Tiberius, to divert people's talk, continually attended the Senate, and gave
an audience of several days to embassies from
Asia
on a disputed question as to the city in which the temple before mentioned
should be erected. Eleven cities were rivals for the honour, of which they
were all equally ambitious, though they differed widely in resources. With
little variation they dwelt on antiquity of race and loyalty to
Rome throughout her wars with Perseus, Aristonicus,
SEJANUS PERSECUTES AGRIPPINA |
and other kings. But
the people of
Hypæpa,
Tralles,
Laodicæa, and
Magnesia were passed over as too insignificant; even
Ilium, though it boasted that
Troy was the cradle of
Rome, was
strong only in the glory of its antiquity. There was a little hesitation
about
Halicarnassus, as its inhabitants affirmed
that for twelve hundred years their homes had not been shaken by an
earthquake and that the foundations of their temple were on the living rock.
Pergamos, it was thought, had been sufficiently
honoured by having a temple of Augustus in the city, on which very fact they
relied. The Ephesians and Milesians had, it seemed, wholly devoted their
respective towns to the worships of Apollo and Diana. And so the question
lay between
Sardis and
Smyrna. The envoys from
Sardis
read a decree of the Etrurians, with whom they claimed kindred. "Tyrrhenus
and Lydus," it was said, "the sons of King Atys, divided the nation between
them because of its multitude; Lydus remained in the country of his fathers;
Tyrrhenus had the work assigned him of establishing new settlements, and
names, taken from the two leaders, were given to the one people in
Asia and to the other in
Italy.
The resources of the Lydians were yet further augmented by the immigration
of nations into that part of
Greece which afterwards
took its name from Pelops. They spoke too of letters from Roman generals, of
treaties concluded with us during the Macedonian war, and of their copious
rivers, of their climate, and the rich countries round them.