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Chapter 12 of 35

6.7. Conclusion

6.7. Conclusion

Chapter 6

Biographies and Historical Information

The previous chapter surveys some frequent characteristics of ancient biographies but touches only sporadically on the questions of historical interest and veridical correspondence to actual events. This chapter focuses on these questions, as well as treating some related biographic characteristics not addressed in the previous chapter.

In the wake of postmodern insights about subjectivity and social location,1 we naturally are inclined to emphasize how historians and biographers have shaped their material to communicate a point. These observations are important, but they do not require us to forgo the more strictly and traditionally historical question about what sort of material they believed they were shaping.2 As Pelling points out, “Some things really happened back then, some ways of describing them are better than others, and we can do something to find out which.”3

Particularly in the period from Cornelius Nepos through Diogenes Laertius, when biographers of public figures recounted an event without qualification, I suspect that they normally believed that it happened. These authors lie between the excessive earlier emphasis on encomium and the excessive later emphasis on hagiography; despite some remaining elements of encomium, their interest in figures of the real past invited heavy influence from historiography.

By the standards of Mediterranean antiquity, the early empire appears to be the apex of historical reliability in biographies. Plutarch believes that some writers in earlier times invented some details about Alexander’s manner of death, designing tragic scenes suited for the topic.4 Although tragedy still colored narrative composition in his own time, historical standards in biography had matured, as exemplified by himself, Suetonius, Tacitus, eventually Arrian (writing biographic history), and others.

6.1. Default Expectations

What should be our default expectation of a biographic source’s likely relation to history? It depends on the source, but the criteria that Ben Meyer lists for historical works are noteworthy: “If the intention of the writer can be defined to include factuality and if the writer is plausibly knowledgeable on the matter and free of the suspicion of fraud, historicity may be inferred”5 to a high degree of probability. If, as evidence strongly suggests, the Gospels seek to depict a story grounded in factual information,6 and if they draw on recollections from within living memory, we should accept them as genuinely informative about historical events rather than as purely imaginative constructions.7

The general reliability of a writer, and not merely that of an individual pericope, is helpful background information in shaping what we expect from a historical work. As Richard Bauckham also notes, it makes the most sense historiographically to evaluate “the general reliability and character of a testimonial source and, if it is judged trustworthy, trusting it”8 to the extent that the evidence for that source warrants.

The dependence of Luke and Matthew on information in Mark suggests two things:

  • their own commitment to information, rather than pure invention;
  • their recognition that Mark provided such information.

    • It is surely no denigration of modern scholarly ingenuity to suggest that Luke and Matthew, writing in the decades immediately following Mark, were in a better position than are we (and were even second-century writers such as Papias) to know who Mark was and what the genre of his Gospel was.9 Ancient historians felt free to draw on biographies as well as annals and memoirs when writing sober history,10 and the Evangelists would have felt the same freedom.

    That Matthew and Luke heavily employed Mark suggests their respect for Mark as a biographic/historical source, despite Luke’s11 and, more frequently, Matthew’s, rearrangement of Mark’s material.12 Papias complains about Mark’s order, his τάξις (taxis); David Moessner understands Papias’s complaint to be about Mark’s arrangement, a frequent rhetorical concern with narratives. Nevertheless, Papias accepts Mark as a legimitate link in tradition while apparently preferring the superior rhetorical arrangement of Mark’s Evangelist successors.13

    6.2. Biography as a Form of Historical Writing

    In some circles ancient biography has “a bad press”14 for a concern for historical accuracy that is supposedly inferior to that found in ancient historiography. This has often been based on Plutarch’s distinction between biography and historiography.15 More recent research, however, reveals the extent to which this approach misunderstands Plutarch.16 In context, his claim that he is writing lives rather than histories “is in the first place an excuse for summarizing or omitting historically important facts in the cases of Alexander and Caesar (in reality, mostly the former), to focus instead on character-revealing incidents.”17

    Plutarch is not “drawing a sharp line between history and biography (as it is often supposed to mean when quoted in isolation) or stating what is generally suitable or admissible for each of these literary genres.”18 Plutarch does not even strictly follow this general division between history and biography in the pair of biographies that this announcement introduces!19

    Likewise, Plutarch’s biographic emphasis on “signs of the soul”20 refers in context to features such as the character’s “sayings and jokes”21 and “throwaway remarks.”22 The contrast is thus not about reporting genuine events but about one’s literary focus; as Hägg points out, “Both historiography and biography may have a didactic purpose, but while historians convey political lessons, the biographer professes to teach ethics.”23 In other passages in his Lives, Plutarch even defines “his approach as historiography.”24

    6.2a. Biography and Historiography

    Most critics since the sixteenth century have recognized biography as a form of historical writing.25 Although ancient biographies of public figures selected, arranged and recounted their material in a manner different from history, the subject matter was mostly the same.26 Nor is it fair to speak of different truth standards for the two genres.27

    Biography shares with historiography an interest in exploiting the genuine past for useful examples, creating substantial overlap between these genres.28 As David Aune observes, though biographies often underlined praise and blame more than did histories, biography “was still firmly rooted in historical fact rather than literary fiction.”29

    We may thus speak of biography as a subtype of historiography, provided we use the broader sense of the latter term.30 Thus, for example, classics scholar George Kennedy classifies biography “as a subdivision of history.”31 Philip Stadter, another classics scholar, regards the boundaries between these two genres as quite “fluid.”32

    As noted above, ancient biographers intended their works to be more historical than novelistic,33 despite their wide range of potential functions.34 This observation is true especially for the character of biography in this era, from the first century BCE through at least the second century CE (encompassing writers such as Nepos, Plutarch, Suetonius, and Tacitus).

    The genre of history significantly influenced the development of biography both in the Hellenistic period and afterward.35 Even Isocrates’s rhetorical encomium claims to support truth, at least in contrast to epic poetry,36 a contrast frequent in ancient sources.37 Explaining why he digressed to recount the life of an individual, the historian Polybius rejected too rigid a separation of biography and history.38 Historiography likewise significantly influenced early Roman biography; Atticus, an associate and major source for Nepos, saw himself as a historian.39 Likewise, history itself sometimes could be “encomiastic,” magnifying its heroes.40

    The character of the times made this influence even more pronounced during the empire. Caesar was so prominent that historical treatment of his period now required biographic focus on Caesar. History in turn amply supplied the material for biography, not least with Caesar’s own writing as a major source.41 History and biography thus overlapped significantly in the early empire.42 Even later historians such as Dio Cassius, when discussing the period, incorporate both biographic and historical material when discussing the early empire.43

    6.2b. A Range of Flexibility

    To what extent does biographic genre tether biographies from the early empire to facts about the past? Such works were not perfect. At the end of the republic, Nepos inadvertently confuses information, especially in his Greek lives.44 Plutarch takes liberties with some of his material, despite his accuracy elsewhere.45 Plutarch and especially Suetonius make mistakes with numbers,46 as does Josephus.47 Sometimes mythical elements appear in Plutarch and Suetonius, particularly when writing about the distant past, as when Plutarch addresses Theseus.

    Nevertheless, even nonbiographic historians differed among themselves regarding the degree of creative flexibility they exercised in “shaping detail,”48 and Plutarch’s biographic work frequently is close to historiography.49 To create cohesive scenes Plutarch often had to reconstruct details creatively, but he did not simply invent events,50 and where he supplements his sources by describing observers’ responses, he often does so based on what he feels that he can infer from material already in his sources.51 Despite historians’ creativity, they did not feel “the same creative freedoms as the novelist to make it all up.”52

    Although Plutarch often works from memory, his notes draw on a wide range of sources and are usually even arranged fairly chronologically.53 Plutarch seems well aware of a significant range of sources54 and evaluates them, often based on consistency with what else is known of the subject’s character (though this approach is sometimes prone to bias).55 He rejects claims in his sources that he believes are motivated by enmity;56 he acknowledges when some readers may deem some accounts incredible57 and urges in such cases both caution and open-mindedness.58

    Suetonius proves less critically discerning about his material than Plutarch,59 but he includes various and sometimes varying accounts and hesitates “to impose his own judgments,” making it less difficult for modern scholars to evaluate his sources.60 Historiographic convention heavily influenced Diogenes Laertius’s work.61 Even in the fourth century, when a source could not recall the substance of a speech, a biographer concerned with accuracy might not try to reproduce it.62

    Often later biographers simply repeat what earlier biographers said.63 I revisit the question of historical information in biographies of the early empire in greater detail in chapter 10, where I illustrate it more concretely with some case studies.

    What implications do these observations have for the Gospels? Where a variety of genre options exist, authors typically select and adapt the basic genres that they feel will best communicate their message to their audience.64 As Aune notes, that “the Evangelists . . . chose to adapt Greco-Roman biographical conventions to tell the story of Jesus indicates that they were centrally concerned to communicate what they thought really happened.”65 The Evangelists could have chosen exclusively liturgical forms such as hymns to honor Jesus (as in Rev 5:9–13), but for the Gospels they chose to write especially in biographic form.66

    Rather than borrowing popular myths, the Evangelists instead communicated stories genuinely rooted in earlier Galilean and Jerusalem contexts (for evidence, see ch. 16). Dunn concludes that the Gospels’ “genre itself tells us at once that there was a considerable historical interest” in gathering material about the Jesus who lived in history.67

    6.3. The Gospels as Historiography?

    Because the Gospels include elements that connect them with historiography proper as well as with its biographic subtype,68 some scholars have argued that the Gospels are history rather than biography.69 After all, Origen called the Gospels ἱστορίαι (historiai),70 though contending that some of their reports did not happen physically.71 So are the Gospels history instead of biography?

    6.3a. History More than Biography?

