Abstract

The aim of this paper is to identify potentially Senecan material in Suetonius’ Life of Tiberius, the site of one of the two generally accepted references to the Historiae (Tib. 73.2 = FRHist 74 F1). Given the paucity of the evidence for the Historiae the discussion is necessarily speculative, but suggestive connections are found especially in material pertinent to equites Romani or tendentiously pro- Caligula. If Seneca’s Historiae did herald a new golden age presided over by Caligula, this might explain the work’s apparent neglect by subsequent historians. Traces of the elder Seneca’s Historiae are difficult to detect in the ancient literary tradition, but Suetonius’ Lives of the Caesars is a good place to look, since the scholarly biographer supplies one of the two generally accepted references to the Historiae (Tib. 73.2 - Appendix F1);1 he also seems to have used material that originated in Seneca’s rhetorical works for his De grammaticis et rhetoribus. The principal aim of this paper is to identify potentially Senecan material in Suetonius’ Liefe of Tiberius, the site of that reference to the Historiae. Identifying Suetonius’ sources is a large and complex project and one - given the disappearance of most of those sources - in which success is ultimately unattainable. Jacques Gascou devoted some 300 pages of his monumental Suétone