Letters of Pliny
Sarmatia. It is not exactly known what bounds the ancients gave to this
extensive region; however, in general, it comprehended the northern part
of Russia, and the greater part of Poland, &c. M.]
1020 (return) [ The first invention of public couriers is ascribed to
Cyrus, who, in order to receive the earliest intelligence from the
governors of the several provinces, erected post-houses throughout the
kingdom of Persia, at equal distances, which supplied men and horses to
forward the public despatches. Augustus was the first who introduced
this most useful institution among the Romans, by employing post-
chaises, disposed at convenient distances, for the purpose of political
intelligence. The magistrates of every city were obliged to furnish
horses for these messengers, upon producing a diploma, or a kind of
warrant, either from the emperor himself or from those who had that
authority under him. Sometimes, though upon very extraordinary
occasions, persons who travelled upon their private affairs, were
allowed the use of these post-chaises. It is surprising they were not
sooner used for the purposes of commerce and private communication.
Louis XI. first established them in France, in the year 1414; but it was
not till later (date uncertain) that the post-office was settled in
England by Act of Parliament, M.]
1021 (return) [ Particular temples, altars, and statues were allowed
among the Romans as places of privilege and sanctuary to slaves, debtors
and malefactors. This custom was introduced by Romulus, who borrowed it
probably from the Greeks; but during the free state of Rome, few of
these asylums were permitted. This custom prevailed most under the
emperors, till it grew so scandalous that the Emperor Pius found it
necessary to restrain those privileged places by an edict. See Lipsii
Excurs. ad Taeiti Ann. III, C. 36, M.]
1022 (return) [ General under Deeebalus, king of the Dacians. M.]
1023 (return) [ A province in Daeia, comprehending the southern parts of
Servia and part of Bulgaria. M.]
1024 (return) [ The second expedition of Trajan against Decebalus was
undertaken the same year that Pliny went governor into this province;
the reason therefore why Pliny sent this Calhidromus to the emperor
seems to be that some use might possibly be made of him in favour of
that design, M.]
1025 (return) [ Receiver of the finances. M.]
1026 (return) [ The coast round the Black Sea.]
1027 (return) [ The text calls him primipilarem, that is, one who had
been Prirnipilus, in officer in the army, whose post was both highly
honourable and profitable; among other parts of his office he had the
care of the eagle, or chief standard of the legion. M.]
1028 (return) [ Slaves who were purchased by the public. M.]
1029 (return) [ The most probable conjecture (for it is a point of a
good deal of obscurity) concerning the beneficiary seems to be that they
were a certain number of soldiers exempted from the usual duty of their
office, in order to be employed as a sort of body-guards to the general.
These were probably foot; as the equites here mentioned were perhaps of
the same nature, only that they served on horseback. Equites singulares
Cæsaris Augusti, &c., are frequently met with upon ancient inscriptions,
and are generally supposed to mean the bodyguards of the emperor. M.]
1030 (return) [ A province in Asia Minor, bounded by the Black Sea on
the north, Bithynia on the west, Pontus on the east, and Phrygia on the
south.]
1031 (return) [ The Roman policy excluded slaves from entering into
military service, and it was death if they did so. However, upon cases
of great necessity, this maxim was dispensed with; but then they were
first made free before they were received into the army, excepting only
(as Servius in his notes upon Virgil) observes after the fatal battle of
Cannae; when the public distress was so great that the Romans recruited
their army with their slaves, though they had not time to give them
their freedom. One reason, perhaps, of this policy might be that they
did not think it safe to arm so considerable a body of men, whose
numbers, in the times when the Roman luxury was at its highest, we may
have some idea of by the instance which Pun the naturalist mentions of
Claudius Isodorus, who at the time of his death was possessed of no less
than 4,116 slaves, notwithstanding he had lost great numbers in the
civil wars. Pun. Hist. Nat. XXXIII. 10. M.]
1032 (return) [ A punishment among the Romans, usually inflicted upon
slaves, by which they were to engage with wild beasts, or perform the
part of gladiators, in the public shows. M.]
1033 (return) [ It has been generally imagined that the ancients had not
the art of raising water by engines; but this passage seems to favour
the contrary opinion. The word in the original is sipho, which Hesychius
explains (as one of the commentators observes) "instrumentuns ad
jaculandas aquas adversas incendia; an instrument to throw up water
against fires." But there is a passage in Seneca which seems to put this
matter beyond conjecture, though none of the critics upon this place
have taken notice of it: "Solemiss," says he, "duabus manibus inter se
junctis aguam concipere, et com pressa utrinque palma in modum ciphonis
exprimere" (Q. N. 1. II. 16) where we plainly see the use of this sipho
was to throw UP water, and consequently the Romans were acquainted with
that art. The account which Pliny gives of his fountains at Tuscum is
likewise another evident proof. M.]
1034 (return) [ This was an anniversary custom observed throughout the
empire on the 30th of December. M.]
1035 (return) [ About $132,000.]
1036 (return) [ About $80,000.]
