before, or never yet under Tiberius. Velleius, who mentions his appointment, ii. 129, calls him consularem virum at the time; as he truly was, U. C. 772, having been consul U. C. 770. De Ponto, lib. ii. ix. the time of which we have presumptively ascertained to be U. C. 765 or 766. is addressed to king Cotys, the nephew of Rhescuporis; who must at that time have been alive, and unmolested. Cf. Tacitus, Ann. ii. 64.

APPENDIX.

DISSERTATION VIII.

The rate of travelling by sea or land, in ancient times, illustrated by Examples.

Vide Dissertation vi. vol. i. page 306. line 16. and Dissertation ix. page 347. line 8.

ACCORDING to the rate of travelling which prevailed in ancient times, one who set out from Rome, even on the first of June, would not be in Judæa before the beginning or the middle of August. I shall illustrate this assertion by a number of examples.

I. It was one of the regulations of Augustus, which he made U. C. 727. or before, relating to the governors of provinces, that, ὅταν τῳ ὁ διάδοχος ἔλθῃ, ἔκ τε τοῦ ἔθνους αὐτίκα αὐτὸν (the predecessor in office) εξορ μᾶσθαι, καὶ ἐν τῇ ἀνακομιδῇ μὴ ἐγχρονίζειν, ἀλλ ̓ ἐντὸς τριῶν μηνῶν ἐπανιέναι. It is implied hereby that even in the summer season, when governors commonly relieved each other, three months were not more than sufficient for the return of former governors to Italy; from the remotest provinces, as well as from the nearest.

II. The intelligence of the death of Tiberius, which happened on the 16th of March, three days before the passover, U. C. 790 P, was not received in Judæa until four days after the feast of Pentecost 9.

III. Herod, who set out from Judæa, as we saw in its proper place, about the Pentecost of U. C. 714. May 10; and that by way of Egypt, which was

o Dio, liii. 15. p Tacitus, Ann. vi. 50. Suetonius, Tiberius, 73. Dissertation vii. vol. i. 332. q Ant. Jud. xviii. v. 3.

the shortest route; did not arrive in Rome before the third or fourth week in September.

IV. St. Paul, who set out in Easter week from Philippi, did not expect without great dispatch to reach Jerusalem by Whitsuntide.

V. Philo, in Flaccum, speaks of the voyage from Brundisium to Syria in general terms, as μακρὸν ὄντα καὶ καματηρόνs: and Jeromet describing its course states that he left Italy in the month of August, flantibus Etesiis; yet did not reach Judæa, except media hyeme, et frigore gravissimo. And what he understands by the winter months in this country, we may learn from his Commentary upon Zacharias": Octavus apud Hebræos mensis, qui apud illos Maresvan ... apud nos November dicitur, hyemis exordium est: in quo, æstatis calore consumpto, omnis terra virore nudatur, et mortalium corpora contrahuntur.

VI. Tiridates was nine months in travelling to Rome from Armenia ; of which the first four or five might be taken up in reaching the Hellespont; and the rest in coming thence to Rome. And though he travelled by land, and in the summer season, the journey by sea would have taken up at least half the time.

VII. I mentioned the cases of Cicero, and of the younger Pliny, previously. The letters of the former, however, supply many instances of the rate of travelling anciently: some of which I shall specify.

I. Epp. ad Fam. xii. Ep. x. xii. Cassius wrote to the Roman senate from Syria, nonis Maii, (May 7th ;) and his letter, though sent by special messengers, does not appear to have been received before June 30. prid. kal. Quin.

II. xvi. Ep. xxi. Letters, which appear to have been r Acts xx. 6. 16. s Operum ii. 521. 1. 5. t Operum iv. Pars iia. 459. ad calcem. Adv. Ruffinum lib. iii. Cf. Epistolæ, 86. Ibid. 672. u Operum iii. 1707. ad calcem. v Dio, lxiii. 2.

sent to Cicero the younger from Rome, reached him at Athens forty-six days after the posts set out.

III. Epp. ad Atticum i. Ep. xx. A letter, written by Atticus at Athens, id. Februar. was received by Cicero at Rome, Iv. id. Maii.

IV. v. Ep. xviii. xix. Cicero received in his province a letter from Atticus who was at Rome, on the forty-seventh day after the setting out of the post; which he considers an instance of extraordinary dispatch. Not long before the same day, which was x1. kal. Oct. (Sept. 21.) he had just received letters, written at Rome XIV. kal. Sextiles, July 19: which was more than two months after date.

VIII. The delays of travelling in the winter season were necessarily even greater than usual at any other time.

I. Nicias, in Thucydides w, reminds the Athenians that it was a four months' voyage during the winter from Sicily to Athens.

II. It was by extraordinary efforts of speed that the death of Caius Cæsar in Asia, a. d. vIII. kal. Mar. (Feb. 22.) was made known to Augustus, in Italy, a.d. IV. non. April. (by the 2nd of April.)

III. The ship which brought the last letters of Caligula to Petronius, and could not have set out long before Jan. 24. the day of his death, was three months on the roady.

IV. The ashes of Germanicus, who died at Antioch on the ninth of October, U. C. 772". were not brought to Rome by his widow, though she travelled, nihil intermissa navigatione hyberni marisa, much before the usual period of the Ludi Megalenses; that is, the fourth of April, U. C. 773.

V. Herod, who as we saw was enabled to return from Italy by the end of September, U. C. 714, was yet not able to arrive in Judæa before the spring of U. C. 715.

To these examples of the rate of travelling anciently, in the summer and the winter season, respectively, we may add the following, which will apply alike to each.

I. The death of Germanicus Cæsar at Antioch, (which took place, as it has just been mentioned, on the ninth of October,) was not communicated at Rome until about the period of the Saturnalia b; that is, not much before December the 19th c, an interval of at least two months.

II. The Emperor Otho is said to have died eleven days before his birthday; that is, upon April the 17th, U. C. 8224. Soon after Vespasian heard of this event and of the accession of Vitellius, he was saluted emperore at Cæsarea f,by the army which he was commanding in Judæa, on the v. id. Julias, July the 11th, in the same year. This was almost an interval of three months.

III. The death of Nero happened the second week in June, U. C. 8215, and the death of Galba on the 15th of January, U. C. 822h. Upon hearing of the death of Nero and the accession of Galba, Titus Cæsar was sent by Vespasian from Judæa to salute the latter. When he was arrived in Achaia, which means at Corinth, within two or three weeks' journey from Rome, Titus heard of the assassination of Galbai*. He must