Gaius Lucilius

Satirist, born in Suessa Aurunca, Italy. He wrote 30 books of Satires, of which only fragments remain. Written in hexameters, they give a critical insight into his times, and were the first works in the style of critical observation that we have come to know as true satire.

Gaius Lucilius (c. 180 BC - 103 BC), the earliest Roman satirist, of whose writings only fragments remain, was born at Suessa Aurunca in Campania.

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.

We learn from Velleius Paterculus that he served under Scipio Aemilianus at the siege of Numantia in 134. We learn from Horace that he lived on the most intimate terms of friendship with Scipio and Laelius, 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 (books xxvi.-xxix.) clearly indicate that they were written in the lifetime of Scipio.

It is in the highest degree improbable that Lucilius served in the army at the age of fourteen; 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.

It may further be said that the well-known words of Horace (Satires, ii. 1, 33), in which he characterizes the vivid portraiture of his life, character and thoughts, which Lucilius bequeathed to the world, "quo fit ut omnis Votiva pateat veluti descripta tabella Vita senis," lose much of their force unless senis is to be taken in its ordinary sense--which it cannot be if Lucilius died at the age of forty-six.

Lucilius spent the greater part of his life at Rome, and died, according to Jerome, at Naples. The origin of Roman political and social satire is to be traced to the same disturbing and disorganizing forces which led to the revolutionary projects and legislation of the Gracchi.

The reputation which Lucilius enjoyed in the best ages of Roman literature is proved by the terms in which Cicero and Horace speak of him. He may be called the inventor of poetical satire, as he was the first to impress upon the rude inartistic medley, known to the Romans by the name of satura, that character of aggressive and censorious criticism of persons, morals, manners, politics, literature, etc.

In point of form the satire of Lucilius owed nothing to the Greeks. Even his frequent use of Greek words, phrases and quotations, reprehended by Horace, was probably taken from the actual practice of men, who found their own speech as yet inadequate to give free expression to the new ideas and impressions which they derived from their first contact with Greek philosophy, rhetoric and poetry.

Further, he not only created a style of his own, but, instead of taking the substance of his writings from Greek poetry, or from a remote past, he treated of the familiar matters of daily life, of the politics, the wars, the administration of justice, the eating and drinking, the money-making and money-spending, the scandals and vices, which made up the public and private life of Rome in the last quarter of the 2nd century BC.

His character and tastes were much more akin to those of Horace than of either Persius or Juvenal. and he lived at a time when the utmost freedom of speech and the most unrestrained indulgence of public and private animosity were the characteristics of men who took a prominent part in affairs. Although Lucilius took no active part in the public life of his time, he regarded it in the spirit of a man of the world and of society, as well as a man of letters.

The remains of Lucilius extend to about eleven hundred, mostly unconnected lines, most of them preserved by late grammarians, as illustrative of peculiar verbal usages. He left behind him thirty books of satires, and there is reason to believe that each book, like the books of Horace and Juvenal, was composed of different pieces.

In these he made those criticisms on the older tragic and epic poets of which Horace and other ancient writers speak. Book i., on the other hand, in which the philosopher Carneades, who died in 128, is spoken of as dead, must have been written after the death of Scipio.

Most of the satires of Lucilius were written in hexameters, but, so far as an opinion can be formed from a number of unconnected fragments, he seems to have written the trochaic tetrameter with a smoothness, clearness and simplicity which h never attained in handling the hexameter. He appears, in the composition of his various pieces, to have treated everything thai occurred to him in the most desultory fashion, sometimes adopting the form of dialogue, sometimes that of an epistle or an imaginary discourse, and often to have spoken in his own name, giving ar account of his travels and adventures, or of amusing scenes that he had witnessed, or expressing the results of his private meditationr and experiences.

Like Horace he largely illustrated his own obser vations by personal anecdotes and fables. The fragments clearly show how often Horace has imitated him, not only in expression, but in the form of his satires (see for instance i.

This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.