Land and Power in Ptolemaic Egypt: The Structure of Land Tenure

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L A N D A N D P OW E R I N P TO L E M A I C E G Y P T

This history of land tenure under the Ptolemies explores the relationship between the new Ptolemaic state and the ancient traditions of landholding and tenure. Departing from the traditional emphasis on the Fayyum, it offers a coherent framework for understanding the structure of the Ptolemaic state, and thus of the economy as a whole. Drawing for the first time on both Greek and demotic papyri, as well as hieroglyphic inscriptions and theories taken from the social sciences, Professor Manning argues that the traditional central state ‘despotic’ model of the Egyptian economy is insufficient. The result is a subtler picture of the complex relationship between the demands of the new state and the ancient, locally-organized social structure of Egypt. By revealing the dynamics between central and local power in Egypt, the book shows that Ptolemaic economic power ultimately shaped Roman Egyptian social and economic institutions. j. g . m anni n g is Assistant Professor of Ancient History at Stanford University. He has taught at Princeton University and held research fellowships at the American Research Center in Egypt, the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. He has published The Hauswaldt Papyri: A third-century BC family dossier from Edfu (1997) and, co-edited with Ian Morris, The ancient economy: Evidence and models (2003), and is currently working, among other projects, on a history of Edfu in the Ptolemaic and Roman periods, a handbook of demotic law, and, with Willy Clarysse, an edition of papyri from the collection at Stanford University.

L A N D A N D PO WE R IN P T OLEMA I C EGY P T The Structure of Land Tenure

J. G. MANNING Assistant Professor of Classics and Ancient History Stanford University

   Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo Cambridge University Press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge  , United Kingdom Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521819244 © Cambridge University Press 2003 This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provision of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published in print format 2003 - isbn-13 978-0-511-06999-4 eBook (EBL) - isbn-10 0-511-06999-5 eBook (EBL) - isbn-13 978-0-521-81924-4 hardback - isbn-10 0-521-81924-5 hardback

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of s for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

To the memory of Professor George R. Hughes (1907–1992) and Professor Klaus Baer (1930–1987)

v

Contents

List of maps, figures and tables Preface Abbreviations Units of measure Maps pa rt i

page viii x xv xviii xix

i s s u e s a n d h i s to r i c a l b ac kg ro u n d

1

Issues and methodologies

2

The Ptolemaic state and its antecedents

pa rt i i

3 27

re g i o n a l c a s e s t u d i e s o f l a n d t e n u re

3

The land tenure regime in Upper Egypt

65

4

The land tenure regime in the Fayyum depression

99

pa rt i i i 5

i n t e r p re tat i o n

The Ptolemaic state, the land tenure regime, and economic power

129

6

The private transmission of land

182

7

Conclusions

226

Appendix 1 Translation of the Edfu donation text Appendix 2 Ptolemaic demotic land transfers from Upper Egypt Appendix 3 Translation of P. Amh. gr. 49 List of references Index of sources General index vii

245 267 277 279 325 329

List of maps, figures and tables

maps 1 Map of Egypt during the Ptolemaic period 2 Map of the Fayyum during the Ptolemaic period

page xx xxi

f igures 1 Graph depicting the number of datable Greek texts by half century for the Ptolemaic period 2 Graph depicting the maximum and minimum Nile discharge at Aswan over the course of a year, from January to December 1871–1965 ce 3 Graph depicting hypothetical demographic development in ancient Egypt 4 The percentage of land in total arouras held by the Temple of Horus at Edfu by nome 5 The general situation of the land in the Hauswaldt conveyances 6 A generalized model of the social structure of agrarian states (from Gellner 1983: 9) 7 A revised model of the social structure of the early Ptolemaic state 8 Upper Egyptian demotic conveyances of land by site 9 Upper Egyptian demotic conveyances of land by date 10 The size of holdings in demotic conveyances 11 The long-term trend in witness-copy documents, from the seventh to the second century bce

viii

17 29 48 78 80 132 133 207 208 208 214

List of maps, figures and tables

ix

tables 1 An outline of Ptolemaic political history (the “Polybius” model) 2 Summary of the land holdings of the endowment of the Temple of Horus at Edfu 3 Composition of the P.Hausw. family archive 4 Real estate conveyed by Hor to his son Abaa 5 Other real property conveyed by Hor to his son Abaa 6 The four sources of social power in Ptolemaic Egypt and the documentary evidence for them 7 Ptolemaic officials involved in the Senpoeris affair 8 Documented rural uprisings in the Ptolemaic period 9 The evolution of Upper Egyptian demotic contracts under the Ptolemies 10 Family property of a priest from Asyut, mid second century bce 11 The number of Upper Egyptian demotic conveyances of land by size of plot 12 The number of Ptolemaic demotic contracts of sale from Upper Egypt by type of property 13 The number of witness-copy texts by site and date

45 75 82 91 91 134 156 164 174 203 210 210 213

Preface

This book has its origins in a time and place far from where I am now sitting. Yet despite those distances, these origins seem very close in my memory. My interest in demotic papyri was fired when, as a young high school student, I visited the office of Professor George Hughes at the Oriental Institute in Chicago. It was a “Members’ Day,” a time when faculty opened their offices to the public. I entered the interesting-looking office of Professor Hughes, a warm and kind man as I quickly discovered, who showed such exuberance for his work. He took me over to a table where a demotic papyrus was laid out, and he explained that it was a house sale contract dating from the Ptolemaic period from a place called Hawara, and he began to translate the document. I was hooked for life on demotic legal papyri. It has often been a criticism of the documentary papyri that the texts proffer only local or, more biting, merely parochial evidence. Perhaps true. But history is a composite of local histories, and in the new regime of the Ptolemies, local village-based social networks continued to be a factor in, and at times a focus of resistance against, the new economic realities of the Hellenistic world. For Greek-based Classical historians, the history of the Hellenistic world has been the study of the triumph of Greeks and Greek culture in the “East.” For Egyptologists and demotists who focus on the language of Egypt at the time, the continuity of Egyptian culture is stressed. The demotic texts often, it seems, reveal a different world than the Greek papyri, more remote in time and place from the center of history, but this apparent difference can be misleading. The use of documents from Hellenistic Egypt requires more subtlety, and at the same time a broader context in which to understand them. The supremacy of the text, establishing new text editions and improving old ones, has been the mainstay of both Egyptology and papyrology, the science upon which most historical studies have been based for Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt. And up until very recently the fields of Greek and demotic papyrology have intersected only tangentially. The larger fields of Classics, x

Preface

xi

Egyptology and Ancient History (most often contained within Classics departments in American universities, if at all) have only begrudgingly acknowledged each others’ existence, let alone importance, on account of the growth of what one recent scholar has called “disciplinary professionalization” (Gaddis 1997: 75). This book, then, is unusual in that it attempts to synthesize the documentary evidence for land tenure and its administration. I have by no means taken account of all of the Ptolemaic papyri and ostraca, but I hope to have treated enough of them to establish a case study of the history of Ptolemaic institutions concerned with land. What I hope to gain by this more generalizing historical analysis is clarity in the concept of power as it is applied to Ptolemaic Egypt. I have two main goals in this book. The first is to provide historians with what one of my colleagues at Stanford, Professor Michael Jameson, has called a “roadmap” of the documents for Ptolemaic land tenure. The second and more important goal, I think, is to show what great historical value there is in using the demotic Egyptian evidence to help in understanding the development of the Ptolemaic state and the complexities of its economic structure. It has been remarked by very good scholars that the time is not yet ripe to attempt synthetic history using the papyri; far more work remains to be done at the level of text editing (and re-editing), archival analysis, and prosopography. In part this book is a response to this, while at the same time it concurs with the belief that much basic work remains to be done, and new texts and other scholars will come along to refine, or refute my thesis. While any synthetic account using this complex material, written in Greek and demotic, on papyri and on ostraca, in hieroglyphic temple inscriptions and on stelae, must take leaps of faith, and is always subject to revision, I believe that such risks are important. For in order to understand any document, whether it is one isolated text, or an archive of hundreds of documents, one must have a conception of the historical context as well as an idea of the structure of the state. In this respect, I believe it is necessary to make explicit exactly what the set of questions are by the use of more general, theoretical considerations. Any work in papyrology, whether it is text edition or a historical interpretation, relies on the very careful work of many other scholars who have sifted through texts in museums and libraries, and have painstakingly produced reliable text editions. Papyrologists are cautious by training, and often by nature. Many will, perhaps, shriek at a book that works at too high a level of generality and abstraction. In the end what I hope to accomplish in this study is the setting of a social and economic framework

xii

Preface

within which to discuss the papyri and ostraca, both Greek and Egyptian, and the evolution of Ptolemaic institutions. I am then practicing what Professor Bruce Frier (1989) has called the “new papyrology,” and I hope that this study provides a more global context for the Ptolemaic papyri and ostraca. Demotic and Greek papyrology, both fields I admire greatly, are concerned with careful editions and re-editions of collections of texts, either organized around an archive or a corpus of a particular type of text. The historian’s task, explaining change over time, is different. The papyrological historian is faced with considerable challenges because there are vast gaps in the survival of the documents, and of course there is the matter of the amount of transactions which were never written down in the first place. I am not, therefore, covering all areas and all aspects of land tenure. The lacunae will be filled in part by forthcoming studies. But not even the use of every single source would cover all aspects of the economics and law of land tenure in the Ptolemaic period. Instead of attempting a comprehensive survey I shall aim rather at explaining historical change, using a combination of documentary evidence and theory. I first began to think about the issue of state power and land tenure when I presented a précis of my thesis in a seminar in the Workshop for Ancient Societies organized by Professors Richard Saller and Martha Roth, both of the University of Chicago. I am grateful to both of these scholars for allowing me these first public steps. I am also very grateful to Professor Janet Johnson of the Oriental Institute in Chicago who gave me access to the files of the Chicago Demotic Dictionary Project and provided continued support as well. Several of the chapters or parts of chapters in this book began life as papers presented to conferences at Vogüe, France, and the Universities of Tübingen, Oxford, and Stanford, and at the International Congress of Papyrology in Florence. I am very grateful to the many comments and criticisms I have received over the years. I am also indebted to the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, which named me a National Fellow in 2000–2001, and to Tom Henriksen, the Associate Director, for his many kindnesses and support. This fellowship year allowed me time and very comfortable surroundings in which to rewrite parts of the final version of this book. My many friends at Stanford, including those in the very supportive environment that is the Department of Classics, were unflagging in their support and willingness to listen to my ideas, and to offer gentle criticisms. Professor Steve Haber, and others associated with the Social Science History Institute at Stanford, especially Professors Avner Greif and

Preface

xiii

Barry Weingast, have been collegial and supportive far beyond the academic norm. I owe personal debts to many people for their comments, advice and support. The following listing of those to whom I am most in debt serves as a down payment, but they are debts which I shall not be able to repay fully: Roger Bagnall, Peter Bedford, Alan Bowman, Stanley Burstein, Willy Clarysse, Karil Dobrovolsky, Steve Haber, Ann Hanson, Jim Keenan, Dennis Kehoe, Richard Martin, Ian Morris, Dominic Rathbone, Jane Rowlandson, Dorothy Thompson, Chris and Mayumi Walton, Jerry and Yae-Joong Watkins, Barry Weingast, and Terry Wilfong. I am especially grateful to Willy Clarysse and Dorothy Thompson who made available to me the manuscript of their forthcoming study of the Ptolemaic census. Willy Clarysse and Katelijn Vandorpe have hosted me on several occasions on my eagerly anticipated trips to Leuven. It is an exceptional place, and justifiably regarded as the center of Ptolemaic studies: the scholars in the Ancient History section have made it a most stimulating and enjoyable place in which to work and think. In the department of Classics at Stanford University, I thank the outgoing Chair Susan Stephens. I benefited from a year’s leave at the Stanford Humanities Center in 1998–99 and learned much while I was a fellow there. I’d like to thank Professor Keith Baker, at that time the Director of the Center, for his sage advice, and Dr. Suzie Dunn the Associate Director for her support. I am also grateful to my friend Dr. Thorolf Christensen for making available his transcription of P. Haun 407, and for recently sending to me his completed Cambridge University Ph.D. thesis on this important text. The wonderful discussions of this text in Leuven in the summer of 2000 made possible by Willy Clarysse and Katelijn Vandorpe were most helpful, and very memorable. I have tried to signal where this text has altered our picture of land tenure in the Edfu nome, but I leave the most significant conclusions of this text to its editor. I am also in the debt of Dr. Csaba La’da who kindly made available to me his Cambridge University Ph.D. dissertation. Professor Alan Lloyd graciously sent to me some of his forthcoming work, and I thank him very much for so doing. Dr. Michael Sharp of the Cambridge University Press has been wonderful seeing this book through the press, and the anonymous readers for the press have all added important comments and corrections, and have saved me from more than one howler. The final product, of course, is my own responsibility. And, finally, I am grateful for the wisdom of a man whom I have never met but whose writings have inspired me, President Daisaku Ikeda of the Soka Gakkai International in Tokyo, Japan.

xiv

Preface

As I approached the end of this project, I have been reminded of the words of Robert Louis Stevenson, from the preface to his wonderful little book Travels with a donkey in the Cévennes: “Every book is, in an intimate sense, a circular letter to the friends of him who writes it. They alone take his meaning; they find private messages, assurances of love, and expressions of gratitude dropped for them in every corner.” Indeed. This is especially true for those closest to me, my parents and Angela. I shall conclude where I began my interest in demotic legal papyri, and dedicate this study to the memory of two professors at the Oriental Institute in the University of Chicago, Professor George Robert Hughes, and Professor Klaus Baer. From both men I learned much, and both are still much loved and sorely missed by me and by others who had the good fortune to know, and to learn from, these generous and gentle scholars.

Abbreviations and papyrus editions

References to Greek and demotic papyri and ostraca follow the conventions in J. F. Oates et al., Checklist of editions of Greek, Latin, Demotic and Coptic papyri, ostraca and tablets. Fifth edition. Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists, Supplement 9. 2001. Exceptions are listed below. References to classical and other sources follow the system of abbreviations in The Oxford Classical Dictionary, 3rd edn., ed. Simon Hornblower and Antony Spawforth. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996. Exceptions are listed below. periodicals, series and general abbreviat ions Crum DELC dem. Description DN Edfou Eg. FGH Gr. JdE O OGIS i–ii

W. E. Crum, A Coptic dictionary. Oxford: Clarendon Press. W. Vycichl, Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue copte. Leuven: Peeters, 1983. demotic ´ Description de l’Egypte. Paris, 1809–1829. Demotisches Namenbuch 1–16. Würzburg, 1980– E. Chassinat and M. de Rochemonteix, Le temple d’Edfou, 14 vols. Paris: Leroux, 1897–1934. Egyptian F. Jacoby, Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker. Berlin, 1923–58. Greek Egyptian Museum, Cairo. Journal d’entrée. Ostracon W. Dittenberger, Orientis Graeci inscriptiones selectae. Leipzig, 1903. xv

xvi

Abbreviations P PM

PP S SAOC SB SEG TT

Papyrus Topographical bibliography of ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic texts, reliefs, and paintings, by Bertha Porter and Rosalind L. B. Moss, assisted by Ethel W. Burney. 2nd edn. Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1960: 7 vols. Prosopographia Ptolemaica. Leuven. Stela Studies in ancient oriental civilization. Chicago. ¨ Sammelbuch griechischer Urkunden aus Agypten, i–xvi, 1913–88. Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum, vols. 1–25 (Leiden 1923–71), vols. 26 – (Amsterdam 1979– ). Theban tomb number, cited according to the catalogue in PM.

m onographs and tex t ed itions ¨ BGU Agyptische Urkunden aus den königlichen Museen zu Berlin, Griechische Urkunden. Berlin. P. BMFA Papyrus Boston Museum of Fine Arts. See Parker 1964. P. Cairo II Wilhelm Spiegelberg, Die demotischen Denkmäler, ii. Die demotischen papyrus 30601–31270. 50001–50022. Leipzig: W. Drugulin, 1980. CD Walter Crum, A Coptic Dictionary. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1939. C. Ord. Ptol. Corpus des Ordonnances des Ptolémées (C.Ord. Ptol.), ed. Lenger, Marie-Thérèse. Classe des Lettres et des Sciences morales et politiques, Mémoires, vol. 57. Brussels: Académie royale de Belgique, 1964. DPB Demotische Papyri zu Berlin. W. Chrest. Wilcken and Mitteis, Chrestomathie. EG Wolja Erichsen, Demotisches Glossar. Copenhagen: Munksgaard, 1954. P. BM Thompson = Herbert Thompson 1934. P. Survey = Pestman 1993. Select Papyri i Non-literary Papyri. Private Affairs. Trans. A. S. Hunt and C. C. Edgar.

Abbreviations Select Papyri ii Sinuri i Urk. ii

xvii

Official Documents. Trans. A. S. Hunt and C. C. Edgar. L. Robert, Le sanctuaire de Sinuri près de Mylasa, vol. i. Les Inscriptions grecques. Paris, 1945. Kurt Sethe, Hieroglyphische Urkunden der Griechisch-Römischen Zeit. Leipzig, 1904.

Units of measure

one aroura (dem. st ) = 100 × 100 cubits (pecheis) ¯ 2 = 2756.25 m = 0.68 acres = 0.275 hectares one ground cubit (dem. mh. – ıtn) = 27.5 m2 (1/100th aroura) one schoinion (dem. h – nh.) = 52.5 m one artaba = normally ca. 40 liters

xviii

Maps

xx

Maps

Map 1. Map of Egypt during the Ptolemaic period

Map 2. Map of the Fayyum during the Ptolemaic period

pa rt i

Issues and historical background

chap t e r 1


Countless lands and tribes of mankind without number raise crops that ripen under Zeus’ beneficent rain, but no land is as fertile as the lowland of Egypt, where the Nile, overflowing, soaks and breaks up the clods. Nor is there a country with so many cities of men skilled in labor; three hundred cities have been established within it, three thousand and three times nine more, and Ptolemy rules as king over them all. Theocritus, Idyll 17

In the Near East and Egypt, irrigation gave the entire economy of these areas a very specific character in historical times. Weber 1998 [1909]: 38

ptolemaic egypt This book is about land tenure and the structure of the Ptolemaic state (332 bce–30 bce). The taxation from agricultural production was an important element of Ptolemaic wealth – a common theme in Hellenistic literature – and the assignment and use of land was the primary method of establishing rents (i.e. income) for the bureaucratic, temple, and military hierarchy. The relationship of the ruler to the elite constituencies and to the local population is one of the key subjects in Hellenistic history, for which Ptolemaic Egypt provides important evidence. A study of the organization of land tenure, therefore, raises questions about the nature of social power in the state, and the economic structure of the land tenure regime.1 Most models of the Ptolemaic state have assumed that it was a highly centralized, rational bureaucratic state imposed on a passive rural peasantry. This “strong state model,” with its usual assumptions of ownership of all resources by 1

The evidence from the Ptolemaic period has also been used in discussion of earlier Egyptian evidence, and understanding the Ptolemaic state has important implications for the earlier history of the state, but that subject is strictly not germane to this study. See most recently on the New Kingdom state Warburton 1997.

3

4


the ruler, has been extended in some analyses of the Ptolemaic state to a point where it was “the most thoroughgoing system of state nationalisation known prior to the twentieth century.”2 The economic system was so efficient (not defined in economic terms but relative to previous regimes), the taxation system so confiscatory, it has been suggested recently, that it caused a social “explosion” in the 240s bce.3 Another important element of this model is the generally accepted view that concomitant with the increasing weakness of the rulers, there was an erosion of central control of land and a growth in private property. I shall argue against these views in this book. The Ptolemaic takeover of Egypt kept the underlying economic structure intact. One of the features of this economic structure was the private holding and conveying of land. The decline in the power of the ruler merely separated him from this local economic structure. As long ago as Claire Préaux’s classic study of the Ptolemaic economy, which served to popularize the concept of the “économie royale,” it has been recognized that in terms of power over land, the Ptolemaic state did not assert uniform control, the economy was not centrally planned, and the countryside was not passive.4 More recent opinion, based on closer reading of the Greek documentary evidence, has questioned the basic assumption of strong centralization, and has stressed the ad hoc and adaptive character of the regime. But a model of the structure of the state must be reconciled with all of the documentary evidence, both Egyptian and Greek, and must take into account the complexities of the economic institutions within the state. My aim in this book is to examine the evidence in terms of the social power and the institutions of the period, to examine a wide range of documentation from two contrasting regions, and to bring the state “back in.”5 The Ptolemaic takeover of Egypt, initiated in the wake of Alexander’s conquest of the East, was, at the beginning, an imposition of military power on an ancient agrarian economy that had previously been a part of the Persian empire. It eventually imposed a new bureaucratic structure, and a revenue economy characterized by an emphasis on the production of wheat, more efficient methods of taxation, the use of coinage, and the 2

3 4 5

Tarn and Griffith 1952: 178. The absence of private property has been a hallmark of Marxist analysis. See e.g. Kiernan 1976: 381–82. Cf. Powelson 1988: 20–21, essentially following this strong state model. The strong state hypothesis is still supported by some scholars by appeal to the sovereign power of the king as the basis for property rights. See inter alia Mélèze-Modrzejewski 1979b; Anagnostou-Canas 1994, and further below, Chapters five and six. Turner 1984: 159. Cf. Green 1990: 191–94. Préaux 1939: 460–63. Previous views of this economy are discussed below, pp. 21–24, and Chapter five, pp. 140–46. Skocpol 1985.


5

use of intermediaries who guaranteed the collection of revenue. An examination of the extensive documentary record within the context of a theory of the state is crucial to understanding this new structure and how it evolved. Ptolemaic control of Egypt raises issues about the nature of ancient colonialism, but the social dynamics have often been compared to more recent forms of colonialism. One of the more frequent invocations has been to the British Raj, but this comparison to a modern nation-state’s experience is too imprecise for analyzing an ancient state.6 Hellenistic “colonial power” was on a different order of magnitude, was much more about new state formation, and involved, consequently, a closer alliance between the old elite (and their institutions) and the new political power than did nineteenthcentury nation-state colonialism.7 This is a radically different view than those that regarded Greek imperial power and the spread of Greek culture as the only feature worth discussing in the Hellenistic world.8 The Ptolemaic regime has often been regarded as the first time that “European colonizers” intervened in the economic organization of Egypt.9 A comparison with the reign of Mohammed Ali (1805–1848 ce) has been implicitly invoked.10 But however we couch Ptolemaic history, it was, indeed, the most impressive intervention in the Egyptian agricultural economy until the introduction of perennial irrigation and the mercantilist policies of the nineteenth century. The two periods were times in which outside intervention in the land tenure regime altered the course of economic development.11 In both cases, too, the central state had to contend with the diffused economic structure of Egypt centered on local control of irrigation networks. The scale of trade, however, the degree of monetization, and the amount of agricultural surplus produced for external markets differentiate the two cases. Irrigation technology, and the increase in perennial irrigation were also decisive factors in altering the structures of power under Mohammed Ali. In the Ptolemaic case, the power of the monarch to effect organization was more limited. It was local state agents, not the monarch alone as the “Oriental despotism” model (or “strong state” model) implies, who also 6

7 8 10 11

On the Raj parallels, see e.g. Green 1990: passim. Cf. Morony 1984: 12–13 and his cautious remarks. For insights into some of the differences between modern nation-state colonialism and ancient colonial power, see Mitchell 1988. On a critique of the Ptolemaic colonial model in general, see Bagnall 1997a. On colonialism in a Seleucid context, see Sherwin-White and Kuhrt 1993: 141–87. 9 Anagnostou-Canas 1994: 355. Cf. Sherwin-White and Kuhrt 1993: 141–42. For an excellent account of Mohammed Ali’s reforms, see Marsot 1984; Cuno 1992: 103–97. For a long-term account of Egyptian agricultural history, see Bowman and Rogan 1999.

6


effected institutional change.12 In other words, as I will argue in Chapter five, it was the power of local social networks organized around the diffused economic structures of the “customary” economy that was decisive in the development of the Ptolemaic state.13 The ability of the local elite to adapt to the new conditions was an important factor in the development of the Ptolemaic state. These local elites were Egyptians as well as Greeks and others, they are well documented in the private archives, and they are an important reminder that we can no longer divide the Hellenistic world into Greek colonizers and “native” oppressed. Here is a clear contrast between an ancient state and a modern nation-state, and the main reason why theories coming from the nation-state experience should be used cautiously. New populations and new economic institutions were certainly introduced by the Ptolemies, but Egypt’s ancient economic structure – the temples, their priesthoods and rituals, the right of private holding and conveyance of land, the Egyptian scribal and legal traditions – were all maintained.14 This mixture of new Greek and ancient Egyptian institutions gave rise to a distinctive administrative culture that at the end of the period allowed local elites to emerge, and explains the evolution of the regime, as well as some of its decentralized tendencies. I shall explore both of these issues, and I shall question the appropriateness of the “colonial” model, which as usually specified is far too vague and does not describe the relationships of social power adequately enough, in part three of this book. The core of the book is concerned with the land tenure regime in the two regions of the country that have left us the vast bulk of the documentary material from the period, the Fayyum and the Thebaid. I intend this book, in a sense, to serve as an introduction to the history of the Ptolemaic state, to its economic organization, and to the nature of its economic power. Like John W. Hall’s study of Japan, it adopts first of all a regional approach to Egyptian history.15 By surveying the two best-documented regions of Egypt, I seek, in the end, to provide a prolegomenon to the study of the Ptolemaic economy, the relationship of regions and villages to the Ptolemaic state, and to Ptolemaic institutions. It is this last point, the understanding of its institutions, that is the key to any assessment of the Ptolemaic economy. And it is against the backdrop of pre-Ptolemaic Egypt that one can best 12 13 14 15

On Oriental despotism, see below, Chapter five, p. 158. On the concept of “customary” economy, see below, Chapter two, p. 49. Préaux 1984. John A. Hall 1966. For this approach for the Hellenistic world, see above all Reger 1994. The documents of course tend to force one to focus on one area of Egypt, the Fayyum, but there are sound reasons to study Egyptian agriculture regionally as Crawford suggested in the epigraph of Chapter two. On the emphasis on the Fayyum, see further below, p. 12.


7

understand socio-economic continuity, the evolution of state institutions concerned with land, and Ptolemaic state formation. My focus is on the structure of the state, and on the value of demotic Egyptian documentation for the study of the administration of land. There is much more work to be done to complete the picture of the Ptolemaic state’s relationship to the land, and on economic performance, and I hope to return to this subject again. Whereas most historical studies have focused on the Greek documentation from the Fayyum, I shall examine the period from the point of view of long-term Egyptian history, and primarily through the lens of the demotic Egyptian documentation from the Thebaid, that part of the Nile valley in Upper Egypt from Aswan down to about Abydos. This demotic evidence has not been fully brought to bear on general discussions of the Ptolemaic state or its economy, yet it is crucial in the reconstruction of land holding patterns, in analyzing local economies, and for the study of Egyptian families – the vast majority of the population – and their relationship to the land.16 It is also vitally important documentation for the study of institutional change in the period. The combination of the Greek administrative papyri with the demotic documentation from Upper Egypt offers two different and complementary views on the structure of the Ptolemaic state and its evolution. The central contrast that I will draw is between the Thebaid, a region that received considerable attention but in which the ancient land tenure arrangements continued even as new populations settled in the area, and the Fayyum depression, a new area developed by the Ptolemaic kings. The impression formed by a reading of the Greek or the demotic material alone tends to exaggerate the differences between the two regions, but the ancient institutional arrangements on the land in the Thebaid nevertheless distinguish it from the Fayyum, where the ruler asserted direct control over a large percentage of the land by establishing tenure conditions. The analysis of the two areas, of course, leaves important areas such as the Delta entirely out of the analysis, but the contrast will be enough, I think, to draw a completely new picture of the structure of the Ptolemaic state, its economy, and its historical development. I will also not discuss here Alexandria or Memphis. These two cities were the largest urban areas of the period, the former being the new capital of the regime, the latter being the ancient Egyptian capital and the home to the influential priesthood 16

Admittedly most, but not all, of the private demotic evidence, especially the private legal instruments, document various classes of priests, while much of the rural population is undocumented.

8


of Ptah whose close connection to the Ptolemies formed one of the most important political links between the Greek rulers and the ancient Egyptian elite.17 In both of these cases, however, we do not have much information about how land tenure was organized, although in the case of Memphis there was a clear connection between the city and the Fayyum.18 I also leave out a detailed analysis of the important evidence for land tenure from the Herakleopolite and Oxyrhynchite nomes.19 Both groups of texts show the great importance of military settlement, but there are considerable problems in the paleography and interpretation of the later documentation from these areas.20 Leaving these gaps aside, a careful analysis of the documentation from the Fayyum and the Thebaid helps to explain the structure and the pace of the development of the state as well as the role of agency within it. The analysis of the documentation within a regional framework is in part dictated by the survival of the documents, but such an approach yields a better, dynamic model of institutional change. A major challenge for the Ptolemies, as for other Hellenistic states, was their relationship to the ancient institutional structure with which they had to contend. The assertion of power was no “revolution from above.”21 Rather, the transition to Ptolemaic rule was slow, and the imposition of new economic institutions was marked by accommodation, and the use of ancient institutional structures, but also rural unrest and, in some places, outright resistance. But Ptolemaic administrative structure certainly altered the path of institutional development, at the same time as it used old institutional frameworks where they existed. As one historian has stressed, we are dealing not so much with a “radical change” in the economy as with “its partial improvement and its systematic organization.”22 Within the general context of institutional change, the transformation in Ptolemaic Egypt was “incremental” rather than “discontinuous,”23 and in many ways was a continuation of earlier pharaonic development of irrigation and agriculture. The socio-economic structure of Ptolemaic Egypt must be understood in the light of the changes brought by the Saite restoration (664–525 bce) 17 18 19 20 21 23

For Ptolemaic Alexandria see Fraser 1972; and for Memphis, see the excellent study by Thompson 1988. It is certainly clear with the town of Philadelphia and the Zenon archive in the third century bce. See Thompson 1988: 40–41; Clarysse 1980a. For the Zenon archive, see further below, Chapter four. Principally P. Hib. i and ii, BGU xiv. See the important study of Bingen 1978 on leases from the Oxyrhynchite nome, and the general survey of texts from the Herakleopolite nome by Falivene 1998. 22 Rostovtzeff 1941: 1197. Trimberger 1978. North 1990: 6. Cf. Chaudhuri 1990: 256–57. On the pharaonic development and extension of Egyptian irrigation and agriculture, see Eyre 1994b.


9

and the Persian imperial administration (525–332 bce). These incremental changes in the institutional framework can be clearly observed in the Egyptian papyri from Upper Egypt. Importantly, too, these local land tenure records do not suggest the slow, steady administrative decline after the reign of Ptolemy III that is the prevalent view of the period. Indeed the opposite is true. A careful examination of these documentary records of land tenure and taxation suggests that the central state and the bureaucratic structure should be carefully distinguished.24 issues and method ologies This study focuses in particular on the economic organization of land tenure, and the social relationships that formed around this organization. I ask two interrelated questions relevant to the larger issue of state structure: (1) what was the relationship between central and local economic institutions? (2) how did the power of the Ptolemaic state affect the organization of land tenure? Both questions center on the issue of state organization and power, and specifically on one aspect of power, what I, following Weber, will call economic power.25 In the examination of economic power (or “economic strength” to use Rostovzteff ’s phrase), and the social relationships that were centered around land holding, we can identify more precisely the effectiveness of the state in controlling local economic resources that is the basis of the economic power of any agrarian state. While Ptolemaic power has been discussed in various studies, none have carefully distinguished the different sources of social power and the social networks created by each type of power source.26 The analysis of economic power can be clarified by examining Michael Mann’s IEMP model, which is in its essence a summation of much general thinking in historical sociology beginning with the important work of Max Weber. Mann identified four distinct but overlapping “organized power networks” in human societies: ideological, economic, military, and political.27 One problem with this approach, of course, is the degree of 24 25 26 27

Cf. Samuel 1989. Translating Weber’s term “Verfügungsgewalt.” See Granovetter and Swedberg 1992: 8. On cultural power under the Ptolemies, see Erskine 1995. Mann 1986. Totman 1993: 15 assumes the same basic structure: “the superordinate few in any society can be viewed as a tripartite elite: those whose privileges are sustained by the force of their ideas, those who rely on politico-military might, and those who use economic power.” Like Totman, John A. Hall 1986: 19 distinguished three sources of power, placing military power under the heading of political power, and using the comparative case of gunpowder in Europe and China to account for the fact that political power was the determining factor in the impact of the new military technology

10


overlap between these power sources. Be that as it may, though, the distinction is useful in thinking about the important differences between the ideology or display of power, the use of military power to hold territory, and the use of local social networks bound to state structures to extract surplus. Economic power is defined by Mann as the “social organization of the extraction, transformation, distribution, and consumption of the objects of nature.”28 It has two distinct components, one local, which is the social organization centered around these activities, groupings of which are termed classes, which in turn gives rise to the other component, a dominant group or class who are able to “monopolize control over production, distribution, exchange and consumption.”29 As formulated by Mann, economic power is by its nature diffuse and not easily controlled from the center. As in any agrarian economy, but particularly in Egypt in which production was organized in a diffuse irrigation network, the state economic organization was decentralized.30 One crude but important measure of economic power of any state is its long-term ability to tax the countryside, what Totman called “durable methods of taxation.”31 Bringing this concept of economic power to the study of the Ptolemaic state, and emphasizing social networks and the local character of Egypt’s economic organization, creates a richer context for the study of the documentation, and highlights the strategy that the rulers adopted to control Egypt. But it was the links between the local and the central institutions that determined a state’s economic power, and understanding how local economies were linked to the central state requires a model of the state. I adopt in this book North’s neo-classical theory of the state.32 This theory posits that there was a contract between the ruler and the constituencies within the state.33 The ruler exchanges protection and justice for revenue in a system that maximizes revenue for the ruler. Property rights are specified to guarantee maximum revenue, or “monopoly rents,” but the property rights structure tends to benefit local constituencies (in order to maintain stability for the ruler), creating inefficiencies that will add costs to the state.

28 29 32 33

on Europe and not on China. An extensive, Marxist critique of Mann’s theory of the state may be found in Haldon 1993, and a critique on his “Eurocentric” approach may be found in Blaut 2000. My own interest here is in discussing social networks rather than Mann’s “march of history.” Mann 1986: 24. This definition tracks fairly closely Weber’s “control over economic goods” discussed by Swedberg 1998: 220–21. 30 Cf. the comments by Ades and Glaeser 1995: 198. 31 Totman 1993: 15. Mann 1986: 24. See further North 1981: 20–32; Furubotn and Richter 2000: 254–57, with the literature cited there. On institutions and economic analysis, see also Cohen 1996. Good examples of this contract are found in the decrees that emanated from the priestly synods, on which see below, Chapter two, pp. 45–46.


11

Because revenue is collected by state agents, principal-agent problems arise, exacerbated by asymmetric flow of information to the center, which creates uncertainty and higher enforcement costs. The social and cultural isolation between the elite and the agricultural producers observed in all pre-modern agrarian states adds another dimension to the general problem of loyalty and compliance.34 A better understanding of social networks helps place into perspective how the Ptolemaic state extracted the surplus (i.e. taxes) from locally organized land tenure regimes. This required negotiation as well as coercion. The neo-classical theory of the state helps in understanding the relationships of power between the Ptolemies and the rights to land established by the state. The proper context in which to analyze the economic transactions of land sales and leases preserved in the papyri has not been addressed. Moses Finley, and those who followed him, argued that modern economic theory was inappropriate for the analysis of the ancient economy. Rather, Finley focused his Weberian analysis on what he considered the most crucial aspect of the economy of Graeco-Roman antiquity, social status.35 Finley, of course, was correct in understanding what Granovetter and Swedberg later observed was the false dichotomy of the “separation between what is ‘economic’ and what is ‘social’.”36 But Finley, in his generalizing arguments intending to contrast the ancient world with the medieval European and modern economic systems, excluded the economies of the Near East and Egypt for the wrong reasons. Their exclusion was defended on the basis that Egyptian and Near Eastern economies were oriented not around private property and markets but by a state-dominated redistributive economic system with virtual monopoly power by the state and its organs on production and trade.37 Such views overestimate the capacity of state power and underestimate private property and the function of markets in Egypt. The Greek and demotic papyri (and ostraca) present a challenge to Finley’s model, providing as they do in far more detail than elsewhere in the ancient world evidence for private contracting, for property rights, for private gain, and for economic institutions. Whether there was real economic growth or not, the range and quality of this evidence calls for a more sophisticated analysis of institutions, which leads naturally to the new school of economic thought known as New Institutional Economics.38 34 36 38

35 Finley 1999. See Morris 2002: 27–30. See below, Chapter five, p. 132. 37 Finley 1999: 28. Granovetter and Swedberg 1992: 1. North 1990; Furubotn and Richter 2000. For a critique of New Institutional Economics, see Rutherford 1994.

12


The economic analysis of institutions (incentive structures, or “the rules of the game”39 and the way in which they affect economic performance) is the core agenda of this branch of economics, established in an effort to move away from highly abstract neo-classical economics models that ignore institutional constraints and transaction costs, toward a more robust model of economic change that takes into account specific historical case studies, individual actors and the role of institutions. The emphasis is on institutional change, not on economic growth, the criterion that has often allowed economists to dismiss the ancient world entirely. An analytical framework, thus, can be established which will set into a richer context of the state the complex and often discontinuous documentation of the papyri, can contextualize the relationship between old and new institutions, and will bring the ancient state back into more general discussions within economic history. The fields of Greek and demotic Egyptian papyrology have dominated Ptolemaic history. The large number of documentary texts provides the best primary documentation for the socio-economic history of the ancient world. Reliable text editions and sound historical analysis have been produced by both fields, but they have often worked in isolation. Many of the demotic Egyptian documents for land tenure that I will focus on in Chapters three and six have been well known since the accounts of the Ptolemaic economy by Préaux (1939) and Rostovtzeff (1941), but they have not been systematically brought into a discussion of Egyptian land tenure patterns or of the development of the Ptolemaic state. Setting the complex documentation within an analytic framework of the state is the main goal of this book. Historical studies of the period, indeed, have focused on the Greek evidence from the Fayyum and have emphasized the role of the state in the agrarian economy. But the demotic documentation as a whole offers the possibility of studying the socio-economic conditions of Egyptians and temple dependents in the south, and the relationship between central and local institutions, and between the state and the individual. The important work of Bingen, Clarysse, Thompson and Verhoogt, among others, has placed the history of the Fayyum and the organization of Ptolemaic administration in that region on a much firmer footing. The demotic documentary evidence shows how the Ptolemaic state functioned in the South. Combining the Greek and the demotic evidence, furthermore, distinguishes more clearly the relationship between the new Ptolemaic and the ancient land tenure 39

North 1990: 3–4.


13

institutions, the social relationships of land tenure, and the institutional differences between the Fayyum and the Thebaid. sources for ptolemaic agrarian history and the limits of interpretation 4 0 Ptolemaic agrarian history must be reconstructed on the basis of the documentary record. There are few contemporary ancient narrative sources apart from the tangential pieces of information provided by Diodorus Siculus for the late fourth century bce, and Polybius; we have no imperial annals as with contemporary Han China, and we have no farming manuals.41 Fortunately, the documentary record compared to earlier Egyptian history is both extensive and rich in information. We are, by the time of the beginning of the Ptolemaic period, in a world used to a bureaucratic hierarchy, the registration of property, the use of written legal agreements, administrative correspondence and the like. The demotic tradition of private legal agreements began in the seventh century bce.42 If the survival of the documents is any indication, the bureaucracy also generated much more “paperwork” (including tax receipts written on ostraca) than previous regimes.43 The agricultural history of the Ptolemies is, therefore, documented on many levels in both the Greek and the demotic Egyptian sources.44 The texts record, on one hand, the financing of the state – the survey, registration, public auction, and taxation of land; and, on the other hand, the conditions of tenure – private sale, mortgage, lease, and inheritance of land. The information over the entire period is, however, discontinuous, and is weighted toward rural villages, and especially toward the Greek papyri from cemeteries at the edges of the Fayyum. The texts, then, differ from the Roman period Oxyrhynchus material that comes from an urban environment and documents the social relationships between town 40 41 42 43 44

Earlier summaries of the documentary sources for Ptolemaic Egypt may be found in Préaux 1939: 9–23; Préaux 1978: vol. i, 77–112; Bagnall 1982. The Greek farming manuals may have influenced some of the farming techniques. So Rostovtzeff 1922: 96 (with respect to vineyards). Cf. Thompson 1984. On demotic, see further below, Chapter five, pp. 173–77. For the relationship of the Ptolemaic bureaucratic structure to the generation of texts, see P. UPZ 14. For a good list of Greek papyrological sources, see Rupprecht 1994b; a preliminary survey of documentary archives is available at http://lhpc.arts.kuleuven.ac.be, and briefly in Clarysse and Verreth 2000. For a general survey of demotic sources, consult Depauw 1997. The list of demotic papyri by Lüddeckens 1982 is now slightly out of date. For demotic ostraca, see the excellent bibliographies in Devauchelle 1983 and Vleeming 1994.

14


and countryside.45 The important urban centers at Alexandria and Ptolemais are hardly represented at all. The overall result is that historical studies of Ptolemaic agriculture have tended to focus on the Fayyum. But this region, roughly 5–7% of the total arable in Egypt at the time, with many new settlements, can hardly be regarded as representative of Egypt as a whole.46 The Fayyum material has suggested to some that the Ptolemaic regime was able to impose a new economic order rather successfully. Of course, there were new features of the economic structure, and new social groups in the third century bce, but there was also considerable structural change and adjustment to Egyptian realities over the course of the three centuries, while Upper Egypt remained in many ways more traditional. The combination of Greek and demotic sources yields a much richer picture of the relationship between the state economy and the underlying local or “infra-economy” (to use Braudel’s term), as well as the development of the Ptolemaic state itself.47 But the sources from the Fayyum are quite different than those from the river valley. Our sources from the Fayyum are, in the main, derived from the archive of the manager of a large estate in the third century bce, restricted to a few years in the 250s bce, and the records office of a village scribe at the end of the second century bce.48 The records from the Nile valley, especially from the Thebaid region, are predominantly private Egyptian legal instruments of property transactions, and tax receipts recorded on ostraca.49 But this divide between the Greek and Egyptian worlds is not as large as the texts sometimes suggest.50 The documentation from both regions reveals the small village world of Egypt, and that small holding of land was widespread, but the considerable gaps in our information, and the different emphasis of the Greek and Egyptian evidence, should instill caution in any analysis of change over time. One serious drawback to any study of the Ptolemaic agricultural economy is the lack of demographic data. This will be ameliorated, for the Fayyum at least, in a new study of the Ptolemaic census, but the overall population figure, and the trend over the course of the three centuries, are still educated guesses based on comparison with later material, or estimates based on the census 45 47

48 50

46 Rowlandson 1996: 3. Rowlandson 1996. Braudel 1981: 24, defined as “the informal other half of economic activity (i.e. non market exchange, my note), the world of self-sufficiency and barter of goods and services within a very small radius.” This is essentially another name for the “customary” economy, on which see briefly below, Chapter two, p. 49. 49 See further Chapter three. See further Chapter four. See the important remarks by Pestman 1982, in studying a bilingual archive in which the Greek and demotic evidence give radically different impressions of the economic behavior of one individual.


15

data from the Fayyum, or formed by calculating the carrying capacity of the land.51 The study of the Ptolemaic economy contrasts with the study of the contemporary Seleucid economy. There, the emphasis is placed on inscriptions, temple archives, coins and literary evidence. The sheer bulk of documentary evidence from the Ptolemaic period is impressive, and several recent studies have greatly expanded the number of available sources. One only has to consult Préaux’s early list of sources for the Ptolemaic economy to see what enormous advances the study of demotic texts has brought.52 But gains in the number of sources are tempered by the continuing gaps in our knowledge and by the persistence of regional differences in the evidence, if not in the economic structure.53 Without ancient narratives of events, scholars can be stopped in their tracks.54 There has been very little archaeological excavation or settlement survey of Ptolemaic sites with the notable exception of the Fayyum.55 Much fundamental work remains to be done on Ptolemaic settlement archaeology throughout Egypt, and then linking the results to the documentary evidence.56 For many subjects, historians of Ptolemaic Egypt are unable to assess the most basic element of history, change over time. This is especially true of economic history, since there are significant deficits in our knowledge of demography, state expenditure, grain prices and fluctuations, and the exact dates of tax receipts, and the taxation rates on land over the long term. As a result, most studies based on Ptolemaic papyri have been confined either to a particular subject (loans, an office in the bureaucracy) or to an archive. There are of course sound reasons to do this. The problems are laid out 51 52 53

54

55 56

See below, Chapter two, pp. 47–49. On the census, see Clarysse and Thompson forthcoming. Préaux 1939: 10–15. On regional differences, highlighted by the different legal traditions of demotic (Delta) and hieratic (Thebes), cf. Meeks 1979: 614. Traditions in demotic legal institutions certainly persisted under the Ptolemies. At the present time, for example, the institution of mortgage, whereby an individual pledged real property in exchange for a loan of money is attested only in documents from Upper Egypt. We can therefore not be certain if this is mere accidence of survival or really reflective of different legal institutions. See further below Chapter six, pp. 209–18 on mortgage and other regional legal traditions. Bagnall 1993: 10, although speaking about the historical methodology and the documents from Late Antique Egypt, explains the problem, and it applies equally well to the Ptolemaic period: “For one question only a particular place is documented, for another a brief period. Other matters – above all subjective, conceptual, and personal – simply are not documented at all. For still others, the only evidence comes from hagiographic and monastic literature and must be heavily filtered. In the face of this paradox – much information but limited understanding – it is natural to look to comparative study for insight.” See the recent work of Rathbone 1997. For the archaeology of this period, see the review article by Bagnall 1988. Rathbone 1994b.

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before the scholar and the context of the archive is usually clear. Going beyond the level of archival analysis involves, in Bagnall’s words, “a substantial leap into a more speculative mode, often with no way to test the hypothesis involved.”57 Writing larger history, then, requires making such a leap, making assumptions about connections between archives and the different types of documentation. This is where, I believe, historical and economic sociology58 and property theory offer the possibility of setting Ptolemaic Egypt within the larger framework of state processes, including important issues such as the role of agency, and causes of institutional change. The papyri and ostraca from Ptolemaic Egypt are a well-known minefield for the historian.59 Using these documentary records to write interpretive history that has probative value for the period is extraordinarily difficult, establishing firm ground for later interpretation often uncertain. There are significant gaps in our information – the reign of Ptolemy I Soter is still very thinly represented, with virtually no Greek papyrological evidence, and there is very little historical information from any source about the Delta.60 There are important new finds, both in cartonnage and in collections yet to be published, and they promise much new information. For the moment, the Greek papyri are grouped around the mid-third (the Zenon papyri are the largest group, comprising nearly a third of all Ptolemaic papyri,61 and P. Petr) and the late second (the Tebtunis papyri) centuries bce, (Figure 1), with a scatter of texts spread throughout this period, and Upper Egypt produces tax receipts in Greek and demotic as well as demotic family archives.62 The late second century bce Tebtunis papyri (the so-called Menches archive)63 provide the most important material for the functioning of the village scribe, particularly with respect to the administration of land, but these documents for the most part survive only from half of each year.64 The Greek garrison town of Pathyris is exceptional in yielding Greek papyri in sufficient number to allow a detailed picture of at least some families in the second and first centuries bce, while the most important town in 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64

Bagnall 1995: 40. For a good introduction to economic sociology see Granovetter and Swedberg 1992; Smelser and Swedberg 1994. On the source problem in general, see Préaux 1978: 102–06; Turner 1984: 118–19; Bingen 1984. On the contributions of the papyri to Ptolemaic history, see Bagnall 1982. For a demotic family archive from the reign of Ptolemy I from Thebes, see Depauw 2000. A recent cache of demotic papyri from Tanis in the Delta is discussed by Chauveau and Devauchelle 1996. Clarysse and Vandorpe 1995: 20. For a chart of securely dated demotic texts, see Hoffmann 2000: 26. The chart already requires updating but the general shape of the curve remains valid. See further below, Chapter four, pp. 119–22. Verhoogt 1997: 43, the documents in the main preserved for the months February to September.


17

1600 1400 1200 1000 800 600 400 200 –3

0

0 49

99

10

14

9–

–5

0

0 15

0 9–

20 19

9–

25

320–286 BCE 285–250 BCE 249–200 BCE 199–150 BCE 149–100 BCE 99–50 BCE 49–30 BCE

24

5–

28

32

0–

28

6

0

0

40 1241 1501 1021 1317 631 76

Figure 1. Graph depicting the number of datable Greek texts by half century for the Ptolemaic period. I only include the text that can be securely dated by specific year, not texts that can be dated roughly by century relying on paleography or other criteria. The number of documents are as follows: 1241 for the years 285–250 bce, 1501 for the years 249–200 bce, 1021 for the years 199–150 bce, 1317 for the years 149–100 bce, 631 for the years 99–50 bce and 76 for the years 49–30 bce, the latter year being the year in which Egypt was annexed by Augustus. The data have been taken from the Heidelberger Gesamtver¨ zeichnis der Griechischen Papyruskunden Agyptens project directed by Professor Dieter Hagedorn.

Upper Egypt under the Ptolemies, Ptolemais (modern El-Manshah), has produced virtually nothing from the early Ptolemaic period.65 The first-century bce Greek papyri from Herakleopolis are important for the state of land tenure in that region, but they have distinct problems of interpretation.66 The discontinuities of information are insurmountable, and scholars must remain cautious as to how far they use the documents beyond their specific socio-economic contexts. There are important general 65 66

For Pathyris, about six hundred papyri and a “few hundred” ostraca have survived. See the overview by Vandorpe 1994, and below, Chapter three, pp. 86–88. On finds from the Herakleopolite nome in general, see the excellent summary of the evidence in Falivene 1998: 13–34. For some recent papyri from cartonnage, see Sarischouli 2001.

18


suppositions about the process of bureaucratization and about the relationship of central to local power with respect to land tenure that can be brought to bear in the study of the papyri. Without an analytical framework, however, the documentary sources often cannot lead to firm conclusions. Historical analyses that have been built upon a weak foundation of evidence from a text or a group of texts very often cannot support the claims attached to them.67 Both public and private records (probably too sharp a distinction) tend to record information over a limited range in time and in place and must therefore be used cautiously in building a larger picture of the Ptolemaic system. Administrative records such as letters from and to officials regarding the work on the canals, survey of fields, the harvest, collection, storage and transportation of grain taxes document the levels of the Ptolemaic bureaucracy. The Greek documentation for these activities only comes to light in large numbers in the 250s bce. In part this gap may be explained by the time it took to establish Greek within the bureaucratic structure, but we are also at the mercy of the manner in which the documents survive. Much of the Greek archival material comes from cartonnage, a kind of papier-mâché used to wrap sacred animal mummies and to make mummy masks for human burial. This recycling of administrative papyri was a new feature of the Ptolemaic period, begun during the reign of Ptolemy II Philadelphus.68 The major exception to this cartonnage recycling is the Zenon papyri, treated below in Chapter four. Texts written in Egyptian are vital in assessing the nature of Ptolemaic economic power and the function of Egyptian institutions. One of the most important documents is the so-called legal “manual” discovered at the cemetery of Hermopolis (Tuna el-Gebel) and known conventionally after its initial editor as P. Mattha.69 The text is in fact a collection of 67

68 69

In many cases texts that have been cited turn out to be too fragmentary, or misunderstood, and have therefore misled scholars. For one case, see Franko 1988: 68–70. Another is the case built by Rostovtzeff for diamisthosis of royal land, based on the misreading of a single line in one papyrus. See the comments by Shelton 1976: 121. A remarkable example from the demotic sources is the case of UPZ i 6a ( = right side portion of P. Louvre 2414). The text, crucial to debates about the religious nature of the recluses (ktocoi) who lived in the Serapeum in Saqqara, was published by Eugène Révillout. The publication provided a hand copy that makes it appear, unintentionally apparently, that the text is nearly complete. Inspection in Paris by Willy Clarysse confirmed that in fact half of the text was completely restored by Révillout. See further Clarysse 1986. Sometimes, though, a compelling interpretation can be built on the basis of one fragmentary papyrus. See the comments of Bagnall 1995: 33–38. For an excellent attempt at constructing a narrative by using one text, see Keenan 1992. Thompson 1994b: 71. P. Cairo JdE 89127–89130 and 89137–89143 (written probably first half of the third century bce, Tuna el-Gebel). Pestman 1983b argued that internal references in the text suggest an origin in the


19

decisions that provided guidance to the priest-judges in a local temple for resolving disputes over real property in difficult or unusual cases. Another document from this period is a text known as the “Zivilprozeßordnung,” which treats the use of documents as evidence and standards of legal proof, and may have served, like P. Mattha, as a guide for priest-judges in Thebes.70 Both of these important documents, along with the private legal instruments that I will treat below in Chapter six, show that local, long-standing Egyptian legal institutions continued under Ptolemaic rule, and, while there is variation in scribal traditions throughout Egypt, the legal uniformity in the language of Egyptian contracts shows that there was an Egyptian legal system, whether it was “codified” or not.71 Occasionally there are inscriptions on stone that shed light on the agrarian history of Ptolemaic Egypt. The decree of Memphis, better known as the Rosetta Stone, for example, provides important information on the taxation of temple land.72 Among the most important inscriptions is the so-called Edfu donation text written on the outer retaining wall of the temple of Horus at Edfu.73 The inscription records the lands donated (probably in fact re-donated) to the temple along with several other temples’ estates in four districts (nomes) in southern Egypt. This cadastral survey of land donated to the temple in the fourth century bce in the southern part of the Nile valley is invaluable in linking the land survey with the private sales of land from Edfu in the third century bce.74 Used together, they suggest continuity in the land tenure regime at least in so far as toponyms are concerned.75 The demotic legal papyri document the economic activity of individuals and families, usually priests, or Graeco-Egyptian military families,

70 71 72 74 75

eighth century bce). See Mattha and Hughes 1975. A new edition with corrections has been made by Donker van Heel 1990. A second-century ce Greek copy of the manual survives, for which see P. Oxy. 3285. The existence of the Greek translation, a private copy, was explained by Lewis 1993 as a result of the steep decline in the use of demotic in the second century ce. The extent of such legal manuals is suggested by P. Carlsb. 236 (early Ptolemaic on the basis of paleography), which preserves the column number “44”. See the remarks by Tait 1991: 94–95, who posits that the text may have been twice as long as P. Mattha. It is uncertain to what the citation of an “eighth tablet” (dem. ıpt 8.t ) in a demotic petition (P. Siut 10591 vo iii, 16; Asyut, 170 bce) refers. Nims 1948: 244, n. 13 has suggested that ıpt should be understood as a “jar” in which rolls of papyri were kept. For other law books, see Depauw 1997: 114; Zauzich 1994. P. Berlin 13621 and P. Cairo 50108 recto (Thebes, Ptolemaic period), on which see briefly Depauw 1997: 114–15; Mrsich 1984. There is good evidence to suggest that written laws were cited in trials. See e.g. Martin 1992; Thissen 1994. On the problem of codification, see Mélèze-Modrzejewski 1995: 2–6. 73 See below, Chapter three, pp. 74–79. Chapter five, p. 166. P. Hausw., discussed below in Chapter three. Place names, unfortunately, are one of the most conservative aspects of land tenure in Egypt. In certain places, the same name could be attached to a location or an area for decades if not centuries, a fact that falls short of proving economic or social continuity. See e.g. Falivene 1998: 273.

20


although the third-century bce (P. Hausw.) texts discussed in Chapter three suggest that temple dependents did have access to real property and the use of written property deeds. The family archival material was preserved in order to prove legal rights established by contract. While some of these have been found in situ in tombs, stored in jars, other archives were purchased from dealers and have been subsequently scattered in collections throughout the world.76 The information conveyed in these archives is often fascinating, and while they sometimes give detailed glimpses of the social and economic history of particular families, conclusions drawn from one archive cannot easily be applied to Egypt as a whole.77 Indeed, the documentary papyri have often been considered “parochial,” providing ephemeral glimpses here and there of scattered villages or towns. One reason for caution is that they are not in the modern sense archives at all but a collection of texts gathered together around certain types of transactions or of long term property holdings of a family.78 One family archive may document a series of loans, while another may record conveyances of land. These “archives,” of course, also survive haphazardly, and we are left to guess about the extent of written private transactions in local economies. The demotic ostraca from Upper Egypt provide important evidence that local fiscal structure under the early Ptolemies was a continuation of the old system, and that the local Egyptian scribes were incorporated into the Ptolemaic system. But the texts also show that the economic relationship between temples and the Ptolemies was less direct in the third century bce, and the increase in the number of tax receipts in the period after the Theban revolt suggests stronger administrative control.79 Nevertheless the royal bank at Thebes was established in the third century bce.80 The land 76

77 78 79

80

For recent surveys of the demotic archival material, see Muhs 1996a: 11–16; Depauw 1997: 155–59. Many of the family archives from Thebes were found in jars: the archive of Totoes found near his house, Botti 1967 (with a photograph of the jars given as Fig. A in vol. i), and of Osoreris, found in a Theban tomb, Pestman 1993: 10–11; of Panas, also found in a Theban tomb, Pestman 1993, 11; of Psenminis, also found in a Theban tomb, Pestman 1993: 33. Cf. Depauw 2000: 3 with n. 4. The bilingual Milon archive from Edfu, discussed below in Chapter three, was found in a jar on Elephantine island. Other private archives, such as the P. Hausw. archive discussed in Chapter three, were purchased from antiquities dealers and are therefore without archaeological context. The Theban Choachyte archive documents the history of houses over many generations. See the excellent essay by Vleeming 1995. On themes in family archives, see Pestman 1983a: 289. On the revolt, see below, chapter five, pp. 164–71. For the demotic receipts, see Kaplony-Heckel 2000; Muhs 1996a. Tax receipts written on ostraca, for the moment, come from the Theban region, but excavations at Tebtunis may alter the picture. See most recently on the excavation at Tebtunis Gallazzi 2001: 41–43, briefly signaling the ostraca and papyri found near the temple of Soknebtunis. For demotic ostraca excavated at Karanis (but in origin from Philadelphia) in the Fayyum, see Kaplony-Heckel 2000: 193, mostly comprising a day-book archive of a police station. Bogaert 1988.


21

measurement receipts, again at the moment confined to the Thebaid, might suggest that these texts served to protect individual tax-payers by clearly establishing their obligations in writing.81 Many of these ostraca, however, come from a restricted group of mortuary priest families, so information regarding agricultural tax administration in early Thebes is limited.82 The fact that these texts come to light in an already sorted manner makes their value as “archives” much reduced. While they are not random collections of texts, as Finley intimated,83 they cannot be used readily to make a general assessment of the private economy or the extent to which private transactions occurred. The Greek and demotic papyri and ostraca, preserved by different means for different purposes, form the largest corpus of texts from the pre-Roman world, yet one must remain cautious in making connections between archives, and on the relationships between Greek and demotic, and Lower and Upper Egyptian contexts. prev ious views of ptolemaic egypt Late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century scholarship regarded the Hellenistic states, and particularly Ptolemaic Egypt, as strongly centralized, rational, despotic states ruled by a small minority of Greeks and dominated by the military class.84 Most work on the Ptolemaic state has focused on what is called the “économie royale,” the institutions of the revenue, or “tributary” economy of the royal household. The bureaucracy established to extract surplus production was considered by many to have been highly effective, even “efficient,” again a term that described relative improvement over earlier regimes or in comparison to contemporary Hellenistic kingdoms. The king, following the pharaohs, claimed all resources and held absolute power over the countryside, mainly through state-licensed agents and an extensive bureaucracy, and was the “fount of law”; the economic system was “tightened up till there were none of those loopholes for evasion which have so often tempered rigorous conditions in the East.”85 Such views, based largely on dirigiste reading of the Greek administrative papyri, require modification in the light of current evidence. The study of the Ptolemaic economy as a whole has not received the book-length attention that the Roman and Byzantine periods have in recent years. Not since Préaux and Rostovtzeff published their highly influential works in quick succession in 1939 and 1941 has the Ptolemaic economy 81 84 85

82 Muhs 1996a: 2. 83 Finley 1985b: 36. See below, Chapter five, pp. 163–64. The strongest advocate for the strongly centralized state is Heichelheim 1958. Tarn and Griffith 1952: 196, 198.

22


been studied in toto.86 Both studies were descriptive, essentially worked within a static model, and emphasized the “économie royale” while ignoring local economic activities. Both scholars also emphasized the structure of the state and the effectiveness of the bureaucracy. Rostovtzeff ’s interpretation of the papyri was in large part influenced by his conception of the Hellenistic economy as “a single, interdependent economic system characterized by sustained economic growth that was driven above all by long-distance interregional trade conducted by agents of a rising urban bourgeoisie.”87 The lack of large, synthetic works on the Ptolemaic economy is not to say that the period has been ignored since Préaux and Rostovtzeff. Indeed quite the opposite case is true. But scholars have, given the nature of the evidence, focused on smaller-case studies or on types of texts.88 The result has been that links between aspects of economic structure and general models of the economy have not been made. Furthermore, almost all studies of land tenure have been written from the point of view of Greek papyrology and have therefore focused on the Greek documentation. The focus has been placed particularly on the main sources from the Fayyum and its environs: the Zenon archive dating from the third century bce, concerned with a large gift estate (dorea) of the finance minister (dioik¯et¯es) of Ptolemy II Philadelphus around the village of Philadelphia in the northeast Fayyum, the third-century bce Hibeh papyri from the nearby Herakleopolite nome, and the Menches archive from the late second-century bce village of Kerkeosiris in the southern Fayyum.89 Another very important mid-third-century corpus, the Petrie papyri (P. Petr.) from Gurob, is in the process of being re-edited, and they offer important information on wills of kleruchs and of irrigation engineering in the Fayyum.90 The only general study of agriculture in Ptolemaic Egypt was produced by Schnebel in 1925, but although it treated Egypt as a whole, it was based nearly exclusively on the evidence of the Greek papyri. The Zenon archive, of course, has been the single most important source of information for Ptolemaic agriculture, and has been the basis for the “estatist” or central planning model of the Ptolemaic economy developed in the early work of Rostovtzeff, Heichelheim, and Préaux. The model has been challenged 86 87 88 89 90

Préaux 1978 substantially revised the views expressed in her 1939 study. Well summarized by Cartledge 1997: 11–12. Several general historical studies have recently appeared, among the most important of which are Hölbl 1994 [2001] and Huß 2001. For the Fayyum, see Thompson 1999a; Thompson 1999b. On the Zenon archive, see below, Chapter four, pp. 110–18. For the re-edition of the wills see Clarysse 1991b.


23

since the 1960s by Vidal-Naquet, Bingen, Samuel and others, but these important critiques have derived mainly from an improved understanding of the Greek material. Crawford’s important 1971 study of Kerkeosiris, and Verhoogt’s 1998 study of the office of village scribe, both based on the late second-century bce Menches archive found at Tebtunis, have given us detailed and valuable accounts of the agricultural economy and the state institutions that controlled agricultural production around one Egyptian village. The documents show that the Ptolemaic administrative system was well developed and that close ties between the village and the capital existed. Both works, however, were, like the Zenon archive, limited to a single location in the Fayyum at a time when Greek had been thoroughly embedded in local levels of the Ptolemaic administration, and at a time of restoration of political and economic control after a long bitter civil war.91 The use of demotic material from Upper Egypt offers a different perspective on the Ptolemaic period, but studies have been generally more limited to archives or to types of texts. Very important results have been gained, particularly from the careful study of the bilingual (Greek and demotic) family archives which document the use of privately held land by Egyptian and Graeco-Egyptian families.92 Few studies, however, have linked the demotic and the Greek material, and none have done so from the point of view of the land tenure regime of Ptolemaic Egypt. The diversity of the published material has produced a shift in our understanding of the history of Ptolemaic agriculture away from the old view of Rostovtzeff that the Zenon archive represented an “Egypt in miniature,”93 to the recognition that Egyptian land tenure was complex, regionally variable, and not subject to uniform political control. The evidence from Upper Egypt, particularly the private demotic evidence of land holding, is crucial for understanding the relationship of the regime to the temples in the south, especially during the initial century of Ptolemaic rule, and the process of what I call the “Ptolemaicizing” (I prefer this term to “hellenization”)94 of the Nile valley. The political process can be traced to some degree by examining the two scribal traditions that 91 92 93 94

I shall discuss both groups of texts further below in Chapter four. For the civil war, see below Chapter two, p. 46. See for example Boswinkel and Pestman 1982, a private archive from Hakoris, Pestman 1985c, a private archive from Thebes. Rostovzteff 1922: 129. The term implies a one-direction cultural process that is not adequate to describe the full range of interaction in Ptolemaic Egypt. For a good discussion of the relationship of culture to imperialism with respect to “Romanization,” see Woolf 1998.

24


evolved in the Ptolemaic period. The tradition of demotic contracts being drawn up by scribes often attached to local temples (as at Thebes for example, these are the so-called monogrfoi) continued alongside, and in some cases in competition with, the scribes drawing up Greek contracts (the goran»moi).95 The attempted displacement of local scribal practice may have been intended to streamline the ancient property institutions in the Nile valley. Such a move was certainly “rational,” but it was the old scribal families who took these new positions.96 The demotic papyri also provide important evidence for local economic structures as well as local adaptation to the new Ptolemaic realities. Demotic sources are also an important reminder that there existed economic activity outside of the “économie royale.”97 This informal village barter-based economy centered on families and local social groups probably changed very slowly under the pressure of institutional demands, and while local elites in many cases were fully part of the new state, they also maintained their strong local connections. They were, then, firmly embedded within old local networks of power. the structure of this study I divide this study into three parts. Chapter two introduces the historical and institutional background of the Ptolemaic state. I pay particularly close attention here to the basic institutions of the Ptolemaic state and their relationship to previous regimes. The institutional structure of the Ptolemies was certainly “path dependent.”98 In other words, the regime adapted to the environmental and institutional arrangements of administration and property rights that were already long established. Ruling Egypt essentially as new pharaohs (from the Egyptian point of view), the regime became “locked in”99 to the old institutional structure. This “lock in” was to some extent countered by the Ptolemies with new settlements, the establishment of Greek as the administrative language, a dynastic cult in the Greek cities, and the addition of new administrative layers to police the countryside, 95

96 97 98 99

The Greek term for the demotic scribes, often called simply “scribe” (sh ) in demotic, or in a longer title string that identified them with a particular temple, as in “Horos son of Phabis, who writes in the name of the priests of Amonrasonter and the brother gods . . . of the five phylae,” P. Berl. 3119 (Thebes, 146 bce) , emphasizes that normally one scribe served at a time in a given area. See Zauzich 1968: 2; the studies by Pestman 1978 and 1985b, and further below Chapter five, p. 140. See below, Chapter six, p. 187. See the excellent, if now slightly outdated, survey by Quaegebeur 1979a. See Arthur 1989 for general considerations. On the concept of institutional lock-in, see North 1990: 94.


25

but it neither altered the property rights regime nor eliminated the need for the cooperation of local elites. In part ii I turn to a close examination of the land tenure system in Upper Egypt (the Thebaid) and in the Fayyum. In neither case am I comprehensive. My intent here is to sketch the picture of land tenure in these two regions that will serve as the basis of discussion in part iii. In Chapter three I treat the land tenure regime of Upper Egypt, which, in the main, is documented by private demotic legal instruments. These texts have been the preserve of demotists and demotic legal historians. As a result, great gains have been made with a close analysis of property transmission within families, but rarely has this material been utilized above the level of individual archives in more general treatments of how this material fits into the Ptolemaic state. I pay particularly close attention to the regional center at Edfu because of the diversity of its documentation. Edfu was a central place in Egyptian history, and the Ptolemaic period evidence from the town offers important insights into Ptolemaic control of this key site. The demotic evidence, from Edfu and elsewhere, is also helpful in showing the way in which land was held, used, and transmitted, and the relationship of temple estates to individuals. In Chapter four I summarize the evidence from the Fayyum. As I have already mentioned, this is the most thoroughly studied region of the Ptolemaic period, and my summary, while it tries to give an updated account of the material, serves mainly as a comparative chapter to the Upper Egyptian evidence. Part iii is devoted to an analysis of the documentary material from the perspectives of the central state and the local organization of land tenure. In both cases, my analysis is informed by the use of theories of the state and of property, and it builds on the land tenure case studies developed in Chapters three and four. I am particularly interested here in clearly defining the Ptolemaic state in terms of social power, and in terms of the various social networks, old and new, that existed. The economic power of the state over land in Egypt had always been complex, and in order properly to understand the Ptolemaic situation, one must examine the material from two points of view, from the point of view of the central state’s need for revenue and from the point of view of local power to use and to transmit property. In Chapter five I examine the structure of the state and its control of land tenure and the agricultural surplus. The key issue that I address in this Chapter is the concept of social power, specifically economic power. I argue that the economic power of the Ptolemaic state over land was more limited than some scholars have argued. In Chapter six, I examine land tenure from the perspective of local organization, and the traditions of

26


private property transmission. Taken together, the two Chapters show the ways in which the Ptolemies established control of land tenure, and the degree to which property regimes remained within local control. In the Ptolemaic state, the basic issue, in terms of its development, can best be analyzed by examining the differences between the organization of political and economic power. Here the structure of the state, the maintenance of traditional institutions and the addition of new ones, as well as the ruler’s requirements of revenue, come through quite clearly. But the local economic power over land tenure, demonstrated especially by the continuation of private property rights in the Thebaid, created monitoring costs and potential opposition to the state. The political power of the Ptolemaic state moved, in the final analysis, in the opposite direction from its economic power, which was, as it had historically been, organized locally. In Appendix one, I provide a translation of the important Edfu donation text, never before available in English, so that it may be easily compared with other land survey records. I have not attached an extensive commentary on the text; experts in the field may consult Meeks’ fine edition of the inscription (1972). In Appendix two, I provide a chart of the published demotic land conveyances upon which much of the discussion in Chapters three and six is based. Studying the local records of land tenure in two different regions in combination with the administrative documents offers an excellent opportunity to assess social power within the Ptolemaic state. A study of the structure of the state, and the role of agency within it, has important implications for its development, and from an examination of the land tenure regimes a regional strategy emerges. The Ptolemaic state has often been regarded as strongly centralized, but what the documents of land tenure tell us is that power within the Ptolemaic state was variably applied across Egypt, was tied to military settlement and thus more in evidence in northern Egypt with the military settlements there, and was dependent on the cooperation of the local elites. This study also has important implications both for the Roman administration of the land tenure regime in Egypt100 and for the fate of Egyptian temples, which I shall attempt to sketch in chapter seven.

100

See Rowlandson 1996.

chap t e r 2


The authority of the state was total, of the city-states as of the autocracies, and it extended to everyone who resided within the territorial borders (indeed to everyone who resided wherever its writ ran). Finley 1999: 154

Potentially it should be possible not only to study Ptolemaic agriculture but to study it historically and, as done by Napoleon’s savants, to study it regionally, and in doing this to gain some idea of local differences of land-tenure and land-use over the three centuries of Ptolemaic rule. Crawford 1973: 223

I examine in this Chapter the structure of the Ptolemaic state in order to place the land tenure regimes of the Thebaid and the Fayyum into the context of the institutional arrangements of control and taxation. The structure of land tenure in Ptolemaic Egypt was a political response to environmental constraints and to historic pathways of property rights and obligations determined long before the Ptolemies. In areas where these old rights on land existed, the regime did not disturb them, whereas in the newly intensified Fayyum, new modes of tenure and stricter state supervision were established. Three issues will concern me in this chapter: (1) the environmental and geographic setting of Egypt, (2) the precursors of the Ptolemaic state, and (3) the structure and the historical development of the Ptolemaic state itself.

the fixit y of the geographical set t ing Egypt was one of the richest and most densely populated states in the Mediterranean for most of its ancient history. Both of these facts were related to the Nile, a consequence of its annual flood and the resulting 27

28


productivity of the soil.1 Productivity, in turn, gave rise to Egypt’s famous bureaucratic structure and its taxation regime. The Nile river valley allowed the possibility of the centralization of political and economic power because of its social “caging” effects that “captured” a population within a circumscribed territory.2 The absence of political opposition at the local level allowed the king to assert monopoly power over communications along the river as well as over raw materials (principally stone and metals used for tools). The location and distance between regional centers, linked together by communication along the river, the basin irrigation system, the annual agricultural cycle of flood, sowing and harvesting, the maintenance of the irrigation canals and dikes, in short what Braudel called the “fixity of the geographical setting,”3 was the single most important factor in ancient Egyptian socio-economic and political history. It was hardly, however, a fixed environment. Indeed the ability of the state to adjust to a variable water supply was one of the hallmarks of Egyptian political history.4 Some cultural features stressed continuity. The Nile cults and hymns to Hapy, the god of the Nile flood surge, for example, are among the most enduring features of Egyptian material culture.5 The social system established in response to the environment inhibited drastic long-term socio-economic changes in the land tenure regime, but the interannual variability of the flood was also a major factor in the collapse of the centralized state in ancient times.6 The annual flood of the Nile, a marvel to ancient observers, was caused by winter rains at the sources of the river in the Ethiopian plateau and the equatorial lakes, Lake Tana and Lake Victoria in Uganda. In most areas of the world, whenever a river breached its banks, it was an unwelcome event that could bring economic disaster and disease. In Egypt, the flood was gradual, the event was seen as a divine manifestation, watched carefully at strategic points along the river, and was generally welcomed.7 The flooding season brought nutrients to the soil. Villages, man, and animal alike were protected from disaster by carefully built dikes that prevented the water from flooding at unwanted times and in unwanted places. The dikes and the irrigation and drainage canals had to be maintained and watched carefully. The opening of irrigation canals, indeed, was subsumed in Egyptian 1 2 5 6 7

“Normal” yields in Roman-period Oxyrhynchus were about 1:10, but could be considerably higher elsewhere. See Rowlandson 1996: 247–52, with a discussion of the factors that affected productivity. 3 Braudel 1969[1980]: 31. 4 Butzer 1980. On social “caging,” see Mann 1986: 105–27. See the excellent analysis of later examples of Nile hymns in Frankfurter 1998: 42–46. Bell 1971; Bell 1975. On the festival celebrating the flood, largely documented from the Roman period, see Bonneau 1971b. On seasonal mortality, and malaria, see Scheidel 2001.


29

35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 Jan

Dec.

Figure 2. Graph depicting the maximum and minimum Nile discharge at Aswan over the course of a year, from January to December, 1871–1965 ce. The volume of the flood is given in milliards (one billion m3 ). The data was adapted from Beaumont 1993: 28.

theology as an expression of “the final triumph over chaos.”8 The history of the Egyptian landscape was one of constant change and development of the irrigation network, new land, and new settlements.9 The Nile shifted its bed over the long term, sometimes significantly so, and the flood volume fluctuated annually.10 But the social organization of agriculture around the natural rhythm of the river was the strongest conservative force throughout Egyptian history until recent times. The Egyptian calendar year was based on the annual rhythm of flooding, sowing and harvesting. The flood began to be seen at the southern border, Aswan, in June and reached Memphis a month later. Throughout July, August, September and into October, most fields were flooded and little agricultural work was possible. When water from the flood had reached the desirable level, the dikes were released and water was let into the flood basins, historically from about 1,000 to 4,000 acres in size, which were sub-divided into smaller plots of four or five acres along the main canals. The water was kept on the fields for forty to sixty days and then drained off through canals. Farmers often had to work fast because there was a short plowing season before the soil would become too dry. The fields were then sown. The progress of the flood each year reinforced regional differences and posed specific problems for the central government. The height of the flood determined the annual agriculture output. It was a delicate matter for 8 9 10

Finnestad 1985: 44. For historical development of ancient Egyptian agriculture, see the excellent summary by Eyre 1994b. Butzer 1976: 34–35 on the net drift of the Nile to the east. See also Falivene 1998: 5–6. For the shift at Memphis, see Thompson 1988: 12; Vandorpe 1995b.

30


the state and for the farmers. As Pliny reminds us, if the water was too low or too high, disaster might ensue.11 The pattern of holding scattered plots reduced the local risk, and local organization of the irrigation network was the natural result of the virtually flat (1:12,000) gradient of the Egyptian Nile river valley.12 Irrigation of the fields followed for the most part the ancient pattern of basin irrigation with gravity-fed feeder and drainage canals. Such a system, following the natural rhythm of the Nile flood and recession, allowed one crop per year. Orchards and vineyards were perennially irrigated. The Fayyum reclamation project discussed below in Chapter four added some land under perennial irrigation. The waterwheel (saqiya) and the archimedean screw, certainly attested for the first time in the Ptolemaic period, intensified irrigation possibilities locally, mainly in orchards and vineyards, although, like double cropping, the use of these machines was probably limited before the Roman period.13 Planting decisions were also determined by the condition of each field. The main crops in ancient Egypt were barley, sown on drier land, emmer, and flax on the wettest land, with grain crops taking up about half of the available fields and producing one crop per year. Where possible, fodder crops or lentils were grown in the summer months.14 Fenugreek and pulses could also be grown in the basins, while vegetables were generally grown in garden plots, and palm trees were cultivated on the higher-lying levees as well as in walled gardens. Rotating fields every other year with legumes, more typical of the Fayyum because the Nile silt did not reach the fields there, replenished the soil with nitrogen and made the addition of fertilizer unnecessary, although the fertility from the silt from the flood alone allowed the planting of grain in the basins two years in five.15 The Nile flood plain is slightly convex and the silt deposits from the annual flood were deposited near the riverbed. At the edges of the flood plain, little silt was deposited. And of course all of the agricultural work was predicated on the intense year-round activity of maintaining the canal networks and dikes.16 11

12 13 15 16

Pliny, HN 5.10.58, tells us a flood level of twelve cubits would bring famine, but fourteen cubits brings good cheer, fifteen cubits confidence and sixteen cubits delight: utrumque reputat provincia; in xii cubitis famem sentit, in xiii etiamnum esurit, xiv cubita hilaritatem adferunt, xv securitatem, xvi delicias. On the decentralized nature of land management, see Butzer 1999: 382; Bonneau 1993. For the gradient of the Nile, see Butzer 1976: 47. 14 Butzer 1976: 50. Rowlandson 1996: 20. So Williams 1992: 1113. See the comments by Baer 1971, Girard’s account in the Description and later nineteenth-century data. Thompson 1999a, Appendix C for a composite yearly schedule of maintenance activity in the thirdcentury bce Fayyum.


31

regions The political ideology of ancient Egypt emphasized unity in what was a very diverse geo-political territory. The regional study of Egypt is important because of the well-attested differences in dialect, ethnic makeup and environment between the north and the south.17 The structure of land taxation under the Ptolemies is another measure of regional difference.18 At the very beginning of political unity ca. 3000 bce, the Egyptian state was conceived of as a union of two regions, “Upper” Egypt (the Nile valley) and “Lower” Egypt (the Delta). Beneath the ideology, however, lay a more complex rural reality. A recent assessment of Chinese history could apply equally well to Egypt: all of Chinese history, apart from the history of the imperial court and the central institutions of government through which it rules, is in the words of William Skinner ‘an internested hierarchy of local and regional histories’.19

We may define a “region” in Egypt by political, and, to some extent, social criteria, but the strongest factor was environmental. There are three major “eco-zones” in Egypt: the Delta, the Fayyum and the Nile valley.20 The Nile river valley itself was divided into two major sub-units: (1) the Thebaid from Aswan down to the ancient religious center at Abydos, with virtually no cultivable land between Aswan and the sandstone quarries at Gebel esSilsileh, and (2) Middle Egypt, from around Abydos north to Memphis, where the cultivation widens on the west bank, due to the Bahr Yusef, which flows northward parallel to the Nile into the Fayyum. In periods of strong central control, the administration divided the country into regions21 and smaller political units called nomes.22 These were ancient geo-political units, established in the Early Dynastic period and to some extent were an idealized expression of central state power. Whether the state emerged out of the nome structure or vice versa is hotly debated, and cannot in any case be established on the basis of current evidence; some of the nomes may have been independent polities originally, perhaps the vestiges of ancient “basin-irrigation units.”23 In the historical period, the 17 18 21 22 23

Dialects in Egypt are not easy to detect until the Coptic period, when vowels were used in the written language. 19 Wilkinson 2000: 5. 20 Butzer 1976: 58. See below, pp. 56–61. During the reign of the Middle Kingdom pharaoh Sesostris III (ca. 1836–1818 bce), for example, Egypt was divided into four administrative regions. A term derived from the Greek nom»v, written sp t in hieroglyphic Egyptian texts and tsˇ in demotic. Butzer 1976: 103.

