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 has pointed out that the tendency to revive an ancient praenomen, or to adopt an altogether new one, is a patrician trait which coincides with the Sullan restoration: the hereditary patrician praenomina had in many cases been usurped by the new nobility. Before quitting the inscriptions concerning Romans, we may notice one in honour of Manius Aemilius Lepidus (48–42 B.C.), who is styled (pro quaestore).

Two inscriptions in the Cretan dialect, both of which had been placed in the temenos of the Delian Apollo, are of curious interest. The first is certainly later than 166 B.C., and may probably be referred to 150–120 B.C. It is a decree by the magistrates and city of Cnossus in Crete, conferring the titles of proxenus and citizen on one Dioscorides of Tarsus,—a city which, during the last 150 years B.C., was one of the chief seats of literary activity. "Following the example of the poet" —i.e. Homer—Dioscorides, who was both an epic and a lyric writer, had composed an eulogy on Cnossus, and had sent thither his pupil Myrinus—a native of Amisus in Pontus—to recite it. The emissary had performed his part with zeal,—"as was becoming," the decree remarks, "in the cause of his own teacher." A copy of the decree was to be placed in the temple of Apollo Delphidius at Cnossus: another was to be sent "to the people of Tarsus" ;