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Updated: June 18, 2025
XXIV. MARCUS VALERIUS PROBUS, of Berytus , after long aspiring to the rank of centurion, being at last tired of waiting, devoted himself to study. He had met with some old authors at a bookseller's shop in the provinces, where the memory of ancient times still lingers, and is not quite forgotten, as it is at Rome.
Uncritical as Valerius is, and void of all thought, he is nevertheless pleasant enough reading for a vacant hour, and if we were not obliged to rate him by a lofty standard, would pass muster very well. But he is no fit company for men of genius; our only wonder is he should have so long survived.
Marcus Valerius Corvus was born at about the time when the rogations of Licinius Stolo became laws, and in early life distinguished himself as a soldier in an assault made on the Romans by the Gauls, who seem not to have all been swept away for a long time. It was in the year 349. The dreaded enemy rushed upon Rome, and the citizens took up arms in a mass.
Numerous instances are related by Pliny of tender and happy marriages, terminated only by death see, e.g., Letters, viii, 5. Pliny the elder tells how M. Lepidus died of regret for his wife after being divorced from her N.H., vii, 36. Valerius Maximus devotes a whole chapter to Conjugal Love iv, 6.
But for the former he will be indebted to his affability, kindliness, gentleness, and all those other like qualities which were possessed by Valerius, and which are described by Xenophon as existing in Cyrus.
The interpreter Valerius gives me this information about him, and Thyillus writes me word that he has been told the same story: that the fellow is with Antonius, and that Antonius, in exacting money payments, frequently remarks that a part is being collected for me, and that I have sent a freedman to look after our common interests.
His letters had been rash, and his language violent. In short, we gather from the brother's testimony that Quintus Cicero was very ill-fitted to be the civil governor of a province. The only work which we have from Cicero belonging to this year, except his letters, is the speech, or part of the speech, he made for Lucius Valerius Flaccus.
Two stories in the second and third chapters of this Life are also found in that insipid medley of fact and fable drawn up in the reign of Tiberius, by Valerius Maximus, for educational purposes; a third, which is peculiarly significant, and seems to bear the stamp of truth, is only to be found in Plutarch.
With Marcus Valerius, son of Valerius and grandson of Volesus, Titus Quintius Capitolinus, who had been thrice consul, was appointed quæstor.
Cicero had a wonderful admiration for the Greeks. "I am not ashamed to confess", he writes to his brother, "especially since my life and career have been such that no suspicion of indolence or want of energy can rest upon me, that all my own attainments are due to those studies and those accomplishments which have been handed down to us in the literary treasures and the philosophical systems of the Greeks". It was no mere rhetorical outburst, when in his defence of Valerius Flaccus, accused like Verres, whether truly or falsely, of corrupt administration in his province, he thus introduced the deputation from Athens and Lacedaemon who appeared as witnesses to the character of his client.
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