With such independent cities the kings ingratiated themselves by acting as arbitrators in disputes, by dedications and grants of land to celebrated temples and oracles, by embellishing cities with gymnasia and other public edifices. In reward for such services they received the honours of equestrian statues, gold crowns, and sometimes adulation such as the Athenians bestowed on Demetrius Poliorcetes.

The cases of arbitration recorded in inscriptions are of two kinds -they either relate to misunderstandings between two Greek States, in which the matter in dispute was referred to a third State, by whose decision both parties agreed to abide; or, again, litigation between citizens of one State was adjudicated on by judges appointed by another State, whose impartiality was guaranteed by the fact that they were unconnected with any local interest. That such arbitrations were often successful in private litigation may be inferred from the number of extant decrees in honour of judges appointed with this object. Thus we find the people of Calymna rewarding with a crown the five judges sent by the people of Iasus for the settlement of much private litigation. Upwards of 250 cases were dealt with by this foreign commission, and in the greater part of these a compromise was effected.

Disputes between two States were not so easily settled by arbitration. We learn from an inscription published by Lebas that a dispute between Samos and Priene as to some territory lasted from the time of Bias of Priene, in the middle of the sixth century B.C., to the date of the Roman conquest of Asia Minor. The matter in dispute, after having led to a war, was referred for arbitration to the kings Lysimachus and Demetrius and to the Rhodian republic successively. Like many other long-standing contentions, it was finally settled by a decree of the Roman Senate. The whole of the documents relating to this vexed question were engraved on the walls of the temple of Athene Polias at Priene, forming one continuous text, many fragments of which have been recently rescued from destruction by the Society of Dilettanti, and deposited in the British Museum. A very similar series of documents relating to a dispute between the Lacedæmonians and Messenians, in which the Milesians acted as arbitrators, has been recently discovered at Olympia. This seems to be the affair which, according to Tacitus (Annal. iv. 43), was ultimately referred to the Roman Senate. The good understanding between Greek States must have been much promoted by this habit of appealing to arbitration and also by the institution of proxeni, whose office was in many respects analogous to that of a modern consul. There was, however, this difference, that, whereas the modern consul is for the most part a subject of the State whose citizens he is appointed to protect in a foreign country, and rarely a subject of the State to which he is accredited,

the ancient proxenos was usually a citizen of the State in which he exercised his consular functions. The interests of Athenian citizens would for instance be protected in Ephesus, not by an Athenian resident there, but by a citizen of Ephesus whom the Athenian people appointed their proxenos, granting him certain privileges and immunities in recompense for his services. The duties of the provenos were partly diplomatic and partly consular; the citizens of the State to which he was accredited could always claim his hospitality, his protection, and his general good offices in legal proceedings. He ransomed prisoners in war, provided a suitable interment for those slain in battle, and in case of a demise administered the estate and transmitted the effects to the heirs. Thus far the duties of the procenos corresponded with those of an ordinary modern consul. But his diplomatic functions were of a higher character, approximating to those of a modern ambassador. It was his duty to present to the authorities and public assembly of his native city the envoys who were sent from time to time from the State to which he was accredited, and to promote the objects of such missions by his personal influence with his fellowcitizens. In Greek cities the inns were generally indifferent, and the claims on the hospitality of the procenos must have entailed heavy and constant expense, while from the nature of his office he must have been constantly obliged to advance money on account of distressed travellers, much of which was probably repaid at the Greek Kalends, But as a set-off against these expenses and liabilities the press received certain privileges and immunities. which must have been of very great value, the more so as they were generally conferred for life, and in many cases continued to the descendants of the procveics. What these privileges and immunities were we learn very clearly from those inscriptions. which record grants of pereda made by various Greek cities to foreigners. The most important were the following:

The right of free access to the senate and public assembly whenever it was required;

Protection for life and property, by land and sea, in peace and

war:

