17. Geographic Background
17
Some issues relevant for social-historical study of Acts require discussion too extensive for the main text of the commentary and hence are treated here: travel, geography, and the frequent divide between rural and urban populations in the empire. These factors are relevant especially for Paul’s travels in the second of the book’s two major sections.
Travel is important for Luke, both as an organizing principle for an interesting narrative and because the geographic movement in his narratives corresponds to following God’s will (cf. Acts 19:21; 21:13–14). In Acts believers must travel to fulfill Jesus’s commission (1:8), and Paul, like Jesus, is drawn to his destiny in Jerusalem (and, for Paul, beyond that to Rome). The shorter travel report in Mark (Mark 10:1–52) is expanded to cover one-third of Luke’s Gospel (Luke 9:51–19:44), perhaps in part to provide symmetry with the travels in Acts.
Understanding facets of ancient travel (the nature of which Luke’s ancient audience would likely have been able to take for granted) is helpful for visualizing what Paul endured. His sufferings for the gospel included both long journeys and the various sufferings attending them (2 Cor 11:26). Paul, both in Acts and in his letters, was nothing if not a traveler. Jack Finegan estimates that the travels in Acts alone covered at least “12,000 miles (20,000 kilometers),” not including later travels claimed by early Christian tradition. Despite his emphasis on Paul’s status, Luke explicitly depicts Paul’s land travels as on horseback only in captivity (Acts 23:24), suggesting that he usually traveled on foot. Although we moderns, who cover long distances in cars or planes, may miss the point, Luke’s audience would have recognized that such travels must have consumed much of his time in ministry. Ancients recognized the need for time when traveling; when Pliny must make a round-trip journey of 150 miles (plus some business when he arrives there), he asks leave for a month (Pliny Ep. 10.8.6).
above addressed the probable geographic assumptions of Luke’s audience; here we turn to other geographic issues relevant for Paul’s travels. (For comments on Hellenistic and Roman imperial “multiculturalism,” see , .)
Geographic knowledge and often even maps were fairly accurate when their focus remained within the Roman Empire. The elder Pliny contends that geography was very advanced by this period, and Augustus built a portico “containing a plan of the world” based on Marcus Agrippa’s research (Pliny E. N.H. 3.2.17). Romans had itineraria, somewhat like road maps, for military but also civilian use (and useful especially to merchants); these listed roads, rest stops, distances between sites, and even some topography. They were not always accurate, but they represented significant progress beyond what was available earlier. Although pictorial maps were available, descriptive, verbal, “mental” maps were much more common than the pictorial kind. Elite citizens who could afford to travel for leisure knew much about the Mediterranean world, but so did those who listened to sagas or orations, most of which either contain or presuppose significant geographic knowledge.
Acts is full of geographic knowledge and often presupposes that members of its ideal audience would recognize the names of various cities and their general proximity to one another. Acts reflected their real world. As one classicist points out regarding ancient sources for travel in Asia Minor, “The evidence found in the Acts is perhaps most valuable of all because it indicates the ordinary voyages and the conditions that the plain civilian or merchant would have to face.”
Many in the first century were interested in travel narratives, whether as adventure novels or as illustrations of sages’ ability to address people in all places. The movement in Acts would thus hold attention. Travel narration is not, of course, the primary focus of Acts: travel narratives and geographies often employed the rhetoric of praise and blame in describing places, whereas Acts fails to linger over the particular places where Paul travels. The theological significance of travel in Acts focuses on the expansion of the apostolic message.
An even more obvious contrast with some fictitious travel narratives is that Acts comes nowhere close to collections of wonders about exotic locations too distant to check; it is part of the real world of Luke’s audience. Thus one may contrast exotic tales of India’s gold-digging ants larger than foxes or of some of its rivers carrying gold. Pliny the Elder offers reports (without commending them) about suicidal Hyperboreans who ultimately tire of their great longevity, a king with just one eye (N.H. 6.35.195), Indians with backwards feet (7.2.22) or dogs’ heads (7.2.23), and a woman who birthed an elephant (7.3.34). In his Life of Apollonius, Philostratus is fairly accurate within the boundaries of the empire, but he depends on earlier authors and generally departs from reality in Mesopotamia and India.
Despite Acts’ different focus, however, informed members of Luke’s audience probably knew something about many of the places Luke mentions. Luke is particularly careful to document locations during Paul’s Aegean travels, especially when he (on the view of authorship articulated in ) is traveling with Paul (Acts 16:11–12; 20:13–15; 21:1–2; 27:7). Such documentation is not limited to the Aegean, but it is concentrated there because this is the phase of Paul’s ministry on which Luke offers the most detail, next to Paul’s final custody. Elsewhere, such as in the interior of Asia, Acts proves accurate on abundant details (see commentary on Acts 13–14), although it is not clear that Luke had visited there or that his audience was very familiar with that region. Yet Luke goes into less detail on the itinerary there than in the “we” narratives.
Most educated Christians in Philippi would know something of the history not only of Macedonia but also of the entire Aegean region through epics about ancient heroes from various locations and stories of more recent times. Paul traveled to evangelize locations with which Luke’s ideal audience was often familiar, connecting their new faith with their ancestral cultural heritage. These unarticulated nuances available to Luke’s ideal audience are generally lost on the modern reader.
Such details are worth noting because they help us to hear more of the resonances that these stories could have had for Gentile members of Luke’s first audiences, rather than simply reading our modern or postmodern (as well as Christian or post-Christian) perspectives into the texts. Whether or not Luke’s audience regularly knew of particular deities and cults associated with particular cities (deities and cults are mentioned periodically in the commentary when treating those sites), they knew that their environment was largely polytheistic. Often they even knew the cultic reputations of various locations; certainly most educated urban hearers knew of Artemis of Ephesus, but also of other famous local cults. They were utterly conscious, in a way that our readings after Christendom or in largely monotheistic environments often are not, that the apostles whom Luke portrays as boldly preaching were articulating a perspective then held by a tiny minority, not a dominant culture.
Romans believed that the gods provided safety in travel by road or sea (Fronto Ad M. Caes. 3.9.2); Acts implies that God protected Paul in his travels (for potential dangers, see 2 Cor 11:25–27). Jewish people who traveled prayed for God to provide safety. Monotheistic travelers such as Paul could not, however, have avoided being confronted regularly with signs of the more common pagan travelers’ religion. Sacred monuments alongside roads often were devoted to Hermes, deity of travelers (cf. Acts 14:12), so often that later rabbis mention them.
