Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 2.djvu/249

Rh GELLIUS. and Eiistathius. (Said. s. v. 'AO-^vaios and TeA- Ams; Eustath. ad Od. p. 1471.) [E. H. B.] GE'LLIA GENS, plebeian, was of Samnite origin, and afterwards settled at Rome. We find two generals of this name in the history of the Samnite wars, Gellius Statins in the second Sam- nite war, who was defeated and taken prisoner, B. c. 305 (Liv. ix. 44), and Gellius Egnatius in the third Samnite war. [Egnatius, No. 1.] The Gellii seem to have settled at Rome soon after the conclusion of the second Punic war ; since the first who is mentioned as a Roman is Cn. Gellius in the time of Cato the Censor, who defended L. Turius when the latter was accused by Cn. Gellius. (Gell. xiv. 2.) This Cn. Gellius was probably the father of Gellius, the historian, mentioned below, with whom he has been frequently confounded. ( Meyer, Orator. Rom. Fragm. p. I4l, 2nd edition.) The Gellii subsequently attained the highest offices in the state ; but the first member of the gens who obtained the consulship was L. Gellius Poplicola, in B. c. 72. The only surnames of this gens under the republic are Canus and Poplicola. It is doubtful to whom the following coin of this gens refers : it has on the obverse the head of Pallas, and on the reverse a soldier and a woman in a quadriga, with cn. gel. roma. A. GE'LLIUS, not Agellius as Lipsius and others have imagined, a Latin grammarian, with regard to whose history we possess no source of information except his own book. From this we gather that he was of good family and connections, a native probably of Rome ; that he had travelled much, especially in Greece, and had resided for a considerable period at Athens ; that he had studied rhetoric under T. Castricius and Sulpicius ApoUi- naris, philosophy under Calvisius Taurus and Peregrinus Proteus, enjoying also the friendship and instructions of Favorinus, HerodesAtticus, and Cornelius Fronto ; that while yet a youth he had been appointed by the praetor to act as an umpire in civil causes ; and that subsequently much of the time which he would gladly have devoted to literary pursuits had been occupied by judicial duties of a similar description. The precise date of his birth, as of his death, is unknown ; but from the names of his preceptors and companions we conclude that he must have lived under Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, and M. Aurelius, A. D. 117—180. His well-known work entitled Nodes Alticae, because it was composed in a country-house near Athens during the long nights of winter, is a sort of miscellany, containing numerous extracts from Greek and Roman writers, on a great variety of topics connected with history, antiquities, philo- sophy, and philology, interspersed with original remarks, dissertations, and discussions, the whole thrown together int«j twenty books, without any attempt at order or arrangement. We here find preserved a multitude of curious and interesting passages from authors whose works have perished, and a vast fund of information elucidating questions GELLIUS. 235 which must otherwise have remained obscure ; but the style is deformed by that species of affectation which was pushed to extravagant excess by Apu- leius — the frequent introduction of obsolete words and phrases derived for the most part from the ancient comic dramatists. The eighth book is en- tirely lost with the exception of the index, and a few lines at the beginning of the sixth were long wanting, until the deficiency was supplied from the Epitome of the Divine Institutions of Lactantius (c. 28), first published in a complete form in 1712, by PfafF, from a MS. in the Royal Library' at Turin. [Lactantius.] It is not probable that any portion of the Nodes Atticae was moulded into shape before A. d. 143, since, in the second chapter of the first book, Herodes Atticus is spoken of as " consulari honore praeditus," and the seven- teenth chapter of the thirteenth book contains an allusion to the second consulship of Emcius Clarus, which belongs to a. d. 146. The Editio Princeps of A. Gellius was printed at Rome, fol. 1469, by Sweynheym and Pannartz, with a prefatory epistle by Andrew, afterwards bishop of Aleria, to Pope Paul II. ; was reprinted at the same place by the same typographers in 1472, followed or preceded by the beautiful impression of Jenson, fol. Ven. 1472 ; and at least seven other editions of less note came forth in Italy, chiefly at Venice, before the close of the fifteenth century. The first which can advance any claim to a critical revision of the text founded on the collation of MSS. is that published at Paris, 8vo. 1585, under the superintendence of Henry Stephens and Louis Carrio, which served as the standard until super- seded by the accurate labours of J. F. Gronovius, r2mo. Amst., L. Elzev., 1G51, and D. Elzev., 1665, of which the latter is the superior. The Octavo Variorums (Lug. Bat. 1666, 1687) exhibit the text of J. F. Gronovius, with some additional matter by Thysius and Oiselius ; but these are not equal in value to the Quarto Variorum of Jac. Gronovius, Lug. Bat. 1706 (reprinted, with some dissertations, by Conradi, Bvo. Leips. 1762), which must be regarded as the best edition, for the most recent, that of Lion, 2 vols. 8vo. Gotting. 1824, 1825, is a slovenly and incorrect performance. We have translations into English by Beloe, 3 vols. 8vo. Lond. 1795 ; into French by the Abbe de Verteuil, 3 vols. 12mo. Par. 1776, 1789, and by Victor Verger, 3 vols. Par. 1820, 1830; into German (of those portions only which illustrate ancient history and philosophy) by A. H. W. von Walterstern, 8vo. Lemgo, 1785. [W. R.] CN. GE'LLIUS, a contemporary of the Gracchi, was the author of a history of Rome from the earliest epoch, extending, as we gather from Cen- sorinus, down to the year b. c. 145 at least. We know that the Rape of the Sabines was commemo- rated in the second book ; the reign of Titus Tatius in the third ; the death of Postumius during the second Punic war, and the purpose to which his skull was applied by the Boii (Liv. xxiii. 24), in the thirty-third ; and we find a quotation in Cho- risius from the ninety- seventh, if we can trust the number. Hence it is manifest that a considerable space was devoted to the legends connected with the origin of the nation ; and that if these books were in general equal in length to the similar divisions in Livy, the compilation of Gellius must have been exceedingly voluminous, and the details more ample than those contained in the great work