Acts 16:39

"and they came and besought them; and when they had brought them out, they asked them to go away from the city" "Did their best to conciliate them" (TCNT). "Their self-importance was very healthily deflated, as they went to the jail and requested Paul and Silas to leave Philippi" (Bruce p. 341). They could not command them. "Paul's insistence on an official apology may have served to some degree as. protection to the members of the church" (Bruce p. 341). "A Roman citizen could not be expelled from. Roman city when he had been convicted of no crime...But cities in this part of the Roman world were notoriously weak in their ability to control the populace; and if Paul and Silas were as unpopular as yesterday's crowd had made it seem, then the officials could not guarantee their safety" (Reese p. 596).