Gaius Galerius

Gaius Galerius was a Roman equites who was active during the reign of Tiberius. He is best known as the prefect or governor of Egypt (16-32).[1]

Galerius came of a prominent family of Ariminum. He has been identified as the husband of the sister of Helvia, mother of Seneca the Younger.[2] Some years after Galerius took up the posting of prefect of Egypt, Seneca came to live with them in Alexandria, where he stayed for a number of years. When the three of them sailed back to Rome in AD 32, Galerius perished in a shipwreck; according to Seneca, his wife recovered Galerius' body and buried it.[3]

It has been speculated that Galerius may be the ancestor, if not the father of Publius Galerius Trachalus, consul in 68. Both have a connection to Ariminum, and belong to the Roman voting tribe Aniensis.[4] This would mean Galerius was also related somehow to Galeria Fundana, although Suetonius reports she was the daughter of an unnamed senator who had achieved the traditional Republican magistracy of praetor.[5] However, that Seneca fails to mention any descendants of Galerius in his surviving writings weakens that possibility; another possibility would be that Trachalus and Fundana are related to Galerius thorugh an unrecorded brother or uncle.

Notes

1. G. Bastianini, "Lista dei prefetti d'Egitto dal 30^a al 299^p", Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik, 17 (1975), p. 270
2. Ronald Syme, Tacitus (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1958), p. 536
3. Seneca, De Consolatione ad Helviam, 19
4. Eric Birley, Review of Die Präfekten von Ägypten in römischer Zeit by Arthur Stein, Gnomon, 23 (1951), p. 443
5. De Vita Caesarum, "Vitellius", 6

Political offices
Preceded by Aemilius Rectus	Prefect of Aegyptus 16-32	Succeeded by Vitrasius Pollio