Summary: Contrasting Caligula, Nero, And Vespasian

Andrew Jyegal
Dr. Thomas Lawrence
HIST 405Y: Suetonius Paper
September 28, 2014 Contrasting Caligula, Nero, & Vespasian Suetonius is well known for his major historical work entitled The Twelve Caesars in which he analyzes the lives of twelve Roman emperors starting with Julius Caesar and ending with Domitian. The Twelve Caesars is considered to be an accurate and reliable primary source; however, it is a little bit biased in the sense that Suetonius is not always impartial in his assessments of the Roman emperors. It seems that Suetonius gives very good treatment to those emperors that he likes and very harsh treatment to those emperors that he dislikes, which says quite a lot about his integrity as a historian. For example, as is mentioned
Nero is the epitome of a bad emperor, whereas Vespasian is a great example of a good emperor. It seems obvious that Suetonius really likes Vespasian and dislikes Nero. Suetonius probably really likes Vespasian and rates him highly because he is the founder of a dynasty. Suetonius writes Vespasian 's biography in a magnificent way, does not mention bad things he did or his bad qualities (except him killing that one stoic critic and his bad quality of avarice), while he writes the biography of Nero in a very negative way. What is funny, however, is that Suetonius, forgot to mention one significantly good thing Nero did during his reign. Suetonius should have mentioned the fact that Nero tried his best to put out the great fire and to save as many people as he could and discuss his relief efforts after the fire. He did not. In the negative aspects of his reign section, he does not talk about Nero 's great persecution of Christians, which is a significantly bad aspect of his reign. He should talk about Nero crucifying and burning Christians alive at the stake in his garden. He should mention the fact that Nero ordered Christians to be thrown to dogs and lions. He should mention the fact that Nero used Christians as human torches. Why did he leave that part
They are polar opposites. But, Nero was not always a bad emperor. In fact, in his early reign, Nero was a good ruler and he did many positive things. He intended to be a virtuous ruler. He never missed an opportunity of being generous or merciful or of showing what a good companion he was (Nero, 10). He lowered heavy taxes, gave 400 sesterces to the people, raised the annual salaries of distinguished, yet impoverished senators to 500,000 sesterces in some cases, and he gave free monthly issue of grain to praetorian cohorts (Nero,10). To gain popularity with the people, he provided them with a lot of entertainment-youth games, chariot races in the circus, stage plays (Nero, 11). He even frequently participated in singing and acting contests held in public theaters, which senators strongly disapproved of since singing and acting were considered to be disgraceful professions for people of low status in Roman society. It is interesting that he even staged a naval warfare on an artificial lake of sea water which had sea monsters swimming in it (Nero, 12). Also, during his reign, he suppressed a great number of public abuses through the imposition of heavy penalties (Nero, 16). Nero did do some good things in his early reign, but he is principally known as an icon of evil tyrant who committed countless terrible, wicked acts. He raped the Vestal