Suetonius' biographical sketches of the teachers of "grammar" and rhetoric survive only in part and are fairly brief; yet it would be difficult to name another text of similar scope that is a more productive resource for the study of Roman cultural history in the classical period. For the early history of Roman education it is literally indispensable, and it is a precious repository as well for the understanding of Roman Social and cultural relations, and even for the social (...) history of freedmen and slaves. This new critical edition of Suetonius' rich and often curious text is accompanied by commentary, the most thorough and detailed so far available, elucidates Suetonius' method of compilatioon and places the stories he tells in their social and historical context. (shrink)

Suetonius says that court jesters put slippers on Claudius’ hands while he napped during Caligula's dinner parties so that he would rub his face with them when he awoke. Since touching someone with the sole of a shoe was an insult, the joke is that Claudius insulted himself when he unwittingly rubbed his own face with the slippers.

This article discusses the Italian translation of Suetonius's Lives of the Twelve Caesars by Dante Popoleschi, a little-known Florentine humanist and member of the Orti Oricellari in the early sixteenth century. Since Popoleschi's translation, which is preserved in a single manuscript copy dedicated to King François Ier of France, has never been studied in detail and, moreover, is unknown to present-day students of Suetonius, this contribution aims to examine the work both in its own right and in comparison (...) to Popoleschi's volgarizzamenti of Caesar's Commentaries on the Gallic War and Donato Acciaiuoli's Life of Scipio. By placing Popoleschi's version of Suetonius in its original cultural-historical context, it also sheds new light on his life, works and translation activity. (shrink)

The recent revival of scholarly interest in Suetonius provides a good occasion to emend a long-standing crux in Joannes Lydus' description of Suetonius' dedication of his Vitae Caesarum to his friend the praetorian prefect Septicius Clarus. The codex unicus Caseolinus has Τράγκυλλος τοίνυν τος τν Καισάων βίους ν γράμμασιν † ποτίνων † Σεπτικί, ς ν παρχος τν πραιτωριανν σπειρν πì ατο. The conjectures ποτείνων by J. D. Fuss and ποτείνων by I. Bekker do little to improve the sense, (...) and although W. Kroll's προτείνων gives the meaning required by the context , προ- would not easily have been misread as πο-. For ποτίνων read νατείνων. For parallels compare BGU ii , 613.3–4 'Ανέτινα βιβλ[ίδι]α τλαμπροτάτ [γεμόνι] in a papyrus from the reign of Antoninus Pius cited by LSJ, and several other passages, most of which I owe to the supplement to Preisigke and Kiessling's Wörterbuch der griechischen Papyrusurkunden and to Dr Francisco R. Adrados of the Diccionario Griego-Español: Sammelbuch x , 10527.5–7 ['Ανέτε]ινά σοι, κ[ύριε,]…ναφόρ[ιον… of a.d. 152–3, P. Fouad iii , 26.5–10 , 8252.5–10) Ο νέτινάσυ τ κυρί βιβλιδίου…ντίγραφον πέταξα of a.d. 157–9, P. Oslo. iii , 80.21 ο νέτιναν βιβλιδί[ου…written sometime after March 7, a.d. 161, Sammelbuch iv 7472.3 'Ανέτεινά [σοι, κύριε πίτροπε, βιβλείδιον of a.d. 164, Sammelbuch vi.3 9339.24–7 13.5–7) ο νετείναμεν τ [κρατίσ τρχιερε O]λπί Σερηνιαν βιβλιδίου…[…] ντίγραφον πετάξαμεν from a.d. 178 or a little later, P. Mich. xii 616.13–14 τ δίκαιά μου βιβλειδί νγράψασ νέτεινα Νεμεσιαν πωσ τα[]τα διαπέμψηται[τ ]πιτρόπ from ca. a.d. 182, P. Cornell 14.2–4 ο νέτει[να τ κρατίστ πιστρ]ατηγ Κλαυδί [Ξενοφντι βιβλδίο]υ from a.d. 180–92, Wilcken, Chrestomathie 461.3–5 О[ νέ]τεινα τ λαμπροτάτ [γεμόνΚ]υίντω[ι] Μαικίωι λαιτίωι βιβλιδίου…ντίγραφον [ποτάξασ] from the beginning of the third century, and Sammelbuch v , 8246.3–4 α συνηγερούμεναι λιβέλλον νέτιναν π τν παρχον ξουσίαν from a.d. 340. (shrink)

