The combined magnanimity and address of this sarcasm are not to be surpassed. Ambassadors are privileged people; but they have not always been spared by irritated multitudes; yet our hero did not hesitate to turn the ridicule of the Centauripans on themselves. He “showed up” the smallness of their pretensions, both as a community and as observers. He did not blink the fact of his own bodily insignificance—too sore a point with little people in general, notwithstanding the fact that many of the greatest spirits of the world have resided in frames as petty. He made it the very ground for exposing the still smaller pretensions of the souls and understandings of his deriders. Or, supposing that he said it with a good-humoured smile,—with an air of rebuke to their better sense,—still the address was as great, and the magnanimity as candid. He not only took the “bull by the horns,” but turned it with his mighty little hands into a weapon of triumph. Such a man, insignificant as his general exterior may have been, must, after all, have had something fine in some part of it—something great in some part of its expression; probably fine eyes, and a smile full of benignity.
Gellias proved that his soul was of the noblest order, not only by a princely life, but by the heroical nature of his death. Agrigentum lay on the coast opposite Carthage. It had been a flourishing place, partly by reason of its commerce with that city; but was at last insulted by it and subdued. Most of the inhabitants fled. Among those who remained was Gellias. He fancied that his great wealth, and his renown for hospitality, would procure him decent treatment. Finding, however, that the least to be expected of the enemy was captivity, he set fire to a temple into which he had conveyed his wealth, and perished with it in the flames; thus, says Stolberg, at once preventing “the profanation of the place, the enriching of the foe, and the disgrace of slavery.”
There ought to be a book devoted to the history of those whose reputations have not received their due. It would make a curious volume. It would be old in the materials, novel in the interest, and of equal delight and use. It is a startling reflection, that while men, such as this Gellias, must be dug up from the by-ways of history, its high-road is three-parts full of people who would never have been heard of, but for accidents of time and place. Take, for instance, the majority of the Roman emperors, of those of Germany, of the turbulent old French noblesse, and indeed of three-fourths, perhaps nine-tenths, of historical names all over the world. The reflection, nevertheless, suggests one of a more consolatory kind, namely, that genius and great qualities are not the only things to be considered in this world;—that commonplace also has its right to be heard; common affections and common wants;—ay, the more in the latter case, because they are common. The worst of it is, that commonplace in power is not fond of allowing this right to its brother commonplace out of it. The progress of knowledge, however, tends to a greater impartiality; and the consideration of this fact must be the honey, meantime, to many a bitter thought.
CHAPTER IV.
THEOCRITUS.
PASTORAL POETRY.—SPECIMENS OF THE STRENGTH AND COMIC HUMOUR OF THEOCRITUS—THE PRIZE-FIGHT BETWEEN POLLUX AND AMYCUS—THE SYRACUSAN GOSSIPS.
