Compendium of Roman History. Res Gestae Divi Augusti

THE LOEB CLASSICAL LIBRARY FOUSDED BY JAMES LOEB, LL.D. EMTED BY t T. E. PAGE, C.H., LITT.D. W. H. D. ROUSE, litt.d. t E. CAPPS, PH.D.. LL.D. t m.a., f^.hist.soc. L. A. POST. L^.D, E. H. WARillNGTON, VELLEIUS PATERCULUS AND RES GESTAE DIM AUGUSTI TO MY WIFE VELLEIUS PATERCULUS COMPENDIUM OF ROMAN HISTORY RES GESTAE DIVI AUGUSTI WITH AN ENGLISH TRANSLATION BY FREDERICK W. SHIPLEY OF WASHINGTON UlflVKBaiTT LOXDON WILLIAM HEINEMANN LTD CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS HARVARD UNR-ERSITY PRESS MCMLXI FirHprinted 3924 Jteprinied 1955, 1961 Printed in Oreat Britain CONTENTS rAOB VELLEIUS PATERCULUS^ Introduction viii The Text xviii Bibliography xx Sigla 1 Text 2 RES GESTAE DIVI AUGUSTI— ' Introduction . 332 The Text 338 The Historical Notes 340 Bibhography 341 Text 344 » Inoex 406 C. VELLEIUS PATERCULUS INTRODUCTION * Dicere enim solebat nullum esse librum tam raalum ut non aliqua parte prodesset."—Pliny, Ep. iii. 5. 10, quoting a saying of his uncle. Velleius Paterculus does not rank among the great Olympians of classical literature either as styUst or as historian. But, as Phny the elder says, no book is so poor that one cannot get some good out of it, and there is much in this comparatively neglected author that is worth reading once, at least in translation. In its aim to include all that is of value and interest in Greek and Latin Uterature from the days of Homer to the Fall of Constantinople the Loeb Library is performing what is perhaps its most valuable service in making more generally available the content of those comparatively unknown authors who, for styhstic or other reasons, are not to be reckoned among the great classics or do not deserve a careful study in the original. A compendium of Roman history, hastily compiled by an army officer as a memorial volume to com- memorate the elevation to the consulship for the year A.D. 30 of his friend and fellow-Campanian, Marcus Vinicius, could hardly be expected to rise to the level either of great history or great hterature. And yet, taken for what it is, a rapid sketch of some ten INTRODUCTION centuries of history, it is, in spite of its many defects, which Avill duly be pointed out, the most successful and most readable of all the abridgements of Roman history which have come down to us. Abridgements are usually Uttle more than skeletons ; but Velleius has succeeded, in spite of the brief compass of his work, in clothing the bones ^îth real flesh, and in endo^Wng his compendium Aîth more than a mere shadow of vitality, thanks to his own enthusiastic interest in the human side of the great characters of history. The work, after the large lacuna in the first book, covers uninterruptedly the period from the battle of Pydna to A.D. 30, a period which practically coincides with that covered by the final 97 books of Livy for which no manuscript has come dowTi to us, and one which is but partially treated in the extant portions of the works of other Roman historians of first rank. It is therefore valuable, if for nothing else, in that it furnishes us with a connected account of this period which is at any rate much more readable than the bare epitomes of Li^^y. Besides, it has certain excellences of its own in the treatment of special subjects, especially the chapters on hterar)'^ history, in which the author has a genuine if not very critical interest, the chapters on the Roman colonies, and those on the liistory of the organization of the Roman provinces, and in some of the character portraits of the great figures of Roman history . Even in the treatment of Tiberius, in spite of its tone of adulation which historians have so generally con- demned, we have a document which must be con- sidered along A\-ith the famous dehneation by Tacitus, as representing the psychological attitude toward the new empire of the group of administrative officers VELLEIUS PATERCULUS of the equestrian order who ardently supported it without any of the yearnings felt by the senatorial class for the old regime as it existed in the days before the empire had shorn them of their former governmental powers. As has already been said, the work is a commemorative volume as well as an historical abridge- ment, and under this pardonable pretext the author feels free to depart from historical objectivity and give his work a personal note. Thus he honours Vinicius not merely by the dedication, but by addressing him frequently in the vocative case, by bringing the more important dates into chronological relation with his consulship, and by bringing into prominence the ancestors of Vinicius who had played any historical role worthy of consideration. Vinicius, who