STUDIES IN 
 ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 By 
 E. G. HARDY, M.A., D.Litt., 
 
 Fellow and Tutor of Jesus College, Oxford 
 
 LONDON 
 
 SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & CO. LIM 
 
 New York : THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 1906 
 

 
 '^"/it 
 
TO 
 
 MY PUPILS 
 
 PAST AND PRESENT 
 
 169810 
 
Preface 
 
 When I found that the time had come for a second 
 edition of Christianity and the Roman Government, 
 I at first intended merely to repubhsh that little book in 
 its original form. Wisely or unwisely, however, I have 
 determined to incorporate in the same volume a few 
 other essays, on more or less special subjects in Roman 
 History, which, whatever their own intrinsic value, had 
 cost me considerable labour in past years. 
 
 To republish old work perhaps may be taken as a sign 
 that either the ability, or the interest, to produce any- 
 thing new has ceased to exist. In my case, I think I 
 may fairly say that it is the ability, and not the interest, 
 which has changed. 
 
 Fruitful or original work in Roman History is not 
 possible, when inscriptions can no longer be decyphered 
 nor classical texts studied and compared. All that I can 
 do now, on the subject which formerly occupied most of 
 my time, is to appreciate (by means of other eyes) such 
 notable contributions towards the scientific study of 
 Roman History as those which Mr. Strachan-Davidson, 
 Dr. Greenidge, and Mr. Henderson, have made and are 
 making — contributions which promise to render less in- 
 dispensable in the future a knowledge of German works 
 and the German language, at least for Oxford students 
 of the subject. 
 
 The following studies are presented almost exactly 
 in their original form. I have contrived to remove a few 
 obvious mistakes and inconsistencies ; and I have added 
 a few pages to The Movements of the Legions from a 
 paper on The German Army and Frontier, written before 
 conditions became unfavourable and now probably 
 never to be published. No doubt I should have wished 
 
 vii 
 
Vm PREFACE 
 
 to do much more to render these essays both useful and 
 worthy of attention but I trust it will be understood 
 that circumstances, preclude even anything like a 
 systematic revision. 
 
 I have to express my thanks to the editors and pub- 
 lishers of the English Historical Review, ior per- 
 mission to reprint The Movements of the Legions and The 
 Provincial Concilia^ and to Messrs. Macmillan for allow- 
 ing me to incorporate a portion of my Introduction to 
 Plutarch* s Lives of Galba and Otho ; together with three 
 shorter papers from The Journal of Philology. 
 
 Finally I wish to express my great obligations to my 
 friend Mr. Rolfe, without whose assistance this volume 
 could never have been prepared. He has not only care- 
 fully gone through all the essays, preparing them for 
 press, but has undertaken the entire work of correcting 
 the proofs — a task of no small difficulty considering the 
 intricate nature of the notes. I am convinced that, 
 through his care, the remediable and accidental errors 
 have been reduced to a minimum. 
 
 E. G. HARDY. 
 
 Oxford, December, 1905. 
 
Contents 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I— X. CHRISTIANITY AND THE ROMAN 
 GOVERNMENT 
 
 I The Attitude of the Republic towards 
 Foreign Cults .... 
 
 II The Treatment of Judaism . 
 Ill First Appearance of Christianity in the 
 Eastern Provinces 
 - IV Christianity in Rome under Nero . 
 
 V Christianity under the Flavian Emperors 
 VI Trajan and the Christians 
 VII Persecution for the Name 
 VIII Attitude of Hadrian, Pius and Marcus 
 AURELIUS ..... 
 
 IX Christianity in its Relation to "Collegia 
 
 X Two " Acta Martyrum "... 
 
 XI Legions in the Pannonian Rising . 
 
 XII Movements of the Legions 
 
 XIII The Provincial "Concilia" . 
 
 XIV Imperium Consulare or Proconsulare . 
 XV Plutarch, Tacitus, and Suetonius, on Galea 
 
 AND Otho 
 
 I 
 
 14 
 
 29 
 
 41 
 60 
 
 78 
 96 
 
 108' 
 129 
 151 
 "^ 
 181 
 236 
 284 
 
 295 
 
 / XVI A Bodleian MS. of Pliny's Letters to Trajan 335 
 
 IS 
 
The Attitude of the Republic towards 
 Foreign Cults 
 
 The policy of the Roman government towards the 
 Christians is involved in^ot a few difficulties, and though 
 many attempts have been made to give a consistent 
 explanation of the facts which from various sources are 
 supplied to us, none of them can be said to have met 
 with universal acceptance. This is, perhaps, to a 
 certain extent inevitable. Our information, such as it 
 is, comes to us from one of two sources — from Roma n^ 
 writers or from. Christian ; and while it is almost impos- 
 sible iiof'to presuppose a certain amount of bias on both 
 sides, there is this further and special obstacle to our 
 arrival at the truth : that while the heathen writers in 
 the too few and too brief notices which have come down 
 to us treat the matter as one of only a passing and super- 
 ficial interest, our Christian authorities, on the other 
 hand, are men of one idea, to whom Christianity is the 
 one important feature in the history of the time. Add 
 to this that neither on the one side nor the other is there 
 any consecutive account of the spread and fate of 
 Christianity, either in Rome or other parts of the empire, 
 but rather isolated notices which seem to assume on the 
 part of the reader knowledge which we at least, separated 
 from the facts by so many centuries, do not possess. 
 Finally, even assuming that by the synthesis of scattered 
 notices, by inference from indirect evidence, and by the 
 weighing of probabilities with the aid of whatever 
 
 1 B 
 
t, ' ■' f/TUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 critical apparatus is at our disposal, we can make to a 
 certain extent continuous what we find disjointed, there 
 still remains the fact that the evidence on which we 
 have ultimately relied is on the one side tainted with the 
 hatred, contempt, and mistrust which the unintelligible 
 and therefore unpardonable ** obstinacy" of the Chris- 
 tians produced in the heathen mind, and on the other 
 with the passionate sense of injustice which rankled in 
 and undoubtedly warped the minds of the Christian 
 writers. ^ 
 
 How is the treatment to which the Christians were 
 subjected during the first two centuries (for to that 
 period we shall confine ourselves) consistent with the 
 toleration with which the Roman government in religious 
 matters has generally been credited ? Was this tolera- 
 tion less complete than we have been used to suppose ? 
 or has the extent, severity, and meaning of the persecu- 
 tions been, as Gibbon was the first to suggest\ exag- 
 gerated or misrepresented ? ^ It is the great merit of 
 Mommsen's article in the " Historische Zeitschrift" ^ — 
 an article which has laid the foundation for a more 
 systematic treatment of the subject — to have pointed 
 out that neither the one question nor the other can be 
 fairly considered as long as we confine ourselves to the 
 case of the Christians alone. Their treatment was only 
 a part — no doubt as time went on always tending to be 
 the most important part — of the general policy of the 
 Roman government in those matters where religious, 
 social, and political interests touched and overlapped. 
 Christianity was not the only foreign cult with which 
 the government had to deal ; it was not the only foreign 
 cult with which it had to interfere ; and while it may 
 be possible, perhaps, at the outset to define generally the 
 
 1 The tone adopted by the writer of the Apocalypse is a case in 
 point. Professor Ramsay argues from the extreme bitterness of 
 the Apocalypse that the persecutions of the first century must 
 have been severer than those of the second. His argument is 
 noticed below on p. y^, note 41. 
 
 2 See Gibbon's two famous chapters xv. and xvi. 
 
 3 Vol, Ixiv. 1890, Der Religionsfrevel nach romischem Recht. 
 
THE ATTITUDE OF THE REPUBLIC 3 
 
 Roman policy in religious matters, such a definition will 
 carry us a very little way — partly because of the growing 
 indifference to the national religion which was insensibly 
 reflected in the action of the government, but mainly 
 because a " religious policy " tended more and more to 
 become an abstraction, the concrete embodiments of 
 which were modified by diverse political and social 
 considerations, which were never the same in any two 
 cases. In order, therefore, to form a well-grounded 
 judgment on the treatment of Christianity, we have not 
 only to discover from the often conflicting and uncertain 
 evidence what that treatment was, but to connect it 
 generally, if possible, with any underlying principles of 
 Roman policy, and to show how these were or may have 
 been modified by political and social circumstances, 
 really or apparently involved in the nature of Christianity 
 as it developed through the empire, or in the conditions 
 amid which the Roman empire itself had coalesced, and 
 on which its stability seemed to depend. 
 
 The Roman religion was essentially and before all t 
 things a national religion ; its object was primarily, not \ 
 the honour of the gods, but the safety of the state, of \ 
 which the goodwill of the gods was supposed to be the i 
 necessary condition.^ Its observance was therefore the 
 duty of every citizen, and ,was an even more necessary 
 part of patriotism than service in the army, because the 
 sin of a single recusant might call down the anger of the 
 neglected gods on the whole state. It was, therefore, 
 in early times the duty of the executive to enforce on 
 citizens the observance of the national religion, and, if 
 necessary, to punish its neglect. But the simple state 
 of things which the principle so stated implies was of no 
 long duration. The mission of the Roman state was a 
 mission of conquest, and each fresh conquest, whether 
 within Italy or without, opened out new mercantile 
 communications with foreign nations. Foreigners from| 
 all quarters came to Rome, and with them necessarily] 
 came their gods ; and henceforward Roman policy was 
 
 4 See Boissier, La Religion Romaine, vol. i. p. lo seq. 
 
4 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 the outcome of two principles ; different, indeed, but 
 not essentially opposed, the exclusiveness of a national 
 religion, modified, though by no means destroyed, by 
 the comprehensiveness which is inherent in all poly- 
 theism. It is, as we should expect, the latter principle 
 which is the most patent and easy to trace. Gradually 
 the number of deities included in the national religion 
 increased as the Roman citizenship was extended over 
 Italy and as communication with the Greek nation 
 became closer and more continuous. What were origin- 
 ally foreign cults could always be incorporated by the 
 executive — who, however, would never take action 
 without the support of a senatorial decree '^ — in the 
 national worship, and so come under the general super- 
 intendence of the pontifices as " sacra populi Romani ; " 
 the only distinction between these " dii novensiles," ^ 
 as they were called, and the " dii indigetes " being that 
 the former, unless they were identified under another 
 name with one of the old deities, were not allowed 
 within the pomerium. 
 
 In this way were gradually adopted into the Roman 
 state worship not only such Italian deities as Juno 
 Regina from Veii,^ or Diana from Aricia, but Apollo,® 
 Aesculapius,^ Ceres,^*^ Dis, and — to a great extent through 
 
 8 Tert. Apol. 5 : " Vetus erat decretum ne quis deus ab impe- 
 ratore consecraretur, nisi a senatu probatus ; " and 13, " Status 
 dei cuiusque in senatus aestimatione pendebat." 
 
 8 Arnobius, iii. 38 : " Ciucius numina peregrina novitate ex 
 ipsa appellata pronuntiat ; nam solere Romanes religiones 
 urbium superatarum partim privatim per familias spargere, 
 partim publice consecrare, ac ne aliquid deorum multitudine aut 
 ignorantia praeteriretur, brevitatis et compendii causa uno 
 pariter nomine cunctos novensiles invocari." Cf. Liv. viii. 9. 
 
 ■^ Liv. V. 21 : " Te simul, Juno regina, quae nunc Veios colis, 
 precor, ut nos victores in nostram, tuamque mox futuram, 
 urbem sequare." 
 
 8 Liv. iv. 25 and 29 ; cf. xxv, 12. 
 
 ^ Val. Max. i. 8, 2 : " Cura sacerdotum inspectis Sibyllinis 
 libris animadvertit non aliter pristinam recuperari salubritatem 
 posse, quam si ab Epidauro Aesculapius esset accersitus." 
 Liv. X. 47. 
 
 10 Val. Max. i. i, i ; Dionys. 6, 17 ; Tac. Ann. 2, 49 ; Cic. 
 pro Balb, 24, 55. 
 
I 
 
 THE ATTITUDE OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 the influence of the Sibylhne books" — almost all the 
 Hellenic gods ; so that long before the unification of 
 Italy it was true " cunctas caerimonias Italicis in oppidis 
 et numinum effigies iuris atque imperii Romani esse." ^^ 
 Nor were Greek and Italian cults alone thus received 
 and recognised by the state. The same procedure was 
 adopted as early as 204 B.C. in reference to the Oriental 
 cult of Cybele, whose image, symbolised in a sacred 
 stone, was, in accordance with the directions of the 
 Sibylline books, brought to Rome from Pessinus in 
 Galatia ; and, in consequence apparently of her identifi- 
 cation with the Italian Magna Mater, was ultimately 
 placed in a temple within the pomerium on the Palatine 
 itself." Similarly, in the course of the Mithridatic wars, 
 the worship of the Cappadocian goddess, centring round 
 Comana, was introduced into Rome and identified with 
 the Italian deity Bellona.^'' Manifestly this enlargement 
 of the state worship was due to political considerations ; 
 the narrower circle of " dii indigetes " no longer satisfied 
 a population so varied and heterogeneous as that of 
 Rome was fast becoming. And in the case of an Oriental 
 cult, like that of Cybele, it naturally seemed more 
 advisable, by recognising it as part of the state cult, to 
 place it under the control of the government, repre- 
 sented by the pontifices, and so to sanction its restricted 
 observance by the whole citizen body, rather than, by 
 allowing free scope within a limited number of the 
 population to a worship characterised in its native form 
 by a certain sensuousness and extravagance, to run the 
 risk of a general corruption of religion or morality. 
 
 But in a population so large and so mixed as that of 
 Rome in the last century of the republic other strange 
 and unfamiliar cults could not but creep in, not recog- 
 nised by the government, and so beyond the control of 
 
 11 Marquardt, Staatsverw. iii. pp. 42, 52 and 358. 
 
 12 Tac. Ann. iii. 71. 
 
 13 Liv. xxix, 10 and 14 : xxxvi. 36. 
 
 1* Plut. Sull. 9 : A^Yerai 5^ ^erd tovs virvovs ovry Si^XX^ 4>avr)vai 
 debv ^v Tiixdei 'Fufialoi. irapb. KawwaddKuv fiaOovres, etre 5r; Ze\r]vr}u 
 odaav etre ^AOijvdv etre 'Ei'i^oc 
 
STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 I i\^ pontifices. With regard to these, the state poHcy 
 seems to have been in the main one of watchful toleration. 
 So far as the public morality WcLS not endangered,^^ and 
 so far as Roman citizens were not led to neglect or to 
 , violate the national worship, these cults were not inter- 
 \fered with. Nor was this a mere laisser-faire procedure, 
 at any rate at first. The government knew its own 
 strength : the executive magistrates were armed with 
 a very wide police authority, which enabled them to 
 step in at once, with or without the support of the 
 senate, whenever public order or public morality or 
 public religion seemed in any way endangered. As 
 might be expected, the occasions for this interference 
 were not wanting. 
 
 As early as 425 B.C. the aediles, in consequence of 
 the invasion of new sacrificial rites, are ordered to take 
 care " ne qui nisi Romani dii neu quo alio more quam 
 ' patrio colerentur." ^® In 213 B.C. the anxieties of the 
 Hannibalic war had made both men and women more 
 inclined to have recourse to strange and foreign rites, 
 and Roman citizens in the publicity of the Forum and 
 the Capitol had not shrunk from celebrating non-national 
 modes of worship. So open a scandal imperatively 
 called for the interference of the government ; the 
 executive were censured by the senate, and the praetor 
 at the command of the same body issued an edict, " ne 
 quis in publico sacrove loco novo aut externo ritu 
 sacrificaret." ^^ That many other instances of the same 
 sort occurred we may be quite certain, though few of 
 them are recorded. " How often," asks Postumius in 
 
 15 Serv. ad A en. iv. 303 : " Sacra Nyctelia quae populus 
 Romanus exclusit causa turpitudinis." 
 
 16 Liv. iv. 30 : " Nee corpora modo adfecta tabo sed animos 
 quoque multiplex religio et pleraque externa invasit : novos 
 ritus sacrificandi vaticinando inferentibus in domos quibus 
 quaestui sunt capti superstitione animi : donee publicus iam 
 pudor ad primores- civitatis pervenit, cernentes in omnibus vicis 
 sacellisque peregrina atque insolita piacula pacis deum expos- 
 cendae." 
 
 17 Id. XXV. I : " Tanta religio, et ea magna ex parte externa, 
 civitatem incessit, ut aut homines aut dii repente alii viderentur 
 facti," etc. 
 
THE ATTITUDE OF THEREPUBLIC 7 
 
 188 B.C., " in the time of our fathers and grandfathers 
 were instructions given to the magistrates ut sacra 
 externa fieri vetarent ? " ^^ In all these cases it is probably 
 safe with Mommsen to assume that the particular point 
 which called for interference on the part of the govern- ^ 
 ment was not the celebration of the foreign cult in itself, 
 but the participation in it of Roman citizens or its. 
 intrusion within the limits of the pomerium. But even 
 on this point the_3dgilaji£e_of_the magistrates tended to 
 become relaxed. Even in the use of an adopted cult 
 like that of the Magna Mater this tendency towards 
 greater laxity in course of time declared itself. The 
 cult was at first placed under strict regulations : the 
 priests who conducted the worship were Phrygians, and 
 though a procession with some of the national rites, 
 such as the blowing of trumpets and the clashing of 
 cymbals, was allowed to pass through the city, the 
 worship was stripped of its most extravagant features, 
 and, above all, Roman citizens were forbidden by decree 
 of the senate personally to participate in the ministra- 
 tions of the cult.^^ Dionysius writes, indeed, as if these 
 
 18 Id. xxxix. 16 : " Quoties hoc patrum avorumque aetate 
 negotium est magistratibus datum, ut sacra externa fieri veta- 
 rent, sacrificulos vatesque foro, circo, urbe prohiberent, vaticinos 
 libros conquirerent comburerentque, omnem disciplinam sacri- 
 ficandi, praeterquam more Romano abolerent ? ludicabant 
 enim prudentissimi viri omnis divini humanique iuris nihil 
 aeque dissolvendae rehgionis esse quam ubi non patrio sed 
 externo ritu sacrificaretur," 
 
 19 Dionys. ii, 19 : Kal S iravrfAjv fxaXiffra l7W7e Tedai'iixaKa Kaiirep 
 fjLvpiwv oauiv eh ttjv t6\iv iXrjXvdorwv evvCjv oh ttoXXtj ava-yKT] (x^^eiv 
 Tous Trarpiovs deovs rots oUodev voixip.oL$, ovdepos els ^r^Xoy eXrjXvOe tCov 
 ^evLKQiv iTnTriSevfji.dro)u i] 7r6Xis 8r)/xoaig., 8 TroXXats ij8r) avv^^rj iradetv 
 dXXot. /cat el' TLva Kara xPV'^fJ'-ovs iireiariydyeTO iepd, roh eavrijs avra 
 Tifxq. vo/xifxoLSj airacrav eK^dWovcra repdpeiav /xvdiKTjv, wairep to. ttjs 
 Idaias Iepd. dvaias jxhv yap avrfj /cat dyQvas dyovcxiv dvd irdu iros oi 
 (TTpaTTiyoi Kara roiis 'Fco/xaiuv vo/xovs ' iepdrai 8e avTrjs dvrip ^pv^ Kal 
 -yvj/Tj ^pvyia ' Kai Trepidyovcriv dva t7]v irbkiv ovtol fir]TpayvpTOvvT€s, 
 ibcTTrep avTo?s ^9os, rijirovs re irepiKelfxevoL rols (TTrjdea'L, Kai KaravXav- 
 fievoL irpos tQv eiroixivwv rd fitjTpi^a fiiXr] Kal TV/JLiraua Kporovvres. 
 Vufxalcov S^ TtDf dvdLyevdov oiire ix-qTpayvprCjv tis oi're KaravXodfxepos 
 TTOpeieraL did ttJs irdXews ttoikIXtju evdedvKUJS aroXriu ovre opyia^wp t^v 
 Oebv TOis ^pvyioL% dpyiaa-jxoh Kara v6,uov Kal \pr](f)L(Tixa ^ovXrfjs. ovTWS 
 ei'Xa/3ws ij iroXis i'xet Tpbs rd ovk iirix<^pta ^61] vepl dewv. 
 
8 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 restrictions were still observed in the time of Augustus. 
 If so, it was perhaps in consequence of the Augustan 
 religious reformation ; but more probably he is describing 
 a state of things which had long since passed away. At 
 any rate it did ultimately pass away. We know from 
 inscriptions that the archigallns or chief priest of Cybele 
 was usually a Roman,^*^ and certainly the cult was cele- 
 brated under the empire with much, if not all, of its 
 Oriental enthusiasm.^^ 
 
 Li vy's account of the Bacchanalian conspiracy ^^ puts 
 into the clearest light both the action of the government 
 in cases where public morality or public security seemed 
 to be endangered by foreign cults, and also the extent 
 to which such cults might spread even among Roman 
 citizens without attracting the attention of the govern- 
 ment. These Bacchic rites, of undoubtedly Oriental 
 origin, and for centuries common enough in Greece and 
 Asia Minor, were apparently introduced into Etruria 
 by a Greek adventurer, and from there spread with 
 extreme rapidity both in Italy and Rome. At first 
 women only were admitted into the OCaa-oi, or secret 
 associations, which formed the basis of the cult : the 
 initiation took place by day, and the meetings were 
 held only three times a year. But all this was now 
 changed : men were initiated as well as women ; the 
 initiated were to be under twenty years of age. Meet- 
 ings were held five times in every month, and took place 
 under the secrecy of night. The inevitable enormities 
 did not fail to follow, and the Bacchic associations 
 became hotbeds not only of moral corruption, but of 
 
 20 See C. /. L. vi. 2183, and other inscriptions collected by 
 Marquardt, p. 369. 
 
 21 See especially the description in Apuleius, Met. vii i.27 ; 
 also Mart. ii. 84, 3-4 ; Stat. Theb. x. 170 foil. ; Seneca, A gam 
 687 foil. : 
 
 " Non, nisi molles imitata viros 
 Tristis laceret brachia tecum 
 Quae turritae turba parenti 
 Pectora rauco concita buxo 
 Furit, ut Phrygium lugeat Attin." 
 
 22 Liv. xxxix. 8 foil. 
 
THE ATTITUDE OF THE REPUBLIC 9 
 
 civil crimes, such as forgery and murder, and even of 
 political conspiracy. Accident brought this state of 
 things to the notice of the government. The consul 
 whose duty it was to take action laid the whole matter 
 before the senate ; an extraordinary investigation was 
 held, and the cult was put down throughout Italy with 
 energy and promptitude. More than 7,000 men and 
 women were found to be implicated, and of these more 
 than half were executed, while Bacchic associations 
 were forbidden for the future. That political and moral 
 rather than purely religious considerations guided the 
 government action in this matter is clear from the whole 
 account of Livy, and is proved by a saving clause in the 
 senatorial decree abolishing the cult, to the effect that 
 if individuals deemed it incumbent on them to celebrate 
 any Bacchic rites, they might do so on obtaining a 
 licence from the praetor urbanus, so long as no more 
 than five persons, two men and three women, met 
 together for the purpose.^^ 
 
 This event took place in 188 B.C. A hundred years 
 later the government would have found it perhaps a less 
 easy matter to put down so effectually an intrusive 
 Oriental cult. At least the history of the Isis cult and 
 the attitude of the government towards it tend to favour 
 this supposition. By the last century of the republic 
 popular belief in the national religion was very greatly 
 undermined. The very toleration which characterized 
 it might easily lead to indifferentism ; its frequent re- 
 sort to new modes of worship, especially in times of 
 public danger and anxiety, was in itself a confession of 
 insufficiency and weakness.^* The upper classes, per- 
 
 23 See S. C. de Bacchanalibus, in Brun's Pontes Juris Rom. Ant. 
 p. 146 : " Sacra in oquoltod (occulto) ne quisquam fecise velet ; 
 neve in poplicod neve in preivatod neve extrad urbem sacra 
 quisquam fecise velet, nisei pr. urbanum adieset, isque de sena- 
 tuos sententiad . . . jousiset." Cf. Liv. xxxix. iS ad fin. 
 
 2* So, on the occasion of a plague in 395 B.C., Dionysius says 
 (x. 53) : Kai TToXXd eveuTepiadr] 'Pw/^a/ots ovk 6vTa iv Ida Trept rifias 
 tCcv de&p eiriT-rjdevfiaTa ovk euirpeTTTJ. Dio Cass. Frag. 24, I (Bekk) : 
 01 'PojyLtatot TToWas fidxa^ fiaxeo'dfievoi Kai ttoXXol Kai iradovres Kal 
 opdaavTes tuiv /xev irarpiuv iepuv ibXiydprjffay. irpbs d^ rd ^eviKa wj Kal 
 
10 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 meated with the sceptical philosophy of Greece, hardly 
 took the trouble to keep up a decent appearance of 
 belief i^** popular poets scoffed openly at the established 
 religion. More important still was the avowedly poli- 
 tical character of the religion ; it was a state religion, 
 but the state was an oligarchy, and therefore the re- 
 ligion established and supported by the government 
 tended to become a party religion — a religion of the 
 minority — which, if indifferent to its own supporters, 
 was worse than indifferent to the masses and the subject 
 classes. Reasons of a more subjective kind, and there- 
 fore more difficult to trace, came, there is no doubt, 
 in time to be among the attractions towards Oriental 
 cults. The nationaLieligiQlUIiad^itlk appeal to indi- 
 viduals ; it was a state cult, and individuals were no 
 longer bound up in the state, as they had been in " the 
 brave days of old." There was more scope for personal 
 interests and personal aspirations ; greater subjectivity 
 of feeling ; and in proportion as this developed the less 
 satisfying the old religion was felt to be, with its rigid 
 ceremony and its unemotional character. ButJ4: was 
 precia^ljj. here that the Orientals religions exercised their 
 paramount influence^ Mysterious rites of initiation, 
 sensuous music, a worship crowded with symbolism no 
 less awe-inspiring that it was imperfectly or not at all 
 understood ; and, above all, a system of expiatory and 
 purificatory rites, in which there was enough of asce- 
 ticism to satisfy the craving for something personal in 
 religion and enough of licence to attract the crowd 
 in its non-religious moods, all these things made the 
 population of Rome peculiarly susceptible to the in- 
 fluence of cults like the Egyptian. ^^ 
 
 At what date the worship of Isis was first introduced 
 into Rome is uncertain, probably early in the last century 
 
 iirapKiaovTi. acpiaiv wpjxr^ffav ; also the passages in Livy already 
 cited, iv. 30 and xxv.'i. 
 
 25Cic. De Nat. Deor. ii. 3, 9, 
 
 26 See on this, Keim, Rom und das Christenthiim, p. 9 foil., and 
 for the bibliography of the subject see Marquardt, ,Staatsverw. 
 in. pp. 80-1. 
 
THE ATTITUDE OF THE REPUBLIC II 
 
 of the republic. At any rate we know that a collegium 
 of pastophori — the priests who presided at her worship — 
 was estabhshed in the time of SuUa.^^ The cult, however, 
 was not a licensed one ; it was peculiarly un-Roman 
 in its character ; it attracted a large number of citizens ; 
 it intruded itself on the very Capitol, ^^ and, above all, 
 it was believed to sanction grave immoralities. On 
 account of all these reasons we find repeated action taken 
 by the government. In 58 B.C. the cult was excluded 
 from the Capitol by the consuls of the year ; ^^ five 
 years later the private shrines were ordered by the senate 
 to be destroyed ; ^^ in 50 B.C. the temples of Isis and 
 Serapis were destroyed, not without some manifestation 
 of popular feeling ; ^^ two years later we find the same 
 thing happening again, this time in consequence of action 
 taken by the augurs. ^^ So far there had been a consis- 
 tent attempt, clearly not very successful, on the part 
 of the government to put down this cult. But in 43 B.C., 
 amidst the anarchy of the civil wars, a temple of Isis 
 was built by the triumvirs. ^^ From this time the cult, 
 though not formally adopted by the state, was neverthe- 
 
 27 Apul. Met. xi. 17 : " Coetu pastophorum quod sacrosancti 
 coUegii nomen est. . . . Collegium vetustissimum et sub illis 
 Sullae temporibus conditum." Cf. Diodor. Sic, i. 29 
 
 28 C. /. L. i. 1034. Suet. Dom. i. Tac. Hist. iii. 74. 
 29Tert. Apol. 6: " Serapidem et Isidem . . . Capitolio pro- 
 
 hibitos, id est curia Deorum pulsos, Piso et Gabinius consules 
 . . . abdicaverant." 
 
 30 Dio Cass. xl. 47 : rois yap vaoi'S avrov o6s iSiq, rives iireiroUvTo 
 Kadekelv t^ ^ovXy edo^ev • ou yap drj tovs deovs tovtovs iiri iroXv ivb- 
 fiLcrav, Kal on ye Kal e^evlKrjcrev, ibaTi Kal drjfioaLg. adrovs ai^ecdai ^|'.J 
 rod ircafXTjpiov acpds IdpixravTO. 
 
 31 Val. Max. i. 3, 3 : " L, Aemilius Paulus, consul cum senatus 
 Isidis et Serapis fana diruenda censuisset/ eaque nemo opificum 
 attingere auderet, posita praetexta securim arripuit templique 
 eius foribus infixit." 
 
 32 Dio Cass. xlii. 26 : ^8o^e yvu^firj rdv fxai/rewu iravra addis to. re 
 eKeiv7)s [Isis] Kal ret rov HepdwiSos refxevicrfxaTa KaTa<yKd\f/ai. 
 
 33 Dio Cass, xlvii. 1 5 : rbf /xh odu iviavrdu eKelvov ravTo. re ovrus 
 iirolT)(yav, Kal vediv t(^ re Hepdiridi. Kal ry "IcriSi txpT]<f)icravTO. 
 
 Cf. Lucan, viii. 831 : 
 
 " Nos in templa tuam Romana accepimus Isin." 
 
12 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 less practically tolerated in Rome.'* Augustus, indeed, 
 excluded it from the pomerium,^* Agrippa even from 
 the suburbs,'® though we know that there must have been 
 a shrine of Isis on the Capitol at the end of Nero's reign ;" 
 and noble Romans like Otho participated openly in the 
 cult.'® But it was not without its vicissitudes. The 
 attention of Tiberius was drawn to a particularly revolt- 
 ing instance of immorality perpetrated under cloak 
 of its rites, and for the time the cult was put down by 
 a strong hand — the temples destroyed, the priests cruci- 
 fied, and the devotees of the goddess banished from 
 Italy.'^ This action, however, no more than the repeated 
 expulsion of Jews from Rome, implied any change of 
 policy towards the religion as such. Not only, indeed, 
 in Rome, but throughout Italy and the provinces 
 numerous inscriptions testify to the wide extent of the 
 cult.*** Under the Flavian dynasty it was especially 
 favoured. In the reign of Titus the temple was accident- 
 ally burnt down, but a new Iseum was built by Domi- 
 tian,*^ and the remains at Pompeii testify to the extent 
 to which the cult was celebrated in the Italian municipali- 
 ties. Minucius Felix, writing towards the end of the 
 second century, can say : " Haec tamen Aegyptia quon- 
 dam sacra nunc et Romana sunt." *^ The history of the 
 
 3*Arnob. ii. 7"^: "Quid vos, Aegyptiaca numina, quibus 
 Serapis atque Isis est nomen, non post Pisonem et Gabinium 
 consules in numerum vestrorum rettulistis deorum ? " 
 
 35 Dio Cass. liii. 2 : Kal to. fikv Upa rk AlyiirTia oiK iceb^^aro 
 etffb) Tov TU/xr)piov. 
 
 ^ Id. liv. 6 : rd re Upa rd Alyuima iwei<n6vTa aidis is rb Aarv 
 6ivi<TT€ikev ' aTTei.iruiv p.T)Mva /xi^de iv tQ Trpoa<rTei({) avra eyrbs oySdov 
 -qfiicTTabiov voieiv. 
 
 37Tac. HisL iii. 74, and Suet. Dom. 1 : " Ardente templo [i.e. 
 of Jupiter Capitolinus] apud aedituum clam pernoctavit, ac 
 mane Isiaci celatus habitu interque sacrificulos vanae super- 
 stitionis," etc. 
 
 38 Suet. 0th. 12 : " Sacra etiam Isidis saepe in lintea religios- 
 aque veste propalam celebrasse." 
 
 39 See the account in Joseph. Ant. lud. 18, 3, 4 and cf. Tac. 
 Ann. 2, 85. 
 
 *OThey are collected by Marquardt, Staatsverw. iii. p. 78. 
 
 *i Eutrop. 7, 23. 
 
 42Min. Felix, Octav. 22. i. 
 
THE ATTITUDE OF THE REPUBLIC I3 
 
 Isis cult reveals clearly enough the fact that in the last 
 century of the republic and throughout the period of 
 the empire the attempt to control Roman citizens ia j 
 religious matters was to a very large extent given up. -^ 
 The extension of the franchise first throughout Italy, 
 and then to large classes of individuals in the provinces, 
 could hardly fail to impair and undermine the national 
 feeling, on which the continued existence of the national 
 religion as a living force depended.*^ Cults which were 
 allowed to non-citizens in Rome and in the provinces 
 could be forbidden to citizens only by a policy which 
 would have seemed reactionary, and would have proved 
 impracticable. As a matter of fact, therefore, govern- 
 ment interference became limited to two kinds of cases 
 — (i) to those in which a strange religion was dangerous U- 
 to public morality or social order or political security ; 
 (2) to those in which the foreign religions did not recipro- 
 cate the state toleration with an equal toleration of their 
 own, but were as rigidly exclusive of all worships but their 
 own as the national religion had been in theory in times 
 that were almost prehistoric. With the last of these 
 conditions the Egyptian cults sufficiently complied : 
 the first, as we have seen, led more than once to state 
 action, though not to permanent proscription. 
 
 43 Tert. Apol. 6 : " Ubi religio, ubi veneratio maioribus debita 
 a vobis ? Habitu, victu, instructu, sensu, ipso denique ser- 
 mone proavis renuntiastis. Laudatis semper antiquitatem et 
 nove de die vivitis." 
 
II 
 
 The Treatment of Judaism 
 
 So far the cases which we have considered have had 
 relation almost exclusively to Rome itself, or, at most, 
 to Rome and Italy. In the provinces Roman citizens 
 were for a long time comparatively" few in number, 
 and therefore cases in which the government could 
 have had any sufficient motive for interference with the 
 native religions were altogether exceptional, and, as a 
 matter of fact, these religions met with the most com- 
 plete toleration both under the republic and under 
 the empire. No doubt this toleration was not uncon- 
 ditional, T)ut it was subject to fewer conditions than in 
 Italy. The supervision of public morality, incomplete 
 or nominal as of necessity it became even in Rome, 
 was hardly attempted in the provinces, and only where 
 such enormities as human sacrifices were involved in a 
 cult, as in that of Saturn in Africa, ^ or as was believed 
 to be the case with Druidism in Gaul, 2 do we hear of 
 any cases of interference with the polytheistic religions 
 
 1 Tert. Apol. 9 : " Infantes penes Africam Saturno immola- 
 bantur palam usque ad proconsulatum Tiberii, qui ipsos sacer- 
 dotes in eisdem arboribus templi sui obumbratricibus scelerum 
 votivis crucibus exposuit." 
 
 2 Plin. H. N. XXX. 1,13: " S. C. factum est ne homo immo- 
 laretur. . . . Gallias utique possedit, et quidem ad nostram 
 memoriam. Namque' Tiberii Caesaris principatus sustulit 
 Druidas eorum et hoc genus vatum medicorumque." Suet. 
 Claud. 25 : " Druidarum rehgionem apud Gallos dirae immani- 
 tatis et tantum civibus ab Augusto interdict am penitus abolevit 
 [Claudius]." Cf. Strab. iv. 5, p. 198. 
 
THE TREATMENT OF JUDAISM I5 
 
 of the native races. In the latter case, indeed, Augustus 
 had contented himself with interdicting the worship to 
 Roman citizens, and when Claudius resolved to put 
 down Druidism entirely, it was probably because it 
 seemed to contain within itself in a concentrated form 
 the surviving national feeling of the Gallic tribes, which, 
 in view of the annexation of Britain, might appear a 
 real danger to the peace of the Western provinces. 
 
 But a somewhat new problem had to be faced when the 
 empire came into contact with the monotheistic re- 
 ligions of the East — first Judaism, then Christianity — 
 and in treating of the Roman policy towards the Chris- 
 tians it is of the greatest importance to remember that 
 this problem of how to deal with an exclusive, intolerant, } 
 monotheistic religion had been before the government | 
 for considerably more than fifty years before the exis- j 
 tence of Christianity as something distinct, and needing i 
 distinct treatment, could by any possibility have been 
 realized. 
 
 That there were Jews in Rome under the republic 
 is certain ; they were even expelled from the city and 
 from Italy 139 B.C., ^ apparently on the charge of tainting 
 Roman manners with their cult ; and since the time of 
 Pompeius there were large numbers of Jewish freedmen, 
 originally brought over from the East as slaves. But( 
 it was in the Oriental provinces rather than in Rome \ 
 that the government was confronted with the Jewish/ 
 problem. And for the most part it was a political prob-/ 
 lem, especially at first.* The Jews differed from the 
 other nationalities with which the Romans came into 
 contact in this, that, bound together as they were by the 
 closest national ties, they were neither united by a com- 
 mon political government nor were they all collected 
 within the local boundaries of a single country. On 
 
 3 Val. Max. i. 3, 2 : " C. Cornelius Hispalus praetor peregrinus 
 . . . Popillio Laenate M. Calpurnio coss. . . . ludaeos qui 
 Sabazi lovis cultu Romanos inficere mores conati erant repe- 
 tere domus suas coegit." 
 
 * See on the subject of the Jews in the Roman empire Momm- 
 sen's important chapter " Judaa und die Juden," Rom. Gesch. 
 V. p. 487 foil. 
 
l6 V STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 the contrary, Judaea, though the centre, was only the 
 nucleus of the race. The Jewish race was scattered 
 throughout the Oriental provinces ; in almost every one 
 of the great Hellenistic cities which had sprung up since 
 the time of Alexander there was a considerable Jewish 
 population. Usually, perhaps, as in Alexandria, where 
 two out of the five regions of the city were inhabited by 
 Jews, they lived together more or less distinct from 
 the rest of the population ; but, whether in this way or 
 mingled with the other inhabitants, they were to be found 
 in the cities of Syria and Asia, of Cilicia, Pamphylia, 
 Bithynia, and Pontus, in the purely Greek provinces of 
 Macedonia and Achaia, and even in the larger islands of 
 the Aegean. 5 But they were naturally not citizens of 
 the towns in which they resided. To become such they 
 would by the constitutional laws of the empire have 
 ceased to be Jews, and they would have had to submit 
 in all respects to the municipal government of the 
 1 various cities. This was in their case impossible ; their 
 legal position, therefore, was that of incolae or /xctoikoi. 
 But while ordinary incolae, though no doubt, like the 
 " Bery tenses cul tores lovis Heliopolitani qui Puteolis 
 consistunt," ^ forming associations within the alien cities 
 for purposes of their national worship, were content to 
 merge their other interests, as far as they were allowed 
 by law, in the civic conditions around them, the case was 
 always different with the Jews. Their associations — 
 o-waywyai — no doubt took their place among the other 
 religious associations in the East for foreign or other 
 cults, but they were different, nevertheless, in several 
 important and essential points. That they were ex- 
 clusive, and even aggressive towards other religions, 
 might attract less attention in Oriental cities, where 
 factions were numerous, and the party feeling and jeal- 
 
 5 Philo, Leg. ad Caium, p. 1032 ; Mang. 587. Strab. in 
 Joseph. Ant. lud. xiv. 7, 2 ; Joseph. Bell. lud. ii. 16, 4 ; Acts ii. 
 5-1 1. Cf. Seneca, fragm. in August. Civ. Dei, vi. 11 : "Cum 
 interim usque eo sceleratissimae gentis consuetudo convaluit, 
 ut per omnes iam terras accepta sit, victi victoribus leges deder- 
 unt." 
 
 • Orell. 1246 = Wilm. 2002. 
 
THE TREATMENT OF JUDAISM 17 
 
 ousy which sprang from them a standing danger to the 
 pubhc peace ; but there was a close and intimate con- 
 nexion between the local arvvay<t)yai, or, as they were 
 from this point of view, TroAtTcv/xara,'^ and the centre 
 at once of the religion and the race at Jerusalem, which 
 made this exclusiveness more marked, and might seem 
 to make it more dangerous. Moreover, included under 
 this exceptional religious unity there was a certain politi- 
 cal or semi-political unity, involved though hardly ex- 
 pressed, which made the Jewish problem both difficult, 
 ambiguous, and complex to the Roman government. 
 
 To the Jews themselves, indeed, this political unity was 
 of altogether secondary importance. They had, indeed, 
 played their part, as a national and political unity, but 
 always with a tendency to recur in some form or other 
 to the theocracy which, according to national tradi- 
 tions, was proper to the race. Hence they had with 
 comparatively Httle difficulty adapted themselves to 
 the Seleucid regime, under which the loss of political 
 independence was compensated by religious freedom,^ 
 and hence in latter times they were content to accept 
 the position merely of a " religio licita " after all national 
 unity had been proscribed. But at the time when the 
 Jews first came within the sphere of Roman politics 
 the national unity still existed, and it was reflected in 
 the claim made by the a-waywyaC of the Diaspora to 
 certain semi-political rights, such as jurisdiction over 
 their own members, freedom from tribute, and exemption i 
 from service in the army.^ Such claims joined to their \ 
 religious fanaticism and their peculiar and exclusive 1 
 customs, made them often an object of dislike and jeal- \ 
 ousy in the cities where they settled, and of scorn not 1 1 
 unmixed with suspicion to the Roman government. \\, 
 
 To Cicero their religion was a " barbara superstitio," 
 and Flaccus was, in his opinion, justified in refusing to 
 allow the annual Temple tax to be sent by the Jews of 
 
 ■^ Cf. the TToX/reu/ia rwv h BepeviKr) 'lovSa'wv, C. I. Gr. 5261. 
 
 8 Momms. Rom. Gesch. v. p. 487. 
 
 9 Joseph. Ant. lud. xiv. 10. 
 
 w 
 
l8 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 Asia to Jerusalem.^^ X^dius^Caesar, however, in regula- 
 ting the Oriental provinces, parfly from general consid- 
 erations of policy or equity, partly with the view of re- 
 warding the past services and securing the future good 
 faith of Herod, who was in the position of a client-king 
 of Judaea, inaugurated a more favourable policy towards 
 the Jews, and granted them a number of exceptional 
 privileges, some of which were semi-political in their 
 effect, but all had more or less direct reference to the 
 existence of Judaism as a religion. These privileges 
 were defined and embodied in a series of edicts sent at 
 the order of Caesar, or, after his death, of Antonius, by 
 the provincial governors to the various cities in which 
 Jewish oT^vaywyat existed. The principal concession 
 was the free exercise of their national religion, and the 
 exemption from any duties or services which were irre- 
 concilable with this. They were allowed unimpeded to 
 send the annual Temple tax to Jerusalem ; they were 
 excused from appearing in court on the Sabbath ; they 
 were exempted from military service ; they were form- 
 ally allowed a certain jurisdiction over their own mem- 
 bers,^^ and their o-vraywyat were expressly excepted 
 from the edict by which almost all the collegia and OiacroL 
 were put down, while later on, when the imperial cult 
 was established in the Eastern provinces, the Jews were 
 excused from a compliance which would have contra- 
 dicted the first principles of their religion. ^^ By these 
 
 10 Cic. pro Flacc. xxviii, 67 : " Quum aurum ludaeorum 
 nomine quotannis ex Italia et ex omnibus provinciis Hierosolyma 
 exportari soleret, Flaccus sanxit edicto ne ex Asia exportari 
 liceret. Quis est, indices, qui hoc non vere laudare possit ? " 
 
 11 Cf. Acts ix. 2, xxii. 19, xviii. 12-17, xxvi. 11 ; 2 Cor. xi. 24. 
 
 12 Joseph, Ant. lud. xiv. 10, 6, to the magistrates of Paros : 
 Kal yap Taios Kala-ap 6 yj/x^repoi <TTpaT7)y6s Kal OxaTos iv rep diardyfiaTi 
 KU)\iu3v didcrovs crvudyeadai Kara irbXiv fiovovs TOi'rrovi ovk iKU)\v€v, oUre 
 XprifJ-ara ffvveiatpipeiv oUre crvvSenrva Troielp ' ofxoius 5^ KdyCj tovs AWovi 
 diacTovi Ku}\xio}v TovTovs h6povs iirLTp^Trus Kara rd ndrpia Wr) /cat vbfufia 
 cvvdyeadal re Koi ta-racrdai. 
 
 Ibid, xiv 10, 12, an edict of Dolabella to the Ephesians : 
 'AX^^a»'5pos irp€a^cvTr]i 'TpKavov dpxUped)^ Kal idvdpxov tQ>v ''lovdaluv 
 iP€<pdvia^ fxoi wepi toO fir) Svpaadat (TTpaTeveadat. roi/i woXlTas avrov Sid 
 t6 fi-qre iivXa ^aard^eip duvaadai /i^re 65onropeiy avroi/s iv rah rj/xipaii 
 
THE TREATMENT OF JUDAISM I9 
 
 privileges the Jews were placed in an exceptionally 
 favourable position, and this notwithstanding the fact 
 that their religion was distinctly aggressive, and was even 
 a proselytising religion, and that by reason of this 
 aggressiveness they were generally the objects of dislike, 
 suspicion, and even hatred. But on the one hand their 
 existence was a fact with which the empire, in dealing with 
 the Eastern provinces, had to take account, and there 
 were really only two alternatives — to protect them or 
 to put them down — because a neutral policy would have 
 meant perpetual friction and disturbances which no well- 
 ordered government could allow. And there was no 
 sufficient reason for departing from the usual toleration 
 of provincial cults, and putting down a religion which, 
 though not complying with all the normal conditions- 
 of toleration, was nevertheless not suspected of being 
 immoral, and which, in spite of proselytising tendencies, 
 seemed to be narrowed down by its strictly national 
 basis so far as to make any dangerous extension of it a 
 remote improbability. Besides, as Mommsen has 
 pointed out with much likelihood, these privileges, 
 though bearing more or less directly on their religious 
 position, were granted primarily to Jews in a political 
 sense, and could not be claimed by, though they might 
 often be allowed to, the proselytes of non-Jewish birth, 
 while conversely national Jews by becoming Roman citi- 
 zens would lose the right to these special exemptions. 
 The latter case would seldom arise in the provinces, for 
 which these regulations were primarily intended, but it 
 
 tQv aa^^druv, /xT^re Tpb<f>o}v tQiv irarplup /cat cvvfiOwv Kar' avroiis euwo- 
 peiv. '£716 re o5v avroTs, KaOws Kal oi trpb e/aov i]yeiJ,6v€s, dldwfjLi tt]v 
 affTpareiav Kal cvyx'^P^ XPV<^^^'- '^^'^^ varpiois tdi(T/xo?i lepwv 'iveKO. Kal 
 aylcav ffvvayop.^voi.s, KaOus avroh pd/xi/xov. 
 
 Ibid, xiv, 10, 17, to the magistrates of Sardis : 'louSalot TroXlrai 
 Tj/jL^repoL irpoffeXddvTei [xoi iiriSei^av eavrods aivodov ^xetJ' lUav /card toi)s 
 trarplovs v6/xovs d7r' dpxv^i fat rdirop i8iov iv (fi rd re irpdyfiara Kal rds 
 Tpbs dXKifiXovs avTiXoylas Kplvovai • tovt6 re alrrfcrafxipois iV i^-rj avroU 
 iroieip, Trjprja-ai Kal iirirpi'^ai ^Kpipa. 
 
 See also the decrees of the citizens of Pergamus, Halicarnassus, 
 Sardis and Ephesus : Ibid xiv. 10, 22-25. Cf. Suet. Caes. 
 84, where the Jews especially mourn his death. 
 
^ 
 
 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 might and did often occur in Rome, where a large pro- 
 portion of the Jews were apparently of the freedman 
 class, and therefore Roman citizens. Partly owing to 
 this cause, and partly to the different conditions in 
 Rome, where the Jewish communities were brought face 
 to face with the central government, they were treated 
 with less favour, or at least there were more exceptions 
 to their entire freedom from interference in Rome than 
 in the provinces. This, however, was not the case under 
 Aug^ustus. who, in spite of his attempts to infuse fresh 
 life into the national or state religion, not only expressly 
 confirmed and renewed all the privileges granted by the 
 dictator to the Jews in the East,^^ but, as Philo expressly 
 says, left the manumitted Jews in Rome in the undis- 
 turbed practice of their religion, neither expelling them 
 from the city nor depriving them of their citizenship." 
 He even went so far as to order that when the distribu- 
 tion of corn took place on the Sabbath any Jews entitled 
 to the dole should have their portion reserved till the 
 
 13 Joseph. A nt. lud. xvi. 6, 2 : ibo^i fxoi. nal rip e/ty <TVfjt.^ov\i(p 
 ixerk opKiOfxoaias yvwfirj S-/)fxov 'Pa>;uaia»' rods ^lovSaiovs xp^o'^at rols IdloLS 
 deafioii /card rbu irarpLov avrdv v6/xov, Kadcbs ixp^vro iwi 'TpKavou 
 d/)Xi^pews deoO v\f>i<TTOV, to, re itpa elvai iv davXlg,, /cat dvaTr^fnreadat. els 
 'lepoabXvjxa. koX diroSldocrdaL avrd tois dwoSoxeOffiu 'lepoaoXO/xwv, lyyvas 
 T€ fir) bfioKoyeiv avroiis iv ad^fiaaiP. 
 
 Philo, Leg. ad Caium, p. 1035 ; Mang. 591 : T6 fikv yap irpdrou 
 dxiffreiXe rots eiriTpoTrois tG)v Kara ttjv ''Acriav iiriKpareiuiv, wdofievos 
 dXiyupe'iadai tols iepds dirapxds, iva iTnrpiinixn roh 'louSa/ots /xdvoU eij 
 TCL (Tvvayihyia avpipxecdai ' /xtj 70^ elvai raOra <tw68ovs ck /aedrji Kal 
 vapoivias iiri avcrrdaet us \vfialueadai, rd rris eipi]V7}S . . . elra /ceXeiJei 
 fxr]8eva ifxiroduv 'iffracrdai rots 'louSaiots fxrjre awiova-L pi-qre (xweiatpi- 
 
 pOVffl. 
 
 ^^ Ibid. p. 1014 ; Mang. 568 : Trjv iripav rod Ti^^peus iroTafwv 
 HeydX-rfv rrjs "Pwfxrjs diroTOfJirjv ^v ovk rtyvbu KarexopAv-qv Kal oIkovjx^vtju 
 irpbs ^lovdalwy. 'Fw/J-aToi 5i fjaav ol irXeiovs direXevdepud^ures ' alxjJ-d- 
 %ioroi yap dx^^Pres els ^IraXiav virb rQv KTrjaa^vuv ijXevdepibd-qaav, 
 ovS^v tQv irarpltav irapaxapa^ai ^laadhres. 'Htt araro o^v Kal irpoaev- 
 Xds ^xoi'Ttts Kal avvidvTas els axnds Kal fidXiffra rats lepals e/356/xais, Sre 
 5-qixociq. Tr)v irdrpiov iiraide{>ovTo (piXoaocpiav. 'HTr/o-raro Kal xPVP-ara 
 ffvvayaydvTas dirb tCov dirapxOjv lepd, Kal v^nTovras els'lepO(x6Xv/xa did 
 Twv rds dvffias dva^bvruv. 'AW 6 p-h oijre i^tpKiae ttjs '?up.r]s iKelvovs, 
 oOre TT}v '?(opMiKT]v airruu difteCXero woXiTelav 8ti Kal rrjs ^lovSaiKTJs 
 
 i<f)pOVTl^0VT0. 
 
THE TREATMENT OF JUDAISM 21 
 
 next day.^^ Tiberius ^^ and Claudius/^ while confirming 
 all the Jewish privileges in the provinces, though the 
 latter in his edict to the provincial governors found it 
 necessary to recommend some reciprocal toleration to 
 the Jews, came into a certain amount of collision with 
 the Jews of the capital. In Rome every form of reli- 
 gious innovation tended to take root, and unattractive 
 as the Jewish ritual might seem to be, it was not without 
 its adventitious adherents, especially among women, 
 while it grew to be a fashionable form of dilettanteism 
 to observe certain parts of the Jewish ritual without 
 formally becoming Jews.^® Possibly this tendency may 
 have considerably increased between the accession of 
 Augustus and the time of Tiberius, while we know that 
 the growth of foreign superstitions was a subject of some 
 anxiety under Claudius. ^^ At any rate Tiberius, using 
 as an occasion the fact that a noble Roman lady, a con- 
 vert to Judaism, had been induced to part with money 
 for the adornment of the Temple in Jerusalem, which 
 was appropriated by certain Jewish adventurers, took 
 decisive measures against the communities in Rome.^° 
 
 15 Philo, Leg. ad Caium, p. 1015 ; Mang. 569. 
 
 ^^ Ibid. p. 1033 ; Mang. 591 : TL 8i 6 ^repbt aov irainro^ Ti^^pm 
 Kaicrap ; 'Eu yap rpiaiv kuI eiKoatv ^rea-w ols airoKpdTWp iyhero, ttjv 
 Kara t6 iepbv €k /xrjKiffTOjv XP^^^" irapabeboixivrjv dpyjcTKeiav kr-qprfcev, 
 ov8h a^T^s 7rapaXi;cras -^ -irapaKLvqaas fi^pos. Cf. also p. 1015 ; Mang. 
 569. 
 
 1'^ Joseph. Ant. lud. xix. 5,3: KaXois o7)v ^x^iv rots ''lovSaiois rots 
 iv iravTi rip v(p'' Tj/nas k6<tiHj) to. Trdrpia ^6r] dveiriKuMrcas <pv\d(X(T€iv, iv 
 oh Kai avToh -rfStj vvv 7rapa77AXa? /xov Tavrrj ttj (piXavd puiriq. eirieiKicTepov 
 XPW^o-'- i^o-i- I^V Tds T^" a\\(>)v idvCov deiaidai/xovias ii;6vdei'L^eiv, Toi>s 
 ISiovi Se vdp-ovs (f)v\d(T(T€iu. 
 
 18 Hor. Sat. i. 9, 69 ; Ovid, Ars Am. i. 415 ; Pers. v. 179 ; Juv. 
 xiv. 97, etc. 
 
 i^Tac. Ann. xi. 15. 
 
 20 Tac. Ann. ii. 85 : " Actum et de sacris Aegyptiis ludaicisque 
 pellendis : factumque Patrum consultum, ut quatuor milia 
 libertini generis, ea superstitione infecta, quis idonea aetas, in 
 insulam Sardinian! veherentur, coercendis illic latronibus, et, 
 si ob gravitatem caeli interissent, vile damnum : ceteri cederent 
 Italia, nisi certam ante diem profanos ritus exuissent." Cf. 
 Suet. Tib. 36. 
 
 Josephus. Ant. lud. xviii. 3, 4, describes the whole affair: 
 Ti/3epios AceXei/ei irdv rb ^lovdai'Kbp ttjs 'Piifxrji dire\adrjvaiy k.t.\. 
 
22 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 That the rehgion itself was for the time put down, those 
 who refused to give up their profane rites being banished 
 from Italy, seems clear from the accounts of Suetonius 
 and Tacitus. But it is no less clear that the main brunt 
 of the repression fell upon those who were Roman citi- 
 zens. Of these no fewer than 4,000 were compulsorily 
 enlisted in the army — since as Roman citizens, and so 
 no longer politically Jews, they lost their right of exemp- 
 tion — and sent to Sardinia to put down the brigandage 
 there. The repression was only temporary : according 
 to Philo, indeed, it was due to the personal influence of 
 Sejanus ; ^^ and under Claudius the Jews in Rome were 
 again very numerous. Under that emperor we hear 
 again of their expulsion from the city, perhaps in conse- 
 quence of disputes with the Christians,^^ though Dio 
 Cassius says that, as they were too numerous to be expel- 
 led, Claudius simply put in force against them the regu- 
 lations forbidding unlicensed collegia P But whatever 
 form the repression took it was clearly due to some tem- 
 porary cause. It was getting to be against the spirit of 
 the age to expect that a Jew, from the mere fact of being 
 manumitted, should put off his national religion and con- 
 form to the established cult. Tiberius and Claudius 
 may have deemed it advisable for the moment to assert 
 the state's right to such compliance, but in the absence 
 of some distinctly political or social danger the national 
 religion had no longer sufficient hold on the public mind, 
 and was no longer sufficiently the care of the govern- 
 ment, to justify any permanent reversal of the Augustan 
 policy, or to place the Jews in a position less favourable 
 than that of the worshippers of Isis. 
 There was, however, as Mommsen points out,^* 
 
 h 
 
 21 Philo, Adv. Flacc. ad init., and Leg. ad Caium, p. 1015 ; 
 Mang. 569. 
 
 22 Suet. Claud. 25: " ludaeos impulsore Chresto assidue 
 tumultuantes Roma expulit." Cf. Acts xviii. 2. 
 
 23 Dio Cass. Ix. 6 :' roiJs re ''lovSalovs ir\eovd<rapTas alidis, ware 
 XaXeTTWj Ac dvev rapaxv^ v'fb tou 6x^ov o-<piiv ttjs irdXeois elpxdrjfiai, 
 ovK i^TiXaffe ixh,T<^ 5k 8ri irarpiif v6fx(f} /Sfy xP^f^^^^^^ iKiXevae firj ffvua- 
 dpoi^adai. 
 
 2* Rom. Gesch. v. p. 499. 
 
tHE TREATMENT OF JUDAISM 23 
 
 always a distinction between the Roman policy towards 
 the Jews in the East and in the West. In the former 
 they were a political factor of which account had to be 
 taken ; in the latter they were immigrants to be tolera- 
 ted at the most, but not encouraged. Nor is it possible 
 to deny that in his policy towards the Jews of the Dias- 
 pora Augustus had admitted principles which might, in 
 conceivable circumstances, prove a danger to the empire. 
 The indulgence shown to their rigid monotheism in 
 exempting them from the imperial cult, intended as it 
 was to be a bond of unity in and allegiance to the empire, 
 was in itself, perhaps, from the imperial point of view, 
 a doubtful step ; but the national and political unity, 
 such as it was, granted to this dispersed race, really on 
 the ground of this religious recusancy, was still more in 
 contradiction both to the imperial and municipal policy 
 which the government in other cases adopted. It was 
 the recognition, on however small a scale, of a State 
 within the State. The ill-considered attempt of Caligula 
 to force the imperial cult, contrary to all these expressly 
 granted privileges, first on the synagogues of Alexandria, 
 and finally to place his statue in the central Temple of 
 Jerusalem, ^^ proved, to a certain extent, the wisdom of 
 the Augustan policy, to which, as we have seen, Claudius 
 at once reverted ; but the political difficulties were 
 greater, and it is doubtful whether the catastrophe of 
 the Jewish war at the end of Nero's reign could by any 
 possibility have been permanently avoided. Ever since 
 Judaea was made into a province, and the Jews were 
 brought into direct contact with the Roman officials, 
 procurators, military officers, and tax-gatherers, in 
 spite of every wish on the part of the Roman govern- 
 ment to avoid causes of collision, these proved less and 
 less able to be avoided. Individual cases of misgovern- 
 ment on the one hand were met by an increasing ten- 
 dency on the part of the Jewish authorities to play into 
 the hands of the extreme party, and when the war broke 
 out it was merely the natural consummation of relations 
 which were mutually incompatible. 
 
 25 Philo, Leg. ad Caium, p. 1019 ; Mang. 573, etc. 
 
24 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 The war had important consequences in several direc- 
 tions. Pohtically, after the destruction of Jerusalem, 
 the deposition of the high priest, and the dissolution of 
 the Sanhedrim, the Jews ceased to exist. In the eyes 
 of the Roman law they were henceforth " cives nullius 
 certae civitatis — peregrini dediticii " — and an inscrip- 
 tion of Hadrian's time rightly describes them as ol ttotc 
 vBaloL.^^ But though their political privileges were 
 abolished their religion was still not only tolerated but 
 protected. In fact, as Mommsen says, into the place of 
 the privileged nation there now stepped the privileged 
 confession — the " religio licita" ^^ The Jews of the 
 Diaspora remained in their position of /x-cVotKot in the 
 Eastern cities, but there was now no sort of political 
 union with any centre of the race. Technically a Jewish 
 community could no longer be described, as before the 
 war, by the terms TroXtVcv/xa, but simply as a a-waywyrj. 
 or rather as a collection of (rvvayuyyai The Jews in 
 Rome and those in the provinces now stood on exactly 
 the same footing. Their worship was protected by the 
 state from all interference ; their crvj'aywyai were still 
 exempted from the regulations against collegia ; their 
 members were no more than before compelled to con- 
 form to the imperial cult ; their scruples as to the Sab- 
 bath were respected ; and they were excused from mili- 
 tary service. But these privileges were no longer free 
 to all who called themselves Jews, whether by birth or 
 by conversion. Only those were recognised as Jews by 
 the State who were members of one of the o-waywyai, 
 and who formally entered their names (profiteri) as such, 
 and received a licence from the proper official. And for 
 this licence a tax had to be paid. The two drachmae 
 which all Jews had hitherto paid to the Temple at Jeru- 
 salem were now to be paid to the temple of Jupiter Capi- 
 tolinus.^ So that though the Jews retained their free- 
 st Momms. Histor. Zeitschr. Ixiv. p. 424. C. I. Gr. 3148. 
 
 27 Ibid. p. 425. 
 
 28 Joseph. B. I. vii. 6, 6 : <t)6pov S^ rotj oirovdi^iroTe o^<nv ^lovdaiois 
 iiri^aXf, 8vo Spaxi^as ^Kaarov AceXei^oras avk tcLv Itos els t6 KaverdiXiov 
 <pdp€ip, uxTTep Tpbrepov els rbv ev 'lepo(To\6fiois vewv. 
 
 Dio Cass. Ixvi. 7 : /cat ^w' iKeivov SlSpaxfioy irdx^V roi/s to, trdrpia 
 
THE TREATMENT OF JUDAISM 25 
 
 dom of worship, it was a " vectigalis libertas." Several 
 ends were gained by this institution. The supremacy 
 and dignity of the national religion were to a certain 
 extent vindicated against the exclusive and haughty 
 monotheism by the tax paid to the centre of Roman 
 worship ; a supervision by the licensing of individual 
 members was secured over the crwaywyai, which made 
 their concession less of a real exception to the imperial 
 policy in this matter than at first sight it seemed to be ; 
 while the possibility of checking any dangerous spread 
 of the religion through an access of proselytising zeal 
 was placed always within the power of the government, 
 which also had an easy means of preventing, if it wished, 
 Roman citizens from becoming proselytes. Under this 
 arrangement Jews by birth were not as such bound to 
 pay the tax, but only if they attended the synagogues 
 and were therefore Jews by religion. On the other hand, 
 proselytes, whether Roman citizens or others who had 
 obtained the licence, were entitled to all the religious 
 privileges of the Jews, though apparently both classes 
 might in private, and as long as they were not members 
 of a synagogue, practise Jewish manners (" vita 
 ludaica ") without, by registration, making themselves 
 liable to the tax.^® 
 
 But though t he war h ad not caused any repression » 
 of the Jewish religion, which, as Tertullian says, was] 
 " certe licita," ^° it had very strongly increased the feel- 
 ing of antipathy to the Jews entertained in a less degree 
 even before by the educated classes at Rome, Tacitus 
 is the best representative of this feeling, to whicli, how- 
 ever, expression is given clearly enough by Juvenal,^^ 
 
 a{/TU)V idrj TepiaTeWovTas ry KairiTuXnp Ad Kar'' iTOS dTO<p^p€iP. 
 Suet. Dom. 12 : " Praeter ceteros ludaicus fiscus acerbissime actus 
 est, ad quern deferebantur qui vel improfessi ludaicam viverent 
 vitam, vel dis imulata origine imposita genti tributa non pepen- 
 dissent." Tert. Apol. 18 : " Sed et ludaei palam lectitant ; 
 vectigalis libertas vulgo aditur sabbatis omnibus." Juv. iii. 15. 
 
 29 So I interpret the passage of Suetonius, Dom. 12, cited above. 
 
 30 Tert. Apol. 21 
 
 31 Juv. xiv. 100. " Romanas autem soliti contemnere leges, 
 ludaicum ediscunt et servant ac metuunt ius, tradidit arcane 
 quodcunque volumine Moyses." 
 
26 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 Quintilian,^'^ and Pliny.^^ According to Tacitus ^* it is a 
 " gens taeterrima " — " proiectissima ad libidinem " — 
 characterised by an " hostile odium " towards all out- 
 side its own circle, teaching its converts " contenanere 
 deos, exuere patriam, parentes liberos fratres vilia 
 habere." That in spite of this very strong feeling — a 
 feeling yvhich must inevitably have been heightened by 
 the internecine war under Trajan, and by the frightful 
 atrocities perpetrated by the Jews in Cyprus and other 
 places ^^ — the toleration extended to the Jews should 
 still have been maintained, so that even so late as the 
 beginning of the third century we find Callistus banished 
 to Sardinia for disturbing a Jewish congregation at 
 Rome,^* while it is expressly afhrmed in the Theodosian 
 Code, " ludaeorum sectam nulla lege prohibitam satis 
 constat," ^^ is a sufficiently remarkable circumstance, and 
 
 I would seem, at any rate, to justify the general assertion 
 that in religious matters the Roman government was 
 both forbearing and tolerant. 
 
 But before we pass on to consider its dealings with the 
 second monotheistic religion with which it came into 
 contact — Christianity — it will, perhaps, be well just to 
 sum up the limitations to this toleration which we have 
 seen to constitute its practical or working policy towards 
 foreign cults. In the first place, then, putting on one 
 side the received cults which thus became parts of the 
 
 32 Quint. Instit. Or. iii. 7, 21 : " Est et conditoribus urbium 
 infame contraxisse aliquam perniciosam ceteris gentem, qualis 
 est primus ludaicae superstitionis auctor." 
 
 33 Plin. H. N. xiii. 4 : " Gens contumelia numinum insignis." 
 
 34 Tac. Hist. V. 2-5 ; " Profana illic omnia quae apud nos 
 sacra : rursum concessa apud illos quae nobis incesta. . , . 
 Cetera instituta sinistra foeda pravitate valuere. Nam pessi- 
 mus quisque spretis religionibus patriis tributa et stipes illuc 
 gerebant : unde auctae ludaeorum res, et quia apud ipsos fides 
 obstinata, misericordia in promptu, sed adversus alios omnes 
 hostile odium. . . . Transgressi in morem eorum idem usur- 
 pant, nee quidqucCm prius imbuuntur quam contemnere deos, 
 exure patriam, parentes liberos fratres vilia habere." 
 
 33 Euseb. H. E. iv. 2 ; Dio Cass. Ixviii. 32 ; Oros. vii. 12. 
 
 36 Hippolytus Philosoph. ix. 12. 
 
 37 Cod. Theod. xvi. 8, 9. 
 
THE TREATMENT OF JUDAISM 27 
 
 national worship, foreign religions were tolerated in so 
 far as they did not injure the national and established 
 worship. Strictly, and at first, this would mean that j 
 aliens but not Roman citizens might participate in them. 
 But a rigid enforcement of this principle was practically 
 impossible and it became so far modified as to permit 
 Roman citizens to participate in these cults in so far as 
 they were not thereby prevented from showing due 
 honour to the national gods — in other words, in so far 
 as the toleration was reciprocal. In the course of time, 
 and under the empire — or, as Mommsen puts it, *' unter 
 dem die alten Ordnungen verflachenden und zerriit- 
 tenden Regiment der Casaren und ihrer Beamten " — 
 even this condition was in certain cases overlooked, and 
 no doubt many Roman citizens were Jews or even Chris- 
 tians without drawing down upon themselves, in fact, 
 any State interference. If the question had been a 
 purely religious one the government policy would have 
 been summed up in what has been said. But it was not. 
 It was a characteristic of many of the immigrant reli- 
 gions, especially of those of an Oriental origin, to foster 
 and encourage gross immoralities. No doubt in this 
 connexion any line drawn between what might be per- 
 mitted and what not was an arbitrary one, but still the 
 existence of such a line was always tacitly recognised, 
 not only in the policy of the government, but even, if 
 we may use such a term of such times, in the moral sense 
 of the community ; and, as we have seen, the govern- 
 ment occasionally, sometimes with, sometimes with- 
 out the support of popular feeling, took decisive action 
 and put down a cult on the score of its immorality. 
 More important still was the potential interference of 
 the government with foreign religions from political con- 
 siderations. Long after religious belief had practically 
 disappeared, the national religion was upheld as the 
 emblem or symbol of the political supremacy of Rome. 
 It is of little importance for the present question whether 
 we look to Rome or Italy with their sphere of state- 
 recognised deities whose cults were under the ultimate 
 superintendence of the pontifex maximus — who himself, 
 
28 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 under the empire, was always the executive head of the 
 state — or to the provinces, where, by the institution of 
 Augustus, the imperial cult — the worship of " Rome and 
 
 (Augustus " — was to provide some kind of religious unity 
 for the empire, as the representation and symbol of its 
 political cohesion.^® In the one case as in the other, 
 viewed in its severest light, religious recusancy was tanta- 
 mount potentially to political disaffection. Not by any 
 means that in all cases it was actually so regarded. 
 That would depend on a number of circumstances, col- 
 lective and individual, local and imperial. Sometimes 
 opposite considerations might have to be balanced 
 against one another, as, e.g. when it seemed a smaller 
 political danger to condone and even to sanction the 
 religious recusancy of the Jews — which, based as it was 
 on the narrow limits of an obscure nationality, seemed 
 incapable of any appreciable development — rather than 
 to risk a general conflagration of religion and national 
 hatred in all the great cities of the East by interfering 
 with the religious freedom and its semi-political conse- 
 quences among the scattered but important Jewish 
 communities. But because an aggressive and morose 
 monotheism, resting on a narrow national basis, was 
 tolerated by the government, all the circumstances of 
 the case being taken into account, it by no means neces- 
 sarily followed that an aggressive monotheism, equally 
 exclusive and equally indifferent to the political obedi- 
 ence which was implied in religious conformity, and at 
 the same time claiming to overstep all limits of nation- 
 ality, and without disguise aiming at a universality 
 which the Roman empire was prevented by the history 
 of all its institutions from conceiving apart from political 
 consequences — it by no means followed that such a reli- 
 gion would receive the same treatment from the state. 
 
 38 See an article in the English Historical Review, No. i8, on 
 the Provincial Concilia," p. 226 foil. 
 
Ill 
 
 First Appearance of Christianity in the 
 Eastern Provinces 
 
 H istori cally Christianity originated as an offshoot 
 froni Judaism, and It is pfObably an undisputed fact 
 that to all outside the Jewish communities, perhaps at 
 first even to the Jews themselves outside Judaea, Christi- 
 anity was regarded merely as a Jewish sect. It is no 
 less certain that the first spread of Christianity was aided 
 and conditioned by the extent and number of the Jewish 
 communities scattered over the provinces of Syria and 
 Asia Minor. That the earliest converts in Jerusalem, 
 rising with extreme rapidity from 120 ^ to 3,000,2 and 
 then to 5,000 3 — the large number being accounted for 
 by the fact that multitudes of Jews from all parts of the 
 empire happened to be at Jerusalem for the feast of 
 Pentecost * — still continued to worship in the Temple 
 is expressly attested. ^ The fact that Stephen was 
 brought before the Sanhedrim ^ proves that in the eyes 
 of that body he was a recusant Jew, over whom, there- 
 fore, they had the right of jurisdiction, while the certainly 
 illegal action of putting him to death could only have 
 been overlooked by the Roman government because 
 they regarded it as one of those regrettable incidents 
 which the internal ahimosities among the Jews some- 
 times occasioned, and at which it was better to connive 
 
 1 Acts i. 15. 2 Acts ii. 41. 3 Acts iv. 4. 
 
 * Acts ii. 5-1 1. 5 Acts, ii 46. ^ Actsvii. 12 
 
 29 
 
30 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 than to interfere with. The persecution, a purely Jew- 
 ish one, which followed was the first means of spreading 
 the new sect through the cities of Judaea and Samaria,^ 
 and then to such places as Damascus,® Cyprus, and 
 Antioch ^ — all places where there were large Jewish com- 
 munities, and in which it is expressly stated that the 
 refugees " spake the word to none save to the Jews 
 only." ^^ So, too, a few years later, when through the 
 missionary activity of Paul, the new religion — for such 
 it was gradually becoming — spread north and west of 
 the Taurus range, it was to the Jews first that Paul 
 invariably announced the message that he had to bring. 
 This was the case at Salamis in Cyprus," at Antioch in 
 Pisidia,^^ at Iconium,^^ at Philippi,** at Thessalonica,^* at 
 Beroea,*** at Ephesus,^^ and no doubt at all the other cities 
 where he preached. But though many Jews became 
 converts to the " new way " it had been from the first 
 discountenanced and even proscribed by the central 
 authorities at Jerusalem.^® Just as Saul was sent by 
 the high priest with letters to the synagogues of Damas- 
 cus against the Christians ,^^ so no doubt there were 
 emissaries to the various cities of the Diaspora. At 
 Antioch in Pisidia the Jews were so hostile that Paul at 
 this early stage of his missionary journey declared his 
 intention of turning to the Gentiles.^** They were driven 
 out of Iconium by the Jewish faction,^^ who, together 
 with the Jews of Antioch, followed the missionaries to 
 Lystra, causing them to be stoned there and left for 
 dead,^^ while in subsequent journeys similar treatment 
 was experienced from the Jews of Thessalonica ^^ and 
 Corinth.^* That the Christians were subject to persecu- 
 tion during the early growth of the religion is indis- 
 putable, but the persecution would seem to have been 
 
 . "^ Acts viii. I. 8 Acts ix. i. ^ Acts xi. 19. 
 
 ^^ fiijdepl \a\ovvTei rbv \6yov el /x^ ixqvov 'Iou5a/oi5, xi. 19. 
 
 " Acts xiii. 5. ' 12 Acts xiii. 14. i3 Acts xiv. i. 
 
 14 Acts xvi. 13. 15 Acts xvii. i. i^ Acts xvii. 10. 
 
 17 Acts xviii. 19 and xix. 8. 18 Acts iv. 18 and v. 28. 
 
 19 Acts ix. 2. 20 Acts xiii. 47. 21 Acts xiv. 5. 
 
 22 Acts xiv. 19. 23 Acts xvii. 5. 24 Acts xviii. 12. 
 
p 
 
 FIRST APPEARANCE OF CHRISTIANITY 3 1 
 
 neither systematic nor continuous, and to have fallen 
 mainly not on the ordinary members of the new brother- 
 hood, whether Jews or Gentiles, but on the apostles and 
 leaders, who went about from place to place, unsettling 
 existing conditions'^ and undermining the binding force 
 of the Jewish law.'^ Above all, the persecution came at 
 this period exclusively from the Jews.^^ Indeed, the 
 Roman government, in so far as it was brought into con- 
 tact with the Christians at all, acted rather as a pro- 
 tecting and moderating influence, either by preventing 
 violence and outrage,^® or, when accusations were brought 
 by the Jews before the imperial tribunals, by altogether 
 refusing to abet or assist the religious bigotry of the Jews, 
 or to interfere in their sectarian differences. This was 
 the course taken at once and brusquely by Junius Gallio, 
 the proconsul of Achaia,^^ and it was practically also 
 adopted, though with greater patience and a greater 
 semblance of interest and judicial investigation, by 
 Antonius Felix,^^ and afterwards by Porcius Festus,^^ 
 procurators of Judaea, to whom the whole question 
 
 seemed to turn on ^-qTrifxara nva Trepl T7J<s tStas SeLcnBat- 
 
 fiovia^,^^ and who would have dismissed the Jewish 
 charges altogether had not Paul claimed as a Roman 
 citizen to be tried before the emperor.^^ But though 
 the government officials, so far as all our evidence 
 goes, were agreed in taking this view of the case, and 
 regarded the Christians as an extreme sect of the Jews — 
 so much so that Claudius Lysias suspected that Paul 
 was a leader of the Sicarii,^* and TertuUus, the Jews' own 
 advocate designated him as Trpwroa-TaTT/? Tyjs twv Na^apaiW 
 alpea-eois^^ — it seems to be pretty clear that the term 
 
 25 Acts xvii. 6 : ttjv oiKov/xiprjv avaararCjiraPTes. 
 ^ Acts xviii. 13 : irapk rbp vdfiov dvaireldei oStos toij'S avOpdoirovi 
 ai^effdai rbv debv. Cf. xxiv. 5. 
 
 27 Cf. for instances of Jewish hostility Acts vii. 58, viii. 3, xi. 
 14, xvii. 7 and 13, xviii. 13, xxi. 28, xxiv. 5, xxv. 8, xxvi. 10. 
 
 28 Acts xxi. 31, 32. 
 
 29 Acts xviii. 14-15 : d fih ijv AdiKTjfid rt ij pq.Sio}jpyii)iJt.a irovrjpbv, 
 S. 'louSatot, Kard \6yov 8.v Karfax^f^V^ ^f^^^ ' ^^ ^^ ^Trj/xard i(TTi irepl 
 X670U Kai 6voix6.TO}v Kal vbfiov rod Kad'' u/tSs, 6\l/€<Tde avroL 
 
 30 Acts xxiv. 1-27. 31 Acts xxv. 14 foil. 32 Acts xxv. 19. 
 33 Acts xxvi. 32. 34 Acts xxi. 38. 35 Acts xxiv. 5. 
 
32 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 " Christians," the derisive sobriquet first attached to the 
 new sect by the flippant wit of the Greek populace of 
 Antioch about 48 a.d.,^*' disowned and ignored at first 
 by the Christians themselves,^^ and not adopted by the 
 Jews,^ was nevertheless becoming familiar to the popula- 
 tion of the Eastern provinces, and probably to the Roman 
 officials there.^® Connected too, with this, and in the 
 end far more important, was the fact that the Jews con- 
 tinued the policy which they had begun in the case of 
 Jesus himself before Pontius Pilate, of mingling with 
 their own complaints more or less outspoken accusations 
 of disloyalty on the part of the Christians to the Roman 
 government. This in the case of Paul comes out only 
 indirectly. Thus Paul says, clearly in answer to charges 
 
 made, Ovn ek t6v vofxov TMV 'lovSatcDV ovt€ cts to Upov ovrt 
 
 (U Kaia-apd ri ^fiaprov,^^ while the very fact of his being 
 sent to Rome precludes us from supposing that petty 
 violations of Jewish ritual were the only charges made, 
 though the procurator was clear-sighted enough to see 
 that this was the real point, and to attach no value to 
 the others. 
 
 At Thessalonica, however, we have definite evidence 
 that political charges were made, not, indeed, in this case 
 before the government officials, but before the municipal 
 magistrates. Ovrot Travrcs airivavri twv Soy/Aarov Kat- 
 (rapo? TTpda-a-ovcnv, ^a<n\ia irepov Acyovrcs ctvat 'Irjaovv.*^ 
 
 Nor can there be any reasonable doubt that the same 
 thing took place in other cities, where the Jews were 
 at once indignant at the rise of the new aipta-L^ and 
 jealous of the extension of its membership to the 
 heathen ? If this was so, we can well understand that, 
 though the Christians were still, and would be for years 
 to come, taken by the Roman officials for a Jewish sect 
 and as such protected from riotous behaviour on the 
 
 36 Acts xi. 26 : iyhero . . . "xjitiixaTlaat. rrpdniat iv "'Avriox^ioL Toifs 
 fiadrjras Xpi(TTiavo6s. 
 
 37 Notice how Paul ignores it, Acts xxvi. 29. 
 
 38 To the Jews the Christians were Na^/jatot, Acts xxiv. 5. 
 
 39 It was used in the presence of Festus, Acts xxvi. 28. 
 
 40 Acts XXV. 8. *i Acts xvii. 7. 
 
FIRST APPEARANCE OF CHRISTIANITY 33 
 
 part of their co-religionists and privileged in their own 
 religious worship, yet the way was being prepared more 
 and more for the thorough discrimination between them, 
 which, whenever it began, was, as all agree, an accom- 
 plished fact at the beginning of the second century. 
 What of course naturally aided this discrimination was 
 the really wider line of separation which, apart from any 
 views on the subject, either by Jews or Romans, gradu- 
 ally came to mark off the Christians from the Jewish 
 bodies. If the earliest members of the Christian com- 
 munities were probably in almost all cases Jewish, it is 
 no less true that at a very early date the tendency of 
 Christianity to sever itself from all national limitation 
 was begun. At Antioch in Pisidia Paul announced his 
 intention of turning to the Gentiles*^ — a declaration 
 made still more emphatically in Macedonia,*^ and before 
 long the Gentile Christians became, there is no doubt, 
 the preponderating elements in all the Christian Churches 
 both in the East and in the West. At first, indeed, the 
 heathen, and especially the Greek population, were far 
 from hostile to the new religion. If the Jewish mono- 
 theism, morose, and in certain aspects repellent, as it 
 seemed, nevertheless attracted numerous proselytes 
 from the Hellenistic cities,** Christianity, with its wider 
 appeals to humanity, was even more likely to do this. 
 Professor Ramsay with perfect justification emphasises 
 the point that Paul, almost from the first, clearly con- 
 ceived of Christianity as the universal religion, the 
 limits of which were to be co-extensive with the Roman 
 empire, and that it was with this idea in his mind that 
 he chose out, especially in his missionary journeys, the 
 centres not only of Greek civilisation, but of the Roman 
 organisation and government.*^ That he did do this, 
 from whatever motive, is indisputable, and amid the 
 
 *2 Acts xiii. 47. 
 
 *3 Acts xviii. 6 : t6 al^a v/xQv iiri tt]v K€(f>a\i]v vfxQp' KaOapbs iyib' 
 airb Tov vvv eh rdi. i6vr] iropeijffofiai. 
 
 4* Tacitus, Hist. v. 5 : " Nam pessimus quisque spretis religion- 
 ibus patriis tributa et stipes illuc gerebant. 
 
 *5 The Church in the Roman Empire, pp. 56, 57. Cf. also p. 147. 
 
 D 
 
34 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 general decay of the old religions the missionaries of the 
 new found the masses not altogether indisposed to give 
 them a favourable hearing, whilst even the more educa- 
 ted classes, though seldom converts, regarded them at 
 any rate at first with no stronger feeling than a somewhat 
 sceptical curiosity. 
 
 But this favourable or neutral attitude was not 
 destined to be permanent ; by the beginning of the 
 second century it had'^generally given way to an intense 
 and often violent hatred, and the change, whenever it 
 came about — and it probably came about gradually — 
 was due to several causes, the beginnings of some of which 
 we are able to trace at this earlier period and in our chief 
 authority for it — the Acts of the Apostles. 
 
 That the unpopularity of the Christians was caused 
 by purely religious animosities is of all suppositions the 
 least likely. As Professor Ramsay says, " the ordinary 
 pagan did not care two straws whether his neighbour 
 worshipped twenty gods or twenty-one." ^® But Chris- 
 tianity constituted a social revolution even more than 
 a religious one, or rather its social (to received ideas they 
 seemed anti-social) effects were far more patent and 
 striking than the religious ideas which produced them. 
 And it was this divergence from the social life in its 
 widest sense around them, often amounting to an aggres- 
 sive interference with the established conditions of 
 society, with trade interests, with family life, with 
 popular amusements, with everyday religious obser- 
 vances, with the lax but conventional morality of the 
 time, which gave to Christianity an appearance of 
 misanthropy, of an odium generis humani, which in time 
 was more than repaid by the general execration of 
 paganism. It is important to look, if we can, at the 
 early Christians from the heathen point of view, and 
 above all to avoid any idealisation of the primitive 
 communities. We may grant at once that in matters of 
 morality, and especially in the relations of the sexes, 
 the Christians were far superior to the populations in 
 
 46 Op. cit. p. 130. 
 
FIRST APPEARANCE OF CHRISTIANITY 35 
 
 whose midst they Uved. But it would be a mistake to 
 suppose that it was the loftier elements of Christianity 
 which most strongly attracted converts, or that con- 
 version introduced them necessarily into a higher plane 
 of life or enlightenment. To a great extent it was the 
 tendency to level distinctions of property or differences 
 of social life, the hopes it held out of a shortly coming 
 Saviour, and the idea of a future beyond the grave, in 
 which compensation would be made for the inequalities 
 of the present — which drew the lower classes to Chris- 
 tianity. We cannot judge of the ordinary Christian of 
 Corinth or Antioch, or Ephesus, or Rome, from the 
 leaders and teachers of the sect. The Christians of the 
 Eastern provinces shared the characteristics of the 
 Oriental population ; they were not less fanatical or less 
 ignorant, or less excitable, or less credulous. In the 
 eyes of their fellow-citizens there was nothing about them 
 to justify what seemed the extravagant claims they 
 made on behalf of their religion. They were fanatical, 
 exclusive, and intolerant, and for a religion which, so to 
 speak, to Gentile eyes had nothing to show for itself, no 
 stately temples, no famous shrines, no imposing priest- 
 hood, no impressive ceremonial. \ 
 ^*^ut it was not so much as religious enthusiasts that^ 
 the Christians attracted popular attention. Their 
 fanaticism took certain apparently anti-social forms, 
 which, there can be little doubt, made them the Nihilists \ 
 of the day. In the first place the very belief — and in \ 
 the first century it was a vivid one — of the approaching 
 end of the world and the second coming of Christ ' 
 involved a restless expectation and in some respects a 
 recklessness of action which were quite inconsistent 
 with the ordinary duties, domestic, social, or political, 
 of an orderly subject of the empire. Then, again, the 
 communistic ideas of the sect must have interfered, often 
 in a very exasperating way, with social and family rela- 
 tions. The mere fact that members of a family were 
 induced to leave their relations, to desert the religion of 
 their fathers and to join these enthusiasts, was in itself 
 enough to cause heart-burning and rancour ; but to see 
 
36 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 part of the family property appropriated to the common 
 Christian funds must greatly have embittered these 
 feelings, and inspired the moneyed classes of society at 
 any rate with hatred and apprehension. Again, there 
 was a manifest disinclination on the part of the Christians 
 to marriage and the duties and obligations of married 
 life. This in connexion with the comparatively large 
 number of female converts must often have led to episodes 
 like that in the history of Paul and Thekla, where a 
 maiden of good social standing is induced to refuse the 
 marriage arranged by her parents. Nor did cases of this 
 kind appear accidental and occasional : they rather 
 followed from the maxims of the Founder of the sect — 
 maxims which, imperfectly understood, and obeyed in 
 the letter rather than the spirit, were no doubt constantly 
 in the mouths of His followers. ** It is easier for a camel 
 to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man 
 to enter into the kingdom of heaven . " " Think not that I 
 am come to give peace on the earth. I tell you nay, but 
 rather division." " If any man cometh unto me and 
 hateth not his father and mother, and wife and children 
 and brother ... he cannot be my disciple." " The 
 sons of this world marry and are given in marriage, but 
 they that are accounted worthy to attain unto that 
 world and the resurrection from the dead neither marry 
 nor are given in marriage." These and other ** hard 
 sayings " put into practice without discrimination or 
 qualification were tantamount, so far as they extended, 
 to an upheaval of existing social relations, and might 
 well seem to lay the Christians open to the charge of 
 turning the world upside down. 
 
 Only less intolerable than this disregard of the primary 
 rights and obligations of social and family life was the 
 absolute refusal of the Christians to join in any religious 
 festival, to appear in the courts where an oath had to be 
 taken, to illuminate their doors at festivals, to join in 
 the amusements of the amphitheatre ; their unwilling- 
 ness, if not refusal, to serve in the army, and their 
 aversion to all civic duties and offices. It was this 
 apparently " hostile odium " towards all outsiders which 
 
FIRST APPEARANCE OF CHRISTIANITY 37 
 
 had made the Jews so generally unpopular as they were, 
 and in explaining the hatred felt for the Christians we 
 must remember that, as Mommsen says, " der Hass der 
 Massen von den Judenauf die Christen sich iibertrug." *^ 
 The Christians to a certain extent, apart from any charac- 
 teristics of their own, inherited, as a Jewish sect or 
 atpeo-i?, the aversion withwhich the Jews were regarded. 
 As has, however, already been said, the intense animosity 
 of the second century was only of gradual growth, and it 
 no doubt grew with the growth of Christianity. Things 
 quite unimportant, when the communities were small 
 and insignificant, would be looked at with very different 
 eyes as the number of converts increased. In the Acts 
 there are only two instances recorded in which there was 
 any manifestation of popular feeling against the Chris- 
 tians on the part of the heathen, and in both cases the 
 rccLson was the same — interference with trade relations, 
 pecuniary loss or the fear of it from the existence of 
 Christianity. At Philippi the occasion of the tumult 
 was a trivial one : the sympathy of the crowd with a few 
 individuals whose hope of gain from the prophecies of 
 a mad soothsayer was disappointed by Paul's action in 
 healing her. Naturally the accusation before the duoviri 
 of the colonia took a somewhat different form, viz. that 
 the apostles were setting forth customs which it was not 
 lawful for Roman citizens to receive ; *^ but that the 
 magistrates did not treat this accusation seriously and 
 only took action at all to appease the mob is clear from 
 their order to release the prisoners without further 
 formality next morning. The affair at Ephesus is a 
 better instance still. Here the workmen who made the 
 silver shrines presented by her worshippers to Artemis, 
 instigated by Demetrius, the head of their guild, took 
 fright at the increasing number of the Christians, not 
 only in Ephesus but throughout the province of Asia, 
 
 *7 Histor. Zeitschr. p. 418. Cf. Expositor, July 1893, P- 2. 
 
 *^ Acts xvi. 20 : Kal irpoaayaySpres avrods rois aTpaTrjyols etirop, 
 OOtoi ol dvOpoiiroi iKTapd<x<rov<nv tj/j-up tt]v t6\iv ^lovSaToi virdpxovres, 
 Kai KarayyiXKovffip ^d-q 5, ovk ^^ecrrip ifiup vapaS^x^'^^^'-'- ovd^ iroicTp 
 
38 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 which threatened, by interfering with the worship of the 
 goddess, to injure their trade.** The matter was not on 
 this occasion brought before either the municipal or the 
 state authorities, but the whole incident is very signifi- 
 cant of what might soon be expected to occur on a larger 
 scale, the attitude of the craftsmen at Ephesus being an 
 anticipation of what, as we shall see, Pliny probably 
 found in Bithynia sixty years later. It is noticeable 
 too, that the charge of atheism, though not insisted on, 
 is implied in the words of Demetrius — 6 IlavAos outos 
 Aeyet oTt ovk €Lcrlv Otol ol 8ia ;(€tp(uv yLyvofiivoL — though it 
 
 is clear from verse 37 that the Christians were not as 
 yet generally regarded as sacrilegi or blasphemers of 
 the national cults.^° At the same time the social 
 hatred, as it grew, was almost certain in time either 
 to support itself by, or actually to develop into, a re- 
 ligious hatred. 
 
 But the apparent interference of the Christians with 
 social relations was not confined to matters of trade or 
 commercial gain. Family life was affected by it : it is 
 almost certain that a large proportion of the earliest 
 converts were slaves, and as these endeavoured to con- 
 vert other members of the household, dissensions and 
 divisions would arise in numerous families, and Chris- 
 tianity would seem a dividing and disintegrating 
 element,^^ dangerous to social stabihty. Added to these 
 particular causes of unpopularity there was the general 
 tendency of Christianity to separate itself from the 
 ordinary concerns of life.®^ To a certain extent the 
 communistic tendencies of Christianity would naturally 
 lead to this result ; still more, perhaps, the confident 
 
 48 Acts xix. 23 foil 
 
 ^0 Acts xix. ^y : iiydyeTe yap tovs &pSpas toijtovs oCre iepocrijXovi 
 oCre p\a<r<prifioOvTai tt]p debv TifMav. 
 
 51 Luke xxi. 16. 
 
 52 Tertullian enumerates many things which were impossible 
 for a conscientious Christian, as involving idolatry : e.g. 
 oath usual at contracts ; the illumination of doors at festivals, 
 etc. ; all Pagan religious ceremonies ; the games and the circus ; 
 the profession of teaching secular literature ; military service ; 
 public ofl&ces. De Idol, 17 : De cor. mil, i. 15. 
 
FIRST APPEARANCE OF CHRISTIANITY 39 
 
 expectation of the earliest converts that the end of the 
 world was approaching. At any rate the opposition 
 between the Church and the world was perhaps at no 
 time more marked than during the first century ; it 
 existed long before the opposition of Church and State 
 had formulated itself. The Christians were strangers and 
 pilgrims in the world around them ; ^^ their citizenship 
 was in heaven ; ^* the kingdom to which they looked was 
 not of this world.^^ The consequent want of interest 
 in public affairs came thus from the outset to be a 
 noticeable feature in Christianity. The Christians were, 
 in the words of Tertullian, ** infructuosi in negotiis,"^^ 
 and on this ground alone, in cities, where individuals 
 were so closely bound up in the state, they became 
 natural objects of suspicion to their fellow citizens. The 
 avoidance of the numerous religious festivals, the 
 refusal to take part in the amusements of the circus or 
 the amphitheatre, indifference to civic honours, probably 
 in many cases reluctance to serve in the army — all these 
 things seemed to mark the Christians out as haters of 
 their kind. And if they refused to participate in ordinary 
 religious observances, they had what seemed a secret 
 worship of their own : their meetings, not in synagogues, 
 like those of the Jews, but in private houses, had probably 
 a certain air of mystery, and this mystery was certain to 
 lead to rumours as to what went on ; and in a state of 
 society like that in the Oriental cities it was almost 
 certain that anything like a secret worship would be 
 credited with immoralities of a more or less grave 
 
 S3 Tert. Apol. i. : " Scit se peregrinam in terris agere, inter 
 extraneos facile inimicos invenire, ceterum genus, sedem, spem, 
 gratiam, dignitatem in caelis habere." 41 : " Nihil nostra 
 refert in hoc aevo nisi de eo quam celeriter excedere." Epist. 
 ad Diognet. 5, § 5 : iraaa l^^vrj irarpU icriv avrCov koL ircicra irar/jts 
 k^vTj. § 9 : ivl yrjs Siarpl^ova-iv, dX\' ip ovpavtf iroKire'OovTai. Cf. 
 Hebrews xi. 13, i Pet. ii. 11. 
 
 5* Philipp. iii. 20. 
 
 85 Cf. Justin. Apol. i. II : Kal v/xeis d/coj/cavTej paa-iXeiav'Tpocr- 
 doKQpTas rjfids iKpirus &vdpdjirivov X^yeiv vTrctXTj^are, rj/xuv ttjv fxera 
 6eov \ey6pTbiu. 
 
 '^ Tert. Apol. 42 ad init. 
 
40 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 description. At exactly what date the suspicions aros6 
 that children were sacrificed and eaten at the Christian 
 rites, and that incestuous orgies were permitted, is 
 uncertain. If, however, as seems not unlikely, they 
 arose through the malevolent stories of the Jews, the 
 date was probably an early one, and, as we shall see later 
 on, these stories had apparently reached Rome before 
 64 A.D." 
 
 So far, therefore, as the New Testament narrative 
 carries us, we find that Christian communities had been 
 founded in most of the centres of civilization in the 
 East, and in the principal towns of Macedonia and 
 Achaia ; that, starting from a Jewish nucleus, they had 
 in most cases, in the course of a few years, a preponder- 
 ance of heathen converts ; that the Jews looked on 
 them with the bitterest animosity, persecuted them as 
 far as they had the means, and lost no opportunity of 
 appealing to the Roman government against them ; that 
 the Roman officials were rather inclined to protect them 
 than otherwise, at first looking upon them as an extreme 
 sect of the Jews, but of necessity realizing by degrees, 
 both from the hosjiility of the Jews and from the increas- 
 ing prevalence 01 the Greek nick-name Xpia-navoi, that 
 it was rather a new religion than an extreme sect ; that 
 the heathen population, while listening not altogether 
 unfavou^bly or without interest to the religious teaching 
 of the Christian missionaries, came in the course of time 
 to be suspicious of Christianity on social and commercial 
 grounds ; and finally that this suspicion, fomented 
 probably by Jewish malevolence, hardened little by 
 little into the bitter hatred of which we have abundant 
 evidence in the second century. 
 
 ^7 Cf. I Pet. ii. 12. As to the Jewish origin of the stories, see 
 Justin. Dial, cum Tryph. c. 16, c. 47, c. 96, c. 108, c. 117. 
 Orig. contr. Cels. vi. 27 
 
IV 
 
 Christianity in Rome under Nero 
 
 Up to this point we have found no direct colHsion between 
 the Christians and the Roman government, and the first 
 case of the kind took place in Rome,i and is narrated — 
 unfortunately, not with all the clearness that we could 
 wish — by Tacitus. As that historian remarks, in words 
 which he thought appropriate to the Christians, Rome 
 was the place " quo cuncta undique atrocia aut pudenda 
 confluunt celebranturque ; " and with its strangely 
 mixed population, and especially the great influx of 
 Orientals, it was hardly possible that any religion at all 
 widely spread in the East could fail to find its way into 
 Rome, or, having found its way there, to spread at any 
 rate among the lower classes. That the Jewish popula- 
 tion there was large we have already seen, though this 
 fact would by no means by itself prove the existence of a 
 Christian community also. Where the apostles or 
 their immediate associates themselves introduced Chris- 
 tianity into a city, it was, as all the evidence tends to 
 show, to the Jews that they first appealed, so that the 
 nucleus of the Asiatic Churches was at the outset Judaso- 
 Christian, though the number of heathen converts very 
 soon in almost all cases preponderated, causing at first 
 modification of the strict Jewish observances,^ and no 
 
 1 The transition at this point from Jewish to Roman perse- 
 cution is noted by TertulHan, Apol. 21 : " Discipuli quoque 
 diffusi per orbem. ... a Judaeis insequentibus multa perpessi 
 . . . Romae postremo per saevitiam Neronis sanguinem Chris- 
 tianum seminaverunt." 
 
 2 Acts XV. 18 : Std eyw Kplvw fxr] irapevoyXiiv rots airh twv iOpQp 
 
 41 
 
42 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 doubt gradually almost complete emancipation from 
 them. But in a city like Rome, where a Christian com- 
 munity was founded before the visit of any leader of the 
 sect, the earliest Christians were far more likely to have 
 been heathen converts, immigrants perhaps from some 
 of the Asiatic cities, who would extend the sect in Rome 
 "^A among men of the same class with themselves. This is 
 ^ • to a certain extent an a priori argument, but it is con- 
 •^\. firmed by other considerations on which it is not unim- 
 > portant to dwell. Paul wrote his Epistle to the Roman 
 ' Church from Corinth in 58 a.d. Putting on one side 
 the question, as too wide to be discussed here, whether 
 the general drift of the epistle is more appropriate to 
 Jewish or heathen Christians,^ there are several passages 
 which seem to make the latter supposition almost 
 
 necessary. At' ov iXd^ofxtv X^P'*' '^"^ aTroa-Tokrjv CIS 
 • vjraKorjv iricmo*; ev Tracn rois Wviciv vrrep tov ovo/xaros 
 avrov. €v ots ia-rl kol vfiiis kXtjtoI 'lr)(rov Xptcrrov.* Again : 
 iva Tiva Kapirov (r\^ koX Iv vfuv KaOcos Kal iv rois Aoittois 
 tOvtcTLv : ^ and vfxlv Sk A.eya) Tots Wvicriv.^ So too the salu- 
 tations in cap. xvi. 3-16 are clearly almost all of them 
 addressed to Gentile Christians, many of the names, as 
 Lightfoot has pointed out, being found in Roman inscrip- 
 tions.'' To this it must be added that the Jewish leaders on 
 Paul's arrival at Rome show no sign of sharing in the 
 hostile feelings shown by the Jews towards Christianity 
 in those places where it was regarded as a secession from 
 Judaism, professing, indeed, to have no personal know- 
 ledge of the sect, and only to have heard generally that it 
 was everywhere spoken against.® Nor is it unimpor- 
 tant in this connexion to observe that, if we are to 
 believe Tacitus and Suetonius, neither the Roman 
 
 iicuTTpi<t>ov<TLV ivl rbv debv, dXXd iiriaTeiXai avroTs tov airix^'^^^'- twk 
 i,\i<Tyrifx,dTb)v tu>v elduXuv Kal rrjs vopveias Kal itviktoO Kal tov a'ifiaTos. 
 
