Suetonius has had few champions of his own. Often he is studied by Classicists whose proper background and expertise are rather in annalistic historiography or Roman history, such as R. Syme and F.R.D. Goodyear, with understandably misguided results (see my introduction to T. Power and R.K. Gibson [edd.], Suetonius the Biographer: Studies in Roman Lives [2014], p. 2; cf. K.R. Bradley, Latomus 61 [2002], 486, 696–702 on C. Edwards; also T. Power, Collected Papers on Suetonius [2021], pp. 1–7 and passim, esp. pp. 207–12, 229–37 for D. Woods, whose ideas have been annulled in toto; see e.g. D. Wardle, Arctos 40 [2006], 175–88; M.B. Charles, Latomus 73 [2014], 667–85). Unless one is familiar with the conventions of ancient biography from the earliest Greek fragments to the Augustan History, one is inevitably doomed to produce a precarious reading of Suetonius’ work, especially his Illustrious Men. Fortunately, S. makes a break from such misinterpretations with this major edition of Suetonius’ De poetis.
This is the first complete text in over 75 years, following landmark efforts to rescue Suetonius’ other extant writings besides the Lives of the Caesars by J. Taillardat (Insults and Games [1967]) and R.A. Kaster (Grammarians and Rhetoricians [text and commentary 1995; OCT 2016]). The present edition of these fascinating ancient Lives of Terence, Virgil, Horace, Lucan and Persius contains a new Latin text of all five biographies as well as a German introduction, translation and commentary. In its selection of readings S.'s text is an original contribution to the previous editions of C.L. Roth (1858), A. Reifferscheid (1860, with a commentary on the Vita Terenti by F.W. Ritschl), A. Rostagni (1944) and J.C. Rolfe (1914; 19972, revised by G.P. Goold), although not all of his editorial decisions will be accepted, and it does not improve very substantively upon Rolfe's Loeb. The translation is generally accurate and serviceable, but an index would have been helpful, and also line numbers for S.'s fulsome apparatus criticus.
The inclusion of the fragments is an added benefit for specialists. S. edits fragments from Suetonius’ lost Lives of Ennius, Bibaculus, Lucretius, Cornificius, Varro, Macer, Gallus, Cinna, Varius (without Tucca), Varus, Bavius, Ovid, Catullus, Tibullus, Propertius, Livius Andronicus, Pacuvius, Accius, Naevius, Plautus, Caecilius, Turpilius, Afranius, Atta, Pomponius, Laberius, Publilius (but not Philistio [fr. 44 Reiff.]) and Lucilius. So much is mostly to be expected. S. adds new fragments from biographies of Laevius and Ticida as well as less assuredly Marsus, Titinius and Novius. The orator Memmius, who was known for his erotic poems, is omitted in agreement with my own position, and also Calvus, which accords with my argument that his biography was similarly placed in Suetonius’ Orators (Athenaeum 102 [2014], 543–5; repr. in Collected Papers on Suetonius [2021], pp. 53–6). Most of the relevant scholarship has been carefully consulted. Rare but noteworthy uncited items in the commentary include J.A. Sánchez-Marín's article ‘Prodigios, elementos eróticos y retrato físico en las biografías de poetas’ (Emerita 53 [1985], 291–308) and B. Graziosi's chapter ‘Horace, Suetonius, and the Lives of the Greek poets’ (in: L.B.T. Houghton and M. Wyke [edd.], Perceptions of Horace: A Roman Poet and His Readers [2009], pp. 140–60).
There is not room here for discussion of all of the Lives, but in order to give a useful sense of both the erudition and radicalness of S.'s text, some minor points of detail are offered below on the first Life of Terence (I follow S.'s sigla and section numbers, which differ from those of Rolfe).
