v53_0210 - GELLIA Denier

GELLIA

(138 BC)

The gens Gellia was of Samnite origin and did not arrive in Rome until the end of the Second Punic War. Two of the moneyer's ancestors, Gellius Statius and Gellius Egnatius, had commanded troops in the Second and Third Samnite Wars. It was the poet Aulus Gellius, a descendant of the moneyer (Aul. Gel. XIII, 23) who first mentioned the abduction, then the marriage of Nerio by Mars. Cnæus or Cneius Gellius would be to be identified with the historian of the same name, author of Annales now extinct, and known only by a few fragments. A great admirer of the Hellenistic world, he was interested in antiquities. He was the friend of the Gracchi.