 3 See an article on the question in the Jahrbiicher fiir deutsche 
 Theol. 1876, pp. 482-310, " Ueber die alteste romische Christen- 
 gemeinde," by C. -Weizsacker. 
 
 * Rom. i. 5, 6. ^ Rom. i. 13. 
 
 8 Rom. xi. 13. Cf. also xv. 15. 
 
 7 Lightfoot, Philippians, p. 171 foil. 
 
 8 Acts xxviii. 21-22. 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN ROME UNDER NERO 43 
 
 government nor the Roman populace regarded the 
 Christians as a Jewish sect, and that they were 
 described, not as Nazaraeans — the name by which they . 
 were known to the Jews ® — but as Christiani, the nick-/ 
 name conferred by the Hellenistic heathen in the East. 
 
 The earliest intimation of a Christian community in 
 Rome is thought to be contained in an obscure passage 
 of Suetonius :^^ ** ludaeos impulsore Chresto assidue 
 tumultuantes Roma expulit." This has generally been, 
 taken to mean that there were riots between the Chris- j 
 tians and the Jews similar to those recorded in the Acts, \ 
 and that the government, regarding the whole matter \ 
 as a Jewish disturbance, took the measure of temporary 1 
 expulsion as a police precaution. One can only say-^ 
 that no such meaning can legitimately be drawn from 
 the words " impulsore Chresto," and that the reference 
 to the expulsion in the Acts " does not in any way bear 
 it out, while the words of Dio Cassius ^^ imply that the 
 measure was taken rather to check the Jewish worship 
 than to put down a riot. 
 
 In 57 A.D. we apparently have an isolated case of a 
 noble Roman lady, Pomponia Graecina, becoming at 
 Rome a convert to Christianity.^^ She was at any rate 
 " superstitionis externae rea," and though the statement 
 of Tacitus is vague, because, to avoid open scandal, she 
 was handed over to her husband's domestic tribunal, 
 the " continua tristitia," the " cultus lugubris," and the 
 " non animus nisi moestus " all seem to point to her 
 Christianity ; while the discovery of a Christian inscrip- 
 tion of the second century in the Catacomb of Callistus 
 mentioning a Pomponius Graecinus does much to con- 
 firm the supposition.^* 
 
 By 58 A.D. the community in Rome was sufficiently 
 important for a letter to be addressed to it by Paul, 
 
 9 Acts xxiv. 5 ; Tert. contra Marcionem, iv. 8 : " Unde et 
 ipso nomine nos Judaei Nazarenos appellant." 
 
 10 Suet. Claud. 25. 
 
 11 Acts xviii. 2. 
 
 12 Dio. Cass. Ix. 6, quoted on p. 22, note i. 
 
 13 Tac. Ann, xiii. 32. 1* De Rossi, Roma soti. ii. 364. 
 
44 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 though numerically it must have been still small when 
 " the brethren " went out to meet Paul on his arrival in 
 Italy to Appii Forum and Tres Tabernae.^*^ Here the 
 narrative in the Acts breaks off, and with the exception of 
 the short, but not unimportant, statement that for the 
 next two years Paul was uninterfered with in preaching 
 to all who visited him*** — from which we may infer 
 (i) the freedom of Christianity from state interference, 
 (2) its still continuing increase — we have no further 
 information about it until it appears in the pages of 
 Tacitus in connexion with the great fire of 64 a.d." 
 
 That this fire was deliberately caused by Nero himself 
 there was very great contemporary suspicion, which the 
 emperor was not unnaturally anxious to remove. He did 
 his best to assist the homeless multitude by providing 
 temporary quarters in the Campus Martins and even in 
 his own gardens : his measures for the rebuilding of the 
 city were judicious and not illiberal, while the supposed 
 anger of the gods was appeased by various religious rites. 
 " But," says Tacitus, " neither human assistance in the 
 shape of imperial gifts nor attempts to appease the gods 
 
 15 Acts xxvii. 1 5 . 
 
 16 Ibid, xxviii. 30 : ^Ev^/xeivev S^ dieriav 6\t}v h idlcj) fiLadibfiari kuI 
 dTreS^Xf Tcti/Tos toi)s eia-jropevofiivovs irpbs avrbv, K-qpiacwv ttjv /Satrt- 
 \elap ToO Oeov Kal diddffKWi/ to. irepl toG Kvpiov ^Irja-ov Xpiarov /M€Ta irdcrrjs 
 irapprjaLas AkcoMtws. 
 
 17 Tac. Ann. xv. 44 : " Sed non ope humana, non largition- 
 ibus principis aut deum placamentis, decedebat infamia, quin 
 iussum incendium crederetur. Ergo abolendo runiori Nero 
 subdidit reos, et quaesitissimis poenis adfecit, quos per flagitia 
 invisos vulgus Christianos appellabat. Auctor nominis eius 
 Christus Tiberio imperitante per procuratorem Pontium Pila- 
 tum supplicio adfectus erat : repressaque in prasens exitiabilis 
 superstitio rursum erumpebat, non modo per ludaeam, originem 
 eius mali, sed per urbem etiam, quo cuncta undique atrocia aut 
 pudenda confluunt celebranturque. Igitur primo correpti qui 
 fatebantur, deinde indicio eorum multitudo ingens baud perinde 
 in crimine incendii quam odio humani generis convicti sunt. 
 Et pereuntibus addita ludibria, ut ferarum tergis contecti laniatu 
 canum interirent, aut crucibus adfixi flammandi, ut, ubi defe- 
 cisset dies, in usum nocturni luminis urerentur. . . . Unde, 
 quamquam adversus sontes et novissima exempla meritos, 
 miseratio oriebatur, tamquam non utilitate publica sed in sae- 
 vitiam unius absumerentur." 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN ROME UNDER NERO 45 
 
 could remove the sinister report that the fire was due to 
 Nero's own order. And so, in the hope of dissipating 
 this rumour, he falsely diverted the charge on to a set of 
 people whom the populace called Christians, and who 
 were detested for the abominations which they perpe- 
 trated. The originator of the name, a person called/- 
 Christus, had been executed by Pontius Pilate in the\ 
 reign of Tiberius, and the dangerous superstition, though \ 
 put down for the moment, again broke out, not only in 1 
 Judaea, the original home of the pest, but even in Rome, / 
 where everything horrible or shameful collects and is/ 
 practised." 
 
 That Tacitus, writing about 120 a.d., and after having 
 himself held the proconsulship of Asia,^® should have 
 some more or less accurate knowledge of the Christians 
 as a distinct sect, is only natural, but what has seemed 
 to some scholars surprising, and even incredible, is that^ 
 as early as Nero's time, when Christianity is thought id 
 have been growing up under the toleration extended to 
 the Jews, it should have been singled out for speciak 
 interference and special repression, especially as a very \^ 
 few years earlier it was certainly uninterfered with. To f 
 avoid this difficulty, it has been suggested by Schiller ^® / 
 and others that the persecution, if such it can be called, / 
 really fell upon the Jews, as the most extreme and ) 
 fanatical religious sect in Rome, though individual / 
 Christians may have been involved in it through being ] 
 confused with the Jews ; and that Tacitus in specifying 
 the former is really antedating the distinction between 
 them, and injecting into the Neronian period a knowledge 
 which was only a reality in his own. That there are 
 difficulties in the account given by Tacitus it cannot be 
 denied, but any such supposition as that given above 
 is rightly regarded by Nissen ^^ as a serious in;pugnment 
 
 18 This is proved by an inscription recently discovered : see 
 Cagnat, L'Ann^e Epigraphique, 1891, p. 29, and Bull, de Corresp. 
 hell^n. 1890, p. 621. 
 
 1^ Geschichte der rom. Kaiserzeit, ii. 445-450. Cf. Lipsius 
 " Ueber den Ursprung und fruheren Gebrauch des Christenna- 
 mens," p. 17. A similar view is taken by Hausrath. 
 
 20 Histor. Zeiischrift, 1874, p. 340. 
 
46 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 of Tacitus* historical credibility. As a rule he follows, 
 for times anterior to his own, contemporary authorities, 
 and if in this instance he has left them and given a 
 different account, drawn from his own knowledge of the 
 Christians, or even from any tradition which may have 
 been known to have existed among them, he has done 
 what no trustworthy historian ought to do. 
 
 Nor is this theory, that the Christians, so far as they 
 were affected by Nero's action, were taken for Jews, 
 without difficulties of its own. If the Roman community 
 had consisted of Judaeo-Christians, either exclusively or 
 preponderatingly, there would have been the possibility 
 of such confusion, though even so there was the not 
 unimportant distinction between them that whereas the 
 Jews attended the synagogue the Christians did not — a 
 distinction which Mommsen holds was not likely per- 
 manently to escape the vigilance of the Roman police.^^ 
 But if the view taken above of the Gentile character of 
 the Roman Christians is correct, there would be very 
 much less chance of any such confusion, and if it had 
 been the Jews who were sought for, there was a very 
 simple, if brutal means of identifying them, from which 
 we know the Roman government did not shrink on other 
 occasions, ^^ and which would have at once freed Gentile 
 Christians from implication in a charge against Jews. 
 To this we may add that the theory in question does not 
 really explain the facts. We can understand that if the 
 Christians had really been the victims, but were regarded 
 as a sect of the Jews, an historian not accurately aware of 
 the distinction might describe it as a Jewish persecution ; 
 but why, if it really was a Jewish persecution, he should 
 
 21 Histor. Zeitschrift, No. 64, p. 423 : " Hierin, in dem Besuch 
 Oder Nichtbesuch der Synagoge, wird dem heidnischen Publikum 
 und insbesondere den Stadtromern der Gegensatz der Juden 
 und der Christen wohl zuerst entgegentreten sein, namentlich 
 wenn, wie dies wahrscheinlich geschah, die Polizei, welche die 
 Synagogen gewahren lassen musste, gegen die Ekklesien ein- 
 schritt." 
 
 22 Suet. Dom. 12 : " Interfuisse me adolescentulum memini 
 cum a procuratore frequentissimoque concilio inspiceretur nona- 
 genarius senex an circumsectus esset." 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN ROME UNDER NERO 47 
 
 avoid the generic term which was well known, and 
 describe the victims as Christians — a term ex hypothesi 
 special and obscure — certainly needs more explanation 
 than this theory gives. Besides, if the Jews had been the 
 victims, would not Josephus have made some mention of 
 the matter ? Would not Dio Cassius have noticed it ? 
 The contemporary historians would, on Schiller's sup- 
 position, have rightly described the victims as Jews : 
 would not some tradition, some trace of the incident 
 have remained in connexion with them ? Similar 
 objections might be raised against Merivale's theory 
 that the Jews, who were themselves accused in the first 
 instance, succeeded, possibly through the court influence 
 of Poppaea Sabina, in diverting the accusation from 
 themselves on to the Christians.^^ If this saves the 
 credit of Tacitus to a certain extent, as far as the descrip- 
 tion of the sufferers as Christians is concerned, it directly 
 contradicts him on another point, for it implies that the 
 Christians — who in this case would certainly have been 
 described as Nazaraei — were selected as scapegoats at 
 the suggestion and through the hatred of the Jews, 
 whereas Tacitus expressly says that they were selected 
 as objects of hatred to the populace on account of their 
 abominable crimes. 
 
 But in point of fact we are beating the air in combating 
 these theories. I agree with Professor Ramsay ^^ that, 
 in the absence of positively conflicting testimony, we 
 must make the best of the account we have. Nor are 
 the difficulties, after all, insuperable. We are apt to forget 
 in picturing to ourselves ancient Rome, with its huge and 
 mixed population, its thoughts and attention fixed on 
 bread and the Circus, and all the morbid excitements 
 which a regime like that of Nero provided for them, how 
 thorough and efficient, after all, was the police administra- 
 tion of the city, how strict the surveillance over illicit 
 collegia, and above all perhaps how minute and detailed, 
 even in apparently trivial concerns, the despatches must 
 
 23 The Romans under the Empire, vi. 448-49. 
 
 24 Op. cit.p. 229, 
 
48 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 have been from the provincial governors. These arrange- 
 ments had developed into a system, and it would be a 
 great mistake to suppose that because a Caligula or a 
 Nero spent his time in mad revels or horse-racing or musi- 
 cal performances, the government machinery or the 
 government vigilance was necessarily impaired. Professor 
 Ramsay calls attention to this point in special reference 
 to the Flavian times : ^^ he thinks it impossible that the 
 separate existence of Christianity as distinct from 
 Judaism could long have escaped the vigilance of the 
 government in the provinces, and I am disposed to agree 
 with him, and even to throw back the consequences of 
 this vigilance to the time of Nero and to Rome as well as 
 to the provinces. According to Tacitus, the existence 
 of a sect whom they called Christians, and detested for 
 special reasons, was known to the populace of Rome, and 
 at any rate from this point, if not before, to the govern- 
 ment. If, as is assumed, the Christians were converts 
 from the heathen population and not from the Jews, and 
 if they were in any degree considerable or increasing in 
 point of numbers ; and if — what is an essential point 
 abQut the sect — they were exclusive and even aggressive, 
 eager to make converts and keeping aloof from the things 
 which most interested their neighbours ; above all, if 
 they held secret or nocturnal meetings for the practice 
 of their religious worship — they could hardly fail to 
 become known and to become unpopular. We have 
 already seen that in the Oriental provinces even earlier 
 than this they were mockingly called XpLo-Tcavot by the" 
 Greek populations, and we have seen the social causes at 
 work which were certain to make them in time hated 
 and unpopular. Was Rome likely to be an exception ? ^® 
 On the contrary, were not these tendencies likely to 
 become accomplished facts earlier in Rome than in the 
 provinces ? If each of the Oriental cities had its own 
 stories about the Christians, e.g. Ephesus, or Philippi, or 
 Antioch, these -stories might all well find their way to 
 
 25 op. cit. p. 267. 
 
 26 A mutilated inscription seems to show that the term Chris- 
 tianus was known at Pompeii, i.e. before 79 a.d, C, /. L. iv. 679. 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN ROME UNDER NERO 49 
 
 Rome, producing there a cumulative effect. And with 
 regard to the government, probably any sect known to 
 and hated by the populace would become known to it. 
 Then, aga'n, there was every chance that reports from 
 the provincial governors might make some mention of 
 the Christians, while we cannot doubt that a full report 
 of Paul's case must have been sent to Rome by Festus,^'' 
 who certainly knew the term Xpio-Ttaro?, and must have 
 arrived at some idea of the distinction between Christi- 
 anity and Judaism. There is therefore nothing intrinsi- . 
 cally impossible or even improbable in the statement of ] 
 Tacitus, that the Christians of Rome in 64 a.d. were / 
 known as a sect distinct from the Jews, hated by the/ 
 populace, not on account of their religion, but owing to! 
 certain sinister stories about them, and on this account; 
 selected by Nero or Tigellinus as scapegoats on whom 
 the charge of incendiarism might with some probability 
 be fastened. 
 
 But purely accidental as was this first contact be- 
 tween the Roman government and Christianity, it might 
 quite possibly lead to results both important and per- \ 
 manent. ** Those," continues Tacitus, " who confessed \ 
 the charge were put upon their trial, and then by infor- 
 mation gained from them an immense number of persons 
 was convicted, not so much on the charge of incendiarism 
 as on that of hatred towards civilised society. The , 
 victims as they perished were made to afford amusement I 
 to the crowd. Some being covered with the skins of ■ 
 wild beasts were torn to pieces by dogs : others were 
 fastened on crosses to be set on fire in order that, when 
 daylight failed, their burning might serve to light up the 
 night." The general sense of this passage seems per- 
 fectly clear, taken in connexion with what has gone 
 before, though there has been some difference of opinion 
 as regards the particular phrases " qui fatebantur " — 
 " correpti " — " indicio eorum." " Correpti,' from a 
 comparison of its use in Tacitus,^^ certainly means, not 
 
 27 Prof. Ramsay rightly draws attention to the importance of 
 Paul's case. Expositor, July 1893, p. 10. 
 
 28 Ann. ii. 84, 4; iii. 28, 5 ; iii. 49, i ; iii. 66, 2 ; xii. 42, 4. 
 
 E 
 
50 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 " arrested," but " put upon their trial," and this seems to 
 me conchisively to fix the meaning of "qui fatebantur," 
 since the confession, whatever it was, came before the 
 trial. Arnold, arguing that profUeri or confUeri would 
 be the proper words to use of confessing to a religion, 
 explains it as " confessed to the charge of incendiarism," 
 supposing that certain members of the Christian body 
 were induced to make this false confession under the 
 influence of torture. That any Christians would have 
 confessed to such a charge without torture is certainly 
 impossible, but how could they be tortured to elicit a 
 confession of incendiarism before they were put on their 
 trial for that crime ? On the other hand, what would 
 be the natural course for Nero or Tigellinus to adopt 
 after he, as Tacitus expresses it, " subdidit reos Chris- 
 tianos " ? ^^ Surely to arrest all the Christians he could 
 lay hold of. There, was, however, no special mark by 
 which Christians were known. Some of those arrested 
 . might either not be Christians at all, or not openly pro- 
 
 As regards the reading, I have, against Prof. Ramsay, adopted 
 the emendation convicti, instead of the MS. coniimcti, as making 
 better sense, while the corruption is easily accounted for. The 
 Med. reading — " aut crucibus adfixi aut fiammandi atque ubi 
 defecisset dies," etc., is certainly to some extent corrupt. Per- 
 haps the simplest alteration is to omit the second aut, and to 
 change atque into ut. There would thus be two kinds of punish- 
 ment only — exposure to wild beasts and crucifixion. Neither 
 of these in themselves involved ludihrium, which was added in 
 the one case by dressing up the victims in the skins of wild 
 beasts, in the other by setting fire to them as night came on, 
 clothed possibly in the " tunica molesta." It is to the latter 
 punishment that Juvenal probably alludes {Sat. i. 159), and I 
 do not with Furneaux see anything inconsistent in the two 
 accounts. Otherwise, the passage would, no doubt, be sim- 
 plified if with Nipperdey we regarded the passage " aut crucibus 
 . . . flammandi " as an interpolation. This is, however, never 
 an altogether satisfactory mode of escaping a difficulty, and in 
 this case the interpolation must have been made earlier than 
 Sulpicius Severus^ who evidently found the words. 
 
 29 Arnold, Die Neronische Christenverfolgung, p, 20. The inter- 
 pretation given in the text is supported by Nipperdey (see note 
 ad loc), by Aube, Histohe des Persecutions, i. 92, by Renan, 
 U Antichrist, p. 162, and by Nissen, Histor. Zeitschrift, i?>74, 
 p. 340. 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN ROME UNDER NERO 5I 
 
 fessed Christians. A certain number, however, of the 
 bolder sort would at once confess their religion (and as 
 this, by the prejudgment of Nero, was tantamount to 
 confessing the incendiarism, fateri was not improperly 
 used), and were accordingly put upon their trial. So 
 far I am in agreement with Professor Ramsay, who adds 
 another argument against Arnold's view which deserves 
 consideration : viz. that "if so many of the Christians 
 acknowledged the crime . . . their complicity in it 
 would necessarily have been accepted by the popular 
 opinion," ^^ which, on the contrary, was, as we shall see, 
 still convinced of Nero's guilt. I cannot, however, think 
 that he is justified in translating " indicio eorum " by 
 " on the information elicited at their trial." ^^ Of course 
 on Arnold's explanation of " qui fatebantur " " indicio 
 eorum " bears its natural meaning, " on information 
 received from them." The difficulty is that on the 
 explanation given above, " qui fatebantur " are the 
 cream of the Christian society, the boldest spirits of the 
 community, and therefore those least likely to incri- 
 minate others of the sect. This is clearly the difficulty 
 which has led Professor Ramsay to take these words in 
 a non-natural sense which, I am afraid, they cannot bear. 
 We cannot suppose that the Christians of the first cen- 
 tury were all ready to be martyrs any more than the 
 Bithynian Christians of the second century, many of 
 whom, as we know, seceded under Pliny's treatment. 
 It is clear, therefore, that some of those first arrested 
 (not of course necessarily all) furnished the government 
 with the names of those Christians who had so far escaped 
 notice. Possibly they were induced to do this by torture, 
 but more probably the explanation is to be found in the 
 Epistle of Clement to the Corinthian Church, who, clearly 
 alluding to the Neronian persecution, gives it as an 
 instance of the evils arising from strife and jealousy. ^^ 
 There were therefore perhaps divisions among the Chris- 
 tians at Rome, as there were at Corinth, and so high did 
 
 30 p. 238. 31 p. 233. 
 
 32 See the passage quoted on p. 54. 
 
52 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 this sectarian spirit run that one party was even wilHng 
 to denounce the other to the government. The number 
 of Christians who were arrested and put upon their trial 
 by this means was a considerable one, though " ingens 
 multitudo " is no doubt a rhetorical exaggeration. 
 
 The turn, however, which the trial took — a trial con- 
 ducted in all probability before the praefedus tirhi — is 
 the most important part of the whole incident. The 
 Christians had originally been singled out, not as mem- 
 bers of a " religio illicita," but as a set of men, obnoxious 
 to the populace, on whom Nero sought to divert from 
 himself the charge of incendiarism. In the course of 
 the trial the proofs of incendiarism must necessarily to 
 * a great extent have broken down, but at the same time 
 ' a good deal of information would be elicited about the 
 sect, which would answer the purpose of the govern- 
 ment just as well ; and which would imply a disposition, 
 a state of mind, of which incendiarism would be a natural 
 result. It would come out, in the first place, that the 
 sect held nocturnal meetings, and the very simplicity 
 of the early Christian worship would have the appear- 
 ance of mystery and secrecy to the ordinary heathen 
 mind. Then there would be stories which, if we are to 
 believe Tacitus, were already abroad of the OiStTroSetoi 
 /Mt^cts and the ©veo-rcia huTTva : these would, no doubt, 
 be repeated and exaggerated ; the stories of child- 
 murder in particular falling in with the current 
 notions about magic and witchcraft,^^ would give some 
 colour to an accusation under that head, while, more 
 important still, the social attitude of the Christians would 
 have at any rate become clear to the government — 
 from one point of view, their isolation and aloofness 
 from all the political and religious interests of the city ; 
 from another, their aggressive and proselytising zeal. 
 Isolated members of the sect would be found in almost 
 every large familia of slaves ; Caesar's own household 
 would be found not to have escaped the taint,^* and 
 
 33 Cic. in Vatin. vi. 14 ; Hor. Epod. 5 ; Juv. vi. 522. 
 
 34 Philipp. iv. ad fin. 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN ROME UNDER NERO 53 
 
 while no doubt the noble and the rich would be con- 
 spicuous by their absence, among the lower classes, and 
 especially the servile population, Christianity, with its 
 utter disregard of nationality, would be found a not unim- 
 portant element. To crown all, that characteristic of 
 the religion which seemed to Pliny in itself deserving of 
 the severest punishment, its ohstinatio in the face of 
 interference or repression, the obligation " to obey God 
 rather than men,"^^ would seem to involve an opposi- 
 tion to the omnipotence of the Roman government, 
 which might contain the seeds of real political danger. 
 All these things combined were deemed sufficient to 
 secure a conviction, not so much on the definite charge 
 of incendiarism as of what Tacitus describes as " odium 
 generis humani " ^^ — a wider charge, which might include 
 or might easily be taken to involve the narrower one. 
 That insinuations of magic and witchcraft played, as 
 Arnold suggests, ^^ an important part in these trials 
 seems at least possible. The term " malefica," used by 
 Suetonius of the new religion, often has this special sense, 
 and it deserves notice that in the Justinian code ^® magi- 
 cians are described as " inimici generis humani." 
 
 The result of the trials was naturally the execution 
 of the criminals, and here again the fact must not be 
 passed over — though I think it is possible to make too 
 much of it — that the mode of punishment was that pre- 
 scribed for those convicted of magic : " Qui sacra impia 
 nocturnave ut quem obtruncarent, defigerent, obligarent, 
 fecerint facciendave curaverint aut crucibus suffiguntur 
 aut bestiis obiciuntur .... Magicae artis conscios 
 summo supplicio adfici placuit, id est bestiis obici aut 
 
 3» Acts V. 29. 
 
 36 " Odium generis humani " is explained by Holtzmann as 
 "volliger Mangel an aller humanen und politischen Bildung ; " by 
 Schiller {Comment, philolog. in hon. Mommsen. p. 26) as " Exclu- 
 sivitat gegen Andersglaubige ; " by Arnold, much more sugges- 
 tively, as " principieller Widerstand gegen die romische Staats- 
 omnipotenz," p, 23. 
 
 37 Arnold, pp. 65, 66 
 
 38 Cod. Just. ix. tit. 18 : "[Magi] humani generis inimici cre- 
 dendi sunt." 
 
54 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 crucibus suffigi : ipsi autem magi vivi exuruntur.' ^® 
 Our conclusion therefore is that the account given by 
 Tacitus is both credible in itself and consistent with all 
 that we are able to infer concerning the Christians at 
 this time. It remains to be added that it receives inde- 
 pendent confirmation from other sources. Clement, 
 whose Epistle from Rome to the Church at Corinth is 
 with much probability assigned to the end of Domitian's 
 reign, speaks of a ttoXv 7r\rjOos whose deaths were con- 
 nected with the martyrdom of the great apostles Peter 
 and Paul. He mentions particularly the female victims, 
 and describes their punishment in words which at once 
 suggest the luhidria of Tacitus : Tovrotg rots avhpaa-w 
 ovTws 7roAiT€U(ra/x€KOis (rvvrjOpoLo-Oi ttoXv ttXtjOo^ c/cAcktwv, 
 oItlv€<; TToAAais alKtats kol ^acrdvoL<s 8ta ^•^A.os TraOovTi': 
 vjroSciy/xa KaWiorov iyivoi'TO iv vfiiv. Atct ^rj\o<s Siw- 
 \$€L<raL yvraiKe? Aai^atScs koI AtpKat aiKior/xara Sciva kol 
 dvocria TraOovcraL ctti tov t^s ttiWcw? /Se^aiov Spo/xov Kar-qv- 
 Trj<Tav KOL eXafiov yepas yewaiov at daOeiels tw (rw/xart.*® 
 
 That Nero was fond of horribly realistic representations 
 in the arena we know from Suetonius, ^^ and on this 
 occasion not only his own tastes but the desire to amuse 
 and divert the populace from their suspicions against him- 
 self, would easily suggest these " quaesitissimae poenae." 
 So while the men were made to represent Actaeon torn 
 to pieces by his hounds, or after hanging on crosses dur- 
 ing the day were at night clothed in the hmica molesta, 
 and so made to illuminate the imperial gardens, the 
 women, were, like Dirce, fastened on the horns of bulls, 
 or after figuring as Danaides in the arena, were exposed 
 to the attacks of wild beasts, just as we find Orpheus, 
 without any mythological justification, torn to pieces 
 by a bear. ^^ 
 The Neronian persecution is also alluded to by Melito, 
 
 3^ Paulus, Sent. v. 
 
 ^^ Clem. Ep. ad Corinth, c. 6. 
 
 41 Suet. Ner. 12 : " Inter Pyrricharum argumenta taurus 
 Pasiphaen ligneo iuvencae simulacro abditam iniit, ut multi 
 spectantium crediderunt. Icarus primo statim conatu iuxta 
 cubiculum eius decidit ipsumque cruore respersit." 
 
 42 Mart. De Sped. xxi. 7, 8. 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN ROME UNDER NERO 55 
 
 bishop of Sardes, in an Apology which he addressed to 
 M. Aurehus about 170 a.d., and in which Nero and 
 Domitian are represented as the only persecutors up to 
 his own time *^ — a view which we cannot regard as 
 historical, though it represents the Christian tradition 
 of sufferings under those emperors. More important 
 evidence is given by Suetonius, who in a list of ad- 
 ministrative measures, mostly of the nature of police 
 regulations, says : " Adflicti suppliciis Christiani, genus 
 hominum superstitionis novae ac maleficae. " ** I 
 agree with Professor Ramsay to a great extent in his 
 estimate of this evidence. It is clearly independent of 
 Tacitus, but by no means inconsistent with him. The 
 attempt to convict the Christians of burning the city 
 evidently failed ; the people saw through it ; Tacitus 
 himself implies that Nero was still regarded as the 
 author of the fire ; ^^ Pliny expressly affirms it, ^® and 
 Suetonius also without qualification ; *^ while, as we have 
 seen in the trial itself, except in the case of those first 
 arrested, the punishment was not for incendiarism so 
 much as for that wider charge of " odium generis hu- 
 mani." Hence Suetonius does not think it worth while 
 to disturb his summary of results by bringing the punish- 
 ment of the Christians into connexion, generally admitted 
 to be fictitious, with the burning of the city. The charge 
 of incendiarism had developed into a general charge of 
 
 43 Quoted in Euseb. //. E. ix. 26 : M-ovol irivTwv avaireKrOevTes vto 
 Tivojv (SaaKavuv avOpthirwv rbv Kaff' ijfxas ev dia^oXy KaraarTJcrai Xoyov 
 i]d^\-r}<rav l^^puu kuI AofieTiap6i. 
 
 4-1 Suet. Ner. 16. 
 
 45 Ann. XV. 44 : " Unde quamquam adversus sontes et novis- 
 sima exempla meritos[i.e. on the score of their /7agi/m] miseratio 
 oriebatur tanquam non utihtate pubHca sed in saevitiam unius 
 absumerentur." Cf. xv. 6y, where Subrius Flavius says : 
 " Odisse coepi postquam parricida matris et uxoris, auriga 
 et histrio et incendiarius extitisti." 
 
 46 PHn. H. N. xvii. i : "ad Neronis principis incendia quibus 
 cremavit urbem ; " axid xvii. 8 : " ni princeps ille accelerasset 
 etiam arborum mortem." 
 
 47 Suet Ner. 38 : " Nam quasi offensus deformitate veterum 
 aedificiorum, et angustiis flexurisque vicorum, incendit urbem 
 tam palam ut plerique consulares cubicularios eius, cum stuppa 
 taedaque in praediis suis deprehensos, non attigeriut." 
 
56 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 disaffection to the government, resulting from a mis- 
 chievous and morose superstition. In this aspect only 
 Suetonius mentions it : in the words of Professor Ram- 
 say, which with slight modifications I should accept, 
 " he merely gives a brief statement of the permanent 
 administrative principle into which Nero's action ulti- 
 mately resolved itself." *® The investigation arising 
 from a purely incidental charge had made the govern- 
 ment for the first time acquainted, not with the name — 
 for that was probably known before — but with some of 
 the peculiarities of the sect, and though the numbers 
 were not sufficiently great nor the members of sufficient 
 social importance to make it really a political danger, 
 and though there were certainly no charges amounting 
 to sacrilegium *® or maiestas, there were yet suspicions of 
 moral enormities, there were complaints of social isola- 
 tion on the one side and social interference on another, 
 and lastly, the principles of the religion seemed to in- 
 volve in the last resort political disobedience, the recog- 
 nition of an authority which in cases of collision with the 
 state authority was in preference to be obeyed. This, 
 in the somewhat rhetorical language of Tacitus, was 
 " odium generis humani," disaffection to the social and 
 political arrangements of the empire, ^° but, as has been 
 
 48 p. 232. 
 
 49 The Christians, as Mommsen has shown, could never have 
 been accused of sacrilegium in any technical or juristic sense. 
 As a legal offence sacrilegium was iepocvXla, i.e. stealing from 
 a temple. Cf. Dig. xlviii. 13, 11, i : "Sunt autem sacrilegi 
 qui publica sacra compilaverunt," It was only in a popular 
 sense that it implied " religious misdemeanour " generally (cf. 
 Liv. iv. 20, 5), and in this sense no doubt, but in no other, it 
 was often applied to the behaviour of Christians : as in 
 Min. Fel. 25 and28,Tert. Apol.2, ad Scap.2 and 4. TertuUian, 
 with his legal knowledge, points out that the Christians 
 were improperly called " sacrilegi," ad Scap. 2 : " Nos quos 
 sacrilegos existimatis nee in furto unquam deprehendistis, 
 nedum in sacrilegio," See Hist. Zeitschr. p. 411. 
 
 ^0 " Genus humanum," was, as Arnold points out, the civilised 
 population of the empire. So Nero was " hostis generis humani," 
 Plin. H. N. vii. 8 ; Galba was emperor by the " consensus generis 
 mortalium " is similarly used. 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN ROME UNDER NERO 57 
 
 'already said, not falling under the head of maiestas, nor 
 coming within the range of any of the regular quaestiones. 
 The whole thing, indeed, was a matter for police regu- 
 lation ; as such it came, no doubt, in the first instance, 
 before the praefedus urbi, as the chief police magistrate 
 at Rome, but it could equally well in theory be dealt 
 with by the summary authority or coercitio which the 
 executive magistrates at Rome and the proconsuls and le- 
 gates in the provinces possessed. Mommsen ^^ has, indeed, 
 shown conclusively that the repressive measures of the 
 state in the sphere of religious pplicy belong for the most 
 part to the department of administration, not to the 
 judicial interpretation or enforcement of law, and not 
 even to imperial edicts or constitutions. This coercitio, 
 the essential attribute of all the higher magistrates, was 
 for the state an extraordinary means of self-defence : it 
 was not restricted to the regular rule of procedure : the 
 offences or misdemeanours with which it interfered 
 were not defined by any technical nomenclature, and 
 the punishments which it inflicted were, if not arbitary, 
 at least not specified with any undeviating precision. 
 In Rome from the time of Tiberius this police coercitio 
 
 ^^ Histor. Zeitschr. p. 398 : " Die nicht auf die Ausfiihrung 
 der Strafgesetze gerichtete sondern nach freiem Ermessen aus- 
 geiibte obrigkeitliche Fiirsorge fur die Ordnung und das Wohl des 
 Gemeinwesens kann nicht gedacht werden ohne die Befugniss 
 des Magistrats den widersetzlichen Biirger entweder indirect 
 durch Zufiigung von Rechtsnachtheilen oder direct durch 
 Anwendung der Gewalt zum Gehorsam zu zwingen {coercere). 
 In dem romischen Gemeinwesen hat dies zu dem Rechtsatz 
 gefiihrt, dass der zur Sache competente Magistrat jedem zum 
 Gehorsam Verpflichteten nach freiem Ermessen und ohne Pro- 
 zessform jedes nicht durch die Sitte ausgeschlossene "Obel zufii- 
 gen kann. . . . Der Gegensatz zu dem eigenthchen Strafver- 
 fahren liegt darin dass die Coercition als ausserordentHches 
 Hulfsmittel, gewissermassen als Nothwehr der Gemeinde gegen 
 den Biirger aufgefasst und daher von der FormuUrung sowohl 
 des Unrechts wie des Einschreitens dagegen bei ihn abgesehen 
 wird. . . . Die repressiven Massregeln des Staats auf dem Gebiet 
 der Religion gehoren iiberwiegend diesem administrativen 
 Kreise an und sind nothwendiger Weise beherrscht durch die 
 davon untrennbare administrative Willkiir." Cf. Staatsrecht, 
 vol. i. pp. 133-153- 
 
58 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 was mainly vested in the praejedus urbi, with the general 
 instructions " ut servitia coerceret et quod civium audacia 
 /turbidum nisi vim metuat." ^^ In the provinces general 
 instructions were given to every governor " ut pacata 
 atque quieta provincia sit quam regit ; quod non 
 difficile obtinebit, si soUicite agat ut malis hominibus 
 provincia careat, eosque conquirat : nam et sacrilegos 
 latrones plagiarios fures conquirere debet et prout quisque 
 deliquerit in eum animadvertere." ^^ 
 
 It is the working out of these general instructions 
 given to the executive magistrates at home and in the 
 provinces, modified and coloured no doubt by the per- 
 sonal characteristics both of the magistrates and of the 
 emperors, that we must look for concrete examples of 
 any state policy towards the Christians.^* The first 
 step was taken by Nero's government in 64 a.d. The 
 occasion was purely accidental, but the results were of 
 extreme importance. At the outset the Christians were 
 only known to the government as a small and perhaps 
 fanatical religious sect extremely unpopular with the 
 
 ^^ Tac. Ann. vi. 1 1. 
 
 53 Dig. i. 18, 13. That it was under this general police instruc- 
 tion that the provincial governors could proceed against the 
 Christians receives some confirmation from the part which the 
 eip-qvapxai — police superintendents — played in their arrest. 
 The Digest describes the " Irenarchae " as " disciplinae publicae 
 et corrigendis moribus praefecti " {Dig. 1. 4, 18, 7) : it also 
 proves that it was their duty to arrest " latrones," etc., " ut 
 irenarchae cum adprehenderint latrones," Dig. xlviii. 3, 6. 
 But we also know that it was the Irenarch in Smyrna who sent 
 his gens d'armes to arrest Polycarp (Ruinart, p. 39), while Augus- 
 tine also mentions these officials in connexion with the Christian 
 persecutions, 
 
 5* So Mommsen points out that this coercitio, so far as it has 
 found any entrance into Roman jurisprudence, is not found in 
 the exposition De publicis ludiciis — i.e. in the criminal law — 
 but under the heading De Officio Proconsulis et Legati, which 
 treats of extraordinary procedure and police administration. 
 It is under this heading that, according to Lactantius {Inst. v. 
 II, 19), Ulpian hac^ collected the various rescripts referring to 
 the Christians. " Domitius de officio proconsulis libro septimo 
 rescripta principum nefaria coUegit ut doceret quibus poenis 
 adfici oporteret eos qui se cultores Dei confiterentur." 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN ROME UNDER NERO 59 
 
 masses at Rome : as the upshot of the trial they were 
 recognised as a society whose principles might be sum- 
 marised as " odium generis humani." They were there- 
 fore punished, not as incendiaries, but as Christians. 
 
Christianity under the Flavian Emperors 
 
 That the persecution at this time extended beyond 
 Rome to the provinces there is no evidence whatever 
 to show, for the statement of Orosius,i unconfirmed by 
 earher authorities, is naturally worthless. At the same 
 time there is no doubt that, in Professor Ramsay's words, 
 " the example set by the emperor necessarily guided 
 the action of all Roman officials," and from this time 
 forward there was always the possibility that similar 
 action would be taken by the governors in the provinces : 
 it was really only a matter of time. Generally speaking, 
 the same causes which made the Christians unpopular 
 in Rome were at work, perhaps not quite so rapidly, in 
 the provinces also, and while Nero for his own ends 
 anticipated popular feeling in the capital, the provincial 
 governors would be far more likely as long as possible 
 to remain behind it, and only to take action against the 
 Christians when popular feeling actually forced it upon 
 them. In all probabihty this took place in many cases 
 under the Flavian emperors, very probably before 
 Domitian. The destruction of the Temple and the 
 consequent disappearance of the Jews as a political unity 
 could hardly fail to have an unfavourable influence on 
 the relations between the Roman government and the 
 Christians. On the one hand, whatever vestige of 
 confusion might still remain between Jews and Christians 
 
 1 Hist. vii. 17. 
 
 60 
 
CHRISTIANITY UNDER THE FLAVIAN EMPERORS f)I 
 
 must have been finally removed now that the former 
 had to register their names and pay their two drachmas 
 to Roman officials ; on the other hand, the Jewish war 
 had been a lesson which must have shown the Roman 
 government the political danger of fanatical and aggres- 
 sive monotheisms. The '* hostile odium contra omnes 
 alios " which was at the root of the Jewish difficulty 
 had already been recognised as involved in the principles 
 of the Christian body. The Jewish religion was now to 
 a certain extent under state surveillance, and cut adrift 
 from all political unity. The Christian religion had no 
 national claim to toleration, and the very absence of a 
 national basis and its claim to universality suggested 
 possibilities of extension of which there had been no 
 fear in the case of the Jews. 
 
 The Christian problem, which accident had revealed 
 to the Neronian government at Rome, was one which 
 the Flavian dynasty would certainly have to face in the 
 provinces. Is there any evidence that it was treated in 
 a different manner — that any development took place 
 of what can fairly be called a systematic policy on the 
 part of the Roman government towards the Christians ? 
 On this point I feel bound to disagree with Professor 
 Ramsay, who holds that between 64 a.d. and 95 a.d. 
 the principle of the state action was changed, that 
 whereas under Nero the Christians were charged with 
 certain definite offences, such as incendiarism or hostility 
 to society or magic, or the special flagitia ascribed to the 
 sect, and were punished for these, they were now, on 
 the contrary, punished for the name only ; that Chris- 
 tianity was assumed to be in itself a crime deserving of 
 death ; that no questions were asked, no investigation 
 made about crimes committed ; that the acknowledg- 
 ment of the name involved immediate condemnation ; ^ 
 that Nero treats a great many Christians as criminals 
 and punishes them for their crimes : Pliny and Trajan 
 treat them as outlaws and brigands, and punish them 
 without a reference to crimes. » 
 
 As far as Professor Ramsay's arguments depend on 
 2 p. 242. 3 p. 245. 
 
62 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 the early date of the Pastoral Epistles, which he says 
 confirm his view of the Neronian principle, ^ or on a later 
 date for i Peter, which confessedly refers to suffering 
 for the name,*^ I shall not follow him, because all evidence 
 resting on such controverted points must have, ipso 
 facto, an element of uncertainty. And it really seems 
 to me to be unnecessary, because, after all, the principle 
 of Nero practically involves, without supposing any 
 development from it, the principle which Professor 
 Ramsay ascribes to the Flavian emperors. If the view 
 which has been taken above of the Neronian trials is 
 correct, the Christians, though originally charged with 
 incendiarism, were not found guilty or punished for that 
 or for any definitely stated offence. Professor Ramsay 
 speaks as if " hostihty to society " was one of the 
 particular charges made against them. On the contrary, 
 the " odium generis humani " was a summary of the 
 particular charges,^ a general expression for the contents 
 of Christianity, and henceforth all Christians in Rome 
 would be liable to the same treatment, even without 
 the judicial investigation which had once for all esta- 
 blished the criminality of Christianity as involving this 
 odium. Nor need we find anything exceptional in this, 
 when we remember that the whole matter was one of 
 police administration, not of judicial procedure against 
 a legally constituted offence. It is this, of course, 
 which accounts also for the spasmodic character of pro- 
 ceedings against the Christians, not only in Rome, but 
 in the provinces as well, a character quite inconsistent 
 with any specific law making Christianity an illegal 
 society, but completely in harmony with the nature of 
 
 4 p. 246, and Expositor, July 1893, PP- 20, 21. 
 
 ^ Especially i Pet. iv. 15: Mr; ydp tu vix(j}v Tracrx^TW ws <povoi>s fj 
 kX^ttttis ij KUKOTToibs 7) uJS aXXoTpioeTTiV/coTTos ■ el 5e cis Xpiariapdi, fii) 
 ai0X"^^<^^^i 5o^a(i^TW 5^ rbv debv iv t(^ 6v6fJLaTL toijti^. 
 
 ^ Professor Sanday takes this view in the Expositor for June, 
 1^93. As this was written before I saw his paper, I may cite 
 him as independently confirming this view of the matter. Cf. 
 how Tertullian {Apol. 2) sums up the charge against Christians : 
 " Christianum hominem omnium scelerum reum, deorum, impera- 
 torum legum, morum, naturae totius inimicum existimas." 
 
CHRISTIANITY UNDER THE FLAVIAN EMPERORS 63 
 
 police supervision which took action when action seemed 
 advisable, but might at any time, without weakening 
 the principle of such action, allow it to rest either wholly 
 or in part during long intervals of time. The police 
 authorities of Rome, and therefore the imperial govern- 
 ment, were onvinced that Christianity involved " odium 
 generis humani." This was sufficient to justify on the 
 particular occasion a considerable number of executions ; 
 it involved the possibility of a continuous series of exe- 
 cutions in the future on the ground of information once 
 for all received ; and it was almost certain that when- 
 ever provincial governors applied for instructions as to 
 their treatment of the new sect, rescripts in accordance 
 with the proceedings in Rome would be sent. In all 
 cases the proceeding would take the form of a cognitio ; 
 there was in no case any necessity to do more than 
 establish the Christianity of the accused, which, after 
 the investigation in Rome, was in itself criminality 
 deserving execution. On the other hand, it was always 
 open to the magistrates to inquire as much or as little 
 as they liked into the particular charges : the hesitation 
 of Pliny, " quid aut quatenus puniri soleat aut quaeri," ^ 
 shows that the procedure varied in this respect. But 
 no doubt, generally speaking, as long as Christianity was 
 comparatively unfamiliar, the special charges would be 
 to a certain extent gone into, while later on this would 
 be thought in fact, as it already was in principle, un- 
 necessary. To sum up : as soon as the Christians were 
 once convicted of an " odium generis humani," they were 
 potentially outlaws and brigands, and could be treated 
 by the police administration as such, whether in Rome 
 or the provinces. I cannot, therefore, agree that the 
 Flavian emperors introduced any new principle, though 
 I quite admit that under their policy proceedings were 
 from time to time taken against the Christians, possibly 
 in Rome, certainly in the provinces. That Titus at any 
 rate was prepared to sanction a continuation of the 
 policy commenced by Nero is, I think, shown by the 
 
 '^ Ad Trai, 96. i. 
 
(^ STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 report given of his speech before Jerusalem in 70 a.d., 
 by Sulpicius Sevenis, whose authority was almost 
 certainly Tacitus. In arguing for the destruction of the 
 Temple he is made to say that the religions of the Jews 
 and Christians would be thereby more completely extir- 
 pated, for these religions, though opposed to each other, 
 had the same origin : the Christians had arisen from 
 amongst the Jews, and when the root was torn up, the 
 stem would be more easily destroyed.® This is a most 
 important passage for proving that as early as 70 a.d. 
 not only the distinction but the opposition between 
 Judaism and Christianity was clearly recognized by the 
 authorities in the Eastern provinces, and that both 
 were regarded as involving possible dangers ; but I 
 cannot think, with Professor Ramsay, that Titus thereby 
 pledged himself to any energetic measures of repression 
 against the Christians any more than against the Jews. 
 The Jewish religion, as we know, was tolerated as before, 
 notwithstanding the hopes thus expressed by Titus for 
 its extermination ; and therefore there seems no reason 
 on this ground, at any rate, to suppose any special inter- 
 ference with the Christians.^ The fact that we have 
 no extant records of interference with the Christians 
 under Vespasian and Titus is no argument, or a very 
 weak one, against the supposition that they nevertheless 
 took place ; ^® but if, as I suppose, they only took place 
 
 8 Sulpic. Sever. Chron. ii. 30, 6 : " Evertendum templum 
 . . . censebant quo plenius ludaeorum et Christianorum religio 
 toUeretur .... has religiones, licet contrarias sibi, isdem 
 tamen auctoribus profectas ; Christianos ex ludaeis exstitisse : 
 radice sublata stirpem facile perituram." 
 
 8 Prof. Ramsay's inference from the mutiliated passage of 
 Suetonius, Vesp. 15, " Ceterum neque caede cuiusquam unquam 
 . . . iustis suppliciis illacrimavit etiam et ingemuit," that 
 reference is made to the continued punishment of the Christians 
 in Rome, seems altogether gratuitous ; it can neither be affirmed 
 nor denied. 
 
 10 Bishop Lightfoot has a good remark in this connexion : 
 " This correspondence of a heathen writer is the sole ultimate 
 chronicle of this important chapter in the sufferings of the early 
 Church. What happened in this case is not unlikely to have 
 happened many times." Ignatius and Polycarp, p. 18. 
 
CHRISTIANITY UNDER THE FLAVIAN EMPERORS 65 
 
 sporadically through some incidental reasons, local or 
 personal, and in the ordinary course of police adminis- 
 tration, we can quite understand how they fail to be 
 mentioned both by heathen and Christian writers. In 
 reality, as Mommsen says, " the persecution of the 
 Christians was a standing one, like that of brigands, 
 though the regulations touching them were applied now 
 mildly and carelessly, now with severity, while every 
 now and then they were stringently and thoroughly 
 enforced." ^^ It was these latter occasions only which 
 attracted the attention of the Christian writers, and 
 which they were apt to represent as isolated and distinct 
 persecutions instead of what they really were — more 
 clearly marked phases of what was constantly going on. 
 One of these episodes of increased severity occurred, 
 there can be no doubt, under Domitian, both at Rome 
 and in the provinces ; and though, for the reasons given 
 above, I do not think that any new principle was in- 
 volved, yet undoubtedly certain fresh factors made 
 their appearance which tended to make collisions with 
 the Christians more frequent, while very possibly a new 
 criterion was established, at any rate in the provinces, 
 which made the cognitiones more brief, more simple, 
 more summary, and, from the Christian point of view, 
 more unjust. It has already been shown that, apart 
 from political and social considerations, the religious 
 toleration of the Roman government might always 
 conceivably find its limit at the point where Roman 
 citizens were diverted from the national religion by the 
 exclusive claims of one of the monotheistic cults. If 
 actual cases rarely occurred in which the rule of toleration 
 was departed from on these grounds, it was partly 
 because indifference to the national religion was always 
 becoming greater, while the number of citizens attracted 
 by the monotheistic cults was comparatively small ; 
 and in the case of men of rank or standing almost infini- 
 tesimal. But a revival of the national cult on the one 
 hand, or a secession from it of conspicuous or noble 
 
 11 Rom. Gesch. v. 523, note. 
 
66 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 personages on the other, might at any time call down 
 the interference of the state ; and if there was added 
 any suspicion of political danger, such interference was 
 almost inevitable. It was such a concurrence of con- 
 ditions which brought about a spasmodic and temporary 
 persecution of Christians in Rome under Domitian in 
 95 A.D. Dio Cassius ^^ tells us that Flavins Clemens, a 
 cousin of the emperor, and his wife Domitilla were 
 accused of a^cdrr/s : that the former was executed, and 
 the latter banished to an island ; that many others 
 also were accused of the same charge, some being exe- 
 cuted, others stripped of their property, ws cs to, twv 
 'lovSatcoi/ t^Bt) c^o/ccAA.ovt€9, Acilius Glabrio being men- 
 tioned particularly as charged with the same crime 
 as the rest, and also with having fought with wild 
 beasts in the arena. Suetonius ^^ mentions the death of 
 Flavins Clemens — whom he describes as a man " con- 
 temptissimae inertiae " — as arising " ex tenuissima 
 suspicione," while he alludes to Acilius Glabrio as a 
 suspected " molitor rerum no varum." ^* Eusebius ^^ to 
 a great extent confirms the account of Dio Cassius, 
 mentioning no names, but narrating that Domitian 
 killed a considerable number of noble and illustrious 
 men, and punished many more with banishment and 
 confiscation ; while Melito ^^ couples together, as does 
 
 12 Dio Cass. Ixvii. 14 : Kdu r^ ai'riy ^rei AWovs re ToWods /cat 
 ^Xd^iov KXi^fxePTa, VTrareOovTa, Kalirep dvexpibv dura, Kal yvfaiKa Kal 
 ai/TTjv aiTfyevri iavrov ^Xa^iav AofxiTiWav ^■)(pvTa Kar^a-ipa^ev 6 Ao/jutl- 
 audi eiryjv^x^V ^^ aficpoiv ^yKXrffia ddedrTjTOS, i(f>'' ffS Kal &XX01 es ra 
 rdv ^lovdaiuiv ijdr} e|o iAXoi/res iroXXoi KaT€di.Kd(rdr](Tau • Kal oi {xkv 
 diridavov. 61 S^ tCjv yovv ovciQiP iarep-qdriaav ' i] 5^ Ao/xLTiXXa virepu)' 
 piffdr] fidvop els HapSaT^peiav. rbv S^ di) TXa^piwua rbv fierd rod UpaCavov 
 Ap^avra, KaT-qyop-qdevTa rd re dXXa Kal ola oi iroXXot, Kal 6tl Kal drjpiois 
 ifidx^To diriKTCLfev. 
 
 13 Suet. Dom. 15 ; " Denique Flavium Clementem patruelem 
 suum, contemptissimae inertiae, cuius filios etiam turn parvulos 
 successores palam destinaverat . . . repente ex tenuissima sus- 
 picione tantum non in ipso eius consulatu interemit." 
 
 1* Suet. Dom. 10. 
 
 15 H. E. iii. 17 : HoW'^j' ye fxr^v elswoXXovs iiriSeL^dixevos 6 AofieTLavbs 
 d)fi6Tr)Ta ovK oXlyop re tQv iiri ' Pw/xt7S evTraTpibdv re Kal ejn.a-ffp.uv 
 dvbpdv TrXrjdos ov fier^ evXbyov Kplcreojs Kreivas, k. t. X, 
 
 16 Euseb. H. E. iv. 26. 
 
CHRISTIANITY UNDER THE FLAVIAN EMPERORS 67 
 
 Tertullian, Nero and Domitian as the earliest perse- 
 cutors. That Domitian was at any rate to a certain 
 extent inchned to support and revive the national 
 religion is shown by the passages and evidence collected 
 by Schiller ; ^"^ that the principal victims were not only 
 noble Roman citizens but also a possible danger from a 
 political point of view will be clear if we remember that 
 Domitian had no heir of his own, that Flavius Clemens, 
 whose two sons were the destined successors to the empire, 
 was, as the only surviving son of Vespasian's elder 
 brother, Flavius Sabinus, the second personage in the 
 empire, and that Flavia Domitilla, his wife, was a niece 
 of the emperor. That the victims were really Christians 
 is almost certain. Chrfstian tradition, as represented 
 by Eusebius, affirms it,^^ and the words of Suetonius, 
 " contemptissimae inertiae," well correspond to the 
 difficulties of a Christian in the position of Flavius 
 Clemens. Dio Cassius, it is true,* represents them as 
 living a Jewish life, but in view of the manifest bias which 
 makes this writer consistently avoid all mention of the 
 Christians, this evidence is anything but conclusive, 
 while archaeological discoveries have now established 
 the facts, (i) that Domitilla was the owner of the ground 
 on which one of the catacombs was afterwards situated ,^^ 
 (2) that the family of the Acilii Glabriones were buried 
 in a crypt, the centre of a series of catacombs clustered 
 round the tomb of some saint or martyr,^^ whom, con- 
 sidering the evidence of Dio Cassius, it is not altogether 
 rash to identify with the Acilius Glabrio of Domitian. 
 The trial, however, under Domitian took a different 
 form from those in 64 a.d. Slaves and freedmen, 
 immigrants from the East, members of the great city 
 proletariate, might be summarily arrested by the 
 
 17 Rom. Gesch. ii. p. 536. 
 
 18 Euseb. H. E. iii. 18 : iu irei Trevre KaideKartf Ao/ieTiavoO ixera 
 TrXetffTOjp ir^piov kuI ^Xaovtav AofxeTiWav i<rTopr](xavTes, i^ dde\<pijs 
 yeyovvlav ^Xaovtov KXrjixePTO^, evos tQv T7)viKdSe iwl 'Tdofxrjs virdruv, rrjs 
 eli ^piffTOP /maprvpLas 'eveKev ds.vrjaov YlovHav . . . Beddadai. 
 
 19 De Rossi, BuUett. di Archeolog. Cristian. 1865, 17-24. 
 
 20 De Rossi, cited by Ramsay, p. 262, 
 
68 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 praefectus urbi, and after scant inquiry executed as 
 members of a sect characterised confessedly by " odium 
 generis humani." With Roman citizens of standing 
 and importance a more definite charge was necessary, 
 and this we find from Dio Cassius was primarily aO€6Trj<i, 
 i.e. not so much sacrilegium in any technical sense ^^ as a 
 refusal to worship the national gods of the state. In 
 this sense both the Jews and Christians were aBtot,^^ 
 though the Jews were tolerated a^coi, and the majority 
 of Christians, if this had been the only charge against 
 them, would no doubt have been let alone. But in the 
 case of Roman citizens it was deemed necessary to 
 assert the state right to claim observance on the part of 
 citizens of the national worship. The emperor no doubt 
 tried the case himself. The charge of a^corr;? not being 
 known to Roman law, the case was one for the coercitio 
 of the supreme magistrate. But it was one of the 
 peculiarities of the imperial court that, sharing the 
 summary power and lax procedure of police jurisdiction, 
 it could also deal with really legal crimes such as maiestas 
 or repetundae. Under Tiberius, as we know, maiestas 
 was " omnium criminum complementum," ^^ and very 
 much the same thing became true under Domitian. 
 The charge of maiestas was one of very elastic dimen- 
 sions, and Mommsen has shown that it was quite possible 
 for any dishonour shown to the "dii populi Romani " to 
 be conceived as a violation of the dignity of the ruling 
 nation, and so brought under the law of maiestas}^ 
 From Suetonius we should infer that this took place on 
 the present occasion. But if it was so, it is important 
 to guard against any language which would seem to 
 imply that henceforth this was the usual mode of dealing 
 with the Christians. Le Blant ^® has no doubt performed 
 
 21 See p, 74, n. i. 
 
 22 Mommsen, llist. Zeitschr. p. 407, note 2. 
 
 23 Tac. Ann. iii. 38. 
 
 24 Mommsen, Hist. Zeitschr. p. 396. 
 
 25 Le Blant, " Sur les bases juridiques des poursuites dirigees 
 contre les martyrs," Acad, des Inscriptions, Comptes-rendus , 
 1866. p. 358 foil. 
 
CHRISTIANITY UNDER THE FLAVIAN EMPERORS 69 
 
 a useful work in showing what the usual legal charges 
 were under which the Christians could be proceeded 
 against — how maiestas or sacrilegium could be brought 
 home to them, or circumstantial evidence produced of 
 magical practices or murder, or how they could be 
 punished as members of an illicit collegium under the 
 Lex lulia. No doubt in particular cases proceedings 
 might be taken under one or other of these forms, but 
 as a rule the Christian trials are not to be classified in 
 this way. The Christians were punished, not as traitors, 
 nor as magicians, but simply as Christians : i.e. as 
 members of a body which was notoriously incompatible 
 with the good order and obedience to existing institutions 
 which an efficient police administration requires from 
 all. It is to this circumstance that the vagueness is 
 due which characterises all that we know of the dealings 
 of the government towards Christianity. It really lay 
 within the discretion of each provincial governor as to 
 how he should deal with the Christians, whether he 
 should hunt them out — a proceeding discountenanced by 
 the emperors, certainly after Trajan — or should wait 
 till information was laid against them by accusers. 
 Again, when accusations were made, it was within 
 his discretion merely to satisfy himself that the accused 
 were really Christians, or to enter into any specific 
 charges made against them. There is no evidence what- 
 ever that either by Nero or by any of the Flavian em- 
 perors any general instructions were given to provincial 
 governors to put down Christianity.^® When repressive 
 measures were taken, they would be taken usually, not 
 from any " Flavian policy," not because membership 
 in the sect was looked upon as treasonable by the govern- 
 ment, certainly not because the Church was looked upon 
 as "an organised unity dangerous to the state," ^^ but 
 
 ^ Sulpicius Severus says, Chron. ii. 29 : " Hoc initio in Chris- 
 tianos saeviri coeptum. Post etiam datis legibus religio veta- 
 batur palamque edictis propositis Christianos esse non licebat ; " 
 but, as Professor Ramsay points out, he uses these terms loosely 
 and inaccurately (p. 225). 
 
 27 Ramsay, p. 275. 
 
70 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 in consequence of some manifestation of hostile feeling 
 on the part of the populace, sometimes because their 
 social interests were injured, sometimes because their 
 religious institutions were neglected, sometimes from 
 both causes combined with various other motives for 
 jealousy and dislike. 
 
 Practically the Christians were not a danger to the 
 state, and neither Nero nor Domitian could possibly 
 have thought that they were, or have ordered syste- 
 matic measures of repression on that ground ; but 
 nevertheless, since 64 a.d., the principles of the com- 
 munity were known to contain elements inconsistent 
 with that entire obedience which was owed to the 
 state and to state institutions by all well-affected 
 citizens, and on this ground the provincial governors, 
 as guardians of the public peace and acting in the special 
 circumstances of particular cases, could and undoubtedly 
 did from time to time persecute the Christians. 
 
 Nor must it be forgotten that in the provinces re- 
 ligious motives had greater weight — not indeed with 
 the government, but with the populace — than at Rome. 
 It^has been seen that in the city the police administra- 
 tion always could, though perhaps it seldom did, inter- 
 fere with citizens who repudiated the national cult, or, 
 in other words, were adioi. But it would be a mistake 
 to suppose that the populations of the Oriental cities, 
 merely because they were not Roman citizens, were 
 allowed complete liberty in religious matters, and could 
 adopt Christianity without fear of interference.^^ The 
 national religion had a stronger hold upon the people in 
 the East than in the West,^^ and it was the manifest 
 
 28 Mommsen, Hist. Zeitschr. p. 409 : " Damit soil keineswegs 
 esagt sein, dass in dieser Epoche dem Nichtbiirger der "Obertritt 
 
 zum Juden oder zum Christenthum von Rechtswegen freige- 
 standen habe : im Gegentheil konnte dem Athener und dem 
 Antiochener, welcher sich zum Christenthum bekannte, mit 
 demselben Recht wie dem Romer der Atheismus vorgeworfen 
 werden, nur dass die Gottesleugnung hier auf einen anderen 
 Gotterkreis bezog." 
 
 29 Instances are : the credulity of the people at Lystra, who 
 believed that Paul and Barnabas were Hermes and Zeus " in 
 
CHRISTIANITY UNDER THE FLAVIAN EMPERORS 71 
 
 policy of the Roman government, which had always 
 tolerated these religions, to give them whatever support 
 against atheists was claimed by popular feeling — so that 
 atheism was a charge with which the imperial police 
 administration in the provinces could always deal, 
 though, as Mommsen points out, the term had refer- 
 ence to different deities from those in Rome. The riot 
 of the artificers at Ephesus shows how easily religious 
 animosity might be aided by motives of another sort, 
 although in this case the populace had not yet fully 
 realised the extent of the opposition between the Chris- 
 tians and their own worship. A more significant 
 example is the attempt of the people of Antioch, after 
 the Jewish war, to enforce their national worship on the 
 Jews resident among them, under the impression that 
 with the destruction of the Temple and the political 
 constitution of the Jews, their religious privileges were 
 also taken away.^^ What was unsuccessfully attempted 
 against the Jews must often have met with greater 
 success against the Christians. 
 
 But it was not perhaps always easy, when popular 
 feeling or some other occasion made it necessary for the 
 provincial authorities to interfere with the Christians, 
 to identify the members of a sect composed mainly of 
 the humblest and poorest of the population, with no 
 special ritual to attract attention, usually meeting 
 more or less in secret, and by no means all of them ready 
 to profess their Christianity in public. It was appar- 
 ently in the reign of Domitian that a criterion was 
 established which for the future made the identification 
 of Christians a comparatively simple matter, while it 
 provided the possibility, whenever it was deemed worth 
 while or desirable, of bringing the profession of Chris- 
 tianity, even in the provinces, under the head of maiestas. 
 Among other means of establishing some bond of union 
 for the whole empire Augustus had conceived the possi- 
 
 the likeness of men (Acts xiv. 11-18); and the faith of the 
 Egyptian populace in the healing powers of Vespasian (Suet. 
 Vesp. 7). Cf. also Lucian, Alex and. 9. 
 30 Joseph. B. J. vii. 3, 3. 
 
72 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 bility of a semi-religious bond between Rome and the 
 various provinces, which were otherwise so heterogeneous 
 in worship, language, and institutions. As an outward 
 sign of their common membership in the empire, an 
 organisation was established in the provinces for the 
 worship of " Rome and Augustus." For this purpose 
 provincial concilia were formed, composed of deputies 
 sent from the various towns or divisions of the province ; 
 a provincial temple to Rome and Augustus was built ; 
 a provincial sacerdos or flamen appointed and annual 
 meetings of the concilia in connexion with religious 
 services in the temple, and games in honour of the 
 deified emperors were instituted.^^ But nowhere in the 
 whole empire did this institution so flourish or assume 
 such prominence as in the provinces of the East and 
 particularly of Asia Minor. In Asia itself the original 
 temple of Rome and Augustus was established at 
 Pergamus ; ^^ here the kolvov rrj^ 'Ao-ias was held, and 
 the games celebrated. But Asia was remarkable not 
 only for the number of its cities, but for the rivalry 
 existing between them, and so we find that in the course 
 of time, temples to Augustus grew up in Sardes ^^ Phila- 
 delphia,^* Smyrna,^*^ Ephesus,^® and Laodicea,^^ the 
 Koivov being apparently held now in one, now in another. 
 The high priest of Asia was known by the high-sounding 
 title of Asiarch, and the annual religious observances 
 and the richly endowed games attracted the attention 
 of the whole province. How far participation in this 
 cult was expected as a duty or mark of loyalty from 
 individual provincials we have no means of determin- 
 ing.^® Under Augustus and Tiberius, after the first 
 
 31 See my article on the Provincial Concilia, English Historical 
 Review, April 1890. 
 
 32 Dio Cass. li. 20. Tac. Ann. iv. $7. 
 
 33 C. /. Gr. 5918. 34 Ibid, 3428. 
 35 Ibid. 3208. 36 Eckhel. ii. 521. 
 
 37 Wood, Discoveries at Ephesus, p. 54. 
 
 38 Mommsen {Rom. Gesch. v. 321) supposes that the provincial 
 priests of Rome and Augustus — in Asia the Asiarchs — would, as 
 part of their duty, call attention to any neglect of the established 
 cult, and having no power of punishment themselves, would 
 
CHRISTIANITY UNDER THE FLAVIAN EMPERORS 73 
 
 organisation was started, the whole thing was no doubt 
 left to the spontaneous action of the provinces, and the 
 same was probably true of the other emperors, with the 
 exception of Caligula, up to the accession of Domitian. 
 That emperor, however, was much more particular in 
 respect to his own divinity. We know that his pro- 
 curators had to commence their official instructions 
 with the formula " Dominus et deus noster hoc fieri 
 iubet," and that he insisted upon being addressed in a 
 similar way in all communications to himself.^^ That 
 under an emperor with such known proclivities there 
 should have grown up greater strictness and possibly 
 some more express provisions in relation to the observance 
 of the imperial cult in the provinces is extremely likely, 
 and certainly if any such change took place it must have 
 produced an adverse effect upon the position of the 
 Christians. That something of the sort actually did 
 take place is, it seems to me, made extremely probable 
 by the evidence of the Apocalypse. According to the 
 statement of Irenaeus, with which apparently all the 
 internal evidence agrees, the date of this book was near 
 the end of Domitian's reign.'^'' In it there is distinct 
 and repeated allusion to a persecution of the Christians 
 in Asia : ^^ e.g. ct8ov VTroKarw tov BvcnacrT-qpLov ra? \pv)(a.'; rQ)v 
 
 bring the matter before the secular courts : would, in fact, 
 either act as or provide informers : " Als dann der alte und der 
 neue Glaube im Reiche um die Herrschaft zu ringen begannen, 
 ist deren Gegensatz wohl zunachst durch das provinziale Ober- 
 priesterthum zum Conflict geworden. Diese aus den vornehmen 
 Provinzialen von dem Landtag d^r Provinz bestellten Priester 
 waren durch ihre Traditionen wie durch ihre Amtspflichter weit 
 mehr als die Reichsbeamten berufen und geneigt auf Vernach- 
 lassigung des anerkannten Gottesdienstes zu achten und, wo 
 Abmahnung nicht half, da sie selber eine Strafgewalt nicht 
 hatten, die nach biirgerlichera Recht strafbare Handlung bei 
 den Orts- oder den Reichsbehorden zur Anzeige zu bringen, 
 und den weltlichen Arm zu Hiilfe zu rufen, vor allem den Christen 
 gegeniiber die Forderungen des Kaisercultus geltend zu machen.' 
 
 39 Suet. Dom, 13 
 
 40 Cited in Euseb. H. E. iii. 1 8 : ov^k yb.p irpb ttoXXoO xp'^o^ eupddr} 
 [i] diroKdXvxj/ii'} dXXct (TxeSdf iirl Tr}s ijfieT^pas yep€d$ irphs rip tAci ttjs 
 AofiCTiavov dpxv^' 
 
 41 Prof. Ramsay {Expositor, July. 1893, P- ^6) argues from the 
 
74 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 i<Ttf>ayfji€V(i}V 8ta tov \6yov rov Oeov Koi 8ta t^i' fxaprppLav ^v 
 tl)(ov : *^ and, tlBov ttjv yin^aiKa /xeOvovaav ck tov ai/aaro? rail/ 
 dyttoi/ Ktti €K Tou at/xuTOS Twi/ ixaprvpwv 'Irja-ov : *^ while it is 
 
 equally clear that the immediate occasion of the execu- 
 tion alluded to was the refusal to worship the em- 
 
 p)eror : koI iS66ri avrfj Sovvai TTvevfia ry etKovL tov OrjpLov 
 tJ^a Kol XaX-^arj r/ €i/<a)v tov Orjpiov kol iroLT^crr} tva ocrot iav 
 fir) ■7rpoaKVvqau)a'LV rrj cIkovl tov drjpiov aTroKTayOuxTLV.^^ And, 
 again, ilSov . . . ras xf/vxa^ TU)V TmreXeKLO-fxiuojv 8ta Tr)V 
 fxapTvpiav 'It/ctov kol Slol tov Xoyoy tov Oeov Kal otTti^c? ov 
 Trpoa-cKvvrjaav to Orjpiov ouSc Trjv eiKova avTov : ^® while we 
 
 have the name of one martyr — Antipas — at Pergamus, 
 the seat of the imperial cult at that time, os aTnKTdvBrj 
 Trap' vfXLv oTTov 6 Daravas KaTotK€t.*® That it was the rule 
 at the time, or thought to be so by the writer, for all 
 the provincials to worship the emperor's image appears 
 
 from another passage — irpoa-Kwiqa-ovaLv avTov Trai/rcs ot 
 KaTOLKovvTi^ cVt T^s y^s.*' It appears from these passages 
 
 vehement language of the Apocalypse as compared with the 
 moderate tone of the Apologists of the second century, that the 
 policy of the first century emperors was essentially more severe 
 towards the Christians than those in the second. Mommsen 
 speaks of the " complaints uttered in the Apocalypse." Prof. 
 Ramsay says that " the Apocalypse is not a complaint but a 
 vision of triumph over a cruel and bitter but impotent adver- 
 sary." Does he not suggest the answer to his own argument ? 
 The intense, exaggerated, visionary tone of the Apocalypse is 
 common to all the productions, mostly Jewish, of the same kind, 
 and while we may accept any historical statements to be found 
 in it, we must discount the general tone of denunciation. On the 
 other hand, if the writer of the Apocalypse overstated the case, 
 the Apologists by the very nature of their task were likely to 
 employ a studied moderation which perhaps understated and 
 mitigated the facts, though there are passages in Tertullian of 
 intense, if repressed, bitterness, which, making allowance for the 
 poetical imagery of the Apocalypse, might almost be compared 
 with the tone of that work. To this it may be added that the 
 Apocalyptic writer thought he was writing on the eve of the 
 second coming of Christ ; whereas the Apologists were trying to 
 secure some tolerable locus standi for the Christians in an empire 
 of which they no longer looked for a speedy end. 
 *2 vi. 9 ; cf. also xx. 4 *3 xvii. 6. 
 
 44 Rev. xiii. 15, 45 xx. 4. 46 ij. 13, 
 
 47 xiii. 8, Cf. also xii. 11, xiii. 12-14, xiv. 9, xvi. 2, and xix 20. 
 
CHRISTIANITY UNDER THE FLAVIAN EMPERORS 75 
 
 that a number of Christians were executed in Asia 
 during Domitian's reign : a circumstance probably 
 
 alluded to in the MapTvptov 'lyvarcov *^ — rwi/ TToWwv iirl 
 Aofxenavov Sitayfxwv — some of whom, at any rate, were 
 beheaded,*^ perhaps as belonging to a somewhat higher 
 class,^^ while others were probably sent to Rome to 
 be exposed to wild beasts in the arena there.^^ 
 
 From these notices it is not necessary to infer that a 
 formal charge of maiestas was brought against the 
 Christians for refusing to worship the emperor. Had 
 this been the case, the persecution would have been much 
 more systematic and general than the evidence gives 
 ground to suppose that it was, while a normal form of 
 cognitio would certainly have been established for such 
 cases, which would have made Pliny's hesitation and 
 uncertainty impossible. Much more probably the 
 ordinary charges were laid against the Christians before 
 the proconsul — charges which involved a certain dis- 
 affection to the empire and the emperor. In view of 
 the greater importance attached to the imperial cult by 
 Domitian, it might easily suggest itself as a criterion by 
 which the Christianity and consequently the criminality 
 of the accused might be decided, while at the same time 
 an opportunity was afforded them of proving at once 
 their loyalty to the emperor by rendering to him the 
 usual act of worship. If this view is correct, we are not 
 
 48 Ruinart, Acta Martyrum, p. 696. ^9 Rev. xx. 4. 
 
 50 Paulus, Sent. v. 29, i. 
 
 51 So Mommsen {Rom. Gesch. v. 522 note) with much proba- 
 bihty explains Rev. xvii. 6, koI eUou ttju ywaiKa fiedvovaav €k 
 Tou aUfxaros tCov ayicov : and xviii. 24, Kai ev avrfj atrja irpocpTjTQv Kal 
 ayi(i)v evpidrj. " Wenn hervorgehoben wird, dass diese Blut- 
 gerichte besonders' haufig in Rom vollzogen warden (c. 17, 6 ; 
 18, 24), so ist damit die Vollstreckung der Verurtheilung zum 
 Fecht- Oder zum Thierkampf gemeint, welche am Gerichtort oft 
 nicht stattfinden konnte und bekanntUch vorzugsweise eben in 
 Rom erfolgte." Cf. Diq. xlviii. 19. 31 : " Ad bestias damnare 
 favore popuU praeses dimittere non debet : sed si eius roboris 
 vel artificii sint, ut digne populo Romano exhiberi possint, 
 principem consulere debet." So Ignatius says to the Ephesians, 
 Trapo56s ecrre tGsv els debv dvaipovfMevuiVf ad Ephes. 12, and cf. T, 4, 
 iXTL^ovTa Ty Tpo0'€vxv ^IJ^v iiriTvxeTv iv 'Pti^*]? 6T]piofji.axv(Tai. 
 
76 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 bound with Neumann "^^ to suppose the introduction 
 of any new principle in deahng with the Christians at 
 this time, but rather the introduction of a useful test, 
 by which Christians might easily be distinguished from 
 those who were falsely accused of being so. That this 
 receives much support from Pliny's letter to Trajan will 
 I think appear below. 
 
 At Rome the death of Domitian seems at once to have 
 restored the ordinary state of toleration which the 
 Christian community experienced for the most part in 
 the city, and which, as we have seen, was only disturbed 
 by exceptional circumstances.*^ As to what took place 
 in the provinces during the first twelve years or so of 
 Trajan's reign we have no information. If the account 
 given above — an account, be it remembered, which only 
 pretends to rest on probable and indirect evidence — is 
 in any way correct, there was up to this time no general 
 proscription of the Christians, certainly no edict, as 
 some have supposed,*^* forbidding their existence, and 
 there was nothing which can fairly be called an imperial 
 policy towards the Christians. The letter of Pliny, 
 indeed, apart from all other evidence, is by itself a 
 sufficient proof of this. The Christians were as yet too 
 insignificant a body to be seriously regarded as a danger 
 to the state, needing to be met by a definite policy. A 
 purely personal motive had, indeed, thirty years before 
 the death of Domitian brought the Christians of Rome 
 face to face with the police administration of the city, 
 and enough had been then discovered to show that their 
 principles contained elements inconsistent with absolute 
 obedience to the state, but, the special occasion over, 
 the persecution apparently ended, and even the populace 
 saw clearly enough that the Christians were not really 
 being punished because they were dangerous, but to 
 
 52 Neumann, Der rom. Staat und die allgemeine Kirche, p. 15. 
 
 63 Dio Cass. Ixviii. i : roh Si 617 dXXots ovre d<re)3efas oih' 
 ^lovHaiKoO ^lov KaraiTiaadal rivas avvex'^p^<Te, 
 
 5* See Arnold, Die Plin. Christenverfolgung, p. 27, note 3, and 
 Boissier, Revue ArcMologique. 1876, p. 118 foil. 
 
CHRISTIANITY UNDER THE FLAVIAN EMPERORS 77 
 
 satisfy the emperor's personal cruelty.^^ The coUisions 
 which had been brought about in Rome by one acci- 
 dental circumstance might undoubtedly at any time 
 in the provinces be brought about by others, and in 
 particular by the deep and growing hatred with which 
 the sect was beginning to be regarded by the people. 
 In all such cases the provincial governors required no 
 special law to guide their action : they were armed 
 with the supreme police administration of their pro- 
 vinces ; if riots took place against the Christians as 
 '' atheists," deniers or violators of the municipal or 
 provincial cults, it was part of their police duty 
 to protect them and to punish the offenders ; if 
 they were accused of forming illegal associations, or of 
 nocturnal meetings, or of immorality, the same authority 
 enabled them to take summary measures. The mere 
 fact that the Christians by their strange doctrines were a 
 cause of popular disturbance and excitement would 
 amply justify police interference.^^ On the other hand, 
 if the governors deemed it necessary to apply to the 
 emperor for instructions, the rescript could only be in 
 effect, " The Christians are enemies of the human race : 
 it is your duty to insure the tranquillity of your province : 
 if these men interfere with it, they must be punished." 
 In other words, Christianity by virtue of its inherent 
 disobedience {ohstinatio, Trapara^is 5^) was a criminal 
 offence, but in the eyes of the police administration, not 
 of the law. How far the Christians were actually per- 
 secuted under this regime would depend not so much on 
 any Neronian or Flavian policy as on the character of 
 the provincial governors, local and particular circum- 
 stances, and, above all, on the state of popular feeling 
 in particular districts or provinces. 
 
 55 Tac. Ann. xv. 44 : " tanquam non publica utilitate sed 
 in unius saevitiam absiimerentur." 
 
 56 Paulus, Sent. -v. 21 : " Qui novas sectas vel ratione incogni- 
 tas religiones inducunt, ex quibus animi hominum moveantur, 
 honestiores deportantur, humiliores capite puniuntur." This, 
 as Mommsen points out, only puts in a precise form what was 
 essentially the duty of every police administration. 
 
 57 Cf the aifdddeia which Aristides attributes to oi iv rrj II a- 
 XaKTTlvjg dvffffe^eis (Orat. 46.) 
 
VI 
 
 Trajan and the Christians 
 
 Apart from a possibly greater insistence on some obser- 
 vance of the imperial cult, which, however, we have seen 
 reason to think was applied more as a test than as a 
 universal obligation, there was probably little to dis- 
 tinguish the government attitude towards Christians 
 in the provinces under Domitian from that under Nerva 
 and Trajan. 
 
 For the policy, if it can be called so, of the latter, 
 very important information — though its importance 
 may easily be exaggerated — is afforded us owing to the 
 fortunate circumstance that a literary man was sent 
 out as governor to Bithynia, and that his correspondence 
 with the emperor on a variety of matters relating to the 
 administration of the province was published after his 
 death, together with his other letters. Had this cor- 
 respondence shared the fate of so many other classical 
 works, or had the governor's inquiry or the emperor's 
 rescript shared the usual fate of similar documents, 
 even more important in themselves, and remained stored 
 away with the other commentarii principis in the imperial 
 scrinia, we should have had much less clue to the attitude 
 of the government in the second century, and much 
 that is now tolerably clear and consistent would have 
 seemed improbable or obscure 
 
 The province of Bithynia-Pontus had from republican 
 times a considerable Jewish population, ' probably 
 
 1 Cic. pro Flacc. 28. 
 
TRAJAN AND THE CHRISTIANS 79 
 
 collected mainly in its large cities, e.g. Nicomedia and 
 Nicaea, Apamaea, and perhaps Sinope and Amisus. It 
 has been already mentioned that it was to places with 
 large Jewish settlements, especially if they lay on 
 important commercial routes rendering communication 
 easy, that the earliest Christian missionaries first betook 
 themselves. Paul himself, in his second missionary 
 journey, had intended to enter Bithynia, but was pre- 
 vented by the Spirit. 2 Professor Ramsay supposes 
 that Christianity would first enter Bithynia along the 
 trade route from the Cilician gates, by way of Tyana and 
 Caesaraea of Cappadocia to Amisus, and that it probably 
 arrived here between 65 and 75 a.d.^ There were 
 certainly Christians in the^j)rovincejyhen i Peter was 
 composed ; ^^^fntthere were instances of apostasy from it 
 as early as d>y a.d.s The province, which together with 
 Asia was the first to have a temple built to Rome and Au- 
 gustus,^ was under senatorial administration ; but owing to 
 misunderstandings between proconsuls and provincials '' 
 to the prevalence of factions in the cities,^ and to 
 financial discorders,^ Trajan found it advisable in 
 III a.d. temporarily to take the province into his own 
 administration, and to send out a special legatus, with 
 a view to the reformation of abuses^'' and the re-establish- 
 ment of its financial stability. For this purpose he 
 selected Pliny, as one who had some acquaintance with 
 Bithynian affairs," had had some experience of finance,^^ 
 
 2 Acts xvi, 6. 3 p. 225. 
 
 ■* I Pet. i. I (KXeKToTs TrapeiriSi^fjiOLs 5La<nropds IIovtov, TaXarias, 
 KairiraSoKias, 'Aertas Kai Bidvpias, 
 
 ^ Ad Trai. 96, 6, where some of the accused assert that they 
 had left the Christian body twenty-five years before. 
 
 6 Dio Cass. H. 20. 
 
 7 Phn. Ep. iii. 9 and v. 20. 
 
 8 Phn. ad Trai 34 : " Sed meminerimus provinciam istam et 
 praecipue eas civitates eiusmodi factionibus esse vexatas." 
 
 9 Phn. ad Trai. 17 a ; 32, i, etc. 
 
 10 Phn. ad Trai. 32, i : " Memineris idcirco te in istam pro- 
 vinciam missum quoniam multa in ea emendanda apparuerint." 
 
 11 He had been counsel both for Julius Bassus and for Varenus 
 Rufus, who were accused by the province of repetundae. 
 
 12 He had been praefectus both of the aerarium Saturni, and of 
 the aerarium miUtare. 
 
80 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 and also, no doubt, as a man of known moderation and 
 high character. 
 
 PHny reached his province in September, iii a.d.,^^ 
 and from that time till the beginning of 113 a.d. we have 
 sixty Jetters^writteii-hjLJiim-to Trajan, asking advice 
 on all sorts of matters connected with the administration 
 of the province — some of them extremely trivial — and 
 forty-eight replies on the part of the emperor. How 
 long Pliny remained in Bithynia we do not know. The 
 letters, which seem to be arranged chronologically,^* show 
 that during the time mentioned he was passing through 
 from west to east, arranging matters as he went suc- 
 cessively at Prusa,^" Nicomedia,^** Nicaea,*^ Heraclea,^® 
 Sinope,^^ and Amisus,'^'' while the last letter in which 
 the place is specified is written from Amastris^^ — a 
 city which, on account of its remoteness, Pliny was 
 possibly visiting on his return journey by sea. From 
 the abrupt close of the correspondence it has been con- 
 jectured, with some plausibility, that Pliny died before 
 his mission was accomplished. 
 
 It is unnecessary to discuss here the question whether 
 in ordinary cases the emperors were consulted by their 
 legates to the same extent that Trajan was by Pliny. 
 Probably the exceptional condition of the province 
 was the cause of an exceptionally frequent and minute 
 correspondence, but in the letter with which we are 
 particularly concerned — that about the Christians — there 
 is nothing that might not with equal appropriateness 
 have come from a proconsul of Asia or a legate of Syria. 
 During the first year of Pliny's administration, appar- 
 ently, the Christian question had remained dormant 
 and it was not. till he.had, arrived at the eastern districts 
 of the province — probably Amisus and its neighbour- 
 hood — that Pliny was confronted_ivith 'the problem, 
 
 ^3 Plin. ad Trai. ij a, 
 
 1* Ibid, my edition, p. 72. 
 
 15 Plin. ad Trai. 23. ifi Ibid. t,^. 
 
 17 Ibid. 39. 18 Ibid. 7S. 
 
 19 Ibid. 90. 20 Ibid. 92. 
 
 21 Ibid.gS. 
 
TRAJAN AND THE CHRISTIANS 8 1 
 
 which, as we have seen, was certainly no new one either 
 in Bithynia or the eastern provinces generally.^* Nor 
 at first apparently, when certain Christians were brought 
 before his tribunal, did Pliny experience any particular 
 difficulty in dealing with them.^^ It is true that he had 
 
 22 Arnold supposes that the Christian difficulty confronted 
 Pliny first in the neighbourhood of Amaseia and Comana, the 
 centre of the cult of the Cappadocian goddess Enyo, of which 
 Strabo gives an account, xii. 599. But apart from any other 
 difficulties, Amaseia and Comana were not in Bithynia-Pontus, 
 but in Galatia. See Marquardt, Staatsverw. i. 359 ; Arnold 
 Studien zur Geschichte der Plin. Chrisienverfolgung, pp. 32, 33. 
 
 23 " Solemne est mihi, Domine, omnia, de quibus dubito, ad 
 te referre. Quis enim potest melius vel cunctationem meam 
 regere, vel ignorantiam instruere ? Cognitionibus de Christianis 
 interfui nunquam : ideo nescio, quid et quatenus aut puniri 
 soleat aut quaeri. Nee mediocriter haesitavi, sitne aliquod 
 discrimen aetatum, an quamlibet teneri nihil a robustioribus 
 differant ; detur poenitentiae venia, an ei, qui omnino Christianus 
 fuit, desisse non prosit ; nomen ipsum, si flagitiis careat, an 
 flagitia cohaerentia nomini, puniantur. Interim in iis, qui ad 
 me tanquam Christiani deferebantur, hunc sum secutus modum. 
 Interrogavi ipsos, an essent Christiani : confitentes iterum ac 
 tertio interrogavi, supplicium minatus : perseverantes duci 
 iussi. Neque enim dubitabam, qualecunque esset, quod fateren- 
 tur, pertinaciam certe, et inflexibilem obstinationem debere 
 puniri. Fuerunt alii similis amentiae : quos, quia cives Romani 
 erant, adnotavi in urbem remittendos. Mox ipso tractatu, 
 ut fieri solet, diffundente se crimine, plures species inciderunt. 
 Propositus est libellus sine auctore, multorum nomina continens. 
 Qui negabant se esse Christianos, aut fuisse, quum, praeeunte 
 me, deos appellarent, et imagini tuae, quam propter hoc iusseram 
 cum simulacris numinum adferri, thure ac vino supplicarent, 
 praeterea maledicerent Christo, quorum nihil cogi posse dicuntur, 
 qui sunt revera Christiani, dimittendos esse putavi. Alii ab 
 indice nominati, esse se Christianos dixerunt, et mox negaverunt : 
 fuisse quidem, sed desisse, quidam ante triennium, quidam ante 
 plures annos, non nemo etiam ante viginti quinque. Ommes et 
 imaginem tuam, deorumque simulacra venerati sunt, et Christo 
 maledixerunt. Adfirmabant autem, hanc fuisse summam vel 
 culpae suae, vel erroris, quod essent soliti stato die ante lucem 
 convenire, carmenque Christo, quasi Deo, dicere secum invicem, 
 seque sacramento non in scelus aliquod obstringere, sed ne furta, 
 ne latrocinia, ne adulteria committerent, ne fidem fallerent, ne 
 depositum appellati abnegarent : quibus peractis morem sibi 
 discedendi fuisse, rursusque coeundi ad capiendum cibum, 
 promiscuum tamen, et innoxium : quod ipsum facere desisse 
 
 G 
 
82 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 never personally been present at any of the " cognitiones 
 de Christianis," which, as we have seen, must have been 
 frequent enough in the province since 64 a.d., but there 
 were, no doubt, permanent officials who could inform 
 him of the course usually taken ; and, as Professor 
 Ramsay points out with great force, Pliny's action 
 presupposes the development of a more or less regular 
 form of procedure.^* A number of persons were brought 
 before him " tanquam Christiani." The course he 
 adopted was to ask them, no doubt singly^whether they 
 were Christians. Being probably tEe most prominent 
 members of the sect, they seem all to have acknowledged 
 their religion. Pliny asked them the question a second 
 time, and then a third time, threatening death if they 
 persisted. As this had no effect, he ordered their 
 execution, considering that, whatever their confession 
 of Christianity involved, their obstinacy and invincible 
 disobedience at any rate deserved punishment. By this 
 simple account of the course taken by him, Pliny makes 
 several things perfectly clear. In the first place, the 
 mere profession of Christianity, if persisted in, was 
 unhesitatingly regarded as a capital offence ; no in- 
 vestigation was made into any particular charges ; the 
 Christians were clearly not punished as members of an 
 illegal association, nor for refusal of the imperial cult, 
 nor for atheism ; they were executed because they 
 
 post edictum meum, quo secundum mandata tua hetaerias esse 
 vetueram. Quo magis necessarium credidi, ex duabus ancillis, 
 quae ministrae dicebantur, quid esset veri, et per tormenta 
 quaerere. Sed nihil aliud inveni quam superstitionem pravam 
 immodicam. Ideo, dilata cognitione, ad consulendum te 
 decucurri. Visa est enim mihi res digna consultatione, maxime 
 propter periclitantium numerum. Multi enim omnis aetatis, 
 omnis ordinis, utriusque sexus etiam, vocantur in periculum, et 
 vocabuntur. Neque civitates tantum, sed vicos etiam atque 
 agros superstitionis istius contagio pervagata est : quae videtur 
 sisti et corrigi posse. Certe satis constat, prope iam desolata 
 templa coepisse celebrari, et sacra solemnia diu intermissa repeti, 
 pastumque venire victimarum, cuius adhuc rarissimus emptor 
 inveniebatur. Ex quo facile est opinari, quae turba hominum 
 emendari possit, si sit poenitentiae locus." Plin, ad Trai. 96. 
 24 p. 217. 
 
TRAJAN AND THE CHRISTIANS 83 
 
 avowed themselves Christians. To suppose that Pliny 
 took this perfectly definite and decided course without 
 precedent is quite impossible : there cannot, in my 
 opinion, be the smallest doubt that the course which he 
 pursued had already been pursued — probably not with- 
 out some sort of guidance from Rome — if not in Bithynia, 
 at any rate in some of the neighbouring provinces. Nor, 
 as we shall see, does Pliny ask for any sort of guidance 
 from Trajan in reference to these cases : he assumes 
 what in fact Trajan's answer fully confirms, that his 
 course was the regular one, and would be approved. 
 It was in fact the logical result, as we have already seen, 
 of the Neronian action. For while with this action it 
 was not in the least degree inconsistent that there should 
 have been for the most part a practical toleration of the 
 Christians in the provinces, as long as public order and 
 the state of popular feeling made this compatible with 
 the police responsibility of the governors, yet, on the 
 other hand, the Christians, insignificant as they were, 
 had been pronounced and were no doubt recognised as 
 " hostes humani generis," potentially rebels to the state 
 authority. As such they were always, just as brigands 
 were, liable to punishment, and if their punishment was 
 demanded with any amount of popular insistence, there 
 was certainly no reason why they should not receive it. 
 But all the cases which Pliny had to decide were not 
 of the same simple character as those above described. 
 The Christians were especially numerous in the district 
 from which he wrote, and proceedings once begun, more 
 complicated cases occurred.^^ An anonymous indict- 
 ment was put in containing a long list of names. Of 
 these some denied absolutely that they either were or 
 ever had been Christians, and to them Pliny applied 
 certain tests which experience had shown to be con- 
 clusive in identifying Christians, ^^ requiring them to 
 
 25 " ipso tractatu plures species inciderunt." 
 
 26 Plin. ad Trai. 96, 5 : " Quorum nihil posse cogi dicuntur 
 qui sunt re vera Chris tiani." Cf. Tert. Apol. 3 " Excludimur 
 enini (de nomine) si facimus quae faciunt non Christiani," 
 
84 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 call upon the gods, to worship Caesar's image,^' and to 
 curse Christ. On their compliance with these demands 
 he ordered these to be released. Others, however, gave 
 more prevaricating answers, at first confessing their 
 Christianity, then denying it, and finally affirming that 
 they had left the community, some of them for a con- 
 siderable number of years, one or two alleging that they 
 had ceased to be Christians twenty-five years ago.^® All 
 of these complied with Pliny's tests, but at this point 
 his course was not so clear. Being no longer Chris- 
 tians, they could no longer be punished us such, i.e. as 
 "hostes humani generis," but before releasing them 
 Pliny had to consider certain offences which, sometimes 
 in the shape of vague reports, sometimes no doubt 
 in the form of definite charges, had been attributed to 
 the Christian body — charges especially of child-murder 
 at their social meetings, and of incestuous immorality. 
 If the Christians were really guilty of these enormities, 
 it was by no means clear that those who, as Christians, 
 had committed them, even though it was years ago, 
 should be set free merely because they no longer be- 
 longed to the body. Pliny accordingly, as all provincial 
 governors by virtue of their police authority could do if 
 they liked, proceeded to more particular investigations, 
 first by cross-examinating, either with or without torture, 
 these renegades. What he learnt from them was that 
 the Christians were in the habit of meeting at stated 
 intervals, no doubt on the Lord's day, before dawn for 
 a religious service in which hymns were sung to Christ 
 as to a god, and an oath was taken ^® by the members 
 
 27 It is perfectly clear that in Bithynia the requirement to 
 worship the emperor was used simply as a test ; the refusal of 
 the Christians was not the reason of their punishment. Those 
 originally executed were not required to worship the emperor at 
 all. 
 
 23 This, as already pointed out, carries us back to 87 a. d., and 
 may point to some action against the Christians in Bithynia under 
 Domitian. 
 
 29 It is interesting to note what Foucart {Des Associations 
 religieuses chez les Grecs, p. 182) says of the mysteries at Andania : 
 " Une certain nombre d'hommes et de femmes . . s'engagent 
 
TRAJAN AND THE CHRISTIANS 85 
 
 to refrain from thefts, robberies, adultery, false swearing 
 and dishonesty, while later in the day they met again for 
 a common meal, i.e. the Agape, at which the food was of 
 the ordinary kind, and the proceedings quite harmless. 
 To confirm the evidence of past members of the sect, Pliny 
 next proceeded to put to the torture two slave women, 
 who were deaconesses in the community, but in spite of 
 the application of torture he could discover nothing fur- 
 ther about Christianity except that it was a strange form 
 of religious belief, which distorted the minds of its adher- 
 ents, and was of an exaggerated and exciting character. 
 There was therefore no reason on the score of these 
 accusations why recantation should not be followed by 
 pardon. We should imagine, both on general grounds 
 and from the existence of a test like that of adoring the 
 emperor's image, that this was the course which had 
 usually been pursued, but it would depend on the gover- 
 nor's discretion, and Pliny, who sought for the emperor's 
 guidance and sanction in much more trifling affairs than 
 this, considering also perhaps that the province was in 
 an exceptional state, determined to consult Trajan 
 before he decided these or any fresh cases. He was the 
 more induced to do this as the inquiries already made 
 had revealed to him the fact that the Christians were 
 extremely numerous in Bithynia ; that both men and 
 women of every age and of every rank were implicated 
 in the charge, and that not only the large cities but the 
 small country towns and even the villages were infected 
 with the superstition. Nor was this altogether a sud- 
 den growth which a little well-timed severity would put 
 down, for Pliny knew quite well that according to 
 Roman law " grassantibus delictis exacerbanda esse 
 supplicia quoties multis peccantibus exemplo est opus." 
 The state of things which he describes must have been 
 of fairly long standing, for the temples were almost 
 deserted, the sacred rites had long since been discon- 
 tinued, and no purchaser could be found for the fodder 
 
 par un serment solennel a ne pas commettre et k ne laisser 
 commettre aucune action injuste ou honteuse qui puisse ruiner 
 les mystdres." 
 
86 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 of the sacrificial victims. Pliny himself is clearly of 
 opinion that a lenient course should be adopted in the 
 case of all who had abjured their Christianity and who 
 complied with the tests he proposed. It was, in fact, 
 the principal object of his letter to obtain Trajan's con- 
 sent to this course — a course which he believed would 
 soon re-establish religion in the province. But though 
 this was his main object in writing to Trajan, he pro- 
 bably intended to suggest, though he did not venture 
 openly to recommend, further modifications in the pro- 
 cedure against the Christians. His own investigations 
 had apparently convinced him that the Christians were 
 neither dangerous nor immoral : their ohstinatio no 
 doubt deserved death, but was it necessary to pursue a 
 course which called forth this ohstinatio ? Accordingly, 
 he begins his letter with several general questions, the 
 answers to which would really involve a reconsideration 
 of the attitude taken up by the government towards the 
 sect. Not having been present at any of the trials, he 
 does not understand " quid et quatenus aut puniri 
 soleat aut quaeri ? " As we have seen, there was little 
 precision in these matters ; the magisterial coercitio was 
 not marked in any case by a formal procedure, and with 
 regard to the Christians the governors had probably 
 accommodated their proceedings to the local circum- 
 stances, sometimes punishing members of the sect (as 
 they always could do) merely as Christians, sometimes 
 as " atheists," sometimes perhaps as belonging to a 
 collegium illicitum, sometimes even as child-murderers. 
 Similarly the judicial investigation would take now a 
 wider now a narrower scope, sometimes merely seeking 
 to establish the fact of Christianity, sometimes entering 
 into a variety of particular charges. In view of what 
 he had himself discovered about the religion, this 
 vagueness appeared unsatisfactory to Pliny, and he 
 asks for a definite answer to the question whether the 
 mere profession of Christianity (" nomen ipsum "), even 
 if no definite acts of immorality could be proved ("si 
 fiagitiis careat "), was what deserved punishment, or 
 whether it was the abominable crimes which were sup- 
 
TRAJAN AND THE CHRISTIANS Sy 
 
 posed to be involved in the profession {" flagitia cohaer- 
 entia nomini"). Pliny's own prompt and unhesitating 
 punishment of those first brought before him proves 
 him to have been not unaware that the " nomen 
 ipsum " was, as matters stood, deserving of death ; and 
 the fact that he nevertheless asks the question shows his 
 own leanings towards a less summary course — a leaning 
 which he still further emphasises by his second question 
 whether some difference should not be made in respect 
 to age,^° so that young boys and delicate maidens who, 
 as we know from other sources, often figured among the 
 martjnrs, might be treated with less rigour than those of 
 more mature age. 
 
 Such, as I conceive it, was the point of view from which 
 Pliny wrote his famous letter. Trajan's reply is brief 
 and decisive : " You have adopted the proper course, 
 my dear Pliny, in distinguishing between the cases of 
 the Christians who have been brought before you. For 
 no general or definite rule can be laid down. They need 
 not be hunted out, but if brought before you and con- 
 victed they must be punished. Those, however, who 
 deny their Christianity, and prove their denial by an act 
 of worship to our gods, may wipe out past suspicions 
 and secure a free pardon by recantation. Anonymous 
 accusations of all sorts are inadmissible : they 
 are the worst possible precedents, and contrary to the 
 spirit of our time." ^^ In this rescript Trajan does not 
 
 30 If the charge had been technically one of sacrilegium, there 
 would have been no need to ask the question, for Ulpian says 
 (Dig. xlviii. 13, 7) : " Sacrilegii poenam debebit proconsul pro 
 qualitate personae, proque rei conditione et temporis et aetatis 
 et sexus vel severius vel clementius statuere." 
 
