This is the path of my chronicle's journey. By the grace of Fortuna, I hope these words will persuade Hadrian of the integrity of my actions that fateful day. May they fix my head more securely to my body.

Greetings dear reader, whoever you may be.

Your writer is Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, renowned lawyer and alleged playboy of Rome. 'Alleged' because all Rome assumes I have been notably successful in a Roman male's obligatory career of lively priapic endeavor.

However in this thirteenth year of Caesar's rule I will have seen a full sixty winters. This means I am six years older than Hadrian. Being no spring chicken, my alleged priapic activities wane alarmingly.

My patron and friend of the past twenty years, Gaius Septicius Clarus, the well-known senator and one-time Prefect of the Praetorian Guard, has kindly assigned me a suite at his luxurious villa at Alexandria. Here on Caesar's behalf I am under house arrest until Hadrian decides what to do with me. As a member of the eques class at least I know what my worst fate may be — a swift beheading or permission to suicide somewhat less messily.

In the meantime I gather my thoughts onto paper about the recent journey through Egypt. These thoughts will either save my neck or make it even less secure. While the memory remains fresh I must record the fate and subsequent apotheosis of the young man at the center of its most disturbing event, Antinous of Bithynia. To some he was Caesar's beloved companion and Favorite; to others a mere catamite, a toyboy, a typical Greek hustler on the make.

I have written several admired histories for the Empire's book copiers and their readers. I am best known for my Lives of the Caesars. Perhaps you too know of it? There I show in eight scrolls all I have learned of our first Caesar, Julius, and the following eleven Caesars from Augustus to Domitian. That last monster ruled in my youth at much cost to the lives of members of my family.