Talk:The Twelve Caesars

message: Please, please,please don't redirect this straight to Suetonius.  Wherever Suetonius is just used as a shorthand for this work, I'm linking to here in case Lives of the Twelve Caesars is later split off.  It may take me a while as there are about 500, so any help would be gratefully received. Thanks! Neddyseagoon 22:50, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Many thanks.  Would appreciate help in following those up. Neddyseagoon 01:46, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: As there have only been seven edits to this article in the last 10 years, I will attempt to take on the challenge of making the biographies more reflective of the content of Suetonius. I began today with biographical information on the early life of Tiberius.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by AquilaMMXI (talk • contribs) 16:17, 18 October 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Expansions possible 

message: Recast the  "Influences Sources and veracity"  paragraphs into single paragrapgh, "Veracity, criticism, and influences." MOved info about subjecetivity of Claudius section to "Veracity, criticism, and influences"  section. Minor cleanup, typos. :) Dlohcierekim 18:49, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  cleanup 

message: There are some details under Caligula that really belong under Nero: These relate to Nero having a boy castrated and 'turned into a woman': All of this is attributed to Caligula in the article, so I am going to edit this, if nobody minds!android 10:17, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Caligula and Nero 

message: "White supremacists incorrectly cite Suetonius as evidence that the ancient Roman aristocracy was "Aryan" or "Nordic," (as opposed to Mediterranean or Italianate). Suetonius is often cited for this principle, because he is one of the only ancient sources that includes the physical attributes modern humans consider to be important (e.g., hair color, eye color), which other ancient writers did not deign to include.
Nevertheless, the Suetonius's Latin is often mis-translated or just misunderstood. For example, Galba's eyes are described as "cerulean" -- the color of the ocean at night. Most translations simply write "blue." Augustus's hair is described as changing color as he aged, which is often translated as "yellowing." Nero is described as having hair "that changed color in the sun." This could simply mean a tawny (reddish) brown, or be yet another dig by Suetonius at Nero's effeminacy and homosexuality -- as during Roman times, only women dyed their hair blond.
Those who look for evidence of the Aryan nature of the ancient Roman aristocracy overlook evidence to the contrary in Suetonius, evidence that comports more with an aristocracy that would look like modern Italians. For example, Caesar's eye color is described as "black" -- not brown, but black. Augustus is described as having a "monobrow." Finally, several of the emperors are described to have prominent, hooked noses -- the "Roman nose" present in many Italians, French and Spaniards today."
* How are these paragraphs relevant to the reliability of suetonius, and why is so much space dedicated to this issue?
-- —Preceding unsigned comment added by Musungu jim (talk • contribs) 
:I agree with you. These paragraphs were added anonymously on 10 March. I think they are boring and pointless (I never heard any White supremacists cite Suetonius) so I have removed them, just reinserting a couple of useful details (that Suetonius gives good info on the physical appearance of the emperors, and that he took omens seriously). Andrew Dalby 21:35, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Aryan 

message: Here's what [ Professor Rutledge] had to say : 
:Now, as to your question, I'm a pretty strict conservative when it comes to translation, so I would translate De Vita Caesarum "Concerning the Life of the Caesars". If the author meant "Lives" he would have said de vitis, and if lifestyle he could have said de modo vitae. (And I really hate the term "lifestyle" for a variety of reasons).
:That's my opinion for what it is worth. I hope things are going well for you these days and see you around next fall.
:Vale!
:Dr. R.
--Ioshus (talk) 14:47, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: professional advice

message: Sigh...one of the reasons I don't work at Wikipedia, and prefer Vicipaedia, is that people will just completely forget about something, and it will go unresolved for months. I'm moving this page, based on professional advice, to "On the Life of the Caesars". I will also change all redirects, and the lemma, to this title.--Ioshus (talk) 14:04, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Done...--Ioshus (talk) 14:29, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Hang on! I didn't see a consensus back there! This move goes against WP:ENGLISH for mine. StAnselm 00:24, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Of course you didn't see a consensus. No one bothered to come back to comment. You people are very hard to work with...the title goes against WP:Latin, man!!!--Ioshus (talk) 04:51, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

text: This is absurd.  Completely and totally absurd.  The fact that "Twelve" is not in the Latin is completely irrelevant to what the English name is.  The official Latin name of The Golden Ass is, in fact Metamorphoses.  Moving away from the classical world, there's any number of novels which have had a title in translation which doesn't match up closely to the original title.  It's not our job to "correct" such "mistakes".  And it certainly doesn't "behoove" us to make up our own title under which the book has never been published.  The book is not published in English under the Latin title, and it is certainly not published in English under the title given here, whatever random classics professor's approval of said title.  This is a pretty basic rule of naming here, and we should follow it. john k (talk) 05:28, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

