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The Biographers 2/2

© Bingley

Last time, we had a quick look at the ancient biographers Cornelius Nepos and Plutarch. There were two other biographers more or less contemporaneous with Plutarch: Tacitus and Suetonius.

Cornelius Tacitus was a Roman, probably born in the late 40s AD. He was one of Pliny the Younger's correspondents - Pliny wrote his eyewitness account of the eruption of Vesuvius which destroyed Pompeii in a letter to Tacitus. He was consul in 97 AD. Most famous for two major historical works, the Histories and the Annals, he also wrote two monographs, one on the Germans, and one a biography of his father-in-law, Gnaeus Julius Agricola. The Agricola was written in the brief reign of the Emperor Nerva (96-98 AD), partly in reaction to the persecution of intellectuals and book-burning which had taken place under Domitian. The Latin text can be found at Forum Romanum, where there is also an English translation. The Agricola can be found in print translations in the Penguin Classics and Oxford World's Classics paperback series, and the Latin text with facing English translation in the Loeb series.

Suetonius' Lives of the Caesars covers the lives of Julius Caesar and the first 11 emperors, from Augustus to Domitian. Suetonius himself was born around 70 AD, and so had personal experience of life under the last three of his subjects, Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian. He was another correspondent of Pliny the Younger's. In a letter to the emperor Trajan, Pliny describes Suetonius as a "very upright, virtuous, and learned man" (my translation). Suetonius was a palace secretary under Trajan and Hadrian, but was dismissed in 122 AD, possibly because the empress considered him insufficiently respectful. So, for at least some of his work he had access to the imperial archives. He also wrote a series of biographies called Illustrious Men. Parts of the sections on poets, grammarians, and orators have survived.

The Lives of the Caesars, also known in English as The Twelve Caesars, tells us very little about the historical background to the emperors' lives and reigns, or how the empire developed and was administered. It concentrates on the personal lives of its subjects, and their more interesting peccadilloes, which is probably why it has survived. How much is fact and how much is just gossip and rumour is difficult to say. Latin texts of Suetonius' works can be found at the Latin Library. The Rolfe translation of The Lives of the Caesars is at Bill Thayer's Lacus Curtius and of the surviving parts of Illustrious Men at Paul Halsall's Ancient History Sourcebook. The Robert Graves translation of the Lives of the Caesars under the name The Twelve Caesars has been edited by Michael Grant and republished by Penguin Classics. The Oxford World's Classics also has a translation by Catherine Edwards. Loeb still has the Rolfe translation with Latin text and English translation facing each other. It's in two volumes, the second of which also includes the surviving parts of Illustrious Men in the same format.