Colony

The term colony appears once in the New Testament, where Philippi is described as the leading city of the district of Macedonia and a Roman colony (Acts 16:12). A Roman colony (colonia) was a settlement of Roman citizens — typically army veterans — established by official decree in a conquered territory. Colonists retained full Roman citizenship, lived under Roman law, and organized their city on the model of Rome itself with elected magistrates, a senate, and Roman administrative structures.

Philippi's colonial status explains several features of the Acts narrative: the magistrates (stratēgoi, rendered as praetors) who had Paul and Silas beaten and imprisoned without trial, the pride of the Philippian authorities in their Roman citizenship, and the alarm when they learned Paul was himself a Roman citizen (Acts 16:37–38). Paul's letter to the Philippians draws on the colonial analogy theologically: our citizenship (politeuma) is in heaven (Philippians 3:20), just as the Philippians' citizenship was in Rome though they lived in Macedonia.