The political biographies of Cornelius Nepos / Rex Stem.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Stem, Rex.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Nepos, Cornelius--Criticism and interpretation.

Nepos, Cornelius.

Criticism and interpretation.

Physical Description:

x, 291 pages ; 25 cm

Place of Publication:

Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press, 2012.

Summary:

The Roman writer Cornelius Nepos was a friend of Cicero and Catullus and other first-century BCE authors, and portions of his encyclopedic work On Famous Men are the earliest surviving biographies written in Latin. In The Political Biographies of Cornelius Nepos, Rex Stem presents Nepos as a valuable witness to the late Republican era, whose biographies share the exemplary republican political perspective of his contemporaries Cicero and Livy. Stem argues that Nepos created the genre of grouped political biographies in order to characterize renowned Mediterranean figures as role models for Roman leaders, and he shows how Nepos invested his biographies with moral and political arguments against tyranny. This book, the first to regard Nepos as a serious thinker in his own right, also functions as a general introduction to Nepos, placing him in his cultural context. Stem examines Nepos' contributions to the growth of biography, and he defends Nepos from his critics at the same time that he lays out the political significance and literary innovation of Nepos' writings. Accessible to advanced undergraduates, this volume is addressed to a general audience of classicists and ancient historians, as well as those broadly interested in biography, historiography, and political thought.

Contents:

Chapter 1 Nepos and His Corpus 1

Chapter 2 Nepos among His Contemporaries 55

Chapter 3 Nepos the Political Biographer 96

Chapter 4 Nepos the Exemplary Biographer 128

Chapter 5 From Political History to Exemplary Political Biography 162.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780472118380

0472118382

9780472028481

0472028480

OCLC:

793221914