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political structure of the nomes served as a means for the king to establish loyal officials throughout Egypt, and as the basis for new settlement.24 The number of nomes had become fixed at forty-two in the Ptolemaic period. The figure is undoubtedly derived from ancient texts and had become canonical; there were certainly fewer nomes in the third century bce, but the Ptolemies took considerable interest in the reorganization of the nome structure, and nomes were added during the second century bce.25 The nome remained the main unit of economic control under the Ptolemies.26 The central state (i.e. the pharaoh) also fostered regional and central state institutions. Temple estates, for example, were crucial to the state’s hold over the diffused land tenure system. At other times, the pharaoh fostered family ties across nome boundaries in order to gain (or re-gain) political control over wider areas.27 Within Egypt, conditions of water, soil moisture, the availability of land and labor, and the nature of crop production, varied considerably between regions and from year to year.28 One can see important differences in economic organization already in the Early Dynastic period (3000–2600 bce).29 Even in periods of strong centralization, Upper and Lower Egypt were always culturally distinct, and local environmental conditions dictated a decentralized land tenure structure.30 The Delta and the Fayyum, for 24

25

26 27

28 29 30

The nome system was clearly in existence by the Third Dynasty (ca. 2600 bce). See Wilkinson 1999: 141–42. On the economic importance of nome organization, a constant for all four millennia of ancient Egyptian history, see Butzer 1976: 103–05. Diod. Sic. 1.54.3 mentions thirty-six nomes, as does Strabo 17. 1.1. On the canonical number of forty-two, see Van de Walle 1957. In P. Rev. (259 bce), in the two cases where a list of nomes occurs, the number of nomes given is twenty-three and twenty-four respectively, with the Thebaid, a region that would later comprise four separate nomes, coming last in both lists. In both cases, however, it is clear that the lists are only a partial listing of the nomes. On the list of nomes in P. Rev., see the discussions by Thomas 1967; and Sandy 1989, Appendix A, with a listing of the oil production in the nomes from P. Rev., 60–72. There is good evidence to suggest that there were at least three other nomes left unmentioned in P. Rev., these being the Xoite, the Phthemphouth and the Menelaite nomes. The important Karnak Ostracon (258 bce) discussed below in Chapter five, pp. 148–49, mentions thirty-six nomes, but the figure was corrected above the line to thirty-nine. On Egyptian nomes in general, see Helck 1974; O’Connor 1972: 686–89. On the history of nomes as an idealized expression of central power, see Eyre 2000. Cf. Préaux 1939: 67. See for example the famous tomb biography of the nomarch Khnumhotep II at Beni Hasan (Tomb 3; = PM iv, 144–49), published in Newberry 1893: 56–66, plates 25–26. For the text, see Urk. vii, 22–35. For a recent translation and commentary of the text, see Lloyd 1992. For more modern regional distinctions in agricultural production and organization, see Cuno 1992: 7, 66. Wilkinson 1999: 125. See Butzer 1976: 26–51 on the essential differences between the Nile valley and the Fayyum in ancient times. The basic differences between Upper and Lower Egypt in the nineteenth century ce, as earlier, was one of mutability of the land from year to year, with Upper Egypt being more unpredictable in terms of water conditions. Cf. Cuno 1992: 66.


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example, were far more susceptible to waterlogging and salinization than the river valley.31 Clear distinctions in the administrative structure of the different regions were also made.32 All of these local factors suggest that the old but persistent “despotic” model requires rethinking.33 The place to begin such rethinking lies in a discussion of the documented geographic regions in the Ptolemaic period, which I will do briefly here, and more fully in terms of land tenure in Chapters three and four. I begin with the south of the country and then move to the Fayyum depression. the thebaid The Nile valley under the Ptolemies, especially the Thebaid with its ancient temples and the political elites tied to them, may be described as the vestigial remains of ancient Egyptian civilization. The region was probably less affected in most places by contact with the Greek world during the Saite and Persian periods. The area south of Thebes had strong socio-economic connections to Nubia, and had historically supported the highest population density in the river valley. Despite the political shift northward under the Saites and Persians, the Thebaid remained economically important, and from the establishment of the theocratic state there in the Twentyfirst Dynasty (ca. 1075–945 bce), Thebes remained a quasi-independent region into the Ptolemaic period.34 The city was treated harshly by the Assyrians in 667 bce. Under the Ptolemies, the Thebaid extended from Aswan/Elephantine, the traditional border of Egypt, and thus an ancient garrison town, down to around Abydos. The Thebaid had historically been governed as a political unit, probably the result of basic geographic and political factors.35 The area between the Qena bend and Aswan was a very stable region, while expansion of new settlements was more readily accommodated in the wider flood plain north of Qena.36 The Ptolemies established garrisons 31 33 34 35

36

32 Vleeming 1991: 37–40; Vandorpe 2000a: 172. Butzer 1976: 22; Eyre 1994b: 71–72. See below, Chapter five, pp. 136–40. Population density was a function of early settlement as well as the narrowness of the cultivation. See Butzer 1976: 101. On Thebes, see the brief outline in Lloyd 1976: 12–13. Cf. below, Chapter three, pp. 66–70. The extent of the Thebaid changed over the course of Egyptian history, but that it was administered as a political unit from the Old Kingdom onward is well documented. The famous Weni who lived during the Sixth Dynasty (ca. 2200 bce) recorded in his autobiographical stela found at Abydos (Cairo inv. 1435; = Urk. i, 98–109; translated by Lichtheim 1975: 18–23) that he was appointed “governor of Upper Egypt, from Yebu (i.e. Elephantine) in the south to Medenyt (i.e. Aphroditopolis) in the north,” i.e. practically the entire river valley. On Weni’s career, see Eyre 1994a. Cf. Vandorpe 2000a: 171–72. O’Connor 1972: 689.

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along the Nile, particularly in the Thebaid, at the end points of trade routes to insure the flow of goods from the south and from the Red Sea.37 The area from Aswan to Thebes was the most densely populated part of the Nile river valley, but the distance between major settlements was greater here than in Middle Egypt.38 This distance, the strong vertical socio-economic ties of temples within this region, and the treatment of the Thebaid as a political unit, were certainly a response to the narrowness of the cultivation in the Thebaid and the usual practice of split holding of land across a wide area.39 Important sites such as Koptos and Edfu were endpoints of Red Sea trade routes through which flowed trade goods from Arabia and Africa, African war elephants40 as well as quarried stone, semi-precious stones, and gold from the eastern desert.41 Ptolemy II Philadelphus in particular was active in developing this trade, founding the port at Berenike and developing the network of roads between the Nile valley and the Red Sea coast.42 New towns were built, but ancient centers such as Dendera, Coptos and Edfu (“portes du désert” to borrow from Bernand)43 had to be controlled both by negotiation with the priesthoods and by the establishment of garrisons.44 While, therefore, Upper Egypt was hardly ignored by the Ptolemies, the kings did not directly alter socio-political patterns but instead maintained what was already in place.45 Upper Egypt had been since the early New Kingdom the site of a very powerful priesthood attached to the national cult of “Amun-Re king of the gods” at the temple in Karnak in western Thebes. Many other temple complexes were built in Thebes.46 The region was historically prone to uprising against northern regimes, a fact that would continue under the Ptolemies and the Romans. Powerful families from the Theban region 37

38 40

41 42 44 45

46

Among the forty or so garrisons, the most important and the largest ones were at Elephantine, Krokodilopolis, Pathyris, Thebes, Ptolemais, Hermopolis Magna and Hakoris (Tehne). On Ptolemaic garrisons in the Thebaid, see Winnicki 1978. 39 See further below, Chapter three, p. 73. O’Connor 1972: 688–89. For the elephant trade, important during the reigns of Ptolemy II–IV, see Desanges 1970. P. Gr. Eleph. 28 (Edfu, 223 bce; = Bagnall/Derow 1981, text 101) preserves an order to pay the elephant hunters. The text was preserved in the archive of Milon the praktor of temples in Edfu, perhaps because it was through Edfu that the elephants or the hunters came. On the Milon archive, see further below, Chapter three, pp. 83–85. On the gold-mining areas, see the description of Agatharcides preserved in Diod. Sic. 3.12.1–3; Préaux 1939: 253–61; Sidebotham 1995: 8; Bagnall et al. 1996: 319–20. 43 Bernand 1984. Strabo 17.1.45; Pliny HN 6.33.168. On the presence of the military, and their close relationship to Egyptian temples, especially with respect to temple building, see Dietze 2000. Préaux 1939: 10; Rostovtzeff 1941: 1200; Rowlandson 1996: 29. The powerful epistratêgos Kallimachos recorded in his famous proskyn¯ema to Isis (i. Philae 52, 62 bce), that his control of the Thebaid also included the Red Sea area. See further Ricketts 1982–83, and below, p. 37. See the excellent summary of the evidence given by Vandorpe 1995a.


35

had twice in the history of ancient Egypt risen up and founded two of the most impressive cultural-historical periods, the Middle (ca. 1975–1640 bce) and the New (ca. 1539–1075 bce) Kingdoms. Most of the pharaohs of the New Kingdom were buried in western Thebes, built mortuary temples on the west side of the Nile, and added to the powerful Karnak temple. An important land register dated to the tenth century bce recording temple holding in the tenth Upper Egyptian nome (centered in Antaiopolis), provides important documentation of the extent of land holdings of the Amun temple.47 Men of varying social status (soldiers, farmers, stonecutters and others) held small plots within the temple domain in a complex social web linking high officials, under whose “authority” plots of land were listed, to small tenants. The register also suggests that temples, especially the richer ones, controlled extensive hinterlands. An important papyrus document of the Ramesside period is also suggestive of the territorial “reach” that temple estates could have.48 Both of these features, an agricultural economy centered around temple management, and strong inter-regional economic and religious connections, continued to play a role under the Ptolemies, and this is certainly the explanation for the Ptolemaic strategy of settling soldiers on new land in the Fayyum and in the neighboring Herakleopolite nome. The town of Armant (Hermonthis), for example, was an important site of the animal cult of the Buchis bull, and it enjoyed Ptolemaic patronage up to the reign of Cleopatra VII, who built a birth house and sacred lake at the temple. By accident of survival we are particularly well informed about a class of mortuary priests known as Choachytes who lived and worked on the west bank of Thebes. Extensive private documentation written in demotic Egyptian as well as Greek has survived which provides details of their work and their property.49 Other classes of temple personnel, including lector priests, pastophoros priests, “carpenters of the house of Amun,” temple singers, herdsmen, and weavers, among others, have also left private records, and these provide evidence for the range of occupations and the degree of social interaction at the village and town level.50 47

48 49 50

P. Reinhardt ( = P. Berl. 3063). See the excellent studies by Vleeming 1993; Gasse 1988. The “owning institution” is listed as the “domain of Amun.” It is to be presumed, following Vleeming 1993: 50, that the estate of Amun at Karnak is meant. P. Valençay 1 (Dynasty 20, ca. 1196–1075 bce). See Katary 1989: 207–16. For translations and comments on the text, see Wente 1990: 130–31; Vittmann in Porten et al. 1996: 57–59. The location of their activity was at Jeme (Memnoneia), in the vicinity of the New Kingdom temple at Medinet Habu. On the archives, see Pestman 1993. Glanville 1939.

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In addition to the garrison towns, Ptolemy I Soter established a new southern capital, Ptolemais, modern el-Manshah, south of Sohag.51 There were traditionally two political centers of Egypt, Memphis in the north, and Thebes in the south.52 The Ptolemies established a new capital at Alexandria on the Mediterranean, founded by Alexander, a city that would become the most important city in the Mediterranean before Rome, and a second political center at Ptolemais in Upper Egypt, founded by Ptolemy.53 This strategy of building “Greek” cities followed the “Hellenistic” practice, much like the Seleucids.54 The founding of Ptolemais was required to maintain political control of the Thebaid, given its distance from the capital, and, while removed from Thebes and its priests, it was close enough to control this potentially troublesome region. Thebes was a city of royal memorials, above all of the New Kingdom pharaohs, whose impressive mortuary temples stood on the west bank and epitomized the past glory of their military successes. The Ptolemies certainly did not want to compete with that, but they did establish their political legitimacy through Egyptian institutions, and they did want to control the region.55 Ptolemais, not far upstream from Akhmim, may have been sited to take advantage of developing cultivation in an agriculturally rich area that historically supported many settlements.56 We are left to guess about intentions here because the third-century bce documentation of the town is minimal. All of the important Ptolemaic officials who were in charge of the finances and monitoring of local institutions were based there, as were the eponymous priests of Ptolemy I Soter after their introduction by Ptolemy IV Philopator. By the time of Strabo’s visit to the South at the end of the first century bce, Ptolemais had become a large center: 51

52 53 54 55 56

On Ptolemais, see Plaumann 1910, still the only study of the town. See also briefly Bevan 1968[1927]: 104–08; Heinen 1991; Vandorpe 1995a: 210; Abd-el-Ghani 2001. The town was clearly an important military garrison in the second century bce, on which see Winnicki 1978: 38–41. A fair amount of epigraphic evidence comes from the later Ptolemaic period, for which see inter alia A. Martin 1993 and Bingen 1993. The well-known cavalry officer Dryton (see below, Chapter three, p. 87) was a citizen of Ptolemais. The site has never been extensively excavated or surveyed. On the problem of Ptolemaic and Roman archaeology in Egypt, see Rathbone 1994b. See briefly O’Connor 1972. Under the Saites, Sais in the Delta and Thebes in the south were seats of the two viziers, the chief administrative officials of the regime. See further Vittmann 1978: 143–70. For the foundation of Alexandria, see most recently Huß 2001: 63–69. Cf. Leriche 1987. Whether the intent was to “hellenize” the Thebaid is debatable; simple political and economic control seems more likely. On the intent to “hellenize,” see Abd-el-Ghani 2001. O’Connor 1972: 688–89.


37

Then one comes to the city of Ptolemais, which is the largest of the cities in the Thebais, is no smaller than Memphis, and also has a form of government modeled on that of the Greeks.57

Even if we allow some exaggeration, and assume that the city was only the size of Thebes, very roughly estimated to have been around 50,000, it was a very large city indeed. Despite the presence of an administrative center and garrisons, the Thebaid was prone to unrest that at times disrupted the Ptolemaic hold over the area. During the greatest disturbance, the Thebaid broke off from Ptolemaic control for a generation.58 The revolt caused widespread disruption, and the Ptolemies responded with increased military force in the region. During the second century bce, new garrison towns were established in the Thebaid. The most important town, at least in terms of the survival of papyri from there, was Pathyris, an old town settled with soldiers in 186 bce. Shipments of grain to garrisons in the region show the importance of soldiers. Smaller scale unrest continued, however, until it was finally crushed in 88 bce.59 But the Thebaid was not completely subdued, and Ptolemaic control of the south diminished as a consequence. So much is attested by the disappearance of the garrison town at Pathyris.60 The Kallimachus decree, dated to 39 bce, is only the most famous evidence for the re-emergence of the local elite in the first century bce.61 The text of the decree is very instructive for understanding the region’s resilience, the state of Egyptian institutions at the end of the Ptolemaic period, and the nature of local power. Kallimachus, a stratêgos of the Thebaid, was honored in a bilingual decree (Greek and demotic) for having saved the entire region from the famine of 42 and 41 bce.62 In language echoing the tomb biographies of local nomarchs from a much earlier period, and implying that he functioned as virtual pharaoh in the South, Kallimachus supplied food that saved “nearly everyone” and reinstituted religious festivals because of his piety to the gods. But even these local warlords, without doubt always present even if not always documented and not removed from power by the Ptolemaic rulers, could not save Thebes from the destruction caused by the earthquake of 26 bce.63 57 58 59 61 62 63

17.1.42: ï Epeita Ptolemaik p»liv, meg©sth tän n t ¦ Qhba©di kaª oÉk lttwn Mmfewv, cousa kaª sÅsthma politik¼n n t ä ‘ellhnik ä tr»p w. See below, Chapter five for the revolt. 60 Vandorpe 1995a: 235. Paus. 1.9.3. OGIS 194 ( = SEG xxiv 1217). Translated in Burstein 1985: text 111. Cf. Van ’t Dack 1988b, esp. pp. 296–97. For agricultural problems earlier in the same decade, see Thompson 1994a: 323. See Chapter five, p. 170.

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Issues and historical background the fay yum

The Fayyum, located some fifty miles southwest of Cairo, and irrigated by the Bahr Yusef, was developed more intensively in two periods, during the Twelfth Dynasty (ca. 1991–1783 bce) and under the Ptolemies, when it became a focus of Ptolemaic power. The region was indeed crucial in the plan of the settlement of soldiers during the reigns of the first three Ptolemies. Egyptian temples were also located here, and while some of the towns had been in existence long before the Ptolemies, the region was dominated by military settlers and by royal land.64 But there was hardly social isolation between immigrants and Egyptians. Indeed the census records show the remarkable degree to which Egyptians, Greeks and others lived together in the villages.65 At one level, the abundance of Greek papyri from certain villages provides us with detailed accounts of Ptolemaic policy, intervention and control. Ptolemaic state involvement in the Fayyum involved the transfer of populations, a phenomenon well known not only from Egyptian and Persian history but also from the more recent experience of Philip II in Macedon.66 We have no indication, however, that much of the transfer was forced; there may have been good economic incentives for people to move into new areas. Fayyum papyri provide a valuable window on the interaction of the old with the new, the Greek and the Egyptian (and others), the old priests and the immigrant soldiers, living and sometimes working side by side. The archaeology of the Fayyum is now showing us the parameters of Ptolemaic intervention, the canal networks, the methods of reclaiming land and putting it under cultivation, and the range of crops grown.67 The distinguishing feature of the Fayyum in this period is the large number of military settlers that were established here and in the Oxyrhynchite and Herakleopolite nomes. The aim in the settlement of kleruchs on the land was to establish for the rulers a loyal and ready fighting force. The use of soldiers to settle new areas also allowed them to establish power over land quickly and firmly. Settling soldiers on the land, of course, had a long history in Egypt before the Ptolemies, but power over land and the loyalty of an important constituency were both essential for the new Macedonian regime.68 After the battle of Raphia in 217 bce, Egyptians were also given kleruchic grants, generally smaller in size than their Greek counterparts. But the large number of Greek settlers, the large size of some of the villages, 64 66 67 68

65 See e.g. Thompson 1997a: 251. Thompson in Clarysse and Thompson forthcoming. Just. Epit. 8.5.7–6.2, on Philip’s policy, compares the “ruthlessness” of Philip II to the Persian kings. Rathbone 1996 and 1997. See in general Crawford 1971: 53–85; Clarysse and Thompson forthcoming.


39

the agricultural experimentation and the large gift estates in the third century bce combine to show that the Fayyum stood in sharp contrast in the period to much of the Nile valley. the historical background to ptolemaic rule 69 The Ptolemaic period falls in the middle of a transition in Egypt. During much of the first millennium bce, Egypt was under the control of foreign dynasts. Central political power collapsed at the end of the Twentieth Dynasty (ca. 1069 bce), in the wake of which a theocratic state centered on the temple of Amun emerged in Thebes during the Twenty-first Dynasty, under the direction of warlords who also held priestly titles.70 Egypt became a fighting ground between the Assyrian and Nubian kings. Invasions followed, first by the Nubian kings, who comprised Manetho’s Twentyfifth Dynasty, and then by the Assyrian rulers Esarhaddon in 674 bce (unsuccessful) and 671 bce, and Ashurbanipal in 667 bce. The political fragmentation of Egypt in this period, so well attested in the demotic cycle of stories of Pedubastis, is also clearly seen in the Piye stela (ca. 727 bce) that chronicles the Nubian king’s campaigns in Egypt.71 Order was restored, and a central state established, by the Saite king Psammetichus I in 656 bce.72 From this period on, Egypt became part of the wider Mediterranean world, and followed trends seen elsewhere. These include Greek colonization, increased urbanization, and trade. The Saite period is marked by the use of ancient Egyptian models for artistic and organizational inspiration, the reestablishment of political authority in the nomes, and by extensive military settlement.73 The soldiers were descendants of Libyan soldiers (the well-known machimoi) as well as immigrants from the Greek world.74 Without question the reign of Amasis (570–526 bce), about whom we are so well informed by Herodotus, with some exaggeration, was one of the great periods in Egyptian history.75 Building was renewed on a monumental 69

70 71

72 75

A good historical survey of the first millennium bce is now available in Huß 2001. Gyles 1959 on pharaonic policies and administrative practices during the Late Period is very out of date, but still has useful comments. For a brief sketch of the Saites, see Möller 2000: 26–38. Kitchen 1986: 16–23. For the Pedubastis cycle, see Kitchen 1986: 455–61; Hoffmann 2000: 199–205. On the Piye stela (Cairo JdE 48862, 47086–47089), see Grimal 1981, and the transliteration and English translation in Eide et al. 1994: 62–118. 73 Herodotus 2.164–166. 74 On Saite models, see Manuelian 1994. Kitchen 1986: 403–08. Herodotus 2.161–63, 169–74, 177–79, 181–82. Cf. Diod. Sic. 1.79; 94–95. For Herodotus on the Saites, see Lloyd 1988b: 174–241.

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scale, and the number of surviving business documents also suggests an increased level of economic activity. The economic output of Egypt was aided by very good Nile floods in these years, and the population probably increased.76 Most important, though, was the projection of Saite economic and political power in the Mediterranean and in Syria-Palestine, supported by a powerful navy.77 This imperial form of state, with an emphasis on trade, especially in the Red Sea, which in part at least goes back to the pharaohs of the New Kingdom, also established the pattern for the Persians and the Ptolemies. Several other trends are important for the understanding of Ptolemaic rule. It was in this period that Greeks began to be settled in large numbers. Coinage, however widespread it actually was, began to be used, and the new demotic language, a rapid form of hieroglyphic writing used to record business and legal contracts, spread throughout the country and aided in the consolidation of political power.78 At this point, important reforms in the legal system occurred both in terms of the language of contracts and their apparent wider usage, and also in the court system itself.79 As part of the consolidation, the Delta-based kings established a condominium with the Theban priesthoods and generals, and appointed loyal city “governors.”80 Here again the traditional pattern emerges of administering Upper Egypt as a distinct region, with caution applied because of the sensitivities of the Theban temples.81 The regional differences are clearly seen in the two traditions of hieratic writing, the Theban tradition being eventually replaced by the northern demotic tradition as part of the Saite consolidation.82 Egypt became a province (satrapy) of the Persian empire in 525 bce when Cambyses defeated the Egyptian army, relatively easily, at the battle of Pelusium.83 This effectively marked the end of an independent Egypt, 76

77 78 79 80 81 82 83

The population estimate of 20–25 million by Walek-Czernecki 1940–41 is unlikely in the extreme. The traditional figure of seven million, again too high probably, cited by Diod. Sic.1.31.7 is generally thought to be referring to the reign of Amasis. On the literary sources discussing population, based on the number of villages, see further Rathbone 1990, who accepts as a low estimate Diodorus’ mid-first-century bce estimate of not less than three million, as does Lloyd 1988b: 190. Cf. below, n. 129. Lloyd 1977. On the rise, spread and decline of demotic, see further below, Chapter five, pp. 173–77. Malinine 1973; Allam 1991. For the relationship between the king and the Theban priesthoods, see the important Nitocris Adoption Stela, published by Caminos 1964. The chart of Gyles 1959: 76 illustrates the bifurcation of Upper and Lower Egyptian administrative structure. See below, Chapter five, p. 174. Ray 1988: 255. The Coptic “Cambyses romance” is a revisionist account of the event, relying on Herodotus’ coloring of the king. On Herodotus’ portrayal, see further Lloyd 1988a. The basic


41

and it laid the foundation for Macedonian and then Roman domination. Cambyses saw himself as a legitimate pharaoh, heir to the Saite kings, and he acted accordingly.84 The Demotic Chronicle, an important historical source for the period, reports Cambyses’ attempt at limited restructuring of some temples’ finances, a move paralleled later by Xerxes and widely unpopular among the priesthoods.85 Persian governance in Egypt depended on this local elite, and while local traditions were maintained as much as possible, there was clearly some attempt at centralization. The balance was not always struck. The amount of wealth stored in the state treasuries located in several Persian centers is enough to prove successful “centralization” of state finances, and within Egypt itself the satrap tried to control the country from Memphis. Persian loan words, generally legal or economic ones such as artaba, a unit of dry measure, came into demotic Egyptian in this period.86 Donations to the temples continued, and Darius’ respect toward the Egyptian gods is demonstrated in the famous Stela of Udjahorresnet,87 in the continuation of the temple of Amun-Re at Hibis, and in the pious donation of land to the Horus temple at Edfu.88 The Egyptian legal system was also maintained, and most temples continued without interference. Correspondence between the priests of the god Khnum at Elephantine and the satrap Pherendates suggests that while the satrap was nominally in charge of temple affairs there, the priests continued to function independently despite Persian instructions.89 Despite such condominium, however, differences of language and culture were not easily allayed, and any sign of central weakness was met with open revolt. Indeed a series of revolts followed the initial Persian occupation of the country. The most important of these was led by the satrap Aryandes

84 85

86 87

88 89

hieroglyphic sources for the period were collected by Posener 1936, still a standard reference. For a recent overview of the period, see Sternberg-El-Hotabi 2000; Huß 2001: 33–54. Bresciani 1985: 503. For the Demotic Chronicle (P. Bib. Nat. 215, dated to the third century bce), see Spiegelberg 1914; Johnson 1974. The later tradition of Cambyses’ excesses is no doubt highly exaggerated in Herodotus’ account. Briant 1996a: 426. For other loan words, see Vittmann 1996; Azzoni and Lippert 2000. Vatican Museum 158 [113], 17–20. The hieroglyphic text is given in Posener 1936: 1–26. For a recent English translation, see Lichtheim 1980: 38. Additional insights are provided by Ray 1988: 258–59; Verner 1989. On the land donation to the Edfu temple by Darius, see further below Chapter three, pp. 74–77. On this so-called “Pherendates correspondence” ( = P. Berl. 13539, 13540; Elephantine, 492 bce) see Zauzich 1983a; Hughes 1984; Martin in Porten et al. 1996: 289–95 with further bibliography. The ˇ ). Under the letters involved the appointment of the head of the temple, the lesonis (dem. mr–sn Ptolemies, the th¯ebarch, based in Ptolemais, was responsible, and appears to have benefited personally from appointing the head of the temple. See e.g. P. Berl. 13543 (Elephantine, 219 bce?), translated by Martin in Porten et al. 1996, 311–12.

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who attempted to break Egypt off from the empire, an idea crushed by Darius some time before 492 bce. Another serious revolt between 463/2 bce and 449 bce, but limited apparently to one part of the Delta, was led by the Libyan Inaros and brought Athens and its allies into Egypt in support of Egyptian freedom. It was during these years, sometime between 449 bce and 430 bce, that Herodotus probably visited Egypt.90 A third revolt occurred in 414/3 bce. Most of the trouble may be attributed to the opposition to Persian rule by some elite families and “disaffected warlords.”91 The distance of Egypt from the political center of the Persian empire and the loose style of governance aided Egyptian resistance and open revolt. Egypt had also become fully engulfed in the Persian rivalry with the Greek states.92 The loose style of running Egypt also at times allowed local hostilities to come into the open. One such event is reported in 410 bce, on Elephantine island in the far south of Egypt, when the Jewish temple there was burned to the ground.93 The revolt of Amyrtaeus, coming at the death of Darius II in 404 bce, briefly made Egypt independent.94 Amyrtaeus was followed by one Nephorites, who sought Spartan aid against Persian re-conquest.95 The Demotic Chronicle, a principal historical source for the period, gives only the barest of details, but it does confirm that these were turbulent times.96 This series of Egyptian revolts effectively marked the beginning of the end of Persian control of Egypt. The last Egyptian pharaohs, Nectanebo I (380–362 bce) and II (360–343 bce) were military commanders, and it was the military, both foreign troops and the machimoi, along with some powerful priesthoods, that were the real powers in Egypt. It was during the reigns of Nectanebo I and II that the donation of land to the Edfu temple was made.97 Egypt was free from Persian control, but highly unstable politically, until 343 bce when Artaxerxes III invaded Egypt and again established Persian domination. This second occupation of the country (343–332 bce) led to an attempt to control the temple economies, and the harsh priestly reaction is the probable source of the later tradition of Persian atrocities committed in Egypt.98 The second period of Persian domination was racked by political unrest, the rapacious 90 92 93 95 96 98

91 Ray 1987b: 79. Lloyd 1975: 61–76. For an outline of fourth century bce Egyptian history, see Ray 1987b; Lloyd 1994. 94 Kienitz 1953: 76–78. Ray 1987b: 80; Porten et al. 1996, texts B19–20. On the reading of Nephorites’ name see Clarysse 1994b. 97 Discussed below, Chapter three, pp. 74–79. P. Bib. Nat. 215 (Ptolemaic), Johnson 1974. Young 1988: 50–51; Ray 1988: 260. Xerxes’ seizure of temple land around Buto in the Delta is mentioned in the Satrap Stela (Cairo CG 22182, = Urk. ii, 11–22) issued in regnal year 7 of Alexander IV (311/310 bce). The text records a decree that restored the traditional endowments of land and animals to the temple of Edjo at Buto in the Delta reestablished by Khabbabash after Xerxes’ sequestration. In the offering scene at the top of the stela, a pharaoh is depicted making


43

treatment of temples, and open revolt against the Persian regime. The revolt and reign of Khabbabash mentioned in the Satrap Stela occurred at this time, probably in 338–336 bce, just before Alexander’s invasion.99 ptolemaic political history A brief outline of Ptolemaic political history is necessary before passing on to Ptolemaic institutions.100 Broad social and economic continuity from the Persian period is the near unanimous view of recent scholarship, and the text known as the “Dream of Nectanebo” links Alexander to Nectanebo II as his legitimate successor.101 The transition from a tributary province to a monarchic state took roughly thirty years.102 Alexander and his army entered Egypt in 332 bce, having taken Egypt with the help of the last Persian satrap Mazakes. As Alexander departed Egypt for the East in 331 bce, he left a small number of garrisoned soldiers at Memphis and at Pelusion and appointed two men to be in charge, presumably of Upper and Lower Egypt.103 Alexander’s plan intended no one person to be in charge of the whole country.104 Yet one man, Kleomenes, from the old Greek emporium at Naukratis, who surely knew how Egypt worked, did emerge as the principal power broker in the country.105 As the head of the country’s finances, control of the tax revenue in grain made him a powerful man. He was eventually recognized by Alexander as the satrap. And in the wake of Alexander’s untimely death, Ptolemy, one of Alexander’s key generals, made his way back

99 100 101 102 103

104 105

offerings to two gods, Uto and Harendotes. The cartouches are uninscribed but it is likely that the “pharaoh” depicted is Ptolemy rather than Alexander since Alexander’s cartouches are inscribed in the hieroglyphic text. For the publication of the stela, see Kamal 1905, pl. 61 and the remarks of Bianchi 1983. A good photograph was recently published by Grimm 1997: 237 and a provisional English translation was published in Bevan 1968[1927]: 28–32. For a recent translation, see Roeder 1959: 97–106. A new edition of the text has been announced by Didier Devauchelle. On the restoration of temple property by the Ptolemaic kings, see Winnicki 1994. Burstein 2000. For an excellent and full treatment of Ptolemaic political history, see Huß 2001. Se e.g. Johnson 1994a; Jasnow 1999. For the “Dream of Nectanebo,” see Kienitz 1953: 171–73; Huß 1994: 133–37, with further literature. Basic continuity from the Saite and Persian periods is stressed by Johnson 1987; Johnson 1994a. 4,000 is the generally accepted number, following Curt. 4.8.4; Cf. Arrian 3.1.3; Arrian 3.5.3. On the administration, see Arrian 3.5.2; Diod. Sic. 18.39.5. There is some debate about the exact position of Doloaspis (an Iranian name), and Petesis. Arrian recorded that they were “nomarchs,” corrected by Diodorus to “nauarch.” Both men probably had experience in the Persian administration. See Burstein 2000, and the brief note by Turner 1984: 146, n. 73. On Alexander’s occupation of Egypt, see Bosworth 1980, vol. i: 275–78; Bosworth 1988: 68–74. Arrian 3.5. Kleomenes personally benefited from the famine of the 320s bce by cornering the grain market during the crisis. Arist., Oec. ii 2.33, 1352a 16.

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to Egypt and initially functioned as a satrap, taking over from Kleomenes, whom he had murdered.106 Ptolemy proclaimed himself king, basileus, in 304 bce and established the Ptolemaic dynasty. This time lag in his progress from general to satrap to king reflects the politics in these complicated days of the diadochoi, the successors of Alexander who took control of the eastern Mediterranean in the aftermath of his death. As has been frequently noted, the documentary evidence, particularly in Greek, is scarce for the reign of Ptolemy I (304–283/2 bce), at some point given the dynastic cult epithet Soter,107 but it is clear that the first Ptolemy had a plan to administer Egypt, and it was certainly he that shaped the entire history of the dynasty. With the reign of his son and co-regent (285/4–282 bce), Ptolemy II Philadelphus (282–246 bce), the documentation of the economy increases substantially. During his reign and that of Ptolemy III Euergetes (246–222 bce), Ptolemaic political and economic power was consolidated and extended. The empire reached its greatest extent, the Fayyum was reclaimed and settled, close relations with the important priesthoods were firmly established, and the “économie royale” was articulated.108 Ptolemy II in particular seems to have been active in founding new cities, rebuilding the canal out to the Red Sea, building ports along the coast, and extending trade routes to the Red Sea and through the gold-mining regions.109 The important administrative texts P. Rev., P. Tebt. 703, and the Zenon archive come from these years, all of which tend to give an image of great activity and success.110 Ptolemy IV Philopator (221–204 bce) came to the throne a young man and was controlled by the courtier Sosibius. Histories of his reign are heavily influenced by Polybius’ negative account, but there is little evidence to suggest steep economic decline. Although certainly the retariffing of the bronze relative to the silver currency, and the supposed price inflation associated with the military conflict of the period, may have had some negative consequences, it is far from clear that there was real inflation of prices.111 106 107 108 109 110 111

Paus. 1.6.3. For the honorific and the problems of when it was applied to Ptolemy I, see most recently Johnson 2000 and literature cited therein. On early Ptolemaic/priesthood interactions, see Hölbl 2001: 85–123; Thiers 1999. On the earlier history of the canal, begun by Necho (610–595 bce) and completed by Darius I, see Lloyd 1977; Briant 1996a: 493–95. See below, Chapter five, pp. 141–43 for P. Rev. and P. Tebt. 703, and Chapter four, pp. 110–18, for the Zenon archive. On the complex evidence of the currency devaluation of silver to bronze currency and price inflation, starting at the end of the third century bce (221–216 bce) and again observed in 199 bce and before 173 bce, see Reekmans 1948; Reekmans 1949, Reekmans 1951; Clarysse and Lanciers 1989; Maresch 1996; Cadell and Le Rider 1997: 65–86; Bagnall 1999.


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Table 1. An outline of Ptolemaic political history (the “Polybius” model) Period Macedonian dynasty Satrapal period Ptolemaic floruit Ptolemaic decline

King

Dates

Alexander-Alexander IV Ptolemy as satrap Ptolemy I-Ptolemy III Ptolemy IV-Cleopatra VII

332–310/09 bce 309–305 bce 304–221 bce 221–30 bce

The resounding victory of the Ptolemaic army at Raphia in 217 bce, with a substantial Egyptian contingent, was widely celebrated.112 Polybius (5.107.1–3) linked the unrest in Egypt that followed with returning, emboldened Egyptian soldiers. In 207 bce, the Thebaid broke off from Ptolemaic control.113 Ptolemy IV died at the age of forty, leaving a young son to become the next king. Ptolemy V Epiphanes, aged six upon his accession to the throne, and in the hands of “guardians,” inherited several political problems. The Thebaid was in open revolt, Antiochos III was aggressive in Asia and Philip V in the Aegean. Much of the Ptolemaic empire was lost in these years. In response to internal crises, the Memphis decree of 27 March 196 bce, preserved on the famous Rosetta Stone, was issued by the synod of Egyptian priests gathered from throughout the country. It celebrated the coronation of the young king as well as the close relationship between the king, cloaked in Egyptian myth and symbolism, and the Egyptian priests, who exhibited gratitude and loyalty to the king.114 The text, like the other priestly decrees from the period, was in effect a new public contract between the ruler and the local elite. Another boy king, Ptolemy VI (180–168 bce) inherited the throne and came under the guardianship of his mother Cleopatra I, who died in 176 bce. Once again, the king was dominated by outsiders, this time two foreigners, Eulaios and Lenaios. Their collective misguided policies led to the invasion of Egypt by the Seleucid king Antiochos IV. In the same year, 170 bce, joint rule was declared between Ptolemy VI, his sister Cleopatra II and their younger brother Ptolemy VIII.115 This joint rule between the royal siblings would 112 113 114

115

Polyb. 5.65.1–10; Walbank 1970, vol. 1: 589–92. For the Raphia decree, see Thissen 1966; Simpson 1996. The battle itself is analyzed by Bar-Kochva 1976: 128–41. See further below, Chapter five, pp. 164–71 on this revolt. On the priestly synods, see Huß 1991; Huß 1994: 46–49; Thiers 1999; Clarysse 2000a; Hölbl 2001 [1994]: 105–12. Such meetings were intended, of course, to instill loyalty to the ruler among the priests, but they may also have had, at least occasionally, the opposite effect. With the certain elimination of Ptolemy VII Neos Philopator from the list of Ptolemaic rulers, Huß 2001 has renumbered kings from Ptolemy VIII (his Ptolemy VII) on. Cf. Hölbl 2001: 192. For the sake of clarity, I retain the old numbering.

46


have serious consequences later. The immediate effect of Antiochos IV’s invasion of Egypt was the intervention of Rome in the internal political affairs of Egypt. In a now infamous scene in a suburb of Alexandria, the Roman ambassador C. Popilius Laenas expelled the Syrian king, an event that marked the end of the Sixth Syrian War and heralded the beginning of Roman dominance in the political affairs of Egypt.116 Joint rule among the siblings continued, but internal unrest throughout the country persisted for much of the remainder of Ptolemaic rule.117 Troubles were particularly bad throughout the 160s bce, culminating in civil war. A settlement was reached between them in which Ptolemy VIII Euergetes II gained control of Cyrene while Ptolemy VI Philometor, altogether one of the wisest Ptolemaic kings according to the sources, and his sister Cleopatra ruled Egypt jointly from 163 to 154 bce. But Ptolemy VIII Euergetes II was not content with ruling Cyrene, and he sought Roman intervention to gain Egypt. He remained outside Egypt until the death of his brother in 145 bce. Upon Ptolemy VI’s death, his younger brother gained Egypt and quickly married the widowed Cleopatra II. Not long afterwards, civil war again broke out, forcing Ptolemy VIII to retreat to Cyprus.118 Civil war led to Seleucid intervention, more unrest in the countryside, and political murder, all of which resulted in the general amnesty decree issued on behalf of the three siblings in 118 bce in order to establish comity between the rivals and order in the countryside once again.119 Its effects were not long lasting, but it is in these years that the Menches archive provides important evidence for attempts at establishing order around the village of Kerkeosiris.120 After the death of Euergetes II, the rivalry between claimants to the throne continued, not always on Egyptian soil. Alexandrians were crucial in these dynastic disputes, playing the role of king maker on several occasions. The two Cleopatras, Cleopatra II and III, mother and daughter, continued to be at the center of the storms until the death of Cleopatra II in 116 bce, and the murder of Cleopatra III by her son Ptolemy X. Roman power 116

117 118 119

120

Polyb. 29.27; Livy 45; Diod. Sic. 31.2. The demotic archive known as the archive of Horus (dem. H . or) describes some of the events after the Roman ultimatum was delivered. See Ray 1976: 14–29. On the background to this “Day of Eleusis,” see Gruen 1984: 650–60, with bibliography cited therein. See below, Chapter five, pp. 164–71. The trouble was certainly fomented by Ptolemy’s decision also to marry Cleopatra III, the daughter of Cleopatra II. P. Tebt 5, C. Ord. Ptol. 53, 53 bis, 53 ter. The text contains important material on the economic structure, social relations and land tenure in the late second century bce. For the texts, see Huß 2001: 621–22, with literature cited in n. 219, and further below, Chapter five, pp. 180–81. See further below, Chapter four, pp. 119–22. The unpublished land survey from Edfu, P. Haun. inv. 407, dates to the same period. See below, Chapter three, p. 76.


47

was increasingly in evidence in Ptolemaic politics in the capital, and the countryside was in disarray, at least in some areas.121 The Ptolemaic kings in the first century were occupied mainly with keeping Roman power at bay, and the needs of state financing put pressure on the land in some areas, while overseas possessions were lost to Rome.122 The mid first century saw a brief period of stability under the rule of the last Ptolemy, the famous Cleopatra VII Philopator, the daughter of Ptolemy XII Auletes and, perhaps, an Egyptian woman.123 The end of the dynasty, with this last monarch involved first with Caesar and then Marc Antony, is well recorded in classical sources and need not detain us here. Egypt had become at first a Roman protectorate and, finally, a province with Augustus’ entrance into Alexandria in 30 bce. It is difficult to assess how the agricultural economy and the land tenure regime were affected by the political machinations in the capital; we have few sources for the period. Upper Egypt for the most part may have been immune from the politics in Alexandria but it was certainly not immune from the civil wars. And, of course, on several occasions the Thebaid was wracked by unrest, which at one point stopped the building of the Edfu temple.124 The great temple of Edfu was completed in 57 bce, and an ambitious building program was undertaken during the reign of Cleopatra VII at Dendera. Bad Nile floods are, however, recorded in the 40s bce, and they certainly would have placed severe pressure on the capital.125 Egyptian military/priestly families rose to prominence in the south, no doubt as a direct result of political confusion in Alexandria.126 institutions The population of Ptolemaic Egypt, a crucial figure for the study of all aspects of the economy, cannot be firmly established on the basis of the literary sources.127 A study of the census texts will provide a solid foundation, certainly for the Fayyum, and the new excavations in Alexandria may yet yield important information for that city,128 but for the moment, the best estimate of the population of Ptolemaic Egypt, including the city of Alexandria, lies between 3.5 and 4.5 million, on a maximum agricultural 121 122 123 125 126 128

Another major revolt in the Thebaid was reported in 90–88 bce. See below, Chapter five, p. 170. On abandonment of land in the Herakleopolite nome, see BGU 2370. Trouble in the Herakleopolite is reported again in 61/60 bce, BGU 1815. 124 See further below, Chapter five, p. 167. On Cleopatra’s descent, see Huß 1990. BGU 1730 ( = Select Papyri 2, text 209). Cf. Thompson 1994a: 323. 127 See Rathbone 1990 on the literary sources. See further Chapter seven, p. 240. Bagnall 2001: 231.

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Issues and historical background Nile Valley

2400

Delta

2100

1800

1500

1200

900

600

Fayyum

300

0 4000 BCE 3500

Desert 3000

2500

2000

1500

1000

500

150 BCE

4000 BCE

3000

2500

1800

1250

150 BCE

240

600

1040

1120

1620

2400

Delta Fayyum

80 3

210 6

540 9

750 61

1170 72

2160 312

desert

25

50

25

25

25

50

valley

Figure 3. The graph depicts hypothetical demographic development in ancient Egypt; the same information is presented beneath in table form. The population is given in ooos. Data taken from Butzer 1976: 83 (Table 4 )


49

base of nine million arouras, roughly comparable to Egypt at the beginning of the nineteenth century ce.129 The growth in population tracked increased agricultural output. Such “static expansion” would have placed a serious dampening effect on real economic growth, and pressure on the land, although we can precisely measure neither. The economic, political and religious institutions of Ptolemaic Egypt were a combination of old and new, Egyptian and Greek. General economic and social continuity should be stressed, as it has been for the Seleucid dynasty.130 In terms of the economy there were three overlapping systems, probably all present before the Ptolemies. The relationship between these three systems under the Ptolemies (something that is not easy to quantify) was, however, certainly changed. The three overlapping systems were the customary economy, the command economy and the market economy.131 The use of coinage and the demand for the collection of taxes in coin certainly expanded the market economy, and the system of state “monopolies” in some areas of production and the farming of taxes certainly increased the state presence in aspects of the economy, especially in oil and flax production. But the largest part of the economy, at least in Upper Egypt (the Fayyum differs in the mixture of the three),132 was no doubt still the customary economy centered on grain production in irrigated basins, the local collection of taxes in kind, barter exchange, and the use of corvée labor in 129

130 132

Rathbone 1990: 109–15. The figure yields a man/land ratio of 2–2.57 arouras per capita. Scheidel 2001, Chapter three, estimates a maximum population for the second century ce of five to seven million, and not much below this for the Ptolemaic period. The amount of land, roughly 24,800 km2 , derives from the Edfu temple, Edfou vi, 199–201 ( = PM 6: 164), reign of Ptolemy V, and although the figure is probably a theoretical maximum, the recording of the total arable on the temple wall does suggest a centralization of this kind of information was possible, and knowledge of the extent of Egypt (via the god of wisdom Thoth) certainly a part of the Egyptian cosmology. Unlike Scheidel 2001: 220, I do not think the figure is entirely fanciful. For the census, see Clarysse and Thompson forthcoming; on the basis of this Fayyum material Thompson 2001c suggests a much lower population figure for the third century bce. The nineteenth-century figure (1830 ce), a population of about four million on an arable base of 20,000 km2 (or 7,260,000 arouras equivalent, or 1.81 arouras per capita), comes from Ruf 1993: 189–90. For Alexandria itself, an estimate of half a million for the first century bce is the generally accepted figure, for which see Rathbone 1990: 120. Bairoch 1988: 29 posits a population of Alexandria “exceeding 300,000” in 320 bce, which can hardly be correct given its recent foundation. On the hypothesis of Ades and Glaeser 1995 that there is a correlation between centralized states and “urban giants,” the case of Alexandria may well support their claims. Alexandria contained roughly 14% of the total population of Ptolemaic Egypt at its height, and certainly immigration was a major component of Alexandrian growth. Cf. Sallares 1991: 88–89. As for the specific factors of the “migration effect,” the fact that trade was an important element of Alexandria, political instability in the countryside, the shift to wheat production, which required less labor (see Nesbitt and Samuel 1995), and the Ptolemaic taxation of the land (quite high on some classes of land), all fit the thesis. Another important factor was the Greek preference for urban living, although quantifying these factors is impossible. 131 On the basic distinctions, see Hicks 1969. Sherwin-White and Kuhrt 1993: 2. On the differences between the Fayyum and Upper Egypt, see Chapters three and four.

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the maintenance of the irrigation canals. Here too the Ptolemaic system of banks and tax farming made inroads. But this third part of the economy relied on the cooperation of local officials and the local elite, and the economic power of the central state should be measured in terms of the success of the bureaucracy’s ability to collect the agricultural surplus.133 The kings, from the beginning of the period, were forced to balance, on one hand, the majority Egyptian population and its institutions and, on the other hand, the Greek population and its expectations for reward and position within the new state. Rank and hierarchy were important elements (as they were earlier), and while there does not appear to have been a regular system of promotions, the self-identity as a “Greek,” and at least some knowledge of the language, became essential within the bureaucracy. Status within this bureaucracy, and within the military, was attached to the holding of land, and a source of social tension. The primary agricultural workers, the free Egyptian tenant farmers, comprised the vast majority of the population, and were not historically bound to large units of production but, rather, to annual leases of small plots, within an institutional ambit of authority. There was a tradition of private conveyance of land as well, at least in the south where it is clearly documented.134 Most often this land was within the nominal control of temple estates. The Ptolemies did not take land by force, nor did they eliminate the local elite. The literate Egyptian priesthoods were used to collaboration with the Persian administration, and remained a very small but crucial element for the legitimization of any regime.135 The Ptolemaic priestly decrees recognize the importance of the priesthoods as instruments of authority at the local level.136 The scribal class, some of whom became bilingual, while others continued to function only in demotic, formed the backbone of the local bureaucracy. The Ptolemaic taxation system adapted to the traditional Egyptian social structure based on family and occupation, and relied on traditional village elders to cooperate with tax collection.137 Soldiers had long been a rural power base for the kings, and were settled on the land throughout Egypt.138 This practice continued under the Ptolemies, although Greeks were favored, and Egyptian soldiers were only settled with land grants later, after the Battle of Raphia in 217 bce.139 Several high-ranking officers were supportive of the new regime and they would emerge as even more important in later Ptolemaic history.140 133 135 137 139 140

134 Menu 1994a, and further below, Chapter six. See further Chapter five on economic power. 136 See the literature cited above, n. 114. On collaboration, see Briant 1996a: 878–81. 138 Herodotus 2.168. Thompson 2001c: 1261–62 makes the point well. Crawford 1971: 69. On Egyptian officers, see Peremans 1977; Quaegebeur 1980; Huß 2001: 213–14, on the general Nectanebo under Ptolemy I, a descendant of the last Egyptian pharaoh, and other important


51

Greek officials and merchants in Alexandria, Memphis, Ptolemais, and to a lesser extent elsewhere, were also a crucial constituent of the Ptolemies, and it was they who brought more extensive trade, coinage and institutions like banking to the countryside. Many Greeks did not obtain access to land, and had to make a living in some other activity, which at times proved deleterious to royal revenues.141 Some ethnic groups, Jews, Carians, and others, were important in military circles and in Alexandrian politics as well.142 But it was the dynamic between the Ptolemies and the historical ideology and symbolism of Egyptian kingship that shaped the political institutions of the period.143 The requirement of legitimacy, and the royal ideology that this created, placed the king in a precarious position between the Greek and Egyptian worlds that, at times, happily coincided, but at other times caused difficulties. The Ptolemies used the ancient pharaonic image and ideology, and two historic power bases in Egypt, the military and the priests, in particular the high priests of Memphis. All of these elements continued to be important at the same time as the Ptolemies were developing a ruler cult with Greek antecedents.144 They were hardly “indifferent to Egyptian culture.”145 Nor was it “ironic” that the bureaucracy continued to be “pharaonic;” this was part and parcel of governance in the Hellenistic world.146 Indeed the entire period was one in which Egyptian culture was in many ways revitalized. The Egyptian priests were active participants in the dynastic cult, not simply passive recipients of royal orders.147 But cooperation with the priesthoods and ancient institutions was not always achieved without resistance. Priestly cohesion and a very ancient calendrical tradition combined to foil Ptolemy III Euergetes’ attempt at reforming the calendar (by adding a leap year every fourth year) in a way that would have linked the festival of the royal couple, the rising of the star Sothis, and the annual flood of the Nile.148 The Ptolemies, following the traditions, also devoted a good deal of attention to the display of royal power with parades and visits to the Egyptian

141 142 143 144

145 148

Egyptian supporters of Ptolemy. On other important Egyptians in the early Ptolemaic period, see Lloyd forthcoming. Bingen 1984; Préaux 1939: 463–91. On ethnicity and ethnic designations in the papyri, see La’da 1996. On the connection between royal ideology, kingship and the priesthoods, see Menu 1998. See the detailed analysis in Thompson 1988: 106–54; Huß 1994; Heinen 1996; Hölbl 2001. The excavations at Alexandria are beginning to show the Egyptian aspect of the city. See Yoyotte 1998: 202. 146 Cf. Green 1990: 315. 147 Quaegebeur 1989. Green 1990: 192. Hölbl 2001: 107–08; Depuydt 1997: 14–15.

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hinterland (chora).149 This traditional aspect of kingship, readily adopted by the Ptolemies, served, as it did under the Pharaohs, to reduce overall enforcement costs.150 The bureaucratic structure, in its essentials, was also inherited from pharaonic Egypt and the Persian administration. It bears similarities in general terms to the Seleucid bureaucratic structure.151 At the head of the bureaucratic structure, of course, stood the king and his close circle of advisers.152 There were two branches of the administration, one civil, the other military. The dioik¯et¯es and his scribal staff stood at the head of the civil bureaucratic structure in Alexandria. The office was not a new one, and at certain times there was more than one in the position.153 Beneath this official, the ancient district administrative divisions (nomes) were maintained, and the chief officials in the nomes reported to the dioik¯et¯es.154 The organization of the early Ptolemaic Fayyum differed from other areas, and new nomes were established in the Nile valley as time went on.155 The old Egyptian nome officials were the nomarch (aided by the toparch and komarch functioning in a toparchy and a village), who was in charge of agricultural production, the oikonomos and a scribal staff in charge of nome finances, and the royal scribe (basilikos grammateus)156 and his subordinates, the topogrammateus and komogrammateus, who kept the records, among the most important of which were the survey and registration of land. The evolution of the office of strat¯egos (the name implies an official originally in charge of the military personnel of the nome), from military to chief civilian official (replacing the ancient office of nomarch), and a direct royal appointee, probably reflects the early importance of military power in controlling the countryside and, perhaps, a lack of an authoritative hierarchy within the nome.157 Law and order were enforced by the Greek officials, at the village level the epistat¯es and above him the strat¯egos. The system as such, using tax farmers and “checking scribes,” was designed to 149 150 152

153 155 156 157

On display of power, see the description of the grand procession during the Ptolemaieia discussed below, Chapter five, p. 138. On Ptolemaic visits to the countryside, see Clarysse 2000b. 151 Sherwin-White and Kuhrt 1993: 48–51. North 1981: 120. We lack complete information for all of the nomes for the period, so this sketch is a composite, but what is clear is that the Thebaid was administered differently than the Fayyum. See further below, Chapters three and four. On the sub-dioik¯et¯es (Ëpodioikhtv) see Van ’t-Dack 1988a: 374–76. For attestations of offices and those who held them, consult the Prosopographia Ptolemaica, Studia Hellenistica, Leuven. The history of the Ptolemaic bureaucracy has yet to be written. For general literature on the various officials, see Rupprecht 1994b: 50–53. 154 Thomas 1978. Yoyotte 1989. On the administrative organization of the Fayyum, see below, Chapter four, pp. 110–22. On the royal scribe, see most recently Oates 1995. Bagnall and Derow 1981: 254. For an overview of the strat¯egos’ activity in the nome, see Bengston 1964–67, and the important archive of Diophanes (Arsinoite nome, 222–218 bce), with the brief overview by Lewis 1986: 56–68.


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maximize revenue and to minimize “leakage” of revenue by state agents.158 It was only partially successful.159 The Ptolemaic taxation system was extraordinarily complex, and it is still not well understood in some of its details. The regime received revenue in two basic forms, fixed rent from certain classes of land, mainly from royal land, and taxes, either in kind or money from other classes of land, or in money from the production in vineyards and orchards (the apomoira),160 and from production in certain industries, the oil crop being the most important,161 and from a poll tax. Taxes in money were generally guaranteed to the state by a system of tax farmers who bid at auction each year for the right to collect a particular tax in an area. Tax collection, of course, was facilitated by a survey of land and a census, which although irregularly documented may have been a continuation, at least in its operation, of the census according to occupation established by Amasis in the Saite period.162 The legal system of Ptolemaic Egypt was also complex. At the beginning of the period there were three courts: Egyptian courts (laokritai) decided legal cases between Egyptians, Greek courts (chr¯ematistai) decided between Greeks, and, it seems, a third court (koinodikion) arbitrated between Greeks and Egyptians.163 By the second century bce only the laokritai and the chr¯ematistai remained, and the decisive criterion became the language of the contract rather than the ethnicity of the parties.164 The administration of justice in Egyptian law was, in the first instance, in the hands of priest-judges who presided over local courts which met in front of the local temple gate, a setting which no doubt lent an aura of authority to the proceedings.165 Oaths before temple gates were commonly used in the making of legal agreements and in resolving legal disputes.166 But there was 158 159 160 162

163 164 165

166

Rostovtzeff 1941: 328–29. The crown competing with state agents for revenues is already seen in the mid third century bce, in e.g. P. Amh. 33 ( = C. Ord. Ptol. 2.23; Fayyum, 259 bce). 161 Sandy 1989. Clarysse and Vandorpe 1998. Herodotus 2.177. Thompson 1997a noted that the census of occupation had the purpose of assessing the potential corvée labor force, always an important element in Egyptian revenue, and that the census was not intended as the basis of other taxation. P. Magd. 2, 12 (Fayyum, third century bce); Taubenschlag 1955: 483–84; Wolff 1998: 43. Mélèze-Modrzejewski 1975. P. Tebt. 5 (118 bce). Dem. .wy n wpy, lit. “place of judgment,” Greek laokr©tai. Mélèze-Modrzejewski 1975; Quaegebeur 1993. On the title “priest-judges,” see Quaegebeur 1993: 207, n. 40. These judges may have been selected from among the “elders” in the temple. So Allam 1991: 120. For the use of handbooks of legal cases, see the literature cited above, Chapter one, p. 18, n. 69 on P. Mattha. These courts were not the same as the “court of thirty” mentioned by Diod. Sic. 1.75. In the Fayyum, a laokr©sion appears to have been a separate building, Allam 1991: 123. Kaplony-Heckel 1963.

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a close relationship between the state and the Egyptian legal tradition. This is confirmed in a document from the second century bce that lists men eligible to write Egyptian contracts, and the list of names was approved by an epistat¯es, the high priests of the temple and the laokritai.167 There was some attempt at coordination through regional officials, and a royal law court (chr¯ematistai), beginning in the second century bce, asserted the legal authority of the king (by means of royal decrees) over its assigned administrative area (a nome or a larger region). Divine oracles remained an important method of arbitration, and the traditional right of petition to the king was maintained, although most of these petitions probably never made it beyond the local strat¯egos.168 There were several other officials who had competence to hear complaints. Interestingly, they too appear to dispense justice at the temple gate.169 The strat¯egos supervised local courts, and after the second century bce an eisag¯ogeus represented the crown in these local courts. t ypes of l and From the point of view of the state, there were two types of land, land that yielded a rent to the ruler, and land on which rent was foregone.170 This latter category included temple estate and kleruchic land. It is important to note that these categories were not rigid, and there was considerable movement of land into and out of these categories. Much of the land had institutional as well as private claims attached to it. The private holding of land was an ancient feature of the Egyptian economy; it could be grain land, but most often it was small garden and vineyard plots.171 A key to royal revenues was the tenancy on royal land leased by a “royal farmer.”172 This class of land is most in evidence in the Fayyum and the neighboring Herakleopolite and Oxyrhynchite nomes, but it certainly existed elsewhere.173 The “royal farmers” were, in most scholarly assessments, 167 168

169 170 171 172 173

P. Ryl. 572. Erichsen 1942; Menu 1994b; C. Martin 1994; Zauzich 2000, publishing new oracle questions, a list of previously published texts and corrections to earlier editions. On the use of oracles in other contexts, see Valbelle and Husson 1998: 1063–71. Quaegebeur 1993, esp. pp. 214–20. Cf. Keenan and Shelton 1976: 2–10. This latter category was probably the mysterious land “in release,” n fsei. See further below, Chapters three, pp. 88–90, and six, pp. 206–07. Basilik»v gewrg¼v. See the excellent summary of the evidence in Rowlandson 1985. See Rowlandson 1985: 330, n. 7 for the documentary evidence.


55

“the very definition of the purely Egyptian peasant,” although the range in social status of those who took on leases of royal land was quite broad.174 Recent assessment of the royal farmers has radically altered the rather negative assessment of earlier scholarship, which tended to view these tenants as bound to long term leases at fixed rents.175 A close reading of documents from the Fayyum shows that the terms of the leases of royal land could be changed frequently, that rent fluctuated with annual production, and that transfer between farmers was done frequently. These facts suggest that the Ptolemaic system was probably much more flexible and more adaptive to rural realities of Egyptian agricultural production than Rostovzteff ’s theory admits.176 The term “royal farmer” was used in official contexts (the term rarely occurs in private agreements)177 as a status designator for those men who took on leases to farm royal land. They were direct tenants of the king, the land was leased year to year with the terms adjusted to take account of fluctuating conditions, tenure could be passed to heirs, or could be leased for the short term.178 It was thus not an indication of class but of status, and it was a status that was sought after, not forced upon the farmer. It was then used of a wide range of men from peasants to priests, and the status provided access to both land and capital; so much so that in fact groups of men took on leases of small plots of royal land simply to obtain the status designation. The plots of royal land were generally small in size, but there are documented royal leases of up to 160 arouras.179 It appears that the status within the royal economic sphere carried with it certain benefits.180 These benefits included protection from billets, the stipulation that royal farmers could only be brought before Greek courts, and the right to be left undisturbed during sowing and harvest time.181 Clearly individuals with 174

175 176

177 179 180 181

On the extent and variety of the business activity of one royal farmer, not so much a “purely Egyptian peasant,” Dionysius son of Kephalas at Hakoris, see Boswinkel and Pestman 1982; Lewis 1986: 124–39. Rostovtzeff 1910; de Ste. Croix 1981: 153. The new papyri discussed by Shelton 1976 (esp. P. Tebt. 1103, 1105, 1107) are crucial in demonstrating, for example, that the rate of cessions of royal land was as high as one-third from year to year. This contrasts sharply with Rostovtzeff’s rigidity. See the remarks of Rowlandson 1985: 337. Rostovzteff’s concept of the long-term lease (diamisth¯osis) was based on a single, difficult passage in one papyrus (P. Tebt. 72, 440–72) concerning one plot of land (210 1/8 arouras) that was to be assigned to a special category of land “to be inspected by the scribes.” See the important comments by Shelton 1976: 120–21; Verhoogt 1997: 27. 178 Keenan and Shelton 1976: 7. Rowlandson 1985: 331. P. Lille 8, 4 (third century bce). On the range, see Shelton 1976: 152. Shelton 1976: 118. P. Tebt. 5 ( = Select Papyri, vol. ii, text 210; C. Ord. Ptol. 53; [118 bce]), 221–26; Rowlandson 1985: 331.

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this status exploited it. Taking on a royal lease in partnership reduced the individual fixed charges on royal land.182 In one petition to the strat¯egos from a well-known royal farmer, the petitioner asked for relief from being disturbed by a private law suit, since he was unable to respond “because of the danger of the (royal) land being lost”.183 Another important group associated with the land and the “économie royale” were the military settlers known as kleruchs (kl¯erouchoi).184 Hellenistic monarchies relied on the variable supply of mercenary soldiers to fight their wars and secure their territory against attack from rival kings.185 The Ptolemies certainly used mercenary soldiers recruited from their empire. The early Ptolemaic kings decided to settle such military men on land in Egypt in order to retain a loyal fighting force available for call up when needed. At the same time, the placing of Greek soldiers in the countryside served to pacify, in theory, troublesome areas and to get marginal land under cultivation. They were given plots of land (kl¯eroi) according to their rank. The 100-aroura cavalrymen were the largest group of kleruchs in the third century.186 Other kleruchs had smaller plots of land, thirty arouras (infantry soldiers), twenty-five and twenty arouras. This class of land evolved into hereditary tenure, leaving Greeks in a better position on the land, in the main, than their Egyptian counterparts.187 The kleruchic system had a long-term impact on the land in the parts of Egypt that had a large contingent of military settlers, forming a major part of what was classed as private land in the Roman period.188 l and rent and taxes In the Ptolemaic period land was classed as either rent-producing or rentfree, the latter category called “land in release” in Greek administrative papyri.189 There were two principal taxes on the land, one, the tax reckoned in kind, collected on all grain-bearing land, and the other, a tax reckoned in money, called the apomoira, a tax of “first fruits” on vineyards and orchards.190 (Other taxes on land are in evidence from time to time.)191 Both 182 183 184 187 188 189 190

191

Keenan and Shelton 1976: 38. Åshv. P. Rein. 18, 22 ( = P. Sorb. Inv. 2027); see further Âqen t¦[v kinduneuo . . . g]¦v kf . u[ge±]n . Boswinkel and Pestman 1982: 164–71; Lewis 1986: 130–31. 185 G. T. Griffith 1935. 186 Clarysse and Thompson forthcoming. Uebel 1968. See further below, Chapter five, pp. 178–81 on kleruchic evolution. Rowlandson 1996: 45–46. Gr. ¡ n fsei g¦. See Keenan and Shelton 1976: 3–4. An additional surcharge per aroura on vineyards, called the eparourion, was also assessed on land, calculated at a fixed amount and paid in cash. On this tax, see Clarysse and Vandorpe 1998: 35; Préaux 1939: 181–82. The tax was intended no doubt as a stimulus to production. For the apomoira, I rely here on the recent study by Clarysse and Vandorpe 1998. See e.g. below Chapter five, p. 145.


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taxes had deep historical roots in Egypt and, under the Ptolemies, show regional variation. Since at least the New Kingdom, temples collected a tax on fruit trees and vineyards. The tax on vineyards and orchards was called in Greek the apomoira, or “portion” tax, and is attested in an Achaemenid period inscription from Caria, another point of continuity with the Persian period.192 Beginning in 263 bce, also the year in which the salt tax is first attested, the revenue from the tax was earmarked for the cult of Queen Arsinoe to be maintained in each temple.193 All vineyard and orchard land was liable to the tax at the rate of one-sixth of the annual production, with a reduced rate of one-tenth for certain categories of land (e.g. vineyards in the Thebaid and on kleruchic land).194 But under the new system, the tax was not paid directly into the temple accounts but was processed through the tax farming and royal banking system. As a result, at least part of this revenue was diverted to pay for local state operations, e.g. principally for the salary of police and others.195 The apomoira collected on temple land was similarly “secularized.” The tax was paid in kind (levied in wine for vineyards) or in cash, at a high fixed rate of exchange. By the beginning of the second century bce, the tax had to be paid in cash into a royal bank, reflecting the state’s increasing emphasis on a cash economy. On orchard land, the tax was always paid in cash. The single most important tax in terms of the finance of the state was the taxation of the agricultural land throughout the country. The basis of this land tax was the annual survey of the fields that assessed how much land was growing what type of crop. The ancient Egyptian system was thought to be based on an assessment of the land at a fixed rate of tax each year.196 Such a system required production above subsistence and enabled the state to finance the large building projects that created a regulatory bureaucracy and stimulated demand for goods and services.197 But the pharaonic system was based on state collection of a percentage of the total production, rather than a fixed amount per unit of land.198 Certainly in the 192 193 194

195 196

197 198

Hornblower 1994: 62, discussing Sinuri i, 73 ( = Hornblower 1982: 365, text M5). P. Rev. cols. 36–37 (both royal decrees of year 263 bce), col. 33, 9–34 (royal decree of year 259 bce). On the differential rates, see P. Bingen 36 (second century bce, Fayyum) published by Thompson 2000a. Importantly, as Thompson points out, p. 179, the annual calculation of the tax was a percentage of annual production, and not at a fixed rate per aroura as some have argued. Clarysse and Vandorpe 1998: 15, with texts cited. Within the general categories of land in P. Wilbour, for example, land was assessed at the fixed amounts of 5, 21 or 10 “sacks” per aroura. Such an assessment is comparable to the later P. Reinhardt, dating from the tenth century bce. According to Vleeming 1993: 72–73, in both of these important texts, the amount of grain collected is now thought to have been the total production above costs (seed and labor), not simply the land tax. Warburton 1997: 124. The traditional figure of one-fifth of the harvest on all land mentioned in Genesis 47:24; 47:26 may be about right.

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Saite period, according to the known lease contracts, rents were assessed as a percentage of the yield on the land, normally at the rate of one-third of the crop.199 A taxation regime based on what is called by economists a share contract would technically be the less efficient solution because it created less incentive for the tenant (since the tenant’s payment amounts to an ad valorem tax), but it may have been more suitable in the Egyptian context because it spreads risk between tenant and landowner, was one more in keeping with the interannual variability of the Nile regime, and better solved the imperfect information problem.200 Here the local nature of land tenure and the structural problems of the state are at their clearest. Share contracts require higher enforcement costs in policing output for the central state, and would induce tenants to farm parts of several plots of land to increase income.201 The main concern of the state was stable revenue; the assessment was done, obviously, at the local level by village scribes since conditions of crops and tenure varied considerably from place to place and over time. The collection of a share of the harvest certainly gave advantage to the local officials who could more easily disguise shares than fixed amounts of the harvest.202 The crop reports were assessed locally and transmitted back to the capital so that the government could estimate its revenue. It was not a farming plan. The structure itself stimulated production on kleruchic and temple land, something that we might expect given the fact that there was less government control on these classes of land. After the reorganization of the apomoira tax in year 22 of Philadelphus, it was collected on all vineyards and orchards in Egypt. An additional flat tax, called the eparourion, was assessed on the size of the plot and the condition of the soil.203 The collection of taxes can be documented through the granary tax receipts from the Thebaid, and it is only in this region that we can be certain of the process.204 There may well have been regional differences in the methods of collection, and much primary work remains to be done on 199 200

201 202 203

Hughes 1952: 22, nn. 25–26. Cf. Vleeming 1993: 73. For a good discussion of share contracts in Roman land tenure, see Kehoe 1988. On share contracts and the economic analysis of the arrangement in modern settings, see Cheung 1969; Ellis 1993: 146–65; Barzel 1997: 33–54. Cheung 1969: 3 defined a share contract as one in which two or more parties combine “privately owned resources for the production of certain mutually agreed outputs, the actual outputs to be shared according to certain mutually accepted percentages as returns to the contracting parties for their production resources foresaken.” The imperfect information approach to share tenancy analysis argues that a lack of information created higher risk for the landowner and higher transaction costs in enforcing agreements. A shift to “personalised transactions” solved these problems by shifting the emphasis to the local knowledge of the tenant and by reducing transaction costs. See further Stiglitz 1989. Barzel 1997: 35. I thank Dennis Kehoe for a conversation on this point. Cf. Brown 1988: 375, discussing the problem for the Tokugawa period in Japan. 204 Packman 1968; Vandorpe 2000a and 2000b. Préaux 1939: 181.


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the Ptolemaic taxation system before an overall assessment is possible.205 Grain taxes were usually paid at state granaries in installments throughout the year, and a receipt was issued and countersigned by state officials for the taxpayer. This method of payment applied to Upper Egypt as well as the Fayyum.206 On the basis of the dates of the grain tax receipts, the taxes were paid after the harvest, due in full by the end of the regnal year, and transported to the royal granary by the taxpayer. This, as far as can be known, is a new aspect of the traditional grain tax process, and may have been designed to protect taxpayers from overzealous tax collectors. Because of the scattered survival of the receipts, it is very difficult to assess the overall revenue in any one area. Clearly though, there was a shift from the use of demotic to Greek for the issuance of receipts concomitant with the installation of Greek officials in the Thebaid after the disturbances caused by Antiochus IV’s invasion in 168 bce.207 But this shift in language was not permanent, and it is interesting to note that demotic as a “fiscal” language used in receipts emerges again in the early Roman period. On the basis of the published tax receipts from Pathyris, it seems clear that there is a correlation between tax collection and the installation of loyal state officials working in the granaries, a nice illustration of the agency problem. As a result of the great Theban revolt (207–186 bce),208 Greek officials were in a stronger position, no doubt bolstered by new garrison settlement as well. At other times, the use of demotic or the absence of receipts altogether, although far from conclusive, suggests that the Ptolemaic state had difficulty collecting taxes consistently. Rural unrest is one major factor for the interruption of tax collection in the area.209 The tax on grain-bearing land differs substantially by region and by class of land. There appears to be a difference between Upper and Lower Egypt: in the former a harvest tax was collected and in the latter a fixed land tax, although later on a harvest tax was collected in the north.210 On royal land, the tenants paid a fixed rent (ekphorion) on the entire plot according to its assessed value unless it was classed as hypologos, in addition to a harvest tax.211 An additional charge of one half artaba per aroura called the “crown” tax was assessed on royal land.212 The assessment was originally charged on an ad hoc basis and was used to pay for gifts to the crown, but it evolved into a regular tax by the end of the third century bce. The total tax burden on 205 208 209 210 212

206 Cf. Keenan and Shelton 1976: 9. 207 Vandorpe 2000b. Packman 1968: 63. On this revolt, see below, Chapter five, pp. 164–69. This is very well and very clearly documented by Vandorpe 2000b. 211 Keenan and Shelton 1976: 2–9. Vandorpe 2000a: 174–75. Préaux 1939: 394–95. Royal land that was leased by temples was exempt from the tax. See further Shelton 1975.

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royal land, including various small charges for transportation, repayment of seed loans etc., approached half of the production each year.213 On kleruchic and temple land outside the Thebaid, a flat tax was collected on grain land. The tax was called the artabieia tax (dem. mt .t pr– , lit. “pharaoh’s business”) and was assessed at the rate of 21 , 1 or 2 artabas of grain per aroura, whether the land was under cultivation or not. By the end of the third century bce, the grain tax in the Thebaid is documented.214 But in the Thebaid, the tax on productive grain land held by temples and by individuals was collected as a percentage of the annual production. This ˇ in demotic.215 The tax in Upper Egypt was termed the epigraph¯e, or smw tax receipts studied by Packman suggest that payment was made on an installment basis, not paid at once on the threshing floor as Rostovtzeff had thought.216 The harvest tax was collected by the royal granary and a tax receipt was issued to the tax payer upon payment of the tax. In Upper Egypt, the time of the harvest was normally in April, and a little later, May and June, further north.217 Some features of the Ptolemaic economy were new, but for the most part the period is marked by strong institutional continuity with the Persian period. The important new social feature of the period was in the settlement of Greek soldiers on the land that, as we will see, was particularly important in the third-century bce Fayyum and the surrounding nomes. Over the course of three centuries, there was development in the Ptolemaic bureaucracy. Part of this development was the incorporation of Egyptian temples into the Ptolemaic system, through the institution of the royal cult in each temple and, more importantly, through the use of royal banks and state granaries for the payment of taxes. Egyptian temples and their priesthoods, thus, did not stand apart from the system, although they were sometimes the focus of resistance. The traditional nome structure and the scribal classes continued to be the base of the Ptolemaic system. In terms of the bureaucratic control of land, as I will develop in the next two Chapters, the “Polybius” model of the Ptolemaic state – success of the first three rulers and decline thereafter – does not square with the documentary evidence of land tenure. The bureaucratic hold over the land tenure regimes appears, rather, to get stronger over time, although the extent of central state direction is not always clear. Throughout Egypt, where we can document the 213 215 216 217

214 O. Tait Bodl. i 147, 220. Préaux 1939: 131–33. Packman 1968: 70–72; Vandorpe 2000a. Packman 1968: 62–63; Keenan and Shelton 1976: 9. On installments for the grain tax, cf. P. Siut 10597 (Asyut, 171 bce). Schnebel 1925: 162.


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process, military holding of land was a key both to Ptolemaic control of territory and to applying labor to the land tenure regimes. The regional differences between the Fayyum and Upper Egypt probably mattered more at the beginning of the period than later, but most of the resistance to Ptolemaic economic control, resistance that was probably driven by old elites, came from the latter region, and it is this region that I examine first.

part ii

Regional case studies of land tenure

chap t e r 3

The land tenure regime in Upper Egypt∗

The land which was held by the temples, and, especially in the south, was in the hands of hereditary tenants or owners, some of whom belonged to the higher and lower clergy, probably escaped the pressure of the government and was cultivated in the old-fashioned way. Rostovtzeff 1941: 1200.

Later Ptolemaic rule had lost, at times, much of its authority, especially in the Thebaid. The Roman emperors, on the other hand, tried to alter this situation by introducing a strong military force, under the leadership of the prefect. The country was divided into three areas, one of them the Thebaid, under the control of an epistrat¯egos . . . The legions were stationed at Alexandria, Babylon (Old Cairo) and the rebellious southern capital Thebes. Vandorpe 1995a: 235.

In this Chapter I discuss the land tenure regime in Upper Egypt. More specifically, I examine the documentation from the region known as the Thebaid, that stretch of the Nile valley from Aswan down to roughly Abydos, and I will focus on the well-documented town of Edfu. The entire region was administered through the new regional capital of Ptolemais, founded by Ptolemy I Soter.1 This continued an ancient practice of treating the Thebaid as a political unit. The Ptolemies added new layers of administrative control, but in essence the land tenure regime kept its traditional character; much of the land was probably worked in small plots by individuals and families having rights to the land that were often tied to the financing of the temple estates. Ptolemaic military settlement in the area played a significant role in the last two centuries of control of the region, as did the gradual placement of Ptolemaic economic institutions of taxation – banks, granaries, the land survey – that incorporated the temples firmly into the state structure. ∗ 1

Earlier versions of some sections of this chapter were published in Manning 1997 and 1998. See above, Chapter two, p. 36.

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66

Regional case studies of land tenure the nile valley und er the ptolemies

An excellent example of the regional treatment of the Thebaid comes from a recently published inscription from Bir ’Iayyan, a water station situated along the eastern desert road built by Ptolemy II Philadelphus, which connected the gold mines at Barramiya in the eastern desert, about ninety-seven km east of Edfu, to the Nile.2 The road perhaps extended further west and joined up with the Coptos-Berenike road.3 The roughly-cut inscription, which served as a milepost marker, reads: From the river to this point, four hundred sixty-one stadioi. In the reign of Ptolemy son of Ptolemy Soter, year 28, month of Epeiph, Rhodon son of Lysimachos, from Ptolemais,4 toparch of the three set up (this stone).5

The full title borne by Rhodon at the end of the inscription would appear to be “toparch of the three,” unless we assume confusion by the carver, since there is sufficient space on the stone after tre±v to continue the text. The title obviously refers to an area in his charge, and may refer to the three southern nomes of the Thebaid, or, perhaps more likely, to the more circumscribed area around Edfu.6 But whatever his ambit of authority in the Nile valley, it appears certain that he also had charge over the eastern desert, no doubt because of the important traffic between the Red Sea and Edfu.7 If Rhodon’s title signified that he was in charge of more than one nome, it is a different use of the term than in the Fayyum, where a toparchy was a taxing district within a nome.8 If, 2 3 4 5

6 7

8

Bagnall et al. 1996 ( = SEG xlvi 2120). On Ptolemy II’s building activity in the eastern desert, see Sidebotham and Zitterkopf 1995. It appears that the same man served as a witness to a demotic contract drawn up in Edfu in 224 bce. See below, Chapter six, p. 193. p¼ potamoÓ wv toÅtou stdioi tetrak»sioi xkonta e°v. BasileÅontov Ptolema©ou toÓ Ptolema©ou Swt¦rov touv kh, mhn¼v peªf sthsen ‘R»dwn Lusimcou PtolemaieÆv toparcän t¼nv tre±v Thompson 2001c: 1260, suggesting that the toparchy, an administrative unit designed for tax collection, may have been standardized throughout the country. Cf. the much later I. Philae 52 ( = OGIS 186; Thebes, 62 bce) in which an epistrat¯egos of the Thebaid (the famous Kallimachos I) is also a strat¯egos of the “Indian and Erythraean (i.e. the Red) Sea.” A translation is provided by Burstein 1985: text 110. On the inscription, see above, Chapter two, p. 37. For his titles, see Van ’t Dack 1988b: 296. See above, Chapter two, p. 52.


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on the other hand, the term is being used as it was in the Fayyum, it suggests that the Edfu nome was divided into toparchies quite early. The former may be more likely, in which case this inscription, then, may provide additional evidence that the Thebaid was administered regionally from Ptolemais.9 The Ptolemies lacked the manpower, especially outside the Fayyum, to impose a uniform political/bureaucratic order on the countryside.10 Government, particularly in the Upper Nile valley, was, as a result, fluid, and officials bore several titles and held responsibility over large areas of the valley.11 The old nome structure was maintained and eventually extended as new nomes were added, but central control was imposed by adding a new layer of Ptolemaic officials who supervised old institutions. Indeed, “the administration of the Thebaid was in certain respects centralized in the third and second centuries, but the area was always divided into nomes.”12 Thus, the lack of manpower and the narrow cultivable strip in the southern Nile valley may have resulted, in the third century bce, in a kind of bureaucratic economy of scale in Upper Egypt. But the situation was never rigid, and the organization of scribes appears always to have followed local custom. The scribes in the Pathyrite nome, for example, were uniquely organized and apparently shared several functions between them.13 Offices did not have a fixed jurisdiction, but depended rather on the official given the appointment. This fact has been stressed by Samuel, who has argued that “appointments were not necessarily always made for pre-existing administrative districts, but that appointments could be to rank, with jurisdiction then assigned.”14 We can see in Upper Egypt under the Ptolemies, indeed, a much more traditional mode of political and economic organization through the intermediary of temples, which remained important. There was no state-supported reclamation of land. The presence of the central state is documented in the early part of the reign of Ptolemy II Philadelphus by demotic tax receipts and the presence of royal banks in Thebes.15 While maintenance of the ancient land tenure regime, under the administration of the local temple, appears to have been maintained initially, there were certainly changes brought by the Ptolemies to the Nile valley. Greeks were in the Thebaid at an early 9 10 11 12 14

We know that initially there was only one epistat¯es, one basilikos grammateus, and one oikonomos functioning for the whole of the Thebaid. See Vandorpe 2000a: 172. Samuel 1966. On the Ptolemaic administration of the Thebaid in general, and the problems that remain in understanding the structure of the administration, see Van ’t-Dack 1988a. 13 See the valuable comments by Vleeming 1984b. Thomas 1975: 132. 15 Bogaert 1988. Samuel 1966: 223.

