ASYLUM (c10-113.0v), in Greek Antiquities, a temple enclosure, within which protection from bodily harm was afforded to all who sought it and could prove their danger. In a general sense, all Greek temples and altars were clo-aa, that is, it was a religious crime to remove by force any person or thing once under the protection of a deity. But it was only in the case of a small number of temples that this protecting right of a deity was recognised with common consent, and, apparently, these were among the oldest temples of Greece. Such, for example, was the temple of Athena Alea at Tegea in Arcadia, where King Pausanias II. spent the remainder of his days after the battle of lialiartus ; or the temple of Ganymeda (Hobe) at Phlius, where, it is said, persons who had escaped from prison hung up their chains in the sacred grove. Other instances are the sanctuaries of Poseidon at Calauria and Tinuaru:n, of Athena Chalcicecus at Sparta, and of Amphiaraus at Oropus, though it is possible, also, with regard to the three last-named 'sanctuaries, to explain the facts as proving only the ordinary religious asyla (Schumann, Griech. Alterthitmer, ii. p. 202). In Asia Minor these asylums were more numerous and, in "Roman times at least, more extensive, so that in the reign of Tiberius the Boman senate considered the question of reducing their limits (Tacitus, Annal., iii. GO, iv. 14). Of these the chief seems to have been that of the temple of Diana at Ephesus, which exercised its right of protection beyond its boundary wall, at one time so far as to include part of the city. But Augustus, finding this an encouragement to crime, reduced the limits (Strabo, p. G4]). Even debtors obtained sanctuary at Ephesus. Generally, however, the classes of persons who claimed the rights of asylum were slaves who had been maltreated by their masters, soldiers defeated in battle and pursued by the enemy, and criminals who feared a trial, or who had taken advantage of the opportunity allowed for escape before sentence was passed. A slave was required to show the justice of his complaint, and, if he failed, was restored to his master ; if not, a new master was found. In all cases, it seems that the refugee was retained under protection only so long as his means of subsistence lasted, and it may have often happened that pursuit was given up less out of respect for the rights of a temple than from a conviction that want would soon drive the fugitive out of the asylum again. Asylums in this sense were an institution peculiar to the Greeks. - Livy, xxxv. 51, l'emplum est Apollonis Delium - ubi et in fano lucoque ea religiose et eo jure sancto quo aunt templa guts asyla Grceci appellant.