Chapters like “The Deified Julius Caesar” and “The Deified Augustus” are so named because very early on it became customary for the Senate to declare particularly well-favored emperors as gods after their deaths (hence Emperor Vespasian’s famous quip when he was dying, “Alas! I think I’m becoming a god” ).Įach biography begins with a description of its subject’s family background and childhood with the exception of “The Deified Julius Caesar.” They continue with an account of their personal appearance and characteristics and the Caesar’s actions, and conclude with an account of their death. Each biography is named after their subject. Later emperors who were not at all related to the Julio-Claudians continued using “Caesar” as one of their titles. Even though Julius Caesar was never emperor, it is titled The Twelve Caesars or Lives of the Caesars because the first emperors of the Julio-Claudian dynasty were his extended family by blood, marriage, or adoption, so they used his surname or cognomen as Caesar. Rather than being a straightforward historical narrative like the works of Tacitus or Cassius Dio, The Twelve Caesars is organized as a group of separate biographies. Because of this, historians of ancient Rome usually agree that Suetonius is reliable overall but should be read with a critical eye. Also, many of Suetonius’s key claims are corroborated by other historical sources. Nonetheless, as someone who worked in the imperial archives, Suetonius would have had complete access to a wealth of first-hand materials, like letters, memoirs, wills, political decrees, and so on, dating back to the time of Julius Caesar, and he often cites such sources. Finally, it should be noted that Suetonius only lived through the lives of the last five emperors he described the first subject of The Twelve Caesars, Julius Caesar, died just under a century before he was born. Also, The Twelve Caesars is well-known for its lurid, gossipy content, suggesting that Suetonius was not too careful in considering the biases of his sources or the plausibility of certain stories. After all, it was Domitian’s assassination that paved the way for Trajan to become emperor, and Hadrian was Trajan’s chosen successor and relative by marriage.

As someone working for Trajan and Hadrian, he likely had a political motive in making the emperor Domitian (reigned 81-96 CE) look bad.

This is partly because Suetonius clearly has a bias as a member of the Roman aristocracy. Historians still debate how reliable The Twelve Caesars is.

The Twelve Caesars by Suetonius