Kenney_and_Clausen B.M.W.(eds.) - Get a Free Blog

PROSE AND MIME
by pederasty, sister-marriage, dancing, acting, and other non-Roman mores
displayed by his subjects. This audience will have been not appalled but comforted
by references to temples of Minerva (i.e. Athena) at Sparta and Jupiter
Optimus Maximus (i.e. Baal) at Carthage, or to a Spartan senate and magistrates
(i.e. gerousia and ephors)!
The 'Foreign generals' are arranged in rough chronological sequence; it
seems likely that the three non-Greeks (Datames, Hannibal, Hamilcar) were
added in a second edition, which will, it seems, have required a larger papyrus
than any single Latin book hitherto. There is no uniformity of lengdi or
treatment; the Agesilaus and Epaminondas stand out as formal eulogies. The
remainder are in the 'Peripatetic' tradition, employing anecdote as moral
illustration in the manner of Aristotle's successors. Nepos cheerfully admits to
irrelevant digression in the Pelopidas, 1 to show 'what disaster usually results
from excessive confidence'.
In merit, the Cato and Atticus, which are all diat survive of the 'Latin
historians', clearly come highest. The Cato is an abbreviation of a longer life
written at Atticus' request; the Atticus, whose manner is closer to the eulogies,
displays intermittently personal knowledge and understanding. The Alcibiades
recaptures a little of its subject's variety and energy. But it is hard to speak well
of the 'Foreign generals'. Their wide and abiding popularity as a schoolbook
is owed more to their morality and simplicity that to any historical value or
stylistic merit. Nepos names many Greek historical authorities, but his knowledge
of Greek was demonstrably poor and it is likely that much of his scholarly
plumage was borrowed. To his credit, though, he did recognize the historical
value of Cicero's works. Yet admiration is promptly cancelled by the grossest
of Nepos' many absurd exaggerations: Cicero not only predicted events in his
own lifetime but quae nunc usu ueniunt cecinit ut uates ' sang like a seer events
that are now being experienced'. 2 Inaccuracies are startling and innumerable:
Miltiades is confused with his uncle of the same name; Lemnos is placed among
the Cyclades; the battles of Mycale and the Eurymedon are confused; the
narrative of Hannibal's crossing of the Alps was a travesty — and Nepos was
a native of Pavia! Nor will it do to palliate the deficiencies of Nepos' style by
arguing that the Latin language was as yet undeveloped: the 'Lives' postdate
the whole corpus of Cicero's work. His periods are not sustained, his excessive
alliteration and strivings for antithesis annoy, his archaisms and colloquialisms
are used without apparent purpose.
Nepos' scheme was ambitious and influential (for Plutarch, evidently), yet
the execution often fell regrettably short.
1 16.3.1.
292
2 25.17.4.
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