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The Lives of the Twelve Caesars #1
Julius Caesar
This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.
88 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 121
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About the author
Suetonius
543 books242 followersGaius Suetonius Tranquillus, commonly known as Suetonius (ca. 69/75 - after 130), was a Roman historian belonging to the equestrian order in the early Imperial era. His most important surviving work is a set of biographies of twelve successive Roman rulers, from Julius Caesar until Domitian, entitled De Vita Caesarum. Other works by Suetonius concern the daily life of Rome, politics, oratory, and the lives of famous writers, including poets, historians, and grammarians. A few of these books have partially survived, but many are entirely lost.
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Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews
April 20, 2017
Wow, That was Hilarious and stunning ! !
It was comprised around Great consul of Ancient Roman Empire whose life and way of life still fresh and pacify ....
Lovely experience while reading,which utterly personified with specification regarding the journey of Caesar.
However, I've read about Caius Julius Caesar throughout my life since reading Julius Caesar play in my schooling.
Even though, I find some peculiar things as always about the Great Caesar and his Greatness.
As we have known that many of Great persons, who enlighten their name in History after Caesar.
They all were went through all the speculations of Caesar and tactfulness at different situations in life.
Eloquent, High degree commander, Superficial politicians , Art loving and Lover too.
It was comprised around Great consul of Ancient Roman Empire whose life and way of life still fresh and pacify ....
Lovely experience while reading,which utterly personified with specification regarding the journey of Caesar.
However, I've read about Caius Julius Caesar throughout my life since reading Julius Caesar play in my schooling.
Even though, I find some peculiar things as always about the Great Caesar and his Greatness.
As we have known that many of Great persons, who enlighten their name in History after Caesar.
They all were went through all the speculations of Caesar and tactfulness at different situations in life.
Eloquent, High degree commander, Superficial politicians , Art loving and Lover too.
December 19, 2018
The name of Julius Caesar is synonymous with the rise of the Roman Empire. And for good reason, as Roman biographer Suetonius relates about Caesar: “On seeing a statue of Alexander the Great in the temple of Hercules, he sighed deeply, as if weary of his sluggish life, for having performed no memorable actions at an age at which Alexander had already conquered the world.”
Indeed, Caesar the general refused to stop with military victories; he wanted much more - he wanted to be sole ruler of everything. You will not find a livelier account of the life of Julius Caesar than in Suetonius. Below are several passages from the text along with my brief comments:
“From this period he declined no occasion of war, however unjust and dangerous; attacking, without any provocation, as well the allies of Rome as the barbarous nations which were its enemies: insomuch, that the senate passed a decree for sending commissioners to examine into the condition of Gaul; and some members even proposed that he should be delivered up to the enemy.” ----------- Roman aristocrats and senators learned the hard way there are unanticipated consequences in sending out generals and professional armies to loot the world.
“In his speeches, he never addressed them by the title of "Soldiers," but by the kinder phrase of "Fellow-soldiers;" and kept them in such splendid order, that their arms were ornamented with silver and gold, not merely for parade, but to render the soldiers more resolute to save them in battle, and fearful of losing them. He loved his troops to such a degree, that when he heard of the defeat of those under Titurius, he neither cut his hair nor shaved his beard, until he had revenged it upon the enemy; by which means he engaged their devoted affection, and raised their valor to the highest pitch.”---------- Suetonius gives us a vivid account of how Caesar transformed his soldier’s allegiance to their country to allegiance to him as their commander. Ah, the power of human charisma.
“With money raised from the spoils of the war, he began to construct a new forum, the ground-plot of which cost him above a hundred millions of sesterces. He promised the people a public entertainment of gladiators, and a feast in memory of his daughter, such as no one before him had ever given. . . . He issued an order, that the most celebrated gladiators, if at any time during the combat they incurred the displeasure of the public, should be immediately carried off by force . . . . Wrestlers likewise performed for three days successively, in a stadium provided for the purpose in the Campus Martius. A lake having been dug, ships of the Egyptian fleets, containing two, three, and four banks of oars, with a number of men on board, afforded an animated representation of a sea-fight. ---------- Nothing like winning over the civilian population by providing them with entertainment on a spectacularly grand scale. And what entertainment – feasting and extreme violence, two ultimate Roman turn-ons.
“He meditated the construction of a temple to Mars, which should exceed in grandeur everything of that kind in the world.” --------- As a conquering general, one sure-fire way to silence any opposition to your plundering and brutality: link your action to a divinity and your culture’s mythology and religion.
“He accommodated the year to the course of the sun, ordaining that in future it should consist of three hundred and sixty-five days without any intercalary month; and that every fourth year an intercalary day should be inserted.” ---------- Turns out, we have Julius Caesar to thank for our modern twelve month calendar.
