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We inquired, and learned that the lions of Smyrna consisted of the ruins of the ancient citadel, whose broken and prodigious battlements frown upon the city from a lofty hill just in the edge of the town the Mount Pagus of Scripture, they call it; the site of that one of the Seven Apocalyptic Churches of Asia which was located here in the first century of the Christian era; and the grave and the place of martyrdom of the venerable Polycarp, who suffered in Smyrna for his religion some eighteen hundred years ago.

Macrinus had to remain in care of his house; but he provided two mules, which would serve Lygia also in a further journey. He wished to give a slave, too; but Vinicius refused, judging that the first detachment of pretorians he met on the road would pass under his orders. Soon he and Chilo moved on through the Pagus Janiculensis to the Triumphal Way.

This is exemplified in the word pagan, paganus; which originally, as its etymology imports, was equivalent to villager; the inhabitant of a pagus, or village.

Numa, therefore, hoping agriculture would be a sort of charm to captivate the affections of his people to peace, and viewing it rather as a means to moral than to economical profit, divided all the lands into several parcels, to which he gave the name of pagus, or parish, and over every one of them he ordained chief overseers; and, taking a delight sometimes to inspect his colonies in person, he formed his judgment of every man's habits by the results; of which being witness himself, he preferred those to honors and employments who had done well, and by rebukes and reproaches incited the indolent and careless to improvement.

Le Morvan, anciently Morvennium, or Pagus Morvinus, as Cæsar calls it in his Commentaries, comprises, as we have before remarked, a portion of the departments of the Nièvre and the Yonne, lying between vine-clad Burgundy and the mountains of the Nivernois.

But, setting aside times of havoc, when there was nothing left to be head of, Coutances always remained the formal head, ecclesiastical and civil, of the Côtentin, the "pagus Constantinus," which took its name from the city.

In special Norman history Exmes, under some or other of the forms of its name, Oximum, Hiesmes, anything else, often shows itself; its early importance is noticed by its giving its name to the large district, Pagus Oximensis, Oixmeiz, Hiesmsis. And the Oximenses are sometimes spoken of in a special way, as if they were a distinct people, capable of acting for themselves.

Or again, interrogate 'pagan' and 'paganism, and you will find important history in them. You are aware that 'pagani, derived from 'pagus, a village, had at first no religious significance, but designated the dwellers in hamlets and villages as distinguished from the inhabitants of towns and cities.

The "pagus Constantinus," the peninsular land of Coutances, is, or ought to be, the most Norman part of Normandy. Perhaps however it may be needful first to explain that the Latin "pagus Constantinus" and the French Côtentin are simply the same word.

We inquired, and learned that the lions of Smyrna consisted of the ruins of the ancient citadel, whose broken and prodigious battlements frown upon the city from a lofty hill just in the edge of the town the Mount Pagus of Scripture, they call it; the site of that one of the Seven Apocalyptic Churches of Asia which was located here in the first century of the Christian era; and the grave and the place of martyrdom of the venerable Polycarp, who suffered in Smyrna for his religion some eighteen hundred years ago.