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date,16 and administrative control of local economies was established, at the latest, by the end of the third century bce.17 After the Theban revolt was put down in 186 bce, the military played an increasingly important role in the Ptolemaic hold over Upper Egypt.18 As one moves up river, one moves further away from the center of Ptolemaic power and into the ancient heartland of Egyptian temple estates and old population centers. These temple estates included the great estate of the temple of Amun-Re “king of the gods” (known as Amonrasonter in Greek texts) at Karnak in Thebes that had historically held land throughout Middle and Upper Egypt, and the estates of Horus of Edfu, Khnum of Elephantine, and Isis of Philae. The Ptolemies supported building projects at most of these temples, but, notably, there was little new building at Karnak.19 Several temples were begun de novo, beginning with the temple of Horus at Edfu in 237 bce, a year after the Canopus decree was issued by Ptolemy III Euergetes and his consort Berenike II.20 As we saw above, temples in the Thebaid historically controlled large territories that cut across nome boundaries, and their priesthoods were influential political forces. It is no surprise, then, that the temples remained important institutions under the Ptolemies. Religious institutions, of course, were important elsewhere in Egypt. The temple of Ptah at Memphis became a kind of state temple under the Ptolemies, and the sacred animal necropoleis at nearby Saqqara were wildly popular areas for religious tourists, if the number of votive offerings found there is any indication.21 The economic 16 17 18 19 20

21

P. Gr. Eleph. 1 (Elephantine, 311 bce, = Bagnall & Derow 1981: text 122; Porten 1996: 408–10), a Greek marriage contract. See further below, Chapter five, pp. 161–64. On the history of kleruchic settlement in the nome, see Christensen 2002. For the revolt, see below, Chapter five, pp. 164–71. For a summary of Ptolemaic building activities, see Arnold 1999: 143–224; Hölbl 2001: Appendix. The Canopus decree (238 bce, OGIS 56) provides important evidence, on one hand, for royal piety toward temples, toward the maintenance of temple rituals and public processions associated with many of the local religious festivals, and, on the other hand, for the deliberate Ptolemaic policy of incorporating the temples within the state structure. The decree established that the priests must add as part of their priestly titles the epithet “Priest of the Beneficent Gods” (i.e. Ptolemy III Euergetes and Berenike II), rules for a new phylai of priests in each temple, an annual procession in honor of the king and queen, the reform of the calendar in order to establish a regular time for festivals, and a new festival in honor of the royal couple’s deceased daughter Berenike. It is preserved in two main exemplars, one from Kom el-Hisn, now in the Egyptian Museum, Cairo CG 22186, and one from Tanis, CG 22187. There are four fragmentary stelae, Louvre C 122, one now erected at the third pylon at the Karnak temple in Luxor, another in Cairo, temp. number 17/3/46/1 and a fourth in the Port Said Museum, inv. No. 493. For a grammatical analysis and an English translation of the demotic text, see Simpson 1996. On the royal policy, see Hölbl 2001: 77–123. Ray 1978–79; Davies and Smith 1997. For the temple of Ptah at Memphis, see Thompson 1988: 106–54.


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status of temple land, however, during the third century bce in particular, remains somewhat obscure.22 Building activity in the Ptolemaic period was on a different scale in the Thebaid than elsewhere. More new temples were begun here, and although account must be made for the possibility that limestone used in the construction of temples in the north may have been subsequently burned for its lime, the pre-Ptolemaic remains in the Delta suggest that there was in fact little new building in this part of Egypt.23 Outside Thebes itself, there were several temples begun anew, in places where old temples had stood. What accounts for the new building activity? One suggestion, recently made by Baines, is that the Ptolemies wanted to “create a more uniform provision of temples throughout the country and across different cults.”24 To be sure the central state was involved, as building projects, especially in stone, were a hallmark of the central state throughout Egyptian history. But the activity in the Thebaid equally reflects the power of the local elite, and it was probably they who funded the building for the most part. The evidence for this is indirect, but it was an ancient feature of state finance to dedicate part of the rent produced from military land grants to finance temples.25 As the Canopus decree shows, the Ptolemies fostered a strong relationship between themselves and local elites, and of course in the Thebaid this meant those attached to the temples. The new temples were quite distinctively “Ptolemaic” despite the fact that they were certainly Egyptian temples.26 Temple building probably had several intended aims. Above all, it demonstrated royal patronage to the local cults. While funding probably came from local sources, there is some evidence from Edfu to suggest that the central state was involved in the control of the finances for the building project.27 Such financial centralization was a method, again indirect, of asserting political control over the Thebaid. By allowing the local priesthoods and cult rituals to continue, especially in the new Ptolemaic 22 25 26 27

23 Kurth 1997. 24 Baines 1997: 228. See further below, Chapter five, pp. 161–64. Important new evidence for soldiers financing the Edfu temple building from their land is discussed by Christensen 2002. Cf. Crawford 1971: 96–99. See also below, n. 27. On the new “Ptolemaic” style, see Arnold 1999: 144–50. For the Canopus decree, see above n. 20. P. Gr. Eleph. 10 (222 bce). On the role of the military in temple building in the Thebaid, especially after the Theban revolt (207–186 bce, discussed below in Chapter five), see Dietze 2000. Ray 1987a discusses an important stela (S. Aswan 1057, from the cemetery at El-Hesa in the First Cataract region) of a soldier and a priest of Isis named Petiesi (PP iii 5740) who donated several objects to temples at Elephantine and Philae, and who exhorts the reader to “give your one-tenth to your gods.” On the relationship of the Ptolemies to temple building, I agree with Dietze 2000: 82, n. 11 who argued, against Locher 1999: 243, that the kings showed “strategic influence” on the building of temples in the south.

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temples, the Ptolemies gained support at the same time, as the theologians who designed the ritual scenes for the temple walls incorporated the Ptolemaic kings into the mythic cosmogony within each temple cult.28 And, finally, temple estates were the historic unit of production, in which local management of land, production of textiles, herding, and scribal activity took place, and there was no reason to change this basic economic structure. The land tenure regime of Upper Egypt was complex and reflects the ancient and continual history of agriculture in the area. There are several important contrasts in institutions between Upper Egypt and the Fayyum, but some of the differences have been exaggerated. New documentary material has shown, for example, that there were new Greek settlements (with administrative and military functions) established by the Ptolemies in the Nile valley. New settlements appear to have been an important part of strengthening the hold over the Thebaid in the aftermath of the revolt there.29 Kleruchs as well as regular soldiers were settled in the upper Nile valley but their numbers were less than in the Fayyum. Although we often do not know how their land allotments were acquired, garrisoned soldiers played an equally important role in Ptolemaic control of the south, particularly in the last two centuries of Ptolemaic rule.30 Still, evidence from earlier periods suggests that there were different social and legal customs and scribal traditions, and there is reason to think that such basic differences between north and south persisted in the Ptolemaic period.31 sources and institutions The southern Nile valley had a long history of strong temple foundations that controlled very large hinterlands. These temple estates had been established long before the arrival of the Ptolemies, and, during the New Kingdom especially, served as local administrative and storage centers for the central state. They served, then, as the administrative centers of their 28 29

30 31

On temple cosmogony, see the excellent analysis of the Edfu temple by Finnestad 1985. The Ombite nome was established at the end of the revolt, and its capital at Kom Ombo replaced Elephantine. See Dietze 2000: 79. For the founding of Euergetis, perhaps to be located in the Thebaid, in 133–132 bce, and the valuable discussion of the so-called Boethos archive, see Kramer 1997, H. Heinen 1997; H. Heinen 2000. For the Theban revolt, see Chapter five, pp. 164–71. See below, pp. 86–88. On differences in leasing arrangements, see Hughes 1973; Felber 1997: 116–19, and below, Chapter six, pp. 198–201. Another example is the form of document known as a “letter of agreement” (dem. sˇ .t hn) in which two parties make declarations before a third party “trustee” (dem. rbt) that is only known from Philadelphia in the Fayyum.


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hinterlands. A few temple estates controlled vast resources in the valley, but all of them, whether large or small, held proprietary rights in land, and continued to do so after the collapse of the New Kingdom. P. Reinhardt (which I discussed in Chapter two) shows that the temple of Amun in particular remained in possession of large estates in the tenth century bce, and in the sixth century bce Darius I reconfirmed the temple of Horus at Edfu in its estates.32 The pattern probably continued elsewhere. The large temples also possessed human resources in scribes, herdsmen of sacred flocks, weavers, bakers and the like.33 These included priests of many ranks, ritual performers such as singers, and support staff such as cattle herdsmen, craftsmen and guards.34 Temples, at least the large ones, were historically part of the state, controlled by the king in his monopoly on stone and crucial commodities such as incense, and by religious ideology that viewed the pharaoh as the chief officiant in every cult, though temples could also be independent actors.35 There are two main sources for land tenure in the Thebaid, documents of conveyance and leases from private family archives, and demotic and Greek ostraca recording tax receipts.36 The conveyances and leases were in the main written in demotic, but in the second half of the period Greek becomes the dominant language of the preserved contracts.37 Both the demotic papyri and ostraca show that traditional Egyptian institutions of land tenure and the temple estates were important, especially in the third century bce. Much of the land in the south appears to have been held privately, either as “divine endowment” land associated with temples, or otherwise. The papyri and the ostraca taken as a whole also show that Ptolemaic economic institutions took a firm hold over local economies. The harvest tax receipts, for example, show clearly that the Ptolemies took over a traditional tax on agricultural production, but the tax under the Ptolemies was booked into royal granaries, reflecting a major shift in economic power.38 The Edfu 32

33 34

35 36 37

On this “donation” text, see below, pp. 74–79. Private donations to temples, but couched in terms of royal benefaction and then in turn as a private donation, are also attested. See e.g. Kees 1936 (cf. Meeks 1979: 678), a donation of 1600 arouras of land by a general to the temple of the ram of Mendes under Apries in 584 bce. Such foundations functioned as an early form of liturgy, i.e. the elite were expected to make such donations to temples. See e.g. O. Gardiner 86 (Dynasty 19, ca. 1290–1224 bce), discussed in Warburton 1997: 143–45. See e.g. the Great Harris papyrus (P. Harris I), a list of donations made by Ramses III (ca. 1187–1156 bce) to the main temples in Egypt. For the text see Erichsen 1933, and the comments and excerpted translation of Warburton 1997: 194–216. Cf. Warburton 1997: 313, 336–38. For demotic ostraca, see Devauchelle 1983; Vleeming 1994a; Muhs 1996a. 38 Vandorpe 2000a. See further below, Chapter five, pp. 173–77.

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donation text details the land holdings of the temple of Horus from Gebel el-Silsila to Thebes, and the unpublished Copenhagen land survey from Edfu provides important new evidence for land tenure, showing that much of the land in the Edfu nome was classed as “private” but taxed at virtually the same rate as royal land in the Fayyum.39 The ethnic mix in the south of the country was different from that in northern Egypt.40 The Nile valley south of Ombos was in what we might call the Nubian sphere. Indeed before Elephantine was established as the southern border, the sandstone quarries at Gebel es-Silsileh marked the Egyptian-Nubian border. Many Nubians and tribes from the eastern desert had traditionally served within temple estates as guards and as herdsmen of sacred flock, and the campaigns of Piye in the seventh century bce show the ability of Nubians to conquer substantial parts of the Nile valley. The Blemmye tribe in particular had served temple estates as guards since the New Kingdom.41 In the Ptolemaic period, Nubians, Blemmyes, and others continued to serve within temple estates, farming temple land, and acting as desert guides throughout the eastern desert gold mining regions and desert roads out to the Red Sea.42 The Roman literary record on the Blemmyes and other tribes of the eastern desert is nearly unanimous in its negative opinion of them, but the archaeological remains from the Ptolemaic port at Berenike, and the demotic documentary evidence from Edfu discussed below, confirm that Blemmyes and others were also settled in the Nile valley.43 They married Egyptian women, occasionally even women of high social standing.44 the use of l and in the val ley Agricultural production in the Nile valley throughout all of antiquity, and indeed up until the mid nineteenth century ce, was primarily organized in flood basins, separated by transverse dikes.45 The agriculture system is known as basin irrigation, and allowed one crop per year. In the nineteenth century these basins varied in size from 2,000 to 40,000 acres, but the state of irrigation in antiquity allowed for smaller-sized basins.46 Feeder 39 40 41 42 44 45

46

Vandorpe 2000a: 196; Christensen 2002. On ethnic groups in Memphis, see Thompson 1988: 82–105. In New Kingdom texts, they are called Medjay, later called Bedja. On Blemmyes, see Updegraff 1988. 43 Cf. Sidebotham and Wendrich 1995. Sidebotham 1995. For one such woman, see Pestman 1981b. For the general picture of the irrigation network and irrigation canal system in Upper Egypt, see Butzer 1976: 42, providing a profile of the “linear, basin irrigation” in Sohag province. For the change in irrigation brought by the barrage system and more extensive feeder canals, see Butzer 1976: 47. Willcocks and Craig 1913: 301.


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and drainage canals, sometimes one and the same in Upper Egypt, fed water into and drained water out of the basins at the appropriate times. These canals had to be maintained constantly and this was accomplished by annual labor service owed by local men. The organization of this labor was one of the prime responsibilities of the local state officials. The crops grown in the basins were traditionally the grain crops of barley and emmer. Wheat also was grown to some extent, but its production probably came gradually to the Thebaid. On the levees and in private courtyards attached to houses, palm trees, other fruit trees and vegetable gardens were found. The narrowness of the river valley in Upper Egypt meant that the basins were probably smaller in some areas than further north, and the region was subject to economic uncertainty because the elevation of the fields made the amount of irrigated land less predictable, and thus the region in general potentially more unstable.47 As far as can be determined, there was no state reclamation project in the valley as there was in the Fayyum, but improvements in lift irrigation by saqiya may have intensified carrying capacity.48 It is impossible on the basis of current information to measure the extent of intensification or of reclamation. The total amount of arable land in the Nile valley for the mid-Ptolemaic period has been reckoned to have been about 10,000 km2 (3,630,000 arouras), but this could be too generous an estimate.49 We cannot know for sure the exact figure in antiquity, and at any rate the amount of cropped land varied from year to year. As with all other aspects of the economic history of the period, the documentary evidence for Upper Egyptian land tenure is discontinuous. Towns such as Elephantine, with virtually no arable land in its vicinity, are undocumented. But temples there controlled land in other parts of the valley. This fact is revealed in a text from Edfu (the Edfu donation text), a particularly well documented town in the Ptolemaic period, and it shows that the ancient pattern of inter-regional holding of land by temples continued. ed fu and the edf u nome The town of Edfu (Apollonopolis Magna) has always been an important place in Egyptian history. Large private tombs, and a nearby pyramid, can 47 48

49

Cf. the remarks of Cuno 1992: 66. Butzer 1976: 82, 84, posited that perhaps 10–15% more arable land was added along with a higher minimum carrying capacity. Cf. the remarks of Rathbone 1990: 111–14. I do not know of any confirmatory proof of this in the documents. The “vertical expansion” of arable land may not have been as much of a “missed opportunity” (Rathbone 1994a: 36) in the Nile valley if there was a labor shortage. Butzer 1976: 83, Table 4(c). Bagnall 1993: Appendix three.

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be dated to the early Old Kingdom, and the site was continuously occupied from that time through to the Byzantine period and beyond. The Ptolemies showed considerable interest in the town. Why? Its political and economic importance was assured by Edfu’s strategic location at a bend in the Nile that afforded the site a rich and protected hinterland. Caravan routes from the east, especially from the Red Sea, and west out to Kharga oasis, and the sandstone quarries to the south, made Edfu a principal hub of caravan traffic and a major point for controlling the desert from an early date.50 Blemmyes and other tribes of the eastern desert were an important local source of labor, as desert guides and scouts, but they would later become a source of great distraction to the Roman and Byzantine armies. Ptolemy II built a road from Edfu out to the Red Sea port of Berenike,51 and the Edfu temple, perhaps not surprisingly given the town’s importance, was the first to be rebuilt in the Thebaid with Ptolemaic blessing, beginning in 237 bce.52 Apart from Thebes, Edfu is perhaps the best documented Ptolemaic town in Upper Egypt, and the range of texts from Edfu allows us to view the Ptolemaic impact on an ancient town from several different points of view.53 We know more about the disposition of land in Edfu than in any other place in the Nile valley in the third century bce. Several important texts or groups of texts illustrate the Ptolemaic presence in Edfu and the nature of land tenure there. Treating each in turn, these texts are (1) the Edfu donation text, (2) the Hauswaldt papyri, (3) the Milon archive and (4) P. Edfou 8. the edf u donation tex t A text of the utmost importance for the study of land tenure in Ptolemaic Edfu is found in an unexpected place. Inscribed on the outer retaining wall of the temple of Horus of Edfu in the first century bce, the Edfu donation text contains a cadastral survey of land in the southernmost four nomes donated to the temple estate of the god Horus in the reigns of Nectanebo II and the Persian kings Darius I and II (Table 2).54 50

51 52 53

54

Edfu was replaced by Coptos in the Roman period as the principal Nile valley entrepôt, for which see Bagnall 1976b: 34–39; on earlier fortifications, see O’Connor 1972: 683; Jaritz 1986: 37–39. For the later military presence at Edfu, see Rémondon 1961. Pliny, HN 6.33.168. For the site of Berenike, see Sidebotham 1995; Sidebotham and Wendrich 1998. On Ptolemy II’ s interest in the eastern desert, see Huß 2001: 287–89 and the literature cited there. For the building history of the temple, see below, Chapter five, pp. 162–63. The temple texts are rich in information concerning the cult of Horus and the daily rituals involved. See the detailed study of Alliot 1949, Alliot 1954, and Fairman 1954, and the good orientation to the temple by Cauville 1984. PM 6, 167; 337–344. For the text, see the edition of Meeks 1972. An English translation of the text is provided in Appendix one.


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Table 2. Summary of the land holdings of the endowment of the Temple of Horus at Edfu (adopted from Meeks 1972: 126–27) Nome Pathyris Esna Edfu Ombos total

“Island” land 212 21 ? ? ? 5660

1

4

1 1

4 8

“High” land 2029 21 81 161 ? ? ? 7551 21 81 161

Total amount of land, in arouras 1

32

2242 41 81 161 1750 21 41 161 9181 21 41 1 34 13,209 81

1

32 1 32

1

The text here is broken, with the hieroglyph for one thousand preserved fully twice, and three more times partially, with a gap followed by the number 30 1/2 1/4. Cf. Meeks 1972: 51, 126–27.

The document is very unusual because it appears to be a hieroglyphic transcription of an actual record of temple holdings of land from hieratic and demotic papyrus originals. The transliteration of an administrative text into a public, epigraphic form is unusual but it is not unprecedented in the period.55 Nevertheless, we should not expect such a document as part of the normal range of temple inscriptions. In this particular case, the text functioned on at least two different levels. The first one is economic, the second cosmological. The text lists the holdings of temple endowment land by location relative to other plots, and by the type of land. A summary of the total amounts of temple land held in each nome is also given. The text thus provides valuable information about temple estate land in Upper Egypt that we would otherwise not be privy to without the text of an Egyptian land survey. Such topographical surveys of course have a long history in Egypt but with the donation text and a Greek papyrus from the second century bce, the Edfu nome is the only nome in Upper Egypt for which we have such extensive information.56 To complicate matters, the donation text documents several separate but related events: (1) donations of land to the temple of Horus by pharaohs at the time of the origins of the temple, (2) donations of the “sacred domain” of Horus by several pharaohs subsequent to the land being donated, (3) survey 55

56

The so-called “Famine Stela” is another example. The text, couched as an Old Kingdom donation to the temple of Khnum at Elephantine, dates to the Ptolemaic period. The antiquity of the backdating presumably added legitimacy to the royal donation, and a similar intent was probably behind the Edfu text. The speech of Thoth recorded on the Edfu wall giving the exact measurements of all the land in Egypt is another unusual text and should be mentioned in conjunction with the donation text at Edfu. See below, Chapter five, p. 146. On the land survey, see further below, Chapter five, pp. 146–48. For the Greek text, see Christensen 2001, Christensen 2002.

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of the temple domain lands, probably by the first Ptolemy early in his reign sometime before 305 bce, (4) a fictional donation of land by Ptolemy X Alexander I, (5) inscription of the cadastral survey, at this time merely an historic “relic,” sometime between 107 and 88 bce, no doubt inscribed on the retaining wall on completion of the temple building project.57 This raises the question of why such a text was placed on the temple wall at that time. The answer must lie in the specific historic events surrounding the temple building. After the unrest surrounding the dynastic conflict between Ptolemy VIII and Cleopatra II and III, a series of decrees was issued in an attempt to restore stability to Egypt.58 Part of the intent of these decrees was to restore the temples to their ancient rights.59 In the light of this effort, the placing of an ancient land survey on the temple wall might have been an attempt to restore the Edfu temple’s ancient right to its land, or, alternatively, an attempt to assert an ancient claim against the state’s administrative power. The Greek survey in Copenhagen (P. Haun inv. 407) dated 119/118 bce gives a very different view of land tenure, that of the fiscal interest of the state. On a second level of meaning, the donation text functioned as a nexus between the real physical world of the temple domain and the cosmological or sacred geography in which each temple was identified with the mythic space of the cosmos. The temple text recorded on the outer wall of the temple, a symbolic and intended location, gives a physical manifestation to the identity of the cosmos, and of Egypt, with local reference to the geographic territory actually claimed by the temple estate.60 A distinction must be made between the actual endowment of the land to the temple and the donation of the sacred domain, a purely symbolic, religious act. In fact, as Meeks pointed out, the royal act of donation by Nectanebo II and Darius I and II recorded in the donation text bestowed on the temple its sacred domain rather than the land itself, which the temple had had in its possession for some time. The royal ritual of “donation” was performed at the beginning of a reign as a sign of renewal. As in the Satrap Stela, in which temple property originally given by the pharaoh Khabbabash in the fourth century bce was “donated” by Ptolemy, the religious act recorded by such texts is a record of pharaonic piety, an essential element in maintaining ritual order, rather than a statement of Ptolemaic largesse to an Egyptian 57 58 59 60

For the chronology of events see Meeks 1972: 131–35. The decree, P. Tebt. 5 (118 bce), was wide-ranging. See further below, Chapter five, pp. 180–81. An outline of the topics covered is conveniently listed by Huß 2001: 622. See the comments by Bingen 1984: 929. See further the complete analysis of the temple cosmology of Edfu by Finnestad 1985, esp. pp. 46–47.


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temple.61 Subsequent pharaohs merely “reiterate” a donation of a previous king.62 So much for the donation of land and the royal ritual of donation of the temple’s sacred domain. As for the cadastral survey, it would have taken place (like the donation ceremony) on a periodic basis, to account for fluctuations in boundaries and in loss or accumulation of new land caused by the action of the annual flood over the course of time in the Nile valley. The text as we have it probably reflects the state of the temple domain according to a cadastral survey that may have occurred under Ptolemy I while he still functioned as satrap.63 Although Meeks’ arguments seem sound regarding the actual date of the survey, one could make an argument that the re-survey of temple land occurred under Ptolemy II Philadelphus. A text which might be brought to bear in this argument is the so called Karnak Ostracon, an order by Ptolemy II Philadelphus to survey Egypt “nome by nome” and “field by field.”64 The donation text records: the total (amount of land) of the domain (h.tp –ntr) of Horus the behdedite, the great god, lord of heaven, from the origins up to year 18 of the son of Re Nectanebo II, beloved of Onouris, [i.e. the last year of his reign], [total size of ] fields : 13,209 1/8 arouras.65

What follows is a list of fields controlled by the temple throughout the Pathyrite, Esna, Edfu and Ombite nomes.66 Land in the Edfu nome itself comprised almost three-quarters of the total amount of temple domain land (Figure 4).67 The text concludes with a recapitulation of the donations under the various kings who donated land to the temple. This probably reflects a new survey of the fields.68 The cadastral survey, then, does not account for all of the land in these nomes. The estate of Horus in the Edfu nome amounted to 24.8 km2 of an estimated total amount of arable land of around 137 km2 or eighteen per cent of the land in the nome.69 61 62 63 65 66 67

68 69

Meeks 1972: 133. The Egyptian verb used in the donation text is wh.m, lit. “to repeat.” See Meeks 1972: 62, n. 41. 64 For the text see Bresciani 1983. See below, Chapter five, pp. 148–49. Meeks 1972: 134. Meeks 1972: 4∗ 14–16. This administrative division reflects a later Ptolemaic date since the Pathyrite became a separate nome only in the first half of the second century bce. So Vandorpe 1995a: 230. Meeks 1972: 147. The total holdings of the Horus temple cited by Weber 1909[1998]: 241 as 18,300 arouras, which obviously relied on Otto, is incorrect. The figure proposed by Otto 1905: 267 is based on a broken passage in the text. So Meeks 1972: 154. Butzer 1976: 115. Cf. Bagnall 1993, Appendix three.

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Regional case studies of land tenure Ombos 0%

Pathyris 17% Esna 13%

Edfu 70% Figure 4. The percentage of land in total arouras held by the Temple of Horus at Edfu by nome.

As Meeks has observed, the estate of Horus at Edfu appears to have been stable throughout periods of political instability during the tumultuous second Persian occupation and the coming of Alexander and the Ptolemaic dynasty. This is certainly what the text aims to convey, and the tradition of maintaining ancient names for the fields adds to this appearance of stability. The terminology of donation also reflects a desired stability – the donated land was termed “perpetual fields.”70 The plots of land were surrounded by land belonging to other temples in the south or by “royal land.” Some of the temple land was stated to be for wheat growing, important evidence, if the text contains information about pre-Ptolemaic land tenure, that wheat production predates the Ptolemies. The economic interdependence of the temple estates that the cadastral survey suggests was reinforced by temple rituals such as the important “Festival of the Joyous Union” during which the goddess Hathor of Dendera visited the Edfu temple each year to celebrate her marriage with Horus.71 It was a great public festival, one of many in the Thebaid, and it lasted for two weeks. During the journey from Dendera to Edfu, the statue of the goddess stopped to visit Thebes, El-Kab, Hierakonpolis, and very likely other sacred places along the way. Such ancient religious and economic interconnections – religious ceremonies connecting Dendera to Edfu, land holding that connected Elephantine to Edfu – reinforced social ones,72 70 71 72

Eg. h. mn. For the ritual, see Alliot 1949: 297–99; Alliot 1954: 443–560; Blackman and Fairman 1949; 1950. The socio-economic interconnections between the temple towns in Upper Egypt were ancient. Economic connections between Elephantine, where there was virtually no arable land, and towns down river, may have been especially strong. The well-known P. Valençay 1 (Dynasty 20 ca. 1100 bce) informs us that a mayor of Elephantine was responsible for cultivating land in Edfu. For the text, see Gardiner 1950; and the remarks of Katary 1989: 207–16; the letter is translated by Wente 1990: 130–31. In P. Gr. Eleph. 20 (223 bce) we learn that the family of high priests at Edfu held


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and provided good reason for the Ptolemies to continue to administer the Thebaid as a political unit. Although we do not know the extent to which the temple of Horus actually controlled or administered all of the land specified in the donation text, that the temple estate continued to function as an economic institution into the Ptolemaic period is strongly suggested by the third-century private land conveyances recorded in the important group of texts known as the Hauswaldt Papyri. th e third century bce at edf u: the hauswaldt papyri an d the “herd sman of horus” The Edfu donation text was in part, as I have stressed, a theological statement of the temple territory. It described “institutional” holders (the king or a temple estate), and the general location of the land, leaving aside issues of the economic exploitation of the land. For that, we may turn to a family archive of the greatest importance for the private tenure of land in Upper Egypt, the Hauswaldt papyri (P. Hausw.).73 The texts constitute an archive in which most of the men bear the title “herdsman, servant of Horus of Edfu.”74 The texts, among the more impressive demotic notarial deeds from the Ptolemaic period – some of them extending to over four meters in length – record land conveyances and marriages from 265–208 bce. They have long been recognized for the information that they provide on land tenure conditions in Upper Egypt.75 What is unique about this archive is the number of private conveyances of land, mostly couched as sales.76 With the exception of three texts, the amount of land conveyed is not specified, but it is very likely that small plots were involved. One text,

73

74

75 76

property (a pastophorion) in the temple of Dendera as well. The pattern of institutions controlling land in many areas, of course, prevailed throughout Egypt, as shown, for example, in the important P. Wilbour from the New Kingdom, and was no doubt a risk reduction strategy. For the Wilbour Papyrus, see O’Connor 1972, esp. p. 690; Katary 1999. The papyri were purchased by Georg Hauswaldt from an antiquities dealer in Qena on behalf of the Egyptian Museum in Berlin. The internal contents of the papyri, however, make Edfu the certain place of origin. For the papyri, see Spiegelberg 1913a; updated in Manning 1997. Dem. m b k H.r bh.dt . The Eg. m, usually translated “herdsman,” has been interpreted in various ways, from an ethnic to a geographic designation. In the Ptolemaic period, the meaning “herdsman” is certain. See the summary of the evidence in Manning 1994a: 150–56. There are several sales of oxen from the Saite and Persian periods from Edfu, for which see Cruz-Uribe 1985, texts 2 and 17, and festivals at the Edfu temple mention an abundance of cattle (Edfou iv.3–1–8). Préaux 1984 [1937]: 35; Préaux 1939: 17, 441. I use the term “sale” for the Egyptian documents consisting of two texts, a “writing for money”(dem. sh n db h.d) and a “cession” (dem. sh n wy). Separately, these documents were also used to record transactions other than sales, and thus I use the general term “conveyance” when referring to transactions involving these texts. See further on conveyances Chapter six.

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Regional case studies of land tenure South

island land temple

court

high land

desert

royal

Nile Figure 5. The general situation of the land in the Hauswaldt conveyances.

discussed below in Chapter five, is the earliest recorded agreement over the acquisition of land at public auction,77 three of the texts are good examples of the witness-copy type of contract,78 and three of the texts have a Greek registration docket.79 The type of land involved in the conveyances was termed either “high land in the land of pharaoh” or “island land in the temple estate of Horus of Edfu,” with a courtyard often situated in between the plots (Figure 5).80 The land is described in the Edfu donation text (Neeks 1972: 65∗ , 2; see Appendix one below) as follows: The lowland of Primis and the lowland which is to the south of that of Primis and which is called the “lowland of the winged disk.”81

The Nubian place name (taken from the town further south in Nubia at Qasr Ibrim), the marketplace mentioned in the area,82 and the connection 77 78 80

81

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P. Hausw. 16 (221–220 bce; see Manning 1997: 130–34). 79 Chapter five, pp. 171–73. See further below, Chapter six, pp. 213–14. These courtyards (dem. ınh. n hpr) may have been mud-brick walled enclosures to raise palm trees. ù On the demotic phrase see Manning 1997: 14. The phrase literally means “courtyard of existence.” Could it mean the “existing courtyard”? The terms “high” land and “island” land are the two classes of land found in Egyptian texts from Edfu. High land refers to normal basin irrigation land higher up on the flood plain, while island land lay closer to the river, and was therefore more subject to change from year to year. On Primis as a Nubian name, see Manning 1997: 27–28. It was a stronghold, at least later, of the Blemmyes (Olympiodorus, History, frag. 37). From the graffiti in the wadi, it appears that the semi-arid area may have been a good one for herding animals. See further Winlock 1940. P. Hausw. 18 (212/1 bce).


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of eastern tribes and herdsmen in the archive, suggest that a settlement of herdsmen was situated in the southern Edfu nome.83 Many of the conveyances transferred two or more plots of temple land and royal land concurrently from one individual to another. It is not known at present what the distinction would have been between royal land and temple land in this case. The Ptolemaic fiscal term “royal land” (g¦ basilik) refers to land leased out to “royal farmers.”84 Once again, we must be aware of archaisms in the demotic papyri, and, because the Ptolemaic fiscal term “royal land” does not appear in the late second-century bce survey of land from Edfu,85 the term used in P. Hausw. may refer to an older usage of the term as seen, for example, in the Edfu donation text. The conveyances took place between men with the title “herdsman,” or between such men and women. There is clearly a family context to this archive, and the settlement pattern suggested here of herdsmen settled in one area strongly suggests socio-economic continuity of land-holding patterns.86 Certainly temples had sacred herds as part of their endowment, and Edfu may have had some specific connection with herding.87 It may be that the very narrow cultivable strip south of the town fostered herding in the area. Additionally, two of the marriage contracts in the Hauswaldt papyri involved men with specific Nubian ethnics (Blemmyes and Megabarians), and it may be that the occupation term “herdsman” masks such an ethnicity as well.88 Nubians of course were a common sight in this part of Egypt in ancient times, attested archaeologically at Edfu since the First Intermediate Period,89 and they may have served both the temple estates in the role of herdsmen and the Ptolemies as guides in the eastern desert, an area of concern, as was Nubia, for the flow of gold, trade goods and war elephants.90 The Edfu donation text allows us to locate the land involved in the Hauswaldt conveyances in the southern district of the Edfu nome, in a 83 84 85 86 87 88 90

On settlements of herdsmen in earlier times, see O’Connor 1972: 695. A different view of the status of these men is expressed by Kessler 1994. See above, Chapter two, pp. 54–56. P. Haun. inv. 407. Cf. Vandorpe 2000a: 173. On the conservative and formal nature of demotic see Chapter five, pp. 173–77. Cf. O’Connor 1972, esp. pp. 692–96. For fourth-century bce “herdsmen, servants of Horus of Edfu” involved in selling cows, see Menu 1981 with the comments of Vleeming 1984a. 89 Bietak 1979: 114. P. Hausw. 6 (219 bce) and P. Hausw. 15 (217/16 bce). On eastern desert nomads as guides see Burstein 1989: 61. In some of the Hauswaldt texts (P. Hausw. 16, 17, 25) the men bear the title “man reckoned/counted among the men of Philae” (P. Hausw. 16, 3: ıw//f ıp hn n rmt (n)pr–ıw–lq), a title which may have a military, or more likely in my view a quasi-military, significance, perhaps along the lines of “scout”, and almost certainly, as the term “reckon” implies, significance in terms of tax status. Cf. Winnicki 1978: 82, and La’da 1996 in general for status designations. For Blemmyes at the Red Sea port at Berenike, see Sidebotham and Wendrich 1998.

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Regional case studies of land tenure Table 3. Composition of the P. Hausw. family archive. Type of document

Number of texts

marriage agreement sale of land1 cession of land mortgage and forfeiture of land group acquisition of land gift of land 1

4 11 1 1 1 1

There are several other fragmentary documents in the archive.

very narrow strip of cultivable land about twelve kilometers below Gebel es-Silsileh, near the Wadi el-Shatt el-Rigal, the beginning of the ancient route to Nubia.91 Some of the Hauswaldt papyri locate the land “in the southern region (topos) in the west of the nome of Edfu.”92 According to another of the Hauswaldt papyri, a marketplace was located here so we can presume that a small village was in the vicinity.93 Thus the occupation and social status of the parties to the Hauswaldt land conveyances, the localized area of the land being conveyed, the emphasis on palm tree cultivation, all combine to suggest that the conveyances of land occurred within a specifically defined socio-economic group in one rather small region. More interesting details emerge from a close inspection of this family archive. The number of land transactions preserved (as shown in Table 3) reveals an important feature of economic life not often detected by looking at one text. In any agrarian society land is usually closely held within a family, and devolution out of the family was, of course, deleterious to the household economy. Because all children in ancient Egypt inherited property equally (the eldest son receiving an extra share because of the responsibility of burying his parents), there was a natural tendency for family land to be split up over time into increasingly smaller plots, causing potential tension within the family and gradual impoverishment in the case of a rising population.94 To a certain extent both institutional and privatelyheld land was fragmented purposefully as a method of reducing risk. So long as the land was held by one family this was fine. But marriage was an 91 92 93 94

For the general location, see the “Hauswaldt zone” on Map 1, and Manning 1994a. Dem. c.wy.w rsy n ımnt n p tsˇ Db , P. Hausw. 11b, 3 (224 bce). P. Hausw. 18 (212/11 bce). Cf. Pestman 1969b; Rowlandson 1996: 171–75, and below Chapter six, p. 198.


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event when land could pass from one family to another. There were several ways in which this tendency to fragment privately-held land was combated. The Asyut family archive treated below in Chapter six shows one way. Family land was worked jointly by brothers until a dispute arose between the brothers over rent. Another method, perhaps, is the tendency toward close kin marriage that would keep family land within the family. A third method of reducing fragmentation was consolidation by the repurchase of land once held together. This strategy appears to be the theme of the Hauswaldt papyri, with many of the plots of land eventually ending up in the hands of one man.95 The Hauswaldt papyri provide important evidence, on one hand, for the private tenure of land within a family that served the temple estate and, on the other hand, for the ways in which the Ptolemaic state controlled this ancient socio-economic structure. The building of the new temple may have been an important first step in signaling the renewal of, and support for, the cult for Horus and his priesthood. The falcon god Horus was the perfect symbol of divine kingship for Egypt, expressing power over a vast hinterland. The kings, of course, would have benefited by association with this important cult of legitimate kingship. At the level of the local economy, the Hauswaldt documents give important third-century bce evidence for the registration of documents, the public auction of land, and the presence of individual Greeks (acting as a witness to an Egyptian contract, lending money) within the local temple sphere.96 In this way third-century bce Edfu was fully within Ptolemaic purview. But the Hauswaldt texts also reveal an ancient tradition of land holding by temple support staff, in this specific case Nubian herdsmen who were attached to the temple estate of Horus. They functioned as herdsmen, probably of the sacred flock of the temple, and in exchange for such service they were probably given small plots of land that they could freely convey to others and otherwise use. priests an d l and at ed fu: the milon archive The association of high priests and the land is rarely attested. The normal presumption is that priests had a right to income produced from temple holdings. Priest may have divided temple income among themselves, but they also held land privately. An important bilingual archive, found in a jar 95 96

See further below, Chapter six, p. 224. A Greek appears as a witness in P. Hausw. 11 (224 bce). See below, n. 111 on this man. For Greek witnesses to demotic notarial deeds in Thebes, see Clarysse 1995: 13–15.

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on Elephantine island, provides a unique view, although the texts are not completely transparent, of the relationship of high priests and the lesonis (the head of the administration in the temple) at Edfu to the land and the state. The texts form part of the archive of Milon, the prakt¯or of the temples in the Edfu nome.97 The texts date from 225 to 222 bce, and are thus contemporary with some of the Hauswaldt conveyances. The archive as a whole contains several interesting pieces, including the famous order for the payment of elephant hunters,98 and correspondence with Milon’s superiors, apparently residing in Thebes, concerning the finances for the building of the Edfu temple.99 But the majority of the papers revolve around the dissolution of the real property of a prominent priestly family in Edfu. The family, headed by Estphenis, who served as high priest of the temple, had pledged land as a means, probably, of guaranteeing the production of byssus, the very highest quality of linen, to the state.100 The land was later requested to be returned to the family. It appears that the family had gotten into economic troubles and were unable to fulfill their obligations. Several items of the family’s movable property, including a house, were confiscated and sold.101 Two plots of land, divided, just as in the Hauswaldt papyri, into one of “high” land, and another of “island” land, totalling thirty arouras, which the family had acquired at auction, had to be ceded back to the state and resold at auction because the other three installment payments were not forthcoming.102 The family requested of Milon that the land be assigned to a certain Xenon son of Dionysios, who may have behind the scenes guaranteed that the priestly family would be able to maintain the land de facto, or who may have been a creditor of the family.103 A dispute over the title to the land arose, and Milon appears to have gotten in the middle of the public bidding and counter-bidding process between several parties. He was accused of acting against the interest 97

98 100

101 103

prktwr tän ¬erän; dem. p rgtr n n rpy.w (understanding the initial Greek letter as the definite article). For the archive, Rubensohn 1907; Clarysse forthcoming. The demotic texts were published by Spiegelberg 1908a, with texts 1–4 and 6 republished in Sethe and Partsch 1920. The find spot of the texts remains somewhat mysterious, and may relate to the fact that Milon was forced to flee for his life south, perhaps as a result of his dealings with the affair involving the high priests. Another text. P. Eleph. 9 (223 bce) mentions that Milon had previously gone to Aswan. One text, P. Eleph. 12 (222 bce) mentions Milon’s having been mugged. See the comments by Seidl 1962: 46, and the detailed remarks by Clarysse forthcoming. 99 P. Eleph. 9 (223 bce) and 10 (222 bce). P. Eleph. 28 (223 bce). P. Eleph. dem. 1 (223 bce). Préaux 1939: 94–104; Thompson 1988: 46–51. The demotic term is ss–nswt ˇ , “royal linen,” EG 522. The lesonis (dem. mr–sn ˇ ), in effect the business manager of the temple, was elected annually by the priesthood. See Martin 1996: 279–83. 102 P. Eleph. 20 (223 bce). On the public auction of land, see below, Chapter five, pp. 160–61. P. Eleph. dem. 2 (223 bce) and 3 (a draft of 2). See the remarks of Sethe in Sethe and Partsch 1920: 290–92.


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of the royal revenue in the affair, accepting the lower bid of Xenon, either the result of ethnic favoritism or a bribe.104 The whole affair is enlightening as to the state’s intervention in local politics, even in high priestly circles. The real property involved in the affair was the family’s personal property, not property belonging to the temple estate as such. Milon’s role in the auction process provides a particularly clear illustration of how important local agents of the state were in the collection and the organization of state finances, and how they did not always have the best interests of the state in mind. It is interesting, and important, that the public auction was the institution through which property rights were assigned, but it is important to note that it may not always have been market forces at work in the process. The priests were involved in the royal economy, but with the epistat¯es, and the occasional intervention of the prakt¯or, the Ptolemies maintained a watchful eye on their financial affairs, at least when it involved state revenue. The Milon and Hauswaldt archives together form a complementary and fascinating picture of land tenure in third-century bce Edfu. Both archives attest to the presence of the Ptolemaic administration and of the royal economy and its controls, and the Hauswaldt texts show that an old form of tenure on the land by the temple’s assigning plots to servants of the estate continued. It is interesting, finally, to note that it is at Edfu that the public auction of land is first attested in demotic sources.105 It may of course simply be a matter of the survival of our sources. But it is at least worth asking if the new financial institution was connected to the rebuilding of the Edfu temple, in whose finances the Ptolemies certainly had an interest. If there is a connection, it may be that part of the Ptolemaic strategy of new temple-building in the Thebaid was a method of asserting financial control of Egyptian temples, and it is telling in that respect that a public bank was established within the Edfu temple itself.106 a royal petition The temple at Edfu, along with its priesthoods, was an ancient institution that made adjustments to the new realities of Ptolemaic administration. 104 105 106

Cf. P. Eleph. 19 (undated, perhaps 222 bce) and the comments of Rubensohn 1907: 62. P. Hausw. 16 (Edfu, 221 bce). See further below, Chapter five, pp. 160–61. An important text in this regard is P. Eleph. 10 (222 bce), a letter from Euphronios, Milon’s superior in Thebes’ demanding that an account of the receipts in money and in grain taken in by “the bankers in the temples” be forwarded to him so that he may report it to Alexandria. See Bogaert 1998: 196, who argued for these men as public not temple bankers, and further below, Chapter five, p. 163.

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It is less easy to assess the dynamics of new populations in the south of the country. Greeks were certainly established in the southern Nile valley at an early stage. One of the certain references to kleruchs in the third century occurs in a famous petition to the king by a certain Philotas the “watchman, one of those among the kleruchs in Apollonopolis Magna” about a new irrigation machine.107 Philotas asked for an audience with the king, an unnamed Ptolemy, perhaps Ptolemy III Euergetes, in order to show the king his new irrigation machine that would “save the country.”108 The machine, it was asserted, would be able to irrigate the whole of the Thebaid within fifty days. Exactly what this machine may have been we shall have to guess (Philotas used the general term mhcan). He may have had experience elsewhere in the Near East as a soldier and may have seen different irrigation techniques there.109 Whether it was a literary creation, as some scholars believe,110 or a real petition is important but impossible to determine. In any case, the text shows that the initiative to respond to a shock, and to improve irrigation technology, came neither from Alexandria’s famous library of scholars, nor from the ruler, but from an individual. What is clear, however, is that Greeks were in the southern Nile valley at an early stage. The petitioner in P. Edfou 8, having a good Macedonian name, may well show that there was an entrepreneurial Greek spirit a handful of years before the rebuilding of the temple at Edfu.111 th e second/first centuries bce in pathyris/gebelein: the adler papyri If the status of the Ptolemaic military on land in the Thebaid is unclear in the third century, it becomes clearer in the second and first centuries bce. 107

108

109 111

tän [n ’Ap»l]lwnov p[»]lei t¦i meglh klhro[Åcwn] (P. Edfou 8, 1–2). For his title “watchman,” pursou[r»]v, see Van ’t-Dack 1962. The papyrus was published by Böhm 1955 and has been widely discussed. See, e.g., Thompson 1984: 365. The text has been most recently treated by Lukaszewicz 1999. The text is dated on paleographical grounds to the third century bce. The petition to the king makes reference to a severe drought, which may refer to the known low floods in the years 247–245 bce. So Bonneau 1971a: 129. Ptolemy III Euergetes was reported to have cut his military campaign in Syria short in the same year because of a crisis in Egypt, presumably exacerbated by the low floods. See most recently Huß 2001: 338–52. 110 Pr´ Lukaszewicz 1999: 31. eaux 1957: 153–54 suggested that the text was a school exercise. P. Hausw. provides two cases of Greeks at Edfu in the third century bce. In P. Hausw. 11, vo. 13, 224 bce) a Greek man, Rhodon son of Lysimachos (dem. Hrwtn s Lısmqws), appears as a witness to the agreement. This may well be the same man who appears as the “toparch of the three” in the Bir ’Iayyan inscription mentioned above, p. 66. See Manning 2002. In P. Hausw. 18 (212–211 bce; see Manning 1997: 140–49), a “Greek born in Egypt” (dem. wynn ms n kmy) appears as a moneylender to a woman.


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Pathyris, modern Gebelein, was an ancient town some seventy kilometers down river from Edfu, at which a military garrison was established in the aftermath of the Theban rebellion in 186 bce.112 The town has yielded many private papyri documenting the business activities of several individuals, among the more famous of which is the archive of the cavalry officer Dryton.113 Another important group of texts is the private archive of another soldier, Horus son of Nechoutes, dating to the end of the second and early first centuries bce.114 The complex archive contains several land conveyances, written in Greek and in demotic. Many of these conveyances are of either palm groves,115 or land suitable for palm tree production, the same pattern that we saw for third-century bce Edfu. Grain-bearing land was also conveyed.116 Horus on one occasion bears the title “herdsman, servant of Harsemtheus,”117 tying him to the local temple later in his life, in addition to his military designations “Persian of the descent,” and “man who receives clothes and food, under the command of (the strat¯egos) Lochos, assigned to the camp of Amur (i.e. Krokodilopolis).”118 This linking of military and religious status is an important fact of land tenure, and of local elite behavior, in the last two centuries of the Ptolemaic period in the Thebaid. Horus was involved in purchasing land from other family members, and in making loans, and he interacted with servants in the local temple as well as other soldiers. The archive of Horus certainly shows that soldiers had become well established on the land, conducted transactions in demotic Egyptian as well as Greek, and interacted with Egyptians in their daily business transactions. We do not know how Horus had originally acquired land in Pathyris, a region in which much of the land was private.119 Elsewhere in the Thebaid, soldiers with titles suggesting that they held land by right of their military rank leased land from Egyptian priests.120 Soldiers stationed in the south, it 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120

Winnicki 1978: 68–78. The demotic term used was rsy.t See below, Chapter five, p. 169. See the overview by Vandorpe 1994. For Dryton, see Winnicki 1972, and Vandorpe’s forthcoming edition. P. Adl.; published by Adler et al. 1939. See also the study by Herrmann 1975. Dem. k m bn, lit. “palm tree garden.” Palm tree land mentioned in P. Adl. Gr. 3 (112 bce); P. Adl. Gr. 7 (104 bce); P. Adl. Gr. 8 (104 bce); P. Adl. dem. 7 (103 bce); P. Adl. dem. 13 (98 bce); P. Adl. dem. 16 (a lease?) (95 bce). Dem. m b k H.r–sm –t .wy , P. Adl. dem. 22. P. Adl. dem. 2 (124 bce). Krokodilopolis is the nearby garrison. On this title, cf. Thomas 1975: 115–16. Horus does not appear as a “Greek born in Egypt” as I stated in Manning 1994a: 154. Vandorpe 2000a: 173, n. 14. He is called in one text (P. Adl. dem. 15, 96 bce) a “man of Aswan” (dem. rmt swn), but this may refer to his occupation as a soldier rather than the town of his birth. P. Siut 10597 (Asyut, 171 bce; Felber 1997: 61–64). See further below, Chapter six, pp. 201–05 on this archive.

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appears, were given rights to access to land, but may have had to purchase or lease land in areas where there was no new land available.121 pat tern s of l and holding: categories of l and The type of land conveyed by private legal instrument in Upper Egypt was usually classed as either “high” land or “island” land.122 In some cases, the Hauswaldt texts being the best examples, the land is further classified into royal land or temple land. Many of the Upper Egyptian transfers involved empty plots, either for improvement by building a house on it or by developing the plot with palm trees. As we have already seen, fruit tree production was prominent in the private tenure of land in the Thebaid.123 In rare cases, the specification of crops to be grown is mentioned, but normally we are not informed in the conveyances about the use of the land.124 Ptolemaic property law did not recognize a separate legal category of land called private. It is difficult to assess the extent of such private holding of land, whatever the tenure arrangements, since the private archives document a limited range of economic transactions within any one family and thus rarely attest to the totality of personal holdings.125 There are some exceptions to this discussed below. What emerges from the documentary record, though, is the probability that small-scale holdings were the norm throughout the Thebaid in the Ptolemaic period, although of course the nature of the archival survival and the pattern of split holdings to reduce risk make the assessment of average holdings difficult.126 But in the areas for which we have information, Pathryis and the Edfu nome, the land does appear to be in the main privately held land subject to the harvest tax.127 This pattern of small-scale holding of land worked within families, freely conveyable, shows that private “economic rights” were established on this land.128 Most of this kind of land is undocumented in the record of conveyance as normal intra-family conveyance occurred without a separate 121

122 124 125 128

On kleruchs having to purchase land in the south (at Pathyris), see Winnicki 1985. P. Haun inv. 407 from the Apollonopolite suggests that kleruchs at Edfu numbered around one hundred at the end of the second century bce. Some of these holdings were quite large. These settlements again may reflect a new policy of establishing soldiers on the land in the wake of the violent disturbances caused by the Theban revolt. Cf. below, Chapter five, pp. 164–69. 123 See below, pp. 92–96. See below Chapter six for conveyances of land in the Thebaid. For specific crops mentioned, see the discussion of the Asyut family archive, below, Chapter six, pp. 201–5. 126 Clarysse 1979a: 734. 127 Vandorpe 2000a: 173–74. Clarysse 1979a: 733. On economic rights, see Barzel 1997. Cf. Rowlandson 1996: 118–30, for the Roman period.


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written conveyance, the rights being established by a marriage agreement. Land surveys would have recorded such land. We have virtually no evidence for the middle range, and for those who held sizable plots of land, but we may surmise, with Finley, that there was the full range of holding from small garden plots to sizable holdings that have gone undocumented in the preserved record.129 There were, however, no large estates and no documented individual holders of large tracts of land. The small size of private holdings (Figure 10) reflects the traditional holding of small plots to support nuclear families and was probably reinforced by partible inheritance patterns.130 It appears that a good deal of the arable land in the Nile valley was held privately. There were several general categories of land in Upper Egypt. I divide these into arable land and non-arable land. Most of the arable land was contained in the basins. While such land may have been held privately, it is rarely mentioned in demotic conveyances.131 Such basin land was suited to being held jointly and worked in cooperation with others because of the exigencies of irrigating such land and because it was difficult to divide such land into individualized plots. Personal claim to the land was established by long-term use, whatever the origins of the title to the land, and was demonstrated by the conveyability of the land by private legal instrument. Temples as well as the king leased their land out to private farmers, although we are not informed about the use of much of the temple lands. Some of it directly sustained the cult, the sacred animals, and staff in the local temple. Other land appears to have been given out to temple dependants as a method of payment, similar to land being given out by the king to soldiers, police and civil servants. This served to bind a labor force to the temple estate while at the same time it allowed small plots to be cultivated, thus producing income, presumably, for the temple in the form of rent as well as for the holder of the plot. This kind of arrangement is reflected in the social status of many persons who conveyed land by means of private demotic contracts discussed below in Chapter six. A category of land appears for the first time in Greek documents from the second century called g¦ «di»kthtov, “private land.” In Rostovtzeff ’s formulation, privately held land appears to be the standard tenure arrangement in the south that the Ptolemies did not disturb.132 The second-century 129 130 131 132

Finley 1985a [1999]: 104. On the size of plots, see the comments by Baer 1963 with respect to the Middle Kingdom documents known as the Hekanakhte papers. P. Adl. gr.12 (Pathyris, 101 bce). Emmer was grown on the land that was the subject of the Asyut priests’ family dispute. Rostovtzeff 1941: 290.

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bce land survey from Edfu would seem to confirm that the greater part of the arable in the south was privately held land.133 The demotic conveyances from Upper Egypt that are the subject of Chapter six confirm that this form of tenure is attributed to priests and others attached to local temples. partnership Partnerships for the acquisition and for the farming of land are attested both in the Greek and in the demotic sources. In one third-century bce agreement from Edfu discussed below in Chapter six, a group of sixteen herdsmen, all with the title “servant of Horus of Edfu,” a status title associating them with the temple estate, acquired a plot of land at the “auction of pharaoh,” i.e. a public sale of land.134 The same mode of acquisition, a joint purchase, was used by a pastophoros-priest from Dendera. The joint holding of land between members of the same status group allocated risk more efficiently, better solved the information problem associated with land transfers, and provided a mechanism for local enforcement of land rules. There are few texts that document the transmission of property from father to son; in most cases there was probably no need to do this by written deed. One such text, however, has survived, and it sheds valuable light on the real estate holdings of Horos son of Psemminis, a pastophoros-priest of Hathor at Dendera also from the mid second century bce (Tables 4 and 5).135 Both the land and the house property were acquired through inheritance within the family, and by purchase, at times with relatives, at other times with men who appear to have no family connection. It is interesting to note here that all of the real estate was owned jointly, reflecting the common preference to keep family land undivided but jointly worked. Some of the land, which may have been inherited by Horos and jointly shared with his cousins, is described as “registered to pharaoh.”136 This is not a commonly used term, and it may reflect that much of this land had been acquired at the public auction just after the Theban rebellion was put down in 186 bce. In the land surveys, this land may have been booked as royal land, for purposes of taxation, but held privately. We do not know why the man wrote out 133 135

136

134 Chapter five, pp. 160–61. P. Haun. Inv. 407; Christensen 2001 and 2002. P. BMFA 38.2063b (Deir el-Ballas, 175 bce) published by Parker 1964. This text along with the related marriage contract was found by George Reisner in the north kom at Deir el-Ballas, the cemetery of Dendera. See also the comments by Clarysse 1979a: 733. Dem. sh r pr– .


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Table 4. Real estate conveyed by Hor to his son Abaa Real estate 22 arouras of island land, owned jointly 1 1 2 : 2 with another man 17 arouras of island land, owned jointly 1 5 6 : 6 with cousins 3 21 arouras, island land, owned jointly 1 1 2 : 2 with nephew 14 arouras of high land, in two plots, owned jointly 21 : 21 with another man 30 arouras of high land, owned jointly 1 5 6 : 6 with cousins 41 21 arouras of high land, in two plots, owned jointly 31 : 32 with cousins

Mode of acquisition purchase inherited? described as “registered to pharaoh” inherited? described as “registered to pharaoh” purchase inherited? described as “registered to Panas” purchase

Table 5. Other real property conveyed by Hor to his son Abaa Other real property two houses + ground, owned jointly 43 : 41 with elder sister two houses + grounds, owned jointly with cousin one house + grounds prepared for planting and dry grounds for palm trees, owned jointly 32 : 31

Mode of acquisition inherited inherited purchase

a deed of gift for his son since he would have automatically inherited the property of his father by virtue of his making a marriage contract. The fact, however, that such a relatively minor priest of Dendera controlled just over forty-one arouras suggests that priests in the major temple establishments could be rather well off. Again, it is important to note here that this land appears to have been private land and not attached to the man’s function within the temple estate, but held individually and indeed held jointly with others. Priests in the higher ranks of a temple’s hierarchy may have held considerably more land or at least had access to land within the temple estate. The high-ranking priest Petosiris, for example, boasts at the beginning of the period that he held considerable assets in land and in houses.137 It is very rare that a senior high-ranking priest appears in the documents, but 137

In his tomb, Petosiris, a high priest from Hermopolis, owned “many houses, large fields and innumerable cattle.” For the tomb, see Lefebvre 1923–24; Menu 1994c. A translation of some of the tomb inscription is given by Lichtheim 1980: 45–54.

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there is little doubt that high-ranking priests in the Ptolemaic period held considerable property. Income from various offices was of course always an important source of income for priests at all levels.138 As individuals priests were also involved in the state-controlled monopolies and other activities within the royal economy, and others farmed certain taxes. f ruit trees and gard ens Many of the demotic land conveyances from Upper Egypt involved palm trees or empty building plots. Both types reflect the private initiative for improvement in the land. The fruit tree tax was known in ancient times, but it became part of the apomoira tax under Ptolemy II Philadelphus.139 The Hauswaldt papyri mention four types of trees that were associated with these private transfers, date-palms, dôm-palms, sycamores, as well as a general word for tree.140 Since the men in the Hauswaldt papyri bore the title “herdsman,” one is tempted in this case to connect the production of palm trees with the occupation of herding.141 But fruit trees were in the possession of a wide range of persons, from priests to women, and of course, were also in the possession of temple estates. The one category of land that had arguably always been privately owned was garden land and vineyards.142 Although viticulture certainly played a role in the local economies of Upper Egypt, fruit trees (palm, sycamore) are prominent in the private documentation, as we have seen in the Hauswaldt and in the Adler papyri, and were apparently the best in the Thebaid.143 Fruit trees were often associated with a house and/or a protected courtyard on the higher lying levees, and were a source of cash both for the state and for 138 140 141

142

143

139 Pr´ Johnson 1986. eaux 1939: 171; Clarysse and Vandorpe 1998. On the demotic terminology for trees, see Manning 1997: 9–15. The connection being the use of palm leaves as fodder. See Wright 1976. Some of the personal ˇ –ıh. .t , names in the Hauswaldt papyri also reinforce the herding occupation. One such is p –sr–t lit. “son of the cow,” P. Hausw. 7a, vo 6 (DN 1, 4.262). Termed kt¦ma in the Greek papyri. See Préaux 1939: 166–67; Rostovtzeff 1941: 289–91. We may know much more about garden land in Edfu when an unpublished account from Edfu, 11 meters in length (!) but with many columns difficult to decipher, is published. The text is dated year 39 of Ptolemy VIII Euergetes II (132/131 bce). For a brief announcement of the text, see Zauzich 1991: 9. The number of fruit-tree tax (dem. tgy) receipts from the Ptolemaic and Roman periods strongly indicate their importance in the Thebaid economy. On the receipts, see briefly Préaux 1939: 179; Vleeming 1994a: 66–69. Strabo 17.1.51 exclaims “. . .but the palm tree in the Thebais is better than any of the rest.” For temples and vineyards, the unpublished P. Carlsb. 309 and 310 (mentioned above in the previous note) give evidence for vineyards at Edfu, and P. Siut 10591 vo i–ii (Asyut, 170 bce) records a dispute between the priests of Isis in Syene and two individuals over title to a vineyard.


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private individuals. Their care was the subject of close state regulation.144 In at least one case (it is hard to know how widespread the phenomenon was, but it may have been typical), a tree bore the name of the owner, and individual trees could also be walled off.145 The cultivation of palm trees and vineyards was a cash game in the Thebaid, and many individuals, and temples, played it.146 The private records demonstrate that palm tree production was an important element of the private household economy in Upper Egypt. Such land was often the subject of private conveyance of land, and orchards could be leased as well.147 The priest from Dendera already mentioned conveyed to his son several plots of land that were “prepared for planting (palms).”148 The production of fruit trees required a long-term investment, and the Ptolemaic government did not collect the tax due on fruit trees for several years because it took several years for such trees to bear fruit.149 It is precisely at this nexus between the state’s desire for development, and the requirements of risk and investment, that we find private economic activity, and ownership of the land.150 Given our lack of demographic data from the Thebaid, and of any way to establish a time series for production, it is impossible to say whether fruit tree cultivation in the Ptolemaic period reflects population pressure on the land that induced intensification, was part of Ptolemaic policy to increase fruit production as a means of raising cash, or was, rather, typical of private household production.151 The extent to which local economies were monetized is still debated. It is true that later Ptolemaic sales of land were often couched as cash transactions (especially in Pathyris), but it seems likely that this was a bookkeeping device rather than a reflection of the mode of payment.152 The growing of fruit trees and vegetables was often done in courtyards that were attached to houses. Although the Hauswaldt papyri do not mention houses with regard to the conveyances, it may be that these plots 144 145 146 147

148 149 151

P. Tebt. 703, 194–211. See further below, Chapter five, pp. 142–43 on this text. P. Hausw. 10a, 3, and passim. The best survey of palm tree production is still Schnebel 1925: 292–302. P. Heid. 723 ( = Sethe and Partsch 1920: text 9; Pathyris, 124 bce). The text is a lease by a very high-ranking priest to a “man of Philae” and a “man of Aswan,” both probably quasi-military titles, ˇ ). See the comments by Hughes 1952: of two arouras of land which included twenty trees (dem. sn 57. The text is very difficult in places, and a re-edition is a desideratum. It is treated only briefly by Felber 1997: 47. Dem. ı.ır .w n tg , P. BMFA 38.2063b, 8. Such preparations included special pits for the young tree to prevent water run-off and perhaps the building of a wall. On preparations, see Eyre 1994b: 63. 150 Cf. Eyre 1994b. Préaux 1939: 165–71; Kehoe 1992: 136–37. 152 Pestman 1978: 56, n. 4. Cf. Scheidel 2002. For the Ptolemaic policy, see Edgar 1931: 11.

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of land and the courtyard itself were attached to houses, as seen in other demotic conveyances of property from Upper Egypt.153 The land had to be prepared for the planting of new trees and the plots were walled off to protect the young plants from pests and blowing sand, and a water source was critical.154 There was no shortage of land in Egypt. Rather, it was the shortage of labor on the land that caused problems, and as much of the private documentation from the Thebaid points out, the state encouraged activity in orchards and gardens because it provided economic opportunity, at the same time as it produced revenue in taxes.155 There is no clearer example of the state interest in revenue from such private activity than in the Senpoeris affair that occurred in western Thebes on the 24th of December, 112 bce. the senpoeris affair The records of a local Ptolemaic bank that record the investigation of an illegal appropriation of land demonstrate very well the importance of palm trees to individuals as well as to the state.156 The case involved an Egyptian woman by the name of Senpoeris, who belonged to one of the Theban Choachyte families in western Thebes, a lower level class of mortuary priest, servants of the god Amun. She was the daughter of one Onnophris and Senhuris, the eldest daughter of the well known Panas.157 Whether she was married at the time or not we cannot know, but in any case her apparent economic independence accords with the legal and economic status of other Egyptian women at the time, and her involvement 153

154 155 156

157

P. dem. Louvre 2424 (Thebes, 267 bce; = Zauzich 1968: text 11), for example, is a sale of part of a house “and its courtyard.” Courtyards attached to houses of course played other important roles in household economies. For a walled garden courtyard (dem. k m nt rb n d ı .t ), see e.g. P. dem. Rein 5, 6 (Hakoris, 106 bce). On the labor issue in general, see Chaudhuri 1990: 253. P. Amh. gr. 49 ( = P. Survey 56; W. Chrest. 161; Select Papyri ii, 367, formerly P. Amh. 2, 31). See the translation of the text in Appendix 3. The papyrus was found in a jar along with twenty demotic papyri. For a discussion of the text, see Betrò 1984 and Pestman 1993: 187–89 with further literature cited there. According to Pestman, the papyrus is now in “very poor condition”. Family D in Pestman 1993: 24–25. Senpoeris is attested in the archive from 140–111 bce. Choachytepriests, usually called in demotic contracts w h.–mw , lit. “water pourers” in earlier demotic texts, and wn–pr “shrine opener,” a loftier title perhaps because of the religious association to which they belonged, in Ptolemaic texts, were in charge of offering food and drink libations to the dead in a particular region, in this case in the western part of Thebes. On the activities of these priests at Thebes, see further Pestman 1993: 6–8. For the function of Choachytes in general, see Vleeming 1995 and, for the Persian period, see Pestman 1994.


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in garden/fruit tree production is also a well-documented woman’s activity.158 She saw an opportunity to improve a small plot of land behind her house, and intended to improve the land, and her family’s fortunes, by planting a few more palm trees. Seeking some extra income, she enclosed a small amount of extra land in preparation for planting trees that would take years to yield their first fruit.159 But private initiative and economic interests came directly into conflict with the Ptolemaic state.160 There should have properly been a public auction for the land at which she could have posted a bid with the local government officials.161 Enclosing a few square meters, she had hoped, would escape the notice of the tax collectors. But it did not. Hermias, the regional official in charge of the financial administration of the Thebaid, was in town, making his rounds in the Pathyrite nome, the district that included the west bank of Thebes.162 He had somehow gotten word that someone was trying to cheat the government out of tax revenue. It seems that someone did not like Senpoeris very much. Perhaps she had been a difficult neighbor. Or perhaps the guards living next to her did not like her because she encroached on their land.163 Whatever the details were, Senpoeris’ act of enclosing the land, which effectively added new, unregistered land to her holding, caused a stir, and this came to the attention of the (perhaps overzealous) Ptolemaic official.164 The official summoned the village scribe responsible for the tax 158

159 160

161 162

163 164

On the legal status of women in Egypt see Johnson 1996, and more generally Rowlandson 1995. For historical background to women as owners of property in their own right, see Allam 1990. On women and vineyard/fruit tree production, see Sharp 1999: 182–85. The date palm begins to bear fruit four to five years after planting and reaches maturity in eight to ten years. So Zohary and Hopf 1993: 157. The text is organized in several sections: the first four lines is a receipt by the royal bank at Hermonthis, then comes a report or diagraph¯e by the Ptolemaic official giving the background of the case, and authorizing the bank to accept the money followed by the subscription of the Ptolemaic officials who attested to the facts in the case and to the payment of the fine and the tax. Swarney 1970: 29. A similar situation, and an auction, occurred in the Asyut land when there had been an “excess of measure.” See below, Chapter six, pp. 201–05. He is called in this text ¾ pª tän pros»dwn. Pestman 1993: 189 equates him with a certain Hermias who bears the title Thebarch (dem. h.ry nıw.t) in a demotic text dated two years later (Tablet Strasb. 13). On the extent of the Pathyrite in this period, see Vandorpe 1995a. The inspection recalls the instruction of the dioik¯et¯es to an oikonomos (P. Tebt. 703, 50–55, Fayyum, mid-third century bce) that a “careful tour of inspection” of fields was an important aspect of local financial administration. In the boundary description of her land is listed, at the north side, the “area around the guard house,” per©stasiv toÓ frour©ou. Cf. Rostovtzeff 1941: 897. The size of the extra land that Senpoeris enclosed was two cubits, about 55 m2 . I do not know if, as for example in Japan, peasants were required to petition the government before reclaiming land. For individual and village-sponsored land reclamation petitions to the government in Tokugawa Japan, see Brown 1987: 122, and n. 17.

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lists, Totoes, and he looked up exactly what land and how much Senpoeris had in the register. The official, along with the village scribe responsible for local record keeping, and no doubt accompanied by a soldier or two, proceeded to the house of Senpoeris and to the land in question on the west bank of Thebes. They measured out the land and found that it was two cubits (55 m2 ) larger than what the records indicated were booked to Senpoeris. The poor woman was confronted by this display of Ptolemaic force, and was likely beaten165 until she admitted to enclosing the extra land and had agreed to a payment for it. After the Ptolemaic official managed to get the confession, the administrative wheels were set in motion. She had to pay a fine and a 15% tax into the royal bank at Armant (Gr. Hermonthis), just up river from Thebes and the place of the nearest royal bank. This “fine” became in effect the purchase price of the land, a price that appears to be much higher than if she had offered to pay the king for the land. conclusions An examination of the documentary evidence for land tenure in the Thebaid demonstrates that the Thebaid did not “escape the pressure” of the state as Rostovtzeff suggested. The presence of the Ptolemaic state may be seen in the registration of land, and in the recording of land conveyances, in the auction of derelict land, and in the collection of taxes. The Ptolemies showed an interest in temple building, although the finances of the temple building are not altogether clear. We know of no large reclamation projects in the Nile valley, but the foundation of new towns, Ptolemais being by far and away the most important, may have served, as in ancient times, as a way to colonize new hinterland internally to bring it under production. Without any information on the agricultural development of Ptolemais, we can only speculate about land tenure there. But the private documents from the region also show that the ancient land tenure regime was left undisturbed. Greeks were settled early on in Upper Egypt in the Ptolemaic period, at least in important towns like Elephantine and Edfu, but the documents also show that those with a particular status within a temple estate could hold and transmit land privately. New towns such as Ptolemais and smaller settlements certainly brought Greeks, especially soldiers, up the Nile. We have to guess on the extent of new populations and on the process itself.166 The documentary evidence from the Thebaid 165 166

The official report of the affair uses the more palatable word “persuasion by force,” peiqangkh. P. Hal. 1, 166–85 ( = C. Ord. Ptol. 24; Select Papyri, vol. 2, 207; mid-third century bce), preserves an order, among others, by Ptolemy II Philadelphus, in response to a local official, that soldiers


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also suggests significant changes caused by the Theban revolt at the end of the third and beginning of the second centuries bce. The new military settlements founded after the revolt, Gebelein and Krokodilopolis being the most important and the best documented, placed the military in an increasingly strong position. Over the course of the period, soldiers, perhaps in part as a result of the disturbances, and the bureaucracy, appear increasingly in evidence in land tenure documents from the Thebaid.167 However many kleruchs were settled in Edfu in the third century bce, soldiers are certainly mentioned as being in the area by the middle of the third century bce, and we know that they were settled there in the second century bce.168 The surviving demotic evidence suggests, and it can be no more than a suggestion at this point, that a significant form of land tenure in the Thebaid was the small holding of land, with the right to convey. I shall come back to this point in Chapter six in a discussion of the tradition of property rights in land. This was a historic pattern of assigning tenures to temple dependants and soldiers, through the intermediary institution of the temple estate and its landed endowment. The demotic material taken on its own has tended to suggest that the Thebaid operated to some extent independently from the Ptolemaic administration, that it took longer to establish control there, and that it came only with increased military settlement after the uprising between 207 and 186 bce. Arguments concerning the Ptolemaic control of the Thebaid during the early third century bce are, by and large, arguments from silence. Certainly by the end of the third century bce, though, the Ptolemaic administration had been established in most, if not all, areas of the Nile valley. It is clear that, whatever the evolution of institutional control was in the early Ptolemaic period, the Ptolemaic plan for the control of the Thebaid involved the control of the ancient institutions by newly established officials based in Ptolemais. Another important aspect of this plan involved the rebuilding of important temples in order to consolidate control over the area. But there is no evidence to suggest that the Ptolemies intervened in the tenure on established land in the region except in the case

167 168

should not take billets by force or eject occupants, and in particular that they should stay clear of a town called Arsinoe, near Edfu and if an urgency arose, that huts (o«k©dia) should be built. The town was clearly a new town in the area established by Ptolemy II Philadelphus in honor of his sister/wife Arsinoe, and as a result of this it had some kind of an exemption from the practice of military billets. The references to the town, ’Arsin»h ¡ kat ’Ap»llwnov p»lin, may be found in Calderini 1988: 61. Another new town, located in the gold-mining region of the Wadi Allaqi and perhaps to be identified with Berenike Panchrysos (Pliny, HN 6.170) may also have been founded by Ptolemy II. See further Castiglioni and Negro 1991. On soldiers in the Thebaid, see Winnicki 1978; Heinen 1997: 362. Kleruchic settlement was an important element in P. Haun. inv. 407.

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of assigning rights to derelict or unclaimed land through the public auction. Disputes over possession of land continued to be adjudicated through local institutions.169 This concern for control contrasts strongly with Ptolemaic policy in the Fayyum, an area in which the expansion of arable land and new settlement, especially during the third century bce, was the main concern. It is to this region that I now turn. 169

See Chapter six, pp. 201–05.

chap t e r 4


Sailing along shore for a distance of one hundred stadia, one comes to the city of Arsinoê, which in earlier times was called Krocodeilonopolis; for the people in this Nome hold in very great honour the crocodile, and there is a sacred one there which is kept and fed by itself in a lake, and is tame to the priests. Strabo, Geography, 17.1.38

. . . the successful reclamation of new land would not only enable the king to reward and settle troops – an important consideration in a world where fighting men were in heavy demand – but would also increase the long-term yield of his kingdom. So there were compelling reasons behind the development of the Fayyum under the first three Ptolemies. Thompson 1999a: 109.

the pre-ptolemaic fay yum The Fayyum is a natural depression, or, more technically, a “deflation hollow,”1 formed by wind erosion and located some sixty miles southwest of the ancient Egyptian capital of Memphis. The region was fed with water by the Bahr Yusef, “Joseph’s Canal,” as the Copts called it, which runs parallel to the Nile river from around Asyut, through the Lahun gap. A lake, formed originally by a much higher Nile level, was fed by the Bahr Yusef. Determining its level in antiquity is an important, if not yet settled, aspect of assessing the agricultural potential of this region in antiquity.2 Irrigation in the area was fed by gravity, as it still is today.3 The lake was known in Classical antiquity as Lake Moeris, derived from the ancient Egyptian Mr–wr , “Great Lake,” the much diminished Birket Qarun today.4 The 1 4

2 On the lake level, see below, n. 49. 3 Hopkins 1999. Millington 1993: 4. Herodot. 2.129. Evans 1991 argued on the basis of the Herodotus passage that the proper translation should be the “lake of Moeris.” Cf. Rathbone 1996: 52.

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modern lake covers about ninety square miles at an average depth of just seventeen feet.5 The Fayyum was a wild land before Ptolemaic development, full of papyrus thickets and swamps. Given the natural abundance of fish and fowl in the lake and the fertile soil, the region had been continuously populated since the Neolithic period.6 The cult of the crocodile god Sobek (Gr. Souchos) is known from the Old Kingdom, during which time the Fayyum was an administrative district, and a legendary hunting ground for kings.7 The Old Kingdom official Metjen was responsible for lands there, and there are some archaeological remains from that time.8 The region was always potentially rich, but it was only developed intensively in two periods. The first period of more intensive agricultural development was during the Twelfth Dynasty, whose founder, Amenemhat I (ca. 1938–1908 bce), probably came from the south of the country; he had established a new capital at Itjtawy, a site that has not been identified, but was certainly near the necropolis at el-Lisht at the entrance to the Fayyum. The move north from Thebes, the political center of the previous dynasty, to the old political center at Memphis was no doubt done to reassert central authority throughout the country. The pyramid of the Middle Kingdom pharaoh Amenemhat III (ca. 1818–1770 bce) was erected nearby at Hawara, the site of the “labyrinth” described by Herodotus (2.148) and later by others, including Strabo (17.1.37). Building activity in the region is particularly well documented for the reign of Sesostris II (ca. 1842–1837 bce) and the long reign of Amenemhat III.9 This latter king, known in later Greek texts as Marres (or related names), was honored in the Ptolemaic period as the king who opened up the Fayyum by constructing dams and a canal network. Twelfth Dynasty remains in the region make it clear that this was an important center of political and economic power. Often Middle Kingdom temples were improved or extended by Ptolemaic building – a new temple for Soknebtunis, for example, was built at Tebtunis by Ptolemy I Soter – confirming the view 5 6

7 8

9

So Kees 1961: 219. For a late description of the fertility of the area, see Strabo, 17.1.35. Pharaonic descriptions of the fish industry here are found inter alia in Caminos 1956: 19–20, with further literature cited in Lloyd 1988b, vol. 3: 127–28. Cf. Herodot. 3.91 on Persian revenue from Lake Moeris fish; Préaux 1939: 202–07. For an overview of the Fayyum under the pharaohs, see Kees 1961: 212–30. For the career of Metjen, see Gödecken 1976. The small temple at Qasr el-Sagha north of the lake, once thought to be an Old Kingdom structure, is in fact an unfinished late Twelfth Dynasty (ca. 1880 bce) construction. See further Arnold and Arnold 1979. For the mention of “new towns” (Eg. nıwt m t ) during the Twelfth Dynasty, see e.g. the autobiography of Khnumhotep II at Beni Hasan, line 65, cited above, Chapter two, p. 32, n. 27.


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that it was in these two periods that the Fayyum was most extensively developed.10 The economic and political power of the Twelfth Dynasty pharaohs was enhanced by the reclamation and the settlement of land in the Fayyum, although the parameters of this activity are uncertain.11 Cultivable land was extended to a maximum of 450 km2 .12 The process of extending the land by reclamation appears to have been accomplished by decreasing the flow of water into the Fayyum, and the resulting evaporation of the lake. The project was probably begun by Sesostris II and continued by Amenemhat III. While there are significant gaps in our information, development of the Fayyum may have continued through the New Kingdom.13 The Egyptians of that period knew the Fayyum district simply as p ym, “the lake,” whence came the modern Arabic name.14 The New Kingdom pharaohs certainly used the Fayyum as a royal playground and hunting area, and it has been suggested that the population density at this time exceeded that of the Nile valley, although this cannot be documented in the archaeological record. (There is no evidence for significant building activity during the New Kingdom.)15 It is only under the early Ptolemies that the archaeological and documentary record is again clearly suggestive of an extensive reclamation and settlement program, and the evidence both for settlement and for agricultural production is far better and richer than for the Middle Kingdom. the fay yum under the ptolemies Papyrologists and Ptolemaic economic historians have focused on the documentation of the Ptolemaic Fayyum for more than a century, since the first major finds of papyri were made during the excavations of Grenfell and Hunt.16 The Fayyum underwent significant expansion in arable land and in new settlements in the early Ptolemaic period; for the most part 10 11

12 14 15 16

For a study of the temple of Soknebtunis, see Evans 1961: 207–44. The evidence for the Middle Kingdom irrigation work comes more from later tradition, interpreted through the Ptolemaic reclamation project, than from actual archaeological evidence. See Lloyd 1988b, vol. 3: 124–25. 13 So Butzer 1976: 92–93. Butzer 1976: 92. Cf. Coptic , Bohairic , the Arabic al-Fayyum coming via the Greek, so Vycichl, DELC, 63–64. Butzer 1976: 93. On the early activities of these seminal figures in papyrology, see Turner 1980: 25–41; Turner 1982. On their work at Tebtunis, see briefly Verhoogt 1997: 1–2.

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finds of papyri of Ptolemaic date derive from the cemeteries of new towns on the southern perimeter. It was the Fayyum where the Ptolemaic state most clearly intervened in the economic and social organization of the land tenure regime. But the intensification of agricultural activity here, especially around the villages in the south, the number of soldiers in the area, and the royal involvement in agriculture, were probably atypical compared to other parts of Egypt.17 The vast number of papyri discovered from this region must be understood in this context of exceptionality.18 At the beginning of the Ptolemaic period, the Fayyum was still called “the lake” (l©mnh). Between 259 and 255 bce the area, for the first time, was made a nome, and named after Arsinoe, the sister/wife of Ptolemy II.19 The dynastic overtones of the renaming, as indeed the names of many of its villages, signaled the area’s importance to the regime, its economic development, and the assertion of central state control.20 sources and institutions Documents from the Fayyum have formed the basis for the reconstruction of Ptolemaic economic history. But because of the atypicality of the region, wider conclusions from the Fayyumic evidence should be handled with caution unless they can be confirmed from other documentation. There are two major sources for the study of land tenure in the Ptolemaic Fayyum. The first, the Zenon papyri dating from the mid-third century bce, is the largest single archive of the period, consisting of nearly two thousand, mostly Greek, papyri.21 The archive offers detailed information for the operations of a large estate in the northeastern Fayyum, and the relationship between high state officials and local agricultural production clearly seen in some of the texts has formed the basis of the central planning or “dirigiste” model of the Ptolemaic economy. But the archive also covers much of Zenon’s private business, and sorting private from official business is not always easy. The second important group of texts is known as the Menches archive, and consists of correspondence and administrative documents from the 17 18 19 20 21

In using the term “village” I am following the demotic word dmy , which does not distinguish between hamlet, village or town. Cf. Bietak 1979: 99–100. Cf. Orrieux 1983: 6; Rowlandson 1996: 2–3; Thompson 1999b. The Fayyum is still referred to as “the marsh” in P. Rev. (259 bce). Thompson 1999b. The literature on the large estate of Apollonius is vast. For an excellent orientation see Pestman 1981a. Good studies based on the papyri have been published by Rostovtzeff 1922; Pestman, ed. 1980; Orrieux 1983; ibid. 1985; Clarysse and Vandorpe 1995. See below, pp. 110–18.


