Caecilius of Calacte information

Caecilius of Calacte was a rhetorician and literary critic active in Rome during the reign of Augustus.^[1]

The main source of information about Caecilius' life is the Suda, which says that he was from Sicily, originally called Archagathus, possibly of slave origins, and Jewish.^[1] He was born about 50 BC in Calacte, and was probably a student of Apollodorus of Pergamon.^[2] Both the Suda and Hermagoras say that he taught in Rome during the reign of Augustus.^[3] The Suda reports that he lived until the reign of Hadrian, more than a century after the death of Augustus; this is possibly due to confusion with the quaestor Quintus Caecilius Niger.^[4] A mention of Caecilius by Dionysius of Halicarnassus, who describes him as a friend in his Epistle to Pompey,^[5] may have been written as early as 30 BC and suggests that he may already have been an established critic by then.^[3]

He apparently wrote works of both history and literary criticism,^[6] but only a few fragments of his writings are extant.^[2] Athenaeus, the main source of information about Caecilius' historical works, reports that he wrote a history of the Servile Wars (slave revolts) in Sicily, and refers to a work in which Caecilius mentioned the Sicilian tyrant Agathocles.^[7] He also apparently wrote about the literary merits of historians, praising Thucydides but criticising Timaeus and Theopompus.^[8]

In his literary criticism, Caecilius was one of the first proponents of Atticism, alongside his friend Dionysius of Halicarnassus.^[2] He wrote a treatise Against the Phrygians which apparently criticised the Asiatic style of rhetoric, producing a glossary of Attic phrases,^[9] and a treatise on the difference between the Attic and Asiatic styles of rhetoric.^[10] He wrote an Art of Rhetoric and a work on rhetorical figures, which is quoted by Quintilian.^[9] He also wrote a treatise on the Ten Attic Orators, and individual works on the speeches of Demosthenes, Antiphon, and Lysias.^[10]

Longinus' treatise On the Sublime was written in response to a work by Caecilius on the same topic.^[11]