Romamti-ezer (Hastings' Dictionary)

A son of Henian, 1 Ch So^-". There is reason to believe that this and five of the names associated with it are really a fragment of a hymn or prayer (see Genealogy, III. 23 n. : and cf. Kittel in SBOT, and W. K. Smith, OTJC liZrx.) ROMAN f Pu^aios, esp. Ac le''-""* 22=»-'»23") Roman citizenship (civitas) might be held in NT times (a) by birth, from two Roman citizens united iajustis nttpiim.

There was no conubium, or right of Eomnn marria;;i inless specially granted), ex- cept with a Roman woman. If tiie union were un-Roman (with a Latin woman, a foreigner, a concubine) or unlawful (with a slave, etc. ), it gave no patria potestas, and the children followed the mother's condition.

It might also be held (h) by manumission in certain cases, or (c) by grant, either to entire cities or districts, or to individuals in reward of political or other services, as to a soldier on his discharge. Lender Claudius, how- ever, Messalina sold the civitas, and the price gradually fell (Dio, Ix. 9) to a ridiculous figure. The chief captain (Ac 22-') bought it at a high price ; but if St. Paul was hora free, it must have been held at least by his father (Ramsaj', St. Paul, 30 f . ).

The franchise of Tarsus (Ac 21^" 'loKOaios, Tap- aeiii) would not imply the civitas as a matter of course.f or Tarsus was an Kris /i6era(Pliny,iVi?'v. 27). The most practical advantage of the civitas in NT times was that no citizen could be scourged (lex Valeria B.C. 509, lex Porcia of uncertain date) or put to death by any provincial authority without the right of appeal to the emperor.

Even the prmf actus prwtorio could not condemn him to (leportatio, and the emperor himself commonly iiad him executed by the sword, reserving the cross, the fire, and the beasts for slaves and other low people. It was illegal when Paul and Silas were scourged at PhUippi (Ac 16^), and when Paul wag to have been examined at Jerusalem by scourging (Ac 22** fiio-Tiiiv dverdfeffeai). In both cases d/co- rd/tpiTos is re incognita (Ramsay, St.

Paul, 225), for it would not have been less illegal after condemna- tion. Of the other two scourgings mentioned in 2 Co 11^ nothing further is known. The right of appeal to the emperor seems to continue neither the old provocatio ad populum, which was limited even in republican times by the quiestiones perpetuce, and had now become obsolete, nor the old intercessio of the tribunes, which was purely negative, and limited by the first milestone from Rome.

It seems rather to rest on the general authority of the emperor, under the lex de imperio, to do almost anything he should consider ex usu rcipublicw, etc. The appeal was not granted quite as a matter of course. Festus confers (Ac 25') with his assessors before deciding (v.* iKpiva). Once granted, it stopped the case. The governor could not even release the accused (Ac 20").

His only duty Avas to draw up a statement of the case {apostoli, litlerce dimissonce — Festus asks Agrippa's help in doing this) and send him to Caesar. St. Paul is delivered to a centurion, avelp-q^ Sf^offr^i — one of the legionary centurions employed on de- tached service at Rome, and therefore called pere- qrini from the Roman point of view, and by hira \ianded over at Rome to his chief, the orpoiCTcJ- ipxit (Ac 28", but om.

WH) or princeps peregrin- orttm (so Mommsen : not the prw/ectus pr(etorio). The accused might be kept before trial in {a) cu.<!todin publica, the common jail, though a man of hi^h rank was frequently committed to (6) custodia libera as the guest of some citizen who would answer for his appearance. Intermediate was (c) custodia militaris, where one end of a light chain (dXwts) was constantly fastened to his right wrist, the other to the left wrist of a soldier (so St.

Paul, Ac 26' 28=», Eph 6=", 2 Ti !'«). In this case he might eit/ier be kept in strict custody (2 Ti 1", where Onesiphorus needs diligent search to find St. Paul), or allowed to live in his own KOMAX EMPIRE ROMAN EMPIRE 293 lodgings and receive in tliem what companv he chose (Ac 2i'^ 28"). The actual trial was before the emperor (often in person) and his consiliarii; and each count of the indictment was separately examined. 2 Ti 4" seems to say that the prima actio a^'ainst St.

