Legatio Ad Gaium

Nevertheless, though he did grant him the favour, he did not grant it without any alloy, but he mingled with it a grievous terror; for he added to the letter, - "If any people in the bordering countries, with the exception of the metropolis itself, wishing to erect altars or temples, nay, images or statues, in honour of me and of my family are hindered from doing so, I charge you at once to punish those who attempt to hinder them, or else to bring them before the tribunal."

Now this was nothing else but a beginning of seditions and civil wars, and an indirect way of annulling the gift which he appeared to be granting. For some men, more out of a desire of mortifying the Jews than from any feelings of loyalty towards Caius, were inclined to fill the whole country with erections of one kind or another. But they who beheld the violation of their national customs practised before their eyes were resolved above all things not to endure such an injury unresistingly. But Caius, judging those who were thus excited to disobedience to be worthy of the most severe punishment possible, a second time orders his statue to be erected in the temple.

But by the providence and care of God, who beholds all things and governs all things in accordance with justice, not one of the neighbouring nations made any movement at all; so that there was no occasion for these commands being carried into effect, and these inexorably appointed calamities all terminated in only a moderate degree of blame.

What advantage, then, was gained? some one will say; for even when they were quiet, Caius was not quiet; but he had already repented of the favour which he had showed to Agrippa, and had re-kindled the desires which he had entertained a little while before; for he commanded another statue to be made, of colossal size, of brass gilt over, in Rome, no longer moving the one which had been made in Sidon, in order that the people might not be excited by its being moved, but that while they remained in a state of tranquillity

And he was intending to do this while on his voyage along the coast during the period which he had allotted for his sojourn in Egypt. For an indescribable desire occupied his mind to see Alexandria, to which he was eager to go with all imaginable haste, and when he had arrived there he intended to remain a considerable time, urging that the deification about which he was so anxious, might easily be originated and carried to a great height in that city above all others, and then that it would be a model to all other cities of the adoration to which he was entitled, inasmuch as it was the greatest of all the cities of the east, and built in the finest situation in the world. For all inferior men and nations are eager to imitate great men and great states.

Moreover, Caius 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.

For instance, he released some prisoners, and then for no reason whatever he threw them into prison a second time, inflicting upon them a second calamity more grievous than the first, namely, that which was caused by unexpected misfortune.

Again, he condemned some persons to banishment who had expected sentence of death; not because they were conscious of having committed crimes deserving of death, or indeed of any punishment at all, even the lightest, but because of the extravagant inhumanity of their master they J did not expect to escape. Now to these men, banishment was a downright gain, and equivalent almost to a restoration, since they looked upon it that they had escaped the greatest of all evils, the danger of death.

But no long period elapsed before he sent some soldiers after them, though no new circumstances had arisen, and put to death simultaneously the most excellent and nobly-born of the exiles who were living in the different islands as their own countries, and