The Twelve Caesars

by Matthew Dennison

  — Vespasian, London and New York: Routledge, 1999.

  Liversidge, Michael and Edwards, Catherine, eds, Imagining Rome: British Artists and Rome in the Nineteenth Century, London: Merrell Holberton, 1996.

  Manuwald, Gesine, Roman Republican Theatre, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011.

  Matyszak, Philip, The Sons of Caesar: Imperial Rome’s First Dynasty, London: Thames & Hudson, 2006.

  Massie, Allan, The Caesars, London: Secker & Warburg, 1983.

  Meijer, Fik, Emperors Don’t Die in Bed, London: Routledge, 2004.

  Miller, Fergus, The Emperor in the Roman World (31 BC–AD 337) (Duckworth, London, 1977)

  Momigliano, Arnaldo (trans. W. D. Hogarth), Claudius: The Emperor and his Achievement, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1934.

  Mommsen, Theodor, ed. Thomas Wiedemann, A History of Rome Under the Emperors, London: Routledge, 1996.

  Morgan, Gwyn, 69 AD: The Year of the Four Emperors, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.

  Osgood, Josiah, Claudius Caesar: Image and Power in the Early Roman Empire, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.

  —Caesar’s Legacy: Civil War and the Emergence of the Roman Empire, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.

  Perowne, Stewart, The Caesars’ Wives: Above Suspicion?, London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1974.

  Potter, David, Emperors of Rome: Imperial Rome from Julius Caesar to the Last Emperor, London: Quercus, 2007.

  Richardson, Lawrence, A New Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992.

  Rossini, Orietta, Ara Pacis, Rome: Electa, Rome, 2006.

  Rutledge, Steven H., Imperial Inquisitions: Prosecutors and Informants from Tiberius to Domitian, London and New York: Routledge, 2001.

  Schiff, Stacy, Cleopatra: A Life, London: Virgin Books, 2010.

  Seager, Robin, Tiberius, Oxford: Wiley Blackwell, repr. 2004.

  Severy, Beth, Augustus and the Family at the Birth of the Empire, London: Routledge, 2003.

  Sommer, Michael, The Complete Roman Emperor: Imperial Life at Court and on Campaign, London: Thames & Hudson, 2010.

  Southern, Pat, Augustus, London: Routledge, 1998.

  — The Roman Army: A Social and Institutional History, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.

  — Domitian: Tragic Tyrant, London and New York: Routledge, 1997.

  Shotter, David, Tiberius Caesar, London: Routledge, 1992.

  Sutherland, C. H. V., Coinage in Roman Imperial Policy 31 BC–AD 68, London: Methuen, 1951.

  Syme, Ronald, The Roman Revolution, Oxford: Oxford University Press, repr. 1968.

  — The Augustan Aristocracy, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986.

  Talbot, R. J. A., The Senate of Imperial Rome, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984.

  Wallace-Hadrill, Andrew, Suetonius: The Scholar and his Caesars, London: Duckworth 1983.

  — Augustan Rome, Bristol: Bristol Classical Press, 1993.

  Wood, Susan E., Imperial Women: A Study in Public Images 40 BC–AD 68, Boston, Cologne and Leiden: Brill, 1999.

  PERIODICALS AND JOURNALS

  Braund, D. C., ‘Berenice in Rome’, Historia 33, 1984, pp. 120–23.

  Brunt, P. A., ‘Lex de Imperio Vespasiani’, The Journal of Roman Studies, vol. 67, 1977, pp. 95–116.

  Coleman, Kathleen M., ‘Launching into history: aquatic displays in the early empire’, The Journal of Roman Studies, vol. 83, pp. 48–74

  Garton, Charles, ‘Sulla and the Theatre’, Phoenix, vol. 18, no. 2, Summer 1964, pp. 137–56

  Huzar, Eleanor G., ‘Mark Antony: Marriages vs Careers’, The Classical Journal, vol. 81, no. 2, Dec. 1985–Jan. 1986, pp. 97–111.

  Jones, William, ‘Some Thoughts on the Propaganda of Vespasian and Domitian’, The Classical Journal, p. 251, 1973.

