aquatic plant, whose root and seeds were eaten in Egypt; the other the fruit of a shrub or small tree, on the sandy coast of Libya. Herodotus, in speaking of the Libyan lotus (4, 177), says, that the fruit of the lotus is of the size of the mastic, and sweet like the date, and that of it a kind of wine is made. Pliny (13, 17) describes two different kinds of lotus, the one found near the Syrtes, the other in Egypt. The former he describes from Cornelius Nepos as the fruit of a tree; in size ordinarily as big as a bean, and of a yellow colour, sweet and pleasant to the taste. The fruit was bruised, and made into a kind of paste or dough, and then stored up for food. Moreover, a kind of wine was made from it, resembling mead, but which would not keep many days. Pliny adds, that "armies, in marching through that part of Africa, have subsisted on the lotus." Perhaps this may refer to the army of Balbus, which the same writer informs us (5, 5) had penetrated to Gadamis and Fezzan. Polybius, who had himself seen the lotus on the coast of Libya, says, that it is the fruit of a shrub, which is rough and armed with prickles, and in foliage resembles the rhamnus. That when ripe it is of the size of a round olive; has a purple tinge, and contains a hard but small stone; that it is bruised or pounded, and laid by for use, and that its flavour approaches to that of figs or dates. And, finally, that a kind of wine is made from it, by expression, and diluted with water; that it affords a good beverage, but will not keep more than ten days. (Polyb., apud Athen., 14, p. 65.) The lotus has also been described by several modern travellers, such as Shaw, Desfontaines, Park, and Beechy. Shaw says (vol. 1, p. 263) that the lotus is the scedra of the Arabs; that it is a species of ziziphus or jujeb; and that the fruit tastes somewhat like gingerbread. When fresh, it is of a bright yellow. Park's description, however, is the most perfect of all. They are small farinaceous berries, of a yellow colour and delicious taste. The natives convert them into a sort of bread, by exposing them some days to the sun, and afterward pounding them gently in a wooden mortar, until the farinaceous part of the berry is separated from the stone. This meal is then mixed with a little water, and formed into cakes, which, when dried in the sun, resemble in colour and flavour the sweetest gingerbread. The stones are afterward put into a vessel of water and shaken about, so as to separate the meal which may still adhere to them: this communicates a sweet and agreeable taste to the water, and, with the addition of a little pounded millet, forms a pleasant gruel called fondi, which is the common breakfast in many parts of Ladamar during the months of February and March. The fruit is collected by spreading a cloth upon the ground and beating the branches with a stick" (p. 99).

and restless foes to obtain possession of all the settiements on the western coast. These aggressions of the Lucani were for a season checked by the valour and ability of Alexander, king of Epirus; but upon his death they renewed their inroads with increased confidence and success, making themselves masters of Thurii, Metapontum, Heraclea, with several other towns, and finally reducing the Grecian league to an empty name, with only the shadow of its former brill iancy and power. Such was the state of things when the Romans appeared on the scene. The Lucani unable to make any effectual resistance after Pyrrhus had withdrawn his forces from Italy, submitted to the victors. The war with Hannibal, carried on for sc many years in this extremity of Italy, completed its desolation and ruin; for, with the exception of a few towns restored and colonized by the Romans, this once flourishing tract of country became a dreary waste, retaining only the ruins of deserted cities, as mournful relics of the late abodes of wisdom and genius-Lucania, considered as a Roman province, was separated from Apulia by the Bradanus, and a line drawn from that river to the Silarus; which latter stream served also for a boundary on the side of Campania. To the southwest the river Laos divided the Lucani from the Bruttii, as did also the Crathis to the southeast. (Strabo, 255.-Cramer's Anc. Italy, vol. 2, p. 347.)

