This edition comprises the Roman historian Suetonius' lives of the first three emperors of AD 69, the Year of the Four Emperors. The Latin text is accompanied by an introduction and useful historical commentary. The primary purpose of this Commentary is to enable English-speaking students of Latin - both in the upper forms of schools and in colleges and universities - to understand the value of Suetonius as an historical source for the turbulent sequence of events which occurred between the spring of A.D. 68, when C. Iulius Vindex began in Gaul a rebellion against Nero, and the latter part of December, 69, when supporters of Vespasian captured Rome and killed Vitellius, thus bringing about the fourth imperial accession in the space of just over one year.

References are also given to the other major sources for this period, especially the Histories of Tacitus, Plutarch's Lives of Galba and Otho, and the surviving epitomes and fragments of Dio Cassius. The book provides a coherent and reasonable explanation for the policies and strategies of the participants in these events. The Commentary is mainly historical, though major textual cruces are considered briefly, as are points of particular syntactical difficulty.