person
Quintus Cornelius (the jurist)
Cornelius
also: Cornelio, Cornelius, Q. Cornelii, Q. Cornelius
A jurist named Cornelius in the Trebatius correspondence: in Fam. 7.8 the teacher 'from whom you profess to have learned how to be wise,' and in Fam. 7.17 the authority Cicero mock-cites in jurists' citation-formula ('this too was the view of Q. Cornelius'). Plausibly one man; identity otherwise uncertain.
Reading notes
- Ad Familiares 7.8 §2 since you profess to have learned from him how to be wise
A jurisprudential pun: Cornelius was Trebatius's teacher in law (the sapere of a iuris consultus), so Cicero cannot scold him without implicating the master. Sapere ('to be wise / to have legal expertise') is the pivot Cicero plays on all through the Trebatius letters.
- Ad Familiares 7.17 §3 as you people are accustomed to write in your books
Cicero parodies the citation style of the jurists' handbooks, which appended the agreement of earlier authorities ('Q. Cornelius held the same view'). He pretends to cap his own advice with such a tag.