"
The Magnesians next asserted their claim, founded on an establishment of
Lucius Scipio, confirmed by another of Sylla: the former after the defeat
of Antiochus; the latter after that of Mithridates, having, as a testimony
of the faith and bravery of the Magnesians, dignified their temple of the
Leucophrynaean Diana with the privileges of an inviolable sanctuary. After
them, the Aphrodisians and Stratoniceans produced a grant from Caesar the
Dictator, for their early services to his party; and another lately from
Augustus, with a commendation inserted, "that with zeal unshaken towards
the Roman People, they had borne the irruption of the Parthians." But
these two people adored different deities: Aphrodisium was a city devoted
to Venus; that of Stratonicea maintained the worship of Jupiter and of
Diana Trivia. Those of Hierocaesarea exhibited claims of higher antiquity,
"that they possessed the Persian Diana, and her temple consecrated by King
Cyrus." They likewise pleaded the authorities of Perpenna, Isauricus, and
of many more Roman captains, who had allowed the same sacred immunity not
to the temple only, but to a precinct two miles round it.
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