Gaius Aquilius Gallus

Gaius Aquilius Gallus was a Roman jurist of the equestrian and senatorial Aquillia family who was active in the 1st century BC. He studied law under Quintus Mucius Scaevola Pontifex and went on to teach Servius Sulpicius Rufus, placing him at the center of the late Republic's most influential legal lineage. He served as praetor in 66 BC alongside Cicero and presided over cases involving electoral bribery, and later Roman lawyers credited him with devising several lasting legal instruments, including the stipulatio Aquiliana, a standard clause for extinguishing all claims arising from a transaction, and the actio de dolo and exceptio doli, remedies against fraud. He appears in Cicero's pro Caecina as a leading authority consulted on the case, and Pliny the Elder recorded that his house on the Viminal Hill was celebrated as one of the finest in Rome. None of his own writings survive independently, but later jurists cited him repeatedly, and excerpts of his views reached Justinian's Digest through those citations.