Suetonius

Suetonius (Caius Suetonius Tranquillus) (swētō`nēəs), c.A.D. 69–c.A.D. 140, Roman biographer. Little is known about his life except that he was briefly the private secretary of Emperor Hadrian. His De vita Caesarum [concerning the lives of the Caesars] survives almost in full; it was translated into English by Robert Graves as The Twelve Caesars (1957). There are also fragments of a much larger collection of biographies, De viris illustribus [concerning illustrious men]. He gathered together all sorts of anecdotes, and the resultant biographies are lively and informative. Suetonius was taken as a model by many later biographers.

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Suetonius

 Latin Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus

(born AD 69, probably Rome—died after 122) Roman biographer and antiquarian. Suetonius's family was of the knightly class. His writings include Concerning Illustrious Men, short biographies of literary figures that were the ultimate source of nearly all that is known about the lives of eminent Roman authors. Lives of the Caesars, his other major work, is seasoned with bits of gossip and scandal related to the first 11 emperors; it is largely responsible for the vivid picture of Roman society and its decadent leaders that dominated historical thought until modified in modern times by the discovery of nonliterary evidence.