Gaius Suetonius: De viris illustribus [On Illustrious Men] Rémy Poignault

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(106 - 113)

Remy Poignault (Université de CLERMONT-FERRAND 2); Revised By: Remy Poignault (Université de CLERMONT-FERRAND 2)

Genre: Biography (literary). Country: Roman Empire.

Suetonius’ De uiris illustribus (a title given to the work by common agreement among critics, since the exact title, along with the exact content, of the work is debated, for it is uncertain whether originally there were many Virorum illustrium libri or just one Virorum illustrium liber) has survived only partially, and as such, reconstruction is possible only by conjecture. This is a book about the men who had distinguished themselves in Latin literature.

The book is known from quotations or allusions to it in the works of later authors. The dictionary Suidas offers a catalogue of works by Suetonius, perhaps only those that were available in Greek (Della Corte 1967). Suidas mentions as part of this catalogue a Στέμμα ‘Ρωμαίων ἀνδρῶν ἐπισήμων, which could be the De uiris illustribus. Earlier critics believe that the work as we have it comprises a collection of three separate works, the Pratum (also called Prata), the Vitae Caesarum and the De uiris illustribus (Della Corte 1967). Nowadays it is considered that the Pratum also includes the De uiris illustribus (Schmidt 1991). Likewise, it was doubted in the past that the De grammaticis et rhetoribus, another of Suetonius’ works, which has a separate manuscript transmission, was part of the De uiris illustribus. The truth is that there is no irrefutable evidence attesting that the De grammaticis et rhetoribus was or was not part of the De uiris illustribus (Vacher 1993; Viljamaa 1991, who notes, however, that the list of Suetonius’ works provided by Suidas includes a “Catalogue of Illustrious Men”, but no work on grammarians nor poets under a separate title).

Models and sources

The De uiris illustribus anticipates the De uita Caesarum: in the former Suetonius lays the foundation of the method he will employ in the latter, and both works exhibit strong points of proximity (Wallace-Hadrill, 1983). The De uiris illustribus was published before the Caesares, probably around 105-109, even though there is no unanimity on the date. Suetonius does not inaugurate a genre; earlier authors in Rome already composed biographies of men of letters. These, along with their Greek predecessors, are listed in Jerome: among the Greeks, special place hold Hermippus, who wrote biographies of men of letters; Antigonus of Carystus, biographer of philosophers, Satyrus, biographer of Euripides; and Aristoxenus, music specialist and biographer of men of letters. Among the Romans, Jerome singles out Varro, who wrote, among others, the Imagines, a De Poetis and the Disciplinarum libri IX; Cornelius Nepos, whose work, it is generally agreed, included a De uiris illustribus, in addition to books about kings, generals and jurists, and books on speakers, poets, philosophers, historians and grammarians, Greek and Roman; and Hyginus, who, according to Gellius (Attic Nights 1.14.1), wrote a De uita rebusque inlustrium uirorum, though we know nothing specific about it. Overall, we have very little information about all these works and can hardly know how they have influenced Suetonius. The De grammaticis et rhetoribus, in any case, suggests that Suetonius used a variety of sources, most likely independent biographies already in circulation of the very authors he writes about (Viljamaa, 1991).

Reconstruction

Jerome refers repeatedly to Suetonius as a model for his own De uiris illustribus, which helpfully can serve as a parallel. Critics in the past have tried to reconstruct Suetonius’ work from additions Jerome made to his adaptation of Eusebius’ Chronicle (they assumed that Jerome’s additional information came from Suetonius), and from information drawn from other authors, such as Isidore of Seville or Diomedes. Reifferscheid (1860) is worth mentioning because, unlike his contemporaries, mainly Roth (1858) who sought to identify in the later sources explicit quotations from Suetonius, he approached the subject comprehensively and traced back to Suetonius passages in those later authors on the same subjects.

The surviving De grammaticis et rhetoribus and the work of Jerome, which is modeled on Suetonius for the biographies of Christian authors and used him as a source on the Roman material added to Eusebius’ Chronicle, may allow us to get a general idea of the content of the De uiris illustribus. It may be generally assumed that Jerome possibly omits authors treated by Suetonius, but the authors he includes correspond to the figures emphasized the most in Suetonius’ other works. For example, in the De grammaticis et rhetoribus, Suetonius focuses on the representatives of the Classical period, the golden age of Roman literature and the period of Roman erudition par excellence. He passes quickly over the first grammatici and focuses mainly on the leading figures of the 1st century BC and then on the grammatici of the Augustan era. Considerably less attention is shown to the rhetoricians of the Julio-Claudian and the Flavian periods (Wallace-Hadrill, 1983).

