Deciphering the administrative rank of Erastus, ὁ οἰκονόμος τῆς πόλεως (Rom 16.23), has been a pursuit of great scholarly interest for many decades,Footnote 1 not least because Erastus' municipal position in Corinth holds the key for unlocking the extent of his influence in the Corinthian networkFootnote 2 as well as the social and economic status of at least one segment of the earliest urban churches.Footnote 3 This seemingly simple lexical exercise has proved surprisingly difficult, however, largely because there exists no bilingual text from a Roman colony containing the municipal title and a Latin correlative.Footnote 4 Still, several possibilities have been proposed: arcarius (servile accountant),Footnote 5quaestor (treasury magistrate),Footnote 6 and aedilis (public works magistrate).Footnote 7 Although the advocates of each view maintain that their reading is textually supported, it is the contention of this article that the strengths of the arcarius and aedilis positions have been exaggerated in recent scholarship, while quaestor has received minimal scholarly consideration despite the significant advantages of reading Erastus' title this way. The following study will attempt to reverse this trend by responding to the criticisms directed at the οἰκονόμος–quaestor correlation and by marshaling new and weighty evidence in its favour—a recently discovered inscription from an Achaean colony.
1. Gerd Theissen's Thesis
The first detailed argument for the equivalence of οἰκονόμος and quaestor was advanced by Gerd Theissen in his 1974 ZNW article, ‘Soziale Schichtung in der korinthische Gemeinde: Ein Beitrag zur Soziologie des hellenistischen Urchristentums’.Footnote 8 In the impressive 40-page investigation of social stratification in the Corinthian church, Theissen surveyed a number of significant individuals associated with the community, including two who held public offices, Crispus and Erastus. The bulk of Theissen's examination of Erastus came in a nine-page excursus through which he sought to pinpoint Erastus' administrative rank. In the excursus Theissen first analysed Paul's use of οἰκονόμος and the three appearances of the name ‘Erastus’ in the NT, only to discover that neither is sufficient for reaching any conclusions about the position of the Erastus mentioned in Rom 16.23. Second, drawing primarily off the historical work of Peter Landvogt,Footnote 9 Theissen examined the meaning of the title οἰκονόμος (τῆς πόλεως) in over thirty Greek inscriptions in order to locate the rank of οἰκονόμοι within the administrative hierarchy of a number of Graeco-Roman cities. His investigation proved to be inconclusive, however, with the evidence suggesting that municipal οἰκονόμοι could have been either high-ranking civic leaders or low-status public servants. Even so, Paul's familiarity with the cities of Western Asia Minor convinced Theissen that the apostle adopted the linguistic conventions of the region, where during the Hellenistic period οἰκονόμος was used with some frequency for a prestigious administrative office. Therefore, in a third section Theissen analysed the municipal offices of Roman Corinth in an effort to identify which position in the colony corresponded to οἰκονόμος. After surveying the various magisterial posts within the Corinthian administrative hierarchy, Theissen suggested that Erastus the οἰκονόμος from Rom 16.23 should be identified with Erastus the aedilis mentioned in a famous inscription found on the pavement near the northeast theater in ancient Corinth (IKorinthKent 232). However, based on the fact that ἀγορανόμος, not οἰκονόμος, was the Greek equivalent of aedilis and that it is improbable that Paul wrote his epistle to the Romans during the same one-year term as Erastus' aedileship, Theissen concluded that Paul's use of οἰκονόμος in Rom 16.23 most likely referred to an office held prior to aedilis, and probably to quaestor.Footnote 10
While Theissen's thesis as originally argued remains quite compelling, I wish to strengthen the οἰκονόμος–quaestor correlation considerably with new evidence to be assembled in section 3. But first we must consider and respond to Theissen's critics.
2. Responding to Theissen's Critics
In the thirty-five years since its original publication, Theissen's thesis has elicited a variety of responses. Shortly after it first appeared a number of NT scholars were largely sympathetic with his proposal. Perhaps most notable among Theissen's advocates was Wayne Meeks, who in 1983 adopted the quaestor interpretation in his highly influential essay ‘The Social Level of Pauline Christians’, in The First Urban Christians: The Social World of the Apostle Paul.Footnote 11 In recent years, however, two major challenges have been directed at Theissen's reading, both of which will now be evaluated.
