[20] Oration xxxvi. Βορυσθενικός. [21] Oration xxxi. vol. i. p. 364, Dindorf. ταῦτα ἐν δημοκρατίᾳ καὶ παρ' ὑμῖν, οἱ μέγιστον φρονεῖτε ἐπὶ τῷ νομίμως καὶ δικαίως διοικεῖν τὰ παρ' ἑαυτοῖς. [22] _Ibid._ p. 380. τοῖς μὲν γὰρ [Ῥοδίοις] μόνον ὑπάρχειν τὴν ἐλευθερίαν δίχα Ἀθηναίων. [23] _Ibid._ p. 350. τῆς λοιπῆς Ἑλλάδος τρόπον τίνὰ ἐσβεσμένης μόνους ἐφ' αὑτοῖς διαφυλάξαι τὸ κοινὸν ἀξίωμα τῶν Ἑλλήνων εἰς τὸν νῦν παρόντα χρόνον. So p. 398; μόνοι καταλείπεσθε τῶν Ἑλλήνων οἷς ἂν καὶ παραινέσαι τις καὶ περὶ ᾧ ἔστιν ἔτι λυπηθῆναι δοκούντων ἁμαρτάνειν. [24] _Ibid._ pp. 359, 380, 381, 387, 393. [25] _Ibid._ pp. 367, 383. Less interesting in themselves than any of these, but perhaps in a certain way more instructive, are the speeches which Diôn makes in his own city of Prusa and in other towns of his native province. He had to preach peace and concord both to rival cities and to rival parties in the same city, and also to plead his own cause against his own enemies.[26] The assemblies which he addresses are always assumed to be self-acting bodies; references to the existence of Rome come in only casually, and Diôn does not often copy the plain-speaking of Plutarch.[27] But the speeches of the Greek orator put on a tenfold interest when we come to compare them with the memorable correspondence which is luckily preserved to us between a Roman Emperor and a proconsul of Bithynia in Diôn’s own day. The letters which passed between Trajan and Pliny seem at first sight to describe a wholly different state of things from that which appears in the speeches of Diôn. If we compare the two, we shall see that they set before us two opposite sides of the same state of things. From the two together we shall get a clear notion of the state of the various cities of Bithynia, and of the different relations in which, like those of any other province, they stood to the ruling power. Speeches and letters together illustrate the show of freedom which existed in perhaps every case, the reality of freedom which existed in some cases, and at the same time the precarious tenure by which both the shadow and the reality were held. We see the ordinary provincial town, still keeping the style of “res publica,” passing “psephismata,” sending “legati” to the Emperor and the neighbouring governors, playing in short at being a commonwealth, but not venturing to do any local act of the least importance without consulting the Emperor’s representative. Diôn brings out one side, Trajan and Pliny bring out the other side; that is all. Diôn makes a speech to the people of Nikomêdeia, exhorting them to peace and harmony with the people of Nikaia. Many passages would have been in place in the mouth of a mediator between Athens and Sparta five hundred years earlier. There is no direct mention of any superior authority as bearing rule over both; the orator indeed tells his hearers that after all they cannot make war on their enemies,[28]