PA´ROCHI
PA´ROCHI were certain people who were paid by the
state to supply the Roman magistrates, ambassadors, and other official
persons, when they were travelling, with those necessaries which they could
not conveniently carry with them. They existed on all the principal stations
on the Roman roads in Italy and the provinces, where persons were accustomed
to pass the night. But as many magistrates frequently made extortionate
demands from the parochi, the Lex Julia de Repetundis of Julius Caesar, B.C.
59, defined the things which the parochi were bound to supply, of which hay,
fire-wood, salt, and a certain number of beds appear to have been the most
important. (Hor.
Sat. 1.5, 46;
Cic. Att. 5.1. 6,
13.2; Heindorf,
ad Hor. l.c.;
Marquardt,
Privatleben, 199.)
[
W.S]
