Gaius Lucilius (180, 168 or 148 BC–103 BC) was the first writer of Roman satire. He was a Roman citizen of equestrian status originally from Campania in Southern Italy. He had close ties with some of the most prominent Roman statesmen of his day, including Scipio Africanus, though he himself eschewed a political career. Instead he produced free-wheeling and bitingly honest poetry about his society, one of the first Roman men of the upper classes to do so. He would go on to influence many poets and writers of the later Republic and early Empire, including Horace and Cicero.