Suetonius

Suetonius (c.69 - after 122), full name Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, was a Roman historian and writer. He practised as an advocate in Rome in the reign of Trajan. He was a friend of the Younger Pliny, became private secretary to the emperor Hadrian, but was deprived of this post through an indiscretion. He wrote several books, but chiefly remembered for "De vita Caesarum" (The lives of the First Twelve Caesars"). The "Lives of the Twelve Cæsars" is the chief of those extant beginning with Julius Cæsar and ending with Domitian, a work which relates a great number of anecdotes illustrating the characters of the emperors.

Wisdom & Quotes

• Nero's mother turned him from the study of philosophy, warning that it was contrary to the needs of one destined to rule.

- Nero, in Lives of the Caesars

• Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.

– Lives of the Twelve Cæsars

• Twenty-three dagger thrusts went home as he stood there. Caesar did not utter a sound after Casca's blow had drawn a groan from him; though some say that when he saw Marcus Brutus about to deliver the second blow, he reproached him in Greek with: "You, too, my child?"

– Julius Caesar, Lives of the Twelve Cæsars

• No one was allowed to leave the theatre during his recitals, however pressing the reason. We read of women in the audience giving birth, and of men being so bored with listening and applauding that they furtively dropped down from the wall at the rear, since the gates were kept barred, or shammed dead and were carried away for burial.

– Nero, Lives of the Twelve Cæsars

• Nero watched the conflagration from the Tower of Maecenas, enraptured by what he called "the beauty of the flames"; then put on his tragedian's costume and sang The Sack of Ilium from beginning to end.

– Nero, Lives of the Twelve Cæsars

• Dead! And so great an artist!

– Nero, Lives of the Twelve Cæsars (Suetonius represents this as Nero's exclamation when he had resolved to kill himself, but not as his last words.)

• Titus complained of the tax which Vespasian had imposed on the contents of the city urinals. Vespasian handed him a coin which had been part of the first day's proceeds: "Does it smell bad?" he asked. And when Titus said "No" he went on: "Yet it comes from urine."

– Vespasian, Lives of the Twelve Cæsars

• One evening at dinner, realizing that he had done nobody any favour throughout the entire day, he spoke these memorable words: "My friends, I have wasted a day."

– Titus, Lives of the Twelve Cæsars

• These innovations in the customs and principles of our forefathers do not please us nor seem proper.

– The Lives of Illustrious Men

Clement I