`How often', says Cicero, `has this exclamation Civis Romanus sum ("I

am a Roman citizen") brought aid and safety even among Barbarians in the

remotest parts of the earth' (Cic.  Verr. v. 57).  The reader will remember

how scared the Philippians were when they discovered that Paul and Silas were

Roman citizens (Acts 16:37 -39).  They had probably heard of the punishment

in a.d. 44 of the inhabitants of Rhodes, whom Claudius had deprived of their

freedom for putting a Roman citizen to death.

The trial of the apostle before Nero demands some space here, and the

following notes may be of help.  The Roman courts required the personal

presence of the prosecutor.  The crown was not the prosecutor, as in English

law.  We learn from Josephus that at about this same time two embassies set

out from Jerusalem for Rome, one, to impeach Felix for his conduct while

Governor (we remember how, upon his recall, he sought to placate the Jews by

leaving Paul bound, Acts 24:27), the other, to intercede with Nero on the

subject of Agrippa's palace, which overlooked the Temple.  As the High Priest

himself was included in this latter embassy, he may also have been entrusted

with the prosecution of Paul.

`The law's delays' are no modern evil.  Josephus tells us of three Jews

who had languished in prison for three years without a hearing, and who were

finally released upon his appeal to Poppaea.  It was Nero's custom to

consider separately each charge against a prisoner (Suet, Nero, 15), and in

the case of Paul we have seen that there were three counts against him.  A

further source of delay was that proceedings would be adjourned from time to

time to suit the Emperor's convenience.  Eusebius, in his Ecclesiastical

History is the only authority that we have for the opinion that Paul was

tried on the occasion of this first imprisonment, for the Acts does not

record the trial.  Eusebius says:

`After defending himself successfully, it is currently reported that

the apostle again went forth to preach the gospel, and afterwards came

to Rome a second time'.

The apostle's statement in Philippians 1:12 -14,25 and 2:23,24 suggests

that a trial is nearing its end, and that the result is a foregone certainty.

Tiberius and Claudius followed the ancient custom of hearing causes in the

Forum, but Nero sat for this purpose in his palace.  Standing before the

tribunal, the apostle's bonds would become manifest in the whole Praetorium

(Phil. 1:13).  The preliminaries of the trial had already taken place under

Felix and Festus, the prisoner being therefore already in a state of

accusation.  The termination of the proceedings was announced by a crier

proclaiming `dixerunt' (they have spoken).  The jury then voted by depositing

in an urn, wax tablets bearing the letter A for absolvo, C, condemno or N.L.,

non liquet (a new trial).

At his second arrest Paul did not receive the humane treatment that

characterized the first.  He now suffered as an `evil doer'.  His place of

detention is no longer the house of a friend or his own hired house, but a

dungeon, so damp and cold that he asks Timothy to bring with him, when he

comes, his cloak that had been left behind at Troas.

The trial fell into two parts, for he speaks of his `first defence' (2

Tim. 4:16).  Evidently he had been remanded; the presiding judge having

pronounced the word amplius, an adjournment had taken place, and the apostle

seized the opportunity to write his last letter to his beloved son Timothy.