Suetonius the Biographer: Studies in Roman Lives 2013957442, 9780199697106, 0199697108

Table of contents :
Cover
Preface
Contents
List of Contributors
Editions and Abbreviations
Introduction: The Originality of Suetonius
Tristan Power
Part I Formal Features
1. Suetonius’ Rubric Sandwich
Donna W. Hurley
2. Suetonius the Ventriloquist
Cynthia Damon
3. The Endings of Suetonius’ Caesars
Tristan Power
Part II Reading the Lives
4. Was Suetonius’ Julius a Caesar?
John Henderson
5. Exemplary Influences and Augustus’ Pernicious Moral Legacy
Rebecca Langlands
6. E.g. Augustus: exemplum in the Augustus and Tiberius
Erik Gunderson
7. Rhetorics of Assassination: Ironic Reversal and the Emperor Gaius
Donna W. Hurley
8. Another Look at Suetonius’ Titus
W. Jeffrey Tatum
9. The Mirror in the Text: Privacy, Performance, and the Power of Suetonius’ Domitian
Jean-Michel Hulls
Part III Biographical Thresholds
10. Suetonius and the uiri illustres of Pliny the Younger
Roy K. Gibson
11. Suetonius’ Famous Courtesans
Tristan Power
12. Suetonius and the Origin of Pantomime
T. P. Wiseman
13. Suetonius and the De uita Caesarum in the Carolingian Empire
Jamie Wood
Bibliography
Index Locorum
General Index

Citation preview

SU E T O N I U S T H E B IO G R A P H E R

Suetonius the Biographer Studies in Roman Lives

Edited by T R I STA N P OW E R A N D R OY K . G I B S O N

1

1 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP, United Kingdom Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries © Oxford University Press 2014 The moral rights of the authors have been asserted First Edition published in 2014 Impression: 1 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Control Number: 2013957442 ISBN 978–0–19–969710–6 Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY

Preface So often our only source for intimate details about the lives of the Roman emperors and their families, Suetonius features prominently in popular accounts of the Roman world. He lurks, too, in the popular imagination as the main source for the immensely successful ‘Claudius’ novels by Robert Graves—I, Claudius (1934) and Claudius the God (1934)—later filmed in a notorious production for BBC TV in 1976. (Graves himself would go on to offer a version of Suetonius in his Penguin Classics translation of 1957.) But, like his near-contemporary, the Elder Pliny, Suetonius’ presence in modern scholarship is largely confined to footnotes. Critics value the data provided, rarely paying undivided attention to the text which offers the otherwise welcome information. For, despite a sudden flurry of attention in the 1980s, there has been little sustained work of any length specifically on Suetonius in recent decades. The present volume is the first book-length work on the author, in English, in almost thirty years. Its aim—to breathe new life into Suetonian scholarship and refocus attention on his skill as a biographer—is set out in the Introduction. The volume has its origins in a conference held at the University of Manchester in 2008. The initial omens for a conference on Suetonius in the north of England were not propitious—at least, if one credits the insights of Sir Ronald Syme. The story of Suetonius’ fall from imperial favour, found in the ancient Life of Hadrian, appears to take place during Hadrian’s tour of Britain in ad 122. Syme, for his part, was sure that the reason for this personal catastrophe had little to do with Suetonius’ alleged over-familiarity with the empress Sabina. Rather, from Syme’s perspective, it was the rain: ‘If a prosaic imagination be conceded some license, a modest explanation offers. . . . Travel generates friction and annoyances, not least among devotees of arts and letters—and add to that a summer in northern England’ (Syme 1981: 114 = RP III.1345–6). This was not the first time that northern England had been unlucky for Suetonius. As we know from Pliny’s Letters (3.8), he was offered a tribunate in Britain under Neratius Marcellus, which he later declined. A letter from Vindolanda—no. 196, found in the Period III praetorium—contains a clothing list evidently meant for the eyes of the garrison commander, Flavius Cerialis. This list includes

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some clothing items ‘from Tranquillus’. Tony Birley, in Garrison Life at Vindolanda: A Band of Brothers, wonders: ‘Is it possible that S­ uetonius had had a box of his gear, including blankets, dining outfits and vests sent ahead to Britain, sold or made available to Cerialis when its owner backed out of his commission?’ (Birley 2002: 139). Whether Suetonius’ errant undergarments rested on their long journey north to Vindolanda in Roman Manchester (Mamucium)— recently founded, as Tacitus somehow neglects to tell us, by Agricola— is unclear. But, despite these omens, the lively Manchester conference of 2008 generated few, if any, personal annoyances or instances of loss of goods (although it did rain), and it produced the initial versions of the majority of the chapters presented in this volume. To these we have added a few others, specially commissioned for the occasion. Along the way, we have accumulated a number of debts. Sincere thanks are owed to Ruth Morello (who helped to organize the 2008 conference), Hilary O’Shea and her team at OUP, especially Juliet Gardner, and the anonymous readers for the Press. Above all, Roy Gibson would like to thank Tristan Power, who has been the leading editor and driving force behind the book since its inception. T. P. R. K. G. New York Manchester August 2013

Contents List of Contributors  Editions and Abbreviations 

ix xi

Introduction: The Originality of Suetonius  Tristan Power

1

PART I: FORMAL FEATURES 1. Suetonius’ Rubric Sandwich  Donna W. Hurley

21

2. Suetonius the Ventriloquist  Cynthia Damon

38

3. The Endings of Suetonius’ Caesars  Tristan Power

58

PART II: READING THE LIVES 4. Was Suetonius’ Julius a Caesar?  John Henderson 5. Exemplary Influences and Augustus’ Pernicious Moral Legacy  Rebecca Langlands 6. E.g. Augustus: exemplum in the Augustus and Tiberius  Erik Gunderson 7. Rhetorics of Assassination: Ironic Reversal and the Emperor Gaius  Donna W. Hurley 8. Another Look at Suetonius’ Titus  W. Jeffrey Tatum 9. The Mirror in the Text: Privacy, Performance, and the Power of Suetonius’ Domitian  Jean-Michel Hulls

81

111 130

146 159

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Contents

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PART III: BIOGRAPHICAL THRESHOLDS 10. Suetonius and the uiri illustres of Pliny the Younger  Roy K. Gibson

199

11. Suetonius’ Famous Courtesans  Tristan Power

231

12. Suetonius and the Origin of Pantomime  T. P. Wiseman

256

13. Suetonius and the De uita Caesarum in the Carolingian Empire  Jamie Wood

273

Bibliography  Index Locorum  General Index 

293 325 334

List of Contributors Cynthia Damon is Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Her publications include Tacitus: Histories Book I (Cambridge, 2003) and (with W. W. Batstone) Caesar’s Civil War (Oxford, 2006). She has also translated Tacitus’ Annals for the Penguin Classics series (London, 2013). Roy K. Gibson is Professor of Latin at the University of Manchester. His publications include Ovid: Ars Amatoria Book 3 (Cambridge, 2003) and (with R. Morello) Reading the Letters of Pliny the Younger: An Introduction (Cambridge, 2012). He is currently working on a commentary on Pliny, Letters Book 6. Erik Gunderson is Associate Professor of Classics at the University of Toronto. His publications include Declamation, Paternity, and Roman Identity: Authority and the Rhetorical Self (Cambridge, 2003) and Nox philologiae: The Fantasy of the Roman Library (Madison, WI, 2009). He is currently working on a book on Seneca. John Henderson is Emeritus Professor of Classics and a Fellow of King’s College at the University of Cambridge. His publications include Fighting for Rome: Poets and Caesars, History and Civil War (Cambridge, 1998) and The Medieval World of Isidore of Seville: Truth from Words (Cambridge, 2007). Jean-Michel Hulls is Head of Classics at Dulwich College. His publications include several articles on Latin literature, and he is also one of the contributors to J. F. Miller and A. J. Woodman (eds), Latin Historiography and Poetry in the Early Empire: Generic Interactions (Leiden, 2010). Donna W. Hurley has taught Classics at Princeton University. Her publications include Suetonius: Diuus Claudius (Cambridge, 2001) and Suetonius: The Caesars (Indianapolis, IN, 2011). She is also one of the contributors to E. Buckley and M. Dinter (eds), A Companion to the Neronian Age (Malden, MA, 2013). Rebecca Langlands is Senior Lecturer at the University of Exeter. Her publications include Sexual Morality in Ancient Rome (Cambridge, 2006), and she is also (with K. Fisher) one of the contributors to

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S. Hales and J. Paul (eds), Pompeii in the Public Imagination: From its Rediscovery to Today (Oxford, 2011). Tristan Power has taught Classics at the University of Reading. His publications include a number of articles on Suetonius, and he is also one of the contributors to K. De Temmerman and K. Demoen (eds), Telling Ancient Lives: Narrative Technique and Fictionalization in Greek and Latin Biography (Cambridge, forthcoming). W. Jeffrey Tatum is Professor of Classics at the Victoria University of Wellington. His publications include The Patrician Tribune: Publius Clodius Pulcher (Chapel Hill, NC, 1999), Always Am I Caesar (Oxford, 2008), and A Caesar Reader: Selections from Bellum Gallicum and Bellum Civile (Mundelein, IL, 2012). T. P. Wiseman is Emeritus Professor at the University of Exeter. His publications include Clio’s Cosmetics: Three Studies in Greco-Roman Literature (Leicester, 1979), Catullus and His World: A Reappraisal (Cambridge, 1985), and Remembering the Roman People: Essays on Late-Republican Politics and Literature (Oxford, 2009). Jamie Wood is Lecturer in History at the University of Lincoln. His publications include The Politics of Identity in Visigothic Spain: Religion and Power in the Histories of Isidore of Seville (Leiden, 2012), and he is also one of the contributors to R. S. Bagnall et al. (eds), The Encyclopedia of Ancient History, 13 vols (Malden, MA, 2013).

Editions and Abbreviations Quotations of Suetonius’ works are taken from the edition of M. Ihm for the Lives of the Caesars (Leipzig, 1908), that of A. Rostagni for the Vita Terenti (Turin, 1944), that of G. Brugnoli for the Vita Horati (Rome, 1968), that of G. Luck for the Vita Tibulli (Stuttgart, 1988), that of R. Badalì for the Vita Lucani (Rome, 1991), and that of R. A. Kaster for the Grammarians and Rhetoricians (Oxford, 1995). For Plutarch’s Parallel Lives, the edition of C. Lindskog and K. Ziegler (eds), Plutarchus: Vitae parallelae2, 4 vols (Leipzig, 1957–80) is followed; for Nepos, that of P. K. Marshall (ed.), Cornelius Nepos: Vitae cum fragmentis (Leipzig, 1977); for Tacitus, that of H. Heubner (ed.), P. Cornelii Taciti libri qui supersunt, 2 vols (Stuttgart, 1978–83); and for Dio, that of U. P. Boissevain (ed.), Cassii Dionis Coceiani Historiarum Romanarum quae supersunt, 5 vols (Berlin, 1895–1931). Ancient and medieval authors as well as modern works are abbreviated according to The Oxford Classical Dictionary4, edited by S. Hornblower, A. Spawforth, and E. Eidinow (Oxford, 2012), or otherwise standard practice. References to periodicals follow L’année philologique, with conventional modifications in English. For frequently cited modern works, note especially the following abbreviations: Adler Astbury Cardauns CS Dindorf Helm

A. Adler (ed.), Suidae Lexicon, 5 vols (Leipzig, 1928–38). R. Astbury (ed.), M. Terentius Varro: Saturarum Menippearum fragmenta (Leipzig, 1985). B. Cardauns (ed.), M. Terentius Varro: Antiquitates rerum divinarum, 2 vols (Wiesbaden, 1976). A. Momigliano, Contributo alla storia degli studi classici, 10 vols (Rome, 1955–2012). L. Dindorf (ed.), Ioannis Malalae Chronographia (Bonn, 1831). R. Helm (ed.), Eusebius Werke, vol. 7: Die Chronik des Hieronymus (Die Griechischen Christlichen Schriftsteller der Ersten Jahrhunderte 47: Berlin, 1956).

xii Jocelyn Lloyd-Jones Oakley, Comm. OLD PCG Pf. PH RE

Reiff. Rose Roth RP Taillardat TLL Vallarsi Wehrli Wuensch

Editions and Abbreviations H. D. Jocelyn (ed.), The Tragedies of Ennius (Cambridge, 1967). H. Lloyd-Jones (ed.), Sophocles, vol. 3: Fragments (Cambridge, MA, 1996). S. P. Oakley, A Commentary on Livy Books VI–X, 4 vols (Oxford, 1997–2005). P. G. W. Glare (ed.), Oxford Latin Dictionary (London, 1982). R. Kassel and C. Austin (eds), Poetae comici Graeci, 8 vols (Berlin, 1983–2001). R. Pfeiffer (ed.), Callimachus, 2 vols (Oxford, 1949–53). C. Pelling, Plutarch and History: Eighteen Studies (London, 2002). A. Pauly, G. Wissowa, and W. Krolls (eds), Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft, 86 vols (Stuttgart, 1893–2000). A. Reifferscheid (ed.), C. Suetoni Tranquilli praeter Caesarum libros reliquiae (Leipzig, 1860). V. Rose (ed.), Aristotelis qui ferebantur librorum fragmenta3 (Leipzig, 1886). C. L. Roth (ed.), C. Suetoni Tranquilli quae supersunt omnia (Leipzig, 1858). R. Syme, Roman Papers, 7 vols, ed. E. Badian and A. R. Birley (Oxford, 1979–91). J. Taillardat (ed.), Suétone: Περὶ βλασφημιῶν, Περὶ παιδιῶν (extraits byzantins) (Paris, 1967). Thesaurus linguae Latinae (Leipzig, 1900– ). D. Vallarsi (ed.), Sancti Eusebii Hieronymi Stridonensis presbyteri opera2, 11 vols (Venice, 1766–72). F. Wehrli (ed.), Die Schule des Aristotles: Texte und Kommentar2, vol. 7: Herakleidos Pontikos (Basel, 1969). R. Wuensch (ed.), Ioannis Lydi De magistratibus populi Romani libri tres (Leipzig, 1903).

Introduction: The Originality of Suetonius Tristan Power

Scholars sometimes quibble over the word ‘historian’ when it is applied to Suetonius Tranquillus.1 Nor is the word ‘biographer’ entirely satisfactory, since it implies that readers had stable expectations for the genre of biography in Suetonius’ day, which they did not.2 Either term should be acceptable, since even his early readers referred to him by both. For example, Jerome calls him a ‘historian’: de Tranquillo et ceteris illustribus historicis curiosissime excerpsimus (‘I have

I wish to thank Timothy Duff, Roy Gibson, and Christopher Pelling for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this Introduction. All translations are my own. 1  See e.g. Wallace-Hadrill (1986) 245; Ash (2004) 448; Charles (2008); contra, ­Bradley (1978) 16. Scholarship on historiography often excludes Suetonius where he would have profited from study: e.g. Kraus and Woodman (1997); Marincola (1997); Laird (1999); Davies (2004); Pigoń (2008); Feldherr (2009); Kraus et al. (2010); Miller and Woodman (2010); Grethlein and Krebs (2012); as does one volume on biography: McGing and Mossman (2006). Suetonius is likewise absent from volumes on the Latin language that treat historians: e.g. von Albrecht (1989); Reinhardt et al. (2005); C ­ lackson (2011). On the other hand, the word ‘historiographical’ is used by Hurley (1993) in the title of her commentary on the Caligula, and other books on ancient historians freely include Suetonian biography as a topic: e.g. Duff (2003); Marincola (2007); den Hengst (2009); Feldherr and Hardy (2011); Mehl (2011). Scholars continue to refer to Suetonius as ‘the historian’ (e.g. Guittard 2009: 185; Poulle 2009: 121) or include him among ‘historiographers’ (e.g. Rohmann 2013: 126). For Suetonius as a historian by modern standards, see Gascou (1984) 457–74, (2001). On Suetonius’ relationship to the historian Tacitus in particular, see Power (2014f). 2  See e.g. Duff (1999) 17; Pelling (2009c) 41, (2011b) 13. On biography’s earliest development, Leo (1901) and Momigliano (1993) are fundamental; see also Bollansée et al. (1998) xiv–xviii; Bollansée (1999a) ix–x; Pelling (2009a), (forthcoming). On the origin of the word ‘biography’, see Bowersock (2000) 258–9; Pausch (2011) 147–8 n. 31.

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Tristan Power

excerpted most carefully from Tranquillus and other illustrious historians’, Chron. praef. p. 6 Helm = p. 288 Roth).3 So too does John Malalas: ὁ σοφώτατος Τράνγκυλλος, Ῥωμαίων ἱστορικός (‘the most learned Tranquillus, historian of the Romans’, Chron. p. 34 Dindorf = p. 266 Reiff.). Servius, however, calls Suetonius’ Divine Julius ‘the Life of ­Caesar’ (uita C ­ aesaris, ad Aen. 6.799), just as John Lydus writes ‘Lives of the Caesars’ (τοὺς τῶν Καισάρων βίους, Mag. 2.6). The word ‘biography’ is, as Pelling puts it, simply ‘useful shorthand’ for one of the several ways of writing about the past that were available to authors of Suetonius’ time.4 However, even biographical approaches varied, and the line between biography and its neighbouring genres was often blurred.5 The only important question that must be asked when the word ‘historian’ is attached to Suetonius is whether unsuitable criteria are being used to assess his Lives; otherwise, the term is being used more arbitrarily, and should not be taken to carry any real significance. By the same token, scholars can occasionally use the term ‘biography’ with little regard for its distinction. For example, some scholars have compared Suetonius’ biographies to Tacitus and found them wanting by the rather different standards of historiography, an approach which implicitly equates the criteria of assessment for the two endeavours.6 Our labels for Suetonius are unimportant, so long as we understand the nature of his task—that is, if we understand why ‘biography’ remains such a useful description for Suetonius’ work; then we may call him what we like. To do this, we must value his self-described Vitae (Aug. 9.1) instead on their own terms, by discovering the qualities 3  Conversely, Jerome refers to Tacitus’ work as biography: uitas Caesarum (‘Lives of the Caesars’, Comm. Zach. 3.14). Plutarch describes his own Lives as ‘history’ (ἱστορία): Nic. 1.5, Cim. 2.5, Fab. 1.1, Per.–Fab. 1.1, Aem. 1.1, Aem.–Tim. 1.1, Gracchi 1.1; see Duff (1999) 17–20. 4  Pelling (1999) 329 n. 14. On the importance of some overall distinction, see ­Burridge (2004) 265–9; cf. Marincola (1997) 218, (1999) 282. 5  Geiger (1985) 11–25; Horsfall (1989) 10–11; Lewis (1991) 3672–4; Momigliano (1993) 88; Radicke (1999) x–xi; Burridge (2004) 65–9; Kraus (2005b), (2010b); McGing and Mossman (2006) ix–xiii; Czachesz (2007) 5–7; Tröster (2008) 15; Valcárcel ­Martínez (2009a); Hägg (2012) 67–8; Stem (2012) 39, 107. Biography is oddly omitted by Kraus (2013: 424–5) from genres tangential to historiography. The two endeavours were often defined in contrast to each other; cf. below, n. 40. On biographical features in historiography, see e.g. Gowing (1997) 2564–5; Pelling (1997a), (2006a) 257–62; ­Engels (2005) 138; Oakley, Comm. III.179; Hurley (2013) 32–3, 42; Mallan (2013). 6 See e.g. Mackail (1895) 229–31; Martin (1981) 37–8; contra, Wallace-Hadrill (1983) 25; Stem (2012) 39–40 n. 115; Hurley (2013) 32–3, 42.



Introduction: The Originality of Suetonius

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that define Suetonius’ particular kind of biography.7 The present volume will offer its own search for Suetonius the biographer, examining various aspects of his Lives that make them unique, including their tendencies of style and content, organizational method, allusive techniques, and literary reputation.8 While this book does not aim for systematic coverage of Suetonius’ oeuvre (the studies of individual Lives in Part II address only five of the eight books of the Caesars; aside from the three brief emperors of ad 69, significant omissions are the middle biographies of Claudius, Nero, and Vespasian), it does aim for representative coverage of aspects of both his major (Julius to Caligula) and minor (Titus, Domitian, Illustrious Men) Lives, as well as his lesser-known works on insults, courtesans, and games (Introduction, chs. 11–12). The volume also deals with general aspects of Suetonius’ writing (‘Part I: Formal Features’), beginning with the present discussion. In this Introduction, I shall provide the background for our challenge of approaching Suetonius as a biographer by looking at some of the influences that appear to have shaped how he wrote Lives. This section lays the groundwork for a new baker’s dozen of complementary studies that look at the many biographical facets of Suetonius. Discussion of the other individual chapters will follow in the second part of the Introduction in light of this context, and some remarks will be made about the volume’s overall contribution to Suetonian studies.

7  We might compare the emphases of Woodman (1988: x) and Davies (2004: 14) on viewing historians according to their own individual traits; cf. Oakley (2009) 209 n. 39: ‘a genre lives only by being flexible and capable of adaptation’. On Suetonius’ word uita as signalling his biographical genre, cf. Lewis (1991) 3672, although I am not convinced by his view that it here means only ‘career’. For exceptions to any straightforward conception of ancient biography, see e.g. the Βίος Καίσαρος by Nicolaus of Damascus—written on only part of Augustus’ life, or Varro’s De gente populi Romani and De uita populi Romani, the second of which he modelled on Dicaearchus’ Βίος Ἑλλάδος. On the former author, see e.g. Pausch (2011); on the latter works, Wiseman (2009) 128. We might also point to Satyrus’ Βίος Εὐριπίδου and Roman exitus literature; for both, see below. Tacitus’ Agricola does not easily conform to general notions of biography: e.g. Whitmarsh (2006). One wonders, too, how Arrian wrote his lost biography of Tilliborus the infamous thief (Lucian, Alex. 2); cf. Baldwin (1973b) 78–9. See further Duff (1996) 266. 8  For more on Suetonius’ reputation, in addition to the chapters in Part III of this volume, see e.g. Macé (1900) 401–22; Townend (1967) 96–108; Lounsbury (1987) 27–61; Poignault (2009) 147–336.

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Tristan Power 1.  WHAT IS A SUETONIAN LIFE?

The question of what ancient biography is not has received ample space;9 less attention has been paid to the features that define it.10 What is it that makes Suetonius’ Caesars so clearly a work of biography, or, to put it in Momigliano’s terms, how was it that Suetonius ‘saved imperial biography from confusion with imperial history’?11 Although any such discussion must be accompanied by the concession that much of ancient historical and biographical literature is lost, and that our emphases on what was conventional may at times be misguided, enough representative examples survive—and out of those, enough precedents are lacking—to indicate the strong probability that Suetonius was innovative.12 There are also plausible avenues of influence in Suetonius’ various scholarly pursuits, which may have contributed to the end result of the Caesars, whether they were published before or after that work. Clearly the biographer crystallized something unique for later writers to continue or to use as a model, and did so through an admixture of literary forms. But where did those forms come from? Here we shall look briefly at two formal features of Suetonius’ style that distinguish it from that of any other known biographer in antiquity before him: his consistent use of the third-person verb, and his habitual use of diuisio to organize his information into ‘rubrics’ or category headings. In Suetonius, practically all the action and discussion of a Life is controlled by the biography’s subject: it is he alone who is the focus of almost every detail and category, and who almost always commands the verb of the sentence, with contextual events and other persons or details relegated to direct objects, participles, and other clauses.13 Facts are 9  McGing and Mossman (2006). 10 But see e.g. Marincola (1999) 318–20 on the Agricola; Burridge (2004); Pelling (2011b) 13–25 on Plutarch; Hägg (2012) passim; Stem (2012) 39–40, 100–13; the Introduction of Duff (forthcoming); De Temmerman (forthcoming). Cf. also references above, n. 2. 11  Momigliano (1984) 1147 = CS VIII.394. Suetonius was called the ‘father of modern biography’ by Grant (1954: 120). However, Plutarch also remained influential in the genre’s modern development; see Bowersock (1980) = (2009) 52–65. 12  See Lewis (1991) 3670. Against the unfounded view that Suetonius may have been inspired by Plutarch, see Power (2014f). 13  On Suetonius’ consistent use of a verb in the third person, with participles and subordinate clauses doing much of the other work, see e.g. Wallace-Hadrill (1983) 19, 122–3; Hurley (2001) 19–20. For his uses of the first person in the Caesars, see the chapters by Damon and Henderson in this volume with bibliography; and in the Illustrious Men, e.g. Vita Ter. 1–28, Vita Luc. 32–4, Gramm. 2.1, 7.1, 10.6, 25.2, with Kaster (1995) 45–6, 58, 118, 148; Power (forthcoming a). On Suetonius’ verbs generally, see Pike (1903) xv–xvii; Mooney (1930) 623–6.



Introduction: The Originality of Suetonius

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also compartmentalized into individual categories that support the overall picture; this is done through diuisio, a rhetorical device of signalling one’s structure, to which we shall return. First, let us look at main verbs. Suetonius maintains focus on the action of his subject so consistently through the third person that he does not even need to repeat the subject’s name; only in the Divine ­Julius, which by necessity contains several other characters, does Suetonius frequently call him ‘Caesar’.14 The biographer often does not refer to his subject by name for long stretches,15 and usually not unless it is necessary to differentiate him from others mentioned by name in the same sentence, which regularly happens in the Caesars, or unless his name is relevant for some other point of clarity, such as the naming of a monument. In the Horace as we have it, Suetonius himself does not even repeat the poet’s name once after its placement at the beginning of the Life (quotations, of course, do not count). Thus when Suetonius in his biographies introduces a new topic such as ‘food’ (cibi), it is already clear to the reader whose eating habits will be described—the subject’s (e.g. Vita Verg. 9, Aug. 76.1, Claud. 33.1). This rubric technique is apparent both in the Illustrious Men and the Lives of the Caesars, but it only works because of the dependability of Suetonius’ focus. Even those sentences in the Caesars that do not have Suetonius’ emperors as the grammatical subjects maintain the emperors’ centrality in the discussion. For example, in describing the military achievements of Caesar, it is the troops who are the main subjects (Iul. 68); and Nero does not command the verbs when Suetonius describes the accidental disasters that occurred in his reign (Ner. 39). However, ­Suetonius’ focus on each emperor’s character can still be seen, since the former passage only illustrates Caesar’s virtues, while the latter demonstrates Nero’s loss of popularity, which is underscored through this change of subject.16 Such exceptions only prove the rule, revealing the large degree to which Suetonius’ focus is ensured by the theme of each section, and mostly supported by the consistency of his main verbs. In the Caesars, this stylistic tendency becomes an apt metaphor 14  Townend (1982a) xii. 15  See e.g. Vita Verg. 8–28, 30–42, Aug. 60–93, Calig. 20–37, Claud. 4–28, 30–6, Ner. 8–38, 42–56, Galb. 6–19, Otho 3–9, Vit. 8–13, Vesp. 8–14, Tit. 3–11, Dom. 2–12, 18–22. 16  We might also compare the arresting change of subject at Ner. 40.1. Cf. the use of the derogative passive by Suetonius at 29 (conficeretur), which comes just before Nero is made a bride (see Power 2014e); also 16.2–17, on which see Croisille (1969–70) 82; Bradley (1978) 102; Townend (1982b) 1058; Wallace-Hadrill (1983) 122–3; and Galb. 14.2, with Power (2012–13) 39–40.

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for the consolidation of power under the principate, especially at a time when biography is becoming the most suitable form for historywriting under the rule of a single leader.17 In Suetonius’ Caesars, emperors dominate both the discussion and the action. The main verbs of Suetonius’ sentences are more consistently placed in the third person to signify the subject of the Life than those of any other ancient biographer. Take, for example, Suetonius’ Vitellius. Out of the 131 main verbs in the Life, 90 of them belong to the emperor (69%). This majority is not confined to negative biographies, as the Divine Titus yields similar results: Titus is the subject of sixtyone out of the total seventy-nine main verbs (77%). In fact, if we take into account the fact that more than half of the verbs in the Vitellius that are not governed by the emperor occur in the section on ancestry alone, before Vitellius is even mentioned (Vit. 1–3.1), the results may be even more similar. The Titus does not contain an account of ancestry, since it has already been told (Vesp. 1), and ancestry obviously entails discussion of figures other than the subject of the Life. If we use as our total only the 109 main verbs of Vitellius’ biography proper, the ninety verbs of which the emperor is the subject form a more comparable percentage (83%). Between these two Lives, then, Suetonius uses an average of 80% of his main verbs to describe the action of the princeps. The significance of these figures can be judged against the relatively rare tendency of other ancient biographers to reserve their main verbs for the subject of the Life, whom they more often describe in a variety of grammatical forms, with less strictly consistent syntax. Burridge finds that Tacitus, for example, in his Agricola, makes the Roman general his subject in only 18% of the verbs, albeit this number reflects a broader register for Tacitus’ focus on the subject, since it does not encapsulate main verbs alone, but other verbs too.18 In Plutarch’s Cato the Younger, the subject similarly governs the action no more than 15% of the time, and with even less occurrence (about a tenth of the

17  On the self-evident appropriateness of biography for the empire, see e.g. Syme (1968b) 94–108; Woodman (1977) 45; Momigliano (1993) 99; Swain (1997) 2, 23–4, 31; Clarke (2002) 86–7; Duff (2003) 104; Kraus (2005a) 183–4; Pelling (2006a) 258; Hurley (2013) 41–2. 18  Burridge (2004) 158. Broader still is the assessment of Tacitus’ focus by Späth (2011: 136), who notes that Agricola is either the subject or object of the verb more than two-thirds of the time.



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sentences) in Plutarch’s Caesar (11%), Pompey (12%), Sulla (9%), and Marius (11%), according to Burridge’s survey of nominatives.19 Burridge’s statistics for Plutarch do not represent a count of verbs, but rather appearances of the subject’s name in the nominative relative to the other nominatives in the biography—a method which, although obviously ill-suited to Suetonius, sufficiently represents the more varied focus of Plutarchan prose. Burridge’s analysis of fragments of dialogue from Satyrus’ Βίος Εὐριπίδου returns a higher number (26%) for Euripides himself in the nominative (about a fourth of the sentences),20 but nowhere as high as our own numbers above for the subject in Suetonius (four-fifths of the sentences). We may reasonably conclude from these few statistics alone that, however we gauge it, there is clearly a greater focus on the subject in Suetonius than in other ancient biographers, not only thematically, but also in the construction of each sentence. Suetonius’ consistent use of the same tense of verb under thematic categories suggests a parallel in Augustus’ Res Gestae, which Suetonius clearly knew (Aug. 101.4), even if their common themes derive more generally from earlier biography and oratory, and if some echoes of the Res Gestae in Suetonius are clearer than others.21 However, arguments for the stylistic influence of the Res Gestae on Suetonius have their limitations: Suetonius’ scholarly style was at any rate already close to that of inscriptions due to its brevity,22 and the Res Gestae itself is similar to other edicts reported in the Divine Augustus (e.g. 28.1–2), which may equally have influenced Suetonius.23 Moreover, Augustus uses the first person, not the third. But the fact that his main verbs are so consistently placed in this tense, and describe the deeds of

19  See Burridge (2004) 158–9. 20  Burridge (2004) 130. On Satyrus’ dialogue form of biography, see e.g. Lefkowitz (2012) 99–101; Geiger (1985) 40–4; Schorn (2004) 31–6. 21  On the stylistic similarity of the RG to Suetonius and his use of it, see Macé (1900) 154; Gagé (1977) 39–40; Carter (1982) 157–8; Baldwin (1983) 133–4, 237–40; de ­Coninck (1983) 45–57; Wallace-Hadrill (1983) 167; Gascou (1984) 530–2; Ramage (1987) 117, 147; Lewis (1991) 3633; Scheid (2007) lxiii–lxiv; Pelling (2009c) 41; Cooley (2009) 50, 120, 204, 223, 240–1, 250–1; Prokoph (2010) 283–9; and Gunderson, ch. 6 in this volume. For Suetonius and oratory, see below, n. 28. 22  Duff (1914) 166; McDermott (1971a) 93; Seager (2005) 238: ‘Biography as written by Suetonius is only a glorified epitaph.’ On Suetonius’ brevity, see Pike (1903) xii, xvii; Mooney (1930) 634–6; Lounsbury (1987) 115–16; Power (2012c), (2014c). 23  Cf. Baldwin (1983) 134. On the ‘programmatic edict’ at Aug. 28.1–2, see Wardle (2005).

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an emperor, does offer a compelling point of comparison, since both authors maintain a uniform perspective on the action, in which the emperor remains central.24 The second way in which Suetonius controls perspective is through diuisio, another aspect of biographical writing that is taken to new extremes in the Illustrious Men and Caesars. Headings (species), highlighted by their position, announce each new category to which the biographer turns. Suetonius creates a sort of index out of his prose, with key words clearly visible at the start of his paragraphs. The chapters are then often subdivided by further headings, when the information available to Suetonius illustrates more than one point, or is more plentiful than a single anecdote or piece of evidence.25 Although diuisio is common in ancient authors of biography and nearby genres,26 none use it nearly as often or elaborately as Suetonius; and while categorical arrangement was certainly a feature of ancient biography before Suetonius, and certain topics were standard in such works,27 it remains true that no earlier biographer approaches his level of systematic consistency throughout the whole Life.28 In this regard, influence 24  On Augustus’ first-person verbs, see Ramage (1987) 21–8. Augustus’ main verbs are shown by Kraus (2005a) to respond to the style of Caesar, to whom he alludes at RG 1.1 ~ BCiv. 1.22.5, and possibly also in his autobiography (Lewis 1993: 884). For Caesar and the RG more generally, see Levick (2009) 212–13. Suetonius’ style has been likened directly to Caesar by McDermott (1971b: 214) and Murison (1992: viii), but Caesar does not use rubrics; cf. Warmington (1999) x. He does, however, use diuisio: Kraus (2010a). For Caesar’s Xenophonic style, see also Cic. Brut. 262 = Iul. 56.2, with Lewis (1993) 667; Marincola (1997) 197–8, 205; Oakley, Comm. I.139; Pelling (2006b) 16–17, (2013); Riggsby (2006) 148–9; Grillo (2012) 5, 154. 25 On diuisio in Suetonius generally, see e.g. Townend (1967) 85–7; Lewis (1991) 3663–4; Kaster (1992) 95–8; Osgood (2011b) 47–8; Hurley, ch. 1 in this volume. Cf. also below, n. 32. 26  See e.g. Isoc. Evag. 22; Xen. Cyr. 1.1.6; Nep. Epam. 1.4; also Vell. Pat. 2.129.1, with Woodman (1977) 264; Plut. Alc. 16.1, with Duff (1999) 187; cf. 269–70 on Plutarch’s synkriseis; and id. (2008) 196 on Alc. 1. 27  Leo (1901) 180–2. 28  See Wallace-Hadrill (1983) 152; Averintsev (2002) 21. There is no strong evidence that in this regard Suetonius was anticipated by Oppius, as suggested by Townend (1987) and accepted by Osgood (2010) 324; contra, see Pelling (2011b) 50, 206 n. 5; and Lewis (1991) 3652, arguing that Suetonius’ source for the pre-consular career of Caesar, whether Oppius or not, ultimately goes back to a Ciceronian model; cf. 3643–9, 3672 on the pre-imperial categories of Suetonius’ Lives. For his categories of virtue and vice as influenced by Roman oratory, esp. panegyric, see e.g. Steidle (1951) 108–25; Wallace-Hadrill (1983) 145–9; Lounsbury (1987) 67–9, 91–116, (1991) 3761–77; Duff (1999) 313; Gibson (2012) 74–6, also suggesting a parallel with the arrangement of Cicero’s letters.



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on Suetonius must derive from ancient scholarly works, since it is a commentary-like style.29 Evidence for Suetonius’ scholarly output is plentiful, despite the relatively few whole parts that have come down to us intact. For example, Suetonius’ Abusive Words, or Insults and their Derivation (Περὶ δυσφήμων λέξεων ἤτοι βλασφηιμῶν καὶ πόθεν ἑκάστη), a title known to us from the Suda (τ 895), survives only in a Greek epitome, but the author’s usual style is still clearly visible.30 Take its beginning, where Suetonius announces his methodology through a subtle diuisio; he will proceed by categories of writers, beginning with Homer and other poets of that age, before proceeding to comic playwrights, orators, and historians: Τὸν τῶν ΒΛΑΣΦΗΜΙΩΝ τρόπον κατέδειξε μὲν ἀρχῆθεν Ὅμηρος καὶ οἱ συνεγγὺς τῷ χρόνῳ ποιηταί, ἐπηύξησαν δὲ ὕστερον κωμικοί τε καὶ ῥήτορες· ἔστι δ’ ὅπῃ καὶ τῶν συγγραφέων τινὲς καὶ ἄλλας λέξεις ὁποίως ἐκαινοτόμησαν, ὡς ἑξῆς που φανεῖται. ὁ τοίνυν Ποιητὴς ἃ μὲν ἁπλῶς, ἃ δὲ συνθέτως, ἃ δὲ ἰδιοτρόπως προήνεγκεν· ἁπλῶς μὲν ὡς ἅλιον, τὸν μάταιον, ἀπὸ τῆς ἁλὸς ἐν οὐδενὶ λόγῳ κειμένης πρὸ τῆς τῶν νηῶν εὑρέσεως· καὶ μεθήμονα, τὸν ἕκαστα τῶν ἔργων μεθιέντα· συνθέτως δὲ ἀεσίφρονα ὃν ἄν τις ἀπὸ τῆς ἀήσεως ἐξηνεμωμένον εἴποι τὰς φρένας· καὶ κυνάμυιαν ἀπ’ ἀμφοτέρων ζῴων τὴν τολμηράν·καὶ ἀπτοεπῆ καὶ ἐπεσβόλον τὸν τοῖς ἔπεσι καθαπτόμενον καὶ βάλλοντα· συνθέτως δὲ ἐν ταὐτῷ καὶ διαλελυμένως τὸ οἰνοβαρές, κυνὸς ὄμματ’ ἔχων· ἰδιοτρόπως δέ, ὡς τὸν μολοβρὸν καὶ τὸν τρώκτην καὶ τὸν ἀλλοπρόσαλλον καὶ τὸν κέρα ἀγλαόν· καὶ τὸν μὲν ἀπὸ τοῦ μολίσκειν βοράν, τὸν δὲ ἀπὸ τοῦ τρώγειν, τοῦ κερδαίνειν, ὡσπερεὶ λίχνον, τὸν δὲ κέρα ἀγλαὸν ἀπό τινος ἐμπλοκῆς καλλωπισμοῦ τριχῶν ἃς κέρατα ἐκάλουν· ἀλλοπρόσαλλον δὲ τὸν ἄλλοτε ἄλλῳ προστιθέμενον καὶ μὴ βέβαιον. τὰ μὲν οὖν παρ’ Ὁμήρῳ τοιαῦτα· ἰτέον δὲ ἐπὶ τὰ παρὰ τοῖς ἄλλοις εἰρημένα. INSULTS as a custom were invented in the beginning by Homer and the fellow poets of his age, and were later augmented by writers of comedy 29  Wallace-Hadrill (1983) 43–4, 90–1; cf. Dihle (1994) 346; Kaster (1995) xxxiv– xxxv on the ‘basically lexicographical’ method of the Grammarians and Rhetoricians; and Devillers (2003) 222. Although it is not cogent to assume that Suetonius’ own scholarly works necessarily predate the Illustrious Men or Caesars (Power 2010: 141), they nonetheless demonstrate Suetonius’ interests and style; cf. Wallace-Hadrill (1983) 49. Rawson (1978 = 1991: 324–51) shows that Latin prose, particularly technical writing such as that of Varro, became heavily influenced by Greek philosophy in the second century bc, incorporating diuisio in its arrangements. 30  On this work, see Taillardat; Pfeiffer (1968) 201; Wallace-Hadrill (1983) 44–5; Carbone (1993); Dickey (2007) 103; Kapparis (2011) 224–5, 232–51.

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and orators; and in a way, some of the historians too equally contributed other new phrases, as I shall describe in order. Homer first introduced insults for simple-minded, crude, and odd as follows. Simple-minded: halios (‘useless’): idle; from the halos (‘sea’) that lay to no purpose before the invention of ships; and methêmona (‘scatterbrain’): neglecting every task. Crude: aësiphrôn (‘windbag’): what one might call ‘full of wind’, from the aêsis (‘air’) in the phrên (‘chest’); kunamuia (‘dog-fly’): the stubbornness of both animals; aptoepēs (‘blabbermouth’) and epesbolos ­(‘bigmouth’): attacking with words and throwing words. For ‘crude’, add to these the colloquial oinobarês (‘wine-sack’): having eyes like a dog. Odd: molobros (‘glutton’), trôktês (‘knave’), alloprosallos (‘two-face’), and kera aglaon (‘beautiful horns’): from moliskô (‘go’) plus bora (‘food’); from trôgô (‘gnaw’), eager to traffic goods, so to speak; kera aglaon from a certain adornment of braided hair that they call ‘horns’; alloprosallos: changing allegiance by turns and inconsistent. Such are the insults from Homer; let us now look at those recorded by others. (Taillardat p. 48)

Not only is Suetonius’ style of diuisio evident in this passage through his compartmentalizing of the three kinds of insults within the first rubric, but even his diction. We might usefully compare his introduction to the Grammarians, where he writes about the profession’s development by using the word auxerunt (Gramm. 3.1), which is comparable to ἐπηύξησαν (‘augmented’) above; if the Greek epitome of Suetonius’ Insults, as we have it, represents merely a Byzantine translation of a Latin work (aside from the terms themselves and the illustrative quotations), then it may well have been auxerunt that Suetonius wrote to describe the contribution of proponents who came after the Archaic Greek poets.31 Let us very briefly compare an example of diuisio from Suetonius’ biographical writing. Take the following passage from the Divine ­Augustus, which has been more widely read than Suetonius’ Insults: patronus dominusque non minus [A] seuerus quam [B] facilis et clemens [B] multos libertorum in honore et usu maximo habuit, ut Licinum

31  Cf. also e.g. auxit (Iul. 2, 42.3), and Howard and Jackson (1922) s.v. augeo for further references. It is not certain whether Suetonius’ Insults was originally written in Greek; see Wardle (1993) 97–9.



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et Celadum aliosque. Cosmum seruum grauissime de se opinantem non ultra quam compedibus coercuit. Diomeden dispensatorem, a quo simul ambulante incurrenti repente fero apro per metum obiectus est, maluit timiditatis arguere quam noxae remque non minimi periculi, quia tamen fraus aberat, in iocum uertit. [A] idem Polum ex acceptissimis libertis mori coegit compertum adulterare matronas; Thallo a manu, quod pro epistula prodita denarios quingentos accepisset, crura ei fregit; paedagogum ministrosque C. fili, per occasionem ualitudinis mortisque eius superbe auareque in prouincia grassatos, oneratos graui pondere ceruicibus praecipitauit in flumen. As patron and master he was no less [A] harsh than [B] lenient and merciful; [B] many of his freedmen were treated by him with respect and on the most familiar terms, such as Licinus and Celadus, among others. Cosmus, a slave who was openly critical of him, was disciplined merely with imprisonment. Diomedes, an attendant who was walking by his side and, when a wild boar suddenly charged, fearfully pushed him in front of it, he preferred to declare frightened rather than harmful, and so this event of considerable danger, since no harm was done, was turned into a joke. [A] But by the same token, Polus, one of his closest freedmen, he condemned to die for being caught committing adultery with matrons; when his scribe Thallus took five hundred coins to reveal a letter, he broke his legs; and when the tutor and servants of his son Gaius took the opportunity of his illness and death to act arrogantly and avariciously in his province, he placed heavy weights on their necks and threw them into the river. (Aug. 67.1–2)

In this example, we see how the two moral themes of seueritas and clementia are exemplified in the sections that follow, where the arrangement is chiastic. The subtlety of the design leaves the worst impression last, with Suetonius going from virtue to vice. But in fact, with this rubric, he makes a transition to a less than favourable part of the Life on sexual activities and gambling (Aug. 68–71), only before resuming his overall laudatory portrait (72–101). He therefore actually achieves the reverse ‘chiaroscuro’ effect in the biography as a whole, emphasizing good deeds in light of bad ones.32 It is easy to see 32  For other subtleties of implication from Suetonius’ categorizations by rubric, see e.g. Iul. 42.2, with Duff (1914) 167; Iul. 44, with Townend (1982a) xii; Aug. 26–7 and 35.3, with Carter (1982) 8; Claud. 38.3–43, with Power (2011) 731; Tit. 7.1–3, with Wardle (2001) 65. On the ‘chiaroscuro’ technique in Suetonius, see e.g. Waters (1964) 51 n. 5; B. W. Jones (1996) xv, 33–4, 80; cf. Jones and Milns (2002) 143.

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how Suetonius’ familiar practice of neat compartmentalization can be likened to the style of his scholarly writings,33 a style which he manipulates for rather different, moralistic ends in his Lives. Nonetheless, this uniformity of style still serves to blur the line between Suetonius the scholar and Suetonius the biographer. Another contributing factor to the fluidity between Suetonius’ two endeavours is his use of sources, which reveals some continuity in the methods of gathering information for both his scholarly and biographical projects. In his Grammarians and Rhetoricians, for example, Suetonius drew mainly on scholarly works, rather than earlier biographies, which had not yet been written for these literary figures.34 Where Suetonius had no recourse to predecessors, he had to rely on scholarship to originate his biographies. By the same token, Suetonius himself is later mined for details no less by scholiasts on poetry, or scholars such as Gellius, than by subsequent biographies of the Caesars, such as the Historia Augusta, a fact that indicates the prominently antiquarian details embedded in his Lives. Wiseman’s chapter in this volume addresses an excellent example quoted by the fourth-century grammarian Diomedes (Suet. fr. 3 Reiff.) that has been controversially located in Suetonius’ Poets, even though it may possibly derive instead from his scholarship. The biographical writing of Suetonius shared some of the same source material as his more technical works, and indeed displays many of the same interrelated themes that appear to have constituted his diverse and wide-ranging interests, such as his emperors’ literary endeavours.35 The erudition of Suetonius’ scholarship is constantly displayed in the Caesars, just as his political expertise can be gleaned from passages of the Illustrious Men. For this reason, it can sometimes be uncertain where a Suetonian fragment should lie. We have looked closely at only two aspects of Suetonius’ style and one possible model for his Vitae (Augustus’ Res Gestae), but the literary influences on Suetonius were many.36 For example, Roman 33  Cf. Townend (1967) 85, comparing the style of diuisio in the Caesars to a fragment from Suetonius’ De genere uestium (Serv. ad Aen. 7.683 = fr. 168 Reiff.); also references above, n. 29. 34  Viljamaa (1991) 3829–31. 35  See Dihle (1994) 260–1 on Suetonius’ transcendence of ‘a merely biographical interest’ in the Caesars, despite his strictly narrow focus on the emperor. For studia in Suetonius generally, see e.g. Wallace-Hadrill (1983) 83–6; Kaster (2010) 495, 497–500; Power (2011) 731, (2014f). 36  Lewis (1991). As Lewis shows, public oratory and commentarii, to name only two, are other possible models; on the former, see above, n. 28; for the latter, esp. Pelling (2009c).



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death narratives of famous men probably influenced the care with which Suetonius, and his sources, recounted the final moments of his emperors, just as it may have influenced some of the death scenes in Pliny’s Letters and Tacitus.37 The success with which Suetonius can fashion his raw material in order to put his own unique stamp on it can be measured through his comparison with the parallel accounts of Plutarch, Tacitus, and Dio.38 Even when he handles the sources of historiography, turning to more centrally political subject matter, Suetonius strays further from that genre’s pattern than both Plutarch in his Greek collections of Lives and Tacitus in the Agricola,39 imposing a template that was considerably influenced by his scholarly works on poetry and culture—especially the private, everyday life of Romans. Furthermore, Suetonius’ political Lives are neither apologetic nor pretentious: not only are the biographies of Plutarch and Tacitus closer to historiography than his, but Suetonius paid little mind to the criticisms of Lives found in that genre, which usually treated overtly biographical material with disdain, striving to avoid the semblance of biography by eschewing trivial subject areas.40 Suetonius utilized his style of diuisio 37  On Suetonius and exitus literature, see Lounsbury (1987) 63–7; Lewis (1991) 3657–61; Brenk (1992) 4375; Sansone (1993) 189; Wardle (2007) 444–5, 449; Brandão (2009) 25, 48; Power (2014c); on its popularity at Rome, e.g. Plin. Ep. 3.5.3, 5.5.2, 8.12.5, 17.19.5; Tac. Agr. 2.1; with Syme (1958) 297–8; Geiger (1979) 61–2; WallaceHadrill (1983) 11; Morford (1990) 1589–94; Sage (1990) 1016–17; Hunink (1992) 390– 5; ­Burridge (2004) 73–4; Edwards (2007) 131–6, 248–50; Harker (2008) 143–6. See also Plin. Ep. 2.1, 7.24, with Trapp (2006) 339; Gibson, ch. 10 in this volume. On accounts of death in early Hellenistic biography, see Currie (1989); Woodman (1993) 117–18 = (1998) 205–6; Bollansée (1999a) 467–8 (on F 64), 513 (on F 72), 530–2 (on F 76); (1999b) 141–53. 38  See e.g. Malloch (2004) 207–8; Pausch (2004) 305–9, 316; Holzberg (2006) 49–51; Power (2007), (2012b), (2014b), (2014f); Oakley (2009) 206–11; Hurley (2013). 39  Wallace-Hadrill (1983) 14–15; Swain (1997) 24; Duff (1999) 20–1, 98 n. 106; Damon (2003) 28–9; Pelling (2011b) 16. 40  On the grandeur of historiography, see e.g. Townend (1967) 93; Bradley (1978) 153–4; Baldwin (1983) 506–7; Wallace-Hadrill (1983) 25; Oakley, Comm. II.136–9, III.176, 179, IV.551. For other ancient biographers as generally more defensive than Suetonius, see e.g. Nep. Praef. 1–3, Att. 13.6, Epam. 1.1–3; Plut. Alex. 1.2–3, Cat. Min. 24.1, 37.10; Tac. Agr. 1–2; SHA, Opil. 1.4–5, Heliogab. 18.3, Gord. 21.3, Quad. Tyr. 6.2– 4, 12.6; with Baldwin (1979a) 101–3 = (1983) 67–9 = (1989b) 12–14. Suetonius does not feel the need to justify including trivial details (Horsfall 1997: 25) or excluding matters of historiography (Hurley 2013: 38). On Suetonius’ greater interest in sexual material than Plutarch and Nepos, see respectively Duff (1999) 94–7 and Stem (2012) 157 n. 52. He also freely wrote on courtesans (Lydus, Mag. 3.64 = fr. 202 Reiff.); see Baldwin (1979a) 103 = (1983) 69 = (1989b) 14. The defensiveness of Jerome’s preface (De vir. II.821 Vallarsi = Suet. fr. 1 Reiff.) probably misrepresents Suetonius; see Power (2014d) 402–3, (forthcoming b), and ch. 11 in this volume, pp. 239–40.

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for the facets of emperors’ characters in a larger structure than that of his literary Lives, which, through its ordering of rubrics, implied both subtle and overall moralistic points about each subject’s ability to rule. When the biographer finally decided to turn his craft from poets to the more ambitious subject of imperial history, taking up annalistic sources too, the project became a hit. The ‘tell-all’ book, which began with Suetonius’ Lives of the twelve Caesars, would endure down to our own day. Part of its success is no doubt owed to its doing away with rhetorical niceties and getting immediately to the engrossing details.

2.  SUETONIUS REVIEWED Thirty years ago, Suetonius experienced a revival with the unprecedented appearance of several monographs on the author within the space of two years, including the first full-length books in English by Baldwin and Wallace-Hadrill.41 Since then, a substantial group of nine papers written in various languages appeared in a 1991 volume of Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt,42 and a collection of twenty more papers was published in 2009, almost exclusively in French, with a predominant focus on the author’s reception.43 The present volume is the first book of essays on Suetonius in English, and it aims to address the central question of his task as a biographer. In a review of his 1983 monograph, one scholar concluded that ‘Wallace-Hadrill has rescued Suetonius’ scholarship’ but given short shrift to questions of style and genre, some of which were the most interesting about the biographer, while another reviewer felt that Baldwin’s book of the same year gave too much attention to ‘traditional problems of Suetonian scholarship’, such as the historical facts about his life and which sources he used.44 41 Baldwin (1983); de Coninck (1983); Wallace-Hadrill (1983); Gascou (1984); Lambrecht (1984). These were shortly followed by the last book in English on Suetonius: Lounsbury (1987). To this coinciding, we might compare the less cited appearance of four contemporary commentaries on Suetonius’ Caligula: Guastella (1992); Hurley (1993); Lindsay (1993); Wardle (1994); and two on the Nero in as many years: Warmington (1999 [1977]); Bradley (1978); likewise on Suetonius’ Book 7: Murison (1992); Shotter (1993). 42  Galand-Hallyn (1991); Lewis (1991); de Coninck (1991); Bradley (1991); Giua (1991); Lounsbury (1991); Murphy (1991); Schmidt (1991); Viljamaa (1991). 43  Poignault (2009). 44  See Paterson (1984) 219 and Bradley (1985b) 255 respectively.



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The chapters that follow here attempt to complete some of the missing picture, synthesizing previous scholarship and revealing new directions of enquiry. A brief word about our title is warranted, before examining the different chapters included. The books on Suetonius mentioned above treat him from a variety of perspectives, approaching him alternately as an archivist, a scholar, a historian, or an artist, as their titles suggest. The chapters contained herein rather bring the focus squarely back to Suetonius as a biographer, seeking answers to questions about his biographical form, his different biographical themes across his Lives and other works, and the limitations to interpreting his work as biography. In this way, as we suggested at the beginning of this Introduction, we can better meet Suetonius on his own terms, and read his biographies with insight and understanding, rather than applying criteria that do not belong and judging him as a failed example of a very different norm. Suetonius, as we have shown, was an innovative writer, and we must bear his work’s distinction in mind for our discussions to be fruitful. Let us now turn to the individual chapters themselves. The ongoing debate over the biographer’s form and its merits will continue in our first chapter. Hurley examines what she sees as a conflict between Suetonius’ thematic and chronological arrangements, a topic with which she has previously dealt only briefly.45 Whereas Hurley finds some of Suetonius’ arrangements awkward, such as his section on Caesar’s horse (Iul. 61),46 Damon in the ensuing chapter finds Suetonius capable of much artistry by looking at his prose style, particularly his inclusion of verbatim quotations. Damon sees a Suetonius who is able to pull the strings behind his depictions, often letting the emperors speak for themselves and manipulating his presentation of facts through irony.47 Power then argues for a sense of closure in the arrangement of the Caesars as a whole, showing how Suetonius’ final rubrics in each biography allude to the beginnings and endings of earlier Lives. 45  Hurley (2001) 17–20, (2011) xx–xxiv, (2013) 38–40. For a discussion of Suetonius’ style in English, one had formerly to turn to Townend (1967). 46  On this detail as ‘a flagrant touch of the Alexander image’, see Baldwin (1983) 230. The allusion is also noted by Brandão (2009) 212 and Henderson, ch. 4 in this volume, p. 103, n. 44. 47  Damon’s chapter was anticipated by Reekmans (1992: 205–6) and may be likened to the study of verbatim quotations of women in Roman elegy by James (2010), who argues for ‘ventriloquism’ in their portrayal by poets (316 n. 7), borrowing the term from Harvey (1989); cf. also Drinkwater (2013). Against the complete artificiality of beloveds in Latin love poetry, see Power, ch. 11 in this volume.

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Henderson begins the second part of this book, ‘Reading the Lives’, with a much-needed study on the question of why Suetonius included the non-imperial Divine Julius in his collection, which has mostly been viewed historically in light of Trajan’s revival of Caesar during Suetonius’ own day.48 This extensive chapter surveys Caesar instead as a literary theme through the rest of the Lives, and is therefore a valuable resource for its gathering of disparate yet relevant passages. Although Hurley thinks that the Julius is a less polished biography, perhaps written after the Divine Augustus (p. 26), Henderson finds it more programmatic to the collection. In fact, in my view it might be preferable to see the Julius–Augustus pairing as revealing a combined model on which the later biographies draw, with the dialogue between them providing an ideal of different conduct to follow, both exemplary and cautionary.49 From the largely deterrent Julius, the next two chapters by Langlands and Gunderson turn to the Augustus, which is usually thought to be more positive. However, Langlands charts the theme of moral behaviour in the emperor’s personal life,50 comparing different parts of the biography and arguing for a subtle negative commentary between the lines. On the other hand, Gunderson takes on the idea of Augustus’ exemplarity itself, which is shown to be used by Suetonius to reveal a sharp contrast with the failure of his successor, Tiberius. Hurley’s second chapter on Caligula’s death is another topic, like Henderson’s, that cries out for fresh treatment despite a number of already existing discussions. She likewise brings a distinctive approach to bear, assessing the significance of ironic religious undertones and parallels with Suetonius’ other death scenes. Tatum and Hulls follow up this chapter with studies of the Titus and Domitian respectively, another pair of Lives that is especially meaningful when read together.51 Tatum looks at the structure and encomiastic bias of Suetonius’ Titus, 48  See Syme (1980) 111 = RP III.1258; Baldwin (1983) 50, 234–5; Bowersock (1998) 197, 205; Pelling (2002) 213–14 = PH 253–4; (2009b) 253–4. On the need for such a reassessment, cf. Braund (2009) 36–7 n. 119. For the perception that the Julius is to some extent anomalous, see e.g. Warmington (1999) vii. 49  On the increased awareness of the programmatic function of this pair of Lives, see e.g. Bradley (1985b) 264; Mossman (2006) 282; Pelling (2009b) 260–4; Power (2010) 161; and O’Gorman (2011) 293 n. 12, wrongly attributing to Wallace-Hadrill (1983: 61–2) a view of Syme’s (see Power 2010: 160 n. 86). For a comparative analysis of the two Lives, see Picón García (2009). 50  On the moral theme of marriage in Suetonius, see also Bradley (1985a). 51  See Galtier (2009) 86–9.



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while Hulls investigates how the use of mirrors suggests the theme of tyrannical solitude in the last Life. Both scholars read their respective biographies in the context of Suetonius’ full oeuvre, identifying larger themes across it through their individual studies. The last part of the book, ‘Biographical Thresholds’, addresses where Suetonius’ focus and interests as a writer cross the boundaries of genre and time, venturing away from the political biography for which he is primarily known today and into the realms of literary biography and ancient scholarship, as well as influencing late antique and medieval works. These chapters all look at how Suetonius’ use (and at times sole transmission) by other writers can often reveal the many tangents between his Lives and other kinds of writing, including his relationship to later biography. Gibson begins with a comparison of Suetonius’ Illustrious Men with Pliny the Younger’s Letters, demonstrating important differences in the two authors’ social outlooks and criteria for selecting biographical subjects.52 The possibility that Pliny had read Suetonius’ material before it was published informs Gibson’s reading of the Letters as a critique and pre-empting of the Illustrious Men, which was a work of great interest to Pliny, especially because it would glorify his uncle, Pliny the Elder. Much of Pliny’s material on Roman writers is shown to vie with the terrain of literary biography etched out by Suetonius, who is less interested in late Julio-Claudian writers. Pliny, in a way, also expands the Illustrious Men to include his own literary circle, which was beyond the temporal endpoint of Suetonius’ work. From Suetonius’ literary Lives, we move to his scholarly publications and fate as a writer in subsequent periods. Another chapter by Power takes as its subject the Suetonian composition attested as Famous Courtesans. This oft-mentioned but seldom seriously considered work may not have been a collection of biographies at all, but rather, as Power argues, a work closer to an ancient commentary on women in Latin verse—a companion to the companions of Roman poetry. The known and suspected fragments from the work are reconsidered (preserved by sources such as Apuleius, John Lydus in the sixth century, and the tenth-century Bern scholia), as well as others in Suetonius’ near-contemporary Gellius and the Virgilian commentator Servius, which are newly proposed. This theme of Suetonius’ legacy 52  See also Syme (1958) 87–9 and Leach (2012) 87–8 for observations on the social class of Pliny’s addressees.

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is continued by Wiseman, who investigates the nature and scope of a Suetonian fragment on Roman drama as transmitted by the fourthcentury grammarian Diomedes, which we have already discussed, and also illuminates its context through comparison with the thirdcentury Christian writer Tertullian.53 Finally, Wood explores how Suetonius’ work on the emperors was read by Einhard, influencing the continued development of political biography as a genre during the Carolingian Empire.54 In representing a re-evaluation of Suetonius as a biographer, the chapters in this book, for the most part, make a break with past scholarship that sought to define him primarily in terms of his social class or antiquarian interests.55 Since earlier literary appreciations of Suetonius have failed to convince,56 new avenues are needed to redirect emphasis from the biographer’s era, career, and earlier sources in seeking the reasons for his creative choices. By reading Suetonius’ Caesars and his other works in the context of their respective genres, the present book eschews these scholarly preoccupations, better explaining the techniques by which he shaped his material as serving sophisticated compositional aims. Suetonius is thus unearthed as a richer and more complex source for the Roman Empire, and an author whose literary talent is only now receiving the attention it deserves.

53  For Diomedes’ use of Suetonius, see also Moore (2012) 11, 60–1; for Tertullian’s, Waszink (1948) 225–33. 54  Einhard and Suetonius are also discussed by Bowersock (1998) 209; A ­ verintsev (2002) 34; Fischer and Markoff (2006); Simons (2011); Hägg (2012) 231–2. For ­Einhard and biography, see Becht-Jördens (2008). On the manuscript tradition of Suetonius’ Caesars, see Kaster (2014). 55  On Suetonius as a product of the equestrian order, see e.g. Della Corte (1958); Piccirilli (1998). On Suetonius the antiquarian, see e.g. Leo (1901) 1–16, 268–314; ­Momigliano (1993) 19–20, 86–8, 112–15. 56  For criticism of previous literary studies, see Bradley (1978) 15–16; Wallace-­ Hadrill (1983) 21–2, 175, (1986) 326.

Part I Formal Features

1 Suetonius’ Rubric Sandwich Donna W. Hurley

Richard Lounsbury opened the preface of his 1987 The Arts of Suetonius by justifying the plural in the title. ‘It implies,’ he wrote, ‘that C.  Suetonius Tranquillus wrote by choice and by will, having conceived a project and worked out the best methods of accomplishing it; and that the accomplished and various artifact is worthy in itself of our pleasure and our taste.’1 Lounsbury’s second ‘art’, the production of a ‘worthy artifact’, opens the possibility of literary assessment of the Caesars. His first ‘art’ refers more particularly to the biographer himself and is tangential to a long-held assumption that Suetonius was little more than a sorter of facts.2 And it raises the question of intention. This examination and comparison of the structure of the individual Lives, with attention to the author’s manipulation of rubric segments, reveals him trying to respond to the imperative that he obviously felt to organize the information that he had at hand and to shape it effectively. It could sometimes be difficult for him to line his emperors up against one another in a way useful for comparison, but the Lives show him working hard at it and writing ‘by choice and by will’. Suetonius’ biographies of the Caesars are acknowledged to follow a pattern in which rubrics, facts ordered by topic, are sandwiched into the chronologically obvious boundaries of an emperor’s birth and death.3 Furthermore, the pattern reaches back to ancestry and moves forward from birth with a description of his pre-imperial life. Accession prefaces events of his reign arranged by rubric. Chronology 1  Lounsbury (1987) ix. 2  Macé (1900); Leo (1901); Funaioli (1927) = (1947) 147–79. 3  Lewis (1991) 3641.

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returns at the end with the narration of his death and burial followed by a closing thought or coda of some sort. It is the central section, the exposition of the emperor’s reign by topic without temporal reference, that constitutes the alleged filling of the sandwich. Suetonius’ rubrics frequently begin with obvious introductory summations, the red-letter sentences that give their name to his method. Vespasian ‘patiently endured the candour of his friends, the innuendos of lawyers, and the defiance of philosophers’ (amicorum libertatem, causidicorum figuras ac philosophorum contumaciam lenissime tulit). Illustrations follow in order. Three kinds of challenge come from three categories of persons; a representative of each is named and his irritating behaviour described (Vesp. 13). Claudius ‘was set upon by individuals and by a faction and finally in civil war’ (et a singulis et per factionem et denique ciuili bello, Claud. 13.1), a sentence carefully constructed with polysyndeton and uariatio. An example of each threat follows in the same order (Claud. 13.1–2). This is writing with attention to detail. Some rubrics are concrete and relate to the emperor’s broad range of involvement in affairs of state (the dispensation of justice, the sponsorship of games, consulships) or to his private life (marriages, literary accomplishment, eating habits). Others are rubrics of character or quality, positive or negative, often gathered into abstract nouns—the ciuilitas (citizen-like behaviour) of Augustus (Aug. 50), the petulantia (insolence) of Nero (Ner. 26.1), the seueritas (harshness) of Galba (Galb. 6.3, 7.1)—and are the ‘imperial virtues’ (or vices) recognized as paradigmatic of Suetonian biography.4 Rubrics often follow one another in a logical stream. Generosity (liberalitas) has subsets in the providing of entertainment, gifts to the populace, and public works. A description of the emperor’s physical appearance may be followed by his health and personal habits, his eating, drinking, and sleeping. Attention (or the lack of it) to the standard educational curriculum (studia liberalia) introduces oratorical and literary accomplishment. Gaius’ saeuitia (cruelty, Calig. 27.1) is modified over several pages as verbal cruelty (atrocitas uerborum, Calig. 29.1) and cruelty while at leisure (Calig. 32.1). A general heading such as the ‘administration of the state’ (ad ordinandum rei publicae, Iul. 40.1) 4  Qualities correspond in large part to the plenitude of abstract nouns in Pliny’s Panegyric to Trajan (3.4): Mouchová (1968); Wallace-Hadrill (1981a), (1983) 174; Bradley (1991); Lewis (1991) 3627–8.



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was more challenging; Suetonius might organize by geography, from Rome to Italy and then outward to provinces and distant territories (Aug. 29–48). Chronology retained within rubrics assists organization: Augustus’ betrothal and marriages are listed in order (Aug. 62); omens portending Gaius’ murder draw ever closer to the moment of assassination (Calig. 57). This kind of sorting usually goes well, although some choices can be awkward or unexpected. But these too (perhaps even more revealingly) show Suetonius making decisions and purposefully arranging his material. When Caesar, with the outcome of battle in doubt, sends away the horses (including his own), in order to discourage retreat, Suetonius seizes the opportunity to describe the emperor’s special horse with human-like feet (Iul. 61). This nugget intrudes oddly into pages devoted to military leadership, but he could evidently find no better spot for it, although he clearly thought he must include it. Nero’s cruelty expands logically from family to friends and beyond (Ner. 33–7) until it becomes ‘cruelty’ to the city walls, a contrived thought, but a way to fit responsibility for the great fire of ad 64 into a scheme (Ner. 38.1). Every page of the Caesars reveals Suetonius making studied decisions like these about the dispersal of his information and achieving what are usually (if not always) satisfying and effective connections. This is, without doubt, composition ‘by choice and by will’, observable in sentences and paragraphs and beyond. But decisions on a larger scale, the organization of a biography as a whole, and the positioning of rubric segments within it—the making of the sandwich—appear to have given him greater trouble. Suetonius’ sandwich with a rubric filling, his use of rubrics to describe the emperor’s reign within a chronological enclosure, fits the Life of the Divine Augustus most closely. This is the only one of the Lives in which he makes specific reference to rubrics. After the obligatory description of ancestry, in this case with intimations of divinity, Augustus is introduced in Chapter 5 (natus est, ‘he was born’, Aug. 5). A quick survey of his youth ends with the briefest of summaries of his rule, a single sentence: ‘He raised armies and then ruled the state, first with Mark Antony and Marcus Lepidus, then with Antony alone for almost twelve years, and finally for forty-four by himself ’ (Aug. 8.3). Then an organizational marker, the much quoted diuisio: ‘Having set forth this summation, as it were, of his life, I shall go through the individual items not according to chronology [per tempora] but by topics [per species], so that they can be more clearly revealed and understood’

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(Aug. 9). Suetonius then describes Augustus’ public achievement in fifty-two chapters, by rubric and at length. But within this firmly announced boundary, Suetonius, as he often did, found it difficult to depart from the temporal completely, and the first twenty chapters devoted to Augustus’ reign describe his consolidation of power. First the interior conflicts: ‘he fought five civil wars’ (bella ciuilia quinque gessit, Aug. 9–17). More acceptable foreign wars (bella externa) and evidence of his military leadership follow (Aug. ­20–5). Then come the offices he held (Aug. 26), his years as a member of the Second Triumvirate (Aug. 27), and his feint at ‘restoring the republic’ (de reddenda re publica, Aug. 28.1). Only after that does Suetonius arrange facts firmly by topic. Measures at Rome are organized by a descent through the orders from senators to slaves (Aug. 35–42), before his focus moves abroad and finally to client kingdoms (Aug. 46–8). The virtues of liberalitas (Aug. 41.1), clementia (mercy), ciuilitas (Aug. 51.1), and comitas (graciousness, Aug. 53.2) appear as rubrics of quality on view in the public arena. ­Augustus’ career reaches a glorious climax with the honours he achieved (Aug. 57–60). Then a second diuisio: quoniam qualis in imperiis ac magistratibus regendaque per terrarum orbem pace belloque re p. fuerit, exposui, referam nunc interiorem ac familiarem eius uitam quibusque moribus atque fortuna domi et inter suos egerit a iuuenta usque ad supremum uitae diem. Since I have shown what sort of person he was when he held military command and when he held civilian office and directed the state everywhere in peace and in war, I shall now tell of his personal and family life and with what character and fortune he lived at home and with his family from his youth until the last day of his life. (Aug. 61.1)

Suetonius separates the public emperor from the private man and makes this distinction as important an organizing feature as the separation of Augustus’ career from the surrounding frame. It is a second segment of the biography enclosed within the boundaries of birth and death and organized per species. Embedded in a mass of concrete detail (marriage and family, sexual behaviour, amusements, living arrangements) is a rubric of physical appearance, the one personal item that Suetonius never omits for any of his emperors: forma fuit eximia, ‘he was quite handsome’ (Aug. 79.1). Physical appearance prefaces health, education, literary achievement, and religious superstitions. Augustus’ unpretentious living and frugality are praised with the abstract nouns continentia (self-restraint, Aug. 72.1) and parsimonia (thrift, Aug. 73).



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A third signpost introduces a rubric of omens that declare Augustus’ exceptionality; it acts both as a break between his private life and the final narrative segment, and as a bridge between them: ‘Since we have arrived at this juncture, it will not be inappropriate to add . . . [the portents] . . . by which his future greatness and eternal good fortune [felicitas] could be anticipated and observed’ (Aug. 94.1). Augustus’ death, funeral, and a final notice about his will balance the opening narrative as his god-like end mirrors the divine projection of his birth: ring composition or rubric sandwich, as one chooses. Suetonius executes cleanly and clearly the programme that he announces with these three intrusions into the text. It is neatly done. Since the public section in the Life of the Divine Augustus rises to a positive and even splendid climax (Aug. 60), and the biography as a whole ends with the continuing good fortune of a blessed death (Aug. 99), it is apparent that Suetonius wanted to present a favourable portrait of Augustus and ostensibly make him the implied role model for the emperors who follow. The only jarring elements are the negative reports in both public and private sections. Augustus’ rise to power was an ugly affair, and his membership in the Second Triumvirate left its stain (Aug. 9.2–17, 27.1–4). Brutality was part of his story, as was his penchant for deflowering virgins (Aug. 71.1). And his daughter, granddaughter, and adopted son, Agrippa Postumus, were bitter disappointments when their behaviour reflected poorly on his attempts at household order (Aug. 65). Rudolf Hanslik, in his 1954 analysis of the Augustus Life, suggests that Suetonius rationalized the inclusion of negative details about Augustus’ accretion of power by assigning his vindictive deeds to the avenging of his uncle’s death and then by isolating them and leaving them behind.5 Domestic unpleasantness is similarly described first in the private segment, before it too is left behind. The disjunction between positive and negative behaviours was an issue that Suetonius saw as more central in other biographies. Controversy over the order and timing of the composition of the twelve Lives remains. Suetonius may have published only the first two before moving on to the Julio-Claudians and still later through the Flavians, or he may have conceived, written, and published all twelve of the Lives at once.6 The Life of the Divine Julius comes first, as is 5  Hanslik (1954) 121–5, 138–9. 6  Townend (1959a); Syme (1980) 117–21 = RP III.1264–8; Wallace-Hadrill (1983) 1–2 and n. 1; Lindsay (1994b) 459, 464; Wardle (2002) 462–3; Power (2010) 159–62, and ch. 3 in this volume, pp. 76–7.

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historically necessary. We also know that it stood in first place because it opened with a dedication to C. Septicius Clarus, now missing along with the opening chapters.7 The Caesar Life not only introduces the very concept of ‘a Caesar’—that is, the centrality of a single political figure, a necessary concept for future emperors and implicit for Suetonius’ next eleven. Paired with the Life of Augustus, it also offers an example of the unacceptable use of power in contrast to the first emperor’s proper use.8 But the Life of Augustus is the only one in which there is explicit reference to rubrics (per species), and this suggests that it may have been the first that he actually tackled. His careful laying out of diuisiones and his success in executing his programme may indicate that he thought he was establishing, as well as a behaviour model, a compositional model that he could use for his other Lives. All (the Life of the Divine Titus probably excepted) appear to labour to achieve some degree of the satisfying execution of the Augustus. If it should be that the Augustus Life was written first, the neat sandwich template had to be modified quickly. The Dictatorship was the climax of Julius Caesar’s political career, and Suetonius treated it organizationally as the equivalent of the principate. Two chapters devoted to the pre-imperial life of Augustus (Aug. 7, 8) become for Caesar thirty-five (in addition to those in the lost initial chapters) before the description of his actions as Dictator (Iul. 1–35). Caesar had clawed his way to power over a period of years.9 These pre-imperial chapters fall into orderly segments arranged by the offices and commands that he held sequentially, the last in the civil war, where success left him holding sole power. On his return to Rome in ad 46, he was named Dictator, and at this point in the story (Iul. 36), Suetonius, without announcement of the tactic, gathers his material into rubrics: Caesar’s triumphs, sponsorship of games, institutional reform, administration of justice, categories that appear in many of the Lives, and one particular to him, the reorganization of the calendar (Iul. 36–44.3). But Suetonius does announce a break when he writes, ‘Death intervened when [Caesar] was doing these things and contemplating others. Before I tell of this, it will not be inappropriate for me to set forth 7  The sixth-century Byzantine scholar John Lydus saw the Caesars intact, and reported the dedication in his De magistratibus (2.6). 8  See Henderson, ch. 4 in this volume; Giua (1991) 3745. 9  Caesar’s career was well documented. Among other sources, Suetonius credits historians and biographers at Iul. 9.2–3, 49.2, 52.1, 53, 56.3–4, 77, 81.2, 83.1—especially the historian Asinius Pollio (Iul. 30.4, 55.4, 56.4).



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what has to do with his person, his dress, his habits . . . ’ (Iul. 44.4). Here again is the pivotal diuisio between public role and private life, already met for Augustus (Aug. 61.1). Suetonius calls attention to what he obviously considered an important structural distinction. He begins with the most concrete of personal items, Caesar’s physical ­appearance—fuisse traditur excelsa statura, ‘he is said to have been a tall man’ (Iul. 45.1)—and follows with a description of oratory and literary production (Iul. 55–6). He then pays attention to military skills in a large number of sub-rubrics: Caesar’s tactics, the encouragement of his men, disciplinary practice, and so forth (Iul. 57–70). These give way to larger issues of ability and character and rubrics of quality, his facilitas (availability) and indulgentia (consideration) to clients and friends (Iul. 72). He is lenissimus (very lenient) to his pirate captors (Iul. 74.1) and displays moderatio (moderation) and clementia with the populace (Iul. 75). Although Suetonius gathers many of Caesar’s skills and these qualities under the heading of the private individual, he illustrates them by examples from the public sphere. Public and private were not always easy to separate, and for the most part he stopped making a major distinction between these after the first two Lives. Augustus’ less savoury behaviour yields discreetly to the good, and is hopefully forgotten. However, when Caesar’s positive qualities give way to negative, Suetonius does not want them ignored, and he flags the transition: ‘His other words and deeds outweighed [his good actions] so that it was thought that he had abused his power and was justly slain’ (Iul. 76.1). His arrogantia (arrogance) goads his assassins to action (Iul. 77, 78.1), and the sentence returns the reader to chapter 44 and events of the Dictatorship that were a prelude to his death. The Life of Augustus is a satisfactory way in which to organize an imperial Life, but this one too, which conforms to the structure of the ­Augustus Life in some respects (although not in others), is managed well. Caesar’s death is postponed to make space for the private man, and in the course of this characterization, the overtaking of energy and ability by arrogance provide an organic explanation for assassination. It is a narrative of cause and effect with murder as its dramatic climax. The rubrics for Caesar’s public career and for his private life are framed by chronology but make a lopsided sandwich, since the first framing segment—his rise to power—of necessity takes up almost half the pages. The Lives of two other assassinated emperors, Gaius and Domitian, adhere to a pattern of cause and effect similar to that for Caesar, and

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so does the Life of Nero, who was not assassinated but forced to commit suicide.10 With these three failed emperors, as with Caesar, the emperor’s aberrant behaviour precipitates his downfall, and Suetonius makes the narrative logic clear. But for them he makes another choice as well. He saw the chief ingredient in the character of each a propensity for evil, prefigured in youth, realized in power, and the catalyst of his death. With Augustus, nasty or unfortunate business is noted and then left behind. With Caesar, the negative evolves within the whole. These other three could be credited with decent actions, but the damaging tradition about them was overwhelming. Suetonius chose a diuisio between good and evil as the primary strategy by which to organize their stories. Gaius’ initial pleasing behaviour in regard to games and public works is labelled with popularitas (favour seeking) and pietas (dutifulness, Calig. 15.1). Then comes Suetonius’ arguably most quoted sentence: ‘To this point, I have told his story as though he were an emperor. The rest must be told as if about a monster’ (Calig. 22.1). After Gaius’ cardinal vices of superbia (hauteur) and saeuitia devolve into sexual excess, extravagance, and greed (Calig. 22–42), his military campaigns end with his return to Rome in ad 40 (Calig. 43–9). Death will soon follow, but, as with Caesar, the telling of it is postponed, and the private man makes his appearance without announcement. It begins with his physical appearance: statura fuit eminenti, ‘he was tall’ (50.1). Gaius’ health and mental health introduce the habits and actions that trigger conspiracy and lead to his assassination (Calig. 50.2–51). Chronology returns. ‘As he was running riot and destroying all in his path,’ writes Suetonius, ‘a number of persons conceived the idea of attacking him’ (Calig. 56.1). This recalls the cause and effect narrative in the Caesar Life, and death by murder is again the climax.11 The transition from the public to the private that Suetonius points to so emphatically as a central structural divide in his Lives of A ­ ugustus and Caesar is not broadcast in the Life of Caligula or, indeed, in any of the Lives, except for the first two. The private segment can still be located, but is much abbreviated in comparison with what is included for them. Caesar’s military leadership, as has been noted, is described under the private heading (Iul. 57–70) and, for Augustus, so are virtues like ciuilitas and comitas (Aug. 56.1). For Gaius, attributes of the 10  Parallels between their deaths in Mouchová (1968) 52–60. 11  On Caesar and Gaius, see also Hurley, ch. 7 in this volume pp. 156–8.



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private man are reduced to core elements that are more clearly personal. After physical appearance come health, eccentric habits, interest in studia liberalia, the arts, and obsessions. A similar or even greater abbreviation of the private man is found for most of the emperors apart from Caesar and Augustus, and is introduced simply as part of the picture of the adult emperor.12 Generosity, as exemplified in the giving of games, can obviously be proposed as a public virtue; appearance, health, and habits clearly apply to the individual. But where to put pietas and saeuitia? Rubrics were perhaps not so simple and obvious a device as they seem when they are pointed out in the Life of the Divine Augustus.13 It could be difficult to keep active both an expanded public–private axis and a good–bad axis at the same time. The Nero Life shows the emperor beginning well. His reign is first summed up by a rubric of pietas and then by a triplet of virtues, liberalitas, clementia, and comitas (Ner. 10). Suetonius is managing abstract qualities effectively. Then comes a strong marker between good and bad, very like the one for Gaius (Ner. 19.3): ‘I have gathered items, some undeserving of blame and others worthy even of a degree of praise, so that I can separate them from his evil and criminal deeds that I shall be describing from this point forward.’ A portrayal of Nero as a performer (exhibitionist) begins the negative segment (Ner. 20–1); his music making and chariot racing from Rome to Greece and back describe a neat ring (Ner. 22–5). Then five negative traits are gathered into nouns of quality: petulantia, libido (lust), luxuria (extravagance), auaritia (greed), and crudelitas (cruelty, Ner. 26.1). These vices are elaborated in order over the next thirteen chapters. His cruelty especially made him enemies: ‘After enduring such an emperor for almost fourteen years, the world at last abandoned him . . . ’ (Ner. 40.1). This sentence, like similar sentences in the Lives of Caesar and Gaius, calls attention to the relationship between his behaviour and his death. In the Lives of Caesar and Gaius, assassination is postponed to make space for physical appearance and associated items. But with Nero, Suetonius finishes the story without interruption. The uprising in Gaul, Nero’s feckless response, and his flight and suicide make a compelling narration worthy of the praise it has received (Ner. 40–50).14 But what 12  Such constellations of attributes are noted by Wallace-Hadrill (1983) 68. 13  Lewis (1991) 3664. 14  ‘The most vivid and memorable passage of narrative in all of the De Vita Caesarum’, Lounsbury (1987) 63; also Townend (1967) 93; Sansone (1993) 179 and n. 1.

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has become of the obligatory description of the emperor’s physical appearance? Nero is dead and suitably buried before we read, statura fuit prope iusta, ‘he was of about average height’ (Ner. 51)—­anticlimactic it would seem, especially in comparison with the very deliberate postponement of the death narrative for Caesar.15 Here, after Nero’s suicide and burial, rubrics return, and his physical description is followed by the now familiar constellation of health and habits, education, writing, and religiosity. By delaying the description of Nero’s person, Suetonius makes a tighter connection between the emperor’s behaviour and his premature end, but has sacrificed the finale of a dramatic death. It was not possible to capture both strategies at the same time. The filling of the rubric sandwich, its public and private segments, has now been divided and the second has fallen completely out of the containing boundaries of birth and death. But another factor is operative here. The last of Nero’s personal attributes listed—religious superstition— centres on his desire for immortality (Ner. 55). This desire is fulfilled, after a fashion, when the final chapter of the Life describes the posthumous adoration he received and the appearance of a false Nero (Ner. 57). This second climax has its logic, but so does the first, with the direct link between character and death. The biography of Domitian follows a similar trajectory. Domitian’s virtues were at first mixed with vices before ‘he turned his virtues into vices as well’ (uirtutes quoque in uitia deflexit, Dom. 3.2). His reign falls into two parts, one partly good and the other completely evil, and the implication is that decent administration belongs to the earlier portion (Dom. 4–9); this idea was probably already present in the tradition that Suetonius inherited.16 The division is thus temporal as well as evaluative when clementia turns into saeuitia, and abstinentia (fiscal restraint) turns into cupiditas (greed, Dom. 10.1). Domitian’s misdeeds reach a climax in arrogantia (Dom. 13.2), and his behaviour (as with Julius, Gaius, and Nero) provokes conspiracy and assassination: ‘For these reasons, he was a hated object of terror to all . . . ’ (Dom. 14.1). Omens predictive of death and his murder described in exciting detail follow immediately, just as the story of Nero’s end follows his erratic behaviour without a break. Domitian is hastily buried (Dom. 15.2–17), but then, again as with Nero, after the action is over, we are 15  ‘Commentators have frequently found this location for such material structurally puzzling’, Lewis (1991) 3661. Lewis suggests that physical description placed after death recalls the images of the deceased at the funeral. 16  Lambrecht (1995) 513–29; Müller (1998–9) 352–4.



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then told, statura fuit procera, ‘he was tall’ (Dom. 18.1), and physical appearance is followed by habits, education, and, this time, libido. A desire for an organic narration of cause and effect again appears to trump a desire to end the Life with the dramatic death story. With Domitian, the second climax of the Nero story is missing. Suetonius also postponed physical descriptions for the other emperors who suffered violent deaths, the three unsuccessful imperial aspirants of ad 68 and 69. Again, the postponement permitted a tight connection between their behaviour and their ends. Of the last six Lives, only Vespasian and Titus—the two who died in their beds—have descriptions of their person buried within the narrative. The short Lives of Galba, Otho, and Vitellius are essentially narrative in any case, and retain only remnants of the programme set out in the Life of the Divine Augustus, although they do contain what Suetonius must have considered the true imperatives for his series—ancestry as necessary, natus est, death, and, of course, the physical description.17 Only an occasional abstract noun of quality can be found: seueritas (Galb. 6.3, 7.1) turned to saeuitia for Galba (Galb. 12.1, 15.2); uanitas (pitilessness), insolentia (arrogance, Vit. 10.3), saeuitia (Vit. 13.1), and the besetting sin of luxuria (in this context, ‘gluttony’, Vit. 13.1) for Vitellius. Extended expositions of their reigns by rubric are not to be expected in any case, since their claims to the principate were so brief that they scarcely had reigns at all. The Augustan rubric sandwich cannot really be constructed. The Life of the Divine Titus leaves the sandwich model even further behind. Titus was a generally bad prince before he became emperor, but exemplary thereafter. Cassius Dio and Suetonius explain differently this inversion of the character trajectory expected for an emperor, making it clear that the problem had already been posed by the existing tradition. Suetonius acknowledges it in his first sentence when he asks whether the change resulted from ‘nature or skill or good luck’ (uel ingenii uel artis uel fortunae, Tit. 1).18 This, the shortest of the Lives, retains little of the structure found in the others. The point at which Titus exposes his true benevolent self (Tit. 7.1) provides a 17  Galba ‘was of average height’ (statura fuit iusta, Galb. 21), Otho ‘of moderate height’ (modicae staturae, Otho 12.1), and Vitellius ‘extremely tall’ (enormis proceritas, Vit. 17.2). 18  Cf. Dio 66.18.1–5. Dio judges that Titus’ good luck (fortuna) in dying young saved him from becoming evil once again. Suetonius credits his good character to his talent and skill. See Tatum, ch. 8 in this volume; also Luck (1964); Wardle (2001).

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central diuisio, but one that must have come ready-made to Suetonius, as the emperor’s story unfolds in the reverse course to that of Domitian (bad to good, not good to bad). Physical description appears early, possibly where Suetonius found it embedded in his source. Titus was possessed ‘of a handsome appearance’ (egregia forma), although he was short and had a potbelly (Tit. 3.1). Mental and physical attributes and skills are attached (Tit. 3.1–2). The private life of this emperor seems almost incidental to the narrative. The Life of the Divine Vespasian follows the sandwich structure of the Augustus Life more closely than does any of the others, although it lacks the breadth and richness of its model, if model it was. Vespasian, like Augustus, founded a dynasty and, more importantly, was emperor long enough to accumulate an array of accomplishments that could be organized into rubrics. His death did not need to be explained as the result of a vicious character, and the disproportionate weight of his virtues obviated a ‘good–bad’ organization. Rubrics of content (consulships, military competence, the encouragement of moral life, Vesp. 8–11) are followed by rubrics of quality, ciuilitas and clementia (Vesp. 12–15). His sole fault, cupiditas, emerges only briefly (Vesp.  16.1). Physical appearance (statura fuit quadrata, ‘he was of sturdy build’, Vesp. 20) is, as usual, a sub-section within the adult portrait. The Life concludes with Vespasian’s sense of humour and a joke that returns it efficiently to the narration of his death. Suetonius appears to have had problems fitting the biographies of Tiberius and Claudius into his chosen structures, although he is otherwise particularly agile in manipulating rubrics in the ‘middle Lives’, those of Tiberius, Gaius, Claudius, and Nero. Similarities between the portrayals of Tiberius in Suetonius and in the historians Tacitus and Cassius Dio suggest that the three shared a source or sources that already saw the emperor as a complicated figure, a competent leader, and, at the same time, a tyrant, a foxy old despot who revealed his nature over time.19 His life was thus a progression, and that concept imposes chronology on the understanding of his character. Chronology is further important because Tiberius, like Julius Caesar, had a long career before he came to sole power, and the pre-imperial segment of his life takes much space (Tib. 5–20). Suetonius organized this earlier period largely per tempora, although parts fall into rubrics, 19  In particular, Tac. Ann. 6.51.1–3 and Dio 57.13.6, 58.28.5; Giua (1978), (1991) 3738–9. See also Syme (1958) 271–2, 420–2.



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military actions for example (Tib. 9.1–2), and offices held (Tib. 9.3). After accession (Tib. 21.1), rubrics of quality appear as Tiberius displays humanitas (benevolence) to the senate, and libertas (tolerance) and moderatio to the lower classes (Tib. 29, 30, 32.2). But chronology is never abandoned. Events take place inter initia (‘in the beginning’, Tib. 26.1), and he paulatim (‘gradually’, Tib. 33) shows his true self as he assumes the cloak of confidence.20 The collision between the temporal and the topical is especially prominent when, in ad 27, in mid-reign, Tiberius retreated to Capri, and Suetonius announces, ‘He finally, all at once, gave free play to the vices that he had so long repressed. I shall describe them one by one from the beginning’ (Tib. 42.1). This dividing sentence, placed at a point of both temporal and geographical change in the Tiberius story, introduces a character change from largely acceptable to unrelentingly evil. At the same time, emphasis on the seclusion of the island teases the reader about a revival of the clear public–private demarcation chosen for the first two Lives—that is, the privacy of Capri will release inhibitions, and Tiberius’ vices will no longer be ‘repressed’. But the negative qualities that are described in the following chapters (indecency, parsimony, hostility, cruelty, paranoia, and self-loathing, Tib. 42–67) are not limited to life on Capri. Suetonius begins with T ­ iberius’ drinking in camp and in Rome, ab exordio, ‘from the beginning’ (Tib. 42.1). Cruel actions take place everywhere over time, and examples lead the reader from family to more distant associates, despite the fact that temporal progression continues to be implied: procedente mox tempore, ‘as time went on’ (Tib. 49.1), inter initia, ‘among his first actions’ (Tib. 57.1), postremo, ‘later on’ (Tib. 67.1). Physical appearance is introduced abruptly: corpore fuit amplo atque robusto, ‘he was a big strong man’ (Tib. 68.1). After that come the oftenassociated items of religiosity, education, and literary output. At the end are his death, funeral, and will. The diuisio of Tiberius’ retreat to Capri that introduces the negative illustrations of his character is confused by temporal considerations, and by its suggestion of withdrawal from the public sphere. This ambiguity stands in contrast to the Life of Augustus, where Suetonius realizes his announced organization so very carefully.21 20  Giua (1991) 3736–7. 21  Giua (1978) sees the somewhat misleading organization arising from Suetonius’ inherited material. The conflict between chronology and rubrics is noted by Bringmann (1971) 272 and Döpp (1972) 452. Braun (1990) rationalizes the inconsistencies by arguing that Suetonius is letting the reader discover the true nature of Tiberius over time, just as Augustus did.

