[They] are called cities of refuge or of flight [confugium], to which those who fled were safe and secure from some impending danger. And of this kind [there] are now, and of old (as [will] appear below) [there] were, not only cities, but also other places, which were called “asyla” [asylums/sanctuaries]. [This is] because — from “συλᾶν [sylan]” (not, however, as [was] thought by Covarruvias, bk. 2 of the Variae Resolutiones, ch. 20, & by Ludovicus Vives, on St. Augustine’s City [of God], bk. 1, ch. 34, [from] “συρᾶν [syran]”: for [as to] what Servius says, bk. 2 of the Aeneid, [that] “ἄσυλον [asylon]” [is] as [if] “ἄσυρον [asyron],” from “σύρειν [syrein]”) — among the Greeks [συλᾶν] is “to seize [rob], to despoil, and to violate,” and the same “a” [alpha] is a mark of privation [the alpha-privative], [so that] places of this kind protect and defend someone, lest he can be seized, despoiled, or violated by anyone. For just as the natural places of each thing preserve it, by a certain natural force (Aristotle being witness), so asylums [preserve] those who flee to them, by a certain moral force and right, which is called [the right] “τῆς ἀσυλίας [tēs asylias]” [“of inviolability”]. Ovid, bk. 3 of the Fasti:
“When Romulus had surrounded a grove with a high rock, ‘Whoever thou art, flee hither,’ he said, ‘thou shalt be safe.’”
And concerning the same [thing], Virgil, bk. 7 of the Aeneid:
“Hence [he shows] the huge grove, which fierce Romulus made an asylum, and shows, under a cold rock, the Lupercal.”
And so of asylums speak Cicero in the Verrines, Livy bk. 1, Lactantius bk. 2 ch. 7, [and] others. Moreover, hence also, in Euripides, [it] is called “ἄσυλος γῆ [asylos gē]” [“inviolable land”]; in the Author of 2 Maccabees ch. 4, “ἄσυλος τόπος [asylos topos]” [“an inviolable place”]; in Synesius, Epistle 58, “ἄσυλος τράπεζα [asylos trapeza]” [“an inviolable table”]; in Philostratus, “ἄσυλος αἰδώς [asylos aidōs]” [“inviolable reverence”] — that is, inviolable, and in no way to be despoiled, nor to be harassed by any plunderer — [whether] land, place, table, [or] statue. And therefore [there] are several kinds of asylums; and these cities of refuge make up one [kind] of them, which in the 70 [are] “αἱ πόλεις τοῦ φυγαδευτηρίου [hai poleis tou phygadeutēriou]” [“the cities of the place-of-refuge”], “τῶν φυγαδευτηρίων [tōn phygadeutēriōn],” “εἰς φυγαδευτήριον [eis phygadeutērion]”; and simply “φυγαδευτήρια [phygadeutēria]” [“places-of-refuge”], “φυγαδεῖον [phygadeion]” (Num. 35). But in Hebrew, “hare miklat,” that is, “cities of retention or of reception.” For “Miklat” is said by some properly to signify a collecting [gathering] or a retaining; and in those cities the manslayers had to contain [keep] themselves. To others, the same word means “contraction [a drawing-together],” from Lev. 22:23; but into those cities the manslayers were drawn together [gathered], for the sake of refuge.