Suetonius.  The Lives of the Twelve Caesars.  New York:  Modern
Library (Random House).  1959.  Pp. xvi, 361.  


The informal nature of The Lives (drawing gleefully, as it does, on
bawdy army songs as well as Imperial correspondence) and its
loosely organized structure combine to make this work more
accessible than that of most Greek or Latin biographers.  The Lives
remains interesting because Suetonius presents personal detail that
permits the reader to enjoy an artificial familiarity with the
biographical subject.  Suetonius' readers are not, of course, privy
to the thoughts of the subject but are instead treated to the same
observations that equals and underlings may have observed.  The
reader, then, is as liable to assess correctly the character and
efficacy of the man as his contemporaries.  Having the knowledge of
Caesar Augustus' grammatical idiosyncrasies<1>, or of Caligula's
bizarre and dangerous sense of humor the reader enjoys a distant
but comfortable acquaintance with the great emperors.  Tacitus
might have used Suetonius' same source material to serve moralist
or satirical purposes, but Suetonius tosses together primary-source
quotes and biographical trivia with popular rumor and lets his
reader arrive at his own conclusions.  Where Tacitus seizes on ill-
founded and on mean-spirited rumor to advance a personal opinion
Suetonius seems to offer up the same type of local tidbits for our
amusement rather than out of spite:  
          "I say nothing of the notorious lines of
          Licinius Calvus . . . I pass over, too the
          invectives of Dolabella . . . in which [she]
          calls [Julius Caesar] `the queen's rival, the
          inner partner of the royal couch.' "<2>
Suetonius drops these references casually, without demanding that
the reader juxtapose them with references to piety.  Suetonius'
intentions are descriptive; he appears to harbor no pretensions
toward the normative.  Like the gastronomic, carnal or dictatorial
extravagances of his subjects, these anecdotes are not subjected to
moral or social scrutiny, they merely ARE.  
     Suetonius held several court appointments, and these lucky
posts probably allowed him to handle documents and hear oral
histories that he could later use in his writings.  His
responsibilities as Director of the Imperial Library at Rome and as
secretary to Hadrian no doubt gave him access to documents not in
the public domain.<3>  This is idea is supported by the
conspicuous change in the nature of the biographies after "Nero." 
The later chapters in the Lives suffer after his dismissal from
court position.  By the time Suetonius gets to Vespasian, Titus and
Domitian he has so little source material (or interest?) that this
chapter has less than the chapter on Julius Caesar and half the
space devoted to it as the one for Caesar Augustus alone.<4>     
     Despite the admitted weakness of the last chapters of The
Lives no praise should be subtracted from Suetonius.  Breaking away
from the rigid form of Greek biography he adapted and invigorated
the genre:  "Lives of . . . " imitators were common after him.<5> 
Perhaps Suetonius considered the sources available to him, and then
decided not to mar them with the moralizing or ethical
preoccupation that might have seized Plutarch or Tacitus.  Even if
he is dismissed as an accurate biographer or historian he cannot be
faulted for producing fascinating character sketches that have
kindled interest in the lives of important European historical
figures since he chronicled them.

                                                       Jason Carr

                             NOTES



<1>" . . . he does not divide words or carry superfluous letters
from the end of one line to the beginning of the next, but writes
them just below the rest of the word and draws a loop around them"
(The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, page 105).

<2>Ibid, page 29.

<3>  Towsend, G. B.  "Suetonius and his Influence," pages 79-80. 
[Chapter in Latin Biography, T. A. Dorey, editor.  New York:  Basic
Books, 1967.]

<4>  Towsend posits that perhaps Hadrian may not have cherished the
idea of so much of his own personal detail being recorded, and may
have therefore curbed Suetonius' access to archival materials. 
[Ibid, page 90.]

<5>The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, page ix.
http://www.mousetrap.net/~mouse/uta/