The recent revival of scholarly interest in Suetonius provides a good occasion to emend a long-standing crux in Joannes Lydus' description of Suetonius' dedication of his Vitae Caesarum to his friend the praetorian prefect Septicius Clarus. The codex unicus Caseolinus has Τράγκυλλος τοίνυν τος τν Καισάων βίους ν γράμμασιν † ποτίνων † Σεπτικί, ς ν παρχος τν πραιτωριανν σπειρν πì ατο. The conjectures ποτείνων by J. D. Fuss and ποτείνων by I. Bekker do little to improve the sense, (...) and although W. Kroll's προτείνων gives the meaning required by the context, προ- would not easily have been misread as πο-. For ποτίνων read νατείνων. For parallels compare BGU ii, 613.3–4 'Ανέτινα βιβλ[ίδι]α τλαμπροτάτ [γεμόνι] in a papyrus from the reign of Antoninus Pius cited by LSJ, and several other passages, most of which I owe to the supplement to Preisigke and Kiessling's Wörterbuch der griechischen Papyrusurkunden and to Dr Francisco R. Adrados of the Diccionario Griego-Español: Sammelbuch x, 10527.5–7 ['Ανέτε]ινά σοι, κ[ύριε,]…ναφόρ[ιον… of a.d. 152–3, P. Fouad iii, 26.5–10, 8252.5–10) Ο νέτινάσυ τ κυρί βιβλιδίου…ντίγραφον πέταξα of a.d. 157–9, P. Oslo. iii, 80.21 ο νέτιναν βιβλιδί[ου…written sometime after March 7, a.d. 161, Sammelbuch iv 7472.3 'Ανέτεινά [σοι, κύριε πίτροπε, βιβλείδιον of a.d. 164, Sammelbuch vi.3 9339.24–7 13.5–7) ο νετείναμεν τ [κρατίσ τρχιερε O]λπί Σερηνιαν βιβλιδίου…[…] ντίγραφον πετάξαμεν from a.d. 178 or a little later, P. Mich. xii 616.13–14 τ δίκαιά μου βιβλειδί νγράψασ νέτεινα Νεμεσιαν πωσ τα[]τα διαπέμψηται[τ ]πιτρόπ from ca. a.d. 182, P. Cornell 14.2–4 ο νέτει[να τ κρατίστ πιστρ]ατηγ Κλαυδί [Ξενοφντι βιβλδίο]υ from a.d. 180–92, Wilcken, Chrestomathie 461.3–5 О[ νέ]τεινα τ λαμπροτάτ [γεμόνΚ]υίντω[ι] Μαικίωι λαιτίωι βιβλιδίου…ντίγραφον [ποτάξασ] from the beginning of the third century, and Sammelbuch v, 8246.3–4 α συνηγερούμεναι λιβέλλον νέτιναν π τν παρχον ξουσίαν from a.d. 340. (shrink)

This article examines the appearances of Augustus in Suetonius’ Lives of the Caesars outside Augustus' own Life. It shows how Suetonius contrasts the positive image of Augustus drawn in the Life of Augustus with the distortion of this image by Augustus’ successors, depicted in the later Lives. In their reception, he is still presented as an ideal to follow, yet as a role model for cruelty (Tiberius), adultery and military failure (Caligula), or lyre-playing (Nero)—roles which Suetonius’ real (...) Augustus never or only marginally assumed. Thus in a series of close and intratextual readings, this article invites a more general reassessment of Suetonius’ work: it suggests that the Lives of the Caesars draw a more critical image of the Principate than has often been said, that they are more consciously part of an image-making process and, above all, that they should more commonly be understood as one whole work, rather than read individually and in isolation. (shrink)

