Who the anonymous author of the _Rhetor. ad Herennium_ actually was, has been the subject of much learned controversy, and the point remains still undetermined. Priscian repeatedly cites it as the work of Cicero; whence it was believed to be the production of Cicero by Laurentius Valla, George of Trebizond, Politian, and other great restorers of learning in the fifteenth century; and this opinion was from time to time, though feebly, revived by less considerable writers in succeeding periods. It seems now, however, entirely abandoned; but, while all critics and commentators agree in _abjudicating_ the work from Cicero, they differ widely as to the person to whom the production should be assigned. Aldus Manutius, Sigonius, Muretus, and Riccobonus, were of opinion, that it was written by Q. Cornificius the elder, who was Cæsar’s Quæstor during the civil war, and subsequently his lieutenant in Africa, of which province, after the Dictator’s death, he kept possession for the republican party, till he was slain in an engagement with one of the generals of Octavius. The judgment of these scholars is chiefly founded on some passages in Quintilian, who attributes to Cornificius several critical and philological definitions which coincide with those introduced in the _Rhetorica ad Herennium_. Gerard Vossius, however, has adopted an opinion, that if at all written by a person of that name, it must have been by the younger Cornificius(355), who was born in 662, and, having followed the party of Octavius, was appointed Consul by favour of the Triumvirate in 718. Raphael Regius also seems inclined to attribute the work to Cornificius the son(356). But if the style be considered too remote from that of the age of Cicero, to be ascribed to any of his contemporaries, he conceives it may be plausibly conjectured to have been the production of Timolaus, one of the thirty tyrants in the reign of Gallienus. Timolaus had a brother called Herenianus, to whom his work may have been dedicated, and he thinks that _Timolaus ad Herenianum_ may have been corrupted into _Tullius ad Herennium_. J. C. Scaliger attributes the work to Gallio, a rhetorician in the time of Nero(357)—an opinion which obtained currency in consequence of the discovery of a MS. copy of the _Rhetorica ad Herennium_, with the name of Gallio prefixed to it(358).