SOURCE: Bradley, K. R. “Imperial Virtues in Suetonius's Caesares.” Journal of Indo-European Studies 4, no. 3 (fall 1976): 245-53.

In the following essay, Bradley examines Suetonius's use of “virtue-terms.”

A noticeable feature of Suetonius' Caesares is the frequent use and illustration of virtue-terms to demonstrate aspects of character. This is not altogether surprising given that virtue-terms were deeply connected with the traditionally moralistic nature of Roman historiography and that, in an increasingly political sense, even under the Republic associations had begun to develop between powerful individuals and certain isolated virtues: Sulla and felicitas, Caesar and clementia provide two well known instances of this. It is worthwhile, however, to examine some of these usages in Suetonius, not least because the possibility of contemporary allusiveness is thereby introduced; any historical work is naturally subject to the influence of developments or tastes prevalent at the time of writing, and when Hadrianic allusions have been...