Gaius

“ Gaius. "Come, sir," said good Gaius, "be of good cheer: you are welcome to me and to my house. What thou hast a mind to, call for freely; and what thou wouldst have my servants do for thee, they will do it with a ready mind."
Then said Mr. Feeble-mind, "This is an unexpected favor, and as the sun shining out of a very dark cloud. Did Giant Slay-good intend me this favor when he stopped me, and resolved to let me go no farther? Did he intend that, after he had rifled my pockets, I should go to Gaius, mine host? Yet so it is." ”

“ These have more powerfully affected the interests of civilization than the arts of Greece. They are as permanent in their effects as any thing can be in this world—more so than palaces and marbles. The latter crumble away, but the legacy of Gaius, of Ulpian, of Paulus, of Tribonian, will be prized to the remotest ages, not only as a wonderful work of genius, but for its practical utility. ”

“ For he represented to him, that Gaius was a person of a good and obedient disposition, and one who entertained the greatest affection for his cousin, so that out of his exceeding regard for him he would be willing even to abandon the government and to yield it up to him by himself, but that excessive modesty was anything but advantageous to many persons, in consequence of which Gaius, who was of a most guileless and single-minded disposition, was looked upon by many as crafty and designing. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ So there they went, and the host, whose name was Gaius, said: Come in, for my house was built for none but such as you.
Great-heart:—Good Gaius, let us sup. What have you for us to eat? We have gone through great toils, and stand much in want of food.
Gaius:—It is too late for us to go out and seek food; but of such as we have you shall eat. ”

“ 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. ”

“ He sat down opposite to Gaius, who, looking up, observed, “If aught troubles you, follow my example, and quaff a cup or two of this generous wine. Nothing so effectually dissipates the mists which are apt to gather at times round our brains and obscure the vision.”
Coecus turned his eyes away with an expression of contempt from his convivial companion, and muttered something inaudible. “I have ample cause for anger and annoyance,” he said, at length. “What think you? This pestiferous doctrine of the Nazarenes has found its way even into the temple of Vesta. ”

“ In the character of Gaius, we see one who used the world as not abusing it. He was blessed with all the necessary comforts and conveniences of life, and very probably upon the whole, was in a very prosperous condition as it regards temporal matters ”

“ 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 ”

“ That was the kind of emperor into whose hands the Romans had now fallen. Hence the deeds of Tiberius, though they were felt to have been most grievous, were still as far superior to those of Gaius as the deeds of Augustus were to those of his successor. For Tiberius always held the power in his own hands and used other people to help him carry out his wishes: Gaius, on the other hand, was ruled by charioteers and by gladiators; he was the slave of dancers and other theatrical performers. ”

“ He shrank from the thought of putting to death, as the instrument of Gaius’s madness, such myriads of men, solely on the ground of their reverence of God, and of spending the rest of his life in remorse. ”

“ For all inferior men and nations are eager to imitate great men and great states. (339) Moreover, Gaius was in other respects a man in whose nature there was nothing stable or trustworthy so that, even if he did anything good or kind, he speedily repented of it, and in such a manner that he soon attempted to annul what he had done in such a way as to cause even greater affliction and injury to those whom he had favoured. ”

“ Julius was murdered. Augustus, they say, was poisoned. Tiberius was suffocated. My uncle Gaius was stabbed with many wounds. The life is not a happy one, and the dagger-stab too often finds its way through the purple.’
‘Degenerate boy!’ said Agrippina; ‘I do not wonder that you blush. Is it such a nothing to be a Lord of the World? Have you forgotten that you are a grandson of Germanicus, and that the blood of the Cæsars as well as of the Domitii flows in your veins? One would think you were as ordinary a boy as Britannicus. ”

“ These men hearing from travellers who visit the city how exceedingly eager and earnest Gaius is about his own deification, and how disposed he is to look unfavourably upon the whole race of Judaea, thinking that they have now an admirable opportunity for attacking them themselves, have erected an extemporaneous altar of the most contemptible materials, having made clay into bricks for the sole purpose of plotting against their fellow citizens; for they knew well that they would never endure to see their customs transgressed ”

“ Up to the present time it seems to me that you have no notion of acknowledging that you know, even by hearsay, that Gaius is emperor, but you shall very speedily find it out by your own experience, (256) for you are careful about the laws of the Jews, a nation which I hate above every other, and you are indifferent about the imperial commands of your sovereign. You fear the multitude. ”

“ If there was one man in all Rome whom the world envied next to the young Emperor, or even more than the Emperor himself, it was his tutor, Seneca. He was the leading man in Rome. By the popular critics of the day his style was thought the finest which any Roman had written, though the Emperor Gaius, in one of his lucid intervals, had wittily remarked that it was ‘sand without lime.’ His abilities were brilliant, his wealth was immense. ”

“ There was no detail of the character of Gaius of which he was in ignorance; indeed, he once remarked to his successor, who was quarreling with Tiberius: "You will kill him, and others will kill you." The emperor knew of no one else that suited him so entirely, and at the same time he was well aware that the man would be a thorough knave; yet the story obtains that he was glad to give him the empire in order that his own crimes might find concealment in the enormity of Gaius's offences and that the largest and the noblest portion of what was left of the senate might perish after him. ”

