Suetonius 9781472540188

Citation preview

To J.M.W-H. and J.C.W-H.

Note to the Second Edition I have taken the opportunity of this reissue to correct a handful of slips and misprints. Since this book was written, much has been published on Suetonius, including two long studies by Barry ~aldwin'and Jacques ~ a s c o uIt. ~would be misleading to update the bibliography without rewriting the text, and I have not attempted to do so. My original aim was to get away from debates about the author, his career, and his literary quality, that I felt had become sterile, and to ask new questions about how we can use his imperial biographies as a window on the society, culture and ideology of the early empire. Since then, interest in Roman social and cultural history has grown markedly, and the dominance of Tacitean narrative history has been further eroded. I hope that the questions I asked about Suetonius remain relevant. A. Wallace-Hadrill

Reading 1995

1 2

Bany Baldwin (1983), Suetonius (Hakkert; Amsterdam). J. Gaswu (1984), Sdtone historien Gcole Franpise de Rome).

Preface Suetonius has never lacked readers. M a n y biographers of late antiquity and the early middle ages took him as their model. For us he remains one of the most informative and vivid sources for the history and society of the early empire. H e has been made popular in non-scholarly circles by numerous translators and adaptors, from Philemon Holland to Robert Graves. Yet he has enjoyed less than his due of serious study. There has been no full-length study of the author to supersede that of Alcide M a c i at the turn of the century, and to date no book on him of any sort in English. There are reasons why scholars have hesitated to take Suetonius seriously. Most important, he did not handle his Caesars in the fashion traditionally thought appropriate to a historical subject, through a narrative of great events. Matters of high state are neglected for intimate, even trivial, biographical details; and the material is presented not chronologically but 'gathered into titles and bundles', as Francis Bacon put it, whereby it seemed to him, as it has to others, 'more monstrous and incredible'.' T h e distinction between biography and historiography has not always proved a sufficient defence. But now fashions in the writing of history have changed and invite a reassessment of Suetonius. 'L'histoire CvCnementielle' has lost its position of dominance and topics like sex and superstition are no longer ones for which the serious historian need apologise. It would be rash to try to build Suetonius u p into a sort of precursor of the modern Annales school. Only by placing the author in the context of the intellectual and cultural currents of his own day can we begin to make sense of him. It is this which has been my main aim in this book. I have by no means touched on every aspect of the author which could be discussed. In particular I have abstained from the sort of literary analysis which has become common in recent Suetonian scholarship. Instead I have concentrated on reconstructing the social and cultural world of this scholar and 1 . The Advancement of Learning book 2 , ch.8.

Note on style of references References to the works of Suetonius are given where possible in the body of the text. Where the context leaves no doubt as to which life is under discussion, the title of the life is omitted and only chapter numbers are given. Other references and bibliography are given in the notes, usually at the end of a paragraph. Books and articles that bear directly on Suetonius are listed in the Bibliography at the end, and are referred to in the notes by author's name and date of publication. For editions of Suetonius see also Bibliography. Suetonian lives are abbreviated as follows: Jul. Aug. Tib. Cal. C1. Ner. Galb. 0th. Vit. Vesp. Tit. Dom. Gramm.

-

Divus Iulius Divus Augustus Tiberius Caligula Divus Claudius Nero Galba Otho Vitellius - Diuus Vespasianus - Divus Titus - Domitianus - de Grammaticis et Rhetoribus (the numeration is continuous as in Brugnoli's Teubner text. T h e Loeb text numbers the rhetors separately. Thus Gramm. 26 = Loeb On Rhetoricians 1 etc.)

No chapter or paragraph numbers are given for the lives of the poets since there is no agreed system of reference. Fragments of other works are cited from both the edition of Roth (Teubner 1858) and that of Reifferscheid (1860) as appropriate.

