Libertines
Archimandrite Nikifor’s Biblical Encyclopedia
(freedmen) (Acts 6:9) - Jews captured by the Romans in war, especially under Pompey, enslaved, and afterward freed. They had a synagogue of their own in Jerusalem, where Lightfoot said there were four to five hundred synagogues; their assemblies were therefore called synagogues of the Libertines. Some of them joined others in an ill-disposed dispute with Stephen the archdeacon, ending in his martyrdom. 'Certain of the synagogue, which is called the synagogue of the Libertines, and Cyrenians, and Alexandrians, and of them of Cilicia and of Asia, arose, disputing with Stephen' (Acts 6:9). Tacitus reports that four thousand freedmen of Egyptian and Jewish origin were transported to Sardinia and the rest expelled from Italy in AD 19 (Annals 2.85).