CAECILIUS  , of Calacte (KaXil'Aurii) in

Sicily, Greek rhetorician, flourished at Rome during the reign of Augustus . Originally called Archagathus, he took the name of Caecilius from his patron, one of the Metelli . According to Suidas, he was by birth a Jew . Next to Dionysius of Halicarnassus, he was the most important critic and rhetorician of the Augustan age . Only fragments are extant of his numerous and important works, among which may be mentioned: On the Style of the Ten Orators (including their lives and a critical examination of their works), the basis of the pseudo-Plutarchian treatise of the same name, in which Caecilius is frequently referred to; On the Sublime, attacked by (?) Longinus in his essay on the same subject (see L . Martens, De Libello IIEp ih/.ous, 1877) ; History of the Servile Wars, or slave risings in Sicily, the local interest of which would naturally appeal to the author; On Rhetoric and Rhetorical Figures; an Alphabetical Selection of Phrases, intended to serve as a guide to the acquirement of a pure Attic style—the first example of an Atticist lexicon, mentioned by Suidas in the preface to his lexicon as one of his authorities; Against the Phrygians, probably an attack on the florid style of the Asiatic school of rhetoric . The fragments have been collected and edited by T . Burckhardt (1863), and E . Ofenloch (1907); some in C . W . Muller, Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum, iii.; C . Bursian's Jahresbericht .

. . der classischen Altertumswissenschaft,

xxiii . (1896), contains full notices of recent works on Caecilius, by C . Hammer; F . Blass, Griechische Beredsamkeit von Alexander bis auf Augustus (1865), treats of Dionysius of Halicarnassus and Caecilius together; see also J . Brzoska in Pauly-Wissowa, Realencyclopadie (1897) .