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village scribe’s office at Kerkeosiris in the south Fayyum. The texts date from the last two decades of the second century bce, and they afford us the most complete “bottom up” view of the Ptolemaic bureaucracy’s administration of land.22 An important corpus of texts relating to the Ptolemaic census and taxation regime will be published shortly.23 This study of the census, which formed the basis of the salt tax, will show us how the bureaucracy was organized, how it functioned at the village level, and at least some of the details of the settlement history of the Fayyum. Texts deriving from the cemetery at Guran (Ghoran), and from the site of Gurob,24 yield important information about the reclamation project and the maintenance of the irrigation canals in the third century bce.25 The latter collection of texts contains the important papers of the hydraulic engineer Kleon and his successor. Taken together, the Fayyum papyri, and texts from the neighboring Herakleopolite nome,26 suggest that the area was one of intensive economic activity, especially in the third century bce, that it received direct royal involvement, and that it was heavily settled by Greek soldiers27 and Egyptians transferred from elsewhere. The basis of that settlement was the reclamation project undertaken by the state, and the granting of land to individuals. But there were limits to the central state’s involvement, and the land granted to individuals often required individual input to make the land productive. The aim, of course, was no different from ancient Egyptian or Persian settlement schemes that sought new sources of revenue and new power bases. The major difference from earlier Egyptian intensification and settlement projects was, in the main, a difference of scale. the recl amation of the fay yum Why was the Fayyum reclaimed and settled under the Ptolemies? The answer must be sought in the process of Ptolemaic state formation, and in the more ancient relationship between land, settlement, and political power. Political, and then economic, power was asserted by the ruler settling people loyal to the regime in new areas by a system of grants, and by tying 22 23 24 25 26

The bulk of the texts were published in P. Tebt. i and iv, and were treated by Crawford 1971; Keenan and Shelton 1976; Verhoogt 1997; Verhoogt 1998. Clarysse and Thompson forthcoming. The papyri from Ghoran were published as P. Lille and P. Sorb. For the Petrie Papyri, see Mahaffy and Smyly 1891–1905. The most recent discussion of the reclamation project may be found in Thompson 1999a. See also the earlier studies of Bouché-Leclercq 1908; Westermann 1917. 27 Uebel 1968. Falivene 1998.

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land to official functions within the bureaucratic structure. This was an ancient practice. By reclaiming land in the Fayyum, the Ptolemies were able to establish political control over new land, serving their immediate political ends while at the same time leaving undisturbed claims to land in other parts of the country. With royal involvement in the area, the settlement of soldiers, and the creation of new royal land that the ruler controlled directly by leasing arrangements, the Ptolemies also created an important source of revenue. The one place in Egypt that was susceptible to reclamation and intensification was the Fayyum depression, a state of affairs coinciding very likely with the fact that prior claims to land in the valley made taking over such land politically difficult.28 But even then, the settlement of soldiers on Fayyum land grants was not trouble free. We do not know if internal population pressure was a factor in establishing new towns and villages, but certainly the Fayyum was a place of Greek and Egyptian settlement. Fayyum production of wheat and wool (among other items) was no doubt associated with consumption, and to some extent manufacturing and further distribution, in the cities of Memphis and Alexandria.29 The proximity of the Fayyum to the old political capital of Memphis, and the possibility of new settlement, may have made the Fayyum an attractive focus of royal concern; it was that ancient link between the ruler and the agricultural development of a new area that transformed the region into a “special regional power base” of the Ptolemaic dynasty.30 The reclamation and the settlement of the Ptolemaic Fayyum was one of the most impressive agricultural expansions in the history of the ancient world. This expansion was probably already under way in the reign of Ptolemy I Soter, although once again the lack of documentary evidence for his reign limits certitude.31 To be sure, the documentary evidence of reclamation and settlement is extensive for the reign of Ptolemy II, who visited the area on at least two occasions.32 Reclaiming land in the Fayyum was a massive project, accomplished probably by restricting the flow of water into the Fayyum at a regulator at Lahun, thereby lowering the level of Lake Moeris. New canals were also 28

29 31 32

This fact is supported by earlier evidence, specifically the so-called donation stelae, mostly dated to the first millennium bce, the Saite period and before, of which four of the one hundred plus stelae known come from the Nile valley. See Meeks 1979: 611. 30 Rathbone 1990: 112. Thompson 1988: 38–75. See Thompson 1999b: 125. Cf. Diod. Sic. 18.33. PSI 4 354 (253 bce); P. Petr. ii 13, 18a (253 bce, on the date see Clarysse 1980b: 85); P. Petr. ii 39 e 3 (247–245 bce?). The first visit may be tied to kleruchic settlement in the area. See Clarysse 1980b; ibid. 2000b.


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dug.33 This project ranks with the building of Alexandria and the southern capital Ptolemais as the major public works projects of the Ptolemaic state. The state’s ability here to coordinate the work, the supplies, the men and the donkeys is quite impressive. The size of the projects, both in reclaiming land and in maintaining the existing canal networks, as Thompson has pointed out, was enormous.34 One document mentions a proposal to organize a work force of 15,000 men to work on embankments of an “island,” to be funded from the harvest of emmer: To Apollonius the dioikêtês, Kalligenes greeting. The island [can] be embanked after the harvest [—[ in 60 days, if old wheat is given for 10 talents [—[ to the workmen, [divided] according to nomarchy [and numbering] 15,000, at 4 drachmae each, and 5000 mattocks and XX stone-[—[ so that (?) the rest of the expense to be made for the embankment will be 6 talents. . . . .35

The size of the labor force, it has been estimated, was sufficient for the sixty days’ work covering a large area of the northern Fayyum. Whether the proposed project was ever carried out we do not know, but it reveals at a minimum the ambition of some men in these early years of development.36 Correspondence from the Petrie papyri addressed to nomarchs in the midthird century bce (listing more than 4000 tools, including axes, plowshares and rope) certainly conforms to similar ambitions, and the trebling of the arable base also suggests that the coordinated effort was both massive and successful.37 The supply of tools by the state, and the requisition of the labor force culled from each of the nomarchies (the original development areas in the Fayyum), shows the direct involvement of the dioik¯et¯es and the role of regional officials. One has the strong impression here that the work was directed by ambitious men of action like Apollonius (discussed below) who were given land grants to develop, and by others who had an incentive to succeed. The apparently state-supplied tools and the requisition of labor were traditional in the Egyptian countryside,38 and the peasants were paid for their services. 33 34 35 36 37 38

Butzer 1976: 36–38. The exact processes involved in the reclamation project, and the pre-Ptolemaic reclamation, are still contested. See briefly Rathbone 1990: 111–14; Rathbone 1996: 52. Thompson 1999a: 112. SB V 8243 + P. Mich. inv. 3098. The translation is that of Clarysse 1988; see further the remarks of Thompson 1999a: 112–13. On the labor estimates, see Thompson 1999a: 112. P. Petr. iii 49, published by Mahaffy and Smyly 1905 as a “carpenter’s account.” See further, with two other related fragments labeled P. Brit. Libr. 581, Clarysse 1997: 70–72. See, for example, the Graffito Wadi Hammamat 87 (year 38 of Sesostris I, 1933 bce) mentioning a quarrying expedition on behalf of the king ( = Couyat and Montet 1912); Kemp 1989: 128–36.

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The reclamation resulted in new land for settlement by Greek kleruchs, Egyptians and others. The organization of labor required to reclaim the land shows the capacity of the Ptolemies to control rural social networks and, like the building of the canal by Darius (in fact a completion of the Saite king Necho’s plan), the project was both a symbolic statement of royal power as well as a source of revenue.39 The direct government involvement in the project and the influx of kleruchs to the region combined to make the region a special zone of Ptolemaic economic power, reflected in the amount of royal land in the region.40 The documentary evidence, combined with the important Zenon archive discussed below, provides important details of the project and the interaction of the state with private enterprise. Nearly all of our sources for the early Ptolemaic Fayyum come from the period after about 260 bce, but it is clear that Ptolemy I Soter began to develop the area.41 The intensity of settlement and exploitation that comes through in the documents from the reign of the second Ptolemy, however, very likely reflects increased efforts. Important new developments of older towns such as Tebtunis, the development of the large estate of Apollonius (and others), and the settlement of new populations as a result, are all well attested in the papyri from the reign of Ptolemy II.42 The engineers of the drainage and clearance project, the architekt¯on Kleon and his successor Theodoros, oversaw the project and may have supervised (although the clear lines of a hierarchy were not always established) an array of local officials, including the muriarourai,43 who were responsible for getting land under cultivation in their areas, and the traditional authorities in the area, namely the head of the village and the local scribe.44 Kleon’s archive (P. Petr.) is contemporary with the Zenon archive, and shows nothing much new in terms of the organization of work. These engineers were the heirs of the pharaonic office of “overseer of all the king’s works.” They were in charge of all the building work relating to a project, including excavation and quarrying, and were responsible for the levy of labor and its maintenance. They were no doubt well-connected, and may have known the king personally. Despite all this, the organization of the work and the supply of donkeys for transportation and of food for the workers caused difficulty. There is frequent testimony in the papyri to new 39 42 43 44

40 See below, p. 123. 41 Crawford 1971: 55. On the canal, see above, Chapter two, p. 44. See the remarks of Thompson 1999a: 108. On the original settlement of the Fayyum see below, p. 108. See below, p. 112. A brief account of Kleon was provided by Lewis 1986: 37–45. See also Westermann 1917, 1919, and Thompson 1999a: 110, on the organization.


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canal digging, clearance, dike building, and the maintenance of the new work.45 What is most striking, perhaps, about the reclamation project is that the workers were paid, albeit not very well, and that much of the work appears to have been accomplished by the use of contracts, with very specific terms, bid for at public auction.46 There is nothing to suggest “oriental despotism” here. It is, rather, a light touch, incentives to perform, and a desire for efficiency that come through. There is little doubt that coercion was regular practice, as was making local officials responsible for the work. If a man could not perform, others were found: a touching letter from Kleon’s wife informs us that Kleon had been unable to complete the work and had fallen out of favor with the king.47 Correspondence from the archive also shows quite clearly that there were real problems in the supply of labor and equipment and in the payments of workers.48 The cultivable land (much of it in the basin irrigation regime) was nearly trebled by the reclamation project under the first two Ptolemaic kings, to an area of between 1,200 and 1,600 km2 (roughly 5–7% of the total arable in Egypt), carrying a population of about 100,000 living in approximately 145 villages (in the mid-third century bce), not including the nome capital of Krokodilopolis and numerous hamlets.49 There were dramatic and intended consequences of this massive reclamation project. The kings were able to impose a new order on the land and, with the support of the large number of kleruchs in the area, could more easily assert political power over the land. In the end, this impressive expansion required constant maintenance of the canals, and good drainage of the lower-lying, swampy areas. The intensity of labor required in the Fayyum was, no doubt, greater than in the Nile valley. 45 46

47 48 49

P. Petr. ii, 6 (255 bce); P. Petr. ii, 9 (4) (241/0 bce). See Thompson 1999a: 133, discussing P. Petr. iii 43 (2) iii ( = Select Papyri, vol. 2, text 348; ca. 245 bce). This accords exactly with the relationship between the ruler and local villages in the Persian period, on which see Briant 1987: 7; contracts bid at auction for building projects has good Greek parallels, for which see Burford 1969. P. Petr. ii 42 H 8(f ). The letter is quoted in part by Lewis 1986: 44. P. Petr. ii 4 (11) (254 bce). For basin irrigation, see above, Chapter two, pp. 29–30. On the village number, see Thompson 2001c: 1257. The two area figures yield an approximate cultivated area of between 435,600 and 580,800 arouras, on the multiplier of Bagnall 1993: 333. This population figure is the estimate of Clarysse and Thompson forthcoming, on the basis of P. Lille i 10 (253–230 bce). Butzer 1976: 83, 93 estimated a population of 312,000 for the mid-second century bce. For the arable land in the Fayyum, Rathbone 1990: 109–11, Rathbone 1997: 8 argued for 1,200 km2 ; Butzer 1976: 93 for 1,300 km2 , while Davoli 1998: 339 has suggested a total area of cultivation of 1,600 km2 . The basis of her argument is the suggestion that the level of the lake was much lower in the Ptolemaic period than previous estimates, and that the distance of the remains of the Ptolemaic villages from the modern edge of cultivation suggests that there was more cultivation than has been assumed.

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The basic lines of Ptolemaic settlement, development, and administration of the area are well established. At first, the Fayyum was divided into a number of nomarchies (at least seven), each under the charge of a nomarch.50 This organization of the area probably reflects the first concern of the kings, the role of the nomarchs being to place as much land under cultivation as possible. Under Ptolemy III Euergetes the Fayyum was divided into three administrative districts (merides) which bear the name of the respective official originally in charge of the district.51 By the 230s bce, the administrative structure was fully articulated, from largest to smallest unit of control through the nome, the merides and the toparchies, which replaced the earlier nomarchies, and the villages.52 This late development of the Fayyum into a more “standard” nome, is another example of its exceptionality.53 ptolemaic set tlement in the fay yum Some town sites in the Fayyum had clearly been in existence before the arrival of the Ptolemies. Narmouthis and Tebtunis, for example, had been occupied since the Middle Kingdom, but were renewed by early Ptolemaic activity.54 There was also massive immigration to the area, with Egyptians brought from other places comprising a significant component.55 From what we can gather, settlement occurred in waves. The original settlers of the Fayyum under Ptolemy I Soter were the roughly 6,500 Macedonian soldiers who formed “almost a closed class, the founding fathers of the Ptolemaic state.”56 A second “phase” of development occurred in the midthird century bce.57 New settlements of kleruchs in the Fayyum at the end of the third and during the second century bce can be linked to periods following intense military activity, usually within Egypt. The settlements caused some degree of disruption as farmers were displaced from their 50 51 52 53 54 55

56

Thompson 1999a: 110; Héral 1992. The three areas are the Polemon, the Themistos and the Herakleides districts. The earliest attested reference to the Polemon district is 243 bce, although the merides were older. Clarysse 1997. The nomarchies and toparchies may have briefly overlapped. Thompson 2001c: 1255. A convenient summary of archaeological activity at Tebtunis may be found in Gallazzi and HadjiMinaglou 2000. Rathbone 1990: 112. On internal immigrants, see e.g. P. Lond. vii 1954 (Philadelphia, 257 bce; = Austin 1981: text 240, cf. Pestman 1990: text 4), a petition from “farmers from the Heliopolite nome” in Philadelphia to work part of the estate of Apolloninos; PSI 4 422, a request from a farmer originally from the Saite nome. 57 Rathbone 2001: 1110. Bagnall 1984: 18.


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tenancy on the land by these new grants.58 By the end of the third century bce, the number of military settlers amounted to about 50,000.59 Such internal colonization of new land has many parallels in Egyptian history and is linked historically to dynastic changes and subsequent geographic shifts in political power.60 Towns such as Philadelphia in the northeast, and Theadelphia in the west, were established in the third century bce as sizable foundations.61 The building of such towns involved considerable labor and “state-sponsored” “Hellenistic-style” technology in the form of cranes to lift the foundation blocks into place.62 But there were still many towns with important Egyptian features. Theadelphia, for example, had no fewer than seven Egyptian temples. Settlements on the whole were larger in the Fayyum than in the Nile valley. Most villages were, however, still small, averaging 327 adults. Groups of villages were organized into taxing districts having a uniform size of ca. 2,000 adults organized to increase the efficiency of tax collection.63 The settlement of the Fayyum during the third century bce to some extent shows centralization in the structure of settlements (establishing banks and granaries in the more important villages), in town planning and administrative organization. The original settlement of the land in the Fayyum, as we have seen, was heavily Macedonian, given that settlers were soldiers in Ptolemy I’s army. Others Greeks from all over the Greek world, including the Aegean and Asia Minor, certainly came into the area in the middle of the third century bce seeking economic opportunities, on the Apollonius estate and elsewhere.64 The cavalry received special treatment in terms of land allotment. It is important to note that there were not just Greeks who came as new settlers. New town names like Syron Kome, “the village of the Syrians,” suggests 58

59 61

62 63 64

See e.g. P. Cair. Zen. 2 59245 (252 bce). A major settlement of kleruchs in the Fayyum can be linked to the conclusion of the Second Syrian war in 253 bce. A ceremony inaugurating the settlement was attended by the king himself. See Clarysse 1980. A convenient list of such settlements is provided by Pestman 1990: 9. Cf. P Tebt. i 62, 43; 63, 43; P. Tebt. iv 1108, 6; 1109, 16; 1110, 47; 1114, 20; 1115, 1; Crawford 1971: 60. 60 Meeks 1979. Rathbone 1990: 113. Philadelphia is first attested in 259/258 bce (Davoli 1998: 139–48; Viereck 1928; Préaux 1947: 15–18), Theadelphia in 237 bce (Davoli 1998: 279–93). Philadelphia does, however, have an Egyptian name, N –nh.w, “The Sycamores” (P. BM 10560, 6; 190 bce), and so was perhaps not founded in an entirely new area. On the reading of the name, see C. Martin 1986: 162–63. For the village of Theadelphia in the Roman period, see further Sharp 1999; France 2000, and above all the analysis of the third-century ce Heroninus archive, the largest archive from the Roman period, by Rathbone 1991. Rathbone 2001: 1112, speaking about the town of Talit. On the average size of Fayyum villages, see Thompson 2001c: 1257. For taxing districts, see ibid. 1257–61. On Apollonius’ estate, see below, pp. 110–18.

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settlers from elsewhere, and the documents from the reigns of Ptolemy II and III confirm the ethnic and regional diversity of those who came to the Fayyum.65 Where gymnasia and other signs of new, Greek institutions (banks, baths) were present, we can be certain that a town was a Greek settlement. New settlements were particularly strong in the southern part of the Fayyum. It is these new towns on the desert edge that have given us so many of the papyri from the Fayyum, but a single town in the northeast Fayyum has provided the largest single find of papyri from the period. the zen on archive and l a rge estates in the third century bce The single largest and most important archive from the Ptolemaic period, and the focus of intense scholarly attention, is, as already mentioned, the Zenon archive, a group of texts found in or near the village of Philadelphia. These texts are the richest source for Ptolemaic agrarian history, and have also formed the basis for analysis of the “économie royale.”66 This collection of documents, something on the order of 1700 usable texts, was the archive of Zenon, a man from Caria (in southwest Asia Minor, from the town of Kaunos) who immigrated along with thousands of others (including his two brothers) from the Greek world in search of opportunity in Egypt. Zenon served as the agent and estate manager of Apollonius, the man in charge of the economy (dioik¯et¯es) for Ptolemy II Philadelphus (282–246 bce).67 The archive as such is a mixture of official business on the estate and the private affairs of Zenon, who was eventually dismissed from service on the estate and continued on his own in the businesses of tax-farming and royal monopolies.68 The texts range in date from 261–239 bce, although 65

66 67

68

Thompson 1999a: 108. More than half of the known villages in the early Ptolemaic period have Greek names. Additionally there are several villages with Jewish names, indicating that these were probably Jewish military settlements. See Crawford 1971: 41–42. See further Clarysse 1980a on a brief prosopography of persons who immigrated to the new town of Philadelphia. On Jews, see Clarysse 1994c. A definitive study of the archive has yet to be written. See below, Chapter five, pp. 140–41 on the “économie royale.” Apollonius himself may have been a native of Caria; there were certainly many other Carians associated with him. Carian mercenaries had lived in the area around Memphis from the sixth century bce. See Clarysse 1980a: 105–06; Thompson 1988: 93–95. The literature on this estate is massive. For an orientation see Pestman 1981a, and the studies by Rostovtzeff 1922; Préaux 1947; Orrieux 1983; Orrieux 1985b; briefly Turner 1984: 141–44; Clarysse and Vandorpe 1995. On the limits of interpretation, see above, Chapter one, pp. 13–21, and the critical comments on the nature of the archive by Finley 1985b: 34–36. One recent attempt by Orrieux 1981 to isolate the private papers of Zenon counted 450 texts. For criticism of basing the separation of documents on the assumption of two different accounting systems, see Franko 1988.


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the archive as we have it extends another ten years down to 229 bce. The earlier part of the archive is comprised of correspondence dealing with the management of business affairs in Alexandria and Palestine, which does not concern us here. The middle part of the archive is concerned with the administration (contracts, petitions, correspondence) of the large gift estate (dwre) of the estate of Apollonius, located around the new Ptolemaic town of Philadelphia. Some other texts in the archive relate to the Memphite gift estate of Apollonius;69 other texts are concerned with the private business of Zenon himself. The documentation of the large estate is restricted to between 257 bce and 248 bce, and within these years, the bulk of the documents date from 257 to 253 bce. The reason why the archive, particularly the early material before Zenon functioned as the estate manager, was preserved is problematic; it may be in part because Zenon simply liked to save his records.70 My brief treatment of the archive here, of course, cannot do it any justice. The basic aim, instead, is to establish the general outlines of the activity on this estate, the purpose of such estates, and the social relationships between the state and the agricultural workers as a means of comparison with the Thebaid. The estate of Apollonius consisted of 10,000 arouras (about 6,700 acres, or just over 2711 hectares) around the new Ptolemaic town of Philadelphia in the eastern Fayyum depression. Philadelphia itself was laid out on a grid plan, and there were many military settlers in and around the town.71 The new town was given a “dynastic” name, as, for example, with the new village of Theadelphia, or Arsinoe near Edfu.72 The king personally visited the area in 253 bce to inaugurate the settlement of soldiers near the town.73 The land was a temporary grant by the king, called a “gift estate” in the papyri, and could not be transferred privately. The ephemeral nature of tenure on this class of land shows that such estates were essentially royal land created as a means of providing revenue for the king and his circle. The land, then, was “ceded” by the king to others to use. There was a direct connection between the founding of this new Ptolemaic town and the agricultural development of the area. Much of the land was poor quality and required 69 70

71 72 73

Wipszycka 1961. A brief chronology of the archive is given by Clarysse and Vandorpe 1995: 36–38. In 239 bce, Zenon transferred all of the papers to another party, perhaps his brother, for which see Pestman 1981a: 182–83. For an idea of the range of texts preserved in the archive, see Pestman 1981a: 183–94. Apollonius held another estate around the city of Memphis, for which see Wipszycka 1961. For the plan of Philadelphia, see the British Air Force aerial photograph published in Edgar 1931: plate 1. See above, Chapter three, p. 96, n. 166. The exact location is unknown. PSI iv 354; see Clarysse 1980b. The date marks the end of the Second Syrian War, on which see Huß 2001: 281–87.

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clearance.74 New canals, and continual maintenance, were required to bring and to keep the land under cultivation. The careful attention to irrigation needed to bring this new land under production is shown by a papyrus that gives a schematic plan of the irrigation network for the estate.75 From this illustration it is clear that the organizing principle (whether it was ever carried out exactly as planned is another matter) intended the estate to be sub-divided into basins of 250 arouras each, for a total of forty basins. In terms of its economic orientation, several scholars have noted the strong relationship between Philadelphia and Kerke (mod. Girza), the port of the town on the Nile, and the Memphis region. Philadelphia was a town, then, in the Fayyum, but in some ways not of the Fayyum.76 It is not altogether clear if the possession of this estate made Apollonius a muriarouros, a title that seems to have indicated either a possessor of a large estate or a royal official in charge of managing 10,000 arouras.77 If the title refers to a holder of such amounts of land, the fact that Egyptians occur in such a capacity would indicate that Egyptians continued as important state agents, even in the Fayyum.78 These large gift estates are, in the main, documented from the mid-third-century bce Fayyum, our evidence for them coming from the Zenon papyri and from P. Rev.79 The business of dividing units of land into large sections of 10,000 arouras and then assigning them to officials or to groups of farmers, to kleruchs and to others was a means of getting as much land under cultivation as possible. The estate financed an entire territory. Its management, from irrigation to seed loans and transportation, was carefully watched as a result of its economic importance. The king clearly showed an interest in such large estates.80 But here royal interest intersected with the private interests of 74 75

76 78

79 80

P. Mich. Zen. 25 (257 bce). P. Lille 1 is a diagram of a large estate, presumably that of Apollonius although some scholars have not accepted this. In any case the diagram does depict a 10,000-aroura estate divided into basins and divided by dikes and canals. Papyri from the Zenon archive detail the organization of labor and it has been estimated from the records of wages paid that the project required some 51,600 man-days to complete. Thompson 1999a: 112 has estimated that the labor force involved was 500 men, and the project would have taken three and one half months to complete in the best case scenario. A diagram and translation of P. Lille 1 is provided by Thompson 1999a: 118–20. Criscuolo 1977 has argued that the papyrus is not concerned with the Zenon estate. But see Clarysse 1979a: 738 and further Clarysse and Vandorpe 1995. 77 Criscuolo 1977 argues for the latter. Wipszycka 1961; Clarysse 1980a. On the documentation for these large estates, see Clarysse 1979a. For the status of the muriarouros, see Clarysse 1992–93, and the literature cited therein, along with Anagnostou-Canas 1994: 359–60. For an Egyptian, Sentheus, see P. Lille 47. Préaux 1939: 20, n. 1 lists evidence for other large estates. For an order for double cropping with “three month wheat,” passed on to Apollonius and thence to Zenon, see P. Cair. Zen. 2 59155 (256 bce). Cf. Rostovzteff 1922: 49.


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Apollonius, and indeed his manager Zenon, for a part of the land was under the direct management of Apollonius, and even more directly subject to the decisions of those on the ground, Zenon and the principal farmer on the estate, one Herakleides.81 This was a “model estate,” or an “experimental farm”82 that took advantage of economies of scale to exploit labor and production, as well as the private initiative and the capital of ambitious officials and immigrants.83 The emphasis on cash crops, on the market and command economies, is also suggestive of the atypical (for Hellenistic Egypt) status of these estates.84 The “gift” of land was in fact a creation of a potential revenue stream for Apollonius; it was up to his own initiative and ambition to take advantage of this potential. By all accounts, he seems to have done so, for the ten or so years that the estate is documented directly, but his involvement in the management of the estate appears to have waned after only a couple of years, if the survival of his correspondence preserved in the archive accurately reflects his involvement. The cultivation of vines, however, was both impressive and long lasting.85 We can also see that the size of the operation took advantage of the centralization of information. Unlike Apollonius’ gift estate in the Memphite nome, which was composed of scattered plots of land around several villages, the estate at Philadelphia was one large parcel of land. Apollonius kept a close watch on the operations although the land was leased out and even turned over to others to manage.86 Each year, for example, memos were sent out by Apollonius to his manager telling him what seed and what amounts were available;87 but some accounts at least suggest that these memos were not followed particularly closely.88 The estate seems also to have been a place where experiments could be tried, although many appear to have failed.89 Economic activity on the estate was particularly dedicated to commercial operations in viticulture and later in oil crops.90 81 84 85 86

87 88 89 90

82 Edgar 1931: 12. 83 Cf. Rostovtzeff 1922: 145. Edgar 1931: 33. On the different types of economy, see above, Chapter two, p. 49. Thompson 1999b: 134; Clarysse and Vandorpe 1998. In the latter case, it seems that kleruchs were given land from the estate itself. See further Crawford 1973: 240–41. A group of Egyptian farmers who had come to Philadelphia from the ancient center at Heliopolis took a lease of 1,000 arouras within the estate. See P. Lond. vii 1954 (Philadelphia, 257 bce), Rostovtzeff 1922: 73–75; Thompson 1999b: 136. P. Cair. Zen. 2 59292, 420–430, cited by Crawford 1973: 236. This is especially true in the case of over-producing what was specified and with the poppy crop. So Crawford 1973: 245. On the experimental nature of the estate, see Orrieux 1983: 77–97. On the unsuccessful attempts at cultivating the poppy, see Crawford 1973. On viticulture, see Clarysse and Vandorpe 1997; Préaux 1947: 22–26; and for oil crops, Sandy 1989.

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The weaving industry was an important component on the Memphis estate of Apollonius.91 The short-lived success of poppy cultivation on Zenon’s estate, for example, grown largely on marginal land on the estate, can be attributed to the decline of the gift estates by the end of the third century bce.92 The purpose of these estates was certainly to establish direct control over new land, to settle new populations, and to exact as much new revenue as possible for the state as for its officials. The tenure on the land in both of Apollonius’ estates varied. Large plots of land were assigned, often to Greeks, but also to Egyptian farmers who farmed the land under contract. Such plots could then be let out on subleases in smaller plots. Other land was directly managed by Zenon and his agents and worked by hired labor, usually Egyptians, organized in ancient working groups.93 On both estates, kleruchs seem to have been assigned their plots of land, but the exact relationship between the large estates and kleruchies is not altogether clear.94 The relationship is a bit clearer on Apollonius’ Memphis estate, and given the close relationship between other aspects of the estates’ economy (e.g. horse breeding)95 and the military, as well as the need for a stable tenure regime, it may be that some kleruchic plots were assigned from the estate’s land.96 The direct management of land by the state created problems as well as advantages. Even at the height of the experiment, the desire to collect a predictable rent in a risky environment produced tensions between landowner and producers. As in Upper Egypt, the vast majority of those who worked the land, including the important grain crops, were Egyptians. One famous event that has received much comment involved Panakestor, the predecessor of Zenon, and a group of Egyptian tenant farmers.97 In 256 bce, an agreement was concluded between the estate manager and a group of Egyptian tenant farmers to cultivate land with wheat. The transaction was probably common on the large estates. The two parties agreed to a split of the harvest of one third to the landowner and two thirds to the tenants. Such a share cropping agreement was typical in Egypt.98 The landowner, Apollonius, attempted to change the terms of the agreement in the middle of the agricultural year by demanding that the farmers agree 91 93 94 96 97 98

92 The conclusions of Crawford 1973: 248. Wipszycka 1961: 185–89. P. Mich. Zen. 113 (no date); Préaux 1947: 50. See also Wipszycka 1961: 175. 95 Rostovtzeff 1922: 167–68. Wipszycka 1961: 177–78. See further Crawford 1973: 240–41. Both Edgar 1931: 41–42 and Rostovtzeff 1941: 285 expressed doubt. PSI 5 502. Rostovtzeff 1922: 75–80. See the analysis of Bingen 1970, with the comments of Turner 1984: 156–57 and Bagnall 1995: 106–08; Bagnall 1997a: 237–38; McGing 1997: 277. See Hughes 1952; Donker van Heel 1995 for Saite leases of land, and below, Chapter five, pp. 199–200.


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to a division of the crop on the basis of an estimation from a survey of the standing crop.99 We do not know the reason for this change in terms, which is called a “concession,” (philanthropa). This new estimation, also, it seems, required a rent payment in cash rather than in kind at the time of harvest. But what to the landowner was a “concession” to his tenants was no doubt a bad deal, and against standard practice seen in Egyptian leases.100 The farmers responded initially by saying that they would think about the change. Four days later they sought asylum in a local temple – a firm answer in the negative – and the crop went unharvested. The disagreement may have happened because the landowner saw that it was going to be a good year for the harvest and he thought he could get more out of the land. This flight from work, often documented in the Zenon papyri, portrayed in Bingen’s analysis as an “archaic” response by the Egyptian farmers, was a traditional response – the use of an old local institution (the temple) in the face of new fiscal pressure from the state. The affair illustrates one important aspect of the new “économie royale,” namely that the farming of royal land involved contract and negotiation. It is not unique in demonstrating the dissonance between economic aims of the regime – maximizing rent and taxes, minimizing risk – and the realities of dealing with tenant farmers who had their own, ancient, traditions of farming and expectations of landlord-tenant relationships.101 Indeed, in one case of a lease of land within the Apollonius estate, Egyptian farmers were forced by the nomarch to sign a “deed of renunciation” for the 1,000 arouras of land they had leased.102 Clearly rights to the land had been established, and violated, by the official. It would appear, in addition, that whether or not the prevailing form of the lease of royal land was a Greek misth¯osis contract, Egyptian rights and traditions were also involved here.103 The differences between Greek rules and Egyptian tradition could prove difficult for the ruler and other landowners, who had to negotiate continually with those who worked the land.104 The status of “crown farmer” 99

100 101

102 103 104

Here the estimation of the payment based on the area of the land would be germane and may have been to the detriment of the farmer since the formula assumes square corners of the plot. Otherwise, the formula would overestimate the area of the plot, and therefore the tax as well. See below, Chapter six, pp. 198–201. Such a dispute between the state and local concerns was not unique. A “strike” of village scribes occurred in 118/117 bce, and of royal farmers in 114 bce. In both cases the verb used was nacwrw, “to go up.” See the details in Verhoogt 1997: 149–76, esp. 167, n. 94. P. Lond. vii 1954 (Philadelphia, 257 bce); Rostovtzeff 1922: 73–75. Gr. graf postas©ou; dem. sh (n) wy , on which see below, Chapter six, pp. 210–11. Cf. Mélèze-Modrzejewski 1979a: 355–56. P. Tebt i 26 (114 bce), a group of royal farmers fled to the temple at Narmouthis. For the Egyptian custom, see Posener 1975.

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created by farming royal land acted as an incentive to take on such leases, but if the tenants did not like the terms of the unwritten contract, the farmers could flee the land by “the customary practice of anach¯or¯esis.”105 Tenants on the large estates, as we have seen, could also resist exploitation by traditional means. The Ptolemaic “gift estate” had precedents in the Persian period106 and in the great estates of pharaonic Egypt,107 although the Ptolemaic phenomenon was not only directed at intensification but also at asserting state power over new land and settlement.108 It was a pay as you go concern, expenses being met by the sale of crops. Regular maintenance of the canal and dike system was contracted out under the supervision and responsibility of the local Ptolemaic officials. Digging and hauling were the main activities, and new land was brought under cultivation by the new irrigation canals. The Ptolemaic development of the Fayyum, spurred on by the demographic change and administrative organization of the region, brought about significant and long-lasting changes.109 To some extent there was experimentation in new breeds of livestock and new crops; among the latter were the olive (although rare in the documentary evidence until later in the Ptolemaic period), Rhodian cabbage, garlic from Lycia, and new species of sheep.110 The dramatic shift from emmer to durum wheat production, the latter being the preferred grain of the Greek immigrants, was, however, more likely the result of a natural shift in crops caused by forced demand for wheat by new Greek settlers, and not the result of state direction.111 Wine production, although not new with the Ptolemies, grew to huge levels by the second century bce.112 This was no doubt a major stimulus to the monetization of Egypt, one sign of which was that the taxes on vineyards and orchards were to be paid in cash. The new Greek population dominated viticulture, half of the production being in the hands of kleruchs, who had a tax advantage.113 105 106 107 108 109 111

112 113

Rowlandson 1985: 338. Briant 1982: 310–16; 418–30; Briant 1996a: 476–78; Ray 1988: 271, briefly discussing a large estate of the Persian satrap Arsames in Egypt. Eyre 1994b. Rostovzteff 1922: 143 argued that there was no connection between the Ptolemaic gift estates and earlier ones. 110 Thompson 1999b: 133. See the details in Thompson 1999b. On wheat, see Nesbitt and Samuel 1995. On the shift, see Thompson 1984; 1999b and Sallares 1991: 370–72; Van Minnen 2001. The shift to durum wheat production is dramatically illustrated in P. Petr. iii 75 (235 bce) cited by Thompson 1999b: 129. Rostovtzeff 1922: 93–103; Clarysse and Vandorpe 1998; Thompson 1999b. On the production levels and the Greek domination, see Clarysse and Vandorpe 1997.


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While the drainage project was certainly state directed, much of the land reclamation and development of the area was due to private initiative. The work was accomplished through a combination of state direction and contracting out to private parties.114 Private development of the area proceeded on both a small and a large scale. Settlement quickly followed the drainage project. In the main, the settlers were kleruchs, soldiers who were given an incentive to live in Egypt with a land grant in exchange for the promise to serve in the army when called upon to do so. The Ptolemaic system of kleruchies had both a Macedonian and an Egyptian antecedent and it served three ends. The first of these was to create a local fighting force loyal to the new regime. This would in theory obviate the need to hire mercenaries. Secondly, while the settlement of kleruchs in the Fayyum, the Oxyrhynchite and Herakleopolite nomes was greatest, they were placed throughout Egypt in strategic locations as a means of controlling territory and establishing a Greek presence. Thirdly, the grant of land in the Fayyum came with the requirement that the soldier himself had to reclaim it from marginal land and bring it under cultivation.115 The Fayyum, being a less densely settled area where a reclamation project could be successful, was of particular interest to the Ptolemies as an area in which state political and economic power could be imposed without the need for dealing with prior claims by tenants and institutional holders who had historic claims to the land (and the records to prove it). How best to characterize the large estates? Rostovtzeff ’s study of the Zenon archive has been influential, but his conception of the archive must be brought into a narrower historical and economic focus. For Rostovtzeff, the Zenon archive offered insights into the “conception of the ancient world in general.”116 He stressed the rationality and the effectiveness of the new bureaucratic structure and the close relationship of the king and the finance minister to the estate and its management.117 In the context of the mid-third-century bce Fayyum, the Zenon archive and the large estates are rather more indicative of the state’s need for revenue, and for the settlement of soldiers. That this form of economic management of land was short-lived, but with a much longer legacy of cash crop production, shows the contours of Ptolemaic development – the immediate needs of cash, and the longer term needs of the new population of the period. Its decline led 114

115

P. Petr. iii 43(2) (ca. 245 bce), a contract awarded at auction for maintenance of the canals, including the removal of wooden bridges over canals, and the reinforcement of stone foundations and revetments, cited above, n. 46. 116 Rostovtzeff 1922: 15. 117 Rostovtzeff 1922: 128–29. Clarysse 1979a: 742.

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to a reversion to “Egyptian” agriculture, the marked preference for staple crops like wheat and lentils, and an economy in kind. The estate continued after Apollonius’ demise for a time, and Zenon went on to other businesses, among other activities serving as a middleman leasing out kleruchic land, tax-farming and beer-making. The interaction of the state and of individual agents was intertwined on these estates. The individual “owner” of the land held considerable power over production and over the people who worked on the estates in various capacities. It was not force or central planning, but contract and the responsibility of officials that drove the economy on these large estates, as well as in smaller enterprises. Rostovtzeff drew a parallel with sixteenth and seventeenth century Russia.118 I would, rather, point to a comparison closer in time if not in distance, and that is to the creation of new land and new towns under the Former Han dynasty in China. In the case of China, the opening of new land was, in part at least, a response to demographic pressures. New land, formerly marsh land or forest in the private possession of the emperor, was opened by flood control and by the digging of new irrigation canals. New settlements were established, with the agricultural tools given to the peasants.119 The parallel between Han China and Ptolemaic Egypt is not exact of course. But in both the Chinese and the Ptolemaic cases, it was new land, without prior claims, that was crucial in establishing state power and direction over the land as well as the agricultural workers. New land in both cases, mutatis mutandis, allowed the settlement of new populations. The entire process facilitated centralized control in the Fayyum, through the medium of state officials given direct responsibility over land and people, at the same time as it allowed for more rapid economic development of the land. The opening up of new land, and the subsequent attraction of new populations to the area, created a new rural socio-economic order, and a new revenue base for the state, at least temporarily. For Rostovtzeff, the town of Philadelphia and its hinterland was typical of the period, a veritable “Egypt in miniature.”120 That understanding of the Zenon archive is no longer tenable. The large estate, oriented to the Memphite area, to production for the urban centers of Memphis and Alexandria, and consisting of a “conglomerate of private possessions in and outside the nome,”121 was indeed an exceptional place in an exceptional area, and documented over a brief span of time.122 118 120 121

119 Sadao 1986: 547–59; Hsu 1980: 29–35. Rostovtzeff 1922: 144. Rostovtzeff 1922: 129. Cf. Rostovtzeff 1941: 362. The Delta is, of course, for the most part, undocumented. 122 Cf. Davies 1984: 272. Clarysse 1980a: 122.


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th e v ill ag e of kerkeosiris and the menches archive From the northeast Fayyum boomtown of Philadelphia in the third century bce we move southward to the village of Kerkeosiris and down to the end of the second century bce. It was a village of some 4,000 arouras of land and 1,520 souls.123 It may have been in existence before the Ptolemies; the name is certainly an old Egyptian form of place name.124 The archive of the village scribe is our single most important source for the office of village scribe, its relationship to the Ptolemaic bureaucracy, and for the administration of land.125 The land registers recorded by the village scribe are among the most important land tenure documents from the entire period, providing a detailed picture of land holding across the various classes of land over the course of a decade. The papyri (extracted from crocodile mummy cartonnage) were excavated by the famous Oxford papyrologists Grenfell and Hunt during their 1899–1900 season at Tebtunis (Umm el-Baragât) funded by Phoebe Hurst.126 The archive dates to the years 120–110 bce, the period just after the civil war between Ptolemy VIII and Cleopatra II and III had ended.127 This period has often been viewed as one of steep economic decline in the whole area, but there is little evidence to suggest that this was long-term. As always in Egypt, prosperity and poverty were associated with the ability to apply labor to the land.128 However we view the village economy in these years, the involvement of the state in the agricultural administration of the village is quite clear. Major efforts were undertaken by the kings to reassert control of the country. We can follow to some extent the fortunes of the central state in our village, and the clear differences between the intentions of the ruler and the role of state agents. Much land that was classed as royal land had been in fact assigned to kleruchs, thus depriving the crown of revenue. During this period mistakes were also made in the book-keeping records. New grants of land to kleruchs were made after the rural unrest was put down, and with this perhaps came a more widespread redistribution of what were earlier larger kleruchic holdings of land at Kerkeosiris.129 123 124 125 126 127 128 129

On the rough estimate of the population of the village, see Crawford 1971: 124. Crawford 1971: 43. Cf. Kees 1936: 45. The literature generated by the archive is large. The two main studies are those of Crawford 1971 and Verhoogt 1997. See also Lewis 1986: 104–23. Crawford 1971: 3–4; Turner 1982: 171. For the history of the excavation of the site, see Gallazzi 1989; Gallazzi and Hadji-Minaglou 2000. See above, Chapter two, p. 46. On economic decline at Kerkeosiris, see Crawford 1971: 139; Keenan and Shelton 1976: 16–17; Crawford 1979. Verhoogt 1997: 26; Crawford 1979.

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Menches, like his father before him, was called a “Greek of the country,” and he had a double identity, a Greek and an Egyptian name.130 This was typical in the Ptolemaic bureaucracy. One used one’s Egyptian name when dealing with Egyptians, and the Greek name in a Greek context.131 Here is the end result of Greek settlers adopting to Egyptian customs in the countryside. We do not know how Menches originally obtained the important office of village scribe (kwmogrammateÅv) but it is likely that he first was an apprentice scribe in the village. Scribes in official positions were, however, appointed, at least in theory, unlike Egyptian temple scribes who were trained by their fathers and received their office by inheritance.132 We know that the office was a limited appointment and that Menches successfully had his appointment renewed in 119 bce. As part of this renewal, Menches had to make payments in grain and agree to farm a plot of ten arouras of royal land.133 We may suppose that the farming of land was associated with an official function in a manner not dissimilar to kleruchies.134 The fact that the land was classed as “unproductive royal land” makes it clear that the state in this period tied in official function with keeping the land under cultivation.135 In other words, the annual fixed rent from this area of land was the price of office. Although this land was technically royal land, Menches apparently did not become a “royal farmer,” probably because he already worked within the royal sphere. When the office was renewed for another term, Menches was again required to cultivate land as a condition for holding the office. This was no doubt a different plot than the first ten arouras, and thus an additional requirement.136 Interestingly, Menches, the village scribe in the south Fayyum, had a sponsor in the capital who appears to have paid the fees for Menches. This sponsor, Dorion, held the honorific title of a “first friend” of the king, a 130 131 132

133 134

135 136

í Ellhn gcÛriov, probably the Greek translation of dem. wynn ms n kmy of demotic texts, literally “Ionian born in Egypt.” On the title, see Verhoogt 1997: 52; Clarysse 1985. Clarysse 1985. P. Hausw. from Edfu dated to the third century bce, discussed above in Chapter three, shows that son succeeded father in the office of scribe of documents over at least three generations. On scribal families, see below, Chapter six, pp. 186–87. The fees for his reappointment were quite high. His appointment letter (P. Tebt i 10) stipulates a rent of fifty artabas for ten arouras of land declared at the time to be derelict (Ëp»logov). The method of binding officials to plots of land as part of their holding of an office, or at least obligating them for a certain amount of revenue from the area under the charge, has a long history in Egypt. P. Valençay 1, from the Ramesside period, Twentieth Dynasty ca. 1100 bce, for example, informs us of a mayor in Elephantine who was responsible for cultivating land down river in Edfu. For the text, see Gardiner 1950; and the remarks of Katary 1989: 207–16; the letter is translated by Wente 1990: 130–31. Keenan and Shelton 1976: 5. Cf. the comments in Verhoogt 1997: 65–66. Cf. Keenan and Shelton 1976: 5.


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somewhat lower-ranking court title at the time, but he was still wealthy enough to pay Menches’ fees.137 Why this seemingly strong connection between an official in the capital and a village scribe in the countryside? We are unable to answer this question with any certainty, but it may be the case that the close connection is associated with economic reform after the unrest. In any case, and for whatever reason, we see in the case of Menches that personal patronage played an important role in the state control of rural areas, and that land tied to appointment to office was an important device for maintaining land under cultivation. Like the kleruchies, the granting of an official post brought land under cultivation and produced income for the state in the form of rent. The main duty of the village scribe was record-keeping, both of land tenure and of persons. The village scribe was thus the main source of local information and the backbone of central state revenue. The archive shows that Menches had frequent contact with other Ptolemaic officials. Most surprising for us is that he met with the dioik¯et¯es, the finance minister, in Alexandria on at least three occasions.138 These meetings, held in February, concerned the “public reading of the survey of agricultural production.” It is astonishing that the village scribe of such an insignificant village met personally with the dioik¯et¯es and it may well be that these meetings reflect unusual circumstances and royal concern with an area of the Fayyum that had become neglected. The dioik¯et¯es, at least nominally, appointed the village scribe, but much more frequent and important contact occurred at the local level.139 The village scribe met with the “royal scribe,” (basilikos grammateus) at the “record office,” (logistrion) in the nome capital at Ptolemais Euergetis (earlier called Krocodeilonpolis), where the survey of fields and the survey of agricultural production was discussed. The royal scribe provided the main line of communication between the village, the nome capital and Alexandria.140 The administration of land in the village and acting as a go-between between petitioners and other parts of the bureaucracy occupied the bulk of the village scribe’s time. For the administration of land at the village level in Ptolemaic Egypt we are almost wholly dependant on Menches’ archive. As pointed out by Verhoogt, however, there are several reasons 137 138 139 140

Verhoogt 1997: 54–59. We do not know exactly his function. On his status title, see Mooren 1975: 15. These probably reflect unusual circumstances rather than a requirement that village scribes were required to meet annually with the dioik¯et¯es. For the details see Verhoogt 1997: 83–89. P. Tebt. i 10, 1–2. Verhoogt 1997: 66. See Verhoogt 1997: 72. On the royal scribe, see briefly above Chapter two, p. 52.

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why the documents that have come down to us do not give us a complete picture of Menches’ duties, and there is some reason to believe that such activities as his were not followed throughout Egypt for the entire Ptolemaic period. Still, we can see the clear outlines of Ptolemaic intentions. The village scribe was pivotal in monitoring and assessing the state rent in grain from royal land, and the taxes from other classes of land, temple and kleruchic land principally. Holders of land were recorded along with the size of the plot, its conditions and the type of crop grown. In Egypt conditions of the arable land varied from year to year and the village scribe kept track of the condition of the land. At times, water conditions made royal land uncultivable, and the books were noted accordingly. Sometimes rent collected was reduced from previous amounts collected on the land. This too was noted carefully. But it was royal land, and the revenues that could be expected from it, that dominated Menches’ time, and presumably this was the case with other village scribes. It is on royal land in the Fayyum that we see the most careful and direct management of land by the central state, and it is the Menches archive that gives us the most detailed account of this activity. The village scribe recorded in his registers the name of the holder of royal land, the size of the plot, the rent to be collected from the land and the type of crop grown on the land. The other vital activity that the village scribe was responsible for was the survey of fields.141 The large number of kleruchs in the Fayyum must certainly relate to Ptolemaic control of the region. Although kleruchs were settled throughout Egypt, we are best informed about the kleruchic class from the Fayyum material, from the land registers and from the tax lists.142 They were settled in parts of the Fayyum where there was most potential for reclamation: over half of the known kleruchs are recorded in the Herakleides meris, 30% in Themistos and around 20% in the Polemon meris.143 The house-to-house census lists suggest that these soldiers often lived in military communities. The strategic importance of the numbers of the kleruchs in the Fayyum becomes clear in the later Syrian wars of Ptolemy III and IV, when a significant percentage of the total local levy of cavalry was taken from the Fayyum.144 141 143 144

142 Uebel 1968; Crawford 1971: 53–85. Verhoogt 1997: 131–42; below, Chapter five, pp. 146–56. Clarysse and Thompson forthcoming. See the important analysis by Clarysse and Thompson forthcoming.


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categories of l and The amount of royal and kleruchic land in the Fayyum is a good indication of Ptolemaic economic power here. The situation of land in the third century bce is not clear; much of our information on the status of the land comes from the land surveys that form part of the Menches archive. Land may have been developed and then reclassified, and therefore assessing change over the course of the period is difficult. Of the three main classes of land at Kerkeosiris at the end of the second century bce, royal land was the largest class, accounting for some 52% of the arable land. Much of this land was divided and worked in small plots, an average size of holding being around eight arouras.145 The royal land that was actually productive was about 25% of the total land during the tenure of Menches and was farmed by “royal farmers” totaling 148 persons, some working the land in groups, others individually.146 About 20% of the land was classed as unproductive. The royal farmers at Kerkeosiris were divided into three groups in some of the account lists for the village but we cannot discern the organizing principle that lay behind such a division.147 It is certain that no obvious economic organization was behind it, either by type of crop grown or level of tax, or by location of the plot of land. It may well be that groups of royal farmers organized themselves around social or ethnic groups.148 Royal land in Kerkeosiris was the largest amount of land and was of the highest quality. Rent on the land was calculated in wheat whatever the crop grown, or it could be paid in cash. The calculation against a grain standard was traditional in Egypt. Rent and other fees on royal land were high, amounting to upwards of 50% of the crop. Kleruchs who took on additional leases of royal land paid a higher rental than was normal, but there must have been reasons for this. It has been argued, convincingly I think, that such leases carried with them no tax burden.149 Kleruchic land comes next, at 33% of the arable land. It was sub-leased in larger plots than was royal land, perhaps an indication of its poorer quality.150 During the period covered by the Kerkeosiris land surveys, kleruchs there worked their land themselves for the most part, a fact that 145 147 148

149 150

146 Shelton 1976. Shelton 1976: 113. P. UC 1592 (114/3 bce? ), Verhoogt 1997: 214–19. Verhoogt 1997: 118–19. The three groups were listed in alphabetical order, and perhaps organized by tax status, as Verhoogt 1997: 119, n. 52 has suggested, but there is no way to corroborate the suggestion. Keenan and Shelton 1976: 8, 70, n. to line 40 (P. Tebt. iv 1105). Shelton 1976: 115.

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reflects the hereditary status of this class of land at this period.151 Holdings of land in this category could be scattered rather than single plots; such split holding was a standard and ancient feature of land tenure in Egypt, to reduce risk and perhaps to take advantage of different conditions of land in different areas. Temple land at Kerkeosiris amounted to 16% of the total. Temples received other income from dovecotes, and traditionally from many other industries, herding and weaving among them.152 The use of land under temple control varied, producing wheat,153 as well as vegetables154 and vines. Tenancy on royal land is well documented from the Fayyumic evidence, and was held under diverse conditions. We are not, however, informed on the process of leasing out royal land to tenants. The normal tenancy of royal land was long-term lease guaranteed not by written lease but by the state survey of land each year. Royal land was also leased on short-term contracts, and where there is good evidence, there appears to have been a high turnover in tenancies on royal land each year, up to 30%, by a special type of legal transfer called a parach¯or¯esis.155 Many different people took on leases of royal land, kleruchs, Egyptian priests and others, just as kleruchic land was sub-leased regularly.156 The Kerkesosiris land surveys never mention women as holders of land, either on royal or on kleruchic holdings.157 The overall appearance of tenure on the land at Kerkeosiris is that it was a flexible system (again a contrast with Rostovtzeff’s theories of land tenure), that land was rented for what the state could get year to year, and that tenancies could be transferred. Most farmers, it appears, continued to farm the same land year to year. conclusions The Fayyum under the Ptolemies was a new area of intense economic activity in the third century bce. Many new, predominantly Greek, villages were founded, and old towns were revitalized. The central government was involved in the drainage and clearance of the Fayyum and in the provisioning of tools to the work force. Government plans were reinforced by personal responsibility of the local officials to get the work done. Yet government force was constantly resisted by the threat of work stoppage. 151 152 154 155 156

On the evolution of kleruchic land, see below, Chapter five, pp. 178–80. 153 P. Tebt. iv 1119 (115/4 bce). Evans 1961. P. Tebt. iv 1121 (late second century bce). On royal farmers, see briefly above Chapter two, pp. 54–56; Shelton 1976: 118. 157 Keenan and Shelton 1976: 6. See the details in Shelton 1976.


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The amount of land under cultivation varied from year to year and depended on the amount of available water and labor. Both of these factors were affected by the amount of political control that could be applied. Patterns of land use in the Fayyum show clearly the waxing and waning of this political control. At the height of Ptolemaic economic power under Ptolemy II Philadelphus, the arable land in the Fayyum was trebled. By the end of the second century bce, in the wake of political disturbances in the capital and in the countryside, the arable land and crown revenues from it were severely reduced.158 The state responded by lowering rents on royal land, or by reclassifying it as non-royal land and thereby hoping to capture at least some revenue. Here again, the village scribe bore heavy responsibility to the state. While we cannot be certain that the dioik¯et¯es in Alexandria was always involved, he was certainly informed of the state of reclamation activities at Kerkeosiris. Both the Zenon and the Menches archives show the strong and direct connections between Fayyum agricultural production and the capital. The central government in Alexandria certainly kept a close eye on the agricultural cycle, above all as it concerned revenue. While there was a tendency toward centralized control, the Ptolemies achieved success in the Fayyum by putting local officials like village scribes and granary officials in charge of small areas and making them personally liable for the production on these plots. Even small Ptolemaic foundations like Kerkesosiris and Talit had a state granary and a scribal office.159 Above all else, what distinguished the Fayyum from the Thebaid in the third century bce was the percentage of military settlers and the more impressive agricultural change in the former. The reclamation of new land and the power to settle new populations on it gave the Fayyum its distinctive character, and probably contributed to its relative stability in the period. The dynamics of power on the land, the relationship between the state and its local agents, and institutions that adapted to ancient rural structures, certainly shaped the historic path of the two regions. 158

159

The land booked as “unprofitable” and therefore “deducted” from accounts is detailed in the years 117, 113–112 bce in P. Tebt. I 60, 61, 72, 74, 75. For the amount of lost revenue, see Verhoogt 1997: 112, n. 20. For Talit, some 4 km west of Tebtunis along the Polemon canal and established around 250 bce, see most recently Kirby and Rathbone 1996.

part iii

Interpretation

chap t e r 5

The Ptolemaic state, the land tenure regime, and economic power

You must regard it as one of your most indispensable duties to see that the nome be sown with the kind of crops prescribed by the sowing schedule. Instructions of the Dioikêtês to an Oikonomos, preserved in P. Tebt 703, 57–60. Trans. Bagnall and Derow 1981: 135

We offer (the properties) for sale on the following terms. The successful bidders shall pay annually to the Crown in the case of the vineyards the proper money taxes and the apomoira. . . . . and for arable land the rents in kind which have been imposed upon it. . . . P. Eleph. 14 (Edfu, ca. 223 bce) Trans. Select Papyri, vol. ii, text 233.

In this Chapter I will be concerned with the “reach of the state,”1 and its ability to control land tenure and the surplus agricultural production. The traditional power of the ruler in Egypt with respect to these issues was asserted in assigning rights to land and in taxing production (and on some land collecting rent). The Ptolemies retained these traditional powers over the land.2 I begin with a discussion of the structure of the state itself, and the organization of social power within the state. From there, I move on to discuss more specifically one aspect of social power, economic power, and the relationship between state economic power and land tenure. I turn next from these theoretical considerations to an examination of the documentation of central control of the economy, to the ancient institutions of land survey, and the registration of land, and to the new institution of public auction. I build on this foundation in turning to the development of the state. An important aspect of the development was its drive toward a more “rational” (in Weber’s sense) state by using Greek as the administrative 1 2

I take the term from Shue 1988. See e.g. the Satrap Stela, discussed above in Chapter two, n. 98.

129

130

Interpretation

language wherever possible, by enlisting the cooperation of the temple institutions as far as it could, and by incorporating the older tradition of Egyptian contract-making into state administrative structures. All three had long term consequences. The tax farming system, the royal banks, and the use of public auction to dispose of unclaimed land reinforced the ancient system of land survey and registration. The force of this bureaucratic rationalization can be observed in the eventual requirement of registration of Egyptian contracts, a requirement that may have severely reduced the number of demotic contracts made by the first century bce.3 The rural disturbances, especially those in the Thebaid beginning in 207 bce, caused severe disruption in the taxation of land and in title to property. The causes of the unrest are difficult to determine, but reaction to Ptolemaic control of the area was almost certainly a major factor. Whatever the exact causes, the Ptolemaic administration ended up in a stronger administrative position with respect to the land after this major revolt against the regime was suppressed in 186 bce. Finally, I discuss the well-known phenomenon of what has generally been regarded as the decline of royal power over land and the concomitant growth of private property. I shall argue that there was not a decline in economic power, but, rather, a decline in the regime’s political power, and a recognition of the traditional private rights of use and conveyance. The major change over the course of Ptolemaic history was the link between the ruler and the local elite; the registration and the taxation of land remained in the hands of the local bureaucracy. the central structure of the ptolemaic state The Ptolemaic state, from the point of view of the ruler, was a household, an oikos.4 As such it differed very little in conception from the New Kingdom pharaonic state.5 But this notion of the state as household economy, what Préaux called the “économie royale,” ignores the importance of agency, the ancient institutional structures, and the other parts of the state economy, the local “customary” and “market” economies.6 A better understanding of the Ptolemaic state should distinguish between the power of the ruler to exclude other actors from the control of rural production (political power) and the power of the bureaucracy to extract surplus production (economic power). This general understanding, in slightly different terms than my own, has been advocated recently by Jean Bingen and Alan Samuel.7 3 5 6

4 Rostovzteff 1941: 269. On registration, see below, pp. 171–73. Eg. Pr–nsw “royal palace.” See further Van den Boorn 1988: 310–31. 7 Bingen 1978c; Samuel 1989: 51–65. See above, Chapter two, p. 49.

The land tenure regime and economic power

131

There are two issues to be examined. First, the Ptolemaic drive toward a rational state, with a desire for increased efficiency in institutional structure, the use of Greek, new “rational” institutions such as banking (through which taxes were paid) and the use of auctions to assign rights to land, and the incorporation of Egyptian institutions such as the temples into the new state. The traditional institutions of land survey and taxation, of course, continued, although there were some changes in the latter. All of these institutions were concerned with the centralization of revenue, and the holding of territory. Second, and in reaction to the first, was the local resistance to this state formation. The Ptolemaic state functioned, as before, by stressing the vertical ties to the ruler through a bureaucratic hierarchy that connected the villages to the nome capitals, and these in turn to the capital at Alexandria. The power of the Pharaohs was maintained by “credible commitment,” allowing property rights to be maintained and the rent-seeking behaviour of local elites to continue in exchange for loyalty and taxes. The same held for the Ptolemaic period. The use of Greek as the new administrative language probably increased the distance between the ruler, the bureaucrats (including Egyptians), the entrepreneurs and the military, who formed the core of the new elite, on the one hand, and the agricultural producers on the other. The status as a “Greek” within the bureaucracy was important, although not everyone who functioned in the bureaucracy was ethnically Greek.8 The Ptolemaic taxation system reinforced loyalties (and disloyalties) by granting a lower tax rate to those classed as “hellenes,” i.e. Greeks and others who worked within the bureaucratic hierarchy.9 From the point of view of theory, it is generally agreed that pre-modern states were weak in their capacity to hold their hinterlands because of the small size and the social isolation of the bureaucratic elite.10 Ernest Gellner’s model of the social structure of pre-modern agrarian states (Figure 6) is useful in illustrating these conditions.11 The divide between the layers of administration and the laterally insulated agrarian communities is one primarily of culture. The culture of the privileged group, the administrative elite, is sharply delimited, and this 8

9 10 11

Some petitions at least signal that the petitioner might be subject to abuse because he did not know how to speak Greek. In some cases, the mention of the lack of bilingualism in petitions may have been playing the ethnicity card, something that the Ptolemies appear to have been sensitive to. See further Crawford 1978. On the use of Greek names by local scribes, see Clarysse 1985. Thompson 1997a; Clarysse and Thompson forthcoming. Gellner 1983; Hall 1986. For a comparable case discussing early medieval Europe, see Davies and Fouracre 1995, esp. pp. 3–8. Cf. the remarks of Hall 1986: 27–32.

132

Interpretation stratified, horizontally segregated layers of military, administrative, clerical and sometimes commercial ruling class

laterally insulated communities of agricultural producers Figure 6. A generalized model of the social structure of agrarian states (from Gellner 1983: 9).

cultural “divide” serves to set off the elite from the insulated agricultural communities. The case of Ptolemaic Egypt poses particularly interesting problems since a new elite came from the outside (without much resistance), and, without completely replacing the old elite structure, instituted a new, and much stricter, economic order administered by an ancient hierarchical bureaucratic structure that functioned in a new language. The caging effect of the river valley, of course, aided in the control of the population and in the taxation of land and people.12 The ideology of the state, as Gellner argued, would have exaggerated the degree of separation between this elite and the illiterate rural population under their control. But the Ptolemies certainly linked themselves to the priesthoods, and eventually to cults within the temples. The Ptolemaic state, as similarly in Tokugawa Japan, expected the local elite to demonstrate loyalty. In the case of the Ptolemaic period, this was manifested in the requirement of Egyptian priests to meet in the 12

On “caging” effects, see above, Chapter two, p. 28.


133

Greek and grecizing elite Regional officials Military garrisons

Egyptian priests local agents of the state

Laterally insulated communities of agricultural producers Figure 7. A revised model of the social structure of the early Ptolemaic state.

capital annually.13 Although we cannot track in the record how often this was in fact done, the practice, remitted in the Rosetta decree, appears to have been a regular feature of the early Ptolemaic state.14 The census, at least in theory, also served to restrict the movement of the population. This implies that the use of force was readily at hand, and what the state required was loyalty and accurate record keeping by the local elite.15 Indeed, Egyptian towns and villages had long been highly stratified, with the local literate elite tied to the central state through their service in the cults of the local temple, and by grants of local administrative offices that functioned, in effect, as state licenses. Gellner’s general model describes very well the lack of social integration in ancient states. As a general heuristic tool, of course, it ignores the inter-village cooperation, the particular caging effects of the Nile, and regional cohesion in political and cultic organization that were old features of Egypt. Unlike Tokugawa Japan, furthermore, the local military elite were not isolated from the rest of the population or restricted in their dwelling place for the most part.16 Figure 7 adds some specificity to the general model. 13 15 16

14 OGIS 90, 17 (196 bce). Cf. Totman 1993 : 53–54. On the behavior, expected and real, of local officials see Crawford 1978. There are occasionally found exceptions to this general rule. For one of them, see above, Chapter three, p. 87.

134

Interpretation Table 6. The four sources of social power in Ptolemaic Egypt and the documentary evidence for them

Ideological temple texts/images festivals temple building

Political

Economic

Military

royal decrees priestly synods

registration of contracts tax receipts census land survey/crop reports

settlement of soldiers use/threat of force

the i e m p mod el The analysis of power in a society, while usually rejected by economists, is nonetheless important in understanding ancient agrarian states.17 In the ancient context, however, state power has been generally assumed, and the lines between the different sources of social power blurred. It is this assumption of generalized power that papyrologists and historians have taken as a starting point in the analysis of Ptolemaic state capacity. The assumptions about the Ptolemaic regime’s power have been driven by the fact that it has been conceived of as a “Greek” state that imposed its will on Egypt with the aid of a large military force. The economy was rationally planned and “efficiently” executed, and the largely passive, monolithic, rural population was successfully incorporated into a new economic system, and brought into a wider, Greek world by the creation of new markets, a monetized economy, and a ruthless taxation system. The “state” thoroughly dominated economic activity, and there were few alternate bases of social power. Such views require modification. The careful distinction of the four sources of social power clarifies the issue of state power. Following Mann, and from the point of view of the central government, the documentary papyri, inscriptions and ostraca may be divided into one of four sources of social power (Table 6). Admittedly, assigning the documentation to only one of these four categories is problematic since these networks overlapped considerably. But by specifying specific sources of power, we may better understand the structure of the state, the relationships between ideology, bureaucratic structure, and the role of the local elite. 17

See, for example, Williamson 1985: 238. The analysis of social power is, however, crucial in economic sociology, especially in the work of Max Weber: see Granovetter and Swedberg 1992: 8–9, 16.


135

econom ic power of the ptolemaic state Scholars in the Weberian tradition have spent considerable effort in distinguishing “strong” from “weak” modern states. The basis for such assessments has been the degree to which a state tracks Weber’s ideal type of a centralized and rational bureaucratic state.18 It is a false dichotomy, and it is perhaps even uninteresting, to ask whether the Ptolemaic state, or any ancient state, was weak or strong.19 The issue, instead, should be couched in terms of the role of the state as an economic actor, and its sources of power. The debate among political economists turns on whether the state excluded other economic actors (the strong state theorists) or whether the state embodied the whole of the political community with, therefore, multiple actors (the pluralists).20 But this debate relates to the rise of the nation-state. Ptolemaic Egypt has usually been regarded as a strong, centralized state that grew rich on the strength of its ability to extract agricultural surplus from rural areas efficiently. Indeed state wealth, measured in terms of revenue and construction, was certainly impressive.21 Over time, the standard model following Polybius goes, the state became weak. This “weakness,” caused by loss of political control on the eastern Mediterranean, dynastic disputes, and, ultimately the “coming of Rome,” is manifested, for example, in the rural unrest and in the supposed erosion of royal control over the land.22 But there is another side to this coin. While 18 19 20 21

22

Evans et al. 1985: 351. That debate, however, has been a significant feature of discussions about the nature of the Seleucid empire since the work of Tarn. See Sherwin-White 1987: 2–3. See the summary of the debate in Hamilton 1994: 186. On the Ptolemaic grain trade see Fraser 1972: 148–88; for later periods, consult Haas 1997: 42–44. It is difficult to assess the real revenues of the crown in any given period. The ideology of Ptolemaic wealth is omnipresent but no real figures exist to give us an accounting of revenues over time. Texts documenting internal revenues from the harvest and personal taxes surely existed and were compiled in Alexandria based on the crop reports each year. The figure of 14,800 talents of silver and 1.5 million artabas of wheat, often cited for the annual revenues of Ptolemy II Philadelphus, taken from St Jerome, Commentary on the Book of Daniel xi.5, third century ce, is unreliable. This reported annual revenue of Ptolemy II Philadelphus does, however, compare well to that reported for Ptolemy XII Auletes, 12,500 talents (Cicero in Strabo 17.1.13). On the wealth seized by Augustus, certainly an attraction for taking Egypt, see Geraci 1983: 108–09. The average price of wheat in the mid-third century bce was two drachmas per artaba, for which see the data collected by Cadell and Le Rider 1997: 28–32. Assuming an average wage of one to two obols per day for the mid-third century, the revenue in coin had the purchasing power of 500,000–750,000 man-years, or very roughly 14.2%–21.4 % of GDP. The revenue in wheat amounted to an additional 500 talents. This grain revenue is probably in fact too low, whereas the estimated revenue in silver is probably far too high. The actual revenue in grain was very likely closer to six million artabas of wheat. Reckoning at 12 artabas per year per adult, the amount is enough to feed 500,000 adults. For the latter calculation see Préaux 1978, vol. i : 364–65. See further below, pp. 164–71.

136

Interpretation

the central state fluctuated in its ability to intervene over the long term, local institutions and regions often followed a different course. A better picture of the nature of the Ptolemaic state must, then, take into account both the “central state” picture and the local and regional one as well, and must distinguish political from economic power. Much of the historical analysis of Ptolemaic Egypt has attributed state strength to the new Greek political and cultural structure introduced by Ptolemaic rule. Military power, through settlement of soldiers on the land, and economic power, taxing the production on land, are clearly very strongly associated in Ptolemaic Egypt. This implicit thesis of Greek domination in nearly all previous work relies heavily on the evidence of the Greek papyri from the Fayyum, is dependent on a command economy model and, implicitly (sometimes explicitly), on a colonial form of rule in a country long used to “oriental despots.”23 The emphasis on the Greek documentation is certainly understandable in the light of so much of the papyrological evidence, but an examination of the evidence from the Fayyum and the Thebaid together yields, as we have already seen, a different picture of the Ptolemaic state, and explains both its weaknesses and strengths. As I have already suggested, the neo-classical model of the state highlights the fact that the ruler negotiated with agricultural producers through local agents to extract rents, and it offers a modified view of what the colonial model of Hellenistic states implies. The degree to which one may measure the “colonial” power of the Ptolemaic state must be gauged by the extent to which the local elite adapted and remained loyal to the new rulers. The issue of the loyalty of the local elites to the ruler, what economists call the principalagent problem, is very much in evidence in the administrative papyri, and the monitoring of local agents surely added significant costs to the state.24 As the dynasty grew politically weaker, local economic organization appears to have gained strength, or at least acted independently from central state power. For others than those who held land through their status (the tenants on royal land, the military settlers, and those tied to temple estates), the struggle to gain access to land caused considerable social tension, and this was especially the case among the new Greek immigrants, who often had to seek economic gain “on the periphery of the main game.”25 The state’s demand for rents, and its organizational structure requiring grants 23 24 25

Rostovtzeff 1922; Rostovtzeff 1941; Préaux 1939; Wittfogel 1957. On the colonial model, see Will 1985 and the response by Bagnall 1997a. Cf. also Litvinenko 1997. Cf. North 1990: 32–33. Samuel 1989: 36. On the social tension caused by this “structural” problem within the Ptolemaic state, see the penetrating analysis by Bingen 1984.


137

of land to the military class at the same time as maintaining the old land tenure regime in the Thebaid, probably limited access to land in such a way as to create a drag on productivity growth (though this is difficult to measure). The Ptolemaic state sought to impose an order on the Egyptian landscape, an order that they found readily articulated in the ideology and imagery of pharaonic command over people and the land. But this order was manifested also in new economic institutions brought in from the Greek world – banking, tax farming, and auctions of property – supported by a host of measures designed to hold officials accountable. Supporting this tax collection was an extensive, hierarchical bureaucracy, extending from the dioik¯et¯es, the chief finance minister in Alexandria, down to the nome level bureaucrats – chief among them the strat¯egos, nomarch, toparch and k¯omarch, in charge of agricultural production, the oikonomos and the antigrapheus, who supervised finances and the basilikos grammateus, the topogrammateus and the k¯omogrammateus, who kept records at the nome, district (toparchy), and village level. The basic structure and the extent of this royal economy was thus loosely centered around the old nome divisions of Egypt and is laid out clearly in one recently published letter concerning the levy of grain in a nome: to the stratêgo[s of the Herakleopolite nome, to the chief of the garrison,] to the one in charge [of the po]lice, to the n[omarch, to those responsible for the revenue,] to the steward, to the royal secre[tary, to the controller, to the toparchs,] to the district secre[taries,] to the mayors, [to the secretaries of villages, to the chief of polic]e, to the police, to the farmers and to the other [personnel concerned with royal business . . .]26

The social relationships within these vertical ties traditionally define power; the intended results of such state structure are domination and compliance.27 The creation of a Graeco-Egyptian ruling class and the 26

täi strathgä[i toÓ ‘Hrakleopol©tou kaª täi frourrcwi kaª t]äi pi.stthi fu]lakitän kaª täi n[omrchi kaª täi pª tän pros»dwn ka]ª. täi o«kon»mwi [k]a. ª. t. ä. i. basilikäi 3 gramma[te± kaª täi ntigrafe± kaª to±v toprcaiv] k aª topogram[ma] . 4 [teÓsi] kaª kwmrcaiv ka[ª kwmogrammateÓsi kaª täi rcifulak©t]hi kaª fulak©taiv [k]aª . gewrgo±v kaª 5 to±v []lloi[v t basilik pragmateuomnoiv . . . P. Gen. inv. 402 A + B, 1–5 ( = P. Gen. i i i 132; Herakleopolite nome?, dated to the beginning of the second half of the second century). The text is heavily restored but there are sound parallels. I thank the editor, Paul Schubert, for pointing this text out to me during the 22nd Congress of Papyrology in Florence, Italy. The order of the offices and the range of officials involved, and the administrative hierarchy from nome level to district, village and finally to the royal farmers, is standard. Among the many other examples one could cite, see e.g. P. Rev. 37. Granovetter 2002. 2 [tän

27

138

Interpretation

binding of it to the ruler are of primary importance in understanding the social dynamics of the Ptolemaic state.28 The local elite, the priests, the scribal families and the military, were important and privileged social groups. These local elite, who functioned as state agents, were certainly not always loyal to the ruler, and indeed appear quite often in the documents as lining their own pockets to the detriment of the ruler.29 This is a fundamental observation about the Ptolemaic bureaucracy, and it is important to note that it was not as rigid in its structure as the above quoted letter might imply. Indeed, the structure of the bureaucracy was quite fluid, with lines of authority not sharply drawn among the upper echelons.30 Throughout the period, the rulers attempted to instill loyalty in these agents by a variety of means. Among the Egyptian elite, these solutions usually involved the temples. Ptolemy III Euergetes, for example, attempted to gain loyalty by installing a fifth phyl¯e of priests in local sanctuaries called the “phyl¯e of the beneficent gods.”31 Correspondence between a Thebarch and the head priest in Elephantine reveals, on the other hand, what must have been the normal tension between state officials and local elite with respect to revenues.32 Such tension, nothing new from the point of view of Egyptian history, often stands in marked contrast to the cold efficiency and effectiveness that the Ptolemaic administrative letters sometimes suggest. Yet we can see clearly in the private archives of the second century bce how thoroughly adaptive Greek and Egyptian families were, taking, for example, two names, one Egyptian used in Egyptian contexts (temples), the other Greek used in the bureaucratic contexts, and so establishing themselves vertically in the Ptolemaic bureaucracy, and horizontally in the local community.33 The bureaucratic structure of Ptolemaic Egypt, the obvious success of the new capital at Alexandria, the display of wealth there in the “grand procession” celebrating the Ptolemaieia festival in 279/8 bce (a perfect blend of ideological, political, economic, and military power),34 the rebuilding of Egyptian temples, the reclamation of the Fayyum, have all suggested relative state strength compared to other agrarian states. Although the Ptolemies 28 29 30 31 32 33 34

Dunand 1983. This problem was stressed by Bingen 1984. Cf. P. Rev., discussed below, pp. 141–42. Thomas 1978: 188–89. Cf. Samuel 1966. Canopus decree, for which see above Chapter three, p. 68. P. dem. Eleph. 15522 ( = Zauzich 1978; dated year six of a Ptolemy). See the study by Clarysse 1985 on the use of double names in the bureaucracy. Described a century later by Kallixeinos of Rhodes using the Penteteric Records and preserved in the third-century ce author Athenaeus, Deip. 5, 197c–203b ( = FGrHist 627 F 2). On this so-called “grand procession” and its context, see Rice 1983; Walbank 1984; Stewart 1993: 252–60; Hazzard 2000; Thompson 2000b. Hazzard 2000: 62–66 has proposed a later date (262 bce) for the procession, the beginning of what he termed the “Soter era,” posited largely on the basis of numismatic evidence. For the date of the procession, see Thompson 2000c: 381–88.


139

indeed conceded much to local organization both in the collection of revenue and in the registration of tenure conditions, such concessions do not amount to state weakness. Indeed one could argue that these factors may indicate relative strength of the state. The Ptolemies, certainly, centralized considerable wealth in Alexandria, and were able to affect economic structures.35 An important factor to consider here is the lack of opposition at the local level to Ptolemaic economic power, and clearly the new structures of taxation (tax farming, banking) and administration allowed the regime to function for some period of time as a relatively centralized state. Relative success here was no doubt aided by the central state’s use of Greek, thereby skirting around local power bases, and this bureaucratic power was strengthened, of course, by the low level of literacy.36 The Ptolemies wanted to establish a more rational state that functioned as efficiently as possible. Control of local economies was an important aspect of the state economy, and in areas in which old institutions continued to function, Ptolemaic policy appears to have been to incorporate them into the state as far as possible. The measure here is the extent to which the state collected tax revenue, and took over ancient institutions in the Thebaid, as seen in the collection of the harvest tax that had historically been collected and booked into temple estates.37 The establishment of state banks and the royal granaries for the collection of grain and money taxes is good evidence that the Ptolemaic economic system was quite effective.38 The local administrative class under the Ptolemies was certainly tied to the state by the common bond of the Greek language, although during the first century of rule demotic Egyptian was especially important at the local levels of administration. And the old Egyptian elite, the priests, were bound to the central state by the maintenance of their positions within the state.39 But the conflict between state officials, who were obligated to fulfill their duties through the commands of higher officials, and profiteers who funded the tax farming system, was a fundamental impediment to the development of the Ptolemaic state.40 In order to understand Ptolemaic 35

36 37

38 39

40

One instance was the decree of Ptolemy II Philadelphus setting maximum interest rate on money loans at 24% per annum. It appears to have been widely followed. The decree (diagramma) is mentioned obliquely in a petition, P. Col. Zen. 83 (245/244 bce). Cf. Préaux 1939: 281–83. On literacy rates, see Ray 1994a. E.g. P. Louvre E 7856 recto (Abnormal Hieratic, Thebes, 672 bce; Donker Van Heel 1998c), a written agreement to lease land that specifies that the “scribes of Amun” will measure the field, and collect the 10% harvest tax. Vandorpe 2000b. Johnson 1986. The priesthood of Ptah at the temple of Memphis became a national priesthood for the Ptolemies and a close relationship was established between the king and these priests. See Crawford 1980; Thompson 1988: 138–46. Préaux 1939: 444–50; 513–33; Bingen 1984.

140

Interpretation

bureaucratization, we must, then, deal both with economic structure and with agency. The first task of the early Ptolemies was to try to integrate the old local elites (the scribal/priestly class) and local economies into the new central structure. This took place on several different levels. In the administration, officials were placed in regional centers and eventually at the village level, with the use of Greek being an important link between village, region and capital. The cooperation of Egyptian military officers, of course, and priests such as the well-known Manetho and Somtuefnakht, were vital elements of the Ptolemaic takeover.41 In some cases a new scribal class (in the Theban area most importantly) who wrote in Greek and functioned themselves as notaries, a contrast to the Egyptian practice, was established in order to knock out the old notarial tradition. On the level of ideology, the royal cult, and the new cult of Serapis were also important in binding local elite to the state. The key was the conscious adoption of the pharaonic symbols of divine kingship that supported claims of centralized power. The Ptolemies also developed a royal cult within the Egyptian temples as another means of assuring loyalty to the regime. the “ e´ conomie royale” From the founding of Ptolemaic kingship in 304 bce, it took another thirty-five years to establish what is called the royal economy, or at least this is when the documentation begins to survive. This royal economy was established, it is generally thought, during the reign of the second king, Ptolemy II Philadelphus, that is by the early 260s bce.42 But the major outlines of the plan were almost certainly established by Ptolemy I Soter, and scholarly emphasis on the second king is probably only the result of the survival of documentation.43 The pharaohs had long had a revenue stream produced from taxing certain lands. Clearly the economic structure of Ptolemaic Egypt owes much, as we have seen, to ancient economic organization and the more recent Persian imperial control, but unlike the Persian fixed annual tribute to the king, the Ptolemaic system was designed 41

42 43

For Manetho, see Huß 1994: 123–29. Somtuefnakht from Herakleopolis supported the Persian side against Alexander but successfully returned to his priesthood. His biography is preserved on S. Naples 1035, translated by Lichtheim 1980: 41–43. Turner 1984: 144. Cf. Rostovtzeff 1941: 267–74. The royal economy was analyzed by Préaux 1939, Préaux 1978; Rostovtzeff 1941: 267–316. See further below, pp. 141–56. The major outlines of the administrative plan, including the important founding of Ptolemais as the administrative center in the south, must have been part of Ptolemy’s plan. When the documentation begins to appear, the system is already in place.


141

to yield maximum annual revenue. War-making, absent from Rostovzteff’s analysis of the royal economy, was without question a significant part of this economy.44 Ptolemy III Euergetes, for example, reportedly brought back to Egypt in toto 40,000 silver talents and 2,500 “sacred vessels” from the Third Syrian war (246–241 bce).45 This figure, if accurately cited by St Jerome, dwarfs the annual revenue in cash for the reign of Ptolemy II Philadelphus.46 The internal economic policy of the Ptolemies was designed for the maximization of revenue and may be summarized as follows: (1) extend and maximize cultivation where possible, (2) maintain old land tenure patterns while collecting the harvest tax, (3) tax production in the main industries, (4) tax transactions (sales, mortgages), (5) extend royal sale licenses in key industries (the so-called royal monopolies). Internal revenue came from collection of rents on some classes of land (royal and kleruchic land), from taxing other classes of land, from the collection of a poll tax, called the salt tax, and from the collection of taxes on offices.47 Rights to collect taxes in an area were given out by bid to tax farmers (telänai), collected by tax collectors (logeuta©), and were paid into local branches of the royal bank which issued receipts for payment. These tax institutions were new, and were used as means of arbitrage between the natural economy and the new economy in coin. The Ptolemaic structure can appear very organized indeed, but it was not uniform across Egypt or throughout the period. Indeed much of the evidence for a centrally-directed, estatist economy comes from one third-century bce archive, the Zenon archive, and from two important documents, P. Rev. and P. Tebt. 703, both also dating to the third century bce. adm inistrative d irection: p. rev and p. t ebt. 703 P. Rev., dated to the reign of Ptolemy II Philadelphus (259 bce), has been the cornerstone for the central planning model of the “économie royale” since 44 45

46 47

Austin 1986. For theoretical considerations, see Tilley 1985. St Jerome, Commentary on the Book of Daniel, XI 7–8; Porphyry FGrHist 260 F 43. Cf. the Adulis inscription ( = OGIS 54) recorded by the traveler Cosmas Indicopleustes, discussed by WolskaConus 1968, vol. I: 364–86; Burstein 1985: 125–26. On the Syrian wars in general, see Heinz Heinen 1984. Both figures are suspect of course. See above, p. 135, n. 21. Cf. Austin 1986: 465. The salt tax, lik, dem. h.d h.m , is discussed by Vleeming 1994a with further bibliography. To this discussion, add Clarysse and Thompson 1995, Muhs 1996a; ibid. 1996b, Thompson 1997a. The origin of the terminology is obscure. It is first documented in 263 bce and, as Thompson 1997a: 245, n. 22 suggested, may have a Macedonian origin. Could it have originated as a tax to support salt production?

