Abstract

Previous scholarship has suggested that the chance discovery of a manuscript of the Caesars in the monastery of Fulda was responsible for Einhard’s decision to model his imperial biography on those of Suetonius. Other historians have focused on Carolingian-authored texts that mention Suetonius and demonstrated that there was a substantial upsurge in interest in his work in the ninth century. In this chapter, I build on this work to explore Carolingian engagement with Suetonius from a different perspective, examining earlier Christian texts that were being copied and read in the Carolingian age and which make reference to Suetonius as a biographer of some standing. In particular, Suetonius had a rather high approval rating among the ‘bibliographies’ that were being consulted by Carolingian monastic librarians. This leads me to argue that the Carolingian intelligentsia, of which Einhard was a leading light, had a broader awareness of Suetonius than has previously been allowed. This helps to account for the increasing interest in the author and his text in the ninth century.