Open Bible Data Home About News OET Key
OET OET-RV OET-LV ULT UST BSB BLB AICNT OEB WEB WMB NET LSV FBV TCNT T4T LEB BBE MOF JPS ASV DRA YLT DBY RV WBS KJB BB GNV CB TNT WYC SR-GNT UHB Related Parallel Interlinear Dictionary Search
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W XY Z
NICOPOLIS
Name meaning “Victory City,” a popular choice in the Roman Empire when a newly founded city required a name, especially when a newly built town was created to commemorate some military victory in days of warfare.
In his letter to Titus, Paul directs him to leave Crete, where he had been ministering (Ti 1:5), and make his way to Nicopolis, where the apostle was working and intended to spend the winter (3:12). Of the nine Nicopolises throughout the empire, Paul almost certainly meant the city situated northwest of the Gulf of Corinth and southeast of the promontory of Epirus.
Octavian founded this city in 31 BC to celebrate his victory over Mark Antony in the great battle of Actium fought nearby. Nicopolis was Greek both in name and constitution. The center of a number of nearby towns, the new Nicopolis was a metropolis, enjoying an independence similar to that of neighboring Athens. Temples, theaters, a stadium, and an aqueduct were built, and games were instituted for the four yearly festivals. Nicopolis’s most famous citizen, Epictetus, the Stoic philosopher, lived there around AD 90. Paul made this splendid metropolis and its satellite communities a field for evangelism.