Paul had been a failure, though the apostle lias no hope of escape on the second. A false claim of citizenship was a capital crime (Suet. Claudius, 25). LlTBRATt'RK,— Moramsen, Rdmisehe Staatsrecht, 1S76-77, and (for pereirrini) Bertitu Akad. SiUuiujiber. 1S9."), p. 5U1 ; Willeraa, DruU puUic Hoinain, \iSi : Kurlowa, Riimtsche ttecJUsijeich- ichte, 1886; W. IL Kamaaj, St. Paul the Traveller, ISUri. H. M. GWATKIN.

ROMAN EMPIRE (most nearly orhis terrarum, i) oiKovfjJint, Lk 2' ; and its people genus humanum, as Tac. Ann. xv. 44 ' odio humani generis.' Im- perium popvli liomani does not cover the free cities, and Romania seems first found Ath. Iliit. Ar. 35, and Orosius, Hist. e.g. vii. 43). — Augustus left the Empire bounded by the Rhine and the Danube, the Euphrates, the African desert, the Atlantic, and the North Sea.

These limits he recommended to his successors, and they were not seriously exceeded till Trajan's time, except that the conquest of Britain was begun by Claudius in 43, and finished as far as it ever was finished at the recall of Agricola in 85. Germany had re- covered its indei)endence in 9 A.D. by the defeat of Varus, and the conquest of Parthia was hardly within the ran^e of practical politics. Not Rome destroyed the ancient nations, but their own wild passions and internecine civil strife.

The Greeks could nuike notliiug of the liberty Flamininus gave them, the Gauls were no better, and even Israel — the one living nation Rome did crush — was in no very dillerent case in Judiea. Rome came in as often as not to keep the peace ; and when the Empire settled down, it seeiiiea quite natural that 'all the world ' should be sul)ject to her.

Virgil and Claudian sing witli equal en- thusiasm her everlasting dominion ; and even the Christians firmly believed that nothing bvit Anti- christ's coming would end it (2 Th 2"'-). So, thougli she had mutinies enough of armies, Israel was almost the only rebel nation. She could mass her legions on the great river frontiers, and leave a score of lictors to keep the peace of Asia, a garrison of 1200 men to answer for the threescore States of Gaul.

She no more ruled the world than we rule India by a naked sword. Hence there was a vast variety even of political itatus within the Empire. Some cities had the Roman civitas (see Roman), others only the jus Lata ; some, like Athens, were in theory free and equal allies of Rome, while others h;ui no voice in their own taxation. Italy had the ciinta.i, and was supposed to be governed by the Senate, whereas a senator could not even set foot in Egyjit without the emperor's permission.

Some provinces were governed by senatorial proconsuls or pro- fjrsetors, others by legati Aiigusti pro jyrrrtore, or, ike Egypt or Judsa, by a pr/r/eclus augustnll-^, or a procurator of lower rank. Some regions, again, had client kinjjs, like Mauretania, .hula'a under the Herods, or Dirace. True, the Empire was steadily levelling all this variety. The client kingdoms disappeared — Galatia as early as B.C. 25, ChaUis (held by Agrippa II.) as late as 100.

riie autonomy of the urbes liberty was commonly respected — Hadrian was archon twice at .Mhens; but the Roman cimtns was steadily exteiiilf<l till Caraoalla gave it in 212 to all free iuhabitauta of the Empire. Broadly speaking, the Eastern half of the Empire was Greek, the Western Latin. The dividing line may run pretty straight from Sirmium to the altars of the Philaeni.

But Greek wa-s dominant in parts of the AVest, — Massilia, Sicily, and the coasts of Southern Italy, — and was in most places the language of culture and of commerce, whereas Latin in the East was not much more than an official language. Nor was either Latin or Greek quite suiueme in its own region. Latin had perhaps displaced by this time the Oscan and other dialects of Italy ; but it hiid only well begun the conquest of Spain, Gaul, and the Danube countries.

Greek was opposed by the rustic languages of Thrace and the interior of Asia Minor, such as the Lycaonian (Ac 14") and tlie Galatian. Further East it had tougher rivals in Aramaic and Coptic, whi(^h it was never able to overcome, though Alexandria was a Greek city, and G.alilee almost bilingual in the apostolic age.

The distribution of the Jews resembled that of tlie Greeks in being chiefiy Eastern, and in following the lines of commerce westward : but their great centres were Syria and Alexandria within the Empire, Babylonia beyond it. Rome was never able to make a solid nation of her Empire. In Republican times her aim was utterly selfish — to lie a nation ruling other nations, and getting all she could out of them.

