meaning, in contempt of the proverb, the day after the feast,' which is synonymous with quiet, easy enjoyment. Dryden's translator, it is true, has paid attention to the persons designated by the pronouns, and has given the parable a new, humane, and popular sense we may suppose, that he, or some previous interpreter, had read, instead of doxo τε μεςὴ καὶ κοπώδης, ἀκολάςων τε μεςὴ καὶ κομπώδης, 6 full of licentious persons and ostentations,' and that he considered the oxoxoves as a class of men, who were usually laborious, but were allowed to rest on that occasion, and, by way of largess, to enjoy the relics of the feast. This interpretation, however, were it authorized by ancient MSS., would not convey the reproof of Themistocles so well as the received text: The Day-after-the-feast disputed with the Feastday, and said, "that that day is always full of bustle and wearisome, but on her own day all persons enjoy at their ease whatever has been previously prepared." The Feastday answered to this: "What you say is true; but if I had not been, you could not be."-Yours is a day of fatigue, said the Day-after-the-feast; mine of enjoyment.

We would endeavour, if we had not already somewhat transgressed the bounds we had set to this subject, to express in part, and to communicate at least a portion of, the earnest desire we feel to possess at last an adequate translation of Plutarch's Lives ;-a translation that should do justice to the forcible and effective, and (if it be a beauty to strike his meaning into the very heart of the reader, and to leave it there for ever) the beautiful style of the author; and that should completely unfold his full and deep sense in language agreeable and artless, and so plain, that it should be intelligible to the young in age, and to those who are always young in intellect, as far as it respects literature-the more humble classes of society. We sincerely and passionately desire such a possession, not because the golden volume is a treasury of ancient wisdom-not because it presents a vivid picture of ages-that, on account of the frequent exercise of many splendid virtues, we may justly deem heroic; but because the ever estimable Chæronean, above any other writer-we had almost said above all writers-unceasingly, and with unequalled efficacy, asserts the paramount importance of education, and the eternal, immutable necessity of sound morality. We lament to add, that we can hardly venture to expect that this precious addition to the materials of instruction will soon be made; those, whom fortune has endowed with a complete independence, rarely possess the requisite industry and learning: if a competent translator should ever be found amongst men of letters, it would be impossible

134 Wrangham's Edition of Langhornes' Plutarch.

for the booksellers to afford an adequate remuneration for the application of uncommon talents to a single object for a long period of time. Plutarch enjoyed a moderate patrimony, the profits of a lay priesthood, and the lucrative offices which the friendship of a wise prince had conferred upon his favourite; and he was thus enabled to devote himself to the composition of his immortal work. Amyot, the best, because the most spirited and popular of his translators, was an ecclesiastic, amply provided with the leisure and all the aids that could cherish a studious mind; his literary labours were rewarded by many splendid benefices, and he died enormously rich. Sir Thomas North enumerates on his titlepage some of the stations and honours of the excellent interpreter, James Amyot, Abbot of Bellozane, Bishop of Auxerre, one of the King's Privie Counsell, and Great Amner of France.'

6

ON THE COMMERCE OF PALMYRA.

THE paper read by Professor Heeren at the public meeting of the Royal Society of Göttingen on the 20th of November last, had for its object the Commerce of Palmyra, and was entitled "Commercia urbis Palmyrae, vicinarumque urbium ex monumentis et inscriptionibus illustrata.' The author felt an additional incitement to continue his researches on this subject, particularly from the encouragement which an extract of his former treatise on the ancient commerce of Ceylon (vide N. 28 Göttingsche Anzeigen 1828) has received from the Royal Asiatic Society of London, who expressed to him, through their Vice-President Sir Alexander Johnston, late Chief-Justice of Ceylon, their kind sense of his labours, offering him at the same time their aid in facilitating future historical inquiries throughout the British dominions in Asia; of which kind offer the author has already availed himself. It is part of the plan of this Journal to direct attention to investigations such as this paper contains, for the purpose of rousing our countrymen to apply their knowledge and labour to similar pursuits.

The essay before us treats of the commerce of a city whose ruins still manifest her former greatness, and whose commerce extended as far as India. The author prefaced his treatise by a short history of Palmyra. Founded by Solomon, we find her first mentioned as a city of great importance with regard to commerce in the time of Augustus-Cæsar; Appian (De Bellis Civilibus, v. 9.), telling us that Antonius had promised his cavalry to sack the town, in which attempt

he however did not succeed, the inhabitants having previously removed all their treasures. But it was during the three first centuries of the Christian era, under the Roman dominion, that she reached the zenith of her prosperity. Pliny (v. 25,) mentions the city as a place of great importance: her greatness and power became however still more conspicuous under the reigns of the Hadrians and Antonines, when the empire was at peace with the Parthians. It was then that the arts (chiefly architecture)* and commerce, those offsprings of peace were particularly flourishing in Palmyra, rendering her great and powerful as her monuments display; for, notwithstanding her having become included in the Roman dominion, she still remained in possession of her free constitution, as is testified to us by the inscriptions ordered by the senate and people, to whose government an imperial procurator was joined in the latter period. During the reign of Trajan, the city suffered probably very much either from war or earthquakes, or from both causes together. This we conclude from the fact that Hadrian is called her restorer. The inscriptions likewise inform us that Hadrian himself and his successors, Alexander Severus and Gordian, visited the town, and were received with great pomp and splendour. Her misfortunes under Queen Zenobia, and her destruction by Aurelian, are well known.

