Indeed, the fusion of family and cultural history, the linking of cultural developments with politics, make his history one of the critical documents of the early Roman Empire.
Velleius was the model Augustan loyalist, with roots in both camps during the civil wars that shaped the Roman society in which he lived. His grandfather had supported the losing side with remarkable consistency as a supporter of Pompey, whom Julius Caesar defeated in the civil war of 49-48 B.C. Velleius's grandfather served as a senior staff officer first with Caesar's assassin Marcus Brutus in 44-42 B.C. and then committed suicide in 40 B.C. after siding with Tiberius Nero in a revolt against Augustus (2.76). Velleius's uncle, a member of the senate, had participated in the prosecution of Cassius, another of Caesar's assassins, in 43 B.C. (2.69.5). The family had long been prominent in Velleius's native Campania before its members moved on to the political stage at Rome. An ancestor was the Decius Magius who had fought for Rome against Hannibal in the second Punic War (218-201 B.C.); a great-great-great (") grandfather, Minatius Magius, had remained loyal to Rome in the Social War of 90-88 B.C. (2.16.2).
Velleius himself entered public life as a military tribune in the Balkan campaigns of Marcus Vinicius (the father of the recipient of his history) in 1 B.C.
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