in
arto et inglorius labor,' must not be taken too seriously.

SUETONIUS.

(1) LIFE.

C. Suetonius Tranquillus was the son of Suetonius Laetus, a tribune of
the thirteenth legion, who took part in the battle of Bedriacum, A.D.
69 (Sueton. _Otho_, 10). His birth seems to have taken place soon
after that year,[116] for he was 'adulescens' twenty years after
Nero's death; _Nero_ 57, 'cum post viginti annos, adulescente me,
exstitisset condicionis incertae qui se Neronem esse iactaret.'

Suetonius was a friend of the younger Pliny, to whom he was indebted
for a military tribuneship, which he afterwards passed on to a
relative (Plin. _Ep._ iii. 8), and for assistance in the purchase of a
small estate (ibid. i. 24). Pliny encouraged him to publish some of
his writings (v. 10), and obtained for him from Trajan the _ius trium
liberorum_ (_ad Trai._ 94).

Under Hadrian he was _magister epistularum_, but was dismissed from
office in A.D. 121. Spartianus, _Hadr._ 11, 3, 'Septicio Claro
praefecto praetorio et Suetonio Tranquillo epistularum magistro
multisque aliis, quod apud Sabinam uxorem in usu eius familiarius se
tunc egerant quam reverentia domus aulicae postulabat, successores
dedit.' The remainder of his life appears to have been devoted to
literature.

(2) WORKS.

1. _De Vita Caesarum_, in eight Books (Books i.-vi. Iulius-Nero; vii.
Galba, Otho, and Vitellius; viii. Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian). It
was published A.D. 119-21, as it was dedicated (according to Joannes
Lydus) to C. Septicius Clarus, praetorian prefect, who held office
during those years. The preface and the beginning of the life of
Iulius are wanting. Suetonius is a conscientious and accurate writer
(cf. his discussion of Caligula's birthplace, _Calig._ 8), and he
makes use of good sources, e.g. the _Monumentum Ancyranum_, _Acta
populi_, _Acta senatus_, autograph documents of the emperors (_Aug._
87, _Nero_ 52); but there is in his work an almost entire absence of
dates, and the personal element is, from the point of view of history,
unduly prominent.

2. _De Viris Illustribus_, including poets, orators (beginning with
Cicero), historians (from Sallust onwards), philosophers, grammarians,
and rhetoricians. The greater part of the section _De grammaticis et
rhetoribus_ is extant, as well as lives of Terence, Horace, and Lucan
from the section _de poetis_, and of Pliny the elder from the section
_de historicis_. Extracts from the rest of t