It is an easy step, though not a necessary one, to institute also city temples of the same worship, so that the

city may itself carry on the same ritual on its own behalf. All that is necessary for the common worship is

one sacred place where the meetings can be held.

In the Pergamenian time the common cult was probably the worship of the typically Pergamenian deities

(whose worship also spread to some of the Asia cities, as is pointed out later). The policy of Rome allowed

free play to this religion, as it always did to any social institution which was not disloyal and dangerous. But

the Asian assembly soon began to imitate the example set by Smyrna in 195 BC of worshipping the power of

Rome; and from 95 BC onwards there occur cases of Asian cults of beneficent Roman officers (Scaevola, Q.

Cicero, etc.), as well as of similar municipal cults. Such an Asian cult could be instituted only by an

assembly of representatives of the Asian cities, and the old Pergamenian institution thus served a Roman

purpose. The name Commune occurs first in a letter sent by M. Antony in 33 BC to "the Commune of the

Hellenes of Asia"; the older references give various names, implying always an assembly of Asian

representatives. It was Augustus who constituted the Commune finally, using its loyalt y to Rome and

himself for an Imperial end.

In that agglomeration of various countries and nations, differing in race and in speech, the one deep-seated

unifying feeling arose from the common relation in which all stood to the Emperor and to Rome. There was

nothing else to hold the Province together in a unity except the enthusiastic loyalty which all felt to the

Roman Imperial government. There was not then in any of the races that inhabited the Province a strong

national feeling to run counter to the Roma n loyalty. It does not appear that Lydian or Phrygian patriotism

and national feeling had much power during the first two centuries of the Province. Circumstances had long

been such that national patriotic feeling could hardly be called into existence. There was plenty of strong

feeling and true loyalty among the inhabitants of each city towards their own city. But Greek life and the

Greek spirit, while favourable to the growth of that municipal feeling, did not encourage a wider loyalty. It

remained for the Roman organisation and unifying power to widen the range of loyalty; and the first

important stage in this process came through that intense personal devotion to Augustus as the Saviour of

the civilised world and bearer of the Majesty of Rome.

In the condition of human thought and religious conceptions that then prevailed, such an intense feeling

must take a religious form. Whatever deeply affected the minds of a body of men, few or many, inevitably

assumed a religious character. No union or association of any kind was then possible except in a common

religion, whose ritual expressed the common feelings and purpose. Thus the growth of an Asian Provincial

religion of Rome and the Emperor was natural.

The Imperial policy took advantage of this natural growth, guided it, and regulated it, but did not call it into

existence. Augustus at first rather discouraged it --doubtless because he dreaded lest its anti-republican

character might offend Roman sentiment. But it was too strong for him; and after a time he p erceived the

advantages that it offered, and proceeded to utilise it as a political device, binding together the whole

Province in a common religious ceremonial, and a common strong feeling. The one and only Asian unity was

the Imperial cult. It was directed and elaborated by the Commune or Common Council of Asia, a body which

seems to have had more of the "representative" character than any other institution of ancient times, and

thus was the prototype of a Parliament. Asia was divided into districts, apparently, and a certain number of

cities had the title of metropolis; but the details regarding the representation of the districts or the

metropoles in the Commune are unknown.

The relation of the Christian organisation in Asia to the Commune, or rather to the tendency towards

consolidation which took an Imperial form in the Commune, is brought out in striking relief by several facts.

The Commune was the common assembly of the Hellenes of Asia. The tendency towards consolidation was

a fact of Hellenism, not of the native Anatolian spirit. Now it has been elsewhere shown that Christianity

was at first far more strenuously opposed to the native spirit than to the Hellenic. The one reference to the