The life and work of St. Paul

270 THE LIFE AND WOBK OF ST. PAUL.
descended the ravino which separated the mountain from the port and colony.
They were on classic ground. Every step they took revealed scenes to which
the best and brightest poetry of Greece had given an immortal interest. As
they emerged from the pine groves of the many-fountained hill, with its
exquisite legend of (Enone and her love, they saw beneath them the
"
Ringing plains of windy Troy,"
where the great heroes of early legend had so often
But if they had ever heard of
" Drunk delight of battle with their peers.**
"The face that launched a thousand ships,
Or sacked the topmost towers of Ilion,"
or looked with any interest on the Siniois and the Scamander, and the huge
barrows of Ajax and Achilles, they do not allude to them. Their minds were
full of other thoughts.
The town at which they now arrived had been founded by the successors of
Alexander, and had been elevated into a colony with the Jus Italicuin. This
privilege had been granted to the inhabitants solely because of the romantic
interest which the Romans took in tho legendary cradle of their greatness, an
interest which almost induced Constantino to fix there, instead of at Byzantium,
the capital of the Eastern Empire. Of any preaching in Alexandria Troas
nothing is told us. On threo separate occasions at least St. Paul visited it.1
It was there that Carpus lived, who was probably his host, and he found it a
place peculiarly adapted for the favourable reception of tho Gospel. 9 On this
occasion, however, his stay was very short, 3 because he was divinely commanded
to other work.
St. Paul had now been labouring for many years among Syrians, Ciliciuns,
and the mingled races of Asia Minor ; but during that missionary activity he
had been at Roman colonies like Antioch in Pisidia, and must have been
thrown very frequently into the society of Greeks and Latins. He was himself
a Roman citizen, and the constant allusions of his Epistles show that he, like
St. Luke, must have been struck with admiration for the order, the discipline,
the dignity, the reverence for law which characterised the Romans, and
especially for the bravery, the determination, the hardy spirit of self-denial
which actuated the Roman soldier. 4 He tells us, later in his life, how
frequently his thoughts had turned towards Rome itself,* and as he brooded
1 Acts XX. 1, 2, compared with 2 Cor. 11. 12; 1 Cor. rvi. 5 9; and Acts rx. 6; and
2 Tim. iv. 13.
3 2 Cor. ii. 12.
* Acts xvi. 10, tiCt'ws e7)ri$crap' implies that they took the first ship which they could
find for a voyage to Macedonia.
4 This is shown by the many military and agonistic metaphors in his Epistles.
* Acts xix. 21; cf. Rom. i. 13 "Oftentimes I purposed to come to you ;" xv. 23
"I have had a great desire these many years to come to you." These passagea were
writ ten from Achaia probably from Corinth six or seven years after this date.