Gaius Lucilius

Gaius Lucilius (c. 180 – 103/2 BC), the earliest Roman satirist, of whose writings only fragments remain, was a Roman citizen of the equestrian class, born at Suessa Aurunca in Campania. He was a member of the Scipionic Circle.

The dates assigned by Jerome for his birth and death are 148 BC and 103 BC or 102 BC. But it is impossible to reconcile the first of these dates with other facts recorded of him, and the date given by Jerome must be due to an error, the true date being about 180 BC. His sister was Lucilia, being the mother of Roman Politician Sextus Pompeius and the paternal grandmother of Roman Triumvir Pompey.

We learn from Velleius Paterculus that he served under Scipio Aemilianus at the siege of Numantia in 134 BC. We learn from Horace that he lived on the most intimate terms of friendship with Scipio and Laelius, (Satire ii.1), and that he celebrated the exploits and virtues of the former in his satires.

Fragments of those books of his satires which seem to have been first given to the world (XXVI–XXIX) clearly indicate that they were written in the lifetime of Scipio. Some of these bring the poet before us as either corresponding with, or engaged in controversial conversation with, his great friend. 621 Marx, "Percrepa pugnam Popilli, facta Corneli cane" ("Make a loud noise about Popillius' battle, and sing the exploits of Cornelius") in which the defeat of Marcus Popillius Laenas, in 138 BC, is contrasted with the subsequent success of Scipio, bears the stamp of having been written while the news of the capture of Numantia was still fresh.

It is in the highest degree improbable that Lucilius served in the army at the age of fourteen; it is still more unlikely that he could have been admitted into the familiar intimacy of Scipio and Laelius at that age. It also seems an impossibility that between the ages of fifteen and nineteen—i.e. between 133 BC and 129 BC, the year of Scipio's death—he could have come before the world as the author of an entirely new kind of composition, and one which, to be at all successful, demands especially maturity of judgment and experience.

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