Gaius Sulpicius Gallus,
Roman general, statesman and orator.
Under
Lucius Aemilius Paulus, his intimate friend, he commanded the 2nd legion in the campaign against
Perseus, king of Macedonia, and gained great reputation for having predicted an eclipse of the moon on the night before the
battle of Pydna (168 BC).
On his return from
Macedonia he was elected consul (
166), and in the same year reduced the
Ligurians to submission. In
164 he was sent as ambassador to
Greece and
Asia, where he held a meeting at
Sardis to investigate the charges brought against
Eumenes II of
Pergamon by the representatives of various cities of
Asia Minor.
Gallus was a man of great learning, an excellent Greek scholar, and in his later years devoted himself to the study of
astronomy, on which subject he is quoted as an authority by
Pliny. The crater
Sulpicius Gallus is named after him.
See
Livy xliv. 37,
Epit. 46;
Polybius xxxi. 9, 10;
Cicero, Brutus, 20,
De officiis, i. 6,
De senectute, 14; Pliny,
Nat. Hist. ii. 9.
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