5. A Coan grammarian, who lived at Rome in the time of Cicero, with whom he was intimate.
Suetonius (de Illustr. Gramm. 14) calls him, if the ordinary reading be
correct, Curtius Nicia. He also mentions (l.c.) that he originally
belonged to the party of Pompey, but that, having endeavoured to involve Pompey's wife in an
intrigue with Memmius, he was betrayed by her, and disgraced by his former patron. From the
scattered notices of him found in Cicero, we may conclude that he was of an amiable
disposition, but soft and effeminate. We nowhere read of his having any great reputation. In
one passage (ad Attic. 7.3) Cicero does not seem to trust much to his
authority as to the question, whether Piraeca was the name of a locus or of an oppidum. If we may trust a corrupt
passage in Suetonius (l.c.), he wrote a treatise on the writings of
Lucilius. (Sueton. l.c.;
ad Att. l.c. 12.26, 53,
13.23; Clinton, F. H. vol. iii. p. 207.) Cicero's letters that mention
him extend front