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:
“Foolish, whenever you take the meanness and formality of that thing you do, instead of converting it into the obedient spiracle of your character and aims.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The reputation of a man is like his shadow; it sometimes follows and sometimes precedes him, sometimes longer and sometimes shorter than his natural size.”
—French Proverb. Quoted in Dictionary of Similes, ed. Frank J. Wilstach (1916)