 31 " Actum quern debuisti, mi Secunde, in excutiendis causis 
 eorum, qui Christiani ad te delati fuerant, secutus es. Neque 
 enim in universum aliquid, quod quasi certam formam habeat, 
 constitui potest. Conquirendi non sunt : si deferantur et argu- 
 antur, puniendi sunt : ita tamen, ut, qui negaverit se Christianum 
 esse, idque re ipsa manifestum fecerit, id est, supplicando diis 
 nostris, quamvis suspectus in praeteritum fuerit, veniam ex 
 poenitentia impetret. Sine auctore vero propositi libelli. in 
 nuUo crimine locum habere debent. Nam et pessimi exempli 
 nee nostri saeculi est." 
 
88 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 directly touch on any of the humanitarian considerations 
 which Pliny had somewhat covertly suggested. The 
 vague procedure of which Pliny complained was neces- 
 sary : cases must be taken as they come : no general 
 rule and no formal procedure can be laid down. The 
 profession of Christianity is in itself a criminal offence, 
 and persons convicted of it are to be executed. But 
 two concessions are made : (i) there is no need for the 
 police authorities to take the initiative and to search for 
 offenders, as by the general instructions given to pro- 
 vincial governors they are bound to do in the case of 
 latrones, sacrilegi, plagiarii,^^ etc. clearly because, though 
 like these they were outlaws and liable to punishment, 
 unlike them they were not active enemies of society, and 
 the peace of the province did not require their extermin- 
 ation : in other words, Trajan did not regard them as a 
 pohtical danger ; (2) and, directly in answer to Pliny's 
 appeal, the denial of Christianity was to be followed by 
 pardon on compliance with the usual tests : in other 
 words, Trajan was wilHng with Pliny to give them the 
 benefit of any doubt there might be as to their alleged 
 flagitia,^^ which, as already stated, could by no means 
 be condoned by a simple withdrawal from the Christian 
 body. A further decision on the inadmissibility of 
 anonymous accusations had nothing specially to do with 
 the Christians, though it included their case. 
 
 This rescript of Trajan has, as is well known, been 
 regarded from two opposite points of view. By the 
 Christian Apologists it was looked upon as a measure 
 favourable to the Christians, mitigating and discounten- 
 ancing their persecution, and practically acquitting 
 
 32 Dig. I. 18, 13 : " Congruit bono et gravi praesidi curare ut 
 pacata atque quieta provincia sit quam regit, quod non difficile 
 obtinebit, si soUicite agat ut malis hominibus provincia careat, 
 eosque conquirat : nam et sacrileges, latrones, plagiarios, fures 
 conquirere debet, et prout quisque deliquerit in eum animad- 
 vertere." 
 
 33 Cf. Min. Fel. Octav. 28 : " Et si qui infirmior malo pressus 
 et victus Christianum se negasset, favebamus ei, quasi eierato 
 nomine iam omnia facta sua Ula negatione purgaret." 
 
TRAJAN AND THE CHRISTIANS 89 
 
 them of the charges made against them.^* On the other 
 hand, many modern writers, especially German 
 scholars,^^ regard it as the first legal authorisation of 
 persecution : as the virtual proscription of Christianity. 
 From all that has been already said it will be clear 
 that the latter view is absolutely groundless. Trajan, 
 with certain modifications, not touching the principle 
 of persecution, confirms Pliny's action, and Pliny's 
 action was based on precedents, either in his own 
 or in other provinces, which had certainly been directly 
 or indirectly sanctioned from Rome. The former view 
 is much nearer the truth, though it is undoubtedly 
 coloured by the tendency common to all the Apologists 
 to represent the " good emperors " as favourable to 
 Christianity. Trajan was not favourable to Christianity, 
 the principles of which he recognised, as his predecessors 
 since Nero must have done, to involve disobedience and 
 therefore disaffection to the state. But the question 
 was, apart from danger to the empire which was not 
 worth considering, whether the peace and good order of 
 the provinces would be best promoted by insisting on 
 this disaffection and waging a war of extermination with 
 the Christians — a course which was seldom or never rigor- 
 ously pursued even in the case of brigands — or, without 
 giving up the principle of their criminality, by allowing 
 the governor at his discretion to extend a practical toler- 
 ation to the sect, and to encourage secession from it by 
 holding out the hope of pardon to seceders. This may be 
 called a half -measure by those who criticise Trajan's 
 action in the light of subsequent events, or a compromise 
 by those who credit him with an insight into the mean- 
 ing of the Christian development which it is extremely 
 unlikely that he possessed. As a matter of fact, it was 
 
 3* See especially Tertullian, Apol. 5 : " Quales ergo leges 
 istae quas adversus nos soli exsequuntur impii, iniusti, turpes, 
 truces, vani, dementes ? quas Traianus ex parte frustratus est 
 vetando inquiri Christian os." 
 
 35 E.g. Overbeck, Studien zur Geschichte der alien Kirche, 1875, 
 pp. 93-157. The same view is taken by Aube, and by Dierauer, 
 Zur Geschichte Trajans, p. 118. 
 
90 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 the decision of a practical statesman, who dechned on 
 the one hand to be led into severe repressive measures 
 against a body which was only remotely and theoreti- 
 cally dangerous to the state, while he on the other re- 
 fused to give up on humanitarian grounds the claim of 
 the state to absolute obedience on the part of all its sub- 
 jects.^® Tertullian's rhetorical dilemma, " negat inquir- 
 endos ut innocentes et mandat puniendos ut nocentes," ^"^ 
 rests on a not unnatural misunderstanding of the govern- 
 ment point of view. That point of view, indeed, from 
 which the name of Christian was by itself deserving of 
 punishment, from which Christians as such were regarded 
 as hostes publici, as imbued with an ** odium generis hu- 
 mani," as characterised by an ohstinatio which was the 
 negation of complete political obedience — a point of 
 view dating, as we have seen, from 64 a.d. — rested as 
 yet on somewhat abstract grounds. 
 
 To the political government and administration of 
 the empire the Christians were never anything but loyal 
 subjects : " Fear God and honour the king," wais the 
 maxim which expressed clearly enough their relation- 
 ship to the secular and political life around them But 
 in practice it was impossible to separate the political from 
 the religious life of the empire, and in regard to the latter 
 the Christian maxim had from the first been stated in 
 a form which by its implied reservation meant passive 
 
 36 As Mommsen says {Histor. Zeitschr. p. 417), " Wenn fiirdie 
 romische Nationalitat der romische Glaube nur ein anderer 
 Ausdruck war, so hat der romische Staat gegeniiber einem 
 Proselytismus, der den romischen Glauben aufhebt, in Selbstver- 
 theidigung gestanden, und auch die Geschichte erkennt das 
 Recht der Nothwehr an." 
 
 37 Tert. Apol. 2 : '" O sententiam necessitate confusam I 
 Negat inquirendos ut innocentes, et mandat puniendos ut no- 
 centes. Parcit et saevit, dissimulat et animadvertit. Quid 
 temet ipsum censura circumvenis ? Si damnas, cur non et 
 inquiris ? si non inquiris, cur non et absolvis ? Latronibus 
 vestigandis per universas provincias mihtaris statio sortitur : 
 in reos maiestatis et pubUcos hostes omnis homo miles est : ad 
 socios ad conscios usque inquisitio extenditur. Solum Christianum 
 inquiri non licet, offerri licet : quasi aliud esset actura inquisitio 
 quam oblationem." 
 
TRAJAN AND THE CHRISTIANS QI 
 
 resistance, if no more, to the omnipotence of the state : 
 " Render unto Caesar the things that be Caesar's, and 
 to God the things that be God's." The state reUgion, 
 quite apart from any behef or disbehef in it on the part 
 of either the ruler of the empire or its subjects, was never- 
 theless, at any rate since Augustus — sometimes with more 
 insistence, as under Domitian and M. Aurelius ; some- 
 times with greater laxity, as under Nero and perhaps 
 under Hadrian — always regarded as a part of the imperial 
 organisation, ^^ the chief pontificate being as necessary 
 and universal, if not as important, a part of the attributes 
 of the princeps as the tribunician power or the " imperi- 
 um proconsulare." Outward respect to this state wor- 
 ship of the national gods, if not regular conformity with 
 its public ceremonials, was expected, not only from all 
 Roman citizens, but from all subjects of the empire.^^ 
 But respect for her and conformity with what was to 
 them the worship of idols the Christians absolutely and 
 always 'refused : this refusal was ohstinatio or political 
 disobedience, and political disobedience was the attribute 
 of a " publicus hostis." ^^ The outlawed position, there- 
 fore, of the Christians, that which made the " nomen 
 ipsum " deserving of punishment, was primarily their 
 religion, their Christianity per se ; and yet, if we inter- 
 pret the situation into modern language, they were 
 punished on political and not on religious grounds, be- 
 
 38 Professor Ramsay, approved by Mommsen, says the " key- 
 stone " of it. This may have been intended by Augustus, but it 
 seems to me that this was a part of the Augustan system which 
 was never fully worked out by his successors. Mommsen's own 
 language is less open to objection when he says that the national 
 religion was " the spiritual symbol of the political union." 
 Expositor, July, 1893, p. 3. 
 
 39 See the Acta Cypriani (praef. p. ex in Hartel) : " Impera- 
 tores . . praeceperunt eos qui Romanam religionem non 
 colunt debere Romanas caerimonias recognoscere." 
 
 40 Tertull. Apol. 35 : " Propterea igitur publici hostes 
 Chris tiani quia imperatoribus neque vanos neque mentientes 
 neque temerarios honores dicant," etc. Cf. 37 : " vSed hostes 
 maluistis vocare generis humani." Cf. 6 : "In quo principaliter 
 reos transgressionis Christianos destinatis, studium dico deorum 
 colendorum." 
 
92 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 cause it was not the slight to the national religion which 
 the government really cared about, but the disobedience 
 shown through the religion to the imperial government. 
 It is on this account that I describe the opposition sup- 
 posed to exist by the government between itself and 
 Christianity as a somewhat abstract and shadowy one. 
 It is inconceivable to me that either Nero or Domitian 
 or Trajan saw in Christianity anything more than an 
 abstract danger. Not till the Christian bodies became 
 a Church organised throughout the empire with bishops at 
 their head, one of whose duties it may have been to bring 
 the scattered communities into a more living touch with 
 one another ; not till Christianity became what Judaism 
 had been before the great war on a smaller scale and 
 within national limits — a state within the state — was 
 the abstract danger developed into a real one, recognised 
 as such, and met by systematic measures of repression .^^ 
 This development, however, had not taken place when 
 Trajan sent his rescript to Pliny, and for more than a 
 century after this the persecution of the Christians, 
 though " permanent, like that of brigands," was pro- 
 bably never systematic nor general, proceeding as it did, 
 not from a deliberately hostile policy on the part of the 
 government, which, on the contrary, tolerated the Chris- 
 tians as far as it could consistently with the peace and 
 good order of the provinces, but from the bitter and 
 rancorous hatred of the provincial populations, to which 
 concessions had to be made — a hatred which, as we have 
 seen, was partly, especially in the fanatical East, a re- 
 ligious hatred against " atheists " as deniers of the local 
 divinities, partly a social hatred against the disturbers 
 of trade interests, and the despisers and denouncers of so 
 many features in social life, partly a would-be-moral 
 loathing against the practising of immoral abominations 
 — abominations which were morbidly believed in, as 
 such things usually are, with a credulity which neither 
 needs nor heeds corroboration or refutation. ^^ "If," 
 
 *i See below on p. 1 26. 
 
 *2 The resemblance, such as it is, to Mommsen's language in 
 the Expositor, p. 2, is accidental. " The conviction that the 
 
TRAJAN AND THE CHRISTIANS 93 
 
 says TertuUian, " the Tiber floods the city, or the 
 Nile refuses to rise, or the sky withholds its rain, or 
 disasters occur in the shape of earthquake or famine 
 or pestilence, the cry is raised at once " Christianos 
 ad leones.* " *^ 
 
 Had the imperial policy worked with the popular 
 hatred instead of checking it, the systematic persecution 
 of the third century would have been anticipated in the 
 first and second ; the whole tone of the Apologists of the 
 second century would have been too absolutely out of 
 harmony with the facts of the situation, and the state- 
 ment of Origen ^^ — a statement the importance of which, 
 it seems to me it is impossible to explain away — that 
 the victims up to his own time were few and far between, 
 could not have been made. 
 
 It has been already said that the importance of Tra- 
 jan's rescript may easily be exaggerated. It was origi- 
 nally a rescript to the particular governor of a particular 
 province, and as such had directly and immediately 
 no wider application, ^® though we cannot doubt that 
 the course which Trajan recommended in Bithynia 
 
 Christian conventicles were orgies of lewdness and receptacles 
 of every crime got hold on the popular mind with all the terrible 
 vehemence of aversion that resists all argument and heeds not 
 refutation." 
 
 43 Tertull, ^^0/40. 
 
 44 Orig. contra Celsum, iii. 8 : viroiJ.vTfi<rew x^P'-^ • • • 0X^701 /card 
 Kaipods Kai a-(p6dpa eiiapid [x'ijtoi. tiirkp t^s XpLariavQv evae^eias reOvfiKaai., 
 No doubt the number of those punished short of death may 
 have been greater ; cf. Tert. Apol. 12 : "In metalla damnamur 
 
 ... in insulas relegamur." 
 
 45 In stating this, I am not unmindful that imperial rescripts 
 (provided that a general principle was implied in them and could 
 he deduced from them) had potentially the force of law. Cf. 
 Dig. I. iv. " De Const. Rom." I § i Quodcunque igitur imperator 
 per epistolam et subscriptionem statuti vel cognoscens decrevit 
 vel de pluro interlocutus est vel edicto praecepit, legem esse 
 constat. But that does not affect the immediate consequence 
 of Trajan's rescript to Pliny, which, just as much as his other 
 letters to his legate in Bithynia, had primarily a local applica- 
 tion. If Trajan had wished his rescript to apply to other pro- 
 vinces, he would have had to send similar instructions to the 
 governors of them. There is no evidence that he did so. 
 
94 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 he would also wish to be pursued in other provinces. 
 In all probability, indeed, Pliny was not the only gov- 
 ernor who consulted Trajan on the subject : the collec- 
 tion and publication of Pliny's letters has preserved this 
 particular rescript, which may well have been only one 
 among many, just as the persecution in Bithynia almost 
 certainly had its counterpart in other provinces. 
 
 To speak of Trajan's letter, therefore, as an edict 
 either of proscription or toleration is a complete miscon- 
 ception of the facts. Undoubtedly, however, though a 
 recommendation given under particular circumstances, 
 it may safely be regarded as an index of the imperial 
 policy. 
 
 Before passing from this correspondence, one or two 
 smaller points must be noticed. In a former publication 
 I expressed the view that Pliny punished the Christians 
 as members of a collegium illicitum}^ The bearing of the 
 law regarding collegia upon the Christian communities 
 will need some discussion farther on, but I am certainly 
 convinced that Professor Ramsay is right in denying all 
 connexion between the application either of the general 
 law about collegia, or Pliny's edict about hetaeriae and 
 the prosecution of the Bithynian Christians. Pliny 
 would have enforced his own edict without any need to 
 consult the emperor, and Trajan would certainly have 
 shown no forbearance, toleration, or indulgence to the 
 Christians if he had regarded them as members of a 
 collegium or hetaeria. 
 
 Another point regards the source from which the 
 original charges before Pliny's tribunal and the subse- 
 quent anonymous accusation-list proceeded. The latter 
 in particular points to some special and personal motives 
 of malevolence and ill-will. A possible explanation of 
 this is suggested by the last paragraph of Pliny's letter, 
 when he says that already as the result of the measures 
 he had taken, the temples hitherto deserted were again 
 becoming visited by worshippers, ceremonies long since 
 discontinued were resumed, and the fodder of the sacri- 
 
 46 Pliny s Correspondence with Trajan, pp. 6i, 243. 
 
TRAJAN AND THE CHRISTIANS 95 
 
 ficial victims was once more finding purchasers. Here, 
 as at Ephesus, special trades depended on the local 
 cults : Christianity threatened and injured these by 
 diminishing the number of their worshippers, and this 
 special cause of hatred added to the general ill-odour in 
 which the Christians everywhere stood — an ill-odour 
 which, Mommsen has pointed out, was partly an inheri- 
 tance from their original Jewish antecedents — caused 
 one of those temporary manifestations of popular feeling 
 which were usually the cause of any decided or severe 
 action on the part of the governors. 
 
VII 
 
 Persecution for the Name 
 
 It appears conclusively, both from the letter of Pliny and 
 the rescript of Trajan, that the Christians could be pun- 
 ished for the nomen alone, or the mere profession of 
 Christianity, apart from the specification or proof of 
 definite crimes. Professor Ramsay thinks that this was 
 the case only from about 80 a.d. To me it seems that 
 it might have happened at any time since 64 a.d., and 
 since writing the preceding pages I have seen that 
 Mommsen and Professor Sanday both take the same 
 view.i Professor Ramsay, as I understand, proposes 
 to show from the Pastoral Epistles, assumed as belong- 
 ing to a date earlier than 80 a.d., that the Christians were 
 before that time condemned on the ground of specific 
 charges. 2 Surely this, even granting the early date of 
 the Epistles, will be far from conclusive of the question. 
 If the whole matter was one for the police administra- 
 tion of the empire, the proceedings in particular cases 
 would be essentially vague, and would admit of many 
 variations from and modifications of anything like an 
 established precedent. The Neronian trials at Rome 
 no doubt furnished such a precedent, and in them, while 
 probably several specific charges came into consideration, 
 the condemnation was not on the ground of any of them, 
 but of a summary of them all amounting to " odium 
 generis humani": in other words, the Christians were 
 
 1 Mommsen in the Expositor, July, 1893, pp. 5, 6 ; Prof. 
 Sanday in the Expositor for June, 1893. 
 
 2 Expositor, July, 1893, p. 31. 
 
 96 
 
PERSECUTION FOR THE NAME 97 
 
 condemned for what was involved in the name or pro- 
 fession of their sect. Provincial governors could take 
 the same course, and no doubt some of them did, i 
 Peter, if we assume its early date, being evidence for 
 it.^ But, on the other hand, it was quite within their 
 discretion to inquire into and punish specific charges, 
 and in the early days, when Christianity was still a 
 strange and unfamiliar appearance, they would be likely 
 to do this, and any cases which Professor Ramsay may 
 adduce out of the Pastoral Epistles would belong to this 
 category. Indeed, this uncertainty of procedure, though 
 more likely to occur in the early relations between 
 government and Christianity, was apparently a charac- 
 teristic of it all through. TertuUian complains that the 
 whole matter was ** confessio nominis non examinatio 
 criminis," * and yet he also says " sacrilegii et maies- 
 tatis rei convenimur," ^ and maiestas was surely as 
 specific a charge as could be made. 
 
 But the language of TertuUian suggests a more impor- 
 tant question than that of the precise date at which the 
 " nomen ipsum " became punishable — a question which, 
 as far as I can judge, Mommsen's utterances both in the 
 " Historische Zeitschrift " and in the " Expositor " 
 still leave a little uncertain — viz. whether those who 
 were punished as " rei maiestatis " were or were not 
 punished for the name. To all appearance Mommsen 
 answers this question in the affirmative. In the earlier 
 article, after speaking of the conception of the Christian 
 belief as in itself a capital crime, and quoting such well- 
 known passages as i Peter iv. 15, and Just. " Apol." 
 i. II in support of it, he goes on to say that this concep- 
 tion could not have depended on the edict of this or that 
 particular emperor, but must have been grounded in the 
 essence of the Roman criminal law, and we can see from 
 TertuUian — i.e. in the passage about maiestas — ^how it 
 was juristically to be explained.® Still more plainly in 
 the " Expositor " : ^ " The Christian atheism, the 
 
 3 Especially i Peter iv. 15, quoted on p. 62. 
 
 4 Tert. Apol. 2. 5 Jbid 10. 
 
 6 Histor. Zeitschr. p. 396. ' July, 1893, 
 
98 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 negation of the national gods, was the contempt of the 
 ' dii pubhci popuh Romani,' in itself high treason, or, 
 as the Christians express it . . . the mere Christian 
 name, the testimony of such atheism, constituted a 
 crime in the eyes of the law." It seems to follow from 
 this that when Christians were condemned as Christians 
 8ia TO ovofia^ on account of the " nomen ipsum," they 
 were punished as " rei maiestatis," If Mommsen 
 affirms this, that the mere confession " Christianus 
 sum " was tantamount to a conviction under the " lex 
 maiestatis," I do not know who could venture to con- 
 tradict him ; but one would have supposed that no one 
 could be convicted of a definite legal offence like maiestas 
 without regular procedure and definite evidence, the 
 absence of which is just what Tertullian and others com- 
 plain of in the ordinary Christian trials. Again, it is just 
 the absence of these points which characterises what 
 Mommsen in the " Historische Zeitschrift " ® describes 
 as by far the most common form of state repression in 
 religious matters, the magisterial coercitio or general 
 police administration. From this a considerable discre- 
 tionary power on the part of the magistrate was insepar- 
 able, and as soon as ever Christianity was recognised as 
 involving something less than absolute obedience to the 
 state, it is quite conceivable — and the procedure of Pliny 
 is a conclusive case in point — that the confession " Chris- 
 tianus sum," if persisted in, could be followed by a capi- 
 tal sentence. It is possible that I have misunderstood 
 Mommsen's meaning, and found a difficulty where none 
 exists, but at any rate it seems to me that there were at 
 least three, and possibly four, ways in which Christianity 
 might be visited with capital punishment : 
 
 (i) On the ground of the ohstinatio which charac- 
 terised all Christians as such : the refusal to worship 
 the state gods, the disobedience to the state authority. 
 This rendered all Christians outlaws — " hostes publici " 
 — Pliable to sumnjary punishment at the hands of the 
 police authorities, either in Rome or the provinces. 
 
 * pp. 410 foil. 
 
PERSECUTION FOR THE NAME 99 
 
 This was punishment for the name only, and under this 
 head by far the majority of cases of persecution fell.^ 
 
 (2) The refusal to worship the state gods, which from 
 the first point of view was obstinatio, from another was 
 dd€6T7)<s, and this, involving as it did contempt for the 
 *' dii publici populi Romani," though apparently not 
 originally falling under it, could be, and in some cases 
 certainly was, brought under the head of maiestas. 
 This is the " crimen laesae Romanae religionis," the 
 ** irreligiositatis elogium " of TertuUian,^^ and it is 
 quite possible that recourse was had to this more formal 
 procedure oftener in Tertullian's time than in Pliny's, 
 and in the western more than in the eastern provinces. 
 
 (3) The refusal to worship the emperor might be taken, 
 not simply as a proof of Christianity, as in the Bithynian 
 cases, but as violating the maiestas of the emperor. 
 That is what TertuUian describes as " secundus titulus 
 laesae augustioris males tatis." ^^ 
 
 (4) The Christians might in certain cases be proceeded 
 against as homicides, or incesti, or magicians. Those 
 cases, however, would certainly be rare, such charges 
 being usually rather thrown in informally to create a 
 prejudice against the Christians than put forward as 
 substantial accusations.^^ 
 
 If the rescript of Trajan is not important as laying 
 down a new or imperial policy with regard to the Chris- 
 tians, it nevertheless furnishes us with the first authentic 
 evidence as to the view taken of Christianity by the 
 supreme government. Trajan clearly did not regard 
 
 9 It was, beyond controversy, under this head that the action 
 of PUny would fall. 
 
 10 Mommsen, Hist. Zeitschr. p. 396 ; Tert. Apol. 24. 
 
 11 Tert. Apol. 28 and 10 : " Deos, inquitis, non colitis, et pro 
 imperatoribus sacrificia non impenditis." 
 
 12 Tert. Apol. 2 : " Quando si de aliquo nocente cognoscitis non 
 statim confesso eo nomen homicidae vel sacrilegi vel incesti vel 
 publici hostis (ut de nostris elogiis loquar) contenti sitis ad pro- 
 nuntiandum, nisi et consequentia exigatis." Cf. c. 4 : " Inces- 
 tus sum, cur non requirunt ? infanticida, cur non extorquent ? 
 in deos, in Caesares aliquid committo, cur non audior, qui habeo 
 quo purger ? " Cf. Athenag. Supplic. 3 : rpla iirKprnal^ovaiv i]fuv 
 eyKXT^fxara, ddedrrjTa, Ov^areia de'iwva, Oldiirodeiovs /xi^eis. 
 
100 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 the religion as a political danger within the range of 
 practical politics : he does not forbid prosecution — he, 
 in fact, in certain cases authorises it — but he evidently 
 wishes to confine it within the narrowest limits consis- 
 tent with the peace of the province, the governor un- 
 doubtedly having a very great discretionary power 
 allowed him, since he could always invite accusations, 
 though he could not initiate them. Eusebius seems very 
 correctly to sum up the situation when he says " that 
 those who wished to injure the Christians had no more 
 difficulty in finding excuses than before ; that some- 
 times the populace, sometimes particular governors, 
 contrived means of attacking them, though these attacks 
 were always partial, confined to particular provinces, 
 and not open and public prosecutions. There seems 
 good reason to suppose that this state of things — a gen- 
 eral indulgence and toleration on the part of the empe- 
 rors, occasionally interrupted by violent manifestations 
 of popular feeling, which provincial governors had either 
 not the will or not the strength to resist — continued 
 throughout the second century : that the Christians were 
 still punished for the name, but that the initiative in the 
 way of searching them out was not taken by the gover- 
 nors, while accusers had to come forward in their own 
 name ; and finally, that the number of victims was on 
 the whole a comparatively small one. It must be 
 admitted that the evidence for this state of things comes 
 for the most part from the Christian Apologists : from 
 Justin Martyr, from Melito, from Athenagoras, from 
 Minucius Felix, and especially from Tertullian. It can- 
 not be denied that there were to a certain extent two 
 streams of tradition in the early Church, one exoteric, 
 the other esoteric, i'' In the latter the standing opposi- 
 
 13 Euseb. H. E. iii. 33 : oC yeuofi^vov ttocGjs ixkv tov Siioy/xov a-^ea- 
 drjvai rrjv direiXi^v a<po8p6raTa iyKei/xipov, ov Xf'7*o''«5 ye /jltju toTs 
 KUKOvpyeiv vepl i]ij.di .id^Xovffc \elTeadai irpo^dcreis, Icrd'' 8irr) p.h rCiv 
 Stj/xwv, iad'' Sire di Kal tCjv Kara xt^/Jas apx^vruv rds Kad^ ijfiwv avffKev- 
 a^ofxivuv iiri^ovXiii, ws Kai Avev Trpo(pavQy diuyfxQv fxepiKuis /car' ivap- 
 Xiav i^dirreffdai. 
 
 1* Overbeck, Studien zur Geschichte der alten Kirche. 
 
PERSECUTION FOR THE NAME 701 
 
 tion between the Church and the world tends to be 
 represented as a practically standing persecution of the 
 Church by the state. This was not altogether an unna- 
 tural view, and, as we have seen, was not without some 
 elements of historic truth — elements which, fused with 
 much later tradition, nevertheless form some ground- 
 work for the criticism of the ** Acta Martyrum." On 
 the other hand, the Apologists were men of culture and 
 education above the majority of Christians : they were 
 to some extent scholars and philosophers, students of 
 history, acquainted, some of them, even with the prin- 
 ciples of Roman law.^® Their Apologies were intended, 
 not for their fellow-Christians, but to reach the ears of 
 the Roman government. It is therefore impossible to 
 suppose that the representation which they give of the 
 state of affairs is entirely unhistorical, or that they could 
 possibly describe the emperors of the second century, 
 their own contemporaries, as tolerant and indulgent, if 
 in reality they were the authors and promoters of a defi- 
 nite policy of persecution. But while the general bona 
 fides of Apologists must thus be admitted, it is none the 
 less true that the tradition to which their writings gave 
 rise was from its very nature an exoteric one. It was 
 to the interest of Christianity, of which they stood for- 
 ward as the Apologists, to accentuate and in a measure 
 to exaggerate the indulgent attitude of the government, 
 especially in the period preceding their own, or at any 
 rate to omit anything unfavourable to their own cause. 
 Thus Justin draws attention to the favourable rescript 
 of Hadrian, ^^ but says nothing of the isolated cases of 
 persecution, such as that of Telesphorus at Rome, which 
 undoubtedly took place under that capricious emperor. 
 Melito, while mentioning the same rescript of Hadrian,^^ 
 and some letters written to various cities by Antoninus 
 Pius forbidding any violent or riotous behaviour against 
 
 15 Thus Eusebius {H. E. ii. 2) says of TertuUian : roi^s 'V(>)fiaiwv 
 v6fx,ovs 7}Kpi.^(aK(j}s avrip. 
 
 16 Justin. Apol. i. 68. 
 
 1' Quoted in Euseb. H. E. iv. 26, 10. 
 
102 STTTDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 the Christians, ^^ makes no mention of the martyrdom of 
 Polycarp ; while Tertullian considers M. Aurelius as 
 a protector rather than otherwise of Christianity ^^ — 
 a view, as Mommsen points out, not without some his- 
 torical foundation ^° — while making no reference to the 
 severe and widespread persecution which took place in 
 his reign. Taking, therefore, the evidence of the Apolo- 
 gists, and remembering that antecedent and a priori 
 objections to it are to a very great extent removed by 
 the undisputed evidence afforded by the rescript of 
 Trajan, we may regard the following points as estab- 
 lished. 
 
 (i) The Christians subsequently to as before the 
 rescript of Trajan were punished generally for the name, 
 i.e. not on the technical ground of maiestas (though this 
 may have been the charge in particular cases, especially 
 since the rescript of Hadrian), but for the inherent dis- 
 loyalty to the state involved in their aOeorrj's, and mani- 
 fested in the ohstinatio with which they clung to it. The 
 following passages, among many others, are sufficient to 
 establish this. Justin says : €<^' r^fxthv hi ro ovofia ws 
 
 eA.cy;(oi/ \a/x^dv€T€ . . . Xpio-rtavot yap elvai KarrjyopovjxeOa 
 . . . iav Se Tts o/xoXoy-qayj eti/ai, 8ta rrjv o/xoXoyiav KoXd- 
 ^€T€ : ^^ and again ws koL ck tov dveTa^Ojxivovs v<^' 
 vfjuov ofioXoyelv ctvat X/Ji(rriavov9, ytyvtotrKOvrcs tw 
 o/x,o\oyovvTL Odvarov ttjv ^rjixiav KiicrdaL : ^^ and once more, 
 KaiTTtp davdrov opia-OevTO^ Kara twv SiSaa-KovTfav rf oAws 
 
 bixoXoyovvToiv to ovofxa tov XptcTTov.^^ Similarly, in the 
 account of the trial of Ptolemaeus, at Rome : ^* TcXcv- 
 
 ^® Ibid. loc. cit. : 6 5^ irarfip <rov, Kal aov ri (riixiravra dioiKOVvros 
 aiJr^J, rats x6\€<ri irepl toO /jltjS^v veurepi^eiv irepl tjijlQv iyparpev, iv ots 
 Kal irphs Aapi.(T<raiovs Kal irpbs QeaaaXoviKcis Kal ^Adrjvaiovs Kal irpbs 
 irdvTas "EWrjvas. 
 
 19 Tert. ApoL 5 : " Ceterum de tot exinde principibus usque 
 ad hodiernum divinum humanumque sapientibus, edite aliquem 
 debellatorem Christianorum. At nos e contrario edimus pro- 
 tectorem si litterae M. Aurelii gravissimi imperatoris requiran- 
 tur," etc. 
 
 20 Histot. Zeitschr. p. 400, note 3. 
 
 21 Justin. Apol. i. 4. 
 
 22 Justin. Apol. i. 11. 23 Jbid. i. 45. 
 
 2* Ibid. ii. 2. He expressly says, ii. i, that this procedure 
 
PERSECUTION FOR THE NAME I03 
 
 Toiov Se oTi eTTt Ovp^LKOv yXOev 6 av6po}7ro<s ofioLoiS avrb 
 Tovro fxovov i^-qraa-Or) el ctrj Xpioriavo? . . . Koi tov Ovp/SL- 
 Kov KeXevcravTos avrov aTra-^Brjvat Aov/ctos Tt? kox avros tiv 
 lCpL(rTLavb<; oplhv ttjv dXoycos ourws yLVOfxevrjv Kptcnv rrpos tov 
 Ovp/StKov €<jir} Tt9 rj ahria ] . . . ovofxaTO^ XptoTtai'ov irpo- 
 (Toivvixiav ojxoXoyovvTa rbv avOpiOTTOV tovtov eKoXdcrui. In 
 
 the same way Tertullian says, " illud solum expec- 
 tatur . . . confessio nominis non examinatio criminis : "^^ 
 and " non scelus aliquod in causa esse sed nomen . . . 
 ut nomen . . . de sua sola confessione damnetur . . . 
 Christianus si nuUius criminis reus est, nomen valde 
 infestum, si solum nominis crimen est." ^^ 
 
 (2) Recantation was followed by pardon. Thus Jus- 
 tin says : ^^ iav /xeV Ti<s TtSv KaTrjyopovfX€V(j)V <L^apvo<i yivrjTat^ 
 rrj ipoiv-fj fx-q civat (f)^(ra<;, d(f>UT€ avrov, ws fxrjSkv €X.€y\€LV 
 
 €xoi/T€s dfxapTavovTa. In the persecution at Lugdunum 
 under M. Aurelius, perhaps in consequence of the in- 
 criminating evidence of slaves with regard to the 
 ©uco-Teta SciTTi/a and OtStTroSciot fXL$€L<s, the governor took 
 a different course, and those who denied their re- 
 ligion were shut up in prison.^^ This action, how- 
 ever, was due to the arbitrary conduct of an un- 
 usually hostile governor, and was not sanctioned 
 by the emperor, whose rescript was to the effect that 
 
 was universal : ra iravraxov ofioius virb rdv ijyovfji^vwp aXSyoji Tpar- 
 rS/xeva. 
 
 25 Tert. Apol. 2. 
 
 26 Ibid. 2 ad fin. Cf. also Hermas, Simil. 9, 28 : 6<toi vork 
 iiradov 8ici rb 6vo/xa hdo^oi elai irapb, rep d€(p . . . Stl ^wadov 8ia rb 
 SvofJM TOV viou TOV dcov . . . 8(Toi . . . ^tt' i^ovcrlau dx^eVres i^erdcr- 
 dri(rav Kol ovk iipv-qaavTo k. t. X. Athenagoras, ii. 3 : /cot yap ov 
 Tpbs TTJs vfxeTipas buiaioaCv-qs tovs p.h AWovs, airiav Xa^dvTas ddiKT}- 
 IxdTUv p.1] wpoTepov ij iXeyxGv^o-i- KoXd^eadai, ^0' i]fj.u}v de fxel^ov laxvetv 
 rb 6pofia tQv iiri ttj ZLkti iXiyxtav. Tert. ApoL 2 : " Denique quid 
 de tabella recitatis ilium Christianum, cur non et homicidam ? " 
 44 : " Aut cum Christiani suo titulo offeruntur." 
 
 27 Justin. ApoL i. 4. Cf. Orig. Contra Cels. ii. 13 : Xpia-Tiavol 5^ 
 fxovoi fiixP'- reXevraias dvairvoris vwb rdv BiKaffTQv iiriTp^irovTai i^o/jt,o- 
 <rdfJL€Poi, Tbv 'KpLffTiavi.aixbv Kai Kard ird Koivd ^drj dvaavTe'i kol 6fji,6<ravT€s 
 oIkol yeu^adai Kai ^v aKivd^vtas. 
 
 28 Euseb. H. E. V. I, 33 : oi yap /card ryv Tpdorrjv a}jXXr]\f/iv ^^apvoi 
 yepSfxevoL <tvp€k\€Lopto Kai avTol Kai fxcTcixop tCop Seipwp, oi)5^ yap ip rip 
 Kaip(p ToijTcp 6<peX6s Ti avToi^ rj ^^dpprjais iyipeTO. 
 
l04 StUDtfiS IK ROMAN ttlSTORV 
 
 those who persisted were to be put to death, while those 
 who recanted should be released.'*® In most cases, indeed, 
 the governors were not only willing but anxious to avoid 
 harsh measures against the Christians by obtaining a 
 recantation from them. We have already seen that by 
 Pliny's time the custom had grown up of giving the 
 Christians three chances of abjuring their religion before 
 executing punishment, and this before long developed 
 into the regular practice of torturing the accused in order 
 to force from them, not the confession of their religion, 
 but the denial of it. " Ceteris negantibus," says Ter- 
 tullian, " adhibetis tormenta ad confitendum, solis 
 Christianis ad negandum." ^° In all probability the 
 practice was originally a rough-and-ready means of sav- 
 ing the Christians from the results of their own obstinacy, 
 and Tertullian tells us of a Cincius Severus who " ipse 
 dedit remedium quomodo responderent Christiani ut 
 dimitti possent." ^^ But under tyrannical governors it 
 might easily be turned into the means of gratuitous and 
 abominable cruelties, ^^ as in the case of the martyrs at 
 Lugdunum — cruelties which have been perpetuated with 
 all the ingenuity of pious invention in the "Acta 
 
 29 Ihid. V. 1 , 47 : iiruTTtLXavTO^ yhp toO Kala-apoi rods ixh dirorvfi- 
 Traviadrjuai, el 84 rives Apvotyro, To6TOVi airoKvdrjvai. 
 
 30 Tert. ApoL 2 ; Cf. ad Scap. 4 : " Quid enim amplius tibi 
 mandatur quara nocentes confesses damnare, negantes autem 
 ad tormenta revocare ? Videtis ergo quomodo ipsi vos contra 
 mandata facialis ut confesses negare cogatis. Adeo confitemini 
 innocentes esse nos, quos damnare statim ex confessione non 
 vultis." 
 
 31 Tert. ad. Scap. 4 : " Quanti autem praesides et constantiores 
 et crudeliores dissimulaverunt ab huiusmodi causis : ut Cincius 
 Severus qui Thistri ipse dedit remedium quomodo responderent 
 Christiani ut dimitti possent : ut Vespronius Candidus qui 
 Christianum quasi tumultuosum civibus suis satisfacere dimisit," 
 etc. 
 
 32 Ibid. loc. cit. : " Claudius Herminianus Cappadocia cum . . 
 Christianos crudeliter tractasset . . . postea cognito errore suo, 
 quod tormentis quosdam a proposito suo excidere fecisset,pene 
 Christianus decessit." Cf. Justin, Dial. c. Tryph. no: KecpaXo- 
 TOfJio6ixevoi yd.p Kal aravpoijfievoi ko.1 d-qplois vapa^aWS/xevoi kuI Secr/xois 
 Kol Tvpl Kai ir&aaii rais dXXats /Saerdj'ots 8ti ovk dipicrrdfieda ttjs 6/xo- 
 "koylas. 
 
PERSECUTION FOR THE NAME I05 
 
 Mar tyrum. ' ' The fact that a mere Hp-denial, whether vol- 
 untary or enforced by means of torture, was for the most 
 part during the second century followed by liberation 
 and pardon is a clear proof, if one were wanted, that the 
 contest between Christianity and the state was far from 
 having become at this period an internecine struggle, 
 since the possibility that one " compulsus negare non 
 ex fide negarit et absolutus ibidem post tribunal de ves- 
 tra rideat aemulatione, iterum Christianus," must have 
 been as obvious to the government as to TertuUian, who 
 describes the practice as a " praevaricatio in leges." ^^ 
 
 (3) The Christians were apparently, in conformity 
 with Trajan's recommendation, not sought out. This 
 is, indeed, rather a general inference from the reluctance 
 of the provincial governors to deal harshly with the 
 Christians, as evidenced in instances given by TertuUian, 
 and in many of the ** Acta Martyrum " themselves,^* and 
 also from the comparatively small number of victims to 
 the state persecution as evidenced by Origen.^^ This 
 was necessarily a point as to which the governors had a 
 certain amount of discretion. The legatus of Gallia 
 Lugdunensis apparently gave orders for the Christians 
 to be sought out,^^ though the very statement seems to 
 imply that this was an unusual proceeding. It was, 
 however, by no means without parallel, as the words of 
 
 Celsus prove : vfJi(ov Bl kuv TrAavarat Tts m Xavddvwv dWa 
 
 Cyp-uTat TT/jos davdrov Uk-t^v.^'^ On the Other hand, Pudens 
 (probably a governor of Crete under M. Aurelius ^^), on 
 
 33 Tert. Apol 2. 
 
 3* See the Acta Martyrum Scilitanorum : iirel koI xapto-^et 0-775 
 ainoh irpodefffiias rod vpbs Ty}V rdv 'Vu/xaluf ivaviXdeiv vapaboaiv 
 a.K\iv€h T^v yvQfj.r]v di^fieivav k. t. \. 
 
 35 See p. 93, note 44. 
 
 36 Euseb. H. E. V. I, 14 : iwel drjfxoalg, iK^Xevcrev 6 ryyefiCbv dva^rec- 
 adai iravras ijfxcis. 
 
 37 Orig. Contra Cels. viii. 69. 
 
 38 He was formerly held to be a proconsul of Africa under 
 Commodus or Septimius Severus, but our only authentic know- 
 ledge of him is from an inscription, C. I. L. viii. 5354, where he 
 is proconsul of Crete and Cyrene, a praetorian post, and therefore 
 earlier than his consulship in 166 a.d. See Neumann, page 33, 
 note I. 
 
I06 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 discovering that a certain Christian who was sent to 
 him was really the victim of a conspiracy to extort 
 money, tore up the elogium, as the charge-sheet was 
 technically called, and then dismissed the prisoner " sine 
 accusatore negans se auditurum secundum manda- 
 tum." 3» 
 
 (4) The prosecutions were in the provinces generally 
 due to the hatred and violence of the populace, or to the 
 antipathy of some particular class among them. Of 
 this there seems to be no doubt. The Bithynian perse- 
 cution may probably, as we have seen, have been due to 
 commercial losses caused by the Christians. Hadrian's 
 rescript *^ distinctly implies that the governors often 
 gave way to popular clamour. The letters of Antoninus 
 Pius to the cities in Greece ^^ distinctly forbid rioting 
 against the Christians. The letter written by the Church 
 at Lugdunum to those in Asia or Phrygia clearly attri- 
 butes the commencement of the persecution there to the 
 clamours, outrages, and attacks of the infuriated popu- 
 lace,*^ while Eusebius states that the persecutions of this 
 
 time resulted c^ tTrt^ccrcoDS tiov Kara TToAcis Si^ixtov.^'^ 
 
 Similarly in the " Acta " of Polycarp the proconsul 
 urges the martyr, " Satisfac populo." ** " Quotiens 
 etiam," asks TertuUian, " praeteritis vobis suo iure 
 
 39 Tert. ad Scap. 4 : " Pudens etiam missum ad se Christianum 
 cum elogio, concussione eius intellecta dimisit scisso eodem 
 elogio, sine accusatore negans se auditurum secundum manda- 
 turn;" 
 
 *o See below, p. 108, note i. 
 
 *i See p. 102, note 18. 
 
 *2 Euseb. H. E.v. 1,7: koI irpQrov ixJkv to. dirb rod 6x\ov iroLvBi)- 
 fj.el (TuprjSbu iin<f>€p6fxeva yevvaius vir^fiepov, (Tri^orjffeis Kal 7rX777as Kai 
 (Tvp/Mods Kal diapirayai Kai \id(av /3o\aj Kai (TvyKXelaeis Kal v&vd^ 6<xa 
 7iypL(i}niv(p 7rXT70ct us irpbs ix'Spovs Kal woXe/jUovs 0tXet yiveffdai. 
 
 43 Euseb. H. E.v. 5, prooem. i. 
 
 ** Acta Poly carpi, Ruinart, p. 31. Cf. Euseb. H. E. iv. 15, 6 : 
 rb Trap irXrjdos &Troda{>p.a<xap t^j dvSpelas rbp deocpiXij fiaprijpa Kal ttjp 
 KadbXov ToO yipovs -tiop XpiariapCop dpcT^p ddpdws ivi^odp Ap^affdai 
 ' aXpe Toi/s dd^ovs ; and 26 : nap rb irXijdos tujp idpQp re Kal ^lovbalwp 
 irpbs T7]p "Zp-ippav KaroiKoipTUP . . . fieydXy (fxtip^ e/S6a . . . o3t6$ ^otip 
 6 TTJs 'A<rias dibdffKaXos, 6 irar^p r&v XpurriavQv, 6 tS>v -^/xcr^puv deuv 
 Kadaipirris. 
 
PERSECUTION FOR THE NAME 10^ 
 
 nos inimicum vulgus invadit lapidibus et incendiis ? " ^^ 
 and, again, " Nee ulli magis depostulatores Chris tian- 
 orum quam vulgus," *^ and still more definitely, '* De 
 qua iniquitate saevitiae non modo caecum hoc vulgus 
 exsultat et insultat, sed et quidam vestrum, quibus favor 
 vulgi de iniquitate captatur, gloriantur." ^'^ Tertullian's 
 evidence on this point is, indeed, summed up in his 
 address to the provincial governors as " boni praesides, 
 meliores multo apud populum si illis Christianos inmol- 
 averitis." *® 
 
 (5) The emperors themselves, when appealed to by 
 the governors, were more inclined to check than to 
 encourage persecution, though their policy in this was 
 purely utilitarian, based on no sort of approval of or 
 sympathy with the Christians, to whose execution they 
 assented without scruple whenever the advantages of 
 such a course seemed to preponderate, but simply on the 
 supposition that the Christians were harmless and some- 
 what contemptible enthusiasts, of whose ohstinatio it 
 was hardly worth while to take notice, while the disturb- 
 ances caused by popular outbreaks against them were 
 not consistent with the good order of the empire. 
 
 43 Tert. Apol. zj. 
 
 46 Ihid. 35. 
 
 47 Ihid. 49. Cf. Justin. Apol. ii. 3, who says that Crescens, 
 the philosopher, accused the Christians as di^eoi /cat do-e/Seis . . . 
 7rp6s X«P"' *^^^ ijSovrjv rCiv iroWiJov riav Tretr\avqiiivo)v raura irpdrTuv. 
 
 48 Tert. Apol. 50. 
 
VIII 
 
 Attitude of Hadrian, Pius, and Marcus 
 Aurelius 
 
 This certainly seems to have been the attitude of Hadrian 
 in his rescript to Minucius Fundanus, proconsul of Asia, 
 in about 124 a.d., the full text of which I append below 
 in a note. ^ Asia was undoubtedly the province in which 
 the Christian difficulty was most urgent and most per- 
 sistent. Here probably the Christians were most 
 numerous, the populace most hostile, and accusers most 
 plentiful ; here, too, all the social conditions most 
 repugnant to and most impatient of Christian ideas of 
 morality were most pronounced and most deeply rooted. 
 Here certainly, sometimes in one city, sometimes in 
 
 1 The rescript is found in Greek appended to Justin's First 
 Apology, and in Eusebius H. E. iv. 9, and in Latin in Rufinus' 
 translation of Eusebius. As Eusebius expressly states that 
 Justin gives the Latin version {H. E. iii. 8, 7), Bishop Lightfoot, 
 with much probability, supposes that Rufinus did not translate 
 it into Latin but substituted the original rescript. 
 
 " Accepi literas ad me scriptas a decessore tuo, Sereno Graniano, 
 clarissimo viro, et non placet mihi relationem silentio praeterire, 
 ne et innoxii perturbentur, et calumniatoribus latrocinandi 
 tribuatur occasio. Itaque si evidenter provinciales huic petitioni 
 suae adesse volent adversum Christianos, ut pro tribunali eos in 
 aliquo arguant, hoc eis exequi non prohibeo : precibus autem 
 in hoc solis et adclamationibus uti eis non permitto. Etenim 
 multo aequius est, si quis volet accusare, te cognoscere de obiectis. 
 Si quis igitur accusat et probat, adversus legem quicquam agere 
 memoratos homines pro merito peccatorum etiam supplicia 
 statues. Illud mehercule magnopere curabis ut si quis calumniae 
 gratia quemquam horum postulaverit reum, in hunc pro sui 
 nequitia suppliciis severioribus vindices." 
 
 108 
 
HADRIAN, PIUS, AND MARCUS AURELIUS IO9 
 
 another, persecution must have been almost continuous 
 and permanent. The proconsuls may have observed, 
 and probably they did so, the principle of Trajan, not to 
 search out offenders, but this in a province so full of 
 sycophants, sophists, and delator es, was but scant pro- 
 tection.^ And not only were real Christians brought 
 before the tribunal of the proconsul. In a case where so 
 little had to be substantiated, where the mere " nomen 
 Christiani " was the gist, nay the whole, of the charge, 
 there was every inducement to make a trade of this sort 
 of delation, to accuse or to threaten with accusation 
 those who were not Christians, and then to exact money 
 for letting proceedings drop. That non-Christians were 
 sometimes accused we know from Pliny's letter ; that 
 attempts to exhort money were sometimes made we 
 know from a case already alluded to as mentioned by 
 Tertullian.^ But clearly such unprincipled conduct, 
 besides running counter to the spirit of the times, des- 
 troyed whatever value there was in the police repression 
 of Christianity, and introduced a spirit of terrorism into 
 the province. It was, I conceive, in some such circum- 
 stances as these, that Licinius Serenus Granianus, the 
 proconsul, consulted Hadrian, who sent the well-known 
 rescript, for the genuineness of which Mommsen has 
 authoritatively pronounced, to his successor, Minucius 
 Fundanus.* The general object of the rescript is clearly 
 enough stated at the outset, " ne et innoxii perturbentur, 
 et calumniatoribus latrocinandi tribuatur occasio." To 
 prevent this, the emperor lays it down that accusers are 
 not to be allowed to make use of any mob-influence 
 against the Christians, and that they must do more than 
 prove the *' nomen Christiani " — they must prove that 
 the accused have acted against the law : "si quis igitur 
 
 2 Mommsen, Rom. Gesch. v. 333 foil. 
 
 3 See p. 106, note 39. 
 
 4 Licinius Serenus Granianus was consul in 106 a.d., C. 
 Minucius Fundanus in 107 a.d. (Klein, Fasti Consulates, p. 56), 
 and according to Waddington {Pastes Asiatiques, p. 197 sq.) they 
 would naturally have reached the proconsulship of Asia about 
 123-4 and 124-5 respectively. 
 
no STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 accusal et probat, adversus legem quicquid agere memo- 
 ratos homines, pro merito peccatorum etiam supplicia 
 statues ; " while, finally, accusers who failed to make 
 good their charges were to be themselves severely pun- 
 ished. It seems to me that this rescript was intended, 
 as indeed it naturally would be, for the special circum- 
 stances of Asia : it does not in any way, as I interpret it, 
 rescind the decision of Trajan that the " nomen " was a 
 crime, but to avoid any miscarriage of justice, such as, 
 with a summary procedure, a large number of accused, a 
 hostile pressure exercised by the mob, might very easily 
 occur, it lays down more stringent conditions for the 
 proof of punishable crime. It is possible, as Professor 
 Ramsay says,^ that there is a studied vagueness in this 
 rescript. I doubt whether this would be reflected in the 
 actions depending on it.® The aOtorrj^ of the Christians 
 as well as their refusal to worship the emperor could, as 
 has already been shown, be brought under the law of 
 maiestas, and it was no doubt to this procedure, in which 
 more definite proof was required and a stricter investiga- 
 tion pursued, that Hadrian's rescript pointed. Though 
 intended primarily for Asia, it may quite possibly have 
 had some influence on the governors of other provinces. 
 It was of course always possible for the Christians to be 
 accused and convicted of maiestas. Justin Martyr 
 affirms that they were accused as aOiOL and ao-c/Jcis,^ 
 and Tertullian in a passage already referred to speaks of 
 them as " rei maiestatis." Punishment for the name 
 only, as there is abundant evidence to show, was executed 
 
 6 p. 323. 
 
 6 The suspicions cast upon this rescript by Keim [Rom und 
 das Chfistenthum, p. 553), Overbeck {Siudien zur Geschichte der 
 alien Kirche, p. 134), Aube {Persecutions de VEglise, p. 261), 
 and Baur (Die drei ersten Jahrhunderte, p. 442) are met once for 
 all by.Mommsen, who declares that its " grundlose Verdachtigung 
 der beste Beweise ist wie wenig sich die Neueren in den Stand- 
 punkt der romischen Regierung dem Christenthum gegeniiber 
 zu finden vermo'gen." Among recent writers, Hilgenfeld 
 {Berliner phil. Mochenschrift, xv. 663) still maintains Keim's 
 view in spite of Mommsen. 
 
 7 Note that dai^eia is technically maiestas and not sacrilegixim. 
 
HADRIAN, PIUS, AND MARCUS AURELIUS III 
 
 after Hadrian's rescript just as much as before, but it is 
 quite possible that it gave a certain stimulus towards 
 the employment of the more definite and regular legal 
 procedure.^ 
 
 Under Antoninus Pius there is reason, as Bishop 
 Lightfoot has shown,^ to believe that there was by no 
 means that complete peace to the Church which Sulpicius 
 Severus ascribes to his reign ,^^ and the cases of Ptolemaeus 
 and Lucius, executed at Rome by the praefectus urbi, 
 LoUius Urbicus, cannot have been unknown to the 
 emperor,^ while the martyrdom of Polycarp at Smyrna 
 is proved by the exhaustive arguments of M. Waddington 
 to have belonged to this reign /^ But if we are to believe 
 the evidence of Melito, as quoted by Eusebius, he, like 
 Hadrian, discouraged the riotous behaviour of the mob, 
 sending letters to the authorities at Larissae, Thessa- 
 lonica, and Athens, and to all the Hellenes (a term which 
 is understood by Professor Ramsay as including Greek 
 cities like Smyrna on the Aegean coast), forbidding any 
 such conduct.^^ 
 
 With regard to M. Aurelius, the case is somewhat more 
 doubtful, and hie is usually considered a severe persecutor 
 of the Christians, and, indeed the contrast between his 
 reign in this respect and that of his degenerate son and 
 successor, Commodus, has partly led to the general 
 
 8 Hadrian's own liberalism and freedom from prejudice in 
 religious matters are exemplified in the story told of him by Lam- 
 pridius {Vit. Alex. Sev. 43): " Christo templum facere voluit, 
 eumque inter deos recipere, quod et Hadrianus cogitasse fertur, 
 qui templa in omnibus civitatibus sine simulacris iusserat fieri 
 quae hodieque idcirco quia non habent numina dicuntur Had- 
 riani, quae ille ad hoc parasse dicebatur : sed prohibitus est ab 
 iis qui consulentes sacra repererant omnes Christianos futuros 
 si id fecisset et templa reliqua deserenda." TertuUian calls 
 him " omnium curiositatum explorator," Apol. 5 ; cf. Dio Cass. 
 Ixix. 5 and 11. 
 
 9 Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, Part 11. vol. i. p. 493. 
 
 10 Sulp. Sev. Chron. ii. 31, 32. 
 
 11 Justin, Apol. ii. 2. 
 
 12 Waddington's arguments are summarised by Lightfoot, 
 Apostolic Fathers, Part II. vol. i. p. 639 foil. 
 
 J3 See p. 102, note 18. 
 
112 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 inference that the better the emperor, the greater his 
 severity towards the Christians. It certainly cannot be 
 denied that the Christians were persecuted, and with 
 some severity, in several different parts of the empire 
 during this reign, but I cannot think that there is any 
 evidence which justifies Neumann ^* in ascribing to the 
 emperor a new policy different from, and severer than, 
 that of Trajan, or which can lead us to suppose that the 
 persecutions, such as they were, arose from imperial 
 initiative rather than from the general circumstances of 
 the time and local conditions. In the first place, it must 
 be remembered that as time went on, the practice 
 increased among the Christians of recording the deaths 
 or sufferings of their members — a practice which, when 
 the Churches were less organised, and the consciousness 
 of a common history less pronounced, had either not 
 been commenced or was less completely carried out. 
 Hence we should expect that, quite apart from the 
 actual frequency of persecutions, the number of those 
 recorded would tend to become greater. In the next 
 place, we entirely fail in the records belonging to this 
 reign to find evidence for anything like a general persecu- 
 tion. The evidence of Melito proves a certain amount 
 of persecution in Asia ; ^^ the martyrdom of Justin 
 shows that the Christians in Rome were still liable to be 
 brought before the jurisdiction of the praefectus urbi, 
 while it is known that a number of Christians from the 
 city or Italy were condemned to the mines of Sardinia.^^ 
 The letter of the Churches of Lugdunum and Vienna 
 to those in Asia and Phrygia^^ furnishes authentic 
 evidence for a severe, though not widespread, persecution 
 in Gaul ; and, finally, the first Christian blood was shed 
 in this reign in the province of Africa at Madaura/® 
 
 1* p. 28 foil. 
 
 15 Euseb. H. E. iv. 26, 5. 
 
 ^^ Hippolyt. Haer. ix. 12: /tera xp^^ov 5k irifrnv iKcT 6vT(av fmpri- 
 puv, 17 Mapda . . ■. irpoffKaXecrafx^vrj rbv /laKdpiov OvtKTopa . . . Tjpwra, 
 rives elev iv 'Eapdovig. jj.apr6pes. 
 
 " Euseb. H. £. V. I. 
 
 18 Augustin. Epist. xv. and xvi. Cf. Tert. ad Scap. 3 : " Vigel- 
 lius Satuminus qui primus hie gladium in nos egit." 
 
HADRIAN, PIUS, AND MARCUS AURELIUS II3 
 
 while the martyrdoms at SciU, in the same province, 
 though occurring a few months after the death of M. 
 Aurelius, must still be virtually ascribed to his reign.^^ 
 
 What strikes us, however, most in this list, is neither 
 the extent of the persecutions (which would surely have 
 been much greater if they had resulted from any deliberate 
 policy) nor the number of the victims (which even at 
 Lugdunum apparently did not exceed forty-eight) ^^ but 
 rather the fact that instances of collision between 
 Christianity and the government are now found in the 
 Western as well as the Eastern provinces. This, how- 
 ever, would more naturally be ascribed to the recent 
 growth of Christianity in those parts, and the consequent 
 excitement of the populace against it, than to a new 
 policy on the part of the government. As to the earliest 
 rise of the religion in the Western provinces, we are 
 unfortunately very imperfectly acquainted, but that 
 Christianity could be described in Lugdunum as Kaivrj 
 TL<s dp-qa-Kiia ^^ more than 100 years after the Neronian 
 persecution in Rome seems to point either to a late intro- 
 duction or to a late extension. 
 
 That there was, to a certain extent, under M. Aurelius, 
 and not without his own approval and perhaps his own 
 initiation, a reactionary tendency towards a stricter 
 observance of the national religion in the face of desper- 
 ate wars with barbarians, and the widespread horrors 
 of a devastating pestilence, is no doubt true, and this 
 might easily cause more frequent cases of collision in the 
 provinces between either the populace or the governors 
 on the one side and Christianity on the other. As Tertul- 
 lian in a memorable passage points out, it was just such 
 calamities which occasioned the unreasoning cry " Chris- 
 tianos ad leones." ^^ But this fact by itself is far from 
 constituting M. Aurelius as a persecutor of the Christians, 
 and still further from assisting Neumann's theory that 
 the persecution in his reign resulted from certain definite 
 
 19 The date is now fixed to the year 180 a.d. See Lightfoot, 
 p. 508, and Neumann, p. 284. 
 
 20 Gregory of Tours, Glor. Mart. 49. 
 
 21 Euseb. //. £, V. i. 22 Tertull. Apol. 40. 
 
114 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 rescripts, primarily aimed at Christianity, and seriously 
 modifying the general toleration of the previous reigns. 
 Modestinus, no doubt, reports a rescript of the emperor :^^ 
 " Si quis aliquid fecerit quo leves hominum animi 
 superstitione numinis terrentur, huiusmodi homines in 
 insulam relegari ; " while Paulus lays down the rule, " qui 
 novas sectas vel ratione incognitas religiones inducunt 
 ex quibus animi hominum moveantur, honestiores depor- 
 tantur, humiliores capite puniuntur." 24 Jq the effect 
 of these rescripts, only the former of which has any direct 
 connexion with M. Aurelius, Neumann ascribes the 
 persecutions in this reign, and in particular that (of 
 which we have the fullest information) at Lugdunum.25 
 On several grounds this seems to be an entirely mistaken 
 view. In the first case the rescript, as Mommsen points 
 out, was merely the precise expression — called forth 
 probably by some particular and local circumstances — 
 of a duty imposed by self-defence upon every efficient 
 government.28 It had no direct reference to the Chris- 
 tians, though it might of course be applied to them if 
 necessary, but its retention in the ** Digest " under the 
 Christian emperors is a proof of its general and not 
 particular application. Nor was there the slightest 
 need of a rescript of this kind. If there was any reason 
 to deal more severely with the Christians, there was a 
 summary police jurisdiction which could at any moment 
 be applied to them, by which the mere establishment of 
 their Christianity could be followed by capital punish- 
 ment. As Christians, they were in theory in the position 
 of outlaws : it was only necessary to discard the somewhat 
 illogical toleration which usually prevailed, and to bring 
 practice into accord with theory, and a general persecu- 
 tion of the Christians as such was possible. To have 
 punished them merely as the causes of public excite- 
 ment, when they might have been treated as " hostes 
 publici," would have been a step backward rather than 
 forward. 
 
 23 Dig. xlviii. 19, 30. 
 
 24 Paul. Sent. v. 21, 2. 25 p. 29. 
 26 Hist. Zeitschr. p. 400. 
 
HA'DRIAN, PIUS, AND MARCUS AURELIUS II5 
 
 Nor do the records which remain of the persecutions 
 support Neumann's theory. No doubt at Lugdunum 
 the immediate occasion of the persecution was an out- 
 break of popular hatred and fury ; but we have seen 
 reason to suppose that this, so far from being exceptional 
 or needing the explanation of a special rescript, was what 
 in the Eastern provinces had happened again and again, 
 the reasons for the popular hatred, as well as its intensity, 
 varying in different cases and localities. When the 
 accused were brought before the legate, there was no 
 question of particular charges ; there was no accusation 
 of dOiorrjs or dcreySeta, not a word to imply that the 
 charge was disturbance of the public peace. In fact, 
 no question was asked except whether they were Chris- 
 tians,27 and the account says explicitly that no other 
 charge was made against them.^s Finally, the punish- 
 ments inflicted on those condemned were not those 
 specified in the rescript — relegatio, deportatio, or decapi- 
 tation — but in the majority of cases exposure to wild 
 beasts.29 There seems, therefore, no reason to suppose 
 that the persecutions at Lugdunum were due to any 
 increased severity on the part of the central government. 
 The action of the legate in ordering all the Christians to 
 be searched out was evidently taken on his own respon- 
 sibihty, while the further innovation of retaining in 
 custody those who had seceded was due to the accusations 
 
 of ©vecrrcta Seiirva and OiStTroSetot /xt^ct? which were 
 
 made by heathen slaves, and was disallowed by the 
 emperor when his rescript came ordering el Ttv€s dp- 
 
 There is nothing, therefore, in the evidence to show 
 that the persecution at Lugdunum was anything more 
 than a repetition of that in Bithynia, the greater cruelty 
 
 27 Euseb. H. E. V. i, 10 : AWd. fiSvov rouro irvdofievov el Kal a&rbs 
 (tr} XpLffTiavbs, toO 5k \aixirpoTaTiQ <p(i}v^ ofioXoyficraPTOS, dveXi^cpdrj Kal 
 airbs els rbv K\r)pov rdv fxaprvptav. 
 
 28 Euseb. H. E. I, 33 : dXX' ol jxkv ofxckoyovvres 6 koX ^(rav, 
 crvveKKeiovTo ws XpiaTiavol, ij.r)8ef.ua$ dWrjs avro'is alrias iiri(f)epoix^vT]S. 
 
 29 Euseb. H. E.w. l, 47 : Kal 8<toi fikv idoKOw TroXnreioM 'Pw/jLaicop 
 effXV^epai toi/twj' airirepive rds /ce0a\ds, tovs Sa Xonroi/s ive/xirev els d-qpia. 
 
 30 Euseb. H.E. i, 47. 
 
Il6 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 associated with it being due partly to the personal 
 character of the legate, partly to the fact that our account 
 of the one comes from a heathen, of the other from a 
 Christian, source. 
 
 In the province of Asia there was, according to Melito, 
 some fresh access of persecution under M. Aurelius, and 
 
 he speaks of certain KaLva Soy/xara or Siaray/xara in 
 
 consequence of which through the action of (rvKo<fidvTaL 
 the godly race — to twv Ocoo-c^ojv ycVo? — is persecuted.^^ 
 What these Kaiva StaTtiy/xaTa were it is quite impossible 
 to say. It is certain from Melito's language that they 
 were edicts of the proconsul ; they may have been more 
 stringent regulations about the imperial cult, or the 
 observance of the national worship, but there is not the 
 smallest evidence of any connexion with the rescript in 
 the " Digest," but rather the contrary, for the rescript in 
 question, though its application might be vexatious to 
 the Christians, was certainly not cruel and could hardly 
 have been described by Melito as o /xt/Sc Kara ^ap^dpiov 
 TrpcTTct 7roX€/xttoj/.32 Profcssor Ramsay, while dissenting 
 from Neumann's view as to a special rescript against 
 the Christians, still thinks that " new methods were 
 introduced by M. Aurelius, at least in the sense that 
 proceedings against the Christians were enforced more 
 actively," 33 by which he means that they were in his 
 reign sought out even when no accusers came forward. 
 I do not think that the documents relating to the time 
 bear out this view. In Asia, Melito distinctly mentions 
 (TVKOKJidvTaL ; 34 at Lugdunum, as we have seen, the legate 
 
 31 Euseb. H. E. iv. 26, 5: t6 yap oi>de iriJoTroTe yevouevov, vvv 5tw/ferai 
 rb tQv deocre^Qv yhos Kaivoh iXavvSfxeuov 56yfjiacrL Karci. vr)v ''A.aiav. ol 
 yap apai5eis avKo^avraL Kal tQp dWoTplojv ipaaral Ty]v iK rdv diaray/xdruv 
 ixovrei a^topfx-qv (pavepCjs \ri<TT€iJOV(n vvKTUip koI p.€dr)fi^pav SiapTrd^ovres 
 Tovs fxr)8^y ddiKOvvras. 
 
 32 Euseb. //. E. iv. 26. 6. 33 p. 338. 
 
 34 One of the passages usually quoted to prove that the 
 Christians were -sought out, really, if taken with the context, 
 proves the contrary. Athenagoras, Supplic. i. 2, says : ffvyxftip^iTe 
 Zk fir)S^v ddiKovvras . . . ^Xavveadai, Kal (pipeadai Kai dubKecrdai ivl 
 fidvif dvdfxari Trpo<nro\e/xo{>PTti)v t}ixlv rdv -KoKkCiv : but here the quota- 
 tion usually ends, but Athenagoras adds : koX h^oiyjiQo. hiiQiv koX 
 
HADRIAN, PIUS, AND MARCUS AURELIUS II7 
 
 orders all the Christians to be searched out, but it 
 deserves notice that this is the second stage in the pro- 
 ceedings and not the first. The persecution commenced 
 with the usual manifestations of popular feeling, and, 
 there is no reason to doubt, with the usual accusations 
 more or less definite ; then the legate arrived, and 
 apparently in consequence of the charges made ordered 
 a general search for the Christians. If any previous 
 rescript was disregarded, it was rather that of Hadrian 
 than that of Trajan, by which popular acclamations 
 were forbidden to be taken as formal accusations. 
 Another proof that in this reign the Christians were 
 hunted out is often found in the statement of Celsus : 
 
 vfxijiv Se kTiv TrXaiarat rt? tri XavOdvinv aA./\a. ^rjreiTal 7rpo5 
 
 Oavdrov 8lk7]v.^^ But in addition to the uncertainty as 
 to the exact date of Celsus, the statement seems alto- 
 gether too vague and too general to warrant the con- 
 clusion which Professor Ramsay draws from it. Finally 
 with regard to the ** Acta Justini " (which, by the way, 
 belong to quite the beginning of the reign, whereas the 
 harsher policy of Aurelius is usually ascribed to the end 
 of it), I cannot agree with Professor Ramsay that the 
 implication is in favour of the criminals being searched 
 out rather than accused. If the tradition mentioned 
 by Eusebius is untrustworthy, that Justin's death was 
 due to the accusation of Crescens the philosopher, ^^ at 
 least we should expect that any searching out of the 
 Christians, especially in Rome, would have resulted in 
 the death of more than one or two individuals. 
 
 It seems, therefore, that the prosecutions under M. 
 Aurelius were essentially of the same description as those 
 under his predecessors. He has no hesitation in ordering 
 the execution of those who when accused refused to 
 recant ; but on the other hand, like previous emperors, 
 he seems to have discouraged the severity of provincial 
 governors as at Lugdunum, as well as the eagerness and 
 
 TTept 7]fj.Qv TL aKexpacrOat. Sttws iravdibfiedd irore virb tQp (TVKO<pavTwv 
 acpaTTSfievoi, which shows that accusations were made according 
 to Trajan's rescript. 
 
 ^^ Orig. Contra Cels. viii. 69. ^^ Euseb. H. E. iv. 16, 7, 8. 
 
Il8 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 greed of informers. Tertullian, who does not hesitate 
 to call him a " protector " rather than a " debellator 
 Christianorum," says definitely enough : "qui sicut 
 non palam ab eiusmodi hominibus poenam dimovit ita 
 alio modo palam dispersit, adiecta etiam accusatoribus 
 damnatione." 37 The view taken above as to the attitude 
 of the emperors towards the Christians differs to a certain 
 extent from that of Professor Ramsay, who thinks that 
 there was a definite and hostile policy towards the Chris- 
 tians from the time of the Flavian emperors ; that they 
 were recognized as a dangerous element in the state, and 
 that no mere pressure of popular feeling could affect the 
 action of a strong government like the Roman. He, 
 however, at the same time admits " that a wider and more 
 generous policy was adopted, though in a very hesitating 
 and tentative way, by the second century emperors, who 
 did not fear the current of the times as the older empire 
 had done." ^s i think we hardly have the material for 
 drawing any such contrast between the emperors of the 
 first and second century in their attitude towards the 
 Christians. It is true that in the case of the Flavian 
 emperors we have no evidence of any action on their 
 part tending to check the severity of persecution, as we 
 have in the case of Trajan, Hadrian, and Antoninus Pius, 
 but, on the other hand, we are equally (except perhaps 
 in the case of Domitian) without positive evidence that 
 they directly encouraged or instituted persecution. It 
 seems to me that the empire, in the sense of the central 
 government, was all this time without a permanent or 
 steady policy towards the Christians : it had not yet 
 made up its mind. It was of course aware of the 
 general hatred against the sect ; it was aware that 
 Christianity was at variance with some of the essential 
 features of Roman society ; it was aware of the suspicions 
 or reports of gross immorality practised at midnight 
 meetings ; it knew the intolerant and exclusive attitude 
 of the sect towards the national religion, and it did not 
 shut its eyes to the fact that this ohstinatio constituted 
 
 37 Tert. Apol. 5. 38 Expositor, July 1892, p. 15. 
 
U!N^ 
 
 HADRIAN, PIUS, AND MARCUS AURELIUS II9 
 
 logically potential disobedience or disloyalty to the state. 
 This principle was asserted and occasionally acted upon 
 from the first ; but a policy implies something more than 
 occasional action, and this was wanting throughout the 
 first two centuries. If the emperors had made up their 
 minds that Christianity was a political danger, they 
 would have developed a pohcy, and the treatment of the 
 Christians would have been very different from what it 
 was ; there would have been a serious attempt to put the 
 new religion down ; the persecutions would have been 
 general and continuous, and the imperial edicts clear and 
 precise. We should not have found Phny at the close 
 of what Professor Ramsay thinks was the severer period, 
 in any uncertainty about the course to be pursued, and, 
 above all, we should not have found Trajan deciding 
 " conquirendi non sunt." 
 
 The emperors clearly did not think Christianity, in 
 spite of the logical results of its principles, a practical 
 danger to be reckoned with by the state, and in conse- 
 quence their attitude towards it was not definite but 
 opportunist. It differed at different times and in 
 different provinces, sometimes even in different parts of 
 the same province, and sometimes peace and tran- 
 quillity would be best consulted by protecting the Chris- 
 tians against the hatred of the populace, sometimes by 
 practically sacrificing them to it ; but the whole question 
 was as yet not an imperial concern — '* neque enim in 
 universum aliquid quod quasi certam formam habeat 
 constitui potest "^^ — it formed part of the police adminis- 
 tration of each provincial legate and proconsul to whose 
 discretion in the ordinary course of things the treatment 
 of the Christians was left. No doubt tolerably frequent 
 appeals were from time to time made to the emperors 
 for their advice in particular cases. We cannot believe 
 that the letter of Pliny was an isolated case, and we 
 know from Lactantius that a collection was made in the 
 seventh book " De Officio Proconsulis " of the various 
 rescripts issued by the emperors against the Christians." 
 
 39 Plin. ad Trai. 97. 
 
 40 Lactant. Inst. v. 11, 19 : " Domitius de officio proconsulis 
 
120 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 The list would have been an invaluable one, but we can 
 hardly doubt that all these rescripts, like that of Trajan, 
 had reference primarily to particular localities and 
 circumstances, and that while Christianity was recognized 
 as a penal offence, there was no general edict of proscrip- 
 tion and no encouragement of a systematic persecution. 
 I cannot help thinking, therefore, that Professor 
 Ramsay has to some extent antedated the existence of 
 anything like a policy of proscription on the part of the 
 Roman government ; and he does this because he ante- 
 dates the time when Christianity was regarded as a serious 
 and practical danger to the social and political founda- 
 tions of the empire. No doubt there came a time when 
 this was the case, but it did not come within the first 
 two centuries, with which alone Professor Ramsay deals. 
 To a certain extent, if I may presume to say so, he argues 
 in a circle on this subject. Speaking of what he describes 
 as the " Flavian policy," he says : *' " But soon the 
 Flavian government recognized that the united organiza- 
 tion of the Christians was no whit weakened by the 
 destruction of the Temple. The Christians still con- 
 tinued no less than before to maintain a unity independent 
 of and contrary to the imperial unity, and to consolidate 
 s teadily a wide-reaching organization . * ' What evidence, 
 we may ask, is there of any wide-reaching organization 
 between 70 and 80 a.d. ? However, it is from the 
 assumption of this organization that Professor Ramsay 
 draws a general inference as to the hostile policy of the 
 imperial government. " Either Rome," he says, " must 
 now compel obedience, or it must acknowledge that the 
 Christian unity was stronger than the empire ; " ^2 ^nd 
 so, quite in accordance with this, he says " The Flavian 
 action was directed against the Church as an organized 
 unity." *■' In another passage, however, we find Pro- 
 fessor Ramsay arguing that there must have been a 
 Christian organization in order to explain the persecution 
 
 libro septimo rescripta principum nefaria collegit, ut doceret 
 quibus poenis adfici oporteret eos qui se cultores dei confiteren- 
 tur " 
 
 41 p. 356. 42 p. 356. 43 p. 274. 
 
HADRIAN, PIUS, AND MARCUS AURELIUS 121 
 
 of the Christians. " An organization strong, if only rudi- 
 mentary, is required to explain the imperial history, and 
 such an organization is attested by the Christian docu- 
 ments." ** That is to say : there was a far-reaching 
 organization, therefore a strong government must have 
 inaugurated a policy of persecution ; and there is 
 evidence of persecution, therefore we must assume some 
 Christian organization to explain it. However, putting 
 on one side what is no doubt only a seeming inconsistency, 
 I quite admit that from the time when the government 
 became convinced that Christianity was developing into 
 a widespread organization — was, in fact, becoming a 
 state within the state — its action approached more and 
 more to being a policy in the proper sense of the word, and 
 a policy definite, permanent, and hostile to Christianity. 
 I do not propose, and I am not competent, to enter 
 here into the question of Church organization, either 
 its nature or the steps by which it was accomplished, 
 but merely to point out very briefly that as far as our 
 evidence goes, the unity of Christianity was almost up 
 to the end of the period treated by Professor Ramsay as a 
 unity of idea, of belief, of doctrine, and of hope, but not 
 a unity of organization : though it was only the latter 
 kind of unity which would seem a practical danger to a 
 government like that of imperial Rome. We are unfor- 
 tunately very much in the dark as to the numbers of the 
 Christians, not only during the first two centuries, but 
 even up to the so-called conversion of the empire. In 
 some of the provinces, and especially in the great centres 
 of Hellenic civilization, such as Antioch, Ephesus, 
 Smyrna, they were probably a numerous body at a 
 tolerably early period, though not so numerous as to be 
 in themselves a political danger. In Bithynia we have 
 the evidence of Pliny — ^which, however, may be variously 
 interpreted. In Rome the numbers of the Christians 
 must have received a considerable check by the Neronian 
 persecution, and there can hardly be a doubt that during 
 the whole of this period they were quite an insignificant 
 
122 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 body, amid the numerous population of the capital. 
 When we remember that even in the time of Theodosius, 
 seventy years after the conversion of Constantine, the 
 Christians numbered no more than one-fourth or one- 
 fifth of the population in a city like Antioch," it is quite 
 impossible to imagine that, cis far as numbers went, the 
 Christians would have been a serious political danger 
 in the first two centuries. TertuUian, no doubt, in a 
 rhetorical and characteristic passage, <« seems to assert 
 that the Christians formed the greater part of the popula- 
 tion, but the exaggeration is so flagrant and apparent 
 as to deprive the statement of all statistical value. 
 
 But a comparatively small numerical strength might 
 very conceivably, with the help of organization and 
 common action, become, if not politically dangerous, at 
 least a force to be reckoned with and looked at with 
 suspicion. 
 
 Of this wide-spread organization I do not know what 
 proof can be adduced. That during the earlier years of 
 Christianity there was a certain intercommunication 
 between the principal Churches through the apostles to 
 whose preaching they owed their origin ; that the apostles, 
 while sojourning in one part of the empire, sent letters 
 of admonition and encouragement to the Christians in 
 another ; that on occasions alms might be sent from 
 Philippi to Rome, or from Rome to Philippi ; that, 
 somewhat later, letters were written in the name of one 
 congregation by its bishop to another, like that of the 
 Roman Clement to the Corinthians under Domitian, 
 
 *5 Friedlander, Sittengeschichfe, iii. 598. 
 
 *6 Tert. Apol. ^^ \ ' Hesterni sumus et vestra omnia implevi- 
 mus, urbes, insulas, castella, municipia, conciliabula, castra ipsa, 
 tribus, decurias, palatium, senatum, forum : sola vobis relin- 
 quimus templa. Possumus dinumerare exercitus vestros : 
 unius provinciae plures erunt." Cf. c. i : " Obsessam vocifer- 
 antur civitatem, in agris, in castellis, in insulis Christianos ; 
 omnem sexum, aetatem, conditionem, etiam dignitatem, trans- 
 gredi ad hoc nomen'." Ad Scap. 2 : " Tanta hominum multitudo 
 pars pene maior civitatis cuiusque ; " ibid. 5 : " Quid facies de 
 tantis milibus hominum, tot viris ac feminis, omnis sexus, omnis 
 aetatis, omnis dignitatis ? " etc. 
 
HADRIAN, PIUS, AND MARCUS AURELIUS 123 
 
 are, of course, well-known and indisputable facts. The 
 Christians all over the empire were the " brethren," 
 with common hopes, common beliefs, and to a certain 
 extent common sufferings. The splendid system of 
 military and commercial roads which formed a network 
 over the empire made communication comparatively 
 easy, and a fraternal hospitality was one of the distin- 
 guishing features of the early Christians. Hence, to a 
 certain extent, the various congregations, even after the 
 apostles had ceased to wander from one to another, were 
 en rapport with one another, sympathizing with one 
 another in time of persecution, and sending accounts to 
 one another of the way in which their several martyrs 
 witnessed to the common faith. Thus the Church at 
 Smyrna sends a letter to the brethren in Pontus, describ- 
 ing the martyrdom of Polycarp ; ^^ Ignatius, on the eve of 
 his own martyrdom, sends letters of comfort and en- 
 couragement to various cities in Asia and Europe ; ^^ 
 while our knowledge of the persecution at Lugdunum 
 is gained from a letter of the Churches of Lugdunum 
 and Vienna to the Christians of Phrygia.^^ Thus, in a 
 sense, the Christians were conscious of their own unity, 
 but this is by no means the same thing as the develop- 
 ment of a widespread organization. The several com- 
 munities were of course becoming organized ; the epis- 
 copal constitution was developing, but the unity of 
 which they were conscious was still an ideal unity : 
 intercommunication was casual, occasional, and in- 
 formal. It is often said, and no doubt with truth, that the 
 Gnostic heresies did much towards bringing out the 
 unity of the Church ; but still, even this was a unity 
 resting, not upon organization, but upon the preaching 
 of the same doctrine and community in the same be- 
 lief ; this was the aim, the essential unity of the Christian 
 body, and the outer sign or manifestation of this unity was 
 as yet nothing more definite than what Tertullian calls 
 *' communicatio pacis et appellatio fraternitatis et 
 
 47 Euseb. H. E. iv. 15, 2'; cf. Lightfoot, vol i. p. 588 foil. 
 
 48 Ihid. iii. 36, 4, and is, ; iii. 38, i. 
 
 49 Ihid.v. I. 
 
124 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 contesseratio hospitalitatis." *° We shall perhaps be 
 less surprised at the absence for so many years of any 
 common organization, if we remember that it was not 
 till the middle of the second century that the belief in the 
 imminent second coming of Christ and the establishment 
 of his millennium upon earth ceased to be the general 
 Christian belief — a belief which left no room for questions 
 of common organization. As Neumann very well says,^^ 
 " Even a considerable number of people, scattered in 
 different places, united only by a common belief, and 
 expecting the speedy end of all things, though they 
 might be a source of annoyance to the state by their 
 refusal of divine honours to the emperors, were neverthe- 
 less no source of danger, so long as no common action 
 was to be feared from them." This seems correctly 
 enough to describe the state of affairs till nearly the 
 close of the second century. The troubles connected with 
 the Christians were local and provincial, and though, 
 like other provincial matters, they were from time to 
 time referred to the emperors, they were still merely part 
 of the police administration of the various governors. 
 It is inconceivable to me how Professor Ramsay can 
 say " that Trajan found himself unable to resist the evi- 
 dence that this organization was illegal and dangerous. ""^ 
 Illegal he no doubt recognized it as being in the sense that 
 the Christian ohstinatio involved disobedience to the 
 omnipotent state, and on that ground he could not but 
 sanction the extreme punishment in the extreme resort, 
 but he also saw that this disobedience was an abstract and 
 not a concrete or practical danger, and gave expression 
 to this discernment in the order " conquirendi non sunt." 
 But, of course, there came a time when the scattered 
 
 50 Neumann, p. 53 : " Ihre Einheit ruht auf der Predigt 
 derselbe Lehre und dem Besitz desselben Glaubens." Tert. De 
 Praescript. Haereticor. 20. 
 
 51 p. 57. Cfk Mommsen, Histor. Zeitschrift, p. 419 : " Den 
 Christen dieser Epoche vor der Entwickelung der Episkopalord- 
 nung und der okumenischen Concilien die Centralisation und 
 damit die Staatsgefahrlichkeit abging." 
 
 " p. 372. 
 
HADRIAN, PIUS, AND MARCUS AURELIUS 125 
 
 communities of Christians cemented their ideal unity of 
 behef by a system of common organization, out of which 
 emerged the CathoHc Church, an organized body, with- 
 in but not connected with the organization of the empire, 
 embracing under it the particular communities, sub- 
 divided into provinces, dioceses, churches, holding from 
 time to time synods or councils, in which several com- 
 munities (sometimes more, sometimes fewer) met to- 
 gether for consultation or common action, and above all 
 claiming for the common Christian principles an authority 
 which was to override, in case of collision, the law of the 
 state/'3 It is not my purpose to trace the growth of this 
 organization, but only to point out (i) that it gave an 
 entirely different aspect to the Christian question, which 
 from being a local and provincial difficulty came to be an 
 imperial problem ; (2) that it was not till the close of the 
 second century that this change could have manifested 
 itself to the Roman government. The development 
 towards common action among the Churches commenced, 
 as was natural, in the Eastern provinces, where the 
 frequent meetings of the provincial concilia in connexion 
 with the imperial worship, with delegates from the most 
 important cities, may well have suggested the idea of 
 organization, and where the Montanist heresy made 
 some common action on the part of the orthodox 
 Churches almost a necessity. The phrase jx^ydXrj 
 
 iKKX-qcria is fouud in Celsus,^* eKKXrjO-La KaOoXiKrj in OUC 
 
 of the Ignatian letters ; ^^ but in both cases it seems to 
 be used of the orthodox Christians as opposed to the 
 various heretical sects, and to imply the ideal unity of 
 belief rather than any unity of organization. In the 
 
 53 Cf. Tert. Apol. 45 : " Deum non proconsulem timentes ;" 
 also c. 4 : " Si lex tua erravit, puto, ab homine concepta est, 
 neque enim de caelo ruit." Celsus calls this (Orig. C. Cels. viii. 
 2) the " voice of insurrection," (rrdcrews (pcovr). Cf. Orig. C. Cels. 
 i. I : ol pdjuoi Tiov edvCov 01 irepi ayaKfMOLTUJV Kal ttjs ad^ov iroXvdeoTriTOi 
 vbixoi eicri ^kvOCjv Kal et ri HkvO^u da-e^iarepov. So a distinction is 
 made between oi KeLfxevoL ev rals TrdXecri vd/u-oi and oi deiot vofioi. 
 Orig. C. Cels. viii. 26 : the former were oi dyofxoi vdfxoi ibid. 
 V. 37. See Neumann, p. 234. 
 
 5* Orig. C. Cels. v. 59. 35 ^^ Smyrn. 8. 
 
126 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 last years, however, of M. Aurelius, we find informal meet- 
 ings of " the faithful " within the province of Asia, with 
 a view to oppose the Montanist heresy.''^ Ten years 
 later synods are held in Palestine under the presidency 
 of the Bishop of Caesaraea, in Pontus under that of 
 Palmas, bishop of Amastris ; in Gaul under Irenaeus of 
 Lugdunum, to come to some agreement on the question 
 of the Easter festival. ^^^ Qn this occasion the com- 
 mon action goes still further, for the decrees of the 
 several synods are apparently sent to Victor, the bishop 
 of Rome, who attempts to excommunicate as heterodox 
 the Churches of Asia, which under the presidency of 
 Polycrates, bishop of Ephesus, had passed a dissentient 
 resolution of their own.^^ 
 Nj These are the unmistakable beginnings of an organiza- 
 tion which would inevitably soon be co-extensive with 
 the empire — a state within the state — the existence of 
 which was certainly opposed to the most essential and 
 characteristic principles of the Roman government. 
 With the organization of the Catholic Church began the 
 real struggle between the empire and Christianity, which 
 could only have one of two issues — the suppression of 
 the religious organization, or its acceptance by and 
 incorporation in the empire 
 
 It was not immediately, however, that any distinct 
 change of policy took place. Partly the new union of 
 the Churches was concealed by the noisy disputes 
 which were, after all, the occasion of their coming 
 together ; partly the empire was concerned with great 
 wars, as under Severus, or was passing through a period 
 of reaction and conservatism as under Alexander.^^ 
 
 66 Euseb. H. E.v. l6, lO : tCop ydp Kara TTJp ^Acriav iriffrQp iroWdKis 
 Kal ToWaxv tt}$ 'Acrias els tovto avveXddvTiov, Kal tous Trpo<r<f>dTOVs 
 X670i»5 i^eraaavTUP Kal ^e^rjXovs dirotp-qpavrup kui d-jrodoKifxaadpTOJp rijv 
 aipea-LP, ovtu drj rrjs re iKKXtjaias i^eucdrjaap Kal t^s Koivojplas etpx^WO-v . 
 
 67 Euseb. H. E. v. 23, 2-4 ; avpoboi 5r] Kal (TvyKpoT-qaeLs iTnaK&iruv 
 iirl rairbp iy^POPTO, k,.t. X. 
 
 58 Euseb. H. E. v, 24, 9 : iwl to^itois 6 jxkp r^j 'Pw/ia/cji' Tpoearibs 
 BlKTup ddpdcjs T^i 'Acrias irdarjs d/xa racs bixbpois iKKXTjaiais ras napoiKlas 
 diroT^lxveip ihadp irepoSo^oOaas ttjs koiptjs ipibaews TreipaTai. 
 
 '^ Cf. Vit. Alex. Sev. 22 : " ludaeis privilegia reservavit. 
 
HADRIAN, PIUS, AND MARCUS AURELIUS 127 
 
 But still Severus, who in Rome was quite inclined to 
 follow the example of his predecessors, and to protect 
 the Christians against mob-violence,^*^ must have received 
 some impressions during his passage through Sjnria in 
 202 A.D., which caused him to take a more serious view 
 of the dangers inherent in Christianity, for his decision 
 that no fresh converts were to be allowed to join that 
 body^^ — even though it may have been, as Neumann 
 supposes, a local rescript, and not, as has often been 
 assumed, a general edict — still makes indisputably a 
 step in advance : a remark which may be made with 
 equal truth, though with the same limitations, of the 
 persecution instituted by Maximin the Thracian, and 
 which was directed, not against the Christians generally, 
 but against the clergy, or, in other words, against the 
 growing organization of the Church.^^ It must suffice 
 to conclude this part of the subject by saying that these 
 tendencies on the one side and the other received their 
 completion by the series of general and systematic 
 persecutions which commenced with the reign of Decius. 
 ^lie general result of the previous discussion has been 
 to^ow that during the first two centuries there was 
 in no sense any systematic persecution of Chr jstian^ty^ /\ 
 It is true that 'a rigorous ana logical appncatioiTof the / 
 principles of the Roman government would have resulted 
 in a proscription of Christianity, but in view of its 
 practically harmless character, and the absence of any 
 dangerous or widespread organization, cases of inter- 
 ference with its members were only intermittent and 
 spasmodic. As we have seen, the Christians might have 
 
 Christianos esse passus est " — a statement which of course implies 
 no formal recognition of Christianity, but merely practical 
 toleration. 
 
 60 Tert. ad Scap. iv. : " Sed et clarissimas feminas et clarissi- 
 mos viros Severus sciens huius sectae esse non modo non 
 laesit verum et testimonio exornavit, et populo furenti in nos 
 palam restitit." 
 
 81 Spart. Vit. Sever. 17 : " ludaeos fieri sub gravi poena 
 vetuit ; idem etiam de Christianis sanxit." 
 
 62 Euseb. Jf. E. vi. 28, : 5i(>}yiJ.6v iyeipas rods tQv iKKKrjaiCJv dpxovTas 
 fiSvovs <hs airlovs ttjs Kara to edayyiXiov StSaaKoKias dvaipeiadai 
 irpoaTdTTei. 
 
128 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 been proceeded against under the law of maiestas : practi- 
 cally, as far as we can judge, this happened compara- 
 tively seldom. A case might have been made out against 
 them on a charge of magic : we should find it hard, 
 however, to show any distinct instance of it. Vague 
 charges of homicide and gross immorality were made and 
 believed even by men of culture and education like 
 Fronto,®^ but, as a rule, no serious attention could have 
 been paid to these reports, the evidence for which, so 
 far as there was evidence at all, came from tortured 
 slaves.®* 
 
 63 Minuc. Fel. Octav. 9, 6 : " Haec sacra sacrilegiis omnibus 
 taetriora. Et de convivio notum est ; passim omnes loquuntur, 
 id, etiam Cirtensis nostri testatur oratio." Cf. 31, 2. 
 
 6* Euseb. H. E. w. i, 14. Tert. Apol. 7: "Tot hostes eius 
 quot extranei ... ex natura ipsi domestici nostri." 
 
IX 
 Christianity and the Collegia 
 
 There still remains, however, one question to be asked 
 and answered : how the Christians were able to exist 
 uninterfered with, to so great an extent as our evidence 
 shows that they were, in the face of the imperial policy 
 in regard to associations {collegia, sodalitates, hetaeriae).^ 
 We know that the imperial government with its 
 increasingly bureaucratic organization and its centraliza- 
 tion in Rome and the emperor, was essentially hostile 
 to all free and spontaneous organization among the 
 people. Combination for a single object might easily 
 develop into a combination for other objects. Not 
 only was this almost self-evident, but the history of the 
 republic had repeatedly proved its truth. Julius Caesar 
 in this as in so many other directions initiated the policy 
 which marked the empire of which his brief tenure of 
 power laid the foundation. Suetonius says briefly^ 
 and insufficiently : " Cuncta collegia praeter anti- 
 quitus constituta distraxit." This, I imagine, points, 
 not to any general measure, but to his personal action 
 as dictator in the city, and by edict in the provinces. The 
 same policy seems to have been developed and to a 
 certain extent systematized by Augustus. Of him 
 Suetonius says : " Plurimae factiones titulo coUegii 
 
 1 Liebenam, Zur Gesch. und Organis. des romischen Vereins- 
 wesen, p. 267, puts the question so : "In welcher aussern Form 
 haben die ersten christlichen Gemeinden, zu einer Zeit wo Genos- 
 senschaftliche und Vereinsbildungen strenger Aufsicht unteriagen, 
 im Staate Fuss fassen konnen ? " 
 
 2 Suet. Cues. 42. 
 
 129 ^ 
 
130 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 novi ad nuUius non facinoris societatem coibant ; igitur 
 . . . collegia praeter antiqua et legitima dissolvit." ^ 
 This statement is partly illustrated and explained by an 
 inscription in which a collegium symphoniacorum is 
 mentioned " quibus senatus coire, convocari, cogi 
 permisit e lege lulia ex auctoritate .... Augusti 
 ludorum causa." * The Augustan regulation, there- 
 fore, took the form of a Lex lulia, which not only dis- 
 solved a large number of existing collegia, but provided 
 that for the future every collegium before being recog- 
 nized as legitimate had to receive a licence from the 
 senate. No doubt the law at first had reference to 
 Rome only, or perhaps to Italy also, which, like the capi- 
 tal, was by the arrangement of 27 B.C. assigned to sena- 
 torial administration. The principle, however, would 
 certainly be transferred more or less completely to the 
 provinces, and we may with some safety assume that 
 from this time in theory new collegia in the senatorial 
 provinces were supposed to receive a licence from the 
 senate, those in the imperial provinces from the emperor, 
 probably through his legates. As illustrative of this 
 we find the following expressions : " corpus cui coire 
 licet," ^ "collegia quibus ius coeundi lege permissum 
 est," ® " collegium dendrophororum Romanorum quibus 
 ex senatus consulto coire licet," ^ " corpus fabrum 
 navalium Ostiensium quibus senatus consulto coire 
 licet ;"^ in Gallia Lugdunensis : " corpora omnia 
 Lugduni licite coeuntia ;" ® in the Alpes Maritimae : 
 " collegia tria quibus ex senatus consulto coire permis- 
 sum est ; " ^^ in Asia at Cyzicus : " ut corpus quod appella- 
 tur neon ... in civitate sua auctoritate amplissimi 
 ordinis confirmetur." ^ So, too, Marcian in the " Digest " 
 says : ^^ " Nisi ex senatus consulti auctoritate aut Caesaris 
 collegium vel quodcunque tale corpus coierit, contra 
 senatus consulta et mandata et constitutiones collegium 
 
 3 Suet. Aug. 32. * C. I. L. vi. 2193. 
 
 5 Dig. xxxiv. 5, 20. 6 Dig^ xl. 3, i. 
 
 7 OreU. 4075. 8 C. /. L. xiv. 168. 
 
 9 Wilm. 2224. 10 c. I. L. V. 7881. 
 
 11 Ephem. Epigraph, iii. 156. 12 £)/gr xlvii. 22, 3. 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN ITS RELATION TO COLLEGIA I3I 
 
 celebrat." Collegia which were not so Hcensed were 
 illicita, and in the extreme resort membership in a colle- 
 gium illicitum came under the head of maiestas : " Quis- 
 quis ilHcitum collegium usurpaverit, ea poena tenetur qua 
 tenentur qui hominibus armatis loca publica vel templa 
 occupare iudicati sunt."^^ We shall have to return to 
 these regulations later on in order to detect, if we can, 
 their practical working, but meanwhile, if we add to 
 what has been cited the action of Trajan — who distinctly 
 refused to sanction the institution of a collegium fabrum, 
 to consist of only 150 members, for the purpose of a 
 fire brigade in Nicomedia, on the ground that all such 
 organizations tended to become hetaeriae^^ i.e. social 
 and political clubs, and who only reluctantly and on 
 the score of vested interests allowed the existence of 
 an eranus at Amisos, laying it down " in ceteris civitati- 
 bus quae nostro iure obstrictae sunt res huiusmodi 
 prohibenda est," ^^ and, finally, who ordered Piny to 
 proscribe hetaeriae generally in his province ^^ — enough 
 will have been said to show generally the hostile and 
 suspicious attitude of the government towards associa- 
 tions and collegia of all kinds and in all parts of the 
 empire. NL 
 
 Now to casual observers at any rate the Christian 
 communities must have presented many external 
 resemblances to the numerous Omotol or religious 
 associations with which the Eastern provinces more 
 especially were honeycombed,^''^ and must, indeed, have 
 been ranked among them. That the Jews were ranked 
 among them we know expressly from Josephus,^^ and 
 there are not wanting indications (to be noticed later 
 on) that the Christians were regarded in the same light. 
 The Jews, however, were expressly excepted from the 
 
 13 Dig. xlvii. 22, 2. 
 
 1* Plin. ad Trai. 34 : " Quodcunque nomen ex quacunque 
 causa dederimus iis qui in idem contracti fuerint . . . hetaeriae 
 aeque brevi fient." 
 
 15 Ibid. 93. 16 Ibid. 96, 7. 
 
 1' See Foucart, Des Associations r&ligietises chez les Grecs. 
 
 18 Joseph. Ant, lud. xiv. 10, 6, cited on p, 17. 
 
132 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 regulations which limited or forbade these Oiaa-oi : the 
 Christians were not. There is therefore prima facie 
 y some difficulty in understanding how the Christians 
 were enabled to develop as they did in spite of the 
 fundamental illegality in their external organization. 
 But, in the first place, this difficulty is far from being 
 unique or limited to the Christians. Inscriptions prove 
 to us the existence in immense numbers, and in every 
 part of the empire, of collegia of every sort and kind, 
 with regard to only a very small minority of which 
 there is any sign that they were licensed either by the 
 senate or by the emperor. When we regard this fact, 
 which a reference to the index of any volume of the 
 " Corpus Inscriptionum " will abundantly verify, and 
 then turn to such statements in the "Digest" as the 
 following, *' Mandatis principalibus praecipitur praesidi- 
 bus provinciarum ne patiantur esse collegia sodalicia ; " ^® 
 or " collegia si qua fuerint illicita mandatis et constitu- 
 tionibus et senatus consultis dissolvuntur " ^° — and 
 regard these as precise statements of the imperial 
 practice — we seem involved in a difficulty and contra- 
 diction at least as great as that which confronts 
 us in dealing with the Christian communities. Nor 
 is this difficulty entirely met by supposing that a 
 large number of these inscriptions are subsequent either 
 to the time of Severus, who, as we shall see, facilitated 
 the existence of the so-called collegia tenuiorum in the 
 provinces, or to that of Alexander Severus, who did 
 something towards impressing the collegia into the service 
 of the state, ^^ for, after all deductions on these grounds, 
 the number of known collegia would still remain a very 
 large one. Unfortunately, a thorough examination of 
 this question is impossible, because literature is practically 
 silent on the subject ; and though the inscriptions are 
 very numerous, the light which we gain from them con- 
 cerns mainly the organization of the collegia, and not 
 
 19 Dig. xlvii. 22, I. 20 ii)id. xlvii. 22, 3. 
 
 21 Vit. Alex. Sev. 33 : " Corpora omnium constituit vinariorum, 
 lupinariorum, caligariorum, et omnino omnium artium, idemque 
 ex sese defensores dedit et iussit qui ad quos iudices pertineret." 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN ITS RELATION TO COLLEGIA I33 
 
 the circumstances of their origin, nor to any great extent 
 their functions as a social or poUtical force.^^ We shall, 
 however, perhaps be able to discover that there are 
 certain considerations, which, if they do not entirely 
 explain the difficulty presented by these two opposite 
 sets of circumstances — the stringent regulations against 
 collegia on the one hand, and on the other, their wide 
 extension in spite of these — may yet point out the 
 way to their partial reconciliation. 
 
