Suetonius

This article is about the Roman historian. For the Roman general who put down the rebellion of Boudica, see Gaius Suetonius Paulinus.
Suetonius

Illustration from the 15th-century Nuremberg Chronicle
Born Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus
c. 69 AD
Hippo Regius, Roman Africa
(modern Annaba, Algeria
Died c. 140 AD (age c. 71)
Occupation Secretary, historian
Genre Biography
Subject History, biography, oratory
Literary movement Silver Age of Latin
Notable works The Lives of the Twelve Caesars

Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus [ˈɡaː.ɪ.ʊs ˈswɛ.tɔn.jʊs traŋˈkᶣɪl.lʊs], commonly known as Suetonius (/swɪˈtoʊniəs/; c. 69 – after 122 AD), was a Roman historian belonging to the equestrian order who wrote during the early Imperial era of the Roman Empire.

His most important surviving work is a set of biographies of twelve successive Roman rulers, from Julius Caesar to Domitian, entitled De Vita Caesarum. He recorded the earliest accounts of Julius Caesar's epileptic seizures. Other works by Suetonius concern the daily life of Rome, politics, oratory, and the lives of famous writers, including poets, historians, and grammarians. A few of these books have partially survived, but many have been lost.

Life

Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus was probably born in Italy[1] at about 69 AD, a date deduced from his remarks describing himself as a "young man" twenty years after Nero's death. It is certain that Suetonius came from a family of moderate social position, that his father, Suetonius Laetus,[2] was a tribune of equestrian rank (tribunus angusticlavius) in the Thirteenth Legion, and that Suetonius was educated when schools of rhetoric flourished in Rome.

Suetonius was a close friend of senator and letter-writer Pliny 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 Emperor Trajan to grant Suetonius immunities usually granted to a father of three, the ius trium liberorum, because his marriage was childless.[3] Through Pliny, Suetonius came into favour with Trajan and Hadrian. Suetonius may have served on Pliny’s staff when Pliny was Proconsul of Bithynia Pontus (northern Asia 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. But, in 119, Hadrian dismissed Suetonius for the latter's allegedly excessive intimacy with the empress Sabina.[4][5]

Works

The Twelve Caesars

Main article: The Twelve Caesars
A bust of Gaius Julius Caesar.

He is mainly remembered as the author of De Vita Caesarum—translated as The Life of the Caesars although a more common English title is The Lives of the Twelve Caesars or simply The 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 and Domitian. The book was dedicated to a friend Gaius Septicius Clarus, a prefect of the Praetorian Guard in 119.[6] 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 for each Caesar.

Other works

Partly extant

The two last works were written in Greek. They apparently survive in part in the form of extracts in later Greek glossaries.

Lost works

The below listed lost works of Suetonius are from the Foreword written by Robert Graves in his translation of the Twelve Caesars. [7]

Еditions

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ "Suetonius". Encyclopædia Britannica, 2012. Web. 18 Jun. 2012.
  2. ↑ Suetonius, Vita Othonis, 10, 1.
  3. ↑ Pliny the Younger, Letters 10.95
  4. ↑  Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Suetonius Tranquillus, Gaius". Encyclopædia Britannica 26 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
  5. ↑ HA Hadrianus 11:3 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."
  6. ↑ L.D.Reynolds, Texts and Transmissions: a survey of the Latin classics, Oxford, 1980. The dedication, in the lost preface, is recorded by a sixth-century source when the text was still complete.
  7. ↑ Graves, Robert (trans.) (1957). "Foreword". Suetonius: The Twelve Caesars (First ed.). Hamondsworth, Middlesex, England: Penguin Books. p. 7.

References

External links

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Primary sources
Secondary sources
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