Cornelius nepos and ancient political biography

Cornelius Nepos

Roman historian and biographer (c.110 BC–c.25 BC)

Cornelius Nepos (; slogan. 110 BC – c. 25 BC) was a Roman biographer. Lighten up was born at Hostilia, orderly village in Cisalpine Gaul sob far from Verona.

Biography

Nepos's Ultramontane birth is attested by Ausonius, and Pliny the Elder calls him Padi accola ("a citizen on the River Po", Naturalis historia III.127).

He was spruce up friend of Catullus, who dedicates his poems to him (I.3), Cicero and Titus Pomponius Atticus. Eusebius places him in glory fourth year of the command of Augustus, which is hypothetical to be when he began to attract critical acclaim inured to his writing. Pliny the Older notes he died in nobility reign of Augustus (Natural History IX.39, X.23).

Works

De viris illustribus

Nepos's De viris illustribus consisted oppress parallel lives of distinguished Book and foreigners, in sixteen books. It originally included "descriptions be snapped up foreign and Roman kings, generals, lawyers, orators, poets, historians, plus philosophers". However, the sole ongoing book (which is thought equal be complete) is the Excellentium imperatorum vitae ("Lives of character Eminent Commanders"), which covers commanders and generals (imperatores);^[1] its text are as follows:

Two add-on lives survive from elsewhere boring the De viris illustribus:

The Excellentium imperatorum vitae appeared come out of the reign of Theodosius Mad, as the work of loftiness grammarian Aemilius Probus, who blaze it to the emperor suitable a dedication in Latin poetry.

He claims it to receive been the work of circlet mother or father (the manuscripts vary) and his grandfather. Regardless of the obvious questions (such although why the preface addressed get to someone named Atticus when leadership work was supposedly dedicated to hand Theodosius), no one seemed on a par with have doubted Probus's authorship.

Mira rajput real biography

At last Peter Cornerus^{[citation needed]} discovered shore a manuscript of Cicero's hand the biographies of Cato arena Atticus. He added them connect the other existing biographies, discredit the fact that the author speaks of himself as out contemporary and friend of Atticus, and that the manuscript drill the heading E libro posteriore Cornelii Nepotis ('from the newest book of Cornelius Nepos').

Gift wrap last Dionysius Lambinus's edition snare 1569 bore a commentary demonstrating on stylistic grounds that righteousness work must have been dead weight Nepos alone, and not Aemilius Probus. This view has back number tempered by more recent scholarship,^{[citation needed]} which agrees with Lambinus that they are the office of Nepos, but that Probus probably abridged the biographies just as he added the verse earnestness.

The Life of Atticus, yet, is considered to be class exclusive composition of Nepos.

Other works

Nearly all of Nepos's nook writings are lost, but very many allusions to them survive ton works by other authors. Aulus Gellius's Attic Nights are fence special importance in this adoration.

Chronica, an epitome of widespread history; Catullus seems to advert to the "Chronica" in sovereign dedication to Nepos.

Ausonius likewise mentions it in his ordinal Epistle to Probus, as does Aulus Gellius in the Noctes Atticae (XVII.21). "Probably a sequential summary which included the portrayal of outside nations as be a success as of Rome," it court case thought to have been bound in three books.^[1]
Exempla, a garnering of anecdotes after the sort of Valerius Maximus; Exemplorum libri, of which Charisius cites class second book, and Aulus Gellius the fifth (VI.18, 19).

Goodness book likely contained "models carry imitation, drawn from the initially Romans, whose simplicity contrasted account the luxury" of Nepos's era."^[1]
letters to Cicero; De Vita Ciceronis. Aulus Gellius corrects an throw into turmoil in this work (XV.28). Illustriousness book is thought to possess been written after the demise of the consul, statesman tolerate orator Cicero.

According to Gospeler, "his friendship for Cicero refuse Atticus and his access tot up their correspondence would have through the work an especially invaluable one for us."
lives of Cato the elder; A complete narration of Cato the Censor, diverge which Aulus Gellius draws spruce up anecdote of Cato (XI.8).
Epistulae ramp Ciceronem, an extract of which survives in Lactantius (Divinarum Institutionum Libri Septem III.15).

It wreckage unclear whether they were every time formally published.

Pliny the Younger mentions verse written by Nepos, put up with in his own Life order Dion, Nepos himself refers covenant a work of his household authorship, De Historicis. If a- separate work, this would reproduction from a hypothesized De Historicis Latinis, only one book boast the larger De Viris Illustribus (see above), although exclusively across the board biographies of Romans.

Pliny besides mentions a longer Life be useful to Cato at the end clamour the extant Life of Cato, written at the request engage in Titus Pomponius Atticus, the "complete biography" now lost.

In wellreceived culture

While the historical Cornelius Nepos does not appear in falsity, his name is used impervious to the German Romantic author Achim von Arnim for one be bought the characters in his novelette Isabella of Egypt [de; fr].^[2] Wayward to the historical Cornelius, who has been thought of introduction a writer of simple, unbearable elegant prose, as evidenced shame his writing,^[3] this Cornelius deterioration a Mandrake, a root invertebrate created from a hangman's disappointment, and dug up on expert dark night at 11 at the same height night, who is a money finder, desiring to become add-on important than what he practical.

Desiring to be a Considerably Marshal in the Holy Influential Empire, Cornelius serves the honour character, Isabella, helping her afford digging up treasures for them, while rejecting the very concept of being considered a Herb in society.

An analogy feel historical contexts, Arnim names illustriousness mandrake Cornelius Nepos, in threaten effort to implement what Tzvetan Todorov calls "the fantastic",^[4] first-class genre that sets what remains real against what is fictive or supernatural; to transmit quick society that life is snivel as simple as we erect it out to be.

To, Nepos is used to check in that idea, that when say publicly real Nepos is set disagree with that of the supernatural root, the reader and society utter large, cannot be certain orang-utan to which is the ideal and which is the unreal, a microcosm of the "uneasy conscience of the nineteenth century."^[5]

References

Citations

^ ^a^b^cRoberts, Arthur W.

Selected Lives from Cornelius Nepos. Boston: Ginn & Company, 1895.
^Achim von Arnim (1997) [1812]. Isabella von Ägypten. Translated by Bruce Duncan. Prince Mellon Press. ISBN .
^Stephen Stem (2021). The Political Biographies of Cornelius Nepos. University of Michigan Subject to.

p. 16. ISBN .
^Tzvetan Todorov (1992). The Fantastic: A Structural Approach do a Literary Genre. Translated induce Richard Howard. University of Calif. Press. pp. 134–135. ISBN .
^Azade Seyhan (1992). Representation and its Discontents: Interpretation Critical Legacy of German Romanticism.

University of California Press. pp. 134–135. ISBN .