Acts 28:16-31 And when we came to Rome, the centurion delivered the prisoners to the captain of the guard… Within a circuit of little more than twelve miles more than two millions of inhabitants were crowded. In this prodigious collection of human beings, there were of course all the contrasts which are seen in a modern city — all the painful lines of separation between luxury and squalor, wealth and want. But in Rome all these differences were on an exaggerated scale, and the institution of slavery modified further all social relations. The free citizens were more than a million; of these, the senators were so few in number as to be hardly appreciable; the knights, who filled a great proportion of the public offices, were not more than 10,000; the troops quartered in the city may be reckoned at 15,000; the rest were the plebs urbana. That a vast number of these would be poor is an obvious result of the most ordinary causes. But in ancient Rome the luxury of the wealthier classes did not produce a general diffusion of trade, as it does in a modern city. The handicraft employments, and many of what we should call professions, were in the hands of slaves; and the consequence was that a vast proportion of the plebs urbana lived on public or private charity. Yet were these pauper citizens proud of their citizenship, though many of them had no better sleeping place for the night than the public porticoes or the vestibules of temples. They cared for nothing beyond bread for the day, the games of the circus, and the savage delight of gladiatorial shows; manufactures and trade they regarded as the business of the slave and the foreigner. The number of slaves was perhaps about a million. The number of the strangers or peregrini was much smaller; but it is impossible to describe their varieties. Every kind of nationality and religion found its representative in Rome. (Dean Howson.) Parallel Verses KJV: And when we came to Rome, the centurion delivered the prisoners to the captain of the guard: but Paul was suffered to dwell by himself with a soldier that kept him. |
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