His first known office was quaestor and was assigned to Germanicus. However, for Germanicus to have a quaestor, he needed to hold imperium, which he would as consul, or if granted that by the Senate ; Ronald Syme has argued the date of Rufus' quaestorship was AD 15. Syme further argued that Rufus was praetor four years afterwards. In the year 24 Rufus was prosecuted and convicted of taking bribes for his judicial decisions. Although at first the proposed punishment was exile from Italy, he was instead relegated to an island. After the death of Tiberius, Rufus returned from exile to Rome. During the reign of Claudius, Rufus prosecuted a number of people on behalf of the emperor. His targets included several of the clients of Gaius Silius. In an attempt to bring down Suillius Rufus, Silius demanded that the Senate enforce the Lex Cincia, which forbade lawyers from being compensated after pleading a case. In the end, the emperor Claudius intervened, and allowed Rufus to collect a maximum of ten thousandsesterces as his fee for successful prosecution. Another target was Julia Livia, who had stirred the animosity of the empress Valeria Messalina; Rufus accused her of immoral conduct, and the prosecution resulted in her death in AD 43. Tacitus provides a list of his further victims: Decimus Valerius Asiaticus, Quintus Futius Lusius Saturninus, Cornelius Lupus as well as "troops of Romanequites." The sortition awarded Rufus the proconsular governorship of Asia, which Steven Rutledge dates to the term 52/53. Eventually, Suilius Rufus met his fate: during the reign of Nero, Seneca successfully prosecuted him. According to Tacitus, "with the loss of half his property, his son and granddaughter being allowed to retain the other half, and what they had inherited under their mother's or grandmother's will being exempted from confiscation, Suilius was banished to the Balearic isles.... Rumor said that he supported that lonely exile by a life of ease and plenty."
Family
identifies Suillius as the husband of his step-daughter in his Epistulae ex Ponto, but does not name her. Ovid does drop the hint that his wife, whom he also never names, was one of the Fabii, but offers little explicit information about either woman beyond that. Suillius had two sons by this marriage. One, Suillius Caesoninus, was banished due to his participation in a scandal involving Messalina. The other, Marcus Suillius Nerullinus, was consul ordinarius in 50.
