own province, the mission imposed by Trajan was formally ratified by a senatus consultum. What sort of work it was that needed to be done in Bithynia, we know from the Letters. It is only necessary to repeat that, though we may learn from this correspondence the spirit which animated Trajan in provincial matters, we cannot infer that he was personally consulted to the same extent in the case of other provinces which were under their own normal régime. The necessary reforms in Bithynia were not completed by Pliny, for we find that his colleague in the consulship, C. Iulius Cornutus Tertullus, was still later in Trajan's reign (the emperor has the title Parthicus) sent to Bithynia also as 'legatus Augusti pro praetore' (Orell. 3659), while later still Tiberius Iulius Severus was sent there under Hadrian, with the title of Siopowτns Kai λογιστής. These were the small beginnings of the tendency towards a central bureaucracy, which before long filled the provinces and Italy with imperial curatores and correctores, and at last culminated in the Diocletian system.

THE PROVINCE OF BITHYNIA AND PONTUS

Bithynia, the region between the rivers Rhyndacus and Sangarius, was left to the Roman people by the testament of Nicomedes III in 74 B.C., and at once reduced to the form of a province (Liv. Ep. 93; App. Bell. Civ. i III). Nine years

later, in 65 B.C., after the third Mithridatic war, Pompeius added to this the western portion of the kingdom of Pontus from Heraclea to the Halys (Liv. Ep. 102; Strab. 12, p. 544). Following the policy of the Romans, who in all these provinces aimed at making towns the units of administration, Pompeius divided the Roman portion of Pontus into eleven town communities, each with an extensive rural district, resembling in this respect the Gallic cantons. Among these were Heraclea, Tium, Amastris, Abonoteichos, Sinope, and Amisus. Bithynia was divided, according to Pliny (h. n. 5, 143), into twelve. similar communities-Nicomedeia, Nicaea, Cius, Apamea, Tius, Prusias or Hyppias, Chalcedon, Claudiopolis, Crateia - Flaviopolis, Iuliopolis, and Dascylium. The two districts from the beginning formed one province, though they retained a certain

E

While Nicomedeia was the

independence of administration. unτρóπolis of Bithynia, Amastris had the same title in Pontus, and in these two cities respectively met the consilia or Ková of Bithynia and Pontus. The constitution of the whole province depended on the lex Pompeia, or the arrangement made by Pompeius in 65 B.C. The great majority of the towns were the ordinary, unprivileged 'civitates stipendiariae,' subject in all respects to the proconsul's interference. Of colonies in Trajan's time there were only two, Apamea (Plin. h. n. 5, 149; ad Trai. 47) and Sinope (Plin h. n. 6, 6), while there were two 'civitates liberae et foederatae,' Chalcedon (Plin. h. n. 5, 149), and Amisus (ad Trai. 92). It is noticeable that Byzantium, though on the European side of the Straits, belonged administratively to Bithynia.

Prior to the Augustan regulation of the provinces, Bithynia was governed by a propraetor, but after 27 B.C. it, as a senatorial province, was subject to a proconsul. Of its various proconsuls we know Granius Marcellus, under Tiberius (Tac. Ann. i 74); Cadius Rufus, under Claudius (Ann. xii 22); Tarquitius Priscus, under Nero (Ann. xiv 46); Appius Maximus, under Domitian (ad Trai. 58); Tullius Iustus, under Nerva (ad Trai. 58); Iulius Bassus, Varenus Rufus, and Servilius Calvus (ad Trai. 56), under Trajan. These proconsuls had of course their quaestors for the finances of the aerarium, and as praetorii, their one legatus. But as there were imperial domains in the province, and as such taxes as the 'vicesima hereditatum,' etc., went to the fiscus, there were even under the senatorial régime always imperial procurators (Henz. 5530, 6940; Tac. Ann. xii 21). The old inhabitants of Bithynia were of Thracian nationality, and previous to the Roman occupation, Greeks, though no doubt numerous in the country, had failed to spread Hellenistic civilisation to any great extent, nor were Greek towns, even on the coast, at all numerous. Indeed such towns as Sinope and Amisus, originally of Greek foundation, had lost some of their Greek character by becoming the royal residences of the Pontic kings. The native kings of Bithynia and Pontus, though not without Hellenistic culture, stood in this respect far behind the courts of Pergamus and Antioch, and up to the time of the empire the inland parts of the country were not only without much civilisation, but even without towns. After the Roman conquest both deficiencies

were soon supplied. Towns with Greek names and Greek constitutions arose, such as Pompeiopolis, Nicopolis, Megalopolis; native towns received Greek names, as Gordiu-kome that of Iuliopolis, Bithynium that of Claudiopolis, Krateia that of Flaviopolis, and as it was proved in Thrace proper, the substratum of Thracian nationality gave a favourable ground for Hellenistic culture to grow upon, and names like Cocceianus Dio of Prusa, Memnon of Heraclea, Arrian of Nicomedeia, and Dio Cassius of Nicaea prove that the province fairly held its own in literary studies.

