translated by Tom Holland
Think what there is in the name. We acknowledge such historic dynasties as the Tudors, the Medicis, the Hapsburgs. Yet none commands a fraction of the awe inspired by the Caesars. Unworthy and barbarous though many of Rome’s emperors were, they held sway over most of the known world then. No armies in the succeeding 1,000 years outdid their legions at their zenith. No European civilization before the Renaissance matched their culture and engineering skills.
Tom Holland is a master popularizer of the ancients, and his new translation of Suetonius sustains his reputation. In its introduction he describes the 2nd-century author as “a presiding genius over an entire new way of producing and consuming drama”. Holland likens Suetonius’s stories of the first 12 Caesars to modern TV’s Dynasty and The Sopranos.
