PROLOGUS.

"In THEOLOGO accuratum illud antiquitatis studium, si abest, fortasse non requiram ; si adest, vehementer amplectar. Nec solum quasi ornamentum, sed etiam, fas si dicere, adjumentum. Nam in historia sacra multa esse, quorum penitior intelligentia pendeat a moribus et literis antiquis, nemo negabit."

J. LIPSIUS, Epist. I. 3. Ep. 10.

INTRODUCTION.

IN the following dissertation I have frequently used the term FRIENDSHIP for the latin HOSPITALITAS. In justification of which I prefix the following authorities.

"HOSPES proprie dicitur qui privatim et amicitia causa, vel recipit, vel recipitur. Unde et pro externo amico capitur, et hospitium pro amicitia. Hine HOSPITALITAS, facilitas vel benignitas in recipiendo; et HOSPITALITER, adv. benigne, et faciliter."*

"VIRTUS unde hoc proficiscitur, nobilissima præstantissimaque est; qua nimirum peregrinos et advenas, quocunque possumus, humanitatis, benignitatis, benevolentiæque genere persequimur, illis ædes domosque. nostros patefacimus, cibum potumque liberaliter præbemus."+

"In hospitium venire;" id est, inviolabilem

amicitiam introire.

LANGIUS. † STUCKIUS, antiq. conviviales p. 87.

"HOSPITALITY was that tie among the antients which was ratified by particular ceremonies, and considered as the most sacred of all engagements; nor dissolved, except with certain solemn forms, and for weighty reasons."

"HOSPITALITY was universally universally practised in the earliest times. It was almost the only thing that attached nations to each other. It was the source of the most antient, the most lasting, and the most respected friendship, contracted between families who were separated by immense regions."*

* Abbe RAYNAL, Hist. of the Indies.

CHAP. I.

OF THE TESSERA HOSPITALIS.

SECTION I.

Method of contracting Friendship.

THOSE

persons among the Greeks and Romans who were desirous of perpetuating their attachment, of rendering its union more sacred, and of insuring to it privileges more extensive, used the following method. They took a small piece of bone, ivory, or stone, and dividing it into equal and similar parts, one of them wrote his name upon one of these, and his friend upon the other: they then made a mutual exchange! promising to consider and retain the little tally as a pledge of inviolable friendship.

"VETERES, quoniam non poterant omnes suos hospites noscere, tesseram illis dabant, quam illi ad hospitia reversi ostendebant præposito hospitii; unde intelligebantur hospites."*

* LUCTATIUS in Stat. Theb. vii. 237.

THE Scholiast of Euripides* describes this custom as it was used amongst the Greeks.

66

* Οι μεν ξενόμενοι τισιν αςτραγαλον κατατεμνονίες, θατερον μεν καταλιμπαινον αποδεξαμένοις, ινα ει δέοι παλιν αυτός, η της εκείνων επιξεθαι, προς άλληλες επαγόμενοι το ημισυ αστραγαλιον avevarlo Tv Seviav." That is; They had a custom, when a friendship had commenced, to take a white stone and engrave theron any word upon which the parties had mutually agreed. Then they brake the stone in the midst, dividing the word, and one half was kept by one friend, and the remaining half by the other, as a constant memorial of their friendship."

KOEMPFER mentions the use of the tessera in contracting frienships in Persia.†

THE particular shape and figure of the token, was such as was agreed upon by the

contractors.

Of this kind of tessera several are preserved to this day in the cabinets of Antiquarians. Some of them, as described by Thomasinus, may be seen delineated in the Frontispiece of this volume, A, a. B, b. C, c. reduced to about one fourth of their size.

*In Medea, v. 613.

Amenit. Exot. p. 736.