Gaius Lucilius

Reading notes

• Ad Atticum 16.11 §1 without the Lucilian phallus

  Lucilius was the founder of Roman verse satire, famous for coarse, sexually explicit invective; Cicero promises a barb in that spirit but cleaner, without Lucilius's obscenity.

• Ad Familiares 9.15 §2 I think I am seeing all the Granii, all the Lucilii --- and yes, to tell the truth, the Crassi too, and the Laelii

  A roll-call of bywords for old-style Roman wit: Granius the auctioneer, famed for his repartee; Lucilius the satirist; and the orators L. Licinius Crassus and C. Laelius, paragons of urbane refinement. Plural forms ('the Granii') mean 'men of that type.'

• Ad Familiares 12.16 §3 Lucilius

  Gaius Lucilius (2nd c. BC), founder of Roman verse satire, was proverbial for the freedom (libertas) with which he attacked named contemporaries; Trebonius invokes him as a precedent for his own invective.

• Brutus §274 as Lucilius puts it

  Gaius Lucilius (c. 180-103 BC), the founder of Roman verse satire; Cicero borrows from him the image of words set in their place like the tesserae of a mosaic ('vermiculatum emblema').

• On the Ends of Good and Evil §2.23 that golden-hued wine Lucilius describes

  Gaius Lucilius (c. 180-103 BC), the founder of Roman verse satire, whose poems supplied Cicero with many gastronomic and moral examples. Here a Lucilian description of fine wine illustrates the elegant kind of self-indulgence.

• On the Nature of the Gods §1.63 the son of Neptune, as Lucilius calls him

  An insult from the satirist Gaius Lucilius for a notoriously wicked man, calling him 'son of Neptune' (i.e. a monster of the deep). Tubulus, Lupus, and Carbo were bywords for sacrilege and perjury.

• Tusculan Disputations §3.31 Lucilius says

  Gaius Lucilius (c. 180-103/2 BC), the founder of Roman verse satire. Cicero attributes to him the saying about Crassus who laughed but once.