 The reason of the state hostility to collegia is to be 
 found in the dread of any combination for political 
 purposes in the subject populations of the empire ; 
 but the reality and imminence of this danger varied 
 in different parts of. the empire, in different classes 
 of society, and perhaps above all in the different 
 characters of the associations themselves. The policy 
 of the Roman state in such matters was usually 
 more or less opportunist : it was too wise to work 
 an abstract principle of policy to death for the sake 
 of mere consistency ; it much more frequently allowed 
 its action to be modified by circumstances ; its general 
 enactments were regulative, and pointed in a cer- 
 tain direction, but it was not considered necessary to 
 follow up the course indicated beyond the limit which the 
 circumstances of a particular case required. And this was 
 particularly the case in matters which belonged, as the 
 coUegial question did, to the police administration of 
 the city and the provinces, being under the charge of 
 the praefectus urhi ^^ in the former, and the legates and 
 proconsuls in the latter. 
 
 In republican times the right of association had in all 
 probability been free and unimpeded with the simple 
 qualification "dum ne quid ex publica lege corrumpant," ^* 
 and originally there seems to have been a religious root 
 to them all, although this in many cases tended to retire 
 into the background. When a foreign cult was adopted 
 
 22 The mcst thorough information on the subject is to be 
 gained from Liebenam in the work referred to on p. 129, note i. 
 
 23 Dig. i. 12, I, 14. 24 Dig_ xlvii. 22, 4. 
 
134 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 by the state, sodalitates, originally perhaps composed 
 of the compatriots of the new deity, were established 
 by the senate for the due observance of the cult. 
 Thus Cato is made to say by Cicero, " Sodalitates 
 autem me quaestore constitutae sunt sacris Idaeis 
 Magnae Matris acceptis," ^'^ and similarly the intro- 
 duction of other new cults not authorized by the state 
 was accompanied by the growth of similar collegia. 
 So we find collegia ^^ and sodalicia ^"^ of Isis, just as in much 
 later times there were collegia of Serapis,^^of Sol Invictus,^^ 
 of Jupiter Heliopolitanus, composed of the Bery tenses 
 inhabiting Puteoli ^° and many others. But while many 
 of these collegia and sodalitates retained their primarily 
 religious character, many others, as, e.g. the " collegia 
 compitalicia " of the time of Cicero and Clodius, tended 
 to be used either for political ends or at any rate to lead 
 to political results, and by the end of the republic the 
 numerous collegia of the city contributed not a little 
 towards the anarchy which characterized the senatorial 
 regime. 
 
 It was not, however, only in Rome and Italy that the 
 existence of these associations made itself felt in matters 
 with which professedly they had nothing to do, though, 
 as being nearer to the seat of government, they were 
 perhaps here more dangerous. In the Hellenised pro- 
 vinces of the East there had been for centuries an im- 
 mense number of religious eissociations, which, however, 
 they may have escaped the notice of the republican 
 governors, whose year of office was usually occupied 
 with matters of more personal importance to themselves, 
 would certainly, under the empire, be dealt with on the 
 same principles as the Roman and Italian collegia. 
 And, indeed, what had been allowed and endorsed under 
 the senatorial government, from the first, as we have seen, 
 attracted the attention and excited the suspicions 
 of the emperors. The principle of the empire in this 
 respect is clearly enough expressed in the words which 
 
 28 Cat. Mai. xiii. 45. ae C. /. L. ill. 882, vi. 355. 
 27 Ibid. ii. 2730. 28 Tbid, ix. 3337. 
 
 29 Ibid. vi. 734. 30 Ibid. X. 1634. 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN ITS RELATION TO COLLEGIA I35 
 
 Dio Cassius puts into the mouth of Maecenas : ^^ r6 fxkv 
 
 Oetov TTOLvrr) TravTws avTos re are^nv Kara ra irarpia, koX tous 
 oAXov? Ttfiav di'dyKa^e ' tov<s Se Sr] $€vi^0VTd<5 n TTcpt auTO 
 Kttt ju,tcr€t Kol KoAa^c, ^t) fxovov r^v OeCjv cvc/ca, dAA.' ort Kat 
 Katvct Tij/a SiafxovLa ol tolovtol dvTa(r(f)ipovT€<s ttoXXovs dva- 
 TTuOovcriv dWoTpiovofjieiv • kS.k tovtov koX (rvvioixo(TiaL Kat 
 (rvo-Tctcrct? eratpetat re ytyvovrat. It waS this principle 
 
 which was embodied in the Lex luHa, a law which, as 
 we have already suggested, primarily concerned only 
 Rome and Italy, though it soon came to be regulative 
 of the action of the provincial governors as well. But 
 there are certain social tendencies which legislation 
 finds it impossible to overcome, and which it is the part 
 of wise statesmanship only to repress when the public 
 interests imperatively demand it. The imperial govern- 
 ment had certainly enough statesmanship to realize this, 
 and therefore while Lex lulia expresses the general atti- 
 tude of the government towards associations, it can 
 hardly be taken as a stringent rule literally observed, 
 admitting of no exceptions and enforced with equal 
 rigour in all parts of the empire. 
 
 The Lex lulia, as we have seen, consisted of two parts : 
 the dissolution of existing collegia " praeter antiqua et 
 legitima," and a provision for the licensing of new ones 
 by the senate or the emperor. Only those collegia there- 
 fore, strictly speaking, were legitima or licita which were 
 either specially exempted from the action of this law, 
 like the Jewish communities, or OiacroL,^^^ or those, the 
 constitution of which had been specially licensed, and 
 we should probably be tolerably safe in assuming that 
 this licence would only be allowed to those collegia 
 which were (i) non-political, and (2) which served some 
 public utility, "si ... id circo instituta sunt ut 
 necessariam operam publicis utilitatibus exhiberent." ^^ 
 So we find among the collegia expressly licensed by 
 the senate dendrophori,^^ fabri^^ and centonarii^^ for 
 
 31 Dio Cass. lii. 36. 32 Ant. lud. xiv. 10, 6. 
 
 33 Dig. I. 6, 6, 12 34 Liebenam, p. 105. 
 
 35 c. I. L. vi. 3678, cf. 9405-9415. 36 Liebenam, p. 102. 
 
136 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 the extinguishing of fires ; symphoniaci ludorum 
 causa ; " mensores machinarii frumenti publici,^^ fahri 
 navales at Ostia,^® etc., while Phny expressly bases 
 his request for a collegium fabrum at Nicomedia on 
 the need of a public fire brigade.*** 
 
 But without a special staff of officials to see that the 
 provisions of the law were carried out, it was quite 
 impossible among the multiplicity of associations all 
 over the empire, and especially in the great cities, to 
 insure the " legitimate" character of all or even most 
 of them. At ordinary times and as a general rule there 
 was, no doubt, considerable laxity in this respect, and 
 a very large number, especially of the religious collegiuy 
 but probably of funeral and mutual-assistance clubs as 
 well, had received no licence and were therefore, strictly 
 speaking, illicita. Most of them were probably too 
 insignificant to attract notice, or if noticed, too obviously 
 harmless to call for interference. And therefore, at 
 ordinary times, when there was no special cause to look 
 askance at associations in a particular province, most 
 of these illicita collegia were let alone, especially as most 
 of them were composed of the lowest classes of society, 
 and to a great extent of slaves, against whose com- 
 bination there was no objection, if their masters con- 
 sented.''^ 
 
 Sometimes, of course, the action of the government 
 was more stringent than at others, and Caligula appar- 
 ently removed all restrictions — a policy which Claudius 
 did not continue.*^ Trajan set his face, at any rate in 
 Bithynia, against the whole system of collegia. Severus 
 again showed himself more indulgent.*^ Nor was it 
 only the varying policy of the emperors themselves 
 which made the treatment of collegia now more lax, 
 now more severe. Much also would depend upon 
 particular governors. Thus we hear that Flaccus, 
 praefectus of Egypt under Tiberius, ras cratpcms koL 
 
 37 C. I. L. vi. 21Q3. ^ Liebenam, p 75-78. 
 
 3» C. /. L. xii. 256. ^^ Ad Trai Z3, 3- 
 
 41 Dig. xlvii. 22, 3, 2. 42 Dio Cass. lix. 28. 
 
 43 Dig. xlvii 22, I. 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN ITS RELATION TO COLLEGIA I37 
 
 crvvoSov5 at iirl irpo^aa-u 6v(Tiuiv CLCTTLiovTO rots Trpdy/xaaLV 
 ifjiTrapoivrja-aL SteXve,^* and what he did, no doubt other 
 governors may have done from time to time in other 
 provinces. Still it is quite certain that numerous 
 collegia, which were unlicensed or illicita,^^ existed, 
 though their existence was always precarious, and they 
 might at any moment be put down. " Nulla dubi- 
 tatio est," says the *' Digest," " quod si corpori cui 
 licet coire legatum sit, debeatur ; cui autem non licet, 
 non valebit nisi singulis legetur, hi enim non quasi 
 collegium sed quasi certi homines admittentur ad lega- 
 tum." ^^ In other words, the only necessary disadvan- 
 tage suffered by a collegium illicitum was its non- 
 recognition by law as a juristic person. Similarly 
 Tacitus, in describing some disturbances which had 
 taken place at Pompeii, says, " Collegia quae contra 
 leges instituerant dissoluta ; " *^ i.e. certain collegia 
 illicita were in existence at Pompeii which were now 
 dissolved, not because they were illicita, but because 
 disturbances had been caused. So at Amisus, the eranus 
 about which Pliny inquires, had clearly had no licence, 
 but it was nevertheless left untouched out of respect to 
 vested rights. ^^ 
 
 When, however, there was any suspicion of political 
 danger, these collegia illicita were at once put down, as 
 by Flaccus in Egypt, by the senate in Pompeii, by 
 Pliny in Bithynia ; and as it was this political character 
 and not the mere want of a licence which brought down 
 state interference, in course of time the term " illicitum " 
 came to get the meaning of " political " rather than 
 " unlicensed " — a distinction which is more clearly 
 marked in the Greek translation by the substitution of 
 Trapdvofxa for dOep^LCTTa. It is in this sense of the word 
 that such statements in the " Digest " as the following 
 are to be explained : " Quisquis illicitum collegium 
 
 44 Phil. Adv. Flacc. p 966 : Mang. p. 518. 
 
 45 dde/MiTou Sk <T}j(TTr)fMa ij aio/xdreidv iari rb fir] aTTO vbfiov ^ /3a<rt\^a>j 
 (xvoTav. Basilica, Ix. 32. 
 
 46 Dig xxxiv. 5, 20. 
 
 4"^ Tac. Ann. xiv. 17 48 Plin. ad Trai. 94. 
 
138 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 usurpaverit ea poena tenetur qua tenentur homines qui 
 hominibus armatis loca publica vel templa occupare 
 iudicati sunt," *® and " Sed permittitur tenuioribus 
 stipem menstruam conferre dum tamen semel in mense 
 coeant, ne sub praetextu huiusmodi illicitum collegium 
 coeat." ^^ So Trajan reluctantly sanctions the eranus 
 at Amisus, provided that it does not tend " ad turbas 
 et inlicitos coetus," " where the word must mean 
 " political." 
 
 It results from what has been said that the practice 
 of the government in regard to unlicensed collegia was 
 not by* any means so strict and stringent as by the 
 letter of the law it might have been. It has been very 
 truly said : " Der Caesarismus nahm den obern Classen 
 des Associationsrecht und liess es den andern." '^^ It 
 seems to me that this explains a good deal. Apart from 
 the purely religious associations which were, generally 
 speaking, tolerated,^^ there was a distinction more or 
 less broad between the collegia opificum and the collegia 
 sodalicia {eTaLpiKa crva-TyjfxaTa, hetaeHae). About the 
 former we unfortunately know very little. Some of them 
 were of extremely ancient date, and on that ground 
 were expressly exempted from the Lex lulia. But 
 what seems to have characterized them is the fact that 
 their members either belonged to the same trade or 
 calling, such as the pistores, the fabri navales, the 
 caudicarii, etc., or at least combined for some definite 
 public object, such as the purpose of a fire brigade, 
 e.g. the fabri, centonarii, dendrophori. On the other 
 hand, the collegia sodalicia seem to have been 
 more social in their character, to have had no special 
 public utility in view, but to have had common 
 meetings for feasting and recreation, and to have 
 combined either for the special object of a burial 
 
 *9 Dig. xlvii. 22, 2. 50 Dig xlvii. 22, i. ^i loc. cit. 
 
 52 Rodbertus, -Hildebrand's Jahrb. v. 299, cited by Liebenam, 
 p. 32. 
 
 53 Dig. xlvii. 22, I : " Sed religionis causa coire non pro- 
 hibentur, dum tamen per hoc non fiat contra senatus consultum 
 quo illicita collegia arcentur." 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN ITS RELATION TO COLLEGIA I39 
 
 club ^* or of a mutual assistance society, ^^ or of both 
 combined.^^ Probably these two classes frequently 
 overlapped, but still we find that Trajan drew a sharp 
 distinction between them, in refusing to license a fire 
 brigade — collegium fabrum — on the express ground that 
 it might degenerate into an hetaeria : " Quodcunque 
 nomen ex quacunque causa dederimus iis qui in idem 
 contracti fuerint, hetaeriae aeque brevi fient." ^^ 
 
 While the collegia opificum would probably all be 
 found among the lower classes, this would not be so 
 necessarily the case with the collegia sodalicia, and no 
 doubt from the first the practical policy of the govern- 
 ment would be to enforce the law in the case of those 
 who from wealth or social position might have political 
 influence which combination might make dangerous, 
 but to tolerate the harmless associations composed of 
 poor people and slaves.^^ In the course of time this 
 practical policy appears to have crystallized itself in 
 legislation. Thus Marcian states in the " Digest " : 
 " Mandatis principalibus praecipitur praesidibus pro- 
 vinciarum ne patiantur esse collegia sodalicia, . . . sed 
 permittitur tenuioribus stipem menstruam conferre, 
 dum tamen semel in mense coeant, ne sub praetextu 
 huiusmodi illicitum collegium coeat."^^ The collegia 
 among the lower classes and slaves, alluded to in the 
 last clause, were technically known as collegia tenuio- 
 rum.^^ Mommsen supposes that they were collegia 
 funeraticia, and that they were especially exempted 
 from the provisions of the Lex lulia by a senatus con' 
 sultum at some time between Augustus and Hadrian. ^^ 
 
 5* " Qui stipem menstruam conferre volent in funera." Wilm. 
 
 319- 
 
 55 " Ad sustinendam tenuiorum inopiam." Plin. ad Trai. 94. 
 
 56 " Egenis alendis humandisque." Tert. Apol. 39. 
 
 57 Plin. ad Trai. 34. 
 
 58 As the Christian communities usually were ; cf. Min. Fel. 
 Octav. " de ultima faece collectis imperitioribus." 
 
 59 Dig. xlvii. 22, I. 
 
 80 Dig. 1.6, " tenuiores per collegia distributi ; " cf. also xlvii 
 22, 3. 
 ^1 See Liebenam p. 39 foil. 
 
140 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 In the inscription relating to the " Collegium Dianae 
 et Antinoi " — a funeral club at Lanuvium, dating from 
 133 A.D. — we have apparently a clause from the pre- 
 amble of this senatus consultum : " Kaput ex s. c. populi 
 Romani — Quibus coire, convenire collegiumque habere 
 liceat — qui stipem menstruam conferre volent in funera, 
 in it collegium coeant, neque sub specie eius collegii nisi 
 semel in mense coeant conferendi causa unde defuncti 
 sepeliantur." ^^ The collegium in question was apparently 
 a purely funeral club, though its members were allowed 
 to have common dinners five times a year, but the state- 
 ment of the " Digest " seems to show that there were 
 probably at least two other clauses in the senatus con- 
 sultum, one giving a qualified sanction to religious 
 associations (" sed religionis causa coire non prohi- 
 bentur," etc.), and another sanctioning collegia tenuio- 
 rum for somewhat wider objects than burials alone. 
 By this senatus consultum — which could have had re- 
 ference at widest to the city, Italy, and senatorial 
 provinces — a legal sanction was given to existing ten- 
 dencies, and the senate was perhaps relieved from the 
 constant business of licensing these numerous collegia. ^^ 
 At what precise time the general exemption from the 
 Lex lulia was extended to the provinces we do not know. 
 The action of Pliny in consulting Trajan about a collegium 
 of this description at Amisus shows that it was not in 
 force at that time in Bithynia, and it was possibly not 
 till the time of Severus that it was a general rule through- 
 out the empire — " quod non tantum in urbe sed in 
 Italia et in provinciis locum habere divus quoque 
 Severus rescripsit." ^* 
 
 The general result of what has been said is to show 
 that within the restrictions laid upon collegia and 
 associations there was still in practice room for Chris- 
 tianity to develop, though it was quite possible at various 
 times for collisions to occur between it and a specially 
 vigilant executive. In this connexion there is no 
 necessity to enter into the question of the early Christian 
 
 62 Wilm. 319. 63 cf. Plin. Panegyr. 32. <54 X)i^, xlvii. 22, i. 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN ITS RELATION TO COLLEGIA I4I 
 
 organization. The growth of Trpea-fivnpoi as an order 
 in the community, the differentiation of cttiVkottoi and 
 their original functions and the development from an 
 aristocratic to a monarchical form of government, con- 
 cern the history of Christianity, and not the history of 
 the Roman policy towards it. Whatever was the 
 exact constitution of the early communities, it is beyond 
 all doubt that they had certain general and external 
 resemblances to the collegia or diaaot, or religious 
 associations around them. If they were in any way 
 affiliated to the Jewish synagogues, these latter were 
 certainly regarded as Otaa-oL, and the Christians would 
 therefore be ranked among them too : or again, if 
 Weingarten ^^ is right in supposing that the earliest 
 communities grouped themselves round some leading 
 family, it is still easy to find analogies in the heathen 
 world, where we have a " collegium quod est in domu 
 Sergiae PauUinae " ^^ — a " collegium quod consistit in 
 praedis Larci Macedonis," ^^ etc. The term cV/cXi^o-ta 
 itself was used of Greek associations, ^^ while conversely 
 Eusebius uses the terms o-wayuiyr}, avvoSo<i and t6 kolvoi' 
 of the Christian Church.®^ To this it may be added that 
 Lucian describes the president of a Christian community 
 as OLaordpxri<;,'^^ that Celsus speaks of Christians as i'Stoi 
 OiaaioraL of Jesus,^^ and finally that a Christian inscrip- 
 tion in Africa uses the terms ecclesia fratr^tm, cultor, 
 area, cella,"^^ all of them familiar enough in heathen 
 collegia. In any case, merely as religious associations, 
 the Christians might well, either " sub umbraculo 
 religionis certe licitae " ^^ or in common with many other 
 
 65 Histor. Zeitschr. xlv. 401 foil., " Die Umwandlung der 
 urspriinglichen christlichen Gemeindeorganisation zur katholis- 
 chen Kirche," 201. Cf. i Cor. xvi. 19 ; Rom. xvi. 3-16. 
 
 66 C. /. L. vi. 9148. 67 c. I. L. vi. .104. 
 
 68 Le Bas-Waddington, 138 1-2. C. /. Gr. 2271. 
 
 69 Euseb. H. E. vi. 19, 16, and, vii 32, 27. 
 
 70 Lucian, De Mort. Peregr. ; with which cf. apxtOt,a(TiTT]s, 
 C. I. Gr. 2271. 
 
 71 Orig. Contr. Gels. iii. 22. ^2 c. /. L. viii. 9585 
 7-'5 Tert. Apol. 21. 
 
142 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 externally similar bodies, have escaped under ordinary 
 circumstances interference from the government. 
 
 There were, however, certain features about Chris- 
 tianity which might bring it into occasional conflict 
 with the Roman policy towards collegia. In one respect 
 especially these communities resembled the hetaeriae 
 of which Trajan had so much suspicion in Bithynia, in 
 that they met, not only for purely religious purposes, 
 but also for common meals, paid for by contributions 
 from each member {€pavo<s), or by a common fund (area). 
 At first these common meals, the breaking of bread, were 
 of daily occurrence.'^* At a later time, as the immediate 
 expectation of the Second Advent grew fainter, they 
 were held once every week.^^ While the religious ser- 
 vices took place in the morning, these Agapae or 
 Love-Feasts, at which what was later developed into 
 the Eucharist was combined with an ordinary supper, 
 were held in the evening,^^ and while at the former 
 strangers were admitted, and even welcomed, at the 
 latter no one was allowed to be present except baptized 
 members of the community.''^ As long as the com- 
 munities were small or undistinguishable from the Jew- 
 ish, or consisted solely of the very poor and humble 
 these social meetings might for the most part escape 
 notice and interference. But still, apart from the general 
 principles of the Christians, of which we have already 
 treated, it was here that occasion might always be found 
 against them by a suspicious governor. These common 
 meals constituted them tratpctai, or sodalitates, and 
 these if unlicensed, as the Christian bodies were, might 
 at any time be put down in the same way that the 
 religious associations in Egypt were by Flaccus.*^^ Nor 
 are there wanting indications that the Christians were 
 actually to some extent affected by their existence as 
 sodalitates, and that they occasionally laid themselves 
 open to the suspicion of violating the conditions under 
 
 74 Acts ii. 46, but cf. XX. 7. 
 
 78 " Stato die." Plin. ad Trai. 96. 
 
 7« Jhid. 77 Justin. Apol. i. 65. 78 See p. 137. 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN ITS RELATION TO COLLEGIA I43 
 
 which rehgious associations were tolerated : ** dum 
 tamen per hoc non fiat contra senatus consultum quo 
 iUicita collegia arcentur." At the same time, incidents 
 of this kind could never amount to anything like a 
 proscription of Christianity."^^ 
 
 In Bithynia factiones or clubs were a crying danger 
 in Trajan's time. The disturbances caused by them 
 were one of the reasons why Pliny was sent out,^'^ and we 
 have already several times noticed Trajan's refusal to 
 sanction a collegium fabrum, lest it should become an 
 hetaeria. At one time I was inclined to hold the view 
 that Pliny's action against the Christians was on the 
 score of their being a collegium illicitum. This view li 
 have now given up. Pliny would have had no need ta 
 consult the emperor on a matter about which his views had 
 been already so clearly expressed, nor would Trajan have 
 uttered his famous decision, " conquirendi non sunt," if 
 he had regarded them as members of an hetaeria. But 
 still, the incident shows that the Christians might have 
 been affected in this way. They, as Pliny discovered, 
 contained among their members some of the better 
 classes of society,^^ and these, according to the Christian 
 principles, would take part in whatever of common life 
 
 '9 " Bishop Lightfoot says {Apostolic Fathers, Part II. voL i, 
 p. 11):" The mere negative fact that the Christian reUgion 
 had not been recognized as lawful would be an ample justification 
 for proceeding against the Christians, as soon as it came to be 
 recognized that Christianity was something distinct from Judaism. 
 No positive prohibition was needed. Here was a religion ram- 
 pant which had never been licensed by the state, and this fact 
 alone was quite sufficient to set the law in motion." This is an 
 altogether misleading and inaccurate statement. The law might 
 in certain cases be set in motion against the Christians as an 
 illicitum collegium. As a religion, its unlicensed character would 
 only come into consideration when it drew Roman citizens away 
 from the national cult. What is the authority for the statement 
 on p. 20 that " lawful religions held a licence from the state for 
 worship or for sacrifice, and thus their gatherings were exempted 
 from the operation of the law against clubs " ? 
 
 80 Plin. ad Trai. 34 : " Meminerimus provinciam istam eiusmodi 
 factionibus esse vexatam." 
 
 81 " Multi omnis ordinis." 
 
144 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 there was in the community ; *- and one of tlie fcatui os of 
 this common hfe was a weekly meeting for the purpose of 
 a common meal. If the view taken above is correct, 
 this would have rendered the Christians liable to inter- 
 ference. Bithynia, too, was in an exceptional state, 
 and the ordinary toleration of unlicensed collegia was, at 
 any rate for the time, replaced by a stringent enforce- 
 ment of the provisions of the Lex lulia. Pliny, by 
 Trajan's order, had issued an edict ioThidding hetaeriae.^^ 
 This did not, indeed, actually affect the Christians. 
 But the reason why it did not is almost more striking 
 than if it had. For in consequence of this edict we find 
 that the Christians gave up their common meal,®* and so 
 became a purely religious association, and not an hetaeria : 
 ** quod ipsrnn facere desisse post edictum meum quo 
 secundum mandata tua hetaerias esse vetueram " — a 
 step which of course left the general position of the 
 Christians qua potentially " hostes publici" as it was 
 before, though it made them safe from interference on 
 a particular point. 
 
 There is no reason to suppose that this edict was any- 
 thing more than a local one, but still there were always 
 similar dangers in other provinces, and probably in 
 Rome. Nor is it altogether an improbable conjecture 
 that in certain parts of the empire the Agapae were 
 given up in consequence of similar edicts 3igaiinst hetaeriae; 
 and the Eucharist in consequence made a part of the 
 morning religious service. At any rate, we find Justin 
 Mart5n- in his first Apology ®^ giving an account of the 
 Eucharist as a separate religious service unconnected 
 with the Agape. We are not without evidence, too, 
 that in the course of the second century the Christians 
 were occasionally regarded as belonging to a secret and 
 
 82 Lactant. Divin. Inst. v. 14, 15 : " Apud nos inter pauperes 
 et divites, servos et dominos interest nihil." 
 
 83 Plin. ad Trai.-gj, 7 : " Post edictum meum quo secundum 
 mandata tua hetaerias esse vetueram." 
 
 8* Ibid, ; " Quod ipsum facere desisse post edictum meum," 
 etc. 
 85 Justin. Apol. i. 65 foil. 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN ITS RELATION TO COLLEGIA 1 45 
 
 illegal association. Celsus seems to have placed this 
 accusation in the forefront of the indictment which 
 he drew up against them : Trpwrov tw KeXa-o) K€(f>dXai6v 
 
 icTTt Sia/SaXilv Xpio-rtavtcr^ou d)? crvvdrjKa<; Kpv^Srjv Trpos 
 dAAr/AoDs 7roiOVfX€vu)v ILptcrTLavoiv irapa ra V€^'o/xtc^/>leVa. 
 
 Similarly in Minucius Felix they are spoken of as 
 " homines deploratae inlicitae ac desperatae factionis," 
 as holding " nocturnae congregationes " as a "latebrosa 
 et lucifuga natio." ^^ It is probable that by about the 
 middle of the second century the Eucharist was generally 
 separated from the Agape, the latter being given up or 
 maintained according to times and circumstances, but 
 always liable to bring the Christians into trouble as an 
 hetaeria. Tertullian is a not unimportant witness on this 
 point. We infer from his words that the Eucharist was 
 celebrated in the morning, and as a religious service, ®® 
 but that the Agapae, in the African Church at any rate, 
 were still celebrated ; and though Tertullian is conscious 
 of the charge of illegality made against them, he attempts 
 to remove the prejudice and to find with his legal know- 
 ledge a legal basis for the social meetings of the Christians. 
 " Proinde . . . inter licitas factiones," he says, " sec- 
 tam istam deputari oportebat a qua nihil tale com- 
 mittitur quale de illicitis factionibus timeri solet." ®^ 
 The object of prohibiting associations was " ne civitas in 
 partes scinderetur," but to attain this end completely it 
 would be necessary to put down the comitia, the concilia, 
 the contioneSy and even the spectacula. The bases of 
 the Christian union were " conscientia religionis, dis- 
 ciplinae divinitas, et spei foedus." ^^ The Christians 
 should be judged by facts, not theories : " haec coitio 
 Christianorum merito sane illicita si illicitis par, merito 
 damnanda si non dissimilis damnandis." ^^ And he 
 
 86 Orig. C. Cels. i. L 87 Min. FeL Octav 8. 
 
 88 Tertull. de Cor. 3 : " Eucharistiae sacramentum et in 
 tempore victus et omnibus mandatur a Domino, etiam ante- 
 lucanis coetibus, nee de aliorum manii quam Praesidentium 
 sumimus." 
 
 89 Tert. Apol. 38. so 75/^. 39. 
 91 Ibid. 39 ad fin. 
 
146 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 finally exclaims : " Quum probi, quum boni coeunt, 
 quum pii, quum casti congregantur, non est factio 
 dicenda sed curi." 
 
 All this clearly enough implies that, in spite of the 
 innocent and harmless nature of the Christian gather- 
 ings, they were as a matter of fact regarded as a factio 
 ilUcita. In another passage he asserts this explicitly : 
 " forte in senatus consulta et in principum mandata 
 coitionibus oppositadelinquimus." ^"^ But it is not only 
 on the general harmlessness of the Christian meetings, 
 and on the innocence of their feasts, which, as he says, 
 " de nomine rationem sui ostendunt," that Tertullian 
 bases his defence of the Christian communities. The 
 " Apologeticus " was written very shortly after the 
 rescript of Severus, by which the formation of collegia 
 tenuiorum was allowed generally throughout the pro- 
 vinces, and there seems to be no doubt that Tertullian 
 attempted to take advantage of this rescript and to 
 vindicate the meetings of the Christians as a " collegium 
 tenuiorum." After saying that the meetings were 
 presided over by " probati quique seniores," he goes on : 
 " etiam si quod arcae genus est, non de honoraria summa 
 quasi redemptae religionis congregatur : modicam 
 unusquisque stipem menstrua die vel cum velit et si 
 modo velit et si modo possit apponit : nam nemo 
 compellitur sed sponte confert. . . . Nam inde non 
 epulis nee potaculis nee ingratis voratrinis dispensatur, 
 sed egenis alendis humandisque et pueris ac puellis re ac 
 parentibus destitutis," etc.^^ There are so many tech- 
 nical terms here, such as area, honoraria summa, slips, 
 menstrua die, and so much similarity to the words in the 
 " Digest " already cited, that we have really no alterna- 
 tive but to suppose that Tertullian is referring to the 
 rescript in question. The Christians, in his view, had 
 the right to be regarded as " licitae factiones," because 
 their objects were the same, though with less admixture 
 of luxury and social enjoyment, as those of the collegia 
 tenuiorum. Nor does there seem any reason to suppose 
 
 92 Tert. Adv. Psychicos, 13. 93 Tert. Apol 39. 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN ITS RELATION TO COLLEGIA I47 
 
 that such a claim on the part of the Christian communities 
 to be regarded as in the eye of the law a " collegium 
 tenuiorum " would be disallowed by the authorities. 
 Such a recognition would not in the slightest degree 
 affect the general relations of the Christians and the 
 government : it was no recognition of Christians and 
 Christianity. In all probability the Christians would 
 describe themselves as " fratres cultores dei," ®* or in 
 some such way : at any rate the designation of Chris- 
 Hani, in face of the name being a punishable offence, 
 would be avoided. And therefore their position as a 
 recognized or tolerated collegium would in no way pre- 
 vent persecution " for the name " or accusation under 
 the law of maiestas.^^ It would merely give the various 
 Christian communities a certain locus standi for their 
 ordinary meetings ; it would facilitate their combination 
 for charitable purposes, making it more possible for them 
 to approximate, without the suspicion of dangerous or 
 anti-social communism, to their principle of having all 
 things in common (" omnia indiscreta sunt apud 
 nos " ^^) ; and finally it would secure to them the right 
 of common burial, and the possibility of possessing 
 common burial-places, which the vast system of the 
 
 94 Cf. C. I. L. viii. 9585. Tert. ApoL 39 : " Quod fratrum 
 appellatione censemur." Just. Apol. i. 65 : ^tI rods Xeyo/x^vovs 
 aS€\4)o6s. De Rossi, Rom softer, i. 105 ; Liebenam, p. 273, 
 See also Acts xv. 23 and 36, xxi. 7 and 18, xxviii. 14. Min. FeL 
 Oct. 31 : " Sic nos . . . fratres vocamus ut unius dei parentis 
 homines." 
 
 95 So it is quite a mistake to suppose that Gallienus in desisting 
 from the persecution set on foot by Valerian acknowledged Chris- 
 tianity as a " licita religo." All that he did was to restore to the 
 Christian communities the possession of their burial-grounds 
 (Euseb. H. E. vii. 13, 3), which had been taken away by his 
 predecessor {H. E. vii. 11, 10). Naturally, in times of persecution 
 even licita collegia would not be safe from interference if they 
 were known to consist of Christians, and at times apparently the 
 popular hatred of the Christians, instead of expressing itself by 
 the cry " Christianos ad leones," substituted that of " areae non 
 sint." Tertull. ad Scap. iii. 2 : " Sub Hilariano praeside cum 
 de areis sepulturarum nostrarum adclamassent : Areae non sint." 
 
 96 Tert. Apol. 39. 
 
148 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 Catacombs round Rome proves to have been so essential 
 an element of early Christianity. Indeed, the undoubted 
 possession by the Christians at the end of the second 
 century of areae or coemeteria of their own seems neces- 
 sarily to imply that in some way or other they had 
 corporate rights, that their communities ranked as 
 juristic persons — a result which could only follow from 
 their being generally or specially licensed. 
 
 It was M. Aurelius who first granted these corporate 
 rights to licensed collegia. Thus they had the right of 
 manumitting slaves,^^ and of receiving legacies, ®® and no 
 doubt, either then or little later, of owning land.^® From 
 the first the Christians, like the Jewish communities at 
 Rome, would if possible be buried together, but this 
 would only be possible if the richer among them who 
 owned burial-places of their own allowed members of the 
 sect to be buried there too along with their own families. 
 Thus it is proved by inscriptions that Flavia Domitilla 
 owned land which was used as an early Christian burial- 
 place,^^^ and in which there were in later times extensive 
 catacombs. There is similar evidence to support the 
 view that the Acilii Glabriones owned a burial-place in 
 which Christians were buried together ,^°^ while smaller 
 
 »7 Dig. xl. 3, I : " Divus Marcus omnibus coUegiis quibus 
 coeundi ius est manumittendi potestatem dedit." 
 
 ^8 Dig. xxxiv. 5, 20. 
 
 ^ Cf. Dig. iii. 4, I : " Quibus autem permissum est corpus 
 habere collegii societatisve sive cuiusque alterius eorum nomine, 
 proprium est ad exemplum reipublicae habere res communes, 
 arcam communem," etc. 
 
 100 Lightfoot, Clement, i. 35 foil. ; De Rossi, Rom. softer, i. 
 306, ii. 280 and 360 ; C. I. L. vi. 948, 8942, 16246. See also De 
 Rossi, Bullet, di Archeol. cristian. 1865, pp. 17 foil., 33 foil., 41 
 foil., 84 foil. ; 1874, pp. 5 foil., 68 foil., 122 foil. ; 1875, pp. 5 foil., 
 46 foil. ; 1877, pp. 128 foil., etc. From De Rossi's investigation 
 it seems that the " coemeterium Domitillae" is to be identified 
 with the Catacombs of the Tor Marancia near the Ardeatine 
 Way. A plot of ground was granted to P. Calvisius Philotas 
 " ex indulgentia -Flaviae Domitillae." A tablet is put up to 
 herself and her f reed-people by Tatia " nutrix septem liberorum 
 Divi Vespasiani atque Flaviae Domitillae Vespasiani neptis " on 
 land belonging to Flavia Domitilla. 
 
 101 See De Rossi, cited by Ramsay, p. 262. 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN ITS RELATION TO COLLEGIA I49 
 
 family burial-places limited to Christian members 
 of the familia are also exemplifications of the same 
 tendency."^ 
 
 No doubt, one of the first uses which the Christians 
 would make of their de facto recognition as collegia 
 tenuiorum, would be the purchase of ground for burial- 
 places. It is not material to our present subject to 
 decide at what date this took place. We know that 
 Pope Zephyrinus, at about 199 a.d., put Callistus over 
 the cemetery at Rome, i.e. probably made him curator of 
 it ;^^^ and Neumann ^'^^ has inferred partly from this that 
 Pope Victor was the first to register the Christian 
 communities at Rome as collegia funeraticia. His 
 argument seems to me far from convincing. The general 
 licence given to collegia of this kind in Rome dates 
 back at least as far as to Hadrian's reign, and if we find 
 the African Christians within a very few years of its 
 extension to the provinces by Severus taking advantage 
 of it, we may surely suppose with some reason that the 
 Roman Christians had long since set the example of doing 
 this. 
 
 However this may be, the organization of the Christian 
 communities as collegium tenuiorum or funeraticia, and 
 their recognition as such by the state would only 
 remove, as has already been shown, one particular 
 ground on the score of which they might have been 
 interfered with — an interference which, however fre- 
 quent, could never have been described as religious 
 persecution on the part of the state. It would, how- 
 ever, give a certain protection and sanction perhaps to 
 the Christian meetings, certainly to the Christian burial- 
 places, which might probably remain unviolated and 
 
 102 De Rossi, Rom. softer, cristian. i. 109 : " M. Antonius Resti- 
 tutus fecit ypogen sibi et suis fidentibus in Domino." Also 
 Bullet, di Archeol. cristian. 1865, p. 54: " Monumentum Valeri 
 Mercuri et lulittes luliani et Quintilies Verecundes libertis 
 libertabusque posterisque eorum ad religionem pertinentes 
 meam." 
 
 103 Hippolyt. Haer. ix. 12 : ^ue^' od (Victor) Koi/Mr](np Zetpvplvos 
 TovTOv fierayayuy aub toO 'Avdeiov is to KOLixrjTrjpiov KaT^aTTjcrev. 
 
 104 p. 108. 
 
150 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 secure to them in any but a general and systematic 
 persecution. But when this has been said, all has been 
 said : there was nothing in the partial recognition by 
 the state which would in any way exempt or help to 
 exempt the Christians from whatever measure of perse- 
 cution they were subject to from the Roman government 
 on more general grounds, as a^eoi, as rei maiestatis, 
 or as hoies publica. 
 
X 
 
 Two " Acta Martyrum " 
 
 It was one of the causes of Pliny's hesitation in Bithynia 
 that he had never been present at any of the " cogni- 
 tiones de Chris tianis." Our knowledge of the Christian 
 question suffers from the same cause. If we only had 
 accounts of one or two Christian trials similar to those 
 given by Tacitus of the cases of Piso ^ and Libo Drusus,^ 
 or by Pliny of those of Marius Prisons ^ or Caecilius 
 Classicus,* we should be in a position to form much 
 clearer ideas of the relations between the Christians and 
 the government. Still there are two documents which 
 at least deserve to be mentioned in this connexion, and 
 which, so far as they go, give some kind of confirmation 
 to the views which have been expressed above. In all 
 cases, civil and criminal, both at Rome and in the 
 provinces, official protocols were made of the cases which 
 came before the judicial magistrates. Instances of such 
 protocols or " Acta " in civil cases are found in the 
 ** Digest " in reference to a case tried before a pro- 
 curator 5 and to a case in the emperor's court,^ while 
 the general rule is stated in the Justinian code from an 
 edict of 194 A.D. : 7 " Is ad quem res agitur acta publica 
 tam criminalia quam civilia exhiberi inspicienda ad 
 investigandam veritatis fidem iubebit." That this rule 
 was extended to such trials as those of the Christians we 
 
 ^ Tac. Ann. iii. 10-18. 2 Xac. Ann. ii. 27-33. 
 
 3 Plin. Ep. ii. II. * Plin. Ep. iii. 9. 
 
 5 Dig. xxvi. 8, 21. 6 j)ig^ xxviii. 4, 3. 
 "^ Cod. Just. ii. 1,2. 
 
152 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORV 
 
 have positive evidence. Dionysius of Alexandria gives 
 an account drawn from such official " Acta " of a 
 Christian trial under Valerian before the praefectus 
 Aegypti ; » and Cyprian's profession of faith was read 
 by his disciples in the " Acta Proconsulis " : " Quid 
 nos discipuli secuti apud praesidem dicere deberemus 
 prior apud acta proconsulis pronuntiasti." » That the 
 Christians, in cases where they had no opportunity of 
 themselves taking notes at the trials of their martyrs, 
 would gladly avail themselves of these official protocols, 
 is what we should naturally expect ; and, as a matter 
 of fact, many instances, according to Professor Ramsay, ^^ 
 are recorded in which they purchased from the clerks 
 {commentarienses) copies of the official shorthand reports 
 of the proceedings. That there was a collection of 
 such accounts before the time of Eusebius we know 
 from several passages of his ** Ecclesiastical History." ^i 
 In the course of time these authentic " Acta " developed 
 or degenerated into the kind of legend with which such 
 collections as that of Ruinart make us familiar. Miracu- 
 lous incidents of all kinds were added, and in most cases 
 almost every trace of the original account is lost, though 
 Le Blant and Ramsay have shown that careful criticism 
 may occasionally detect a substratum of authentic fact. 
 In striking contrast to these miraculous legends are two 
 documents to which attention has recently been called, 
 and which, by the absence of miraculous features and 
 of exaggeration generally, as well as by their consistency 
 with what we know of the period, seem to be early, if 
 not contemporary, records of Christian trials. 
 
 Both of them relate to the reign of Commodus : one 
 of them to the trial of the martyrs of Scili, in Numidia, 
 under the proconsul Saturninus in i8i a.d., the other to 
 the trial of ApoUonius in Rome between 180-184 a.d. 
 
 8 Euseb. H. E. vii. 11,5: avrCsv bk iiraKOvaare tQv utt' afKporipoty 
 \€x&^vT(j)v u)s vTre/nvrjfxarla-dT]. 
 
 ^ Cyprian, Ep. ]x^vu. 2, p. 834. 
 
 10 p. 330. 
 
 11 Euseb. H. E. iv. 15, 47 : rots tQv ^.pxaiwv ffwax6ei<rtv fxaprvplois. 
 V. 4, 3 : rbv iv T^ drj\u6elay ypaipfj tup fiapHpuv KardXoyov. v. 2i, 5 : 
 iK TTJv Twv dpxaluv fiapTvpiuv ffvvaxBelarjs r)fuv dp ay pa(prjs. 
 
TWO **ACTA MARTYRUM 153 
 
 The " Acta " of the African martyrs were discovered 
 in Greek, probably translated from an original Latin 
 account, 12 in a Parisian MS. of the tenth century, ^^ and 
 may profitably be compared with the later version of 
 the martyrdom given in Ruinart.^* The trial took 
 place before Saturninus, the proconsul, in the ^ovXevTrj- 
 piov at Carthage. The proconsul said to them : " Ye can 
 find indulgence with our emperor, if ye call to your aid 
 a prudent consideration." ^^ x^e holy Speratus an- 
 swered and said : " We have never injured nor cursed 
 any man : nay, we rather give thanks if any entreat us 
 evil, for we serve our Lord and King." The proconsul 
 said : " But we also worship God, and our worship is 
 simple. We swear by the genius of our lord the 
 emperor, and we pray for his safety. Ye must do the 
 same likewise." The holy Speratus answered : " If ye 
 will vouchsafe us a favourable hearing, I will reveal to 
 you the mystery of true simplicity." The proconsul 
 said : ** So soon as you utter any word disrespectful to 
 our worship I will allow you no further hearing. Swear 
 rather by the safety of our lord the emperor." The 
 holy Speratus answered : "I recognize not the kingdom 
 of this present world. I praise my God and serve him, 
 whom no man hath seen, for that is impossible to the eye 
 of flesh. Robbery have I never committed. Con- 
 trariwise, in all my business I render the tax due, for I 
 recognize our Lord the King of kings and the Ruler over 
 all peoples." The proconsul said to the others : " Abjure 
 the faith which this man hath professed." The holy 
 Speratus answered : "To commit murder and to bear 
 false witness is a dangerous persuasion." The proconsul 
 said : " Take no part in such folly and obstinacy." The 
 holy Cittinus took up the word and said : " There is 
 
 12 They are published by Usener — Acta Martyrum Scilitano- 
 Yum Graece edita, Bonn, 1881 — who points out such expressions 
 as tn.davbr'q^ = persuasio and Siafxetvai iropedofj-ai = per sever a- 
 tum eo as indicating a Latin original. 
 
 13 Cod. Par. Graec, No. 1470. 
 1* pp. 84-89. 
 
 1^ ikv a'ib(f>pova XoyiafMov avaKoXiarjade. 
 
154 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 no one whom we can fear save the Lord our God, who 
 dwells in heaven." The holy Donata said : " We give 
 honour to the emperor as the emperor, but fear we render 
 to our God." The holy Hestia said : " I am a Christian." 
 The holy Secunda added : " What I am, that will I also 
 remain." Then said the proconsul to the holy Speratus : 
 " Dost thou likewise continue a Christian ? " The holy 
 Speratus said : " I am a Christian." Likewise also 
 said all the other holy ones. The proconsul said : 
 " Will ye not have a space for reflection ? " The holy 
 Speratus said : " In a matter so approved le there is no 
 dehberation and no reflection." The proconsul said : 
 " What books have you in your satchel ? "^^ The holy 
 Speratus said : " Our holy writings and the letters also 
 of the holy man Paul." The proconsul said : "Ye shall 
 have a space of thirty days, if so be ye may perchance 
 come to reason." The holy Speratus answered thereto : 
 " I am unchangeably is a Christian." The others also 
 with one voice affirmed the same thing. Then the 
 proconsul Saturninus pronounced judgment over them 
 in the following way : ** Inasmuch as Speratus, Mart- 
 zallus, Cittinus, Donata, Hestia and Secunda, as well as 
 the others who have not appeared before us, have 
 professed that they live according to the Christian mode 
 of Hfe, and inasmuch as they remain obstinate in their 
 resolution, notwithstanding that a space was allowed 
 them in which to return to the Roman worship, we give 
 orders that they be executed with the sword." ^^ 
 
 There is no sign in this account of any departure from 
 the principles of Trajan's rescript. If M. Aurelius in- 
 augurated a severer course, Saturninus at any rate did 
 not carry it out. He clearly had not hunted out the 
 Christians who were brought before him ; he not only 
 
 16 iyKplrip. 
 
 17 TTolai irpayfiaTelai iv toIs vfxeT^pois dirdKeivTai (TKeveaiv. No 
 doubt the question points to a suspicion of magic. 
 
 18 afJ-erddeTOi. 
 
 19 fj^ov "ZirepaTou K. t. X. 6<Toi r<^ XpiaTiaviKip deafx.^ eavrods Kareinjy' 
 yeiXavTO iroXiTeveadat. irrtl Kai xapt<r^ef(r7js avrois trpodeaiiLas rod irpbs 
 TTfv Tuy ^PwficUcjv iiraveXde'iv Trapd8o<riu axXiveiS ttji/ yvufnjv die/xeivap, 
 |f0€t ToiTovi dvaipcdrjvat. deSUaKa. 
 
TWO " ACTA MARTYRUM 155 
 
 offers pardon on condition of recantation, even pressing 
 on them a delay of thirty days, but he goes so far as to 
 dispense with the test of actual sacrifice to the emperor, 
 if the accused would only swear by his genius. On the 
 other hand the Christians are punished for the name, in 
 consequence of their obstinate profession of it (dKAtrcts 
 TTjv yviofjirjv), their disobedient refusal to return to the 
 Roman cult, and their refusal to recognize the authority 
 of the kingdom of this world in rehgious concerns. 20 
 There is no question of maiestas ; no mention of any 
 charge of immorality ; if any suspicion of magic is 
 implied,^^ no stress is laid on any such charge, and the 
 whole trial is evidently summary and informal, the 
 number of questions asked being solely due to the anxiety 
 of the proconsul to avoid, if possible, extreme measures. 
 The other document, if anything a still more interest- 
 ing one, is an account — probably the original " Acta " — 
 of the trial of ApoUonius in Rome. This martyrdom is, 
 as is well known, mentioned by Eusebius,^^ who states 
 that an accuser, stirred up by the devil, caused Apol- 
 lonius to be brought before Perennis ; that Perennis, 
 after ordering the informer to be executed, requested 
 ApoUonius to give an account of himself before the 
 senate,^^ and that the martyr, after giving a reasonable 
 account of his faith before that body, was beheaded, 
 wo-ai/ aTTo SoyfjiaTo^ crvyKkriTov, since an old precedent had 
 been established that Christians who were once brought 
 to trial could be released in no other way than by giving 
 up their profession.^* Eusebius adds that any one who 
 wishes to know what the martyr said and what he 
 answered to the questions of Perennis, and his whole 
 
 ^ iyd} TT]v ^a<n\elav tov vvv aliovos oi yivdiaKW. 
 
 21 Seep. 154, note 17. 
 
 22 Euseb. i/. £. V. 21. 
 
 23 5 5^ -ye deo(/)i\4(rTaTOi /xaprvs, iroWa Xirapws iKerexxravTo^ tov 
 diKaarov Kal \6you avrbv iirl ttjs avyK\f}Tov ^ovXiji alr'^ffavTos, XoyturrdTTjv 
 i/T^p •^s ifiapTvpet TriVrews iri iravriav irapa<TX<^'' airoKoyiav KC^aXiKy 
 KoXdffet (Ixrhv airb d6yfj,aT0S crvyKXifiTov reXeioOrat. 
 
 2* /^rjS' dXXojs aKpetadai toi)s &7rai els diKaarripLOv wapcSuras Kal /jLTjSafiQs 
 TTJs irpod^aeus /xeTa^aXXofji^vovs dpxo-l-ov Trap' a^oTols pSfiov kck parr] kotos. 
 
156 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 apology before the senate, can learn it cV tu>i/ d/);^atwi/ 
 
 fiapTvpioiv (rvvax6€i(Trj<: rjfjuv av ay pa<f>rj<s. The document 
 
 thus referred to has almost certainly been dis- 
 covered in an Armenian version, belonging to the fifth 
 century, of a Greek original, by Mr. F. C. Conybeare, 
 " in a repertory of Martyrdoms published by the Mechi- 
 tarists of Venice in 1874." Mr. Conybeare has published 
 in the Guardian for June 21, 1893, an English translation 
 of the " Acta," while Professor Harnack has since 
 published a German translation by Herr Burchardi, with 
 a commentary of his own in the " Sitzungsbericht der 
 koniglich Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften 
 zu Berlin," xxxvii. 1893. 
 
 After a brief introduction, probably by Eusebius, the 
 " Acta " begin abruptly, the first portion being lost. 
 Perennis, the prefect, commanded that he should be 
 brought before the senate, and said to him : " O Apol- 
 lonius, wherefore dost thou resist the invincible law and 
 decree of the emperors, 25 and dost refuse to sacrifice to 
 the gods ? " Apollonius said : " Because I am a 
 Christian ; ^a therefore I fear God, who made heaven and 
 earth, and sacrifice not to empty idols." The prefect 
 said : " But thou oughtest to repent of this mind of 
 thine, because of the edicts of the emperors, 27 and take 
 oath by the good fortune of the autocrat Commodus." 
 Apollonius replied : " ... it is best to swear not at 
 all, but in all things to live in peace and truth ; for a 
 great oath is the truth, and for this reason is it a bad and 
 an ill thing to swear by Christ, but because of falsehood 
 is there disbelief, and because of disbelief there is swear- 
 ing. I am willing to swear in truth by the true God that 
 we, too, love the emperor and offer up prayers for his 
 majesty." The prefect said : " Come then and sacrifice 
 
 25 This need imply no more than the de facto procedure which 
 we have seen was pursued in such cases, and which no doubt 
 rested on rescripts from different emperors. 
 
 26 Cf. Phn. ad Trai, 96, 5 : " Quorum nihil posse cogi dicuntur 
 qui sunt re vera Christiani." 
 
 27 Cf. Trajan's words : " Qui negaverit se Christianum esse 
 idque re ipsa manifestum fecerit, id est suppUcando deis nostris." 
 
TWO " ACTA MARTYRUM " l$y 
 
 to Apollo 28 and to the other gods and to the emperor's 
 image." ApoUonius said : " As to my change of mind 
 and as to the oath, I have given their answer ; but as to 
 sacrifices, I and all Christians offer a bloodless sacrifice 
 to God. . . . Wherefore according to the command of 
 the God-given precept, we make our prayers to Him who 
 dwells in heaven, who is the only God, that men may be 
 justly ruled upon this earth, knowing for certain that he, 
 your emperor, also is established, not through any one 
 else, but only through the one King, God, who holds 
 every one in His hand." The prefect said : " Surely thou 
 wast not summoned hither to talk philosophy. I will 
 give thee one day's respite that thou mayest consider 
 thine interest and advise thyself concerning thy life." 
 And he ordered him to be taken to prison. After three 
 days he ordered him to be brought forward and said to 
 him : " What counsel hast thou found for thyself ? " 
 ApoUonius answered : "To remain firm in my religion 
 as I told thee before." The prefect said : " Because of 
 the edict of the senate 29 I advise thee to repent and to 
 sacrifice to the gods to whom all the earth gives homage 
 and sacrifices, for it is far better for thee to live among 
 us than to die a miserable death. Methinks thou art 
 not unacquainted with the edict of the senate." Apol- 
 lonius said : "I know the command of the Omnipotent 
 God, and I remain firm in my religion, 3o and I do no 
 homage to idols made with hands. ..." The prefect 
 answered : " You have philosophised enough and filled 
 us with admiration ; but dost thou not know this, O 
 ApoUonius, that it is the command of the senate that no 
 one shall anywhere be named a Christian ? " 31 Apol- 
 
 28 Probably, as Harnack suggests, the senate was held in the 
 temple of Apollo on the Palatine. 
 
 29 The edict of the senate was probably a resolution that Apol- 
 lonius should be treated in the same way as other Christians were. 
 
 30 ApoUonius manifests the same ohstinatio as that displayed 
 by the Bithynian Christians, which Pliny considered to be 
 deserving of death. 
 
 31 i.e. the senate sanctioned, in this particular case of a member 
 of their own body, the course usually pursued, that the nomen 
 or profession of Christianity was punishable with death. 
 
158 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 lonius answered : " Ay, but it is not possible for a 
 human statute of the senate to prevail over the command 
 of God. ..." The prefect said : " Art thou bent 
 upon death ? . . . I would fain let thee go, but I 
 cannot, because of the command of the senate, 32 and yet 
 with benevolence I pronounce sentence on thee." And 
 he ordered him to be beheaded with a sword. Apol- 
 lonius said : " I thank my God for thy sentence." And 
 the executioners straightway led him away and beheaded 
 him. 
 
 There are several points which are unusual about this 
 trial. In the first place the accused is brought before 
 the court, not of the praefectus urbi, as Ptolemaeus and 
 his companions were under Pius, and as Justin was under 
 M. Aurelius, but of the praefectus praetorio. This, how- 
 ever, is sufficiently explained by the exceptional position 
 of Perennis, who occupied under Commodus a position 
 similar to that of Sejanus under Tiberius. There was at 
 no time a very distinct line separating the judicial sphere 
 of the praefectus urbi and the praefecti praetorio, and as 
 the latter became more and more civil rather than 
 military functionaries, their court, even in ordinary 
 circumstances, came to encroach upon and to over- 
 shadow that of the senatorial praefectus. 
 
 A more difficult problem is the part taken in the trial 
 by the senate. Apollonius was clearly first brought 
 before Perennis, evidently because the crime of Chris- 
 tianity was one for the police administration to deal 
 with. Perennis, however, insists that the accused 
 should give an account of himself before the senate. 
 But this by no means meant that the senate was to try 
 the case. This is conclusively proved against Neumann 
 in two ways : (i) by the fact that even in the senate it 
 is Perennis — though not a senator, and strictly having 
 no right to be present in the senate at all, except as an 
 escort to the emperor — who puts the questions and 
 conducts the examination ; (2) after the reprieve of 
 
 32 The motive of Perennis in putting the matter in this light 
 is obvious. 
 
TWO " ACTA MARTYRUM ' I59 
 
 three days, Apollonius was brought, as Harnack very 
 clearly shows, ^^ not before the senate again, but before 
 Perennis, who passes sentence upon him. We therefore 
 have no instance here, as Neumann thinks, of a Christian 
 trial before the senate. The expressions of Eusebius, 
 
 warav aiTo 8oy^laTOs avyKkriTOV and CTrt rov St/cacTTOv, were 
 
 in themselves against this view, and the " Acta " 
 clearly show it to be wrong. What then was the part 
 which the senate took ? and what was the cause of its 
 exceptional interference ? The answer, it seems to me, 
 can only be that Apollonius was a senator. Eusebius 
 does not say so : but he tells us that about this time 
 several persons in Rome conspicuous by wealth and 
 birth became Christians. 3* There had clearly been 
 Christian senators when Tertullian wrote the 
 " Apology," ^^ and he had been in Rome under Com- 
 modus ; and Hieronymus 36 describes Apollonius as 
 " Romanae urbis senator " — a statement which, whether 
 due to evidence independent of Eusebius, or to an 
 inference from his account, as Harnack thinks, is not 
 without its weight. Professor Harnack is inclined to 
 give up the view that Apollonius was a senator, appar- 
 ently on three grounds : (i) neither Eusebius nor the 
 " Acta " speak of him as one ; (2) he was not tried by 
 the senate, but by Perennis ; (3) his appearance before 
 the senate is quite well explained by the following passage 
 from Mommsen's " Staatsrecht " : 37 " Wenn in der 
 Stadt die capitale Coercition in Fallen von politischer 
 Wichtigkeit zur Anwendung kam, ist dabei wohl regel- 
 massig der Senat hinzugezogen worden. Dasselbe 
 geschieht bei ausserordentlicher Gefahrdung der offent- 
 
 33 ( I ) Whereas on the first day, the prefect based his action on 
 the edicts of the emperors, he on the second hearing mentions 
 only the resolution of the senate. (2) The way in which Perennis 
 refers to the senate makes it impossible that the proceedings 
 were still in the presence of that body. (3) A philosopher inter- 
 poses a remark : which might happen in the prefect's court, but 
 was hardly possible in the senate, where non-senators were not 
 admitted. 
 
 34 Euseb. H.E.^T.2l,l. 35 Apol. ^7. 
 
 36 De Vir. illust. c. 42. 37 Staatsr. ill. 1066. 
 
l60 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 lichen Sicherheit, namentlich bei weit und insbesondere 
 iiber die Biirgerschaft hinaus sich verzweigenden 
 Verbrechen, also bei religiosen Associationen mit crimi- 
 nellen Tendenzen, bei den Gruppen verbrechen der 
 Giftmischerei, der Brandstiftung u. s. w. Das fiir diese 
 Judication erforderliche Imperium kann der Senat nicht 
 verleihen, wohl aber die ihm zustehende Einwirkung auf 
 die effective Competenz der Imperientrager in der 
 Weise ausiiben, dass er einen Consul oder einen Prator 
 mit der Handhabung dieser Criminal j us tiz beauftragt. 
 In Folge eines derartigen Auftrags richtet der betreffende 
 Magistrat, je nach Umstanden mit Zuziehung eines 
 Consilium : der Senat selber fungirt auch in diesem Fall 
 niemals als Gerichtshof." 
 
 Of these reasons the first alone seems to me to have 
 any force, and, as Professor Harnack himself allows, it 
 is not conclusive, even apart from the possibility that 
 Apollonius is described as a senator in the lost beginning 
 of the " Acta." The second reason proves nothing. 
 Senators were by no means invariably tried by the 
 senate, except perhaps in the reign of Tiberius. Apol- 
 lonius, if a senator, would much more naturally have 
 been tried, as no doubt Flavins Clemens and Acilius 
 Glabrio were, by the emperor himself. But Commodus, 
 as we learn expressly from Dio Cassius, neglected all the 
 duties of his position, and Perennis was compelled to 
 administer, not only military affairs, but all other 
 matters as well, and, in fact, to act as vice-emperor, ^s 
 This by itself seems a sufficient explanation why a 
 senator, accused of being a Christian, should come before 
 Perennis rather than the praefectus urbi. With regard 
 to the passage quoted from Mommsen, it is enough to 
 say that it has reference solely to republican times, and 
 is quite inappropriate even to the first century of the 
 empire, and still more to the second. 
 
 On the other hand, the hypothesis that Apollonius was 
 a senator enables us to suggest a consistent account of 
 
 38 Dio Cass. Ixxvii. 9 : rod Ko/xfx68ov . . . ruiv tti apxv irpocr-qKdvT^av 
 oi>hkv w5 direlv TrpdrrovTos 6 Uepivvios 7}vayKd^€T0 ovx Sti t4 arpaTiuTiKd. 
 
TWO " ACTA MARTYRUM " l6l 
 
 what really happened. ApoUonius, a senator, was 
 accused by an informer — perhaps, as Hieronymus states, 
 by one of his own slaves — of being a Christian. An 
 ordinary Christian would have been tried by the prae- 
 fectus urbi, a senator naturally by the emperor. Corn- 
 modus, however, delegated all such duties to Perennis, 
 and accordingly before Perennis the accused was brought. 
 The prefect, in these somewhat exceptional circum- 
 stances, may naturally have desired to relieve himself 
 of some of the responsibility of putting a senator to death, 
 especially as at the beginning of his reign the emperor, 
 perhaps, with a rather bad grace, made some show of 
 deference to the senate's authority, ^^ and he accordingly 
 not only allowed but ordered ApoUonius to make a 
 statement to him in the presence of the senate, and 
 induced the senate to pass a resolution that the ordinary 
 course of procedure was to be observed in this case, viz, 
 that pardon could only be secured by retractation, ^o 
 Armed with this semi-ofhcial authority,^^ Perennis 
 resumed the trial in his own court, and as ApoUonius 
 persisted in his profession of Christianity and refused to 
 worship the emperor, he was condemned to death, the 
 only concession made to his senatorial rank being that 
 he was beheaded instead of being exposed to wild 
 beasts. ^^ For the rest it is sufficient to point out (i) 
 
 39 Schiller, Gesch. der rom. Kaiser z. i. 66t,. 
 
 *o This seems the best explanation of the words /atjS' dcpeladai 
 AXXojs roi>s aTra^ eh bt-Kaar-qpiov irapidvras kox iJ.7]8afj.ojs ttjs Trpodeaeus 
 /xera^aXKofi^uovs dpX(^tov tto/d' avroTs vofxov KeKparriKOTos ; cf. Hieronym. 
 ad loc. cit. : " veteri apud eos obtinente lege absque negatione non 
 dimitti Christianos." 
 
 41 This seems to give exactly the force required by ihaav iirb 
 hbyixaros avyKXrjTov. 
 
 42 Professor Harnack gives a different explanation. He sup- 
 poses that the favourable attitude of Commodus towards the 
 Christians under the influence of Marcia had already cc^imenced ; 
 that it was with reluctance that the information of the slave 
 was received ; that Perennis was expected by the emperor to 
 bring the matter to a favourable termination ; that he sought 
 to do this by inducing the senate to pass a resolution exempting 
 ApoUonius from the consequences of his obstinacy, and that it 
 was only because he failed in this that he passed sentence on the 
 accused, to whom he showed his favourable attitude by a lighter 
 
l62 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 that ApoUonius was not sought out, but accused ; 
 (2) that it was the mere profession of Christianity apart 
 from any more specific charge which was laid against 
 him, (3) that the worship of the emperor was, as in other 
 cases, used as a test and sign of retractation ; (4) that 
 Perennis, no less than the provincial governors, is 
 anxious to induce this recantation, and so to avoid 
 the necessity of capital punishment. 
 
 sentence. This account leaves quite unexplained the position 
 of the senate in the matter, and probably antedates by several 
 years the more indulgent attitude of Commodus. 
 
XI 
 
 Legions in the Pannonian Rising 
 
 MoMMSEN, as is well known, holds the view ^ that after 
 Actium Augustus in his desire to get rid of the huge 
 armies of the Civil Wars, and to keep military expendi- 
 ture within the narrowest possible limits, retained only 
 eighteen legions. Of these twelve, numbered consecu- 
 tively i-xii, were probably taken from his own army, 
 the other six, two numbered 111,2 one iv,^ one v,* one 
 VI 5 and one x,^ from the armies of Lepidus and Anto- 
 nius : — an arrangement which by making xii the highest 
 number on the list and completing the total by duplicate 
 legions, might have been intended to convey the impres- 
 sion that the number of legions retained was less by one- 
 third than was actually the case. This number, eighteen, 
 Mommsen thinks, was not exceeded by Augustus during 
 by far the greater part of his principate, and was in fact 
 only increased, when the rising of the Dalmatian and 
 Pannonian tribes in 6 a.d. seemed for the moment to 
 place Italy and even Rome within measurable distance 
 of being overrun by barbarian armies.'' At this crisis 
 
 1 Res gestae divi August! 2nd ed. pp. 70-76. 
 
 2 III Augusta : iii Cyrenaica : in Gallica. 
 
 3 IV Macedonica : iv Scythica. 
 * V Alauda : v Macedonica. 
 
 ^ VI Victrix : vi Ferrata. 
 
 6 X Gemina : x Fretensis. 
 
 7 Momms. loc. cit. p. 72 " Itaque quam supra proposui coniec- 
 turam octo legiones a xiii ad xx creatas esse eo ipso anno 759 
 propter bellum Pannonicum egregie cum iis conciliatur, quae 
 de rebus per eos annos gestis, dilectibusque institutis tradita 
 accepimus." 
 
 163 
 
164 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 Augustus, if Mommsen's view is correct, suddenly rushed 
 to the other extreme, and regardless of his former policy 
 of keeping down the army, enrolled not only numerous 
 corps of freedmen called cohortes voluntariorum, but 
 no less than eight new legions, numbered xiii-xx, thus 
 at once increasing the legionary forces of the empire by 
 very nearly one half. 
 
 I think it must be admitted that so sudden and so 
 decided a change of policy, involving the addition of at 
 least 40,000 men to the legionary army, can only be 
 accepted on strong and definite evidence. In itself the 
 simultaneous creation of eight new legions seems highly 
 improbable. Certainly on no other occasion in the 
 imperial history did anything similar take place : and 
 the improbability appears by no means less, when this 
 precipitate action is contrasted with the excessive desire 
 which Augustus had hitherto, according to Mommsen, 
 manifested of making his army appear a small one : — a 
 desire which led to the apparently shallow device of 
 manipulating the legionary numbers in the way already 
 mentioned. 
 
 No doubt the crisis was a severe one : Velleius 
 Paterculus might perhaps be suspected of exaggerating 
 its severity in order to magnify the glory of his hero 
 Tiberius : but we have no reason to doubt his state- 
 ment ® that the rebel army amounted to 200,000 infantry 
 and 9,000 cavalry, while Suetonius ^ does not hesitate 
 to describe the war as ** gravissimum omnium externorum 
 bellorum post Punica." Further than this it seems 
 extremely probable from the statements of Velleius and 
 Dio Cassius that Augustus did on this occasion raise 
 some new legions. Velleius ^^ says " Quin tantus etiam 
 huius belli metus fuit, ut stabilem ilium et firmatum 
 tantorum bellorum experientia Caesaris Augusti animum 
 quateret atque terreret. Habiti itaque dilectus : 
 revocati undique et omnes veterani : viri feminaeque 
 ex censu libertinum coactae dare militem." Dio 
 
 Cassius ^ says Trc/ATrct toi/ TepixavLKov KaiVot rafjuevovTo. 
 
 8 VeU. ii. no. » Suet. Tib. 16, 
 
 10 ii. iio-iii. 11 Iv. 31. 
 
LEGIONS IN THE PANNONIAN RISING 165 
 
 (TTpartwrag oi ovk €vy€V€L<; /xovov dWa kol i^eXevOepov^ Bovs, 
 aXXovs T€ /cat ocrovs irapd re rwv dvhpC)v koL irapa. tQ)v 
 yvvaLKwv 8ovXov<i Trpos rd rt/xiy/xara avriov avv rpocfifj iKjxyjvio 
 
 Xa/3(i)v rjXevOepwa-ev. Both statements are vague, but I 
 think that prima facie they make it probable that 
 Augustus created both new legions, composed at any 
 rate partly of ctiycj/ei?, and new bodies of libertini.^^ 
 The latter supposition is confirmed by a statement of 
 Macrobius ; ^^ the former can only be confirmed, if at 
 all, by circumstantial evidence. Mommsen considers 
 that the four following considerations furnish us with 
 such evidence. 
 
 (i) All the legions of which mention is made earlier 
 than 6 a.d. belong to those numbered i-xii. Of those 
 numbered above xii, there is no trace that any existed 
 before that date, when legio xx is mentioned as serving 
 in Pannonia under Valerius Messalinus.^* 
 
 (2) A number of legions are mentioned on coins as 
 having contributed veterans to the various military 
 colonies established by Augustus in the earlier part of 
 his principate in Africa, Sicily, Macedonia, Spain, 
 Achaia, Asia, Syria, Gallia Narbonensis and Pisidia : ^^ 
 all the legions so mentioned belonging to legions i-xii, 
 those from xiii-xx being conspicuous by their absence, 
 a fact not easily explained, if they were in existence like 
 the rest from the beginning of the reign. 
 
 (3) Duplicate legions are found under the numbers iii, 
 IV, V, VI, and x — a fact best explained by supposing 
 these legions to have been taken from the armies of the 
 other triumviri — while no duplicate legion is found 
 among those numbered xiii-xx. 
 
 (4) The original eighteen legions are found distributed 
 indiscriminately over the whole empire, whereas of the 
 other eight, all, when first becoming known to us, are 
 found on the Rhine or the Danube, xvii, xviii, and xix 
 
 12 Suet. Aug. 25. 
 
 13 Sat. i. II, 33 Caesar Augustus in Germania et lUyrico 
 cohortes libertinorum complures legit, quas voluntarias appel- 
 lavit. 
 
 1* Veil. ii. 112. 15 Mon. Ancyr. v. 35-36. 
 
l66 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 in lower Germany in lo A.D. with Varus," xiii, xiv and 
 XVI in upper Germany in 14 a.d./^ xx and xv in Pannonia, 
 the former in 6-7 a.d.,^^ the latter in 14 a.d. 
 
 This view of Mommsen, supported on these arguments, 
 has been approved first by Marquardt^^ and more 
 recently by Domaszewski,^** and may be said to be 
 generally accepted. Piitzner indeed has rejected it,*^ 
 but on entirely uncritical and gratuitous grounds. ^^ C. 
 Robert has contested it, but mainly on the ground 
 that the Pannonian rising was not so formidable as 
 Velleius represents it, and that the statements referred 
 to above of Velleius and Dio Cassius point rather to the 
 strengthening of existing legions than to the creation of 
 new ones,^^ and Mommsen has successfully vindicated his 
 view in these respects.^* More recently fresh objections 
 have been raised by Patsch,^^ (i)on the general ground 
 of the improbability that Augustus would have sent 
 newly raised legions of untried soldiers to so critical a 
 campaign, (2) because Velleius distinctly describes the 
 army of Varus as " exercitus omnium fortissimus 
 disciplina manu experientiaque bellorum inter Romanos 
 milites princeps," ^^ and (3) because several inscriptions 
 relating to legio xx are found in Pannonia and Dalmatia, 
 from which the legion was confessedly removed before 
 
 16 The proofs of this will be given below. 
 
 17 Tac. Ann. iv. 5. is Veil. ii. 112. 
 
 19 Staatsverw. ii. p. 445. 
 
 20 Ibid. 2nd edition ; and West-Deutsche Zeitschrift, Korres- 
 pondenzhlatt, 1891, p. 59. 
 
 21 Gesch. der rom. Kaiserlegionen, p. 13. 
 
 22 It is extremely desirable that Pfitzner's book should be 
 recognized in England, as it is in Germany, to be thoroughly 
 untrustworthy. No statement in it can be safely accepted, 
 which is not confirmed by references, and comparatively few 
 of his statements are so confirmed. It is unfortunate that 
 Prof. Bury in his admirable history of the Empire should have 
 based almost all his statements with regard to the legions on 
 this uncritical work.. 
 
 23 Comptes rendus de VAcad&mie des Inscriptions, 1868, pp, 
 94-107. 
 
 2* Res. gest. d. Aug. 2nd ed. p. 73 note. 
 
 23 West-Deutsche Zeitschrift, 1890, p. 332 foil. 
 
 20 VeU. ii. 119. 
 
LEGIONS IN THE PANNONIAN RISING 167 
 
 14 A.D. and almost certainly in lo a.d., mentioning 
 soldiers of the legion who had served as many as 
 seventeen campaigns. ^^ 
 
 The objections however have been answered by Domas- 
 zewski ^® who points out that Augustus may probably 
 have done in this case what Claudius did in 43 a.d. on 
 the creation of duplicate legions numbered xv and xxii, 
 viz. have formed the new legions half of recruits half of 
 old soldiers taken from existing legions. ^^ Mommsen 
 himself however apparently thinks no such explanation 
 necessary, and lays stress, regardless of the passage in 
 Velleius, on the fact that the legions of Varus did consist 
 of recruits. ^° 
 
 When we turn to the four arguments on which Momm- 
 sen relies, it must be admitted that together they have 
 a certain cumulative force, which, in the absence of 
 arguments on the other side, may make his conclusion a 
 not improbable one. Still they are not impervious to 
 criticism. 
 
 (i) If it is true that none of the eight legions, xiii- 
 XX, are mentioned before 6 a.d. it is no less the case that 
 of the other eighteen at least six — iii Aug. iv Scyth. vi 
 Ferr. vii, ix Hisp. and xi — cannot be proved to have 
 existed before the end of Augustus' reign, while in the 
 case of one other — iii Cyrenaica — the inference that it 
 existed earlier is based on mere conjecture as to the 
 origin of its cognomen. ^^ 
 
 (2) The argument derived from the coins of the military 
 colonies is partly the same argument put in an other form, 
 because of the eleven legions admitted above to have 
 existed certainly in the earlier years of Augustus, legions 
 
 27 e.g. C.I.L. V. 948, iii. 7452. 
 
 28 West- Deutsche Zeitschrift, Korrespondenzhlatt, 1891, p. 59. 
 
 29 This is clearly an answer to all three objections of Patsch. 
 
 30 Res gest. d. Aug. p. 73 ' neque postrema causa cladis Vari- 
 anae haec fuit Germanos rem habuisse cum exercitu tironum. 
 
 31 Cyrenaica is taken to point to the legion having belonged 
 to Lepidus. The two legions iv and v called Macedonica are 
 supposed to have been present at the battle of Philippi. On 
 one inscription (C. /. L. iii. 551) leg. viii is called Macedonica 
 
l6S STUDIES IN ROMAN IIISTORV 
 
 I, II Aug.," IV Mac.,^^ V Alaud.,^* v Mac.,^*^ vi Victr.,^^ viii 
 Aug.,3« X Gem.,^^ x Fret.,^" and xii Fulm.,^'' in fact all but 
 III Gallica,^^ are only proved for this earlier period by 
 these coins in question. The other seven legions equally 
 with the eight of Mommsen are absent from these coins. 
 This absence, however, neither in the one case nor the 
 other proves anything as to the non-existence of the 
 legions, for it must be noted that while Augustus says 
 that he planted military colonies in ten provinces, the 
 coins adduced by Mommsen come only from four, and 
 the possibility must not be left out of account that 
 veterans from some of the legions above xii were sent to 
 colonies in Narbonensis or Africa ^^ or Macedonia. 
 
 (3) The argument that we find duplicate numbers 
 among the legions i-xii and not among the other eight 
 is to a certain extent weakened by the fact that with the 
 exception of legio x, of which there were two, all the 
 duplicate numbers occur in the first six legions, so that 
 vii, VIII, IX, XI and xii are in this respect in the same 
 position as the last eight. 
 
 (4) The argument that all these eight legions are, when 
 first heard of, on the Rhine or Danube, has undoubtedly 
 considerable force, especially when added to whatever 
 weight may be assigned to the previous arguments. 
 But here again I would point out (i) that legions xiii, 
 XIV, XV, XVI are not found on these frontiers till 14 a.d., 
 while, as it will appear below that fifteen legions were 
 concentrated in Pannonia in 6-9 A.D., there must have 
 been a considerable redistribution of legions after that 
 date, and there is nothing antecedently improbable in 
 supposing that some of these four legions may have come 
 to Pannonia from the East, and only after the rising were 
 stationed permanently in Pannonia and Germany, (2) it 
 
 32 C. I. L. ii. p. 458. 33 Eckh. i. p. 37. 
 
 3* Eckh. i. 12, C. /. L. ii. suppl, p. Ixxxviii. 
 35 Eckh. iii. p. 356. ^ C. I. L. iii. p. 95 
 
 37 This is proved to have belonged toAntonius by Tac. Hist. 
 iii. 24. 
 
 38 An inscription C. I. L. viii. 8837 proves that veterans of 
 legio vn were settled at Thubuscum in Africa. 
 
LEGIONS IN THE PANNONIAN RISING 169 
 
 is not altogether safe to draw conclusions from consecu- 
 tive legions being found in one or two provinces, for in 
 14 A. D., legions iv, v, vi, vii, viii, ix, x, xi ^^ are all found 
 either in the Danube provinces or in Tarraconensis — a 
 fact which I think may fairly be placed side by side with 
 the fact that, probably in 6-9 a.d., certainly in 14 a.d., 
 legions xiii-xx were on the Rhine and Danube. 
 
 I cannot help thinking that these considerations 
 detract something from the probability which is all that 
 Mommsen claims for his arguments,^" while in what 
 follows I shall attempt to show that apart from these 
 particular objections, there are other considerations, 
 based on facts which Mommsen himself admits, which 
 make it almost necessary to assume that the army before 
 the Pannonian rising must have numbered at least 22 
 legions. 
 
 To state the conclusion in advance which I shall 
 attempt to establish, I should accept half of Mommsen's 
 theory. I think the evidence of Velleius and Dio Cassius 
 and the critical nature of the Pannonian rising make it 
 probable that a certain number of new legions were 
 enrolled at this time. These new legions however were 
 not eight in number but four ; and so legions i-xvi, 
 which including the duplicate legions amounted to 22, 
 existed before the rising, and only legions xvii-xx were 
 raised at this time, the first three by Augustus himself in 
 Italy, the last by Tiberius in Pannonia. In favour of 
 this view I shall adduce (i) the improbability of such an 
 unparalleled increase in the number of legions when 
 viewed in relation to the general policy of Augustus, 
 
 (2) certain considerations which seem to put legions 
 xiii-xvi in a different category from the other four, 
 
 (3) a review of the imperial armies before the rising, by 
 which it will be seen that the number eighteen is not 
 large enough to satisfy the requirements of the case, 
 and (4) a consideration and reconciliation of four passages 
 
 39 IV, VI and x were in Spain : v in Moesia, vii and xi in 
 Dalmatia : and viii and ix in Pannonia. 
 
 40 Loc. cit. p. 73 note 'Haec quae proposui etsi coniecturarum 
 terminos non ecedere probe scio.' 
 
170 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 from Tacitus, Velleius and Suetonius regarding the 
 number of legions under the command of Tiberius at 
 this time 
 
 (i) With regard to the general improbability, I will 
 add no more to what I have said. Strong and definite 
 evidence would of course more than cancel this con- 
 sideration, but Mommsen's four arguments do not 
 amount to this, and I think are outweighed by it. It is 
 perhaps not out of place to mention here that in any 
 case the original number of legions could hardly have 
 been the symmetrical eighteen which Mommsen supposes. 
 For in the year 16 B.C. we learn from Velleius that M. 
 LoUius suffered a defeat in Germany and that the eagle 
 of a legio v was lost.'*^ It has usually been assumed that 
 this was the legio v Alauda, which we know to have 
 been in Lower Germany between 14 and 69 a.d. But 
 Domaszewski rightly points out *^ that from all our 
 evidence the annihilation of a legion or the loss of its 
 eagle, the latter being involved in the former, was always 
 followed by the disbanding and disappearance of the 
 legion. The three Varian legions xvii-xix were never 
 replaced by legions of the same number : the four 
 legions — i, iv Mac. xv Prim, and xvi — whose eagles 
 were disgraced by surrender to Civilis and the oath of 
 allegiance to the Gallic empire,^^ were disbanded by 
 Vespasian : the two legions destroyed respectively in the 
 Suebo-Sarmatian "** and Dacian wars *^ of Domitian are 
 supposed to have been xxi Rapax and v Alauda, the 
 latter of which probably, the former certainly, disap- 
 peared about that time, while legio ix Hispana in Britain 
 similarly disappeared under Hadrian, in whose reign 
 there is known to have been a disaster in that province,*® 
 
 41 Veil. ii. 97. 42 Archaeolog.-epigraph. Mittheilungen 
 
 XV., p. 189. 
 
 43 Four of the eight German legions took their aquilae with 
 them, Hist. ii. 89 : these, as appears from Hist. ii. 100, were v, 
 XXI, XXII and i Italica. It was the four whose aquilae remained 
 in Germany that were disbanded : these are described in Hist. 
 ii. TOO as vexilla only. 
 
 44 Suet. Dom. 6. 45 Dio Cass. Ixviii. 9. 
 
 46 See'Momms. Rom. Gesch, v., p. 171 and the passage quoted 
 
LEGIONS IN THE PANNONIAN RISING I7I 
 
 and its place was taken by vi Victrix, It was therefore 
 probably not legio v Aland, which lost its eagle under 
 LoUius, but another legion of the same number, very 
 likely that described on one or two inscriptions *^ as 
 Gallica, while legio v Alauda which was almost certainly 
 in Spain during the early years of Augustus *® was per- 
 haps not sent to Germany till after this event. On 
 Mommsen's view therefore the original number of legions 
 must have been nineteen : on that here advocated twenty- 
 three.*^ 
 
 (2) Legions xiii and xiv are both called " gemina." 
 Mommsen supposes that they were so called, because 
 they were raised at the same time.^^ But then on his 
 view all these eight legions were raised at the same time. 
 Why then should two of them be singled out as geminae ? 
 If this was the origin of the cognomen it would seem to 
 point to these legions having been created on a different 
 occasion. But this is not the technical meaning of the 
 term gemina, which we know both from Caesar ^^ and 
 from Dio Cassius ^^ meant that a legion was created by 
 the fusion of two or more legions into one. That after 
 Actium, or after taking over the legions of Lepidus, there 
 were natural opportunities for such fusion is obvious, 
 but I know of no such opportunity later in the reign, 
 and certainly the occasion of the Pannonian rising was 
 one much more likely to lead to the converse process 
 adopted by Claudius in 43 a.d. As far therefore as the 
 cognomen " gemina " is concerned, it points to these 
 
 by him from Fronto *' Hadriano imperium obtinente quantum 
 militum a Britannis caesum.' 
 
 47 C. /. L. iii. 293 and 294. 
 
 48 See coins of leg. v. Eckh, i, 12, 19. 
 
 49 Would this to any extent explain Dio Cass. Iv, 23 rpia 5^ drj 
 t6t€ Kai elKoai (TTpaTdireda •^, ws ye ^repoi XiyoviXi, irivre Kai elKoai 
 TToXiTt/cA irp^cpero, 23 referring to the original number, 25 to that 
 at the end of the reign ? 
 
 50 Loc. oit. p. 73, note ad fin. 
 
 ' 51 Caes. B. C. 3, 4 (legionem) quam factam ex duabus gemel- 
 1am appellabat. 
 
 52 Dio Cass. Iv, 23 to, 8i Kai hipoit tl<tIv . . . dvefdxdVi «0' 
 odwep Kai Aidvfia thvouafffiipa vevbfUffToi. 
 
172 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 legions as belonging to the original army of Augustus.*^ 
 Further than this, a certain light, not always very clear, 
 is thrown upon the origin of some of the legions by the 
 ensigns or emblems which belonged to them. Domas- 
 zewski has shown** that most of these emblems, though 
 not all, were signs of the zodiac. Thus the emblem of 
 those legions which had formed part of Caesar's army 
 was apparently the Bull, Taurus being the sign of the 
 zodiac for the month in which Venus Genetrix, the 
 patron-goddess of the Julian gens, is in the ascendant.** 
 The legions created by Augustus himself apparently had 
 the goat as their emblem, because Capricorn was the 
 sign of the zodiac for the month in which Augustus was 
 born.*^ Now if legions xiii and xiv were twin legions in 
 Mommsen's sense of the term, they would naturally 
 both have the same emblem : but as a matter of fact, 
 while legio xiv has the Goat, legio xiii has the Lion. 
 They at any rate therefore had no common origin, even 
 if Domaszewski is wrong in inferring that legio xiii may 
 have been formed from some of the legions of Lepidus — 
 an inference based on the fact that an African legion 
 numbered xvi, probably anterior to the battle of Actium, 
 is also proved to have the Lion for its ensign. With 
 regard to legions xv and xvi there is little or nothing to 
 be said, though it perhaps deserves notice that legio xvi 
 has on two inscriptions the cognomen " Gallica," " 
 
 53 The only other legions called gemina are legio x, which 
 was confessedly one of the original legions ; and the legion 
 enrolled by Galba in Spain and at first called Galbiana, Tac. 
 Hist, ii., II and 86. It was probably afterwards gemina, because 
 its full complement was made up of soldiers from the disbanded 
 legions of the Vitellians. There were also two alae in the army 
 of Upper Germany at the end of the ist century, ala i Flavia 
 gemina and ala ii Flavia gemina. These were in the same way 
 probably alae created by Vespasian out of the fragments of 
 several of the alae disbanded on account of their behaviour in 
 the war against CiviUs. 
 
 ^^ Archaeol.-epigr. Mitth. xv., p. 182 foil. See also die Fahnen 
 im rom. Heere. 
 
 55 The Bull is the emblem of iii Gall, iv Mac. v Mac. vii viii 
 Aug. X Fret, x Gem. 
 
 5« Thus legio 11 Aug. xiv and xxii have this emblem 
 
 «7 Wilm. 1563 : Inscr. R. N. 2866 
 
LEGIONS IN THE PANNONIAN RISING I73 
 
 which may possibly point, cis in the case of iii GalHca 
 and V GaUica, to its being a Caesarian legion, while if 
 XVI was one of the original legions, xv would necessarily 
 be so too. 
 
 Turning to the remaining four legions xvii-xx, we 
 may note (i) that, supposing four legions to have been 
 created later than the rest, they would necessarily be 
 these four, i.e. those with the highest numbers, just as 
 xxi and xxii are generally allowed to have been formed 
 after the defeat of Varus, (2) that whatever weight there 
 may be in Mommsen's argument as to legions consecu- 
 tively numbered being found together, it applies with 
 peculiar force to legions xvii-xix, which are found 
 together in lower Germany and immediately after the 
 Pannonian rising,^^ whereas there is no other instance 
 that I know of in which three consecutive legions are 
 found together. If, as will presently be suggested, three 
 of the German legions were immediately on the rising 
 drafted off to Tiberius, Augustus would naturally fill 
 their places with the newly raised legions. (3) The 
 reason why legio xx is not found with the other three — 
 a point which might at first sight seem against the suppo- 
 sition that they were raised at the same time — is really 
 rather confirmatory of it. For legion xx was raised by 
 Tiberius himself, no doubt on the first news of the rising. 
 That this was so is, it seems to me, conclusively proved 
 by Domaszewski ^^ from Tac. Ann. 1,42, where Germani- 
 cus, who is addressing the two legions i and xx, but in 
 the camp of the former says, " Primane et vicensima 
 legiones, ilia signis a Tiberio acceptis, tu tot praeliorum 
 socia, tot praemiis aucta, egregiam duci vestro gratiam 
 refertis ? " He addresses himself directly to legio i, 
 which naturally in its own camp would be standing near- 
 
 58 The legions of Varus seem to be identified with certainty 
 as XVII, XVIII and xix. xix is mentioned as one of them by 
 Tacitus Ann. i, 60: a soldier of legio xviii is mentioned in an 
 inscription from Vetera as killed ' bello Variano ' Bramb. 209, 
 while all three legions are conspicuous by their absence from 
 all records, literary and epigraphical, throughout the empire. 
 
 59 West-Deutsche Zeitschrift, Korrespondenzblatt, 1893, p. 263 
 foil. 
 
174 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 est to the tribunal — tu tot praeliorum socia — while legio 
 XX standing behind or farther off is spoken of as " ilia." 
 Legio XX then was enrolled by Tiberius and kept for 
 use against the Pannonian rebels.^** There is therefore 
 good reason why the three legions, if raised by Augustus 
 in Italy, should be together in Germany, and why the 
 fourth legion, as raised by Tiberius himself should be in 
 Pannonia. 
 
 (3) But there arises the general question as to the 
 number of troops in the different provinces before the 
 Pannonian rising. Undoubtedly the two most important 
 frontiers were the Rhine and the Danube. On the 
 former there had been almost continual warfare, first 
 under Drusus, then under Tiberius, with the result that 
 all Germany was practically conquered between the 
 Rhine and the Elbe.^^ On the latter, a series of wars had 
 gradually led to the conquest of Dalmatia, Pannonia and 
 Moesia, so that at this time the Danube was the frontier 
 political, if not at all points defended by troops, from 
 Raetia and Noricum to its mouth. It was manifestly 
 impossible for these results to have been achieved with- 
 out a considerable number of legions. In 5-6 a.d. 
 
 60 Previous to this correct explanation of Domaszewski, 
 the passage has been explained to mean that legio i received 
 its signa from Tiberius, and as it was impossible to suppose 
 that legio i was wanting from the original list, it was thought 
 to have been in some way involved in the defeat of Varus, in 
 consequence of which it was reconstituted by Tiberius. See 
 Momms. Res gest. p. 68, note i. Now all is plain. Legio xx 
 was created by Tiberius in Pannonia, where we find it still 
 ' semiplena ' (Veil, ii., 112) during the war while legio i — called 
 Germanica on one or two inscriptions — had shared the German 
 campaigns of Tiberius. The cognomen Valeria of legio xx has 
 generally been explained from the fact that the legion served 
 under Valerius Messalinus : but Domaszewski points out ( i ) 
 that no other instance is known of a legion receiving its name 
 from a subject, (2) that Nero, the cognomen of Tiberius, was a 
 Sabine word meaning " fortis et strenuus " (Suet. Tib. i, Aul. 
 Gell. 13, 23), and, that therefore Valeria was most probably 
 equivalent to " valens " and was chosen as a reminiscence of 
 Nero, the creator of the legion. Conf. cohors i Breucorum 
 Val(eria) v(ictrix). 
 
 61 Mon. Ancyr. v, 26, 10-12. 
 
LEGIONS IN THE PANNONIAN RISING I75 
 
 preparations were made for joining the Elbe line with 
 that of the Danube by taking in the Bohemian kingdom 
 of Maroboduus. The attack was to have been made 
 both from Germany and Illyricum. From the former 
 the legate, Sentius Saturninus, was to lead up his legions 
 by way of the Hercynian Forest ; from the latter Tiberius 
 himself was to lead the lUyrican army from Carnuntum.^^ 
 The strength of these combined armies we know from a 
 passage of Tacitus,^^ where Maroboduus, referring to this 
 occasion, boasts that he had been threatened by twelve 
 legions " se duodecim legionibus petitum duce Tiberio 
 inlibatam Germanorum gloriam servavisse." Of these 
 twelve legions, Mommsen supposes that five belonged to 
 the German army, arguing from the year of Varus' 
 defeat when he had certainly three legions and Asprenas 
 two,^* and that Tiberius in Dalmatia and Pannonia had 
 seven. ^^ 
 
 According to Mommsen himself therefore, twelve out 
 of the eighteen legions, which he supposes to have formed 
 the imperial army at the time, were in Germany, Dalmatia 
 and Pannonia. But in addition to the lUyrican army 
 of seven legions, Mommsen evidently supposes at least 
 one to have been in Moesia, for he goes on to say " und 
 die Zahl von zehn (Veil, ii, 113) kann fiiglich bezogen 
 werden auf den Zuzug aus Mosien und Italien" (i.e. 
 presumably one from Moesia and two from Italy). 
 There remain therefore only five legions for the rest of 
 the empire. But we know that the garrison of Spain 
 at this period was three legions. This is proved for 14 
 A.D. by Tacitus ^^ while the testimony of coins proves the 
 
 62 Veil. ii. 109. 63 Ann. ii. 46. 6* Veil. ii. 117 and 120. 
 
 65 Rom. Gesch. v., p. 37 note i. " Nimmt man an, dass von 
 den zwolf Legionen, die gegen Maroboduus im Marsch waren, 
 so viele als wir bald nachher in Germanien finden, also fiinf 
 auf dieses Heer kommen, so zahlte das illyrische Heer des 
 Tiberius sieben." In the Res gest. d. Aug. p.' 72, Mommsen does 
 not apparently accept this statement, or at least supposes that 
 it may refer to some later occasion, perhaps after the Pannonian 
 rising was put down. The note quoted above, however, clearly 
 gives up this view. 
 
 66 Ann. iv. 5 Hispaniae recens perdomitae tribus habebantur. 
 
176 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 existence of the same three legions there, — viz. iv Mac. 
 VI Victrix and x Gem. — under Augustus.^^ Then Africa 
 was certainly garrisoned by one legion, iii Augusta, 
 under Augustus, as it was afterwards.^® We learn from 
 Strabo that under Augustus three legions were posted 
 in Egypt, one in Alexandria and two in the country 
 districts ®® — an arrangement which probably existed up 
 to the dislocation of legions at the Pannonian rising : 
 while lastly the important Syrian frontier which in 14 a.d. 
 was garrisoned by four legions had, as we know from 
 two passages of Josephus,^° at the time when Varus was 
 legate of the province, i.e. between 6-4 B.C., three. 
 
 It would therefore appear that previous to the Pannon- 
 ian rising, instead of the eighteen legions which Mommsen 
 supposes, there must certainly have been twenty-three, 
 or if, as I shall argue below, the Moesian legion was in- 
 cluded in the lUyrican army of Tiberius , twenty- two . How 
 Mommsen, who himself supposes, as will have been seen, 
 thirteen legions on the Rhine and Danube, would provide 
 for the other military provinces, I do not know. He 
 leaves this side of the question undiscussed, but the 
 difficulty seems to me to be entirely fatal to his view. 
 
 (4) On the other hand, supposing the number of 
 legions to have been twenty-two at the time, or in other 
 words, that xiii-xvi were in existence before 6 a.d., I 
 think we can get a probable and consistent account of 
 what took place. In order to do this, we must start 
 from four statements made by our authorities ; (i) that 
 of Tacitus already alluded to that Maroboduus in 5-6 
 A.D. was threatened by twelve legions,'^^ (2) a statement 
 of Velleius '^^ that after reinforcements had come to him, 
 Tiberius had ten legions, concentrated in a single encamp- 
 
 67 Eckhel i. 37, conf. C. /. L. ii. suppl. p. Ixxxviii. 
 S8 Tac. Hist, iv, 48 legio in Africa. . . sub Augusto Tiberioque 
 principibus proconsuli parebat. 
 
 69 Strab. xvii. i, 12, 
 
 70 Joseph. Ant. Jud. xvii. 10, 9 and Bell. Jud. ii. 3, i. 
 
 71 Tac. Ann. 2, 46. 
 
 72 Veil. ii. 113 iunctis exercitibus quique sub Caesare fuerant 
 quique ad eum venerant, contractisque in una castra decern 
 legionibus. 
 
LEGIONS IN THE PANNONIAN RISING I77 
 
 ment, (3) another statement of Velleius ^^ that five legions 
 were brought over to Tiberius from transmarine pro- 
 vinces by A. Caecina and Plautius Silvanus, and (4) the 
 statement of Suetonius ''* that Tiberius was in command 
 of fifteen legions in this war. With a very slight modi- 
 fication of statement (3), which is manifestly not entirely 
 correct, I propose to accept all these statements and to 
 show that they are consistent with one another and with 
 our other data. 
 
 In the first place Maroboduus was threatened with 
 twelve legions, and, as Velleius shows, these were the 
 legions of Germany and the " exercitus qui in Illyrico 
 merebat." That this last expression is inclusive of the 
 Moesian legion or legions, and not exclusive of it, as 
 Mommsen assumes, is I think made probable (i) by such 
 passages as Tac. Hist, i, 76 — fiduciam addidit ex Illyrico 
 nuntius, iurasse in eum Dalmatiae ac Pannoniae et 
 Moesiae legiones," and Hist. 2, 85, where the expression 
 Illyricus exercitus includes the Moesian legions, (2) by 
 the improbability that the Danube army would be larger 
 than the Rhine army at this time. During the Julio- 
 Claudian emperors, the German legions were eight, the 
 Illyrican never more than seven, frequently less, and 
 the same proportion was observed during the Flavian 
 times. It was not indeed till the second century that the 
 Danube line was considered to require more legions than 
 the Rhine. For the same reason I believe that the 
 German legions numbered six, and the Illyrican six. 
 It is generally assumed that Varus had only five legions 
 in 10 A.D. This however is by no means certain. In 
 addition to the three legions of Varus himself and the 
 two of Asprenas, there were also sufficient troops at 
 Aliso to resist the attack of the Germans, and finally to 
 cut their way to the Rhine.'^^ That this was a sixth 
 legion is very probable, though of course not certain, and 
 
 73 Veil ii. 1 1 2 exercitui quem A. Caecina et Silvanus Plautius 
 consulates ex transmarinis adducebant provinciis circumfusa 
 quinque legionibus nostris, etc. 
 
 74 Suet. Tib. 16 per quindecim legiones . . . triennio gessit. 
 
 75 Veil. ii. 120, 4. 
 
 N 
 
178 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 indeed Mommsen himself is quite ready to assume the 
 presence of another legion in order to explain the supposed 
 need for reconstituting legio iJ® We will suppose there- 
 fore that there were six legions in Germany and six in 
 Illyricum, and that these were all being concentrated 
 against Maroboduus when the Pannonian rising took 
 place J^ In such a crisis the six legions forming the 
 lUyrican army were not enough. But there were no 
 legions so near at hand as the German, and it was the 
 obvious course for Tiberius to take some of them. If he 
 took half the German army, i.e. three legions, and 
 hastily raised a new one himself — legio xx Valeria 
 Victrix — we have the situation described by Velleius 
 in statement (2), the number of his legions being ten. 
 Meanwhile in Italy Augustus with all possible haste was 
 raising three new legions xvii, xviii and xix, which he 
 naturally sent to Germany to take the place of the three 
 which had joined Tiberius, while orders were sent to the 
 transmarine provinces, i.e. no doubt Syria and Egypt, 
 to send across five more legions. The arrival of these — 
 perhaps three from Egypt and two from Syria — led as 
 far as Moesia by Plautius Silvanvs legate of S5nria ^^ and 
 there joined by A. Caecina legate of Moesia, the bulk of 
 whose army, as I suppose, was already with Tiberius, — 
 brings us to statement (3) and also accounts for the 
 fifteen legions mentioned in statement (4). With regard 
 to these five legions Velleius is inaccurate in two respects, 
 (i) in representing Caecina as helping to lead from across 
 the sea, whereas he could only have joined them in Moesia, 
 
 '6 Res gest. d. Aug. p. 68 note i. Itaque ut primae legioni 
 etiam ante cladem Varianam locus inveniatur, fortasse sumi 
 potest earn cladem ad quartam legionem, non aequabiliter tamen, 
 pertinuisse. 
 
 77 It is perhaps necessary to remark that this by no means 
 implies that the full complements of all these legions were taken 
 away from their own headquarters. Probably the same thing 
 took place in this case, and in the case of the five Oriental legions 
 to be noticed directly, as in the Civil War of 69 a.d. when 
 legions are described as marching to Italy, which undoubtedly 
 left a certain proportion of their soldiers behind in Germany. 
 
 w See Liebenara, Die Legaten p. 369. 
 
