A Roman knight, who was born in the year 605, at Suessa, a town in the Auruncian territory. He was descended of a good family, and was the maternal granduncle of Pompey the Great. In early youth he served at the siege of Numantia, in the same camp with Marius and Jugurtha, under the younger Scipio Africanus(397), whose friendship and protection he had the good fortune to acquire. On his return to Rome from his Spanish campaign, he dwelt in a house which had been built at the public expense, and had been inhabited by Seleucus Philopater, Prince of Syria, whilst he resided in his youth as an hostage at Rome(398). Lucilius continued to live on terms of the closest intimacy with the brave Scipio and wise Lælius, “Quin ubi se a vulgo et scenâ in secreta remôrant Virtus Scipiadæ et mitis sapientia Lælî, Nugari cum illo et discincti ludere, donec Decoqueretur olus, soliti(399).” —— These powerful protectors enabled him to satirize the vicious without restraint or fear of punishment. In his writings he drew a genuine picture of himself, acknowledged his faults, made a frank confession of his inclinations, gave an account of his adventures, and, in short, exhibited a true and spirited representation of his whole life. Fresh from business or pleasure, he seized his pen while his fancy was yet warm, and his passions still awake,—while elated with success or depressed by disappointment. All these feelings, and the incidents which occasioned them, he faithfully related, and made his remarks on them with the utmost freedom:— “Ille velut fidis arcana sodalibus olim Credebat libris; neque si male gesserat, usquam Decurrens aliô, neque si bene: quo fit ut omnis Votivâ pateat veluti descripta tabellâ Vita senis(400).” —— Unfortunately, however, the writings of Lucilius are so mutilated, that few particulars of his life and manners can be gleaned from them. Little farther is known concerning him, than that he died at Naples, but at what age has been much disputed. Eusebius and most other writers have fixed it at 45, which, as he was born in 605, would be in the 651st year of the city. But M. Dacier and Bayle(401) assert that he must have been much older, at the time of his death, as he speaks in his satires of the Licinian law against exorbitant expenditure at entertainments, which was not promulgated till 657, or 658.