I am pretty sure you are aware of such websites like “Lifewire”,”Ebizmba” or that despicable, inhuman, uh “TMZ”. Usually those damned places of internet have only one point, to bad-mouth usually esteemed people. With but a click of a mouse, you can find all sort of information about literally everyone, both the good ones and bad as well. Since the dawn of the times people had to rely on grapevine form of gossips. If a foreign king intended to invade your country, chances are, you didn’t even had time to properly react. Your house would be burned to the ground, with you taking a pleasant bath in a nearby lake. That’s why, two thousand years ago that is, you’d better know who is ruling which kingdom. True, there was something called acta diurna introduced back in 131 BC, which were basically a daily gazette, but quite official with no sparks of excitement (Tough Suetonius in his research, managed to turn them into the hottest news ever ). So, the first, and the most obvious, solution would be to go to the nearest library. However, as an illiterate and not really patient person that do not wish to waste his time, browsing through annals, you need to find more easy, and, dare I say, amusing way to learn more about politics and history. That’s where “Lifewire” or “Ebizmba” could come in handy, but who need those, when you have “The Twelve Caesars”!
When this book was published, the Empire stood strong and powerful under the reign of mighty imperator Traianus Augustus. With the glory of the previous Caesars intact, and no fear or danger of war, a young equestrian came about with an innovative idea. Well, maybe not innovative since it has been done hundreds of times before, but well needed nonetheless. In comparison to previous works of that matter, he did however, introduced one crucial factor that has never been seen before (or it was better not to see it). He basically created a mix between a grandiloquent relation of some rich aristocrat and jokes told on the dirty streets of suburra. Needless to say, he took the best part of them both and created one of the most genuine historical book in the history of human kind. You might ask, what’s so special about it? You ain’t gonna say you don’t love them tons of anecdotes and juicy gossips about glorious imperators, are you? Everybody love them! To that end dear Suetonius studied diligently all of the previous historian’s books, gather relations from various people, read acta diurna and, probably the most dangerous of the all, expressed his own opinion. For all of us who love mater Roma (no pun intended), this guy is a must to read.
As mentioned before, Suetonius had the pleasure to live during relatively peaceful times of the pax romana. With the reign of vicious Domitian long being a thing of the past, Suetonius felt that it is now a safe time to write down history of Caesars. An honest, forthright and most importantly not mendacious relations, staying true to all details, even the most horrible ones. Surely, that idea could never be fulfilled even few years before. Fortunately for Suetonius, he had a very influential friend Pliny the Younger and even befriended emperors Trajan and Hadrian. It is hard not to compare this situation to one of a kid playing on the playground. Laughing and clearly having tons of fun out on the field. How could not Suetonius took advantage of that possibility?
I still remember my first time reading this piece of art. I’ve been preparing myself for a long, cold journey to England. Being a young, stupid joker pushing 13, I wandered into library in my small dark hometown and found light in a book written almost 2000 years ago. You could say, that I had chosen the best possible companion to those wet, misty soils of Britain. For a mere thought of Julius Caesar’s power and supreme tactic skills I felt chills going down my spine. I mean seriously, in the battle of Alesia, he both defended himself against hordes of Gauls attacking his camp, and at the same time conducted a siege against a city. And remember, he didn’t even have more troops than his enemies, in fact he was severely outnumbered. He even had time to write down his thought about all of this in his “The conquest of Gaul.” So let me be clear now, I don’t want to spoil the fun for you. Finding all of those juicy details is the main reason why you should indulge yourself in the lecture. Just imagine yourself reading about the conquest of Germania and lost in Teutoburg forest during the reign of the emperor Octavian just to find his passion about weird comparisons involving asparagus in the next page. You can’t help but to laugh, and considering that, in fact, Suetonius work is a historical annals, (written by non-historian by the way) is one hell of an accomplishment.
Most of the scholars agree, that if it wasn’t for Suetonius, most of the well-known figures would remain a mystery for us, and the absolutely legendary personas like Divus Gaius Julius Caesar or Divus Vespasianus would just remain statues of history, with no character, no trivia, no fun-facts, no latin catch phrases like Veni, Vini, Vici. And when you just realize that only one copy, ONE FREAKING COPY, was found in some no-name French monastery, it just hits, how close it was for dear Suetonius’ work to be completely forgotten in the depth of despair, sometimes also called – the History. Fortunately for us, she proved to be gracious in a most ironic twists possible.
Atrium Libertatis 