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ANCESTRY AND FAMILY IDENTITY IN SUETONIUS’ CAESARS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 November 2021

Phoebe Garrett
Phoebe Garrett*
Affiliation:
Australian National University
*
phoebe.garrett@anu.edu.au
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Abstract

Suetonius’ Lives of the Caesars usually begin with a family tree. These family trees are often rhetorical, foreshadowing in the ancestors character traits that will be themes of the rest of the Life. This particular rhetorical strategy relies upon an older phenomenon of ‘family identity’—namely, the literary application of similar characteristics to people in the same family—such as the one that tells us that the Claudii are proud and the Domitii Ahenobarbi are ferocious. Gary Farney studied ‘family identity’ as a phenomenon of the Republic. There, it was the association of a family with a certain characteristic, a kind of ‘branding’. It would be perfectly obvious for Suetonius to use the family identities already in use for well-known families, but, as I show here, Suetonius’ selection of ancestors creates different family identities rather than simply using the traditional ones he would have found in other sources. In this study I concentrate on Nero and Tiberius. I focus on these two emperors because they are individuals where there is a known family identity in other sources and they also have the most detailed and elaborate ancestry sections in Suetonius’ Caesars. Family identity seems to be most interesting to Suetonius when it goes against expectations, and that is when Suetonius’ family trees are most elaborate.

Keywords

SuetoniusemperorsancestorsfamilycharacterizationClaudiusAhenobarbusvirtuesvicesbiographyTiberiusNero
Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 71 , Issue 2 , December 2021 , pp. 777 - 790
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association

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Footnotes

This research has been a long time in gestation. For its beginnings, I thank the people of the University of Newcastle, Australia, especially Hugh Lindsay, Jane Bellemore and Kristin Heineman; for its completion, I am grateful for research support from the Australian National University. The article has been improved by an audience at the University of Reading and by suggestions from Indigo Holcombe-James, Bruce Gibson and an anonymous reader for CQ. I also thank David Wardle for help with bibliography.

References

1 Translations are from the Loeb Classical Library volumes, J.C. Rolfe, Suetonius, 2 vols. (vol. 2, first published in 1914, revised by D.W. Hurley in 1997 [Cambridge, MA, 1997] and vol. 1, first published in 1913, revised in 1951, revised by D.W. Hurley in 1998 [Cambridge, MA, 1998]), unless stated otherwise. Some changes have been made to the translations to reflect the new text: R.A. Kaster, C. Suetonii Tranquilli De uita Caesarum libros VIII et De Grammaticis et Rhetoribus librum (Oxford, 2016).

2 E. Cizek, Structures et idéologie dans “Les Vies des Douze Césars” de Suétone (Bucharest, 1977) implicitly denies relevance by leaving these sections out of his count; M.J. Du Four, ‘C. Suetonii Tranquilli Vita Tiberii: Chapters I to XXIII’, in M.J. Du Four and J.R. Rietra (edd.), Suetonius on the Life of Tiberius (New York, 1941), 1–118, who is less interested in structure, explicitly denies the relevance of the ancestry sections to her historical commentary, except where they ‘help explain the attitude or characteristics of Tiberius’ (5). Some scholars have observed that Suetonius’ ancestry sections do appear to be rhetorically interesting—most pertinently J. Gascou, Suétone historien (Paris, 1984), 691–5, followed by T.S. Barton, ‘The inventio of Nero: Suetonius’, in J. Elsner and J. Masters (edd.), Reflections of Nero: Culture, History and Representation (Chapel Hill, NC, 1994), 48–63, who drew attention to the role of rhetoric in Suetonius’ Lives, and in particular to the importance of the ancestors at the beginning of Suetonius’ Nero. At 51 she comments that the ancestors of Nero ‘set the tone for the Life to follow’ and that a similar effect is achieved in Tiberius. See D. Sansone, ‘Atticus, Suetonius and Nero's ancestors’, in C. Deroux (ed.), Studies in Latin Literature and Roman History 4 (Brussels, 1986), 267–77 for a study of Nero's ancestors but with an interest in correctness rather than in presentation. See also W. Steidle, Sueton und die antike Biographie (Munich, 19632), 111; T. Hägg, The Art of Biography in Antiquity (Cambridge, 2012), 220. Commentaries (especially on Tiberius, Caligula and Nero) have noted some of the parallels. See for examples E.S. Shuckburgh, C. Suetoni Tranquilli Divus Augustus (Cambridge, 1896), 1–9; K.R. Bradley, Suetonius’ Life of Nero: An Historical Commentary (Brussels, 1978), 29; C.L. Murison, Suetonius: Galba, Otho, Vitellius (London, 1992), 28–32; H. Lindsay, Suetonius: Tiberius (London, 1995), 53–69; B.H. Warmington, Suetonius: Nero (Bristol, 19992), 22–5; B. Jones, Suetonius: Vespasian (London, 2000), 10–15; D.W. Hurley, Suetonius: Diuus Claudius (Cambridge, 2001), 55–67; B. Jones and R. Milns, Suetonius: The Flavian Emperors (London, 2002), 42–6. The Caligula has a very prominent foil in Germanicus at the beginning of the Life, discussed by Bird, H.W., ‘Germanicus mytheroicus’, EMC 17 (1973), 94–101Google Scholar; D.W. Hurley, An Historical and Historiographical Commentary on Suetonius’ Life of C. Caligula (Atlanta, 1993), 1–18; H. Lindsay, Suetonius: Caligula (London, 1993), 48–61; D. Wardle, Suetonius’ Life of Caligula: A Commentary (Brussels, 1994), 96–127. See now Penella, R.J., ‘The fathers of the emperors Caligula and Claudius in Suetonius’ Lives of the Caesars’, Phoenix 72 (2018), 161–5Google Scholar. On ancestry and Roman emperors, with an emphasis on official advertisement/claims to ancestry and on a later period of the Empire, see O. Hekster, Emperors and Ancestors: Roman Rulers and the Constraints of Tradition (Oxford, 2015).

