Suetonius: Electronic Texts and Resources

GOOD NEWS:  There is already a Latin text of Suetonius's Lives of the Caesars now published at Perseus (it's new! check it out!).  Unlike other versions of the Latin text previously available on the internet (notably Ad Fontes and the Bibliotheca Augustana), the text at Perseus is linked to the Lewis & Short Latin Dictionary and other on-line morphological tools available at Perseus.  By Fall 2000, this text should be linked to the geographical tools available at Perseus (so that you can access maps and other materials for the place names mentioned in the text).  We will also be publishing the English translation of Suetonius by Philemon Holland, together with his notes.  Additional English translations and commentaries will follow.

As the Stoa/Perseus Suetonius project, unfolds, new material will be added to this website.  For the time being, I have compiled a list of useful Suetonius materials currently available on the internet.  In addition to the Latin texts on-line at various sites, there are some public-domain English translations published on the internet (notably at the Internet Ancient History Sourcebook and at Imperium: The Roman Library).  There are also some useful book reviews published by Bryn Mawr Reviews and some relevant articles published in the Ancient History Bulletin on-line.  In addition, there are useful biographies of the emperors, together with an extensive coin library, at the De Imperatoribus Romanis website.

Please let me know about any additional sites that you think would be useful to include!  Any and all input would be much appreciated!  Thank you.

PERSEUS PROJECT:  more info.

• G. Suetonius Tranquillus, De Vita Caesarum (ed. Maximilian Ihm)

• Julius  |  Augustus  |  Tiberius  |  Caligula  |  Claudius  |  Nero
• Galba  |  Otho  |  Vitellius  |  Vespasianus  |  Titus  |  Domitianus

• De grammaticis  |  De rhetoribus

INTERNET ANCIENT HISTORY SOURCE BOOK - ROME: more info.

• Rolfe translation:  Julius   |  Augustus   |  Tiberius  |  Caligula
• Worthington translation:  Augustus  |  Claudius(at Princeton)
• Davis translation:  Vitellius: Chapter 13  |  Domitian: Chapter 4

• Rolfe translation:  Nero  |  Vespasian  |  Titus  |  Domitian
• Rolfe translation:  De Rhetoribus
• Rolfe translation:  Lives of Horace, Lucan, Pliny, Tibullus, Vergil

DE IMPERATORIBUS ROMANIS:  AN ONLINE ENCYCLOPEDIA: more info.
 

Stemmata:	Julio-Claudian Emperors  |  The Flavian Emperors
Biographies:	Augustus  |  Tiberius  |  Caligula   |  Claudius  |  Nero Galba  |  Otho  |  Vitellius  |  Vespasian  |  Titus  |  Domitian
Coinage:	Augustus  |   Tiberius  |   Caligula   |   Claudius  |   Nero Galba  |    Otho  |   Vitellius  |  Vespasian  |   Titus  |   Domitian

ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA:  more info.

Augustus  |   Tiberius  |   Caligula   |   Claudius  |   Nero  |  Galba  |    Otho  |   Vitellius  |  Vespasian  |   Titus  |   Domitian

HISTOS: THE ELECTRONIC JOURNAL OF ANCIENT HISTORIOGRAPHY: more info.

• JOHN W. BURKE, Emblematic Scenes in Suetonius' Vitellius (July, 1998)

• CHARLES LESLIE MURISON, Tiberius, Vitellius and the Spintriae (1987)
• H.W. BIRD, The Roman Emperors: Eutropius’ Perspective (1987)
• BARRY BALDWIN, Notes on Nerva (1987)
• R.F. NEWBOLD, Patterns of Anxiety in Sallust, Suetonius and Procopius (1990)
• BARRY BALDWIN: Power corrupts — and absolute power is even nicer: new Lives of Caligula and Claudius reviewed (1990)
• BERNARD J. KAVANAGH: The Admission of the Claudian Family to Rome (1990)
• JOHN C. YARDLEY: The Literary Background to Justin/Trogus (1994)
• MARLEEN B. FLORY, The Deification of Roman Women (1995)
• CHARLES LESLIE MURISON, The Death of Titus: A Reconsideration (1995)

BRYN MAWR REVIEWS:  more info.

