Acts 17:17-18 Therefore disputed he in the synagogue with the Jews, and with the devout persons, and in the market daily with them that met with him.… The Agora, in all Greek cities the centre and focus of life, must not be confounded with an ordinary "market." It was one to a certain extent. In one portion there were booths containing common articles of consumption, as well as bazaars for those of luxury. Other parts would be more suggestive of our own Covent Garden; shops for flowers and fruit; vegetables and oranges from the surrounding gardens; oil from the olive groves on the slopes of Lycabettus; honey from Hymettus; even fish from the shores of Salamis and Euboea. Mingling somewhat incongruously with these, we have the mention of stalls for books and parchments; a clothes booth; a depot for stolen goods; and the slave market called "Cyclus." It was in this respect, a convenient trading centre for the surrounding city. But its main features and use were very different. Architecturally it must have been impressive. It is described by a writer as a "natural amphitheatre." There was the Altar of the Twelve Gods, from which emanated, in varied directions, the streets of the city and the roads of Attica. Here, in one place, was the "Stoa Basileios," "the Royal Porch" dedicated to Aurora; here, in another, is a Stoa dedicated to Zeus, with paintings of various deities by the artist Euphranor. These and similar ornamental buildings rose at all events on two sides, one of which was confronted with the Statues of the Ten Heroes. Xenophon tells us that, at certain festivals, it was customary for the knights to make the circuit of the Agora on horseback, beginning at the statue of Hermes, and paying homage to the statues and temples around. That garrulous throng whom Paul met here was composed of philosophers, artists, poets, historians, supplemented by a still livelier contingent of gossip mongers and idlers of every kind which gathered under alcove and colonnade to converse on "burning questions." Moreover, anterior to the art of printing, and when journalistic literature was a future revelation, it formed the only means and opportunity of discussing the politics of the hour. Even the varied colour, blending and contrasted in this babel of confusion, must have been striking and picturesque, if the dress of the modern Greek is a survival of classic ages. Then the Agora opened its gates, not to natives only, but to "strangers" (ver. 21). We can think therefore of "excursionists" and merchants, either in pursuit of pleasure or of gain, or both combined, from other towns and capitals near and distant. Noisy traffickers from Corinth and Thessalonica, Ephesus and Smyrna, Antioch and Damascus; sailors and voyagers from the Alexandrian vessel or Roman galley at anchor in the Piraeus. Here and there a Jew with sandalled feet, his long robe girdled round the waist and fringed with blue ribbon. Here and there some soldiers from the barracks — now on foot, now mounted — the flash of their helmets mingling with the red and yellow mantles of the market women, or with the still rarer keffeih and fillets of the swarthy children of the Arabian or Syrian deserts. What a rare "symposium"; what a singular whirlpool of thought in this "tumultuous Agora!" (J. R. Macduff, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Therefore disputed he in the synagogue with the Jews, and with the devout persons, and in the market daily with them that met with him. |
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