Gellias
Γελλίας
(Γελλίας), a citizen of Agrigentum, celebrated for his great wealth and magnificent style of living, as well as for his unbounded hospitality. He flourished just before the destruction of Agrigentum by the Carthaginians under Hannibal, the son of Giscon (B. C. 406). On that occasion he fled for refuge to the temple of Athena; but when he saw that no sanctuary could afford protection against the impiety of the enemy, he set fire to the temple and perished in the flames. (Diod. 13.83, 90; Athen. 1.4a; V. Max. 4.8.) The name is written Tellias in most of the MSS. of Athenaeus, and the error (if it be one) must be of ancient date, as the name is thus quoted both by Suidas and Eustathius. (Suid. s. v. Ἀθήναιος and Τελλίας; Eustath. ad Od. p. 1471.)
From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. Data accessed from https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-pdlrefwk/ on 17 October 2026.