Acts 17:1

διοδεύσαντες δὲ : “and they went along the Roman road” (Ramsay): verb only found in Luke, Luke 8:1, and here, but frequent in LXX, and used also by Polyb. and Plut., cf. Genesis 13:17, etc., so in 1 Macc. three times. The famous road, the Via Egnatia, Horace, Sat., i., 5, 97, extended for a distance of over five hundred miles from the Hellespont to Dyrrhachium; it was really the continuation through Macedonia of the Via Appia, and it might be truly said that when St. Paul was on the Roman road at Troas or Philippi, he was on a road which led to the gates of Rome; see some interesting details in C. and H., p. 244. The article “certam atque notam viam designat,” Blass, in loco, and Gram., p. 149, but see also Weiss, in loco. Ἀμφ., thirty-two or thirty-three miles from Philippi. The Via Egnatia passed through it (cf. C. and H., and Hackett, in loco). The import of its name may be contained in the term applied to it, Thuc., iv., 102, περιφανής, conspicuous towards sea and land, “the all around [visible] city”; or the name may simply refer to the fact that the Strymon flowed almost round the town, Thuc., u. s. Its earlier name, “Nine Ways,” Ἐννέα ὁδοί, Thuc., i., 100; Herod vii., 114, indicated its important position, and no doubt this occasioned its colonisation by the Athenians in B.C. 437. In the Peloponnesian War it was famous as the scene of the battle in which both Brasidas and Cleon fell, Thuc., v., 6 11, whilst for his previous failure to succour the place Thucydides had himself been exiled (Thuc., i., 26). From the Macedonians it passed eventually into the hands of the Romans, and in B.C. 167 Æmilius Paulus proclaimed the Macedonians free and Amphipolis the capital of the first of the four districts into which the Romans divided the province (Liv., xlv., 18, 29). In the Middle Ages Popolia, now Neochori: B.D. 2 and Hastings' B.D., C. and H. The route may well have been one of the most beautiful of any day's journey in St. Paul's many travels, Renan, St. Paul, pp. 154, 155. Ἀπολλωνίαν : to be carefully distinguished from the more celebrated Apollonia in Illyria apparently there were three places in Macedonia bearing this name. The Antonine Itinerary gives it as thirty miles from Amphipolis, and thirty-seven from Thessalonica, but the other authorities, for example, the Jerusalem Itinerary, differ a little. The Via Egnatia passed through it, and the name is probably retained in the modern Pollina. It is quite possible that the two places are mentioned as having formed St. Paul's resting-place for a night, see references above. Θεσσαλονίκην : Saloniki; formerly Therme; the name had been most probably changed by Cassander in honour of his wife Thessalonica, the sister of Alexander the Great, Polyb., xxiii., 4, 4. Under the Romans it became the capital of the second of the four districts of Macedonia Provincia (Liv., xlv., 29), and later it was made the metropolis of the whole when the four districts were united into one. It was the largest as well as the most populous city in Macedonia, and like Ephesus and Corinth it had its share in the commerce of the Ægean. From its geographical position it could not cease to be important; through the Middle Ages it may fairly be described as the bulwark of Christendom in the cast, and it still remains the second city in European Turkey. St. Paul, with his usual wisdom, selected it as marking a centre of civilisation and government in the district: “posita in gremio imperii Romani,” as Cicero says. C. and H., p. 247 ff.; Zahn, Einleitung, i., p. 151; Lightfoot, Biblical Essays, p. 253 ff.; Schaff Herzog, Encycl., iv. ὅπου ἦν ἡ συν.: implying that there was no synagogue at Amphipolis or Apollonia, the former being a purely Hellenic town, and the latter a small place. ὅπου may = οὗ simply, but if distinguished from it implies oppidum tale in quo esset (as in distinction to the other places named); see Wendt and Blass. In Agrippa's letter to Caligula we have plain evidence of the existence of Jews in Macedonia, O. Holtzmann, Neutest. Zeitgeschichte, p. 180; Schürer, Jewish People, div. ii., vol. ii., E.T., pp. 222, 232. As the name remains in the modern Saloniki, manent Judaei quoque (Blass), C. and H., 250, see also in this connection, Ramsay, St. Paul, p. 236.