    Adela Yarbro Collins reasonably argues that Mark adapted biblical historiography in light of apocalyptic eschatology and Hellenistic historiography and biography.72 After addressing arguments for Mark as biography73 and allowing for some influence from ancient biography,74 Collins argues for Mark being closer to historiography,75 specifically in the form of an eschatological historical monograph.76

    Much can be said for this proposal. Cicero felt that historical monographs were ideal for glorifying their subjects,77 although this same goal is naturally also a key element in biography.78 Some typical arguments against the historical monograph thesis are quite weak. For example, although most extant or partly extant histories were multivolume, the Gospels’ length range does not count against them being historical monographs. One might contrast a half-book length biography by Plutarch with histories of Alexander running to seven or ten books long.79 But while most universal histories were multivolume,80 historical monographs allowed for more focused treatment on a particular subject,81 often in a single volume.82

    Likewise, if one contends that Mark’s chronology is too imprecise for a historical monograph, one might charge the same for some of Sallust’s monographs,83 despite their deliberate imitation of Thucydides.84 Yet, at least among writers whose works have survived, it is Sallust who pioneered the Roman composition of historical monographs.85 Furthermore, many histories had biographic sections or approaches;86 when Dionysius of Halicarnassus writes a substantial section on Tarquin,87 it remains part of a larger history.88 Biographic material does not make a work biography per se.89

    The historical monograph proposal would also bring Mark into much closer alignment with the dominant perspective on the function of Acts, another early Christian work.90 Then again, a historian could include a biographic volume in a larger history, as in the case of Diodorus Siculus’s treatment of Alexander of Macedon.91 Likewise, Dionysius of Halicarnassus chronicles numerous lives in his history;92 the same could obviously be said for the ancient Israelite books of Samuel through Kings.93 Luke’s Gospel does belong to a two-volume history, but when taken by itself, it may be understood as biography. (Indeed, some leading exponents of the Gospels as biography find biographic elements also in Acts.)94

    6.3b. Biography More than History?

    Yet the rejection of biography as a genre based on elements missing in the Gospels would also be problematic. On the basis of some of Plutarch’s works, some define all biography so rigidly that not even all of Plutarch’s lives can fit their definition.95 Some expect nearly all biographies to include most conventional biographic motifs,96 but, as discussed below, the variation in motifs is actually much wider than conventional lists might reveal.

    Granted, some features often distinguish biography from other sorts of historical works. These include a concerted focus on the biographee and consequently various conventional biographic topics, such as ancestors, birth, education, appearance, character, friends, death, and burial.97 The Gospels entirely neglect Jesus’s appearance, and Mark (unlike Matthew and Luke) neglects his birth.98 Yet it is not the only biography to neglect such points. (See discussion below, section 4.)

    Burridge, who views the Gospels as bioi, acknowledges that some historical works with individual-focused sections are not bioi.99 Yet Burridge responds that even if the Evangelists had only a basic Greek education,100 they would know how to compose biography more readily than a historical monograph. Historical composition was part of education,101 but biographic materials such as encomia appear even earlier in the curriculum.102 Nepos is explicit that biography is intended for a more popular level than history.103 Similarly, Witherington notes the overlap in genres but counters that “the more specific telltale signs of an historical monograph,” such as synchronisms or “historical causality,” are missing. Mark focuses not on events but on a person.104

    Mark does not write on the elite literary level of the biographer Plutarch, and his framework is not only more eschatological but also in various other ways more specifically Jewish than the work of any gentile biographer. The same differences, however, could be leveled against the classification of Mark as history, novel, or other genres; in the Diaspora these contrasts reflect social, cultural, and ethnic differences rather than a difference of basic genre.

    Biographies were less exhaustive than histories, focusing more on the models of character they provided.105 Histories also elaborated speeches in a way that biographies did not.106 Whereas Tacitus composes speeches for his history, the biographer “Suetonius quotes the actual words of his subjects, cataloguing, for instance, the idiosyncrasies of Augustus’ Latin.”107

    The most conspicuous difference between biographies and histories, however, was their focus. Ancient biographies, like their modern descendants, focused on a single person.108 (Collected biographies, such as Philostratus’s later Lives of the Sophists or Diogenes Laertius’s lives of philosophers, could focus on multiple persons in succession.)109 By contrast, history included a broader range of characters and events, especially large-scale ones.110

    Granted, as noted above, first-century historiography often focused on notable individuals.111 Structured by the reigns of emperors, Roman historiography included increasing elements of “imperial autobiography” by the end of the first century.112 The question that arises here is what we would call an entire historical monograph focused on a single individual. Occasionally, as in the case of Arrian’s multivolume treatment of Alexander, most see such a work as a historical monograph. In the vast majority of cases, however, ancient readers would engage a single-volume, person-focused work as a biography.

    Mark’s Greek education, and his knowledge of both Greco-Roman bioi and historiography, may have been limited, but he does know that he is writing about a person. Still, genre boundaries are far more fluid at this point than the boundaries between full biographies in the early empire and novels. To some degree, the distinction may be in many respects semantic.

    6.3c. An Overlap More Significant than the Difference

    Most observations of those scholars who view Mark as a historical monograph are valid; I would simply suggest that they do not ultimately detract from treating Mark as biography. More important, whether one treats the Gospels as biographies or as historical monographs makes fairly little difference regarding their value as sources for historical reconstruction today. The concerns of historiography and biography significantly overlapped, as supporters of both theses note.

    Thus, for example, in Collins’s typology of biographies, she assigns Suetonius’s Caesars, Plutarch’s Caesar, and Tacitus’s Agricola to the type “historical biography.” “Lives of this type,” she explains, “have the same aims as historiography: to give an account of an important series of events and to explain the events in terms of their causes.” This is also the type “that is most similar to the Gospels.” “The historical type of biography,” she continues, “is very close to the historical monograph, which focuses on a single person.”113 “Since the history narrated by Mark coincides in large part with the life of Jesus, it is similar to the historical type of biography.”114 Dihle, who views the Gospels as historical monographs,115 also points out that Roman biographies fall closer to history.116

    Likewise, most of those who regard the Gospels as biographies, including myself, agree that they include historiographic elements.117 Burridge notes that near genres such as biography and historical monograph “share many features in common, . . . where the subject of the former is a person’s life and character, while the latter is more focussed on a single topic, often involving many people.”118 “There is bound to be a continuum between these genres, which is why it is important to remember the flexible nature of genre.”119 Pelling shows the proximity of biography and history as genres, although suggesting ways to distinguish them.120

    As noted earlier, any rigid boundary between biography and history would be artificial.121 Andrew Pitts, following David Balch and others, notes that there is no “hard and fast distinction between history and biography.”122 Even Plutarch, who distinguishes history from biography in one widely cited passage,123 elsewhere views his biographic work as “history.”124 Like Plutarch, the historians Appian and Dio Cassius also pressed the boundaries of these genres.125 Despite his topical arrangements, Suetonius also straddled both genres.126 Likewise, despite the carelessness of the first-century BCE biographer Cornelius Nepos, his intentions appear to be historical. Some writers blurred the difference even further, titling their works “Life” yet narrating the history of a people.127

    Many features of biography naturally overlap with historiography more generally. Historians depended on sources,128 but so did biographers (see discussion below).129 A historical work could treat specifically the deaths of prominent people, a familiar subgenre and also a fitting biographic subject130 (note biographic examples later in this chapter). Mark’s style is much more episodic than Plutarch’s Caesar,131 but episodic style characterized many biographies.132 Travel anecdotes do not differentiate biographies from person-centered histories.133 Commentary asides appear in biographies134 but also in both histories and novels.135

    History focused more on deeds136 than on anecdotes that reveal one’s character.137 Influenced by the Roman emphasis on models, first-century Greeks and Romans “extended the definition of history by adding the life and character of famous men to speeches and deeds as the proper subject of history.”138 Some distinguish this approach from pure biography in terms of their distinct purposes.139 Yet deeds are a key feature in many biographies.140 (The Gospels include both deeds and anecdotes;141 for anecdotes in ancient biography and the Gospels, see ch. 5.) Historical features are so pervasive in historical biographies that eliminating those with historiographic characteristics would virtually eliminate the genre.

    As already noted, the usual primary distinction between biographies and other historical works is not biographic focus (which can appear in histories) but whether the work is limited to a single character. A particular single-volume historical work that actually focuses on a particular individual would not be easy to distinguish from a “life” (bios). Even here, however, the distinction is not rigid, even aside from Arrian’s work on Alexander. By the third century CE some philosophic “biographies” included information on lives of a philosopher’s disciples, as well as the philosopher himself;142 multiple lives already appear in some earlier collections, regarding poets and others. Valerius Maximus collects anecdotes topically that include biographic information.

    With reference to a work’s correspondence to historical events, the difference between historical monograph and historical biography is slight. One expects more set speeches in the former and more emphasis on character in the latter, but both genres depend heavily on prior information. Confusing the two genres might cause one to miss nuances, but one’s understanding still “would not be too far off.”143 Whether we view a work as a biographic historical monograph or as a historical biography, the commitment to historical information remains clear. With regard to historical intention and literary adaptation, the line between early imperial-period biographies and histories is thin.

    6.4. “Biographic Features” Missing in the Gospels?

    Some reject the biographic genre for Mark because this early Gospel says little about Jesus’s background, birth, or education, standard topics in biographies.144 Some other features favored by some biographers, such as the subject’s typical dress or diet, are of little interest to the Evangelists; others, such as “love affairs (especially if scandalous),”145 are not relevant. But while such features are common in ancient biographies, (and background and birth appear in Matthew and Luke), such features are not mandatory.

