This article is about the Roman historian. For the Roman general who put down the rebellion of Boudica, seeGaius Suetonius Paulinus.
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Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus was probably born about AD 69, a date deduced from his remarks describing himself as a "young man" 20 years afterNero's death. His place of birth is disputed, but most scholars place it inHippo Regius (the modernAnnaba), at the time a small north African town inNumidia, in modern-dayAlgeria.[1] It is certain that Suetonius came from a family of moderate social position, that his father, Suetonius Laetus,[3] was a tribune belonging to theequestrian order (tribunus angusticlavius) inLegio XIII Gemina, and that Suetonius was educated when schools of rhetoric flourished in Rome.
Suetonius was a close friend ofsenator and letter-writerPliny the Younger. Pliny describes him as "quiet and studious, a man dedicated to writing". Pliny helped him buy a small property and interceded with the EmperorTrajan to grant Suetonius immunities usually granted to a father of three, theius trium liberorum, because his marriage was childless.[4] Through Pliny, Suetonius came into favour withTrajan andHadrian. Suetonius may have served on Pliny's staff when Pliny was imperial governor (legatus Augusti pro praetore) ofBithynia and Pontus (northernAsia Minor) between 110 and 112. Under Trajan he served as secretary of studies (precise functions are uncertain) and director of Imperial archives. Under Hadrian, he became the emperor's secretary. According to the controversial and factually looseHistoria Augusta, Hadrian later dismissed Suetonius for an affair with the empressVibia Sabina.[5][6]
Suetonius is mainly remembered as the author ofDe Vita Caesarum—translated asThe Life of the Caesars, although a more common English title isThe Lives of the Twelve Caesars or simplyThe Twelve Caesars—his only extant work except for the brief biographies and other fragments noted below.The Twelve Caesars, probably written in Hadrian's time, is a collective biography of the Roman Empire's first leaders,Julius Caesar (the first few chapters are missing),Augustus,Tiberius,Caligula,Claudius,Nero,Galba,Otho,Vitellius,Vespasian,Titus andDomitian. The book was dedicated to his friendGaius Septicius Clarus, aprefect of thePraetorian Guard in 119.[7] The work tells the tale of each Caesar's life according to a set formula: the descriptions of appearance, omens, family history, quotes, and then a history are given in a consistent order. He recorded the earliest accounts ofJulius Caesar's epileptic seizures.
The following list of Suetonius's lost works is fromRobert Graves's foreword to his translation of theTwelve Caesars.[8]
Royal Biographies
Lives of Famous Whores
Roman Manners and Customs
The Roman Year
The Roman Festivals
Roman Dress
Greek Games
Offices of State
On Cicero's Republic
Physical Defects of Mankind
Methods of Reckoning Time
An Essay on Nature
Greek Objurations
Grammatical Problems
Critical Signs Used in Books
The introduction to the Loeb edition of Suetonius, translated by J. C. Rolfe, with an introduction by K. R. Bradley, references theSuda with the following titles:
On Greek games
On Roman spectacles and games
On the Roman year
On critical signs in books
On Cicero's Republic
On names and types of clothes
On insults
On Rome and its customs and manners
The volume adds other titles not testified within the Suda.
On famous courtesans
On kings
On the institution of offices
On physical defects
On weather signs
On names of seas and rivers
On names of winds
Two other titles may also be collections of some of the aforelisted:
^Hadrianus."11:3".Historia Augusta.claims that Hadrian "removed from office Septicius Clarus, the prefect of the guard, and Suetonius Tranquillus, the imperial secretary, and many others besides, because without his consent they had been conducting themselves toward his wife, Sabina, in a more informal fashion than the etiquette of the court demanded."
Barry Baldwin,Suetonius: Biographer of the Caesars. Amsterdam: A. M. Hakkert, 1983.
Gladhill, Bill. "The Emperor's No Clothes: Suetonius and the Dynamics of Corporeal Ecphrasis."Classical Antiquity, vol. 31, no. 2, 2012, pp. 315–348.
Lounsbury, Richard C.The Arts of Suetonius: An Introduction. Frankfurt: Lang, 1987.
Mitchell, Jack "Literary Quotation as Literary Performance in Suetonius."The Classical Journal, vol. 110, no. 3, 2015, pp. 333–355
Newbold, R.F. "Non-Verbal Communication in Suetonius and 'The Historia Augusta:' Power, Posture and Proxemics."Acta Classica, vol. 43, 2000, pp. 101–118.
Power, Tristan,Collected Papers on Suetonius. Abingdon: Routledge, 2021.
Power, Tristan and Roy K. Gibson (ed.),Suetonius, the Biographer: Studies in Roman Lives. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2014
Syme, Ronald. "The Travels of Suetonius Tranquillus."Hermes 109:105–117, 1981.
Trentin, Lisa. "Deformity in the Roman Imperial Court."Greece & Rome, vol. 58, no. 2, 2011, pp. 195–208.
Trevor, Luke "Ideology and Humor in Suetonius' 'Life of Vespasian' 8."The Classical World, vol. 103, no. 4, 2010, pp. 511–527.
Wallace-Hadrill, Andrew F.Suetonius: The Scholar and his Caesars. New Haven, CT: Yale Univ. Press, 1983.
Wardle, David. "Did Suetonius Write in Greek?"Acta Classica 36:91–103, 1993.
Wardle, David. "Suetonius on Augustus as God and Man."The Classical Quarterly, vol. 62, no. 1, 2012, pp. 307–326.
Kaster, Robert A.,Studies on the Text of Suetonius' "De vita Caesarum" (Oxford: 2016).
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