ASYLUM, the Latin and English form of the Greek ''Ae-uxov, which is generally supposed to be made up of a privative and the root of the verb creAdoi, "to plunder," and therefore to signify, pro perly, a place free from robbery or vio lence, but this etymology is doubtful. Some have derived the Greek word from the Hebrew SieH, "a grove;' the earliest asylums, it is said, having been usually groves sacred to certain divinities. It is a pretty, rather than perhaps a very con vincing illustration of this etymology, i which is afforded by Virgil's expression lib to the asylum opened by Romulus:— " Hine locum ingeutem, quem Romulus scar 4.ylum R viii. 349.
The tradition was, that Romulus made an asylum of the Palatine Hill prepara tory to the building of Rome. Plutarch tells us that he dedicated the place to the god Asylums (Romulus, 9).
Probably all that is meant by these stories is, that in those ages whoever joined a new community received shelter and protection ; and even if he had corn witted auy crime, was neither punished by those whose associate he had become, nor surrendered to the vengeance of the laws or customs which he had violated. Such an asylum was merely a congrega tion of outlaws bidding defiance to the institutions of the country in which had settled, and proclaiming their wil lingness to receive all who chose to come to them In the Grecian states, the temples, or at least some of them, had the privilege of affording protection to all who fled to them, even although they had committed the worst crimes. The practice seems to have been, that they could not be dragged from these sanctuaries ; but that, never theless, they might be forced to come out by being prevented from receiving food while they remained. (Thucydides, i. 126, 134.) Cleomenes, the king of Sparta, induced some Argives, who had taken refuge from him in a sacred place, to come out of it by false pretences, and • all who came out were massacred. The rest, on discovering his treachery to their companions, would not come out, upon which the king ordered the place to be burnt, and, as we may presume, all the people in it perished ; but the vengeance of the deity, according to the opinion of the Argives, overtook Cleomenes for this cruelty, and his subsequent mad ness was alleged as the consequence of this atrocious act. (Herodotus, vi. 80.)
Eventually, these places of refuge be came great nuisances, being, especially among the Greek cities, established in such numbers as sometimes almost to put an end to the administration of jus tice. In the time of the Emperor Tibe rius an attempt was made to repress this evil by an order of the senate, directed to all the pretended asylums, to produce legal proofs of the privilege which they claimed. (Tacitus, Anna'. iii. 60, &c.) Many were put down in consequence of not being able to satisfy this demand. Suetonius states that all the asylums throughout the empire were , abolished by the Emperor Tiberius (Suetonius. Tiberius, 37); but the state meat of Suetonins is inconsistent with that of Tacitus.
The term .Asilas was given as an epithet to certain divinities ; as, for example, to the Ephesian Diana. It is also found on medals as an epithet of certain cities • in which application it probably denoted that the city or district was under the protection of both of two otherwise belligerent powers, and enjoyed accordingly the privileges of neutral ground.
It does not appear that the Roman temples were asyla, like many of the Greek temples. The complaint of the abuse of asyla, which is recorded by Tacitus, refers only to Greek temples. If the practice existed elsewhere, it may be inferred that it was not so extensive. Ender the Empire however it became a practice to fly for asylum to the statues or busts of the emperors (" ad statuas confu gere vel imagines," Dig. 48, tit. 19. s.28, § 7), and the practice was accordingly so regulated as to render the asylum ineffec tual unless the person who sought it had escaped from the custody of a more power ful person (ex vincnlis vel custodia, de tentes h potentioribns). A constitution of Antoninus Pius declared that if a slave in the provinces fled to the temples or the statues of the emperors to escape the ill usage of his master, the governor of the province might compel the master to sell him (Gains, L 53). The words of the rescript of Antoninus are quoted in the Institutes of Justinian (i. tit. 8. s. 2).