LUCANUS, M. ANNAEUS, a Latin poet, born A.D 38, at Corduba, in Spain, where his family, originally from Italy, had been settled for several generations, and where some of its members had filled public offices. (Suet., Vit. Lucan.-Fabr., Bib. Lat., vol. 2, p. 141.) His father, Annæus Mela, was a Roman knight, and enjoyed great consideration in the province. Lucan was named after Annæus Lucanus, his maternal grandfather, who was distinguished for his eloquence. His father was also the youngest brothe of Seneca the philosopher. At a very early age Lu can was sent to Rome, where he received his educa tion. Rhemnius Palamon and Flavius Virginius were his teachers in grammar and eloquence. The princi ples of the Stoic philosophy were taught him by An næus Cornutus, a Greek philosopher, who instructed at Rome until Nero, offended at his opinions and lan guage, banished him to an island. Lucan's talent for poetry developed itself at an early period; he was ac customed to declaim in Greek and Latin verse wher only fourteen years of age. Having completed hi education at Athens, he was placed by Seneca, his pa ternal uncle, who had charge at that time of the youth of Nero, around the person of the young prince. Nerc soon became attached to Lucan, and raised him to the dignity of an augur and quæstor before he had reached the proper age for either of these offices. During his magistracy Lucan exhibited to the populace a magnificent show of gladiators. The folly of Nero, who pretended to be a great poet, and the vanity of Lucan, who would not yield the palm to any competitor, soon embroiled the two friends. Nero offended the young and presumptuous aspirant by abruptly quitting, on one occasion, an assembly in which the latter was reciting one of his poetical productions. Lucan sought to avenge this affront by presenting himself in another as(217.-sembly as a competitor against the prince. We hardly know which to admire the more, the boldness of Lucan, who believed the poetical art about to be degraded, if a bad piece, though composed by a prince, should receive the crown; or the courage of the judges, who decreed the prize to a subject who had dared to compete with his master. The vengeance of Nero was not slow in overtaking the imprudent poet: it wounded him in the most sensible part, for he was commanded to abstain in future from declaiming in public. Without being unjust towards the memory of Lucan, we mav attribute to the hatred which from this time

LUCA, a city of Etruria, northeast of Pisa, on the river Auser or Serchio. It still preserves its situation and name. It is mentioned for the first time by Livy, as the place to which Tiberius Gracchus retired after the unfortunate campaign on the Trebia (21, 59). The same writer states it to have been colonized A.U.C. 575 (41, 13.-Vell. Paterc., 1, 15). Cæsar frequently made Luca his headquarters during his command in the two Gauls. (Cic., Ep. ad Fam., 1, 9.-Suet., Cæs., 24.) It is also mentioned by Strabo Compare Plin., 3, 5.-Ptol., p. 61).

LUCANI, the inhabitants of Lucania. (Vid. Lucania.) LUCANIA, a country of Magna Græcia, below Apulia. It was occupied, in common with the other provinces of southern Italy, by numerous Greek colonies. The native race of the Lucani were numerous and warlike, and said to be of Samnitic origin. These, as their numbers increased, gradually advanced from the interior to the coast, and were soon engaged in hostilities with the Greeks, who, unable to make good their defence, gradually retreated; thus allowing their hardy

ought to tend. Is it the momentary triumph of freedom, in the fall of Caesar, which Lucan has wished to celebrate? Or was it his intention to paint in vivid colours the disastrous consequences of civil discord? Or did he wish to dilate on some moral or political virtue? Great uncertainty accompanies all these questions. It is true, the poem being probably left unfinished, it becomes proportionably more difficult to pronounce upon its object; but, at the same time, this object ought to be so clearly indicated in every part of the poem, as to form, as it were, its very soul, and to be the pivot around which everything should turn. Faithful to the laws of history, far different in their character from those of the epopée, Lucan does not, in the commencement of his poem, transport us at once into the midst of affairs; he goes back to the origin of the civil war between Cæsar and Pompey, and follows events in chronological order. His principal heroes are Pompey, Cæsar, Cato, and Brutus. But we may charge the poet with not having fully succeeded in the delineation of their characters, and with producing sometimes a different impression upon his readers from that which he intended to effect. The character of Pompey is exalted, even at the expense of historical truth; that of Cæsar is treated with injustice; and yet, notwithstanding all this, Lucan has failed in making the former interesting, and Cæsar, in spite of the poet, is the true hero of the Pharsalia; he is the centre of action, the soul of events: we have him constantly before our eyes, while we only see and hear of Pompey in the exaggerated eu

