Gaio Suetónio Tranquilo, Vidas dos Césares. Livro VII. Galba, Otão e Vitélio

Overview & Synopsis

This volume contains the translation, with introduction and notes, of the Lives of the three brief emperors - Galba, Otho, and Vitellius - who succeeded each other in Rome between the death of Nero in June 68 AD and the violent entry of Vespasian’s partisans into Rome in December 69. These are, then, the biographies of the protagonists of a bloody period of dynastic transition between the Julio-Claudian emperors, who died out with Nero, and the Flavians, the dynasty inaugurated by Vespasian: a period of 18 months of upheaval in which the imperial investiture was decentralized, and provincial armies and praetorian soldiers rivaled each other with the aim of imposing an emperor of their liking.