59 



records the construction of 165 feet of road by them at their 

 own expense. ' In another, acknowledgments are rendered to 

 the whole body of the Seviri of Como, " ob curam integre et 

 liberaliter gestam," and they in return present two silver wine 

 strainers, or colanders, trullas argenteas, to the body who com- 

 pliment them. ^ 



I have observed that where the occupation of the Seviri is 

 mentioned, they evidently belonged to the middle classes ; none 

 is more frequent than that of medicine. Its practitioners are 

 always Greek freedmen. On a monument, found at Assisi in 

 Italy, " Publius Decimius Eros Merula, Medicus Clinicus, 

 Chirurgus, Ocularius," records that he had paid 700 sestertia 

 for his liberty, and 2000 sestertia to the community for the 

 Sevirate ; 30,000 for the erection of statues in the Temple of 

 Hercules ; and a further sum of 32,000 sestertia for the con- 

 struction of roads. The day before his death he bequeathed his 

 patrimony, the amount of which is illegible from the fracture of 

 the marble, to the community.^ Another Sevir, whose quality 

 is specifically mentioned, was materiarius, a timber merchant ; 

 another calculator, a computist or actuary ; another scriha, a 

 clerk to a bench of magistrates. There is an inscription, found 

 at Augusta Vindelicorum (Augsburg, in Germany), on the tomb 

 of Kleuphas, a " Sevir Augustalis, negotiator artis purpurariee." 

 No doubt this man, whose name is the same with the Cleophas 

 of Scripture, had come from some Syrophenician town to this 

 remote part of the Roman empire, and being enriched by the 

 sale of his costly purple cloth,* had enjoyed the honour of the 

 Sevirate. I will mention only one other inscription, which 

 shews the ancient prevalence of a custom which we might have 

 been disposed to think exclusively modem, in memory of a 

 Sevir, who is called " ospitalis a gallo gallinacio," the Landlord 

 ofthe Cock Inn."* 



* Orelli 3950. See also 3844. Seviri viam cum crepidinibus a quadruvio ad 

 murum stravenmt ob houorem. * Gruter 477, 7. 3 Gruter p. 400. 



* Orelli 4250. 'lo-oo-Taorw; ^v ^ voftpvpa -rrfoi oifyvpoy ef era^ojuf wj. Aihen. 12. 

 p. 626. 4. 455 ed. Schw. The Commentators on Acts 16, 14, Lave observed that 

 Lydia " the seller of purple," must have been a person of propertj-, from the cost- 

 liness of the article in which she dealt. * Orelli 4330. 



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