Albert Barnes Commentary Acts 22:28

"And the chief captain answered, With a great sum obtained I this citizenship. And Paul said, But I am [a Roman] born." — Acts 22:28 (ASV)

With a great sum obtained I this freedom. The freedom mentioned is the privilege of Roman citizenship. From this, it would seem that the privilege of being a Roman citizen might be purchased. Perhaps he refers, however, to the expenses which necessarily accompanied passing through the proper forms of becoming a Roman citizen. The argument of the tribune in this case is this: "I obtained this privilege at a great price. How did you, Paul, so poor and persecuted, obtain the means of becoming a Roman citizen?" Paul had informed him that he was a native of Tarsus (Acts 21:39); and the chief captain supposed that Tarsus was not a free city, and that Paul could not have derived the privilege of citizenship from his birth.

But I was free born. I was born a Roman citizen, or I am such by virtue of my birth. Various opinions have been formed on the question of how or for what reasons Paul was entitled to the privilege of a Roman citizen.

Some have supposed that Tarsus was a Roman colony, and that he thus became a Roman citizen. However, there does not appear to be sufficient proof of this.

Pliny says (5.27) that it was a free city. The city of Tarsus was endowed with the privileges of a free city by Augustus Caesar after it had been greatly afflicted and oppressed by wars (Appian).

Dio Chrysostom says to the people of Tarsus, "He (Augustus) has conferred on you everything which anyone could bestow on his friends and companions—a country (that is, a free country), laws, honour, authority over the river (Cydnus), and the neighbouring sea."

Free cities in the Roman Empire were permitted to use their own laws and customs, to have their own magistrates, and they were free from being subject to Roman guards.

They were required only to acknowledge the supremacy and authority of the Roman people and to aid them in their wars. Such a city was Tarsus; and having been born there, Paul was entitled to these privileges of a free man.

Many critics have supposed that this privilege of Roman citizenship had been conferred on some of Paul's ancestors in consequence of distinguished military service.

Such a conferral of the rights of citizenship was not unusual and possibly might have occurred in this case. However, there is no direct historical proof of it; and the former fact, that he was born in a free city, amply accounts for his affirmation that he was free-born.