Sergius Paulus Inscriptions (Soloi, Rome, Pisidian Antioch)

Overview

Acts 13:7–12 names 'the proconsul Sergius Paulus' at Paphos on Cyprus. No stone yet found names 'Sergius Paulus, proconsul of Cyprus' in one text. Three inscriptions are used to build the case, each carrying part of it.

Soloi, Cyprus. A Greek funerary text in which one Apollonius honours his father and his mother Artemidora and lists his civic offices. Lines added later say he also revised the city council 'in the time of the proconsul Paulus' (Hogarth 1889). Cesnola found it in the 1870s. Hogarth recopied it in 1888, built into the threshold of a grain store at Karavostasi where the owner dug it out for paying visitors, and warned it was being worn away.

Rome. A boundary cippus of the Tiber commissioners (curatores riparum et alvei Tiberis) under Claudius names 'L(ucius) Sergius Paullus' among five commissioners. Pisidian Antioch: Ramsay and Anderson copied in 1912 an honorific base for 'L. Sergius Paullus, son of Lucius, the younger', listing early posts of a senatorial career. Ramsay read him as the son of the proconsul of Acts.

In its own words

'Apollonius to his father … and to his mother Artemidora … consecrated the enclosure and this monument … having filled the offices of clerk of the market, prefect, town-clerk, high priest … He also revised the senate by means of assessors in the time of the proconsul Paulus.'D. G. Hogarth, Devia Cypria (London 1889) p. 115 (Soloi inscription, his no. 36)

What the evidence shows

Soloi: the proconsul is named only as 'Paulus'. No praenomen or 'Sergius' survives (Hogarth 1889, 114–115; Cesnola 1877, 425).
Soloi: Hogarth reports that the last two and a half lines, including the Paulus clause, are a later addition in a different letter form. The main text is dated to 'year 13', with no era given.
Rome (CIL VI 31545 = ILS 5926 = EDR127293): 'Paullus Fabius Persicus, C. Eggius Marullus, L. Sergius Paullus, C. Obellius Rufus, L. Scribonius Libo, curatores riparum et alvei Tiberis, ex auctoritate Ti. Claudi Caesaris Aug. Germanici …' marked the bank 'a Trigario ad pontem Agrippae'.
Rome: EDR notes that the verb terminaverunt lacks Claudius' extra letter, which may narrow the date to 41–47 CE, before Claudius' censorship.
Antioch: 'L. Sergio L. f. Paullo filio, IIIIvir. v. c., trib. mil. leg. VI Ferr., quaest. …' (Ramsay 1915, 151). The word filio ('the younger') marks a son of the same name.

Open questions

Is the Soloi 'Paulus' the Sergius Paulus of Acts? Cesnola's editor D. Pierides (1877, 425) and Hogarth (1889) both say 'may be'. Nothing on the stone gives his nomen, and the local 'year 13' is not tied to an emperor. Any date for this Paulus depends on assumptions the text does not supply.
Is the Tiber commissioner the proconsul? A Tiber commission and a provincial proconsulship both belong to a senatorial career, and the cippus falls under Claudius, the same reign in which Acts places Paul's visit to Cyprus. The stone gives only the name and the commission. It does not say he ever held Cyprus.
Ramsay (1915, 150–172) reads the Antioch Paullus as the proconsul's son and ties the family's estates near Antioch to Paul's route from Cyprus to Pisidian Antioch (Acts 13:13–14). That link is Ramsay's inference; the stone does not name the father's office.

Sources

L. P. di Cesnola, Cyprus: Its Ancient Cities, Tombs, and Temples (London: John Murray, 1877), p. 229 (discovery at Soli) and Appendix p. 425 (text and notes by D. Pierides) link editio princeps
D. G. Hogarth, Devia Cypria: Notes of an Archaeological Journey in Cyprus in 1888 (London 1889), pp. 113–115, no. 36 link editio princeps
Epigraphic Database Roma EDR127293 = CIL VI 31545 = ILS 5926 (G. Crimi, 2013, rev. 2024) link museum record
W. M. Ramsay, The Bearing of Recent Discovery on the Trustworthiness of the New Testament (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1915), ch. XII, pp. 150–172 link study
'Sergius Paulus: An Archaeological Biography', Bible Archaeology Report, 15 Nov 2019 link study

Corrected from the earlier edition of this page

Old entry: 'discovered in 1887'. Cesnola published the Soloi stone in 1877 (Cyprus, p. 229 and p. 425). Hogarth recopied it in 1888, published 1889. 1887 is the year the Rome cippus came out of the Tiber (EDR127293).
Old text 'Sergius Paulus, proconsul of Cyprus, dedicated this' is invented. The Soloi stone is Apollonius' family monument, and 'the proconsul Paulus' appears only in a later clause. It has no 'Sergius' and no 'dedicated this' by Paulus (Hogarth 1889, 115). The Latin stone that does name L. Sergius Paullus is a Tiber boundary marker in Rome and does not mention Cyprus.
Old location 'Cyprus Museum, Nicosia' is unsupported. Hogarth last saw the Soloi stone in a shop threshold at Karavostasi; no published source gives its present location. The Rome cippus is in the Museo Nazionale Romano.
Old dimensions '25 × 35 cm' are unsourced. The one measured stone, the Rome cippus, is 160 × 80 × 24 cm.
Old date 'c. 45 CE' is not on any of the stones. Only the Rome cippus is datable, to Claudius (41–54 CE).
Old entry treats this as one inscription. It is three different stones in two languages from three places, and none of them alone says 'Sergius Paulus, proconsul of Cyprus'.

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