  Jones, Brian W., ‘Domitian and the Senatorial Order: A Prosopographical Study of Domitian’s Relationship with the Senate AD 81–96’, Philadelphia, 1979.

  Krappe, Alexander Haggerty, ‘Tiberius and Thrasyllus’, The American Journal of Philology, vol. 48, no. 4, 1927, pp. 359–66.

  Prettejohn, Elizabeth, ‘Lawrence Alma-Tadema and the Modern City of Ancient Rome’, The Art Bulletin, vol. 84, no. 1, Mar. 2002, pp. 115–29.

  Shotter, D. C. A., ‘Tiberius and the Spirit of Augustus’, Greece & Rome, vol. 13, no. 2, 1966, pp. 207–12.

  Sigurdsson, Haraldur, Cashdollar, Stanford and Sparks, Stephen R. J., ‘The Eruption of Vesuvius in A.D. 79: Reconstruction from Historical and Volcanological Evidence’, American Journal of Archaeology, vol. 86, no. 1, Jan. 1982, pp. 39–51.

  Staley, Allen, ‘The Landing of Agrippina at Brundisium with the Ashes of Germanicus’, Philadelphia Museum of Art Bulletin, vol. 61, no. 287/288, Oct. 1, 1965, pp. 10–19.

  Sumi, Geoffrey S., ‘Impersonating the Dead: Mimes at Roman Funerals’, The American Journal of Philology, vol. 123, no. 4, Winter 2002, pp. 559–85.

  NOTES

  INTRODUCTION

  1 Woolf, Virginia, ‘The Art of Biography’. In The Crowded Dance of Modern Life, London: Penguin, 1993, p 150.

  2 See Freisenbruch, Annelise, The First Ladies of Rome: The Women Behind the Caesars, London: Jonathan Cape, 2010, p 11.

  3 Woolf, op. cit., p 151.

  JULIUS CAESAR

  1 Cicero, Letters to Atticus, 7.11.1.

  2 Plutarch, The Life of Julius Caesar, 63.1, in Plutarch, Lives, trans. Bernadotte Perin, Loeb Classical Library, 1914, repr. 1998.

  3 See Goldsworthy, Adrian, Caesar, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2006, p 60.

  4 Plutarch, op. cit., 58.4.

  5 Shakespeare, William, Julius Caesar, III.ii.

  6 Cicero, Philippics II.161, quoted Grant, Michael, The Twelve Caesars, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1996, p 33.

