Lucilio: un intellettuale del II secolo a.C.

Based on the remaining fragments of Lucilius’Satires, this study argues that Lucilius was influenced by the political and the cultural ideals of Scipio Aemilianus and of his group. Lucilius centres his work on Scipio Africanus the Younger, including a chronicle of his wars in Numanzia, a celebration of his family and friends and a critique of his political opponents. Lucilius makes Scipio his dedicatee in theSatires, and in so doing, he adds to a long list of arcaic poets who similarly celebrated political and military leaders with their lyrics andpraetextae, and to whom they owed favours and protection. The satirist, however, relates to power and to the powerful in a novel and different way – while his homage to the Roman general appears to be an implicit task, the ideological reasons of the author are rather explicit. Unlike his predecessors, in fact, Lucilius had a close relationship with the leading political figures of his times, thanks also to the cultural inclinations of Scipio’s group. The study finally highlights the importance of Lucilius’ work for the study of the economic, the social, the political and the cultural contexts of Rome during the II century BC.