Seneca the Younger appreciated travel as useful for learning and inquiry but was ambivalent about it in some other respects. Many people regarded travel as a hardship to be avoided whenever possible (e.g., Firm. Matern. Math. 53.50). Travel by sea could be dangerous, and those who undertook it looked to various patron deities to protect them, especially Castor and Pollux (See comment on Acts 28:11). Many Greeks historically looked to Apollo as protector on journeys in general (e.g., Aeschylus Ag. 1080, 1086). Those who played the odds seem to have calculated a significant mortality rate on long journeys, naturally compounded for frequent travelers. Robbers (cf. 2 Cor 11:26; Luke 10:30) were dangerous especially in the mountains (“where roads were not carefully guarded”), but travelers could encounter danger anywhere. Bands of highwaymen were common, though such robbers were widely hated and cruelly treated if caught; many also expected divine judgment against them. Robbers were a particularly grave danger at night, even within cities, and sometimes highwaymen even killed their victims. The rich traveled in large and well-guarded caravans, and so, ironically, poor travelers probably suffered more from robbers than did the rich. MacMullen summarizes:
No one should build his farmhouse near a main road “because of the depredations of passing travelers.” That was the advice of a man who knew Italy well, at the height of its peace; while the advice of a contemporary in Palestine was, if one stopped the night at a wayside inn, to make one’s will. Both warnings came to the same thing. Away from centers of population, one risked being robbed or killed.
Still, travel was generally easier and safer in this period than in the past; Rome maintained its roads, and guards protected the stationes on the way. Although sea travel was faster, storms were less dangerous by land and the season was less important. Although Rome had suppressed the worst of piracy by this period, some fear of pirates may have persisted. Travel by road was very common. Roman roads were rarely more than twenty feet wide, but they were carefully designed; in mountainous country, for example, the roads followed paths least endangered by avalanches. Roman roads through the empire were superior to most roads in most of Europe until 1850. Romans learned their hydraulic-engineering techniques from the Etruscans, which allowed for proper draining, especially important for streets in the cities.
Those whose business was urgent preferred sea travel to land, at least during passable seasons for the former. With favorable winds (e.g., from Egypt to Rome or the reverse during appropriate seasons) ships could travel a hundred miles in a day. Meanwhile, on Roman roads “the imperial messenger service, using fresh horses at regular intervals,” may have averaged, like vehicles, only twenty-five to thirty miles (thirty-eight to forty-five kilometers) per day, though under duress people could travel more than forty miles (sixty kilometers). But even the time needed for travel by sea was uneven, potentially delayed by ships’ loading or off-loading their cargoes; likewise, “winds and waiting for a connecting ship easily lengthened a journey, quite apart from seasonal delays.”
On land the average distance between mansiones (inns), which were spaced according to how far people could travel in a day, was about thirty to thirty-six kilometers (some eighteen to twenty-three miles); soldiers could march this far (Veg. Mil. 1.9), but if the marching continued for several weeks, about thirty kilometers (less than twenty miles) a day was a maximum. On long journeys, then, a strong but ordinary traveler could probably traverse fifteen to twenty miles per day (twenty to thirty kilometers). On such journeys, Jewish travelers (such as Paul and Barnabas) would lose a day of travel each week for the Sabbath; the obligations of hospitality could also significantly slow a traveler’s journey (cf. Acts 20:16), although probably not as much in a region where one was a first-time visitor introduced only by letters.
Moving from estimates to actual travel figures (based on papyri where the dates of sending and receipt are marked), “letters traveling relatively short distances seem to follow the pattern of approximately 15–20 miles per day. Longer journeys were less standard.” Given their dependence on travelers’ itineraries, some letters traveled ten miles a day, though another might travel fifteen miles a day and yet another a mere four miles a day. Given their mission (and often their desire to stay ahead of their enemies), Paul and his companions probably traveled closer to the higher estimates, especially in their younger days.
The mansiones provided numerous rooms for eating and sleeping, as well as provision for travel animals. “At more frequent intervals, perhaps every ten miles or so, were mutationes, smaller stations where official couriers could change horses and where ordinary travelers could find something to eat and a bed.” Inns had, however, poor reputations for their amenities and moral suitability (given the prevalence of prostitution there), rendering them less than suitable for aristocrats and most pious Jews. (For inns, see further comment at Acts 16:15.) Towns offered a greater variety of restaurants, baths, and accommodations (from converted “luxurious villas” to bug-infested beds).
Typical roads of the Roman period in the Near East were between two and four lanes in width; some discovered in the Judean wilderness were as wide as a modern highway of five lanes. People commonly transported goods by land in carts drawn by several oxen; the heaviest supplies traveled by a form of large wagon that could hold up to 1,500 Roman pounds. Paved roads might include an unpaved lane about two feet wide on which pedestrians and pack animals traveled.
Nevertheless, although Roman roads were suitable for “pedestrians and pack animals,” “their stiff gradients” often made hauling heavier goods difficult. Though some could afford donkeys, horses, or (most expensive) camels, most travelers made their journey on foot. Some sorts of travelers had more experience with traveling than others did. Merchants were known for their travels and diversity of experience. Those who traveled extensively also included the military, entertainers, and wandering sophists. During the empire, people of means also traveled as tourists. Those who traveled much would often be considered experienced and wise (Sir 31:9–12).
That early Christians, like others, traveled and hence carried news with them and networked the churches is almost certain, despite the almost inexplicable assumption of some NT scholars that Christian groups developed in isolation from one another in various parts of the empire. Sages traveled; landless Cynics were thought to travel throughout Greece, often seasonally to accommodate the weather (Max. Tyre 36.5). More commonly, merchants often unofficially spread their religion when they traveled, and the same is likely for early Christians in general (Acts 8:4); that Paul’s focus was on evangelism does not rule out his being also a leatherworker or tentmaker (18:3).
When traveling, people often looked for suitable companions for discussion (for safety reasons, it was important to have fellow travelers). Some pious Greeks would talk about the gods as they walked (Eunapius Lives 458). Pious Jews sought to avoid traveling with Gentile caravans traveling to idolatrous festivals (t. ʿAbod. Zar. 1:16). Many people sought intellectual stimulation as they traveled, and so conversation was very important. Sea voyages provided an easier venue for conversation and certainly for reading and writing than could travel on foot. Acts includes both kinds of travel, and ancient readers would have assumed that Paul and his traveling companions probably engaged in long discussions of Scripture and, presumably, other matters as well.
We can guess that Luke (the question of whether he was a physician aside!) might have recognized one positive side benefit of travel (or other physical labor) as its contribution to health, despite the dangers. Most Greeks and Romans recognized the value of exercise for health. Nevertheless, “exercise” can hardly be a major factor in Luke’s reports or Paul’s travels. Luke provides little detail to satisfy our modern interest in this aspect of apostolic travels, except what we gain by inference.
Although Luke’s overt geographical schema in Acts leads from Jerusalem to Rome, the work also narrates the growth of a movement from culturally marginalized, rural roots in Galilee (Jesus’s primary world) to urban Jerusalem (the first apostles’ primary sphere of ministry) and then on to prestigious urban locations in the empire (Luke’s primary world), by far the most prestigious of which was the heart of the empire. Luke’s theological movement is from heritage to mission, but his history also reveals a sociological movement from rural to urban.
Paul targeted cities, particularly significant ones such as Roman colonies (Troas, Philippi, and Corinth) and other important or strategic sites (such as Thessalonica, Athens, and Ephesus). Ambitious sophists or rhetoricians would have done the same, and for them, as for Paul, there was no more influential geographic goal to reach than Rome itself. In contrast to the degree of change in some urban environments, most rural communities proved conservative and their values resilient; poverty was too endemic to risk social experimentation. That cities were more open to change provided Paul a more natural inroad into them with the gospel (though once christianization did take hold in rural areas, it proved particularly tenacious there). Interpreters in the Roman Empire would have naturally understood this: Paul and Silas “pass through the small towns and hurry to the biggest,” Chrysostom observes, “since the word was to flow to nearby cities as from a source.”