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The Life of the emperor Claudius has its own awkward moment. The central diuisio states the cliché that Claudius was the dupe of his wives and freedmen (Claud. 25.5). This idea of a passive Claudius appears in Tacitus’ Annals as well, and conspicuously in Cassius Dio’s Roman History, and it would have been present in the source or sources that they (along with Suetonius) had at hand. But first Claudius’ pre-imperial life is described in neat chronological units that correspond to the dismissive treatment that he received from Augustus, Tiberius, and Gaius in turn (Claud. 4–9). After accession (Claud. 10), his reign is ordered according to particularly well-controlled rubrics, first abstract—­ clementia, pietas, moderatio, and ciuilitas (Claud. 11–12)—followed by concrete, reversing the usual order of concrete to abstract. Then come threats to his life (Claud. 13) and his roles as consul, judge, censor, and general (Claud. 14–17). Generosity (Claud. 18–21) is a prelude to a compendious assortment of administrative and legal measures (Claud. 22–5). As with Augustus, there was much to include when describing Claudius’ reign. He was a busy emperor. His activity was suited to rubric presentation, and the sandwich has its filling once again. Then the transition sentence: ‘But these measures and others and indeed almost all of what he did as emperor, he undertook not so much by his own initiative as by that of his wives and freedmen’ (Claud. 25.5). This introduction of the wives-and-freedmen motif divides the activity of Claudius the emperor from that of Claudius the individual, and marks a ‘public–private’ divide; rubrics of wives, children, and freedmen follow directly (Claud. 26–8), and Claudius’ person is described shortly thereafter: ‘His appearance was not without command and distinction but only when he was standing or sitting . . . ’ (auctoritas dignitasque formae non defuit ei uerum stanti uel sedenti . . . , Claud. 30). An expanded range of qualities, not merely the usual very personal few, and more like the variety in the Lives of Julius Caesar and Augustus, complete his portrait: his bloodthirsty disposition, fearfulness, suspiciousness, rage, and disengagement—all deplorable (Claud. 34–40). There is space, however, for a positive assessment of his writing and erudition (Claud. 41–2). Death by alleged poisoning is the climax, and omens provide closure. The statement of Claudius’ passivity (Claud. 25.5) enjoys a quick reprise, returning immediately after the introduction of family and freedmen (Claud. 26–8): ‘Under control of [the freedmen], as I said [ut dixi] and his wives, he acted not as emperor but as their agent’



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(Claud.  29.1). The ‘passive Claudius’ idea now divides reasonable actions from cruel ones, for what follows is a catalogue of murders for which his wives and freedmen are said to make him responsible (Claud. 29.1–2). The pivotal diuisio (doubled) thus serves two purposes. On its first appearance, it does, in fact, separate the public figure from the private man. When it is repeated, it separates the good from the evil. The structure delivers the message that the public Claudius did well, but that the private individual performed badly. However, this is not what Suetonius writes. The reassignment of all of the measures of Claudius’ reign (Claud. 11–25.4) to his wives and freedmen is awkward.22 The assertion that they alone are responsible for these generally sensible and benign measures comes as a surprise, for it has certainly seemed to the reader that all of the energetic activity is being attributed to Claudius himself. On the one hand, Suetonius uses the ‘passive Claudius’ statement to divide the Life, juggling it to make it serve two purposes. On the other, it relieves Claudius of responsibility and makes him oddly inconsistent. At the turn of the twentieth century, the German scholar Friedrich Leo claimed that Suetonius knew two sorts of biography, from which he could choose a pattern for his imperial Lives. One sort had its origin in the philosophical (Peripatetic) tradition, and so had associations with the moral life. It worked its way chronologically through a subject’s career and suited men of action well. Leo recognized an alternative ‘Alexandrian biography’ that collected facts by topic, and he postulated that this had been used to illustrate the lives of literary figures. Since poets and other literary men did not operate in history in the same way that kings and generals did, the topical method suited them. But this was the pattern that Suetonius chose for his men of action, his emperors, and that, thought Leo, was a bad decision. Emperors were public figures involved in the sweep of history, and their activities fit poorly into a topical format.23 Until the middle of the twentieth century, Suetonius was dismissed as a mechanical sorter of facts, as being ‘no real writer’, as he was notoriously labelled.24 In 1951, Wolf Steidle’s Sueton und die antike 22  The awkwardness is noted by Momigliano (1961) 78 and Osgood (2011a) 15–16, 192. Cassius Dio, on the other hand, pointedly and repeatedly makes the wives and freedmen responsible for Claudius’ evil deeds, but makes Claudius himself responsible for the good. Dio 60.2.4, 8.4–6, 14.1, 15.5, 31.8, 32.1, 33.21. 23  Leo (1901). Momigliano (1993) 19 raises objections to Leo. 24  Funaioli (1927) 25 = (1947) 178–9, speaking of style.

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Biographie opened a new dialogue that sought to establish that the Caesars were worthy of examination as literature, that the work was, as Lounsbury puts it, an ‘artifact . . . worthy in itself of our pleasure and our taste’. Steidle maintained that each Life could be appreciated on its own merits. Others soon entered through the door he opened. Hanslik analysed the Augustus Life. Helmut Gugel examined the death of Caesar and the organization of omens.25 More recently, Lounsbury has described ring composition for the Nero Life. Ascending and then descending omens of Galba’s fortune trace the arc of his career.26 In the last fifty years or so, scholars have identified a great deal of artistry, not merely the mechanical sorting of facts, in the Life of the Caesars. But Steidle did not sell his re-evaluation to everyone. Dieter Flach, in reviewing Steidle’s monograph, would continue to speak of Suetonius’ ‘filing cabinet’ method and complain that his ‘rubric straightjacket’ kept him from depicting his emperors effectively. Klaus Bringmann and Siegmar Döpp objected especially to the collision between rubrics and chronology in the Life of Tiberius.27 Although different emperors did require modifications of approach, as has been seen, these doubters must be granted their point. Whatever artistry Suetonius attempted or achieved, he still had to ‘sort facts’ into an organization of some kind in order to put them on the page. His reliance on rubrics for this purpose and the so very obvious imperative that he felt to organize the Lives well cannot be ignored or dismissed. Bohumila Mouchová read the Caesars carefully and pointed out parallels that carry from one Life to another, but she did not see this as a problem. The title of Andrew Wallace-Hadrill’s balanced assessment, Suetonius: The Scholar and His Caesars, recognizes the biographer’s concern for orderly presentation. As Wallace-Hadrill admits, ‘we get the impression of a large card-index system at work.’28 Suetonius set himself a hard task, more difficult than the one that his near contemporary Tacitus had set for himself. The historian, after all, had only to go through his sources, select material as it fit his vision, impose his sharp judgement, and set it forth in his special style. Suetonius started all over from the beginning, and needed to bring huge mountains of information under control. Biographers must make organizational choices of some sort, if they want to present their subjects 25  Hanslik (1954); Gugel (1970), (1977). 26  Lounsbury (1991); Benediktson (1996–7). 27  Flach (1972) 288, 279. And see above, n. 21. 28  Mouchová (1968); Wallace-Hadrill (1983) 15.



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in context. Barbara Levick, for instance, in her biography of Claudius, deals with the emperor’s life from ancestry to death in six chapters and follows these with eight chapters covering topics such as ‘Rome and Italy’ or ‘warfare’. Josiah Osgood has recently made similar choices in his Claudius biography, although his temporal and topical chapters are better integrated.29 This is not really so very unlike the choices that Suetonius made. Biography allowed personal items like the emperor’s dietary preferences to find a place alongside official business, such as his reassignment of the responsibilities of procurators in the provinces.30 Where to put these disparate pieces of information? Leo’s too-rigid faith in uncertain genre distinctions has been rightly discarded, but he was correct in observing that it was not always possible for Suetonius to tuck all of his material tidily into a pre-chosen outline. Suetonius confronted the problems of organization and, without question, wrote ‘by choice and by will’. In conclusion, Suetonius developed a number of strategies to accommodate the variety of his material. The sandwich structure of rubrics for the emperor’s time in power worked well for some, especially for those who had long reigns and significant accomplishments. Both the public actor and the private man appear, the separation of the two most clearly marked in the first two Lives. Suetonius could never abandon the distinction totally, since he found it necessary to include the emperor’s physical appearance, but was ‘cruelty’ described better as a marker of character or as a public evil? Suetonius divided good from evil in the Lives of Gaius, Nero, and Domitian, and less clearly in those of Tiberius and Claudius. Strategies run into temporal issues, especially with the desirability of connecting an emperor’s actions to his death, and leftovers from sources seem to break through. Flach concluded his negative review of Steidle’s book with the statement that Suetonius’ use of rubrics to tell his emperor stories was ‘not a happy experiment’.31 But it was not so very unhappy either. Although it is considered presumptuous and inappropriate to claim entry into the mind of any author, ancient or modern, an exception can perhaps be made with one who marks his path so very clearly. What Suetonius did was hard work, and we observe the effort. 29  Levick (1990); Osgood (2011a). 30 The inclusion of personal detail distinguished biography from history (Nep. Praef. 1). 31  Flach (1972) 288.

2 Suetonius the Ventriloquist Cynthia Damon

For the students who persuaded me to give Suetonius another look

The scene: a public latrine. Seated: the poet Lucan, with consessores (‘fellow-sitters’). Sound effects: a louder-than-usual fart (clariore . . . crepitu uentris), cueing the line ‘underground thunder, you’d think’ (Vita Luc. 16–19).1 In this memorable episode from Suetonius’ Life of Lucan, one of the many noteworthy elements is the wit.2 Not that the utterance sub terris tonuisse putes is itself particularly witty. Indeed, one might see it as a rather feeble attempt to make light of an embarrassing event. But it turns out, so Suetonius tells us, that the half-­hexameter is not the poet’s own, but Nero’s; its original context must have been very different.3 (Ab)using it as he does, Suetonius’ Lucan mocks his imperial master and poetic rival, making Nero’s words serve Lucan’s purposes.4 He conjures up the emperor, so to speak, and does so in a setting where an emperor is out of place. The effect is instantaneous: the latrine’s other occupants flee (magna consessorum fuga, Vita Luc. 17–18), presumably alarmed by the blasphemy.5 As a quotation, the 1  See Rostagni (1944) 146–7 (ad loc.). 2  For a recent discussion of the scene, see R. Cowan (2011), who also provides a bibliography. 3  Morford (1985) 2017 suggests that it referred to an earthquake. 4  Cf. R. Cowan (2011) 304, arguing that Suetonius’ Lucan presents Nero’s hemistich as ‘overblown, unCallimachean epic’ and ‘of as little merit as Volusius’ crap poetry’. 5  Cf. Rostagni (1944) 147 (ad loc.) on the incongruity of the term consessores: ‘che comunemente indica coloro che seggono insieme in tribunale o in teatro o a banchetto.’



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words have more impact than they would have had either as an extempore composition by Lucan, or as originally delivered by Nero. The power of other people’s words is something that Suetonius exploits over and over again in the Caesars, only occasionally with benign intent. It is the argument of the present chapter that Suetonius’ use of quotations helps explain on stylistic grounds why the Caesars is readable in a way that other works in comparable scholarly, antiquarian, or technical genres are not. There are hundreds of quotations in the Caesars, and I limit myself here to Suetonius’ quotations of the Caesars themselves. Ventriloquism suggests itself as an apt analogy for the effects he produces with them: an art form involving a multiplicity of voices issuing from a single source. Unlike prosopopoeia, which also involves the multiplication of voices, ventriloquism sits rather low on the scale of performance art—not drama or oratory, but ‘showbiz’. For biography, the ‘high art’ comparandum is obviously historiography, and the treatment of ‘other people’s words’ is one of the most salient distinctions between the two genres. As in the ventriloquist’s show, so in a Suetonian biography, there are (at least) two voices, quite distinct. The contrast in one famous act between the rather bland ventriloquist Edgar Bergen and his ‘smart-aleck’ dummy Charlie McCarthy has its counterpart in the Caesars: the emperors get all the good lines.6 Any number of ideas and words in the preceding two paragraphs may have caused eyebrows to rise. The scatology of the latrine scene, of course, but also the implicit links between dissident poet and biographer, or comedian and biographer, and the expressions ‘readable’, ‘art form’, and especially ‘good lines’. Those raised eyebrows are a legacy of generations of commentary on Suetonius’ style. So before turning to the words that Suetonius puts in imperial mouths, I survey, in section 1, what we can glean about Suetonius’ attitude to literary style from his career and surviving works. In section 2, there are critical assessments of Suetonius’ own style, both the long-standing complaints about his stylistic deficiencies and more recent arguments for some stylistic niceties and even cunning. Suetonius the ventriloquist comes forward in section 3.

6  The analogy extends even to titulature: Edgar Bergen’s act was called The Charlie McCarthy Show, just as Suetonius’ biographies are referred to as the Caesars.

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Pliny calls Suetonius a scholasticus (Ep. 1.24), the Suda categorizes him as a grammaticus (τ 895), and John Lydus labels him a philologus (Mag. 1.34). Neither in absolute terms nor in context are these labels perspicuous.7 The first may indicate a person active in the declamation schools of the day—one thinks of the ‘huge crowd of schoolmen [scholasticorum]’ in the opening scene of the Satyricon, for example (Sat. 6.1).8 But Pliny tells us that a country estate would also be an appropriate setting for a scholasticus, at least for one who needed to ‘lift his head [presumably from his books] and refresh his eyes’ (Ep. 1.24.4); we are a long way from a schola here. Grammaticus can be narrowly construed as a professional label (‘school teacher’) or can refer more generally to an ‘educated man’, ‘man of letters’, or ‘scholar’.9 ‘Philologus’ Suetonius takes to be a mark of ‘manifold and wide-ranging erudition’ (Gramm. 10.4), and so, presumably, does Cicero, who includes himself among the philologi.10 As applied to Suetonius, we may take these labels, at a minimum, as indicating an engagement with literature that includes familiarity with the elements of style and clear stylistic preferences. Why would we not, when this familiarity and these preferences are manifest in Suetonius’ numerous comments on the literary productions of the men who figure in his biographies? Among Suetonius’ many criticisms of Domitian, for example, is the fact that as a young man he neglected literary studies: he spent no effort on acquainting himself with histories and poems, none even on ‘necessary style’ (numquam tamen aut historiae carminibusque noscendis operam ullam aut stilo uel necessario dedit, Dom. 20). As a result, in order to express his will to his subjects, Domitian was dependent on ‘other men’s talent’ for his letters and speeches and edicts (epistulas orationesque et edicta alieno formabat ingenio, Dom. 20). Even non-literary texts such as edicts and letters, that is, require a style, and Domitian—who restricted his reading to the commentarii and acta of Tiberius—failed to develop the appropriate one. Augustus, in this respect as in so many others, was exemplary, according to Suetonius,    7  Suetonius himself comments on the varied uses of terms such as these at Gramm. 4.1–3, where he discusses grammaticus, litteratus, poetarum interpres, litterator, and grammatista.    8  For discussion, see Kaster (1995) 320 (on Gramm. 30.2, s.v. scholasticus).    9  Kaster (1995) xxii n. 1. 10  Here and elsewhere for Gramm., I use Kaster’s translation, which usefully supplies nuances sometimes only implicit in the Latin. For Cicero’s use of philologus, see Q Fr. 2.9.3 and Att. 2.17.1.



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and attended to matters of expression on a large scale—condemning his unsatisfactory Ajax-tragedy to ‘the sponge’, for example—and in minute matters such as the spelling of ipsi (Aug. 85–8). (Indeed, the description of Augustus’ style, with its scrupulous attention to clarity of expression and avoidance of ‘the putrid odours of recherché words’ (‘reconditorum uerborum’, ut ipse dixit, ‘fetoribus’, Aug. 86.1) is often treated as a proxy for a programmatic statement about Suetonius’ own style.)11 Domitian’s preferred model, Tiberius, however, favoured obfuscation (exoletas . . . et reconditas uoces aucupanti, Aug. 86.2; adfectatione et morositate nimia obscurabat stilum, Tib. 70.1). Suetonius asserts the necessity of style even for boys in the first stage of their schooling. These, he says, benefit from exercises designed to develop their eloquence—‘set themes, paraphrases, addresses, statements of cause, and other things of this sort’ (Gramm. 4.5)—and schools in which students are not exposed to these preliminaries risk sending their graduates on with a style regrettably dry, even arid (sicci omnino atque aridi pueri, Gramm. 4.5). His own education, he tells us, persuaded him of the value of such compositions, and motivates his criticism of the lazy and inarticulate teachers at present who omit them from the elementary curriculum (Gramm. 4.6). Apropos of literature more generally, Suetonius advocates breadth of appeal over narrowness. His rather unflattering picture of the eagerbeaver eruditi who dedicated commentaries to Tiberius on his favourite obscure authors, Euphorion, Rhianus, and Parthenius (Tib. 70.1–3), is consonant with his criticism of Valerius Probus, a grammaticus who, instead of working on texts from which one might gain glory and profit, devoted himself to editing old and despised works of literature. When Suetonius says that Probus had few disciples and published ‘a very few slight works on certain specific questions of limited scope’ (Gramm. 24.1–4), these are hardly the sentiments of the bookworm that the former a studiis and a bibliothecis is sometimes taken to be. And Suetonius likes old and outlandish words no better than old and despised texts. He reproduces both Asinius Pollio’s dictum that Sallust’s historical works were ‘sullied by an excessive affectation of archaic diction’ (Gramm. 10.2), and the sensible stylistic advice given to Pollio by a man who proudly, Suetonius tells us, took Philologus as a cognomen (Gramm. 10.6). Finally, he uses stylistic analysis as a professional tool, 11  See e.g. Macé (1900) 56–7 and Mooney (1930) 18, but also the warnings against making such an assumption at Baldwin (1983) 364–7 and Wardle (1998) 436.

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rejecting as spurious some works circulating under Horace’s name, for being commonplace in one case, and obscure in another, ‘a failing of which [Horace] is very rarely guilty’ (Vita Hor. 12). The frequency of Suetonius’ comments on the use of language by emperors and senators, scholars and schoolmen, students and the authors whom he and they study, even as briefly adduced here, creates a presumption that he believed style important. And the variety of the comments suggests that he was capable of stylistic discrimination, at least in the works of others. In subsequent sections, we will consider whether his belief and his taste manifest themselves in the Caesars. In his earlier work, the De uiris illustribus, at least, Pliny would have expected us to find polish (perhaps to excess), since he complains that Suetonius has been delaying publication unduly: ‘The book is finished and complete. At this point it is not being polished by the file but worn away’ (perfectum opus absolutumque est, nec iam splendescit lima sed atteritur, Plin. Ep. 5.10.3).12

2.  NON TAM DISERTE QVAM VERE? If one were to judge by mainstream commentary on Suetonius’ style, he plied the file even more vigorously in the Caesars, wearing his prose away to the point that absences predominate. The first such comment, an appraisal by his literary heir in the Historia Augusta Life of Probus, at least balances the absence of style with the presence of truth in stating that Suetonius wrote his biographies non tam diserte quam uere (‘not so much eloquently as truly’, Prob. 2.7; the question mark in the section heading will be discussed later). Subsequent critics have been less even-handed. Norden’s much-quoted verdict is the most succinct: ‘Suetonius schreibt farblos.’13 Wallace-Hadrill’s likewise influential view is more comprehensive: He . . . has no poetry, no pathos, no persuasion . . . Stylistically he has no pretensions . . . His tone is anything but didactic . . . He does not speak in propria persona, except to comment on truth or falsehood. He offers no epigrams or sententiae. He does not even generally use value-laden adjectives to guide the reader towards approval or disapproval.14 12  For this letter and its significance for Suetonius’ literary career, see Power (2010). 13  Norden (1898) 387–8 n. 1.    14  Wallace-Hadrill (1983) 19 and 23–4.



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The colourlessness and reticence of Suetonius’ prose have been located in absences afflicting a wide range of stylistic categories, from diction and sentence structure to narrative devices and even emotion: ‘uomo senza emozioni e senza sdegni.’15 A recent study of Suetonius’ language use by Carole Fry, for example, which opens with her remark ‘juger le style des Caesares est une entreprise décourageante’, argues against the proposition that Suetonius is a technical writer by asserting that he uses almost no technical jargon, and that the technical terms he does use are so much ‘à la portée de son public’ that they rarely require glossing.16 She also looks for, and does not find, Gorgianic figures.17 Like the author of the Life of Probus, she sees compensatory virtues in the text: agreeably rhythmic prose and a strategically effective focus on the topic at hand.18 But her overall point is that Suetonius focuses on the content (‘le signifié’) at the expense of the form (‘le signifiant’). On balance, she describes his style as a ‘prose d’art mitigé’ in which the mitigating elements and absences serve the overriding goal of clarity.19 Absences are even more salient in a discussion of Suetonius’ ‘expression narrative’ by P. Sage: historical infinitives and historical presents are almost entirely absent in the Caesars, as are the other syntactic devices which historians use to inject excitement into their narratives: action verbs in initial position, cum-inversum, contrafactual conditions with indicative verbs in the apodosis, and so on.20 Sage also misses the structural devices of parataxis and uariatio. The reader’s niggling irritation with the underlying premise of this piece—that Suetonius’ aims are analogous to those of a historian—is somewhat allayed by the fact that Sage’s sample texts are all per tempora passages—that is, they are taken from sections with a chronological arrangement like that of a historical narrative.21

15  Dalmasso (1905–6) 824. For Dalmasso’s list of absences, see 814: ‘cacozelia . . . ampollosità strampalata . . . sentenziosità . . . colorito poetico.’ 16  Fry (2009) 16–19 (quotations from 15 and 17). 17  Fry (2009) 22.    18  Fry (2009) 19, 22.    19  Fry (2009) 27. 20  Sage (1979b). Verbs in general are in short supply: ‘Er spart mit Worten, namentlich mit dem Verbum finitum. Die Fülle liegt bei ihm im Stoff, nicht in den Darstellungsmitteln’ (Bayer 2002: 85). 21  Sage (1979b) 19. On per tempora and per species rubrics, see Hurley, ch. 1 in this volume.

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Even on a more abstract plane where things are harder to count, critics notice absences in Suetonius, including that of the author himself: ‘notre auteur affecte souvent de s’effacer devant la réalité, et de n’en être que le fidèle transcripteur’.22 The word ‘affecte’, used here by Gascou, suggests, of course, that this absence is not simply reticence (more on this later), but others have so taken it.23 Whatever its motivation, the absence of the author may entail an absence of emotion in both writer and reader. ‘Imperturbablement, Suétone énumère des faits qui sont souvent en eux-mêmes d’une atrocité insoutenable: l’uniformité stylistique tend à anesthésier le lecteur.’24 If we turn from missing elements of style to one that is unusually frequent, Suetonius’ stylistic achievement may still seem rather modest, particularly by comparison with that of Tacitus. His phrases à rallonge (to give them the label bestowed by Chausserie-Laprée) have been the subject of several detailed examinations.25 The most thorough critic, Paola Ramondetti, attests the ‘massiccia prezenza’ in the Caesars of sentences structured like the following: quin etiam speciem libertatis quandam induxit conseruatis senatui ac magistratibus et maiestate pristina et potestate (‘Indeed he introduced the appearance of freedom, with the preservation of the senate’s and magistrates’ former dignity and power’, Tib. 30.1).26 Here, the concluding ablative absolute gives some of the specifics underlying the main clause’s general topic: ‘the appearance of freedom’. In Suetonius’ hands, as Ramondetti’s many examples show, such ‘extensions’ explain, support, illustrate, exemplify, or substantiate. They do not have the same unsettling effect as those of Tacitus, who, to make a point similar to Suetonius’ in the passage quoted just above, reverses the structure and puts the details in the main clause, and the ‘appearance of freedom’ idea in the ablative absolute rallonge: intercessit Haterius Agrippa tribunus plebei increpitusque est Asinii Galli oratione, silente 22  Gascou (1984) 683. The more extreme form of this idea, as maintained by D’Anna (1954: 208), for one, is that Suetonius transmits the style of his sources, and that this is responsible for the stylistic unevenness of the Caesars. For comment, see Gascou (1984) 685 n. 29. 23  E.g. most recently, Ramondetti (2002) 380: ‘i fatti che costituiscono tempora e species nelle Vite dei Cesari devono apparire nella loro nuda evidenza, fusi e amalgamati in un tutto in cui non sia percepibile alcuna cucitura . . . di indebito intervento da parte dell’Autore.’ 24  Gascou (1984) 686. 25  Bayer (2002) 75–85; Sage (1979a); Ramondetti (2002); Longrée (2003). 26  Ramondetti (2002) 415.



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Tiberio, qui ea simulacra libertatis senatui praebebat (‘Haterius Agrippa vetoed this and was then berated in a speech by Asinius Gallus, to silence from Tiberius, who used to provide these semblances of freedom to the senate’, Ann. 1.77.3). Instead of undermining what precedes, as Tacitus’ ablative absolute here does, or introducing a striking rupture, Suetonius’ rallonges function in close rapport with the main clause. In Ramondetti’s view, they constitute ‘un construtto sintattico che gli c­ onsente di guidare e di far soffermare il lettore nel background dei “fatti”’.27 The construction, she argues, creates a narrative pause in which the reader focuses on an important detail, as if looking through a magnifying glass.28 Here we come to the question mark in the section heading. Is eloquence really lacking in Suetonius? Readers will differ on how substantial a literary achievement Suetonius’ rallonges represent, but the virtue of Ramondetti’s study is that it offers a systematic argument for the literariness of the Caesars. Any representative collection of earlier, ‘sound-bite’-sized assessments of Suetonius’ style would tend to incoherence, as Lounsbury showed in his ‘Survey of Modern Scholarship’: the distance between ‘the beginning of barbarism’ and ‘a rather colourless epigone of the Classicist movement’ is considerable.29 Within this range, Lounsbury’s own preliminary summary statement on Suetonius’ style strikes a middle ground: ‘clear, concise, simple’.30 Simplicity is perhaps one area in which Suetonius surpasses Tacitus, a point that may be illustrated by Suetonius’ statement that in relation to his freedmen and womenfolk, Claudius ‘behaved like a slave, not an emperor’ (non principem sed ministrum egit, Claud.  29.1); Tacitus presses this same charge against this emperor indirectly by blurring 27  Ramondetti (2002) 402. Cf. Bayer (2002) 85 on sentences ending with an ablative absolute rallonge: ‘Dem Leser öffnen sich Sätze dieser Art sehr leicht.’ More generally, phrases à rallonge are sometimes thought to manifest a natural flow by contrast with the logical flow of the periodic type. See Chausserie-Laprée (1969) 289–90 and 335. But the obvious contrast between Suetonius and Tacitus encourages circumspection with generalizations. 28  Bayer (2002) sees the construction as an aid to narrative flow: it avoids both the incoherence of a series of independent sentences and also the unwieldiness of highly subordinated sentences. Sage (1979a) 512 emphasizes its different effects in Tacitus and Suetonius: ‘chez l’un [sc. Tacite], l’ordre des éléments est médité; chez l’autre [sc. Suétone], la construction est souvent organique, et la rallonge semble plutôt un facilité qu’une technique proprement expressive.’ 29  Lounsbury (1987) 1–8; the comments, of Mackail (1895) 231 and Leeman (1963) 361 respectively, are both quoted at 8. 30  Lounsbury (1987) 5.

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the agency in some key events of his principate.31 But s­ implicity—in any case, a trait whose literariness is disputable—is hard to square with the stylistic niceties scholars have also found in Suetonius. Niceties of word order and sentence structure, for example, are helpfully catalogued by Karl Bayer in a long list that includes such things as hyperbaton. For one illustration of the stylistic impact of hyperbaton, consider Suetonius’ paraphrase of a protest by the army in Upper Germany against the stingy Galba: fraudari se praemis nauatae aduersus Gallos et Vindicem operae (‘They were [they said] being cheated of the rewards for their successful exertions against the Gauls and Vindex’, Galb. 16.2). The gap between nauatae and operae here puts ‘successful’ in high relief. This, combined with the word’s juxtaposition with the immediately preceding ‘cheated of the rewards’, captures well the army’s sense of being deprived of a due reward. In Bayer’s view, Sueton macht von den Hyperbata der verschiedensten Strukturen den reichsten Gebrauch. Man kann sagen, sie sind eines seiner stilistichen Hauptmittel. Das überrascht an sich; denn die Beurteiler seines Stils sind sich einig, daß dieser notizenhaft, denkbar nüchtern und unkompliziert sei.32

After our survey of absences, Bayer’s superlatives and the phrase ‘stilistischen Hauptmittel’ are indeed, as he says, surprising. He himself gives a rather minimalist account of the function of Suetonius’ hyperbata— as a contribution to brevity—but his tally of stylistic devices would be a good starting point for an investigation of Suetonius’ artful prose.33 A quite different and more linguistically informed approach to Suetonian rhetoric is on offer in Fry’s paper on the use of first-person pronouns. Revising frameworks proposed by Gascou and (for Tacitus) Longrée, Fry teases out a Suetonian ego who does more than provide helpful cross-references (ut dixi, ut diximus) and verbal quibbles (uel dicam).34 Fry’s Suetonius has the greatest impact on his readers when he engages in historical argument by using expressions such as arbitror (‘in my view’), equidem mirer (‘I myself am inclined to marvel’), or, as

31  For example, at Ann. 11.30.1, Tacitus leaves it unclear whether Calpurnia (an imperial concubine) or Claudius summons Narcissus to set the condemnation of Messalina in motion. And at 11.35.3 it is impossible to determine whether Narcissus (an imperial freedman) or Claudius gives the order to execute the empress. 32  Bayer (2002) 5–6; for the catalogue, see 5–85. 33  Bayer (2002) 11.    34  Gascou (1984) 248–9; Longrée (1996).



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in his comment on the contradictory evidence about the distinction of Vitellius’ family, opinarer: ‘I would have supposed [opinarer] that this arose from the emperor Vitellius’ flatterers and critics, if there weren’t different accounts of the family even a little before his time’ (Vit. 1.2).35 In Fry’s view, ‘l’usage du “je” crée la relation dialogique la plus forte possible dans l’absence d’un “tu”’.36 The missing ‘tu’ is the reader for whose benefit Suetonius has undertaken his laborious researches, according to Fry, and the author engages with this reader not for the purpose of persuasion, but rather to manifest his ‘fierté de chercheur’.37 There are, however, critics who find Suetonius neither engaging nor innocently proud. Granting that Suetonius used language effectively, they nevertheless criticize the effects achieved.38 Indeed, Michel Dubuisson credits him, so to speak, with ‘une technique de déformation historique bien plus subtile encore que celle de César ou même de Tacite’.39 After touching on Suetonius’ deliberate self-contradictions and the insinuations visible in his presentation of things that never happened—the consulship of Caligula’s horse (destinasse . . . traditur, Calig. 55.3), for example, or the removal of Virgil’s and Livy’s works from libraries (paulum afuit quin . . . , Calig. 34.2)—Dubuisson looks in more detail at Suetonius’ use of erudition itself as a weapon, one that enables him to exploit a detail to make the worst possible impression, usually by depriving it of its proper historical context. Was C ­ aligula’s ‘highway’ over the Bay of Naples really a response to Thrasyllus’ prediction to Tiberius that Caligula would not become emperor ‘any more than horses would ride across the bay’, as Suetonius’ grandfather said? (Calig. 19.3). Or was it rather, as Dubuisson asserts, a boast addressed to Parthian religious scruples about crossing water, one of Caligula’s attempts to make himself look superhuman? Suetonius at 35  On Suetonius’ use of the first person, see also Henderson, ch. 4 in this volume, esp. pp. 84–5, nn. 10–11. On his equally distinctive use of the third person, see Power’s Introduction to this volume. 36  Fry (2003) 339. 37  Fry (2003) 340. Cf. his particularly fine distinction (339) between singular (preferred) and plural (rare) forms: ‘Un chercheur qui cherche peut utiliser le “nous”, mais Suétone se veut un chercheur qui trouve, il utilise le “je”.’ Dubuisson (2003) 253, in the same volume, takes a more jaundiced view: ‘il est passé maître dans l’utilisation des signes extérieur de l’érudition’, including ‘le truc du grand-père’ (256, apropos of Calig. 19.3—on which see later). 38  Grimal (1973) xxv, who reproaches Suetonius with both incompetence and malice, is outside both camps. 39  Dubuisson (2003) 252.

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least, as ‘le spécialiste des Parthes à Rome’, ought to have recognized the symbolism, Dubuisson argues, but preferred to construct an elaborate rhetorical structure supporting a cheap psychological explanation that contributed to the picture of a paranoid Tiberius.40 Dubuisson’s list of procedures depicting Suetonius ‘en styliste qui avance masqué’ can be supplemented from Jacques Gascou’s massive study of Suetonius’ contribution to historiography.41 As we saw earlier, in Gascou’s view, Suetonius only gives the impression of (‘affecte’) authorial absence. In a chapter entitled ‘Suétone et la verité historique’, Gascou considers a variety of techniques used by Suetonius to massage the truth.42 Some are primarily content-related, but he also shows how Suetonius’ tone of scientific detachment and even imperturbability allows the shocking facts, as selected and arranged by the author, to rouse outrage by themselves. The long section on the monstrous behaviour of Caligula, for example, contains relatively few editorializing comments; there is no need for them when his material includes men sawn in half (Calig. 27.5), the retaliatory excision of a tongue (27.5), and heaps of human limbs and entrails (28.2). Suetonius, in Gascou’s view, uses stylistic means to produce ‘une objectivité . . . illusoire’, and does so in aid of a moral and political programme.43 Now that we have some sense of the range of approaches that have yielded evidence of style—for better or worse—in Suetonius’ writings, I shall turn to his use of quotations.

3.  ALIENO . . . INGENIO Suetonius’ citation style in the Diuus Iulius was the subject, forty years ago, of an article by Werner Müller. To counter the idea that Suetonius’ procedure was a ‘kritikloses Abschreiben seines Zettelkataloges’, ­Müller postulated a hierarchy of impact, with verse citations at the top (eight examples), followed by quotations (twenty examples), indirect statement (insignificant), and impersonal expressions (thirty-eight 40  Dubuisson (2003) 258 (original italics for le). 41  The quotation is from Fry (2003) 331. Gascou (1984) esp. 394–400, 414–36 also illustrates how Suetonius’ erasure of historical context affects the interpretation of events. 42  Gascou (1984) 675–706. 43  Gascou (1984) 713; for the political programme, see 717–73.



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examples) such as quidam putant (‘some people say’), opinio est (‘the supposition is’), or alii dicunt (‘others say’). Müller argued that if Suetonius is artful in arranging his citations, they will reflect this hierarchy; if Suetonius is indifferent to impact, they won’t.44 The demonstration is neat and convincing—even if the notion of the mechanical file-card copyist is something of a straw man—particularly where, as at Iul. 49.3–4, Müller can show a series of citations arranged from least striking to most: indirect statement and direct statements by Cicero on Caesar’s alleged dalliance with Nicomedes, followed by a three-line ditty sung at the Gallic triumph.45 It emerges clearly from this survey that verse citations and direct quotations, in particular, regularly function in the Diuus Iulius as the high point and/or conclusion to a rubric.46 This is not just Zitierweise but Zitierkunst.47 Müller’s study suggests one possible riposte to Wallace-Hadrill’s observation that Suetonius ‘offers no epigrams or sententiae’. Such verbal sequins, so beloved of his contemporaries, may be absent from the Caesars, but many of his quotations appear just where sententiae do in texts that have them, namely, at the end of episodes or rubrics.48 And they have the same strong punctuating effect, as can be seen in parallel versions of Vitellius’ proclamation scene.49 In Suetonius’ account, the circumstances of the proclamation were chaotic: Vitellius was snatched from a dining room and saluted by his troops, whereupon the ceremony was interrupted by an outbreak of fire in the abandoned dining room. People naturally took this as a bad omen, until V ­ itellius quipped, ‘Take heart! This is a light for us’ (bono . . . animo estote! nobis adluxit, Vit. 8.2). The scene ends there, and Suetonius moves on to the situation in Upper Germany. In Tacitus’ Histories, Vitellius’ proclamation is less chaotic, because Tacitus focuses on its stage-management by the legionary legates 44  Müller (1972) 95.    45  For other series, see Iul. 30.2–7, 50.3. 46  Müller’s quick survey (1972: 98) of verse citations in the Diuus Augustus shows the same pattern, with the exception of the Greek verses in Aug. 98. 47  Müller (1972) 104. Gascou (1984) 548, by contrast, denies Suetonius’ citations the status of rhetorical ornaments: instead, they have ‘un valeur “fonctionelle”, demonstrative’. So when Suetonius cites material from untrustworthy sources such as pamphlets, says Gascou, he is giving in to temptation and indeed to a ‘joie suspecte’ (551). 48  For Quintilian on sententiae and epigrams, see Inst. 8.5. His favourite metaphors for the figure involve light: lumina . . . praecipueque in clausulis posita (‘lights . . . especially at clause-end’, 8.5.2, cf. 28, 34), nitere (‘to shine’, 19), scintillae (‘sparks’, 29), oculos eloquentiae (‘the “eyes” of eloquence’, 34), and clarescit (‘brighten’, 19). Hence ‘sequins’. 49  For discussion of the quotation that punctuates the death scene in the Galba, see Power (2009b).

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Caecina and especially Valens, who bullies Vitellius into accepting the proclamation. Tacitus ends the scene with an epigram about Vitellius, not a quip by him: ‘his sluggish nature was moved by ­[Valens’] words more to desire than to expectation’ (quatiebatur his segne ingenium ut concupisceret magis quam ut speraret, Hist. 1.52.4). Then Tacitus too moves on to events in Upper Germany. In effect, Suetonius’ quotation and Tacitus’ epigram do the same stylistic work. The Suetonius passage comes in a per tempora section of the Life rather than a per species section, but we will see many examples further on of a quotation concluding a rubric—serving, that is, as a structural component that bears as much weight as the topical words that introduce the rubric.50 The structural function identified by Müller for the quotations in the Diuus Iulius does not exhaust the interpretative possibilities of Suetonius’ quotations. One might look at more Lives, of course. So doing would immediately bring one face to face with the long quotations in the Diuus Augustus, which have no real equivalent in the earlier Life.51 These obviously have a different structural function than the brief quips considered by Müller, and also offer generous helpings of colourful, non-Suetonian language.52 One might also look at the verse quotations and the concomitant issue of the presence of substantial amounts of Greek in a Latin text.53 Or at what is said about emperors by individuals—perhaps especially former emperors—or by collective contemporaries.54 But I return to an idea introduced in the 50  Cf. the two versions of the aftermath of Rubellius Plautus’ assassination in Asia Minor (his head was brought back to Rome, where Nero mocked it): both Suetonius (Ner. 35.4: inquit, ‘he said’) and Tacitus (Ann. 15.49.4: ipsa principis uerba referam, ‘I shall report the emperor’s very words’) mark the moment with Nero’s own words. And some quotations are themselves sententiae, as for example Caesar’s words at Iul. 34.2: ire se ad exercitum sine duce et inde reuersurum ad ducem sine exercitu (‘he was going to face an army without a leader and would return thence to face a leader without an army’). 51  See Henderson, ch. 4 in this volume on the anomalous quality of the Diuus Iulius. 52  As indeed do the shorter quotations, which greatly increase the dictional range of Suetonius’ text, taking it down to the smuttiness of Antony’s rude letter to Octavian (Aug. 69.2), and up to the lofty tones in which Vindex invites Galba to accept the throne (Galb. 9.2) and along many byways of specialist vocabulary (spectacles, dicing, etc.) and imperial ideogloss (Domitian’s ‘bed-wrestling’, to mention just one: Dom. 22). In the past, of course, this variety was treated as a stylistic flaw, a form of inconcinnitas (‘clumsiness’), but that may be changing. Fry (2003) 331, for example, suggests that Suetonius’ systematically applied inconcinnitas is a ‘principe unificateur’ and ‘trait stylistique distinctif’. 53  On Suetonius’ Greek quotations, see Horváth (1996). 54  The assessment by Gascou (1984) 565 is only a starting point: ‘Il n’y a pas là de l’érudition gratuite, mais la volonté de restituer de la façon la plus vivante l’esprit de l’invective, les haines, les passions, qui, à un moment ou à l’autre, agitèrent les soldats ou le peuple, auxquels Suétone cède pour ainsi dire la parole.’



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latrine scene of Suetonius’ Life of Lucan: the representational power of quotations. By quoting Nero’s words, Lucan makes Nero present in the latrine, present enough to scare everyone else out. The startling effect of a voice speaking words not its own was familiar to the ancients, from contexts as imposing as the oracle at Delphi, where the Pythia served as the προφῆτις or ‘spokesperson’ of Apollo, and as dubious as the performances of ‘belly-talkers’ (ἐγγαστρίμυθοι).55 Ancient sources see engastrimythia as a form of (sometimes spurious) communication from otherworldly figures: belly-talkers are prophets or diviners who make spirit voices emerge from other people’s bellies.56 An ἐγγαστρίμυθος named Eurycles attracted the attention of Aristophanes, Plato, and Plutarch in turn. In Wasps, Aristophanes uses Eurycles’ ventriloquism as an analogy for his own procedure with earlier plays, which he had had produced by other poets: ‘imitating Eurycles’ divinatory device’, he says, he ‘poured much comic material into other men’s bellies’ (1019–20). Eurycles’ vocal ‘device’ (διάνοια) is also at issue in Plato’s Sophist, where the Stranger uses Eurycles’ ‘speaking from within’ as a damning analogy for self-refuting philosophers (Soph. 252c); one infers that Eurycles’ two voices argued with one another. In neither passage is the otherworldly dimension of ventriloquism important, and Plutarch dismisses the idea that a god has entered ‘people like Eurycles’ as ‘simpleminded and utterly childish’ (Mor. 414e). Then, as now, ventriloquism was a ‘device’. The use of other people’s words is one of Suetonius’ most distinctive biographical techniques, and is the subject of the remaining discussion. Taking my lead from the latrine scene, I focus on the words of the Caesars themselves, not the words said to or about the Caesars (fascinating though these too are). I leave the question of the words’ authenticity entirely to the side, the better to understand the literary effect of their quotation.57 55  For the Pythia as προφῆτις of Apollo see Eur. Ion 321 and 1322, and Pl. Phdr. 244b, with Flower (2008) 211: ‘the voice was hers, but the words were his’. For the ancient context more generally, see Connor (2000) 3–43. I am grateful to my colleagues Ralph Rosen and Peter Struck for timely guidance on these topics. 56  See MacDowell’s (1971: 264) helpful note on Wasps 1019. 57  The question of authenticity is addressed by Gascou (1984) 545–67, in his discussion of Suetonius’ citations. He concludes that ‘il ne sacrifie jamais l’exactitude à la recherche d’un effet artistique’ (566). His argument in favour of the authenticity of excerpts from speeches in particular rests on the non-Suetonian vocabulary of the quotations and their brevity by comparison with the full-blown speeches invented by historians.

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The effect of the quotation by Suetonius’ Lucan is (at least) twofold. Lucan himself is favourably characterized as both witty and irreverent, and also as tallying a notch in his poetic rivalry with Nero, which is the context for this scene. Nero, by contrast, loses face: his own words are turned against him. In this passage, Suetonius is an unseen puppetmaster pulling strings, but in the Caesars, he is more like a ventriloquist making a dummy speak. His text runs along from rubric to rubric, and every once in a while he makes a Caesar interject an appropriate comment. ‘Every once in a while’ is perhaps too modest: Suetonius does this more than 250 times in the course of the twelve Lives. And ‘appropriate’ is perhaps too neutral: in well over half of these quotations, Suetonius incriminates the Caesars with their own words. The creative process that Suetonius adopts is nicely exemplified in the Life of Vespasian. At Vespasian’s funeral, a mime-actor named Favour performed the traditional impersonation of the defunct. In character as the penny-pinching Vespasian, he asked ‘his’ agents how much the funeral cost and, at the answer ‘ten million sesterces’, exclaimed, ‘Give me a hundred thousand and throw me in the Tiber if you want!’ (interrogatis palam procuratoribus, quanti funus et pompa constaret, ut audit sestertium centiens, exclamauit, centum sibi sestertia darent ac se uel in Tiberim proicerent, Vesp. 19.2).58 Suetonius also illustrates the more objectionable form of ventriloquism whereby the emperors put words into their subjects’ mouths. Domitian, for example, had his procurators start their letters with the titles he favoured: ‘Our lord and god orders this to be done’ (dominus et deus noster hoc fieri iubet, Dom. 13.2). Caligula imposed language on oaths and on the consuls’ addresses to the senate (Calig. 15.3). And Nero made the ex-consul and historian Cluvius Rufus speak for him to an audience in Greece: ‘Nero announced, through the agency of Cluvius Rufus, a former consul, that he would perform Niobe’ (Niobam se cantaturum per Cluuium Rufum consularem pronuntiauit, Ner. 21.2).59 In this last passage, Suetonius may even be trying to create an impression of impersonation where there was none in reality: presumably all Cluvius Rufus had to do was say, ‘Nero will perform Niobe.’ 58  Metaphors are rare in Suetonius, but one he does use several times is mimus (Calig. 45.2, Otho 3.2; cf. scaena at Calig. 15.1), which Augustus used before him (amicos percontatus ecquid iis uideretur mi[ni]mum uitae commode transegisse, ‘he asked his friends whether he seemed to them to have handled life’s farce suitably’, Aug. 99.1). 59  Cf. the practice of having an emperor’s letters to the senate read by the quaestor Augusti (e.g. Aug. 65.2, on the occasion of Julia’s disgrace).



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As a consequence of the punctuating function already discussed, many of these quotations provide a kind of QED affirmation in topical rubrics, and since the rubrics themselves have a strong moral orientation, such quotations often encapsulate an imperial virtue—or, more often, vice. The biography of Titus, who is introduced as ‘humanity’s darling’ (amor ac deliciae generis humani, Tit. 1.1), has a number of the former type, and the Life of his brother Domitian teems with the latter. To conclude the rubric about Titus’ generosity, for example, Suetonius quotes a ‘memorable and duly lauded utterance’ (memorabilem . . . meritoque laudatam uocem), issued spontaneously, it seems, when after dinner Titus realized he had given no gifts that day: ‘Friends, I have wasted a day’ (amici, diem perdidi, Tit. 8.1). Suetonius’ editorializing comment makes the point of this quotation particularly clear. A paragraph later, on the subject of refraining from bloodshed, Suetonius tells a rather elaborate story about a failed conspiracy against Titus, the convicted protagonists of which Titus not only allowed to live, but even invited to appear in public with him at the games. The episode concludes with a scene and a quotation from earlier in the response to the conspiracy, when Titus was shown the conspirators’ horoscopes and remarked, ‘Danger threatens both men, but on another occasion and from another source’ (imminere ambobus periculum adfirmasse, uerum quandoque et ab alio, Tit. 9.2). Suetonius’ comment here is simply ‘which is how things turned out’ (sicut euenit). Both syntactically and rhetorically, the connection between the quotation and the rubric is indirect; the reader has to work harder to see that Titus’ lack of bloodthirstiness manifests itself in his indirect-statement refusal to take the horoscopes’—or rather, the h ­ oroscope-mongers’— implicit invitation to kill these men. But the reader who has made the connection will remember the whole passage.60 Registering disapproval elicits a wider range of techniques, as one would expect, given the amount of disapproval to be registered in these Lives. In addition to quotations supporting direct and indirect criticism, Suetonius uses ‘before-and-after’ and extended quotations to blacken Domitian. Both techniques are found in his presentation of Domitian’s saeuitia (‘brutality’), for example. To the young 60  Cf. the conclusion to Baldwin’s chapter on ‘Techniques, Style, and Language’ (1983: 467–518; quotation from 516): ‘What may be claimed for him is the ability to leave potent and affecting impressions.’ Baldwin does not devote specific attention to quotations.

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Domitian, he gives a Georgics verse that aligns him with his exemplary brother. ‘Early on Domitian was so opposed to any slaughter that . . . , recollecting [recordatus] Virgil’s line “before an impious nation feasted on slaughtered bullocks”, he intended to issue an edict banning bovine sacrifice’ (Dom. 9.1; the Virgil line is G. 2.538). (The ‘speech’ in the passage is perhaps only in Domitian’s head, unless Suetonius wants us to imagine him giving voice to his intention and so allowing it to enter the historical record.) This chapter on Domitian’s youthful freedom from brutality (and greed) likewise concludes with a quotation, the famous quip that ‘the emperor who doesn’t punish delatores encourages them’ (princeps qui delatores non castigat, irritat, Dom. 9.3). But ­chapter 9 simply prepares the way for two long chapters on the brutality that ensued, which manifested itself in murder (ch. 10) and in murder made worse by verbal games (ch. 11; cf. 11.1: non solum magnae, sed etiam callidae inopinatae saeuitiae, ‘of brutality not only great but even clever and unexpected’). Chapter 11 ends with an extended and direct quotation of words imbued with a deviousness worthy of treatment by Tacitus. Suetonius, however, simply invites you to study them: ‘for it is not, in my view, inopportune to know his very words’ (neque enim ab re fuerit ipsa cognoscere, Dom. 11.3). Domitian’s words, which are too long to quote here, make Suetonius’ point for him. But there is more to Suetonius’ quotations than simple black-andwhite didacticism. Lively realism sometimes seems to be an end unto itself. For example, when, in the rubric on Augustus’ ciuilitas (‘civilian-like behaviour’), Suetonius lets us hear Augustus tease a plebeian petitioner for behaving ‘like [someone offering] an elephant a penny’ (quasi elephanto stipem, Aug. 53.2), we see Augustus acknowledging that he really is the elephant in the room of imperial society. The evocation is more vivid than strictly pro or con. And sometimes a quotation is simply too good to pass up, regardless of its moral lesson. Wit features prominently in this category, which includes Tiberius’ ‘I’ve got a wolf by the ears’ when describing the drawn-out succession process, and Caligula’s characterization of Livia as ‘Ulysses in skirts’ and Seneca’s style as ‘sand without lime’ (Tib. 25.1, Calig. 23.2, 53.2).61

61  Cf. Wallace-Hadrill (1983) 202: ‘One of the strengths of the Caesars is that [Suetonius] sees his subjects as men of culture, not simply as men of power.’



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Suetonius also deploys quotations to develop themes in individual Lives independently of the rubrics. The Life of Vitellius, which at eighteen chapters is one of the shortest, has a relatively paltry seven utterances by Vitellius himself—in the twenty-five-chapter Life of his successor, Vespasian speaks seventeen times—but six of them concern food and drink. To show Vitellius’ inclination to murder, Suetonius has him say he ‘wants to provide fodder for his eyes’ (uelle se . . . pascere oculos, Vit. 14.2). Violence and food are less gruesomely connected in the name he gives to a large platter, ‘the shield of city-protecting Minerva’ (13.2), and banquets are the setting for two other quotations (8.2 (already quoted) and 11.2). His opening quip, quoted to show his comitas (‘amiability’) and addressed to mule-drivers and travellers, is: ‘have you had breakfast yet?’ (mane singulos iamne iantassent sciscitaretur, 7.3). Finally, there is the detestabilis uox (‘abhorrent utterance’) from the tour of the corpse-littered battlefield at Bedriacum. After claiming that ‘a dead enemy smells wonderful, a dead citizen better’, Vitellius imbibed copious amounts of wine to make the stench less troublesome (optime olere occisum hostem et melius ciuem, 10.3). This is an unusually concentrated group of quotations, but there are also thematic sets centred on Claudius’ obtuseness and Nero’s musicality, among other qualities. Finally, irony. Irony? In Suetonius? Well, what else is one to make of the following quotations in the Life of Augustus, which come one after the other? The first is a letter quoted to illustrate the strict control Augustus exercised over his daughter and granddaughters. They were taught to spin, to weave, and to censor their talk, and on top of that, Augustus prevented them from having contact with strangers (coetu extraneorum). The letter’s addressee, Lucius Vinicius, was an extraneus who tried to contact Julia, and he heard directly from Augustus ‘that he acted presumptuously in paying a call on [Augustus’] daughter at Baiae’ (Aug. 64.2). Can Suetonius’ combination of coetus and Baiae be innocent? Perhaps so. But the next thing we hear from Augustus’ mouth is: ‘I would rather have been Phoebe’s father’ (Aug.  65.2)— Phoebe being one of Julia’s freedwomen and having the merit, in Augustus’ eyes, of having hanged herself, unlike his scandalous daughter. That is, in case the reader doesn’t remember how Augustus’ household management practices played out, Suetonius takes the first opportunity to remind him, using Augustus’ own words to highlight both his intention and the fact that his intention was thwarted. Some other examples may strengthen the case. Augustus’ grandfatherly advice to

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Agrippina was that she should be careful not to write or speak ‘in a troublesome manner’ (moleste, Aug. 86.3), but when we next meet her, she is being chastised by Tiberius for making troublesome complaints, and the menace of the Greek verse quoted at her by Tiberius suggests how dangerous her failure to follow Augustus’ advice would prove (Tib. 53.1). The misfit between Augustus’ words and historical outcomes in these two instances yields a rather melancholy irony, but with other emperors, Suetonius seems to wield a sharper edge. Thus, given that a poet and a historian are the first victims of Tiberius’ cruelty mentioned by Suetonius in two long chapters on that topic (Tib. 61–2), the fact that he earlier had Tiberius state that ‘in a free state speech and thought ought to be free’ may suggest that the quotation does not simply indicate Tiberius’ dislike of flattery, as it purports to do (Tib. 28), but also sets him up for a subsequent charge of hypocrisy. Similarly, Suetonius makes Caligula give permission for the distribution of books banned under Tiberius (including those of Cremutius Cordus, the historian alluded to at Tib. 61.3) on the grounds that ‘it was greatly in his own interest that every deed be transmitted to posterity’ (Calig. 16.1), then spends thirty-four chapters cataloguing Caligula’s monstrous deeds for posterity.62 In the next Life, Suetonius’ Claudius declares to the praetorians that, since his marriages haven’t turned out well, he’ll remain a bachelor, and if he doesn’t, they can kill him (Claud. 26.2)—but everyone knows that Claudius did marry again, and did get killed, if not by the praetorians. Young Nero, when asked to sign a death warrant, sighed, ‘How I wish I was illiterate’ (quam uellem . . . nescire litteras, Ner. 10.2), a sentiment that might have been echoed by those who later had to indulge Nero’s penchant for things literary. The Homeric boast ἔτι μοι μένος ἔμπεδόν ἐστιν (‘strength is in me still’) that Suetonius puts in Galba’s mouth at 20.2 is, one might think, an ironic conclusion to a paragraph that begins with iugulatus est (‘his throat was slit’) and is followed by one about the disposal of Galba’s remains (Galb. 21, cf. Il. 5.254, Od. 21.426).63 Irony is hard to prove . . . but fun to look for. 62  Dangerous reading, according to the SHA: Commodus, who had the same birthday as Caligula, sent a reader of Suetonius’ Caligula to the lions (Comm. 10.2). 63  See Power (2009b) for a discussion of this quotation, and id. (2011) on Claudius quoting Homer and creating, at Suetonius’ hands, a joke at his own expense.



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4.  MIMVM VITAE It would be crass to suggest that Suetonius intended us to see the ‘louder-than-usual fart’ (clariore . . . crepitu uentris) as a debased form of ventriloquism, but it does seem to me, as to Aristophanes, that Eurycles’ device is a useful analogy for some forms of authorship.64 It could have been used, for example, to fault emperors such as Nero and Domitian for using other men’s talent to produce speeches that they themselves delivered. But I hope I have shown that it can also be used to praise our biographer. In the Caesars, Suetonius neatly turns the tables on Caesars who need Senecas: the scholar and, yes, writer Suetonius puts words into the emperors’ mouths.65 The Caesars are Suetonius’ dummies, and what makes his act so very clever is that he puts their own words there.

64  Seneca must be writing either loosely or facetiously when he pronounces a comparable fart-analogy ‘elegant’ (Ep. 91.19): eleganter Demetrius noster solet dicere eodem loco sibi esse uoces inperitorum quo uentre redditos crepitus. ‘Quid enim’, inquit, ‘mea, susum isti an deosum sonent?’ (‘Our friend Demetrius spoke elegantly in that saying of his that the utterances of the uneducated came from the same place, as far as he was concerned, as the belly’s farts. “For what’s it to me if those fellows give voice from above or below?”’). 65  Cf. Funaioli (1927) 25 = (1947) 178–9: ‘ma un vero scrittore non è’.

3 The Endings of Suetonius’ Caesars Tristan Power

There has been much discussion of ancient historical and biographical works with regard to the notion of ‘closure’—that is, the process by which a work resolves its tensions, giving the reader the sense of a fitting resting-place at the work’s end.1 Some of these works answer the questions they raise by the time we reach the ending, while others introduce new tensions through their endings, opening up unforeseen questions and producing a sense of complexity about their subjects. One writer who has not been addressed in this discussion is the biographer Suetonius: few scholars have taken note of the care with which he composes the endings of his Lives of the Caesars. Scholars have tended to see Suetonius’ general preference for variety in his final rubrics as an attempt to lend some individuality to an otherwise schematic design, or as an indication of his varied source material for each Life.2 But little attention has been paid to the context of each ending, both within its Life and the collection, which may better explain the order and emphases of Suetonius’ final categories. I wish to thank Roy Gibson, Stephen Oakley, and Christopher Pelling for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this chapter. All translations are my own. 1  See e.g. Dewald (1997); Pelling (1997b) = PH 365–86; (2006a) 268; (2011a) 14–15; (2011b) 33–5, 493–5; Henderson (1998) 301–19; Ash (1999) 140; Marincola (2005); Oakley, Comm. III.462, 476, 497, 504–5, 591–2; IV.54, 67, 211, 226, 372, 432, 493, 565; id. (2010) 135–6; ­Harrison (2007); Kelly (2007), (2008) 26–7, 73–4. For closure in other kinds of ancient prose works, see e.g. Harrison (2003) on Apuleius; Whitton (2013b) on Pliny’s Letters; on closure in ancient poetry, e.g. Fowler (2000) 225–307; Tipping (2007), (2010) 33, 161–3, 191–2; Larash (2010). See also bibliography in Roberts et al. (1997); ­Grewing et al. (2013). 2  See e.g. Wallace-Hadrill (1983) 67–8; Hurley (2001) vii; ead., ch. 1 in this volume, pp. 29–31.



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In this chapter, I shall look at the ways in which Suetonius achieves closure through his endings, and particularly how these endings often echo each other and earlier divisions in the Caesars, inviting comparisons and contrasts across the collection that reaffirm (rather than contradict) the verdicts of his portraits. I shall end by drawing some conclusions about the work’s date of composition.

1.  CLOSING ALLUSIONS Suetonius’ endings often recall an earlier beginning in the collection, such as that of their own Life or book. Let us take, for example, the ending of Suetonius’ first complete biography in the series, the Divine Augustus (101.1–4), which describes the emperor’s last will. The final section reads as follows: tribus uoluminibus, uno mandata de funere suo complexus est, altero indicem rerum a se gestarum, quem uellet incidi in aeneis tabulis, quae ante Mausoleum statuerentur, tertio breuiarium totius imperii, quantum militum sub signis ubique esset, quantum pecuniae in aerario et fiscis et uectigaliorum residuis. adiecit et libertorum seruorumque nomina, a quibus ratio exigi posset. Of the three volumes, he enclosed in one the instructions about his funeral; in the other a list of his accomplishments, which he wished to be engraved onto bronze tablets to stand in front of the Mausoleum; and in the third a brief on the whole empire: how many troops altogether were spread out, how much money there was in the treasury, the privy purse, and what remained from taxes. He added also the names of freedmen and slaves, from whom the calculation could be obtained. (Aug. 101.4)

In this conclusion, there are some obvious contextual reminiscences of the Life’s opening chapter: Gentem Octauiam Velitris praecipuam olim fuisse multa declarant. nam et uicus celeberrima parte oppidi iam pridem Octauius uocabatur et ostendebatur ara Octauio consecrata, qui bello dux finitimo, cum forte Marti rem diuinam faceret, nuntiata repente hostis incursione, semicruda exta rapta foco prosecuit, atque ita proelium ingressus uictor redit. decretum etiam publicum extabat, quo cauebatur ut in posterum quoque simili modo exta Marti redderentur, reliquiaeque ad Octauios referrentur.

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That the Octavian family was distinguished at Velitrae in times past is clear from many things. For even a road in the busiest part of town had long been called ‘Octavius’, and an altar used to be displayed consecrated to one ‘Octavian’, the leader in a war on the border who, since by chance he was making a sacrifice to Mars when the enemy attack was suddenly announced, seizing the half-raw innards from the fire, apportioned the offering and then entered battle, returning a victor. There even existed a public decree, which proclaimed that in future too the innards would be paid to Mars in a similar way, and the rest given again to the Octavii. (Aug. 1)

The ending of the Augustus is a fitting companion to this beginning in its portrayal of Augustus as an exemplary figure, just like his ancestor Octavian, who acted in such a way as a leader that his conduct was followed by later generations and a monument was built in his honour. Moreover, this family connection is also suggested just before this chapter when, as Suetonius often does,3 he draws an explicit connection with another death—in this case, that of the emperor’s father, whose mini-biography is recalled from the Life’s beginning towards the biography’s end: obiit in cubiculo eodem, quo pater Octauius (‘He died in the same room as his father Octavius’, Aug. 100.1). Suetonius’ closing arrangement echoes his beginning in a sort of chiasmus, where we move outwardly from Augustus back into the broader past, just as the opening reports his ancestors, including his grandfather (Aug. 2.2–3) and father (3.1–4.2), before the account of the emperor himself (5). The reminiscences of Augustus’ father and ancestor at the end of the Life thus repeat the themes of its beginning in reverse order. Specific details in both of the passages already quoted further support this correlation. Suetonius’ reporting of the altar to Augustus’ ancestor that was once at Velitrae is paralleled by the detail of the original inscription of the Res Gestae upon the pillars in front of the emperor’s mausoleum.4 The final passage evokes especially the decree in the last 3  Cf. esp. Vit. 18 and further references below, n. 11. 4  Suetonius’ positioning of the will (Aug. 101.1–3) and other documents (101.4) after Augustus’ funeral (100.2–4) reinforces closure and exemplarity in the Life, and mirrors the posthumous publication of the Res Gestae; see Lowrie (2007) 108–9, contrasting Dio 56.33. Since the inscription was still visible in Suetonius’ day, it is also used as a closural device of aetiology, for which see e.g. Livy 1.25.14, with Oakley (2010) 135–6. Suetonius’ reference to the Res Gestae here is also discussed by Slater (2008) 262–70 and Gunderson, ch. 6 in this volume. See also my Introduction to this volume for its possible influence on the biographical form of Suetonius.



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sentence of the opening, which sets out the custom of apportioning sacrificial victims in the future after the manner of Augustus’ ancestor, just as the last section of the Life lists the various proportions of the empire’s resources for future use. In this way, the last section achieves closure by resembling its beginning, and by reaffirming the predominantly positive image of the emperor presented throughout the Life with this implicit comparison to Augustus’ heroic forefather. More precise echoes of the beginning of a book at its end may be seen in Book 7, which finishes with a seemingly insignificant detail at the close of Suetonius’ Vitellius that proves especially noteworthy to the careful reader: periit cum fratre et filio anno uitae septimo quinquagesimo; nec fefellit coniectura eorum qui augurio, quod factum ei Viennae ostendimus, non aliud portendi praedixerant quam uenturum in alicuius Gallicani hominis potestatem, siquidem ab Antonio Primo aduersarum partium duce oppressus est, cui Tolosae nato cognomen in pueritia Becco fuerat: id ualet gallinacei rostrum. He died, along with his brother and son, in his fifty-seventh year of life; nor was the interpretation proved false of those who predicted from the portent, which we have said befell him at Vienne, simply that he was destined to come under the control of a Gaul. For he was slain by ­Antonius Primus, a general of the opposing party who was born at Tolosa and in childhood had the surname Becco, meaning rooster’s beak. (Vit. 18)

There is a cross-reference here by Suetonius in the first person (ostendimus), a type of interjection that is often found in places where the biographer is clarifying his structure (e.g. Iul. 44.4, Aug. 97.1, Claud. 29.1).5 Suetonius refers the reader to an earlier chapter in the Vitellius, which explains the meaning of his ending: praemisso agmine laetum euenit auspicium, siquidem a parte dextra repente aquila aduolauit, lustratisque signis ingressos uiam sensim antecessit. at contra ipso mouente statuae equestres, cum plurifariam ei ponerentur, fractis repente cruribus pariter corruerunt, ac laurea, quam religiosissime circumdederat, in profluentem excidit; mox Viennae pro tribunali iura reddenti gallinaceus supra umerum ac deinde in capite astitit. quibus ostentis par respondit exitus; nam confirmatum per legatos suos imperium per se retinere non potuit. 5  See Gascou (1984) 242–4; Fry (2003).

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Once the army had been sent ahead, a fortunate omen occurred, since indeed an eagle suddenly flew towards them from the right side, circled the standards, and slowly led the way as they advanced. But when he himself, on the other hand, was making his advance, the equestrian statues that were placed all around him, with their legs suddenly snapped, crumbled apart; and then the laurel that he had worn as devoutly as possible fell off into a running stream; next, at Vienne, as he was passing judgment on the tribunal, a fowl perched on his shoulder, and then on his head. The conclusion to these portents was an answer in kind. For he was not able to retain by himself the power consolidated by his lieutenants. (Vit. 9)

It can hardly be a coincidence that these exact same details of the eagle, statues, laurel, and fowl appear in the opening to Suetonius’ Galba, which is the start of Book 7:6 Progenies Caesarum in Nerone defecit: quod futurum compluribus quidem signis, sed uel euidentissimis duobus apparuit. Liuiae olim post Augusti statim nuptias Veientanum suum reuisenti praeteruolans aquila gallinam albam ramulum lauri rostro tenentem, ita ut rapuerat, demisit in gremium . . . ac subinde tacta de caelo Caesarum aede capita omnibus simul statuis deciderunt, Augusti etiam sceptrum e manibus excussum est. The descendants of the Caesars ended with Nero. That it would be so was foretold by several omens, but two were especially clear. Once when Livia was staying at her Veientine estate shortly after her marriage to ­Augustus, an eagle flying past dropped into her lap a white hen still holding a laurel twig in its beak from when it was snatched . . . Then immediately afterwards the temple of the Caesars was struck by lightning and the heads toppled from all the statues at once; even Augustus’ sceptre was knocked out of his hands. (Galb. 1)

The biography’s last chapter finally supplies the last detail of the fowl’s ‘beak’ in the passage here, which is not found in the midway chapter of the Vitellius (9). The ending of the Vitellius thus provides closure to the entire book by completing the echoes of its first chapter (Galb. 1) in its last (Vit. 18). Some endings of Suetonius’ Caesars seem to echo not earlier or later beginnings, but rather each other. Take the endings of the middle 6  On this connection and its wider implications, see Power (2009c) 219–20. For the use of eagles as portents in the Caesars, see Krauss (1930) 98–101; for portents involving statues, Krauss (1930) 45, 178–9.



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biographies of Books 7 and 8, the Otho and Divine Titus respectively, which correspond very specifically:7 denique magna pars hominum incolumem grauissime detestata mortuum laudibus tulit, ut uulgo iactatum sit etiam, Galbam ab eo non tam dominandi quam rei p. ac libertatis restituendae causa interemptum. Eventually the large majority of people who had denounced him most harshly when he was alive praised him when he was dead, so that it was even commonly proposed that he had killed Galba not so much for the sake of sole power as of restoring the republic and freedom. (Otho 12.2) quod ut palam factum est, non secus atque in domestico luctu maerentibus publice cunctis, senatus prius quam edicto conuocaretur ad curiam concurrit, obseratisque adhuc foribus, deinde apertis, tantas mortuo gratias egit laudesque congessit, quantas ne uiuo quidem umquam atque praesenti. When it became widely known, as all publicly mourned him no differently from a loss in their own family, the senate, before being summoned by an edict, rushed to the senate house and, with the doors still shut, then open, gave him such thanks when he was dead and heaped upon him such praises, as they had never even done when he was alive and present. (Tit. 11)

The same sentiment is conveyed in each of these final sentences: the praise (laudibus ~ laudesque) of the emperor was greater when he was dead (mortuum ~ mortuo) than when he was alive (incolumen ~ uiuo). Suetonius thus fashions his ending of the Titus to recall that of the Otho.8 The contrasting correlation between the endings of the Otho and Titus helps to make Suetonius’ point all the more forceful: in Otho’s case, the praise is unjust; in that of Titus, it is merited.9 In the context of the former Life, Suetonius makes clear the disparity: given Otho’s 7  Jones and Milns (2002) 121 (on Tit. 11) compare instead Tib. 75.1 and Vit. 17, where Suetonius notes a similar consensus in the reaction to the emperor’s death, albeit an opposite one of hatred. 8  The sentiment appears to have been originally in Suetonius’ source on Otho; cf. Plut. Otho 18.3; Tac. Hist. 2.50.1; Dio 64.15.22; with Hardy (1890) 274; Martin (1981) 83; Shotter (1993) 159. Plutarch comes closest to Suetonius, speaking of ‘those who praised his death’ (τοὺς ἐπαινοῦντας τὸν θάνατον); Tacitus and Dio state the reversal as one of fame. 9  Ruhnken (1828) 365 (ad loc.) compares the language of Titus’ praise to a passage toward the end of the Augustus, where people ‘had lavished upon him exceeding praises’ (eximias laudes congesserant, Aug. 98.2). That praise is no less deservedly given to the emperor for the good he has done for the provinces; see de Souza (2008) 86–7.

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character, this reaction was ‘the greater miracle’ (maiore miraculo, Otho 12.2), much like the heroic manner of his death. In the latter biography, however, what other reaction could there be towards the ‘love and darling of the human race’ (amor ac deliciae generis humani, Tit. 1)? In other cases, such as that of the Caligula, the ending recalls a much earlier one in the Caesars, extending the interconnections between more distant books (Books 1 and 4): obseruatum autem notatumque est in primis Caesares omnes, quibus Gai praenomen fuerit, ferro perisse, iam inde ab eo, qui Cinnanis temporibus sit occisus. Moreover, it was observed and noted especially that all of the Caesars who had the name Gaius died by the sword, ever since the one who was killed in the times of Cinna. (Calig. 60) percussorum autem fere neque triennio quisquam amplius superuixit neque sua morte defunctus est. damnati omnes alius alio casu periit, pars naufragio, pars proelio; nonnulli semet eodem illo pugione, quo Caesarem uiolauerant, interemerunt. Moreover, practically none of the conspirators outlived him by more than a period of three years or died a natural death. After being condemned, they all perished by one or another misfortune: some in a shipwreck, others in battle; not a few of them killing themselves by the very same dagger with which they had stabbed Caesar. (Iul. 89)

This allusion is first suggested by the explicit mentioning of Caesars named Gaius at the end of the Caligula. The two endings are further linked by two contextual similarities: the verbs reserved for the very last word in the sentence both mean ‘kill’ (occisus ~ interemerunt), and each passage makes reference to a bladed weapon (ferro ~ pugione). To these reminiscences, Suetonius adds textual echoes in the conjunction autem—a transitional word that he often uses, but notably only in these two places for the last item of a Life—and in the recurring word omnes. Although the passages are rather different (one group shared a name with the ruler, the other a dagger), they both contain a specific and unique theme: Suetonius comments on the coinciding of two groups of people each dying in like manner. He thus rounds off the two Lives through the same kind of wider perspective, ending on the death, not of the subject himself, but of ‘all’ whose fate was intertwined with his.10 10  On parallels between Caesar and Caligula, see also Hurley, ch. 7 in this volume.



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The biographer was rather interested in such coincidences, especially when deaths occurred in the same year, and often notes them in his endings.11 The most apposite example is the end of the Divine Vespasian: dicitur etiam uidisse quondam per quietem stateram media parte uestibuli Palatinae domus positam examine aequo, cum in altera lance Claudius et Nero starent, in altera ipse ac filii. nec res fefellit, quando totidem annis parique temporis spatio utrique imperauerunt. He is even said to have seen one time in a dream a scale situated in the middle part of the entrance to his house on the Palatine that was equally balanced, for in one tray stood Claudius and Nero, in the other he himself and his sons. And the occurrence was not proved false, since both ruled for the same total of years, down to the exact length of time. (Vesp. 25)

Suetonius makes clear his concern with the balance and symmetry of the reigns he covers, and with the ways in which their endings demonstrated wider patterns, which, as here with the reigns of Nero and Vespasian, Suetonius sometimes leaves for the reader to calculate. Unlike his usual death notices at the end of his biographies (Tib. 73.1, Calig. 59.1, Claud. 45, Galb. 23, Otho 11.2, Tit. 11, Dom. 17.3), Suetonius does not give the length of the reign in either the Nero (57.1) or Vespasian (24).12 But we can easily combine the other notices to figure out the respective durations, given the total of twenty-seven years for each of the two sets: Claudius and Nero on the one hand (ad 41–68), and the Flavians on the other (ad 69–96).13 Suetonius thus connects Book 8 back to Books 5–6, just as he has connected Book 4 with Book 1 11  See e.g. Vita Tibull. 7, Vita Hor. 14, Iul. 89, Aug. 100.1 (discussed earlier), Ner. 57.1, Vit. 18; also Jer. Chron. Ol. 184.1 = Suet. fr. 217 Reiff., with Power (forthcoming b); Jer. Chron. Ol. 184.2 = Suet. fr. 25 Reiff., with Panayotakis (2010) 36–7. Suetonius notes deaths that are synchronous or coinciding with important events also at other points in his biographies; see e.g. Vita Verg. 6, Claud. 29.2. Cf. Calig. 57.2, anticipating the biography’s ending a few chapters later by noting the omen of a murder on the same day (eodem die) as another. For coincidences of birth, see Aug. 94.5, Claud. 2.1; also Tac. Ann. 15.23.1, with Bartera (2011) 172–3. 12  Barzanò (1988) 552. 13  Less than fourteen years for Nero (Claud. 45), and about ten years for Vespasian (Tit. 11, Dom. 17.3; cf. Dio 67.18.2). With the phrase ‘down to the exact length of time’ (parique temporis spatio), Suetonius implies that even the months and days added up exactly; see Mooney (1930) 465 (ad loc.). Could this interest in numerology have prompted Suetonius to record the number of wounds for Caesar (Iul. 82.2) and Domitian (Dom. 17.2), which, combined, equal the same amount as for Caligula (Calig. 58.3)? On possible ‘self-imitation’ in these scenes, see Ash (forthcoming). For the term, see Woodman (1979) = (1998) 70–85.

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through the comparison at the end of the Caligula. He also prepares for the closure of the entire Caesars through a reminiscence of a passage towards the end of Virgil’s last book: Iuppiter ipse duas aequato examine lances / sustinet et fata imponit diuersa duorum (‘Jupiter himself holds two equally balanced trays, and places in them the different fates of the two’, Aen. 12.725–6; cf. Il. 22.209–10).14 Let us now look at the endings of Books 5 and 8 to see if they can be compared in the same way as the allusion to Caesar that connects Books 1 and 4: sed nec ipse ignorasse aut dissimulasse ultima uitae suae tempora uidetur, aliquot quidem argumentis. nam et cum consules designaret, neminem ultra mensem quo obiit designauit, et in senatu, cui nouissime interfuit, multum ad concordiam liberos suos cohortatus, utriusque aetatem suppliciter patribus commendauit, et in ultima cognitione pro tribunali accessisse ad finem mortalitatis, quanquam abominantibus qui audiebant, semel atque iterum pronuntiauit. But that not even he himself seemed to be unaware or hide the temporal boundaries of his life is indeed substantiated by several things. For even when he was appointing the consuls, he appointed no one beyond the month in which he died; and in a session of the senate, the very last he attended, after greatly urging his own children to agreement, he humbly entrusted the youth of both to the senators; and in his last enquiry on the tribunal, he pronounced repeatedly that he had reached the end of his mortality, although those listening hoped it was not an evil omen. (Claud. 46) ante paucos quam occideretur menses cornix in Capitolino elocuta est: ἔσται πάντα καλῶς, nec defuit qui ostentum sic interpretaretur: nuper Tarpeio quae sedit culmine cornix,    ‘est bene’ non potuit dicere, dixit: ‘erit’. ipsum etiam Domitianum ferunt somniasse gibbam sibi pone ceruicem auream enatam, pro certoque habuisse beatiorem post se laetioremque portendi rei publicae statum, sicut sane breui euenit abstinentia et moderatione insequentium principum. A few months before he was killed, a crow on the Capitol spoke the words: ‘All will be well’; and there was not lacking one who interpreted the portent as follows: 14  This parallel is noted by Ruhnken (1828) 361 (ad loc.). For other Virgilian allusions in Suetonius, see Power (2007), (2012b).



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Recently on the Tarpeian summit there sat a crow, who, being unable to say, ‘It is well’, said, ‘It will be’. They even say that Domitian himself had dreamt that a golden hump had grown behind his neck, and was sure that a more fortunate and happier state of the empire was being portended after he was gone, just as indeed shortly came true through the temperance and restraint of the next emperors. (Dom. 23.2)

Both endings withhold for their closing detail the emperor’s foreseeing of his own death. Domitian’s dream, portending the future, recalls especially the ending of the Vespasian already discussed (Vesp. 25), thereby also creating symmetry with the first Life of the biography’s own book (see later). Domitian’s view that the empire will be better without him is more positive than the earlier account of his fear of death (Dom. 14–16),15 and accords nicely with Claudius’ resigned acceptance of his own end. Through this reminiscence connecting Books 5 and 8, Suetonius balances the second half of his collection in the same manner as the first half. The ending of the Divine Claudius also reminds the reader of the closing chapters of the Tiberius, the only other Life in which the omens foretelling death occur after the account of the death itself, although these closing chapters do not technically constitute the final rubric, for which the emperor’s will (testamentum, Tib. 76) is saved, as in the Augustus.16 However, the ending of the Claudius inverts the order of the two rubrics prior to the last of the Tiberius: the omens of death and its aftermath in the earlier biography (Tib. 74–5) are juxtaposed in the opposite order at the end of the later one (Claud. 45–6). Both penultimate chapters therefore focus on the aftermath, and their comparison reveals interesting correspondences: morte eius ita laetatus est populus, ut ad primum nuntium discurrentes pars: ‘Tiberium in Tiberim!’ clamitarent . . . creuit igitur inuidia, quasi etiam post mortem tyranni saeuitia permanente. corpus ut moueri a ­Miseno coepit, conclamantibus plerisque Atellam potius deferendum et in amphitheatro semiustilandum, Romam per milites deportatum est crematumque publico funere. 15  Cf. Ash (forthcoming): ‘a note of optimism’. 16  For Tiberius’ will being saved by Suetonius until after the details of the emperor’s funeral (Tib. 75.3) as especially closural, cf. above, n. 4 on the Augustus.

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His death was a source of such delight for the people that at its first announcement some ran about shouting: ‘Put Tiberius in the Tiber!’ . . . Then hatred grew, as if the tyrant’s cruelty was enduring even after death. As the body began to be moved from Misenum, although many were clamouring for it to be brought rather to Atella and half-burned in the amphitheatre, it was transported by soldiers to Rome and cremated in a public funeral. (Tib. 75.1–3) mors eius celata est, donec circa successorem omnia ordinarentur. itaque et quasi pro aegro adhuc uota suscepta sunt et inducti per simulationem comoedi, qui uelut desiderantem oblectarent . . . funeratusque est sollemni principum pompa et in numerum deorum relatus. His death was concealed until everything could be put in order regarding his successor. And so even vows were made as if still on behalf of the ill, and there were led in comic actors by way of pretence, who ­performed for him as though he was requesting it . . . He was given a funeral with the procession established for emperors, and included in the number of the gods. (Claud. 45)

Two things speak in favour of this connection. First, the rubric mors eius is found nowhere else in the Caesars introducing the aftermath of death. Second, both passages contain the theme of life as a ‘mime’ (mimus), a theme which does not need to be signalled by this word to be present;17 the word may be inferred from the earlier death scene of Augustus, where Suetonius quotes it among the emperor’s last words (Aug. 99.1),18 or from the biographer’s own later use of mimus to describe the ridiculous situation between Nero, Otho, and ­Poppaea (Otho 3.2; cf. Calig. 45.2). There is even a parallel earlier in the ­Tiberius, when the emperor pretends not to desire the empire ‘with an unabashed charade’ (impudentissimo mimo, Tib. 24.1).19 For another 17  Cf. Brandão (2009) 299, 313, who observes the theatrical quality of both passages; for mime as a pervasive theme in Suetonius, see Brandão (2009) 323–5; Lefebvre (2009) 13–14. On public shows in the Tiberius and Claudius, see Groot (2008) 146–9 and 154–7, respectively. 18  On this passage, see Wardle (2007), (2008); Louis (2010) 566–7 (ad loc.); Brandão (2009) 271–3; Power (2013a); and Hulls, ch. 9 in this volume. For the topos of life as a play, see e.g. Cic. Sen. 64, 70; Sen. Ep. 80.7; Apul. Flor. 16.16–18; with Shuckburgh (1896) 171; Hunink (2006) 37–8; Prauscello (2004) 57–8; Mitsis (2007) 22. 19  If Gronovius’ conjecture of mimo for the manuscripts’ animo is correct, which it seems to be; see the notes ad loc. of Ruhnken (1828) 226; Lindsay (1995) 108–9, with appeal to Tac. Ann. 1.46.1.



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suggestion of the theme of a mime as part of an emperor’s death, we also have the Life that sits between these two biographies in the collection, in which a mime is saved as the final climactic omen (Calig. 57.4), before the emperor’s own theatrical death is staged.20 If the reader understands this theme of life as a mimus towards the end of these two Lives, then the wish to burn Tiberius in Atella can be seen as arising not only because it was near Misenum where he died, but because it was the home of a popular form of mime. Suetonius records the detail both for its factual reality and because it serves an additional literary purpose in its implication that the emperor’s death, reflecting his reign, is like an Atellan farce.21 This wish finds a direct parallel in the aftermath of Claudius’ death, which is covered up by the literal charade of pretending to stage a comedy. In both cases, the situation is like a play, but is not an actual one. This fact is underscored by Suetonius’ use of descriptive quasi-clauses in both passages, which provide a sort of authorial commentary on the action. The word simulatio (‘pretence’) in the passage of the Claudius points to the dissimulatio (‘disguising’) of his rule as well as that of Tiberius’, which is signified in the related passage through the stereotypical epithet tyrannus ­(‘tyrant’)—its only appearance in Suetonius.22 Claudius too played the part not of a princeps, but a minister (‘not of an emperor, but a slave’, Claud. 29.1). By including similar facts and positioning them in parallel places in the two Lives, Suetonius ensures that the ending of the Claudius recalls that of the Tiberius. While not precisely the final items in their biographies, these corresponding penultimate sections nonetheless make the same kind of allusion to acting and theatre, and suggest the same point about the emperors’ vice and deception extending beyond their deaths, with masks and roles not even relinquished at the end of their rule. The end of the Domitian too, like that of the Claudius, suggests another connection aside from the Life with which its ending seems paired. It draws a contrast with the more fortunate and prosperous reigns of the emperor’s successors, which underscores Suetonius’ negative portrait of Domitian, and adds to the sense of this ending 20  Brandão (2009) 324; Ash (forthcoming). Cf. Vesp. 19.2, with Sumi (2002). 21  This implication is missed by Lindsay (1995) 187 (ad loc.), who nonetheless notes the tyrannical associations of the word semiustilandum (‘half-burned’). 22  Howard and Jackson (1922) s.v. tyrannus.

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as a satisfactory and fitting resting-place.23 To emphasize this point further, Suetonius once again creates a unity with the beginning of the book, since not only are the later emperors who are mentioned here (insequentium principum) mirrored by the earlier emperors found in the opening of Book 8 (trium principum, Vesp. 1.1),24 but the virtues with which Suetonius ends (abstinentia et moderatione) are also antonyms to the vices with which he began (cupiditatis ac saeuitiae, ‘lust and cruelty’, Vesp. 1.1).25 Just as the meaning of the closing dream of the Vespasian (25) is that the Flavians will balance their predecessors through the duration of their reigns, so too the final dream of the Domitian suggests a balancing of Flavian vices by their successors’ virtues. This link between the beginning and end of the last book may be especially telling in light of the Divine Julius. The rest of the line about Domitian at the start of Book 8, to which Suetonius alludes, is no less significant: constet . . . cupiditatis ac saeuitiae merito poenas luisse (‘it is agreed that . . . he justly paid the penalties for his lust and cruelty’). This consensus on Domitian is equivalent to Suetonius’ judgement towards the end of the Life of Caesar: iure caesus existimetur (‘it is thought that he was rightly killed’, Iul. 76.1). In this way, Suetonius draws not only a direct connection between the first and last Life, but one which occurs at the start of Book 8 at the very introduction of Domitian, and is then recalled in the book’s final passage. Through the self-allusions in his endings, Suetonius underscores the divisions in his work and creates counterparts in his books that complete each other.26 The death of Caesar in particular is a recurring theme, as we have seen at the end of the Caligula, and its repetition through the assassination of Domitian is therefore particularly closural.27 It is important to note that the comparisons and contrasts in Suetonius’ endings do not serve to unsettle what has come before; they only render it more pointed. This practice is dissimilar to that of Plutarch and Tacitus, and comparison with these authors throws Suetonius into 23  For comparison as a topos at the end of works of ancient historiography, see e.g. Marincola (2005) 296 on Arr. Anab. 7.30.2–3; and at the end of ancient Lives themselves (rather than in a formal synkrisis), Georgiadou (1988) 352 n. 16 on the two comparisons at Plut. Galb. 29.1–5; see also below on Plutarch’s Antony. 24  Power (2009c) 220 n. 16.    25  Baldwin (1983) 491. 26  We might compare the self-allusions back to earlier parts of a work as a closural device in poetry, on which see Smith (1968) esp. 27, 163–6. 27  Cf. Smith (1968) 246: ‘the continued iteration of a refrain can have a cumulative force, so that its final occurrence is climactic or self-reinforcing: yes, that’s the way it is, there is no other way.’



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sharp relief. Plutarch frequently denies closure in the formal comparisons (synkriseis) that often act as epilogues to his pairs of Lives.28 Instead of providing neat answers to the moral questions of his Lives, Plutarch prefers to ask new questions in these comparisons. Plutarch’s original endings themselves can also sometimes deny the reader’s sense of closure.29 In the case of Plutarch’s Caesar, for example, which appears to have lacked a formal synkrisis with its paired Alexander, the ending is especially ambiguous, suggesting new and different ways to judge these figures from what has come before.30 Plutarch also complicates his ending of the supposedly negative biography Antony by reminding the reader that his descendant Nero was Augustus’ successor (Ant. 87.1); Antony therefore, in one sense, wins out.31 Tacitus can also disrupt his own sense of closure through the endings of his books, as when he closes Book 4 of the Annals with the marriage of Agrippina and Domitius Ahenobarbus, which similarly adumbrates the terrible reign of Nero (Ann. 4.75).32 There is no such dissonance in Suetonius, even at the end of the Lives that point ahead. For example, the ending of the Galba looks forward to the Flavian dynasty by mentioning Vespasian (Galb. 23), but the prospective reference only accentuates the illegitimacy of ­Galba’s rule and the overall negative treatment of him by Suetonius in the Life.33 The Claudius may offer us a final image of the emperor presiding as judge over a trial, but this no more redeems his negative portrait than it reminds us of the earlier representation of Claudius’ dispensing of justice (Claud. 14–15), which portrays him as an utter fool.34 Suetonius 28  See Duff (1999) 70–1, 243–86.    29  Cf. Brenk (1977) 269–72. 30  Pelling (1997b) 245–50 = PH 378–82; (2011b) 32. 31  Id. (1988) 323–5 (ad loc.); (1997b) 234–6 = PH 369–70; Brenk (1992) 4374–5. Nonetheless, Plutarch at the same time reaffirms the negative portrayal of Antony by blaming him for the future rule of Nero, who was by all accounts a bad emperor. Such complexity in Plutarch’s sense of closure at the end of the Antony is brought out in other respects by Murgatroyd (2012). 32  See Ash (1999) 140. 33  Cf. Power (2007) 796. Suetonius notably never ends with a formal and rhetorical synkrisis such as we find at the end of some of Nepos’ biographies in connection with reactions to death (Cim. 4.1–4) or posthumous reputation (Alc. 11.1–6, Cat. 3.1–5), and at the end of Plutarch’s Galba (29.1–5). On the favourable viewpoint of this Plutarchan passage (which, however, is incomplete due to a lacuna at 29.2) towards Galba, see Scuderi (1995) 407; Brandão (2010) 35–6. 34  Pace Hurley (2001) 243–4 (ad loc.), who sees the ending of the Claudius as ambivalent. For the ending of this Life as generally negative, see Busto de Lezica (2008). On the theme of foolishness at Claud. 15.3–4, see Power (2011) 730–1.

