The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, Complete

About the book

Suetonius presents lives from Julius Caesar through Domitian, organizing much of his material around aspects of character and conduct as well as the sequence of events. Administration, military affairs, family relations, spectacles, physical appearance, reported sayings, and scandal all become relevant to the portrait of a ruler. The mixture makes the work vivid while requiring attention to the difference between an attested action, a circulating allegation, and a revealing story. Power appears through habits and relationships that a continuous political chronicle might leave aside. This edition also includes lives connected with literary and grammatical culture. The collection invites readers to examine how biography judges authority, especially when access to a ruler's private life becomes both a source of fascination and a means of explaining public behaviour.

• Power and character
• Reputation
• Biography and evidence

Why read it

For vivid imperial portraits that make the methods and temptations of judging powerful people part of the reading experience.

Alexander Thomson translation revised by T. Forester · additional literary lives