i9<3-J ROLFE— SUETONIUS AND HIS BIOGRAPHIES. L'15 



the thoughtful reader. In the '"Life of Caligula" he gives us an 

 appreciative sketch of the noble father Germanicus, leaving the 

 reader to note the contrast with his unworthy son. He does, it is 

 true, express the opinion that the latter was sound neither in body 

 nor mind, but he attributes to this, not his acts of madness and his 

 change from benevolence to tyranny, but merely the existence in the 

 same man of two opposite traits, contempt of the gods and extrava- 

 gant fear of thunder and lightning.^' He has noted this same fear 

 in Augustus, who had good reason for it in a narrow escape from 

 death, and in Tiberius ; but he has no thought of regarding it as a 

 family trait: still less as a form of degeneracy or the effect of a 

 guilty conscience. ^^ 



It is unnecessary to multiply examples of this kind. His method 

 is sufficiently illustrated by his own remarks.^'' It consists in gen- 

 eral in giving an outline of the life of his subject, commonly pre- 

 ceded by a sketch of the history of his family, and followed by art 

 enumeration of his deeds in war and in peace and an account of his. 

 private life and habits. His good and bad qualities are presented in 

 separate lists, rarely with comment of any kind.*" 



The " Lives " dift'er no less from the original Greek conception 

 of biography than from that of modern times. The former con- 

 sisted in a description of the ideal /8tos, the art of living, as a model 

 for imitation,^^ and the type endured for many centuries. In this 

 aspect biography approaches the domain of philosophy, and W'ila- 

 mowitz finds its beginnings in Plato, although it did not become 

 common until the Hellenistic period. Our greatest example is of 

 course the " Parallel Lives " of Plutarch, who was a young man irt 

 the days of Xero and probably wrote his biographies under the 

 Flavian emperors, although they were not published until a later 

 time. Side by side with the philosophical biographies, however, 



''Calig., 51, I- 



""Cf. Juvenal, XIII., 223 ff. 



"Aug., 9, 61, 94; Tib., 61; Calig., 22; Nero, 19. 



" See, however, Tib., 21 ; Vesp., 16, 3 ; Titus, i ; 10, 2, etc., and on the last- 

 named cf. Leo. " Die griechisch-romische Biographic," pp. 9 ff. 



"See Wilamowitz-Moellendorff in " Kultur der Gegenwart," I., 8, pp. 

 116 ff. 