That Luke highlights urban centers (including Jerusalem) probably gives some indication of the cultural presuppositions of his implied audience. Luke writes Acts from an urban Mediterranean perspective, with an urban ideal audience in view. Historians who wrote in urban centers, where more books and oral sources were available, had an advantage over those from smaller towns (Plut. Demosth. 2.1–2). Just how steep was the chasm between urban and rural perceptions in antiquity?
Urbanites were limited to about a thousand towns and cities, the collective population of which may have constituted only 10 percent or 15 percent or 20 percent of the empire’s population. Outside the Greco-Roman cities, rural culture often reflected the persistence of earlier local cultures (such as those with Syrian and Middle Eastern roots). Still, small towns and villages in Greece may have experienced little isolation from knowledge of the larger Roman world. Numerous scholars, in fact, argue that many of the rural peasants worked estates owned by absentee (often urban) landlords.
When traditional societies with extended kin networks face rapid urbanization, the contrast between the two models of life (and often between two generations in the cities) is stark and the demands on urban support systems overwhelming. For example, many first-generation urbanites in Africa maintain primary ties with their village kin networks and are expected to provide extensive support to those in the villages and to house younger extended kin who come to seek education in the cities (demands that sometimes limit the advancement of the urbanites unless they indulge in forms of corruption). The growth of shantytowns, inadequate waste disposal, shortages of drinkable water (and sometimes other water as well), electricity (today), and other resources become part of normal life, and tribal or clan loyalties can be imported (for at least a generation).
The first-century Mediterranean world probably differed, however, from the modern societal chasm spawned by urbanization in many respects. For example, Roman historians’ reports of census records (cf. comment on Acts 28:16) render questionable whether the pace of urbanization was so dramatic in most places (although it was quite dramatic in places such as second-century Ephesus); further, extended kin networks, though more important than in the modern West, were less significant than in much of Africa and Asia.
Nevertheless, sources do suggest massive migration to cities in antiquity as well (its population effects perhaps offset somewhat by high mortality). These modern phenomena illustrate the sharp contrast that could exist between urban and rural societies, especially once urbanites grew separate from rural norms and values over the course of several generations. Peasants who moved to the cities as artisans “lost the status and protection of their previous connections,” including the land and extended-kin support. The census records of antiquity that are mentioned above suggest much higher population figures than modern estimates based on water supplies; this may be because ancient city dwellers lived on less water than we deem feasible today.
Although taxes, soldiers, and other forms of romanization in the West and hellenization in the East made inroads even into the countryside, local languages and customs persisted. An urban traveler to the countryside might find difficulty in making himself understood, apart from rich villas. “Many inhabitants of the empire had little experience or conception of Rome.” The division in society was clear:
Roman civilization was an urban phenomenon, built on the agricultural surplus from the countryside. Not only did the cities exploit the countryside to feed and clothe their residents, but the urban dwellers, a small minority of the whole population, were also contemptuous of the masses as “rustics,” who were unacquainted with the sophisticated culture of urban life and often literally spoke a different language.
As for immigrants to the cities, some cultures could remain permanently alienated resident aliens, though in some cities (e.g., in Roman Asia) their children might become more acculturated and a part of civic life. In “language and nomenclature, diet and lifestyle, cults and patterns of authority,” villagers in Asia Minor inhabited a different world than townspeople; urban people often despised rural people, and some urban authorities apparently extorted from villagers.
The largest cities, such as Rome, subsisted heavily on the produce derived from the countryside. Population density was probably as high in Rome as in modern Calcutta, and life expectancy was lower there than in the countryside (“because of the poor sanitation, the dirt and the noise, and the general lack of medical care”). Urban overcrowding affected not only physical but also mental health. Given the cosmopolitan knowledge presupposed in Acts, Luke’s audience was undoubtedly urban and not rural.
MacMullen notes that the urban Roman world regarded inhabitants of the countryside as “clumsy, brutish, ignorant, uncivilized,” and the rural Roman world regarded those who lived in cities “as baffling, extortionate, arrogant.”
From the perspective of an empire ruled from Rome, however, cities held higher status than mere communities. Few of the hundreds of towns throughout the empire held more than fifty thousand residents, but urban life was probably roughly comparable with that in eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Europe. Although only a minority of people lived in the cities, urbanites exerted a broader cultural influence, and historians can argue that “the civilization of the Greeks and Romans was essentially urban.”
Elite intellectuals expected more education, though not always more wisdom, in the cities. One writer praised an unusual country dweller whose learning seemed more at place in Athens than in the countryside (Pliny Ep. 7.25.4–6). Country dwellers, like women and minors, were less culpable under Roman law because they were less apt to understand it. Thus in one satire Pan, a rural deity, notes that he is not clever like urbanites. Some viewed the building of cities as special signs of human reason and cooperation (Ael. Arist. Def. Or. 398, §135D). (Yet contrary to some modern expectations, ancient urban populations seemed no less interested in miraculous reports than were rural ones.)
Perspectives varied sufficiently to allow opposing views of the importance of rural life to be a standard debating topic (Max. Tyre 23–24). However urbanites might have viewed the low status and exposure of agrarian peasants, they respected their work and, at least in Rome, held fond memories of a former, largely bucolic existence and its comparatively stern traditional values. Certainly in the first century B.C.E., to despise farmers did not play well in Rome, where Cicero could expect Verres’s disdain for “mere” farmers to stir anger (Verr. 2.2.61.149).
Those converted to philosophy might be thought likely to turn against farming, a stereotype with some foundation in Stoic teaching. Stoics compared worthless persons to rustics; just as rustics were unfamiliar with urban laws, so worthless people were uninformed. Yet some philosophers, by contrast, felt that urban evils distracted students from learning philosophy. It was said that Apollonius disliked city life because of its luxury, preferring a smaller town (Philost. Vit. Apoll. 1.7).
In the first century C.E., Seneca the Younger notes that his health is improving now that he has “escaped from the oppressive atmosphere of the city, and from that awful odour of reeking kitchens which, when in use, pour forth a ruinous mess of steam and soot” (Ep. Lucil. 104.6 [LCL]). Seneca did note, though, that despite the value of fleeing from society’s folly, life in the countryside does not by itself make one think virtuously (94.69). Others also seem to have appreciated the benefits of agricultural life (Ps.-Phoc. 161) or they suggested that the dangers of the urban environment outweigh its advantages (Babr. 108).
Many in the cities, in fact, portrayed pastoral life as pristine and paradisiacal (e.g., in Longus’s Daphnis and Chloe). In eighth-century B.C.E. Greece, Hesiod “contrasts the goodness of the village engaged in agricultural work with the evil of the city-state occupied by war and the shipping trade.” In the first century B.C.E., the Roman poet Horace celebrated “the Roman agrarian ideal of the late Republic”; the happiest life was on a family farm like the earliest of peoples (Ep. 11). Paul’s contemporary Seneca the Younger portrays Hippolytus as claiming rural life to be more ancient, free, and pure (Phaed. 483–85), imitating the days when mortals lived together with the deities (525–28). The rural cult of Silvanus became popular among the poor of the cities in the second and third centuries C.E., probably indicating nostalgia for the simpler life of the country and a longing to escape the wretchedness of ancient urban existence.
