Western Civilization I / Unit 7 WC1 0605 short lesson, about 20 seconds
Reading Tacitus and Suetonius: The Julio-Claudian Source Problem
Captions available
The idea
Every surviving biography of the Julio-Claudians was written decades to a century later by senatorial authors who detested them. Tacitus and Suetonius supply the scandals; the anchor rates Tacitus the more reliable and the scandals as possibly true.
In practice
The anchor's "Julian dynasty" is the course's Julio-Claudian.
Where people slip
The bad emperors offended Romanitas, and their biographers were the offended elite. Read accordingly.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
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