The Lives Of The Historians – Two Roman Historians

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Two key Roman historians writing at the same time as one another adopted very different approaches. Tacitus (c.56-120 AD) was a Roman Senator and sadly only a small portion of his extensive writings survive. He was a very political commentator, charting the increasing struggles between the Senators and the often dictatorial Emperors, with Tacitus criticising the senate for not exercising its right to free speech to condemn the excesses of the Caesars. He tried to be fair and impartial, often critical of various people and quite praiseworthy of them at different times. He takes on individual decisions rather than their overall personalities. Suetonius (c.69-122 AD) was a much lighter writer and his Twelve Caesars reads like a sensationalist series of tabloid stories about scandal, murders and intrigue. He really gets his teeth into Caligula (then dead of course), spelling out his marriage to his own sister, his attempt to get his rather over-revered horse onto the Senate committee and replacing the head of the statues of the gods around Rome with his own head. His assassination came as no surprise in the end. Suetonius relishes every wild gory moment. He is much more readable than Tacitus, but also less informative, and one of the first commentators to refer to the presence of Christians in the city of Rome (leading to a protest riot by Jewish citizens) during the reign of Claudius. Arthur Chappell