Criticism #1: Municipal Οἰκονόμοι were Normally Public Slaves
The chief criticism directed against the correlation between οἰκονόμος and quaestor states that, while οἰκονόμοι were often prominent civic functionaries during the Hellenistic era, in the Roman period they were usually public accountants of servile standing. Steven Friesen, for instance, insists that during this timeframe, ‘Most of the city stewards…tended to be slaves or from servile families’.Footnote 12 In support of this assertion Friesen has presented three inscriptions from the Roman period, each providing attestation of a public servant who bore the title οἰκονόμος τῆς πόλεως and probably belonged to a low economic stratum: Diodoumenos the σύνδουλος from Stobi (SEG 24.496); Apollonides from Kyme (SEG 47.1662); and Longeinos from Thessalonica (SEG 38.710).Footnote 13 Moreover, in his recently published Bonn thesis on city slaves in the Roman Empire, Alexander Weiß has also demonstrated that the title referred not infrequently to enslaved public servants. Weiß admits that the duty of the οἰκονόμος τῆς πόλεως was not ‘völlig identisch…mit denen der servi publici arcarii etc., wohl aber, daß sie vergleichbar waren, und zwar insofern, als auch jene wohl direkt in die öffentliche Kassen- und Buchführung involviert waren’.Footnote 14
Weiß's conclusions, however, are not entirely trustworthy, since he assumes the servile origin of any οἰκονόμος without a patronymic,Footnote 15 which controls the way he reads much of the evidence.Footnote 16 Yet the absence of a patronymic is not always determinative of legal status on its own.Footnote 17 As Bradley McLean explains, ‘The omission of the patronymic in contexts where one is expected may indicate servile status. However, even this is not conclusive, since eminent persons are also known to have omitted their patronymic’.Footnote 18 Henry Cadbury concurred, insisting, ‘The absence of patronymic genitive for the father does not…always exclude free birth’.Footnote 19 Moreover, wealthy freedmen would also have excluded this filial reference, as did Gnaeus Babbius Philinus, the duovir, ex-aedilis and pontifex of Corinth (IKorinthKent 155).Footnote 20 Therefore, while some of Weiß's readings are probably correct based on the additional evidence he provides, many are too speculative to go unquestioned.
Friesen's conclusions are also problematic, for he ignores the fact that there remains equally strong evidence demonstrating that the title οἰκονόμος was attributed to many Roman citizens who held magisterial posts as city treasurers. One inscription from Aphrodisias and dating to the Roman period, for instance, mentions a certain Menander, the treasurer of the βουλή (CIG 2811), who Peter Landvogt concludes ‘war Bürger und bekleidete ein hohes Amt, wie die weitere Inschrift lehrt’.Footnote 21 Another inscription from Aphrodisias testifies to Euphron, the πιστότατον οἰκονόμον τῆς πόλεως (IAphrodMcCabe 275). Even Weiß posits that Euphron was a citizen and magistrate, not a servile accountant, because ‘die χρυσοφόροι νεωποιοί setzen ihm die Ehreninschrift’.Footnote 22 A number of additional inscriptions similarly feature municipal οἰκονόμοι who can confidently be identified as citizens and high ranking officials (e.g. SEG 26.1044; TAM 5.743; ISmyrna 24.761; 24.771; 24.772; IStratonikeia 22.1).Footnote 23
It must be conceded then by everyone contributing to the Erastus Debate that significant data exist for reading the title οἰκονόμος τῆς πόλεως as either a servile position or a magistracy. (For a list of inscriptions with municipal οἰκονόμοι titles, see Table 1). Moreover, the legal statuses of many epigraphically attested οἰκονόμοι are too unclear for this dispute to resort to comparing the quantity of known slave οἰκονόμοι to those that were free in an effort to demonstrate numerical probability. Rather, far more consideration must be given to Erastus' particular municipal context and to the adequacy of each strand of evidence to parallel Corinth's colonial setting. In this vein, a new and significant inscription from Achaia will be introduced in section 3 which more closely resembles Corinth's political structure than any text previously considered.