Vita Ter. 1. The editor of the Aldine text of Terence (1517) was no doubt right to notice the grammatically wrong mood of the manuscripts’ natus est, which he emends to natus sit, as was Ritschl to recognise the rhetorical need to connect natus and mortuus more emphatically with something like et … et, based on Suetonius’ logical aim in this sentence to disprove that Terence was ever a prisoner of war (inter finem secundi Punici belli et initium tertii natus est et mortuus). For this reason, Roth printed natus sit and Ritschl proposed <et> natus sit et mortuus, which has since been followed by T.F. Carney in his edition of the Hecyra (1963) and now by S. But natus sit is in an incorrect tense sequentially after the perfect-tense verbs captum esse and potuisse. Once we emend instead to the pluperfect natus esset following these two perfects (cf. transnominauit, quod … natus esset, Dom. 13.3), the missing text in question becomes apparent, where haplography occurred due to the -et ending of esset. For natus est et mortuus, read natus esset <simul> et mortuus. The palaeography is easy: following a conflation, a long s became t by mistake (ess[et simul] et > esſ et > est et), and the words simul et (‘and also’) suit the biographer's style even better than Ritschl's et … et (see e.g. animo simul et corpore hebetato, Claud. 2.1; amicorum libertorumque intimorum simul et uxoris, Dom. 14.1). It is always best to restore Suetonium cum Suetonio.
Vita Ter. 3. S. prints F. Leo's conjecture de <Hecyra in> enumeratione (Rostagni ad loc.) in place of Roth's commonly accepted dinumeratione. The latter is consistent with what we know of Volcacius’ De poetis (see Ritschl ad loc.) and holds sway in Rolfe's edition, while the former seems an unlikely error. The manuscripts AS have the nonsensical denumeratione, although almost all others have de enumeratione, which may have been a logical correction. T. Mommsen's de remuneratione does not fit the context (the proximity of nummorum notwithstanding) and hardly warrants mention in S.'s apparatus criticus. However, manuscript M notably has de enunctatione. I thus propose denuntiatione, which fits naturally with this section's theme of poetic glory. Unlike dinumeratio, it is a part of the author's known vocabulary for censure (accusatorum denuntiationibus, Aug. 66.2; cf. Apul. Apol. 60). This emendation finally explains the verb in the line of Volcacius that follows, which has long puzzled scholars: ‘The sixth play Hecyra will be excepted from these’ (sumetur Hecyra sexta ex his fabula). Suetonius supports the preceding point that et hanc [Andriam] et quinque reliquas aequaliter populo probauit, since Volcacius criticised Terence's plays as a whole (denuntiatione omnium), yet thought highly of the Hecyra; hence, the conjunction quamuis (‘despite’) with regard to this mixed assessment.
Another of Ritschl's emendations is accepted by S. in bis deinceps for the manuscripts’ bis die, but this is needless, since bis die is perfectly good Latin and very much in Suetonius’ style, as opposed to bis deinceps or even bis in die (cf. bis anno, Aug. 31.4).
Vita Ter. 4. Reifferscheid printed se tutari, but most editors, including Roth and later P. Wessner in his edition of Donatus (1902), have traditionally preferred refutare, which is likewise found in the manuscripts. S. now reverts to se tutari, which matches Suetonius’ gloss se … defendisse later in the same section. However, this language is nowhere else used by the biographer and prevents the participial clause from building grammatically on eamque (infamiam) in the same way that auxit does. More Suetonian would be one accusative at the front of the sentence that is then governed by two actions of a single subject; the rumour was both increased and not refuted by the poet: eamque ipse auxit, numquam nisi leuiter refutare conatus (see e.g. infamiam impudicitiae facillime refutauit, Aug. 71.1). Equally gratuitous is S.'s reading tum in the next sentence for tamen, which provides the concessive force that is necessary after se leuius defendisse.
S. has greatly advanced our knowledge of the text of Suetonius’ Poetae and its fragments. His scholarly edition and commentary on these biographies is certain to be of considerable use to all those who work seriously on Roman biography, textual criticism or any of the poets. In fact, for these Latinists, it will likely be a must-own.
