PREFACE.

HE main object of this volume is historical. Though

have not neglected important points

textual and grammatical criticism, my chief desire has been to illustrate the work of Suetonius by putting before the reader, as fully as space would permit, the materials which exist for constructing the history of the life and times of Augustus, and which expand and explain the necessarily brief and summarised statements in the Biography itself. I have therefore quoted freely from Dio and other writers, and have printed in an appendix the entire Monumentum Ancyranum (as emended and restored by Mommsen), with dates and slight marginal indications of subject-matter, which I hope may render it more readily available. To this I have subjoined a few other inscriptions illustrating special points in the Emperor's life, in addition to a considerable number transcribed in the notes.

I feel, on looking back on my work, that I may at times have sacrificed to this object of historical illustration some critical discussions on text or language, such as might justly have been expected. For Suetonius, like all good writers, has a strongly marked individuality of style, and his own peculiar method of manipulating word-forms and construc`tions. It is not safe criticism to class all such as accounted for by the usage of the 'silver age,' that is, after all, a usage other than that of Caesar and Cicero. Suetonius differs as much in style from such writers as Velleius, Florus, Pliny,

as he does from either Caesar or Cicero. Idiosyncrasy has as much to do with it as date. It is easy to exaggerate the difference itself. Caesar's vocabulary, writing as he does on a narrow range of subject, is a singularly limited one. Cicero, except in his more private letters, aimed at a literary purism which must have been remote from the common practice of the day either in colloquial or written language. The admission into literature of words in common use constitutes a large part of the difference, such, for instance, as the fondness for the frequentative forms like pensare (c. 25), pensitare (c. 66), grassare (c. 67), taxare (cc. 4, 41), and of such irregularly formed compounds as inobservantia (c. 76) and praecipitium (c. 79). Again, of the long list drawn out by P. Bagge of words used by Suetonius which are not used by Cicero and Caesar, or only in a slightly different sense, a considerable number can be shewn by the practice of Vergil, Horace, Nepos and Livy to have been current at and soon after the end of the Republic. Such are appellatio c. 100, austrinus c. 81, avius c. 96, cerritus c. 87, cessare c. 42, conflare c. 52, sedile c. 43, subtexere c. 68, titulus c. 31, and others. In another class of words Suetonius has gone back to the colloquialisms of an earlier age, as is shewn by the usage of Plautus and Terence. Such are adapertus c. 53, condormire c. 98, aquilus c. 79, invitare se c. 77. Some new words or usages are naturally the result of new things, or a new view of things. Such are actus c. 78, contubernium c. 89, exauctorare c. 24, extemporalis c. 84, ieiunum servare c. 76, missilia c. 98, notare c. 64, praecognoscere c. 97, publicare cc. 29, 100, missio cc. 17, 45, recensus c. 49, breviarium cc. 28, 101, prosa (prorsa oratio) c. 85.

In constructions he is fond of using the present and perfect subjunctive (for vividness) instead of the imperfect or pluperfect, as in edant c. 55, exigant c. 49, observata sit c. 94, fugatae sint c. 16; and after verbs of exhorting or commanding he prefers the construction without ut, as monet imitetur c. 3; and usually puts a subjunctive after ante...