Caecilius Statius Biography Quotes 4 Report mistakes
Early LifeCaecilius Statius was a leading writer of Roman comedy in the second century BCE. Ancient testimony about his origins is not uniform, but a consistent tradition makes him a man of Cisalpine Gaul, possibly taken to Italy as a captive and later freed at Rome. His adopted nomen, Caecilius, points to the family that manumitted him, and the cognomen Statius, commonly borne by slaves and freedmen, reinforces the picture of someone who began life outside the citizen elite. Precise dates of birth are not secure; he flourished in the decades after the Second Punic War and died in 166 BCE. Whatever his beginnings, he became a professional poet for the public stage at Rome and an important link between the era of Titus Maccius Plautus and that of Publius Terentius Afer.
Career in the Roman Theater
Caecilius wrote comedies of the palliata type, Latin plays modeled on Greek New Comedy and set in a Hellenic milieu. His works were mounted at official festivals under the oversight of the aediles and were performed by professional companies. Later tradition associates the actor-producer Lucius Ambivius Turpio with Caecilius: in a prologue preserved with a play of Terence, Ambivius recalls championing earlier dramatists who initially met resistance, and Caecilius is cited as a beneficiary of such perseverance. This anecdote situates him within the practical world of Roman theatrical production, where a poet's fortunes depended on impresarios, performers, and magistrates as much as on literary skill.
Works and Themes
Ancient catalogues credit Caecilius with a large output, likely over forty plays, though only fragments and titles survive. He adapted Greek models, especially Menander, but he did not simply translate; he reworked plots and characters to suit Roman taste. Among the better-attested titles are Plocium (The Necklace), known to be based on Menander's Plokion, and Obolostates (often understood as The Penny-Grubber or The Usurer). Ancient readers also ascribed to him other adaptations of New Comedy, though full certainty about particular titles is not always possible. The surviving lines suggest an interest in family tensions, love affairs complicated by money and identity, and the moral tests of everyday life, the staple concerns of the genre. Compared with Plautus's exuberant wordplay and knockabout farce, Caecilius was often credited with stronger pathos and a more serious emotional tone, qualities that anticipated some of the refinement later associated with Terence.
Standing Among Contemporaries and Later Critics
Caecilius's contemporary and near-contemporary reputation was high. The critic Volcacius Sedigitus, in a famous ranking of comic poets preserved by later writers, placed Caecilius first among the Latin comedians, ahead even of Plautus and Naevius. Marcus Terentius Varro discussed him as a central figure in the development of Roman comedy, and Cicero, while sometimes preferring the stylistic polish of later authors, quoted Caecilius for examples of idiom and sentiment. Aulus Gellius, who preserves much of what we can still read, compared Caecilius's Latin with the Greek of Menander, especially in Plocium, and used those passages to reflect on the challenges of literary adaptation. In the living theater, Caecilius stood between two giants: he followed after Plautus, whose career ended with his death in 184 BCE, and overlapped with Terence, whose debut, Andria, came in 166 BCE, the year Caecilius died.
Relations with Other Poets
Stories connect Caecilius and Terence directly. A widely repeated anecdote says the young Terence read his Andria to Caecilius at a dinner; impressed, Caecilius encouraged him. Whether every detail is exact, the tradition captures how an older practitioner could guide a newcomer in the competitive marketplace of festival drama. Caecilius also worked in the literary atmosphere shaped by Quintus Ennius, the senior poet who broadened Latin's horizons across genres; even if they moved in different circles, Ennius's prestige defined what counted as serious artistry. With Plautus, the relationship is one of succession rather than collaboration: Caecilius inherited a stage energized by Plautine verve and met the audience's appetite with comedies that aimed at a more balanced blend of humor and feeling.
Style and Technique
The fragments reveal a craftsman attentive to character motivation and to the emotional stakes of domestic plots. He employed the conventional stock figures of New Comedy, clever slaves, young lovers, stern or indulgent fathers, but was remembered for a certain gravitas, a weight of moral reflection within the comic frame. His language, judged by later critics, could be less flamboyant than Plautus and less pared-back than Terence, a middle register that lent itself to pathos without abandoning wit. In the case of Plocium, Gellius's side-by-side sampling with Menander shows Caecilius compressing and clarifying the Greek while preserving the scene's dramatic core, an example of adaptation rather than literal translation.
Transmission and Survival
No play of Caecilius has come down complete. Our knowledge depends on quotations embedded in grammarians and antiquarians, Aulus Gellius, Nonius Marcellus, Priscian, Festus, and others, who cited him to illustrate vocabulary, syntax, or points of usage. These excerpts, together with lists of titles, allow modern readers to glimpse his range and influence. The comparatively generous remains of Plocium, thanks in part to Gellius, offer the best window on his dramaturgy; Obolostates and a handful of other plays survive in shorter scraps. Through such fragments, it is clear that he was central to the consolidation of the fabula palliata as a Roman form.
Chronology and Death
Caecilius's active years fall roughly between the late 190s and the mid-160s BCE. His death in 166 BCE places him at the pivot-point when Terence entered the scene. That timing helps explain his dual image in the ancient record: to the next generation he appeared both as the heir to Plautine theater and as a precursor whose seriousness made Terence's more measured comedies possible. Though time has left us only pieces of his work, the testimony of critics and fellow professionals marks Caecilius Statius as one of the chief architects of Roman comedy in its formative century.
Our collection contains 4 quotes who is written by Caecilius, under the main topics: Wisdom - Legacy & Remembrance - Self-Discipline - Fear.