1037 (return) [ About $400,000. To those who are not acquainted with the
immense riches of the ancients, it may seem incredible that a city, and
not the capital one either, of a conquered province should expend so
large a sum of money upon only the shell (as it appears to be) of a
theatre: but Asia was esteemed the most considerable part of the world
for wealth; its fertility and exportations (as Tully observes) exceeding
that of all other countries. M.]
1038 (return) [ The word carte, in the original, comprehends more than
what we call the pit in our theatres, as at means the whole space lit
which the spectators sat. These theatres being open at the top, the
galleries here mentioned were for the convenience of retiring in bad
weather. M.]
1039 (return) [ A place in which the athletic exercises were performed,
and where the philosophers also used to read their lectures. M.]
1040 (return) [ The Roman foot consisted of 11.71 inches of our
standard, M.]
1041 (return) [ A colony in the district of Cataonia, in Cappadocia.]
1042 (return) [ The honorary senators, that is, such who were not
received into the council of the city by election, but by the
appointment of the emperor, paid a certain sum of money upon their
admission into the senate. M.]
1043 (return) [ "Graeculi. Even under the empire, with its relaxed
morality and luxurious tone, the Romans continued to apply this
contemptuous designation to people to whom they owed what taste for art
and culture they possessed." Church and Brodribb.]
1044 (return) [ A Roman cubit is equal to a foot 5.406 inches of our
measure. Arbuthanot's Tab. M.]
1045 (return) [ About $480.]
1046 (return) [ About $120.]
1047 (return) [ A diploma is properly a grant of certain privileges
either to particular places or persons. It signifies also grants of
other kinds; and it sometimes means post-warrants, as, perhaps, it does
in this place. M.]
1048 (return) [ A city in Bithynia. M.]
1049 (return) [ Cybele, Rhea, or Ops, as she is otherwise called; from
whom, according to the pagan creed, the rest of the gods are supposed to
have descended. M.]
1040b (return) [ Whatever was legally consecrated was ever afterwards
unapplicable to profane uses. M.]
1041b (return) [ That is, a city not admitted to enjoy the laws and
privileges of Rome. M.]
1042b (return) [ The reason why they did not choose to borrow of the
public at the same rate of interest which they paid to private persons
was (as one of the Commentators observes) because in the former instance
they were obliged to give security, whereas in the latter they could
raise money upon their personal credit. M.]
1043b (return) [ These, in the original institution as settled by
Augustus, were only commanders of his body-guards; but in the later
times of the Roman empire they were next in authority under the emperor,
to whom they seem to have acted as a sort of prime ministers. M.]
1044b (return) [ The provinces were divided into, a kind of circuits
called conventus, whither the proconsuls used to go in order to
administer justice. The judges here mentioned must not be understood to
mean the same sort of judicial officers as with us: they rather answered
to our juries. M.]
1045b (return) [ By the imperial constitutions the philosophers were
exempted from all public functions. Catariscus. M.]
1046b (return) [ About $24,000.]
1047b (return) [ Geographers are not agreed where to place this city;
Cellarius conjectures it may possibly be the same with Prusa ad Olympum,
Prusa at the foot of Mount Olympus in Mysia.]
1048b (return) [ Domitian.]
1049b (return) [ That is, whether they should be considered in a state
of freedom or slavery. M.]
1050 (return) [ "Parents throughout the entire ancient world had the
right to expose their children and leave them to their fate. Hence would
sometimes arise the question whether such a child, if found and brought
up by another, was entitled to his freedom, whether also the person thus
adopting him must grant him his freedom without repayment for the cost
of maintenance." Church and Brodribb.]
1051 (return) [ "This decision of Trajan, the effect of which would be
that persons would be slow to adopt an abandoned child which, when
brought up, its natural parents could claim back without any
compensation for its nurture, seems harsh, and we find that it was
disregarded by the later emperors in their legal decisions on the
subject." Church and Brodribb.]
1052 (return) [ And consequently by the Roman laws unapplicable to any
other purpose. M.]
1053 (return) [ The Roman provinces in the times of the emperors were of
two sorts: those which were distinguished by the name of the provinciae
Cæsaris and the provinciae senatus. The provinciae Cæsaris, or imperial
provinces, were such as the emperor, for reasons of policy, reserved to
his own immediate administration, or of those whom he thought proper to
appoint: the provinciae senatus, or proconsular provinces, were such as
he left to the government of proconsuls or praetors, chosen in the
ordinary method of election. (Vid. Suet, in Aug. V. 47.) Of the former
kind was Bithynis, at the time when our author presided there. (Vid.
Masson. Vit. Plin. p. 133.) M.]
1054 (return) [ A province in Asia, bordering upon the Black Sea, and by
some ancient geographers considered as one province with Bithynia. M.]
1055 (return) [ About $2,000. M.]
1056 (return) [ Cities of Pontus near the Euxine or Black Sea. M.]
1057 (return) [ Gordium, the old capital of Phrygia. It afterwards, in
the reign of the Emperor Augustus, received the name of Juliopolis. (See
Smith's Classical Diet.)]
1058 (return) [ Pompey the Great having subdued Mithridates, and by that
means enlarged the Roman empire, passed several laws relating to the
newly conquered provinces, and, among others, that which is here
mentioned. M.]
1059 (return) [ The right of electing Senators did not originally belong