Collection: Suetonius

Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus (born ca. 69, died 130) – Roman writer, wrote in Latin and Greek. His father, Suetonius Laetus, was a military tribune of the XIII Legion, where he fought at Bedriacum in Otho's troops, as Suetonius reports in the life of Otho.

He was friends with Tacitus and maintained close contacts with Pliny the Younger. Most of the information we have about Suetonius comes from Pliny's correspondence. Around 120, he became a secretary in Hadrian's imperial chancellery. However, he was dismissed shortly afterwards for being too free with the emperor's wife, Sabina. At that time, he devoted himself to literary work. It was during this period that the famous Lives of the Caesars were published. They contain biographies of Julius Caesar, Octavian, Tiberius , Caligula, Claudius, Nero, Galba, Otho, Vitellius, Vespasian, Titus and Domitian. They are an important source, supplementing Tacitus' account (which, for example, does not include Caligula, because the relevant books of Tacitus' Annals have not survived). Their particular value lies in the description of imperial customs. Each biography, to a greater or lesser extent, maintains a tripartite division. At the beginning, a part discussing the events of the emperor's life (not always following chronology), his origins, offices held; then it describes the character traits and appearance of the ruler (species), and in the final parts, death, always preceded by omens.

Apart from the Lives of the Caesars, they have survived to our times. (De vita Caesarum), a fragment of the work On Famous Orators and Teachers (De grammaticis et rhetoribus), which is part of a larger work On Famous Men (De viris illustribus).