ror, and as superseded at his own request: which might be by Urbicus. The mention of Urbicus by name may, perhaps, imply that he was præfect not only when the incident in question happened, but when the Apology was written; and had not yet been superseded by any other, in that office; whether he was so afterwards or not. If the Acta of Justin are to be credited, when he himself suffered, one Rusticus was præfect and in this respect the Acta are confirmed by Epiphanius TM *. m And this is not improbable for this maternal uncle of Sicinius Æmilianus in point of age would be a contemporary of his own avus, or grandfather; and this grandfather was only just dead, when Pudentilla determined to marry again. Now this determination, as we have seen, was formed not long before Apuleius came to Ea; and that was, only in the third year before the oration was delivered. If so, the inquiry at Rome, before Urbicus, into the authenticity of the will, was going on only three or four years, at the utmost, before the Oratio de Magia was pronounced: and if this oration was pronounced when Claudius Maximus was proconsul, not long after U. C. 905, perhaps Urbicus was actually in office, in or before U. C. 901. This is the nearest approximation to the date of his mayoralty, that I am able to make. We have him mentioned by name, it is true, in the Opera inedita of Fronto, pars ii. 301, 302. in the fragment of the Oratio pro Volumnio Sereno, there preserved-as having been governor of the Regio Veneta, some time before Arrius Antoninus, to whom that oration is addressed -some time before the death of the emperor Verus (page 301.) and probably within five years of the time when that oration was penned (see page 308.) But all this belongs no doubt to the reign of Marcus Aurelius. As Capitolinus, Vita Antonini Pii, 8. mentions that Antoninus made it a rule not to supersede any magistrate or officer of state, under him, so long as he continued to acquit himself well in the discharge of his duties, this is another reason for supposing that Urbicus succeeded to Orphitus, as urbis præfectus; and more probably early in the reign of Antoninus, than late. It would also imply that, once appointed to that office, he might continue to exercise it until late in the emperor's reign. * Dio or Xiphilinus, lxxi. 35. and Capitolinus, Vita, 3. mention a Junius Rusticus, as one of the emperor Marcus' teachers in philosophy: and eminently honoured by him. He might be this 1 Capitolinus, Vita, 8. m Acta Martyrum 58. 1. 59. 2. Epiphanius, i. 391. A. B. Tatiani, i. There is a presentiment in this Apology that the death of the writer would some time or other be brought to pass through the machinations of Crescens, his enemy"; which misgiving the Oratio of Tatian, ad Gentes, (a contemporary and disciple of Justin's,) shews to have been in all probability realized by the event. Yet Tatian speaks in the same work of philosophers, who received an annual pension of six hundred gold pieces from the emperor: and as he mentions only one emperor, it is possible he may mean Antoninus Pius; particularly as Capitolinus tells us of this emperor, Rhetoribus et philosophis per omnes provincias honores et salaria detulit P*. urbis præfectus, and he would flourish under Antoninus Pius. The same person, apparently, is thrice mentioned by Marcus Antoninus, De Rebus suis, as one of his instructors; lib. i. 7. and 17. It appears from Capitolinus, loco citato, that he died before Marcus, and as we may collect, in the year when he was designated by him consul the second time. His first consulate was A. D. 162. in the second of Marcus. He had probably been urbis præfectus before this time: in which case, if Justin suffered under him in that capacity, he suffered in the reign of Antoninus Pius. * Lucian, Operum ii. 352. Eunuchus, 3, speaks of a salary appointed by the emperor then reigning, for philosophers of all the sects, indiscriminately, of 10,000 drachmæ per annum ; which is two thirds of Tatian's sum of 600 aurei. Some of n P. 120. 6. Lucian's commentators suppose this emperor was M. Aurelius; but he might just as well be Antoninus Pius; for Lucian flourished under both. Marcus Aurelius certainly made the same allowance; but it might be only in imitation of what Antoninus had done. From an obscure allusion in Suidas' account of Aristocles, a sophist of Pergamus, whom he describes as having flourished under Trajan and Hadrian, it might be inferred that some provision for the maintenance of the sophists and philosophers, out of the privy purse, existed in the time of the latter. Jerome, in Chronico, ad Domitiani viii. tells us that Quintilian was the first of the professors of Rhetoric at Rome, Qui salarium e fisco accepit, and that in the reign of Domitian : as indeed it were easy to collect from various passages in his own Institutiones, o Cap. 32. Cf. 31. Cf. Eusebius, E. H. iv. xvi. 136, 137. p Vita, II. See also 10. and Dio, lxxi. 35. Though Tatian is described in ecclesiastical history as an hæresiarch, and as the founder of the sect of the (see iv. Prooemium, 2,) must have been the case. A public provision for the sophists, philosophers, and learned of the age, in general, though not necessarily in the shape of an annual salary, yet of a daily maintenance, was, in fact, of much earlier date than the reign of either of the Antonines. Philostratus, in his Life of Dionysius of Miletus, Vitae Sophistarum, i. 524. C. D. tells us that among other honours conferred upon him by Hadrian, his contemporary, one was his incorporating him with Tois ev To Mourely Trouperous. To Movotion, he proceeds, rpamea Αἰγυπτία, ξυγκαλοῦσα τοὺς ἐν πάσῃ Tŷ yŷ loyiμous. The same distinction was awarded by Hadrian to the sophist Polemo also; Vita Sophistarum, i. 532. B. C. This allusion to the Museum, and to the privilege in question, is illustrated by Spartian, Hadrianus, 20: Suetonius, Claudius, 42. §. 7: and Strabo, xvii. 1. §. 8. 