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The Triumvirate, with Cæsar at its head, had finally trodden down all law; and yet every one was clamoring for legal rights! Then he sings the praises of Cassius, but declares that he does not dare to give him credit in that place for the greatest deed he had done. He means, of course, the murder of Cæsar. Paterculus tells us that all these things were decreed by the Senate. But he is wrong.
It seems an ordinary law of providence that individuals of consummate genius should be born and flourish at the same period, or at least at short intervals from each other, a circumstance of which Velleius Paterculus protested he could never discover the real cause.
Velleius Paterculus has written its happier aspects: he describes how the "Pax Augusta," the "Roman Peace," delivered every quarter of the world from violence. He celebrates the return of Justice and prosperity, of order, of mild and equable taxation, of military discipline and magisterial authority. It is like the Saturnian Reign, which Virgil sings in the Eclogue "Pollio."
In the history of painting, after the splendid epoch of Raphael, Titian, and Correggio, we meet with pleasure the Oarraccis, Domenichino, Guido, and Albano; as we read Paterculus, Quintilian, Seneca, Juvenal, and Silius Italicus, after their immortal masters, Cicero, Livy, Virgil, and Horace.
I hope that, in consequence of those minute informations, I may be able to say of you, what Velleius Paterculus says of Scipio; that in his whole life, 'nihil non laudandum aut dixit, aut fecit, aut sensit. There is a great deal of good company in Leipsig, which I would have you frequent in the evenings, when the studies of the day are over.
Gaius Velleius Paterculus, a Roman officer, who after passing with credit through high military appointments, entered the general administrative service of the Empire, and rose to the praetorship, wrote, in the reign of Tiberius, an abridgment of Roman history in two books, which hardly rises beyond the mark of the military man who dabbles in letters.
None, certainly; but it is a continued expression of the feeling that has prevailed since Catiline's time. In his own age Cicero and Sallust, who were opposed in all their political views, combined to speak ill of him. In the next, Virgil makes him as suffering his punishment in hell. In the next, Velleius Paterculus speaks of him as the conspirator whom Cicero had banished.
But over against the hard words of Tacitus, it is only fair to place the commendations of Paterculus, and even Tacitus remarks, that after the fall of Sejanus, Tiberius became worse; like Henry VIII., after the fall of Wolsey. Livia and Sejanus are said by Tacitus, to have restrained the worst passions of the Emperor.
The bland Lactantius replied in these terms: "He who has just spoken is assuredly the best historian in Paradise, for Herodotus, Thucydides, Polybius, Livy, Velleius Paterculus, Cornelius Nepos, Suetonius, Manetho, Diodorus Siculus, Dion Cassius, and Lampridius are deprived of the sight of God, and Tacitus suffers in hell the torments that are reserved for blasphemers.
Alit oemulatio ingenia, says PATERCULUS, et nunc invidia, nunc admiratio incitationem accendit: 'Emulation is the spur of wit; and sometimes envy, sometimes admiration quickens our endeavours.
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