Produced by Tapio Riikonen and David Widger
By
C. Suetonius Tranquillus;
To which are added,
The Translation of
Alexander Thomson, M.D.
revised and corrected by
T.Forester, Esq., A.M.
C. Suetonius Tranquillus was the son of a Roman knight who commanded alegion, on the side of Otho, at the battle which decided the fate of theempire in favour of Vitellius. From incidental notices in the followingHistory, we learn that he was born towards the close of the reign ofVespasian, who died in the year 79 of the Christian era. He lived tillthe time of Hadrian, under whose administration he filled the office ofsecretary; until, with several others, he was dismissed for presuming onfamiliarities with the empress Sabina, of which we have no furtheraccount than that they were unbecoming his position in the imperialcourt. How long he survived this disgrace, which appears to havebefallen him in the year 121, we are not informed; but we find that theleisure afforded him by his retirement, was employed in the compositionof numerous works, of which the only portions now extant are collected inthe present volume.
Several of the younger Pliny's letters are addressed to Suetonius, withwhom he lived in the closest friendship. They afford some brief, butgenerally pleasant, glimpses of his habits and career; and in a letter,in which Pliny makes application on behalf of his friend to the emperorTrajan, for a mark of favour, he speaks of him as "a most excellent,honourable, and learned man, whom he had the pleasure of entertainingunder his own roof, and with whom the nearer he was brought intocommunion, the more he loved him." [1]
The plan adopted by Suetonius in his Lives of the Twelve Caesars, led himto be more diffuse on their personal conduct and habits than on publicevents. He writes Memoirs rather than History. He neither dwells on thecivil wars which sealed the fall of the Republic, nor on the militaryexpeditions which extended the frontiers of the empire; nor does heattempt to develop the causes of the great political changes which markedthe period of which he treats.
When we stop to gaze in a museum or gallery on the antique busts of theCaesars, we perhaps endeavour to trace in their sculptured physiognomythe characteristics of those princes, who, for good or evil, were intheir times masters of the destinies of a large portion of the humanrace. The pages of Suetonius will amply gratify this natural curiosity.In them we find a series of individual portraits sketched to the life,with perfect truth and rigorous impartiality. La Harpe remarks ofSuetonius, "He is scrupulously exact, and strictly methodical. He omitsnothing which concerns the person whose life he is writing; he relateseverything, but paints nothing. His work is, in some sense, a collectionof anecdotes, but it is very curious to read and consult." [2]
Combining as it does amusement and information, Suetonius's "Lives of theCaesars" was held in such estimation, that, so soon after the inventionof printing as the year 1500, no fewer than eighteen editions had beenpublished, and nearly one hundred have