Gessius

• a Roman family name, Tac. H. 5, 10.

(Γέσσιος·), an eminent physician, called by Stephanus Byzantinus (s. v. Γέα) ὁ περιφανέστατος ἰατροσοφίστης, was a native of Gea, a place near Petra, in Arabia, and lived in the reign of the emperor Zenon, A. D. 474-491. He was a pupil of Domnus, whose reputation he eclipsed, and whose scholars he enticed from him by his superior skill. He was an ambitious man, and acquired both riches and honours; but his reputation as a philosopher, though he wished to be considered such, was not very great. (Damascius ap. Suid s. v. Γέσιος, and Phot. Bibl. 242. p. 352b. 3, ed. Bekker.) He may perhaps be the physician mentioned by one of the scholiasts on Hippocrates. (Dietz, Schol. in Hippocr. et Gal. vol. ii. p. 343, note.) The little medical work that bears the name of Cassius Iatrosophista has been by some persons attributed to (Gesius, but without sufficient reason. (Fabric. Bibl. Graec. vol. xiii. p. 170, ed. Vet.) [W.A.G]

known only from coins, from which we learn that he was the chief magistrate at Smyrna during the latter end of the reign of Claudius and the beginning of that of Nero. The following coin has on the obverse the heads of Claudius and Agrippina, the mother of Nero, and on the reverse Nemesis, with A. ΓΕΣΣΙΟΣ ΦΙΛΩΠΑΤΡΙΣ. The coin was struck by the Smyrnaeans to congratulate Claudius on his marriage with Agrippina.

[Florus.]

[Marcianus, Gessius.]