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invites the reader to see through this final image, much like the praise at the end of the Otho already discussed, or the posthumous nostalgia for Nero with which that emperor’s biography closes (Ner.  57.1–2). The people’s reactions in the aftermath of a bad emperor’s death, when they are considered incorrect by Suetonius, are still worth noting precisely for their deceptive quality, much like his good deeds in life. No one could think that Suetonius agrees with Nero’s revival.35 Suetonius leaves his readers with details that do not jar with the overall argument of his portraits, but rather cement their verdicts, often through comparisons and contrasts with other parts. Suetonius generally strives in his final chapters to recall the main themes of each Life, whether through a sort of ‘summarizing vignette’ towards the end, as he does in the Galba (20.2),36 or by creating unity with the beginning of the biography through parallels of detail, as we have seen in the Augustus. His endings are fitting, and not entirely unexpected, giving the last (and therefore most lasting) impression that the Life has made sense. In fact, when one considers that death is a rather common and obvious closural motif, it may be surprising that Suetonius never makes the death of his emperors his final chapter, as for example Nepos often does. Yet, at the same time, by ending with the will, or with a larger perspective having to do with the death or burial, Suetonius nonetheless closes his biographies with a coda or epilogue related to the end of the lifespan.37 Suetonius’ endings do not merely look ahead to the next Life, as does for example the ending of Plutarch’s Otho (18.4–7), which lacks closure by resuming the narration with Vitellius.38 They instead offer a meditation on the subject whose biography they finish, not leading directly to the next beginning or continuing a larger story, but winding down the

35  Pace Hägg (2012) 229. On the last part of the Nero, see also Power (2014f). Cf. the criticisms of Virgil with which Suetonius ends his clearly laudatory biography of that poet (Vita Verg. 43–6), with Baldwin (1989a) 489. On the interest, yet ultimate irrelevance, to Suetonius of incorrect intepretations generally, see Osgood (2013) 35–8. 36  See Power (2009b) 245. For the term, see Pelling (1997b) 232–4 = PH 368–9; Marincola (2005) 298–9. For this kind of brief closural anecdote, see also e.g. Nep. Iph. 3.3–4, Timoth. 4.2–3, Epam. 10.1–3. 37  We might compare some similar (though more exceptional) extensions by Nepos beyond the limit of death: e.g. Lys. 4.1–3, Eum. 13.2–4, Han. 13.2–3. 38  For other open-ended qualities of Plutarch’s Otho, see Duff (1999) 20. Plutarch and Suetonius are also compared by Hulls, ch. 9 in this volume.



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implications of the present emperor’s demise. Death may not be the end in Suetonius, but it is all over but the crying.

2.  RING COMPOSITION These reminiscences of Suetonius’ earlier points of division through his endings may be said to enhance the general ring composition of the Caesars, since this was one of the most obvious devices by which ancient writers achieved closure through a sense of symmetry, reinforcing their designs through the recurrence of beginning themes in the work’s ending. Benediktson has argued for ring composition within the Galba, and draws attention to the Greek quotations towards the beginning and end of the biography (Galb. 4.1 and 20.2), which share a common theme of age.39 In fact, it has more recently been shown that the first quotation in the Galba, which Suetonius tells us was said by Augustus (Galb. 4.1), was probably an adaptation of the same Greek hexameter verse to which Caesar alludes in his dying words (Iul. 82.2), and therefore a poetical quotation just like the one at the end of the Life;40 this similarity makes the link between the two quotations more compelling. Comparisons with this quotation’s appearances in the parallel tradition reveal its versatility as a Suetonian device of closure. According to Tacitus, this quotation was uttered to Galba by Tiberius (Ann. 6.20.2; cf. Joseph. AJ 18.6.9), and Dio too claims that it was Tiberius (57.19.4), although at a much earlier time. The varied use of this quotation suggests that it was a ‘transferable motif ’41—that is, a story detached from its context and possibly even uncertainly or variously attributed. Suetonius may have found the story in differing accounts, or in a collection of sayings that were spoken by or about the emperors, and 39  Benediktson (1996–7) 169, 173. On the latter passage, see Power (2009b). Suetonian ring composition has also been detected by e.g. Lounsbury (1991) 3751–60 in the Nero, and Gugel (1977) 50–1 at Calig. 57. To these we may add Tib. 74–5 ~ Claud. 45–6, discussed earlier. 40  See the discussion of Woodman (2006) 183–4 = (2012) 350–3 with bibliography; also Pelling (2011b) 483. Woodman conjectures plausibly (183 n. 36 = 2012: 351 n. 36) that the original verse was καὶ σύ, τέκνον, ποτε τῆς ἀρχῆς ἡμῶν παρατρώξῃ. 41  For this term, see Woodman (2006) 183 = (2012) 351.

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decided that it must have been said during the reign of Augustus. A similar allusion to poetry, though not a poetical quotation, is found differently reported by Suetonius (Tib. 62.3) and Dio (61.16.1), as having been spoken about Priam by Tiberius in the former account and Nero in the latter. It is easy to see from such examples how Suetonius may have had room in his source material to determine the positions of his quotations for reasons as much literary as biographical.42 Let us finally return to the ending of the Domitian and the final quotation that provides closure to the entire Caesars. The quotation is not from a well-known text, but rather the pamphlet literature through which the Roman people often expressed their opinions about the emperor. Unless the missing beginning to the Julius contained a quotation, the first lines of verse quoted by Suetonius in the Caesars appear in the first quarter of that biography, and are rather similar to the final verses in the Life of Domitian, being derived from the same kind of source (Iul. 20.2): unus ex eo tempore omnia in re publica et ad arbitrium administrauit, ut nonnulli urbanorum, cum quid per iocum testandi gratia signarent, non Caesare et Bibulo, sed Iulio et Caesare consulibus actum scriberent bis eundem praeponentes nomine atque cognomine, utque uulgo mox ferrentur hi uersus: non Bibulo quiddam nuper sed Caesare factum est:   nam Bibulo fieri consule nil memini. One man from that time onward administered all things in the state as he pleased, and a number of people in the city, as they joked that they were signing an official document, wrote not in the consulship ‘of Caesar and Bibulus’, but ‘of Julius and Caesar’, putting the same person twice through his name and surname, and hence these verses were soon circulating: Nothing recently was done under Bibulus, but rather under Caesar: for in Bibulus’ consulship I cannot remember anything happening.

Suetonius marks the beginning of his first tyranny and the end of his last with pentameter couplets, both containing the word nuper and addressing the recent state of the times as a period of transition for 42  Cf. Power (2012b). The quotation seems to fit better with Tiberius: La Penna (1987) = (1995) 236–42. On the malleability of such anecdotes, see Saller (1980) 74–9. The use of ancient collections of sayings may have led to variants; see e.g. Kaster (1995) 135–6 (on Gramm. 9.5 ~ Macrob. Sat. 2.6.4).



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the Roman state (cf. Dom. 23.2: nuper Tarpeio quae sedit culmine cornix, / ‘est bene’ non potuit dicere, dixit: ‘erit’; see above, pp. 66–7). Perhaps unsurprisingly, these are the only two appearances of this word in all of Suetonius.43 The rarity of this word, together with the obvious contextual similarity, confirms this connected deployment of quotations as a certain allusion by the biographer.44 Indeed, there may be a further ring composition in that the couplet comparing Bibulus is recalled in the first place towards the end of the Julius by the two verses comparing Lucius Junius Brutus, which are the last poetical quotation in the biography (Iul. 80.3): Brutus, quia reges eiecit, consul primus factus est: hic, quia consules eiecit, rex postremo factus est. Brutus, since he expelled the kings, was the first to be made consul: this man, since he expelled the consuls, was at last made king.

These lines are not only likewise about the consulship, but also contain a similar ‘terminal modification’ to the earlier ones, where the second line repeats the first in a new way (non Bibulo . . . / nam Bibulo . . .).45 As we have seen, the fact that these verses on Caesar and Bibulus already perform closure by being recalled in the Julius makes an allusion to them all the more closural through the very last verses quoted in the Caesars; once again, Caesar returns as a Suetonian motif, and the portrait of Domitian can itself be seen as a sort of ‘terminal modification’ of the Life of the first ruler in the collection. The ending of the Domitian thus achieves closure not only by looking ahead to subsequent emperors, but also through its reminiscence of the initial biography in the Caesars. We have already established a connection between the endings of these Lives in Suetonius’ pronouncement that both rulers deserved to die; now we may add an even more solid echo of the whole collection’s first verses in its closing ones. In this last ending to the Caesars, we witness an internal signalling of structure that is analogous to what Fowler meant when he called for ‘a thorough examination of the hierarchy of closure in early epic to see if alternative articulations can be discerned to the traditional book 43  Howard and Jackson (1922) s.v. nuper. 44  For the importance of rare words in determining an allusion, see e.g. Hinds (1998) 25–6; Power (2007) 792; Kelly (2008) 166–9; Woodman (2009a) 5; Gibson (2011b) 189–93; Pagán (2011) 152–3. 45  I take this term from Smith (1968) 53.

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division’.46 The change from prose, however filled with rhythmical clausulae, into proper metre is a noticeable form of punctuation in a Suetonian biography.47 However, in Suetonius’ case, what makes these articulations of his design so perceivable is that we are able to reconstruct his original book divisions, which help us to work backwards towards his other workings of cohesiveness and closure, especially the device of ring composition. We can discern in the biographer’s writing a polish worthy of the labor limae with which Pliny the Younger associates him (Ep. 5.10.3), since he produces complementary touches to the larger structures in his work. Pliny himself has been accused of adding books to his Letters without a sense of the whole collection in his mind beforehand, but like Suetonius’ Caesars, that collection has also been shown to be deceptively polished.48

3.  DATE OF COMPOSITION From this investigation, some final conclusions can be drawn about the original design and date of composition of the Caesars. While it remains possible, as speculated by Syme, that only the first six Lives were planned from the beginning, and the last six (Books 7 and 8) were a subsequent expansion,49 Suetonius nonetheless imbues these books with the same kinds of interconnections he espouses in Books 1–6. Therefore, compared with the rest of the collection in regard to how Suetonius fashions his endings to reinforce the overall structure of his work, these Lives do not suffer from any lack of artistic embellishment. It follows that even if the last six biographies were afterthoughts, they were at least written to disguise this fact and to complement the previous Lives seamlessly. However, it seems more likely that the last two

46  Fowler (1989) 94 = (2000) 257, referring to Taplin (1992). 47  On Suetonius’ use of verbatim citations in general, see Müller (1972) and Damon, ch. 2 in this volume; on the biographer’s poetical quotations, e.g. Berthet (1978); Gascou (1984) 703–6; Marcía Aparicio (2008); Scantamburlo (2011) 142 (on Iul. 20.2); Power (2011). For prose rhythm in Suetonius, see e.g. Macé (1900) 379–98; D’Anna (1954) 210–14; Bayer (2002) 43–5; Ramondetti (2002) 412–13; Fry (2009) 19–21. 48  See e.g. Whitton (2010); Gibson (2011a). 49  Syme (1980) 117–18 = RP III.1264–5; (1981) 117 = RP III.1348–9. Against this view, see Power (2009c) 216–17. No help in this regard are Suetonius’ references to the Caesars as a group; cf. Henderson, ch. 4 in this volume, pp. 85, 89–93.



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books were, in fact, part of Suetonius’ original design, since the ending of the Nero alludes to the reign of Domitian by referring to a false Nero of that time (Ner. 57.2).50 The biographer even leaves the Nero incomplete, in a sense, by denying his death notice (Ner. 57.1) the customary length of the reign; this is withheld until Book 8 (Vesp. 25). More importantly, the final poetical quotation of the Domitian with which the entire Caesars ends seems matched to the very first verses that appear in the initial quarter of the Julius. This piece of evidence suggests that, even if Suetonius may not have envisaged his endpoint as he was writing the first Life, he nonetheless specifically tailored his ending as a companion-piece to that passage with the same artistic control sustained throughout the collection. The same cannot be said of the ending to the Nero, where we find no such ring composition with Caesar; the last rubric on Nero was therefore probably never conceived as a final resting-point. Furthermore, the praise of Suetonius’ own emperors in the last chapter of the Domitian (23.2) would sit oddly with a publication after his dismissal by Hadrian in ad 122, unless perhaps we were to view it in the context of an attempt to regain Hadrian’s favour. Yet this hypothesis is unnecessary, for I have already shown that Suetonius may well have had time to complete the Caesars before his dismissal, since his earlier collection, Illustrious Men, seems to have been finished by ad 110.51 The imperial Lives were therefore probably all written at a slow pace, before being finally published under Hadrian prior to Suetonius’ dismissal, with the biographer showing no more care in the collection’s first half than at its end.

50  On this false Nero, see Bradley (1978) 294–5 (ad loc.). We might here also compare Tacitus, who anticipates the closure of his Histories through the mention of Domitian at the end of two of his books (Hist. 3.86.3, 4.86.1); see Ash (1999) 140. Power (2009c) rejects the claim of some scholars that Galba 1 was originally the ending to the Nero, arguing that it was clearly written as a beginning. It is doubtful that Suetonius would have saved this material for the Galba, and not included it in the Nero (cf. Dio 63.29.3), if he had intended the latter to be his ending point; cf. Vesp. 25, discussed earlier. 51  Power (2010).

Part II Reading the Lives

4 Was Suetonius’ Julius a Caesar? John Henderson

0. . . .] AVANT-PROPOS De Vita Caesarum (DVC) is acephalous;1 there is always the proviso that it may have given a good account of itself in a lost preface (which included dedication to Septicius Clarus, according to John Lydus, De Magistratibus 2.6): but texts always deliver on self-invention and encrypt self-commentary as they go. This chapter embraces the results—sketched out through the raw ‘data’, if you please—of a multidirectional reading of DVC through Diuus Iulius (Iul.),2 addressed to both the thesis that Iul. belongs within the grand structure of DVC and the antithesis that Iul. is so anomalous, it stands clear of the structure inaugurated with the Augustus (Aug.).3 It is essentially a pursuit of narrative ‘shifters’ positioning the text between reader, writer, and narrated, but chased with putable taxonomous directives. On the one hand, the composition of Iul. was always already preformatted, as the first in a series, conceived as such from the outset: 1  Uncanny that Plutarch’s Caesar should also, unlike Julius, end up headless, and should also start from Caesar’s marriage to Cornelia (Baldwin 1983: 221). 2 As text, Iul. is forever neglected—normally mined not read, rarely read as first instalment of eight: cf. Deutsch (1928). Non vidi Haenisch (1937), but ‘literary’ readers generally put the tipping point in the ‘rehabilitation’ of DVC at the first publication of Steidle (1951: esp. 13–67, ‘Zur Biographie Caesars’): see esp. Galand-Hallyn (1991); Pausch (2004) 234: ‘Zäsur’. In turn, Bradley (1985b) reckoned Suetonius was somewhat ‘rediscovered’ through Baldwin (1983) and Wallace-Hadrill (1983). 3  This chapter packs a plethora of Latin passages, the results of targeted searches through DVC, indicating pertinent content, but translating key phrases.

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One size fits all, so to speak, but with varying results. Differences among the biographies lie not with method but with what there was for him to work with . . . When he wrote . . . the line of emperors [was] long enough for criteria for good and bad ones to have developed . . . [Sweat]onius is observed working hard to impose logic on conflated compositional imperatives.4

The writing fundamentally consists of categorial structure in line with a recoverable ‘norm for the virtues of princes’, since, the argument runs, ‘By the early second century a clear conception had emerged in Roman society of how the emperor ought ideally to conduct himself.’5 But, on the other hand, the truncated Iul. is a one-off: ‘The idea of a reign is of restricted relevance to this life.’6 Within the macroscale question for DVC—that is, whether, and how strenuously, to regard the project as generated from a ‘kit’, with a dozen variants emerging to block out a model, the modelling of a political system, validating a conceptual programme by presenting its results—there is the specific issue for Iul.: does this first sally function as antefix or exemplary inauguration? For options, as we head out through those engaging riffs that corroborate/expose what readers think they knew they knew, and begin to attune to Suetonius’ brand of (mock-)intellectual storymongering/story-satirizing (pop-) scholarship, is Iul. set to ratchet up preliminary or liminal puzzlement, to play between tone-setting captatio and teasing decoy tactics—the false start, antitype, priamel, scrambler, and dubitatio (rhetorical figure marking ‘under scrutiny’)? A mannered microcosm, but of what kind: within the overall pattern, or prelusory? We can at least be confident that the grand project is neither incomplete nor uncompleted, in that the wind-down at Dom. 23.2 makes for sardonic closure in perfect Suetonian style. Citing the story that his last Caesar’s ‘dream of a golden hump growing on his back’, which he thought meant a golden age in the period ahead, ‘for sure’ has actually come about: sicut sane breui euenit abstinentia et moderatione insequentium principum || (‘through the restraint and control of ensuing emperors’). This, the only explicit reference in DVC to what lay in the future ‘behind Domitian’, in the Suetonian present, records a rare uaticinium ante euentum (‘prophecy before the outcome’), and sews up the

4  Hurley (2001) vii, 1, 18.    5  Bradley (1991) 3716. 6  Wallace-Hadrill (1983) 171 n. 45.



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set in complete(d) vindication of the project of turning the Caesars of popular mythology into memorable history malformé.7

1.  WRITING (IN) DVC The first narratological move is to track the formal shifters in DVC that mark out writer–reader relations, loading attention on the here/now of writing, of narration, and away from narrated.8 In particular, the funnelling of the past to the writer’s desk scarcely surfaces in Iul. (55.3, orationes . . . inter quas temere quaedam feruntur; 55.6, epistulae . . . extant . . . ; extat et ad Ciceronem; 77.1, ut T. Ampius scribit; 81.2, auctor est Cornelius Balbus); whereas Aug. sees a flood of markers of the past from the present (1.1, multa declarant; 5, natus est Augustus . . . ubi nunc sacrarium habet, aliquanto post quam excessit constitutum . . . ; 6, nutrimentorum eius ostenditur adhuc locus; . . . religio est concepta opinione ueteri quasi temere adeuntibus horror quidam et metus obiciatur, sed et mox confirmata . . . ; 10.4, scribit/addit/tradit (11.1, 27.2, 4, 42.1, 3, 63.2, 64.2, 69.1–2, 71.2–4, 74, 77.1, 79.2, 88, 92.2); 43.1, in quo nunc Caesarum nemus est; 50, imagine . . . sua, . . . qua signare insecuti quoque principes perseuerarunt; 51.1, multa . . . documenta sunt; 73, instrumenti eius et supellectilis parsimonia apparet etiam nunc residuis lectis atque mensis; 85.2, unus liber extat . . . ; extat alter; 87.1, litterae ipsius autographa ostentant; 94.5, scriptum apud C. Drusum extat). In sum, this profile tends toward backgrounding Iul. as an archaeologia, a preliminary before Aug. launches the project proper.9

7  See Power, ch. 3 in this volume, and later in this chapter. 8  Wardle (1998) reviews the diagnosis of Ulpian jive between the lines of DVC (giving a robust thumbs down). 9  Compare Books 3–8: Tib. 2.1, multa . . ., multa extant; 2.3, extant et . . . exempla; 14.3, hodieque sub aqua uisuntur hi tali; 62.2, carnificinae eius ostenditur locus Capreis; Calig. 8.4, extat et Augusti epistula; Claud. 19.1, quae constituta hodieque seruantur; 41.3, extat talis scriptura; Ner. 50, Domitiorum monimento . . . quod prospicitur a campo Martio; Galb. 1, ut hodieque ea uilla ad Gallinas uocetur; Vit. 1.1, extat Q. Elogi . . . libellus quo continetur; Vesp. 1.3, locus . . . appellatur Vespasiae, ubi Vespasiorum complura monumenta extant . . . ; Tit. 1, natus est . . . sordidis aedibus, cubiculo uero perparuo et obscuro (nam manet adhuc et ostenditur); Dom. 5, nouam autem excitauit aedem in Capitolio Custodi Ioui, et forum quod nunc Neruae uocatur, item Flauiae templum gentis et stadium et Odeum et naumachiam, e cuius postea lapide maximus circus . . . est.

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The writer’s own ‘autobiography’, rudimentary and unindividualized in Iul.,10 similarly gets floated only in the course of Aug. (7.1, Thurinum cognominatum satis certa probatione tradiderim, nactus puerilem imagunculam eius aeream ueterem, ferreis et paene iam exolescentibus litteris hoc nomine inscriptam . . ., quae dono a me principi data inter cubiculi Lares colitur); thenceforth the reigns relay mimetically, organically, logically, down from grandfather’s tales (Calig. 19.3, sed auum meum narrantem puer audiebam, cf. Claud. 15.3, illud quoque a maioribus natu audiebam), through father’s heyday at the hinge between the first suite, or dynasty, and its successor (Otho 10.1, interfuit huic bello pater meus Suetonius Laetus), to reach Suetonius’ own autopsy (Ner. 57.2, cum post uiginti annos adulescente me; Dom. 12.2, interfuisse me adulescentulum memini).11 10  ‘Researching’ (not sifting the imperial archives: Power 2010: 159–62): Iul. 55.3, in quibusdam exemplaribus inuenio. Otherwise, only ‘editorializing’: 44.4, mors . . . de qua prius dicam; 49.1–2, omitto . . . praetereo . . . missa etiam facio; 68.4, ne de pluribus referam. Because we lack the opening sections, we can make no comparison with the flurry of salient moves from Suetonius the genealogist in the proems to Books 2–8 (included in next note). 11  For Suetonius on the record editorializing in Books 2–8: Aug. 2.2, nec quicquam ultra . . . repperi; 3.1, ut equidem mirer; 7.2, Ennius docet scribens; 9.1, exsequar; 16.2, ut putem; 42.1, ut scires; 47, ut opinor; 51.1, ne enumerem; 57.1, omitto; 58.2, his ­uerbis— ipsa . . . posui; 61, exposui, referam; 76.1, ne haec quidem omiserim; 87.2, notaui et in chirographo . . . ; 88, nec ego id notarem nisi mihi mirum uideretur . . . ; 90, talem accepimus . . . ut praediximus; 94.1, quoniam ad haec uentum est, non ab re fuerit subtexere; 97.1, de qua dehinc dicam; Tib. 21.2–3, scio . . . ; ne illud quidem ignoro . . . ; adduci tamen nequeo quin existimem . . . ; ex quibus in exemplum pauca hinc inde subieci; 44.1, uix ut referri audiriue, nedum credi fas sit; 61.2 singillatim . . . exsequi longum est; genera . . . enumerare sat erit; 62.3, nec abhorret a uero; 67.2, quod sane ex oratione eius . . . colligi potest; 70.3, ut diximus; Calig. 8.1, incertum diuersitas tradentium facit; 2. ego in actis . . . inuenio; 45, abunde parere arbitror . . . ; sequenda est quae sola restat et publici instrumenti auctoritas; 12.3, nec abhorret a ueritate; 13.1, uel dicam; 19.3, scio . . . ; 22.3, hactenus quasi de principe, reliqua ut de monstro narranda sunt; 25.1, non est facile discernere; 26.1, leue ac frigidum sit his addere; 35.1, de quo rettuli; 37.3, ne singula enumerem; 49.3, quod ne dubium uideatur, in secretis eius reperti sunt duo libelli; 51.1, non immerito . . . attribuerim; 3, unde credo; 58.2, duplex dehinc fama est; 60, condicionem temporum illorum per haec aestimare quiuis possit; Claud. 1.4–5, unde existimo . . . quod magis nequidem ne praetermitterem rettuli quam quia uerum aut ueri simile putem; 3.2, ex ipsius epistulis posui; 4.7, nec dubium est; 15.3, creditur . . . ; 4, ac ne cui haec mira sint; 27.1, quo magis miror fuisse qui traderent; 29.1, ut dixi . . . . ac ne singillatim minora quoque enumerem; 3, illud omnem fidem excesserit quod; 35.1, ut diximus; 36.1, ut supra rettuli; 44.2, discrepat . . . ; fama est; Ner. 1.2, accepimus . . . ; arbitror. quo facilius appareat; 2.1, ut . . . paulo altius repetam; 13.1, non immerito . . . rettulerim; 19.3, haec . . . in unum contuli, ut secernerem  .  . . de quibus dehinc dicam; 22.3, ut diximus; 29, ex nonnullis



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3.  DVC IN THE CAESARS’ SHAD OW Further waymarks pin DVC to the retrospect of writing—most insistently, everything that aetiologizes the present, including all explicitly affirmed persistence, e.g. Iul. 88, placuit Idus . . . Martias Parricidium nominari, ac ne umquam [‘so that never would . . .’] eo die senatus ageretur (and indeed every implicit continuation to be presumed from non-cancellation, non-transformation, non-obliteration).12 Some superlatives similarly back synoptic monitoring across the whole boxed set of a dozen reigns: especially Calig. 13.1, sic imperium adeptus, p(opulum) R(omanum), uel dicam hominum genus, uoti compotem fecit, exoptatissimus princeps [‘the Caesar wished-for the most’] maximae parti prouincialium ac militum . . . ; Claud. 10.4, primus Caesarum [‘first of the Caesars’] fidem militis etiam praemio pigneratus. Tit. 1, || Titus cognomine paterno, amor ac deliciae generis humani . . . quod difficillimum est, [‘what is the very hardest thing’] in imperio. Such high-degree explicitation indicates at least the bare existence of a dimension of overall design; but it is certainly too much of a rarity to trace an economy. To fill in the picture, reading will need to bring out the implications for Ulpian present, and prospects.

4.  ‘CAESAR’ IN DVC So with content. Seen as a single organic ‘Life’ of up to a dozen Caesars delivered from the Ulpian beyond, DVC must trace the evolving concept of the power-term and system-slogan ‘Caesar’. The story of its advent and baptism, through formative vicissitudes including comperi; 30.2, quod uix credibile uideatur; 39.2, mirum et uel praecipue notabile inter haec fuerit; 52, uenere in manus meas pugillares libellique . . . ut facile appareret; 57.2, . . . et uix redditus sit; Galb. 3.1, exsequi longum est; . . . breuiter attingam; 20.1, illud mirum admodum fuerit; Otho 12.1, per quae factum putem; Vit. 1.1 tradunt . . . ; quod ego . . . opinarer nisi aliquanto prius de familiae condicione uariatum esset; 7.1, putant . . . ; ut cuiuis euidens sit; 18, quod factum ei Viennae ostendimus; Vesp. 1.1, gens Flauia . . . rei p. nequaquam paenitenda constat; 1.3, non negauerim . . . ipse ne uestigium quidem de hoc quamuis satis curiose inquirerem inueni; 16.1, in qua merito culpetur; 16.3, quod et ueri similius uidetur; Tit. 3.2, e compluribus comperi; Dom. 1.3, ne exsequerer singula; 3.2, quantum coniectare licet; 11.3, his uerbis—neque enim ab re fuerit ipsa cognoscere. Mouchová (1968: 65) points out that back references in Suetoniius never point outside, beyond the Caesar in hand. 12  See Fry (2003).

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misconceived mutations, towards rounded realization in the now? But, again, does Iul. rate as (its) pre-history? For this story, Iul. reads in eight chunks (not forgetting that he is already just turning sixteen when we come in):13 • 1–6, Sulla foreknew ‘Caesar’ was to be glossed as ‘= n Mariuses’. The boy reads out his royal DNA for us.14 • 6–20, Cicero reads back to the would-be Alexander’s plans—at the time, they thought it was a joke that ‘Caesar’ monopolized the top job.15 • 20.2, ex eo tempore (‘thereafter’): 21–5, Julius’ bragging and put-down of the heckling heralded and figured the coming coup: ‘Remember Queen Semiramis and the Amazons?’ They thought he was joking. Already he was inventing the precedent for the imperial oath of loyalty, and going where no Roman had ­ventured—over the bridge, past all precedent, to pioneer a new Roman world (where once Danube or Don had bounded and founded empires).16 13  In the best multi-tracking analysis to date, Müller (1972) outlines how verse quotes, direct speech, and reports of rumour combine to underline the salience of critical moments. Mouchová (1968: 31–3) counts Iul.’s marriages among sub-rubrics (see next notes). 14  Lost father; m. Cornelia; d. Julia: 1.3, ‘nam Caesari multos Marios inesse’. 6, ‘Amitae meae Iuliae maternum genus ab regibus ortum, paternum cum diis inmortalibus coniunctum est. nam ab Anco Marcio sunt Marcii Reges, quo nomine fuit mater; a Venere Iulii, cuius gentis familia est nostra. est ergo in genere et sanctitas regum, qui plurimum inter homines pollent, et caerimonia deorum, quorum ipsi in potestate sunt reges.’ Gascou (1984: 351–5) shows how the episodes in 1, 4, 6, with Sulla, Cornelia, and pirates, are resumed in 74 in the approach to the diuisio at 76.1. 15  Pompeia: 7, Alexander; 9.2, Cicero in quadam ad Axium epistula referens Caesarem in consulatu confirmasse regnum, de quo aedilis cogitarat; 20.2, unus ex eo tempore omnia in re publica et ad arbitrium administrauit, ut nonnulli urbanorum, cum quid per iocum testandi gratia signarent, non Caesare et Bibulo, sed Iulio et Caesare. Pausch (2004) esp. 250 n. 101 reads Iul. 2–17 as a cursus honorum completed at 18–33 with the consulate and proconsular uptake to civil war; then 34–75 conduct the tale toward the rubric at 76, heralding assassination. 16  Calpurnia; Julia m. Pompey: 22, iactaret, inuitis et gementibus aduersariis ‘adeptum se quae concupisset, proinde ex eo insultaturum omnium capitibus’; ac negante quodam per contumeliam facile hoc ulli feminae fore, responderit quasi adludens: ‘In Suria quoque regnasse Sameramin magnamque Asiae partem Amazonas tenuisse quondam’; 23.2, ad securitatem ergo posteri temporis in magno negotio habuit obligare semper annuos magistratus et e petitoribus non alios adiuuare aut ad honorem pati peruenire, quam qui sibi recepissent propugnaturos absentiam suam; cuius pacti non dubitauit a quibusdam ius iurandum atque etiam syngrapham exigere; 24.3, et saepius et plurium quam quisquam umquam dierum supplicationes impetrauit; 25.2, Germanos, qui trans Rhenum incolunt, primus Romanorum ponte fabricato adgressus maximis adfecit cladibus.



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• 26–33, Lifting horizons, Julius announces ‘he’s on top’: 29.1, se principem ciuitatis a primo ordine . . ., tasting how it felt to say ‘I, C. Caesar’; and ever since we’ve had to wonder when it was he knew what he meant it to mean—all along? Was this the old, old story? Cicero knew a thing or two: he knew Euripides knew Polynices knew how dominatio works, so over the Rubicon ‘bridge’ to ‘Caesar’.17 • 34–44.3, ordo et summa rerum quas deinceps gessit sic se habent (‘the roll-call of his next feats follows’): we shall need to know how Egypt makes and breaks Caesar to come; 40.1, hinc ad ordinandum rei publicae statum (‘so to fixing political order’): Caesar’s calendar sets the clock for modernity to come (every July), installing himself with the laconic presidential formula, this time in his favourite third person as ‘Caesar dictator’, to replace the politics of the Republic—both its electoral system and judicial processes. Now ‘more, more radical, projects’, with which to make over the cosmos, ‘hot up’18 (44.1), plura ac maiora in dies destinabat: 17  Lost mother, daughter Julia, grandchild: 27.1, to swap Octavia for Pompeia: 26.2, altiora iam meditans et spei plenus . . . ; munus populo epulumque pronuntiauit in filiae memoriam, quod ante eum nemo; 29.1, ‘difficilius se principem ciuitatis a primo ordine in secundum quam ex secundo in nouissimum detrudi’; 30.4, ‘hoc uoluerunt; tantis rebus gestis Gaius Caesar condemnatus essem, nisi ab exercitu auxilium petissem.’ quidam putant captum imperii consuetudine pensitatisque suis et inimicorum uiribus usum occasione rapiendae dominationis, quam aetate prima concupisset. quod existimasse uidebatur et Cicero scribens de Officiis tertio libro semper Caesarem in ore habuisse Euripidis uersus, quos sic ipse conuertit: ‘nam si uiolandum est ius, regnandi gratia | uiolandum est: aliis rebus pietatem colas’; 31.2, (at the Rubicon) reputans quantum moliretur . . . ‘etiam nunc,’ inquit, ‘regredi possumus; quod si ponticulum transierimus, omnia armis agenda erunt’; 32, tunc Caesar: ‘Eatur,’ inquit, ‘quo deorum ostenta et inimicorum iniquitas uocat’; 33, ‘Iacta alea est,’ inquit. 18  On top: 35.1, regnum Aegypti uictor Cleopatrae fratrique eius minori permisit, ueritus prouinciam facere, ne quandoque uiolentiorem praesidem nacta nouarum rerum materia esset; 40.1, conuersus hinc ad ordinandum rei publicae statum fastos correxit iam pridem uitio pontificum per intercalandi licentiam adeo turbatos, ut neque messium feriae aestate neque uindemiarum autumno conpeterent; annumque ad cursum solis accommodauit, ut trecentorum sexaginta quinque dierum esset et intercalario mense sublato unus dies quarto quoque anno intercalaretur. quo autem magis in posterum ex Kalendis Ianuariis nouis temporum ratio congrueret, inter Nouembrem ac Decembrem mensem interiecit duos alios; 41.2, scriptura breui: ‘Caesar dictator illi tribui. commendo uobis illum et illum, ut uestro suffragio suam dignitatem teneant’; 43.1, ius laboriosissime (+ Aug. 84.1, Claud. 14, ius . . . laboriosissime dixit) ac seuerissime (+ Aug. 24.1, 45.4, Otho 1.2, Vit. 12) dixit. (Dom. 8.1, ius diligenter et industrie dixit); 44.1, nam de ornanda instruendaque urbe, item de tuendo ampliandoque imperio plura ac maiora in dies destinabat . . .

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• 44.4–75, So Julius was pupating into ‘Caesar’. Wonder what made him—this Caesar?—tick? || ‘Assassination prevents’ narrative continuation: 44.4, talia agentem atque meditantem mors praeuenit.19 We are put on hold until the moment comes to resume for the finale, as Iul. brews up a ‘last days of Caesar’ segue at 76–80.1: • 75.4–5, tempore extremo . . . ac si qua posthac . . . : tips over into the moment of doom at 76, while the cue ‘Caesar rex’ brings on ‘the plot, expedited’, at 80.1, quae causa coniuratis maturandi fuit destinata negotia.20 Lo! the Ides of March are here at last: • 80.1–89.21 19 The premier diuisio: 44.4, talia agentem atque meditantem mors praeuenit (+ 57, ut persaepe nuntios de se praeuenerit. ~ Tib. 62.3, nisi eum et mors praeuenit et Thrasyllus; Claud. 44.1, prius igitur quam ultra progrederetur, praeuentus est ab Agrippina; Tit. 10.1, inter haec morte praeuentus est, maiore hominum damno quam suo) de qua prius quam dicam, ea quae ad formam et habitum et cultum et mores, nec minus quae ad ciuilia et bellica eius studia pertineant, non alienum erit summatim exponere; 49.1, 2, praetereo . . . ; missa etiam facio . . . ; ‘Remoue’ inquit ‘istaec’; 52.3, paratamque legem, quam Caesar ferre iussisset cum ipse abesset, uti uxores liberorum quaerendorum causa quas et quot uellet ducere liceret; 53.1, Marci Catonis est: unum ex omnibus Caesarem ad euertendam rem publicam sobrium accessisse; 56.3, ‘ut praerepta, non praebita facultas scriptoribus uideatur’; 72, iam autem rerum potens . . . 20 Second diuisio: 75.4–5, denique tempore extremo etiam quibus nondum ignouerat, cunctis in Italiam redire permisit magistratusque et imperia capere; sed et statuas Luci Sullae atque Pompei a plebe disiectas reposuit; ac si qua posthac aut cogitarentur grauius aduersus se aut dicerentur, inhibere maluit quam uindicare. itaque et detectas coniurationes conuentusque nocturnos non ultra arguit, quam ut edicto ostenderet esse sibi notas, et acerbe loquentibus satis habuit pro contione denuntiare ne perseuerarent, Aulique Caecinae criminosissimo libro et Pitholai carminibus maledicentissimis laceratam existimationem suam ciuili animo tulit; 76, praegrauant tamen cetera facta dictaque eius, ut et abusus dominatione et iure caesus existimetur; 79.1–3, coronam lauream . . . neque ex eo infamiam affectati etiam regii nominis discutere ualuit, quanquam et plebei regem se salutanti Caesarem se, non regem esse responderit et Lupercalibus pro rostris a consule Antonio admotum saepius capiti suo diadema reppulerit atque in Capitolium Ioui Optimo Maximo miserit. quin etiam uaria fama percrebruit migraturum Alexandream uel Ilium, . . . proximo autem senatu Lucium Cottam quindecimuirum sententiam dicturum, ut, quoniam fatalibus libris contineretur Parthos nisi a rege non posse uinci, Caesar rex appellaretur; 80.1, quae causa coniuratis maturandi fuit destinata negotia, ne assentiri necesse esset. 21  The assassination: 86.2, non tam sua quam rei publicae interesse, uti saluus esset: se iam pridem potentiae gloriaeque abunde adeptum; rem publicam, si quid sibi eueniret, neque quietam fore et aliquanto deteriore condicione ciuilia bella subituram; 89, percussorum autem fere neque triennio quisquam amplius superuixit (hapax) neque sua morte defunctus est. damnati omnes alius alio casu periit, pars naufragio, pars proelio; nonnulli semet eodem illo pugione, quo Caesarem uiolauerant (+ Iul. 30 [× 2], q.v.), interemerunt. || Why the Ides of March? Suetonius does not spell out the aptness of this former date for the start of the consular year (Pina Polo 2011: 13–16) as would-be re-commencement of the Republic, or the upshot—its stigmatization as ‘Parricide Day’ blocking government, past Hadrian, to the end of time (the finale of Iul. 88, . . . ne umquam eo die senatus ageretur).



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In this Life, biography ‘ordered by category’ is used to interrupt sequential narrative, and the chief diuisio (‘editorial section’) is a dramatic ‘pause button’. It is telling that Suetonius’ first shot at presenting the idiom that will become his trademark should hand us the litotes 44.4, de qua prius quam dicam . . . non alienum est summatim exponere. We have yet to be told—given notice—by reflecting back from Book 2 that this section is to be recognized as a card-index presentation of ‘topics’ per species:22 here it serves up a welter of further metaphors, images, and conceptualizations of what ‘Caesar’ was going to mean, until the ‘on balance’ verdict of ‘tyrant, so fair game’ is reached at 76, praegrauant tamen cetera facta dictaque eius, ut et abusus dominatione et iure caesus existimetur, delivered to us as the motive for the review of Julius’ performance across his repertoire of roles in 45–75.23 If we take Iul. as no guide for DVC 2–8 because this Caesar’s ‘reign’ was just about to take shape when it was ‘prevented’, then we have walked into a classic ‘runaround’ priamel . . . (a booby-trap!) . . .

5.  THE ‘CAESARS’ IN DVC . . . and, as such, a guide to what will frame any ‘Caesar’ who doesn’t have to invent the idea: i.e. all the rest to come. Plus, in advance, we are given the lessons that: (i) a Caesar has to find his way to become Caesar, and to keep the curtain from coming down early; (ii) the Life of every Caesar will risk Iul.’s precedence of narration over ‘bios’, over 22  Analysis ‘strictly’ by topic (and esp. through systemic synkrisis with other ancient versions of Iul.) pins composition to formulaic—scissors-‘n’-paste—routine (as in the backlash of Drexler 1969 against the influence of Steidle 1951 on Mouchová 1968; Brutscher 1958); cf. Gascou (1984) 677–81; Pausch (2004) 233–324, ‘Biographie nach den Regeln der Gattung? Suetons Kaiserviten’. Baldwin (1983: 123, 125) still rated Iul. ‘a methodological shambles’, if structurally ‘not a total mess’. On Suetonius’ ‘rubrics’, see Hurley, ch. 1 in this volume. For a fresh attempt to incorporate Suetonius into ‘emperor history’ as distinct from ‘biography’, see Osgood (2011a); cf. esp. 22–4. 23  Cf. Gugel (1970: esp. 12–15) for thematic build to the kill; Lewis (1991: 3663 esp. n. 153) for linkage by ‘association of ideas’ smoothing the sequence of topics, with just the odd ‘conceptual asyndeton’ to break the run (e.g. Iul. 55); Brutschler (1958: esp. 135–6) for ‘eine Zickzacklinie’ through the topoi, melding pro- and anti-Caesar data: for Lewis (1991: 3669) ‘the extended portion on the career to 49 bc balances unbounded energies and ability against ruthless ambition, then proceeds to balance perpetration of civil war against civilian achievements, private luxuria, and other “immorality” against literary and military skills, and finally fides and clementia against dominatio to arrive at the final verdict’—76.1.

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the rest of ‘life’, over other categories than being alive; (iii) and/or in DVC 2–8 there awaits the yin to Iul.’s yang. Now eight of the twelve Lives of DVC must reinvent ‘Caesar’ families (the others grow from father/brother shadows. Only Titus was meant to be king, but he was not born a prince, just someone who did not have to play ‘Britannicus’).24 As the literal gens gets displaced/ reinstated/offset against cloning/affiliation to previous Caesars, the power concept and operator ‘Caesar’ reinvents the family, as the adoptive system of the Ulpians from Nerva through Trajan and Hadrian had now made the rule. Books 2–8 mark out a grand récit—read this way—in which the stockpiling of ways for ‘Caesares’ to thicken the master-term ‘Caesar’ is made salient by highlighted moments, where the narration points to itself in these ‘monological/unitarian’ terms: • Aug. 31.5, commentum id se, ut ad illorum uitam uelut ad exemplar et ipse, dum uiueret, et insequentium aetatium principes (‘Caesars of succeeding eras’).25 • Tib. 14.2, ac de infante Scribonius mathematicus praeclara spopondit, etiam regnaturum quandoque, sed sine regio insigni, ignota scilicet tunc adhuc Caesarum potestate (‘still then Caesar power an unknown’); 57.1, sed aliquanto magis in principe eluxit, etiam inter initia cum adhuc fauorem hominum moderationis simulatione captaret (‘still in his honeymoon period’).26 • Calig. 14.3, Caesarum . . . imagines; 22.1, nec multum afuit quin statim diadema sumeret speciemque principatus in regni formam conuerteret (‘to turn monarchy façade into régime’); 29.1, monenti Antoniae auiae tamquam parum esset non oboedire: ‘memento’, ait, ‘omnia mihi et [in] omnis licere’ (‘everything’s 24  Iulia; Octauia; Claudia, (son of Germanicus), (son of Drusus), Domitia; Sulpicia, Saluia, Vitellia; Flauia, (son of Vesp.), (son of Vesp./brother of Tit.). 25 Cf. Aug. 26.1, magistratus atque honores et ante tempus et quosdam noui generis perpetuosque cepit; 28.2, ‘Ita mihi saluam ac sospitem rem p. sistere in sua sede liceat atque eius rei fructum percipere, quem peto, ut optimi status auctor dicar et moriens ut feram mecum spem, mansura in uestigio suo fundamenta rei p. quae iecero.’ fecitque ipse se compotem uoti nisus omni modo, ne quem noui status paeniteret. urbem . . . tutam uero, quantum prouideri humana ratione potuit, etiam in posterum praestitit; 43.1, Caesarum nemus. 26 Cf. Tib. 14.2, 25.2, Germaniciani quidem etiam principem detractabant non a se datum; 26.2, ac ne Augusti quidem nomen, quamquam hereditarium, nullis nisi ad reges ac dynastas epistulis addidit . . . ; 27, dominus appellatus a quodam denuntiauit, ne se amplius contumeliae causa nominaret.  On 57.1, ‘the imperial honeymoon period’, cf. Claud. 7.1, Ner. 22.1 vs Vesp. 7.2, auctoritas et quasi maiestas quaedam, ut scilicet inopinato et adhuc nouo principi, deerat: haec quoque accessit; vs Dom. 3.1.



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allowed me over everybody’); uerum admonitus et principum et regum se excessisse fastigium, diuinam ex eo maiestatem asserere sibi coepit; 60, abolendam Caesarum memoriam ac diruenda templa censuerint. obseruatum autem notatumque est in primis Caesares omnes, quibus Gai praenomen fuerit, ferro perisse, iam inde ab eo, qui Cinnanis temporibus sit occisus. ||27 • Claud. 1.5, Augustus . . . deos precatus sit similes ei Caesares suos facerent; 10.4, primus Caesarum; 41.2, initium autem sumpsit historiae post caedem Caesaris dictatoris, sed et transiit ad inferiora tempora coepitque a pace ciuili; (‘Caesar’s assassination as watershed in History’); 43, ‘Ut tandem populus R. uerum Caesarem habeat’ (‘a true Caesar’). • Ner. 10.1, atque ut certiorem adhuc indolem ostenderet, ex Augusti praescripto imperaturum se professus (‘he’d rule by Aug.’s book’); 37.3, elatus inflatusque tantis uelut successibus negauit quemquam principum scisse, quid sibi liceret (‘No Caesar has known what he’s allowed’). After the Neronian invention of deposition and abdication for ‘Caesar’, with Galba and Books 7–8, the new start marks a deep change in ‘Caesares’ plural: they die out, they live on. • Galb. 1, Progenies Caesarum in Nerone defecit . . . Augusti etiam sceptrum e manibus excussum est (‘Caesar reproduction lapsed at Nero’); 2.1, Neroni Galba successit nullo gradu contingens Caesarum domum (‘Galba succeeded Nero, relating to the Caesar family at no degree’).28 27  Calig.14.1, nouo circa principem exemplo . . . suffectus; 16.1, rationes imperii ab Augusto proponi solitas sed a Tiberio intermissas publicauit; 23.1, imaginibus . . . Caesarum; 38.1, negabat iure ciuitatem Romanam usurpare eos, quorum maiores sibi posterisque eam impetrassent, nisi si filii essent, neque enim intellegi debere ‘posteros’ ultra hunc gradum; prolataque Diuorum Iuli et Augusti diplomata ut uetera et obsoleta deflabat. 28  This the key diuisio, for DVC reads on in full: 1, Progenies Caesarum in Nerone defecit; . . . tanta pullorum suboles prouenit, ut hodieque ea uilla ad Gallinas uocetur, tale uero lauretum, ut triumphaturi Caesares inde laureas decerperent; fuitque mox triumphantibus, illas confestim eodem loco pangere; et obseruatum est, sub cuiusque obitum arborem ab ipso institutam elanguisse. ergo nouissimo Neronis anno et silua omnis exaruit radicitus, et quidquid ibi gallinarum erat interiit; ac subinde tacta de caelo Caesarum aede, capita omnibus simul statuis deciderunt, Augusti etiam sceptrum, etc. (See esp. Power 2009; Syme 1980: 118 = RP III.1264, ‘The first chapter of Galba is resumptive’, with Murison 1992: 24 (ad loc.); it bosses a telling ring-structure: see Power, ch. 3 in this volume; Benediktson 1996–7). Cf. 12.2, Germanorum cohortem a Caesaribus olim ad custodiam corporis institutam multisque experimentis fidelissimam dissoluit.  Add: Vit. 11, et ne cui dubium foret, quod exemplar regendae rei p. eligeret, medio Mario campo adhibita publicorum sacerdotum frequentia inferias Neroni dedit.

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So ‘Caesar’ must now include the meaning ‘dynasty’. And a change of format, with six Caesars to come, in the final two books. The first trio are families that threaten to wipe the shape of DVC, to lose the plot, until the last book reinstates the project, in a final triad wrapped up in the fullest editorial envelope in (extant) Suetonius:29 • Vesp. 1.1, rebellione trium principum et caede incertum diu et quasi uagum imperium suscepit firmauitque tandem gens Flauia . . . rei p. nequaquam paenitenda, constet licet Domitianum cupiditatis ac saeuitiae merito poenas lusisse (‘three Caesar wars’ destabilization retrieved by the Flavian clan, still a godsend for Rome though this would bring Domitian, and his nemesis’); 5.2, quare patrem Sabinum ferunt, haruspicio insuper confirmatum, renuntiasse matri, nepotem ei Caesarem genitum; [‘Flavian born to be Caesar’] nec illam quicquam aliud quam cachinnasse, mirantem quod adhuc se mentis compote deliraret iam filius suus; 6.1, Moesiaci exercitus . . . consilium inierunt eligendi creandique imperatoris; [‘to pick and make a Caesar’] neque enim deteriores esse aut Hispaniensi exercitu qui Galbam, aut praetoriano qui Othonem, aut Germaniciano qui Vitellium fecissent; 25, conuenit inter omnis, tam certum eum de sua suorumque genitura semper fuisse, ut post assiduas in se coniurationes ausus sit adfirmare senatui, aut filios sibi successuros aut neminem. dicitur etiam uidisse quondam per quietem stateram media parte uestibuli Palatinae domus positam examine aequo, cum in altera lance Claudius et Nero starent, in altera ipse ac filii. nec res fefellit, quando totidem annis parique temporis spatio utrique imperauerunt || (‘weigh Claud. + Ner. against the equal period of Flavian ascendancy’). • Tit. 8.1, natura autem beniuolentissimus, cum ex instituto Tiberi omnes dehinc Caesares beneficia a superioribus concessa principibus aliter rara non haberet, quam si eadem iisdem et ipsi dedissent, primus praeterita omnia uno confirmauit edicto, nec a se peti passus est (‘first block ratification of previous Caesars’ rulings’).30 29  Gugel (1977) 144–55, ‘Die Eigenart der suetonischen Kaiserbiographien’, esp. 151 shows how the book-end divisions of Book 7 organize DVC into a triptych: ‘ . . . Sueton nicht bloss die einzelne Vita im Auge hatte, sondern auch das Ganze der Vitenreihe, innerhalb der sie eine weitere gliedernde Funktion zu erfüllen hatten.’ 30  Tit. 6.1, praefecturam quoque praetorii suscepit numquam ad id tempus nisi ab eq. R. administratam; 6.2, quibus rebus sicut in posterum securitati satis cauit, ita ad praesens plurimum contraxit inuidiae, ut non temere quis tam aduerso rumore magisque inuitis omnibus transierit ad principatum; 7.2, amicos elegit, quibus etiam post eum principes ut et sibi et rei p. necessariis adquieuerunt praecipueque sunt usi.



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• Dom. 21.1, condicionem principum miserrimam [‘Pity poor Caesars’] aiebat, quibus de coniuratione comperta non crederetur nisi occisis; 23.2, ante paucos quam occideretur menses cornix in Capitolino elocuta est: ἔσται πάντα καλῶς [‘All will be well’], nec defuit qui ostentum sic interpretaretur: ‘nuper Tarpeio quae sedit culmine cornix, | “est bene” non potuit dicere, dixit: “erit”.’ ipsum etiam Domitianum ferunt somniasse gibbam sibi pone ceruicem auream enatam, pro certoque habuisse beatiorem post se laetioremque portendi rei publicae statum, sicut sane breui euenit abstinentia et moderatione insequentium principum || (‘happier political times ahead after Domitian, as transpired through the restraint and control of ensuing emperors’).31 Either: between Galb. 1 and the end of Dom., with its closing beckon into the future we read from; or: between Vesp. 1.1 where the envoi is anticipated and, again, the end, the end of Dom. Either: we read Galb.–Otho–Vit. as scrambler, resetting the clock for the second shot at what might make and mean ‘Caesars’, i.e. more priamel, like Iul. only heated up, speeded up; or: we read Galb.–Otho– Vit. as yin to Vesp.–Tit.–Dom.’s yang: a tripled Iul. ‘freak-out’ matched against a ‘keep it within the family’ re-cap of ‘Aug. through Ner.’ in miniature—one short on plot development, but long on formulaic density. Whether DVC plots or autopilots this Big Deal, Suetonius does mark it out, does present the development of, and in, a system; and does present its story as a ‘history’, too, of ‘prevention’ and ‘precipitation’, and of dismantling, imploding, slippage, and waste. The precedents tell in both directions of the collection: Vesp. 1.1, incertum diu et quasi uagum ­imperium (‘prolonged destabilization of power in need of retrieval’).

6.  JULIUS IN DVC B O OK 2 Iul. is not put away forgotten in DVC 2–8: his name crops up in every book,32 and his Life will prove to have prequelled each of the 31 Cf. Dom. 9.3, ‘princeps qui delatores non castigat, irritat’; 13.3, consulatus septemdecim cepit quot ante eum nemo. 32  Nominatim: Aug. 2.1, 4.1, 8.1, 2, 10.1, 2, 13.1, 15, 17.5 (× 2), 31.2, 5, 35.1, 45.1, 68, 94.9 (× 2), 94.11 (× 2), 95 (× 2), 96.1, 100.3, Tib. 4.1 (× 2), Calig. 38.1, Claud. 17.1, 20.1, Ner. 2.2, 37.1, Galb. 3.2, Vit. 8.1, Vesp. 5.7. So, every book.

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others—most exhaustively in terms of pairing with Aug., and most ostensively in terms of the chief ‘death-sequence’ diuisiones: Iul. 44.4, mors . . . de qua prius dicam versus Aug. 97.1, mors . . . de qua dehinc dicam, diuinitasque post mortem. The contrast is loud indeed when we arrive at Aug.’s death (Aug. 97) as the logical outcome of years and years of perduring, pertinacious rule, which hence delivers full-on and unapologetically (no Suetonian ‘non alienum est’ here) on the project it post-announces, of ‘non-chronological, topic-based, exposition’ of ‘Caesar’: Aug. 8.3–9.1: ab eo tempore . . . primum cum M. Antonio M.que Lepido, deinde tantum cum Antonio per duodecim fere annos, nouissime per quattuor et quadraginta solus rem p. tenuit. proposita uitae eius uelut summa, partes singillatim neque per tempora sed per species exsequar, quo distinctius demonstrari cognoscique possint.

The disruption in Book 2’s drama of narration will come (‘subjoined’, with Suetonian litotes) instead at Aug. 94, when the portents covering all of this Caesar are supplied, ‘from conception to deification’ (61, a iuuenta usque ad supremum uitae diem . . . ; 94.1, quoniam ad haec uentum est, non ab re fuerit subtexere quae ei prius quam nasceretur et ipso natali die ac deinceps euenerint)—so that the seam of synchrony shows. The main points of synkrisis stake out predominant antithesis between Iul. and Aug.33 This applies down to the microthematic and lexical level of organization of the two Lives, to stack up as a diptych: • ‘Lost father’: Iul. 1.1 ~ Aug. 8.1; • ‘Funeral speech’: Iul. 6, for aunt Julia ~ Aug. 8.1, for wife/grandmother Julia. 33  To set out the contrast in full: Iul. 44.4, talia agentem atque meditantem mors praeuenit; 76.1, praegrauant tamen cetera facta dictaque eius, ut et abusus dominatione et iure caesus existimetur; 80.1, quae causa coniuratis maturandi fuit destinata negotia vs Aug. 8.3–9.1, ab eo tempore . . . primum cum M. Antonio M.que Lepido, deinde tantum cum Antonio per duodecim fere annos, nouissime per quattuor et quadraginta solus rem p. tenuit. proposita uitae eius uelut summa, partes singillatim neque per tempora sed per species exsequar, quo distinctius demonstrari cognoscique possint (etc); 61, quoniam qualis in imperiis ac magistratibus regendaque per terrarum orbem pace belloque re p. fuerit exposui, referam nunc interiorem ac familiarem eius uitam quibusque moribus atque fortuna domi et inter suos egerit a iuuenta usque ad supremum uitae diem; 94.1, quoniam ad haec uentum est, non ab re fuerit subtexere quae ei prius quam nasceretur et ipso natali die ac deinceps euenerint, quibus futura magnitudo eius et perpetua felicitas sperari animaduertique posset. For the key interactivity of Iul. with Aug., see esp. Gunderson, ch. 6 and Langlands, ch. 5 in this volume; Hanslik (1954).



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• ‘Alexander/Alexandria’: Iul. 34.1, 79.3 ~ Aug. 17.3, 18.1, Alexander’s mummy (vs Ptolemies): ‘regem se uoluisse ait uidere, non mortuos.’ • ‘High Priests’: Iul. 13, deposita prouinciae spe pontificatum maximum petit non sine profusissima largitione; in qua reputans magnitudinem aeris alieni, cum mane ad comitia descenderet, praedixisse matri osculanti fertur domum se nisi pontificem non reuersurum. atque ita potentissimos duos competitores multumque et aetate et dignitate antecedentes superauit ~ Aug. 31.1, postquam uero pontificatum maximum, quem numquam uiuo Lepido auferre sustinuerat, mortuo demum suscepit. • ‘Senate votes (not) published’: Iul. 20.1, inito honore primus omnium instituit, ut tam senatus quam populi diurna acta confierent et publicarentur vs Aug. 36, ne acta senatus publicarentur. • ‘Shows sponsored’: Iul. 39.1, edidit spectacula uarii generis . . . per omnium linguarum histriones: munus gladiatorium, ludos etiam regionatim urbe tota et quidem ~ Aug. 43.1, spectaculorum et assiduitate et uarietate et magnificentia omnes antecessit. . . . fecitque nonnumquam etiam uicatim ac pluribus scaenis per omnium linguarum histriones. • ‘Calendar reform’: Iul. 40.1–2, fastos correxit iam pridem uitio pontificum per intercalandi licentiam adeo turbatos, ut neque messium feriae aestate neque uindemiarum autumno conpeterent; annumque ad cursum solis accommodauit, ut trecentorum sexaginta quinque dierum esset et intercalario mense sublato unus dies quarto quoque anno intercalaretur. quo autem magis in posterum ex Kalendis Ianuariis nouis temporum ratio congrueret, inter Nouembrem ac Decembrem mensem interiecit duos alios ~ Aug. 31.2, annum a Diuo Iulio ordinatum, sed postea neglegentia conturbatum atque confusum, rursus ad pristinam rationem redegit. • ‘Neat oratory’: Iul. 55.1, eloquentia . . . elegantem . . . rationem dicendi ~ Aug. 86.1, genus eloquendi . . . elegans (dis leg.). • ‘Their writings’: Iul. 55.3–56.7, orationes . . . inter quas temere quaedam feruntur . . . Pro Q. Metello non immerito Augustus existimat magis ab actuariis exceptam male subsequentibus uerba dicentis quam ab ipso editam. . . . ‘Apud milites’ quoque ‘in Hispania’ idem Augustus uix ipsius putat . . . ; Alexandrini Africique

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et Hispaniensis incertus auctor est; 56.4, (Pollio) Caesar . . . perperam ediderit existimatque rescripturum et correcturum fuisse. . . . quos omnis libellos uetuit Augustus publicari in epistula. • ‘Buddies’: Iul. 67.2, nec milites eos pro contione, sed blandiore nomine commilitones appellabat habebatque tam cultos vs Aug. 25.1 neque post bella ciuilia aut in contione aut per edictum ullos militum commilitones appellabat, sed milites, ac ne a filiis quidem aut priuignis suis imperio praeditis aliter appellari passus est, ambitiosius id existimans, quam aut ratio militaris aut temporum quies aut sua domusque suae maiestas postularet. • ‘On plots’: Iul. 74.5, et detectas coniurationes conuentusque nocturnos non ultra arguit vs Aug. 19.1, tumultus posthac et rerum nouarum initia coniurationesque complures, prius quam inualescerent indicio detectas, compressit.34 • ‘At the Circus’: Iul. 76.1, circensi pompa . . . puluinar vs Aug. 45.1, circenses . . . spectabat, interdum ex puluinari . . . uitandi rumoris quo patrem Caesarem uulgo reprehensum commemorabat. • ‘Their months’: Iul. 76.1, appellationem mensis e suo nomine ~ Aug. 31.2, in cuius ordinatione Sextilem mensem e suo cognomine nuncupauit magis quam Septembrem quo erat natus. • ‘Court etiquette’: Iul. 78, uniuersos patres conscriptos sedens . . . excepit. . . . sibi unum e collegio Pontium Aquilam non assurrexisse adeo indignatus sit vs Aug. 53.3, die senatus numquam patres nisi in curia salutauit et quidem sedentis ac nominatim singulos nullo submonente; etiam discedens eodem modo sedentibus ualere dicebat.35

7.  JULIUS IN DVC B O OKS 3–8 But then, down through the line, Caesars are positioned through DVC 3–8 as new variants and/or deformations of Iul., suggesting that Book 1 does have a dead hand on the grand récit of DVC, despite Book 2’s stern attempt to revise the Life of a Caesar for good: 34  For bundled conspiracies/prodigies: cf. Calig. 56–60, Claud. 43–6, Ner. 46, Galb. 18, and Dom. 14; Mouchová (1968) 34–7. 35  On this choreography, see Newbold (2000) 105–6.



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• ‘In retreat’: Iul. 1.2, discedere e medio; 4.1, Rhodum secedere statuit ~ Tib. 10.1 statuit repente secedere seque e medio quam longissime amouere; 11.1, Rhodum. • ‘Names decide history’: Iul. 85, plebs . . . Heluium Cinnam per errorem nominis, quasi Cornelius is esset, quem grauiter pridie contionatum de Caesare requirebat, occidit ~ Calig. 56–60, futurae caedis multa prodigia extiterunt. . . . superuenitque ilico quidam Cassius nomine, iussum se somnio affirmans immolare taurum Ioui. Capitolium Capuae Id. Mart. de caelo tactum est, item Romae cella Palatini atriensis. nec defuerunt qui coniectarent altero ostento periculum a custodibus domino portendi, altero caedem rursus insignem, qualis eodem die facta quondam fuisset. . . . monuerunt et Fortunae Antiatinae, ut a Cassio caueret; qua causa ille Cassium Longinum Asiae tum proconsulem occidendum delegauerat, inmemor Chaeream Cassium nominari; 60, quidam uero sententiae loco abolendam Caesarum memoriam ac diruenda templa censuerint. obseruatum autem notatumque est in primis Caesares omnes, quibus Gai praenomen fuerit, ferro perisse, iam inde ab eo, qui Cinnanis temporibus sit occisus || (cf. Iul. 1.1, 6.1–2, Cornelia Cinnae). • ‘Britain?’: Iul. 25.2, aggressus est et Britannos ignotos antea ~ Claud. 17.1, Britanniam . . . neque temptatam ulli post Diuum Iulium. • ‘Projects’: Iul. 44.1, plura ac maiora in dies destinabat ~ Claud. 20.1, a Diuo Iulio saepius destinatum ac propter difficultatem omissum. • ‘Name an heir’: Iul. 34.1, Lucio Domitio qui per tumultum successor ei nominatus ~ Ner. 2.2, successor . . . ei per factionem nominatus; 37.1, Cassio Longino . . . quod . . . C. Cassi percussoris Caesaris imagines retinuisset. • ‘The dagger’: Iul. 89, nonnulli semet eodem illo pugione, quo Caesarem uiolauerant, interemerunt || vs Vit. 8.1, subito a militibus e cubiculo raptus, ita ut erat, in ueste domestica, imperator est consalutatus circumlatusque per celeberrimos uicos, strictum Diui Iuli gladium tenens. • ‘Alexandria’: Iul. 7, 34.1, Alexander/Egypt ~ Vesp. 7.1, suscepto igitur ciuili bello ac ducibus copiisque in Italiam praemissis, interim Alexandriam transiit, ut claustra Aegypti optineret; Tit.  5.3,

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John Henderson unde nata suspicio est, quasi desciscere a patre Orientisque regnum sibi uindicare temptasset; quam suspicionem auxit, postquam Alexandriam petens in consecrando apud Memphim boue Apide diadema gestauit, de more quidem rituque priscae religionis; sed non deerant qui sequius interpretarentur. quare festinans in Italiam, cum Regium, dein Puteolos oneraria naue appulisset, Romam inde contendit expeditissimus inopinantique patri, uelut arguens rumorum de se temeritatem, ‘Veni’, inquit, ‘pater, ueni.’

Most tellingly of all, through ring structure from the terminal point of the change of dynasty with the obliteration of the Flavians back to the Ides of March, we will have caught, by anticipation of the narrative, how Iul. plays his last act as tragic-comic prequel in the wake of Dom.’s shoddy-farcical finale:36 • ‘Hatred’: Iul. 78.1, uerum praecipuam et exitiabilem sibi inuidiam hinc maxime mouet; Dom. 14, per haec terribilis cunctis et inuisus, tandem oppressus est . . . • ‘Expedited end’: Iul. 80.1, quae causa coniuratis maturandi fuit destinata opera . . . ~ Dom. 15.1, quo maxime facto maturauit sibi exitium. • ‘Plotting where and when’: Iul. 80.1, consilia igitur dispersim (hapax) antea habita . . . ; 4, conspiratum est . . . qui primum cunctati utrumne in Campo . . . an in Sacra Via uel in aditu theatri adorirentur . . . facile tempus et locum praetulerunt. ~ Dom. 17.1, cunctantibus conspiratis quando et quo modo id est lauantemne an cenantem adgrederentur, Stephanus . . . consilium operamque obtulit. • ‘Portents’: Iul. 81.1–3, sed Caesari futura caedes euidentibus prodigiis denuntiata est. paucos ante menses . . . immolantem haruspex Spurinna monuit . . . pridie autem easdem Idus . . . ea uero nocte cui inluxit dies caedes, et ipse sibi uisus est . . . ~ Dom. ­15.2–3, continuis octo mensibus tot fulgura facta nuntiataque sunt . . . ; Mineruam . . . somniauit; . . . nulla tamen re perinde commotus est quam responso casuque Ascletarionis mathematici; 16.1, pridie quam periret . . . haruspicem . . . audiit condemnauitque. • ‘The time’s past, and still in one piece’: Iul. 81.2, caueret periculum quod non ultra Martias Idus proferretur . . . ; 4, Spurinnamque 36  Cf. Mouchová (1968) 54 (53–8 for the exits of Iul. and, with Frangoulidis 2005, of Galb.); for the highs and lows of Suetonian melodrama: Brandão (2005).



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irridens et ut falsum arguens quod sine ulla noxa Idus Martiae adessent; quamquam is uenisse quidem eas diceret, sed non praeterisse ~ Dom. 14.1, annum diemque ultimum uitae iam pridem suspectum habebat, horam etiam necnon et genus mortis. adulescentulo Chaldaei cuncta praedixerant; 16.2, tunc horas requirenti pro quinta, quam metuebat, sexta ex industria nuntiata est. his uelut transacto iam periculo laetum . . . • ‘Death; lifespan; aftermath’: Iul. 84.1, rogus exstructus est in Martio campo iuxta Iuliae tumulum. . . . ; 5, in summo publico luctu . . . ; 88.1, periit sexto et quinquagensimo aetatis anno et in deorum numerum relatus est; 89, percussorum autem fere neque triennio quisquam amplius superuixit . . . nonnulli semet illo pugione quo Caesarem uiolauerant interemerunt ~ Dom. 17.3, occisus est . . . anno aetatis quadragensimo quinto, imperii quinto decimo . . . reliquias templo Flauiae gentis clam intulit cineribusque Iuliae Titi filiae . . . commiscuit . . . ; 22.1, fratris filiam . . . corrupit . . . ; 23.1, occisum eum populus indifferenter, miles grauissime tulit statimque Diuum appellare conatus est, paratus et ulcisci, nisi duces defuissent; quod quidem paulo post fecit expostulatis ad poenam pertinacissime caedis auctoribus. . . . expostulatis.

8.  IUL. BECOMING ‘CAESAR’ Today, Iul. is also its own composition, with its calculated intratextual refrains.37 At the level of dynamic (verbal) ‘action’, in particular, narration colours this rake’s progress as a cumulative rhythm of obstruction versus hustle that culminates in snuffing. ‘Blockage’ episodes feature Iul.’s denial, at:38 • 8, [Gracchan] uprising; • 9.3, Pisonian conspiracy; • 12, Egypt; 37  Mouchová (1968) both denied Suetonius interest in grand-scale composition while vindicating the polish given each topic (102–6; cf. Pausch 2004: 258–75, ‘Die Konzeption der Caesares: Der Inhalt und seine Vermittlung’, esp. 264–5) and suggested a ‘Gradationsprinzip’ controlling degrees of intensity (later developed, for Iul., by Müller 1972; cf. Cizek 1977: 120–1). On the economy of DVC as a ‘whole collection’, see Power, ch. 3 in this volume. 38  So Brutscher (1958) 103.

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• 14, Catilinarians; • 15, vs Catulus; • 16.1, tribunician bills; • 17.1, recidit rursus in discrimen (‘backslide into danger’); • 18.3, triumph; • 28.2–3, (Marcellus) ut ei succederetur ante tempus (‘premature displacement’); • 80.1, quae causa coniuratis maturandi fuit destinata negotia, ne assentiri necesse esset. (‘expediting the plot’). This is because hustle—drive—is the theme-tune that drives Iul. on, as pelting ‘no time to lose’ formulae weave Iul. into its blur:39 • 2, intra paucos rursus dies repetita Bithynia; • 3, sed breui tempore. Romam propere redit; • 4, mansit . . . apud eos non sine summa indignatione prope quadraginta dies; comites seruosque ceteros initio statim ad expediendas pecunias, quibus redimeretur, dimiserat. numeratis deinde quinquaginta talentis expositus in litore non distulit quin . . . ; uastante regiones proximas Mithridate, ne desidere in discrimine sociorum uideretur; • 7.1, animaduersa apud Herculis templum Magni Alexandri imagine ingemuit et quasi pertaesus ignauiam suam, quod nihil dum a se memorabile actum esset in aetate, qua iam Alexander orbem terrarum subegisset, missionem continuo efflagitauit ad captandas quam primum maiorum rerum occasiones in urbe; • 8, decedens ergo ante tempus; • 18.1, neque more neque iure, ante quam prouinciae ordinarentur, profectus est . . . pacataque prouincia pari festinatione (+ Aug. 25.4), non exspectato successore ad triumphum simul consulatumque decessit; • 31.1, confestim paulum constitit; 39  So Steidle (1951) 24–53; Brutscher (1958: 99–100) hooks this to ‘die hektische Schnelligkeit des Handlungsablaufs’. Dubuisson (2004) detects a contrariwise ‘passivity’ afflicting—slowing—the meteoric Iul., cued at 45: this is a moving target, see 1, cogeretur; 18.2, coactus; 30.3, cogeretur; 4.1, secedere; 14.2, cessit; 18, decessit; 36, passus est; 52.1, passus est; 75.2, concessit; 76.1, passus est vs 55.1, negat . . . cedere; 58.2, neque . . . gubernatorem cedere aduersae tempestati passus est; 69, non enim cessit umquam tumultuantibus atque etiam obuiam semper iit.



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• 34.2, summaque frumentariae rei penuria retardante breui tamen omnia subegit; • 35.2, intra quintum quam adfuerat diem, quattuor quibus in conspectum uenit horis, una profligauit; • 37, Pontico triumpho inter pompae fercula trium uerborum praetulit titulum veni vidi vici non acta belli significantem sicut ceteris, sed celeriter (+ Iul. 56.3, 69.1, Aug. 25.3, Ner. 23, Otho 11.2) confecti notam acie; • 56.3, quam facile atque celeriter eos perscripserit, scimus; • 56.5, ab urbe in Hispaniam ulteriorem quarto et uicensimo die peruenit; • 57, longissimas uias incredibili celeritate confecit, expeditus, meritoria raeda, centena passuum milia in singulos dies; si flumina morarentur, nando traiciens uel innixus inflatis utribus, ut persaepe nuntios de se praeuenerit; • 59, ne religione quidem ulla a quoquam incepto absterritus umquam uel retardatus est. cum immolanti aufugisset hostia, profectionem aduersus Scipionem et Iubam non distulit; • 60, proelia non tantum destinato, sed ex occasione sumebat ac saepe ab itinere statim . . . ; ita nullum spatium perterritis dabat; • 65, ut neque itineris neque proelii tempus denuntiaret, sed paratum et intentum momentis omnibus quo uellet subito educeret; • 70 neque adire cunctatus est, quamquam deterrentibus amicis, neque dimittere; sed una uoce, qua ‘Quirites’ eos pro militibus appellarat, tam facile circumegit et flexit, ut ei milites esse confestim responderint; • 71, statim . . . mox; • 87, aspernatus tam lentum mortis genus subitam sibi celeremque optauerat; et pridie quam occideretur, in sermone nato super cenam apud Marcum Lepidum, quisnam esset finis uitae commodissimus, repentinum inopinatum . . . praetulerat.40 40  Correspondingly, the avoidance-strategy ‘slow-and-steady-as-you-go’ is billed as his successor/displacer’s recipe for success(ion): Aug. 8.2, diu cunctatus . . . consilium ut praeceps immaturumque omisit; 25.4, nihil autem minus perfecto duci quam festinationem temeritatemque conuenire arbitrabatur. crebro itaque illa iactabat: σπεῦδε βραδέως· | ἀσφαλὴς γάρ ἐστ’ ἀμείνων ἢ θρασὺς στρατηλάτης | et: ‘sat celeriter fieri quidquid fiat satis bene’.

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At the level of descriptive ‘motif ’, a paraded ‘plant’ by our compositor works through graphic focus on Caesar’s ‘robes’, setting up the primal scene of assassination: • Iul. 9.3, ut togam de umero deiceret (Aug. 52, deiecta ab umeris toga); • 14.4, uix pauci complexu togaque obiecta protexerint; • 45.3, Sullae dictum optimates saepius admonentis, ut male praecinctum puerum cauerent; • 82.1–2, ab utroque umero togam adprehendit: deinde clamantem: ‘ista quidem uis est!’ alter e Cascis auersum uulnerat paulum infra iugulum. Caesar . . . toga caput obuoluit, simul sinistra manu sinum ad ima crura deduxit, quo honestius caderet etiam inferiore corporis parte uelata;41 • 84.1, cum ueste in qua fuerat occisus . . .42

9.  HIS FIRST AVOWED INTENT: TO BE A ‘CAESAR’ But Iul.’s unAugustan celerity gets him ahead of himself so far and so fast, he barely leaves time for biography to stall those daggers long enough for a proper sketch. He must, as inventor-precursor to the Caesars, be the one to cut his way and chop out of their way the pioneer path from aristocratic contender for pre-eminence to realization of the overkill tyranny that snatches away—dashes—cup from lip: we readers are to join in and, for this first and last outing, must need no coaching in the politics of the Republic. Our guide finds no call to translate or reinterpret for latecomers, as he whisks us through dead slogans and defunct institutions. ‘The Republic’ must, then, be living on in our presumptive axioms for living the Ulpian present:43 • 1.1, Sulla; • 1.2, diuersarum partium (+ Aug. 5.1); 3, quandoque optimatium (Iul. 11.1, 15, 19.1–2, Aug. 10.2, 12, Tib. 2.4) partibus, quas secum simul defendissent, exitio futurum; 41  Lounsbury (1987: 64, cf. 99) notes the ‘Polyxena’ parallel with the entombed Vestal Cornelia in Plin. Ep. 4.11.9. 42  Cf. 6.2, a Publio Clodio, quem inter publicas caerimonias ad eam muliebri ueste tam constans fama erat . . . ; 33, pro contione fidem militum flens ac ueste a pectore discissa inuocauit; 56.2, ‘commentarios scripsit . . . : nudi sunt, recti et uenusti, omni ornatu orationis tamquam ueste detracta.’ 43  See esp. Baldwin (1983) 217; Lewis (1991) 3631.



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• 3, spe nouae dissensionis . . . ; occasione, quam minorem opinione offenderat; 7.1, ad captandas quam primum maiorum rerum occasiones in urbe; • 8, ad audendum aliquid; • 9.1, maiora mox in urbe molitus est . . . ; coniuratio. 3, ad res nouas consurgerent; • 11.1, nanctus extraordinarii (+ Tib. 30, Otho 1.2) imperii occasionem optimatium factione; • 13, deposita prouinciae spe pontificatum maximum (+ Iul. 46, Aug. 31.1, Tit. 9.1) petit non sine profusissima largitione (+ Iul. 19.1, 26.2, Aug. 10.3). in qua reputans magnitudinem aeris alieni, cum mane ad comitia descenderet, praedixisse matri osculanti fertur domum se nisi pontificem non reuersurum. atque ita potentissimos duos competitores (+ Iul. 19.1, 41.2) multumque et aetate et dignitate antecedentes superauit, ut plura ipse in eorum tribubus suffragia quam uterque in omnibus tulerit; • 15, uerum impar optimatium conspirationi; 19.1, optimates; 19.2, ab optimatibus; • 27.2–28.1, his plane palam bello ciuili opus esse dicebat. nec minore studio reges atque prouincias per terrarum orbem adliciebat; 29.2, e diuersa parte; • 30.2, Gnaeus Pompeius ita dictitabat, quod neque opera consummare, quae instituerat, neque populi expectationem (+ Iul. 26.2, 42.2, 66), quam de aduentu suo fecerat, priuatis opibus explere posset, turbare (active: hapax) omnia ac permiscere (hapax) uoluisse; • 42.2, disiecta nouarum tabularum (hapax) exspectatione, quae crebro mouebatur . . . Yet Suetonius’ Iul. also whisks us through a gamut of formulations, accoutrements, and badges of tyranny, from Alexander to Cyrus— through a book keyed to the classical library and its autocrats:44

44 Gugel (1970) 14–15 traces the tarring of the despot (with ‘religious offence’ stressed at 30.3, 76.1, 3, 77; cf. Gugel 1977: 32–5); cf. Brutscher (1958) 36–7, 58–9. For textual references, see Iul. 7.1 (Alexander, cf. 61, Bucephalas); 22.2 (Semiramis and the Amazons); 30.5 (Cic. Off. 3.82, Eur. Phoen. 524–5: Eteocles); 62 (Iliad 2); 68.4, illud apud Graecos Cynegiri exemplum; 87 (Xen. Cyr. 8.7: Cyrus, dying in his bed peacefully, and controversially; cf. Gera 1993: 115–30).

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• 1, Sulla–Cinna–Marius;45 • 2, Nicomedes; • 6, maternum genus ab regibus ortum, paternum cum diis inmortalibus coniunctum est. nam ab Anco Marcio sunt Marcii Reges, quo nomine fuit mater; a Venere Iulii, cuius gentis familia est nostra; • 7.1, ulterior Hispania . . . Gades . . . ; animaduersa apud Herculis templum Magni Alexandri imagine ingemuit et quasi pertaesus ignauiam suam, quod nihil dum a se memorabile actum esset in aetate, qua iam Alexander orbem terrarum subegisset, missionem continuo efflagitauit ad captandas quam primum maiorum rerum occasiones in urbe; • 9.2, Cicero in quadam ad Axium epistula referens Caesarem in consulatu confirmasse regnum, de quo aedilis cogitarat; • 11.1, Alexandrini regem suum socium atque amicum a senatu appellatum expulerant. Marius . . . Sulla; • 20.1, unus ex eo tempore omnia in re publica et ad arbitrium administrauit; • 22, iactaret, inuitis et gementibus aduersaris ‘adeptum se quae concupisset, proinde ex eo insultaturum omnium capitibus’; ac negante quodam per contumeliam facile hoc ulli feminae fore, responderit quasi adludens: ‘In Suria quoque regnasse Sameramin magnamque Asiae partem Amazonas tenuisse quondam’; • 23.2, ad securitatem ergo posteri temporis in magno negotio habuit obligare semper annuos magistratus et e petitoribus non alios adiuuare aut ad honorem pati peruenire, quam qui sibi recepissent propugnaturos absentiam suam; cuius pacti non dubitauit a quibusdam iusiurandum atque etiam syngrapham exigere; • 24.3, et saepius et plurium quam quisquam umquam dierum supplicationes impetrauit; • 26.2, altiora iam meditans et spei plenus . . . ; munus populo epulumque pronuntiauit in filiae memoriam, quod ante eum nemo; • 29.1, difficilius se principem ciuitatis a primo ordine in secundum quam ex secundo in nouissimum detrudi; • 30.5, usum occasione rapiendae dominationis, quam aetate prima concupisset. quod existimasse uidebatur et Cicero scribens ‘de Officiis’ tertio libro semper Caesarem in ore habuisse Euripidis 45  For the planting of this ‘psychologizing’ theme: Brutscher (1958) 22–3.



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uersus, quos sic ipse conuertit: ‘nam si uiolandum est ius, regnandi gratia | uiolandum est: aliis rebus pietatem colas’;46 • 31.2, Rubicon; • 35.1, Ptolemy; • 49, Nicomedes; • 52, dilexit et reginas . . . ; sed maxime Cleopatram; • 55, Cicero . . . negat se uidere cui debeat Caesar cedere; • 61, utebatur autem equo insigni, pedibus prope humanis et in modum digitorum ungulis fissis, quem natum apud se, cum haruspices imperium orbis terrae significare domino pronuntiassent, magna cura aluit nec patientem sessoris alterius primus ascendit; • 72, iam autem rerum potens (hapax) quosdam etiam infimi generis ad amplissimos honores prouexit, cum ob id culparetur, professus palam, si grassatorum et sicariorum ope in tuenda sua dignitate usus esset, talibus quoque se parem gratiam relaturum; • 76, non enim honores modo nimios recepit: continuum consulatum, perpetuam dictaturam praefecturamque morum, insuper praenomen Imperatoris, cognomen Patris patriae, statuam inter reges, suggestum in orchestra; sed et ampliora etiam humano fastigio decerni sibi passus est; • 77, nihil esse rem publicam, appellationem modo sine corpore ac specie. Sullam nescisse litteras, qui dictaturam deposuerit. debere homines consideratius iam loqui secum ac pro legibus habere quae dicat; • 79, coronam lauream . . . dolens seu parum prospere motam regni mentionem siue, ut ferebat, ereptam sibi gloriam recusandi, tribunos grauiter increpitos potestate priuauit. neque ex eo infamiam affectati etiam regii nominis discutere ualuit, quamquam et plebei regem se salutanti Caesarem se, non regem esse responderit et Lupercalibus pro rostris a consule Antonio admotum saepius capiti suo diadema reppulerit atque in Capitolium Ioui Optimo Maximo miserit. quin etiam uaria fama percrebruit migraturum Alexandream uel Ilium, translatis simul opibus imperii exhaustaque Italia dilectibus et procuratione urbis amicis permissa, proximo autem senatu Lucium Cottam quindecimuirum 46  See Müller (1972) 104–8 on Iul. 30.2–7.

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sententiam dicturum, ut, quoniam fatalibus libris contineretur Parthos nisi a rege non posse uinci, Caesar rex appellaretur; • 80.1–3, quae causa coniuratis maturandi fuit destinata negotia, ne assentiri necesse esset. . . . ne populo quidem iam praesenti statu laeto, sed clam palamque detrectante dominationem atque assertores flagitante. . . . ‘Brutus, quia reges eiecit, consul primus factus est: | hic, quia consules eiecit, rex postremo factus est’; • 80.4, postquam senatus Idibus Martiis in Pompei curiam edictus est, facile tempus et locum praetulerunt; • 87, Cyrus.

10.  THERE’S ONLY ONE ONE-AND-ONLY ‘CAESAR’ Only to re-readers will this first book disclose its chosen relations to the portraits of the ‘Caesar’-in-the-first-set(s)-of-Caesars (Iul. = 9,570, DVC = 68,810 words)—no doubt to its writer, too, in some measure. But the writing is decked out with so lavish a texture of specifics that its simultaneous position as a unicum and as an exemplary introduction to the ‘one-off ’ character of each Vita in the sequence is guaranteed. This is the Suetonian touch—the pay-off for so high a concentration of specific ‘local’ detail: in particular (and DVC is all about particulars),47 the cultivation of the mundane hapax keeps DVC anchored to storytelling, to colouring the particular era in train, even as Suetonius is establishing a ‘kit’ for successive retrospective marking as antithesis and dialectic, for plot. Indeed, the Big Story subtends each episode as an instalment with prompts to find, within the kit, what singular proposition there could be for construing a singular Vita for all and any Caesares, including aetatium insequentium principes (as Augustus tells us we must do: Aug. 31.5). This occurs at the level of vocabulary and, by implication, of what I call ‘idiosphere’. For sample Latinity, I present the note-form per species section Iul. 46–8,48 followed by ‘control’ in the form of its customized repudiation in Aug. 72–4: 47  Murison (1992) vii–viii briefly explains how Suetonian ‘plain style’ makes for artfully ‘elusive’ writing. 48  On this string of formulae, cf. Baldwin (1983) 227–8.



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• 46, habitauit (+ Ner. 31.2, Dom. 2.1) primo in Subura (hapax, sc. in Suet.) modicis aedibus, post autem pontificatum maximum (+ Iul. 46, Aug. 31.1, Tit. 9.1) in Sacra uia (+ Tib. 80.4, Vit. 17.1) domo publica. (hapax) munditiarum (+ Otho 12.1) lautitiarumque (+ Aug. 71.1, refutauit . . . lautitiarum inuidiam) studiosissimum (superlative of adj.: hapax) multi prodiderunt: uillam in Nemorensi (+ Calig. 35.3) a fundamentis (+ Aug. 28.2, Calig. 22.4) incohatam magnoque sumptu absolutam, quia non tota ad animum ei responderat, totam diruisse, (+ Iul. 54.2, Aug. 72.3, Dom. 8.5) quamquam tenuem (+ Iul. 68.1, Tib. 11.2, Dom. 15.1) adhuc et obaeratum; (+ Iul. 27.2) in expeditionibus tessellata (hapax) et sectilia (hapax) pauimenta (+ Aug. 72.1) circumtulisse; • 47, Britanniam petisse spe margaritarum, (+ Iul. 43.1, 50.2, Aug. 30.2, Calig. 37.1, Ner. 11.2, 12.4, Galb. 18.2) quarum amplitudinem (+ Tib. 74, Calig. 35.2) conferentem interdum sua manu exegisse pondus; gemmas, (+ Aug. 30.2, Calig. 55.3, Ner. 11.2, 31.2, 46.2, Galb. 10.4, 18.2) toreumata (hapax), signa, tabulas operis antiqui (o. a. + Iul. 81, Vesp. 7.3) semper animosissime (hapax) comparasse; seruitia (+ Aug. 42.3, Ner. 22.2) rectiora (+ Iul. 56.2, Aug. 16.2) politioraque (Iul. 67.2) inmenso pretio, et cuius ipsum etiam puderet, sic ut rationibus uetaret inferri (r. i. + Vesp. 21.2); • 48, conuiuatum (+ Claud. 32, Vesp. 19.1, Dom. 21) assidue per prouincias duobus tricliniis (plural + Calig. 37.2) uno quo sagati (hapax) palliatiue, (+ Claud. 15.2) altero quo togati (as n.: hapax) cum illustrioribus (as n.: hapax) prouinciarum discumberent. (Aug. 70.1, 74, Calig. 37.2, 45.2, Claud. 32); • Aug. 72, habitauit primo iuxta Romanum Forum supra Scalas anularias, in domo quae Calui oratoris fuerat; postea in Palatio, sed nihilo minus (nb) aedibus modicis Hortensianis, et neque laxitate neque cultu conspicuis, ut in quibus porticus breues essent Albanarum columnarum et sine marmore ullo aut insigni pauimento conclauia. et neptis quidem suae Iuliae, profuse ab ea exstructa, etiam diruit ad solum, sua uero quamuis modica non tam statuarum tabularumque pictarum ornatu quam xystis et nemoribus excoluit . . . ; 73, instrumenti eius et supellectilis parsimonia apparet . . . ; 74, conuiuabatur assidue nec umquam nisi recta, non sine magno ordinum hominumque dilectu . . .

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Even at the point where pre-formatting delivers the most perfunctory tabulation, lexical specifics deliver emphatically differentiated milieux and modos operandi per ‘Caesar’.

11.  WAS SUETONIUS’ IUL. A CAESAR? ‘Why then did Suetonius begin with Caesar?’ was the form of this chapter’s question, offered by Keith Bradley in a key review-article, whose challenge remains to be met: proposing the (monological) view that the polarity Iul. Aug. is the core matrix of DVC: The answer to that question must derive in the last analysis from the verdict given on him at Iulius 76. 1 . . . : Caesar went beyond the limits of what was thought acceptable in the pursuit of political power and so paid a just price . . . If Augustus created the ideal of what was acceptable in the autocrat, Caesar revealed the opposite, and throughout the lives Suetonius of course catalogs vitia as well as virtutes.49

Bradley roundly asserts: The Caesares, then, form a coherent whole; the central, connecting thread is the manner in which the ideal, whose origins lay in the period of Caesar and Augustus, had been emulated by a given ruler, as Suetonius interpreted the record before him. . . . consistency of purpose has to be acknowledged.50

So, was he a Caesar? Of course he is not, but was he? Of course not: his life is the journey no Caesar need ever take, the first crossing; it is the road a Caesar would take if he meant to try, impossibly, to disqualify himself. But of course he is. First of twelve. Of more than a dozen (Britannicus, too, was ‘prevented’—among others). He is, as proposed, first of two poles: not Iul. then Aug. (as calendrically from Iul. 76.1, appellationem mensis e suo nomine to Aug. 31.2, mensem e suo cognomine nuncupauit), but Iul. vs Aug. (Aug. minus Iul., as per Aug. 45.1, uitandi rumoris quo patrem Caesarem uulgo reprehensum commemorabat, cf. 25.1, 8.2, 25.4), staking out the range spanned by Caesardom: either Iul. or Aug. But he is also first founder of a batch, what was to become a dynasty, of Caesars—the first ‘Vespasian’. His, too, is the first episode 49  Bradley (1985b) 263–4.    50  Bradley (1985b) 264.



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in the De morte Caesarum, triggering a further half dozen or so Caesaricides, and, as we saw, that narrative arcs between first and last of the dozen. But plenty more simultaneous narrative threads track through this album besides: Iul. is, not least, first upstart ‘colonel’ of the ‘Military coup, then Life-president’, story (three so far, with a further triad of failed efforts), and the first of four diui Caesares that ever lived, so far (to obliviate Calig. and his sister).51 But no he wasn’t. He wasn’t ‘a Caesar’. Because Suetonius also gave him a word-world of his own, founded on non-replicability. And it was a narratological stunt, too, because, his biographer decided, he was prevented from writing his Life by the accelerated assassination which followed from Julius’ belated, so doomed, attempt to catch up Alexander, at his age, after so much external compulsion, thwarting, and repression had slowed down his trailblazing ascendancy in Rome. The composition ‘in denial’ anticipates the Borges story, where everything recaps whatever had happened to the firing squad’s victim in the instant between the pulling of the trigger and the arrival of the bullet.52 In no time at all, what flashes across the pages of Iul. is—the whole of his Life. As protatic Caesar, Iul. is aborted; but like any priamel structure, this leaves readers to work through the differences provoked by similarities, responsions, and repetitions along the way in order to realize the shaping function of Iul., as absent presence, all the way to the demise of Dom. in caricature: Suetonius finally puts it on record that his last Caesar, not the first, is the one to be scrubbed from the record, his Life to be excised: Dom. 23.1, senatus adeo laetatus est ut . . . nouissime eradendos ubique titulos abolendamque omnem memoriam decerneret (‘the last senatorial decree: erase legends everywhere, obliterate every trace’) ~ Iul. 85, (plebs) solidam columnam . . . in Foro statuit inscripsitque ‘Parenti Patriae’. apud eam longo tempore sacrificare, uota suscipere, controuersias quasdam interposito per Caesarem iureiurando distrahere perseuerauit. (‘folks memorialized and worshipped him long-term: they swore by Iul.’). And this deformation is not just the cynical-satirical point of departure for the whole project of DVC— that’s official. 51  In Ausonius’ scheme(s), De XII Caesaribus per Suetonium Tranquillum scriptis, the three reserved patterns are, in twelve verses each: a list of one Caesar per verse by name, by length of their reign, and by their deaths; followed by quatrains for each of the twelve, doubled with same for the next dozen from Nerva through Elagabalus. 52  ‘The Secret Miracle’, in Borges (1964) 123–4.