Table 1: Municipal Οἰκονόμοι Titles
Criticism #2: Ταμίας, not Οἰκονόμος, was the Equivalent of Quaestor
A second criticism directed at the οἰκονόμος–quaestor correlation is that ταμίας, not οἰκονόμος, was the normal Latin equivalent for quaestor. Bruce Winter, for instance, contends, ‘Attempts to argue that οἰκονόμος occupied a lesser office [than aedilis], and that the Latin equivalent for it was quaestor cannot be sustained; the Greek term supplied by Mason for the latter term is καμίας [sic, ταμίας] and not οἰκονόμος’.Footnote 24 While Winter's semantic analysis is certainly perceptive, his reliance on Hugh Mason's Greek–Latin lexicon in this particular debate is problematic, for two reasons.
First, Winter cites Mason to affirm that aedilis coloniae is an appropriate equivalent for οἰκονόμος, so that he can identify the Erastus from Rom 16.23 with Erastus the aedilis represented in IKorinthKent 232. But the main sources that Mason himself cited to draw this original association were none other than the same two texts.Footnote 25 Winter's argument is circular, then, for it rests solely on the identification of the two Erasti which he attempts to prove.Footnote 26 Mason also cited as corroborating evidence IGRR 4.813, 4.1435, and 4.1630, but neither do these inscriptions suggest any correlation between οἰκονόμος and aedilis.Footnote 27 In fact, one of Cagnat's editorial glosses contradicts this reading: ‘Oeconomi municipales…videntur auxiliati esse aedilibus’ (IGRR 4.813).
Second, Winter's dismissal of οἰκονόμος as a correlative for quaestor, simply because ταμίας was its normal Greek equivalent, challenges the very semantic variation which he himself demands when he equates οἰκονόμος with aedilis. As Winter maintains, ‘[I]t was not unusual for an office described in Latin to be rendered by a large number of Greek terms. Any insistence on uniformity of terminology across the empire, or even in individual cities over the centuries, is therefore unreasonable’.Footnote 28 In fact, Mason's omission of οἰκονόμος as an equivalent for quaestor neglects the interchangeable usage of οἰκονόμος with ταμίας in many Greek cities during both the Hellenistic and Roman periods. According to the epigraphic record, the most commonly repeated statement mentioning municipal οἰκονόμοι reads as follows: τὸ δὲ ἀνάλωμα τὸ εἰς τὴν στήλην δοῦναι τὸν οἰκονόμον (‘And let the οἰκονόμος pay the expense for the stele’ [OGI 50]). While regularly varying in word-order and word-choice, this formula is mentioned in at least twenty-five inscriptions dated between the fourth and first centuries bce, as well as in an additional eight inscriptions whose dates are unknown, but whose provenances suggest that they too belonged to the Hellenistic period (see Table 2). Significantly, the formula resembles that which was used to authorise the purchases made by ταμίαι in many other Greek cities during this timeframe.Footnote 29
Table 2: Municipal Οἰκονόμοι Payment Formulas
Οἰκονόμοι were also responsible for the payments and provision of numerous gifts and crowns for ambassadors, athletes, and benefactors (IEphMcCabe 60; 69; 88; SEG 49.1502). While a handful of inscriptions mention the cultic duties occasionally delegated to municipal οἰκονόμοι, it is evident in each case that religious oversight only accompanied the administrative responsibilities normally entrusted to them.Footnote 30 Moreover, these cultic responsibilities demonstrate the elevated legal status and political rank of οἰκονόμοι, since ‘Ein Sklave konnte die Polis nicht vor den Göttern vertreten’.Footnote 31
Cumulatively, these texts reveal that during the Hellenistic period municipal οἰκονόμοι were always treasurers and often the chief financial magistrates of the Greek πόλεις where they were appointed, having been commissioned to disburse public funds for various civic expenses.Footnote 32 As Landvogt explains, ‘Die Hauptkompetenzen des οἰκονόμος in diesen Freistaaten bestehen in der Sorge für Aufschrift und Aufstellung von Psephismen und Statuen, in Bestreitung der Kosten für jene Besorgungen sowie für Kränze und Gastgeschenke… Kurz, das Charakteristische für die ganze Amtstätigkeit des οἰκονόμος…in dieser Periode ist, daß er lediglich als Kassen- oder Finanzbeamter fungiert’.Footnote 33 Although Weiß deduces that in some instances οἰκονόμοι and ταμίαι held entirely different offices, even he concedes that ‘der οἰκονόμος τῆς πόλεως in einigen Städten den ταμίας ersetzte’.Footnote 34 Thus, there is adequate evidence to suggest that some Greeks used the titles οἰκονόμος and ταμίας interchangeably.
