Note 21 — An Account of a journey round the ancient Ionia, from Smyrna, thro St. George’s, Magnesia, Durguthli, Sardis, Birghée, Tyria, Ephesus, and back to Smyrna, in the year MDCXCIX.

This Statius Quadratus was that very proconsul, in whose presence, and by whose authority, St. Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, was burnt alive in the amphitheatre of that city. His name is falsely written Τάτιος Κ. in the Alexandrian Chronicle, and Στράτιος in the Epistle of the church of Smyrna. But this stone confirms that correction, which has been made by bishop Pearson and Valesius. It likewise favours that learned argument maintained by bishop Pearson, Dissert. ii. cap. xvi, xvii. pag. 291, by which he places this proconsulship and the martyrdom of St. Polycarp in the tenth year of Antoninus Pius, A. C. 147. For in the fourth year of M. Antoninus, to which the Alexandrian Chronicle refers it; as also in the year 167, to which it is referred by Eusebius and Valesius; there were two Caesars, concerning whom Eutropius says: Tunc primum Rom. respublica duobus aequo jure imperium administrantibus paruit, cum usque ad eum singulos semper habuisset Augustos. Lib. viii. cap. 5. But this inscription mentions only one Caesar, in the singular number. And as for that Quadratus, whom Bucherius and Usserius will have proconsul in Asia in the year 169, his name was not Statius, but T. Numidius. See also mention of Quadratus in Aristidis Orat. Genethliac. in Apellam; and in his Sermon. Sacror. iv.