CORDUS, AULUS CREMUTIUS, Roman historian of the later Augustan age. He was the author of a history of the civil wars and the reign of Augustus, from at least 43-18 B.C. In A.D. 25 he was brought to trial for having praised Brutus and Cassius. His real offence was a jibe against Sejanus, who put up two of his creatures to accuse him in the senate. Cordus starved himself to death. The senate ordered his works to be confiscated and burned by the aediles, but his daughter saved some copies of the eulogy, and after the death of Tiberius the work was published at the wish of Caligula. It is impossible to form an opinion of it from the scanty fragments (H. Peter, Historicorum Romanorum Frag menta, 1883). According to ancient authorities, the writer was very outspoken (Quintilian, hatit. x. 1, io4). Two passages in Pliny (Nat. Hist. x- 74 [37], xvi- 108 [45] ) seem to refer to a different work—perhaps a treatise on Admiranda or remarkable things.
See Tacitus, Annals, iv. 34, 35; Suetonius, Tiberius, 61, Caligula, 16; Seneca, Suasoriae, vii., esp. the Consolatio to Cordus's daughter Marcia; Dio Cassius lvii. 24. There are monographs by J. Held (1841) and C. Rathlef (I86o). Also H. Peter, Die geschichtliche Literatur Uber die romische Kaiserzeit (1897) ; Teuffel-Schwabe, Hist. of Roman Lit., Eng. trans., 277, 1.