Epistates
An (, ) in ancient Greece was any sort of superintendent or overseer. In the Hellenistic kingdoms generally, an is always connected with a subject district (a regional assembly), where the , as resident representative of the king, exercised control and collected taxes. Military use. In military texts, an (the one who stands behind) is the man behind a "protostates" (the one who stands first). The phalanx was made up of alternate ranks of and . Thus, in a file of eight men, the were the men in positions 1, 3, 5, and 7, while the occupied positions 2, 4, 6, and 8 . New Testament usage. The word is also used in "common" Koine Greek and in the Greek New Testament to refer to Christ. This word is translated into English as 'master,' but that is a simplistic translation. The word might be better understood as belonging to the set of Greek words meaning 'visitor' or 'divine visitation' (), 'letter of instruction' (), as well as 'guardian' or 'caretaker' (), which was a word later translated as bishop. See Luke 5:5 for an example of textual usage.