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.