Name Gaius Gallus | Parents Gaius Asinius Pollio Died 33 AD | |
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Spouse Vipsania Agrippina (m. 11 BC) Children Gaius Asinius Pollio, Marcus Asinius Agrippa, Servius Asinius Celer, Asinius Saloninus Similar People Gaius Asinius Pollio, Vipsania Agrippina, Drusus Julius Caesar, Agrippina the Elder, Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa | ||
Great-grandparents Herius Asinius Grandchildren Marcus Asinius Marcellus | ||
Gaius asinius gallus saloninus
Gaius Asinius Gallus Saloninus was a Roman Senator with family connections to the Julio-Claudian house.
Contents
Biography
Asinius Gallus was consul in 8 BC, and proconsul of Asia in 6 BC/5 BC. He was a friend of Emperor Augustus and opposed Emperor Tiberius. He introduced measures to the senate to increase Tiberius's power to try to shame the ruler. These embarrassed Tiberius publicly, and Tiberius had him arrested in 30. Tiberius alleged that Asinius had committed adultery with Agrippina the Elder, the opponent of Sejanus whom Tiberius had banished in 29, and had his name erased from all public monuments. Gaius died in 33 of starvation after three years in custody.
He was the son of Gaius Asinius Pollio, a Roman Senator and consul 40 BC. In 11 BC he married Vipsania Agrippina, daughter of Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa and his first wife Caecilia Attica, and the former wife of Tiberius.
A descendant of Vipsania and Gallus, Pomponia Graecina, became a distinguished lady. Pomponia might have been a Christian and lived an unhappy long life. Pomponia married Aulus Plautius. Plautius was a general in the conquest of Britain, which he received as a military ovation. Nero murdered their son, reportedly because Agrippina the Younger, mother of Nero, was in love with him and encouraged him to bid for the throne.
Asinius Gallus never denied his paternity of the son of Tiberius and Vipsania, Julius Caesar Drusus, heir from 19 AD to 23 AD, which means that he might also have been the father of the child Vipsania was expecting on her divorce. After his wife Vipsania died, he courted the widow of Germanicus, Agrippina. This, and his sharp wit, combined with the fact that he had been married to Vipsania, earned Tiberius' enmity.
In 30 AD, at Tiberius' instigation, the Senate declared Gallus a public enemy, and he was held in conditions of solitary confinement: "He had no companion or servant with him, spoke to no one, and saw no one, except when he was compelled to take food. And the food was of such quality and amount as neither to afford him any satisfaction or strength nor yet to allow him to die."
He died in prison in 33 (others mistakenly say 30) of starvation. When Agrippina died in October of that same year, Tiberius accused her of "having had Asinius Gallus as a paramour and being driven by his death to loathe existence". His name was erased from public monuments (a practice known as damnatio memoriae), though they were restored after Tiberius' death.
Family
Gaius and Vipsania had the following children:
In fiction
In the BBC television series I, Claudius, Gallus is portrayed by Charles Kay.