A limestone pavement east of the theatre at Corinth carries an inscription of the middle first century: ERASTVS PRO AEDILIT[AT]E S P STRAVIT — Erastus, in return for his aedileship, laid this at his own expense. Paul, writing to Rome from Corinth at almost exactly that time, sends greetings from Erastus the oikonomos of the city. Whether they are the same man is genuinely open. In favour: the name is not common at Corinth, the date fits, and both men hold a public financial office in the same small city. Against: oikonomos and aedile are different titles, and Paul writes in Greek about a Latin-inscribing colony, so the equivalence has to be argued rather than read off. Almost no named person in the New Testament outside the Herods and the governors has any archaeological trace at all, which is why this one is worth setting out carefully instead of either claiming it or ignoring it. This dataset does not assert the identification; it records that the stone exists, that the office is real, and that the question is open.
The Early Church