LUCIUS AELIUS STILO PRAECONINUS (c. 154–74 B.c.)  , of Lanuvium, the earliest Roman philologist, was a man of distinguished family and belonged to the equestrian order . He was called Stilo (stilus, pen), because he wrote speeches for others, and Praeconinus from his father's profession (praeco, public crier) . His aristocratic sympathies were so strong that he voluntarily accompanied Q . Caecilius Metellus Numidicus into exile . At Rome he divided his time between teaching (although not as a professional schoolmaster) and literary work . His most famous pupils were Varro and Cicero, and amongst his friends were Coelius Antipater, the historian, and Lucilius, the satirist, who dedicated their works to him . According to Cicero, who expresses a poor opinion of his powers as an orator, Stilo was a follower of the Stoic school . Only a few fragments of his works remain . He wrote commentaries on the hymns of the Salii, and (probably) on the Twelve Tables; and investigated the genuineness of the Plautine comedies, of which he recognized 25, four more than were allowed by Varro . It is probable that he was the author of a general glossographical work, dealing with literary, historical and antiquarian questions . The rhetorical treatise Ad Herennium has been attributed to him by some modern scholars . See Cicero, Brutus, 205-207, De legibus, ii .

23, 59; Suetonius, De grammaticis, 2;

Gellius Hi . 3, 1 . 12; Quintilian, Inst. orat. x., 1, 99; monographs by J. van Heusde (1839) and F . Mentz (1888); Mommsen, Hist. of Rome, bk. iv. ch . 12, 13; J . E . Sandys, History of Classical Scholarship (2nd ed., 4906) ; M . Schanz, Geschichte der romischen Literatur (1898), vol. i.; Teuffel, Hist. of Roman Literature (Eng. trans., 1900), p . 148 .