–87, at 163. This is further investigated in R. Langlands, Exemplary Ethics in Ancient Rome (Cambridge, 2018), especially 258–90.

22 Rüpke (n. 5), 90 argues that the Facta et dicta is appropriate for continuous reading; Wardle (n. 2), 15 is open to both consecutive and non-consecutive reading. Langlands (n. 21 [2008]), 163 articulates that the intellectual intricacy of Valerius’ work ‘spills out of individual chapters and is also found in the intratextual relation between different parts of the work’.

23 ‘Disembodied material’ is a definition I borrow from D. Wardle, ‘Valerius Maximus on the domus Augusta, Augustus, and Tiberius’, CQ 50 (2000), 479–93, at 493. Similarly, C. Kraus, ‘From exempla to exemplar? Writing history around the emperor in imperial Rome’, in J. Edmondson, S. Mason and J. Rives (edd.), Flavius Josephus and Flavian Rome (Oxford, 2005), 198 suggests that Valerius’ text ‘cries out for a narrative matrix to be restored’. An attempt at reordering Valerius’ material has been made recently by D. Wardle, ‘“Not putting Roman history in order?” Regal, republican and imperial boundaries’, in J. Murray and D. Wardle (edd.), Reading by Example: Valerius Maximus and the Historiography of Exempla (Leiden and Boston, 2022), 17–46, at 17–20.

24 The fact that the triumvirs’ alliance, although feared, would be one of the factors leading to the change of Rome’s political landscape was not necessarily in the cards (cf. Gruen [n. 19], 119), but was certainly interpreted as such by later authors (e.g. Vell. Pat. 2.44.1–3; Luc. 1.84–6) and negatively judged by contemporary hostile propaganda (App. B Ciu. 2.9).

25 On the concept of libertas in Rome, see C. Wirszubski, Libertas as a Political Idea at Rome during the Late Republic and Early Principate (Cambridge, 1950); V. Arena, Libertas and the Practice of Politics in the Late Roman Republic (Cambridge, 2013) and C. Balmaceda, ‘Introduction’, in C. Balmaceda, Libertas and Res Publica in the Roman Republic (Boston, 2020), 1–14 for more bibliography. On whether the right of free speech was legally protected by law or not, see V. Arena, ‘Between rhetoric, social norms, and law: liberty of speech in republican Rome’, Polis 37 (2020), 72–94. On libertas specifically in the Facta et dicta, see Lawrence (n. 16), 105–6 and Wardle (n. 23 [2022]), 27–30.

26 On the possible further division of 6.2.12, see Wardle (n. 23 [2022]), 18 n. 6.

27 Piso is recalled by Sallust as one of Pompeius’ bitter enemies as well as a co-conspirator in Catiline’s ‘first conspiracy’ (Sall. Cat. 18.4–5). On the identity of Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso, his enmity with Pompeius, and this trial, see E.S. Gruen, ‘Pompey and the Pisones’, CSCA 1 (1968), 155–70, at 160–2, E.S. Gruen, ‘Notes on the “First Catilinarian Conspiracy”’, CPh 64 (1969), 20–4, and M.C. Alexander, Trials in the Late Roman Republic 149 b.c. to 50 b.c. (Toronto, 1991), 95 n. 188. See also J.-M. David, Le patronat judiciaire au dernier siècle de la république romaine (Paris and Rome, 1992), 822–3. On the other hand, it is unlikely that the prosecutor is his son Piso (cos. 23 b.c.), as suggested by R. Syme, The Augustan Aristocracy (Oxford, 1986), 368 and Shackleton Bailey (n. 2), 20, as pointed out by Gruen (this note [1968]), 161. Manilius Crispus was prosecuted in 66 b.c. and there were disturbances during the trial: see A.M. Ward, ‘Politics in the trials of Manilius and Cornelius’, TAPhA 101 (1970), 545–56. This cannot be the event narrated (or Valerius may be confused), since Pompeius was not in Rome, but Valerius tells the story with Pompeius present. Through the Lex Manilia the command of the War against Mithridates was offered to Pompeius, who had already received the supreme command against the pirates through the Lex Gabinia in 67 b.c. In 66 b.c. Cicero supported it in his speech De imperio Cn. Pompei. On special missions granted through a lex and on the relationship between this practice and the establishment of patronage, see L. Harmand, Le patronat sur les collectivités publiques des origins au bas-empire (Paris, 1957), 28–33.

