Thucydides defined history as the analysis of military and political affairs. According to Erudite, the religious events, genealogy, and similar details were not appropriate to be included in history. These details however were included in biography along with poetry and letters. Suetonius’ book Vita Caesarum is one of the most complete biographies of ancient times. It includes around fifty biographies and some of them have been lost as well. Biographies of Roman emperors were among the one that hare lost. His biographies were had a different pattern in which he compared both the subjects along with drawing in sections. Suetonius wrote many books, which included words of insult, games, grammar, roman year, and customs of. His works include the biographies of Julius Ceaser, Domitian and Roman rulers. .
When the political knowledge of man was just beginning, Thucydides was only a young man. He was only aware of the common wealth in the city along with the barbaric ruling of the romans. Thucydides worked strictly with authentic facts and personal knowledge. He wrote about things that he had personal or closest contact with. According to him, research has always been a tiring and hard work because the witnesses presented their stories with either exaggeration or they had lost half of the memory. Thucydides has also been named the father of scientific history as he gathered his material based on strict research. His interest was to study human nature and behavior in times of massacres, civil war and plague .
Suetonius is considered one of the powerful writers who wrote biographies and not histories. Until before, he was not considered a person of opinion but historians now see Suetonius as a man of opinion. He has also written two biographies. The biographers in Rome wanted Exemplars in biographies and that was exactly what Suetonius was doing. Suetonius had even hoped that the biography that he wrote would be a good guide for the Roman emperor Hadrian. He was an honest researcher and had a lot of personal experience of palace and government politics. Suetonius was also a priest and clearly understood the religion of Romans and there is some evidence that he always defended the state although he was impartial and neutral.
Pericles entered in the fifth century and ruled Athens, Greece from B.C. 461 to 429. He was not a dictator and was heavily influenced by Miletus, the female philosopher, but he could not marry her due to the citizenship laws. According to Suetonius, Caesar was described to be a person who seduced many women. In his paramours were consorts, queens, Cleopatra and Eunoe. He is also described as considerate and kind towards his friends but died because of a conspiracy made by his friends.
Suetonius and Thucydides had very similar ways of writing. Both were strict researchers and mostly focused on personalities rather than events.
They both wanted to set examples of the roman emperors rather than describe the events that took place. They do have a different way of writing and recording their biographies that included different but nonetheless both set examples for the future emperors.
Works Cited
Beatty, John Louis and Johnson Oliver . Heritage of western civilization. Vol. 1. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1977.
