The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, Complete

Written around 121 CE by a scholar who served as private secretary to the emperor Hadrian, this set of twelve biographies runs from Julius Caesar through the first eleven rulers of imperial Rome, ending with Domitian. Suetonius arranges each life less as a chronicle than as a portrait, sorting his material by theme, so that a subject’s public deeds, private habits, physical appearance, and personal vices all sit side by side. His access to imperial records gives the work real authority, while his taste for scandal, omens, and bedroom gossip keeps it endlessly readable. Much of what later ages imagined about Nero, Caligula, and Augustus comes straight from these pages. This free PDF and EPUB edition collects all twelve lives.