28 Fezzi (n. 13), 59; Seager (n. 7), 65–6.

29 The text of the Facta et dicta used throughout is that of Briscoe (n. 6) with some modifications in line with Shackleton Bailey (n. 2). Translations of the Facta et dicta are mine based on Shackleton Bailey’s.

30 Pompeius’ early association with Sulla is recalled by Valerius himself in 5.3.5. On the beginning of Pompeius’ extraordinary career, see Seager (n. 7), 25–9 and Fezzi (n. 13), 25–40.

31 Gruen (n. 19), 83–4.

32 On the Claudii Pulchri and Clodius’ explosive role in Rome, see Gruen (n. 19), 59, 97–109.

33 For interpretation of the sole consulship, see Seager (n. 7), 134–5; Gruen (n. 19), 339–40; K. Morrell, Pompey, Cato, and the Governance of the Roman Empire (Oxford, 2017), 204–36.

34 On the episode, see also Plutarch (Vit. Cat. Min. 48.4; Vit. Pomp. 55.5). See Alexander (n. 27), 159 n. 327. On the event, see Drogula (n. 19), 256–7 and A.M. Stone, ‘Pro Milone: Cicero’s second thoughts’, Antichthon 1 (1980), 88–111, at 107–9.

35 Gruen (n. 19), 346–7.

36 Morrell (n. 33), 208. On the chronology of Milo’s trial, see J.S. Ruebel, ‘The trial of Milo in 52 b.c.: a chronological study’, TAPhA 109 (1979), 231–49.

37 An event which created chaos in Rome, as Valerius too reports: 4.6.4.

38 Lentulus Marcellinus’ hostility towards Pompeius and the triumvirs is reported by Plutarch (Vit. Pomp. 51.5–6; Vit. Crass. 15), who gives Pompeius’ deceptive answer to Marcellinus’ enquiries about his consulship with Crassus, and by Cassius Dio (39.27–30). See Fezzi (n. 13), 129.

39 Favonius is sometimes wrongly indicated as praetor in 49, but this is unlikely: on this see F.X. Ryan, ‘The praetorship of Favonius’, AJPh 115 (1994), 587–601. C. Burden Strevens, ‘The republican dictatorship: an imperial perspective’, in J. Osgood and C. Baron (edd.), Cassius Dio and the Late Roman Republic (Leiden, 2019), 131–57, at 148 places the interaction between Pompeius and Favonius in 56 b.c. Valerius refers to Favonius as Cato’s amicissimus (2.10.8) and staunch republican: Gruen (n. 19), 56–7. On Cato’s reaction to the establishment of the ‘first triumvirate’, see Drogula (n. 19), 125–56.

40 Gruen (n. 19), 50–3; Drogula (n. 19), 128.

41 The story of Pompeius’ white bandage and its meaning recurs in later antiquity (e.g. Amm. Marc. 17.11.4). This was a sign of monarchy for the Romans, as seen in Suetonius who associates it with Caesar (Iul. 79.1). As suggested by one of this article’s anonymous referees, it is intriguing that Valerius does not report the notorious episode of the Lupercalia of 44 b.c., when Caesar refused the diadema offered by M. Antonius (cf. Cic. Phil. 2.84–8).

42 The memory of the three early republican adfectatores regni (Spurius Cassius Vicellinus, Spurius Maelius and Marcus Manlius Capitolinus) was very much alive in Valerius’ time, as the Facta et dicta attests: 5.8.2, 6.3.1, 6.3.2, 5.3.2.

