Legatio Ad Gaium

Was he inferior in birth? No; he was of the most noble blood by both parents. Was he inferior in his education? Who, of all the men who flourished in his time, was either more prudent or more eloquent? Or in his age? What king or emperor ever lived to more prosperous old age than he? Moreover, he, even while he was still a young man, was called the old man as a mark of

Again, why did you not pay similar honour to him who exceeded the common race of human nature in every virtue, who, by reason of the greatness of his absolute power and his own excellence, was the first man to be called Augustus, not receiving the title after another by a succession of blood as a part of his inheritance, but who was himself the origin of his successors, having that title and honour? He who first became emperor, when all the affairs of the state were in disorder and confusion;

for the islands were in a state of war against the continents, and the continents were contending with the islands for the pre-eminence in honour, each having for their leaders and champions the most powerful and eminent of the Romans who were in office. And then again, great sections of Asia were contending against Europe, and Europe against Asia, for the chief power and dominion; [*](He alludes here to the war between Cresar and Pompey. Pompey had been governor of Syria, and Virgil speaks of him as relying on his eastern forces. Illae autem, paribus quas fulgere cernis in armis, Concordes animae nunc, et dum nocte premuntur Heu! quantum inter se bellum, si lumina vitae Attigerint, quantas acies stragemque ciebunt! Aggeribus socer Alpinis atque arce Monaeci Descendens; gener adversis instructus Eoïs.—Æn. vi. 832. Or as it is translated by Dryden— "The pair you see in equal armour shine, Now, friends below, in close embraces join; But when they leave the shady realms of night, And clothed in bodies breathe your upper light, With mortal hate each other shall pursue, What wars, what wounds, what slaughter shall ensue. From Alpine heights the father first descends, His daughter’s husband in the plain attends. His daughter’s husband arms his eastern friends." ) the European and Asiatic nations rising up from the extremities of the earth, and waging terrible wars against one another over all the earth, and over every sea, with enormous armaments, so that very nearly the whole race of mankind would have been destroyed by mutual slaughter and made utterly to disappear, if it had not been [*](He alludes here to the war between Cresar and Pompey. Pompey had been governor of Syria, and Virgil speaks of him as relying on his eastern forces. Illae autem, paribus quas fulgere cernis in armis, Concordes animae nunc, et dum nocte premuntur Heu! quantum inter se bellum, si lumina vitae Attigerint, quantas acies stragemque ciebunt! Aggeribus socer Alpinis atque arce Monaeci Descendens; gener adversis instructus Eoïs.—Æn. vi. 832. Or as it is translated by Dryden— "The pair you see in equal armour shine, Now, friends below, in close embraces join; But when they leave the shady realms of night, And clothed in bodies breathe your upper light, With mortal hate each other shall pursue, What wars, what wounds, what slaughter shall ensue. From Alpine heights the father first descends, His daughter’s husband in the plain attends. His daughter’s husband arms his eastern friends." )

This is Caesar, who calmed the storms which were raging in every direction, who healed the common diseases which were afflicting both Greeks and barbarians, who descended from the south and from the east, and ran on and penetrated as far as the north and the west, in such a way as to fill all the neighbouring districts and waters with unexpected miseries.