The Re- public broke down under the political corruption this caused, and the proscriptions completed the destruction of healthy national feeling. The Empire had higher aims from the first, and the sense of duty to the conquered world increased on it as time went on ; Imt it could neither restore nor create the patriotism of a nation. The old Roman nation was lost in the world ; and if the world was lost in Rome, it did not constitute a new Roman nation.

Greeks or Gauls mitjlit call tlieiiiselves Romans, and seem to forget tlieir old people in the pride of the Roman civitas • but Greeks or Gauls they remained. Every province of the Empire had its own character deeply marked on the society of the apo.stolic age and on the Churches of the future. Galatia was not like Asia, and Pontus or Cilicia diliered from botli. There were peoples in great vaiiety ; but the old nations were dead, and the one new nation was never born.

Yet the memory of nations put the Empire in a false position. It belonged, like the Christian Church, to the universalism of the future; but the circumstances of its origin threw it back on the nationalism of the past. Augustus came in after the civil wars as a 'Saviour of Society,' susl. lined by the abiding terror of the proscriptions.

Hence he was forced into a conservative policy very unlike the real tendency of the Empire to level class dis- tinctions, to replace local customs by uniform laws and administration, and to supersede national worsliips by a universal religion. The Empire waa hampereil by Republican survivals, degraded by tlie false universalism of Civsar-worship. Augustus had to conciliate Rome by respecting class-feeling, and by leaving Republican forms of government almo-st unaltered.

He was no king, forsooth (not rex, though called pa.<n\fis in the provinces, Ac 17', 1 P 2^'- "),— only /Jrince;)^, the first citizen of the Republic. Theconsuls were still the highest magistrates, though those who gave their names to the year were replaced during the year by one or more pairs of ccynsules sujfecti. Prietors, quies- tors, etc.

, went on much the same, and even the anarchical power of the tribunes was not limited by law till the reign of Nero, though the popular assemblies vanished after that of Augustus. The Senate deliberated as of old under the presidency of the consuls, and the emperor himself respect- fully awaited their Nihil vo.i mttrniimr at the end of the sitting.

It still governed Italy and hall the provinces, and furnisiied governors for nearly all— <leep ofi'ence would have been given if any one 294 ROMAN EMPIRE ROMAX EMPIRE but a senator had been made lec/atu.t Angusti pro prrrtore. Aliove all, the Senate could legislate without interference from tribunes ur Comiha. It elected all the magistrates (from the time of Tiberius), and even the emperor owed to it his constitutional appointment.

So far as forms went, the State was a Republic still, and became a real one for a moment when the government lapsed to the consuls at an emperor's death. The name respublica lasted far past 476. But the emperor was not only master, but fully recognized as such. The liberty of the Senate was hardly more than liberty to flatter hira. The pillars of his power were three.

He had (1) the imperium proconsulare, which gave him full mili- tary and civil power in the great frontier pro- vinces, where most of the army lay. The rest were left to the Senate ; but as his imperium was defined to be ma/us — superior to that of ordinary proconsuls — he practically controlled them too. The power was for life, and was not forfeited in the usual way by residence in Rome.

He held also (2) the trihunicia potestas, also for life, and without limitation to the first milestone out of Rome. This made his person sacrosanct, and gave hxiaViie jus auxilii, by which he cancelled decisions of magistrates, and the intercessio, by which he annulled decisions of the Senate. He had also (3) other powers conferred separately on Augustus, but afterwards embodied in a lex regia or de im- perio for his successors. A fragment of the law passed for Vespasian is preserved {CIL vi.

930), and two of its clauses run — ' Utiqtte, qutBCUTnqtu ex usu reipublicce, majestate divi- naru7n, humanarum, publicarum prii-atarum^iw. reruin esse censebit^ ei agere^ /acere jus pot<'8ULsqu£ sit, ita uti divo Augiiiio Tibcrioque lulio ViBnari Awjuxto Tiberioque Ctattdio Civaari Amiioito Gerjnanico /uU ; utique quihiis leg-Unis plebeim settis ecrij'tum J'uit ne diviui Augustus tfcc.

tt'neretUtir, iis Ugibits plebisque scitis impcrator Ccesar Vespasianus snlutus fit, qu<i:(juf ex quaque lege, rogatione divum Auguattan .tc, facerc. oportuU, ea omnia itnperatori Ccesari Vespasiaiw Axiijusto J'acere iiceat.' Thus the emperor was not arbitrary. He was subject to law like any otlier citizen, unless dis- pensed by law. True, he could alter law by getting a senatus coniultum, or by issuing his edict as a magistrate.

