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

scanty relics, which have been saved from the wreck of so many archives, we learn what a variety of matters came under the notice of the Emperor or the Senate, and the Roman officials who carried out the orders of the central authority. Among the subjects thus dealt with we find awards about disputed boundaries or the division of public land, and grants of freedom and other privileges for special services to certain cities. These favours appear to have been more freely granted in the earlier stage of Roman conquest than when authority was fully established under the empire. It was the policy of the Senate to reward with special rights and privileges the cities which sided with Rome against such formidable enemies as Mithradates and Antiochos. Thus we find that Sylla, in consideration of the great services rendered by the people of Chios in the war between Rome and Mithradates, granted them the right of retaining their own laws and customs, to which the Romans resident in Chios are to be subject. A senatûs consultum, bearing date B.C. 170, which has been admirably edited by M. Foucart, shows how the Romans dealt with a city whose allegiance was still doubtful. Thisbe in Boeotia had taken part with Perseus, King of Macedon, but on the approach of a Roman army the Macedonian party had been expelled from the city, and their adversaries, the oligarchical party, surrendered it to the Romans. In the senatus consultum we see the severe conditions imposed by the conqueror on all who had not shown readiness in declaring themselves in favour of the Romans. The city and territory of Teos, in Ionia, is declared to be sacred, and for ever exempt from tribute, by a decree of the Senate, B.C. 193. In a letter from Mark Antony, as triumvir, to the people of Aphrodisias, in Caria, a senatus consultum is cited, which grants them freedom, exemption from taxation, and a confirmation of all privileges granted by the triumvirs. Further, the temple of Aphrodite is to enjoy a right of asylum for fugitives equal in extent to that attached to the temple of Diana at Ephesus. How long such special privileges were preserved intact under the empire, and how far they were modified by the centralizing tendency of Roman despotism, we know not; but it appears from Tacitus that the cities of Asia Minor from time to time submitted to the Senate these ancient documents, as the title-deeds of the privileges which they claimed, and there is no reason to think that such evidence was arbitrarily set aside. Among the privileges to which the cities of Asia Minor attached a special and, as it would seem to us, an undue importance, were the honorary titles-such as "metropolis," "first city of Asia," &c.-which were conferred by the Emperors on certain cities, to mark their greater political consequence. Hence jealousies arose between rival cities. Thus we

find from a letter from Antoninus Pius, discovered by Mr. Wood in the Odeum at Ephesus, that the Ephesian people made a formal complaint to the Emperor against the Smyrnæans for having omitted to give their city its proper style and titles in a public document. There is a lurking sarcasm in the Emperor's reply: the omission, he suggests, is probably due to inadvertence, and he trusts that it will not be repeated.

Though ordinary crimes in the provinces were probably left to be dealt with in regular course by the local tribunals, the Emperors from time to time thought fit to appoint special commissioners to hold inquests. Thus Augustus writes to the Cnidians to inform them that he has at their request sent Gallus Asinius to inquire how a certain Eubulus met with his death by violence.

The provinces were not content to submit their wants and grievances to the Emperor or Senate only through the regular official channel. In the great cities of Asia Minor were citizens of local influence who from time to time were sent to Rome on special missions from their fellow-citizens. Some of these being personally known to the Emperor, and reputed to enjoy his confidence, were honoured in their native cities with the title pokaíσapes or Cæsar's friends. Such an agent was that Artemidoros of Cnidus, who warned Julius Cæsar of his intended assassination, or that Potamon, son of Lesbonax, to whom Tiberius gave a pass in these words, "If any one dares to injure Potamon, let him consider whether he can contend with Me," and whose marble chair, marking his seat of honour in the theatre, is to be seen to this day at Mitylene; or that Theophanes, also of Mitylene, whose friendship with Pompey gained for his native city the grant of freedom. Inscriptions record the names and services of many such "friends of Cæsar," who were sometimes eminent as sophists and rhetoricians.

