Cornelius Nepos is the first Roman biographer whose work survives. The 1st-century BCE writer created the genre of grouped political biographies in order to illuminate previous Mediterranean figures as role models. This volume shows how Nepos invested his biographies with moral and political arguments against tyranny, and also functions as a general introduction to Nepos, placing him in his cultural context. Rex Stem examines Nepos' contributions to the growth of biography, in this first book to regard Nepos as a serious writer in his own right. Stem also defends Nepos from his critics at the same time that he lays out the political significance and literary innovation of his writings.

The Political Biographies of Cornelius Nepos 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.