Dio Chrysostom, though urban, met rural people during his time of exile under Domitian and composed an oration based (however loosely) on his association with them. A rural person could tell that Dio was from a city despite his wearing rags (Dio Chrys. Or. 7.8). One rural man had never been to town, and the other only twice (once as a boy and once when he was mistreated by some urban people; 7.21). The second rural person showed hospitality to someone from the town demanding tax (7.22) and then, by contrast, nearly met a sorry fate in the town (7.29–33). In Dio’s idealization, the poor man in the ensuing debate tries to reason with the crowd yet misunderstands them at every turn because their concepts, especially about money, are so foreign (7.44, 48–49, 60–61). Dio concludes that countryfolk, enjoying their hospitality and simple pleasures, are the happiest of people (7.65–66) and that the poor are better off than the rich (7.81). This is an idealization, but it reveals the deep cultural chasm between urban and rural lifestyles.
Some ancients opined that urbanites envied the simplicity of the rustic lifestyle no less than farmers did that of city dwellers (Max. Tyre 15.1). Many viewed farmers as hardworking and strong (24.6; cf. 25.1). Thus Cicero, arguing that a client was not greedy, claimed that he “always lived in the country and occupied himself with the cultivation of his land”; such is a life of duty, not of avarice (Rosc. Amer. 14.39). Rural dwellers were also more inclined toward values like sharing with neighbors their own surpluses, values that were sometimes even translated by urban observers into the language of ideal philosophic ethics. This generosity, along with the utter naiveté of some about city life, could render them gullible and easily exploited by urban hucksters; villagers who exploited their neighbors were seen no longer as honest farmers but as urban orators. Some people idealized rural dwellers as more simple, with a wisdom expressed not in rhetoric but through their very lives.
Such views also affected Jewish thinkers even in urban Alexandria. The Letter of Aristeas opines that urban life leads to neglect of the land and to a hedonistic philosophy (Let. Aris. 108), and laments that such has overtaken Alexandria (Let. Aris. 109). Although Philo is somewhat ambivalent, he portrays the Essenes as preferring traditional rural values of sharing and as avoiding cities because of their sinfulness (Good Person 76). But these are themselves urban authors lamenting the decadence of urban life.
Urban literature also portrayed rural people content with their lives and despising the cities. One novel portrays the horrible fate of a rural girl as being forced to “live in a city” (πόλιν οἰκήσει; compared to the horrible fate of sheep and goats being killed [Longus 2.22]). Elsewhere one farmer is portrayed as warning his son to avoid philosophers, who do nothing useful for humanity; he should stick to his farmwork and guarantee having sufficient food.
Another artificial character protests that a woman has abandoned their way of life and Pan and the nymphs for new gods and urban life; she is becoming crazy, addicted to luxury. Another pleads with her husband to stop idling away his time in the town and return to help with the farm. A semidivine hero whose plot a gardener had once tilled became angry with the gardener for moving to a city and obtaining education there (Philost. Hrk. 4.6–10). But now, when an outsider feels that he has wrongly demeaned the gardener by characterizing him as a mere “vinedresser” (4.11), the gardener (and the hero for whom he works) values the title (4.12). A shoreline fisherman threatens to divorce his wife unless she stops running to shows in the city and learns to be content as a fisherman’s wife. One scholar comments,
Although a kind of “urbaphobia” was manifested by the urban clients (this would certainly be true of Juvenal), a smoldering hatred of the city was added by the peasants to the lengthening list of social tensions within the Empire. In part, their hatred of the city stemmed from the fact that the exploiters lived there; but more important was the fact that the city represented a specially privileged, even pampered society from which the peasants felt they had been systematically excluded. They felt totally alienated from the culture and society of the urban centers, and as more and more rights and exemptions were lavished upon these centers by the emperors—usually at the peasants’ expense—their hatred of the city became more intense.
Luke’s first audience would understand the difficulties of travel in ways that we often do not, and hence would recognize the lengths to which Paul went to reach new areas. The contrast between urban and rural communities also highlights dimensions of Paul’s travels and ministry; although he focused his ministry on towns and especially cities, much of the territory through which he traveled when evangelizing Phrygia was rural and foreign to his own background.
On Luke’s attention to locations as scenes for his narrative’s action, see, e.g., briefly, Mazich, “Geography.” Geography and history were in fact closely intertwined disciplines in antiquity (Engels, “Geography,” 540–46, following, e.g., Marincola, Authority, 12–19; idem, “Genre”; Clarke, Geography).
Pao, Isaianic Exodus, 1, notes that Luke offers frequent reminders of the destination (Luke 9:51, 53; 13:22, 33; 17:11; 18:31; 19:11, 28, 41). The connection with “the Way” (Pao, Isaianic Exodus, 2) and (with M. Strauss) Isaiah’s exodus (12) appear to me more forced, though perhaps I have simply not explored these connections adequately.
See, e.g., Ramsay, “Roads and Travel”; Charlesworth, Trade Routes; Casson, Travel; Kreitzer, “Travel”; Wallace and Williams, Worlds, 15–29; Reynier, “Voyages”; Patella, “Travels.”
Finegan, Apostles, xix, noting that these would add a further “3,000 miles (5,000 kilometers) or more.”
Ibid. For fuller sources on Paul’s travels and travel more generally, see Hvalvik, “Stadig.”
Presumably this duration allows plenty of cushion, not only travel time.
See Charlesworth, Trade Routes, 13; Casson, Mariners, 70, 80; Purcell, “Maps”; see further Dilke, Maps; Talbert, “Cartography.” For a sample map, see Gold, “Mosaic Map,” 67–70.
Burian, “Itinerare,” 1023; cf. Le Cornu, Acts, 709. Itineraria included especially “the road network and its stations, with” approximations of “the respective distances” (Burian, “Itinerare,” 1024).
Burian, “Itinerare,” 1024, notes one particularly useful itinerarium, “even though some of its details contain inaccuracies, mistakes and other errors.”
See Sundwall, “Ammianus Geographicus.” Some may have disliked maps (Hermog. Inv. 1.2.102, but this is hypothetical declamation).
For tourism in the empire, see Friedländer, Life, 1:323–428; note especially the resorts in Greece, the Greek islands, and Asia Minor (340–49).
E.g., also Philost. Hrk. 1.3 (on the presupposed competence of this work’s implied audience, see Maclean and Aitken, Heroikos, lxxxvii–lxxxix).
Charlesworth, Trade Routes, 85–86, contrasting the elite, who appear most prominently in our sources.
Cf. Marguerat, “Voyageurs” (comparing the centrality of travel in Acts). See the “travel narrative” proposal in , above.
See Men. Rhet. 1.2–3, 346.26–367.9; cf. Dio Chrysostom’s local orations and esp. Aelius Aristides’s orations to Rome (Or. 26) and Athens (Or. 1).
