Note 145 — Chapter XII

The proper official title of the highest magistrates of a colony was Duumviri. The colonies where a Greek spirit prevailed did not like this title, and called themselves Prætors, or Στρατηγοί, as in the case of Philippi. In exact accordance with St. Luke's usage Cicero, a century earlier, tells us in one of his Epistles, speaking of the vanity of Capua, which was thoroughly Greek in spirit, and therefore very vain: "While in other colonies the magistrates are called Duumviri, these wish themselves to be styled Prætors," a weakness laughed at in Horace's Satires, lib. i., v. 34-6. Dion Chrysostom, a Greek rhetorician of St. Paul's day, mocks the Greeks for the same flashy spirit.