Chapter One

T H E MAN AND T H E STYLE Suetonius' de vita Caesarurn appeared within a decade or so of the accession of the emperor Hadrian in AD 117. No exact publication date can be fixed. T h e preface bore a dedication to one of Hadrian's current praetorian prefects, Septicius Clarus, and the author must still at the time have held office in the imperial secretariat as ab epistulis. Both officials were to lose their posts in an incident dated (though not on unimpeachable authority) to 122. But the eight volumes that contained the collection may well have appeared serially over the decade. Nor can we tell when composition commenced; and it should be remembered that the prevalent fashion of literary recitations may have allowed the Roman public a foretaste of the Caesars before publication.' Given the time of writing, there was a certain temerity in the enterprise. T h e work embraced the lives of twelve Caesars; from Julius, as precursor and eponym of the first imperial dynasty, to the last of the Flavii, Domitian. There decency required a halt; for though two further Caesars had reigned and died in the mean time, the formal ties of continuity between Nerva, Trajan and the reigning emperor were so strong that convention would have insisted on panegyrical treatment; and these lives were to be no panegyric. T h e temerity lay in touching again so soon on a topic recently covered by a classic of historiography. Tacitus' Histories, spanning the 1. T h e date of publication of the Caesars has been much debated. It is tied by the dedication to Septicius' refecture, but there is no agreement when that ended. T h e traditional dating oPSepticius' fall to 122 has recently been defended by Alfoldy (1979) and Syme (1980a) against the arguments of Crook (1957) and Gascou (1978) for 128 or later. Syme, Tacitus (1958) 780 (cf. 1980b, 120) pointed out that Tit.10.2 refers to Domitia Longina, the widow of Domitian, still alive in 126, in terms that suggest that she was by then dead. If Se ticius fell in 122, it may well be that later volumes were published after the all, as suggested by Townend (1959). T h e case put up by Bowersock (1969) that the last six lives were published first is refuted by Bradley (1973).

P

Chapter T w o

T H E SCHOLAR AND SOCIETY T h e sources create an accidental gulf between Suetonius the public figure - in his glory in the Hippo dedication, in disgrace in the life of Hadrian - and Tranquillus the scholar described by the Suda with his dismayingly long list of titles. Of the two, it is the scholar who is the less familiar figure. Only after the scholar and scholarship have been placed in their social context can we begin to make sense of the author and assess his output and the readership for which he wrote.

Studia in Pliny T h e younger Pliny recommended Suetonius to Trajan as probissimum honestissimum eruditissimum virum - 'a perfect gentleman and an excellent scholar'. T h e phrase is neatly tailored for this gentleman scholar, or so it might seem until an eye is cast over the language of Pliny's other recommendations. Almost exactly the same string of superlatives @mbissimum gravissimum eruditissimum) is applied to Sextus Erucius whose advancement in the senate Pliny backs (2.9.3). Sextus was the nephew of Septicius Clarus, and had an impressive enough career ahead: doubtless he was well-read, but there is no sign that he was an author as distinguished as Suetonius. Erudition and uprightness similarly recommend the young senator Asinius Bassus (4.1 5.7). Then there is a whole series of recommendations for preferment to equestrian military ranks, often the tribunate, and again and again Pliny points to their literary attainments: 'a great talent . . . erudite in pleading cases'; 'he loves learning'; 'I make use of his criticisms for my own writings'; 'his father was a great lover of learning'. In fact there are only three of Pliny's recommendations in which no mention of literary attainments is

Chapter T h r e e

THE SCHOLARLY BIOGRAPHER Suetonius came to the Caesars already an experienced biographer. T h e Lives oJ illustrious men was a classic in its own right; but it also in many respects laid the basis for the Caesars, determining the author's method and approach. It was, we may well feel, a strange background for a biographer of emperors. T o Suetonius, as to his many Greek and Roman predecessors, 'the illustrious' meant primarily notable authors. H e named the most important of his predecessors in his preface: Hermippus, who wrote 'lives of distinguished literary figures'; Antigonus, biographer of philosophers; Satyrus, part of whose life of Euripides has been discovered on papyrus; and Aristoxenus, an authority on music as well as a literary biographer. His Roman predecessors are named as Varro, Santra, Nepos and Hyginus. It is true that Nepos included generals in his series of famous men (it is primarily the section on Greek generals that happens to survive)', and Hyginus at least wrote on Scipio Africanus. Still, on the whole it was authors of whom they wrote, and Varro restricted himself to poets.' Literary lives