Where armchair reporters could pontificate most freely (cf. the disgust in Pliny E. N.H. 5.1.12; Lucian True Story 1.3). Apocalyptic geography also included striking elements (e.g., 1 En. 17–18; 21:7; 77:8 [Knibb]/77:9 [Isaac]). Studious intellectuals also entertained notions of waters that turned sheep various colors (Pliny E. N.H. 2.106.230; in this case, all in known regions).
Errors happened even for such a nearer world, of course; e.g., Sib. Or. 11.265–67.
See Dio Chrys. Or. 35.23–24; Hdt. 3.102–5.
Quint. Curt. 8.9.18. India’s pearl divers would also have been astonished had they heard that the sea simply deposited pearls and precious stones on the shore (the view in 8.9.19). Ctesias’s tales of India (in his Indica) quickly earned him the reputation of a liar (Lenfant, “Historians,” 203).
Pliny E. N.H. 4.12.89, uncertain whether the reports are accurate.
See Jones, “Passage.”
Though Luke’s travel comments are hardly exclusive to the Aegean when other points belong to the same itinerary (Acts 21:3) or his narrative (27:1–6; 27:8–28:1; 28:11–15).
This is true, to some extent, even outside the “we” narratives; Corinth (Acts 18:1–18), Ephesus (18:19–21; 19:1–41; 20:17), and even, if we count the speech, Athens (17:15–34) receive more attention than Paul’s probably lengthy ministry in Antioch (11:26, 30; 12:25–13:3; 14:26–15:2; 15:30, 35). Nasrallah, “Cities,” reads Paul’s itinerary in Acts in the context of contemporary perspectives on the empire’s cities.
The earliest Christian mission had, and could have had, nothing in common with cultural imperialism. (Many outsiders would have viewed it instead as a troublesome little cult, one among many, in this case a particularly radical form of Judaism.)
M. Ber. 9:4 (cited in Le Cornu, Acts, 790).
Le Cornu, Acts, 708, citing merculis (sing.) in m. Sanh. 7:6; ʿAbod. Zar. 4:1; t. ʿAbod. Zar. 6[7]:13; b. Sanh. 64a; ʿAbod. Zar. 50ab.
See Montiglio, “Travel.”
MacMullen, Social Relations, 97; for hazards, see further Wallace and Williams, World, 27–29.
See the calculations, based on oracular answers, for the dangers of travel, in Toner, Culture, 48, estimated at perhaps 20 percent cases of serious danger by the time inquirers were anxious enough to ask.
Robbers were probably especially frequent on smaller roads in difficult provinces (Stambaugh and Balch, Environment, 38), possibly explaining some Galilean towns’ location away from roads (Freyne, Galilee, Jesus, 153); they are well attested in Egypt (P.Ryl. 125; P.Oxy. 1408.11–21; P.Gur. 8; cf. Xen. Eph. Anthia 3.12; for burglary, see Lewis, Life, 77) and would endanger Paul in the mountainous interior of Asia Minor (Ramsay, “Roads and Travel,” 392; Liefeld, “Life,” 12). Some innkeepers may have stolen guests’ possessions (b. Taʿan. 21a; Gen. Rab. 92:6); grave robbery was a particularly heinous offense (cf. Iambl. Bab. St. 7; Xen. Eph. Anthia 3.8; Apoll. K. Tyre 32). Of course, thieves could break into homes even if one was not traveling (see Lucian Lucius 16; Robinson, Criminal Law, 27; Schiemann, “Furtum”; further discussion in Keener, John, 803–4).
E.g., Horace Ep. 1.2.32–33; Phaedrus 4.23.16; Jos. Ant. 20.113; Tr. Shem 6:1; 7:20; b. A.Z. 25b; B. Qam. 116b, bar.; Gen. Rab. 75:3; Exod. Rab. 30:24; Pesiq. Rab Kah. 27:6; further discussion in Friedländer, Life, 1:294–96; MacMullen, Enemies, 255–68; Shaw, “Brigandry.” In novels, see Ach. Tat. 3.9.3; Xen. Eph. Anthia 2.11; for massive bands (though in novels), see Xen. Eph. Anthia 4.1; 5.2; Lucian Ship 28.
E.g., Apul. Metam. 8.17; Max. Tyre 5.7; Lev. Rab. 9:8. Social bandits (See comment on Acts 21:38; excursus on Zealots at Acts 1:13) may have commanded some local support (cf. Jos. Ant. 20.124, 160), but most ancient sources despise robbers (cf. the devastation of villages in Jos. Ant. 20.185; cf. discussion in McGing, “Bandits”). In a few cases brigandage appeared a romantic lifestyle (Lucian Ship 28), but most believed that brigands would have preferred a better means of income (Sen. Ben. 4.17.4; Libanius Progymn. Invective 6.11; cf. Alciphron Fishermen 8 [Eucolymbus to Glaucê], 1.8).
Most approved of harsh punishment (Rhet. Alex. 1, 1422b.5–8); Roman officials often executed them (Jos. Ant. 20.5, 161; cf. Robinson, Criminal Law, 26; Schiemann, “Furtum,” 626) and were praised for suppressing them (Cic. Quint. fratr. 1.1.8.25; Vell. Paterc. 2.126.3; Plut. Cic. 36.4–5). One resisting a robber might kill him (Cicero Mil. 21.55), intervening to protect another against robbers was valued (Diod. Sic. 1.77.3, suggesting that failure to do so was a capital offense in Egypt), and a villager who caught a thief might recruit fellow villagers to aid in beating the man (Alciphron Farm. 16 [Pithacnion to Eustachys], 3.19, ¶¶1–2; this happens at times in Africa). Custom may have barred a past thief from public speaking (Sen. E. Controv. 10.6.intro). Tolls helped support desert police (Lewis, Life, 141); governors might deploy even military means such as armies to destroy large bands of robbers (Fronto Ad Ant. Pium 8; in a novel, Xen. Eph. Anthia 5.2–3).
E.g., Lucian Dialogues of Dead 450 (24/30, Minos and Sostratus 1); Sir 20:25; b. Sanh. 108a; Tg. Neof. 1 on Gen 6:11, 13); some also viewed experiencing robbery as judgment (m. Ber. 1:3; b. Ber. 11a), but other people viewed it as not one’s fault (Quint. Decl. 320.12; for piracy, Llewelyn, Documents, 6:82–83, §12).
Catull. Carm. 62.34–35; Tibullus 1.2.25–28; cf. the compound word translated “night robberies” in Sib. Or. 3.238, 380.
Stambaugh, City, 201; Stambaugh and Balch, Environment, 119; cf. Ebner, “Latrocinium”; Cic. Quint. fratr. 1.1.8.25 regarded urban robbers as a graver threat to order than rural ones. The wealthy apparently traversed Rome’s streets at night only with bodyguards (Jeffers, World, 61).
E.g., Gr. Anth. 7.310, 516, 581, 737; Lucian Lucius 27; Xen. Eph. Anthia 4.3; Gen. Rab. 80:2; 92:6.
Ramsay, “Roads and Travel,” 392 (noting two soldiers granted as an escort to a rich man in Lucian Alex. 55). By contrast, Dio Chrys. Or. 7.9–10 doubts that robbers will waste effort on the poorest.