he conceived against Nero, the part that he subsequently took in the conspiracy of Piso: but it were to be wished that he could in any way be defended from a reproach which Tacitus makes against him, and which has affixed an indelible stigma to his name. It is said that, deceived by a promise of pardon in case he should discover his accomplices, and wishing to propitiate the favour of Nero, who had destroyed his own mother, by incurring in like manner, in his turn, the guilt of parricide, he declared that his mother Anicia was a party in the conspiracy. The admirers of Lucan have suggested, that this tale was invented by Nero or his flatterers, to heap odium on the character of a poet from a contest with whom he had brought away nothing but disgrace. Unfortunately, however, for the correctness of this assertion, it may be alleged in reply, that Tacitus, a close scrutinizer into the artifices of tyranny, relates the charge without expressing the least doubt as to its truth. (Ann., 15, 56.) But, however this may be, the cowardly complaisance of the poet, if he were really guilty of the conduct ascribed to him, could not prove of any avail; he was merely permitted to choose the manner of his death. He caused his veins to be opened, and died with a degree of courage that formed a strange contrast to the pusillanimity in which, but a moment before, he had indulged. It is even said, that, feeling himself enfeebled by the loss of blood, he recited four verses which, in his Pharsalia (3, 639-42), he had put into the mouth of a dying soldier. He perished A.D. 65, at the age of 27 years. Although accused of being an accomplice, his mother was not in-logiums lavished upon him by the poet. But it is volved in his disgrace. Lucan left a young widow, principally in his digressions, in the numerous descripwhose character and merits are praised by both Mar- tions with which he adorns his narrative, some of tial and Statius. She was named Polla Argentaria, which, at the same time, afford proofs of distinguished and is reckoned by Sidonius Apollinaris (2, 10) among talent, that Lucan betrays a want of judgment and of the number of those celebrated females whose coun- good taste, the immediate results of his youth, and of sels and taste have been of great use to their hus- his imitation of models selected from the school of bands in the composition of their works. The various Alexandrea. Erudition often supplies the place of vapoems of Lucan, his "Combat of Hector and Achil- riety; and the brilliant conceits brought into vogue les," which he composed at the age of twelve years; by his uncle Seneca, together with the maxims of the his "Description of the burning of Rome;" his "Sat- Porch, to which he was attached, are made to stand urnalia;" his tragedy of "Medea," left unfinished by in lieu of that enthusiasm and dignity which form two him, have all perished. We have remaining only one of the principal features of epic composition. His poem, the " Pharsalia," or the war between Cæsar versification, too, wants the elegance and the melody and Pompey. It is comprised in ten books; but, of Virgil's. --Besides the Pharsalia, several critics, since the tenth breaks off abruptly in the middle of a among whom are Joseph Scaliger and Vossius, have narrative, it is probable that some part has been lost, ascribed to Lucan a poem in 261 verses, which has or that the poet had not finished the work at the time come down to us, and which contains a eulogium on of his death. The first book opens with the most ex- Calpurnius Piso, the same who conspired against Netravagant adulation of Nero, in which the poet even ro. Barthius thinks that this production formed one exceeds the base subserviency of the poets of the age of a collection of fugitive pieces published by Lucan of Augustus. The Pharsalia contains many vigorous under the title of Silve; but other critics, among and animated descriptions, and the speeches are char- whom may be cited Fabricius and Wernsdorff, have acterized by considerable rhetorical merit, but the lan- clearly shown that Lucan cannot be regarded as the guage is often inflated, and the expressions are ex- author of the poem. The expressions employed by tremely laboured and artificial. The poem is also de- its author to indicate the lowness of his origin and ficient in that truth to nature, and in those appeals to the scantiness of his fortune, do not apply with any the feelings and the imagination, which excite the correctness to Lucan, descended as he was from a sympathy of every class of readers. Still, great al- good family, and rich as well in his own as in the lowance must be made for the youth of the author, property brought him by his wife. It is assigned with who, if he had lived longer, would probably have cured more propriety to Saleius Bassus, a friend of Lucan's. himself of those faults and defects which are now so-The best editions of Lucan are, that of Cortius, conspicuous in his poem.-The Pharsalia cannot be regarded as an epic poem, since both poetic invention and machinery, which form the very soul of the epo pée, are altogether wanting in it. The event on which the action is based was not sufficiently far removed from Lucan's own times to permit him to indulge his imagination in adorning it with fictions. The poem should rather be called an historical one. -The principal defect in the Pharsalia, admitting that it is nothing more than an historic poem, is the want of unity of action. One cannot perceive, on reading the work, what is the object which the poet had in view, what is the point to which everything

