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).
Of Hans Christoph von Gagern’s sons three attained considerable eminence:—
Friedrich Balduin, Freiherr von Gagern (1794–1848), the eldest, was born at Weilburg on the 24th of October 1794. He entered the university of Göttingen, but soon left, and, taking service in the Austrian army, took part in the Russian campaign of 1812, and fought in the following year at Dresden, Kulm and Leipzig. He then entered the Dutch service, took part in the campaigns of 1815, and, after studying another year at Heidelberg, was member for Luxemburg of the military commission of the German federal diet (1824, 1825). In 1830 and 1831 he took part in the Dutch campaign in Belgium, and in 1844, after being promoted to the rank of general, was sent on an important mission to the Dutch East Indies to inquire into the state of their military defences. In 1847 he was appointed governor at the Hague, and commandant in South Holland. In the spring of 1848 he was in Germany, and on the outbreak of the revolutionary troubles he accepted the invitation of the government of Baden to take the command against the insurgent “free companies” (Freischaaren). At Kandern, on the 20th of April, he made a vain effort to persuade the leaders to submit, and was about to order his troops to attack when he was mortally wounded by the bullets of the insurgents. His Life, in 3 vols. (Heidelberg and Leipzig, 1856–1857), was written by his brother Heinrich von Gagern.
Heinrich Wilhelm August, Freiherr von Gagern (1799–1880), the third son, was born at Bayreuth on the 20th of August 1799, educated at the military academy at Munich, and, as an officer in the service of the duke of Nassau, fought at Waterloo. Leaving the service after the war, he studied jurisprudence at Heidelberg, Göttingen and Jena, and in 1819 went for a while to Geneva to complete his studies. In 1821 he began his official career as a lawyer in the grand-duchy of Hesse, and in 1832 was elected to the second chamber. Already at the universities he had proclaimed his Liberal sympathies as a member of the Burschenschaft, and he now threw himself into open opposition to the unconstitutional spirit of the Hessian government, an attitude which led to his dismissal from the state service in 1833. Henceforth he lived in comparative retirement, cultivating a
