the Lydians, is testified also by Aristotle, treating of the birth and education of Homer: who seemeth to have had the surname of Mæonius, either from Mæon the king, or Mæonia the country itself of Lydia; among the cities whereof, Smyrna, the most likely place of that famous poet's nativity, is by Scylax Caryandensis reckoned; as Ephesus likewise is, both by him and Herodotus: Sardis, Philadelphia and Thyatyra by Ptolemy: and Laodicea by Stephanus Byzantinus. Yet is Laodicea by Ptolemy referred unto Caria, and by others unto Phrygia. The reason of which difference we may learn from Strabo, who showeth that the confines of Phrygia, Lydia and Caria were so coincident, that they were hardly to be discerned the one from the other; which is the cause, that though he doth reckon Laodicea among the cities of Phrygia, yet Hierapolis, which was opposite to it, toward the east, is by Stephanus said to be seated betwixt Phrygia and Lydia: it by that means being placed in, and Laodicea without the borders of Phrygia. This also doth Strabo assign for another reason, why the bounds of the provinces hereabout were confounded: because that "the Romans did not divide these places by the nations, but ordered them after another manner, according to the circuits wherein they kept their courts, and exercised judicature." Five of these tribunals were * Zμúprav ovoаv ¿ñò Avdoïç TÓTɛ. Aristot. lib. 3. de poetica: apud Plutarch. in lib. de vita et poesi Homeri. y Herodot, histor. lib. 1. 2 ̓́Εστι δὲ καὶ ἑτέρα Λυδίας, ̓Αντιόχου κτίσμα τοῦ παίδος τῆς Στρατοvikns. Stephan. de urbib. in Aaodikɛía. * Ὡς τὰ (1. ὥς τε) καὶ τὰ Φρύγια καὶ τὰ Λύδια καὶ τὰ Καρικὰ, καὶ ἔτι τὰ τῶν Μυσῶν, δυσδιακριτὰ εἶναι, παραπίπτοντα εἰς άλληλα. Strabo, lib. 13. pag. 932. b Id. lib. 12. pag. 864. et lib. 14. pag. 978. • Καταντικρύ Λαοδικείας ̔Ιεράπολις. Id. lib. 13. pag. 933. Η Ιεράπολις, μεταξὺ Φρυγίας καὶ Λυδίας πόλις. Stephan. de urbib. • Εἰς δὲ τὴν σύγχυσιν ταύτην οὐ μικρὰ συλλαμβάνει τὸ τοὺς Ρωμαίους μὴ κατὰ φύλα διελεῖν αὐτοὺς, ἀλλὰ ἕτερον τρόπον διατάξαι τὰς διοικήσεις, ἐν αἷς τὰς ἀγοραίους ποιοῦνται καὶ τὰς δικαιοδοσίας. pag. 932. VOL. VII. Strab. lib. 13. C seated in the cities of Laodiceaf, Sardis, Smyrna, Ephesus, and Pergamus: Philadelphia was within the Sardian, and Thyatira within the Pergamen circuit; although that Thyatira was a metropolis also of itself as Ptolemy declareth in his geography; and in all likelihood Philadelphia also, the only city remaining of those seven famous ones singled out, as the seats of the most eminent churches of all Asia, in the book of the Revelation. For that Philadelphia was herein no whit inferior unto Thyatira, may easily be gathered by the respect which it still retained, after that Lydia, as we shall hear, was separated from the proconsular Asia, and each province ordinarily permitted to have but one metropolis. For Sardis being then the prime city of Lydia, the next in account after it was Philadelphia, another also being placed betwixt it and Thyatira, as appeareth by the order of them constantly observed as well in the civil" as in the ecclesiastical catalogues of the cities belonging to that province. Whereupon in the acts of the Constantinopolitan council held under Menas, we see that Eustathius subscribeth himself, in express terms, "Bishop of the METROPOLIS of the Philadelphians, of the province of the Lydians." Plin. lib. 5. cap. 29. et 30. 8 Θυάτειρα Μητρόπολις. Ptolem. lib. 5. cap. 2. h Hieroclis. notit. orientalis imperii; in appendice Geographiæ sacræ Caroli a Sancto Paulo edit. Paris. ann. 1641. pag. 29. i Ordo metropolitar. ibid. pag. 13. et 45. et in tomo 1. Juris Græco-Romani. pag. 90. * Επίσκοπος τῆς Φιλαδελφέων μητροπόλεως, τῶν Λυδῶν ἐπαρχίας. Concil. Constantinop. sub Mena, act. 5. CHAP. III. Of the proconsular Asia, and the several alterations of the limits thereof. I COME now from the Lydian Asia, and the seven metropolitical cities thereof, unto the proconsular: which, according to the condition of other provinces, had in several times its several alterations. For in the distribution of the empire made by Augustus Cæsar, it appeareth to have been the same with that former Asia of the Romans, which we described in the beginning out of Cicero, but in that which was afterwards brought in by Constantine, to have been confined within the bounds of the Lydian Asia; the greatness of the one above the other being sufficiently intimated in those verses of Statius, touching the year of the proconsulship of Vectius Bolanus, who, before that, had been proconsul here in Britain: quantusque potentes Mille urbes Asia sortito rexerit anno, That same year, wherein