The Definition of the word Colony

Colony

The city of Philippi was a Roman colony (Acts 16:12), i.e., a "military settlement of Roman soldiers and citizens, planted" there to keep in subjection a newly-conquered district. A colony "was Rome in miniature, under Roman municipal law, but governed" "by military officers (praetors and lictors), not by proconsuls." "It had an independent internal government, the jus Italicum;" "i.e., the privileges of Italian citizens."