How to be a bad emperor with Suetonius

Part X of the Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers series

[Based on How to Be a Bad Emperor: An Ancient Guide to Truly Terrible Leaders, by Suetonius, translated by Josiah Osgood. Full book series here.]

We often hear that power corrupts, and that absolute power corrupts absolutely. Don’t need to look further than Suetonius’ The Lives of the Caesars, in part translated anew by Josiah Osgood as How to Be a Bad Emperor, to find ample confirmation. And yet, Suetonius’s perspective was a bit more nuanced: power doesn’t corrupt or ennoble. It simply greatly magnifies what’s already there. Which explains why we can have bad leaders and good leaders, as well as of course a number of mediocre and forgettable ones.

One of the most interesting aspects of Suetonius’s opus is that he didn’t just provide his readers with a rundown of historical events. He wanted them to know about the small and large aspects of his subjects’ characters, because sometimes we learn more from spontaneous private quirks than from carefully orchestrated public behavior.

Take for instance the vanity of Julius Caesar — Suetonius’s first emperor, even though technically that title belongs to Caesar’s adopted son, Octavian Augustus. Caesar was terribly concerned with his baldness, and was greatly relieved…