Nepos, Cornelius

, a Latin historian, flourished in the time of Julius Caesar, and lived, according to St. Jerome, to the sixth year of Augustus, about the year of Rome 716. He was an Italian, if we may credit Catullus, and born at Hostilia, a small town in the territory of Verona, in Cisalpine Gaul. Ausonius, however, will have it that he was born in the Gauls; and they may both be in. the right, provided that, under the name of Gaul, is comprehended Gallia Cisalpina, which is in Italy. Leander Alberti thinks Nepos’s country was Verona; and he is sure that he was born either in that city or neighbourhood. He was the intimate friend of Cicero and Atticus, and wrote the lives of the Greek historians, as he himself attests in that of Dion, speaking of Philistus. What he says | in the lives of Cato and Hannibal, proves, that he had also written the lives of the Latin captains and historians. He wrote some other excellent works, which are lost.

All that we have left of his at present is, “The Lives of the illustrious Greek and Roman Captains” which were a long time ascribed to Æmilius Probus, who published them, as it is said, under his own name, to insinuate himself into the favour of the emperor Theodosius; but, in the course of time, the fraud was discovered. The first edition, under the name of JEmilius Probus, was that at Venice, 1471, fol. Since that the most valued editions are that of Aldus, 1522, 12mo; Longolius, 1543, 8vo Lambinus, 1569, 4to Bosius, 1657 and 1675, 8vo the Variorum, of 1675, 8vo at Oxford, 1697, 8vo of Staverenus, 1773, 8vo ofHeusinger, 1747, 8vo of Fischer, 1806, 8vo and of Oxford, 1803, 8vo. ¹