The remaining monuments of Palmyra all belong to the class of public edifices, † such as temples, palaces, colonnades. Amongst these, the temple of Helios, Bel or Baal, stands foremost in rank. This temple stood in the middle of a square or aula; the aula itself was surrounded by a magnificent portico, from which a colonnade of 4000 feet in length, with a triumphal arch, led to the other great edifices. It was in the aula and in the long colonnade, but not in the interior of the temple, that the monuments were placed, the inscriptions of which we are about to explain, and which prove that in Palmyra, as elsewhere in ancient times, commerce stood in close relation to religion. These monuments appear also to have formed a separate division or part of the town. No trace of any private houses has as yet been discovered amongst them. These were found * See the Chronicle of John Malala, who gave a detailed description of the monuments erected to the Roman emperors in Syria.-Lib. X., &c.

These monuments were first made known to the world in the year 1691, through English merchants, who brought some inscriptions to Europe, which Seller, in his History of Palmyra, undertook to explain. The chief work, however, is Rob. Wood's Ruins of Palmyra, published in 1753, which is the result of his own travels and researches, and contains the inscriptions themselves. The 'Voyage pittoresque en Syrie' by Mr. Cassas, contains nothing but engravings, with an 'explication provisoire,' but none of the inscriptions.

at some distance by English travellers, and appear to have occupied a wide extent of ground.

The researches of the author on the commerce of Palmyra comprehend three distinct parts, viz., the objects of her commerce, its nature, and the roads or channels by which it was conducted. As to the objects or articles of commerce, they were probably both foreign and domestic produce. Owing to her geographical position in the centre of the Syrian desert, she had to offer no other produce of her own but dates and salt, which latter article this part of the desert supplies even at the present day to the towns of Syria, and such was probably the case in former times. It may, however, be asserted with little hesitation, that this branch of trade was comparatively insignificant in proportion to her foreign commerce. 'The inhabitants of Palmyra,' says Appian (v. 9.), are merchants who receive the produce of India and Arabia from the Persians (the Parthians), and carry them into the Roman provinces.' The produce of Arabia consisted chiefly of incense and myrrh, that of India of spices, pearls, precious stones, and manufactures, among which those of pure silk (holosericae), were particularly considered as a very valuable article in Palmyra, from whence they were sent, according to Flavius Vopiscus, (Life of Aurelian,) as a most costly object of luxury, to Rome. We have, besides, the authority of the Periplus of the Erythrean Sea to show the variety of goods which India then produced.

The nature of the commerce of Palmyra was influenced by her local situation. The town being built in the centre of the desert, between two and three days' journey from the Euphrates, and from five to six days from Damascus, her trade could be conducted in no other way but by caravans, which were in fact the only channel of commercial intercourse in those regions, as they are at the present day. Palmyra must, besides, have had an abundance of camels, the breeding of that animal having been from the earliest period of history the chief occupation of the neighbouring Arab tribes, particularly in the district of Nedsched. The Palmyrenes were therefore chiefly the conductors of the caravans, and became afterwards merchants themselves, acquiring from their own commerce the great wealth of which Pliny and others tell us. According to Flavius Vopiscus, the number of camels belonging to Palmyra must have been immense. When Zenobia could no longer maintain herself in the town, she attempted her escape on dromedaries, but was overtaken by the cavalry of Aurelian. This at once proves that she possessed a regular stud of camels. It is also generally known how much

danger and insecurity the commerce in those regions had to contend with, owing to the pillaging habits of the roving Bedouin tribes. It is curious,' says Pliny, that these tribes should be robbers and traders at the same time.' Travellers were then, as is still the case, under the necessity either of purchasing a safe conduct from them, or of being accompanied by numerous armed men; both expedients were expensive. At Palmyra, it was the town herself that had to provide for the safety of her merchants during their journey through the deserts. But sometimes those expenses were defrayed by private persons, such as magistrates, or the directors of the caravans, from their own private property, and the grateful city erected to them for such acts of patriotism, monuments or statues, with inscriptions, in public places, either in the aula of the temple of Helios, or in the long colonnades. To these testimonials of public gratitude we are indebted for some further discoveries relating to the nature of the commerce of Palmyra. The inscriptions copied in Wood's Ruins of Palmyra amount to twenty-seven, thirteen of which are in Palmyrene characters, with a Greek translation, and fourteen in Greek only; they are engraven on the pedestals of the shafts of those columns which were erected in the aula and the long colonnades. Four inscriptions, of which three are in Greek, relate to commerce, and are those commented upon by the author. The following is the latin translation.

*

I. Ruins of Palmyra, No. XVIII., in the Court of the Temple of the Sun.--Senatus Populusque Palmyrenus Septimium Orodem, optimum Procuratorem Ducenarium Augusti, qui oleum curavit donandum Metropoli coloniæ quique privata impensa et suo sumtu commeatum mercatoribus iter commune facientibus præbuit; et a negotiorum Præsidibus amplum testimonium adeptus est; fortiter et cum laude militantem; et ædilem ejusdem metropolios coloniæ plurimas etiam opes ex privato impendentem ; ideoque placentem eidem Senatui populoque; et nunc magnifice symposiarchum in sacrificiis Jovis Beli honoris erga coluit.

This Septimius Orodes was a ducenarius or procurator of the Emperor, and at the same time ædile of the town (aypovóuos). Palmyra is here called Metropolis, as being the chief town of the district, and also Colonia, from her having

The Palmyrene inscriptions, as well as the Greek, have been explained by Eichhorn, in the Commentationes Reg. Soc. Gott., vol. vi. The Palmyrenian alphabet was deciphered by Barthelemy.