gymnasia. He is for ever suggesting to the Emperor that he should send architects to consult with him on some important public work. And these letters disclose to us what a wonderful system of organised government the Roman Empire possessed. Pliny even writes to Trajan to ask permission that an evil-smelling sewer may be covered over in a town called Amastria. If all the governors of the provinces wrote home for orders on such points, the Emperor must indeed have been busy, and some of his replies to Pliny show that Trajan hinted very plainly that a governor ought to have some initiative of his own. None the less, the tenour of this correspondence proves that Trajan held the threads of government very jealously in his own hands. When Pliny suggested the establishment of a small fire-brigade in Nicomedia, where the citizens had stood enjoying the aesthetic beauty of a disastrous fire which destroyed whole streets, instead of putting it out, Trajan sharply vetoed the suggestion, on the ground that the Greeks were factious people and would turn even a fire-brigade to illicit and seditious purposes.

There is, of course, one letter to Trajan which has achieved world-wide fame, that in which he asks the Emperor how he wishes him to deal with the Christians who were brought before him and refused to worship the statues of the Emperor and the gods. So much has been written upon this subject that it is almost superfluous to add more. Yet it may be pointed out that the letter only confirms our estimate of the kindliness and scrupulous justice of Pliny. He acquits the Christians of all criminal practices; he bears testimony to the purity of their lives and their principles. What baffles and vexes him is their "pertinacity and inflexible obstinacy"--Neque enim dubitabam, qualecunque esset quod fateretur, pertinaciam certe et inflexibilem obstinationem debere puniri. He could not understand, in other words, why, when the theory of the Roman religion was so tolerant, the Christians should be so intolerantly narrow-minded and bigoted. As we have said, Pliny was an eclectic, and an eclectic is the last person to understand the frame of mind which glories in martyrdom. Such was Pliny's attitude towards the purely religious side of the question, but that, after all, was not the main issue. With him, as the representative of the Roman Emperor, the crime of the Christians lay not so much in their refusal to worship the statues of Jupiter and the heavenly host of the Pagan mythology, as in their refusal to worship the statue of the Emperor. Church and State have never been so closely identified in any form of government as in that of the early Roman Empire. The genius of the Emperor was the genius of the Empire; to refuse to sprinkle a few grains of incense on the ara of Trajan was an act of gross political treason to the best of rulers. No wonder, therefore, that Pliny felt constrained to punish these harmless members of a sect which he could not understand. Trajan's reply is equally clear and distinct. He discountenanced all inquisition and persecution. The Christians are not to be hunted down, no notice is to be taken of anonymous accusations, and if any suspected person renounces his error and offers prayers publicly to the gods of Rome, no further action is to be taken against him. On the other hand, if the case is proved and the accused still remains obstinate, punishment must follow and the law be maintained. Pliny evidently thought that if the Christians were given a chance of renouncing their past folly the growth of the new religion would be checked. He speaks of a certain revival of the old religion, of the temples once more being thronged by worshippers, and the sacrificial victims again finding buyers, though almost in the same sentence he describes "the contagion of the Christian superstition" as having spread not only in the towns but into the villages and rural districts. He did not foresee that in