The Twelve Caesars – Suetonius

"I found Rome a city of bricks and left it a city of marble."

Suetonius offers a scandalous and entertaining set of biographies of the first twelve Roman emperors, from Julius Caesar to Domitian. He focuses on their personal lives, physical appearance, and peculiar habits—from Caligula's madness to Nero's artistic pretensions—rather than just their politics.

While less analytical than Tacitus, Suetonius provides the most vivid and memorable details of imperial Rome. His work inspired Robert Graves's 'I, Claudius' and remains our primary source for the gossip and excess of the Caesars.