INTRODUCTION.
If but little is known of the personal character and life of the other Satirists of Rome, it is unfortunately still more the case with Lucilius. Although the research and industry of modern scholars have collected nearly a hundred passages from ancient writers where his name is mentioned, the information that can be gleaned from them with respect to the events of his life is very scanty indeed; and even of these meagre statements, there is scarcely one that has not been called in question by one or more critics of later days. It will be therefore, perhaps, the most satisfactory course to present in a continuous form the few facts we can gather respecting his personal history; and to mention afterward the doubts that have been thrown on these statements, and the attempts of recent editors to reconcile them with the accredited facts of history.
Caius Lucilius, then, was born, according to the testimony of S. Hieronymus (in Euseb., Chron.), B.C. 148, in the first year of the 158th Olympiad, and the 606th of the founding of the city (Varronian Computation), in the consulship of Spurius Posthumius Albinus and Lucius Calpurnius Piso. There was a plebeian Lucilian gens, as well as a patrician, but it was to the latter that the family of the poet undoubtedly belonged. Horace says of himself (ii. Sat, i., 74), "Quidquid sum ego, quamvis infrà Lucili censum ingeniumque tamen me cum magnis vixisse invita fatebitur usque Invidia." Porphyrion, in his commentary on the passage, says Lucilius was the great uncle of Pompey the Great; Pompey's grandmother being the poet's sister. But Acron says he was Pompey's grandfather. Velleius Paterculus (ii., 29), on the other hand, says that Lucilia, the mother of Pompey, was daughter of the brother of Lucilius and of senatorian family.
His birthplace was Suessa, now Sessa, capital of the Aurunci, in Campania; hence Juvenal (Sat. i., 19) says, "Cur tamen hoc potius libeat decurrere campo, per quem magnus equos Auruncæ flexit alumnus, Si vacat et placidi rationem admittitis edam;" and Ausonius (Ep. xv.), "Rudes Camænas qui Suessæ prævenis." At the age of fifteen, B.C. 134, he accompanied his patron, L. Scipio Africanus Æmilianus, to the Numantine war, where he is said to have served as eques. Vell. Pat., ii., 9, 4. Here he met with Marius, now about in his twenty-third year, and the young Jugurtha; who were also serving under Africanus, and learning, as Velleius says, "that art of war, which they were afterward to employ against each other." In the following year Numantia was taken and razed to the ground, and Lucilius returned with his patron to Rome, shortly after the sedition and death of Tiberius Gracchus; and lived on terms of the most familiar friendship with him and C. Lælius, until the death of Scipio, B.C. 129; and even at that early age had already acquired the reputation of a distinguished Satirist. According to Pighius (in Tabulis), he held the office of quæstor, B.C. 127, two years after Scipio's death, and the prætorship, B.C. 117. Van Heusde is also of opinion that he acted as publicanus; and from a passage in Cicero (de Orat., ii., 70), some suppose he kept large flocks of sheep on the Ager publicus. Besides Africanus and Lælius (with whose father-in-law Crassus, however, he was not on very good terms, vid. Cic., de Or., i., 16) he is said to have enjoyed the friendship of the following distinguished men, Sp. Albinus, L. Ælius Stilo, Q. Vectius, Archelaus, P. Philocomus, Lælius Decimus, and Q. Granius Præco. He had a violent quarrel with C. Cælius, for acquitting a man who had libeled him. He is said to have lived under Velia, where the temple of Victory afterward stood, in a house built at the public expense for the son of king Antiochus when hostage at Rome. (Asc. Pedian. in Ciceron., Orat. c. L. Pisonem, p. 13.) He made a voyage to Sicily, but for what cause, or at what period of his life, is not stated. His closing years were spent at Naples, whither he retired to avoid, as some think, the effects of the hatred of those whom his Satire had offended; and here he died, B.C. 103, in his forty-sixth year, and was honored, according to Eusebius, with a public funeral. He had a faithful slave named Metrophanes, whose honesty and fidelity he rewarded by writing an epitaph for his tomb, quoted by Martial as an instance of antique and rugged style of writing, xi. Ep., 90.
"Carmina nulla probas molli quæ limite currunt,
Sed quæ per salebras altaque saxa cadunt:
Et tibi Mæonio res carmine major habetur
Luceili Columella heic situ' Metrophanes."
The name of his mistress is said to have been Collyra, to whom the sixteenth book of his Satires was inscribed. He wrote thirty books of Satires, of which the first twenty and the last are in Heroic metre. The other nine in Iambics or Trochaics. He is not to be confounded with a comic poet of the same name, mentioned by the Scholiast on Horace and by Fulgentius.