He could also interpret it by a rescript or answer to a governor who asKed directions; his acta were binding during his reign, though the Senate might quash them afterwards ; and, as we have seen, he had large discretionary ]>owers. But by law he was supposed to govern, and by law he commonly did govern. The excesses of a Nero must not blind us to the steady action of the great machine, which was so great a blessing to the pro- vincials.

Moreover, though the Senate was com- monly servile enough, it was no cipher even in the 3rd century. It represented the tradition of the past, the society of the present ; and every prudent emperor paid it scrupulous respect. If an emperor is called bad, it need not mean that he was incom- jietent {Tiberius was able enough), or that he ojipressed the provinces (Nero did not).

It means that he was on bad terms with the Senate, and, therefore, with the strong organization of society which culminated in the Senate. Nero did himself more harm by fiddling and general vuljgarity than by murders and general vileness. Society was always a check on the emperor, and in the end it proved the stronger power. If Diocletian shook oil" the control of the army, he did it only by a capitulation to the plutocrats of society.

The religious condition of the Empire was not like anything in modem Europe. It had no estab- lished or even organized Church, for the regular worships were local, except that of the emperor.

I'riesthoods might run in lamilies or be elective, or sometimes any one who knew the ritual might act as priest ; but the priests were not a class Taken as lie commonly was from the higher ranks of society, the priest was first of all the great senator or local magnate, so that his priesthood was only a minor office. The priests were not a clergy, ex- cept in the irregular Mithraic and othet Eastern cults, where they were not yet taken from the higher classes.

Nevertheless, there were sharp limits to Roman toleration, though persecution was not always going on. Intolerance, indeed, was a principle of heathenism, laid do\vn in the Twelve Tables, and impressed by Mrecenas on Augustus. Rome had her gods, whose favour had built up the Empire, and whose wrath might over- throw it : so no Roman citizen could be allowed to worship other gods without lawful authority, which could be given only by the Senate.

Gradually all national gods obtained recognition, so that the pantlieon of the Empire became a lar"e one ; but the individual was as strictly as ever forbidden to go outside it. Thus we get the anomaly of perse- cution without a persecuting Church. The emperor's own position was equally nnlike that of modem sovereigns. He held the office of Pontifcx Maximus in permanence after the deatl of Lepidus, B.C. 12.

This gave him a dignitie- position as head of the college of pontiffs, which superintended the State religion ; and it gave hira by law or usurpation the appointment of pontill's, vestals, and flamens. But these were only local officials ; with the priests in the provinces and with the irregular Eastern cults the Pontifex Maximus had no direct concern. Couiplete as was the identification of Church and State in Rome, the office gave its bolder no exorbitant power over religion.

The strength of his position was not official but [lersonal — vaguely indicated by the title Augustus (^fjSao-Tos, Ac 26'-'-='). The courtly fiction that the Julian house was descended from the gods might do service for a time ; but the truth came out clear at Vespasian's elevation.

If he was a tough old general with no romance about him, who died with a scotl' on his lips at his own divinity, he was none the less the impersonation of the glory of the world and Rome ; and this is what made the emperors divine, and kept them so in spite of absurd deifications like those of Claudius and of Poppsea's infant. Emperor -worship might be fashion ; but it was also a real cult sustained by genuine belief.

If courtiers placed Augustus among the household gods, courtiers did not keep Marcus there in Constantine's time. Kings were counted gods from the Pharaohs of Egypt to the Jubas of Mauretania ; and the Greeks had wor- shipped great men from Lysander (B.C. 403) on- ward, till deification became a cheap compliment for kings and their favourites.

Rome understood better than the Greeks the dillerence between gods and men — deus is a much more definite word than Seij ; yet even she deified legendary kings. But Romulus was the last of tliem, and she nevei deified the heroes of the Republic. Flamininus was a god in Greece ; but Scipio was no more than a man at Rome; and even Sulla was only iTs^io;, not Augusttis.

