Acts 16:38-39

‘And the lictors reported these words to the magistrates, and they were afraid when they heard that they were Romans, and they came and besought them, and when they had brought them out, they asked them to go away from the city.'

When the magistrates learned that Paul and Silas were Romans they were afraid. They recognised that they also could now be accused of acting against Roman law. Thus they came and sought to make all right between them, publicly arranged their release and then asked them to leave Philippi. The last was presumably in order to prevent further actions by the mob so that good order might be maintained and Romans not be assaulted. They were not forbidden to return. The main concern was for law and order.

We do not know full details of the rights of Roman citizenship, but they certainly included protection for them from treatment meted out quite happily to lesser people. Presumably a Roman citizen carried with him some kind of certificate in order to prove his status. On the other hand, as all knew, an appeal to Caesar was not necessarily to the advantage of the appellant, thus the observation of the rules was probably mainly caused rather by consent and a theoretical fear of what could happen if such a citizen did appeal to Caesar. Other cases of Roman citizens having been illegally beaten are known, and disapproved of, but with no apparent central action having been taken.