much, might yet have been borne. But this was not all. The inhabitants of the province were reduced to beggary by the violence and exactions of the soldiers who were quartered on them. "Sulla issued an order that the master of a house should daily supply the soldier who was quartered on him with four tetradrachma and with dinner for himself and as many of his friends as he chose to invite; a centurion was to receive fifty drachmae daily, and to be supplied with two garments, one to wear in the house and the other when he went abroad" (Plutarch). It is said that there is nothing new under the sun, nothing, new at least in knavery and oppression. We have heard in recent days of soldiers being quartered on the peaceable inhabitants of an invaded country, who had to feed them well and even furnish them with luxuries. Lucullus was appointed by Sulla to collect the precious metal and to coin money. Fortunately for the people of Asia, Lucullus was a man of mild temper. He behaved honestly and justly in the discharge of his odious duty. But the sufferings of the people were great. The cities were compelled to borrow money at heavy interest. The lenders would be the Italians who followed the Roman armies, and the Italian "negotiatores" who would come down on the province like a shower of locusts, as soon as it was safe to venture there with their capital. The cities gave as security their theatres, gymnasia, harbours, and whatever public property they had. The wealth of the temples was probably used also in satisfying the demands of Sulla. Some of the towns had productive property, which they could mortgage, as we may see from the case of Ephesus. The great temple of Diana possessed the revenue arising from the fish that were taken in two salt lakes near the city. Sulla received the whole of the contribution before he left Asia.

The province was now in a wretched condition. After being plundered by Mithridates and drained by Sulla, it was left to the mercy of pirates, who infested the seas with numerous ships like regular fleets. Mithridates turned these villains loose to do all the mischief that they could, when he saw that he could not hold the country long. The pirates not only

took the traders whom they found on the sea, but they attacked the seaport towns. Iassus or Iasus a town of Caria on a small island, Samos, Clazomenae, and Samothrace were captured, while Sulla was still in Asia. It was reckoned that these marauders carried off from the temple of Samothrace valuable things to the amount of a thousand talents, as it was supposed. Appian does not determine whether Sulla allowed these people to be plundered for their defection from Rome or whether he had no time to put down the pirates, for he was in a hurry to return to Italy. The second is doubtless the true reason. .Sulla was not so foolish as to wish that pirates should plunder towns, which might furnish valuable contributions to himself, and he had weighty business on hand at home. Lucullus remained in Asia, as we shall afterwards see.

Sulla distributed the province into districts for the purpose of raising this extraordinary contribution; and it is assumed by some writers that the arrangement, which he then made, was the foundation of the division of the province into districts for the purpose of letting the taxes (vectigalia). It is some confirmation of this opinion that Cassiodorus speaks of Sulla dividing Asia into forty regions or districts (or fortyfour, as Clinton quotes Cassiodorus) in the fourth consulship of L. Cornelius Cinna and in the second consulship of Cn. Papirius Carbo, or B.C. 84. Cicero also speaks of Sulla's arrangements for the raising of the taxes of Asia, which he calls Sulla's "descriptio," if the word is right, but it should probably be "discriptio." He observes that Cn. Pompeius and Flaccus followed Sulla's arrangement in levying money in Asia. The inhabitants of Magnesia also even in the time of the Emperor Tiberius relied on the arrangements (constituta) of Sulla, which declared that the temple of Diana Leucophryna in Magnesia should be an inviolable asylum. This however was granted or confirmed by Sulla as a reward for the services of the town in resisting Mithridates, and is only evidence that Sulla did affect to settle some things in the province Asia. It is observed by Becker that these forty districts of Sulla were not the same as the Conventus Juridici,

or the larger divisions of Asia made for the administration of justice. These Conventus or divisions we must assume to have been made when the province was settled by M'Aquillius and the ten Roman commissioners (vol. i.. p. 211). The names of ten of these Conventus may be collected from the ancient writers: they are Ephesus, Tralles, Alabanda, Laodiceia or the Jurisdictio Cibyratica consisting of twenty-five towns with Laodiceia at the head of them, Apamea Cibotus near the site of Celaenae with fifteen towns, Synnada with twenty-one dependent places, Sardes, Smyrna, Adramyttium, and Pergamum. Becker observes that this list is probably incomplete, and there is little doubt that it is. The Con-. ventus or diocese (dioíknois), as it was named in Greek, took its name from the chief town, which the governor or his deputy visited on circuit for the administration of justice and for doing other acts necessary for the administration of each Conventus.