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‘I was looking at you one by one and trying to imagine which of the first six Caesars you would each resemble, if you were given the opportunity of behaving like a Caesar. The Caesars are one of my touchstones’, Mr Scogan explained. ‘They are characters functioning, so to speak, in the void. They are human beings developed to their logical conclusions. Hence their unequalled value as a touchstone, a standard. When I meet someone for the first time, I ask myself this question: Given the Caesarean environment, which of the Caesars would this person resemble— Julius, Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero? I take each trait of character, each mental and emotional bias, each little oddity, and magnify them a thousand times. The resulting image gives me his Caesarean formula.’ ‘And which of the Caesars do you resemble?’ asked Gombauld. Aldous Huxley, Crome Yellow

5 Exemplary Influences and Augustus’ Pernicious Moral Legacy Rebecca Langlands

1.  INTRODUCTION: REMEMBERING AUGUSTUS’ MARRIAGE According to Suetonius, Augustus’ last words were to his wife: ‘Livia, remember our marriage!’ (‘Liuia, nostri coniugii memor uiue!’ Aug. 99.1). For David Wardle, who reads Suetonius’ account of Augustus’ death as a portrayal of a paradigmatic emperor, this injunction, naturally enough, appears characteristic of Augustus’ concern for the institution of marriage: Livia is to remember neither love, nor him, but their marriage, the institution which the moral laws that bore his name had been designed to protect. As Gugel suggests, no words could be more characteristic of Augustus who had struggled so hard to uphold the integrity of the family.1

Wardle is right that Suetonius’ death scene portrays Augustus in a generally positive light. However, the irony of this death-bed concern to memorialize his marriage would not have been lost on Suetonius’ readers, any more than the ironies of the tradition surrounding his life were lost.2 His marriage was indeed remembered by posterity— not, however, so much for its longevity and love, but as the marriage that began with the theft of another man’s pregnant wife. Suetonius’ brief reference at Aug. 62.2 sums it up: ‘And immediately he stole Livia Drusilla from her marriage with Tiberius Nero even though she was 1  Wardle (2007) 458, citing Gugel (1977) 97.    2  McGinn (1998) 83 n. 140.

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pregnant . . . ’ (ac statim Liuiam Drusillam matrimonio Tiberi Neronis et quidem praegnantem abduxit).3 Read in the light of allusions found in Suetonius’ later Lives, the irony becomes mordant; later emperors remember this theft above all of Augustus’ achievements, and model their own behaviour upon it. Caligula issues a public proclamation citing Augustus (with Romulus) as a precedent for his seizure of C. Piso’s bride—appropriately named Livia4—on her wedding day; with this immoral and tyrannical act he claims to be following ‘the exemplum of Augustus’ (exemplo . . . Augusti, Calig. 25.1). Later, Domitian clearly echoes Augustus’ precedent with the theft of Aelius Lamia’s bride, Domitia Longina, whom he calls Augusta, in an echo of the title Augustus bestowed on Livia in his will (Dom. 3.1, an allusion to Aug. 69.1, cf. 101.2). The irony lurking in Augustus’ valediction, and also in the interpretation of it by Gugel via Wardle, goes to the heart of Suetonius’ portrayal of Augustus. He was a man of extraordinary achievements, who ‘struggled’ nevertheless to control the sexual morality of his subjects, of his family, and of posterity. He embodies the limitations of even the most powerful and influential of human beings when it comes to foreseeing the future significance and outcomes of their actions in the face of destiny. It is a commonplace that, for Suetonius, Augustus is the paradigmatic good emperor, with whom emperors in subsequent Lives are compared and found wanting, and whom subsequent emperors strive in various ways to emulate.5 As Erik Gunderson discusses in Chapter 6 of this volume, Suetonius also represents Augustus as an emperor who is particularly aware of the power of exempla to influence moral behaviour, and is concerned both to deploy traditional exempla as part of his moral reforms and to present himself and his family as fresh exempla for the new imperial age (Aug. 31.5, 89.2, 101.4).6 In his Life of Augustus, Suetonius presents us with a man who puts enormous effort into shaping his own life, the behaviour of other people, and the 3  Cf. Suet. Aug. 69.1; Tib. 4; Calig. 25; Tac. Ann. 1.10, 5.1.2; see Flory (1988a) on the tradition surrounding this story, esp. 343 n. 1 for the sources. 4  Cf. Wardle (1994) 231: ‘The nomen Livia, which only Suetonius records, is probably an error.’ Or a deliberate allusive tweak? 5  See Wardle (2007). 6  Gunderson, ch. 6 in this volume, reads Suetonius as a diligent student of Augustus’ teachings on exempla, who replicates Augustus’ prescriptive exemplarity, while representing Tiberius as an exemplary failure. My own reading of Suetonius’ treatment of Augustus’ exemplarity is rather different. My own research tends to emphasize the openness of exempla to interpretation at the point of reception (see e.g. Langlands 2008), and here I see Suetonius as providing resistance to Augustus’ attempts to control



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future, with aspirations to set up stable foundations for an enduring and beneficial empire (see especially Aug. 28 on his aspirations for an enduring principate, and Aug. 101 for the careful provision for the future found in his will). However, for all his achievements, and for all his efforts, Augustus, as I shall argue and as the irony of his final words suggests, is represented by Suetonius as a man whose legacy is, after all, not within his control. Even the apparent admiration of Suetonius expressed at Aug. 28 hints very delicately at the dislocation between intention and outcome, when he comments briefly and ambiguously on Augustus’ (crucial!) decision not to restore the republic, but to continue as sole ruler of Rome: ‘it is doubtful whether the outcome or the intention was better’ (dubium euentu meliore an uoluntate, Aug. 28.1). This chapter ends with Suetonius’ judgement on Augustus’ achievements, which acknowledges the limits of human capacity to predict and control the future: ‘He made the state safe, for the future too, as far as human foresight is able provide’ (tutam uero, quantum prouideri humana ratione potuit, etiam in posterum praestitit, Aug. 28.3). Now, Suetonius has inherited a complex tradition about Augustus, incorporating both panegyric and critical elements; this chapter will argue that Suetonius deliberately organizes the contradictory elements of this tradition to tell us a rather poignant story about the great Augustus’ failure to control his own exemplarity, which is also part of Suetonius’ broader concern with the interrelated themes of exemplarity, hindsight, fate, and the individual. Tacitus claims that dissenting voices about how Augustus’ life should be interpreted broke out immediately after his death; early in the Annals he outlines the two sides of the controversy (Ann. 1.9–10).7 In Suetonius’ biography, traces of this contradictory tradition are most evident in the interweaving of Mark Antony’s invective against Augustus with allusions to Augustus’ own Res Gestae.8 The controversy has various points of exempla and monopolize their meaning. On Augustus’ use of exempla and his attempts to set himself up as an exemplum for the edification of posterity, see further Chaplin (2000) 173–96; Kraus (2005a) 194–5; Lowrie (2007). 7  On this tradition, see Davis (1999). 8  Mark Antony’s invective against Augustus peppers this biography from the outset, and provides some of the colour to Suetonius’ characterization of Augustus, off-setting his largely favourable portrait (at Aug. 2, 4, 7, 10, 16, 17, 28, 68, 69, and 70; in 86, Augustus hits back with a jibe at Anthony’s oratorical style). In the opening sections of the biography that deal with Augustus’ family background, Suetonius sets up a complex dynamic between himself as author, and Augustus and Mark Antony, for control of Augustus’ reputation. On allusions to the Res Gestae in Suetonius’ Augustus, see Baldwin (1983) 124; Cooley (2009) 50; and Power’s Introduction to this volume.

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focus, including Augustus’ role in the civil wars and the proscriptions, but sexual morality—to be discussed here—is a prominent theme. On the one hand, Augustus is praised for his sexual continence (Aug. 71.1), and for maintaining strict discipline within his own household (Aug. 64.2), and especially for his moral reforms, instigating a series of legislative measures designed to control the sexual behaviour of the Roman elite (Aug. 34): the Lex Julia de maritandis ordinibus in 18 bc introduced penalties for marriages between those of very different status and incentives for marriage and child-rearing, while the Lex Julia de adulteriis introduced strict punishments for adultery and other sexual misconduct; in ad 9 the Lex Papia Poppaea introduced amendments to the Lex Julia, although it is not entirely clear what these were.9 On the other hand, critical voices speak out about his adulteries and most persistently of his marriage to Livia as a theft from her previous husband, which is cast as the stereotypical behaviour of a tyrant, presumably shaped by Antony’s original invective tropes.10 As Tacitus puts it: ‘criticism did not hold back from his domestic affairs: he had stolen Nero’s wife and ludicrously asked the priests whether it was acceptable to marry her while she was pregnant’ (nec domesticis abstinebatur: abducta Neroni uxor et consulti per ludibrium pontifices an concepto necdum edito partu rite nuberet, Ann. 1.10). It may well have been in direct response to the association that Augustus himself made between sexual morality and imperial exemplarity (as immortalized in bronze at RG 8.5) that Suetonius entwines the two throughout his biography of Augustus (see especially Aug. 31–4), and uses the motif of sexual morality to critique Augustus’ attempts to institute himself and his own family as moral exempla for posterity. In this critique, he is also engaging with the paradigm of imperial exemplarity as it has developed over the hundred years since Augustus’ death, including the use of Augustus as a paradigm for subsequent emperors. A succession of texts over the course of that century had been promoting imperial exemplarity, beginning with the Res Gestae in ad 1411 and including the Senatus consultum de Cn. Pisone patre in ad 20 (esp. 123–63),12 Seneca, De clementia in ad 55/6 (especially    9  Disentangling the sources on these laws is a tricky business—see Edwards (1993) 37–42; Treggiari (1991) 275–98. On the laws, see Treggiari (1991) 60–80; McGinn (1998) 70–215; there is an accessible summary at Kemezis (2007) 273–4. On the marriage laws in Suetonius, see also Wallace-Hadrill (1981b) and Bauman (1982). 10  See Flory (1988a) 348–52.    11  On which see Cooley (2009). 12  On which see Cooley (1998).



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1.1.6 and 1.15.3), and Pliny, Panegyricus in ad 100.13 Christina Kraus has recently drawn attention to the potential deadening effect upon the discourse of exemplarity of such imperial appropriation: When history’s gaze is more or less forcibly directed at the emperor—­ especially (but not exclusively) to the emperor functioning as positive role model—the prescriptive function of exempla becomes dominant. The flexibility inherent in the exemplum being thus threatened or even lost, the audience’s independent response to the spectacular suggestiveness of exemplarity is repressed or redirected, and its constructive use profoundly compromised.14

There were certainly contemporary Romans who identified and resisted this tendency.15 In an analysis of the early third-century historian Cassius Dio, which provides a useful comparison to my own analysis of Suetonius, Adam Kemezis has suggested that Dio’s treatment of Augustus’ marriage laws may have been designed precisely to reclaim Augustus from his recent appropriation as an ­exemplum by the emperor Severus.16 Kemezis argues that Dio takes a long view, which finds a way to resolve the tension between the paradigmatic and the critical aspects of the tradition by contrasting Augustus’ short-term failure with his long-term success,17 drawing a distinction between ‘his questionable character as an individual and his immense institutional achievement as founder of a stable state’.18 A comparison between the ways Dio and Suetonius arrange the material relevant to sexual morality brings out the distinction between their approaches. In Dio’s account, the marriage laws appear in their appropriate chronological contexts—the Lex Julia in Book 54 among the events for 18 bc and the Lex Papia Poppaea in Book 56 among those of ad 9—and Dio emphasizes the hypocrisy of Augustus’ behaviour by juxtaposing life and law, and signalling the disjunction between them upfront. In Dio’s account of the introduction of the Lex Julia in 18 bc, Augustus is confronted at the time with jeering accusations in the senate about past actions, and specifically about his relationship with Livia, that are an embarrassment for his attempts 13  On which see Henderson (2011).    14  Kraus (2005a) 188. 15  See e.g. Plin. Ep. 8.14.4–10 with discussion by Bradley (2010). Cf. Turpin (2008) on exempla in Tacitus. 16  Kemezis (2007), esp. 283.    17  Kemezis (2007) 281. 18  Kemezis (2007) 273.

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to control the morality of others (Dio 54.16.3–5).19 This is also juxtaposed with another story about Augustus’ inability to deal with the case of a man accused of marrying a woman with whom he had previously committed adultery, because of the obvious similarities with his own marriage to Livia. In Cassius Dio’s account, Augustus’ private life explicitly undermines his ability to control the morality of others. Although the lacuna in Cassius Dio means that the relevant passage covering ad 8 is lost, it is highly likely that it would have contained an account of the trial and banishment of the Younger Julia for adultery, which would then have made this the immediate context for Dio’s account of Augustus’ introduction of the Lex Papia Poppaea in ad 9, which includes a lengthy moralizing speech from Augustus (56.1–10); this would have again underlined the hypocrisy of Augustus’ moral reforms.20 Suetonius also takes a long view of the principate, but in his case, the emphasis is on setting Augustus’ aspirations in the context of their longer-term effects, as I shall show. In contrast to Dio, Suetonius organizes his material so as to suppress the actual chronology of events, arranging Augustus’ laws and his domestic life under separate rubrics (at Aug. 34 and 61–9 respectively).21 Rather than juxtaposing the panegyric and critical traditions as Dio does, Suetonius to an extent separates them out so that they do not stand in direct contrast to one another. He does not emphasize the double-standards or hypocrisy of Augustus, but generates instead unchronological ‘narratives’ about a man whose good intentions regularly result in failure and disappointment. This pattern relates to the broader issue that bubbles under the surface of Suetonius’ Lives as a whole: the extent to which an individual has the power to shape his or her own destiny.22 In the following sections (2–3), I shall describe 19  See Kemezis (2007) 277–8 for analysis of this passage in the context of Dio’s overall message about Augustus and exemplarity. 20  Kemezis (2007) 277. 21  For Suetonius’ careful organization of material under rubrics, especially in the Augustus, see further Hurley, ch. 1 in this volume. 22  As Suetonius’ prominent use of the themes of physiognomy (on which see Barton 1994a and Evans 1969: 51–6) and portents (see Benediktson 1996–7) in his Lives show, he was especially interested in the forces of destiny that shaped an individual’s life, and the extent to which a man could intervene in his own destiny. Suetonius uses rubrics such as ancestry, physical description, and portents, not only to characterize each emperor, but also to raise unanswerable questions about why he is the way he is and why his life turned out as it did. Cf. Tatum, ch. 8 in this volume on the Life of Titus, where the issue is placed under particular scrutiny.



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how this pattern of disappointed aspiration plays out in Suetonius’ accounts first of the moral legislation (Aug. 34) and then of his domestic affairs (Aug. 61–9), before going on to discuss in section 4 how this pattern provides a framework for understanding Suetonius’ treatment of exemplarity and his deployment of the narrative device of hindsight in the Lives.

2.  DISAPPOINTED EXPECTATION AND THE LAW Suetonius relates Augustus’ moral legislation at chapter 34 so as to convey a sense of a strong start, with measures, powered by reforming zeal, that subsequently turn out in a variety of ways to be ineffectual, misguided, or counterproductive. In addition, when this passage is viewed in the longer-term context of the Lives as a whole, so that the influence and significance of the reforms are traced down the years, Augustus’ interventions in the moral life of ancient Rome are seen to be, in the long run, detrimental or futile.23 Suetonius’ account of the legislative moral reform carried out by ­Augustus shows him attempting to tackle key moral problems that he has identified in Roman society: ‘He redrafted laws and drew up some laws from scratch, such as sumptuary laws and laws about adultery, sexual morality, bribery, and marriage among the various classes’ (leges ­retractauit et quasdam ex integro sanxit, ut sumptuarium et de adulteriis et de pudicitia, de ambitu, de maritandis ordinibus, Aug. 34.1). Suetonius expands only upon the last law, which was designed to encourage marriage and procreation among the elite.24 This law is shown to be immediately and multiply problematic. First, ‘he cannot pass it’ 23  Power, ch. 3 in this volume, argues that the series of biographies were conceived as a whole from the beginning, and he indicates aspects of the architecture of the work within which the individual biographies are integrated. This supports the practice of reading across the Lives, but even if in fact Augustus’ Life was written first and acts as a template for the other biographies (as Hurley, ch. 1 in this volume, suggests), nevertheless, the thematic resonances between the Lives invite us to read them in the light of one another, as Tatum does fruitfully in ch. 8 of this volume in his exploration of the connections between the Lives of Titus and Augustus. Moreover, the chronological sequence of the biographies means that the Lives of Augustus’ successors to the principate are Suetonius’ representations of Augustus’ immediate future and legacy. 24  Lex Iulia de maritandis ordinibus of 18 bc penalized those who remained unmarried, and rewarded those who produced three or more children. See above, n. 9.

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(non potuit); it fails to win public approval and protestors force him to make amendments before it can be passed. Second, when an equestrian publicly calls for the law to be abolished, Augustus’ response is to attempt to encourage the public to procreate by invoking as an exemplum Germanicus and his young family—a tableau that carries its own dark shadow of foreboding. Finally, the brief passage ends with a sentence suggesting that even once the law is passed and enforced the effect is contrary to that intended; rather than being encouraged by the legislation to marry and have children, people are inventing cunning ways of reaping the financial and legal benefits of marriage and parenthood, without actually undertaking the responsibilities: hanc cum aliquanto seuerius quam ceteras emendasset, prae tumultu recusantium perferre non potuit nisi adempta demum lenitaue parte poenarum et uacatione trienni data auctisque praemiis. sic quoque abolitionem eius publico spectaculo pertinaciter postulante equite, accitos Germanici liberos receptosque partim ad se partim in patris gremium ostentauit, manu uultuque significans ne grauarentur imitari iuuenis exemplum. cumque etiam inmaturitate sponsarum et matrimoniorum crebra mutatione uim legis eludi sentiret, tempus sponsas habendi coartauit, diuortiis modum imposuit. This last law, since he had made emendations to it which were somewhat stricter than to the others, he was unable to pass, due to the outcry of protestors, until he had changed and eventually lessened part of the penalties, and allowed a three year gap and increased the rewards. So too, when a Roman knight was insistently demanding the abolition of the law during a public spectacle, he summoned Germanicus’ children, and displayed them, some held in his own lap and some in their father’s, indicating with gesture and expression that they should imitate this young man’s exemplum or things would be the worse for them. When he realized that the force of the law was being evaded through betrothal to pubescent girls and through multiple remarriages, he shortened the period of betrothal and imposed restriction on divorce. (Aug. 34)

On one reading, this passage conveys a picture of Augustus as paradigmatic emperor, concerned to get things right: continually refining his legislation, responsive to the requests of his people and determined to set an example to them about the way life should be lived. However, just as the initial non potuit highlights Augustus’ impotence, so the rest of this passage alludes to the future in a way that employs hindsight to



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undermine Augustus’ reforms even as he devises them, and highlights the distance between his aspirations for the future and the ways things will actually turn out.25 Meanwhile, allusions to Augustus’ legislation in later Lives reactivate the ironies of Augustus’ hopes for reform here. In the biography of Tiberius that follows, we will discover that the pernicious effect of Augustus’ moral legislation has by no means run its course. Rather, by now, innovative ways of avoiding the punishments of Augustus’ legislation against adultery have been devised. Far from discouraging women of good birth from committing adultery, Suetonius informs us, the law has driven them to debase themselves further: ‘Notorious women, in order to evade the punishments laid down by law— that is, losing their matronal status and privileges—began to make the public claim to be prostitutes’ (feminae famosae, ut ad euitandis legum poenas iure ac dignitate matronali exsoluerentur, lenocinium profiteri coeperant, Tib. 35.2). And the laws encouraging marriage are still being abused; Tiberius has to sack a magistrate who married a woman only to divorce her on the following day, trying to reap the rewards of marriage.26 By the time we reach Vespasian’s reign, we are told that Augustus’ laws are no longer effective in the slightest: ‘lust and luxury flourished with nothing to stop them’ (libido atque luxuria coercente nullo inualuerat, Vesp. 11).27 Finally, Suetonius’ biography of Domitian is regularly punctuated with references to his problematic marriage to Domitia; having followed Augustus’ example of stealing a wife for himself, Domitian cannot then cope with the implications of having done so in the context of Augustus’ legislation (newly resuscitated by himself). He first divorces her on grounds of adultery with the actor Paris, according to Augustus’ law, and then illegally remarries her (Dom. 3). He later punishes a Roman knight for the same act of remarrying a wife divorced for adultery (Dom. 8), and kills one man for 25  Parallels may be drawn with Herodotus’ treatment of Croesus’ futile expectations, in Grethlein’s (2009: 161) narratological analysis: ‘Time and again, he [Herodotus] makes Croesus the focalizer and reports his unexpressed expectations as well as his utterances, often marking them as futile through anachronies.’ In Suetonius’ case, both explicit anachrony and the implicit anachrony of hindsight mark Augustus’ expectations as futile or fragile. I explore what I argue may be direct allusions by Suetonius to Herodotus’ story of Croesus and Solon later. 26  alium e quaestura remouit, quod uxorem pridie sortitionem ductam postridie repudiasset. Cf. Tac. Ann. 2.8.5 and extrapolation from the case of Vistilla. 27  See further Langlands (2006) 257–63 on the complex relationship between imperial power and sexual morality in this period, and the relation to imperial exempla.

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joking about his theft of Domitia (10.3), and another for joking about the divorce (10.4). As the final emperor of Suetonius’ batch, Domitian lives out—painfully and in full consciousness of his hypocrisy—the consequences of Augustus’ controversial legacy relating to marriage and sexual morality.28 In this context, the exemplum of Germanicus and his children, proudly displayed by Augustus as a salutary model of marriage and procreation, is rendered troublingly futile and naïve. This passage shows Augustus explicitly attempting to control the future morality of the Romans through imperial exemplarity. However, reading with our second-century, Suetonian hindsight, this episode also exposes Augustus’ inability to foresee the tragic and terrible fates that we know await the family that he is offering as a model. This future will play out in the subsequent biographies: Germanicus’ perilous perfection (Calig. 3–4);29 his and Agrippina’s fertility and their nine children; but the grim fate of the two young sons now being dandled on his and Germanicus’ knees, declared public enemies by Tiberius (Calig. 7) and cruelly killed (Tib. 54.2); the emergence of a later child as imperial monster (Calig. 22); the sordid demise of another child, Agrippina the Younger, at the hands of her own son (Ner. 34.1–4); and then of the whole dynasty, in the form of Nero (Galb. 1). With hindsight, the happy family tableau, which Augustus proudly displays to his people as an example of how to do family, presages nothing less than the worst excesses of the principate and the eventual downfall of the Julio-Claudians.

3.  DISAPPOINTED EXPECTATION AND THE FAMILY At Aug. 34.2, Augustus is exhorting the people of Rome to marry and have children, urging upon them, in slightly menacing fashion, the example of his own family in the shape of Germanicus and his brood. By Aug. 65.4, he is repeatedly blurting out his version of a Homeric line: ‘I wish that I had never married and that I had died without 28  On the hypocrisy of the gap between Domitian’s private life and public correctio morum, and parallels with Augustus, see further Vinson (1989) 444–5. 29  According to Suetonius, Germanicus was so popular that he was in danger of being crushed by the crowds that surrounded him whenever he went out (Calig. 4)!



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offspring!’ (αἴθ’ ὄφελον ἄγαμός τ’ ἔμεναι ἄγονός τ’ ἀπολέσθαι). Ironic, no? In historical reality, the trial and banishments of his daughter and granddaughter (mention of whom was enough to prompt such a cry, according to Suetonius) had already taken place when he was parading Germanicus to the public (which must have been in ad 9). However, Suetonius’ biography structures them as one event, conflating the fates of the two women, as the eventual downfall of the house that dashes the earlier hopes of its paterfamilias. Suetonius presents the fates of the Julias as a form of peripateia, and suggests that the theme here is the cruelty of fate, and its failure to reward good behaviour, in his introduction to this domestic section: ‘I shall now relate his personal and domestic life, describing his behaviour and his fortune at home and among his relatives from his youth until the last day of his life’ (referam nunc interiorem ac familiarem eius uitam quibusque moribus atque fortuna domi et inter suos egerit a iuuenta usque ad supremum uitae diem, Aug. 61.1). As we shall see, the reference here to ‘the last day of his life’ is significant; it is an allusion to Solon’s warning to the powerful Croesus in the Herodotean tale to call no man happy until that day is reached (Hdt. 1.31–3).30 Like Croesus, Augustus starts his story with high hopes for his own children, especially for their moral probity—a necessity, of course, for a man who wishes to present the imperial family as an exemplum to his subjects. However, just as his moral reforms are shown to have the opposite effect from that intended, similarly, the outcomes of his strictly maintained domestica disciplina are precisely the opposite of what he hoped (Aug. 64–5). Despite setting out to breed secluded, wool-­working Lucretias, Augustus ends up producing the notorious Julias, whose falls from grace sound a strong note in his biography (see discussion of Aug. 101.3 below). The gap between intention and effect in this passage is brutal. Suetonius emphasizes the extent to which 30  It may be that Suetonius is alluding here more generally to the well-known topos that one should count no man happy until he is dead, rather than specifically to the Herodotean passage (see T. Harrison 2000: 39 n. 17 for further references to the topos in Greek literature). However, there are a number of shared elements that make it reasonable to think that Suetonius may have this story as told by Herodotus in mind: the great ruler, the aspiration to found a dynasty, the perhaps excessive concern to protect his children, the sudden abandonment of fortune, the tragic fate of the children, and the foiled dynasty. (Several of these are also present in the Cadmus story of Ov. Met. 3.128–44, which also alludes to the Herodotean passage.) Suetonius appears to refer to Herodotus elsewhere (Plass 1988: 152 suggests Calig. 25.3 and Ner. 40), and the two authors share interests in the themes of tyranny, prophecy, and the workings of fate.

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Augustus goes beyond what would have been expected of a good paterfamilias in the upbringing of his daughters, but fate takes his family in the opposite direction—note the echo in the Latin of instituit (his efforts as a parent) by destituit (fortune’s desertion of his family): filiam et neptes ita instituit, ut etiam lanificio assuefaceret uetaretque loqui aut agere quicquam nisi propalam et quod in diurnos commentarios referretur; extraneorum quidem coetu adeo prohibuit ut L. Vinicio, claro decoroque iuueni, scripserit quondam parum modeste fecisse eum, quod filiam suam Baias salutatum uenisset . . . sed laetum eum atque fidentem et subole et disciplina domus Fortuna destituit. Iulias, filiam et neptem, omnibus probris contaminatas relegauit. He brought up his daughter and grand-daughters so strictly that he even trained them in wool-working and forbade them to say or do anything unless it was out in the open and could be recorded in the daily records of the household. He even prevented them from meeting with men from outside the household to the extent that he once wrote to L. Vinicius, a well-born young man of good character, that he had acted with a lack of modesty, because he had come to pay his respects to Augustus’ daughter at Baiae . . . However, happy and confident as he was both about his offspring and about his domestic discipline, Fortune deserted him. He banished the J­ulias, daughter and granddaughter, contaminated with every kind of crime. (Aug. 64.2, 65.1)

The description of fate catching Augustus unawares and when he is at his happiest (laetum . . . atque fidentem) is, I suggest, deliberately evocative of Herodotus’ Croesus narrative, and its lesson that, for all a man’s wealth and power, fate will find a way of having the last word. Suetonius presents this series of events as a single episode, in which Augustus’ hopes for his children are cruelly dashed to the extent that he wishes they had never been born at all. In Herodotus’ account, Croesus’ hubris similarly costs him the life of his dear son Atys (Hdt. 1.34–5). However, at least in that story, Croesus is able to honour his son with a proper funeral and place his body in a tomb, and Herodotus’ description of this provides closure to that tragic tale. In contrast, Suetonius’ biography will end with Augustus’ command that his daughter and granddaughter never be allowed a place in his family tomb (Aug. 101.3). Augustus’ heart-broken response to the fate of the Julias—to regret utterly the whole idea of marriage and children that he had been so full of at Aug. 34—takes us back to that earlier passage as well, so that this ‘episode’ represents the failure of that aspiration too, as well as



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his aspirations for his family. In both Aug. 34 and Aug. 61–5, Augustus is represented not so much as a hypocrite, brazenly forcing legal restrictions on his subjects that he has no intention of living by himself, but as a man betrayed by fate, unable to achieve his aspirations, disappointed in his attempts to shape the future.

4.  EXPECTATION, IN HINDSIGHT The phrase ‘disappointed expectation’ is used by Paul Plass to describe the pattern found in several of Suetonius’ biographies, where Suetonius structures his material so that the good deeds of an emperor’s life precede his descent into depravity. In those cases, the expectation in question is that of the emperor’s subjects, hopeful at the start of the reign, subsequently disillusioned when the emperor reveals his true colours.31 In the case of Augustus’ Life, it is not the hopes of his subjects that are dashed, rather the aspirations of the man himself; nevertheless the same structure of hope followed by disappointment pertains. Such a structure enhances the pleasure of reading with foreknowledge and the frisson of hindsight. Tamsyn Barton has drawn our attention to the proleptic references to Nero’s notorious crimes of murder, incest, and arson that are embedded in what look (on the face of it) like virtuous acts carried out early in his reign.32 Nero’s dutiful behaviour following Claudius’ death at Ner. 9 looks forward to 33.1, where he is shown to have been at least complicit in Claudius’ murder, if not the murderer himself; Nero’s honouring of his mother at Ner. 9, riding through the streets with her in a litter, anticipates his incest with her at 28.2; at Ner. 16.1, his building of platforms for fire-fighting anticipates his fire-starting at 38.1. The earlier, virtuous acts look deeply ironic in the face of events that take place later in the Life, and, given Nero’s later reputation—with which Suetonius’ contemporary readers would have been likely to be familiar— these early passages already create a prick of irony, whose full force is unleashed when the later passages are read and the hints are actualized. These ironizing structures can be found at work at the macro level too, over the whole twelve biographies, especially when it comes to 31  Plass (1988) 19. Cf. the explicit and famous diuisiones at Calig. 22.1 and Ner. 19.3, and the shift from dissimulation to overt vice in Tib. 42 and Dom. 10. 32  Barton (1994a) 50.

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positioning the Life of Augustus, founder of the principate, with hindsight, within the context of the subsequent history of the institution.33 In Augustus’ case, we know, with Suetonian hindsight, roughly this: he has established a principate—a principate that has endured for a hundred years after his death; he has been deified; he has left an extraordinary legacy—material, political, legal, and exemplary; yet, as we have already seen, it has never been clear precisely how one should judge or interpret this legacy. The Augustus shows us a man who is busy trying to found a dynasty and an institution, and throughout the Augustus, a reader’s awareness of the later history of the principate adds a frisson to Suetonius’ account of its origins and development, and Augustus’ hopes for the future.34 Moreover, read as a whole, the Lives trace the subsequent history of the principate, and deliberate allusions to the biography of Augustus in other Lives actualize the latent ironies of his aspirations. They show us the consequences for posterity of his actions, which are not always what he had in mind. Suetonius uses hindsight to bring home to us Augustus’ impotence in the face of destiny. Augustus’ laws turn out to be counterproductive, the tragic results of his own family’s strict upbringing are absolutely the opposite of what he intended, and his most enduring moral legacy is as a powerful paradigm of marriage-wrecking—the exemplum that got away. Suetonius’ biography of Augustus is framed by references to two monuments associated with his birth and his death, with which Suetonius guides our interpretation of his Life. This framing device, I think, supports my thesis that Suetonius wants us to see failure of sexual morality as a central motif. Both monuments— a shrine on the Palatine marking the spot where he was born, and the Mausoleum marking the spot where he was buried—testify to ­Augustus’ enduring legacy and the magnificence of his achievements, yet description of both is shot through with the reminder of his failure in this key area. The mention of Augustus’ birth at Aug. 5 makes proleptic reference to his eventual death, which will be treated at the end of the biography 33  See above, n. 23. 34  On the deployment of hindsight to slightly different ends in Cassius Dio, see Kemezis (2007) 278: ‘when Augustus warns of the extinction of the noble republican gentes and their replacement by provincials and Greeks (56.7.5–6), the audience is meant to realize that both these events did subsequently happen, without leading to the ruin of the empire.’ And: ‘[Dio’s] audience would have known that [the marriage laws] did not in fact result in greater fertility among the elite, which Dio claims was Augustus’ objective.’



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(99–101), and to his deification;35 it also highlights the reader’s knowledge that Augustus is destined to be remembered and revered in Suetonius’ own present day (cf. nunc). The close link that is drawn between past and present draws the reader’s attention, right from the start, to the position of hindsight, from which this biography and all of Augustus’ achievements are to be viewed: natus est Augustus M. Tullio Cicerone C. Antonio conss. VIIII. Kal. Octob. paulo ante solis exortum, regione Palati ad Capita Bubula, ubi nunc sacrarium habet, aliquanto post quam excessit constitutum. Augustus was born shortly before sunrise on the 9th day before the Calends of October, when Cicero and C. Antonius were consuls, at the Oxheads in the Palatine, where he now has a shrine that was established sometime after he had died. (Aug. 5)

However, the neat little aetiological anecdote that follows, explaining the foundation of the shrine, summarizes the effect that hindsight can have on a reader’s moral interpretation of Augustus’ life, and introduces straightaway the theme of the failure of Augustus’ aspirations regarding sexual morality and his inability to control his legacy: nam ut senatus actis continentur, cum C. Laetorius, adulescens patricii generis, in deprecanda grauiore adulterii poena praeter aetatem atque natales hoc quoque patribus conscriptis allegaret, esse possessorem ac uelut aedituum soli, quod primum Diuus Augustus nascens attigisset, peteretque donari quasi proprio suo ac peculiari deo, decretum est ut ea pars domus consecraretur. For, as recorded in the proceedings of the senate, when C. Laetorius, a young man of patrician birth, while pleading against a more serious punishment for adultery on grounds of his age and his rank, claimed this too: that he was the occupier and as it were guardian of the ground that was the first that the divine Augustus had touched as he was born, and when he sought to be pardoned as if on behalf of his own special god, it was decreed that this part of the house should be consecrated. (Aug. 5)

Right from the start, a theme of Augustus’ biography is that while the effects of his behaviour have been far-reaching, they have nevertheless 35  Another example of the technique of ring composition that Benediktson (1996–7) has discussed in relation to the Life of Galba; see also Power, ch. 3 in this volume on ring composition, and especially the resonances between the opening and conclusion of Suetonius’ Augustus (pp. 59–61).

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not always been salutary. The shrine was established as a result of a young nobleman’s trial for adultery, and he pled (successfully, one assumes) for a lighter sentence on the basis of his association with Augustus. Knowing, with hindsight, Augustus’ efforts at moral reform and his extensive legislation designed precisely to curtail adultery among the Roman elite, his posthumous assistance to this adulterer is acutely ironic. This brief introductory passage already sets up the idea that, in hindsight, Augustus’ moral legacy will be the very opposite of his intentions. Meanwhile, the closing chapter of the biography (Aug. 101) is a lengthy and detailed account of the will that Augustus had drawn up sometime before his death, in which he attempts to secure his legacy and make careful provision for the future of the principate and the empire. This chapter characterizes Augustus as a responsible and caring leader, with a great deal of foresight.36 Suetonius makes reference, just before the very end, to the Mausoleum that Augustus has built as the monument to his own life, and to the Res Gestae that he intends to set up at the entrance—Augustus’ own attempt to control his legacy in bronze, documenting his achievements and offering himself as an exemplum for posterity. Nevertheless, there is also an explicitly discordant note sounded here too: ‘He forbade the burial within his Mausoleum of his daughter Julia or his grand-daughter Julia, if anything should happen to them’ (Iulias filiam neptemque, si quid iis accidisset, uetuit sepulcro suo inferri, Aug. 101.3). This mournful provision in his will emphasizes once again, just before we take our leave of the biography, the fact that Augustus’ legacy was not what he had hoped it would be, particularly in the areas of dynasty and sexual morality, where he strove so hard to be effective. Augustus failed to establish a healthy dynasty or a moral household.

5.  CONCLUSION: COUNTER-IMPERIAL EXEMPLARIT Y These allusions to Augustus’ pernicious moral legacy that frame his biography in Aug. 5 and 101, and pervade it through the passages 36 See Power, ch. 3 in this volume, on the significance of the endings of the biographies.



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discussed in this chapter, offer a commentary on the relationship between fate and the individual. One cannot control fortuna, one cannot control one’s legacy, and these are two important themes that run through all the Lives. The Augustus demonstrates, in addition, that despite Augustus’ best efforts to establish an exemplary paradigm for the principate, one has no more control over one’s exemplary influence than over any other aspect of the future. A man’s life and a man’s acts, once they are moulded and offered as exempla, are open to moral interpretation just as any traditional exemplum would be,37 and it is in no man’s power to dictate what moral messages others will take from his life. The pervasive theme of the gap between Augustus’ intentions and their outcomes is the framework for understanding Suetonius’ take on imperial exemplarity. Citing morally inspiring exempla is always an attempt to exert control over the future; this is especially the case when one attempts to establish new exempla from one’s own life or that of one’s family, as Augustus does. In that respect, it is perhaps an enterprise as hubristic as Croesus’ claim to be the happiest man alive, and as futile as Croesus’ attempt to prevent his son’s predestined slaying with an iron weapon. Suetonius’ story of Augustus demonstrates the high potential for failure of such exemplary endeavours.38 An exemplum that will be healthy enough to survive down the decades and down the centuries must be vividly memorable, and it also needs to be open to various interpretations, and able to endure being recast over and over again to make different moral and rhetorical points. By definition, then, the author of a successful exemplum cannot control—or even necessarily foresee—how it will be read, understood, and utilized by later readers.39 Just like Augustus’ aspirations, an exemplum’s meaning is at the mercy of posterity, at least to the same extent as it has the capacity to influence posterity in its turn. Suetonius shows us an Augustus who has failed to grasp this limitation of exemplarity. Moreover, his exemplary inadequacy is thrown into relief by the theft-marriage exemplum that does flourish in Suetonius’ pages, far beyond Augustus’ control. The story of Augustus grabbing Livia has everything an exemplum needs. It is catchy; even the recurrent term 37  On the flexibility of meaning in traditional exempla, see further Chaplin (2000); Roller (2004); Langlands (2008). 38  For a discussion of Augustus’ inability to control how his exemplum will be interpreted by posterity, see Lowrie (2007); she ends with the mention of Mussolini’s unforeseen appropriation of Augustus as a model (112). 39  Lowrie (2007) with reference also to Vell. Pat. 2.126.4.

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abducere has a vivid narrative force to it, and the association with stereotypes about the behaviour of tyrants found in invective, as well as with the rape motif familiar from both Greek and Roman myth, make it immediately memorable. The heavy pregnancy is a vivid touch. The other vivid scenario of a respectable woman hustled off for sex during a dinner party and emerging dishevelled and red-faced is so closely associated with Augustus’ seizure of Livia in the tradition as to enhance the latter’s memorableness.40 It is also open to interpretation: Caligula cheekily cites it as a quasi-legal precedent, a rhetorical means of justifying his own immoral behaviour, but in doing so, he also gestures to the inspirational qualities that are evident in the Life of Domitian. The story—and it is a story, rather than a frigid description of virtue, like some of the imperial attempts at exemplarity—might be read as an exemplum of the emperor’s ability to live beyond the law and to help himself to whatever he likes, and that will inevitably look like a different kind of moral message depending on the reader. Suetonius’ Augustus, as I have shown, questions Augustus’ ability to shape the future as he would have wished. Suetonius shows that instead, imperial exempla can have a wicked life of their own, countering the attempts of Augustus and subsequent emperors to stake their claim to beneficial exemplarity. Suetonius is attempting to regenerate some of the force of moral exemplarity, which has been dissipated and repressed by a century of imperial appropriation of the discourse.41 It is significant that the most strikingly successful exemplum in the Lives is one that entirely reverses the direction of imperial exemplarity; Otho’s surprisingly heroic death is the result of his imitation of an anonymous soldier who killed himself in order to prove the veracity of the news he brought to Otho’s camp (Otho 10.1).42 An emperor takes as his inspiration a soldier from the ranks, and the story has the distinct flavour of a traditional Republican exemplum, and a verve that we do not find in Augustus’ imperial version. Otho and his soldier become exemplary by acting with true moral integrity, not by setting themselves up as exempla; it is perhaps the most morally uplifting

40  See Flory (1988a) 344. She thinks that the second story (Aug. 70) is actually the result of Antony’s spin on the marriage banquet of Augustus and Livia, and that Caligula’s banquet, described at Calig. 25.1, is Caligula’s deliberate parody of Augustus. 41  Cf. Chaplin (2000) 194 for the effect of Augustus monopolizing the interpretation of the past and Kraus (2005a). 42  Cf. 10.2, 11, and 12.2 for his exemplary death and the responses to it.



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passage that Suetonus ever writes.43 By contrast, imperial exemplarity, embodied in Suetonius by the po-faced tableau of Germanicus and sons, lacks the memorable anecdotes and the arresting details of real exempla.44 Then, in his organization of the controversial material about Augustus and sexual morality, Suetonius resists the imperial trend towards exemplarity that is idealizing, prescriptive, and lacking in what Kraus describes as ‘spectacular suggestiveness’;45 a complicated man has more to offer as an exemplum than an idealized portrait, and Suetonius suggests that we recoup the power of the flawed individual.46 Augustus’ bad exemplum is allowed to run rampant through the Lives, undoing his good work and creating more excitement than a litany of imperial virtues ever could.

43  The story is told by Tacitus (Hist. 20) and Plutarch (Otho 15) as well, but without the same focus on exemplarity and moral redemption. 44  See Roller (2004) for importance of visual details for a memorable exemplum. 45  Kraus (2005a) 188; see earlier for full quotation. 46  Cf. Turpin (2008) 375–6 on Arrian’s Alexander. See also Langlands (2008) for the power that controversy lends to an exemplum.

6 E.g. Augustus: exemplum in the Augustus and Tiberius Erik Gunderson

Suetonius thinks both about and with his emperors. The emperor Augustus left behind an example of how to exemplify, and Suetonius engages with it in a manifold manner.1 Augustus bequeathed a model for writing Lives of emperors.2 Suetonius adopts and adapts it.3 But, conversely, one also sees a good deal of the scholar Suetonius in his version of Augustus. We will examine the details of two Lives: that of Augustus and that of Tiberius. Augustus deployed exemplarity as part of the enterprise of fabricating the fictions that were to sustain the new regime, a regime that regularly deprecated its own innovation. Suetonius took on aspects of the Augustan programme and made it his own. Suetonius turned the immanent politics of exemplification in the Augustan age into a politics of exemplification as it applies to the project of reading 1  Nevertheless, see Langlands, ch. 5 in this volume: of what, in the end, is Augustus a model? His life is variously appropriable, and for various ends. Caligula (wilfully) reads Augustus’ biography for (depraved) precedent: seizing Piso’s bride is merely following the exemplum of Augustus (Calig. 25). Lowrie (2007) notes that the difficulty of fixing an exemplum once and for all was already well appreciated within antiquity. 2  The present discussion effectively retains a thread of older research on (quasipropagandistic) imperial virtues. See Syme (1958) 754–65; Bradley (1976), (1991); Wallace-Hadrill (1983) 142–51. 3  Pausch (2004) 270–1: it is possible to take all of this too far; the presence of the exemplum tradition is unpronounced in Suetonius, especially when compared to other authors. This is a sensible admonition, and so I am confining myself to those places where the actual word exemplum or one of its cognates appears and then moving outwards from these passages.



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and writing Caesars. Tiberius and his life offer a negative illustration of this process of exemplary imperial biography. Specifically, Tiberian exemplification—and by this, I mean to designate those moments where the word exemplum is used relative to Tiberius—gets written up as a set of failures. Suetonius’ Tiberius does not understand exemplification and empire. And this failure is itself exemplary: Tiberius becomes a negative exemplum of the relationship between the paradigmatic and the imperial. One can, in fact, argue as much for virtually all of the remaining Caesars. Each has his own way of failing to be Augustus. The Latin word exemplum has a variety of uses. On the one hand, an exemplum can designate something thoroughly banal and unmarked. It can be a reference to what we would call a mere example. A swatch of cloth cut as a sample from a bolt of fabric could be called an exemplum of that larger whole.4 On the other hand, an exemplum can encapsulate a highly charged cultural and ethical moment. What follows will be, in general, a discussion of these exemplary examples in contradistinction to mere illustrations of neutral categories.5 Every educated Roman would be quite familiar with exempla.6 Formal schooling communicated an explicit theory of exempla. Moreover, examples were not mere illustrations, but they were also lessons to be learned.7 Exempla are, specifically, stories of the past, retold in the present, with an eye to the future.8 Exemplification is a vital element of the process that reproduces the imaginary relations that bind Romans to the ideals of Rome. The example binds the particular to the universal. The very possibility of virtue itself in the here and now is related to the fact of virtue then and there. The abstraction was concrete. It can become so yet again. Moreover, because one acted thus then, one is expected to act in a certain manner now. 4  TLL V.1327–8 (s.v. exemplum I). 5  The doubleness of the term is explained at Quint. Inst. 5.11.1. An orator principally cares about the privileged version (5.11.6). 6  For a general introduction to the much-studied question of exemplification as a cultural practice, see Roller (2009). 7  Polyb. 6.53–4 on the aristocratic funeral is the locus classicus: pageantry and the narration of illustrious lives inspire the young to future valour. Exemplum is a programmatic word in Frontinus’ Strategmata, which purports to be a book that will help generals with their generalship by giving them illustrations of the craft. 8  Chaplin (2000): in Livy, the characters within the text are not just exemplary (for the posterity that is reading about them); they also themselves think about their own past within a framework of exemplarity and modulate their behaviour accordingly.

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When applied to the Caesars, the logic of exemplification has been multiply deformed.9 First, exempla ordinarily array different species that subsist with a single genus. If the general category is military discipline, then we can cite specific examples of praiseworthy behaviour that fall under this heading. In the case of the Caesars, we have a proper name as the genus, and the individuals existing under that genus are the concrete persons who inherited the name. Inheritance, in the case of the Caesars, necessarily straddles both giving and taking power, and it includes as well legitimacy that is both traditional and invented. It is best not to ask too many questions while all of this is taking place. A Caesar exemplifies Caesarism. Yet this genus is an opaque pseudounity whose putative identity is a political rather than a logical fact. The heir to the first Caesar seems, paradoxically, to be the most Caesar of the Caesars. And for readers of Suetonius, Augustus is the one who seems to name the genus Caesar. But the previous clause could be rewritten thus: Augustus is the exemplary member of the genus Caesar. This logical problem—which no logician proper would ever entertain as a legitimate formulation—nevertheless emerges out of the politics of establishing the category of ‘Caesar’, a name that is also an office, a name that names (legitimate?) authority at Rome. However, readers of Suetonius have another problem beyond that of the exemplary Caesar: who was even the first Caesar? The genus ‘Caesar’ is troubled as soon as one attempts to include Julius.10 The logical problems continue apace. Given the prominence of the emperor himself, what might otherwise be a mere biographical item always threatens to become something more. In this sense, writing items per species—that is, writing about ‘mere illustrations’ under various headings—always threatens to turn into a discourse of exemplarity. This is owing to the magnitude of the person in contradistinction to the sometimes humble nature of the topic. This phenomenon reproduces at the concrete level a terminological problem. In the philosophical and rhetorical traditions, exempla are species within a genus. That is, a class contains individuals, and from these, one may select illustrations. But, famously, Suetonius is writing per species: that is, he is writing within categories. Species in this phrase means roughly the  9  The logic of exemplification can be subjected to an immanent critique as well. See Lowrie (2007) 96–7. 10  See the conclusion to Henderson, ch. 4 in this volume: ‘Of course he is not [a Caesar] . . . But of course he is . . . ’ (p. 108).



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same thing as genus does for the logicians: ‘classes’.11 While it is no surprise that a biography contains sections devoted to family life or appearance, an emperor’s family life is never just a domestic life. It becomes inevitably (and perhaps ironically) exemplary, as Langlands demonstrates in Chapter 5 of this volume. Exemplification had a very long history at Rome. Exhortations by way of appeal to the great figures of the past can be found throughout Republican Latin. The arrival of the emperors shifted these traditions. But, in a manner fully consonant with the ironies of the Augustan revolution more generally, there is both a merely apparent and a really real continuity at work here. Augustus begins the process of killing off Republican exemplarity by preserving it.12 The Forum of Augustus is simultaneously the site of restored Republicanism and its death.13 One enters Augustus’ Forum via a gallery filled with Republican heroes and their statues. Upon the statues are little placards summarizing the great deeds of the figure represented.14 Centrally positioned among these statues of heroes is a statue of the emperor. The emperor does not just aggregate past exemplarity; he corners the market on it in the present. Readers of Valerius Maximus will note that the imperial house is more or less the exclusive font of exemplarity in the post-republican era.15 Within the Forum of Augustus, then, we find aggregated and canonized the res gestae of a collection of Republican greats. Much as the princeps aggregates powers, so too does he aggregate exempla.16 The very collocation is an innovation.17 Such a collection is conducive to the production of a fixed, legitimate 11  This slippage between general and specific emerges from Hurley’s piece, ch. 1 in this volume: Augustus is the role model; the Life of Augustus is the model. In form and content Augustus/Augustus is ‘exemplary’. 12  See Gowing (2005) 5 on the process by which the Republic becomes an object of memory rather than a living thing in the imperial age. See Lowrie (2007) on Augustus the exemplum/exception. 13  Gowing (2005) 138–45. Cf. Zanker (1988) 82: ‘In the end, what had once been the political centre of the old Republic became the showplace of the Julii, where the presence of Republican monuments was only incidental. They were, to be sure, reminders of a glorious past, but one now overshadowed by the dazzling splendour of the present.’ 14  See also Zanker (1968) for a detailed reconstruction of the Forum that includes fragments of these statues and their attendant inscriptions. See also the discussion of Aug. 31 below. 15  See Gunderson (2013) 211 with bibliography. 16  Geiger (2008) ix: ‘Though he did not outright monopolize commemoration, the Princeps nationalized it.’ Cf. Zanker (1988) 210–12. 17  Geiger (2008) 6–7.

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imperial version of the Republic and one’s relationship to Roman excellence in general.18 Augustus’ tale of his reign is a source for Suetonius’ tale of the same.19 But the Res Gestae of Augustus are no mere source.20 Suetonius’ biography ends by pointing us to them. Suetonius finishes the Life by giving an overview of Augustus’ will (Augustus 101.4). When we look to the text that Suetonius points us towards, we find that the example of exempla in the Res Gestae pre-script—if they do not in fact prescribe—the Suetonian account of Augustus’ relationship to the exempla of the past:21 legibus nouis me auctore latis multa exempla maiorum exolescentia iam ex nostro saeculo reduxi et ipse multarum rerum exempla imitanda posteris tradidi. I sponsored new laws, and I both brought back many ancestral exempla that were presently fading from our age and transmitted for posterity to imitate exempla of a good many things. (RG 8)

The exempla restored: a nice motto. And exempla have been transmitted to posterity. Posterity is to imitate them. There is change amidst the continuity.22 There are old exempla, as well as new ones. Innovation 18  Suetonius was not the only student, of course. Feldherr (1998) and Chaplin (2000) both explore Livy’s monumental history and its logic of exemplification. Livy’s text performs an operation of aggregation homologous to Augustus’ own. See Weileder (1998) and Gunderson (2013) on Valerius Maximus’ version of Roman excellence as seen in the light of Tiberius’ reign. See also Geiger (2008) 192–8: in the provinces one finds copies of Augustus’ forum and its statues. In short, it is not only Suetonius who paid attention to the Augustan precedent about how to treat Roman historical precedents. 19  The relationship between the Life and the Res Gestae has a rich bibliography. See Dennison (1898) 30–7; Fürst (1904); Baldwin (1983) 133, 232; de Coninck (1983) 46–9; Gascou (1984) 523, 756; and the Introduction to this volume. Conversely, see Steidle (1951) 110, for whom all connections are superficial. 20  See Conte (1994) 548–9: Augustus’ Res Gestae are cited as a precedent for the per species treatment that Suetonius uses in his Lives, including, of course, the Life of Augustus. Nevertheless, Suetonius is not a slave to the Res Gestae itself. See, for example, Gascou (1984) 719. 21  Bradley (1985b) 262: ‘It is relatively unimportant to worry over the extent to which Suetonius drew on the Res Gestae as a source . . . , and more valuable to stress that the document, for the first time, offered an unambiguous statement of how the emperor, not just Augustus but any future emperor, could be and should be expected to behave’ (original emphasis); id. (1991) 3720: the Res Gestae and Pliny’s Panegyricus are the salient precursors of Suetonius’ own ‘imperial ideal’. Lewis (1991: 3626–7) argues similarly. Cf. Pausch (2004) 259. 22  See Lowrie (2007) 106. Cf. Kraus (2005a) 195.



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is juxtaposed to tradition. And the word exemplum is asked to name both activities. Suetonius has imitated the Augustan example as well as the Augustan relationship to examples. Suetonius has not, however, imitated the Republican examples themselves. He imitates only the imperial trope of their aggregation, preservation, and artistic reproduction. His focus is not on Roman virtue and vice in general, but instead on a set of specific exceptional Romans and their virtues and vices. And so, much like Augustus, Suetonius also lets the word exemplum mark simultaneous continuity and discontinuity, the exception(al ruler) and the rule (of ruling).23 Chapter 31 of Suetonius’ Life of Augustus is a complex passage that begins with a number of religious elements. But I would like to highlight its textual politics. First, we learn how and when Augustus becomes pontifex maximus. Next Suetonius tells of how Augustus gathered and burned books of prophecies other than the Sibylline Books, and even these he reviewed. In Suetonius’ work on grammarians, we can read how one gathers exemplaria preliminary to making a critical edition.24 Suetonius’ Augustus, then, is as interested in questions of textual criticism as is Suetonius himself. The Sibylline oracles emerge from an editio principis, wherein Augustus acts as a grammaticus, supervising the books of the future. Augustus and Suetonius are simultaneously concerned, then, with both the fata librorum and the libri fatorum, both the fate of books and the books of fates. Augustus next restores the Julian calendar, and then reforms by augmenting a number of priesthoods. He revives ancient rites. After these gestures, we read of the restoration of old republican exempla. Augustus edits the past as well as the future. Here too we find an editio principis whose political import is its effort to act as an editio princeps, a critical foundation from which future editions might be derived: proximum a dis immortalibus honorem memoriae ducum praestitit, qui imperium p. R. ex minimo maximum reddidissent. itaque et opera cuiusque manentibus titulis restituit et statuas omnium triumphali effigie in utraque fori sui porticu dedicauit, professus et edicto: commentum id se, 23  Kraus (2005a) 186: ‘As history narrows to the person of the Caesar, the possibilities for exemplarity narrow as well; eventually, there is tremendous pressure, coming both from the top and from below, to make Caesar the only exemplum in town, the model for all ideal leadership.’ 24  Gramm. 24.3: multaque exemplaria contracta emendare ac distinguere et adnotare curauit.

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ut ad illorum uelut ad exemplar et ipse, dum uiueret, et insequentium aetatium principes exigerentur a ciuibus. suppl. van Oudendorp

Next after the immortal gods he honoured the memory of those generals who had transformed the empire of the Roman people from nothingness to greatness. Accordingly he also restored the works of each of them leaving their inscriptions intact. He dedicated statues of all of them with triumphal ornaments set in both porticoes of his forum. And he declared in an edict that he had done it so that both he himself during his lifetime and the principes of following ages should be held by the citizens up to their as if up to a model (uelut ad exemplar). (Aug. 31.5)25

This particular passage from Suetonius’ Life expands, and rewrites as a palimpsest, the parallel passage from the Res Gestae. But the modifications are perfectly Augustan in spirit: they make still more imperial the original gesture of the imperator. The faded exempla of the past as recounted in the Res Gestae are themselves expanded here: they become more vivid in the Suetonian re-inscription of the Res Gestae. Suetonius says these were all duces and not mere maiores. The implied sense of quantity and quality in that last word has shifted over to their relationship to empire itself: these generals transformed imperium, it waxed ever larger. Suetonius has inserted a teleological notion: history has been building something and to someone. Suetonius has built up this teleology of leadership from the minimal traces of it in his original. Augustus was himself a dux, of course: according to the Res Gestae, he led back (reduxi) the exempla that were fading from our age. But he himself also transmitted exempla. In the Res Gestae, the multa of the Republican past are picked up by the res multae of the Augustan present. In the Res Gestae, Augustus claims that he has brought back some exempla and handed on others. The former are those found in the past; the latter are those produced by himself in the present. The two sets are of a piece, of course. But only the latter are grammatically the ones we are expected to imitate. Suetonius has lifted from Augustus’ exemplar and inserted select items into his own text. Suetonius also makes his own parallel version of Augustus’ tale of obligations arise out of a relationship to the exemplary past. And in this 25  Shuckburgh (1896) 72 (ad loc.): ‘The series of statues in niches in the colonnades round the forum Augusti began with Aeneas and came down to the time of Augustus.’ He also lists additional ancient testimonia.



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apograph, we see an explicit assignation of motive: the people are supposed to demand of this princeps and of all future principes that these leading citizens live as if copying an exemplar. And for Suetonius the imperial biographer, this is in some measure true: the later Caesars, then, are regularly evaluated as more or less faithful copies of Augustus.26 There is an exciting ‘textual variation’ that we find here in Suetonius’ copy of Augustus’ project of setting up a scheme of copies and originals. In Suetonius’ account of Augustus’ edict, exemplar has been substituted for the word exemplum that we find in Res Gestae 8. Exemplum is, of course, a protean word that runs the gamut between the neutral and the sublime regularly. But exemplar has its own doubleness. First, it is the word used for the copy of a letter or the imitation of a model. Next, it is also the word one uses for the model to be copied. It is a word, in fact, that is set at the head of the surviving copy of the Res Gestae; one is promised both that the original is at Rome, and that what follows is an exemplar of the Res Gestae: rerum gestarum diui Augusti, quibus orbem terrarum imperio populi Romani subiicit, et inpensarum, quas in rem publicam populumque Romanum fecit, incisarum in duabus aheneis pilis, quae sunt Romae positae exemplar subiectum. First: the res gestae of the Divine Augustus. This is how he subjected [subiecit] the world to the empire of the Roman people. Next: what he spent on the state and the Roman people. This has been inscribed on two bronze pillars set up at Rome. Subjoined [subiectum] is a copy (exemplar) of them. (RG praef.)

One subjects the world in the manner one subjoins a text: by way of example and as an object-lesson on the process of subjection itself. This also means that the Res Gestae are both the original and the copy: the 26  Bradley (1985b) 264: Augustus was the ideal autocrat; the central thread of the Lives is the relationship of any given ruler to that ideal. See also Hurley, ch. 1 in this volume. Lambrecht (1984) 147: the Life of Augustus is the best Life and the model for the others; Augustus is the standard against which the other Caesars are measured. Baldwin (1983: 134–9) cautions, though, that this thesis can be overplayed. Pausch (2004) 252–8: we know less than we pretend about the life of Suetonius and the dates of the works; many claims actually amount to nothing but (sometimes suspect) stylistic observations that have been impressed into the service of historical and methodological arguments. Power (2010) offers a radical reappraisal of the dating of the Lives of the Caesars: perhaps they are complete before ad 122. This would topple some core assumptions made by a number of scholars.

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text at Rome is the exemplar for another version of that same text, an exemplar of which is to be found below these words. And the subjected copy is always itself potentially the model for yet another copy. The words one reads below were the words that were read by the copyist, who copied these specific letters out. A certain kind of subject could, then, rewrite the rewritten text. The imperial subject and copyist Suetonius has done just that: he takes the Res Gestae as a model and uses it to fashion his own model Life of Augustus, a standard against which all of the other lives can be judged. When we return to Suetonius’ Augustus’ use of exemplar, it is clear that this generally neutral term has been promoted into the realm of the exemplary exemplum: beautiful copies of glorious originals are ­demanded. However, the bookish valence of the term exemplar is ­useful as well, when we consider the extent to which Suetonius is invested in the specifically textual qualities of the process of exemplification as a means of reproducing structures of power. The principes are copies, and they are exemplary models. One demands of them that they live ­exceptional lives. This is an empirical and sociological demand written into the edict. But there is also a purely textual dimension to this schema as well. The emperors are first editions, and Suetonius copies out for us their autograph Lives. There are, on the one hand, the b ­ iological insequentium aetatium principes, namely Tiberius, Gaius, et al. But there are also the textual versions of the same, the principes that Suetonius and others write up in subsequent ages, Tiberius, Gaius, et al., when these scribes copy from their exemplary exemplaria. This use of the diction of exemplarity in Suetonius’ biography accordingly ­exemplifies the logic of exemplarity itself. This logic entails the complex suturing of past, present, and future in a blur of voices where faithful copies double for their originals even as they diverge from them. And, of course, the process can and should be continued ad infinitum. Suetonius’ Augustus is itself an exemplar to be copied. And it has been copied by the likes of the Scriptores Historiae Augustae. It is also copied in our own versions of his life as well. The second use of the diction of exemplarity in the Life comes hard upon the heels of the first. If the first gives us Augustus’ own words in indirect discourse, the second gives us Augustus’ spirit, indirectly filtered through the oratio recta of the narrator’s own voice. Shortly after discoursing about Augustus’ discourse as to the positive value of examples and their relationship to principes, Suetonius reveals the existence of a number of negative examples in the Augustan age:



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pleraque pessimi exempli in perniciem publicam aut ex consuetudine licentiaque bellorum ciuilium durauerant aut per pacem etiam extiterant. nam et grassatorum plurimi palam se ferebant succincti ferro, quasi tuendi sui causa, et rapti per agros uiatores sine discrimine liberi seruique ergastulis possessorum supprimebantur, et plurimae factiones titulo collegi noui ad nullius non facinoris societatem coibant. A good number of things with a terrible import [pessimi exempli] for the public well-being had either persisted as per the habits and license of the civil wars or some had even sprung up owing to the peace. For there were a large number of muggers who went around in broad daylight girt with swords ‘for self-protection’. Travellers through the country were seized, free and slave alike, and they were confined in the workhouses of the land owners. A good many cliques [factiones] who labelled themselves ‘new guilds’ were forming alliances bent on every sort of crime. (Aug. 32.1)

One can note an illogic to Suetonius’ description. This illogic is, though, complicit with the Augustan reading of Augustan Rome. The sickness of the Augustan age is allegedly a function of the past. Bad examples have cropped up in this otherwise exemplary age. The civil war infects the principate: representative swathes of that tattered cloth have been stitched into the tapestry of the new age. They are to be removed. Moreover, and much more disturbingly, one notes that the pax Augusta is its own enemy, for the civil peace is itself conducive to the very same sort of bad examples that civil war bred. There is a sort of doublespeak running around Rome and mugging people. Selfdefence is really a pretext for attacking others. The public is in need of a champion. Suetonius’ gloss on the situation is fully complicit with an Augustan logic. There is a steadfast refusal to see that one could designate Augustus himself as the principal ‘bad example’. The saviour is also something of a villain. The self-defence pretext used by highwaymen is precisely the defence used by Octavian. Of course, this lesson about critical reading is a lesson one is not supposed to apply to Augustus himself. We have just seen shortly before in the Life of Augustus that tituli were the accurate labels set upon the works of the exemplary Romans of the Republic. These were carefully emended texts that (re)told the true stories of good Rome. This second set of tituli, though, is not to be left in place nor to be refurbished: it must be stripped away. Do not trust self-serving stories. The bad exempla lurking the streets of Rome need to be re-labelled. The self-titled ‘new collegium’ is to be

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read instead as a factio, and this is itself to be understood as a criminal societas. The new tituli set upon these new societies that reveal their negative exemplarity are, in fact, reminiscent of old tituli. Suetonius’ phrasing is all too evocative of the opening sentence of the Res Gestae: ‘I liberated a Republic crushed by the despotism of a faction’ (rem publicam a dominatione factionis oppressam in libertatem uindicaui). Suetonius writes up the exemplary liberator of Rome as a man who re-liberates the restored republic from the factions that oppress it, and who enables the smooth functioning of civil society by ridding it of criminal antisocieties. Suetonius uses, then, Augustus’ Res Gestae as the exemplary text according to which he writes a new story of civil war. Suetonius’ exemplary Augustus fights and wins a civil war all over again, only this time it is all the clearer that this fight is a good fight and that the titles given out by the one side are the true ones, and that those given out by the other side are the false ones. The title Augustus sets upon himself, ‘liberator of the republic’ is re-inscribed by Suetonius. Suetonius takes an exemplary and programmatic moment from the opening of the Res Gestae, and builds from it a new version in a new context. But we should ourselves recall that this is the point of exemplarity itself: exempla are hortatory; they persuade their audience to do something similar in a similar circumstance. Suetonius has adopted an example, though, of the relationship between Augustus and exempla in the former passage, and transformed it into the template for working through this subjacent passage, this exemplar subiectum, if you will. Augustus does not just furnish the material contents of Suetonius’ biography. Suetonius also uses Augustus as his exemplar when it comes to the form of exemplarity itself, and not just its contents. Res gestae become res sic gerendae become res sic scribendae.27 Exempla are regularly associated with the diction of teaching: documentum is a common synonym. Augustus teaches his fellow Romans. And, as is clear, I number among them Suetonius himself. Augustus’ own phrase exempla maiorum exolescentia iam ex nostro saeculo reduxi (RG 8) could well refer either to statues or to texts. We have already seen Suetonius’ portrait of the former; now let us look at how he treats the 27  And yet Suetonius himself flags a potential crisis if ‘in this way’ gets confused with ‘for this reason’: an illustration should not be mistaken for a justification. [Suetonius], Verborum differentiae ([Pratum] fr. 176 Reiff.): sic et ita] ‘sic’ qui dicit ostendit exemplum, ‘ita’ ad rationem refertur.



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latter. Augustus the reader of examples is also Augustus the writer of examples. In fact, exemplarity and texts are very much fused for him: in euoluendis utriusque linguae auctoribus nihil aeque sectabatur, quam praecepta et exempla publice uel priuatim salubria, eaque ad uerbum excerpta aut ad domesticos aut ad exercituum prouinciarumque rectores aut ad urbis magistratus plerumque mittebat, prout quique monitione indigerent. When he read through Greek and Latin authors he was after nothing so much as precepts and exempla that were salutary either for the public or private good. He would excerpt them verbatim and he would regularly send them to members of his household, to those in charge of armies or provinces, and to the city’s magistrates just as each should stand in need of a reminder. (Aug. 89.2)

Augustus is a selective reader: he reads precisely so he can excerpt and rewrite. Augustus uses the past to affect the present: he brings back the exempla maiorum into the present scene, with an eye to intervening in it. Augustus lets the past speak for him. And when this past speaks, Augustus’ addressees presumably have the good sense to listen. The edition by the princeps of an exemplum is, naturally, no mere suggestion. To read, to write, and to command all converge in the exemplary moment. Of course, this exemplary moment ‘back then’ becomes exemplary of the power of exemplarity for Suetonius. He has read, excerpted, and rewritten Augustus himself. Augustus the exemplary emperor is written out for us and sent to us as a collection of documentary lessons. Let me transition to an example of an imperial failure of exemplarity, Tiberius.28 He acts as a foil for Augustus. Tiberius also allows for the further elaboration and further involution of the logic of exemplarity itself. One comes to appreciate that the model emperor Augustus uses exempla, while Tiberius instead has exempla used against him. Exemplification is something that happens to Tiberius. The biographer who learned an elaborate interplay between reading and writing and exemplification from Augustus then uses his skills to subject Augustus’ heir to categories of moral evaluation that consistently work against Tiberius. In the Life of Tiberius, there is a proliferation of moments 28  Cizek’s (1977: 103) survey of his traits leaves him with distinctly low marks. And the weight of Tiberius’ positive traits is regularly diminished by the presentation of his negative ones (108–9).

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where the biographer intervenes and makes an example, not where the emperor has produced his own examples. Tiberius’ own deployment of examples and exemplarity is always somehow deceptive, weak, disagreeable, or even loathsome. For Tiberius, exemplarity goes awry, and the instrument is turned on its wielder. Tiberius sets an example for Rome when he dines in a frugal manner. And yet, even though we could take the moment as Tiberius seems to wish us to, both the context within which Suetonius sets it, as well as some of the specific details of the episode, show that the biographer has caused this exemplary scene to be resignified: et ut parsimoniam publicam exemplo quoque iuuaret, sollemnibus ipse cenis pridiana saepe ac semesa obsonia apposuit dimidiatumque aprum, affirmans omnia eadem habere, quae totum. In order to further public frugality by setting an example, at his regular meals he himself often set out food that was day-old or left-over [lit., ‘half-eaten’]. He offered a halved boar declaring that it had all of the same qualities as did the whole. (Tib. 34.1)

Frugality is indeed an old Roman virtue that hearkens back to the glorious days of yore. And Tiberius’ sententia does have a clever sheen to it. But Suetonius has not been complaining about a luxurious and decadent Rome. Suetonius’ version of Rome is divergent from ­Tiberius’ version of Rome. Moreover, Tiberius has chosen a disagreeable means for displaying parsimony. It is not difficult to be sparing without being insulting: smaller portions one day and then the next can avoid the embarrassment of serving re-heated dishes. The moment is exemplary, then, but the lesson Suetonius imparts with it is divergent from the message that Tiberius sought to promulgate. Suetonius describes Tiberius as fond of literary pursuits and researches. One might expect Suetonius’ sympathies to be aroused here. But instead, Tiberius’ reading is used against him. Augustus read for exempla and he researched as a grammaticus in a grand manner. Suetonius, the student of the history of grammatici, liked what he saw. But Tiberius’ readings err. He goes in for trivialities and makes himself a laughing stock.29 It is with this prelude that we come to an anecdote about a variously inappropriate exemplum used by Tiberius: 29  Tib. 70.3: maxime tamen curauit notitiam historiae fabularis usque ad ineptias atque derisum.



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et quo primum die post excessum Augusti curiam intrauit, quasi pietati simul ac religioni satis facturus Minonis exemplo ture quidem ac uino uerum sine tibicine supplicauit, ut ille olim in morte filii. On the first occasion that he entered the senate house after the death of Augustus, as if he were going to do right both by pietas and religion, Tiberius offered a supplication with incense and wine but he omitted a flute-player. He cited Minos as his precedent [exemplum]: that man had done the same long ago when his son died. (Tib. 70.3)

A Cretan king is a terrible example for a Roman emperor to use. Crete is the exemplary home of tyrants, and here we have an emperor at a vital moment in his reign where he ought to be keen to look like a proper Roman citizen. And at this very moment, Tiberius appeals to a Cretan tyrant’s precedent in the contemporary senate. Tiberius produces an Augustan burlesque. Augustus set up a hall of exemplary figures, upon which his citizens could model themselves. Should anyone need admonition, Augustus was more than happy to point out the appropriate exemplum to sort things out. Tiberius duplicates this aspect of Augustan exemplarity, but with a salient and scandalous difference: cubicula plurifariam disposita tabellis ac sigillis lasciuissimarum picturarum et figurarum adornauit librisque Elephantidis instruxit, ne cui in opera edenda exemplar imperatae schemae deesset. He had a number of bedrooms throughout, and he adorned them with paintings and little figurines derived from the most salacious images. He provided as well the books of Elephantis: nobody was to lack an exemplar of the figure commanded when performing his tasks. (Tib. 43.2)

The scene is not Rome, but Capri. The space is not the forum, but instead the bedroom. And the exemplary acts are not virtuous, but instead most vicious indeed. Rather than a pageant of Roman virtues carefully delineated, one is surrounded by images of sex in all of its various postures.30 Here, one may read and gather examples in order to produce opera. Style is the man: Augustus the reader and the writer and imperator had one sort of schema, Tiberius another. The former 30  Suetonius is interested in the sex lives of all of his emperors, including Julius and Augustus. But Langlands (2006: 353) sees a transition with Tiberius to ‘direct, authorially voiced charges of new and inventive kinds of depravity characteristic of the imperial regime’.

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schema is virtuous and sublime. The latter schema is depraved and fleshy. Augustus’ figures are literary. Tiberius’ are literal: ‘Do it like this: I command you.’ In Suetonius’ biography, Tiberius cannot mobilize the language of exemplarity without yielding irony: at his touch, everything becomes an example of how not to do things and simple meanings become double meanings. The upright rectitude of Augustan exemplarity is swapped for the bent and sinister world of Tiberian exemplarity. Fortunately, Suetonius’ readers have an author who makes this clear to them. The logic of exemplarity and the logic of Caesarism converge. To make examples, to gather examples, and to be shown as examples are three necessarily related acts in the Life of Augustus. And the necessity that relates them is a technology of social and political power that aims at its own reproduction. Furthermore, textual reproduction in both its literal and metaphorical senses is a part of this same process of imperial reproduction. This reproduction happens at two levels. One can see it with the Life in various narrative (re)productions of exemplary moments, but one can also see it, in effect, at the level of the very fact of the Life as a narrative patterned after a certain kind of model. ‘Modelling’ plays an important role within Suetonius’ thought. It appears not just in the imperial biographies, but it arises at significant junctures in his works more generally. Let us pause, then, to look at Suetonius’ history of Roman scholarship for a moment.31 He tells of the advent of the grammatici at Rome. Crates of Mallos comes on an embassy to Rome. He broke his leg and had to stay on. While in town, he gave lectures. He was productive of a model to be copied: ‘Through the whole span of [Crates’] legation and convalescence alike he gave a good many audiences and constantly lectured. He was a model [exemplum] for our countrymen to imitate.’32 A grammarian takes exemplary texts in hand. He takes out examples of good and bad uses. He sorts, he distinguishes, he parses. And in so handling examples, he himself becomes an exemplum. The teacher blurs with the thing 31  Bérard (2007: 232) reminds us of ‘la parenté étroite entre les Vies des Césars et celles des hommes de lettres, qui sont conçues dans le même perspective (surtout psychologique) et sur le même plan’. Cf. Leo (1901) 11–16. Wallace-Hadrill (1983: 66) stresses the importance of the Lives of Illustrious Men to a reading of the Lives of the Caesars. One cannot, though, set Suetonius’ works in chronological order with any certainty (Baldwin 1983: 380). 32  Gramm. 2.1–2: per omne legationis simul et ualitudinis tempus plurimas acroasis subinde fecit adsidueque disseruit ac nostris exemplo fuit ad imitandum.



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taught. Crates taught and was to be imitated. Augustus taught and was to be imitated.33 Suetonius teaches about teaching and models the importance of modelling. Suetonius is not a bumbling grammaticus shoe-horning the Caesars into his rubrics.34 He is an heir to a whole Roman mode of thinking about power, its presentation, and its reproduction. Moreover, Caesarism represents a watershed moment in both power itself and the story of power. As scholars, we ineluctably express our own will to power, and we need to be careful about our own rubrics and the way they interact with the giving and taking of authority. We often long to become the first grammarian among equals and edit a collection of dicta et facta that restores a departed republic of letters, even as it transforms it.35 We desire to inscribe these exemplary words in three or more volumes, and set them up both on and as our tombs. With luck, a subjected (because subjoined) posterity will copy them out faithfully. And if not, then perhaps they are themselves but so many examples of failure. Num mutato nomine principis, de te fabula narratur?

33  A polysemous moment for our purposes: Augustus editing the works of Julius Caesar by having the unworthy bits burnt (Iul. 56.9). See Ledentu (2007a) 300–3 for Augustus’ preoccupation with words and books. Her argument continues with a discussion of the prominence of grammatical thought in Roman political circles. See Breebart (1987) 101–3 on Augustus the social educator of his fellow citizens. 34  Dubuisson (2003). As Hurley, ch. 1 in this volume notes, one size does not fit all, and Suetonius knows it. Croisille (1969–70: 86–7) connects Suetonius’ principles of selection and exposition to his interest in grammarians and that mode of thought. As Lambrecht (1984: 13) and Lounsbury (1987: 3) note, though, the designation ‘Suetonius the grammaticus’ has typically been deployed as a way of belittling his thought and methods, rather than appreciating his subtleties. 35  And one might accidentally do what Dubuisson (2003: 254) claims Suetonius wilfully does: ‘Le biographe n’attribue certes pas à son personnage des actions imaginaires; mais il amène des faits vrais en eux-mêmes à produire une impression fausse’ (original emphasis).

7 Rhetorics of Assassination: Ironic Reversal and the Emperor Gaius Donna W. Hurley

When the emperor Gaius left the Palatine Games for a lunch break in the early afternoon of 24 January ad 41, he was isolated in one of the passages that connected the buildings of the palace complex, and there he was ambushed and killed. Not only would unbiased observers (probably non-existent) have found it impossible to report accurately such a swiftly moving and chaotic action in a tight space, relating who struck the emperor first on what part of his body and who said what to whom, but so politically charged an event would necessarily yield to other imperatives in the telling of it, specifically to a desire to view events in a way that satisfied and so write history that it became, in some sense, ‘just’. Suetonius and his contemporaries thought that the manner in which a man died marked his character. The death of an emperor was naturally of special interest. Suetonius described the ‘good death’ (εὐθανασία) of Augustus, the sordid isolation experienced by Tiberius, and the unexpected dignity of Otho. In each case, death in some way reaffirms or completes the portrait in the biography. Some of Suetonius’ liveliest writing comes when he describes the assassinations of the Divine Julius, Gaius, and Domitian. These are narrative passages,

This chapter has been revised from a talk first given at the APA annual meeting in Chicago in December 1991 and subsequently at the CAAS meeting at Villanova University in April 1992. My thanks to Tristan Power and Roy Gibson for their review and their suggestions.



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infrequent in his biographies, not the usual listings or tidily constructed introductory rubrics. The more expansive action scenes have space for detail that, when examined, may yield additional insight into the emperor’s character, as Suetonius understood it.1 In the case of Gaius, the assassination narrative, together with its prelude and afterword, contains language and images that have reference to his lifetime behaviour. Suetonius did not invent the language and images. They surface variously in the accounts of Cassius Dio and Josephus as well, and turn up as independent nuggets in the works of Gaius’ contemporary, the Younger Seneca.2 Some at least had to have become part of the assassination story early, probably shortly after Gaius’ death. Their pervasiveness and distribution indicate that the idea they express was already present in the earlier accounts, now lost, that lie behind our extant texts.3 However, their real genesis need not be ascribed totally to the creativity of a lost author, but rather to a contemporary or nearcontemporary perception that was incorporated into written reports, the very simple and virtually unavoidable perception that Gaius got what he deserved. His death thus completed a moral tale. Suetonius appears to have been well aware of this thinking when he appropriated the available material to create his portrait of Gaius, who was reduced from a position of power to powerlessness and from promise to insignificance. Little of the assassination story may be fact, but the underlying perception stands preserved in the language and images of ironic reversal. The larger issues that surround Gaius’ assassination—the conspiracy that contrived it and the goals of the conspirators—are unclear. Conspiracy, even when successful, keeps its secrets, almost by definition. We are informed that certain of the tribunes in Gaius’ praetorian guard did the hands-on work. But how were their superiors, the praetorian prefects, involved? And what of confederates among the senators? Or Claudius? Or the imperial freedmen? It appears that events did not evolve as planned, and so intentions remain uncertain.4 The concern 1  Ash (forthcoming).   2  Tacitus’ lost account is much missed. 3  The historian Cluvius Rufus is the leading candidate as the primary source behind Suetonius and others for this period (Wiseman 2013: 109–16). See also Wardle (1992) 481–2, and for a survey of the lengthy discussion of sources, Lindsay (1994a) 79–80 and nn. 44–5. 4  Not for want of trying; most recently, Winterling (2011) 173–9; Kavanagh (2010) 1012–17; Levick (1990) 29–39; Barrett (1989) 154–71.

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here is not, however, with these larger issues, as important as they are for an understanding of contemporary attitudes toward the budding principate, but with the language and images that enliven the assassination scene and reflect on Gaius’ career as emperor. Suetonius knew two versions of the assassination proper. ‘From this point on there are two versions of the story’ (duplex dehinc fama est, Calig. 58.2). Primary in the first is the conceit of Gaius as a sacrificial victim. This is expressed by a constellation of ideas obviously concentrated in the narration of his murder, but dispersed throughout the biography as well. The leader among the assassins, the praetorian tribune Cassius Chaerea, first assailed Gaius with the command hoc age! (Calig. 58.2), an expression used in connection with sacrifice in Rome. It plausibly answered a question from the one whose task it was to strike the animal victim. He asked, agone (agon)? (‘Do I do it?’—that is, ‘Do I strike now?’). If all was in order, he was answered with hoc age! (‘Do it!’ or ‘Strike!’). It was the cue for the sacrificial act to begin.5 This language is well attested. The Elder Seneca writes of a young man about to be executed at the discretion of his father: ‘Let the son stretch out his neck; let the executioner raise his hand; then let him look at the father and say, “Do I strike (agon)?”’. Seneca explains: ‘as is the case with sacrificial victims’ (quod fieri solet uictumis, Controv. 2.3.19). Suetonius uses it again in connection with the murder of the emperor Galba: when Galba was set upon, he ‘offered his throat voluntarily’ and urged his assassins to ‘act and strike’ (ut hoc ageant et feriant, Galb. 20.1).6 Hoc age in the mouth of an assassin just before his sword struck the neck of his victim in the passageway on the Palatine makes the identification of Gaius as a sacrificial victim overt. The epitome of Cassius Dio is explicit: ‘he became a sacrificial victim (σφάγιον) for those by whom he used to be called and written of as Zeus and a god’ (Dio 59.30.1a), and ‘some even tasted of his flesh’ (59.29.7). Eating the animal’s meat was part of the ritual. The mechanics of Gaius’ assassination mimic the act of sacrifice and thus reinforce the message of the language. Suetonius tells us that Chaerea first struck Gaius in the neck from the rear with a slashing blow by the edge of his sword. Cornelius Sabinus, another praetorian 5  Prescendi (2007) 232; Scheid (2003) 83; Drake (1935); Rolfe (1933), (1914) 47–50. The use of the expression in sacrifice was made to explain (erroneously) the public festival of the Agonia: Varro, Ling. 6.12; Ov. Fast. 1.320–3. 6  Cf. also Tac. Hist. 1.41; Plut. Galb. 27.1.



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tribune named as a leading conspirator, then stabbed him in the chest from the front (Calig. 58.2). Josephus describes the scene somewhat differently.7 He writes that Chaerea faced Gaius and gave him a severe but not mortal blow. Then, as Gaius tried to escape, Sabinus pushed him onto one knee before he was surrounded by a large number of assailants, who stabbed him repeatedly (AJ 19.105, 109–10). By either account, something similar to animal sacrifice is illustrated. The messy, hands-on work of an actual sacrifice was accomplished by professionals called uictimarii. Two might work together. One stood to the right, where the victim, whose head was turned to the left, could not see him. He blindsided the animal with a mallet and forced it to the ground, incapacitating but not killing it. This prevented its making an unseemly fuss (a bad omen) as it was dispatched, and made possible the pretence that the animal was a willing victim. The second uictimarius then went for an artery once it was down. A clean cut was desirable.8 Although Gaius is said to have been killed by multiple stabbings, the initial blows described in the texts (one from the rear according to Suetonius) and the two chief assassins (Chaerea and Sabinus) suggest the work of the two uictimarii. Animal sacrifice has been investigated from the perspective of religious anthropology, with indecisive results.9 The Romans themselves did not inquire about the origins of the practice.10 The act itself was independently valid and ordinary in the ancient world, and thus an available metaphor for murder of all sorts, for ‘getting it in the neck’, as we still say. An evolutionary approach is unnecessary for understanding the use of sacrificial rhetoric for the death of Gaius. The idea of a man substituted for an animal was not limited to the instance at hand or even to Roman models, but was a relatively common conceit in the ancient canon. In the Oresteia, there is the almost paradigmatic example of Clytemnestra preparing to sacrifice a bull, but killing Agamemnon instead. Not long before Philip II of Macedon was killed, the oracle at Delphi pronounced that a bull stood wreathed and ready for sacrifice; it turned out that the oracle was referring to Philip (Diod. Sic. 16.19.2; Paus. 8.7.6). The legend about Philip was  7  For an argument of different sources for Suetonius and Josephus, see Scherberich (1999).  8  Prescendi (2007) 232–3; Scheid (2003) 83–4. 9  ‘By now, the limitations and flaws of the existing grand theories have become clear; new theories, however, have been almost absent’, Graf (2012): 51. 10  Feeney (2004) 4; North (2000) 44.

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incorporated into Gaius’ story. Shortly before his murder, a Cassius, otherwise unknown but with a significant name, appeared at Olympia and announced that he had been instructed in a dream to sacrifice a bull to Jupiter (Calig. 57.1). As it happened, Philip and Gaius, not the bulls, were soon struck down.11 Valerius Maximus writes of a father who, favouring Rome over family, imposed military discipline on his son and had him executed ‘like a sacrificial victim’ (in modum hostiae, Val. Max 2.7.6).12 In a second anecdote, he writes of outlaw soldiers who attacked their commander as he was performing a sacrifice and killed him ‘like a sacrificial victim’ (in modum hostiae, Val. Max. 9.7, mil. Rom. 2).13 Not only is the murdered man equated with the sacrificial beast; the one performing the sacrifice becomes the victim in his place. This enlarges the motif. The presiding priest and the assisting uictimarii were in positions of absolute power in respect to the helpless animal. When roles were reversed, it was those performing the sacrifice who were helpless.14 Gaius, like all emperors, presided over the state religion as a priest, and as such, participated in ordinary sacrificial rites, and he celebrated the cult of his own numen or divine power (Calig. 22.3; Dio 59.28.2). The turning of the tables on a priestly official is one of the omens that anticipated Gaius’ death. Suetonius reports that on the day when Gaius was killed, he was spattered with the blood of a flamingo that he was sacrificing to his numen (Calig. 57.4). Josephus writes that it was Publius Nonius Asprenas who was marked with the blood of a victim—probably a less exotic one (AJ 19.87). Asprenas was the first of those whom Gaius’ bodyguards killed in the post-assassination melee. Being bloodied in this way predicted imminent death.15 Suetonius preserves a unique anecdote that describes Gaius, not presiding over a sacrifice magisterially as would have been expected, but performing an irregular act, doing the work of a uictimarius, the slave or low-class assistant at the rite. On one occasion, he writes, Gaius was dressed as a popa (here the title of the attendant whose job was to stun the beast before he was killed), but instead of knocking 11  Lindsay (1994a: 80–1) points to a number of other parallels between Philip and Gaius. 12  Prescendi (2007) 230.    13  Mueller (2002) 127. 14  Prescendi (2007) 228–9. 15  For the same bloodying by a sacrificial animal in a dream of Germanicus, see Tac. Ann. 2.14.1.



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the victim at the altar senseless, he clubbed his fellow uictimarius, the cultrarius (‘knifer’), and killed him (Calig. 32.3).16 This anecdote is sandwiched between an anecdote in which Gaius intentionally kills a gladiator with whom he is sparring, ostensibly in jest, and one in which he reclines between his consuls at dinner and bursts into laughter at the realization that he could have their throats slit at a single nod. Whether or not these three stories are true in whole or in part (doubts are in order), their message is serious: it was dangerous to find oneself in close proximity to this emperor.17 The list of friends and relations that Gaius did away with was long, and it is possible that this anecdote had its origin in Gaius’ treatment of his brother-in-law, Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, the sometime crony to whom he married his favoured sister, Drusilla (Dio 59.22.6–7). As designated heir, Lepidus was a partner of sorts in the principate, and so, by implication, a fellow uictimarius, a fellow executioner, and a fellow tyrant. Gaius had him executed (clubbed him, so to speak) in ad 39.18 A tyrant was, by definition, cruel and capable of sacrificing men as well as animals. The legendary tyrant Busiris killed his victims until he chose one of them unwisely and Hercules made him the victim instead. Ovid alludes to Busiris without amplification four times (Ars Am. 1.649–52, Ib. 397–8, Pont. 3.6.41, Tr. 3.11.39), and Virgil asks, ‘Who does not know of the altars of ill-praised Busiris’ (quis . . . inlaudati nescit Busiridis aras?, G. 3.4–5). The model was familiar. Human sacrifice was considered barbaric in the early Empire, but it lingered in the Roman imagination and at the border of their experience.19 Criminal executions ring another change on the theme. They lacked some important elements of sacrifice—the parade to the altar, the sprinkling of meal and wine, the invocation of the gods, and the disabling of the victim before its throat was cut. Yet they had elements in common—most importantly, the total helplessness of the victims, 16  This is the only known pairing of the specific terms popa and cultrarius for the two functionaries. 17  Power (2015) points out that these three anecdotes illustrate the rubric under which they are found: Gaius was cruel when at ‘play’ or at ‘dinner’ (Calig. 32.1). 18  Aemilius Lepidus was evidently involved in a little-understood plot against Gaius (Calig. 24.3, Claud. 9.1; Dio 59 22.7, 23.1). 19 Plin. HN 3.30.13 (Rives 2007: 73; Scheid 2003: 95). The ‘dreadful and inhuman religion’ (religionem . . . dirae immunitatis) of the Druids was suppressed (Claud. 25.5). But it was still possible to spread a rumour that 300 citizens were sacrificed after the battle of Perugia in 41 bc (Aug. 15; Dio 48.14.4). A vestal virgin was buried alive as late as the reign of Domitian (Dom. 8.4; Plin. Ep. 4.11.6–9).

