Expositor's Bible Commentary Commentary Acts 10:1

"Now [there was] a certain man in Caesarea, Cornelius by name, a centurion of the band called the Italian [band]," — Acts 10:1 (ASV)

Caesarea is in the center of the coastal Plain of Sharon in northern Palestine, on the shores of the Mediterranean, some sixty-five miles northwest of Jerusalem. It was named in honor of Augustus Caesar (cf. Lk 2:1). Herod the Great made the harbor into a magnificent seaport and the village into his provincial capital. He deepened the harbor, built a breakwater against the southern gales, constructed an imposing city with an amphitheater and a temple in honor of Rome and Augustus, brought in fresh water through an aqueduct that ran over stately brick arches, and established a garrison of soldiers to protect not only the harbor and city but also the fresh water supply.

The name Cornelius was common in the Roman world from 82 B. C. onwards, when Cornelius Sulla liberated ten thousand slaves, all of whom took their patron’s name as they established themselves in Roman society. Probably, therefore, the Cornelius of this story was a descendant of one of these freedmen. He is identified as a centurion of the Italian cohort, i.e., a noncommissioned officer who had worked his way up through the ranks to take command of a group of soldiers within a Roman legion. A cohort numbered anywhere from three hundred to six hundred men in size, being officially always the latter.