Gallio

The Roman proconsul of Achaia (modern southern Greece) before whom Jewish leaders in Corinth dragged Paul, accusing him of preaching a worship "contrary to the law" (Acts 18:12-17). Gallio refused to hear the case — he dismissed it as an internal religious dispute, declaring himself uninterested in judging matters of Jewish law. The dismissal effectively legalized Christian preaching across the Roman empire by precedent. Gallio's identity is one of the most precisely datable facts in the New Testament — a stone inscription found at Delphi in 1905 mentions him as proconsul in 51-52 CE, pinning down Paul's Corinth visit to that window.