Throughout the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, Valerius Maximus's Memorable Deeds and Sayings was the most widely read prose after the Bible. Bloomer revives this classic text to examine how, why, and for whom Valerius composed this collection of rhetorical examples. He argues that the work expresses the concerns and anxieties of literate first-century Romans and shows that it creates paradigms for a new culture.

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