LEGIONS IN THE PANNONIAN RISING I79 
 
 (2) in placing their arrival at the beginning of the war, 
 for it is quite clear that some considerable time would 
 elapse before they could have arrived on the scene. 
 There is little doubt therefore that chronologically state- 
 ment (3) should follow statement (2), although from the 
 order in Velleius it might be inferred that these five 
 legions helped to make up the total — ten. 
 
 Mommsen explains these numbers differently. Accord- 
 ing to him, Tiberius had seven to start with in Pannonia : 
 three were then received from Moesia and from the new 
 levies in Italy, thus making the number ten, while five 
 others came from the Eastern provinces and from Ger- 
 many, the latter being replaced by three new legions 
 from Italy.''® There are two objections to this view, (i) 
 It entirely sets aside the statement of Velleius that five 
 legions came from transmarine provinces, and supposes 
 that of the five only two really did so, while the other 
 three came from Germany, (2) This explanation only 
 accounts for five of the supposed eight newly raised 
 legions. For if all the eight were, as Mommsen argues, 
 sent to the Rhine or the Danube, we should get according 
 to his reckoning twenty-three legions for these two 
 frontiers, — i.e. the original twelve : one from Moesia, 
 two from the East, and eight new legions, whereas 
 fifteen was the maximum concentrated under Tiberius, 
 and Varus in Germany on Mommsen's view had five. 
 I see no way out of these difficulties except by the explana- 
 tion which I have suggested. 
 
 The rising was hardly over, and the fifteen legions 
 probably not dispersed, when the disaster happened to 
 the three legions of Varus. Two fresh legions — xxi 
 
 '9 This seems the only explanation of the note in Rom. Gesch. 
 V. p. 37. ' Nimmt man an, dass von den zwolf Legionen, die 
 gegen Maroboduus im Marsch waren, so viele als wir bald nachher 
 in Germanien finden, also fiinf auf dieses Heer kommen, so 
 zahlte das illyrische Heer des Tiberius sieben, und die Zahl 
 von zehn kann fiiglich bezogen werden auf den Zuzug aus Mosien 
 und Italien, die fiinfzehn auf den Zuzug aus Aegypten oder 
 Syrien und auf die weiteren Aushebungen in Italien, von wo 
 die neu ausgehobenen Legionen zwar nach Germanien, aber 
 die dadurch abgelosten zu Tiberius Heer kamen.' 
 
l8o STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 Rapax from the vernacula multitudo in the city, and xxii 
 afterwards Deiotariana from soldiers once belonging to 
 the Galatian army, — were enrolled ; ^® so that Augustus 
 had seventeen legions to dispose of, besides the three in 
 Germany, one in Syria, three in Spain, and one in Africa. 
 Of these seventeen, five, including the new legio xxi, 
 were sent to make up eight on the Rhine : three to make 
 up four in Syria : two, including the new legio xxii, to 
 Egypt : thus leaving seven for the Danube provinces, 
 two for Dalmatia, three for Pannonia, and two for 
 Moesia. In this way we arrive at the numbers given by 
 Tacitus for all the provinces for the year 14 a.d.^^ 
 
 80 I do not give the proof for this here, because the supposition 
 is practically accepted by all who have treated the subject 
 
 81 Ann. iv. 5. 
 
XII 
 
 Movements of the Legions from Augustus 
 to Severus 
 
 The civil wars between 49 and 29 B.C. form a period of 
 transition between the military arrangements of the 
 republic and those of the empire, although they have 
 otherwise no important bearing of their own upon the 
 system which the empire was to introduce. They must, 
 however, have proved with sufficient clearness to Augus- 
 tus that henceforward a military support must underlie 
 whatever supreme authority was to exist at Rome. 
 But it was one thing to recognise this necessity, quite 
 another to proclaim it openly. To be permanent and 
 effectual the support of the army must be unobtrusive. 
 For years both in Italy and the provinces the legions 
 had been a sight far too familiar, and the rest and peace 
 which all hoped for, even if they hardly dared expect 
 it, would have been manifestly a delusion if the vast 
 armies of the last few years were to be kept up.^ This 
 was the problem which Augustus had to face after 
 Actium. Six years before, indeed, he had had to decide 
 on a similar though less important question. He had 
 then taken from Lepidus no less than twenty legions, 2 
 including eight which had served under Sextus Pompeius. 
 This had placed at least forty-four legions ^ at his dis- 
 
 1 After the battle of Mutina Octavian had seventeen legions, 
 Antonius sixteen, Lepidus ten, Brutus and Cassius seventeen. 
 Marquardt, Staatsverwaltung, ii. 444. 
 
 2 Suet. Aug. 16. Appian, Bell. Civ. v. 123, gives twenty-two 
 as the number. 
 
 3 Appian, loc. cit. v. 127. 
 
 181 
 
l82 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 posal ; but even with the final struggle against Antonius 
 still to come, he had decided that so large an army was 
 neither necessary nor consistent with considerations 
 either of prudence or finance. He accordingly dismissed 
 twenty thousand of his own veterans, who had seen 
 ten years* service, all those of Pompeius,* and pro- 
 bably many which had belonged to Lepidus, leaving 
 himself perhaps twenty-four or twenty-five for the 
 conflict which could not long be avoided. The army 
 of Antonius, as the evidence of coins with tolerable 
 certainty '^ proves, consisted of thirty legions, and 
 therefore, after the battle of Actium, Augustus found 
 himself in possession of at least fifty. That this number 
 must be diminished, and largely diminished, there could 
 be no question ; but the position of affairs on the 
 eastern frontier was certainly such as called for careful 
 consideration before letting slip the opportunity which 
 the presence of so large an army offered for striking a 
 decisive blow in the direction of Parthia. For a genera- 
 tion Armenia had been practically a client of Rome, 
 though an oriental kingdom alike in its history, ten- 
 dencies, and geographical position.^ It seemed evident 
 that conditions so anomalous must be provocative of 
 continual ruptures with Parthia, and Augustus with 
 his strong will and unfaltering resolution might have 
 put an end perhaps once for all by a decided blow to a 
 state of tension which the vague schemes of Antonius, 
 so ill carried through, had only made more dangerous. 
 But the policy of the empire was to be peace, and 
 Augustus, possibly with regret, let the opportunity 
 pass, and though he did not renounce the Roman pre- 
 tensions to interfere with Armenia, he left an army in 
 Syria quite inadequate to take a commanding position 
 in case of need.'' Nor was this absence of a forward 
 
 4 Dio Cass. xlix. 12-14. 
 
 5 Cohen, i. 26-65.' Mommsen, Res Gestae div. Aug. 75. 
 
 « On position of Armenia see the admirable ninth chapter 
 in the fifth volume of Mommsen' s Roman History. 
 
 ' Under Quintilius Varus there were only three legions in 
 Syria. Joseph. Bell. Jud. 11. iii. i. 
 
MOVEMENTS OF THE LEGIONS 183 
 
 policy confined to the east. On the Danube, it is true, 
 the undefined and precarious frontier of lUyricum had 
 to be replaced by one more capable of defence against 
 the Dacian and Sarmatian tribes ; s but, the frontier 
 once regulated, the attitude of the empire was to be 
 everywhere passive and defensive. The maxim which 
 he handed on to Tiberius, Augustus practised himself 
 from the commencement. The legions, henceforth to 
 constitute a regular standing army with definite winter- 
 quarters or standing- camps, were placed at the extremi- 
 ties of the empire out of sight of the city and Italy, 
 out of sight even, except perhaps in Syria, of the chief 
 provincial towns, but obviously not out of reach should 
 the authority of the principate need support. Accord- 
 ingly Augustus determined to reduce his army to the 
 smallest size consistent with the safety of the frontiers 
 and the possible need of an armed maintenance of his 
 own position. Of the number and disposition of the 
 legions which were maintained our chief knowledge is 
 gained from the passage in Tacitus ^ referring to the 
 year 23 a.d., in which he informs us that Tiberius then 
 had twenty-five legions, and of these he gives the numeri- 
 cal distribution among the provinces, though without 
 mention of their distinguishing number or cognomina. 
 These, however, from other sources, 10 we know to 
 have been the — i Germanica,ii 11 Augusta, iii Augusta, 
 
 8 Mommsen, Res GestcB div. Aug. ch. xxx. ^ Ann. iv. 5. 
 
 10 In most cases they are identified by other passages in the 
 Annals. The cognomina, if nowhere stated by Tacitus, are 
 known from inscriptions. For the eight German legions see 
 Ann. i. 31, 37, and Henzen, 6453. The three in Spain rest 
 mainly on the evidence of coins. See Florez, Medallas de las 
 Colonias de Espana, i. tab. vi. i. viii. 8 ; also Tac. Hist. ii. 58, 
 and Willmann, 1017. For the two in Africa, see Ann. iv. 23, 
 and Orelli, 3057. For the two in Egypt, see Henzen, 6158, and 
 Orelli, 519 ; conf. also Tac. Hist. v. i. For the four in Syria, 
 see Tac. Ann. ii. 79, ii. 57, xv. 6, and Hist. iii. 24. For the two 
 in Pannonia, Ann. i. 16, the two in Moesia, Henzen, 6938, and 
 C. I. L. iii. 1698, and the two in Dalmatia from Dion Cassius, 
 Ix. 15. 
 
 11 This cognomen is found in only one inscription. 
 
184 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 III Gallica,i2 m Cyrenaica,i3 iv Macedonica,i* iv Scy- 
 thica,i» V Alauda,i8 vMacedonica, vi Victrix, vi Ferrata, 
 VII (afterwards) Claudia, viii Augusta, ix Hispania," 
 X Fretensis," x Gemina, xi (afterwards) Claudia, xii Ful- 
 minata, xiii Gemina, xiv Gemina, xv ApoUinaris, xvi 
 Gallica, xx Valeria Victrix, is xxi Rapax, xxii Deio- 
 tariana.2o A little further examination of these legions, 
 however, throws some additional light upon the military 
 arrangements during the time of Augustus himself. 
 In the first place it is almost certain that legions xxi 
 and xxii were created after the disaster to Varus in 
 9 A.D. We know from Dion Cassius^i and Suetonius 22 
 that fresh troops were enrolled then, partly from freed- 
 men,23 while Tacitus in describing the mutiny of the 
 Lower German army, consisting of legions i, v, xx, xxi, 
 says that the impulse was given by the vernacula 
 multitiido 24 lately enrolled in the city. Now the v,25 
 XX, 26 1^27 certainly existed before, and therefore the 
 XXI must have been the one newly created. The xxii 
 was certainly not created before the xxi, and its name 
 Deiotariana seems to show that it was formed from what 
 
 12 Probably levied originally in Gaul. 
 
 13 Belonging to Lepidus's African army. 
 
 1* Mommsen thinks that the legions called Macedonica were 
 present at the battle of Philippi. 
 
 15 Perhaps levied by Julius Caesar for his intended campaign 
 against Burebistas. 
 
 18 Suet, Caesar, 24. i7 Originally levied from Spain. 
 
 18 Perhaps so called from being present against Sext. Pompeius 
 in the battle fought in the straits of Messina. 
 
 i» Veil. Paterc. ii. 112. 
 
 20 Consisting originally of soldiers of Deiotarus. 
 
 21 Dio Cass. Ivi. 23, and Ivii. 5. 
 
 22 Suet. Aug. 25. 23 dariKhi gx^os. 
 
 24 Ann. i. 31. Compare also orto ab unetvicesimanis quintainis- 
 que initio. 
 
 25 Suet. Caes. 24. 26 Vell. Paterc. ii. 112. 
 
 27 Legion i had almost without doubt served in the German 
 campaigns of Tiberius, tot proeliorum socia (Ann. i, 42) ; and 
 besides we cannot suppose that the first legion was wanting 
 in the original army of Augustus, nor would its raw recruits 
 naturally be sent from the city : while Legion xx had been 
 created by Tiberius in the Pannonian war, signis a Tiherio 
 accept is {loc. cit.). 
 
MOVEMENTS OF THE LEGIONS 185 
 
 had formerly been the army of Deiotarus, some of 
 whose troops were probably employed by the Romans 
 after his death, though not formed into a regular legion 
 till this emergency. 28 Next, there seems good ground 
 for believing that the eight legions xiii-xx were created 
 at a later time than those from i to xii.29 For (i) no 
 trace is found of any of these earlier than 6 a.d., (2) 
 none of them are mentioned among the legions whose 
 veterans Augustus settled in colonies, (3) no duplicate 
 numbers are found among them as among many of 
 those below xii, and (4) while the latter are scattered 
 indiscriminately throughout the empire, these eight are 
 all posted either in Germany or Illyricum. It is there- 
 fore probable that Augustus at first retained only the 
 legions numbered up to xii, and that it was the unex- 
 pected need of troops in the wars on the Rhine and in 
 Illyricum, and especially the formidable rising in Pan- 
 nonia in the year 6 a.d., which compelled him to create 
 eight fresh legions. ^o Three of these, xvii, xviii, xix, 
 were those destroyed with Varus, and accordingly 
 these numbers, as ill-omened, never occur again. ^^ De- 
 ducting then from Tacitus's list all those over xii, we 
 find that the original number of legions maintained by 
 Augustus was eighteen, though by the retention of several 
 duplicate numbers drafted from the armies of Antonius 
 or Lepidus he was enabled to give his army the appear- 
 ance of consisting only of twelve legions. ^2 Thus the iii 
 
 28 We shall see below that both Nero and Vitellius had recourse 
 to whole troops of peregrini when they needed additional forces 
 in the civil wars. 
 
 29 Mommsen, Res. Gestcs div. Aug. 70. I leave the above 
 statement as I originally wrote it : but would refer my readers 
 to study No. XI in which I show reasons for modifying Momm- 
 sen's view with regard to the creation of eight new legions. 
 
 30 Suet. Aug. 25 : Lihertino milite . . . bis usus est, seniel 
 ad praesidium coloniarum Illyricum contingentium, iterum ad 
 tutelam ripae Rheni fluminis. 
 
 31 The xviii and xix legions alone are definitely mentioned 
 as having been with Varus. Tac. Ann. i. 60, C. I. Rh. 260, but 
 there is no practical doubt about the third. 
 
 32 For the names of many which he disbanded see Marquardt, 
 Staatsverw. \\. p. 445. 
 
l86 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 Gallica was probably a legion of Antonius which had 
 served under him against the Parthians,^^ while in Cyre- 
 naica belonged to the army of Lepidus from Africa. 
 Again, while iv Macedonica had probably belonged to 
 Augustus since the battle of Philippi, iv Scythica had 
 belonged to Antonius in the east. Similarly v Mace- 
 donica and VI Ferrata had formed a part of Antonius's 
 army, while of the two legions numbered x the one 
 called Fretensis had certainly belonged to Augustus in 
 the war against Sext. Pompeius, while x Gemina was 
 probably added from one of the other armies. 
 
 The method by which these legions were recruited 
 has lately had much light thrown upon it by Mommsen 
 {Hermes, xix.), who shows that the broad statement 
 that the legionaries were taken from citizens and the 
 auxiliaries from peregrini needs much qualification. 
 Under the republic the military commanders had 
 gradually acquired the right of granting the civitas to 
 peregrini on their enlistment, a usage which in the 
 confusion of the civil wars was carried to a great length, 
 and whole legions, called legiones vernaculae, were in this 
 way enrolled. Augustus discontinued the practice in 
 this wide extent, except in such crises as the defeat of 
 Varus, but he reserved to himself the full right of enlist- 
 ing peregrini into the legions, granting them at the 
 same time the Roman civitas. The evidence of inscrip- 
 tions tends to show that, as a rule, the oriental and 
 Egyptian legions were recruited from the eastern parts 
 of the empire, especially from Galatia, a part where the 
 civitas must have been especially rare, while the western 
 and African legions depended mainly upon Italy and 
 the west. This fact not only explains the infrequent 
 changes of legions between east and west, but also the 
 incapacity and want of discipline so often shown by 
 the eastern legions, which required on critical occasions 
 to be reinforced by the sterner legions of the west. 
 
 Of the Augustan legions by far the greatest propor- 
 tion was employed on the Rhine and Danube frontiers. 
 
 33 Tac. Hist. iii. 2. 
 
MOVEMENTS OF THE LEGIONS 187 
 
 In the former the campaigns of Drusus and Tiberius 
 had at one time extended Roman influence, if not 
 Roman administration, as far as the Elbe. Camps 
 were estabUshed at Mogontiacum, Bonna, Vetera, and 
 Alesio, whilst the legions quartered in them had the 
 double duty of keeping down the German tribes on the 
 right bank of the Rhine, and at the same time of being 
 ready at a moment's notice to check any rising among 
 the Gallic cantons. 3* Towards the Danube Augustus 
 gave an entirely new frontier to the empire. Pushing 
 his armies forward from Aquileia towards the north- 
 east, he checked the incursions of the Dacian tribes, 
 and gradually, in place of the loosely organised and 
 vaguely bounded lUyricum, he established three impor- 
 tant military provinces of the first rank, Dalmatia or 
 Upper lUyricum, Pannonia or Lower Illyricum, and 
 Moesia.^^ These provinces were guarded by seven 
 legions : camps were formed at Siscia, Carnuntum, 
 Poetovio, Sirmium, Delminium, and Burnum, whilst 
 the Danube was made the political, though hardly yet 
 the military, frontier. 3^ These forward movements 
 had not been accomplished without reverses, and in 
 6 A.D. the determined revolt of the Illyrian tribes was 
 only put down by rallying most of the military forces 
 of the empire to the scene of action. In Spain the 
 obstinate though desultory resistance of the tribes of 
 the Astures and Cantabri necessitated the presence of 
 three legions posted mainly in the north-west, nor could 
 this force be diminished before the reign of Claudius. 
 In the east, as we have seen, Augustus had decided on 
 maintaining the status quo, and for this purpose four 
 legions were considered to be sufficient. 37 We may 
 then, with much probability, though not with absolute 
 certainty, assume that just previous to the defeat of 
 Varus the legions were posted as follows : — 
 
 3* In Gaul itself only i ,200 troops were stationed at Lugdunum. 
 35 Mommsen, Rom. Gesch. v. cap. i. 
 38 Mommsen, Res. Gestae div. Aug. cap. xxx. 
 37 Under Varus there were three only, one having been sum- 
 moned to help Tiberius in Pannonia. 
 
l88 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 Lower Germany : i (afterwards Germanica), v Alauda, \^ii, 
 
 Upper Germany : 38 ii Augusta, xiii and xiv Gemina, xvi 
 
 Gallica. 
 Pannonia : 3» viii Augusta, ix Hispana, xv ApoUinaris, xx 
 
 Valeria Victrix.*o 
 Dalmatia : vii and xi (afterwards Claudia). 
 Moesia : iv Scythica, v Macedonica. 
 Spain : iv Macedonica, vi Victrix, x Gemina. 
 Syria : in Gallica, vi Ferrata, x Fretensis, xii Fulminata. 
 Africa : in Augusta. 
 Egypt : III Cyrenaica.*! 
 
 Then in 9 a.d. followed the disaster in Germany and 
 the loss of legions xvii, xviii and xix. To replace 
 these, as we have seen, Augustus hastily raised xxi 
 Rapax, which was despatched to Lower Germany, 
 whilst XX Valeria Victrix, with a recently gained reputa- 
 tion and cognomen, was transferred from Pannonia to 
 the same quarter, the other new legion xxii Deiotariana 
 being sent to reinforce the one legion already in Egypt. 
 On the death of Augustus a mutiny arose among 
 the three Pannonian legions viii, ix, and xv, who 
 demanded increase of pay,*^ dismissal after sixteen 
 years' service instead of twenty, and exemption from 
 being retained sub vexillo after dismissal. '*3 A similar 
 mutiny arose, and for the same reasons, in Lower 
 Gerniany, when the legions xxi, v, i, and xx were 
 under the command of Aulus Caecina, while their ex- 
 ample was followed, though with less violence, by those 
 in Upper Germany, 11, xiii, xiv, and xvi. Not without 
 difficulty were these mutinies put down, in Pannonia 
 
 38 The two Germanies were not formally separated as early 
 as this. 
 
 39 The usual number was three, but an extra legion still 
 remained after the rebellion. 
 
 «> Veil. Paterc. c. ii. 112. 
 
 *i Egypt had at first had three legions, but two were sent 
 against the lUyriari insurgents, and were afterwards replaced 
 by the new legion xxii Deiotariana, Mommsen, Gesch. vol. v. 
 p. 592, and Res GestcB div. Aug. p. yi. 
 
 *2 Viz., a denarius per diem instead of 10 asses. 
 
 *3 Tac. Ann. i. 31. 
 
MOVEMENTS OF THE LEGIONS 189 
 
 by the younger Drusus, in Germany by Germanicus, 
 who gave his legions the opportunity of retrieving their 
 character by a series of campaigns beyond the Rhine, 
 In this region, however, the defeat of Varus had pro- 
 duced an important change of poHcy. All thoughts of 
 extending the frontier to the Elbe seem to have been 
 given up, and though posts were still held on the right 
 bank of the Rhine, and though Germanicus was allowed 
 to lead his lately mutinous legions again and again into 
 the heart of Germany, Tiberius was not to be led away 
 by the enthusiasm of the younger general into any 
 permanent deviation from the decision of Augustus, 
 and from the year 17 a.d., when Germanicus was re- 
 called, the Rhine remained practically the frontier for 
 nearly seventy years. Eight legions were, however, 
 still retained as the normal military force, from this 
 time definitely divided into two armies, and placed 
 under the legates respectively of Upper and Lower 
 Germany. Legions i and xx were stationed at Bonna,^* 
 v and XXI at Vetera, 11 and xvi at Mogontiacum, and 
 XIII and XIV probably at Argentoratum and Vindonissa. 
 Tiberius rigidly adhered to the maxim of Augustus 
 not to extend the boundaries of the empire, and accord- 
 ingly in his reign the movements of the legions were 
 few and unimportant. In 28 a.d. some hostile move- 
 ments of the Frisii on the sea coast east of the Rhine 
 for a time necessitated the presence of both German 
 armies on the spot, though in what numbers we are 
 not able to say, as it was the custom in such cases to 
 send only vexillationes *^ from the more distant legions. 
 Some years earlier the rising of the Numidian Tacfarinas 
 had necessitated the reinforcement of the legio iii 
 Augusta by the ix Hispana from Pannonia, which 
 i*emained in Africa from 20 a.d. till 24 a.d.*^ In the 
 
 ** Tac. Ann. i. 16. 
 
 *5 A vexillatio was a detachment of a legion sent on some 
 campaign at a distance from the headquarters of the legion. 
 Thus, e.g., we learn that vexillationes of the German legions 
 at one time served in Britain (Henzen, 5456). 
 
 *^ Tac. Ann. iii. 9. iv. 23. 
 
190 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 east, Cappadocia was organised as a province by Ger- 
 manicus in 17 a.d. and the Roman frontier pushed to 
 the Upper Euphrates, but Roman legions were not yet 
 permanently posted in this region. Towards the end 
 of the reign, the death of Artaxias of Armenia and the 
 ambition of the Parthian king Artabanos necessitated 
 a forward movement of the Syrian legions under L. 
 Vitellius, which ended before the old emperor's death 
 in the submission of Artabanos, and the recognition of 
 the Roman candidate Mithridates as king of Armenia. *7 
 The position of the legions under Tiberius then was 
 as follows : — *» 
 
 Lower Germany : i Germanica, v Alauda, xx Valeria Victrix, 
 
 XXI Rapax. 
 Upper Germany : 11 Augusta, xiii xiv Gemina, xvi Gallica. 
 Pannonia : viii Augusta, ix Hispana,*» xv Apollinaris. 
 Dalmaiia : vii and xi (afterwards Claudia). 
 Moesia : iv Scythica, v Macedonica. 
 Spain : iv Macedonica, vi Victrix, x Gemina. 
 Syria : iv Gallica, vi Ferrata, x Fretensis, xii Fulminata. 
 Africa : iii Augusta. 
 Egypt : III Cyrenaica, xxii Deiotariana. 
 
 Under Claudius more extensive changes were made. 
 In 41 A.D. the Lower German legions were again called 
 upon, this time to check the incursions of the Chauci, 
 a fisher-folk between the Ems and the Weser. Soon 
 after L. Domitius Corbulo was appointed to the com- 
 mand, and would probably have soon extended the 
 Roman frontier to the latter river, had not strict orders 
 come from Rome to withdraw all legions to the Rhine, 
 and to leave the region on the right bank to the pro- 
 tection of the Frisii and Chauci themselves. The 
 cause of this backward policy was the recent acquisition 
 of a new province, and the consequent need of, as far 
 as possible, limiting the army in other quarters. 
 
 *7 Mommsen, Rom. Gesch. vol. v. cap. ix., points out how 
 the anomalous position of Armenia was the constant cause of 
 disputes between the Romans and the Parthians. 
 
 *8 Tac. Ann. iv. 5. *» Except for four years from 20-24 a.d. 
 
MOVEMENTS OF THE LEGIONS I9I 
 
 The conquest of Britain, attempted by Julius and 
 more than once meditated by Augustus, was hardly an 
 exception to the defensive policy of the latter. In- 
 habited by kindred tribes and dominated by Druidic 
 influences, independent Britain was a constant source 
 of danger to romanised Gaul. Accordingly, in 43 a. d., 
 Aulus Plautius was sent over to conquer the country. 
 Four legions accompanied him, the ix Hispana ^o from 
 Pannonia, the xx Valeria Victrix ^i from Lower Ger- 
 many, and the 11 Augusta °^ and xiv Gemina^^ from 
 Upper Germany. Pannonia, where the frontier was 
 at this time quiet, was left with two legions only. To 
 replace the three taken from Germany the iv Macedonica 
 was moved from Spain to Upper Germany, ^ 3 whilst by 
 the enlargement and division of two already existing 
 legions two new ones were created, the xv Primigenia 
 for Lower Germany and the xxii Primigenia ^* for Upper 
 Germany. The Upper German legions had on two 
 occasions in this reign to repel incursions of the Chatti, 
 which was henceforward the dominant German tribe in 
 this quarter ; first in 41 under the future emperor 
 Galba, and then in 50 a.d. under P. Pomponius Secun- 
 dus.^^ In Dalmatia a conspiracy made against the 
 emperor by the legate Furius Camillus Scribonianus 
 occasioned the bestowal of the cognomen " Claudia " 
 on the two legions vii and xi, which after a momentary 
 vacillation finally preserved their faith to Claudius. ^s 
 In the east a desultory warfare was maintained against 
 Parthia concerning Armenia, though not till the close 
 of the reign did the war assume such proportions as to 
 call for any fresh distribution of troops or for any 
 extraordinary command. In the year 54, however, 
 
 "o Tac. Ann. xiv. 32. si Xac. Ann. xiv. 34. 
 
 52 Tac. Hist. iii. 44. 
 
 63 Orelli, 1549. Wilmann, 1429. 
 
 5* Primigenia was a cognomen given to that part of the 
 original legion which retained the old eagle, while the other 
 portion retained the original cognomen ; e.g., Deiotariana and 
 ApoUinaris. See Grotefend, in Pauly's Real-Encyclopddie, 
 vol. iv. 895. 
 
 55 Tac. Ann. xii. 27. se Dio Cassius, Iv. 23. 
 
192 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 news arrived in Rome that Vologeses had made his 
 brother Tiridates king of Armenia, and Corbulo was 
 immediately sent out by Nero's ministers, Burrus and 
 Seneca, to be governor of Cappadocia. At this time 
 there were still four legions in Syria, vi Ferrata, stationed 
 at Raphanaea, x Fretensis at Cirrhus,^^ xii Fulminata 
 at Antioch, and in Gallica at Samosata on the Euphrates. 
 But the Syrian legions were not to the same extent as 
 those on the Danube and Rhine massed together in 
 permanent camps ; they were needed for police duties 
 in the large and restless cities of Syria, and were accord- 
 ingly more dispersed among the towns and less used to 
 the discipline and training of camp life. Of those 
 legions Ummidius Quadratus, legate of Syria, retained 
 X Ferrata and xii Fulminata, while to Corbulo were 
 assigned in Cappadocia vi Ferrata, ^^ m Gallica, and a 
 vextllatio of the x.^^ Corbulo, however, found his 
 legions demoralised by their long inactivity ; delay 
 was necessary in which to recruit and train them, while 
 an efficient legion from Germany was sent over at his 
 request. «o This was in all probability the iv Scythica, 
 which in 33 was in Moesia,^! but which Claudius may 
 probably have moved temporarily into Upper Germany 
 against the Chatti.«2 With these three legions Corbulo 
 in 58 took the offensive, and in two campaigns took 
 Artaxata and Tigranocerta and subdued the whole of 
 Armenia, leaving a garrison of 1,000 legionaries to sup- 
 port the new king Tigranes. Meanwhile, by the death 
 of Quadratus, he became legate both of Cappadocia 
 and Syria, and as Vologeses was still threatening invasion 
 he sent two legions, probably iv and xii, to Armenia, 
 while he himself with the rest advanced to Zeugma on 
 the Euphrates. Soon after Caesennius Paetus, the new 
 legate of Cappadocia, arrived and took the command 
 
 ^7 Tac. Ann. ii. 57. 58 ii)id, xiii. 38. 
 
 ''^ Ann. xiii. 40 : ,Mediis decimanorum delectis. 
 80 Ann. xiii. 35 : Adjectaque ex Germania legio. 
 61 C.I.L. iii. 1698. 
 
 ^2 This is the view taken by Mommsen, Res. Gestcs div. Aug. 
 p. 68. 
 
MOVEMENTS OF THE LEGIONS I93 
 
 of the two legions already in Armenia ^^ and of the v 
 Macedonica, which was now sent from Moesia.^* Paetus, 
 without waiting for this latter legion, which was still 
 in Pontus,^^ and regardless of the undisciplined con- 
 dition of XII Fulminata, which had seen no service with 
 Corbulo, advanced rapidly into Armenia and was soon 
 shut up in Rhandeia. Corbulo, in answer to a request 
 for help, sent 1,000 from each of his three legions, but 
 was perhaps not as expeditious as he might have been 
 to help a rival commander. However, Paetus with his 
 two legions capitulated, and the senate, disowning 
 the conditions made by him, Corbulo was once more 
 in command of all the forces in the east, which were 
 now strengthened by another legion, xv Apollinaris, 
 from Pannonia.66 Sending back the two disgraced 
 legions, xii and iv, into Syria,^? he led the vi and in, 
 V and XV, to Melitene on the Upper Euphrates to meet 
 Vologeses. He, however, at the last moment consented 
 to let Tiridates do homage to Rome for the Armenian 
 throne, and the war ended (63 a.d.) without any essen- 
 tial change in the relations between Rome and Parthia. 
 Meanwhile the place of iv Scythica in Moesia, which 
 had been sent to Corbulo in 54, was supplied by the vii 
 Claudia ^^ from Dalmatia, which being no longer a 
 frontier province could well spare one of its two legions.^^ 
 When, later on, the v Macedonica was also sent from 
 Moesia to Paetus in Cappadocia, the viii Augusta ^^ was 
 transferred from Pannonia to this province, whilst the 
 other Pannonian legion, xv Apollinaris, was, as we have 
 seen, sent just before the peace to Corbulo. To garrison 
 Pannonia, Nero probably moved xiii Gemina from 
 Upper Germany to Poetovio in that province,'^ whilst 
 
 ^3 Tac. Ann. xv. 6. ^^ Ibid. ^^ Ann. xv. 10. 
 
 66 Ann. XV. 26. 67 j^id. 
 
 68 Tac. Hist. i. 79, where Titius Julianus, the legate of this 
 legion, was adorned with the consular ornaments for victories 
 over the Roxolani. 
 
 69 Josephus, Bell. Jud. 11, xvi. 4. 
 
 70 Id. Its legate Minucius Rufus was similarly adorned. 
 
 71 It was certainly in Pannonia by the end of this reign. Tac. 
 Hist, ii, II, 
 
IQ4 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 the XI Claudia, though probably not moved from Dal- 
 matia/" was ready at hand in case of emergency. At 
 the end of the Parthian war, therefore, the legions were 
 thus distributed : — 
 
 Lower Germany : i Germanica, v Alauda, xv Primigenia, xxi 
 
 Rapax. 
 Upper Germany : iv Macedonica, xvi Gallica, xxii Primigenia. 
 Pannonia : xiii Gemina. 
 Dalmatia : xi Claudia. 
 Moesia : vii Claudia, viii Augusta. 
 Syria : iv Scythica, iii Gallica, vi Ferrata, x Fretensis, xii 
 
 Fulminata, v Macedonica, xv Apollinaris. 
 Britain. : ii Augusta, xx Valeria Victrix, ix Hispana, xiv 
 
 Gemina. 
 Spain : vi Victrix, x Gemina. 
 Africa : in Augusta. 
 Egypt : III Cyrenaica, xxii Deiotariana. 
 
 Meanwhile the legions in Britain had had some hard 
 fighting in the year 6i. The east and south were now 
 tolerably secure, and Suetonius Paulinus was pressing 
 forward against the Silures in the west. The winter 
 quarters of the ii Augusta were at Isca Silurum(Caerleon), 
 those of XIV Gemina at Viroconium,^^ those of xx 
 Valeria Victrix at Deva (Chester), the main strength 
 of the army thus lying face to face with the Welsh tribes, 
 while the east was thought to be sufficiently garrisoned 
 by the ix Hispana at Lindum, Camulodunum being 
 held by the veterans whom Claudius had settled there. 
 But in the year 6i, while Suetonius was absent in the 
 west, Boudicca at the head of her own people the Iceni 
 raised a revolt, the Brigantes were induced to join, and 
 soon all the east was in arms. Petilius Cerealis with 
 the IX legion was completely defeated,^* the veterans 
 at Camulodunum cut to pieces, and Verulamium and 
 
 '2 Tac. Hist. ii. ii, proves that there was still a legion in 
 Dalmatia in 69 a.d. 
 
 73 Hiibner {Das' romische Heer in Britannien) argues that the 
 XIV was stationed at Camulodunum. I however follow Mommsen 
 on the strength ( i ) of C. /. L. vii. 1 54 and 1 5 5, (2) of the strategical 
 necessities of the case. 
 
 7* Tac. Ann. xiv. 32. 
 
MOVEMENTS OF THE LEGIONS 195 
 
 Londinium sacked. Suetonius did his best to remedy 
 the results of his own security, but was only able to 
 muster the xiv legion and some vexillarii of the xx. 
 With these he hastily marched against the enemy, 
 and, mainly owing to the bravery of the xiv legion, he 
 defeated them. It was necessary, however, to send 
 vexillarii from the German legions, '^^ and it was some 
 time before confidence was restored. 
 
 During all the reign of Nero, but especially towards 
 its close, Moesia was exposed to continual incursions 
 from the Roxolani, Sarmatae, and Dacians north of the 
 Danube. An interesting inscription dating from this 
 reign '^ gives a good idea of what was going on. We 
 learn from it that Plautius iElianus transferred more 
 than one hundred thousand of the trans-Danubian 
 population to the right bank, put down a rising of the 
 Sarmatae, took hostages from the Bastarnae, Roxolani, 
 and Dacians, thus confirming and extending the peace 
 of the province, and this too quamvis partem magnam 
 exercitus ad expeditionem in Armeniam jnisissetJ'' It 
 was, however, found necessary in addition to the two 
 legions vii Claudia and viii Augusta, which we have 
 seen transferred to Moesia, to send iii Gallica as well 
 from Syria 's as soon as it could be spared. In that 
 province the iv Scythica seems to have taken the place 
 of the III Gallica as one of the regular legions,'^ while 
 the other two western legions v Macedonica and xv 
 ApoUinaris were about to be sent back when the long 
 unsettled condition of Judaea at last in 66 a.d. led to 
 an outbreak of fanaticism in Jerusalem. C. Sestius 
 Gallus, the legate of Syria, marched at once into Judaea 
 with XII Fulminata and vexillarii of iv Scythica and vi 
 Ferrata. He was, however, forced to make a disgraceful 
 retreat, and Titus Flavins Vespasianus was appointed 
 
 73 Ann. xiv. 32 and 38. ''^ Wilmann, 1145. 
 
 77 Viz. legions iv Scythica and v Macedonica. See supra. 
 
 78 Tac. Hist. i. 79, and ii. 74. The exact date is not known, 
 but probably before the Jewish war broke out in 66, as the 
 legion is not mentioned in Josephus's account of the campaign. 
 
 79 Mommsen, Rom. Gesch. vol. v. p. 533 note. 
 
196 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 the first imperial legate for Judaea. While Mucianus, 
 the new legate of Syria, retained the three Syrian 
 legions vi, iv, and xii, Vespasian at once led forward 
 the XV Apollinaris, while Titus brought up from Alexan- 
 dreia on the gulf of Issus v Macedonica and x Freten- 
 sis,®° of which at that time the elder Trajan was legate. 
 With these three legions Vespasian in 67 captured 
 successively Jatopata, Jappha, Tiberias, Tarichaea, and 
 Gamala. During the winter following the x legion 
 lay at Scythopolis, and the other two at Caesarea.®^ 
 During the next year Jerusalem was gradually hemmed 
 in, and Vespasian would have commenced the siege in 
 69 but for the events which were meanwhile happening 
 in Italy. 
 
 Towards the close of his reign Nero had conceived 
 vast designs of oriental conquest. A grand expedition 
 was to have been made against the Alani ®^'' on the 
 Caspian and another against the ^Ethiopians. For the 
 latter vexillarii of the German legions were already 
 sent to Alexandria to co-operate with the two legions 
 already there, ®^ while for the former he had selected 
 XIV Gemina from Britain on account of the prestige it 
 had won against Boudicca,®^ and vexillarii were also 
 taken from Germany and Illyricum,®* though they were 
 soon recalled to put down the rising of Vindex. Appar- 
 ently also the x Gemina was removed at this time from 
 Spain probably for the same purpose, as we find that 
 Galba in 69 had only one ilegion there,®^ though it was 
 again in Spain by the next year.8« The xiv legion 
 had only got as far as Dalmatia when the death of 
 Nero put an end to all thought of the expedition. One 
 fresh legion was created by Nero, though in what year 
 
 80 Josephus, Bell. Jud. in. i. 3, iv. ii. Mommsen, loc. cit., 
 points out that Alexandria in Egypt cannot be the place meant. 
 
 81 Josephus, IV. ii. i. 
 
 8ia See Hist. i. 6 where Mommsen has shown that Alanos, not 
 Albanos, must be the right reading. {Rom. Gesch. v. 394.) 
 
 82 Tac. Hist. i. 31, 70. ^^ Tac. Hist. ii. 11 and 66. 
 8* Hist. i. 6. 85 Suet. Galha, 10. 
 
 8« Hist. ii. 58. 
 
MOVEMENTS OF THE LEGIONS I97 
 
 is uncertain. This was called the i Italica,87 and it 
 was probably sent to Upper Germany in the place of the 
 XIII Gemina which, as we have seen, was sent to Pan- 
 nonia. At the time of Nero's death, probably in conse- 
 quence of the rising of Vindex, it was encamped at 
 Lugdunum.88 At the end of Nero's reign, therefore, 
 the legions were as follows : — 
 
 Lower Germany : i Germanica, v Alauda, xv Primigenia, 
 
 XVI Gallica.89 
 Upper Germany : iv Macedonica, xxi Rapax, xxii Primigenia. 
 Lugdunum : i Italica. 
 
 Pannonia : xiii Gemina and possibly x Gemina. 
 Dalmatia : xi Claudia, and temporarily xiv Gemina Martia 
 
 Victrix.9o 
 Moesia : vii Claudia, viii Augusta, in Gallica. 
 Britain : xx Valeria Victrix, ix Hispana, 11 Augusta. 
 Spain : vi Victrix. 
 
 Syria : iv Scythica, vi Ferrata, xii Fulminata. 
 Judaea : x Fretensis, v Macedonica, xv Apollinaris. 
 Africa : in Augusta. 
 Egypt : III Cyrenaica, xxii Deiotariana. 
 
 Nero's reign had thus involved hard fighting in 
 Syria, Britain, Moesia, and Judaea, but the successful 
 generals were treated with ingratitude or worse. Pauli- 
 nus was recalled, Plautius Silvanus was neglected, 
 Corbulo was ordered to end his own life, and it was there- 
 fore no wonder that the legions were discontented and 
 restless. The first spark was lighted in Gaul, when 
 Vindex, governor of Lugdunensis, roused the Sequani, 
 Aedui, Arverni, and other tribes to revolt, and sum- 
 moned to his cause the governors of Germany and 
 Spain. Galba, then governor of Tarraconensis, was 
 proclaimed imperator by the vi legion, but Verginius, 
 governor of Upper Germany, led his legions towards 
 Lugdunum which still remained faithful to Nero. By him 
 Vindex was put down, but though Verginius refused 
 the solicitations of his legions who wished to proclaim 
 
 87 Dio Cassius, Iv. 24. ss Hist. i. 59. 
 
 89 At some time before this xxi and xvi had changed places, 
 as we find from Tac. Hist. iv. 70, that xxi was now in Upper 
 Germany. 
 
 90 The cognomina were probably added after the war in Britain. 
 
198 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 him emperor, he acquiesced in the decision of the senate 
 which acknowledged Galba. Galba lost little time in 
 marching to Italy, probably recalling to Spain the x 
 from Pannonia, and taking with him to Italy ®^ a new 
 legion, which he levied in Spain, the vii Galbiana,®^ 
 afterwards called Gemina, which, however, was at 
 once sent to Pannonia, where, as we have seen, there 
 had latterly been only been one regular legion. On 
 his arrival in Italy he found a vernacula legio which 
 Nero in the despair of his last days had created from 
 the marines of the fieet.^^ Their request that Galba 
 would confirm the creation and grant an eagle was 
 refused at the time,^* but we learn from two diplomata 
 militaria ^^ that a few days before his death he granted 
 the civitas to those in the legion who had served twenty 
 campaigns,o« and so no doubt confirmed its legionary 
 character.»7 It was called the i Adjutrix and served 
 on Otho's side in the campaigns against Vitellius. 
 
 Meanwhile the legions of Upper Germany, disap- 
 pointed of their wish to make Verginius emperor and 
 displeased at his recall, showed symptoms of discon- 
 tent, especially the iv Macedonica and xxii Primigenia. 
 Hordeonius Flaccus, a feeble man and an invalid, had 
 been appointed to the post of Verginius, while A. Vitel- 
 lius was sent to the lower province and immediately 
 began to make himself popular with the legions by 
 various indulgences, ^s in which he was especially helped 
 by Valens, the legate of one of his legions. On January 
 I, when the oath to Galba should have been renewed, 
 the I Germanica and v Alauda threw stones at his 
 statues,89 while the xv Primigenia and xvi Gallica 
 
 81 Tac. Hist. i. 6. 
 
 82 Hist. ii. II, iii. 25, and Dio Cass. Iv. 24. It was probably- 
 called Gemina, because the remains of i Germanica were drafted 
 into it. 
 
 93 Suet. Galba, 12. Tac. Hist. i. 41. 
 
 9* Tac. Hist. i. 36, ii. 23, 24, 48. 
 
 »« C. I. L. iii. pp. 847-8. 
 
 »8 The only legions mentioned in diplomata militaria are the 
 two Adjutrices, which consisted originally of peregrini. Other- 
 wise they refer only to the auxiliary troops. 
 
 »7 Dio Cass. Iv. 24.! ^ es Tac. Hist. i. 52. »» Ibid. i. 55. 
 
MOVEMENTS OF THE LEGIONS I99 
 
 were also mutinous and threatening. On the same day 
 in the other army the iv and xxii threw down Galba's 
 statues and took the oath to the senate and Roman 
 people only. When this news was conveyed to Vitel- 
 lius, he gave his troops the choice of marching against 
 the disaffected legions or choosing another imperator. 
 The hint was taken, and Valens, legate of the i legion, 
 proclaimed Vitellius at Cologne. The other legions 
 followed, first in the Lower province, then in the Upper. 
 By a prudent release of Civilis, a leading man among 
 the Batavians, Vitellius gained to his side eight cohorts 
 of Batavian auxiliaries formerly attached to the xiv 
 legion, while Junius Blaesus, the successor of Vindex 
 as governor of Lugdunensis, also joined his cause, 
 with the legion lying there, i Italica. ^oo More important 
 still was the accession of the British legions, which 
 might have made a dangerous diversion in his rear. 
 Though not coming over from their province in force, 
 they contributed vexillarii to the army of Vitellius. 
 He determined on a double march to Italy. Caecina 
 with XXI Rapax and vexillarii from the other three 
 legions of Upper Germany was to proceed by the Pen- 
 nine Alps, while Valens with v Alauda and chosen 
 bodies from the other legions was to go by way of Gaul 
 and the Cottian Alps. 
 
 Meanwhile in Rome, Otho, disappointed by the 
 adoption of Piso, had won the affection of the troops 
 in the city, and on January 18 Galba was murdered. 
 Otho was proclaimed emperor by the praetorian guard, 
 and in March set forward with what troops he had to 
 meet the German armies. There were at Rome at this 
 time a number of legionary troops ; vexillarii chiefly 
 from the armies of Britain, Germany, and Illyricum,ioi 
 whilst the i Adjutrix, organised by Galba, was also at 
 hand. By these and the praetorian cohorts, and 7,000 
 gladiators Otho was accompanied, whilst 8,000 troops 
 were sent forward from the four legions of Dalmatia 
 and Pannonia, vii, xi, xiii and xiv.^^^ Vitellius him- 
 
 100 Tac. Hist. i. 59. "i Id. i. 31. 102 id, ii. n, 24. 
 
200 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 self remained for the present in Germany, and Valens 
 and Caecina, after committing many excesses and 
 cruelties on their march, formed a junction in Italy 
 and confronted Otho's forces.***^ These were commanded 
 by the veteran general Suetonius Paulinus and Marius 
 Celsus, who advised that a battle should be delayed 
 till the Illyrian and Moesian legions, which had acknow- 
 ledged Otho,^°* should come up. Otho was too impa- 
 tient to follow this advice,^*'^ and the battle of Bedriacum, 
 fought about the middle of April, was the result. Among 
 the incidents of the battle we find that xxi Rapax and 
 I Adjutrix were opposed to one another, and that the 
 former, after at first losing its eagle, finally repulsed 
 the latter, io« whilst the vexillarii of the xiii and xiv 
 were surrounded and driven back by an attack of the 
 v Alauda.io''* 
 
 Vitellius himself meanwhile was recruiting the legions 
 left behind in Germany. With more German soldiers 
 and 8,000 vexillarii from the British legions, ^^^ he fol- 
 lowed his lieutenants into Italy, learning of the success 
 at Bedriacum on his way. Spain had declared for 
 him, and the x legion was ordered by Cluvius Rufus 
 the governor to beat off a threatened attack from the 
 Othonian governor of Mauretania. io« For the con- 
 quered legions Vitellius showed little consideration. 
 Many centurions were killed, ^^^ the legions were scattered 
 throughout Italy or mixed with the conquerors, while 
 the XIV, whose threatening attitude was, most con- 
 spicuous, w£LS sent back to Britain in company with the 
 Batavian cohorts, to keep them in check. This nearly 
 led to a battle between them, and ultimately the legion 
 returned to Britain alone.^^ i Adjutrix was sent to 
 Spain, m and the xi and vii sent back to their winter 
 quarters in Dalmatia and Pannonia, while xiii Gemina 
 
 103 Tac. Hist. ii. 31. 10* Id. i. 76. io5 Id. ii. 32. io« Id. ii. 43. 
 106a For a fuller account of these movements, see my Intro- 
 duction to Plutarch's Galba and Otho. 
 
 107 Id. ii. 57. 
 
 108 Tac. Hist. ii. 58. los Id. ii. 60. no Id. ii. 66. 
 Ill Id. ii. 67, ill. 44. 
 
MOVEMENTS OF THE LEGIONS 201 
 
 was ordered to prepare amphitheatres at Cremona and 
 Bononia for a gladiatorial display.^" 
 
 In the east, as we have seen, Vespasian with his three 
 victorious legions, x, v, xv, was just about to besiege 
 Jerusalem when the news arrived of the events in Italy. 
 At first the armies of Judaea and Syria acknowledged 
 Galba, and then Otho,"^ but on the arrival of Titus on 
 the scene a change took place. Whatever jealousy 
 existed before between Mucianus and Vespasian was 
 removed by his skill. The oriental legions now began 
 to reflect on their own strength and to compare them- 
 selves with the German legions who had taken on them- 
 selves to appoint an emperor. On the death of Otho 
 the oath to Vitellius, though taken, was taken in silence, 
 and they were evidently ready, if the word were given, 
 to repudiate it. The example was given from Egypt, 
 where Tiberius Alexander the prefect administered to 
 his two legions the oath of fidelity to Vespasian. This 
 was in July, and a day or two afterwards the legions of 
 Syria and Judaea did the same, impelled to it partly by 
 the rumours spread by Mucianus that the oriental legions 
 were to be sent by Vitellius to Germany and the German 
 legions to the east.^i* Vespasian had thus two legions 
 in Egypt, three in Judaea, and four in Syria ; the Illyrian 
 legions, whose vexillarii had been conquered at Bedria- 
 cum, were certain to support him, and of the Moesian 
 legions iii Gallica, which had formerly been in Syria, 
 was looked on as secure, while the other two would 
 probably take the same side.i^s 
 
 It was resolved that a part only of the eastern legions 
 should be sent against Vitellius, as the Illyrian and 
 Moesian legions were not without reason counted upon 
 for help. Accordingly, Mucianus started with vi 
 Ferrata and 13,000 vexillarii from the other legions."^ 
 
 The Illyrian legions, however, did not wait for his 
 arrival. The iii Gallica set the example to the other 
 two Moesian legions, i^^ and all three advanced to 
 
 112 Tac. Hist. ii. 67. \ "3 Id. ii. 6. n* Id. u. 80. 
 
 116 Id. 74. 116 Id. 83. 117 Id. 85. 
 
202 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 Aquileia, at the same time inviting the Pannonian 
 legions, vii Gemina and xiii Gemina, to join them. 
 These at once proclaimed Vespasian under the influence 
 of Antonius Primus, legate of the vii, a man of dis- 
 reputable antecedents but great energy."^ The Dalma- 
 tian legion, XI Claudia, followed more slowly the example 
 of the rest. At the same time Antonius wrote letters 
 to the XIV legion in Britain and the i Adjutrix in Spain, 
 which had both stood for Otho against Vitellius. Vitel- 
 lius, now in Rome, after vainly demanding fresh vexil- 
 larii from Britain and Germany, at last determined 
 to send forward Valens and Caecina^® with the now 
 demoralised German legions. Caecina marched first 
 with V Alauda,^^^ xxii Primigenia, xxi Rapax, and i 
 Italica, and vexillarii of the other four legions, while 
 Valens, after in vain trying to retain his part of the 
 army, remained behind ill. Meanwhile, on the other 
 side a council of war was held at Poetovio, the winter 
 quarters of the xiii legion, and, in spite of what seemed 
 more prudent plans, the advice of Antonius Primus for 
 an immediate advance was adopted ; while in order to 
 protect Moesia from the barbarian tribes the chiefs of 
 the Sarmatae were entrusted with its defence. Aquileia 
 was seized, then Altinum and Patavium, to which 
 latter place the vii Gemina and xiii Gemina were pushed 
 forward, in spite of emphatic orders from Mucianus 
 that no advance should be made beyond Aquileia.^^^ 
 Caecina with his legions was posted near Verona, and 
 by a prompt attack might have overpowered these 
 two Flavian legions. He was, however, meditating 
 treachery towards his chief, and remained inactive. 
 Soon the two Pannonian legions were reinforced by 
 HI Gallica and viii Augusta,^^^ and Verona was sur- 
 rounded. The German legions discovering Caecina's 
 treachery put him in chains and advanced to Cremona, 
 where xxi Rapax and i Italica already formed an ad- 
 vance guard. 123 Antonius, wishing to strike a decisive 
 
 118 Tac. Hist. ii. 86. us Id. ii. 99. 120 id, ii. 100. 
 
 121 Id. iii. 8. 122 Id. iii. 10. 123 Id. iii. 14. 
 
MOVEMENTS OF THE LEGIONS 203 
 
 blow while the Vitellian army was still without a general, 
 advanced with his army to Bedriacum. A cavalry 
 skirmish between that place and Cremona ended in 
 two German legions, xxi and i, being repulsed, and the 
 whole Flavian army advancing to Cremona. A night 
 battle foUowed.^^* Antonius had five legions, two 
 from Pannonia, three from Moesia. On the Vitellian 
 side all the eight German legions were engaged and 
 vexillarii from the three legions of Britain. The battle 
 was confused and obstinate, the vii Gemina losing no 
 less than six of its chief centurions. Victory, how- 
 ever, remained with Antonius. After the rout of 
 Cremona, the conquered legions were dispersed through 
 Illyricum, and the victorious army continued its advance 
 towards Rome, strengthened by the xi Claudia, which 
 had so far kept aloof.^^^ The news of the victory at 
 once brought over to the victorious party Spain with its 
 three legions, x Gemina, vi Victrix, and i Adjutrix,^^^ 
 and Britain, where Vespasian was remembered as having 
 once been the legate of ii Augusta. In Moesia, however, 
 the Dacians took the opportunity of passing the Danube, 
 and would have destroyed the legionary camps had 
 not Mucianus appeared on the scene with vi Ferrata, 
 which he was leading, as we have seen, to Italy .^^^ 
 
 At Rome Vitellius for the moment roused himself 
 and advanced against the enemy, but returned to the 
 city without attempting to strike a blow. Antonius, 
 joined now by Petilius Cerealis, hastened forward 
 eager to anticipate Mucianus, and Rome was forcibly 
 entered, the praetorian camp stormed, and Vitellius 
 murdered. On the subsequent arrival of Mucianus at 
 Rome, serious events in Germany at once claimed his 
 attention ; but his first act was to weaken the influence 
 of Antonius by sending back his former legion 
 VII Gemina to Pannonia and in Gallica from its 
 temporary winter- quarters at Capua to Syria.^^® 
 Before long more serious considerations involved 
 
 124 Tac. Hist. iii. 22-25. ^^^ Id. iii. 50. 
 
 126 Id. iii. iii. 44. 127 Id. 46. 128 Id. iv. 39. 
 
a04 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 greater changes. At the mouth of the Rhine the 
 Batavi had never been made a regular part of the 
 empire, though they had had to furnish auxiharies. 
 Eight cohorts of the Batav ian forces had been attached to 
 the XIV legion in Britain, and had been among the 
 forces present at the first battle of Bedriacum on the 
 side of the Vitellians. They had not, however, heartily 
 joined the German legions, and it was only from motives 
 of prudence that Vitelhus had freed Civilis, one of their 
 chief men, from imprisonment on a charge of treason."® 
 The tribe remained disaffected after his release, and 
 Antonius before his invasion of Italy took advantage 
 of this and wrote instructions to Civilis by an appear- 
 ance of revolt to detain the German legions in their 
 province. With this aim Hordeonius Flaccus, now 
 commanding in both provinces, was in secret agree- 
 ment.^^'' Accordingly the levy ordered by Vitellius 
 was refused by the Batavians, who persuaded the 
 Caninefates to take up a similar attitude, and at the 
 same time Civilis sent a message to stop the Batavian 
 cohorts who were at Mogontiacum under orders to 
 proceed to Rome.^^^ Meanwhile an attack was made 
 on the winter-quarters of the Roman auxiliaries stationed 
 on the Lower Rhine. At so decisive a step Hordeonius 
 was alarmed, and sent two legions, v Alauda and xv 
 Primigenia, against Civilis. They, however, reduced 
 in numbers and largely composed of recruits, were 
 obliged to retreat to their winter-quarters at Vetera."^ 
 Hordeonius himself was at Mogontiacum with the two 
 legions of Upper Germany ,^^^ and when the Batavian 
 cohorts obeyed the summons of Civilis, making no 
 attempt to stop them himself, he ordered i Germanica 
 stationed at Bonna to do so. The legion, however, 
 unsupported by Hordeonius, was repulsed, and the 
 cohorts joined their countrymen. Thus reinforced 
 Civilis advanced to besiege Vetera, a large camp intended 
 
 129 Tac. Hist. i. 59. "o Id. iv. 13. lai Id. 15. 
 
 "a Id. 18. 
 
 133 The other two (xxi and i Italica) had marched entire 
 with Caecina. 
 
MOVEMENTS OF THE LEGIONS 205 
 
 for two full legions but now guarded only by 5,000 
 men. 13* To relieve the place Hordeonius sent forward 
 Didius Vocula, legate of the xxii Primigenia, with that 
 legion and the iv Macedonica. The soldiers, suspecting 
 their leaders of collusion with Civilis, after threats of 
 mutiny proceeded as far as Bonna, where, joining the 
 I legion, still smarting under its recent repulse, they 
 broke out into open violence .^^^ Obedience was for 
 the time restored and an advance made to Cologne, 
 where Hordeonius resigned his command to Vocula. 
 Novaesium was next reached, where the xvi Gallica 
 was stationed, and once more the demoralised troops 
 broke out into mutiny, and Herennius Gallus, the 
 legate of the legion, was killed.^^^ It was not, how- 
 ever, only the legionaries with their dogged fidelity to 
 Vitellius who were to blame. Vocula, instead of advanc- 
 ing at once with his four legions to the relief of Vetera, 
 remained stationary at Gelduba, and while he thus 
 gave ground for suspicion to his jealous troops, he 
 allowed Civilis to send attacking parties against the 
 Ubii, the Treveri, and even as far as Mogontiacum 
 itself. At this point news arrived of the Vitellian 
 defeat at Cremona, and the legions sulkily took the 
 oath to Vespasian. Civilis, however, who had hitherto 
 nominally fought for Vespasian, now threw away the 
 mask, and still refused to disarm. An attack on 
 Gelduba was victoriously repulsed by Vocula,^^^ 
 who even then, however, neglected the chance of 
 relieving Vetera, and when he did advance there, 
 he contented himself with strengthening its defences 
 while he took 1,000 men from the two besieged 
 legions and added them to his own army."^ Then, 
 finding his men more and more mutinous, he retreated 
 again to Novaesium, upon which Vetera was finally 
 cut off and surrounded. Not unnaturally after this 
 specimen of generalship another mutiny followed. 
 Hordeonius was murdered, and it was only after a 
 
 13* Tac. Hist. iv. 22. 135 jd. iv. 25. i36 jd. 27. 
 
 137 Id, iv. 32. 138 /^. 35. 
 
206 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 temporary separation of the lower and upper legions 
 that the two of Upper Germany, xxii and iv and I 
 Germanica of the lower army, followed Vocula back to 
 Mogontiacum.139 
 
 A fresh danger now threatened the Roman cause. 
 The news successively arriving of the destruction of 
 the Capitoline temple, the death of Vitellius, the invasion 
 of Moesia by the Dacians, and of native risings in Britain, 
 induced the Gallic cantons to think of throwing off the 
 Roman yoke. Under the lead of Classicus and Tutor, 
 the auxiliaries of the Treveri and Lingones suddenly 
 deserted Vocula, who, suspecting nothing, had once 
 more advanced to Cologne, and joined their cause to 
 that of Civilis. Again Vocula withdrew to Novaesium ; 
 but the legions, since Vitellius was dead, preferred even a 
 foreign empire to Vespasian,"^ and by a final mutiny, 
 Roman soldiers as they were, they took the oath of 
 fidelity to the so-called Gallic empire, Vocula paying 
 the penalty for his vacillation with his life. The v 
 and XV legions in Vetera, now deprived of all hope, 
 capitulated and took the same oath ; but their com- 
 pliance did not save their lives, and they were annihilated 
 with fire and sword.^*^ Of the other four legions two, 
 XVI and i, were sent to garrison the city of the Treveri,"^ 
 while the other two, iv and xxii, were probably kept 
 by Civilis in Lower Germany. At this point, however, 
 the tide began to turn. Jealousy broke out between 
 the Gallic leaders and Civilis, who had not himself 
 recognised the Gallic empire, while the Sequani in 
 Gaul formed the centre of a Roman party there. 
 
 Mucianus meanwhile, having provided for the safety 
 of the other provinces by dispersing the conquered 
 Vitellian legions through Illyricum and sending the i 
 Italica entire to Moesia to support the vi Ferrata, had 
 turned his eyes on Germany, and apparently as a first 
 step sent back xxi Rapax to Vindonissa. Before 
 mentioning his further dispositions it will be as well 
 
 ^39 Tac, Hist. 37. 140 jd. iv. 54. Ki Id. 60. 1*2 /^. 62. 
 
MOVEMENTS OF THE LEGIONS 207 
 
 once more to take a bird's-eye view of the present posi- 
 tion of the legions. 
 
 Lower Germany : (v and xv destroyed) xxii Primigenia and 
 
 IV Macedonica under Civilis. 
 Upper Germany : xxi Rapax. 
 Gaul : I Germanica, xvi Gallica at Trier. 
 Pannonia : vii Gemina and mixed troops of Vitellians. 
 Dalmatia : garrisons of Vitellians. 
 
 Moesia : i Italica, vi Ferrata, and Vitellian troops, i^a 
 Italy : xiii Gemina, xi Claudia, vii Claudia, viii Augusta. 
 Spain : vi Victrix, x Gemina, i Adjutrix. 
 Britain : 11 Augusta, xx Valeria Victrix, ix Hispana, xiv 
 
 Gemina. 
 Syria : in Gallica, xii Fulminata, iv Scythica. 
 Judaea : x Fretensis, v Macedonica, xv Apollinaris. 
 Africa : in Augusta. 
 Egypt : xxii Deiotariana and in Cyrenaica. 
 
 To strengthen his demoraHsed forces VitelHus had 
 apparently followed the example of Nero and created 
 an irregular legion from the fleet at Misenum.^** This 
 legion Mucianus in the name of Vespasian formally 
 enrolled under the name of the 11 Adjutrix.^*^ It was 
 necessary to send an overwhelming force into Germany, 
 where the Roman army at this time was almost non- 
 existent, and one of the first acts of Mucianus, on arriving 
 at Rome, was to provide for the security of the Rhine 
 frontier. Annius Gallus and Petilius Cerealis were 
 chosen as legates, the former of Upper, the latter of 
 Lower Germany : ^^^ while light legions were ordered 
 to march into Germany. Of these, only one (xxi Rapax) 
 belonged to the old German army.^*' Three belonged 
 to the victorious army of the Flavians (vii Claudia from 
 
 143 Tac. Hist. iii. 46. 
 
 1** This is clear from Hist. iii. 55, where a legio e classicis is 
 mentioned at a time when the i Adjutrix was certainly in Spain. 
 Conf. Hist. ii. 67 and 86. 
 
 1*5 Dio Cass. Iv. 24 ; and a military diploma dated March 7, 
 70, granted to the veterans of the 11 Adjutrix, C. I. L. iii. 849 and 
 907. 
 
 i*« Id. iv. 68 
 
 1*7 Probably a small division of legion may have been left 
 behind at Vindonissa : but, if so, it had taken no part in the 
 rising of Civilis. 
 
208 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 Moesia, xi Claudia from Dalmatia, and viii Augusta 
 from Moesia)."^ One was the ii Adjutrix, a legion 
 raised by Vitellius from the classiarii of Ravenna, and 
 presented with its eagle by Vespasian. Of the other 
 three, one was the famous xiv Gemina, which was to 
 cross over from Britain, and the remaining two were vi 
 Victrix and i Adjutrix from Spain.^*® The news of 
 the approaching legions increased the wavering of the 
 Gallic states. The Treveri and Lingones were precisely 
 the tribes which had stood aloof from Vindex ; and the 
 other Gauls were not willing now to acknowledge them 
 as leaders. Co-operation might still have given the 
 insurgents a chance of at any rate temporary success : 
 but, while Civilis Wcis occupied in the forests of the 
 Belgae, the Gallic leaders behaved as if the victory was 
 won, and neglected even to defend the passage of the 
 Alps.^^^ The first troops to arrive were xxi Rapax 
 from Vindonissa, the auxilia of Noricum under Sextilius 
 Felix, and an ala Singularium raised by Vitellius. By 
 them, the Treveri were defeated near Bingen ; and 
 when Cerealis and others, collecting the few soldiers 
 still garrisoning Mogontiacum, arrived at Augusta 
 Treverorum, he found that the two Vitellian legions 
 I and XII had already taken the oath to Ves- 
 pasian.^*^ Meanwhile Civilis and Classicus, the Gallic 
 leader, concentrated their scattered forces ; and, some- 
 
 1*8 The MS. reading is vimxjviij, which most editors give as 
 XI and VIII ; but clearly the numbers of three legions underlie 
 the symbols ; and the third can only be vii Claudia or xiii Gemina, 
 since the other Flavian legions are otherwise accounted for. 
 
 1*9 Id. iv. 68. The second Spanish legion is pma in the MS. 
 This, by most editors, is given as Decima, no doubt owing to a 
 mistaken inference from v. 19, where the Decima ex Hispania 
 appears with PetiUus. But pma clearly represents prima. 
 The legion i Adjutrix has by many been supposed to have 
 remained in Spain till the rising of Saturninus under Domitian ; 
 but Ritterling has shown {West Deutscher Zeitschrift, 1893, 
 pp. 107-8) that some of its monuments in Germany date back 
 respectively to yz a.d. (Br. 1141), 74 a.d. (Br. 1288), 76 a.d. 
 (Br. 1 142), etc.; and this, together with the MS. reading pma, 
 appears to be conclusive. 
 
 150 Jd. iv, 151 Id. iv. 70. 
 
MOVEMENTS OF THE LEGIONS 209 
 
 what against the will of Civilis, who wished to wait for 
 the trans-Rhenan tribes, determined to attack Cerealis 
 at Trier before the legions, which were on the march, 
 had arrived. Their army, consisting (in addition to 
 the veteran Batavian cohorts) of Lingones, Ubii, Bructeri, 
 and Tencteri,^^^ came unexpectedly upon Cerealis. The 
 Vitellian legions found themselves completely demora- 
 lized ; and it was only by the valour of xxi Rapax 
 that a threatened defeat was turned into a victory. 
 Cerealis then marched into his own province to relieve 
 the Agrippinenses. His army still consisted only of xxi 
 Rapax, some remnants probably of the other Vitellian 
 legions ,^^^ and probably some auxiliaries ; and he was 
 unable to prevent some minor successes on the part of 
 the enemy. But by this time the legions were begin- 
 ning to arrive ; and, while i Adjutrix, viii Augusta, 
 XI Claudia, and vii Claudia, formed the upper army 
 under Annius Gallus, the ii Adjutrix and vi Victrix 
 joined Cerealis, and xiv Gemina from Britain (after 
 reducing the Nervii and Tungri) was also added. Civilis 
 was now at Vetera ; and it was near this camp that 
 the decisive battle was fought. The contest was main- 
 tained for some time with varying success till two alae 
 succeeded in attacking the enemy from the rear. Only 
 the failure of the fleet to co-operate with the army, 
 and a storm of rain at nightfall prevented the annihila- 
 tion of the Batavian army. On the following day xiv 
 Gemina was sent to the upper province,^^* from which 
 in all probability vii Claudia had been hastily recalled 
 to Moesia, where the legate Fonteius Agrippa was 
 about this time defeated and killed. ^55 Xhe place of 
 XIV Gemina was taken by x Gemina from Spain .^^® 
 The war, however, was by no means finished : although 
 Cerealis began to post his legions in their permanent 
 
 152 Tac. Hist. iv. 77. 
 
 153 Jd. V. 16, " praevectus ad Germanicum exercitum." 
 
 154 Id. V. 19. 
 
 155 Josephus, Bell. Jud. vii., 4, ad. fin. See Ritt. W.D.Z., 
 1893 p. 114- 
 
 iB« Tac. HisU v. 19. 
 
210 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 camps, II Adjutrix at Batavodurum, x Gemina at 
 Arenacum,^*' and the other two legions at Novaesium 
 and Bonna.!*^* The two former camps, as well as his 
 auxiliary camps at Grinnes and Vada, were simultane- 
 ously attacked ; and it was not without difficulty 
 that the enemy was beaten off. Then, as a last resource, 
 Civilis attempted to get together a fleet, but soon desisted 
 from what was a hopeless struggle. The insula Bata- 
 vorum was ravaged by the victorious Romans ; and 
 Civilis determined to make overtures for peace. The 
 final arrangements, as well as the campaign which 
 Annius Gallus must have found necessary in the upper 
 province, 169 were contained in the lost portion of the 
 fifth book of the Histories. 
 
 At the beginning of the Flavian era, therefore, Ger- 
 many was garrisoned by an entirely new set of legions. 
 Of the old ones, the four, whose eagles had remained 
 in Germany and had therefore been disgraced by taking 
 the oath of allegiance to the Gallic empire, were cashiered. 
 I Germanica never occurs again, iv Gallica was re- 
 placed by a new legion iv Flavia Firma : xvi Gallica, 
 by XVI Flavia Felix. As to the fate of xv Primigenia, 
 there is some uncertainty. There is no evidence of its 
 existence after this date : but, if four legions were 
 cashiered and only three new ones raised (ii Adjutrix, 
 IV Flavia Firma, xvi Flavia Felix), there would be a 
 diminution in the number of the legions, which we 
 hardly should have expected. ^^^ Of the remaining 
 four whose eagles had accompanied the legions to Italy, 
 I Italica and probably v Alauda were sent to Moesia ; 
 while XXI Rapax and, as we shall ultimately see, xxii 
 Primigenia were returned to Germany, though at first 
 to the lower instead of to the upper army. 
 
 By this time Vespasian was on his way to Rome 
 from Egypt, where he had remained for some time. 
 Titus was left to conduct the Jewish war, and in the 
 
 157 Tac. Hist. V. 20. ^^a Jd. v. 22. 
 
 169 See Frontinus, Strategematica IV iii. 14. 
 180 See note on p. 213. 
 
MOVEMENTS OF THE LEGIONS 211 
 
 spring of 70 a.d. the long-delayed siege was begun. 
 In addition to the three legions which had served under 
 Vespasian, Titus led up the xii Fulminata from Syria 
 and some vexillarii from the two Egyptian legions .^^^ 
 With these the siege was pressed, ending after five 
 months' obstinate resistance in the fall of the Jewish 
 capital. 
 
 On the conclusion of the Jewish and German wars a 
 re- arrangement of the forces was to a certain extent 
 necessary. In the east Judaea could no longer be left 
 without a regular legion, while the events which led 
 to Corbulo's campaigns had shown the advisability 
 of placing legionary rather than auxiliary forces in 
 Cappadocia. Accordingly the x Fretensis was left in 
 Jerusalem,^^^ whilst the xii Fulminata was led by Titus 
 to Melitene in Cappadocia on the Euphrates .^^^ Syria 
 was still garrisoned by four legions, the vi Ferrata 
 sent back from Moesia, the iii Gallica ordered away 
 from Italy, as we have seen, by Mucianus, the iv Scythica 
 and a newly organised legion called xvi Flavia Firma, 
 which Vespasian formed out of the remnants of the 
 XVI Gallica now disbanded on account of its behaviour 
 in the German war.^^* 
 
 On the Danube frontier important reinforcements 
 were needed. Both the Dacians and Sarmatae were 
 becoming more and more threatening, while the Mar- 
 comanni were showing signs of restlessness on the 
 Pannonian frontier. It was therefore decided to leave 
 Dalmatia henceforth without a legionary force, but to 
 place no less than seven legions along the Danube 
 between Carnuntum and its mouth. Probably from 
 this time Carnuntum, Vindobona, Brigetio, Viminacium, 
 Singidunum, and Durostornum became legionary camps. 
 To Moesia were sent back vii Claudia, after its short 
 sojourn in Germany, the v Macedonica from Judaea, i«5 
 and a new legion, iv Flavia Felix, which had been 
 
 161 Hist. V. I. 162 Josephus. Bell Jud. i. 2. 
 
 1^3 Josephus, ib. vii. i. 3. i^* Dio Cass. Iv. 24. 
 165 Conf. Orelli, 3453, where a centurion of that legion is 
 rewarded by Vespasian. 
 
212 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 created in place of iv Macedonica also disbanded. »«« 
 We have seen already that the I Italica had been sent 
 hither by Mucianus. To Pannonia two of its old legions 
 were restored, xiii Gemina, which was probably moved 
 from its old headquarters Poetovio to Vindobona on 
 the frontier, i«7 and the xv ApoUinaris, which for the 
 last seven years had been in the east, was stationed 
 at Carnuntum,i«8 while in all probability the v Alauda, 
 which had marched almost entire into Italy, ^^^ was also 
 sent to this province. I'o 
 
 From Spain the vi Victrix and i Adjutrix had been 
 sent against Civilis, while, as we have seen, x Gemina 
 was likewise sent somewhat later to Lower Germany, 
 and their place was now filled by the vii Gemina, of 
 which traces are found in the province from this time 
 onward, especially at Leon its headquarters. Britain 
 had sent the xiv Gemina into Germany at the same 
 time, but the province was not yet completely con- 
 quered, and four legions were still necessary. Accord- 
 ingly the II Adjutrix, probably on the occasion of Petilius 
 Cerealis being transferred to Britain, was sent over 
 from Lower Germany to that province ; and as numer- 
 ous inscriptions prove, was posted together with xx 
 Valeria Victrix at Deva (Chester) : whilst the ix Hispana 
 was moved on to Eboracum. For Lower Germany, 
 whilst the i Germanica was disbanded, three legions 
 were considered enough after the reduction of the 
 Batavi (unless we follow the view that xv Primigenia 
 was not disbanded but still remained in the province I'l), 
 the VI Victrix being stationed at Novaesium, the x 
 Gemina at Noviomagus,"^ and the xxi Rapax at 
 Bonna : but at some date prior to 89 A.D., when we 
 shall certainly find it in the province, xxii Primigenia 
 was transferred probably from one of the Danube pro- 
 
 168 Dio Cass. Iv. 24. i^? C.I.L. iii. 580. 
 
 168 C.I.L. iii. 482. 169 Tac. Hist. i. 61. 
 
 170 This is quite uncertain. It was probably the legion des- 
 troyed by the Sarmatae under Domitian, Suet. Dom. 6, which 
 was almost certainly a Pannonian legion. 
 
 "1 See note on p. 213. 
 
 172 Orelli, 3551, 2008, 2098. 
 
MOVEMENTS OF THE LEGIONS 213 
 
 vinces to the Lower German province.^^^^ In Upper 
 Germany the Chatti were always a source of danger, 
 while the Marcomanni or Suevi might if necessary be 
 attacked from this quarter .^^^ The four legions in this 
 province were xiv Gemina and i Adjutrix at Mogontia- 
 cum, the xi Claudia at Vindonissa, and the viii Augusta 
 perhaps at Argentoratum.174 For the present, there- 
 fore, there were four legions in Britain, eight along 
 the Rhine, seven on the Danube, and six in the east, 
 while Spain and Egypt had two legions each, and 
 A-frica one. 
 
 Lower Germany : vi Victrix, x Gemina, (xv Primigenia.i^sj 
 XXII Primigenia, xxi Rapax. 
 
 Upper Germany : xiv Gemina, xi Claudia, viii Augusta, i 
 Adjutrix. 
 
 Britain : 11 Augusta, xx Valeria Victrix, ix Hispana, 11 
 Adjutrix. 
 
 Pannonia : xiii Gemina, v Alauda, xv Apollinaris. 
 
 Moesia : vii Claudia, iv Flavia Felix, i Italica, v Macedonica. 
 
 Spain : vii Gemina. 
 
 Syria : vi Ferrata, iv Scythica, xvi Flavia Firma, in Gallica. 
 
 Judaea : x Fretensis. Cappadocia : xii Fulminata. 
 
 Egypt : XXII Deiotariana, in Cyrenaica. Africa : iii 
 
 Augusta. 
 
 17 2'^ Ritterling, De Legione X Gemina, p. 68. 
 
 173 Tac. Hist. V. 19. 1^4 it was here in Ptolemy's time. 
 
 175 Mommsen {Rom. Gesch. v. 130) assumes that xv Primigenia 
 and V Alauda were disbanded after the affair of Civilis. There 
 are several reasons against this view, (i) This would have 
 reduced the number of legions to 28, and the frontier relations 
 of the empire, after so much recent danger and confusion, were 
 such as certainly did not admit of a diminished army ; (2) in 
 the case, at any rate, of the v the main portion of the legion 
 did not share in the disgrace, as it was in Italy {Hist. i. 61), and 
 we know that the two legions in Vetera only amounted to 5,000 
 men, while these bravely held out until the desertion of the other 
 legions left them no hope ; (3) one legion was certainly de- 
 stroyed by the Sarmatae in Domitian's reign (Suet Dom. 10), but 
 none of the other legions can be shown to have disappeared at 
 that time ; (4) the two new legions of Trajan, xxx and 11 placed 
 in Lower Germany and Egypt, make the supposition of Mar- 
 quardt {Staatsverw. ii. 450) and Grotefend (in Pauly, Real- 
 Encyclop. p. 896) very probable that Trajan amalgamated once 
 more the two double legions xxii and xv which were also in 
 those two provinces. There is, however, no evidence for the 
 existence of xv Primigenia after the affair of Civilis. 
 
214 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 An important change which accompanied this Fla- 
 vian redistribution of the legions was the virtual exclu- 
 sion henceforth of Italians from legionary service. 
 Their pride of birth and feeling of superiority seem to 
 have been the causes of frequent acts of insubordination 
 and excess, and the lamentable fiasco of the Batavian 
 war made a reform of some kind inevitable. An inci- 
 dental result of this was the necessity to recruit the 
 African army henceforth from the east instead of from 
 the west, as the exclusion of Italy threw a heavier 
 burden on the other western provinces. 
 
 These arrangements seem to have preserved peace on 
 the frontier during Vespasian's reign. Under Domitian 
 was commenced a fresh policy in Upper Germany, 
 afterwards pursued and completed by Trajan. Instead 
 of keeping to the Rhine as the frontier, the Neckar 
 valley and the region called Decumates Agri were gradu- 
 ally taken into the empire. This tendency to push 
 forward the Roman frontier across the Rhine in Upper 
 Germany was certainly developed by Domitian, whose 
 war with the Chatti, undertaken in 83 a.d.,i'6 was, 
 there is no doubt, infinitely more important than the 
 ex parte statements of Tacitus ^7? would lead one to 
 suppose. The war was an aggressive one ;i78 and 
 necessitated an increase in the Upper German army. 
 Legion xxi Rapax was almost certainly sent for from 
 the lower army : 179 while a vexillatio of ix Hispana 
 
 176 Its date is fixed (i) by the title of Germanicus which first 
 occurs in 84 a.d. {Eck. vi., 378, 397), (2) by the fact that in this 
 year the Uzipii, not before within the empire, were enrolled as 
 auxiliaries (Agric. 28), and (3) the triumph was before recall 
 of Agricola {Agric. 39). Compare also coins with Germania 
 capta dating from 84 and 85 {Eck. vi. 380, Cohen, 139, 351, 483, 
 488, 503). 
 
 177 Agric. 39, Germ. ^y. See also D.C. 67, 4. 
 
 178 Suet. Dom. 0. 
 
 179 That XXI Rapax formed part of the upper army shortly 
 after this time appears from the inscriptions of Mirebeau : that 
 it was at Freiburg in about 83 or 84 is made very probable by 
 Bergh's explanation of Br. 141 6, identifying the Sosius Senecio 
 of the inscription with Pliny's friend who was consul in 99 a.d.. 
 
MOVEMENTS OF THE LEGIONS 21^ 
 
 took part in expeditione Germanica ; i^o and the fact 
 that this legion is specially mentioned by Tacitus as 
 being weakened at this time ^^^ makes it probable that 
 this was the expedition alluded to. That the war was 
 followed by some extension of the empire, and with 
 new frontier arrangements, appears not only from 
 expressions in contemporary poets,^^^ but from state- 
 ments (unfortunately not always unambiguous) of Fron- 
 tinus, who probably himself took part in the war/®^ 
 '^he first of these statements merely says generally 
 that Domitian " contusa immanium ferocia nationum, 
 provinciis consulit." The second passage is more 
 important : " Limitibus per centum viginta milha 
 passuum actis, non mutavit tantum statum belli, sed 
 subjecit ditioni suae hostes, quorum refugia nudaverat." 
 The third statement is, " Imperator Caesar Augustus 
 Germanicus, eo bello, quo victis hostibus cognomen 
 Germanici meruit, quum in finibus Ubiorum " (the 
 name is no doubt corrupt) " castella poneret, pro fructi- 
 bus locorum, quae vallo comprehendebat, pretium solui 
 jussit," etc. There can be no doubt then that these, 
 passages all refer to the war against the Chatti, and 
 that therefore the limites and the castella had direct 
 reference to that war. 
 
 From 83 A.D., as we have seen, the lower army was 
 composed of three legions, vi, x, and xxii : while the 
 upper army had five, i, viii, xi, xiv, xxi ; and it is no 
 doubt to this period that the tegulae are to be referred, 
 found at Mirebeau near Dijon, and containing the 
 names of these five legions.^®^ Another tegula found 
 in the same place contains the names only of viii, xi, xiv, 
 XXI : from which Ritterling has inferred with some 
 
 and whose military tribuneship would therefore naturally fall 
 about fifteen years earlier. 
 
 180 Orelli, 3569. isi Agric, 26. 
 
 182 cf. Mart. ix. ii. 3 : ix. vii. i. Stat. Silv. I. i. 51 : V. ii, 
 
 133- 
 
 183 Frontin. Strateg. I. i. 8 : I. iii. 10 : II. xj. 7. 
 
 184 See Hermes xix. 437, where Mommsen refers them to the 
 yeax 70 a.d,, when Cerealis was assembling his army: but cf. 
 Ritterling, W.D.Z. 1893, p. 116, 
 
2l6 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 plausibility that, at some time between 83 and 89 
 (when the rising of Saturninus caused further changes), 
 I Adjutrix was removed from Germany. i8« It is quite 
 probable that this was the case. In 87 a.d., Cornelius 
 Fuscus was defeated and killed by the Dacians ; i*® 
 and the eagle of a legion was lost.^^^ It was 
 almost certainly at this time that Domitian created 
 a new legion, i Minervia/ss which, however, he 
 sent, not to the Danube, where veteran legions were 
 required, but to make up the legions in Lower Ger- 
 many : 189 while i Adjutrix may have been sent to 
 reinforce the army of the Danube, ^^o At any rate 
 toward the end of 88 a.d., an event happened which 
 caused important changes in the German armies. 
 
 The legate of the upper province was L. Antonius 
 Saturninus, who (taking advantage of the fact that his 
 legions were discontented and disgusted with the building 
 operations on the limes) caused himself to be proclaimed 
 imperator by the two legions at Mogontiacum.i^i The 
 two legions were xiv Gemina and xxi Rapax.is2 pew 
 details of the rising are known from historians. Great 
 alarm was felt in Rome.193 Domitian himself started 
 for the seat of war/^^ probably with some praetorian 
 
 185 His argument depends mainly on the supposition that 
 when detachments were sent as vexillationes from more than 
 one legion in a province, each legion contributed a share (see 
 loc. cit. p. 117, notes 38 and 39. 
 
 186 juv. iv., 1 12, Suet. Dom. 6. 
 
 187 D.C. Ixviii. 9. The legion destroyed on this occasion was 
 probably v Alauda. 
 
 188 D.C. liv, 23. 
 
 189 It was v^certainly there in 89, See below. 
 
 190 Ritt. De Leg. X. Gem. p. 72 argues, from an inscription 
 published in B.J. yj, p. 70, that i Minervia was created not 
 later than 33 a.d. Schilling, however, proves the insufficiency 
 of his argument ; and shows that new legions were as a rule 
 created to supply the loss of old ones. 
 
 191 Suet. Dom. 7. " L. Antonius apud duarum legiorum 
 hiberna res novas fnoliens." 
 
 192 For inscriptions relating to xxi Rapax at Mainz, see Br. 
 1057, 1206-7. 
 
 193 piut. Vit. Aemil. Paul, 25. 
 19* Frontin. Strateg I. i. 3. 
 
MOVEMENTS OF THE LEGIONS 217 
 
 cohorts ; but almost immediately received intelligence 
 that the rebellion was put down.i^s Saturninus had 
 entered into communication with some Germans across 
 the Rhine, probably the Chatti ; and only the sudden 
 melting of the ice prevented them from crossing the 
 river and joining him.i^^ Meanwhile Appius Maximus 
 Norbanus, the legate of some neighbouring province, 
 had arrived on the scene ; and Saturninus in the battle 
 which followed was defeated and killed. ^^^ Very 
 different views have been held, both as to the legions 
 which joined Saturninus, and as to the province 
 from which Appius Norbanus marched against him. 
 That the two legions at Mainz joined him seems clear 
 from the words of Suetonius ; ^^^ but this alone would 
 not account for the panic at Rome, or for the hasty 
 departure 6i Domitian. There were two other legions 
 in the province, at Argentoratum and Vindonissa ; 
 and, if these had remained faithful (to say nothing of 
 the Lower German army and the Pannonian legions, 
 which could easily have stopped his march in Italy), 
 there could have been no occasion for panic. Besides, 
 on occasions like this, the legions of a province usually 
 made common cause : all wanted a share in the prestige 
 of making an emperor ; and all too had the same cause 
 for disaffection. Whether legions viii and xi had 
 actually time to join his standard may perhaps be 
 doubtful ; but tha£ they were considered, both by 
 Saturninus and Domitian, a part of the rebel army must 
 certainly be assumed. * From whence did Appius 
 Norbanus march ? There can only be two alternatives 
 — from Pannonia or from Lower Germany. ^^^ Momm- 
 ies The date is fixed by the Acta Frat. Arv. Henz. p. cxxi-ii, 
 which show that Domitian started from Rome on January|i7, 
 89, A.D., and that the victory was celebrated on the 24th or 
 2Sth. 
 
 196 Suet. Dom. 6. 
 
 197 That Appius Maximus Norbanus put down the rising is 
 proved by D.C. Ixvii, 11 : Aur. Vict. 11 : Mart. ix. 84 : and by 
 C.I.L. vi,, 1347 where Appius Maximus Norbanus is called 
 * Confector belli Germanici.' 
 
 198 Suet. Dom. 6. 
 
 199 Bergk, depending on Mart. ix. 84, thinks he was procurator 
 
2l8 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 sen, ^00 followed by Lieb,^**^ considers that the reference 
 in Martial ^°* is conclusive in favour of Pannonia.*®' 
 It must be admitted that, in the absence of positive 
 and negative arguments against it, the passage (though 
 still not easy to explain) is somewhat in favour of this 
 view. But it must nevertheless be given up. The 
 argument from Martial depends on the supposition 
 that Norbanus marched through Noricum and Raetia, 
 and that the battle took place somewhere near Vin- 
 donissa. But in this case he would have had to march 
 more than twice as far as Saturninus : while some days 
 would have elapsed before the news of the rising could 
 have reached him, after which he would have had to 
 collect his legions. It is hardly conceivable that, if 
 Saturninus was marching on Italy at all, he could not 
 have crossed the Alps before the arrival of Norbanus 
 at Vindonissa. The natural plan for Norbanus would 
 be to march to North Italy to intercept the rebel army, 
 as the Pannonian legions did in 69 a.d. ; but then this 
 passage from Martial has no bearing on the subject. 
 Again, there would have been no more than three legions 
 in Pannonia at the time ; and, considering the unsettled 
 state of the Danube frontier and that the Dacian War 
 was barely over, we can hardly believe that the whole 
 Pannonian force would be employed elsewhere ; and, 
 even if we add the Raetian auxiliaries, this army 
 would not be a match for the united forces of Upper 
 Germany : while to suppose that two of the German 
 legions joined him is an assumption without evidence, 
 and in itself unlikely. In the next place, the German 
 allies of Saturninus were already only separated from 
 
 of Raetia, an officer not belonging to the senatorial cursus 
 honorum at all: Asbach. that he was legate of Lugdunum : 
 Schiller, of Aquitania, both inermes provinciae. 
 
 200 Rom. Gesch. v. p. 137. 201 Dig Legaten p. 213. 
 
 202 ix. 84. ' Cum tua sacrilegos contra, Norbane, furores 
 staret pro domino Caesare sancta fides, haec ego Pieria ludebam 
 tutus in umbra, ille tuae cultor notus amicitiae. Me tibi Vindeli- 
 cis raptum narrabat in oris, nescia nee nostrae nominis Arctos 
 erat.' 
 
 203 See also Domazewski in W. D. Kor. ii. jt,. 
 
MOVEMENTS OF THE LEGIONS 219 
 
 him by the river, at the time when the battle was 
 fought ; ^°* but it is scarcely conceivable that the Chatti 
 who, till the thaw came, might have joined Saturninus 
 anywhere between Mogontiacum and Vindonissa, would 
 have marched all the way from their own home on the 
 right bank of the river — it is scarcely conceivable, 
 indeed, that they would have joined him in a march 
 southward at all. Finally, it is impossible to leave 
 out of account the army of Lower Germany. If 
 that had joined Saturninus, Norbanus with the Pan- 
 nonian army would certainly have been unable to put 
 down the rising as promptly as it was put down. And 
 if, on the other hand, it was against him, Saturninus by 
 every rule of prudence and strategy must have been 
 prevented from marching towards Italy, until he had 
 won over or conquered the lower army. 
 
 Fortunately we are not without evidence on this 
 point. The Lower German legions at this time were 
 I Minervia, vi Valeria Victrix, x Gemina, xxii Primi- 
 genia ; and, with regard to all of them, Ritterling ^"^ 
 has pointed out that in certain inscriptions they are 
 described with the letters P.F.D. after them. Thus 
 we have i Minervia P.F.D.,206 vi Valeria Victrix P.D.,207 
 X Gemina P.F.D.,208 xxii Primigenia P.F.D. 209 Now 
 in no inscriptions earlier than Domitian's reign are any 
 of these legions styled P.F. : while in inscriptions and 
 tegulae of Trajan's reign the letters are assigned to all 
 of them. 2 10 There are only three other legions which 
 are styled pia fidelis before Trajan's reign, vii Claudia 
 P.F., XI Claudia, P.F., 11 Adjutrix, P.F. ; and, of these, 
 the two former received the title owing to their fidelity 
 towards Claudius in the rising of Camillus Scribonianus 
 in Dalmatia : 211 while no other legions except these 
 
 20* Suet. Dom. 6. " Cum ipsa dimicationis hora resolutus 
 repente Rhenus transituras ad Antonium copias barbarorum 
 mhibuisset." 
 
 205 De Leg. X Gem., pp. 11 and seq. : W. D.Z.K. 1893, pp. 203 
 and seq. 
 
 206 Bonner Jahrbuch S7 p. 70. 207 Brambach 982. 208 Br. 651. 
 209 5*'. 673. 2ioRitt. De Leg. X Gem. pp. 120-1. 211 B.C. Ix. 15. 
 
220 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 four are styled P.F.D. That D. stands for Domitiana 
 is'jboth probable in itself, and receives some support 
 fromjthejanalogy of legions vii and xi which have the 
 letters C.P.F. after them, and from that of viii Augusta 
 which is styled 212 pja Fidelis Constans Commoda. 
 It seems, therefore, in the highest degree probable 
 that these four legions received the honorary title Pia 
 Fidelis Domitiana for some important service rendered 
 in Domitian's reign ; and the analogy of the grant to 
 legions vii and xi, as well as the fact that there was 
 no war in Lower Germany at the time, seem to point 
 unmistakably to Saturninus.213 But not only were these 
 four legions styled P.F.D. In Br. 684, we have Classis 
 Germanica,2i4 P.F.D. 215 In Br. 678, we also have 
 coh. II Arturum, P.F.D. 2 16 And in Br. 676 we have coh. 
 II C.R.P.F.D.217 While finally two alae, the ala Indiana 
 and the ala i Singularium, and at least two other cohorts, 
 I C.R. and coh. v Nucensium certainly belonging to 
 the lower army in Flavian times are styled P.F.^^® 
 When it is remembered that, out of all the other auxili- 
 ary forces of the empire, only one ala and five cohorts 
 are styled P.F., the fact that at least two alae and 
 four cohorts in Lower Germany are so styled, together 
 with the legions and the fleet, seems to make it almost 
 certain that it was the lower army which defeated 
 
 212 wilm. 1459. 
 
 213 The fact that D. is not found in connexion with the 
 legions in later times is of course due to the damnatio memoriae 
 passed on Domitian by the senate. If Ritterling's view is 
 correct, all the inscriptions which have this letter date between 
 89 and 96 A.D. It appears from an inscription, as Mommsen 
 points out in W.D.Z. Kor. 5. 171, that on March 23, 86 a.d. 
 leg. XXII was not called P.F. 
 
 21* The fleet, it is well known, belonged to Lower Germany. 
 
 215 See also B.J. 71, p. 107-9, and 78, p. 137. 
 
 216 That this belonged to Lower Germany is proved by Br. 
 666, C.I.L. ii. 702, and W. D.Z.K. iv. 222. 
 
 217 For this part' of the lower army see C.I.L. ix. 2958, and 
 B.J. 77, p. 19. 
 
 218 Ritt. adds : Ala 11 Flavia mil., coh. iii Delmatarum, and coh. 
 II Hispanorum ; but their attribution to the lower army is only 
 conjectural. 
 
MOVEMENTS OF THE LEGIONS 221 
 
 Saturninus, and that Appius Maximus Norbanus was its 
 legate. 
 
 In all probability a second war with the Chatti was 
 the necessary completion of these events. ^^^ Norbanus 
 most likely succeeded Saturninus as legate of the upper 
 army ; ^^^ and it is probable that the two legions at 
 Mainz which commenced the revolt, xiv and xxi, were 
 removed from the province and sent to Pannonia.^^^ 
 But XXII Primigenia seems to have been sent for to 
 Mogontiacum for the lower army. 222 it was in Upper 
 Germany before Domitian's death ; 223 and is proved 
 to have been there in 97 a.d. by a comparison of Hadrian's 
 cursus honorum 224 ^^^ith Spartian, Hadr. 2, 5 : while the 
 upper army was also strengthened for the time by vii 
 Gemina, which Trajan hastily brought up from 
 Spain. 225 
 
 For the last six years of Domitian, the Danube was 
 the scene of the greatest dangers ; and the German 
 provinces were probably left with three legions each : 
 I Minervia, vi Valeria Victrix, x Gemina, in the lower, 
 
 219 Thus Suet. Dom. 6 says " De Cat this Dacisque . . . dupli- 
 cem triumphum egit ; " and the interval between the war of 83 
 A.D. and the Dacian war was too great for the triumphs to have 
 been celebrated together. 
 
 220 This is how Mommsen explains the tegulae found at Mire- 
 beau-sur-Beze in the territory of the Lingones marked leg. viii 
 Aug. L. Appio leg. (Hermes 19 p. 438). 
 
 221 XIV Gemina was certainly in Pannonia before the end 
 of the first century {W.D.Z. Kor. 1891, 88). It is perhaps in 
 favour of the supposition, that xiv Gemina was removed as 
 early as this from the province, that it has left no traces on the 
 limes, Freiburg being the farthest point eastward where its 
 tegulae are found. With regard to xxi Rapax, that probably 
 was the legion destroyed by the Sarmatae in 92 a.d. (Suet. Dom. 
 6). 
 
 222 Br. 1626 from Alpirsbach, where it is styled P.F.D. See 
 also a tegula Br. 1377 g. 31. 
 
 223 C.I.L. iii., 550. 
 
 224 Wilm 937. 
 
 225 Pliny, Paneg. 14, speaks of legiones : but, if the view 
 taken above as to i Adjutrix is correct, there could have been 
 only one legion in Spain after 70 a.d. Traces of the presence 
 of VII Gemina are found in Br. 896, 15 12, and Henz. 6701, though 
 it is not certain that they belong to this period. 
 
222 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 and XXII Primigenia, viii Augusta, xi Claudia, in the 
 upper province. ** 
 
 To Britain Julius Agricola had been sent as legate in 
 78 A.D., and he at once and energetically pushed on 
 the conquest of the northern part. After the subjuga- 
 tion of the Silures, the camp at Viroconium, where the 
 XIV legion had been placed, was probably given up, 
 though Isca Silurum and Deva were still garrisoned, 
 the former by the 11 Augusta and xx, the latter by 
 Valeria Victrix and 11 Adjutrix, and the ix Hispana 
 was at Eboracum. In 84 Agricola, after conquering 
 up to the Firths of Forth and Clyde, was recalled, 
 though the same considerations which had made the 
 conquest of Britain advisable might have been urged 
 for bringing both Ireland and the north of Scotland 
 within the empire. Domitian, however, whether from 
 caution or jealousy, decided against further conquest, 
 and, either at this time or shortly after, the defensive 
 policy in Britain which Agricola's recall implied was 
 marked by the withdrawal of one of the four legions, 
 the II Adjutrix, which was transferred to Pannonia. 
 Here a war broke out about this time against the Suevi 
 or Marcomanni, who, forming an alliance with the 
 lazyges, a Sarmatian tribe, invaded Pannonia. Our 
 only knowledge of this war is derived from two inscrip- 
 tions, 227 which mention distinctions gained in bello 
 Suevico et Sarmatico by the 11 Adjutrix and xiii Gemina 
 under Domitian ; and one sentence in Suetonius, ^28 
 which mentions the destruction of one legion. This 
 we have already seen ground for believing was the v 
 Alauda. To strengthen the frontier in this part Domi- 
 tian, therefore, probably moved the i Adjutrix 
 from Upper Germany to Brigetio in Pannonia. In 86 
 a more important war was begun. Decebalus, the new 
 king of the Dacian tribes, crossed the Danube into 
 Moesia and defeated and slew Oppius Sabinus the 
 
 226 From 89 A.D. no hiberna were allowed to contain more 
 than a single legion. Suet. Dom. 7, " Geminari legionum castra 
 prohibuit." 
 
 227 Henzen, 6766 and 6912. 228 Domit, 6 ; Tac. Agric. i. 41. 
 
MOVEMENTS OF THE LEGIONS 223 
 
 legate. Domitian hastily collected an army, which 
 Cornelius Fuscus, prefect of the praetorians, commanded, 
 but they shared a similar fate. Then Tertius Julianus 
 assumed the command, drove the Dacians across the 
 Danube, and defeated them at Tapae. In this victory 
 the V Macedonica was probably engaged.^^^ The 
 results of this victory were greatly modified by a defeat 
 vvhich Domitian himself met with from the Marcomanni 
 and Quadi in Pannonia. However, a peace was made, 
 and while Decebalus became nominally a vassal of 
 Rome, Rome became with greater reality tributary to 
 the Dacian.^^^ There were, therefore, at the end of 
 Domitian's reign four legions in Moesia, i Italica, vii 
 Claudia, iv Flavia Felix, v Macedonica, and four in 
 Pannonia, xiii Gemina, i Adjutrix, xiv Gemina Martia 
 Victrix, and ii Adjutrix, while there were three in 
 Upper Germany, the xi Claudia, the viii Augusta, and 
 the XXII Primigenia, and three in Lower Germany, the 
 X Gemina, the vi Victrix, and the i Minervia: (or four 
 if we allow the disputed existence of xv Primigenia. To- 
 wards the close of Domitian's reign Moesia was divided 
 into an upper and a lower province, 231 pJrobably for 
 the sake of keeping a more effective check on the Dacians 
 through two independent commanders. During Nerva's 
 short reign the Suevi and Sarmatae seem to have re- 
 peated their invasion of Pannonia. We learn from an 
 inscription ^^^ that the i Adjutrix distinguished itself, 
 and it was a victory from this quarter which Nerva 
 was celebrating when he adopted Trajan.^^^ 
 
 Under Trajan important frontier changes took place, 
 and for the first time the traditional policy of Augustus 
 was essentially modified. When Nerva's death left 
 him sole imperator, he was governor of Upper Germany, 
 engaged in carrying out the new frontier policy there 
 
 229 Henzen, 6490. A certain J. Brocchus, tribune of the v 
 Macedonica, is rewarded for services in the Dacian war, the 
 emperor's name being omitted, which would seem to point to 
 Domitian. 
 
