Tool Beta
The Ancient World Behind the Text: Ideas
The customs, offices and ideas a first reader knew without being told, what each meant then, and the nearest thing you already know.
Free cities, assemblies and riots
Some Greek cities, such as Thessalonica and Ephesus, kept a measure of self-rule under Rome, with their own officials and a citizen assembly. A riot could cost a city those privileges.
The town council knew that one more riot in the square and the state would send in its own man to run things. Under Rome, some old Greek cities were allowed to run their own affairs. They had their own magistrates and a citizen assembly that met in the theater to vote and even to judge. That freedom lasted only as long as Rome was pleased. Officials feared mobs, because a riot could bring Roman punishment and the loss of the city's privileges.
Thessalonica was a free city with some autonomy. It was the seat of Macedonia's governor and perhaps as large as 200,000. Its officials were politarchs, a title used almost only in Macedonia. Rome let them run the city but held them answerable for their actions. The title was once dismissed as Luke's mistake, but it appears in many inscriptions from the second century BC on, and "five times it refers to Thessalonica itself" (the Zondervan dictionary). Thessalonica's freedom brought tax exemptions (Wright and Bird), and it was not a Roman colony in Paul's day (Wright). A ban imposed by its politarchs held only there and only while they were in office. In a free city the gathered citizen body could act as a court. At Ephesus the city clerk was the top official. He announced the assembly's rulings and represented the city to the Roman authorities. The assembly met regularly in the theater, which by the sources' estimates held some 20,000 to 25,000 people, and emergency assemblies were sometimes called. Keener notes that Luke uses the word for citizen assembly ironically of a mob. A lawful assembly enjoyed Rome's favor, while a mob could bring Roman discipline. Unemployed idlers in the marketplace were easily stirred to mob action, and those who stirred them were despised as demagogues. Rome had little tolerance for riots, and some cities lost their privileges after unrest. Rulings in one city had no force in the next, so opponents had to start again in each.
An analogy: a self-governing territory that keeps its own parliament as long as the capital is satisfied. A street riot there is never only local news, because everyone knows who may be watching.
The fear of Roman discipline explains why city officials take a bond from Jason and let the matter drop in Acts 17:9, and why the clerk at Ephesus in Acts 19:40 warns the crowd that they could be charged with rioting. A mob in the theater was not the lawful assembly, even when it gathered in the same place.
Not a parliament of elected members. The city's assembly was the gathered body of citizens itself, meeting in the theater, and it could even sit as a court. Its freedom was a privilege Rome could withdraw after unrest, and some cities lost it that way.
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- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on Acts 17:1, 17:5, 17:8, 17:9, 17:13, 19:29, 19:32, 19:35 and 19:40
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, on Acts 17:5, 17:8, 17:13, 19:29, 19:32, 19:35-36, 19:39 and 19:40-41
- ESV Study Bible, study notes on Acts 19:29, 19:35 and 19:38-40
- CSB Study Bible, note on Acts 19:40-41
- N. T. Wright, Paul: A Biography, ch. 10, Ephesus I
- N. T. Wright and Michael F. Bird, The New Testament in Its World, ch. 18, Contextual and Critical Matters, Thessalonica
- N. T. Wright, Paul: A Biography, ch. 7, Into Europe
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, Introduction to 1 Thessalonians, Date and Occasion, and note on Acts 17:9
- J. D. Douglas and Merrill C. Tenney, Zondervan Illustrated Bible Dictionary, entries city authorities and archaeology
