Nepos, Cornelius

Nepos, Cornelius (nē`pŏs), c.100 B.C.–c.25 B.C., Roman historian. He was an intimate friend of Pomponius Atticus, Cicero, and Catullus. His only extant work is a collection of biographies, mostly from a lost larger work, De viris illustribus [on illustrious men]. The general method was to compare the lives of great Roman and non-Roman leaders. Nepos wrote in a popular manner in clear and simple Latin; his work was sometimes inaccurate, but significant in the history of biography writing.

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Nepos, Cornelius 

Born circa 100 B.C. in Cisalpine Gaul; died after 32 B.C. in Rome. Ancient Roman historian and poet. Nepos was the author of the Chronica (a no longer extant short outline of Greek and Roman history) and the Exempla, a collection of historical anecdotes and stories dealing with his-tory, geography, and the natural sciences, also no longer extant. Another of Nepos’ works, Concerning Famous Men, consisting of at least 16 volumes, contained the biographies of foreign and Roman rulers, military commanders, historians, poets, orators, and grammarians. An excerpt of this work, Concerning Out-standing Foreign Military Leaders (23 biographies), and fragments from the volume Concerning the Latin Historians (biographies of Cato the Elder and Atticus) have survived. Nepos was also the author of some erotic verses.

WORKS

C. Nepotis quae supersunt. Leipzig, 1871.
In Russian translation:
Izbrannye biografii, 5th ed. St. Petersburg, 1908.
Biografii znamenitykh polkovodtsev. Kiev, 1883.

REFERENCE

Tiiunelite, la. Tvorchestvo Korneliia Nepota. Vilnius, 1958. (Dissertation synopsis.)