Artemis and Asiarchs 347 not accord very well with the fact that asiarchs used to hold office for terms of one year and with the iteration attested in honorific inscriptions — Ti. Claudius Aristion is praised as having been asiarch three times (IvE 424; 5101; 5113; see above). Moreover, former asiarchs are known as ajsiarchvsante" (IvE 27,240). Thus, Luke would have used rather sloppy language in Acts 19,31 (45). A more desperate attempt to reconcile Acts 19,31 with the notion of asiarchs as high priests of the provincial imperial cult is to suppose that Luke mixed up the offices of the provincial and of the municipal imperial cult (46). To be sure, the Roman emperors were already worshipped in Ephesos before the provincial temple was built (47). The inscription IvE 1522 shows that before 6/5 BCE there was a sebasth'on, a sanctuary of Augustus; unfortunately this shrine cannot be localised with any certainty. Members of the imperial family also had their place in the prytaneion, the cultic centre of the city. But this suggestion, that the asiarchs were high priests of the municipal imperial cult, is basically an attempt to maintain that, apart from the term “asiarchs”, the narrative of Acts gives an accurate account of what really happened to Paul in Ephesos — an interpretation of Acts that has turned out to be quite problematic at many points. Moreover, even if this were the case, the problem would only be transferred from the provincial to the municipal imperial cult: Can we assume that, in the 50s of the 1st century CE, there were at the same time a greater number of high priests of the municipal imperial cult in Ephesos? On a different level, one can observe that Acts 19,30-31 appears like an insertion that explains why Paul does not himself appear on the scene of the riot narrated in Acts 19,23-40 (see above), a deliberate detour by the author. This puts the historical problem into sharp relief: If the asiarchs were high priests of the imperial cult, would Luke introduce them, of all people, as friends of Paul? It is true that, generally, Luke has a fairly optimistic view of the Roman state and Hellenistic society, and in Acts there are many officials and women and men of high social standing who show a favourable attitude towards the Christian mission in general and Paul in particular. But there is one point where Luke cannot join the mainstream of Hellenistic and (45) This seems to be what SHAUF, Theology as History, 250 suggests. (46) Cf. KIRBIHLER, “Les grands-prêtres”, 110-111, n. 31, who suggests that Acts 19,31 is the result of a “réécriture flavienne”, so that Luke would have used terms of his own time to designate — incorrectly — an office of Paul’s time. (47) Cf. e.g. WITETSCHEK, Ephesische Enthüllungen 1, 109-110.