Collected Papers on Suetonius

This collection of essays by a leading authority on Suetonius, one of our most significant historical sources for the early Roman Empire, provides an in-depth examination of his works, whose literary value has in the past been overlooked.

Although Suetonius is well known for his Lives of emperors such as Caligula and Nero, he is rarely studied in his own right, aside from grammatical or textual commentaries. This is the first volume by an expert on the author to make him accessible to a wider audience, looking at his biographies not only of emperors but also poets, and discovering new contemporary evidence for Jesus from one of Suetonius? first-century sources. Other writers discussed include Homer, Sophocles, Catullus, Virgil, Horace, Curtius Rufus, Josephus, Plutarch, Pliny the Younger, Tacitus, Juvenal, and Cassius Dio. The book contains thirty-two papers in all, eleven of which are new, which examine Suetonius? neglected historical value and literary skills, and offer textual conjectures on both the Illustrious Men and Lives of the Caesars. It also has a new introduction and represents over a dozen years of research on an essential Latin source for Roman history.

Collected Papers on Suetonius provides an invaluable resource for students and researchers working on Suetonius. It also has broader significance for anyone studying Roman imperial history and culture, Latin literature, and classical historiography.

Introduction: Suetonius’ Early Life in Pliny’s Letters; PART I Illustrious Men; 1 Pliny, Letters 5.10 and the Literary Career of Suetonius; 2 Two Acrostics by Late Republican Poets in Suetonius; 3 Calvus’ Poetry in Suetonius and Pliny, Letters 5.3; 4 Horace and the Gladiators Bithus and Bacchius; 5 Juvenal, Satires 3.74 and Suetonius; 6 The Orator Memmius in Suetonius; 7 The Sister of Passienus Crispus; 8 Suetonius and the Date of Curtius Rufus; PART II Poetic Allusions; 9 Poetry and Fiction in Suetonius’ Illustrious Men; 10 Caesar and Sophocles’ Electra; 11 Pyrrhus and Priam in Suetonius’ Tiberius; 12 Claudius’ Homeric Quotation; 13 Galba, Onesimus, and Servitude; 14 Priam and Pompey in Suetonius’ Galba; 15 Galba and Priam in Tacitus’ Histories
16 The Servants’ Taunt: Homer and Suetonius’ Galba; PART III Textual Conjectures; 17 Suetonius, De grammaticis 13.118 Suetonius, Iul. 49.2 and Galb. 20.1; 19 Augustus’ Mime of Life (Suetonius, Aug. 99.1); 20 Nero in Furs (Suet. Ner. 29); 21 Oedipal Nero: The Farewell Kiss; 22 Suetonius, Galba 1: Beginning or Ending?; 23 Vespasian’s Sexual Iliad; 24 Helvidius Priscus in Suetonius, Domitian 10.3; PART IV Suetonius and History; 25 Suetonius’ Tacitus; 26 The Disgrace of Suetonius; 27 Caligula and the Bludgeoned Priest; 28 The Conspirator against Caligula; 29 Jesus’ Flight into Egypt in Suetonius; 30 Nero’s Cannibal (Suetonius, Nero 37.2); 31 Nero’s Amazons, Sporus, and Alexander; 32 Vitellius and the Baker and Cook

Tristan Power has taught Classics at Columbia University and is the co-editor of Suetonius the Biographer: Studies in Roman Lives (2014). He has also published on the Roman poet Catullus.