SUETONIUS

From Agepedia

SUETONIUS. Caius Suetonius Tranquillus, a Roman writer, born of a plebeian family, flourished about 100 A. D. Little is known of the circumstances of his life. He distinguished himself as an advocate, obtained the tribuneship through the influence of Pliny the younger, and was appointed secretary (magister epistolarum) to the emperor Adrian. From an expression of Spartian in his Life of Adrian, we learn that Suetonius lost this place, on account of his intimacy with the empress Sabina; but the particulars of the affair are unknown to us. Of the works of Suetonius, only the Lives of the Twelve Ceesars, and Notices of celebrated Grammarians, Rhetoricians and Poets, are yet extant. The former work gives an interesting account of the private life and personal character of the twelve first Roman emperors, from Julius Caesar to Domitian, and is of great value to us from the light which it throws on domestic manners and customs. The best editions of Suetonius are those of Pitiscus (1714), Bnrmami (1736), Oudendorp (1751), Wolf (1802), and BaumgartenCrusius (1816 seq.). There is an English translation by Thompson.