To the last she reserved the honour for emjierors and their near relations, for the worship of Hadrian's favourite Antinous was rather Eastern and Greek than Roman. Yet in the goddess Roma the spirit of the State was worshipped long before the honours of deity were pressed on the dictator Ciesar by a grateful people and a servile Senate. CiEsar's murder was a warnin" to Augustus ; and he called himself Dim Filius, hut not Divus. He allowed the A.

siatic cities to build temples to him after the battle of Actium, but required them to join with him the goddess Roma. Other cities followed : first in Asia in apostolic times was ROMAN EMPIRE ROMANS, EPISTLE TO THE 293 Pergamum, ' where Satan's seat is ' (Rev 2"). Such cities were called vtuKipoi or temple wardens of Au;.'ustu8, as Ephesus (Ac 19^) was vcuxdpos of Artemis. Before long a. Commune A sice {rb xoiydr TTjs 'Aatat) was formed, with a chief priest or a!

sIARCH (in looser sense, as Ac 19^', unless these be jiast Asiarchs) in each city, and over them an elected Asiarcli (in the strict sense) or chief priest of the province. Other provinces did likewise, as liithynia, Galatia, Phoenicia, etc., and in li.c. 12 the b"o States of Gaul organized a Commune, meet- ing annually at the confluence of the Rhone and the Sai'^ne.

These provincial assemblies were powerful enough— the priests were always mag- nates — to answer some of tlie purposes of rei>re- sentative government. They could complain of a had governor, and often obtain his recall. In Italy, and especially in Rome, the worship of the emperor was chiefly represented by that of his genius or his virtues : only at his death he was formally placed among the gods by the Senate. ' lieliquos deos accepimus,' says Valerius Maximus, ' Ca:sare3 dedimus.

This deification was the rule, though emperors who displeased the Senate were not deified when the honour could safely be refused them ; and it can be traced well into Christian times, certainly till Jovian (364), and perhaps as late as Theodosius, though long before that time the emperor had ceased to be a real divinity, even among the heathens. If the Empire was the greatest of hindrances to the gospel, it was also the greatest of helps.

We nmst look below its superficial tolerance in the Apostolic Age, below the deeper enmity proclaimed by Nero's persecution. The single fact that the Empire wa.s universal went far to complete the fulness of time for Christ's coming. Rome put a stop to the wars of nations and the great sales of slaves resulting from them, to the civil strife of cities and their murderous revolutions. Henceforth they were glad to live quietly beneath the shelter of the Roman peace.

Intercourse and trade (wit- ness the migratory Jews) were easier an<l freer than ever since in Europe till quite recently. It was settled peace, too, such as never came again till after Waterloo. Whole provinces hardly saw the face of war for generations togetlier. Roman law went with Roman citizenship ; and Latin civilization overspread the West, while Greece under Roman protection completed her conquest of Asia within Mount Taurus.

Historically, the Empire is the great barrier which won for civilization a respite of centuries by checking at the Rhine the tide of Northern barbarism, and at the Euphrates the two thousand years' advance of Asiatic barbarism through Par- thian and Saracen and Turkish times, beginning with Alexander's retreat from the Sutlei, li.c. 327, and ending only at the repulse of the Turks from Vienna in 1683.

During that momentous respite Rome gathered into herself the failing powers of the old world, and fostered within her the nascent powers of the new. This was her work in history — (o he tlie link between the ancient and the modem — between the heathen city-states of the ancient world and the Christian nations of the modern. Her weakness was not political.

Em- Serora might rise and fall, but the Empire itself id not perish when emperors rose and fell no moie It was not military: generals might blunder, but nearly to the end no enemy could face a Roman legion in the shock of liuttlo. It was partly economic, in slavery and bad taxation ; partly educational, in the lielplcss hark back to the mere words of the past ; partly also admini- Btrativo. Christian thought is even now pro- tonndly influenced by the fact that the Empire htA no good police.

Rrigands were iilenty in Judiea {X-Qo-Tris 15 times in NT, of which 2 Co il^ may refer to Gentile regions), and, though other provinces were better off, the evil increased as time went on, and the emperor lost control of the administration. Hence arbitrary seVirities and laws of atrocious cruelty against such offenders as were unlucky enougn to be caught.

The Empire was by far the worthiest image of tlie kingdom of God vet seen on earth, but its imper- fections are writ large on every form of Christian thought which looks on power as the central attribute of deity. After all, the Empire was the passing of the ancient world. With all their grandeur, its rulers were only the Karapyoiuevoi (1 Co 2"). LiTHRATCRB. — See Roman : and add Boissier, Religion romaiiie ; Westcotl'8 Comm. OH St. John's Epp. ('The Two Empires'); I.ightfoot, IrjnatiM, iii.

404 ; .ind authorities :;uotDd by tlieni, to which add Kustel de Coulaiiges, La Gaule roinuine ; and K. O. Hardy, 'The Provincial Councils from Aug. to Diocl.,' In Ely. met. Rev. v. 2'21. fj. M. GWATKIN.