The chief lesson to be derived from a study of ancient navigation is that, small as the ves.sels were, and primitive as were the methods of navi- gation, the ancients made a marvellously skilful use of such facilities as they had. The Mediter- ranean was crowded with craft of all kinds. There were recognized routes for particular journeys, as in modern times. Sailings were as regular, rela- tively, as in our own day. The sea was for the most part free from piracy in the Apostolic Age. In the matter of sea-voyaging as in the conditions of land-travelling, in the universality of the Greek speech, and in the pacihc attitude of the Govern- ment, the 1st cent, was litted, as no succeeding century has been, for the prui>agation of the gospel in Mediterranean lands, which were at that time pre-eminent in the world.
Literature. — On ancient travel generally : L. Friedlander, Roman Life and Manners under the Early Empire, Kng. tr. of 7th ed., i. [London, 19U8] chs. vi. and vii., pp. 2f}S-4li8 (notea in vol. iv. [1912])(an8th ed. of the original has been begun (Leipzig, 19101) ; C. A. J. Skeel, Travel in the First Ceutunj after Christ, Cambridge, 190 1 ; W. M. Ramsay, ' Roads and Travel (in NT),' in UDB v. (of peculiar value, as coming from one who has had unequalled experience as a traveller in the lands specially con- cerned), SI. Paul the Traveller, London, 1895, and other works ; on the otlicials in cliarge of roads and on the Imperial post : O. Hirschfeld, Die kaiscrlichen Vencaltuntjsheamten bis an} Diocletian'', lierlin, 1906, pp. 190-204, 205-211, 258-264, etc. ; there is an e.\cellent survey of roads and sea.rnutes (with map) in H. Stuart Jones, Companimi to llomun History, Oxford, 1912, pp. 40-51 (on p. 51, other literature) ; cf. also F. H. Marshall and R. C. Bosanquet in A Companion to Latin Studies, ed. Sandys, Cambridge, 1910, pp. 208-210, 421-436 (also with bibliography); Pauly-VVissowa, artt. 'Cursus Publicus,' ' Egnatia Via ' ; an interesting map of the Pauline world (viti- ated, in the eyes of the present writer, by its support of tiie North-Galatian view), in A. Deissmann, St. Paul : a Study in Social and Religious History, Kng. tr., London, 1912; Jaines Smith, Voyage and Shipwreck of St. Paul-*, do., 1880; on ancient ships: Cecil Terr, Ancient Ships, Cambridge, 1894; W. W. Tarn in JUS xxv. 11905] 137, 204. A. SOUTER.
ROBBERS OF CHURCHES.— This is the AY
rendeiing of the word lep6(rv\oi used by the town- clerk of Ephesus on the occasion of the riot described in Ac 19. ' F'or ye have brought hither these men, which are neither robbers of churches, nor yet blas- phemers of your goddess ' (Ac 19^'). The term 'churches' according to the Elizabethan usage could be applied to pagan temples. The RV sub- stitutes the word ' temples ' for ' churches,' but this is also a mis-translation, and there is strong evidence in favour of Ramsay's view that the passage should be translated thus — 'guilty neither in act nor in language of disrespect to the established religion of the city.' The term lepdavXos could now apply to any person guilty of any form of action disrespect- ful to the established wor.ship.
Instances of the narrower, more literal meaning of the term occur in Ko 2-- and in 2 Mac 4". In the former passage St. Paul asks : ' Thou that abhorrest idols, dost thou rob temples?' 'Dost thou rob temples, and so, for the .sake of gain, come in contact with abominations without misgiving ? '
400
ROBBERY
ROCK
(Cf. Denney.^GT, 'Romans,' London, 1900, p. 600.) In the latter passiigtt, the term 'ohuvchroliber ' is applietl to Lysimaclius, hrotlier of Menehuis the high i)iiest, wlio was killed in a riot (ITU B.C.). He and his brother had comniitted sacrilege by stealing the sacred vessels, and this conduct provoked the dis- turbance. ' Thus many of them they wounded, and some they struck to tlie ground, and all of them they forced to (lee : but as for the church-robber himself him they killed beside the treasury.'
LiTEnATl'RK.— W. M. Ramsay, St. Paul the TraiW/er, Lon- don, IbD.i, The Church in the Hitman Empire, do., 1893; J. T. Wood, Discoveries at Ephesus, do., 1876. K, STKONG,
ROBBERY When St. Paul enumerates in his
Second Letter to the Corinthian Church the dangers through which lie has passed in the jirosecu- tion of his missionary labours he includes KiuSvfois XyaTwv, 'perils of rolibers' (11°''). There can be little doubt that, while this peril may have existed on many of the routes in Asia Minor, it existed in a special degree on that through the Taurus mountains by which St. Paul reached Antioch. However valuable for health reasons the journey to the higher land may have been, it involved positive dangers, ' perils of rivers ' not less than ' perils of rolibers.' While the Roman authorities had set themselves the task of suppressing brigan- dage, and visited upon brigands the stern punish- ment of crucifixion, it was obviously impossible to make that sup]iression complete, especially in mountainous or relatively obscure districts. Aug- ustus discovered how hopeless was the task of rooting out the brigands of the Pisidian mountains. Travellers who could afford it usually adopted the wise precaution of having an escort.
Epigraphic study, associated chiefly with the names of Sterrett and Ramsay, has served to give interesting evidence of the insecurity which pre- vailed amid the Taurus heights. Patrokles and Douda, for example, set up an epitapli in memory of their son Sousuu, a policeman who was slain by robbers, while there is evidence also for the exist- ence of an official — the stationarius — who had to lend as.sistance in the capture of runaway slaves, a class from which the ranks of the mountain robbers might be most easily recruited.