hke the author himself was an official of the administration, would also lend sympathetic ears to his rhapsodic eulogy of his old commander, now the emperor Tiberius, and of his prime minister Sejanus, then in the heyday of his power and the virtual head of the government. In doing the honours, in this commemorative volume, he also takes occasion to mention, as something in which his friend would be interested, the participation of the author's own ancestors in the events which he is narrating, and, when he reaches his own times, hke the painters of the Renaissance he sees no harm in introducing himself into the canvas as one of the minor participants in the historical pageant. To this naive and innocent egotism we owe all our information in regard to the author and his family, since the sparse references in later Uterature con- tribute nothing to our knowledge of eithcr. We INTRODUCTION thiis leam that he reckoned among his ancestors on his mother's side Decius Magius, a distinguished citizen of Capua who remained loyal to the Romans when Capua went over to Hannibal, and Minatius Magius, who raised a legion and fought on the Roman side in the Social War, for which service he received Roman citizenship ; that his father served in Germany as prefect of horse ; that his father's brother Capito supported Agrippa in his indictmentv^ of Cassius for the murder of Caesar ; that his patemal grandfather C. Velleius Paterculus served as praefectus fahrum under Pompey, Marcus Brutus, and Tiberius Nero, the father of the emperor ; that he was chosen as one of the judges by Pompey in 55 b.c, and that in 41 B.c. he Idlled himself because he was physically unable to follow Nero in his flight from Naples. The historian himself, C^ \'elleius Paterculus, also played the role of loyal officer, seeing service as military tribune in Thrace and Macedonia, and accompanying i/ Caius Caesar in a.d. 1 on his \\s\t to the eastem pro\"inces. While there he was an eye^vitness of the conference between Caius and the son of the Parthian king on an island in the Euphrates. Later he served under Tiberius for eight consecutive years, first as prefect of horse and then as legatus, participating in his German and Pannonian campaigns. In a.d. 6 he was elected quaestor, and while still quaestor designate he led a body of troops to reinforce Tiberius in Pannonia on the occasion of the great ^ His praenomen is uncertain. Priscian calls him Marcus. Publius is the praenamen on the title-page of the ed. princeps, probably through an error ' of Rhenanus in identifying him with P. Velleius of Tac. Ann. iii. 39. At the beginning and end of Book I. his praenomen is given as C. VELLEIUS PATERCULUS mutiny. As quaestor, in a.d. 7, he gave up the privilege of a provincial appointment to become a legatus under Tiberius in Pannonia. In the wnter of A.D. 7-8 he was one of the legati in charge of winter quarters. His brother, Magius Celer Velleianus, was also a legatus of Tiberius and distinguished himself in the Dalmatian campaign. Both were decorated with miUtary honours at the triumph of Tiberius in a.d. 13. Both were praetors for the year a.d. 15 and were proud of the distinction of having been the last to be nominated to the praetorship by Augustus and the first to be named by Tiberius. Here the chapter of his miUtary career apparently closes. He does not seem to have risen higher than the praetorship in the fifteen years which intervened between the holding of that office and the consulship of Vinicius, though he may have held provincial appointments. He must have enjoyed some leisure in these years, since he hints at having in preparation a more comprehensive historical work, and his genuine enthusiasm for Uterature, and his famiUarity with the rhetorical studies then so much in vogue, must postulate some time for their development, even though his literary work still shows many marks of the novice. His compendium ^ is divided into two chrono- logicaUy unequal parts. The first book, preserved ^ The title of his work as it appears in the heading of Book I. in the ed. princeps is : C. Vellei Paterculi historiae Romanae ad M. Viîinurn Cos. priiis volumen mutilum. But, as the first part of this book was missing from the Murbach 5JS., this title may simply be the work of a scribe. Most modern editors have adopted the title .: Vellei Paterculi ad M. Vinicium liWi duo. xii INTRODUCTION in a fragmentary condition/ began with the times immediately preceding the fall of Troy, dealt rapidly with the early history of Greece in the first seven chapters, reached the founding of Rome in chapter viii., and ended ^\ith the fall of Carthage in 146 b.c.

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