Lips., 1726, 8vo, re-edited and completed by Weber, Lips., 1828, 2 vols. 8vo; Oudendorp, Lugd. Bat., 1728, 2 vols; Burmann, Lugd. Bat., 1740, 4to; Lemaire, Paris, 1830-1832, 3 vols. 8vo, and that of Weise, Quedlinb., 1835, 8vo. The edition published at Glasgow (1816, 8vo), with the notes of Bentley and Grotius, is also a good one. (Schöll, Hist. Lit Rom., vol. 2. p. 286, seqq.-Bähr, Gesch. Rom. Lit., p. 94, seqq.) II. Ocellus, a Lucanian philosopher. (Vid. Ocellus.)

LUCERIA, a city of Apulia, about twelve miles to the west of Arpi. It was a place of great antiquity, and was said to have been founded by Diomede

whose offerings to Minerva were still to be seen in the temple of that goddess in the time of Strabo (294). Luceria was the first Apulian city which the Romans appear to have been solicitous to possess; and though it was long an object of contention with the Samnites, they finally secured their conquest and sent a colony there, A.U.C. 440. (Lin., 9, 2.-Diod. Sic., 18.Vell. Paterc., 1, 14.) We find Luceria afterward enumerated among those cities which remained most firm in their allegiance to Rome during the invasion of Hannibal. (Liv., 27, 10.—Polyb., 3, 88.) In the civil wars of Pompey and Cæsar, Luceria is mentioned by Cicero as a place which the former was anxious to retain, and where he invited Cicero to join him. (Ep. ad Att., 8, 1. Cas., Bell. Civ., 1, 24.) It seems to have been noted for the excellence of its wool, a property, indeed, which, according to Strabo (284), was common to the whole of Apulia. This place still retains its ancient site under the modern name of Lucera. (Cramer's Anc. Italy, vol. 2, p. 285, seqq.)

LUCERES, the third of the three original tribes at Rome. These three original tribes were the Ramnenses or Ramnes, the Tatienses or Titienses, and the Luceres. (Vid. Roma.)

