SUETONIUS TRANQUILLUS (Caius), a famous Latin historian, was born at Rome, and became secretary to the emperor Adrian about the 118th year of the Christian æra; but that post was taken from him three years after, when several persons fell under that prince's displeasure for not showing the empress Sabina all the respect she deserved. During his disgrace he composed many works, which are lost. Those now extant are his History of the XII first Emperors, and a part of his Treatise of the illustrious Grammarians and Rhetoricians. Pliny the Younger was his intimate friend, and persuaded him to publish his books. His History of the XII Roman Emperors is very much commended by most of our learned humanists. He represents, in a continued series of choice and curious particulars, without any digressions or reflections, the actions of the emperors, without omitting their vices, which he exposes with all their deformity, and with the same freedom mentions the good qualities of the very same persons; but the horrid dissoluteness and obscene actions he relates of Tiberius, Caligula, Nero, &c. have made some say, that he wrote the lives of the emperors with the same licentiousness with which they lived. The edition of this history procured by Grænius at Utrecht in 1672, with the excellent Commentaries of Torrentius and Casaubon, and the notes of some other learned critics, is much esteemed. That edition was reprinted in 1691.