Such is the traditional, and for a long time currently-believed, story of Lucilius' life. The greater accuracy, or greater skepticism, of modern scholars has called into question nearly every one of these meagre facts. Even the method of spelling his name has been a subject of fierce controversy. In the best manuscripts, especially those of Horace, Cicero, and Nonius Marcellus, the name of Lucilius is invariably spelt with one l. Yet in spite of this testimony, in order to square with some preconceived notions of orthography, the l was doubled by Hadrian Turnebe, Claude de Saumaise, Joseph Scaliger, Lambinus, Jos. Mercer, and Cortius. The propriety, however, of omitting the second l has been fully established by an appeal to MSS. and inscriptions; and to Varges and Ellendt the credit is due of successfully restoring the correct mode of spelling. (Cf. Rhenish Philolog. Museum for 1835, and Ellendt on Cicero, de Orat, iii., 43.)
Again, his prænomen is by some stated to be Lucius; whereas, not to mention others, Cicero and Quintilian always speak of him as Caius.
But far more serious doubts, and with great probability, have been cast upon the dates assigned by S. Hieronymus for his birth and death. Bayle, in his Dictionary, was the first to suggest them; and they were taken up and urged with great zeal and learning by Van Heusde (in his Studia Critica in C. Lucilium Poetam, 1842), who accused Jerome of negligence and incorrectness in the dates he assigns to many other events: e. g., the overthrow of Numantia, the deaths of Plautus, Horace, Catullus, Lucretius, and Livius the tragedian, and the birth of Messala Corvinus. The charge against the chronographer has been repeated, and with some show of truth, by Ritschel in the Rhenish Museum, 1843. Van Heusde's line of argument is simply this, that the dates of Hieron. are inconsistent with what Horace and Velleius say of Lucilius, and with what the poet says of himself—that it is absurd to suppose that a lad of fifteen could have served as an eques; or that so young a person would have been admitted to such intimate familiarity with men like Scipio Africanus and Lælius; and that at the time of Scipio's death, when, as it is said, Lucilius had already gained a great reputation as a Satirist, he could have been barely over nineteen years old; that if he had died at the age of forty-six, Horace would not have applied to him the epithet "Senex"—that the year of his birth must be therefore carried back at least six years, and his death assigned to a much later period, as he mentions the Leges Liciniæ and Calpurnia, passed some years after the time fixed by Hieron. for his death at Naples. In this view Milman coincides: "Notwithstanding the distinctness of this statement of S. Hieronymus, and the ingenuity with which many writers have attempted to explain it, it appears to me utterly irreconcilable with facts." (Personæ Horatianæ, p. 178.) Clinton also says[1594] (F. H., ann. B.C. 103), "The expression of Horace, Sat., II., i., 34, by whom Lucilius is called 'Senex,' implies that he lived to a later period."
Such are the principal objections to the common accounts. Of those who hold their accuracy, and endeavor to explain away the difficulties attaching to them, the chief are Varges and Gerlach. The principal points will be taken in the order in which they occur.
With regard to the first, Varges shows, in opposition to Bayle, that it was the custom for young Romans to serve long before the legal age, either voluntarily, that they might apply themselves sooner to civil matters, by getting over their period of military service; or compulsorily, to supply the waste of soldiers caused by the incessant wars in which Rome was engaged. Hence the necessity for the law of C. Gracchus to prevent enlistment under the age of seventeen (νεώτερον ἐτῶν ἑπτακαίδεκα μὴ καταλέγεσθαι στρατιώτην). Cf. Liv., xxv., 5. Duk. ad Liv., xxvi., 25. As the equestrian service was the more honorable, it was probably conceded to Lucilius on account of his gentle birth and early promise. Gerlach thinks that Tibullus[1595] was only thirteen when he accompanied M. Valerius Messala Corvinus in his Aquitanian campaign. Now Tibullus was only of equestrian family. There is no difficulty, therefore, in supposing that Lucilius, who was of senatorian family, might have served as eques at the age of fifteen.[1596]
As to the fact of Scipio and Lælius admitting him to their intimate friendship at so early an age, a parallel may be found in the case of Archias the poet. Besides, Scipio and Lælius were the most likely men to discover and to foster the early talent of the young poet. For the fact of the intimacy we have the testimony of Horace, Sat., II., i., 71,
"Quin ubi se a vulgo et scena in secreta remorant
Virtus Scipiadæ et mitis sapientia Lælî
Nugari cum illo et discincti ludere, donec
Decoqueretur olus, soliti."
