deemed most remarkable.-Nor, though the comparative price of barley specified in the voice from the throne is considerably lower than its usual proportion to that of wheat, (it being but a third, not, as more usual, a half,') is there any thing in this inconsistent with historic probability: Alexander Severus' large and celebrated procurations of corn quite accounting for it; as they were doubtless most by far of wheat.

Thus did the prices of wheat and barley specified consist well with what the Christians living in Alexander Severus' time (the same that St. John here impersonated) might have heard addressed to the Provincial Presidents then in office by that Emperor. And indeed I think that with St. John himself the words enjoining them must almost have suggested those Imperial Provincial Governors, as the parties addrest under figure of the rider; just as the monitory words of the Cassian law might in earlier times have suggested the Provincial Administrators of the old Republic: more especially as there was added that other monitory clause, in the same under Gallienus less. See the extract from Wurm in the Note preceding; stating the adulteration under the former Emperor to have been to the value of but one half, under Gallienus of four-fifths.

1 Such was the proportion after the ending of the famine in Samaria. (2 Kings vii. 1, 16.) The same is noted by Cicero as the proportion in Sicily at the time of Verres' Prætorship (Lib. iii. in Verres); "Quaternis H. S. tritici modium, binis hordei." It is the proportion also in our own country: as appears from statistical tables of prices for the last forty-seven years, i. e. from 1790 to 1837; the exact average proportion being as 87 to 160.

Daubuz broaches a curious theory, to the effect that the comparative cheapness of barley noted in the vision, as compared with that of wheat, was a sign of scarcity. His argument is quite unintelligible to me, and is indeed refuted by fact. From the above-mentioned tables it will appear that the lower or higher ratio of the price of barley to that of wheat has no connexion either with the fact of plenty or scarcity.-In some of the years included in the tables, I may observe, the comparative price of barley was much lower than as 1 to 2; e. g. in 1816, it was as 1 to above 24. Fleetwood, in his Chronicon Pretiosum, gives examples of price from our earlier British history; in some of which the proportion is as low as 1 to 3, the same as in the text.

It is said that Alexander Severus replaced the corn which Heliogabalus had wasted, out of his own money. See too his appeal to the mutinying soldiers on the subject of his procurations for them.-The word used by historians relating to these is indeed, I believe, frumentum ; a word which would include barley. But as the procuration was for the citizens of Rome and the army,—and by the former barley-bread was despised, and with the latter to be fed on barley, "hordeo pasci," was a military punishment,-we may safely conclude that the procurations were in by far the largest proportion of wheat. This would of course raise the price of wheat somewhat disproportionately. "We

Doubtless it was the despised barley-bread on which Christ often fed, have here five barley-loaves," &c.-Did the early Christians think of this, when they proscribed while bread (as I think I have somewhere read) as too luxurious?

spirit of equity, about the wine and the oil; precisely the like to which seems to have been often charged on the Provincial Presidents by the juster Emperors, in connexion with the Imperial exactions of wine and oil, in their Canon Frumentarius.'-If however of itself this indication was insufficient absolutely to fix them as the parties symbolized by the black horse's rider, the second and additional indication of his holding a balance, must, I conceive, when conjoined with the former, have set all doubt on the point aside. For the balance, from being the emblem of justice,2 came to be an official badge of those that had appointment to the supreme administration of justice; such as the Prætors at Rome under the Republic, and the Provincial Governors in the Provinces. Which latter accordingly used sometimes to have a balance struck, over the curule chair of their high office, on coins connected with their appointment: (was it not like a public profession of their sense of the duty of equity in their administration? 3) and together therewith sometimes also an ear of corn, or it might be a Roman measure, with reference to the procurations of corn charged more or less directly upon

1 In the Codex Theodosianus, intermixed with stringent laws for the due gathering of the tributes of wine and oil, as well as of corn, we find not merely such cautions about a fair price for the corn as were exemplified by me pp. 162 -164 suprà, but generally against all extortion, injustice, and oppression of the people, in the collection of the various tributes. These monitory laws appear from their language to have arisen generally out of complaints against the Imperial Officers. A circumstance illustrated by what Spartian (c. 13.) says of the Emperor Adrian's energetic proceedings against unjust and oppressive Provincial Governors in his reign: "Adrianus circumiens provincias Procuratores et Prœsides profactis supplicio affecit ita severè, ut accusatores per se crederetur immittere." Let me here beg the reader to mark the nice and historically accurate distinction in the Apocalyptic monition, with reference to the wheat and barley on the one hand, and the wine and oil on the other. The price is named for the former; because, besides the provincial tributes of corn, a vast quantity had frequently to be bought for the imperial service. But the wants of wine and oil were for the most part abundantly supplied by the tributes, and no buying of them consequently requisite. 3 Beaufort observes in his Republique Romaine, ii. 328 (Hague 1766:) 2 See Note 2 p. 154. Gouverneur, en prenant possession de son gouvernement, y faisoit publier un édit, "Le à peu pres dans le gout de celui du Preteur de la ville; et contenant certaines maximes de droit, auxquels il se proposoit de se conformer dans l'administration de la justice." He exemplifies from Cicero's practice, when he entered on his Proconsulate in Cilicia. "Ciceron parle souvent (e. g. ad Attic. vi. 1), de l'Edit qu'il publia dans son governement de Cilicia, et nous apprend qu'il en emprunta la plus grande partie de celui de Mutius Scævola, qui avoit gouverné l'Asie avec tant de sagesse et d'équité."

