La storia greca di età classica in Valerio Massimo (490-362)

The present paper aims at studying Valerius Maximus ’ presentation of Greek history between 490 and 362 an d it is divided into three paragraphs. The first deals with the period from the Persian to the Peloponnesian war, while the second with the ages of Spartan and Theban hegemony. The third paragraph presents the conclusions of the survey , focusing in particular on the chronological distribution of the episodes treated (1), on Valerius Maximus ’ interests (2), on his evaluations about the reported deeds and sayings (3) and on the much debated problem of his sources (4). The analysis of the considered pas sages is grouped around some thematic cores , mostly concerning characters con sidered emblematic; more rarely the attention is specifically focused on episodes that do not have a reference to single personalities. Moreover, it is evident that Valerius Maxim us chooses to present facts and protagonists not much with the aim of illustrating fundamental events in Greek history, but rather on account of their exemplarity, or rather their function of providing an example (positi ve or negative) related to the chapt er in which they are inserted. This is the reason why the same historical figure not infrequently appears under different chapters and is sometimes presented in a different light, with a favourable or unfavourable bias , depending on the context in which it is set (and, of course, on the source from which Valerius Maximus draws the exemplum ). The author, in fact, seems to produce stand - alone “ pills ” of history and his work seems to acquire sense not so mu ch in the horizon of an overall comparison be tween the Greek and Roman world , but rather in the message that each of the chapters and each of the exempla wants to communicate.