In Praise Of Suetonius

[caldrail]

A lot of us get into roman history by reading Suetonius. Its usually the first stop after watching Hollywoods version of history. Suetonius gives us a warts and all tale of the first twelve caesars, and he deliberately includes Julius Caesar for reasons I agree with, because the man became a permanent dictator therefore no different from an emperor. He describes their faults, their virtues, their lives, and anything else that illustrates the kind of person he wants to describe.

 

Lets be clear about this. Suetonius was a roman. He lived in Rome, amongst romans, going about his business as a roman would. When we read his accounts, we see events second-hand through the eyes of someone who lived in that era. He cannot be discounted.

 

Now Suetonius got his information from eye witnesses. Some of these people may not have clearly understood what was happening, or twisted the event to suit their purpose, or simply lied that they were ever there to see it. So although Suetonius may not be 100% accurate, his work has a basis in truth.

 

It is true you need to be wary about his conclusions. That can be said for any journalist, and there are plenty of wierd and wonderful tales, theories, and speculations today that defy belief. But we do believe them don't we? For instance Von Daniken writes a book about a half-baked theory of alien visitation and spawns a whole new literary genre.

 

Are we any different from the romans? Not really. We come from the same bloodlines, we have the same reactions, thoughts, desires, sins, and virtues. Their culture was different of course. They were much crueller than us for one thing, but then so were so many cultures of that time. It wasn't unusual. Yet in Suetonius we see a common thread - he compares the behaviour of these men with the everyday expectations of Rome. If you read more closely, there is a fantastic parallel with our modern age.

 

I for one will continue to read him with fascination. I don't believe everything happened quite the way he depicts it, yet there's a compelling truth hidden away within his writings.

[phil25]

I enjoy reading tabloid newspapers in the UK (sucas The Sun, or the Daily Mail) from time to time. They are very cleverly written, for a particular audience. But as a student of international politics, I would not for a moment take my source material from them alone, if at all. They seize on the sensational and the scandalous, and are often wrong - sometimes seriously so.

 

I learned to read by using books aimed at early readers - they were valuable and useful, but I have moved on to more adult (and sometimes more serious and sophisticated) reading material.

 

I like your analogy Caldrail; like you I will keep Suetonius on my shelves and continue to read him.

 

But I now try to have a perspective that looks beyond his level of analysis, to what it seems to me (from Tacitus say) as more likely to be the reality of those times.

 

Shall we say I take him "with a pinch of salt".

 

Good one,

 

Phil

[Germanicus]

It's interesting isn't it that Tacitus and Suetonius were probably friends, and read each others work. I wonder if Tacitus thought Suetonius was full of it ?

 

Yeah, I love reading him too, he's such a bitch.

[phil25]

I was thinking about this subject while doing my weekly shopping today.

 

I wonder how, in 2,000 years time, the sga of Prince Charles, Diana and Camilla might be told?

 

One could easily imagine the Suetonian approach - and books have already been written from that angle (just think of how future historians might interpret events if one of the more lurid, but popular biographies were all that survived?).

 

No doubt Charles would be seen as an unfaithful cad - not to mention as weak and a little addled, Diana as a persecuted if troubled saint, and Camilla as the other woman. Yet is that the real story?

 

It ignores the fact that actually Camilla was the love of Charles life and (in a sense) he has always been faithful to her. It does not take into account the way Diana presented a possible new approach to monarchy along the way? Or her manipulation of the press? It does not take into account changes in morality, attitudes to marriage/divorce in the UK over 20 years or so... nor the role of the media in creating stereotypical images that may not reflect reality.

 

The portrait of Charles certainly would be distorted. His interest in off-beat subjects (environment; architecture; holistic and homeopathic medicine are all very much part of his character. He has successfully raised non-party-political issues up the public agenda. His Trust helping disadvantaged youths is a great success. How much of that might survive 2,000 years?

 

One can already see the same process at work with Charles' great uncle the Duke of Windsor. The painting of individuals as black or white - Mrs Simpson in particular - is a crass over-simplification of the facts. Emphasis on certain elements of the story - the romance, for instance - over (say) the political (Edward's fascist interests; his unsuitability and personal concerns about being King; the constitutional difficulties of his desire to marry a twice divorced woman in the moral climate of the day; the background of impending world war...

 

Suetonius might be fun, but I think the modern examples i have cited indicate how much more may lurk beneath his anecdotes.

 

All subjective, of course, and just my humble opinion as ever...

 

Phil

[Germanicus]

Who would Suetonius audience have been ? Who was literate and would buy liturature at the time ?

[Gini]

I enjoy reading Suetonius Whatever his faults - don't all wirters/journalists have a level of bias) he is a genuine Roman and writing at the time How much better is that than something written today I find much of his stuff pretty eyewitness/factual anyway

[phil25]

Which rather shows how misleading Suetonius can be!! he certainly wasn't an eye-witness to events or people in the early principiate, and I doubt very much that he knew anyone who was. True he may have had access to sources, documents and archives lost to us, but his conclusions must be his own.

 

I am not sure I consider Suetonius biased, either - except in so far as, like tacitus - he is seemingly pro the Senatorial view.