503. whence it appears to have been an institution as old as the time of the Ptolemies. The Museum was situated in Alexandria, in that part of the city which went by the name of the Bruchium; a distinguished college or seminary of learned men in every department. Cf. Ammianus Marcellinus, Lib. xxii. 16, 343, who calls it Diuturnum præstantium hominum domicilium. Eusebius and Jerome, in Chronico, record its destruction in the first of Claudius, A. D. 268 or 269, probably in consequence of the war between the Romans and Zenobia, to whom Egypt was subject pre viously. Ammianus, loco citato, perhaps more correctly places its destruction under Aurelian. Philostratus, Vita Sophistarum, i. 526. C. the first to preside over the Sophists' throne at Athens, was Lollianus: though whether for a stipend or not, does not appear. From what is afterwards related of Theodotus, a pupil of his, the latter is more probable. It appears, how ever, from the same authority, ii. 565. A. B., that the first of the emperors who made provision for the payment of the sophists at Athens, in particular, was Marcus Aurelius. It appears too, that the salary appointed there for the public instructors of the youth, was just this sum of 10,000 drachma, expressed in Greek by pvpías, or eri uoplats: in reference to which we meet with the following allusions in Philostratus ; first, Vitae Sophistarum, ii. 565. A. de Theodoto: mpoéorn de xal ris τῶν ̓Αθηναίων νεότητος πρῶτος ἐπὶ Tais ex Baridéos pvpiaus : and again, ibid. 588. A. de Chresto: oux ai pupia Tov av8pa. The ellipsis in each instance is Spaxuais or 8paxual; the time of the first of these allusions being, as it appears, the reign of Marcus, and that of the second in particular, early in the reign of Commodus. In the reign of Severus, Apollonius of Athens is mentioned by Philostratus, as presiding over the poros TouTuKosem Ta λávro: ii. 597. A. B. C. If the office thus designated was the same as that of the sophist in Encratita; yet it is also agreed that he did not fall away before the death of Justin, his master. Epiphanius supposes Justin to have suffered in the time of Hadrian; (which is palpably false;) and in the thirtieth year of his age-which probably is not less erroneous 9: but what he further supposes, viz. that Tatian his disciple founded his sect in the neighbourhood of Antioch in Syria, about the twelfth of Antoninus Pius; may possibly be true. The twelfth of Anto We know no more on ninus would begin, U. C. 902, at which time, or soon after it, Justin might be dead. this subject, from Tatian's Oratio ad Gentes, than that it was written after the death of Justin, when the writer himself either then was, or had been previously at Rome". Prosper in Chronico places Justin's martyrdom, U. C. 911, and the heresy of Tatian, U. C. 924. Eusebius in Chronico places the former event about the fifteenth of Antoninus, U.C. 905 *. Jerome in the time of Marcus, the salary of the office had been diminished by the reign of Severus; for one talent was scarcely two thirds of 10,000 drachmæ. It would be easy to illustrate the continuance of the office of sophist, in the principal cities of the empire, and of a salary, greater or less, attached to it, through the reigns of succeeding emperors down to the time of Constantine. We find mention made of the payment of a talent, or ènì pupiais, by individuals, for the privilege of hearing particular sophists; as, for instance, by Damianus of Ephesus, in order to become the disciple of Ari stides of Smyrna, and Hadrian of Ephesus: Philostratus, ii. 602. A. B. In later times, many curious particulars might be collected from Eunapius' Lives of the Sophists, to illustrate the above observations. See especially, his Proæresius, 74. 79. 89. Cf. Julianus, 68. 69. 73. Maximus, 52: and Suidas, in Aidería. * Yet in his Ecclesiastical History he dates the martyrdom of Justin about the same time with that of Polycarp; viz. the seventh of M. Aurelius: E. H. iv. xvi. 136. B. Cf. also iv. xxix. Xxx. which places the acme of Tatian in the reign of M. Aurelius. ¶ Operum i. 391. A—D. Tatiani, i. Cf. Theodorit. Operum iv. 311. Hæreticarum Fabularum i. 20. r Cap. 56. Chronico places the death of Justin in the thirteenth of Antoninus Pius, and Tatian's heresy in the twelfth of Marcus Aureliuss, in which year Eusebius on the contrary, places the rise of Montanism, or the Cataphrygian heresy. Notwithstanding this difference of dates, for the time of the death of Justin, or for that of the rise of the sect of the Encratitæ, I see no reason to question our original position; which is the supposed date of Justin's first Apology, U. C. 899. IRENEUS That our Lord was baptized at thirty; that the preceding thirty years of his life were spent in inactivity; that his ministry lasted one year; are opinions repeatedly ascribed by Irenæus to the Valentinians. See lib. i. cap. i. p. 9. 1. 5: p. 15. l. 16: p. 16. 1. 24. lib. ii. cap. x. 130. 1. 16: cap. xv. 134. 1. 28, &c. With respect to this last opinion however; the absolute length of time between the commencement of our Lord's ministry, and the ascension into heaven, must have been considered by these followers of Valentinus, an interval of two years and eight months; which very nearly implies a ministry of three years' duration *. I ground this assertion on the following pas * It would equally nearly approach to the period of the three years in question, if the statement which occurs in Ambrose, Operum ii. 951. A. B. Epistolæ, xl. §. 16. in his letter to the emperor Theodosius, that the Valentinians recognised thirtytwo Eons, might be implicitly taken for granted: Licet gentiles duodecim deos appellent, isti triginta et duos Æonas co lant, quos appellant deos. It is true, our other authorities for the opinions of the Valentinians, Irenæus, Tertullian, Epiphanius, Theodorit, represent the number of Eons, recognised by them, to be thirty and the editors of Ambrose think the other two may be accounted for by supposing him to include among the rest, the Sige and Bythus, out of which the Eons of the Va : s Cf. De SS. Ecclesiasticis, xxix. Operum iv. Pars iia. 111. Jerome dates the rise of Montanism the year before. |