Thus Tarsus, when St. Panl was a child, stood before the world at the entrance to the greatest province of the East as a metropolis, a free city witli a free harbour, mistress of a large and fertile territory, a centre of Roman imperial partisanship. It had been a Greek self-governing city since B.C. 170, and the enthusiasm with which it had taken up Greek education and civilization had made it one of the three great university cities of the Mediterranean world. Strabo (14, 5, 13, p. 673) speaks of the Tarsian university as even suri>assin^ in some respects those of Athens and Alexandria ; and he observes that all the students were natives.t and no strangers came to it ; but, on the contrary, many natives of the country went abioad to study and reside, few returning home again : Rome was full of Tarsian and Alexandrian scholars. So strong was the Tarsian love for letters and education ! They filled their own university and foreign cities ana Rome itself. Demetrius, as Plutarch tells (de Defect. Orcic., ad init.), went to Britain and Egypt, the Erythra-an Sea and the land of the Troglodj'tes, to satisfy his scientific curiosity. Athenodorus the Stoic was the com- panion of Cato the younger, and died in his house ; another Stoic, Athenodorus Kananites, was the teacher of Augustus ; Nestor taught tlie young Mareellus, his heir (and Til)eriuB the emperor, according to pseudo-Lucian, Macr. 21); Antipatcr the Stoic was iiead of the school in Atliens and the great opponent of Carneades ; and other pliil- • Pspudo-Lucian {\iacr.'^ and Dion Chrys, {nd Tar^.) im.4i^'n thia i^runt to AuguHtuB, who gave it again wlicn ho mit;tit have tftlien it away.
t Atiiontf the natives {ivt-^ipttt) Strabo includes, doubtless, persons (rom the Deighl)ounn^ parts of Asia Minor. Atheiio- donia, the most famous of Tarsian philosophers, was called Eananitrt, from the name of his native village. The village probably was Kanna in eastern LycaoniA, which afterwards rose to be a city coiiiinir money.
osophers and poets of Tarsus are named by Strabo, p. 674 f.
Philosophers governed Tarsus at the important crisis when it was adapting itself to the imperial system. Athenodorus retired to Tarsus in his old age, greatly honoured by liis pupil Augustus, and invested by him with extraordinary authority in the city. He found tliat Tarsus had been seriously misgoverned and plundered by a certain clique, favoured by Antonius, but now greatly weakened since his defeat. After vainlj' attempting to bring them back by reason to a law-abiding spirit, Athenodorus, in virtue of the powers conferred by Augustus, sent them into exile, and reformed the constitution of Tarsus.* It appears from Dion Clirysostom {Orat. xxxiii. ad Tar.i. 20) tliat the constitution in the Roman period was of oligarchic or rather timocratic type, citizenship requiring a certain fortune ;t and there can be no doubt that this was the kind of reform introduced by Atheno- dorus, for it was in harmony with the whole tendency of the Roman imperial policy.^ After the dcatli of Athenodorus, at the age of 82, anotlier Tarsian philoso]ilier named Nestor, who also had approved himself to Augustus, succeeded to his commanding position in tlie city, and enjoyed the respect of a series of pro ineial governors. The rule of these two philosophers probably continued from about li.C. 2'J to some time after Christ.§ It is very probable that St. Paul may have seen and listened to Nestor, who lived 92 years.|| The influence of Atlienodorus, too, lasted long in Tarsus, where he was worshipped as a hero, for Dion Chry.sostom about A.D. lUO quotes his name (in the Oration which he addressed to the Tarsians) as a household word among them. His doctrines may be taken as those which most influenced Tarsus in tlie time of St. Paul, and wliicli the latter is likely to have been taught in the schools of that city. Being a Stoic, he found the aim and end of life in release from ])assions ; but, if we may judge from the scanty quotations from or allusions to his writings, he estimated the quality of human action greatly by reference to its relation to God. ' Know,' said he, 'that you are set free from all passions, when you have reached such a point that you ask nouglit of God that you cannot ask openly'; and iSeneca, who quotes this,1I goes on to state as the rule of life, in his spirit, if not in his words, ' So live with men as if God saw ; so sjjcak with God as if men were listening.' Tlie spirit in which he guided the politics of Tarsus is expressed in a longer extract,** the gist of which is ; ' It would be best to strengthen one's mind by making oneself useful in politics to fellow-citizens and the world ; but in tlie degraded and envenomed state of iiolitics one must be content with the ojjpor- tunity for free expansion of the mind in benefiting one and all by educating them, by encouraging virtue, by teaching them to comprehend the gods, and to have a good conscience : thus even in ]>rivate life one fulfils a public duty. The student lives well, not by renouncing hiinianity and society, l)ut by drawing friends round himself. He who lives and studies for his own sole benefit will from