 230 PHny, Paneg. 12. 
 
 231 Henzen, 5431. 232 Henzen, 5439. 233 PUny, Paneg. 8. 
 
224 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 begun by Domitian. Taking in the Neckar valley, he 
 completed a military road from Mogontiacum, through 
 Heidelberg, to Baden, in the direction of Offenburg,^^* 
 to assist communications with the Danube provinces ; 
 at the same time proceeding with the German limes 
 which ran through Freiberg, Worth, and Miltenberg to 
 Lorch, where it joined the Rhaetian limes. To this 
 fresh frontier line it is true that no legions were pushed 
 forward. The castles were probably garrisoned by 
 small detachments only, but the frontier line of Upper 
 Germany was considerably shortened by the change, 
 and from this time it was possible to decrease the number 
 of legions on the Rhine. In particular Vindonissa 
 was quite placed inside the line of defence, and probably 
 the XI Claudia, hitherto posted here, was at once trans- 
 ferred to the newly created province of Lower Moesia, 
 thus leaving Upper Germany with two legions, of which 
 one at least as late as Ptolemy's time was at Argentora- 
 tum. 
 
 Leaving Germany thus thoroughly secured, Trajan 
 had a most important work to do on the Danube. The 
 disgraceful state of things in which Domitian had left 
 the fortunes of the empire here had at once to be re- 
 trieved. The details of the two Dacian wars of Trajan 
 are obscure, though no doubt much may be reconstructed 
 from inscriptions, and above all from the column of 
 Trajan at Rome. Into this, however, it is beyond 
 our plan to enter here. At this time Trajan would have 
 no less than ten legions along the Danube. The i 
 Adjutrix was at Brigetio, the i Minervia (probably now 
 removed from Lower Germany) at Vindobona with the 
 XIII Gemina, and the ii Adjutrix at Acumincum ; the 
 VII Claudia at Viminacium,235 the iv Clavia Felix at 
 Singidunum, the i Italica at Durostornum, the xi 
 Claudia perhaps at Novae, the v Macedonica (perhaps 
 not till the end of the war) at Troesmis, and xiv Gemina 
 at Carnuntum. Of these ten legions probably all served ^ 
 in one or other of the wars which followed. In the 
 
 23* Mommsen, Rom. Gesch. vol. v. 139. 
 235 C.I.L. iii. p. 264. 
 
MOVEMENTS OF THE LEGIONS 225 
 
 first war certainly two armies marched into Dacia, one 
 from Pannonia under Q. Glitius Agricola, and one from 
 Moesia under M. Laberius Maximus. Only five legions, 
 however, are actually known from inscriptions to have 
 taken part in the wars, i Italica,^^^ vii Claudia, 237 xiii 
 Gemina,^^^ i Minervia,^^^ v Macedonica,24o and iv 
 Flavia Felix.^^^ 
 
 As the result of the war Dacia was made into a pro- 
 vince, and the xiii Gemina was removed from Pannonia 
 and posted first perhaps at Sarmizegethusa, but after- 
 wards at Apulum in the north. At the same time the 
 great camps in Lower Moesia, especially Troesmis, were 
 now, if not before, completely established, while Pan- 
 nonia was like Moesia divided into an upper and lower 
 province. ^*^ To supply the place of the xiii Gemina, 
 Trajan transferred the x Gemina from Lower Germany 
 to Vindobona, and, possibly sending back i Minervia 
 supplied with it the place of the x Gemina in Lower Ger- 
 many.^*^ The xv Apollinaris which had hitherto been at 
 Carnuntum was probably now moved to Cappadocia to 
 strengthen the eastern frontier.^** After the Dacian 
 wars, therefore, the legions were as follows : — 
 
 Lower Germany : i Minervia, (xv Primigenia, ) vi Victrix. 
 
 Upper Germany : viii Augusta, xxii Primigenia. 
 
 Britain : 11 Augusta, xx Valeria Victrix, ix Hispana. 
 
 Upper Pannonia : xiv Gemina, x Gemina, i Adjutrix. 
 
 Lower Pannonia : 11 Adjutrix. 
 
 Upper Moesia : vii Claudia, iv Flavia Felix. 
 
 Lower Moesia : 1 Italica, v Macedonica, xi Claudia. 
 
 Dacia : xiii Gemina. 
 
 236 Henzen, 5659. Or. 3454. 
 
 237 Or. 3049 : Henz. 6853. 238 Henz. 6853. 
 239 Henz. 5448, 5930, Or. 3454. 240 Henz. 5451. 
 
 241 Or. 3049 ; this inscription, however, does not make it 
 quite plain whether the legion served in this war or not : but 
 see Dierauer, Gesch. Trajans, p. yj. 
 
 2*2 Spart., Hadr. 3., proves that in 107 Hadrian was legate 
 of Lower Pannonia. The lower province was of much less 
 importance, and only had one legion. 
 
 243 This was certainly in Lower Germany at the beginning 
 of Trajan's reign. Brambach, C. I. Rh. 660, 882. 
 
 344 CJX. iii. p. 583. 
 
 Q 
 
226 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 Spain : vii Gemina. Africa : in Augusta. 
 
 Egypt : III Cyrenaica, xxii Deiotariana. 
 
 Cappadocia : xii Fulminata, xv Apollinaris. 
 
 Syria : iv Scythica, in Gallica, vi Ferrata, xvi Flavia Firma. 
 
 Judaea : x Fretensis. 
 
 Before the Dacian wars were over another province 
 was added to the empire. On the death of Agrippa 
 II, the last tetrarch of the Idumaean dynasty, his territory 
 was added to Syria, and this brought the empire into 
 direct relations with the turbulent and plundering Arab 
 tribes beyond, whom the Idumaean kings had hitherto 
 had to keep off. It now seemed advisable to annex 
 this region, a task which Cornelius Palma, legate of 
 Syria, accomplished in 104. The country was made 
 into a province under the title of Arabia, and the iii 
 Cyrenaica was removed from Egypt and posted hence- 
 forth at Bostra.245 
 
 Pefhaps at this time a new legion was created for 
 Egypt, the 11 Trajana, while at some time previous to 
 107 A.D. Trajan seems to have abolished the two duplicate 
 legions xxii Deiotariana and perhaps xv Primigenia, 
 creating in the place of the latter another new legion, the 
 XXX Ulpia Victrix, which was posted at Colonia Tra- 
 jana a little below the old camp of Vetera. This left 
 the number of legions twenty-nine, though at the time 
 when the xxx was formed the xxii was probably not 
 yet disbanded ; and so the number thirty was com- 
 pleted by its creation. 
 
 If Trajan's policy of advance on the Danube was 
 justified by the attitude of the barbarian tribes, his 
 aggression on the Parthian frontier was open to much 
 greater objections, and was far more mixed with motives 
 of personal ambition. Of the details of the Parthian 
 war we are imperfectly informed. Armenia was again 
 the cause of the war, and Trajan determined at last 
 definitely to reduce Armenia to the form of a province. 
 
 2*5 More accurately Arabia was administered by the legate 
 of Syria until Trajan's Parthian war, when the province was 
 definitely organised. Cohen, ii. 226, 
 
MOVEMENTS OF THE LEGIONS 227 
 
 Starting from Antioch he marched to the Euphrates, 
 and without difficulty occupied Armenia, and in later 
 campaigns, in order to make the frontier scientific, and 
 to bar the way to Armenia against the Parthian armies, 
 lie made two other provinces beyond, which he called 
 Mesopotamia and Assyria. To carry out these suc- 
 cesses Trajan, as we have seen, had nine legions in the 
 east, but of these, as Pronto tells us, the Syrian legions 
 were again as demoralised and inefficient as Corbulo 
 had found them in Nero's reign, and accordingly Trajan 
 summoned vexiUarii from the Pannonian legions to 
 help him. Of the oriental legions probably most were 
 engaged in the war, though we only have epigraphical 
 evidence of the part taken by x Fretensis,^*^ xvi Flavia 
 Firma,^^^ vi Ferrata,^^^ and iii Cyrenaica.249 Whatever 
 new arrangements of the legionary forces those fresh 
 conquests would have involved, the need for making 
 them was obviated by the death of Trajan, and the 
 relinquishment of the newly created provinces by 
 Hadrian. 
 
 Under Hadrian the legions were mostly kept in the 
 positions which they occupied at the close of Trajan's 
 reign. For this, indeed, there was an additional reason 
 in the fact that from this time the legions were, as a 
 rule, recruited from the provinces in which they were 
 stationed, an arrangement which would manifestly 
 render undesirable any but the most necessary changes 
 of station. Economy and greater facility in recruiting 
 were no doubt partly the causes of this change, but 
 there was also the desire to have all recruiting carried 
 out in the imperial provinces, since senatorial provinces, 
 being garrisoned by no legions, were henceforth excluded. 
 Mommsen has shown with great force that the change 
 gradually led to a primacy of the Illyrian nation, since 
 from this time the premier place in the Roman armies 
 was held by the legions posted along the Danube. The 
 reign of Hadrian was, with few exceptions, a peaceful 
 
 2*8 De la Berge, Essai sttr le rigne de Trajan, p. xlvi. 
 
 247 Henzen, 6749. 248 Henzen, 5456. 249 Orelli, 832. 
 
228 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 one. The emperor adopted on the frontier the poUcy, 
 advantageous at first as long as it was backed by an 
 efficient army, but terribly liable to degenerate, of sub- 
 sidising the barbarian tribes, and so partially hand- 
 ing over to them the protection of the frontiers. By 
 this means the Roxolani were prevented from over- 
 running Dacia and Moesia, while the tribes of the Cau- 
 casus were many of them united by a similar bond to 
 Rome. Besides this a more systematic fortification 
 of exposed points of the frontier was a feature of Had- 
 rian's reign, nowhere so well exemplified as in the wall 
 and vallum between Carlisle and Newcastle. These 
 precautions did not entirely prevent troubles with the 
 barbarians. The Alani, encouraged possibly by the 
 king of the Iberi, after overrunning Media and Armenia, 
 threatened to invade Cappadocia, and made it necessary 
 to mobilise the two legions, xii Fulminata and xv 
 Apollinaris, stationed in that province.^^^ In Britain 
 too trouble was experienced. At the beginning of the 
 reign we learn from Spartian ^^^ that there was dis- 
 affection, and later the Brigantes seem to have risen, 
 and in all probability to have surprised the camp of 
 the IX Hispana at Eboracum and annihilated the 
 legion. 252 It at any rate disappears about this time, 
 and its place was taken by the vi Victrix from Lower 
 Germany, which from later inscriptions we know to 
 have been placed at Eboracum, while an inscription 
 informs us that vexillarii of the German legions were 
 obliged to take part in a British expedition during this 
 reign.^^^ 
 
 A more serious rising took place among the Jews. 
 There had been smouldering disaffection here since 
 the conquest by Titus, and Hadrian determined to 
 
 260 The account of this mobihsation is given in Arrian's 
 "E/cro^ts /far'AXai'tDi'. See Mommsen, Rom. Gesch. v. 405, and Pel- 
 ham, Arrian as Legate of Cappadocia, p. 10. 
 
 251 Spart, Hadrian, 5. 
 
 252 Fronto, p. 217. Faber : Hadriano imperium obtinente 
 quantum militum a Britannis caesum, quoted by Mommsen, 
 loc. cit. iy\. Conf. also Juvenal, xiv. 196. 
 
 253 Henzen, 5456. 
 
MOVEMENTS OF THE LEGIONS 229 
 
 turn Jerusalem into a Roman colony with the name of 
 iElia Capitolina. He at the same time moved another 
 legion, VI Ferrata, into the province. This provoked 
 another desperate rising. What was probably on 
 Hadrian's part a measure of precaution, was inter- 
 preted by the Jews as an attempt to extirpate their 
 religion. In the course of the campaign 900 villages 
 and 51 fortresses are said to have been destroyed, 
 and 180,000 men to have perished. Probably all the 
 three Syrian and the two Judaean legions were engaged, 
 though the only detail we get from inscriptions is that 
 a veteran of the iii Gallica distinguished himself, and 
 that the legate of the iv Scythica temporarily took 
 charge of Syria while the governor was commanding 
 against the rebels. 254 Either at this time or a little 
 later the iii Gallica was transferred to Trachonitis,255 
 on the border of Arabia, but still within the province 
 of Syria. This was the position of the legions then at 
 the date of the inscription found on a column at Rome 
 belonging to some period between 120 and 170 A.D.^se 
 
 Britain : 11 Augusta, vi Victrix, xx Valeria Victrix. 
 
 Lower Germany : i Minervia, xxx Ulpia. 
 
 Upper Germany : viii Augusta, xxii Primigenia. 
 
 Upper Pannonia : 1 Adjutrix, x Gemina, xiv Gemina. 
 
 Lower Pannonia : 11 Adjutrix. 
 
 Upper Moesia : iv Flavia Felix, vii Claudia. 
 
 Lower Moesia: i Italica, v Macedonica, xi Claudia. 
 
 Dacia : xiii Gemina. 
 
 Cappadocia : xii Fulminata, xv Apollinaris. 
 
 Phcenicia : iii Gallica. Syria : iv Scythica, xvi Flavia Firma. 
 
 Judaea : vi Ferrata, x Fretensis. Arabia : iii Cyrenaica. 
 
 Egypt : II Trajana. Numidia : iii Augusta. 
 
 Spain : vii Gemina. 
 
 For sixty years after Trajan's Dacian war the Danube 
 
 5^54 Orelli, 3571. 255 Pauly, Real-Encyclopddie, Z77. 
 
 256 It was after the transfer of vi Victrix to Britain, and vi 
 Ferrata to Jerusalem, and before Noricum and Raetia were 
 garrisoned by legionary troops, as the names of the two legions 
 afterwards posted here are added as a supplemennt. C.I.L. 
 vi. 3492. 
 
230 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 remained undisturbed except by petty raids, and while 
 the great military camps along the river grew into impor- 
 tant towns, civic life and prosperity developed in the 
 interior of these provinces. But in i68, pushed on 
 probably by movements of free tribes behind, the Mar- 
 comanni, Quadi, and lazyges broke into Noricum, 
 Raetia, Pannonia, and Dacia with a rush, and even 
 penetrated over the Julian Alps into Italy. The Pan- 
 nonian legions were naturally those principally engaged, 
 and the enemy not acting in concert, and under no 
 settled leaders, were soon driven back from the territory 
 of the empire. The i Adjutrix under its capable legate 
 Pertinax cleared Raetia and Noricum, 257 while the iv 
 Flavia Felix,258 the 11 Adjutrix,^^^ and the vii Claudia 259 
 from Upper Moesia are mentioned in inscriptions as 
 having distinguished themselves in this war. No 
 doubt also the Moesian legions, whose frontier was not 
 so immediately threatened, sent vexillarii after they 
 had received back the detachments which they had 
 previously sent to the Armenian and Parthian war.26o 
 In the course of the war which, with some interruption 
 caused by a rising in Syria, went on for seventeen years, 
 two new legions were formed, 11 and iii Italica, which 
 were posted in Noricum and Raetia, hitherto guarded 
 only by auxiliary troops under a procurator. Step by 
 step the perseverance and resolution of M. Aurelius 
 drove back the enemy, compelling first the Marcomanni, 
 then the Quadi, and lastly the lazyges to submit, and 
 when the second war was begun in 178, no doubt the 
 emperor had determined on completing the policy of 
 Trajan by the addition of two new provinces, Mar- 
 comannia and Sarmatia. His death, however, and the 
 succession of his unworthy son, put an end to this 
 scheme, but incomplete as the results of the war were 
 left, they were yet sufficient to assert the supremacy 
 of Rome in this quarter, and when the Roman frontier 
 
 257 Capitolinus, Pert. 2. 258 Pauly, Real-Encyclopadie, 878. 
 
 259 Or. 3445. 
 
 2«o Mommsen, Rom. Gersch. v. 210, note I. 
 
MOVEMENTS OF THE LEGIONS 23I 
 
 was finally violated by the Goths, it was from the Lower 
 not the Middle Danube that they proceeded.^^^ 
 
 The same tendency to return to Trajan's frontier 
 policy which Marcus showed on the Danube, he had 
 already shown in the east, where quite early in his reign 
 the affairs of Armenia had again led to a serious Par- 
 thian war. The Cappadocian and Syrian armies had 
 been successively defeated, and it was by sending for 
 important reinforcements from the Moesian and German 
 legions,^^^ and employing two of the ablest Roman 
 generals, Statins Priscus and Avidius Cassius, that 
 victory at last fell to the Romans. Armenia was again 
 brought within Roman influence, while the western 
 portion of Mesopotamia was once more annexed 
 to the empire. No details with respect to the legions 
 are known, except that, as on so many previous 
 occasions, the Syrian legions proved quite inadequate to 
 meet a resolute enemy. From an inscription in Africa 
 we learn that one of the Syrian legions (vi Ferrata ?) 
 was sent temporarily into that province to help to put 
 down a rising of the Mauri.^^^ 
 
 Since the accession of Vespasian the legions on the 
 frontier had been content to accept the . decision of 
 Rome, and had set up no military emperors of their 
 own. On the murder of Commodus, however, a new 
 period commenced. The disgraceful purchase of the 
 empire from the praetorians byDidius Julianus aroused 
 the anger and disgust of the powerful armies of Britain, 
 Upper Pannonia, and Syria, each consisting of three 
 legions. Syria was governed by Pescennius Niger, 
 Upper Pannonia by Septimius Severus, and Britain by 
 Clodius Albinus. The two former were proclaimed 
 emperor by their troops, but Septimius was the most 
 prompt, and by coming to a temporary understanding 
 with Albinus, he kept the British legions out of the 
 
 281 Mommsen, v. 215. 
 
 262 Mommsen, Rom. Gesch. v. 406 : and Renier. MSlanges 
 d'Epigraphie, 123. 
 
 263 Mommsen, Rom. Gesch. v. 635. 
 
^32 STUDIES IK ROMAK flIStORV 
 
 contest, while the other legions of the Danube pro- 
 vinces, as well as those of the Rhine, declared for him.^** 
 
 One of his first acts constituted an important change 
 in the Roman army. He disbanded the old praetorian 
 cohorts, and with them the custom of enlisting them 
 chiefly from Italy. Henceforth they were to consist 
 of picked veteran troops taken from the regular legions, 
 while the number was increased to 40,000. Like Trajan, 
 he constantly used these troops in his oriental cam- 
 paigns. 
 
 Meanwhile Pescennius had possession of the eastern 
 provinces and Egypt with their nine legions, while he 
 was supported by Arab chiefs and princes of Mesopo- 
 tamia, and indirectly by the Parthian king. Severus, 
 however, after securing the corn traffic from Africa 
 by sending thither one of his legions, marched with 
 detachments from the west across Thrace to Byzantium, 
 which he besieged. Three battles followed in Asia, at 
 Cyzicus, Nicaea, and Issus, and then after Niger's death, 
 and while Byzantium was still being besieged, Severus 
 marched into Mesopotamia and took possession of the 
 whole as far as Chaboras,^^^ making Nisibis the capital 
 of the extended province, and creating two new legions 
 to garrison it, i and iii Parthica, while a third legion, 
 II Parthica, probably enrolled at the same time, was 
 posted in Italy, hitherto without a military force. 266 
 
 But Albinus was still to be reckoned with in the west, 
 and Severus hastened back to Europe. At Viminacium 
 he heard that his rival had been declared Augustus by 
 his troops, and so leaving Caracalla in Pannonia, he 
 himself, still with vexillarii from his numerous legions, 
 pushed up the Danube into Upper Germany and so 
 into Gaul. What troops precisely the rival emperors 
 had we have no means of knowing. Dio Cassius, 
 probably with considerable exaggeration, reckons the 
 numbers on each side at 150,000 men. Albinus cer- 
 
 2«* Roberts, Les Legions du Rhin ; also Cohen. 
 2«5 Mommsen, Rom, Gesch. v. 410. 
 
 2«« Numerous inscriptions relative to the legion are found at 
 Albano. 
 
MOVEMENTS OF THE LEGIONS 233 
 
 tainly had his three legions in Britain, and probably 
 the two legions from the Lower Rhine and the vii 
 Gemina from Spain. Severus may have had some of 
 the Danube legions or those of Upper Germany or 
 Raetia or Noricum entire, but it is not likely that he 
 left the frontier in any part too weak for efficient defence. 
 The battle near Lugdnuum was the first of importance 
 since Cremona in which Roman legions were opposed 
 to one another, and it may be regarded as the omen 
 and beginning of the disunion and anarchy in the empire 
 which ultimately opened its gates to the barbarian 
 invaders. 
 
 News of disturbances in the east soon recalled Severus 
 to that part. In Arabia the legion quartered there, 
 III Cyrenaica, had declared for Albinus,^^? while the 
 Parthians had invaded Mesopotamia and besieged 
 Nisibis. No doubt western legions were again taken 
 into Asia for the campaign which followed. The oriental 
 legions, never very trustworthy, had all been in favour 
 of Pescennius, and his successful rival would certainly 
 not have trusted to their support alone. We have, 
 however, meagre details, but the result was that Mesopo- 
 tamia was again secured, and Armenia thus lost the 
 ambiguous position between the two empires which had 
 produced so much friction during the past two hundred 
 years. 268 
 
 While Severus thus returned to Trajan's policy on 
 the eastern frontier, but with greater or at least more 
 permanent success, he also followed in his steps in 
 regulating that of the Lower Danube. The numerous 
 inscriptions in Dacia prove that he was almost a second 
 founder of that province. He did not indeed do any- 
 thing to support its outlying position by fresh annexation 
 to the westward, but he reorganised the province itself, 
 and above all strengthened it by an additional legion, 
 the V Macedonica, which he moved from Troesmis to 
 Potaissa.269 Obscure as the details are, it is probable 
 
 267 Spart. Sev. 12. 268 Mommsen, Rom. Gesch. v. 411. 
 
 269 C.I.L. iii 160 and 172. 
 
234 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 that the step was caused by the beginnings of that 
 movement to the north-east of Dacia which was soon 
 to bring the Goths on to the Roman horizon. 
 
 The last years of his hfe Severus spent in Britain, 
 where from Eboracum, the capital of the province, and 
 the headquarters of the vi Victrix, he conducted several 
 expeditions against the northern barbarians, while 
 both inscriptions and the partly inaccurate statements 
 of historians seem to prove that he restored the wall 
 and vallum which Hadrian had built from the Solway 
 to the mouth of the Tyne. 
 
 His rule was more obtrusively based on military 
 force than that of any of his predecessors. The legions 
 had now at any rate thoroughly learned the lesson 
 that imperators could be created elsewhere than at 
 Rome. Under Severus himself, in spite perhaps of 
 some want of military skill, they were under strict disci- 
 pline and in efficient condition, but under Caracalla 
 the decline had already begun. The abolition of the 
 distinction between citizens and peregrini by opening 
 the legions absolutely to the whole Roman world may 
 have contributed to this, although this was only a 
 development of what we have seen to have been long the 
 actual practice. A more powerful cause was the gradual 
 extension of the system of vicarii, which, begun under 
 Trajan, received ever wider application, until, contrary 
 to the old maxim, the Roman armies became filled with 
 the barbarian coloni settled within the empire from all 
 parts of the frontiers, and only formally distinguished 
 from those of purely servile birth. A greater mischief 
 still lay in the tendency which now made rapid strides 
 for the great military provinces to struggle for the 
 privilege of appointing their own commanders to the 
 empire. That this result had not happened before 
 was due to the era, unique perhaps in the history of the 
 world, of the *' good emperors," when for a hundred 
 years a judicious system of adoption seemed to have 
 united the practical advantages and security of heredi- 
 tary power with the more ideal claims of elective empire. 
 
 Here we take leave of the Roman legions. After 
 
MOVEMENTS OF THE LEGIONS 235 
 
 the death of Severus a period of decline and anarchy 
 soon set in ; there were always stronger and more 
 determined enemies from without, more divided counsels, 
 less efficient and worse disciplined troops within the 
 empire. Up to the reign of Alexander Severus, however, 
 no serious changes had taken place in the number and 
 disposition of the troops, and in the time of Dio Cassius, 
 who gives a complete list, 270 they were still distributed 
 as follows : — 
 
 Lower Germany : i Minervia, xxx Ulpia Victrix. 
 
 Upper Germany : viii Augusta, xxii Primigenia. 
 
 Britain : 11 Augusta, vi Victrix, xx Valeria Victrix. 
 
 Upper Pannonia : x Gemina, xiv Gemina. 
 
 Lower Pannonia : 11 Adjutrix, i Adjutrix. 
 
 Upper Moesia : vii Claudia, iv Flavia Felix, 
 
 Lower Moesia : xi Claudia, i Italica. 
 
 Dacia : xiii Gemina, v Macedonica. 
 
 Noricum : 11 Italica. Raetia : in Italica. 
 
 Spain : vii Gemina. 
 
 Cappadocia : xii Fulminata, xv Apollinaris. 
 
 Judaea : x Fretensis, vi Ferrata. 
 
 Syria : iv Scythica, xvi Flavia Firma. 
 
 Phoenicia : in Gallica. 
 
 Arabia : iii Cyrenaica. Africa : in Augusta. 
 
 Egypt : II Trajana. 
 
 Mesopotamia : i Parthica, in Parthica. 
 
 Italy : 11 Parthica. 
 
 270 Dio Cassius (Iv. 24) does not mention the xxii Primigenia : 
 he apparently thinks that there was another legion of the same 
 name as the xx Valeria Victrix in Upper Germany. As a 
 matter of fact the xxii Primigenia remained in Germany as 
 late as the time of Carausius. See Marquardt, Staatsverw. ii. 
 452. The most accessible authorities for the whole subject are 
 Mommsen, Rom. Gesch. vol. v., Hermes, xix., and C. /. L. iii. ; 
 Marquadt, Staatsverwaltung, vol. ii. ; Hiibner, Hermes, xvi. ; and 
 Grotefend in Pauly's Real-Encyclopddie, vol. iv. To which 
 add Tac. Ann. iv. 5 ; C. /. L. vi. 3492 ; Dio Cassius, Iv. 24 ; Rit- 
 terling De Legione X Gemina ; and (for the British legions up to 
 Nero) an article by Mr. Henderson in Eng. Hist Rev. 1903, 
 
XIII 
 
 The Provincial Concilia from Augustus to 
 Diocletian 
 
 It has frequently been made a reproach to the imperial 
 system of provincial government that it provided no 
 regular means of communication between the central 
 power on the one hand and the municipal units on the 
 other — that, in fact, no representative system was ever 
 developed. The reproach is true in substance, but at the 
 same time it leaves out of account the institution of 
 provincial assemblies — an institution of which, indeed, 
 it is easy to exaggerate the importance, but which was, 
 nevertheless, based on representation, and though to 
 all appearances primarily of a religious rather than a 
 political character, did, it is certain, involve political 
 consequences, neither insignificant nor accidental. The 
 very fact that these assemblies can be traced in almost 
 every province of the empire, that their organisation 
 appears to have been based, making allowance for 
 certain differences of detail, on the same general plan, 
 and that they remained in the active discharge of their 
 functions during the whole of the first three centuries, 
 and were destined to live on under somewhat changed 
 conditions in the post-Diocletian period — this certainly 
 seems to establish a prima facie reason why the origin, 
 the organisation, and the object of these assemblies 
 should receive soine investigation. This is, however, 
 attended by considerable difficulties. The allusions in 
 classical texts are few and brief, and we are in conse- 
 quence obliged to have recourse almost entirely to epi- 
 
THE PROVINCIAL CONCILIA 237 
 
 graphical evidence ; and it cannot be pretended that 
 with the materials, considerable as they are, at present 
 at our disposal, a complete and entirely coherent account 
 can be given. In what follows I do not pretend to 
 much original work. The materials, such as they are, 
 have been thoroughly worked by French and German 
 scholars, and though I have searched the collections of 
 inscriptions, both Greek and Latin, with some diligence, 
 and, where the evidence is conflicting, have not hesitated 
 to exercise my own judgment, I desire at the outset to 
 express my obligations to the following authorities : 
 Marquardt, " De conciliis et sacerdotibus provinciali- 
 bus ; " " Ephem. Epigraph." i. pp. 200-214, and also 
 ** Staatsverwaltung " i. pp. 503-516 : Monceaux, " De 
 communi Asiae Provinciae ; " Pallu de Lesser t, ** L'As- 
 semblee Provinciale dans I'Afrique Romaine ; " Giraud, 
 " Les Assemblees Provinciales dans 1' Empire Romain ; " 
 Desjardins, " Gaule Romaine," and " Revue de Philo- 
 logie," vol. iii. ; Boissier, " La Religion Romaine ; " 
 Bernard, " Le Culte d'Auguste et la Nationalite Gau- 
 loise ; " and Mommsen, " Romische Geschichte " v., 
 pp. 84-89, 242-244, and 317-322. 
 
 I have said that these assemblies were primarily of a 
 religious rather than a political character : they were, 
 in fact, intimately associated with the Caesar-worship 
 which forms so marked and, in some respects, so peculiar 
 a feature of the first three centuries. I do not propose 
 to trace back the origin of this worship with any minute- 
 ness, but as its political importance as manifested in 
 the provincial assemblies depended entirely upon the 
 nature and strength of the feelings to which it appealed, 
 a brief resume of its main features and the more marked 
 stages in its development seems a necessary preface to 
 my subject. The apotheosis of human beings after 
 death contained nothing in itself contrary to the ideas 
 of Roman religion : indeed, it may be said to follow 
 with strict logic from its principles. In every human 
 person there was inherent a divine element, and this, 
 set free by death, became properly an object of worship 
 to the survivors. Out of this primitive belief arose the 
 
238 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 worship paid to the dead members of each Roman 
 household. 
 
 The Manes of the dead were Dii Manes — a title so 
 familiar in funeral inscriptions — which were propitiated 
 by gifts, and invoked by prayers to preserve their living 
 kindred. 1 So Cicero lays it down as a thing not to be 
 questioned that the rights of the Dei Manes are to be 
 kept sacred, and the dead held to be divine ; 2 while 
 TertulHan asks, not without contempt, " What do ye 
 in honour of your gods which ye do not equally confer 
 on your own dead ? " ^ Nor was a more personal 
 aspect wanting to this conception, and it is interesting 
 to find how the poignancy of grief brings to the same 
 level of emotion the statesman and the freedman. For 
 when Cicero resolves to place his dead daughter in the 
 assembly of the immortal gods,* and to build a shrine 
 in her honour, ^ he merely repeats the devotion of the 
 freedman Aphthoros, who raises a tomb " to his sacred 
 goddess Primilla Medica, with whom he has lived for 
 thirty years." ® Again, both among the Greeks and 
 Italians divine honours were paid to the founders of 
 cities and the patriarchs of tribes. Theseus was a god 
 to the inhabitants of Attica ; Latinus became Jupiter 
 Latiaris to the Latin stock ; Semo Sancus, by the same 
 spontaneous euhemerism, was worshipped by the 
 Sabines ; Romulus was the god Quirinus to the cen- 
 tralised Roman people. But though this may account 
 for the worship of the divus Julius, or the divi Augusti, 
 it still leaves unexplained that of the living emperors. 
 This latter depended on elements of less native growth, 
 and only became, as we cannot doubt it did become in 
 time, part and parcel of the Roman faith by means of 
 importation from oriental or Hellenic sources. For 
 these we need go no farther back than to the time of 
 
 1 Henzen, 6206 ; C.I.L. viii. 2803, Serva tuos omnes. See 
 also Varro, cited in -Augustine, Civit. Dei, viii. 26 : Omnes 
 mortuos existimari manes deos et probat per ea sacra quae omnibus 
 fere mortuis exhibentur. 
 
 2 De Legg. ii. 9, 22. 3 Apolog. 13. * Consolat. 62, 216. 
 6 Ad Att. xii. 36. « Wilmanns, 241. 
 
THE PROVINCIAL CONCILIA 239 
 
 Alexander the Great, who, following oriental examples, 
 was worshipped as a god during his lifetime, "^ not only 
 by his oriental subjects, but, with hardly any resistance, 
 by the Greeks themselves. His successors followed the 
 example so given, and the Ptolemies in Egypt, Lysima- 
 chus in Thrace,^ and the Seleucidae in Syria were 
 regularly, while they were feared as kings, worshipped 
 as gods. Prone to flattery and helpless against their 
 tjrants, these populations, as Giraud well puts it, 
 *' divinised their kings, only to make them more human." 
 With this worship of living rulers the Romans were 
 made familiar by their intervention in Greek and 
 Macedonian politics, and the generals and proconsuls, 
 who at home were merely the magistrates and executive 
 of a republic, found themselves in the provinces honoured 
 with sacrifices, and placed in the new and embarrassing 
 position of deities. Already Marcellus seems to have 
 tasted this experience at the hands of the Syracusans,^ 
 and soon Flamininus received similar honours from the 
 Greeks,^*^ Mucins Scaevola and even Q. Cicero from the 
 province of Asia,^^ and in fact, as we learn from Sue- 
 tonius,^^ it was a usual thing for temples to be erected to 
 the proconsuls. This was at first submitted to in order 
 to avoid giving offence to the provincials, but the precedent 
 was from the point of view of Roman custom a dangerous 
 one : such tendencies are prone to spread, and the 
 Roman mob, always superstitious and excitable, could 
 hardly avoid being influenced by the crowds of resident 
 foreigners from the east, to whom this apotheosis of 
 living persons was a familiar spectacle. The political 
 tendencies which again and again resulted in placing 
 the destinies of the state in the hands of a military 
 dictator made a reality of what had before been a 
 possibility. If the statues of Scipio Africanus were all 
 but placed in the cella of Jupiter Capitolinus," libations 
 were actually offered to Marius after his defeat of the 
 
 7 Strab. xiv. 953. 8 C.I.G. 2, 2741. 
 
 9 Cic Very. ii. 2, 21, 50. ^o Plut. Flamin. 16- 
 
 11 Cic. loc. cit. and ad Quint, frat. i. 10, 32. 12 ^^g. 52. 
 
 13 Liv. xxxviii. 56. 
 
240 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 Cimbri " while before the statue of Marius Gratidianus, 
 the mere inheritor of a famous name, incense was burnt 
 and wax tapers lighted.*'^ 
 
 Already, then, we have the way paved for the Caesar- 
 worship with which we have to deal. In part it was by 
 no means contrary to the spirit of Roman religion ; in 
 part it was not unprepared for by previous events. It 
 is not difficult to understand the impression created 
 on his contemporaries by Julius Caesar, and we are not 
 surprised to find that he received during life, temples, 
 altars, and a flamen to superintend his worship ^^ or 
 even that he was formally addressed as Jupiter Julius." 
 The formal apotheosis by decree of the senate after his 
 death ^® partly, no doubt, reflected the policy of the 
 triumvirs,^® but was principally a concession to the 
 enthusiastic persuasion of the populace that he was a 
 god,^° a persuasion increased by, though not wholly 
 founded on, the various portents which followed his 
 death. ^^ By this time the precedent was fully estab- 
 lished, and we find Sextus Pompeius laying claim to a 
 divine descent from Hercules, while in the east Antonius 
 was figuring as the god Dionysus and committing 
 extravagances which perhaps helped to decide Augustus 
 to maintain the more sober attitude which he adopted. ^^ 
 This attitude was indeed the easier in that he was from 
 the first invested with a certain suprahuman glamour 
 as Divi Filius — a glamour which was increased when 
 in 27 B.C. the title of Augustus was formally given to 
 him by the senate : ws koI ttAciov tl rj Kara avOp(i)7rovs 
 WV.23 With this the emperor, so far as he himself was 
 concerned, seems to have remained content — at any 
 rate within the range of Rome and Italy. Enthusi- 
 astic admirers might, no doubt, persist in saying : "He 
 will always in my eyes be a god," ^^ and almost certainly 
 even by the time the " Georgics " were written, i.e. by 
 
 1* Plut. Mar. 27. 15 cic. de Offic. iii. 20, 80. 
 
 i« Suet./t</.76 • 17 DioCass.xliv.6. 18 C./.L.i. p. 183. 
 
 19 Dio Cass, xlvii. 18. 20 Suet. Jul. 88. 
 
 21 Verg. Georg. i. 466 seq. 22 Dio Cass xlviii. 39, 
 
 23 Dio Cass. liii. 16. 24 Verg. EcL i. 7. 
 
THE PROVINCIAL CONCILIA 24I 
 
 30 B.C., many a domestic and private cult was estab- 
 lished in his honour ;^^ but even Vergil himself speaks 
 of him as only winning his way to Olympus, ^^ and we 
 know from Suetonius that in the city he was most firm 
 in refusing the honours of apotheosis.^^ No doubt in 
 this he was actuated to some extent by a desire to avoid 
 giving offence to the Roman nobles, many of whom 
 after his death avowed their disapproval of his com- 
 plaisance in this respect outside Rome, and complained 
 that ** nothing was left to the honour of the gods when he 
 allowed himself to be worshipped in temples and with 
 statues by means of flamens and priests." ^^ This 
 complaint, no doubt, was founded on fact, since epi- 
 graphical evidence shows that during his lifetime, both 
 in Italy and throughout the provinces, a personal cult 
 was established in his honour, though it was a cult not 
 officially provided for, tolerated and not enjoined, and 
 depending only on private or municipal enthusiasm. 
 Thus within Italy we find a flamen Augustalis at Pisa,^^ 
 a sacerdos Augusti at Pompeii,^° a flamen Caesaris 
 Augusti at Praeneste,^^ while mention is made of temples 
 at Beneventum, Terracina, Puteoli, and other places. 
 The provincials showed even greater zeal in the same 
 direction. Temples and priests to Augustus, while 
 still living, are known to have existed, among other 
 places, at Athens,^^ Salonica, and Thasos, while in 
 Egypt he was formally invoked as Zeus Soter. There 
 was nothing new in all this except the wide extent to 
 which it was now practised, and it would have been a 
 piece of mere affectation for the recognised ruler of the 
 Roman empire to have refused honours which had been 
 thought not unfitting for a Flamininus or a Cicero. 
 Nor was it mere unmitigated flattery and servility 
 which heaped these divine honours on Augustus. Vergil 
 only expressed the general feeling when he wrote, Alter 
 
 25 Verg, Georg. iii. 16, In medio mihi Caesar erit templumque 
 tenebii ; also Hor. Epist. 11. i. 15. 
 
 26 Georg. iv. 562. ^ Aug. <)2 28 Tac. Ann. i. 10. 
 29 Orell. 643. 30 C.I.L. x, 830. 3i OrelL 3874. 
 
 32 C.I. Att. iii. 63. 
 
 R 
 
242 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 ab integro saeclorum nascitnr ordo. The change from 
 the republican to the imperial government meant for 
 the provinces, and for Italy, indeed, also, the infusion 
 of new life, protection from oppression, renewal of 
 prosperity. With the old regime were associated war, 
 rapine and misery; the new regime heralded peace, 
 security and wealth.^^ It was then not flattery so much 
 as enthusiastic loyalty and gratitude which caused this 
 rapid spread of the Augustan cult. Proofs of this 
 feeling we may gather from inscriptions dedicated in 
 various places to the emperor as fundatori pacis,^* 
 pacatori orbis,^^ fundatori publicae securitatis,^^ restitutori 
 orbis,^"^ conservatori generis humani,^^ while a Greek 
 inscription speaks of him as Oecx; ifx<f>dir}<i koI kolvo's 
 rov avBpoiirivov (Hov cruiTr^p.^^ There was then in the 
 minds of the provincials an association of the blessings 
 they enjoyed with the imperial government, and, 
 predisposed as they always were even with less reasons 
 to apotheosise their rulers, they threw themselves with 
 ardour and enthusiasm into the new cult, and the 
 devotion, of which in more modern days liberty is 
 usually the object, was then lavished freely upon 
 monarchy.*" 
 
 Of this enthusiastic devotion, which was more marked 
 than elsewhere in the oriental provinces, Augustus 
 naturally had ample proofs after the battle of Actium 
 had placed him in unquestioned supremacy over the 
 empire, and he resolved to utilise it for political purposes 
 by establishing out of it something of the nature of a 
 state religion. That the design was entertained by him 
 from the first of extending this over the whole empire, 
 it would certainly be rash to affirm ; that he deliberately 
 proposed to himself the introduction of a system of 
 
 33 Tacitus says {Ann. i. 2), Neque provinciae ilium rerum 
 statum abnuebant, suspecto senatus populique imperio, ob cer- 
 tamina potentium et avaritiam magistratuum, invalido legum 
 auxilio. quae vi ambitu postremo pecunia turbabantur. 
 
 3* OreU. 601. 35 76. 323, 859. 36 /&. 1071. 
 
 37 75. 1030. 38 7ft. 79,5. 39 c.I. Gr. 2957. 
 
 *o Fustel de Coulanges, Hist, des instit. polit. de I'ancienne 
 France, ii. cap. 2. 
 
THE PROVINCIAL CONCILIA 243 
 
 representation for the Roman world, is of all suppositions 
 the most unlikely and improbable. Such designs rarely 
 emerge like Athene from the head of Zeus ; they are 
 framed to suit a particular need, and are then applied 
 further as the occasion rises. So at least it seems to 
 have been in the case before us. The provinces of Asia 
 I'and Bithynia were conspicuous even among the Asiatic 
 'provinces for the jealousies and rivalries existing be- 
 ^ tween the several cities. Of this we have abundant 
 proof in somewhat later times/* and it was no doubt 
 equally the case in the Augustan period. To obviate 
 this, and to give some sort of national unity to these 
 provinces, Augustus revived, or rather modified and 
 extended, an institution which had existed in most of 
 the Asiatic regions in times anterior to the Roman 
 occupation, the institution of /cocra, or assemblies and 
 reunions common to a number of cities united by some 
 bond of race or religion, or both. Into the history of 
 these ancient Koiva my space will not allow me in any 
 way to enter. They had mostly been dissolved when 
 I the Romans reconstituted these provinces, but many of 
 ' them had since been revived on their ancient footing,*^ 
 and the Koiva of lonia,*^ of Phrygia,** of Caria,*® of 
 Lycia,*^ and of many others can be traced during im- 
 perial times. 
 
 It was, however, a provincial unity which Augustus 
 wished to establish, and therefore it seldom happened, 
 as apparently it did in the case of Lycia, that he was able 
 to make use of the original koivqv as it stood. In most 
 cases a new grouping of states was necessary, correspond- 
 ing to the geographical limits of the province rather 
 than to any ethnographical distinction among the 
 inhabitants. But to the ideas of the time every such 
 Koivov implied some common religious cult, just as 
 conversely every common cult implied a koivov for its 
 administration and organisation. Of existing cults 
 
 41 Dio Chrysost. Oral. 38, and Tac. Ann. iii. 61-63. 
 
 42 Pausan. xvii. 16, 10. ^3 strab. xiv. i, 3-4. 
 44 Eckhel, iii. 140-141 45 Strab. xiv. 2, 25. 
 46 C,/. Gy. 4279, and Strab. xiv. 3, 9. 
 
244 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 there was none which could have united the provinces. 
 In Asia, e.g., Ephesus would have set up a claim for 
 Artemis, Pergamum for Aesculapius, Cyzicus for Perse- 
 phone. But it was just here that Augustus perceived 
 how he could make use of his own cult. In this the 
 whole province would unite, and unite readily, and this 
 therefore he constituted the primary object for which 
 the Koivd were to meet. If, however, the political 
 advantage of these provincial Koivd were to be solid, 
 lasting, and real, it was necessary to guard against the 
 extravagances to which servile populations were prone, 
 and to which Antonius had given such inconsiderate 
 encouragement. It was therefore necessary to render 
 the cult as little personal as possible, and this Augustus 
 effected by combining with his own cult that of the 
 goddess Rome as well. With this latter worship the 
 Asiatics were already not unfamiliar. Smyrna had 
 erected a temple to I^ome as early as 195 b.c.,^^ Ala- 
 banda had done the same not many years later,*® and 
 the same thing is attested by inscriptions in other 
 places.*® The worship of Rome and Augustus then was 
 to be a state cult, giving at once a point of unity to the 
 province, and destined, as the institution gradually spread 
 over the other provinces, also to serve as a link of 
 connexion to the whole empire.^^ 
 
 But it was not the worship of Augustus as an indi- 
 vidual ; it was rather the veneration of the imperial 
 authority vested in his person, and of the sovereign city 
 
 47 Tac Ann. iv. 56. ^^ Liv. xliii. 6. 
 
 *9 E.g. Assos : Waddington, Inscript. d'Asie Mineure, 1727. 
 
 ^ Suet. Aug. 52, templa in nulla provincia nisi communi suo 
 Romaeque nomine accepii. The cult, however, was not confined 
 to the provinces. Thus we have a flamen Romae et divi Augusti 
 at Potentia (Momms., Inscr. Regni Neapol. 376), at Aquinum 
 {ih. 4336), at Ostia (Orell. 2204), at Pola {C.I.L. v. 18), and at 
 Terracina {C.I.L. x. 6305), while in the provinces we find a 
 purely municipal cult of Rome, and the deified Augustus, at Cyme 
 {C.I. Or. 3524), Nysa {ih. 2943), Mylasa {ih. 2696), at Apte in 
 Narbonensis {C.I.L. xii. 1121, flamen Romae et divi Augusti 
 suffragiis populi f actus), and at Lucus Augusti in Tarraconensis 
 {C.I.L. ii. 2638), though in all these cases Augustus is used in 
 its particular and not its general sense 
 
THE PROVINCIAL CONCILIA 245 
 
 in which that authority was concentrated. It was 
 therefore less an apotheosis of the emperor than a 
 consecration of pubhc authority, an organised homage 
 rendered to the Roman state, and to the ruler who 
 represented it. It is necessary, in dealing with inscrip- 
 tions relating to this subject, to remember once for all 
 that the phrase " Rome and Augustus " means Rome 
 and the reigning emperor. The worship, as it was first 
 constituted, was dissociated, on the one hand, from the 
 personality of Augustus himself, and on the other from 
 the cult of divus Julius.^^ 
 
 The first step, then, in this direction, was taken, when 
 Augustus, in 29 B.C., while he permitted the Roman 
 citizens dwelling in Asia and Bithynia to build temples 
 to Rome and the deified Juhus in Ephesus and Nicaea 
 respectively, allowed the provincials generally, who, in 
 these hellenised provinces, were generally described as 
 Greeks ,^^ to build temples to himself in conjunction 
 with Rome at Nicomedia for Bithynia and at Perga- 
 mum for Asia.^" That with these provincial temples, 
 the provincial kolvol, or assemblies, were at the same 
 
 51 No doubt the worship of the Divi was at first cultivated 
 mainly by Roman citizens, as the passage in Dio Cassius (li. 20) 
 proves ; but the distinction soon disappeared, and there can 
 be no doubt that the original provincial cult of Rome and 
 Augustus, became, if not amalgamated with, at any rate joined 
 to, that of the Divi. This seems to have been the case especially 
 in Spain, where we find a flamen divorum Augustorum prov. 
 Lusitaniae {C.I.L. ii. 473), a flamen Romae et divorum Augus- 
 torum prov. Hispaniae citer. {ib. 419 1), and a flamen Romae 
 divorum et Augustorum, where Augustorum refers to the living 
 emperors, divorum to the dead ones {ib. 4205). In Sardinia, 
 too, we have a flamen divorum Augustorum ex consensu pro- 
 vinciae {C.I.L. x. 7599), and at Narbo a provincial sacerdos 
 templi divi Augusti {C.I.L. xii. 392). 
 
 62 T-o^s ^ivo s'lEiKKriva^ crcpds iTriKoXeaas. Dio Cass. li. 20; and 
 conf. Dig. xlix., i. 21;, Koivbu tGv iv Beidwiq. 'EXAijvwi/, and C.I. Gr. 
 
 3187. ' ■ ■ , 
 
 53 Dio. Cass. li. 20 : rots S^ Stj ^hois ('EWrjvas <r<pas iTriKoX^aas) 
 iavT(f TiPa, Toh fxh "'Acriavots h liepydfiCj}, tols 5^ Bid/xvoh ifil^iKOfiridelq, 
 T€fxevia-ai iir^Tpexpe. Conf. Tac. Ann. v. ^7 : Cum divus Augustus 
 sibi atque urbi Romae templum apud Pergamum sisti non 
 prohibuisset. 
 
246 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 time constituted, follows from the nature of the institu- 
 tion, but their existence during the lifetime of Augustus 
 is positively attested in the case of Asia, not only by 
 inscriptions ** and coins,**^ but also by a statement of 
 Josephus." With what degree of rapidity the institution 
 of provincial assemblies, thus set on foot in Asia and 
 Bithynia, was extended to the other provinces, we are 
 not able to say with any certainty. It was no doubt in 
 the first instance an experiment, and probably Augustus 
 established this new state-cult in most of the oriental 
 provinces, though hardly simultaneously. We are, 
 however, only able to speak with certainty of Galatia, 
 which was made a Roman province in 25 b.c.°^ Here 
 a temple was erected at Ancyra, dedicated to Rome and 
 Augustus, and connected with a kolvov VaXaruiv. An 
 interesting inscription has reference to this temple and 
 KOLvov.^^ After commencing with the words PaXaToyv t6 
 
 KOLVOV L€pao-<ifj.€voy Oeio ^e/Sacrro) kol Oea 'Fw/xr), it proceeds 
 
 to give an account of the various gifts and contests 
 established by several people at the periodical games 
 which seem here to have been quinquennial. The 
 temple itself is called t6 ^e(3ao-T7Jov, and mention is 
 made of the Travrjyvpi^, or festive gathering of the 
 province, and an i7r7ro8po/Mos, apparently one of its 
 main features. The temple. was probably erected to- 
 wards the close of Augustus' reign : portions of it still 
 exist attached to a Mohammedan mosque, and it was 
 here that the famous " Monumentum Ancyranum " 
 was discovered.^® 
 
 In Greece a confusingly large number of kolvo. con- 
 nected with various cults are met with both before and 
 during the imperial period, and the peculiar conditions 
 
 6* C.I. Gr. 3957, a congratulatory decree of the koiv6v of 
 Asia on the birthday of Augustus, lb. 3902 b, a decree in honour 
 of Maximus Paulus, proconsul of Asia under Augustus. 
 
 55 Eckhel (ii. 466 and vi. 100) describes coins with Com 
 (mune) As{iae) Rom.'et Aug. dated Imp. IX, trib. pot. V. 
 
 56 Joseph. Ant. Jud. xvi. 6, 2, tV iirL<rritJLOTa.Ti^ Tdirij} yevTjdhrt 
 fioi virb Tov KoivoO rrjs 'Aalas in a decree of Augustus. 
 
 57 Strab. xii. 567 and Dio Cass. liii. 26. 58 c.I. Gr. 4039. 
 5» Momms. Res Gest. div. Aug. p. x. 
 
r 
 
 THE PROVINCIAL CONCILIA 247 
 
 of a province — ^which in the past had had so famous, 
 but also so heterogeneous, a history, and where each 
 state held an unbroken continuity with this past to be 
 of more importance than any present advantages — 
 made it perhaps necessary to depart in some way from 
 the usual type of these assemblies, and it is in truth 
 only a conjecture of some probability that the koivov 
 
 TU)V 'A;^ata)i/ Kal Bo/wrwi/ Kal AoKpoyv kol $(o/fecov, /cat 
 
 Ev^o€(iiv, sometimes called merely t6 kolvov twv 'Axatwi', or 
 rj (rvvoSo<; rwi^ Ilav€XX.^i'o)v, which existed in the earlier 
 imperial period,^" was constituted by Augustus, and 
 was associated with the imperial cult.^^ In any case, 
 as Mommsen points out,^^ this association was here 
 hardly the primary one, and, in practice at any rate, it 
 was rather an ideal Panhellenism than the consecration 
 of Roman imperialism which this kolvov served to 
 promote. 
 
 But, as Dio Cassius says, the example set in Asia and 
 Bithynia was followed not only in the Hellenic pro- 
 vinces, but also in the other parts of the empire,^^ and in 
 the West we know that the institution was commenced 
 in the time of Augustus himself. As early as 26 B.C., an 
 altar was erected to Augustus at Tarraco, apparently by 
 the province,^* and if so a conciiium must have been 
 at the same time formed. That it was so formed seems 
 to follow from the statement of Tacitus under the year 
 15 A.D.,*^^ Templum ut in colonia Tarraconensi strueretur 
 petentibus Hispanis permissum, since the province can 
 only have made known its wish to build a temple by 
 means of a deputation sent by the concilium.^^ Of 
 
 60 Keil, Syllog. inscr. Boeotic. p. 116. 
 
 61 Foucart, Inscript. de Messinie, 319. "2 Eom Gesch. 243. 
 
 63 li. 20 : Kal TOVT^ cKeWev ap^dhi-evov. /cat ^tt' 6Xko}v avTOKparbpuv 
 Oil fiovov iv rots 'WCK-qviKots edyeaiv dWa Kal ev roh dXKoi.% Saa tQv 
 'Viajxalojv cLKOvei, iy^uero. 
 
 64 C.LL. ii. 540. Eckhel, i. 58, and Quintilian, vi. 3, 77 : 
 Augustus nuntiantihus Tarraconensihus palmam in ara eius 
 enatam " Apparet," inquit, " quam saepe accendatis." 
 
 65 Ann. i. 78. 
 
 66 Conf. Tac. Ann. iv. 37 : Per idem tempus Hispania ulterior 
 missis ad senatum legatis oravit ut exemplo Asiae delubrum Tiberio 
 matrique eius exstrueret. 
 
24^ STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 another instance of the erection of an altar to Augustus 
 we have somewhat more detailed information. The 
 three Gallic provinces, Aquitania, Lugdunensis, and 
 Belgica, had by the organisation of Augustus been 
 distributed into sixty-four civitates, based upon the old 
 national pagi or cantons." These provinces Augustus 
 determined to band together into a common concilium, 
 using as a bond of union the new state-cult. The 
 occasion chosen for carrying out this design was a 
 threatened attack of the Sugambri in 12 B.C., when the 
 imperial prince Drusus assembled the Gallic chiefs at 
 Lugdunum, and, on i Aug.,®^ formally consecrated an 
 altar to Rome and Augustus,^® ad confluentem Araris et 
 Rhodani the first priest being C. Julius Vercundari- 
 dubnus,'^ an Aeduan. Not long after, as in the case of 
 Tarraco, a temple was built by the concilium, the 
 earliest mention of it being in Strabo,^^ who says that it 
 was set up in front of Lugdunum to Caesar Augustus at 
 the confluence of the rivers. There is, too, he proceeds, 
 a memorable altar with the names of the sixty tribes 
 inscribed, and round it statues of each several state.^^ 
 Not long after this the campaigns of Drusus had 
 resulted in what was practically the annexation of that 
 part of Germany between the Rhine and the Weser. 
 Roman organisation seems to have been partially intro- 
 duced, and here from the very first the Augustan cult 
 was to serve as a connecting link for the population of 
 the future province. That this was the object and 
 meaning of the ara Ubiorum mentioned by Tacitus,^^ 
 
 67 Momms. Rom. Gesch. v. 81 seq. 68 Suet. Claud. 2. 
 
 69 Dio Cass. liv. 32. 
 
 70 Liv. Epit. 137 : ara Caesari ad confluentem Araris et Rhodani 
 consecrata. 
 
 71 Strab. iv. 3. 
 
 72 Similar symbolical statues of the civitates of Pannonia 
 Superior were apparently placed round the altar of the concilium 
 at Savaria. At least two bases of statues have been found 
 inscribed respectively, Municipium Flavium Augustum Scar- 
 hantia and Colonia Septimia Siscia Augusta {C.I.L. iii. 4192, 
 4193)- 
 
 73 Tac. Ann. i. 39, 57. 
 
THE PROVINCIAL CONCILIA 249 
 
 it is almost impossible to doubt. We know from him 
 that it had an annual priest, and in the fatal year of 
 9 A.D., when Varus was killed, the priesthood was held 
 by Segemundus, a son of Segestes. It was significant of 
 the failure of this plan for romanising Germany that 
 when the revolt took place the sacerdos at once tore off 
 his fillets and joined the rebels. It seems, indeed, that 
 the erection of an altar to Rome and Augustus was 
 almost tantamount to the modern custom of unfurling 
 the national flag in token that new territory is annexed. 
 Thus when Domitius Ahenobarbus, legate of Illyricum, 
 in accordance with the forward policj^ then being 
 pursued, penetrated in 5 or 4 B.C. by way of Vindelicia 
 to the Elbe, he formed, says Dio Cassius,''* friendly 
 relations with the barbarians in those parts and set up 
 an altar to Augustus by the river. Similarly we find 
 that the expedition to Britain under Claudius was 
 followed almost at once by the erection of a temple to 
 the emperor at Camulodunum, the earliest capital of the 
 province, which was regarded quasi arx aeternae domi- 
 nationis ; ^^ while lastly the Flaviae arae (Rottweil) in 
 the Agri Decumates were in all probability established 
 in connexion with the annexation of that territory by 
 Domitian."^^ 
 
 I The evidence already adduced is sufficient to show 
 that the system of provincial assemblies was introduced 
 by Augustus and was applied by him both in the eastern 
 and western parts of the empire. It is indeed extremely 
 probable that before the close of his reign every province 
 in the empire had at least an altar to Rome and Augus- 
 tus, and a kolvov or concilmm in connexion with it, and 
 that the development of the institution under Tiberius 
 or his successors, with the exception of new provinces, 
 consisted merely in adding a temple to the altar, as in 
 Tarraconensis, or in increasing the number of the 
 provincial temples where one existed already .'^^ The 
 
 '1 Dio Cass. Iv. 80 : ^u/xoi^ ctt' avroO ti^ AvyovaTip iSpiaaro. 
 75 Tac. Ann. xiv. 31. '^^ Momms. Rom. Gesch. v. 139. 
 77 Tac. Ann. W 15 
 
250 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 data however are insufficient to determine the historical 
 development of each concilium, and before proceeding 
 to give an account of their organisation and objects, it 
 will be convenient to give a summary of the evidence 
 for their universal extension over the empireJ^ 
 
 In Britain the templum divo Claudio at Camulodunum ^® 
 was no doubt dedicated to Rome and Augustus, though 
 probably here, as in other places, a worship of the deified 
 founder of the temple became associated with the wider 
 cult.^° The existence also of a concilium may be inferred 
 from an inscription.®^ For the Tres Galliae, in addition 
 to what has been already said, it will be sufficient to 
 refer in advance to the famous inscription of Thorigny 
 which will receive full notice further on.®^ Of the 
 Spanish provinces, Tarraconensis had its temple and 
 meeting-place at Tarraco. We find several honorary 
 inscriptions put up, consensu concilii Hisp. citerioris 
 or ex decreto concilii p. H. c.,®^ while the names of more 
 than seventy fiamens of the province are known to us. 
 In Baetica the concilium met at Corduba. We find 
 honours decreed to a flamen consensu concilii universae 
 provinciae Baeticae ; ®* the province sends legates to 
 Tiberius in 25 a.d. to ask permission to build a temple,®^ 
 and legati provinciae Baeticae are mentioned by Pliny.®^ 
 In Lusitania the concilium met at Emerita, and several 
 fiamines prov. Lusitaniae are met with,^^ though the 
 concilium itself is not mentioned. In Gallia Narbo- 
 nensis an altar was erected numini Augusti by the plebs 
 Narbonetisis in 11 a.d. Marquardt seems to regard 
 this as connected with the provincial state-cult. It is 
 clear, however, from the dedicatory inscription, which 
 we have complete,^® that this was purely a municipal 
 altar, unconnected with the concilium, and having no 
 
 78 For this part of the subject see especially Marquardt, 
 Ephem. Epigr. vol. i. 
 '8 Tac. Ann. xiv. 31. 
 
 80 See note $1' ®^ Orell. 6488. 82 Bernard, p. 107. 
 
 83 C.I.L. ii. 4246, 4255. 84 C.I.L. ii. 2221. 
 
 85 Tac. Ann. iv. 37. 86 Epist. iii. 4, 2. 
 
 87 C.I.L. ii. 35, 160, 396, etc. 88 Wilm. 104. 
 
THE PROVINCIAL CONCILIA 25 1 
 
 relation to the cult of Rome and Augustus. That the 
 institution existed, however, in this province we know 
 from a number of inscriptions. One is erected sacerdoti 
 templi divi Augusti quod est Narbone in quod sacerdotium 
 consentiente provincia adlectus est,^^ while numerous 
 fiamens of the province are known. ^° In the African 
 provinces the evidence for the provincial concilia is very 
 scanty, though still sufficient to prove their existence. 
 In proconsular Africa an inscription of about the end of 
 the second century is found which the concilium prov. 
 Africae set up to Annius Arminius Donatus, an illustri- 
 ous youth, and grandson of a flamen.^^ L. Apuleius is 
 described by Augustine ^^ as sacerdos provinciae, and 
 fiamens of the province are mentioned in several other 
 inscriptions.^^ In Numidia, which became a separate 
 province under Septimius Severus, a flamen prov. 
 Numidiae occurs ; ^* in Mauretania Caesariensis we have 
 a flamen provinciae,^^ while in 6i a.d. we find the province 
 successfully accusing its procurator, Vibius Secundus.®^ 
 In Sardinia we find a personage who was adlectus inter 
 sacerdotales provinciae ex consensu prov. Sardiniae,^"^ 
 while there is a flamen prov. Alpium maritimarum,^^ and 
 a flamen Augusti prov. Cottianae.^^ Coming to the 
 Danubian provinces we find an ara Augusti at Savaria 
 in Pannonia Superior ,^°^ and a sacerdos provinciae Panno- 
 niae Super. ^^^ In Pannonia Inferior there is a sacerdos 
 arae Augusti, ^^'■^ and sacer dotes totius provinciae. ^^^ In 
 Moesia Inferior, M. Ulpius Antipater is sacerdos pro- 
 vinciae^^^ Troesmis being probably the seat of the con- 
 cilium ; while lastly in Dacia, made into a province by 
 Trajan, we have an inscription set up in honour of the 
 emperor Gordian by the concilium provinciarum Dad- 
 arum trium, since Dacia, like Galha Comata, was divided 
 
 89 C.I.L. xii. 392. 90 /^. 3183 ; Herzog, No, 267, 501, etc. 
 
 91 Ephem. Epigr. v. No. 698. 92 Epist. 138, 
 
 93 C.I.L. viii. 1827, 2343, 4252. 94 /^. 7987. 
 
 95 C.I.L. viii. 9409. 96 Tac. Ann. xiv. 28. 
 
 97 Delia Marmora, Voyage en Sardaigne, ii. 483. 
 
 98 Orell. 2214. 99 C.I.L. v. 7259. ^^ C.I.L. iii. 4170. 
 101 lb. 4108. 102 /ft. 6452. 103 lb. 3343. 
 
 104 lb. 6170. 
 
252 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 under M. Aurelius into three sub-pro vinces.^"* There is 
 also a sacerdos arae Augusti nostri coronatus Daciarum 
 
 In Achaia we have already noticed the kolixov twi/ 
 Axaiwi/ meeting in Argos/®^ apparently presided over by 
 
 an apx'-^P^^'* '^°-'-' EAAaSapx'/? Sta (iiov rov kolvov twG 'A^aiwi/.^**® 
 
 Macedonia had its kolvov meeting in Thessalonica pre- 
 sided over by an a.pxL€p€v<; koI dywro^cVi/s rov KOLVOV T<£v 
 MaKiSovtav}^ To the kolvov of Thrace was addressed a 
 rescript of Antoninus Pius,"** while Crete also had its 
 kolvov and quinquennial games "^ In the eastern pro- 
 vinces mention has already been made, and the sub- 
 ject will be again referred to, of the kolvov and temples 
 of Asia. We hear in the "Digest " of the president of 
 
 the Bithynian kolvov — ap^a? rov kolvov Tiov iv B€l6vvl(} 
 'EWrjvtovj^^ while Pliny "^ makes mention of a decretum 
 concilii sent by the province to Trajan. Galatia, as 
 we have seen, had its kolvov and temple. Cilicia had 
 a kolvov meeting in Tarsus,*^* Cappadocia one in Caesarea 
 ad Argaeum,"^ Syria at Antioch,^^® and after the pro- 
 vince of Phoenice was separated from the rest by 
 Septimius Severus we find a decretum prov. Phoenices.^"^ 
 Lycia, made a province in 43 a.d., seems to have re- 
 tained its original kolvov, while in Alexandria there is a 
 temple to Rome and Augustus, though Egypt, differing 
 from the other provinces in its political position, differs 
 also in possessing no provincial assembly. 
 
 This brief abstract of the evidence, which in most 
 provinces might be largely increased, is sufficient to 
 show that the institution of kolvo. or concilia was 
 universal throughout the empire. It remains to con- 
 sider their organisation and the nature of the business 
 with which they were mainly occupied. In the first 
 place they were representative assemblies, composed of 
 
 »o« c.I.L. iii. 1454. 106 jb, 1433. 
 
 lOT C.I.Gr. 1625. 108 lb. 1 7 18. 109 jb, 2007 
 
 110 Dig. xlix. I. I. Ill C.I.Gr. 2583. 112 Dig. xxvii.i, 6, 14. 
 
 i'3 Epist. vii. 5. 114 C.I.Gr. 2810. ii« lb. 3428. 
 
 ii« lb. 2810. 117 C.I.L. iii. 167. 
 
THE PROVINCIAL CONCILIA 253 
 
 delegates sent from the various civitates of the province.^^^ 
 These delegates to the provincial assembly were pro- 
 bably, like the other legati, sent for various purposes by 
 the cities, chosen by the decuriones}^^ In Asia, where the 
 popular assemblies continued to exercise distinct 
 political functions, it was apparently in these that the 
 election took place .^^^^ Whether each civitas sent a single 
 deputy or more than one, or whether there were grada- 
 tions of privilege in this respect, it is impossible to 
 decide with certainty. Of the twenty-three cities 
 which sent deputies to the Lycian kolvov we learn from 
 Strabo,^^^ though at a date previous to its organisation 
 as a province, that the most important had three votes 
 each, and the rest either two or one according to their 
 size. Aristides too, in speaking of the deputation sent 
 from Smyrna to attend the Asian assembly, uses a-wi- 
 Bpovs in the plural, while the inscription of Thorigny 
 seems to give similar evidence for the concilium of the 
 Tres Galliae, when it states that his native city made 
 Solemnis inter ceteros legatum}^^ From the other pro- 
 vinces we have no data, and it would be rash to assume 
 that these details were similarly regulated in all parts of 
 the empire. 
 
 / Coming together as they did primarily for the object 
 M a religious cult, it follows that they must have had a 
 fixed date ^^^ for periodical meetings, and a definite place 
 
 118 In the west these were called legati (Inscript. of Thorigny 
 in Bernard) ; in the east usually avveSpoi (Aristides, xxvi. 345), 
 but sometimes koi.v6^ov\oi (Waddington, 1176). 
 
 119 Lex col. Genetiv. 92, duoviri quicunque in ea colonia 
 magistratum habebunt, ei de legationibus publicis mittendis ad 
 decuriones referunto, 
 
 120 Aristid. loc. cit. 121 Strab. xiv. 3, 3. 
 
 122 This is perhaps confirmed by certain inscriptions found 
 in the amphitheatre near the temple of Augustus at Lugdunum, 
 apparently showing that fixed places were assigned to the 
 deputies from the various cities. Among these BIT{uriges) 
 C{ubi) occurs six times, TRI{casses) twice. 
 
 123. With regard to the date of meeting we have information 
 only in the case of the Tres Galliae and Asia. In the former 
 the asembly met on August i : Kal. Aug. eo ipso die quo primum 
 ibi ara Augusto dedicata est ; Suet. Claud, 2 ; in the latter at 
 some date in February. 
 
254 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 or places of assembly where the altars and temples to 
 Rome and Augustus were set up. 
 
 With regard to the periodicity of the meetings it 
 seems necessary to assume that they were annual. A 
 priori we should expect this from the analogy of other 
 cults, almost all of which certainly had their fixed 
 anniversariesr and also from the design which Augustus 
 in instituting these assemblies had in view, the desire to 
 keep continually in the minds of the provincial popula- 
 tions their association with and dependence on the 
 imperial authority-=^a design which could have been 
 very imperfectly met by a quinquennial or triennial 
 period. As positive arguments for this view may be 
 mentioned the following points, (i) Tacitus states ^^* 
 that Segemundus was created priest at the ara Ubiorum 
 eo anno quo Germaniae descivere. (2) A decree of the 
 Lycian kolvov votes a statue to Troilus of Balburra, 
 who had been priest iv t<2 I^lovti haP^ (3) We find 
 coins struck in two consecutive years, 97 and 98 a.d., 
 with the legend Commune AsiaeP^ (4) The dpp^tcpcvs 
 seems from inscriptions to have been eponymous, and 
 this implies annual election.^^^ (5) We know the names 
 of over seventy flamines of Hispania Tarraconensis 
 before the time of Diocletian, i.e. between 26 B.C. and 
 284 A.D., and of 90 apxt€piLs of Asia in about the same 
 period. But if the priests were elected every five years, 
 there could only have been seventy-eight altogether, a 
 number actually exceeded in Asia and so nearly reached 
 in Spain that we should practically on this supposition 
 have the complete fasti of the province. But (6) what 
 is perhaps the strongest argument of all is the fact that, 
 as we shall see in detail below, one of the most important 
 functions of the asseinblies was to formulate accusations, 
 where necessary, against provincial governors, a function 
 which by no possibilfty could be discharged unless the 
 assembly met at least annually. Quite in accordance 
 with this we find the province of Asia accusing its pro- 
 
 124 Ann. i. 57. 
 
 125 Waddington, 1221. 12a Cohen, i. 466 ; ii. 3. 
 127 C.I.Gr. 3487. 
 
THE PRINCIPAL CONCILIA 255 
 
 consul C. Silanus in 22 a.d., and in the next year simi- 
 larly proceeding against a procurator Lucilius Capito.^^^ 
 Similarly the concilium of Bithynia had accused the 
 proconsul Varenus Rufus, but while the trial was still 
 proceeding at Rome another meeting of the concilium 
 was held, which rescinded the decision of the former one 
 and sent a decretum concilii to the emperor dropping the 
 accusation. ^^^ On the other hand the quinquennial meet- 
 ing of the assemblies is by no means proved by the 
 passage of Suetonius or the inscriptions which have 
 been relied on in favour of that view. Suetonius says "^ 
 that most of the provinces in addition to temples and 
 altars established also ludos quinquennales, while . we 
 
 hear of an tepos dyobv Trci'Tacrr/ptKos rov kolvov tcov KpTyrwv,^^^ 
 an lepov TTCVTa^T-qpiKov kolvov %vpia<; KiAtKia? ^0iVLKr]<; iv 
 
 'AvTioxeta"^ while another inscription speaks of Koivd 
 
 'Ao-ias Kol Tous XotTTous dyc3vas TrevTacTrjpLKom t€ kol rptcrr;- 
 pLKovs}^^ These expressions, however, prove at most the 
 existence of quinquennial games in certain provinces, 
 but this is obviously, even if it could be proved of all, 
 not inconsistent with annual assemblies. 
 
 With regard to the place of meeting, there seems to 
 be no doubt that in most of the provinces this was 
 always the same, viz. the site of the original altar or 
 temple to Rome and Augustus. This was not always, 
 or necessarily, the capital of the province, though 
 perhaps in a majority of cases it was so (e.g. Tarraco, 
 Carthage, Narbo, Lugdunum), since in Upper Pannonia 
 it was Savaria, not Carnuntum or Brigetio ; ^^* in Lower 
 Pannonia it was a site near the modern Stiihlweissenberg, 
 not Aquincum or Acumincum ; ^^^ in Dacia it was in the 
 neighbourhood of Sarmizegethusa not Apulum.^^® In the 
 province of Asia the number of important cities and 
 their emulation and rivalry with one another occasioned 
 
 128 Tac. Ann. iii. 66 ; iv. 15. 
 
 129 piin. Epist. V. 20 ; vii. 6. i30 Suet. Aug. 59. 
 
 131 C.I. Gr. 2583. 
 
 132 Bullet, de V instil. Archiol. de Rome, i?>77, p. 109. 
 
 133 C.I. Gr. 1420. 134 C.I.L. iii. p. 525. "S /6. p. 432- 
 i3« Ephem. Epigraph, i. p. 207. 
 
256 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 a development of the provincial assemblies in a somewhat 
 different line from the other provinces. At first the 
 temple of Rome and Augustus was at Pergamum, and in 
 all inscriptions which clearly date from the time of 
 Augustus it is here that the kolvov was held.^^^ But 
 provincial temples were subsequently erected in a 
 number of other cities in the province. Tiberius gave 
 permission to Smyrna to build a temple to himself, his 
 mother, and the senate"® in 26 a. d., while Cyzicus must 
 have gained a similar permission, since we find the 
 city deprived of its freedom for neglecting to complete 
 its temple to Augustus."® Other cities followed suit, and 
 in each city which possessed a provincial temple the 
 KOLVOV TTj^ 'Aortas was from time to time held. Thus 
 we find it in Sardes,^^° Philadelphia,"^ Cyzicus,"^ Perga- 
 mum,"^ Smyrna,"* Ephesus,"*^ Laodicea,"^ and some 
 place, possibly Synnada, in the highlands of Phrygia."^ In 
 what order the kolvov was held in these cities, or whether 
 there was any strict rotation at all, we have no means of 
 deciding, though the fact that it seems to have been 
 held two years running in Pergamum, in 97 and 98 A. D., 
 puts a certain difficulty in the way of the rotation 
 theory."® Other questions, too, concerning Asia admit of 
 only doubtful answers, and I shall not attempt them 
 here ; e.g. whether the term vcwKopos was, as Mommsen 
 
 137 Conf. especially C.I. Gr. 3902 b, iv t<^ yvfiuiKc^ dywui r!^ iv 
 Uepyd/JUfi TU)v ' Vtaixalwv 'Ze^aaTuiv. 
 
 13* Tac. Ann. iv. 15. There is no doubt that this temple 
 was a provincial one, though not dedicated to Rome and Augus- 
 tus. As we have already seen, other cults were joined to this in 
 the provinces, and the senate under the empire is often the 
 practical expression, as Mommsen points out {Staatsr. iii. p. 
 1259), for the older and now unmeaning phrase of " republic," 
 and therefore a temple to the emperor, the empress-mother, 
 and the senate meant very much the same thing, though in 
 more concrete terms, as " Rome and Augustus." See coins 
 in Eckhel, ii. 547, with 6ebv (r6yK\r)Top on the reverse, and also 
 Sc/Sao-TTj ffiyKKriTos H/xvpvalwv with head of Tiberius on other side. 
 
 139 Dio Cass. Ivii. 24, and Tac. Ann. iv. s^. 
 
 140 c.I. Gr. 5918: 141 Jb. 3428. 142 lb. 3674. 
 
 143 lb. 1720. 144 lb. 3208. 145 Eckhel, ii. 521. 
 
 i4« Wood, Discoveries at Ephesus, p. 54. 
 
 147 Aristid. xxvi. 345. 148 Cohen, i. 466 ; ii. 3. 
 
THE PROVINCIAL CONCILIA 257 
 
 thinks, applied to cities which had a provincial temple, 
 or whether Monceaux is right in giving a purely muni- 
 cipal meaning to the word,"^ and also whether the term 
 firjTpoTroXei^ was co-extensive with the seats of the 
 KOLvov ; if so, then the kolvov in Lycia must have been 
 held in Tlos, Xanthus and Patara, which are described 
 as the firjTpoTToXciq of the Lycian people .^^*^ 
 
 At the meeting of the concilium its proceedings were 
 presided over by the priest of the altar of Augustus ,^^^ 
 an official who was apparently designated a year before- 
 hand at the previous meeting.^^^ In the west his title 
 was either sacerdos : e.g. sacerdos ad templum Romae et 
 Augusti ad confltientes Araris et Rhodani, or sacerdos 
 trium provinciarum Galliarum, sacerdos provinciae Panno- 
 niae super., etc.,^^^ or flamen, e.g flamen provinciae His- 
 paniae citer.^^^ flamen provinciae Lusitaniae}^^ The 
 difference, however, appears to be a mere matter of 
 terminology, and indeed in Tarraconensis we find indis- 
 criminately the titles sacerdos ^^^ and flamen of the 
 province. In the Greek provinces the title is invariably 
 
 ap)^ip€V<s ; e.g. apxiipiv^ T7J<; 'Acrta?,^^^ dpxupev<; tov kolvov 
 
 Toiv VakaTiov,^^^ i.e. with merely the name of the pro- 
 vince or KOLVOV attached, and though we find the 
 priests of certain purely municipal cults called tepcts r^? 
 'P(o/x?ys KOL kvTOKpaTopo^ ^^^ wc rarcly get this specification 
 in the case of the provincial priests .^^*^ The president 
 
 149 See on the question, Eckhel iv. 288. iso Wadd. 1245. 
 
 151 Conf. expressions like irpuJTOs 'Acrtas, irpooros ttJs eVapxeiaj ; 
 also C.I. Gr. 3487, ^do^ep roh iiri ttjs 'Acrt'as "EWrjffiv iv kolvi^, KXau- 
 diov KovxTTOv dpxi-ep^ios 'Acrtas. 
 
 152 apxL^pe^'s 'Aaias dirodeSeiypievos, C.I. Gr. 2741 ; flamen 
 designatus, C.I.L. ii 4196. 
 
 153 And also in Dacia (C. I. L. iii. 1433), Moesia Sup. {ih. 773), 
 Dalmatia {ib. 2810), Sardinia (Henzen, 5969). 
 
 154 C.I.L. ii. 2638. 
 
 155 C.I.L. ii. 160, etc., and also in Baetica {ih. 2221), Nar- 
 bonensis (Herzog, 501), Alpes Maritimae (Orell. 2214), Num a 
 Mauretania, etc. 
 
 156 C.I.L. ii. 4248. 157 C.I. Gr. 395 3 h. i58 Ih. 4106. 
 
 159 Ih. 3524. 
 
 160 A possible exception is, 6 airb r^y 7r6Xea)S apxt^peiis deSis 'PcuAtr;? 
 Kai deou SejSacrTou Kaiaapos {Bullet, corr. hell. v. 192), where, 
 
258 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 was elected by the concilium of the province,"^ and in 
 all probability the legati received some sort of man- 
 date from their own city as to the person for whom 
 they should vote. This at least was the case in Asia, 
 since Aristides says that the popular assembly at 
 Smyrna wished to confer on him the koiv^ t^s 'Ao-ias 
 'upocrvvrj, which Can only mean that instructions were 
 to be given to the a-vvtSpoc of Smyrna to vote foi 
 him.^''* Asia however, may have differed from the othei 
 provinces in this as it certainly did in another point, 
 which we also learn from the same source. It appears 
 from Aristides that the kolvov selected several candi- 
 dates (Aristides was himself rptro^ ^ reTapro^ on the 
 list) and submitted them to the proconsul, who made 
 the final choice. No trace of this appears elsewhere. 
 The presidency of the concilium appears to have been 
 the goal of provincial ambition, and the election was not 
 always conducted without tumult and violence. ^®^ The 
 president was the highest personage in the province. 
 Thus Q. Trebellius Rufus was apx'€p€v<: and Trpwro? r^? 
 €K Nap^wvos cTrapxcta?-^^* M. Ulp'us Tryphon was dpxt€piv<s 
 T^? 'Atrta?, iv Tracn Trpwros Tyj<; ttoAcws t€ koI rrj^ iTrap^iia^}^^ 
 Another is called o apiarro^ tov XapLirpoTarov r^s 'Acrtas 
 
 l^vov?,^®® and he had almost invariably passed through 
 all the chief municipal offices in his own city. Omnibus 
 honoribus in patria sua functus is an expression which 
 meets us again and again in inscriptions.^®^ So we find 
 
 however, it is not clear that it is the provincial and not a 
 municipal cult. A certain exception is C.I. Gr. 3187, iSo^ev 
 Tor? ^Tri TTJs 'A<rtas "EXXijcrt*', TtjS. KXai;5/oi; 'Kpibdov apxiepiui deai 
 Pt6yL«7s Kal deov Kalcrapos. 
 
 161 C.I.L. ii. 2344 : Hie provinciae Baeticae consensu fiaminis 
 munus est consecutus. C.I.L. xii. 292 : in quod sacerdotium 
 universa provincia consentiente adlectus est. Boissieu, p. 91 : 
 a tribus provinciis Galliis ornatus sacerdotio. 
 
 162 Aristid. xxvi. 345. 
 
 163 Julius Paulus, V. 30 : Petiturus magistratum vel provinciae 
 sacerdotium, si tttfbam suffragiorum causa conduxerit, servos 
 advocaverit, aliamve muUitudinem conduxerit . . . in insulam 
 deportatur. 
 
 16* Herzog, 267. 16S C.I. Gr. 3953 h. I66 lb. 3504. 
 167 E. g. Herzog, 501. C.I. L. ii, 4204, 4230, etc 
 
THE PROVINCIAL CONCILIA 259 
 
 a flamen of the Cottian Alps who had been decurio 
 and Ilvir of Eburodunum,^^^ a flamen of Baetica who 
 had been pontifex, flamen perpetuus, and Ilvir in the 
 colony of Patricia/^^ a sacerdos of Dacia who had been 
 augur and Ilvir at Sarmizegethusa, augur at Apulum, 
 and dectirio at Drobetae,^"^*^ and a sacerdos of Pannonia 
 Inferior, who had been a decurio, Ilvir, and flamen at 
 Aquincum/^^ Similarly in Galatia T. Flavins Gaianus, an 
 dp)^i€p€v? Tov KOLvov TO)v TakaTiov, had been supreme 
 magistrate in his city, had acted as registrar (ttoXcito- 
 ypa<f>i^ara<;), and had three times gone as legate to Anto- 
 ninus Pius.^''^ M. Aurelius Diadochus while apxtep^vq rrj<; 
 
 *Ao-ias vawv ruiv iv Ilepydfjuo waS ap^tcpcv? tov avrov ^P^^^^^ 
 
 Trj<; TrarptSos (Thyatira) Kal 8ta ^tov fSovXapxo'i,'^'^^ while an 
 
 dp^i€/)€U5 iv Toj AvKLOiV Wvci is described as iv rfj Trarpioi 
 Tracras ra? apxo.<; T(Xi(Ta<iP^ 
 
 The pecuniary burden imposed on the president in 
 connexion with the games was a heavy one,^^^ and hence 
 only men of wealth could undertake the office, and this, 
 especially in the east, tended in some degree to limit the 
 choice, and to make the post, if not hereditary, at 
 least re-occur frequently in the same families. Thus 
 we find at Thyatira a Julius Julianus Tatianus who 
 was the son, grandson, and great grandson of men who 
 had been dpx^^pcts r^? 'Ao-ta?,^^^ while Philostratus, doubt- 
 less with some exaggeration, says of Scopelianus the 
 
 Sophist, iyevero tt}? 'Acrias dp;^tepei>s atros t€ kol ol ivpo- 
 
 yovoL ai'Tov Tvah e/c Trarpos 7rdvT€<;}'^'^ This was a tendency, 
 however, which only became marked in the course of 
 time. Theoretically there were no restrictions on the 
 
 168 C.I.L. V. 7259, 169 Ephem. Epigr. ii. 77. 
 
 170 C.I.L. iii. 1209. 
 
 171 Ephem. Epigr. ii. 258. See also C.I.L. ii. 4223 ; iii. 3368. 
 
 172 C.I. Gr. 4016. 173 lb. 394. ^ 174 lb. 4289. 
 
 175 C.I. Gr. 297, dpxL^p^a, 'A<rtas vawv tQv ii/ ''Ecpepcp . . . ddvra 
 TCLS virkp T77S apxt-epwdv-q^ /xvpidSas . . . els rriv KaraaKevrjv tov vew. 
 Wadd. 1604, dpxiepf^o-vvT) TroXvreXeffTaTT] , and 648, apx^epaadfjievov 
 ip86^(i)s /xerd /xeyaXuv dvaXwfjLdTuu. 
 
 176 C./. Gr. 3495. 
 
 177 Vit. Soph. I. 21, 2. Conf. also C.I.L. ii, 4231, 4232, where 
 two brothers are flamens of the province, and C.I. Gr. 2782. 
 
260 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 election. The president might come from any of the 
 cities, large or small, which sent deputies to the con- 
 cilium, though no doubt the large cities, and especially 
 the capital of the province, furnished a larger pro- 
 portion than the rest. Thus in the concilium of the 
 Tres Galliae we find sacerdotes elected from the Aeduans,"® 
 the Carnutes,"® the Segusiani,^®*^ the Tricasses,^®^ the 
 Arverni,^®* the Nervii,^®^ and about ten other civitates. 
 In Hispania Tarraconensis we have as many as 
 twenty-one flamines from Tarraco, but we find them 
 also from no fewer than forty- two other civitates as well ; 
 e.g. Caesar Augusta,^^* Calagurris,^^*^ Carthago nova,^®* 
 Clunia,^" Juliobriga,^^^ Saguntum,^®® Lucus Augusti,^^° 
 etc. In Pannonia we find them from Aquincum,^^^ 
 Siscia,^®^ Poetovio,^®^ Savaria,^®* and Mursa.^®^ In Asia, 
 too, we find the apxt^pev^ coming not only from the cities 
 with provincial temples of their own, but also from 
 Thyatira,*»« Aezani,^^^ Bargylia,^»« Magnesia,^»» Tralles,2oo 
 Cibyra,^®^ Eumenia,'^**^ Apamea,'^"^ and altogether from 
 thirty different cities, while Strabo ^^* says expressly of 
 Tralles, " This city is inferior to no other in Asia in 
 respect of the wealth of its inhabitants, and there are 
 never wanting men from it who hold the highest position 
 in the province {ol TrpwrcvovTCS Kara TTjv i7rap)(€Lav) and 
 
 whom they call Asiarchs." 
 
 Prominent as the priest-presidents were in the western 
 provinces, they were still more so in the eastern and 
 Greek-speaking parts of the empire. The splendid 
 robes and golden diadem worn by the provincial priests ^^^ 
 and the magnificence and pomp of the games were 
 
 "8 Bernard, pp. 53, 54. 17» lb. 55. I80 lb. 58. 
 
 181 lb. 64. 182 /ft. 66. 183 Henz. 5968. 
 
 184 C./.L. ii. 4244. 18S7&. 4245. 186/6.3412. 
 
 187 /&. 4198. 188 lb. 4240. 189 76. 4214. 
 
 190 Jb. 4255, etc. 191 C.I.L. iii. 3485. 3626. 
 
 192 lb. 3936. 193 lb. 4108. 194 lb. 4183. 
 
 195 lb. 3288. 196 C.I. Gr. 394. 3504. 19V lb. 3831 a. 13. 
 
 198 Bull. corr. hell. w.\g2. i99 C.I. Gr. 2912. 200 /ft. 2933 
 201 Bull corr. hell. ii. 594. 202 Eckhel, iii. K3. 
 203 C.I. Gr. 3960. 204 strab. xiv. i, 42. ': 
 
 305 Tertull. de Idolatr. 18 and C.I.L, iii. 1433. 
 
THE PROVINCIAL CONCILIA 261 
 
 precisely the objects at which the provincial ambition 
 in this part of the empire chiefly aimed, and accordingly 
 almost from the first a more high-sounding title than 
 mere apxiep€v<s was employed — at first only occasion- 
 ally, but with greater and greater frequency in the 
 second and third centuries — to describe the provincial 
 president In Asia he was 'Ao-tapx^??, in Bithynia 
 BLOvvidpxr}^, in Gala ia VaXaTdpxn^, and similar titles are 
 found in Cappadocia,^^^ Pamphylia ^^^ Lycia,^°^ Cilicia,^^^ 
 Syria, and Phoenicia.^^^ The question as to whether the 
 ^Aa-iapxris and the apxt€p€v<s Trj<; 'Ao-ia? were the same 
 person or not, has been much debated Waddington ^^ 
 and Perrot ^^^ consider that they were different, the 
 apx(.€p^vs having the presidency of the kolvov and the 
 religious celebration ; the ' Ka-idpxn'; being president and 
 director of the games. Marquardt and Giraud on the 
 other hand maintain, and I think correctly, that the two 
 personages were identical, a view which is practically 
 also held by Mommsen,^^^ who admits that in inscriptions 
 they are identical, but asserts, though on grounds not 
 stated, that they were originally distinct. Without 
 going into all the details of the question, the following 
 points seem to place Marquardt's view almost beyond 
 question : (i) Modestinus ^^* says Wvovs Uptoa-vvrj olov 
 'Acrtapxta, Bt^wiap;(ia, Ka7r7ra8oKap;^ia 7rap€;j(€t aXcLTOvpyrjcriav 
 
 airo i-mTpoTroiv. " The priesthood of a province such 
 as the asiarchate, etc. involves exemption from the 
 duty of tutela." (2) In an Epistula ecclesiae Smyr- 
 naeae,^^^ it is stated in reference to the martyrdom of 
 Polycarp in February 155 A D., ravra Xcyovrcs i-n-e/Sowv 
 
 Kol r]p<i)TOiV TOV *A(TLdpX'lf)V ^tXtTTTTOV IVtt eTTacjir] T<3 IIoA-v- 
 
 Kdpirw XiovTa, and a little farther on avv€\T^cf>Orj 8k vtto 
 *Hp(i)8ov CTTt tt/a^iepews ^lXlttttov TpaXXiavov. These twO 
 
 206 C.I. Gr. 4196. 207 Wadd. 1224. 208 c. I. Gr. 4198. 
 
 209 Wadd. 1480. 210 C.I.L. iii. 167. 
 
 211 Wadd. ad no 885. 
 
 212 Perrot de Galatia provincia, p. 150. 
 
 213 Rom. Gesch. v. 320. 
 
 21* Cited in Dig. xxvii. i, 6, 14. 
 
 215 Edited in Ruinart, Acta Martyrum, n seq. 
 
a63 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 passages show that the same person in the same year 
 is described as d/);(ifp€vs and as 'Aa-Ldpxrj^, though it 
 deserves notice that where he is alluded to as president 
 of the games he is *A<ndpxrjs, where he is mentioned 
 as an eponymous official, he is dp^upev^. (3) We have 
 two inscriptions in reference to Tib. Julius Reginus, in 
 one of which he is described as app^icpcvs /?' vau)v twv iv 
 *E4>€cr<ay and in the other as 'Ao-tapx'?? /?' vaQ)v tCjv iv 
 *E^€<ra).*^® (4) While titles like 'Ao-tapxr;? vawv toJv iv 
 ^fivpvT} and Asiarcha templorum splendidissimae civi- 
 tatis Ephesiorum,^'' prove that the asiarch was not 
 confined only to the games, it is equally clear from a 
 passage of Galenus ^^^ that the dpxtepels at any rate in 
 Pergamum did preside on these occasions. (5) The 
 wife of the provincial priest shared his title, as we know 
 from inscriptions in Spain and other places, where we 
 have the iitle hlaminica prov Lusitaniae, etc.^^® Similarly 
 we find M. Aurelius Zeno and Marcia Claudia Juliana 
 his wife entitled 'Acrtapxai 815, but we also find that the 
 wife of the 'Acnapxiys when described apart from her 
 husband, is dpxtcptta, evidently implying that her 
 husband is dpxtcpeu?.^^^ We shall probably be right 
 therefore in regarding the term 'Ao-tapx^ys and the 
 similar titles in other provinces, as a mere addition to 
 or amplification of that of a.pxup(.v<s of the province 
 caused by the love of pompous and high-sounding titles 
 which was common in the east.^^^ Sometimes in inscrip- 
 tions it is substituted for dpxtcp€i;'s,222 sometimes it was 
 added by way of accumulation, as e.g. T. Flavins 
 
 Gaianus is dpxtcpcv? rov kolvov roiv VaXaxiov^ TaXaTapx^s.^^^ 
 Although the title of 'Ao-idpx>;s is found in the first 
 half of the first century,^^* yet it is not till the second 
 
 2i« Wood, Discoveries at Ephesus, pp. 60, 68. 
 2" C.I.L. iii. 296. 
 
 218 Galen, to Hippocr. de Part, xviii. 2. 
 
 219 C.I.L. ii. 35. 160, 4198. 4233. 
 
 220 C.I. Gr. 3677 : UXuHov A.ip. Vp6.Tov ^Aaidpxov kol 'louXtas 
 Aip. ^AaK\T]TrioS(Jl)pas rrjs yvvaLKbs adrov dpxiepelai. 
 
 221 Dio Chrysost. ii. 148 R. 222 c.I. Gr. 3421. 
 223 Jb. 4016, 4031. 
 
 ^24 Strab xiv. 699, and Acts of the Apostles, xix. 31. 
 
THE PROVINCIAL CONCILIA 263 
 
 and third centuries that it becomes the common term 
 in inscriptions, and this may perhaps be taken to mark 
 the growing secularisation of the institution, especially 
 in the east, where the religious observations were quite 
 thrown into the shade by the splendour of the games.^^^ 
 The extension in Asia of the provincial temples and 
 state cult to other cities besides Pergamum, its original 
 seat, involved the necessity of other apxt^pels in 
 addition to the priest-president of the Asian kolvov. 
 While the latter was dpxtepcus riys *Ao-ta5 or 'Aa-tdpxrjs 
 simply, the former occur under such titles as apx^fpevs 
 
 'Acrtas vacov to>i/ iv rEcpya/xo),^^^ Or vawv tcov iv '^jxvpvT],^^'^ OV 
 vaov Tov €v tj<pGcr(a kolvov ttj^ A(rias, or vawv riov €v 
 AvSia SapStai'cov,^^^ or vaov tov iv Kv^lkio.^^^ That these 
 local dpxtcpets were elected by the kolvov and not by 
 the cities is proved by their common title of apxt^pcvs 
 T7j<; 'Actas and also by the fact that these priests by no 
 means necessarily belonged to the cities in which they 
 officiated. Thus natives of Thyatira and Philadelphia 
 are apxtepel^ of the temples in Pergamum,^^^ natives of 
 Aphrodisias and Aezani of those in Smyrna,^^^ and a 
 
 225 Monceaux has an ingenious theory as to the nature of 
 the asiarchate which deserves to be mentioned. Recognising 
 the fact that in many cases they are certainly identical, but 
 bearing in mind the evidence already alluded to for quinquennial 
 games in Asia and other provinces, he supposes that the apx^^p^vs 
 in each fifth year, when the games were held, was called 'A(ridpx^S' 
 This supposition is supported by some very plausible arguments. 
 But Giraud brings one objection amongst others to it which 
 seems to me to be fatal. We know the names of twenty-six 
 Aaiapxa-L between the reigns of Septimius Severus and Galli- 
 enus, i.e. in 67 years, whereas, on the supposition of their being 
 quinquennial officials, that number of asiarchs would cover 104 
 years. 
 
 226 c.I. Gr. 3494, 3416. Conf. Koipbv 'Acrks iv IXepyd^Cf), ib. 
 1720. 
 
 227 lb, 2741. Conf. Koiubv 'Aaias iv '2fji.6pvri,ib. 247 
 
 228 lb. 2965. Conf. Koivbv 'AffLas iv 'E^^o-y, Euseb. Hist. 
 Eccles. iv. 17, II. 
 
 229 C.I. Gr 3461, Conf. Koivbv 'Atr^as iv SdpSecrt, ib. 5918. 
 
 230 lb. 3664. Conf. Koivbv 'Acr/as iv Ku^kc^j, ib. 3674. 
 
 231 C.I. Gr. 394, and Wadd 653. 
 
 232 C.I. Gr. 2987 b. and 2831 a. 13 
 
264 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 native of Acomnia of those in Ephesus.*^^ What the 
 relations were between these local apxt€p€ts and the 
 supreme apxt€p€v^ Trjs 'Ao-tas we do not know, and the 
 nomenclature of the institution becomes still more con- 
 fusing, when these dpxi«p«t?, no doubt from similar 
 motives, also adopted, and by adopting rendered un- 
 meaning, the title of 'Ao-tapx^g. Thus we find an 
 Asiarcha templorum splendidissimae civitatis Ephesi- 
 
 Orum,^^* an ^A.a-idpxV'* '''V'^ fxeyLaTrj^; kol Trpwrrys fxrjTpo7r6\€io^ 
 T^S 'A<rias,^^* and an *k(Tidpxq<i rawi/ TU3V iv *E</>c<ra).^^^ It 
 is a mere conjecture, not improbable, but supported 
 by no positive grounds, that these local dpxupH^ and 
 *A(riapxat presided at certain annual festivals held in 
 connexion with the local temples, while the dp^tcpcvs 
 T^s 'Ao-tas presided only at the so-called kolvo. 'Ao-ta?, 
 which were held in some sort of rotation in the different 
 cities of the province. But a full discussion of the 
 peculiarities of the koivov in Asia would occupy too 
 much time for the present essay. For the same reason 
 I will leave undiscussed the precise functions of the 
 dyoovo^cTTys ^37 ^j^^^ ^j^g yvfivaa-tdpxrj^ ; ^^^ nor need I do 
 more than allude to the TratSc? kol Oea-fnoBol vaov twv 
 2€/?a(rT(uv ev *Ecf>€aio kolvov Trj<; *A(nas ^^^ aS a proof that 
 the provincial temples had attached to them a number 
 of musicians and trained artistes 
 
 The priesthood was no doubt in all the provinces an 
 annual office. This is proved in the west by such 
 expressions as exado flamonio,^^^ consummato honore 
 flamoni provinciae,^^^ oh honorem sacerdot qui statiias sihi 
 anno xpleto posuit,^^^ while in the east we find the asi- 
 archate held two or three times by the same person.^"^^ 
 But if the office was not for life, the honour was, and we 
 constantly find ex-provincial priests described as 
 flaminales ^^* or sacerdotales ; ^*^ while it is not impossible 
 
 233 Wadd. 755. 234 c.I.L. iii. 267. 235 c.I. Gr 2090. 
 
 236 Wood, Discoveries at Ephesus, p. 68. 
 
 237 CJ. Gr. 4016. 238 Wadd. 1723 c. 
 
 238 Wood, op. cit. i. 240 C.I.L. ii. 2195. ^^^ lb. 2223. 
 242 C.I.L. viii. 4580. 243 C.I.Gr. 4075, 3190, etc 
 
 244 C.7.L. ii. 983. 4248, etc. 
 
 245 C.I.L. iii. 4183. Bernard, p. 58. C.I.L. viii. 1827, 2543. 
 
THE PROVINCIAL CONCILIA 265 
 
 that the title flamen perpetuus, apparently ascribed in a 
 few inscriptions to the provincial priest, is a less correct 
 mode of expressing the same thing. In Asia at any 
 rate it seems clear that the asiarchs retained their title, 
 since St. Paul, we learn from Acts xix. 31, knew several 
 asiarchs in Ephesus, who must therefore have answered 
 to the flaminales viri of the west. 
 
 Important as the provincial assemblies would seem to 
 be if we judged by their universal existence, their 
 elaborate organisation, and the outward splendour of 
 their meetings, it appears to be none the less the case that 
 they had no necessary or essential place in the machinery 
 of the imperial government. Their primary object was 
 to keep up in the provincial populations the sense of 
 their connexion with and dependence on Rome and the 
 Augustus. For this end external pomp and splendour, 
 dignified titles, and a representative organisation were 
 eminently helpful, but it was probably only as a matter 
 of convenience, and the result of a gradual development, 
 that they were put to any directly political uses. It is 
 quite in accordance with this that the legal position of 
 the concilia seems to have been left entirely undefined. 
 The duties and obligations of the provincial governors 
 are exhaustively treated in the '* Digest," ^^^ but there is 
 not a word to show that the provincial assemblies were 
 bodies which they were bound to respect, and with 
 which they might conceivably have relations or colli- 
 sions. The senate after the death of Maximinus issued 
 a proclamation which was sent to all the legally consti- 
 tuted authorities in the empire ; but no mention is 
 made of these assemblies, ^*^ and even the matters which 
 were from time to time transacted by their means might 
 apparently have found other organs of execution. Thus 
 Titus sent a letter to the kolvov of the Achaeans on the 
 exposure of children, but Domitian chose rather to 
 write to the proconsuls on the same subject.^*® Anto- 
 ninus Pius sent a rescript to the kolvov t7J<s 'Actas in 
 
 2*6 Dig. lib. 1. 
 