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animal and human, in comparison with the power of the priest and executioner.20 Visually, they shared the image of the outstretched neck. Serious crime by the upper classes was punished by decapitation. Beheadings were done with the stroke of a sword. The adverb that described the action was caesim (‘with a slashing blow’), the adverb Suetonius uses to describe the first, execution-like blow to Gaius (Calig. 58.2). A brave man extended his neck decisively to receive the executioner’s sword if the need arose. This was not only valorous, but it hurt less, for he died from a single clean stroke. A coward, on the other hand, barely stuck his neck out and so was hacked to death in an undignified and painful fashion. Gaius’ assassin Cassius Chaerea would prove himself the first sort when he was later executed (Claud. 11.1; Dio 60.3.4). Julius Lupus, whom Claudius would punish for the murder of Gaius’ family, showed himself the second (Joseph. AJ 19.269–71). This behaviour, bravery or its opposite, as always in death, was evidence of character. The image of the neck outstretched to receive the blow was a familiar part of sacrifice-execution-assassination rhetoric. It has already been noted in the Elder Seneca’s story of the son about to be executed on the order of his father and in the narrative of Galba’s assassination. It surfaces again with the execution of Gaius’ brother-in-law, Aemilius Lepidus. The praetorian elite (speculatores), who wore the military boots called caligae, had the job of executing members of the upper classes.21 Lepidus’ status warranted an officer. The named assassins, Chaerea and Sabinus, were praetorian tribunes, and it would soon enough be Gaius’ turn to be struck down by officers of his guard, his fellow executioners—as well as fellow uictimarii (Calig. 32.3). The Younger Seneca reports the execution and its connection to the later execution-style murder of Gaius neatly: ‘Gaius Caesar ordered Lepidus to offer his neck to the tribune Dexter; he presented his own to Chaerea’ (Gaius Caesar iussit Lepidum Dextro tribuno praebere ceruicem, ipse Chaereae praestitit, Ep. 4.7). Necks, not surprisingly, appear often in Gaius’ story. Not only did Gaius threaten the necks of his two consular dinner guests (Calig. 32.3), but whenever he kissed the neck of a wife or mistress, he noted how easily he could have it cut (Calig. 33). He identified himself 20  Prescendi (2007) 230–4. 21  Gaius Caligula had not only worn the caligae of the common soldiers and the speculatores as a child, but dressed up in them as emperor (Calig. 52).



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as an executioner with his alleged trademark aphorism: ‘Would that the Roman people had a single neck’ (utinam p. R. unam ceruicem haberet! Calig. 30.2).22 In a reversal of this, Dio observes that when Gaius was killed, it was now the emperor who had the single neck, whereas the people had many hands (Dio 59.30.1c). A second Gaius aphorism worked itself out similarly. Whenever Gaius sentenced anyone to death, he is supposed to have said, ‘Strike so that he can feel that he is dying’ (ita feri ut se mori sentiat, Calig. 30.1). The callous instruction to deny the victim the clean cut of the executioner’s sword by killing him with numerous small thrusts, like his wish for a single neck, was turned against its author when Gaius died slowly and, by implication, painfully (Calig. 58.3). Suetonius writes that the rallying cry for the assassins was repete (‘strike again’, Calig. 58.3), plausibly what Josephus refers to as ‘a single word of encouragement’ (ἀφ’ ἑνὸς ἐγκελεύσματος, AJ 19.110). Gaius’ piecemeal death (quite probably a fact, given the assumption of multiple assassins) defines him as a coward. Josephus reports a rumour that the first blow was intentionally not fatal so that Gaius could die slowly, but then interrupts his narrative to comment that the rumour must be incorrect, because it would be illogical for someone to risk the success of the assassination enterprise merely in order to satisfy a desire for suitable irony (AJ 19.106–8).23 Since Gaius did not extend his neck bravely, his death was, almost by definition according to the execution construct, disgraceful as well as painful. There is further irony in what was not said. Gaius, customarily quick with a clever and nasty retort, betrayed his habit and said nothing at all, or merely shouted out unimaginatively that he was still alive (Calig. 58.3; Joseph. AJ 19.109). Suetonius provides a second version of the Gaius assassination. It is still murder in the passageway, but actions and especially words are different, and again Gaius’ behaviour recoils upon himself in a variant of the reverse sacrifice theme. The very fact that Suetonius had available two accounts of the assassination with the same purport (the perception that Gaius got what he deserved) suggests that the idea of ironic reversal was deeply embedded in the tradition and anterior to written expressions of it.24 The message endured; the specifics were 22  This wish is also at Dio 59.13.6; Sen. Dial. 5.19.2. 23  Both reversals (the single neck and the painful death) are noted by Charlesworth (1933) 112. 24  Saller (1980: 74) writes that changes in anecdotes occur largely before they enter the literature.

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mutable. In this second version, the irony turns on Gaius’ contemporaries’ perception that he was attempting to identify himself with Jupiter. The assassin Cornelius Sabinus approached Gaius in the passageway and asked for the watchword of the day. When Gaius gave him ‘Jupiter’, Chaerea shouted accipe ratum! and then he struck him in the jaw (Calig. 58.2). Accipe ratum (‘Receive it as fulfilled’) seems to mean ‘Get back what you have prayed for!’, or ‘Here is what you wanted!’.25 What came back to bite Gaius, what he ‘got back’, was the watchword Jupiter revised as the angry Jupiter of lightning and thunder. Anecdotes have Gaius making himself Jupiter’s equal. He challenged the god, quoting Homer at him, ‘Either you lift me or I will lift you’ (ἤ μ’ ἀνάειρ’ ἐγὼ σέ, Calig. 22.4 = Il. 23.724), the challenge of Ajax to Odysseus at the funeral games of Patroclus.26 And when Jupiter made his presence known with lightning and thunder, Gaius was said to have activated a thunder machine that he kept on the Palatine and to have thrown a javelin at a rock (Dio 59.28.6). He claimed that the god had invited him to come and live with him on the Capitoline (Calig. 22.4). Omens that anticipated Gaius’ death made the point that Jupiter was not willing to put up with arrogance of this magnitude. On the Ides of March (presumably the year before Gaius was killed), Jupiter’s lightning struck the capitol in the Campanian city of Capua,27 recalling the fate of the Gaius Caesar who was murdered on that date in 44 bc. The lightning came closer again on the same day, when it struck the cella of the atriensis, the post of the trusted steward of the emperor’s household on the Palatine (Calig. 57.2). This suggested danger within the palace—which proved accurate in the event, since the praetorian Cassius Chaerea was an insider. It was rhetorical lightning that struck home in the narrow passageway. Accipe ratum was the charge to receive Jupiter, to ‘get back’ Jupiter and his thunderbolts in the form of violent death.28 The epitome of Dio preserves the witticism that on that day, Gaius ‘learned that he was not a god’ (ὡς οὐκ ἦν θεὸς ἔμαθεν, Dio 59.30.1). Or put more directly, he became ‘a sacrificial victim at the hands of those who spoke and wrote of him as Zeus and a god’ (ὑφ’ ὧν τε Ζεὺς καὶ θεὸς ὠνομάζετό τε καὶ ἐγράφετο, σφάγιον ἐγίνετο, 25  OLD s.v. ratus 2b: ‘fulfilled (of prayers, omens)’. 26  Cf. also Dio 59.28.6; Sen. Dial. 3.20.8. 27  Capua had a capitol with a temple of Jupiter modelled after Rome’s (Tib. 40; Tac. Ann. 4.57.1). 28  Domitian responded to the frequent lightning strikes that preceded his death: ‘Now let him strike whom he wishes’ (feriat iam quem uolet! Dom. 15.2).



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Dio 59.30.1a).29 In wanting to identify himself with Jupiter, Gaius was neither a surrogate sacrifice nor the one making a sacrifice, but (taking the notion a step further) the one to whom a sacrifice was made. The powerful becoming powerless, when the victim wanted to be a god, is ironic reversal at its height. The watchword of the day offered Suetonius and the other ancient writers yet another opportunity for reversal. In order to insult Cassius Chaerea, Gaius mocked him as old and effeminate, and often gave him the sexually charged watchwords, Venus and Priapus (Calig. 56.2; Sen. Dial. 2.18.3) or Πόθος (‘desire’) and Ἀφροδίτη (‘Aphrodite’, Dio 59.29.2). The insult implied in the watchwords was made to explain why a praetorian officer, who should have been dependable, turned assassin. It took courage (uirtus, ‘manliness’) to assassinate a tyrant; an accusation of the contrary—as the suggestive words seem to have ­implied—would have been an appropriately strong goad. Reasons were put forth to explain the insult: Chaerea was an older man with a gentle voice; alternatively, he irritated Gaius by being soft when he was put in charge of collecting taxes (Joseph. AJ 19.28–9). But a tyrannicide motivated by personal insult appears to have been a topos. Philip of Macedon and Gaius were both murdered by members of their guard whose manliness had been challenged.30 The reason for the insult (and possibly the watchword itself) is as likely to be narrative as fact. The parallel between the two tyrants was strengthened because they were both killed in a context of public performance, allegedly watching the same tragedy just before they were struck down (Calig. 57.4; Joseph. AJ 19.95).31 Josephus writes that it was Chaerea, not Sabinus, whose turn it was to ask for the watchword on that January day. When he received the usual obscenity, he cursed him in return and then used his sword (AJ 19.105). Chaerea returned the obscenity with interest, and Gaius again got back what he had given, just as he got a strong dose of Jupiter that he had not intended. 29  See above pp. 148–9 for Gaius as an animal sacrifice. 30  Lindsay (1994a) 76–83. For the topos extended to Caracalla and also to the Greek tradition, see Scott (2012) 25–8. A modern explanation for the insult, Chaerea’s embarrassment at collecting taxes on prostitution (Woods 2012: 467–70), is unconvincing. 31  Josephus adds that they were both killed on the same date as well, but this is in question (Wiseman 2013: 60; Lindsay 1994a: 80 and n. 49). Already noted (pp. 149–50) has been the coincidence that each was substituted for a bull. For theatre and role-­ playing as part of the Gaius death narrative, see Ash (forthcoming); Frangoulidis (2005); L ­ indsay (1994a) 81. ‘Cassius Chaerea demanded the leading role (primas partes) for himself ’ (Calig. 56.2).

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Josephus takes the watchword motif in the direction of the senate and Claudius, a direction where Suetonius does not follow, since it leads away from Gaius. Suetonius was always careful to keep his focus on his imperial subject. The conspirators used the watchword libertas (ἐλευθερία) among themselves (AJ 19.54), and it was the one given them by the consuls later (AJ 19.186). Josephus (or more probably his source) interprets the assassination of Gaius as a last aborted attempt to reinstate the Republican constitution (libertas) after the fiefdom of the gens Iulia (AJ 19.187–9).32 Suetonius does include this more historically related idea, but reserves it for the closure of the Caligula Life; he writes that the senate met on the republican Capitoline instead of in the Curia Julia, and that some senators wanted to erase all trace of the Caesars in Rome (Calig. 60). According to the metaphor of the watchword, Julian obscenity was replaced by senatorial libertas, an antithesis inherited from the time of the Civil War, when Julius Caesar was disseminating the claim that his clan was descended from Venus. He used Venus as his watchword at Pharsalas and Munda (App. B Civ. 2.76, 104). The conspirators who killed him used libertas as theirs at Philippi (Dio 47.43.1). It was appropriate, Josephus writes, that the attempt to restore the Republic in ad 41 came exactly one hundred years after libertas had been lost in Rome in 59 bc, the year of Julius Caesar’s consulship (AJ 19.173, 187).33 The watchword motif makes a last appearance with a particularly ironic twist. Chaerea, angry that a new potential tyrant (Claudius) was to replace the old, and that his own heroics had been in vain, lashed out that he would now get the watchword from Eutychus, the charioteer who had driven Gaius’ favourite horse (AJ 19.256–7). If the emperor was a charioteer, what did that make the senators?34 Caesar and libertas provide transition to the obvious comparison between Gaius Caligula, technically Gaius Julius Caesar Germanicus, and his distant uncle, Gaius Julius Caesar, the Dictator.35 Suetonius made good use of it in structuring his Caligula biography, choosing the comparison for the final flourish (Calig. 60).36 The shared name 32  This is also implied in the speech of the consul Gnaeus Sentius Saturninus to the assembled senate (AJ 19.167–84). 33  Pagán (2004) 100–1. 34  This joke recalls Gaius’ alleged intention of making his horse a consul (Calig. 55.3; Dio 59.14.7). 35  Gaius was a Julian because Augustus had adopted Tiberius and Tiberius had adopted his father Germanicus in ad 4. Gaius did not use the name ‘Julius’ (Barrett 1989: 57). 36  Power, ch. 3 in this volume, p. 64; Ash (forthcoming); Lindsay (1994a) 81–3.



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invited it. Julius Caesar enjoyed an ambivalent reputation in the early Empire. His prowess was acknowledged, but his ambition deplored.37 A negative assessment is implicit in the libertas watchword preserved in the Josephus text, and Suetonius’ treatment of him in the first of his imperial biographies, although mixed, emphasizes arrogance as his besetting sin (Iul. 77). He was, however, larger than life. Suetonius shows Gaius Caligula at once the more aggressive tyrant and a muchdiminished reprise of the Great Dictator. In addition to making the broad charge that both played to the gallery over the heads of the senate and harboured divine pretensions, Suetonius writes that Gaius, at the beginning of his reign, tried to seize the diadem, the symbol of kingship that Julius Caesar had (to his credit) pushed away (Iul. 79.2, Calig. 22.1). Caesar brought the pearls for his triumph back from Britain; Gaius was reduced to rummaging the beach on the near side of the channel for his (Iul. 47, Calig. 46).38 The comparison reaches an inevitable climax with their deaths, since both were killed in public by assassins led by a Cassius. Although Caesar was killed in a more open space before a larger number of onlookers than was Gaius, eyewitnesses would nonetheless have faced a similar challenge in describing the chaotic scene. A narrative took form, a report of who struck Caesar first on what part of his body and who said what to whom, and Suetonius incorporated it into his biography of Caesar (Iul. 82.1–3). When he described the end of Gaius, he had in mind his own earlier account of the Caesar assassination story. Suetonius reports the name Cassius twice among the omens that predicted Gaius’ death, first the Cassius commanded to sacrifice a bull and again when Gaius was warned to beware of a Cassius and responded by punishing the wrong one (Calig. 57.1, 3). There were lightning strikes on the significant Ides of March. The wounds inflicted by assassins are carefully numbered at twenty-three for Caesar, and thirty for Gaius, who was evidently thought somehow worse by seven. Gaius was stabbed in the groin, whereas Caesar had covered himself modestly (Iul. 82.2, Calig. 58.3). On the eve of assassination, it was said that Divus Julius dreamed that he flew through the clouds hand in hand with Jupiter; Gaius, on the other hand, dreamed that Jupiter kicked him out of heaven with the big toe of his right foot, thus denying him the dignity of a solid shove (Iul. 81.3, Calig. 57.3). After the death of 37  Levick (2009) 210–15; Goldsworthy (2006) 517. 38  Flory (1988b) 500–2. The search for pearls on the beach is also at Dio 59.25.2.

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Tiberius, Gaius had progressed to Rome attended by shouts of joy as the populace remembered Germanicus, his father (Calig. 13; Philo, Leg. 11–12). The initial promise was upended when Gaius proved to be neither Germanicus nor more than a second-rate version of the Dictator. Suetonius makes ‘Germanicus’ the first word of his Life of Caligula (Calig. 1.1) and ends it with the statement that all Gaius Caesars since the days of Cinna had been liable to violent deaths—not quite true, but the point was made (Calig. 60). Gaius disappointed quickly.39 Suetonius’ often-quoted sentence is not time-related but expresses the antithesis succinctly: ‘So far this has been about an emperor—so to speak. What remains must be told as if about a monster’ (hactenus quasi de principe, reliqua ut de monstro narranda sunt, Calig. 22.1). There is nothing unexpected about the fact that the details that embellish the Gaius assassination story share elements of ironic reversal. There was satisfaction in depicting the tyrant rendered powerless, the executioner executed, and the Jupiter wannabe no diuus in the end. Gaius’ glib tongue deserted him, and when he was measured against his namesake, he came up short. Suetonius makes it clear that Gaius’ death confirmed his character.

39  Dio 59.2.6–3.1; Joseph. AJ 18.256; Philo, Leg. 22.

8 Another Look at Suetonius’ Titus W. Jeffrey Tatum

The oddity of the Titus has long been observed. Even granted Suetonius’ avoidance of any inflexible pattern in organizing his biographies, Titus has been deemed strikingly dissimilar from the remainder of the Caesars. Friedrich Leo judged it anomalous, owing to its panegyric tone and what, in his view, appeared a tendency to forgo Suetonius’ routine habit of writing per species (on which more later). Critical attention devoted to the work, with the honourable exceptions of an important and pioneering paper by Georg Luck and a characteristically perceptive chapter by David Konstan, has done little more than emphasize the biography’s division into two antithetical panels: a catalogue of infamies blighting Titus’ career before he became emperor, followed by unqualified encomium—all enclosed by explicit declarations of Titus’ universal popularity.1 The verdict of Andrew Wallace-Hadrill is typical: ‘the life of Titus is one of the weakest, marred by uncritical panegyric.’2 Not only the Titus but the final two books of the Caesars have found few admirers.3 Nevertheless, it is clear that Suetonius employed some care in bringing his work to its conclusion. Book 8 represents the Flavian dynasty as a unified tale—the ascending Vespasian, the dynasty’s 1  Leo (1901) 9–10. Fundamental on the Titus: Luck (1964). See, too, Konstan (2009). On the structure of Titus, see also Levi (1954); Marastoni (1983); Gascou (1984) 694–6; Molinier-Arbo (2006); Galtier (2009). Although concentrating on a historical matter, Wardle (2001) is attentive to Suetonius’ careful composition in the Titus. The singularity of Titus’ structure can be exaggerated: see the perceptive remarks of Lewis (1991) 3668–9. 2  Wallace-Hadrill (1983) 177. 3 Inferiority of the final two books: Townend (1967) 87–91; Bowersock (1969) ­119–20; Bradley (1991) 3723–4. A defence of their quality is put forward by Power (2010) 159–62 (see also his ch. 3 in this volume).

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acme in Titus, followed by its decline and fall in Domitian.4 In miniature, this final book recollects aspects of the initial three: Julius the usurper, Augustus the model emperor, and Tiberius, whose promising beginnings soon declined into debased tyranny, a parallel that was perhaps not lost on Suetonius’ Domitian, whose sole literary pastime consisted in reading the commentarii et acta of Tiberius (Dom. 20.1).5 Now, in what follows, I want to suggest that Titus can repay closer scrutiny. This biography, though concise, is less simple—less ­straightforward—in its internal unfolding of Titus’ life and character than has always been appreciated. And its meaning, I hope to show, relies in important ways on its connections with other biographies in the Caesars, not least on its relationship with the Life of Augustus.6 Although the biography of Titus is unsimple, the ultimate perception of the emperor that emerges is neither equivocal nor ambivalent. This biography seeks to settle—not to continue—any controversy over Titus’ principate.

1.  THE TROUBLE WITH TITUS The Titus organizes itself around the issue of its subject’s imperial popularity: Titus, cognomine paterno, amor ac deliciae generis humani—tantum illi ad promerendam omnium uoluntatem uel ingenii uel artis uel fortunae superfuit, et, quod difficillimum est, in imperio, quando priuatus atque etiam sub patre principe ne odio quidem, nedum uituperatione publica caruit—natus est . . . Titus, who shared his father’s name, was the love and delight of the human race. Whether owing to talent or artifice or good fortune, he was successful at winning over everyone, even when he was emperor, which is an extremely difficult thing to do—especially since, when he was a 4  Marastoni (1983) 107. 5  Suetonius’ representation of Domitian’s private reading is all the more marked for its unreality: cf. Coleman (1986). The parallels observed here are hardly exhaustive. After all, Domitian’s assassination to some extent recapitulates Julius’ in so far as its justice is concerned: Iul. 76.1 ~ Vesp. 1.1; cf. Pelling (2006b) 9–10; Narducci (2007). On the interconnectedness of the discrete biographies in the Caesars, see also the chapters in this volume by Power (ch. 3) and Langlands (ch. 5). 6  The importance of the Augustus for the whole of the collection is rightly emphasized by Langlands (ch. 5 in this volume).



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private citizen during the reign of his father, he did not escape hatred or vilification by the people. He was born . . . (Tit. 1.1)

That Titus enjoyed universal affection while emperor is reported as an incontrovertible fact, and this same sentiment colours Suetonius’ account of Titus’ death (Tit. 11).7 The question at issue, however, is how he came to be so adorable in the first place, an explicit principle of interrogation to which the entire content of Titus’ biography is subordinated. As Georg Luck put it more than forty years ago, in this biography, Suetonius problematizes Titus: in view of the reality that there is nothing so challenging as remaining popular while reigning as emperor, by what means did Titus— who was deemed by all at the time of his ascension to be a second Nero (Tit. 7.1)—acquire everyone’s affection only under that very circumstance?8 This issue was hardly original to Suetonius, of course, and it recurs in imperial historiography.9 In a captious judgement preserved by Cassius Dio, it is alleged that it was Titus’ good fortune to die young and early in his reign—before he could sin again: ὁ δὲ δὴ Τίτος οὐδὲν οὔτε φονικὸν οὔτε ἐρωτικὸν μοναρχήσας ἔπραξεν, ἀλλὰ χρηστὸς καίπερ ἐπιβουλευθεὶς καὶ σώφρων καίτοι καὶ τῆς Βερενίκης ἐς Ῥώμην αὖθις ἐλθούσης ἐγένετο. τάχα μὲν γὰρ ὅτι καὶ μετεβάλετο . . . ἤδη δὲ καὶ ὅτι ἐπὶ βραχύτατον, ὥς γε ἐς ἡγεμονίαν εἰπεῖν, ἐπεβίω, ὥστε μηδ’ ἁμαρτίαν τινὰ αὐτῷ ἐγγενέσθαι. . . . καὶ αὐτὸν ἐξ ἴσου κατὰ τοῦτο τῇ τοῦ Αὐγούστου πολυετίᾳ ἄγουσι, λέγοντες ὅτι οὔτ’ ἂν ἐκεῖνος ἐφιλήθη ποτὲ εἰ ἐλάττω χρόνον ἐζήκει, οὔτ’ ἂν οὗτος εἰ πλείονα, ὁ μὲν ὅτι τραχύτερος κατ’ ἀρχὰς διά τε τοὺς πολέμους καὶ διὰ τὰς στάσεις γενόμενος ἠδυνήθη μετὰ ταῦτα εὐεργεσίαις ἐν τῷ χρόνῳ λαμπρύνεσθαι, ὁ δ’ ὅτι ἐπιεικῶς ἄρξας ἐν ἀκμῇ τῆς δόξης ἀπέθανε, τάχα ἂν ἐλεγχθείς, εἴγε ἐπὶ μακρὸν ἐβεβιώκει, ὅτι εὐτυχίᾳ πλείονι ἢ ἀρετῇ ἐχρήσατο. After he became emperor, Titus committed no act of murder or lubricity, but remained kind, even when he was conspired against, and chaste, although Berenice once again returned to Rome. Perhaps this can be explained by a true change in his character . . . on the other hand, this may owe itself to the fact that, after becoming emperor, he survived only a very short time, as a result of which he was unable to commit any 7  Titus’ popularity: Plin. HN praef. 1; Tac. Hist. 2.1; Eutr. 7.21; Aur. Vict. Caes. 10.6; August. De civ. D. 5.21. The importance of Suetonius’ account of an emperor’s death: Steidle (1951) 91–4; Baldwin (1983) 245–6; Gascou (1984) 385–6. 8  Luck (1964) 69 (cf. 65). 9  The controversy was of long standing: Luck (1964) 64–5.

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wrongdoing. . . . And it is for this reason that he is deemed an equal to the long-lived Augustus, for it is said that the latter would never have been loved had his life been briefer than it was, nor the former had his life been longer. For, in the beginning, Augustus was savage on account of war and factional strife yet afterwards managed to become famed for his good works, whereas in the case of Titus, who ruled mildly and died at the height of his glory, had he survived longer, might have been exposed as more fortunate than virtuous. (Dio 66.18.1–5)

Dio’s introduction to Titus’ reign, though conceding that the emperor ruled virtuously, fumbles to find an explanation for it: did the man, upon his ascension, undergo a genuine transformation in his ­character10—or was his rectitude no more than a temporary reflex, doomed to be relaxed were he emperor long enough? This conundrum, revealing how the controversy over Titus’ reputation persisted late into the empire, seems to emerge by way of comparisons between Titus and Augustus, and in a synkrisis that Dio signals as familiar to his reader, it is claimed that, whereas Augustus could not have been admired, had his life been shorter, nor could Titus, had his life been extended.11 This sounds very much like a deformation of what, for defenders of Titus’ reputation, must have been an observed parallel between the ruthlessness of Octavian the triumvir and the cruelty of Titus the prefect of the praetorian guard, neither of which (one could argue) vitiated either emperor’s success and subsequent reputation. Still, for defenders and critics alike, Titus’ virtuous reign required explanation. Suetonius seeks for his answer, as we have seen, by way of the three highly conventional categories of ingenium, ars, and fortuna—an ­inquiry put in terms that roughly coincide with Dio’s. Presumably this was the natural configuration within which Titus’ reputation was interrogated. Tacitus obliquely exhibits his familiarity with this argument and its vocabulary. In Book 2 of the Histories, Titus’ ingenium is commended and he is designated quantaecumque fortunae capax (‘fit for the highest good fortune’), all in a passage suffused with emphasis on Vespasian’s good fortune and imperial inevitability (Hist. 2.1.1–2).12 10  Character-change in ancient biography: Gill (1983) 469–87, (2006) 413–61; cf. Müller (1998–9). 11  See Murison (1999) 179–81 for a discussion of this passage. 12  Flavian good fortune: Levick (1999) 67; Ash (2007a) 74–5.



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At Hist. 2.5.2, Titus reconciles his father with Gaius Lucinius Mucianus natura atque arte. And when Tacitus reports of Titus that laetam uoluptatibus adulescentiam egit, suo quam patris imperio moderatior (‘his youth he devoted to sensual pleasure; he exhibited greater temperateness during his own reign than during his father’s’, Hist. 2.2.1), he appears to be priming his readers for his later (and now lost) account of Titus’ principate: it is difficult to imagine that his treatment of it was artless or uncomplicated.13 Whereas Titus’ detractors (as we can see in Dio) endeavoured to undermine the success of Titus’ reign, by insisting that an impending tyranny was forestalled only by the fortunate and early demise of the emperor, Suetonius so thoroughly rejects that possibility that he will not even mention it. At Tit. 10, he insists that Titus’ death was a loss for mankind. This is not to be understood simply as a proleptic reference to the evils of Domitian’s reign, I think, but instead as a rejection by the biographer of any potential for future wrongdoing by this emperor. In short, in the view of Suetonius, fortuna, however much she favoured the Flavians, did not redeem the reputation of Titus by means of a premature death. This leaves Suetonius with Titus’ ingenium and ars.14

2.  THE TROUBLE WITH SUETONIUS At this point, however, we must address the matter of how best to go about reading Suetonius, an issue that is plainly implicated in our own notions about why he wrote imperial biographies, and why he wrote them just as he did. The record of Suetonian scholarship, it must be confessed, is, in many respects, a litany of disappointments. That the Caesars are entertaining and useful in their way is universally agreed. But their author, in the view of many, is a mediocrity, or worse.15 Admittedly, modern critics have tended to be 13  Naturally none of these questions about Titus’ imperial fitness emerge in Josephus’ treatment of the man, even if other complications have been detected: e.g. Yavetz (1975); Lavan (2007). 14  Marastoni (1983) 110 concludes from Tit. 8.1 (natura . . . beneuolentissimus) that Suetonius decides exclusively for ingenium. But this ignores the local use to which that (limited) assessment is made in Suetonius’ case for Titus’ natural munificence; cf. Martinet (1981) 81. 15  The trajectory of Suetonian criticism is reviewed in detail by Galand-Hallyn (1991).

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more sympathetic.16 Nevertheless, their subject and his purposes remain as elusive as the Christian god. Hence frequent resort to apophasis: Suetonius is Not-Tacitus and he is writing Not-History.17 Nor does Plutarch provide a parallel: whereas his biographies offer their reader moral improvement—in reading Plutarchan biography, the reader learns to imitate the timeless virtues of its subjects, like the moderation of Pericles or Fabius Maximus—there is nothing obviously didactic in Suetonius’ Caesars.18 It is not simply that Suetonius’ reader was unlikely to don the purple (Plutarch’s readers, after all, were unlikely to replicate the actual careers of the men whose virtues they read about), but rather that emperors, being unique in their status and its requirements, remained in important respects removed from the moral condition of their subjects, and therefore could only be held accountable to a unique standard. Possibly all would be different if we possessed the author’s preface, or if he were more prolix on the topic of his methodological principles. Attention is naturally focused on Aug. 9.1: proposita uitae eius uelut summa partes singillatim neque per tempora sed per species exequar, quo distinctius demonstrari congnoscique possint. Having provided a summary, as it were, of his life, I shall set out its particulars, not in any chronological sequence but rather by way of rubrics, in order to make matters clearer and easier to understand.

Here we have an explicit statement of Suetonius’ extraordinary emphasis on the particulars of his subjects’ lives and careers by way of their collection per species—that is, under rubrics.19 Instead of insinuating Domitian’s essay on hair care (Dom. 18.1) or Vespasian’s fondness for afternoon sex (Vesp. 21) into the fabric of a narrative—to seize upon just two of many examples—Suetonius prefers to bundle these

16 Steidle (1951); Mouchová (1968); Gugel (1977); Gascou (1984); Lounsbury (1987). 17  Not-Tacitus and Not-History: Wallace-Hadrill (1983) 9; Edwards (2000) xiv; Pausch (2004) 271–3. On the different labels applied to Suetonius, see the opening discussion of Power’s Introduction to this volume. 18  Plutarch’s moralizing programme: Stadter (1965); Duff (1999) 13–51. Pericles’ and Fabius’ moderation (πραότης): Per. 2. Suetonius as Not-Plutarch: Wardman (1974) 144–52; Pausch (2004) 249–50. 19  Leo (1901) 3–10; Steidle (1951) 128; Mouchová (1968) 17–64; Gugel (1977) 149; Wallace-Hadrill (1983) 13–15; Gascou (1984) 349–51; Pausch (2004) 268–75.



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along with other inclinations into common categories. Why this is a good thing is not made obvious in this remark: Suetonius only insists that arranging specifics in this way makes them easier to grasp. Now there is clearly something to that. All non-professional readers of Suetonius remember the colourful bits long after they forget any dates or issues of policy. Suetonius’ accumulation of historical but also humanizing (and dehumanizing) information about his subjects entertains, even as it educates. Hence the old view that he wrote for curious middlebrow equestrians, his Caesars being something in the way of an imperial Caesars for Dummies.20 Are the Caesars about more than cutting and pasting under ­easily digestible categories? The answer to this question, I ­suppose, ­depends on what one believes can be accomplished by way of that very technique. The origins of biography per species remain u ­ nclear, though it appears that its application to the lives of statesmen was not a Suetonian innovation.21 It is a method that falters when an ­author is poorly informed, a reality exhibited in Suetonius’ Lives of the Grammarians and Rhetoricians, which tends to eschew ­rubrics.22 Emperors, however, were not only larger than life, they were also (unlike ­grammarians) relevant to everything, or at least to everything that mattered, in Roman society.23 Each was what Chris Pelling has called ‘a big-thing person’24—which meant that there existed an abundance of material pertinent to recording the career of a Caesar. But why arrange this material per species? This technique is r­ egarded by some as an impediment,25 and its employment by Suetonius has stimulated the critical response that it lay outside his ambitions to 20  Suetonius and equites: Della Corte (1958); cf. Cizek (1977), rightly rejected by Wallace-Hadrill (1983) 99–118; see also Gibson, ch. 10 in this volume. The importance of entertainment in Suetonius: e.g. Townend (1967) 93–5; Edwards (2000) xxv; Pausch (2004) 251, 319, 322–3. 21  Origins of the structure of Suetonius’ imperial biographies: erudition combines with good sense in Lewis (1991), with further literature on the topic. Political biography delivered per species: Nep. Epam. 1.4; cf. Townend (1967) 85. 22  Unfortunate effects of Suetonius’ scrappy sources for grammarians and rhetoricians: Kaster (1995) xli–xliii (esp. xli) and 232. 23  Relevance of the emperor: Wallace-Hadrill (1983) 99–141. 24  Pelling (2009b) 255. 25  E.g. Townend (1967) 83 (‘it is difficult to assert that the variations [in Suetonius’ presentation of rubrics] is the result of careful calculation . . . This is largely because Suetonius . . . prefer[s] a list of disconnected items which the reader must add up for himself ’), 84–5, 92.

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offer his reader a coherent depiction of any emperor’s career or character.26 It may be, as Catharine Edwards urges, that in the multiple perspectives of Suetonius’ rubrics, we can detect ‘an acknowledgment of the impossibility of knowing what any emperor was “really like”’.27 But his use of analytical categories suggests nonetheless that Suetonius is studying the emperors—their natures, dispositions, and habits—in order to assess the suitability of each to the vital but elusive institution he embodied.28 The importance of Suetonius’ rubrics has by no means gone unobserved.29 By arranging his material per species, Suetonius (at least in principle) facilitates specific comparisons between his individual biographies.30 Admittedly, no explicit comparisons are offered.31 Nor does Suetonius assemble individual biographies according to an invariable pattern. Instead, although certain tendencies dominate, there remains an element of fluidity in his organization of rubrics.32 It has proved tempting to regard Suetonius’ silence and variation as evidence that he has simply collected data that he offers to readers for their own evaluation.33 But this approach overlooks Suetonius’ not infrequent assessments of his subjects, introduced so matter-of-factly that they tend to dissolve into what has been described as Suetonius’ illusion of objectivity.34 Simply by means of organization, Suetonius is capable of communicating an unmistakeable message to his reader: one thinks of the famous diuisio in Caligula that parcels his life into two sections, one dealing with a princeps, the other with an abomination (Calig. 22.1). It is not, of course, that the Caesars are devoid of slips or ­unsalvageable contradictions,35 but I believe Bohumila Mouchová and Helmut Gugel 26  Steidle (1951) 1–2; Pausch (2004) 250–1, 258; each with further literature. 27  Edwards (2000) xxv. 28  The elusive emperor: Wallace-Hadrill (1982); Winterling (2009) 79–102, 123–40. 29  Hurley, ch. 1 in this volume. See also Leo (1901) 3–10; Steidle (1951) 127–33; Mouchová (1968) esp. 17–64; Gugel (1977) esp. 149; Wallace-Hadrill (1983) 13–15, 128–34; Gascou (1984) 347–90; Pausch (2004) 268–75. 30  Steidle (1951) 127–33. 31  Mouchová (1968) 65; Pausch (2004) 262. 32 Long recognized (e.g. Townend 1967: 82–3), but see esp. Mouchová (1968); Gugel (1977); Lewis (1991) 3662–3. 33  Townend (1967) 83 and 93; Dihle (1987) 64; Shotter (1993) 12 and 38. 34  Wallace-Hadrill (1983) 23–4; Gascou (1984) xiv, 675–88; Bradley (1991) 3703; Lewis (1991) 3635 n. 109; Edwards (2000) xxvi–xxvii; Dubuisson (2003) 249–62; Pausch (2004) 261; Hägg (2012) esp. 219. 35  Baldwin (1983) 272 complains of Suetonius’ inconsistent standards in his assessment of emperors. Incompatible reports in Suetonius: Townend (1967) 91–2; Edwards (2000) xxii–xxiii. Examples include Claud.  44.2—Ner. 33.1—Ner.  40.3 (death of Claudius).



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are right in insisting that, by means of a close examination of parallels and divergences between Suetonian biographies, one finds an important degree of interpretability.36

3.  INGENIVM AND ITS EXERCISE Titus’ native capacities are described at Tit. 3, a passage that also includes an account of his physical appearance: in puero statim corporis animique dotes explenduerunt, magisque ac magis deinceps per aetatis gradus: forma egregia et cui non minus auctoritatis inesset quam gratiae, praecipuum robur, quanquam neque procera statura et uentre paulo proiectiore; memoria singularis, docilitas ad omnis fere tum belli tum pacis artes. armorum et equitandi peritissimus, Latine Graeceque uel in orando uel in fingendis poematibus promptus et facilis ad extemporalitatem usque; sed ne musicae quidem rudis, ut qui cantaret et psalleret iucunde scienterque. e pluribus comperi, notis quoque excipere uelocissime solitum, cum amanuensibus suis per ludum iocumque certantem, imitarique chirographa quaecumque uidisset, ac saepe profiteri maximum falsarium esse potuisse. Even when he was a boy his qualities of body and mind were conspicuous, and this was increasingly the case as he matured. His appearance was handsome, conveying dignity as well as charm, and he was very strong, although he was short and had a bit of a paunch. His memory was exceptional, and he possessed an aptitude for acquiring almost all the arts of peace and of war. Skilled in arms and horsemanship, he could make speeches or compose poetry in Latin or Greek with ready ­fluency—even on the spur of the moment. Nor was he unacquainted with music: he could sing and play the cithara agreeably and expertly. I have learned from many sources that he could write shorthand very quickly and that he enjoyed competing with his secretaries. He could also imitate any handwriting he had seen and often avowed that he could have been the greatest of forgers.

As is well known, our biographer routinely reports on his subjects’ forma as well as their attainments in liberal studies, alongside which achievements he more than once includes their equestrian and swashbuckling competence. But it is unusual for Suetonius to bundle these 36  This is not to say that the methodology endorsed by Mouchová and Gugel does not entail difficulties of its own: see Dubuisson (2003) 249; Pausch (2004) 250–1.

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facets of the imperial personality in the way he does in Titus.37 The physical description of the emperor is conjoined with his studia only in Nero and Domitian, though perhaps one could also include Augustus, where Suetonius’ description of the emperor’s body is followed by a detailed (and not irrelevant) history of his bodily health, itself leading to the specifics of Augustus’ studia. For the rest, however, forma remains a separate (or certainly separated) rubric.38 Now, Suetonius’ treatment of Titus’ studia is significant when viewed against the larger pattern of the Caesars. Titus combines erudition with skill in arms and riding, a connection that recalls Caesar and Augustus. Caesar is expert in oratory and warfare, and the report of his skill in Roman exercise comes in conjunction with his literary pursuits (Iul. 55–7). The pattern in Augustus is not identical. We learn that Augustus gave up robust military exercise only at the conclusion of the civil wars—though not exercise altogether (he continued to ride)—a shift in habit that is depicted as a concession to the emperor’s unreliable health (Aug. 83). His studia follow (Aug. 84–9). This association of doctrina with exercitationes campestres (‘military exercises’) as an exhibition of genius for war and for peace is a very Roman reflex, an instantiation of the Suetonian Romanitas emphasized in Steidle’s classic study: it signals the right stuff.39 It also establishes a standard for subsequent Caesars—one they consistently fail to equal. In Tiberius, Suetonius records the first significant departure: Tiberius’ literary inclinations are duly reported, but there is no positive account of this emperor’s (undoubted) talent in Roman exercises. Instead, we are told that, when Tiberius retired to Rhodes, he exchanged such pastimes for Greek garb, thereby incurring the contempt and dislike of others, a clear deformation of the Hellenic cultivations linked 37  Or to describe the forma so early in the biography: Townend (1967) 83. 38  Forma and studia: Titus: forma and studia (Tit. 3); cf. Nero: forma (Ner. 51); studia (Ner. 52); Domitian: forma (Dom. 18); aversion to riding and fencing (Dom. 19); aversion to studia (Dom. 20). Similar is Augustus: forma (Aug. 79); bodily health (Aug. 80–2); retirement from some exercises owing to his health (Aug. 83); studia (Aug. 84–9). Otherwise forma and studia are separated: Caesar: forma (Iul. 45); studia (Iul. 55–7); Tiberius: forma (Tib. 68); studia (Tib. 70–1); Caligua: forma (Calig. 50); studia (Calig. 53); Claudius: studia embedded in discussion of physical infirmity (Claud. 3.1 in Claud. 2.2–5); forma (Claud. 30); studia (Claud. 41–2); Galba: studia (Galb. 5); forma (Galb. 21); Otho: forma (Otho 12); no studia; Vitellius: forma (Vit. 17.2); no studia; Vespasian: no studia, but instead his endowment of learned positions (Vesp. 18); forma (Vesp. 20). 39  Steidle (1951) 55–6.



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to these traditional senatorial pursuits in the first two biographies (Tib. 13.1). Similarly, in Caligula, the record of Caligula’s uneven successes in oratory and letters is followed by his accomplishments not in sound aristocratic pursuits, but rather in their degrading perversions: the emperor performs as a gladiator and a charioteer; worse, he makes a spectacle of himself by singing and dancing (Calig. 54). A different reconfiguration of the original schema is drawn in Claudius. Although his studia are surveyed later in the biography (Claud. 41–2), they also make an early appearance, embedded in Suetonius’ long and detailed account of the imperial problem of Claudius’ physical inferiority, which stretches from Claud. 2.2 through to Claud. 5 (his studia intrude briefly at Claud. 3.1): there are no arma or equestrian feats for this emperor, and it is all too clear that Claudius’ deficiency cannot be compensated for by his intellectual gifts. And so it goes. Nero, too, in preferring gymnastics and other Greek pursuits to Roman exercises (Ner. 22–4; 53), exhibits his imperial inadequacy.40 Titus, by contrast, in restoring the right balance between talent and exercise, reprises the salutary versatility of Caesar and Augustus (Tit. 3). The Nero and Domitian, like the Titus, bundle forma together with studia. Nero’s frame and learning lead to his enthusiasm for Greek gymnastics (Ner. 51–2), another perversion of exercitationes campestres. Matters become even worse in Domitian, where his physical description introduces the report that he couldn’t be bothered to exert himself in riding or fencing (Dom. 18–19), nor was he remotely interested in literature (Dom. 20). Here, the structural parallel between Titus and the emperors whose deficiencies destroyed their dynasties draws attention to the substantive differences between them. Young Titus may have been deemed a second Nero (Tit. 7.1), but he was nothing like him. In truth, in his combination of forma with studia, including good Roman exercitationes, Titus instead recalls the biographer’s depiction of Germanicus embedded in Caligula: 40 Roman exercises perverted or abandoned: Tiberius: exchange of equi … et ­armorum exercitationes for palladium and crepidae (Tib. 13.1); Caligula: studia (Calig. 53); gladiatoring and charioteering (Calig. 54); Claudius: studia embedded in ­discussion of physical infirmity (Claud. 3.1 in Claud. 2.2–5; see further Power 2011); Nero: ­enthusiasm for charioteering and music (Ner. 22–4); studia (Ner. 52); Greek gymnastics (Ner. 53); Galba: no exercitationes; Otho: no exercitationes; Vitellius: no exercitationes; Vespasian: neither studia nor exercitationes in his mature years (Vesp. 21); Domitian: pretensions to poetry (Dom. 2.2); forma (Dom. 18); aversion to riding and fencing (Dom. 19); aversion to studia (Dom. 20).

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omnes Germanico corporis animique uirtutes, et quantas nemini cuiquam, contigisse satis constat: formam et fortitudinem egregiam, ingenium in utroque eloquentiae doctrinaeque genere praecellens, beniuolentiam singularem conciliandaeque hominum gratiae ac promerendi amoris mirum et efficax studium. formae minus congruebat gracilitas crurum, sed ea quoque paulatim repleta assidua equi uectatione post cibum. hostem comminus saepe percussit. orauit causas etiam triumphalis; atque inter cetera studiorum monimenta reliquit et comoedias Graecas. It is generally agreed that Germanicus possessed, to an unequalled degree, all the virtues of body and mind. He was extraordinary in his good looks and his bravery, highly talented as an orator in Greek or Latin and learned in the culture of both languages. He was singularly kind, and highly successful in winning the goodwill and the merited affection of others. As for his appearance, his legs were disproportionately thin, but he gradually corrected this through a strict regimen of riding after meals. He often struck down his enemy fighting at close quarters. He pleaded cases even after celebrating a triumph. And he left behind an abundance of evidence of his erudition, including comedies in Greek. (Calig. 3.1–2)

Although not destined to reign, for he died too soon, Germanicus receives the most favourable treatment of any figure in the Caesars, and in this case it is he who most closely prefigures Titus.41 Let us turn now to Titus’ physical appearance. That Suetonius was influenced by physiognomic theory has often been observed.42 Unlike Plutarch, who deploys physiognomic sensibilities as a variable motif in his biographies, Suetonius does tend to apply the expectations of physiognomic theory in his construction of physical descriptions.43 Still, Suetonius does not imagine that anyone is the victim or the beneficiary of his bodily form. Domitian was handsome in his youth, but his beauty disintegrated along with his character (Dom. 18.1). By contrast, the splendid Germanicus began life with disproportional because spindly legs (Calig. 3.1), a blemish he shared with the mature Domitian (Dom. 18.1). Physiognomic theory offered predictably negative interpretations of even this degree of deformity, but Germanicus, 41  Leo (1901) 10; Steidle (1951) 106–7; Luck (1964) 74. 42  Evans (1935); Couissin (1953); Gascou (1984) 592–616; Barton (1994a); Stok (1995); Dubuisson (2004). A different view is maintained in Baldwin (1983) 495–501; Bradley (1991) 3726–7; Hägg (2012) 228–9. 43  Plutarch and physiognomy: Tatum (1996).



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through exercise, was able to correct it, thereby attaining to perfection in his outer as well as inner nature.44 Suetonius seems aware, when many of his modern interpreters are not, that in physiognomic theory, biology is not always destiny.45 Furthermore, Suetonius shares with the physiognomists themselves the conviction that diagnosis is a difficult, contested and contestable matter owing to the ambiguity of the system of physiognomic signals as well as to its sheer complexity.46 All of this lends more ambiguity than clarity to Suetonius’ portrait of Titus, most of which comes to us not by way of particulars, but as an already interpreted totality, a representation so similar to Tacitus’ (Hist. 2.1) that it must have been conventional. Still, Titus was short and—here Suetonius is specific—had a gut (Tit. 3.1), a feature he shared with Nero (Ner. 51) as well as Vitellius (Vit. 17.2) and the mature Domitian (Dom. 18.1). Now, this is plainly dangerous physiognomic company. But the sign itself and its proper construal remain less than entirely clear. In Pseudo-Aristotle, a mild paunch can indicate strength of character (Ps.-Arist. Phgn. 810B). Suetonius, however, does not adduce Titus’ belly as an asset, discouraging a reading along those lines. If we turn to the feature’s meaning in Polemon and his derivatives, there it betokens an insensitive drunkard with strong inclinations to luxuriousness and sex—if, that is, the bulging belly is soft; if firm, then the man is a malevolent glutton who devises evil for his fellows.47 Titus’ paunch, then, is not an easy read. Its presence in his description is, at the very least, potentially disturbing as a mark of his inner character—even if it signals a feature of his inner character that can be changed or overcome. It is an early indication the reader of Titus must bear in mind.

4.  TITUS’ VICES AND VIRTUES Although Suetonian biography routinely reviews an emperor’s career prior to his ascension to the throne, in Titus, this timeline is crucial 44  Bad legs (references to Polemon’s derivatives by way of Swain 2007a): Leiden Polemon, chs. 6–7 (= B7–B8); Adamantius the Sophist, B6; Ps.-Arist. Phgn. 810A29–34. 45 Cic. Fat. 5.12; Tusc. 4.80; cf. Phaedo of Elis, frr. 6–11 in Rossetti (1980); with ­Rossetti (1980) 183–98; Boys-Stones (2007) 22–8. 46  Barton (1994b) 95–131; Swain (2007b) 154–6; Elsner (2007) 221. 47  Polemon B14; cf. Swain (2007a) 405, 523, 599.

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to the problem under investigation.48 Now, it is sometimes urged that Titus simply divides itself into two contrasting periods—Titus’ disreputable prefecture and his virtuous principate. But it was not the case that Titus enjoyed the esteem of others only after his rise to the purple. His youthful military service in Germany and Britain exhibited industria and, more to the point for a future emperor, modestia (Tit. 4.1).49 In this same section of his text, Suetonius submits his own positive assessment of Titus’ early forensic career and of his military prowess (Tit. 4.2–3), all of which equips the reader to appreciate the popular view, reported by Suetonius, that Titus’ approach to Rome (for the purpose of congratulating Galba) was motivated by his imminent adoption (Tit. 5.1).50 It was only during the reign of his father, in Suetonius’ version of events, that Titus’ conduct provoked anxiety.51 In Suetonius, the measure of an emperor’s popularity cannot be disconnected from an assessment of his vices and his virtues.52 At Tit. 6–7, Suetonius cites four vices attributed to Titus: saeuitia (‘cruelty’), luxuria (‘luxuriousness’), libido (‘lasciviousness’), and rapacitas (‘avarice’). Saeuitia was the most serious strike against Titus’ reputation at the time of his elevation (Tit. 6.2), and it is dealt with differently from his other alleged vices: although raised first, the issue of his cruelty is left unresolved and it does not recur until Tit. 11.1, where his imperial clementia is described. The remaining allegations, by contrast, are handled in sequence: first they are reported, then— immediately—­discredited. We shall begin with them. Suetonius concedes that Titus was suspected of luxuriousness, lasciviousness, and avarice. However, Suetonius insists that it was all a misread.53 In reality, no fault could be found in Titus, but instead only outstanding virtues (Tit. 7).54 Luxuria and rapacitas Suetonius 48  Gascou (1984) 350 n. 14. 49  Importance of modestia: Wallace-Hadrill (1982) 41–4. 50  The rumour was false: Tac. Hist. 2.1. 51  Titus unpopular during his father’s reign: this is the likeliest construction of Tit. 1.1: quando priuatus atque etiam sub patre principe, where atque etiam ‘strengthens or corrects the first term’ (so OLD s.v. atque 4), and it conforms with Suetonius’ exposition throughout the Life (Titus’ unpopular actions follow Tit. 5.1, etiam de imperii spe confirmatus est). Suetonius routinely uses priuatus to mean ‘not princeps’ (e.g. Aug. 28.1, 73.1, Tib. 12.2, 26.1, Calig. 39.2). 52  Wallace-Hadrill (1983) 142–4. 53  Contra Luck (1964) 65–6; Gugel (1977) 102; Marastoni (1983) 115. 54  Suetonius makes the distinction explicit here, significant inasmuch as elsewhere in his biographies rumours often appear well-founded: e.g. Iul. 2 and 49.1; cf. Baldwin (1983) 222.



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dismisses by way of simple contradiction, blunt deployment of the biographer’s objective posture. Nothing in Suetonius’ rebuttal of these blemishes even hints at a change in Titus’ conduct. Libido is somewhat different. Suetonius does not deny that Titus knew certain talented dancers but, upon his ascension, he literally never saw them again. His beloved Berenice—and Suetonius does not deny their affection— he sent away. Here we are presented with an undeniable change in practice. Whether it contributes to the conclusion that Titus’ imperial virtue was owing to ingenium or ars, however, is not immediately clear. Romans, after all, were all too willing to ignore a degree of youthful exuberance in their aristocracy, so long as it was put away upon maturity. Hence the regular habit in rhetoric of employing the locus de indulgentia, the application of which was by no means limited to the very young, as Cicero demonstrated in his Pro Caelio.55 Suetonius’ moralism lies close to this standard. Even in the case of the young Nero, Suetonius for one imagined just this possible excuse for his untoward behaviour (Ner. 26.1), and in Otho the emperor’s youthful excesses are contrasted with his mature administration of Lusitania (Otho 2–3.2). That Titus’ dalliances ceased when he became Caesar is, for Suetonius, ample illustration of his probity and lack of genuine decadence.56 By way of emphasis, Titus’ repudiation of Berenice’s charms—Berenicen statim ab urbe dimisit inuitus inuitam (‘Berenice he immediately sent away from Rome, although neither of them wished it’,  Tit. 7.2)—bookishly evokes an illustrious predecessor who preferred reigning over Italy and subjecting the world to his laws in place of the comforts of a foreign queen (cf. Aen. 4.229–31): the high register of inuitus inuitam is unmistakable and, although they are not the only antecedents to Suetonius’ expression here, in view of its Catullan and Virgilian potential, it cannot be far wrong to see Titus enacting the necessary rectitude of Aeneas.57 The most severe charge levelled against Titus in this period of his life is that of saeuitia. As prefect of the praetorian guard—and tutor imperii (‘protector of [his father’s] reign’,  Tit. 6.1)—Titus arrested and executed anyone merely suspected of conspiracy.58 In the sole specific illustration 55  Locus de indulgentia: Cic. Inv. rhet. 2.37; cf. Austin (1960) 102. 56  Luck (1964) 67. 57  The (melo)dramatic register of inuitus inuitam: Enn. Cresphontes fr. 53.128 Jocelyn; cf. Aesch. Supp. 227–8, PV 19, 671; Eur. Hipp. 319; Sen. Clem. 2.1.2. Catullan and Virgilian allusions activated by Berenicen: Catull. 66.39–40; Verg. Aen. 6.460. 58  Tutor imperii: perhaps here Suetonius refashions the theme of tutela Augusti advertised on Flavian coinage: Mattingly (1976) xliv, 112, 129, 208. The phrase is in any case striking: Martinet (1981) 54–6.

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of Titus’ actions, the assassination of Aulus Caecina, Titus’ dissimulating manner evokes the cunning and cruelty of his brother (Dom. 11.1). Now it is conceded by the author that Titus’ actions made a contribution to the stability of the dynasty, but throughout Book 8, the impulse for security is frequently undermined by imperial cruelty.59 And there is no overlooking the baleful result of Titus’ career as prefect, which resulted in unpopularity of enormous proportions (Tit. 6.2). In short, Titus got it wrong, and Suetonius makes this unmistakeably clear in his emphatically negative assessment of Titus’ prefecture: praefecturam quoque praetori suscepit . . . egitque aliquanto inciuilius et uiolentius . . . he also assumed command of the praetorian guard . . . and acted far too arrogantly and violently . . . (Tit. 6.1)

This is an absolute and absolutely damning verdict. By now, it is unnecessary to rehearse the centrality of moderatio and especially ciuilitas in Suetonius’ view of the principate or in imperial ideology more generally.60 Here—and only here in Suetonius—is anyone or any action designated inciuilis. The singularity of Suetonius’ disapprobation underscores its intensity.61

5.  TITUS AND HIS CRUELT Y Ruthlessness, in and of itself, need not wreck an imperial reputation. The question of Titus’ image emerges, after all, by way of comparison with the career of Augustus, the unquestioned model of imperial

59  Stability and cruelty: the dynasty wrecked by Domitian’s saeuitia (Vesp. 1.1); the excellence of post-Domitianic Rome secured by the abstinentia et moderatio of succeeding emperors (Dom. 13.2). On the importance of stability in the Caesars: WallaceHadrill (1983) 115–16, 202. Securitas, in the guise of securitas Augusti or securitas P. Romani, was a slogan of Vespasian’s reign and of the Flavian dynasty generally: Mattingly (1976) xlviii, 129, 183, 200–1, 213, 267. 60  Wallace-Hadrill (1982). 61  Titus’ violence is also inscribed in Vespasian’s biography: there the emperor is by nature ciuilis et clemens (Vesp. 12) and no innocent person was executed with his knowledge and consent (Vesp. 15), all of which casts an unflattering light on Titus’ actions during this same period.



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excellence. The violence by means of which he seized power and sustained himself during his triumviral days was as familiar to Suetonius as it is to us. Nor is Suetonius too shy to insist that, during the proscriptions, Augustus was more aggressive than his partners (Aug. 27.1), and his cruelties during this phase of his life are catalogued at Aug. 27.3–4, along with the inuidia they provoked. The triumvir did not contaminate the princeps, however, and Augustus is celebrated in Suetonius for his clementia and his ciuilitas at Aug. 51.1.62 The parallel with Titus is apparent, but it is not exact. Augustus later explicitly regretted his triumviral excesses (Aug. 27.2). As princeps, according to Suetonius, Augustus turned his back on his triumviral past by vowing that no one should ever regret the new regime he was establishing (Aug. 28.2). By contrast, at no point in his biography does Titus regret his saeuitia. Quite the contrary, in his final words, he admits to only one regret (Tit. 10.1). Neither Suetonius (nor Dio, who also knew the story) knew what that was, though each offers conjectures. It does not cross the mind of either that it could be his actions during Vespasian’s reign.63 For Suetonius, then, Titus’ saeuitia goes undenied.64 At the same time, there is in Suetonius no question of doubting Titus’ imperial clemency.65 This virtue is not introduced until Tit. 9. There Titus marks, for his public and certainly for the reader of his biography, a specific moment and method whereby he put away the violence of his prefecture. This was his assumption of the office of pontifex maximus: pontificatum maximum ideo se professus accipere ut puras seruaret manus, fidem praestitit, nec auctor posthac cuiusquam necis nec conscious, quamuis interdum ulciscendi causa non deesset, sed periturum se potius quam perditurum adiurans. He declared that he would accept the office of pontifex maximus so that he could keep his hands uncontaminated by pollution, and he kept his word, for thereafter he neither caused nor condoned anyone’s death— even though he sometimes had justification for avenging himself. But he swore that he would rather be killed than kill another. (Tit. 9.1) 62  On the moral complexity of Suetonius’ representation of Augustus and its significance for the Caesars, see Langlands, ch. 5 in this volume. 63  The idea occasionally occurs to modern scholars: Crook (1951); Gugel (1997) 102. On Titus’ regret, see Fulkerson (2013) 154–5. 64  Contra Wardle (2001) 65–6; Galtier (2009) 91–2. 65  See also Dio 66.19.1; Oros. 7.9.13.

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This office was an essential and unavoidable accoutrement of the principate,66 and we have it on the authority of Suetonius himself that Titus was far from diligent in its exercise (Dom. 8.3). Yet in this passage, Titus accepts the office for one purpose only: as a formal means of imposing upon himself an inescapable clementia, thereby neutralizing his own past inclinations. That the office of pontifex maximus, bound by no taboos against violence, should in and of itself prompt such a transformation is unexpected.67 However, it had happened in the past, and was duly recorded in Rome’s exemplary literature, that the assumption of a sacred office occasioned a remarkable improvement in character.68 Titus’ gesture, then, symbolizes a choice—a decision—to act the part of a proper princeps, and in fact, Titus goes on to play the role to perfection, as Suetonius duly reports. Which brings us back to the basis of Titus’ imperial success: ingenium or ars? Suetonius insists on Titus’ natural capacities and on his many virtues. Among them is his natural facility for acquiring and utilizing appropriate skills: at Tit. 3 he stresses Titus’ docilitas ad omnis fere tum belli tum pacis artes. In the same section he is lauded for his extemporalitas, a word Suetonius may have coined in order to describe just this emperor.69 Suetonius does not, however, shrink from the assertion that Titus’ saeuitia was an authentic failing, despite which he managed to rise to an emperor’s proper deportment and consequently to win for himself universal affection. Titus knew what a good emperor looked like, and this self-proclaimed greatest of forgers knew how to copy one. By the end of the biography, there remains no ambivalence or confusion: Titus is a model of the right response to the principate, a superior talent perfected by art.70 His detractors and debunkers are simply wrong. For Suetonius, then, Titus, like Augustus, enjoyed imperial success, not least because he, like Augustus, was able to transcend the objectionable features of his past. In this brief biography, the only one in the Caesars that is organized around a specific problem—the only one that 66  Marastoni (1983) 121–2 seeks to associate this passage with Greek kingship theory and its emphasis on the monarch’s εὐσέβεια. That connection is not obvious to me. 67  Nerva, by contrast, simply swore an oath in the senate never to execute any senator: Dio 68.2. It is sometimes suggested, on the basis of Tit. 9.1, that Titus swore a similar oath: Birley (1962); Bauman (1974) 215. 68  Valerius Flaccus’ character was reformed when he took on the office of flamen Dialis: Livy 37.8.5–7; Val. Max. 6.9.3. 69  The suggestion of Mooney (1930) 472; cf. Garuti (1983); Molinier-Arbo (2006). 70  Ambivalence in Titus: Luck (1964) 75; Gugel (1977) 102.



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comes with instructions—Suetonius offers his reader, by way of its connections with other biographies in the work, a succinct commentary on imperial virtue, which is not quite the same thing as moral perfection. The successful emperor, although he must be a man of many parts, need not be perfect: he need only act as if he were. Both Augustus and Titus had a talent for accommodating their circumstances. Consequently, each was adept at playing the role of a good emperor. The curtain, Titus complained, came down too soon (Tit. 10). But, again like Augustus (Aug. 99.1), Suetonius’ Titus could be confident he had merited his public’s applause.

9 The Mirror in the Text: Privacy, Performance, and the Power of Suetonius’ Domitian Jean-Michel Hulls

1. INTRODUCTION At the beginning of Plutarch’s Aemilius, the biographer discusses the reasons for writing his Lives of great men, linking the genre of biography with the moral self-improvement of the reader (and writer) and using the idea of reflection in a mirror as the central metaphor for this process:1 Ἐμοὶ τῆς τῶν βίων ἅψασθαι μὲν γραφῆς συνέβη δι᾽ ἑτέρους, ἐπιμένειν δὲ καὶ φιλοχωρεῖν ἤδη καὶ δι᾽ ἐμαυτόν, ὥσπερ ἐν ἐσόπτρῳ τῇ ἱστορίᾳ πειρώμενον ἁμῶς γέ πως κοσμεῖν καὶ ἀφομοιοῦν πρὸς τὰς ἐκείνων ἀρετὰς τὸν βίον. I began writing my Lives for the sake of others, but I find that I am continuing the work and enjoying it now for my own sake as well, using history as a mirror and trying in some way to fashion and adorn my life in conformity with the virtues found within it. (Aem. 1.1)2

For Plutarch, writing the Lives of great men allows him (and his readers) to identify the virtues reflected in each life and decorate himself, 1  On mirrors, see Lucr. DRN 4.269–301; Sen. Q Nat. 1.5.5, 14; Plin. HN 33.128–9; Paus. 8.37.4 (mirrors in temples). Cf. Healy (1999) 142–7. In general on mirrors and their role in Western civilization, see Mechior-Bonnet (2001); Pendergrast (2003). For mirrors in classical civilization and links with, among other things, self-knowledge, see Bartsch (2006). 2  On this passage in Plutarch, see Duff (1999) 30–4. For this metaphor used elsewhere in classical literature, see Bartsch (2006) 36. On the mirror as a reflection of the soul, see Bartsch (2006) 41–56, esp. 48–9.



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rather like a woman dressing herself or a painter making a copy of an object,3 with the best outward features of the biographized subject.4 Plutarch focuses on the external features of his subjects5—those which would be reflected, as it were, in the mirror of his biographies. Furthermore, spending time studying, and especially writing ἱστορία (Plutarch makes little distinction between ‘history’ and ‘biography’ in our terms),6 has given Plutarch the experience to distinguish between ethically good and bad subjects. Since Plutarch only has regard for the best characters, he can, with self-control, turn himself towards the best exemplars: ἡμεῖς δὲ τῇ περὶ τὴν ἱστορίαν διατριβῇ καὶ τῆς γραφῆς τῇ συνηθείᾳ παρασκευάζομεν ἑαυτούς, τὰς τῶν ἀρίστων καὶ δοκιμωτάτων μνήμας ὑποδεχομένους ἀεὶ ταῖς ψυχαῖς, εἴ τι φαῦλον ἢ κακόηθες ἢ ἀγεννὲς αἱ τῶν συνόντων ἐξ ἀνάγκης ὁμιλίαι προσβάλλουσιν, ἐκκρούειν καὶ διωθεῖσθαι, πρὸς τὰ κάλλιστα τῶν παραδειγμάτων ἵλεω καὶ πρᾳεῖαν ἀποστρέφοντες τὴν διάνοιαν. But for me, the study of history and the familiarity which comes from writing allows me, since I always hold in my soul the memory of the best and most highly-regarded men, to expel and push away whatever cheap, malicious, or low ideas these necessary interactions may place on me, calmly and dispassionately turning my thoughts away from them to the best of my examples. (Aem. 1.5)

We might question the process here; it is not clear how one learns to distinguish between good and bad exemplars, or how the writer avoids moral corruption in the act of writing of the morally corrupt, but we will take Plutarch at his word for now.7 3  LSJ s.v.v. κοσμέω III: ‘adorn, equip, dress, esp. of women’; ἀφομοιόω III: ‘portray, of painters’. 4  Note that ancient thinking tends to focus on outward features of personality without tapping into internal psychology, cf. Evans (1935), (1941), (1969). Pelling (1990: esp. 224–37 = PH 301–38, esp. 308–16) suggests that ancient biography is fully capable of analysing an individual’s psychology, but rarely if ever goes beyond the most superficial examination. On the contrast between ‘objective-participant’ and ‘subjectiveindividualist’ ideas of personality, see Gill (1996). 5 E.g. Aem. 1.2.8, ὅσσος ἔην οἷός τε (‘how large he was and what sort of man’ = Hom. Il. 24.630). 6  On the distinction in Suetonius, see Wallace-Hadrill (1983) 8–10. 7 Plutarch, Aem. 1.4 uses the Democritean idea that we can be visited only by ‘phantoms’ (εἰδώλα), which are good for us, yet describes this as a λόγον οὔτ’ ἀληθῆ (‘untruth’). Plutarch clearly likes the analogy of process and terminology (εἴδωλον can be translated as ‘a reflected image’), but distinguishes between the superstition of the Democritean logos and the (alleged) certainty of his own historical method.

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However, the mechanics of moral education through biography seem reasonably clear; the mirror of biography throws back images of good characteristics which one identifies and imitates. Plutarch’s somewhat digressive, programmatic preface gives us an important set of values attached to the art of writing in this genre in the second century ad. Biography focuses on external, observable features in order to access the character of the subject. Reading and writing these Lives is much like looking in a mirror; characteristics of the subject are reflected by the art of biography. Finally, there is a specific moral purpose to researching, composing, and reading these Lives. It is as though the subject were a guest in one’s house (ὥσπερ ἐπιξενούμενον ἕκαστον, ‘each in turn as my guest’, Aem. 1.2); the guest may be observed and will have a positive moral impact (at least for Plutarch) upon the writer and reader. Plutarch specifically refers to the subjects of his Lives as παραδείγματα (‘models’, Aem. 1.5).8 In this chapter, we will examine a parallel example of mirroring in the biographical writing of this period, taken from Suetonius’ Domitian. Given our starting point in Plutarch, we must bear a number of things in mind when considering Suetonius’ last imperial Life. First, as we shall see, the moment of mirroring is internalized within the narrative of Domitian, creating an added set of interpretive complications, both for the subject and for his readers. Second, the subject described by Suetonius can only be perceived of as a negative example and this has implications for the moral aspect of the mirroring process. How one reacts to the image in the mirror is a key dilemma for Domitian and for Suetonius.

2.  THE SOLITARY T YRANT As Suetonius’ Life of Domitian reaches its climax, the biographer includes an anecdotal detail which illustrates the tyrannical emperor’s increasing paranoia: tempore uero suspecti periculi appropinquante sollicitior in dies porticuum, in quibus spatiari consuerat, parietes phengite lapide distinxit, e cuius splendore per imagines quidquid a tergo fieret prouideret. 8  For the ethics of Suetonius’ imperial Lives, see Wallace-Hadrill (1983) 142–74.



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With the time of anticipated danger approaching, becoming more anxious every day, he lined the walls of the colonnades in which he used to walk with phengite, so that he could see whatever was behind his back through reflections from its brilliance. (Dom. 14.4)

As Domitian became (quite rightly as it happened) increasingly anxious and fearful of assassination, he transformed the colonnades through which he walked by placing slabs of highly polished stone along the walls. This stone was brilliantly reflective and Domitian could see everything that was going on behind his back. Two aspects of this passage will prove crucial in what follows. First, Domitian turns the walls of his colonnade into mirrors, so that he can see behind him. Second, the fear that this architectural decision reveals also emphasizes Domitian’s desire to remain apart from everyone around him. With the skill of the practised biographer, Suetonius homes in on two particular traits which reveal Domitian’s character perfectly. Domitian’s fearfulness and his desire for solitude mark him out as the stereotypical tyrant. Suetonius’ portrayal of Domitian’s tyrannical nature is multifaceted, of course, and Domitian’s paranoia was so familiar an aspect of his character that he even coined his own conspiracy theory on conspiracies: condicionem principum miserrimam aiebat, quibus de coniuratione comperta non crederetur nisi occisis (‘He used to say that the emperors’ state was most wretched since no one believed their discovery of a conspiracy unless they were killed’, Dom. 21.1). However, we should begin with the second aspect visible here: the desire for solitude. The solitary tyrant was a rhetorical figure familiar to Suetonius’ contemporary audience, and one who has his roots in the earliest Greek literature, appearing in Herodotus, who was himself probably responding to rhetorical stereotypes of tyrant behaviour.9 Herodotus provides a wide variety of portrayals of Oriental despots, and we include one example here. The historian depicts the Median king Deioces changing from ideal tyrant to despot (Hdt. 1.94–101), as he builds himself a many-walled palace, isolates himself from his people, and becomes harsh in his administration of justice: οἰκοδομηθέντων δὲ πάντων κόσμον τόνδε Δηιόκης πρῶτος ἐστὶ ὁ καταστησάμενος, μήτε ἐσιέναι παρὰ βασιλέα μηδένα, δι᾽ ἀγγέλων δὲ πάντα 9  Gammie (1986).

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χρᾶσθαι, ὁρᾶσθαι τε βασιλέα ὑπὸ μηδενός . . . ταῦτα δὲ περὶ ἑωυτὸν ἐσέμνυνε τῶνδε εἵνεκεν, ὅκως ἂν μὴ ὁρῶντες οἱ ὁμήλικες, ἐόντες σύντροφοί τε ἐκείνῳ καὶ οἰκίης οὐ φλαυροτέρης οὐδὲ ἐς ἀνδραγαθίην λειπόμενοι, λυπεοίατο καὶ ἐπιβουλεύοιεν, ἀλλ᾽ ἑτεροῖός σφι δοκέοι εἶναι μὴ ὁρῶσι. When it was all built, Deioces was first to establish the rule that no one should come before the king, but everything should be done through messengers; that the king should be seen by no one . . . He was careful to surround himself with all this so that the men of his own age (who had been raised with him and were of equal nobility and courage), instead of seeing him and being upset and perhaps moved to plot against him, might, by not seeing him, believe him to be different. (Hdt. 1.99)

The strictly observed isolation that Deioces creates for himself was repeated by Roman imperial tyrants. Private villas were often places where such withdrawals occurred. Hadrian, the emperor under whom Suetonius wrote, caused concern by his frequent withdrawal to his villa at Tibur (from which he could see Rome). Hadrian himself was loathed by the Senate and might well have been remembered as a tyrannical ruler, but for the careful politicking of his successor, Antoninus Pius.10 In Suetonius, the best known instance of withdrawal is that of Tiberius removing himself to Capri in ad 26, where, according to his biographer, he was able to manifest fully his tyrannical instincts for the first time: ceterum secreti licentiam nanctus et quasi ciuitatis oculis remotis, cuncta simul uitia male diu dissimulata tandem profudit: de quibus singillatim ab exordio referam. Furthermore, having gained the freedom of seclusion, and as if removed from the sight of the state, he at last poured forth all his long-hidden vices simultaneously, to which I shall refer, each in turn, from the beginning. (Tib. 42.1)11

The Flavians themselves constructed Nero in similar ways, in particular, by portraying Nero’s Domus Aurea as a solitary tyrant’s palace and emphasizing the ways in which it was transformed by them from private imperial space into public amenity. Domitian received 10  See Flower (2006) 272–5 and also Hekster (2005) 160–2. 11  Cf. Bartsch (2006) 135–6.



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the same sort of denigration as his own family meted out on Nero, of course, and was remembered for his enjoyment of a number of private residences throughout Italy, most famously his villa at Alba (cf. Dom. 4.4), and for reconstructing the imperial palace on the Palatine as a Domus Flavia, which existed on two levels: one public, the other entirely private. Pliny in the Panegyricus makes the most of this palace as a locus of Domitianic tyrannical terror: non adire quisquam, non adloqui audebat tenebras semper secretumque captantem, nec umquam ex solitudine sua prodeuntem, nisi ut solitudinem faceret (‘No one dared to meet or speak with the man who always hid in shadows and seclusion, who never came out of his isolation, unless it was to make more’, Pan. 48.5).12 Domitian’s very presence serves to create isolation and seclusion. It comes as no surprise, then, that Domitian’s isolation is a defining tyrannical trait in Suetonius’ text as well. At the beginning of his reign, Domitian famously spent hours hidden away, killing flies with a pen: inter initia principatus cotidie secretum sibi horarum sumere solebat, nec quicquam amplius quam muscas captare ac stilo praeacuto configere; ut cuidam interroganti, essetne quis intus cum Caesare, non absurde responsum sit a Vibio Crispo, ne muscam quidem. At the beginning of his reign he used to spend hours in seclusion every day, doing nothing but catching flies and stabbing them with a sharpened pen. So when someone asked whether anyone was in there with Caesar, Vibius Crispus made the witty reply: ‘Not even a fly.’ (Dom. 3.1)

Much could be said about the details of this passage, especially Domitian’s use of a pen.13 The killing of flies may also be a suggestive detail,14 but let us simply read this as evidence of Domitian’s tyrannical desire for solitude. An anecdotal detail that follows our mirror passage is similarly indicative of Domitian’s need to be alone: nec nisi secreto atque solus plerasque custodias, receptis quidem in manum catenis, audiebat (‘And he did not listen to any prisoners except in private and alone, even holding their chains in his hands’, Dom. 14.4). Domitian now only interrogates prisoners on his own. Ironic, then, 12  Ironic then, that Pliny should celebrate the isolation and seclusion of his own villas (see Ep. 2.17, esp. § 24, and 5.6). One might even accuse Pliny of being hypocritical. 13  The story is also related in Aur. Vict. Caes. 11.5; Dio 66.9.4–5. 14  Cf. the connection between flies and sight in Mucianus’ desire to avoid ophthalmia, Plin. HN 28.29 with Ash (2007b) 6–7.

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that Domitian should be entirely alone within his tyrant’s palace when he is assassinated by members of his own household staff (Dom. 16.2). Isolation is ultimately what kills Domitian; in his desire to be alone, the emperor leaves himself vulnerable to assassination. There is further irony in Suetonius’ suggestion that Domitian is at his happiest when alone. The emperor goes through the motions of sociability by holding many banquets, and eschews the excesses of a Nero or a Vitellius by not over-indulging in food or drink. However, he slips too far down the other end of the tyrannical scale, finishing his meals early and walking alone instead: conuiuabatur frequenter ac large, sed paene raptim; . . . nam ad horam somni nihil aliud quam solus secreto deambulabat. He banqueted often and generously, but often hurriedly; . . . for he did nothing until bedtime except walk alone in seclusion. (Dom. 21.1)

Thus far, Suetonius’ depiction of Domitian seems rather predictable. The notion of the solitary tyrant had been familiar in classical thought for centuries, and the picture of a despotic ruler alone in his palace, brooding and plotting, was a rhetorical commonplace. Yet it is remarkable how the theme of isolation dominates the picture of Domitian, to the extent that Zadorojnyi can speak of a ‘disgusting, psychotic, if slightly boring, villain’.15 Spending time alone is not the only tyrannical feature of Suetonius’ Domitian, of course—the emperor’s rapacity and savage cruelty, exacerbated by paranoia, are probably the most salient features. Yet it is the isolation that, if we may allow the expression, makes Domitian stand out from the crowd. The word secretus becomes the defining theme of Domitian’s reign and is possibly a reflection of reality; similar concerns can be detected in Statius’ Siluae and Martial’s Epigrams. But that is the topic for another chapter. There is an obvious irony in Suetonius’ desire to make visible this important facet of his subject’s character, his invisibility. Suetonius makes a virtue, as it were, out of Domitian’s vice, suggesting with some subtlety how the emperor’s policy of self-isolation had a dramatic effect on his reign, his architectural legacy (probably thinking in particular of his Palatine palace), his relations with the elite, especially the Senate, while spinning contemporary portrayals in panegyric poetry to suit post-Flavian, biographical needs. 15  Zadorojnyi (2006) 352.



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3.  PERFORMING THE SUBJECT There is, however, more to this than meets the eye. Suetonius is not merely using a particular feature of his subject as an effective tool with which to criticize; he is also saying something pretty crucial, I would suggest, about the nature of imperial biography as he conceives it. The irony of making a feature out of invisibility pushes the notion that display and public performance become the prime categories for assessing the worth of all Suetonius’ subjects. This is not very surprising, especially in the light of more than a decade of classical scholarship which has focused on the link between performance and imperial rulers.16 What sets this particular Life apart is the way in which Domitian is a non-performer. The most memorable aspects of the Life are the ones that take place in private or when Domitian is, in some sense, not visible. We should throw into the mix an instance of memorable invisibility from before his accession, when Domitian disguised himself as an adherent of Isis in order to escape the Capitol during fighting against the Vitellians in ad 69: bello Vitelliano confugit in Capitolium cum patruo Sabino ac parte praesentium copiarum, sed irrumpentibus aduersariis et ardente templo apud aedituum clam pernoctauit, ac mane Isiaci celatus habitu interque sacrificulos uariae superstitionis, cum se trans Tiberim ad condiscipuli sui matrem comite uno contulisset, ita latuit, ut scrutantibus qui uestigia subsecuti erant, deprehendi non potuerit. In the Vitellian war he hid on the Capitol with his uncle Sabinus and a part of his forces. But when the enemy broke in and the temple was burning, he spent the night hidden with the custodian, and in the morning, disguised as a follower of Isis among the priests of that capricious superstition, he crossed the Tiber with one companion to the mother of a school-friend. He hid so well that his pursuers who had followed his tracks could not catch him. (Dom. 1.2)

A moment often remembered by Flavian authors as one of Domitian’s greatest victories becomes, in Suetonius’ hands, a performance so effective that the original subject, the young Domitian, is entirely obliterated. Privacy of a different kind dominates what ought to be that most public of performances,17 Domitian watching gladiatorial games: 16  Cf. esp. Bartsch (1994).    17  See Bartsch (1994), esp. 63–97.

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ac per omne gladiatorum spectaculum ante pedes ei stabat puerulus coccinatus paruo portentosoque capite, cum quo plurimum fabulabatur, nonnumquam serio. auditus est certe, dum ex eo quaerit, ecquid sciret, cur sibi uirum esset ordinatione proxima Aegypto praeficere Mettium Rufum. Through every gladiatorial display there always stood at his feet a small boy clad in scarlet, with a monstrously small head, with whom he talked a great deal, and sometimes seriously. Indeed he was overheard to ask him if he knew why he had decided at the last day to appoint Mettius Rufus governor of Egypt. (Dom. 4.2)

Here, we get the impression that Domitian is talking to the wrong (sort of) person about the wrong things. It certainly seems odd that he should discuss affairs of state with this puerulus,18 and the passive auditus est suggests that this conversation was secretly overheard, only restored to the biographical public record by chance. One wonders whether these games took place in the Colosseum or the Circus Maximus (non in amphitheatro modo, uerum et in circo, ‘not only in the amphitheatre but also in the circus’, Dom. 4.1). If the latter, might Domitian have been sitting within his new Domus Flavia on the Palatine, which included direct access to the Circus from the private apartments? Rather than outright invisibility, we get a sense of misdirected performance, revealing Domitian’s tyrannical character in a slightly unusual way.19 Moreover, these interwoven themes of isolation, invisibility, and misdirection bring us back to our first text, the mirrorscene in the colonnade (Dom. 14.4).

4.  THE MIRROR IN THE TEXT The mirror is an object that possesses a singular symbolic value, and an object that encourages self-performance and self-reflection. Yet in a manner that we might now come to expect, Domitian misses the point 18  B. W. Jones (1996) 38 (ad loc.) confidently asserts that the puerulus is a dwarf jester, despite the fact that the Latin diminutive is nowhere else used in quite this way. Domitian’s grotesque interlocutor is reminiscent of characters such as Homer’s Thersites, Il. 2.211–19. 19  Compare the ‘normal’ dissimulative tyrannical performance towards Arrecinius Clemens, Dom. 11.1.



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of these mirrors entirely, never looking at his own imago, but constantly looking behind him to see if anyone might be about to attack him. The polished stone fails in its intended mission, for Domitian will still be murdered in his own bedroom, but it also fails to reveal the emperor’s own faults to himself, had he used the mirror in a more Plutarchan manner. The ultimate imperial non-performer fails to take advantage of an opportunity for reflexivity. There is more to be seen in Domitian’s mirrors, but we should also reflect on other mirror-moments in Suetonius’ works. There are two other passages where mirrors have a significant part to play in a subject’s Life, the famous account of Horace’s mirrorized bedroom, and Augustus’ calling for a mirror on his death-bed. We may examine Horace first: ad res Venerias intemperantior traditur; nam speculato cubiculo scorta dicitur habuisse disposita, ut quocumque respexisset ibi ei imago coitus referretur. He is reported to have had an excessive sexual appetite; for it is said that in a mirrorized room he had prostitutes positioned so that wherever he looked, an image of intercourse was reflected. (Vita Hor. 10)

Suetonius includes this bizarre detail towards the end of the Life. Suetonius’ Horace and Domitian have a great deal in common: both have rapacious sexual appetites (see Dom. 22 for sexual exploits), both hang out in their country villas a great deal, both have an unhealthy relationship with mirrors. One wonders idly whether Domitian might have been better advised to mirrorize his bedroom, given that that was where he was murdered. The Horatian mirror scene is also peculiar, not simply because it sits so uncomfortably with the Horace we know from other sources, but also because the scene in Suetonius seems to have been transplanted rather awkwardly from Seneca’s Natural Questions (1.15.8–17.10).20 At the end of Book 1—an account of meteors, rainbows, and other optical meteorological phenomena—Seneca suddenly shifts into a moralizing discourse about mirrors. He tells us of Hostius Quadra, a wealthy Roman who filled his bedroom with mirrors so that he could watch himself undertaking a variety of passive sexual acts. The passage 20  On the Senecan passage, see Bartsch (2006) 103–14, who highlights Seneca’s concerns with self-knowledge and the contrasts between Hostius and Ovid’s Narcissus.

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is too long to be quoted in full here, but is worth exploring not only for its relationship with Suetonius, but also because the extremes of Hostius’ behaviour and Seneca’s vitriolic reaction are extremely amusing. The passage is undoubtedly of great relevance both to Suetonius’ Horace and his Domitian: Hostius fuit Quadra, obscenitatis in scaenam usque productae. . . . ille, quasi parum esset inaudita et incognita pati, oculos suos ad illa aduocauit . . . ‘oculi quoque in partem libidinis ueniant et testes eius exactoresque sint.’ . . . facinus indignum! hic fortasse cito et antequam uideret occisus est: ad speculum suum immolandus fuit. There was a certain Hostius Quadra who turned his obscenity into a dramatic spectacle. . . . But that man, as though it were not enough to submit to unknown, unheard of things, invited his eyes to watch. . . . ‘Let my eyes have a share in my lust as well and be witnesses and inspectors.’ . . . What an outrage! He was perhaps killed too quickly, before he could see it: he ought to have been sacrificed in front of his own mirror! (Sen. Q Nat. 1.16.1, 4, 7, 8–9)

There is not the space here to explore the textual relationship with Suetonius’ Horace in any detail (although I suggest that the clumsiness of Suetonius’ reworking of Seneca mirrors the clumsiness of Seneca’s bridge from meteorology to Hostius’ bedroom decorations), but we can make some observations regarding Seneca’s importance for the biographer. The Senecan intertext gives us a double clue as to the purpose of the mirrors in Suetonius’ Horace. We are not, I suspect, intended to take this at face value as historical fact; ancient readers would have been alert to the artificiality of Suetonius’ biography at this stage.21 The biographer adds to the tension between historical and fanciful, by telling us that he possesses poetry which is allegedly that of Horace, but which he dismisses as spurious: uenerunt in manus meas et elegi sub titulo eius et epistula prosa oratione quasi commendantis se Maecenati, sed utraque falsa puto. Elegies and a prose letter, an alleged recommendation of himself to Maecenas, have come into my hands, but I think both are spurious. (Vita Hor. 12)

The historicizing critic might be tempted to dismiss the mirror scene for exactly the same reasons: that it is vulgar and difficult to see the 21  Cf. Tatum, ch. 8 in this volume, p. 160, n. 5.



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connection with the rest of Horace’s Life. However, Seneca’s moralizing excursus seems almost irrelevant to his scientific subject, until we look at Hostius Quadra with Stoic eyes and realize how important Seneca’s optical knowledge can be at a moral level.22 Similarly, Suetonius’ account of Horace’s bedroom gives us sharp, moralizing insight into the life as a whole. We get an account of a libertine who rejects the opportunity to work as an administrator for Augustus and instead spends his life indulging himself. This moral purpose suggests a further reading of the mirrorscene in Domitian. The use of the mirror by Hostius Quadra and by Suetonius’ Horace is ‘effeminizing’ in a way which it clearly is not for Domitian (who does not look at his reflection, after all).23 Yet ­Hostius appears to gain self-knowledge of a kind by gazing in his mirrors, but it is not the philosophical, morally-improving knowledge that Seneca would wish for. The suggestion made by Seneca that Hostius might have benefited had he been murdered more slowly, so that he could see himself, is more than a cruel jibe; it also demonstrates the c­ onnection between mirrors and self-knowledge. Seneca makes this connection very clear (inuenta sunt specula, ut homo ipse se nosset, ‘Mirrors were invented so that human beings might know themselves’, Q Nat. 1.17.4). Seneca’s authorial comment on Hostius’ death is also very suggestive for the emperor who was assassinated in his bedroom by members of his household. The use of mirrors in the Horace and in Seneca brings reflection as a prompt towards ethical improvement to the fore. Horace and ­Hostius at least look at themselves in their erotic mirrors, even if their responses are not worthy of praise. Suetonius’ tyrannical Domitian does not even have the self-awareness to gaze at himself and learn from what he sees; as a tyrant, he is compelled by his own fears to gaze elsewhere. The refusal to use the mirror in a reflexive way is powerfully suggestive of Domitian’s peculiar tyrannical nature. Biographical insight is thus compressed very neatly into a single, brief anecdote. At a more basic level, the mirror scene provides Suetonius with an opportunity to turn a private life into public performance. Something that ought to be entirely inaccessible to an ancient biographer 22  It is also a passage that modern commentators find difficult to deal with, see Inwood (2005) 193. Seneca links both sections of his book together as elements of wider Stoic discourse on phantasiai; see Bartsch (2007). 23  For effete males looking at themselves in mirrors, see Bartsch (2006) 110.

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becomes a dominant aspect of the Life as we have it.24 Perhaps more importantly, the mirror scene seems highly self-conscious and artificial, as though Suetonius’ biographical narrative were advertising its own synthetic nature. Performative concerns are visible in Suetonius’ longer narrative of the death of Augustus: supremo die identidem exquirens, an iam de se tumultus foris esset, petito speculo, capillum sibi comi ac malas labantes corrigi praecepit, et admissos amicos percontatus, ecquid iis uideretur mimum uitae commode transegisse, adiecit et clausulam . . . On his last day he asked frequently whether there was any trouble outside because of him; then looking in a mirror, he had his hair brushed and his jaws straightened. Then, summoning his friends and asking whether they thought he had played the comedy of his life well, he added a line . . . (Aug. 99.1)

Here we have identity projected as dramatic effect. In Augustus’ idealized death scene, the sense of public performance becomes paramount. Like Hostius Quadra, Augustus makes a spectacle of himself. As Edwards notes: Even (or especially?) on his death-bed, the emperor is aware of the scrutiny to which his behaviour is subject. At the same time, the theatrical trope serves to distance the dying man from his own death. Augustus’ biographer has the elderly emperor invoke comedy as his life nears its natural conclusion. The death of an old man is as natural as the end of a play.25

As in the Horace, the mirror becomes the activation-point for selfconscious public performance. Augustus begins his carefully staged death by looking in a mirror and carefully attending to his physical appearance. The dying emperor makes the sense of artificiality in the moment utterly apparent by quoting comedy. There is no more artifice here: Augustus plays a role, but, paradoxically, does so openly.26 Both the Horatian and Augustan scenes reveal the sometimes disturbing performative effect that mirrors can have on the subjects of 24  Suetonius also resists the Senecan emphasis on distorting mirrors, which are central to Hostius Quadra’s sexual antics. Horace’s mirrors appear to give a much more straightforward reflection of life in the bedroom. 25  Edwards (2007) 145. Dio’s Maecenas reminds Octavian of the public nature of his role in society and the impossibility of attaining any kind of privacy (Dio 52.34.2). 26  On the theatricality of this scene and idealization of Augustus, see Wardle (2007).



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Suetonius’ Lives. And in the context of imperial lives, the mirror reflects the always essentially public life of Augustus, and sets this in sharp contrast with the secretive Domitian. Equally, Horace’s abstention from public life and engagement in kinky sex is at most regrettable, but certainly not programmatic in the way it would be for an emperor. Mirrors (purport to) reveal essential truths not only about the subject(s) of a biography, but also about biography itself.

5.  REFLECTING ON REFLECTION: MIRROR AS EKPHR ASIS We can push this line of reasoning a little harder and examine the metaliterary function of Domitian’s mirrors in particular. Their oddity is that they are not mirrors in the standard sense at all, but highly polished stone installed within an architectural framework. The properties of phengite are also explored by the Elder Pliny (HN 36.163); its use by Nero within a temple absorbed into the Domus Aurea suggests that this kind of stone had a solid tyrannical provenance. The setting within the colonnade, the expensive, decorative qualities of the material used, and the brief but detailed description of the objects in question all suggest that these should be treated as a species of ekphrasis. Recent scholarship on ekphrasis emphasizes the way in which that rhetorical figure is designed ‘to produce a viewing subject. We read to become lookers, and poems [and other literature] are written to educate and direct viewing as a social and intellectual process.’27 What Goldhill says about Hellenistic epigram can be applied equally well to second-century Roman biography. Goldhill also interrogates the psychological analysis of ekphrasis in ancient rhetorical theory, underlining Quintilian’s suggestion that ekphrastic prose can access the innermost emotions of the audience: quas φαντασίας Graeci uocant (nos sane uisiones appellemus), per quas imagines rerum absentium ita repraesentantur animo ut eas cernere oculis ac praesentes habere uideamur, has quisquis bene ceperit is erit in adfectibus potentissimus. quidam dicunt εὐφαντασίωτον qui sibi res uoces actus secundum uerum optime finget.