  7 See Garland, Robert, Julius Caesar, Bristol: Bristol Phoenix Press, 2004.

  8 See Wallace-Hadrill, Andrew, Suetonius: The Scholar and his Caesars, London: Duckworth, 1983, p 12.

  9 Velleius Paterculus, The Roman History II.41.1, trans. Frederick W. Shipley, Loeb Classical Library, 1924.

  10 Plutarch, The Life of Cato, 8.8.

  11 Plutarch, The Life of Julius Caesar, 60.1.

  12 See Bradford, Ernle, Julius Caesar: The Pursuit of Power: London: Hamish Hamilton, 1984, p 7.

  13 Plutarch, The Life of Julius Caesar, 2.4.

  14 Pliny the Elder, Natural History, VII.91, quoted in Grant, op. cit., pp 31–2.

  15 Tacitus, Histories III.38.

  16 Cassius Dio, Roman History 37.54.3, trans. Earnest Cary, Loeb Classical Library, 1925.

  17 See Massie, Allan, The Caesars, London: Martin Secker & Warburg, 1983, p 20.

  18 Ibid.

  19 Plutarch, The Life of Julius Caesar, 15.5.

  20 See Caesar, Gallic Wars IV.14–15.

  21 See Goldsworthy, op. cit., pp 294–5.

  22 Plutarch, The Life of Julius Caesar, 23.6.

  23 Ibid, 28.6.

  24 Goldsworthy, op. cit., p 375.

  25 See ibid, p 468.

  26 Plutarch, Life of Julius Caesar, 57.1.

  27 Tacitus, Histories, 2.91.

  AUGUSTUS

  1 Cassius Dio, op. cit, 56.46.1.

  2 Velleius Paterculus, op. cit 2.60.2.

  3 Ibid, 2.59.6.

  4 Ibid, 2.66.

  5 Plutarch, Life of Antony, 60.

  6 Augustus, Res Gestae Divi Augusti, quoted Massie, op. cit., p 59.

  7 Cassius Dio, op. cit, 53.4.

  8 Augustus, op. cit, 34.

  9 Propertius, Elegies 3.18, trans A. S. Kline.

  10 See Dennison, Matthew, Empress of Rome: The Life of Livia, London: Quercus, 2010, p 283.

  11 Cassius Dio, op. cit., 54.18.

  12 Massie, op. cit., p 73.

  13 Horace, The Centennial Hymn, trans. James Mitchie, London: Penguin, 1978, p 257.

  14 Augustus, op. cit, 8.5.

  15 Velleius Paterculus, op. cit., 2.100.2–3.

  16 Ibid, 2.123.2.

&
nbsp; 17 Cassius Dio, op. cit., 56.30.

  18 Velleius Paterculus, op. cit., 2.123.2.

  TIBERIUS

  1 Cassius Dio, op. cit., 57.1.2.

  2 Velleius Paterculus, op. cit., 2.124.2.

  3 Cassius Dio, op. cit., 57.13.8.

  4 See Sutherland, C. H. V., Coinage in Roman Imperial Policy 31BC–AD68, London: Methuen, 1951, pp 84–5.

  5 Velleius Paterculus, op. cit., 2.99.

  6 Cassius Dio, op. cit., 57.13.

  7 Pliny the Elder, op. cit., 28.5.23.

  8 Tacitus, Annals, 6.50, trans. Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb, 1876.

  9 Cassius Dio, op. cit., 57.1.2.

  10 Ibid, 57.13.5.

  11 Ibid, 54.29.2.

  12 Velleius Paterculus, op. cit., 2.96.1.

  13 Tacitus, Annals, 1.53.

  14 Seneca, On Benefits, 6.1–2; see Bauman, Richard A., Women and Politics in Ancient Rome, London: Routledge, 1992, p 113.

  15 Tacitus, Annals, 4.1.

  16 See Levick, Barbara, Tiberius the Politician, London: Thames & Hudson, 1976, p 49.

  17 Tacitus, Annals, 6.51.

  18 Ibid, 1.6.

  19 Ibid, 1.7.

  20 See Levick, op. cit., p 72.

  21 See Barrett, Anthony A., Livia, First Lady of Imperial Rome, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002, p 81.

  22 Quoted Grant, op. cit., p 97.

  23 Tacitus, Annals, 4.1.

  24 Matyszak, Philip, The Sons of Caesar: Imperial Rome’s First Dynasty, London: Thames & Hudson, 2006, p 144.

  25 Tacitus, Annals, 4.7.

  26 See Shotter, David, Tiberius Caesar, London: Routledge, 1992, p 47.

  27 Ibid, p 59.

  28 Tacitus, Annals, 5.3

  29 Ibid, 6.51.5.

  30 Cassius Dio, op. cit., 58.4.

  31 Shotter, op. cit., pp 63–4.

  32 See Sutherland, op. cit., p 103.

  GAIUS CALIGULA

  1 Augustus, Res Gestae, 34.1.

  2 Garnsey, Peter & Saller, Richard, The Early Principate: Augustus to Trajan, Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1982, Greece & Rome New Surveys in the Classics No. 15, pp 4–5.

  3 Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, 18.6.10, trans. William Whiston, 1895.