After the notable editions of Suetonius by Roth, Preud'homme, Ihm and Ailloud, the De uita Caesarum edited by R.A. Kaster in the Oxford Classical Texts has made available to scholars a critical text which rests on the firm foundations of a thorough exploration of the tradition and the scholarship on the subject. The relationship of the eighteen medieval manuscripts, placed in a time-frame between the ninth century, the age of the oldest copy, Par. Lat. 6115, and the beginning of (...) the thirteenth century, has been extensively and carefully examined and schematized in a complex stemma codicum, which illustrates the network of copying and contamination. Moreover, the editor has revised the dating of the manuscripts, in the light of the most recent studies, and brought order to the sigla assigned to them by previous editors. (shrink)

Suetonius quotes a number of extracts from Augustus' letters, with the intention of showing that Augustus did not dislike Tiberius as much as some had held, and that he had a high opinion of Tiberius' military qualities. The first of these contains a somewhat vexed textual problem. It reads as follows : Vale, iucundissime Tiberi, et feliciter rem gere, μο κα τας †μουιcαcαιcτ στρατηγν. iucundissime et ita sim felix, vir fortissime et dux νομιμτατε, vale.

There is in the British Museum a twelfth-century manuscript, Egerton 3055, of Suetonius' De Vita Caesarum which has not previously been noticed by editors or in the reports of manuscripts of Suetonius made by Professor C. L. Smith and Professor A. A. Howard, though summarily classified by E. G. Millar.

Suetonius’ Lives of the Caesars usually begin with a family tree. These family trees are often rhetorical, foreshadowing in the ancestors character traits that will be themes of the rest of the Life. This particular rhetorical strategy relies upon an older phenomenon of ‘family identity’—namely, the literary application of similar characteristics to people in the same family—such as the one that tells us that the Claudii are proud and the Domitii Ahenobarbi are ferocious. Gary Farney studied ‘family identity’ as (...) a phenomenon of the Republic. There, it was the association of a family with a certain characteristic, a kind of ‘branding’. It would be perfectly obvious for Suetonius to use the family identities already in use for well-known families, but, as I show here, Suetonius’ selection of ancestors creates different family identities rather than simply using the traditional ones he would have found in other sources. In this study I concentrate on Nero and Tiberius. I focus on these two emperors because they are individuals where there is a known family identity in other sources and they also have the most detailed and elaborate ancestry sections in Suetonius’ Caesars. Family identity seems to be most interesting to Suetonius when it goes against expectations, and that is when Suetonius’ family trees are most elaborate. (shrink)

Suetonius’ Lives of the Caesars contain at least twenty discrete anecdotes about childhood and youth spread across the Lives. Some characterize the Caesars by looking forwards and others do so by looking backwards. In both foreshadowing and flashback, the childhood anecdote shows continuity with the adult and creates the impression of lifelong consistency of character. The foreshadowing technique is also something other ancient biographers do; the flashback is something that appears to be unique to Suetonius. In this note (...) I briefly consider the stories from childhood and youth that foreshadow character traits and themes of the rest of the Life, and then the flashbacks from the adulthood section of the Life that refer to childhood and youth in order to demonstrate vices of the grown adult. I show that the use of foreshadowing and flashbacks contributes to the appearance of a fully formed character in the child that will be consistent into adulthood, as well as facilitating the rubric system of arranging material by type rather than by time. (shrink)

This paper studies Suetonius's depiction of the appearance of Emperors through what I call Bodily or Corporeal Ecphrasis. Suetonius's ecphrasis of the Emperor's body directs the readers' gaze over the corpus principis in a way that deconstructs the ontology of the princeps. I will show that Suetonius's construction of emperors' corpora includes an amalgamation of referents to heavenly and animal bodies that upsets a reader's ability to interpret these radically unique images through a purely human criterion.