“ Gaius was in the habit of nicknaming him "sissy" (though he was the hardiest of men) and whenever it came the turn of Chairea to command would give him some such watchword as "yearning" or "Venus." Again, an oracle had a short time before warned Gaius to beware of Cassius. The former, supposing that it had reference to Gaius Cassius, governor of Asia at the time, because he was a descendant of that Cassius who had slain Cæsar, had him brought as a prisoner. The person whose future conduct the divinity was really indicating to the emperor, however, was this Cassius Chairea. ”

“ Homer has mentioned this Ægæ in a speech of Hera,
“They bring you gifts to Helice and Ægæ,” [15]
plainly therefore Poseidon had gifts equally at Helice and Ægæ. And at no great distance from Crathis is a tomb on the right of the road, and on it you will find a rather indistinct painting of a man standing by a horse. And the road from this tomb to what is called Gaius is 30 stades: Gaius is a temple of Earth called the Broad-breasted. The statue is very ancient. And the woman who becomes priestess remains henceforth in a state of chastity, and before she must only have been married once. ”

“ Therefore Gaius was exasperated still more against our nation, and cherished a more furious anger against us than before, "For," said he, "if Agrippa, who is my most intimate and dearest friend, and one bound to me by so many benefits, is to completely under the influence of his national customs that he cannot bear even to hear a word against them, but faints away to such a degree as to be near dying, what must one expect will be the feelings of others who have no motive or influence to draw them the other way?" ”

“ Thus, in the table last given, Gaius, Faustus, Balbus, Publius, Terentia, Terentia Minor, Titus, Tiberius, Quintus, Sextius, Servius, and Decimus are all cognates with one another. So, too, is Gaia with all her descendants mentioned. So also are Tullia, Titus, and Tiberius; Licinia, Quintus, and Sextius; Marcus, Servius, and Decimus. But husband and wife (Gaius and Gaia, Faustus and Tullia, Balbus and Licinia, Marcus and Terentia Minor) were not cognates by virtue of their marriage, though that made them agnates. ”

“ As a mere literary composition, he might interpret it rightly, and Gaius, or Papinian, might be wrong; but if his interpretation was ever so right grammatically or critically, yet, legally it was nothing to the purpose;--Gaius's interpretation had superseded it, and was not the law which he was bound to obey. But, in the church, the only point to be aimed at is the discovery of the true meaning of the text of the divine law: no human power can invest the comment with equal authority. ”

“ For my part, I have confidence that our system will endure, and that we shall still retain the power we have hitherto enjoyed.”
“May the gods favour us!” answered Gaius. “Happily, the people are easily deceived and led, though the patricians may give us some trouble.”
“We can manage them by showing that it is to their interest to support us,” observed Coecus: “I have not studied human nature without discovering the follies and absurdities to which the minds of men, no matter their rank, are ready to submit. ”

“ It was true that there had been calamity enough in the bloodstained annals of her kinsfolk: calamity all the more deadly in proportion to their awful growth in power and wealth. Her thoughts reverted to the story of her nearest relatives. She thought of the days of Tiberius, when men scarcely dared to speak above a whisper, and when murder lurked at the entrance of every noble home. Her uncles Gaius and Lucius Cæsar had died in the prime of their age. Had they been poisoned by Sejanus? ”

“ The flamen listened attentively to the remarks of his superior.
“By the Immortals, we need not despair, Coecus guiding us!” he exclaimed; “whatever he proposes, he may depend on our carrying out to the letter.”
“Then listen, Flaccus,” said Gaius; “we can no longer hide from the people the progress made by the new faith, or that it is patronised by the emperor; but we may persuade them that the gods are grieved at the abandonment of their ancient worship ”

“ In this will he named his grandsons, Gaius, son of Germanicus, and Tiberius, son of Drusus, heirs to equal shares of his estate, each to be sole heir in case of the other's death. Besides, he gave legacies to several, including the vestal virgins, as well as to each and every man of the soldiers and the commons of Rome, with separate ones to the masters of the city wards. ”

“ When Gaius reached the Euphrates, Phraataces, now thoroughly aroused by active intervention on the part of Rome, held an interview with him on an island, while the armies were drawn up on opposite banks. Later the two dined, first on the Roman side and then on the Parthian, pledging their good faith thus in typical eastern fashion. One of the officers, Velleius Paterculus, a youthful tribune with Gaius, aptly describes Phraataces as an excellent youth. ”

“ For who-when he saw Gaius, after the death of Tiberius Caesar, assuming the sovereignty of the whole world in a condition free from all sedition, and regulated by and obedient to admirable laws, and adapted to unanimity and harmony in all its parts, east and west, south and north; the barbarian nations being in harmony with the Greeks, and the Greeks with the barbarians, and the soldiers with the body of private citizens, and the citizens with the military ”

“ We have brought unto you our wives, and our children, and our whole families, and in your person we will prostrate ourselves before Gaius, having left not one single person at home, that you may either preserve us all, or destroy us all together by one general and complete destruction. Petronius, we are a peaceful nation, both by our natural disposition and by our determined intentions, and the education which has been industriously and carefully instilled into us has taught us this lesson from our very earliest infancy. ”