PLINY AND THE CHRISTIANS

A clear understanding of the various questions raised by Pliny's letter and Trajan's rescript on the subject of the Christians in Bithynia, can only be gained by a retrospective glance at the relations which had existed between the Christians and the imperial government during the first century. This, however, is not altogether an easy task, because on the one hand the period covered by the author of the Acts of the Apostles does not extend beyond 62 or 63 A.D., during which time the points of contact between the new religion and the government were few and incidental, while on the other hand the contemporary Roman writers are for the same reason entirely silent about the Christians, who are not mentioned at all before the first or second decade of the second century, and even then we are not sure how far Tacitus and Suetonius in relating the events of Nero's reign are speaking of the Christians from the point of view of their own time. However, from the Acts of the Apostles several points are quite clear. Not only did Christianity emerge from Judaism in the first instance, but the first and indeed the only condition of its extension beyond its original birthplace was the widespread dispersion of the Jewish nation. Not without reason Josephus asserted that there was no people in the earth where Jews were not found (Bell. Iud. 2, 16, 4), and on the very first occasion on which the new religion was preached, it was to an audience of 'devout Jews from every nation under heaven' (Acts ii 5-11). It is perfectly true that under the influence of Paul one of the two parties into which Christianity was soon divided set them

selves free from the strict Jewish exclusiveness of the other, and that Paul was in fact as well as in name the Apostle of the Gentiles, but in all his missionary journeys, wherever he went, there was a Jewish community to which he appealed first with greater or less success (Acts xxvi 17), and it was certainly over this Jewish substratum that the Gentile converts were clustered, the monotheism they accepted was Jewish monotheism, and the sacred writings they adopted were the Jewish books of the Old Testament. No doubt the spirit and essence of Christianity differed from that of Judaism, that while the one had the potentiality of becoming a universal religion, the other could never emerge far beyond the limits of its own nationality, but this difference except in a few of the Christian leaders was below the surface. It was not altogether the higher features of Christianity which attracted its numerous converts whether Jew or Gentile. It was rather its tendency to level differences of property and distinctions of social rank, the hopes it held out of a coming Saviour, and the idea of a future beyond the grave in which compensation was to be hoped for the inequalities of the present. To the, Roman proconsuls, legates, and procurators, whenever their attention was turned on the Christians at all, they seemed to be merely a Jewish sect or heresy. Just as Pilate never comprehended, nor really cared to comprehend, why the Jews wished to 'crucify their king,' so neither did a Gallio or a Felix care to understand disputes which seemed to relate merely to questions of Jewish law.

(At first therefore there seems to be no doubt that to the Roman government Christianity was merely a Jewish sect, and shared the same treatment which was accorded to the Jews. But up to the end of Nero's reign the Jews enjoyed, as far as their religion was concerned, an almost complete toleration. Judaism, though not without zeal for proselytism, was an exclusive but not an aggressive religion. In Rome there was already at the beginning of the empire a considerable number of Jews, living together chiefly in the Transtiberine quarter. As many as 8000 of them escorted an embassy sent to Rome by Herod to Augustus. Socially no doubt the Jews were at a disadvantage; they belonged to the lowest classes; they were regarded as gloomy, sullen, haters of their kind;

their peculiar observances were freely ridiculed, while their occasional outbreaks of fanatical intolerance were now and again punished by expulsion from the city, which, however, was, and was probably intended to be, only temporary. But the close connection of the client-kings of Judaea with the imperial family ensured the Jews against any more real or systematic persecution than the occasional Jew-baitings which we hear of from time to time in the great cities. Even conversions to Judaism, especially among the lower orders and women, were by no means unheard of (cf. especially Hor. Sat. i 4, 143; and Juv. xiv 97), and there is nothing to show that up to the time of Domitian these conversions were in any way interfered with. (Christianity, therefore, we may fairly say, was not only assisted in its extension by the widespread dispersion of the Jews throughout the Roman empire, but it also profited, and at a very important time, by the toleration which Judaism received from the government. To persecution it was no doubt subject, but it was Jewish persecution and not Roman (cf. I Thessal. ii 15). Indeed, on more than one occasion the Christians were saved from the violence of the Jews by Roman protection. It is possible that a disputed passage in Suetonius (Claud. 25), may be explained in this way, 'Iudaeos impulsore Chresto assidue tumultuantes Roma expulit.' The Jews raising constant tumults against the Christians were expelled from Rome by Claudius. It seems quite possible that the words 'impulsore Chresto' are merely an inaccuracy of Suetonius, who knew that the tumult was concerned with Christus, and inferred that he was its promoter. That there were Christians in Rome at the date of Paul's Epistle, 58 A.D., is certain; that they belonged almost exclusively to the class of libertini and were of Jewish or Greek origin, is equally clear from the salutations in the last chapter. They could not, however, have been very numerous, for they were allowed without interference to meet Paul on his arrival at Appii Forum, while the practice of their religion was clearly subject to no restriction, since for two whole years Paul 'received all that went in unto him, preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching the things concerning the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness, none forbidding him.'

Up to this date, 62 and 63 A.D., all seems clear and con