3. A Municipal Οἰκονόμος in an Achaean Colony
While the Hellenistic evidence demonstrates that οἰκονόμος was equivalent to ταμίας in certain Greek cities, evidence still must be supplied which confirms the οἰκονόμος–quaestor correlation in Roman colonies. As Andrew Clarke advises, ‘No clear parallel can be drawn with Corinth unless recognition is given that the city was a colony, with a different administrative organisation than other Greek cities’.Footnote 35 In fact, to date no one discussing Erastus' rank has advanced any data featuring an οἰκονόμος from an early Roman colony, and certainly not a colony in Achaia.
In the early 1990s, however, an inscription from the Roman period mentioning a municipal οἰκονόμος was discovered about 80 miles northwest of Corinth in the colony of Patras. An Augustan colony settled by native Achaeans and Roman army veterans following the Battle of Actium (Pausanias Descr. 7.18–21; Strabo Geogr. 8.7.5), Patras was a reasonably large port city and, like Corinth, a member of the Achaean League.Footnote 36 Patras (Colonia Augusta Achaica Patrensis), being typical of Roman colonies, also closely resembled Corinth in administrative structure.Footnote 37 The senior magistrates of Patras were the duoviri (Achaïe II 39; 51; 136; 142; 156; 265), followed by the aediles (Achaïe II 39; 136; 49; 142; 157; 201), and the quaestores (Achaïe II 53; 142).Footnote 38 The inscription we will now examine definitely refers to two of these offices as it pays tribute to the οἰκονόμος Neikostratos and displays his cursus honorum (SEG 45.418). The text (Fig. 1) consists of large black uncial lettering on a white backdrop and was laid at the centre of a floor mosaic (Fig. 2) consisting of white, black, and red stones, with alternating circles and isosceles crosses.Footnote 39
Figure 1 and Figure 2 have been reproduced from ADelt 47, no. B’1 (1992), Chron., pl. 39γ-δ, © ΣΤ‘Ephorate of Prehistoric and Classical Antiquities—Hellenic Ministry of Culture.
The inscription was restored to read:
Several elements of this inscription are pertinent for our enquiry. First, it is significant that Neikostratos, perhaps a freedman, was honoured here as the οἰκονόμος of the colony after having held several prestigious posts earlier in his career. Of particular importance in Neikostratos' cursus is his tenure as ἀγωνοθέτης (cf. Achaïe II 136 and 266).Footnote 40 The president of the games, as Athanasios Rizakis indicates, was an office that only the wealthiest individuals of the city could afford to occupy: ‘agonothètes et munerarlii font partie de la tranche la plus riche de la société locale car ils sont appelés à faire des dépenses très élevées pour les jeux et les concours de la cité’.Footnote 41 The adverbs φιλοτείμως and φιλοδόξως also vividly describe the liberality of Neikostratos' previous administrations. They testify to the man's high social status while highlighting how he generously gave of his own wealth, probably in the form of benefactions—like the triclinium and mosaic (κατασκευάσαντα ἀπὸ θεμελίων τὸ τρέκλεινον ψηφοθετήσαντα)—in exchange for his offices and public admiration. As Jon Lendon explains, ‘In Greek, one of the usual terms for public benefaction was philo-timia, an act of “glory-love”. It was in honour terms that the rich man's motivation, involving so much trouble and expense, was chiefly understood: he devoted to the city his money and effort and got honour in return—cheering in the assembly and the voting of honorific decrees and monuments’.Footnote 42 In view of this description, it is clear that no mere slave (arcarius) or aspiring citizen could have fitted Neikostratos' profile. Rather, as the text intimates, the office of οἰκονόμος in an Achaean colony, such as Patras, was reserved for accomplished and highly visible aristocrats, and was indicative of social, economic, and political achievement.
