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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadGreater Men and Women of the Bible by James Hastings: 655. Gallio in Contemporary History
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Gallio in Contemporary History
His true name was Marcus Annæus Novatus: but when he was adopted into the family of Lucius Junius Gallio, he assumed the name of Junius Annæus Gallio. He was the brother of Seneca, the Stoic philosopher. Lucan, the poet, was his nephew, being the son of his brother Mela. Another poet, Statius, was his friend.
Under Claudius, Gallio became proconsul of Achaia, probably through the influence of Seneca, who was Nero's tutor, and also perhaps, as Renan suggests, on account of his “haute culture hellénique.” He entered on office at Corinth during St. Paul's first visit to the city, c. a.d. 52-53. An attack of fever, which he attributed to the climate, led to his departure, and to a sea-voyage for his health (Sen. Ep 104); eventually he returned to Rome.
In his later years he was involved in political complications. His brother Seneca had been in exile in Corsica for eight years, and on his recall in a.d. 49 was appointed prætor. Gallio himself, probably after he left Achaia, had risen to be consul. His life was in danger in a.d. 65, when Seneca was sentenced by Nero to put himself to death. He begged for his own life, which was spared by Nero for the time; but soon afterwards he and his brother Mela, the father of Lucan, were sentenced to death.
2. Gallio seems to have acquired both among his friends and among strangers the epithet of “dulcis,” “the charming or fascinating Gallio”: “This is more,” says the poet Statius, “than to have given Seneca to the world, and to have begotten the sweet Gallio.” “No mortal man is so sweet to any man as he is to all mankind,” his brother Seneca writes of him. And again, “Even those who love my brother Gallio to the very utmost of their power yet do not love him enough.”
All, that he came to give,
He gave, and went again:
I have seen one man live,
I have seen one man reign,
With all the graces in his train.
As one of us, he wrought
Things of the common hour:
Whence was the charmed soul brought,
That gave each act such power;
The natural beauty of a flower?
Magnificence and grace,
Excellent courtesy:
A brightness on the face,
Airs of high memory:
Whence came all these, to such as he?
Like young Shakespearian kings,
He won the adoring throng:
And, as Apollo sings,
He triumphed with a song:
Triumphed, and sang, and passed along.
With a light word, he took
The hearts of men in thrall;
And, with a golden look,
Welcomed them, at his call
Giving their love, their strength, their all
No man less proud than he,
Nor cared for homage less:
Only, he could not be
Far off from happiness:
Nature was bound to his success.
Weary, the cares, the jars,
The lets, of every day,
But the heavens filled with stars,
Chanced he upon the way:
And where he stayed, all joy would stay.1 [Note: Lionel Johnson.]
If one looks closely at life, one sees the same quality (charm) in humanity, in men and women, in books and pictures, and yet one cannot tell what goes to the making of it. It seems to be a thing which no energy or design can capture, but which alights here and there, blowing like the wind at will. It is not force or originality or inventiveness; very often it is strangely lacking in any masterful quality at all; but it has always just the same wistful appeal, which makes one desire to understand it, to take possession of it, to serve it, to win its favour. It is as when the child in Francis Thompson's poem seems to say, “I hire you for nothing.” That is exactly it: there is nothing offered or bestowed, but one is at once magically bound to serve it for love and delight. There is nothing that one can expect to get from it, and yet it goes very far down into the soul; it is behind the maddening desire which certain facts, hands, voices, smiles excite-the desire to possess, to claim, to know even that no one else can possess or claim them, which lies at the root of half the jealous tragedies of life.
Some personalities have charm in a marvellous degree, and if, as one looks into the old records of life, one discovers figures that seem to have laid an inexplicable hold on their circles, and to have passed through life in a tempest of applause and admiration, one may be sure that charm has been the secret.1 [Note: A. C. Benson, Escape, 89.]