Gaius Suetonius, De vita Caesarum [Lives of the Caesars]

Remy Poignault (Université de CLERMONT-FERRAND 2)

Ed. by Sophia Papaioannou, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.1.2: Ancient Roman Writing and Culture (Republic and Empire), -750-476.
Vol. editors: William John Dominik (University of Otago), Giacomo Fedeli (University of Exeter), Thomas Habinek (University of Southern California), Emily Kneebone (University of Nottingham), Elodie Paillard (University of Sydney), Sophia Papaioannou (National and Kapodistrian University of Athens), Jula Wildberger (The American University of Paris)

Dates

First circulation or publication 121

Places

Ancient Rome (Republic & Empire) (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Non-Fiction
- Biography (literary)

Resources

The Lives of the Caesars establishes Suetonius literary profile as a biographer: it is possible to discern, according to Leo (1901), an influence coming from the tradition of Alexandrian biography, which favored a precise style that was devoted to men of letters, and was opposite to the character-centered biography of the Peripatetics (the philosophical biography to which Plutarch would be the heir). Matters, nonetheless, are not so clear-cut, and the third-century BC peripatetic Satyrus’ Life of Euripides discovered since Leo’s assessment shows that Alexandrian biography did evolve in the centuries prior to Suetonius. Suetonius also borrows from the Roman tradition of funeral oration, which centered on the …

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2816 words

Citation: Poignault, Remy. "De vita Caesarum". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 21 February 2014 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=13471, accessed 25 November 2024.]

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