Philip II and Alexander the Great: Father and Son ... - Historia Antigua

292 NOTES TO PAGES 175–178
8. Velleius 2.41.1–2 (Alexander and Caesar). See Spencer 2002: 86–89,
182–86.
9. On “home” versus “away” exempla in Valerius, see, e.g., Faranda
1971: 15. Skidmore 1996: 89–92 discusses the role of pleasure and entertainment
in Valerius’ ratio of foreign to Roman exempla.
10. “Deeds and sayings worthy of memory” (1, Praef.). The text used is
Shackleton Bailey 2000; translations are my own.
11. See Spencer 2002: 2–5. Valerius’ self-rootedness in paruitas is most
straightforwardly a balance to the Optimus Maximus (Best and Greatest)
that characterizes Jupiter, two subclauses back. But before dismissing
Alexander from this magnus/paruus (great/slight) equation, consider Valerius’
extremely rare self-insertion into the text at 4.7 ext. 2b: here he
plays Hephaestion to his patron Pompeius’ Alexander (discussed below,
section 5). The in-text joke is that we’ve just been told (by Alexander) of
Hephaestion nam et hic Alexander est (this man is also Alexander, 4.7
ext. 2a).
12. We do get a magnus in the epitome of Januarius Nepotianus (1.1.
ext. 5), plus a maximus animus (greatest of spirit; highly magnanimous)
for Alexander (4.7 ext. 2a). After rex, Macedonia is the next most popular
associative term.
13. The imago was the death mask of an ancestor who has held public
offi ce; I suggest, here, that Alexander’s translation into a part of Rome’s
backstory turns him into a legendary ancestor for Rome (see Gowing 2005
for this kind of process). On imagines: Flower 1996.
14. Bloomer 1992 comprehensively discusses Valerius’ handbook as a
primer for transmitting appropriate values and shared identity. See also
André 1965 and Skidmore 1996. Wardle 2005 tabulates Valerius’
Alexander helpfully, and focuses specifi cally on how Valerius categorizes
Alexander ethically.
15. One might push the boundaries here and speculate that in
Alexander as “self-made man,” born in a Podunk town in a Mediterranean
backwater and coming to prominence specifi cally because of a
notionally just war, exemplary history was a category waiting to happen.
And Rome was the place to develop it.
16. Livy 9.18.8–19; Valerius Maximus 1, Praef.
17. Chaplin 2000 provides an excellent study of this aspect of Livy.
18. See Spencer 2002: 119–63.
19. The chapter headings are from Shackleton Bailey 2000, but probably
give a good sense of what the likely sections would have been. For a
clear summary of the text’s form see Skidmore 1996: 31–34. Skidmore
introduces three useful parallels for Valerius’ prefatory statement on the
rationale for his project: Vitruvius 5, Praef. 5; Diodorus Siculus 1.3.2–5;
Plutarch Apophthegmata, Praef. 172E.