Гай Корнелий Галл: Рим саяхатшысы, ақын және саяси қайраткері

1st century BC Roman poet, orator and politician

Gaius Cornelius Gallus (c. 70 – 26 BC) was a Roman poet, orator, politician and military commander, at one time appointed by the Emperor Augustus as prefect of Egypt. Although only nine lines of his poetry are extant today, he was considered by Ovid as one of the major Latin poets of the 1st century BC.

The identity of Gallus' purported birthplace, Forum Iulii, is still uncertain, and it is based on the epithet "Foroiuliensis" that Jerome gave to him. In Roman times, there were several cities with this name, but a dispute about Gallus' birthplace between Fréjus and the other cities is attested since the Renaissance. During the 20th century, Ronald Syme took into consideration Fréjus and Cividale del Friuli, and called the former the more likely. Jean Paul Boucher recognized at least five candidates, and considered Forum Iulii Iriensium (modern Voghera) the most suitable.

Born in a humble family, Gallus moved to Rome at an early age where he was taught by the same master as Virgil and Varius Rufus. Virgil, who was in great measure indebted to the influence of Gallus for the restoration of his estate, dedicated one of his eclogues (X) to him. The Erotica Pathemata of Parthenius of Nicaea was also dedicated to Gallus. In political life Gallus espoused the cause of Octavian and as a reward for his services was made prefect of Egypt (Suetonius, Augustus, 66). In 30 BC, Cornelius Gallus led a campaign to subdue a revolt in Thebes. He erected a monument in Philae to glorify his accomplishments. Gallus' conduct brought him into disgrace with the emperor and a new prefect was appointed. After his recall, Gallus committed suicide (Cassius Dio, liii 23).

Gallus enjoyed a high reputation among his contemporaries as a man of intellect, and Ovid (Tristia, IV) considered him the first of the elegiac poets of Rome. Along with Ennius, Varro Atacinus, Lucretius, Virgil, and Tibullus, Ovid includes him in a list of the most notable Latin poets, writing:
Gallus et Hesperiīs et Gallus nōtus Eōīs;    et sua cum Gallō nōta Lycōris erit. "Gallus shall be known in the West and in the East;and with Gallus his Lycoris shall also be known." He wrote four books of elegies chiefly on his mistress Lycoris (a poetical name for Cytheris, a notorious actress), in which he took for his model Euphorion of Chalcis; he also translated some of this author's works into Latin. He is often thought of as a key figure in the establishment of the genre of Latin love elegy, and an inspiration for Propertius, Tibullus, and Ovid. Scholars used to believe, in the absence of any surviving poetry by Gallus and on the basis of his high reputation among his contemporaries, that his poetical gifts were little short of those of Virgil. The classicist Tenney Frank famously declared in 1922: 'What would we not barter of all the sesquipedalian epics of empire for a few pages of Cornelius Gallus, a thousand for each!' The discoveries at Qasr Ibrim have now given us nine lines of Gallus. Coincidentally, one of them mentions Lycoris, ('saddened, Lycoris, by your wanton behaviour'), confirming their authorship.

Gallus is the central figure in a fictionalised but fact based account of the private life, manner and customs of the Romans: Gallus, or Roman Scenes of the time of Augustus, written by Professor Wilhelm Adolf Becker of Leipzig and published there in 1838. The work was translated into English by the Rev. Frederick Metcalfe in the 1840s. The 1898 Longmans, Green & Co. edition is available as a scan at the Internet Archive and is (2021) being prepared as an e book by Project Gutenberg. The story of Gallus's fall from Augustus's favour forms the framework for an extensive learned discourse on what life was like in Rome as evidenced in Latin extracts from a number of writers (Suetonius, Martial, Pliny, Ovid, etc.) but most notably quotations in the Ancient Greek from Cassius Dio. The book contains extensive notes and 'Excursus' on various subjects including: the Roman Family, the Roman House, Books and Letters, Baths and Gymnastics, Dress, Banqueting, Drinking, and the Burial of the Dead.