Note 161 — Chapter XII

This case of Thessalonica is an interesting illustration of Bishop Lightfoot's statement:—"The government of the Roman provinces at this time was peculiarly dangerous ground for the romance-writer to venture upon" (Essays on Supernatural Religion, p. 291). If the Roman provinces were a dangerous ground for a romance-writer, such as some critics would make the author of the Acts, the government of the large Græco-Roman towns and cities was still more dangerous, as scarcely any two successive ones were alike. Thessalonica is a good instance of this. St. Luke calls the magistrates politarchs, and the triumphal arch at Thessalonica calls them politarchs; a title which seems to have been a very rare one, as only one other instance of its occurrence has been discovered. Monastir, in the north-west of Macedonia, is an important town, and there an inscription belonging to the ancient Deuriopus, twelve miles distant, was found more than twenty years ago containing the same title, politarchs. Surely the stones out of the walls of Thessalonica and of Monastir cry out in defence of St. Luke's accuracy! See Mr. Tozer's Highlands of Turkey, vol. i., p. 145, and vol. ii., p. 358, Append. B; Bœckh's Corp. Ins. Græc., No. 1967; articles by the Abbé Belley in the Acad. des Inscript., xxxviii., p. 125, and by Mr. Vaux in the Trans. of Roy. Soc. of Literature, vol. viii., new series.