In a non-history-related blog post today, I saw this claim:
When Jesus spoke of “walking the second mile,” he was referring to an oppressive Roman law that allowed a traveling Roman solider to demand that a stranger carry his pack for up to one mile. No doubt some of Jesus’ first listeners had been forced to do just that, to drop their farming equipment, fishing nets, or carpentry tools and carry a heavy pack, losing hours of work in the process. The law allowed the soldier to demand from them a mile, no more. Jesus told his followers to walk two."
Was there really such a law? Do we know of other instances of this law being used? Was this specific to 1st century Judea, or the whole Roman empire or across a longer period of time?
I thought I’d written an answer about this before, but perhaps not. Or perhaps I simply can't track it down.
Specifically the idea comes from Matthew 5:41:
καὶ ὅστις σε ἀγγαρεύσει μίλιον ἕν, ὕπαγε μετʼ αὐτοῦ δύο.
Trans: And whoever compels you one mile, go with them two.
The key issue is the word ἀγγαρεύσει, which derives from a loan-word used for couriers in Persia. It generally refers to the forced requisition of aid for military purposes. In the context of Jesus’ statement it would refer to the forced supply of aid to Roman soldiers in Judea. It is not a general reference to a ‘law’, and it is difficult to find independent attestation of any such law, though the practice itself is widely established, for which one should consult Horsley New Documents Illustrating Early Christianity; E.A. Judge furnishes evidence of a Roman edict in Pisidia setting out limits for the Roman army on such requisitioning, which would roughly match the reference to ‘one’ and ‘two’ miles as suggesting such general limitations.
I'd not heard the anecdote which gave rise to the original question and I'm interested to hear the answer.
But I have heard of "going the extra mile" so if anyone can answer the original question, can I ask if this saying is related?