Gaius Lucilius

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," ("Whereby the whole life of the old (great) man may be laid out as upon a votive tablet") 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.

Had he been a semi-Graecus, like Ennius and Pacuvius, or of humble origin, like Plautus, Terence or Accius, he would scarcely have ventured, at a time when the senatorial power was strongly in the ascendant, to revive the role which had proved disastrous to Naevius; nor would he have had the intimate knowledge of the political and social life of his day which fitted him to be its painter.

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 popularity which he enjoyed in his own time is attested by the fact that at his death, although he had filled none of the offices of state, he received the honour of a public funeral.

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.

[3] 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.

This he did in a singularly frank, independent and courageous spirit, with no private ambition to serve, or party cause to advance, but with an honest desire to expose the iniquity or incompetence of the governing body, the sordid aims of the middle class, and the corruption and venality of the city mob.

But he was what Horace was not, a thoroughly good hater; 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.

His ideal of public virtue and private worth had been formed by intimate association with the greatest and best of the soldiers and statesmen of an older generation.

[3] The literary 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 appears, in the composition of his various pieces, to have treated everything that 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 an account of his travels and adventures, or of amusing scenes that he had witnessed, or expressing the results of his private meditation and experiences.