Suetonius

Suetonius was a Roman biographer and historian of the early second century CE, best known for The Twelve Caesars, a series of biographies of Roman rulers.

The Twelve Caesars: Suetonius’s collection of biographies of Julius Caesar and the first eleven Roman emperors. This is the work that made Suetonius famous and preserves his distinctive portrait of imperial power.
Characterization: The portrayal of a person’s distinctive qualities in a literary work. Suetonius often arranges anecdotes to make an emperor’s character emerge through habits and behavior.
Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus: The full name traditionally given to the Roman author known as Suetonius. This expanded name identifies the biographer in ancient and modern scholarship.
Julius Caesar: Roman general and statesman whose dictatorship ended the Roman Republic’s traditional political order. Suetonius begins his collection with Caesar, whose life bridges republican politics and imperial rule.
Tacitus: Roman senator and historian whose works include Annals and Histories. Tacitus offers a more continuous political narrative against which Suetonius’s episodic biographies can be compared.
Roman Empire: The state governed by Roman emperors from the late first century BCE until its western empire ended in the fifth century CE. Suetonius wrote about emperors whose rule shaped the empire’s early history.
Anecdote: A brief account of an incident, often used to illustrate a person or point. Brief stories give Suetonius’s imperial portraits much of their vividness.
Trajan: Roman emperor from 98 to 117 CE, whose reign expanded the empire to its greatest territorial extent. Suetonius’s adult career began under Trajan’s rule.
Augustus: Rome’s first emperor, who ruled from 27 BCE to 14 CE and established the Principate. Suetonius’s biography of Augustus offers a foundational portrait of imperial authority.
Cassius Dio: Greek-speaking Roman senator and historian who wrote an extensive history of Rome. Dio provides a later narrative account of many emperors also covered by Suetonius.

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