SOURCE: Bailey, D. R. Shackleton. Introduction to Valerius Maximus: Memorable Doings and Sayings, translated by D. R. Shackleton Bailey, pp. 1-7. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2000.

In the following introduction to his English translation of the Memorable Doings and Sayings, Bailey encapsulates scant facts from Valerius's life and comments on the composition of this collection, noting its moral purpose and modern textual history.

Nothing is known of Valerius Maximus except what can be gathered from his work. His name survives in early manuscripts and epitomists, but without praenomen. The nomen and cognomen are both common and found combined in the great patrician gens Valeria down to the later third century b.c., when Maximus was replaced by Messalla, and again occasionally under the Empire, but this author has no better claim to aristocratic ancestry than Lucretius. A reference in 5.5. praef. to imagines (family masks) belongs to an imaginary...