Acts 28:15 - Exposition

The brethren, when, etc., came for when the brethren, etc., they came, A.V.; The Market of Appius for Appii forum, A.V. The brethren, when they heard of us . During the seven days' stay at Putcoli, the news of the arrival of the illustrious confessors reached the Church at Rome. The writer of that wonderful Epistle which they had received some three years before, and in which he had expressed his earnest desire to visit them, and his hope that he should come to them in the fullness of the blessing of the gospel of Christ ( Romans 1:11 , Romans 1:12 , Romans 1:15 ; Romans 15:22 , Romans 15:24 , Romans 15:28-32 ), was now almost at their gates as a prisoner of state, and they would soon see him face to face. They naturally determined to go and meet him, to honor him as an apostle, and show their love to him as a brother. The younger and more active would go as far as Appii Forum, "a village on the Via Appia, forty-three miles from Rome" (Meyer). The rest only came as far as The Three Taverns , ten miles nearer to Rome. Alford quotes a passage from Cicero's letters to Atticus (it. 10), in which he mentions both "Appii Forum" and the "Tres Tabernae;" and refers to Josephus ('Ant. Jud.,' 17. 12.1) for a similar account of Jews at Rome, who, on hearing of the arrival of the pretended Alexander at Puteoli, went out in a body to meet him ( πᾶν τὸ ιουδαίων πλῆθος ὑπαντιάζοντες ἐξῄεσαν ) . He also quotes from Suetonius the passage in which he tells us that, on Caligula's return from Germany, "populi Romans sexum, aetatem, ordinem omnem, usque ad Vicesimum lapidem effadisse se" ('Calig.,' c. 4). Appii Forum was not far from the coast, and was a great place for sailors and innkeepers (Horace, 'Sat.,' 1.5, 3). The Via Appia was made by Appius Claudius, B.C. 442. It led from the Ports Capena in Rome through the Pontino marshes to Capua.