    6.4a. Applying Appearance

    Ancient biographies commonly provided descriptions of their heroes,146 especially physically magnificent ones.147 Praise of physical beauty was naturally a common aspect of Greek epideictic.148 Suetonius even uses physiognomy at times to discern personality or the future.149 Indeed, while admitting that Augustus actually was short, he supplies the testimony of an aide of Augustus regarding Augustus’s grander stature for those who might prefer that tradition!150 Nevertheless, even heroes could have physical quirks; one thinks of historical memories of Socrates’s snub nose.151

    Physical descriptions, however, were far from mandatory in biographies, and they were uncommon in histories. Whereas Aristotle stresses physical description, Xenophon mentions it rarely; Plutarch and Diogenes Laertius include it in only some of their biographies; Tacitus’s Agricola provides it only briefly.152 Philosophically minded reporters felt that describing a teacher’s soul was far more important than describing his body.153

    6.4b. Background, Birth, and Upbringing

    Greeks and Romans expected great leaders’ births to be heralded by unusual events;154 dreams were frequent. Sometimes such an event could include a flame shining around the boy’s head.155 Later rhetoricians advised noting any supernatural phenomena attending a person’s birth.156 Thus orators would praise a king’s noble birth, looking for any phenomena that happened at the time that could be interpreted as favorable portents;157 if these were not available, one could invent them,158 and invent them obviously and extravagantly.159 This could include one shining at one’s birth; thus the deity Apollo shone and lit up all the cosmos.160 Speeches were not, of course, biographies, but it seems safe to presume that some fictitious accounts that originated for speeches eventually were assumed to be ancient and thus worked themselves into biographic traditions.

    Ancient biographies often depict the subject’s background and youth.161 Suetonius always includes such features (readily available for emperors), and Plutarch usually does so. In various genres, from veridical accounts to pure fiction, stories of child prodigies warranted special attention.162 Biographers often liked to use reports of youthful actions to presage the virtues or vices depicted more fully later in life.163

    Biographic novels expanded on material available about various famous figures’ youth,164 but many mainstream biographers were also happy to expand on stories of youth when these were available. Storytellers expanded, for example, on the details of Moses’s childhood and young adulthood.165 Philo elaborates on Moses’s youthful character and education,166 portending the lawgiver’s later role as philosopher-king.167 Despite his elaboration, however, Philo seems aware of at least some prior tradition about Moses’s education.168 Furthermore, Moses was particularly intelligent and beautiful as an infant.169 As a child he portentously cast Pharaoh’s crown down.170 As already noted, great adults were often assumed to have been child prodigies;171 thus, for example, Cyrus revealed his royal character by his authoritativeness already at age ten.172 On the historical level, Fronto attributes such advanced maturity to Marcus Aurelius.173 Josephus also presents himself as a prodigy.174

    Some of these stories may be fictionalized by the extant biographers who report them,175 but others might be inherited from previous sources; biographers might draw on earlier fictions, but they do not appear to have usually invented their own. Nepos, for example, has to omit the early life of his favorite character.176

    Likewise, despite Plutarch’s obvious interest in establishing character toward the beginning of a life,177 he does not create infancy stories the way we find in novels. Thus he covers “Agis’ childhood and early youth in one brief participial phrase”;178 “Plutarch’s manipulation of the truth never appears to develop into unbridled imagination.”179 When reports about a figure’s birth or childhood vary, Plutarch does not mind saying so.180 He does not even fill in a Roman citizen’s tria nomina when one element of the name is unknown.181

    Lucian briefly mentions that Demonax hailed from a wealthy and influential Cyprian family, and, a few sentences later, that he yearned for philosophy even as a child.182 But he offers no specific examples—perhaps because he lacks them.183 Lucian knew Demonax only as an adult. Immediately Lucian moves beyond Demonax’s background to declare that he surmounted it.184 Although panegyric often praises a person’s honorable background,185 it could also praise a person overcoming a disadvantaged background.186 That is, even rhetoricians could make one’s description praiseworthy without necessarily or invariably fabricating the description.

    By omitting Jesus’s birth, Mark may seem less like a typical Greco-Roman biography than Matthew or Luke, despite sufficient other features to indicate its biographic genre.187 Yet important as a figure’s background (ancestry, birth, nurture, and education) were to epideictic speeches or biographies when these proved both available and useful,188 birth and infancy stories were not central to or necessary for a work to fit the biographic genre.189 Early biographic encomia stressed ancestral lineages, but such interests appear to have diminished by the early empire.190 Thus biographies sometimes began in their subject’s adulthood, starting with the biographee’s public career.191 When included, birth or childhood narratives were sometimes extremely brief, at times no more than a mention,192 or discussion of parentage is deferred until after an introductory section193 (cf. Mark 6:3). The background can be a single line, as in, “Solon, the son of Execestides, was born at Salamis,”194 or, “Chilon, son of Damagetas, was a Lacedaemonian.”195

    Such omission or brevity probably at least sometimes reflected simply lack of substantial information. Because Plotinus mentioned only a few childhood incidents and could not be persuaded to recount more, Porphyry’s biography addresses his childhood far more sparsely than the adult Plotinus that Porphyry knew. He does not invent stories to fill in the gap.196 Still, an author sometimes does know more about the background yet simply deems it less important to the matter at hand; Josephus, for example, summarizes the first thirty years of his life in about 4 percent of his autobiography.197

    Mark begins Jesus’s public ministry where his best information and early Christian preaching may have often begun,198 and where Luke begins Peter’s summary of Jesus’s mission in Acts 10:37.199

    6.5. Can a Biography Take the Form of an Extended Passion Narrative?

    How does the cliché that Mark is “a passion narrative with an extended introduction” fit the possibility of Mark being a biography (or, for that matter, a history)? Mark probably draws his passion narrative itself from earlier material,200 and Jesus’s death left an indelible mark on Christian accounts within living memory of that traumatic experience.201 Nevertheless, there is no intrinsic reason to find his focus on Jesus’s death inappropriate for biographies.202 Granted, Xenophon’s early account of Agesilaus seems to deliberately sidestep his death, but other accounts about Agesilaus do report it,203 and death scenes become common in biographies by the time of the early empire.

    The vast majority of ancient biographies conclude with the subject’s death, tomb, epitaph, will, and related events.204 Plutarch devotes 17.3 percent of the Cato Minor to his subject’s last days.205 This is comparable to Mark’s 19.1 percent, Matthew’s 15.1 percent, and Luke’s 15.6 percent.206 Some biographies foreshadow the subject’s death, as in the Gospels;207 often they narrate conflicts, portents, final words, and other events leading to or surrounding the biographee’s end.208 Some Romans even composed books built entirely around the deaths of famous persons—“passion narratives,” so to speak.209 As Michael Bird points out, “The element of the Gospels thought to be most unique, their focus on Jesus’ passion, turns out to be not so unique after all.”210

    Where possible, biographers emphasized the gentler deaths of noble protagonists (obviously not possible in Jesus’s case).211 Even though an easy death could constitute a basis for praise,212 death merited greater treatment when it was central to the person’s achievements.213 Thus biographies, like other works, were all the more likely to devote extensive space to a death that was particularly notable, such as that of a martyr.214 In particular, Jewish tradition devoted extensive attention to their martyrs.215 Likewise, Plutarch comments more extensively on Cato’s death because of its distinctive features.216 Much of what survives of Nicolaus’s biography of Augustus focuses on the assassination plot against Julius Caesar and its aftermath.217

    Biographers frequently slow their narration to treat a person’s final days in greater detail.218 No longer content with topically arranged, isolated anecdotes, “Suetonius shifts into a narrative mode” when depicting emperors’ deaths,219 since such scenes had long warranted dramatic elaboration (both in epic and in tragedy). Scholars often find considerable attention to literary design or moral message in these death scenes.220 How they died could confirm or contrast with how they lived or taught;221 some accounts may also play ironically on their doctrines.222 For example, Mark may depict Jesus’s death contrasting starkly with the good-death tradition, yet in a manner consistent with his teaching and other foreshadowing in his life.223

    When details were historically inaccessible,224 biographers probably used the best available models to fill in their narration with some verisimilitude.225 They also provided key connections among figures, sometimes probably filling in minor details to create cohesiveness.226

    Still, even in some of these cases, actual events may lie behind parallels.227 Memory, whether personal or social, naturally structures events according to cultural scripts.228 People were certainly interested in death scenes,229 but this could contribute to people recalling genuine reports about events as well as to their free invention. Memories of such events would likely be vivid, given what is known of flashbulb memories about significant public events (cf. ch. 14).230 Fiction may include verisimilitude because it imitates reality, but historical narration can include verisimilitude because the author has access to information.

    Suetonius, for example, often presents the various possibilities surrounding an emperor’s private death without offering a firm opinion of his own; he does not simply invent a conclusion.231 Although many of Diogenes Laertius’s sources, which do not come from living memory, may be suspect, Diogenes himself usually takes death material from his sources.232 (In Diogenes’s case, this sometimes meant multiple versions of a philosopher’s death because various versions circulated by his time.)233 To reject the historical core behind a death scene because a philosopher died consistent with his teaching234 risks the same minimalist assumption for which the negative use of the criterion of dissimilarity has been criticized.235 Some teachers were of course inconsistent with their teaching, but surely this was not always the case.236 Biographers could depict characters’ deaths “in close proximity to reality.”237

    Some teachers may have even arranged their deaths to follow earlier models; Seneca’s suicide, for example, might follow the model of Plato’s Phaedo,238 and Peregrinus’s may imitate that of Brahmans.239 Assassins might also “take meaningful inspiration from literary accounts of previous killings.”240

    While Mark’s emphasis on Jesus’s death fits biographies of martyrs, it is unusual in another respect. Whereas biographers normally wrote about famous and respected people, Mark does not record Jesus’s public vindication; his Gospel climaxes with Jesus’s disciples abandoning him, the leaders condemning him and crowds rejecting him, and the women who do learn of his resurrection keeping silent.241 Mark may have reshaped some typical elements of the genre for theological reasons;242 nevertheless, his focus on words and deeds of a single historical figure maintains the work’s status as biography, perhaps thereby drawing all the more attention to his work’s less typical aspects.

    6.6. Use of Sources

    The use of sources in ancient biography mirrors fairly closely their use in ancient historiography (treated in 7.9 below); biographers developed preexisting material that they expected to usually contain genuine information. Biographers depend heavily on prior reports, which underlines their interest in the remembered past rather than sheer literary creativity; the line between biography and novel was normally not so thin as that between biography and history.