It is assumed that there was a general introduction referring to models and sources, with information on the history of book and libraries. Some books were devoted to poets, another to orators, and others to grammarians and rhetoricians, historians and philosophers; there was a book on De notis, as well. The order of these books is not possible to establish with certainty.

De grammaticis and rhetoribus

The part concerning the grammarians seems complete, but from the part discussing the rhetoricians only 6 chapters survive. Regarding the De grammaticis, after an introduction stressing the humble beginnings of teaching by the grammatici in Rome, Suetonius records a series of notes on those grammatici that seem significant to him, in catalog form and in chronological order. The composition pattern is not uniform, but for each grammarian we recognize, with variations, their name, their social and family origins, the facta and dicta concerning their private and public life, successes, fame and death (Viljamaa 1991). Overall, each biography is very concise, and there is a strong preference for anecdotes and distinct traits of the individual in question. Suetonius meticulously tends to the minutiae that make for a lively narrative, combining erudite details and entertaining information. He notes the ancient teachers’ big and little misfortunes, their friends and protectors, their students, their activities. He peppers his text with quotations of verses and excerpts from private correspondence. He tries to follow different narrative strategies for the individual Lives depending on the themes to be emphasized in each biography. Usually he employs a set of general narrative and thematic guidelines, and then he tries to build an individual portrait for each character by taking into consideration particular actions. In this way he allows them to keep some of the mystery of life (Vacher, 1993).

De Poetis The De Poetis included certainly the epic poets, and, subsequently, most likely the lyric and elegiac poets and the epigrammatists. A work known by the same author carrying the title De Poetis tragicis, comicis, satyricis is a different one. The biographies of some poets survive in full or nearly in full because a) they had been recorded at the margins (as paratext) of some work or works of the very authors in some manuscripts or in the prefaces to ancient scholia collections – in this category belong the Life of Horace and the Life of Terence – or b) because they were used by later biographers as leading source of information for the same poet, and were likely transcribed as well. In the latter case belongs the Life of Virgil by Donatus, which is indebted to Suetonius’ biography of the great Roman poet but with changes made by Donatus; or the Life of Virgil taken from a commentary by Probus, which is commonly acknowledged to draw heavily on Suetonius (Paratore, 1946); also, the verse Life of Virgil attributed to Phocas, which is also clearly influenced by Suetonius). Beside Vergil’s biography, in the same category belongs the Life of Persus, also was taken from a commentary by Probus; finally from the Life of Lucan survive an anonymous fragment and a more extensive excerpt erroneously attributed to a certain Vacca. Suetonius’ name is absent from some Lives, which are attributed to him on the basis of internal and external critical observations not all of which are uncontested in terms of credibility. And Jerome’s text suggests Suetonius had devoted a biographical note to many other poets, including the epic poets Ennius, Livius Andronicus, Naevius; the comic authors Plautus, Caecilius, Terence, Turpilius; the tragedians Pacuvius and Accius; and Lucilius the satirist. Still, Suetonius considered the times of Cicero and Augustus much more important, since during that time lived many celebrated Roman poets and many others less famous. He paid little attention to the poets of the Julio-Claudian period (he mentions just Persius and Lucan) and even less to those of the Flavian period.

The Lives of the poets generally are structured according to the following outline: 1) name, country, family 2) youth 3) relationships with important figures of the time 4) physical and moral portrait 5) catalog of works 6) date of birth and death, burial and testament.

Suetonius often uses as sources the work of the poets themselves, as well as secondary documents, such as letters.

Other Works

In the De oratoribus Suetonius limits himself to those orators who lived in the period from Cicero to Domitius Afer, focusing primarily on the reign of Augustus: Asinius Pollio, Messala Corvinus, Munatius Plancus, Passienus Crispus, etc.

The De historicis from what we can infer from Jerome included very few historians, only 6: Sallust, Cornelius Nepos, Livy, the antiquarian of the Augustan period Fenestella, the commentator of Cicero Asconius Pedianus and Pliny the Elder; and the De philosophis, which included only the antiquarian Varro, Nigidius Figulus and Seneca.