3 Hägg (n. 2), 219–20.

4 G.D. Farney, ‘Aristocratic family identity in the Roman Republic’ (Diss., Bryn Mawr College, 1999).

5 P. Garrett, ‘Ancestry and Suetonius’ De Vita Caesarum’ (Diss., University of Newcastle, 2013) gives what we know about each ancestor from other historical sources.

6 On the lost beginning of Diuus Iulius, see Lundon, J., ‘P.Köln XIII 499 and the (in)completeness of Plutarch's Caesar’, ZPE 185 (2013), 107–10Google Scholar and Garrett, P., ‘Reconstructing the lost beginning of Suetonius’ Divus Iulius’, Antichthon 49 (2015), 110–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 Hägg (n. 2), 219–20.

8 P. Duchêne, ‘Suetonius’ construction of his historical auctoritas’, in V. Liotsakis and S. Farrington (edd.), The Art of History: Literary Perspectives on Greek and Roman Historiography (Berlin, 2016), 271–88, at 275.

9 ‘Yet error or inadvertence occurs even where the author seems at his best, on family history’, in keeping with his usual sense of disappointment with Suetonius: Syme, R., ‘Biographers of the Caesars’, MH 37 (1980), 104–28Google Scholar, at 125 = R. Syme, Roman Papers (Oxford, 1984), 3.1251–75, at 3.1272.

10 My translation. The quasi has produced a range of translations in published editions.

11 Cicero uses ancestors extensively in In Pisonem (comparing Piso unfavourably with both high- and low-born ancestors) (Cic. Pis. frr. 12–15; Pis. 1–2, 53). T.E. Duff, Plutarch's Lives: Exploring Virtue and Vice (Oxford, 1999), 310–11 has shown that Plutarch often uses ancestors (but he also uses non-ancestors, something Suetonius does not do) as paradigms.

12 On this list of vices as a ‘contents list’ for the rest of the rubrics in the Life, see Garrett, P., ‘Structure and persuasion in Suetonius’ De Vita Caesarum’, Ramus 47 (2018), 197–215CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 205.

13 L. Domitius Ahenobarbus (cos. 54) as ‘sharp and rude’ comes from T.R.S. Broughton, The Magistrates of the Roman Republic, 3 vols. (Chico, CA, 1952), 2.277, citing Cicero, Caesar, Plutarch, Appian and Suetonius; the Ahenobarbi as ‘ferocious’ comes from J. Griffin, ‘The creation of characters in the Aeneid’, in B.K. Gold (ed.), Literary and Artistic Patronage in Ancient Rome (Austin, 1982), 118–34, at 124. Of the Domitii Ahenobarbi as a ‘proud and contentious family’, and on the ‘ruthless ferocity of the family’, see R. Syme, The Crisis of 2 b.c. (Munich, 1974), 27 = R. Syme, Roman Papers (Oxford, 1984), 3.912–36, at 3.930–1.

14 On the conflation, see Bradley (n. 2), 30.

15 Meulder, M., ‘Histoire et mythe dans la Vita Neronis de Suétone’, Latomus 61 (2002), 362–87Google Scholar, at 365 thinks that the elephant in the triumph recalls the significance of elephants in the battle, but J. Carlsen, The Rise and Fall of a Roman Noble Family: The Domitii Ahenobarbi 196 bc–ad 68 (Odense, 2006), 39 prefers to interpret the elephant not as a link to the role of elephants in the battle but as a reference to the famous Indian triumph of Dionysus. For Suetonius’ version of events they are probably important only as an example of showing off. On this ‘triumph’, and on elephants in triumphs in general, see also I. Östenberg, Staging the World: Spoils, Captives, and Representations in the Roman Triumphal Procession (New York, 2009), 181.

