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The later decades were thrown off from time to time until his death at Patavium in 17 A.D. Indications exist to show that they were not revised by him after publication, e.g., the errors into which he had been led by trusting to Valerius Antias were not erased; but he was careful not to rely on his authority afterwards.
I have no means of affirming whether he did this on his own spontaneous suggestion, or by the advice of his state. Valerius Antias says, that after having been beaten by Scipio in a battle, in which twelve thousand armed men were slain, and one thousand seven hundred made prisoners, he came himself with ten other deputies into the camp to Scipio.
In his account of a battle in Greece he finds that Valerius Antias puts the number of the enemy killed as inside ten thousand, while Claudius Quadrigarius says forty thousand. The discrepancy does not ruffle him, nor even seem to him very important; he contents himself with an expression of mild surprise that Valerius for once allows himself to be outstripped in exaggerating numbers.
His chief authorities for the early history are Licinius Macer, Claudius Quadrigarius, Gn. Gellius, Sempronius Tuditanus, Aelius Tubero, Cassius Hemina, Calpurnius Piso, Valerius Antias, Acilius Glabrio, Porcius Cato, Cincius, and Pictor.
More voluminous but less valuable than the Annals of Claudius were those of his contemporary, Valerius Antias, which formed the main groundwork for the earlier books of Livy, and were largely used by him even for later periods, when more trustworthy authorities were available.
In a matter of such antiquity it is difficult to state with certainty the exact number of those who fought or fell: Antias Valerius, however, ventures to sum them up; that in the Hernician territory there fell five thousand three hundred Romans; that of the predatory parties of the Æquans, who strayed through the Roman frontiers for the purpose of plundering, two thousand four hundred were slain by the consul Postumius; that the rest of the body that were driving booty before them, and which fell in with Quintius, by no means got off with so light a loss: that of these four thousand, and by way of stating the number exactly, two hundred and thirty, were slain.
They say there were but thirty taken, and from them the Curiae or Fraternities were named; but Valerius Antias says five hundred and twenty-seven, Juba, six hundred and eighty-three virgins; which was indeed the greatest excuse Romulus could allege, namely, that they had taken no married woman, save one only, Hersilia by name, and her too unknowingly; which showed they did not commit this rape wantonly, but with a design purely of forming alliance with their neighbors by the greatest and surest bonds.
A reference to Livy 39, 43, 2 will show that Cicero borrows his account of Flamininus' crime from the old annalist Valerius Antias. EICEREM: the phrase commonly used is not eicere, but movere, aliquem senatu. For the spelling see Roby, 144, 2; A. 10, d; H. 36, 4 and footnote 1.
But what shall we say if we are to believe Valerius Antias, who records that there were in the king's army sixty thousand men, of whom forty thousand fell, and above five thousand were taken, with two hundred and thirty military standards?
Such of these writings as are mentioned to us not one of them is preserved seem to have been not only of a wholly secondary character, but in great part even pervaded by interested falsification. Valerius Antias Lastly, Valerius Antias excelled all his predecessors in prolixity as well as in puerile story-telling.
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