An alternative view claims that hints in the sources suggest that Gallus was sent to Ephesus to study, then to a type of exile in Tralles and from there to the imperial household in Macellum.

Other sources, basing their views on an almost-peaceful situation between the Sassanids and Romans while Shapur II was engaged in a campaign against the Huns in the east, dismiss this claim.

Ammianus relays an abortive scheme of Nohodares, Shapur's lieutenant in Mesopotamia, to surprise the town of Batnae, which was betrayed by some in his own army, in 353.

[11] As a consequence of the need to gather food for the troops for a Persian campaign or because of drought, the grain supply in Antioch decreased.

In order to counter the higher price of grain, Gallus forced the passage of some laws regardless of the opinion of the Senate, thus alienating the senatorial class of Antioch.

[9] Ammianus Marcellinus, a pro-senatorial writer, tells how the anger of the people of Antioch for the famine was diverted by Gallus towards the consularis Syriae Theophilus, who was killed by the mob.

[12] Ammianus reports also that Gallus and Constantina brought a number of wealthy people to trial for magic, ending in the execution of innocents and in the confiscation of their wealth.

Different sources tell different stories, but all agree that Gallus arrested Domitianus and the quaestor Montius Magnus who had come to his aid, and that the two officers were killed.

First he summoned Ursicinus to the West, whom he suspected of inciting Gallus in order to create the occasion for a revolt and the usurpation of his own son.

Constantina left first, in order to gain some of her brother's trust, but suddenly died from a fever at Caeni Gallicani in Bithynia.

Here he was interrogated by some of the highest officials of Constantius' court, including the eunuch praepositus sacri cubiculi Eusebius and the agens in rebus Apodemius.