27  Goldhill (2007) 2 (his italics).

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He who captures well what the Greeks call phantasias, and we call visions, through which images of absent things are so represented in the mind that we seem to have them present before our eyes, he will have most power over our emotions. Some call euphantasiotos the man who can handle things, words, actions most realistically. (Inst. 6.2.29–30)

If we apply Quintilian’s rhetorical theory to our mirror scenes in Suetonius, we can see the biographer as an oratorical adept, tapping into the minds of his audience through the device of reflective ekphrasis. The language of uisiones and imagines has, unsurprisingly, been central to all our biographical invocations of mirrors. What is curious about Suetonius’ mirrors is their ability to construct a multiplicity of viewing subjects. Thus, Domitian looks behind himself (not at himself) in his mirrorized stone, but we also look at the reflected emperor brought to life through the medium of ekphrasis. Moreover, we as constructed viewers look at Domitian in a variety of ways. We look first and foremost at Domitian the tyrant. Yet the conceit of using a mirror to let us into Domitian’s private colonnade also encourages us to look at Domitian in italics, as it were—Domitian as text. Here, we get a moment where biography examines its own desires and limitations. One of the most noticeable differences between ancient and modern biography is the ancient genre’s unwillingness to tap into the inner psychology and private existence of its subjects.28 Character is revealed by such things as public performance and appearance—the science of physiognomy replacing psychology in ancient Lives. The mirror in Suetonius acts as a metaliterary reflector, transforming the unknowable private existence into something performed and public. In Augustus’ case, the step is very small, given his desire to perform. Augustus’ relationship with Horace in the poet’s life is memorialized through letters and publicly recorded remarks—third-party texts made accessible to Suetonius. The Horatian mirror scene must have some sort of symbolic value, illustrating the inherent difficulty in transforming the individual into words on the page. For Domitian, obsessively hiding in the shadows, the historical reality is dominated by the literary imago. The mirror thus reflects Suetonius’ difficulties in writing the Life of Domitian. How do you tackle a subject who worked 28  See above, n. 4 and Tatum, ch. 8 in this volume.



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so hard to be invisible in every sense of the word and at every possible moment? How do you write a Life of an emperor who so recently suffered a damnatio memoriae and whose memory is so vilified by the members of elite society to whom you are beholden? The personal connection that Suetonius had with the Younger Pliny looms large in his biography of Domitian.

6.  PUBLIC FIGURES, PRIVATE LIVES Ancient biography’s unwillingness to psychologize its subjects in the way we in our post-Freudian world might choose does produce some odd results, especially in the surviving Lives of poets, grammarians, and rhetoricians. Poetry is never used to tap into the inner workings of Horace’s mind, but instead reveals his relationship with Augustus and his physical appearance. The closest we ever get to serious analysis of Horace’s poetry (at least in the biography as it survives), the thing for which he is being biographized, remember, is Suetonius’ dismissal of those spurious verses. A similar disjunction of poetry and poet is visible, for example, in the Life of Lucan, where it is a half-line of Nero that provides us with the most potent glimpse of Lucan’s tyrannicidal instincts:29 adeo ut quondam in latrinis publicis clariore cum strepitu uentris emissi hemistichium Neronis magna consessorum fuga pronuntiarit: sub terris tonuisse putes. As once in a public latrine, when he defecated with an incredible noise, he shouted out a hemistich by Nero, while all around him fled: You would think it had thundered underground. (Vita Luc. 17–19)

Instead of the insight into a Cartesian ego that a twenty-first-century biographer might hope to attain, Suetonius focuses on external manifestations of character, so that external, public, performative aspects (physiognomy in particular) become the tools with which character is revealed. Thus, the inherent tension between the invisible, private life of Domitian and the public genre of biography finds a further parallel in ancient conceptions of persona. We might compare the Stoic 29  This episode is also discussed by Damon, ch. 2 in this volume.

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theory, which is expounded by Cicero in the first book of De officiis ­(1.107–15).30 It is an especially apposite comparand, not least because of the prevalence of Stoicism in elite Roman thought in the imperial period. Cicero identifies four personae or roles attributable to each human being, including (i) human identity itself, (ii) physique and personality,31 (iii) identity as exemplified by social status and wealth, for example, and (iv) one’s choice of career and area of excellence in life. An obvious starting point is the externalization of persona in Cicero’s system, where identity and role in life is predicated upon physique, social status, and career. There are clear parallels between Cicero’s Panaetian scheme and the ways in which Suetonius chooses to construct and thematize his Lives, where individual persona is dictated by external factors. Part and parcel of this very Roman, Stoic way of thinking is the emphasis on public participation in life, where no man is an island. Epictetus’ formulation of human roles is much more closely focused on the development of the philosopher within society, where Cicero was interested in a variety of elite and especially political roles, but Suetonius’ Stoic contemporary clearly foregrounds the public role of the citizen (Epict. 2.10.3).32 I would suggest that what Epictetus says of the citizen’s role in society applies even more strongly to the emperor’s role in society. Suetonius gives a very positive appraisal of Augustus, in contrast perhaps to the ambivalent portrayals we find in Tacitus and Dio, and Augustus’ performance-minded persona may be a key element in this. It certainly underlines the extent to which Domitian’s unwillingness to play public roles is implicitly castigated by his biographer. These ways of thinking about public roles and how one may conceive of persona has important implications for our understanding of Suetonius and his production of biography tout court. Suetonius’ repetitive desire to examine public aspects of his subjects is more than a longing peculiar to author or even to genre. Literary form and basic Roman modes of thought drive the content of biography towards particular results, and Suetonius’ other surviving biographical work, the De grammaticis et rhetoribus, has some apposite and truly startling cases in point. One would imagine that 30  See Gill (1988); Bartsch (2006) 215–29. 31  Cicero’s argument regarding the second persona is that we should perform the roles in life best suited to us. Cicero also uses the metaphor of life as theatre to explain this process, Cic. Off. 1.114; see Gill (1988) 175. 32  See Long (2002) 196–201.



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grammarians and rhetoricians would be about as dry a subject matter as one could think of, yet we get remarkably little of those skills in teaching for which these men have become famous, and instead are treated to some highly entertaining public performances. We may cite one case in point: the notorious Julio-Claudian grammarian, Remmius Palaemon (Gramm. 23). There are interesting parallels in particular between Remmius’ sexual proclivities and Suetonius’ portrayal of Horace. There must be some grains of truth in this portrait: the Elder Pliny certainly writes disdainfully of Palaemon the property magnate (HN 14.50–1). We can see, therefore, that biography as Suetonius writes it has a disturbing tendency to work towards the lurid elements of private life as it is played out in public. Poets, teachers, and emperors are not remembered necessarily for the achievements which make them famous, but for the visible ways in which they perform their roles in society.

7. CONCLUSIONS Rudyard Kipling once described biography as a ‘higher cannibalism’,33 an image that suggests a life being consumed by biographer and readers. Yet the picture that emerges from the Domitian is almost the reverse; rather than devouring Domitian, Suetonius reconstructs the private elements of an imperial life. The generic impetus that we have traced out has serious consequences for Suetonius’ Domitian. It is often noted that Suetonius writes one of the shortest imperial Lives for one of the longest-reigning of his twelve Caesars.34 Moreover, Domitian was the emperor whose reign had ended most recently (and in some ways, therefore, was the best remembered). Suetonius articulates the difficulties and frustrations inherent in his chosen subject; Domitian’s public life had suffered an extraordinary revision in contemporary memory—this happened in Suetonius’ own lifetime and many of those who enacted the damnatio were still alive—meanwhile, Domitian’s private life was perhaps the least knowable of all Suetonius’ imperial subjects.

33  Letter to Sydney Cockerell, 6 Oct. 1932, in Pinney (2004) 134. 34  See Power (2010) 161.

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All this suggests reasons why the mirrors are so important for understanding Suetonius’ work. The scenes from Horace’s bedroom and Augustus’ death-bed foreground the simulated character of the biographical lives in which they are contained. The ancient mind thinks not of biography but of βίοι, and this difference is crucial. We get imitation Lives, imagines uitarum, which attempt to replicate the real lives they remember. In a sense, it is all done with mirrors. The appearance of this symbolically powerful object triggers a kind of mise-en-abîme where the biographer reflects on the biographical process, often at its trickiest moments. Horace’s bedroom may echo Suetonius’ creative desires as much as the Augustan poet’s erotic ones, Augustus’ death the power of idealization to overcome any sense of biographical ‘truth’. Meanwhile, Domitian poses the hardest questions of all, about the ability of the biographer to capture a recent, tyrannical life. Epictetus asserts that one who lacks self-knowledge, rational understanding, and moral judgement is nobody; Suetonius’ Domitian comes close to paradoxical negations of his own existence in a variety of ways.35 Suetonius’ Life of Domitian often threatens to be a literary failure (as indeed it has often been characterized in comparison with the rich Diuus Iulius and Augustus). Yet the sense of failure is perhaps the central theme of the Domitian, mimicking the sudden failure in an individual and his dynasty to make good on the promise that he and it had shown. Bowersock’s analysis of Suetonius’ prominence in the tradition of writing imperial Lives suggests that, as an example of the genre at least, Suetonius’ Domitian was not a failure.36 As an individual text, it seems that the last Life of the Caesars can be rehabilitated as a powerful epilogue that explores the artistic process of creating a literary life.

35  Epict. 2.24.11–20; cf. Long (2006) 335–8. 36  Bowersock (1998) esp. 202–10.

Part III Biographical Thresholds

10 Suetonius and the uiri illustres of Pliny the Younger Roy K. Gibson

1. THE LET TERS OF PLINY AND SUETONIUS’ DE VIRIS ILLUSTRIBUS The Letters of Pliny the Younger provide ample material for the construction of literary history.1 Not only are they notably abundant in communications with contemporary literary men and reports on current activity across a wide range of literary genres,2 but they also contain obituaries of

Unless otherwise stated, all references in this chapter are to Pliny’s Letters. Sincere thanks are owed to Tristan Power, who did much to shape this chapter, also to audiences in Manchester and Cambridge, who offered numerous useful suggestions. Translations of Pliny are taken or adapted from Walsh (2006); of Suetonius from Rolfe (1997) and Kaster (1995); and of Jerome from Richardson (1892). 1  For versions of this history, see e.g. Guillemin (1929); Cova (1966); Gamberini (1983); Marchesi (2008) 207–40. I do not claim that either Pliny or Suetonius straightforwardly supply ‘literary history’ in the modern sense, although both contain good supplies of ‘immanent’ literary history; for this useful concept, see Schmidt (2001). 2  Cf. e.g. in Book 1 alone: 1.2 (on Pliny’s latest speech), 1.3 (a demand that a friend produce a literary work), 1.6 (to Tacitus), 1.8 (on another of Pliny’s latest speeches), 1.10 (on the philosopher Euphrates), 1.13 (on the current crop of poets), 1.16 (on the varied literary accomplishments of a mutual friend), 1.18 (to Suetonius himself), 1.20 (on rhetorical style), 1.24 (on the purchase of a small estate for Suetonius). For further letters (and bibliography) on Pliny’s views on poetry and rhetoric, see Gibson and Morello (2012) 301 (no. 17), 302 (no. 20).

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recently deceased writers and numerous references to the great authors of the more distant past.3 In the formulation of Alan Cameron: while Pliny may not have had a literary circle in the Macrobian sense, he corresponded with some fifty people who were either writers of some sort themselves or with whom he discussed literary topics. Nor can there be any doubt that his letters cast a flood of light on the literary world of his age, or that Pliny himself was a keen and active patron of letters.4

Given such rich resources, I propose to use Pliny’s correspondence to cast light on another version of literary history produced by his younger contemporary and sometime protégé, Suetonius.5 That work is the De uiris illustribus: one of Suetonius’ most important and influential works outside the biographies of the Caesars.6 In particular, I wish to compare Pliny’s selection of literary uiri illustres with that of Suetonius to see what light this can shed on Suetonius and his apparently somewhat different social perspectives on literary figures and literary activity. Such a focus on differences in social attitudes between Pliny and Suetonius will ultimately allow us to revisit an older d ­ ebate—begun over fifty years ago by F. Della Corte—on the ‘equestrian’ attitudes which are alleged to have divided Suetonius from Pliny.7 Suetonius, of course, followed a distinctively equestrian official career, culminating in the posts of a studiis and a bibliothecis under Trajan and the prestigious position of ab epistulis under Hadrian. By contrast, Pliny followed a senatorial career culminating in a suffect consulship of ad 100, and eschewed the life of equestrian procuratorial service undertaken by his uncle and adoptive father, the Elder Pliny.8 3 Cf. e.g. 1.2.2 (Calvus), 1.20 (Cicero, passim), 3.5 (obituary-cum-bibliography of the Elder Pliny), 3.7 (obituary of Silius Italicus), 3.21 (obituary of Martial), 5.3.6 (Virgil), 5.5 (obituary of Gaius Fannius), 6.33.11 (Demosthenes), 8.23 (obituary of the promising young Iunius Avitus), 9.19 (obituary of Frontinus), 9.26.9–11 (Aeschines). On Pliny’s literary obituaries, see Gibson (2011b) 195–205 (on 3.5); Gibson and Morello (2012) 123–6 (on 3.7); Henderson (2001) (on 3.21); Gibson and Morello (2012) 221–2 (on 5.5); all with further bibliography. 4  Cameron (2011) 360–1, referring to Guillemin (1929) 23 and White (1975) 299. 5  For Pliny and the relationship sustained with Suetonius throughout the Letters, cf. e.g. 1.18, 1.24, 3.8, 5.10, 9.34, 10.94–5; Méthy (2009); Lefèvre (2009) 160–8; Henderson (2002) 24–6; Hoffer (1999) 211–25; Wallace-Hadrill (1983) 4–5, 26–38, 162–71; Syme (1981) = RP III.1337–49. 6  A comparison between Pliny and Suetonius in these terms is perhaps less obvious (and certainly more unusual) than one between Pliny’s Panegyricus and the Lives of the Caesars; but it may be all the more revealing for it. 7  Della Corte (1958). 8  For the life and career of Suetonius, see Wallace-Hadrill (1983) 2–8; for those of the Plinii, see Birley (2000) 1–17; Healy (1999) 1–23.



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As is well known, much of Suetonius’ De uiris illustribus is now lost. Nevertheless, the section On Grammarians and Rhetoricians survives virtually complete for the grammarians (and some rhetoricians),9 along with scattered Lives of poets (variously interpolated or abbreviated).10 We possess also a (problematic) witness to Suetonius’ text in Jerome, who is known to have drawn on Suetonius’ work in his own Christianizing De uiris illustribus of the fourth century.11 At any rate, a considerable amount of information about the scope and likely structure of the Suetonian work can be reconstructed from these and other sources. The conventional position, summarized by Robert Kaster, is that ‘In its original state the De Viris Illustribus (DVI) probably comprised well over 100 lives—of poets, historians, orators, philosophers, and teachers [of grammar and ­rhetoric]—distributed over four or five books. ’ The apparent purpose of the work was ‘to sketch the lives of those who had been noteworthy figures in the literary culture of Rome over the preceding three centuries’.12 On the basis of this reconstruction, an argument can be made for a broad comparability between Pliny’s Letters and the De uiris illustribus of Suetonius in some important respects (although our particular focus will ultimately be on social factors). Both Pliny and Suetonius are interested in—or at least include substantial reference to—the full range of literary endeavour at Rome: poetry, history, oratory, philosophy, teachers of rhetoric, etc. (Contrast the contemporary Dialogus of Tacitus, which is more narrowly focused on oratory and to a lesser extent on poetry, particularly tragedy.)13 Indeed, Pliny’s Letters are notable for their restraint in not imposing a strong hierarchy on the various genres discussed, and as author, Pliny himself moves easily between oratory, epistolography, and a range of poetic genres (not to mention a proposed work of history in 5.8).14 In addition, neither Suetonius nor Pliny offers a formal narrative of literary history. Rather, Suetonius’ segmented approach to literary achievement at Rome—where  9  See the edition and commentary of Kaster (1995). 10 The standard work on the De poetis remains Paratore (2007 [1946]), which reached a third edition in 2007; for its failings, see Power (2009a). For a brief overview with particular focus on the Life of Virgil, see Hägg (2012) 214–18. 11  See further below; cf. the opening to Jerome’s work: Hortaris, Dexter, ut Tranquillum sequens ecclesiasticos in ordinem digeram (‘You urge me, Dexter, to follow in the footsteps of Tranquillus by surveying ecclesiastical writers’); also Jer. Ep. 47.3.2. 12  Kaster (1995) xxiii. As has often been noted, these same categories underlie Juvenal’s satire 7; cf. e.g. Wallace-Hadrill (1983) 52. But for an argument against the idea that Juvenal is alluding to the DVI, see Power (2010) 156–7. 13  For an attempt, nevertheless, to read the Dialogus as a version of literary history, see Levene (2004). 14  Gibson and Steel (2010) 130–7.

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individuals are often treated in isolation, as biography follows biography—does have much in common with Pliny’s likewise segmented approach to his literary worthies, with his provision of biographical sketches and scattered summaries of literary achievement.15 Furthermore, there is the principle of selection: neither author includes everyone who ‘should’ be there. Rather (as we shall see), there are various blind spots and polemical exclusions.16 Conversely, we can be sure that each writer included by Pliny—who displays the characteristic Roman delicacy about naming names to an almost excessive degree17—reflects a long process of personal deliberation and reflection. We can add the fact also that Pliny almost certainly had access to the De uiris illustribus in some form. In letter 5.10, Pliny urges Suetonius to publish an unnamed work, now long finished (5.10.1, 3): Libera tandem hendecasyllaborum meorum fidem, qui scripta tua communibus amicis spoponderunt. appellantur cotidie, efflagitantur . . . perfectum opus absolutumque est, nec iam splendescit lima sed atteritur. patere me uidere titulum tuum, patere audire describi legi uenire uolumina Tranquilli mei. I beg you to redeem the pledge made in my hendecasyllables, which promised to the friends we share the publication of your writings. Every day there are appeals and demands for them . . . Your writings are fully developed and perfected; the file does not give them a bright sheen, but impoverishes them. Allow me to see the title of your volume, allow me to hear that the works of my friend Tranquillus are being copied, read, and sold.

The unpublished work has long been suspected as the De uiris illustribus; although many have doubted it.18 However, Tristan Power has recently identified numerous allusions in Pliny’s letter both to Virgilian hesitations over publication, and to the text of Suetonius’ Life of Virgil itself. These allusions (and a set of other internal cross references nearby) make 15  If the main body of the surviving De grammaticis and the De rhetoribus consists of a series of largely unconnected individual Lives, their opening paragraphs, nevertheless, do offer overviews of the reception of the two disciplines at Rome (as did presumably the lost sections of the text on poets etc.); see further below. 16  In this sense, Suetonius and Pliny may be said not to have concerned themselves with canon-formation. For the Roman reception of Greek canons of exemplary writers in each genre, see Citroni (2006). 17  See in general F. Jones (1996) 102–9; for persons not named or deliberately excluded by Pliny from his correspondence, see Syme (1968a) 135 = RP II.694; (1969) 234–5 = RP II.771–2; (1985) 343, 350–9 = RP V.460, 468–77. 18  First suggested by Macé (1900) 66–77, but doubted by Sherwin-White (1966) 338; Wallace-Hadrill (1983) 52–3, 59; and Kaster (1995) xliv.



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it appear likely that the work to which Pliny refers—and of which he appears to have some knowledge—is indeed a version of the De uiris illustribus.19 Pliny, we might add, had some interest in seeing the work published, since the De uiris illustribus contained a Life of the Elder Pliny.20

2.  COMPARING PLINY AND SUETONIUS However, if it is tempting to compare Suetonius’ DVI and Pliny’s Letters with a view to ultimately teasing out their differences in social attitudes, it is also a project fraught with initial difficulties. For, despite the similarities identified earlier, a series of one hundred or so brief biographies of illustrious literary men neither possesses the same generic form, nor is likely to display the same characteristic content as a published correspondence.21 More obviously, how can we compare Suetonius’ selection of literary uiri illustres with that of Pliny? Not only are we ignorant of the identities of a good number of those to receive biographies from Suetonius, but it is hardly a straightforward matter to decide who is to be counted as a literary uir illustris in the context of Pliny’s Letters. Mere inclusion in a work is not a criterion that can be transferred from Suetonius to Pliny, since fleeting appearance or quotation is arguably not enough to suggest that a man of letters is regarded by Pliny as an important figure. However, rather than walking away with the conclusion that a collection of letters and a collection of biographies are incommensurable, both generically and in other respects, I hope to persuade the reader that it is worth persevering with a comparison. The method of comparison (outlined below) can be described as ‘experimental’, and the outcomes must be regarded as highly provisional. Nevertheless, I offer, 19  Power (2010), who suggests that the DVI would be published in its entirety by ad 110. 20  See Reeve (2011) for a new text and discussion of the Vita Plinii. Suetonius also evidently used the Elder Pliny’s historical works as a source for the Caesars; cf. Calig. 8. For these various historical works, cf. Plin. Ep. 3.5.3–6; Sherwin-White (1966) 2­ 16–17, 218; Healy (1999) 32–5; and see below, n. 53. 21  On the characteristics of ancient biography as a genre, see now Hägg (2012), esp. 1–9; also McGing and Mossman (2006); Reichel (2005); Burridge (2004); with references to older literature. On the rather different generic markers of letters and letter collections, see Trapp (2003) 1–5; Gibson and Morrison (2007); Gibson (2012), (2013). Nevertheless, for the biographical potential of Pliny’s Letters, see Gibson and Morello (2012) 9–35.

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as a starting point, an initial definition of the sort of person who might qualify as a uir illustris in Pliny’s letters. The definition is rather rough and ready, and the results it produces—above all, at the margins—are clearly open to contestation. Nevertheless, the results are interesting and suggestive.22 An experimental definition of a literary uir illustris in Pliny’s Letters might run as follows:  (i) A living figure whose achievements in the written or spoken word, whether published or not (but subject to some form of contemporary or eventual dissemination), are strongly marked as somehow worthy of the reader’s attention. Such marking may be negative or positive, and take place on single or repeated occasions.   (ii) A figure, deceased within (normally recent) living memory, whose achievements in the written or spoken word are summarized or made subject to (sometimes lengthy) judgement, whether negative or positive. (iii) A (usually) long-dead writer whose life or work is held up as, or implied to be, exemplary in some sense. Mention of writers in this category is usually passing or brief. In order to exercise some sort of discrimination in this area, I have included only writers mentioned explicitly by name23 two or more times as practitioners within a single Suetonian category (see later). Where writers operate in more than one category, they must be mentioned more than once as special practitioners, in order for that category to be attached to their name. By this definition, various figures suffer summary exclusion from the list of Pliny’s uiri illustres. For example, Asinius Pollio—as will be seen in a moment—is admitted to Pliny’s lists under the rubric of ‘orator’, since his speeches or fame as an orator are mentioned three times by Pliny (1.20.4, 6.29.5, 7.4.3, 6), but is not admitted under the rubric ‘poet’, as his verses are mentioned but once, at 5.3.5 (in a long list of senatorial authors of light verse). Excluded altogether is C ­ ornelius Nepos, who is mentioned first in a general way only, without assignment to 22  Note that to qualify as a uir illustris does not connote unqualified approval from the author either in Pliny or in Suetonius; compare Pliny’s attitude to Silius Italicus in 3.7 with Suetonius’ views on Lucan in the Vita Lucani. 23  An exception has been made for the Elder Pliny, whom Pliny naturally refers to as auunculus rather than as C. Plinius Secundus.



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a genre (4.28.1), and a second time in passing as a poet (5.3.6).24 And the Julio-Claudian orator Domitius Afer may appear twice in Pliny’s correspondence (2.14.10–12, 8.18.5–7), but he does so only once in the guise of a famous public speaker, hence his exclusion from the Plinian list of illustrious orators.25 Likewise excluded because they are explicitly named on single occasions only (for example): the poets Menander, Callimachus, Aratus, Ennius, Accius, Varro, Horace, and Seneca (3.7.15, 4.3.4, 5.3.5, 5.3.6, 5.6.43, 6.21.4, 9.22.2);26 the orators Lysias and Isocrates (1.20.4, 6.29.6); the philosophers Plato and Musonius Rufus (1.10.5, 3.11); and the historians Thucydides and Xenophon (5.8.11, 7.32.2).27

3. PLINY’S VIRI ILLUSTRES Having suggested a definition for a literary uir illustris within the context of Pliny’s letters, I now offer a list of putative Plinian uiri illustres, arranged by Suetonius’ presumed categories (poets, historians, orators, etc.), and set out in three different tables according to genre, era, and status. The tables conceal one fact that is glaringly obvious to a reader of the Letters: in the categories of poet and (above all) orator, the leading uir illustris—in terms of sheer visibility—is Pliny the Younger himself. Furthermore, despite the large number of poets and historians named by Pliny, and his own interest in these genres as both reader and actual or potential practitioner, it is clear that it is the category of ‘orator’ which is of greatest importance to him (as is made clear in letters such as 5.8). 24  Likewise excluded is (e.g.) Iulius Frontinus, author of De aquis urbis Romae and the Strategemata: he appears three times in Pliny (4.8.3, 5.1.5, 9.19), but without mention of his literary works. 25  Included in the categories of both poet and orator, by contrast, is Licinius Calvus, whose poetry is mentioned several times (1.16.5, 4.27.4, 5.3.5), and whose oratory is mentioned once with particular prominence at the start of the collection (1.2.2) and later appears by implication as a model at 5.3.4: quorum non seria modo uerum etiam lusus exprimere laudabile est. For Domitius Afer, see Whitton (2013a) 209 (on 2.14.10). 26  Ennius, Accius, Varro, and Seneca—along with a host of others less well known for their poetry—are all named in 5.3.5–6, many of them for the first and only time in Pliny. For the idiosyncrasies of that letter (in terms of Pliny’s patterns of interest in poets) and its possible engagement with Suetonius’ De poetis, see further below. 27  Nevertheless, Pliny may elsewhere quote from or allude to their writings, without naming them; cf. 2.10.2, 5.8.3 (Ennius); 3.12.1 (Horace); 4.25.5 (Plato).

Historians (incl. biographers*)

Orators

Philosophers

Teachers and/or writers on grammar or rhetoric

•  Caninius Rufus •  Pompeius Saturninus •  Licinius Calvus •  Catullus •  Plautus •  Terence •  Octavius Rufus •  Vestricius Spurinna •  Silius Italicus •  Virgil •  Silius Proculus •  Martial •  Arrius Antoninus •  Pliny the Younger •  Sentius Augurinus •  Cicero •  Calpurnius Piso •  Passenus Paulus •  Propertius •  Vergilius Romanus •  Homer

•  Pompeius Saturninus •  Livy •  Pliny the Elder •  Fannius* •  ?Suetonius* •  Tacitus •  Herennius Senecio* •  Claudius Pollio* •  Titinius Capito* •  Cluvius Rufus •  ?Voconius Romanus*

•  Pliny the Younger •  Demosthenes •  Licinius Calvus •  Cicero •  Aquillius Regulus •  Herennius Senecio •  Pompeius Saturninus •  Cato the Elder •  Aeschines •  Asinius Pollio •  Tacitus •  Thrasea Paetus •  Novius Maximus •  ?Iulius Avitus •  Fuscus Salinator •  Ummidius Quadratus •  Cremutius Ruso •  Iunius Avitus

•  Euphrates •  Artemidorus •  [Athenodorus]

•  ?Suetonius •  Isaeus •  Quintilian •  Iulius Genitor •  The Elder Pliny •  Valerius Licinianus •  Atilius Crescens •  ?Sardus

28  Tacitus as orator (1.20, 2.1.6, 2.11, 4.13.10) and historian (6.16, 6.20, ?7.20, 7.33, ?8.7; cf. the almost certain reference to Tacitus as historian at 9.27); Cato the Elder as orator (1.20.4, 4.7.5). Cato the Younger is mentioned several times in the Letters (1.17.3, 3.12, 3.21.5, 4.27.4), but with emphasis on his reputation for moral rectitude rather than on any literary achievement.

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Poets

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Table 10.1.  Pliny’s uiri illustres arranged by Suetonian category A number of the figures listed in the table are known to have practised in more than one genre. Here they are assigned to the genre in which Pliny takes interest: thus Tacitus appears as both historian and orator (since Pliny underlines his achievements in both genres), whereas Cato the Elder, despite having written works of history, is assigned to the genre of oratory alone (since Pliny takes interest in his achievements here alone).28

Poets

Historians (incl. biographers*)

Orators

Modern

•  Caninius Rufus •  Pompeius Saturninus •  Octavius Rufus •  Vestricius Spurinna •  Silius Proculus •  Arrius Antoninus •  Pliny •  Sentius Augurinus •  Calpurnius Piso •  Passenus Paulus •  Vergil Romanus •  Silius Italicus •  Martial

•  Pompeius Saturninus •  Fannius* •  ?Suetonius* •  Tacitus •  Claudius Pollio* •  Titinius Capito* •  ?Voconius Romanus*

•  Pliny the Younger •  Euphrates •  Pompeius Saturninus •  Artemidorus •  Tacitus •  [Athenodorus] •  Novius Maximus •  ?Iulius Avitus •  Fuscus Salinator •  Umm. Quadratus •  Cremutius Ruso •  Iunius Avitus

•  ?Suetonius •  Isaeus •  Iulius Genitor •  Valerius Licinianus •  Atilius Crescens •  ?Sardus

•  Pliny the Elder •  Herennius Senecio* •  Cluvius Rufus

•  Aquillius Regulus •  Herennius Senecio

•  Quintilian

•  Thrasea Paetus •  Asinius Pollio

•  Pliny the Elder

Flavian

•  Livy

Teachers and/or writers on grammar or rhetoric

•  Licinius Calvus •  Cicero •  Cato the Elder •  Demosthenes •  Aeschines

29  In the De uiris illustribus, Suetonius appears to have positioned his biographies with regard to floruit and without regard to length of life or year of death; see Power (2013c) 118–20 on the evidence provided by the index to the De grammaticis et rhetoribus.

207

Later Julio-Claudian (Tiberius–Nero) Augustan •  Virgil •  Propertius Late Republic •  Licinius Calvus •  Catullus •  Cicero Middle Republic •  Plautus •  Terence Greek (classical and archaic) •  Homer

Philosophers

Suetonius and Pliny the Younger

Era



Table 10.2.  Pliny’s uiri illustres arranged by era Some figures straddle eras (such as Martial, Silius Italicus, Regulus), but in the table they are assigned either to the era of their greatest contemporary influence and prestige, or to the era in which Pliny is most interested in the case of each individual (as, for example, in the case of the elderly Vestricius Spurinna).29

Poets

Historians (incl. biographers*)

Orators

Senatorial (or soon / likely to become so)

•  Licinius Calvus •  Vestricius Spurinna •  Silius Italicus •  Silius Proculus •  Arrius Antoninus •  Pliny the Younger •  Cicero •  Calpurnius Piso •  Sentius Augurinus

•  Tacitus •  Herennius Senecio* •  Cluvius Rufus

•  Pliny the Younger •  Licinius Calvus •  Cicero •  Aquillius Regulus •  Herennius Senecio •  Cato the Elder •  Asinius Pollio •  Tacitus •  Thrasea Paetus •  ?Iulius Avitus •  Fuscus Salinator •  Ummidius Quadratus •  Cremutius Ruso •  Iunius Avitus

Philosophers

Teachers and/or writers on grammar or rhetoric • Valerius Licinianus (disgraced praetor forced to practice rhetoric after exile)

30  See now Cairns (2006) 1–34 on Propertius. For an attempt to quantify senatorial and equestrian poets versus non-equestrian poets in the period before ad 140, and to estimate numbers of senators versus equestrians (where the former predominate), see White (1993) 5–14. (White does, however, stress that senators are more likely to leave marks of their status.)

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Status

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Table 10.3.  Pliny’s uiri illustres arranged by status The identification of a person’s status is necessarily provisional in some cases. Particularly doubtful cases are marked with ‘?’. Identifications are taken largely from Birley (2000)—based in turn in great part on the work of Sir Ronald Syme—and White (1993) 211–22 for poets. Caution has been exercised in the case of some Republican and Augustan poets, despite the overwhelming likelihood that (for example) Propertius was of equestrian status.30



•  Caninius Rufus •  Pompeius Saturninus •  Octavius Rufus •  Martial •  Passenus Paulus •  Vergilius Romanus

Not definitely known •  Catullus or subequestrian •  Virgil •  Propertius •  Plautus •  Terence [freedman] Greek •  Homer

•  Pompeius Saturninus •  Pompeius Saturninus •  Livy •  Novius Maximus •  Pliny the Elder •  Fannius* •  ?Suetonius* •  Claudius Pollio* •  Titinius Capito* •  ?Vergilius Romanus*

•  Demosthenes •  Aeschines

•  ?Suetonius •  Quintilian •  Iulius Genitor •  The Elder Pliny •  Atilius Crescens •  ?Sardus

•  Euphrates •  Isaeus •  Artemidorus •  Athenodorus

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Equestrian (where known or plausibly assumed)

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Pliny’s uiri illustres are arranged in Tables 10.1–3, roughly in order of first mention in the correspondence, from Book 1 through to Book 9. Figures whose literary genre is to be inferred from Pliny’s characteristic style of reference or address are marked with an initial ‘?’ (even if that genre is known from external sources, as in the case of Suetonius himself). Classic authors known to modernity by either nomen or cognomen alone are identified by that single name (e.g. Catullus, not Valerius Catullus); all others are identified by two names (e.g. Vestricius Spurinna), except where further nomenclature is unknown (e.g. Sardus). For a full listing of all mentions in the Letters of the figures who appear in the tables, see Appendix 1 at the end of this chapter.

4.  JEROME AS EVIDENCE FOR SUETONIUS If a provisional definition of a literary uir illustris can be offered for Pliny’s Letters, what of the question (raised earlier) of the precise content of Suetonius’ De uiris illustribus?31 This question has been long debated, and—aside from the known contents of the section On Grammarians and Rhetoricians—centres on the interpretation of the data provided by Jerome’s De uiris illustribus. On the one hand, in the summary of Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, ‘Jerome made heavy use of Suetonius: some ninety or so entries give data about seventy or more authors . . . As a result, we have something like a content list of Suetonius’ lives.’32 On the other, there is the fact that Jerome was selective in his approach (quite apart from any mistakes made in his comprehension of Suetonius’ text). Thus he mentions only five out of Suetonius’ twenty grammarians, and ten out of the sixteen ­rhetoricians—­although it is possible that his manuscript of this section of the work was mutilated.33 In what follows, I take Jerome as a not unreliable guide to the contents of Suetonius’ work—at least as regards broad patterns of coverage and inclusion (rather than as evidence for the inclusion or exclusion of individual authors). In so doing, I lean heavily on the overview 31  A new reconstruction of the De uiris illustribus will be offered in Power (forthcoming b). 32  Wallace-Hadrill (1983) 51. 33  Wallace-Hadrill (1983) 51–2, with references to older literature on the contents of the DVI; cf. Kaster (1995) xxiii–xxvi.



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provided by Andrew Wallace-Hadrill in his standard monograph on the author.34 Particularly useful is his insistence that it is important . . . to grasp [the] character [of the DVI], learned and idiosyncratic; not at all after the style of a modern handbook of literary history, dealing with everything that ought to be there, but following where the author’s interests and reading led . . .

It is precisely this character that makes a comparison between Suetonius and the Letters of Pliny useful and possible, inasmuch as both are (to different degrees) unsystematic and largely following their own interest (and connections).35

5.  FAVOURED ERAS IN SUETONIUS AND PLINY We begin with the possible social significance implicit in the favouring of particular eras and genres by Pliny and Suetonius, before homing in, towards the end of the chapter, on more explicit social attitudes and divergent social narratives in the texts of the two authors. When one looks first at the question of era (Table 10.2), Pliny’s men of literary distinction show some clear patterns. Where historians, philosophers, and teachers/writers on grammar or rhetoric are concerned, Pliny is interested mainly in contemporary and Flavian figures. Poets and orators—the two categories most of interest to Pliny—show a slightly greater spread. Contemporary and Flavian figures predominate once more, but literary men from the middle Republic to Augustan times make up a substantial cluster. The period of least interest to Pliny in all categories is the later Julio-Claudian era (Tiberius–Nero). Perhaps these patterns are what we might expect in a collection of correspondence: a strong emphasis on contemporary figures with a smattering of representatives from past literary golden ages. Certainly, this is the sort of pattern one gets in modern correspondence, such as that of Philip Larkin (although the references to contemporaries are often bracingly negative) or the letters of Ted Hughes.36 But the same does not necessarily hold for Pliny’s two great epistolary predecessors, Cicero and Seneca. Seneca, of course, is generally (and notoriously) silent on contemporary events and characters, and (e.g.) the 34  Wallace-Hadrill (1983) 50–72, esp. 51–9. 35  Wallace-Hadrill (1983) 58.    36  Larkin (1992); Hughes (2007).

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only ‘modern’ poet to get a mention appears to be the addressee of the letters himself, Lucilius (Ep. 8.10). Cicero is hardly so reticent; but he does show remarkably little interest in the contemporary literary scene. In the words of Peter White: Although more than two and a half times as many letters by Cicero as by Pliny survive, the respective collections disclose considerably less about Cicero’s involvement in the Roman literary milieu than about Pliny’s. The Ciceronian corpus includes no counterparts to the portraits Pliny composes of fellow writers like his uncle the elder Pliny, Silius Italicus, and Martial, for example, or to the many accounts Pliny provides of recitations.37

Cicero does quote freely from non-contemporary Greek and Latin literature. But his main concern is with his own current productions, and in general, Cicero is happy to play down literature as a subject in his dialogue even with other writers, preferring to give pride of place to politics (a subject which he is happy to expand on for its own sake).38 I think we can conclude that Pliny’s marked interest in the contemporary literary scene—and the reflection of that interest in the ­correspondence—is a deliberate choice on Pliny’s part. In turn, it allows us to understand something of the social character of the Letters and to contrast it with that of the De uiris illustribus. For Suetonius’ spread of interests across the same eras, I rely, as promised, on Wallace-Hadrill’s broad reconstructions. The key argument by Wallace-Hadrill, based largely on the evidence produced by Jerome, is that for the DVI as a whole, ‘. . . a marked pattern emerges, of concentration on the age of Cicero and Augustus, with waning interest in the Julio-Claudian period, and almost complete neglect of the ­Flavians’.39 On this reconstruction, Suetonius appears to have included the big names of the middle Republic in his catalogue of ­illustrious versifiers, but the greatest cluster is in the first century bc, where even some rather minor late Republican and Augustan poets gain their moment in the spotlight. Thereafter, the treatment may well have been rather patchier (declining over time to non-existent).40 Likewise for the orators, at least on the evidence of Jerome, Suetonius may have 37  White (2010) 103. In his survey of orators in the Brutus, Cicero reserves fullest treatment for Greek rhetoricians of the late-fifth and fourth centuries, and for the orators of his own day at Rome. For an overview, see Douglas (1966) xliv–liv. 38  White (2010) 100, 102. See more generally White (2010) 99–115, 177–9. 39  Wallace-Hadrill (1983) 53. 40  See Wallace-Hadrill (1983) 53 for the details.



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concentrated particularly on the late Republic and Augustan eras,41 while The historians are a very odd selection. Sallust and Livy, the classics of the later republic and the Augustan age, are there, but apart from them are only four names [in Jerome]: Nepos the biographer, Fenestella the Augustan antiquarian, Asconius Pedianus . . . and we may add from other sources the elder Pliny.42

Missing from Jerome, at least, are not only the annalists of the Republic before Sallust, but also the great historians of the early imperial period. (Nevertheless, it is possible that imperial historians such as Aufidius Bassus and Cluvius Rufus were included by Suetonius: the former is sometimes thought to be a likely source for the early books of the Caesars, while the latter is actually mentioned by Suetonius at Ner. 21.2.)43 As for philosophers, Jerome yields only the names Seneca and (oddly) the philosophically somewhat marginal Varro and Nigidius Figulus—which may point to the omission of some of the major figures listed by Quintilian (Inst. 10.1.123–5).44 Finally, with the teachers of grammar and rhetoric, we are on firmer ground, since the indices to this section of the De uiris illustribus survive apparently complete, even if the text does not. Within the grammarians, the broad pattern identified earlier is reproduced: ‘eleven belong to the lifetime of Cicero, who is frequently named or cited; six to that of Augustus; two to the Julio-Claudian period; and one to the Flavians.’ Rhetors achieved cultural prominence rather later than other ‘illustrious men’, so the balance here is a little different: ‘four are Ciceronian; five or six were active in Augustus’ lifetime; four flourished under the Julio-­Claudians, and three under the Flavians.’45 Here it is appropriate to emphasize once more the provisional nature of any argument based on a reconstruction of the contents of the De uiris illustribus largely from Jerome. For all we can be sure, the great Flavian poets Silius Italicus, Valerius Flaccus, Martial, and Statius all had their own entries in the text of Suetonius; however, J­ erome failed to take an interest in them since they were somehow not congruent 41  See Wallace-Hadrill (1983) 54.    42  Wallace-Hadrill (1983) 54–5. 43  Both of these latter figures are mentioned by Pliny in his Letters: Bassus, very fleetingly, at 3.5.6; Cluvius Rufus, with heavy emphasis, at 9.19.5 (hence his inclusion in my list of Plinian uiri illustres). 44  Wallace-Hadrill (1983) 55. 45  Both quotations are from Wallace-Hadrill (1983) 56.

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with his own purposes. We shall never know. Nevertheless, WallaceHadrill is surely right to detect in Jerome a broad pattern of waning interest in literary figures from after the Augustan period. And it is not unreasonable to identify this pattern with the likely emphasis of Suetonius’ own text.46 On that basis, it is interesting to note that where Pliny and Suetonius ‘agree’—as it were—is in their relative lack of interest in the later JulioClaudian period. Otherwise, Pliny (as can be seen from Table 10.2) shares Suetonius’ interest in the poets and orators of the late Republic and the Augustan age, but also waxes precisely where Suetonius wanes: Pliny’s interest in Flavian and particularly contemporary figures is strong at exactly the moment where Suetonius loses interest. Some explanations are obvious, but interesting nevertheless. Suetonius appears not to have included contemporary figures in the DVI.47 In Pliny, by contrast, most of the contemporary figures among the orators and poets (including the recently dead Martial of letter 3.21) are linked to Pliny through personal support, patronage, or promotion of varying sorts.48 Hence the exclusion, for example, of such important literary figures as Statius, with whom Pliny appears to have had no ties of patronage.49 Evidently, Pliny wished to give special attention to his associates and protégés, and—just as importantly—to place himself at the centre of a post-Domitianic literary revival in oratory and poetry.50 This in turn clarifies the social character of the DVI: this was not a work written from the viewpoint of the patron class, and it was not intended 46  This suggested pattern is congruent with that of the Caesars, where Suetonius appears particularly interested in the period of the foundation of the Principate; see Power (2010) 160, with further references. 47  Wallace-Hadrill (1983) 52–6; Power (2010) 157; cf. below, n. 85. 48 E.g. among poets Caninius Rufus (1.3, 8.4), Pompeius Saturninus (1.16), ­Octavius Rufus (2.10), Silius Proculus (3.15), Arrius Antoninus (4.3, 4.18, 5.15), Sentius ­Augurinus (4.27, 9.8), Calpurnius Piso (5.17), Passenus Paulus (6.15, 9.22), and ­Vergilius Romanus (6.21); among orators Pompeius Saturninus (1.16), Novius Maximus (9.1: for the identification, see Birley (2000) 76 s.v.); Iulius Avitus (5.21.3–5; cf. 6.6.6), Fuscus Salinator (6.11, 6.26, 7.9), Ummidius Quadratus (6.11, 6.29, ­7.24.8–9), and Iunius Avitus (8.23). 49  Statius also had inconvenient ties with Domitian, and no time (unlike Martial) to distance himself from the dead emperor; cf. Sherwin-White (1966) 3. But for Statius as an important model for Pliny, nonetheless, see the bibliography cited at Gibson and Morello (2012) 302 (no. 23); also Whitton (2013a) 4. 50  For an especially clear instance of such ‘placement’ in Book 1 of the Letters, see Gibson and Morello (2012) 20–35.



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either to celebrate the literary efflorescence over which the current emperor(s) presided so majestically, or to curry favour with a contemporary patron. This note of divergence in social interests and attitudes is one we shall hear amplified in the remainder of this chapter.

6.  FAVOURED GENRES IN SUETONIUS AND PLINY From the topic of literary eras favoured by Suetonius and Pliny, we turn to the question of literary genres favoured by this pair, and the possible social significance of such preferences. Pliny, like any self-respecting member of an equestrian clan recently ennobled by senatorial and consular status, shows notably little interest in professional philosophers (Table 10.1).51 The only members of this class on display are some resoundingly tame specimens: Euphrates, a Stoic from Tyre (1.10), and Artemidorus from Syria, the son-in-law of Musonius Rufus (3.11). Both are closer to rhetoricians than to their grumpy and challenging contemporary, Epictetus, and Pliny condescends remorselessly to Euphrates in a long letter in Book 1.52 Suetonius, to judge from Jerome, did have the good grace to mention Seneca, but appears otherwise to have been rather sparing in his mention of eminent philosophers (as noted earlier). In other words, philosophers are perhaps largely written out of the literary histories to be found in Pliny and Suetonius. If Pliny and Suetonius share a lack of interest in philosophers, they are nevertheless both interested in historians, although with rather different patterns of emphasis. Most of the contemporary and Flavian historians mentioned by Pliny (Table 10.2) have some kind of personal or family connection with him, although the link is not always that of patronage.53 In addition, Pliny displays a marked interest in the related 51  Cf. the famous dismissal of philosophy as unsuitable for a ‘Roman and senator’ found at Tac. Agr. 4.2–3. 52  See the excellent chapter on 1.10 by Hoffer (1999) 119–40. 53  E.g. Pompeius Saturninus (1.16), the Elder Pliny (3.5.6), Tacitus (6.16, 6.20, 7.33; cf. 9.27), and Cluvius Rufus (9.19.5: in connection with Pliny’s guardian, Verginius Rufus). The Elder’s continuation of the annals of Aufidius Bassus, apparently devoted to the exploits of Vespasian and his sons, created problems for the Younger in postDomitianic Rome; see Gibson (2011b) 198–202. (For the Elder’s other historical works, see above, n. 20.) On the intimate relationship between Pliny and Tacitus, see Marchesi (2008) 97–143; Woodman (2009b) = (2012) 243–56; Whitton (2012); and Gibson and Morello (2012) 161–8, with further bibliography at 304–5 (no. 26).

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genre of biography—including his own biography (which appears to be in the process of composition by his close friend Voconius Romanus in 9.28).54 But Pliny is interested above all in ‘Stoic’ b ­ iography—that is, works on the lives and deaths of Stoic senators ‘martyred’ by emperors prior to Nerva and Trajan. Within this category, he mentions works by Gaius Fannius on the victims of Nero (5.5); by Titinius Capito on exitus inlustrium uirorum (‘the deaths of illustrious men’, 8.12.4; cf. 1.17.3); and by Herennius Senecio on Helvidius Priscus the Elder, ‘martyred’ by Vespasian in ad 74 (7.19.5). His own speech De Helvidii ultione, on the vindication of Helvidius the Younger (executed by Domitian in ad 93), is trumpeted at some length in letter 9.13, and must have been close in some of its emphases to this style of literature.55 Suetonius’ historians—as characterized by Wallace-Hadrill—are rather hard to make sense of as a group. Nevertheless, Suetonius was interested in fellow biographers, and provided entries on those known to have written works in this genre, such as Hyginus and Pitholaus (Gramm. 20, 27), and almost certainly added others elsewhere, including Lives of Cornelius Nepos, Varro, and Asconius (frr. 75, 79, 83–4 Reiff.).56 Furthermore, Asconius and his fellow biographer Santra are elsewhere cited as sources.57 In addition, the lost preface to the DVI may have mentioned a group of Greek biographers (Hermippus, Antigonus, Satyrus, and Aristoxenus) as a kind of canon for literary biography.58 However, as far as we can tell, Suetonius was not much 54  See Sherwin-White (1966) 510–11 on 9.28.3; for Voconius Romanus, see Gibson and Morello (2012) 149–54. The work by the unidentified Sardus mentioned emphatically in the nearby 9.31 might also include scenes from Pliny’s life, but ‘it is much more likely to be a treatise on oratory’ (Sherwin-White 1966: 513): hence the inclusion of this Sardus under the rubric of ‘Teachers and/or writers on grammar or rhetoric’. Pliny mentions a memoir authored by himself on the son of Vestricius Spurinna (3.10), but clearly has no serious ambitions in this area, hence Pliny’s own exclusion from the list of historians/biographers. (Note that the work of history canvassed by Pliny in 5.8 is never written.) Likewise excluded is Regulus, author of a ‘vanity’ biography of his own son (derided by Pliny at 4.7). 55  On the contemporary fashion for such exitus literature, see Power’s Introduction to this volume; Coleman (1990) 22–4; Ash (1999) 87. On letter 9.13 and the De Helvidii ultione, see Gibson and Morello (2012) 27–32, with further references. For Pliny’s interest in biography in general, see Pausch (2004) 88–97. 56  See Wallace-Hadrill (1983) 57–8, and cf. the preface to Jerome’s DVI cited below, n. 58. For the biographical works of Hyginus and Pitholaus, see Kaster (1995) 207, 300. 57  E.g. Asconius: Vita Verg. 10, 46; Santra: Vita Ter. 71–9, Gramm. 14.4; cf. Kaster (1995) 64–5 on Santra as a source for Gramm. 2.2. Suetonius also records that Epicadus acted as a biographer of sorts by completing Sulla’s autobiography (Gramm. 12.2). 58  This assumption is based on the prominent position awarded to these characters in the preface to Jerome’s DVI: fecerunt quidem hoc idem apud Graecos, Hermippus peripateticus, Antigonus Carystius, Satyrus doctus uir, et longe omnium doctissimus Aristoxenus musicus. apud Latinos autem Varro, Santra, Nepos, Hyginus, et ad cuius



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interested in the class of biography that appears to have held particular interest for Pliny: namely the lives and deaths of martyred Stoics.59 Arguably, we see here the different versions of literary history likely to be produced by a senator who began his career under Domitian, and a non-senator whose scholarly interests led him in an altogether different direction.60 The inward-looking senatorial class was undoubtedly anxious to read about the heroic behaviour of at least some of their number under previous regimes; but its martyred dead apparently held little appeal as a topic for an equestrian outsider.

7.  SO CIAL STATUS AND PUBLIC STANDING (1): RHETORS AND GRAMMARIANS IN SUETONIUS AND PLINY From social attitudes implicit in the favouring of different eras and genres by Suetonius and Pliny, we now move finally to looking at more overt expressions of distinctive social interests and attitudes in the pair. What makes such an investigation possible—to take Suetonius first—is the fact that the De uiris illustribus appears ultimately to have offered a cultural rather than literary account of its illustrious men (according to Wallace-Hadrill’s persuasive characterization).61 That is to say, Suetonius is particularly interested in the social standing of his illustrious men, their contribution to public life, and above all in their interactions with the great patrons and political figures of the day.62 Pliny himself, of course, is keenly interested in social status and public nos exemplum prouocas, Tranquillus (‘A similar work has been done by Hermippus the peripatetic, Antigonus Carystius, the learned Satyrus, and most learned of all, Aristoxenus the Musician, among the Greeks, and among the Latins by Varro, Santra, Nepos, Hyginus, and by him through whose example you seek to stimulate us—Tranquillus’). However, this view is challenged by Power (2014d) 402–3, (forthcoming b). 59  A point made by Wallace-Hadrill (1983) 58; but see now Power (2014c), who demonstrates that Suetonius was hardly ignorant of this literature. 60  For the importance to Pliny of establishing credible retrospective links with the ‘Stoic opposition’, see Carlon (2009) 18–67 and the bibliography cited in Gibson and Morello (2012) 304 (no. 24). 61  Wallace-Hadrill (1983) 60. 62 Cf. e.g. among grammarians and rhetoricians (many of whom are explicitly identified as freedmen), the social emphases in the Lives of Gramm. 7 (M. Antonius Gripho), 10 (L. Ateius Philologus), 14 (Curtius Nicias), 17 (M. Verrius Flaccus), 20 (Hyginus), 21 (C. Melissus), 27 (M’. Otacilius Pitholaus), 28 (M. Epidius).

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standing, albeit largely his own,63 and so offers highly promising material for a comparison. Any explicit comparison between the ideologies and social sympathies of the two writers inevitably involves us in a much older debate (as noted in the introduction to this chapter). In his 1958 monograph, F. Della Corte argued that Suetonius, after breaking with his erstwhile patron (Pliny) and the latter’s senatorial mindset, went on to write from a distinctively ‘equestrian’ point of view in the Caesars.64 This met with a sharp response from several scholars, who argued that—whatever the differences between Suetonius and the senatorial interests of Pliny and Tacitus—Suetonius was to be understood as representative of a broad and traditionally Roman mindset: moralistic, wedded to the established hierarchies, keen on consensus and good government for all.65 Nevertheless, as Wallace-Hadrill seems to concede, Suetonius’ later interests in the Caesars’ treatment of all classes, not senators alone, may owe something to the wider vantage-point provided by Suetonius’ more modest background and rise through society to contact with the imperial house.66 And Della Corte’s thesis has been revived in various modified forms by a series of critics.67 At any rate, the continuing relevance of this debate will emerge in the pages which follow. The De grammaticis and the surviving portion of the De rhetoribus concern themselves with a precise category of persons: teachers, particularly those who earned their living from teaching (and the writing connected with it). The whole category of rhetors and grammarians, as Robert Kaster has emphasized, is something of a Suetonian innovation within the tradition of writing the Lives of illustrious literary men.68 Furthermore, a narrative of upward mobility can be detected.69 That narrative 63  Cf. e.g. Gibson and Steel (2010) on Pliny’s consciousness of his senatorial and consular status as refracted through his literary and generic career. 64  Della Corte (1958) esp. 173–201; cf. the chapter on the ‘estrangement’ from Pliny at 93–113. 65  Townend (1959b); Crook (1969); Gascou (1976); Wallace-Hadrill (1983) 24–5, 73–8, 99–118. 66  Wallace-Hadrill (1983) 162. 67  See e.g. Cizek (1977) 167–73; Piccirilli (1998) 185–7; Mellor (1999) 152. 68  Kaster (1995) xxiv–xxix. 69  Kaster (1995) xxix–xxx; xliv: ‘ . . . the vigorous market [for their services], once created, changed the social condition of teachers themselves: fortified by their skills they were able gradually to disengage themselves from positions of subordination to one or another great household, and sometimes gain wealth, honour, and significant leverage and independence relative to patrons and other notables. They were even able to gain these advantages despite the apparent handicap of low social status . . . Thus the high value placed on individual skill tended to weaken traditional forms of social cohesion and social control.’



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emerges with particular clarity in the introductory paragraphs to both sections, which offer overviews of the reception of the two disciplines at Rome, as for example at Gramm. 25.3 on the social rise of rhetoricians:70 quare magno studio hominibus iniecto, magna etiam professorum ac doctorum profluxit copia, adeoque floruit, ut nonnulli ex infima fortuna in ordinem senatorium atque ad summos honores processerint. In this way general enthusiasm was aroused, and a great number of masters and teachers flocked to Rome, where they were so well received that some advanced from the lowest estate to senatorial dignity and to the highest magistracies.

If Suetonius creates a new category of uiri illustres for his series of biographies of literary men, and highlights their upward social mobility, Pliny, by contrast, shows relatively little interest in grammarians and rhetoricians. This becomes especially clear when one takes into account the fact that four of the eight names in Table 10.1 belong to persons who, while expert in the field (broadly conceived), did not earn a living through teaching grammar and rhetoric.71 Pliny does give an approving notice of the performance of one Isaeus, a Syrian professor of rhetoric, in letter 2.3. But, in the words of Chris Whitton, while Pliny’s ‘admiration for Isaeus’ declamations is exceptional both as a Roman celebration of Greek rhetoric, and as a celebration of show declamation in either language’, equally the ‘line between rhetor and senator is still clear (4.11.1–2, 2.5.intro), and P[liny] is recommending that [his addressee] come to hear Isaeus, not imitate him’.72 Pliny also writes fondly of his great teacher, Quintilian (2.14.9– 11, 6.6.3), who had been appointed public professor of rhetoric by Vespasian.73 But, as Sherwin-White rightly remarks, ‘Pliny does not expect his social equals to make money by teaching rhetoric. ’74 Witness the case of Pliny’s boyhood friend Atilius Crescens, on whose behalf Pliny tries to recover a debt, reminding the addressee of Crescens’ limited sources of income.75 He practises the rhetorical arts only for ‘pleasure’ 70  Presumably similar overviews introduced the sections of the DVI on poetry, oratory, history, and philosophy; see Kaster (1995) 42, 270. 71  I.e. Suetonius himself (1.24: ‘Pliny uses . . . scholasticus of literary “declamation”’, Sherwin-White (1966) 141; cf. Kaster 1995: xxii n. 3); the Elder Pliny (3.5.5: see later); Atilius Crescens (6.8.5–6: see later); and Sardus (9.31: see above, n. 54). 72  Whitton (2013a) 90 (intro. to 2.3), with further relevant bibliography. 73  On Pliny and Quintilian, see Whitton (2013a) 91–2 (on 2.3), 111 (intro. to 2.5), 209 (on 2.14.9–10); id. (2012); and Cova (2003). 74  Sherwin-White (1966) 365. 75  On this character, plainly an intimate of Pliny’s, but puzzlingly without a letter to his address in Pliny’s corpus, see Gibson and Morello (2012) 143–4, with further references.

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and ‘glory’: he is emphatically not a teacher who runs a school.76 The ideal here is no doubt the Elder Pliny of letter 3.5.77 Here was a man who wrote authoritatively on matters of rhetoric and education to rival Quintilian, and published works on language to compete with the productions of any of Suetonius’ grammarians.78 And all without so much as going near a school or lecture hall. The general interests of the courtroom orator and senator Pliny offer a strong contrast with those explicit in the De grammaticis et rhetoribus: figures who earn their living through teaching are of great interest to Suetonius and of apparently little concern to Pliny.79 As for the specific interest of Suetonius in a narrative of the social rise of rhetoricians, the contrast with Pliny could hardly be greater. In letter 4.11, Pliny reports the return to Rome of the former praetor Valerius Licinianus.80 Exiled by Domitian for alleged incest with a Vestal Virgin, Licinianus took up the profession of rhetoric in Sicily, and is now in town to give a demonstration of his art. Pliny reports the opening of Licinianus’ speech in the following hostile fashion (4.11.1–2, 4): 76  Cf. 6.8.5–6 on Atilius Crescens: homo est alieni abstinentissimus sui diligens; nullis quaestibus sustinetur, nullus illi nisi ex frugalitate reditus. nam studia, quibus plurimum praestat, ad uoluptatem tantum et gloriam exercet (‘He is a man who keeps his hands wholly clear of other people’s possessions, and is careful with his own. He draws no profits to sustain him, and his only takings come from his modest income, for he plies his literary studies, in which he shows great distinction, merely for pleasure and repute’). 77  Cf. 3.5.5 on the Elder Pliny: ‘Studiosi tres’, in sex uolumina propter amplitudinem diuisi, quibus oratorem ab incunabulis instituit et perficit. ‘Dubii sermonis octo’: scripsit sub Nerone nouissimis annis, cum omne studiorum genus paulo liberius et erectius periculosum seruitus fecisset (‘Three books on education. He divided this work into six rolls because of its length. In it he educates the orator from the cradle, and completes his training. Eight books on ambiguity. He wrote this in Nero’s last years, when slavery had made hazardous every sort of writing which inclined to some independence or nobility of thought’). 78  Quintilian refers to the Elder’s work at Inst. 3.1.21, 11.3.143. For both these works in the context of the Elder’s larger literary output as catalogued in 3.5, see SherwinWhite (1966) 217–18. 79  Conversely, experts in jurisprudence are of great interest to Pliny and of little importance to Suetonius—despite the obvious contribution of the jurists to public life and despite Suetonius’ own willingness to extend the categories of ‘illustrious men’ to include rhetoricians and grammarians. For such figures in Pliny’s Letters, cf. e.g. 1.22 and 8.14 (Titius Aristo); 6.15.2–3 (a passing mention of Iavolenus Priscus’ expertise in this area); and 7.24.8–9 (Ummidius Quadratus heads a house whose forbears include Gaius Cassius, founder of the Cassian school of jurisprudence). The sole attested example in Suetonius is the jurist Servius Sulpicius, but no one seems quite sure of his place in the reconstructed work (Wallace-Hadrill 1983: 55). 80  For the little that is known of this character (and the background to his appearance in Rome here), see Sherwin-White (1966) 280–5.



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praetorius hic modo inter eloquentissimos causarum actores habebatur; nunc eo decidit, ut exsul de senatore, rhetor de oratore fieret. itaque ipse in praefatione dixit dolenter et grauiter: ‘quos tibi, Fortuna, ludos facis? facis enim ex senatoribus professores, ex professoribus senatores’. cui sententiae tantum bilis, tantum amaritudinis inest, ut mihi uideatur ideo professus ut hoc diceret. . . . dices tristia et miseranda, dignum tamen illum qui haec ipsa studia incesti scelere macularit. Only recently this praetorian was regarded as one of the most eloquent pleaders, but now he has slumped to becoming an exile from being a senator, and a teacher of rhetoric from being an orator. So in his prefatory remarks he stated sadly and heavily: ‘What sport you have with us, Fortune, converting senators into teachers, and teachers into senators!’ There is so much anger, so much bitterness in this aphorism that he seems to me to have become a teacher in order to say it. . . . You will say that this was a melancholy and pitiable sight, but that he deserved it for blackening those studies with the crime of sexual impurity.

Where Suetonius offers a narrative of the social rise of rhetoricians, Pliny accepts—indeed verges on celebrating—the fall of a disgraced member of his order into a profession which is clearly conceived as an appropriate destination (perhaps even appropriate punishment?) for a senator of literary talent convicted of sexual misconduct. If this view is at all typical of the senatorial class—even in significantly weaker form—then it bathes the De grammaticis et rhetoribus in light: this is a portion of the text that senators may not have liked to read particularly often. More importantly, from the viewpoint of the present chapter, the contrast between Pliny letter 4.11 and Suetonius’ preface to his rhetoricians crystallizes the ideological and cultural differences between them. Where Suetonius encourages the reader to detect a narrative of social advancement through literary activity, Pliny avoids this to the extent of underlining an instance of downward literary and social mobility.81 81  In addition to erasing the possibility of movement in the social pyramid beneath him, Pliny also generally avoids mention of those above him: members of the high aristocracy are conspicuously absent from the Letters (Syme 1985: 345, 350–1 = RP V.463, 468–9). The main exceptions are young aristocrats of literary promise: the orators Fuscus Salinator (6.11, 7.9, 9.36, 9.40), Ummidius Quadratus (6.11, 6.29, 9.13), Cremutius Ruso (6.23), and poet Calpurnius Piso (5.17). On these figures, see further below.

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8.  SO CIAL STATUS AND PUBLIC STANDING (2): ORATORS AND POETS IN SUETONIUS AND PLINY In this final section of the chapter, I move on to orators and poets in Suetonius and Pliny, and remain focused on the issues of social significance, including the contrasting attitudes of the pair to the status and social standing of the practitioners of these literary disciplines. To judge by the surviving Suetonian Lives of the orators (i.e. the Julio-Claudian orators Passienus Crispus and C. Calpurnius Piso)82 and the Lives of the poets (Terence, Virgil, Horace, Tibullus, Persius, and Lucan), we can say with some confidence that the particular social emphasis detected in the De grammaticis et rhetoribus was replicated in the other sections of the work. Here, despite later interpolation and abbreviation, we find a consistent interest in the interaction of the literary men with their patrons or the great of the day, including Tibullus’ closeness to Messalla, the relations of Horace with Maecenas and Augustus, and the contact of Passienus Crispus and Lucan with Caligula and Nero, respectively.83 If we begin with Pliny’s orators as listed in Table 10.2, there is a first sight some similarity here with the emphases of the DVI, for Pliny’s interaction with contemporary orators is largely that of patron and protégé.84 In one sense, the Letters are prime material for Suetonius to update the De uiris illustribus with an entry on the interaction of young Trajanic orators with a great figure of the day—at least, if Pliny himself were to be allowed to play the role of leading orator (after Tacitus, of course).85 However, the actual content of Pliny’s letters addressed to various aspiring young orators is largely confined to issues of style, practice, and questions of the kind of cases that one should take up. The question of style also features consistently—whether openly or by implication—in Pliny’s interactions with the greatest orator of the 82  An abbreviation of the Life of Piso appears to survive as Schol. Iuv. 5.109; see Jones (1986). It is possible that the original Life of the Elder Pliny also included comment on his oratorical career and works. 83  Cf. Wallace-Hadrill (1983) 60. 84  Pliny acts as patron (or aspiring patron) to Iulius Avitus (5.21), Fuscus Salinator (6.11, 7.9, 9.36, 9.40), Ummidius Quadratus (6.11, 6.29, 9.13), Cremutius Ruso (6.23), and Iunius Avitus (8.23). Pompeius Saturninus (1.16) and Novius Maximus (4.20, 9.1) receive fulsome support from Pliny, but are not treated as protégés in the same way. 85  Cf. 7.20. For the almost certain exclusion of the Younger Pliny from the published DVI (as part of the more general exclusion of contemporary figures), see Wallace-­ Hadrill (1983) 52–3.



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day, Tacitus (1.6, 1.20, 7.20, 8.7, 9.10, 9.14). And the various orators of the past whom Pliny mentions—for example, Calvus, Cicero, and ­Demosthenes—also often serve as symbols or pegs off which to hang discussion of appropriate ways of handling one’s material.86 Although issues of style are not the only things that interest Pliny about contemporary and earlier orators, a general focus on style is well sustained across the whole correspondence.87 Suetonius, by contrast, appears not to be overly interested in such matters in the De uiris illustribus.88 There are scattered comments on, for example, the graceful verse of Terence (Vita Ter. 108–21), the influence of Maecenas as linguistic innovator on Virgil (Vita Verg. 44), and Horace’s avoidance of obscurity (Vita Hor. 12)—not to mention the occasional aside on stylistic matters in the Lives of grammarians and rhetoricians (e.g. Gramm. 10.2, 10.6, 23.3). On this evidence, it is perhaps fair to say that style was not a focus of interest for Suetonius where orators (and poets) were concerned.89 Pliny, by contrast, provides enough material for readers to construct a loose history of the development of rhetorical style from Demosthenes and Cicero to his own day.90 From Suetonius, the reader would be better equipped to plot fluctuations and developments in the social standing of men of literary talent. It is here, again, that we see the (likely and) particular emphasis of Suetonius’ account emerge, with his implicit assumption—hardly shared by Pliny—that issues of style are of limited interest. The significance of this difference between the pair is perhaps more personal and aesthetic than social: after all, both senators and equestrians wrote verse, and both would be called on to speak in public. Nevertheless, at least in the arena of oratory, it can hardly be doubted that the requirement to speak in public was substantially greater for the senatorial class. The 86  For Calvus, see above, n. 25; also Power (2014a) on his likely inclusion in the DVI. For Cicero’s oratory, cf. e.g. 1.2.4, 1.5.11–13, 1.20.4, 7, 8, 10; 5.8.8, 7.17.13, 9.26.8; for Demosthenes, cf. e.g. 1.2.2, 1.20.4, 2.3.10, 4.5.1, 6.33.11, 7.30.4, 9.26.8–12. For Pliny’s literary relationship with Cicero, see Gibson and Morello (2012) 83–103, with further bibliography at 296 (no. 6); also Marchesi (2008) 207–40. 87  See esp. Gamberini (1983). 88  For Suetonius’ interest in style, nevertheless, in the Caesars, see Damon, ch. 2 in this volume, pp. 40–2. 89  The evidence for Suetonius’ emphases in the Orators section of the DVI is hard to assess, since the Lives of Passienus Crispus and Calpurnius Piso appear to have been abridged by scholiasts in search primarily of historical facts. (The same may be said of Jerome on Suetonius’ orators, frr. 48–72 Reiff.) But if the De poetis and De grammaticis et rhetoribus are anything to go by, style did not feature strongly in the De oratoribus. 90  See the bibliography cited in Gibson and Morello (2012) 302 (no. 20).

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pressure to take an interest in speaking style—on whose basis one’s moral character might be judged—must have been correspondingly greater. This is one reason for Pliny to place greater emphasis on it. At any rate, the distinctive Suetonian emphasis on the social rise of poets (and presumably orators) is missing from Pliny’s Letters— although Pliny does not now draw attention to downward social mobility, as he had done for rhetoricians. The opening sentence of the Suetonian Lives of, for example, Terence (Publius Terentius Afer . . . seruiit Romae Terentio Lucano senatori, Vita Ter. 1–2), Virgil (P. Vergilius Maro Mantuanus parentibus modicis fuit, Vita Verg. 1), and Horace (Q. Horatius Flaccus, Venusinus, patre, ut ipse tradit, libertino . . . , Vita Hor. 1) all give notice of humble and even servile origins. In each case, this is soon followed by observations on the heady company to which their literary talents would give them access. Terence ‘lived on intimate terms with many men of high rank, in particular Scipio Africanus and Gaius Laelius’ (hic cum multis nobilibus familiariter uixit, sed maxime cum Scipione Africano et C. Laelio, Vita Ter. 11–12); Virgil ‘possessed nearly ten million sesterces from the generous gifts of friends’ (possedit prope centiens sestertium ex liberalitatibus amicorum, Vita Verg. 13); and Horace ‘held a prominent place among the friends of both [Maecenas and Augustus]’ (non mediocrem in amborum amicitia locum tenuit, Vita Hor. 3). This happy story of the upward social trajectory of literary talent finds few explicit parallels in Pliny. It is not that all of Pliny’s literary friends were already members of the highest social elite. For, in general, ‘Pliny betrays no impulsion to solicit and enlist the illustrious, whether estimated by birth or rank or fame’, in the estimate of Sir Ronald Syme.91 And he writes with equal interest and enthusiasm both to and about poets of consular, senatorial, and equestrian status, ranging from the thoroughly obscure local equestrian Caninius Rufus (1.3, 2.8, 8.4) to a scion of the old consular nobility, Calpurnius Piso (5.17).92 But the crucial difference is that, whereas for Suetonius, literature can be a means of improving or even transcending status, for Pliny, literature and status (of whatever sort) tend to reinforce one another. Thus, when promoting ‘junior’ friends, Pliny usually runs birth, 91  Syme (1985) 345 = RP V.463. 92  See Table 10.3. Pliny, indeed, condescends to the aristocratic Piso on the grounds of his own greater advancement in both years and literary talent; see Syme (1958) 577–8; Sherwin-White (1966) 348–9.



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character, and literary talent together into a single package, whether requesting the ius trium liberorum for Suetonius himself from the emperor Trajan (10.94),93 praising the otherwise unknown Vergilius Romanus (6.21), or celebrating young literary aristocrats like Calpurnius Piso (5.17), Cremutius Ruso (6.23), or Ummidius Quadratus (6.11). Paradigmatic here is the praise heaped on to young Fuscus Salinator: ‘He comes from a patrician house, his father is a most honourable man, and his mother merits equal praise. The young man himself is devoted to his books and to literature, and is also an eloquent speaker’ (domus patricia, pater honestissimus, mater pari laude; ipse studiosus litteratus etiam disertus, 6.26.1). In sum, where Suetonius repeatedly introduces a pattern of contrast between birth on the one hand and status achieved through literary talent on the other, Pliny tends to present talent, birth, and character as mutually supportive of one another, whether the young amicus is equestrian or aristocrat. Nor is any position sought for junior friends presented as an opportunity for upward mobility based on literary talent alone. (A comparable tendency to run status and literary talent together—not to contrast them—can also be detected in letters of Pliny praising senior literary friends.)94 Evident here perhaps is the difference in perspective between a member of the patron class and a member of the patronized class. Part of the explanation for this difference is simply one of genre. Suetonius is writing a series of Lives, each of which allows or even encourages a birth-to-death form of narrative. It would be surprising if his Vitae did not contain narratives of mobility and progress. However, no such expectations apply to the genre of epistolography, where it is more usual to encounter summaries or snapshots of moments and 93  Cf. 10.94.1 Suetonium Tranquillum, probissimum honestissimum eruditissimum uirum, et mores eius secutus et studia iam pridem, domine, in contubernium adsumpsi (‘For a long time, my lord, I have admitted Suetonius Tranquillus, that most worthy, honourable and learned man, into my circle of friends, for I have long admired his character and his learning’). 94  Cf. e.g. 3.1 (Vestricius Spurinna), 4.3.1, 2 (Arrius Antoninus) Quod semel atque iterum consul fuisti similis antiquis, quod proconsul Asiae . . . est quidem uenerabile et pulchrum; ego tamen te uel magis in remissionibus miror. . . . id tu cum incredibili quadam suauitate sermonum, tum uel praecipue stilo assequeris (‘Your tenure of two consulships in a manner reminiscent of leaders of old, your proconsulship of Asia . . . these are august and splendid achievements. But for myself, I admire you even more for your activities in retirement. . . . This [pre-eminence] you achieve in your conversation, agreeable beyond belief, and conspicuously in your writing’; cf. 4.18), 7.25 (on the literary talents of a retired equestrian procurator).

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events as they are caught in time. Nevertheless, there is one significant letter that appears to confirm and even crystallize the more static view of society implicit in Pliny’s letter of recommendation and praise of literary amici. It is also a letter that reveals puzzling similarities to Suetonius’ patterns of interest in the De uiris illustribus. The letter in question is found in Book 5, not long before the letter in which Tristan Power has recently confirmed a reference by Pliny to Suetonius’ work. In this letter, Pliny offers a defence and a justification for his practice of writing and publishing light and risqué poetry. That defence is based explicitly on senatorial precedent (5.3.5, 6):95 an ego uerear (neminem uiuentium, ne quam in speciem adulationis incidam, nominabo), sed ego uerear ne me non satis deceat, quod decuit M. Tullium, C. Caluum, Asinium Pollionem, M. ­Messalam, Q. Hortensium, M. Brutum, L. Sullam, Q. Catulum, Q. ­Scaeuolam, Seruium Sulpicium, Varronem, Torquatum, immo Torquatos, C. Memmium, Lentulum Gaetulicum, Annaeum Senecam et proxime Verginium Rufum . . . sed [sc. scio] honesta manere quae saepius a bonis fiunt. inter quos uel praecipue numerandus est P. Vergilius, Cornelius Nepos et prius Accius Enniusque. Non quidem hi senatores, sed sanctitas morum non distat ordinibus. I shall not mention any living author to avoid succumbing to any form of flattery, but am I to fear that what was fitting for Marcus Tullius C ­ icero, Gaius Calvus, Asinius Pollio, Marcus Messala, Quintus Hortensius, ­Marcus Brutus, Lucius Sulla, Quintus Catulus, Quintus Scaevola, Servius Sulpicius, Varro, Torquatus or rather the Torquati, Gaius ­Memmius, ­Lentulus Gaetulicus, Annaeus Seneca, and most recently ­Verginius Rufus, is not fitting for me? . . . rather, these things remain honourable because they are more frequently practised by good men. Among these we must number in particular Publius Virgil, Cornelius Nepos, and, earlier, Accius and Ennius. Admittedly, they were not senators, but moral integrity knows no social distinctions.

Here a concern with status is strongly to the fore: what was good enough for a long list of previous senatorial versifiers is surely good enough for Pliny. And ‘admittedly’ (Pliny says), other practitioners such as Virgil were not senators, but ‘moral integrity knows no social distinctions’. Except, of course, it does recognize social distinctions: otherwise, why mention it? Here, Pliny’s consciousness of his 95  For another interpretation of this letter (with particular reference to its role in Pliny’s relationship with the Elder Pliny), see Gibson (2011b) 194.



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membership of a morally outstanding tradition of senatorial poets offers a distinctly different social narrative from the one implicit in Suetonius’ De poetis. Suetonius’ poets rise to positions of importance, riches, and influence—and contact with emperors and the senatorial class—through their art. Pliny’s senatorial poets constitute a monolithic block at the top of the pyramid of virtue—with non-senators such as Virgil and Ennius admitted to the layers below, despite their lack of status. Such are the differing narratives of the history of literature and its practitioners in Pliny and Suetonius. Finally, note how the list of poets produced by Pliny rather goes against the grain of his correspondence, but shows clear similarities to the focus of interests that the De poetis of Suetonius would display. As noted earlier (Table 10.2), Pliny’s interest in poets lies largely in contemporaries, with a smattering of late Republican and Augustan figures. Here in letter 5.3, however, we are given, in the summary of Sherwin-White, ‘senators, mostly distinguished also for oratory, of the post-Gracchan Republic, followed by two Julio-Claudian and one Flavian example. Many are most obscure as poets.’96 This pattern of distribution within a single letter is almost the reverse of the larger pattern of distribution within the letters as a whole. But it does bear a resemblance to the pattern of distribution that would be found in Suetonius’ De poetis, right down to inclusion of minor and even thoroughly obscure figures.97 Whether the list is a deliberate forestalling of the De uiris illustribus and its accompanying narrative of social rise through the arts is, of course, quite unknowable. But it is a thought we might like to entertain.

9. CONCLUSION As noted earlier in the chapter, scholars such as Della Corte claimed to detect in the Caesars a distinctively equestrian point of view. It is pointed out that particular interest is shown in how emperors treat the ordo equestris, and that emperors of high aristocratic lineage who pay little attention to knights (such as Tiberius) are subject to particularly hostile criticism. Furthermore, it is said, the imperial career of

96  Sherwin-White (1966) 317.    97  Wallace-Hadrill (1983) 52.

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Suetonius himself suggests that, after Pliny’s death, he became a member of a new and powerful equestrian bureaucracy which, under Trajan and particularly Hadrian, began to prevail over backward-lacking senators such as Tacitus, whose obsession with the increasingly irrelevant senate is amply demonstrated in his historical works.98 Could a version of this thesis be applied to the De uiris illustribus? Clearly we could characterize Pliny’s attitudes—on the basis of the material already reviewed—as senatorial (despite his own strongly equestrian network and family background). But it appears more of a challenge to characterize Suetonius’ mindset as distinctively ‘equestrian’. After all, Pliny would have hardly anticipated the publication of the De uiris illustribus quite so keenly (in letter 5.10, quoted at the beginning of this chapter) if he had reason to believe that it sustained hostile criticism of his own senatorial world-view and an attitude of partisan support for the ordo of equites.99 The difficulty of characterizing Suetonius’ attitudes is, of course, hampered by the incompleteness of the text of the De uiris illustribus. But it is worth asking how easy it would have been to detect the Suetonian personal voice across the work as a whole. Consider, for example, the ease with which the Lives of poets and others were extracted— almost like encyclopaedia articles—from the De uiris illustribus, and (often with supplementation or abbreviation) placed at the head of codices of the writers’ works. It is impossible to imagine the same happening to Pliny’s letters on literary men (and there is no evidence that it ever did), not least because they are so strongly linked to a personal point of view.100 Nevertheless, for all that, it is possible to draw a contrast between Pliny and the broader views adopted by Suetonius with regard to the achievements and social successes of his literary men. Above all, 98  For a brief overview of Suetonius’ career, see above, n. 8. 99  A point made by Tatum (2000) 656 in connection with the Caesars. On the other hand, the Suetonian Vita Plinii contains a version of the Elder’s death which can hardly have been pleasing to the Younger (who appears to go out of his way to correct it at 6.16.18–20). 100  In this regard, Pliny’s correspondence is programmatically not what Suetonius’ work appears to have been: his letters are emphatically not a catalogue and their ultimate agenda is perhaps the promotion of Pliny’s own literary achievements. (As John Henderson suggests to me, the picture of Suetonius likely counting the arbusculae on his small estate at 1.24.4 may gently satirize Suetonius’ cataloguing tendencies.) By contrast, the De uiris illustribus appears genuinely to have been concerned with the literary achievements of others.



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Suetonius does not write from the perspective of the patron class, and—unlike Pliny—evinces a clear interest in social upward mobility achieved through literary talent. Where Pliny apparently thinks of Rome’s hierarchies as a pyramid with firm boundaries between each rank (where all, nevertheless, have their own due dignitas), Suetonius is rather more interested in the permeability of those boundaries. As such, he is an important and valuable counterweight to the ‘senatorial’ view of society offered by Pliny and other members of his class.

APPENDIX A catalogue is offered here of passages and letters where Pliny’s literary ‘uiri illustres’—as defined and listed in Tables 10.1–3—are mentioned explicitly by name or addressed in the Letters, irrespective of whether any given passage emphasizes the literary output of the named figure. (The Younger Pliny is, of course, excluded from the catalogue.) The information in the catalogue is based on Birley (2000), where full details of the complete nomenclature of all the figures can be located. As in the three tables, well-known authors are identified by a single name; all others are identified by two names, except where further nomenclature is unknown. Figures are listed by alphabetical order, rather than in the order of first mention in Pliny’s Letters. Name

Addressed (*) or mentioned in Pliny’s Letters

Aeschines Aquillius Regulus Arrius Antoninus Artemidorus Asinius Pollio Athenodorus Atilius Crescens Calpurnius Piso Caninius Rufus Cato the Elder Catullus Cicero

1.20.4, 2.3.10, 4.5.1, 9.26.9–11 1.5, 1.20.14, 2.11.22, 2.20.2ff., 4.2, 4.7, 6.2 4.3*, 4.18*, 4.27.5, 5.15* 3.11 1.20.4, 5.3.5, 6.29.5, 7.4.3, 6 7.27.7ff. 1.9.8, 2.14.2, 6.8 5.17 1.3*, 2.8*, 3.7*, 6.21*, 7.18*, 7.25(?)*, 8.4*, 9.33*, 9.38 1.20.4, 4.7.5 1.16.5, 4.14.5, 4.27.4 1.2.4, 1.5.11–12, 1.20.4ff., 3.15.1, 4.8.4, 5.3.5, 7.4.3, 6; 7.17.3, 9.2.2, 9.26.8

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Name

Addressed (*) or mentioned in Pliny’s Letters

Claudius Pollio Cluvius Rufus Cremutius Ruso Demosthenes Euphrates Fannius Fuscus Salinator Herennius Senecio Homer

7.31 9.19.5 6.23.2–4, 9.19*(?) 1.2.2, 1.20.4, 2.3.10, 4.5.1, 4.7.6, 7.30.5, 9.23.5, 9.26.8–12 1.10 5.5 6.11, 6.26, 7.9*, 9.36*, 9.40* 1.5.3, 3.11.3, 4.7.5, 4.11.12, 7.19.5, 7.33.4ff. 1.7.1, 1.20.22, 2.14.2, 3.29.8, 4.3.2–3, 5.6.43, 5.19.2, 5.20.8, 8.4.4, 9.13.20 2.3 5.21.3ff. 3.3.5ff., 3.11*, 7.30*, 9.17* 2.6*, 8.23 1.2.2, 1.16.5, 4.27.4, 5.3.5 2.3.8, 6.20.5 3.21 2.14*, 4.20*, 5.5*, 6.11*, 7.26*, 8.19*, 9.1*, 9.23* 1.7*, 2.10*, 7.25*(?) 6.15, 9.22.1 1.16.6, 6.21.4 1.19.1, 3.5, 5.8.5, 6.16, 6.20 1.8*, 1.16, 5.21*, 7.7*, 7.8, 7.15*, 9.38* 6.15.1, 9.21.1–2 2.14.9–11, 6.6.3 9.31* 4.27.1ff., 9.8* 3.7 3.15* 1.18*, 1.24, 3.8*, 5.10*, 9.34* 1.6*, 1.20*, 2.1.6, 2.11, 4.13*, 4.15.1, 6.9*, 6.16*, 6.20*, 7.20*, 7.33*, 8.7*, 9.10*, 9.14*, 9.23.2–3 1.16.6, 6.21.4 3.16.10, 6.29.1, 7; 7.19.3, 8.22.3 1.17, 5.8*, 8.12 6.11, 6.29*, 7.24, 9.13* 4.11 6.21 1.5.8–10, 2.7, 3.1, 3.10*, 4.27.5, 5.17* 3.7.8, 5.3.6, 5.6.43 1.5*, 2.1*, 2.13.3ff, 3.13*, 6.15*, 8.8*, 9.7*, 9.28*

Isaeus Iulius Avitus Iulius Genitor Iunius Avitus Licinius Calvus Livy Martial Novius Maximus Octavius Rufus Passenus Paulus Plautus Pliny the Elder Pompeius Saturninus Propertius Quintilian Sardus Sentius Augurinus Silius Italicus Silius Proculus Suetonius Tacitus Terence Thrasea Paetus Titinius Capito Ummidius Quadratus Valerius Licinianus Vergilius Romanus Vestricius Spurinna Virgil Voconius Romanus

11 Suetonius’ Famous Courtesans Tristan Power

The fragmentary works of Suetonius are often difficult to assess. We might take, for example, the attempt by one scholar to redefine the nature of Suetonius’ Defects of the Body (De uitiis corporalibus), suggesting that a better translation might be ‘Mistakes about the Body’, and that the work was closer to his Kinds of Dress (De genere uestium), which displayed descriptions in the manner of a lexicon or encyclopaedia (frr. 165–9 Reiff.).1 Though creative, the argument is ultimately unconvincing, since the fragments clearly discuss physical defects (frr. 170–3 Reiff.), not commonly unknown or misnamed parts, and because Suetonius and the ancients drew a connection between physical and moral flaws—as evidenced, for example, by the biographer’s implicitly physiognomic characterizations,2 and by his explicit condemnation of Otho’s vices in particular (Otho 12.1–2). Suetonius was not merely interested in correcting misunderstandings about anatomy, but in exploring divergences from an ideal. While Suetonius’ Defects of the Body is probably what scholars have long considered it, another work of his may not be. Suetonius’ Famous All translations in this chapter are my own. 1  Or, as the Suda (τ 895) has it, Correct Names and Kinds of Dress, Shoe Wear, and Other Apparel (Περὶ ὀνομάτων κυρίων καὶ ἰδέας ἐσθημάτων καὶ ὑποδημάτων καὶ τῶν ἄλλων οἷς τις ἀμφιέννυται); the Latin title is known from Serv. ad Aen. 7.612 = fr. 165 Reiff. We might also compare e.g. Natures of Animals (De animantium naturis); see frr. 163–4 Reiff. For the attempt to reimagine Defects of the Body, see Paretti (2012) 226–8. 2  See e.g. Macé (1900) 267–9, 417–18; Cizek (1977) 139–41; Bradley (1978) 281– 2; Wallace-Hadrill (1983) 22, 197; Hurley (1993) 178–9, (2001) 200; Wardle (1994) 324–9; also Tatum, ch. 8 and Hulls, ch. 9 in this volume, with further bibliography. Not all are convinced of Suetonius’ use of physiognomy: Misener (1924) 117–18; Baldwin (1983) 497–501.

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Courtesans (Περὶ ἐπισήμων πορνῶν) has provoked passing disparagement by scholars, while at the same time drawing some of the least ­attention in terms of extended discussion—understandably, since only a single fragment survives for certain. John Lydus, in his comments on the origin of the gauzy, skin-coloured dress for women known as the sandyx, mentions an anecdote from the work (Mag. 3.64 Wuensch = Suet. fr. 202 Reiff.):3 τοιούτῳ τὸν Ἡρακλέα χιτῶνι περιβαλοῦσα Ὀμφάλη ποτὲ αἰσχρῶς ἐρῶντα παρεθήλυνε. ταύτῃ καὶ Σανδὼν Ἡρακλῆς ἀνηνέχθη, ὡς Ἀπολήϊος ὁ Ῥωμαῖος φιλόσοφος ἐν τῷ ἐπιγραφομένῳ Ἐρωτικῷ, καὶ Τράγκυλλος δὲ πρὸ αὐτοῦ ἐν τῷ Περὶ ἐπισήμων πορνῶν ἀνενηνόχασιν. Such was the dress that Hercules was draped in by Omphale when she was shamefully feminizing her lover. This is how he acquired the name Hercules Sandon, as Apuleius the Roman philosopher in his work entitled Love, and Tranquillus before him in his Famous Courtesans, both report.

If the fragment had not come down to us with its title attached, we might well have wondered if the details about this feminine, seethrough outfit belonged instead in Suetonius’ Kinds of Dress. Of the major studies of Suetonius, only Baldwin’s devotes more than the briefest of space to consideration of the work, and to the scarce themes of courtesans and named women more generally in his Lives of the Caesars.4 His view that the Courtesans was a direct response to Plutarch’s Mulierum uirtutes is unfounded and impossible to prove, like many of his speculations on Suetonius’ supposed dialogue with the Greek biographer,5 although, as we shall see, Baldwin was doubtless sensible 3  For other ancient passages on the sandyx, see Bravi (1996) 62 in reference to SHA, Aurel. 29.3. 4  Baldwin (1983) 16, 32, 61 n. 108, 69, 72, 85, 89, 346–8, 374, 383, 503–5, 524 n. 61. As he rightly observes (1983: 346): ‘one expects much about women in the De vita Caesarum. That is not at all the case’; cf. Shelton (2013) 1, 15 on Suetonius’ scant treatment of female rebels, contrasting Pliny the Younger. This has not prevented a great amount of recent focus on the biographer’s treatment of imperial wives and lovers, or even the lack of treatment: e.g. Hurley (2003); Barrett (2005); Huntsman (2009); Charles and Anagnostou-Laoutides (2010a) 184–6, (2010b), (2012a), (2012b); Chong-Gossard (2010); La Monaca (2013). On the meagre evidence for individual women in Suetonius, see Shelton (2013) 48, 300–4, 315–18, 330, 353–4 n. 3, 356 n. 51; cf. Langlands, ch. 5 in this volume, and my discussion of Virgil and Octavia below, p. 254. For alleged tangents between the Courtesans and Caesars, see below, n. 11. 5  Baldwin (1979a) 117 = (1983) 89 = (1989b) 28. For other speculations on Suetonius and Plutarch, cf. id. (1979a) 115–18 = (1983) 86–90 = (1989b) 26–9; (1983) 49, 117–18, 181, 294, 509, 526, 544–6; contra, see Power (2014f).



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to draw a loose connection between the two works.6 ­Nonetheless, ­Baldwin takes the Courtesans as evidence for Suetonius’ baser motives, and in this regard, he is not alone.7 Modern literature has followed suit, accepting the view that the Courtesans must have been an expression of the biographer’s alleged personal appetite for salacious details, a catalogue of mere vice based on Suetonius’ own libidinous interests. Witness, for example, the ­following part of a poem entitled ‘Ladies of the Necropolis’, in which Suetonius is imagined as follows:8 listing the unguents stirred into a pre-tryst bath. I can have him sneering over the twaddle statesmen have been known to burp and mumble into a creamy shoulder. I can have him tallying brushstrokes, pearled combs, rows of plaits; goblets drained, gouges dealt, deceptions gilded; hours of business, years of service.

