Biography

This chapter begins with a substantive introduction that addresses the production and status of biography and that presents a brief prehistory of later Latin biographical writings. The body of the chapter is then divided into three sections. The first covers Lives of emperors and other rulers, from those written by Suetonius to the Res gestae Alexandri of Julius Valerius. The second covers philosophers, poets, grammarians, and rhetors, with discussion of the traditions related to Lucretius and Vergil and discussion of Jerome's De uiris illustribus. The third section is titled 'Exemplary Christians' and notably includes Lives of women alongside those of monks and bishops; it also includes discussion of collections of Lives, such as Rufinus' versions of Palladius' writings on the so-called Desert Fathers of Egyptian monasticism. The conclusion addresses motivations for writing biographies and notes their openness to adaptation and translation.