Lucilius Junior (fl. 1st century), was the procurator of Sicily during the reign of Nero, a friend and correspondent of Seneca, and the possible author of Aetna, a poem that survives in a corrupt state.
The information 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." [1] At the time Seneca wrote his Letters (c. 65 AD), Lucilius was the procurator (and possibly governor) of Sicily. [2] He was a Roman Knight, a status he had achieved through "persistent work," [3] and he owned a country villa in Ardea, south of Rome. [4] Seneca devotes one of his shorter letters to praising a book Lucilius had written, [5] and elsewhere quotes a few lines of Lucilius' poetry. [6]
Aetna 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 BC, 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 (AD 79), the time of its composition seems to lie between these two dates. In favor of the authorship of Lucilius are the facts that he was a friend of Seneca and acquainted with his writings; that he had for some time held the office of imperial procurator of Sicily, and was thus familiar with the locality; and that he was the author of a poem on Sicilian subjects. It is objected that in the 79th letter of Seneca, [7] which is the chief authority on the question, he apparently asks that Lucilius should introduce the hackneyed theme of Aetna merely as an episode in his contemplated poem, not make it the subject of separate treatment. The sources of the Aetna are Posidonius of Apamea, and perhaps the pseudo-Aristotelian De Mundo , while there are many reminiscences of Lucretius. It 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.
xlix. 2 ., lxx. 1 . xxxi. 9-10 ., Seneca, Epistles, li. 1 . xliv. 2 . cv. 1 . xlvi . viii. 10 ., xxiv. 21 ., Nat. Quaes. iii. 1. See also N. Q. iii. 26 where mention is made of a poem by Lucilius on Arethusa, and iv. 2 where Seneca addresses Lucilius as 'my poet'. lxxix. 5 .
Quintus Horatius Flaccus, commonly known in the English-speaking world as Horace, was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus. The rhetorician Quintilian regarded his Odes as just about the only Latin lyrics worth reading: "He can be lofty sometimes, yet he is also full of charm and grace, versatile in his figures, and felicitously daring in his choice of words."
Ignatius of Antioch, also known as Ignatius Theophorus, was an early Christian writer and Patriarch of Antioch. While en route to Rome, where he met his martyrdom, Ignatius wrote a series of letters. This correspondence now forms a central part of a later collection of works known to be authored by the Apostolic Fathers. He is considered to be one of the three most important of these, together with Clement of Rome and Polycarp. His letters also serve as an example of early Christian theology. Important topics they address include ecclesiology, the sacraments, and the role of bishops.
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Publius Ovidius Naso, known in English as Ovid, was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a younger contemporary of Virgil and Horace, with whom he is often ranked as one of the three canonical poets of Latin literature. The Imperial scholar Quintilian considered him the last of the Latin love elegists. Although Ovid enjoyed enormous popularity during his lifetime, the emperor Augustus exiled him to Tomis, the capital of the newly-organised province of Moesia, on the Black Sea, where he remained for the last nine or ten years of his life. Ovid himself attributed his banishment to a "poem and a mistake", but his reluctance to disclose specifics has resulted in much speculation among scholars.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca the Younger, usually known mononymously as Seneca, was a Stoic philosopher of Ancient Rome, a statesman, dramatist, and in one work, satirist, from the post-Augustan age of Latin literature.
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Robinson Ellis, FBA was an English classical scholar.
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Demetrius, a Cynic philosopher from Corinth, who lived in Rome during the reigns of Caligula, Nero and Vespasian.
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Works related to Aetna at Wikisource