LIVES OF THE TWELVE CAESARS

Translated by H.M. Bird With an Introduction by Tamsyn Barton Suetonius,chronicler of the extraordinary personalities of the first dynasties torule the Roman Empire, was the greatest Latin biographer. His colourfulwork, Lives of the Twelve Caesars, is, along with Tacitus, the majorsource for the period from Julius Caesar to Domitian. He sets out in vividdetail a great range of aspects illuminating the emperor's characters,their habits, from table to bedchamber - their intrigues, their loves andtheir deaths. Himself a court official, he quotes from a variety ofsources, from the official and private documents as well as from oldanecdotes, gossip, songs and jokes, giving an unparalleled oblique view ofhis subjects. Long familiar to students of classics, he found a newaudience as the main source for Robert Graves' novels and the subsequenttelevision series I, Claudius.