Gaius Asinius Gallus Saloninus


Gaius Asinius Gallus Saloninus was the son of Gaius Asinius Pollio, consul in 40 BC, and Quinctia. He is best known as the second husband of Vipsania, eldest daughter of Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa and first wife of Tiberius, who ultimately imprisoned him.

Biography

In 11 BC he married Vipsania Agrippina, daughter of Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa and his first wife Caecilia Attica, and the former wife of Tiberius. Their union proved fruitful and produced at least six children. Gallus also claimed true paternity of Drusus Julius Caesar, earning him Tiberius' animosity. If Gallus' claim was true, he might also have been the father of the child Vipsania was expecting on her divorce.
He is mentioned among the speakers at the senate meeting discussing Augustus' funeral in AD 14; on the subject of last honours he proposed that the funeral train should pass under a triumphal gateway. When the senate met to discuss the transfer of power, Gallus made a joke at Tiberius' expense; when Tiberius remarked he would take charge of whichever department was assigned to him, Gallus responded by asking him to choose whichever he wished. This embarrassed Tiberius publicly, and although Gallus attempted to quell the emperor's anger, he was unsuccessful.
In 30, he was arrested on Tiberius' orders. At Tiberius' instigation, the Senate declared Gallus a public enemy, and he was held in conditions of solitary confinement: "He had no companion or servant with him, spoke to no one, and saw no one, except when he was compelled to take food. And the food was of such quality and amount as neither to afford him any satisfaction or strength nor yet to allow him to die."
He died in prison of starvation in the year 33. When Agrippina died in October of that same year, Tiberius accused her of "having had Asinius Gallus as a paramour and being driven by his death to loathe existence". His name was erased from public monuments, although this was reversed restored after Tiberius' death.

Marriage and children

Asinius Gallus' marriage to Vipsania led to the following known children:
In the BBC television series I, Claudius, Gallus is portrayed by Charles Kay.
In Lloyd C Douglas's novel The Robe, Gallus is furnished with a fictional daughter Diana, the love interest of the story.