Counting the people in Hellenistic Egypt 2, Historical Studies [2] 9780521838382, 052183838X, 9780521838399, 0521838398, 9780521839334, 0521839335

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CAMBRIDGE

CLASSICAL

STUDIES

General editors

R. L. HUNTER,

R. G. OSBORNE,

P. D. A. GARNSEY,

M. MILLETT,

M. D. REEVE,

COUNTING THE PEOPLE IN HELLENISTIC EGYPT VOLUME

2. HISTORICAL

STUDIES

D. N. SEDLEY,

G. C. HORROCKS

WILLY CLARYSSE Katholieke Universiteit Leuven AND

DOROTHY J. THOMPSON University of Cambridge

,): .., CAMBRIDGE :::

UNIVERSITY

PRESS

CAMBRIDGE

UNIVERSITY

PRESS

Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, Siio Paulo CAMBRIDGE

UNIVERSITY

PRESS

The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 2RU, UK Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York www.cambridge.org hlformation on this title: www.cambridge.org/978o52I838399

© Faculty of Classics, University of Cambridge 2006 This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2006 Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBNo 521 83839 8 hardback

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs 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.

For FRANK W. WALBANK

and to the memory of EDMOND

VAN 'T DACK

Counting the People in Hellenistic Egypt The historical studies of this second volume provide a new look atthe economic and social history of Ptolemaic Egypt. The salt-tax registers of P.Count not only throw light on key aspects of the fiscal policy of the Greek pharaohs but also provide the best information for family and household structure for the Western world before the fifteenth century AD. The makeup of the population is thoroughly analysed here in both demographic and occupational terms. A constant theme running throughout is the impact of the immigrant Greeks on the indigenous population of Egypt. This is traced in cultural policies, in administrative geography, in the realm of stockrearing and in the changing religious affiliations traceable through the names that parents gave their children. The extent to which Egypt is typical of the Hellenistic world more widely is the final topic addressed. teaches in the Departmentsof Classics and Ancient Near East at the University of Leuven, Belgium. He is a Fellow of the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium and author of Prosopographia Ptolemaica IX, Addenda et corrigenda au volume Ill (1981), The Petrie Papyri (second edition), I. The Wills (1991) and of the Leuven Database of Ancient Books (http://ldab.arts.kuleuven.be). WILLY CLARYSSE

DOROTHY J. THOMPSON teaches ancient history in the University of Cambridge where she is Isaac Newton Trust Lecturer in the Faculty of Classics and a Fellow of Girton College. She is a Fellow of the British Academy aud author of Memphis under the Ptolemies (1988). '

Contents

List of maps List of figures List of tables Preface List of abbreviations 1

2

3

page x xi xii xv xviii

Ptolemies, taxes and papyri

I

The documents

2

The censns

IO

The Ptolemaic census The census operation The officials involved Separate counting The census characterised

12 18 28 30 33

The salt-tax and other taxes Salt in Ptolemaic Egypt

36 38 39 41 44

Reconstructing the Ptolemaic salt-tax Liability for the salt-tax Salt-tax rates Special categories Documenting the salt-tax The salt-tax with other taxes Tax-collection The salt-tax in historical perspective

C

52

59 70 74 86

4 Settlement in the Fayum I Population The population of the Arsinoite nome Couutiug the capital The population of Egypt in the thiril century II Administrative topography Villages and hamlets Tax-districts Tax-areas or toparchies vii

90 92 92 95 BC

IOO

I02 ro3 113 II6

CONTENTS

123 124 125 133 135 138 147 148 154 157 159 162 164 165 177 186 187 201 203

5 The people counted Privileged ethne Teachers Athletic coaches Actors Hellenes Jews The army The Hellenic sector Persians Arabs Doctors Fullers Police Priests and temple-workers Allophyloi Occupational breakdown Women within the workforce The ethnos experience

The older generation Sex ratios Summary conclusions

304 307 314

8 Naming the people I Names and ethnicity Greek families Egyptian families Greek and Egyptian names within the same household II Family traditions in name-giving III Theophoric names and popular religion

9 Conclusion

Pigs Cattle Sheep and goats Ptolemaic stock-rearing

Family matters The registers: problems and possibilities Families and households Family members Family size Household size Family and household types Family and household types compared over time Non-kin household members Slaves Nurses Other non-kin household dependants Location and scale of household dependants On being dependent Houses and households Marriage

'A woman'slot' viii

318 319 319 323 323 328 332 342

Appendix Salt-tax registers and logeutic records: a classification

350

Bibliography Index

357 378

206 208 217 219 224

6 Counting the animals

7

CONTENTS

226 227 230 231 237 241 246 254 260 262 267 272 275 283 285 293 301 ix

Figures

Maps

1 2

page xxi

Ptolemaic Egypt The Ptolemaic Fayum

91

3:1 Data for the salt-tax and other taxes 3:2 Salt-tax payment record (surviving receipts) 4: l Fayum villages by size 5: 1 Occupational breakdown 5:2 Occupational breakdown 5:3 Occupational breakdown 5:4 Occupational breakdown

for for for for

page 65

86 108 192 192 193

district B district C districts B+C what survives of districts

B+C 5:5 Frequency of occupations by village 7: 1 Family size in the third century BC (adults only) 7:2 Household size in the third century BC (adults only) T3 Adults by household size in the third century BC 7:4 Family structure by type (third century BC) 7:5 Adults by family type (third century BC) 7:6 Gender breakdown for Greek families and households T7 Gender breakdown for Egyptian families and households 7:8 Oxyrhynchite cavalry households by size and frequency (46) 7:9 Oxyrhynchite cavalry householders (46) 7: 10 Oxyrhynchite epigonos households by size (47) 7: 11 Oxyrhynchite epigonos householders (47) 7: 12 Adults in houses and households of different size (9) 7:13 Adult house occupancy in P.Mon.inv. 344 + 346 7:14 Ptolemaic houses by occupants in 4, 9 and 18 (third century BC) 7: 15 Occupation and household structure 8: l Theophoric Egyptian names (P.Count)

X

xi

195 198 239 242 244 248 249 250 C

251 277 278 279 280 287 290 291 293 337

LIST

5:9 6: 1 6:2 7:1 T2

Tables

T3 2:1 3:1 3:2 3:3 3:4 3:5 3:6 3:7 3:8 4:1 4:2 4:3 4:4 4:5 4:6 4:7 4:8 4:9 4:10 4:II 4:12 5:1 5:2 5:3 5:4 5:5 5:6 5:7 5:8

Ptolemaic household declarations Changing salt-tax rates Salt-tax paid with other taxes Salt-tax documentation Greek and Egyptian units of account A district tax-collector's rounds Salt and obol-tax collection rate Salt-tax inpayment record, Herakleides meris: 12 (243-217 BC) Surviving salt-tax ostraka Military groups of the Arsinoite nome: 1.32-58 (254-231 BC) Population of the Arsinoite nome: I (254-231 BC) Population groups by meris within the Arsinoite nome: I (254-231 BC) Size of Arsinoite settlements in the third century BC (adults only) Settlement sizes with averages applied (adults only) Village population changes in two Themistos tax-districts Arsinoite villages under the Ptolemies District sizes in the Arsinoite nome (adults only) District composition in the Arsinoite nome Tax-area records from the Arsinoite and Herakleopolite nomes (adults only) Composite tax-area or meris record from the Arsinoite nome Tax-area composition in the Arsinoite nome Teachers in the Arsinoite nome Tax-Hellenes within the Arsinoite adult population Arsinoite military adult households by meris The Hellenic sector in the Arsinoite nome Persians within the Arsinoite adult population Police within the Arsinoite adult population Priests in district B of a Themistos tax-area in 229 BC Occupational classification for districts B and C

xii

7:4 7:5 7:6

page 22 45 51 64 76 79 81 83 85

T7 7:8 7:9 7:10 7: II 7:12

l j

94 94

l

I I j

96 104 107 109 l II II4 115 116 II7 119 126 139 149 156 157 169 185 189

7:13 7:14 7:15 7:16 7:17 7:18 7:19 7:20 7:21 T22 7:23 7:24 T25 T26 7:27 7:28 7:29 8: 1 8:2 8:3 8 :4 8:5 8:6

OF TABLES

Frequency of occupations by village Pigs and cows in one Themistos village Stockholding among cavalry cleruchs and veterans Family designations in Greek and demotic Family size in the third century BC (adults only) Full family size Household size in the third century BC (adults only) Adults by household size in the third century BC Full household size Cambridge family typology Family structure by type (third century BC) Adults by family type (third century BC) Gender breakdown for Greek families and households Gender breakdown for Egyptian families and households Typology of Ptolemaic, Roman and Tuscan family structures Lykopolite family types Ptolemaic and Roman metropolitan households compared Non-family household members Slaveholding among Greek households Nurses and household sizes Greeks and Egyptians by family and household Oxyrhynchite cavalry adult households (46) Oxyrhynchite adult households of epigonoi (47) Adults in houses and households in 9 Adult house occupancy in P.Mon.inv. 344 + 346 Ptolemaic houses in the third century BC (adults only) Occupation and household structure Polygamous households Dependent mothers and household size Adult sex ratios from Ptolemaic tax-documents Sex ratios in Greek families Sex ratios in Egyptian families Filiations within and across the etlrnic divide Irregular filiations Greek names in Egyptian families Marriage patterns Possible grandsons and grandfathers Compound Egyptian names in P.Count xiii

196 2II 213 231 238 241 241 243 245 247 248 249 250 251 255 258 259 261 266 268

'

275 277 279 287 289 291 292 298 306 309 312 314 324 325 326 327 329 334

LIST OF TABLES

8:7 8:8 8:9 8:ro

8:rr

Compound Egyptian names in the Prosopographia Ptolemaica Theophoric Egyptian names (P. Count) Goddesses in Egyptian names Onomastic links with cultic service Theophoric Egyptian names in Themistos villages

