Roman historian; practised as an advocate in Rome in the reign of Trajan; was a friend of the Younger Pliny, became private secretary to Hadrian, but was deprived of this post through an indiscretion; wrote several works, and of those extant the chief is the "Lives of the Twelve Caesars," beginning with Julius Caesar and ending with Domitian, a work which relates a great number of anecdotes illustrating the characters of the emperors; b. A.D. 70.