Lucilius Junior

Lucilius Junior (fl. 1st century) was the procurator of Sicily during the reign of Nero, a friend and correspondent of Seneca, and the possible author of the poem Aetna, which presents a naturalistic account of the origin and nature of volcanism.

• Plurima pars scaenae rerum est fallacia: vates
  sub terris nigros viderunt carmine manes
  atque inter cineres Ditis pallentia regna:
  mentiti vates Stygias undasque canesque.
  • 'Tis well-nigh all delusion that the stage gives us. Bards have beheld in poetry dark ghosts in the underworld and the pale realm of Dis amid the ashes of the dead. Bards have sung false lays of Stygian wave and Stygian hound.
  • Aetna, 75 (Tr. Duff and Duff)

• Debita carminibus libertas ista; sed omnis
  in vero mihi cura: canam quo fervida motu
  aestuet Aetna novosque rapax sibi congerat ignes.
  • Such freedom must be accorded to poetry; but with truth alone is my concern. I will sing the movement that makes fervent Aetna boil and greedily gather its own stores of fire renewed.
  • Aetna, 91 (Tr. Duff and Duff)

• Nosse fidem rerum dubiasque exquirere causas,
  ingenium sacrare caputque attollere caelo,
  scire quot et quae sint magno natalia mundo
  principia ...
    divina est animi ac iucunda voluptas.
  • To grasp the proof of things and search into doubtful causes, to hallow genius, to raise the head to the sky, to know the number and character of natal elements in the mighty universe ... this is the mind's divine and grateful pleasure.
  • Aetna, 224 (Tr. Duff and Duff)

• Artificis naturae ingens opus aspice.
  • Look upon the colossal work of the artist nature.
  • Aetna, 601 (Tr. Duff and Duff)

    Turn now your eyes on the stupendous work of the artificer, Nature. (Tr. Robinson)

• Lucretius

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Lucilius Junior

• Ellis Robinson, Aetna: A Critical Recension of the Text, ... with Prolegomena, Translation, &c. (Oxford, 1901)

• J. Wight Duff and Arnold M. Duff, Minor Latin Poets, vol. 1 (LCL, 1934; rev. 1935), "Aetna"