All historians have prejudices and these prejudices shape the way they write history. Some authors write to promote an ideal while others write to educate the public, and authors also differ in the aspects of history they write about. When reading a history text, it is important to remember why the author wrote and what was important to him. An author like Jo-Ann Shelton writes history to educate people about the social history of Rome using letters and inscriptions left by individuals, the authors of the fourth edition of A History of Rome write to educate students on political and economic history. of Rome while occasionally discussing culture in a traditional textbook format, and Suetonius wrote history to tell stories about emperors and therefore rejected information unless it directly concerned the single man he was focusing on. concentrated. Jo-Ann Shelton places more emphasis on many different individuals in order to accurately depict Roman history. The authors of A History of Rome place much less emphasis on many individuals, but they still discuss different groups of people throughout the Roman Empire and various inscriptions. and Suetonius only discusses in depth the emperors and those who had an impact on their reign. Jo-Ann Shelton states in the preface to her book: “The purpose of this book is to allow the ancient Romans to come forward and speak. to us about themselves” (1998, p. xxiii). She clearly believes that every individual in history has an impact on its course. While acknowledging that preservation bias has destroyed many letters, documents, and inscriptions, she uses what is available to show readers what different people's lives were like. Some of these sources come...... middle of article ...... o have impacted history alone and groups of people who have impacted history by working together. Finally, Suetonius seems to have considered only great men as important and influential individuals in history, focusing only on emperors and their immediate families and anyone who threatened them. Individually, each author or group of authors gives an incomplete picture of Roman culture due to their biases, but using them together it is possible to begin to understand how individuals had a large or minor impact on history . Works cited Le Glay, M., Voisin, J.-L. & Le Bohec, H. (2009). The History of Rome (4th ed.) (A. Nevel, Trans.). Malden, Mass.: Wiley-Blackwell. Shelton, J.-A. (1998). As the Romans Did It: A Sourcebook of Roman Social History (2nd ed.). New York: Oxford University Press. Suetonius. (1957). The Twelve Caesars (R. Graves, Trans.). New York: Penguin.