142

Interpretation

its editio princeps appeared in 1896, making it one of the earliest Ptolemaic administrative texts published.48 The best preserved section of the text deals with the production, the organization and the pricing of oil crops – sesame, castor, safflower among others (olive oil was not included in the regulations contained in P. Rev.).49 One of the important aspects of the central planning model has been the Ptolemaic monopoly of crucial products such as oil and linen. It used to be thought that the entire process, from seed loans to survey of the fields, to tax collection, the setting of the price of the raw material, and its delivery to state factories was controlled.50 The careful analysis by Bingen has shown, however, that the text is not in fact a systematic treatment of the collection of the royal revenues at all but, rather, a compendium of seven separate “laws” (nomoi) issued by Ptolemy II Philadelphus governing a range of topics concerned with royal revenue, from tax farming to the oil crops and other key industries. The connection between the principles in the text and the rural economy is far more tenuous, and the impact on the organization of the economy was far less than some earlier interpretations have suggested.51 The aim of the ećonomie royale, seen not only in P. Rev. but also in the so-called crop schedule discussed further below, and the tax farming system (see further below), was to maximize revenue while minimizing risk. It was not intended to increase production by central planning.52 Above all other concerns the Ptolemies were occupied with insulating themselves from the risks associated with agricultural production in Egypt. Many of the new institutions introduced by the Ptolemies were in fact methods of establishing principal-agent relationships set up to collect revenue while shifting risks to the producers and tax-farmers. P. Tebt. 703 is the other classic text of the Ptolemaic bureaucracy.53 It is dated to the early part of the reign of Ptolemy III Euergetes and is thought to 48

49 50 52 53

Grenfell & Mahaffy 1896. Cf. Samuel 1989: 53. The papyrus was reedited by Bingen 1952. For a discussion of the text see Préaux 1939: 65–69; Bingen 1978c. English translations of cols. 38–56 may be found in Select Papyri, vol. ii, text 203; and for cols. 1–60, the best-preserved portion of the text, see Bagnall & Derow 1981, text 95. Cols. 60–72 are a nome by nome listing of land under oil crop production, and the remainder of the text is fragmentary, dealing with banking and other monopolies. Other areas of concern in the text are the rules of tax farming, vineyards and orchard production and banking. 51 Bingen 1978c. See for example, the description in Rostovtzeff 1941: 302–05. On the revision of the system based on Bingen’s interpretations of P. Rev., see Turner 1984: 151–53. See Préaux 1939, passim. Additional commentary on the text may be found in Polácek 1970; Samuel 1971; Crawford 1978; Turner 1984: 147–52; 158.


143

contain a series of instructions from the dioik¯et¯es to an oikonomos.54 Its literary connections to earlier Egyptian instruction (of the Pharaoh establishing the proper code of conduct for officials and a sense of “justice” between the state and its subjects) should be taken seriously, and the mention of difficult times suggests that the text was an attempt to restore order after a period of civil unrest linked to a war and, perhaps, bad Nile flooding.55 The allusion to soldiers who have abandoned their duties reinforces this view. The long text covers many aspects of the royal economy from the maintenance of canals, to sowing, to the registration and care of cattle. The shipment of grain to the capital and the production of fruit trees are also given prominence. There is much overlap between P. Rev. and P. Tebt. 703 in terms of the duties required of the oikonomos. Both of these texts were compilations meant to inform local officials about the expected rules of procedure, not to impose them upon them.56 Such general written instructions were part of a wider use of circular letters in the administration of Egypt, and were probably part of an increased use of official documentation as well.57 While most Egyptians continued to be tenant farmers, many other individuals, including Egyptian priests and Greek immigrants who were not tied directly to the royal system, operated at the nexus between the state bureaucracy and revenue collection. And the administrative reality across much of Egypt appears to have been more fluid and less state-directed. Officials were appointed at first to a particular rank, and then to an area as and where needed. The system overall, though intended to be hierarchical, was fluid and flexible, and there may have been a tendency for local officials like the village scribe to become entrenched; at higher levels the flexibility of the system may have been an advantage for the ruler.58 At all levels of the bureaucracy, and in mixed families, ethnic status as a “hellene” and the use of Greek names was stressed, whereas on the local level, Egyptian names within family contexts and status titles which located individuals within temple communities remained important, a status which is clearly seen in the private contracts that were drawn up and adjudicated in these local 54

55 56 58

For the official involved, see above, Chapter two, p. 52, and Samuel 1971. On the dating of the text, see the discussion by Turner 1984: 158; Bagnall and Derow 1981: 134, who suggest a context at the end of the Third (246–41 bce) or Fourth (219–17 bce) Syrian War. The papyrus was taken from human mummy cartonnage found at Tebtunis (Umm al-Baragât) but the text derives from the Herakleopolite nome. Cf. Falivene 1998: 17–18. So Turner 1984: 158. Cf. the remarks of Bagnall and Derow 1981: 134; Welles 1949: 32–33 for some historic parallels to the instruction. 57 Thompson 1994b: 70. Cf. the remarks of Samuel 1989: 54. On the fluidity of the system, see Samuel 1966.

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Interpretation

temples. The family and other village-based social groupings remained the dominant pattern of social organization. The basis of the royal economy was the control of agricultural production. This was most direct on “royal land.”59 The ruler dictated the type of crops grown on this land and provided seed loans each year. The royal farmers, who normally held the land on long-term leases, were monitored by survey of their fields each year, and were held accountable for a fixed percentage of the annual production through the local village scribe. Like so much else in the Ptolemaic system, this was ancient practice.60 On top of this system, however, the Ptolemies introduced some basic organizing principles, as I discussed above, that were established in writing to help guide local officials as well as to maintain legal authority over the lease contracts.61 A particular effort was made to control the production and price of raw materials in key industries, among which were the manufacture of oil (for cooking and for lamps), linen, and beer. The control of these industries was managed through the use of tax farmers who guaranteed a fixed revenue to the state, and through the oikonomos and antigrapheus who were charged with keeping careful records of production. In addition, those involved in these industries who sold the finished products were granted licenses by the state, and workers were bonded by guarantors to remain in their place of work.62 Once again, however, the organization of the system was different than the practice. The tax farming system is one of the new institutions in the economy. It was a method of raising cash for the regime and was an efficient mechanism for the collection of fees that had been collected in the past by state agents. Under the system, local parties posted bids at auction and bonds at the local royal bank for the right to collect a specific tax for one year. These tax farmers were often members of the local priesthood. This last fact raises an interesting question about the origin of the tax farming system. It has usually been associated with the reforms of Ptolemy II Philadelphus, but a demotic papyrus from the early third century bce raises the possibility that the institution was in place earlier.63 The agreement concerns a funerary tax 59 60 61 62

63

On the extent of this class of land, see above, Chapter two, pp. 54–56. Cf. Mélèze-Modrzejewski 1979a. But see above, Chapter four, p. 108, discussing P. Lond. vii 1954 (257 bce). For some of these “performance bonds” in the context of royal monopolies written in demotic, see de Cenival 1973. Such texts are only attested from the third century and only from the Fayyum. The fact that they were written in demotic speaks to the importance of demotic in the early administration of the Ptolemaic period. On this point, see Thompson 1992. A complicated demotic text, P. Brit.Mus. i 10528 (Thebes, 291 bce). The interpretation turns on the equation of the demotic sh.n (a general term for an official) and logeutv, which was doubted by


145

collected by the local priesthood and perhaps payable to local state agents. The interaction between the Ptolemaic state and local temple institutions is a complicated one in the third century bce. Adding to the complicated picture must surely be a local component – the different traditions and relationships between temple priesthoods and property transactions. The bureaucratic system of exploitation was certainly not new with the Ptolemies, although as we have seen there were several new features of the economic system, and force was probably more systematically applied in rural areas than under previous regimes. This force came in a variety of forms. The founding of new Greek settlements was a key component of Ptolemaic policy. So too was the use of a large military and police force, support from the local elite where possible, and the establishment of a new layer of control to monitor the temples.64 This two-part approach, continuity as far as possible and coercion where necessary, may have been in theory, as North has argued, an “efficient arrangement for its day,” since a thorough restructuring of the state would have required prohibitively expensive enforcement costs.65 Nevertheless, the nature of the Ptolemaic state, with old institutions functioning underneath new ones in some areas, a large military and police force, and several layers of administrative control supervising a complex land tenure regime, suggests that Ptolemaic control of Egypt came at a heavy cost. The economic organization remained largely local since production was a matter of local conditions of water and soil, and much of the surplus was probably consumed by the local bureaucracy. The new taxation methods, perhaps introduced by Ptolemy I Soter, relied on the responsibility of local officials, and the guarantee of local tax farmers. As P. Tebt. 703 shows, the king’s main concern enforced by his agent the dioikêtês, was the shipment of grain to the royal granary at Alexandria in the right amount and at the right time.66 The bureaucracy itself was sustained by local revenue-collecting. From the archive of Menches in the Fayyum, for example, we learn that during the annual survey of the fields, a “contribution to the office of village scribe” was collected. This tax seems to have paid for the food and provisions (including baths, barber’s services and writing material!) for the scribe and the other officials involved in the survey as they made their annual inspection around the village lands.67 This basic economic requirement of the royal 64 65 67

Peremans and Van ’t-Dack 1953: 95–104 but accepted by Clarysse 1995: 9. The text is also discussed briefly by Vleeming 1994a: 115; Depauw 2000: 70–74. On the rural police force, see Thompson 1997b. In the Fayyum, Thompson concluded, the various police and guards comprised 2–3% of the adult population. 66 P. Tebt. 703, 80–85. North 1981: 30. P. Tebt. 112. See the analysis by Verhoogt 1997: 134–35.

146

Interpretation

revenue was a continuation of an on-going tributary mode of production, while the new political institutions, and the formation of a rational bureaucratic structure, lagged behind these fiscal exigencies. In the final analysis, though, the Ptolemaic administrative system changed Egyptian culture and introduced long-lasting structural changes in the economy. In order to gain a sense of this change, we must turn to what we know of pre-Ptolemaic times. the survey and registration of l and The survey and registration of land was a “constraint” by the state upon local land tenure regimes and agricultural production.68 The survey established the state’s authority over land as well as private interests in that land. But this authority, and therefore the economic power of the state, rested on the knowledge of local officials who performed and recorded the land survey. The institution of land surveying is perhaps the oldest state institution in Egypt, and centralized knowledge of the exact extent of each nome, measured by its length along the Nile – in essence a theological statement of the political control of the Nile – can be traced back to an important Middle Kingdom (Twelfth Dynasty, ca. 1991–1783 bce) monument.69 Knowledge of land measurements was part of Egyptian theology, reserved for the ancient god of wisdom, Thoth. That relationship between centralized knowledge and theology is also seen in a Ptolemaic text from the Edfu temple that records the total amount of land in Egypt.70 During the Middle Kingdom, land survey was in charge of officials and scribes attached to the local bureaucracy. It may have worked differently in the Theban region – we have no knowledge. From account books of the Middle Kingdom, we learn that a special scribe, the “scribe of the cadastre, keeper of regulations,” supervised by the “chief of fields,” recorded the local land survey.71 The Ramesside (ca. 1292–1075 bce) administration of Egypt 68 69 70 71

On the “constraint” of land survey, see Brown 1988, treating Tokugawa Japan. For this so-called “White Chapel” of Sesostris I, see the literature cited in n. 87. Edfou vi, 199–201. “Scribe of the mat, keeper of regulations,” sh n tm ıry hp, P. Harageh 3, 17 (late Dynasty 12). On the scribal office, see Haring 2000. The “overseer of the fields” (ımy–r h.wt ) and the “scribe of the mat” were accompanied in their inspection by two “scribe(s) of fields” (sh h.wt ), a commissioner ˇ nwh.) and a “stretcher of the cord” (dwn nwh.). The last two (wpwty ), a “holder of the cord” (ssp functionaries are well known from depictions in New Kingdom Theban tombs (e.g. TT 75, 86, PM i, part 1, 147, 175). The papyrus is in fact part of a journal of the overseer of the fields accounting for his activities in the fields over several days. The whole operation may have been coordinated


147

was also very well organized, and several papyri from the later part of this period (P. Wilbour being the most important)72 reveal the operations of the local land survey in great detail. Those responsible were in the civil administration, but the large estate of Amun in the south may have been wholly responsible for their lands directly.73 The temples were the administrative centers and housed the educated scribes who could record the survey results and keep them in the “bureau of writing.”74 Temple land that was leased out by the temple was surveyed by temple scribes. In some Saite demotic leases of land within the temple estate of Amun, the “scribes of Amun” were mentioned as those in charge of this survey and protected the interest in the harvest tax that the temple had a right to collect on its domain land.75 The annual flood of the Nile made annual inspection of fields necessary because the floodwaters, along with the nutrient-rich silt spread onto the fields, changed the amount of cultivable land each year. Boundaries had to be reconfirmed and the plots of land re-measured. Cadastral survey, which resulted in land registers that recorded the size and location of each plot of land in an area, was probably not done on an annual or even a regular basis but only when major changes had occurred.76 Land measurement (gewmetr©a), however, was annual, and properly done twice per year, once to measure the extent of the cultivation and a second time to measure the standing crop for the purposes of estimating the production and therefore the level of taxation. There is no reason to think that the Ptolemies actually changed the process of survey – the administrative organization and the technique had been practiced for millennia – but we are largely ignorant of Persian practice, and the Ptolemaic survey may have imposed a more regularized state “constraint” on the land than had been in place under the Persians. The problem for the Ptolemaic state, as it was for other states, was to obtain accurate information each year on the local agricultural production. This, once again, required both accuracy and loyalty on the part of the

72 73 74 75

76

at the state level by the vizier, as in the New Kingdom. On tm as “cadaster,” see Van den Boorn 1988: 157–60; Warburton 1997: 179. See Smither 1941 and Quirke 1990: 174–76 for this fascinating if fragmentary text. Katary 1999; Menu 1970; Gardiner 1941–1948. See Vleeming 1993: 75, discussing P. Reinhardt from the tenth century bce. Such an office is mentioned in the Edfu donation text as the place where the records of the temple land were kept. P. Louvre 7845 A (Thebes, 554 bce; Hughes 1952, text 3), 8. See the comments by Hughes 1952: 40–41. The clause of measurement by the temple scribes occurs also in P. Louvre 7833 A (Thebes, 534 bce; Hughes 1952, text 5); and P. Louvre 7833 B (Thebes, 534 bce; Hughes 1952, text 6). Vleeming 1993: 74. The Edfu donation text discussed above in Chapter three also supports this idea. Cf. Brown 1988 on Tokugawa Japan.

148

Interpretation

village scribe and his assistants in charge of land survey and registration. The survey of standing crops and the fixing of rents, of course, give the impression of accurate measurement and recording, but there are many examples of figures being carried over from old records, and land being misclassified.77 The loyalty of the village scribe, the very backbone of internal revenues, could not always be relied upon either. One well-known instance of the disloyalty of several village scribes in the Fayyum is noted in 118/7 bce, the period just after the civil war between Ptolemy VIII and his sisters.78 The division between loyal and disloyal royal scribes, and the rent-seeking behavior of local officials, some of whom, it is reported, function in office without official approval, perform duties not specified in these offices, and transfer offices to children, clearly shows the problem inherent in the relationship between central and local power, and once again reminds us of the importance of the contract between ruler and elite in the neo-classical model of the state.79 As always, our knowledge of the administrative organization and the duties of the village scribe are better known from the Fayyum than from the Thebaid, but it is from Thebes itself that a document has come to light that reflects an important, and ancient, element of administration of land, the ideological power behind the land survey. the karnak ostracon A demotic text of the greatest interest for the Ptolemaic administration of the land in the Thebaid was found in excavations in the Karnak temple precinct. The text is dated to year 28, Thoth80 of Ptolemy II Philadelphus (258 bce), one year after P. Rev., and records a royal order, translated from Greek, to survey the entirety of Egypt:81 specifying field by field, their irrigation possibilities, their location, their quality, their arable portions, their relation to the property of the protector gods, their (common) borders with the fields of the benefices themselves and of the royal fields, specifying area by area, the size of the parcels and vineyards, noting when the fields of the area are dry – likewise the pastures and the water channels, the

78 79 80 81

Crawford 1971: 20–23; Verhoogt 1997: 132, n. 121; cf. Verhoogt 1997: 184. See above, Chapter two, p. 46. For the royal scribes’ strike, see the nice summary in Verhoogt 1997: 149–61. See above, Chapter one, p. 10. Cf. Verhoogt 1997: 155, n. 44. The first month of h .t season, i.e. the first month of the Egyptian calendar, November 258 bce. The demotic text terms it ıp Kmy , “counting/reckoning of Egypt.”

77


149

fields that are free and vacant, the high fields and the fields that are (artificially) irrigated, their basins, and the embankments that are ploughed and cultivated, specifying orchard by orchard the trees with their fruits, the gardens, their high fields and the low parcels, their footpaths, the list of leased parcels . . .82

Such an order emanated from the king himself, probably originally in the form of a prostagma, and was sent down the chain of the bureaucracy, and translated into demotic so that local priesthoods (or agents of the state) as well as farmers could be informed about what was expected by the Ptolemaic authorities who were responsible for generating a budget for the king.83 This suggests that the orders were intended to go through the temple bureaucracy, not through a separate bureaucracy, a good indication that the temple structure was utilized by the early Ptolemies for such administrative purposes. The order also clearly shows that information on tenure and water conditions flowed from the villages up to the capital and not the reverse.84 This is in any case the theory, and the text at hand is good evidence that the order penetrated deep into the Egyptian countryside to at least the powerful priesthood of the temple of Amun at Karnak. The text is unique and therefore we cannot be sure if it records an annual event or something else. Several commentators on the text have suggested that the ostracon, given its date, was an attempt by Ptolemy II Philadelphus to survey the entire country as a means of financing the military campaigns of the Second Syrian War (260–253 bce?).85 It appears to cover all land, but some of the language is obscure. The census was supposed to occur “field by field,” but the order goes on to say “in relation to the property of the protector gods, their borders with the fields of the benefices themselves and of the royal fields.” The language at least opens the possibility that temple and royal land were excluded from the survey. Perhaps royal and temple land were already surveyed, and this order may have intended other classes of land to be more thoroughly surveyed, for taxation purposes or perhaps for new kleruchic settlements. 82

83 85

The official designation of the text is O. dem. L.S. 462.4. The order is a demotic translation of an original Greek text written on an ostracon and has become known conventionally as the Karnak ostracon, after the location of its find in the “priestly quarter” east of the sacred lake in the temple precinct of the temple of Amun of Karnak on the east bank at Thebes. It is widely accepted to be a translation from a Greek original. On the findspot, see the map provided by Vandorpe 1995a: 217, labeled area “C.” For the text, see the preliminary study by Bresciani 1978; it was more fully treated by the same author in 1983, with modifications of the readings by Zauzich 1984. An English translation from the original Italian translation of Bresciani is given by Burstein 1985: 122–23. 84 Cf. Samuel 1989: 56. Quaegebeur 1979a: 720. Turner 1984: 135–36. On the war, see Huß 2001: 281–87.

150

Interpretation

But the text may be evidence of a more general aim to establish uniform control over the countryside. In this way the ostracon is another example of a common phenomenon of new regimes reestablishing land surveying and land regulations for the purposes of taxation and control of their hinterlands.86 Here we are at the mercy of poor evidence from the Persian period on what happened with land administration then. If the Karnak text reflects a more general survey, it is well within an ancient tradition dating back to the Middle Kingdom of expressing an idealized, well-ordered rural landscape.87 In a world where knowledge was equated with power, the king traditionally asserted control over Egypt by showing a knowledge of the country, top to bottom. The ostracon, written just after P. Rev., may also reflect an attempt to establish political control of Egypt. A survey of the entire country would have been crucial for the kings to be able to estimate taxes on production and manufacturing. The order to survey included not only agricultural land under production, but also levees, the quality of the land, water sources, the size of the plots, leased land and farming equipment, priestly incomes and “the total expenditure for the welfare of Egypt.” The information was compiled by “scribes and district officials” and presumably sent down to Alexandria to the dioik¯et¯es (?) Phoenix.88 The basis of the Ptolemaic taxation of the land was the annual inspection of the fields conducted by the village scribes. Each village scribe was in charge of the local record office (grafe±on) in which were kept the registers of land. The survey of the agricultural production in each village probably began with a meeting of village scribes in the nome capital at the record office.89 Another meeting was held a month later to discuss the results of the survey itself. Again, although this seems to have been the expected practice, the degree to which it was followed in all 86

87 88

89

For early modern Japan, see Lu 1974, text 12, an order of Toyotami Hideyoshi (in power 1582–1598 ce), dated 1588 ce, to establish a cadastral survey of land “to be strictly obeyed in the more than sixty provinces of this country,” thus projecting his political will over local lords and ending a century of civil war. On the historical background, see Osamu 1991; Totman 1993: 44–49. In European history, the Domesday Book (1086 ce) of William the Conqueror is only the most famous example. See e.g. the so-called “White Chapel,” or festival pavilion, of Sesostris I at Karnak published by Lacau and Chevrier 1956; and further discussion in Kees 1958, Schlott-Schwab 1981. The text has in line 4: n sh .w n y f rt.w n n mh. .w “the scribes and his agents of the mh. .w.” On this last phrase, thought to mean a taxing district, see Bresciani 1983: 23. The demotic word mh. appears to be related to the verb “to fill, complete” with an extended meaning “to pay, satisfy.” For the dioikêtês in this year, see the note by Bresciani 1983: 20, who argued that Phoenix (PP 1, 51) filled in for Apollonios on account of absence or illness. The survey is termed ¡ kat fÅllon gewmetr©a. Most of the evidence for the survey comes from the Fayyum. For prior discussions of this evidence, see Crawford 1971: 5–38; Cuvigny 1985. On the annual meeting, see Verhoogt 1997: 99–101. //


151

places throughout the Ptolemaic period is uncertain. The boundary descriptions in demotic land conveyances that specify neighboring plots at the four cardinal points also suggest that local registers were kept.90 In some cases, however, the scribes who write the conveyance documents record holders of land that were decades out of date.91 Specific year dates mentioned in the Edfu donation text suggest that at least some of the “island” land in the Edfu nome was more often surveyed because of frequent fluctuation in its amount.92 In any case, the survey operations probably varied by location. At Edfu, for example, at the far south of the nome where the cultivation became very narrow, only measurements along the river, that is local north-south, are specified in one land measurement document.93 The key to the process, from the point of view of the central state and tax revenue, was the village scribe, on whose shoulders much depended. The Menches archive is the best evidence for the day to day operations of the village scribe, and relying on one village scribe probably will not tell us much about the entire period in every place or about the accuracy of the operation each year. Just as in Tokugawa Japan, the existence of an accurate survey of land as a means of asserting political control and as a major source of economic power was a crucial element of the Ptolemaic system. But in both cases, the appearance of accurate measurement of the land was something altogether different than the reality.94 The following example will give the reader an idea of the basic layout and content of a typical land survey: Adjacent on the south, Horos son of Harchypsis, 16 arourai. Adjacent on the south, Theon son of Polykrates, 8. Adjacent on the south, Didymos son of Antikrates, 13 at 4 11/12 (artabas of grain). Adjacent on the south, Alexandros son of Herakleides, 6 at 4 11/12 (artabas of grain) . . . P. Tebt. 1116 (134/2 bce?)95 90 91 93

94

95

For boundary descriptions in land conveyances, see below, pp. 154–55. 92 Meeks 1972: 124, n. 263. See the comments by Pestman 1987a: 280, n. 25. The text, P. dem. Heidelberg 1289 (second century bce), is very difficult to read and its interpretation is not easy to grasp. It was published by Spiegelberg 1920: 57 and plate; and discussed by Herbert Thompson 1925. On this text, see the most recent discussion by Schlott-Schwab 1981: 156–59; Graefe 1973: 75. The text gives four measurements along the Nile facing east and west, i.e. from south to north. The mention of “the Edfu nome” (dem. p tsˇ Db ) in line 11 suggest that its context was Edfu and it is presumed that no east-west measures were needed since plots of land were relatively constant, and uniform, particularly in the southern part of the Edfu nome. For the Ptolemaic land survey, see Crawford 1971: 5–38; Cuvigny 1985. The types of mistakes, carrying over of false information from year to year, faulty arithmetic and inconsistencies, are listed by Crawford 1971: 20–24. For Tokugawa and early Meiji Japan land survey practices and the inaccuracies caused, see Brown 1987. Trans. Keenan and Shelton 1976: 138.

152

Interpretation

In most cases, the relative position of the plot of land, its size and its tax rate is given. Unlike the Japanese situation, however, the Ptolemaic survey did attempt to measure the precise size of each plot of land, and did not simply make an estimate of village tax liability. Yet where we can follow the process from survey to entry into land registers (again we must rely on the Menches archive from late second-century bce Fayyum), figures appear sometimes to have been carried over from year to year.96 How extensive this practice was is impossible to say. Sources confirm that several officials were involved in the process; a comparable number were involved in land surveys from medieval Japan.97 The annual survey process brought together the three important levels of the Ptolemaic bureaucracy, the village, the district and the nome. The persons involved were the various levels of scribes or their representatives, armed guards, and of course, the actual measurers of the fields. These officials went from village to village. The use of a small group of trained men would have resulted, at least in theory, in uniformity in the measuring of fields across a wide area. Survey of the land of course established boundaries between individual plots of land as well as between villages and the annual inspection of the fields served to provide an estimate of tax revenue from each village. The survey was done just after the Nile flood, in September in the Fayyum, presumably a little earlier in Upper Egypt. The Ptolemaic practice of surveying fields certainly derives from ancient Egyptian practice since the existence of regular Greek survey of land is unknown. Local custom was maintained and the documents preserve the different practices in Fayyum villages.98 Whether or not the Ptolemies devised a “flurkarte” schematic composite picture of the agricultural land based on a cadastral survey, the evidence from the Edfu temple giving the total area of Egypt suggests that a fairly exact knowledge of the total amount 96

97

98

See e.g. P. Tebt. 73, which preserves falsified information carried over for several years without notice, and the remarks of Crawford 1971: 21. From a letter addressed to the lesonis of the Khnum temple in Elephantine on behalf of the Thebarch, we learn that the temple was ordered to pay, “without one hour’s delay,” the tax (on emmer) before the survey had taken place according to the “receipt of measuring” issued in the previous year, with the expected additional amount to be paid at the time of actual survey. See P. Berlin 15522 (216 or 199 bce) published by Zauzich 1978, with additional comments by Martin 1996, text C 12. Verhoogt 1997: 136–39. The presence of armed escorts (rcimcimov, mcimov) suggests that surveying was not always well received in the villages. Coercive force in tax collection was always present in ancient Egypt. See for example Caminos 1954: 315–17. In Japan, the surveying crews averaged between ten and thirty men according to Brown 1987: 124. The surveyors used a combination of measuring ropes and rods as well as an instrument used to square plumb lines. A fascinating illustration of Japanese land survey in progress is provided by Brown on p. 127. Crawford 1971: 9, n. 2. The essential uniformity of Ptolemaic land classification and its fiscality (at least at the end of the second century bce) does, however, appear to be confirmed by P. Haun. inv. 407 (Edfu, 119/118 bce).


153

of arable land (or better, the potential arable) was known by the kings as well as the priests.99 The ability of the Egyptian state to have such precise knowledge is impressive, although it is interesting that no similar figures for the Ptolemaic population exist. For the Ptolemaic period, such figures, if they existed, would have been compiled in Alexandria from the nome figures. There were two basic forms of documents generated from land survey operations, the topographical survey and the survey by land holder and crop type.100 Closely linked with the annual inspection of the fields was the compilation of the crop report, the diagraf toÓ sp»rou, called in demotic the “labor plan,” which specified in each village the amount of land available and the type of crop to be grown.101 This report was probably not limited to royal land, and not only determined the amount needed for seed loans for the coming agricultural year but also provided information on the potential yield. The crop report was compiled by the village scribe at the completion of the second survey of the fields, known as the “survey of agricultural production”, ¡ kat fÅllon gewmetr©a, done in February/March, but this time the survey focused on land under cultivation.102 It was the responsibility of the nome official known as the oikonomos to make sure that the survey of sown land was carefully done, as the epigraph to this Chapter stressed, and as the following remarks from the same text also illustrate: When the sowing has been completed it would be no bad thing if you were to make a careful round of inspection; for thus you will get an accurate view of the sprouting of the crops and will easily notice the lands which are badly sown or are not sown at all, and you will thus know those who have neglected their duty and will become aware [if any] have used the seed for other purposes.103

After this survey of the fields, receipts were issued, at least in Upper Egypt where they are documented, stating the name of the holder of the plot and the size of the plot actually under cultivation that year.104 The centralization

103 104

102

//

//

//

100 101

On the possibility of a cadastral map used for tax purposes by the Ptolemies, see Crawford 1971: 14. For the Edfu text, which posits a total area of Egypt of 27 million arouras and a total arable of nine million arouras, see above, p. 146. Discussed by Crawford 1971: 9–19. On the crop schedule see Vidal-Naquet 1967; Crawford 1971: 25–28; Cuvigny 1985. For the demotic, sh.n sq , see P. Lille dem. 118 (Fayyum, 217 bce) published by de Cenival 1985. See Verhoogt 1997: 133–36 for the details. P. Tebt. 703, 49–57, Trans. Bagnall and Derow: 1981: 134–35. These texts are called by demotic scholars r–rh w or “land allotment” texts, after the opening formula of the receipts r–rh w r NN st x “what was measured to NN, x amount of land.” The opening phrase should probably be understood as a relative sdm f form of the verb rh, “to measure,”

99

154

Interpretation

of information was directed by an annual meeting in the nome capital of the important officials involved in land management – the basilikos grammateus and local officials such as the village scribes.105 The dioik¯et¯es was apparently present. How widespread this practice was we cannot say, but the Menches evidence is certainly not unique. Scholars who developed the planned economy model, mainly under the influence of Rostovtzeff and P. Rev., considered the crop report as important evidence that the central state sent orders out from the capital on the type and amount of crop to be grown in each area. But in fact the process worked in the opposite direction. The reports were compiled by local scribes and vetted at the nome level before being sent down to the capital in order to estimate the tax revenue for the coming year.106 It is true that the dioik¯et¯es in Alexandria was involved in the process in establishing general guidelines, but the issuance of the crop reports was entirely a local matter, and the institution itself is another example of the decentralized rather than the centralized nature of the Ptolemaic bureaucracy.107 We can only assume that a similar survey and reports compiled by village scribes took place in Upper Egypt, though there are no documents for the practice there. The state benefited in tax revenue, whether intentionally or not, from the formula used to calculate the area of a plot. The formula assumed right angles at all four corners. If a plot was not perfectly square, the formula would overestimate the area of the plot and thus would overtax land.108 Plots were indeed often irregular in shape, as can be readily seen in the demotic land-measurement ostraca.109 The annual survey of fields served two purposes, to establish the relative and the fixed boundaries of each plot of land. The names of the neighbors of each plot, or a distinguishing feature in the landscape, were given in the four cardinal directions, south, north, east, and west of each holder.

105 106

107

108

109

Coptic , with an understood “the land,” vel. sim., as antecedent. For the literature on these texts, see Depauw 1997: 132; Vandorpe 2000a. The standard theory is that the texts in fact are receipts for the compulsory farming of land, but I accept the compelling arguments of Vandorpe that these texts are receipts of land measurement used as the basis of the harvest tax. Verhoogt 1997: 146. See the remarks of Turner 1984: 149. Vidal-Naquet 1967 argued that the crop report was a stateimposed schedule that was compiled by local officials, sent on to the capital for revision and approval, and then sent back to the villages for implementation. The crucial text for the involvement of the dioik¯et¯es in the crop report is P. Yale 36 (inv. 1647; early second century bce), republished by Evans 1987. The principal concern of the state was in the twoway flow of information in the interest of maximization of its revenue, not in agricultural planning. Crawford 1971: 12. Much of the land in the Nile valley was divided into long, narrow plots from the river to the desert edge, but there were plenty of exceptions. For the irregular shape of some surveyed plots in Upper Egypt from a tenth-century bce survey, see Gasse 1988: 188. For some land measurement ostraca and the formula, see Nur el-Din 1974: 67–69.


155

At the four corners of each plot a boundary stela may have been placed to fix the total surveyed amount of land to make it easier each year for the surveyors to come in and do their job. These round-top stelae were sacred and surveyors swore oaths not to have violated them.110 Later stelae recording private donations of land, it appears, were sometimes placed in the field and used as boundary markers.111 But however commonplace these boundary markers may have been, they are rarely mentioned in the papyri (very common things are rarely documented in the papyri of course). One such mention occurs in a demotic cession of land: I am far from you with respect to your land which measures 11 85 arouras of land – 11 – measuring 11 85 of land still, and their surplus to the measurement, that is, 11 32 which are in the temple estate of Amun Pestenemenophis in the section of the west of Thebes in the nome of Pathyris, whose south is the land of Ammonios son of Kalikrates and the land of Horus son of Petekhonsis; north: the land of Psenminis son of Philolaos; east: the village which is called the Migdol, and the land of Philon son of Antipatros, which is held by Theodorus, his brother, while the path is between them; west: my other land, which measures three arouras of land and their surplus to the measurement, while the boundary stelae are between them.112

The text, like all other sale and cessions of land, carefully records the boundaries of the plot on the four sides. An important example of the reach of the Ptolemaic state is provided by the case of the woman Senpoeris.113 The incident and its resolution show the interaction of regional and local officials, the local bank and the ancient system of local land registration (see Table 7). The case on its surface certainly implies strong state control, and it tallies with the details of the Karnak ostracon in suggesting a precise accounting of the agricultural land throughout Egypt no matter how small the plot. But the details of 110 111 112

113

See the depiction in James 1979, pl. 3 (BM 37982 Dynasty 18). Leahy 1982–83: 85, n. 14. P. Brit. Mus. iv 26, 20–23 (Pathyrite nome, 210 bce), 2. For an example from the Middle Kingdom of a boundary stela marking off a private estate, although probably not intended to stand in a field, see Fischer 1980; Parkinson 1999: 162 (S. BM 59205, Middle Kingdom, provenance unknown). The so-called donation stelae also functioned, at least occasionally, as boundary markers. See Meeks 1979: 609, n. 12. P. Amherst gr. 49 ( = P. Survey 56; W. Chrest. 161; Select Papyri vol. ii, 367, formerly known as P. Amherst 2, 31 [Thebes west bank, 26 December 112 bce]). The text is composed of several sections: the first four lines are a receipt by the royal bank at Armant (Gr. Hermonthis), then comes a report or diagraph¯e by the Ptolemaic official giving the background of the case, and authorizing the bank to accept the money followed by the subscription of the Ptolemaic officials who attested to the facts in the case and to the payment of the fine and the tax. See further the comments of Swarney 1970: 14–18a.

156

Interpretation Table 7. Ptolemaic officials involved in the Senpoeris affair

Regional official ¾ pª tän pros»dwn

Local official

Village official

basilik¼v grammateÅv topogrammateÅv trapez©thv

komwgrammateÅv

the case are suggestive of other interpretations. The fact that the case was referred to the official by someone, perhaps a neighbor of the woman, may reflect an ad hoc rather than a systematic knowledge of local conditions.114 Had the event not been reported, the matter might never have come to the attention of the official. In terms of the administrative structure, the documentary evidence suggests an evolution in the control of the Thebaid. We must be cautious here, since there is little evidence for administrative practice until the last third of the third century bce. Be that as it may, we can be certain that administrative control of the Thebaid grew stronger over time. At first, the Thebaid was administered as a region from the new southern capital Ptolemais. Each district had an epistat¯es, and there is some evidence to suggest that temples were used as administrative centers.115 But over time, state granaries replaced the temples as grain payment centers, auctions of land established control over derelict land, and more garrisons were settled on the land in the wake of the terrible rural unrest during the Theban revolt of 207–186 bce (discussed later in this Chapter). Finally, by the first century bce, strat¯egoi were established in the nomes.116 constraints on economic power Despite these long-lasting developments, the Ptolemies faced opposition on several levels in ways that limited their economic power.117 This opposition, of course, arose not from any legal or otherwise constitutional check on state power but, rather, from the organizational structure of the state itself. The instability resulting from rural and urban unrest is the most obvious sign of opposition. The Egyptian state had for a long time conceded power to local agents to collect revenue.118 The ability of local agents to act on their 114 115 117

Interestingly, one of the woman’s neighbors was an empty plot belonging to a “guard house” (per©stasiv toÓ frour©ou). 116 Cf. Vandorpe 2000a: 172–73. See above, Chapter three, pp. 83–85 on the Milon archive. 118 Cf. Eyre 1999: 45. Cf. the remarks of Rostovtzeff 1941: 272.


157

own behalf,119 competition among rent-seeking immigrants, and the cost of maintaining the bureaucracy, all formed serious threats to Ptolemaic power. The royal system, driven by the need to fund the bureaucracy, to supply Alexandria, and to enforce compliance of local agents, had high costs that had to be met through taxation. While there is little direct evidence for the regular payment of salary to officials, it is generally assumed that they were paid in salary and in grain allowance, and surviving payment orders support this.120 As we have already seen, figures in land registers were not always accurate, and the flow of information through the bureaucracy was an impediment to the state’s economic power. In one case, an order for the payment of sailors on a grain ship in Upper Egypt, issued on 10 January 108 bce, was not executed until 1 June 108 bce.121 Another problem of running the bureaucracy by issuing circular letters was caused by misinterpretation of orders coming from the capital.122 The gap between orders and execution, then, between the ideological displays of royal power and the realities of maintaining order and stability, occasionally caused ruptures in the social fabric that led to open conflict within the ruling family as well as to rural unrest.

state c l aim to l and There were three main groups historically associated with holding land in Egypt – the pharaoh himself and those who farmed royal land, the military, and the priests. Almost every discussion of land tenure in ancient Egypt and in the Ptolemaic period begins with the assertion that “all land belongs to Pharaoh.”123 The Ptolemaic “nationalization” of the land that was suggested by Rostovtzeff is only true in the sense that over the long term, the 119 120

121

122 123

P. Amh. 44 ( = C. Ord. Ptol. 23, Fayyum, 259 bce). Préaux 1939: 43–47; Turner 1984, 147. E.g. P. Eleph. 28 (223 bce, Edfu; = Bagnall and Derow 1981: 167), an order for payment in cash to royal elephant hunters. Salaries, however, were often not paid on time. See the following note. Payments for a royal scribe are set out in P. Lille i.3, 40ff. P. Grenf. i i 23 ( = W. Chrest. 159). The text is cited and discussed by Thompson 1983. On time delays in communication, see P. Tebt. 27 (b), 93 and Verhoogt 1997: 88, and 105 n. 155, where the average length of time for letters from Alexandria to arrive at Philadelphia, the site in the northeast Fayyum of the estate of Apollonius the finance minister of Ptolemy II, is estimated to have been twenty-two days. Cf. the implications discussed by Mann 1986: 112. For Upper Egypt, one may note here that the formula in demotic contracts that left unnamed the eponymous priests in the dating protocol is another indication of the delay in obtaining information from Alexandria. Such was the case in the famous circular of the dioik¯et¯es Herodes preserved in P. Par. 63 ( = UPZ i 110). On this text, see further below, p. 159. E.g. Hughes 1952: 1. Wolff 1998: 23: “Der König war sozusagen Eigentümer des Landes.”

158

Interpretation

administration of land appears to have been successfully coordinated by the state for much, but not all, of the Ptolemaic period.124 Whether one examines a Greek administrative text or a private sale will determine how literally one views this theory. The king controlled royal land directly by leasing it to “royal farmers.”125 Other land was conceded to others – to temples, to soldiers, and to state officials at various levels of the bureaucratic hierarchy. The ancient ideology of controlling all resources found support by some scholars in the phrase “spear-won land” (Gr. dor©kthtov) that entitled the Ptolemies to absolute power over all forms of property and all natural resources.126 But such a notion was seriously limited in practice, and the phrase in its proper context meant only that the first Ptolemy had legitimate claim to Egypt as against any of the other successors of Alexander.127 Nowhere in an ancient text is such an assumption about state control of the factors of production stated, and the king did not have the power to seize occupied land and reassign it to others. Shaw’s description of the period as one of the “greatest take-overs in antiquity” was but a change in dynasty; it did not involve the wholesale seizure of land for the benefit of the new Greek population.128 That is not to say that an Egyptian pharaoh did not lay a claim to Egypt; being a divine ruler meant that, especially during the height of state power in the later New Kingdom, the pharaoh did assert a theological right to govern, and by extension to control, all of Egypt, and beyond in some cases. But strong, centralized control of land was neither possible nor desired, nor was it supported by a concept of eminent domain.129 Rather, what the king was asserting in such claims was the right to rule, to govern Egypt as a whole. The idea of absolute royal control that was developed by Wittfogel in his thesis of “oriental despotism” has now been discredited. Instead, the position of modern scholarship on this question tends to restate the pharaonic position – namely, that the king is all-powerful. This is certainly the message most pharaohs, with varying degrees of success, wished to convey. Stories of the ruler (Königsnovelle) that described the power and ingenuity of pharaoh, or texts of royal power inscribed on temple walls, are about projections of power for public consumption and not statements of legal claim. Here is an important case in which the ideology of royal power must be made distinct from real political and economic power. 124 126 127 128

125 See above, Chapter two, pp. 54–56. Rostovtzeff 1941, 267–72. Rostovtzeff 1941: 267. See Davies 1984: 296–97. On the phrase “spear-won land,” see the important remarks of Turner 1984: 122, n. 5. 129 See the important remarks by M´ Shaw 1992a: 281. elèze-Modrzejewski 1979b.


159

Coercive force was at least contemplated on occasion, but there is little evidence that farmers were forced to farm land against their will. One such famous example apparently occurred in 165 bce. Set against the disturbances of the invasion of Antiochos IV Epiphanes and the revolt of Dionysios Petoserapis, a royal decree was issued regarding the cultivation of land.130 The social disruption caused by the invasion, and the subsequent abandonment of land reduced the amount of land under cultivation. An order was published in Greek and demotic and posted in villages to get royal land under cultivation. The rhetoric of the order and its moral tone, not to mention its verbosity, place the text in the realm of the scholarly treatise on administrative practice. The text was preserved as a model, although a surviving copy of the order gives the impression that the attempt at getting land back into cultivation was real.131 The order affected only royal land, the land directly controlled by the king, but it does show that the king, at least in times of emergency, dictated the terms of lease on this class of land. The manner in which the king obtained tenants on royal land remains as much a mystery for the Ptolemaic as it does for the Roman period, and it is not clear what the difference was between the “freedom” of normal leasing of land by contract, misth¯osis, and the attempt in this circular letter of Herodes (dated one year after the original royal order of getting land under cultivation was issued) to compel the farming of royal land. Both the regular leasing of royal land, and the leasing suggested in the order, involved contractual constraints imposed by the king on the farmer, and in the case of this letter, the issue was rather more to do with the predatory local officials who had misunderstood the intent of the original royal order. As the dioik¯et¯es Herodes was forced to point out, the leasing of royal land should have been imposed, at reduced rent, on those who were able to farm the land but were not doing so. Here once again we see disloyalty of local elites (in the aftermath of serious unrest); the tone here of compelling farmers to lease royal land on terms established by the king, with an incentive to do so (reduced rent), reflects the rhetoric of the center. It is true, in the longer run into the Roman period and beyond, that new ties between labor and the land were established, which included village liability for taxes, and labor attached to large estates, but these long-term changes were brought about by important shifts in power relationships in the countryside, for which the constraint of Greek contract-making, even if “perverted” with brutal 130 131

P. Paris 63 ( = UPZ i 110). See Mélèze-Modrzejewski 1994: 7, n. 26 for literature on this text, and further below, p. 171. For the invasion and revolt, see below, p. 169. On the use of model letters, see the remarks of Crawford 1978. The surviving copy is PUG i i i 92 ( = SB 16 12821). See further the comments by Mélèze-Modrzejewski 1994.

160

Interpretation

consequences for those not complying, provides only a partial answer.132 Examples from the Tebtunis papyri have been interpreted by some scholars as proof that compulsory tilling of land was a standard practice on temple land and on royal land, but careful consideration of the passages in context has dismissed this idea, and there are no examples from this material which show that coercive force was a feature of land tenure under the Ptolemies.133 The Ptolemaic kings probably did retain a theoretical claim to much of the land, and could assign it or reassign it as demands dictated. But this claim to the land rested not on a right to possess or administer the land but to collect taxes, and in some cases to collect rent on the land. In practice, such assignments more readily occurred in the Fayyum, but in the long run kleruchic land could be assigned in places such as Edfu as well.134 While the king may have been able theoretically to reassign land at will, there was little practical gain in doing so, and farmers’ tenure of the land was probably stable. The third century bce, the first century of Ptolemaic hegemony, was a time of agricultural experimentation and change. By mid century, the major land reclamation project was underway, large gift estates were in operation, new crops were introduced, and the harvest tax was documented by tax receipts from the Thebaid. By the last quarter of the third century bce, a new institution used to assign tenure rights to land had been established. the auction of l and The public auction was a well-known institution in the Greek world used to assign rights in property.135 The auction in Ptolemaic Egypt, termed “the auction of pharaoh,”136 was used to assign rights to farm taxes, to award contracts,137 and as a method of assigning derelict or ownerless property. The published demotic evidence is limited to the Thebaid and, except for two examples, to the second century bce.138 The first attestation for the auction of land in the south occurs in the Milon archive, which in part 132 133 134 135 136

137

Cf. Mélèze–Modrzejewski 1994: 11-15. See P. Tebt i , 6, 30–32; P. Tebt 61b. All of the examples have been succinctly treated and dismissed by Keenan & Shelton 1976: 17–18; and Shelton 1976: 118–25. As is shown in the important P. Haun. inv. 407 analyzed by Christensen 2002; see also P. Edfou Gr. 8. See in general Pringsheim 1949; Oates 1969: 191–210 for the Greek background. The demotic term was ysˇ n pr– , lit. “proclamation of pharaoh,” according well with the fact that the auction by herald, the prokruxiv, publicly proclaimed the auction of property. See further Manning 1999a. 138 Zauzich 1971: 80. P. Petr. iii 43(2), (ca. 245 bce), cited above, Chapter four, p. 117, n. 114.


161

contains a dossier relating to the disposal of property belonging to a priestly family from Edfu.139 The auction was a new institution that the state used to gain control of rights to land, and is important evidence that the state did not simply seize land and reassign it but observed certain constraints. Land and other property that was seized either because of tax arrears or because it had been declared ownerless was disposed of by this method, but there was a formal procedure for verifying if there were any party who had a claim to the property before it was auctioned, and former owners had a privileged position in the auction itself.140 The demotic evidence for the public auction of land shows that the traditional Egyptian mode of acquisition by “purchase” was used, and the state guaranteed that the acquisition of land by this method would mean the continuation of these traditional rights.141 Temple land was acquired by priests at the public auction,142 and is most often attested in the aftermath of the Theban revolt during which the land tenure regime was considerably disrupted.143 The use of the auction process was an important shift from a temple-based system to a bureaucratic system in the control of Ptolemaic officials (the Thebarch based in Ptolemais was in charge of auctions there), and it reaffirmed the ruler’s traditional right of assigning tenure to the land. The public auction, then, supported by the institution of the royal bank into which payments for purchase by this method were made, was an important element in the assertion of Ptolemaic order in the countryside, and its use in ancient areas such as the Thebaid on temple land shows the contrast between Ptolemaic control of this region and a more “colonial” exploitation of the new area of the Fayyum. the politics of order 1 4 4 : the order of polit ics As we have seen above, the neoclassical theory of the state suggests that the ruler exchanged with local elites protection and justice for revenue.145 Weak rulers gave the local elite an opportunity to bargain for a better deal. This basic model helps to explain early Ptolemaic behavior as well as the later history of the regime. Under the Ptolemies Egyptian temples were rebuilt or added on to and the kings were accepted theologically as pharaohs, being 139 140 141 142 143 144

P. Eleph. 14 (ca. 223 bce; Select Papyri, vol. i i , text 233); see above Chapter three, pp. 83–85. See the details in Pringsheim 1949: 296–300. See e.g. P. Tor. Botti 3a, 5, using the language of sale. Cf. P. Eleph. 14, 22–23. The Greek term used was prsiv, Pringsheim 1949: 289. See above, Chapter three, p. 90. See Pestman 1995. See below, pp. 164–71, on the Theban revolt. 145 See above, Chapter one, p. 10. I borrow the phrase from Totman 1993.

162

Interpretation

depicted in traditionally ritual scenes in all of the new temples. In many cases, however, their hieroglyphic names are left blank in the cartouches, an indication perhaps that the connection between king and temple was indirect. As has been often stressed, each Egyptian temple performed an important cosmic function. In addition to the ritual role, the temples were always the center of the economic and social life of the region. Clearly Egyptian temples as institutions remained vital for the legitimization of Ptolemaic rule, and the temples as a body, through a series of synods of the priesthoods that issued multilingual decrees, showed support for the rulers.146 The Canopus decree, issued in 238 bce by Ptolemy III Euergetes and his consort Berenike II, provides important evidence for the deliberate Ptolemaic policy of firmly incorporating the temples within the state.147 By the middle of the third century bce, we can see the move from the ancient local, temple-based management in the Thebaid to the new Ptolemaic system administered, or one might say centralized, through agents of the state. The Ptolemaic kings were no doubt keen to support new temple building projects at key sites. As we have seen, however, the Theban area received only modest attention. Perhaps the largest of the new projects was begun at Edfu, the ancient town of Horus the Behdedite, avenger of his murdered brother Osiris, and symbol of the legitimate kingship. Construction of the new temple, which incorporated part of the New Kingdom temple pylon but was otherwise built new, began on the twenty-third of August 237 bce, not long after the Canopus decree was promulgated, and was completed nearly two centuries later, on the fifth of December 57 bce.148 In keeping with the age, the pylon at Edfu was the tallest ever built in Egypt. It certainly would have been a symbol of Ptolemaic power and prestige in the south. The cult of kingship, and the ritual of the renewal of kingship reenacted here was no doubt an important element for Ptolemaic support of this temple. More than that, the building of the temple may have been a means by which the Ptolemies gradually asserted control of land in the south. Thebes may have been difficult to gain control of given the size of the town and the influence of the temple there. But Edfu was important economically because establishing control there enabled the Ptolemies to control trade routes to the Red Sea and the important gold mining areas in the eastern desert. 146 147 148

On the priestly synods, see the literature cited in Chapter two, p. 145, n. 114. On the decree, see above, Chapter three, p. 68. For the building history of the temple, see Cauville and Devauchelle 1984.


163

The building of the Edfu temple may have been the direct cause of, or at least a spur to, the change in the economic system of the Thebaid, and the assertion of royal control. Perhaps the Ptolemies wanted to start with a smaller place than with rebuilding Thebes itself. The finances of the temple were placed in the charge of a prakt¯or. The direct interest of the crown in the finances of the temple is shown in two letters from Euphronios, prakt¯or of temples in the Edfu nome,149 writing from Thebes,150 to his assistant Milon in Edfu151 dated August 222 bce. The first suggests that the financial administration had institutions of banking and granaries within the temple itself, and that the financial information gathered by Milon from them should be forwarded to Alexandria (scil. “the city”): Euphronios to Milon, greetings. As soon as you read this letter, having taken the deposits from the bankers in the temples, for the temple in Edfu, and as much also of the measured grain from those in charge of the granaries, from the earliest time up to the present, by month and year, let them also specify the years for which payment (was made). Having done this carefully, send to us on account of the successors so that we may not therefore be prevented from sending down to the city the accounts of the rest of the things that are ready. The payments are to be inspected by Theos and Andron. Fare[well. Year] 25 Payni 24.152 (Verso: To Milon.)

There are several other features of the Ptolemaic financial administration of the south that appear to change at about the same time as these letters from Euphronios that, taken together, suggest that there was a connection between these events, a connection perhaps linked to the financing of the new temple and the establishment of new Ptolemaic financial control in the Thebaid. These financial institutions, (1) the public auction of property, (2) the collection of the harvest tax by state officials, (3) the issuance of receipts of land measurement, all become regular features of the state financial structure of the Thebaid. It may be that some of this activity can be associated with the new reign of Ptolemy IV, but the evidence associated with Edfu suggests that at least here the royal interest is connected ˇ ) and the closely associated reto the temple. The harvest tax (dem. smw ceipts of land holding (dem. r–rh // w ) are also first attested at Thebes in

149 150

151

PP 3, 7399. The second letter, P. Eleph. 11, written one week later (15 August), rather plaintively asking Milon to stop delaying sending the accounts, mentions that Euphronios is in Thebes. At the same time, on the 14th of August, we learn in P. Eleph. 12 that Milon had been attacked, perhaps on account of his collections. 152 P. Eleph. 10 ( = W. Chrest. 1, 182). PP 3, 7419.

164

Interpretation Table 8. Documented rural uprisings in the Ptolemaic period Date 245 bce ? 210s bce 197–185 bce 206–186 bce 165 bce 131–130 bce 88–86? bce

Place Extent uncertain1 Delta, Lower Egypt? Lower and Middle Egypt Thebaid Thebaid Widespread Thebaid

1

We learn from Justin, Epit. 27.1.9 that Ptolemy III was forced to return from a military campaign because of “domestic sedition” in Egypt. See McGing 1997: 274–77 on the meager sources around this disturbance.

220 bce.153 Presumably, the temples themselves had been used to collecting and booking the harvest tax receipts before this date, but the new receipts show that the state, by means of the “scribes of pharaoh,” was now collecting this tax on grain land production.154 The issuance of receipts may have served to protect individual tax payers and holders of rights to the land. All of this administrative activity at the end of the third century probably placed greater pressure on the region, pressure that may have led to the great Theban uprising in 207 bce. stasis: rural uprising There were several periods of general unrest (tarac) in the Ptolemaic period (table 8). There were also, as in other periods, minor inter-village rivalries.155 The trouble that gave rise to the most serious consequences for Ptolemaic rule was the revolt in the Thebaid that occurred between the years 207 and 186 bce. Upper Egypt was certainly not the only region that 153 154 155

O. Tait Bodl. i 147, O. Wilck. 1253. For the tax and the land receipts, see the study of Vandorpe 2000a. Vandorpe 2000a: 177. The local trouble between Krocodilopolis and Hermonthis recorded in 123 bce that resulted in the latter’s villagers attacking the local dikes at the height of the Nile inundation may have been typical of local tension and competition, and may have centered around water rights. See Thompson 1994a: 313. A summary of the events and the documentation for the great Thebaid revolt is provided by Pestman 1995; Vandorpe 1986. A new document concerning the uprising has been recently published by McGing 1997. On other unrest in the Thebaid and elsewhere in Egypt during the Ptolemaic period, see the summaries in Thomas 1975: 19–24; Peremans 1978; Préaux 1978, vol. i: 389–98; Hölbl 2001[1994]: 153–59; Vandorpe 1995a: 233–35.


165

experienced uprisings. Indeed political disturbances in the capital were also quite serious at the end of the third century bce although we cannot connect these disturbances to a wider sequence of events.156 There have been two schools of thought on the cause of these uprisings. As summarized by Bagnall, the scholarship is divided between those who see them as nationalist uprisings, and those who view them “as primarily fueled by economic considerations and local separatism.”157 To the extent that we can analyze events, the great Theban revolt was the most extensive rural unrest in the period, engulfing towns in the Nile valley from at least Edfu in the south to as far north as Abydos in Middle Egypt. The unrest was characterized in one Greek source as “the Egyptian revolt,” ¡ tarac tän A«gupt©wn, and Chaonnophris, the rebel king, was referred to in an Egyptian text as “the enemy of the gods who acted as leader of the disorder in Egypt.”158 Some have argued that the revolt was led by priests.159 There are also hints in the documentation that Nubians were involved in the unrest. Nubians had a strong historical presence on the land in the Thebaid, and to a certain extent the troubles may have been a coordinated effort with the Nubian king Ergamenes II who had tried to assert control over the Dodekaschoinos at the same time.160 But there is certainly nothing to suggest that the unrest was motivated by nationalism or by ethnic animosity, as some scholars have proposed, and it now appears certain that the kings were Egyptians, not Nubians as was once suggested.161 However extensive the Theban uprising was, it did not arise out of a sense of “national” fervor. The cultural isolation in pre-modern states did not give rise to such organized feelings of “nationalism,” a concept defined by Gellner as the anger aroused by the violation of the political principle that

157 158

159 160 161

On the Alexandrian disturbances, see Barry 1993. The leaders became pharaohs in Upper Egypt; official documents were drawn up in their names. Bagnall 1997a: 236. SB 8, 9681.9; Pestman 1995, text bbb. On the use of the term tarac “trouble,” a term describing the central state’s point of view, see Thompson 1999c. For the Egyptian phrase, [p ] sb n n ntr .w nh– wn–nfr ( ı) ır ır h. .t n bks hn Kmy , see Philensis II (Urk. ii 221, 8–9 = Pestman 1995, text tt). For the presumed priestly involvement, see Eddy 1961: 314–320; Dunand 1983: 59–62. Hölbl 2001[1994]: 161–62. Anagnostou-Canas 1992 has characterized the revolt as a nationalist uprising caused by the Ptolemaic fiscal system. The riots in Alexandria, particularly the one reported in 203 bce, have often been couched in terms of Egyptian national feeling, but there is nothing in the evidence to suggest this, and in fact much good evidence to suggest that participants in the riots represented a cross-section of the population of the city motivated by a political ideology which sought to preserve the royal family. See Barry 1993, esp. p. 429. On the supposed nationalism in the Edfu temple inscriptions, see Griffiths 1979. See also Lloyd 1982, stressing the function of local religious propaganda that served to focus anti-Greek sentiment.

156

166

Interpretation

holds that the “political and national unit should be congruent.”162 There were certainly religious elements to the revolt, but there is nothing to suggest that the revolt was motivated by “religious nationalism.”163 The literature of resistance from the period was the product of local elite feeling couched in terms of traditional Egyptian kingship, as seen in the prophecy known as the “Oracle of the Potter.”164 While the cultural isolation between local elites and primary agricultural producers was great, it should be stressed that the country-wide meetings of priesthoods in Alexandria and elsewhere may have served to focus more resistance to the regime in general, resistance that may have brought at least temporary new political equilibria between the ruler and the local elites. The causes of the rural unrest are difficult to establish, and as in other cases of rural unrest there were probably many factors. The general disturbances throughout Egypt at the time, and the specific context of postRaphia success and support of temple building, combine to suggest that there was an attempt by many to “renegotiate” the contract between ruler and ruled. Interestingly, and tellingly, the Fayyum overall appears to have been more loyal to the regime, and relatively trouble free in terms of rebellion. More specifically, the amnesties declared by Ptolemy V Epiphanes suggest that the imposition of taxation and control may have been at the core of local unrest. The Memphis decree issued in 196 bce states that a general amnesty for rebels was declared if they returned to their homes, and the priesthoods were given important tax concessions.165 We cannot, of course, ascertain the motives or the extent of non-elite involvement, nor is there enough information to know if the Thebaid revolt was a “peasant uprising” in response to Ptolemaic taxation, as was the case in the early Roman Theban revolt between 29 and 26 bce in reaction to the imposition of the poll tax (perhaps exacerbated by the earthquake in 26 bce).166 The fact that two kings in succession, Haronnophris and Chaonnophris, were 162 164

165

166

163 McGing 1997: 288. Gellner 1983: 1. On this text, see Lloyd 1982: 50–54; Frankfurter 1993: 174–94; Huß 1994: 165–79 and the literature cited therein, and the new study by Kerkeslager 1998. Priests at Philae are implicated in the revolt in a demotic letter that mentions that they had unexpectedly fled to Nubia without performing their religious duties. The date of the text is uncertain but if it can be dated to 187 bce the priests appear to have fled the island after the revolt had been put down, which may reflect the priests’ fear of reprisal. See P. Berl. dem. 1 15527 (Zauzich 1978) and the comments by Martin 1996, text C 15. On the generally local nature of culture in agrarian states in general, see the remarks of Gellner 1983: 11. OGIS 90, 19–20 (demotic version, lines 11–12). McGing 1997: 287. The amnesty decree of 186 bce, at the end of the revolt in the Thebaid, P. Köln. 7. 313, is even more sweeping in economic concessions. The supposed bronze inflation in the years following the battle of Raphia (217 bce) has been dismissed as a proximate cause of the events. For the supposed inflation, see Reekmans 1949;


167

established at Thebes suggests that the revolt was politically coordinated. The disturbances were violent, and the social disruption was apparently extensive. Greeks fled their homes and soldiers their garrisons in Thebes, in Edfu, and elsewhere.167 As in other cases of “peasant resistance,” land records were destroyed, and perceived collaborators with the regime were treated badly.168 Physical violence was reported from Edfu to at least Asyut (Lykopolis), and disruption of the irrigation system was catastrophic in some areas. In Asyut, for example, a text informs us that “most of the people were destroyed and the land has gone dry.”169 The important temple construction project at Edfu, and smaller projects in Thebes, were halted during the disturbance.170 The disruption of work is recorded on the Edfu temple, itself certainly a showcase of Ptolemaic legitimacy: Then the troubles broke out after which the ignorant rebels in the south have interrupted the work in the throne-of-god. The rebellion raged in the south until year 19 of the King of Upper and Lower Egypt heir of the god Philopator, son of Re Ptolemy beloved of Ptah, deceased, the god Epiphanes, the strong, the king who chased disorder from the country and whose name is inscribed (in the temple).171

The uprising had major consequences for state revenue – there are no tax receipts for the years 207–191 bce from the Thebaid. In any case, there certainly was confusion in the private holding of land, as there was later in the Fayyum during the disturbance of the 130s bce.172 In one case, a man petitioned the strat¯egos Daimachos on behalf of his wife who had left eighty

167

168

169

170 171

Reekmans 1951; Cadell and Le Rider 1997. We cannot with any degree of certainty connect the rural disturbances in Ptolemaic Egypt with the survey of land. However it is interesting to note that the great land account published by Kaplony-Heckel 1994 from the military colony at Pathyris is dated just before the outbreak of violence in 88 bce which led to the heavy damage to Thebes by Ptolemaic forces. For the Roman revolt, see the brief comments of Milne 1924: 5; and Rathbone 1993: 88. On the earthquake, see below, n. 197. Elsewhere peasant uprisings were clearly related to government survey of land. For a comparative example, see the case of the Higo rebellion against land survey, led not by peasants but by local “notables” in Japan in 1588 c e , discussed by Brown 1987: 118. SB 8 9681 ( = Pestman 1995, 124 text bbb); P. gr. Tor. Choachiti 11–12 ( = UPZ 2, 160–162; Pestman 1995, 124, text ccc); Vandorpe 1995a: 233. For the famous Hermias case involving the ownership of a house abandoned in 205 bce during the disturbances and finally adjudicated, after ten years and seven legal attempts, in 117 bce, see Pestman 1993: 375–84. P. Gr. Dublin ined., Clarysse 1979b. During the revolt of Dionysios Petoserapis, priests and kleruchs in the Fayyum were attacked, and the property records of a priest at Soknopaiou Nesos were reported burned. Þ. . sun[bh] toÆv ple©onav tän laän diafqar¦nai kaª tn g¦n cerswq¦nai. P. Gr. Dublin ined., cited in Clarysse 1979b: 103. Additional fragments of this text were published by McGing 1997: 299–310. Cf. Pestman 1995: 121 (text ww). This valuable text shows that the revolt extended at least as far north as Asyut (Lykopolis). Previously, the furthest north the revolt was attested was at Abydos, Pestman 1995: 113, text q. The latest papyrus in P. Hausw. from Edfu is dated, perhaps coincidentally, to 208 bce. 172 Keenan and Shelton 1976: 4. Edfou iv, 8, 4–5, Edfou vii, 6, 6–8.

168

Interpretation

arouras of land to go to the Delta during the revolt. Upon returning, she discovered to her horror that the land had been declared ownerless and fiftyseven arouras auctioned off to one Pemsais, who subsequently took control of the remaining twenty-seven arouras.173 The Ptolemaic government’s imposition of stricter tax record-keeping and collection was probably at least one strong factor in the revolt, but other general social factors may have played a role as well.174 While ethnic tension is often given as a major cause of the troubles, a better explanation for the social tension often encountered in the papyri is the normal one between central government and local farmers, now probably under more fiscal pressure than before.175 To a certain extent, then, the rural unrest may have been a continuation of what was observed in the Persian period, i.e. local resistance to central control. The disturbances were more likely caused in the south by the imposition of the land survey and taxation regime, which we know was functioning by the end of the third century bce, and the general social disruption caused by the clash between the royal economy, conducted partially in coin, and the old Egyptian rural economies.176 Certainly the use of census and land registration had always been a source of tension between the central government and local landholders. There were more serious consequences for the government as a result of the revolt. Beneath the violence, and perhaps to some extent acting as a catalyst, were messianic elements.177 The regional capital of Ptolemais may have been captured by Haronnophris. Tax collection at Pathyris is completely undocumented between 172 and 165 bce, and temple building at Elephantine also ceased. Afterwards, in 165 bce, importantly, tax receipts start up again, but this time they are written by Greek tax officials.178 State control over Upper Egypt, with the exception of Elephantine, appears to have been completely overthrown.179 Whether the rebel kings Haronnophris and Chaonnophris collected taxes to support the rebellion in the Thebaid is impossible to say. No receipts of such collection are known and none should be expected. The complete absence of Greek registration dockets on demotic contracts from ca. 200 to 146 bce also strongly suggests loss of 173 174 175 176 177 178 179

SB 5, 8033; Pestman 1995, text aaa. See McGing 1997: 286 and the literature cited in n. 143. For general considerations, see Moore 1966; Landsberger 1974. This point is well made by McGing 1997: 276–77. A discussion of some of the structural problems may be found in Bingen 1984. The names of the rebel kings may be one indication of underlying religious motivations. See further Clarysse 1978a. Vandorpe 2000b: 409. Even at Aswan, however, Nubian rebels are reported from 196 to 189 bce in Graff. Aswan dem. 43 ( = Bresciani 1978a: 141–43).


169

control and revenue to the central state.180 But private economic activity continued and private contracts were recorded and dated in the names of the rebel kings.181 The great Thebaid revolt was put down, with the help of some key Egyptian elite, and an amnesty decree was issued. The aftermath of the unrest may have shifted the equilibrium in the south toward the military, with new foundations established at Krocodilopolis and Pathyris. The rural unrest in the south left the military, and military leaders, in an increasingly strong position with respect to the land. Many soldiers were given grants of land in the Fayyum.182 In 186 bce new garrison towns were established at narrow points in the Upper Egyptian valley, the main military garrison at Krocodilopolis and an additional camp located at Pathyris, south of Thebes.183 A key ingredient in the amnesty was the offer to return seized property in the Thebaid in exchange for the rebels putting down their arms.184 Order was restored, it appears, at least temporarily.185 But the region was hardly pacified merely by the increased presence of soldiers. Rural unrest continued to take advantage of power politics in the capital. In 168 bce, Antiochos invaded Egypt, an event predicted by a recluse in the Serapeum in Saqqara.186 The invasion indicates the weakness of the Egyptian state at the time. Antiochos was crowned pharaoh at Memphis, commanded much of the country, with support of some Egyptians, and there was widespread chaos and economic disruption.187 Antiochos 180 181

182 183

184 185

186

See the comments by Pierce 1972: 180, n. 1. E.g. P. Carnarvon 1 and 2, both recording sales of small plots within the temple estate of Amun, dated year 4 of Haronnophris = 202/01 bce. For the texts, see Spiegelberg 1913b; and below, Appendix one. P. Tebt. 79, 8. Vandorpe 1995a: 233. On one Egyptian, Hakoris, who seems to have played a key role in the Ptolemaic recapture of the Thebaid, and who was rewarded accordingly with a large grant of land, see Clarysse 1991a. For the end of the revolt, and the introduction of the royal cult and a new festival to celebrate the rebels’ defeat, see the second Philae decree ( = Philensis II) most fully treated by Müller 1920 and recently discussed by Simpson 1996: 5–6; 13–15 ( = Pestman 1995, text tt) and P. Köln 7, 313, with the comments of McGing 1997: 288–89. Memphis Decree ( = Rosetta Stone, OGIS 90), Greek, ll. 19–20; demotic, ll. 11–12. A hint, perhaps, that some unrest continued at Asyut is suggested by the Asyut family archive, discussed below in Chapter six, pp. 201–05, in which storehouses listed as in good condition in 181 bce were called “destroyed” (dem. h rh r ) in 174 bce, P. Siut 10591, vo. and P. Siut 10575, 3. Details in Ray 1976: 124–30; Thompson 1988. At this time, Hor recorded that Egypt “split away from Alexandria,” dem. pnq n ım f (n) R –qt , O. Hor, 3 verso, 10. See the comments by Thompson 1999c. Thompson 1999c: 322. For the Egyptian rebel Horchonêsis who supported Antiochos, see P. Köln i v 186 and the comments of Thompson 1999c: 325. The poignant letter from the wife of Hephaistion, who had been detained at the Serapeum in Memphis during the chaos, pleads for his return since his family had become “stretched to the limit with the high price of grain.” UPZ i 59.13, 16; UPZ i 60.15–17 (168 bce) cited by Thompson 1999c: 322–23 and discussed in Thompson 1988: 230–31. //

187

//

170

Interpretation

retreated, after Roman intervention.188 But Ptolemy VI Philometor’s troubles were not over. Another serious rebellion broke out in 165 bce, led by one Dionysios Petoserapis, one of the “first friends” of the king.189 This seems to have begun as an attempt by Dionysios to grab the throne of Egypt. After his failure, he turned “to the discontented elements in the state, disaffected soldiers and then the masses.”190 What began at Alexandria quickly spread to Herakleopolis191 and then to the Thebaid.192 Clearly Dionysios attempted to take advantage of the social unrest already present throughout Egypt.193 Once again, widespread disruption of agricultural production, as is documented for the Fayyum in the revolt of 131 bce, is reported. Yet another revolt, led by an Egyptian “king” Harsiesis, and supported in part by the priests of Amun, may have broken out in the 130s bce.194 At this time, the anti-Greek tract known as the “Oracle of the Potter” was probably written, and severe dynastic struggles exacerbated the economic ones.195 The troublesome Thebaid broke away again in 88 bce.196 Unrest (ameixia) was also reported in the Herakleopolite nome in 84/3 bce, with flight from the land and a consequent loss of the tax base. These were also bad years for the Nile flood, and one cannot help but conclude that low flood levels exacerbated the social troubles. Thebes itself, after the rebellion of 88 bce, was heavily damaged and suffered further damage in the earthquake of 26 bce.197 As one might expect, whatever the underlying social causes of these revolts were, they had an effect on the land tenure regime. We do not know if survey and taxation of the land can be tied to the revolt, but there is much circumstantial evidence. To be sure, after the major dynastic dispute 188 189 190 193

194 195 196 197

Polyb. 29.27; Livy 45.12. See also above, Chapter one, p. 46. Diod. Sic. 31.15a; most recently analyzed by McGing 1997: 289–95. 191 P. Gen. iii, 128. 192 SB 8 9681. McGing 1997: 292. Between the revolt of Dionysios and 163 bce another “disturbance,” k©nhsiv, in the Thebaid is mentioned by Diod. Sic. 31.17b and was apparently unrelated to Dionysius but part of a more general trend. As reported by Diod. Sic., an “urge to revolt swept over the populace.” See Thompson 1999c: 323, n. 25. The same events are referred to obliquely in the Hor archive from Saqqara. McGing 1997: 295–296. Koenen 1968: 1984. For the oracle of the potter, see n. 164 above; for the date of the text, see Huß 1994: 173–79. McGing 1997: 296–99. New evidence for the period is provided by cartonnage papyri published as BGU xviii. For an overview, see Sarischouli 2001. Of the destruction of Thebes by Ptolemy IX Soter II after putting down a revolt, Pausanias 1.9.3 reports that: “he did such damage that there was nothing left to remind the Thebans of their former prosperity.” The earthquake, certainly to be dated to 26 bce and not 27 bce as earlier believed, was reported in Philostratus, Life of Apollonios, on which see the note of Bowersock 1970: 137, n. 2; Bowersock 1984. Strabo, 17.1.46 also mentions the earthquake, although obliquely, in his description of the colossus of Memnon in 24: “. . . but the upper parts of the other, from the seat up, fell when an earthquake occurred, so they say” toÓ d’ trou t ’nw mrh t p¼ t¦v kaqdrav pptwke seimoÓ genhqntov, ãv fasi. Cf. Bowersock 1965: 157.


171

and civil war, Ptolemy VIII Euergetes, in an amnesty decree, remitted the artabeia tax on temple land, as had been done during the Theban revolt by Ptolemy V Epiphanes (recorded in the Rosetta decree).198 The irrigation of fields was halted in some areas, and the land was left untilled. Property was seized by opportunists, neighbors appropriated abandoned land, and title deeds housed in record offices were burned.199 At the end of the great Theban revolt, there was confusion over property rights and many holders of land had abandoned their land altogether. As a result of these circumstances, there was a public auction of land that had been declared “ownerless.” In such cases, land was taken by the crown and given out to the highest bidder.200 Once the land had an “owner,” and was surveyed, the government could again collect taxes. After the serious disturbances following the invasion of Antiochos IV and the revolt of Dionysios Petoserapis, Ptolemy VI Philometor issued a decree designed to restore order and to get royal land again under cultivation. Some local officials had misunderstood the intent of the decree and the dioik¯et¯es, one year later, had to reissue the commands.201 registration and tax ation of egyptian cont racts The ancient traditions and institutions of private property were not substantially altered by the Ptolemaic regime. However, the scribal practice and the form of demotic instruments of conveyance were changed. Some of these changes may have been unintentional and the product of the natural evolution of legal instruments toward more efficient forms. One of these changes is seen in the decline in the use of the so-called witness-copy instrument in which some of the witnesses to the transaction copied the contract written by the professional scribe verbatim. This was an archaic feature of demotic contracts and it died out by the end of the third century bce.202 More important structural changes in demotic contracts were no doubt the result of active pressure from the Ptolemaic regime to maximize revenues on legal transactions and to use Greek as the administrative language. The day dates were probably added to demotic contracts as part of the process of registration established at the end of the Theban revolt.203 In Edfu by 240 bce, a second scribal signature written in demotic by an “agent 198 199 200 201

202

P. Tebt. 5 (118 bce; = C. Ord. Ptol. 53). Cf. Pestman in Boswinkel and Pestman 1978: 117. P. Grenf. 1, 11 ( = W. Chrest. i i 32; Pathyris, 181 bce). Cf. Skeat 1973. See further above, p. 168. The decrees are contained in the famous circular of Herodes, part of a collection of correspondence preserved in UPZ i 110 ( = P. Par. 63). On this text see Wilcken 1927: 473–96 and the recent analysis by Mélèze-Modrzejewski 1994, with further bibliography cited on p. 7, n. 26. 203 See below, Chapter six, p. 211. Below, Chapter six, pp. 213–14.

172

Interpretation

of the royal scribe” went hand in hand with the Greek “archival docket.”204 Such archival registrations probably entailed a fee as well.205 Beginning in 264 bce private transfers of property were also registered in local bureaux, with subscriptions, at first in demotic, by the mid-second century always in Greek. A docket noting the registration was written beneath the body of the contract. The typical text of the registration docket runs: Year 20, Paophi 11. Deposited into the chest via PN

The public registration involved the making of an abstract of the contract in demotic, the recording of the names of the contracting parties and a description of the contract written in Greek. All of this was added into the public register as well.206 A tax on transfers of property was collected by the government.207 This “circulation” tax, known later in Greek documents as the gkÅklion, was a continuation of the 10% levy on property introduced in the reign of Psammetichus I.208 Prior to the Ptolemies the destination of this ad valorem tax was the temple in the case of the sale of temple land.209 In the Ptolemaic period, the tax was originally levied on all property, and only subsequently on transfers of property.210 In the early Ptolemaic period, there was a tax on transfers (documented only for houses) collected by local state officials (dem. sh.n) at a fixed rate of 2.5 kite and a 10% tax on the value of the property paid into the local temple in whose domain the property was situated. Once the tax farming system was established, this transfer tax was farmed out to tax farmers, and shifted from a fixed charge to a variable rate of a percentage of the value of the property. The rate of the tax was 5% of the sales price in the mid-third century,211 was raised to normally 10% at the end of this century, but was reduced temporarily to 5% from 204

205 206 207 208 209

210 211

P. Hausw. 2, 8 and 9 ( = Manning 1997: 31–44; 76–95), all dated 240 bce. An “archival docket” recorded the fact that the agreement, t¼ sunllagma, had been registered into the archive, lit. “chest,” kibwt»v. On this type of docket, see further Pierce 1972: 179–88. Pierce 1972: 181. On registration, see Préaux 1939: 317–25. P. Paris 65; see the comments by Pestman 1985d; Martin 1992: 220. For the texts that record the payment of the tax on the demotic instrument itself, see Appendix 1. Some early demotic instruments which mention the tax are P. Louvre 7128 ( = Malinine 1953: 85–88); and the abnormal hieratic conveyances P. Tor. 246 (Malinine 1953: 56–84). Cf. P. Rev. P. BM 10117 ( = Reich 1914: 9–25; Thebes, 541 bce): tı = y mty h. .t( = y) n p = w h.d p bnr n p 1/10 n n sh.w h.tr . . . (n) pr–ımn, “you have caused my heart to be satisfied with their money except for the 1/10th for the scribes of the tax . . . of the estate of Amon.” Other examples of this early tax are cited in Seidl 1956: 52. Skeat 1959. Préaux 1939: 332; and 277, citing Heichelheim: 1930, 25, n. 3, suggested that the increase may have resulted from the silver currency shortage brought about by the many costly battles at the end of the third century, most notably the battle of Raphia in 217 bce.


173

ca. 200 to the reign of Euergetes II.212 An additional 2%, known as the llag, was collected to convert payments made in bronze coin, since prices were still reckoned in silver. The collection of the tax was farmed out to a telÛnhv, sometimes called in demotic texts “the one in charge of the [1]/20th (tax).”213 As in public auctions, a bank order (diagraf) was required before the tax could be credited to the royal bank into which payment was made.214 The tax was levied against the purchaser, and was imposed not only on real sales, but also on pledges, at a reduced rate,215 and on wills.216 The receipts noting the payment of the tax were written at first in demotic, and later on in Greek.217 In addition to receipts written directly on the contract itself, they were also issued independently on ostraca.218 The circulation tax and the “stamp” tax required to register conveyances may or may not have proven a successful source of revenue for the crown. I have suggested above that the imposition of such taxes may have generated an avoidance in the use of contracts, perhaps another factor in the decline of demotic as a language of contract. Table 9 illustrates the main changes of demotic sales. the rise, spread and decline of demot ic One of the most significant changes in Egypt brought about by the Saite reformation in the seventh century bce219 was the introduction and the use of demotic throughout the country. Demotic, a word first used by Herodotus to describe the common language at the time of his visit, is classified as both a stage of the ancient Egyptian language and a script.220 212

213

Mattha 1945: 53; Préaux 1939: 333. At Pathyris, whence much of the Ptolemaic evidence for the tax is derived, 10% was again collected after 124 bce, perhaps due to the troubles in the area in the years 132–130 bce. See Pestman 1965: 61, n. 108. The demotic enkuklion-receipt subscribed at the foot of P. Berl. dem. i i 3111 ( = Grunert 1981), the ˇ ımn– ıpy s Ns–n –nh t.w nt h.r p 1/20 [n h. .t–sp] 6 , “p –sr– ˇ ımn– ıpy son of tax farmer is p –sr– Ns–n –nh t.w who is in charge of the 1/20th (tax) [for year] six.” The title was also related to n 20 in PP 8, 1604a, but has recently been reread by Clarysse 1978b: 9 as n 1000. For the text (O. Zürich 1894), see W˚angstedt 1965: 46. See the discussion in Boswinkel and Pestman 1978: 214–22. The tax was collected on pledges (Ýnh n p©stai) even when the pledge was cancelled. See Pestman 1985. Such a situation is recorded in P. BM 1201 and P. BM 1202. Cf. Pierce 1972: 118. P. Lond. inv. 2850 ( = Pestman 1969b). The enkuklion-receipt for P. Brussels E 8254 predated the earliest demotic enkuklion receipts previously published, P. Brit. Mus. i 10537 (Thebes, 284 bce) and P. BM Glanville 10536 (Thebes, 280 bce). See Quaegebeur 1979b: 45; Depauw 2000. 219 See briefly above, Chapter two, pp. 39–40. See the examples quoted by Préaux 1939: 331. Herodotus 2.36. The earliest demotic text is recorded in an inscription, S. Louvre C 101, year 8 Psammetichus, an agreement concerning the building of a tomb at Saqqara.

