Faits et dits memorables: Livres I-III.

The publication of this edition is an important event, and not only for classicists. The immense popularity of Valerius Maximus throughout the Middle Ages and Renaissance is well attested by the many manuscripts, printed editions, commentaries, epitomes, and even versifications of the nine books of his Facta et dicta memorabilia. However, the standard modern edition has long been K. Kempf's 1886 Teubner text, which merely revised the earlier editions by himself (1854) and by K. Halm (1865). For some time, scholars have recognized the need for a new evaluation of the manuscript tradition. The present editor does not appear to have radically rejected Kempf's practice, although he groups some of the manuscripts differently, stresses the usefulness of a codex from Montpellier, and ends up admitting some different readings. No doubt because of the abundance of manuscripts, he does not even attempt to establish a stemma.

The advantage of a modern translation of the work should be obvious, particularly since no Loeb edition exists (although there is an Italian translation by R. Faranda). It should be noted, however, that the style of the French translation remains predictably far (and sometimes very far) from the succinctness of Valerius. The notes are instructive in matters of historical identification, cross-references to related passages in the Facta et dicta, and sometimes to other authors. They also explain the occasional case of editorial intervention. The present volume will presumably be followed by two more; fortunately, this one has a name index for books 1-3, as wall as a general introduction.

As a collection of exempla, Valerius's work is organized thematically. Starting with book 3, chapters successively illustrate virtues and vices. Virtues may be such general categories as courage, justice, and faithfulness, or such precise varieties as "parents who bore their children's death with courage" and "women who pled their own or someone else's case before a magistrate." On the other hand, vices too receive systematic treatment, especially in book 9. The first two books, however, do not follow that pattern in an obvious way. Book 1 is organized around the theme of religio, beginning with a quick history of Roman religious practice and proceeding to cases where ill-observed ceremonies had unfortunate effects, followed by the related areas of auspices and omens, prodigies and dreams. This book is an important expression of Roman ideology; the author attempts to portray the harmony of imperial destiny with the transcendent realm.

Book 2 lays an analogous political foundation for the rest of the work. Starting with a survey of ancient institutions and traditions, Valerius goes on to give examples of military discipline, triumphal custom, the office of censor, and the attribute called maiestas (which R. Combes translates as "prestige"). As the author states explicitly at the beginning of the next book, book 3 marks a transition to the virtues as a structural principle. This book is dominated by fortitudo, represented from various angles: resistance to pain, self-confidence, constancy, those of low birth who raised themselves up, and conversely, those of high birth who degenerated. The first three books contain several of the more famous anecdotes: Simonides's miraculous escape from death (1.8 ext. 7), the Thracian custom of mourning births and celebrating deaths (2.6.12), Mucius Scaevola with his hand in the fire (3.3.1), Regulus returning to Carthage (1.1.14), and Horatius Cocles on the bridge (3.2.1).

A major question concerns the nature of the literary task Valerius set for himself. At the beginning of book 1, the author proposes his work as a handy compendium of a vast amount of information. Such a practical end helps explain the appearance of straightforward structure and style. But as the editor argues convincingly in his introduction, Valerius also carefully works his raw material to give it literary form. The interest of the Facta et dicta as literature lies in that intersection between rhetorical handbook and stylistic ambition. Contrary to its reputation, the text is not without its effective moments. In a brief survey of the work's fortune, R. Combes notes its use in later antiquity, but only as a source of information divorced from form. Interestingly, it is the later Middle Ages and Renaissance (and the art of painting) that retrieve some of the rhetorical force of Valerius's exempla.

STEPHEN MURPHY Wake Forest University