Jeffrey Murray
I am Senior Lecturer in Classics in the School of Languages and Literatures at the University of Cape Town.
I am currently writing a commentary on book 9 of Valerius Maximus' Facta et dicta memorabilia, the only book of the work to have an unremitting focus on negative values, vice, and immorality.
Other research interests are in the fields of the history of classical scholarship and classical reception studies, particularly as they concern Africa. At present I am working on a monograph study on the history of classical scholarship and education in the KwaZulu-Natal region of South Africa.
I am currently writing a commentary on book 9 of Valerius Maximus' Facta et dicta memorabilia, the only book of the work to have an unremitting focus on negative values, vice, and immorality.
Other research interests are in the fields of the history of classical scholarship and classical reception studies, particularly as they concern Africa. At present I am working on a monograph study on the history of classical scholarship and education in the KwaZulu-Natal region of South Africa.
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concerns that surface in Tacitus, though two examples must suffice here.
Tacitus devotes considerable space to mutiny among the Pannonian legions in AD 16, precipitated by the accession of Tiberius, whose authority (channeled through his son Drusus) fails to quell the disturbance (Ann. 1.16-30). While the instigators will ultimately be punished, it is only through the happenstance of an eclipse that the soldiers retreat (1.28). At FDM 2.7, Valerius raises the issue of militaris disciplina, the stabilimentum Romani imperii ad hoc tempus, offering several anecdotes about Republican generals who proved effective at exerting discipline. This stands in stark contrast to the largely mismanaged events of AD 16 described by Tacitus. A similarly comparable episode is Tiberius’ persecution of Aemilia Lepida in AD 20. Tacitus conjures a memorable tableau in which Lepida, brought up on a series of charges, including treason, makes a scene in the Theater of Pompey in order to protest her treatment by the emperor (3.23.1). Whereas Tacitus’ sympathies quite clearly lie with Lepida, Valerius has little patience for such displays by women. At FDM 8.3 he sharply criticizes, and provides examples of, women whose condicio naturae et uerecundia stolae did not discourage them from making a spectacle of themselves in legal matters (8.praef.).
This project draws on, among others, studies by Andreas Weileder (Valerius Maximus: Spiegel kaiserlicher Selbstdarstellung, Munich 1998) and Isabella Wiegand’s important Neque libere neque vere (Tübingen 2013), both of which are concerned with Valerius’ place in the intellectual discourse of the Tiberian period. My particular aim, however, is to juxtapose the Tiberian period’s most significant author and moralist with the fullest and most problematic historical account of the period we possess. The distinctions laid bare are striking, and throw into relief two very different views of the Tiberian regime, held by authors of different generations and with what appear to be fundamentally dissimilar political and moral values.
concerns that surface in Tacitus, though two examples must suffice here.
Tacitus devotes considerable space to mutiny among the Pannonian legions in AD 16, precipitated by the accession of Tiberius, whose authority (channeled through his son Drusus) fails to quell the disturbance (Ann. 1.16-30). While the instigators will ultimately be punished, it is only through the happenstance of an eclipse that the soldiers retreat (1.28). At FDM 2.7, Valerius raises the issue of militaris disciplina, the stabilimentum Romani imperii ad hoc tempus, offering several anecdotes about Republican generals who proved effective at exerting discipline. This stands in stark contrast to the largely mismanaged events of AD 16 described by Tacitus. A similarly comparable episode is Tiberius’ persecution of Aemilia Lepida in AD 20. Tacitus conjures a memorable tableau in which Lepida, brought up on a series of charges, including treason, makes a scene in the Theater of Pompey in order to protest her treatment by the emperor (3.23.1). Whereas Tacitus’ sympathies quite clearly lie with Lepida, Valerius has little patience for such displays by women. At FDM 8.3 he sharply criticizes, and provides examples of, women whose condicio naturae et uerecundia stolae did not discourage them from making a spectacle of themselves in legal matters (8.praef.).
This project draws on, among others, studies by Andreas Weileder (Valerius Maximus: Spiegel kaiserlicher Selbstdarstellung, Munich 1998) and Isabella Wiegand’s important Neque libere neque vere (Tübingen 2013), both of which are concerned with Valerius’ place in the intellectual discourse of the Tiberian period. My particular aim, however, is to juxtapose the Tiberian period’s most significant author and moralist with the fullest and most problematic historical account of the period we possess. The distinctions laid bare are striking, and throw into relief two very different views of the Tiberian regime, held by authors of different generations and with what appear to be fundamentally dissimilar political and moral values.