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NEPOS, CORNELIUS (c. 99–24 B.C.), Roman historian, friend of Catullus, Cicero andAtticus, was born in Upper Italy (perhaps at Verona or Ticinum). He wrote: Chronica, an epitome of universal history; Exempla, a collection of anecdotes after the style of Valerius Maximus; letters to Cicero; lives of Cato the elder and Cicero; and De viris illustribus, parallel lives of distinguished Romans and foreigners, in sixteen books. One section of this voluminous work (De excellentibus ducibus exterarum gentiurn, more commonly known as Vitae excellentium imperatorum) and the biographies of Cato and Atticus from another (De Latinis historicis),have been preserved. Erotic poems and a geographical treatise are also attributed to him. Nepos is not altogether happy in the subjects of his biographies, and he writes rather as a panegyrist than as a biographer, although he can rebuke his own countrymen on occasion. The Lives contain
Editions of the Lives (especially selections) are extremely numerous; text by E. O. Winstedt (Oxford, 1904), C. L. Roth (1881), C. G. Cobet (1881), C. Halm and A. Fleckeisen (1889), with lexicon for school use; with notes, 0. Browning and W. R. Inge (1888), J. C. Rolfe (U.S. 1894), A. Weidner and J. Schmidt (1902), C. Erbe (1892), C. Nipperdey and B. Lupus (ed. maj., 1879, school ed., 1895), J. Siebelis and O. Stange (1897).