All historians have biases, and these biases 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 the story 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 college students about political and economic history of Rome while occasionally discussing culture in the traditional textbook format, and Suetonius wrote history to tell stories about emperors and then discarded information unless it directly concerned the individual man he was focusing on. Jo-Ann Shelton places more emphasis on many different individuals as a way to accurately portray Roman history, the authors of A History of Rome place much less emphasis on many individuals but still discuss diverse groups of people throughout the Empire Roman and various inscriptions, and Suetonius only discusses the emperors, and those who impacted their reign, in depth. Jo-Ann Shelton states in the preface of her book, “The purpose of this book is to allow the ancient Romans to come forward and talk to us about themselves” (1998, p. XXIII). She clearly believes that every individual in history has an impact on its course. While he acknowledges that preservation bias has destroyed many letters, documents and inscriptions, he uses what is available to show readers what life was like for different individuals of the document... or they influenced history on their own and groups of people who influenced history by working together Finally, Suetonius seems to have considered only great men as important and impactful individuals in history, focusing exclusively on the emperors, the their immediate relatives and anyone who threatened them. Individually, each author or group of authors provides an incomplete picture of Roman culture due to their own biases, but used together it is possible to begin to understand how individuals influenced history in ways large or small. . Works Cited Le Glay, M., Voisin, J.‑L. & Le Bohec, H. (2009). The history of Rome (4th ed.) (A. Nevel, Trans.). Malden, Massachusetts: Wiley-Blackwell.Shelton, J.-A. (1998). How the Romans Did It: A Handbook of Roman Social History (2nd ed.). NewYork: Oxford University Press.Suetonius. (1957). The Twelve Caesars (R. Graves, Trans.). New York: Penguin.