Tom Holland

Historian and broadcaster Tom Holland introduces his new translation of Suetonius’ renowned biography of the 12 Caesars.

The ancient Roman empire was the supreme arena, where emperors had no choice but to fight, thrill and dazzle. No biography invites us into the lives of the Caesars more vividly or intimately than Lives of the Caesars by Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, written from the centre of Rome and power, in AD 121.

Suetonius places each Caesar in the context of the generations that had gone before, and it is his work that has contributed majorly to our understanding of the Roman empire.

Holland’s translation gives a deeper understanding of the personal lives of the Caesars and of how they inevitably informed what happened across the vast expanse of the empire.

Holland is the author of books including Rubicon: The Triumph and the Tragedy of the Roman Republic, which won the Hessell-Tiltman Prize for History and Persian Fire, a history of the Graeco-Persian wars, which won the Anglo-Hellenic League’s Runciman Award in 2006. He is the presenter of BBC Radio 4’s Making History and has written and presented a number of TV documentaries for the BBC and Channel 4, on subjects ranging from ISIS to dinosaurs. He is also co-presenter of the top 10 podcast, The Rest is History.