Gaius Lucilius was a Latin poet originally from Suessa Aurunca, a city located between the two borders of Lazio and Campania.

Gaio Lucillio had origins from a noble and rich family belonging to the equestrian order; according to the opinion of some studies, Gaius Lucilius was a contemporary of Scipio Emiliano, although in this regard, to tell the truth there are opinions of different kinds regarding the actual accuracy of his date of birth. For example, according to what was reported by St. Jerome, the poet was born around 148 BC, but for other scholars the true date of birth of Gaius Lucylius may have been that of 180 BC, or even 168 BC.

However, ignoring these assumptions, we know with real confidence that Gaius Lucylius died on 102 B.C., so we could say in a period of more than 25 years from the date of death of Scipio Emiliano.

Speaking instead of the poetic work of Lucilius we know that he wrote thirty books of satire and that of these books up to us a complex of about 1370 verses, which among other things are mostly fragments of short duration (in fact the longest is composed of 13 verses). In his books Lucilius uses various types of verses, for example we have the dactylic hexameter, the trocaic septenaries, but we also have iambic senaries and elegiac couplets.

Gaius Lucilius is considered by scholars as an initiator of satire: it will be Orazio (in his Satire) himself to give it such an honor and will even come to recognize him as his teacher, despite the criticism of him not failing.

Regarding the topic of the themes contained in satires, the most treated was the theme of eros and sensual love. However, there has been no way to come into possession of any fragment specifically dedicated to the sensual love theme and therefore we do not know the way in which Gaius Lucilius dealt with the topic specifically. Finally, other fragments concern the world of comedy, and in particular among these fragments the theme of everyday life emerges.

Another theme treated by Gaius Lucilius in his satires is the banquet, used to bring the reader into conversation, and the classical sporting events present in Roman society, in particular the gladiator fights, are also dealt with.

 

Bibliography on Gaius Lucillio

• F. Marx, Lucilii carminum reliquiae, 2 vols, Leipzig, Teubner, 1904-1904.
• N. Terzaghi, Lucilio, Rome, The Hermes of Bretschneider, 1934 (rest 1970).
• Ciceronis Orationum Scholiastae