Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 39.djvu/544

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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

like plea against Mr. Gladstone's Bull. The seven propositions declared to be false and condemnable, in that kindly and gentle way which so pleasantly compares with the authoritative style of the Vatican (No. 5 more particularly), may or may not be true. But they are not to be found in anything I have written. And some of them diametrically contravene that which I have written. I proceed to prove my assertion:

Prop. 1. Throughout the paper he confounds together what I had distinguished, namely, the city of Gadara and the vicinage attached to it, not as a mere pomœrium, but as a rural district.

In my judgment, this statement is devoid of foundation. At p. 972 of my paper on The Keepers of the Herd of Swine I point out, at some length, that, "in accordance with the ancient Hellenic practice," each city of the Decapolis must have been "surrounded by a certain amount of territory amenable to its jurisdiction"; and, to enforce this conclusion, I quote what Josephus says about the "villages that belonged to Gadara and Hippos." As I understand the term pomerium or pomoœium[1] it means the space which, according to Roman custom, was kept free from buildings, immediately within and without the walls of a city; and which defined the range of the auspicia urbana. The conception of a pomœrium as a "vicinage attached to" a city, appears to be something quite novel and original. But then, to be sure, I do not know how many senses Mr. Gladstone may attach to the word "vicinage."

Whether Gadara had a pomœrium, in the proper technical sense, or not, is a point on which I offer no opinion. But that the city had a very considerable "rural district" attached to it, and, notwithstanding its distinctness, amenable to the jurisdiction of the Gentile municipal authorities, is one of the main points of my case.

Prop. 2. He more fatally confounds the local civil government and its following, including, perhaps, the whole wealthy class and those attached to it, with the ethnical character of the general population.

Having survived confusion No. 1, which turns out not to be on my side, I am now confronted in No. 2 with a "more fatal" error—and so it is, if there be degrees of fatality; but, again, it is Mr. Gladstone's and not mine. It would appear from this proposition (about the grammatical interpretation of which, however, I admit there are difficulties), that Mr. Gladstone holds that the "local civil government and its following among the wealthy," were ethnically different from the "general population." On p. 348, he further admits that the "wealthy and the local govern-


  1. See Marquardt, Römische Staatsverwaltung, Bd. Ill, p. 408.