335 336 339 339 341

Preface

The evolution of a joint enterprise is not easy to recapture in retrospect and a work involving collaboration almost inevitably progresses in fits and starts. Nevertheless, the conception of the finished form of this publication, with its unusual combination of a volume of documents together with their historical evaluation, has been there from the start. We wanted readers to see at first hand the bare bones of history (the texts) and how the frame might be filled (the historical studies). These two related sides to the enterprise have constantly informed each other as onr work has progressed over the years. In terms of composition, Clarysse has taken prime responsibility for volume I and Thompson for volume 11. There is, however, no section of these two volumes on which we have not worked closely together, with shared enjoyment and, we hope, to the benefit of the work as a whole. The historical studies of this volume, therefore, depend closely on the texts of volume 1 (here numbered in bold) which are essential to an appraisal of our conclusions. The genesis of Counting the People is interesting in several respects. It illustrates the key role played in academic life of international meetings, where participants can talk together; it is testimony too to the JlOSitive results that come from a tradition of cooperation within a discipline. The study in part derives from Clarysse's involvement in a re-edition of the Greek Petrie papyri in Dublin together with the publication of the demotic texts now in Oxford, see Van 't Dack (1972). In its present form it probably owes its origin to his visit to the Sorbonne papyrus collection in May 1977 to work on the names in what has turned into text 6 of volume r. In 1989, however, he recognised that several unpublished texts in the Greek collection formed part of the same bilingual register as a demotic text preserved elsewhere in the same building (our texts 2 + 3). This was crucial in extending the scope beyond his initial concerns. Meanwhile, while others watched football during the World Cup of 1990, Thompson was working on teachers in the recently published volumes of CPR xm and P.Lille dem. III. Initial joint discussions started up at the international demotic congress in Chicago in September of that year. The decision to join forces belongs to autumn 1991 and we were encouraged in our joint work by Edmond Van 't Dack, who had hoped to see its completion. Since then we have worked

XlV

xv

PREFACE

PREFACE

together in Cambridge and Leuven, in North Carolina, Oxford, Paris and Vienna. We have pored over texts together in collections and in digitised form, we have cut up paper shapes to understand the original size and form of our texts, we have talked, agreed and disagreed, worked and reworked our data. From time to time, we have enjoyed the excitement of a reading or an interpretation that suddenly makes sense; we have felt the worry shared by our families that this work would never be done. In volume 1 (P.Count), together with a number of collaborators, we publish the main documents which stand at the base of volume II. Some texts, discovered late in the day, remain for the future: in particular, a group of Munich registers (P.Mon.inv. 343-347) and an Ashmolean document from Upper Egypt (P.Ashm.dem.inv. Sr) discovered by Cary Martin. We are grateful to Barbel Kramer and Dieter Hagedorn, and to Helen Whitehouse for allowing us to make use of these in this volume. We have many other debts to acknowledge, institutional and personal, financial and intellectual. In 1992 and 1993 Clarysse worked in Paris, London, Oxford and Cambridge with help from the Nationaal Ponds voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek and the British-Flemish Academic Research Collaboration Programme, and in 1994 Thompson spent a month in Leuven with a further grant from the latter. In 1993/1994 Thompson enjoyed a Fellowship at the National Humanities Center in North Carolina and in 2000/2001 was the grateful recipient of a six-month fellowship from the Onderzoeksraad of KULeuven, which allowed virtual completion of the project. Thompson has benefited from the travel fund of the Classics Faculty of the University of Cambridge, and is grateful to Girton College for invaluable help with travel and sabbaticals. We happily acknowledge the support of all these bodies. The world of papyrology is known for its international cooperation and this study has constantly benefited from this. Among those individuals who have been consulted again and again, for this volume we wish particularly to acknowledge the criticism and help of Amelie Kuhr! and Stephen Quirke (Chapter 2 ), Brian Muhs (on the salt-tax for Chapter 3), Dominic Rathbone (on the Fa yum for Chapter 4), Rosalind Thomas (on teachers for Chapter 5), Csaba La'da (on ethnics for Chapter 5), Richard Evans, Abigail Fowden, Jonathan Holmes, Barry Kemp and Roland Randall (expertise on sheep and pigs for Chapter 6), Roger Bagnall, Stanley Engerman, Bruce Frier, Peter Laslett and Walter Scheidel (demography for Chapter 7), Robin Osborne (various improvements) and, finally, an anonymous Press reader (passim). Frank Walbank and John Thompson have read and commented on all of the following chapters; we have, as always, benefited from their input. The database of families used in Chapter 7 may be consulted at http://pcount.arts.kuleuven.be and the prosopography of all individuals

mentioned in our texts, used in Chapter 8, now forms part of the online Prosopographia Ptolemaica at http://prosptol.arts.kuleuven.be. Greek is regularly transliterated in this volume in the hope that others besides ancient historians might wish to consult our work. Last of all, as a postscript, we wish to record our appreciation to Sue Davies whose eagle eyes have saved us from numerous slips in this volume and, at Cambridge University Press, to the Classics Editor Michael Sharp, to our copy-editor Linda Woodward for all her meticulous work and intelligent advice and to those in the production team who have coped so well with what has not been an easy challenge.

xvi

xvn

Veltem-Beisem 30 June 2003

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

EA

Abbreviations

EVO FGrH

Papyri are quoted according to J. F. Oates, R. S. Bagnall, S. J. Clackson A. A. O'Brien, J. D. Sosin, T. G. Wilfong and K. A. Worp, Checklist 'of editions of Greek, Latin, demotic and Coptic papyri, ostraca and tablets. BASP Supplement 9. ed. 5. American Society of Papyrologists 2001; or http ://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/papyrus/texts/clisLpapyri.html. Other abbreviations are as follows:

AegTrev AncSoc Archiv BASP BCH BdE BIE BIFAO BiOr Bull. ep. Calderini, Diz.

CE CIG CQ CR/PEL Crum, Coptic Dictionary DNB

Aegyptiaca Treverensia. Mainz am Rhein 1981-. Ancient Society. Leuven 1970-. Archiv fur Papyrusforschung und verwandte Gebiete. Leipzig 1900-. Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists. New Haven, Conn. 1963-. Bulletin de Correspondance Hellenique. Paris 1877-. Bibliotheque d'Etude de l'Institut Franfais d'Archeologie Orientale. Cairo 1908-. Bulletin de l'lnstitut d'Egypte. Cairo 1919-. Bulletin de l'Institut Franfais d'Archeologie Orientale. Cairo 1901-. Bibliotheca Orientalis. Leiden 1943-. Bulletin epigraphique. Paris 1938-84. A. Calderini, Dizionario dei nomi geografici e topografici dell'Egitto greco-romano. Milan 1972-2003. Chronique d'Egypte. Brussels 1925-. Corpus Inscriptionum Graecarum. 4 vols. Berlin 1828-77. Classical Quarterly. London 1907-. Cahiers de Recherches de l'Institut de Papyrologie et d'Egyptologie de Li/le. Lille 1973-. W. E. Crum, A Coptic Dictionary. Oxford 1939. E. Liiddeckens with W. Brunsch, G. Vittmann and K.-Th. Zauzich, Demotisches Namenbuch. Wiesbaden 1980-2000. xviii

Glossar GM I.Fay. JEA JJP JRA

JRS

LA LDAB LSJ

MBAH MDAIK MIFAO NB Onomasticon

OCD 3

OGIS OLA

OLP Pap.Lugd.-Bat. Pros.Ptol.

Egyptian Archaeology. The Bulletin of the Egyptian Exploration Society. London 1991-. Egitto e Vicino Oriente. Pisa 1978-. F. Jacoby, Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker. Berlin 1923-. W. Erichsen, Demotisches Glossar. Copenhagen 1954. Gottinger Miszellen. Gottingen 1972-. E. Bernard, Recueil des inscriptions grecques du Fayoum. 3 vols. 1: Leiden 1975; n and m: Cairo 1981. Journal of Egyptian Archaeology. London 1914-. Journal of Juristic Papyrology. Warsaw 1946-. Journal of Roman Archaeology. Ann Arbor 1988-. Journal of Roman Studies. London 1910-. W. Heick and E. Otto (eds.), Lexikon der Agyptologie. 7 vols. Wiesbaden 1972--92. Leuven database of ancient books. http://ldab.arts.kuleuven.be. H. G. Liddell, R. Scott and H. S. Jones with R. McKenzie and revised supplement ed. P. G. W. Glare, A Greek-English lexicon. ed. 9. Oxford 1996. Miinstersche Beitriige zur antiken Handelsgeschichte. Ostfildern 1982-. Mitteilungen des deutschen archiiologischen Instituts. Abteilung Kairo. Wiesbaden 1956-. Memoires de l'Institut Franfais d'Archeologie c Orientale du Caire. Cairo 1902-. F. Preisigke, Namenbuch. Heidelberg 1922. D. Foraboschi, Onomasticon alterum papyrologicum. Supplemento al Namenbuch di Friedrich Preisigke. Testi e documenti per lo studio dell' antichita 16. Serie papirologica 2. Milan 1967-71. S. Hornblower and A. Spawforth (eds.), The Oxford Classical Dictionary. ed. 3. Oxford and New York 1996. W. Dittenberger (ed.), Orientis graeci inscriptiones selectae. 2 vols. Leipzig 1903-5. Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta. Leuveu 1975-. Orientalia Lovaniensia Periodica. Leuven 1970-. Papyrologica Lugdano-Batava. Leideu 1941-. W. Peremans and E. Van 't Dack, Prosopographia Ptolemaica. Studia Hellenistica 6-. Leuven 1950- and http://prosptol.arts.kuleuven.be. xix

"11''

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

Rd'E RE

RecPap RecTrav

REG RIDA SAK SAOC SCI

sco Syll. 3 Urk.

WB

zAs ZDMG ZPE

Revue d'Egyptologie. Paris 1933-. Pauly-Wissowa Realencyclopiidie der klassischen Altertumswissenschaft. Stuttgart and Munich 1894-1980. Recherches de Papyrologie. Paris 1961-7. Recueil de Travaux Relatifs ala Philologie et a l'Archeologie Egyptiennes et Assyriennes. Paris 1870-1923. Revue des Etudes Grecques. Paris 1888-. Revue Internationale des Droits de l'Antiquite. Brussels 1948-. Studien zur altiigyptischen Kultur. Hamburg 1974-. Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization. Chicago 1931-. Scrip/a Classica Israelica. Jerusalem 1974-. Studi Classici e Orientali. Pisa 1951-. W. Dittenberger, Sy/loge inscriptionum graecarum. 4 vols. ed. 3. Leipzig 1915-24. K. Sethe, Historisch-biographische Urkunden aus den Zeiten der makedonischen Konige und der beiden ersten Ptolemiier. Leipzig 1904. A. Erman and H. Grapow, Worterbuch der iigyptischen Sprache. 12 vols. Leipzig 1926-63. Zeitschrift far iigyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde. Leipzig l 863-. Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenliindischen Gesellschaft. Leipzig 1847-. Zeitschrift far Papyrologie und Epigraphik. Bonn 1967-.

XX

~

h

Q~ ......

