Like his correspondent Pliny the Younger (Ep. 1.18; 5.10 etc.) and their friend Cornelius Tacitus (Plin. Y. Ep. 6.16; 6.20), Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus was born in the second half of the 1st century CE – somewhat later than the other two, since he describes himself as a young man 20 years after Nero’s death in 69 CE. If we can credit the statement in the Historia Augusta that he was a secretary to Hadrian until he was di…