16 Suet. Ner. 2.3; Caes. BCiu. 2.82; Plut. Pomp. 67.2, Caes. 47; ‘sharp and rude’ is from Broughton (n. 13), 2.277.

17 Transl. Rolfe (n. 1), adapted according to the new text: Kaster (with Bentley's reading) has temere, where it had been timore in the manuscripts. On this part of the text, see R.A. Kaster, Studies on the text of Suetonius’ De uita Caesarum (Oxford, 2016), 201–2.

18 On Nero's ‘vacillation between resolve and cowardice’, see Hägg (n. 2), 225.

19 Tac. Ann. 4.44; Caes. BCiu. 3.99.5; Cic. Phil. 2.71. Lucan is the only source to glorify Ahenobarbus’ death: Luc. 7.599–616, on which the bibliography is extensive: e.g. Marti, B.M., ‘The meaning of the Pharsalia’, AJPh 66 (1945), 352–76Google Scholar; McCloskey, P. and Phinney, E. Jr., ‘Ptolemaeus tyrannus: the typification of Nero in the Pharsalia’, Hermes 96 (1968), 80–7Google Scholar, at 80–1; Ahl, F.M., ‘Lucan's De Incendio Vrbis, Epistulae ex Campania and Nero's ban’, TAPhA 102 (1971), 1–27Google Scholar; Lounsbury, R.C., ‘The death of Domitius in the Pharsalia’, TAPhA 105 (1975), 209–12Google Scholar; Mayer, R., ‘On Lucan and Nero’, BICS 25 (1978), 85–8Google Scholar, at 86. Lucan's portrayal is probably exaggerated—Carlsen (n. 15), 66 n. 167 suggests that it is ‘fictitious’—but to what end is unclear. On the glorification of Ahenobarbus for Nero's sake, see R.C. Lounsbury, ‘History and motive in Book Seven of Lucan's Pharsalia’, Hermes 104 (1976), 210–39, at 224 (paraphrasing an opinion earlier voiced by R. Pichon, Les sources de Lucain [Paris, 1912], 155).

20 Supporting Suetonius’ judgement that this was a good, if not the best, Ahenobarbus, both Cicero (Phil. 10.13) and Velleius (2.72.3) have nice things to say about him.

21 I thank an anonymous reader for this point.

22 At Suet. Aug. 43.3 we learn that the Senate outlawed this, but only after Augustus himself had put knights in his shows with impunity. In Domitius’ time this was not illegal, but when Nero did it, it had been unacceptable for some time. From at least 19 c.e., putting high-ranking Romans on the stage was in contravention of the laws on infamia, discussed by Levick, B., ‘The senatus consultum from Larinum’, JRS 73 (1983), 97–115Google Scholar, at 108.

23 Bradley (n. 2), 29 lines up the parallels between the traits in the lineage and in Nero, also warning us that ‘It would be unwise and overly artificial to argue that the bulk of the biography takes up every single characteristic described in ss. 1–5.’

24 On ironic foils, see R. Seager, ‘Ciceronian invective: themes and variations’, in J. Booth (ed.), Cicero on the Attack (Swansea, 2007), 25–46, at 38.

25 For superbia Claudiana, see e.g. T. Mommsen, ‘Appendix: the patrician Claudii’, in The History of Rome, transl. W.P. Dickson, 5 vols. (London, 18942), 1.495–508; T.P. Wiseman, ‘The legends of the patrician Claudii’, in Clio's Cosmetics: Three Studies in Greco-Roman Literature (Leicester, 1979), 55–139; Vasaly, A., ‘Personality and power: Livy's depiction of the Appii Claudii in the first pentad’, TAPhA 117 (1987), 203–26Google Scholar. Mommsen (this note), 505 supposes that the stereotype which first appears in Livy was based on the Claudii of the generation of Sulla, and the inventor was Licinius Macer. Wiseman (this note), 104–15 follows Mommsen as far as to say that the tradition is an invention of the Late Republic, retrojected back onto the earlier Claudii, but he places the origins of the stereotype in the Claudii of the 50s.

