Lucilius, Caius

, an ancient Latin poet, and a Roman knight, was born at Suessa, in the county of the Aurunci, about the year 148 B. C. He served under Scipio Africanus in the war with the Numantines, and was very much esteemed by him and Laelius. He wrote thirty books of “Satires,” in which he lashed several persons of quality by name, and with great severity; and if he was not the inventor of that kind of poem, he certainly was the first considerable satirist among the Romans. Horace says,

"Quid, cum est Lucilius ausus

Primus in hunc operis componere carmina morem"

He died at Naples about the year 103 B. C. There is nothing extant of all his works, but some fragments of his " Satires/' which were first collected by | Francis Dousa, Ltyden, 1593, 4to, reprinted by the Vulpii, 1713, 8vo. They have also been printed with the fragments of Ennius, Accius, Puhlius Syrus, &c. ¹