340 Stephan Witetschek Coming back to the asiarchs, this contribution is certainly not the place for a detailed discussion of their office and identity. It may suffice here to mention a few points and to clarify the significance of Acts 19,31. a) Attestation Apart from Acts 19,31, asiarchs are attested in Strabon 14,1,42 (in the time of Augustus), where they are specified as oiJ prwteuvonte" kata; th;n ejparcivan. As Strabon asserts, there were always some people (tinev") from Tralleis who held this office. One recently published inscription, in which the inhabitants of two villages honour a certain Ti. Claudius Damas, an asiarch and sebastophant, as “their saviour and benefactor” (16), could be seen as evidence for an asiarch in the early principate, since the office of a sebastophant requires a date after 29/27 BCE, when there was a cult of the Sebastov" (Augustus) in the province of Asia. Apart from this, however it seems hardly possible to date this inscription with any certainty, because this asiarch “is otherwise unknown” (17). We do know one Ti. Iulius Damas Claudianus, who was high priest of the provincial imperial cult in Ephesos in 90/91 CE (IvE 241), but it would be merely speculative to assume that the two are identical and that the name Claudianus (a reference to the emperor Tiberius’ nomen gentile before he was adopted by Augustus in 4 CE) has been dropped. The inscription features the full, traditional Roman name with the patronym and the tribus (which, by the way, argues for a rather early date), and since the inscription covers only about a fifth of the stone, there are no limitations of space that would have necessitated a compressed terminology. Urchristentums (KStTh 9,2; Stuttgart 1996) II, 17-74; S.J. FRIESEN, Imperial Cults and the Apocalypse of John. Reading Revelation in the Ruins (Oxford – New York 2001) 122-131; S. WITETSCHEK, Ephesische Enthüllungen 1. Frühe Christen in einer antiken Großstadt. Zugleich ein Beitrag zur Frage nach den Kontexten der Johannesapokalypse (Biblical Tools and Studies 6; Leuven – Paris – Dudley, MA 2008) 131-135. (16) P. HERRMANN – H. MALAY, New Documents from Lydia (DÖAW.PH 340 – TAM Ergänzungsbände 24; Wien 2007) 96 (No. 68). The nomen gentile is a conjecture; on the stone there is a lacuna into which, according to the editors, [ΔIouvli]on fits better than [Klauvdi]on. The editors date this inscription to the 1st century BCE, but for D. CAMPANILE (“Sommi sacerdoti”, 532) the name Tiberius Iulius points rather to the 1st century CE. (17) HERRMANN – MALAY, New Documents, 96.