PL. VI.

THE ROMAN PROPRÆTORS & QUESTOR'S EMBLEMS

of a Balance, an Ear of Wheat, and a Corn-measure.

P.169.

From Spanheim

them; just as in the medals which the reader here sees engraved before him. Together these several pictured emblems would constitute, I believe, distinctive marks of a Roman Provincial Governor : 3 as distinctive as the crown of the reigning Emperor, or the

1 The Præfecti Annone were the officers at Rome that had to watch over this important department of the administration: (Augustus himself once undertook the office) the Provincial Governors, with whom of course the Præfecti Annonæ were in communication, those that had to superintend the matter in the Provinces. Of these Provincial Governors the generic title, I believe, was Præsides Provinciarum; though the appellation had properly a more restricted meaning. It seems that besides the greater Provinces, governed either by the Emperor's Legati Pro Prætore or the Senate's Proconsuls, there were other smaller or less important Provinces. In the former or larger Provinces, besides the Proprætors or Proconsuls, there were the Procuratores Cæsaris, high officers, charged specially with the care of the revenue; in connexion however with, and in a measure subordinate to, the superior Governors. In the latter or inferior Provinces the Procurator was himself the Præses or Governor. So in old inscriptions; "Procurator et Præses Alpium;" "Procurator et Præses Provinciæ Sardiniæ;" &c. See Salmasius' Note on Spartian's Biography of Adrian c. 13. and Burman de Vectigal. p. 146. The latter refers to Lipsius' Excursus on Tacit. Annal. xii.-Under these there were of course subordinate officers for the collection of the tributes: "qui per Provincias mittebantur ut vectigalia tam frumenti quàm pecudum et vini et olei colligerent; et qui vel à speciebus Frumentarii dicebantur, vel generali voce Susceptores."--In the Provinces governed by higher Officers the Procurators had jurisdiction only in fiscal causes, the supreme Governor having the supreme and general jurisdiction: (so Salmasius, ibid. "Rem fisci curabant, et nullam nisi in fiscalibus causis jurisdictionem habebant:") in the other Provinces they had of course the whole jurisdiction in their hands.

2 They are copied from Spanheim De Usu Num. Diss. vi. p. 545. After speaking of the sella curulis, which the reader sees in the first of my engraved medals, as often marking the consulare fastigium, he goes on as follows. "Eædem sella curules in denariis Gentium Romanarum ad designandos alios curules magistratus, Prætores, Ædiles, Præfectos Urbis: quibus etiam varia symbola vulgo adjuncta, puta lances, spicas, thyrsos; idque, ut observo, ad discrimen eorum magistratum quibus sellæ curulis jus competebat. Hinc lances videas cum sellâ curuli in denario Gentis Liciniæ; adpositè ad Prætoris aut Legati Pro Prætore officium indicandum, cui juris dicendi partes incumbebant. Ædiles autem curules, quos cum annonæ tum ludorum procurationem habuisse nemo nescit, et quos proinde Curatores Urbis, annonæ, ludorumque solennium vocat alicubi Tullius, frequenter etiam sella curulis, modo cum spicis à lateribus, modocùm thyrso Liberalium symbolo, designat; sicut in denariis Gentis Lolliæ ac Valeria. Eandem vero annona curam innuit etiam modius frumenti cùm duabus spicis, in denario Gentis Livineiæ."

The medals are noticed by Eckhel also in his 5th Volume, pp. 153, 233, 159, 235. It seems that the first has the name of Metellus Pius Scipio Imp. on the other side; P. Crassus Junius having been his Legatus Pro Prætore, at the time when he was contending for the Empire in Africa with Cæsar, as the head of the Pompeians after the battle of Pharsalia. The second has inscribed on its other side the names of the Quæstors Piso and Cæpio; who were appointed by the Senate, some time during the Republic, to buy corn.-The third has the name of L. Regulus Prætor. The precise date of the two last is uncertain.-The last of the three medals was restored by Trajan; and so probably, says Eckhel, all the coins of the Roman Gentes; as more come to light continually. Hence the rather a familiarity in St. John's time with these official badges on coins struck under the Republic.

3 It appears on the whole that the balance was from of old a Roman designative of those officers that had supreme judicatory power; while the charge about the price of corn, and about wine and oil, indicated those that had the high charge both of gathering the provincial tributes in kind, and of purchasing