Cornelius Nepos

Cornelius Nepos was born about 110 BC in northern Italy, in Cisalpine Gaul; Pliny the Elder calls him a dweller on the Po. He moved to Rome as a young man and lived there as a private scholar, never entering public office. He was a friend of Cicero, with whom he corresponded, and of Titus Pomponius Atticus, the wealthy Roman knight whose life he later wrote. The poet Catullus, a fellow native of the north, dedicated his book of poems to him.

Nepos wrote a good deal, including a universal chronicle, collections of anecdotes and a number of biographies, but almost all of it is lost. The one substantial work to survive is part of his De Viris Illustribus, "On Famous Men": the book on foreign commanders (De Excellentibus Ducibus Exterarum Gentium), with a short life of Cato and a memoir of Atticus drawn from other parts of the series. He seems to have died during the reign of Augustus.

The Lives are brief, plain-spoken portraits of Greek and Carthaginian generals, from Miltiades and Themistocles to Epaminondas, Alcibiades and Hannibal. They have long been read by students of Latin for their simple style, and they remain a lively source of anecdote about the Greek world. The work given here is the English prose translation by John Selby Watson (1853), without his notes.