214 215 216 217

218 220

174

Interpretation Table 9. The evolution of Upper Egyptian demotic contracts under the Ptolemies

311 bce 267 bce 264 bce Third century bce 240 bce 213 bce 186 bce 162 bce 146 bce

1

Sale tax collected by the state, evolved from fixed rate to a percentage of the value of the property Eponymous priest’s name added to dating formula of contracts1 Sale tax docket written at foot of contracts Archival dockets recording registration Last Upper Egyptian witness-copy document Last Fayyumic witness-copy document Day-dates written in dating protocol Tax receipts, subscriptions always in Greek2 Registration of demotic contracts required to make them valid

Minas 2000: 96; Clarysse and Van der Veken 1983. An exception to this is P. Lond. 881, discussed in Boswinkel and Pestman 1978: 219–22.

2

In terms of the stage of language within the Egyptian language family, demotic is a continuation from Late Egyptian, which represents a break from Classical, or Middle, Egyptian, that arose at the end of the Middle Kingdom and became commonly used in the Eighteenth Dynasty. Demotic evolved out of a local form of hieratic used in the Saite capital at Sais in the Delta, and was originally a cursive script used to record legal contracts, receipts and the like.221 As the Saite kings gradually gained a hold of the Nile valley, demotic replaced local forms of hieratic. Considerable change in the law of contracts occurred under the reign of Psammetichus I, when contracts became bilateral, and a greater emphasis was placed on the seller’s duties and on the written agreement itself, which could serve as title to the transferred property.222 By the Ptolemaic period, demotic became the standard form of Egyptian, used to write literature as well as legal contracts, and it is occasionally even found in inscriptions. The change from the hieratic to the demotic script was more than a change in the writing system of private texts. It also marked the imposition of a new, uniform administration 221 222

El-Aguizy 1992. See the details in Menu 1988. The earliest sales are written in what is called “abnormal hieratic” and all come from Thebes. Whether the shift in the form of contracts resulted from Bocchoris’ supposed reforms remains unprovable on the basis of present evidence.


175

across Egypt.223 The terminology of demotic legal texts differs from the hieratic tradition in Thebes and, despite the persistence of variation in local handwriting, the demotic scribal tradition represents a new political order. The language of demotic legal texts differs substantially from the cursive hieratic texts known from the Theban area, but there was certainly some overlap in legal conceptions.224 The tradition of written lease contracts can be traced back to the Kushite period. The texts record agreements between Choachyte priests and private holders of land within the temple estate of Amun. These early contracts show the intimate relationship between the temple, which collected a 10% harvest tax from individual holders of land, and third party lessors who leased land on a yearly basis.225 The Saite leases demonstrate the right of Egyptian temples (in this case the temple of Amun at Thebes) to collect 100% of the land tax for their own use.226 Although the first contracts for the sale of land appear during the early days of the Saite period, in the reign of Psammetichus I, there is a considerable increase in the number of land sale contracts only in the Ptolemaic period.227 This increase, of course, may reflect differences in the manner of preservation in archives in the Ptolemaic period rather than a real increase in the recording of such contracts. The use of demotic continued at local levels to be used as the language of contracts and tax receipts throughout the Ptolemaic period and into the Roman. But just as demotic slowly replaced hieratic, Greek gradually made inroads against the demotic tradition, so that by the first century bce Greek became the language of contracts. Demotic, however, still continued to be used for the recording of tax receipts, at least in the Theban area, until the second century ce.228 Demotic was a formal written language and, like its classical Egyptian predecessor, evolved quite apart from the spoken language. Thus, by the Ptolemaic period, demotic, which was always a formal language of legal contracts, had become an archaic documentary language that systematically filtered out Greek loan words that were, apparently, part of the 223 224

225 226 227

For a good discussion of the transformation from hieratic to demotic, see Donker van Heel 1995: 48–71; Donker van Heel 1994. One very important difference between cursive hieratic and demotic sales is that the former almost always specify a price of the object being sold whereas sales in the latter language do not usually name any specific price. On this point, see the remarks by Menu 1988; Donker van Heel 1998a, 1998c. P. Louvre E. 7856 (672 bce), for which see Donker van Heel 1998. Pestman 1978: 116. For the Saite period leases, see Donker van Heel 1995. 228 See Bagnall 1993: 235–40; Zauzich 1983b. Menu 1994a [1998].

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Interpretation

spoken language.229 That Greek was an important part of the Egyptian language is shown by the high percentage (25%) of Greek in the Coptic language. This filtering of Greek stands in sharp contrast to earlier periods of Egyptian language history during which foreign loan words were freely borrowed, and this filtering must be the result of cultural politics.230 As Ray has so well demonstrated, “demotic, throughout the period of Greek and Roman rule, behaves as if Greek does not exist.”231 One illustration of this archaizing tendency of demotic can be seen in the so-called Ptolemaic demotic marriage contracts which specify the value of the woman’s dowry in terms of silver deben which were guaranteed by the treasury of Ptah in Memphis.232 The temple was no longer a guarantor of the silver standard, as it had been under the Persians, and the figures in the texts appear to have been a fixed sum with no real economic meaning. Terminology in the demotic papyri, then, may not always reflect current administrative usage. Why did demotic decline? The simple answer is that in fact it did not decline as a language, but as a language of contract making.233 This decline could, of course, merely be an accident of survival, but the fact that the number of demotic notary scribes also declines strongly speaks to the decline in contract making.234 Demotic tax receipts occur in large numbers in the early Roman period, mainly from the Theban area, after a decline in the late Ptolemaic period, a fact that suggests that demotic continued to be used as a local fiscal language. There are many Roman period literary papyri currently being prepared for publication, again suggestive of the fact that we are not dealing with “cultural” decline so much as decline in the institution of demotic contracts. The demotic contracts that survive from the Roman period are found in only two sites in the Fayyum, Soknopaiou Nesos and Tebtunis, two important temple towns. The overall administrative pressure that came from requiring registration of contracts, a circulation tax and a sale tax, and the use of Greek notary scribes, had, as one scholar has recently argued,235 already set the path for demotic’s decline as a language of contracts by the mid-Ptolemaic period. This was not due to “indifference or neglect” 229 230 231 232

233 234

On Greek loan words in demotic, see Clarysse 1987. On this point, see the excellent discussions by Ray 1994a and 1994b. Ray 1994a: 60. Lüddeckens 1960: 317, n. 1; Vleeming 1991: 89. Another example might be in the use of an archaic land measurement occurring in P. Hausw. 11, 3 (Edfu, 224 bce, discussed above in Chapter three, pp. 82–83). See Vleeming 1985: 216, n. 68. On demotic in the Roman period, see briefly Tait 1994. 235 Bagnall 1993: 236. See Vleeming 1994b, and below, Chapter six, p. 214.


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as has often been suggested but, rather, to active Ptolemaic policy.236 This was, then, not a matter of the competition between cultures – whether demotic survived or not – but a matter of the economic power of the state. an erosion of royal control? For Rostovtzeff, the Ptolemies continued the tradition of ownership of the land by the king and the compulsory labor system, the “twin pillars of an Oriental state.”237 All land was either “royal land,” directly managed by the king, or was “conceded” to others to work, but could be taken back by the king as he desired. The standard model of private property rights in the Ptolemaic period holds that there was an evolution of private property rights from the third to the second and first centuries bce concomitant with an erosion of state power over land.238 This theory of the devolution of royal power on the land rests on two false assumptions. The first is that the king claimed all of the land in Egypt by royal right. This idea was supported by the land terminology used in official documents that divided the land into two large classes, royal land and conceded land. It has been argued that the Ptolemaic claim to Egypt rested on the right of conquest, based, again, on the reference to Egypt as “spear-won land.”239 Rather than positing an erosion in royal control of land, I suggest that the Ptolemies never claimed absolute control over all of the land, but merely asserted the right to assign abandoned or unproductive land and the right to tax it. Underneath this royal assertion lay a variety of land tenure conditions and a tradition of private rights to land.240 The supposed “erosion” is a good example, following Ellickson, of the “private property thesis”: land rules develop from limited usufruct to alienable tenures for the benefit of a closeknit social group. For Rostovtzeff and others, private property was severely restricted by the Ptolemaic scheme of “centralized state control.” Strictly speaking, private land was limited to garden and house plots, which was classed as kt¦ma in the Greek papyri.241 Rostovtzeff’s theory on the rapid development of private property rights at the expense of royal power was 236 238

239 240 241

237 Rostovzteff 1941: 271. On this explanation of decline, see Lewis 1993: 277. Lewis 1986: 33. Taubenschlag 1955: 235 argued that land was “slowly acquiring the character of private property” in this period. Stollwerck 1971 argued for an “erosion” (“Aushölung”) of royal control beginning with the early P. Hausw. 1 (265 bce). Cf. Husson and Valbelle 1992: 260–61. See above, p. 158. Cf. the remarks of Sherwin-White and Kuhrt 1993: 69–70 with respect to Seleucid land tenure, and below, Chapter six. On kt¦ma, see Préaux 1939: 166; Taubenschlag 1955: 234–35.

178

Interpretation

based on a royal decree from the third century bce and second-century bce Tebtunis papyri, as Préaux pointed out.242 The royal decree concerns the registration of privately held land (?),243 and the assignment of a 2% tax in money probably from the revenues of this land as rent paid to priests around Alexandria, and to others not specified living elsewhere. Much remains uncertain in this text, and the extent of such land, and whether or not it was “private” land, is not easy to determine from this fragmentary decree, but what it appears to show is that Egyptian priests and others, presumably loyal to the regime, were given a new source of funding from the taxation of some classes of land. But I see nothing in the text to suggest Rostovtzeff’s thesis of growth in private property. The demotic conveyances treated in the next Chapter do not make any reference to the ruler’s right to taxation from the land but that does not mean that there was no claim to tax revenue from this land. They merely reflect the ancient tradition of private conveyance of land. In one of the earliest demotic conveyances of land, there is no mention of royal control over temple land.244 Indeed the private demotic conveyances of land never make any explicit mention of royal control. There is nothing in the Egyptian material, therefore, to suggest any kind of devolution of royal control, and, as I have argued above, good evidence to suggest the opposite. kleruchic l and The class of land that has been used to suggest that there was an evolution toward private property in land in the Ptolemaic period is kleruchic land.245 This category of land, the kl¯eros the size of which was determined by rank, and the stathmos (i.e. billets) given to reserve soldiers who served in the Ptolemaic army, could technically not be conveyed by an instrument of 242 243

244 245

Rostovtzeff 1910. See the remarks of Préaux 1984: 35–36. The royal decree is preserved in P. Col. Zen. 120 ( = C. Ord. Ptol. 28; Philadelphia, 229/8 bce or 187/6 bce, dated on the basis of paleography). The latter date, opted for by Rostovtzeff 1941: 1499, of course, marks the end of the Theban revolt, and the creation of new rents in this context may have been part of the reestablishment of order. See the analysis in Westermann et al. 1940: 161–88; and Rostovtzeff 1941: 1499. The term used is oÉs©ai, which comes to mean “estates” in the Roman period, but is used here in the sense of private real property. See Lenger 1964: 67. P BM 10117 (Thebes, dated to the reign of Amasis, ca. 541 bce). The text was published by Reich 1914: 9–25, pls. 2–4. Préaux 1939: 463–80; Uebel 1968: 41, n. 2; Crawford 1971: 56–58; Mélèze-Modrzejewski 1979a; Clarysse 1991b: 37–40, with previous literature on kleruchic evolution given on p. 37, n. 52.


179

sale but only by a special document called a “cession,” parach¯oresis.246 Land in this category was, strictly speaking, land held in usufruct and tied to the position of serving as a kleruch, that is, it was land given in exchange for service. Upon the death of the kleruch, the kl¯eros was taken back by the king in a similar fashion as derelict or ownerless land was. Royal decrees of the third century bce made clear that the stathmos was royal property and could not be transferred by lease or sale and could not be mortgaged.247 Despite this official stance, both stathmoi and land were bequeathed to sons of the kleruch in the middle of the third century bce,248 and a holder of a kl¯eros is termed “one who is given land forever.”249 A similar process whereby a father associated his son as a “co-kleruch,” sÅgklhrov, shows that the state probably sanctioned such transfers because it maintained ties to the state and, presumably, maintained the land under cultivation.250 But a conveyance of the stathmos to several Egyptian farmers at the end of the third century bce demonstrates that official restrictions on transfers had little practical effect.251 By the first century bce, women and even children could inherit kleruchic property.252 In contrast to the evolution of property rights on kleruchic land from a fixed usufruct to a more permanent holding, the lack of a similar “evolution” on royal land excluded the Egyptian tenant farmer from a more permanent holding on this class of land.253 The ancient institution of tying land to the revenue of the ruler continued under the Ptolemies, and direct control of royal land was maintained. This class of land was, of course, historically the major source of internal revenue for the state, but in the environment of weak rulers in the second and first centuries bce, the loss of economic power probably resulted in reduced revenue to the center, and the lack of private incentives prevented development. It was this scenario that led to the increasing use, apparently, of coercion.254 The first step in the evolution was the use of oaths similar to ones used in the royal monopolies.255 The farmer 246 248 249 250 251 252

253 255

247 C. Ord. Ptol. 5–10. On such cessions, see Rupprecht 1984. P. Lond. vii 2015 (241 bce). See Clarysse 1991b: 221. dem. h. r nh.h., P. Cairo 30659 + 31191 (202 bce; Spiegelberg 1908b: 96–97; Sethe and Partsch 1920, text 7), 3. See Sethe and Partsch 1920: 130 § 4; Crawford 1971: 56, n. 4. P. Cair. Zen 59001 ( = Select Papyri, vol. i text 66; 273 bce); cf. P. Petrie iii 18 ( = Clarysse 1991b, text 22; Fayyum, 235/4 bce); P. Lond. vii 2015 (Philadelphia, 241 bce). P. Tebt. i i i 820 (201 bce). Préaux 1939: 459–514; Rostovzteff 1941: 286; Taubenschlag 1955: 237; Crawford 1971: 56–57.The first example of a division of a kl¯eros severally among sons is a demotic document, P. Moscow 123, published by Malinine 1967 (Akhmim[Panopolis], 68 bce). The two eldest sons received thirty-nine arouras, four other plots of unspecified size were bequeathed to his three younger sons. 254 Pr´ Mélèze-Modrzejewski 1978a: 366. eaux 1984: 38. See also Préaux 1983. On these oaths, see de Cenival 1973.

180

Interpretation

swore an oath to remain in place and farm the land. In times of emergency, the king dictated the terms of the leases at lower rate (for the lessees), the socalled “forced lease.”256 By the first century bce, in the growing environment of state weakness and strength of the local elite, liability of the entire village was imposed for the land tax each year, a historic institution that in fact can be traced back to the Old Kingdom. On present evidence we cannot be certain how often or by what means exactly the state was able to force farmers to the fields, and it is doubtful whether this was ever a widespread phenomenon in the Ptolemaic period.257 The evidence of the “evolution” comes entirely from the Fayyum and was probably limited to royal land with the lease terms imposed on those most able, i.e. the richest farmers. As in other areas of the royal economy, the kings relied on the local elite to get land under cultivation. The evolution of the use of force, in Préaux’s terms, resulted in the long term in the extension of private property and to the formation of the class of large land owners in the Roman and Byzantine periods.258 The evolution of hereditary rights in kleruchic land has been contrasted with the misery of the tenants on royal land, where rights were increasingly restricted by the kings’ need for revenue.259 But rights on other classes of land (temple land), at least where we can track them, were not similarly restricted, and the view that all holding of land was “provisional” in the Ptolemaic period is perhaps too formal, as is the notion that royal farmers worked in miserable conditions.260 Most such farmers, indeed, seem to have had enough land to sustain their families.261 The demotic evidence from the Thebaid discussed in the next Chapter suggests that land, albeit perhaps restricted types of land, could be conveyed privately. The evidence from the Greek papyri of land transfers of soldiers’ land, particularly from the garrison community at Pathyris, covers a wider range of land types, from house plots and gardens, to palm tree land, vineyards and grain-bearing land as well.262 There was a major reorganization after the dynastic disputes between the rulers in 118 bce. A new social contract was issued in a series of decrees (forty-six in all) which, like the Memphis decree issued some eighty years previously, attempted to reestablish order by granting concessions and tax 256

257 258 260 261

The main evidence for forced lease is the problematic P. Paris 63 ( = UPZ i, 110). See above, p. 159. On the text and the nature of forced leases, see Crawford 1971: 104–05; Mélèze-Modrzejewski 1994. For group liability, see inter alia BGU 8 1843 (50/49 bce, Herakleopolites); Préaux 1939: 509–13. Cf. the remarks of Keenan and Shelton 1976: 13; Vandorpe 2000a: 182–85. 259 M´ Préaux 1983: 1. elèze-Modrzejewski 1994. On the view that all tenures were provisional, see Rowlandson 1996: 28. 262 Rupprecht 1994a: 230–31. Shelton 1976: 114.


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amnesty.263 Major land surveys reported in the Fayyum, the Herakleopolite, and now in the new text from Edfu,264 all in 119/118 bce, are suggestive of the reform efforts by the rulers. Among the most important issues addressed by the royal decrees, and clearly a constant problem within the Ptolemaic state, were illegal encroachments of land, the rent-seeking behavior of local officials, and the making of false reports. The strike of royal scribes mentioned in the Menches archive from Kerkeosiris shows, however, another continuing problem. The history of the Ptolemaic state in relation to land tenure was marked by increasing rationalization of economic institutions in the control of local bureaucrats. This rationalization can be seen in the use of tax farming, banking, public auctions and, eventually, the registration of contracts. Such control was not always strict but, as the Senpoeris matter shows, state enforcement of land registration backed by local record-keeping could be impressive. Nevertheless, the Senpoeris case also reminds us that the state was interested in revenue rather than strict control of land tenure rules and that in relying on local officials it could not always control predatory behavior. Here the Ptolemaic state failed to “credibly commit” to create a strong enough regime of private property rights. And yet the underlying regime for such commitment was present. This regime is at its clearest in the demotic documents from the Thebaid, and it is the examination of these records and the private property tradition that is the subject of the next Chapter. 263 264

P. Tebt 5 ( = C. Ord. Ptol. 53). See the comments by Bingen 1984; Samuel 1989: 61–62, as well as the literature cited in Lenger 1964. See Christensen 2002.

chap t e r 6


Borrow money at interest and put it in farmland.1 Instructions of Ankhsheshonqy (P. BM 10508, 16/x+9) [Lichtheim 1980: 172]

Do not hand over your property to your younger brother and thereby make him act as your elder brother Instructions of Ankhsheshonqy (P. BM 10508, 13/ x+10) [Lichtheim 1980: 169]

In this Chapter, I shift the focus from the institutions of the central state and its power, to the local organization of land tenure. I discuss the Egyptian tradition of property transmission, and the interaction of the Ptolemaic state to this ancient system. I will concentrate primarily on documents from the Thebaid, where the Egyptian material is at its fullest, and I will be concerned with two things: (1) the ancient institutions and social networks relating to land holding, and (2) the Egyptian tradition of property rights in land that were transferred by inheritance as well as by lease and sale contracts. In both cases, the documentary material shows that there was strong continuity with the pre-Ptolemaic period in the social and economic patterns of land tenure, and in the tradition of scribal practice with respect to contract-making. The Ptolemies did not alter the ancient property regime but, rather, established institutions designed to capture taxation revenue from production and from the circulation of property,2 and asserted the ancient pharaonic power of assigning rights to land.3 We do not have enough documentation from the Persian period to be certain of how the taxation of Egypt was organized at the local level, but the overall impression is that under the Ptolemies there 1

The demotic verb translated here as “put” (h , lit. “to throw,” EG 345–46) is sometimes translated “invest,” but I regard this as misleading with respect to the sentiment involved here. The text from which this verse comes is dated by paleography to the first century bce but the social context of the sayings is much earlier, probably the sixth century bce. For the text, see Thissen 1984. For the historical context of the instructions, see H. S. Smith 1980. Cf. Rostovtzeff 1941: 289–90. Cf. Ellickson 1993: 1400: “it is difficult to compel a close-knit group to change its land institutions.”

2 3

182


183

was increased control over the taxation through the use of tax farmers and state officials. irrigation and the state Early scholarly treatments of the Ptolemaic economy were premised, in part, on the belief that the Ptolemies simply took over a centralized power structure that had arisen in response to the hydraulic agrarian system. In other words, the Ptolemies, like their predecessors, were despotic rulers with total power over the land. Such images persist.4 Scholars from Marx and Weber to the more recent work of Wittfogel have argued that there was a direct correlation between hydraulic agriculture and despotic, centralized state control of land that excluded private property (the so-called “hydraulic hypothesis”).5 But the relationship of the king to social power in Egypt was more complex, and there was in fact no direct connection between the management of the irrigation networks and the centralized, or “despotic,” control of land.6 On the contrary, the control of water, and therefore of agricultural production, was always managed at the local level, and was centered on the annual rhythm of the flood and its recession.7 Unlike Mesopotamia, the gradient of the Nile river did not allow more extensive radial canalization (except in the Fayyum) and therefore the basin irrigation system, and agricultural decision-making, was essentially a local concern.8 The lack of a central bureaucracy for irrigation, with no official titles linked to such centralized control, is enough to suggest that the control of irrigation had, in fact, always been decentralized: Its management defied centralization and was handled on a community basis. Unlike in the Karl Wittfogel model, irrigation never involved a managerial bureaucracy, nor did it become an instrument of authoritarian control.9

The central state throughout ancient Egyptian history placed an emphasis, therefore, on the coordination rather than the control of local 4

5 6 7 8 9

Green 1990: 191; Powelson 1988: 20. Cf. Rostovtzeff 1941: 291: “The result was the establishment of a system which reminds one of the state control (étatisme) of modern times, but this control was not rigid and strict” (my emphasis). Wittfogel 1957, heir to Marx’s “Asiatic mode of production” model. See Butzer 1996, the brief analysis of Mann 1986: 94–98, and the remarks on Weber’s views of “hydraulic bureaucracy” in Swedberg 1998: 153. See above, Chapter two, pp. 27–30. Rathbone 1994a: 35. The average gradient of the Nile river in Egypt is virtually flat, at 1:12,000. Butzer 1999: 382. The essential local control, centered on officials in the villages, is well documented in Ptolemaic times and later. See Bonneau 1993.

184

Interpretation

irrigation.10 There is little doubt that this tension between the centralizing ideology of the ruler and the diffused economic system produced the “theater” as Geertz puts it, of royal power that served as a “general coordinating frame”.11 Indeed, there is no more enduring image of ancient Egypt than that of pharaoh exerting control over the factors of production within a unified, centralized state.12 But this ideology, rooted also in pharaonic theology, should not be confused with rural realities. These realities placed an emphasis on local bureaucratic control of land tenure and taxation, and here the temple estates and their literate priesthoods played a historically important managerial role. The irrigation of fields, the cleaning of canals, the protection of the dikes, the measurement of the flood, the lending of seed, the survey of the fields, and the payment of rent and tax from the land, were all organized at the local level through local institutions yet with obvious great concern on the part of the king and the organs of the central state as we have seen in the previous Chapter. In periods of strong central control, the state acted as a coordinator of the taxation system, large building projects, even at times intensification of agricultural production, and the establishment of new foundations, but the economic organization of agriculture was decentralized, managed through the temples, local governors and regional officials. The position of the ruler with respect to resources changed dramatically over the course of Egyptian history. During the first millennium bce, for example, when Egypt was controlled by several outside regimes in succession, local control may have been the norm. It was this framework that the Ptolemies inherited, and it was the local social networks associated with these institutions with which they had to contend. social net works Sociologists usually make a distinction between formal and informal social structures in the study of social organization. This contrast is one between a chain of command in a hierarchy and local social networks organized around family, “friendship cliques” and the like.13 Both networks are crucial for understanding state economic power and the flow of information. In this respect the field of economic sociology has made significant contributions to the study of the relationship between the structure of the state and the economy. Social networks form an important element in the 10 13

11 Geertz 1980: 82. 12 cf. Genesis 41. Butzer 1980: 5. On social networks as they relate to economics, see Powell and Smith-Doerr 1994.


185

analysis of institutions and their evolution, and are a strong force for social continuity, especially with respect to the transmission of offices and other property; they do not always act economically “efficient”.14 The issue is relevant for Ptolemaic Egypt. The power of the local elite was always to some extent set up against the power of the central state (i.e. the king) in ancient Egypt, and intermarriage allowed powerful families to control entire regions.15 These ancient networks of elites played an important role in legitimizing Ptolemaic rule and in economic activity. Many adapted to the new Ptolemaic “rules,” yet even in the context of the formal networks of the bureaucracy, friendship and family cliques remained very strong, and were often decisive in disputes16 and in gaining access to land. In one case from the Fayyum, some Greeks had encroached on the temple’s right to land by taking the best part of the land for themselves and leaving the temple with poor quality land. Another Greek acquired twenty-one arouras of land on behalf of the priests of Sobek by apparently paying off local officials – “the topogrammateus, k¯omogrammateus and the rest.”17 The old social networks can be traced in the demotic documents, especially in letters and legal agreements that are preserved in the family archives. The boundary descriptions found in land sale agreements, for example, allow us to some extent to trace the history of family land, its dispersal, and sometimes its consolidation, within one family. Egyptian family units were certainly cohesive if not always without tension when it came to the disposal of private property. The strong ties of kinship were used, no doubt more often than we hear, to enforce family inheritance sometimes outside of the boundaries of the legal system.18 The relationship between kinship and property transmission seen in the petition of Petiese from the time of Darius I is just the most famous example, and it can also be studied in the transmission of property in many of the private family archives of 14 15

16

17

18

Cf. Granovetter and Swedberg 1992: 9 on the emphasis in New Institutional Economics on “efficiency” alone as an explanation of the “emergence and maintenance of social institutions.” Stressed very well by Eyre 2000. For intermarriage among the local elite, see e.g. the biography of the Middle Kingdom nomarch Khnumhotep II in his tomb at Beni Hasan, for which see Lloyd 1992. Crawford 1978. The auction of land in the Milon archive discussed above in Chapter three, pp. 83–85, gives the flavor of such local favoritism by officials, as does P. Amh. 40 (Soknopaiou Nesos, second century bce). P. Amh. 40 (Soknopaiou Nesos, second century bce) discussed by Evans 1961: 168–69. The rentseeking behavior of officials, of course, has a long history in Egypt. Cf. the Decree of Horemheb (ca. 1332–1305 bce), an attempt to limit such abuse. For this decree, see Kruchten 1981. In the well-known and bitter family dispute over land at Asyut during the mid-second century bce that I discuss below, pp. 201–05, relatives were used to intimidate and coerce other relatives into agreeing to the transfer of land.

186

Interpretation

the Ptolemaic period.19 The extended Choachyte family archive from Ptolemaic Thebes, for example, dramatically demonstrates how private property, mainly in houses and burial rights, was transmitted among this close-knit social group over several generations.20 In Upper Egypt, the Ptolemies faced an ancient network of social organization, especially in Thebes, that often linked temple centers together, and Ptolemaic policy reflects both the use of old social networks and the development of new networks based on the (gradual) institution of the Greek language as a medium of government.21 The correspondence preserved in demotic letters records many things of local interest, but also reveals important relationships between small shrines and larger temples.22 The Fayyum, with more land under the direct control of the ruler and more Greek settlers, may have been more easily controlled, but of course friendship cliques in the bureaucracy and in partnerships in land tenure are much in evidence there as well.23 In both regions, knowledge of Greek was an instrument of Ptolemaic rule, and was encouraged by a reduction in the salt tax rate for those who had the status of “Hellene,” and the elimination of the tax altogether for teachers of Greek.24 Some of those with “Hellenic” status designation in the census registers were clearly Egyptians who were working within the bureaucratic structure, and thus received the same tax status. The issue, once again, was commitment to the regime, not “culture.” The most important social networks in the villages were the scribal families based in the local temples.25 These families controlled, sometimes for generations, the bureaux that generated private contracts and some receipts associated with temple income.26 At Edfu, for example, we can trace the family of these scribes through four generations, the last of which were three brothers who, apparently, shared the office.27 Private correspondence is also instructive in showing what must have been the normal tension between government bureaucrats and the local priesthoods. One letter, written (on order from the capital?) through the Thebarch to the head priest of the Khnum temple in Elephantine, shows what must have been 19 20 21 22 23 25 26 27

The petition, P. Ryl. 9, has been the subject of much comment. See most recently the excellent re-edition by Vittmann 1998, with the remarks by Lloyd 1983: 304–05. Pestman 1993. Such social networks surely existed in the Delta as well, but our evidence is not nearly as clear. On interlocking relationships between temples, see above, Chapter three, p. 78. See for example the fascinating two letters from Hermopolis concerning local Ibis shrines, published by Ray 1977. 24 Thompson 1997a: 247; Thompson 2001b. Shelton 1976: 117–18. Zauzich 1968: 2–5. Cf. Pestman 1977, vol. i: 145–53 on Theban scribal families. For pre-Ptolemaic demotic scribal families, see Donker van Heel 1995: 48–54. Manning 1997: 3–4.


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the frequent tension between state officials and the local elite with respect to state revenues from land.28 Such tension, nothing new from the point of view of Egyptian history, often stands in marked contrast to the cold efficiency and effectiveness that the Ptolemaic circular letters sometimes suggest. Another example of how some families adapted locally to the new bureaucratic realities is found in the new scribal position of the agoranomos.29 These scribes functioned virtually as public notaries to private Greek contracts and thus competed directly with the demotic temple scribes and the makers of the Greek six-witness contracts whose contracts were not recognized by the state as “authentic.”30 The scribal office is known from the middle of the third century bce31 but it is not until the middle of the second century bce that we are able to document it, and it is in the Thebaid – scribes are attested in the Theban area from 174 bce onward – that the frequency of the office is highest.32 Many of them indeed appear to have been Egyptians who had taken Greek names, not an uncommon strategy in the Ptolemaic bureaucracy. At Pathyris, one Egyptian family dominated the office.33 But the ethnicity of these scribes was of secondary importance, and the creation of the office was probably designed not as a means of countering the “prestige” of Egyptian scribes, since they competed both with Egyptians and Greek six-witness contract makers, but, rather, as a means of making contracting more efficient, and more centralized. status groups and the l and If the family was the strongest “internal network”34 in villages, other welldocumented social networks are the groups organized around occupation and social or status groups, whether based on ethnicity or identity. The most prominent status groups were priests and soldiers, often, of course, family occupations. Priesthoods formed the nucleus of every Egyptian village elite, and they were always important in the cooperation between the central and 28

29 30 32 33 34

P. Berl. dem. i 15522 (dated year six of a Ptolemy; = Zauzich 1978). The text is a demand to collect the emmer harvest from the temple domain without survey on the basis of the previous year’s harvest. See also the translation and comments by C. Martin 1996: 313–14. Martin suggests that one of the possible dates of the text is 199 bce, squarely in the middle of the Theban revolt (see above Chapter five, pp. 164–71), which may explain the sense of urgency in the letter. See the study by Pestman 1978; and briefly Seidl 1962: 62–63. 31 P. Hib. 29 ( = W. Chrest. 259; ca. 265 bce, ed.). Pestman 1978: 204. P. Grenf. i 10, cited by Seidl 1962: 62. Johnson 1987: 144. On the strategy of taking a Greek name when functioning within the state bureaucracy, see Clarysse 1985. Bagnall 1993: 223.

188

Interpretation

the local economy. Lower order priesthoods formed associations, following Hellenistic practice seen elsewhere, that among other things provided for a kind of death insurance for its members.35 Priests often had connections with their brethren in other locations, and their correspondence is instructive with respect to their business dealings and the extent of their economic and social contacts throughout Egypt.36 Some groups paid their occupation tax together,37 and others, like shepherds, an occupation associated with particular ethnic groups, shared the same tomb.38 It should come as no surprise, then, that the control of royal and temple land was also strongly tied to family and to occupation groups.39 Many of the demotic sales of land (Appendix 2) were transacted between two parties having the same status title (occupation title plus the addition of the phrase “servant of god X,” the local divinity, “men of Aswan” etc.), indicating that they were part of the same status group, attached to the same temple, or members of the same profession.40 In many cases this consonance probably reflects a family relationship as well. The use of status designations in contracts served as a method of identifying individuals by their occupation. Clearly, such titles related to occupation and not ethnicity. Even others such as those with the status title “Persian of the descent” who took up the farming of temple land assumed such a status.41 Transfers between close-knit social groups is an example of a “land rule” that minimized costs, in terms of information and in terms of the enforcement of property rights.42 The Ptolemies allowed temples to continue to manage their endowment lands, temple privileges were maintained, and their rights to revenues from 35

36

37 38 39 40

41 42

de Cenival 1972; Muhs 2001. For the Choachyte societies, see Donker van Heel 1995: 24–26. For the rules of religious associations, see de Cenival 1972. Necropolis workers were also associated in guilds, on which see Shore and Smith 1960. Pastophoroi were organized into “colleges,” for which see Schönborn 1976, and apiculturalists were also organized in groups, see Chouliara-Ra¨ıos 1989: 89–95. See for example the series of letters of the priests of Khnum at Elephantine, P. Berl. Dem. 15527, 13538, 13544, 13587, and P. Padua, published recently in translation by Martin 1996, texts C 15, C 16, C 17, C19, C 22. Fullers at Edfu paid the natron tax as a group. See BGU 6 1374, 4–5 (113 bce), and the editors’ remarks, BGU 6 118. E.g. P. Fam. Theb. 19, 3, in a boundary description for a tomb chapel, lists on the eastern side “the m.w. tomb chapel of the herdsmen,” dem. t st n n Cf. the remarks of Shelton 1976: 118. The parties to the P. Hausw. sales of land discussed above in Chapter three, pp. 79–83, were either women, or men with the title “herdsman, servant of Horus of Edfu.” See further Manning 1994a. I take these as real occupation titles as opposed to merely honorific ones. Cf. Rowlandson 1996: 209. P. Adl. dem. 22, 7 (90 bce), discussed above, Chapter three, pp. 86–88. For the title “Persian of the descent” see La’da 1996; Pestman 1982: 56–63. On the “efficiency thesis,” see Ellickson 1993: 1320.


189

land as well as from other sources were reinforced by the later royal decrees.43 It was with respect to taxes that the Ptolemies asserted a more direct control by the use of state granaries for the collection of harvest taxes and the use of state banks for the collection of money taxes.44 This was an important shift in local power away from temples and into the hands of local state bankers and tax collectors. Occasionally priests are found engaged in land transactions in their official role as priest of a particular temple. While some temples, at least quite early on, appear to have an official in charge of leasing out temple lands, known as the “chief of fields,” in other temples, elders or priests may have been responsible for the internal organization of revenue-producing lands.45 A small window on this practice may be provided by an unusual demotic text from Jeme (Memnoneia) dated to the end of the second century bce.46 In this text, a pastophoros-priest and his younger brother received a vacant plot of land within the temple estate of Amun from a senior priest of Amun for a period of ninety-nine years. The term used for this type of conveyance was sh.n, “entrustment,” the same word used for leases of land. On the same day, the priest transferred by the same means another very small plot of empty land within the temple estate of Amun of Jeme, on the west bank, to another pastophoros-priest.47 The length of the transfer has caused some comment since ninety-nine years was, in effect, a permanent transfer that would normally take the form of a sale and cession.48 Why the distinction in this case? The reason, I believe, lies in the fact that the transfer may have been business-related, or at least involved a type of land in which the temple estate wanted to maintain an interest.49 Other transfers of building sites or tombs written in Greek and demotic were limited to a ninety-nine year term as well.50 These contracts were, then, long-term leases. If more evidence were preserved, these transfers might be seen as a standard procedure for letting out land to other priests within a temple estate for workspace or for activities related to work. The conveyer in this case may also have been limited in the type of 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50

P. Tebt. 5, 47–53 (118 bce). On this text, see above, Chapter five, pp. 171; 180. See Vandorpe 2000a. dem. mr h., e.g. P. Loeb 5 (Hakoris, 309/8 bce), or perhaps a holdout from an earlier period. For its use earlier, see Van den Boorn 1988: 153–57. P. Warsaw 148.288 ( = P. Survey 43, Jeme, 119 bce), published by Andrzejewski 1961 and re-published in Pestman 1977, text 10. P. Brit. Mus. iv 22 (Thebes [ Jeme], 119 bce). See the comments of Pestman 1977, vol. ii: 108, n. z; Pestman 1993: 150. In the demotic self-dedication texts, ninety-nine years was the equivalent of “eternity” (dem. sˇ d.t ). Pestman 1993: 150 suggested that the transfer was limited because the conveyer did not himself “own” the land. Taubenschlag 1955: 268.

190

Interpretation

conveyance he could transact in his official capacity. On some occasions, a sale of temple land to an individual is recorded.51 Such transactions imply at least a more permanent transfer of temple land to a private party. As in earlier periods, priests retained a personal claim to temple land, perhaps in association with holding an office within the temple hierarchy although we are left in the dark as to how the land was acquired.52 Despite what may have been a standard practice of giving priests claim to land which they could either farm themselves or lease out for income, we are rarely in a position to assess the size of personal holdings or the use of this temple land. There are occasionally, however, exceptions that help shed light on the distinction between property held through an office and property held privately. One case in which we may be reasonably certain of the extent of priestly holdings from the middle of the second century bce comes from the provincial town of Asyut (Lykopolis) in Middle Egypt, home to the underworld jackal god Wepwawet. In the course of a dispute between two half brothers over their inheritance, the list of the father’s property is given.53 It is instructive to examine this inventory because it allows us one of the few insights into the totality of an Egyptian priest’s personal holdings. The holdings are perhaps typical of a small priestly family, and the property may be divided into the two basic types of property in Egypt, property associated with the holding of an office, and personal property. Holding priestly office entitled the priest to a share of the income from the temple estate, including the consumption of “offerings” made to the divinity in the course of the daily ritual. The list of real property is also noteworthy. Most of it was held jointly, and much of the property consisted of buildings or underdeveloped plots. It was the ten arouras of land that was the object of the bitter family dispute, and it is important to note that the land had been acquired by two priests (the testator and his father) from two other temple servants, and that they shared ten arouras each.54 Another plot of land, a garden, located also within the temple estate, had been acquired by purchase from a woman with a Greek name.55 Two things deserve comment here. One is that the priest acquired land in the temple estate at the public auction. Secondly, a woman, whether Greek by ethnicity or by identity, without status in the temple estate as far as we know, held property within 51 52 53 55

O. Hess 1 (Pathyris, 91 bce), published by Kaplony-Heckel 1967. Twenty arouras were claimed by a priest in Thebes as his “ancestral property,” progonik»n, that is that the plot was in the possession of his ancestors. See below, p. 197. 54 P. Siut 10575, 6. P. Siut 10575 ( = text A; 181 bce). Aristion (dem. rstyn) daughter of Agathocles (dem. gtqls), P. BM Siut 10575, 7.


191

the temple estate and had the right to convey it by sale. There was, therefore, nothing to prevent individuals without temple status from holding land within the temple estate, just as there was no public/private distinction in the economy.56 Indeed there are many other examples of Greeks and others holding temple land.57 Soldiers, whether they were Greek or Egyptian, were settled throughout Egypt with land grants the size of which varied according to the rank of the man. In some cases it cannot be ascertained whether land was held by right of serving in a military or quasi-military function. “Men of Aswan,” for example, a title that may have links with military function, appear in demotic land sales in the middle of the third century bce.58 We do not know whether the land, located in Armant in this case, was tied to military status or not. From the middle to late second century bce, several private archives of these soldiers from the Nile valley are known, and it is clear that these men and their families became a privileged rural class, and that the transmission of land was an important aspect of their household economy. The archive of Dryton (150–99 bce), a cavalry officer and citizen of Ptolemais, is instructive.59 He was stationed in Pathyris and occasionally also in Krocodilopolis. As we would expect from such an important and highly ranked soldier, he owned land, vineyards, gardens and appurtenances, including wells, in the Pathyrite and Peritheban nomes. From his several wills we learn that both his daughters and his son inherited his real property in good Egyptian tradition. We do not know the total amount of land that was in his possession, but the family’s economic activity was substantial, and we may presume that his holding was substantial, perhaps on the order of one hundred arouras. Another well-known figure from around the same time as Dryton is Dionysius son of Kephalas (his archive is dated to 117–103 bce).60 Dionysius was another garrisoned soldier, as opposed to a kleruch, and was stationed at the ancient and strategic site of Hakoris (Tehne), in the Hermopolite nome, overlooking the Nile valley. As with Dryton, Dionysius was also fully socialized to his Egyptian surroundings, serving as a priest in the local Ibis cult. He purchased and leased out land used to sustain the sacred ibises (eighteen arouras)61 as well as land from the crown.62 In taking on a lease of royal land he acted as a manager of the land, and in giving it out in sublease he took advantage of his connections and the status that being a 56 58 59 60

57 Cf. P. Tor. Amenothes 17 (Thebes, 118 bce). Cf. Samuel 1993: 172–73. E.g. P. Brit. Mus. iv, 44 (243 bce). For the title, see La’da 1996. Lewis 1986; Ritner 1984. A new study of the Dryton archive by Katelijn Vandorpe is forthcoming. 61 P. Dion. 1 (110 bce). 62 P. Dion. 11 (108 bce). Pestman 1982; Lewis 1986.

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Interpretation

royal farmer brought. A series of loans in his archive once suggested that his success as a farmer was less than spectacular. There are twenty-four loans over the course of twelve years and it appeared that he was in a classic debt trap, paying off one loan with another in order to survive. But another interpretation of these texts has recently been proffered.63 Rather than suggesting that he was a chronic debtor, Lewis has argued that he was shrewdly taking advantage of his connections and mortgaging property to gain liquid assets that he could then lend out to tenant farmers, turning a profit by collecting interest on the capital. A contemporary of Dryton’s was Peteharsemtheus son of Panebkhounis, whose archive dates from the years 145–88 bce and covers five generations of his family.64 Here again real property played a significant role in the private economy of his family, and on several occasions he purchased land from other members of his family. Unlike Dryton, whose family may well be from Crete,65 Peteharsemtheus was from an Egyptian military family, and the status and economic opportunities, including money lending, enjoyed by some Egyptian families was considerable, at least until the unrest in 88 bce that proved disastrous for Pathyris.66 In a series of important studies, Jean Bingen has argued that the Greek presence in the Egyptian countryside (his focus was on the Fayyum, and the neighboring Herakleopolite and Oxyrhynchite nomes) was far less than has been supposed.67 The Greek preference for urban living gave rise to a situation where Greek kleruchs were often absentee landlords, and others functioned as middlemen between kleruchs and Egyptian tenants because of a lack of access to land for those who were not in the direct service of the king or a temple.68 Zenon was one such middleman, as we have seen in Chapter four. This resulted in an urban/rural divide between Greeks and Egyptian elite (priests) and the rural agricultural workers, and it spawned the rise of a class of Egyptian village elite. It conforms, in general terms, to Gellner’s model of the cultural isolation in pre-modern agrarian states between elites and primary agricultural workers.69 This is not to say that Greeks were absent from rural areas, for they very obviously lived throughout Egypt. In garrison communities such as Pathyris in the south, Greeks married Egyptian women and adapted to the bi-cultural world of such communities, even to the extent that they served in the local temple, and made contracts in both Greek and demotic. The local military classes fared well if the archives are any indication. Other Greeks, such as Rhodon son of 63 67 68

64 Lewis 1986: 139–52. 65 Lewis 1986: 89. 66 Vandorpe 1995a: 435. Lewis 1986: 129–30. Bingen 1973; see the convenient list of the articles and brief analysis in Bagnall 1982: 16. 69 See above, Chapter five, pp. 131–32. Bingen 1978b.


193

Lysimachos at Edfu, may have served the state as an administrative official before settling down to life in this important town.70 In all of these cases, Greeks lived side by side with Egyptians. Temple land in the south was not seized, nor were Egyptians evicted from the land, a fact that explains why the Egyptian tradition of property rights continued. propert y rights The structure of rural production in Asian societies, including Egypt, tied the ruler’s revenue to the social groups who held land.71 The assignment of rights to land, therefore, was closely associated with service to the state: the military (with ties to local temples) formed the single most important group. In treating Egypt’s “rural culture” (“civilisation agraire”), to borrow from Bloch, and its relationship to the central state, it is important to bear in mind that land tenure was regionally variable and subject to change based on local conditions and settlement patterns. Access to land and to the market in land was limited, private rights were attenuated, and the private accumulation of large tracts of land was uncommon in the Ptolemaic period. The historically low price of land, a low multiple of the value of a year’s harvest, is another indication of the limited “market alienability” of land – it was the rights to the income from land (“economic rights”) rather than individualized “legal rights” to the land itself that were transferred.72 The Ptolemaic maintenance of an old land tenure regime in the Thebaid, where the right to convey land already existed, the granting of land to important new constituents, and the use of agents to collect taxes all combined to reduce the king’s monopoly power on rents, but it followed from the political necessity of a regime that sought legitimacy from old institutions, and loyalty from the bureaucracy and the army.73 Successful control and taxation of the diverse agrarian system required either strong control (“despotic”) from the center or, as I argue, a more diffused system of coordination that depended on local institutions to manage the various tenancy arrangements. While the conception of private rights in land was well developed in Egypt, land was often held within family 70 72

73

71 Chaudhuri 1990: 254. Manning 2002. On the distinction between economic and legal rights, see Barzel 1997. For the price of land in ancient Egypt, see Menu 2001: 425; Baer 1962. The price of land was not given in demotic land sales, but was in Greek sales. An exception is P. Hausw. 16 (Edfu, 221/220 bce), the demotic record of an agreement to purchase rights to land at auction. On prices of land in the Greek papyri, see Cadell 1994. On this neoclassical theory of the state, see above, Chapter one, p. 10.

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Interpretation

and status groups.74 The demotic evidence from the Thebaid provides excellent evidence of the ancient tradition of property rights. In contrast, in the new area of the Fayyum, the state had more direct control of tenancy conditions, at least at the beginning, although the kleruchic system evolved away from a limited tenure to a conveyable tenancy. The distinction usually made by legal historians is that between the norm in Egypt of long-term “hereditary lease” (“bail héréditaire,” “Erbpacht”) and true individualized private property rights in land.75 But the practical difference between conveyance of rights in land and true sales was negligible, and, in terms of Egyptian law, it is important to note that the terms of such transfers of rights were couched as a sale. The basic conceptual difference between hereditary lease and truly individualized property rights is the contrast that is usually made between an eastern monarchy, which retained absolute control over all land, and the Greek system of private rights in land vested in household groups.76 How much land there was in private hands at the time of the Ptolemaic takeover we cannot say in exact terms, but much of it was probably small-scale holding within family groups with, of course, institutional claims attached. The terms “ownership” and “possession” have caused much debate and considerable confusion when it comes to the interpretation of the Egyptian evidence.77 Indeed the confusion stems from the vagueness of the ancient terminology – the demotic term for “ownership” and “possession” is the same.78 From the point of view of the holder, there was of course little distinction. Ownership is an abstraction, implying the enforcement of rights by the state. The debate over the existence of private property in Egypt has been longstanding and has received increased attention in recent years.79 From the perspective of property theory, the concept of private property carries with it an entitlement to use the property for one’s own benefit. In Hohfeld’s 74 75 76

77 78 79

See below, p. 218. A summary of the literature on this standard view is provided by Rupprecht 1994a: 226. Rostovtzeff 1941: 277. The contrast that Rostovtzeff made is not as sharp in reality. Rostovtzeff argued that in Greece rights in land were vested in individuals, while in Egypt they were conceded by the kings. In fact the “community” (i.e. the polis) in Greece acted much like the kings in Egypt. Truly individualized rights in land, as against family rights, were also limited in Greece. On the Greek conception of the ownership of land, see Austin & Vidal-Naquet 1977: 74, n. 19; Burford 1993: 15–55. The differences in the taxation of land of course were great. There was no known direct taxation of the land in Greece. For land taxes in Egypt, see above, Chapter two, pp. 56–60. On the conveyance of land in Greece, see Finley 1968. On the debate between “ownership” and “possession” or “tenure” in Medieval European law, see Tabuteau 1988: 95–112. Dem. nb, EG 212. Cf. Taubenschlag 1955: 232–37. The debate is briefly summarized in Manning 1995.


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classic analysis, the “ownership” of land establishes a bundle of rights, privileges, powers and immunities relating to the land.80 The owner stood in a defined relationship to other parties, relatives, heirs, or others, and, of course, owners also stood in relationship to the state with respect to taxes. This is termed a “standard bundle” of rights.81 There is rarely in history any absolute ownership of land.82 Rather, we should speak of “relative” ownership of land on which there were multiple interests. The distinction between hereditary lease and ownership, and the use of terms such as “virtual owner”83 is unnecessary. An individual held land to the exclusion of other individuals, but institutional claims to the land remained. This basic idea has been prevalent in discussions of private property in ancient Egypt, and many Egyptologists have assumed a “strong state” model in which the pharaoh claimed all resources.84 Texts such as the important Papyrus Wilbour from the New Kingdom show how complicated the economic relationships between institutions and individual holders were, but this text cannot prove the predominance of temples or even the state as principal land owners.85 Rather, pharaonic or temple claims in most historical periods stressed the right to income from the land, in the form of rent or tax. A recognizable concept of private ownership of land in Egyptian law – right of possession and transmission by individuals – existed since the Old Kingdom (ca. 2500 bce). Such land was termed “privately held land,”86 and holders of this type of land were called “free persons.”87 The rights to the land were freely conveyable although the institutional interest in the land, either of the pharaoh or of a temple estate, was always retained.88 Much of this land was used for fruit trees and gardens, but it is clear that the private holding of other types of land existed throughout Egyptian history.89 Soldiers were a dominant class of landholders from at least the New Kingdom, and royal decrees such as the famous Decree of Horemheb (ca. 1332–1305 bce) show the direct connection between military, land-holding and temple economies.90 The Wilbour papyrus (P. Wilbour) shows the importance 80 81 82 83 85 86 88 89 90

Hohfeld 1964 [1919]. Cf. Hoebel 1942 and Munzer 1990: 16–20. Ellickson 1993. For a comparative analysis of the evolution of “full private ownership,” see Kiernan 1976. 84 See for example Kessler 1986: 365. Janssen 1986: 363. This important point is well made by Warburton 1997: 61, n. 118. 87 nmhw h..t nmh.. . Baer 1962; Katary 1989: 210–11; Katary 1999: 66 for previous literature on the status of nmh.w . On fruit trees and gardens, see Eyre 1994b. On private property in land in ancient Egypt, see Ward 1984; Warburton 1997: 61–62 with n. 118, 136–40. Katary 1999: 79.

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Interpretation

of small land-holding among soldiers, who could pass along their plots informally in their families. The link between the finances of the ruler and the holding of land by important members of the military or priestly class is clear.91 The well-defined concept of private property seen in the demotic conveyances had, therefore, a long history of legal development behind it. By the Ptolemaic period, the Egyptian law of private property shown in the contracts of sale and cession in most respects resembled “Blackstonian” entitlement to land.92 But such rights were not often fully individualized; rights in land remained embedded within families as well as within local economic institutions. Indeed most of the documentary evidence from the pharaonic period suggests that long-term lease, or long-term right of possession subject to government claims, was the normal tenancy on the land.93 The ancient practice may have been similar to the custom of athariyya (transfer in nineteenth-century ce Egypt): holders of rights in land could buy, sell or convey land as long as taxes were paid.94 The Ptolemaic administrative term for “privately held land,”95 which first appears in the second-century bce documentation, is merely the Ptolemaic state’s recognition of the ancient tradition of private holding of land within temple estates and elsewhere, conveyable but always with institutional claims, at least in regard to Upper Egyptian land. From the fiscal point of view of the state, the distinction that mattered was whether the land was rent-producing or not.96 Its appearance, then, in the important survey of land in the Edfu nome of 119/118 bce in which much of the arable land was classed as “privately held” is merely the administrative recognition of the old system of tenure on temple estates in the Thebaid.97 It does not, I believe, represent a development in private property rights.98 This recognition of privately held land had probably always existed.99 Previous arguments have been based merely on the surviving contracts, which are better documented from the second than from the third century bce. What 91 92

93 94 97 98

Katary 1999. See above, pp. 193–95. I do not know of any examples of a landholder “abusing” the land but the important point is that demotic law recognized what modern scholars would call a “standard bundle” of property rights. On the language of the demotic contracts, see below, pp. 214–16. Cf. Samuel 1989: 57–59, who prefers the term “land held personally,” but it amounts to the same thing. 95 g¦ «di»kthtov. 96 Keenan and Shelton 1976: 2. Marsot 1984: 144. P. Haun. inv. 407. On the general use of the term g¦ «di»tikov in the Roman period, see Rowlandson 1996: 42–43. 99 P. Eleph. 14, 22–23 (Edfu, ca. 223 bce). See further above, Chapter five, pp. 178–81.


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one can observe in almost every period in Egyptian history is the tendency for land over time to be treated as private even if it may have been tied to an office.100 Even land let out on long-term lease could be so treated. Tenants on royal land referred to their plots as theirs, and in the demotic conveyances the clause of transfer makes it clear that the conveyed land was the exclusive possession of the purchaser.101 The land could be sub-leased by the holder and conveyed to others.102 As we saw in Chapter three, fruit-tree and garden land was probably the predominant type of land in private hands. This is the land that figures prominently in the private land transfers. Many of the documented conveyances of land were small plots, an indication that the land was probably a garden plot rather than arable land. But again, it would be too simplistic to argue that it was only small garden plots that could be held privately, and it is unnecessary to posit that arable land was “slowly acquiring the character of private property.”103 There is good evidence that larger plots that could be claimed as a heritable right were in private hands in Upper Egypt. In the famous Hermias legal case from the Theban west bank in the second century bce, we read by way of an aside in the transcript of the trial that a priest of Amun had complained that a certain party had sold illegally about twenty arourai of “grain-producing land” (g¦ sit»forov) although they were his “ancestral property” (progonik»v).104 At Pathyris, arable land was also in private hands and could be conveyed privately,105 and as we have already seen, the disputed temple land in the Asyut probate dispute was also arable land (growing emmer and vetch).106 100

101 102 104 105 106

The famous Ramesside period text known as the Inscription of Mes, for example, records a family dispute over control of a plot of land originally given to the “ship master” in the reign of Ahmose I after the expulsion of the Hyksos, some two hundred years previously. An individual grant of income had become a long-term family asset. For the text, see Gardiner 1905; Gaballa 1977; and the brief discussion in Katary 1989: 220–22. A later parallel to this practice can be observed in the category of land called ibadiyya, or “untilled land.” Such land was originally granted to local farmers tax free for three years. The tenure on this land evolved from a temporary tax-free grant, to inheritable land, to fully privately owned land. See Marsot 1984: 157. Cf. Keenan and Shelton 1976: 6. See also the remarks of Samuel 1989: 59. 103 Taubenschlag 1955: 235. Crawford 1971: 104 with literature. P. Tor. Gr. 2147 (Wilcken, UPZ ii 162, 4.2–3; = P. Survey 48). For the possibility of sizable plots held by Egyptian families, see Clarysse 1979a: 734. P. Adl. dem. 23, 8 (89 bce), dem. h. mrwt, “fertile land,” EG 257, the sometime equivalent of g¦ sit»forov. See Pestman 1965: 80, n. 221. The demotic phrase h. nt ır bt, “land which produces emmer,” occurs in one of the leases (P. Siut 10597, 5) made by one of the brothers to a soldier. For the corrected reading of the phrase, see Vleeming 1979: 95. In another case, the land was used to grow vetch (dem. trm).

198

Interpretation joint v s. ind ividualized holding of l and

Group leasing and holding of land was common throughout Egypt.107 Property rights were most often vested with families or groups, and were acquired and subsequently transmitted within family groups by a division of “shares.”108 At times, such shares in property were small fractions of the whole, a reflection of Egyptian inheritance patterns.109 This treatment of property as rights to shares is seen in both the demotic and the Greek papyri.110 The tendency to fragment property is observed in some of the earliest preserved demotic records.111 The joint purchase of land is also well documented,112 and the several plots of land that the priest from Dendera (discussed in Chapter three) bestowed upon his son was all jointly held, once again reflecting inheritance patterns. leases of l and Private rights in land were exercised by leasing, selling, mortgaging and conveying to family members. The leasing of land was very common in Egypt; it gave the landowner flexibility, and it was an efficient method of exploiting scattered holdings.113 The demotic contracts of lease and sale from the Kushite and Saite period onward demonstrate that there were private rights established over a variety of agricultural land in Egypt. The leasing of land is an old feature of demotic law, but curiously, Ptolemaic demotic leases of land are first documented in Lower Egypt in 190 bce and in Upper Egypt only in 178 bce.114 I demur from making any historical conclusions about this fact; it may simply reflect that ephemeral contracts (leases, animal sales) did not get preserved in family archives. 107 108 109

110 111 112 113 114

For royal land in the Fayyum, Keenan and Shelton 1976: 38 suggest that at least 10% of the land was leased in partnership. dem. dny.t, EG 638. Taubenschlag 1955: 239–43. P. dem. Louvre 2410 (Thebes, 120 bce; Zauzich 1968, text 47) is the sale of a 1/35th share of a house and surrounding ground. A good example of fragmentation of land over several generations may be seen in P. Hausw. 5 (Edfu, 219 bce; Manning 1997: 56–62). Herrmann 1975, discussing P. Adl. on which see briefly above, Chapter three, pp. 86–88. See the discussion of the archive of P y f–h.ry–h.sy (Thebes, seventh century bce) in Pestman, 1983a: 285. P. Grenf. 2, 23 (a) (Pathyris, 107 bce = Select Papyri, vol. i, text 27.) Cf. Bagnall 1993: 119–21. For the Saite period land leases in demotic, see Hughes 1952. The leases have been re-edited by Donker van Heel 1995. The Persian period lease, P. Loeb 45, has been published by Vleeming 1991, text 5. The two leases from the reign of Hakoris are P. Cairo 50098 + 102 and P. Cairo 50099 ( = Spiegelberg 1932). For the Ptolemaic demotic leases, see Felber 1997. For a study of lease contracts from the Roman period and the kind of conclusions one may draw from them, see the important study of Rowlandson 1999. //


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There are a total of five lease contracts from the Kushite period, seven lease contracts from the Saite period (all from the reign of Amasis), three from the Persian period and pre-Ptolemaic (one from the reign of Darius I, two from the reign of Hakoris), and twenty-three from the Ptolemaic period.115 Most lease contracts were in fact oral agreements between parties, with special circumstances determining the need for a written agreement. And even if we assume along with Donker van Heel that the preserved examples represent only a tiny fraction of what was recorded, broad conclusions based on this small corpus must remain tentative.116 All of the Kushite and Saite leases come from Thebes and the land was located in the temple estate of Amun. Several lessors were priests of Amun, but in most cases in these early leases either the lessor or the lessees were mortuary priests (Choachytes) and the land was used to maintain mortuary cults of private persons. The temple was the local manager of the estate and collected a harvest tax of around 10%. Various priests who were associated with the temple derived an income from the rental of some of this land. There are important differences between the pre-Ptolemaic and the Ptolemaic leases. Besides the form of the contract (the Ptolemaic leases are far more explicit in specifying the exact terms of the leases), which in both cases was normally extended for one agricultural year (the texts often specify the duration of the lease was to be “from the water of year x to the water of year x+1”), the rent in the early leases was a fixed share of the crop, usually in the proportion one-third to the lessor and two-thirds to the lessee.117 The Saite leases never specify the size of the plot of land or the boundaries of the plot, whereas the Ptolemaic leases do both. In the Ptolemaic leases, in contrast, the rent was almost always a fixed amount, creating an incentive for the renter to cultivate the land more intensively and better protecting the landlord from risk.118 The Saite leases demonstrate that the harvest tax was paid to the temple estate, which was responsible for 115 116

117 118

For early demotic leases see Donker van Heel 1999; also 1998 and 1995; Hughes 1952. Donker van Heel 1998b, posits a hypothetical total for the Kushite and Saite periods at Thebes alone of 11,100 written lease contracts, calculating at a rate of fifty per year. There are fourteen preserved leases from Thebes during this period. If I am correct in arguing that written leases were the exception rather than the norm, we must then remain cautious about extrapolating the number of written contracts that were drawn up in any given year. Nevertheless, the notion that we are dealing, as always, with a fraction of what was written in antiquity is surely right. For the Ptolemaic period, there is a journal of a notary office (P. Lille dem. 120 [= inv. Sorbonne 264, 265]; Ghoran, early Ptolemaic period by paleography) listing the number of contracts that came in to be registered. On most of the preserved days in the journal, one or two contracts were registered. See de Cenival 1987b. On Ptolemaic demotic lease clauses, see also Martin 1995: 60–62. On sharecropping and risk, see Kehoe 1988: 155–87. For share contracts and the economic analysis of the arrangement in modern settings, see Cheung 1969; Ellis 1993: 146–65. Cheung 1969: 3 defined

200

Interpretation

the administration of its land, for its registration, and for the issuance of the harvest tax receipts. But in the Ptolemaic leases, the state was explicitly mentioned as the party that received the tax, and except for a couple of cases, the only party to receive the harvest tax even though the land was located within a temple estate.119 This is an example of Ptolemaic “taking” of temple privilege and the gradual displacement of old temple institutions by new state ones. On the other hand rent on temple land may have been paid to the temple. In such cases the renting agent, usually a priest in the temple in whose estate the land nominally lay, acted in the name of the temple rather than as a private party to the lease.120 Most Ptolemaic demotic leases of land were drawn up by private parties for their private economic benefit. Royal land, as was discussed above, was normally leased out by the state to individuals on long-term leases and without written contract, but there were exceptions. One example of a written, one-year lease of royal land involved a plot of thirty arouras, and the lessor swore an oath in the name of the reigning sovereigns as well as his parents to perform according to the contract (the exact terms of which were written in the missing upper half of the document).121 The Ptolemaic leases show important regional variation. Leases from the Fayyum and Middle Egypt customarily made pre-payment (so-called prodomatic leases) of rent a requirement with the lessor making the lease (“I have leased to you my land . . .”).122 In lease contracts from Upper Egypt, on the other hand, it was the lessee who normally made the lease agreement (beginning the contract with the words “you have leased to me . . . ”). In both practices, it was the “debtor” who made out the lease. It is not known why there was a regional variation in the payment of the rent, and we may once again be at the mercy of insufficient evidence. The payment of rent after the harvest, just like the payment of the harvest tax as a proportion of the year’s harvest in Upper

119 120 121

122

a share contract as one in which two or more parties combine “privately owned resources for the production of certain mutually agreed outputs, the actual outputs to be shared according to certain mutually accepted percentages as returns to the contracting parties for their production resources forsaken.” The imperfect information approach to share tenancy analysis argues that a lack of information created higher risk for the landowner and higher transaction costs in enforcing agreements. A shift to “personalised transactions” solved these problems by shifting the emphasis to the local knowledge of the tenant and by reducing transaction costs. See further Stiglitz 1989. Hughes 1952: 38–39 on Saite leases; Felber 1997: 142–50. On this possibility, see Martin 1995: 62. P. Lille dem. 117 ( = inv. Sorbonne 750; Bubastis, Arsinoite nome, 248 bce) published by de Cenival 1991. The demotic texts from the Fayyum published by Sethe & Partsch 1920, texts 1–6 are difficult to interpret but I follow Rostovtzeff in regarding them as one-year leases of royal land to grow fodder or grass. Cf. Felber 1997: 204–08; Rowlandson 1985: 340. Hughes 1952: 31–34.


201

Egypt, may reflect the relative unpredictability of agricultural production in the Nile valley because of the vagaries of the annual flood. A series of leases studied by Jean Bingen from Tholthis show that “Persians of the descent,” sons of soldiers not yet enrolled in the army, and probably having a privileged tax status, were involved as middlemen in the leasing of kleruchic land.123 That men with these status titles frequently occur in such contexts suggests that such men had both the local knowledge and access to information, and capital that allowed them to function as entrepreneurs between Egyptian farmers and kleruchs who held land. The rent for the land was often paid in advance. The leasing of land through such knowledgeable middlemen may have been common in areas where the state had conferred rights in land to large numbers of Greeks.124 It is of course difficult to draw conclusions about the popularity of such contracts, but as we have already observed on the Zenon estate, the land had to be worked, and these Greek middlemen served a vital function on one hand by providing a guarantee to the landholder, and on the other by providing access to land. The Zenon archive, the Tholthis leases and the Egyptian tradition all show leasing as a private economic activity, an important reminder that the “économie royale” does not cover the entirety of the Ptolemaic economy, and that applying labor to the land by leasing was crucial in local economies.125 The leasing of family land was not always without problems, as the court records of a family probate dispute from the second century bce show. the asyut probate dispute The family dispute that occurred at Asyut between two half brothers that I have already mentioned several times provides important historical information on the private tenure of temple land for two reasons. First, it shows perfectly well the family tensions that arose over the inheritance of land.126 Secondly, the entire process of the dispute and its resolution provides the 123

124 125 126

Bingen 1978a. The texts come from the Oxyrhynchite nome, and are dated to the years 7–10 of Ptolemy IV Philopator, 216/15–213/12 bce. For the location of the village, see the map in Rowlandson 1996: xiv. On the status title “Persian of the descent,” see La’da 1996: ch. 3. Cf. the remarks of Rowlandson 1996: 272. On some of the problems involved, see the discussion by Verhoogt 1997: 167–75. The texts from the archive were published by H. Thompson 1934, and Shore and Smith 1959. A modified translation of the court transcript (P. Siut 10591 recto) was published by Seidl 1967a. For an analysis of the same text, see Seidl and Stricker 1937. Some corrections to the demotic have been published by Zauzich 1972, Zauzich 1990; Vleeming 1983. For additional comments, see Seidl 1962; Johnson 1987; Vleeming 1989; Allam 1990.

202

Interpretation

clearest case of the extent to which the Ptolemaic state intervened in the land tenure regime of temple estates. The attempted legal resolution of the family dispute involved Ptolemaic officials, the strat¯egos of the Thebaid based in Ptolemais, the local strat¯egos in Asyut, and the Ptolemaic representative, the eisag¯ogeus,127 and representatives of the local temple. It was, importantly, the judges from among the priesthood in the temple and a bailiff in charge of enforcement who had ultimate legal authority in the matter. The dispute began in 181 bce, not long after the Theban revolt was put down, when a priest named Petetum, on his deathbed, specified that his inheritance was to be shared between his four children, a son and a daughter from each of his two wives in succession.128 The bulk of his property was split between the two half brothers in the proportion of two-thirds to the older, named Tuot, and one-third to the younger, named Tefhapy, while his daughters were given a half share each of one-quarter of a house and surrounding ground. The half brothers shared the interest in several pieces of property, but the most important were the two plots of land, amounting to ten arouras listed as located in the “divine endowment” of the local god Wepwawet.129 At first the two brothers worked the land jointly, then they leased the land to Ptolemaic soldiers and split the rent in the same proportion as their inheritance.130 The following year the land was leased out to a cavalryman who sowed the land with clover, and the rent was divided again between the two brothers. The next year, the brothers appear to have acted independently, one leasing his one-third share to another cavalryman, Heraclides, with the title “holder of eighty arouras,”131 the other brother leasing his two-thirds share to the cavalryman of the previous year along with two infantry soldiers.132 127

128 129 130

131

132

The demotic transliteration of the Greek term is rendered ysws/swyws, EG 413; Allam 1991: 124, n. 81. On the function of this official, see Allam 1991: 124. The traditional role in Greek courts, on which see Harrison 1971: 21–23, differed. For a document that mentions that the Theban revolt reached at least as far north as Asyut, see above, Chapter five, p. 167. The land in the Asyut family dispute was purchased by two priests in the temple of Wepwawet in Asyut from a “gooseherd, servant of Wepwawet” and another man simply called a “gooseherd.” The receipt for one year’s division is probably that contained in P. BM 10601, published separately from the rest of the family archive by Shore & Smith 1959. For an agreement between brothers concerning their share of the annual harvest from family land, see P. Loeb 52 (provenance unknown, 104/103 bce). Heraclides’ demotic title is wynn rmt–h.tr –n–st .t–80– h. hn p stn Nygntrws, “Greek, cavalryman, great one of eighty arourai, in the unit of Nikandros.” See Vleeming 1983. A more general demotic term nb h., “possessor of field,” can mean in specific contexts kleruch. Cf. the status title in P. dem Mainz d, 3 (Zauzich 1968: 86). For the general term, see Seidl 1973: 14–15. The leases are P. Siut 10597, dated 171 bce (Felber 1997: 61–64) and P. Siut 10595, dated 172 bce (Felber 1997: 65).


203

Table 10. Family property of a priest from Asyut, mid second century bce Real property

Income

Priestly offices

share of storehouses, roofed, w/ threshold and door share of storehouse

share of sty ˇ –income from the temple

share in lector-priest in necropolis of Asyut

share of loaves from temple bakery from daily offerings

share of storehouse

bread donated by pastophoroi

share in lector-priest of Sheshhotep & surrounding districts 1 12 share of office of scribe of divine rolls of necropolis of Asyut, purchased from a woman

share of house & building plot in necropolis of Asyut share in ten arouras in southern highland in the endowment of Wepwawet share in 83 share of land share of garden & 41 share of a lake purchased from Greek woman empty building plot of ruined house house with empty building plot share of empty garden plot with water rights

oil, meat, other items

1

4

share of revenue from storehouses

At some point the younger brother claimed that he had been defrauded by the older brother.133 He wanted a real division of the land, and he sent a petition to that effect to the strat¯egos of the Thebaid in 174/3 bce. In turn the petition was passed along to the appropriate local official, in this case the strat¯egos of Asyut, who ruled in favor of Tefhapy.134 The older brother was then obligated to draw up a cession that conveyed one-third of the land to him. The dispute should have ended there, but it did not. Four years later, in 170 bce, Tefhapy petitioned a local Egyptian official to obtain his share of the land, still fully in his brother’s possession.135 At the same time, the wife of Tuot brought a suit claiming that all of the 133 134 135

The demotic term used was h.w r , a variant of h.w r , “rob,” EG 297; Crum 737b, On these officials, see Thomas 1975: 114, n. 210; 133. The official bore the titles “overseer of pharaoh and prophet of Thoth.”

.

204

Interpretation

land belonged to Tuot (and thus to her children) through the pledge by her husband at the time of her marriage that all of his property stood as security for her maintenance. A formal oral proceeding was convened before the priest-judges from the local temple. It was the Greek official, the eisag¯ogeus, who formally brought Chratianch’s complaint before the priests, and it was his “agent” (dem. rt), probably an Egyptian, who was charged with carrying out the decision reached by them.136 While it may be argued that the office of eisag¯ogeus has parallels in the court scribes of the New Kingdom, the Ptolemaic takeover of the old system required that these old institutions be incorporated within the new state.137 This new “layer” was Greek in function and language if not always in ethnicity. In this sense, the official served a different function, that of monitoring, in Greek, the local Egyptian system. While the system continued to function in the Egyptian language and enforced Egyptian civil law, both proceedings began by petitioning the Ptolemaic authorities. It was only then that the case was turned over to the local authorities nominally in charge of adjudicating claims on land within the temple estate of the local divinity. What is clear from the Asyut case is that the Ptolemies showed an interest in maintaining the Egyptian legal institutions of marriage and property rights through the local, ancient institutional structure. Although the land of the brothers was nominally contained within the small local temple estate, Greek cavalry officers and infantry soldiers were present in the town and leased temple land, which, while privately held, was subordinated to the Ptolemaic administration.138 We see this not only in the officials involved in the resolution of the dispute but also in the fact that new land that had been added to the original plot (probably by changes resulting from accumulation from deposition of silt) had to be “purchased” at public auction.139 Scribes, who went to measure the disputed land in the first dispute, the eisag¯ogeus, and the local and regional strat¯egos all played a role. The first dispute involved fraud, probably in the division of the profit after the harvest tax was paid. The petition therefore went to the Ptolemaic civil bureaucracy. The second trial was held before the priest of the local temple first because the land was temple endowment land, and secondly because the dispute involved the Egyptian law of inheritance and turned 136 137 138 139

On the function of “agents”, Ëphrtai, in legal settings, see Kupiszewski and Modrzejewski 1957–58; Strassi 1997. Allam 1991: 125. The Ptolemaic military no doubt had a higher profile in Upper Egypt after the suppression of the Theban revolt in 186 bce. P. Siut 10591 recto, vi 12/13; 16/17; Zauzich 1990: 161–62.


205

on the priority of demotic contracts.140 That is, the issues involved were purely a matter of local law that the Ptolemaic officials would not have had knowledge of and had no interest in changing. Ptolemaic interest in the case was monitored by the eisagogeus. Interestingly, a “law of year 21” was cited, probably a royal decree concerning the consent of heirs to the passing of clear title within a family.141 The adjudication of the case before the local priests would also have added a sense of authority to the ruling, while the eisagogeus was responsible for introducing the case to the court, and the Egyptian “bailiff ” was responsible for enforcing the judgment. After the judgment against her, Chratianch continued to petition Ptolemaic officials, this time asking that her brother-in-law be summoned before the strat¯egos of the Thebaid in Ptolemais; he in turn turned the case back to a local Ptolemaic official in Asyut, this time to the epistat¯es. She had claimed that the eisagogeus and his “agent” had forcefully compelled her husband, in prison, to write a quitclaim with respect to the land in question. The claim was denied, but the case had not ended satisfactorily for the victor when the documentation comes to an end. The last we hear of the case, Tefhapy had petitioned two officials complaining that his rights continued to be blocked by his brother. Local enforcement of civil claims continued to be a problem in Egyptian law despite all of the local and regional officials involved in the matter. con veyance of l and in the thebaid The land in the Asyut dispute had been passed down through a family without the need of separate contracts of conveyance, but a deed of division could be used to split property between children of different marriages. Land could also be conveyed privately by means of contracts of sale and cession. Most of the demotic evidence for this private conveyance of land comes from Upper Egypt. This should not be surprising in the light of the old traditions of privately held land within temple domains, and the fact that the state intervention in the Fayyum led to much of the land there being under direct state control, land given to officials or to kleruchs. In the Upper Egyptian demotic conveyances, in contrast, there is almost always a temple context to the sales; parties involved had status on temple estates, or were women, who had gained access to land through inheritance or marriage. We do not have enough evidence of private contracts before 140 141

A similar but much shorter text of a trial is recorded in P. Mallawi 602/10 (Sharunah, 117/6 bce) published by El-Aguizy 1988. P. Siut 10591 recto, ii, 20–23. See Pestman 1969a: 44, and the important remarks of Johnson 1994b.

206

Interpretation

the Ptolemaic period to decide whether Upper Egyptian temple estate land tenure was different from elsewhere or whether, once again, it is a matter of the better survival of documents from the region. Given the amount of arable land under cultivation, we know precious little about the disposition of much of it from documentary sources.142 Such absence from the written record, in part, may be explained by the accidence of preservation. But I believe a second factor also accounts for the lack of records. If small-scale family land-holding was predominant, often jointly held within a family, it would have been unnecessary to convey land within the family, under normal circumstances, by written legal instrument.143 Furthermore, it may not have been necessary for parties to give notice to state authorities of such family transfers. The surviving land conveyance records, then, may record unusual transfers rather then the normal transfer of family property from one generation to the next. Physical division of family land did occur, and highlighted the tension between individual rights in real property and the desire to keep family land from fragmenting. This tension between individuals and the family group is clear in the Asyut dispute discussed above. Holding land as a family unit not only made economic sense but it also reduced family tensions. Such tension over the division of family land in part derived from the tendency in Egypt to divide the land into long narrow plots from the Nile to the desert edge. This was a function of irrigation and similar family tension over land continued even into the recent past.144 While we do not have sufficient numbers of texts to make the bar graphs statistically meaningful (the Edfu data represents, for example, one family archive), we can say that the sites best represented in the corpus of land sales are the Upper Egyptian population centers which also had arable land in the immediate vicinity (Thebes, Pathyris, Edfu; see Figure 8). Aswan, otherwise a town of considerable importance in the Ptolemaic period, is conspicuous by its absence, a fact which probably indicates the small amount of arable land in that region and may explain also why “men of Aswan” held land in areas north of that town.145 As the publication of demotic ostraca continues, I would expect the numbers of recorded sales (in the form of receipts from sales of land), particularly from Thebes, to increase, perhaps significantly.146 Under the heading of conveyance of real 142

143 144 146

Butzer 1976: 83, estimated 10,000 km2 of arable land in the Nile valley for the mid-Ptolemaic period (150 bce), but this is a guess based on an optimistic understanding of reclamation from the Zenon archive. See the comments by Rathbone 1990: 111. On such undocumented family land in the Byzantine period, see Bagnall 1993: 149. 145 On these men, see above, Chapter three, p. 93, n. 147, and above, p. 191. Ammar 1954: 24. For new receipts, see Devauchelle 1983: 155 (ODL 92); Vleeming 1994a, texts 53; 56.


207

30 25 20 15 10

Akhmim

Dendera

Asyut

Pathyris

Coptos

Thebes

Armant

0

Edfu

5

number of conveyances Edfu 15; Armant 10; Thebes 28; Coptos 4; Pathyris 16; Asyut 4; Dendera 1; Akhmim 1 Figure 8. Upper Egyptian demotic conveyances of land by site.

property come several varieties of land – arable land, gardens, building plots, tomb sites. The number of demotic conveyances by date contrasts with the Greek evidence for conveyance of land, almost all datable to the second and first centuries. The decline in the demotic evidence in the first century bce here coincides with the standard view on the decline of demotic as a legal language (see Figure 9).147 The size of the plot of land in demotic conveyances is generally small and at times unspecified (Figure 10 and Appendix 1).148 Specification of the size of the plot was unnecessary to the legal rights being conveyed. In such cases, like the Saite demotic leases where the size of the leased plot is never specified, it was the rights established in the written text that were the important part of the contract.149 Here the Egyptian tradition of private conveyance of property, in which the conveyance of rights to the property was the concern, may have stood in opposition to the Ptolemaic fiscal system that required land to be measured in order to be taxed. The important Hauswaldt papyri often do not specify the size of the plot being 147 148 149

See above, Chapter five, pp. 173–77. This conforms to Rostovtzeff ’s and Préaux’s views on kt¦ma, “private property”. On the Saite leases, see Hughes 1952; with updated transcriptions and commentary by Donker van Heel 1995.

208 45 40 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0

Interpretation

1st C.

2nd C.

3rd C.

No. Conveyances number of conveyances 3rd century 34; 2nd century 40; 1st century 5 Figure 9. Upper Egyptian demotic conveyances of land by date.

5+ arouras 25% unspecified 39% 1--5 arouras 8% >1 aroura 28% Figure 10. The size of holdings in demotic conveyances. The data on the size of plots is derived from the list of demotic conveyances of land from Upper Egypt given in Appendix 2.

conveyed other than to say that two plots, one in the royal domain and one in the temple domain, were being conveyed, but there are exceptions to this general rule.150 In the case of the Hauswaldt Papyri, the location of the land involved in these private conveyances was the far south end of the 150

P. Hausw. 3 (245 bce) is a sale of a plot measuring 1/2 schoinion in length, and another of 3/4 schoinion. P. Hausw. 11 (224 bce), a sale of a plot of two schoinia in length (no areal measurement), P. Hausw. 13 (between 243 and 222 bce), a gift of an empty building plot of thirty cubits in length (again, no areal measurement given), P. Hausw. 16 (221/0 bce) an agreement between several parties to purchase a plot of forty-five arouras of land at auction, and P. Hausw. 25 (215 bce), a sale of a plot measuring 1 1/4 schoinia in length. On the unusual units of measure in P. Hausw., see Vleeming 1985: 215–17. For other transfers specifying the size of the plot, see Appendix 2.


