Roman publicans who levied the poll-tax. Strabo (lib. 17) praises the superior police of the Romans with regard to the finances of Egypt above that of its former monarchs, and no part of administration is more essential to the happiness of a people; yet we read in Athenæus (lib. 1, cap. 25), who flourished during the reign of the Antonines, that the town Mareia, near Alexandria, which was formerly a large city, had dwindled into a village. This is not, properly speaking, a contradiction. Suidas (August) says that the Emperor Augustus, having numbered the whole Roman Empire, found it contained only 4,101,017 men (ἀνδρες). There is here surely some great mistake, either in the author or transcriber; but this authority, feeble as it is, may be sufficient to counterbalance the exaggerated accounts of Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus with regard to more early times.
There is only one other discourse of Plutarch liable to like objections—viz., that concerning those whose punishment is delayed by the Deity. It is also written in dialogue, contains like superstitious, wild visions, and seems to have been chiefly composed in rivalship to Plato, particularly his last book, De Republica.
And here I cannot but observe that Monsieur Fontenelle, a writer eminent for candour, seems to have departed a little from his usual character when he endeavours to throw a ridicule upon Plutarch on account of passages to be met with in this dialogue concerning oracles. The absurdities here put into the mouths of the several personages are not to be ascribed to Plutarch. He makes them refute each other, and in general he seems to intend the ridiculing of those very opinions which Fontenelle would ridicule him for maintaining. (See Histoires des Oracles.)