Old and Young in Philo’s Legatio ad Gaium

For many authors writing in the Hellenistic period and the early Roman Empire, age offered a topic of significant interest. This chapter explores how Philo of Alexandria, an exegete, philosopher, and politician from the first century CE, perceives age and employs age-related terminology rhetorically in his treatise Legatio ad Gaium. This treatise describes how, in the wake of riots in Alexandria in 38 CE, Philo journeyed to Rome as part of a Jewish embassy to defend the rights of the Alexandrian Jews. Through his use of age-related terminology, Philo characterizes the protagonists in his narrative, yielding a picture of the emperor Gaius as a young and reckless individual and of both the Jewish nation and the previous emperors Augustus and Tiberius as aged, wise, and virtuous individuals.