    In the Roman period, biographers usually chose their sources for what they deemed their information value rather than displaying a consistent bias for or against given authors apart from this consideration.243 Nepos often rewrites earlier accounts, perhaps helping to account for his speed of production.244 He prefers to depend on major histories from which he could compose a short life with minimal trouble.245 Because his Themistocles overlaps significantly with Herodotus and Thucydides, and it sometimes cites Thucydides,246 we can explore connections with these possible sources; a recent study finds more than eighty significant points of contact in this one biography.247 (Ephorus, on whom Nepos may depend for other material, is unfortunately no longer extant.) Nepos usually follows these sources quite closely, omitting some material but generally adding relatively little.248

    Writing about foreign generals, where Nepos lacks fuller background knowledge, sometimes strains his competence,249 but for Roman lives he follows the best sources, sometimes including figures’ personal letters250 but probably especially dependent on his friend, the careful scholar Atticus.251 Like historians, Nepos employed autopsy,252 documents,253 and earlier historians.254 He does not appear to depend on such documents when writing about Greek generals,255 but neither does he invent spurious sources to compensate for his lack of access to real ones. He sometimes cites divergent sources without personally deciding among them.256

    Plutarch made use of Thucydides in his lives of Pericles and Nicias, using accepted contemporary historiographic conventions.257 A recent thesis at Durham contends that Plutarch’s additions to and divergences from Thucydides often reflect educated guesses based on his source material, just as historians today often must offer (albeit normally more explicitly). Plutarch made mistakes and his perspectives were fallible, but in the final analysis “we can agree with Pelling that Plutarch did try to get it right.”258

    Tacitus could write about his father-in-law, Agricola, from direct knowledge, from oral reports from the family, from Agricola’s notes and letters and from public documents, as well as, for his geographic digressions, other writings.259 Plutarch’s extant works, meanwhile, cite 150 earlier historians, and he uses an estimated twenty-five specified sources even for just his seven biographees from the late Republic.260 When possible, he uses authentic letters from his subjects261 and other writings from the periods he describes.262 As noted above, he also often critically evaluates his sources.263

    Suetonius draws on his notes from official “libraries and archives,” which he then arranged topically.264 His Caesars draw on thirty-seven named authors plus inscriptions, a plethora of unattributed citations, and other sources.265 He seems to know of histories that he does not explicitly cite,266 and he often refers to material that he does not specify by name.267 Suetonius also welcomes a range of sources, allowing differing accounts to stand in tension.268 He depends on his subjects’ own writings, such as poetry, letters, or autobiographies.269 He also shares many of the same sources employed by Tacitus270 and sometimes assumes his readers’ prior knowledge of relevant matters.271

    He is attentive to information even when he does not name sources; for example, he notes that he investigated thoroughly a claim by “some” and found no corroborating evidence in its favor.272 He distinguishes between rumors and established sources such as an autobiography.273 Granted that he focuses on the most interesting anecdotes, he may do so because he takes for granted that his literate Roman audience already knows the key historical details.274 That he writes at significantly greater length about earlier emperors than more recent ones may reflect his sources; more written sources were available concerning the earlier reigns, whereas the more recent required him to depend more on oral history and direct knowledge.275 I examine a test case for Suetonius’s use of prior information in chapter 10.

    Because Arrian’s historical monograph on Alexander also has a person-centered focus, it offers another relevant example. Because Arrian had available far more material about Alexander than he needed, he notes that he selected, arranged, and reworked it in ways that would best honor his hero.276 He depends especially on the two eyewitness sources that he deems most accurate,277 weaving in other sources only if he deems them plausible and interesting enough to merit mention.278 Although he changes the sequence and emphasis of the material, creating a new product, he does not appear to have invented events or to have significantly modified their content.279

    In the early third century, Diogenes Laertius is a particularly industrious compiler and is much more committed to documenting his sources than was Suetonius. Recounting the lives of earlier philosophers, he cites 1,186 references, 250 different authors, and over 350 anonymous references.280

    Although Luke does not name his sources,281 not unlike Suetonius’s usual practice, he acknowledges the existence of circulated accounts (Luke 1:1–3). Because he writes recent history (see ch. 9) dependent on a collective apostolic memory, he may not know of any wide divergence of opinion on the substance of what actually happened, and thus may have less reason to identify varying viewpoints. Those who wrote about events from living memory often did not name many of their sources.282

    6.7. Conclusion

    For the most part, biographers of the early empire, like historians, were bound to their sources, at least with regard to events (major incidents and occurrences). They could reshape them rhetorically, but the genre in which they chose to write meant a focus on shaping the remembered past, not on unrestrained literary creativity.

    So long as we recognize the differences between ancient genres and their modern successors, it is fair to describe ancient biographies as works based in historical information. Ancient biographers had their agendas, but in contrast to writers in some other genres, they normally achieved such agendas by using historical information so far as it was available. Biography was, as David Aune points out, “firmly rooted in historical fact rather than literary fiction.”283 Accordingly, and without contradiction to their proclamatory function, we might expect the Gospels to preserve substantial genuine information about Jesus as well.

    1. Modernist positivism introduced the dichotomy between proclamation and historical information to begin with; the two differ, but they are not inherently and necessarily incompatible.

    2. For most historiography’s appropriation and correction of the initial proposals of postmodernism, see esp. Sheppard, Craft, 164–69.

    3. Pelling, Texts, viii.

    4. Plutarch, Alexander 70.3.

    5. Meyer, Aims of Jesus, 85, quoted in Bernier, Quest, 44. Meyer offers further comments about inferring historicity in Aims of Jesus, 83–87. The context of this way of framing historical investigation may be designed to challenge Bultmann’s inference of nonhistoricity (see 196).

    6. See here, e.g., Bernier, Quest, 48–54, reconstructing the aims of the individual Gospels as telling a story related to facts.

    7. Bernier, Quest, 50–51, regarding this as the conclusion that follows.

    8. Bauckham, “Response,” 229.

    9. Cf. Keener, “Luke-Acts,” 622; Bernier, Quest, 53.

    10. Hadas, “Introduction,” xviii. Cicero already regarded history as arranging annals so as to teach public morals (Galinsky, “Introduction,” 4, citing Cicero, On the Orator 2.52).

    11. See Luke 1:3, καθεξῆς (kathexēs).

    12. Writers often conspicuously imitated earlier (though normally much earlier) works but were expected to develop them and reappropriate them in new ways; see Knoppers, “Problem,” 16, 32. The imitation was also normally conspicuous enough as to avoid ready confusion; cf. criticisms of the ingenious work of MacDonald (Epics; Imitate Homer) in Mitchell, “Homer”; Johnson, “Imitate”; Sandnes, “Imitatio,” esp. 725; Sandnes, Challenge, 249-50; Snyder, “Review,” 3.

    13. See Papias, frag. 3.15 (Holmes), as articulated in Moessner, “Voice,” and esp. Moessner, “Papian Fragments” (also noting that, by ancient standards, Mark fails roughly half of Theon’s criteria for a good plot). Papias may have viewed himself as a historian (Aune, “Prolegomena,” 81; Bauckham, World, 143–64).

    14. De Pourcq and Roskam, “Virtues,” 163.

    15. Plutarch, Alexander 1.1.

    16. Beneker, “Method,” 117–18; De Pourcq and Roskam, “Virtues,” 164, citing Duff, Lives, 14–22; Pelling, Plutarch and History, 143–70; Pelling, “Bounds,” 266.

    17. Hägg, Biography, 269; followed also by Smith and Kostopoulos, “Biography,” 399. As noted in ch. 11, condensing and simplifying material was a common practice, not limited to biography.

    18. Hägg, Biography, 269; cf. Edwards, “Introduction,” xiv; Pitre, Case, 75.

    19. Pelling, “Bounds,” 266–67.

    20. Plutarch, Alexander 1.3.

    21. Hägg, Biography, 271. For the valuing of humor and wit, see, e.g., Rabbie, “Wit” (though it involved a different tone than dignified speech; Hall, “Delivery,” 221).

    22. Licona, Differences, 4–5; cf. Ehrman, Introduction, 63; Edwards, “Introduction,” xiv.

    23. Hägg, Biography, 273.

    24. De Pourcq and Roskam, “Virtues,” 164, citing Plutarch, Aemilius Paulus 1.1, and Tiberius Gracchus 1.1; cf. also Frickenschmidt, Evangelium, 234; Smith and Kostopoulos, “Biography,” 400.

    25. Momigliano, Development, 2; cf. 6.

    26. Geiger, Nepos, 25.

    27. Pelling, Texts, 259n2; Pelling, “Truth.”

    28. E.g., Bravo, “Antiquarianism,” 516. Burridge, Gospels, 63–67, also notes the substantial overlap between the genres of ancient biography and history (as well as other genres).

    29. Aune, “Biography,” 125.

    30. Becker, Birth, 69–70.

    31. Kennedy, “Source Criticism,” 136.

    32. Stadter, “Biography,” 528; see also Burridge, Gospels, 63–67.

    33. For substantial overlap between the biography and history (as well as other) genres in antiquity, see Burridge, Gospels, 63–67.

    34. Burridge, Gospels, 145–47, 180–83. For the divergence, see further Barr and Wentling, “Biography and Genre,” 81–88, although I would not regard all their examples as biographies.

    35. Adams, Genre, 114, 251.

    36. Ytterbrink, Gospel, 76, citing Isocrates, Euagorus 10, 21, 36.

    37. Aristotle, Poetics 9.2, 1451b; cf. Pliny, Letters 9.33.1; Lucian, How to Write History 8; Menander Rhetor, Epideictic Treatises 1.1.333.31–1.1.334.5; see discussion in ch. 7.