The De notis discusses the marks employed in textual criticism and shorthand, and the abbreviations that feature in legal texts and military lists.

Suetonius was keenly interested in offering detailed physical portraits of his subjects (Della Corte 1967). In the De grammaticis et rhetoribus his main concern is not the contribution of each author to the history of Latin literature, but he focuses instead on the relationship of the professional grammatici and rhetores with contemporary society and on the changes in their social status. In other words, he is not concerned to record literary history as much as he approaches biography as an expression of Rome’s cultural history, which, among others, evidences the appropriation of Greek culture by the Romans (Wallace- Hadrill 1983).

Editions SUETONIO, De poetis e Biografi Minori, Augusto ROSTAGNI ed., Torino, 1944 [new ed.: New York, Arno Press, 1979]. C. Suetonius Tranquillus, Die Kaiserviten = De vita Caesarum; Berühmte Männer = De viris illustribus, lateinisch- deutsch ; hrsg. und übers. von Hans Martinet, Düsseldorf, Zürich, Artemis und Winkler, 1997 [new ed.: 2000]. SUÉTONE, Grammairiens et rhéteurs, texte établi et trad. par Marie-Claude Vacher, Paris, Les Belles Lettres, 1993. C. Suetonius Tranquillus, De grammaticis et rhetoribus, ed. with a transl., introd. & comm. by Robert A. Kaster, New York, Oxford University Pr., 1995. C. Suetonius Tranquillus, Die Kaiserviten = De Vita Caesarum, Berühmte Männer = De Viris illustribus, Hans MARTINET ed., Zürich / Düsseldorf, Artemis und Winkler, 1997. Bayer, Karl, “Suetons Vergilvita : Versuch einer Rekonstruktion mit einer Bibliogr. zu den Vitae Vergilianae” von Niklas Holzberg und Sven Lorenz, Tübingen, Narr, 2002. Orazio, Tutte le opere, a cura di Luciano Paolicchi; introd. di Paolo Fedeli, Roma, Salerno, 1993.

References

C. Suetonius Tranquillus, Nouvelle histoire de la littérature latine -IV- L’âge de transition, Klaus SALLMANN et al. ed., Turnhout, Brepols, 2000, p. 14-58. Marc Baratin, “Le ‘De grammaticis et rhetoribus’ de Suétone: un texte polémique ?”, HEL, 1998, 20 (2), p. 81-90. Giorgio Brugnoli, “Per il testo del De grammaticis di Suetonio”, GIF, 1996, 48 (2), p. 189-221. Francesco DELLA CORTE, Suetonio, eques Romanus, Milan, 1967 [1e éd.1958]. Aude Lehmann, “Les débuts de la critique littéraire à Rome”, Naissance de la science dans l’Italie antique et moderne, De Poli, Luigi, Lehmann, Yves ed., Bern / Frankfurt am Main, Lang, 2004, p. 139-162. Ettore Paratore, Una nuova ricostruzione del De poetis » di Suetonio / nuova ed. a cura di Cesare Questa [et al.]; saggio introduttivo di Alessandro Barchiesi, Urbino, QuattroVenti, 2007[1st éd.: 1946]. Peter L. SCHMIDT, “Suetons ‘Pratum’ seit Wessner” (1917), ANRW, II, n° 33, 5, 1991, p. 3794-3825. Fabio Stok, Prolegomeni a una nouva edizione della Vita Vergilii di Suetonio-Donato, Roma, Accad. Nazionale dei Lincei, 1991. Fabio Stok, “Sulla datazione del De poetis di Suetonio”, Vichiana, 1994, 5, p. 193-202. Toivo Viljamaa, “Suetonius on Roman teachers of grammar”, ANRW, II, n° 33, 5, 1991, p. 3826-3851. Andrew WALLACE-HADRILL, Suetonius. The Scholar and his Caesars, London, Duckworth, 1983.

Remy Poignault (Université de CLERMONT-FERRAND 2); Revised By: Remy Poignault (Université de CLERMONT-FERRAND 2) First published 21 February 2014, last revised 0000-00-00

Citation: Poignault, Remy, and Remy Poignault. "De viris illustribus". The Literary Encyclopedia. 21 February 2014. [http://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=13470, accessed 6 March 2018.]

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