VELLEIUS PATERCULUS, MARCUS (c. 19 B.C.—C. A.D. 31), Roman historian. Although his praenomen is given as Marcus by Priscian, some modern scholars identify him with Gaius Velleius Paterculus, whose name occurs in an inscription on a north African milestone (C.I.L. viii. 10, 311). He belonged to a distinguished Campanian family, and early entered the army. He served as military tribune in Thrace, Macedonia, Greece and the East, and in A.D. 2 was present at the interview on the Euphrates between Gaius Caesar, grandson of Augustus, and the Parthian king. Afterwards, as praefect of cavalry and legatus, he served for eight years (from A.D. 4) in Germany and Pannonia under Tiberius. He was quaestor in A.D. 7, praetor in 15, and was still alive in 30. He may have been put to death in 31 as a friend of Seianus. He wrote a compendium of Roman history from the dispersion of the Greeks after the siege of Troy down to the death of Livia (A.D. 29). The period from the death of Caesar to
that of Augustus is treated most fully, and the disproportion is accentuated by the loss of a great deal of the early history. Most of the work is professedly a compendium ; where he allows him self scope his style shows distinct traces of the Silver Age : antith esis, epigram, the breakdown of the periodic sentence.
Editio princeps, Basle, 1520; early editions by Justus Lipsius, J. Gruter, N. Heinsius, P. Burmann ; modern editions, Ruhnken and Frotscher (1830-39), J. C. Orelli (1835), F. Kritz (1840, ed. ram. 1848), F. Haase (1858), C. Halm (1876), R. Ellis (2898). Eng. trans. by J. S. Watson in Bohn's Classical Library. See also J. Wight Duff, Literary History of Rome in the Silver Age (1927).