MacMullen, Social Relations, 4, citing Colum. Rust. 1.5.7 and the Jerusalem Talmud; for the danger of thieves, cf. Jos. War 2.125; Weeber, “Travels,” 869–70; in more detail, MacMullen, Enemies, 255–68.
See Liefeld, “Preacher,” 7–11. For routes and methods of travel, see ibid., 16–19; on travel, cf. also Rapske, “Travel and Trade.”
Casson, Travel, 176. For the widespread presumption of sea travel’s dangers, see, e.g., Quint. Decl. 257.2 and comment at Acts 27. On the relative speeds of land and sea travel, see Friedländer, Life, 1:280–87.
See, e.g., Vell. Paterc. 2.32.4–6; Res gest. 5.25; Souza, “Pirates”; Tröster, “Hegemony”; Lintott, Romans, 62. Caesar, held by pirates, later slew them (Suet. Jul. 4; Plut. Caes. 1.4; 2.4). Armies during the Roman Republic also practiced seaborne raids (see discussion of some purposes in Bragg, “Raids”).
Quint. Decl. 257 intro; 342 intro; 388 intro; Libanius Progymn. Invective 5.4–5; Thesis 1.28; Iambl. V.P. 27.127. Earlier, 1 Esd 4:23–24; Vell. Paterc. 2.73.3; Charlesworth, Trade Routes, 227.
On land travel, see Casson, Travel, 176–96; Friedländer, Life, 1:287–99; on the roads, see Casson, Travel, 163–75.
Cary and Haarhoff, Life, 138. Milestones marked distances.
Ibid. Chinese engineers also built great roads in this period, though their lack of paving prevented their survival (Casson, Travel, 174).
Casson, Travel, 163.
Jeffers, World, 37 (for the imperial service, 25–30 miles); Riesner, Early Period, 310 (for vehicles, 25–30 miles, and estimating 38–45 km; and nearly 40 miles or roughly 60 km for exceptional speed). The mile and kilometer estimates (esp. from Riesner) diverge from the standard conversion because both figures, especially the miles, are rounded.
Richards, Letter Writing, 197.
Jeffers, World, 37 (15–20 miles); Riesner, Early Period, 311 (15–20 miles or 20–30 km).
Richards, Letter Writing, 191.
Ibid., 192.
Ibid., 198, from the Zenon papyri.
Stambaugh and Balch, Environment, 38. On inns in general, see discussion at Acts 16:15.
Stambaugh and Balch, Environment, 38.
See Friedländer, Life, 1:290–93; Casson, Travel, 206–7, 215–18; Malherbe, Social Aspects, 66 (citing Kleberg, Hôtels, 197–218); Ramsay, “Roads and Travel,” 393; cf., e.g., Cic. Div. 1.27.57; Sherk, Empire, 210–11 (including ILS 6036–37, 6039; Copa 1–6 [in Appendix Vergiliana]; IG 14.24; CIL 4.1679).
Stambaugh and Balch, Environment, 38.
Dorsey, “Roads,” 432.
Dorsey, “Carts,” 434.
Le Cornu, Acts, 708.
Cary and Haarhoff, Life, 138; for the nature of the traffic, see also Friedländer, Life, 1:299–303.
Stambaugh and Balch, Environment, 38; Lohse, Environment, 211 (adding wagons for the travel of the rich). For what travelers carried and wore, see Casson, Travel, 176–78.
See Liefeld, “Preacher,” 21–22 (cf. the diverse places of origin of gifts in Mart. Epig. Bks. 13–14); for commercial intercourse, see Friedländer, Life, 304–16; Charlesworth, Trade Routes, 76–96 (in Asia Minor); cf. further Pleket, “Elites and Business”; and (for the transition to the medieval period) Whittaker, “Roman Trade.”
For military travels, see, e.g., Liefeld, “Preacher,” 20; for government, 20–21; intellectual or literary pursuits, 23; entertainers, 23–25; mendicant priests, 26; and sophists, 26–32.
See Friedländer, Life, 323–428; Wallace and Williams, Worlds, 17–18; for what interested the tourists, see esp. Friedländer, Life, 367–94.
Here I agree with, e.g., Stuhlmacher, “Theme,” 16; Bauckham, “Gospels,” 33–44; Thompson, “Internet,” 49–70. Against the idea that Christian groups were developing in theological isolation (articulated notably by Burton Mack), see warnings in, e.g., Keck, “Ethos,” 448–49; Witherington, Sage, 211–12. One may view eastern Mediterranean cities in the early second century in terms of a “network” (see Doukellis, “Panhellenion”).
Including in fictitious texts (cf. Elsner, “Geography,” though historically Apollonius surely did travel).
See Liefeld, “Preacher,” 21–22, 26, 151; Bowers, “Propaganda,” 320; Klauck, Context, 63–64; see comment on Acts 8:4. For the receptivity of Mediterranean antiquity to, and the mobility of, the new religions, see Stambaugh and Balch, Environment, 41–46.
Hock, Social Context, 28, cites Epict. Diatr. 4.1.91, for the greater safety that travel companions provided; see also Eccl. Rab. 3:2, §2.
Hock, Social Context, 28, cites for this Dio Chrys. Or. 10.1; 36.7–17; Aul. Gel. 12.5; 16.6.1; Diogenes Ep. 2; he also cites texts for rhetorical practice (Philost. Vit. soph. 618), reading (Philost. Vit. soph. 488; Aul. Gel. 9.4.1–5; 19.1.14), and letter writing (Sen. Y. Ep. Lucil. 48.1; 72.2).
Hock, Social Context, 28 (citing Aul. Gel. 2.21.1–2; Philost. Vit. Apoll. 6.19), who suggests that some subjects became standard on such voyages (Epict. Diatr. 2.19.15–16; Philost. Vit. Apoll. 4.15).
For Torah study on journeys, cf. b. Ḥag. 12a; 14a; ʿErub. 54b (Talbert, Acts, 76). For Torah as the ideal focus of devout Jewish conversation, see, most fundamentally, Deut 6:7; cf., e.g., Sir 9:15; m. ʾAbot 3:2–3; ʾAbot R. Nat. 26, 29 A; 32, §68 B; b. Taʿan. 3:11, §4; Lev. Rab. 12:1; Safrai, “Education,” 968–69.
E.g., Plato Lach. 182A; Xen. Cyr. 1.6.17; Mem. 1.2.4; Symp. 2.17–19; Isoc. Demon. 14; Ep. 84.1; Plut. Cic. 4.3; 8.3; Table 4.1.3, Mor. 662F; Soranus Gynec. 1.5.25; Fronto Pr. Hist. 11; Crates Ep. 20; Diog. Laert. 6.2.70; 7.1.123; Philost. Vit. soph. 2.17.598; Hrk. 33.14–18; Char. Chaer. 1.1.5.
Luke mentions Jerusalem twice as much “as any other Gospel writer” (Rohrbaugh, “Pre-industrial City,” 148; though his writings also have 60 percent of NT uses of χώρα [Oakman, “Countryside,” 151]). Sepphoris and Tiberias were urban but much smaller (see, e.g., Reed, Archaeology, 96).
