Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-hc48f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-24T13:25:18.064Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Reconstructing the Lost Beginning of Suetonius’ Divus Iulius*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 November 2015

Phoebe Garrett
Phoebe Garrett*
Affiliation:
The Australian National [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

It appears that the beginning of Suetonius’ Divus Iulius is now lost. C.L. Roth, in 1865, argued that the work was acephalous by setting out the four things that were missing from the Divus Iulius: first, the title of the work; second, the dedication to Septicius Clarus, which is known to us only from John Lydus’ sixth-century work De Magistratibus 2.6.4; third, the family tree of the Caesars; fourth, the beginning of the Divus Iulius with the details about its Trojan and Alban origins, the origin and name of the Caesars, the omens of future greatness, his education, and his first offices. These were, as Roth saw it, all things Suetonius was in the habit of giving in the extant Lives.1 These things are indeed absent from the text as we have it. It remains to test whether those things are all really standard inclusions in a Suetonian introduction.

This paper approaches the lost beginning of the Divus Iulius by comparing the constructions of Suetonius’ extant openings, in particular the family trees, with Philemon Holland’s reconstruction of 1606. The comparative study will consider how the lost part of the Divus Iulius might reflect what Suetonius includes in other beginnings, and how it might have differed from those others. The study will also set out the elements that Suetonius appears to have considered essential to an introduction, thereby bringing into focus the places where the interests of renaissance authors differed from his own.

Type
Research Article
Information
Antichthon , Volume 49 , November 2015 , pp. 110 - 134
Copyright
© The Australasian Society for Classical Studies 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

Versions of this paper were presented to audiences at the University of Newcastle, the Australian National University, the annual conference of the Australasian Society for Classical Studies at Palmerston North, and the annual meeting of the Classical Association at Bristol. I thank the participants in those discussions for their contributions to the final version. Versions of this paper were improved by the comments of Kristin Heineman, Chris Ransom, Janet Hadley Williams, Hugh Lindsay, and the anonymous readers for Antichthon. All errors are my own. All translations are my own. I also thank Tara Macphail for her invaluable assistance with the graph and table.

References

Alfoldy, G. (1985), The Social History of Rome. Trans. D. Braund and F. Pollock. London.Google Scholar
Baldwin, B. (1983), Suetonius. Amsterdam.Google Scholar
Barton, T.S. (1994a), ‘The Inventio of Nero: Suetonius’, in J. Elsner and J. Masters (eds) Reflections of Nero: Culture, History and Representation, 48-63. Chapel Hill.Google Scholar
Elsner, and Masters, J.—— (1994b), Ancient Astrology. London and New York.Google Scholar
Brunt, P.A. (1982), ‘Nobilitas and Novitas’, JRS 72, 1-17.Google Scholar
Brutscher, C. (1958), Analysen zu Suetons Divus Iulius und der Parallel-überlieferung. Bern.Google Scholar
Duff, T. (2008), ‘Models of Education in Plutarch’, JHS 128, 1-126.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Garrett, P. (2010), ‘Character Inheritance in Suetonius’ Caligula and Nero’, 1-7, in ASCS 31 [2010] Proceedings: classics.uwa.edu.au/ascs31.Google Scholar
Garrett, P. (2013), Ancestry and Suetonius’ De Vita Caesarum. PhD thesis. University of Newcastle. Australia.Google Scholar
Holland, P. (1899), History of the Twelve Caesars [1606]. London.Google Scholar
Holland, P. (1930), Suetonius: History of the Twelve Caesars [1606]. London and New York.Google Scholar
Hurley, D.W. (2001), Suetonius: Divus Claudius. Cambridge.Google Scholar
Maas, M. (1992), John Lydus and the Roman Past: Antiquarianism and Politics in the Age of Justinian. London and New York.Google Scholar
Murison, C.L. (1992), Suetonius: Galba, Otho, Vitellius. London.Google Scholar
Pirovano, L. (2012), ‘Emporio, Svetonio e l’infanzia di Giulio Cesare’, Historia 61, 430-457.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Potter, U. (2008), ‘Elizabethan Drama and The Instruction of a Christian Woman by Juan Luis Vives’, in Juanita Feros Ruys (ed.), What Nature Does Not Teach: Didactic Literature in the Medieval and Early-Modern Periods, 261-285. Turnhout Belgium.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Power, T. (2009), ‘Suetonius Galba 1: Beginning or Ending?’, CPh 104, 216-220.Google Scholar
Power, T. (2014), ‘The Endings of Suetonius’ Caesars’, in T. Power and R. Gibson (eds), Suetonius the Biographer: Studies in Roman Lives, 58-77. Oxford.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reifferscheid, A. (1860), C. Suetonii Tranquilli praeter Caesarum reliquiae. Leipzig.Google Scholar
Roth, C.L. (1865), C. Suetoni Tranquilli quae supersunt omnia. Leipzig.Google Scholar
Strasburger, H. (1966), Caesars Eintritt in die Geschichte. Darmstadt.Google Scholar
Torrentius, L. (1578), C. Suetoni Tranquillii XII Caesares. Antwerp.Google Scholar
Vives, J.L. (1527), Introductio ad sapientiam; Satellitium siue symbola; Epistolae duae de ratione studij puerilis. Tria capita addita initio Suetonij Tranquilli. Paris.Google Scholar
Wallace-Hadrill, A. (1995), Suetonius, 2nd edn. London. [original edition, Suetonius: The Scholar and his Caesars (1983)].Google Scholar
Wardle, D. (2014), Suetonius: Life of Augustus. Oxford.Google Scholar
Wiseman, T.P. (1965), ‘The Mother of Livia Augusta’, Historia 14, 333-334.Google Scholar
Wiseman, T.P. (1974), ‘Legendary Genealogies in Late-Republican Rome’, G&R 21, 153-164.Google Scholar