rhetorical nature. Eloquence applied to sophistic declamations and improvisaziones, if we may be allowed the expression, opened at this time the surest path to fortune and fame. The sophists were constantly engaged in travelling to and fro among the great cities: they announced a discourse as an itinerant musician at the present day would announce a concert; and people flocked from all quarters to hear and see them, and to pay liberally for the harmonious and polished periods with which their ears were gratified. Lucian yielded to the fashion of the day, and abandoned the bar for the tribune. He again directed his thoughts to travel, and visited Asia, Greece, and particularly Gaul, in which last-mentioned country he settled for a time as a teacher of rhetoric, and soon obtained great celebrity and a numerous school. He appears to have remained in Gaul till he was about forty, when he gave up the profession of rhetoric, after having acquired considerable wealth. On his return from Gaul he visited Italy, and paints in vivid colours, in his "Nigrinus," the corruption of the capital. During the remainder of his life we find him travelling about from place to place, and visiting successively Macedonia, Cappadocia, Paphlagonia, and Bithynia. The greater part of his time, however, was passed in Athens, where LUCIANUS, a celebrated Greek writer, born at Sa- he lived on terms of the greatest intimacy with Demomosata in Syria. The period when he flourished is nax, a philosopher of great celebrity. Having here uncertain. Suidas, who is the only ancient writer that made the study of man his particular object, we find makes mention of him, informs us that he lived in the him embracing no one of the systems then in vogue, time of Trajan, and also before that prince (λéyeraι dè but following, as far as he could be said to have fol. γενέσθαι ἐπὶ τοῦ Καίσαρος Τραϊανοῦ, καὶ ἐπέκεινα). lowed any sect, the tenets of the school of Epicurus. This, however, Vossius denies to be correct. (Hist. In his old age he obtained from Marcus Aurelius an Gr., 2, 15.) The same Suidas also states, that, after honourable employment in Egypt. Some make him having followed the profession of an advocate at An- to have been placed over a part of this province; but tioch with little success, he turned his attention to lit- it appears more probable that he was appointed regiserary composition; and that he was finally torn to ter to one of the higher tribunals. He died at a very pieces by dogs, which this writer considers a well- advanced age.-What distinguishes Lucian as a writer merited punishment for his impiety in attacking the is a genius eminently satirical, a brilliancy of thought, Christian religion. Lucian himself, however (Reviv., and a larger share of humour than any other author of 629), assigns as the reason for his quitting the pro- antiquity, with the exception, perhaps, of Aristophanes fession of an advocate, his disgust at the fraud and and Horace. His irony spares no folly and no prejuchicanery of the lawyers of the day; and as for the dice on the part of his contemporaries, but wages story of his death, we may safely pronounce it a pious against their failings a continual warfare. The wrifalsehood. In a dissertation on Isidorus of Charax, tings of Lucian very rarely betray any marks of the Dodwell endeavours to prove that Lucian was born decline of taste which characterized the period in which A.D. 135; which will coincide, in some degree, with he is said to have lived. His style, formed by the the opinion of Hemsterhuys, who (Præf. ad Jul. Poll.) study of the best models, and especially of Aristophaplaces him under the Antonines and Commodus. Vos- nes, would never lead us to suspect that he was a nasius also (l. c.) makes him a contemporary of Athenæ- tive of the distant province of northern Syria: it is as us, who lived under Marcus Aurelius, and Isonius pure, as elegant, and as Attic as if he had flourished (Script. Hist. Phil, 3, 10, p. 60) inclines to the same in the classic periods of Grecian literature, and the opinion, considering him as contemporary with Demo- defects of the age in which he lived merely show themnax, who flourished under Antoninus Pius and his selves in the desire to coin new expressions, and to successor. Reitz (De Etate, &c., Luciani, p. 63. divert others from their more ancient and legitimate Op., ed. Hemst., vol. 1), agreeing in opinion with Hem- meaning; faults from which he has not been able to sterhuys, places him under the Antonines and Com- save himself, although he ridicules them in one of his modus, and makes him to have lived from 120 B.C. own productions, the "Lexiphanes." Neither has he until 200.-Destined at first, by his father, who was been always able to resist the inclination of adorning in humble circumstances, to the profession of a sculp- his style with the tinsel of quotations and phrases bortor, he was placed with that view under the instruc- rowed from the ancient poets and historians, and fretion of his uncle. But, becoming soon disgusted with quently misplaced. The greater part of his producthe employment, he turned his attention to literature, tions have the dialogue form; but they are not, like and travelled into Asia Minor and Greece, in the latter the dialogues of Plato, dissertations put into the mouth of which countries he was present, according to the of interlocutors, merely to destroy the monotonous computation of Dodwell, at the celebration of the 233d, uniformity of a continued discourse. The dialogues 234th, and 235th Olympiads (A.D. 157, 161, 165), an- of Lucian are true conversations; they are in every swering to the 22d, 26th, and 30th years of his age. sense dramatic. He says himself (Aiç karηY., C. 33) In his 29th year he appears to have heard historical that he has restored dialogue to earth, after it had been lectures in Ionia. His principal place of residence lost in the regions of the clouds; and that, despoiling while in this country was the city of Ephesus. Wheth-it of its tragic garb, he has brought it in contact with er Lucian entered upon the profession of an advocate before or after this period is not clearly ascertained: the latter is perhaps the more correct opinion. Antioch was the scene of his labours in this new vocation; but he soon became disgusted with forensic pursuits, and turned his attention to others of a more purely

pleasantry and the comic muse.- -The subjects on which he treats are various and interesting: history, philosophy, and all the sciences furnish him with materials. Lucian may, in fact, be regarded as the Aristophanes of his age, and, like the great comic poet, he had recourse to raillery and satire to accomplish the