  4 Cassius Dio, op. cit., 59.6.1.

  5 Ibid, 59.13.6.

  6 Ibid, 67.8.3.

  7 Ibid, 59.11.1.

  8 Josephus, op. cit., 19.2.

  9 Cassius Dio, op. cit., 59.4.

  10 Matyszak, op. cit., p 185.

  11 Cassius Dio, op. cit., 59.2.

  12 Ferrill, Arther, Caligula: Emperor of Rome, London: Thames & Hudson, 1991, p 101.

  13 Cassius Dio, op. cit., 59.13.6.

  14 Pliny the Elder, op. cit., 13.22; 37.17; 33.79.

  15 Josephus, op. cit., 19.2.2.

  16 Seneca, On Benefits, IV.31.

  17 Tacitus, Annals, 3.1, trans. Church and Brodribb.

  18 Ferrill, op. cit., p 48.

  19 Sutherland, op. cit., p 108.

  20 Philo, Legatio ad Gaium, II. 14, trans. E. M. Smallwood, quoted Grant, op. cit., p 124.

  21 Cassius Dio, op. cit., 59.16.5–6.

  22 Ibid, 59.16.7.

  23 Philo, op. cit., quoted Matyszak, op. cit., p 189.

  24 Cicero, Phillipics 4.13, quoted Dennison, op. cit., p 265.

  25 Josephus, op. cit., 19.2.

  CLAUDIUS

  1 Osgood, Josiah, Claudius Caesar: Image and Power in the Early Roman Empire, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010, p 15.

  2 Liversidge, Michael & Edwards, Catharine, eds, Imagining Rome: British Artists and Rome in the Nineteenth Century, London: Merrell Holberton, 1996, p 60.

  3 See Grant, op. cit., p 129.

  4 Osgood, op. cit., p 9.

  5 Trans. Matyszak, op. cit, p 198.

  6 Cassius Dio, op. cit., 60.1.1.

  7 Ibid, 60.12.4.

  8 See Osgood, op. cit., pp 29–30.

  9 Cassius Dio, op cit., 60.15.3.

  10 Ibid, 60.15.4

  11 See Osgood, op. cit., p 45.

  12 Pliny the Elder, op. cit., 10.83.

  13 Juvenal, Satire VI, quoted Freisenbruch, op. cit., p 128.

  14 Tacitus, Annals, XI.1.

  15 See Alston, Richard, Aspects of Roman History, AD14–117, London: Routledge, 1998, p 95.

  16 Tacitus, Histories, 1.30.

  NERO

  1 Cassius Dio, op. cit., 61.10.3.

  2 Sommer, Michael, The Complete Roman Emperor: Imperial Life at Court and on Campaign, London: Thames & Hudson, 2010, p 49.

  3 Bishop, John, Nero: The Man and the Legend, London: Robert Hale, 1964, pp 21–2.

  4 Cassius Dio, op cit., 63.27.2.

  5 Seneca, On the Happy Life, 7.7, quoted Laurence, Ray, Roman Passions: A History of Pleasure in Imperial Rome, London: Continuum, 2009, p 9.

