The "first man" of Malta
The odd title Acts gives the leading man of Malta is the title Malta's own inscriptions use for that office.
Confirmed by the groundInscription1st–2nd century AD
Acts calls Publius, who received Paul's shipwrecked party, "the chief man of the island" — in Greek, prōtos. Inscriptions from Malta use exactly that word, and its Latin equivalent primus, as the title of the island's leading official.
…the chief man of the island, whose name was Publius; who received us, and lodged us three days courteously.
- Found
- Malta — Recorded from the eighteenth century onward
- Now held at
- National Museum of Archaeology, Valletta
- Language
- Greek and Latin
- How it reached us
- Dug up, or still standing where it was built.
What it shows
The office is attested; no inscription names this Publius.
How historians use it
A standard note in commentaries and in the epigraphy of Roman Malta.
In Scripture
Connects to
Sources
- Hemer, The Book of Acts in the Setting of Hellenistic History (1989)
These summaries are written in English for now. Translations follow.