 247 Capitol Maxim. 15. 248 pUn. Epist. ad Traj. 65. 
 
266 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 reference to the treatment of Christians,'**® but Trajan on 
 the same subject had made his wishes known by means 
 of a rescript to his legate Phny.^*^® Similarly, as we shall 
 presently see, the provincial assemblies frequently set 
 in motion proceedings against their governors, but the 
 case of Marius Priscus and others shows us that even a 
 single civitas or individual accusers might bring an accu- 
 sation and even secure a verdict.'*'^^ The fact seems to be, 
 as Giraud points out, that the concilia, at any rate 
 during the first three centuries, were really analogous to 
 the various collegia, which were licensed indeed and 
 even regulated in many points of their constitution by 
 state law, but were not any of them strictly public 
 bodies. They, too, had their stated feast-days, their 
 officers, their treasury, and in many cases their common 
 cult, and what is not without significance is that the 
 word KOLvov is sometimes found to represent the Latin 
 collegium. Thus we have a koivov Aa/ATraSto-TaJv, and a 
 Koivov TcxvtTwi^ and a commune mimarum.^^^ A full 
 discussion of this question of the legal position of the 
 concilia would take me beyond the limits of this essay ; 
 but there seems to be at least a probability that the 
 provincial assembly was originally merely a college the 
 object of whose meeting was the imperial cult, though 
 the members of the college were, strictly speaking, not 
 individuals but municipalities. 
 
 When the time came round for the annual meeting of 
 the concilium or kolvov, no doubt the first thing to be 
 performed was the solemn sacrifice at the altar of Rome 
 and Augustus. At this the provincial priest elected in 
 the previous year would preside, dressed in all the 
 official robes, and attended by the deputies from the 
 various cities of the province. Connected with this 
 would no doubt be the accomplishment of the vows made 
 the previous year for the emperor's health and safety, 
 
 249 Euseb. Hist.' Eccles. iv. 13. The authenticity of this 
 rescript has, it is well known, been doubted. 
 
 250 Plin. ad Traj. 96. 
 
 251 Plin. Ep. iii. 4, 4 ; Tac. Ann. i. 74 ; iii. 38 ; xii. 59. 
 
 252 Dittenberger, Syll. Graec. Inscrip. 482, 424. Wilm. 2624. 
 
THE PROVINCIAL CONCILIA 267 
 
 and the solemn registration (nuncupatio) of vows for 
 the coming year — a ceremony accompanied by the 
 acclamation of the provincials flocking round the altar,^^^ 
 This ceremony over, a procession would be formed and 
 the sacerdos conducted in state to the circus or amphi- 
 theatre where the games were to be celebrated. ^^* It is 
 no improbable conjecture that the procession in which 
 the praetor at Rome was conducted to the Circus 
 Maximus, and of which Juvenal gives so graphic a 
 description,^^^ may have served as a model for these 
 provincial celebrations, though in the wealthy and 
 luxurious cities of the east the model was very likely far 
 exceeded in splendour and magnificence. It has been 
 already noticed that the legati at Lugdunum seem to 
 have had fixed places assigned them in the amphitheatre, 
 and we may well believe that crowds of provincials 
 came to witness the contests. ^^® These were perhaps not 
 always exclusively athletic or gladiatorial. At Lug- 
 dunum we learn from Suetonius ^^'^ that a contest for 
 Greek and Latin rhetoricians was established, and 
 Juvenal ^^^ alludes to the whimsical rules made there by 
 Caligula, in consequence of which defeated candidates 
 were sometimes ducked in the Rhone. To the pro- 
 vincials naturally it was the scene in the amphitheatre 
 which was the great event of the annual gathering, but 
 the actual assembly of the deputies only met after the 
 public celebrations were over. 
 
 Their first business was probably to choose the priest 
 for the next year. So Strabo ^^^ says of the Lycian kolvov, 
 " In the assembly, first the lysiarch is chosen, then the 
 other officers of the league." ^^^ This important part of 
 the proceedings over, the concilium passed to the con- 
 
 253 See the account given to Trajan by Pliny of the annual 
 solutio and nuncupatio votorum by the provincial governors. 
 Plin. ad Traj. 100, 10 1. 
 
 254 TertuU. de Spectac. 11. 255 Juv. Sat. x. 36, seq. 
 
 256 Xhe amphitheatre at Lugdunum, according to Bernard, 
 could contain 20,000 spectators. 
 
 257 Suet. Calig. 20. 258 Juv. Sat. i. 44. 
 
 259 Strab. xiv. 3, 3 
 
 260 C.I.L. ii. 2220,; 2244 ; xii. 392. 
 
268 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 sideration of the provincial budget. That this, however, 
 was absolutely unconnected with the system of imperial 
 taxation or with the imperial census is almost certain. 
 To suppose otherwise is inconsistent with what we have 
 seen to be the informal position of the concilia, while 
 in the case of the Tres Galliae, about whose treasury we 
 have most information, the attribution of any such 
 function to the concilium is at once rendered unlikely by 
 the fact that for financial purposes Belgica was grouped 
 with the two German provinces, while Lugdunensis and 
 Aquitania alone were under a common procurator.^^^ In 
 truth, the only financial matters which came before the 
 concilium related to the expense of the cult and the 
 games, the honorary decrees and statues, and the 
 legationes which were from time to time sent by the 
 concilium to Rome or elsewhere. Under the first head 
 would of course come the expense of building and main- 
 taining the provincial altars and temples, and the cost of 
 sacrifices, the salaries of the under-officials, the main- 
 tenance of the slaves, and the expense of the annual 
 games. Under the second head would come, besides 
 the cost of erecting statues, the viaticum and other 
 expenses of the legati dispatched by the province ; and 
 last, but probably not least, all the expenses involved 
 in carrying through the prosecution of provincial 
 governors. Towards meeting these expenses there was 
 no doubt (i) a regular quota, imposed at each annual 
 meeting, on the cities sending deputies to the concilium. 
 In some provinces this may have been a graduated pay- 
 ment depending on the size of the cities, as appears to 
 
 2«i Momms. Rom Gesch. v. 85, and Orell. 3331, 3651 etc. 
 It is true that a mutilated inscription is set up by the province 
 to a sacerdos Romae et Augusii, who had apparently had some- 
 thing to do with totius census Galliae ; but this by no means 
 implies that he had taken part in the census for the concilium, 
 or qua sacerdos, since we also find the Tres Galliae erecting a 
 statue to a procurator ac censibus accipiendis (Henzen, 6944), 
 certainly an imperial official. Mommsen, I cannot think on 
 any sufficient grounds, supposes that the provincial assembhes 
 had some part, if not in the imposition, yet in the distribution 
 of the taxes {Rom. Gesch. v, 85). 
 
THE PROVINCIAL CONCILIA 269 
 
 have been the case in Lycia.^^^ In Asia we must infer 
 from Dio Chrysostom that all paid alike, since he tells 
 the people of Apamea that " they have as much share in 
 the sacrifices of the province and in the expenditure for 
 them as those cities in which the temples are," ^^^ Pos- 
 sibly a tahularium was drawn up for this purpose based 
 on the official census of each city. At least, we find an 
 honorary inscription to a sacerdos of Tarraconensis, ob 
 cur am tahulari censualis fideliter administratam}^^ (2) 
 The expenses of the games were, to a great extent at 
 least, met by the presidents themselves, whose oihce 
 came in time to be a burden even more than an honour. ^^^ 
 (3) The legati sent by the concilium often paid their own 
 expenses, and so we find them in inscriptions thanked 
 oh legationem qua gratuita apud maximum principem 
 Hadrianum Romae functus est,^^^ or ob legationem cen- 
 sualem gratuitam?^'^ Similarly the statues decreed were 
 often paid for by the recipients.^^^ (4) Gifts were often 
 received from individual provincials for purposes of the 
 concilium. Thus an heir is required to give from the 
 interest of the property to the high priest of the kolvov 
 of Asia in Ephesus a sum every year for sacrifices. ^^^ 
 
 The treasury, like those of the collegia, was called area. 
 The area of the Tres Galliae is attested by numerous 
 inscriptions at Lugdunum, but an area is also known in 
 Africa ^'^^ and Pannonia.^^^ Just as in a collegium the area 
 communis was under the control of an actor or syndicus 
 per quem tanquam in republica quod communiter agi 
 oporteat agatur,^'^^ so we find treasury officials in the Gallic 
 
 262 Strab. xiv. z, t,. 
 
 263 Dio Chrysost. Om^. 35, Kal [i^v tQv lepQip ttjs Aa-ias /xeriffTiv 
 vfup T37S re Satrdvrjs roaovTov 8<rov iKelvais rais Tr6\€<nv ev ah icm to, 
 iepd. 
 
 264 C.I.L. ii 4248. 
 
 265 Philostr Vit. Soph r, 21 : ttoXis ykp 6 ar^ipauos Kal vxkp to\- 
 Xuv xp'niJ'dTwv : and Dig. 1. 5,8. 
 
 266 C.I.L. ii. 4201. 267 lb, 4208. 268 /&. 2221. 
 
 269 Wood, Inscriptions from Great Theatre, No. i. C.I. Gr. 
 2741. 
 
 270 Wilm. 1404, arcae prov. Africae. 271 CJ.L. iii. 4099. 
 272 Dig. iii. 4, I, I. 
 
270 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 concilium. Disputed claims, or appeals against the 
 quota, came before the iudex arcae,^'^'^ whilst there was 
 also a receiver-general, adlector arcae Galliarum, who like 
 the sacerdos seems to have passed through all the magis- 
 tracies in his own city, and was no doubt a member of 
 the concilium. To one of these officials we find an 
 inscription set up, ob adlecturam fideUter administratam,^''^ 
 In Asia there was an official, also a member of the kolvov^ 
 called the dpyupora/xias, who was clearly connected 
 with the treasury of that province.""^ 
 ' When the budget was settled, it remained for the 
 concilium to pass whatever decrees it deemed advisable. 
 One class of these was of a purely complimentary nature, 
 consisting in the voting of statues and other honours to 
 the priests going out of office, to other officials of the 
 concilium, to distinguished provincials,^^* or to the 
 emperor himself .^^^ Thus to a flamen of Baetica we find 
 concensu concilii universae prov. Baeticae decreti sunt 
 honores quantos quisque maximos plurimosque flamen est 
 consecutus cum statua.^"^^ Similarly, C. Sempronius Spera- 
 tus, flamen of the same province, received a statue,^''^ 
 while the deputies of Hispania Citerior unanimously 
 voted to C. Valerius Bergidus ob cur am tabulari censualis 
 fideliter administratam statuam inter flaminales viros 
 positam.^^^ In Asia, a decree of the kolvov orders Theo- 
 phron to be honoured with a gilded statue to be placed 
 in his native city, Hypaepa, and a copy of the decree to 
 be sent to his fellow-citizens.^®^ Another inscription, 
 from Thyatira, says : " Inasmuch as Claudius Amphi- 
 machus has without blame held office and fulfilled 
 strenuously the liturgies of his native city, and has given 
 
 273 Bernard, pp. 94, 95. Wilm. 2217. 
 27* Bernard, pp. 96, 97. Wilm. 2219. 
 
 275 C.I. Gr. 2782, 3957 
 
 276 C.I.L. ii. 4192 : C. Annio Flavo luliobrigensi . . . prov. 
 Hisp. citerior oh causas utilitatesque puhlicas fideliter constanterque 
 defensas. 
 
 277 C.I.L. ii. 4230, honours decreed to a person electo a 
 concilio provinciae ad statuas aurandas divi Hadriani. 
 
 278 Ih. 2221. 270 lb, 2344. 280 /&. 4248. 
 
 281 Rev archaeol. 1885, p. 104. 
 
THE PROVINCIAL CONCILIA 27 1 
 
 himself up in the direst need of Asia, undertaking, of his 
 own accord, an embassy in its behalf, it is resolved that 
 his honours be set up in the most conspicuous spot in 
 his own city, and that a copy of this decree be sent to the 
 citizens of Thyatira, in order that the city may see that 
 Asia knows how to requite those who have served her 
 well." 282 
 
 Then, again, besides these complimentary decrees to 
 provincial magnates, we find that legationes were sent by 
 the concilium to the emperors at Rome. In all proba- 
 bility these were originally merely to convey the loyal 
 wishes and congratulations of the province to the 
 emperor, as, e.g., we find the kolvov of Asia doing on the 
 birthday of Augustus,^®^ or as the Gallic concilium sent 
 Africanus to Nero, after the death of Agrippina, with the 
 message, Rogant te, Caesar, Galliae tuae ut felicitatem 
 tuam fortiter feras.^^^ Pliny tells us that Byzantium spent 
 15,000 sesterces every year in sending a legate to Rome 
 with a complimentary decree,^^^ and considering the close 
 connexion of the concilia with the Augustan cult, we 
 cannot imagine that they would do less.^^^ 
 
 But probably almost from the first the concilium began 
 at its meetings to discuss matters of more general 
 interest to the province, and to use the legationes as a 
 means not only of conveying their congratulations to 
 the emperor, but also of bringing to his notice any point 
 on which they wished his advice or his permission or his 
 interference. Augustus would see at once the advan- 
 tages to be gained from this direct communication 
 between himself and the provincials, and by this means 
 the political or semi-political action of the concilia would 
 be de facto established, although no formal constitution 
 was issued putting de jure certain matters in the hands 
 of the assembly ; and so v/hile considerable freedom was 
 allowed to the provincials in communicating their 
 wishes to the emperor there was no formal obligation on 
 
 282 C.I. Gr. 3487. 283 cj. Gr. 3957 
 
 284 Quintil. viii. 5. 285 pUn. ad Traj. 43. 
 
 286 Other instances of legationes to the emperors in C.I.L. ii. 
 4201, 4208, 4055, etc. 
 
272 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 him, though he found it more convenient, especially in 
 matters social and religious, to deal with the province 
 directly rather than through the proconsuls or legates. 
 So Titus, evidently as the result of an nquiry from the 
 province, sends a letter to the Achaeans on the treat- 
 men of exposed children. ^®^ The kolvov of Asia sends 
 Scopelianus to Domitian with a request that he would 
 revoke his decision forbidding vines to be planted in the 
 province.^®® Hadrian sends a rescript to the kolvov twi/ 
 ®€TTd\u}v on the order of procedure to be observed in the 
 provincial courts.^®® Antoninus Pius replies ad desideria 
 Asianorum with a decision that the proconsul must enter 
 the province by sea and pass through Ephesus before 
 entering any of the other ix-qxpoiroKeis.^^^ The same 
 emperor also sends a rescript to the kolvov of Asia 
 extending a certain protection to the Christians against 
 persecution,'^®^ and to the kolvov Tm> @paKa)v on the right 
 of appeal to the emperor.^®^ Hadrian writes to the con- 
 cilium Baeticae on the punishment to be inflicted on 
 cattle-lifters (abigei),^^^ while Antoninus Pius fixes for the 
 KOLVOV of Asia the number of physicians, sophists and 
 grammarians for whom immunity from public duties 
 may be claimed in the various classes of cities.^®* 
 
 Looking at the miscellaneous character of these 
 rescripts, we cannot avoid the conclusion that it was a 
 mere matter of convenience as to what subject the 
 emperor should put into the hands of the concilium, and 
 what he should transact with the governor, though 
 clearly imperial questions of all sorts were beyond the 
 range of the provincial assemblies. There was, however, 
 one kind of communication between the assemblies and 
 the emperor which, developing probably from unim- 
 portant and informal beginnings, became in time a really 
 important political instrument in the hands of the 
 provincial deputies, and a means by which the emperor 
 
 287 piin. ad Traj. 6$. 288 Philostr. Vit. Soph, i, 2i I2. 
 
 289 Dig. V. I, 37. 290 Dig, I i6^ 4^ 5. 
 
 291 Euseb. Hist. Eccles. iv. 13. 292 Dig, xlix. 1,1. 
 
 2»3 Dig. xlvii. 14, I. 294 Dig. xxvii. i, 6, 
 
THE PROVINCIAL CONCILIA 273 
 
 was helped essentially in securing good government 
 throughout the empire. Even in republican times we 
 find instances of particular states sending legates with 
 formal laudationes of the governor. So Mamertina took 
 this course in the case of Verres,^^^ who systematically 
 collected laudationes irom. the civitatesoi theprovince.^^^ 
 Similarly Flaccus received testimonials of this kind from 
 various parts of Greece.^^^ The example was followed 
 probably from the commencement by the provincial 
 assemblies, who in sending their annual congratulatory 
 message to the emperor would add a complimentary 
 decree in honour of the governor of the province. That 
 this was at first very much a matter of routine, and by 
 no means of necessity a fair gauge of the provincial 
 feeling, is shown by the restriction which Augustus put 
 upon the practice, evidently with a view of making it a 
 real help in administration. He forbade the provincials, 
 Dio Cassius tells us,^^^ " to give any honour to their 
 governors either during their office or within sixty days 
 after its termination, because certain provinces by 
 framing testimonials and laudations had been the cause 
 of considerable harm." This rule of Augustus, however, 
 gave a certain official value to these testimonials, where 
 the conditions laid down were complied with, and the 
 absence of any such testimonial would imply a certain 
 censure on the part of the province, which might produce 
 an unfavourable result on the governor's future career. 
 But more than this was implied by the imperial sanction 
 to this custom. The next and obvious step was for the 
 provincials to formulate complaints against bad and 
 oppressive governors, and this too we gather that they 
 began to do in the reign of Augustus himself, since accord- 
 ing to Suetonius he appointed a commission of consulars 
 for the hearing of the provincialium appellationeSy one 
 for each province.^^^ This, however, can only have been 
 
 295 cic. in Very. ii. 5, 13. ^96 Jd. ib. ii. 26, 64. 
 
 297 Cic. pro Flacc. 26, 63. 298 Dio Cass. Ivi. 25. 
 
 299 Suet. Aug. 33 : et provincialium {appeUationes delcgahat) 
 consularihus viris quos singulos cuiusque provinciae negotiis 
 praeposuit. 
 
274 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 a temporary measure, and throughout the empire we find 
 that the prosecution of provincial governors, whether by 
 the action of the concilium or otherwise, took place under 
 the lex lulia de repetundis of 59 B.C., and before the 
 supreme senatorial court. 
 
 If the view taken above of the growth of this function 
 of the assemblies is correct, we must guard against the 
 use of language which would suggest that the accusation 
 of provincial governors was the main object which 
 Augustus had in view when he organised them.^°^ It 
 was rather a custom which grew up and justified its 
 existence by its convenience, since instances of pro- 
 vincial maladministration like that of Licinius in Gaul ^^^ 
 must soon have convinced Augustus of the practical 
 necessity of some systematic and easily applicable means 
 of becoming aware of such cases. That the tentative 
 and uncertain beginnings of this political activity of the 
 concilia would by frequent use harden into something 
 like a definite privilege, it is easy to understand, and a 
 striking passage of Tacitus proves that in Nero's time, 
 and probably long before, it had put a weapon into the 
 hands of the provincials which made them a real force 
 to be reckoned with by the governors, and that the 
 necessity of showing complaisance to the influential 
 members of the assembly was at once galling to the 
 senatorial order generally and suggested to them all 
 sorts of corrupt ways of securing a favourable testi- 
 monial from their province. Claudius Timarchus, an 
 influential Cretan, was accused of having said in sua 
 potestate situm, an proconsulibus qui Cretam obtinuissent 
 grates agerentur. Paetus Thrasea in the discussion of the 
 affair in the senate, after proposing that Timarchus 
 should be expelled from the province, continued : " Let 
 us take some steps worthy of the good faith and dignity 
 of Rome against this newly developed pride of the 
 provincisds, whereby, without withdrawing any means 
 
 300 The language both of Marquardt and Mommsen is a httle 
 uncertain on this point. 
 301 Dio Cass. Uv. 21. 
 
THE PROVINCIAL CONCILIA 275 
 
 of self-protection from the allies, the false impression 
 may be removed that our characters are to be tried before 
 any tribunal except that of our fellow-citizens. In 
 former days, indeed, not only praetors or consuls, but 
 even private citizens were sent out to inspect the pro- 
 vinces and to report on the obedience of each, and the 
 nations trembled at the opinion of a single citizen. But 
 now it is we who court and flatter foreign states, and as 
 a vote of thanks comes to depend on the whim of indi- 
 vidual provincials, the more readily are accusations 
 resolved on. By all means let the provincials bring 
 their accusations, and retain the right of displaying 
 their power, but let fictitious testimonials extorted by 
 prayers be checked no less than corruption or cruelty. 
 ... It is surely a degradation to us to collect votes 
 like candidates at an election, and the sooner the practice 
 is checked, the greater equity and firmness will charac- 
 terise our provincial rule." This remonstrance was 
 not without a temporary effect, and a decree was passed, 
 ne quis ad concilium sociorum referret agendas apud 
 senatum pro praetoribus prove consulibus grates neu quis 
 ea legatione fungeretur.^^^ That the system of testi- 
 monials, however, was in existence in Trajan's time is 
 proved by Pliny in the " Panegyric," ^^^ and in that of 
 Alexander Severus by Lampridius.^^* Several inscrip- 
 tions testify to these provincial testimonials. Thus 
 the province of Dacia dedicates an honorary titulus or 
 statue in the following terms : '* Through the favour of 
 the gods and the concord of the emperors (Marcus 
 Aurelius and L. Verus) it has happened that P. Furius 
 Saturninus, legate of the Augusti from his first arrival 
 till his departure from the province, has treated one and 
 all with such generosity and so lightened their burdens 
 that the province, bounden and devoted to his auspicious 
 
 302 Tac. Ann. xv. 20-22. 
 
 303 Cap. 70 : Provinciis quoque in posterum et iniunarum 
 metum et accusandi neccessitatem remisisti ; nam si profuerint 
 quihus gratias egerint, de nullo queri cogentur, 
 
 304 Lamprid. Alex. Sever. 22, praesides provinciarum quos 
 vere non factionihus laudari comperit . . . muneribus adiuvit. 
 
276 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 name and conspicuous virtues, has caused this to be set 
 up." ^"* We also have a decree of the kouov of Asia 
 dating from the reign of Augustus, in accordance with 
 which a proclamation is to be made in the gymnastic 
 contest of the Roman AugusH at Pergamum that " Asia 
 crowns Paulus Fabius Maximus, the proconsul, and that 
 the decree of the province should be set up on a white 
 marble slab in the temple of Rome and Augustus." ^"^ 
 Similarly the concilium trium provinciarum Galliarum 
 sets up an inscription to L. Aemilius Frontinus, legatus 
 Augustipro praetor e provinciae Lugdunensis ; ^"^ while the 
 same concilium sets up an equestrian statue by the altar 
 of Caesar to Tib. Antistius, integerrimo abstinentissi- 
 moque procuratori trium prov. Galliarum primo unquam 
 equiti Romano a censibus accipiendis?^^ 
 
 On the subject of accusations brought by the pro- 
 vincial concilia against the governors, very considerable 
 light is thrown by the famous inscription of Thorigny, 
 which was found in the fifteenth century at the village 
 of Vieux, near Caen, was then transported to the chateau 
 of Torigny-sur-Vire, and then to St. L6, where it remains 
 at the present time.^^^ The inscription, together with a 
 statue of solid marble, was set up by the concilium of the 
 Tres Galliae in honour of T. Sennius Solemnis, a member 
 of the concilium, and probably sacerdos of the province, 
 in the town of the Viducasses, his native place. As 
 priest of Mercury, Mars, and Diana, he had provided 
 spectacles of all kinds during four continuous days, 
 while he was distinguished by an honourable character 
 and a creditable military career. But more than this, 
 the decree goes on to say he was also the friend and 
 client of Tib. Claudius Paulinus, legatus Augusti pro 
 praetore provinciae Lugdunensis, under whom he subse- 
 quently served with the sixth legion in Britain.^^^ He 
 was also the most approved client of Aedinius Julianus, 
 procurator of Augustus in the province of Lugdunensis. 
 
 305 C.I.L. iii. 141 2. 306 c.L Gr. 3902 b. 
 307 Bernard, p. 98. 308 Jd. 99. 
 
 309 Bernard, p. 107, and Marquardt, Ephem. Epig. i. p. 205 
 
 310 C.I.L. vii. 1045. 
 
THE PROVINCIAL CONCILIA 277 
 
 The decree concludes : Tres provinciae Galliae primo 
 unquam monumentum in sua civitate posuerunt : locum 
 or do civitatis Viducassium lihere dedit. Positum XVIII 
 Kal. Jan. Pio et Proculo consulibus, i.e. in 238 a.d. in the 
 reign of Maximinus. On the two sides of the base on 
 which this decree occupies the main position are the 
 copies of two letters, one from Claudius Paulinus to 
 Solemnis accompanying a number of presents which are 
 enumerated, the other from Aedinius Julianus, now 
 praefectus praetorii, commending Solemnis to Radius 
 Commianus, apparently some imperial official, either 
 legatus or procurator, in Lugdunensis. As it is this 
 letter which forms the most important part of the 
 inscription, I will quote it in extenso : 
 
 " Aedinius Juhanus to Badius Commianus, health. 
 When I was acting as quinquefuscalis ^^^ in the province 
 of Lugdunensis, several good men were brought before 
 my notice, and among them Solemnis, a native of the 
 state of the Viducasses, priest of the province, whom I 
 began to love as well for his principles as for his weighty 
 and honourable character. In addition to this, when 
 they attempted to set on foot an accusation in the 
 concilium of the Gallic provinces against my predecessor, 
 Claudius Paulinus, at the instigation of certain deputies 
 who thought themselves injured by him, Solemnis 
 opposed their motion by means of a formal appeal 
 {provocatione interposita) on the ground that his city, 
 when it elected him, among others, their deputy, had 
 given him no mandate about an accusation, but had, on 
 the other hand, spoken of Paulinus in terms of praise. 
 By this means it came about that all desisted from the 
 accusation." 
 
 From this letter several inferences may be drawn, 
 (i) It seems clear that the civitates gave some special 
 mandate to their deputies as to the course they should 
 pursue in reference to a testimonial to the governor or an 
 accusation against him. (2) The question was debated 
 
 311 Julianus was procurator, but was acting as vice-legate, 
 and so had the five fasces of the imperial governors. See Dio 
 Cass. liii. 13 ; Ivii. 17, and C.I. Gr. 4033. 
 
278 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 in the concilium after the departure of the governor 
 affected, and so in this case under JuHanus, not under 
 Paulinus himself. (3) It was the interest of the suc- 
 cessor to discourage, and if possible to prevent, the 
 accusation of his predecessor. (4) This might be done 
 by means of securing the influence of leading men in the 
 concilium. (5) Thus the door must have been opened 
 to intrigue and corruption of all kinds, and it certainly 
 strikes us as extremely undesirable that a sacerdos of the 
 province should be in the position of client to the gover- 
 nor on whose administration the concilium had to express 
 its judgment, while the fact that this clientela is men- 
 tioned as a credit to Solemnis in the decree of the conci- 
 lium itself shows that there was nothing out of the way 
 or irregular in the relationship. (6) Although it has 
 been argued that the words provocatione interposita 
 imply that the sacerdos or president of the concilium had 
 a right of veto in such cases, it seems more probable that 
 Solemnis merely used the influence which his position 
 gave him to induce the other deputies to give up the 
 accusation. Indeed, a right of veto, if it existed, would 
 have been so liable to be at the governor's disposal that 
 the privilege of accusation would have become very much 
 of a farce. 
 
 This important document, with the light it throws on 
 the proceedings of the concilium, is supplemented in 
 respect to the actual carrying out of the prosecutions at 
 Rome by a number of instances recorded by Tacitus and 
 Pliny. Thus in 22 a.d. C. Silanus, proconsul of Asia, 
 was accused a sociis (i.e. by the concilium) of repetundae, 
 and we learn that the provincial deputies sent by the 
 province to accuse him were facundissimi totius Asiae. 
 He was tried before the senate, the emperor himself 
 presiding, condemned, and relegated to the island of 
 Cythmus.^^^ Next year a procurator of the same pro- 
 vince, Lucilius Capito, was also prosecuted, accusante 
 provincia, for having usurped judicial power beyond his 
 department and for enforcing his decisions by means of 
 the military.^^^ He was also condemned, and it was on 
 312 Xac. Ann. iii. 66-69. ^^^ ^^- iv. 15 
 
THE PROVINCIAL CONCILIA 279 
 
 account of these two successful prosecutions that the 
 cities of Asia decreed to Tiberius, his mother, and the 
 senate, the temple which was subsequently built at 
 Smyrna. Under Claudius, Junius Cilo was accused by 
 the Bithynians of pecuniary corruption. The case was 
 apparently heard not by the senate but by the emperor 
 himself, and Cilo only escaped punishment owing to the 
 excessive vehemence of the provincial deputies and the 
 connivance of Narcissus. Pouring out their complaints 
 with oriental effusiveness, they drowned one another's 
 voices, and Claudius, asking Narcissus what they said, 
 was told that they were expressing their gratitude to 
 Cilo. " Oh, then," said the emperor, " he shall remain 
 in the province for two years more." ^^* In the same year 
 Cadius Rufus, proconsul of Bithynia, was condemned 
 accusantibus Bithynis, on a charge of repetundae and 
 expelled from the senate. ^^^ Under Nero we have no 
 fewer than seven cases. Cestius Proculus, Cretensibus 
 accusantibus, was acquitted ; ^^^ P. Celer, accusante Asia, 
 while he escaped conviction owing to the emperor's 
 favour, was never up to his death acquitted ; ^^'' Cossu- 
 tianus Capito, one of the piratae Cilicum,^^^ was accused 
 by the provincials, and with such success and energy, 
 that he attempted no defence, and was condemned ; ^^^ 
 Eprius Marcellus, accused by the Lycians, was enabled 
 by profuse bribery to escape.^^*^ Pedius Blaesus was 
 expelled from the senate, accusantibus Cyrenensibus, for 
 tampering with the treasury of Aesculapius and corrupt 
 administration of the mihtary levy.^^^ Vibius Secundus, 
 a Roman knight, and doubtless procurator of the pro- 
 vince, was condemned on a charge of repetundae, accu- 
 santibus Mauris, and expelled from Italy ; ^^^ while 
 Tarquitius Prisons was condemned on a similar charge, 
 Bithynis interrogantibus.^^^ Under the Flavian emperors 
 Antonius Flamma was condemned on the accusation of 
 
 314 Dio Cass. Ix, 33. 3i5 Tac. Ann. xii. 22 ; Hist. i. yy. 
 
 316 Xac. Ann. xiii. 30. 3i7 /^. xiii. ^^. 
 
 318 juv. Sat. viii. 94. 3i9 Tac. Ann. xiii. ^2. 
 
 320 Id. Ibid. 321 Id. xiv. 18. 322 Id, xiv. 28. 
 
 323 Id. xiv. 46. 
 
280 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 the Cyrenenses, and Baebius Massa, procurator of 
 Baetica, was condemned on the accusation of that 
 province.^** Under Trajan we have three cases described 
 by Phny, who indeed took a conspicuous part in all of 
 them, in which provincial governors were accused by the 
 concilium of the province. In loi a.d. Caecilius Clas- 
 sicus, proconsul of Baetica, was accused by the whole 
 province on the score of violence and corruption in his 
 administration. The legati provinciae secured Pliny's 
 advocacy of their case. Classicus himself anticipated 
 conviction by a voluntary death, but his subordinates 
 were made responsible for their share in carrying out his 
 orders, and several of them were condemned and pun- 
 ished, and the unlawful spoils of Classicus were restored 
 to the provincials.^^^ In 103 or 104 a.d. Julius Bassus, 
 proconsul of Bithynia, was accused by the province, 
 legati being sent by the concilium to conduct the case. 
 One of these, Theophanes, is described as fax accu- 
 saiionis et origo. Pliny was this time on the side of 
 the accused, and attributed the prosecution to the in- 
 trigues of factious provincials like Theophanes. He was 
 obliged, however, to admit that Bassus had, contrary 
 to the lex Julia, received presents in Bithynia, and the 
 accused was condemned to refund the money, while his 
 acts were rescinded.''^^^ He was, however, neither ban- 
 ished from Italy nor removed from the senate. Finally, 
 a year or two later, Varenus Rufus, also proconsul of 
 Bithynia, was accused by a deputation from the 
 concilium, Pliny again being engaged in the defence.^^^ 
 The case, however, as far as we know, was never tried, 
 and after the inquiry had been sanctioned by the senate 
 in a preliminary discussion, and the trial was about to 
 commence, another legate, Polyaenus, arrived from the 
 concilium, carrying a decree to the emperor by which 
 proceedings were to be stayed and the accusation 
 dropped. The matter was then referred to the emperor, 
 whose decision we do not know. The dropping of the 
 
 324 Plin. Ep. iii. 4, 4 ; vii. 33, 4. 325 PHn. Ep. in. 9. 
 328 Plin. Ep. iv. 9. 327 Plin. Ep. v. 20 ; vi. 5, 13 ; vii. 6. 
 
%^: THE PROVINCIAL CONCILIA 281 
 
 accusation was, it is probable, due to influences similar 
 to those of which we have inferred the effects from the 
 inscription of Thorigny. 
 
 From this summing up of the known provincial pro- 
 secutions it appears that the privilege was not confined 
 to any one part of the empire. Spain, Mauretania, and 
 Gaul in the west, Crete and Cyrene in the centre, and 
 Asia, Bithynia, Lycia, and Cilicia all give examples, 
 though it is noticeable that out of sixteen Ccises, four 
 came from Bithynia and three from Asia. This fact 
 shows that, however much the Augustan cult may have 
 been overshadowed in these provinces by the splendour 
 and frequency of the games, their Koivd exercised at 
 least as much political activity as those in the west. 
 Another point which deserves notice is that only two 
 out of fourteen cases tried resulted in an acquittal. 
 
 To enter into any account of the procedure under the 
 lex Julia which characterised these senatorial trials does 
 not belong to the present subject, 3 28 but one or two points 
 revealed in Pliny's account throw some light on the 
 course taken in such cases by the provinces, (i) As 
 soon as the accusation was resolved upon, an inquisitor 
 was appointed by the concilium to collect all the neces- 
 sary evidence, and when this was forthcoming, he as well 
 as certain legati of the province were sent to Rome to 
 conduct the case in its name. That this and not any 
 financial function was the role played by the inquisitor 
 Galliarum, whose existence is attested by several inscrip- 
 tions,^^^ is proved by Pliny,^^^ who, in describing the trial 
 of Classicus, mentions Norbanus Licinianus, legatus et 
 inquisitor, electus a provincia ad inquirendum, and who 
 by some means had gained possession of certain incrimi- 
 nating letters written by Classicus himself .^^^ (2) Arrived 
 at Rome, the legati applied to the senate for senatorial 
 advocates to assist them in the case, sometimes, if not 
 
 328 See my introduction to Pliny's Correspondence with 
 Trajan, p. 38 seq. 
 
 329 Wilm. 2218, and Bernard, pp. 92, 93. 
 
 330 Epist. iii. 9, 29-31. 
 
 331 In this view of the inquisitor I follow Giraud, p. 142. 
 
282 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 always, s}x;cifying those whom they desired to have, and 
 in such cases as a rule the senate met their wishes. 
 Thus the legati of Baetica, says Phny,^^^ questuri de 
 proconsulatu Caecilii Classici, me a senatu petierunt.^^^ 
 But (3) the legati themselves took part in the case, 
 although their vehemence was sometimes prejudicial to 
 the cause,^^* and the flights of rhetoric, in which especially 
 those from the eastern provinces indulged, were not 
 always appreciated by the senatorial court. ^^^ (4) It 
 was not always merely an unsympathetic audience 
 which the legati had to fear. Their duty was an un- 
 popular one, and any excess of zeal or technical mis- 
 conduct of the case was liable to be visited with rancorous 
 severity. Thus Norbanus, a legate of Baetica against 
 Classicus, was accused of praevaricatio, and in the 
 middle of the trial, contrary to all rule and all equity, 
 was compelled to answer on the spot not only to this 
 charge, but to a number of others which had nothing to 
 do with the case. He was condemned and relegated to 
 an island.^^^ Similarly in the trial of Julius Bassus, 
 Theophanes, the fax accusationis et origo, only escaped 
 a prosecution for misconduct of the case through the 
 refusal of the consuls to put the proposition to the vote.^" 
 (5) On the other hand the accusers had a certain advan- 
 tage in being privileged to compel the attendance of 
 witnesses, which the accused, strange as it may seem, 
 was unable to do ; and the fact already pointed out that 
 acquittals are so rare is a proof that in spite of senatorial 
 sympathy with the accused, of which Pliny himself 
 makes no secret,^^^ the presence of the emperor in the 
 background was sufficient to ensure substantial justice. 
 Here this account of the provincial concilia must end. 
 We can trace their existence by means of inscriptions in 
 
 332 Epist. iii, 4. 4. 
 
 333 Conf. also Epist. ii. 11, 2 ; vii. 33, 4. 
 
 334 Dio Cass. Ix. 33. 
 
 335 Plin. Epist. V. 20, 4 : Respondit mihi Fonteius Magnus, 
 unus ex Bithynis, plurimis verbis, paucissimis rebus. 
 
 336 Plin. Ep. iii. 9, 31, 32, 337 Jd. iv. 9, 21. 
 
 338 Id. a, II. 
 
THE PROVINCIAL CONCILIA 283 
 
 a large number of provinces up to the end of the first 
 half of the third century. With regard to many points 
 in their organisation and functions we are, owing to the 
 nature of the evidence, uninformed. That their exis- 
 tence had an important effect in producing that state of 
 contentment and loyalty' towards Rome and that 
 participation in Roman civilisation which were such 
 powerful factors in the success and duration of the 
 empire, there is every reason to believe ; but that they 
 were, or were designed to be, important aids in provincial 
 administration, or that they were interposed in revolu- 
 tionary movements,^^^ or played a distinctly political ro/^, 
 there is no evidence whatever to show. Representative 
 no doubt they were, but examples of the representative 
 system of government they were not. Such a system 
 was not only alien from, it was contradictory to, the 
 whole imperial scheme. The history of the concilia by 
 no means ends with Diocletian : on the contrary, after 
 his time they gain a much more definite constitution, 
 and possibly a more defined and distinct sphere of 
 activity. But their character essentially changes : the 
 provinces are re-grouped, and, above all, Christianity 
 assumes first an importance which seems, even as early 
 as Maximinus,^*^ to have been the occasion of a regular 
 hierarchy in the religious affairs of the province,^*^ and 
 lastly an ascendency which, while it owed much of its 
 success to the ecclesiastical organisation directly bor- 
 rowed from the provincial Kotvd of the East, must in its 
 turn have essentially modified the aims and raison d'etre 
 of these assemblies. A full treatment, however, of 
 this important and interesting subject has still to be 
 attempted. 
 
 339 Mommsen {Rom. Gesch. v. 85) seems wrong in considering 
 the meeting of deputies from Gallic civitates summoned by the 
 Remi in 70 a.d. to have been the provincial concilium (Tac. 
 Hist. iv. 67, 68). It was rather a revival of the old national 
 assemblies like that summoned at Bibracte against Caesar 
 (Caes. Bell. Gall. vii. 6^,), or that called by Caesar himself at 
 Paris {ib. vi. 13). 
 
 340 Euseb. Hist. Eccles. viii. 14, 9. 
 
 341 See Julian, Epist. 49 and Gt,. 
 
XIV 
 
 Imperium Consulare or Proconsulare 
 
 In Vol. XVII. of the Journal of Philology, No. 33 (pp. 
 27-52) there appeared an admirable article by Prof. 
 Pelham on " Some disputed points connected with 
 the ' Imperium ' of Augustus and his successors," in 
 which a view is adopted with regard to the " procon- 
 sulare imperium " held by Augustus which I think is 
 entirely new, and which differs both from Mommsen 
 and also from Herzog. I had hoped indeed that 
 the latter, in his " System der Verfassung der Kaiserzeit," 
 would have noticed this new theory, and either 
 accepted it or given some sufficient reason for re- 
 taining Mommsen's view. He has not however done 
 so, and I think we must infer that he has not seen the 
 article in question, for the case seems to be put and 
 supported there with so much consistency and cogency, 
 that even if it came from an authority much less deserv- 
 ing of attention than Prof. Pelham it would have 
 demanded some recognition. 
 
 For my own part I was at first convinced that the new 
 view was correct, and it is only since I have gone into 
 the question more carefully in connexion with Herzog's 
 last volume, that I have found some stumbling-blocks in 
 it, which make me think that Prof. Pelham has strained 
 rather too far the continuity between the constitutional 
 theory of the republic and the practical usage of the 
 empire. The point in question is this. The ordinary 
 view, at any rate since the publication of Mommsen's 
 " Staatsrecht," 1 is 'that in the beginning of 27 B.C. when 
 Augustus, as he himself says, 2 " transferred the republic 
 
 1 See especially ii. p. 834, n. 3. 2 Mon. Anc. Lat. 6, 13. 
 
 284 
 
IMPERIUM CONSULARE OR PROCONSULARE 285 
 
 from his own power to the disposal of the senate and 
 people," he received back for a period of ten years the 
 " proconsulare imperium," i.e. the command of the 
 army throughout the empire, the direct control over the 
 so-called imperial provinces, and probably certain 
 rights over the senatorial provinces in financial matters 
 and in connexion with any troops quartered there : 
 that for purposes of domestic government he intended 
 annually to assume the consulship, which not only 
 invested him with the prestige of the chief magistracy, 
 but gave him certain definite rights, such as that of 
 convoking and prior reference in the senate, etc., while 
 he employed the " tribunicia potestas," as Tacitus says, 
 ad tuendam plebem, and no doubt for certain subordinate 
 purposes of domestic administration. In 23 B.C., how- 
 ever, for reasons about which there is practically no 
 dispute, he laid down the consulship, while retaining 
 the proconsulare imperium, the termination of which 
 would only arrive at the end of 18 B.C., while in order to 
 replace the loss of power caused by the resignation of 
 the consulship (a) he gave greater prominence and 
 importance to the tribunicia potestas, which now became 
 " summi fastigii vocabulum," and (b) received from the 
 senate certain special privileges, such as the consular 
 right of prior reference and that of convoking the senate 
 at pleasure, 3 while (c) in 19 B.C. he received the consular 
 fasces and insignia according to Mommsen's interpreta- 
 tion of a passage of Dio,* and on two separate occasions 
 in 8 B.C. and 13 a.d. he received a special grant of the 
 consulare imperium for the purpose of taking the census. ^ 
 To this view with its distinction between the consulare 
 and the proconsulare imperium Prof. Pelham objects that 
 it breaks the continuity with republican usage, according 
 to which the proconsular imperium was merely the 
 consular imperium held by a man who was not consul, 
 but was acting pro consule : that the notion that the 
 consular authority had by the end of the republic become 
 
 3 Dio Cass. liii. 32. 4 id. liv. 10. 
 
 5 Mon. Anc. Lat. 2, 5 and 8 ; Momms, Staatsr. ii. p. 836. 
 
286 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 in law as well as in fact an urban, domestic and civil 
 authority is a mistaken one : that the actual provincia 
 of the consuls indeed was usually confined to Rome, but 
 constitutionally it might still be extended to any part 
 of the empire, and so take the form of the old imperium 
 infinitum,^ in which case they would possess the majus 
 imperium over all provincial proconsuls : that in point 
 of fact Augustus revived this theory and put it into 
 practice, and from 27-23 B.C. governed the imperial 
 provinces, not by any proconsulate imperium, but as 
 consul with more than half the empire for his province, 
 while in the case of the senatorial provinces also he had 
 the consular majus imperium over the senatorial pro- 
 consuls. When in 23 B.C. he laid down the consulship, 
 he retained the consulare imperium ; and, as he retained 
 it pro consule, it was usually called " proconsulare 
 imperium," but it was really only the consular imperium 
 held by one who was not consul, and by a special exemp- 
 tion he was allowed to hold this consular imperium 
 within the city,^ and hence, without any special grant, 
 he could say " consulari cum imperio lustrum solus egi," 
 i.e. the consular imperium by which he took the census 
 was the same as the so-called proconsular imperium by 
 which he governed the provinces : « that in fine he had 
 one imperium only, and that in strict continuity with 
 republican theory was the " consulare imperium." 
 But by laying down the consulship, Augustus had lost 
 certain privileges which were attached to it and also 
 its external prestige : accordingly the special privileges 
 alluded to above were granted to him in compensation 
 and also the consular insignia and fasces. But it was 
 not only in Rome, Prof. Pelham points out, but in the 
 provinces also that the loss of the consulship involved 
 loss of power. As consul he had the majus imperium 
 over the proconsuls of the senatorial provinces : but 
 as holder pro consule of the consulare imperium, though 
 he was still supreme over the legates of his own provinces, 
 
 « Momms. Staatsr. i. p. 52, n. 7. 7 Djo Cass. liii. 32. 
 8 p. 29. 
 
IMPERIUM CONSULARE OR PROCONSULARE 287 
 
 he possessed only an aequum imperium with the other 
 proconsuls, just as Pompeius did as the result of the 
 Gabinian law,^ and it was to reinstate him in his former 
 position in regard to these provinces, that another 
 special privilege mentioned by Dio Cassius ^^ was given 
 to him by the senate Iv tw vttt/koo) to ttXClov twv cKa- 
 
 (XTayoOi ap)(6vTUiV tcr;(V€iv. 
 
 No doubt, as I have said, there is something tempting 
 about the consistency of this theory, and its apparent 
 continuity with republican institutions : but I think it 
 should be observed that it is really a continuity only 
 with the prae-SuUan republic. After the time of Sulla 
 the consular imperium was with the fewest exceptions 11 
 an imperium domi. Prof. Pelham is probably right in 
 doubting the existence of any law to which this change 
 can be ascribed, but the Roman constitutional system 
 was full of possible revivals, which however as a matter 
 of fact never interfered with what had grown up by the 
 force of constant usage, and as a matter of usage and 
 custom, the consulship had certainly lost its connexion 
 with the imperium militiae in the provinces. Nor is it 
 entirely correct to say absolutely without qualification 
 as to period or usage that the proconsular imperium was 
 only the consular imperium held by a person who was 
 not consul, but acting pro consule. No doubt in re- 
 publican times the consulare imperium was often pro- 
 rogued to a consul after his office was over to enable 
 him to finish a war, 12 and no doubt it was also conferred 
 by delegation on some of the provincial prae tores, 
 especially in Spain and Asia,i3 who therefore commonly 
 took the title of proconsules : and sometimes in excep- 
 tional circumstances on privati, as on Pompeius for the 
 Sertorian war,i* and again against the pirates by the 
 Gabinian law. But even from the first there was a 
 certain distinction between this prorogued or delegated 
 
 9 Veil. Paterc. ii. 31. 10 loc. cit. 
 
 11 As e.g. Liv. Epit. 93 and 94 : Dio Cass. xxxv. 2. 
 
 12 Liv. viii. 23, 12, etc. 
 
 13 Momms. Staatsr. ii. p. 628 foil. : conf. ii. 234, n. i, 
 1* Liv. Epit. 91. 
 
288 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 consulare imperium, which was only and essentially an 
 imperium militiae, and the full imperium held by the 
 acting consul, which was potentially both donii and 
 militiae. In the course of time this distinction grew 
 more strongly marked (i) by the custom of confining 
 the consuls to urban duties, (2) by the interval of five 
 years, which by a senatus consultum of 701 ^^ and the 
 lex Pompeia of the following year, i« was made necessary 
 between the consulship and a provincial command. 
 The real effect of these two changes was not only to 
 alter the constitutional character of the consulship, but 
 to abolish the promagisterial character of the proconsul- 
 ship, to make it in fact a distinct magistracy, with 
 distinct duties, always provincial, of its own, a definite 
 mode of appointment and a fixed duration. So Momm- 
 sen 17 says, " Diese Bezeichnungen dienen jetzt nicht 
 mehr, wie in der Republik, zur Unterscheidung der 
 ordentlichen Magistratur von der prorogirten, mandirten 
 Oder ausserordentlichen, sondern zur Unterscheidung 
 des Provinzialamts von den stadtischen Oberamtern." 
 The fact that a constitutional purist like Cicero can 
 still say " omnes enim in consulis jure et imperio debent 
 esse provinciae " is is, I think, of small importance in 
 the face of established and practically unbroken usage, 
 and indeed Cicero himself in accordance with this usage 
 is ready enough to reproach Antonius as rrjv ttoXlv Iv raJ 
 T^s v7raT€ias XP^^^ e/cAiTrdjv. i^ Qn the other hand the 
 original theory of delegated consular authority for the 
 proconsuls still remains visible in the phrase "consulare 
 imperium," which, as both Mommsen 20 and Pelham 
 point out, is attributed to them by republican writers, 
 proconsulate imperium not being used, so far as I 
 know, by any writer earlier than Livy. 
 
 Under the principate both these tendencies have, it 
 seems to me, become absolute rules. The consulship 
 
 15 Dio Cass. xl. 64. 
 
 18 Id. xl. 56, conf, liii. 14 and Suet. Aug, 36. 
 
 17 Staatsr. ii. p. 233. 
 
 18 Phil. iv. 9. : conf also ad Att. viii. 15. 
 
 i» Dio Cass. xlv. 20. 20 Staatsr. ii. p. 628, n. i. 
 
IMPERIUM CONSULARE OR PROCONSULARE 289 
 
 is strictly an " urban, domestic and civil " office. 21 I 
 don't think there is a single instance of a consul, as such, 
 governing a province or commanding an army, and the 
 fact that we do find instances, and Dio Cassius 22 imphes 
 that they were not infrequent, of consuls holding a 
 provincial government during their year of office, 23 
 really proves the rule conclusively, because they govern 
 the provinces, not as consuls, but as legati pr. pr. or as 
 proconsuls, the consulship and the provincial govern- 
 ment being held simultaneously but independently of 
 one another. To this we may add the significant fact 
 that wherever consulare imperium occurs in imperial 
 times it is used in connexion with urban matters, as e.g. 
 in the Mon. Ancyr. loc. cit. in regard to the census, Dio 
 Cass. Ix. 23, with reference to triumphal games, while 
 Tacitus ^* says that the consulare imperium was given 
 to Domitian, together with the praetura urbana, clearly 
 with the purpose of fulfilling the urban duties of the 
 consuls, Vespasian and Titus, who were both absent 
 from Rome, and certainly not with the idea of giving 
 him any command over the provinces or the troops, 
 since we know that the secondary proconsulare imperium 
 could not be held within the city. 25 The only exception 
 to this use of " consulare imperium " (it is noticed 
 by Prof. Pelham) is the case of Pliny, who was sent 
 out to Bithynia as legatus pro praetore . . . consulari 
 potestate. This is no doubt a difficulty, but it is prob- 
 ably to be met, as Mommsen meets it, by the suggestion 
 that the consular power involved an augmentation of 
 insignia only, but not an augmentation of competence. 
 On the other hand the proconsulship had no less clearly 
 changed its original character. At first and strictly 
 only those provincial governors were pro consule who 
 had a military province with armies to command, ^s 
 
 21 Dio Cass. liii. 14, /xera to ev ry irdXei Ap^ai. 
 
 22 Id. Ibid. 
 
 23 Henz. 6483; C. /. L. iii. 1171 and 1177, see Momms. 
 Staatsr, i. p. 497. 
 
 24 Hist. iv. 3, 25 Xac. Ann. i. 14, xii. 41, etc. 
 
 26 (Comp. the case^ of Spain, and see Momms. Staatsr. ii. 
 p. 638.) 
 
 U 
 
290 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 Now on the contrary the proconsuls are those provincial 
 governors who have no military authority whatever, 
 and therefore the attribution to them of consular im- 
 perium seems altogether inapplicable, and in point of fact 
 I believe that it ceases and is replaced by the phrase, 
 " proconsulare imperium." Thus Valerius Maximus, 
 clearly from the usage of his own time, uses the phrase, 
 even in connexion with republican proconsuls, e.g. T. 
 Aufidius 27 and P. Dolabella,28 though Cicero would 
 certainly have said " consulari imperio," 29 while the 
 same phrase is used equally incorrectly in Liv. Epit. 91 
 of Pompey's Sertorian command. So that under the 
 principate I think we are justified in saying that the 
 consulare imperium was purely domi, and the procon- 
 sulare imperium was purely militiae, that they were 
 not one and the same and that they did not overlap. 
 
 Speaking generally, then, I think we must admit that 
 under the empire the proconsulare imperium was not 
 merely the consulare imperium held by one who was not 
 consul. Is there any reason to think that the case was 
 different with the emperors themselves, that Augustus 
 ever governed the provinces and the army as consul, or 
 that his so-called proconsular imperium, by being 
 allowed to be retained within the city, ever amounted 
 to the consulare imperium domi ? 
 
 (i) Did Augustus govern the provinces from 27-23 B.C. 
 as consul ? Strong negative evidence seems to be 
 furnished by the purely urban character of the consulship 
 at other periods under the empire, nor surely will Prof. 
 Pelham maintain that emperors like Vespasian and 
 Domitian, who frequently assumed the consulship, during 
 the years of their consulships governed the provinces 
 as consuls and in other years by their " imperium pro- 
 consulare." But to be consistent he must maintain this. 
 For he says 3o " This consular imperium (meaning over 
 the provinces) he wielded from 27-23 as consul, just as 
 
 ^ vi. 9, 7, 28 viii. I Ambust. 2. 
 
 28 See pro Flacc. 34, 85 ; de prov. cons, 7, 15, etc. 
 
 ^ P- 35' 
 
IMPERIUM CONSULARE OR PROCONSULARE 29I 
 
 Pompey had wielded his in 52." But Pompey had had 
 the proconsular command in Spain granted to him in 
 54, and granted for five years, and as he was allowed to 
 exercise this entirely by his legates, he himself remained 
 at Rome, and thus was able to hold the consulship in 52, 
 thus combining the imperium militiae which he held pro 
 consule, with the imperium domi which he held as consul, 
 but certainly not, (or at least what evidence is there for 
 the assertion ?) wielding his power (over the provinces) 
 as consul. 31 But in the case of Augustus, I think there 
 are positive arguments against Prof. Pelham's view. 
 As consul, he must of course have been annually elected, 
 have received his imperium for one year at a time, and 
 his province, i.e. on Prof. Pelham's supposition the so- 
 called imperial provinces, assigned to him for the same 
 time, and then re-assigned, whereas Dio Cassius 32 says 
 plainly enough, and Prof. Pelham accepts his statement, 
 that the power by which Augustus commanded the 
 provinces and the army was granted for ten years. If 
 this statement is correct, it seems certain that Augustus 
 did not govern the provinces and army as consul, for 
 no one will assert that the consulship was granted for ten 
 years. The consulships of Augustus therefore were no 
 exception to the rule now prevalent about that office : 
 they conferred an imperium used only for urban pur- 
 poses, as e.g. the census, ^3 while the government of 
 provinces and army was contained in the imperium 
 proconsulare, which Dio Cassius calls by that name under 
 23 B.C., 3 4 which is always so called in connexion with 
 the destined successor, and which could never have been 
 applied to the government of the city. 
 
 Moreover, if Professor Pelham's view has an attractive 
 appearance of consistency in one direction, I think it is 
 open to a charge of inconsistency in another. If, when 
 Augustus ceased to be consul in 23 B.C., he was allowed 
 not only to retain the consular imperium, but to retain 
 it in the city, so that by its means he could e.g. take the 
 
 31 Momms. Sfaatsr. i. p. 498, ii. p. 233 n. 4. 32 liii. 13. 
 33 Mon. Anc. Lat. 8, 2. ^^ liii. 32. 
 
292 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 census, it seems hard to understand what he really lost 
 by giving up the consulship, or why it was necessary to 
 confer on him either the special privileges of 23 B.C. 
 which were to make up for the loss of the consulship, 
 but would surely be contained in the consular imperium, 
 or the consular insignia and fasces in 19 B.C., which 
 again would certainly have been involved in the same 
 imperium. 
 It seems, however, to me that when the senate allowed 
 
 Augustus rrjv apxV "^W OLvOvTrarov . . . c;(€tv wa-n ju-r/Tc iv 
 r^j icroBw tov iroiixrjpLov KaTaTcOeaOai avrrjv, firp-^ avOf; 
 
 avaviovcrdai^ it did not give him in any sense the con- 
 sulate imperium domi, but simply allowed him to 
 exercise his proconsular government of the provinces 
 and army from the city, just as Pompeius had done 
 during his five years' government of Spain, i.e. it affected 
 not the range over which his imperium could be extended, 
 but the locality from which it could be exercised. There 
 was, therefore, no question of governing Rome by 
 proconsular authority, which Prof. Pelham says was 
 not yet possible, though I do not see how he reconciles 
 with this statement the assertion of p. 24 that the 
 consular imperium, in virtue of which Augustus held the 
 census, was in fact no other than that by which he ruled 
 the provinces and the legions, the so-called imperium 
 proconsulate. Dio Cassius does indeed state ^^ that he 
 did on one occasion take the census by the proconsulare 
 imperium, but that is a statement which has hitherto 
 been regarded as erroneous and indeed impossible. 36 
 Does not in fact Prof. Pelham, in saying that Rome 
 could not be governed by proconsular authority, use 
 the word in a somewhat ambiguous sense ? * If procon- 
 sular authority is merely consular authority held by a 
 man who is not consul, and yet is allowed to hold it in 
 Rome, there seems no reason why Rome should not be 
 governed by it, as presumably it was to be by Domitian 
 during the absence of his father and brother, ^^ and it 
 
 35 iv. 13. 
 
 38 Momms. Res gest. div. Aug. p. ^7, a? Tac. Hist. iv. 
 
IMPERIUM CONSULARE OR PROCONSULARE 293 
 
 is only in the other sense of proconsular, i.e. as relating 
 to the provinces — a meaning which Prof. Pelham 
 apparently rejects — that his statement is correct. 
 Then with regard to the census taken by Augustus in 
 8 B.C. and 13 a.d., and which Prof. Pelham thinks did 
 not require any special grant of the consulare imperium. 
 The words of Augustus himself are : ^s *' Iterum consulari 
 cum imperio lustrum solus feci," and " Tertium consulari 
 cum imperio lustrum conlega Tiberio Caesare filio feci," 
 the Greek being v-n-aTLKfj l^ova-U. Apart from any 
 special theory, I think the natural impression conveyed 
 by the language is that the imperium was specially 
 conferred for the occasion. The phrase " cum imperio " 
 (Prof. Pelham, in quoting the passage, omits the prepo- 
 sition) favours this view, and when Augustus says ^9 
 that he carried out certain measures by the tribunicia 
 potestas — a power certainly held permanently and not 
 specially granted, he uses the phrase not Srifiapxi-Kfj 
 i^ovcrta but t^9 877/Aap;j(tK^s c^ovcnas wv (unfortunately 
 the Latin is lost). So I imagine, if he had had the 
 consulare imperium permanently, he would have said 
 T-qv vTraTLKTjv i^ovcTLav exoiv. It may perhaps deserve 
 notice in this connexion that Dio Cassius,^^ under the 
 
 year 4 B.C., says avOvirarov i^ova-iav 7rpo9 re rb reAos t(x)V 
 d7roypo.(f)(i)v kol Trpos Tr^v rov KaOapcrLOv Trotrjo-cv Trpoa-eOero. 
 
 No doubt the statement is erroneous, both as regards 
 date and as to the proconsular power, ^1 but Dio 
 must almost certainly have had some authority for 
 saying that a special imperium was conferred for census 
 purposes, and therefore the statement to a certain 
 extent strengthens the inference from the monument. 
 There is, however, another passage of Dio Cassius *2 
 which, I think, absolutely proves that the princeps did 
 not hold the consular imperium permanently within the 
 city in the way which Prof. Pelham assumes, for we 
 learn that Claudius was only able to celebrate some 
 triumphal games (a function belonging to the consuls), *3 
 
 38 Mon. Anc. Lat. 8, 5 and 8. 39 Mon. Anc. Grk. 6, 12. 
 *o Iv. 13, *i See above. *2 ix. 23. 
 *3 Momms. Staatsr. ii. p. 129, n. 4. 
 
294 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 {nrdrov riva i^ova-Cav \aj8cav, and evidently, if he had 
 had the consulare imperium in a sense enabhng him to 
 take the census, he would also by the same means have 
 been able to celebrate the former without a special grant. 
 Lastly, the privilege mentioned by Dio Cassius — eV rai 
 
 VTn/Koo) TO ttXciov ruiv iKaarTaxoOt dp;(o^'TO)V i(r;(veti/ — 
 
 admits of another explanation than that given by Prof. 
 Pelham. It seems to me that what was given to Augus- 
 tus in 27 B.C. was the proconsular imperium over the 
 so-called imperial provinces ** and the command of the 
 army wherever it was, the senatorial provinces and their 
 proconsuls being left independent, except so far as 
 military and perhaps some financial matters were 
 concerned. During the interval between 27-23 Augustus 
 was employed in organising the imperial provinces in 
 Gaul and Spain, and he may very likely have convinced 
 himself that similar organisation was necessary in the 
 senatorial provinces as well. This would be a sufficient 
 reason for having the majus imperium in those provinces 
 definitely secured to him, and in fact we find him in the 
 next years making use of the power so given in his 
 progress through the Oriental provinces. On the whole, 
 therefore, in spite of the somewhat tempting symmetry 
 of Professor Pelham's view, I think that this privilege 
 was an " extension of his authority," and not merely a 
 restoration of what he lost when he ceased to be consul. 
 
 ** Dio Cass. liii. 12. 
 
XV 
 
 Plutarch, Tacitus, and Suetonius ,on Galba 
 and Otho 
 
 The authenticity of the Lives of Galba and Otho, though 
 it has not absolutely escaped the attacks of German 
 criticism, has never been very seriously impugned, and 
 it is not necessary to enter into the question here any 
 further than to mention one or two of the most obvious 
 reasons which seem to justify the accepted view that 
 they were written by Plutarch, (i) They are mentioned 
 in the Catalogue of Lamprias. This Catalogue is doubt- 
 less not exactly what it professes to be, and contains 
 certain works which are confessedly not Plutarchean, 
 but that portion of it which mentions these Lives 
 together with those of several other Caesars deserves 
 perhaps some special credit, because it also names a 
 Life of Scipio Africanus, which, though no longer extant, 
 is testified to by Plut. " C Gracch."c. lo. (2) Though not, 
 as we shall soon see, biographies in the same sense as 
 the Parallel Lives, they nevertheless are similar in style 
 to the rest ; they are introduced by certain moral 
 reflections in very much the same way as e.g., are the 
 Lives of Pericles, Agis, Pelopidas, Aratus, Demosthenes, 
 Sertorius, etc. : they are interspersed quite after Plut- 
 arch's manner with quotations from poets, 1 and in 
 several places they show that imperfect knowledge of 
 Latin which we know from Plutarch himself that he 
 
 possessed. " rjixus 8c 6\j/€ ttotc koL TTOppo) TTJs rjXiKLa'S 
 1 Conf. Galb. 16, 22, and 27, 31. 
 
 295 
 
296 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 ripidfxtOa /iw/xaiKots ypafifiacTLV eVrvyxai'Civ . . . €v Be 'Pw/i,]7 
 Koi Tois irepi rrjv ^IraXtav SiarpL^aU ov cr^oX^? ova-q^ yv/x- 
 vd^€<r6ai ircpt rr)v pwfia'iKrjv StaXeKTOv viro •^(piiiiiv TroXiTtKiov,'* 
 
 " Demosth." c. 2. (3) The writer of these Lives was a 
 friend of Mestrius Florus, and had travelled in Italy with 
 him, 2 and that Mestrius Florus was known to Plutarch 
 we learn from his Moral Writings, in several of which 
 he appears as an interlocutor, while that Plutarch 
 visited Italy several times and once during Vespasian's 
 reign we also know from himself. ^ We shall therefore 
 take it for granted that Plutarch is the author of our two 
 Lives. 
 
 Another question however immediately suggests itself 
 on reading these Lives, which is not so easily disposed 
 of, and into which, especially as the subject seems never 
 to have been treated in any English book, it will be 
 necessary to enter with some detail. The reigns of 
 Galba and Otho, of which Plutarch here writes the 
 history, are, as is well known, also narrated by a more 
 brilliant historian than Plutarch, and one who is also 
 much more familiar to most students. They in fact 
 form the subject of the first and half of the second book 
 of the ** Histories " of Tacitus. Few instances have come 
 down to us from classical times in which the same period 
 of history has been narrated by two writers so closely 
 contemporary with one another as Plutarch and Tacitus, 
 and the fact that they belonged to different nations and 
 wrote each in his own language certainly make no less 
 interesting the question — ^what relation their accounts 
 bear to one another, were the authorities which they 
 used the same or different, or is there any sign of one 
 account having been derived from the other ? 
 
 It so happens that both Tacitus and Plutarch have 
 given us in their own words the scope and object of their 
 respective works. Tacitus, after premising that his 
 period begins with the consulship of Galba and Vinius, 
 goes on to say,*." Ceterum antequam destinata com- 
 ponam, repetendum videtur, qualis status urbis, quae 
 
 2 Oih. 14. ^ de Soller. Anim. 19, and conf. de Curios. 15. 
 
 * Hist. i. 4. 
 
PLUTARCH, TACITUS AND SUETONIUS 297 
 
 mens exercituum, quis habitus provinciarum, quid in 
 toto terrarum orbe validum, quid aegrum fuerit, ut non 
 modo casus eventusque rerum, qui plerumque fortuiti 
 sunt, sed ratio etiam causaeque noscantur." These 
 words lead us to expect from Tacitus a history of the 
 whole empire during the period he has chosen, not 
 confined to the events in Italy and Rome, but embracing 
 the fortune of the provinces as well, a history too, based 
 on a rational investigation of the causes which underlay 
 the events narrated. Plutarch, on the other hand, after 
 some introductory remarks of a moralising nature, 
 concludes cap. 2_^with the words " Ta /xev ovv KaO' eKao-ra 
 TU)v y€VOix€vo)v OLTrayyiXXetv d/cpt^wg r^s irpayfxaTLKTjs lctto- 
 pias ia-Tiv, 6(ra Se a^ia Xoyov rots Tolv Kato-apwv epyots /cat 
 TrdOecrt arvfX7r€7rTU)K€V, ovSk i/xol irpoo-qKU TrapeXOelv." In 
 
 other words, Plutarch is not writing a general history 
 of the empire. He is rather selecting out of such a 
 general history those events in which the personal 
 fortunes of the emperors were directly or indirectly 
 concerned. It is to be observed however that, if Plut- 
 arch disclaims the composition of Trpay/xartK^ la-Topta, 
 he by no means says here as he does elsewhere ^ that 
 he is writing mere ^tot. It is important on more 
 grounds than one to note this. He does not say that he 
 is going to narrate the €pya and TrdOr] of the emperors, 
 but those events which had a connexion with their epya 
 and Trddrf ; in other words, not their biographies but 
 their reigns, and it is quite in accordance with this 
 promise that he carries out his work. 
 
 We should expect therefore from these two passages 
 to find that the account of Tacitus is a wider and more 
 complete one than that of Plutarch. And this is in fact 
 the case. We have nothing in Plutarch answering to the 
 general view which Tacitus takes of the state of the 
 various provinces of the empire. « The detailed account 
 of the state of the German provinces which Tacitus gives 
 us ' is represented in Plutarch by a single chapter ,« 
 nearly a quarter of which is occupied by a speech of one 
 
 6 Vit. Alex. I. 6 i. 4_ii. 7 i. 51-60. 8 Galb. 22. 
 
298 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 of the soldiers, though it is no doubt true that a good 
 deal of what Tacitus tells us may have been given by 
 Plutarch under the lost reign of Vitellius. The incidents 
 in the march of Valens and Caecina into Italy » are for 
 the same reason omitted in Plutarch, who likewise 
 makes no mention of the invasion of Moesia by the 
 Rhoxolani. *<> Nor does he give us anything correspond- 
 ing to the sketch of affairs in the Eastern provinces with 
 which Tacitus opens his Second Book.i^ In fact 
 Plutarch makes no mention of the provinces at all except 
 in so far as the personal fortunes of the emperors are 
 concerned in them, and so, while references are made to 
 the state of Spain and Gaul in connexion with Galba and 
 Vindex, and to Germany in connexion with Verginius 
 Rufus and the rising against Galba, the affairs of the 
 other provinces are entirely passed over, only Africa 
 being alluded to in reference to Clodius Macer, Syria and 
 Judaea in reference to the attitude of Mucianus and 
 Vespasian, and the Illyrican provinces in reference to 
 the side taken by their legions. So closely indeed does 
 Plutarch confine himself to the one main thread of his 
 narrative, that he says nothing of the expedition of 
 Otho's fleet and the resulting campaign in Gallia Nar- 
 bonensis described by Tacitus. 12 With these exceptions, 
 however — and we should have been glad if Tacitus had 
 made them more numerous by paying still greater 
 attention to the non-Italian part of his subject — the two 
 narratives take a strikingly similar course. How 
 similar it is, wiU best be seen from the following con- 
 spectus, which it will be convenient to insert at this 
 point, after which we shall be in a better position to 
 discuss the relation of the two narratives to one another. 
 Tacitus begins his " Histories " with the commencement 
 of theyearGgA.D., whereas Plutarch gives some account 
 of Galba's government of Tarraconensis, of his corre- 
 spondence with Vindex, his proclamation by his army, 
 and his march to Italy, while several chapters are devoted 
 
 9 Tac. Hist. i. 61-70. 
 
 1° lb. i. 79. 11 ii. i-io. 12 ii. 12-16. 
 
PLUTARCH, TACITUS AND SUETONIUS 299 
 
 to the attempt made at Rome by Nymphidius Sabinus 
 in the interval between Nero's death and Galba's arrival 
 to secure the empire for himself. The correspondence 
 therefore with Tacitus of the first fifteen chapters of 
 Plutarch's " Galba" is naturally not very close, although 
 Tacitus, partly in his resume of the state of the empire ^^ 
 partly in the speech of Otho,i* and in other scattered 
 notices repeats portions of what had no doubt their 
 proper place in the last Book of the " Annals." Thus he 
 mentions the " donativum sub nomine Galbae pro- 
 missum," ^^ the particulars of which are given in full by 
 Plutarch, 16 and also very briefly the attempt " Nymphi- 
 dii Sabini praefecti imperium sibi molientis." ^"^ The 
 attitude of Verginius Rufus in Germany and his pro- 
 clamation as imperator by his army are similarly alluded 
 to by Plutarch ^^ and Tacitus. ^^ A still closer resem- 
 blance is seen in the two references to Icelus, Galba's 
 freedman : — 
 
 r^j 8e dT€\€vdep(i) daKTvXiovs re nec minor gratia Icelo 
 
 Xpv<Tovs ^dcjKe Kal MapKiavbs 6 Galbae liberto, quern anulis 
 
 "I/ceXos rj8r] KaXoOfievos «%« "^W donatum equestri nomine Mar- 
 
 Tpd}Tr}v ev Toi$ aTreXeyd^poLS cianum vocitabant.21 
 
 Plutarch's statement that Fabius Valens topKwa-e 
 TTpwTo? €is TaXfSav in the army of Verginius 22 is con- 
 firmed, though without the mention of Valens' name, by 
 Tacitus, 23 " nec nisi occiso Nerone translatus in Galbam, 
 atque in eo ipso sacramento vexillis inferioris German iae 
 praeventus erat." 
 
 Very striking is the agreement in the account given 
 of the career of Titus Viniusin Plutarch, '' Galb." 12, and 
 Tacitus, i. 48.2* Plutarch however gives the story 
 where the influence of Vinius is first alluded to, Tacitus 
 
 13 i. 4-1 I. 14 i. 37, 38. 15 i. 5. 
 
 18 Galb. 2, 6-12. 17 i. 5. 18 Galb. 6, 9-14. 
 
 i» Tac. Hist. i. 8 ad fin. 20 Galb. 7 ad fin. 21 Tac. Hist. i. 13. 
 
 22 Galb. 10, 19. 
 
 23 Tac. Hist. i. 53. 
 
 2* See notes ad loc. where the passage of Tacitus is quoted in 
 extenso. 
 
300 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 on the occasion of his death. The attempted retention 
 of the corn-ships in Africa by Clodius Macer 2b is less 
 clearly alluded to by Tacitus, ^a 
 
 The deaths of Cingonius Vairo and Petronius Tur- 
 pilianus Trpo Kpia-na^y the former as one of the o-ui/w/xdrat 
 of Nymphidius, the latter as Nepwi't 7rtcrro9,27 are 
 mentioned in very similar language by Tacitus, ^s 
 " tardum Galbae iter et cruentum interfectis Cingonio 
 Varrone consule designate et Petronio Turpiliano 
 consular! : ille ut Nymphidii socius, hie ut dux Neronis, 
 inauditi atque indefensi tanquam innocentes perierant." 
 As closely corresponding are the notices concerning 
 Macer and Capito. 
 
 yi.6.Kpiava yap iv Ai^utj 5id Macrum in Africa haud 
 
 Tpcfiwviov /cat ^om-rfiov iv Yepfiavig. dubie turbantem Trebonius 
 5ia OvdXeyTos dveXwi' irpbipaaiv Garutianus procurator iussu 
 cixcv iv dirXoii /cat ffTparovidois Galbae, Capitonem in Ger- 
 dvTus <t>o^rjdrjvai.^'^ mania, cum similia coeptaret, 
 
 Cornelius Aquinus et Fabius 
 Valens legati legionum inter- 
 fecerant antequam iuberen- 
 tur.3o 
 
 The collision with the classiarii described with details 
 by Plutarch ^i is briefly mentioned by Tacitus. ^ 2 The 
 exaction of the Neronian donationes is with the exception 
 of one circumstance 33 similarly described by Plutarch 3* 
 and Tacitus. 35 The growing unpopularity of Vinius 
 and his influence over Balba is similarly described in 
 Plutarch ^e and Tacitus. 37 The temporary preservation 
 of Tigellinus owing to the influence of Vinius is mentioned 
 with some detail by Plutarch, 38 and is briefly alluded 
 to by Tacitus on the occasion of his execution under 
 Otho, " apud Galbam Titi Vinii potentia defensus " 39 
 while the demand for his punishment by the mob cV 
 
 25 Galb. 13, 24. , 20 Hist. i. 73. 27 Galb. 15 ad init. 
 
 28 Hist. i. 6. 29 Galb. 15, 11-14. 3o Hist. i. 7. 
 
 31 Galb. 15, 18 foil. 32 Hist. i. 6. 33 See below, p. 311. 
 3* Galb. 16, 8 foU. 36 Hist. i. 20. ae Galb. 16 ad fin. 
 
 »7 Hist. i. 12 ad fin. 38 Galb. 17, 9 foU. 39 Hist. i. 72. 
 
PLUTARCH, TACITUS AND SUETONIUS 3OI 
 
 Tracrt Oiarpoi^ koI (TTaStots is also mentioned by Tacitus. *« 
 Plutarch's remark in reference to Galba's unpopu- 
 larity Koi Ta fxerpto)? Trparro/xiva Sta^oA^v ^Tx^v *^ is 
 found also in Tacitus, " inviso semel principe seu bene 
 seu male facta perinde invidiam adferebant." *2 The 
 rewards given to those states of Gaul which had sup- 
 ported Vindex are alluded to in Plut. " Galb." i8, 4 
 and Tac. i. 8 and 51. 
 
 The anger of the soldiers at the non-payment of the 
 donative is mentioned by both,*^ and also the effect 
 produced by Galba's assertion dioOivai KaraXiyeiv arpa- 
 Ttwras ovK ayopd^av, which Plutarch says was ^wv^ 
 /AcyaAo) rjyefjiovL TrpeVovcra, Tacitus, " VOX pro republica 
 hones ta." ** 
 
 The arrogance of the German legions on account of 
 their victory over Vindex is spoken of in very similar 
 terms : — 
 
 /MeyAXoju d^iovpres avrotis dtcL solliciti et irati superbia re- 
 
 TTjv fiAxvf, •^'' iiJ-ax^cravTo irpos centis victoriae.*« 
 
 while the new legate, Hordeonius Flaccus, is described 
 in almost identical words. *? 
 
 Plutarch mentions letters announcing the disaffection 
 of the legions under Vitellius Trapa twv eViTpoTrcov ; ^s 
 Tacitus says that letters were brought from Pompeius 
 Propinquus, procurator of Belgica, announcing the 
 sedition of the Upper German army.^a 
 
 Both agree that this news urged Galba to carry out 
 his plan of adopting an heir : — 
 
 6 S^ <t)o^7]6€ls, d>s fMT] fibvov did, Maturavit ea res consilium 
 
 rb 7^pas, dXKa Kal 81a, rrjv dwaidiav Galbae iam pridem de adop- 
 
 Karaippovovjxevoi i^ovXei/ero TraiSa tione secum et cum proximis 
 
 eiadaiP^ agitantis.51 
 
 40 loc. cit. 41 Galh. 18 ad init. 42 Hist. i. 7. 
 
 43 Galh. 18, 7 and Hist. i. 5. 
 
 44 Galb. 18, II, Hist. i. 5. 
 
 45 Galb. 18, 22. 46 Hist. i. 8. 
 
 47 Galb. 18, 26 and Hist. i. 9 ad init. 48 Galb. 19, 3. 
 49 Hist. i. 12. 50 Galb. 19, 5. si Hist. i. 12. 
 
302 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 Both in this connexion mention the early life of 
 Otho, his intimacy with Nero, and particularly his 
 relations with Poppaea Sabina ; ^^ further, his quasi- 
 exile as legate of Lusitania, his equitable administration 
 of the province, '53 and the fact that he was the first to 
 join Galba in Spain : — 
 
 dTocTTclvroj Si TdX/So towto^ primus in partes transgres- 
 
 01^x65 vpoaex^PV^^ '''^*' vyefidvuv. sus. 
 
 Both again relate in almost identical language the 
 attempted corruption of the cohort which attended 
 Galba when he dined at Otho's house, s* The support 
 of Otho as a candidate for adoption by Vinius, and the 
 projected marriage of the former with Vinius' daughter, 
 are mentioned by Plutarch ^^ and Tacitus, ^^ while 
 Plutarch arrives at the consulship of Galba and Vinius, 
 with which Tacitus begins the ** Histories," at the end 
 of chap. 21. 
 
 In chap. 22 Plutarch relates the events leading to 
 the proclamation of Vitellius by the German armies. 
 The anger of the soldiers at the recall of Verginius «' is 
 mentioned in Tac. i. 8 ; the rewards given to the sup- 
 porters of Vindex and the punishment inflicted on those 
 who opposed him ^s are stated in i. 8 and 53. The 
 throwing down of Galba's images on January i, and 
 the oath taken to the senate and Roman people ^^ are 
 similarly described in Tacitus. 60 The mention of 
 Vitellius as Trarpos TLfirjTov kol rpU virdrov «! is paralleled 
 in Tac. i. 52 ad fin. The bringing of the news to 
 Vitellius by the standard-bearer «2 is given in i. 56 in 
 almost identical words, and the proclamation by 
 Valens e^ in i. 57 ad init. The mid-day gluttony and 
 drunkenness of Vitellius «* is described in i. 62, and also 
 his acceptance of the title of Germanicus and his refusal 
 
 52 Galh. 19, 13. etc., Hist. i. 13, see note ad loc. 
 
 63 Galb. 20, s-6, Ifist. i. 1$ ad fin. 
 
 6* Galb. 20, 26, Hist. i. 24. 55 Galb. 21, 2. 
 
 M Hist. i. 13. 57 line 5. 68 lines 6, 7. 59 Unes 12-17. 
 
 «> Hist. i. 55. 61 line 27. «2 ijne 35. 63 line 40. 
 
 6* line 43. 
 
PLUTARCH, TACITUS AND SUETONIUS 303 
 
 of that of Caesar ; while both Plutarch and Tacitus use 
 the same language in regard to the taking of the oath 
 by the upper army : — 
 
 Toi/s KoXoi/s iKeivovs Kal hrjixo- speciosis senatus populique 
 
 KpariKoiis eis adyKXtjTov 6pKo/x$ Romani nominibus relictis.^^ 
 
 In what follows the accounts agree very closely to- 
 gether. The adoption of Piso is given in Plut. c. 23, 6 
 foil., and Tac. i. 14, the omens on the way to the camp,^^ 
 the behaviour of Piso,68 the discomposure of Otho,^^ 
 his encouragement by astrologers, 'o the conspiracy of 
 Onomastus, Veturius, and Barbius,'i Galba's sacrifice 
 on the Palatine,'^2 the departure of Otho on the pretext 
 of inspecting his newly bought house,7 3 and his arrival 
 at the aureum miliarium.'^* 
 
 Similar accounts follow of the proclamation of the 
 twenty-three soldiers, "^s the hurry to the camp,'^^ Otho's 
 admission by Martialis,^? the rumours brought to Galba,'?^ 
 the attempt of Piso to secure the cohort posted in the 
 palace,'^ and the mission of Marius Celsus to the legion- 
 aries in the Portions Vipsania.^o Both authors proceed 
 to mention the dispute between Vinius and Laco as to 
 whether Galba should go forth or remain in the palace,^! 
 the rumour of Otho's death,^^ Galba's reproof to lulius 
 Atticus,83 Galba's conveyance in the litter to the 
 forum,8 4 the contradictory advice given,8 5 the throwing 
 down of Galba's statue by Atilius Vergilio,86 the murder 
 of Galba at the Lacus Curtius,^' his last words and the 
 
 65 line 47. 66 Hist. i. 57. 
 
 67 Galb. 23, 12 etc., Hist. i. 18. 
 
 68 Galb. 23, 21, Hist. i. 17. 
 
 69 Galb. 23, 25, Hist. i. 21. 7o Galb. 23, 34, Hist. i. 22. 
 71 Galb. 24, 1-4, Hist. i. 25. 72 Galb. 24, 11, Hist. i. 47. 
 
 "^3 Galb. 24, 22, Hist. i. 27. 74 Galb. 24 ad fin., Hist. i. 27. 
 
 75 Galb. 25, 2, Hist. i. 27. 76 Galb. 25, 12, Hist. i. 27. 
 
 77 Galb. 25, 17, Hist. i. 28. 78 Galb. 25, 23, Hist. i. 28. 
 
 79 Galb. 25, 30, Hist. i. 29. 
 
 80 Galb. 25, 32, Hist. i. 31. si Galb. 26 adinit., Hist. i. 32-33. 
 82 Galb. 6, 4, Hist. i. 34. 83 Galb. 26, 11, Hist. i. 35. 
 
 84 Galb. 26, 16, Hist. i. 40. 85 Galb. 26, 18, Hist. i. 39. 
 86 Galb. 26, 27, Hist. i. 41. 87 Galb. 27, 2, Hist. i. 41. 
 
304 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 various reports as to the name of his murderer,®^ the 
 murder of Piso,®» of Vinius,»o the 120 petitions found by 
 Vitelhus,*" and the artifice by which Otho saved Marius 
 Celsus from the soldiers.^^ 
 
 Then follow the convoking of the senate,»3 the con- 
 ferment on Otho of the name of Augustus,^'* the surrender 
 of the bodies of Vinius and Piso for burial,^^ the mutila- 
 tion and final burial of Galba.^« 
 
 Passing to the life of Otho we find a still closer corre- 
 spondence between the two accounts. Both narrate 
 the summons of Marius Celsus by Otho, the justification 
 by the former of his own conduct and their reconcilia- 
 tion,»7 the arrangements made by Otho as to consul- 
 ships and his conferment of priesthoods, etc.,^^ the 
 restoration to the Neronian exiles of the remnants of 
 their property, »» the rejoicing of the people at the death 
 of Tigellinus at Sinuessa.ioo 
 
 In both we have the title of Nero given to Otho, the 
 restoration of the statues of Nero, 101 the mutiny of the 
 17th cohort from Ostia,io2 the banquet of Otho at Rome 
 which it disturbed, the flight of his guests, his own fears, 
 the despatch of the praetorian praefects to the soldiers, 
 and the punishment of two ringleaders. 10 ^ 
 
 After news of the Vitellian rising is brought, both 
 mention the encouraging tidings from Pannonia and 
 Moesia and also from Syria and Judaea, 10* the offers 
 made by Otho to Vitellius and the bitter correspondence 
 which followed, 105 various omens reported in Rome,io« 
 and in particular the inundation of the Tiber, lo' 
 
 88 Galb. 27, 7, Hist. i. 41. 89 Galb. 27, 22, Hist. i. 43. 
 90 Galb. 27, 25, Hist. i. 42. »! Galb. 27, 35, Hist. i. 44. 
 92 Galb. 27 ad fin. Hist i. 45. 93 Galb. 28, i, Hist. i. 46. 
 9< Galb. 28. 4, Hist. i. 47. 95 Galb. 28, 7-8, Hist. i. 47. 
 »« Galb. 28. 10, Hist. i. 49. 97 oth. i, 2-10. Hist. i. 71. 
 
 98 Oth. I, 13 etc., Hist. i. yy. 
 
 99 Oth. I, 18, Hist. i. 90. 100 Oth. 2, Hist. i. 72. 
 101 Oth. 3, 3-7, Hist. i. 78. 
 
 1*2 Oth. 3, 17 foU., Hist. i. 80. 
 
 103 Oth. 3. 30 to end, Hist. i. 80-83. 
 
 10* Oth. 4, 5- 1 2, Hist. i. 76. 
 
 105 Oth. 4, 13-21, Hist. i. 74. 
 
 io« Oth. 4, 25, Hist. i. 86. 107 ib. ib. 
 
PLUTARCH, TACITUS AND SUETONIUS 305 
 
 The sequestration of Dolabella to Aquinum is men- 
 tioned by Plutarch, 108 and by Tacitus. "^ Both narrate 
 how Otho ordered L. Vitellius and other senators to 
 accompany him,iio the appointment of Flavins Sabinus 
 as praefectus urbi,^ and the names of Otho's generals. 112 
 
 After the actual commencement of the campaign we 
 get parallel accounts of the insubordination of Spurinna's 
 troops in Placentia,i^3 of the taunts levelled at the 
 praetorian cohorts by the Vitellians,ii^ of the raising 
 of the siege of Placentia,ii5 of the dress and behaviour 
 of Caecina and his wife,^^^ of the rapacity and exactions 
 of Valens,ii7 of the blame attaching to Caecina for hurry- 
 ing forward a battle. ^^^ Then follows the advance of 
 Annius Gallus upon Cremona, i^^ the ambush prepared 
 by Caecina, 120 the battle near the temple of Castor and 
 the delay of Pauhnus,i2i the appointment of Titianus 
 and Proculus to the chief command, 122 the insub- 
 ordination of Valens' troops and his junction with 
 Caecina. 123 
 
 Both authors give the council of war at Bedriacum, 
 the arguments of Paulinus for delay, the opinion of 
 Titianus and Proculus for immediate action. 124 Both 
 also mention Otho's own impatience and inability to 
 bear the continued suspense, 125 and both allude though 
 in a different way to the opinion that the project was 
 entertained by the two armies of setting aside both 
 Otho and Vitellius, and choosing or allowing the senate 
 to choose some third candidate of better reputation. 126 
 
 108 Oth. S, 3. 109 Hist. i. 88. no 0th. 5,6, Hist. i. 88. 
 
 Ill Oth. 5,12, Hist. i. 46. 112 Oth. 5, 19, Hist. i. 87. 
 
 113 Oth. 5, 36, Hist. ii. 18. n* Oth. 6, 5, Hist. ii. 21. 
 
 115 Oth. 6, 14, Hist. ii. 22. ns Oth. 6, 21, Hist. ii. 20. 
 
 117 Oth. 6, 27, Hist. i. 66. 
 
 118 Oth. 6 ad -fin., Hist. ii. 24. 
 
 119 Oth. 7, 4, Hist. ii. 23. 
 
 120 Oth. 7, g, Hist. ii. 24. 
 
 121 Oth. 7, 12-20, Hist. ii. 25. 
 
 122 Oth. 7, 29, Hist. ii. 39. 
 
 123 Oth. 7 ad fin., Hist. ii. 29 and 31. 
 i^* Oth. 8, Hist. ii. 32 and 33. 
 
 126 Oth. 9, 7, Hist. ii. 40. 
 
 128 Oth. 9. 14 foil., Hist. ii. 37 foil. 
 
 X 
 
306 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 Both mention Otho's decision to return to Brixellum 
 and comment on the mistaken poHcy of the act. ^ 27 
 
 Then follows an account of the battle between the 
 Vitellians and Otho's gladiators on the Po,i28 of the 
 unwise leading out and unskilful encampment of the 
 Othonians,*29 of the opposition of Celsus and Paulinus 
 and the imperative order of Otho to fight, "« of the 
 return of Caecina from the river and the first charge of 
 the cavalry. 131 
 
 Striking resemblances in the account of the battle 
 itself are the mistaken salutation by the Othonians,^^^ 
 the confusion caused by the baggage and the numerous 
 ditches, 133 the combat between the legions xxi Rapax 
 and I Adjutrix,i3'i the destruction of the gladiators,^^^ 
 and the fear of Paulinus and Proculus to enter the camp 
 with the fugitives. 138 
 
 Then, after some diversity in the accounts of the 
 embassy sent by the Othonians,"' both agree in the 
 ultimate fusion of the armies, i^s in the news of the 
 battle reaching Otho, 1 39 in the enthusiastic fidelity 
 of the troops, i*<* in his care for his friends' departure, 1*1 
 in his conversation with his nephew Cocceianus,i*2 jn 
 his choice of a dagger after drinking some water, 1*3 jn 
 his distribution of money to his attendants, i*-^ in the 
 manner of his death and the grief of the soldiers, i*» in 
 
 127 Oth. 10, 1-6, Hist. ii. 33. 
 
 128 Oth. 10, 7 foil., Hist. ii. 34 and 35. 
 
 129 Oth. II, 1-8, Hist. ii. 39. 
 
 130 Oth. II, 9-18, Htst. ii. 40. 
 
 131 Oth. II ad fin.. Hist. ii. 41. 
 
 132 Oth. 12, 4, Hist. ii. 42. 
 
 133 Oth. 12, 11-15, H.St. ii. 41. 
 
 13* Oth. 12, 17 foil., Hist. ii. 43. 
 
 135 Oth. 12, 26, Hist. ii. 43. 
 
 138 Oth. 13, I, Hist. ii. 44. i37 See below, p. 315. 
 
 138 Oth. 13 ad fin., Hist. ii. 45. 
 
 139 Oth. 15, I, Hist. ii. 46. 
 
 1*0 Oth. 15, 4 foil.. Hist. ii. 46. 
 
 1*1 Oth. 16, 3 foil.. Hist. ii. 48. 
 
 1*2 Oth. 16. 8 foil.. Hist. ii. 45. 
 
 1*3 Oth. 17, 1-3, Hist. ii. 49. 
 
 i«* Oth. 17. 6, Hist. ii. 48. 
 
 1*5 Oth. 17, 18 foil., Hist. ii. 49. 
 
PLUTARCH, TACITUS AND SUETONIUS 307 
 
 the modest character of his tomb,!*^ and finally in the 
 application of the soldiers to Verginius Rufus to accept 
 the empire or at least to act as their ambassador. i*7 
 
 It will be apparent at once from this comparison that 
 we have a very remarkable correspondence between 
 the two narratives to account for. That there was some 
 definite and close relationship between the two is clear, 
 since it is quite inconceivable that two writers working 
 independently of one another, and using different 
 authorities, could have produced accounts so similar. 
 Various theories have been put forward to account for 
 this similarity, which could not but strike even the most 
 careless reader of both. That Tacitus made use of 
 Plutarch's account in the composition of his " Histories " 
 has naturally occurred to no one, and the very statement 
 of a suggestion so improbable is sufficient to discredit 
 it ; but the converse supposition that Plutarch had the 
 account of Tacitus before him has in it nothing a priori 
 impossible, and it is probably the first explanation 
 which would suggest itself. This view has accordingly 
 not been without its supporters,^*^ and it is adopted by 
 Nipperdey in the Introduction to his admirable edition 
 of the " Annals." ^*^ By most scholars however this view 
 is no longer regarded as tenable, and therefore the only 
 alternative is to suppose that both Plutarch and Tacitus 
 independently made use of the same authority or 
 authorities for their histories. The question, however, 
 as to what this authority was has been answered in 
 several ways. According to one view,^^° it was the 
 " acta diurna " to which Tacitus frequently refers in the 
 '* Annals," ^^^ and of which he says, " Diurna populi 
 Romani per provincias per exercitus curatius leguntur." 
 This view however rests on a misunderstanding 
 
 1*6 0th. 18, 3, Hist. ii. 49. 
 
 i« 0th. 18 ad fin., Hist. ii. 51. 
 
 1*8 See Clason Plutarch und Tacitus, 1870. 
 
 149 P. 29, ed. 1879. 
 
 150 Hirzel, Comparatio eorum quae de imperatore Galha et 
 Othone relata legimus apud Taciturn, Suetonium, Plutarchum, 
 etc. 1851. 
 
 151 Conf. ill. 3, xii, 24, xiii. 31, xvi. 22. 
 
308 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 of what the *' acta diurna" were, and what they 
 contained. Consisting merely in summary notices of 
 the principal events in Rome, and the proceedings 
 in the senate, they could never account for the 
 similarity of continuous histories, for repeated instances 
 of verbal identity, and for close correspondence in 
 the delineation of character such as we have here 
 to deal with, while it would be no less than miraculous 
 for Tacitus and Plutarch independently to have chosen 
 out of the very miscellaneous bits of news which the 
 *' acta " contained, precisely the same portions and in 
 most cases in the same order. According to others, the 
 common authority used was Cluvius Rufus,^^^ whom 
 Tacitus quotes several times in the '* Annals," and to 
 whom Plutarch refers in *' 0th. " c. 3. Still a different 
 view is that both used the *'Histones" of the Elder 
 Pliny,^^^ while, lastly, a good deal of ingenuity has 
 been expended to show that while Tacitus used Pliny, 
 Plutarch used both Phny and Cluvius.^^* 
 
 Against the view that Plutarch made use of the 
 *' Histories" of Tacitus there is both external and internal 
 evidence which seems to me conclusive. In the first place, 
 in all probability Plutarch wrote these " Lives" before the 
 " Histories " were published. The " Histories " of Taci- 
 tus were probably, as Nipperdey supposes, published in 
 instalments, and no doubt Books I-II appeared together. 
 Mommsen holds,^"^ and his view is generally accepted, 
 that the two books were either published, or at any rate 
 communicated to friends, about 105 or 106 a.d. They 
 were certainly not begun when the *' Agricola " was pub- 
 lished in 97 A.D.^^^ In the first four books of his '* Letters " 
 too, i.e. up to 105 A.D., Pliny, though he several times 
 speaks of Tacitus, always does so as of a famous orator ; 
 it is not till the sixth book, published in 106 or 107, that 
 
 152 H. Peter, Die Quellen Plutarchs, and more recently Momm- 
 sen in Hermes, iv,„p. 295 foil. 
 
 153 Nissen, Rheinisches Museum, xxvi. 497 foil. 
 
 16* Th. Weidemann, de Tacito, Suetonio, Plutarcho. Cassio 
 Dione, scriptoribus imperatorum Galhae et Othonis. 
 165 Hermes, iii., p. 107. i^e Agric. c. 3. 
 
PLUTARCH, TACITUS AND SUETONIUS 309 
 
 he makes any reference to his historical studies, and at 
 that time Tacitus is collecting materials for the reign 
 of Titus/^"^ We may assume therefore that the first 
 books of the " Histo:-i s " were not published earlier than 
 105 or 106 A.D. Now how does the case stand with 
 Plutarch ? We know from passages in his own writings 
 that he was a young man when Nero passed through 
 Delphi in 66 a.d./^^ that he was on one occasion at 
 Rome during Vespasian's reign,^-^^ that he remembered 
 the famous eruption of Vesuvius/^^ and also the winter- 
 ing of some emperor on the Danube/^^ From this it 
 appears that he was born about 46 a.d. and lived on 
 into Trajan's reign. His literary activity however must 
 certainly have begun earlier than this, since he was 
 already about fifty-one at the time of Nerva's death. 
 With this the notice in Suidas agrees which puts his 
 
 literarv activity eVl rmv Tpaiavov ^poi'o>r /cat ert Trpnadev. 
 
 The Parallel Lives were probably written under 
 Trajan. An allusion appears to be made to the death 
 of Domitian in " Vit. Num. " 19, and " Vit. Poplic. " 
 15, while in "Vit. SuU" 21 he says that the capture 
 of Athens by Sulla took place nearly 200 years ago, 
 which would seem to show that this Life was written 
 shortly before 114 a.d. But as has been already pointed 
 out, the Lives of Galba and Otho are not biographies 
 in the same sense as the rest. In the first place it 
 may be regarded as certain that there were no Greek 
 parallels to them, nor are the accounts of Galba and 
 Otho separated from one another by any distinct line, 
 since all that is said of Otho's earlier career comes in cap. 
 19 of *' Galba," and cap. i of *'Otho" is a mere con- 
 tinuation of the events narrated in cap. 28 of "Galba." 
 But if they were not separated from one another, neither 
 to all appearance were they separated from what had 
 preceded them, viz., the account of Nero, nor from what 
 
 157 Ep. V. 16. 
 
 158 de Ei apud Delphos, i and 17. i"^ ^g sollert. anim. 19. 
 
 160 de Pyih. orac. 9. 
 
 161 de princ. frig, tbs laTopovdiv oi vvv fxera rod Kala-apoi eiri tov 
 '^la-rpov SiaxetfJ-taavTes, which probably refers to Trajan in the 
 winter of 97-98 a.d. 
 