Lykopolis (Rifeh)

~~

Panopolis (Achmim)

Ptolemais

Apollonopolis Megale (Edfu)

I•

Elephantine Philai

't

200km

Map 1 Ptolemaic Egypt

Syene (Aswan)

I

Ptolemies, taxes and papyri

Let the name of Ptolemy come first, and last and in between, for he is the foremost

of men ... In his rich home his wealth does not lie unused. Theocritus,Idyll xvn 2-4, ro6 What kingdom, my fellow-guests,was ever so rich in gold? Athenaeus, Deipn. v 203b

It is not until the reign of Ptolemy II Philadelphus that the effects of the new Macedonian regime begin to show themselves. It had all started with Alexander's conquest of Egypt in 332 BC, but the establishment of a new ruling class takes time and it was a couple of generations before the results began to appear. The first striking feature of the new dynasty of Greekspeaking, immigrant pharaohs was the wealth that it speedily gathered. So when in 279/278 BC Ptolemy II decided to mount a large-scale celebration with games in honour of his father and mother - a new-style jubilee celebration for the new regime-Alexandria, with Ptolemaic wealth and power, was placed on view for all those Aegean states invited to send their delegates to participate in the show.1 On occasions like this, the descendants of Ptolemy son of Lagos conld present themselves as formidable, Oi' at least well-endowed, contestants in the competitive world of Hellenistic kings. In its quantified form, the wealth of Ptolemy II Philadelphus - with an annual revenue of 14,800 silver talents and one and a half million artabas of wheat 2 - may owe more to legend than to reality, but contemporaries subscribed to the tale, and poets proclaimed the scope of Ptolemaic riches, the scale of Ptolemaic power. The purpose of this work is to illuminate the means by which some of this wealth was acquired - the levy of personal taxes on the population of Egypt. It also engages with the nature of growing Ptolemaic control and the systems installed to organise that power, to run a new homeland for immigrant Greeks. The Greek and Egyptian documents presented in volume I 1

2

Syll.3 390 (c. 280 Be), translatedAustin (forthcoming2006), no. 256 and Burstein (1985), 117-18, no. 92, the invitation;Kallixeinos of Rhodes accordingto AthenaeusV 196a-203b, the pavilion and procession; see furtherThompson (2000), with earlierbibliography. Jerome,Comm. in Dan. I 1.5; cf. Appian,Praef. IO,740,000 'Egyptiantalents'in his treasury.Earlier, besides feeding the occupying garrison,Egypt had paid 700 silver talentsin annualtributeto Persia, HerodotusIII91.

I

I PTOLEMIES,

TAXES

AND

form a unified group as evidence for Ptolemaic census, taxation and related operations. And in counting the people in order to tax them, the new rulers of Egypt produced detailed records that allow the historian to retrieve, analyse and even quantify a range of different aspects of Ptolemaic society. To some degree in the following chapters our lines of enquiry arise directly from the texts in volume r, but the questions we seek to answer are of wider historical interest. After this brief setting of the scene, the census operations that preceded the salt-tax levy are treated in Chapter 2. The salt-tax itself, the main personal tax of Ptolemaic Egypt at least in the third century BC, is the subject of Chapter 3. Almost all adults, both male and female, were subject to this charge. For Ptolemaic Egypt, therefore, through our data the women are known as much as the men. In Chapter 4, there follows a discussion of the administrative geography of the Arsinoite nome, the area from which most of our documents come. Here, as elsewhere, the wider picture - Egypt as a whole - and questions of typicality are constantly present. Next, in Chapter 5, comes the occupational breakdown of the population that we find in our tax registers. Then more specialised studies. In Chapter 6 we look at livestock, also subject to salt-tax, and in Chapter 7 we exploit the evidence of our texts to investigate a range of demographic questions. This allows us not just to document differences between the two main elements - Greek and Egyptian - of this mixed population at a particular point of time, but also to set Hellenistic Egypt in the wider demographic scene. In important ways the picture derived from our tax-registers can be compared not just with that gained from the census declarations of Roman Egypt but also with that from demographic studies of later periods. 3 Finally, in Chapter 8, we analyse the nomenclature of our registers to consider differences in practice according to period, ethnicity, gender and geography. The documents The challenge to the historian of the Hellenistic world is to make sense of a wide-flung series of kingdoms, most including Greek cities, where, as a supplement to ancient historical works and literary texts, many forms of data in different languages and scripts provide an opportunity for exploitation. From the Seleucid kingdom come the cuneiform ration texts and the astronomical diaries of Babylon, from Greece, the Aegean islands and Asia Minor there are coins and inscriptions (in Greek, Carian, Phoenician or Aramaic), and from Egypt ostraka and papyri, primarily in Greek and 3

Wrigley and Schofield (1981); Bagnall and Frier (1994).

2

THE DOCUMENTS

PAPYRI

l

Egyptian demotic. 4 This was a multi-lingual world in which existing cultures were affected to a greater or lesser degree by the arrival of the Macedonians and Greeks who came with Alexander. The documents that form the subject of this study owe their survival to the fact that papyrus formed a valued commodity, even in its discarded form. In the Hellenistic period, waste documents from government offices were regularly recycled as papier mache casing for human and animal mummies. Waste papyrus was collected from government offices and probably sold on to the mummifiers. 5 As a result, at the same time as preserving information on the patterns of disposal and reuse of scrap papyrus, most of our texts have at least two provenances: the office where each text was originally filed, and the cemetery where it was later used for mummy-casing - as what is now termed cartonnage. 6 For those documentary texts, however, which reached their current home in museum and other collections through the antiquities' market, the origin of the cartonnage is rarely recorded; on comparative evidence, it is probably safe to assume that they come from the same general area as is treated in the texts themselves. It is, then, from the cemeteries of Ptolemaic Egypt that the texts of volume I derive, preserved in the form of cartonnage, as moulded heads and pectorals (with painted decoration still visible on the papyrus), or sometimes even as shoes. 7 Some of our cartonnage texts are from the Nile valley, from the Lykopolite, Oxyrhynchite and Herakleopolite nomes, but the greatest number by far come from the Fayum, the Arsinoite nome. Here the cultivated area was significantly expanded under the early Ptolemies. In the late Roman period, climatological changes resulted in a retras,tion of land under cultivation and in the number of villages inhabited in the area. Deserted village sites and cemeteries on the edge of this basin have been particularly rich in papyrus finds; it is as cartonnage from Arsinoite cemeteries that most of our texts survive. There is thus a substantial degree of local bias in the material that we use. Further, the damper climate of the coastal region means that no documents survive from the capital city itself, from Alexandria. 4

See Davies (1984), 257-64, introduction to problems; Sherwin-White and Kuhrt (1993), 48-51, on Seleucid sources; cf. Lewis (1994), on the earlier Persepolis tablets; Aperghis (2001), for an integrated approach to Seleucid sources. 5 See P.Kdln Vlll 347.15-17, 24-5 (193 BC?), on waste papyrus stored in the temple probably for crocodile mummification. Verhoogt (1998), 15, suggests such papyrus came in as votive offerings; how this might work is hard to imagine. 6 See, most recently, Salmenkivi (2002), 28, 45,544, on the difference between origin ('Schreibort') and provenance ('Fundort'). Cartonnage is Ptolemaic and early Roman; on the process of manufacture, see Lewis (1974), 34-69; (1989), 15-21. 7 See vol. 1, plate 1 (2 cols vii-ix), for a decorated pectoral; 26 is from a shoe, cf. P.Gurob, platen, for soles; other texts of CPR XIII(22-25 and 27-44 in PCount 1) are from a single head, Harrauer (1987). 13.

3

I PTOLEMIES,

TAXES

AND

The cemeteries from which our tax material comes are primarily those that served the necklet of villages around the edge of the Fayum basin. Jouguet's excavations in 1901 and 1902 at Ghoran out on the south-western edge of the Fayum, at Medine! Nehas (Magdola) somewhat to the south and at Illahfin (Ptolemais Hormou) on the eastern entrance to the main Fayum basin, formed the basis of the Paris and Lille collections now in the Sorbonne. Among the present collection 1, 2-3 and 6 are from Ghoran, 4 is from Medinet Nehas, and 7 and 49 from Illahfin. Which of the three cemeteries excavated by Jouguet was the origin of 5 is no longer clear. To the south of the Illahfin gap, the cemetery of Gurob is the source of Petrie's third-century documents (9-21), 8 while the Greek and demotic papyri now in Berkeley, California (51-52) come from human mummies from one of the cemeteries of Tebtynis in the south. Documents in volume I which are not from the Arsinoite nome are 45 from the Herakleopolite nome, 46-48 from the Oxyrhynchite nome,9 and 53-54 from Petrie's excavations atRifeh in the Lykopolite nome. ro Of the material that has reached museums through the antiquities market rather than official excavation, the source of the cartonnage of 8, 22-44, 46-48, and 50 is no longer recorded. However, the contents of the texts themselves can indicate their origin, both where it was that they were actually written and where it was they were found. So, for instance, the registers of 22-44, recording villages of the Themistos meris of the Arsinoite nome, are likely to come from a cemetery in that nome. On the whole, with a few striking exceptions like some Alexandrian material found up-country, documents tended to be recycled in the same general area as they were produced. But where they were actually written is a separate question, and that location is likely to differ from the cemetery where they were later used as cartonnage. u In part, therefore, the registers of P.Count I help to fill out a gazetteer of the burial grounds of Ptolemaic Egypt. More importantly, the information that they contain may serve to illustrate the administrative system which lay behind the levy of taxes and the provision of wealth for the king. Before reaching the hands of the mummifiers, our texts came from local offices; the location of these is important if we are truly to understand the bureaucratic system of the period. It is, however, often easier to recognise the ultimate origin - usually a village or a hamlet - of the information preserved in our texts than the location of the office where that information was filed. And whether the actual office is known from which a document comes depends always on the internal evidence of the text itself. The Petrie papyri, for instance, from the cemetery of Gurob in the Herakleides division 8

Petrie and Griffith (1890); cf. Mahaffy in P.PetrieI pp. 8-11, 62-3. 9 Cf. P.Frankf.5 (242 BC), a census declaration from Tholthis, Oxyrhynchite nome. 11 JO Petrie (1907). So too van Minnen (1998), 106, on literary texts.

