Acts 19:31

31. Chief of Asia Asiarchs. So the rulers of different provinces were called Syriarchs, Cypriarchs, etc. These were wealthy and honourable citizens who were elected to preside over the sacred rites and to institute public games, which, however, they were to do at their own expense. The president or the college of Asiarchs was styled High Priest, precisely the same title in the Greek as belonged to the supreme Jewish pontiff. The citizen who had once been Asiarch, permanently retained the honorary title, so that these noble friends of Paul may have been only men of Asiarch dignity. It is altogether probable, officials of Artemis as they were, that, like the more elevated minds of the age, they secretly disbelieved the divinity of the goddess; and if they were not Christians, coincided more with Paul’s monotheism than with the superstition of the populace.