It was during the sway of the Roman Emperors that the Egyptian oases attained their maximum importance. During this period, from 30 B.C. to about the beginning of the seventh century, extensive towns existed in Kharga, and the oasis was strongly garrisoned and protected by forts. Temples and other edifices were erected, while a great development of the water-supply took place. During the same period the oases were used as places of banishment, just as they were in earlier days under the Pharaohs, and have been, in a way, in quite modern times. Juvenal, the Latin satirist, was banished to Syene at the beginning of the second century, as a punishment for his attacks on the Court, and he appears also to have been for a time confined in Kharga; Athanasius, Nestorius, and other celebrities likewise made unwilling acquaintance with this portion of the Empire. Sayce remarks that the oases under the Romans were thoroughly cultivated, a brisk trade in wine being carried on, and mentions that on one of the temple walls there are several inscriptions which lead one to infer that Kharga yielded a considerable revenue. One of the best known, dated in the first year of the reign of the Emperor Galba (A.D. 68), is a long Greek inscription on one of the pylons of the temple of Hibis; this has been carefully copied by more than one traveller, and translations have been published by Young, Letronne, and Hoskins. In it the Prefect of the oasis, Julius Demetrius, communicated the answer of the Governor of the province, Tiberius Julius Alexander, to various complaints made by the inhabitants, not only of the oasis, but of other districts under the same jurisdiction. The proclamation admits the justice of the complaints, and lays down at great length the steps to be taken in regard to the appointment of tax-gatherers, the payment of debts, and imprisonment for various offences; it deals with deeds of sale, the marriage portions of women, rents, military service, legal appeals, the punishment of libellous informers, etc.; forbids extortion and exorbitant taxes; orders the restitution of illegally exacted moneys; and ordains that taxes are to be based on the extent of the Nile inundation. A still earlier inscription, on the southern portion of the same pylon, refers especially to the inhabitants of the oasis, and is translated by Hoskins as follows: