Gallicanus

a Roman consular, who, along with Maecenas, rashly slew two soldiers who through curiosity had entered the senatehouse, and thus gave rise to that bloody strife which raged for many days between the populace and the praetorians during the brief reign of Balbinus and Pupienus, A. D. 238. In the course of these disorders a large portion of the city was destroyed by fire. (Herodian. 7.27; Capitolin. Maximin. duo, 20, Gordiani tres, 22.) [W.R]

a rhetorician mentioned by Fronto (p. 128, ed. Niebuhr), where, however, A. Mai remarks that the word Gallicanus may be a mere adjective to designate a rhetorician of Gaul, and that Fronto may allude to Favorinus, the Gallic sophist of Arles. Whether Mai is right or not cannot be decided, but the Squilla Gallicanus to whom one of Fronto's letters (Ad Amic. 1.28, p. 207, ed. Niebuhr) is addressed, must, at all events, be a different person. The latter is mentioned in the Fasti as consul, in A. D. 127, in the reign of Hadrian. Whether this M. Squilla Gallicanus, again, is the same as the one who occurs in the Fasti as consul in A. D. 150, is uncertain, as under the latter date the Fasti are incomplete, and have only the name Gallicanus. [L.S]

the name prefixed in the collection, entitled Scriptores Historiae Augustae [see Capitolinus], to the life of Avidius Cassius. Not one circumstance connected with this author is known; and Salmasius, following the authority of the Palatine MS. would assign the biography in question to Spartianus. Whoever the compiler may have been, the work itself is a miserable performance, so defective and confused, that several of the leading events connected with the rebellion in the East would be altogether unintelligible did we not possess more accurate and distinct sources of information. For editions, &c. see Capitolinus. [W.R]