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Acts 22, the chief captain--chiliarchos
#1
Another spin off thread from "Cohort Commander?"

In Acts 22:30 we have a "Chief Captain (chiliarchos) of the band (speira)" Is the speira here an auxilliary cohort raised originally by one of the Herods? The chiliarchos is not a Roman by birth but paid a large sum for the privilege. From what I have found, this incident occured during Nero's reign. "Chiliarchos' is some times translated as tribune, it literally means "leader of a thousand", but this does not mean that in Roman times or in the Roman Army he lead a thousand men, but was perhaps simply an equivalent Greek term for a leader of that size of a unit. So is a chiliarcos a tribune? or perhaps a pilus prior? Was ths a regular army cohort or an auxillary cohort?
Roger
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#2
Quote:Is the speira here an auxilliary cohort raised originally by one of the Herods?
My copy of Acts 22 only goes to verse 30. At Acts 23:18-26, the garrison commander at Jerusalem is called a chiliarchos, which is the Greek term usually used for an equestrian tribunus militum. In fact, the garrison probably consisted of a cohors equitata, since both infantrymen and cavalrymen were detached to escort Paul to Caesarea. There is no question of the chiliarchos being a legionary centurion.
posted by Duncan B Campbell
https://ninth-legion.blogspot.com/
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#3
Acts 22, 24-29:

24 the chief captain commanded him to be brought into the castle, and bade that he should be examined by scourging; that he might know wherefore they cried so against him.
25 And as they bound him with thongs, Paul said unto the centurion that stood by, Is it lawful for you to scourge a man that is a Roman, and uncondemned?
26 When the centurion heard that, he went and told the chief captain, saying, Take heed what thou doest; for this man is a Roman.
27 Then the chief captain came, and said unto him, Tell me, art thou a Roman? He said, Yea.
28 And the chief captain answered, With a great sum obtained I this freedom. And Paul said, But I was free-born.
29 Then straightway they departed from him which should have examined him: and the chief captain also was afraid, after he knew that he was a Roman, and because he had bound him.


Chiliarchos is here (King James version) given as 'chief captain', but a tribune is surely meant. Interesting that the centurion isn't clear on the legal rights of citizens, so he probably wasn't a citizen himself!

So, as Duncan says, this is an auxiliary garrison, commanded by a Roman equestrian. Entry to the equestrian order carried a wealth qualification, and I believe (Tom Wrobel has mentioned this) that many men in the eastern provinces served only one term as a military tribune to fulfil their membership of the order.

The quote perhaps implies that either the tribune has bribed somebody to gain the position, and the citizenship that goes with it, or he's just talking about the wealth required to become an equestrian in the first place. Presumably he's surprised that such a poor-seeming man has been given such an honour.
Nathan Ross
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#4
Quote: Interesting that the centurion isn't clear on the legal rights of citizens, so he probably wasn't a citizen himself!

Paul had not yet identified himself as a Roman at this point, so I don't think that the chliarchos was neccesarily ignorant.
Roger
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#5
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
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#6
Quote:an implication here that Paul is more Roman
In spite of the Roman notion of "all citizens are equal", it seems like (from the context) a born citizen evidently had a little more "Roman" in him than a "naturalized" citizen. It sounds like the people in the scene thought a natural-born citizen was a little more Roman. And then again, maybe we're reading too much into it? :?
M. Demetrius Abicio
(David Wills)

Saepe veritas est dura.
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#7
One of Messalina's "crimes" was selling citizenships. Paul was arrested while Claudius was still emperor. It is probable that Messalina was dead by this time, but the tribune could have conceivably purchased his citizenship from her or not so much directly from her but perhaps from one of her agents. Of course, the practice surely predates Messalina and might have been quite common, especially in the eastern provinces. The tribune was likely of Greek heritage. Paul's being born a citizen definitely gave him a better position.
Quinton Johansen
Marcus Quintius Clavus, Optio Secundae Pili Prioris Legionis III Cyrenaicae
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#8
Quote: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?

I've never seen chiliarchos definitely used to mean prefect - the more specific the term, the more unlikely it is that anything else is meant. Of course, it's hard to imagine a piece of evidence in which it was clear that chiliarchos was used to mean prefect and wasn't a mistake: a bilingual inscription, perhaps.

Just to put the cat amongst the pigeons a bit: the title of chiliarchos doesn't necessarily mean a Roman commander. There were units of local militia in Sicily led by chiliarchoi, clearly in imitation of the Roman system. Such imitation was common in other areas (IIRC Pompeii has 'quaestors' long before it becomes a Roman city). The Roman military system was sufficiently well understood, and dominated a lot of military discourse, that it's likely to have become a model for other systems within the Roman world (cf. Deiotarus' legion which became XXII Deiotariana). I've no idea how that applies in this case though!

On the other hand, new Roman citizens could become Roman officers (cf. Gallic elites in 1st century Gaul), so it wouldn't be a surprise to find one here, so long as he was sufficiently wealthy, or came from a wealthy family.

BTW, the theory about Eastern post holding is not just an act of 'fulfilling membership' of the equestrian order - although in the absence of a full census, that may well have been part of it. It also demonstrated membership of the Roman elite in a public and clearly defined way. For people too far from Rome to take part in the 'transvectio equitum', holding such a post was proof that you were a Roman citizen of equestrian status. You were, therefore, a man of high rank in your community AND a member of the pan-Mediterranean Roman elite.
Tom Wrobel
email = [email protected]
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#9
"Captains of hundreds", "Captains of thousands", etc., are old terms, going back at least to King David's day, and probably beyond that. While their armies were managed very differently from ours in specific, the general subdivisions remain. Couldn't "chiliarch" in the usage in this Bible verse be sort of generic rather than the name over the door of his office?
M. Demetrius Abicio
(David Wills)

Saepe veritas est dura.
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