Aulus Gellius (c. AD 125 - after 180), Latin author and grammarian, possibly of African origin, probably born and certainly brought up at Rome. His only work, the Noctes Atticae, takes its name from having been begun during the long nights of a winter which he spent in Attica. It is compiled out of an Adversaria, or commonplace book, in which he had jotted down everything of unusual interest that he heard in conversation or read in books, and it comprises notes on grammar, geometry, philosophy, history and almost every other branch of knowledge. The work, deliberately devoid of sequence or arrangement, is divided into twenty books. All these have come down to us except the eighth, of which nothing remains but the index.