This collection of thirteen essays is a welcome addition to English-language scholarship on Suetonius, his literary style, his contributions to the genre of biography and his subsequent reception. This volume is the product of a 2008 conference in Manchester and, although its tendency to dip its toes into diverse areas of Suetonian studies bears all the hallmarks of a conference volume, the editors have done a good job of establishing connections between the chapters and teasing out key themes that should inform and enrich our assessment of Suetonius in future scholarship.

Following a substantial introduction, the volume is divided into three sections: (1) three chapters on the formal structure and characteristics of Suetonian biography; (2) six studies of individual Caesars; (3) four forays into Suetonian literature beyond the Caesars. The first two sections present a number of useful insights into the more subtle elements of Suetonius' approach to biography. The final section, to which a number of earlier chapters make a nod, is of particular importance, since it reminds us of the full literary and intellectual range of a figure whose expertise has often been mistakenly restricted to biography: Suetonius is, in fact, we hear, a polymath with many strings to his bow.

Power's robust, scholarly introduction prefigures one key theme in the volume: Suetonius is much more than just a biographer, and as the product of a diverse range of literary influences he develops a ‘unique stamp’ with his own original style. D. Hurley's opening chapter discusses the structural complexity of Suetonius' Caesars (exploring the idea of a ‘rubric sandwich’), demonstrating that the biographies, with some notable exceptions, follow a largely formulaic structure, but that Suetonius exercises a degree of free choice in his use of fillings, which then permit subtle comparisons between the lives. C. Damon then persuades us that direct speech in the Caesars is, in lieu of sententiae, a highly stylized form of ventriloquism through which Suetonius cleverly organizes and presents the emperors' words — in their own mouths or those of others — to characterize their personalities and their régimes. P. then picks up with a thoughtful and generally persuasive analysis of intratextual subtleties in the structure and content of closing sections of the lives, which offer both biographical closure and provocative comparison with other lives — and he rounds this off by developing an argument (contra Syme et al.) that the last six Caesars must have been more than just an afterthought.

J. Henderson launches the second section on individual Caesars by arguing in his inimitable style that Julius was preformatted as the first in a series, a unique life but also a kit for working out each of the Caesars that follow. R. Langlands follows up by showing that Augustus presents no simple model of exemplarity, but the narratives around his wife-stealing early years and failed progeny expose and probe the frustrations and human limitations inherent to the ambitious legacy that the first emperor undertook to establish. E. Gunderson takes up the same theme, and argues that Tiberius becomes a negative illustration of imperial exemplarity, while also demonstrating that exemplarity is a complex literary theme that is as much retrospective as prospective. D. Hurley's second instalment examines the death narratives of the emperors, concentrating on the assassination of Gaius and its sacrificial connotations, a smart and engaging chapter that demonstrates how just a single episode in Suetonius intersects in highly nuanced ways with multiple themes and episodes. J. Tatum shifts the focus on to the ‘good’ emperor Titus, but good only because he was able to repress his natural vices — a subtle narrative developed by Suetonius in a life that has traditionally been viewed as weak and anomalous. J.-M. Hulls closes this section with a difficult but fascinating chapter on Domitian's performative failure as emperor, concentrating on the motif of the mirror, through which the solitary tyrant keeps a paranoid eye on everybody but himself.

Now the volume shifts away from the Caesars and concentrates on a selection of largely lost texts whose content and style can for the most part only be reconstructed through conjecture, but which have the potential to expose hidden depths to Suetonius' intellectual range. Gibson begins by comparing Suetonius' viri illustres to those who make an appearance in the Letters of Pliny the Younger, a painstaking but illuminating comparison that suggests that, while for Pliny talent, birth and character were all mutually supportive, Suetonius was in fact interested in upward mobility and the permeability of social boundaries. P. follows by arguing that Suetonius' Famous Courtesans was not in fact a work about sexual deviancy, but a studious and creative exercise in the traditional genre of courtesan literature on ‘the beloveds of Latin poetry’ (234), further evidence of Suetonius' broad learning and his ability to mould together Greek literary traditions, Roman biography, and fact and fiction in innovative ways. T. P. Wiseman articulately extends the volume's quest to establish Suetonius as polymath by outlining later evidence for all the other work that he produced, and develops a reconstructive argument that the lost work On Roman Shows and Competitions later became an important source for early Imperial traditions of theatre spectacle and pantomime. Finally, J. Wood closes the volume with a brilliant study of Suetonian influences on Einhard's ninth-century biography of Charlemagne, setting this moment of reception in the broader cultural and historical context of Carolingian exploitation of imperial models from the classical past, as well as the transmission of Suetonius as part of a chain of reception of pagan texts via early Christian authors, testament to Suetonius' enduring influence in the development of Western literature.

This volume, then, both collectively and in all its individual contributions, is dedicated to rehabilitating Suetonius and demonstrating the literary and intellectual sophistication that underpins his work, as well as challenging the boundaries between biography and all the other genres in which he dabbled. In both these aims, the volume succeeds admirably, and attentive readers will return to Suetonius more thoughtfully and cautiously in future sittings.