CORNELLUS

Gaius Cornelius Grallus. A Latin poet, born 69 B.C. in the Gaulish town of Forum Iulii. Though of low birth, he was promoted by Octavian to the ordo equester in the year 30 B.C., and made governor (proefectus of the new province of Egypt, in consideration of his great services in the war against Antonius. Through his cruelty and presumption he drew upon himself the displeasure of his former patron; in consequence of which he committed suicide in 26 B.C. He was one of the oldest friends of Vergil, who dedicated to him his tenth Eclogue, as well as an episode at the end of the fourth Georgic, which he, after Gallus' fall, suppressed at the wish of Augustus. The Romans regarded him as the founder of the Latin elegy. He wrote four books of elegies to his mistress, the actress Cytheris (or Lycoris, as he called her). They are in the obscure and learned style of the Alexandrian poet Euphorion. His poems are lost, but a collection of erotic myths made for his use by the Greek Parthenios has survived. [A few lines in Vergil's tenth Eclogue were borrowed from Gallus.]