A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology

one of the most distinguished of the early Roman jurists--those " veteres"--who flourished before the time of the empire. Born of an ancient and noble plebeian family, he applied himself to the study of the law, under the auspices of Q. Mucius P. f. Scaevola, the pontifex maximus, who was the greatest jurist of the day. Of all the pupils of Q. Mucius, he attained the greatest authority among the people, to whom, without regard to his own ease, he was always accessible, and ready to give advice. For deep and sound learning, perhaps some of his fellow-pupils, as Lucilius Balbus, Papirius, and C. Juventius, may have had equal or greater reputation among the members of their own profession ; but they did not, like Gallus, exercise much influence on the progress of their art. He was an eques and senator. At the end of the year B. C. 67 he was elected praetor along with Cicero, and, in the discharge of his office, greatly signalised himself by legal reforms, of which we shall presently take notice. During his praetorship he presided in quaestiones de ambitu, while the jurisdiction in cases de pecuniis repetundis was assigned to his colleague. (Cic. Clu. 54.) He never aspired to the consulship, for he was pruden and unambitious, or rather, his ambition was satisfied

by the judicial sovereignty which he exercised. Moreover, he dreaded the additional toils of an office to which he felt his declining health unequal. (Ad Att. 1.1.) Of the details of his private life little is known. Pliny (Plin. Nat. 7.1) says, epigrammatically, that he was even more distinguished for the magnificent mansion which he possessed upon the Viminal I ill than for his knowledge of the Civil Law. It was in this mansion, the most superb in all Rome (P. Victor, De Urb. Rom. Region. v.), that his intimate friend, Q. Scapula, suddenly expired while at supper with Gallus. (Plin. Nat. 7.53.) In a letter addressed to Servius Sulpicius, in B. C. 46 (ad Fam. 4.6), Cicero speaks of a Gallus, a friend and relative of Servius (vester Gallus), who lost a promising son, and bore his loss with equanimity ; but though Gallus Aquillius, the jurist, was the friend and legal preceptor of Servius, it is doubtful from the context whether he is the person referred to. In the Topica, a treatise which was published in B. C. 44, Gallus is spoken of in the past tense, as no longer living. (Top. 12.)

We can only briefly review the professional career of Gallus. Taught, himself, by the great Mucius Scaevola, he could boast of being in turn the principal instructor of Servius Sulpicius, who had previously learned the elements of law from Lucilius Balbus, and combined the excellencies of both his masters; for if Balbus were more esteemed for solid and profound acquirement, Gallus had the advantage in penetration, dexterity, and readiness. (Cic. Brut. 42.) " Institutus fuit" (Servius), says Pomponius, in the ill-written fragment De Origine Juris (Dig. i. tit. 2. s. 2.43), " a Balbo Lucilio, instructus autem maxime a Gallo Aquillio, qui fuit Cercinae. Itaque libri ejus complures extant, Cercinae confectae." Cujas, in his comment on this passage, speaks of Cercina as an island on the coast of Sicily, but no such island is mentioned by the ancient geographers, according to whom Cercina was an island (now Gamalera) in the Mare Syrticum, where Marius lay hid. (Mela, 2.7; Plin. Nat. 5.7.) There is some improbability in the supposition that Servius, although he visited Athens and Rhodes (Cic. Fam. 4.12, Brut. 41), should have passed his time with his preceptor in an island on the coast of Africa--a singular choice of a vacation residence for a busy jurist and his pupils! Hence some critics conjecture that Caecilla, in Etruria (Mela, 2.4), is meant, and others have thought of Sicyon or Corcyra. It is equally doubtful whether the author of the works said to have been written at Cercina were Servius or Gallus. (Otto, in Serv. Sulpie. Thes. Jur. Civ. vol. v. p. 1585-6.) If Servius is meant, there is a needless repetition, for Pomponius, referring to Servius, shortly afterwards says, " Hujus volumina complura extant."

[J.T.G]