310 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 followed, that of Vitellius. For there is a backward 
 reference in ** Galb. " 2, loa-n-ep eiprjTai, and a forward 
 reference in " 0th. " 18, to, /xh' oZv a\Aa Katpov olKtloi' f^tt 
 Aex^^iai. Again, they cannot be called biographies, 
 because they give next to no account of the earlier lives 
 of Galba and Otho. Galba's career up to his election as 
 emperor is contained in one short chapter (cap. 3), while 
 of Otho's earlier history we learn absolutely nothing 
 except the notorious incident in connexion with Poppaea 
 and that, as already stated, under the account of Galba. 
 Again, biography, as Plutarch understood it, had a moral 
 much more than an historical end in view : facts yielded 
 in importance to moral lessons, and chronological order 
 to artistic symmetry. But in the Lives before us, with the 
 exception of the first two chapters of *' Galba," we have 
 practically no moralising at all : the events are narrated 
 as historical events and in strictly chronological order. 
 In all these respects then there is a striking contrast to 
 the Parallel Lives. These are each of them artistically 
 rounded off into a complete whole ; the early history 
 and origin of each character is usually given as fully as 
 Plutarch's materials allowed, moral reflections are con- 
 spicuous and abundant, and the narrative is not ham- 
 pered by strict adherence to chronological sequence. 
 But the Parallel Lives represent Plutarch's style and 
 manner in its greatest maturity and perfection. He 
 consciously and of set purpose subordinated mere 
 history to moral portraiture, and the method of parallel- 
 ing Roman and Greek Lives was an essential part of his 
 plan. When therefore we find two Lives without 
 Greek parallels, with scarcely a trace of moralising 
 tendencies, full of facts arranged in chronological order, 
 with no symmetry of arrangement, and we may add, 
 as will be shown later on, in great measure a mere Greek 
 reproduction of a Latin original, we must, I think, infer 
 that they belonged to a different stage of Plutarch's 
 literary history from the Parallel Lives, and to an earlier, 
 not a later one. Another line of argument leads to the 
 same result. According to the Catalogue of Lamprias, 
 Plutarch carried up his imperial history as far as Vitellius, 
 
PLUTARCH, TACITUS AND SUETONIUS 3II 
 
 but not further. Now, if he had written it under Trajan, 
 there could have been no more reason why he should 
 have refrained from proceeding to the Flavian emperors, 
 during whose period he was certainly in Italy on several 
 occasions, than there was in the case of Tacitus and 
 Suetonius. If, on the other hand, he wrote while Domi- 
 tian was still alive, there is an easily intelligible reason 
 why he should have deemed it expedient to stop short 
 at the death of Vitellius. External evidence therefore, 
 as far as it goes, seems to point to the conclusion that 
 since Plutarch probably wrote these Lives before the 
 " Histories " of Tacitus were published, he could not have 
 used them as his authority. This conclusion is con- 
 firmed beyond all doubt by internal evidence, since a 
 careful examination shows that a number of points 
 omitted by Tacitus are added by Plutarch, that in many 
 others discrepancies are evident between the two versions 
 in some of which Plutarch appears to be the better guide 
 of the two. The following list of cases, though probably 
 not absolutely complete, contains almost all, and 
 certainly all of any importance : — 
 
 1. Plutarch ^^^ says that Vindex committed suicide {'OvlpdiKos 
 eavTou du^XJvTos^. Tacitus knows nothing of this, and implies 
 that he was killed in the battle. 1^3 
 
 2. Plutarch says that the classiarii drew their swords and 
 were in consequence charged by Galba's cavalry. lo* Tacitus 
 says that they were " inermes." i«^ 
 
 3. Plutarch tells the story about Canus the flute-player, which 
 is not found in Tacitus. ^^^ 
 
 4. Plutarch in mentioning the recall of the Neronian grants 
 adds an important point omitted by Tacitus, viz., that if the 
 original grantees had sold the property it was to be exacted 
 from the purchasers. i*>7 
 
 5. He also mentions the execution by Galba of Helius, Poly- 
 clitus, Petronius, and Patrobius, about which Tacitus is silent ; i^s 
 
 6. also the bribing of Vinius by Tigellinus; i^'J 
 
 7. and the edict of Galba bj^^ which he rebuked the eagerness 
 
 162 G. 6, 19. 
 
 163 Hist. i. 51, caeso cum omnibus copiis lulio Vindice. 
 i«* G. 15, 31. 165 Hist. i. 6. 166 G. 16, 3. 
 
 16T G. 16, 14 ; conf. Hist. i. 20. 168 G. 17, 5 foil. 
 169 G. 17, 10. 
 
312 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 of the populace for the death of Tigellinus. i^o both being points 
 omitted by Tacitus. 
 
 8. Tacitus does not mention the suspicion that the Ga' Is who 
 had sided with Vindex bought the rewards which they received 
 from Vinius."^ 
 
 9. He also omits the story told by Plutarch i^z that the Ger- 
 man legions added to the oath of allegiance to Galba the words, 
 " If he proves worthy." 
 
 10. Plutarch alone mentions the fact that Poppaea had been 
 the wife of Crispinus.^^a and 
 
 11. that she actually married Otho.i^* 
 
 12. He alone says that Seneca was a friend of Otho and that 
 by his advice he was sent to Lusitania.i^s 
 
 13. He mentions and Tacitus omits the gold and silver in 
 cups and tables which Otho gave to Galba for coining on join- 
 ing him. 176 
 
 14. While Tacitus says that it was Maevius Pudens who gave 
 the present to the cohort on guard, ^^t Plutarch says that it was 
 Otho himself. 178 
 
 15. Plutarch alone mentions the amount of Otlio's debts ; i'® 
 
 16. and the fact that Galba had honours paid to Vindex after 
 his death. 180 
 
 17. Plutarch gives the speech of some soldier in the Upper 
 German army, advising the legion to turn to Vitellius,i''i whereas 
 Tacitus says expressly " Non tamen quisquam in modum con- 
 tionis aut pro suggestu locutus "182 
 
 18. Plutarch says that Galba proceeded to adopt Piso after 
 hearing of the proclamation of Vitellius.i83 Tacitus, on the 
 other hand says that it was " post nuntios Germanicae seditionis, 
 quamquam nihil adhuc de Vitellio certum."i84 
 
 19. Plutarch alone mentions that Dolabella was thought of 
 as one of the candidates for adoption. iss 
 
 20. Plutarch says that Galba suddenly, fxriS^v Trpotnrwv^ sent 
 for Piso.i«« Tacitus says that it was after a consultation with 
 Vinius, Laco, Marius Celsus, and Ducenius Geminus.is? 
 
 21. Plutarch alone mentions the fact that Nero had killed 
 Piso's parents. 188 For the inaccuracy of the statement see 
 note p. 118 of my edition of Plutarch's Galba and Otho. 
 
 22. He is also the sole authority for the statement that Otho 
 was supported by the disappointed adherents of Tigellinus and 
 Nymphidius.189 
 
 170 G. 17, 21. 171 G. 18, 4. 
 
 172 G. 18 ad fin. i73 G. 19 14. 17^ G. 19, 27. 
 
 175 G. 20, I. , 176 G. 20, 8. 177 Hist i. 24. 
 
 178 G. 20 ati /IM. 179G. 21, II. 180 G. 22, 9. 
 
 181 G. 22, 21 etc. 182 Hist. i. 55. 
 
 G. 23, I. 184 Hist. i. 14. 185 G. 23, 4. 186 G. 23, 6. 
 187 Hist. i. 14. 188 G. 23, 8. 189 G. 23 ad fin. 
 
PLUTARCH, TACITUS AND SUETONIUS 3I3 
 
 23. In connexion with the sacrifice offered by Galba, Plut- 
 arch says it was ev IlaXartw 190 ; Tacitus that it was " pro aede 
 Apohims."i9i Plutarch also says that this happened 'iwBev, 
 which Tacitus omits. 
 
 24. Plutarch alone mentions Otho's change of colour on hearing 
 the report of Umbricius the haruspex ; 1^2 
 
 25. and his exclamation while being borne to the praetorian 
 camp that he was ruined ; i^^ 
 
 26. also that Vinius and Laco and some freedmen drew 
 their swords to protect Galba. ^^^ 
 
 27. He alone gives the answer of lulius Atticus to the question 
 of Galba rls ae ih^Xivae ;195 
 
 28. and mentions that Galba left the palace rep re Ml ddaai 
 Kai ipavrfvai Toh iroXiTats l^ovXj/j.euos.^^'^ 
 
 29. He alone mentions Otho's cavalry appearing through the 
 Basilica Pauli.i97 
 
 30. According to Plutarch Sempronius Densus defended 
 Galba ; ^^^ according to Tacitus, Piso.i'-'^ 
 
 31. Plutarch adds the name of Fabrius Fabullus to those 
 mentioned by Tacitus 200 as accredited with the murder of 
 Galba. 201 
 
 32. Plutarch adds certain disagreeable details in connexion 
 with the treatment of Galba's head by the soldiers, which Tacitus 
 omits. 202 
 
 S^. Plutarch alone gives the words of Otho on seeing Galba's 
 head. 203 
 
 34. Plutarch adds to the account of Tacitus 204 about the 
 release of Celsus from the soldiers, that Otho pretended that he 
 wished to get some information from him before his execution. 200 
 
 35. He alone mentions the sum paid by Crispina for the 
 head of Vinius, her father ; 206 
 
 36. and mentions the Sessorium as the place where Galba's 
 head was thrown. 207 
 
 37. He alone mentions the part taken by Helvidius Priscus 
 in burying the body of Galba. 208 
 
 38. He alone mentions the request of Tigellinus that he might 
 have time given him to shave his beard. 209 
 
 39. He mentions, while Tacitus omits, the report given on 
 the authority of Cluvius Rufus that the Spanish diplomata 
 were inscribed " Nero Otho." 210 
 
 40. Plutarch represents the mutiny of the 17th cohort as 
 
 190 G. 24, 12. 191 Hist. i. 27. 
 192 G. 24, 21. 193 G. 25, 9. 194 G. 25, 30. 
 
 195 G. 26, II. 196 G. 26, 14. 197 G. 26, 23. 
 
 198 G. 26, 33 etc. 199 Hist. i. 43. 200 Hist. i. 41. 201 g. 27, 10. 
 202 G. 27,11. 203 G. 27, 20. 204 Hist. i. 71. 205 G. 27 ad fin. 
 200 G. 28, 8. 207 G. 28, 13. 208 G. 28 ad fin. 
 
 209 O. 2, 17. 210 o. 3, 8. 
 
314 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 originating at Ostia.21* Tacitus' account implies that it 
 happened in the praetorian camp at Rome, 
 
 41. Plutarch gives the number of senators who were feasting 
 with Otho at the time.aia 
 
 42. Plutarch makes the scarcity caused by the inundation 
 intelligible by mentioning, what Tacitus omits, that the part 
 of the city where the corn was stored was flooded. 213 
 
 43. Plutarch alone says that Dolabella was sent to Aquinum, 
 partly because he was suspected by the praetorian cohorts. 21* 
 
 44. According to Plutarch, 21c Flavins Sabinus was made 
 praefectus urbi just before the departure of Otho. According 
 to Tacitus he was created (and by the soldiers themselves) 
 immediately after Galba's death. 210 
 
 45. According to Plutarch Otho remained behind at the time 
 at Brixellum.217 Tacitus does not mention this, and in fact 
 implies that he went to Brixellum for the first time after the 
 council of war. 2 18 
 
 46. Tacitus omits the incident told by Plutarch that Spu- 
 rinna's soldiers asked for their viaticum in order that they might 
 go to Otho and accuse their general. 219 
 
 47. According to Plutarch Spurinna's soldiers returned to 
 their obedience owing to the taunts of the Vitellians ; 220 
 according to Tacitus it was the unwonted labour of making a 
 camp, and the representation of the veterans as to the dangers 
 of remaining in the open plain. 221 
 
 48. Plutarch represents Cremona as being on the Othonian 
 side and threatened by the Vitellians. 222 Tacitus clearly implies 
 that it already had been occupied by the Vitellians. 223 
 
 49. Plutarch gives one reason for Otho's hurry to fight on the 
 authority of Sec ndus, Otho's secretary.224 Tacitus does not 
 mention his name, though he also gives the reason. 225 
 
 50. The mention of Marius and Sulla, Pompeius and Caesar, 
 in connexion with the reported desire of both armies to come 
 to terms without fighting is brought in quite differently by 
 Plutarch 226 and Tacit s.227 
 
 51. Plutarch mentions the sending of fire-ships as:ainst Caecina's 
 bridge by the Othonians,228 which Tacitus altogether omits. 228 
 
 52. Plutarch represents the Germans as the attacking party 
 in the battle on the island ; 230 Tacitus the gladiators. 231 
 
 53. Plutarch says that Proculus led the Othonians out fifty 
 stades from Bedriacum.232 Tacitus says four miles. 233 
 
 211 O. 3, 19, etc. 2120.3,31. 
 
 213 0.4 ad fin., conf. Hist. i. 86. 214 o. 5, 4, 215 o. $, n. 
 
 218 Hist. i. 46. 217 o. 5, 16. 
 
 218 Hist. ii. 33. 219 o. 5 ad fin. 220 o. 6, i. 221 Hist. ii. 19. 
 222 O. 7, 4. 223 Hist. ii. 18. and 23. 224 0.9. 13. ^^b Hist. ii. 40. 
 
 226 O. 9, 25. etc. 227 Hist. ii. 38. 228 q. 10,11. 229 Hist. ii. 34. 
 
 230 O. 10, 18. 231 Hist. ii. 35. 232 Q. II, 4. 233 Hist. U. 39. 
 
PLUTARCH, TACITUS AND SUETONIUS 315 
 
 54. The distance to be traversed by the Othonians on the 
 next day m order to reach the enemy is given by Plutarch at 
 100 stades,234 by Tacitus as thirteen miles. 235 
 
 55. Tacitus says that the band of gladiators were cut to 
 pieces by the Batavian cohorts during their actual passage of 
 the river. ss^s Plutarch says that they had crossed in safety, 
 were then defeated, and driven back to the river and there 
 killed. 237 
 
 56. According to Plutarch Annius Gallus consoled the de- 
 feated troops, reminding them that in parts of the battle they 
 had been victorious. 238 Tacitus omits this. 
 
 57. Plutarch represents Marius Celsus as assuring the sol- 
 diers that Otho would never wish them to resist further, etc., 239 
 sentiments which Tacitus puts into the mouth of Otho himself. 240 
 
 58. Plutarch narrates how Celsus and Gallus personally went as 
 ambassadors to Caecina and Valens, and describes their journey 
 and the reception they met with. 2*1 Tacitus omits all this. 
 
 59. Plutarch says that during their absence Titianus changed 
 his mind and again manned the walls of Bedriacum.242 Tacitus 
 says nothing of this. 
 
 60. Plutarch says that one of Otho's soldiers in his enthusi- 
 asm killed himself, exclaiming " Know, Caesar, that all are 
 determined thus to die in your behalf ! "243 Tacitus omits this. 
 
 61. Otho's speech is given quite differently in Plutarch, 2*4 
 and Tacitus. 245 
 
 62. Plutarch says that Otho had intended to adopt his nephew 
 Cocceianus.246 Tacitus is silent on this. 
 
 6;^. Plutarch says that Otho put one of the daggers in his 
 bosom, 247 Tacitus that he put it under his pillow. 2 48 
 
 64. According to Tacitus no one saw Otho alive after he finally 
 retired to rest. 249 According to Plutarch he woke up at dawn and 
 told his freedman to show himself to the soldiers lest he should 
 be suspected of having murdered his master. 250 
 
 65. Tacitus does not say, as Plutarch does,25i that after 
 Otho's death Plotius Firmius, the other praetorian praefect,252 
 ordered the soldiers to take the oath to Vitellius. 
 
 To these particular instances of divergence from and 
 consequent independence of Tacitus must be added 
 the point already alluded to that the first half of the life 
 of Galba containing his negotiations with Vindex, his 
 
 234 O. II, 10. 235 Hist. ii. 40. 
 
 236 Hist. ii. 43. 237 O. 12, 38. 238 Q. 13,6. 239 Q. I3.9foll. 
 240 HtSt. ii. 47. 241 O. 13, 22 foll. 242 Q. 1 3, 4O. 
 
 243 O. 15, 17. 244 0. 15, 21 foll. 245 Hist. U. 47. 
 
 246 0.16,12. 2470.17,4. ^is Hist ii,^g, 249 Hist. ii. 49. 
 250 0. 17, 15. 251 o. 18, 12. 252 the MSS. have Pollio. 
 
3l6 STUDIES IN ROMAN" HISTORY 
 
 proclamation as emperor in Spain, his march to Rome, 
 and the insurrection of Nymphidius Sabinus in Rome, 
 must necessarily have come from some other authority 
 than Tacitus, for the simple reason that all these events 
 happened in 68, and Tacitus begins his *' Histories" 
 with January i, 69. Since therefore both external and 
 internal evidence forbid us to suppose that Plutarch 
 borrowed his account from Tacitus, and since the resem- 
 blances are too great to be the result of accident, our 
 only alternative is to ascribe them to the employment 
 by both historians of a common authority. 
 
 But it is asserted by some that Plutarch and Tacitus, 
 so far from using some one common authority used 
 several sources, and in defence of this assertion there 
 are cited such expressions in Plutarch as (i) etVc ws cftacnv 
 
 tVLOl . . . €tTC ; 253 (2) CtT€ . . . €LT€ W? (ftaCTLV h'LOL ; 254 
 
 (3) '''^^^ ^^ <f>aaLV ; 255 (^J 0,5 <jf>aort ; 258 (^J a-rrea-cfia^i Sk 
 avTov ws ol TrXeLCTTOL XeyovcTL, Ka/xoi;ptos Tt? . . . cnot 8e 
 TepiiTLoVj ol Se AeKavLOV ; 257 (5) § ^acri cru/x^^rai ; 258 (^) 
 ol Be Tov KcKtVav amtoi'Tat ; ^^® (8) kripiav h\ rjv aKOvav on 
 
 /f.T.X.26o Now of these cases (2) evidently refers not to 
 two accounts but to two explanations which occur to 
 Plutarch himself, and which he expresses in this way, 
 just as similarly (3), (4), (6), merely show that Plutarch 
 ascribes these incidents in the last resort to com- 
 mon report ; (5), (7), and (8) alone seem of any 
 importance, and these at once receive their explanation 
 by turning to the corresponding passages of Tacitus. 
 Thus with (5) compare Hist. i. 41, " quidam Terentium 
 evocatum, alii Lecanium, crebrior fama tradidit Camu- 
 rium," etc. With (7) compare Hist. ii. 24 and ii. 30, and 
 with (8) compare Hist. ii. 37, " invenio apud quosdam 
 auctores," etc. From this it appears that in just those 
 passages which seem to give the strongest evidence of 
 several authorities having been used, Tacitus in almost 
 the same words refers apparently to several authorities 
 also. The obvious inference from this is that in both 
 
 253 G. 14, 25. 254 /t. 19 32, 265 Jf). 22, 42. 
 
 2C6 lb. 25, 17. 257 76, 27, 7. 258 Q. 4, $2. 259 J^. 6, 3I. 
 
 260 lb. 9, 14. 
 
PLUTARCH, TACITUS AND SUETONIUS 317 
 
 cases the double references were not from the authorities 
 cited themselves, but from some common source used 
 by Plutarch and Tacitus, who have so cited them. To 
 the same category may be added the reference to the 
 rhetorician Sscundus in " th." 9, 13, in which case Taci- 
 tus mentions the same report, though without a reference 
 to its author. 261 Now the report of Secundus was 
 evidently an oral not a written report {Siqyeho). But 
 to whom was it made ? Not to Plutarch or he would 
 have said so, as he does in the case of Mestrius Floras, ^^^ 
 and besides it would be too wonderful a coincidence that 
 Secundus should have mentioned this same point both to 
 Plutarch and Tacitus. Clearly, therefore, he made the 
 report to the common authority of both, and both use it, 
 though only Plutarch repeats its source. There is, 
 therefore, as far as internal evidence goes, no reason 
 to think that Plutarch used a plurality of authorities. 
 That it was not his custom to do so in the " Lives " has 
 been very conclusively shown by H. Peter, 263 who by an 
 exhaustive analysis establishes the point that, wherever 
 it was at all practicable, Plutarch uses one authority 
 only for each of his " Lives," and there is nothing in 
 those of Galba and Otho which on examination proves 
 to be inconsistent with this conclusion. 
 
 But when we assert that Plutarch and Tacitus used 
 a common authority, it is not merely meant that they 
 took from it the general course of their narratives, their 
 facts, and even the delineation of character. So much 
 appears clearly from the general comparison of the two 
 which has been already given. The resemblance is in 
 many cases even closer than this alone implies, and we 
 have no hesitation in asserting that the employment of 
 this authority often amounted to what is practically a 
 literal and almost word-for-word translation. The 
 justification for this assertion will be found in the follow- 
 ing list of parallel passages, which might probably be 
 added to, but which, as it stands, sufficiently speaks for 
 itself :— 
 
 281 Hist. ii. 40. 262 o. 14. 263 Dig Quellen Phttarchs. 
 
3i8 
 
 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 Plutarch. 
 
 G. 12, lO. AiiirvCjv 5i irapa 
 K\avSi<fi Katffapi vor-ffpiov dpyv- 
 pov¥ if<P€l\€To' irvSofifvoi di 6 
 Kaiffap T]7 ifjTepalqi iraXiv avrbv 
 iri SeiTvov (Kd\€<rev, i\d6vTi Si 
 fKfKtwrev iKcLvt^ firjSiv npyvpouv, 
 d\X4 Ktpdnea vavra irpo<T<t>ip€i.v. 
 
 G. 15, $. ^5ofc HT) vofjiifius el 
 /col 5iKcu(jji fxTjSi SrjfiOTiKus dyri- 
 pTjK'vai irpb Kplaeus 6.v5pas ovk 
 d<r^/iovs. 
 
 G. 15, 32. 'TWo-TTj 5(^ oi'Sety 
 iKfivwv. dXX* ol piv eiidiis dva- 
 rpmirivTeiy 61 bk (pe^yovra Si- 
 e(p0dpTj<Tav, ov XP'?"''"^" °^^^ 
 cucriov Toiovvres tv Td\!-'q. rhv 
 oluvbv elcri6vTi Sid ■troWou <p6vov 
 Kal v(KpQiV ToffoOruy fli riip ir6\tv. 
 
 G. 17, 14. 6 S4 Tot-fjffas A^iov 
 Bavdrov N^pwi/a Kn.1 yevo/xfpov 
 TOiovToV iyKaraXiiruiv Kal vpo- 
 do')s — 
 
 G. 18, 10. d(pT}K€ ^b}U7]v ijye- 
 fihvi ue;d\(f) irplirovaav^ elwCov 
 eludr'vai KaraXiyeiv orpaTt^raj, 
 OVK dyopd^eiv. 
 
 G. 18, 25. AiVr^i/ 5^ t6i' 
 ^XdKKov virb <xvvt6vov TroSdypa^ 
 dSivarov Svra ry ad/xari Kal 
 Trpayp.dTLiv direipov iv ovSevl X6y({) 
 t6 TTOLpditav iiroiovvTO. 
 
 G. 20, 26. '0<r<iKis 5^ t6v 
 TdX^ap elaria, rrjv irapacpvKdr- 
 Tovrav del aireTpav iS^Ka^e XP^CO'^'' 
 iKdarip Siavifxuy. 
 
 G. 22, 34. eX$ vire^eXdibv 
 <Tr)iJ.aio<p6poi dir^yecXe rip Oii- 
 Te\Xl(p vvKTbi iffTLup^^vuv iroXXQp 
 Tap aiiTtp. 
 
 G. 22, 45. E^^uj 5^ rb fierd 
 4>XdKK0V arpdrevixa rods KaXoi/i 
 iKelvovi Kal STjpMKpaTiKoi/s eis 
 <TvyKX'i)Tov SpKom d</)ivTes — 
 
 Tacitus. 
 
 i. 48. Servili deinceps pro- 
 bro respersus est, tanquam 
 scyphum aureum in convivio 
 Claudii furatus, et Claudius 
 postera die soli omnium Vinio 
 fictilibus ministrari iussit. 
 
 i. 6. Ille, ut Nymphidii 
 socius, hie ut dux Neronis, 
 inauditi atque indefensi, tan- 
 quam innocentes, perierant. 
 
 i. 6. Introitus in urbem 
 trucidatis tot milibus iner- 
 mium militum infaustus omine 
 atque ipsis etiam qui occide- 
 rant formidolosus. 
 
 i, 72, Corrupto ad omne 
 facinus Nerone . . . ac pos- 
 tremo eiusdem desertor ac 
 proditor. 
 
 i. 5. Accessit Galbae vox 
 pro re publica honesta, ipsi 
 anceps, legi a se militem, non 
 emi. 
 
 i. 9. Superior exercitus lega- 
 tum Hordeonium Flaccum 
 spernebat, senecta ac debili- 
 tate pedum invalidum, sine 
 constantia, sine auctoritate. 
 
 i. 24. Ut per speciem con- 
 vivii, quotiens Galba apud 
 Othonem epularetur, cohorti 
 excubias agenti viritim cen- 
 tenos nummos divideret. 
 
 i. 56. Nocte ... in colo- 
 niam Agrippinensem aquilifer 
 quartae legionis epulanti Vi- 
 tellio nuntiat, etc. 
 
 i. 57. Superior exercitus 
 speciosis senatus populique Ro- 
 mani nominibus relictis . . . 
 Vitellio accessit. 
 
PLUTARCH, TACITUS AND SUETONIUS 
 
 319 
 
 Plutarch. 
 
 G. 24, 25. EiTTibp odv, 6tl 
 TraXaiav i(avr}u.ii>o% oiKiav ^ouXerai 
 TO, {JTroirra dei^ai tols TrajXTyrats, 
 dirriXde, /cat dia Trjs TiL^epiov 
 KaXov/jLepTjs olKias /cara/3ds epddi^eu 
 els ayopdv, ov XP^'^'^^'^ da-TTjKei 
 
 G. 25, 3. Ato, Kaiirep ov Kara 
 T^v Tov aoojxaTOS /xaXaKiav /cat 
 d-qXvTTjTa rrj i/'uXJ? SLareBpu/x- 
 IxevQs. 
 
 G. 2$, 16. Twj/ 5^ x'-^'-^^PX^v 
 6 TTiv (pvXaKTjv ^x^^ ■'"^'^ crrparo- 
 TT^dov MapTiaXis, &s (paai, ixr\ 
 ffwetddbs, iKirXayels 5^ t(^ airpoa- 
 boKrjTi^ /cat ^ojSrjcpels ecprJKef 
 el<TtX9etv. 
 
 G. 26, 5. Kal ixera fxLKpbv 
 &(pdr) 'IouXlos "Attlkos tQjv ovk 
 darjfxuu iv ro^s dopv(p!.poL$ arpa- 
 revJ/ji€vos . . . (So^u uVTgprjK^^ ai tov 
 Kattra/)os TroX4fxcop . . . idei^e r^j 
 TdXfig. rb ^ <pos Hfxay/xevov. 'O 
 5^ /i\fi/'as Trpos airrbv " Ttj 0"e " 
 elirev " ixeXevae ; " 
 
 G. 26, 20. Tov (popeiov KaOd- 
 Trep ev KXijdiovi, 5edpo /cd/cei 5ia- 
 <t>epop.hov Kal TTvKfbv diroueO- 
 
 OPTOS — 
 
 G. 27, 3. '0 5^ Tr]v <r<pay})v 
 Trporeivas ''Apare" elirev "• d 
 TOUTO T(^ 5riiJ.(f) ' Pw/xat'wj' &/j.€iv6p 
 
 G. 27, 7. dir^a-cpa^e 8^ avTop, 
 u)S ol tX€1(ttoi XiyovcTL, KaiJ.o6pi,!)S 
 Tts iK Tou TrePTeKaideKdTov rdyixa- 
 ros. "Ei'tot 6^ TepepTiop, oi 8k 
 AeKdpiop IcTopovaip, ol 8i $d/3iov 
 ^d^ovXop 
 
 G. 27, 35. Et«-o(rt yovp /cat 
 eKarbp eupedrjaap iJ<XT€pop iK tQip 
 ypafj-fxariup. oBs 6 OvCt^XXios 
 dpa^r]Tr)aa$ dTrapras direKTeivep. 
 
 Tacitus. 
 
 i. 27. Otho causam digres- 
 sus requirentibus cum emi 
 sibi praedia vetustate sus- 
 pecta eoque prius exploranda 
 finxisset, . . . per Tiberianam 
 domum in Velabrum, inde ad 
 miliarium aureum . . . pergit. 
 
 i. 22. Non erat Othoni 
 mollis et corpori similis ani- 
 mus. 
 
 i. 28. Stationem in castris 
 agebat lulius Martialis tri- 
 bunus. Is magnitudine subiti 
 sceleris . . . praebuit plerisque 
 suspicionem conscientiae. 
 
 i. 35. Obvius in Palatio 
 lulius Atticus speculator cru- 
 entum gladium ostentans oc- 
 cisum a se Othonem exclama- 
 vit ; et Galba " commilito," 
 inquit, " quis iussit ? " 
 
 i. 60. Agebatur hue illuc 
 Galba vario turbae fluctuantis 
 impulsu. 
 
 i. 41. Plures (prodidere) 
 obtulisse ultro percussoribus 
 iugulum : agerent ac ferirent, 
 si ita e re publica videretur. 
 
 i. 41. De percussore non 
 satis constat : quidam Teren- 
 tium evocatum, alii Leca- 
 nium, crebrior fama tradidit 
 Camurium quintae decimae 
 legionis militem, etc. 
 
 i. 44. Plures quam centum 
 viginti libellos praemium ex- 
 poscentium ob aliquam nota- 
 bilem ilia die operam Vitellius 
 postea invenit, omnesque con- 
 quiri et interfici iussit. 
 
320 
 
 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 Plutarch. 
 
 G. 28. I. Kai Ka9(iirep &\\oi 
 y€yopjtr€i . . . avfcXd •I'Tei. 
 
 G. 29, 4. irivTe auTOKpar&puv 
 iiytfioviais (fx^iJfjavra /xfrii riurji 
 Kal Sj^rji. 
 
 O. I, 5. Toy 5^ KAo-ou /ti)r' 
 iytvyCis airoKpiva/nifOV /iriT'' 
 Ayaiffdi^TUi, dXXA <py)<TavTo% avrb 
 rod Tp6irov 5i5>ai t6 (yKXriiJia 
 irL<mi', iyKeK\r](T6ai yap 8ti TdX^q. 
 ^i^aiov iaxrrbv irapiax^v. 
 
 O. I, 13. tv iJL^v out6s vva- 
 T€iLi€iv xp'^^'^^ ■fifxeWe, tovtov 
 fjiipoi ivd/J-ev Ov€pyivi(fi "Po6(p(fi. 
 roU Bi dnoSedeiy/x^vois vvo 
 Nfyowvos ^ rd\3a vdaiv irriprjae 
 rdj uirareias. 'lepuatjvan d^ rovs 
 Kad'' ijXiKiav trpoiiKOVTas ^ 56^av 
 eKoaixyjae. 
 
 O. 2, I. 'Ofiov dk 'Pwwa/oi'S 
 irdi'Tas ovBkv €S(f)pav€v oCtus . . . 
 w5 tA irepl TiyeXXivov. 
 
 O. 3, ^6. ^o^oiJ/x€Pos yap 
 {nrip tQv AvSpuv aiirbs Jjv (po^epbs 
 
 O. 3, 46. T6t€ p.kv odv 6p9bs 
 Avb TTJs K\lvr]S TToWd vaprjyop- 
 ■/faas. 
 
 O. 4, 17. 'AvT^ypa\p€ d^ 
 Ki,K€?voi avrip KaTeipwvevd/JLevos 
 Tjcnrxv TrpQiTOP' ^k 5^ to6tov 
 Siepedi^dfxevoi. TroXXd ^\d<T(pr)fxa 
 Kai daeXyrj x^^^'^^^'^'^^^ dXX-fjXoLS 
 (ypa<pov, ov ^eySws fiiv, dvorjTWS 
 Si Kai yeXoius. 
 
 O. 5, 6. KaTaX^7Wi' 5^ rCiv 
 iv xAei (XVP€K5r)p.ovs tra^eu ev 
 TovToii Kai Aei'iKiov rbv OvltcXXIov 
 ddeX(f>bv, oijTc vpoaOel^ ovdiv oUre 
 d^eXu)P ^j elx€ Ti/xrjs. 
 
 Tacitus. 
 
 i. 45. Alium crederes sena- 
 tum, alium populum. 
 
 i. 49. Quinque principes 
 prospera fortuna emensus. 
 
 i. 71. Celsus constanter 
 servatae erga Galbam fidei 
 crimen confessus exemplum 
 ultro imputavit. 
 
 i. yy. Consul cum Titiano 
 fratre in kalendas Martias 
 ipse ; proximos menses Ver- 
 ginio destinat . . . ceteri con- 
 sulatus ex destinatione Nero- 
 nis aut Galbae mansere . . . 
 sed Otho pontificatus augu- 
 ratusque honoratis iam seni- 
 bus cumulum dignitatis addi- 
 dit. 
 
 i. 72. Par inde exsultatio 
 disparibus causis consecuta 
 impetrato Tigellini exitio. 
 
 i. 81. Cum timeret Otho, 
 timebatur. 
 
 i, 82. Donee Otho . . . toro 
 insistens precibus et lacrimis 
 aegre cohibuit. 
 
 i. 74. Paria Vitellius osten- 
 tabat, primo mollius stulta 
 utrimque et indecora simu- 
 latione ; mox quasi rixantes 
 stupra et flagitia in vicem 
 obiectavere, neuter falso. 
 
 i. 88. Multos e magistra- 
 tibus, magnam consularium 
 partem, Otho non participes 
 aut ministros bello, sed comi- 
 tum specie secum expedire 
 iubet, in quis et Lucium 
 Vitellium . . . nee ut impera- 
 toris fratrem nee ut hostis. 
 
PLUTARCH, TACITUS AND SUETONIUS 
 
 321 
 
 Plutarch. 
 
 Tacitus. 
 
 0,6,3. 01 yhp Oi/ireWlov , . . ii. 21, Illi ut segnem et 
 
 4x^^^o.^ov rods *Odu}Pos ea-rCiTai desidem et circo ac theatris 
 
 rapa rets iirdX^eis, (TKrivLKovs Kal corruptum militem . . , incre- 
 
 TTvppLXKTTa'i Kal Uvdluv Kal pabant. 
 'OXv/xiriup dewpovs cLiroKaXodvres. 
 
 O. 7, 29. "ETre/Ai/'ej' oSv Ttrt- 
 avbv ivi to. o-rparei'/iara tov 
 ddeXcpbv Kal Up k\ov tov ^irapxov., 
 6's etx^'' ^Py^ ■'"'?'' TTacrav apxw^ 
 TpocrxvfJ-^ 5^ ^1^ TiTtai'is. Ot 
 5^ irep. TOV K^Xaov Kai Tlav\?vov 
 dXXoJi icpe'CKKOVTO ctv/m^ooXcjv 
 tvojxa Kal (piXuiV, i^ovaiav nal 
 SivaiuLLV €v Tois Trpdy/xaai /xrjdefxiav 
 ^XovTes. 
 
 ii. 39. Profecto Brixellum 
 Otlione honor imperii penes 
 Titianum fratrem, vis ac po- 
 testas penes Proculum prae- 
 fectum ; Celsus et Paulinus, 
 cum prudentia eorum nemo 
 uteretur, inani nomine ducum 
 alienae culpae praetende- 
 bantur. 
 
 O. II, 3. Trporjyayev aiWovs 
 
 6 lIpjKXoS iK TOV BrjTpLaKOV, Kal 
 
 KaTeaTpaTOTT^bfvaev dirb irevT-q- 
 KOVTa (TTaSiuv ovTOJS direipws 
 Kal KaTayeXdcTTUis, CocrTe, Trji [xev 
 ihpas eapivTiS oij(Tr)s, tQv 8k k^kXi^ 
 7r€5io}v TToXXd vdfxaTa Kal iroTa/ULOVi 
 devvdovi ix^vToov ijdaTos (nrdvei 
 Trie^eaOai. 
 
 ii. 39. Promoveri ad quar- 
 tum a Bedriaco castra placuit, 
 adeo imperite ut quamquam 
 verno tempore anni et tot 
 circum amnibus penuria aquae 
 fatigarentur. 
 
 O. II, 23. 'QTrXia-iiiivuv dk 
 rjdr] tCov ttoXXCjv, Kal t6 avv9i]aa 
 TrapaXau.j5avovT03v ira d tov 
 OvdXevTOS, iv ocru) ttjv Td^iv 
 SieXdyxave Ta TdyfxaTa, tovs 
 dpiffTovs tCjv liririoiv irpoe^^- 
 ireixxpav. 
 
 ii. 41. Caecina . . . revectus 
 in castra, datum iussu Fabii 
 Valentis pugnae signum, et 
 militem in armis invenit. Dum 
 legiones de ordine agminis 
 sortiuntur equites prorupere. 
 
 O. 12, 17. M>ai 5^ 6i'/o 
 XeyiCives . . • iTriKXrjcnv i) jxev 
 OviTeXXiov "ApTTa^' 17 5^ "Odoovos 
 BoTj^dj. els ireblov e^eXi^aaaL xJ/LXbv 
 Kal dvairfTTTafi^vov vofxi/xjv Tiva 
 fidxw (XVfnreffovaai (paXayyqdbv 
 efxdxovTo TToXbv xP^'^ov. Ot nkv 
 ydp^'OOcovos dvdpes -fiffav eiipwcTTOi 
 Kal dyadoi, iroXe/xov dk Kal fidxv^ 
 t6t€ TTiiLTOv irelpav Xau^dvovTes, 
 ol 8k OvLTeXXiov iroXXQv dydjvuv 
 iOddes. 
 
 ii. 43. Forte inter Padum 
 viamque patenti campo duae 
 legiones congressae sunt, pro 
 Vitellio unaetvicesima, cui 
 cognomen Rapaci, vetere glo- 
 ria insignis, e parte Othonis 
 prima Adiutrix non ante in 
 aciem deduc'.a, sed ferox et 
 novi decoris avida. 
 
322 
 
 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 Plutarch. 
 
 O. i6, 13. "E/ccu/o «r' 
 eXxeu " S) rat irapfyyvibfial <rot 
 TeXevratoi'. M'^* ^TrtXa^^tr^oi 
 Tayrdwaai fi-fire &yo.v /xvrifiovevfiv, 
 6ti Kaiffapa 6eiop ^crx"'" 
 
 O. 17, I. 'H5i7 S^ icTv^pai 
 oifffrji idlxl/tjae, Kal Ti(hv 6\iyov 
 OJoTOJ, Sueiy dvruv avTip ^i(f>^v, 
 ixar pov KaTefidvdave t6 airdafia 
 iro\i)i' XP^^o"' '^^^ ''"^ ircpov 
 dir^5w/ce, direpov dk c/s raJ 
 dYffdXas d»'aXa/iwi', — 
 
 O. 17, 5. Kai <t>i\o<f>povov-^ 
 [xevos 3i6'e/ie rwj/ x/'^^drwi' ry 
 /ifV ttX^oj', TV 5^ ^Xarrov, ovx 
 GxTirep dWovpluv d(p€i8u)v, dXXd 
 t6 Kar d^iav Kai t6 p-irpLOv 
 
 ixififXwS (pvXdTTUV. 
 
 O. 18, 16. Ovepyipi(p 5^ 
 'Poi/0v irpdyiMTa irapelxo" &M-0. 
 TOts iiTrXois iXdovres eiri tt}v oiKiav 
 Kal KaTaKa\ovvT€S aldi.^ Kal Kara' 
 KeXevovres 6.px^i-v 'f) irpiff^eveiv 
 virkp avTwv. 
 
 Tacitus. 
 
 ii. 48. Proinde erecto ani- 
 mo capesseret vitam neu 
 patruum sibi Othonem fuisse 
 aut oblivisceretur umquam 
 aut nimium neminisset. 
 
 ii. 49. Vesperascente die 
 sitim haustu gelidae aquae 
 sedavit. Turn adlatis pugi- 
 onibus duobus, cum utrumque 
 pertemptasset, alterum capiti 
 subdidit. 
 
 ii. 48. Pecunias distribuit 
 parce nee ut periturus. 
 
 ii. 51. Ad Verginium versi 
 modo ut reciperet imperium, 
 nunc ut legatione apud Caeci- 
 nam ac Valentem fungeretur, 
 minitantes orabant. 
 
 Now in the case of Plutarch, I suppose, this procedure 
 of closely, even slavishly perhaps, following a previous 
 author will hardly be regarded as a stumbling-block. 
 He was writing about Roman history for Greeks. 26* 
 He makes no pretence at the composition of an original 
 work, and he naturally uses the best or most accessible 
 material which he has. On the other hand, Nipperdey 
 only represents a not unnatural opinion when he repudi- 
 ates with some indignation the idea that Tacitus has in 
 many places borrowed both the words and the rhetorical 
 style from one of his recent predecessors. But a little 
 consideration will show that there is nothing after all 
 very revolutionary in such a theory, nor is the value 
 
 w* Conf. his remarks on Latin terms, f/u Ka\dv5ai 'lavovapLas 
 KaXovai, Galb. 22, 12 : oOtu) ydp KoXovurai ol Siayy^Xojp Kai dioirr-^pojv 
 virrjpeaiai TeXovvres, Galb. 24, 2 : fiv Ayovai 'Pw/xa?oi irpd beKaoKTU) 
 KaXav8Cjv *e)3., Galb. 24, 10 : A irpLyKiwia KaXodai'Pwfxaloi, Galb. 12, 
 7 '. oOtws ydp rd rdyfxara 'Pw/tatoi KaXovai, 0th. 12, 16. 
 
PLUTARCH, TACITUS AND SUETONIUS 323 
 
 which properly belongs to Tacitus as an historian really 
 diminished by it. Critical investigation into the sources 
 of the ancient historians has shown beyond a question 
 that, when they were dealing with times not within 
 their own memory, they handled their authorities accord- 
 ing to methods very different from those pursued in 
 modern times. Not only materials, but the form in 
 which these materials were worked up, were taken from 
 predecessors usually without acknowledgment, and 
 clearly without fear of any charge of plagiarism. In 
 fact the literary value of a history according to ancient 
 standards consisted much more in the mode of repre- 
 sentation than in the facts represented. This is Cicero's 
 view, 265 and Pliny the Younger draws a marked dis- 
 tinction between the research for facts which the his- 
 torian presupposes in some one else and the arrange- 
 ment of them when found. Thus he asks, what sort 
 of history should he write — ** Vetera et scrip ta aliis ? 
 parata inquisitio sed onerosa coUatio." 266 Viewed in 
 this light, no one will deny the originahty of the " His- 
 tories " in spite of their close resemblance to Plutarch, 
 and inferentially to a common source. A comparison 
 suggested by Nissen seems to me exactly apposite. 
 Tacitus is related to this authority as the sculptor to the 
 stone-mason. One prepares the statue in rough, the 
 other makes it into a work of art, and stamps it with the 
 character of his genius. 
 
 But further than this, Nipperdey asks. Are the other 
 writings of Tacitus derived in a similar way from pre- 
 decessors ? It by no means follows that they were. 
 It is certain that the later and unhappily lost books of 
 the " Histories" were not. To a certain extent the his- 
 torians of the first century seem to have continued the 
 works of their predecessors, taking up the history where 
 they left it. Thus Aufidius Bassus stood in this relation 
 to Livy, Pliny the Elder to Aufidius Bassus, Tacitus to 
 PHny, and much later in time, Ammianus Marcellinus 
 to Tacitus. Sometimes the continuator may have 
 
 26B de Legg. i. 2. 268 Ep^ y. 8, 12. 
 
324 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 taken u}) his predecessor exactly at the point where he 
 left off, as Pliny seems to have begun " a fine Aufidii 
 Bassi," or as Marius Maximus seems to have done with 
 Suetonius. In other cases he would for the sake of 
 beginning with a well-defined point traverse over again 
 the few last years of his predecessor's account, as Aufidius 
 Bassus seems to have gone back to the beginning of Augus- 
 tus, although Livy carried his history up to 9 B.C. And 
 this is what Tacitus has done with Pliny. A comparison 
 of " Agric." cap. 3 with " Hist." i. i shows that Tacitus' 
 own contribution to history was to consist in the history 
 of the reigns of Domitian, Nerva, and Trajan, which 
 would be to continue the history from where Pliny left 
 it, since we know that he carried it up to the reign of 
 Vespasian and perhaps Titus. But instead of beginning 
 it at that point, he prefers to go back to the beginning of 
 the Flavian period, especially as " scrip tores temporum, 
 qui potiente rerum Flavia domo monimenta belli huiusce 
 composuerunt, curam pacis et amorem rei publicae, 
 corruptas in adulationem causas tradidere." 207 Por 
 this preliminary portion of his work, he did what the 
 historians of his time usually did, i.e. he derived his facts 
 from the best contemporary authority at his command, 
 only leaving the original account with his own rhetorical 
 style, his own philosophical views, and to a certain extent 
 with his own political tendencies. Unfortunately what 
 in the view of Tacitus was a mere introduction, and 
 certainly of secondary importance to his main subject, 
 is all that we have left, and the remembrance of this 
 fact is the best answer to Nipperdey's objections. 
 
 It remains to discuss the question who was the common 
 authority followed so closely by Plutarch and Tacitus. 
 According to Josephus a number of writers treated of 
 the events connected with Galba and Vindex,268 but 
 this is one of those vague statements to which we cannot 
 assign much value, nor again can we infer much as to the 
 number of writers from the passage of Tacitus quoted 
 above, " Scrip tores temporum, qui potiente rerum 
 
 287 Hist, ii, loi. 288 Bell. lud. 4.9. 2, 
 
PLUTARCH, TACITUS AND SUETONIUS 325 
 
 Flavia domo composuerunt monimenta huiusce belli." 
 A scholion to Juvenal 269 mentions a certain Pompeius 
 Planta who wrote an account of the war between Otho 
 and Vitellius. But either this is a completely unknown 
 individual, or it is the Pompeius Planta who was prae- 
 fectus Aegypti at the beginning of Trajan's reign, and 
 who would therefore be hardly more a contemporary 
 of the war than Tacitus himself. The only other authori- 
 ties of whom we know anything are Vipsanus Messala, 
 quoted by Tacitus,27o Cluvius Rufus, referred to by 
 Plutarch 271 and cited by Tacitus in the "Annals," and 
 C. Plinius, cited by Tacitus. 272 Messala may be dis- 
 missed at once. He was attached as tribune during the 
 war to the vii legion in Dalmatia, and probably wrote 
 some sort of memoirs of the war, and it is only on a 
 detail of the campaign that Tacitus refers to him. We 
 are therefore, if we are to come to a decision at all, left to 
 choose between Cluvius Rufus and C. Plinius. Mommsen 
 has declared decisively in favour of the former. To judge 
 of the matter we must collect what we know of him. 
 
 He was consul with P. Clodius ^''^ at some time pre- 
 vious to 41 A.D., since in that year we learn from 
 Josephus 274 he was v-n-aTiKo^ and was present at the 
 murder of Caligula. We next hear of him as accom- 
 panying Nero in his progress through Greece, and as 
 acting as a kind of herald to the imperial singer. 275 He 
 was therefore in a position to become acquainted with 
 the events of Nero's reign, and that he wrote a history 
 of it we know from two passages of the " Annals," where 
 his authority is cited. 276 He was made governor of 
 Hispania Tarraconensis by Galba,277 and is described 
 by Tacitus as " vir facundus et pacis artibus, bellis 
 inexpertus," and again 278 as " dives et eloquentia 
 clarus." After Galba's death he seems at first to have 
 joined Otho, but almost immediately he turned round 
 
 269 ii. 99. 270 iii. 25. 271 Qth. 4. 
 
 272 Hist. iii. 28. 273 Orelli, 1168. 
 274 Ant. lud. 19. I. 13 275 Suet. Ner. 21, Dio Cass. 63. 14. 
 276 xiii. 20, xiv. 2. 
 277 Tac. Hist. i. 8. 278 iy. 40. 
 
3a6 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 and declared for Vitellius,27o in whose interest he opposed 
 Lucceius Albinus, the Othonian procurator of Maure- 
 tania.*8o Unfavourable rumours, however, about him 
 had reached Vitellius, and to clear himself of these he 
 left his province and joined Vitellius at Lugdunum. 
 There his influence was sufficient to get rid of the charges 
 against him, but Vitellius made him accompany his 
 escort to Rome, though without formally taking away 
 his province. 281 At Rome he and Silius Italicus were 
 the only two witnesses of an interview which took place 
 between Vitellius and Flavins Sabinus.^sa That he 
 continued his history up to the time of Otho we know 
 from Plutarch ^^^ and also from a passage in one of 
 Pliny's letters.^^* Cluvius Rufus therefore certainly 
 was in a position to write a trustworthy history of the 
 incidents of this period. He was a friend of Galba, 
 being in fact his successor in Spain, accompanied the 
 march of Vitellius, and was evidently mixed up with the 
 leading events in the capital. But though he doubtless 
 wrote a history of the period, was it the history of which 
 Plutarch and Tacitus made use ? In my opinion the 
 arguments of Nissen against this supposition are entirely 
 conclusive. As Cluvius Rufus is never mentioned as an 
 authority by Tacitus in the *' Histories," apart from a 
 priori probability the only positive argument in his 
 favour is the passage in Plutarch, 285 who, after mention- 
 ing the fact that Otho allowed himself in the theatre to 
 be called Nero Otho, adds " KAouyStos Bk 'Pov<^o9 €is 
 
 \(ir}piav cfirjcrl KOfjLtcrOrjvaL StTrAw/xara . . . to tov Nepwvos 
 BiTov ovofxa Trpocryiypaixfxivov l)(ovTa to) tov "OBmvo^." A 
 
 Httle consideration will, I think, show that this passage 
 furnishes a conclusive argument against Mommsen's 
 theory. I lay no particular stress on what however is 
 not without its weight, that, according to Peter's obser- 
 vation, Plutarch habitually avoids all reference by name 
 to his main authority. But leaving that out of account, 
 the name is evidently introduced here on Livy's principle 
 
 279 Hist. i. 76. 280 ii. 58. 281 ji, 65. 282 iii. C 
 
 283 0th. 4. 284 £p^ ix. 19. 5. 285 Qth. 
 
 282 iii. 65. 
 
 4- 
 
PLUTARCH, TACITUS AND SUETONIUS 327 
 
 — auctorem pro re posui — because the circumstances 
 narrated seemed antecedently improbable, and the 
 author refused to make himself responsible for it. But 
 why should Plutarch feel hesitation about this statement 
 in particular, whereas in apparently all the rest of his 
 history he has been content to follow his authority 
 without remark ? Now, if we turn to Suetonius, ^ss 
 we find the same report recorded with a similar sceptical 
 qualification, " ut quidam tradiderunt." It is certainly 
 a curious coincidence that two uncritical writers like 
 Plutarch and Suetonius should both be so scrupulous 
 on this particular point. Lastly, Tacitus, who also 
 mentions the fact of Otho being greeted with the title 
 of Nero, says nothing whatever about the passports 
 being so inscribed. All three, however, clearly follow 
 the same authority on this point. Suetonius says, 
 ** ab infima plebe appellatus Nero nullum indicium 
 recusantis dedit." Plutarch says, ** toU 81 iroWoU 
 
 ■^apL^Ofxeuo'? ovK e^cuyc ci/ Toi? Oearp'M'i ^ipoiv 7rpo(rayop€v- 
 
 ccr^at." Tacitus says, " atque etiam Othoni qui- 
 busdam diebus populus et miles . . . Neroni Othoni 
 adclamant." If they followed Cluvius why does Tacitus 
 omit this reference to the *' diplomata," and the other two 
 imply their disbelief ? On the other hand, if it was this 
 common authority who cited Cluvius for a statement 
 which he disbelieved, then the coincidence between 
 Plutarch and Suetonius is at once natural and intelligible, 
 while the silence of Tacitus is an emphatic agreement 
 with the implied judgment of the authority. But 
 besides this, it is almost impossible to suppose that the 
 references to Cluvius Rufus in Tacitus were supplied by 
 himself. A man might speak of himself as " facundus 
 et pacis artibus," but he would hardly add " bellis 
 inexpertus." ^s? He would also probably not have 
 drawn such direct attention to his sudden desertion of 
 Otho for Vitellius.288 He would hardly have said of 
 himself so openly that he went to Vitellius, ** laetitiam 
 et gratulationem vultu ferens, animo anxius," while if 
 
 286 0th. 7 287 i. 8. 288 i. yQ, 
 
32S STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 he mentioned the suspicion against himself " tanquam 
 propriam ipse potentiam et possessionem Hispaniarum 
 temptasset," he would surely have said something 
 more by way of clearing himself than " auctoritas Cluvii 
 praevaluit," and, lastly, when it is said that he, like 
 L. Arruntius, was compelled to govern his province in 
 his absence, it implies no very high estimate of Cluvius' 
 importance to add, " eum Tiberius Caesar ob metum, 
 Vitellius eluvium nulla formidine retinebat.^ss Again, 
 it is quite impossible to suppose that Tacitus was follow- 
 ing Cluvius Rufus in iii. 65 when he mentions the inter- 
 view between Vitellius and Flavins Sabinus. For 
 though Cluvius was one of the two witnesses of the 
 " verba vocesque," no account is given of what took 
 place, only the impressions of distant bystanders are 
 cited, and even the place of meeting is stated on the 
 ground only of common report — " ut famafuit." Lastly, 
 it appears from the mention of Cluvius Rufus in Pliny ^^° 
 that he had not taken an entirely favourable view of the 
 conduct of Verginius Rufus. Verginius himself related 
 to Pliny a conversation he had had with Cluvius, who 
 made some sort of apology for this : — " Scis, Vergini, 
 quae historiae fides debeatur. Proinde si quid in 
 historiis meis legis aliter ac velis, rogo ignoscas." But 
 neither in Plutarch nor in Tacitus is there a trace of 
 anything but eulogy in connexion with the action of 
 Verginius, and this, so far as it goes, deserves perhaps 
 to be added to the arguments already adduced against 
 Mommsen's view. 291 Thus by a method of residues we 
 seem compelled to come to the conclusion that the " His- 
 ses ii. 65. 290 Ep. ix. 19. 5. 
 
 291 Mommsen rejects Nipperdey's emendation of " decessu " 
 for " discessu " in Tac. iv. 39, " citeriorem Hispaniam ostentans 
 discessu Cluvii Rufi vacuam," and he is probably right, for the 
 death of Cluvius could hardly have passed without notice by 
 Tacitus, and the passage in Pliny implies that Cluvius lived 
 beyond the events of the war. There is, however, a certain 
 difficulty in " discessu'," for, as we learn from ii. 65. " non adempta 
 Hispania quam rexit absens," so that Spain was not technically 
 " vacua " by the departure of Cluvius. Nor did a new emperor 
 need any such excuse for sending a new governor. 
 
PLUTARCH, TACITUS AND SUETONIUS 329 
 
 tories" of C. Plinius, the author of the *'Historia Natu- 
 rahs," were the source used by Plutarch and Tacitus. 
 That PHny wrote histories we know from his nephew, 2s 2 
 " avunculus mens idemque per adoptionem pater his- 
 torias et quidem religiosissime scripsit." In his list of 
 his uncle's works Pliny describes these histories as " a 
 fine Aufidii Bassi, xxxi. libri," 293 and we learn from 
 the Preface to the "Natural History" that they were 
 continued up to the reign of Vespasian — " N. H. 
 Praef." § 20, " nos quidem omnes patrem, te fratrem- 
 que diximus opere justo temporum nostrorum historiam 
 orsi a fine Aufidii Bassi." Aufidius Bassus probably 
 left off at the end of Claudius, and certainly Pliny's 
 history included Nero's reign — conf. "H. N." ii. 199, 
 " anno Neronis principis supremo sicut in rebus 
 eius exposuimus," while he was certainly consulted 
 by Tacitus in the " Annals " 294 and also in the " His- 
 tories." 295 It is therefore certain that Pliny, as well as 
 Cluvius Rufus, wrote a history embracing this period, 
 and also certain that he wrote it under Vespasian, 
 so that Tacitus may he with some plausibility supposed 
 to refer to him when he criticises the writers of the 
 Flavian age. 2^6 It is further certain that Tacitus did 
 refer to him in the " Histories."^^^ To this we may add, 
 without assigning too great weight to them, the follow- 
 ing arguments adduced by Nissen — ^The fact that both 
 Pliny and Verginius Rufus were natives of Comum and 
 also connected by a long-standing friendship would lead 
 us to expect from the former a eulogistic treatment of 
 Verginius' conduct, and this in Plutarch's account we 
 get. Further, Caecina was also a native of North Italy, 
 and also during Vespasian's reign in a position of high 
 honour. Both these facts would be motives which 
 would naturally lead Pliny to take a more favourable 
 view of Caecina than of Valens, who was a bitter enemy 
 of Verginius, whom he calumniated to Galba.288 This, 
 
 -'»2 Ep. V. 8. 5. 293 Ep. iii. 5. i. 294 xiii. 20. xv. 53. 
 
 285 iii. 28. 
 
 206 Hist. ii. loi. 297 iii. 28. 298 i. 32, iii. 62. 
 
330 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 too, to a certain extent, may be traced. Thus in refer- 
 ence to the defeat of the ViteUians near the temple of 
 Castor, Plutarch mentions indeed the view that it was 
 due to the selfish precipitancy of Caecina, but he prefers 
 to attribute it to the slowness of Valens, whereas Tacitus, 
 using his own judgment, puts it down without hesita- 
 tion to Caecina. It is impossible, however, to attach 
 much importance to these and a few similar coincidences 
 which Nissen points out, since even their cumulative 
 weight is not great. And beyond this it seems impossible 
 to carry the discussion. On the whole the probabilities 
 seem to be against Mommsen's view, and, failing Cluvius 
 Rufus, there is no other known historian of the period 
 for whom so much can be said as for Pliny. But obviously 
 the real importance of the literary puzzle lies in the 
 point that Plutarch and Tacitus used some common 
 authority and followed him with great closeness, much 
 more than in the determination who that authority was. 
 Another point which must be regarded as very pro- 
 bable is that Plutarch has followed this authority more 
 closely than Tacitus. The latter used the authority for 
 his facts, frequently almost following him word for word, 
 but none the less importing into the whole his own 
 rhetorical style, shortening the sometimes diffuse and 
 detailed account, arranging the material symmetrically, 
 sometimes without regard to chronological order, some- 
 times suppressing alternate versions and improbable 
 statements, and in certain cases probably giving his 
 own political colouring to the events he narrates. Thus 
 while Plutarch, with strict chronological accuracy, gives 
 the account of the events happening in the German 
 army in cap. 22 before the death of Galba, Tacitus in 
 order to give a single complete picture describes what 
 happened in Germany altogether in i. 51 foil. Similarly 
 the double mention of Turpilianus in Plutarch 299 and 
 of Tigellinus 3oo corresponds in Tacitus to two single 
 allusions. 301 One or two out of many instances of the 
 
 299 Galb. 15 and 17. aoo Qalb. 17 and 0th. 2. 
 -01 Hist. i. 6, and i. 72. 
 
PLUTARCH, TACITUS AND SUETONIUS 33I 
 
 way in which Tacitus cut down and shortened his 
 material will be seen by comparing Tac. i. 74 with Plut. 
 "0th." 4 (the correspondence between Vitellius and 
 Otho), Tac. ii,48. with Plut. "0th." 17 (the last evening 
 of Otho's life), and Tac. i.72 with Plut."Oth." 2 (the death 
 of Tigellinus). Mere personal anecdotes, like that about 
 Canus,302 repulsive details like the mutilation of Galba's 
 head, 30 3 and improbable statements like that of Cluvius 
 Rufus about the Spanish diplomata, are all omitted in 
 Tacitus, who indeed in one or two cases in his desire to 
 be brief has left out essential points which Plutarch 
 supplies. 30 4 But while Plutarch is probably a more 
 faithful repeater of what his authority said, he is also 
 much more inaccurate than Tacitus. Instances of this 
 are (i) such an expression as t6v %€pov'iu)v oIkov ; 305 (2) 
 the statement that Galba was related to Livia Augusta ;^°® 
 (3) the mistake about Sempronius Densus, who, accord- 
 ing to Plutarch, defended Galba, not Piso ; 307 (4) the 
 placing of the mutiny at Ostia instead of the Praetorian 
 camp ; 308 (5) the assertion that Cremona was in the 
 possession of the Othonians instead of the Vitellians ; 309 
 
 (6) the mention of Asiaticus as a freedman of Galba ; 3 10 
 
 (7) the statement that the father of Piso was killed by 
 Nero instead of Claudius ; 311 (8) the incorrect definition 
 of " optio " and " tesserarius" ; 312 besides a number of 
 minor points, and one or two instances of mistranslation 
 from the Latin. 3 13 
 
 The aim of Suetonius was different from that either 
 of Plutarch or Tacitus, being purely biographical, and 
 accordingly we find a number of personal incidents 
 about both Galba and Otho which are absent from the 
 two other historians. A list of these it is not necessary 
 to give here, but it is, I think, sufficiently clear that 
 Suetonius used some other authorities in addition to the 
 one followed by Plutarch and Tacitus. With this, how- 
 
 302 Plut. Galb. 16. 303 Plut. Galh. 27. 
 
 304 Conf. Plut. Galb. 16 and 0th. 4 ad fin. and 10. 
 
 305 Galb. 3, 3. 306 7^,. 3^ 7. 307 lb. 26. 308 Qth. 3. 
 309 lb. 7. 310 Galb. 20. 311 lb. 23. 312 Jb. 24, 2. 
 
 313 lb. 23, 12 and 0th. 12, 24. 
 
33« 
 
 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 ever, we are not directly concerned, and it will be enough 
 here to point out a few instances of close similarity 
 between Suetonius and Plutarch, and Suetonius and 
 Tacitus, as evidence that he used their authority as well. 
 
 Suetonius. 
 
 Galb. 3, 4. airris i<f>p6p€i 
 /Kt^y ^Tt T17 KdrXov (nrfyevela. 
 
 Galb. 5, 8. Karrjyopi^ffas 8^ 
 Tov 'Sfpuvos Kal tQ)P avxipviJ-ivuiv 
 6.v5p(i)v vw' avToO Tovs ^irKpavea- 
 rdroi'S 6\o<pvpdfi€Pos. 
 
 Galb. 5, II. oCre Kaiaap 
 oCt'' atWoKpdrup, aTparrjybs de 
 <TvyK\rjTov Kal Stj/xoi; 'Fu/xaiuv 
 6yo/xa^6fj.€Pos. 
 
 Galb. 5, 15. Upo<nroio}jfji€voi 
 ykp iKclvov Karatppoveiv Kal vap' 
 oifUv ijyeia-Oai, ra TaXaruv — 
 
 Galb. 5, 17. &fJ-a tc5 vvd^adat 
 t4 Tepl TdXliav . . . dp^Tpexpe ttip 
 rpdire^ap. 
 
 Galb. 7, 19. T^J 5' direKev- 
 dipcf SaKTvXloi'S re xP^'^ovs i8u)Ke 
 Kal MapKiapbs 6 'IkcXos -fjdr] 
 
 Ka\o{'fJL€POS — 
 
 Galb. 15, 26. a-nfxela tc^ 
 rdy/xaTL Kal X'^po-" a/roDi/rej. 
 
 Galb. 16, 3. The anecdote 
 about Canus. 
 
 Galb. 16, 13. TOVS irpia- 
 fjt^uovi Trap' avrCjp i) Xa^opras 
 OTiovp dpe^ei Kal nap iKeivup 
 i^iirpaTTe. 
 
 Galb. 17, 21. €T€TrXnxOv 
 (6 drjuos) 8iaypd/JL/x.aTL tov avTo- 
 
 KpdTOpOS. 
 
 Galb. 19, 4. fir] fiovop 8id 
 rd yijpas dXXd Kal 5ia ttjp dirai- 
 SLap KaTa<ppoPovfjL€POS. ' 
 
 Galb. 19, 27. 'EX6o}j<Tr]s 
 
 5i Tap airrbp us yafxcT^s ovk 
 ■fiydva fier^x^^t <*^^' 'ffoxO'^^^ 
 /xeTaoidoui. 
 
 Plutarch. 
 
 Galb. 2. proij.epotem se Q. 
 Catuli Capitolinx semper ad- 
 scripsit. 
 
 Galb. 10. propositis ante se 
 damnatorum occisorumque a 
 Nerone quam plurimis ima- 
 ginibus. 
 
 Galb. 10. consalutatusque 
 imperator legatum se senatus 
 ac populi Romani professus 
 est. 
 
 Ner. 40. de motu Gallia- 
 rum . . . adeo lente ac secure 
 tulit ut gaudentis etiam sus- 
 picionem praeberet. 
 
 Ner. 47. literas prandenti 
 sibi redditas concerpsit.mensam 
 subvertit. 
 
 Galb. 14. libertus Icelus 
 pauUo ante anulis aureis et 
 Marciani cognomine ornatus. 
 
 Galb. 12. aqujlam et signa 
 pertinacius flagitantes. 
 Galb. 12. 
 
 Galb. 15. si quid . . . do- 
 natum olim vendidissent, au- 
 ferretur emptoribus. 
 
 Galb. 4. pro Tigellino etiam 
 saevitiae populum edicto in- 
 crepuit. 
 
 Galb. 1 7. despectui esse non 
 tam senectam suam quam 
 orbitatem ratus. 
 
 0th. 3. adeo dilexit ut ne 
 rivalem quidem Neronem ae- 
 quo tulerit animo. 
 
PLUTARCH, TACITUS AND SUETONIUS 
 
 333 
 
 Suetonius. 
 
 Galb. 23, 20. /ui7}8^ rrrc 
 Scope as auroi^ doOeicrij^. 
 
 0th. 3, 3. rots 5^ TToXXots 
 Xa.pi^l)/x€uoi ouK ^(pevye rb irpQ- 
 TQv . . , N^pw;/ Trpocrayopeijecrdai . . . 
 KXo(y/3(oj 5^ 'PoO^oj els l^rjplav 
 <pr]<Ti K0fXLcr$7JuaL StTrXw/xara . . . 
 TO TOO N^pwvos derbv 6vofxa 
 Trpo(7y€ypaa/x4uov ^x^'^TCt T(p toO 
 Odwvos. 
 
 Plutarch. 
 
 Galb. 17. ne tunc quidem 
 donativi ulla mentione facta. 
 
 0th. 7. ab infima plebe ap- 
 pellatus Nero nullum indi- 
 cium recusantis dedit : immo, 
 ut quidam tradiderunt, etiam 
 diplomatibus primisque epist- 
 ulis suis ad quosdam provin- 
 ciarum praesides Neronis cog- 
 nomen adiecit. 
 
 Of similar resemblances between Suetonius and 
 Tacitus we may note the following : — 
 
 Tacitus. 
 
 i. 24. de parte iinium cum 
 vicino ambigenti universum 
 vicini agrum sua pecunia emp- 
 tum done dederit. 
 
 i, '22. urgentibus etiam 
 mathematicis, e quibus Ptole- 
 maeus Othoni in Hispania 
 comes cum superfuturum eum 
 Neroni promisisset, postquam 
 ex eventu iides, persuaserat 
 fore ut in imperinm adscis- 
 ceretur. 
 
 i. 41. Extremam eius vo- 
 cem, varie prodidere : alii 
 suppliciter interrogasse quid 
 mali meruisset, paucos dies 
 exsolvendo donativo depreca- 
 tum ; plures obtulisse ultro 
 percussoribus iugulum : ager- 
 ent ac ferirent, si ita e re publi- 
 ca videretur. 
 
 i. 31. Germanica vexilla 
 diu nutavere, invalidis adhuc 
 corporibus et placatis animis, 
 quod eos . . . longa naviga- 
 tione aegros impensiore cura 
 Galba refovebat. 
 
 ii. 48. libellos epistulasque 
 studio erga se aut in Vitellium 
 contumeliis insignes abolet ; 
 pecunias distribuit parce nee 
 ut periturus. 
 
 Suetonius. 
 
 0th. 4. Cuidam etiam de 
 parte finium cum vicino liti- 
 ganti totum agrum redemit 
 emancipavitque. 
 
 0th. 4. Spem cepit ex ad- 
 firmatione Seleuci mathe- 
 matici qui quum eum olim 
 superstitem Neroni fore spo- 
 pondisset, tunc ultro inopina- 
 tus advenerat, imperaturum 
 quoque brevi repromittens. 
 
 Galb. 20. Sunt qui tradunt 
 proclamasse eum quid agitis, 
 commilitones ? ego vester sum 
 et vos mei, donativum etiam 
 pollicitum : plures autem pro- 
 diderunt obtulisse ultro iugu- 
 lum et ut hoc agerent ac 
 ferirent quando ita videretur 
 hortatum. 
 
 Galb. 20. Omnes sprevisse 
 nuntium excepta Germanici- 
 anorum vexillatione : hi ob 
 recens meritum quod se aegros 
 et invalidos magno opere fovis- 
 set, etc. 
 
 0th 20. Quidquid deinde 
 epistularum erat, ne cui peri- 
 culo aut noxae apud victorem 
 forent incremavit, divisit et 
 pecunias domesticis ex copia 
 praesenti. 
 
334 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 With regard to Dio Cassius a very few words may 
 suffice. Close resemblances to Plutarch in cases where 
 Tacitus and Suetonius are silent are extremely few. The 
 following perhaps deserves notice — 
 
 Plutarch. Dio Cassius. 
 
 Galb. 29. oix ^o-VT(^ tA Ixiv. 2. vofxi^wv ovk elXrjtp^uai 
 
 Tpdy/JMTa Xa/x^dj'et*', dXXA tt}v dpxvf dXXa fxdWov S^5oa6ai 
 
 ftaXKov iavrbv old/xevoi didovai iavrbv. 
 rot J irpdy/Jiacriv. 
 
 There are, however, a number of very close resemblances 
 between Suetonius and Dio Cassius which seem to show 
 that whatever other authorities — and he certainly had 
 others for this part of his history — the latter may have 
 used, Suetonius was at any rate in his hands. 
 
 The general result of the foregoing inquiry may there- 
 fore be summarised thus. The authority used by 
 Plutarch and Tacitus in his account of Galba and Otho 
 was a writer of the Flavian period, who may with a 
 good deal of probability be identified with Pliny the 
 elder. The same authority was also used by Suetonius, 
 who, however, supplemented it for the more personal and 
 anecdotal parts of his " Lives " by some other sources per- 
 haps not entirely literary, while Dio Cassius employed 
 Suetonius certainly and other authorities as well, among 
 whom Tacitus and Plutarch may possibly be included. 
 
XVI : ; 
 
 A Bodleian MS. of Pliny's Letters ; 
 VIII 8, § 3-18, § II and ad Traj. 1-40 
 
 In the Bodleian Library there is a volume containing 
 all Pliny's letters, and presenting several interesting 
 problems in connexion with the textual criticism of 
 Pliny. The volume consists of three parts bound up 
 together, (i) the edition of Beroaldus of 1498, containing 
 all the letters then known of the ix Books, (2) the edition 
 of Avantius of 1502, containing the latter portion of 
 the letters to Trajan, (3) the letters omitted in these 
 two editions inserted in MS. in their proper places ; all 
 these parts being annotated, with marginal readings in 
 an ancient handwriting. 
 
 In the following paper I shall try to prove (i) that the 
 MS. portion is the oldest authority for the letters contained 
 in it, having been copied either from the lost Parisian 
 Codex, or more probably from a copy of that Codex ; (2) 
 that the marginal corrections are also taken from a copy 
 of the original MS. made by Giovanni Giocondo, the 
 scholar, and architect ; (3) that this edition is the copy 
 of Aldus Manutius Pius himself, and that from it the first 
 proof of his first edition of 1508 was actually printed. 
 
 Before seeking actually to establish these points it 
 will be as well briefly to summarise the chief facts 
 relating to the authorities for the text of Pliny, as set 
 forth by Keil in his well-known critical edition of 1870. 
 
 The MSS. of Pliny may be divided into four families : 
 (t) those containing the first four books and six letters of 
 
336 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 Book V, and represented by the Codex Florentinus (F) ; 
 (2) those, dating mostly from the fifteenth century, which 
 contain eight books, the eighth being omitted, and Book 
 IX — minus ep. 16 — inscribed as Book viii. This family 
 is best represented by the Codex Dresdensis (D) which 
 has in the margin variant readings from family (i) ; (3) 
 those containing nine books, of which the Codex Medi- 
 ceus (M) is the most nearly complete representative, as 
 it wants only the last 14^ letters of Book ix from 26 § 8 
 to the end. This Codex, which also contained the Annals 
 of Tacitus i-vi, was not discovered and brought to Italy 
 till 1508, and was not made use of for any edition of Pliny 
 before the 2nd edition of Catanaeus in 15 18 ; (4) a Codex 
 discovered in Paris by Giocondo or Jucundus, containing 
 the IX books complete and in their proper order, and also 
 all the Pliny-Trajan letters. This Codex was made use of 
 at second-hand by Avantius for a portion of the Pliny- 
 Trajan letters in 1502 : it was expressly cited by Budaeus 
 in his " Annotationes in Pandectas," first published in 
 1508 ; and it was the authority on which Aldus pro- 
 fessedly bases his first edition of the " Libri Decem " in 
 1508. Of the printed editions it will suffice to mention 
 (i) the editio princeps of 1471 based almost entirely upon 
 D, and omitting Book viii and ep. 16 of ix ; (2) an editio 
 Romana of 1474 which was based on some unknown MS. 
 of the same family as M, and contained (under the title 
 of Book ix) a portion of viii, the part omitted being 
 from 8 § 3 to 18 § II. (3) This edition was followed in 
 1490 by that of Pomponius Laetus, containing exactly the 
 same letters, but based on a more careful collation of the 
 MS. (4) In 1498 the edition of Beroaldus (contained in 
 the Bodleian copy) was published, following generally 
 the previous edition, and, like it, omitting viii 8 § 3-18 
 § 11 and IX 16 : book ix being still placed as viii. 
 
 So far the Pliny-Trajan letters were entirely unknown. 
 The Parisian Codex, however, which contained them was, 
 as already mentioned, discovered by Jucundus in the first 
 years of the sixteenth century, and in 1512 Hieronymus 
 Avantius of Verona published " C. Plinii Junior is ad 
 Trajanum Epistole 46, nuper reperte cum ejusdeni 
 
A BODLEIAN MS. OF PLINY'S LETTERS 337 
 
 responsis." These 46 letters, the numbering of which is 
 made up by including Trajan's answers under Pliny's 
 letters, and by counting (in ep. 58, Keil) the letters of 
 Domitian and the edict of Nerva, are those numbered 
 41-121 in Keil. The first letter (Keil 41-2) is marked 
 XXVII, and the last (Keil 120-1) Lxxiii. Avantius had 
 not himself seen the original MS. but only had a muti- 
 lated copy, which was brought to him from France by one 
 Petrus IvCander, as he says in his dedicatory letter to 
 Cardinal Bembo, ** Petri Leandri industria ex Gallia 
 Plinii junioris ad Trajanum epistolas, licet mancas depra- 
 vatasque habuimus." The copy was either carelessly 
 made by Leander, who seems to have been ignorant of 
 Greek, or was carelessly edited by Avantius, whose 
 edition of Sallust's Catiline for the Aldine Press was not 
 conspicuous for its correctness. The same letters were 
 published again by Beroaldus eight months later in the 
 same year, and in the ist edition of Catanaeus in 1506, 
 but their corrections of Avantius were, in the case of 
 Beroaldus certainly, in that of Catanaeus probably, due 
 to their own conjectures and not to any fresh collation of 
 the MS. In 1508 Aldus for the first time published a 
 complete edition of the letters, containing those hitherto 
 missing from Book viii, ep. 16 of ix and the first 26 (1-40 
 Keil) of the Phny-Trajan correspondence. This, he 
 expressly states that he was enabled to do owing to the 
 help afforded him by Aloisius Mocenigo, Venetian ambas- 
 sador in Paris, to whom he dedicates the edition, and by 
 Jucundus Veronensis. The latter had sent or brought 
 him a copy of the letters taken from the Parisian Codex, 
 " Secundi epistolas ab eo ipso exemplari a se descriptas 
 in Gallia diligenter ut facit omnia " — ^while the former 
 two years later, on his return from France, brought him 
 the Codex itself : " has Plinii epistolas in Italiam repor- 
 tasti in membrana scriptas atque adeo diversis a nostris 
 characteribus ut, nisi quis diu assueverit, non queat 
 legere . . . mihi que dedisti ut excusum publicarem.'* 
 What became of the Codex after this is unknown : it 
 was never used by any later editor, though it seems to 
 be referred to by Catanaeus in his 2nd edition of 1518, 
 
 Z 
 
338 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 who says that there were shown to him at Rome some 
 " epistolae descriptae de vetustissimo codice Germanico 
 plures ad Trajanum et insuper quaedam ejusdem Plinii 
 ad amicos." The fact, however, that Catanaeus follows 
 in almost every particular the ist Aldine edition makes 
 one suspect that this was the copy he alludes to. At 
 any rate, the MS. has disappeared, and hitherto the 
 Aldine edition has been regarded as the earliest authority 
 for VIII 8 § 3-18 § 11 and ad Traj. 1-40 (Keil). 
 
 In what way Aldus used the copy received from Jucun- 
 dus, or the Codex itself, has hitherto been uncertain. 
 Keil believes that in respect to the previously published 
 letters, he merely followed the earlier editions, correct- 
 ing them with conjectures of his own, and that in regard 
 to the hitherto unpublished letters of Pliny and Trajan, 
 the Codex is less accurately consulted by him than it had 
 been by Avantius in the case of the " 46 epistole " pub- 
 lished by him. An examination of the Bodleian copy 
 will possibly put us in a position to decide with some- 
 what greater certainty on these points. 
 
 To this examination we now proceed. The two first 
 and obvious points are, as has been said, (i) that the two 
 editions of Avantius and Beroaldus have been bound 
 together and (2) that the missing letters in each, i.e. in 
 Beroaldus viii 8 § 3-18 § 11 and in Avantius 1-26, have 
 been inserted in MS. in Caroline minuscules in their pro- 
 per place, and bound up with the rest, thus making a 
 complete edition of the letters. To be quite accurate, 
 however, I should say that of the Pliny-Trajan letters 
 4-26 are thus inserted, since unfortunately the first page 
 on which 1-3 were contained has been cut out, and 
 accordingly the first MS. letter actually present is Ep. 4. 
 On noticing this MS. addition, I at first supposed that 
 the owner of the two editions who had had them bound 
 together had, to make his edition complete, copied in 
 the missing letters from some later. edition, and as I was 
 working at the Pliny-Trajan letters, curiosity led me to 
 try to find out what edition he had copied. In doing 
 this I was almost immediately struck with some very 
 strange readings. In several cases the MS. (which I 
 
A BODLEIAN MS. OF PLINY'S LETTERS 339 
 
 shall henceforth call B) agreed with the first Aldine 
 edition in readings which have never been repeated in 
 any later edition, and what was still more striking, it in 
 several, cases differed not only from the Aldine, hut from 
 all later editions. Beginning to suspect that B might be 
 older than the Aldine edition, I examined the book with 
 fresh care and was struck by the following points : (i) 
 The paper on which the MS. is written, though not identi- 
 cal in make, is similar to that of the printed edition and 
 to all appearance equally old, (2) the marginal correc- 
 tions, already alluded to, are in a handwriting which Mr. 
 Madan and Mr. Macray of the Bodleian Library both 
 pronounce to be Italian, and as old as the early part of 
 the i6th century. (3) At the bottom of the last page 
 of the edition of Avantius the following words are written 
 in the same hand — 
 
 "Hae Pliniijuniorisepistolaeexvetustissimo exemplari 
 Parisiensi et restitutae et emendatae sunt opera et indus- 
 tria loannis Jucundi praestantissimi architecti, hominis 
 imprimis antiquarii." 
 
 (4) It appears from the fly-leaf at the beginning that 
 the book had belonged to Thomas Hearne, who had 
 written at the bottom of the page : " This edition (collated 
 with a MS.) I bought in an Auction in the year 1708 in 
 Oxon. See what I have said of it in my Pref. to Ed. 
 Oxon. It is as good, if not better, than any MS. that 
 I have seen, and is wonderful rare. The loth book was 
 printed from the only MS. then in the world, which 
 MS. is since lost, and this edition is the only authority 
 for the later editions of the loth book." Hearne had, 
 however, strange as it may seem, given no special 
 attention to the MS. portion of his purchase, as he 
 makes no mention of it either in the Preface to his 
 edition or in his Letters or Diaries. 
 
 In dealing with the questions raised by this edition 
 with its MS. and marginal notes, it will be convenient 
 to take the MS. portions first, in order to establish my 
 first point, and to consider them separately, for whereas 
 in the case of the Pliny-Trajan letters the Aldine ed. is 
 the only authority, in the case of the inserted letters in 
 
340 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 Book VIII, there is not only the Aldine ed. but also the 
 Medicean Codex with which to compare them. 
 
 To take the Pliny-Trajan letters first (iv-xxvi). 
 
 In the first place, the letters are numbered in con- 
 formity with the edition of Avantius, the last being 
 numbered xxvi and the first in Avantius xxvii. These 
 numbers are not found either in the edition of Catanaeus 
 or Aldus ; but from the fact that the mutilated copy 
 of Leander begins with xxvii, it seems probable that 
 the numbers were taken from the Codex. 
 
 In Ep. IV (4 § 2 Keil) B Jias " quia mater Romani 
 liberalitatem sestertii quadragies etc.," quadringenties 
 being added in the margin, also by the scribe, but 
 deleted. The magnitude of the sum, if quadringenties, 
 the reading of Aldus, is adopted, has always been a diffi- 
 culty, but all attempts to meet the difficulty have 
 hitherto been mere conjecture. It should be added that 
 Budaeus (de Asse iii, p. 23), who, as we shall presently 
 see, had used the Codex Parisiensis discovered by 
 Jucundus also reads " quadragies." 
 
 In the same Ep., B has " non sine magna fiducia sub- 
 signo. Adverte fidem pro moribus Romani mei etc." 
 I only cite this unintelligible reading as a proof that the 
 MS. was copied not from a printed edition, but from 
 another MS. Aldus in his ist ed. reads " Adit te fidem," 
 and in his 2nd " apud te fidem." 
 
 In Ep. VI (6 § 2 Keil) B has " etsi eum a peregrina 
 manumissum," while the commentator in the margin 
 (whom we will call J) has " esse eum." This is probably 
 the original reading, which Aldus has changed to " eum 
 scihcet." 
 
 In Ep VII (8 § 3 Keil) B has " Kalendis Septembribus," 
 whereas Aldus reads less correctly " Kal. Septembris." 
 G. H. Schaeffer was the first to emend to " Kal, 
 Septembribus," which is almost certainly the right 
 reading. 
 
 In Ep. VIII (10 § I Keil) B has " secundum institutiones 
 principum," instead of " institutionem " with Aldus. 
 The plur. is justified by the plur. " principum " in the 
 sense of " the policy successively adopted by the 
 
A BODLEIAN MS. OF PLINY S LETTERS 34I 
 
 various emperors ; " though the unwiUingness of Aldus 
 to accept it was not unnatural. 
 
 In the same Ep., B has " ecce autem " instead of " esse 
 autem," another proof that it was copied, here carelessly 
 from a MS. The Greek words voixov Me/x<^i;Vov, an 
 incorrect form followed by Aldus, are omitted by the 
 scribe, but inserted in the blank space by J. 
 
 In Ep. IX (11 § 2 Keil) B has " Panchay : ae : Sote- 
 ridi " where Aldus, no doubt rightly, reads " Panchariae 
 Soteridi." The mistake, however, is clearly due to a 
 misunderstanding of the MS. copied. 
 
 In Ep. XIII (15 Keil) th'e Greek words " virlp MaXcW " 
 are inserted by J. 
 
 In Ep. XIV (17 B § 5 Keil) there is a much more impor- 
 tant point. B reads " ita certe prospicio ex ratione 
 Prusensium quam cum maxime tracto." This, the 
 undoubtedly correct reading, does not occur in any 
 printed edition till that of Cortius in 1734, who, on the 
 suggestion of Perizonius, substitutes it for the incorrect 
 ** cum Maximo '* of Aldus and all intermediate editions. 
 
 In Trajan's answer (18 § i Keil) B reads " cuperem 
 . . . simile tibi iter ab Epheso et navigationi fuisset 
 quam, etc.," where Aldus unintelligibly reads "ut navi- 
 gationi." " Et " is undoubtedly a mistaken copy of 
 the original reading " ei " which Catanaeus alone adopted 
 in 1518. 
 
 In Ep. XVII (23 § I Keil) there is a very difficult pas- 
 sage to which, I believe, B offers the key. Aldus reads 
 " Prusenses, domine, balineum habent et sordidum et 
 vetus. Id itaque indulgentia tua restituere desiderant. 
 Ego tamen aestimans novum fieri debere, videris mihi 
 desiderio eorum indulgere posse." Keil retains this 
 with a lacuna after " sestimans," remarking in a note 
 " lacuna quam indicavi pretium quanti balineum resti- 
 tuendum Plinius aestimabat, cum verbo finito ex quo 
 reliqua pendebant, excidisse videtur." B reads after 
 " et sordidum et vetus," " Itaque tamen aestimamus 
 novum fieri quod etc." This, I think, proves that the 
 clause in Aldus " id itaque — desiderant," is his own 
 interpolation. I should propose to restore from the 
 
342 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 reading of B as follows : " Prusenses balineum habent 
 et sordidum et vetus, idqui tarn inutile aestimant ut 
 debeat novum fieri quod, etc.," taking desiderio as abl. 
 instead of dative. 
 
 In Ep. XXI (29 § 2 Keil) B reads " ut iam dixerant 
 Sacramento, ita nondum distributi in numeros erant," 
 where Aldus omits " ita " and adds " militari." " Ita " 
 is evidently wanted, but previous to Keil's edition has 
 never been inserted. 
 
 In Ep. XXIV (37 § I Keil) B reads " qui imperfectus 
 adhuc emissum destructus etiam est." What the real 
 reading was which underlies " emissum," I cannot con- 
 jecture, but it was evidently not taken from any printed 
 edition. Aldus has " adhuc relictus ac etiam destructus 
 est." 
 
 In the same Ep. B has with Aldus " aliqua pars . . . 
 testaceo opere agenda erit," with " peragenda " also in 
 the scribe's hand in the margin. No editor has ever 
 thrown any doubt upon " agenda," but surely " per- 
 agenda " is a far more satisfactory reading. 
 
 In Ep. XXVI (39 § I Keil) B agrees with Aldus in read- 
 ing " rimis descendit et hiat," but J has " desedit " in 
 the margin, a much more suitable word. 
 
 In the same Ep., B reads "ex ea pecunia quam 
 buleutae addit beneficio tuo aut jam intuleraut etc." 
 Aldus or his printer mistaking " buleutae " for the sub- 
 ject of " addit " altered the latter to " addunt ; " but the 
 correct reading is certainly " additi " — an emendation 
 first suggested by Casaubon and now confirmed. 
 
 In Trajan's reply (40 § i Keil) Aldus reads " tunc 
 autem a privatis exigi opera tibi curae sit, cum theatrum 
 factum erit." B reads " opera ctum theatrum etc." 
 The original reading may have been " exigi opera 
 tempus cum " or, as Prof. Nettleship suggests, " exigi 
 opera censeo cum, etc." 
 
 The other differences between B and Aldus are trifling, 
 in some cases being mere differences in spelling, in others 
 manifest slips of the scribe corrected by Aldus, while in 
 most cases the marginal corrections of J are identical 
 with the Aldine readings. 
 
A BODLEIAN MS. OF PLINY'S LETTERS 
 
 343 
 
 When we turn to the MS. of Book viii, we have not 
 only the Aldine ed. with which to compare them, but 
 also the Medicean Codex, which, as we have seen, Aldus 
 could not have used. Moreover, five or six extracts 
 from these letters are contained in the " Annotationes 
 in Pandectas " of Budaeus, who expressly states that 
 his authority is the Parisian Codex which was after- 
 wards handed to Aldus. Speaking of viii lo he says 
 " Verum haec epistola et aliae non paucae in codicibus 
 impressis non leguntur ; nos integrum ferme Plinium 
 habemus primum apud Parisios repertum opere Jucundi 
 sacerdotis ; hominis antiquarii, Architectique fami- 
 gerati." Now in collating B with Aldus, I find that the 
 former with the marginal readings of J differs from the 
 latter in only 21 cases. Of these four are mere errors of 
 the scribe, as, e.g. " dividissent jam jam unius " for 
 " dividi sententiam unius ; " " omnium " for " amnium ; 
 *' supetur " for " superetur ; " " solo " for " soleo " : 
 in 12, B and J are confirmed by M : in 2, both by M and 
 by Budaeus, and in 3, by Budaeus alone. The proba- 
 bility therefore is very great that in all the 17 cases the 
 Aldine readings are due to conjecture or interpolation 
 — a confirmation and a striking one of the conclusion to 
 which the other MS. letters also point. I add the 17 
 cases in question in a tabulated form. 
 
 9§x 
 
 10 §3 
 14 §2 
 14 § 13 
 14 § 17 
 14 §24 
 
 15 
 
 17 §3 
 17 §4 
 17 §4 
 
 17 §5 
 
 B Aid. M Bud. 
 
 secedere sedere secedere 
 
 videor a meo video a meo videor meo videor a meo 
 
 ignorantiain ignorationem ignorantiam ignorantiam. 
 
 quae solvit quae absolvent quae solvit 
 
 periment preraant perimant periraent 
 
 debuerim debuerim an debuerim, debuerim, 
 
 quemadmo- abstinere, quemadmo- quemadmo- 
 
 dum. quemadmo- dum. dum. 
 
 dum. 
 § 2 Where Aldus inserts a clause 
 aut non scribendum 
 
 ejecit 
 
 viderunt quos 
 
 deprehendit 
 
 ne ilia quidem malo 
 
 18 § 2 magis inexpectata 
 
 quae si scabrae bibulaeve sint, 
 ' which is omitted both in B and M. 
 evexit ejecit 
 
 viderunt ii quos viderunt quos 
 non deprehendit deprehendit 
 ne ilia quidem loca ut ilia quidem mala 
 
 malo 
 magis quoniam in magis expectata 
 
 expectata 
 
344 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORV 
 
 i8j3 temporumest teraporum pruden- temporum est 
 
 tia est 
 
 x8 § 4 filiam ut filiam filiam 
 
 i8 5 II nam sunt onxnes nam sunt venales nam sunt onmes 
 fabulae TuUus tabulae Tulli fabulae Tullus 
 
 i8§ii ne gravare ne gravare scribere ne gravare 
 
 It should be added that the missing letter ix i6 which 
 was not published before Aldus is inserted at the bottom 
 of the page by J, differing from the Aldine reading in 
 only 2 points : (i) " ex isto genere venandi " for " ex 
 isto copiosissimo genere venandi," (2) " tibi cui exi- 
 genti " for " tibi quos exigenti." 
 
 From the comparison of B with Aldus, both in the 
 case of Book viii and of the Pliny-Trajan letters, my 
 first point is, I think, established. In the former, in 17 
 out of 21 differences it is proved by the independent wit- 
 ness of M and Budaeus to be nearer to the original read- 
 ings, while the mention of Jucundus by Budaeus, and 
 the coincidence of his readings in 5 cases, bear out the 
 similar mention of that scholar at the end of the Bodleian 
 copy. In the former also there are at least 10 some- 
 what important cases in which B shows traces of an 
 earlier reading, while in many others the discrepancies 
 can be much better explained by supposing that B was 
 copied from a previous MS. than from any printed 
 edition. 
 
 My second point — that the marginal readings are due 
 to Jucundus — receives a certain prima facie probability 
 from the establishment of the first, especially when 
 taken together with the triple mention of Jucundus by 
 Budaeus, by Aldus, and in the Bodleian copy, but the 
 evidence for it in detail must depend mainly on a con- 
 sideration of the printed portions of the edition, since 
 in the MS. parts there are no more than 15 marginal 
 readings altogether, of which only 5 or 6 are of any 
 importance. 
 
 The first portion of the book consists, as has been al- 
 ready stated, of the ed. of Beroaldus of 1498. Throughout 
 these IX Books there are 155 variant readings inserted 
 by J in the margin. Of these it is a very striking 
 
A BODLEIAN MS. OF PLINY S LETTERS 345 
 
 fact that in 139 cases the readings of J appear in Aldus. 
 In 46 of these, J and Aldus agree against M, D, and the 
 previously printed editions, while in 80 of them, J, M 
 and Aldus all agree. Thus of 155 readings there are only 
 16 which do not appear in Aldus, and in regard to these 
 we may note (i) that in 5, J is confirmed by M, (2) that 
 in 5 other cases Aldus merely follows the printed 
 editions, (4) that in 3 other his readings are derived 
 from these editions by altering a single letter, and (4) 
 that in only one case is his reading distinctly right and 
 in agreement with M. 
 
 A consideration of the marginal readings to Avantius 
 leads to not dissimilar results. Out of 52 readings 
 Aldus agrees with 34. Of the 18 other Ccises 5 are 
 clearly conjectures on the part of Aldus ; in 5, he merely 
 repeats Avantius ; in 3, he makes what are clearly 
 accidental errors ; in 3, he gets the right reading by a 
 simple and obvious correction of Avantius, while 2 
 cases are doubtful. 
 
 There are 5 cases of some importance in which J, 
 though differing from Aldus, is undoubtedly right and 
 confirms later conjectures 
 
 In Ep. Lii (78 § 2 Keil) Avantius reads " Plures enim 
 et quanto infirmiores erunt idem fiduciam diligentiae 
 habeo," — J inserts " petent " in the margin after " idem," 
 a conjecture made by Beroaldus and accepted by Keil. 
 Aldus interpolates several words and omits " idem " 
 altogether. 
 
 In Ep. LXi (96 § 10 Keil) Avantius reads " passumque 
 venire victimarum," while J has " pastum " — also the 
 conjecture of Beroaldus — ^Aldus alters to " passim que 
 venire victimas." 
 
 In Ep. LXiv (102 Keil) Avantius reads " diem quae in 
 tutela generis humani . . . translata est," J changes to 
 " diem quo in te tutela, etc." afterwards conjectured by 
 J. F. Gronovius, while Aldus reads " diem in quern 
 tutela." 
 
 In Ep. Lxx (114 § I Keil) Avantius reads " dum neque 
 merum civitatum quae sunt in Bithynia," which J alters 
 to " dum ne quem earum " — a reading obviously right, 
 
346 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 but not adopted earlier than Orelli. Aldus interpolates 
 an entirely different sentence to suit his mistaken inter- 
 pretation of the passage. 
 
 In Ep. Lxxi (116 § 2 Keil) Avantius and Aldus read 
 " concedendum jussi invitationes" ; emended by 
 Orelli into "concedendas esse invitationes," by Keil 
 into " concedendum jus invitationis." J, confirmed 
 by Budaeus, has concedendum jussisti invitationes," 
 which, though it involves the change of the following 
 " ita " into " at," seems the best reading. 
 
 This consideration of the marginal readings an over- 
 whelming majority of which either agree with Aldus or 
 are nearer to the original reading, compared on the one 
 hand with the statement of Aldus that he was indebted 
 to a copy of the MS. received from Jucundus, and on the 
 other with the similar statement made by the marginal 
 commentator, "hae epistolae restitutae et emendatae 
 sunt opera et industria loannis Jucundi," is, I think, 
 sufficient to establish my second point, that the marginal 
 readings are due to the collation of the original codex 
 by Jucundus. 
 
 My third point also — that this copy belonged to Aldus 
 himself — has, I venture to think, been made extremely 
 probable from what has been already said, and will re- 
 ceive greatly increased confirmation from the following 
 coincidences — one isolated and special, but extremely 
 curious and striking, the others running through the 
 whole edition : (i) a curious misprint in Aldus, other- 
 wise inexplicable, receives immediate and convincing 
 explanation by turning to a marginal reading of J, and 
 supposing that the Bodleian copy was before the printer 
 of the Aldine edition. In viii 6 § 10 Aldus reads " cui 
 mulla re fas putaret repugnare." J. has in the margin : 
 m 
 
 cui nvlla re fas 
 
 putaret repugna 
 
 re 
 
 where the " in " inserted above the " n " of " nulla " 
 
 without dot to the i or " caret " mark, appears to be a 
 
 correction of " m " for " n," and was so understood by 
 
A BODLEIAN MS. OF PLINY's LETTERS 347 
 
 the printer. (2) The printed text both of Beroaldus 
 and Avantius is throughout corrected in regard (a) to 
 punctuation (^) to errors in speUing, (y) to accents in 
 Greek words and indeed to correction of Greek quota- 
 tions generally, (8) to insertion or omission of brackets — 
 these alterations being to all appearance directions to 
 the printer, and as a matter of fact agreeing in most cases 
 with the Aldine edition. On these coincidences, then — 
 not alone, though they would be hard to explain on any 
 other hypothesis, — but taken in conjunction with all 
 that has been said before, I base my third point. 
 
 I suppose therefore (i) that Aldus received, as he 
 expressly states, a copy of the Codex from Jucundus, 
 (2) that previously to the issue of his edition he formed 
 a complete copy of the Letters by joining the editions of 
 Beroaldus and Avantius and causing the missing letters 
 to be copied by a scribe from the copy of Jucundus, add- 
 ing in the printed portions corrected readings, also from 
 the same copy, and correcting, in a few cases only, the 
 scribe's MS. from the same source, (3) that he alludes to 
 this procedure in the statement that the letters have 
 been restored and emended by the industry of Jucundus, 
 (4) that this copy was before the printer for the first 
 proof of the Aldine edition. To this theory it makes no 
 difference whether the actual handwriting is that of 
 Aldus, as I have supposed, or of one of his coUaborateurs, 
 nor is it a serious objection that the Aldine edition differs 
 in a considerable number of cases from the Bodleian 
 copy, for (5) I suppose that this copy represents the first 
 proof only, being the work of Jucundus, while the Aldine 
 edition itself has (a) a number of conjectures and inter- 
 polations made by Aldus himself after the first proof, 
 and (/3) possibly some corrections from the original 
 Codex itself which, as Aldus states, was brought to him 
 by Mocenigo two years after he had received the copy 
 from Jucundus. 
 
 If these suppositions are correct, it will be necessary 
 to modify somewhat Keil's judgment of the Aldine edi- 
 tion, (i) that in regard to the previously published letters 
 he merely followed earlier editions, correcting them with 
 
348 STUDIES IN ROMAN HISTORY 
 
 conjectures of his own. That he did correct from his 
 own conjectures we have seen in some cases, but in a 
 far larger number he corrected them not indeed direct 
 from the Codex, but from Jucundus ' copy of the Codex. 
 (2) That in regard to the hitherto unpubhshed letters 
 of Pliny and Trajan, the Codex was less accurately con- 
 sulted by him than it had been by Avantius in his " 46 
 Epistole." But apart from differences in spelling and 
 slips of B corrected by Aldus, there are only 18 varia- 
 tions between B and J (assumed to represent the copy 
 of Jucundus) and the Aldine edition. Even if we assume 
 all these cases to be due to the arbitrary procedure of 
 Aldus, and we must do so in some of them, still remem- 
 bering that Avantius has to be corrected by J in 35 cases, 
 and is corrected by Aldus in a good many more, we must 
 confess that Epp. 1-26 in Aldus are much nearer to the 
 original MS. than 27-73 are in Avantius. The general 
 fidelity of Jucundus to the Code^, assuming him to be 
 the original of J, is sufficiently proved by the confirm- 
 ation of his readings in a very large number of cases by 
 M, and in a few both by M and Budaeus. 
 
 This account of the marginal readings in the Bodleian 
 copy would not be complete without the mention of 4 
 cases where J agrees with the ist edition of Catanaeus 
 (1506) against all other MSS. or editions. 
 
 In I. 5 § 15 both read dKaTaTrdXaia-Tov where Aldus 
 
 has 8vcrKa6aip€TOVi M Sva-KaOepeTov^ and BeroalduS aKtt- 
 OaipiTOV. 
 
 In VI. 31 § 12 both have Karaa-rrjcraTf. where Aldus has 
 
 inia-TaaOe, M cVto-TTyfraTc, and D cvio-TT/craTC. 
 
 In VII. 12 § 2 both have vfi^ls yap del L(rxvoi where 
 Aldus and Beroaldus have vix^ls yap ol ev^rjXoL, while M 
 omits. 
 
 In ad Traj. 86 (Keil) both have in correction of a diffi- 
 cult and corrupt passage " Fabium Valentem valde 
 probo," where Avantius has " quam ea quae speret," 
 and Aldus " que'm abunde ea quae speret." 
 
 I do not attempt here to solve the problems raised by 
 these coincidences ; only remarking that Catanaeus can- 
 not have seen the Parisian Codex or its copy made by 
 
A BODLEIAN MS. OF PLINY's LETTERS 349 
 
 Jucundus, either for the ix books or for the PHny-Trajan 
 letters, or he would have inserted the two sets of missing 
 letters. It is however possible that he had for the 
 latter the copy of Leander which Avantius used. He 
 certainly says " quia uno tan turn exemplari, nee illo 
 admodum vetusto adjuti fuimus." Could he have got 
 the 4th reading referred to from this copy, while Jucun- 
 dus got it from the Codex ? But in that case why does 
 Aldus neglect it, and why does Catanaeus give it up in 
 his 2nd edition ? These points, however, relating to 
 Catanaeus, though not without both difficulty and inter- 
 est, do not in any way affect the conclusions already 
 drawn as to the origin and importance of the Bodleian 
 copy, and I therefore leave them without further 
 discussion. 
 
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