Single leaf, once bisected horizontally and then reused as endleaves in a later book, the original leaf with double column of at least 46 lines of a short and rounded Italian bookhand, epitome of text of Valerius Maximus underlined in red, one-line initials in red or blue with penwork in contrasting colour, one Early Modern Italian word scrawled at foot of one side (from use as an endleaf), scuffs and stains, and some sections hard to read in natural light, edges once damaged and skilfully replaced with modern vellum, 225 by 145mm
Valerius Maximus was a Classical Roman writer who worked within the literary circle of Sextus Pompeius (consul and then later proconsul of Asia), during the reign of Emperor Tiberius (14-37 CE). His work was composed as commonplace book of historical anecdotes for use in the schools of rhetoric, mainly drawing on Roman and Greek history. In the Middle Ages, it continued in its original purpose and drew significant additional interest as popular reading owing to its wealth of information about life in the Ancient World. Thus, the work survives in many copies and forms, and was made into numerous epitomes, the most well-known of which are that of Julius Paris and Januarius Nepotianus in the fourth or fifth centuries. The text here on the side with the Early Modern scrawl concerns the events of I.8.6-7: the siege of the city of Thurii (eastern Calabria), by the Lucanians and Bruttians, who were allies of the Romans. During the siege a young man of extraordinary strength and ability appeared and is later awarded the 'crown of valour' for his martial efforts