26 Syme (n. 13), 5 = 3.913.

27 Lindsay (n. 2 [1995]), 13–14 argues that Tiberius was hypocritical—i.e. the aspects of Tiberius that appear to be good were just covering up for the bad parts. This is supported by the statement at section 42 that Tiberius had ‘for a long time ill concealed’ particular vices. Those vices, certainly, he had been hiding. Pace Lindsay, I do not find it persuasive that he was faking the virtues, especially given the transitions at sections 26 (he begins to act, but still humbly and carefully, like a priuatus) and 33 (now he begins to behave ‘like a princeps’) (implied: no longer like a priuatus). The word princeps often marks out whatever Suetonius approves of, in antithesis with something that is not-princeps: e.g. in Calig. 22.1, not princeps but monstrum; in Claud. 29.1, not princeps but minister; in Dom. 9–10, not princeps but cruel and greedy. The fact that Tiberius profudit ‘poured forth’ his vices at this point does not imply that the virtues he exhibited before this were fake. Hypocrisy is much more a theme in Tacitus than in Suetonius, and if Suetonius had been trying to argue this, I cannot explain why he included the good Claudii at the beginning. In fact, I believe that these good Claudii point us away from the hypocrisy argument from the outset.

28 E.g. both Gascou (n. 2) and Barton (n. 2) mentioned Tiberius when they discussed Nero.

29 For a statement that the introduction to Tiberius serves to introduce these two as well, Power, T., ‘Suetonius Galba 1: beginning or ending?’, CPh 104 (2009), 216–20Google Scholar, at 218; a similar thought is expressed by Penella (n. 2), 162.

30 The text has Tibus (obelized); it is usually thought to be a mistake for Gaius.

31 The relationship between Caudex and Caecus is not clear. RE makes them brothers, but Mason, H.J. and Wallace, M.B., ‘Appius Claudius Pulcher and the hollows of Euboia’, Hesperia 41 (1972), 128–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar make Caecus the father of the main lines and do not include Caudex. Of course, we might reason that Suetonius might know something we do not, and that he is not straying as far from the direct line as we think. As the female Claudiae certainly include non-ascendent relatives of Tiberius, I believe that it is reasonable to allow them here as well.

32 Tib. 2.1; see note 30 above on the name.

33 Others who are ciuilis or perciuilis are the two paragons, Germanicus at Calig. 3.2 and Drusus at Claud. 1.4. ciuilis and princeps are the ideals for Suetonius’ Caesars. Suetonius’ own Caesar, Hadrian, displays the same quality of ciuilitas (described as ciuilissimus at HA, Hadr. 20.2): A.R. Birley, Hadrian: The Restless Emperor (London, 1997), 94 n. 4. But the coincidence of Hadrian's having these qualities could be due less to Suetonius’ wish to flatter Hadrian than to the author of the Hadrian having absorbed the fact that these are the desirable qualities in (Suetonius’) principes. If Suetonius’ use of ciuilis were a reference to Hadrian, I suspect that we would see it less prominently in Tiberius and perhaps more prominently in other, less ambiguous Caesars. On the notion of a ciuilis princeps in the Early Empire, see also Wallace-Hadrill, A., ‘Ciuilis princeps: between citizen and king’, JRS 72 (1982), 32–48Google Scholar. It has been asked whether Suetonius is deliberately reflecting on Hadrian: see Carney, T.F., ‘How Suetonius’ Lives reflect on Hadrian’, PACA 11 (1968), 7–21Google Scholar and D. Wardle, ‘Suetonius and his own day’, in C. Deroux (ed.), Studies in Latin Literature and Roman History 9 (Collection Latomus 244) (Brussels, 1998), 425–47.

34 Tib. 11.2, the sick people he inconvenienced; 11.3, tribunicia potestas, used once (when on Rhodes, before he was princeps), not unreasonably; 26–8, would not accept honours; 27, loathed flattery, wanted free speech (cf. 29: this was ‘more noteworthy’, because with the Senate he was very obsequious).

35 I do not think that Suetonius particularly wants us to identify the ‘exception’—Publius Clodius—with Tiberius. It seems more likely that he includes Clodius for the sake of making Cicero look good. On Suetonius’ affection for Cicero, see A. Macé, Essai sur Suétone (Paris, 1900), 297.

36 This was briefly noted by Barton (n. 2), 51.

37 utrumque, Suet. Tib. 3.1; utrimque, Tac. Ann. 6.51; for Livia, see Tac. Ann. 5.1.

38 Mommsen (n. 25), 497 noticed that the Claudii produced remarkably few triumphatores for such an old and prominent family. This underachievement of the Claudii is also noted by Du Four (n. 2), 10 n. 1.

39 It has been noticed that Suetonius’ portrait of Tiberius goes from good to bad, whereas Tacitus’ goes from bad (but concealed) to bad: D.M. Pippidi, Autour de Tibère (Rome, 1965), 81 n. 2. Suetonius has been thought to have responded to Tacitus in other parts of the Lives, on which see Beaujeu, J., ‘Le mare rubrum de Tacite et le problème de la chronologie des Annales’, REL 38 (1960), 200–35Google Scholar, at 234 and Hurley (n. 2 [1993]), 19. But Power, T., ‘Suetonius’ Tacitus’, JRS 104 (2014), 205–25Google Scholar rejects the idea that Suetonius must have read Tacitus.