Suetonius and The Twelve Caesar's
Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus is best known to us as Suetonius. He was a Roman historian and biographer. He is famous for writing about the twelve successive Roman rulers and emperors, from Julius Caesar to Domitian.
Suetonius was born around the year 69AD, The year of the four Emperors, Galba, Otho, Vitellius, and Vespasian. Its likely that Hippo Regius was his birth place, its a small north African town in Numidia, (now Algeria). His family were of the senatorial class and Suetonius was educated in Rome when schools of rhetoric flourished. He studied law and then abandoned this!
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Pliny the Younger. A friend of Suetonius, describes him as scholarly and quiet and committed to writing. Pliny introduced Suetonius to Trajan and Hadrian where he enjoyed favour with these two Emperors. Between 110 and 112, Suetonius possibly was on the staff of Pliny whilst he was Proconsul in Asia Minor. Later he became a secretary and director of Imperial archives for Trajan. Under Hadrian, he was the Emperors personal secretary, but was later fired for an alleged affair with Sabina, the Empress.
The Twelve Caesar's
Suetonius's famous book that he wrote is the “ De Vita Caesarum' meaning “The Lives of the Caesar's” but we know this as “The Twelve Caesar's”. This was written in 121AD under the rule of emperor Hadrian. He dedicated this book to his friend Gaius Septicius Clarus.
The Twelve
Caesars
by
Suetonius (Author) Translated by Robert Graves
Get this
book at https://amzn.to/38N9ojD
As private
secretary to the Emperor Hadrian, the scholar Suetonius had access to
the imperial archives and used them (along with eyewitness accounts)
to produce one of the most colourful biographical works in history.
The Twelve Caesars
chronicles the public careers and private lives of the men who
wielded absolute power over Rome, from the foundation of the empire
under Julius Caesar and Augustus to the decline into depravity under
Nero and the recovery that came with his successors. This masterpiece
of observation, immortalized in Robert Graves's classic translation,
presents us with a gallery of vividly drawn - and all too human –
individuals.
Other works of Suetonius focus on oratory, politics and daily life of Rome. Most of these are lost with only partial fragments remaining.
Suetonius died after 122 AD
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© 2020 David Lee