In her recent review of Anthony A. Barrett, J.C. Yardley, The emperor Caligula in the ancient sources, Phoebe Garrett suggests that the book should be withdrawn until the errors have been reduced. Such a harsh judgement is very rare in BMCR, indeed in any academic journal, and a response is clearly warranted.
What are the errors? Garrett notes that the name of Domitius Afer, appearing in a Tabula Cereata, is wrongly transcribed as Domitius Ahenobarbus, a mistake rightly pointed out. (The name appears correctly in the relevant notes.) She also claims “errors in the translation” but the sole example she cites is a typo, “reeking” spelled as “wreaking.” Surprisingly, these two turn out to be the only errors brought to light in the entire review. There are undoubtedly others, but, if so, they are not mentioned.
Her further concerns do not constitute “errors” as usually defined and are by the review’s end properly characterized instead as “misgivings.” They come in two broad categories. First, there are those places where she disagrees with our treatment or interpretation of the material. I focus on several that center on an issue of method. On our discussion of Suetonius’ assertion that Caligula despised his grandfather Agrippa she remarks that “a coin [sc. the Agrippa as] seems to contradict the literary source” and, separately, that we “adduce a coin, showing Agrippa in a positive light, as evidence that Caligula was in fact happy to advertise Agrippa as his family member.” She suggests that uncertainties about the coin “weaken the argument.” This is seriously misleading. This coin is only a very small part of the story. She omits to point out that we in fact present (p.16), in some detail, a body of evidence that Caligula respected Agrippa: (a) a literary passage (Philo), (b) three separate inscriptions, and (c) two separate coins (both from the imperial mint). One of those two coins, the “Agrippa as,” was, by the overwhelming consensus of numismatists, minted by Caligula. But even if Garrett chooses to remain unconvinced that it is Caligulan, as she does and is entitled to, the coin is a minor element and could be taken out of the equation with no discernible impact on the case made by the other overwhelming evidence.
We note that Suetonius presents isolated incidents as if they represented the general conduct of his subject. We are not alone in claiming so—Garrett concedes that ours is the mainstream position, but she complains that this position perpetuates a stereotype about Suetonius, one that seems “damaging.” As a corrective she cites David Wardle’s examination of such claims in the Life of Augustus. I do not understand her thinking here. Wardle rightly points out that most generalizations are sound and that it is difficult to determine securely which might fall into the false category, but he does in fact identify four that seem “in the strictest possible sense indefensible,” coincidentally the same number that we identify in the Life of Caligula. I remain obstinately in the mainstream camp.
Garrett observes that we deal with Caligula’s reforms in Africa, “demonstrating a real issue [sc. contradictory and equally persuasive accounts in two different sources] but without suggesting a solution.” True, but she does not add that we make explicitly clear that the whole point of this specific discussion is in fact to demonstrate that occasionally there are source problems that are so intractable, where the evidence is so finely balanced, that there is no solution.
She does raise a serious point when she asserts that “the authors are quick to dismiss some story in a literary source as implausible or unlikely, without explanation.” This is a fair comment. If Suetonius makes a reasonable statement, such as, for example, the assertion that Caligula completed the Temple of Augustus, we are inclined to take him essentially at his word if there is no contradictory evidence. But when in our judgement he makes seemingly absurd statements about such as plans to make his horse consul, or the construction of a bridge between the Capitoline hill and the Palatine, we do indeed consider such claims patently “implausible or unlikely” and try to determine what lies behind them. It is, of course, all rather arbitrary—the fact that something is seemingly absurd does not necessarily make it untrue, and how does one define the line between the informative and the absurd? But what else is the historian to do? We are hardly alone in adopting our approach, which is a fairly standard one. (Indeed, we are in the more moderate camp; there are archaeologists who refuse to cite any ancient literary sources, on the grounds that they are inherently biased). This problem is a fundamental one in historical research generally (think of the Historia Augusta). It would have been interesting if Garrett had indicated how she would deal with it.
Her other group of concerns involves general features of the book that she would have handled differently. She notes that we have little to say about historiography or the sources as works of literature. She regrets that there is no detailed explanation of why coin evidence is so important. She feels that the notes are not detailed enough and should take the students much further into the issues raised there. She feels that the book would be improved if the original Latin and Greek sources were provided along with the translations. These are all sensible observations and we generally endorse them in principle. Unfortunately they ignore a basic feature of current book publishing. Hard copy books are fighting for their lives against universal digitalisation. One striking consequence is that although some of us remember a time when word limit for a book proposal was little more than a polite suggestion, to be cheerfully ignored at will, now, to control costs, word limit is invariably implemented with an iron first. The suggested changes, especially the expansion of the notes, would by my estimate have increased the book length by perhaps 50%, possible only by cutting out at least a third of the sources, hardly a happy solution in a source book. Garrett may properly feel that her priorities would have been different, but the choices that we made are surely at the very least rational. As a footnote: the possibility of including Greek/Latin versions was raised in our original book proposal, and was suggested by one of the readers for the Press. They turned it down flat (reasonably, in our view, given the inordinate costs involved).
The review is baffling. There is no sign of malice, certainly no suggestion of incompetence. It is clear that Garrett is a zealous devotee of Suetonius, and who can blame her? As such, however, she seems determined to defend him from anything she perceives as remotely resembling an attack. It is telling that she accuses us of “dismissing” Suetonius, something we clearly do not do and that is utterly alien from our way of thinking. Our approach is apparent in our introductory discussion of Suetonius’ dubious claim that Caligula despised Agrippa. In our own words: “Does this mean that Suetonius’ testimony is to be rejected? The situation is more subtle.” We then show that there is a truth lurking in Suetonius’ assertion, vindication, surely, rather than dismissal. Suetonius has nothing to fear from us.
The disturbing statement in the initial paragraph, not borne out in the rest of the review (we reiterate that only two genuine “errors,” both essentially typographical, are exposed there) is, to use her own language, “damaging,” and it will create a distorted impression of the level of accuracy in the book as whole, especially among those who are not specialists in the area and who might well give the body of the review only a cursory scan. We hope that these brief comments may repair some of that damage.