The dates of his birth and death, according to Jerome, were 148 B.C. and 102 B.C. We are told, on the same authority, that he died at Naples and received the honour of a public funeral. The chief difficulty in accepting these dates arises from the statement of Velleius that Lucilius served as an 'eques' under Scipio in the Numantine War[3], and from the fact, attested by Horace and other authorities, of his great intimacy with both Scipio and Laelius[4]. Horace also mentions that he celebrated in his writings the justice and valour of Scipio,-- Attamen et iustum poteras et scribere fortem Scipiadem ut sapiens Lucilius--; and the parallel there suggested between the relation of Lucilius to the great soldier and statesman of his age, and of Horace to Augustus, would be inappropriate unless the praises there spoken of had been bestowed on Scipio in his lifetime. Fragments from one book of the Satires appear to be parts of a letter written by Lucilius to congratulate his friend on the capture of Numantia[5]. One line of Book xxvi,-- Percrepa pugnam Popilli, facta Corneli cane, contrasts the defeat of M. Popillius Laenas in 138 B.C. with the subsequent successes of Scipio. In another fragment Lucilius charges Scipio with affectation for pronouncing the word 'pertaesum' as if it were 'pertisum[6].' He is also mentioned as one of those whose criticism Lucilius dreaded[7]. These and other passages must have been written in the lifetime of Scipio--i.e. before 129 B.C. Thus, if the date assigned for the birth of Lucilius is correct, he must have served in the Numantine War at the age of fourteen or fifteen, he must have been admitted into the most intimate familiarity with the greatest man of the age, and must have composed some books of his Satires, and thus introduced a new form of literature, before the age of nineteen. L. Mueller in his edition of the Fragments adduces other considerations for rejecting the dates given by Jerome, such as the allusions to the career of Lupus (whom he supposes to be the same as the Censor of 147 B.C.) and to the war with Viriathus. He holds also that the words of Horace-- Quo fit ut omnis Votiva pateat veluti descripta tabella Vita _senis_-- lose their point, unless _senis_ is to be understood in its usual sense. He supposes that the mistake of Jerome arose from a similarity in the names of the Consuls of 148 B.C. and 180 B.C., and would therefore throw the date of the poet's birth more than thirty years further back than that commonly received.