Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus (c. 69 – after 122 AD) was a Roman historian who lived during the reigns of the emperors Trajan and Hadrian. Born into a distinguished family, he was a prolific writer, but his most famous and only surviving complete work is De Vita Caesarum—or The Twelve Caesars.
Suetonius served in various administrative positions under both emperors, which granted him access to the imperial archives and other invaluable sources of information. This allowed him to gather a wealth of firsthand documents, personal letters, and other records that informed his writing. While his style is often criticized for being more anecdotal than analytical, his work is praised for its wealth of detail and its focus on the personal lives of the emperors. His writing provided a new model for biography, one that was less concerned with public image and more with private character. His work has influenced biographers for centuries and remains an indispensable text for understanding the Roman Empire.
