Gnaeus Gellius was the author of a history of Rome

Rome

Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

 from the earliest epoch, extending, as we gather from Censorinus

Censorinus

Censorinus, Roman grammarian and miscellaneous writer, flourished during the 3rd century AD.He was the author of a lost work De Accentibus and of an extant treatise De Die Natali, written in 238, and dedicated to his patron Quintus Caerellius as a birthday gift...

, down to the year 145 BC at least. We know that the Rape of the Sabines was described in the second book; the reign of Titus Tatius

Titus Tatius

The traditions of ancient Rome held that Titus Tatius was the Sabine king of Cures, who, after the rape of the Sabine women, attacked Rome and captured the Capitol with the treachery of Tarpeia. The Sabine women, however, convinced Tatius and the Roman king, Romulus, to reconcile and subsequently...

 in the third; the death of Postumius during the second Punic war

Second Punic War

The Second Punic War, also referred to as The Hannibalic War and The War Against Hannibal, lasted from 218 to 201 BC and involved combatants in the western and eastern Mediterranean. This was the second major war between Carthage and the Roman Republic, with the participation of the Berbers on...

, and the purpose to which his skull was applied by the Boii

Boii

The Boii were one of the most prominent ancient Celtic tribes of the later Iron Age, attested at various times in Cisalpine Gaul , Pannonia , in and around Bohemia, and Transalpine Gaul...

, in the thirty-third; and we find a quotation in Choricius

Choricius of Gaza

Choricius, of Gaza , Greek sophist and rhetorician, flourished in the time of Anastasius I .He was the pupil of Procopius of Gaza, who must be distinguished from Procopius of Caesarea, the historian. A number of his declamations and descriptive treatises have been preserved...

 from the ninety-seventh, if we can trust the number. Hence it is manifest that a considerable space was devoted to the legends connected with the origin of Rome; and that if these books were in general equal in length to the similar divisions in Livy

Livy

Titus Livius — known as Livy in English — was a Roman historian who wrote a monumental history of Rome and the Roman people. Ab Urbe Condita Libri, "Chapters from the Foundation of the City," covering the period from the earliest legends of Rome well before the traditional foundation in 753 BC...

, the compilation of Gellius must have been exceedingly voluminous, and the details more ample than those contained in Livy, by whom, as well as by Plutarch

Plutarch

Plutarch then named, on his becoming a Roman citizen, Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus , c. 46 – 120 AD, was a Greek historian, biographer, essayist, and Middle Platonist known primarily for his Parallel Lives and Moralia...

, he seems to have been altogether neglected, although occasionally cited by Dionysius

Dionysius of Halicarnassus

Dionysius of Halicarnassus was a Greek historian and teacher of rhetoric, who flourished during the reign of Caesar Augustus. His literary style was Attistic — imitating Classical Attic Greek in its prime.-Life:...

. He was apparently both an accurate chronologer and a diligent investigator of ancient usages.