As these Conventus or administrative divisions existed when Sulla was in Asia, it does not appear why he did not make use of them for the purpose of levying his extraordinary demand for twenty thousand talents. It may be however that these districts were too large, and that, as the money was wanted soon, it would be more easily raised by dividing the country for that purpose into more numerous and smaller divisions, and employing more men in collecting it. But then it would seem likely that Sulla's division was only made for the particular occasion. In the war between Caesar and Pompeius, when a requisition for money was made upon Asia, a definite amount was imposed "on the several Conventus and the several towns," as Caesar expresses it.

CHAPTER XXIII.

SULLA IN ITALY.

B.C. 84-83.

SULLA left L. Licinius Murena in Asia with the two legions of Fimbria. He sailed from Ephesus with all his ships and on the third day entered the Piraeus. During his stay in Attica he was initiated in the Eleusinian mysteries, and he got possession of the valuable library collected by Apellicon, who was now dead. This library contained, as Plutarch says, most of the writings of Aristotle and Theophrastus, which were not then well known to people in general. Strabo has a curious story about Aristotle's writings. Neleus, a native of Scepsis in the province Asia, was a pupil both of Aristotle and Theophrastus. Aristotle gave his library to Theophrastus, his successor in his school, and Theophrastus left his own library and Aristotle's to Neleus who brought the books to Scepsis. Neleus left the books to his descendants, who were ignorant persons and took no care of them. When the kings of Pergamum, in whose dominions Scepsis was, were looking for books to form their great library at Pergamum, these people hid the books of Aristotle and Theophrastus in a cellar underground, where they were damaged by damp and worms. At last they were sold to Apellicon for a large sum. Apellicon had the books copied, and published them with the damaged passages incorrectly restored, and many errors. The old Peripatetics after the time of Theophrastus possessed few of Aristotle's works, and those chiefly of the kind called Exoteric, such as could be understood by those who were not of the school, or in other words, such as were generally

intelligible. Consequently the older Peripatetics could not learn the philosophy thoroughly, but only furbished up common-places in a rhetorical manner. The later Peripatetics, after these books were published, could teach the philosophy better and follow Aristotle's principles, but yet owing to the many errors in the text they were often compelled to guess at the meaning of the philosopher. When Apellicon's library was brought to Rome, it was carefully preserved. Some time after, Tyrannion a Greek grammarian, who had been taken prisoner by Lucullus (B.c. 72) and carried to Rome, became acquainted with the keeper of the Aristotelian library, and through his permission occupied himself with the books. Strabo's words do not clearly express what Tyrannion did. Plutarch says that he arranged most of the books, whatever he may mean. The booksellers also, Strabo says, made bad copies of the writings, and did not carefully compare the copies with the originals, which, he observes, is the case with other books which are copied for sale both at Rome and in Alexandria.

It might be inferred from Strabo's story that Aristotle only published a few of his writings of the class already mentioned, and that after the death of Theophrastus the Peripatetics were ignorant of at least a large part of Aristotle's works until they were published by Apellicon. There is great improbability in such a conclusion, and some direct evidence that Aristotle's works were well known and indeed published by himself. Accordingly Strabo's story has been rejected by several critics; but it is possible that there may be some truth in it, and the original manuscripts of Aristotle may have passed into Neleus' hands, and finally have been sold by some of his descendants to Apellicon. Andronicus of Rhodes, who was living in Rome about B.c. 50, got copies from Tyrannion, published them and made the tables which are now in use (Plutarch). Andronicus, it is said, critically revised the writings of Aristotle and published them arranged according to the subjects in divisions named pragmateiae (πpaypaтeîai). It is not probable that Sulla cared much for such matters as Aristotle laboured on; but as Sulla knew Greek VOL. II.

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