Greek word · G2483
Ἰταλικός
italikos
Italian
'Italian, belonging to Italy.' As part of a unit name it reflects a Latin title such as cohors Italica, a cohort originally raised in Italy, specifically from Roman citizens.
Appears once in the Greek New Testament. ·
What it means
From G. Abbott-Smith, A Manual Greek Lexicon of the New Testament (1922), via STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0).
In depth
- Range of meaning
'Italian, belonging to Italy.' As part of a unit name it reflects a Latin title such as cohors Italica, a cohort originally raised in Italy, specifically from Roman citizens.
- Against the English
All the major versions say 'Italian'. A modern reader may picture an ethnic or national group in the modern sense. The point is legal and military status: a unit of Roman citizens from the empire's heartland.
- Used elsewhere in the period
Inscriptions attest a cohors II Italica civium Romanorum voluntariorum ('Second Italian Cohort of Roman Citizen Volunteers'). A tombstone from Carnuntum (on the Danube) names an officer of this cohort serving with a detachment of the Syrian army (CIL III 13483a), and another inscription places it in Syria by AD 69 (ILS 9168). Augustus raised such 'volunteer' cohorts of citizens, many of them freedmen, in the crises of AD 6–9.
Where it appears
Acts · 1
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Acts 10:1 Ἰταλικῆς, Italian,
At Caesarea there was a man named Cornelius, a centurion in what was called the Italian Regiment.
Here: The unit's name: 'the Italian' cohort. Units with this title were raised from Roman citizens in Italy, not recruited locally in Syria or Palestine as most of Judea's garrison was. The name stresses how thoroughly Roman Cornelius is.
Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.