43 Combès (n. 6), 234.

44 About Mancia in the De oratore, see G. Perl, ‘Der Redner Helvius Mancia and der pictus gallus (Cicero, de oratore 2, 266)’, Philologus 126 (1982), 59–69.

45 Gruen (n. 19), 108: Libo was an annalist and a trusted friend and adviser of Pompeius, whose daughter married one of Pompeius’ sons.

46 B. Dufallo, The Ghosts of the Past (Columbus, OH, 2007), 13–35 illustrates Cicero’s exploitation of this strategy of calling back the dead in his oratory.

47 Seager (n. 7), 124.

48 As noted by A. Todd, ‘Forced perception: evaluating the validity and applicability of the Adulescentulus Carnifex label in relation to the early career character of Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus’ (Diss., University of Amsterdam, 2019), 17–28: Ahenobarbus was killed in 81 b.c. and Brutus in 77 b.c., while the executions of Carbo and Perperna happened in 82 and 72 b.c. The three-times consul Carbo, being the most distinguished among the victims, is significantly recalled in the middle of the speech. Among those listed by Mancia, Carbo is mentioned three times by Valerius in relation to Pompeius and this reinforces the idea that his death was perceived as a relevant matter. In episode 5.3.9, in the chapter de ingratis, Pompeius is addressed directly (quo te nunc modo, Magne Pompei, attingam nescio) and his role in Carbo’s execution is harshly criticized.

49 Morrell (n. 33), 4.

50 Cf. Cic. Att. 2.19.3 with Seager (n. 7), 96–7 and Drogula (n. 19), 155. In the minds of Valerius’ contemporary audience, this episode may have evoked episodes of censorship towards theatre taking place at the time of Tiberius (Suet. Tib. 61.3).

51 As highlighted by C. Steel, ‘Pompeius, Helvius Mancia, and the politics of public debate’, in C. Steel and H. van der Blom (edd.), Community and Communication: Oratory and Politics in Republican Rome (Oxford, 2013), 151–60, at 151.

52 Steel (n. 51), 159 reflects on how the dynamics of public confrontation might have had an impact on an influential man’s course of action and on the process of reshaping his public persona. See also Arena (n. 25), 79–82.

53 Gruen (n. 19), 93–4, 105–11.

54 Langlands (n. 20 [2022]), 185.

55 Internal prefaces in the Facta et dicta are rarely coincidental: they are usually employed to signal the opening of a specific subsection within a chapter and to direct the reader’s attention. See for comparison the intratextual preface of chapter 3.3, de patientia, cf. Langlands (n. 20 [2022]), 168–9.

56 H. van der Blom, ‘Pompey in the contio’, CQ 61 (2011), 553–73, in particular on Pompeius’ ‘non-committal tactic’ in his speeches, at 554.

57 As investigated by van der Blom (n. 13), 113–45, at 114. As suggested by one of this article’s anonymous reviewers, it is tempting to see in Pompeius’ hesitation to show his true emotions a link to Tiberius’ efforts not to show his feelings, as transmitted by Tacitus (e.g. Ann. 3.6 for his studied self-restraint in the context of Germanicus’ funeral), as well as seen in the display of reluctance in accepting powers after Augustus’ death (Vell. Pat. 2.124.1–2; Tac. Ann. 1.11–13).

58 Van der Blom (n. 13), 131–7 persuasively highlights that the challenges posed to Pompeius’ oratory after his return to Rome reveal his (not always successful) attempts to strike a difficult balance between the role of victorious general and that of member of the ruling senatorial elite.

59 Pompeius is not always silent in the Facta et dicta, but, when he speaks, his voice almost never conveys power: e.g. 1.5.6 (reported speech) and 4.5.5 (direct speech). Conversely, there are individuals, who on paper are less powerful (for example women), but whose speech exudes power; this is the case of two anonymous women in the same chapter (6.2.ext.1, 6.2.ext.2) and of Hortensia (8.8.3).

