Ausus es unus Italorum:
Cornelius Nepos Reconsidered

The title of our panel comes from the opening poem of Catullus, in which he declares the innovative and learned Cornelius Nepos to be the worthy recipient of his polished new poetry. Catullus’ endorsement suggests that those interested in the culture of the late Roman Republic would benefit from careful study of Nepos, but Nepos’ clumsiness as a researcher and his infelicities as a stylist have often caused him to be dismissed. “It is difficult to believe that there is any classical author more tedious than Nepos, less capable of telling a good story well,” writes Michael Winterbottom (1979). In the Cambridge History of Classical Literature, Nicholas Horsfall mocks Nepos as an “intellectual pygmy” (1982). Nepos is no Catullus, admittedly, but such verdicts are so harsh that they impede scholars from providing Nepos the more balanced assessment he deserves. This panel seeks to take a fresh look at Nepos, admitting his faults but also looking to point out his insights, his innovations, and his largely untapped potential as a source for understanding both the origins of Roman biography and the intellectual and political mood of his times.

We are not the first to advocate this effort. Nicholas Horsfall himself rued his initial judgment of Nepos and atoned with a sharp commentary on key selections from Nepos (see 1989, v). In the previous year came two seminal articles, one by Carlotta Dionisotti in JRS that revealed how Nepos’ republicanism lurks in his biographies, and one by Fergus Millar in G&R that documents Nepos’ important place as an unparalleled equestrian voice from the Triumviral years. Joseph Geiger published a monograph in 1985 that boldly advocated Nepos as the formative figure of Roman biography, yet he does not seem to have succeeded in bringing more scholars to engage with his pioneering Nepos. We therefore feel that the time is right for another generation of scholars to take up Nepos’ cause again.

We propose to examine Nepos in five different yet overlapping contexts. Our goal is to be fair and well rounded, recognizing his faults but not focused on them. The speakers of this panel will consider Nepos 1) in his own historical context and as a source for his own historical times; 2) as a student of the subject matter of his biographies, as demonstrated by his presentation of generalship in his collection On Foreign Generals; 3) as a culturally interested comparative historiographer; 4) as a foundational figure in the genre of Roman biography; and 5) as one whose reception has been unfairly hindered by the vagaries of the manuscript tradition and the biases of modern scholarship. In contextualizing Nepos in these different ways, we hope to demonstrate that Nepos’ position in the midst of the cultural, literary, and political ferment that was the last generation of the Roman Republic lends his extant writings an interest and a value that much existing scholarship has overlooked. While he will always be in the shadow of his friends Cicero and Catullus, he merits more of the spotlight than he has generally received.

A Brief Bibliography on Nepos, including that cited in the abstracts

Anselm, Sabine. 2004. Struktur und Transparenz: Eine literaturwissenschaftliche Analyse der Feldherrnviten des Cornelius Nepos. Altertumswissenschaftliches Kolloquium 11, Franz Steiner Verlag.

Cairns, F. 1969. ‘Catullus 1.’ Mnemosyne 22.153-58.

Decreus, F. 1984. ‘Catulle c. 1, Cornelie Nepote et les Aitia de Callimaque.’ Latomus 43:842-60.

Dionisotti, A. C. 1988. “Nepos and the Generals.” JRS 78: 35-49.

Elder, J.P. 1967. ‘Catullus 1, His Poetic Creed, and Nepos.’ HSPh 71.143-49.

Geiger, Joseph. 1985. “Cicero and Nepos.” Latomus 44: 261-70.

Geiger, Joseph. 1985. Cornelius Nepos and Ancient Political Biography. Historia Einzelschriften 47, Franz Steiner Verlag.

Geiger, Joseph. 1988. “Nepos and Plutarch: From Latin to Greek political biography.” ICS 13: 245-56.

Gibson, B.J. 1995. ‘Catullus 1.5-7’ CW 45.569-573.

Hallett, Judith P. 2002. “Cornelius Nepos and Constructions of Gender in Augustan Poetry.” Hommages à Carl Deroux I. Collection Latomus 266: 254-66

Horsfall, Nicholas. 1982. “Prose and Mime.” In Cambridge History of Classical Literature. Cambridge University Press. 2.286-94.

Horsfall, Nicholas. 1989. Cornelius Nepos: A Selection, including the Lives of Cato and Atticus. Oxford University Press.

Marshall, P. K., ed. 1991. Cornelius Nepos. B. G. Teubner. 3^rd ed.

Marshall, P. K. 1977. The Manuscript Tradition of Cornelius Nepos. BICS Suppl. 37.

McCarty, T. G. 1974. “The Content of Cornelius Nepos’ De viris illustribus.” CW 67: 383-91.

Millar, Fergus. 1988. “Cornelius Nepos, Atticus, and the Roman Revolution.” Greece and Rome 35: 40-55.

Momigliano, Arnaldo. 1993. The Development of Greek Biography. Harvard University Press. Expanded edition.

Nipperdey, K., and K. Witte, eds. 2002. Cornelius Nepos: Vitae Excellentium Imperatorum. Weidmann. 14^th ed.

Osgood, Josiah. 2006. Caesar’s Legacy: Civil War and the Emergence of the Roman Empire. Cambridge University Press.

Rawson, Elizabeth. 1985. Intellectual Life in the Late Roman Republic. Duckworth.

Schmidt, Peter L. 2001. “Die Libri de Viris Illustribus: Zu Entstehung, Überlieferung und Rezeption einer Gattung der römischen Historiographie. ” In L'invention des grands hommes de la Rome antique. Die Konstruktion der grossen Männer Altroms. Actes du Colloque du Collegium Beatus Rhenanus, Augst 16-18 Septembre 1999. Marianne Coudry and Thomas Späth, eds. de Boccard. 173-87.

Syme, Ronald. 1971. “Bad Trip.” New York Review of Books 15.12 (Jan. 7, 1971). Accessed July 25, 2007. http://www.nybooks.com/articles/10706.

Titchener, Frances. 2003. “Cornelius Nepos and the Biographical Tradition.” Greece and Rome 50: 85-99.

Toher, Mark. 2002. “Nepos’ Second Edition.” Philologus 146: 139-49.

Tuplin, C. J. 2000. “Nepos and the Origins of Political Biography.” Studies in Latin Literature and Roman History X. Collection Latomus 254: 124-161.

Wallace-Hadrill, Andrew. 1983. Suetonius: The Scholar and his Caesars. Duckworth.

Winterbottom, Michael. 1979. Review of the first edition of Marshall 1991. CJ 29: 55-6.

Wiseman, T. P. 1979. Clio’s Cosmetics. Leicester University Press.