have found in it a much more accurate acquaintance with Christianity than we can suppose Lucian to have possessed, after having read his Peregrinus. Schöll, following the side espoused by Gesner, takes the Philopatris to have been the work of a man who, after having been initiated into the mysteries of Christianity, had renounced the gospel, not to return to paganism, but to throw himself into the arms of incredulity. The tone which pervades it betrays the bitterness of an apostate. -We have remaining, besides his other works, fifty Epigrams ascribed to Lucian. The greater part are of that hyperbolic cast which was so much in vogue during the first centuries of the Christian era. Lucian, however, has not carried this kind of poetry to that point of extravagance to which later writers pushed it. (Schöll, Hist. Lit. Gr., vol. 4, p. 243, seqq.) The best editions of Lucian are, that of Hemsterhuys, completed by Reitz, Amst., 1730–36, 4 vols. 4to, edited in a more complete manner by Gesner, Amst, 1743, 3 vols. 4to, and to which must be added, although of inferior value, the Lexicon Lucianeum of C. R. Reitz, brother to the former, Ultraj., 1746, 4to: that of the Bipont editors, in 10 vols. 8vo, a reprint of the preceding, but containing, besides, the various readings of six manuscripts in the library of the king of France, collected by M. Belin de Ballu; and that of Lehmann, Lips., 1822-1831, 8vo, of which 9 volumes have thus far appeared. This last edition, however, is much disfigured by typographical errors. (Hoffmann, Lex. Bibliograph., vol. 3, p. 32.)

great object he had in view. This object was, to ex- | some writer that came after him. Huet and Gesner pose all kinds of delusion, fanaticism, and imposture; the quackery and imposition of the priests, the folly and absurdity of the superstitious, and especially the solemu nonsense, the prating insolence, and the imoral lives of the philosophical charlatans of his age. His study was human nature in all its varieties, and the age in which he lived furnished ample materials for his observation. Many of his pictures, though drawn from the circumstances of his own times, are true for every age and country. If he sometimes discloses the follies and vices of mankind too freely, and occasionally uses expressions which are revolting to our ideas of morality, should be recollected that every author ought to be judged by the age in which he lived, and not by a standard of religion and morality which was unknown to the writer. The character of Lucian's mind was decidedly practical: he was not disposed to believe anything without sufficient evidence of its truth; and nothing that was ridiculous or absurd escaped his raillery and sarcasm. The tales of the poets respecting the attributes and exploits of the gods, which were still firmly believed by the common people of his age, were especially the objects of his satire and ridicule in his dialogues between the gods, and in many other of his works; and that he should have attacked the Christians in common with the false systems of the pagan religion, will not appear surprising to any one who considers that Lucian probably never took the trouble to inquire into the doctrines of a religion which was almost universally despised in his time by the higher orders of society. The greater part, if not all, of the dialogues of Lucian appear to have been written after his return from Gaul and while he was residing at Athens; but most of his other pieces were probably written during the time that he taught rhetoric in the former country. Our limits, of course, will not allow an examination of the numerous writings of Lucian. We will content ourselves with noticing merely one piece, partly on account of its peculiar character, which has made it a subject of frequent reference, and partly because the general opinion of scholars at the present day is adverse to its being regarded as one of the productions of Lucian. It is the Pionarρis, didaσкóμεvos ("The lover of his country, or the student"). The author of this piece, whoever he was, ridicules, after the manner of Lucian, the absurdities of the Greek mythology; but his satire has, in fact, no other end than to serve as an introduction to an unsparing attack on the Christians: they are represented as wicked men, continually offer

LUCIFER, the name of the planet Venus, or morn ing star. It is called Lucifer when appearing in the morning before the sun; but when it follows it, and appears some time after its setting, it is called Hespe rus. (Vid. Hesperus.)

LUCILIUS, I. C., a Roman knight, born at Suessa, a town in the Auruncian territory, A.U.C. 605, B.C. 149. He was descended of a good family, and was grand-uncle, by the mother's side, to Pompey the Great. In early youth he served at the siege of Numantia, in the same camp with Marius and Jugurtha, under the younger Africanus, whose friendship and protection he had thus the good fortune to acquire. (Vell. Paterc., 2, 9.) On his return to Rome from his Spanish campaign, he dwelt in the house which had been built at the public expense, and had been inhabited by Seleucus Philopator, prince of Syria, while he resided in his youth as an hostage at Rome. (Ascon. Pedian., in Cic., contr. L. Pis.) Lucilius continued to live on terms of the closest intimacy with the brave Scip

ing up prayers for the evil of the state. The authen-io and the wise Lælius. (Horat., Serm., 2, 1, 71.)

