GALLIO . The elder brother of Seneca. According to Acts ( Acts 18:12-17 ), he was proconsul of Achala under the Emperor Claudius a.d. 53, when St. Paul was in Corinth. Seneca mentions that his brother contracted fever in Achaia, and thus corroborates Acts. The Jews of Corinth brought St. Paul before Gallio, charging him with persuading men ‘to worship God contrary to the law’ ( Acts 18:13 ). When, however, Gallio found that there was no charge of ‘villainy,’ but only of questions which the Jews as a self-administering community were competent to decide for themselves, he drove them from the judgment-seat ( Acts 18:14 f.). Sosthenes, the ruler of the synagogue, was then dragged before him and beaten; but such ‘Lynch law’ had no effect upon the proconsul ( Acts 18:17 ).
Pliny tells us that Gallio after his consulship travelled from Rome to Egypt in consequence of an attack of hæmorrhage from the lungs. Eusebius quotes Jerome as saying that he committed suicide a.d. 65; it is also said that he as well as Seneca was put to death by Nero; but these reports are unsubstantiated. Seneca speaks of him as a man of extreme amiability of character.
Charles T. P. Grierson.