    38. Becker, Birth, 67, on Polybius, Histories 10.21ff.

    39. Geiger, Nepos, 99.

    40. Fornara, Nature, 36. Such encomium could but did not always introduce distortion (64–65).

    41. Pelling, “Bounds,” 255.

    42. See Fornara, Nature, 34–36, 116, 185; Hose, “Historiography: Rome,” 423.

    43. Pelling, “Bounds,” 257–58.

    44. Geiger, Nepos, 110–11. So also historians, e.g., Justin, Epitome 3.6.12; 5.8.10; 12.4.11–12; 14.6.2; 42.4.1.

    45. Cf. Pelling, “Method”; Kaesser, “Tweaking.”

    46. For Suetonius, see Kennedy, “Source Criticism,” 141; for Plutarch, see Licona, Differences, 57, 104, 110, comparing, e.g., Caesar 22.3 with Cato the Younger 51.1; and Caesar 25.1 and Pompey 52.3, with Cato the Younger 45.3.

    47. See ch. 11; cf. Henderson, “Comparison,” 269. Historians were of course not the only scholars to make mistakes (see, e.g., Pliny, Natural History 4.5.18; Pliny the Younger, Letters 10.58.5; 10.81.6).

    48. Pelling, Texts, 44.

    49. Pelling, Plutarch and History, 143–70, as summarized in De Pourcq and Roskam, “Virtues,” 164.

    50. In contrast to epideictic rhetoric; see Pelling, “Truth,” and Antony, 33–36, cited in Burridge, Gospels, 169–70.

    51. Pelling, Texts, 48.

    52. Pelling, Texts, 9.

    53. Kennedy, “Source Criticism,” 139–41.

    54. E.g., Plutarch, Alexander 2.5; 3.2; Burridge, Gospels, 169; Alfred, “Valuation,” 86–92. The legendary and encomiastic texture of Alexander is shaped partly by the like character of Plutarch’s sources.

    55. See, e.g., Plutarch, Solon 27.1; Themistocles 2.6.

    56. E.g., Plutarch, Alcibiades 3.1.

    57. E.g., Plutarch, Camillus 5.5.

    58. E.g., Plutarch, Camillus 6.3 (though most modern readers would reject the examples).

    59. One of the standard criticisms of Suetonius, though criticism focused on what he omitted more than on errors of fact (Hägg, Biography, 230).

    60. Kennedy, “Source Criticism,” 141. Kennedy notes that the Gospels rely on simpler tradition, but he nevertheless deems useful this comparison with hard data.

    61. Adams, Genre, 251.

    62. Eunapius, Lives 484.

    63. E.g., Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Lysias 1.

    64. Smith, βίος, 21; for their functional character, see 26–27.

    65. Aune, “Biography,” 125; cf. Aune, 64–65; Witherington, Sage, 339.

    66. Polybius notes that even Timaeus recognizes that those who write falsehood should call their book something other than history (Polybius, Histories 12.11.7–8).

    67. Dunn, Remembered, 185.

    68. See Cancik, “Gattung”; Byrskog, Story, 45.

    69. Dihle, “Biography,” 381; Becker, Birth, 72. Eddy and Boyd, Legend, 324–30, point out elements of both biography and historiography. For historical features in John, see Bauckham, Testimony, 93–112 (on 95 noting also my observations in Keener, John, 11–37). Marcus, Mark, 65–66, points to historical characteristics in Mark’s work (still something like a bios).

    70. This term (“inquiries”) can mean “histories,” as in 2 Macc 2:24, 30, 32; perhaps 4 Macc 17:7; esp. Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 1.1, 3, 8, 13–14, 159; 6.346; 7.101; 8.56, 224; Jewish War 7.454; and often.

    71. Collins, Mark, 16, citing Origen Princ. 4.3.1 = 4.1.16. For Origen’s recognition of some adjustments of precision in the Gospels, Allison, Constructing, 445–46, cites also Origen Comm. Jo. 10.2, 4 (though he regarded most events as literally true; Princ. 4.3.4 on 446n35).

    72. Collins, Mark, 1.

    73. Collins, Mark, 22–33.

    74. Collins, Mark, 33.

    75. Collins, Mark, 33–42.

    76. Collins, Mark, 42–52.

    77. Plümacher, Geschichte, 15–32; Plümacher, “Cicero und Lukas,” 772–73, includes 2 Maccabees and a work of Cicero’s as examples of monographs fulfilling this function.

    78. Penner, Praise, 135.

    79. Geiger, Nepos, 29.

    80. As were some series of biographies.

    81. Rebenich, “Prose,” 311–12; see, e.g., war monographs (see Fornara, Nature, 29–32), though Polybius complained about the narrowness of the typical ones (Rood, “Development,” 148–53).

    82. Collins, Mark, 41, emphasizing the compatibility with Mark.

    83. See Laistner, Historians, 58–59.

    84. Hose, “Historiography: Rome,” 423.

    85. Pelling, “Historiography,” 717. In contrast to his monographs, his lost Histories was annalistic (Levene, “Historiography,” 282).

    86. Although noting some typical distinctions between biography and history, Talbert, Acts, 251, helpfully notes that many histories contain biographic sections (citing Polybius, Histories 9.22; 10.2.2; Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities 5.48.1; Diodorus Siculus, Library of History 17; Josephus, Jewish Antiquities bks. 14–17; Dio Cassius, Roman History 45–56; 73.11.2–4; Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 6).

    87. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities 4.41–85.

    88. Balch, “ΜΕΤΑΒΟΛΗ ΠΟΛΙΤΕΙΩΝ,” 143.

    89. Stadter, “Biography,” 528–29.

    90. On which, see, e.g., Plümacher, Geschichte, 1–32; Plümacher, “Cicero und Lukas”; Plümacher, “Monographie”; Palmer, “Monograph” (1992); Palmer, “Monograph” (1993); Dormeyer, “Gattung,” 457–59; Keener, Acts, 1:90–115, esp. 91–92.

    91. Diodorus Siculus, Library of History 17; see Burridge, Gospels, 239; cf. Smith and Kostopoulos, “Biography,” 401.

    92. Smith and Kostopoulos, “Biography,” 403, citing Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities 2.58.2–2.76.6; 3.1.1–3.35.6; 3.36.1–3.45.2; 3.46.1–3.73.4; 4.1.1–4.40.7; 4.41.1–4.85.4.

    93. With lengthy accounts concerning Saul, David, Solomon, Elijah, and Elisha, plus further accounts of many kings.

    94. Talbert, Patterns, 125–40; Burridge, Gospels, 266–67; Adams, Genre, 116–71. Cf. discussion in Keener, Acts, 1:54–62.

    95. Burridge, Gospels, 89–90. Burridge responds to Becker and others in “Gospels and Biography,” 27–30; he also recognizes biography and historiography as related genres that can share many features (65).

    96. Becker, Birth, 75.

    97. Adams, Genre, 251. These topics overlap with the personal attributes noted in Cicero, On the Composition of Arguments 1.25.36 (Becker, Birth, 75).

    98. Collins, Mark, 25.

    99. Burridge, Gospels, 262–63.

    100. It is quite unlikely that an author such as Luke had only a basic Greek education, even if he dictated the work; Mark’s level of education might be more open to debate.

    101. Becker, Birth, 43, citing Cicero, On the Orator 1.158; Quintilian, Orator’s Education 10.1.34; 12.4.1–2.

    102. Burridge, Gospels, 262–63. Progymnasmata included encomia that followed the common structure of biographies (Aletti, Birth, 11).

    103. Cornelius Nepos, On Great Generals 16 (Pelopidas), 1.1. Still, history-writing became quite popular; see Lucian, How to Write History 2.

    104. Witherington, Mark, 3. Given the disciples’ role as foils in Mark, Witherington also counters the notion that Mark functions as the “biography of a movement” (Mark, 3n11).

    105. Plutarch, Alexander 1.1–3; see discussion in ch. 5.

    106. See Keener, Acts, 1:271–304. Hägg, Biography, 209, notes that Tacitus’s inclusion of speeches in the Agricola resembles historiography.

    107. Edwards, “Introduction,” xxviii, noting that here Suetonius follows the technical, antiquarian tradition rather than historiography proper.

    108. Lucian, How to Write History 7.

    109. See Adams, Genre, 92–113, 252–53.

    110. Lucian, How to Write History 7, 20, 28, 32; also Witherington, Sage, 339, citing Plutarch, Alexander 1.1–2.

    111. Fornara, Nature, 34–36, 116.

    112. Hose, “Historiography: Rome,” 423, noting that the boundaries between these genres were fading; cf. Suetonius in Rolfe, “Introduction,” xvii.

    113. Collins, Mark, 32–33.

    114. Collins, Mark, 43.

    115. Dihle, “Biography,” 381.

    116. Dihle, “Biography,” 383–84, although his attribution of the connection to Suetonius fails to explain the similar mixture already in Tacitus’s Agricola and even somewhat in Nepos.

    117. Byrskog, Story, 45, noting esp. Cancik, “Gattung.” Some argue this same point also for the Fourth Gospel; see esp. Bauckham, Testimony, 19–21, 93–112; Bauckham, “Historiographical Characteristics.”

    118. Burridge, Gospels, 263.

    119. Burridge, Gospels, 264.

    120. Pelling, “History,” cited and followed by Burridge, Gospels, 267.

    121. Adams, Genre, 69.

    122. Pitts, “Citation,” 377–78.

    123. Plutarch, Alexander 1.1.

    124. Plutarch, Comparison of Theseus and Romulus 1.2, noted by Balch, “ΜΕΤΑΒΟΛΗ ΠΟΛΙΤΕΙΩΝ,” 143–44.

    125. Burridge, Gospels, 268, citing Pelling, “Epilogue.”

    126. Rolfe, “Introduction,” xvii.

    127. Sheppard, Craft, 112 (also noted in Licona, Differences, 5), cites Dicaearchus (fourth century BCE) and Varro (second century BCE).