“It is admitted by all that he was much addicted to women, as well as very expensive in his intrigues with them, and that he debauched many ladies of the highest quality.” ---------- Is it any surprise Caesar was addicted to sex as he was addicted to the violence of battle? Sigmund Freud and modern psychology has much to say about the close connection of these two passions.
“He even suffered some honors to be decreed to him, which were unbefitting the most exalted of mankind; such as a gilded chair of state in the senate-house and on his tribunal, a consecrated chariot, and banners in the Circensian procession, temples, altars, statues among the gods, a bed of state in the temples, a priest, and a college of priests dedicated to himself, like those of Pan; and that one of the months should be called by his name.” ---------- True to form for an ancient tyrant, Caesar wanted to be granted the status of a god. I wonder what Caesar was thinking about his godlike status when he realized he was about to be stabbed to death, even by the knife of his son Brutus?
Suetonius available on-line: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/6400/6...
July 25, 2017
-Desde el cariño aunque con algún que otro “pero”.-
Género. Biografía.
Lo que nos cuenta. El libro Julio César (publicación original: Divus Julius, comienzos del siglo II de nuestra era) es el primero de los libros del autor dedicado a las vidas de los once primeros emperadores de la Antigua Roma más el protagonista de éste, Julio César, que narra su vida con respeto aparente más algún recadito.
¿Quiere saber más de este libro, sin spoilers? Visite:
http://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com/...
Género. Biografía.
Lo que nos cuenta. El libro Julio César (publicación original: Divus Julius, comienzos del siglo II de nuestra era) es el primero de los libros del autor dedicado a las vidas de los once primeros emperadores de la Antigua Roma más el protagonista de éste, Julio César, que narra su vida con respeto aparente más algún recadito.
¿Quiere saber más de este libro, sin spoilers? Visite:
http://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com/...
December 11, 2018
The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire meets the National Enquirer! I would doubt the target audience would be for those schooled in the classics. Doubtless they have already read it and it is more a chatty exploration of the Caesars’ foibles (and crimes) than a work of history, e.g., Tacitus. I found it an amazing litany of villainy – amazing in the breadth of criminal actions but also that such information was recorded and is still available. In a way it is reassuring that as bad as our politics are now (and one quails at the thought of Trump being given carte blanche like a Caesar), it could be a LOT worse.
It was written by Suetonius in 119 AD, a member of the Roman political establishment and eventually a secretary to Emperor Hadrian. That he was dismissed for alleged dalliance with the Empress is consistent with the stupefying litany of Imperial misdeeds. Ranging from mere peccadilloes, to grand (or better said Imperial) larceny, to murdering wives, mothers, siblings…basically anyone the Emperor wished to have murdered. Only Julius Caesar, Augustus, Vespasian, and Titus struck me as being competent and not excessively homicidally inclined. The rest were an awful parade of monsters, so much so that I found myself wishing for the Visigoths to hurry up and sack the place. He does cover their more memorable policy and political achievements (and failures). And there are some wonderfully ludicrous omens, but it is the particularly personal vignettes that capture attention.
Caligula was said to have “lived in habitual incest with his sisters” though he “loved” only one, the others he “…often prostituted to his favorites.” Of his many marriages, “Is it not easy to decide whether in his marriages he acted more basely in contracting them, in repudiating them, or in continuing them.” He attended one marriage, had the bride taken to his house, then “divorced her in a few days.” As to his murderous depravity, “At one of his more sumptuous banquets he suddenly burst into a fit of laughter, and when the Consuls, who were reclining next to him, politely inquired at what he was laughing, he replied: ‘What do you suppose, except that at a single nod of mine both of you could have your throats cut on the spot?’” I would guess a modern day equivalent would be a guest a private dinner with Joe Stalin.
Most of us think of Caligula and Nero in terms of sexual depravity, but they had rivals, Tiberius for instance. “In his retreat at Capri...he had assembled from all quarters girls and perverts, whom he called spintriae, who invented monstrous feats of lubricity and defiled one another before him, interlaced in series of threes, in order to inflame his feeble appetite.”
There were some lighter moments, or at least, revelations of foibles that made the Caesars more human. For instance, Julius Caesar wore a combover and was sensitive about his hairline, while Augustus always traveled with a seal skin as he had once been almost killed by lightening and everyone knew that lightening never struck seals.
So why read it? For me it was remarkable to read such personal details from a book written over 1,800 years ago about historical figures who otherwise are represented by heroic marble busts.
