Gaius Cornelius Gallus

Gallus, Gaius Cornelius (c.69–26 BC), soldier and poet, friend of the emperor Augustus and of Virgil. Born at Forum Julii (Fréjus), possibly of a Gallic family, he went to Rome at an early age and rose to equestrian rank. He fought in the civil war on Octavian's side and was one of the commissioners appointed by him in 41 to confiscate land in north Italy and distribute it among his veterans (see VIRGIL). Octavian made him the first prefect of Egypt in 30 BC but after four years he was recalled in disgrace for an offence which remains obscure; Octavian (now called Augustus) formally renounced his friendship, and Gallus committed suicide. Virgil is said to have rewritten the latter half of the fourth Georgic which had formerly contained a eulogy of Gallus.

His poetry, of which only one pentameter line and perhaps tiny papyrus fragments survive, included four books of love-elegies centred upon the poet's mistress, the famous actress Cytheris (also loved by Mark Antony), under the pseudonym of Lycōris. This was a genre which he appears to have originated (see ELEGY). His poetry was influenced by the Hellenistic Greek poets Callimachus and Euphorion, and the Roman neoterics. Virgil in his tenth Eclogue worked some of Gallus' own lines into his poem.