Vis and Seruitus: The Dark Side of Republican Oratory in Valerius Maximus

Abstract

Valerius Maximus' Facta et Dicta Memorabilia is a useful source offragmentary material for those who are hoping to access the works of lost orators. The nearly one thousand exempla collected in the work provide a rich trove of famous sayings and excerpts from, or information about, striking oratorical performances. The work is all the more useful if, as has traditionally been the case, we view Valerius as strictly a compiler of these fragments. This view is well exemplified in George Kennedy's The Art of Rhetoric in the Roman World; when searching for evidence of the earliest Roman orators he warns of the need for caution when using Aulus Gellius' account of the speech of Scipio Africanus the Elder-arguing that the speech is almost certainly not the original version-and then immediately quotes a fragment of Scipio Nasica's speech from Valerius (3.7.3) as unproblematic historical evidence.2