The few fragments of imperial and proconsular documents which we possess, though they may not contribute much to the general history of the Roman Empire, are valuable as illustrations of the mode of administration in the provinces, and as furnishing some new chronological data out of which more complete fasti are being constructed. But Asia Minor has contributed one lapidary text of surpassing interest to the historian of the Augustan age; that is, the summary of the deeds and events of his reign which Augustus drew up himself, and which was engraved on two bronze tablets and placed in front of his mausoleum at Rome. The bronze tablets have long since disappeared, but the text of this remarkable imperial document has been nearly recovered by the careful collation of two extant copies in marble, one discovered at Apollonia in Phrygia, the other at Ancyra in Galatia. The magnitude of the deeds recorded in this summary contrasts

strikingly with the unadorned and laconic simplicity of the language. In the same calm tone the Emperor enumerates the public edifices with which he has embellished Rome, the triumphs which he has celebrated, and the countries which he has annexed to the empire; the new regions which his fleets have explored; the embassies 'sent to do him homage from the uttermost parts of the habitable world-among which figure two British kings, one of whom, Dumnovelaunus, is known to us from his coins; the treasures which his wise economy has accumulated; the largesses to the Roman people, and the subventions to the provinces in aid of sufferers from earthquakes; and, last but not least, the crowns and the personal honours lavishly bestowed on him by a grateful Senate and people. The first traveller who noticed and copied this precious inscription at Ancyra was Busbequius in 1544. Much of it was then concealed in the wall of a Turkish house, the demolition of which we owe to that excellent traveller, the late William R. Hamilton. The late French Emperor sent an expedition to Galatia for the purpose of securing a perfect facsimile of the inscription, and it has since been published in Germany with elaborate commentaries by Franz and Mommsen. In drawing up this record of the exploits of his reign, Augustus followed the example of the old Assyrian and Egyptian monarchs, and we can hardly doubt that Alexander and his royal successors left similar monuments, though the only extant specimen is the text of the Marmor Adulitanum, which records the triumphs of Ptolemy Euergetes, and of which the original was seen and copied in Nubia, by that intelligent traveller, Cosmas Indicopleustes, as early as A.D. 545.

Before we quit the subject of imperial administration, I would draw attention to one more document of general interest--the edict by which Diocletian tried, in defiance of the doctrines of political economy, to regulate the price of all commodities within his dominions. This ordinance is what is called an Edict to the Provincials, being addressed to the subjects of the Emperor, not through the medium of the ordinary public functionaries, but directly.

The preamble of the edict sets forth its motive in wordy and pompous phraseology. The Emperor alleges the general misery and penury of his subjects caused by the wicked and sordid avarice of those who, in the quaint language of our old English law, used to be called forestallers and regraters, and who by buying up the whole of any article of commerce could afterwards exact whatever price they pleased. The edict undertakes to provide a remedy for this evil, not by arbitrarily fixing the price of commodities, but by declaring what shall be the maximum price which they must not exceed. The list of articles in the edict comprises provisions, the wages per diem of various kinds of labour, clothing, carpets,

timber, and various implements in wood, and includes not only the necessaries but many of the luxuries of ancient life. Silks and embroidered vestments glittering with gold and Tyrian purple occupy several columns. Among the garments we find the

dalmatica, of which the name still survives in an ecclesiastical vestment; and the caracalla, a coarse cloak with a hood, still known in European Turkey as the grego or capote, and adopted with little modification by many monastic orders in the Latin Church. The edict being bilingual, we are able to ascertain from it the meaning of some obscure Græco-barbaric words through their Latin equivalents. Among the fruits we meet with an old acquaintance, the damson, which was originally the Damascenum, or plum of Damascus. We get too the name pistachio in the disguised form psittachium. Among the game is the Attagen, an Ionian bird greatly esteemed by Roman gourmands, which has been identified by ornithologists with a kind of partridge (Pterocles alchata) still found on the coasts of the Levant.

All the wines mentioned in this edict are Italian, but the greater part of the articles of commerce, and especially the more costly ones, are from the eastern part of the empire. All the prices are calculated in the denarius of Diocletian's time; and, could we be sure what would be the equivalent of this sum in modern money, this document would form a very interesting chapter in the history of ancient political economy. But on this point Mommsen and other great authorities are not agreed. Mr. Waddington, the latest editor of the edict, has converted these into francs, and from his list the following prices may be quoted as specimens :

"Wages:

ditto.

A labourer in the country with food, fcs. 1.55 a day.

"A mason or a carpenter with food, fcs. 3·10 a day.

"A teacher of grammar, fcs. 12.40 for each child per month.

"To an advocate for drawing up a case for the tribunal, fcs. 12.40. "For obtaining a favourable judgment, fcs. 62.00."

It is unfortunate that the portion of the inscription which contained the price of wheat and barley is wanting.

The edict is made up of many fragments, which have been discovered in various parts of the Roman Empire. The preamble was obtained in Egypt; a great part of the tariff was found by Sherard, in 1709, on the wall of a Roman edifice at Stratonicea, in Caria; Mylasa in the same province, and Æzanis in Phrygia, contributed some small fragments; and several portions of the