Roman people as his heirs. The seat of government
was at Ephesus. The population was of a very mixed character, consisting
partly of true Asiatics, and partly of Asiatic Greeks, the descendants of
the old colonists, and containing also a large Roman element--merchants
who were there for purposes of trade, many of them bankers and
money-lenders, and speculators who farmed the imperial taxes, and were
by no means scrupulous in the matter of fleecing the provincials. These
latter--the 'Publicani', as they were termed--might prove very dangerous
enemies to any too zealous reformer. If the Roman governor there really
wished to do his duty, what with the combined servility and double-dealing
of the Orientals, the proverbial lying of the Greeks, and the grasping
injustice of the Roman officials, he had a very difficult part to play.
How Quintus had been playing it is not quite clear. His brother, in this
admirable letter, assumes that he had done all that was right, and urges
him to maintain the same course. But the advice would hardly have been
needed if all had gone well hitherto.

"You will find little trouble in holding your subordinates in check, if
you can but keep a check upon yourself. So long as you resist gain, and
pleasure, and all other temptations, as I am sure you do, I cannot fancy
there will be any danger of your not being able to check a dishonest
merchant or an extortionate collector. For even the Greeks, when they see
you living thus, will look upon you as some hero from their old annals, or
some supernatural being from heaven, come down into their province.

"I write thus, not to urge you so to act, but that you may congratulate
yourself upon having so acted, now and heretofore. For it is a glorious
thing for a man to have held a government for three years in Asia, in such
sort that neither statue, nor painting, nor work of art of any kind,
nor any temptations of wealth or beauty (in all which temptations your
province abounds) could draw you from the strictest integrity and
self-control: that your official progresses should have been no cause
of dread to the inhabitants, that none should be impoverished by your
requisitions, none terrified at the news of your approach;--but that
you should have brought with you, wherever you came, the most hearty
rejoicings, public and private, inasmuch as every town saw in you a
protector and not a tyrant--every family received you as a guest, not as a
plunderer.

"But