HKB
in Lydia, her temple was dignified with an augmentation of immunities; nor during the Persian monarchy were they abridged: they were next maintained by the Macedonians, and then by us."
The Magnesians next asserted their claim, founded on an establishment of Lucius Scipio, confirmed by another of Sylla: the former after the defeat of Antiochus; the latter after that of Mithridates, having, as a testimony of the faith and bravery of the Magnesians, dignified their temple of the Leucophrynaean Diana with the privileges of an inviolable sanctuary. After them, the Aphrodisians and Stratoniceans produced a grant from Caesar the Dictator, for their early services to his party; and another lately from Augustus, with a commendation inserted, "that with zeal unshaken towards the Roman People, they had borne the irruption of the Parthians." But these two people adored different deities: Aphrodisium was a city devoted to Venus; that of Stratonicea maintained the worship of Jupiter and of Diana Trivia. Those of Hierocaesarea exhibited claims of higher antiquity, "that they possessed the Persian Diana, and her temple consecrated by King Cyrus." They likewise pleaded the authorities of Perpenna, Isauricus, and of many more Roman captains, who had allowed the same sacred immunity not to the temple only, but to a precinct two miles round it. Those of Cyprus pleaded right of sanctuary to three of their temples: the most ancient founded by Aerias to the Paphian Venus; another by his son Amathus to the Amathusian Venus; the third to the Salaminian Jupiter by Teucer, the son of Telamon, when he fled from the fury of his father.
The deputies too of other cities were heard. But the Senate tired with so many, and because there was a contention begun amongst particular parties for particular cities; gave power to the Consuls "to search into the validity of their several pretensions, and whether in them no fraud was interwoven;" with orders "to lay the whole matter once more before the Senate." The Consuls reported that, besides the cities already mentioned, "they had found the temple of AEsculapius at Pergamus to be a genuine sanctuary: the rest claimed upon originals, from the darkness of antiquity, altogether obscure. Smyrna particularly pleaded an oracle of Apollo, in obedience to which they had dedicated a temple to Venus Stratonices; as did the Isle of Tenos an oracular order from the same God, to erect to Neptune a statue and temple. Sardis urged a later authority, namely, a grant from the Great Alexander; and Miletus insisted on one from King Darius: as to the deities of these two cities; one worshipped Diana; the other, Apollo. And Crete too demanded the privilege of sanctuary, to a statue of the deified Augustus." Hence diverse orders of Senate were made, by which, though great reverence was expressed towards the deities, yet the extent of the sanctuaries was limited; and the several people were enjoined "to hang up in each temple the present decree engraven in brass, as a sacred memorial, and a restraint against their lapsing, under the colour of religion, into the abuses and claims of superstition."