It was written by Suetonius in 119 AD, a member of the Roman political establishment and eventually a secretary to Emperor Hadrian. That he was dismissed for alleged dalliance with the Empress is consistent with the stupefying litany of Imperial misdeeds. Ranging from mere peccadilloes, to grand (or better said Imperial) larceny, to murdering wives, mothers, siblings…basically anyone the Emperor wished to have murdered. Only Julius Caesar, Augustus, Vespasian, and Titus struck me as being competent and not excessively homicidally inclined. The rest were an awful parade of monsters, so much so that I found myself wishing for the Visigoths to hurry up and sack the place. He does cover their more memorable policy and political achievements (and failures). And there are some wonderfully ludicrous omens, but it is the particularly personal vignettes that capture attention.
Caligula was said to have “lived in habitual incest with his sisters” though he “loved” only one, the others he “…often prostituted to his favorites.” Of his many marriages, “Is it not easy to decide whether in his marriages he acted more basely in contracting them, in repudiating them, or in continuing them.” He attended one marriage, had the bride taken to his house, then “divorced her in a few days.” As to his murderous depravity, “At one of his more sumptuous banquets he suddenly burst into a fit of laughter, and when the Consuls, who were reclining next to him, politely inquired at what he was laughing, he replied: ‘What do you suppose, except that at a single nod of mine both of you could have your throats cut on the spot?’” I would guess a modern day equivalent would be a guest a private dinner with Joe Stalin.
Most of us think of Caligula and Nero in terms of sexual depravity, but they had rivals, Tiberius for instance. “In his retreat at Capri...he had assembled from all quarters girls and perverts, whom he called spintriae, who invented monstrous feats of lubricity and defiled one another before him, interlaced in series of threes, in order to inflame his feeble appetite.”
There were some lighter moments, or at least, revelations of foibles that made the Caesars more human. For instance, Julius Caesar wore a combover and was sensitive about his hairline, while Augustus always traveled with a seal skin as he had once been almost killed by lightening and everyone knew that lightening never struck seals.
So why read it? For me it was remarkable to read such personal details from a book written over 1,800 years ago about historical figures who otherwise are represented by heroic marble busts.
March 20, 2022
I read this to follow up on my recent read of Mary Beard’s “The Twelve Caesars”. This is the book on which most of what we know about the first two Roman dynasties is based. It also struck me that Robert Graves drew much from Suetonius in writing his novels in the “I, Claudius” series. It is highly entertaining but gets a reader wondering.
First, if half of this material is truthful, or at least fact based, then it is hard to be surprised by what happens in corrupt regimes today. The technology today is improved and the tax base is larger, but money, sex, and power have gone a long way for a long time. Indeed, it is surprising how long Rome (and Byzantium lasted given the general levels of dissoluteness that seemed to take over for long stretches of time. With no accountability (except for Nero), where was the incentive to actually know anything about the substance of imperial policies or to adopt smart policies, if it detracted from the power of one’s family. Innovation could actually prove hazardous to one’s health.
Second, succession to family members was extraordinarily dangerous to one’s health (and one’s family members). It also led to chaos and political infighting. Given that.family would get bored with the details of ruling, that likely helped to push the importance of the military in imperial governance.
Third, the talent pool seemed a bit thin, so that most of the emperors were disastrous and many came to be remembered for their excesses (Nero, Caligula). The achievements of the few good emperors stand out given the rest. Even Suetonius has trouble providing much on the lives of the not so noteworthy initial emperors.
All in all, this helped me appreciate Mary Beard’s fine book. It is a bit of a plod, although there is lots of good content and scandal here to spice up the historical timeline.
First, if half of this material is truthful, or at least fact based, then it is hard to be surprised by what happens in corrupt regimes today. The technology today is improved and the tax base is larger, but money, sex, and power have gone a long way for a long time. Indeed, it is surprising how long Rome (and Byzantium lasted given the general levels of dissoluteness that seemed to take over for long stretches of time. With no accountability (except for Nero), where was the incentive to actually know anything about the substance of imperial policies or to adopt smart policies, if it detracted from the power of one’s family. Innovation could actually prove hazardous to one’s health.
Second, succession to family members was extraordinarily dangerous to one’s health (and one’s family members). It also led to chaos and political infighting. Given that.family would get bored with the details of ruling, that likely helped to push the importance of the military in imperial governance.
Third, the talent pool seemed a bit thin, so that most of the emperors were disastrous and many came to be remembered for their excesses (Nero, Caligula). The achievements of the few good emperors stand out given the rest. Even Suetonius has trouble providing much on the lives of the not so noteworthy initial emperors.
All in all, this helped me appreciate Mary Beard’s fine book. It is a bit of a plod, although there is lots of good content and scandal here to spice up the historical timeline.
March 16, 2024
A Brief Biography
Having read Caesar's own accounts of his life and military campaigns in Gaul and Britannia this quick biography was nothing new or surprising for me. For those new to study of Gaius Julius Caesar this is a good basic biography. There are extensive end notes for corroborating sources which will be of great assistance to students studying the life and act of Dictator for life commonly known as Julius Caesar.
