Lives of the Later Caesars (Penguin Classics)

This is an odd one. It's maybe a literary forgery or hoax, but it's also a valuable source for this period of rome; the stuff it assumes you know for granted - Herodian's wall across England, for example - is an interesting mix of history from the Roman Empire while the stuff it tells you is more or less false.On one hand, it's nice that Anthony Birley has taken the time to annotate the hell out of this thing, marking off what's fiction (and sometimes pointing out what really happened), especially when he elaborates on an odd statement in the middle of something completely fake. On the other, he only translated the first half of the MSS this came from. Where does this book stand? More or less where Birley assumes it's supposed to: as a sequel to Suetonus. It spreads unflattering truths and insane fiction about the dirt of some really depraved guys like Commodus and Elagabalus while heaping praise on nicer people like Marcus Aurelius. He even goes into the usurpers, of which there are more than a few, all of whom meet the same fate. On the whole, it's a fascinating and weird book but one which does a good job at painting Rome's leaders in a period of crisis, both from within and without; the whole time I'm read this, I kept thinking this would have been a killer third season for HBO's Rome. If you liked The Twelve Caesars, you'll like this. Otherwise, start there first