Suetonius

• Ronald Mellor (ed.), The Historians of Ancient Rome. New York and London: Routledge, 1997. Mellor's book ontains: Suetonius' Life of Gaius Caligula, in Rolfe's 1913 Loeb translation.
• Stanley E. Porter (ed.), Handbook of Classical Rhetoric in the Hellenistic Period, 330 B.C.-A.D. 400. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1997. " ...The next chapter is Richard Burridge's on biography, a particularly vivid and dense essay that reaches back to Isocrates and treats such authors as Tacitus, Plutarch, and Suetonius."
• Antonio La Penna, Da Lucrezio a Persio: Saggi, studi, note, con una bibliografia degli scritti dell'autore, a cura di Mario Citroni, Emanuele Narducci, Alessandro Perutelli. Milano: Sansoni Editori, 1995.  The collection contains one essay on Suetonius.
• Michael von Albrecht, A History of Roman Literature from Livius Andronicus to Boethius with Special Regard to Its Influence on World Literature. Mnemosyne Supplement 169.  "What is really odd is that Suetonius, who was born about A.D. 7O, figures among writers of the 'Middle and Late Empire' along with Ammonius and in the wake of a mixed bag of late historians from Aurelius Victor to the H.A. -- some 245 pages after his contemporaries."

• H. Dixon Slingerland, Claudian Policymaking and the Early Imperial Repression of Judaism at Rome. South Florida Studies in the History of Judaism, Number 160. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1997.  "Dio Cassius, 60.6.6-7, refers to a ban on their gatherings, evidently at the beginning of the reign. And Suetonius, Claud. 25.4, has him banish Jews who were persistently turbulent at the instigation of Chrestus. Slingerland persuasively distinguishes the two events."
• J. Ramsey and A. Lewis Licht, The Comet of 44 B.C. and Caesar's Funeral Games. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1997.  "This book, the result of a collaboration between a Classicist (Ramsey) and a Physicist (Licht), examines the significance of Octavian's games and the comet. "
• David Shotter, Nero. New York and London: Routledge, 1997.  "The book is one of the series 'Lancaster Pamphlets', whose avowed purpose is to 'offer concise and up-to-date accounts of major historical topics, primarily for the help of students preparing for Advanced Level examinations, though they should also be of value to those pursuing introductory courses in universities'."
• Anthony A. Barrett, Agrippina: Sex, Power and Politics in the Early Roman Empire. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996.  "The last of the series, by the same author as the present volume, was Caligula: The Corruption of Power, to which Barrett now adds another biography of that emperor's extraordinary sister, who outlived him to become a figure of great importance in the two succeeding principates, first as wife of Claudius and then as mother of Nero."
• James S. Ruebel, Caesar and the Crisis of the Roman Aristocracy. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1994.  "...R.'s certainty notwithstanding, it is very difficult to come to any firm conclusions on this point, particularly in light of the competing evidence from other sources such as Suetonius or Dio. R. fails to mention that such evidence exists..."
• Jas Elsner and Jamie Masters (edd.), Reflections of Nero: culture, history, & representation. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1994."Tamsyn Barton on 'The inventio of Nero: Suetonius' brings a welcome clarity to a discussion of the traditional image of Suetonius-as-sieve, which she argues is based on a misreading of Suetonius' deceptively disengaged authorial persona."
• Charles Murison, Galba, Otho and Vitellius: careers and controversies. Spudasmata 52. Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1993.  "M(urison) has not set out to write the definitive book about the events and personalities of 68 and 69, but to discuss particular problems, especially those of which he became aware while working on his commentary on Suetonius' biographies of Galba, Otho and Vitellius."
• Brian W. Jones, The Emperor Domitian. London and New York: Routledge, 1992.  "...in Jones' view the principal sources -- Pliny, Tacitus, and Suetonius -- reflect the hostility of a senatorial class that felt neglected and even openly scorned by Domitian. ..."
• Jonathan Edmondson (trans.), Dio: The Julio-Claudians: Selections from Books 58-63 of the Roman History of Cassius Dio. LACTOR 15. London: London Association of Classical Teachers, 1992.  "In this very useful work Edmondson translates and comments on the segments of Dio's Roman History that fit the gaps left in the text of Tacitus' Annals after its precarious transit of the Middle Ages."
• Flavius Josephus, Death of an Emperor. Translated, with introduction and commentary by T.P. Wiseman. Exeter Studies in History No. 30. Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 1991.  "Wiseman argues convincingly that Josephus' version of the assassination was based on the accounts of two Roman authors whose works have not survived -- probably Cluvius Rufus, a senator of consular rank and an eye-witness to the murder, and Fabius Rusticus, Seneca's equestrian friend from Spain."
• Levick, B.M., Claudius. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990.  "The reader who is not blessed with a good knowledge of Suetonius, Dio, Josephus, Tacitus and the major documents of the period will not find this an easy book to read."
• Anthony A. Barrett, Caligula: The Corruption of Power. London: B.T. Batsford Ltd., 1989.  "Barrett regards Caligula as a sane, intelligent ruler and attempts to rationalize his actions. Suetonius and Dio are dismissed as biased, and Barrett sees no need to take their judgments of Caligula seriously."