Having read Caesar's own accounts of his life and military campaigns in Gaul and Britannia this quick biography was nothing new or surprising for me. For those new to study of Gaius Julius Caesar this is a good basic biography. There are extensive end notes for corroborating sources which will be of great assistance to students studying the life and act of Dictator for life commonly known as Julius Caesar.
Read
April 14, 2025A friendly reminder sung by the triumphing legions that Caesar was very bisexual:
"Caesar had his way with Gaul;
Nicomedes had his way with Caesar
Behold now, Caesar, conqueror of Gaul, in triumph,
Not so, Nicomedes, conqueror of Caesar."
"The elder Curio, in one of his speeches, termed Caesar 'a man to every woman and a woman to every man'".
Just remember that the Romans had no problem with male homosexuality; the Romans only had a problem with being a bottom.
"Caesar had his way with Gaul;
Nicomedes had his way with Caesar
Behold now, Caesar, conqueror of Gaul, in triumph,
Not so, Nicomedes, conqueror of Caesar."
"The elder Curio, in one of his speeches, termed Caesar 'a man to every woman and a woman to every man'".
Just remember that the Romans had no problem with male homosexuality; the Romans only had a problem with being a bottom.
May 25, 2020
The classic biography of Julius Caesar as well as the beginnings of the Roman Empire. Reminded as well that he was also a contributor to history, literature, and philosophy. A nice work on its own this volume only covers the first of the 12 Caesars.
April 8, 2022
This brief biography of Julius Caesar is interesting. It's not only about his activities in war and politics, but covers him as a character.
The brief appraisals of Cicero are also note worthy as well, and appropriate since he was a contemporary to the era.
The brief appraisals of Cicero are also note worthy as well, and appropriate since he was a contemporary to the era.
June 4, 2025
básicamente se depilaba, le daba complejo ser calvo y si hubiera llevado pantalones en vez de toga habría sido el precursor del cani de tu barrio al q se le ven los calzoncillos de calvin klein del mercadillo
January 19, 2018
quite interesting if a bit sloppy. presents a seemingly balanced Caesar
February 4, 2018
A brief and decent read
A nice piece that's easy to read and get through. I'd consider it helpful along with more substantial literature on the Caesar's
A nice piece that's easy to read and get through. I'd consider it helpful along with more substantial literature on the Caesar's
June 30, 2019
Good book!
July 29, 2019
A pretty basic summing up but had a few interesting facts that were new to me. For someone beginning a study of the period, you could do a lot worse
January 21, 2021
Didn't think I would cry at the end. But I did.
May 10, 2021
Suetonius' account of Caesar is filled with hearsay and sexual deviancy, but it was still an interesting read, nonetheless.
Read
November 22, 2021I love this book because I honestly have never laughed so hard in my life at some of the crazy things these dudes did. Like what sir
May 21, 2022
Looking past being renowned as one of the greatest figures of his time, I think the legacy he should be proud of is being known as "every woman's man, and every man's woman"
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November 2, 2023How is Julius Caesar real
January 11, 2025
This was actually a quite fun read
Read
March 2, 2025You couldn't invent a fictional character as interesting as Gaius Julius Caesar if you tried.
June 15, 2025
Pretty crazy stuff those people did!
Would give it 3.5 stars
Read it for class in college
Would give it 3.5 stars
Read it for class in college
February 18, 2017
Classic profile of Rome's great dictator
This is an older translation of Suetonius,' best-known works. Students of government and leadership would do well to read this in contemplation of the purpose of government and the role of the citizenry.
This is an older translation of Suetonius,' best-known works. Students of government and leadership would do well to read this in contemplation of the purpose of government and the role of the citizenry.
January 3, 2016
I read the Gutenberg version translated by Alexander Thomson, M.D. This translation was difficult to follow at times. I'd like to get hold of the Graves translation to compare, maybe the Graves version is more readable. Alternately it may just be Suetonius that is hard to follow. Overall this is an interesting read but I had a difficult time figuring out where Suetonius ends and the comments begin. The comments and footnotes do go on and on.
December 30, 2012
Very good commentary. Historical in focus, not philological.
February 27, 2013
One of the better biographies of C J S, and probably one of the more factual ones as well.
September 10, 2013
Βιβλίο που διαβάζεται εύκολα και παρουσιάζει και τις καλές πλευρές του Ιουλίου Καίσαρα και τις κακές. Πολύ καλή η εισαγωγή του μεταφραστή και οι σημειώσεις του.
July 27, 2015
Required reading for the historically or militarily inclined. Not exciting, not flowery, but full of facts worth reading about and interesting throughout.
July 27, 2022
Es una novela corta e interesante de la que puedes aprender muchos datos sobre césar el funcionamiento del imperio y las causas reales de su muerte
Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews