(Caius Velius), an ancient Roman historian, who flourished in the reign of Tiberius Caesar, was born in the year of Rome 735. His ancestors were illustrious for their merit and their offices. His grandfather espoused the party of Tiberius Nero, the emperor's father; but being old and infirm, and not able to accompany Nero when he retired from Naples, he ran himself through with his sword. His father was a soldier of rank, and so was Paterculus himself. He was a military tribune when Caius Caesar, a grandson of Augustus, had an interview with the king of the Parthians, in an island of the river Euphrates, in the year 753. He commanded the cavalry in Germany under Tiberius; and accompanied that prince for nine years successively in all his expeditions. He received honourable rewards from him; but we do not find that he was preferred to any higher dignity than the praetorship. The praises he bestows upon Sejanus give some probability to the conjecture, that he was looked upon as a friend of this favourite, and consequently that he was involved in his ruin. His death is placed by Mr Dodwell in the year of Rome 784, when he was in his 50th year.

He wrote an abridgment of the Roman history in two books, which is very curious. His purpose was only to deduce things from the foundation of Rome to the time wherein he lived, but he began his work with things previous to that memorable era: for, though Paterculus, the beginning of his first book is wanting, we yet find in what remains of it, an account of many cities more ancient than Rome. He promised a larger history; and no doubt would have executed it well: for during his military expeditions he had seen, as he tells us, the provinces of Thrace, Macedonia, Achaia, Asia Minor, and other more easterly regions; especially upon the shores of the Euxine sea, which had furnished his mind with much entertaining and useful knowledge. In the Abridgment which we have, many particulars are related that are nowhere else to be found; and this makes it the more valuable. The style of Paterculus, though miserably disguised through the carelessness of transcribers, and impossible to be restored to purity for want of manuscripts, is yet manifestly worthy of his age, which was the time of pure Latinity. The greatest excellence of this historian lies in his manner of commending and blaming those he speaks of; which he does in the finest terms and most delicate expressions. He is, however, condemned, and indeed with the greatest reason, for his partiality to the house of Augustus; and for making the most extravagant eulogies, not only upon Tiberius, but even upon his favourite Sejanus: whom, though a vile and cruel monster, Paterculus celebrates as one of the most excellent persons the Roman commonwealth had produced. Liphius, though he praises him in other respects, yet censures him most severely for his insincerity and partiality. "Velleius Paterculus (says he), raises my indignation: he represents Sejanus as endowed with all good qualities. The impudence of this historian! But we know, that he was born, and died, to the destruction of mankind. After many commendations, he concludes, that Livia was a woman more resembling the gods than men: and as to Tiberius, he thinks it a crime to speak otherwise of him than as of an immortal Jove. What sincere and honest mind can bear this? On the other hand, how artfully does he everywhere conceal the great qualities of Caesar Germanicus! how obliquely does he ruin the reputation of Agrippina and others, whom Tiberius was thought to hate! In short, he is nothing but a court-prostitute. You will say, perhaps, it was unsafe to speak the truth at those times: I grant it; but if he could not write the truth, he ought not to have written lies: none are called to account for silence." La Mothe le Vayer has made a very just remark upon this occasion: "The same fault (says he) may be observed in many others, who have written the history of their own times, with a design to be published while they lived."

It is strange, that a work so elegant and worthy to be preserved, and of which, by reason of its shortness, copies might be so easily taken, should have been so near being lost. One manuscript only has had the luck to be found, as well of this author among the Latins, as of Hesychius among the Greeks: in which, says a great critic of our own nation, "The faults of the scribes are found so numerous, and the defects so beyond all redress, that notwithstanding the pains of the learned and most acute critics for two whole centuries, these books still are, and are like to continue, a mere heap of errors." No ancient author but Priscian makes mention of Paterculus: the moderns have done him infinitely more justice, and have illustrated him with notes and and commentaries. He was first published, from the manuscript of Morbac, by Rhenanus, at Basil in 1520; afterwards by Lipsius at Leyden in 1581; then by Gerard Vossius in 1639; next by Boeclerus at Strasbourg in 1642; then by Thyssus and others; and, lastly, by Peter Burman at Leyden 1719, in 8vo. To the Oxford edition in 1693, 8vo, were prefixed the Annales Vellianiani of Mr Dodwell, which shew deep learning and a great knowledge of antiquity.