324 The Voyage to Rome. Chap. XIV
owing to the ruinous foreign competition in grain, was the most serious and pressing department of the Imperial administration. Whatever else the Emperor might neglect, this he could not neglect and live. In the urban populace he was holding a wild beast by the ear ; and, if he did not feed it, the beast would tear him to pieces. With ancient means of transport, the task was a hundred times harder than it would be now ; and the service of ships on which Rome was entirely dependent was not left to private enterprise, but was a State department. It is, therefore, an error of the Authorised and Revised Versions to speak of the owner (vavKkrjpos) of this Alexandrian ship : x the ship belonged to the Alexandrian fleet in the Imperial service. The captains of the fleet 2 made dedications on account of safe passage at Ostia, and Seneca sat in his house at Puteoli and watched the advance ships sail in announcing the approach of the Alexandrian fleet {Ep. Mor. 7J). Passengers were landed at Puteoli ; but cargo was carried on to Ostia. As a general rule the ships sailed in fleets ; but, of course, incidental reasons often kept one ship apart (as we see in XXVIII n, and in the opening of Lucian's dialogue The Ship).
Now, there was not in Rome that strict separation between the naval and the military services which now exists. There was only one service ; the same person
1 The owners of private merchant ships are distinguished as ?/MTopot from the captains, in a Delian inscription, ol KarairXiovret els BtOvviav fpiropot. *cu vavKkrjpoi, Bulletin de Corrcsp. Hellcn. 1880, p. 222.
so! vaiiKkr^pm rev iroptvriKOV ' A\e£av8peli>ov arokov, Kaibel, Insctipt- Grccc. in Italia, No. 918.
Sec. 3. The Council. 32$
was at one moment admiral of a fleet, at another general of a land army and an officer might pass from one branch to the other. The land-service, however, ranked higher, and a legionary centurion was certainly of superior rank to the captain of a vessel of the Alexandrian fleet. In this case, then, the centurion sat as president of the council. Naturally, he would not interfere in navigation, for his life might pay the for- feit of any error, but the selection of a port for winter- ing in was more in his line. Now, it was the regular practice for all Roman officials, who often had to take re- sponsibility in cases in which they were not competent alone to estimate all the facts, to summon a council {consilium) ot experienced and competent advisers be- fore coming to a decision. Such was the nature of the meeting here described.
The centurion, very properly, was guided in this matter, against the advice of Paul, by the opinion of his professional advisers, who were anxious to get on as far as possible before navigation ceased on Novem- ber II, and it was resolved to take any fair oppor- tunity of reaching the harbour of Phoenix, which was not only further on, but also better protected.
In the council-scene, then, when we put events in their sequence in time, and add those facts of the situation which Luke assumes as familiar to his readers, we have a vivid and striking incident, agreeing with the general type of Roman procedure, and yet giving us information about life on board a Government transport such as we could not find in any other part of ancient literature.
There has been a good deal of discussion as to the
326 The Voyage to Rome. Chap. XIV.
description of the harbour Phoenix, the modern Lutro, "the only secure harbour in all winds on the south coast of Crete ". This, however, faces the east, not the west. Smith tries to interpret the Greek words in that sense ; but it must be observed that Luke never saw the harbour, and merely speaks on Paul's report of the professional opinion. It is possible that the sailors de scribed the entrance as one in which inward-bound ships looked towards N.W. and S.W., and that in trans- mission from mouth to mouth, the wrong impression was given that the harbour looked N.W. and S.W.