Lives of the Caesars
The ancient Roman empire was the supreme arena, and to rule as a Caesar was to stand as an actor upon the great stage of the world. No biographies invite us into the lives of the Caesars more vividly or intimately than those by Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, written from the centre of Rome and power, in the early 2nd century AD.
That Rome lives more vividly in people's imagination than any other ancient empire owes an inordinate amount to Suetonius. Now award-winning author and translator Tom Holland brings us even closer in a new, spellbinding translation. Giving a deeper understanding of the personal lives of Rome’s first emperors, and of how they swayed the fates of millions, The Lives of the Caesars is an astonishing, immersive experience of a time and culture at once familiar and utterly alien to our own.
Suetonius (Author)
Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus was probably born in AD69 - the famous 'year of the four Emperors'. From the letters of Suetonius' close friend Pliny the Younger we learn that he practiced briefly at the bar, avoided political life, and became chief secretary to the Emperor Hadrian (AD117-38). Suetonius seems to have lived to a good age and probably died around the year AD140.
Tom Holland (Translator)
Tom Holland is an award-winning historian, biographer and broadcaster. He is the author of the Hessell-Tiltman Prizewinning Rubicon; the Anglo-Hellenic League's Runciman Awardwinner Persian Fire, as well as Millennium, In the Shadow of the Sword, Dynasty and Pax.
Holland has adapted Homer, Herodotus, Thucydides and Virgil for the BBC. His translation of Herodotus was published in 2013 by Penguin Classics, and his biography of Æthelstan, the first King of England, was published in 2016 under the Penguin Monarchs series.
Holland is co-presenter of the world’s most downloaded history podcast, The Rest is History. He has written and presented several TV documentaries, for the BBC and Channel 4, on subjects ranging from ISIS to dinosaurs.