Many have regretted the loss of Suetonius' Illustrious men, and with good reason. Much scholarly energy has been expended on attempts to 'reconstruct' the lives, above all the lives of the poets. Some of the most important can be partly salvaged, for it is clear that some of the biographies of poets prefaced to the ancient 1. T h e names of S's predecessors are reserved in Jerome's preface to his own de Viri,i lllustribus = ReiKerscheid !,I, All are discussed by Leo (1901). T h e Greek tradition is discussed by Mornigliano (1971) esp. 73ff. For Satyrus' L y e of Euripides, see Italo Gallo, 'La vita di Euripide di Satiro e gli studi sulla biografia antica', Parola del Passato 113 (1967) 134fT. On the title of S's work, see Brugnoli (1968) 41ff., arguing that it may have been Catalogus uirorum illustrium.

Chapter Four

T H E SCHOLAR AT COURT T h e Caesars was dedicated by Hadrian's secretary ab epistu1i.r to his praetorian prefect. Between them, the two men held two of the most important posts in the emperor's service. It is fair to speculate that it was through holding this post that Suetonius was emboldened to turn his pen to the Caesars. Certainly these biographies are not simply the product of armchair scholarship out of touch with the realities of public life. On the contrary they are written by one with experience of emperors and their business, and for readers no less experienced. But where does this show? Suetonius the official is not so readily pinned down as Tranquillus the scholar. It is not easy to establish what views and mentality characterise the imperial official. W e are beguiled into supposing that we understand the imperial service by the innumerable career inscriptions that survive like the Hippo inscription on Suetonius himself. T h e limitations of this sort of evidence are formidable: inscriptions tell us what posts people held, not why they were given them, what they had to do, how the system worked or how those within the system viewed life. It is all too tempting to operate by analogy from other bureaucratic systems. Too often the assumptions derived from analogy prove deceptive.' T w o alternative approaches to the question may be conceived. T h e first, adumbrated in the imaginative book of della Corte, is to work from a preconceived notion of what the views of an official ought to have been, and look for traces of them in his work. It is a 1. T h e most comprehensive survey of the imperial administration remains 0. Hirschfeld, Die Kaiserlichen Verwaltungsbeamten2(1905). T h e epigraphic evidence for officials is collected in the massive studies of H.G. Pllaum, I,es Carril.resprocuratoriennes iquestres (1960-1) for equestrians, and G. Boulvert, Esclaves et Affranchis Impiriaux (1970) for freedmen. Strong pleas have been made by a series of scholars against inferring a systematic and bureaucratic nature for the imperial service. See particularly Millar, Emperor 59fT., and R.P. Saller, Personal Pafronage under the Early Empire (1982) esp. 79ff.

Chapter Five

EMPERORS AND SOCIETY There is little problem in recognising the social standpoint from which Tacitus or the younger Pliny write. They were senators, and the senate occupies the centre of their universe. A disproportionate amount of the Annals (many have felt) is given to what went on in the senate. In the assessment of a ruler, his attitude to senate and senators is crucial: to be 'good' is to be good by senatorial lights. 'What is more civil, more senatorial than the title we (senators) gave you - Optimus, the Excellent?" Suetonius was not a senator, and his viewpoint is not so easy to identify. At least, there has been widespread disagreement among modern scholars as to the social standpoint he does represent. Many were content to recognise 'the familiar illusions of the senatorial circle', until a book appeared under the title Svetonio: eques Romanus with the vigorously argued thesis that the eques Romanus had a distinctive approach. Representative of the piccolo equestre (the phrase suggests petit bourgeois), Suetonius had broken free from the senatorial influence of his patron Pliny and wrote as the spokesman of a new generation of civil servants, convinced of the practical advantages of autocracy and free from the traditionalism that hankered after the republic and senatorial government. T h e thesis is controversial, and met with little approval. One scholar even countered with the suggestion that Suetonius represents the 'man in the street', the reader of the gutter press with a taste for the sensational and ~ o r d i d . ~ 1. On the traditional senatorial domination of historiogra hy, see e.g. E. Badian, 'The early historians', in T.E. Dore (ad.) Latin dstorions (1966) Iff.On the senatorial ideology summed up in &iny'. Panegyric, see the edition of M. Durry (1938) 21 ff.; also F. Trisoglio, La Personalitd di Plinio il Giouane (Mern.Ac.Sc.Torino. CI.Sc.Mor.ser.4,vo1.25, 1972) 78ff. 2. A senatorial viewpoint is detected in S b H. Peter, Die geschichtliche Literature iiber die r h i s c h e Kaiserieit 2 (1897);70, followed by Mack (1900)

