The Lives of the Caesars

Suetonius (Author) Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus was probably born in AD69 - the famous 'year of the four Emperors'. From the letters of Suetonius' close friend Pliny the Younger we learn that he practiced briefly at the bar, avoided political life, and became chief secretary to the Emperor Hadrian (AD117-38). Suetonius seems to have lived to a good age and probably died around the year AD140. Tom Holland (Translator) Tom Holland is an award-winning historian, biographer and broadcaster. He is the author of Rubicon, which won the Hessell-Tiltman Prize for History and was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize; Persian Fire his history of the Graeco-Persian wars, won the Anglo-Hellenic League’s Runciman Award in 2006; Millennium, a panoramic account of the two centuries on either side of the apocalyptic year 1000; In the Shadow of the Sword, which covers the collapse of Roman and Persian power in the Near East, and the emergence of Islam; Dynasty, a portrait of Rome's first imperial dynasty and Dominion, exploring why Christianity is the most enduring and influential legacy of the ancient world, published in 2019. His most recent book, Pax, covers the heyday of the Roman Empire, from the death of Nero to Hadrian. Holland has adapted Homer, Herodotus, Thucydides and Virgil for the BBC. His translation of Herodotus was published in 2013 by Penguin Classics, and his translation of Suetonius – also for Penguin Classics – comes out in 2024. His biography of Æthelstan, the first King of England, was published in 2016 under the Penguin Monarchs series. Holland is co-presenter of the world’s most downloaded history podcast, The Rest is History. He has written and presented several TV documentaries, for the BBC and Channel 4, on subjects ranging from ISIS to dinosaurs.