The translation of Suetonius by Robert Graves is really excellent. When he came to translate the graffiti against Nero in section 39, as a poet he chose to render them in verse. Here are my favourites:
Alcmaeon, Orestes and Nero are brothers
Why? Because all of them murdered their mothers.
Aeneas the Trojan hero
Carried off his aged father;
His remote descendant Nero
Likewise carried off his mother:
Heroes worthy of each other.
(And best of all)
The Palace is spreading and swallowing Rome!
Let us all flee to Veii and make it our home.
Yet the Palace is growing so damnably fast
That it threatens to gobble up Veii at last.
When you’re reduced to going to Veii, you know things are bad… (Veii is a bit like Rome’s evil twin: just down the road, but somehow the polar opposite of all the wonderful things the Romans were. Which is why they destroyed it, of course…)
Great post.