The reconstruction is imaginative, and draws on a keen familiarity with Suetonius’ patient mind,9 as well as his fondness for revealing details of sexual vice, such as his report on Horace’s intemperate encounters with prostitutes in a bedroom lined with mirrors (Vita

6  No less interesting is Baldwin’s (1983: 16) suggestion that the Courtesans may be the work mentioned by Pliny in Letters 5.10, which seems more likely to have been the Illustrious Men: Power (2010). Baldwin fails to adduce the fact (relevant to his argument, according to his view of the Courtesans) that Pliny announced the work in hendecasyllables (Ep. 5.10.1), a metre known as much for obscenity as other uses; see Watson and Watson (2003) 27; pace Leach (2012) 94. Some of Pliny’s verses were certainly erotic; see Ep. 5.3, 4.27, 7.4. In fact, Pliny even seems to use the term hendecasyllabi in a broader sense to stand for a certain risqué kind of verse, when he offers his hexameter lines as an example (Ep. 7.4.6); see Roller (1998) 270 and n. 10; Marchesi (2008) 82. Nonetheless, the Illustrious Men was itself certainly not devoid of salacious material. 7  See Baldwin (1973a) 118 = (1985) 344: ‘leering discussion . . . the standard male approach’; cf. id. (1975–6) 139 = (1989b) 131: ‘leering male interest’; (1982a) 18 n. 19 = (1989b) 241 n. 19; (1982b) 83 n. 15 = (1984) 447 n. 15; (1983) 32, 61 n. 108; also Mercklin (1847); Roth p. lxxiii; Reiff. p. 466; contra, see Rolfe (1913) 224–5; cf. Syme (1958) 502 n. 2. For Suetonius as prurient, see e.g. Mackail (1895) 230; Duff (1960) 508; Wardman (1974) 145; Goodyear (1982) 663; Seager (2005) 237–8. 8  Barber (1992) 118 = (1995) 50. 9  See e.g. Plin. Ep. 1.24.4, who imagines Suetonius on his new estate as one of those scholars who wish to ‘familiarize themselves with all of their vines, and count each little tree’ (omnesque uiteculas suas nosse et numerare arbusculas).

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Hor. 10).10 It also shares with much scholarship the presumption that the work was both biographical and tangential to Suetonius’ Caesars in portraying the companions of political figures.11 It is certainly true that Suetonius’ interests fed on each other across his different compositions.12 However, the poem quoted proves fanciful, as the reality of Suetonius’ Courtesans is rather different from the fantasy: the nature of the work has been fundamentally misunderstood.13 Careful perusal of the fragments and likely antecedents of this lost work in particular tells another story than a collection of scurrilous Lives of actual prostitutes. Wallace-Hadrill laments that Suetonius never wrote a commentary proper,14 but the biographer may have come closer than scholars think. This chapter refutes the commonly held belief that the Courtesans was a work of biography at all, gossipy or otherwise, and argues that it was instead a scholarly treatise on the beloveds of Latin poetry. I shall first briefly examine what is known about the nature of writings on courtesans in antiquity (section 1). In the subsequent sections, I shall discuss one of Suetonius’ important sources for the work, Julius Hyginus (section 2), before considering another possible fragment attributed to it and proposing some new ones (section 3). 10 See e.g. Krenkel (1980) = (2006) 233–63; Wallace-Hadrill (1983) 25, 157–8, ­171–4. On Horace’s prostitutes, see Power (forthcoming a). 11 Cf. also Martha Bernays Freud to Sigmund Freud, 18 Nov. 1883, quoted in Moyer (2010) 118, for the same assumption about the work’s content made by Freud’s wife, who even futilely tried to find a copy in Hamburg! For the Famous Courtesans as biography, see Macé (1900) 321–7; Baldwin (1973b) 78; (1979a) 104–5 = (1983) 72 = (1989b) 15–16; (1982b) 83 n. 15 = (1984) 447 n. 15; (1983) 383; (2006) 28; ­Wallace-Hadrill (1983) 43 n. 22; Averintsev (2002) 26. A tangent to the work is found by Wallace-Hadrill (1983: 48) in the name of Caligula’s prostitute Pyrallis (Calig. 36.1); cf. Wardle (1994) 16. According to this line of thinking, others would lurk in Suetonius’ knowledge of Nero’s courtesan who looked like the emperor’s mother (Ner. 28.2) and Domitian’s fondness for swimming with prostitutes (Dom. 22). Anecdotes involving prostitutes likewise appear at Vita Hor. 10, Calig. 40, Claud. 15.4, Ner. 27.3, Vit. 3.2. See also references above, n. 4 and contrast below, pp. 249–50. It is surprising that Suetonius omits the story of the infamous banquet of Nero on Agrippa’s lake, which involved orgies with prostitutes (Tac. Ann. 15.37.3; Dio 62.15.4). On prostitutes in Roman literature, particularly Suetonius’ Caesars, see Edwards (1997) 81–2, 86–90; on imperial concubines in Suetonius, Wardle (2010) 110. 12  See e.g. Wallace-Hadrill (1983) 50–9, 62; Viljamaa (1991) 3830–1; Kaster (1995) xxxi–xxxiii; Wardle (1998) 427–9; Power (2012a), (forthcoming a). 13  Cf. Macé (1900) 326: ‘Si l’on découvrait quelque jour le traité qui nous occupe, on reconnaîtrait sans doute de même que son contenu était en somme moins immoral qu’on se l’imagine parfois.’ 14  Wallace-Hadrill (1983) 42. On ancient commentaries, see e.g. Zetzel (2005).



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Conclusions will then be drawn about the genre of the Courtesans, suggesting a revision to the way in which women from Latin verse are thought to have been viewed by Roman readers ­(section 4).

1.  ANCIENT COURTESAN LITERATURE To situate Suetonius’ Courtesans in the genre of ancient courtesan literature, we must first understand that there were many collections in antiquity devoted to famous women, and the most general kind—of which the anonymous Tractatus de mulieribus and Plutarch’s collection Mulierum uirtutes are the only extant examples—appears to have been on a par with the Greek tradition of writing collections about famous men (Περὶ ἐνδόξων ἀνδρῶν).15 Although such early Hellenistic works on famous men seem to have been a remote influence on Suetonius’ Caesars—mediated as they were by more prominent, Roman ­antecedents16—for some of his other compositions, the biographer’s only recourse was to Greek models. For example, Suetonius’ only predecessors for his Insults and their Derivation were Pamphilus of Alexandria, and before him, Didymus Chalcenterus.17 It was in response to Didymus too, according to the Suda, that Suetonius wrote a work on Cicero’s Republic (Suda τ 895 = fr. 204 Reiff.). We might also compare the Kinds of Dress, for which the only parallel that can be found is a work by the Greek scholar Telephus of Pergamum (Uses or Names of Dress and Other Objects: Alphabetically Arranged).18 The biographer was also at least aware of his Greek predecessors for literary

15 Stadter (1965) 8; Geiger (1985) 39–40; Radicke (1999) 238; Gera (1997) 33–6; Engels (2005) 129, 139–40. Some authors wrote collections of both men and women; see e.g. Charon of Carthage’s Βίους ἐνδόξων ἀνδρῶν ἐν βιβλίοις δʹ, Βίους γυναικῶν ὁμοίως ἐν δʹ (‘Lives of Famous Men in 4 books, and Lives of Women, similarly in 4’, Suda χ 137). 16  Lewis (1991) 3666; pace Townend (1967) 81. For the greater relevance of Roman models to Suetonius, see also Steidle (1951) 109–126; Gascou (1984) 582–3. 17  Taillardat pp. 22–6; Wallace-Hadrill (1983) 45; Wardle (1993) 96–7. These same writers may also have been Suetonius’ sources for the Natures of Animals (cf. above, n. 1); for their works on animals, based ultimately on that of Aristophanes of Byzantium, see Sharples (1995) 35 with bibliography. 18  Suda τ 495: Περὶ χρήσεως ἤτοι ὀνομάτων ἐσθῆτος καὶ τῶν ἄλλων οἷς χρώμεθα: ἔστι δὲ κατὰ στοιχεῖον. See Wallace-Hadrill (1983) 45; also Fantham (2013) 188 on Greek precedents for other works by Suetonius.

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biography, mentioning four of them in his preface to the Illustrious Men, even if the Roman names in the list are his more immediate sources for the Lives of that collection (Jer. De vir. II.821 Vallarsi = Suet. fr. 1 Reiff.):19 fecerunt hoc idem apud Graecos Hermippus peripateticus Antigonus Carystius Satyrus doctus uir et longe omnium doctissimus Aristoxenus musicus, apud Latinos autem Varro Santra Nepos Hyginus. The same thing has been done on the Greek side by Hermippus the peripatetic, Antigonus Carystius, the learned man Satyrus, and, by far the most learned of all, Aristoxenus the musician, while on the Latin side by Varro, Santra, Nepos, and Hyginus.

For Suetonius’ Courtesans, then, the parallel with Greek traditions may be stronger than for his Illustrious Men and Caesars, since no example of Roman courtesan literature is known besides that of Suetonius. Suetonius may have been the first to extend this genre to Roman subjects, just as he was probably innovative in writing literary Lives through his categories of grammarians and rhetoricians.20 While courtesan literature was certainly related to the ancient biographical interest in famous women, it does not appear to have been as apposite to writings Περὶ ἐνδόξων ἀνδρῶν as Plutarch’s collection was, but rather developed as its own separate kind of catalogue, since disreputable women were a distinctly different pursuit from the reputable ladies whom biographers counted alongside the great political and literary men of history.21 Although no example of earlier courtesan works survives in full, much can be gleaned about their origin from Athenaeus, who preserves fragments of the genre in Book 13 (Ath. 555–612) of his The Learned Banqueters (Δειπνοσοφισταί).22 Suetonius’ Courtesans has been likened to one of the works mentioned by Athenaeus, Gorgias of Athens’ Courtesans (Περὶ ἑταιρῶν, Ath. 13.596f).23 The rhetorician Gorgias taught Cicero’s son, and is 19  On this passage, see e.g. Wallace-Hadrill (1983) 50; Geiger (1985) 31–2; Kaster (1995) xxv; Power (2014d) 402–3, (forthcoming b). 20  See Kaster (1995) xxv–xxix; and more cautiously, Viljamaa (1991) 3829–30. 21  Cf. Gera (1997) 46; Baldwin (1983) 383. For a survey of different kinds of ancient catalogues of women, see Gera (1997) 40–56; and on courtesan literature in particular, Gera (1997) 46; also Hawley (1993) 88 n. 4; Bollansée (1999a) 372 n. 31 (on Hermippus F 43); McClure (2003b) 264; cf. Henry (1995) 57–81, 153–62, esp. 61–4, 156–7; McClure (2003a) 27–58, 206–11. 22  In Olson (2010–11) VI.222–431, VII.3–97. 23  Henry (1995) 63, 157 n. 15; followed by McClure (2003a) 45, 210 n. 79. Both err, however, in claiming that nothing is known of Suetonius’ own Courtesans.



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also known for a scholarly work on figures of speech that was condensed by Rutilius Lupus.24 He is included by Athenaeus in his canon of courtesan authors: τοιαυτὶ βιβλία Ἀριστοφάνους καὶ Ἀπολλοδώρου καὶ Ἀμμωνίου καὶ Ἀντιφάνους, ἔτι δὲ Γοργίου τοῦ Ἀθηναίου, πάντων τούτων συγγεγραφότων περὶ τῶν Ἀθήνησι ἑταιρίδων (‘The sort of books by Aristophanes [of Byzantium], Apollodorus, Ammonius, Antiphanes, and also Gorgias of Athens—all of them having composed treatises on courtesans in Athens’, Ath. 13.567a). Athenaeus later augments this list with the catalogue Περὶ ἑταιρῶν of Callistratus (13.591d).25 These are merely the authors who specifically composed treatises on courtesans; among the several other kinds of works cited by Athenaeus for information about hetairai, there were also memoirs such as the ἀπομνημονεύματα of Lynceus of Samos (13.583e–f), biographies such as that of the philosopher Stilpon from the Βίοι of Satyrus (13.584a), and rhetorical speeches such as Demosthenes’ Against Neaera (Κατὰ Νεαίρας, Ath. 13.586e, 592b–c), Lysias’ Against Lais (Κατὰ Λαΐδος, 13.586e, 592e), and others (e.g. 13.585–7, 592c). The courtesan Glycera probably owes her appearance in the biography of Stilpon to the fact that the philosopher was known to teach women as well as men, including female prostitutes, which would have invited conventional accusations of lechery;26 no ‘Lives’, as such, of courtesans themselves are attested. Most revealing of all, however, is another source by a writer of the second century bc, Herodicus the Cratetean’s Comic Characters (Κωμῳδούμενοι), to which the genre of courtesan literature seems most related, since such works on comedy appear to have been arranged topically according to the type of character. In Herodicus’ case, courtesans seem to have been the subject of Book 6.27 Both of the fragments of 24  See Cic. Fam. 16.21.6; Plut. Cic. 24; Quint. Inst. 9.2.102, 106; 9.3.74; with Fortenbaugh (2011) 29–30; Spawforth (2012) 71, 78. 25  On Aristophanes of Byzantium, who was in charge of the library at ­Alexandria and also wrote a work simply on comedy (Περὶ κωμῳδίας), see Pfeiffer (1968) 171–209 and Fraser (1972) I.459–61; on Apollodorus, who wrote a commentary on H ­ omer’s catalogue of ships, Pfeiffer (1968) 264–5; on Ammonius and Callistratus, Pfeiffer (1968) 216–17 and 223–4, respectively. On all four scholars, cf. also Dickey (2007) 92–4, 6, 94–6, 29 respectively. For Antiphanes, see also Ath. 13.586e; Henry (1995) 63 and 157 n. 15. 26  Bollansée (1999a) 531–2 (on F 76). On Stilpon, see also Schorn (2004) 399–401 (on F 19). 27  Cf. Düring (1941) 126; Henry (1995) 158 n. 19.

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this work transmitted by Athenaeus relate to the real identity of women known by their pseudonyms as famous courtesans (Ath. 13.586a, 591c): καὶ περὶ μὲν τῆς Σινώπης Ἡρόδικος ὁ Κρατήτειος ἐν ἕκτῳ Κωμῳδουμένων φησὶν ὅτι Ἄβυδος ἐλέγετο διὰ τὸ γραῦς εἶναι. And regarding Sinope, Herodicus the Cratetean in Book 6 of his Comic Characters says that she was called ‘Abydos’, on account of being an old woman. Ἀπολλόδωρος δ’ ἐν τῷ Περὶ ἑταιρῶν δύο ἀναγράφει Φρύνας γεγονέναι, ὧν τὴν μὲν ἐπικαλεῖσθαι Κλαυσιγέλωτα, τὴν δὲ Σαπέρδιον. Ἡρόδικος δὲ ἐν ἕκτῳ Κωμῳδουμένων τὴν μὲν παρὰ τοῖς ῥήτορσί φησιν ὀνομαζομένην Σηστὸν καλεῖσθαι διὰ τὸ ἀποσήθειν καὶ ἀποδύειν τοὺς συνόντας αὐτῇ, τὴν δὲ Θεσπικήν. Apollodorus in the Courtesans records that there were two Phrynes, one of whom went by the name ‘Clausigelota’, the other by ‘Saperdion’. Herodicus in Book 6 of his Comic Characters says that the one mentioned by the orators was called ‘Sestos’, on account of the fact that she robbed (aposêthein) and bled dry the men who were with her, while the other was from Thespiae.

In the same breath as Herodicus’ work, Athenaeus also tells us of Apollodorus’ courtesan treatise, which reported different pseudonyms for Phryne. This courtesan was famous from numerous works of Greek literature, including comedies such as The Woman from Ephesus (Ἐφεσία) by Posidippus (fr. 12).28 It may be no coincidence that all of the authors mentioned by Athenaeus as having written courtesan treatises are also known to have been scholars of comedy, since these treatises appear to have developed as a separate branch of those on comic characters.29 While the earliest catalogue of women is Homer’s list of Zeus’ former lovers, replete with their progeny and accompanying epithets (Il. 14.315–28), the earliest catalogues of hetairai appear to have been in comedies, such as those in the Orestautocleides (Ὀρεσταυτοκλείδης) of Timocles (fr. 25), the Curis (Κουρίς) of Amphis (fr. 23), and The Flatterer (Κόλαξ) of ­Menander (fr. 295)—catalogues all preserved by Athenaeus.30 These 28  Ath. 13.591c (= Edmonds, FAC III.232–4). On Phryne, see e.g. Morales (2011) with bibliography. 29  See esp. Henry (1995) 61–4, 156–7. For comic pseudonyms in Aristophanes, see Kanavou (2011). 30 Ath. 13.567e–f, 567f, 587d–e (= Edmonds, FAC II.620, II.322, III.666), respectively.



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lists and other more scattered references to courtesans understandably drew the attention of the plays’ Alexandrian commentators, who synthesized them both together with other characters from comedy, and eventually on their own in specialized treatises. The genre of courtesan literature therefore had a separate development from biographies of famous men and women: it grew out of commentaries and supplemental works on Greek comedy that had been written by scholars rather than biographers. These products of Alexandrian scholarship were clearly more akin to commentaries than collections of Lives, and they appear to have debated the historical associations of certain hetairai with famous writers such as Menander and Philemon, adducing evidence from their own statements in plays (Ath. 13.594d).31 Courtesans seem to have been studied always with a view to their significance to poetry, and the numerous Greek plays that took their titles from the names of courtesans (Ath. 13.567c–d) are an indication of just how central a stock character the hetaira was. Although the Greek hetaira was a literal prostitute, the scope of the courtesan treatise appears to have grown more wide-ranging, to judge from our Suetonian fragment on Omphale, as the development of Roman elegy eventually introduced the more ambiguous concept of the domina (‘mistress’), since many of the puellae (‘girls’) who served as mistresses in Latin literature were not, in fact, prostitutes.32 If writing courtesan literature was a legitimate endeavour for scholars in ancient Greece, it was no less so at Rome, where dominae had extended the concept of hetairai to poetical beloveds of a broader sort. As we have seen, the genre signalled by the title Courtesans was, from its very roots, synonymous with works that discussed particular characters from certain lighter genres of Greek poetry, and discussing individuals found in Latin love poetry or bawdy comedies was no less respectable a pursuit for a Roman scholar. However, some Roman writers still occasionally felt the need to justify their ventures into the erotic realm. Although Suetonius himself never apologizes for what he finds worthy of recording, even at the most sordid moments in 31  See Hawley (1993) 76; Lanza (1996) 89; McClure (2003a) 46. On the close relationship between Περὶ-literature and early Greek biography, see Schorn (2012) and Hendrickson (2013), but neither discusses the more specific genre of courtesan works. 32  See Macé (1900) 326: ‘Circé et Omphale, les Sirènes et Charybde et même, parmi les simples mortelles, Aspasie et Phryne: car enfin ces “courtisanes illustres” de l’antiquité n’étaient point des prostituées vulgaires; les grands hommes qui les aimèrent, pour leur esprit comme pour leur beauté, en sont les meilleurs garants.’ On the Roman domina, see e.g. Greene (1998); Keith (2012).

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the Caesars,33 he would certainly have agreed with Pliny that lighterthemed works were composed even by great men, including senators and famous orators, quorum non seria modo uerum etiam lusus exprimere laudabile est (‘of whom it is praiseworthy to reproduce not only their serious but also their diverting works’, Ep. 5.3.4).34 Suetonius seems likewise to have considered writings such as comedies and love poetry worthy of careful reading and study, just like his predecessors on Greek courtesans. Part of that study entailed determining variant myths or other well-known details about a name mentioned or represented in a text, including any historical data if the character was a real person, or in other cases, the historical counterpart who inspired the fiction. Let us look at the play Clepsydra (Κλεψύδρα) by Eubulus (fr. 54) as an example, about which Athenaeus records the following (13.567d = Edmonds, FAC II.104): οὕτω δ’ ἐκλήθη αὕτη ἡ ἑταίρα ἐπειδὴ πρὸς κλεψύδραν συνουσίαζεν ἕως κενωθείη, ὡς Ἀσκληπιάδης εἴρηκεν ὁ τοῦ Ἀρείου ἐν τῷ Περὶ Δημητρίου τοῦ Φαληρέως συγγράμματι, τὸ κύριον αὐτῆς ὄνομα φάσκων εἶναι Μητίχην. This courtesan was so called because she used to entertain by a clock (clepsydra) until the time ran out, as Asclepiades, Areius’ son, has said in his monograph Demetrius of Phalerum, saying that her actual name was Metiche.

A historical work by Asclepiades had mentioned the real woman behind this play, which demonstrates the wide interest in such matters. It is noteworthy, too, that, in Athenaeus’ list of courtesans, which Apollodorus and Gorgias contribute as left out by Aristophanes of Byzantium (who had recorded 135 hetairai in total), the courtesans’ pseudonyms are also given. This passage, which enumerates the subjects scantily treated by these authors, begins with a lacuna (Ath. 13.583e): 33  Cf. Baldwin (1979a) 103 = (1983) 69 = (1989b) 14 on Suetonius’ lack of justifications for his writing (as Baldwin notes, courtesan literature in particular was a common genre, and probably did not necessitate authorial apology); cf. my Introduction to this volume, p. 13, n. 40. Contrast e.g. Ner. 34.4 with Tac. Ann. 14.9.1 on Nero’s inspection of his mother’s corpse, with Baldwin (1979b) = (1985) 280–1. To Suetonius’ credit, the story is also told fully by the historian Dio (61.14.2); see Verdière (1975) 12–14; cf. Bradley (1978) 205 (ad loc.). Dio includes other facts about this same anecdote, including Nero’s words, even if Dio misunderstands his source on another detail: Benediktson (1992). For other sordid material in Suetonius, see Power (2009b), (2013b), (2014e). 34  On the dignified approach especially of historians in antiquity, and thus the resulting defensiveness of biographers, see my Introduction to this volume.



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τὴν Πάροινον ἐπικληθεῖσαν καὶ Λαμπυρίδα καὶ Εὐφροσύνην· αὕτη δὲ ἦν γναφέως θυγάτηρ. ἄγραφοι δ’ εἰσὶν αὐτῷ Μεγίστη, Ἀγαλλίς, Θαυμάριον, Θεόκλεια (αὕτη δ’ ἐπεκαλεῖτο Κορώνη), Ληναιτόκυστος, Ἄστρα, Γνάθαινα καὶ ταύτης θυγατριδῆ Γναθαίνιον, καὶ Σιγὴ καὶ Συνωρὶς ἡ Λύχνος ἐπικαλουμένη καὶ Εὔκλεια καὶ Γρυμέα καὶ Θρυαλλίς, ἔτι Χίμαιρα καὶ Λαμπάς. the girl called ‘Paroinos’, Lampyris, and Euphrosyne; the last was a cloth-maker’s daughter. Omitted by him [Aristophanes of Byzantium] are Megiste, Agallis, Thaumarion, Theocleia (she was called ‘Corone’), Lenaetocystus, Astra, Gnathaena and her daughter Gnathaenion, Sige, Synoris who went by the name ‘Lychnus’, Eucleia, Grymea, Thryallis, and also Chimaera and Lampas.

Thus, scholars on the early courtesans recorded not only sayings, anecdotes, and other details about them such as ancestry (‘a cloth-maker’s daughter’), but also their pseudonyms. Since many Greek comedies such as Eubulus’ Clepsydra took their titles from the names of courtesans, as already noted, like famous pieces of oratory, there was obviously great interest in the real women who consorted with these historical figures and poets, since they became vital to the interpretation of ancient literature.

2.  THE ‘NAME GAME’ AND JULIUS HYGINUS If courtesan literature had to do with names and identities as they ­related to poetry, it is interesting that the only certain fragment we have from Suetonius’ Courtesans revolves around the origin of ­Hercules’ name, when he was mentioned in the context of Queen O ­ mphale’s court. The anecdote recalls another about Achilles, who was likewise forced into transvestism on the island of Scyros; his mother dressed him in her clothing and made him stay in the company of young girls, in order to hide him from recruiters for the Trojan War. Suetonius records how Tiberius used to try to stump grammarians with questions about matters such as the name of Achilles amid the maidens (Tib. 70.3).35 This shared theme of names in our Suetonian fragment, and also in fragments of Greek comic scholarship such as Herodicus’ 35  On such quaestiones, see Lindsay (1995) 181–2 (ad loc.); on Tiberius and Greek myth, e.g. Cameron (2004) 141, 162, 304–6; Rutledge (2008) 455, 459–62; for these two stories of forced feminization, Cyrino (1998); Llewellyn-Jones (2005). On transvestism in antiquity, see Krenkel (1990) = (2006) 465–78.

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Comic Characters discussed earlier, recalls the ‘name game’ that ancient scholars would often play with regard to women in poetry, whose pseudonyms prompted guesses as to their real identities, based on the tendency of writers to use metrically similar names that alluded in some way to Greek poetry.36 A second connection should also draw our attention. Not only is Apuleius cited by Lydus as a second source for the epithet that Hercules gained by wearing the sandyx, but Apuleius himself, in his Apology, records the names of the actual muses for Rome’s most famous poets (Apol. 10.2–5): hic illud etiam reprehendi animaduertisti, quod, cum aliis nominibus pueri uocentur, ego eos Charinum et Critian appellitarim. eadem igitur opera accusent C. Catullum, quod Lesbiam pro Clodia nominarit, et Ticidam similiter, quod quae Metella erat Perillam scripserit, et Propertium, qui Cunthiam dicat, Hostiam dissimulet, et Tibullum, quod ei sit Plania in animo, Delia in uersu. et quidem C. Lucilium, quanquam sit iambicus, tamen improbarim, quod Gentium et Macedonem pueros directis nominibus carmine suo prostituerit. quanto modestius tandem Mantuanus poeta, qui itidem ut ego puerum amici sui Pollionis bucolico ludicro laudans et abstinens nominum sese quidem Corydonem, puerum uero Alexin uocat. You have observed that I am also blamed for the fact that, although the boys have other given names, I refer to them as ‘Charinus’ and ‘Chritias’. They may therefore have the same need to accuse Gaius Catullus for using the name of ‘Lesbia’ for Clodia, and similarly Ticida for writing ‘Perilla’ for the girl Metella, and Propertius who by saying ‘Cynthia’ disguised Hostia, and Tibullus in whose heart was Plania, but in his verse ‘Delia’. And indeed Gaius Lucilius, even though he might be an iambic poet, I would still blame for exposing in a poem the boys Gentius and Macedo with their real names. How much more discreet was the Manuan poet, who in the same way as I, when praising in his light bucolic poem his friend Pollio’s boy and avoiding names, even calls himself ‘Corydon’, while the boy ‘Alexis’.

We know for certain that Suetonius knew at least one of these facts— the lover of Virgil—and considered it worthy of recording, since he does so in that poet’s biography (Vita Verg. 9): libidinis in pueros pronioris, quorum maxime dilexit Cebetem et Alexandrum, quem 36  See Mankin (1995) 299–301 on Horace’s Canidia; for the term ‘name game’, see Mankin (1995) 300. On the pseudonyms chosen by Latin poets, see also Hollis (2007) 4, 212.



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secunda Bucolicorum ecloga Alexim appellat, donatum sibi ab Asinio Pollione (‘His lust inclined towards boys, of whom his favourites were Cebes and Alexander. The latter, given to him by Asinius Pollio, he calls “Alexis” in the second eclogue of the Bucolics’).37 Moreover, it was long ago proposed by Wiseman that the source for this passage in Apuleius is Suetonius’ Courtesans, which may have dealt with poetical mistresses.38 Wiseman compares a similar passage of Ovid, in which the beloveds of several prominent poets are discussed, along with some of their pseudonyms (Tr. 2.427–46):39 sic sua lasciuo cantata est saepe Catullo femina, cui falsum Lesbia nomen erat; nec contentus ea, multos uulgauit amores, in quibus ipse suum fassus adulterium est. par fuit exigui similisque licentia Calui, detexit uariis qui sua furta modis. Cinna quoque his comes est, Cinnaque procacior Anser, et leue Cornifici parque Catonis opus. quid referam Ticidae, quid Memmi carmen, apud quos rebus adest nomen nominibusque pudor, et quorum libris modo dissimulata Perillae nomine nunc legitur dicta, Metelle, tuo? is quoque, Phasiacas Argon qui duxit in undas, non potuit Veneris furta tacere suae. nec minus Hortensi, nec sunt minus improba Serui carmina. quis dubitet nomina tanta sequi? uertit Aristiden Sisenna, nec obfuit illi, historiae turpis inseruisse iocos. non fuit opprobrio celebrasse Lycorida Gallo, sed linguam nimio non tenuisse mero.

37  Cf. also Juv. 7.69, with Rudd (2005) 98–9. The possibility that Apuleius draws here on Suetonius is increased by the fact that others said the boy belonged rather to Maecenas; see Mart. 8.56.5–16, with Jenkyns (1998) 7–8; pace Ziolkowski and Putnam (2008) 51–4. 38  Wiseman (1969) 50–2; accepted by e.g. Deroux (1973) 390 n. 3; Alonso Gamo (2004) 103; cf. Keith (2012) 286. Wiseman also allowed for the possibility that the source was rather the section on poets from Suetonius’ Illustrious Men, which some have preferred: Lee (1991) xix; S. Harrison (2000) 55 n. 39. The latter possibility was also later raised again by Wiseman (1974: 104), as well as that of Apuleius directly using the biographer Julius Hyginus, Suetonius’ own probable source. Brugnoli (1967) had earlier argued for Suetonius’ Illustrious Men as a source used in Apuleius’ Apology for a story about Nigidius Figulus (Apol. 45). 39  For the sense in which lines 435–8 are here taken, cf. Hollis (2007) 160–2.

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Thus often did the lascivious Catullus sing about his woman, to whom he gave the false name ‘Lesbia’; and miserable over her, he published many love poems, in which he confessed affairs with other girls. Equal and similar was the licentiousness of Calvus, who uncovered his own intrigues in various songs. Cinna too belongs in this group, and, more audacious than Cinna, Anser, and the trivial work of Cornificius, and no less that of Cato. Why should I refer to Ticida, why to the poetry of Memmius, in both of whom names are given to acts, and the names make us blush, and in whose books, a girl is disguised at one time as ‘Perilla’, but at another time she appears in print called by your name, Metellus? That man also, who led the Argo onto the Phasian waves, was not able to be silent about the intrigues of his Venus. Neither were the poems of Hortensius any less shameless, nor those of Servius. Who would hesitate to follow such great names? Sisenna translated Aristides, nor was it a drawback that he inserted dirty jokes in his History. Gallus was not blamed for celebrating ‘Lycoris’ in verse, only for not holding his tongue from excessive wine.

The author of the Argonauts to whom Ovid alludes (‘That man also’) is Varro, whose beloved’s pseudonym, ‘Leucadia’, is elsewhere used by Propertius (2.34.85–6).40 Whom would Ovid have been following for the historical identities of these women, argues Wiseman, if not his friend Julius Hyginus? Suetonius mentions a friendship with Ovid in his Life of Hyginus (Gramm. 20), and Hyginus himself, as one of Catullus’ first biographers, could have gleaned details, including the identity of ‘Lesbia’, from men at Rome who had known Catullus personally, such as Cinna, Cornificius, and Pollio. These direct acquaintances might also have revealed to him their own lovers.41 It is from Hyginus that Ovid must have known about the disguise of the pseudonym ‘Lesbia’, and about the historical woman behind ‘Perilla’. If Apuleius followed Suetonius for the real names of poets’ mistresses, then Suetonius had probably followed Hyginus, just as Ovid did.42 40  See Hollis (2007) 211–13. There are a few notable tangents in this passage with Suetonius, who also reports his knowledge of the poetical activities of Ticida and Gallus; see Gramm. 4.2, 11.2, 16.1, with Kaster (1995) 97, 149, 185–6 (ad loc.). Suetonius’ respective sources are Messalla Corvinus, Ticida himself, and seemingly a historical account on Gallus (cf. Dio 53.23.5), perhaps the same as for Aug. 66.2. 41  Wiseman (1969) 51–2; cf. Mulroy (2002) xii, xxxix n. 3. Contra, see Bright (1978) 108–11, who misunderstands Wiseman’s argument as a case for Ovid as a source for Hyginus, rather than vice versa; cf. id. (1981) esp. 362–3. For Pollio’s love poems, see Plin. Ep. 5.3.5. 42  Hyginus may thus have been the source for Suetonius’ knowledge of Memmius’ verses (also mentioned by Ovid) in his lost biography of the orator, which seems to underlie Plin. Ep. 5.3.5; see Power (2012a), (2014a) 543–4.



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Suetonius was certainly an expert on Hyginus, his predecessor not only in biography, but also in the imperial service: as he tells us (Gramm. 20), Hyginus had been in charge of the Palatine Library, while Suetonius himself served in a post as a bibliothecis.43 Not only did he write Hyginus’ biography, but he also mentioned him in the preface to the Illustrious Men (Jer. De vir. II.821 Vallarsi = fr. 1 Reiff.). What was his exact work used by Suetonius for the Courtesans? Hyginus is known to have written numerous scholarly and biographical works, including two collections on famous writers: at least six books De uita rebusque inlustrium uirorum and two books De uiris claris.44 Wiseman conjectures that Ovid must have drawn on the former work.45 But we must not forget another writing of uncertain authorship, which has been attributed to Hyginus, namely the Fabulae (or Genaelogiae).46 The Fabulae, as we have it, is probably a later and heavily revised version of Hyginus’ original work, but it still seems to be Hyginus in the main.47 It may be no coincidence that this work is one of our sources for Achilles’ name on Scyros, ‘Pyrrha’ (Fab. 96, cf. 97.15)— the most popular answer to Tiberius’ question in Suetonius (Tib. 70.3).48 Hyginus’ Fabulae also mentions the detail of Hercules serving ­Omphale in its account of Megara (Fab. 32), and may originally have contained his other name (‘Sandon’), just as it did for Achilles. Suetonius could therefore have culled his information from other writings by Hyginus too, which display the same interest in names. Let us return now to the Suetonian fragment as it appears in Lydus alongside the reference to Apuleius’ Love (Ἐρωτικός), which appears to have been a Platonic dialogue written in Latin (given Lydus’ citation of Apuleius as ὁ Ῥωμαῖος φιλόσοφος), and may therefore have been originally entitled Amatorius.49 Since Apuleius seems to have been familiar with Suetonius’ Courtesans, and to have used it for his Apology, as Wiseman contends, it is reasonable to assume that Apuleius also drew on 43 Suetonius’ post is known from an inscription discovered at Hippo Regius (AE 1953, 73). 44  Kaster (1995) 207.    45  Wiseman (1969) 51. 46  On this work’s title, see Kaster (1995) 208. 47  See Zimmermann (1993) 270; Smith and Trzaskoma (2007) xlii–xlvi, xlix–li; pace Kaster (1995) 208. 48  See Heslin (2005) 131; Fantuzzi (2012) 59, also discussing Achilles’ other female names. 49  S. Harrison (2000) 28–9.

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the work in Love. It therefore follows that, for the Hercules anecdote, Lydus in fact used only Apuleius. Love alone probably already contained the citation of Suetonius as its source, which Lydus simply carried over into his own text, pairing the two authors on equal footing as his sources. This would certainly cast inexorable doubt on the view that Suetonius’ treatise on courtesans was written in Greek merely because of the title given to it by Lydus, which was in all likelihood his own translation of the Latin title cited by Apuleius. Lydus himself was clearly proficient enough in Latin to use Suetonius’ The Institution of Roles (De institutione officiorum; Lydus, Mag. 1.34 = fr. 200 Reiff.), which discussed the use of particular Latin terms.50 However, in the case of Suetonius’ Courtesans, it was a different Latin writer, Apuleius, from whom he learned his information. As we have seen, a second fragment of the Courtesans has also been preserved in Apuleius’ Apology, and both Suetonian fragments can ultimately be traced back to Hyginus.

3.  OTHER FRAGMENTS OF THE COURTESANS Having established a working idea of Suetonius’ main concerns in the Courtesans, we may now ask if other fragments of the work can be detected. In his edition of Suetonius’ works besides the Caesars, Reifferscheid thought another fragment worthy of placing in the Courtesans (Schol. Bern. ad G. 4.564 = fr. 203 Reiff.):51 Parthenope, in Ebrii ‘Parthinope’, quae nunc Neapolis, in qua scripsit Virgilius. Suetonius Tranquillus dicit Parthenopen Sirenem sepultam in Camapniae litore, a cuius nomine Neapolis Parthinope uocitata aestimatur. Parthenope (or ‘Parthinope’, according to the grammarian Ebrius) is now Naples, where Virgil wrote. Suetonius Tranquillus says that the siren Parthenope was buried on the shore of Campania, and this is thought to be why Naples was founded as ‘Parthinope’. 50 Prisc. Inst. 6.41–2 (= Keil, Gramm. Lat. II.230–2 = fr. 199 Reiff.). Cf. Wardle (1993) 98, 103 n. 57 who likewise believes that Lydus in the Hercules passage draws indirectly on Suetonius via a subsequent Latin work, despite Lydus’ direct use of Suetonius elsewhere; also Wiseman, ch. 12 in this volume, pp. 258–9 on Varro. 51  Roth (p. 306) less convincingly attributes this fragment, along with several others that he finds miscellaneous, instead to Suetonius’ Pratum.



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Once again, the themes of women and names recur: according to this Virgilian scholiast, Parthenope lent her name to the land of Naples when it was founded. Hers was a more poetic name for Naples, and was used not only by Virgil, as here, but also by Ovid (Met. 14.101, 15.712).52 She would therefore be worthy of an entry in a work that explained beloveds who appear in Roman poetry. Parthenope was made popular as a beloved at Rome through (among other sources) the Greek novel Metiochus and Parthenope, a tragic love tale that tells how she drowned in the sea.53 She would also have been a prime subject for Suetonius’ Courtesans, because she was seen as a historical as well as literary figure.54 Yet another fragment from the Suetonian work may be preserved by Servius in his note on the poet Gallus. Servius reveals the identity behind ‘Lycoris’, the pseudonym of Gallus’ love, whose real name, Cytheris, is found nowhere else (Serv. ad Ecl. 10.1):55 Gallus . . . amorum suorum de Cytheride scripsit libros quattuor. Gallus . . . wrote his Amores about Cytheris in four books.

Servius frequently cites various Suetonian works, but also occasionally draws on him without mentioning any source. One clear fragment from Suetonius’ Defects of the Body is transmitted by Servius with the biographer’s name, but not the name of the work from which it comes (ad G. 3.355 = fr. 172 Reiff.), while another strong candidate (ad Aen. 4.262 = p. 267 Reiff.) lacks a nominatim citation altogether. The same can be said of five others: two possibly from Suetonius’ Pratum (Serv. ad Aen. 2.305, 5.163 = pp. 242–3 Reiff.) and three from his Kinds of Dress (Serv. ad Aen. 7.188, 7.190, 11.334 = p. 266 Reiff.). It is therefore plausible that Servius draws on the Courtesans for this brief fact about Gallus without citing Suetonius, especially since the fragment fits with that work’s theme of delineating historical beloveds. Finally, Suetonius may be the common source between Apuleius (Apol. 9.8) and Gellius (NA 19.9.10–14) in their discussions of the Roman poets Aedituus, Catulus, and Porcius, who appear in the same order in both texts, with the similar circumstance of defending Latin

52  Other examples may be found in Columella, Rust. 10.134 and the verse at Petron. Sat. 120.68. 53  Hägg and Utas (2003) 1.    54  See Hägg (1987) = (2004) 73–98. 55  For Gallus’ love poetry, see Hollis (2007) 230–4.

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love poetry.56 The first two quotations by Gellius contain pseudonyms for the poets’ beloveds (Aedituus’ Pamphila and Phileros), as does the fourth (Catulus’ Theotimus), while the third is quite clearly about Porcius’ mistress, even though she goes unnamed. The second poem by Aedituus is a good example of this trait (NA 19.9.12 = Courtney, FLP 70): quid faculam praefers, Phileros, qua est nil opus nobis? ibimus sic, lucet pectore flamma satis. istanc potis est uis saeua extinguere uenti aut imber caelo concitus praecipitans; at contra hunc ignem Veneris, nisi si Venus ipsa, nullast quae possit uis alia opprimere. Why do you offer me a little torch, Phileros, if I do not need one? I shall go as I am, with the fire in my chest giving enough light. Yours can be blown out by the cruel force of the wind or the sudden rain pouring down from the sky; while this fire of Venus, on the other hand, unless Venus herself does so, no other force can put out.

We might compare the discussion of Phryne in the comic play Neaera (Νέαιρα) of Timocles (fr. 23) that is quoted by Athenaeus, which contains the famous hetaira’s name.57 For this kind of supporting quotation in Suetonius’ scholarly works, many parallel examples are offered by his Games of the Greeks (Περὶ τῶν παρ’ Ἕλλησι παιδιῶν, Suda τ 895), especially its opening passage on dice, in which a play bearing the name of Palamedes is quoted as proof that he invented the very first game (Taillardat p. 64):58 παλαιοτάτη ἡ κυβευτικὴ παιδιά. κύβους καὶ πεσσοὺς Παλαμήδης εὗρε ἐν Ἰλίῳ εἰς παραμύθιον λιμοῦ κατασχόντος τὴν στρατιάν. τῆς δὲ τοιαύτης ἐπινοίας τοῦ Παλαμήδους μάρτυς Σοφοκλῆς ὃς ἐν δράματι ὁμωνύμῳ τῷ εὑρετῇ Παλαμήδει φησίν· 56  On the high probability of a common source here, see esp. Vardi (2000); cf. ­ olford-Strevens (2003) 22–6; Keulen (2004) 224; also Watson (2005) 205, favouring H an anthology of Latin epigrams, as first proposed by Usener (1865) 150–1 = (1913) 65; cf. Büttner (1893). In contrast to the list of Greek poets with which it is paired (Apol. 9.6–7), the Roman group is ‘quite recherché’ (Rives 2008: 43 n. 71); cf. HolfordStrevens (2003) 22. We have already discussed Apuleius’ knowledge of Suetonius; for ­Gellius’, see NA 15.4.4 (= Suet. fr. 210 Reiff.). For likely further uses of the biographer in ­Gellius, see NA 3.3.14, 13.2.1–6, 15.11.1, 15.28.1–7; with Reiff. pp. 423–4; WallaceHadrill (1983) 58; Kaster (1995) xlix–xlx; Holford-Strevens (2003) 166–7; Power (2014a) 544–5; pace ­Baldwin (1983) 408, 454–5. 57  Ath. 13.567d–e (= Edmonds, FAC II.618). On Phryne, see above, p. 238. 58  On Palamedes as an inventor, see Malloch (2013) 223–4. For illustrative examples from poetry in Suetonius’ Insults, cf. Rives (2008) 40–1.



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οὐ λιμὸν οὗτος τῶνδ’ ἀπῶσε, σὺν θεῷ εἰπεῖν, χρόνου τε διατριβὰς σοφωτάτας ἐφηῦρε φλοίσβου μετὰ κόπον καθημένοις, πεσσοὺς κύβους τε, τερπνὸν ἀργίας ἄκος; The game that is the oldest is dice-playing. Dice and draughts were invented by Palamedes at Troy to alleviate the famine that was afflicting the army. That the idea belonged to Palamedes, we have the word of Sophocles, who writes in a play called Palamedes the Inventor [fr. 479 Lloyd-Jones]: Did that man not drive away the famine, let it be reverently said, and invent the cleverest ways to pass the time for those resting after their toil against the waves, draughts and dice, a delightful cure for idleness?

These four lines are about the eponymous character, Palamedes. Although Roman love poetry usually addresses a beloved, he or she is not always named in every poem, or even its direct focus: a quick glance at Propertius’ Book 1 tells us as much, where Cynthia is named in about half of the poems (twelve out of twenty-two), or Book 2, where the pseudonym appears in fewer (thirteen out of thirty-four). All four of the poems in Gellius’ passage have in common the fact that they illustrate the poets’ addressees, and may have been originally quoted in support of a scholarly discussion of who they actually were. These passages may therefore also have been taken from entries on these beloveds in the Courtesans, where facts about their real identities were revealed. These fragments suggest other possible tangents between Suetonius’ Courtesans and his Caesars, such as the infamous ‘Banquet of the Twelve Gods’ (cena δωδεκάθεος) poem of the Divine Augustus (70.1), in which a mysterious girl called ‘Mallia’ is the prominent focus of this section on the emperor’s lust.59 The same kind of expertise on Suetonius’ part may also be evinced through his knowledge of the erotic manual written by the famous hetaira Elephantis, which was owned by Tiberius (Tib. 43).60 In the same Life, Suetonius mentions women of respectable social standing (feminae illustres) whom the emperor attempts to corrupt; to illustrate the latter, Suetonius tells of a woman named Mallonia, whose suicide in the face of Tiberius’ shamelessness was the inspiration behind a line in a contemporary Roman comedy 59  On this ‘Mallia’, see Cresci Marrone (2002) 27–8. 60  For Elephantis’ manual, see esp. Champlin (2011) 326.

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(Tib. 45). Here again, Suetonius draws a connection between poetry and historical women. A conjecture can at last be made about the original title of Suetonius’ work. Another passage in the Tiberius mentions women who acquired ill repute by openly declaring themselves prostitutes. Suetonius calls them feminae famosae (Tib. 35.2). The Latin title of his Courtesans may have been De feminis famosis, since it accords with the biographer’s usual diction.61 We might compare Egilius’ use of famosas (that is, meretrices) in his witty remark to Opimius (Cic. De or. 2.277), or Livy’s phrase famosam mulierem, which clearly designates a woman of Placentia as a ‘courtesan’ (39.43.2).62 Tacitus describes Martina as famosam for her poisonings (Ann. 3.7), but also as infamem both for these poisonings and for being the ‘beloved of Plancina’ (Plancinae percaram, 2.74). The title De feminis famosis could easily have been turned by Lydus into the more explicit Greek Περὶ ἐπισήμων πορνῶν, since, as we have said, the Byzantine writer seems to have understood Latin rather well. We should now emend Baldwin’s assumption that the Courtesans covered both Greece and Rome, just like Suetonius’ two works on games.63 An apt comparison can be made with his De puerorum lusibus. It similarly does not follow that this work, which possibly contained discussion of Greek children’s games too, necessarily did so because the only fragment we have is on the lusus Troiae (Serv. ad Aen. 5.602 = fr. 197 Reiff.).64 The ‘games of Troy’ were especially popular at Rome, and it is thus a matter of the subject’s germaneness, rather than 61  Wiseman (1969: 51) proposes De scortis illustribus. 62  OLD s.v. famosus 2b. For the latter passage, see Briscoe (2008) 358. Cf. also Cic. Rep. 4.6; Ov. Am. 3.14.6. 63  Baldwin (1979a) 114 = (1983) 85 = (1989b) 25. For the possibility that Games of the Greeks was written in Latin, and that the Byzantine epitome we possess is a Greek translation, see Wardle (1993) 95–6; pace Dihle (1994) 259. Wallace-Hadrill (1983) 45 suggests the work’s tralaticious dependence on Pamphilus, who was merely translated for a Roman audience in Suetonius’ style; cf. Wardle (1993) 96–7. The original title was probably De Graecorum lusibus, as conjectured by Reiff. (p. xx, cf. pp. 330–1); see also Roth pp. 275–8 for the other Greek titles given to the work, and Serv. ad Aen. 5.602 (= fr. 197 Reiff.) for Suetonius’ De puerorum lusibus (Children’s Games). The latter may have been a different work (cf. Wardle 1993: 95–6), and both titles, together with Suetonius’ treatise on Roman games known from the Suda (τ 895; possibly entitled De Romanorum lusibus: Reiff. pp. xx, 542; or, according to Wiseman, ch. 12 in this volume, p. 257, De ludis scaenicis et circensibus) were perhaps later republished as part of Suetonius’ Ludicra historia (Gell. NA 9.7.3 = fr. 181 Reiff.); for this practice, cf. Power (2010) ­158–9, comparing his Poets with an early book of epigrams by Martial. 64  Pace Wardle (1993) 95.



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its origin. By the same token, Terence may have been born in Carthage (Vita Ter. 1), but he was still included in Suetonius’ collection of exclusively Roman writers. Since there was already much scholarship on Greek hetairai, it was in the area of Roman courtesans that Suetonius stood to make a significant contribution. Although Greek women certainly appeared alongside Roman ones in the Courtesans, unless they had their own separate section in the work— or else appeared in the opening summary that provided an introduction to Suetonius’ subject65—they were probably only those who appeared in Roman literature, such as Omphale. For example, Omphale’s tale is mentioned by Ovid in the Fasti (2.319–26), where the poet may be drawing on his friend Hyginus’ mythological expertise for his rather specific description of Hercules’ clothing during his servitude as tenues tunicas Gaetulo murice tinctas (‘gauzy tunics bathed in Gaetulian purple dye’, Fast. 2.319); the passage prompts the question of which dresses these were, and whether they had a particular name and origin. Then there is the story’s recounting by Propertius (4.9.45–50), where reference is made to Hercules’ ‘Sidonian dress’ (Sidonia . . . palla, 4.9.47).66 Indeed, we cannot altogether exclude the possibility that it was even Hercules, rather than Omphale, who was given an entry as one of Suetonius’ feminae, since he was clearly represented in these poems as playing the role of the puella,67 and since Suetonius seems also to have included male beloveds, such as those of Virgil and Aedituus, as we have already discussed. Suetonius was more likely extending to Rome what was in Greek scholarship almost a hackneyed theme of courtesans, doing for his contemporary audience what he also did in rivalling Greek literary βίοι by writing Lives of Roman writers to a fuller extent than Varro and Nepos, as Jerome would later do for Christian authors (Reiff. pp. 3–4).68 Hercules and Omphale’s popularity had been renewed by Roman poets, 65  Cf. the Greek orator Isaeus, who appears to have been mentioned in the opening of Suetonius’ Roman Lives of orators: Valla ad Juv. 3.74, with Power (2014d). 66  For women’s Sidonian clothing, cf. Prop. 2.16.55–6, 2.29.15. See also Ov. Her. 9.65–6, and Prop. 3.11.17–20, where the poet describes some of Hercules’ feminine chores, but neither of those passages alludes to the sandyx. 67  DeBrohun (1994) 45–51. Cf. Champlin (2011) 327 on ‘spintria’, a Roman term for a female prostitute that was sometimes applied to men. 68  Cf. Ov. Tr. 2.421–2, where Ovid begins the catalogue of mistresses excerpted earlier: neue peregrinis tantum defendar ab armis, / et Romanus habet multa iocosa liber (‘Nor will foreign arms be my only defence; Roman books too contain many racy matters’). Like Catullus and Pliny, Suetonius respected the lighter subject matters of Roman poetry; cf. Catull. 16 and Plin. Ep. 4.14, 5.3, with Marchesi (2008) 60, 74–5.

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who were exciting the public’s imagination and curiosity,69 but not every reader would have known their story intricately. The genre of courtesan literature may have been well formed by Suetonius’ day, but its terrain of treated subjects still had a rather large gap to fill.

4.  BIO GRAPHY OR COMMENTARY? It remains to ask whether Suetonius’ Courtesans should be characterized as biography. As we have said, it has long been considered so, but our discussion and survey of the fragments cast a rather different light on its genre, which appears to have been closer to a scholarly commentary. The line between the scholarly and the biographical is here admittedly rather close, but it is doubtful that the work would have resembled even the scantest portraits of Suetonius’ Illustrious Men, such as in the Grammarians, where the biographer can find only one or two facts about a subject, but enough in his estimation to provide a generally rounded portrait. The caveat of his diuisio, where he announces the professores themselves, suggests there were other grammarians that he had researched, but about whom he did not discover sufficient biographical material: clari professores et de quibus prodi possit aliquid—dumtaxat a nobis—fere hi fuerunt (‘Famous teachers about whom something could be related—at least by me—are essentially the following’, Gramm. 4.7). Writers of scholarship would not have approached their subjects in the same way, but rather addressed only those facts that were relevant to the specific context of the work. A scholarly treatise such as Suetonius’ Courtesans appears to have contained notes on particular beloveds that explained their representations in poetry, and certain other details limited to aiding that poetry’s interpretation. Even if some of the entries were longer than the biographies of the Grammarians, and their details indeed partly biographical, no attempt would have been made to achieve a full portrait. Ancestry—a favourite topic of Suetonius—may have played a large role, since it was often germane to the significance of famous women, especially those of mythological descent; poets expected their readers 69  See esp. Hekster (2004), with bibliography, on Omphale’s broadly literary, and not merely political, interest at Rome (e.g. Plut. Demetr.–Ant. 3.3); pace Zanker (1988) 58–60.



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to understand allusions to, or ironies of, lineage. But the overall theme would have been different, even if the scale was comparable, and the biographical focus was almost certainly narrower.70 Pertinent here is the brief attention paid in our example from Suetonius’ Games of the Greeks to Palamedes, whose life is discussed strictly as it relates to dice; any other facts about him are considered extraneous and excluded. So too each woman of the Courtesans would have been treated qua beloved—that is, primarily in terms of her significance as a character in poetry. In some cases, evidence would have been scant: a real name, perhaps a birthplace. Other well-known characters, such as Omphale, would have been handled more succinctly, with emphasis placed on details such as the sandyx that inform her most common representations in Roman poetry. Although we must be careful not to push the fragmentary evidence for Greek writings Περὶ ἑταιρῶν too far, it still provides a general guide to the genre’s nature, since its influence on Suetonius does not seem to have been mediated by Roman antecedents. As it was developed by Suetonius at the beginning of the second century ad, this kind of writing probably remained just as distinct from the uitae of the Romans as it had been from the βίοι of the Greeks. At the same time, the biographical interests of the Courtesans that do remain, as espoused in the fragments we have discussed, raise two important points, and with these I shall end. The first has to do with the puellae of Roman elegy more generally. Recent scholarship has acknowledged that the Roman elegiac puella has its roots in the hetaira of Greek comedy,71 and, as we have shown in this chapter, courtesan treatises essentially grew out of scholarship on the poetry in which such characters appeared. It therefore stands to reason that Suetonius’ work encompassed the puellae of Latin love poetry, who were seen as historical women in the same scholarly light, even if scholars today view them as largely artificial creations.72

70  Conversely, see Hendrickson (2013) 14–17 on biography’s partially commentarylike interest in explaining poetry. Commentary’s resemblance to biography, however, was more limited. 71  James (2003) 37–40; cf. McClure (2003a) 86. 72  On artificiality in Roman love poetry, see e.g. Allen (1950); James (2010) with bibliography, esp. 314 n. 1: ‘biographism continues to haunt elegy studies. This particular corpse apparently refuses to remain dead’; and similarly in lyric, Mayer (2012) 153, 201–2. The argument of Wyke (1989: 27–35 = 2002: 18–31) that the women of elegy are completely literary constructions is, to my mind, unconvincing. Further scholarship by Wyke on Roman puellae is cited in DeBrohun (1994) 41.

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The mention of such ‘real identities’ in biographies such as Suetonius’ Vita Vergili, and in scholarly sources such as Hyginus, who possibly noted them in his Lives of Roman writers, or else in other writings, suggests that these poetical characters were nonetheless viewed in antiquity as having female models, despite the many elaborative conceits in their depictions. A more balanced view is therefore needed, since it is almost certain, for example, that Catullus’ ‘Lesbia’ was based in part on Clodia Metelli,73 and Ticida’s ‘Perilla’ on her daughter Metella Celer: like mother, like daughter.74 Fiction may demand autonomy over fact, but it is still beholden to its inspirational counterparts. Even clichés are sometimes true. Suetonius often illustrates points of contact between fiction and reality, especially the social context that informs a poet’s writing, be it patronage or pleasure. The story of Virgil reading the Aeneid to ­Augustus sums up the close relationship in Suetonius between poetry and biography (Vita Verg. 32, illustrated on the front cover of this volume):75 cui tamen multo post, perfectaque demum materia, tres omnino libros recitauit, secundum quartum et sextum; sed hunc notabili Octauiae adfectione, quae, cum recitationi interesset, ad illos de filio suo uersus, ‘tu Marcellus eris’, defecisse fertur atque aegre focilata. However, much later on, and after his material was at last complete, he recited to him only three books: the second, fourth, and sixth; but the last one had a notable effect on Octavia, who while she was attending the reading, as he came to those lines about her son, ‘You will be M ­ arcellus . . . ’ [Aen. 6.883ff.], reportedly fainted and was not easily revived.

Suetonius’ Courtesans espouses the belief that real women, however embellished or generalized, did in fact lie behind the female portraits of Roman love poetry, a belief that was obviously represented by Suetonius’ implied readership, and likewise by other Roman writers. Ovid famously tells us of one woman at Rome who was falsely claiming to be the ‘Corinna’ from his poetry (Am. 2.17.29).76 While the biographer Suetonius has often been accused of being over-literal with regard to 73  Treggiari (1991) 303–5; Skinner (2011) 121–44, 167–71; Keith (2012) 286. 74  Münzer (1920) 341 n. 1; Wiseman (1974) 112; Courtney, FLP 228–9; Skinner (2011) 92–5, 163. For possible identifications of other female characters, see e.g. Cairns (2006–7) 29 on Horace’s ‘Licymnia’ in Odes 2.12 as Maecenas’ wife Terentia; Heath (2013) 155 and nn. 1–3 on Ovid’s ‘Corinna’. 75  For Suetonius’ biographical approach to poetry, cf. also Hulls, ch. 9 in this volume, p. 193. 76  See also e.g. Catull. 6; Ov. Ars am. 3.538; with Bright (1978) 111.



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his use of fictional sources, I demonstrate elsewhere that he was probably more aware of the potential distortion in such sources than scholars have allowed, and that he may have nonetheless seen a value in them for sometimes conveying biographical reality.77 Roman readers were imaginative enough to be wary of lies, invention, and poetic licence, but that does not mean they refrained from seeking out sources of inspiration where they could be found, or from reading an author’s poetry in an autobiographical light—nor were they always altogether misguided in doing so. As treatises such as Suetonius’ Courtesans establish, such searches could be fruitful and valid, yielding material that, as today, must be interpreted as trivia or insight on a case-by-case basis. At any rate, it was, and remains, of interest what Hercules was named for serving Omphale in the manner that he did, and what she made him wear. The second and final point is that Suetonius’ scholarly works do contain, no less than his early experiment in literary biography, adjacent forms of what becomes in the Caesars the most lasting mould of fully fledged biography for later antiquity. Clearly, just as Suetonius’ Caesars espouse many of the stylistic techniques and interests of his other works on a larger scale, so too the scholarly works glimmer with signs of his biographical instincts. The fact that commentators subsequent to Suetonius preserve abbreviated versions and other smaller fragments of his Lives in their notes shows how close the two endeavours were.78 Even if the Romans would not have thought of Suetonius’ commentary on courtesans as a collection of Lives, it aided the study of poetry no less than his Illustrious Men, and would have been consulted by readers motivated as much by biographical curiosity as scholarly vigour. Well-known courtesans may have been occasionally noted by Hyginus, just as they were at times noted by Greek biographers such as Satyrus, but Suetonius’ courtesan treatise harkened back to rather different Greek models from literary Lives. Nonetheless, due to his unique attention to detail, perhaps in no other place than in his courtesan commentary was Suetonius, despite having another job to do, still ever the biographer.

77  Power (forthcoming a). 78  See esp. Serv. ad Aen. 6.799 (= p. 286 Roth); Porph. ad Hor. Epist. 2.1; Valla ad Juv. 3.74, with Power (2014d); Schol. Iuv. 4.81 (= fr. 71 Reiff.); Valla ad Juv. 4.81 (= pp. 88–9 Reiff.); Schol. Iuv. 5.109, with Jones (1986) 245–9, who also proposes (251 n. 24) the use of Suetonius at Schol. Iuv. 5.36; cf. Schol. Bob. ad Cic. Vat. 34, with Power (2012a) 223 n. 13. Cf. also my Introduction to this volume, pp. 8–10 on style.

12 Suetonius and the Origin of Pantomime T. P. Wiseman

Suetonius was not only a biographer, he was a scholar whose curiosity and erudition covered many different subjects. The scope and detail that make the Lives so interesting came from a deep knowledge of the social and cultural history of the Greco-Roman world. Time and chance have deprived us of his extensive output, but the Suda lists some of the titles: Περὶ τῶν παρ’ Ἕλλησι παιδιῶν βιβλίον αʹ, Περὶ τῶν παρὰ Ῥωμαίοις θεωριῶν καὶ ἀγώνων βιβλία βʹ, Περὶ τοῦ κατὰ Ῥωμαίους ἐνιαυτοῦ αʹ, Περὶ τῶν ἐν τοῖς βιβλίοις σημείων αʹ, Περὶ τῆς Κικέρωνος πολιτείας αʹ, . . . Περὶ ὀνομάτων κυρίων καὶ ἰδέας ἐσθημάτων, . . . Περὶ δυσφήμων λέξεων ἤτοι βλασφημιῶν, . . . Περὶ Ῥώμης καὶ τῶν ἐν αὐτῇ νομίμων καὶ ἠθῶν βιβλία βʹ, . . . Στέμμα Ῥωμαίων ἀνδρῶν ἐπισήμων. On Greek Games; On Roman Shows and Competitions, two volumes; On the Roman Year; On Bibliographical Annotation; On the Republic of Cicero; . . . On Names and Types of Clothes; . . . On Insults and Bad Language; . . . On Rome, its Customs and Manners, two volumes; . . . A Garland of Famous Romans. (Suda τ 895 = IV.581 Adler)

Other sources mention other titles: On Famous Prostitutes (Περὶ ἐπισήμων πορνῶν), On Physical Defects (De uitiis corporalibus), On the Institution of Offices (De institutione officiorum), On Kings (De regibus), On the Names of Seas and Rivers (De nominibus maris ac fluminum),1 and so on. Given the importance of the games in Roman culture, the 1  Suet. fr. 202 Reiff. (Lydus, Mag. 3.64), frr. 170–1 Reiff. (Serv. ad Aen. 7.627, Ecl. 3.8), fr. 199 Reiff. (Prisc. Inst. 6.8.41 = Keil, Gramm. Lat. II.231), fr. 177 Reiff. (Auson. Ep. 17.15 Green), fr. 157 Reiff. (Isid. Etym. 44.1).



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second item in the Suda list is a particularly regrettable loss. However, a few traces of it can be detected in surviving authors, and I think it is worth investigating them. One result, I believe, will be a surprising addition to our knowledge about the history of Roman drama.

1.  According to the Suda, the two volumes concerned were Περὶ τῶν παρὰ Ῥωμαίοις θεωριῶν καὶ ἀγώνων. What was the Latin title? Possibly De spectaculis et certaminibus, since Suetonius elsewhere refers to Greek agones (competitions) as certamina (Ner. 12.3, Dom. 4.4). However, there may be a better alternative. Varro in his Antiquitates diuinae also had two books on the Roman games, and he evidently divided them as ‘On circus games’ (De ludis circensibus) and ‘On stage games’ (De ludis scaenicis),2 and if, as is likely, Aulus Gellius was referring to this work when he cited ‘the first book of Suetonius’ ludicra historia’, then ludi probably featured in Suetonius’ title too.3 Since the Greek phraseology implies an order different from Varro’s, I suggest the title was De ludis scaenicis et circensibus. The structure of the work can be inferred from Tertullian’s De spectaculis, the source for which is described as ‘Suetonius, or those from whom he took the information’.4 Tertullian carefully enumerates (De spect. 4.4, 13.1) the five headings under which he discusses the different types of spectacle: they are ‘origins’, ‘titles’, ‘apparatus’, ‘sites’, and ‘skills’. The types of spectacle themselves are circus games, stage games, athletic competitions (agones), and gladiatorial shows (munera),5 repeated 2  See August. De civ. D. 6.3 on the structure of the Antiquitates diuinae: three books De hominibus, three De locis, three De temporibus, three De sacris, three De dis. The De temporibus books (8–10) were De feriis, De ludis circensibus, and De ludis scaenicis. 3 Gell. NA 9.7.3 = Suet. fr. 181 Reiff. (on how the winter solstice affects the sound of the lyre); see Funaioli (1931) 627 and Taillardat pp. 30–1 for the attribution, which is doubted by Wardle (1993) 92–6. 4 Tert. De spect. 5.8 (on the games founded by Romulus and his successors): positum est apud Suetonium Tranquillum uel a quibus Tranquillus accepit. Roth (pp. 278–9) prints De spect. 5.2–8 as a Suetonian ‘fragment’; Reifferscheid (frr. 184–94) offers a much more generous selection from De spect. 4–13; see Wallace-Hadrill (1983) 41–2 on the two editors and their respective methods. 5 Tert. De spect. 5–12, arranged as follows: origines (5) and tituli (6) of circus and theatre games together; apparatus (7), loca (8) and artificium (9) of circus games; origo and tituli (10.1), apparatus (10.2), loca (10.3–7) and artes (10.8–13) of stage games; origo (11.1), tituli (11.2), apparatus (11.3), loca and artes (11.4–5) of athletic competitions; origo (12.1–4), tituli (12.5), apparatus (12.6), and loca (12.7) of gladiatorial shows.

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in order in his rhetorical treatment of the circus (De spect. 16), the theatre (17), the stadium (18), and the amphitheatre (19), each with its particular form of temptation to sin.6 That is consistent with how Suetonius organized his material in the ‘shows’ chapters of his imperial biographies,7 and I think it is very likely that Tertullian’s five headings go back to him. The equal status granted not only to circus and theatre but also to stadium and amphitheatre would be appropriate to a work composed after the construction of the Flavian amphitheatre and Domitian’s stadium. It is important to remember that when Varro wrote about the games in his Antiquitates, probably in the late fifties bc, even a ­purpose-built theatre was a very recent phenomenon at Rome. Servius’ commentary on Virgil, Georgics 3.24, is relevant here: apud maiores theatri gradus tantum fuerunt, nam scaena de lignis ad tempus fiebat, unde hodieque consuetudo permansit ut componantur pegmata a ludorum theatralium editoribus. scaena autem quae fiebat aut uersilis erat aut ductilis: uersilis tunc erat, cum subito tota machinis quibusdam conuertebatur et aliam picturae faciem ostendebat; ductilis tunc, cum tractis tabulatis hac atque illac species picturae nudabatur interior: unde perite utrumque tetigit dicens ‘uersis discedat frontibus’, singula singulis complectens sermonibus. quod Varro et Suetonius commemorant. In our ancestors’ time, ‘theatres’ were just steps.8 The scene-set was built of wood for each occasion, whence even today the custom has survived of scaffolds being constructed by those responsible for putting on theatre games.9 The scene-set that was made was either ‘turnable’ or ‘pullable’: it was ‘turnable’ when it was suddenly revolved in its entirety by a special mechanism and showed a different painted scene;10 it was ‘pullable’ when panels were drawn to one side and the other and a painted scene was revealed within. So [Virgil] has cleverly alluded to both by saying ‘separates as the panels turn’, including each item with each word. Varro and Suetonius record this. (Suet. fr. 191 Reiff.)  6 Tert. De spect. 20.5, on the frenzy of the circus, the immorality of the stage, the impropriety of the stadium, and the cruelty of the amphitheatre.  7  Iul. 39, Aug. 43–5, Tib. 34.1, Calig. 18–20, Claud. 21, Ner. 53, Dom. 4. Spectacula are a regular ‘rubric’ in the Lives (see Hurley, ch. 1 in this volume).    8  Either literally, the steps of temples (see Goldberg 1998), or in the sense of terraces of stepped seats (e.g. Vitr. De arch. 5.6.3).    9  Pegma can refer to any wooden construction; it might be used of the crane that enabled actors to ‘fly’ (e.g. Phaedr. 5.7.7, Juv. 4.122), but here it is evidently the equivalent of pulpitum, a raised platform (Mart. 5.25.7–8, 8.33.3–4): see Strabo 6.2.6 (C 273) for its use in a punitive wild-beast show in the Roman Forum. 10  As described in Vitr. De arch. 5.6.8; cf. also Val. Max. 2.4.6, Pollux 4.126.



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The final sentence suggests that Suetonius may have cited Varro for his account of the situation that existed before the great theatres and arenas were constructed. Ad hoc wooden structures did not inhibit the ambitious politicians of the late republic from lavishing conspicuous expenditure on the theatre games for which they were responsible. Valerius Maximus and the Elder Pliny give us a list of extravagant innovators—who first provided awnings, who first decorated the stage-set in silver or gold or ivory, and so forth—which they probably got from Varro himself.11 But once the theatre of Pompey was opened in 55 bc, Caesar’s monumental Circus Maximus in 46 bc, the amphitheatre of Statilius Taurus in 29 bc, the theatre of Balbus in 13 bc, and the theatre of Marcellus in 11 bc,12 magnificent display was possible at quite a different level. In his seventh book, written no doubt in the twenties bc, Livy described the show business of his own time as ‘a madness which wealthy kingdoms would hardly tolerate’.13 In 22 bc, Augustus transferred responsibility for the annual ludi from the aediles to the praetors.14 Magistrates with imperium (the power of military command) were evidently needed for what was increasingly becoming a public order problem. A new form of dance introduced by Bathyllus and Pylades—sometimes called ­pantomimus—gave rise to violent rivalry among the performers’ respective fans, and by the end of Augustus’ principate, it had reached a stage of serious bloodshed, which even the Praetorian Guard found hard to control.15 Less indulgent than Augustus, Tiberius banished all public performers from Italy in ad 23,16 in an atmosphere for which Valerius Maximus provides good contemporary evidence. In his section on the ancient institutions of Rome, Valerius makes a transition from the army to the theatre in these terms: 11  Val. Max. 2.4.6, Plin. HN 19.23, 21.6, 33.53, 35.27, 36.117, accepted as Varro, frr. 309–14 Funaioli. For the awnings (of which Lucr. 4.75–83 is a wonderful eyewitness description), see Varro, Ant. div. fr. 82 Cardauns = Macrob. Sat. 6.4.8. 12  Ascon. 1C (Pompey); Dio 51.23.1 (Taurus), 54.25.2 (Balbus); Plin. HN 8.65 (Marcellus); ibid. 36.102, Suet. Iul. 39.2 (Caesar). 13  Livy 7.2.13, cf. Sen. Clem. 1.26.2 (below, n. 22); Jory (1981) 153–5. 14  Dio 54.2.3–4, cf. Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 2.19.4. 15  Bathyllus as the innovator: Ath. 1.20d. Pylades as the innovator: Jer. Chron. on 22–1 bc, Macrob. Sat. 2.7.18. Pylades and ‘sedition’: Dio 54.17.4–5, Macrob. Sat. 2.7.19. Riots: Tac. Ann. 1.54.2, Dio 56.47.2 (ad 14); Tac. Ann. 1.77.1 (ad 15); Vell. Pat. 2.126.2 (‘the sedition of the theatre’). 16 Suet. Tib. 37.2, Tac. Ann. 4.14.3 (cf. 1.74.2), Dio 57.21.3 (cf. 59.2.5, ban revoked by Gaius).

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proximus militaribus institutis ad urbana castra, id est theatra, gradus faciendus est, quoniam haec quoque saepenumero animosas acies instruxerunt, excogitataque cultus deorum et hominum delectationis causa non sine aliquo pacis rubore uoluptatem et religionem ciuili sanguine scaenicorum portentorum gratia macularunt. From military institutions the next step to take is to the fortresses of the city, that is, the theatres, since they too have frequently drawn up fierce battle lines. They were invented for the worship of the gods and the delight of men, but to the shame of peace they have stained pleasure and religion with the blood of citizens, for the sake of the monstrosities of the stage. (Val. Max. 2.4.1)

Not surprisingly, the history and development of the ludi scaenici were of particular interest in Tiberius’ time.17 But that was nothing compared with the high profile that Roman show business came to enjoy in the next generation, with Gaius, who loved performing,18 and the ‘actor-emperor’ Nero.19 Gaius built a new circus in the Vatican district; Nero built a new amphitheatre in the Campus Martius; Vespasian outdid it with his own ‘new amphitheatre’, the Colosseum; Domitian built a stadium for athletic games.20 It was an almost continuous 150-year sequence from Pompey to the Flavians, interrupted only by the austerity of Tiberius; and even he had to rebuild Pompey’s theatre when it was damaged by fire.21 If Suetonius did indeed use the categories later employed by Tertullian, we can see how much he would have to record under ‘sites’ (loca). The lavish decoration of the buildings would be among his material for ‘apparatus’,22 along with all the mechanical marvels that astonished the audience—‘constructions that rise of their own accord, floors that silently lift into the air, things that fit together and then fall apart, 17  For Velleius, see Wiseman (2011). 18 Philo, Leg. 42, 78–9, 96; Sen. De ira 1.20.8; Suet. Calig. 11, 52, 54; Dio 59.5.4–5, 59.26.5–10; Joseph. AJ 19.30, Aur. Vict. Caes. 3.12. 19 Plin. Pan. 46.4 (scaenicus imperator); see Champlin (2003) 53–83. 20 Plin. HN 16.201, 36.74 (Gaius); Tac. Ann. 13.31.1, Plin. HN 16.200, 19.24 (Nero); CIL 6.40454a (Vespasian’s amphitheatrum nouum); Suet. Dom. 5, Jer. Chron. on ad 88–91 (Domitian). 21  Vell. Pat. 2.130.1, Tac. Ann. 3.72.2, Sen. Ad Marc. 22.4. With the temple of Divus Augustus, it was the only public building he undertook—and he never came to Rome to dedicate either of them (Suet. Tib. 47, Calig. 21). 22 Sen. Clem. 1.26.2, on shows (spectacula) as an opportunity for informers: ‘they can be equipped (apparentur) at great expense with regal magnificence (regiis opibus) and the choicest names of artists, but what good are games (ludi) when you’re in jail?’



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things that are separate and then join together, things that stand upright and then gradually subside’.23 And in the sphere of ‘skills’ (artes), the main innovation that had taken place since Varro’s classic account of the ludi was the new style of dance performance introduced under Augustus by Bathyllus and Pylades.24 That was certainly discussed by Suetonius, but in which of his works? The nineteenth-century editors disagreed: Carl Roth attributed the relevant fragment to the work on the ludi (Roth p. 280), August Reifferscheid to the De poetis (fr. 3, pp. 11–12 Reiff.). I think Roth was right, but what matters more is to get a proper understanding of the text that transmits the information.

2.  At some point in the late fourth or early fifth century ad, a grammarian called Diomedes composed a three-volume Ars grammatica, of which the third book was devoted to poetry and metre.25 Having described the various combinations of short and long syllables that made metrical ‘feet’, he went on to discuss kinds of poems, poematum genera.26 This chapter—Diomedes De poematibus—was edited by Friedrich Leo for inclusion in the first volume of Kaibel’s edition of Greek comic fragments (CGF 53–61). In what follows, I cite it by Leo’s section numbers followed by the relevant page number in Keil’s Grammatici Latini. There are, he says, three kinds of poem (De poematibus 1.2–3 = Gramm. Lat. I.482): first, dramatic or mimetic, in which characters speak without any intervention in the poet’s voice (Eclogues 1 and 9 are the examples he gives); second, narrative or expository, in which the poet speaks without any intervention in other characters’ voices (his examples are Georgics 1–3, the first part of Georgics 4, and Lucretius); and third, a mixture of the two, in which the poet both speaks in his own voice and brings on characters speaking in theirs (for instance, the Iliad, the Odyssey, and the Aeneid).27 The particular poetic genres are then discussed in turn (De 23 Sen. Ep. 88.22, on the art of the machinatores; cf. Dio 62.12.2 (collapsible ship). 24  See above, n. 15. 25  Kaster (1988) 270–2. The text is in Keil (Gramm. Lat. I.297–529). 26 Keil, Gramm. Lat. I.299, 473, 482 (on Diomedes’ third book). 27  For the theoretical tradition Diomedes exploits here, see Janko (1984) 128–33. Diomedes extends his treatment at De poematibus 1.4–6 = Gramm. Lat. I.482–3, giving further examples of the three kinds (including drama proper for the first), clearly from a new source.

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poematibus 3–14 = Gramm. Lat. I.483–92): epic, elegy, iambus, epodes, satire, bucolic, tragedy, comedy. The study of this interesting text was blown off course at an early stage by a largely spurious argument about Diomedes’ supposed source. Otto Jahn started it in 1854, with a brief suggestion that the De poematibus chapter was taken from Suetonius, and indeed from his lost work on ludi.28 Reifferscheid agreed it was Suetonian, but attributed it to the De poetis, and included large chunks of it among his fragments of that work (fr. 3).29 Later scholars preferred Valerius Probus as the source, or Remmius Palaemon.30 But all these theories were based on a false premise, since there is not the slightest reason to believe in a single source for De poematibus. Diomedes’ Ars grammatica is a patchwork, its material evidently stitched together from many of his predecessors’ books. As Robert Kaster puts it, ‘Diomedes wished to produce a wide-ranging collection of excerpts from earlier works’, creating ‘a mosaic, in which the junctures between the individual pieces remain visible while the pieces combine to form a coherent pattern’.31 Diomedes’ treatment of comedy (De poematibus 9–14 = Gramm. Lat. I.488–92) is as long as that of all the other genres put together, incorporating as it does Varro’s schematic categorization of Greek dramatic forms and their supposed Roman equivalents.32 It concludes with a remarkable passage, some at least of which was taken from Suetonius, on the constituent parts of comedy: (14.1) membra comoediarum sunt tria: diuerbium canticum chorus. membra comoediae diuersa sunt, definito tamen numero continentur a quinque usque ad decem. (14.2) diuerbia sunt partes comoediarum in quis diuersorum personae uersantur; personae autem diuerbiorum aut duae aut tres aut raro quattuor esse debent, ultra augere numerum non licet. (14.3) in canticis autem una tantum debet esse persona aut, si duae fuerint, ita esse debent ut ex occulto una audiat nec conloquatur, sed secum, si opus fuerit, uerba faciat. (14.4) in choris uero numerus personarum definitus non est, quippe iunctim omnes loqui debent quasi uoce confuse et concentu in unam personam reformantes. Latinae igitur comoediae chorum non habent, sed duobus membris tantum constant, diuerbio et cantico. 28  Jahn (1854) 629–30; followed by Keil, Gramm. Lat. I.liv–lv; Roth p. 280. 29  For discussion, see Reiff. pp. 370–7. 30  Respectively Buchholz (1897) and Koett (1904) 41–50. 31  Kaster (1988) 148. 32  De poematibus 10 = Gramm. Lat. I.489–90 (Varro, fr. 306 Funaioli); for the limitations of Varro’s scheme, see Wiseman (2008) 194–9.



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(14.5) primis autem temporibus, sic uti adserit Tranquillus, omnia quae in scaena uersantur in comoedia agebantur. nam et pantomimus et pythaules et choraules in comoedia canebant. sed quia non poterant omnia simul apud omnes artifices pariter excellere, siqui erant inter actores comoediarum pro facultate et arte potiores, principatum sibi artificii uindicabant. sic factum est , nolentibus cedere mimis in artificio suo ceteris, separatio fieret reliquorum. nam dum potiores inferioribus qui in communi ergasterio erant seruire dedignantur, se ipsos a comoedia separauerunt, ac sic factum est ut exemplo semel sumpto usus quisque artis suae rem exequi coeperit neque in comoediam uenire. cuius rei indicia produnt nobis antiquae comoediae, in quibus inuenimus ‘acta tibiis paribus aut imparibus aut Sarranis’. quando enim chorus canebat, choricis tibiis id est choraulicis artifex concinebant, in cantico autem pythaulicis responsabat. nam quod ‘paribus tibiis uel imparibus’ inuenimus scriptum, hoc significat quod, siquando monodio agebat, unam tibiam inflabat, siquando synodio, utrasque. (14.1) The constituent parts of comedies are three in number: diuerbium, canticum, and chorus. (The constituent parts of a comedy [in the sense of ‘acts’]33 are different, but confined to a specific number between five and ten.) (14.2) Diuerbia are the parts of comedies in which the characters of various people are involved; the characters in diuerbia ought to be two or three or rarely four, and it is not permitted to increase the number. (14.3) In cantica there should be only one character, or if there are two it should be that one listens from out of sight and doesn’t speak to the other but only, if necessary, to himself. (14.4) In chori, of course, there is no specific number of characters, since they should all speak together as if creating a single character by merging their voices and singing as one. Latin comedies, therefore, have no chorus, but consist of just two elements, diuerbium and canticum. (14.5) Originally, as Tranquillus asserts, everything that [now] happens on stage was performed in comedy. For the pantomimus, the pythaules, and the choraules used to sing in comedy. But because not everything could be equally excellent in the performance of everyone, those among the comedy performers who had greater ability and skill each claimed the artistic primacy for himself. So it came about that the mimi were unwilling to yield to the others in their own speciality, and so there was a split from the rest. For since, being more skilled, they were not prepared to serve the less skilled in the work they shared, they separated themselves from comedy; and so it happened that once the precedent had been established, the practice of each speciality began to follow suit, and not appear in comedy. 33  Thus Leo (in CGF 61, app. crit.), surely rightly.

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Evidence for this is provided by the old comedies, in which we find ‘Performed on equal pipes’ or ‘unequal pipes’ or ‘Tyrian pipes’. For when the chorus sang, the performer accompanied them on choral pipes, i.e. choraulicae, whereas in a canticum he responded on pythaulicae. As for the ‘equal’ or ‘unequal pipes’ that we find written, that means that when he was performing for a monodium he blew into one pipe, and when for a synodium into both.34 (De poematibus 14 = Gramm. Lat. I.491–2)

It was noted long ago that this particular passage in Diomedes is more concerned with the history of drama than with poemata as such,35 so I think we may safely attribute it to Suetonius’ work on the Roman ludi.

3.  It is a curious fact that in all the excellent work that has recently appeared on the subject of ‘pantomime’, this important text has been either briefly dismissed or completely ignored.36 But if historians of drama find it hard to fit into their conceptual framework, perhaps that framework itself is part of the problem. Of course, there had always been dancers on the Roman stage. For Varro and Lucretius no less than for Propertius and Ovid, dancers were precisely what you thought of when you thought of the theatre.37 When Augustus asked Pylades what exactly was new about the new style, he replied with a quote from Homer: ‘the cry of flutes and pipes and the hubbub of men’ (Macrob. Sat. 2.7.18, quoting Hom. Il. 10.13). What did he mean? To find an answer, we need to go forward 200 years, to Lucian’s wonderful essay On Dance (De saltatione).38 Of course, all art forms

34  Monodium (solo song) is presumably the same as canticum, as synodium must be the same as chorus; the different terminology may imply a change of source between De poematibus 14.4 and 14.5. 35  Usener (1892) 618 = (1913) 293; Buchholz (1897) 127; Funaioli (1931) 601. 36  There is no mention at all in Jory (2004); Lada-Richards (2007); Hall and Wyles (2008); Webb (2008); or Slater (2010). François Garelli (2007) 151 refers briefly to the passage, assuming that when Diomedes/Suetonius refers to comoedia he means mimus; this improbable idea is falsely attributed to Jory (1981), whose paragraph on the passage is at 156. 37 Varro, Sat. Men. fr. 513 Astbury, Lucr. 4.973–83; Prop. 2.22.3–6, Ov. Rem. am. 751–5. See in general Jory (2004) 147–8; Lada-Richards (2007) 20–2. 38  In Harmon (1936) 210–89; see Jory (2004) 151–2; Lada-Richards (2007).



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develop, and we cannot know how far the performances Lucian was familiar with differed from those of Pylades and his contemporaries. But since he states explicitly that ‘dance as it now is . . . began mainly under Augustus’ (Salt. 34), I think we may, with proper caution, accept his evidence at least for the basics.39 For instance, he points out that the dancer’s mask has a closed mouth, unlike the open-mouth masks of tragedy and comedy, because that is ‘appropriate to the action involved’ (Salt. 29–30): ἔχει γὰρ πολλοὺς τοὺς ὑπὲρ αὐτοῦ βοῶντας. πάλαι μὲν γὰρ αὐτοὶ καὶ ᾖδον καὶ ὠρχοῦντο· εἶτ’ ἐπειδὴ κινουμένων τὸ ᾆσθμα τὴν ᾠδὴν ἐπετάραττεν, ἄμεινον ἔδοξεν ἄλλους αὐτοῖς ὑπᾴδειν. For [the dancer] has many people raising their voices on his behalf. In the past, they themselves both danced and sang, but later, because their heavy breathing as they moved disturbed the singing, it seemed better that others should sing as accompaniment for them.

He also helpfully enumerates the dancer’s support team—‘the pipe, the flute, the foot-clappers, the clash of cymbals, the fine voice of an actor, the combined voice of singers’ (Salt. 68). So Pylades’ Homeric definition evidently referred not only to wind instruments, but also to choral singing (‘raising their voices’, ‘combined voice’) as elements essential to the performance. Both are attested in the Augustan period: Bathyllus’ piper used to ‘fly’ above the stage on the crane, until he fell off and broke his leg, and Manilius refers to performers whose gestures ‘match the songs of the chorus’.40 Both are mentioned in Jerome’s note on Pylades, which was surely taken from Suetonius:41 Pylades Cilix pantomimus, cum ueteres ipsi canerent atque saltarent, primus Romae chorum et fistulam sibi praecinere fecit. Pylades, Cilician pantomimus: although the ancients used to dance and sing themselves, he was the first at Rome to have a chorus and pipe music accompany him. 39  Pylades’ own book on dance (σύγγραμμα περὶ ὀρχήσεως, Ath. 1.20d) may have helped to keep the rules of the form relatively stable; see Jory (1981) 150–1 on its likely influence. 40  Phaedr. 5.7.4–9; Manil. 5.483–5, cf. Phaedr. 5.7.25. 41 Jer. Chron. Ol. 189.3 (on 22–21 bc) = fr. 4 Reiff. ; cf. Jer. Chron. praef. p. 6 Helm =  p. 288 Roth on his ‘careful excerpts from Tranquillus and other well-known historians’ (de Tranquillo et ceteris illustribus historicis curiosissime excerpsimus); Jory (1981) 148. Jerome was no doubt using the De uiris illustribus, but Suetonius may have made the point in his work on ludi as well.

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And both are implicit in Diomedes, De poematibus 14.4–5, where the passage containing the Suetonius citation (pp. 262–4 above) arises from the presence or absence of a chorus, and ends with the use of different sorts of pipes. Diomedes’ whole discussion is in the context of comedy. For Lucian, the dancer’s subjects are essentially tragic,42 but that may be a later development. We know from contemporary evidence that Pylades specialized in tragedy, Bathyllus in comedy;43 and although the learned Athenaeus attributes to Bathyllus the invention of ‘the tragic dance’, he says that he did it by applying not only the emmeleia dance appropriate to tragedy, but also the kordax of comedy and the sikinnis of satyrplay.44 So it is quite possible that Suetonius, like Diomedes, discussed the origins of the new dance performance as part of the development of comedy. But is what Diomedes attributes to him credible?

4.  Throughout the De poematibus chapter, Diomedes uses Latin and Greek authors alike for his examples and quotations. Even in his section on satire, where there were no Greek authors to cite, he adduces Old Comedy and a possible derivation from satyroi (De poematibus 6 = Gramm. Lat. I.485–6). So, too, in his treatment of comedy, he gives a version of the Athenian ‘Old, Middle, and New Comedy’ scheme,45 in order to derive Roman comedy from the last of these (De poematibus 9.4–5 = Gramm. Lat. I.488–9). But there was plenty of Greek comedy other than Athenian, and plenty of Latin comedy other than the ‘plays in Greek costume’ (fabulae palliatae) of Plautus and Terence. For Plato and Theocritus, the inventor of comedy was Epicharmus of Syracuse; Aristotle adds that according to the Sicilians, Epicharmus was ‘much earlier than Chionides and Magnes’, the 42  E.g. Lucian, Salt. 31, cf. 27 for tragedy as the comparandum. See Jory (2004) 154–6; Lada-Richards (2007) 32–7. 43 Sen. Controv. 3, praef. 10: ‘Pylades in comedy and Bathyllus in tragedy are out of their normal range.’ 44  Ath. 1.20d, from Aristonicus of Alexandria; cf. 20e for Pylades’ style as bombastic (ὀγκώδης), Bathyllus’ as more cheerful (ἱλαρωτέρα); Jory (1981) 149–50. The three genre-specific dances are mentioned also by Lucian, Salt. 26. 45  For Hellenistic scholarship on Attic comedy, see Janko (1984) 46–7.



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pioneers of Athenian comedy in the 480s and 470s bc.46 Other Sicilian comic poets are little more than names to us,47 but there is plentiful evidence from vase-painting for a very widespread and varied tradition of comic and burlesque drama all over south Italy and Sicily in the fourth century bc.48 The next known names are playwrights of ‘Italian comedy’ (as Athenaeus defines it)— Rhinthon, who was either Syracusan or Tarentine and was active about 300 bc; Skiras, who was certainly Tarentine; and a Campanian, Blaisos of Capri.49 Two points are worth emphasizing about this important but neglected theatrical tradition. First, it was not restricted to ­Greek-speaking ­communities.50 Two fine mid-fourth-century cups from the inland Etruscan city of Clusium show naked showgirls, first with a dancing satyr, then performing Leda and the swan in the version known from Euripides.51 Similar scenes of naked girl performers with dancing and pipe-playing satyrs are known from fourth-century bronze caskets (cistae) from Latium; one of them is clearly a version of Iphigeneia at Aulis.52 Authors of the early empire believed, rightly or wrongly, that stage games were first introduced to Rome from Etruria in the fourth century, and as proof, they pointed to the fact that the Latin histrio 46 Pl. Tht. 152e, Theoc. in Anthologia Palatina 9.600 (= Gow-Page, HE 3456–63); Arist. Poet. 1448a.32–5 (according to Suda ε 2766 = II.393 Adler, Epicharmus was active in Syracuse ‘six years before the Persian wars’). Diomedes too was aware of this tradition (De poematibus 9.6 = Gramm. Lat. I.489). See Olson (2007) 6–11. 47 See PCG I.174–83 for Phormis and Dinolochos. 48  Dearden (2004) on Sicily, Robinson (2004) on S. Italy. Excellent collection of material in Todisco (2002); mythological burlesque is well illustrated in Walsh (2009), esp. figs. 16, 26, 34, 36, 39, 42, 50, 79, 89 for scenes explicitly on stage. 49  Ath. 9.402b (τῆς Ἰταλικῆς καλουμένης κωμῳδίας); cf. Lydus, Mag. 1.41, who describes the three as Pythagoreans. Rhinthon: Nossis in Anth. Pal. 7.414 (= Gow-Page, HE 2827–30), Syracusan; Suda ρ 171 (IV.295 Adler), Tarentine ‘in the time of Ptolemy I’. Skiras: Ath. 9.402b. Blaisos: Steph. Byz. 357.1. Full testimonia and fragments in PCG I.260–74; see also Olson (2007) 13–16; and Taplin (1993) 49–52 on Rhinthon. 50 Cf. Taplin (1993) 40–1 for an Oscan-speaking vase owner, (2007) 21–2 on ­‘Hellenized non-Greeks’, (2007) 32 on the Pronomos vase from Apulian Ruvo. My only criticism of Taplin’s two ground-breaking books is the impression they give that this phenomenon is an anomaly requiring special explanation. 51  Vatican, Museo Gregoriano Etrusco, inv. 14962–18212; Musée d’art et d’histoire, Geneva, inv. 23471 (where the eagle implies the version in Eur. Hel. 17–21); Martelli (1987) 331; Wiseman (2008) 111–13; colour illustrations at id. (2004) Plate 8. For naked actresses on the Tarentine comic stage, see Hughes (1997) on Konnakis. 52  Bordenache Battaglia and Emiliozzi (1979–90) nos. 45, 51–2; 82 (Iphigeneia); Wiseman (2008) 111–17. Cf. below, n. 65: Iphigeneia at Aulis was the subject of one of Rhinthon’s ‘cheerful tragedies’ (PCG F 5; Pollux 7.90).