Cf., e.g., Schmeller, “Weg der Jesusbotschaft”; Osiek, “City.” For a Roman audience, Jesus’s life in Galilee (Judea’s “frontier”) and his execution through corrupt priests in Jerusalem would seem insignificant; the geographic action was in Rome (cf., e.g., Philost. Vit. Apoll. Bks. 7–8, the climax of the work, as Apollonius goes to Rome). Luke thus can make Paul’s arrival in Rome climactic (though omitting the trial that Philostratus later emphasizes for Apollonius’s “passion”).
For urban and rural life (and their interdependence) in the NT (and early Christianity), see recently Carter, Empire, 44–63. Cf. discussion of cities in Millar, Empire and Neighbours, 81–103. Narrative movement itself was not unusual (cf., e.g., 1 Maccabees, as opposed to 2 Maccabees, in Schwartz, “Maccabees and Acts,” 121–24).
As often noted, e.g., Mitchell, Anatolia, 2:8; with consideration of particular texts, Klauck, “Urbane Frömmigkeit”; Baird, Corinthian Church. Earlier, see John Chrysostom in Cat. Act. 17.1 (Martin, Acts, 211), who notes that Paul targeted the largest cities, which would exert the greatest influence. Missiologists sometimes employ Paul as a model for urban church planting (e.g., Greenway, “Success,” 192).
Mitchell, Anatolia, 2:8. (This focus on Rome contrasts starkly with many novels; cf., e.g., Schwartz, “Rome in Novel.”)
For cultural mixing in cities, see, e.g., Libanius Comparison 5.16.
MacMullen, Social Relations, 27. For rural (and urban) poverty, see the discussion at Acts 3:2.
Christians still were having an impact mainly on the cities into the early second century (Judge, Pattern, 60–61).
Pliny the Younger complains that this is already occurring in Bithynia (Ep. 10.96.9).
Also observed in most situations of dramatic urbanization today; see Grigg, Urban Poor, 10–11; Greenway, “Urban Church Planting,” 15–16.
John Chrysostom in Cat. Act. 17.1 (Martin, Acts, 211).
As others recognize (cf., e.g., Botha, “Community”). Luke’s knowledge of Palestine is likewise especially of Caesarea and Jerusalem (see Hengel, Jesus and Paul, 97–128; Witherington, Acts, 227; cf. Hengel, “Geography of Palestine,” 32–33); if he was a Gentile, he probably could not travel alone as safely in the interior of Judea ca. 60 C.E. He may apply the title πόλις too freely, especially in the Gospel (see Oakman, “Countryside,” 170; but cf. the comments of Judge, Pattern, 14), but his usage is hardly unusual (see, e.g., Hierocles Elements of Ethics 11.16–17).
Malina, Anthropology, 72–73; cf. Horsley and Hanson, Bandits, xii (following Sjoberg, Preindustrial City, 110). Rohrbaugh, “Pre-industrial City,” 133, even suggests 5–7 percent (for cities). Cary and Haarhoff, Life, 103, speak of “thousands” of towns but doubt that most had more than 50,000. MacMullen estimates that outside perhaps ten major cities, most “cities” averaged perhaps 20,000 (Social Relations, 57).
Toner, Culture, 3 (speaking only of the majority nonelite there).
Jeffers, World, 48. Suburbs tended to function as an extension, or population spillover, from city walls rather than as rural or intermediate areas (for Rome, see Witcher, “Extended Metropolis”). Perhaps 80 percent of Mediterranean antiquity’s population worked in agriculture (Reden, “Work,” 740, extrapolating from early modern societies).
Rajak, “Location,” 11–13; Jeffers, World, 49. See comments on local languages at Acts 14:14; for similar dynamics between the two hellenized cities in Galilee and the majority population there, see Horsley, Galilee, 163; Freyne, Galilee, Jesus, 146–47; cultural differences between towns and cities in m. Meg. 1:3.
Cf. Apuleius’s Metamorphoses (second century C.E.) (as noted by Millar, “World of Ass”).
E.g., Lee, “Unrest,” 127. For a discussion of rural peasants and their economic situation, see comment at Acts 3:2.
On urbanization, cf., e.g., Linden, “Cities”; Wallace, Urban Environment, 126–27; Bakke, Urban Christian, 35–36. On the centrality of kin networks in anthropological analyses, see, e.g., essays in Radcliffe-Brown and Forde, Systems; Graburn, Readings; Needham, Rethinking; various articles, e.g., Yalman, “Structure”; Tyler, “Context”; Cunningham, “Categories”; Lucas, “Influence”; Frisch and Schutz, “Analysis”; Petersen, “Kin Research”; Kitaoji, “Structure”; Schusky, Manual; Bieder, “Kinship”; Kuznecov, “Typology”; Tzeng, Osgood, and May, “Differences”; Lewin, “Implications.” Kinship structures can maintain a degree of continuity (e.g., Pinson, “Kinship”; Hecht, “Kinship,” 65; Hammel, “Change”; limited change in Foster, “Continuity”) but also change, due to urbanization, modernization, and other factors (Ember, “Descent Groups,” 577; Pasternak, “Atrophy”; Heiskanan, “Structure”; Taylor, “Family,” 302; Vatuk, “Trends,” 306; Kottak, “Adaptation,” 141–44; Banks, “Kinship”; McGaffey, “Structure”; Hilton, “Family.”
Extrapolations from modern sociology have some benefit but are limited, given potential differences among societies; see, e.g., Malherbe, Social Aspects, 11–13; Stanton, New People, 85; Winter, Left Corinth, xiii; Harland, Associations, 15. There remain also continuing debates among various ideological grids for the sociology of Greco-Roman antiquity (e.g., Morrall, “Marx and Weber”; Wood, “Marxism and Greece”; Oakes, “Weber’s Sociology”).
Though extended families had significance (Saller and Shaw, “Tombstones”; Martin, “Slave Families,” 208–13), epigraphic evidence indicates that nuclear families were more prominent, including in Rome (Garnsey and Saller, Empire, 129; Stambaugh, City, 158; Rawson, “Family,” 7), Roman Asia (Martin, “Slave Families,” 208), and Galilee (Goodman, State, 36). Also problematic for modern studies is the difficulty of reconstructing ancient kinship patterns, given limited extant evidence; see, e.g., Allen and Richardson, “Reconstruction”; Bryce, “Terms.”
See Onken, “Rural exodus.”
Rohrbaugh, “Pre-industrial City,” 127–28 (quotation, 128).
For Rome, see discussion at Acts 28:16.
In addition to being smaller physically, most of those who survived childhood were perhaps able to adapt to conditions as do many in the Majority World today—with the caveat that then, as today, many proved more susceptible to disease. On the inequities of water distribution today, see, e.g., “Politics of Thirst”; “Wars over Water?”; “Water: Medicine”; “Clean Water.”
Garnsey and Saller, Empire, 192–94 (especially on Punic-speaking peasants in North Africa six hundred years after Rome’s conquest [p. 193]).
MacMullen, Social Relations, 45–46, citing the prevalence of Punic (cf. comment on Acts 28:2), Aramaic (cf. comment on Acts 21:40), Phrygian (cf. comment on Acts 14:11), and other languages. He also notes some papyrus references in Alexandria to thrusting out Egyptian countryfolk for their speech.
