Acts 18:12 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

When Gallio was the deputy of Achaia,— The proconsul of Achaia,— 'Ανθυπατος. This is another instance of the great accuracy with which St. Luke expresses himself. The provinces of the Roman empire were of two sorts; Caesarean, or such as were subject to the emperor; and proconsular, or such as were subject to the people and the senate. Achaia was a proconsular province under Augustus Caesar. Tiberius, at the request of the Achaians, made it a Caesarean province. About eight years before the event here mentioned, Claudius restored it to the senate; and from that time a proconsul was sent into this country. Gallio was the present proconsul; and, though the country subject to him was all Greece, yet he was by the Romans called proconsul of Achaia. This Gallio was Marcus Annaeus Novatus, elder brother to the famous Lucius Annaeus Seneca, the Stoic philosopher, and Nero's tutor; but having been adopted by Lucius Junius Gallio, he was denominated after him. It was, most probably, by the interest of his brother Seneca that Gallio was made proconsul of Achaia; for Agrippina, who was wife to the emperor Claudius, and mother to Nero, had such an influence over her husband, that almost all things were managed according to her direction; and her son's preceptor would, it is most probable, be readily gratified in such a request for his brother. Seneca has described Gallio as a man of the most mild disposition, composed in himself, and benign and gentle to mankind in general; and his behaviour upon the following occasion, considering him to be a Heathen, agrees very well with the character that his brother has given him.