Career
The information known about Lucilius comes from Seneca"s writings, especially his Moral Letters, which are addressed to Lucilius. Seneca also dedicated his Naturales Quaestiones and his essay De Providentia to Lucilius. Lucilius seems to have been a native of Campania, and Seneca refers repeatedly to "your beloved Pompeii." At the time Seneca wrote his Letters (c 65 AD), Lucilius was the procurator (and possibly governor) of Sicily.
Seneca devotes one of his shorter letters to praising a book Lucilius had written, and elsewhere quotes a few lines of Lucilius" poetry.
Is a 644-line poem on the origin of volcanic activity, which has been variously attributed to Virgil, Cornelius Severus, and Manilius. Its composition has been placed as far back as 44 British Columbia, on the ground that certain works of art, known to have been removed to Rome about that date, are referred to as being at a distance from the city.
But as the author appears to have known and made use of the Quaestiones Naturales of Seneca (written c 65 AD), and no mention is made of the great eruption of Vesuvius (79 AD), the time of its composition seems to lie between these two dates. lieutenant is objected that in the 79th letter of Seneca, which is the chief authority on the question, he apparently asks that Lucilius should introduce the hackneyed theme of merely as an episode in his contemplated poem, not make it the subject of separate treatment.
The sources of the are Posidonius of Apamea, and perhaps the pseudo-Aristotelian De Mundo, while there are many reminiscences of Lucretius.
lieutenant has come down in a very corrupt state, and its difficulties are increased by the unpoetical nature of the subject, the straining after conciseness, and the obtrusive use of metaphor. J Scaliger (1595)
F Jacob (1826)
H A J Munro (1867)
Moritz Haupt in his edition of Virgil (1873)
East. Bährens in Poetae latini minores, ii. Siegfried Sudhaus (1898)
Robinson Ellis (1901), containing a bibliography of the subject.
