Velleius And His Histriae Romanae In Roman Historiography

The opus of Velleius Paterculus which has come down to us is a brief historical compendium in two books. Velleius dedicated his opus to M. Vinicius, who was consul in AD 30 when the work seemed to have been finished. The beginning of the work is lost, and there is also another part lost after the eighth chapter of the first book. This opus begins with the destruction of Troy as far as we could know and ends with the events of the year AD 30. In his opus Velleius tried to give a brief survey of the universal history in the view of the Romans, although its contents are more connected with Rome since the history of Rome occupies the main part of the work. With regard to the composition of this work, we could see the great skill and judgment of the author who has adopted a wide scope treating on the general history of the Mediterranean world. He does not give a consecutive account of all the events of the history he writes about, but omits entirely a vast number of facts and only pays attention on a few more prominent occurrences, which Velleius records at a sufficient length to make them impressed upon the recollection of his readers. Therefore, he shows great tact in the manner in which he passes from one subject to another which has less relevence with the previous one. Velleius also bears striking and apposite reflections and introduces a style similar to that of Sallust which is characterised by clearness, conciseness, and energy. As a historian, Velleius tries to display impartiality in his narrative and while estimateing the characters of the leading figures in Roman history he generally exhibits both discrimination and judgment. However, the case is different when he comes to speak of Augustus and Tiberius. Upon them, and especially upon the latter, he lavishes the most indiscriminate praises and fulsome flattery, at the same time showin some of the faults of the writers of his age in a fondness for strange and out-of-the-way expressions. There is certainly some extenuation for his conduct in the fact that Tiberius had been his patron and had advanced him to the honours he had enjoyed, and also from the circumstance that it would have been dangerous for a writer at that time to have expressed himself with frankness and sincerity.If we study Velleius Paterculus and his opus in the circumstance of the Roman and even Greek historiography, we could find that Velleius bears a lot of the traditional features of the classical historiography, either in historioraphic or in literary, and furthermore, he combines those traditional features in his one volumen work dealing with a universal history in space, that the Romans could know at that time, and with a general history in time, that covers from the legendary time to his contemporary age. It is a valuable venture even for those great historians who could master many kinds of works, but they never tried. The facts might indicates that those historians, who write some universal history in space or some general histoy in time, did not think about history in the same way with Velleius Paterculus. In view of the historiographic attitude, they were limited in the area that Rome controlled in space or the times Rome has existed. However, Velleius Pterculus not only combines some traditions in a short work, but with his work also shows his historiographic atticude - general history both in space and in time but not centered in the city of imprium of Rome.