[247] This troop, according to its position in Josephus, Bell. Jud. ii. 16, 4, between the provinces of Asia and Cappadocia not provided with garrisons, can only be referred to Galatia. Of course it furnished also the detachments, which were stationed in the dependent territories on the Caucasus, at that time—under Nero—apparently also those stationed on the Bosporus itself, in which, it is true, also the Moesian corps took part ([p. 318]).
[248] Praetorian stationarius Ephesi, Eph. epigr. iv. n. 70. A soldier in statione Nicomedensi, Plin. ad Trai. 74. A legionary centurion in Byzantium, ib. 77, 78.
[249] In the municipal matters of Asia Minor everything occurs except what relates to arms. The Smyrnaean στρατηγὸς ἐπὶ τῶν ὅπλων is of course a reminiscence equally with the cultus of Herakles ὁπλοφύλαξ (C. I. Gr. 3162).
[250] The Eirenarch of Smyrna sends out these gens d’armes to arrest Polycarp: ἐξῆλθον διωγμῖται καὶ ἱππεῖς μετὰ τῶν συνήθων αὐτοῖς ὅπλων, ὡς ἐπὶ λῃστὴν τρέχοντες (Acta mart., ed. Ruinart, p. 39). That they had not the armour of soldiers proper, is also elsewhere remarked (Ammian. xxvii. 9, 6: adhibitis semiermibus quibusdam—against the Isaurians—quos diogmitas appellant). Their employment in the Marcomanian war is reported by the biographer of Marcus, c. 26: armavit et diogmitas, and by the inscription of Aezani in Phrygia, C. I. Gr. 3031 a 8 = Lebas–Waddington, 992: παρασχὼν τῷ κυρίῳ Καίσαρι σύμμαχον διωγμείτην παρ’ ἑαυτοῦ.
[251] In Cnidus (Bull. de corr. Hell. vii. 62), in the year 741–742 U.C.13–12., some apparently respectable burgesses had during three nights assailed the house of one with whom they had a personal feud; in repelling the attack one of the slaves of the besieged house had killed one of the assailants by a vessel thrown from the window. The occupants of the besieged house were thereupon accused of manslaughter, but, as they had public opinion against them, they dreaded the civic tribunal and desired the matter to be decided by the verdict of the emperor Augustus. The latter had the case investigated by a commissioner, and acquitted the accused, of which he informed the authorities in Cnidus, with the remark that they would not have handled the matter impartially, and directed them to act in accordance with his verdict. This was certainly, as Cnidus was a free town, an encroachment on its sovereign rights, as also in Athens appeal to the emperor and even to the proconsul was in Hadrian’s time allowable ([p. 262], note 2). But any one who considers the state of things as to justice in a Greek town of this epoch and of this position, will not doubt that, while such encroachment gave doubtless occasion to various unjust decisions, it much more frequently prevented them.
[252] The Gerusia often mentioned in inscriptions of Asia Minor has nothing but the name in common with the political institution founded by Lysimachus in Ephesus (Strabo, xiv. 1, 21, p. 640; Wood, Ephesus, inscr. from the temple of Diana, n. 19); its character in Roman times is indicated partly by Vitruvius, ii. 8, 10; Croesi (domum) Sardiani civibus ad requiescendum aetatis otio seniorum collegio gerusiam dedicaverunt, partly by the inscription recently found in the Lycian town Sidyma (Benndorf, Lyk. Reise, i. 71), according to which council and people resolve, as the law requires, to institute a Gerusia, and to elect to it 50 Buleutae and 50 other citizens, who then appoint a gymnasiarch for the new Gerusia. This gymnasiarch, who meets us elsewhere, as well as the Hymnode of the Gerusia (Menadier, qua condic. Ephesii usi sint, p. 51), are, among the office–bearers of this body known to us, the only ones characteristic of its nature. Analogous, but of less estimation, are the collegia of the νέοι, which also have their own gymnasiarchs. To the two overseers of the places of gymnastic exercise for the grown–up citizens the gymnasiarchs of the Ephebi form the contrast (Menadier, p. 91). Common repasts and festivals (to which the Hymnodes has reference) were of course not wanting, particularly in the case of the Gerusia. It was not a provision for the poor, nor yet a collegium reserved for the municipal aristocracy; but characteristic for the mode of civil intercourse among the Greeks, with whom the gymnasium was nearly what the citizens’ assembly–rooms are in our small towns.
[253] The milestones begin here with Vespasian (C. I. L. iii. 306), and are thenceforth numerous, particularly from Domitian down to Hadrian.
[254] This is most clearly shown by the road–constructions executed in the senatorial province of Bithynia under Nero and Vespasian by the imperial procurator (C. I. L. iii. 346; Eph. v. n. 96). But even in the case of the roads constructed in the senatorial provinces of Asia and Cyprus the senate is never named, and the same may be assumed for them. In the third century here, as everywhere, the construction even of the imperial highways was transferred to the communes (Smyrna: C. I. L. iii. 471; Thyatira, Bull. de corr. Hell. i. 101; Paphos, C. I. L. iii. 218).
[255] The Christians of the little town of Corycus in the Rough Cilicia were wont, contrary to the general custom, to append regularly in their tomb–inscriptions the station in life. On the epitaphs recovered there by Langlois and recently by Duchesne (Bull. de corr. Hell. vii. 230 ff.), there are found a writer (νοτάριος), a wine–dealer (οἰνέμπορος), two oil–dealers (ἐλεοπώλης), a green–grocer (λαχανοπώλης), a fruit–dealer (ὀπωροπώλης), two retail dealers (κάπηλος), five goldsmiths (αὐράριος thrice, χρυσόχοος twice), one of whom is also presbyter, four coppersmiths (χαλκότυπος once, χαλκεύς thrice), two instrument–makers (ἀρμενοράφος), five potters (κεραμεύς), of which one is designated as work–giver (ἐργοδότης), another is at the same time presbyter, a clothes–dealer (ἱματιοπώλης), two linen–dealers (λινοπώλης), three weavers (ὀθονιακός), a worker in wool (ἐρεουργός), two shoemakers (καλιγάριος, καλτάριος), a skinner (ἱνιοράφος, doubtless for ἡνιοράφος, pellio), a mariner (ναύκληρος), a mid–wife (ἰατρινή); further a joint tomb of the highly reputable money–changers (σύσστεμα τῶν εὐγενεστάτων τραπεζιτῶν). Such was the look of things there in the fifth and sixth centuries.
[256] This traffic attested for the fourth century (Ammianus, xxii. 7, 8; Claudianus in Eutrop. i. 59) is beyond doubt older. Of another nature is the fact, that, as Philostratus states (Vita Apoll. viii. 7, 12), the non–Greek inhabitants of Phrygia sold their children to the slave–dealers.