We first hear of this people in the Jugurthine War (111-106 B.C.), when, as Sallust tells us, they did not even know the name of Rome. They took part with Jugurtha against Rome; but when we next hear of them they are in alliance with Caesar against Juba I. (Bell. Afr. 32). In 25 B.C. Augustus seems to have given a part of Gaetulia to Juba II., together with his kingdom of Mauretania, doubtless with the object of controlling the turbulent tribes; but the Gaetulians rose and massacred the Roman residents, and it was not till a severe defeat had been inflicted on them by Lentulus Cossus (who thus acquired the surname Gaetulicus) in A.D. 6 that they submitted to the king. After Mauretania became a Roman province in A.D. 40, the Roman governors made frequent expeditions into the Gaetulian territory to the south, and the official view seems to be expressed by Pliny (v. 4. 30) when he says that all Gaetulia as far as the Niger and the Ethiopian frontier was reckoned as subject to the Empire. How far this represents the fact is not clear; but inscriptions prove that Gaetulians served in the auxiliary troops of the empire, and it may be assumed that the country passed within the sphere of Roman influence, though hardly within the pale of Roman civilization.
For bibliography see [Africa, Roman].
GAGE, LYMAN JUDSON (1836- ), American financier, was born at De Ruyter, Madison county, New York, on the 28th of June 1836. He was educated at an academy at Rome, New York, where at the age of seventeen he became a bank clerk. In 1855 he removed to Chicago, served for three years as book-keeper in a planing-mill, and in 1858 entered the banking house of the Merchant’s Loan and Trust Company, of which he was cashier in 1861-1868. Afterwards he became successively assistant cashier (1868), vice-president (1882), and president (1891) of the First National Bank of Chicago, one of the strongest financial institutions in the middle west. He was chosen in 1892 president of the board of directors of the World’s Columbian Exposition, the successful financing of which was due more to him than to any other man. In politics he was originally a Republican, and was a delegate to the national convention of the party in 1880, and chairman of its finance committee. In 1884, however, he supported Grover Cleveland for the presidency, and came to be looked upon as a Democrat. In 1892 President Cleveland, after his second election, offered Gage the post of secretary of the treasury, but the offer was declined. In the “free-silver” campaign of 1896 Gage laboured effectively for the election of William McKinley, and from March 1897 until January 1902 he was secretary of the treasury in the cabinets successively of Presidents McKinley and Roosevelt. From April 1902 until 1906 he was president of the United States Trust Company in New York City. His administration of the treasury department, through a more than ordinarily trying period, was marked by a conservative policy, looking toward the strengthening of the gold standard, the securing of greater flexibility in the currency, and a more perfect adjustment of the relations between the government and the National banks.
GAGE, THOMAS (1721-1787), British general and governor of Massachusetts, second son of the first Viscount Gage, was born in 1721. He entered the army in 1741 and saw service in Flanders and in the campaign of Culloden, becoming lieutenant-colonel in the 44th foot in March 1751. In 1754 he served in America, and he took part in the following year in General Braddock’s disastrous expedition. In 1758 he became colonel of a new regiment, and served in Amherst’s operations against Montreal. He was made governor of Montreal, and promoted major-general in 1761, and in 1763 succeeded Amherst in the command of the British forces in America; in 1770 he was made a lieutenant-general. In 1774 he was appointed governor of Massachusetts, and in that capacity was entrusted with carrying into effect the Boston Port Act. The difficulties which surrounded him in the execution of his office at this time of the gravest unrest culminated in 1775, and the action of the 19th of April at Lexington initiated the American War of Independence. After the battle of Bunker Hill, Gage was superseded by General (Sir William) Howe, and returned to England. He became general in 1782, and died on the 2nd of April 1787.
GAGE, a pledge, something deposited as security for the performance of an agreement, and liable to be forfeited on failure to carry it out. The word also appears in “engage,” and is taken from the O. Fr., as are “wage,” payment for services, and “wager,” bet, stake, from the collateral O. Fr. waige. These two words are from the Low Lat. wadiare, vadiare, to pledge, vadium, classical Lat. vas, vadis, but may be from the old Teutonic cognate base seen in Gothic wadi, a pledge (cf. Ger. wetten, to wager); this Teutonic base is seen in Eng. “wed,” to marry, i.e. to engage by a pledge (cf. Goth, gawadjon, to betrothe). A particular form of giving a “gage” or pledge was that of throwing down a glove or gauntlet as a challenge to a judicial combat, the glove being the “pledge” that the parties would appear on the field; hence the common phrase “to throw down the gage of defiance” for any challenge (see [Glove] and [Wager]).
GAGERN, HANS CHRISTOPH ERNST, Baron von (1766-1852), German statesman and political writer, was born at Kleinniedesheim, near Worms, on the 25th of January 1766. After studying law at the universities of Leipzig and Göttingen, he entered the service of the prince of Nassau-Weilburg, whom in 1791 he represented at the imperial diet. He was afterwards appointed the prince’s envoy at Paris, where he remained till the decree of Napoleon, forbidding all persons born on the left side of the Rhine to serve any other state than France, compelled him to resign his office (1811). He then retired to Vienna, and in 1812 he took part in the attempt to excite a second insurrection against Napoleon in Tirol. On the failure of this attempt he left Austria and joined the headquarters of the Prussian army (1813), and became a member of the board of administration for north Germany. In 1814 he was appointed administrator of the Orange principalities; and, when the prince of Orange became king of the Netherlands, Baron Gagern became his prime minister. In 1815 he represented him at the congress of Vienna, and succeeded in obtaining for the Netherlands a considerable augmentation of territory. From 1816 to 1818 he was Luxemburg envoy at the German diet, but was recalled, at the instance of Metternich, owing to his too independent advocacy of state constitutions. In 1820 he retired with a pension to his estate at Hornau, near Höchst, in Hesse-Darmstadt; but as a member of the first chamber of the states of the grand-duchy he continued to take an active share in the promotion of measures for the welfare of his country. He retired from public life in 1848, and died at Hornau on the 22nd of October 1852. Baron von Gagern wrote a history of the German nation (Vienna, 1813; 2nd ed., 2 vols., Frankfort, 1825-1826), and several other books on subjects connected with history and social and political science. Of most permanent value, however, is his autobiography, Mein Anteil an der Politik, 5 vols. (Stuttgart and Leipzig, 1823-1845).