ticity of this piece has been much disputed. Mention These powerful protectors enabled him to satirize the is made in it of events, which some place under Nero vicious without restraint or fear of punishment. In or even under Claudius, others under Trajan or Mar- his writings he drew a genuine picture of himself, accus Aurelius, and some under Julian. The first of knowledged his faults, made a frank confession of his these, as, for example, Theodore Marcilius, think, in inclinations, gave an account of his adventures, and, consequence, that the author of the piece lived during in short, exhibited a true and spirited representation the first century. What appears to favour this opinion of his whole life. Fresh from business or pleasure, he is a passage in which the writer alludes, without na- seized his pen while his fancy was yet warm and his ming him, to St. Paul, or even, according to the So- passions were still awake, as elated with success or cinian Crell, to our Saviour himself. Some orthodox depressed with disappointment. All these feelings or theologians have shown themselves favourably inclined incidents he faithfully related, and made his remarks to this system, because in a passage of the dialogue on them with the utmost freedom. (Horat., Serm., the question of the Trinity is openly stated, and they 2, 1, 30.) Unfortunately, however, his writings are have taken this as a proof that this doctrine was taught so mutilated, that few particulars of his life and manprior to the council of Nice. Marcilius, however, is ners can be gleaned from them. Little farther is mistaken. Artemidorus, author of the Oneirocritica, known concerning him than that he died at Naples, but is cited in the Philopatris: it is true, critics are not at what age has been much disputed. Eusebius and agreed as to the period when this writer flourished, but most other writers have fixed it at 45, which, as he was in any event he cannot be placed lower than Hadrian. born in A.U.C. 605, would be in the 651st year of the In the dialogue under consideration, so strong a re- city. But Dacier and Bayle assert that he must have semblance to the other works of Lucian is perceptible, been much older, as he speaks in his Satires of the there occur so many phrases and forms of expression Licinian law against exorbitant expenditure at enterwhich are familiar to him, that, if it be not the work of tainments, which was not promulgated till B.C. 97 or 96 Lucian himself, it could only have been composed by | (A.U.C. 657 or 658). The expression, moreover, ap

