Artemis and Asiarchs 349 megavlh" ΔArtevmido" kai; tou' diopetou'") (52). This is striking at first glance, because here the title of a temple official is applied to an entire city. The office of a newkovro" seems to have included several (possibly what we would call more “mundane”) aspects of “running” a sanctuary(53). As for Ephesos, it may suffice to mention that Xenophon deposited money with the newkovro" of Artemis (Xenophon, Anab. 5,3,6-7) and that, as we have seen above, Ti. Claudius Aristion held the office of newkovro" at the newly built temple of the Sebastoi. At a closer look, however, it is by no means a unique feature of Acts 19,35 that this designation of an official is transferred to an entire city. The earliest attestation seems to be provided by the inscription Syll.3 799,9-10 (Kyzikos, 38 CE) — as an unofficial title for the city of Kyzikos (54). However, Ephesos was the first city to be granted the designation newkovro" as an official title that figured regularly in the city’s documents (55). In the course of the 2nd century CE the great cities in the province of Asia — Ephesos, Smyrna, Pergamon — engaged in a fierce competition for city titles in which the title newkovro" played an essential role; unlike other epithets like prwvth, megivsth or mhtrovpoli", it could even be multiplied (56). However, this official title for the city of Ephesos referred to the temple (later: temples) of the imperial cult. It meant that the temple belonged to the koinovn, the assembly of the Greek cities in the province of Asia, and that Ephesos hosted the temple on behalf of the koinon and provided the necessary infrastructure — and participated in v its splendour and prominence (57). It was only under the emperor Caracalla (211-217 CE) that Ephesos officially became newkovro" of Artemis (IvE 212) (58). From then on, the city could, in its official (52) For HEMER, Book of Acts, 122 this was another instance of Luke’s “specific local knowledge” (see above, n. 37). (53) Cf. e.g. BURRELL, Neokoroi, 3-6. (54) Cf. DRÄGER, Städte, 37; BURRELL, Neokoroi, 5-6, 86. (55) See the list of inscriptions and coins in BURRELL, Neokoroi, 79-85. (56) Cf. the survey in DRÄGER, Städte, 113-121. See also E. COLLAS- HEDDELAND, “Le culte impérial dans la compétition des titres sous le haut-empire. Une lettre d’Antonin aux Éphésiens”, REG 108 (1995) 410-429. (57) Cf. BURRELL, Neokoroi, 343-358. (58) This development is not taken into account by LAMPE, “Acta 19”, 64 with n. 20: The inscriptions he mentions as evidence for Ephesos being newkovro" of Artemis are from the 3rd century, from the time of Caracalla or even later; in these texts, Ephesos is not only newkoro" of Artemis, but also (at least) twice newkovro" v of the emperors. Hence these inscriptions are only of limited value for illuminating the background of Acts 19.