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(actor) was an Etruscan loan-word.53 In an important article in 1975, Oswald Szemerényi argued that it was originally histōr (ἵστωρ), a Greek loan-word in Etruscan, and that scaena (stage), persona (mask, character), and ludio (player) had likewise come into Latin from Greek via Etruscan.54 It may help his case that one of the fourth-century bronze caskets from Latium shows a character labelled (h)istor taking part in a scene that also featured a young Silenus, Laodameia, Ajax, and Agamemnon.55 This should not surprise us. Horace’s patronizing vision of the ­Latins as mere peasants, with no idea of Greek drama until after the Punic wars, is a demonstrable absurdity.56 Already in the archaic world, ­Hesiod—or pseudo-Hesiod (Theog. 1011–16)—knew Latinos, ruler of the far-famed Tyrrhenians, as a son of Odysseus and Circe; by the fourth century bc, Aristotle and Heraclides Ponticus could think of Rome as ‘a Greek city’, founded by Achaeans blown off course on the return from Troy;57 two generations later, Callimachus used a Roman hero as an example of Pan-Hellas.58 Some of the best evidence for the comic stage of fourth-century Italy is provided by the brilliant school of red-figure vase painters that flourished at Paestum in northern Lucania.59 Once Greek Posidonia, Paestum had been conquered by the Lucanians sometime about 400 bc, so the witty and elegant work of Assteas, Python, and their colleagues represents the culture of a community that had not been Greek for fifty years.60 A century or so later, the Campanian playwright Blaisos came from Greek-speaking Capri, a dependency of Naples; however, his neighbours spoke Oscan, and there is no reason to doubt that the distinctive comic drama of Oscan-speaking Atella was

53  Livy 7.2.4–6 (364 bc), Val. Max. 2.4.4. Cf. Adams (2003) 165 for possible linguistic evidence of ‘a time when there were Etruscan actors at Rome’. 54  Szemerényi (1975) 307–19: persona ultimately from πρόσωπον, ludio ultimately from αὐλῳδός. 55  Bordenache Battaglia and Emiliozzi (1979–90) no. 45 (Silanus, Ladumeda, Aiax Ilios, Acmemeno); Wiseman (2004) 109–10. 56  See Wiseman (2008) 231–3 on Hor. Epist. 2.1.156–63. 57 Plut. Cam. 22.2 = Heraclid. Pont. fr. 102 Wehrli (πόλις Ἑλληνίς); Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. 1.72.3–4 = Arist. fr. 609 Rose (Achaeans). 58 Callim. Aet. 4.106 Pf., with the diegesis. 59  Trendall (1987) 433 (index) for ‘vases with theatrical subjects’; see in general Green (1994) 89–99, (1995) 107–12 and Plates 9–11, and Robinson (2004) 209–10. 60  For the ‘barbarization’ of Posidonia, represented as a cultural tragedy for the ‘enslaved’ Greeks, see Aristoxenus of Tarentum in Ath. 14.632a.



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already flourishing in his time.61 In northern Campania, they spoke Latin (the Latin colonies at Cales and Suessa date from 334 and 313 respectively), and Blaisos’ tragi-comic Satournos carried the name of the Latin god whose story was an aetiology of Latium itself.62 ­Elizabeth Rawson acutely noted that the Samnite Nysius who wrote popular philosophy in Greek in the second century bc may well have done so for the stage; the great theatre at Pietrabbondante amply confirms Strabo’s description of the Samnites as philhellenes.63 The second thing to emphasize about this multifarious Italian stage tradition is that it evidently did not recognize the generic boundaries of Athenian drama.64 Dinolochus of Syracuse, in the fifth century bc, wrote a Comoedotragoedia; Rhinthon was credited with the invention of ‘cheerful tragedy’ and comedy in hexameters; the works of Blaisos of Capri were simultaneously serious and comic (spoudogeloia).65 Two early Paestan pots show comic actors sharing the stage with female acrobats or tumblers performing nearly naked.66 The ubiquity of satyrs in the iconographic evidence brings to mind the definition of the satyr-play as mixing the serious with the playful.67 However, the Italian tradition evidently did not keep the satyrs attached to tragedies, as in Athens, but had them performing with dancing-girls, often naked, who look like the mimae (actresses) we know from Roman literary texts; the ludi Florales, where the mimae traditionally performed naked, were 61  Livy 7.2.12; Strabo 5.3.6 (C233); Diom. De poematibus 10.5 (Gramm. Lat. I.490); Cic. Fam. 7.1.3, 9.16.7; Varro, Ling. 7.29, 95; Frassinetti (1967) 1–8. 62  Ath. 11.487c (Blaisos, PCG F 2), with Rawson (1985) 103 = (1991) 475; Verg. Aen. 8.319–23, Ov. Fast. 1.233–8 (Latium a Saturno latente); Vell. Pat. 1.14.3–4 (dates of colonies). 63  Rawson (1985) 101 = (1991) 474 on Index Stoicorum Herculanensis (PHerc. 1018) 75 Traversa, which names Nysius the ‘parodist of serious subjects’ (σπουδαιοπάρῳδος); Strabo 5.4.12 (C250); Sear (2006) 153 for the Pietrabbondante theatre; Wallace-Hadrill (2008) 72–143 on the Italo-Greek cultural background. 64  Well noted by Dearden (1995) 85–6, who concludes that fourth-century Italians ‘saw drama of whatever genre in a comprehensive light’. 65  Antiatticista 111.29 (Dinolochus, PCG F 3) for Dinolochus. Suda ρ 171 (IV.295 Adler) for Rhinthon’s ἱλαροτραγῳδία. Steph. Byz. 357, 603 for Blaisos as a poet of σπουδογελοίων and Rhinthon as ‘transforming tragedy into the laughable’ (τὰ τραγικὰ μεταρρυθμίζων ἐς τὸ γελοῖον). Lydus, Mag. 1.41 for Rhinthon’s comedy in hexameters. For possible local Italian influence on Rhinthon, see Robinson (2004) 209–11. 66  Trendall (1987) 46, 69 (nos. 1/99, 2/33, plates 12f, 24f); Dearden (1995). One of them (1/99) comes from Lipari, where the theatrical tradition was clearly very strong: see Bernabó Brea (2001). 67 Demetr. Eloc. 168–9 (‘playful tragedy’), Hor. Ars P. 226 (‘turning serious matters to play’); Griffith (2008) 76. For Dionysiac initiates performing as satyrs, see Turner (2004) 101–3.

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introduced at about the same time that Andronicus of Tarentum produced the first of his plays in Latin at Rome.68 With Livius Andronicus, to give him his Roman citizen name, we come within range of the Roman antiquarian tradition, and texts that Suetonius could have read. It is important to realize that the Italian theatrical traditions sketched earlier did not come to an end when redfigure vase-painting and the engraving of bronze cistae went out of fashion: they continued to develop, and aspects of them can still be identified in our literary sources on republican Rome. Plautus plays with the idea of tragicomoedia in the prologue to Amphitruo (50–63); his own name seems to allude to the Oscan comedy of Atella.69 His younger contemporary Caecilius Statius used material more appropriate to mime in his versions of Menander.70 Cicero quotes Rhinthon, and the later grammarians’ inclusion of Rhinthonica among Roman comic genres may go back to Varro.71 The un-Athenian mixture of serious and comic is reflected in Varro’s own Menippean satires, written for the stage, and also in the Sibyl’s instructions for the Secular Games of 17 bc.72 Certainly, the world of the theatre was still widespread and multilingual.73 Actors in the second and first centuries bc thought of themselves as ‘wandering round Italy’ or ‘touring the towns’,74 and we need not suppose that it mattered much whether the towns were primarily Greek-, Oscan-, or Latin-speaking. So, too, at Rome, the theatre 68  Wiseman (2008) 86–124 on satyrs and dancing-girls, 175–86 on the ludi Florales, 194–9 on fluid categories; Val. Max. 2.10.8 for the nakedness at Flora’s games as an old comic tradition (priscus mos iocorum). Livius Andronicus’ first production in 240 bc: Cic. Brut. 72–3 (from Atticus), Tusc. 1.3; Gell. NA 17.21.42 (probably from Varro). Ludi Florales introduced in 241 or 238 bc: Vell. Pat. 1.14.8, Plin. HN 18.236. 69 Plaut. Asin. 11 (‘translated by Maccus’); Diom. De poematibus 10.9, Gramm. Lat. I.490 (‘Oscan characters in Atellan plays, like Maccus’). 70 Gell. NA 2.23.12; cf. 15.24.1 (Volcacius Sedigitus fr. 1 Courtney), where mimico is a probable emendation. 71 Cic. Att. 1.23 (Rhinthon, PCG F 12); Evanth. De com. 4.1, Donat. De com. 6.1 (PCG T 5). 72  Strabo 16.2.29 (C759) for Menippus as a σπουδογέλοιος (cf. nn. 63 and 65 on Nysius the Samnite and Blaisos of Capri); Wiseman (2009) 131–9 on Varro’s Menippeans, esp. frr. 218 (theatre audience addressed) and 304 (‘this stage style’); Sibylline oracle in Phleg. Trall. FGrH 257 F37 (‘let seriousness be mixed with laughter’). 73 See Rawson (1985) = (1991) 468–87, who consciously corrects the sources’ ­Romanocentric bias. 74  Diod. Sic. 37.12.3 on the Latin Sannio at Asculum in 91 bc; Lucil. 1034 Marx, with Rawson (1985) 105–6 = (1991) 478–9; Macrob. Sat. 2.7.7 on Publilius Syrus in 46 bc.



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festivals provided ludi Graeci and ludi Osci, evidently as a regular thing.75 It is possible that there were ludi Etrusci as well, since Varro mentions a writer of ‘Tuscan tragedies’ in the first century bc.76 When Suetonius reports ‘actors in all languages’ (omnium linguarum histriones) at the games of Caesar and Augustus (Iul. 39.1, Aug. 43.1), his point is not that such performances were unusual in themselves, but that on these great occasions they were put on throughout the city, and not just on one particular stage.

5.  Suetonius was a learned man, and had at his disposal an extensive laterepublican and Augustan literature on theatre history—not only the two relevant books of Varro’s Antiquities, but also Varro’s De scaenicis originibus and De actionibus scaenicis (three volumes each), and the Libri spectaculorum of Sinnius Capito, who certainly predated Verrius Flaccus.77 He was well placed to have good information about the origin of what his Greek contemporaries called ‘the Italian dance’.78 I suspect that what has caused his evidence to be dismissed or ignored is the natural tendency of classicists to be over-influenced by classic texts. If we choose to think of ‘comedy’ as just ‘Plautus and Terence’, we may prefer not to engage with an argument based on the premise that ‘everything that happens on stage was performed in comedy’. But if, instead, we try to do justice to the complex evidence for the history of comic theatre in Sicily and Italy from the late sixth century onwards, when tragedy merged with comedy (as it did for Dinolochus and Rhinthon), or with erotic dance (as it evidently did for the 75 Cic. Fam. 7.1.3 (‘I don’t suppose you miss the Greek and Oscan ludi’), on the dedication games for Pompey’s theatre in 55 bc. Ludi Graeci: Plut. Mar. 2.2 (triumph games 101 bc), Nic. Dam. FGrH 90 F127.9.19 (triumph games 46 bc), Cic. Att. 16.5.1 (ludi Apollinares 44 bc), CIL 6.32323.156–61 (ludi saeculares 17 bc); CIL 12.1214.13 (‘on the Greek stage’). Ludi Osci: Strabo 5.3.6 (C233); see Wallace-Hadrill (2008) 88–96 on the use of Oscan as a statement of identity. 76  Volnius: Varro Ling. 5.55, where ‘he used to say’ (dicebat) implies a contemporary. Cf. Harris (1971) 169–84 on the not-yet-extinct Etruscan language. 77  Varro, frr. 70–86 Funaioli; above, n. 6 for the Antiquitates. Sinnius Capito: Lactant. Div. inst. 6.20.35; date inferred from Festus 438L. See Wallace-Hadrill (1983) 53–7 for Suetonius’ expertise in late-republican and Augustan writings. 78  Ath. 1.20e (τὴν Ἰταλικὴν ὄρχησιν).

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fourth-century Etruscans and Latins), then Suetonius’ account of the dancers’ and musicians’ declaration of independence may make some kind of sense. At the very least, we should not assume that we are better informed than he was. On the contrary, Suetonius’ wide-ranging erudition puts to shame our compartmentalized modern scholarship, where specialists on ancient drama and specialists on Roman history too rarely venture beyond their self-imposed boundaries.

13 Suetonius and the De uita Caesarum in the Carolingian Empire Jamie Wood

1. INTRODUCTION Suetonius’ Lives of the Caesars was the key model for a biography of the Carolingian Emperor Charlemagne that was written by Einhard, a Frankish courtier, in the early ninth century: It was Einhard who first opened this rich vein to historians and showed the way it could be worked. His Life of Charlemagne initiated a new phase in the development of historical studies in western Europe, characterized by a serious attempt to revive the literary and artistic standards of classical historians. No one ever again succeeded quite as well as Einhard in creating a contemporary character in a classical mould.1

Einhard had access to many other biographies on which he could have based his account of Charlemagne’s life. There were numerous saints’ Lives and biographies of Christian kings and emperors and even royal hagiographies, all of which would seem more appropriate models for imitation. So why did Einhard draw on Suetonius when writing the Life of Charlemagne (Vita Karoli Magni)? This is not a new question. Much work has been done on Einhard’s reception of Suetonius. Einhard’s adaptation has been typified as the result of his ‘happy connection’ with a monastery with one of the surviving copies of Suetonius’ Caesars.2 Other studies have suggested

1  Southern (1970) 183 = (2004) 19.    2  Reynolds and Wilson (1991) 101.

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that Suetonius’ text offered a way to create typological connections between Roman emperors, particularly Augustus, and their Frankish successors, particularly Charlemagne, and formed part of a broader movement to create the impression that the Carolingian Franks were the legitimate inheritors of the Roman Empire.3 Innes has identified a number of other examples of Suetonian influence on the Carolingian intelligentsia of the ninth century and demonstrated that Einhard’s choice was no one-off: it formed part of a broader move to engage with the classical tradition.4 This is important because the Carolingian era played a pivotal role in the survival of a host of classical and early Christian texts.5 The preferences of the monastic librarians of the early Middle Ages had a telling impact on the survival of classical literature. Texts that were aimed at a secular audience or with a clearly ‘pagan’ background were far less likely to find favour, and therefore survive, than were ‘Christian’ writings.6 Consequently we must explain why a catalogue of biographies of pagan emperors written by Suetonius, a pagan author, was picked up by the Christian Carolingians. Previous scholarship has suggested that the chance discovery of a manuscript of the Caesars in the monastery of Fulda was ­responsible for Einhard’s decision to model his imperial biography on those of Suetonius. Other historians have focused on Carolingian-authored texts that mention Suetonius and demonstrated that there was a substantial upsurge in interest in his work in the ninth century. In this chapter, I build on this work to explore ­Carolingian ­engagement with Suetonius from a different perspective, examining earlier Christian texts that were being copied and read in the ­Carolingian age and which make reference to Suetonius as a b ­ iographer of some standing. In particular, Suetonius had a rather high approval rating among the ‘bibliographies’ that were being consulted by C ­ arolingian monastic librarians. This leads me to argue that the Carolingian intelligentsia, of which Einhard was a leading light, had a broader awareness of Suetonius than has previously been a­ llowed. This helps to account for the increasing interest in the author and his text in the ninth century. But before we explore the late antique ­references to Suetonius and their reception in Carolingian monasteries, and some

3  Townend (1967) 98–106.    4  Innes (1997b). 5  Reynolds (1983) xvii.    6  Cooper (2007) 60, 100, 117–18.



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of the manuscripts that they produced, it is necessary to ­understand the historical transition from the Roman to the Carolingian Empire.

2.  FROM ROMAN GAUL TO CAROLINGIAN FRANKIA In the age of Suetonius, Gaul was fully integrated into the Roman imperial system and was to remain so for several centuries. It was not until the fifth century that, under pressure from barbarian invaders, internal dissension, and lack of resources, the central Roman government gradually lost control of the northern provinces. Roman power continued to be felt for a few decades longer in the south, and southern senators were even able, with support from Visigothic federates, to influence events in Rome. Towards the end of the fifth century, the Franks emerged as the dominant power in northern Gaul, under Childeric (d. 481) and his son, Clovis (d. 511). Clovis was able to extend his power over most of Gaul through a combination of military success, clever diplomacy, and ruthless treatment of rivals. His successors, a dynasty known as the Merovingians, ruled for the next 250 years.7 In the early eighth century, the Merovingian kings, many of whom were short-lived or infants, came increasingly to rely on the mayors of the palace to rule their kingdoms. Squabbling between the kings and their mayors and between the various Frankish kingdoms was brought to an end with the emergence of the Carolingians as the dominant power in Gaul. The Carolingians were named after Charles ­Martel (d. 741), mayor of the palace of the Frankish kingdom of Austrasia.8 Charles’ military successes against internal and external competitors laid the basis for his son Pepin (d. 768), who used papal support to legitimize the deposition of the last Merovingian king, Childeric III in 752. Pepin proclaimed himself as King of the Franks in the same year. Under Charles Martel and his descendants, the Carolingians expanded their power in all directions, into Italy, Saxony, northern Spain, and Brittany, becoming the dominant power in north-western 7  For Merovingians, see Wood (1994). 8  For Charles Martel, see Fouracre (2000).

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Europe from the eighth to the tenth century. The Carolingian rise to power culminated symbolically in the coronation of Charlemagne as Roman Emperor by Pope Leo III, on Christmas day of the year 800.9 Einhard’s biography of Charlemagne mattered because his dynasty was both extremely powerful and relatively new to power. They needed legitimating.10

3.  EINHARD AND THE LIFE OF CHARLEMAGNE Einhard (born c.770) was from a Frankish noble family. He was educated at the monastery of Fulda (in the modern German state of Hesse) and made his way to Charlemagne’s court in the early 790s. There, he played a central role in attempts to reform the Church in Frankia and was entrusted with some important tasks, such as overseeing the construction of royal palaces, and a mission to Pope Leo in Rome in 806 to inform him of the partition of the kingdom between Charlemagne’s sons. In 813, Einhard publicly proclaimed one of Charlemagne’s sons, Louis the Pious, as co-emperor, and on Charlemagne’s death in 814, he became Louis’ private secretary. In 815, Louis granted him extensive lands, appointed him lay abbot of four monasteries, and, when he retired from court in 830, Louis presented him with further lands. This enabled Einhard to establish a monastery at Seligenstadt. Although Einhard had retired to his monastery, his letters reveal that he maintained contacts with the court during the 830s, dying in 840.11 Various dates have been proposed for the composition of the Life of Charlemagne, ranging from 817 to 836. McKitterick, who favours an earlier date, notes that, irrespective of date, the audience is highly likely to have been the ‘political elite associated with the royal court’.12 It was thus, at base, a historical biography of great contemporary relevance. This is reflected in its immediate success and its significant influence on the subsequent biographies of Carolingian rulers.13

 9  For the Carolingian dynasty, see McKitterick (1983). 10  For Charlemagne’s coronation, see Mayr-Harting (1996). 11  For biography of Einhard, see Ganshof (1971); Smith (2003); Ganz (2010). 12  McKitterick (2004) 29–30. 13  Southern (1970) 184 = (2004) 19; Innes (1998) 35 for influence of Einhard’s account on subsequent biographies of Charlemagne.



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One of Einhard’s main aims seems to have been to use Roman history to ‘Romanize’ the Carolingian Franks and their new emperor. By modelling his biography of Charlemagne on accounts of earlier Roman emperors, Einhard simultaneously raised the Carolingians above their Merovingian predecessors and justified Charlemagne’s assumption of the imperial title. As we shall see later in this chapter, one of Einhard’s main strategies in accomplishing this aim, when writing the Life of Charlemagne, was to generate typological linkages between Charlemagne, the first Frankish Roman emperor, and Augustus, the first ‘Roman’ Roman emperor. Partly this was inspired by the need to justify Charlemagne’s new imperial status. However, such promotion began prior to Charlemagne’s elevation, built upon earlier Frankish traditions, and was deployed across a range of media, not merely history-writing. Einhard was therefore part of a broader attempt to depict the Franks (not just their rulers) as the legitimate successors to the Romans, and as an imperial and a chosen people.

4.  A CAROLINGIAN ‘RENAISSANCE’ The connections that Carolingian scholars sought to establish with the Roman and classical past used to be seen as part of a ‘renaissance’ of classical learning. Over recent decades, this concept has been nuanced. We can no longer speak of a monolithic, centralized, and governmentdirected movement. Instead, there was much variety in Carolingian learning, which in any case drew on the Christian and classical traditions that were by no means monolithic.14 Einhard tells us that Charlemagne was a great patron of the liberal arts (VK 25), and the Carolingian royal administration and ecclesiastical establishment played a leading role in promoting this resurgence in learning.15 The emperor and the church enacted laws that encouraged linguistic unity, based on a written Latin that was standardized across the empire. By supporting book production and learning, the Carolingian rulers also promoted their power as Christian kings and consolidated the faith by disseminating the texts on which that faith was based.16

14  Contreni (1995) 712.    15  McKitterick (1992b) 108–9 = (1995a) 108–9. 16  McKitterick (1992a) 98 = (1995a) 98; (1992b) 129 = (1995a) 129.

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Royal and ecclesiastical patronage inspired an outpouring of panegyric poetry, commentaries on biblical, patristic, and classical texts, histories, and translations of the Greek Fathers into Latin.17 Monastic, cathedral, and court scriptoria provided Carolingian Europe with the texts needed for serious study, worship, and government. Over 7,000 books survive that were produced in Carolingian workshops in the ninth century, and by one estimate, up to 50,000 may have been produced originally.18 Compare this with the 1,811 books that survive from the period before 800, of which perhaps as few as 4% contain classical titles.19 The ninth century was thus pivotal to the transmission histories of many earlier texts, both classical and Christian, because the archetypes were copied then. Book production and increasing investment in education aimed, above all, to re-energize the early Christian and Patristic inheritance. The rehabilitation of classical learning was a secondary concern. Christian Latin, biblical, and patristic texts, works of contemporary theology, and commentary predominate in surviving manuscripts. Classical Latin works occupied a very minor position in relation to the bulk of the Carolingian collections, and even in the libraries of the nobility, the main subjects covered are law, Christian morality, and private religious observance.20 Carolingian attitudes to classical learning were by no means negative, however. Carolingian scholars had ready access to works by Augustine, Cassiodorus, and Isidore of Seville that explicitly tied secular to divine learning.21 A good example is the poet Theodulf of Orléans, a contemporary of Einhard, who thought that although much in the works of pagan authors was worthless, there were many truths hidden under their false covers.22 Positive appraisals of classical authors were often related to their style, rather than their correctness, religious or otherwise.23 17  Contreni (1995) 711; Banniard (1995) 699. 18  McKitterick (1989) 163. See Contreni (1995) 711, 724 for details of individual monastic scriptoria: the ninth-century library catalogue of St Gall contains entries for 264 separate codices; Lorsch possessed over 450 codices in the ninth century; almost 250 manuscript and manuscript fragments survive from the ninth century from Corbie. 19  These statistics were provided by Dirk Rohmann; see also Reynolds and Wilson (2013) 80–7. Similar patterns can be observed for the Byzantine East: Mullett (1990) 160–1. 20  McKitterick (1992a) 101–2 = (1995a) 101–2; (1991) 133 = (1995a) 133. 21  Ead. (1992b) 126 = (1995a) 126; Contreni (1995) 726–7. 22  Contreni (1995) 728.    23  McKitterick (1991) 133 = (1995a) 133.



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On this view, the classical and Christian traditions were not in opposition, but complementary, and, by adopting a classical style, Carolingian authors placed themselves in direct inheritance of Roman and Christian traditions. The Roman impact on Carolingian intellectual life was particularly significant, however, in the field of historiography.24 The earliest manuscripts of the ancient historians Sallust, Tacitus, Ammianus Marcellinus, Justinus, Livy, Caesar, Eutropius, Quintus Curtius Rufus, Frontinus, the Scriptores Historiae Augustae, and Suetonius all date to the Carolingian period.25 Carolingian historians also drew heavily on the historians of late antiquity and the early Middle Ages, who in turn were heavily indebted to the historians of Rome. The moral and didactic imperatives underpinning classical historiography found expression in Carolingian history-writing.26 For example, Einhard wrote the Life of Charlemagne with the intention of advising Louis the Pious. So too did the historian Thegan, who wrote an account of the deeds of Louis later in the emperor’s reign, while Einard’s Life of ­Charlemagne may have been used in the instruction of Carloman, the great grandson of Charlemagne.27 Another Life of Charlemagne, ­written by ­Notker the Stammerer in the late ninth century, can likewise be read as a ­‘mirror of princes’.28 So, at the same time as reinforcing the moral basis for history-writing, Roman exemplars helped to promote the education of members of the Carolingian elite. Innes has argued that because local elites were not very well integrated into the imperial structure, political identity was likely to crystallize at a local level rather than at that of the king or emperor.29 Kingship, and latterly the title of emperor, provided a cohesive focus for the vast Carolingian realm. But royal charisma had to be projected from the court, and history-writing—alongside an aristocratic culture that celebrated the Franks as God’s chosen people and their empire as a new Israel—played an important role in articulating monarchical 24  McKitterick (1992a) 100 = (1995a) 100; (1989) 25, 29; Contreni (1995) 748–9; Nelson (1994) 435; Innes (1997a) 848–9. 25  McKitterick (2004) 41. 26  Grant (1995) 85–7 for moralizing in classical historiography; Rohrbacher (2002) 151 for late antiquity. 27  Nelson (1994) 439–40. 28  Innes (1998) 13. Contreni (1995) 737 judges that the most original development in Carolingian rhetorical studies linked rhetoric with rulership, leading to the numerous works written by Carolingian authors to guide their leaders. 29  Innes (1998) 30.

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power in the provinces.30 The Life of Charlemagne circulates in numerous ninth-century manuscripts in combination with other histories and chronicles dealing with the Frankish past. These artefacts, which were copied throughout the empire, provide evidence both for the projection of Carolingian power from the imperial centre to the periphery and for its active adoption in the provinces.31 Einhard’s ­Suetonian-inspired image of Charlemagne as a true Roman emperor was one with which at least some of Einhard’s contemporaries engaged.

5. SUETONIUS’ CAESARS AND EINHARD’S LIFE OF CHARLEMAGNE Yet Einhard was motivated by more than a desire to tell Charlemagne’s life story. As the first Frankish emperor, the ‘memoria and exempla of Charlemagne’ were ‘highly-charged political issues’.32 In the preface to the Life of Charlemagne, Einhard states that he is writing because he feared that the lack of contemporary historians could mean that the memoria of the great men of his age would be lost.33 It is hardly surprising that Einhard did not construct a standard narrative of ­Charlemagne’s life or adopt a hagiographical approach. Instead, he adapted a series of classical exemplars in order to develop a thematic account of his ‘subject’s virtues and moral characteristics’.34 He did not follow Cicero, Suetonius, or any of his other sources slavishly. For ­example, Einhard mentions far fewer of Charlemagne’s vices than Suetonius tended to report in his imperial biographies, although as Donna H ­ urley shows in Chapter 1 of this volume, on Suetonian r­ubrics, ­Suetonius was far from consistent in arranging his biographies. ­Rubrics provided broad guidelines, not a literary straightjacket. Similarly, the Life of ­Charlemagne was a vehicle for the display of Einhard’s literary skill and inventiveness. Einhard does not refer specifically to Suetonius or his works anywhere in the Life of Charlemagne. Nonetheless, it is clear that he drew liberally on the earlier imperial biographer throughout his account of 30  Innes (1998) 11–12, 29–30; Miller (1987). 31  McKitterick (1989) 30, 240; Reimitz (2000).    32  Kempshall (1995) 29. 33  On the preface to the VK, see Ganz (1997). 34  Innes (1998) 32–3; see also Berschin (1991) 212–18.



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Charlemagne’s life. Einhard does more than simply imitate his predecessor’s vocabulary or turn of phrase and was not simply fitting Charlemagne to an imperial ‘type’.35 Structurally, Einhard borrowed Suetonius’ organization of the different aspects of his subject’s life under headings or rubrics.36 So, at the start of the second book, he states: primo res gestas et domi et foris, deinde mores et studia eius, tum de regni administratione et fine narrando. First of all I shall describe his achievements at home and abroad, then his personal habits and enthusiasms, then the way in which he administered his kingdom and last of all his death. (VK 4)37

The Suetonian model is also acknowledged in the breach when Einhard explains that he cannot include anything on his subject’s childhood, the starting point of Suetonian imperial biography (VK 4). Although the section describing Charlemagne’s physical appearance is constructed out of a blend of Suetonian emperors, the ordering of information sometimes varies, and Einhard occasionally relies on other imperial biographies, he draws above all on Suetonius’ description of Augustus in constructing his biography of Charlemagne.38 Direct borrowing occurred throughout. One striking example of such borrowing is the spinning that Charlemagne’s daughters are said to have engaged in as soon as they were old enough, which seems to echo the education which Augustus’ daughter and granddaughters received: filias uero lanificio adsuescere coloque ac fuso . . . iussit (‘He made his daughters learn to spin and weave wool, use the distaff and spindle’, VK 19) ~ filiam et neptes ita instituit, ut etiam lanificio assuefaceret (‘The education of his daughter and granddaughters included even spinning and weaving’, Aug. 64.2).39 Another clear connection can be made between the two emperors’ temperance in eating and drinking alcohol: 35  Kempshall (1995) 34. 36  For more on Suetonius’ rubrics, see Hurley, ch. 1 in this volume. 37  Quotations of Einhard are taken from the edition of Halphen (1923); all translations are from Thorpe (1969). 38  Innes (1997b) 267–70; Ganz (2007) 48–9 for examples from other Suetonian biographies; Nelson (2006) 18–19 for several instances where Einhard adds small additional details to his Suetonian model. 39  All translations of Suetonius in this chapter are by Graves (2007).

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cibi . . . minimi erat atque uulgaris fere . . . uini quoque natura parcissimus erat. . . . his eating habits. He was frugal and, as a rule, preferred the food of the common people . . . Augustus was also a habitually abstemious drinker. (Aug. 76.1, 77) in cibo et potu temperans, sed in potu temperantior, quippe qui ebrietatem in qualicumque homine, nedum in se ac suis, plurimum abominabatur. He was moderate in his eating and drinking, and especially so in drinking; for he hated to see drunkenness in any man, and even more so in himself and his friends. (VK 24)

We can also point to Charlemagne’s understanding of Greek but unwillingness to speak the language as quasi-Augustan attributes: Graecam uero melius intellegere quam pronuntiare poterat (‘but he understood Greek better than he could speak it’, VK 25) ~ ne Graecarum quidem disciplinarum leuiore studio tenebatur . . . non tamen ut aut loqueretur expedite aut componere aliquid auderet (‘He had ambitions to be as proficient in Greek as in Latin . . . but he never learned to speak Greek with real fluency, and never ventured on any Greek literary composition’, Aug. 89.1). A final example is the omens that portended the deaths of both emperors: mors quoque eius, de qua dehinc dicam, diuinitasque post mortem euidentissimis ostentis praecognita est. Next we come to Augustus’ death and subsequent deification, both of which were predicted by evident signs. (Aug. 97.1) adpropinquantis finis conplura fuere prodigia, ut solum alii, sed etiam ipse hoc minitari sentiret. Many portents marked the approach of Charlemagne’s death, so that not only other people but he himself could know that it was near. (VK 32)

All of these biographical details were modelled closely on Suetonius’ account of Augustus. There are numerous more general parallels to be drawn between the two biographies. Charlemagne’s private life, personal appearance, habits, studies, reforms, death, and will are all



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modelled to a significant extent on Augustus. We should also note that Einhard’s account of Charlemagne frequently echoed the general context of Suetonius’ entries on Augustus and other emperors, usually in order to create connections between the Frankish emperor and his Roman predecessors.40 Einhard’s aim in all this was to demonstrate, through parallelisms, that Charlemagne was a true Roman emperor, the founder of an empire to rival that of Augustus. Einhard drew on other classical models alongside Suetonius when compiling his imperial biography. For example, Cicero was an important stylistic point of reference.41 Reference to Cicero also enabled Einhard simultaneously to demonstrate his knowledge of classical Latin literature and to showcase his humility. The principle of imitatio explains why Einhard used Suetonius too. Einhard needed a generic literary model that was suitable for the depiction of a Roman emperor. He wanted to demonstrate that the Franks were the legitimate successors to the Romans, and an effective method of doing this was to parallel the Roman and the Frankish emperors. Suetonius was suitable on both of these counts, providing Einhard with typological ammunition to demonstrate that Charlemagne was a legitimate Roman emperor. This was particularly pressing, because the Carolingians had only recently usurped the royal title from the Merovingians. Einhard was thus able to reframe the question of Carolingian legitimacy through reference to timeless imperial stereotypes.

6.  SUETONIUS, MONASTIC LIBRARIES, AND THE CAROLINGIAN LITER ATI Previous scholarship has established that in the decades after 800, there was a perceptible upturn in interest in Suetonius’ Caesars among Carolingian writers, possibly due to the chance discovery of a single manuscript of the text at the monastery of Fulda. Rand argued that Charlemagne was aware of Suetonius’ work and modelled certain aspects of his rule on Suetonius’ depiction of Augustus.42 Other scholars 40  Nicoll (1975) 117–21 identifies ‘contextual’ parallels between VK 27.3 and Vesp. 8.1, VK 17.4 and Aug. 32, and VK 19 and Aug. 65. 41  Kempshall (1995) 13: both Einhard and Lupus hold up Ciceronian eloquence and grauitas as the appropriate literary standard against which the Life of Charlemagne should be judged. 42  Rand (1926) 40–8.

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have identified further imperial behaviours, such as law-making, that Charlemagne may have adapted from Augustus, via Suetonius.43 Without denying the importance of the Fulda manuscript or the interest of Einhard, and possibly Charlemagne, in the Caesars, this chapter seeks to broaden our appreciation of Suetonius’ influence on intellectual life in the Carolingian Empire. It is possible to demonstrate an even deeper level of engagement with the Suetonian legacy in the decades after 800 than has previously been acknowledged. There is very strong evidence that Carolingian writers were not just using Suetonius as a source, but that they were reading about Suetonius in earlier writings. Alongside the Lives of the Caesars, they had access to Suetonius’ De uiris illustribus (discussed by Gibson in Chapter 10 of this volume). Given the reverence that the Carolingian intelligentsia had for the authority of earlier Christian authors, positive appraisals of Suetonius in their texts can only have strengthened the Carolingian conviction that he was a useful source of information and an appropriate model for imitation. Three short case studies follow, illustrating how late antique writers were another avenue of Suetonian influence on the Carolingian age. Suetonius received a good press in two late antique Christian works which had lively transmission histories during the Carolingian period: Jerome’s De uiris illustribus and Isidore of Seville’s Etymologies.44 The Etymologies, a reference work written in the early seventh century, became, sometimes in its entirety and sometimes in its constituent parts, an essential element of monastic libraries and curricula throughout the Latin West. Carolingian monasteries played a vital role in its wide dissemination.45 In the text, Isidore makes a number of telling references to Suetonius, and may have drawn on the Lives of the Caesars as a source.46 When tracing the etymology of poets (De poetis), Isidore draws exclusively on Suetonius’ Lives of the Poets: poetae unde sint dicti, sic ait Tranquillus: ‘cum primum homines exuta feritate rationem uitae habere coepissent, seque ac deos suos nosse, cultum modicum ac sermonem necessarium commenti sibi, utriusque magnificentiam ad religionem deorum suorum excogitauerunt. igitur ut templa illis domibus pulchriora, et simulacra corporibus ampliora 43  Wormald (1999) 29; Innes (2000) 239. 44  McKitterick (2004) 223–6, 236–9, 247. 45  Reydellet (1966); Bischoff (1961) = (1966) 171–94; for Isidore’s use of sources in the Etymologies, see Fontaine (2000) 329–44; Ribémont (2001) 189–90. 46  Tibbetts and Winterbottom (1983) 400.



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faciebant, ita eloquio etiam quasi augustiore honorandos putaverunt, laudesque eorum et uerbis inlustrioribus et iucundioribus numeris extulerunt. id genus quia forma quadam efficitur, quae ποιότης dicitur, poema uocitatum est, eiusque fictores poetae.’ Whence poets [poeta] are so called, thus says Tranquillus . . . ‘When people first began to possess a rational way of life, having shaken off their wildness, and to come to know themselves and their gods, they devised for themselves a humble culture and the speech required for their ideas, and devised a greater expression of both for the worship of their gods. Therefore, just as they made temples more beautiful than their homes, and idols larger than their bodies, so they thought the gods should be honoured by speech that was, as it were, loftier, and they raised up their praises with more brilliant words and more pleasing rhythms. This kind of thing was given the name “poem” [poema] because it is fashioned with a certain beauty known as ποιότης [i.e. “quality”], and its makers were called “poets” [poeta].’ (Isid. Etym. 8.7.1–2 = Suet. fr. 2 Reiff.)47

This is not an isolated example; Isidore draws from Suetonius elsewhere in order to etymologize other Latin words and phrases (Etym. 12.1.14 = p. 272 Reiff.; 18.2.3 = fr. 109 Reiff.; 18.6.8 = fr. 195 Reiff.). Suetonius’ knowledge of the origins of poetry would have been especially impressive to the keen Latinists of the Carolingian renaissance, among whose number Einhard has sometimes been counted.48 Alongside the general Carolingian interest in the Etymologies, which may have contributed to an increased awareness of Suetonius’ literary credentials, it is possible to associate the text with the monastery of Fulda, where Einhard was trained at the end of the ninth century. Hrabanus Maurus, who was a graduate of Fulda in the generation after Einhard, and an associate of Einhard, wrote an encyclopaedic text, De rerum naturalis, which drew heavily on Isidore’s encyclopaedia.49 The wide circulation of the Etymologies in Frankia and the study of the text in Einhard’s circle suggest strongly that Isidore’s work was another avenue through which the Carolingians learned about Suetonius. Another Christian writer who headlined his reliance on Suetonius, and who was extremely influential in the Carolingian period, was Jerome. In the introduction to his De uiris illustribus, a 47  Trans. Barney et al. (2006). 48  For the debate about Einhard’s poetry, see Godman (1987) 82–90. 49  Paxton (1995) 232, 239, 245–9; Geary (1987) 275–9 = (1994) 51–6.

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late-fourth-century catalogue of the writings of famous Christian authors, Jerome notes how his patron had asked him to follow Suetonius’ example in producing a catalogue of illustrious Christian authors. He begins: Hortaris, Dexter, ut Tranquillum sequens, ecclesiasticos scriptores in ordinem digeram et, quod ille in enumerandis gentilium litterarum uiris fecit inlustribus, ego in nostris faciam, id est, ut a passione Christi usque ad quartum decimum Theodosii imperatoris annum omnes qui de Scripturis Sanctis memoriae aliquid prodiderunt tibi breuiter exponam. Dexter, you urge me that I, following the example of Tranquillus, prepare an orderly presentation of the ecclesiastical writers, and do for our writers what he did in chronicling eminent secular authors, that is, that I set forth for you a brief treatment of all those who have published anything memorable on the Holy Scriptures from the time of Christ’s passion down to the fourteenth year of the emperor Theodosius. (De vir. II.821 Vallarsi = p. 3 Reiff.)50

Later in the preface, among a list of biographers who had written in Greek and Latin (Suet. fr. 1 Reiff.), Jerome states that Suetonius is the one whom his patron would most like to see emulated (De vir. II.821 Vallarsi = p. 3 Reiff.). It is significant that Jerome referred to Suetonius as an archetype, because the De uiris illustribus was a vital source of information about earlier authors and their writings in the Carolingian period.51 Jerome’s De uiris illustribus and other lists of illustrious (and non-heretical) Christian writings played a pivotal role in the selection of works for inclusion in Carolingian monastic libraries.52 Einhard was familiar with Jerome because in a letter to Lupus of Ferrières in 836, he states: erant ad manum . . . illustrissimi sacrarum diuinarumque litterarum expositores Aug atque Ieron (‘There were at hand . . . illustrious expositors of the Holy Scriptures, Augustine and Jerome’, apud Lupus, Ep. 3.3).53 Einhard also makes use of the diminutive ingeniolum, which is often used by Jerome (e.g. Ep. 85.3, 118.7, Ruf. 1.30), although not in his De uiris illustribus, in the preface to the Vita Karoli.54 Isidore also signalled 50  Trans. Halton (1999). 51  See Gibson, ch. 10 in this volume for Jerome’s use of Suetonius as a bibliographic resource. 52  McKitterick (2004) 192, (1989) 200–5. 53  Quotations from the Letters of Einhard and Lupus are taken from the edition of Marshall (1984); all translations are from Regenos (1966). 54  Ganz (2007) 49.



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the importance of Jerome for the formation of the Christian literary canon in the Etymologies, stating that Jerome had searched systematically throughout the entire world for ecclesiastical writers and collated them into a catalogue (Etym. 6.6.2). Although there is no direct evidence that Einhard had read Jerome’s De uiris illustribus, given its positive appraisal by Isidore and the influence that it exercised on intellectual life in the Carolingian Empire, it does not seem unreasonable to suggest that it helped to construct an image of Suetonius as a biographer who was worthy of imitation.55 Suetonius’ Caesars had been used as a model and mined as a source of information by several late antique historians, and the Carolingians engaged actively with these histories too. The Scriptores Historiae Augustae, for example, use information from the Caesars to illustrate episodes in the lives of later emperors, and refer to Suetonius as a writer of imperial biographies and as an historical actor.56 The earliest surviving manuscripts of the Historia Augusta are Carolingian in date and geographical location.57 There are also clear connections to Einhard. Alongside the monastery of Lorsch, Fulda, Einhard’s alma mater, played an important role in the transmission of the Historia Augusta.58 There is strong evidence for active engagement with the text too: the Fulda manuscript (Bamberg, Staatsbibliothek, Class. 54) was copied from a northern Italian exemplar in the second quarter of the ninth century, while a set of excerpts that are possibly independent of the Fulda manuscript were made at Lorsch at some point in the mid-ninth century.59 Einhard does seem to have made use of the Historia Augusta when writing the Vita Karoli. David Ganz has noted that the word dicaculus (‘talkative’, VK 3.25), which Einhard used to praise Charlemagne’s eloquence, was most probably derived from the Historia Augusta.60 The word is very rare and cannot be found in either Cicero or Suetonius, but is present in the Life of Hadrian (SHA, Hadr. 20.8). It seems,

55  Smith (2003) 70. 56 SHA, Hadr. 11.3; Comm. 10.2–3; Maxim. 4.5; Prob. 2.7; Quad. Tyr. 1.1–2; Bird (1971). 57  McKitterick (2004) 41. 58  McKitterick (2004) 42, 190, 201, 205: another copy of the text may have originated from Verona, which was also within the Carolingian Empire. For the importance of Fulda in the survival of classical texts, see Reynolds and Wilson (2013) 100–1. 59 Marshall (1983).   60  Ganz (2007) 48.

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therefore, that Einhard took advantage of the opportunity that the Fulda manuscript offered to study the Historia Augusta and made use of it in his portrait of Charlemagne. These three examples help to explain the upsurge in interest in Suetonius in the Carolingian period more fully. Late antique texts that spoke approvingly of Suetonius and suggested that he was an appropriate model for imitation were circulating in Carolingian libraries. In summary, Einhard and his contemporaries could have learned from Jerome that Suetonius was someone who knew about writing biographies and that he was a foundational figure in the genre, from the Scriptores Historiae Augustae that he had written about the deeds of Roman emperors, and from Isidore that he was an expert Latinist. These earlier texts suggested that Suetonius was a valid model on formalistic and stylistic grounds, as a writer of imperial biographies and an authority on writing in ‘good’ Latin. I suggest that these features of his profile help to explain why Einhard chose him and why Einhard’s contemporaries sustained that interest in him. In making use of Suetonius, Einhard also stressed his alignment with the mainstream of the classical and Christian biographical traditions, just as Jerome had associated himself with Suetonius in order to augment his own status as a biographer.61 As we saw earlier in this chapter, Einhard’s adoption of Suetonius coincided with a general upsurge in interest in classical historiography and biography in intellectual circles associated with the Carolingian court. Yet Einhard was not the only Carolingian writer to use Suetonius as a model for imitation or a source of information. It used to be thought that Einhard was responsible for writing and revising parts of a text known as the Royal Frankish Annals, which covers the period from 741 to 829, and which may have drawn on Suetonius’ Caesars. Although it is no longer believed that Einhard wrote the Annals, Einhard does seem to have drawn on them when writing the Life of Charlemagne, and they provide further evidence for Suetonian influence on Carolingian historians.62 Further evidence of Carolingian interest in Suetonius at approximately the same time as Einhard was writing the Life of Charlemagne

61  For Einhard’s self-presentation as a classical and patristic scholar, see Ganz (2010) 157–8; on Jerome and Suetonius, see Vessey (2002) 54–6. 62  Innes (1997b) 276–7; Rand (1926) 41–2.



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can be drawn from the material record.63 The earliest extant manuscript of the Lives of the Caesars (Paris, BnF lat. 6115) was written at Tours around 820.64 Lupus of Ferrières, writing in the mid-ninth century, tells us that there was a copy at Fulda too.65 In a letter to Markward, Abbot of Prüm, probably from 842 (Lupus, Ep. 10.4), Lupus says that Eigil, his agent, will explain quid super Suetonio Tranquillo et Iosepho a uobis fieri optem (‘what I want you to do in regard to Suetonius Tranquillus and Josephus’).66 In another letter to Markward, dated to 844, Lupus again requests a copy of Suetonius; apparently his first effort was unsuccessful: quaeso praeterea ut ad sanctum Bonifatium sollertem aliquem monachum dirigatis, qui ex uestra parte Hattonem abbatem deposcat ut uobis Sueton Tr de uita Caesarum, qui apud eos in duos nec magnos codices diuisus est, ad exscribendum dirigat; mihique eum aut ipsi, quod nimium opto, afferatis aut, si haec felicitates nostris differetur peccatis, per certissimum nuntium mittendum curetis. namque in hac regione nusquam inuenitur et credimus hoc quoque nos beneficium uestra liberalitate consecuturos. I further request that you send an industrious monk to Saint Boniface as your agent to ask Hatto the abbot to send you the Lives of the Caesars by Suetonius Tranquillus to be copied. It has been divided by the monks into two small manuscripts. Will you please either bring this to me in person or if, in penance for my sins, I am presently denied that good fortune, will you have it sent by a most reliable messenger. The manuscript is certainly nowhere to be found in this vicinity, and we trust that we shall receive the benefit of your kindness in this matter too. (Lupus, Ep. 91.4)67

Lupus may have copied the text at Fulda and taken his own copy back to Ferrières, because Heiric of Auxerre, one of Lupus’ pupils, made excerpts from it.68 These were in the form of extracts that Lupus had dictated to make various moral points. A set of explanatory glosses were added, and in some places the text was deliberately simplified. It is highly likely that the resultant piece was intended as a schoolbook.69 The lively scholarly interest in Suetonius’ Caesars is further evidenced 63  See Tibbetts and Winterbottom (1983) 400 for a brief survey of the evidence for the Lives of the Caesars in the ninth century. 64  Innes (1997b) 274.    65  McKitterick (2004) 41. 66  Rand (1926) 20–4; Innes (1997b) 272. 67  Rand (1926) 20; McKitterick (1991) 133 = (1995a) 133. 68  Rand (1926) 20–34 asserts that the Fulda manuscript itself cannot have been sent to Lupus, but that a copy could. 69  Rand (1926) 25–34; Reynolds and Wilson (2013) 106.

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by marginal comments which were added to the Tours’ manuscript later in the Carolingian period.70 Suetonian influence on the Frankish intelligentsia continued into the second half of the ninth century. The monk Rudolf of Fulda (d. 865) had at least some knowledge of Suetonius, along with a number of other Latin historians.71 When looking for examples on the issue of succession, Archbishop Hincmar of Rheims (806–82) discovered them ‘in histories and chronicles, and also in the books entitled Lives of the Caesars’ (De div. Loth. 695); although it ‘is unclear whether Hincmar had actually read Suetonius, . . . he clearly knew of the work’ and saw it as having some contemporary resonance.72 It is clear, therefore, that Suetonius’ Caesars had an impact in Carolingian Frankia throughout the ninth century and into the tenth and eleventh centuries, offering continued opportunities to reflect on imperial rule and providing plentiful examples of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ rulership.73

7. CONCLUSION Virtually all of the figures mentioned in this chapter worked at, or were closely associated with, the court, and several of the texts to which I have referred were written for kings or were concerned with kingship. Carolingian interest in Suetonius’ Caesars, a rare text in the ninth century, sprang from a narrowly defined cultural and political elite that was centred on the Carolingian court—possibly even on Charlemagne himself.74 The depiction of Charlemagne as a legitimate emperor was a matter of utmost political importance and, as previous scholarship has demonstrated, Suetonius was a valid model for an imperial biographer, as he was for later Carolingians writing about kingship.75 In the Carolingian age, Suetonius had a double approval rating: from the imperial (Roman and Carolingian) centre and from the Christian past. In this chapter, I have argued that, in addition to the Fulda manuscript of the Caesars and the impetus that Einhard and Charlemagne 70  Innes (1997b) 274.    71  McKitterick (2004) 189. 72  Innes (1997b) 280. 73  Tibbetts and Winterbottom (1983) 400–1 for circulation of the text in the tenth and eleventh centuries. 74  Innes (1997b) 274–7.    75  Rand (1926); Townend (1967); Innes (1997b).



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may have given to its study in their efforts to connect the Carolingian to the Roman emperors, there were a number of other avenues by which Carolingian writers could have learned about Suetonius and his works. Suetonius received a good press in texts by late antique Christian writers with impeccable credentials, such as Jerome and Isidore. Manuscripts containing works by Jerome, Isidore, and others that mentioned Suetonius were being read, copied, and circulated in Carolingian monastic circles. Whether or not they contributed to Einhard’s specific decision to pour Charlemagne into a Suetonian mould, it is highly likely that Jerome, Isidore, and the Scriptores Historiae Augustae helped to validate Suetonius as a legitimate subject of imitation for the Carolingian imperial and intellectual elite.

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Index Locorum Appian Bella ciuilia 2.76: 156 2.104: 156 Apuleius Apologia 9.8: 247 10.2–5: 242 Aristophanes Vespae 1019–20: 51 [Aristotle] Physiognomonica 810B: 171 Athenaeus 1.20d:  265 n. 39 1.20e:  271 n. 78 9.402b:  267 n. 49 13.583e–f: 237 13.555–612: 236 13.567a: 237 13.567c–d:  239, 240 13.567d–e: 248 13.567e–f: 238 13.583e: 240–1 13.584a: 237 13.585–7: 237 13.586a: 238 13.586e: 237 13.587d–e: 238 13.591c: 238 13.591d: 237 13.592b–c: 237 13.592e: 237 13.594d: 239 13.596f: 236 Augustus Res Gestae praef.: 137 1: 140 8:  134, 137, 140 8.5: 114 Cicero De officiis 1.107–15: 194

De oratore 2.277: 250 Epistulae ad familiares 7.1.3:  271 n. 75 Dio Cassius 47.43.1: 156 54.16.3–5: 116 56.1–10: 116 57.19.4: 73 59.22.6–7: 151 59.28.2: 150 59.28.6: 154 59.29.2: 155 59.29.7: 148 59.30.1:  148, 153, 154, 155 60.3.4: 152 61.16.1: 74 66.18.1–5: 161–2 Diodorus Siculus 16.19.2: 149 Diomedes Grammaticus De poematibus 1.2.3: 261 3–14: 262 6: 266 9–14: 262 9.4–5: 266 14:  262–4, 266 Einhard Epistulae apud Lupus, Ep. 3.3:  286 Vita Karoli Magni 3.25: 287 4: 281 19: 281 24: 282 25: 277 32: 282 Epictetus 2.10.3: 194 Gellius Noctes Atticae 19.9.10–14: 247 19.9.12: 248

326

Index Locorum

Herodotus 1.31–3: 121 1.34–5: 122 1.94–101: 181 1.99: 181–2 Hesiod Theogonia 1011–16: 268 Hincmar De diuortio Lotharii et Tetbergae 695: 290 Homer Iliad 5.254: 56 10.13: 264 14.315–28: 238 22.209–10: 66 23.724: 154 24.630:  179 n. 5 Odyssey 21.426: 56 Hyginus Fabulae 32: 245 96: 245 97.15: 245 Isidore Etymologiae 6.6.2: 287 8.7.1–2: 284–5 12.1.14: 285 18.2.3: 285 18.6.8: 285 Jerome Apologia contra Rufinum 1.30: 286 Chronica praef. p. 6 Helm:  1–2, 265 n. 41 Ol. 189.3:  265 De uiris illustribus praef. II.821 Vallarsi:  201 n. 11, 216 n. 58, 236, 245, 286 Epistulae 85.3: 286 118.7: 286 Josephus Antiquitates Judaicae 18.6.9: 73 19.28–9: 155 19.54: 156

19.87: 150 19.95: 155 19.105:  149, 155 19.106–8: 153 19.109–10: 149 19.109: 153 19.110: 153 19.173: 156 19.186: 156 19.187–9: 156 19.187: 156 19.256–7: 156 19.269–71: 152 Livy

39.43.2: 250 Lucian De saltatione 34: 265 29–30: 265 68: 265 Lupus Servatus Epistulae 10.4: 289 91.4: 289 Lydus De magistratibus 1.34:  40, 246 2.6:  2, 81 3.64: 232 Macrobius Saturnalia 2.7.18: 264 Malalas Chronographia p. 34 Dindorf:  2 Ovid Amores 2.17.29: 254 Ars amatoria 1.649–52: 151 Fasti 1.233–8:  269 n. 62 2.319–26: 251 Ibis 397–8: 151 Metamorphoses 14.101: 247 15.712: 247

Index Locorum

Epistulae ex Ponto 3.6.41: 151 Tristia 2.421–2:  251 n. 68 2.427–46: 243–4 3.11.39: 151 Pausanias 8.7.6: 149 Petronius Satyricon 6.1: 40 Philo Legatio ad Gaium 11–12: 158 Plato Sophista 252c: 51 Plautus Amphitruo 50–63: 270 Pliny (the Elder) Naturalis historia 14.50–1: 195 36.163: 191 Pliny (the Younger) Epistulae 1.3: 224 1.10: 215 1.17.3: 216 1.24:  40, 233 n. 9 2.3: 219 2.8: 224 2.14.9–11: 219 3.2: 214 3.5: 219 3.5.5:  220 n. 77 3.11: 215 4.3.1–2:  225 n. 94 4.11.1–2:  219, 220–1 4.11.4: 220 5.3.4:  205 n. 25, 240 5.3.5:  204, 226 5.3.6: 226–7 5.5: 216 5.8: 201 5.10.1: 202 5.10.3:  42, 76, 202 5.17:  224, 225 6.6.3: 219 6.8.5–6:  220 n. 76 6.11: 225

327

6.21: 225 6.23: 225 6.26.1: 225 7.19.5: 216 8.4: 224 8.12.4: 216 9.13: 216 10.94:  225, 225 n. 93 Panegyricus 48.5: 183 Plutarch Moralia 414e: 51 Vitae Parallelae Aemilius Paulus 1.1: 178 1.2:  179 n. 5, 180 1.4:  179 n. 7 1.5:  179, 180 Antonius 87.1: 71 Otho 18.3:  63 n. 8 Propertius 2.34.85–6: 244 4.9.45–50: 251 Quintilian Institutio oratoria 6.2.29–30: 191–2 8.5.2:  49 n. 48 8.5.19:  49 n. 48 8.5.29:  49 n. 48 8.5.34:  49 n. 48 10.1.123–5: 213 Scriptores Historiae Augustae Hadrian 20.8: 287 Probus 2.7: 42 Senatus consultum de Cn. Pisone patre 123–63: 114 Seneca (the Elder) Controversiae 2.3.19: 148 Seneca (the Younger) De clementia 1.1.6: 115 1.15.3: 115 1.26.2:  260 n. 22

328

Index Locorum

Seneca (the Younger) (continued) Dialogi 2.18.3: 155 Epistulae 4.7: 152 8.10: 212 91.19:  57 n. 64 Quaestiones naturales 1.15.8–17.10: 187 1.16.1, 4, 7, 8–9:  188 1.17.4: 189 Servius ad Aen. 2.305:  247 ad Aen. 4.262:  247 ad Aen. 5.163:  247 ad Aen. 5.602:  250 ad Aen. 6.799:  2 ad Aen. 7.188:  247 ad Aen. 7.190:  247 ad Aen. 11.334:  247 ad Ecl. 10.1:  247 ad G. 3.24:  258 ad G. 3.355:  247 Stephanus Byzantinus 603:  269 n. 65 Suda τ 495:  235 n. 18 τ 895:  9–10, 40, 235, 248–9, 256 χ 137:  235 n. 15 Suetonius De grammaticis et rhetoribus 2.1–2:  144 n. 32 3.1: 10 4.1–3:  40 n. 7 4.5–6: 41 4.7: 252 10.2:  41, 223 10.4: 40 10.6:  41, 223 20:  216, 244, 245 23: 195 23.3: 223 24.1–4: 41 24.3:  135 n. 24 25.3: 219 27: 216 De poetis Vita Horati 1: 224 3: 224 10:  187, 233–4 12:  42, 188, 223

Vita Lucani 16–19: 38 17–19:  38, 193 Vita Terenti 1–2:  224, 251 11–12: 224 108–21: 223 Vita Vergili 1: 224 9:  5, 242–3 13: 224 32: 254 44: 223 De uita Caesarum Caligula 1.1: 158 3–4: 120 3.1–2: 170 7: 120 13:  85, 158 14.3: 90 15.1:  28, 52 n. 58 15.3: 52 16.1: 56 19.3:  47, 84 22–42: 28 22.1:  28, 90, 120, 157 22.3: 150 22.4: 154 23.2: 54 25.1: 112 27.1: 22 27.5: 48 28.2: 48 29.1:  22, 90 30.1: 153 30.2: 153 32.1: 22 32.3:  151, 152 33: 152 34.2: 47 43–9: 28 45.2: 68 46: 157 47.1: 150 50.1: 28 50.2–51: 28 53.2: 54 54: 169 55.3: 47 56–60: 97 56.2:  155, 155 n. 31



Index Locorum 57: 23 57.1–3: 157 57.2:  65 n. 11, 154 57.3: 157 57.4:  69, 150, 155 58.2:  148, 149, 154 58.3:  153, 157 59.1: 65 60:  64, 91, 156, 158 Diuus Augustus 1:  59–60, 83 2.2–3: 60 3.1–4.2: 60 5:  23, 60, 83, 124–6, 126–7 6: 83 7:  26, 84 8: 26 8.1: 94 8.3–9.1: 94 8.3: 23 9–17:  24, 25 9.1:  2–3, 24, 164 10.4: 83 17.3: 95 18.1: 95 19.1: 96 25.1: 96 26: 24 27:  24, 25, 175 28.1–2:  7, 24, 113, 175 28.3: 113 29–48: 23 31–4: 114 31:  95, 135 31.2:  95, 96, 108 31.5:  90, 106, 112, 135–6 32.1: 138–9 34:  114, 116, 117, 118, 122–3 34.1: 117 34.2: 120 35–42: 24 36: 95 41.1: 24 43.1:  83, 95, 271 45.1:  96, 108 46–8: 24 50:  22, 83 51.1:  24, 83, 175 52: 101 53.2:  24, 54 53.3: 96 56.1: 28

329

56.4: 96 57–60: 24 60: 25 61–5: 123 61–9:  116, 117 61: 94 61.1:  24, 27, 121 62.2: 111–12 64–5: 121 64.2:  55, 114, 122, 281 65:  25, 122 65.2: 55 65.4: 120 67.1–2: 10–11 68–71: 11 69.1: 112 70.1: 249 71.1:  25, 114 72–101: 11 72–4: 106–7 72.1: 24 73:  24, 83 76.1:  5, 282 77: 282 79.1: 24 83: 168 84–9: 168 85–8: 41 85.2: 83 86.1–2:  41, 95 86.3: 56 87.1: 83 89.2:  112, 141 94: 94 94.1: 25 94.5: 83 97.1:  61, 282 98.2:  63 n. 9 99–101: 125 99:  25, 52 n. 58, 68, 111, 177, 190 100.1: 60 101:  113, 126–7 101.2: 112 101.3:  121, 122, 126 101.4:  7, 59, 112, 134 Diuus Claudius 1.5: 91 2–5: 169 3.1: 169 4–9: 34 10:  34, 85 10.4: 91

330 Suetonius (continued) 11–25.4: 35 11–12: 34 11.1: 152 13:  22, 34 14–17: 34 14–15: 71 15.3: 84 17.1: 97 18–21: 34 20.1: 97 22–5: 34 22.1:  158, 166 25.5:  34, 151 n. 19 26–8: 34 26.2: 56 29.1–2:  35, 45, 61, 69 30: 34 33.1: 5 34–40: 34 41–2:  34, 169 41.2: 91 43: 91 45–6: 67 45:  65, 68 46: 66 Diuus Iulius 1–35: 26 1–6: 86 1.1:  94, 97, 102, 104 1.2:  97, 102 1.3: 102 2:  100, 104 3:  100, 103 4: 100 4.1: 97 6–20: 86 6:  94, 97, 104 7:  97, 100, 104 8:  99, 100, 103 9.1: 103 9.2: 104 9.3:  99, 102 11.1:  103, 104 12: 99 13:  95, 103 14: 100 14.4: 102 15:  100, 103 16.1: 100 17.1: 100 18.1: 100

Index Locorum 18.3: 100 19.1–2: 103 20.1:  95, 104 20.2:  74, 86 21–5: 86 22: 104 23.2: 104 24.3: 104 25.2: 97 26.2: 104 26–33: 87 27.2–28.1: 103 28.2–3: 100 29.1:  87, 104 30.2: 103 30.5: 104 31.1: 100 31.2: 105 34–44.3: 87 34.1:  95, 97 34.2:  50 n. 50, 101 35.1: 102 35.2: 101 36–44.3: 26 36: 26 37: 101 39.1:  95, 271 40.1–2: 95 40.1:  22, 87 42.2: 103 44.1:  87, 97 44.4–75: 88 44.4:  27, 61, 88, 89, 94 45–75: 89 45.1: 27 45.3: 101 46–8: 106–7 47: 157 49: 105 49.3–4: 49 52: 105 55–7:  27, 168 55.1:  95, 105 55.3–56.7: 95 55.3: 83 55.6: 83 56.3: 101 56.5: 101 57–70:  27, 28 57: 101 59: 101 60: 101



Index Locorum 61:  15, 23, 105 65: 101 67.2: 96 68: 5 70: 101 71: 101 72:  27, 105 74.1: 27 74.5: 96 75: 27 75.4–5: 88 76–80.1: 88 76:  89, 105 76.1:  27, 70, 88, 96, 108 77:  105, 157 77.1:  27, 83 78.1:  27, 96, 98 79: 105 79.2: 157 79.3: 95 80.1–89: 88 80.1–3: 105 80.1:  88, 98, 100 80.3: 75 80.4: 98 81.1–3:  98, 102 81.2:  83, 98 81.3: 157 81.4: 98 82.1–3: 157 82.2:  73, 157 84.1:  99, 102 84.5: 99 85:  97, 109 87: 101 88:  85, 99 89:  64, 97, 99 97: 94 Diuus Titus 1:  31, 53, 64, 85, 160–1, 172 n. 51 3:  167, 169, 176 3.1–2:  32, 171 4.1–3: 172 5.1:  172, 172 n. 51 5.3: 97 6–7: 172 6.1: 173 6.2: 172 7: 172 7.1:  31, 161, 169 7.2: 173 8.1:  53, 92, 163 n. 14

331

9: 175 9.2: 53 10:  163, 175 11:  63, 65, 161 11.1: 172 Diuus Vespasianus 1:  6, 70, 92, 93 5.2: 92 6.1: 92 7.1: 97 8–11: 32 11: 119 12–15: 32 12:  174 n. 61 13: 22 16.1: 32 19.2: 52 20: 32 21: 164 24: 65 25:  65, 65 n. 13, 67, 70, 77, 92 Domitianus 1.2: 185 3.1:  112, 119, 183 3.2: 30 4–9: 30 4.1: 186 4.2: 185–6 4.4:  183, 257 6.1: 174 6.2: 174 8: 119 8.3: 176 9.1: 54 9.3: 54 10–11: 54 10.1: 30 10.3–4: 120 11.1: 174 12.2: 84 13.2:  30, 52, 174 n. 59 14–16: 67 14.1:  30, 98, 99 14.4:  180–1, 183, 186 15.2–17: 30 15.2–3: 98 15.2:  154 n. 28 16.1: 98 16.2:  98, 184 17.1: 98 17.3:  65, 99 18–19: 169

332 Suetonius (continued) 18.1:  31, 164, 170, 171 20:  40, 169 20.1: 160 21.1:  93, 181, 184 22:  99, 187 23.1:  99, 109 23.2:  66–7, 75, 77, 82, 93 Galba 1:  62, 91, 120 2.1: 91 4.1: 73 6.3:  22, 31 7.1:  22, 31 12.1: 31 15.2: 31 16.2: 46 20.1: 148 20.2:  56, 72, 73 21:  31 n. 17, 56 23:  65, 71 Nero 2.2: 97 9: 123 10: 29 10.1: 91 10.2: 56 12.3: 257 16.1: 123 19.3: 29 20–1: 29 21.2:  52, 213 22–5:  29, 169 26.1:  22, 29, 173 28.2: 123 33–7: 23 33.1: 123 34.1–4: 120 35.4:  50 n. 50 37.1: 97 37.3: 91 38.1:  23, 74 n. 42, 123 39: 5 40–50: 29 40.1: 29 51–2: 169 51:  30, 171 53: 169 55: 30 57:  30, 65, 72, 77, 84 Otho 2–3.2: 173 3.2: 68

Index Locorum 10.1:  84, 128 11.2: 65 12.1–2:  31 n. 17, 63, 64, 231 18.4–7: 72 Tiberius 5–20: 32 9.1–2: 33 9.3: 33 10.1: 97 11.1: 97 13.1:  169, 169 n. 40 14.2: 90 21.1: 33 24.1: 68 25.1: 54 28: 56 29: 33 30: 33 30.1: 44 32.2: 33 34.1: 142 35.2:  119, 250 42–67: 33 42.1:  33, 182 43: 249 43.2: 143 45: 250 49.1: 33 53.1: 56 54.2: 120 57.1:  33, 90 61–2: 56 61.3: 56 62.3: 74 67.1: 33 68.1: 33 70.1–3: 41 70.3:  142 n. 29, 143, 241, 245 73.1: 65 74–5: 67 75.1–3: 67–8 76: 67 Vitellius 1–3.1: 6 1.2: 47 7.3: 55 8.1: 97 8.2:  49, 55 9:  61–2, 62 10.3:  31, 55 11.2: 55 13.1: 31 13.2: 55

Index Locorum

14.2: 55 17.2:  31 n. 17, 171 18:  61, 62 Fragments 1 Reiff.:  216 n. 58, 236 2 Reiff.:  284–5 3 Reiff.:  12, 261, 262 75 Reiff.:  216 79 Reiff.:  216 83–4 Reiff.:  216 109 Reiff.:  285 165–9 Reiff.:  231, 231 n. 1 170–3 Reiff.:  231 172 Reiff.:  247 176 Reiff.:  140 n. 27 191 Reiff.:  258 195 Reiff.:  285 197 Reiff.:  250 200 Reiff.:  246 202 Reiff.:  232 203 Reiff.:  246 204 Reiff.:  235 p. 280 Roth:  261 p. 288 Roth:  2, 265 n. 41 Tacitus Annales 1.9–10: 113 1.10: 114 1.77.3: 44–5

2.74: 250 3.7: 250 4.75: 71 6.20.2: 73 15.9.4:  50 n. 50 Historiae 1.52.4: 50 2.1:  162, 171 2.2.1: 163 2.5.2: 163 Tertullian De spectaculis 4.4: 257 5–12:  257 n. 5 5.8:  257 n. 4 13.1: 257 16–19: 258 Valerius Maximus 2.4.1: 260 2.7.6: 150 2.10.8:  270 n. 68 9.7, mil. Rom. 2:  150 Virgil Aeneid 4.229–31: 173 12.725–6: 66 Georgics 2.538: 54 3.4–5: 151

333

General Index Accius  205, 226 Aedituus, Valerius  247–8, 251 Aeschines (orator)  200 n. 3, 206–7, 209, 229 Agrippina (the Elder)  56, 120 Agrippina (the Younger)  71, 88 n. 19, 120, 123, 234 n. 11, 240 n. 33 Alexander the Great  15 n. 46, 71, 86, 95, 97, 100, 103–4, 109, 129 n. 46 allusion  3, 15 n. 46, 58–77, 111–29, 173, 188, 202–3, 252–3, 281–3 Ammianus Marcellinus  279 ancestry  6, 21, 23, 31, 37, 59–61, 116 n. 22, 241, 252–3 Antigonus of Carystus  216–17, 236 Antony, Mark  23, 50 n. 52, 71, 88, 94, 105, 113–14, 128 n. 40 Apollodorus of Athens  237–8, 240 Apuleius  17, 58 n. 1, 232, 242–8 archives  15, 84 n. 10 Aristophanes  51, 57, 238 n. 29 Aristophanes of Byzantium  235 n. 17, 237, 240–1 Aristotle  266, 268 Aristoxenus  216–17, 236, 268 n. 60 Arrian  3 n. 7, 129 n. 46 arrogance  11, 27–8, 30–1, 154, 157, 174 Asconius  213, 216 Athenaeus  236–41, 248, 266–7 Aufidius Bassus  213, 215 n. 53 Augustine  278, 286 Augustus  3 n. 7, 7–8, 10–12, 16, 22–9, 31–4, 36, 40–1, 49–50, 52 n. 58, 54–6, 59–63, 67–8, 71–4, 81, 83, 91, 95–6, 102, 106, 108, 110–46, 156 n. 35, 160, 162, 168–9, 174–7, 187, 189–94, 196, 207, 211–14, 222, 224, 227, 249, 259–61, 264–5, 271, 274, 277, 281–4 Ausonius  109 n. 51 Berenice (daughter of Agrippa I)  161, 173 Bibulus, M. Calpurnius  74–5 Britannicus  90, 108

Brutus, L. Junius  75, 106 Brutus, M. Junius (tyrannicide)  226 building projects  123–4, 126, 133–6, 180–4, 186, 191, 258, 260–1 Caecilius Statius  270 Caecina Alienus, A.  49–50, 88 n. 20, 174 Caesar, C. Julius (dictator)  2–3, 5, 8 n. 24, 15–16, 23, 25–30, 32, 34, 36, 48–50, 64–6, 70–1, 73–5, 77, 81–110, 132, 143 n. 30, 145–6, 154, 156–8, 160, 168–9, 259, 271, 279 Caesar, C. Julius (stepson of Augustus) 11 Caligula (the emperor Gaius)  3, 14 n. 41, 16, 22–3, 27–30, 32, 34, 37, 47–8, 52, 54, 56, 64–6, 70, 110, 112, 128, 130 n. 1, 138, 146–58, 166, 169, 222, 234 n. 11, 259–60 Callimachus  38, 205, 268 Calvus, C. Licinius  200 n. 3, 205 n. 25, 206–8, 223, 226, 230, 243–4 Capito, Cn. Oct. Titinius  206–9, 216, 230 Capito, Sinnius  271 Cassius Longinus, C. (jurist)  220 n. 79 Cassius Longinus, C. (tyrannicide)  157 Cato (the Elder)  206–8, 229 Cato (the Younger)  206 n. 28 Catulus, Q. Lutatius  100, 226, 247–8 Catullus  173, 206–7, 209–10, 229, 242–4, 251 n. 68, 254 Chaerea, Cassius  97, 148–9, 152, 154–6 chastity  161, 114 chiaroscuro 11 Cicero  8 n. 28, 40, 49, 83, 86–7, 104–5, 125, 173, 193–4, 200 n. 3, 206–8, 211–13, 223, 226, 229, 235–6, 256, 270, 280, 283, 287 Cinna, C. Helvius  97, 243–4 Cinna, L. Cornelius  64, 91, 97, 104, 158 civility  22, 24, 28, 32, 34, 54, 174–5 Clarus, C. Septicius  26, 81 Claudius  3, 22, 32, 34–5, 37, 45–6, 55–6, 65, 67–9, 71, 92, 110, 123, 147, 152, 156, 166 n. 35, 168–9



General Index

Clemens, M. Arrecinius  186 n. 19 Cleopatra  87 n. 18, 105 closure  15, 34, 58–77, 82, 122, 156 clothing  27, 150, 152 n. 21, 178–9, 231–2, 235, 241, 247, 251, 256 Cluvius Rufus, M.  52, 147 n. 3, 206–8, 213, 215 n. 53, 230 commentarii  12 n. 36, 40, 102 n. 42, 122, 160 Commodus  56 n. 62 concubines  46 n. 31, 234 n. 11; see also courtesans Cornificius, Q. (poet)  243–4 courage  59–61, 64, 128–9, 152–3, 155–6, 170, 182, 217 courtesans  3, 13 n. 40, 17, 231–56 Cremutius Cordus  56 Crispus, Passienus  222–3 Crispus, Vibius  183 cruelty  22–3, 25, 28–31, 33–5, 37, 53–4, 56, 67–8, 70, 92, 151, 162, 172–7, 184 Curtius Rufus, Q.  279 Cyrus the Great  103, 106 death scenes  13, 16, 21–2, 25, 27–8, 30–4, 36, 49 n. 49, 64, 67–9, 72–3, 99, 108–9, 111, 124–5, 128–9, 146–58, 161, 166 n. 35, 183–4, 187, 190, 196, 228 n. 99 Demosthenes  200 n. 3, 206–7, 209, 223, 230, 237 Didymus Chalcenterus  235 Dio Cassius  13, 31–2, 34–5, 63 n. 8, 73–4, 115–16, 124 n. 34, 147–8, 153–4, 161–3, 190 n. 25, 194, 240 n. 33 Diomedes Grammaticus  12, 18, 261–4, 266–7 diuisio  4–5, 8–14, 23–4, 26–8, 32–5, 86 n. 14, 88–9, 91, 123 n. 31, 166, 252 Domitia Longina  112, 119–20 Domitian  3, 16–17, 27, 30–2, 37, 40–1, 50 n. 52, 52–4, 57, 65–7, 69–70, 74–5, 77, 82–3, 92–3, 112, 119–20, 128, 146, 151 n. 19, 160, 163–4, 168–71, 174 n. 59, 178–96, 214–17, 220, 234 n. 11, 258, 260 Domitius Afer  205 Domitius Ahenobarbus, C. (father of Nero) 71 drinking  22, 33, 55, 184, 281–2 Drusilla, Julia  151 Drusus  90 n. 24

335

Einhard  18, 273–91 ekphrasis 191–3 Elagabalus  109 n. 51 Ennius  84 n. 11, 205, 226–7 Epictetus  194, 196, 215 Epidius, M.  217 n. 62 Euphrates (philosopher)  199 n. 2, 206–7, 209, 215, 230 Euripides  7, 87, 104–5, 267 Eutropius (historian)  279 exemplarity  16, 25, 31, 40, 54, 60, 111–45, 133 n. 11, 176, 179, 279–80 exitus literature  3 n. 7, 12–13, 216–17; see also death scenes Fannius, C. (Trajanic author)  200 n. 3, 206–7, 209, 216, 230 fear  33–4, 48, 67, 180–1, 184, 189 Fenestella 213 Figulus, Nigidius  213, 243 n. 38 food  5, 22, 37, 55, 142, 184, 281–2 Freud, Sigmund  193, 234 n. 11 Frontinus  131 n. 7, 200 n. 3, 205 n. 24, 279 frugality  24, 33, 142, 282 Galba  31, 36, 46, 49–50, 56, 62–3, 71–3, 77 n. 50, 91–2, 125 n. 35, 148, 152, 168–9, 172 Gallus, C. Asinius  44–5 Gallus, C. Cornelius  243–4, 247 games  3, 22, 26, 28–9, 50 n. 52, 53, 68 n. 17, 95, 118, 146, 154, 185–6, 248, 250, 253, 256–8, 260, 270–1 Gellius  12, 17, 247–9, 257 generosity  22, 24, 29, 34, 53 Germanicus  90 n. 24, 118, 120–1, 129, 150 n. 15, 156 n. 35, 158, 169–71 gladiators  95, 151, 169, 185–6, 257; see also games Gorgias of Athens  236–7, 240 grammarians  9–10, 12, 18, 40–1, 135, 142, 144–5, 165, 193–5, 201–2, 206–8, 210–11, 213, 216–23, 236, 241, 246, 252, 261, 270 greed  11, 28–9, 46, 54, 172–3, 184 Gripho, M. Antonius  217 n. 62 Hadrian  77, 88 n. 21, 90, 182, 200, 228 Helvidius Priscus (the Elder)  216 Helvidius Priscus (the Younger)  216 Herennius Senecio  206–8, 216, 230

336

General Index

Hermippus (biographer)  216–17, 236 Herodicus the Cratetean  237–8, 241–2 Herodotus  119 n. 25, 121–2, 127, 181 Hesiod 268 historiography  1–4, 9–10, 13–15, 26 n. 9, 37 n. 30, 39–40, 43, 48, 51 n. 57, 56, 58, 70 n. 23, 115, 161, 164, 179, 201, 205–9, 211, 213, 215–16, 240 n. 34, 244 n. 40, 279, 288 Homer  9–10, 54, 56, 74, 120–1, 154, 186 n. 18, 206–7, 209, 230, 238, 264–5 Horace  5, 42, 187–93, 195–6, 205, 222–4, 233–4, 242 n. 36, 254 n. 74, 268 Hortensius Hortalus, Q. (orator)  107, 226, 243–4 Hostius Quadra  187–90 humour  11, 32, 38, 52, 56 n. 63, 74, 156, 183, 193 Hyginus, C. Julius  216–17, 234, 236, 241–6, 251, 254–5 Illustrious Men (De uiris illustribus) 3–5, 8–9, 12, 17, 42, 77, 144 n. 31, 199–230, 233 n. 6, 236, 243 n. 38, 245, 252, 255, 265 n. 41, 284 insults  3, 9–10, 235, 248 n. 58, 256 Isaeus (orator)  251 n. 65 Isaeus (rhetorician)  206–7, 209, 219, 230 Isidore of Seville  278, 284–8, 291 Jerome  1–2, 13 n. 40, 201, 210–17, 223 n. 89, 251, 265, 284–8, 291 Josephus  147, 149–50, 153, 155–7, 163 n. 13, 289 Juba I of Numidia  101 Julia (aunt of Julius Caesar)  86 n. 14, 94 Julia (daughter of Julius Caesar)  86–7 Julia (the Elder)  52 n. 59, 55, 121–2, 126 Julia (the Younger)  116, 121–2, 126 justice  22, 26, 34, 54, 71, 87, 114–19, 121–4, 126, 181–2 Juvenal  201 n. 12 Laelius, C.  224 Lentulus Gaetulicus, Cn. Cornelius  226 Lepidus, M. Aemilius  23, 94–5, 101, 151–2 Livia  54, 62, 111–12, 114–16, 127–8 Livius Andronicus, L.  270 Livy  47, 131 n. 8, 134 n. 18, 206–7, 209, 213, 230, 250, 259, 279

Lucan  38–9, 51–2, 193, 204 n. 22, 222, 224 Lucian  3 n. 7, 264–6 Lucilius (addressee of Seneca)  212 Lucilius (satirist)  242 Lucinius Mucianus, C.  163, 183 n. 14 lust  11, 29–32, 70, 92, 119, 172–3, 187–8, 233–4, 242–3, 249 luxury  28–9, 31, 89 n. 23, 119, 171–3 Lydus, John  2, 17, 26 n. 7, 40, 81, 232, 242, 245–6, 250 Lysias  205, 237 Maecenas  188, 190, 222–4, 243 n. 37, 254 n. 74 Malalas, John  2 Marius, C.  86, 104 Martial  184, 200 n. 3, 206–7, 209, 212–14, 230, 250 n. 63 Melissus, C.  217 n. 62 Memmius, C. (orator and poet)  226, 243–4 Menander  205, 238–9, 270 mercy  10–11, 24, 27, 29–30, 32, 34, 89 n. 23, 172, 174–6 Messalina  46 n. 31 Messalla Corvinus, M. Valerius  222, 244 n. 40 Mettius Rufus, M.  186 military matters  5, 23–4, 27–8, 32–3, 37, 46, 49–50, 59, 61–2, 89 n. 23, 92, 114, 132, 150, 167–8, 172, 259–60 moderation  27, 33–4, 66–7, 70, 90, 93, 163–4, 174 Nepos  13 n. 40, 71–2, 204–5, 213, 216–17, 226, 236, 251 Nero (emperor)  3, 5, 22–3, 28–32, 36–9, 50–2, 55–7, 62, 65, 68, 71–4, 77, 91–2, 110, 120, 123, 161, 168–9, 171, 173, 182–4, 191, 193, 207, 211, 216, 220 n. 77, 222, 234 n. 11, 240 n. 33, 260 Nero, Ti. Claudius (first husband of Livia)  111–12, 114 Nerva  90, 109 n. 51, 216 Nicias, Curtius  217 n. 62 Nicolaus of Damascus  3 n. 7 Nicomedes (king of Bithynia)  49, 104–5 Octavia (sister of Augustus)  254 Octavia (wife of Nero)  87 n. 16



General Index

omens  23, 25, 30, 34, 36, 49, 61–2, 65–7, 69, 93–4, 96–8, 116 n. 22, 149–50, 154, 157, 282 Oppius, C.  8 n. 28 oratory  7–10, 12 n. 36, 22, 27, 39–40, 95, 107, 113 n. 8, 131 n. 5, 168–70, 192, 201, 204–8, 211–12, 214, 216 n. 54, 219–24, 227, 238, 240–1, 244 n. 42, 251 n. 65; see also study Otho  31, 63–4, 68, 72, 92, 128–9, 146, 168–9, 173, 231 Ovid  151, 187 n. 20, 243–5, 247, 251, 254, 264 Palaemon, Q. Remmius  195, 262 Pamphilus of Alexandria  235, 250 n. 63 Persius 222 Petronius 40 Philologus, L. Ateius  41, 217 n. 62 philosophy  9 n. 29, 22, 35, 51, 132, 189, 194, 199 n. 2, 201, 205–8, 211, 213, 215, 219 n. 70, 232, 237, 269 Philip II of Macedon  149–50, 155 physical descriptions  22, 24, 27–34, 37, 116 n. 22, 133, 167–70, 190, 193, 281 physiognomy  116 n. 22, 170–1, 192–3, 231 piety  28–9, 34, 87 n. 17, 105, 143 Piso, C. Calpurnius (conspirator and orator)  112, 130 n. 1, 222–3 Piso, Calpurnius (Trajanic poet)  206–8, 214 n. 48, 221 n. 81, 224–5, 229 Piso, Cn. Calpurnius (governor of Syria) 114 Piso, Cn. Calpurnius (quaestor in Spain) 99 Pitholaus, M’. Otacilius  216–17 Plato  51, 205, 245, 266 Plautus  206–7, 209, 230, 266, 270–1 Pliny (the Elder)  17, 191, 195, 200, 203–4, 206–7, 209, 212–13, 215 n. 53, 219–20, 222 n. 82, 226 n. 95, 228 n. 99, 230, 259 Pliny (the Younger)  13, 17, 22 n. 4, 40, 42, 58 n. 1, 76, 115, 134 n. 21, 183, 193, 199–230, 232–3, 240, 251 n. 68 Plutarch  2 n. 3, 4, 6–8, 13, 51, 63 n. 8, 70–2, 81 n. 1, 129 n. 43, 164, 170, 178–80, 187, 232, 235–6 Poets (De poetis)  12, 193, 201–2, 205 n. 26, 222–3, 227–8, 243 n. 38, 250 n. 63, 261–2, 284–5

337

Pollio, C. Asinius  26 n. 9, 41, 96, 204, 206–8, 226, 229, 242–4 Pompey  86 n. 16, 88 n. 20, 103, 106, 259–60, 271 n. 75 Poppaea Sabina (the Younger)  68 Porcius, Licinus  247–8 Postumus Agrippa  25 Probus, M. Valerius  41, 262 Propertius  206–9, 230, 242, 244, 249, 251, 264 prose rhythm  43, 76 prostitutes  119, 155 n. 30, 187, 233–4; see also courtesans Ptolemy XIII  105 Publilius Syrus  270 n. 74 Quintilian  49 n. 48, 191–2, 206–7, 209, 213, 219–20, 230 quotations (literary)  15, 38–9, 51–2, 56, 73–7, 120–1, 154, 248, 193 religion  16, 24, 30, 33, 47, 54, 59–61, 135, 143, 148–51, 154–5, 157, 185, 260, 278, 284–5 rhetoricians  165, 193–5, 201–2, 206–8, 210–13, 215–24, 236 ring composition  25, 36, 73–7, 91 n. 28, 98, 124–5 Romulus  112, 257 n. 4 Rutilius Lupus, P. (rhetorician)  237 Sabinus, Cornelius  148–9, 152, 154–5 Sallust  41, 213 Santra  216–17, 236 Satyrus (biographer)  3 n. 7, 7, 216–17, 236–7, 255 Scaevola, Q. Mucius (Pontifex)  226 Scipio Africanus  224 Scipio, Metellus  101 Scriptores Historiae Augustae  12, 42–3, 56 n. 62, 138, 279, 287–8, 291 Senatus consultum de Cn. Pisone patre 114 Seneca (the Elder)  148, 152 Seneca (the Younger)  54, 57, 114–15, 147, 187–90, 205, 211–12, 213, 215, 226 Servius (grammarian)  2, 17, 247, 258 Servius Sulpicius Rufus (jurist)  220 n. 79, 226, 243–4 sexual material  11, 13 n. 40, 24–5, 28, 50 n. 52, 114, 128, 143–4, 164, 187–8, 190–1, 195, 232–4, 240 n. 33, 249

338

General Index

Silius Italicus  200 n. 3, 204 n. 22, 206–8, 212–13, 230 Sisenna, L. Cornelius  243–4 Statius  184, 213–14 Strabo 269 study  12, 27, 29–30, 33–4, 40–1, 95–6, 164, 167–9, 199 n. 2, 219–21, 225 n. 93, 281–2 style (literary)  3–15, 21–57, 106 n. 47, 113 n. 8, 199 n. 2, 222–3, 250 n. 63, 278–9 Suda  9, 40, 231 n. 1, 235, 250 n. 63, 256–7 Sulla  86, 88 n. 20, 102, 104–5, 216 n. 57, 226 synkrisis  8 n. 26, 69–71, 89 n. 22, 94, 162 Tacitus  1–3, 6, 13, 32, 34, 36, 44–6, 49–50, 54, 63 n. 9, 70–1, 73, 77 n. 50, 113–15, 129, 162–4, 171, 194, 199 n. 2, 201, 206–8, 215 n. 53, 218, 222–3, 228, 230, 250, 279 technical writing  9–10, 12, 39, 43, 216 n. 54, 231, 239 n. 31, 248–51, 256–72 Telephus of Pergamum  235 Terence  12, 206–7, 209, 222–4, 230, 251, 266, 271 Tertullian  18, 257–8, 260 theatre  18, 39, 52, 68–9, 98, 155, 173 n. 57, 177, 188, 190, 194 n. 31, 256–72; see also games Thrasea Paetus  206–8, 230 Tiberius  16, 32–4, 36–7, 40–1, 45, 47–8, 54, 56, 67–9, 73–4, 110, 112 n. 6, 119–20, 130–1, 134 n. 18, 138, 141–4, 146, 156 n. 35, 157–8, 160, 168–9, 182, 207, 211, 227, 241, 245, 249–50, 259–60

Tibullus  222, 242 Ticida, L.  242–4, 254 Titus  3, 6, 16, 26, 31–2, 53, 63, 85, 90, 116 n. 22, 117 n. 23, 159–77, 215 n. 53 Torquatus, L. Manlius (the Elder)  226 Torquatus, L. Manlius (the Younger) 226 Tractatus de mulieribus 235 Trajan  16, 22 n. 4, 90, 200, 216, 222, 225, 228 triviality  13, 39, 50 n. 52, 120, 142, 146, 233–4, 239–40, 243–4, 251 n. 58 Valens, Fabius  49–50 Valerius Flaccus, C. (flamen Dialis) 176 n. 68 Valerius Flaccus, C. (poet)  213 Valerius Licinianus, L. (Trajanic rhetorician)  206–8, 219–20, 230 Valerius Maximus  133–4, 150, 259 Varro  3 n. 7, 9 n. 29, 205, 213, 216–17, 226, 236, 243–4, 251, 257–9, 261–2, 264, 270–1 Verginius Rufus, L.  215 n. 53, 226 Verrius Flaccus, M.  217 n. 62, 271 Vespasian  3, 22, 31–2, 52, 55, 65, 67, 70–1, 90 n. 24, 108, 119, 159, 162, 164, 168–9, 174–5, 215–16, 219, 260 Vindex, C. Iulius  46, 50 n. 52 Virgil  17, 47, 54, 66, 72 n. 35, 136 n. 25, 151, 173, 200–2, 206–7, 209, 222–4, 226–7, 230, 232 n. 4, 242–3, 246–7, 251, 254, 258 Vitellius (emperor)  6, 31, 47, 49–50, 55, 61–2, 72, 168–9, 171, 184 Xenophon  8 n. 24, 205