209

Edfu nome, just below Gebel es-Silsileh, where the breadth of the cultivable land is quite narrow, lending additional support to the likelihood of small plot conveyance. docum entary evid ence for conveyance We are not always informed about how the assignment of private rights to land operated. For most people, land was inherited from relatives, or leased, as was the case with royal land leased by the “royal farmers” and with temple estate land. The right of children to inherit family land was established in the marriage agreement between husband and wife, and there was no need to write a separate conveyance of land unless there were unusual circumstances. Privately held land would have been retained within the family, although with real divisions, rights to the land would have been continuously split into smaller and smaller fractions unless the land was consolidated. Presumably, family-held land would leave the immediate family only under economic duress caused by the lack of an heir or some other crisis.151 As we have already seen, land could also be acquired through the mechanism of the public auction, and this was an important new device by which the Ptolemaic state controlled the assignment of private rights to land, even within temple estates.152 There is very little documentary evidence for the private conveyance of real property before demotic was introduced as the standard legal language and script in the middle of the seventh century bce.153 That is not to say, however, that land was not held privately before this time. Indeed, land was at all periods in ancient Egypt held privately and conveyed within the family. Rather, the legal system underwent substantial changes with the introduction of the Saite regime and the use of demotic. Legal agreements in ancient Egypt were primarily oral and were conducted in the presence of witnesses. They could be set down in writing if one of the parties desired. These transactions were usually important agreements such as sales of real property and marriage contracts that established long-term rights in property. It is for this reason that the Egyptian family archives that have come down to us preserved such contracts and not shorter-term contracts such as the sale of animals.154 151 152 153 154

Cf. the remarks of Rowlandson 1981: 372 for Roman Egypt; and Steinkeller 1989: 144 for Ur III documents from Sumeria. On the public auction, see above Chapter five, pp. 160–61. On the history of demotic, see Chapter five, pp. 173–77. On the absence of animal sales in the Egyptian record, see Manning forthcoming.

210

Interpretation Table 11. The number of Upper Egyptian demotic conveyances of land by size of plot Size of plot

Number of conveyances

unspecified size under five arouras five arouras or more

17 43 19

Table 12. The number of Ptolemaic demotic contracts of sale from Upper Egypt given by type of property. The data come from Zauzich 1968, and the transactions cover real sales as well as pledges to secure loans House 22

Emoluments from priestly office

Grave

Land

Other

16

5

41

3

The term “sale” is generally used for the Egyptian instrument of conveyance, but in fact these texts were used to establish rights in property other than real sales. Such transactions included conditional transfers to secure loans (mortgages). The Egyptian term for “sale” document meant literally “document in exchange for money,” and it could be used for many types of conveyance. There are approximately eighty demotic Egyptian conveyances of land from Upper Egypt and some additional sale receipts written on ostraca. They are a heterogeneous group of texts that, although couched in terms of sale, record many different types of transactions from real sales, to mortgages, inheritance and forfeitures. contracts of sale, or real conveyance of l and The demotic Egyptian law of contract was highly developed before the Ptolemies arrived in Egypt, and contracts were made between members of many social levels.155 Not all contracts were written, but written title to real property was an important feature of Egyptian law since the Old Kingdom, and indeed the conveyance of land is among the best-documented types of demotic legal text from the Ptolemaic period. In Ptolemaic demotic legal texts, a real sale required, usually, two separate documents – the “document in exchange for money” (the “sale”) and the 155

On the development of early demotic, see the surveys in Donker van Heel 1995: 48–71; Menu 1988.


211

“document of quitclaim” (literally “document of being far”). There were occasionally variants to this practice. During the political confusion caused by the Theban revolt, for example, a local scribe combined elements of the “sale” and “cession” into one document.156 The use of two separate texts emerged out of a single text used for pre-Ptolemaic demotic sales, and together they comprised a real conveyance of property. In some records of real sale, both documents were written on the same sheet of papyrus side by side on the same day.157 In such cases, the “cession” document is written to the left of the “sale.” The documents stress that a “satisfactory price” has been received by the vendor and that he/she will guarantee exclusive ownership of the property being conveyed, and that no action will be brought in respect to the property. Considerable attention was paid in the language of these contracts to guaranteeing clear title to the property. All documents that had been previously made in respect of the property in question were also handed over to the buyer at the time of the sale. There were several important changes to demotic contracts during the Ptolemaic period, probably induced by state demand for registration and taxation of transactions. For the most part these changes concern the registration and taxation of transactions. The first change involves the specification of the day on which the contract was made. Before 186 bce day-dates were not specified in demotic contracts; after 186 bce the day-date was required.158 Two solutions to the absence of day-dates in earlier contracts have been offered. The first is that the first day of the month was always meant, or at least that the terms of the contract came into effect on the first day of the month.159 Drawing up legal instruments on one day of the month or making them valid retroactively does not seem to be a practical solution, although there is some evidence that at least occasionally this was done.160 The second solution is that the day-dates simply did not matter in early contracts. This of course would add flexibility to the drawing up of the contracts. Two texts in the British Museum, one a “document in exchange for money” and the other a “cession,” would seem to suggest the second 156 157

158 159 160

For this revolt, see above Chapter five, pp. 164–71. The texts are P. Carnarvon 1 & 2 (now in the Egyptian Museum, Cairo; published by Spiegelberg 1913b; Thebes, 203 bce). Seidl 1962: 120. The Hauswaldt papyri are good examples from the third century. Only the month and year are specified in P. Hausw., but it is to be presumed that the “sale” and “cession” occurred simultaneously, and thus I use the term “real sale” or “conveyance” for these transactions. Other examples are P. EgSocPap (Pathyris, 176 bce) published by El-Amir 1957 and P. Berl. dem. ii 3146 A + B (Thebes, 194 bce) published by Grunert 1981. Pestman 1977, vol. ii: 12–13, n. b. The first known text to show the day-date comes from Dendera, P. Boston 38.2063a (186 bce), published by Parker 1963. Muhs 1996a: 41–42. P. Moscow 113 (Thebes, 286/5 bce) discussed briefly by Muhs 1996: 41.

212

Interpretation

solution. The two texts are in fact the pair of texts for the real conveyance of a plot of land transacted at Thebes dated February-March 210 bce.161 A comparison of the two witness lists written on the versos of these two texts shows that out of sixteen names only three appear in both lists. One would expect that if both documents were made at the same time, the witness lists would match perfectly, as is the case in other instances.162 It is tempting to link this innovation in demotic dating protocol with the other reforms put in place at the end of the Theban revolt in the same year.163 A “typical” “sale” of land took the following form: Regnal year of Ptolemy, protocol of priests in the Ptolemaic dynastic cult. Vendor has declared to buyer: “I am paid in full. You have satisfied my heart with the purchase price of my land, located within the temple estate of Horus (or within the royal fields). Specification of the neighbors, or a landmark (the desert edge, a canal etc.) South, North, East, West. This is your property, no one else has any claim on it and I give you all the legal documents pertaining thereto. I will swear an oath to guarantee your rights. Signature of scribe. Sixteen witness names to the agreement written on the verso.

A typical “cession” document contains much of the same information as the “sale” document, but stresses the transfer of the rights to the buyer and the exclusion of any other private interest in the land. The document is also known as an “anticipatory dispute document” and it served to preempt a future dispute over the rights being transferred by renouncing any right to sue the new owner : Regnal year of Ptolemy, protocol of priests in the Ptolemaic dynastic cult. Vendor has declared to buyer: I am far from you with respect to the sold property, located within the temple estate (or within the royal fields). Specification of the neighbors, or a landmark South, North, East, West. I have no right to this property. As for anyone who claims an interest in this land I shall expel them. You have a legal claim on me to execute the legal rights in these documents. Signature of scribe. Sixteen witness names to the agreement written on the verso.164

Demotic conveyances were essentially oral contracts memorialized in writing.165 The oral nature of these transactions is emphasized by the choice 161

162 163 165

P. Brit. Mus. iv, 27 (“document in exchange for money”) and P. Brit. Mus. iv 26 (“cession”). Andrews only published the witness list to P. Brit. Mus. 10463. For document itself, see Griffith 1901; Zauzich 1968, text 24. Andrews 1990: 69, n. 1. For the exceptional texts written before 186 bce with day-dates given, see Pierce 1972: 19. 164 On “cessions” see Allam 1985. On this revolt, see above, chapter five, pp. 164–71. For this basic distinction in demotic law between a contract and the written instrument that recorded it, see Pierce 1972: 83.


213

Table 13. The number of witness-copy texts by site and date. Data taken from Depauw 1999: 70–71 Site El-Hibeh Edfu Thebes Elephantine Fayyum

Saite

Persian

Ptolemaic

1 1 1 1

3 22

3

3

of verb that began the contract, a past tense form of dd , “to say/speak” and the sign written on the verso which headed the witness list which linked this verb of saying with the names of the witnesses.166 It was more important that the conveyance of real property be recorded in written form, although, as I have argued, we cannot be certain that all such transfers were recorded. Conveyances of real property certainly survive in greater numbers in family archives than sales of animals, because of their value in proving title. The enforcement of contracts was always a difficult matter. A crucial aspect of enforcement was the act of witnessing these agreements. By the Ptolemaic period, it had become standard to list the names of sixteen persons who were presumably present at the agreement, or who at least knew the parties in question, and could attest to the contract between the parties. The high number of witnesses also served to publicize the transfer. Some of these witnesses occasionally copied out verbatim the text of the agreement written by the professional scribe. The careful copying out of the text by a number of witnesses reinforced both the act of witnessing and the exact wording of the agreement, and in legal function it served to notarize the agreement publicly. The process may also have served as a means of training document scribes, though not all witnesses to these contracts were called scribes.167 These texts are known as “witness-copy texts” and were an old form of demotic legal document, the first such example dating to 644 bce.168 All but four of the thirty-five examples of this form of contract come from Upper Egypt, although the last example of this type of contract is dated 213 bce and comes from the Fayyum (Philadelphia). 166 167 168

On this sign heading the witness list, see Nur el-Din 1981; Pestman 1992: 225–32. The history of this type of legal document is discussed by Depauw 1999. Pestman 1978: 203. Proof that the witnesses in these cases merely copied out what was written by the professional scribe is shown by the fact that in one house sale document (P. Brit. Mus. iv, 1), all three witnesses followed the professional scribe in giving the neighbors of the house in the non-standard order of the neighboring plots S-E-N-W. Cf. Andrews 1990, 21, n. 45.

214

Interpretation 20 18 16 14 12 10 8 6 4 2 0 700-600 700--600 BCE 600--500 500--400 400--300 300--200 200--100

600-500

500-400

400-300

300-200

200-100

2 1 0 14 18 0

Figure 11. The long-term trend in witness-copy documents, from the seventh to the second century bce.

It is tempting to associate the decline in this form of Egyptian contract with the state’s attempts to increase the use of Greek contracts, but the loss of witness-copy texts may reflect only a change in scribal practice. We of course can never be certain given the paucity of late Ptolemaic demotic contracts. At the very least we can say that the practice was systematic throughout Egypt, a process that must reflect a global change in the scribal tradition. There follows a full example of a typical demotic sale (P. Brit. Mus. iv. 28, Thebes, 208 bce). Date protocol, with eponymous priests: Year [15, third month] of the season akhet (under) Pharaoh Ptolemaios (son of ) Ptolemaios and Berenike, the beneficent gods, and his son Ptolemaios; while Demosthenes son of Kratinos is priest of Alexandros and of the gods who save and [the] fraternal gods, the beneficent gods, the gods who love their father; while Diogenis daughter of Philotas bears the trophy of victory before Berenike the beneficent; while Glauke daughter of Zenodotos bears the golden basket before Arsinoe the brother-loving; while Heniokhos son


215

of Lysanias is priest in the Theban nome of Ptolemaios the god and of the gods who love their father.

Agreement: Has declared the Nubian Hellos son of Phennesis, his mother (being) Titos, to the woman Takhoumis daughter of Patous, her mother (being) Nekhthaus: “you have caused my heart to agree to silver for the value of one aroura of land (comprising) 31/32 arouras, (that is) one aroura of land again,

Location of plot and specification of boundaries: within my high land which is in the temple estate of Amun in the west of the district of Koptos in the field of Pabu. Your neighbors: south: the other two arouras of land concerning which I have drawn up a document in your favor earlier, making three arouras of land (in all); north: the remainder of my lands; east: the lands of Horos son of Pais, while the water of Pharaoh is between them; west: the lands of the feeding place (of ) the ibises of Pasas son of Alala. (These) are the neighbors of the one aroura of land aforementioned in its entirety.

Declaration of conveyance: I have given it to you; it belongs to you, (namely) this your one aroura of land aforementioned, besides the two arouras of land concerning which I drew up a document in your favor earlier, making three arouras of land (in all). I have received their value in silver from your hand, it being complete and without any remainder; my heart agrees to it.

Quitclaim: I have no claim at all against you in respect of them. No person at all nor I myself will be able to exercise authority over them except you from this day onwards. As for anyone who shall proceed against you on account of them in my name or in the name of anyone at all, I shall cause him to be far from you. And I shall clear it for you from anything at all at any time. To you belong their documents, their titles in any place in which they are: every document which has been drawn up regarding them and every document which has been drawn up for me regarding them and (every) document by virtue of which I am entitled in respect of them, they belong to you and the rights conferred by them. To you belongs that by virtue of which I am entitled in respect of them. The oath (or) the proof which will be imposed upon you in the courthouse in respect of the rights conferred by the aforementioned document which I have drawn up for you, to cause me to swear it, I will swear it. You will be able to constrain me by virtue of the document for silver which I drew up earlier (regarding) the two other arouras of land, totalling three arouras of land, making two documents. And I shall act on your behalf

216

Interpretation (in) conformity with them at any time without alleging any title or anything at all against you.

Quitclaim of a contingent interest to the land: While the woman Titos daughter of Psenesis, his mother, has said: “receive this document from the hand of Hellos son of Phennesis, my son aforementioned, regarding the one aroura of land aforementioned, besides the two arouras of land concerning which I drew up a document for you earlier, making three arouras of land (in all), while I have given approval to the document in question, making two documents. I am far from you regarding them without any force (being applied).”

Signature of scribe: Petemenophis son of Petemestous, the scribe of the legal documents in Pois in the northern section has written this.

Greek subscriptions registering the payment of the conveyance tax. On the verso, sixteen witnesses are listed. As I stated above, the demotic legal language here tracks “Blackstonian” land entitlements very closely stressing: (1) ownership by a single individual, (2) in perpetuity, (3) demarcated by boundaries, (4) with absolute rights to exclude would-be entrants, (5) with absolute privileges to use and abuse the land, (6) with absolute powers to transfer the whole by sale, gift, devise, descent or otherwise. The first part in a demotic sale was the formal date of the regnal year of the current king and the eponymous priests who served in that year in Alexandria. In later contracts, the priest who served in Ptolemais was also listed. This often took up more than one line of the contract. The second section was the agreement itself. The sale acknowledged the receipt of a sale price, literally “value in money”169 with which the vendor is “satisfied.”170 From the modern legal standpoint, therefore, the demotic instrument was not a bilateral contract stricto sensu, recording an agreement between two parties but, rather, a record of a settled transaction and a unilateral promise by the vendor to expel any future claimant to the property. The time horizon of the transfer was unlimited. It is for that reason, in contrast to the Greek law of sale, that the actual price of the property is not normally recorded; indeed the price was 169 170

dem. swn n h.d, EG 414. dem. mtr , EG 190. The demotic verb used to express the notion of “paid in full” was mh., lit. “to complete/fill.” A similar verb was used in the Sumerian sale documents of the Ur III period, for which see Steinkeller 1989: 13.


217

irrelevant to the legal relationship established by the instrument of sale and cession. Rather, the import of these documents was that they gave proof of clear171 legal title. The next section of a land sale contract was the specification of the “metes and bounds” of the land being sold which gave either the names of those who held adjoining plots or some landmark at the four cardinal points, normally in the order South, North, East, West. All prior documents pertaining to the property were passed down to the purchaser so that he/she might prove that the property was validly purchased and that the title was clear. In demotic legal procedure, a contingent claim on property had to be declared within three years of a conveyance.172 In the sale document, the following clause shows that earlier documents giving the history of the transmission of the property and the new transfer documents were handed over to the purchaser at the time of sale: [ Y ]ours is every document which was made concerning it (sc. the property) and every document which was made for me concerning it. Yours are its old documents and its new documents in any house in which they are.173

In the absence of this clause, one text explicitly stated: I will give to you the sale document (and) the cession document which he (sc. the vendor) made for me concerning the half share of the land mentioned above.174

In the case of property being split up, a copy of a document proving proper title might be drawn up many years after the original acquisition of the property. This is the situation found in a text from western Thebes where a woman divided a plot of land with her brother in the proportion of one-third to two-thirds. When she received her share of the inheritance, probably at the time of her marriage, a “deed of division”175 was drawn up for her by her brother. In turn, she presumably wrote out a division agreement for her brother promising not to interfere with her brother’s share. In addition to the division agreement, her brother also made a “copy” for his 171 172 173

174

dem. w b, lit. “pure/clean,” EG 82. The procedure was known as a sˇ r , “public protest.” The procedure is documented in P. Mattha 2.12–3.32, and discussed by Seidl 1967b; Pestman 1987a. P. Hausw. 1a, 7. This clause is lacking in lower Egyptian demotic contracts. See further Zauzich 1968: 141, clause 7a. On the conveyance of older title documents, see further Pestman 1983a. The earliest complete attestation of the clause is contained in P. Louvre E 7128 (Thebes, 510 bce; = Malinine 1953: 85–86. One such “old document” is P. Berl. dem. ii 3114 (Thebes, 182 bce; = Grunert 1981; Pestman 1993, text 1). Written above and to the left of the witness list on the verso is the phrase “the old document of the above-mentioned? house” (p sh ıs n p .wy nt h.ry ?). The reading by Grunert of the last four words is uncertain; another suggestion was made by Pestman 1993: 47. P. Ryl. 15b, 4 ( = Griffith 1909: 265–67; Pathyris, 163 bce): ıw y ty n t p sh (n) db h.d p sh wy ı.ır f n y r t dny.t psˇ .t p h. nt h.ry . dem. sh (n) dny.t psˇ . //

//

175

//

//

218

Interpretation

sister of the sale document by which her father had originally obtained the land.176 parties to l and conveyances There is great variation in the socio-economic background of the parties to conveyances of land in the Thebaid. Soldiers and priests who had access to land as part of their service to the state, of course, occur in land sales as well as leases. Women are also frequently encountered as buyers as well as sellers in their own names.177 All male parties to contracts bore status designations that in one way or another tied the individual to the economic hierarchy of the Ptolemaic state. Women in demotic contracts almost always bore simply the title “woman” and held land through either marriage or inheritance rather than through service to the state. An unusually large number of men in demotic land sales bore status titles that tied them to a local temple estate.178 These titles took the form “occupation title” (i.e. herdsman, farmer, etc.) + servant of [divine name] (the god of the local temple).179 The word translated as “servant” (dem. b k)180 also means “slave” in certain contexts, and some have assumed that those who farmed temple land were slaves of the god.181 But the title occurs very often in land transactions, and there is no reason to assume that temple staff or farmers of temple land were forced labor or somehow indentured to local temples. Rather, the status of a servant in a temple estate was an ancient182 and a typical form of dependent labor.183 The frequency of men with this kind of title in land conveyances suggests that serving within temple estates and receiving land in exchange was a device of binding labor to land not unlike the situation of Menches receiving land as part of his service to the state.184 the norm alit y of writ ten d ocumentation Most of the demotic contracts that have survived were written for those who had status within Egyptian temples, priests as well as others who worked in the service of the temples. It was not only the elite who could have written contracts drawn up, but they are probably over-represented in our sample because of their access and ability to pay for scribal services, and 176 177 179 182

P. Tor. Botti 4 (Deir el-Medina [western Thebes], 159 bce). See the remarks of Pestman 1985c: 147. 178 See Appendix 2. On women and land, see Rowlandson 1995. 180 EG 124. 181 Rostovtzeff 1941: 280. On these status titles, see Manning 1994a. 183 Manning 1994a. 184 See above, Chapter four, p. 120. Hughes 1952: 46.


219

their preference for written documents. Demotic written conveyances were not the normal means by which land was passed between generations in the same family. Direct heirs received property from their father by virtue of a marriage contract that guaranteed to the woman that any offspring of hers would receive the property of her husband. Formal written gifts could also be used in such cases, but we may presume that in normal circumstances, the conveyance of family land from father to children did not require a separate document.185 Thus family land would have been transferred within the family, usually downward to the next generation, and sometimes laterally. Demotic conveyances were generally big, ceremonial texts designed to impress, and they carried considerable weight of authority even to those who were not literate. These conveyances served as a means to prove title to property, and all such documents pertaining to the conveyed property had to be turned over to the new owners at the time of conveyance. But this should not imply that such contracts were always necessary for legal conveyance. The imposition of a sale tax on all transfers and the required registration of all contracts by the mid-second century bce may in fact have increased the number of non-written conveyances. We cannot, of course, trace this in the documentation itself, but parallels from other societies would suggest that taxing contracts had the unintended consequence of causing individuals to avoid making written agreements and registering them.186 This may explain why some demotic conveyances have registration dockets while others do not.187 The language of the demotic conveyances differs in important ways from Greek conveyances from Ptolemaic Egypt. The price of the land is never mentioned, although it can sometimes be surmised on the basis of the sale tax receipt appended to the bottom of the text. The size of the plot is almost never mentioned in demotic conveyances either. What then is the purpose of the texts? They conveyed and guaranteed exclusive rights to a plot of land. Unlike their Greek counterparts, the demotic conveyances 185

186

187

There are, however, cases of written gifts and sales between generations of extended family members, as e.g. P. Hausw. 5 (Edfu, 219 bce), a division between a man and his niece of land belonging to the man’s father, the niece’s grandfather. On the complicated movement of real property within this family, see Manning 1997: 61. The paucity of land sales in Seleucid Babylonia has been explained as the result of Antiochos I’s taxation policy on sales. See Doty 1977: 312–35, cited by Van der Spek 1995: 174. This shirking of the registration tax certainly occurred in the early Song period in China, where the imposition of a tax on contracts was paralleled by the increased avoidance of contract registration. On Chinese contracts and taxation, see Hansen 1995: 78–112. The existence of conveyances without the required docket was explained thus by Wilcken 1927: 609, while Préaux 1939: 321 believed that the registration was optional and functioned primarily as a means to preserve the documents.

220

Interpretation

were not concerned with the exact price being paid but rather simply that a satisfactory price had been agreed to by both the buyer and the seller. Demotic conveyances thus served to prove free and clear private title to a plot of land. An important question for our understanding of the land tenure regime in all periods of Egypt’s history is the extent to which the preserved documentation records normal everyday events. We are, as in all other aspects of papyrological history, at the mercy of a skewed survival of evidence and we must therefore remain cautious about building up a theory based on negative evidence. Nevertheless we may venture a few facts. Land conveyances are preserved within family archives. Such documents were therefore important long-term documents that were passed on from generation to generation. Even in transfer of land outside the family, all documentation of a plot of land was transferred at the time of the sale. While transfers of land by written document did occur within a family – this is shown by the filiation of the parties at the beginning of the contract – we can establish very few instances of a transfer between immediate family members. The two demotic instruments of sale and the cession could be used to assign rights to property. One such special use of a sale document to convey land occurred in families. In a sale of a house at Thebes, for example, the last clause of the sale mentions that the sale did not include a piece of land which had been conveyed five years previously “for which she wrote a sale for her two children.”188 In another text, a woman sold to a Greek man three arouras of land that she had purchased seven years previously.189 A real conveyance of this land must have taken place since she was now conveying it to another party. Elsewhere, the use of a sale document alone was a means of securing a loan. The transfer of the instrument to the creditor in effect was a conditional sale. If the borrower defaulted on the loan, he or she was required to write a cession document for the creditor that made the transfer of the property real. Such was the case in a document from third-century bce Edfu.190 A woman borrowed money from a Greek man for one year. 188 189

190

P. Fam. Theb. 2 (314 bce). P. dem. Louvre 9416 (Thebes, 214 bce) was published by Devauchelle 1987. Another unusual case of conveyance by “sale” document alone appears to be documented in P. Ryl. 19 (Pathyris, 118 bce) & 24 (Pathyris, 113 bce). As Pierce 1972: 118–19 reconstructed the events, two men drew up a sale and cession document in 118 bce for a one-third share of land which they had inherited from their father. Five years later, a sale tax receipt was written at the foot of the text, and the sale was reconfirmed in P. Ryl. 24. The second text was a reconfirmation of the transfer by the sisters of the brothers. P. Hausw. 18 (Edfu, 212/211 bce; = Manning 1997: 140–49).


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In exchange, she wrote out a sale document for five plots of land. At the expiration of the loan, she was unable to repay the debt and was forced to write out a cession for this land. inheritance of l and In Egypt, land was divided equally among heirs of both sexes, with the eldest son usually receiving an extra share for the cost of burial expenses.191 Such a pattern of “diverging devolution” meant that over time family land could become severely fragmented.192 There were two strategies to counteract this fragmentation: (1) family land was jointly held by heirs; (2) land could be repurchased. At the time of her marriage, a woman could ask for and receive a real division of family land, an event that certainly caused tension.193 Group holding and working of land outside the family was also a common feature of the period. Land in the possession of women was common in the demotic sales and confirms the pattern, the result of the rules of inheritance, seen in the New Kingdom and in the Roman period.194 Unclaimed land reverted to the state, but the state’s interest was always in tax revenue not in ownership per se. Both the demotic and the Greek practice of conveyance of land under the Ptolemies attest to group holding as well as individual holding of land. The term used to express undivided land is “without division,” perhaps the preferred way of holding family land.195 The family probate dispute from Asyut that I discussed above shows the family tensions that could result when “undivided” family land was divided, in that case between two half brothers. That land was regularly handed down from parents to their children is attested in the boundary descriptions of land conveyances that frequently mention that 191 192 193

194

195

Pestman 1987b: 61–62. For inheritance of land, and the continuing pattern of fragmentation, in the Roman period, see Rowlandson 1996: 139–75. See Goody 1976: 86–98 for general considerations. One example of family land being initially shared between brother and sister and then divided can be seen in the Totoes archive from late second-century bce western Thebes. For the real division of the family land, see P. Tor. Botti 28 (Deir el-Medina, 106 bce), and the re-publication and comments of Boswinkel and Pestman 1978: 13–18. Katary 1999: 74–75; Rowlandson 1996: 152–71. In Roman period land sales from Oxyrhynchus, women represent 40% of vendors and 50% of purchasers, Rowlandson 1996: 182. In the Ptolemaic demotic land sales from Upper Egypt, I calculate that 22% of vendors were women, and 27% of purchasers. The dem. wsˇ psˇ is thought to be a translation of the Greek koinän kaª dairtwn. For the Greek term, see the note by Martin 1996: 373, n. 17. On the practice of keeping family land together in ancient Egypt, see the remarks of Eyre 1992: 216–18.

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Interpretation

land of a person was now “in the possession of his children.”196 Land (as with other property) was conveyed not through written documents but entailed through the marriage agreement or an “annuity contract” made by a husband for his wife that promised the inheritance of the man’s property to any offspring of the marriage: There will belong to my children whom you will bear to me everything and all property that belongs to me, and everything that I will acquire.197

Such family holding of land also alleviated the cost for the state of defining and enforcing individual property rights vis-à-vis the land, something that we have observed was difficult. Wills were not a standard feature of Egyptian law of this period. If the land was held jointly by several siblings, there may have been no need to draw up documentation at all. Real divisions of land between siblings could be accomplished through a deed of division, of which only a very few survive.198 The avoidance of transaction costs associated with written conveyances is an example of an efficiency thesis which holds that in land held within close-knit groups, costs are minimized for members of the group.199 In the Egyptian inheritance tradition, all children of both sexes had a right to inherit. The eldest son often had a privileged position in the family, and could sometimes choose from the best part of his father’s estate.200 This resulted from the expectation that the eldest son was responsible for the proper burial of his parents and for covering these costs.201 The desire of the ancient Egyptians to see property passed down to the rightful heirs in an orderly manner is a common theme in literary texts.202 Egyptian marriage practices, including fairly easy divorce, probably made remarriage common. That fact, combined with the practice of partible inheritance, made the dispute over family property, particularly in land, no doubt a common 196

197 198 199 200 201 202

dem. nt hr n y f hr t.w . For the phrase used in earlier documents, see Katary 1989: 16. For the phrase nt hr in demotic material see Boswinkel and Pestman 1978: 203, who equated the term with the Greek krate±n, which speaks in favor of the term meaning “possession” rather than true ownership, but the terms for possession and ownership were sometimes interchanged in Egypt. See Taubenschlag 1955: 230–31. P. dem. Louvre 2433 (Thebes, 252 bce; Lüddeckens 1960, text 14). On marriage contracts, see Lüddeckens 1960; Pestman 1961; H. S. Smith 1995 and for annuity contracts, see Johnson 1994b. dem. sh [n] dny.t psˇ . Seidl 1939 has studied this form of demotic contract. A recent deed of division from Memphis was published by Donker van Heel 1998d. The so-called “efficiency thesis” holds that “rules within a close-knit group evolve so as to minimize its members’ costs.” On this rule, see Ellickson 1993: 1320. P. Mattha 9, 2–3; Pestman 1987b: 62. P. Mattha 8, 30–39, 2. See Mattha 1950. Cf. the passage from the New Kingdom text P. Boulaq X, recto 10–11: “Let the possession be given to him who buries, says the law of Pharaoh.” Leahy 1982–1983: 89; M. Smith 1987: 64 with further bibliography. //


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occurrence in Egyptian village life. Although we do not see such disputes so often in the preserved record, there was probably nothing unusual about the Asyut dispute, or in the touching letter to the dead written on behalf of two disinherited children left to the mercy of the gods by the remarriage of their father.203 Given the nature of Egyptian inheritance patterns, it is not surprising that some contracts that effected the transfer of property within a family specify that the property can only be transferred within the family, and only after a price has been paid. In one gift of an empty plot of land from father to daughter, the contract adds: The son, (or), the daughter, (or) the brother, (or) the sister, (or) anyone at all who will come against you concerning them (sc. the property), he shall give to you ten silver deben. . . . . If you want to sell your empty plot along with your kn which is on it, you will not be able to sell it to anyone at all except my children, and they shall give to you the money which is owing for it.204

Two texts from Thebes written at the time of the great Theban revolt illustrate the movement of small plots of land within a family.205 In the first text, Senobastis sold to her cousin Psenesis a 1/64 aroura empty plot around her house that she had inherited from her father. Psenesis already held land with his brother Paos III to the north of this plot. In the second text, a transfer of land to a collateral heir was made since the rightful heir, Pa-neit, had died before a proper settlement was made. The property was therefore divided between Pachnumis, the other son of Paos the elder, Pa-neith’s brother, and the grandson of Paos, Paos III. The property “reached him in the name of his father Pa-neit.”206 Paos III already held land adjacent to this newly acquired piece. An assent declaration was made by the two sons of Pachnumis, declining any future claim that they might have had to some of this land through their father. This small-scale picture of the movement of property within one family, who lived in close proximity to one another, and at least three of whom had the same profession, namely “herdsmen,” and were attached to the temple of Amun, also shows very well the process of fragmentation of family-held land in the possession of one man three generations previously, Paos the 203 204 205 206

On the petition, see Hughes 1969. P. Hausw. 13, 2–3 (Edfu, 208 bce; Manning 1997: 117–20. Cf. P. Tor. Botti 7 (Thebes, 143/142 bce), 11. P. Carnarvon 1 & 2 (203 bce; = Spiegelberg 1913b). For the genealogy of the family, see Spiegelberg 1913b: 152. On the Theban revolt, see above, Chapter five, pp. 164–71. P. Carnarvon 2, 7. For the phrase, “to reach” (dem. ph.) used in the context of proper inheritance, see Pestman 1987b: 64–65.

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Interpretation

elder. This fragmentation of family land is also illustrated in P. Hausw. 18. As mentioned above, this text is a pledge and forfeiture of five plots of land by a woman to a “Greek born in Egypt.”207 It has been assumed that the five plots had been originally one large family plot because of the close relationships of parties who held neighboring plots of land.208 If we examine two other texts from the Hauswaldt archive, we can observe the interconnected movement of small plots of land between family members in the same area.209 It is thus not surprising that elite families would have other means of income besides that produced from their fields.210 reconsolidation of family propert y An examination of demotic conveyances of land shows that holders of adjacent plots of land were often related. Through marriages, family land over time would have tended to leave the original family’s holdings. And while most texts document moving between families or out of the family, there is some strong evidence to suggest that there was also a tendency to reconsolidate family holdings. The clearest example of land consolidation comes from the Hauswaldt archive, where the principal figure was the purchaser in five land sales between 240 and 220 bce.211 Many other demotic land purchases may reflect either the repurchase of family land,212 an expansion of a preexisting plot for reasons of efficiency, or an illegal transfer to begin with.213 Split holdings separated by some 207 208 209

210 211 212

213

There seems to be no immediate connection between this document and the other Hauswaldt texts. Perhaps the land was again reacquired by some member of the family. Sethe & Partsch 1920: 266. See the adjoining map, p. 267. P. Hausw. 2 (240 bce) & 8 (240 bce). See the map in Manning 1997: 86. Many members of the same family held adjoining plots and the two sales taken together probably indicate that a consolidation of family land was being undertaken by Pa–bh.t son of Pa–lhw , the principal person in this archive. We cannot be absolutely certain about family relationships since the same names occur with disturbing frequency in this archive. On the dissolution of family land over time for earlier periods, see the comments by Baer 1963: 13. See Johnson 1986: passim. On this archive see above Chapter three, pp. 79–83; cf. BGU 994; P. Strassb. 84, both texts from the Peteharsemtheus archive, on which see Lewis 1986: 150. For texts which show family members buying back land into the family, see Pestman 1965: texts 53 (P. Lond. iii, 1206) and 54 (P. Strassb. gr. ii, 89) in which sons bought back certain property which their father had sold; P. Brit. Mus. 10117 (Thebes, 542 bce; Pestman 1969b: 64, n. 3); P. Louvre 2431 (Thebes, 243 bce; Zauzich 1968: 26–29), a woman sold back to her in-laws property which would have left the family. Such is the case in the Peteharsemtheus archive, where Panebkhounis sold four plots of land (P. Strassb. 81, not P. Adl. 9 as Lewis 1986: 172 n. 16, stated) that he had acquired fifteen years previously. Eight weeks later Peteharsemtheus, one of his sons, bought the land back at the same price (P. Lond. iii 1206). On the illegality of the action, see Lewis 1986: 148. The illegal nature of the transaction is suggested by the removal of the upper layer of the papyrus sheet where the name of


225

distance also remained a traditional way of exploiting the land, since such an arrangement reduced the risk of crop failure or other agricultural disaster at any given place and time, and of course was a natural result of Egyptian inheritance patterns.214 I have focused on the transmission of real property in the Thebaid, but have moved north to discuss the Asyut family dispute, and the leases from Tholthis. The demotic evidence shows that an ancient pattern of landholding and transmission within temple estates continued under the Ptolemies. Adding to this ancient pattern Greeks, mainly soldiers, were settled on the land, buying and leasing land, and making loans on mortgages, among other activities. The surviving archival material can, of course, provide only a partial picture of the land tenure pattern. The adjudication of property rights was left by the Ptolemies to local institutions. I have also argued in this Chapter that, contrary to accepted wisdom, the “growth” in the amount of private property in the Ptolemaic period was only in new land; the pattern that we see in the Thebaid remained little affected by Ptolemaic policy, and there was no “erosion” of state control. The creation of rents established for officials and soldiers in the grants of land diminished the king’s monopoly power on rents, but the causes of the royal loss of power should be located not in any decrease in power over land but in the decline of royal political power, and the rising economic power of the local elites. These elites were closely associated with landholding by serving the state. Of new additions to the ancient pattern of landholding, the most important was the state’s assignment of rights to derelict and unclaimed land through the new institution of public auction, discussed in Chapter five. As we saw there, the state guaranteed the ancient system of rights to land, but the privileged status of soldiers on the land, the new monetary system supported by banks and state granaries, the rent-seeking behavior of local officials (and others), and the close scrutiny of the land survey all combined to create social tensions that were never alleviated, and which were a major block to further Ptolemaic economic development.

214

the vendor appeared. The name Peteharsemtheus was placed in the gap created in both the upper abstract and lower main text. The editor of P. Strassb. 81 believed that this was done to correct a simple scribal blunder. For additional comments on the papyrus, see Preisigke 1920: 1–2. Thus in P. Hausw. 2, for example, three “places of field” (dem. m n h.), i.e. “plots” in two different localities, were sold. For split holdings in the Fayyum, see Crawford 1971: 73–75, 162–70. On split holdings, see briefly Clarysse 1979a: 732. For the Roman period, see Rowlandson 1981: 374.

chap t e r 7

Conclusions

It rained not only water where no drop of rain had fallen before, but also blood; and there were flashes of armour from the clouds as this bloody rain fell from them. Elsewhere there was the clashing of drums and cymbals and the notes of flute and trumpet, and a serpent of huge size suddenly appeared to them and hissed with incredible vehemence. Meanwhile comets were seen and dead men’s ghosts appeared, the statues scowled and the Apis bellowed a note of lamentation and burst into tears. Dio. Cass. 51.16.5, 17.4–5

. . . . but let no man who builds a house or writes a book presume to say when he shall have finished. When he imagines that he is drawing near to his journey’s end, Alps rise on Alps, and he continually finds something to add and something to correct. Edward to Dorothea Gibbon, letter of May 1786 (reprinted in Norton 1956: 44)

I have advanced in this book a neoclassical model of the Ptolemaic state. I have done so because I believe that this model better explains the development of the state over the course of the three centuries of the Ptolemaic regime. The rulers negotiated with local elites and institutions in exchange for revenue. A colonial model that understands Ptolemaic history as an imposition of a uniform political order throughout Egypt and without opposition is no longer tenable. The documentary texts from the Fayyum and from the Thebaid show that Ptolemaic economic power was stronger on newly settled land, although the demotic evidence from the south of the country shows the extent to which the new economic institutions (banks, and public auctions of land) took power away from the temples. History has tended to be written from the point of view of the rulers in the capital. The story has been one of political and economic decline after about 217 bce. A very different story of the development of the state at the local level emerges from the documentary papyri. 226

Conclusions

227

The demotic conveyances of land and tax receipts, among other documentation, strongly suggest the continued importance of temple estates as a form of economic organization but dominated by a new political power. As I have argued in Chapter six, the private holding, conveyances and adjudication of land claims within temple estates continued under the Ptolemies. Many early historians and theorists like Max Weber have considered private property in land in Egypt to have been severely restricted. The value of the Egyptian documentation, as has long been recognized, is that it shows beyond doubt that both the concept and the reality of private ownership of land, an ancient institution, continued under the Ptolemies. Much of the land, well-documented in the demotic material from the Thebaid, was probably held in small family holdings farmed from one generation to the next and passed on informally. It was this type of land that was probably classed as «di»kthtov, “privately-held,” in the Greek administrative texts.1 The case of Egypt, in particular the apparent growth of private holding of land, confirms Ellickson’s “private property thesis,” but this growth occurred within a limited class, and property rights were not enforced by the state in a uniform system but, rather, by local courts supervised by state officials.2 Furthermore, this “growth” does not reflect any sort of erosion of state power, but merely an extension of the Egyptian property system on new classes of land. This is the kind of land that is mentioned so often in the demotic papyri, but we cannot, of course, assess in a systematic way how extensive this kind of land really was on the basis of the documentary evidence that survives. The founder of the Ptolemaic dynasty, Ptolemy I Soter, established the kleruchic system, and restored Egyptian temples to their ancient claims. Just as kleruchs were settled in the Fayyum to reclaim land rather than to dispossess Egyptians with older claims, the new city of Ptolemais established by Soter was placed not near the centers of priestly power at Thebes, Edfu or Elephantine, but to the north of these old centers. A new system of taxation was developed, and the use of Greek became extensive. Resistance is documented, both in terms of active rebellion and in terms of shirking, but for the most part the local elite adapted to the new regime. Beside the cultural differences, there were real and discernible differences in the economic organization of Upper Egypt and the Fayyum (and no doubt the Delta). In other words, there was very little uniformity in social organization, and little evidence to suggest that Egyptian resistance 1

See above, Chapter six, p. 196.

2

See Chapter six, pp. 201–05.

228

Interpretation

to Ptolemaic rule was motivated by nationalist sentiment. What resistance there was tended to be localized, although it could be expressed in the new administrative language of Greek. The messianic literature, for example, which the Oracle of the Potter represents, emanated from specific temples, although religious sentiment, shown in naming practices and local cult traditions, could extend over a wide area.3 This essentially supports Gellner’s model of agrarian societies in which a stratified, literate elite sat on top of “laterally insulated” and “self-enclosed” villages of agricultural producers. From the point of view of theory, it is generally agreed that pre-modern agrarian states were weak in their capacity to hold their hinterlands because of the small size and the social isolation of the bureaucratic elite.4 Ernest Gellner’s general model of the social structure of pre-modern agrarian states discussed above in Chapter five is useful in illustrating these conditions.5 By “self-enclosed,” Gellner meant that culture was not used to define the polity. Such agrarian societies, he argued, were “not given to being nationalistic.”6 There were of course symptoms of national structure in Egypt, but it was never a unitary nation-state; the motivations for revolt, however they were couched in cultural terms, were due to local concerns, not “national” ones. The implicit treatment of Ptolemaic Egypt as a nation has been a barrier to the understanding of social process and change. The implication of a new regional model of Ptolemaic Egypt advocated in this book is that the structure of the new royal economy, set up in response to the diffused organization of power, had to respond regionally and eventually had to knock off (or try to knock off ) the old social networks or incorporate them into the state. The history of culture in this period tends to give a more uniform impression of the organization of the state. But the economic documents that I have discussed suggest a strong element of regionalism, and do not indicate a long-term, downward decline of local agrarian production (to the extent we can measure long-term trends) although disturbances in the flow of silver may have affected the monetary economies in the villages.7 The centralized or “strong state” model can no longer stand, and indeed new models of the pharaonic state are also being advanced which downplay the dominance of the central state as an economic actor.8 It is in this sense that the Ptolemaic state was a continuation 3 4 5 6 7

For this text, see the literature cited in Chapter five, p. 166, n. 164. Gellner 1983; Hall 1986. For a comparable case discussing early medieval Europe, see Davies and Fouracre 1995, esp. pp. 3–8. Cf. the remarks of Hall 1986: 27–32. Gellner 1983: 75. Cf. the remark of Rostovtzeff 1920: 170, who argued, among other things, that “no patriotism” arose in Ptolemaic Egypt. 8 Warburton 1997. Von Reden 1997.

Conclusions

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of the Persian model; it continued social and economic structure where possible, and came into and exploited new areas of the country, specifically the Fayyum and the area around the new city of Ptolemais in Middle Egypt. The extension of new land and the settlement of new population – Greek, Egyptian, and others – allowed the Fayyum to be more quickly incorporated within the royal system, while the Thebaid, with a more traditional social structure and the continued use of local elite, remained difficult to control. The new economic system was established to tax what it could when it could, and the revenues primarily financed the bureaucracy and the military. Despite the admonition of a Jewish sage to Ptolemy II Philadelphus, conspicuous display was an essential feature of Ptolemaic power and of the ideology of kingship.9 All this suggests that we should reexamine the economic history of the successor kingdoms and the sources of state power; in this respect Egypt should not be viewed as an isolated, unusual state, but rather as part of wider Mediterranean trends. What was unique in Egypt was its ecology, a narrow river valley circumscribed by desert on both sides, which successfully caged the population, made communication easier and aided in the dissemination of a central culture. In a world without a strong sense of national identity – family and status group were far more important – the population cage of the Nile valley and coercive force from the administration are the factors that explain the long-term grip of Ptolemaic economic power.10 Yet the Ptolemaic state was susceptible to environmental shocks and political shocks that allowed local elites to function effectively without interference from the ruler. What I argue, then, is that the Ptolemaic regime was not an example of a strongly centralized state in the traditional sense of the term. Rather, the new institutions of taxation and control were still mostly locally organized, although by the end of the third century, the Ptolemaic system was clearly established both in the Fayyum and in the Thebaid. Like earlier forms of the Egyptian state, the Ptolemaic system is an example of central coordination of locally organized economies. In all such systems the key to success, and a measure of state power, is the degree to which successful coordination can be achieved at village and regional level. The economic organization of the state was centered on irrigation that was always a matter of local control while the taxation of surplus, and the associated record-keeping, was to a certain degree centralized. 9 10

Cf. Walbank 1984: 84. On the effects of the ecology on social caging in Egypt, see Mann 1986: 108–15. On the use of coercive force, see above, chapter five, p. 159.

230

Interpretation ptolemaic d ecline?

Almost all commentators on Ptolemaic Egypt have posited a period of success in the third century bce followed by decline in the second and first centuries bce. This understanding of Ptolemaic socio-economic history essentially follows the “Polybius model.”11 But even in a weak state environment, the bureaucratic process that was organized locally, driven by the use of a new language that created new local social networks in the bureaucracy, successfully replaced the old Egyptian institutions with Greek mechanisms of control. The Ptolemaic system, especially in the newly developed Fayyum region, certainly benefited agricultural workers. But in the wake of Ptolemaic political weakness in the second half of the period, the control over rural classes grew concomitantly weaker, with the result that they fled the land or sought protection from the powerful local families. The Ptolemies in the end were unable to alter the basic patterns of local social power. The Ptolemaic regime, as has often been stressed, was a personal regime, and depended on the responsibility of local officials to maintain order and tax-collection. When the political power of the dynasty collapsed because of civil war, it was natural to turn to local elite families for protection. When Thebes reemerged after the destruction in 88 bce, it was a powerful local family of governors, not the temple priesthoods, by which political and economic power was asserted. When the epistrat¯egos of the Thebaid Kallimachos ii boasts in 39 bce that he sustained the area in time of famine and reestablished religious festivals, however, it does not mark a shift in power but, rather, the continuing importance of the local elite, always present and prepared to act in the face of weakness at the center.12 There is nothing to suggest a steady local economic decline in the last two centuries of the Ptolemies. Rather, the shocks, which included rural 11

12

See above, Chapter two, p. 45. The model is manifest in several studies. Many scholars of classical Greek culture and earlier phases of Egyptian history have considered both Greek and Egyptian culture in the Ptolemaic period to be moribund. From the vantage point of fifth century Athens, the Hellenistic world and its literature represents “a sad falling off ”; the koin¯e language is a “bastardized” form of Greek (Green 1990: 79). And as for the New Kingdom temple complex at Karnak, aspects of Egyptian culture – temple building, literature, private sculpture – are all considered second rate compared to earlier “classical” productions. Ptolemaic Egypt is usually left out of Egyptian history books. For one classic defense for doing so, see Breasted 1905: 595. But both Greek and Egyptian culture in the Ptolemaic period should be considered on their own terms rather than viewed from the aetiological perspective which sees culture in terms of improvement or decline. The erosion of control over land tenure, as I have argued above, Chapter five, pp. 177–78, has often been read into the interpretation of papyri. Cf. the remarks of Préaux 1984: 36. Cf. above, Chapter two, p. 50. See Lloyd forthcoming.

Conclusions

231

unrest and dynastic infighting, and, externally, currency adjustments and loss of empire, severed the rulers from their ability to collect revenue.13 Local agricultural productivity was dependent on maintenance of local irrigation networks and local distribution, and by focusing only on the “économie royale”, we miss other aspects of the Ptolemaic economy.14 Although the Ptolemaic regime was established from the outside, it retained many ancient institutions. The Ptolemaic kings relied heavily in the beginning on Egyptian institutions and people. The temples remained important political institutions, less so economically perhaps, but synodal decrees show how important the temples were politically in times of royal weakness. The Egyptian legal system still operated independently with government monitoring through local temples, priestly judges and the use of the demotic language, at least down to the first century, when the last known case heard before the laokritai occurred.15 Ptolemaic rule does not represent an abrupt change in Egypt but it did have long term consequences. Life continued much as it had before, with a new economic structure gradually applied throughout Egypt. It may have taken longer to implement in some areas of Upper Egypt than it did in the Fayyum. My claim for basic continuity at the village and regional level will not be surprising. But while the private demotic records of land tenure from Upper Egypt often reveal a different social reality from the Greek papyri, they are also an essential part of the story of Ptolemaic economic organization, and of the decline of the ancient Egyptian temple economy even in the face of temple rebuilding. In that one sense, then, they bear witness to the twilight of the gods. It would of course take other factors to bring about completely the end of ancient Egyptian religion and culture.16 The Ptolemaic period in Egypt was extraordinary in several ways. The takeover of this ancient country by one of Alexander’s generals, and the subsequent creation of a new bureaucratic state, constructed along ancient patterns but with significant new economic institutions, is surely one of the great stories of antiquity. The two main factors that enabled the Ptolemies to control Egypt were the soldiers and their privileged position on the 13

14 15

16

Rathbone 2000: 52, citing Diod. Sic. 1.31.6–9. The Herakleopolis land records (BGU xiv) show clearly that the productive capacity of the land in the mid-first century bce in this area continued, but some abandonment of land in the area is also recorded. See Ricketts 1992. The shock of bad floods, as were reported in the 40s bce, was of course difficult to overcome. Seneca, Natural Questions 4.2.16 Cf. Warburton 1997: 129–30. O. dem. Firenze 8693 ( = Botti 1941, text 11; Kaplony-Heckel 1963, text 161). The text is dated year 23, corresponding to either 92/1 or 59/8 bce. See Allam 1991: 126, n. 96 for a possible later reference to the laokritai. Frankfurter 1998.

232

Interpretation

land, and a new bureaucratic structure run in Greek. We can follow both most closely in the Fayyum but certainly soldiers and the bureaucracy are in evidence throughout the rest of the country, if not always in the same numbers. The new bureaucratic structure was not imposed suddenly but, rather, continued old institutional structures and, gradually, fostered new ones. We can follow only some of the details in the papyri, but even with a fragmentary record, we can firmly establish the new line, and some of the effects, of the new administration. There were, however, important differences between the economy of New Kingdom Egypt, a period during which we have much information about the temple-centered distribution economy, and the Ptolemaic economy. The most fundamental difference is that in the taxation system under the Ptolemies, in broad terms, the temples were being displaced as centers of storage and distribution by new institutions (royal banks and granaries, tax farming).17 In the New Kingdom, temples such as that of Amun-Re at Karnak dominated local economies; under the Ptolemies, a professional bureaucracy did, linked through the nome centers to Alexandria, and operating in Greek.18 In this respect the Ptolemaic regime was centralized, and the change marks an important shift in political power in Egypt. The Ptolemaic state, like all ancient states, was a conglomeration of communities and regions, still very much in line with Gellner’s general model of agrarian states. There was certainly no unified, “national” resistance to the regime, although there were several structural problems created by new elite, by immigration, by a self-serving bureaucracy that functioned in two languages, and a system of land tenure that did not create long term incentives for growth. The structural problems were only partially solved by the bureaucratic process. The state, in the end, reached its developmental limits. It is true, as we have seen, that the early Ptolemies showed impressive economic power especially in the Fayyum in organizing the reclamation project that trebled arable land there. The dramatic shift to wheat noted in Fayyumic land surveys, although driven more by natural causes than state directed ones, was an important long-term change in Egypt spurred on by the new Greek population. The new state was able to establish in the Fayyum a land tenure regime de novo without any institutional interference. Measuring the taxation system and its durability in precise terms is not possible with present evidence, but managing the shift to wheat production, supplying a city the size of Alexandria, and sustaining the bureaucracy 17 18

See further above, Chapter five, pp. 141–46. On New Kingdom temples, see Warburton 1997, esp. pp. 323–26. Cf. Warburton 1997: 332.

Conclusions

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for as long as it did were impressive feats. A new Greek population, and a preference for wheat and urban living were responsible for significant and long-lasting economic changes in rural Egypt. I have tried to offer a coherent framework for understanding the Ptolemaic state and the structure of land tenure within a regional model. A study of the Fayyum and the Thebaid together shows that while the Fayyum underwent major economic transformation, the Thebaid was less dramatically changed. Despite the major unrest, the demotic evidence from the south shows extensive bureaucratization of the land tenure regime there. These two regions were always culturally distinctive, but both were integral parts of the Ptolemaic state for most of the period. Temple land in the south did not “escape the pressure of the government” as Rostozvteff once suggested.19 The periodization of the Ptolemaic period has tended to exaggerate both the success of the regime in the third century and its precipitous decline after Ptolemy III Euergetes. There were certainly structural economic problems, particularly with respect to the economy in coin. But the decline was a political one associated with the changing relationship between the central state and the locally organized agrarian economies. At the local level, the bureaucratization continued, as seen in the demotic evidence. The history of the “économie royale” and the Ptolemaic state were not coterminous. The old view of the Ptolemaic state as highly centralized, influenced by Wittfogel’s “despotic” model, should be revised. Subsequent analyses that have excluded the possibility of private ownership of land in Egypt are, simply put, wrong.20 The land tenure regime was complex, with a wide array of fiscal classes of land and variable rates of taxation. Experimentation in crops and in economic organization appears to have occurred only in the Fayyum, and much of this only in the third century. The demotic evidence of landholding in the Thebaid shows that the ancient practice of small holding of land within temple estates continued in the Ptolemaic period and that there was a clear concept of private ownership. Small-scale holding and conveyance within bounded, close-knit social groups was probably the norm. The ancient tradition of partible inheritance was countered by the conveyance of land within extended family groups. Such movement of property probably does not reflect a real market in land but an equilibrium in family and status-group holding. We cannot measure the extent of private ownership on the basis of this evidence alone (much land within families may not have been the subject of written conveyance), but the range of 19

See the epigraph to Chapter three.

20

See e.g. Kiernan 1976: 381–82.

234

Interpretation

persons who were parties to demotic conveyances, both male and female, suggests that this basic pattern prevailed. It was not until Rome, however, that a formal state system of private ownership, supported both by law and by policy, came into being.21 The Ptolemies faced the serious challenge of maintaining land under cultivation, and therefore of finding tenants. This was no doubt done at the local level but it is a process not well documented. Land was never a scarce commodity and was not the subject of private “investment.” Here, we might argue, is a major structural problem of the Ptolemaic state – its failure to develop the institution of private property and its enforcement. The Ptolemies, like their Pharaonic predecessors, tied the holding of land to state service and did not extend it to royal farmers or to others. For much of the Ptolemaic period there may well have been suboptimal agricultural production, creating the paradox of rural poverty at the same time as (probably) a surplus of agricultural land.22 It is a situation again not well documented in the surviving papyri, but maintaining cultivation by grants of land, by the use of auctions and tax reductions, and sometimes by force were all features of the system. As we saw in the discussion of the Senpoeris affair in Chapter three, the power of the bureaucratic state could at times be impressive, and the centralization of information, certainly a key to success, does come through in the record. The link between this knowledge, which depended on accurate reporting, and the central state was not equally strong in all regions but to the extent that the tax base was managed locally and paid for the local bureaucracy we may conclude that the Ptolemaic regime was successful. Double funerary stelae from the cemetery at Nag el-Hassaya, commemorating priests at Edfu at the end of the second century bce, carry inscriptions both in hieroglyphic, stressing the ancient traditions, and in Greek, demonstrating, in their description of the military and administrative role of these men, the ability to respond to “signals” from Greek culture. They illustrate the degree to which some local elite adapted to the larger cultural framework of the new state.23 the ptol emaic state and regional power The documentary evidence does not always allow us to observe Ptolemaic economic power in all parts of Egypt over the course of the three hundred years of the dynasty. Some parts of Ptolemaic Egypt are obscure while other 21

Rowlandson 1996: 102–38.

22

Cf. Chaudhuri 1990: 253.

23

On the stelae, see Yoyotte 1969.

Conclusions

235

places are only illuminated at certain times. The following facts seem clear. The Ptolemaic system extended over the entire Nile valley. The aim of the regime to control all of Egypt is clearly demonstrated in Ptolemy I’s foundation of Ptolemais in the Thebaid as a regional capital. But political and military presence in the south was not enough to prevent rural disturbances. The bureaucracy, established at the latest by Ptolemy II’s reign, was bottom-heavy, and control through officials established to control temple finances, to consolidate information in the nome capitals and, for the south, to maintain regional control at Ptolemais, suggests that there were high enforcement costs in the system. All the more so if local agents were not always loyal. The links between the central state apparatus and the villages, then, should not be taken for granted. wa s ptolemaic egypt a weak state? Much of the literature of empires has stressed either the strength or the weakness of these regimes. To make an assessment in these terms would be too simplistic; there were strengths and weaknesses in the structure of the state, and I have argued that it is important to specify the sources of social power in analyzing state capacity.24 The model of absolute power of the central state has been drawn from three main sources: (1) a misreading of the ancient Egyptian state, (2) the theory of “Oriental despotism,” and, (3) whether explicitly or not, from Egypt under Mohammed Ali in the nineteenth century. Scholars using the model to interpret the papyri have seen central planning and direction. Many of the observations of state power come from ceremonial or ideological sources. Imagery – especially pharaonic imagery – and temple building were important parts of the Ptolemaic state, as they were under the pharaohs and the Persians. Persian imperial power had universal pretensions, and the core of Persian nobles certainly reinforced such “despotic” ideas. But the veneer of power was thin, and it relied on local elites in the satrapies to remain loyal. The Ptolemies, in running Egypt from Egypt itself, were in a better position to dominate the countryside, and many aspects of their administration, not the least of which are the reclamation of the Fayyum, and the use of Greek, have been regarded as suggestive of more thorough domination of the country. But Ptolemaic policy also supported local elites; overarching despotic power was not possible. The increasing use of political propaganda 24

Cf. Hall 1986: 34–35.

236

Interpretation

in the dynastic cult, and the hyperbolic language of divinity of the rulers increasingly in evidence in the second half of the period, show the importance of ideological power; but the historical evidence strongly suggests that ideological power alone was ineffective. The payment of officials was crucial, and the Ptolemies clearly had some trouble in this area over time. State financing, rural production and social status on the land were, as in other places in the Near East and in Asia, closely bound.25 The increasing dependence of the Ptolemies on local military elite, and their rent-seeking behavior, combined to cause a shift in loyalty away from the center. The Ptolemies, in response, could not and did not require the movement of officials away from their power bases. The results are not surprising: the use of coercion, rural revolt, and the rise, or reappearance, of powerful local families. By focusing on one source of power, economic, I have made use of the historical analysis of social power by Michael Mann, and to a certain extent on the analysis of economic institutions.26 Economic power is derived from the “social organization of extraction, transformation, distribution and consumption.”27 This social organization was local, and the land tenure regime, the organization of irrigation, and the taxation system reflect the initial Ptolemaic maintenance of a relatively decentralized system. The process of bureaucratization, however, increasingly rationalized and organized state economic power. The process took place, fueled largely by local state agents, despite the fact that at least since the “Day of Eleusis” in 168 bce when Roman Realpolitik expelled Antiochos IV, the Ptolemaic regime was politically weak.28 roman power and egypt The ancient Egyptian state was a conglomeration of regions with distinct culture and traditions. At times, these differences can be detected, in the legal traditions, in the different dialects and in regional art styles. What held Egypt together in periods of strong central control was an explicit contract between the pharaoh and the local elite. The requirement of the ruler to control a diffused, locally organized confederation of “internested” villages and towns gave rise to the “despotic” ideology of the divine king. This 25 26 27 28

Chaudhuri 1990: 254–55. Mann 1986. For Weber’s development of economic sociology see Swedberg 1998. This separation of spheres of power, or “domination” (Herrschaft) is already evident in Weber’s work. See, for example, Weber 1978: 942. See above, Chapter two, pp. 45–46.

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began to change in the first millennium bce. How much of ancient Egypt survived the difficult period between roughly 1000 bce and the coming of the Ptolemies is debatable. But vestiges of old institutions remained and some of them remained vital. Temples and temple ritual continued and even flourished under Ptolemaic patronage, while the royal banks, tax farmers and new scribal practice siphoned power and influence away from them. It is true that demotic was used by local scribes, for tax receipts above all, in the early Roman period, so the cultural traditions and economic organization at the local level continued to a certain extent, but the Ptolemaicizing of the bureaucracy, which forged strong links between agricultural production, survey and registration, set the path for Roman administration of Egypt. One major difference between the Ptolemaic and the Roman administration of Egypt was crucial. As the famous Kallimachos decree makes plain, local elites under the Ptolemies formed power bases around local supporters. The Romans mandated that local officials such as the strat¯egos could not serve in their home areas, thus breaking local opposition to their rule.29 The rise of truly local government under the responsibility of the elite fully tied into a professional bureaucratic structure with magistrates and liturgical obligations, successful or not, has its origins in the Ptolemaic period. The rise of the local propertied class, of course, has to be understood in the light of Roman law and private property guarantees. There are, then, important continuities as well as institutional differences between the Ptolemaic and Roman periods. The decline and extinction of the major Egyptian institutions, the temples and the demotic writing system, are both generally attributed to Roman policy in Egypt. In both cases, however, it was Ptolemaic administrative policy that set the path of decline, and in both cases, the change came slowly. The rebuilding of the temples in the Thebaid, I believe, was a means of establishing political control of an area long used to priesthoods and public ritual. Such rebuilding, I have argued, was under the financial control of the state. The rebuilding, then, was an attempt to shift control away from local hands and to incorporate the temples, and the local elite firmly into the Ptolemaic state. Such incorporation into the state apparatus was no doubt further hastened by the Ptolemaic policy of granting a syntaxis to each temple, effectively placing the temples under central state control. Thus the political decline of the dynasty in the first century is also clearly seen in the temples’ weakness as well.30 29

Milne 1924: 127; Pestman 1990: 211.

30

See the remarks of Bingen 1989.

238

Interpretation

The decline of demotic has been explained as the result of Roman policy and attitudes toward Egyptian contracts adjudicated by Egyptian courts (the laokritai).31 A study of the situation of demotic contracts under the Ptolemies, however, suggests that the institutional decline of demotic as a contract language began then. The last documented trial before the laokritai occurred in 96 bce. This of course may reflect no more than chance survival of the records. But more important was the Ptolemaic policy requiring the registration of demotic contracts. In 146 bce, a decree was promulgated which required the registration of demotic contracts in order to make them legally valid.32 The requirement, like the establishment of the agoranomosscribe of Greek contracts, I believe, was another attempt by the Ptolemies to create more efficient (and centralized) economic institutions. While we cannot be certain, the requirement of registration probably suppressed the number of contracts being drawn up in demotic. So while the writing of demotic contracts continued into the Roman period – the last contract in demotic is dated 175/176 ce – the use of demotic as a contractual language was already in decline before the Roman period even while its use for recording tax receipts, temple activity and literature continued.33 In other respects, the Ptolemaic regime left the underlying Egyptian legal system intact. The institutional decline was due to the intended consequences of using Greek in the administration, and to the obsolescence of older forms of contracts. t wilight of the gods It has been argued that Egyptian temples, and their economic power, only began to decline in the Roman period.34 In terms of temple building and the priestly class this is technically true. But I have argued in this book that the Ptolemaic bureaucratic system itself gradually displaced temples as economic centers. Gods and temples were certainly still part of the state ideology. As Ptolemaic political and economic power waned, so too did the temples, which were incorporated within the state structure by the new institution of the syntaxis, and by a condominium between the king and at least many of the important local priesthoods via the royal cult installed 31 32 33 34

Lewis 1993. P. Tor. 1 ( = UPZ i 162; W. Chrest. 31). See Lenger 1964: 256. On registration, see Pierce 1972: 179–88; Pestman 1985d. The date is probable and is generally accepted. The last demotic contract is P. Tebt. Botti 3 (175/76 ce). Demotic papyri survive in numbers from the Roman period only from two temple towns in the Fayyum, Soknopaiou Nesos and Tebtunis. Quaegebeur 1979a: 715.

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in the temples. The decrees of asylum in the first century bce show that the temples were equally weak with respect to traditional rights and had to be supported by the ruler.35 In other words the ideology of royal power, which bound the state temples to the crown in a mutually reinforcing relationship of ideological power, was giving way to new methods of economic control. Decrees of concession for the right of asylum or the granting of land grants to soldiers do not prove state weakness. They may just as well demonstrate state strength, or the fact that the right of temple asylum was of no consequence to royal revenues.36 Many years ago the great historian of Ptolemaic Egypt Claire Préaux concluded that there was no confluence of landholding and political power in Ptolemaic Egypt.37 In other words, there were no power bases centered around landholding that arose in opposition to state power. The documents uphold this thesis, although there were individuals, mainly soldiers, who were given quite large plots of land, and others, on a smaller scale, who accumulated land by purchase within temple estates. Indeed, temples still appear as nominal holders of land, but the administration of this land, as the Greek and the private demotic documents show, was in the hands of the Ptolemaic bureaucracy. The powerful local families that we can see arising in the second and first centuries bce must have had access to agricultural wealth in some form. The Ptolemaic regime, I have argued, maintained the old institutional structures in the south at first. Over time these old institutions gave way to the process of Ptolemaic bureaucratization and monetization, and both of these had unintended consequences for the structure of rural Egypt. The royal economy imposed a new social network of scribes who were increasingly operating in Greek, yet the local character of the Ptolemaic system, an ancient feature of economic organization in Egypt, was maintained. The support of the temples was part of the early political strategy of the Ptolemaic kings, and the bureaucratization process set in motion by the regime eventually displaced them as economic institutions. Yet the local economy (and religious feeling?) continued to support the building of temples in the south until the end of Ptolemaic rule, and indeed into the Roman period. Why? The answer must lie in the relationship of political and economic institutions to state formation. While on one hand temples were decreasingly important as economic or political institutions in the 35 36 37

Bingen 1989: 29. A similar point was made by Davies and Fouracre 1995: 247–51 about models of the devolution of royal power with respect to land holding in medieval Europe. Préaux 1939: 530.

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Interpretation

Ptolemaic period, Egyptian priests and local temple cults remained important down to the last Cleopatra and beyond. For the same reason that the Ptolemies stole Egyptian monuments – powerful symbols of history and of a distinctive and ancient culture – and erected them in the new capital, new temples were built in the Thebaid.38 The Ptolemaic period was not merely an attempt at revenue extraction. It was the creation of a new pharaonic Egypt. The ideology, and the legitimacy, of Ptolemaic rule depended on Egyptian temples as outward expressions of the ancient relationship between the gods, the rulers and the people. Temple embellishment was particularly active in the second century bce, a time of royal weakness in the countryside and severe dynastic trouble. The building of image, as it were, and the attempt to win support among Egyptians, substituted for real political power. Often the interests of the state and the local interest of the temple did not coincide. And of course we must not forget that the temples were symbols of Egyptian culture and religious devotion. It is important to point out, as Jan Quaegebeur has reminded us, that it is likely that the funding for temple building came from local sources, indeed “from the faithful themselves.”39 The first-century bce temple-building in the Thebaid (notably at Dendera), and Kallimachos’ actions in a time of crisis, surely indicate that the local economies continued to function even when the dynasty was becoming politically weak. Indeed temples continued to be built under the Romans, but they had already been fully subsumed and subordinated by the Ptolemaic state. The last Cleopatra attempted to run Egypt as a great hellenistic kingdom with Egyptian characteristics. The Tazza Farnese dating to her reign is a perfect blend of hellenistic and ancient Egyptian elements that combine to show that Ptolemaic wealth, as with the pharaohs, lay in the benefactions of the Nile flood. But it took economic power to take advantage of it. Augustus completed the process of consolidation begun by the Ptolemies by appointing a high priest in Alexandria to control all cults. Egyptian temple building continued under the Romans (the important hypostyle hall at Esna for example) and the theology continued. The old gods, the priesthoods, and religious ritual died hard in Egypt, but their houses, the once mighty temples along the Nile, no longer served the economic functions for the central state they once did, although their treasuries could still be looted.40 Ideology continued, while economic structures and 38 39 40

On Alexandria, see Thompson 2001a. Quaegebeur 1979a: 713–14. A good example of local financing of temple construction comes from Roman Dendera, published in A. Bernand 1984, texts 25, 28. Diod. Sic. 51.5.5; 17.6; Josephus, AJ 15.90–91; Ap. 2.58.

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local elites adjusted more rapidly to the new realities. In a very real way, those who lived under the Ptolemaic regime lived during the twilight of the gods. The Roman takeover of Egypt, so hauntingly described by Dio Cassius as a major break with the past, and the institutional reorganization under Augustus, were part of a process, then, set in motion by the Ptolemies.

Appendices

ap pe n dix 1

Translation of the Edfu donation text

The text is recorded on the outside of the retaining wall of the temple of Horus at Edfu. It consists of 65 columns of text in 8 panels, each introduced by an offering scene, lower register (above base) of the external face of the eastern enclosure wall, starting from the northern extremity (PM 6.167.337–344 third register, plan p. 130). Graphic writing of fractions 60 and 80 only used in the donations suggests that the intermediate manuscript was written in the hieratic script. The rest of the text was certainly composed in demotic. Only P. Wilbour allows comparison. This is not a cadastre, but, rather, a tax list of cultivated land where each parcel is defined by its topographic situation, status of ownership, the name of the cultivator, the area of plot and tax assessment. This translation is heavily indebted to the work of Meeks. Numbers in parentheses refer to the hieroglyphic text of Meeks 1972. Note ar. = aroura. principal tex t (4 ∗ 3) Protocol The perfect god, son of the lord of Hermopolis, divine seed of the lord of largesse who reckons the amount of the measured fields of Egypt, filling the healthy eye of that which is necessary, satisfying the gods and goddesses by means of their offerings, the lord of gardens, the king of Upper and Lower Egypt, heir of the gods Euergetai, select of Ptah, who acts justly, living image of Amun-Re. Title of the donation text Donation[s which the king of Upper and Lower Egypt, heir of the gods Euergetai, select of Ptah, who acts] justly, living image of Amun-Re, son 245

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Appendix 1

of Re, Ptolemy surnamed Alexander [has made?] to his father Horus the Behdedite, the great god, lord of heaven (and to all) the gods of Edfu, for their daily offering. LIST of all their particulars, of all their cadastral lists (?) of all their nome boundaries . . . Total of the domain (h.tp–ntr) of Horus the Behdedite, the great god lord of heaven, from the origins up to year 18 of the son of Re Nectanebo II, beloved of Onnuris. Fields: 13209 161 (ar.) Their list: island land (m y) 5660 41 81 (ar.) high land (q y) 7551 21 81 161 (ar.) their measurements their limits its accumulation. Checked. I. The Pathyrite nome The nome of Pathyris, up to year 19 of Darius II (according to what) is registered in the bureau of writing. The perpetual fields, their specification: the hamlets on the west of Thebes as well as the high land of P –n–t (ty), the field of the place (called) Dy–n (?), the low land of Pny in all 4 basins(?) whose fields are (all in one) piece. In high land 759 81 (ar.) their measurements (6∗ 1) the first (plot) to the south, while you approach near to the high land of Armant: 22 on 23, 4 on 4, are 90 (ar.) to the north of this plot: 22 on 21, 4 on 4 are 86 (ar.) to the north of this plot: 21 on 20, 4 on 4 are 82 (ar.) to the north of this: 20 on 19, 4 on 4 are 78 (ar.) to the north of this: 19 on 18, 4 on 4 are 74 (ar.) to the north of this: 18 on 1(7), 4 on 4 are 70 (ar.) to the north of this: 17 on 16, 4 on 4 are 66 (ar.) to the north of this: 16 on 15, 4 on 3 21 are 58 81 (ar.) (to the north of this): 15 on 15, 3 21 on 2 21 41 61 321 are 47 21 81 161 (ar.), in all 9 parcels which makes, in fields 651 21 41 161 (ar.) remainder, in fields 107 41 161 (ar.) which Amasis has offered and who has reiterated by the donation of year 1 of Nectanebo I, to complete 659 81 [sic] (ar.) below. See above. (7∗ 1) their limits, to the south: the domain of Montu, the canal of the “tail of the crocodile” is between them; to the north, the domain of Amunrasonther,


247

the great god, the canal which is surnamed “the one of the tree” and which flows toward the H nn (i.e. the main canal in Edfu) is between them; to the east, the domain of Amunrasonther, in the north part, as well as the domain of Khnoum the great, the lord of Elephantine, in the south part, the canal which is surnamed “the one of the tree” is between them. Then they abut the canal of high water. To the west, the H nn, then they abut the canal of high water. the high land of Armant the high land of (T)arkutis(?) the place partially ruined(?) being three fields whose plots are of a single piece 1151 [sic] 21 161 321 (ar.) their measurements: the first (plot) to the north (8∗ 1) 45 41 on 33 21 41 , 17 on 15 are 632 (ar.) another parcel, to the south of this of 3 schoinoi: 48 41 on 48 41 , 5 on 4 are 217 81 (ar.) noted (?) to the west 1 aroura 41 81 161 321 being (with the preceding): 218 41 81 161 321 (ar.) being (for the 3) 850 21 161 321 (ar.). Their limits: to the south: the domain of Ptah the great god, which represents 91 21 41 (ar.) as well as the Ibion of the high land of Armant, which represents 30 (ar.), with the domain of Montu lord of Tod, which represents 25 (ar.), with the “income” of the cat, which represents 5 (ar.), with the “provision” of the falcons which represent 5 (ar.) with (the land) of the brotherhood of the temple of Re of the roof? of Amun which represents 5 (ar.) with the royal land (9∗ 1) to the north; the domain of Ptah which represents 102 (ar.), with the royal land which is 952 41 321 (ar.) to the east: the royal land, which is 2600(?) 41 321 (ar.), with the domain of Ptah, which represents 102 (ar.), to the west, the desert edge, to which is attached 300 arouras which Nectanebo II, beloved of Onnuris, has offered in donation and whose 70 (ar.) produce wheat. Their specification: on the north side: 200 arouras on 11 schoinoi east to west and whose 50 (ar.) produce wheat, 1 parcel: 25 on 20, 5 on 5 = 112 21 (ar.). Another: 20 on 10, 6 on 6 = 90 (ar.) being 202 21 (ar.) subtract the stony soil (?) (ıw–rwd ) 2 21 (ar.) remaining: 200 (ar.)

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(10∗ 1) on the south side: 100 arouras (of which) 20 produce wheat, on 8 schoinoi south to north: 13 on 13, 8 on 8, making 104 (ar.), subtract in ıw–rwd : 4, remaining: 100 (ar.) Total: 1150 21 321 (ar.) Checked. The low fields of Nesptah 120 (ar.) to the south, north, east – the river; to the west: the canal of high water, the low land of Hathor which is surnamed the low land of grass: 92 21 41 (ar.), to the south: the domain of Anubis of Ta–h.d, to the north, the royal fields, to the east: the river, to the west, the high land of Pathyris, “the place of . . . (the calf ?).” (11∗ 1) The high land of Pathyris “the place of . . . (the calf ?)” 120 (ar.). Its limits; to the south, the domain of Hathor lady of Gebelein, which represents 130 (ar.), to the north, the royal fields, to the east, the river [to the west] the desert edge. That which comprises, constituting part of the nome of Pathyris, in perpetual fields. Their details: the hamlets to the west of Thebes with that which belongs to them and which is registered outside of the rest: 650 81 (ar.) (note: actually 759 81 ), the high land of Armant with that which belongs to it 1150 161 321 , the high land [sic] of Nesptah: 120, the low land of Hathor 92 21 41 , the high land of Pathyris, “the place of . . . (the calf?)” 120. [total] in fields 2242 41 81 161 321 . Details: in low fields: 212 21 41 ; in high fields 2029 21 81 161 321 . II. The nome of Esna (12∗ 3) The domain of Horus the Behdedite, the great god lord of heaven, in the nome of Esna. The brick kiln of . . . d rw with its clay land: 100 arouras of low land. Their specification: their measurements: 18 41 81 on 18 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 4 , 5 4 8 on 5 4 8 = 98 2 4 (ar.), noted? to the east 21 (ar.) noted? to the west 21 41 (ar.) being (noted in total) 1 41 arouras. being (new total) 100 (ar.). See above. to the south: the ibion of . . . which represents 9 arouras to the north: the royal fields to the east: the river to the west: the high land of Esna (13∗ 1) the north fringe of Komir as well as the high land of Komir: 256 81 161 321 (ar.)


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their measurements: ? the north when you are turned to the south 5 21 41 161 on 5 21 41 161 , 27 on 27 = 156 21 41 81 161 321 (ar.) except the hn 21 41 (ar.) remaining: 156 81 161 321 (ar.) another parcel: 5 21 41 81 on 5 21 41 81 , 18 on 18 = 104 21 81 (ar.) except the dry land 4 21 81 (ar.) remaining: 100 = (in all) 256 81 321 (ar.) [sic] their limits: to the south: the domain of Khnum the great, lord of Elephantine; to the north: (and) to the west: the royal land; to the east: the field of the low land of Komir. ˇ : 100 arouras, of which 30 produce wheat The field of the domain of –srı and which Nectanebo II, beloved of Onnuris, has offered in donation. To the south: the domain of Horus the Behdedite, great god, lord of heaven in the high land of Komir and which makes 256 81 161 321 (ar.); to the north: the royal fields which represent 91 21 arouras and which Nectanebo II, beloved of Onnuris, has offered in donation to Khnum the great, lord of Elephantine; to the east: the river [to the west] the royal fields, the low land of Komir: 204 21 (ar.). Their measurements: the first (plot), to the south: (15∗ 1) 8 21 41 on 8 21 41 , 8 on 8 = 70 (ar.); to the north of this: 8 21 41 on ‘8’, ‘8’ on ‘8’ = 67 (ar.); to the north of this: 8 on 8, 6 on 6 = ‘4’8 (ar.) to the north of this: 8 on 3 [sic] 3 on 3 = 19 21 (ar.) for a total 204 41 (ar.). See above. Their limits: (16∗ 1) to the south: the domain of Khnum the great, lord of Elephantine, which represents 314 21 (ar.); to the north, east: the river; to the west: the canal of the priests and the high land of Komir, the high land of the low land of the rock: 260 arouras. Its measurements: [. . . . .] + 21 41 81 321 on 6 21 41 81 321 = 105 81 161 (ar.), except (?) the h: 1 1 1 1 1 1 8 16 ; to the north of this: 19 2 8 on 24, 6 16 32 on 8 = 154 1 1 1 1 2 4 (ar.); note? [a . . .] [ 2 ] ‘ 4 ’ which is 155, for a total of 260 (ar.). See above. (17∗ 1) Their limits: to the south, east: the domain of Nekhbet which represents 816 21 321 ; to the north: the field of the high land of Komir; to the west: the desert edge . . . Asfûn the field of mwr: 165 arouras of high land, in one parcel. Their . . . ? Their measurements: 8 on 7, 22 on 22 = 165 (ar.).

