01-28-2013, 03:19 AM
Quote:Paul had not yet identified himself as a Roman at this point, so I don't think that the chliarchos was neccesarily ignorant.
I meant the centurion in 25-26 actually. His report to the chiliarchos is various translated, but the sense of it appears to be something like 'This man is a Roman - what are you going to do about it?'. But I think there's still an implication here that Paul is more Roman than either the centurion or the 'chief captain'!
There's a note in Dio about people buying citizenship, in the reign of Claudius:
many sought the franchise by personal application to the emperor, and many bought it from Messalina and the imperial freedmen. For this reason, though the privilege was at first sold only for large sums, it later became so cheapened by the facility with which it could be obtained that it came to be a common saying, that a man could become a citizen by giving the right person some bits of broken glass... Messalina and his freedmen kept offering for sale and peddling out not merely the franchise and military commands, procuratorships, and governorships, but also everything in general...
(Cassius Dio, 60.17)
Another thing though - if this chiliarchos ('commander of a thousand') is a tribune, he ought to be commanding either a milliary or citizen cohort. There were a couple of the latter in Judea (Cohors Prima Italica Civium Romanorum / Cohors Secunda Italica Civium Romanorum) I think. Were there any milliary ones - and equitata at that?
Or could the word have been vaguely applied to a praefectus cohortis as well?
Nathan Ross
