Caecilius of Calacte
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Caecilius of Calacte was a rhetorician and literary critic active in Rome during the reign of Augustus.Template:Sfn
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.Template:Sfn He was born about 50 BC in Calacte, and was probably a student of Apollodorus of Pergamon.Template:Sfn Both the Suda and Hermagoras say that he taught in Rome during the reign of Augustus.Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn A mention of Caecilius by Dionysius of Halicarnassus, who describes him as a friend in his Epistle to Pompey,Template:Sfn may have been written as early as 30 BC and suggests that he may already have been an established critic by then.Template:Sfn
He apparently wrote works of both history and literary criticism,Template:Sfn but only a few fragments of his writings are extant.Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn He also apparently wrote about the literary merits of historians, praising Thucydides but criticising Timaeus and Theopompus.Template:Sfn
In his literary criticism, Caecilius was one of the first proponents of Atticism, alongside his friend Dionysius of Halicarnassus.Template:Sfn He wrote a treatise Against the Phrygians which apparently criticised the Asiatic style of rhetoric, producing a glossary of Attic phrases,Template:Sfn and a treatise on the difference between the Attic and Asiatic styles of rhetoric.Template:Sfn He wrote an Art of Rhetoric and a work on rhetorical figures, which is quoted by Quintilian.Template:Sfn He also wrote a treatise on the Ten Attic Orators, and individual works on the speeches of Demosthenes, Antiphon, and Lysias.Template:Sfn
Longinus' treatise On the Sublime was written in response to a work by Caecilius on the same topic.Template:Sfn