4

THE DOCUMENTS

PAPYRI

or meris of the Arsinoite nome record communities in the Themistos (II or P.Petrie III 112) as well as the Herakleides division (12, 15 or P.Petrie m 117 (i)). But where did those documents come from which record these different communities? Where should we look for the offices in which these reports were filed? Was it from local village, toparchy or divisional offices that these different texts were later discarded, or do they in fact derive from the capital city of the nome, where the royal administration was centred? Some of our texts, like the later Kerkeosiris land-surveys from the Tebtynis crocodile burials, may derive from the office of a village scribe or else, possibly, from a tax-office or teli5nion which functioned at the level of toparchy or meris. 12 The period to which many of our registers in fact belong, under Ptolemies II and III, was a time of change in the Arsinoite nome. Earlier administrative strnctures were now giving way to the system of toparchies found elsewhere, but above these was the unusual tripartite structure of divisions (merides) that is not found outside this nome. 13 Some have suggested divisional centres for these three divisions, in the merides of Herakleides, Polemon and of Themistos. 14 No good indication, however, exists of a central administrative village for any of the divisions of the Arsinoite nome. Regional officials may instead, as we shall argue further in Chapter 3, have worked out of the capital of the nome, from an administrative base and offices in the central town of Krokodilon polis. Whereas administratively there were certainly different levels, in the present state of evidence a subsidiary office between village and nome cannot be shown. Our different toparchic records may as well derive from an offiq; in the capital as from the toparchy or meris to which they refer. Nevertheless, an understanding of the regular workings of the administration is only to be gained from an understanding of the documents it produced, who it was who penned them, where, and at what level these texts were stored and how in time they came to be discarded and preserved. 15 It is only through careful consideration of the details of the documents, their marginal markings and annotations, the instructions they contain and their relation one to another, that we may start to build up a picture of how the early Ptolemaic administration worked, and so to understand the bureaucratic system of the Ptolemaic state. The historical use of this material rests 12

For the collection and transmission of data, see Table :3=3below.

13 Clarysse (1997a) and Chapter 4 below ('Tax-areas or toparchies'); Van 't Dack (1951b), 39-59,

remains a basic study. 14 Harrauer (1987), 17, on 22--44, suggests a divisional office of the

dioiketes or nomarch of the Themistos; de Cenival (1980), 194, makes a similar suggestion for P.Lille dem. 110 (229 BC), again from the Themistos, though the mention of the Polemon on the verso (col.iv.11) in fact provides a counter-argument. 1s As in the study of Verhoogt (1998), based on the documents of a village scribe.

5

I PTOLEMIES,

TAXES

on both the texts themselves and what we know about the contexts in which they were produced, employed and discarded. The texts of P.Count I lie at the base of the following chapters. In this volume, we exploit the information contained in these texts, as we investigate the system that gave rise to them and the ends to which they were put. And in what remains of this introductory chapter, we draw attention, in the broadest possible terms, to some of the more general features of the bureaucracy in which these texts were produced. The first feature to note is the bilingual nature of the Ptolemaic administration and the language use that is demonstrated in our data. Ten of our texts are written in demotic, 16 the remaining forty four in Greek. Some contain both Greek and demotic sections within the same record. 2 + 3 is the fullest example of this phenomenon, but there are other examples too. 17 This linguistic mix together with the use of a rush for writing Greek in place of the more regular, sharpened reed-pen shows that bilingual offices were common throughout the period of our texts. 18 As in the office of the village scribe, so at the district level of taxcollection both Greek and demotic lists were employed. A demotic original listing Trs must surely lie behind the alternative Greek renditions of the son of a certain Artemidoros from Trikomia as either Doros orTeres. '9 The large Sorbonne register 2-3 (229 BC) shows well how a demotic record of village households might turn to Greek at district level and back again to demotic in its summary totals at the (higher) toparchic level. 20 This, we may guess, was the more familiar language for the scribes involved. There were, it seems, no hard-and-fast rules in how the two languages were employed; much depended on the personnel involved. It was only, we may safely assume, at the final nome level, when summary registers were prepared for Alexandria, that Greek became the norm. 21 In the first generations of the new system the Ptolemies did what any incoming conqueror must do. 22 They made use of existing expertise. Although in time it was their language that became the language of the administration, this change did not take place overnight. 53-54 (second century BC) from the Lykopolite nome to the south provide good examples of the continued use of demotic in the 16

(229 BC),4 (254-231 BC),5 (243-217 BC),8 (243-217 BC),9 (after 251/250 BC),IO (third century BC),46 (230 BC),48 (third century Be), 53-54 (second century BC). 17 46 + 47 (230Bc), and thefarless complete 19 (third century BC),51 and52 (181-180 or 157-156Bc). 20 has demotic traces on the back of a Greek household record. 18 6 verso, 17 (243-217 BC),22-44; see Clarysse (1993a), with Chapter 3 below ('Documenting the salt-tax'). 19 26.62, 189 and 23.98, with note on 26.61-63, cf. 26.158-159 n. 20 For details, see the introduction to 2 + 3. On the different levels, see further Chapter 4 below. 21 1 (254-231 BC)is a draft of such a record. 22 For the use of Greek by scribes in Syria and Egypt for some hundred years following the Arab conquest, see El-Abbadi (1990), 179-80. 2

6

THE

AND PAPYRI

DOCUMENTS

local administration. The change to Greek was a process that took time to come into effect. The lack of central compulsion in this area is a feature of the way in which the Ptolemies successfully established their rule. Next, we may consider the nature of the systems developed under the early Ptolemies. Later, under the Romans, local features still continued differences, for instance, in the formulae employed, particularly at the level of the nome - but overall a closer standardisation of both procedure and documentation was developed for the census and other central operations. In contrast, the documentation produced both for the census in the midthird century BC and for the taxation system which depended on it seems to lack standard forms. There is consistency neither in terminology nor content; significant local differences are found in what is recorded, and how, depending on the local office from which the documents derive. Overall, the Ptolemaic evidence carries the hallmarks of a developing system of registration, in which local initiative might play a significant part. In 9, for example, the addition of ages alongside some of the names in a household listing may derive from census declarations, 23 but the form found here is unique, unparalleled in other such texts. Later, in Roman Egypt, when a cut-off age is known, such information was crucial for the regular revision of lists with the elimination of those no longer liable, but at this early stage the scribe of 9 (after 251/250 BC) stands out as idiosyncratic, ahead of his times in the level of detail he gave. Some other differences in individual scribal practices, both by region and over time, are of less significance. In demotic household listings, different words may be used for 'wife' ,24 and in Greek texts, where wmpen are regularly termed 'females' (thelyka (si5mata)), in one second-century text gy(naikeia) is used instead. 25 In Greek occupational registers, the name of an occupation is normally found in the nominative case, but the genitive also occurs. 26 No sign of alphabetisation or standard order of occupations listed appears in our registers. There are many variants, both within and between different records; more of these will emerge in the following chapters. Such lack of standardisation is a regular feature of a system still under formation. Finally, two more general aspects illustrated in this material call for comment: the king himself and the wealth he enjoyed. Egypt's economy was already in essence a royal economy, one in which the presence of the pharaoh permeated all aspects of life, from the religious to the more 2

3-E.g. W.Chrest. 198 (240 BC), including ages for all immediate family members (but not other members of the household), including those not yet of taxable age. 24 rmt.t: 4 (254-231 BC), 9 (after 251/250 BC),53 (second century BC); }Jm.t: 46 (230 BC),48 (third century BC);s.f:im.tis used for 'females' in P.Berl.Eleph.dem. III 13537 verso.9 (217 BC),2.451 (229 BC)and 8.3 (after 246 Be), where Greek would be thelyka. 26 2 s 49.3, 16ff.; see Chapter 3, n. 178. See Chapter 3, n. 171.

7

I PTOLEMIES,

TAXES

AND PAPYRI

mundane. The Ptolemies here took over the role of earlier kings. Yet just as the king, with his privileged access to the gods, was the source of wellbeing for his country, so too he was the main recipient of its wealth. When taxes were paid, it was to the king in person they were directed. The bald statement 'for the king' recorded more than once, in both official and unofficial documentation, serves as a reminder of the centralised nature of Egypt's rule.27 It also represents the ideology of the levies that went to form the royal wealth with which we opened this chapter. Some things, however, were new. Not only did the new pharaohs themselves speak Greek, but they also came from a world where coinage and money played a part. This they brought with them. And so, with the new Macedonian regime, there came changes over time not only in the language of the administration but also in the method of wealth extraction and the ways the economy worked. More than anything it was through the imposition of dues in monetary form that Ptolemaic taxation differed from that of earlier times. And whereas on the agricultural land of the Nile valley both rents and taxes were still, on the whole, collected in kind, with the introduction of personal taxes paid in cash the new rulers of Egypt brought change, introducing Egypt into the world of the wider Mediterranean. A national Ptolemaic silver coinage, with smaller units in bronze, was introduced under Ptolemy I, and the spread of transactions in cash was encouraged through taxation, not just in the new capital of Alexandria and the towns of Egypt but also through the countryside. The monetisation of the economy and the almost universal levy of monetary taxes went hand in hand as the Ptolemaic system developed.28 The combination of tradition and innovation in an economy that was increasingly monetarised forms a striking feature of the period. Connected with this new use of cash for the payment of taxes and innovations in the way these taxes were levied, 29 we find an increase too in the uses of writing within the administration. Receipts, it seems, were now required to protect the taxpayer, written on pieces of broken pot or ostraka, or even sometimes on papyrus. Both languages are used in these receipts, as indeed more widely in the system; the increase, therefore, in literate activity seems more likely to be connected with innovations in the whole administrative system than simply to follow the introduction, with Greek, of an alphabetic script. And although the practice of recycling discarded documents is responsible for an increase in the survival of Ptolemaic papyri

THE

DOCUMENTS

compared with earlier periods, the finds of contemporary ostraka suggest a real growth in the uses of writing under the new regime. Increased literacy appears to be a further feature of the period. Prior to the levy of taxes, however, came the registration of those who would pay - the counting of the people. It is the system of census, on which this registration depended, that forms the subject of our next chapter.

27 31.33, 44; CPR XIII 31.33 (254-231 BC); cf. P.Cairo Zen. 59297.13 (250 BC); P.Hamb. II 170.2, 9 (246 Be); P.Tebt. III 814.63 (227 BC);P.Lond. III (pp. 2-3) 1200.2 (209 Be); P.Heid. VI 373.2 (207 BC). 28 See von Reden (2001), on Ptolemaic monetisation, especially under Ptolemy II, with Rowlandson (2001), 147, on its limits. 2 9 On Ptolemaic tax~farming, see below Chapter 3 at n. 144.

