NEPOS, Cornelius, a Roman historian, friend of Catullus, Cicero, and Pomponius Atticus, was probably a native of Verona. Nothing is known of his life, but he is recorded to have written a universal history under the title Chrqnica, letters to Cicero, and other works, especially a series of biographies styled De Viris Illustribus. It is one of the problems of Latin literature whether or not any of these works have been preserved. There is a series of biographies, chiefly of Greek generals, first printed at Venice in 1471 under the title Aemilii Probi de Vita Excellentium. Other later editions bear slightly varying titles, and add the lives of Cato and Atticus. Many MSS. expressly assign the last to Cornelius Nepos, and in 1569 Lambinus, in a famous edition of the Lives, maintained that the whole of them were the work of Nepos. The chief argument in favour of this view is founded on the language, which is a model of chaste, elegant Latinity. The view of Lambinus has been very generally accepted; the only question debated is whether all the lives are in the original condition, or whether some of them have been modified or abridged by Aemilius Probus. The editions of Nepos’s Lives are extremely numerous, the book having long been much read in schools....
NEPOS, Julius, the last but one of the Roman emperors of the West, from 474 to 475, was a nephew of that Marcellinus who in the latter half of the 5th century had established a semi-independent principality in Dalmatia. After the death of Olybrius, on October 23, 472, the throne of the West remained for some months vacant, during which Italy was abandoned to lawless barbarians. On the 5th of March 473, the army, at the instigation of Gundobaid the Burgundian, who had succeeded to the power and authority of his uncle Ricimer, raised Glycerius, an obscure officer, to the imperial dignity. Meanwhile Leo I., emperor of the East, was discussing with his council the election of a new colleague for the Western empire. At length choice was made of Nepos, who married a niece of the empress Verina. After considerable delay he landed in Italy and took Glycerius prisoner at Portus at the mouth of the Tiber in 474. Glycerius, being compelled to enter the church, was appointed bishop of Salona. The only event of the reign of Nepos was the inglorious cession to the Visigoths of the province of Auvergne. In 475 Orestes, father of Augustulus, who afterwards was the last emperor of the West, raised the standard of revolt and marched against Nepos at Ravenna. The emperor fled into Dalmatia, and continued to reside at Salona until his assassination by two of his own officers in 480. There exists some doubt, however, whether his death was, as Gibbon affirms, caused by his former rival, the bishop of Salona.
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