LUCILIUS.
Lucilius was born in the Latin town of Suessa of the Aurunci, in Campania, of a well-to-do equestrian family. Velleius tells us that the sister of Lucilius was grandmother to Pompeius, and that Lucilius served in the cavalry under Scipio in the Numantine war, 134 B.C. Lucilius lived on very intimate terms with Scipio Africanus Minor and Laelius, and died at Naples (103 B.C.), where he was honoured with a public funeral.
2. Works.
Saturae in thirty Books, in various metres. Fragments only are extant.
‘After Terence he is the most distinguished and the most important in his literary influence among the friends of Scipio. The form of literature which he invented and popularised, that of familiar poetry, was one which proved singularly suited to the Latin genius. He speaks of his own works under the name of Sermones (talks)—a name which was retained by his great successor and imitator Horace; but the peculiar combination of metrical form with wide range of subject and the pedestrian style of ordinary prose received in popular usage the name Satura (mixture).’—Mackail.
Satura quidem tota nostra est, in qua primus insignem laudem adeptus Lucilius.—Quint. X. i. 93.
‘The chief social vices which Lucilius attacks are those which reappear in the pages of the later satirists. They are the two extremes to which the Roman temperament was most prone: rapacity and meanness in gaining money, vulgar ostentation and coarse sensuality in using it.’—Sellar.
Juvenal says of him (Sat. i. 165-7):
‘When old Lucilius seems to draw his sword and growls in burning ire, the hearer blushes for shame, his conscience is chilled for his offences, and his heart faints for secret sins.’