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Gaius or Caius Asinius Gallus Saloninus was an ambitious Roman senator with family connections to the Julio-Claudian house. Asinius Gallus was consul in 8 BC, and proconsul of Asia in 6 BC/5 BC. He was a friend of Augustus Caesar and opposed Tiberius. He introduced measures to the senate to increase Tiberius's power to try to shame the ruler. These embarrassed Tiberius publicly, and Tiberius had him arrested in 30. Tiberius alleged that Asinius had committed adultery with Vipsania Agrippina the Elder, the opponent of Sejanus whom Tiberius had banished in 29, and had his name erased from all public monuments. Gaius died after three years in custody.

He was son to Gaius Asinius Pollio, a Roman senator and consul 40 BC. In 11 BC he married Vipsania Agrippina, daughter of Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa and his first wife Caecilia Attica, and the former wife of Tiberius. They had the following children:

• Gaius Asinius Pollio II - Consul in 23. In 45, Pollio was exiled as an accuser of a conspiracy and later was put to death on orders from Empress Valeria Messalina. The Asinia Pollionis filia mentioned on an inscription from Tusculum may have been his daughter. He was perhaps the father (or his brother of Caius Asinius Placentinus (b. 25), nob. v. at the middle of the 1st century, and (Marcus Asinius Pollio) (b. 30), the first of them perhaps the father of Marcus Asinius Pollio Verrucosus (45 or 50 – after 81), Consul in 81, the second of them perhaps the father of Marcus Asinius Atratinus (55 – after 89, Consul of Rome in 89, any of them in turn perhaps the father of Caius Asinius M.f. Tucurianus, Proconsul in Sardinia ca 115 (Hypothesis 1). He was the grandfather of Pomponia Graecina.

• Marcus Asinius Agrippa - Consul in 25 and died in 27 (some say 26). Tacitus (Annals 4.61) describes him as "not unworthy of his ancestors". His son Marcus Asinius Marcellus was Consul in 54 along with Marcus Acilius Aviola (at the time the Emperor Claudius died). Marcellus was a prominent and respected Senator in Claudius' and Nero’s reigns. In 60, Marcellus was involved and caught in a scandal, that a relative of a Praetor, forged his will. The associates in the scandal were disgraced and punished. Although Marcellus was disgraced and his accomplices executed, he escaped punishment because the Emperor Nero (being his third cousin) intervened to save him, reportedly because he was "great-grandson of Asinius Pollio and bore a character far from contemptible.". He is mentioned in Tacitus, Annals XII.64 and XIV.40. Marcus Asinius Marcellus had a son of the same name. The younger Marcus Asinius Marcellus was a Consul in 104 under Emperor Trajan. He was the brother or father of Asinia Marcella, Domina figl., wife of Caius Julius Quadratus Bassus, Legate at Judaea between 102 and 105, Consul of Rome in 105 and Proconsul of Asia in 105. Marcus Asinius Agrippa was perhaps the father of (Marcus Asinius Pollio) (b. 25) and Caius Asinius Placentinus (b. 30), nob. v. at the middle of the 1st century, the first of them perhaps the father of Marcus Asinius Pollio Verrucosus (45 or 50 – after 81), Consul of Rome in 81, and the second of them perhaps the father of Marcus Asinius Atratinus (55 – after 89), Consul of Rome in 89, any of them in turn perhaps the father of Caius Asinius M.f. Tucurianus, Proconsul of Sardinia ca 115. These Asinii Marcelli were from the same branch of the Claudii Marcelli which united with the family of Augustus, from the Gens Claudia.

• ... Asinius Saloninus (sometimes wrongly called Salonius), died in 22. Tacitus describes him as an ‘eminent’ person. Saloninus was intended to marry one of the granddaughters of Emperor Tiberius (Tacitus, Annals 3.75).

• Servius Asinius Celer. He was consul suffectus in 38. From Caligula he purchased a fish at an enormous price. He is mentioned in the satire, by Seneca, The Pumpkinification of Claudius, where he is listed among the many people killed by that emperor. His death probably occurred sometime before mid-47. Asinius Celer seems to have had a daughter by the name of Asinia Agrippina, though her existence is obscure.

• ... Asinius Gallus (Lucius Asinius Gallus) (sometimes wrongly called Gallo). In 46 he conspired against Claudius and was forced to go into exile. Cassius Dio (60.27.5) describes him as being "very small and ugly". Later reabilitated, he became Consul in 62.

• Gnaeus Asinius. His existence is recorded by the townsfolk of Puteoli, whose patron he was. Nothing else is known about him. He may have been identical with Asinius Saloninus or the foregoing Asinius Gallus. Since the Asinius Gallus seems to have been the Lucius Asinius Gallus who became a Consul in 60, by exclusion of parts the Gnaeus Asinius must be the Asinius Saloninus.

A descendant of Vipsania and Gallus, Pomponia Graecina, became a distinguished lady. Pomponia might have been a Christian and lived an unhappy long life. Pomponia married Aulus Plautius. Plautius was a general in the conquest of Britain, which he received as a military ovation. Nero murdered their son, reportedly because Agrippina the Younger, mother of Nero, was in love with him and encouraged him to bid for the throne.

Another descendant or otherwise relative, Caius Asinius Lepidus Praetextatus (210 – after 242), became a Consul in 242, being the son of Caius Asinius Lepidus, Suffect Consul of Rome in 222 and wife (Vettia) (b. 190 or 195).

Asinius Gallus never denied his paternity of the son of Tiberius and Vipsania, Julius Caesar Drusus, heir from 19 AD to 23 AD^[1], which means that he might also have been the father of the child Vipsania was expecting on her divorce. After his wife Vipsania died, he courted the widow of Germanicus, Agrippina. This, and his sharp wit, combined with the fact that he had been married to Vipsania, earned Tiberius' enmity.

In 30 AD, at Tiberius' instigation, the Senate declared Gallus a public enemy, and he was held in conditions of solitary confinement (Dio Cassius 58.3): "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 in 33 (others mistakenly say 30) of starvation (Tacitus, Annals 6.23). 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" (Annals 6.25). His name was erased from public monuments (a practice known as damnatio memoriae), though they were restored after Tiberius' death.

• Syme, Ronald and Barbara M. Levick. "Asinius Gallus, Gaius." In Hornblower, Simon and Antony Spawforth, eds. The Oxford Classical Dictionary. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2003. 191-2.
• Christian Settipani, Les Ancêtres de Charlemagne (France: Éditions Christian, 1989).
• Christian Settipani, Continuite Gentilice et Continuite Familiale Dans Les Familles Senatoriales Romaines A L'epoque Imperiale, Mythe et Realite, Addenda I - III (juillet 2000- octobre 2002) (n.p.: Prosopographica et Genealogica, 2002).
• Luíz Paulo Manuel de Menezes de Mello Vaz de São-Payo, A Herança Genética de Dom Afonso I Henriques (Portugal: Centro de Estudos de História da Família da Universidade Moderna do Porto, Porto, 2002).
• Manuel Dejante Pinto de Magalhães Arnao Metello and João Carlos Metello de Nápoles, "Metellos de Portugal, Brasil e Roma", Torres Novas, 1998

1. ^ Cassius Dio, LVII, 2.7

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