8

9

THE

2

The census

No land has so many settlementsof men skilled in crafts. Theocritus,Idyll xvn 81 A knowledge of its citizens is reqnired by any organised state. Information as to their number and distribution - by locality, sex and occupation, and so too by taxable status - is a prerequisite for the successful functioning of any developed administration. What information is collected and how will vary according to circumstance, and, most of all, according to the needs of the state concerned. Thus, in the non-monetarised economy of pre-Ptolemaic Egypt, it was the labour of its people that was exploited by the state. Through the use of corvee labour, irrigation might be performed, buildings constructed and other public works put into effect. The strength and location of this labour-force were thus of constant concern to the rulers of Egypt. Other states have primarily been interested in the strength of their citizens as a fighting force, yet others in their citizens' political role. A census might be held in particular circumstances, as in Megalopolis in 3 r 8 BC or Rhodes in 305 BC, 1 but in other states, the Roman repnblic, for instance, or the Helvetii in the first century BC, the operation was institutionalised.2 The establishment of military classes and of citizen rights are thus important features of some censnses. Connting and classification are jointly involved. Social differentiation often formed part of the process, as in Egypt under Roman rule, where the census played an important role in maintaining the social strncture and where different categories within the population - Roman citizens, citizens of Greek cities, metropolitans and other Egyptians - were rigidly fixed.3 The differential structure of Roman Egypt served further to define fiscal categories. Indeed, the fiscal potential of a given population has regularly been of concern to states both new and old and some form of national census often serves in the compilation of tax-registers.

1

CENSUS

As an operation of the state, the census plays a complex role. The very act of counting its people is one of state control, since in the form this operation takes and the uses to which it is put are found reflected the values of that state. The form a census takes will differ by time and place, and the applications of the data collected will mirror the expectations and priorities of the state concerned, be they fiscal, social or economic, with a concern for labour or military needs. The information itself may thus serve different ends. In undertaking a census, a state is concerned with the potential strength of its subjects; at the same time it becomes involved in their lives and in the limits to those lives. Food can be provided in times of famine, protection assured in times of attack. 4 This very involvement in itself may result in a growing sense of responsibility on the part of a state; the needs of those who are counted may more easily be assessed and served. More often, however, the same information leads to increased levies, as in the case of Ptolemaic Egypt. Earlier it was the levy of labour at which the Egyptian census was aimed. With the Ptolemies cash was added to labour, the provision of taxes as well as of men. Besides these more objective applications of a census, there are less tangible ways in which a census can play a significant role. A counting may mark the division of time. Like the biennial cattle-count of Old Kingdom Egypt, or the Roman lustrum with its associated religious function, it may serve to control the members of a society, by defining their role within a state and, by extension, often by fixing that role within a particular form of rule. For those who are subject to counting, the experience and fact of this counting may play a part in forming their own view of themselves and, even more, of their position in the state that seeks to regulate them in this operation. In a newly established state a census plays a particularly influential role in the formation and definition of both the regime that sets it up and the peoples it records. The Chinese experience may be used to illustrate this point. The earliest recorded Chinese census, its details preserved in the Han shu and dating from AD 2, marked a period of reassessment, as the regent Wang Mang sought to establish himself at the end of the long dynasty known as that of the Former Han. The people were counted by 'mouth' and by 'door', both by individual, that is, and by household. Two generations later, under the (restored) Later Han, the census of AD 69 included a wider range of peoples, like the Thai-speaking tribe of the Ai-Lo from beyond the Yunnan border. Such a native tribe was strengthened by its inclusion; the Chinese authority was strained. 5 More recently, in nineteenth-century

Diodorus Siculus xvm 70.1, Megalopolis facing Polyperchon (citizens, foreigners and slaves); xx 84.2-3, Rhodes facing Demetrios (citizens, resident aliens, foreigners and slaves). 2 Livy r 42-4-5, for Rome, cf. Brunt (1971), 15-25; Nicolet (1980), 49-88, (1991), 126-47; Lintott (1999), I 15-20. Caesar, BG I 29, Greek records of the Helvetii listing household numbers, fighting men and (separately) women, children and those past military age. 3 Bagnall and Frier (1994), 26-30.

4 The Florentine census of AD 1427 was used for the distribution (but not the taxation) of salt, at least in the Pisan area, Herlihy and Klapisch-Zuber (1985), 20. s Bielenstein in Twitchett and Loewe (1986), 272-3. The Chinese evidence-both census and taxation registers -is discussed in detail by Bielenstein (1947), 127-33 and 155-8.

IO

II

2 THE

CENSUS

India under British rule, in raising questions of caste the census served to foster an awareness and sense oflndian culture. 6 So too, in early Ptolemaic Egypt census activities are likely to have been important in the process of the setting-up and consolidation of the new state and in the definition of its culture. All inhabitants of the country, both new and old, were subject to counting, at least in theory; in its application, in the categories it established and the ends that it served, were reflected the interest and concerns of the new state. Some of the practical reasons that motivate states to undertake a census to assess their military or fiscal resources - may also lead citizens to resist or obstruct the process. So, following a widespread belief that information would be used for the collection of the 'community charge' ,7 in the periodic British census of April I 99 I there was a I .2 million undercount, especially marked among young men. Similarly, a perceived connection between citizen lists and taxation kept citizens from declaring themselves for the annual updating of the electoral registers during the lifetime of that particular tax. Disclaimers from the central bodies went ignored; the declared separation of citizen lists from the levy of taxes was not generally believed. While, therefore, the levy of taxes is not the universal or even the prime function of a census, 8 for many states counting the people does serve a fiscal aim. This was certainly the case in Egypt under the Ptolemies, where it was the fiscal application of the census that was new. That application will be examined further in Chapter 3. Here it is the process of counting that concerns us.

The Ptolemaic censns Any discussion of the Ptolemaic census must start with a justification for our use of the term 'census'. Details of the actual operations of the census (in the sense of an act of counting) are, on the whole, unknown. That some form of census or population-count took place is clear from the capitation charges (especially the salt-tax) which were levied on the basis of the information collected. It is also clear that this census involved both a listing and a classification of the total adult population of the country, not just of those who were subject to these taxes; tax-exempt categories did not escape the record. 9 Even children might be included, as is clear from the handful of examples that survive of the written declarations of 6

Cohn (1987), 224-54. 7 The poll tax introduced to Scotland in 1989 and to England and Wales in 1990, and abolished in 1993. 8 Citizens were subject to income tax in neither classical Athens nor Republican Rome. 9 E.g. in 3.32-53 (229 BC)tax-exempt groups have been deducted and listed separately at a later stage. 12

THE

PTOLEMAIC

CENSUS

all household members; these will be discussed below. Such declarations, it is clear, formed one, if not the main, base of the census. Information collected in this way was more than that required for the compilation of just tax-registers; it is in the totality of the listing that the term census may be accepted for this operation. As with their land, rn so with their people, the new Macedonian rulers of Egypt were concerned to list and register all, eventually in Greek. No royal order survives announcing the initiation of a Ptolemaic census; its operations may only be seen from the documentation that followed, when its results were applied to fiscal ends. As in the case of the land survey, any attempt to describe the operation of the census involves working back from documentation produced at a later stage, particularly from summary tax records passed on to the nome capitals, and from there, most probably, to Alexandria. In contrast to the later census in Egypt under the Romans, our picture of the Ptolemaic census comes primarily from the tax-registers drawn up on its basis. 11 When the first Ptolemaic census took place is uncertain. It is, however, clear that the operation of a census was nothing new in Egypt. That went back some millennia, and full census activities were well established by the New Kingdom when, at the start of the tomb-record of his career, the fifteenth-century vizier from Thebes, Rekhmire, was described as 'in charge of the listing of the people'. Early in the next century the tomb of Tjanouni, scribe of the army in Thebes, records how, together with the pharaoh (Thutrnosis IV), he oversaw a census of the whole country, a listing of all its people - the soldiers, priests, royal workers and all artisans-,, of all domestic animals, both large and small, and all domestic fowl. The pictures in his tomb show this operation in practice. 12 The listing of animals went back far further in time than that of the people. A desire to catalogue the country's resources, whether gold, land or cattle, is found already at the start of the Old Kingdom on the Palermo stone (c. 2400 BC). A census of people, at least on a limited basis, first appears in the late Middle Kingdom, when records from Kahun suggest that some form of household listing, with occupations sometimes added, was available to those who required it. 13 Various household listings are known from Deir el-Medineh, the workmen's village at Thebes. 14 It is, ro Crawford (1971), 5-8. For royal initiative in the land smvey, see now Bresciani (1978) and (1983), translated Burstein (1985), 122-3, no. 97. u Rathbone (1993), 92; Bagnall and Frier (1994), 1-30. 12 This whole section depends heavily on Valbelle (1985) and (1987), with further references; cf. Thompson (1997b), 243, in outline. 13 Quirke (1990), 169, a household listing (P.Kahun 1.3) drawn up in the 'bureau of the fields'; see Griffith (1898), for this and other listings. 14 McDowell (1999), 51.

2 THE

CENSUS

however, only from the New Kingdom, with Rekhmire and Tjanouni, that a more widespread census is known to have taken place, a census that involved the whole country and its people, both counted and categorised by occupation. For alongside a concern to list for the sake of listing - 'une tendance encyclopediste', as Valbelle neatly terms it- a continuing concern of Egyptian pharaohs was the extent and composition of their work-force. 15 A knowledge of those who might be called on to labour on the dykes or royal building projects was important; as indeed was a knowledge of those who might expect to receive exemption from these tasks. Such may have been the operation Herodotus described for a still later period, reporting how the sixth-century BC pharaoh Amasis required every Egyptian each year to inform the local governor 'whence he gained his livelihood'; this, he claimed, was the origin of Salon's similar law for Athens. 16 An Egyptian origin for Greek practices was often claimed, 17 but the similarity of this account to both earlier and later practices may here support the historicity of Herodotus' account. It was such a categorisation that enabled the Greek historian to record the seven groups making up the country's population: priests, soldiers, herdsmen, swineherds, tradesmen, interpreters and boatmen. 18 The regular peasants (the fellahin) are missing from this list, but the pharaoh must have known his farmers; it was independent professions that he needed to record. Such occupational registration would stand as a forerunner to Ptolemaic kat' ethnos records, 19 though without their fiscal application. In a categorisation of the population not just by household but also by occupation, the Ptolemies continued a Pharaonic tradition. What was probably new was the use of the censns for primarily fiscal ends. Such an application is already suggested in Chabrias' advice to pharaoh Nectanebo I's son Taos (Egyptian pd-fir) on how to raise cash for what was probably his Asian expedition of 362/36 l BC. Besides raising money from the temples, the traditional centres of wealth, Taos should issue orders for contributions to be levied both by household (oikia) and by individual (soma). 20 The existence of some form of census listing is assumed in this account. The contributions, however, and the tax measnres that follow, are probably anachronistic for fourth-century BC Egypt and rather portray the Greek

THE

22

5 Valbelle (1987), 43. 16 n 177.2, apodeiknynai . .. hothen bioutai; cf. Diodorus Siculus I 77.5, apographesthai . .. apo tinOn hekastos porizetai ton bion. Rathbone ( 1993), 92, presents this record as a quantification of royal power for symbolic rather than fiscal reasons; it probably also served a practical end. 1 7 E.g. Herodotus II 167, the Greek contempt for technai (except the art of war) came from Egypt (or other barbarians). 18 n 164.1; cf. Thompson (2001c). 1 20 9 See Quirke (1986), rn7, on Middle Kingdom titles. [Aristotle], Oec. 11 2.25 (135m).