Cæsar obtained first the surname of Augustus, himself being then the seventh, and Marcus Agrippa, who married his sister's daughter, the third time consul, was this political division of the provinces ordered by him, far different from that geographi * Αἱ ἐπαρχίαι διήρηνται ἄλλοτε μὲν ἄλλως. Strabo, lib. 17. pag. 1197. b Stat. lib. 5. Sylvar. in Protreptico ad Crispin. ver. 53. Dio, lib. 53. cal partition of countries delivered by his nephew Agrippa; whom Solinus following in his geography, beginneth Asia from Telmessus of Lycia and the Carpathian bay: and boundeth it on the east with Lycia (or Lycaonia, as Pliny" hath it) and Phrygia; on the west with the Ægean, on the south with the Egyptian sea, and on the north with Paphlagonia, which being made the limit of Agrippa's Asia on that side, and not Pontus or Propontis, doth necessarily show that Pontus and Bithynia were included therein; whereas it plainly appeareth by Strabo and Dio, that in Augustus his platform these were a province by themselves; they being made by him a prætorian province, and Asia a consular; containing in it, as Strabo witnesseth, all that Asia which was on this side the river Halys and the mountain Taurus, excepting Galatia, the countries that had been lately under the government of king Amyntas, together with the province of Bithynia and that of Pontus and Propontis adjoined thereunto. All which being deducted, those countries will remain, which by Onuphrius are assigned unto Augustus his proconsular Asia: to wit, Lydia, Ionia, Caria, Mysia, Phrygia, and the proconsular Hellespont; the two Roman colonies thereof, Troas and Parium, are by Paulus the lawyer particularly noted to have been seated in the province Asia. And this is it indeed, which Ptolemy proposeth unto us, as that which was accounted the Asia properly so called in the days of Antoninus Pius, who himself, as proconsul, had sometime governed' this province. Where, in the breviat of the first table of Asia, it is not to be d Solin. polyhist. cap. 43. Strabo, lib. 17. pag. 1198. e Plin. lib. 5. cap. 27. 8 Onuphr. Panvin. commentar. reipubl. Roman. lib. 3. pag. 378. edit. Francofurt. ann. 1597. In provincia Asia duæ sunt juris Italici, Troas et Parium. 1. In Lusitan. D. de Censib. · Η ἰδίως καλουμένη ̓Ασία. Ptolem. lib. 5. cap. 2. Jul. Capitolin. in Antonino Pio. 1 Provinciæ Asiæ præerat. Marcianus I C. in L. Divus Hadrian. D. de cus tod. et exhibit. reor. passed by, that mention is made of the "Asia" properly so called, wherein was Phrygia." For howsoever that were no part, either of Agrippa's Asia, from whence by Solinus" it is excluded, or yet of the Lydian Asia, from which in the Acts of the Apostles, as also in the letters of the Church of Vienna and Lyons, and Tertullian's book against Praxeas, it is clearly distinguished: yet Hierapolis, the chief city thereof, by Polycrates', and Ulpian, and Julius Africanus, as far as we have him in Eusebiust his chronicle, is placed in Asia, as being contained within the limits assigned by Strabo to the proconsular Asia, as it stood in the time of Augustus and the heathen emperors after him. But in the days of Constantine, and the Christian emperors that succeeded him, the circuit thereof was much abridged, and a distinction brought in betwixt the proconsular Asia and the Asian diocese; the one being put under the command of the proconsul of Asia, the other under the government of the Vicarius of Asia or the Asian diocese, for so in the imperial constitutions is he indifferently nominated. Thus in the CCCLXV. year of our Lord, two rescripts were given out by the emperor Valens: the one dated" the twenty-seventh of January, in the latter end of the first year of his reign, to Clearchus the Vicarius Asia; the other, the sixth of October following, unto his successor Auxonius, under the style of Vicarius diœceseos Asianæ. This Auxonius some do ima κι ̔Η ἰδίως ̓Ασία, ἐν ᾧ ἡ Φρυγία. ad fin. libri 8. Geograph. Ptolem. n Asiam excipit Phrygia. Solin. Polyhist. cap. 43. Acts, chap. 2. ver. 9, 10. and chap. 16. ver. 6. • Τοῖς κατὰ τὴν ̓Ασίαν καὶ Φρυγίαν. Euseb. lib. 5. hist. κεφ. α. 9 Pacem ecclesiis Asiæ et Phrygiæ inferentem. Tertullian. Polycrat. in epistola synodica, apud Euseb. lib. 5. hist. xɛ¢. κồ. • Ulpian. in D. de aqua quotidian. et æstiv. lib. 1. et 13. : Πόλεις τῆς ̓Ασίας κατέπεσον τρεῖς, Λαοδικεία, Ιεράπολις, Κολοσσαί. Euseb. chron. ad ann. 10. Neronis. u Cod. Theodos. lib. 5. tit. 11. Ne colon. inscio dom. * Ibid. lib. 12. tit. 1. de Decurionib. leg. 69. Guid. Pancirol. commentar. in notit. orient. imper. cap. 122. Jos. Scaliger. Ausonian. lection. lib. 2. cap. 17. Vid. et |