The earliest pronouncements on Latin spoken and written usage come to us from a literary figure in the late second century BC, i.e. the Roman satirist Gaius Lucilius (180 / 168?–103 / 102), who had a pervasive influence on authoritative writers on Latin of the late Republic. Lucilius’ personal poetry – the first of the kind to appear on the Roman stage since Ennius’ experimental miscellaneous saturae – was characterized by an assertive voice delivering views on an unprecedented variety of themes. That language was a favourite theme is evidenced by the significant number of metalinguistic comments in the fragmentary remains of Lucilius’ notoriously large production, which included a systematic treatment (Book 9) of Latin orthography and morphology.