Note 175 — Chapter VII

In answer to one of the numerous complaints, with which the towns of Asia Minor plagued the government on account of their disputes as to titles and rank, Pius tells the Ephesians (Waddington, Aristide, p. 51), that he was glad to hear that the Pergamenes had given to them the new title; that the Smyrnaeans had doubtless merely by accident omitted it, and would certainly in future be ready to do what was correct, if they—the Ephesians—would accord to them their right titles. To a small Lycian town, which applied to the proconsul for the confirmation of a resolution adopted by it, the latter replied (Benndorf, Lykische Reise, i. 71), that excellent ordinances require only praise, not confirmation; the latter is implied in the case. The rhetorical schools of this epoch furnished also the draughtsmen for the imperial chancery; but this alone mattered little. It belonged to the essence of the principate not to accentuate outwardly the subject–relation, and especially not against the Greeks.