text: And why do you only notice changes to this talk page at your leisure?--Ioshus (talk) 22:36, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I have no idea. This was the first time I saw your comment at 15:09 on the 19th. Anyway, I'm not opposed to treating Latin fairly, but I'm dubious that your mates constitute a representative population sample. Rather the Penguin title is most likely to be that which is most familiar. But I'm not going to be upset if the consensus is against me. StAnselm 23:16, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Isn't it the place of an encyclopaedia to do away with fiction, even, and perhaps especially, if it is familiar? Does the Penguin title get slighted by a redirect and a note in the opening paragraph? Speaking of Penguin, they call De rerum natura "On the Nature of the Universe"... again, fiction, which should not be promoted.--Ioshus (talk) 01:31, 23 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, I'm done here. Feel free to make the move. On the Lives of the Caesars sounds like the best option. StAnselm 01:53, 23 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Or "Life", I suppose. StAnselm 01:57, 23 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: impending

message: Is it necessary to include all that information on the Roman Empire on a page about a literary work? I'd rather like to see an image of a bust of Suetonius, or this commons file...--Mofrikaantje (talk) 14:51, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Roman history" header 

message: This (long dead) argument about the title is incredibly tedious.  We are not supposed to be finding the most accurate or literal translation of the Latin title.  Nor are we supposed to preserve the original language title.  We are supposed to use the most common name in English.  Looking at Amazon to see how the title has been translated by, you know, actual English language publishers, I see that Penguin and Amazon's Kindle edition use The Twelve Caesars, while Loeb uses The Lives of the Caesars and Echo and Wordsworth use The Lives of the Twelve Caesars.  At any rate, we should certainly use one of the titles under which the book has been published in English, not the title that a random classics professor advises us is closest to the original Latin. john k (talk) 05:20, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with the reason for a move (most commonly used English title - which is proven beyond any shadow of a doubt by the Wiki-links towards this article). We should explain that the literal translation of the original (Latin) title is "On the Life of the Caesars" (right at the beginning, such an explanation is also a Wiki standard). However I honestly believe that the best title is "The Twelve Caesars". That's the title of the Penguin edition and of Roberts Graves' translation (and of most links of the other Wiki-articles towards this one). I believe that Loeb's work, while very respected, is simply a bit dated. Flamarande (talk) 11:53, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I would be very happy with The Twelve Caesars. john k (talk) 04:13, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Let's make the move this weekend (if no one objects that is). A couple of days won't make a big difference and these things are better done slowly. If someone objects we will have to explain/agree/provide hard evidence. Flamarande (talk) 10:54, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: That sounds fine with me. I think there would be a number of appropriate titles for this article.  The current title is very much not one of them.  For any work that is currently in print in English, we ought to, at the very least, use one of the titles that an English version of the book uses. john k (talk) 01:49, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh bloody hell, tried to 'move' the article towards "The Twelve Caesars" but I'm unable to do it. Well we will have to follow the slow bureaucratic process then. Flamarande (talk) 19:14, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm an admin, I can do it. john k (talk) 23:20, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Requested move

message: I hate to be that guy, but there really aren't any citations on this page. Shouldn't there be? - JAB, 9:00 AM MST, 8/21/2009  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.13.175.196 (talk) 16:01, 21 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  citations? 

message: In Holdings Registry file No. 3755 in the Archives of the Ghetto Fighters' House, there's a volume of "the Flavians" (Vespasian, Titus, Domitian) from De Vita Caesarum in Hebrew translation by Menachem-Edmund Stein, published by Awraham-Josef Stybel in Warsaw, 1940, and printed in Poland. For now, I'm just recording this information here. -- Deborahjay (talk) 12:26, 2 November 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hebrew translation, Warsaw, 1940 

message: It is anyone's guess where this article came from. It seems to have plenty of WP:OR added over the years. Just tagged it. History2007 (talk) 01:32, 16 March 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Where did all this text come from?

message: I could not find any reference to Caesar increasing his own ransom amount in Suetonius (at least here). Is it really by him, or is the ransom bit rather from Plutarch? Piramidon (talk) 14:29, 28 July 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: You are correct that is Plutarch, not Suetonius.  I will remove. Parts of the Caligula section look a bit iffy as well. Tigerboy1966  21:42, 14 December 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Caesar and the pirates - source? 

message: If anybody could help with it, a section on the transmission and manuscript history of this work would be most welcome! -- 176.94.112.129 (talk) 11:56, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Manuscript history?