Legatio Ad Gaium

But for what purpose did Caius assume the winged sandals of Mercury? Was it because he wished to spread with power, and rapidity, and loudness that miserable and ill-omened intelligence which ought rather to be buried in silence altogether, conveying his voice everywhere with unceasing celerity? And yet what need had he of such rapid motion? for even while standing still he poured forth unspeakable evils upon evils as if from an unceasing fountain, showering them down upon every portion of the habitable world.

And of what use was the herald’s wand to him, who never either said or did anything bearing upon peace, but who rather filled every house and every city within Greece and in the countries of the barbarians with civil wars? Let him, therefore, imposter that he is, lay aside the name of Mercury, since by assuming it he is only profaning an appellation which does not belong to him.

Again, of all the attributes of Apollo, what is there which in the least degree resembles his characteristics? He wears a crown emitting rays all around, the artist who made it having given a most admirable representation of the beams of the sun; but how can the sun, or in fact any light at all, be a welcome object to him, and not rather night, or anything else, if there be such more completely enveloped darkness, or even anything darker than darkness itself, for the performance of [*](i.e. from ἑρμηνεύω, "to interpret." )

Let him also transpose the things which he bears in each of his hands, and not pollute the proper arrangement, for let him bear his arrows and his bow in his right hand, for he knows how with good aim to shoot at and to pierce men and women, and whole families, and populous cities, to their complete destruction.

And let him either at once throw away his graces altogether, or else let him keep them in the shade in his left hand, for he has defaced their beauty, directing all his eyes and exciting all his desires against vast properties, so as to plunder them in an iniquitous manner, in consequence of which their owners were murdered, finding themselves unfortunate through their good fortune.

But no doubt he with great felicity gave a new representation of the medical skill of Apollo, for this god was the inventor of healing medicines, [*](This is one of the attributes of Apollo of which he boasts to Daphne. Inventum medicina meum est, opiferque per orbem Dicor et herbarum subjecta potentia nobis: Hic mihi quod nullis amor est medicabilis herbis Nec prosunt domino quae prosunt omnibus artes.Met.1.461. Or as it is translated by Dryden— Medicine is mine; what herbs and simples grow In fields and forests, all their powers I know, And am the great physician called below. Alas, that fields and forests can afford No remedies to heal their love-sick lord. To cure the pains of love no plant avails, And his own physic the physician fails.) so as to cause health to men, thinking fit himself to heal the diseases which were inflicted by others, by reason of the excessive mildness and gentleness of his own nature and habits,

but this man, on the contrary, loads those who are in good health with disease, and inflicts mutilations on those who are sound, and in short visits the living with most cruel death, caused by the hand of man before the time of their natural death, preparing every imaginable engine of destruction in abundant plenteousness, by means of which, if he had not himself been previously put to death in accordance [*]( This is one of the attributes of Apollo of which he boasts to Daphne. Inventum medicina meum est, opiferque per orbem Dicor et herbarum subjecta potentia nobis: Hic mihi quod nullis amor est medicabilis herbis Nec prosunt domino quae prosunt omnibus artes.Met.1.461. Or as it is translated by Dryden— Medicine is mine; what herbs and simples grow In fields and forests, all their powers I know, And am the great physician called below. Alas, that fields and forests can afford No remedies to heal their love-sick lord. To cure the pains of love no plant avails, And his own physic the physician fails. )

For his designs were prepared against all those in authority and all those possessed of riches, and especially against those in Rome and those in the rest of Italy, by whom such quantities of gold and silver had been treasured up that even if all the riches of all the rest of the habitable world had been collected together from its most distant borders, it would have been found to be very inferior in amount.

On this account he began, he, this hater of the citizens, this devourer of the people, this pestilence, this destructive evil, began to banish all the seeds of peace from his country, as if he were expelling evil from holy ground;

for Apollo is said to have been not only a physician but also an excellent prophet, by his oracular predictions announcing what was likely to conduce to the advantage of mankind, in order that no one, being overshadowed by uncertainty, going on without seeing his way before him like a blind man, might hastily fall into unexpected evils as if they were the greatest benefits; but that men having previously acquired a knowledge of the future as if it were really present, and looking at it with the eye of their mind, might guard against future evils just as they can see evils actually before them with the bodily eye, and in this way secure themselves against any irremediable disaster.

Is it fitting now to compare with these oracles of Apollo the ill-omened warnings of Caius, by means of which poverty, and dishonour, and banishment, and death were given premature notice of to all those who were in power and authority in any part of the world? What connexion or resemblance was there between him and Apollo, when he never paid any attention to any ties of kindred or friendship? Let him cease, then, this pretended Apollo, from imitating that real healer of mankind, for the form of God is not a thing which is capable of being imitated by an inferior one, as good money is imitated by bad.

A man, indeed, may expect anything rather than that a man endowed with such a body and such a soul, when both of them are effeminate and broken down, could ever possibly be made like to the vigour of Mars in either particular; but this man, like a mummer transforming himself on the stage, putting on all sorts of masks one after another, sought to deceive the spectators by a series of fictitious appearances.

Come, then, let him be subjected to an examination in respect of all the particulars of his soul and body, by reason of his utter unlikeness to the aforesaid deity in every position and in every motion. Was he not utterly unlike Mars, not in respect only of his appearance as celebrated in fable, but as to his natural qualities? Mars, who is endued with preeminent valour, which we know to be a power calculated to avert evil, to be the assistant and ally of all who are unjustly oppressed, as indeed his very name shows,

for he appears to me to be called Mars from his helping, [*](The Greek word is ἀρήγειν, from which Philo supposes Ἄρης, the Greek name of Mars, to be derived. ) which is the same as assisting, being as such the god who is able to put down wars and to cause peace, of which this representation of his was the enemy, being the comrade of wars, and the man who changed peace and stability into disorder and confusion.