Gaius Lucilius was born in c. 180 B.C. in Suessa Aurunca, in Campania, and died in c.102, in Naples. His family was of the senatorial class.
Lucilius was a maternal uncle of Pompey the Great, but his claim to fame is as the father of satire, the poet who created the form of Roman satire followed by the great Latin satirists Horace, Persius, and Juvenal. Lucilius wrote 30 books of satire mostly in hexameters, the meter of epic and satire, attacking named people, in the tradition of the Greek Archilochus, a writer of invective. About 1400 lines from Lucilius' satires survive.
Lucilius served under Scipio Aemilianus in the Numantine War of 134 B.C. and remained a close friend.
Source:
Michael Coffey "Lucilius (1), Gaius" Who's Who in the Classical World. Ed. Simon Hornblower and Tony Spawforth. Oxford University Press, 2000.