14

CENSUS

world of Aristotle. And yet the story foreshadows the later census of the Ptolemies. The financial concerns of the ruler were reflected in the way the Ptolemaic census was run and a further novel feature was its use of written records. In its extensive use of the written form, on both papyrus and ostraka - in declarations, lists and tax-registers based on the census, and the issue of taxreceipts - the new Ptolemaic census differed from earlier ones. It differed too in its use of Greek, which over time increasingly became the language of the administration. Much then was new. The surviving evidence, however, does not suggest that there was yet any regular, periodic census in place, and many features of the system indicate an operation still under development. The local variations of practice already mentioned, the mixture oflanguages used, the lack of alphabetisation or of designated census times, all combine to suggest that, whatever its predecessors, this was still a fairly undeveloped operation. That is not to denigrate its importance. At some early stage following the conquest of Egypt by Alexander of Macedon in 332 BC a decision must have been taken by the new rulers to count the people, to classify them in various ways, and to use this information as the basis for raising taxes rather than just for exploiting their labour .. The decision may go back to the conqueror himself, or to Alexander's satrap, Kleomenes from Naukratis, who was left in control of the country. Familiar perhaps with contemporary Persian practice, 21 Kleomenes showed himself particularly keen in the revenue-raising business. 22 Or perhaps the policy was instituted by the Macedonian Ptolemy son of Lagos, as either satrap himself or later as king. From earlier Macedon nothing is kn0wn of a census, though some form of citizen listing must have served for the callup of her troops, just as in Athens the farming of trade taxes presupposes some form of occupational registration. 2 3 The influence of Demetrios of Phaleron, who after 307 BC made his home at the court of Ptolemy I, has sometimes been adduced in discussions of the early Ptolemaic administration. 24 He certainly had census experience in Athens, 25 but there is nothing to connect him with the particular forms of registration found in Ptolemaic Egypt. To suggest the influence of Rome under Ptolemy II is to stretch the 21

1

PTOLEMAIC

23

24

Kuhrt (1995), 695; Sachs and Hunger (1996), 97, no. 144 (145 BC), for its continuation in the Seleucid kingdom. [Aristotle], Oec. II 2.33a-f (1352a16-b25). Aeschines 1 119, tax-farmers of the pornikon have 'accurate knowledge of those practising prostitution. E.g. Pomeroy (1997), 64, 199-200; the same form of family listing may, however, be found much earlier, see nn. 13-14 above. For Demetrios' influence, see Aelian, Var. Hist. III 17; Diog. Laert. v 78; Cicero, Rab. Post. 23, on his death. For Demetrios, see now Fortenbaugh and Schiitrumpf (2000).

25

Athenaeus, Deipn. VI 272c (Ktesikles); Gallo (1991), 374-81, discusses the relation of Demetrios' exetasis to earlier operations.

15

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historical imagination. For even if the later story of a Roman embassy to Alexandria in 273 BC is accepted, we have no real details of this diplomatic interchange. 26 Both the conduct and application of the Roman Republican census, with its military emphasis, were very different from Ptolemaic practice. The most likely general model for the Ptolemaic census remains existing Egyptian practice; it was in the detail of conduct and in its use that innovation may be fonnd. It is only from the reign of Ptolemy II that we have evidence of the Ptolemaic census in operation. Significantly, it is also from this reign that cartonnage first survives with texts that allow a consideration of the defining features and function of the census. The first actual date recorded in our surviving registers is Year 35 of Ptolemy II (251/250 BC), 27 but some of the undated records may come from earlier in his reign. Evidence for the salt-tax, the levy of which was based on the census, already comes from some thirteen years earlier, with the earliest surviving receipt dated to 5 November 263 Bc.28 And from April 260 BC royal orders for the registration of both livestock and slaves in the Ptolemaic provinces of Syria and Phoenicia show complex census procedures extended to the Ptolemaic empire. Both individual declarations (oflivestock and purchased slaves) and the compilation of registers by royal officials are envisaged; an immediate time limit is set (sixty days for livestock, twenty days for purchased slaves) and for the future the registration of livestock is required on an annual basis. 2 9 Taxation concerns are central to the decree on livestock. The detail of the provisions implies a developed system already in place in Egypt, and the dual approach to the data-collection with both declaration and registration by komarchs displays a concern for accuracy. Counting people and animals was already a concern of the king. So too was the measurement of his land. From two years later there survives a royal order for a thorough survey of the land of Egypt at the start of Year 28 (October-November 258 BC). 30 To connect this land-survey and the revenue it would raise with the Second Syrian War is tempting,3' but so little survives from the earlier years of this reign and from that of Ptolemy I that over-interpretation of what does survive is an ever constant danger. It would clearly be unwise to interpret this Karnak ostrakon as marking the start of a new system; it is more likely to be part of an established review. And as in the registration of land, so in the counting of the 26 Dion. Hal. XX 14; Val. Max. IV 3.9; cf. Livy, Per. XIV; Justin. XVIII 2.9; Dio fr. 41; Zoo. VIII 6. 2 1 9.18 (after 251/250 BC); cf. line 110 with n., perhaps Year 30 (2561255 BC). 28 a.Berlin P 6359, ed. wangstedt (1978-9), 6, no. 1; cf. Chapter 3, n. 56. 29 C.Ord.Ptol. 21-22 (260 Be); 21.17, synhistorountes shows registrars at work. 3° The Karnak ostrakon, seen. 10 above. 31 So Turner (1984), 135-6.

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people, the raising of revenues was basic to the operation.32 What perhaps was really new in these years was not the actual census, an operation well established in Egypt, but rather the extent to which traditional activities were subjected to central control through extended documentation. By now, the second Ptolemy was starting to find his feet, to establish his bureaucracy on a more permanent footing, and to move over to revenue-raising in cash. The discovery of further papyri may confirm (or invalidate) this picture. Before we turn to the actual operation of the census, the vocabulary used to describe it may be briefly considered. Egyptian terminology tends to be general not specific, and the terms found in our texts refer more to the subsequent levy of taxes than to the census that preceded. wn (a 'list'), used for the listing of special categories in 2.456, is a term that is known from much earlier times; 33pJ rn ('the naming') is also used for a specialised list.34 Yet neither of these terms refers explicitly to the census. The term used for that in these texts is spsp ('levy'), and this is standardly used in connection with salt-tax dues. 35The Greek vocabulary for these operations is still more elusive. Later, under the Romans, the term laographia was used for the poll tax levied in Egypt but, given its original meaning of 'registering the people', at an earlier date laographia may perhaps have denoted the census itself. 36In Ptolemaic documents laographia is so far found only in the first century Bc,37 but the account of an Alexandrian pogrom under Philopator preserved in 3 Maccabees describes the listing of the Jews in terms which could well be those of a Ptolemaic census - a laographia together with oiketike diathesis, a register of people with household composition. 38 Earlier apographe is the term that is found in Greek; perhaps this designated the census, though in most cases 'registration' seems a more appropriate translation, with its emphasis more on the form of listing than on the census itself. 39 Registration for taxes is then basic to both Egyptian and Greek terminology. 2 3 33

On fiscal developments in the 260s, see Turner (1984), 144; Koenen (1993), 66----9. Valbelle (1987), 43-4. 34 P.Tebt.inv. 14190 + 14234.i.3 (2501249 BC), sculptors (list by family including children and ages); 46.109 (230 BC), cavalrymen. 35 2-449 (+ guard-tax), 468 (229 BC), /:lmJ;5.2 (243-217 BC), M /:lmJ,the Greek halike. 36 So Tcherikover (1950), 182. 31 P.Tebt. I 103 = W.Chrest. 288.1; P.Tebt. I 121.61 (94 or 61 BC); 189 (early first century Bc); BGU IV 1198.13-14 (4 BC), priests of Bousiris not liable to the (tax?) laographia earlier under Kleopatra VIL 38 3 Mace. 2.28----9.Wallace (1938), 437, somewhat improbably turns this incident, recorded as preliminary to the requirement that Jews bear a Dionysiac tattoo, into the second fourteen-year census introduced under Ptolemy IV, cf. Tcherikover (1950 ), 190-1. The date of this colourful account is uncertain but a Ptolemaic Alexandrian origin seems likely. P.Tebt. I 103, introduction, ascribes this Egyptian laographia to Judaea; that may have followed, see 3 Mace. 3.12, 4.14. 39 E.g. PSI v 488.7 (257 BC).

