Philo

“ The Farmer grows in wealth, wealth has no worth,
Until dispers’d among the sons of earth;
His Children rise with wealth, they learning gain,
And knowledge still extends the golden chain;
Wisdom in Virtue ends, and thus he tries
To raise a lowly Peasant to the skies;
Thus imitating Heaven while here below,
Endeavouring so his image fair to show,
In pristine beauty, bursting from the clay,
As from his makers hand, he sprung to day.
* * * * *
Could such a man then in the shades remain,
To cheer the heart and bless the labouring swain? ”

“ Gaius is my work; the work of Macro. I am more truly, or at all events not less truly, his father than his own parents. He would have been destroyed, over and over again, by Tiberius, who thirsted for his blood, if it had not been for me and for my powers of persuasion. And moreover, when Tiberius was dead, I, who had under my command the whole force of the army, immediately placed him in the position which Tiberius had occupied, teaching him that the state had indeed sustained a loss of one man, but that the imperial authority continued unaltered, as entire as ever. ”

“ And the flaming sword is a symbol of the sun; for as he is a collection of an immense body of flame, he is the swiftest of all existing things, to such a degree that in one day he revolves round the whole world. ”

“ O King of gods and men! you are not, then, indifferent to the Jewish nation, nor are the assertions which they relate with respect to your providence false; but those men who say that that people has not you for their champion and defender, are far from a correct opinion. And I am an evident proof of this; for all the frantic designs which I conceived against the Jews, I now suffer myself. ”

“ Tell me then, O Gaius! do you, after having made all these contributions to universal destruction, do you, I say, seek to acquire immortality in order to make the calamities which you have heaped upon mankind, not of brief duration and short-lived, but imperishable and everlasting? But I think, on the contrary, that even if you had previously appeared to be a god, you would beyond all question have been changed on account of your evil practices into an ordinary nature, resembling that of common perishable mortals ”

“ Bright truth shall guide me, like the solar rays,
Illume my darkness and direct my praise!
Inspire each thought, and breathe in ev’ry line,
And grace my Eulogy with rays divine;
And, while I paint the scene, the fact recite,
Still burst upon me in a blaze of light.
Wake then my Muse the gen’rous trump of fame,
And let her clarion laud the Patriot’s name;
p. 3Whose glorious actions well deserve the lay,
In deathless strains his merits to pourtray;
Who, while he makes his much loved Holkham smile,
Exalts the glory of our Sea girt Isle. ”

“ And yet if ever there was a man to whom it was proper that new and unprecedented honours should be voted, it was certainly fitting that such should be decreed to him, not only because he was as it were the origin and fountain of the family of Augustus, not because he was the first, and greatest, and universal benefactor, having, instead of the multitude of governors who existed before, entrusted the common vessel of the state to himself as one pilot of admirable skill in the science of government to steer and govern ”

“ And have we, by any insolence or obstinacy of ours, caused you any suffering? Behold reason armed and standing in opposition to God, by whom all good and all bad fortune is brought to its accomplishment. ”

“ Again, I led some of them into the theatre, and commanded them to be shamelessly and unjustly insulted in the sight of their greatest enemies; and therefore I justly have been myself led not into a theatre or into one city, but into many cities, to endure the utmost extremity of insult, being ill-treated in my miserable soul instead of my body; for I was led in procession through the whole of Italy as far as Brundusium, and through all Peloponnesus as far as Corinth, and through Attica, and all the islands as far as Andros, which is this prison of mine ”

“ While Virtue’s beams, his closing scene illume;
And, like the day star in the rubied west,
Shine fuller, lovelier, as he sinks to rest.
When rising ’mong the spheres his spirit soars,
As highest Heaven’s Empyrean he explores;
Glides ’mid the stars, surveys the milky way,
Exulting in the bright celestial day;
Then may indulgent Heaven delight his shade,
With aided ken, the curtain to pervade;
Which hides the realms ethereal from our sight,
And that bright region clouds with shades of night ”

“ We who were formerly very fortunate, have now advanced through many events to an exceeding old age that we might at last behold what no one of our ancestors ever saw. With what eyes can we endure to look upon these things? Let them rather be torn out, and let our miserable lives and our afflicted existence be put an end to, before we behold such an evil as this, such an intolerable spectacle which it is impious to hear of or to conceive. ”

“ We have been describing the evidence of hostile and unfriendly men, who seek to injure us with such artifice, that even when injuring us they may not appear to have been acting iniquitously, and yet that we who are injured by them cannot resist with safety to ourselves; for, my good men, it does not contribute to the honour of the emperor to abrogate the laws, to disturb the national customs of a people, to insult those who live in the same country, and to teach those who dwell in other cities to disregard unanimity and tranquillity. ”

“ And great thanks are due to the Maker of all things, because he, knowing the struggles and resistance of folly, did not give to it the power of language, which would have been like giving a sword to a madman, in order that it might have no power to work great and iniquitous destruction among all whom it should meet with. ”

“ Praise—when it is fairly earned and justly due, is that meed which virtue delights to bestow upon merit; and, as it is highly gratifying to every worthy mind to receive, so next to those who merit it, it is to none more delightful than to those who are allied to, and love and regard the object of the Eulogy. Most grateful then must it be to the feelings of a beloved wife, to hear and even read of the honorable and praise-worthy actions of a kind and tender husband. ”

“ Your loyal and excellent fellow citizens, the only nation of men upon the whole face of the earth by whom Gaius is not esteemed to be a god, appear now to be even desiring to plot my death in their obstinate disobedience, for when I commanded my statue in the character of Jupiter to be erected in their temple, they raised the whole of their people, and quitted the city and the whole country in a body, under pretence of addressing a petition to me, but in reality being determined to act in a manner contrary to the commands which I had imposed upon them. ”

“ I omit to mention, that even if they had committed the most countless iniquities, nevertheless the governor ought, out of respect for the season, to have delayed their punishment; for with all rulers, who govern any state on constitutional principles, and who do not seek to acquire a character for audacity, but who do really honour their benefactors, it is the custom to punish no one, even of those who have been lawfully condemned, until the famous festival and assembly, in honour of the birth-day of the illustrious emperor, has passed. ”

“ But you are now applying tests which have no soundness in them, and in consequence are unreasonably violent against us; for if you had understood from the beginning that it is not the pursuits which you follow that are the causes of your participation in good or in evil, but rather the divine reason, which is the helmsman and governor of the universe, then you would more easily have borne the events which have befallen you, ceasing to bring false accusations against us, and to attribute to us effects which we are unable to produce. ”

“ But when Tiberius was dead, and Gaius succeeded to the empire, he then, following a new master, who invited him to every description of relaxation and luxury, such as could delight every one of his outward senses, said to himself: "Rise up, O Helicon! now is your opportunity. You have now an auditor, and a spectator, who is of all men in the world the best calculated to receive the exhibition of your talents favourably. You are a man of very attractive natural talents. You are able to joke graceful, and to say witty, things beyond any one else. ”