THE REAL CHARACTER OF GALLIO.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 1518, 5 February 1886, Page 3

THE REAL CHARACTER OF GALLIO.

At last the contest between the Jews and the Christians came to a head. The Proconsul of Achaia ended his term of office, and the Proconsul appointed by the emperor was Marcus Annseus Novatus, who, having been adopted by the friendly rhetorician Lucius Junius Gallio, had taken the name of Lucius J unius Annaeus Gallio, by which he is generally known. Very different was the estimate of Gallio by his contemporaries from the mistaken one which has made his name proverb* ial for indifferentism in the Christian world. To the friends among whom he habitually moved he was the most gonial, the most lovable of men. The brother of Seneca, and the uncle of Lucan, he was the most universally popular member of that distinguished famity. He was pre-eminently endowed with that light and sweetness which are signs of the utmost refinement, and " the sweet Gallio " is the epithet by which he alone of the ancients is constantly designated. "No mortal man is so sweet to any single person as he is to all mankind, wrote Seneca of him. "Even those who love my brother Gallio to the very utmost of their power yet do not love him enough," he says in another place. He was the flower of pagan courtesy and pagan culture—a Roman with a Roman's dignity and seriousness, and yet with all the grace and versatility of a polished Greek.—From the Life and Work of St. Paul.