Character and Reputation
A man with considerable military talents, apparently Corvus also possessed a very kind and amicable nature. Very popular with the soldiers he led into battle, and in the camps he shared with his soldiers, he reportedly competed with them in the athletic games which they played during their leisure time. He was also an enthusiastic supporter of reform, siding with the Plebeians during the ongoing Conflict of the Orders. His position was that the changing needs on an expanding Roman state required a necessary readjustment of the opportunities provided to Plebeians to serve the state, for the good of Rome.
To later Roman writers, he was a memorable example of the favours bestowed by Fortuna, and Augustus erected a statue of Corvus in the Forum of Augustus, alongside the statues of other Roman heroes. Nevertheless, his list of accomplishments is suspiciously long; Valerius Antias is considered to have been responsible for some of the exaggeration.
Read more about this topic: Marcus Valerius Corvus
Famous quotes containing the words character and/or reputation:
“Man was born to live with his fellow human beings. Separate him, isolate him, his character will go bad, a thousand ridiculous affects will invade his heart, extravagant thoughts will germinate in his brain, like thorns in an uncultivated land.”
—Denis Diderot (1713–1784)
“The reputation of generosity is to be purchased pretty cheap; it does not depend so much upon a man’s general expense, as it does upon his giving handsomely where it is proper to give at all. A man, for instance, who should give a servant four shillings, would pass for covetous, while he who gave him a crown, would be reckoned generous; so that the difference of those two opposite characters, turns upon one shilling.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)