After impressing his great-uncle Julius Caesar with his characteristics, Caesar made Octavian his heir. “The Deified Augustus” is the longest book because, naturally, it describes the longest-reigning Caesar, Augustus, whose original name was Octavian. Because of this, historians of ancient Rome usually agree that Suetonius is reliable overall but should be read with a critical eye. Also, many of Suetonius’s key claims are corroborated by other historical sources. Nonetheless, as someone who worked in the imperial archives, Suetonius would have had complete access to a wealth of first-hand materials, like letters, memoirs, wills, political decrees, and so on, dating back to the time of Julius Caesar, and he often cites such sources. Finally, it should be noted that Suetonius only lived through the lives of the last five emperors he described the first subject of The Twelve Caesars, Julius Caesar, died just under a century before he was born. Also, The Twelve Caesars is well-known for its lurid, gossipy content, suggesting that Suetonius was not too careful in considering the biases of his sources or the plausibility of certain stories. After all, it was Domitian’s assassination that paved the way for Trajan to become emperor, and Hadrian was Trajan’s chosen successor and relative by marriage.

As someone working for Trajan and Hadrian, he likely had a political motive in making the emperor Domitian (reigned 81-96 CE) look bad. This is partly because Suetonius clearly has a bias as a member of the Roman aristocracy. Historians still debate how reliable The Twelve Caesars is.

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