For Tacitus’ conception of history as dealing with great events cf. Ann. xiii. 31, ‘pauca memoria digna evenere, nisi cui libeat laudandis fundamentis et trabibus, quis molem amphitheatri apud campum Martis Caesar extruxerat, volumina implere, cum ex dignitate populi Romani repertum sit res inlustres annalibus, talia diurnis urbis actis mandare.’
His complaints as to his subject-matter in Ann. iv. 32, ‘Nobis 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 the work are preserved by Jerome. In each section there was (1) a list of the authors discussed, (2) a general survey of their branch of literature, (3) brief notices of the authors in chronological order. The publication took place, according to Roth, 106-113 A.D.