Otho: A Targeted Comparison of Suetonius's Biography and Tacitus's History, with Implications for the Gospels' Historical Reliability

A majority of scholars today recognize that the Gospels are ancient biographies. This recognition has implications for our valuation of the information content in the Gospels. Biographies written as soon after the subject's life as the Gospels normally include substantial historical information. The biographies of the later emperors in Suetonius offer a reasonable test case. Comparing Suetonius's biography of Otho with information about Otho in Tacitus's Histories, as well as Plutarch's biographies of Galba and Otho, confirms that Suetonius, whatever his other agendas, did not invent material freely but depended heavily on preexisting historical information.