Pausanias' description of Greece, Volume II.Pausanias, active approximately 150-175
History
Pausanias' description of Greece, Volume II.
Pausanias, active approximately 150-175
Greece -- Antiquities; Greece -- Description and travel -- Early works to 1800
Pallantium next demands my attention, both to describe what is worthy
of record in it, and to show why the elder Antonine made it a town
instead of a village, and also free and exempt from taxation. They say
that Evander was the best of the Arcadians both in council and war,
and that he was the son of Hermes by a Nymph the daughter of Lado, and
that he was sent with a force of Arcadians from Pallantium to form a
colony, which he founded near the river Tiber. And part of what is now
Rome was inhabited by Evander and the Arcadians who accompanied him,
and was called Pallantium in remembrance of the town in Arcadia. And
in process of time it changed its name into Palatium. It was for these
reasons that Pallantium received its privileges from the Roman Emperor.
This Antonine, who bestowed such favours on Pallantium, imposed no war
on the Romans willingly, but when the Mauri, (the most important tribe
of independent Libyans, who were Nomads and much more formidable than
the Scythians, as they did not travel in waggons but they and their
wives rode on horseback,) commenced a war with Rome, he drove them
out of all their territory into the most remote parts, and compelled
them to retire from Libya to Mount Atlas and to the neighbourhood of
Mount Atlas. He also took away from the Brigantes in Britain most of
their territory, because they had attacked the Genunii who were Roman
subjects. And when Cos and Rhodes cities of the Lycians and Carians
were destroyed by a violent earthquake, the Emperor Antonine restored
them by large expenditure of money and by his zeal in re-peopling them.
As to the grants of money which he made to the Greeks and barbarians
who stood in need of them, and his magnificent works in Greece and
Ionia and Carthage and Syria, all this has been minutely described
by others. This Emperor left another token of his liberality. Those
subject nations who had the privilege of being Roman citizens, but
whose sons were reckoned as Greeks, had the option by law of leaving
their money to those who were no relations, or letting it swell the
wealth of the Emperor. But Antonine allowed them to leave their
property to their sons, preferring to exhibit philanthropy rather than
to maintain a law which brought in money to the revenue. This Emperor
the Romans called Pius from the honour he paid to the gods. I think
he might also justly have borne the title of the elder Cyrus, Father
of mankind. He was succeeded by his son Antonine, who fought against
the Germans, the most numerous and warlike barbarians in Europe, and
subdued the Sauromatæ who had commenced an iniquitous war.
CHAPTER XLIV.
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