Aulus Gellius was a Roman author and grammarian, who was probably born and certainly brought up in Rome. He was educated in Athens, after which he returned to Rome. He is famous for his Attic Nights,
Frontispiece to a 1706 Latin edition of the Attic Nights [fr] by Jakob Gronovius
Ex pede Herculem, "from his foot, Hercules", is a maxim of proportionality inspired by an experiment attributed to Pythagoras.
Aulus Gellius
…Translated by Rolfe, John Carew. Cambridge, MA & London: Harvard University Press and William Heinemann. 1927 – via Internet Archive.; volume 2; volume 3 Ex pede Herculem Gellia gens…
The Artist Moved to Despair by the Grandeur of Antique Fragments, chalk and sepia drawing by Henry Fuseli, 1778-79