NEPOS, CORNELIUS

born c. 100 BC died c. 25 BC Roman historian, correspondent and friend of Cicero, and the friend to whom Catullus dedicated his poems. Nepos came, like Catullus, from northern Italy. His principal writings were De viris illustribus (On Famous Men), comprising brief biographies of distinguished Romans and foreigners; Chronica, which introduced to the Roman reader a Greek invention, the universal comparative chronology; Exempla, which consisted of anecdotes; possibly a universal geography to match the Chronica; and biographies of the elder Cato and Cicero. There survive only one complete and one partial book from the De viris illustribus; the biographies in these extant texts are mostly quite brief, being a few characteristic anecdotes strung together to illustrate trite moral principles. Nepos is not notable as a literary stylist; he wrote simply, but without elegance or purity.