GELLIUS, AULUS (c. A.D. 130-18o), Latin author and grammarian, probably born 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 Apolli naris, Herodes Atticus and Fronto. His only work, the Noctes Atticae, is compiled from a commonplace book, and comprises notes on grammar, geometry, philosophy, history and almost every other branch of knowledge. The work, of which all but one book is extant, is valuable for the insight it affords into the life of those times, and for the numerous excerpts it contains from the works of lost ancient authors.
Editio princeps (Rome, 1469) ; the best editions are those of Gronovius (1706) and M. Hertz (1883-85 ; editio minor, x886, revised by C. Hosius, 1903, with bibliography) . There is a translation in English by W. Beloe (1795) , and in French by various hands (1896) . See Sandys, Hist. Class. Schol., i. (1906), 21o.