• D. Braund, Ruling Roman Britain: kings, queens, governors, and emperors from Julius Caesar to Agricola. London: Routledge, 1996.  "This is emphatically not a book about the mechanics of running Roman Britain from either the perspective of political or social history. Instead, the book is an examination of the nature of the literary texts used to write the history of the province. "
• Stanley Ireland, Roman Britain: A Sourcebook. Second edition. London and New York: Routledge, 1996.  "With no single chronicle or narrative of events in the westernmost Roman province(s) to guide us, students of Roman Britain rely on bits and pieces of information scattered throughout the writings of imperial historians like Tacitus, Suetonius, Dio Cassius, and Ammianus Marcellinus."
• Robert Garland, The Eye of the Beholder: Deformity and Disability in the Greco-Roman World. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995.  "Future emperors despised as "outcasts" at court were most favorable to other human rejects when they took the throne: Tiberius had a dwarf court jester; Claudius an intimate, Julius Paelignus, "despised alike for his stupid mind and contemptible body," but appointed to govern Cappadocia."
• Shadi Bartsch, Actors in the Audience. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994.  "In contrast with the portrayal in Suetonius and Dio, we find a greater element of theatricality in Tacitus' treatment of such incidents as the reaction to Nero's murder of Britannicus, to his murder of Agrippina and to his punishment of Julius Montanus."
• Peter Salway, The Oxford Illustrated History of Roman Britain. Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.  [The book consists of] ..."a series of chapters progressing chronologically through the history of the island from the Iron Age to the decline of the fifth century, followed by a lengthy general section covering such topics as religion and economic life."
• Richard Bauman, Women and Politics in Ancient Rome. London: Routledge, 1992.  "...while Bauman in his introduction notes his use of Livy, Cicero, Appian, Dio, Plutarch, Suetonius, and, most indispensably, Tacitus, in the text itself he rarely comments on the questionable reliability of such sources. "
• Hartmut Leppin, Histrionen: Untersuchungen zur sozialen Stellung von Bühnenkünstler im Westen des Römischen Reiches zur Zeit der Republik und des Principats. Antiquitas Reihe I Abhandlungen zur Alten Geschichte 41. Bonn: Habelt, 1992.  "A revealing passage in Suetonius, Claudius 34.2, missing here, tells us of the rage of the usually popular and theatre loving Claudius when the surprise effects or complex machinery failed to work properly. "