NEPOS, Cornelius, a Latin writer, who was the friend of Cicero, Atticus, and the poet Catullus, and flourished B. c. 40. It is uncertain where he was born, but Pliny (iii. 22, 2) calls him Padi accola; and his friendship with Catullus makes it not improbable that Hostilia, near Verona, where that poet was born, was also his birthplace. We possess no information respecting his private life; but many of his works are cited by later writers. 1. His Chronicles or Annals, probably in three books, of which the fragments do not enable us to decide whether they were confined to the history of Rome, or included that of all nations. Some have asserted that this was a mere translation of the work of Apollodorus on the same subject; but they have no sufficient grounds for so believing. 2. The Exemplorum Libri, of which the fifth book is cited by Aulus Gellius (vii. 18), and which seems to have been a work containing remarkable transactions selected from history; but this may have been only another title for his work. 3. The Lives of Illustrious Men, of which the sixteenth book is cited, and the lives we now possess no doubt formed a part. 4. The Lives of Historians (Nep. Dion, iii.), which included both Greek and Latin. It seems not unlikely that the biographical sketch still remaining of Atticus, and the longer one of Porcius Cato, which he mentions (Cato, iii.), belonged to this collection. 5. The Letters to Cicero, which must have been published, as some of them are quoted by Lactantius (Inst. iii. 15). It would appear that he had also made successful attempts in poetry (Plin. Ep. V. 3).

We possess a work under the name of Nepos, Vitae Excellentium Imperatorum, which is not mentioned by any ancient writer under this title. It contains short biographical sketches of twenty commanders, mostly Greek; an essay, De Regibus, which is little else than the mere names of Greek and Persian kings; and the lives of Hamilcar and Hannibal. There are also two other biographical sketches of Atticus and Cato, which used to be separated from the rest, because they were not found in all the manuscripts, or, when found, were entitled Ex libro Com. Nepotis de Latinis Historicis, whilst the others used to be considered as the work of a certain Aemilius Probus, whose name was found in all the manuscripts. The following unpoetical lines were found to precede them:

Vade liber noster, fato meliore memento, Cum legat haec dominus, te sciat esse meum. Si roget auctorem, paullatim detege nostrum Tunc domino nomen, me sciet esse Probum.

This Aemilius Probus was long considered as a contemporary of Nepos; but he is now generally believed to be the praefectuspraetorio to whom Ausonius addresses his sixteenth epistle, and is supposed to have lived in the reign of Theodosius, A. d. 370. At first, however, this work appeared under the name of Probus, and was thus published 1471, and in the following editions till 1563. Gifanius in 1566 first directed the attention of the literary world to Nepos as the author; and subsequent investigation has nearly set the question at rest. Attempts have, however, been recently made by an Italian critic (in his Saggio di un Esame critico per restituire ad Emilio Probo il libro De Vitis Excell. Imp. creduto communemente de Corn. Nepote, Venez. 1818, et Kohen; and in Considerazioni sut Saggio di unEsame del Sign. Rindi. Mediol. 1819) to revive the old opinion; and he founds his belief on the authority of the manuscripts and of the poetical address or dedication, on the silence of ancient writers, to whom these lives seem to have been unknown, on several mistakes in history and chronology which appear in the work, and on the language, which he considers as unworthy of the golden age of Roman literature. (See this question treated fully by Bardili, in his preface to his edition, Stuttgard, 1820; and by Dahne, Lips. 1827.)