    128. Becker, Birth, 92.

    129. See, e.g., Kennedy, “Source Criticism,” 141; Burridge, Gospels, 168–70; Edwards, “Introduction,” xxii, xxvii–xxviii; and esp., already for Nepos, Geiger, Nepos, 108–14; Becker, Birth, 66.

    130. Becker, Birth, 70, citing Pliny, Letters 5.5.3; 8.12.4–5.

    131. Collins, Mark, 43.

    132. See, e.g., Lucian, Demonax 12–62 (also noted in Collins, Mark, 43); Burridge, Gospels, 73; Frickenschmidt, Evangelium, 161, 208; De Temmerman, “Formalities,” 19; further discussion on anecdotes in ch. 5.

    133. Mossman, “Travel Writing,” 281.

    134. Such as Plutarch’s on Caesar (Collins, Mark, 43); see Sheeley, Asides, 78–94, 179, finding fewer explanatory asides in the chosen samples.

    135. For romances, see Sheeley, Asides, 41–56; for histories, 56–78.

    136. Becker, Birth, 65–66, on Nepos, On Great Generals 16 (Pelopidas), 1.1; cf. Becker, Birth, 3, 69, 73, 76, 121; Fornara, Nature, 29–46. Becker also associates sayings with historiography (Becker, Birth, 75–76), but (in contrast to set speeches) they are more characteristic of biography (Momigliano, Development, 50 [noting Xenophon, Hellenica 2.3.56], 73; Geiger, Nepos, 27; Chance, “Fiction,” 135; Frickenschmidt, Evangelium, 182; Adams, Genre, 91–92; cf. Lucian, Demonax 12; Burridge, Gospels, 69, 94, 168, 171; Moeser, Anecdote, 66–68, 93, 148; Ytterbrink, Gospel, 112; Edwards, “Introduction,” xxviii; Konstan and Walsh, “Biography,” 28, 33).

    137. While Jesus’s mission dominates the Gospels more than his character traits, the character traits do shine through; see, e.g., Alfeyev, Beginning, 505–32, esp. 508–25.

    138. Fornara, Nature, 116.

    139. Fornara, Nature, 185, distinguishes primarily by noting that biography used only the features of history relevant to expounding character, whereas “characterizing anecdotes . . .were unsuitable to history.” Biography became more like history in early second-century works like Tacitus’s Agricola and Suetonius’s Lives (Fornara, Nature, 186).

    140. Momigliano, Development, 50; Cox, Biography, 9; Burridge, Gospels, 71–72; Frickenschmidt, Evangelium, 281–83, 286, 505; Ytterbrink, Gospel, 76, 82, 86, 101; Freyne, “Gospel,” 66; Edwards, “Introduction,” xii; Adams, Genre, 92, 171, 251, 258; Beck, “Demonax,” 93.

    141. Roman biographers preferred to report all significant public acts, whereas Greek biography (more directly relevant to the Gospels, written in Greek) had traditionally limited itself more to key actions that revealed character (Hägg, Biography, 192, 234; in the Gospels, see, e.g., Mark 6:34; 8:2; John 11:35–36).

    142. Some contend that this pattern may have followed Christian models such as Luke-Acts; see Dillon and Hershbell, “Introduction,” 25–26. But cf. earlier biographic series.

    143. Adams, Genre, 2.

    144. Collins, Mark, 21, summarizing P. Vielhauer’s objection.

    145. Long, “Introduction,” xxii.

    146. E.g., Suetonius, Julius 45.1; Tiberius 68.1–2; Nero 51; Tacitus, Agricola 44; Plutarch, Marcus Cato 1.3; Sulla 2.1.

    147. E.g., Plutarch, Alexander 60.6; cf. 1 Sam 9:2; 16:12; 25:3. Such comment may be more abundant in mythography and fiction (e.g., Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica 1.307–11; 3.443–44; Philostratus, Heroicus 10.1–4, esp. 10.3; 26.4, 13; 29.2; 33.39–40; 48.1; 49.3).

    148. E.g., Menander Rhetor, Epideictic Treatises 2.5, 398.14–18; Dio Cassius, Roman History 57.18.6; see further Anderson, Glossary, 125 (citing Rhetorica ad Herennium 4.63; for ridicule, Cicero, On the Orator 2.266).

    149. E.g., Suetonius, Titus 2. See further Cox, Biography, 14–15; Edwards, “Introduction,” xvi, contrasting Suetonius, Augustus 79 and Caligula 50. Descriptions appear at different points in different biographies; see Hurley, “Rubric Sandwich,” 31–32.

    150. Alfred, “Valuation,” 97, on Suetonius, Augustus 79.2. Suetonius is otherwise praising his grand appearance, albeit diminished in his old age. We should note, however, that even here Suetonius does not create the report from nothing, but from an eyewitness, though one that he deems unreliable on this point.

    151. See, e.g., Maximus of Tyre, Philosophical Orations 1.9; cf. other unpleasant physical characteristics in Life of Aesop 1; Philostratus, Heroicus 34.5–6.

    152. Stanton, Preaching, 124.

    153. Maximus of Tyre, Philosophical Orations 1.10.

    154. E.g., Valerius Maximus, Memorable Doings and Sayings 1.8.ext.5; see further Shuler, Genre, 94. For announcement by a dream, cf., e.g., Plutarch, Alexander 2.1–3.2 (Boring, Berger, and Colpe, Commentary, 37–38); for miraculous omens, cf., e.g., Suetonius, Augustus 94 (Boring, Berger, and Colpe, Commentary, 43–44); Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights 6.1.2–4. For supernatural births of famous philosophers, Diodorus Siculus, Library of History 4.9.1–10; Diogenes Laertius, Lives 3.1–2, 45; Iamblichus, Pythagorean Life 2.3–5 (Boring, Berger, and Colpe, Commentary, 33–35).

    155. Valerius Maximus, Memorable Doings and Sayings 1.6.1. In this case the boy, Servus Tullius, was then adopted into the royal family; a flame around a general’s head later portended victory (1.6.2).

    156. Hermogenes, Progymnasmata 7. On Encomion, 15–16.

    157. Menander Rhetor, Epideictic Treatises 2.1–2, 371.5–6.

    158. Menander Rhetor, Epideictic Treatises 2.1–2, 371.11–12.

    159. E.g., Menander Rhetor, Epideictic Treatises 2.1–2, 371.15–17. The rhetorical principle naturally also applied to praising deities by describing marvelous births (e.g., Menander Rhetor, 2.17, 438.30–439.24).

    160. Menander Rhetor, Epideictic Treatises 2.17, 439.18–19.

    161. E.g., Nicolaus, Augustus 2 (FGrH 126); Frickenschmidt, Evangelium, 253, 260–61; Adams, Genre, 257–60; Beck, “Demonax,” 93, on Xenophon, Agesilaus 1–2 (though cf. Ytterbrink, Gospel, 83). Sometimes also historians, e.g., supernatural accounts in Justin, Epitome 12.16.2–6; 15.4.2–6; 37.2.1–3; 43.2.3–7.

    162. Cf. Sus 45, 50; Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 10.50; Cicero, Philippics 14.10.28; Justin, Epitome 12.16.7–8; Valerius Maximus, Memorable Doings and Sayings 3.1.1; 3.1.2ab; Pliny, Natural History 7.16.72; Philostratus, Life of Apollonius 1.7–8, 11; Iamblichus, Pythagorean Life 2.10–11; cf. Wis 8:10; Fronto, To Marcus Caesar 4.1; the Latin funerary inscription of Quintus Sulpicius Maximus and lines 1–2 of the Greek epigram (in Wright, “Inscription,” 54–55, 57, 59).

    163. E.g., Nicolaus, Augustus 3 (FGrH 127); Edwards, “Introduction,” xvi, cites Suetonius, Tiberius 57; Caligula 11; Nero 26; and Domitian 1, with Otho being an exception; Ytterbrink, Gospel, 106–7, cites Plutarch, Themistocles 2.1; Alcibiades 12.1; Alexander 4.4–5; see also Burridge, Gospels, 207.

    164. E.g., Ps.-Callisthenes, Alexander Romance 1.13–19; Infancy Gospel of Thomas.

    165. See esp. Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 2.233–36; Philo, Moses 1.21–31.

    166. Philo, Moses 1.5, 20–24; cf. 2.1; Petitfils, “Tale,” 163.

    167. Jews who believed that gentiles had appropriated their wisdom from Jews to begin with might find his gentile education less offensive; cf. Artapanus, frag. 3 (Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel 9.27.4); Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 1.168.

    168. See Ezekiel the Tragedian, Exagoge 36–38; Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 2.236; Koskenniemi, “Moses.” Although Jewish authors varied in their expectations of how much Egyptian culture influenced Moses (Römer, “Vie de Moïse”; cf. Jub. 47:9), most ancient hearers would assume some education for a prince raised in a royal court.

    169. Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 2.230–31; cf. Exod 2:2.

    170. Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 2.233–34. In a much later source, Moses even placed it on his own head (Exod. Rab. 1:26).

    171. E.g., Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 10.50; Valerius Maximus, Memorable Doings and Sayings 3.1.1; 3.1.2ab; Eunapius, Lives 468; see further examples in Bultmann, Tradition, 300–301. For growing in size, cf., e.g., Philostratus, Heroicus 45.5; for Moses, Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 2.230; cf. Luke 1:80; 2:52.

    172. Herodotus, Histories 1.113–15. On Cyrus’s precocity, see also Xenophon, Cyropaedia 1.4.3.

    173. Fronto, To Marcus Caesar 4.1. Not all child prodigies, however, remained advanced (Quintilian, Orator’s Education 1.3.3–5) or pleased their elders (y. Soṭah 3:4, §12).

