PALINURUS, in fabulous history, the pilot of Encas, whose fate Virgil very pathetically describes. He fell into
1 Gaii Institutionum Commentarii iv. e codice rescripto Bibliothecæ Capularis Veronensis, a Frid. Bluhmio iterum collato secundo edit. J. F. L. Goeschen. Accedit Fragmentum veteris Jurisconsulti de Jure Fisci, ex aliis ejusdem Bibliothecæ membranis transcriptum. Berolini, 1824, 8vo. We have not met with the less perfect edition of 1820.
2 Who was Gaius, and when did he flourish? This is a question which it has been found exceedingly difficult to answer. From a number of circumstances, however, it has been conjectured that he was born under Hadrian, that he began to write about the end of the reign of Antoninus Pius, that he attained the summit of his celebrity under M. Aurelius, and probably died under Commodus. "Scripsit autem ille, quicquid fuerit, Institutiones," says Gravina, "unde suas magnam in partem depromit Justinianus;" and Justinian himself, in speaking of his own Institutions, thus acknowledges his obligations to Gaius: "Quas, ex omnibus antiquarum institutionibus, et præcipue ex Commentariis Gaii nostri, compositus," &c.
the sea when asleep, and was three days exposed to the tempests, but at last got safe ashore, when the cruel inhabitants of the place murdered him to get his clothes. His body was left unburied on the sea-shore; and since no one could cross the Stygian lake before a hundred years were elapsed, if his remains had not been decently interred, we find Æneas, when he had descended to the regions below, speaking to Palinurus, and assuring him, that though his bones were deprived of sepulture, yet the place where his body was exposed should soon be adorned with a monument, and bear his name; and accordingly a promontory was called Palinurus.