Acts 14:13 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

Then the priest of Jupiter,— This might be rendered more exactly, then the priest of Jupiter, that is to say, of the image of Jupiter, before the city gate. It was customary to build temples to their idol deities in the suburbs, and to set up their images before the city, at the gates. The heathens considered their several images—of Jupiter, for instance, or any other of their gods,—as so many distinct Jupiters; that is, as having some spirit sent from the god, to whom their worship was ultimatelyreferred, to reside in them. It may, however, by a common ellipsis, be, the priest of the temple of Jupiter. Some are of opinion, that the garlands here mentioned were those which the heathens used to put on the horns of their victims, being generally made of such leaves of trees or flowers as were sacred to the gods to whom they were offered; but others have observed, that among the heathen petitioners to the idol gods, they used to supplicate them with green boughs in their hands, and crowns upon their heads, or garlands upon their necks. These boughs were commonly of laurel or olive, about which they wrapped wool; and there were what the Greeks called στεμματα, the very word made use of in the sacred text, and rendered garlands. The scholiast on Sophocles explains the word στεμμα to signify "wool wrapped about a green bough." With these boughs it was usual to touch the knees of the statue, (or sometimes of the man,) whom they addressed: if they had confidence of success, they were raised as high as its chin. This seems to have been the intention of the priest of Jupiter at this time; and the garlands mentioned were probably these boughs, not the chaplets or crowns about the horns of the unico