Second, it should be observed how Neikostratos' cursus undermines the interpretation which equates the offices of οἰκονόμος and ἀγορανόμος in Achaean colonies. Winter, for example, has proposed that Corinth's unusual political structure permitted οἰκονόμος to be used interchangeably with ἀγορανόμος and ἀστυνόμος, two textually confirmed equivalents for aedilis.Footnote 43 Winter explains:
The term ἀγορανόμος usually involved the organisation of the games in cities in the East as well as administrative and financial duties. However, the job description of the aedile was determined by a situation peculiar to Corinth. The holder of that office would be responsible for sponsoring the games, which returned to Corinth c. 40 B.C., soon after it was founded as a colony. Precisely when the duties of running the Games were separated from the aedileship is not unclear [sic?] but the office of ‘President of the Games’ (ἀγωνοθέτης) in Corinth was created as a separate liturgy no later than the beginning of the first century A.D. Such was their fame and the burden of private sponsorship borne by the president that the office was given precedence over any other liturgy in Corinth, including that of magistrates who normally held the most senior position. This change in the duties of the aedile in Roman Corinth meant that his function was that of chief administrative officer and city treasurer. Such duties could best be rendered descriptively by the term οἰκονόμος, a natural and entirely appropriate term.Footnote 44
While Winter's argument for a ‘descriptive’ use of οἰκονόμος in Rom 16.23 is ingenious, the likelihood that οἰκονόμος might have actually been used this way in Corinth is highly improbable, since Neikostratos' cursus in SEG 45.418 demonstrates that, even in an Achaean colony where ἀγωνοθέτης and ἀγορανόμος were two distinct offices, οἰκονόμος likewise referred to a magistracy altogether separate from the ἀγορανόμος.
Still, the question remains: In Patras, to which magistracy did οἰκονόμος correspond? In Neikostratos' cursus in SEG 45.418, ἀγορανόμος (ἀγορανομέω) unquestionably corresponded to aedilis.Footnote 45 Moreover, since in Patras the Greek equivalents for duovir were στρατηγός (Achaïe II 110) and ἀρχὸς πενταέτηρος (Achaïe II 37),Footnote 46 the use of οἰκονόμος in Neikostratos' inscription indicates that it referred to quaestor.Footnote 47 Furthermore, since the text was derived from an Achaean colony in close proximity to Corinth with an apparently identical political structure as Corinth, it provides the best known comparative evidence for the rank of municipal οἰκονόμοι in Roman Corinth. In light of this evidence, it is then highly probable that the Erastus from Rom 16.23 was the quaestor of Corinth.
4. The Role and Status of Quaestores in First-Century Corinth
Having confirmed that οἰκονόμος was used as a correlative for quaestor in a neighboring Achaean colony, we must now enquire about the role and status of quaestores in Corinth. Currently, four inscriptions from Corinth have been restored to contain the title quaestor. While it remains unclear whether the quaestorships in view were provincial or municipal offices,Footnote 48 one of them has been dated from the end of the first to the beginning of the second centuries ce (IKorinthWest 104a), a second to ca. 125 ce (IKorinthKent 170), while the letter shapes of a third ‘suggest a date very early in the history of the colony’, probably from the mid to late first century bce (IKorinthKent 119); the date of the fourth is sometime before 267 ce (IKorinthKent 168). It is then quite significant for this study that at least three possible attestations of municipal quaestores have survived from Corinth within a century of the composition of Paul's epistle to the Romans.
