[1] A contemporary and intimate friend of Ennius, according to tradition he was born in the territory of the Celtic Insubrian Gauls, probably in Mediolanum, and was probably taken as a prisoner to Rome (c. 200), during the Roman-Gallic wars.
[3] He supported himself by adapting Greek plays for the Roman stage from the New Comedy writers, especially Menander, a genre called Comoedia Palliata.
Volcatius Sedigitus, the dramatic critic, places him first amongst the comic poets; Varro credits him with pathos and skill in the construction of his plots; Horace (Epistles, ii.
99) speaks somewhat disparagingly of him, and Cicero, although he admits with some hesitation that Caecilius may have been the chief of the comic poets (De Optimo Genere Oratorum, I), considers him inferior to Terence in style and Latinity (Ad Atticum vii.
His comedies "apparently included serious thoughts on moral and social issues, mostly related to the immediate family, the corresponding relationships, and the impact of one’s personal affairs on one’s position in society.