Suetonius most important surviving work is known as the De Vita Caesarum, a set of twelve biographies of the successive Roman rulers. The emperor Nero s reign is one weird tale of sexual depravity and extravagant sadism. He was a gifted musician, and is said to have given great concerts of which attendance was compulsory women were said to have given birth during the performance, and men were driven to fake death to escape. Nero kicked his pregnant wife to death and then had a young boy castrated to replace her as his spouse then, during the great fire of Rome, he is said to have played the lyre to emphasize the beauty of the destruction. His eccentricities are a continuation of the tradition of his predecessors, only more perverted Suetonius account portray a strange man in strange times.