 

I would rather say he distorts facts and positions by focusing almost entirely on the sexual and the superficial. He may well capture and record some genuine traits and events, but they are, IMHO, lost in the amount of mud he flings.

 

A modern comparison would, I suppose be Michael Moore - witty, incisive, has a point - but would you rely on him to write a history of the Bush regime, or say he gave a rounded, full account of the personalities or events concerned?

 

Phil

[caldrail]

No. But then we never asked him to write those screenplays. Nor did anyone ask Suetonius to write his biographies. He simply wanted to record their lives and entertain his readers. Thats quite an industry today isn't it?

 

However, its also true that Suetonius wasn't punished for writing them. That either means he got it right or that it was politically correct. Difficult to tell which.

[phil25]

In my contributions to this thread, I am not particularly interested in assessing the motives for Suetpudding writing, but rather their value and relaibility as historical sources.

 

If what you say is true of the former, I find it reduces their value as the latter.

 

phil

[Andrew Dalby]

I was thinking about this subject while doing my weekly shopping today.

 

I wonder how, in 2,000 years time, the sga of Prince Charles, Diana and Camilla might be told?

 

One could easily imagine the Suetonian approach ...

 

Phil

 

Excellent point, Phil. Now let's imagine that we are writing the Suetonian biography of Charles III. How much space would he give to Charles's family entanglements? I would have said about four/five sentences for Diana, about two sentences for Camilla (so far), about two sentences for William (so far) and about three words for Harry (so far). So let's write those sentences. We have to take the point of view of someone in about 2100 AD, someone who believes that there is value in using popular sources (and the odd personal letter) rather than official documents. What shall we write? Anyone want to give it a try?

[Marc Antony]

Why is Sueton is viewed as so unreliable in the first place?

 

I always thought his dry style to be a sign of seriousness.

[Germanicus]

Why is Sueton is viewed as so unreliable in the first place?

 

It depends who you talk to as to his level of reliability.

[Horatius]

Who would Suetonius audience have been ? Who was literate and would buy liturature at the time ?

That's a good question and something I always wondered about. Did writers actually sell their works at that time and how where they distributed? I think I read somewhere that there were no 'copyright' laws as such. No printing presses so everything had to be handwritten. Wonder if there was an industry to copy these things.Where there libraries where any citizen could come and read them?

[Germanicus]

Wonder if there was an industry to copy these things

 

Pliny mentions that Regulus (someone he had little time for) as having "counless copies made" of a memoir of his dead son.

 

I'd envisage the wealthy educated classes as being the only audience.

 

What is the Gazette that Suetonius often refers to ?

[Virgil61]

...

Are we any different from the romans? Not really. We come from the same bloodlines, we have the same reactions, thoughts, desires, sins, and virtues. Their culture was different of course. They were much crueller than us for one thing, but then so were so many cultures of that time. It wasn't unusual. Yet in Suetonius we see a common thread - he compares the behaviour of these men with the everyday expectations of Rome. If you read more closely, there is a fantastic parallel with our modern age.

 

I for one will continue to read him with fascination. I don't believe everything happened quite the way he depicts it, yet there's a compelling truth hidden away within his writings.

 

I have to agree with you that I've come around to a much more positive view of Suetonius than I had in the past. I'll be up front and admit that a lot of it is due to a very good introductory essay written by Catharine Edwards in the Oxford edition of 'Lives'. She's made some very good points that had me reconsider a lot of what I'd thought of him previously.

 

Criticism of Suetonius is nothing new and has been pretty consistent throughout history, even Francis Bacon takes a swipe at him. His biggest critics seem to have risen in the Victorian era, no big surprise there. I think focusing only on the more lurid excerpts we forget that the private sex lives of Roman figures were fair game for criticism in their world. Suetonius isn't writing history like Tacitus, he's writing biography where an individual's personal details play a role in highlighting their character and in this case how an emperor should conduct himself. Constrast his biographies of Augustus, Vespasian and Titus with those of Caligula, Nero and Domitian. Suetonius is sly or maybe just manipulating, he never really comes out and makes a sweeping judgement instead he just points readers to a conclusion.

 

There's a definite pro-Senatorial slant for the most part in 'Lives'. The worst emperors discount or mistreat Senators while the best co-opt them. In spite of the lurid portions of the text Seutonius does spend a lot of time on how emperors excersized their political and military power. It's interesting to look at how he describes the death of emperors, good ones die and are mourned, bad often die in vividly described cowardly manner like Nero. Otho even redeems himself with a rather touching and noble death.

 

I agree it's maddening to try and figure out if isolated incidents are factually correct or not. But this misses a lot of the insight into the Roman mind which he has to offer. The tabloid portions make it easy to discount much of his story but throwing the whole work out as unreliable is mistaken. He had obvious access to letters by Augustus which he quotes (probably when he was still in service to Hadrian), Tiberius' autobiography and it's tough to discount his first person interviews for example with the boy servant present at Domitian's murder or with his father, who was a tribune in the 13th legion, commenting on Otho.

 

Seutonius is writing for a contemporary audience making subtle and not so sublte points that if we read it as a simple historical document to glean "just the facts ma'am" makes it far less satisfying, though admittedly interesting reading.