Cornelius Nepos, ‘‘Atticus,’’ and the Roman Revolution andhadwrittenmostofhisbiographyofAtticusbeforethelatterdiedatthe
endofMarch..Hethenaddedchapters–.Forreasonswhichwe
willsee,itisparticularlyunfortunatethatwecannottellwhich,ifany,ofthe
events of the following years had already happened before hewrote these
concludingchapters.AtanyrateNeposhimselfcanhardlyhavebeenborn
laterthanthes..,andperhapsconsiderablyearlier.Hisstatement(Att.
,)thatFortunawilledthatheshouldsurviveAtticus,maysuggestthathis
birthfellbeforethebeginningofthefirstcentury.
Neposisthussomeonewhoinhismodestwayreflectsmanyofthemajor
tendencies of Roman societyand culture in the first century..The fact
thathecanbeseenasrepresentatively‘‘Roman’’ishoweveritselfareflection
ofthatwell-knownprocessbywhichthegreatestageofRomanliterature,
andwithitourconceptionsof‘‘Rome,’’weretheproductofpeopleofnon-
Romanorigin.
Atticushimself,however,wasdifferent,forhecamefromalonglineof
nativeRomans‘‘descendedashewasfromtheremotestoriginsoftheRoman
race’’asNepossays(,).ItmaybethatinstressingthisNeposwasindeed
speakingfromthestandpointofa‘‘newRoman.’’Moreimportanthowever
forthesignificanceofthemodelwhichtheLifesetouttopresentisthefact
that Atticus was aneques.The significance of that lies firstly in the termi-
nologywhichNeposusestodescribeAtticus’rank:‘‘retaineduninterrupted
theequestrianrank[dignitas]inheritedfromhisforbears’’(,).Itisstriking
thatdignitascanbeusedofapersonalstatusnotassociatedwithanypublic
office,^8 orstilllesswithanypositiveachievement.Infact,althoughNepos
cannot have meant to say that Atticus formally inherited equestrian rank
from his ancestors, he certainly does represent thisdignitasas having been
inarealsensederivedfromthem.Thebiasofourevidencemeansthatwe
normallyseesocialstatusinRomefromabove.Neposhereaffordsusarare
glimpseofthestatusofalong-standingequestrianfamily,asseenfrombelow,
orfromoutside.
TheLifeisthusaliterarypresentationofthebiographyofanequestrian—
theonlyoneinthewholeofRomanliterature.Assuch,theclosestparallel
toitisnotaworkof literatureinthenormalsense,butsomethingwhich,
thoughpreservedonaninscription,shouldbeseenasaliterarywork,namely
wholehistoryoftheworldinthreevolumes,learnedvolumes,byJupiter,andlaboriously
wrought’’(Loebtrans.).
. ComparethediscussionbyJ.Hellegouarc’h,Levocabulaire latin des relations et des partis
politiques dans Ia République^2 (Paris,),esp.–.