On which the commentator says, "That the three were on such intimate terms, that on one occasion Lælius was running round the sofas in the Triclinium, while Lucilius was chasing him with a twisted towel to hit him with." This story agrees exactly with the description given by Cicero[1597] (de Orat., ii., 6) of the conduct of Scipio and Lælius, who speaks of their retiring together to the country-house of the former, and to have descended, for the relaxation of their minds, to the most childish amusements, such as gathering shells on the shore of Caieta. Who would be more likely than such men as these to be captivated by the precocious wit and pungent sarcasm of a sprightly lad?
Again, the character of Lucilius's compositions admits of eminence at an earlier period of life than the other branches of poetry. And yet Catullus and Propertius, not to mention many others, attained great eminence as poets at a very early age; certainly long before their twentieth year.
The Satiric poetry of Lucilius depending more on a keen perception of the ludicrous, and shrewd observation of passing events and the foibles of individuals, would more readily win approbation at an early age, than compositions whose excellence would consist in the display of judgment, knowledge of the world, and elaborate finish. There is, therefore, no reason to suppose that his talent may not, like that of Cicero, have been developed at an early age, and having come under the notice, might have won the approbation, of men of such character in private life as Scipio and Lælius are reported to have been.
But Horace calls him "senex," ii. Sat., 28, seq.
"Ille (Lucilius) velut fidis arcana sodalibus olim
Credebat libris: neque si male cesserat, unquam
Decurrens alio, neque si bene, quo fit ut omnis
Votivâ pateat veluti descripta tabellâ
Vita Senis—"
To this it is answered: nothing can be more loose and vague than the employment by Roman writers of terms relating to the different periods of human life: e. g., "puer, adolescentulus, adolescens, juvenis, senex." We have seen that Tibullus at the age of forty may be called "juvenis." Hannibal, at the age of forty-four (i. e., two years younger than Lucilius at his death), calls himself senex. (Cf. Liv., xxx., 30, compared with c. 28, and Crevier's note.)[1598] So Persius (Sat. i., 124) calls Aristophanes "prægrandis senex," though, as Ranke shows in his Life (p. xc.), he was not of great age. We might add that Horace himself uses the phrase, "poetarum seniorum turba" (i. Sat., x., 67), as equivalent to priorum.
In the fourth Fragment of the twentieth book, Lucilius mentions the Calpurnian Law.
"Calpurnî sævam legem Pisoni' reprendi
Eduxique animam in primoribu' naribus."
This Van Heusde holds to be the Lex Calpurnia, de ambitu, passed by C. Calpurnius Piso, when consul, A.U.C. 687, B.C. 67, at which time Lucilius would have been eighty-one years old. But there was another Lex Calpurnia, de pecuniis repetundis, passed by L. Calpurnius Piso, tribune, in A.U.C. 604, B.C. 150. Van Heusde says the former must be meant, because Lucilius applies to it the epithet sæva, and Cicero (pro Muræna, c. 46) also styles it "severissime scriptam." He explains the second line of the Fragment to mean, that Lucilius "all but paid the penalty of death for his animadversions of the law," but these words more correctly imply the "fierce snorting of an angry man." So Pers., Sat., v., 91, "Ira cadat naso." Varro, R. R., ii., 3, 5, "Spiritum naribus ducere." Mart., vi. Ep., 64, "Rabido nec perditus ore fumantem nasum vivi tentaveris ursi." And any law whatever would be naturally termed "sæva" by him who came under the influence of it.
In the 132d of the Fragmenta Incerta, we have (quoted from A. Gell., Noct. Att., ii., 24) these words, "Legem vitemus Licini." The object of this law was to give greater sanction to the provisions of the Lex Fannia, a sumptuary law, which had become nearly obsolete. If passed by P. Licinius Crassus Dives Lusitanicus, when consul, it must be referred to the year A.U.C. 657, B.C. 97, six years after the supposed date of Lucilius's death. But there is no reason why this law should not have been passed by Licinius when tribune or prætor, as well as when consul; probably during his prætorship, as nearer the consulship, though Pighius (Annal., iii., 122), though without giving any authority, assigns it to his tribuneship.
The Orchian Law was passed by C. Orchius when tribune. The Fannian and many other sumptuary laws were passed by prætors or tribunes. The argument therefore derived from the law having been passed by Licinius, when consul, falls to the ground.
Allowing, however, that Lucilius was alive during the consulship of Licinius, we have the incidental, and therefore more valuable, testimony of Cicero, that he must have died very shortly after. In his "De Oratore," he introduces the speakers in the Dialogue quoting Lucilius, as one evidently not very recently dead. Now this imaginary Dialogue is supposed to have taken place B.C. 91.