Fre passage and free export and import of goods both in pace and war:

he right of acquiring real property:

mption from certain taxes and dus:

pelity, which scers to have implied participation in all the of en ens exept the franchise. We never find the right of

often received the honour of a statue or a gold crown for some special service. Grants of proxenia were generally engraved on marble stele or on walls, but sometimes on bronze tablets, deltoi, which were probably executed in duplicate, one copy being given to the proxenos, the other retained by the State to which he was accredited. The total number of these decrees now extant probably exceeds three hundred. They have been obtained not only from the great centres of Greek commerce, such as Athens or Corinth, but from many remote and obscure cities throughout the Hellenic world. Most of the extant decrees may be referred to the period between the accession of Alexander the Great and the time of Augustus, though we have clear evidence of the existence of proxeni as early as the sixth century B.C., and the institution probably originated at a much earlier period, when the civilizing influence of commerce began to counteract the general barbarism of an age of piracy. The paucity of decrees of proxenia which can be assigned to the Roman period leads us to infer that the institution gradually fell into disuse after the Greek cities ceased to be autonomous. It may have been the policy of the Roman conqueror to destroy these bonds of sympathy and common interest among the Hellenic States.

I have noticed the more important political and diplomatic services which formed the motive of honorary decrees conferred either on citizens or aliens. But there were many other services rendered by individuals which the State thought worthy of public honours, and the record of which on marble has handed down to us the names of a few public-spirited and patriotic men, who took pleasure in devoting their surplus wealth and their best energies to the common weal, and who may be called the Peabodys of the ancient world. We have an interesting record of such a benefactor in an inscription found in that remote outpost of Hellenic civilization Olbia, on the Scythian coast of the Black Sea. This inscription tells us how, at some time in the second century B.C., when the city was impoverished in finances, and scarcely able to defend itself from the constant inroads of surrounding barbarians, a rich citizen named Protogenes came forward and reduced the public debt by loans on the most favourable terms, and averted a famine by a largess of corn sold under the market-price. Moreover he put the city in a state of defence by rebuilding its walls, undertaking all liabilities for this work himself, and repaired many public edifices. It would have been interesting to know what rewards beside gold crowns were granted to Protogenes for such long and signal services, but unfortunately the inscription, long as it is, is only the preamble of the honorary decree, the rest of which has been broken off. Probably there were granted to Protogenes one or more gold crowns, an equestrian statue in the market

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refer much of their domestic litigation, as well as many disputes with their neighbours, to the arbitration of some friendly neutral State.

From the time when Roman ascendency prevailed, the tendency was more and more to refer all disputes between city and city, and all important questions of internal administration, to the new centre of the civilized world. It was the decree of the Senate in the latter days of the Roman Republic, and subsequently the fiat of the Emperor or of his delegates, which settled all appeals from the provinces. After the accession of Augustus, the reigning Emperor became in the eyes of the provincials a Present Deity. His accession was celebrated with solemn sacrifices, and on each successive birthday a congratulatory address was presented to him, which was afterwards engraved on marble. Temples in his honour, called Augustea, were erected in the principal cities. His statue in bronze or marble met the eye in all places of public resort; every coin bore his image and superscription; and on the walls of the temples, theatres, and other public edifices men gazed with reverent eyes on the Imperial edicts and rescripts graven on the marble in bold and clear characters, which were picked out with vermilion to render them the more distinct. Many of these documents were transcripts of the bronze originals stored up in the Capitol at Rome, and it is from these copies that a few precious relics of the Imperial archives have been handed down to us. The provincial cities had as good reason for taking care of their archives as the corporations of medieval times, for the liberties and privileges which many cities enjoyed under Imperial sway were conferred in the first instance, or from time to time confirmed, by decrees of the Senate or by Imperial letters. If we possessed the entire archives of one of the great cities of Asia Minor during a single reign, we should better appreciate the comprehensive range and minute precision of Imperial administration, which in its best age seems to have been capable of dealing with the most varied and complicated interests, while it found time to control many details which can hardly be considered matters of State.

In the celebrated correspondence between Pliny, when proconsul of Bithynia, and the Emperor Trajan, we have a specimen of the mode in which the chief of the empire personally directed the affairs of a distant province in Asia Minor. The few letters or edicts from Emperors or Roman official personages to Greek cities, which have been preserved in inscriptions, are a precious supplement to the letters which passed between Trajan and Pliny. These inscriptions range from the second century B.C., when the Romans first began to interfere in the affairs of Greece, down to the Byzantine period of the empire. Even from these