Page:Essays and Addresses.djvu/170

 : for instance, the first Greek settlements in Corsica and on the coast of Africa were directly due to Delphic oracles. We even find the oracle designating individuals for work abroad; as when it nominated a man of Mantinea to reform the constitution of Cyrene. In Scotland we are wont to take a keen interest in everything that bears on colonial careers for young men; and one day a Greek class had been reading about the Delphic oracle telling some Thracians to choose as their king the first man who should ask them to dinner. Miltiades had this privilege, and forthwith got the Thracian appointment. "Do you think," a thoughtful student asked, "that there could have been any collusion?"

A brief mention is due to those Roman publications which, in form, came nearest to our newspapers—the official gazettes. Julius Caesar, when consul in 59 B.C., first caused the transactions of the Senate (Acta Senatus) to be regularly published: before his time, there had been only an occasional publication of its decrees. Augustus stopped the issue of this Senatorial Gazette, though the minutes continued to be regularly kept, at first by senators of the Emperor's choice, afterwards by a secretary specially appointed. Further, Julius Caesar instituted a regular official gazette of general news, the Acta diurna, which continued under the Empire. There was an official editor; the gazette was exhibited daily in public, and copied by scribes, who sold it to their customers; the original copy was afterwards laid up