Chapter Six

T H E EMPEROR'S JOB Roman narrative historians have disappointed modern scholars by their accounts of imperial administration. Too Rome-centred, obsessed with the activities of the senate, they have been felt to make too little of the basic task of the emperor in administering a vast empire. An imperial secretary like Suetonius, it might be hoped, should know better. But does he?' Administration in the Caesars

T o his credit, Suetonius understands that emperors were administrators. H e asks himself 'What sort of a man did he prove in positions of power and in running the state in peace and war? (Aug. 61.1), or 'What was his record in the administration of the empire?' (Dom. 3.2). His rubric system offers a promising framework within which to answer these questions. Partly his assessment is in terms of virtues and vices. More will be said of these moral categories in the next chapter. But an equal weight is given to the analysis of imperial activities under morally neutral categories2 With the grammarian's tidiness of mind, he breaks up the subject into its component parts. H e subdivides geographically: there is the running of the City, of Italy, and of the provinces and dependent kingdoms. H e subdivides socially: treatment of the senate, the 1. O n the emperor's administrative role, see Millar, En1 eror passim, developing at length his argument from 'Emperors at work', h S 57 (1967)

OFF ..-. 2. 'Administration of the empire' is a Suetonian category of thought, though i t covers more than the chapters here under discussion. Administrare or administratio are used in rubrics at Aug. 46, Cl. 25.5, Vit. 12 and Dom. 3.2. Alternatively S speaks of 'ruling' the em ire. thus Aug. 61.1, qualis

in . . regenda . . refiubiicajuerit exfiosui. Note a k ;he use 01 expressions like 'setting the state in order': Jul. 40.1 conuersus hinc ad ordinandum reipublicae statum.

Chapter Seven

VIRTUES AND VICES Suetonius' sympathy goes to the emperor who performs his administrative functions properly; who accepts the hierarchy and traditions of Roman society, strengthens and enhances them; who maintains public order and morals; and who passes on to his successor the res publica of his ancestors, purged of its faults and improved by new institutions. But this is only half the story. There is another, ethical dimension to his portrayal of a Caesar in his public capacity. Was he virtuous or vicious? It is only after minute examination of his record in certain areas of moral behaviour that a Caesar is finally assessed. Was he clement, or cruel? Liberal, or mean and grasping? Civil, or arrogant? Continent, or self-indulgent, luxurious and lustful? These are the polarities in terms of which emperor after emperor is judged. Some - h g u s t u s and Titus - rate highly on all counts. Others - Caligula, Galba andmVitellius- are all black. But the majority lie in between with mixed records, either virtuous in some respects and vicious in others, or less virtuous at the start, only to degenerate to vice.' 1. Suetonian virtues and vices are analysed by Mouchova (1968) 42-51, more briefly by Steidle (1951) 112. Since the observation that his categories are limited in number is important for the argument, the breakdown of the individual lives is worth recording. Julius: 54, avarice; 73-5, clemency and moderation; 76-9, arrogance. Augustus: 41-3, liberality; 51-6, clemency and civility. Tiberius: 26-32, civility; 42-5, luxury and lust; 46-9, avarice; 50-62, cruelty. Cali ula: 22-35, pride and cruelty; 36-7, luxury, 38-42, rapacity. Nero: 10, initially iberal, clement and genial; 26-31, luxury and lust; 32, avarice: 33-8, cruelty. Galba: 12 and 14.2-15, cruelty and avarice. Vitellius: 10-1 1, greed, cruelty, insolence. Vespasian: 12-1 5, civility and clemency; 16-19, liberal or rapacious? Domitian: 9, initial clemency and liberality; 10-11, cruelty; 12.1-2, rapacity; 12.3-13, incivilit . T h e structure of the life of Titus is apparently chiastic: 6-7.1, suspecte cruelty, incivility, luxury, rapacity; 7.2-9, in fact proves modest (7.2), liberal (7.3-8.1), genial (8.2), clement (8.3-9). Otho and Claudius are the only absentees (see below).

