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Italian BandInsight on the Scriptures, Volume 1
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ITALIAN BAND
A unit of the Roman army in which Cornelius of Caesarea served as a centurion. In the Bible’s only reference to it, Cornelius is said to have been “an army officer of the Italian band, as it was called.” (Ac 10:1) This was probably a cohort, so named to distinguish it from the regular Roman legions. A cohort in full strength consisted of about 600 men, that is, about one tenth the size of a legion. As its name implies, this cohort was probably made up of volunteers mustered in Italy, having Roman citizenship either as freeborn men or as freedmen.
The scripture does not say this Italian band was stationed at Caesarea. It only says that Cornelius, one of its army officers, had his home in Caesarea.—Ac 10:1, 2, 22, 24.
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ItalyInsight on the Scriptures, Volume 1
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Cornelius, undoubtedly an Italian and an army officer of “the Italian band,” had a home in Caesarea. (Ac 10:1) It was in Caesarea that Paul, at his trial before Festus, appealed his case to Caesar. He was then taken by boat to Myra, where, together with other prisoners, he was transferred to a grain boat from Alexandria that was headed for Italy. (Ac 25:6, 11, 12; 27:1, 5, 6) Shipwrecked on the voyage, they had to winter on the island of Malta. Then probably in the spring of 59 C.E., Paul first touched Italian soil at Rhegium on the “toe” of Italy, and shortly thereafter he disembarked at Puteoli on the Bay of Pozzuoli (Naples). Here, more than 160 km (100 mi) S of Rome, Paul stayed for a week with the local congregation before going on up to Rome via the Appian Way, along which, at “the Marketplace of Appius and Three Taverns,” he was met by the brothers from Rome. (Ac 28:11-16) Likely, toward the end of Paul’s first Roman imprisonment, or shortly after his release in about 61 C.E., he wrote the book of Hebrews while still in Italy.—Heb 13:24.
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