by Suetonius
FURTHER READING
For those eager to read more of Suetonius, I recommend D. W. Hurley’s translation The Caesars (Indianapolis, 2011). The Loeb Classical Library translation by J. C. Rolfe, now available online on the wonderful website Lacus Curtius, is excellent too. Robert Graves’ Penguin Classics version (available in various editions) is a pleasure to read but much freer. The work of Hurley, Rolfe, and Graves alike has been very helpful to me in preparing the translation for this volume.
For more on Suetonius himself, start with A. Wallace-Hadrill, Suetonius: The Scholar and His Caesars (London, 1983), and then read T. Power and R. K. Gibson (eds.), Suetonius the Biographer (Oxford, 2014). On the development of biography see N. Hamilton, Biography: A Brief History (Cambridge, MA and London, 2007).
There are many good modern books on the Caesars. T. Holland’s Dynasty: The Rise and Fall of the House of Caesar (New York, 2015) offers a lively overview of the period covered here, with a particularly vivid chapter on Caligula. Other readable studies include B. Strauss, Ten Caesars: Roman Emperors from Augustus to Constantine (New York, 2019); A. Goldsworthy, Caesar: Life of a Colossus (New Haven, 2006); P. Freeman, Julius Caesar (New York, 2008); B. Levick, Tiberius the Politician (repr. London and New York, 1999); A. A. Barrett, Caligula: The Corruption of Power (New Haven, 1990); A. Winterling, Caligula: A Biography (Berkeley, 2011); M. Griffin, Nero: The End of A Dynasty (New Haven, 1985); and E. Champlin, Nero (Cambridge, MA and London, 2003). Also recommended are G. Woolf, Et tu, Brute?: The Murder of Caesar and Political Assassination (London, 2007); J. Romm, Dying Every Day: Seneca at the Court of Nero (New York, 2014); and B. Strauss, The Death of Caesar (New York, 2015).
I have based the Latin text in this book on M. Ihm’s Teubner edition of 1908, De vita Caesarum libri (Leipzig). Readers looking for the latest, and best, Latin text should use R. A. Kaster’s magnificent C. Suetoni Tranquilli de vita Caesarum libros VIII (Oxford, 2016), along with its accompanying volume Studies on the Text of Suetonius De vita Caesarum (Oxford, 2016). I have followed Kaster at several points (Tib. 40, 52.1; Nero 20.2, 45.2) where his proposed reading strikes me as a significant improvement on Ihm.