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The census operation The collection of information forms the first stage of an operation which is intimately linked to raising taxes. During the third century BC, the financial year was the year used for dating these activities. Starting on Mecheir 1, in late March, this particular form of reckoning time fitted the agricultural activities of the country; the harvest soon after was the key period for the calculation and start to the payment of taxes. 40 It was, after all, in a predominantly agricultural economy only through the sale of surplus crops that peasants could find cash to pay their taxes. The few dated references that survive to an apographe of the people cluster around the start of the financial year.4' The financial year is the year employed in the dated Greek texts of this volume. 42 The fiscal emphasis of the operation is clear, and by introducing this new reckoning of time Ptolemy II Philadelphus affirmed his hold on his country. And together with a new system of dating came a greater precision in the way that dates were recorded. In legal contracts and early salt-tax receipts, as in the registers prepared in connection with this tax, demotic simply records a month and a year. 43On records in Greek, in contrast, the specific day of the month as well as the year is standard. In a developing system of written records, with both registers and taxreceipts, there thus came a greater specificity in the way that time was recorded. It is of interest, too, in the fiscal context of the salt-tax levy, that the majority of demotic receipts follow current Greek practice in recording both months and days. By the late third century, however, when salt-tax receipts have come to an end, within the administration the financial year was everywhere replaced by the traditional Egyptian year that started on 1 Thoth (in the autumn). In this respect the influence now went the other way; Greek ways of marking time were abandoned. In attempting to reconstruct the operation of the Ptolemaic census in the period of our records, it is easier to ask the questions than it is to provide the answers. When was the first census held? How often did a new census take place, and when this happened how thoroughly were the existing lists revised? What were the units of counting, or the procedures in place to check on officials involved with the census? How far did the 4° Schnebel (1925), 162, for the harvest starting in April. 41 See Skeat onP.Lond. VII 1930.1-2 n. (Mecheir 8 Year 28, 1 April 257 Be); P.Cairo Zen. 159130.22-3 (Mecheir 23 Year 30?, 16 April 256 BC); PSI V 488.7 (filed Peritios 18 Year 28, 22 March 257 BC, three days before the start of the new financial year), apographe tiJn si5ma[ti5n],though this might just be for the labour for the irrigation works that follow. W.Chrest. 198.7-8 (240 Be), apographomai, is a personal declaration from Choiach (towards the end of the financial year). 42 For the financial year, see Pestman ( 1967), 6. In demotic ostraka the Egyptian civil year is employed, but see 2.447 (cf. 2 + 3, introduction) for the demotic section of a bilingual register dated by the financial year. 43 2-447-448 (229 Be); cf. 47.1 (230 BC), no day recorded in Greek.

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administration attempt to ensure accuracy of information, and what was the rate of success? What degree of under-reporting should we expect to find?44 Or was it perhaps the case, as in the great Florentine census of AD 1427, that different systems ofreporting led in contrastto the duplication of data? 45 A census may, like the Roman census, be a periodic operation, taking place at regular points of time. Alternatively, if instituted for a specific end, such as the control of corn doles in Rome attempted first by Julius Caesar and then by the emperor Augustus, it may be limited both in scope and occasion. 46 The denomination of a specific day or days for a census to be made is a comparatively late development and even in Roman Egypt, with a periodic census every fourteen years, it took some time before a time-limit for registration was standardly imposed. 4 7 From Ptolemaic Egypt there is no evidence to suggest the institution of a periodic census. Indeed, the alterations made to surviving registers imply that existing lists were just updated on a fairly regular basis. Tax-collectors needed to know the names and numbers of those from whom they might collect; some registers preserve alterations that must refer to earlier lists, and which take account of changes in the population, through death, for instance, or disappearance from an area. 48 New census returns are never explicitly mentioned. These changes to the record resemble those found on land-surveys following a series of check-ups (episkepseis) made during the course of the year.49 Even closer perhaps is the regular updating made to his lists by Nemesion, responsible for the later poll tax in first-century AD Philadelpheia.5° Nemesion, however, had declarations of births and deaths to work fioffi', a Roman innovation, information like this would aid the work oflocal scribes and tax-collectors. Under the Ptolemies, in contrast, tax-registers simply imply an earlier act of counting that produced the information now subject to alteration. And whereas tax-lists were updated on an annual basis,5' how 44

IO per cent assumed for Rome by Brunt (1971), 61; Bagnall and Frier (1994), 41 n. 30, IO per cent in first modem Egyptian census of 1882; for a lively discussion of current undercount problems in the US (1-3 per cent), see Choldin (1994). 45 Herlihy and Klapisch-Zuber (1985), 13. For possible Ptolemaic duplication, see 6.77 + 416 and 421 + 587 (c. 232 BC), with note. 46 Suetonius, Jui. 41.5; Aug. 40.3, with Nicolet (1991), 129-30. 47 Bagnall and F1ier (1994), 5---6,absence of regularity before AD 89. Cf. Cohn (1987), 233-42, on the development of the Indian census in the nineteenth century. 48 1.32-58 with notes, laika prosgegrammena; 13.9, '16--19, death, flight etc.; cf. 23.97, 'Solon - deceased'; UPZ 157.35 (242/241 Be), those deceased are withdrawn from a register used for dyke work. 49 Crawford (1971), 20; Verhoogt (1998), 131-48. 50 Hanson (1989a), 439-40, every four years. 5' Clearly illustrated in the record of figures for successive years in 2.451 with 453-4 and 3.1-g with 139-147 (229 BC); Bagnall and Frier (1994), 2, for Roman Egypt. For updating during the year, cf. 18.30-31, 33a, 36, 55 (third century BC).

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often a recount of the total population occurred remains unknown. Though intimately related, census and taxation formed different operations, and the few household declarations that survive to illustrate the Ptolemaic census give no indication of how often this was held. Who in Ptolemaic Egypt was counted, and how, may emerge from the form of the registers that survive. As already noted in Chapter I, information preserved in these texts was categorised in two main ways: according to household and by occupation. Some household registers also preserve the occupation to which some (though not all) of the household-heads belonged; 52 it is, therefore, just possible that the second of these listings was derived from the first. Two features make this unlikely. First, as we have already seen, there is the long tradition in Egypt of a population categorised by occupation, and, secondly, in none of the household declarations that survive are occupations included. It seems far more likely that two separate forms of listing were involved, reflecting the different ways in which the information was to be used. Such a practice would have had a further advantage, that of checking and controlling the information collected. A dual system of this kind would not be surprising in the early stages of the development of the Ptolemaic operation. In the early years of British rule in India different methods were used for gathering information. So, for instance, in AD 1827/8 in a census ofBanaras, as Secretary of the Committee on Local Improvement James Prinsep interviewed the representatives (chaudhuris) for all the castes in the area to find the numbers for that caste and when he could not find a spokesman he checked the numbers himself. At the same time, however, working from a list of houses in the area, classified by size and type, he used this information to estimate the population in a second way. The former method is now believed to have provided the safer figures,53 and in use the two sets of figures were not in fact amalgamated. Both the content and the method of compilation are close to the system implied by the different lists drawn up in the Ptolemaic census. Information on numbers obtained from chaudhuris is comparable to Ptolemaic kat' ethnos registers drawn up with the aid of the representatives of the different ethne; Ptolemaic house-by-house surveys (kat' oikian) represent a separate form of register drawn up from on-the-ground surveys. 54In the Ptolemaic system, however, some form of cross-checking between the two forms of register may have taken place. That, at least, is a possible explanation for

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the check-marks that occur on both forms of record. What exactly these different marks may have signified eludes us, but checking between two forms of list is in some cases a possible explanation. 55 In check-marks, however, we are more probably looking at activities that formed part of tax-collection rather than of the original census. Information on names and numbers was thus collected both according to occupational group and by household. In the case of occupations, information most probably came from the leaders or representatives of the different groups, their elders or representatives, presbyteroi or prostatai in Greek. 56 For those occupations too small to possess such spokesmen, the local royal officials, like Prinsep in Banaras, might investigate themselves. For household information, two possibilities may be envisaged: either personal declaration, as later under the Romans, or registration undertaken by responsible officials. In the Roman census of Egypt, household declarations in written form (kat' oikian apographai) 57 lay at the base of the census and were the regular responsibility of household-heads. As we have already seen in the case of Amasis, in pre-Ptolemaic Egypt personal registration was already a wellestablished practice of governmental control. This was adopted by the new rulers and formed an essential part of early Ptolemaic fiscal policy, both at home and abroad. It is not surprising that personal declarations in writing, extended also to various forms of property (slaves, animals, houses and more), 58should be used too for the names and numbers of the population. Personal registration of the details of a household, even when penned by scribes, assumes a well-embedded and widespread use of writing,dn this case writing in Greek. How early under the Ptolemies the introduction of written declarations came is open to question. The diversity in form of the few Ptolemaic examples of household declarations that do survive suggests that this process was neither standardised nor yet a regular occurrence. The known examples are listed in Table 2: r.59

52 E.g. 9,passim (after 251/250 Bc); 18.14, 23, 27, 32 (243-217 nc); 19.40, 87 (third century BC). 53 Cohn (1987), 234; in contrast, Laslett (1980), 56, argued for superiority of the house-by-house census (in cases where those involved know the village intimately). 54 See Appendix A1-2; the topographical nature of house-by-house surveys is best illustrated by P.Mon.inv. 344 + 346.xi.32-3 (c. 180 BC) elthes epi ton noton ... 'you have come southwards'.

55 For check-marks on tax-collectors' registers, see Chapter 3, nn. 162 and 183 below. 56 San Nicolo (1915), 54--9. This responsibility is well illustrated in P.Tebt.inv. 14190 + 14234.i.2, 4-5 (250/249 BC), where the first in a register of village sculptors from Arsinoe in the Themistos is (c. 232 BC), the first the man who supplies the list. In 6.297, 301,316,319,370,384,499,543,604 male of the ethnos lacks a patronymic, perhaps indicating that he was sufficiently well known as the representative of that group. The lack of individual household totals for the group of 6.268-291 (c. 232 BC) illustrates different recording practices within different ethne incorporated in the composite list. 57 Bagnall and Frier (1994), 6, not found before AD 60. 58 BGU XIV2372 = C.Ptol.Sklav. 13 (263 BC), a declaration of male slaves for some other purpose; C.Ord.Ptol. 21-22 (260 BC), translated Austin (forthcoming 2006), no. 260; cf. P.Hels. 1 pp. 63-8, for a full discussion of apographai. 59 P.Cairo Zen. II 59218.7-16 (253 BC), contains a household listing (oikeia onomata) within a longer memorandum of unclear purpose, without mention of either apographe or salt-tax. It is not a declaration.

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Table 2:1 Ptolemaic household declarations 1 P.Lille 1 27 = W.Chrest. 199 = C.Ptol.Sklav. 87 (254-231 BC), 60 declaration

for the salt-tax by Leptines, a Pisidian of Krateros' troop, of a household consisting of himself, wife, four sons and one daughter, all of whom are tax-paying (total seven, 6 dr. due), together with nine+ male slaves, thirteen female slaves (6.5 dr. due) and further slaves (four+) in a second location, the

Hernon 'near the city'."' (Arsinoite nome, Pharbaithos and Krokodilon polis.) 2 P.Frankf. 5 (Year 7, 241/240 BC), declaration for the salt-tax (eis ta halika) by Tarouthinas, a Thracian, of a household consisting of himself, wife, brother, father's brother, father's sister and her two sons, another father's brother and

(his own?) son (nine in total), preceded by a duplicate declaration of his livestock (leia: sheep, goats, pigs) for Year 7. On the verso this declaration is addressed to [Th]eophilos. (Oxyrhynchite nome, Tholthis.) 3 W.Chrest. 198 = C.Pap.Jud. r 36 (Year 7 Choiach 4, 23 January 240 BC), date and record of Asklepiades with a household of fifteen consisting of himself, wife, four sons (aged 15, 13, 10 and 5), a nurse, six farm labourers (georgoi misthi5i), a

shepherd and a cowherd. Followed by a declaration of grain and other crops, with details of what is required for personal use, for his working animals, for rent on

another's plot of land (kleros); some of this is elsewhere and some in the royal granary at Boubastos. Note the ages given for his sons, of whom probably only one was of a taxable age. (Arsinoite nome, Boubastos.) P.Alex. 553 = W.Ost. 1 p. 823 (third century BC),declaration by a Thracian of the epigone of a household of four, consisting of himself, his mother and two (younger) brothers (one aged 32)."' A declaration of produce (barley) followed. (Arsinoite.)