60 A.E. Astin, ‘Dicta Scipionis of 131’, CQ 10 (1960), 135–9, at 136.

61 This speech was given by Scipio in the context of the struggle between factions and the aftermath of Tiberius Gracchus’ death. For the turbulent last years of Scipio’s life and for other dicta Scipionis, see A.E. Astin, Scipio Aemilianus (Oxford, 1967), 227–44 and 248–69. See also J.L. Beness, ‘Carbo’s tribunate of 129 and the associated Dicta Scipionis’, Phoenix 63 (2009), 60–72, who dates Scipio’s and Carbo’s discussion to the year 129 b.c.

62 Hence at the time during which Pompeius probably started to associate himself to the figure of Agamemnon: E. Champlin, ‘Agamemnon at Rome. Roman dynasts and Greek heroes’, in D. Braund and C. Gill (edd.), Studies in Honour of T.P. Wiseman (Exeter, 2003), 295–319, at 299–300.

63 Langlands (n. 20 [2022]), 185.

64 In other instances, it is Caesar’s presence in a chapter that turns out to be surprising and problematic, as demonstrated by Lawrence (n. 16), 95–110 for chapter 8.9.

65 As did his income during the Gallic Wars: I. Shatzman, Senatorial Wealth and the Roman Politics (Brussels, 1975), 346–50, at 348.

66 Gruen (n. 19), 75–82, 112–20; Drogula (n. 19), 149.

67 Gruen (n. 19), 82, 112–20.

68 Principles of arrangement of the exempla in the chapter have been analysed by R. Honstetter, ‘Exemplum zwischen Rhetorik und Literatur zur gattungsgeschichtlichen Sonderstellung von Valerius Maximus und Augustinus’ (Diss., Konstanz, 1977), 53–66 and recently by T. Tschögele, Die Erzählungen des Valerius Maximus (Heidelberg, 2022), 257. Tschögele argues that the Carbo exemplum cannot be grouped with the following exempla about Caesar (6.2.11) and about the triumvirs (6.2.12), as well as with the previous anecdotes about Pompeius, saying that ‘hier liegt keine echte Sachgruppe vor, sondern einfach drei “sonstige” Anekdoten nach Abschluss der Pompeius–Gruppe’ ([this note], 257). I disagree, as I think that the following three exempla are deeply connected with the Pompeius section.

69 On Galba and his initial affiliation with Caesar, see Gruen (n. 19), 114.

70 Bloomer (n. 4), 207, 210, 212.

71 On Caesar’s management of his defeated enemies’ properties, see Shatzman (n. 65), 354: as for Pompeius’ estate, it seems that this measure was actually voted by the Senate and then put into action by Caesar (cf. Cass. Dio 45.9.4).

72 mansuetudo is a virtue associated with Caesar elsewhere: in chapter 5.1 de humanitate et clementia, ‘on humanity and clemency’, Caesar is (rather surprisingly) linked with neither of these virtues but with mansuetudo (he is said to have a mansuetus animus). On this ambiguity, see Wardle (n. 13), 331–4 and Periti (n. 10), 222–5.

73 It is also true that clemency is often perceived by the ancients as distinctive of monarchy (e.g. Sen. Clem. 2.3). For the history and theory of clementia, see S. Braund, Seneca, De Clementia. Edited with Text, Translation, and Commentary (Oxford, 2009), 30–44. See also D. Konstan, ‘Clemency as a virtue’, CPh 100 (2005), 337–46 for a re-evaluation of clementia perceived as a positive trait.

74 Caesar is here a solver of crises in a way that mirrors how Valerius describes Augustus in the work (e.g. 7.7.3–4, 7.8.6); cf. Wardle (n. 23 [2000]), 485–7.