Valerius Maximus: the complexities of past as paradigm

Abstract

Our virtues? – it is probable that we too still have our virtues, although naturally they will not be those square and simple virtues on whose account we hold our grandfathers in high esteem but also hold them off a little. (Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil , 214, tr. Nietzsche 1990) In the preceding chapters we have seen how traditional narratives about the founding of certain of Rome's institutions can, on analysis, be shown to illustrate and to probe some of the core issues in Roman sexual ethics. I shall now turn to look in more detail at an important text, Valerius Maximus' Facta et Dicta Memorabilia ( Memorable Deeds and Words ), that offers us unique access to the Roman moral tradition. This work is an extensive selection of nearly one thousand traditional Roman exempla , organised within categories of vice and virtue according to various moral and rhetorical principles in order to inspire the reader to moral growth. Valerius Maximus' Facta et Dicta Memorabilia draws from the same resource of Roman collective cultural memory as does Livy: the familiar body of tales about the exploits of Roman heroes that make up the exemplary tradition of Rome. His traditional stories appear, however, in the clipped form of exempla , packaged to persuade with maximum efficiency. In Valerius' text they are not working to enhance any philosophical treatise or political speech; their purpose is avowedly moral.