    174. Josephus, Life 9; cf. Life 80; Rajak, Josephus, 27–29.

    175. So De Temmerman, “Formalities,” 18; cf. Pelling, Plutarch and History, 308–9; expansion in Russell, “Coriolanus,” 22–23 (as cited in Kwon, “Charting,” 74). Suetonius apparently augments traditions about Augustus’s birth in Augustus 94.6 (Lorsch, “Conception”).

    176. See Alfred, “Valuation,” 99, noting Nepos, On Great Generals 8 (Thrasybulus), 1.1–5.

    177. De Pourcq and Roskam, “Virtues,” 168.

    178. De Pourcq and Roskam, “Virtues,” 177, citing Plutarch, Agis 4.1; also Cleomenes 1.4–5 and Tiberius Gracchus 1.7–3.1.

    179. De Pourcq and Roskam, “Virtues,” 177.

    180. Plutarch, Aristides 1.1; Lycurgus 1; cf. Diogenes Laertius, Lives 1.4.74; 1.5.82.

    181. Plutarch, Caius Marius 1.1.

    182. Lucian, Demonax 3.

    183. Beck, “Demonax,” 85.

    184. Still, see Lucian, Demonax 3. He continues with his adult life in 3–67.

    185. E.g., Rhetoric to Alexander 35, 1440b.23–1441a.5, esp. 1440b.29–32; Menander Rhetor, Epideictic Treatises 2.1–2, 370.9–28; Gorgias, Encomium of Helen 3; in history, Velleius Paterculus, History 2.59.2; in biography, Xenophon, Agesilaus 1.2; Cornelius Nepos, On Great Generals 2 (Themistocles), 1.2; 7 (Alcibiades), 1.2; Suetonius, Augustus 1–2; Tiberius 1.1–2.4; 3.1; Tacitus, Agricola 4; Eunapius, Lives 498.

    186. E.g., Rhetoric to Alexander 35, 1441a.5–13; Philostratus, Lives of the Sophists 1.22.521–22.

    187. Aletti, Birth, 25–26. Cf. Matthew in Aletti, Birth, 49–52, and Luke, 68–70.

    188. E.g., Menander Rhetor, Epideictic Treatises 2.1–2, 370.28–372.2; for virtues and deeds from youth, see 372.5–9. Nurture was the subject after birth (Hermogenes, Progymnasmata 7. On Encomion, 16).

    189. See Frickenschmidt, Evangelium, 505; Ytterbrink, Gospel, 117.

    190. Ytterbrink, Gospel, 116–17.

    191. E.g., Philo, Abraham (Ytterbrink, Gospel, 103); the Life of Aesop (Drury, Design, 29); Plutarch, Timoleon 1 (Pitre, Case, 71); Caesar 1.1–4; also in Camillus; Galba (though cf. 3.2); Nicias (clearly a life, paired with Crassus); Otho; Publicola; Titus Flaminius (though mentioning his youth, 1.4, and his success as a young man). Defining biography broadly, Borgen, John, 259, includes Flaccum and (starting with a cosmic-level introduction, as in John 1) Legatio ad Gaium.

    192. E.g., Plutarch, Caius Gracchus 1.2; Crassus 1.1; Eumenes 1.1; Marcellus 2.2; Porphyry, Life of Plotinus 2–3.

    193. As in Plutarch, Caius Marius 3.1 (then only briefly); Pelopidas 3.1; Pericles 3.1; Phocion 4.1; Sertorius 2.1; Theseus 3.1; Timoleon 3.2; mention of Pompey’s youth (but not ancestry) in Pompey 2.1; 3.1; 4.2.

    194. Diogenes Laertius, Lives 1.2.45, then turning to his public career (1.2.45–67).

    195. Diogenes Laertius, Lives 1.3.68, then turning to his career (1.3.68–73). Cf. similarly Thales (1.1.22; his career in 1.1.22–44); Pittacus (1.4.74; his career in 1.4.74–81); Bias (1.5.82; his career in 1.5.82–88); Zeno (7.1.1; his career in 7.1.1–35; after recounting Zeno’s death, however, he does recount a brief anecdote about Zeno as a boy from another source in 7.1.31).

    196. Dillon, “Interpretation,” 158.

    197. Josephus, Life 1–16. Citing Josephus’s use of information, Downing, “Redaction Criticism 2,” 34, suggests that Luke may have created much “incidental matter” in his infancy narrative but not the basic story. Unfortunately, I cannot properly address the special cases of Matthew’s or Luke’s infancy narratives within the main argument of Christobiography, since they narrate accounts placed a generation further from the Evangelists than is most of the gospel tradition.

    198. Cf. Robinson, Problem, 69.

    199. This observation is consistent with the tradition of Mark as a Petrine gospel, if Luke knows that Peter or the early apostolic church often started with Jesus’s public ministry.

    200. See, e.g., Theissen, Gospels, 166–99; Brown, Death, 53–55, 77–80; Soards, “Passion Narrative”; cf. Dibelius, Tradition, 178–217; Dewey, “Curse,” 102–3; Flusser, Judaism, 575–87.

    201. Cf., e.g., Kirk, “Memory of Violence”; Kelber, “Works,” 244.

    202. Pace, e.g., Dodd, Founder, 33.

    203. See Wright, “Exploration,” 240–43.

    204. See, e.g., Lucian, Demonax 63–67; further, Burridge, Gospels, 133, 136, 142, 174–75; Adams, Genre, 260. For burial, see, e.g., Frickenschmidt, Evangelium, 341–42.

    205. Burridge, Gospels, 160. Note also 15 percent in a biography of Nepos and 26 percent for Philostratus’s Life of Apollonius (192).

    206. Burridge, Gospels, 192.

    207. Burridge, Gospels, 193, 202.

    208. Frickenschmidt, Evangelium, 312–50, 505–6 (“die relativ große Häufigkeit von Passionsgeschichten”). For final words, Frickenschmidt cites (331–33) e.g., Nepos, On Great Generals 25 (Atticus), 22; Philo, Moses 2.288–91; Plutarch, Pompey 79; Suetonius, Augustus 99; Diogenes Laertius, Lives 2.42. Ascension and accompanying divinization (Talbert, “Concept”; Talbert, “Myth”; though cf. Aune, “Problem,” 47–48; Zwiep, Ascension, 194–95) are much rarer, as are encounters with the deceased; see Frickenschmidt, Evangelium, 342–45; Keener, Acts, 1:663, 720–21.

    209. Edwards, “Introduction,” xvii, rightly citing Pliny, Letters 5.5.3; 8.12; Becker, Birth, 70. Lucian may parody this form in Peregrinus (see König, “Lives,” 227).

    210. Bird, Gospel, 228. Admittedly, given the significance of Jesus’s death for early Christians, it seems difficult to imagine a biography of Jesus without attention to this feature whether or not it belonged to typical biographies; then again, Mark manages to surprise us by not narrating resurrection appearances (a fixture of subsequent extant Gospels).

    211. E.g., Ytterbrink, Gospel, 109 (citing Plutarch, Pericles 38; Numa 22.1–2); Wardle, “Send-off” (citing Suetonius, Augustus 99). Cf. Demonax’s public funeral (Lucian, Demonax 67), which fits known practice (Jones, Lucian, 97, cited in Wright, “Exploration,” 256). At least some depictions were truer to the subject’s perceived character than to historical experience; as Bond, “Fitting End,” notes, following Christopher Gill, Socrates’s calm final demeanor does not cohere with the known physiological effects of hemlock poisoning (though this death eventually became proverbial; Seneca, Dialogues 1.3.12; Maximus of Tyre, Philosophical Orations 25.7).

    212. Theon, Progymnasmata 9.19.

    213. Key features of a person’s activity consumed more space; Burridge, Gospels, 193, compares one battle in Tacitus’s Agricola (26 percent) and Agesilaus’s Persian campaign in Plutarch (37 percent).

    214. Epameinondas 2 in Plutarch, Sayings of Kings, Moralia 192C; Sayings of Spartan Women, Moralia 240C; Diogenes Laertius, Lives 7.5.176; accounts of Socrates’s brave end (e.g., Xenophon, Apology 1).

    215. E.g., 2 Macc 6–7; Wis 2:12–20. For some differences from the Gospels, see Boring, Berger, and Colpe, Commentary, 152, 156; on the diversity of Jewish martyr stories, see van Henten, “Prolegomena.”

    216. Burridge, Gospels, 74, 161, 202.

    217. See Nicolaus, Augustus 16–30 (FGrH 130).

    218. Frickenschmidt, Evangelium, 334–39. Biography in general is more concerned to narrate at length points that reveal character rather than much longer episodes (De Pourcq and Roskam, “Virtues,” 166–67, citing also Beck, “Plutarch,” 397–98).

    219. Edwards, “Introduction,” xvii–xviii, citing esp. Suetonius, Julius 81–82; Nero 40–49; Domitian 15–17. Not so, however, in some other lives where he lacks much data; e.g., Suetonius, Terence 5.

    220. See, e.g., Wardle, “Send-off”; Power, “Taunt”; cf. Benediktson, “Structure.”

    221. Edwards, Death, 142; Gutzwiller, “Epigrams,” 564–65. For great interest in death scenes, see, e.g., Hurley, “Rhetorics,” 146–47. I owe most of the references in this note to a paper by my student Christopher Chandler.

    222. Cambiano, “Diogenes Laertius,” 575 (e.g., Thales dying from thirst in 1.39). Early Christians could scarcely avoid dealing apologetically with Jesus’s execution, given the scandal involved (Sumney, Steward, 167; cf. 1 Cor. 1:23).

    223. See Bond, “Fitting End.” Bond also observes that Luke has different ideas about what sort of end was fitting, and how Mark elaborates at length on Jesus’s death in the longest crucifixion account from antiquity. Cf. the rhetorical practice of “dwelling on the point”; cf. Hermogenes, Method in Forceful Speaking 5.417–18; Anderson, Glossary, 48–49 and esp. 53.

