Cordus

or Junius Cordus, apparently different designations of the same individual--an historian perpetually quoted by Capitolinus in his biographies of Albinus, the Maximins, the Gordians, and Maximus with Balbinus. He appears to have been an accurate chronicler of trivial facts. (Capit. Albin. 100.11.) [W.R]

governor of Crete, with the title of proconsul, in the reign of Tiberius, was accused by Ancharius Priscus of extortion in his province. The accusation was supported by the inhabitants of Cyrene, which was included in the province of Crete, and Cordus was condemned. (Tac. Ann. 3.38, 70.)

a Roman historian, who, after having lived long and blamelessly, was impeached by two of his own clients before Tiberius of having praised Brutus and denominated Cassius " the last of the Romans"--" crimine," says Tacitus, " novo ac tunc primum audito." His real offence, however, was the freedom of speech in which he had indulged against Sejanus, for the work in which the objectionable passages occurred had been published for many years, and had been read with approbation by Augustus himself. Perceiving from the relentless aspect of the emperor that there was no room for hope, Cordus delivered an apology, the substance of which has been preserved or fabricated by Tacitus, appealing to the impunity enjoyed under similar circumstances by all preceding annalists, and then quitting the senate-house retired to his own mansion, where he starved himself to death. (A. D. 25.) The subservient fathers ordained that his works should be burned by the aediles in the city, and by the public authorities wherever elsewhere found, but copies were so much the more eagerly treasured in concealment by his daughter Marcia and by his friends, who afterwards gave them again to the world with the full permission of Caligula. A few scanty fragments are contained in the seventh of the Suasoriae of Seneca. Further Information

Tac. Ann. 4.34, 35; Sueton. Octav. 35, Tib. 61, Calig. 16; Senec. Suasor. vii., and especially his Consolatio addressed to Marcia, the daughter of Cremutius Cordus, cc. 1 and 22; D. C. 57.24. [W.R]

[Cordus, Aelius.]

This surname was borne by some of the Scaevolae [Scaevolae], and occurs on the annexed coin of the Mucia gens. The obverse represents two heads, the one crowned with laurel and the other with a helmet, which would appear from the letters on each side to represent Honos and Virtus the letters Kaleni underneath refer to some members of the Fufia gens. [Calenus.] On the reverse two women are standing, the one on the left representing Italia and the one on the right Roma, the former holding a cornucopia in her hand, and the latter with a sceptre in her hand and her foot on a globe : beneath is Cordi. Who the Calenus and Corlus are, mentioned on the coin, is quite uncertain. The figures of Italia and Romla would seem to refer to the times when harmony was cstablishrd between Rome and the people of Italy after the Social war. (Eckhel, v. pp. 220, 256.)

A Roman writer of history who, under Tiberius, in A.D. 25, was accused of treason for having praised Brutus, the slayer of Caesar, and for styling Cassius “the last of the Romans” (Tac. Ann. iv. 34), though the real cause of his prosecution is to be found in some expressions that gave offence to Seianus, the emperor's powerful minister ( ad Marc. xxii. 4). Besides his history he appears to have written a work on prodigies (Admiranda), and was favorably known as a pleader. See Held, De Vita Scriptisque A. Cremutii Cordi (Schweidnitz, 1841), and Rathlef, De A. Cremutio Cordo (Dorpat, 1860).