Gnaeus Gellius (2nd century BC) was the author of a history of Rome from the earliest epoch, extending, as we gather from Censorinus, down to the year 145 BC at least. We know that the Rape of the Sabines was described 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,[1] in the thirty-third; and we find a quotation in Choricius 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 Rome; 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 Livy, by whom, as well as by Plutarch, he seems to have been altogether neglected, although occasionally cited by Dionysius. He was apparently both an accurate chronologer and a diligent investigator of ancient usages.[2]
This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology by William Smith (1870).