7

tY

Chapter Eight

EMPERORS AND CULTURE Suetonius' picture of the private lives of the Caesars has attracted by its lively detail the many who have turned to it for entertainment. But to the serious-minded it has long been a stumbling-block. Can we take seriously an author who writes about such subjects, or in such a manner?' It does Suetonius ill justice to cast him as the writer of a chronique scandaleuse. Whether as scholar, antiquarian or biographer he was interested in how people live. Private life was no less legitimate a subject for biography than public life. If he reports that Augustus had a taste, pandered to by Livia, for deflowering virgins (71.1), there is no more reason to suppose that he had an eye to a prurient readership than when he reports that the same emperor had a fondness for green figs (76.1), composed epigrams in the bath (85.2), or carried a piece of seal-skin as a protection against lightning (90). Such detail was the traditional stuff of biography in antiquity (nor will it come as a surprise to modern biographers). Habits of eating, drinking and sexual behaviour, cultural interests and religious practices were very much conventional topic^.^ 1. Robert Graves' lively translation of the Caesars (first published in the Penguin Classics series in 1957, reissued with an introduction by Michael Grant in 1979) has played a large part in spreading S's popularity in the English-speaking world. His novels I, Claudil~sand Claudius the Cod (1934), however, with their numerous dramatisations which draw heavily (but not exclusively) on S have been more influential. T h e example of professional distaste for gossip in S cited above, ch.1, n.37, is an extreme one, but the point of view remains widespread amon scholars: thus Paratore (1959) 341; Syme, Tacitus 502; Flach (1972) 288. Fhere have been several opponents of this attitude, but their tone is on the whole apologetic: thus Mooney (1930) 24f. Gugel (1977) 73IT. sets out to analyse the 'Erotica' at length: his search for artistic variations does not seem to me a profitable line of approach. Bradley in his Commentary on the Nero 153f. thinks of the market for gossip. 2. See above ch.3. It is interesting to compare the account ot' Atticus' private life in Nepos' Life, 13-18.

Epilogue

PAST AND PRESENT Any author who looks back to the past is liable to find reflected in it the present he knows. If he looks for lessons 01- exempla, they will be ones with relevance for his contemporaries. This indeed was a justification Romans conventionally offered for the writing of history. T h e scholarly Suetonius distanced himself from the goals of the historian, and his Caesars do not pretend to a didactic purpose. Yet the present might still have its relevance. Contemporary preoccupations might lie behind his choice of material and the questions he sought to answer. There might too be quite irrational echoes, when the past proved to anticipate and foreshadow current events or personalities. Such echoes have been detected in the Caesars. In particular it is tempting to catch fleeting glimpses of Hadrian behind Suetonius' descriptions of his predecessors. There are striking similarities. Suspicion surrounded the circumstances of Hadrian's imperial proclamation. His adoption was only announced as Trajan lay dying: there were those who believed he had died before the announcement, and that his wife Plotina concealed the truth. Similar suspicions surrounded the accession of Tiberius: had he reached the bedside of the dying Augustus in time, or had Livia deceived the public by false bulletins? Tacitus hinted at the worst, and some modern scholars see in this a conscious reminiscence of Hadrian's accession. Suetonius goes out of his way to rebut malicious rumours about Tiberius. H e cites, seemingly for the first time, Augustus' own correspondence (Tib. 21); and he draws on a source who could describe intimately, and therefore to all appearances authentically, the last moments and words of the old emperor (Aug. 98-9). It could be interpreted as a gesture of loyal support by Hadrian's ab epistulis.' 1. O n Hadrianic echoes in the Caesars see the judicious discussion of Townend (1959) 290f. Carney (1968) speculates on the basis of hints of personal agreements and disagreements between author and emperor. See also Cizek (1977) 181-92.