  6 Ibid, p 14.

  7 Cassius Dio, op cit., 61.3.2.

  8 Tacitus, Annals, XIII.4, quoted Sutherland, op. cit., p 149.

  9 Cassius Dio, op cit., 61.4.

  10 Tacitus, Annals, XIII.2.

  11 Ibid, XIII.5.

  12 See Barrett, Anthony A., Caligula The Corruption of Power London: Batsford, 1989, pp 167–8.

  13 Holland, Richard, Nero: the Man Behind the Myth, Stroud: Sutton, 2000, p 87.

  14 Tacitus, Annals, 14.50.

  15 Holland, op. cit., p 160.

  16 Tacitus, Annals, 15.44.

  17 Sommer, op. cit., p 74.

  18 Tacitus, Annals, 15. 41.

  19 Quoted Matyszak, op. cit., p 263.

  20 Cassius Dio, op. cit., 62.24.2.

  21 Quoted Grant, op. cit., p 171.

  22 Cassius Dio, op. cit., 63.27.2.

  GALBA

  1 Tacitus, Histories, 1.18.

  2 Griffin, Miriam, Nero: The End of a Dynasty, London: Batsford, 1984, p 27.

  3 Tacitus, Histories, 1.6.

  4 Tacitus, Histories, 1.13.

  5 Plutarch, Life of Galba, 3.3.

  6 Tacitus, Histories, 1.7.

  7 Ibid, 1.49.

  8 See Morgan, Gwyn, 69AD: The Year of the Four Emperors, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006, p 25.

  9 Ibid, p 28.

  10 Greenhalgh, P. A. L., The Year of the Four Emperors, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1975, p 19.

  11 Cassius Dio, op. cit., 64.3.2.

  12 Ibid, 63.2.1.

  13 Ibid, 64.16.3.

  14 Tacitus, Histories, 1.12.

  OTHO

  1 Plutarch, Life of Otho, 4.4.

  2 Ibid, 15.4

  3 Ibid.

  4 Tacitus, Histories, 1.50.

  5 Plutarch, Life of Otho, 4.3.

  6 Tacitus, Histories, 1.36.

  7 Morgan, op. cit., p 97.

  8 See ibid, p 94; Vinius: Tacitus, Histories, 1.37.

  9 Tacitus, Histories, 1.30.

  10 Plutarch, Life of Galba, 20.2.

  11 Tacitus, Histories, 1.45.

  12 Ibid, 1.21.

  13 Ibid, 1.43.

  14 Morgan, op. cit., p 97.

  15 Cassius Dio, op. cit., 63.7.3.

  16 Plutarch, Life of Otho, 3.

  17 See Greenhalgh, op. cit., p 56.

  18 Tacitus, Histories, 1.71.

  19 Ibid, 1.83.

  20 Plutarch, Life of Otho, 1.

  21 Juvenal, Satire II.

  22 Plutarch, Life of Otho, 4.3

  23 Ibid, 4.4

  24 Ibid, 5.5

  25 Ibid, 9.2

  26 Martial, Epigrams 6, quoted Grant, op. cit., p 195.

  27 Plutarch, Life of Otho, 16.2.

  VITELLIUS

  1 Tacitus, Histories, 2.95.

  2 Ibid, 2.94.

  3 Cassius Dio, op. cit., 65.3.

  4 Ibid, 65.2.

  5 Tacitus, Histories, 2.67.

  6 Ibid, 2.66.

  7 Cassius Dio, op. cit., 65.10.

  8 Ibid, 65.3.

  9 Tacitus, Histories, 1.52.

  10 Ibid, 1.53.

  11 Ibid, 2.62.

  12 Ibid, 2.55.


  13 See Grant, op. cit., p 203.

  14 Quoted Morgan, op. cit., p 215.

  15 Cassius Dio, op. cit., 65.16.

  16 Tacitus, Histories, 3.68.

  VESPASIAN

  1 Cassius Dio, op. cit., 65.14.3–4.

  2 Levick, Barbara, Vespasian, London and New York: Routledge, 1999, p 126.

  3 Laurence, op. cit., pp 44–5.

  4 Cassius Dio, op. cit., 65.8.3.

  5 Tacitus, Histories, 1.10.

  6 Cassius Dio, op. cit., 66.2.

  7 Southern, Pat, Domitian: Tragic Tyrant, London: Routledge, 1997, p 4.

  8 Freisenbruch, op. cit., p 168.

  9 Levick, Barbara, op. cit. p 15.

  10 Tacitus, Histories, 2. (For a brief discussion of Vespasian’s style of generalship, see Greenhalgh, op. cit., p 125.)

  11 Josephus, The Wars of the Jews, 1.4 trans. H. St J. Thackeray.

  12 Levick, op. cit., p 31.

  13 Augustus, op. cit., 22.16.

  14 Greenhalgh, op. cit., p 133.

  15 Alston, op. cit., p 169.

  16 Grant, op. cit., p 221.

  17 K. Hopkins: see Levick, op. cit., p 95.

  18 Cassius Dio, op. cit., 66.2.5.

  19 Greenhalgh, op. cit., p 247.

  20 Levick, op. cit., p 76.

  21 Shakespeare, William, Julius Caesar, II.ii.

  22 Cassius Dio, op. cit., 66.17.2.

  23 Levick, op. cit., p 197.

  24 Sumi, Geoffrey S., ‘Impersonating the Dead: Mimes at Roman Funerals’, The American Journal of Philology, vol. 123, no. 4 (Winter, 2002), p 559

  25 Flower, Harriet I., The Art of Forgetting: Disgrace and Oblivion in Roman Political Culture (University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 2006), p 106.

  TITUS

  1 Cassius Dio, op. cit., 66.18.1.

  2 Ibid, 66.18.3; Ausonius, see Grant, op. cit., pp 238–9.

  3 Richardson, Lawrence, A New Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome, Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1992, pp 350–1.

  4 For an alternative interpretation, see Levick, op. cit., p 21.

  5 Jones, Brian William, The Emperor Titus, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1984, p 22.