    224. As in the murky, secretive background of assassinations; Ash, “Assassinating Emperors,” 201.

    225. Biographers could follow Plato’s model of Socrates’s death (De Temmerman, “Formalities,” 19, 23), the sages’ teachings about facing death (De Temmerman, “Formalities,” 23; Kechagia, “Philosophers,” 182), the biographers’ accounts of earlier deaths, providing parallelism (De Temmerman, “Formalities,” 24–25) or earlier literary models (cf. Power, “Taunt,” comparing Suetonius, Galba 20.2, with Homer, Iliad 5.254; Odyssey 21.426).

    226. Cf., e.g., the repetition of omens in Power, “Ending,” 62 (citing Suetonius, Galba 1; Vitellius 9, 18). Cf. Josephus’s use of a bird omen for narrative cohesion in his account of Agrippa I (Jewish Antiquities 18.195; 19.346; Keener, Acts, 2:1966).

    227. See discussion in Keener, Acts, 1:566; cf. further Trompf, Recurrence. Hornblower, “Thucydides,” 636, recognizes Thucydides’s literary, Homeric-like “comparisons” across the span of his history “by using similar phrasing.” Note also patterns in Appian, Civil Wars 1 (Bucher, “Evaluation,” 458–59). Suetonius cannot fit all his material into neat outlines (Hurley, “Rubric Sandwich,” 37).

    228. With, e.g., Le Donne, Historiographical Jesus, 58.

    229. Note Pliny, Letters 5.5.3; 8.12.4–5, in Becker, Birth, 70.

    230. Brought to my attention in this connection by Christopher Chandler. Chandler notes that while Suetonius may add details to his sources at these points, his interest could also be like that of Plutarch, who deliberately sought out new information not included by his predecessors. Flashbulb details are, however, often inaccurate.

    231. Alfred, “Valuation,” 96, cites Suetonius, Julius 78.1; Tiberius 78.2; Claudius 1.4; 44.2, 3; Galba 3.1; Vitellius 1.2–2.1; Vespasian 1.2.

    232. Kechagia, “Philosophers,” 181.

    233. Miller, “Introduction (Diogenes),” xi, noting four versions of Pythagoras’s demise from three of Diogenes’s sources.

    234. Cf. Kechagia, “Philosophers,” 182 (concluding skeptically on 199), who cites Lefkowitz on the lives of poets. Schools of disciples, however, would presumably preserve veridical anecdotes about their teachers more often than would readers about poets.

    235. For criticism of this criterion, see, e.g., Borg, Conflict, 20–23; Sanders, Jesus and Judaism, 16, 145; Meier, Marginal Jew, 1:173; Brown, Death, 19; Stanton, Gospel Truth?, 143; Tuckett, “Sources and Methods,” 133; Theissen and Merz, Guide, 11, 115–16; Levine, “Introduction,” 10–11; Holmén, Covenant Thinking, 20–31 (esp. 29–30); Dunn, New Perspective, 57–60; Bird, “Quest.”

    236. Cf. various discussions in Pliny, Letters 3.11.5–6; Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights 19.1.4–6, 11–21; Lucian, Peregrinus 42–44; Diogenes Laertius, Lives 2.71; Iamblichus, Pythagorean Life 32.220; the model of Socrates in Xenophon, Memorabilia 1.2.1; Maximus of Tyre, Philosophical Orations 3.7; Keener, Acts, 4:3627–29.

    237. Ytterbrink, Gospel, 117.

    238. Ash, “Assassinating Emperors,” 200, citing Tacitus, Annals 15.60–64; Griffin, “Philosophy,” 66.

    239. König, “Lives,” 235, noting Tertullian’s To the Martyrs 4.

    240. Ash, “Assassinating Emperors,” 202. Today we may think of copycat crimes, made even simpler by media saturation.

    241. Note the discussion in Aletti, Birth, 30–31, on the importance of final recognition in biography; 31–33, on the absence of this feature in Mark (apart from the isolated recognition of the centurion). Aletti cites as Mark’s model the psalms of the righteous sufferer (33–38); Mark’s opposition to triumphalism accounts for both this feature and the absence of praise of Jesus’s origins or education (38–39). In contrast to qualities favored by typical Greco-Roman biographies, the Synoptics focus on his “messianic and filial identity,” and “his religious and salvific role” (109).

    242. I believe that a key factor behind this feature (including his omission of reports of resurrection appearances, despite their proliferation in the church—1 Cor 15:5–8, esp. 15:6) may be that Mark addresses most directly an audience facing persecution; I currently plan to address this subject in fuller detail in my ICC commentary on Mark, currently in process.

    243. See Alfred, “Valuation.”

    244. Becker, Birth, 66. In his recent dissertation, Youngju Kwon illustrates where Nepos adapts Xenophon.

    245. Geiger, Nepos, 108.

    246. Christian, “Themistocles,” 105, notes Thucydides, History 1.137.4; 1.138.3–6 in Nepos, On Great Generals 2 (Themistocles), 1.4; 9.1–2; 10.4–5 (also citing him in 7 [Alcibiades], 11.1, and 4 [Pausanias], 2.2).

    247. See Christian, “Themistocles,” 106–38.

    248. Christian, “Themistocles,” 139; notable exceptions are inferences and reducing Herodotus’s inflated numbers.

    249. Geiger, Nepos, 110; though cf. Christian, “Themistocles,” for his close dependence on good sources for Themistocles.

    250. Geiger, Nepos, 108, citing Cicero, Letters to Atticus 16.3–4.

    251. Geiger, Nepos, 108–9, citing Nepos, On Great Generals 23 (Hannibal), 31.1; 25 (Atticus) 18.6.

    252. Geiger, Nepos, 109.

    253. Geiger, Nepos, 110.

    254. Geiger, Nepos, 110–11, 114; Christian, “Themistocles,” 105 (citing many).

    255. Geiger, Nepos, 109.

    256. Alfred, “Valuation,” 83, noting Nepos, On Great Generals 7 (Alcibiades), 10.4; 23 (Hannibal), 8.2; 11.1.

    257. See esp. Bishop, “Historiography,” 80–157.

    258. Bishop, “Historiography,” 160.

    259. Burridge, Gospels, 168.

    260. Burridge, Gospels, 169, citing Hamilton, Plutarch, xlix; Jones, Plutarch and Rome, 81–87; Pelling, “Method,” 83–90. Likewise, he cites more than thirty-six writers in his Theseus and Romulus alone (Alfred, “Valuation,” 86–89), about twenty in his Alcibiades and Coriolanus (Alfred, “Valuation,” 89–92), and about thirteen authors (about twenty-two citations) in his Agesilaus (Woldemariam, “Comparison,” 219n13, 231–34). Hägg, Biography, 243 (noting esp. Badian, “Skill”) comments on Plutarch’s interest in sources and evaluation of explanations, though Plutarch is far more creative in form (Hägg, Biography, 281) and far more given to moralizing comments than is Suetonius.

    261. See, e.g., Plutarch, Demosthenes 26.2; Cicero 24.4, 6–7; 37.2–3; 45.2; Brutus 2.3–5; 53.5; Moles, “Letters,” 159–60; cf. Plutarch, Agesilaus 13.4; 21.5; Demosthenes 20.5.

    262. E.g., Plutarch, Cicero 41.3–4. For Plutarch’s range of sources, see Rhodes, “Documents,” 65–66; Hägg, Biography, 256–58, 264; for his creative use of them, see Badian, “Skill.”

    263. See, e.g., Plutarch, Solon 27.1; Alcibiades 3.1; Themistocles 2.6; Camillus 5.5; 6.3.

    264. Kennedy, “Source Criticism,” 141; cf. Townend, “Date,” 285–93 (in Goh, “Galba,” 194).

    265. Alfred, “Valuation,” 93–99, esp. 93–95, 99. Cf., e.g., Power, “Priscus.”

    266. See Suetonius, Galba 3.3.

    267. E.g., Suetonius, Galba 3.2; 4.2, noted in Goh, “Galba,” 196.

    268. Edwards, “Introduction,” xxii, citing, e.g., Claudius 44 vs. Nero 33 (the former passage, however, may involve spotlighting); Alfred, “Valuation,” 96, on Julius 46.1; 49.1–2.

    269. Edwards, “Introduction,” xxvii–xxviii, citing, e.g., Tiberius 61; Nero 23, 52, though some contend that Suetonius lost access to palace archives after completing his first installments (see xxviii; Jones and Milns, Commentary, 5). Cf. also Power, “Poetry,” 239; Alfred, “Valuation,” 95; Becker, Birth, 151, citing Augustus 5; Caligula 19.3.

    270. Edwards, “Introduction,” xxvii, citing, e.g., the work of Cluvius Rufus. Wallace-Hadrill, Suetonius, 9, sees Suetonius as supplementing Tacitus, but contrast Power, “Suetonius’ Tacitus” (I owe this observation to Asbury PhD student John Wright).

    271. Goh, “Galba,” 196.

    272. Suetonius, Vespasian 1.4; see Alfred, “Valuation,” 98.

    273. Power, “Poetry,” 223; cf. 237 on Julius 49.1–4.

    274. Becker, Birth, 150.

    275. Becker, Birth, 151, citing Nero 57.2; Domitian 12.2.

    276. Bosworth, Arrian, 16, 38.

    277. Bosworth, Arrian, 39, 61, noting Ptolemy and Aristobulus. Aristobulus may have written first (Hammond, Sources, 36).

    278. Bosworth, Arrian, 39, 61.

    279. Bosworth, Arrian, 60.

    280. Fitzgerald, “Lives,” 215, following Hope, Book, 59–60.

    281. Cf. Ytterbrink, Gospel, 226.

    282. See Alfred, “Valuation,” 85 (noting Nicolaus’s Augustus; Tacitus’s Agricola), 92–93. Even the respected historian Thucydides usually does not name his sources, many of which were undoubtedly oral (see Aune, “Prolegomena,” 78).

    283. Aune, “Biography,” 125; cf. 64–65; Witherington, Sage, 339.

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