Ni'cias
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.; Cic. Fam. 9.10,
ad Att. l.c. 12.26, 53, 13.23; Clinton,
F. H. vol. iii. p. 207.) Cicero's letters that mention him extend front B. C. 50 to 45.
