He was born at Carthage in the year 185 B.C.[269], and became the slave of Terentius Lucanus, by whom he was liberally educated and soon emancipated. According to the statement of Porcius Licinus he was ruined in fortune by the intimacy of his noble friends, who did nothing to save him from poverty, and retired in disgust to Greece, where he died, at Stymphalus in Arcadia. The same authority adds that he had not even a lodging in Rome, to which a slave might have brought the news of his death. This account is contradicted by other authorities, who give a more probable reason for his journey into Greece--viz. his desire to become more familiar with the life and manners which he represents. In him we note that impulse to travel, stimulated by artistic enthusiasm, which acted on the great Roman poets of a later time. Other conflicting accounts are given of his death: one, that he was never heard of after sailing from Italy; another, that he was lost at sea, on his return from Greece, along with a number of plays which he had translated from Menander; another, that he died in Arcadia or at Leucadia from grief at the loss of his baggage (including a number of new plays), which he had sent forward by sea by a different route. The account given of the extreme poverty into which the neglect of his friends allowed him to sink is contradicted by the statement that he left behind him a property, consisting of gardens to the extent of twenty acres, close to the Appian Way. It seems also inconsistent with the fact that his daughter was so well provided for that she ultimately married a Roman knight. The 'animus' of Porcius Licinus against the members of the Scipionic circle is probably the explanation of the conflicting accounts of the poet's circumstances. The 'Andria,' his earliest play, was exhibited in 166 B.C., when the poet was eighteen or nineteen years of age. A story is told, that before the play was accepted by the aediles, he was desired to read it to Caecilius; that he came to him at supper, and being meanly dressed ('quod erat contemptiore vestitu'), he sat down on a bench at the foot of his couch; but after reading a few lines he was invited to take his place at the table, and afterwards read the whole play, to the great admiration of the older poet. The story probably owes its origin to the tendency which delights to find a point of contact between the beginning of one literary career and the close of another. It is inconsistent with the date assigned for the death of Caecilius: nor does it seem likely that one, admitted to the intimacy of young men of the highest rank, should have appeared on such an occasion 'contemptiore vestitu.' Perhaps however it may be regarded as quite as worthy of credit as the story of the meeting of Accius with Pacuvius at Brundisium.