Very little is known about Corinthian quaestores specifically. However, much can be ascertained about their duties and general profile from the remains of first-century city charters from Roman Spain.Footnote 49 Once in office quaestores were responsible solely for the administration of public finances. As chapter 20 of the Lex Irnitana indicates, quaestores obtained ‘the right and power of collecting, spending, keeping, administering and looking after the common funds…at the discretion of the duumviri’ (pecuniam commune…exigendi erogandi custodiendi atministrandi dispensandi arbitratu{m} IIuirorum i[us] potestasque).Footnote 50 Even so, the quaestorship comprised of considerably less political and judicial power than the senior magistracies. Although they were given command of their share of public slaves (servi communes), nowhere do the charters suggest that quaestores possessed any decision-making authority regarding public expenditures. Budget revisions were made by the senate in consultation with the duoviri, and instructions regarding public payments apparently came through the duoviri and at their discretion (arbitratum).Footnote 51Quaestores, on the other hand, were simply entrusted the unenviable task of making and receiving payments on behalf of the central treasury.Footnote 52 But, regardless of the tedious nature of their work, quaestores were always assumed to possess high social and economic status. According to chapter 54 in the Lex Malacitana, for instance, quaestores were required to be Roman citizens and decuriones (local senators), who were generally among the 100 wealthiest members of the city, possessing at least 100,000 sesterces.Footnote 53 Chapter 60 in the Lex Irnitana furthermore mandated all candidates for the quaestorship to deposit sizable ‘securities’ (praedes) for the office prior to the casting of votes on election day.Footnote 54 Together these stipulations indicate that quaestores were prominent individuals in every Roman community, and especially Corinth.
Given their high social and economic status, it is then quite perplexing how underrepresented quaestores are in the extant literary and non-literary data from Corinth.Footnote 55 Whereas only 4 quaestores are (possibly) attested in Roman Corinth, at least 30 aediles and 72 duoviri have been accounted for.Footnote 56 Even so, the statistics from Corinth are relatively consistent with the paucity of quaestorships attested elsewhere in the empire, such as Roman Spain where only 70 quaestores are attested in all of Baetica, Lusitania, and Tarraconensis, compared to 185 aediles and 456 duoviri.Footnote 57 Numerous hypotheses have been advanced to explain these lopsided figures in Spain, including the possible classification of the quaestorship as a munus rather than an honor,Footnote 58 the financial liability and unwelcome duties of the office,Footnote 59 and the odium of being associated with tax collection.Footnote 60 But, while the quaestorship may not have been as coveted as the ἀγωνοθεσία, the duovirship, or the aedileship, Roman historians nonetheless agree that it was a high-ranking, honourable, and costly municipal position within the civic hierarchy. Every occupant of the municipal quaestorship, then, was one of his city's wealthiest and most influential individuals. This would have also been characteristic of Erastus (Rom 16.23), who, as the quaestor of Corinth, would have without question been considered one of the οὐ πολλοὶ δυνατοί (1 Cor 1.26).
5. Conclusion
The administrative rank of Erastus is integral to the ongoing dispute about the social and economic composition of the early Pauline churches. In this article I have argued for the correlation between Erastus' position as ὁ οἰκονόμος τῆς πόλεως (Rom 16.23) and the municipal office of quaestor, a thesis originally advanced at length by Gerd Theissen some thirty-five years ago and never since given fuller defence. I have attempted both to defend this reading from its recent critics as well as to offer in its support important new data from the Achaean colony of Patras. While I make no claims about the identity of Erastus the Corinthian aedilis (IKorinthKent 232), it has been my contention that the new evidence presented here is far weightier than any other comparative text bearing the title οἰκονόμος previously advanced in the Erastus Debate. Admittedly, since evidence still exists which suggests that some municipal οἰκονόμοι were public slaves (arcarii), the case that Erastus occupied the quaestorship is not certain. But, as Dale Martin explains, ‘normal historiography need not demonstrate what must be the case. It need only show what probably is the case—which is always accomplished by cumulative and complicated evidence’.Footnote 61 Indeed, after one takes into account the colonial status of Patras, its proximity to Corinth, as well as the political and structural similarities between the two cities, preference should be given to the Neikostratos inscription (SEG 45.418) when drawing parallels with Erastus' office in Corinth. NT scholars should consider it highly probable, then, that Erastus served as the quaestor of Corinth and was a man of considerable wealth.