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Appendix 1

See above. Their limits: to the south: the royal fields, up to the drg; to the north: the domain of Khnum the great, lord of Elephantine which represents 110 (ar.); to the east: the canal which one calls “the one of the sˇ d ”; to the west: the desert edge. (18∗ 1) The high land of the place of H.rwy = 413 21 41 81 . Its measurements: 48 81 on 50, 6 21 41 81 on 10 = 413 21 41 81 (ar.). Its limits: to the south: the domain of Khnum the great, lord of Elephantine which represents 279 81 (ar.); to the north: the royal fields which represent 2743 41 81 (ar.); to the east: the river; to the west: the field of the high land of T rt ?, the canal which (one) calls “the one of the chief of the artisans” between them. The high land of Esna 202 41 (ar.). Its measurements: 10 21 on 10 21 , 20 on 20 = 210, except the Aeolian sand? 7 21 41 , remaining 202 41 (ar.). (19∗ 1) Its limits: to the south: the royal fields; to the north: (the) domain of Nekhbet which represents 162 21 (ar); to the east: the ro[yal fields, in the southern part], the sparrows (or “the foreigners?) in the north part; to the west: the royal fields. The royal scribe has assigned the 100 arouras of the domain of –sry ˇ to the high land of Esna which is: 302 41 (ar.) that which represents the fields constituting the part of the domain of Horus the Behdedite, great god, lord of heaven, in the nome of Esna: for 8 fields 1750 [sic] 21 41 161 321 (ar.). III. The nome of Edfu The domain of Horus the Behdedite great god lord of heaven in the nome of Edfu. Its measurements, its limits: (20∗ 1) up to year 18 of the son of Re Nectanebo II beloved of Onnuris. The field of the h of pn–nh n: 139 21 41 (ar.). Its measurements [. . . . . .] 41 81 its limits: to the south, west, the high land of Hierakonpolis, to the north: the domain of Nekhbet-Oudjet great goddess [. . .] [. . .] when you take yourself near the w –mw which flows from east to west between the domain of Horus the Behdedite (and) the domain of Nekhbet [. . .] [. . .] north? (to?) the west of the cistern of sˇ y on the west side which makes 200 (ar.). The cistern of the sˇ y between [. . .] (21∗ 1) [. . .] in year 1 of Nectanebo I, the village of Psebtomit-tohou, the high land of Tohou which makes 3 fields: 477 21 (ar.). their measurements:


251

one parcel: [. . .] = 50 (ar.) another: 1 41 on 1 41 , 4 on 4 = 5 (ar.) another: to the north of this 1 41 on 21 , 6 on 6 = 4 21 (ar.) [sic] another (parcel) to the north of this: (22∗ 1) 21 on 41 , 2 on 2 = 21 41 (ar.) which makes (for the 3) : 10 41 , except the dry land: 41 ; remaining: 10 (ar.) another parcel: 21 on 21 41 , 4 on 4 = 2 21 which makes (in all) 62 21 of which: the donation of Horsomtous (and) of (the other) gods of the qh.st: 10 (ar.) The donation of Osiris of Psebtomit: 2 21 (ar.) Their limits: to the south: the domain of Khnum, Nebtou, Neith, lords of Esna, which represent 216 21 41 81 (ar.); to the north: the domain of Khnum the great, lord of Elephantine, which represents 52 21 81 161 (ar.) ∗ (23 1) to the east: the low land of Psebtomit; to the west: the desert edge. another parcel: 9 21 on 10 21 24 21 81 on 22 21 81 = 236 41 (ar.). another: to the north of this: 10 21 on 10 21 , 17 on 17 = 178 21 (ar.). which makes 414 21 41 (ar.). Their limits: to the south: the field of Psebtres; to the north: the domain of Khnum the great, lord of Elephantine, which represents 204 21 81 (ar.); to the east: the low land of Psebtomit and the river; to the west: the field of Psebtres, the canal of Horoudja between them. (24∗ 1) the low land of Pse[btomit]: 750 41 81 . Its measurements the first (plot) to the south nothing on 5, 17 on 17 = 42 21 (ar.) to the north of this: 5 on 8, 19 on 19 = 123 21 (ar.), to the north of this: 8 on 5, 15 on 15 = 97 21 (ar.), to the north of this: 5 on 5, 10 on 8 = 45 (ar.) (25∗ 1) another (parcel): 5 on 5, 4 on 4 = 20 (ar.) another: 5 on 8, 20 on 15 = 1[13 21 ] 41 (ar.) another: 8 on 6, 10 on 10 = 70 (ar.) another: 6 on 7, 10 on 10 = 65 (ar.) another: 7 on 6 21 , 18 on 10 = 47 21 (ar.) another: 6 21 on 8 81 , 10 on 10 = 73 81 (ar.) the fields which are east of it ( = the lowland)

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(as well as) there is to the south of you, 7 schoinoi of empty field nothing on 2, 3 on 3 = 3 (ar.) which makes (with the preceding): 76 81 (ar.) to the north of this: 8 81 on 5, 11 on 10 = 68 21 81 321 (ar.) (26∗ 1) another (parcel): 6 on 2 21 , 5 on 5 = 18 21 41 (ar.) another: 2 41 on 21 , 6 on 5 = 8 21 161 (ar.) which makes (in all) 815 41 161 321 (ar.) Specification The domain of Horus the Behdedite great god lord of heaven (named) below 750 41 81 (ar.) (and) to the south the domain of Khnum the great god lord of Elephantine, 50 (ar.) the domain of Khnum, Nebto, Neith, lord(s) of Esna 15 (ar.) Their limits: south north east – the [rive]r; to the west: the field of Psebtomit with the hamlets which are attached. (27∗ 1) the fields of Psebtres which Nectanebo II beloved of Onnuris has offered in donation: 100 41 81 161 . Its measurements: 12 on 8, 10 21 on 10 21 = 105 (ar.) except: dry land: 4 21 [ 161 ] (ar.) [remaining]: [100] 41 81 161 (ar.) their limits: to the south: the domain of Khnum the great lord of Elephantine which makes 70 21 81 161 (ar.) which makes 7 schoinoi ?, to the north: the royal fields, to the east: the royal fields, the course of water which is called h rmt between them, to the west: the royal fields, the course of water which is called “the well of the fish” between them. In all, 1467 21 81 161 (ar.) of field for 6 basins. (28∗ 2) The north Pn–hnw of Edfu: 196 ar. of which the “pasture” of the goose before Harsomtheus and the gods of the qh.st: 3 (ar.) attached there (again): 193 (ar.) Their measurements: 11 21 81 (ar.) on 11 21 41 , 14 on 11 21 41 81 161 = [sic] 144 41 (ar.) noted? to the west: 41 81 (ar.)


253

which makes 144 21 81 (ar.). The fields which are to the north-west of those and which are adjacent to the basin of Pr–m –H.r. Their measurements: [. . . . . . . . .] = 174 21 81 (ar.) remainder: 21 41 81 (ar.) which have not been remeasured. (29∗ 1) Their limits: to the south: the canal south Pn–hnw as well as the highland of Edfu, the dike between them; to the north: the Ibion, which represents 60 (ar.); to the east: the highland of Edfu; to the west: the canal which is called . . . wrs as well as the basin of Pr–m –H.r. The canal south Pn–hnw: 1326 81 (ar.). Its measurements: the first (plot), to the south: 5 21 on 5 21 161 , 4 21 on 4 21 = [2]4 21 41 161 (ar.); to the north of this: [. . . . . .] 21 ; 27 21 161 on 27 21 = 164 81 (ar.), (30∗ 1) to the north of this: 8 21 on 15, 46 on 46 = [sic] 546 21 (ar.) The fields (impregnated?) with water except the low land which is found and which is called “the lowland of y–d?” : 137 21 321 (ar.) 15 on 10, 22 on 29 = 318 21 41 (ar.) which are on the water, to the north of this : [. . .?] 10 on 5 21 , 30 on 35 = 251 21 41 81 (ar.) which makes (in all): 1336 81 (ar.) (31∗ 1) The fields of wheat: 331 21 81 321 (ar.) Their limits: to the south: the dike of the field of the [. . .?] of the porter, to the north: the field of the north Pn–hnw, the dike [between them] to the east: the highland south of Edfu, to the west: the highland west of Edfu. It is the sacred canal which is in the Apollinopolite province: it is come into existence at the time of Tatenen (and it has existed) up to today.

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Appendix 1

[The highland of] Edfu and its fringe: 1703 81 161 (ar.). Their measurements: The highland west of Edfu, the first field to the north, when you turn toward the south: 13 on 11 21 41 , 6 on 5 = 68 161 (ar.) (32∗ 1) to the south of this: 12 on 13 21 , 14 on 16 = 191 41 (ar.) which makes (in all): 260 (ar.). The second field, which is called “the one of hnw ” you measure to the north in looking south: 2 on 3, 4 on 4 = 10 (ar.) another (parcel): 3 on 5, 4 on 4 = 16 (ar.) to the north of this: 5 on 7, 6 on 6 = 36 (ar.) to the north of this: 7 on 8, 13 on 13 = 98 [sic] 21 (ar.) (33∗ 1) which makes (in total): 159 21 (ar.). The third field, you survey looking toward the west: 2 on 2, 10 on 10 = 20 (ar.). the fourth field, its measurements, to the north, when you are looking south: 1 on 1, 30 on 30 which makes 50. The fifth field, of the fields which are to the north of the dike. To its south-east: the dry fields. Its north-west being in commune with the south Pn–hnw when you turn toward the north part of the Pn–hnw south of Edfu: [2] on 2, 20 on 20 = 40 (ar.). (34∗ 1) to the north of this 2 on 3 21 , 20 on 20 = 55 (ar.). to the north of this: 3 21 on 2, 20 on 20 = 55 (ar.), which makes (for the three): 150 (ar.) which makes (in all): 619 21 (ar.). The north “fringe” and the south “fringe.” The fields which are occupied by the lowlands which the fields of the safflowers are before Horus the Behdedite (which are) to the east: the first (plot), to the north when you turn toward the south: 21 41 on 1 21 41 , 3 on 3 = [sic] 1 21 41 (ar.), to the south of this: 21 on 21 , 13 on 13 = 6 21 (ar.) (35∗ 1) which makes (in all) 10 41 (ar.)

Translation of the Edfu donation text the pasture (?): its measurements: 1 21 on 1 21 , 2 on 2 = [sic] 3 21 41 (ar.) which makes (in all): 14 (ar.) other pasture (?): 2 on 2, 2 on 2 = 4 (ar.). The second field : 21 on 41 , 4 on 4 = 1 21 (ar.) which makes (for the two): 5 21 (ar.) which makes (in all) : 19 21 (ar.) which makes (since the first): 639 (ar.). The rest of the fields: of which the dividing has not been made up to year 19: 515 21 81 (ar.) which has been offered in donation by Nectanebo II, beloved of Onnuris: 538 161 (ar.) (36∗ 2) the lowland of lwnt–T rw as well as the lowland of the sˇ of Pr–m –H.r: 1033 81 161 (ar.). Its measurements: The first (plot), to the north, which touches the river to the north, to the east and to the west: 1 81 on 21 , 1 on 1 = 21 41 81 (ar.). To the south of this: 2 21 on 1 81 , 2 on 2 = 3 21 81 (ar.). To the south of this: 4 81 on 2 21 , 4 on 4 = 13 41 . (37∗ 2) To the south of this: 9 on 4 81 , 10 on 10 = 115. {another?} : 19 on 14, 27 on 24 = 420 21 41 . The fields which are to the east of it ( = the lowland), to the north [? . . .] 1 on nothing, 3 on 3 = 1 21 (ar.) (38∗ 1) To the south of those: 1 21 on 1, 3 on 3 = 3 21 41 (ar.) another (parcel): 1 21 41 on 21 [sic] = 4 41 (ar.) which makes (in all): 627 161 (ar.). To the south of this: [2 on 2] 41 , 2 on 2 = 4 41 (ar.). Another: 3 on 3 21 , 3 on 3 = [sic] 8 41 (ar.) Another: 2 on 3, 2 on 2 = 5 (ar.). (39∗ 1) Another: 3 on 2, 2 on 2 = 5 (ar.). [sic] 3 on 3, 3 on 2? = [7 21 ] [. . .] to 1 schoinos. To the south of this: 1 on 2, 2 on 2 = 3 (ar.). To the south of this: nothing on 1, 3 on 3 = 1 21 (ar.) being, for the fields of which are to the east of it ( = the low land) 44 21 (ar.).

255

256

Appendix 1

The fields which are to the east, after ? 19 schoinoi, which your (side) is unprovided with fields: (40∗ 1) the first (plot), to the north: 21 on nothing, 1 on 1, making 41 (ar.). Another (plot): 21 41 161 on 21 , 1 on 1 = 21 81 161 321 (ar.). Another: 1 161 on 21 41 81 on 1 161 , 2 on 3 = 3 21 81 321 (ar.) which makes (in all) : 5 21 (ar.). The fields which are outside of it ( = the lowland) under the administration of H. ın ı : 50 (ar.). To the south of this, when you approach near the field of the lowland of n: 192 21 161 321 (ar.). (41∗ 1) Their measurements: 15 21 81 161 on 21, 10 21 on 10 21 = [1]92 21 161 321 (ar.). The tftf fields which are included there: 2 81 , attached there (the) 190 41 81 321 (other ar.) which makes (in all): 861 41 . Another (plot): 9 on 15 21 81 161 , 15 21 on 12 21 = 172 21 41 [sic] 81 161 [sic] 321 except the h : 21 41 81 161 321 , remaining: 171 21 41 [sic] 81 161 321 . Their limits: to the south, to the west : the [field?] of the lowland of the n, the mouth separating them, to the east: the river. See above. (42∗ 1) The lowland of the n which the water surrounds: 243 81 161 (ar.) being: Its measurements: 41 on nothing, 1 on 1 = 81 (ar.), to the south of this: 21 41 on 41 , 1 on 1 = 21 (ar.), to the south of this: 1 21 on 21 41 , 1 on 1 = 1 81 (ar.), to the south of this: 3 161 on 1 21 , 4 on 4 = [sic] 9 21 (ar.). [Another]: 3 41 81 [on] 3 41 81 , 6 [on] 6 = [20 41 ] (ar.) [which makes] : [31] 21 [sic] 41 81 (ar.). (43∗ 1) [Another]: [9] 41 81 on 5 41 81 , 6 on 6 = 44 41 (ar.). To the south of this: deviating? toward the [. . .] [. . .] 41 [. . .] [. . . . . .] [ = ] [1] 67 21 41 81 161 (ar.). The field of the lamp: 4 21 41 81 161 on 6 21 41 81 161 , 1 21 (ar.) on 1? [ = . . .] [Its] lim[its]:


257

[to the south]: [. . .] Edfu, which represents 5 (ar.), [to the nor]th: the field of the lowland of ıwnt–T rw, the mouth separating them. (44∗ 1) To the east: the river, to the west: [the royal fields?], [. . . . . .] 55 41 which are included [The] part of Horus the Behdedite of which the partition has not been made [and which] has been assigned to Horus the Behdedite in year 1 of Nect[anebo I] [. . . . . .] 19 21 (ar.) being: [I]ts measurement[s]: [the fir]st (plot), to the south: 1 1 1 4 on 4 , 1 on [1] [ = ] 4 (ar.), to the n[orth] of this: 1 on 1, 3 on 3 = 3 (ar.), [. . . . . . . . .] [. . . royal fields] to 21 schoinos (45∗ 1) [ 21 ] on 41 , 8 on 8 = 3 (ar.), to [. . . of this . . . . . .] [. . .] ? [. . .] [. . . . . .] ? 41 81 (ar.) [. . .] ? [. . .] west 1 1 2 on 2 , 4 on 4 = 2 (ar.), to the north of this, going back [? toward? . . . . . . Horus the Behdedite] the [great] god, lord of heaven, [which represents ? ? ar. [. . . . . .] [. . . . . . . . .] toward the west north of the temple of ? ? to 41 schoinos, new [. . . . . .] the royal fields which represent [. . .] [. . . . . .] [. . . . . .] [ = . . .] 81 (46∗ 1) To the north of this, deviating? toward the east [to?] the west of the desert edge, on ? 21 (schoinos?) 21 81 , 2 on 2 (ar.) = [1] 81 which makes (in all) 10 21 . See above. Its limits: To the south: the basin of [. . . of] Edfu [. . . . . . . . .] which has been registered in year 1 of Nectanebo I. Tsennane and its companion . . . x + 41 21 . Their measurements: the first (plot), to the north 9 on 7, 11 on 13 = 96 (ar.)

258

Appendix 1

except the sand: 6, remaining: 90 (ar.). (47∗ 1) Another: the fields which are to the north of it: 1 on 1, 81 on 21 41 = 41 81 161 (ar.); to the west of this: 1 on 1, 21 on 41 = 1 (ar.); to the west of this: 1 on 1, 2 on 2 21 = 2 41 (ar.); to the west of this: 2 on 2, 4 41 81 on 3 = 7 41 161 (ar.) [sic] to the west of this:, turning toward the north: 2 21 on 2 21 , 2 41 on 3 41 = 6 21 41 81 (ar.) which makes (for the five): 17 21 41 81 (ar.); to the west of this: 21 41 on nothing, 1 on 1 = 41 81 (ar.). (48∗ 1) To the south of this: 1 on 21 41 , 2 on 2 = 1 21 41 (ar.); to the south of this: nothing on 1, 2 on 2 = 1 (ar.) which makes (for the three): 3 [ 81 ] (ar.) which makes (for the 8): 21 (ar.) which makes (from the beginning): 111 (ar.); to the south of this: 7 [ + x on . . .], 3 41 on 3 41 [ = ] 26 21 41 161 (ar.); to the south of this: 5 on 7 21 , 3 on 3 = 18 21 41 (ar.); to the [. . .?] of this, [turning toward the] . . .? : 3 on 3 21 , 8 41 on 9 = [sic] 32 41 81 (ar.) (49∗ 1) which makes (for the 3): 77 21 41 81 161 (ar.) which makes (from the beginning): 188 21 41 81 161 (ar.). Their limits: to the south, north, west, east: the river. The cultivation to the north: 111 21 81 (ar.). Their measurements: the first (plot), to the north: 1 on nothing, 1 on 1 = 21 (ar.); to the south of this: 1 21 161 on 1, 1 on 1 [ = ] [1] 41 321 (ar.); to the south of this: 3 on 1 21 161 , 3 on 3 = [sic] 7 161 321 (ar.); to the south of this: deviating? toward the east: 5 21 41 81 on 4, 4 on 4 = 19 21 41 (ar.); (50∗ 1) to the south of this: 8 on 5 21 [ 41 ], 9 on 9 = 61 21 41 81 (ar.) [which makes] (from the beginning): 90 41 (ar.). The fields which are to the west of it and touching the river: 1 1 1 4 on 4 , 1 on 1 = 4 (ar.); to the south of this: 21 41 [. . .]. [. . . . . .] = 1 (ar.); to the south of this: 41 on 21 41 , 5 on 4 = [sic] 4 21 (ar.); to the south of this: 2 on 1 21 , 1 on nothing = 21 41 81 (ar.) which makes (for the 4): 6 21 [sic] 161 (ar.),

Translation of the Edfu donation text which makes (from the beginning): [9] 6 21 41 161 (ar.). (51∗ 1) The fields which are to the south of it and which touch the ravine; the first (plot), to the north: 1 on 1, 21 41 on nothing = 41 81 (ar.); to the east of this: 2 on 2, 1 41 on 1 21 41 = 2 (ar.); to the east of this: 2 on 3, 2 21 on 1 41 = 5 21 81 (ar.); to the east of this: 2 on 2, 3 on 2 21 41 = 5 21 41 (ar.) except the sand: 2 81 161 (ar.), remaining: 3 21 161 (ar.); to the east of this: 1 on 1, 4 on 3 = 3 21 (ar.) (52∗ 1) which makes (for the 5): 1[5] 161 (ar.) which makes (from the beginning): 111 21 41 81 (ar.). Their limits: to the south, north, east, west: the river. Its (Tsennane) cultivation south, west: 17 41 (ar.). Their measurements: the first (plot), to the south: 1 1 1 1 1 2 on 2 4 , 1 on [1] = 2 8 (ar.), 1 1 to the north of this: 2 4 on 1, 1 on 1 = 21 41 81 (ar.), to the north of this: 1 on 1 41 , 1 21 on 1 21 = 1 21 81 161 (ar.), to the north of this: [1] 41 on 1 21 41 , 2 on 2 = 3 (ar.), (53∗ 1) to the north of this: 21 41 on 2, 2 on 2 = 3 21 (ar.) note? to the east: 41 (ar.) which makes: 3 21 41 (ar.), [to the] north of this: 1 21 [on 21 41 ], 2 on 2 = 2 41 (ar.), to the north of this: 21 41 on 81 , 3 on 3 = 1 41 161 (ar.) which makes (in all): 17 41 (ar.). Their limits: south, north, west, east: the river. (54∗ 1) Its (Tsennane) cultivation south, west : 75 21 41 (ar.). Their measurements: the first (plot), to the south: 2 on 2 21 , 4 on 4 = [sic] 4 21 (ar.). Another: 2 21 on 4 21 41 81 , 4 on 4 = [sic] 10 21 41 (ar.). To the north of this: [. . . x + ] 2 41 , 5 on 4 = 18 21 41 (ar.). To the north of this, turning toward the west: 3 21 41 on 4, 4 on 4 = 15 21 (ar.). To the south of this: 4 on 3, 4 on 4 = 14 (ar.), (55∗ 1) To the south of this: 3 on 1 21 41 , 2 on 2 = 2 21 41 (ar.) note to the west: 21 41 (ar.) which makes: 3 21 (ar.)

259

260

Appendix 1

which makes (in all) 75 21 41 (ar.). [Their limits]: [the riv]er (plots) which have been registered in year 1 of Nectanebo I: 3 on 7, 11 on 11 = 55 (ar.); another (plot): nothing on 3, 9 on 9 = [13] 21 (ar.) which makes (in total): 68 21 (ar.). See above. Their limits: the river (56∗ 2) The highland of the wadi of Edfu + the [. . . . . .] [. . . . . .] Tsennane [. . . . . . . . .] their [. . . . . .]? [. . . x +] 2 21 41 (ar.) The foundation of the living falcon : 10 (ar.), Its measurements: [. . . . . .] [. . . . . .] = 10 (ar.) [Its limits]: To the south: the field east of Edfu; to the north: the rest of the [domain] of Horus the Behdedite, great god, lord of heaven, which represents 17 21 41 (ar.); to the east: the desert edge, to the west: the river. Another (parcel): 1 on 1, [. . . . . .] = [. . .] (57∗ 1) I[ts limits] [to the south]: the foundation of the living falcon, to the north, east: the royal fields, to the west: the river. The lowland of Pr–wyn [. . . . . . . . .]. The first (parcel), to the north: 21 on 1 41 , [1 21 ] on 1 21 = 1 41 161 (ar.); another (parcel): 1 81 on 2 81 , 4 on 4 = 6 21 (ar.); another; 2 81 on 3, [. . .] on 4 21 = 12 (+ x) (ar.) [. . . . . . . . .] (58∗ 1) [another]: [. . . . . .] 21 , 2 on 2 = 10 [+ x] (ar.) which makes (in all) : [. . .] in lowland. Their limits: to the south, north, west, east : the river. the highland of Pr–wyn [. . . . . .] [. . . . . . . . . . . .] [. . . . . .] 3 on 5 41 , 4 on 4 = 16 21 (ar.), to the north of this: 5 41 on 10 41 , 10 on 13 = [89 81 ] (ar.) [. . . . . .] [. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .] 161 (ar.)?

Translation of the Edfu donation text note to the east [. . .] [which makes]: [. . . x +] 1 41 (ar.) which makes (in all): 107 161 (ar.) (59∗ 1) Their limits: [. . . . . .] [. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .] [. . . . . .] [. . . . . . . . . . . .] = 8 21 41 81 [. . .] [to the north] of this: 6 21 41 on, 5 on 5 = 28 21 (ar.). Another (parcel) : 4 21 on [. . .] [. . . . . . . . . . . .] (ar.) [. . . . . .] [. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .] Another: 21 on nothing, 1 21 on 1 21 = [sic] 41 81 161 (ar.) which makes: 25 (ar.). (60∗ 1) Their limits: to the south : the [remaining] of the domain of Horus the Behdedite, great god, lord of heaven; to the north, west, east: the river. The “fringe” [. . . . . . . . . which has been offered in donation by? Nectanebo II], beloved of Onnuris. Its measurement: 1 on 1, 11 21 on 11 21 = 1[1 21 ] (ar.). I[ts limits]: to the south, west: the royal fields; to the east: the “provisions” of the . . . [. . . . . .] [. . . . . . . . .E]dfu: 29 21 41 (ar.). Its measurements: nothing on 21 41 , 6 on 6: 2 41 (ar.). To the south of this: 21 41 on 1, 10 on 10 = 8 21 41 (ar.). (61∗ 1) Another (parcel): 1 on 1, 10 on 9 21 = 9 21 41 (ar.) which makes (in total) [20 21 41 ] (ar.). [Its lim]i[ts]: [. . . . . .]: the river, to the north: the field of Edfu . . . ? as well as the desert edge, as well as the [hi]ghland [. . . ?] the lowland of Edfu, and its cultivation, which constitutes its west side: 205 (ar.). Their measurements for year ?. . . . . the fir[st] (parcel), [to the] south: 2 21 on 2 21 , 3 on 3 = 7 [ 21 ] (ar.). The fields which are to the west of it and touch the river: the first (parcel), to the east: 1 1 1 1 1 2 on 2 , 4 on 4 [ = 8 ] (ar.). ∗ (62 1) [Another?] : [1 on] 21 , 21 on nothing = 41 81 (ar.). To the south of this: nothing on 41 , 1 on 1 = 81 (ar.). Another: 41 on 81 , 2 on 2 = 41 81 (ar.).

261

262

Appendix 1

To the south of this: [sic] 21 161 on 21 41 81 = 9 (ar.). [To the] south [of this]: 3 161 on 4 41 , 10 on 10 = 3[7] 21 41 [ 161 ] (ar.). [Anot]her: 5 21 on 5 21 , 4 on 4 = 22 (ar.). (63∗ 1) To the south of this, diverting ? from the east: 6 21 on 4 21 , 6 on 6 = 33 (ar.). To the south of this, turning? [toward] ? 4 on 2 21 41 , 6 on 6 = [sic] 17 21 41 . Another: 2 21 on 1 21 41 , 6 on 5 = 11 21 41 [sic] [. . .] (ar.). Another: 1 21 41 on 1 41 , 2 on 2 = 2 41 (ar.). To the south of this: 21 on nothing, 41 on 41 = 161 (ar.). which makes (in all): 137 21 (ar.). (64∗ 1) Their limits: the river. The cultivation which is on the west of it, the course of water which is called the bı t between them: 2 (ar.) which makes (in all): 240 (ar.) for . . .? . . . 64 41 81 (ar.) the field of . . .? . . . [and its] cultivation: 277 81 (ar.). Their measurements: 1 on 1 41 81 , 2 21 81 on 2 21 81 = 3 321 (ar.) note . . . ? 161 321 (ar.) which makes: 3 81 (ar.). To the north of this: 1 41 81 on 5, 28 81 on 31 41 81 = [sic] 94 41 (ar.), note to the east: 81 (ar.) which makes: 94 41 81 (ar.). To the north of this: 5 on 3, 30 on 30 = 120 (ar.). (65∗ 1) To the north of this: 3 on 1 21 , 26 21 on 26 21 = 59 21 81 (ar.). Which makes (in all): 277 81 (ar.). See above. The lowland of Primis and the little lowland which is to the south of that of Primis and which is called “the lowland of the winged disk” constituting that which precedes(?): 1280 21 41 81 (ar.). Their measurements: the first (plot), to the south: 5 on 10 21 , 5 on 5 = 38 21 [ 41 ] (ar.). Another parcel, to the west of it: the first to the south: nothing on 21 41 , 1 on 1 = 41 81 (ar.). To the south of this: 21 41 on 1 41 81 , 2 on 2 = 2 81 (ar.).

Translation of the Edfu donation text (66∗ 1) To the south of this:[sic?] 41 81 on 1, 2 on 2 = [sic] 2 41 81 (ar.), note to the east: 81 , which makes: 2 21 (ar.). To the south of this, diverting? from 9 schoinoi: 10 21 on 6 21 , [. . . . . .] [ = 1]35 (ar.). To the south of this: 16 21 on 23, 7 on 7 = 138 41 , which makes (in all): 317 (ar.). Another parcel, to the north of this, its measurements: 23 on 23, 10 on 10 = 230 (ar.). (67∗ 1) To the south of this, turning back? on 3 schoinoi: 20 on 20, 21 on 20 = 410 (ar.). The fields which are to the east of it, to? 41 schoinos: 3 on 1, 2 on 2 = [sic] 3 (ar.). Another (parcel): 1 on 1 41 , 3 on 3 = [sic] 3 21 81 (ar.). Another, turning back? toward the east on 41 schoinos: 1 41 on 21 , 5 on 5 = 4 41 81 (ar.). Note to the east: 41 (ar.), which makes: 4 21 81 (ar.). Another: 21 on 41 , 6 on 6 = 2 41 (ar.). (68∗ 1) Another: 41 on nothing, 3 on 3 = 41 81 (ar.), which makes (for the 5): 15 81 (ar.) [sic] which makes (from the beginning): 425 81 (ar.). Another: 19 on 22, 6 on 15 = [sic] 217 21 (ar.). To the east of this: 1 on 1, 10 on 10 = 10 (ar.). To the south of this: 41 on nothing, 5 on 5 = 21 81 (ar.), [which makes] (for the 2): 10 21 81 (ar.), which makes (for the 3): 228 81 (ar.). To the south of this, turning back toward the east on 3 schoinoi: 7 on 5, 10 on 10 = 60 (ar.). (69∗ 1) Another: 5 on 3, 4 on 4 = 16 (ar.), note? to the east: 81 (ar.) which makes: 16 81 (ar.). Another: 3 on 1, 2 on 2 = 4 (ar.) note: to the east; 21 , which makes 4 21 (ar.) which makes (in all): 1280 21 41 81 (ar.). Their limits: to the south, north, west, east: the river. The low land of the Tamarisks the low land of the rose. Their measurements up to year 6: 4[14] 81 321 (ar.).

263

264

Appendix 1

(70∗ 1) The first (parcel), to the south: 3 41 81 on 2 21 41 81 , 11 on 11 = 34 21 81 (ar.), to the south of this: 4 21 81 on 4 21 81 (ar.), 32 41 81 on 32 41 81 = 150 (ar.) note ? to the east : 1 (ar.) which makes : 151 (ar.). A[nother]: 6 21 [. . .], 32 41 81 on 32 41 81 = 169 21 41 (ar.) note to the east: 1 (ar.) which makes: 170 21 41 (ar.). A[nother]: 4 on 3 21 41 81 , 9 on 9 = 35 41 81 161 (ar.). (71∗ 1) Another: 3 21 41 on 1, 9 on 8 = 20 21 81 161 321 (ar.) [sic] Another: 1 on 41 , 3 on 3 = 1 21 41 81 (ar.) note ? to the north: 41 (ar.) which makes: 2 81 (ar.) which makes (in all): 414 81 321 (ar.) [sic] Their limits: to the south: the field of the low land of T –rr as well as the hamlets attached there, to the north, east: the r[iv]er, to the west: the low land of T –rr as well as the “fringe” of the chapel? of Poeris as well as the desert edge. The low land of Osorthon (i.e Osorkon): 31. Its measurements: (72∗ 1) 1 21 on 6 21 41 , 4 on 4 = 16 21 (ar.); to the south of this: 2 21 41 on 2 41 , 4 on [4] = 10 (ar.); Another: 2 41 on 2, 4 on 4 = 8 21 (ar.); Another: 2 on 1, 3 on 2 41 = 4 (ar.), which makes (in all): 31 (ar.) [sic] of which, the foundation of Horus nb ıq (r)w: 6 (ar.). Their limits: the river. The south “fringe” and the north “fringe” which are in the high land of the landing place of the ır–hpw of the temple of Horus the Behdedite, great god, lord of heaven: [2]3[5]. (73∗ 1) Their measurements: 10 41 on 10 21 , 11 on 11 = 114 81 161 321 (ar.) [sic] The fields which are to the east of it, the first (parcel), to the south: 41 on 21 , 3 on 3 = 1 81 (ar.);

Translation of the Edfu donation text Another: 21 on 41 , 2 on 2 = 21 41 (ar.); Another: 41 on nothing, 2 on 2 = 41 (ar.), which makes (for the 3): 2 81 (ar.) which makes (in all) : 116 81 161 321 (ar.); Another: 10 21 on 7 21 , 8 81 on 8 81 = 73 81 (ar.), which makes (in all); 189 21 (ar.). See above. (74∗ 1) Another, which has not been measured and which has been assigned to the domain in year 1 of Nectanebo I: 45 21 , which makes (in all): 235 (ar.). Their limits: to the south, the “fringe” of the quarry, to the north: the royal fields, to the east: the desert edge, to the west: the river. That which constitutes the sum total of the nome of Edfu for 30 fields : 5.? . 30 21 41 (ar.). VI The Nome of Ombos The nome of [Ombos], the ? ham[lets?. . . . .] Their measurements: the first (parcel) to the north: 1 on 21 , 14 on 14 = 10 21 ; (75∗ 1) to the east of this: 5 on 5, 2 on 1 = [7 21 ]. [Another]: 2 on 2, [8 on] 8 = 16 which makes (in all): 34. [T]heir [limits]: [to the south]: the royal fields; to the north; the white stela, to the east: the desert edge, to the west; the river. VII Chronological recapitulation That which constitutes the sum total of the fields of the domain of Horus the Behdedite, the great (god) [lord of heaven]: [. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .]? (76∗ 1) which have been offered in donation up to year 15 of [. . . . . .] [. . . . . . . . .] [. . . . . . . . .] which have been offered in donation up to year 36 of Darius I: 5128 81 161 321 (ar.)

265

266

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up to year 19 of Darius II [. . . . . . . . . . . .] 1368 21 81 161 (ar.) which Nectanebo II, beloved of Onnuris, has offered in donation : 1500 (ar.) in all. See above.

ap pe n dix 2

Ptolemaic demotic land transfers from Upper Egypt

Documents marked as “registered” have a Greek registration docket at the foot of the text with the usual formula. The terms (temple) and (royal) refer to the classification of the land as belonging within the temple domain (h.tp– ntr) or the royal domain ( h. n pr– ). The transfers were either couched as sales (sh db h.d and sh n wy together), a gift, a division (sh dny .t psˇ ), a cession (sh n wy alone), or a “lease” (sh.n). Documents marked as “witness copies” have copies of the complete agreement written out by some of the witnesses. All dates are bce. If the land was identified as being within the temple estate (temple) or within royal land (royal) I so indicate under “status”; (frag.) indicates that the text is fragmentary.

267

245 (July–Aug.)

243 (Feb.–Mar.)

243 (18 Sept.)

243–238

240 (June–July)

240 (May–June)

240 (June–July)

4 P. Hausw. 3

5 P. Hausw. 7

6 P. BM IV, 44

7 P. Hausw. 13

8 P. Hausw. 2

9 P. Hausw. 8

10 P. Hausw. 9

3 P. Hausw. 10

2 P. Hausw. 1

3rd cent. (pre 243) 265 (Nov.–Dec.) 264 (Feb.–Mar.)

date

1 P. BM IV, 43

Text

registered

sh db h.d sh n wy

registered

sh db h.d sh n wy

registered witness copies

sh db h.d sh n wy

gift witness copies

sh db h.d

sh db h.d sh n wy

sh db h.d sh n wy

witness copies

sh db h.d sh n wy

sh db h.d sh n wy

sh n wy

Document

courtyard 1 4 share high land + island island land: high land + sycamore & date-palms & other trees + kn n srg

high land

Edfu

Edfu

Edfu

Edfu

srg

empty plot + kn n

Edfu

Armant

royal temple

court + sycamore + 41 share high land & island land

Edfu

high land

temple royal

2 plots

2 plots

3 plots

30 mh.–ntr

20 arouras

?

2 plots 1 2 schoinion S-N 3 4 schoinion S-N

plot

Edfu

island land high land

2 plots

Edfu

temple royal royal temple

20 arouras

Size

island land high land high land and date-palms

Location Armant

Status

high land

Category of land

woman to herdsman

woman to herdsman

herdsman to herdsman

2 men of Aswan to man of Aswan herdsman to woman

herdsman to woman

herdsman to woman

man of Aswan to man of Aswan herdsman1 to herdsman herdsman to herdsman

Parties

227 (17 April) 226

224 (17 Nov.) 224 (June–July) 223 (Feb.–March) 221/220

220 (Sept.–Oct.)

219 (Oct.–Nov.) 216 (14 Jan.)

13 O. Pontif. Bibl. Inst.2 14 O. TT373 doc. 23693

15 P. BM IV, 36

19 P. Hausw. 12

20 P. Hausw. 5

22 P. Hausw. 25

21 O. BM 66383

18 P. Hausw. 16

17 P. BM IV, 2

215 (Sept.–Oct.)

227 (18 Dec.)

12 P. BM IV, 47

16 P. Hausw. 11

231 (15 Sept.)

11 P. BM IV, 45

sh db h.d sh n wy

receipt of empty plot purchase 1 3 share island land

temple

Edfu

Thebes

Edfu

island land high land + trees

sh dny .t psˇ

temple

Edfu

Thebes

tombplot

high land

Edfu

high land

sh db h.d sh n wy

Armant

empty plot

Edfu

Thebes

tomb plot

temple

Thebes

Armant

Armant

building plot

empty plot

high land + w (n) hy

“the island”

agreement at auction

sh db h.d

sh db h.d sh n wy

sh n wy

receipt of purchase receipt of purchase

sh db h.d

compulsory

sh n wy

1 41 schoinia S-N

2 21 ground cubits

2 plots

1 plot

45 arouras

2 ground cubits

2 schoinia S-N

1 21 ground cubits

1 ground cubit

6 ground cubits

20 arouras

herdsman to herdsman (cont.)

9 herdsmen to herdsman, man of Philae, & colleagues herdsman to herdsman herdsman to woman

pastophoros to Greek

lector priest & another man to Greek herdsman to herdsman

lector-priest to ?

feeder of the hawk to lector-priest

210 (Feb.–Mar.)7

210 (12 July)

208 (13 Dec.)

30 P. BM IV, 26

31 P. Testi Botti 3172

32 P. BM IV, 28

sh db h.d sh db h.d

212 (13 May)

212 (Mar.–Apr.)

27 P. Hausw. 18

210 (Feb.–Mar.)

212

26 P. BM 10071

28 P. BM IV, 38

213

25 P. Hausw. 17

29 P. BM 104636

sh db h.d pledge sh n wy forfeiture

214 (14 Jan.)

24 P. BM IV, 40

registered

sh db h.d

sh db h.d

sh n wy

sh n wy

gift

214 sh db h.d (16 Oct.–14 Nov.)

23 P. Louvre 94164

Document

date

Text

Coptos

temple temple

high land

Coptos

Thebes

temple

as P. BM 10463 ((29) above) high land

Thebes

1 aroura

11 21 81 arouras + excess of measure as P. BM 10463 ((29) above) 2 arouras

4 ground cubits

Nubian to woman8

Greek to man of Philae Nubian to woman

Greek to man of Philae

Armant

empty plot temple

woman to Greek born in Egypt woman to woman

5 plots

herdsman to servant of Horus, man of Philae

herdsman to herdsman (father to son)5

woman to Greek

Parties

Edfu

fifth of 18 arouras + 1 aroura + fifth of 125 of 20 arouras + fifth of 12 21 arouras + excess of measure 2 plots

3 arouras

Size

woman to ?

Edfu

Armant

Thebes

Location

Pathyris? Armant?

temple

temple

temple

Status

1 4 garden and vineyard & empty plot high land

island land?

3 parcels of high land + another plot

Category of land

198 (12 Oct.) 194 (Oct.–Nov.) 190

184 (20 May?)

180 (20 Mar. or 18 July) 180 (20 Mar. or 18 July)

36 P. BM IV, 29 37 P. Berl. dem. ii 3146A + B 38 P. Louvre 9415

39 P. Mainz e + d

40 P. Siut 10575

sh db h.d sh n wy

43 P. BM IV, 41

demotic enkuklion

mention of sale + 41 share of “lake”

sh dny.t psˇ

temple

temple

2 3 share of vineyard

2 plots high land + excess of measure + 1 3 house + courtyard + footpath

temple

temple

temple

temple

temple? temple

share of high land

share of high land

sh dny.t psˇ

sh db h.d sh n wy

land + empty plots high land

sh dny.t psˇ

sh db h.d (frag.) sh db h.d sh n wy 1 12 of 3 plots

temple

1 6 of 3 plots

sh db h.d sh n wy

temple

empty plot

sh db h.d 12

temple

high land

sh db h.d

42 P. Siut 10591vo, vi, 9–11

41 P. Siut 10591vo

179 (28 Oct.)

200 (July–Aug.)

35 P. Berl. dem. i i 3142 + 3144

34 P. Carnarvon 1

2039 (Dec.–Jan.) 203 (Dec.–Jan.)

33 P. Carnarvon 2

Armant

Asyut

Asyut

Asyut

Thebes

Thebes (Jeme)

Thebes Thebes

Thebes

Coptos

Coptos10

6 arouras

6.66 arouras

35 arouras + excess of measure + appurtenances 3.33 arouras

16 arouras + excess of measure


1 21 ground cubits

3 arouras

(cont.)

herdsman14 and woman to woman

priest to priest

priest to priest

Greek to woman

2 women to woman

woman to priest

woman to woman

herdsman to herdsman11 woman to herdsman13

163

51 P. Heid. 700

49 P. BM 10589

163 (3 Oct.)

176 (18 Nov.)

46 P. Brussels E 8052 47 P. Berl. dem. i i 3111 + 3141

50 P. Ryl. 15

176 (14 Sept.)

45 P. BM IV, 42

175 (Mar.–Apr.) 175 (15 Apr.)

176 (14 Sept.)

44 P. EgSocPap

48 P. BMFA 38.2063b

date

Text

sh n wy

Greek enkuklion

sh db h.d sh n wy

exchange

building plot prepared for foundation + empty court + everything in it in exchange for empty plots prepared for foundation 1 2 share of grain land + excess of measure shares of various plots

numerous plots

demotic enkuklion gift

sh n tm sh y 19 +

high land + excess of measure

empty plot prepared for foundation

high

land15

Category of land

sh db h.d sh n wy

demotic enkuklion sh n wy to (43)

sh db h.d

demotic enkuklion

sh db h.d sh n wy

Document

temple

temple

temple

temple

Status

Pathyris

Pathyris

Asyut

Dendera

Thebes

Armant

Thebes

(Jeme)16

Location

3 41 81 161 641 arouras 4 21 41 81 641 arouras 2 21 81 641 arouras

9 21 arouras

6 arouras

4 ground cubits


Size

priest to woman

birdcatcher + another to woman

priest to son

Greek to priest

herdsman18 to woman

2 women to herdsman17

Parties

159 (8 Feb.)

159 (13 Aug.)

153 (4 June) 153

54 P. BM 1202

55 P. Tor. Botti 4

56 P. Louvre 2416 + 241721 57 P. GreyA23

53 P. OI 10551

162 (3 Nov.) 161 (4 Aug.)

52 P. BM 1201

sh db h.d

sh db h.d sh n wy

(gift)

sh db h.d

conditional sale

gift

conditional sale

empty plot prepared for foundation building plot

high land + excess of measure 1 20 2 share of “room” + storehouse 41 of hyt .t , 1 1 4 staircase + 4 court 1 + 4 dovecote + 41 of its empty plots + 2 days of service in chapel of Isis + emoluments + share of date trees, sycamore trees, other trees + “land in release” + royal land attached to chapel + share of epagomenal days + 3 43 ar. high land + excess of measure + tombs purchased at auction

1 4 share of high land + excess of measure + 1 2 share of empty plot + house

high land + excess of measure

[temple]

temple

temple

Thebes

Armant22

Thebes

Pathyris

Pathyris

Pathyris

2 21 ground cubits 7 21 ground cubits

10 arouras

10 arouras

10 arouras

(cont.)

herdsman to pastophoros priest mother to son a pastophoros

soldier to woman

herdsman to woman

145 (15 July)

141 (6 April)

141 (8 May)

61 P. Stras. 21

62 P. BM IV, 32

63 P. Berl. 311325

empty house plot prepared for foundation 1 7 ? share of empty house plot

sh db h.d (frag.) sh n wy

124 (15 Dec.)

119 (2 Mar.) 119 (2 Mar.) 118 (22 May)

68 P. Adl. 2

69 P. Warsaw 148.288 70 P. BM IV, 22 71 P. Berl. dem. ii 3101A + B

sh db h.d sh n wy

sh.n sh.n

Greek enkuklion

sh n wy

125 (14 Aug.)

67 P. Tor. Amen. 9

sh db h.d

sh db h.d

registered enkuklion receipt

empty plot empty plot land + empty plots

house plot empty house plot prepared for foundation dry empty plot

1 3 share of empty

temple temple

Thebes (Jeme) Thebes (Jeme) Thebes

Pathyris

Thebes

Pathyris

Pathyris Armant?

land empty house plot

sh db h.d sh n wy

Thebes

sh n wy

(compulsory)

Thebes (Jeme)

Pathyris

Thebes

Thebes

building plot

Thebes

Location

building plot

empty plot

sh n wy

Status

land? + water source?

Category of land

sh db h.d

sh db h.d

Greek enkuklion

sh db h.d sh db h.d sh n wy

Document

66 P. dem Wiss. Ges. 15 138/7

64 P. dem. Wiss. Ges. 6 140 (July) 65 P. Berl. 3090 + 3091 140 (9 Sep.)

146

60 P. Grey C

153

151 (31 Jan.)

GreyB24

date

59 P. Berl. dem. i i 3097 + 3070

58 P.

Text

scribe to Greek born in Egypt

soldier and woman priest

Parties

6 ground cubits 6 ground cubits 10 ground cubits

1 21 ground cubits

4 ground cubits

4 ground cubit

1

priest to pastophoros priest to pastophoros

soldier to soldier

woman to priest

priest to pastophoros

woman to woman woman to pastophoros

soldier + 2 priests and another man to Greek 14 21 ground cubits 3 choachytes to choachyte

1 ground cubit

3 31 ground cubits

2 ground cubits

2 2 ground cubits

1

Size

118 (19 Feb.)

117

113

111

109

103 (14 Jan.)

98 (29 Dec.)

89 (12 Jan.)

94 (10 Mar.)

91

68 (17 Apr.)

73 P. Ryl. 19

74 P. Ryl. 18

75 P. Ryl. 24

76 P. Stras. 7

77 P. Tor. Botti 28

78 P. Adl. 7

79 P. Adl. 13

80 P. Adl. 23

81 P. Stras. 44

82 P. Ryl. 29

83 P. Moscow 123

fragment of pledge

8 witnesses gift

sh db h.d

sh db h.d sh db h.d pledge

8 witnesses

sh db h.d

8 witnesses

sh db h.d

sh dny.t psˇ

sh db h.d

see P. Ryl. 1927

sh n wy

Greek enkuklion

sh db h.d

Greek enkuklion

sh db h.d

Greek enkuklion

sh db h.d

3 plots + 4 other plots without specified size29

Pathyris

Akhmim

Pathyris

Pathyris

shares of island temple land + vineyard share of empty garden

Pathyris

Pathyris

Thebes

Pathyris

Pathyris

Pathyris

Pathyris

temple

Pathyris

fertile land

1 6 share date–palm garden

2 plots of land + excess of measure 1 8 share dry date–palm plot

1 20 share of 20 arouras + excess of measure

empty plot

1 3 share high land

empty plot

aroura

39 arouras

3 8

21 arouras

1 aroura

1 21 ground cubits

9 ground cubits

with the title “herdsman” here bear the full title “Herdsman, servant of Horus of Edfu,” with the usual epithets following.

2 Vleeming:1995, text 53. 3 Vleeming:1995, text 56.

1 Parties

84 P. Adl. 27

118 (2 May)

72 P. Beatty dem. 126

(cont.)

scribe and brothers to woman soldier to son

herdsman to woman

herdsman28 to men

soldier to soldier

7 persons to soldier

brother to sister

scribe to soldier

2 women to soldier

priest to woman

2? soldiers to soldier

priest to soldier

10463 + 10464.

that the first day of the month was meant. The plot of land transferred in P. BM 10463 + 10464 is adjacent to the plot in P. Louvre 9416. 8 The same parties involved in P. Bologna 3172. 9 All regnal year dates of texts dated to the reigns of the native pharaohs ruling in Thebes during the Theban revolt have been backdated by one year from the previous chronology. See Vandorpe 1986. 10 The Carnarvon papyri were found in a tomb at Gurna, western Thebes. 11 The full titles are “herdsman, servant of Amun.” 12 Zauzich 1968: 282 n. 515, in noting the unusual insertion at the end of the document, questioned whether a separate sh (n) wy document existed for this text. 13 The full title is “herdsman, servant of Amun.” 14 The full title is “herdsman, servant of Montu.” 15 Andrews 1990: 97 n. 12 stated that the land involved was a “different four land cubits” than in P. BM 10726. In fact the land is clearly said to be st 4 h q y “four . arouras of high land.” 16 Not Pathyris, as El-Amir believed. See the remarks by Pestman 1977, vol. 1, p. 81. 17 The full title is “herdsman, servant of Montu.” 18 The full title is “herdsman, servant of Montu.” 19 “Deed of not hindering.” For a discussion of this type of document, see Shore and Smith 1959: 58–59. 20 On the term ry .t , see the discussion by Pestman 1977, vol. 2, 85–86. 21 = P. Survey 8a. See Pestman 1993: 61–62 for the parties involved. 22 A copy from a scribe at Hermonthis. The location of the house plot is eastern Thebes. See further Pestman 1993: 361–409. 23 = P. Survey 7. For the complicated history of this land, and the parties involved, see Pestman 1993: 57–58. 24 = P. Survey 8b. 25 The Greek sale tax receipt is Wilcken 1935–1957: 106–08. 26 This text concerns the property of the well-known Horos son of Nechutes, whose archive is contained within the Adler papyri. Because this text was not found in the jar with the other texts, one must suppose either that Horos subsequently sold this land to another, or that there was a second jar of papyri containing his archive. See the remarks by Boswinkel and Pestman 1978: 46 (k). 27 On these two papyri, see the discussion in Pierce 1972: 118–19. 28 The full title is “herdsman, servant of Horsemtheus.” 29 The editor of the papyrus has suggested that the size of the other four plots “ont et´ ´ e omises par le scribe, sans doute par distraction,” Malinine 1967:69. The total amount of the land held by the soldier amounts to nearly 100 arouras.

6 P. BM IV, 27 is the witness list and a pr´ ecis of this text. 7 Andrews 1990: 69 dated the text to 12 February on the assumption

4 The purchaser in this text sells a neighboring plot in P. BM 5 The full title of the men is “herdsmen, servant of Montu.”

Appendix 3 Translation of P. Amh. gr. 49

(= P. Survey 56; W. Chrest. 161; Select Papyri II, 36, formerly P. Amh. 2, 31) The 6th year, Choiak 8. Paid into the bank at Hermonthis in charge of Dionysios, to the private account of the sovereigns in accordance with the report of Hermias, overseer of the revenues, and Phibis the royal scribe, a copy of which is appended, by Senpoeris daughter of Onnophris as a fine upon a palm-grove of two cubits, 1200 copper drachmas (and) the taxes 180 drachmas (Signed) Dionysios, banker. Hermias to Dionysios, greetings. When we reached the Pathyrite nome we sent out agents to the toparchies to look after the collection of debts owed on account of both rents in corn and taxes in money; and as they were engaged upon exacting payment at the Memnonia it was reported that there were certain pieces of land which had been enclosed for the purpose of growing palms. Whereupon I sent for Totoes the village scribe, and we went to the place of Senpoeris d. Onnophris and measured it, and found that it projected by two cubits. She was then sent for, and forcible persuasion being applied with regard to the proper fine, it was fixed, on consideration of her having reclaimed it from the desert, at the rate of 10 talents for the aroura, making in all 1200 drachmas, to which she agreed. Accordingly please receive at the bank of Hermonthis, as Phibis the royal scribe also subscribes to this and the topogrammateus adds a statement, signed by himself, of the measurements and adjoining areas and further declares that nothing in this case has been overlooked, the 1200 copper drachmas, and put them down among the receipts for fines in addition to those which have been registered by our agents, in the proper way, on the understanding that, having paid this sum, she shall retain the plot planted with palms and have no dispute with us on any point whatever. The 6th year, Choiak 8. 277

278

Appendix 3

Receive the thousand two hundred drachmas of copper, total 1200, and any extra charge. The 6th year, Choiak 8. Phibis. If the topogrammateus subscribes to the effect that the facts are correct and that nothing has been overlooked and adds both the measurements and adjoining areas, receive the thousand two hundred dr. of copper, total 1200, and the other extra charges. The 6th year, Choiak 8. Pamonthes. Receive from Senpoeris as the value of the above mentioned land, the thousand two hundred drachmas of copper, total copper 1200, and the other usual charges. The adjoining areas are, according to the report of Totoes the village scribe, on the south the house of Senpoeris herself, on the north the empty plot around the guard-house, on the east the house of Ha . . . s, on the west a road. The 6th year, Choiak 8.

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Wolff, Hans Julius (1998) Vorlesungen u¨ ber Juristische Papyruskunde. Freiburger Rechtsgeschichtliche Abhandlungen, Neue Folge, vol. 30. Berlin: Duncker & Humbolt. Wolska-Conus, W., ed. (1968) Topographie chrétienne. Paris: Cerf. Woolf, Greg (1987) Review of Michael Mann, The sources of social power, vol. i. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986 in JRS 77. P. 193. (1998) Becoming Roman. The origins of provincial civilization in Gaul. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wright, T. J. (1976) “Amos and the ‘Sycamore fig’,” Vetus Testamentum 26. Pp. 362–68. Young, T. Cuyler (1988) “The consolidation of the empire and its limits of growth under Darius and Xerxes,” in The Cambridge Ancient History, vol. iv, 2nd edn., ed. John Boardman et al. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pp. 53–111. Yoyotte, Jean (1969) “Bakhthis: Religion e´gyptienne et culture grecque a` Edfou,” in ´ Religions en Egypte hellénistique et romaine. Colloque de Strasbourg 16–18 mai 1967. Bibliothèque des Centres d’étude supérieure spécialisés. Paris: Presses universitaires de France. Pp. 127–41. ´ (1989) “Le nom e´gyptien du ‘ministre de l’Economie’ de Sais a` Méroé,” in Comptes rendus de l’Académie des inscriptions et Belles-lettres. Paris. Pp. 73–90. Zaghloul, O. M. (1985) “Frühdemotische Urkunden aus Hermupolis,” Bulletin of the Center for Papyrological Studies 2. Pp. 23–31. ¨ Zauzich, Karl-Theodor (1968) Die Agyptische Schreibertradition in Aufbau, Sprache und Schrift der demotischen Kaufverträge aus ptolemäischer Zeit. 2 vols. ¨ Agyptologische Abhandlungen. Vol. 19. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz. (1969) “Ein Kaufvertrag aus der Zeit des Nektanebos,” MDAIK 25. Pp. 223–29. (1971) “ ysˇ n pr– ,” Enchoria 1. Pp. 79–82. (1972) “Korrekturvorschläge zur Publikation des demotischen Archivs von Deir el-Medina,” Enchoria 2. Pp. 85–95. (1978) Demotische papyri aus den Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin, vol. i. Papyri von der Insel Elephantine. Berlin: Akademie Verlag. (1983a) “Die demotischen Papyri von der Insel Elephantine,” in Egypt and the Hellenistic world . Leuven. Pp. 421–35. (1983b) “Demotische Texte römischer Zeit,” in Das Römisch-Byzantinische ¨ Agypten, Akten des internationalen Symposions 26.–30. September 1978 in Trier, ed. Günter Grimm, Heinz Heinen and Erich Winter. Aegyptiaca Treverensia, vol. 2. Mainz: Philipp von Zabern. Pp. 77–80. (1984) “Von Elephantine bis Sambehdet,” Enchoria 12. Pp. 193–94. (1990) “Noch eine Versteigerung,” Enchoria 17. Pp. 161–62. (1991) “Einleitung,” in The Carlsberg Papyri 1. Demotic texts from the collection, ed. Paul John Frandsen. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press. Pp. 1–11. (1994) “Weitere Fragmente eines juristischen Handbuches in demotischer Schrift,” in Acta demotica. Acts of the Fifth International Conference for Demotists. Pisa, 4th-8th September 1993. Egitto e Vicino Oriente, vol. 17, ed. Edda Bresciani. Pisa: Giardini Editori e Stampatori in Pisa. Pp. 327–32.

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Index of sources

G R E E K PA P Y R I

P. Grenf. i 10 187 11 171 P. Grenf. ii 23 157, 198 P. Hal. 1 96 P. Haun. Inv. 407 46, 76, 81, 88, 90, 97, 152, 160, 196 P. Hibeh 22 29 187 P. Köln 4 186 169 7 313 169 P. Lille 1 112 3 157 10 55 11 107 47 112 P. Lond. 881 174 P. Lond. Inv. 2850 173 P. Lond. iii 206 224 1206 224 P. Lond. vii 1954 108, 113, 115 2015 179 P. Magd. 2 53 P. Mich. Zen. 25 112 111 114 P. Oxy. xlvi 3285 19 P. Paris 63 180 65 172 P. Petr. ii 4 (11) 107 ii 6 107 ii 9 (4) 107 ii 13, 18a 104

BGU 1374 188 1730 47 C.Ord. Ptol. 5-10 179 P. Adler 3 87 7 87 8 87 9 224 12 89 P. Amh. 33 53 40 185 44 157 49 94, 155 P. Bingen 36 57 P. Cairo Zen. 1 59001 179 P. Cairo Zen. 2 59155 112 59245 109 59292 113 P. Col. Zen. 83 139 120 178 P. Dion. 18 191 P. Edfou 8 86, 160 P. Elephantine 1 68 10 85, 163 11 163 12 84, 163 14 161 19 85 20 78 28 84, 157 P. Gen. iii 128 170 132 137 P. Gr. Dublin ined. 167

325

326 P. Petr. (cont.) ii 39e3 104 ii 42 H 8(f ) 107 iii 18 179 iii 43 (2) 107, 117, 160 iii 49 105 iii 75 116 P. Rev. 32, 44, 57, 102, 112, 141–142, 154 P. Rein. 18 56 P. Ryl. 572 54 P. Strassb. ii 81 224, 225 89 224 P. Tebt. i 5 46, 55, 76, 171, 181, 189 6 160 10 120, 121 26 115, 125 27 157 61 125, 160 62 109 63 109 72 55, 125 73 152 74 125 75 125 79 169 112 145 P. Tebt iii 703 44, 93, 95, 141, 142–143, 145, 153 820 179 P. Tebt. iv 1103 55 1104 55 1105 123 1107 55 1108 109 1109 109 1110 109 1114 14 1115 109 1119 124 1120 124 P. UC 1592 123 P. Yale 36 154 PSI 4 354 104, 111 422 108 PSI 5 502 114 SB 5 8033 168 8243 + P. Mich. Inv. 3098 105 SB 8 9681 165, 167, 170

Index of sources SB 16 12821 159 UPZ i 14 4 59 169 60 169 110 157, 171 UPZ ii 160-162 167, 197

DEMOTIC EGYPTIAN AND HIERATIC PAPYRI P. Adl. 2 87 7 87 13 87 15 87 16 87 22 188 23 197 P. Berl. 3119 24 13539 41 13540 41 P. Berl. Dem. i 13538 188 13543 41 13544 188 13587 188 15522 138, 152, 187 15527 166, 188 P. Berl. Dem. ii 3113 173 3114 217 3146 211 P. Bib. Nat. 215 42 P. BM 1201 173 P. BM 1202 173 P. BM 10117 172, 178, 224 P. BM 10463 212 P. BM 10560 109 P. BM 10601 202 P. Boston 38.2063a 211 P. Brit. Mus. i 10528 144 10536 173 10537 173 P. Brit. Mus. iv 1 213 22 189 26 155, 212 27 212 44 191 P. BMFA 38.2063b 90, 93

Index of sources P. Brussels E 8254 173 P. Cairo 50098 + 102 198 50099 198 P. Carlsb. 236 19 309 92 310 92 P. Carnarvon 1 169, 211, 223 2 169, 211, 223 P. dem. Heidelberg 1289 151 P. Dion. 1 191 P. EgSocPap 211 P. Eleph. Dem. 1 84 2 84 3 84 9 84 10 84 12 84 20 84 28 84 P. Fam. Theb. 2 220 19 188 P. Hausw. 1 177, 217 2 172, 224, 225 3 208 5 198, 219 6 81 7 92 8 172, 224 9 172 10 93 11 82, 83, 86, 176, 208 13 208, 223 15 81 16 80, 81, 193, 208 18 80, 82, 86, 220, 224 25 208 P. Heid. 723 93 P. Köln 7 166 P. Lille Dem. 117 200 118 153 120 199 P. Loeb 5 189 45 198 52 202 P. Louvre 2410 198

327

2424 94 2431 224 2433 222 7128 172, 217 7833 A 147 7833 B 147 7845 A 147 7856 139, 175 9416 220 P. Mallawi 602/10 205 P. Mattha 18–19, 222 P. Moscow 113 211 123 179 P. Padua 188 P. Rein. 4 94 P. Ryl. 9 186 15 217 19 220 24 220 P. Siut 10575 169, 190 10591 19, 92, 169, 204, 205 10595 202 10597 87, 197, 202 P. Tor. 246 172 247 172 P. Tor. Amenothes 17 191 P. Tor. Botti 3 161 4 218 7 223 28 221 P. Warsaw 148.288 189 UPZ I, 6a ( = P. Louvre 2414) 18

GREEK AND DEMOTIC OSTRACA O. dem. Firenze 8693 231 O. Hess i 190 O. Hor 3 169 O. Tait Bodl. i 47 164 O. Zürich 1894 173

OT H E R S O U R C E S Arist. Oec. ii 2.33, 1352a 16 43 Arrian 3.1.3 43 3.5.2-3 43, 65 3.5.5 32, 43

328

Index of sources

Ath. Deip. 5197c-203b 138 Curt. 4.8.4 43 Diod. Sic. 1.31 40 1.75 53 1.79 39 3.12.1-3 34 18.39.5 43 31.2 46 31.15 170 31.17 170 Herodot. 2.36 173 2.129 99 2.148 100 2.161-163 39 2.164 39 2.168 50 2.169-174 39 2.177-179 39, 53 2.181-181 39 3.91 100 Joseph. AJ 15.90-91 240 AP. 2.58 240 Just. Epit. 8.5.7-6.2 38 Livy 45 46, 170 Olympiodorus, History frag. 37 80 Paus. 1.6.3 44 2.9.3 37, 170 Philostratus, Life of Apollonios 170 Pliny, HN 5.10.58 30, 65 6.33.168 34, 74 6.170 97 Polyb. 5.65 45 5.107.1-3 45 29.27 170 29.67 46 Seneca Nat.Q. 4.2.16 231 St. Jerome, Commentary on the Book of Daniel xi.5 135, 141 Strabo 17.1.13 135 17.1.35 100 17.1.37 100 17.1.45 34

17.1.46 170 17.1.51 92

INSCRIPTIONS Cairo CG 22186 68 Cairo CG 22187 68 Cairo temp. nr. 17/3/46/1 68 Famine Stela 75 Louvre C 122 68 OGIS 54 ( = Porph., F.Gr. Hist 260 F 43) 141 OGIS 56 68 OGIS 90 133, 166, 169 OGIS 194 37 Philensis II 165, 169 Port Said inv. No. 493 68 Satrap Stela 42 S. Aswan 1057 69 S. Louvre C 101 173

EGYPTIAN TEXTS “Cambyses Romance” 40 Edfou iv, 8 167 vi, 199-201 49, 146 vii, 6 167 Graffito Aswan dem. 43 168 Graffito Wadi Hammamat 87 105 Karnak Ostracon 32, 77, 148–149, 155 Nitocris Adoption Stela 40 O. Gardiner 86 71 P. Boulaq X 222 P. Harageh 3 146 P. Harris 1 71 P. Reinhardt 35, 71 P. Valençay 1 35, 78, 120 P. Wilbour 57, 79, 147, 195 S. BM 37982 155 S. BM 59205 155 S. Naples 1035 140 TT 75 146

OT H E R SO U R C E S Genesis 47 57

General index

Abydos 7, 31, 33, 65, 165 Adler papyri 92 administrative centers 70 agency 26, 130 agents of the state, local 156 agoranomos 24, 187, 238 Alexander the Great 4, 43 Alexandria 7, 14, 36, 46, 105, 111, 121, 125, 131, 150, 153, 154, 163, 178, 232, 240 economy of 104, 118, 157 entrance of Augustus in 47 excavations of 47 “Grand Procession” in 138–139 meeting of priests in 166 merchants in 51 Amasis 39, 53 Amenemhat I 100 Amenemhat III 100, 101 Amyrtaeus 42 ¯ anachoresis 116 Antaiopolis 35 antigrapheus 137, 144 Antiochos I 219 Antiochos III 45 Antiochos IV 45, 46, 59, 159, 169, 171, 236 Antonius, M. 47 Apollonius 105, 106, 110, 112, 113–114 apomoira 53, 56–57, 58, 92 Apries 71 Archimedean screw 30 architektos 106 Archive Asyut 83 of Boethos 70 of Dryton 87, 191 Family 20, 23 Hauswaldt 20, 224 of Heroninus 109 of Horus son of Nechoutes 87

of Kleon 106 of Menches 16, 22, 23, 46, 102, 125, 145, 151, 152, 181 of Milon 20, 34, 84, 160 of Osoreris 20 of Panas 20 of Psenminis 20 Theban Choachyte 20, 186 of Totoes 20 of Zenon 16, 18, 22, 23, 44, 102, 106, 110–118, 125, 141 Armant (Hermonthis) 35, 96, 155, 191 Arsinoe (town of ) 111 Arsinoe II 57, 97, 102 artabieia 60 Artaxerxes III 42 Aryandes 41 Ashurbanipal 39 Assyrians 33 Aswan 7, 29–30, 31, 33, 34, 65, 206 “men of ” 191 Asyut 99, 167, 190 probate dispute from 197 athariyya-transfer 196 Athens 42 auction 160–161 of land 80, 83, 84, 85, 90, 95, 129–130, 131, 156, 171, 190, 204, 209 of tax farming agreements 144 Augustus 47, 135, 240 institutional reorganization of Egypt under 241 Bagnall, Roger 16, 21, 22, 165 Bahr Yusef 31, 38, 99 Baines, John 69 banks 50, 65, 67, 85, 94, 96, 131, 139, 144, 173, 189 barley 29–30, 73 Barramiya 66 basilikos grammateus 52, 67, 121, 137, 154

329

330 basin irrigation 28, 31, 72, 183 flood basin 72 beer-making 118 Beni Hasan 32 Berenike (port) 34, 72, 74 Berenike II 68, 162 Bingen, Jean 12, 23, 115, 130, 142, 192, 201 Bir ’Iayyan 66, 86 Birket Qarun 99 Blemmyes 72, 74, 81 Bocchoris 174 boundary descriptions 185 boundary stela 155 Braudel, Fernand 14, 28 British Raj 5 cabbage 116 cadastral survey 74, 76, 77, 78 Cambyses 40–41 canal 28–30, 73, 112, 116 maintenance of 30, 107 digging of 107 Canopus Decree 68, 69, 162 Caria 57, 110 Carians 51 cartonnage 18 cash crop 117 Cassius Dio 241 census 53, 103, 122, 133 cession document 212 Chaonnophris 165, 168 “Chief of fields” 189 China Han period 13, 118 Song period contracts 219 Choachyte-priests 35, 94, 175 chr¯ematistai 53, 54 circulation tax (enkuklion) 172 Clarysse, Willy 12 Cleopatra I 45 Cleopatra II 45, 46, 76, 119 Cleopatra III 46, 76, 119 Cleopatra VII 35, 47 coinage 4, 40 colonialism 5 model of 6 command economy 136 contracts demotic Egyptian law of 210, 211 Greek six-witness type 187 witnesses to 213 Coptos-Berenike road 66 Cosmas Indicopleustes 141 Crawford, Dorothy 23

General index crop report 58, 153 cult, dynastic 51 Daimachos (the stratêgos) 167 Darius I 41, 42, 71, 74, 76, 106, 185, 199 Darius II 42, 76 Delta 7, 16, 32, 42, 69, 168, 174 Decree of Horemheb 185, 195 demotic 7, 40, 173–177 ostraca 20 conveyances of land 227 decline of 238 tax receipts 227 Demotic Chronicle 41, 42 Dendera 34, 47, 78, 90, 91, 240 diadochoi 44 ¯ diamisthosis 18 Diodorus Siculus 13 dioikêtês 52, 105, 110, 121, 125, 137, 143, 145, 154, 171 Dionysios Petoserapis 159, 170, 171 Dionysios son of Kephalas 191 diverging devolution 221 divorce 222 Dodekaschoinos 165 Donker van Heel, Koen 199 dream of Nectanebo 43 eco-zone 31 economic institutions 6 economic performance 7 economic power 9, 10, 25, 50, 106, 123, 129, 130, 136, 139, 146, 151, 156–157, 158, 184, 226, 229, 232, 234, 236, 238, 240 economic rights 88, 193 ´ “Economie royale” 4, 21, 22, 24, 130, 141, 201, 231, 233 economic sociology 184 economy command 49 customary 49 market 49 monetization of 134 Edfu 19, 25, 34, 43, 65, 66, 69, 73, 96 connection to Dendera 78 documents from 171 hub of caravan traffic 74 land in 74, 77 land measurement of 151 priests of 161 funerary stelae of 234 Ptolemaic presence 74 revolt in 165 scribal family from 186 texts from 74

General index Edfu donation text 19, 26, 71, 73, 74, 151 “efficiency thesis” 222 eisagôgeus 54, 202, 204 ekphorion 59 El-Kab 78 Elephantine 33, 65, 72, 73, 78, 84, 96 priest in 138 Temple building in 168 Elephants 34, 81 hunters of 84 Ellickson, Robert 227 emmer 30, 73, 105, 116 enforcement cost 11 eparourion 58 epigraphê 60 epistatês 52, 54, 67, 85, 156 epistratêgos 230 Ergamenes II 165 Esarhaddon 39 Esna 240 Estphenis 84 Eulaios 45 Euphronios 163 Fayyum 6, 7, 8, 12, 13, 14–15, 22, 23, 32, 38–39, 66–67 census of 47 Greek papyri from 136 leases of land in 55 reclamation of 29–30, 44, 98, 103–107, 138 royal land in 72 soldiers in 70 survey of land 145 fenugreek 30 Festival of the Joyous Union 78 Finley, Moses 11, 21, 89 flax 30 fodder 30 fruit trees 88, 92, 143 taxation of 92 gardens 73 garlic 116 ¯ gê idiotikos 196 Gebel es-Silsileh 31, 72, 80, 81, 209 Gebelein 97 Geertz, Clifford 184 Gellner, Ernest 131–133, 165 and model of cultural isolation 192, 228, 232 gift estate 111, 112, 116 gold-mining 72, 81 grain shipment 143 grain tax 59, 60

granaries 65 at Alexandria 145 royal 139 state 156 Granovetter, Mark 11 grapheion 150 “Greek born in Egypt” 224 Grenfell, B. P. 101, 119 Guran 103 Gurob 22, 103 gymnasia 110 Hakoris 191, 199 Hall, John W. 6 Hapy 28 Haronnophris 168 Harsiesis 170 harvest tax 59, 88, 163, 189, 199 receipts 71 Hathor of Dendera 78 Hauswaldt papyri 20, 79, 93, 207 Hawara 100 Heichelheim, Fritz 22 Hekanakhte papers 89 Herakleides 113 Herakleopolis 170 herdsmen 81, 83, 90, 92, 223 Hermias legal case 197 Hermopolis (Tuna el-Gebel) 18 Herodas 159, 180 Herodotus 39, 42, 173 Hibeh papyri 22 Hideyoshi, Toyotami 150 Hierakonpolis 78 Higo rebellion 167 Hohfeld, W. Newcomb 194 Horos son of Psemminis 90 horse breeding 114 Horus of Edfu 68, 83 Hunt, A. S. 101, 119 Hurst, Phoebe 119 Hydraulic hypothesis 183 hyper¯etai 204 hypologos 59 ibadiyya (“untilled”) land 197 ideological power 157, 158, 236 ideology 140 Egyptian 137 of kingship 229 religious 71 royal 51, 239 IEMP model 9 Inaros 42 inheritance 233

331

332

General index

irrigation 99, 229 machine 86 technology 86 Isis estate at Philae 68 Iulius Caesar, C. 47 Japan 6 Tokugawa period 58 Jeme 35, 189 Jews 51 Kallimachos (1) 34 Kallimachos (2) 230, 240 Kallimachos decree 37, 237 Karanis 20 Karnak 34, 68 katochos 18 Kaunos 110 Kerkeosiris 22, 23, 46, 103, 119–121, 123–124, 125, 181 Khabbabash 43, 76 Kharga oasis 74 Khnum 41 estate at Elephantine 68 Khnumhotep II 32, 100, 185 Kleomenes 43–44 Kleon 103, 106, 107 Kleruch(s) 22, 38, 56, 70, 86, 97, 106, 107, 112, 114, 116–117, 119, 122, 123, 227 koinodikion 53 komarch 52, 137 ¯ komogrammateus 52, 137, 185 Koptos 34, 36 Krokodilopolis 87, 97, 107 Krokodilopolis (in Upper Egypt) 169, 191 Lahun gap 99, 104 Lake Moeris 99, 104 land conveyance of 50 demotic sale of, form of 212 family-held 209 idioktêtos 227 “in release” 56 kleruchic 54, 122, 123, 178–180, 201 measurement 147 ownership of 93 orchard 57 price of 219 private 72, 89, 177 registers 119 registration of 129–130, 146–148

royal 38, 78, 81, 88, 120, 122, 123, 124, 144, 149, 153, 157–158, 159, 177, 179, 191, 200 tenants on 197 size of plots 207 of soldiers 180 “spear-won” 158 split holdings of 224 survey of 57, 65, 89, 129–130, 146–148, 151, 181 survey of, in Japan 152 taxation of 150 liability of village 180 temple estate 54, 88, 122, 124, 149, 161, 193, 233 laokritai 53, 54, 231, 238 leases demotic contracts of 198 hereditary 194 prodomatic 200 Saite 199, 207 lector-priests 35 legumes 30 Lenaios 45 lentils 30, 118 lesonis 84, 152 Lewis, Napthali 192 el-Lisht 100 local elite 69 Lochos (the stratêgos) 87 lock-in 24 logeutês 144 machimoi 39, 42 Manetho 39, 140 Mann, Michael 9, 10, 134, 236 markets 11 Marx, Karl 183 Mazakes 43 Medinet Habu 155 Medjay 72 Meeks, Dimitri 26, 76, 77, 78 Megabarians 81 Memphis 7, 8, 29–30, 36, 43, 51, 99 economy of 104, 118 high priests 51 Menches 218 merides 108 Mes, inscription of 197 Metjen 100 Middle Egypt 34 migration effect 49 military power 136 Milon 84, 163 Mohammed Ali 5, 235 monetization 116

General index monographos 24 mortgage 15 muriarourai 106, 112 Nag el-Hassaya 234 Narmouthis 108, 115 nationalism 165 Naukratis 43 Necho 106 Nectanebo, General 50 Nectanebo I 42 Nectanebo II 42, 43, 74, 76 New Institutional Economics 11, 185 Nile river 27 “caging effects” of 132 flood of 28–30, 51, 77, 143, 147, 152, 170, 240 gradient of 183 inter-annual variability of 28 nomarch 52, 115, 137 nome 31–32 Edfu 67, 77, 88, 163, 209 Esna 77 Herakleopolite 8, 17, 22, 35, 38, 54, 103, 117, 170 Hermopolite 191 Menelaite 32 Ombite 70, 77 Oxyrhynchite 8, 13, 38, 54, 117, 201 Pathyrite 67, 77, 95, 155 Phthemphouth 32 Xoite 32 North, Douglass 10, 145 Nubia 33, 80, 81 Nubians 72, 165 oikonomos 52, 67, 137, 143, 144, 153 oil crops 113, 142 olive 116 Ombos 72 Oracle of the Potter 166, 170, 228 orchard 28–30, 93, 116 Oriental despotism 5, 107, 158 Oxyrhynchus 28 Packman, Zola 60 Palestine 111 palm trees 30, 73, 82, 87, 88, 92, 93 Panakestor 114 papyri Greek administrative 7 ¯ parachoresis 124, 179 pastophoros-priests 35, 90, 189 path dependence 24 Pathyris 16, 37, 59, 87, 88, 93, 169, 191

333

land in 180, 197 scribes of 187 tax collection in 168 Pedubastis, cycle of stories of 39 Pelusium 43 battle of 40 Pemsais 168 Persian empire 4, 40–42 administration 9, 50, 140, 150 period 60, 150, 176 “Persian of the descent” 188, 201 Peteharsemtheus son of Panebkhounis 192 Petiese, petition of 185 Petosiris 91 Petrie papyri 16, 22 Pherendates 41 Philadelphia 22, 109, 111, 112, 113, 118 philanthropa 115 Philip II 38 Philip V 45 Philotas 86 Phoenix (the dioikêtês?) 150 Piye 72 Piye stela 39 Pliny 30 political power 130, 158 Polybius 13, 44, 45, 60, 135 historical model of 230 Popilius Laenas, C. 46 poppy cultivation 114 population growth 49 ¯ 84, 85, 163 praktor Préaux, Claire 4, 12, 15, 21, 22, 130, 178, 180, 239 principal-agent problem 11, 136, 142 property family dispute over 222 movement within family 223 private 4, 11, 130, 180, 183, 227 contingent claim on 217 rights 10, 11, 24, 177 enforcement of 188 theory 194 prostagma 148–149 Psammetichus I 39, 172, 174–175 Ptah 8 Ptolemaic state, the 3, 6 agency in 8 development of 6, 8 neoclassical model of 10, 11 structure of 7 Ptolemaieia 138 Ptolemais (modern El-Manshah) 14, 17, 36, 51, 65, 67, 96, 97, 105, 161, 168, 191, 202, 227, 235

334

General index

Ptolemais Euergetis 121 Ptolemy as satrap 76, 77 Ptolemy I Soter 16, 36, 43–44, 65, 76, 100, 104, 106, 140, 227, 235 army of 109 settlement of Fayyum under 108 and taxation 145 Ptolemy II Philadelphus 18, 22, 34, 44, 67, 77, 102, 110, 125, 229, 235 and annual revenue under 135 and billeting of soldiers 96 and decree setting maximum interest rate 139 and Eastern desert 66, 74 and economy 140, 141, 144 and Fayyum 104, 106, 110 and Karnak Ostracon 148 military campaigns of Second Syrian War 149 and P. Rev. 141, 142 Ptolemy III Euergetes 9, 44, 51, 68, 86, 108, 233 and Canopus Decree 138, 162 and Fayyum 110 and Syrian wars 122 and P. Tebt. 83, 142 and Third Syrian war 141 Ptolemy IV Philopator 36, 44–45, 163 and Syrian wars 122 Ptolemy V Epiphanes 45, 166, 171 Ptolemy VI Philometor 45, 46, 170, 171 Ptolemy VIII Euergetes II 45, 46, 76, 92, 119, 148, 171 taxation during reign of 173 Ptolemy X Alexander I 46, 76 Ptolemy XII Auletes 47, 135 Qasr el-Sagha 100 Qasr Ibrim 80 Qena 33 Quaegebeur, Jan 240 Raphia, battle of 38, 45, 50, 172 Ray, John 176 receipts of granary tax 58–59 of land holding (dem. r–rh w ) 163 Red Sea 34, 44, 72 trade routes 34, 40, 66, 74, 162 region 31 registration of documents 83, 238 revenue economy 4 Rhodon son of Lysimachos 66, 86, 192 Roman administration 26, 237 Roman law 237 Romanization 23 //

Rome 46, 234 Rosetta stone (Memphis decree) 19, 45, 133, 166, 171, 180 Rostovtzeff, Michael 12, 21, 22, 23, 55, 60, 89, 117, 118, 124, 160, 233 and model of the “Oriental” state 177 and nationalization of land 157 and planned economy model 154 and private property 177–178 and war 141 royal cult 140 royal farmer 54–56, 81, 120, 123, 180 Saint Jerome 141 Sais 174 Saite period 8, 173 sale tax 219 salt tax 103, 141 Samuel, Alan 23, 67, 130 saqiya 30, 73 Saqqara 68 Satrap Stela 43, 76 seasonal mortality 28 Schnebel, Michael 22 scribe, village 120, 122, 125, 145, 148, 151 disloyalty of 148 inspection of fields by 150 notary 176 royal 181 Seleucid dynasty 49 Seleucid economy 15 bureaucratic structure of 52 Senpoeris 94–95, 155, 181, 234 Sesostris II 100, 101 Sesostris III 31 share contract 58 Shaw, Brent 158 sheep 116 Sobek 100 priests of 185 social caging 28 social networks 11, 184–186, 228 social power 3, 4, 6, 25, 134, 183 Soknebtunis 100 Soknopaiou Nesos 176 soldiers 70, 104, 143, 156, 169, 191, 195, 202, 225, 231 Somtuefnakht 140 Sosibius 44 state agents of 138 local agents of, adding costs 136 neoclassical model of 10, 11, 136, 161 strong state model 4 theory of 5

General index stathmos 178 status groups 187 Strabo 36 stratêgos 52, 54, 56, 137, 156, 237 sunklêros 179 support staff 71 survey of fields 122, 145 Swedberg, Richard 11 synod, priestly 45 synodal decrees 231 syntaxis 237, 238 Syron Kome 109 Talit 125 taxation 4 collectors 141 farmers 53, 141, 144, 172 farming 49, 50, 118, 144 of land 31 receipts 67, 141 Tazza Farnese 240 Tebtunis 20, 23, 100, 106, 108, 119, 176 technology, irrigation 5 temple, Egyptian 26, 161, 231, 232, 240 building 85 endowment land 75 estates 32, 50, 147, 184, 227 of Amun 35, 39, 68, 71, 147, 149, 175, 189, 199, 223, 232 of Amun at Hibis 41 of Horus of Edfu 41, 47, 71, 72, 74, 77 building of 13, 162, 163 finances of building 84 amount of land in Egypt recorded in 146, 152 of Khnum at Elephantine 186 of Ptah at Memphis 68 treasury of 176 of Soknebtunis 20 Theban 40 temple, Jewish 42 Theadelphia 109, 111 Thebaid 6, 7, 8, 13, 14 Ptolemaic administration of 67 Thebarch 138, 152, 161, 186 Thebes 19, 20, 24, 34–35, 36, 37, 39, 69, 72, 78, 84, 100

335

Theodoros 106 Tholthis 201 Thompson, Dorothy 12, 105 Thoth 146 Tokugawa Japan 132–133, 151 land survey during 151 toparch 52, 137 topogrammateus 52, 137, 185 Totman, Conrad 10 transactions costs 12, 222 Udjahorresnet, stela of 41 unrest and erosion of royal control over land 135 rural 8, 59, 119, 156, 228, 230 Theban 20, 59, 68, 70, 87, 90, 97, 130, 156, 161, 164–169, 187, 211 Verhoogt, Arthur 12, 23, 121 Vidal-Naquet, Pierre 23 vineyard 29–30, 116 viticulture 113, 116, 124 Wadi Allaqi 34, 97 Wadi el-Shatt el-Rigal 80 war-making 141 weaving 114 Weber, Max 9, 129, 183, 227 ideal type of centralized, rational state 135 Weni 33 Wepwawet 190, 202 wheat 73, 78, 104, 116, 118, 124, 232 White Chapel of Sesostris I 150 wills 222 witness-copy instrument 171, 213 Wittfogel, Karl 158, 183, 233 women as buyers and sellers of land 218 economic status of 94 in demotic contracts 218 as possessors of land 221 and real division of land 221 wool 104 Xenon son of Dionysios 84, 85 Xerxes 41 Zenon papyri 16, 18, 22, 102

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