Garnsey and Saller, Empire, 203.
Ibid., 119. For the contrasts between urban and rural life, see Ps.-Theocritus The Young Countryman passim (GBP 238–43); and at length Finley, Economy, 123–49. Others also remark on the mutual contempt and mistrust (Meeks, Moral World, 38; in some Jewish sources, see Applebaum, “Economic Life,” 663–64; Neusner, Beginning, 24–25).
See Mitchell, Anatolia, 1:195.
See, e.g., Garnsey and Saller, Empire, 119; Polyb. 1.71.1–2; but cf. the counterbalance to this perspective in Engels, Roman Corinth, 131–42 (cities such as Corinth subsisted primarily on trade, not on the countryside, which could not have supported Corinth, in any case). For Rome’s grain dole, see Kraybill, Cult and Commerce, 66, 107; Casson, Mariners, 207.
Stambaugh, City, 90; on difficulties of overcrowding there, see Toner, Culture, 129, 134. On high population density in ancient cities more generally, see, e.g., Stark, Cities, 27.
Stambaugh, City, 89–90.
See Toner, Culture, 64.
MacMullen, Social Relations, 15; cf. 32 (where city dwellers were viewed as natural enemies). Nevertheless, the empire could economically exploit the produce of the countryside to support the cities (MacMullen, Social Relations, 48–56; Garnsey and Saller, Empire, 119); but while this was true of Rome, it was probably not so true of cities such as mercantile Corinth (Engels, Roman Corinth, 131–42). Most of the empire’s labor force was farmers, mostly living at subsistence level (Garnsey and Saller, Empire, 43–46).
See Garnsey and Saller, Empire, 27–32; cf. Purcell, “Vicus.” For the functions of cities, see Garnsey and Saller, Empire, 32–34.
Cary and Haarhoff, Life, 103, 107.
Ibid., 103.
Robinson, Criminal Law, 17. MacMullen, Social Relations, 46, notes that even laws sometimes despised country dwellers.
Lucian Indictment 11.
Theissen, Miracle Stories, 247.
E.g., the warrior Scythians are free, but Egyptian farmers are under others’ domination (Max. Tyre Or. 23.4). But the opposed views clearly climax in favor of the farmers (Or. 24).
See, e.g., Dio Chrys. Or. 70.1. See further comment below.
Alciph. Farm. 11 (Sitalces to Oenopion, his son), 3.14; 38 (Euthydicus to Philiscus), 3.40, ¶3.
Arius Did. Epit. 2.7.11k, pp. 80–81.12–15. Such persons were also “wild” and “bestial” (lines 15–17). Nor is this purely a theoretical comparison; cities, in their function as places ruled by laws, are places of civilization (2.7.11i, pp. 80–81.1–11).
Mus. Ruf. 11, p. 84.10–11. Musonius also believed that rural workers were stronger than urban because of their labor (18B, p. 118.36–120.1; cf. 18B, p. 120.2–5).
A city could assign an orator to declaim on how Scythian life was superior to cramped and smelly city life (Philost. Vit. soph. 2.5.573) or how those with bad health in the plains should move to the mountains (2.5.575).
Seneca also opined that busy city life increased one’s need for a wise counselor nearby (Ep. Lucil. 94.72).
Cf. the debate topic in Libanius Comparison 4–5 (for superior morality, esp. 5.5–9, 17–18); Encomium 7 (for superior morality, 7.5). Agriculture was central to Palestinian Jewish life (Jos. Ag. Ap. 1.60).
Oakman, “Countryside,” 152, on Hesiod W.D. 225–47.
Oakman, “Countryside,” 152–53 (quote, 152).
Klauck, Context, 29.
A countryperson might also think cities too congested (Dio Chrys. Or. 7.50) or learn by experience that people in cities do not greet with kisses as in the countryside (7.59).
Among the poor, he includes farmers, hunters, and shepherds—i.e., rural occupations.
On country villas, see, e.g., Cary and Haarhoff, Life, 101.
Alciph. Farm. passim shows that urbanites knew the hardships of farmers. Some urbanites opined that although farming should produce fruit for the farmers (Max. Tyre 25.5; 1 Cor 9:10; 2 Tim 2:6), farmers should seek merely the produce, not a profit (Max. Tyre 24.3).
Alciph. Farm. 5 (Agelarchides to Pytholaüs), 1.26, ¶1; 12 (Cotinus to Trygodorus), 3.15; 27 (Ampelion to Euergus), 3.30, ¶3; 29 (Comarchides to Euchaetes), 3.73, ¶2.
Alciph. Farm. 17 (Napaeus to Creniades), 3.20, ¶¶2–3; 28 (Philocomus to Astyllus), 3.31, ¶¶1–2. A son beseeches his mother not to die before she has come and seen the beauty of the city (37 [Philometor to Epiphanium], 3.39).
Cf., e.g., Alciph. Farm. 5 (Agelarchides to Pytholaüs), 1.26, ¶3; 17 (Napaeus to Creniades), 3.20, ¶¶2–3. But people criticized gullibility wherever it was found, even in an emperor (Tac. Ann. 16.2). A country-dweller might charge that rich city-dwellers could treat rustics as exotic, like persons deformed or with different colorations (Quint. Decl. 298.12).
Alciph. Farm. 26 (Orius to Anthophorion), 3.29, ¶¶1–2.
Aelian Farmers 20 (Phaedrius to Sthenon).
Perhaps an anti-Epicurean sentiment (cf. Let. Aris. 223), though the sentiment can be more widespread (for its Aristotelian source, see Hadas, Aristeas, 143, 187).
E.g., contrasting the good and the evil city (Runia, “City”).
On cities’ alleged sinfulness, cf. Plato Laws 3.677B; in Rome, Lucian Nigr. 16; on Rome’s distractions for philosophers, Epict. Diatr. 1.26.8–12. One should not, however, read Rom 1:24–32 as Paul’s view of Rome specifically (as in Deissmann, Light, 283); it is simply a conventional vice list.
Third- and fourth-century Palestinian rabbis are also mostly urban and elite (Lapin, “Rabbis and Cities”).
Alciph. Farm. 11 (Sitalces to Oenopion, his son), 3.14 (cf. 38 [Euthydicus to Philiscus], 3.40, ¶3). A farmer’s wife pleads with her son to abandon notions of being a soldier, to prefer safety and food, and to care for his aged parents (13 [Phyllis to Thrasonides], 3.16). Likewise, a rural father disowns his son when he discovers him an urban parasite (Quint. Decl. 298 intro; 298.4–6), denouncing urban vices (298.10).
Alciph. Farm. 8 (Dryantidas to Chronium), 3.11, ¶¶1, 3.
Alciph. Farm. 22 (Hylê to Nomius), 3.25.
Alciph. Fish. 4 (Cymothoüs to Tritonis), 1.4, ¶4.
Lee, “Unrest,” 128, noting that the most rural province, Egypt, was full of unrest and anti-urban sentiment. On urban unrest (especially in a later period), see more fully MacMullen, Enemies, 163–91.