Aulus Gellius (c. AD 125 - after 180), Latin author and grammarian, possibly of African origin, probably born and certainly brought up at Rome.

He studied grammar and rhetoric at Rome and philosophy at Athens, after which he returned to Rome, where he held a judicial office. His teachers and friends included many distinguished men--Sulpicius Apollinaris, Herodes Atticus and Fronto.

His only work, the Noctes Atticae, takes its name from having been begun during the long nights of a winter which he spent in Attica. He afterwards continued it at Rome. It is compiled out of an Adversaria, or commonplace book, in which he had jotted down everything of unusual interest that he heard in conversation or read in books, and it comprises notes on grammar, geometry, philosophy, history and almost every other branch of knowledge.

The work, deliberately devoid of sequence or arrangement, is divided into twenty books. All these have come down to us except the eighth, of which nothing remains but the index. The Noctes Atticae is valuable for the insight it affords into the nature of the society and pursuits of those times, and for the numerous excerpts it contains from the works of lost ancient authors.

One story is Androclus, which is often compiled into collections of Aesop's fables (but is not found in the Robert Temple Aesop).

Works Online

• Attic Nights (selections)
• Selected works, from The Latin Library

References

• Leofranc Holford-Strevens, Aulus Gellius: An Antonine Author and his Achievement (Oxford University Press; revised paperback edn. 2005)

130 births | 180 deaths | Ancient Roman rhetoricians | Latin authors | Grammarians

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