plied by Horace to Lucilius (Serm., 2, 1, 34), namely, | coarse, colours. He had, however, much of the old sener or "old," seems to imply, as Clinton has remark- Roman humour, that celebrated but undefined urbaned (Fast. Hell, vol, 2, p. 135), that he lived to a later itas, which indeed he possessed in so eminent a degree, date. The period at which Lucilius wrote was favour- that Pliny says it began with Lucilius in composition able to satiric composition. There was a struggle exist- (Præf. Hist. Nat.), while Cicero declares that he caring between the old and new manners, and the free-ried it to the highest perfection, and that it almost exdom of speaking and writing, though restrained, had not pired with him. But the chief characteristic of Luyet been totally checked by law. Lucilius lived with a cilius was his vehement and cutting satire. Macropeople among whom luxury and corruption were advan- bius (Sat., 3, 16) calls him " Acer el violentus poeta," cing with fearful rapidity, but among whom some virtu- and the well-known lines of Juvenal, who relates how ous citizens were anxious to stem the tide which threat- he made the guilty tremble with his pen, as much as ened to overwhelm their countrymen.. His satires, if he had pursued them sword in hand, have fixed his therefore, were adapted to please those stanch "lauda- character as a determined and inexorable persecutor lores temporis acti" who stood up for ancient manners of vice. His Latin is admitted on all hands to have and discipline. The freedom with which he attacked been sufficiently pure (Aul. Gell., 18, 5.-Horat., Sat, the vices of his contemporaries, without sparing individ- 1, 10), but his versification was rugged and prosaic. uals, the strength of colouring with which his pictures Horace, while he allows that he was more polished were charged, the weight and asperity of the reproaches than his contemporaries, calls his muse" pedestris,” with which he loaded those who had exposed them- talks repeatedly of the looseness of his measures, "inselves to his ridicule or indignation, had nothing re- composito pede currere versus," and compares his volting in an age when no consideration compelled to whole poetry to a muddy and troubled stream. Quinthose forbearances necessary under different forms of tilian does not entirely coincide with this opinion of society or government. By the time, too, in which he Horace; for, while blaming those who considered him began to write, the Romans, though yet far from the as the greatest of poets, which some persons still did polish of the Augustan age, had become familiar with in the age of Domitian, he says, " Ego quantum ab the delicate and cutting irony of the Greek comedies, illis, tantum ab Horatio dissentio, qui Lucilium fluere of which the more ancient Roman satirists had no con- lutulentum, et esse aliquid quod tollere possis, putat.” ception. Lucilius chiefly applied himself to the imi- (Inst. Or., 10, 1.) The author of the books Rhetoritation of these dramatic productions, and caught, it is corum, addressed to Herennius, and which were at one said, much of their fire and spirit. The Roman lan- time ascribed to Cicero, mentions, as a singular awkguage likewise had grown more refined in his age, and wardness in the construction of his lines, the disjuncwas thus more capable of receiving the Grecian beau- tion of words, which, according to proper and natural ties of style. Nor did Lucilius, like his predecessors, arrangement, ought to have been placed together, as, mix iambic with trochaic verses. Twenty books of bis satires, from the commencement, were in hexam"Has res ad te scriptas Luci misimus Aeli.” eter verse, and the rest, with the exception of the thir- Nay, what is still worse, it would appear from Asconitieth, in iambics or trochaics. His object, too, seems us that he had sometimes barbarously separated the to have been bolder and more extensive than that of syllables of a word, his predecessors, and was not so much to excite laughter or ridicule as to correct and chastise vice. Lucilius thus bestowed on satiric composition such additional grace and regularity that he is declared by Horace to have been the first among the Romans who wrote satire in verse. But, although he may have greatly improved this sort of writing, it does not follow that his satires are to be considered as a different species from those of Ennius, a light in which they have been regarded by Casaubon and Ruperti; "for," as Dryden has remarked, "it would thence follow that the satires of Horace are wholly different from those of Lucilius, because Horace has not less surpassed Lucilius in the elegance of his writing, than Lucilius surpassed Ennius in the turn and ornament of his." The satires of Lucilius extended to not fewer than thirty books, but whether they were so divided by the poet himself, or by some grammarian who lived shortly after him, is uncertain. He was reputed, however, to be a voluminous author, and has been satirized by Horace for his hurried copiousness and facility. Of the thirty books there are only fragments extant; but these are so numerous, that, though they do not capacitate us for catching the full spirit of the poet, we perceive something of his manner. His merits, too, have been so much canvassed by ancient writers, who judged of them while his works were yet entire, that their discussion enables us in some measure to appreciate his poetical claims. It would appear that he had great vivacity and humour, uncommon command of language, intimate knowledge of life and manners, and considerable acquaintance with the Grecian masters. Virtue appeared in his draughts in native dignity, and he exhibited his distinguished friends, Scipio and Lælius, in the most amiable light. At the same time, it was impossible to portray anything more powerful than the sketches of his vicious characters. His rogue, glutton, and courtesan are drawn in strong, not to say

"Villa Lucani-mox potieris aco."

As to the learning of Lucilius, the opinions of antiquity are different; and even those of the same author often appear somewhat contradictory on this point. Quintilian says that there is" Eruditio in eo mira." Cicero, in his treatise De Finibus, calls his learning "Mediocris ;" though afterward, in the person of Crassus, in his treatise De Oratore, he twice terms him "doctus" (1, 16; 2, 6). Dacier suspects that Quintilian was led to consider Lucilius as learned, from the pedantic intermixture of Greek words in his compositions, a practice which seems to have excited the applause of his contemporaries, and also of his numerous admirers in the Augustan age, for which they have been severely ridiculed by Horace, who always warmly opposed himself to the excessive popularity of Lucilius during that golden period of literature. It is not unlikely that there may have been something of political spleen in the admiration expressed for Lucilius during the age of Augustus, and something of courtly complaisance in the attempts of Horace to counteract it. Augustus had extended the law of the twelve tables respecting libels, and the people who found themselves thus abridged of the liberty of satirizing the great by name, might not improbably seek to avenge themselves by an overstrained attachment to the works of a poet, who, living, as they would insinuate, in better times, practised without fear what he enjoyed without restraint. (Gifford's Juvenal, Præf., p. 43.) Some motive of this sort doubtless weighed with the Romans of the age of Augustus, since much of the satire of Lucilius must have been unintelligible, or, at least, uninteresting to them. Great part of his compositions appear to have been rather a series of libels than legitimate satire, being occupied with virulent attacks on contemporary citizens of Rome. Douza, who has collected and edited all that remains of the satires of Lucilius, mentions the