4

P.Tebt. III 814.45-58 (227 BC?),copy in an official register of a duplicate registration for the salt-tax (apographe halikon) from Ateroous, a female general storekeeper, of two families, perhaps forming one household. First, a family of two women (thelyka): Ateroous and her daughter; secondly: [Herakle]ides son of Apollonios and his three sons (total four). This declaration is followed (11.59-7!) by the payment-record (diagraphe) of the 'renewal-tax' on some property by Thasis, daughter of Semtheus and Ateroous. (Arsinoite nome, Krokodilon polis.)

5

The five texts listed in the table, all in Greek, are far from uniform in either content or presentation of the information they record. The final example probably comes from Krokodilon polis, the capital city of the Arsinoite name. Leptines in the first example is otherwise known as a cleruch with

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land at Pharbaithos, though he may have lived in the city. 63 The first four appear to record Greek or other immigrant army families; the last, in contrast, is the declaration of a female civilian with an Egyptian name. The fact that at least two examples, from two different names, refer to a registration for Year 7 seems good evidence for a census held in that year; noteworthy too is the description of that and other registratious as specifically made for the salt-tax. And ifTheophilos, to whom the declarations of P.Frankf 5 are addressed, may be identified with the tax-collector (logeutes) of that name, known from the same area around the same time, 64 then this provides yet more evidence for the fiscal application of this information. The Ptolemaic census, at least in the third century BC, was firmly linked to the salt-tax levy. What our small sample does not, however, show is whether such declarations were made only to tax officials or whether, as in the case of Ptolemaic property returns (see below) or kat' oikian apographai in Roman Egypt, 65 declarations might be made to more than one official at the same time. The latter seems likely, but more we cannot say. The census of Year 7 may possibly be the occasion for all but the last of our surviving records. W.Chrest. 199 is the most doubtful in this respect. This text is undated but the figures it records for the salt-tax are those of rate B (254-231 sc). 66 The fourth example derives from the same cartonnage as no. 3; it may come from the same year. The last of these declarations (no. 5), apparently dated some fourteen years after the census of Year 7 (nos. 2-3), is not evidence enough to establish a periodic census cycle; 67the date of 227 BC applied to this text is not that of the registration but rather that of the subsequent property tax-payment made by the daughter of Ateroous on 29 Tybi Year 20 (16 March 227 BC), right at the end of the financial year; and even the reign is doubtful. The twofold interest of this latest text is, first, the connection it shows between household declaration and a tax on family property and, secondly, the particular household that it records an Egyptian urban household with a woman as household-head and no hint of army connection. P.Frankf. 5, where the household declaration follows after what was apparently an annual livestock declaration (made in Year 6 for Year 7), might in contrast be thought to provide support for a system of annual declarations. Both the silence of the documents (by itself a dangerous argument) and comparison with property declarations (see below) weigh against such an assumption; further evidence may clarify the picture. 63

The scrap of papyrus with Year 15 (mentioned in P.Lille r 27), though preserved in the same folder, is in a different hand and does not belong to the text; it cannot be used to date this declaration, which comes from the period of the B-rate for the salt-tax, on which see Table 3:1 below. 61 For slaves in this text, see Thompson (2001b), 43-4; the foot of the text is broken off. 62 Now published in Clarysse and Thompson (2002).

Uebel (1966), 341-2; (1968), 76, no. 158. On cleruchs, see below Chapter 5, n. 129; cf. Briant (1982), 194-7, for military settlers in the Persian and Seleucid empires. 64 See P.Tebt. III 746.13 (243 BC), involved with three other kata toparchian logeutai in the collection of taxes of cavalry allotments, cf. P.Frankf 6.1 (243 BC) for the date. 65 Bagnall and Frier (1994), 21. 66 On different salt-tax rates, see Table 3:1 below. 67 Seen. 38 above.

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In two of these household declarations (nos. 3 and 4), neither of them specified as a salt-tax declaration, ages are included. This information is of interest especially in the case of the WChrest. 198, where children's ages are recorded unaccompanied by those of their parents. A result of this added information would be to facilitate their addition to the tax-registers when the children came of age.68 Ages for adults occur in just one text of our present collection, and there only sporadically. 69 Whereas in household declarations from Roman Egypt ages are standardly given, at this earlier period it was only a few enterprising individuals who thought to record this information. On the whole the households of these declarations are large, in two cases with slaves and other workers attached (WChrest. 198 and 199). The soldier Leptines of W Chrest. 199 had a sizeable holding of slaves (25+ ), with at least two separate establishments declared. The added declarations of livestock (P.Frankf. 5) and of grain (W Chrest. 198 and P.Alex. 553) illustrate both the extent of state interest in taxable wealth and the lack of standard form that these declarations take. Above all, however, it is the Greekness and the urban nature of most of these households that are noteworthy. Declaration of livestock was a standard requirement in Ptolemaic Egypt and is often, as here in P.Frankf. 5, attached to the census. Details of livestock holdings for substantial Greek families, probably cavalrymen, are included in the demotic section of the area-record from Ghoran for the salt-tax for Year 19 of Ptolemy III.7° This aspect of the census-the regular animal census - will be further discussed in Chapter 6. The connection between declarations of property and those of individual households may be treated here. All property, both moveable and immovable, is potentially of fiscal interest to a state. In the contemporary census of Republican Rome, the value of an individual's property was what determined the census category; this was a man's 'census'. In Roman Egypt the household declarations regularly recorded the property of the householder, both where the family lived

68

Apollophanes aged 15, W.Chrest. 198.2 (240 BC), would be of taxable age in Roman and probably also Ptolemaic Egypt; see below Chapter 3, n. 38. P.Tebt.inv. 14190 + 14234 (250/249 BC) is an occupational register including children and ages. 69 9 (after 251/250 BC). The marginal figures, all high (from 55 minimum) and rounded, found in P.Mon.inv. 344 + 346 (c. 180 Be), may be ages relevant rather to military liability: ii.3, 16; iii.5; iv.13, all 60 years; iv.20, 50; v.7, 55; vii.41, 60; ix.35, 70; x.IO, 55; x.13, 80; xi.18, 60; xi.27, 70; xiii.37, 55; xviii.6, 55; xviii.14, 70; xviii.16, 60. 7° 2.278-446 (with sheep, goats and pigs), cf. 216-242 (cows and pigs), 243-267 (sheep and pigs); SB xxu 15370 (151/150 or 140/J39 BC), a register of livestock declarations eis ta halika of Year 31, listing animals and their herdsmen. For further declarations of Leia, see below Chapter 6, n. 6.

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and other family property. 71 In Ptolemaic Egypt the registration of taxable property is documented from early in the reign of Ptolemy II. The first royal order known for the registration of property (in this case land) is connected with the apomoira-tax, the levy dedicated to the cult of Arsinoe II, deified queen of Ptolemy II Pbiladelphus. All vineyards and orchards with their produce were to be registered by royal scribes for Year 22 (264/263 BC). Forcleruchic land and gift-estates, thecleruchs themselves and estate-holders were responsible for registration; sacred land with its produce was separately treated.72 The double procedure is noteworthy the registration by royal scribes for some and self-declaration for others. The declaration of agricultural produce as specified in these rulings occurs in two of our household declarations (nos. 3-4).7 3 Some years later came the royal order, already mentioned, of Thoth Year 28 (November 258 BC) requiring the registration of the entire land of Egypt and its produce. Like their predecessors, the Ptolemies collected information in many different ways and the census is just one of a range of recording activities. Consideration of others of these may help to fill in the gaps in our picture. Under Ptolemy III Euergetes I a royal decree in Panemos Year 19 (November/December 229 BC) instituted a systematic registration of property in connection with a 2 per cent fiscal levy.74 In the (fragmentary) decree that records this, mention is made of those absent on military service and (probably) others away from home. Responsibility for the registration of property was to lie with household-heads on behalf of their relatives; parents, brothers and sisters are named, with wives, daughters and sons probably there in the missing part of the text (C.Ord.Ptol. 28.1-6\Different arrangements were made for Alexandria, other cities and for the rest of Egypt, where declarations (together with valuations) were to be made in writing to the nome strategoi and those responsible. The provisions of this decree would seem to take account of many of the problems likely to have occurred in the census earlier - the registration of those away from home, the responsibility for registration, different procedures for town and countryside. Twenty years later, in Year 14 of Ptolemy IV Philopator (209 BC), a further royal decree appears to have ordered a similar comprehensive registration and valuation of property subject to tax. Each and every 71

Hombert and Preaux (1952), 108-13; Bagnall and Friei;(1994), 13-14. Since the information in this form would not be of use in the formation of topographical registers, such declarations probably served a fiscal aim. 72 P.Rev. 36, cf. 29 (259 Be); P.KOlnvn 314 (8 July 257 BC) records a garden on sacred land subject to registration (with the royal scribes) but not to the apomoira. On procedures, see further Clarysse and Vandorpe (1998), 8-17. 73 Cf. SB I 4307 = W.Chrest. 241 (third century BC), for a separate declaration of produce. 74 C.Ord.Ptol. 28 (229 BC).

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property owner was required to accept a measurement and valuation of his (or her) house 75 and then to register the result with several authorities.76 The order caused problems since, it was claimed, in the sowing period insufficient time had been allowed for the two operations.77 Surviving declarations, however, show that the royal order was widely followed and, as required, property was registered by the end of the month of Phaophi of the same year (13 November-12 December 209 Bc).78 Similar orders for registration continued to be made from time to time.79 The relevance of these different royal orders for the history of the census is threefold. First, as already noted, it is clear that registration of various kinds was regular Ptolemaic practice. Starting with landed property under Ptolemy II (if not before), under Ptolemy III this registration was extended to include further property and possessions. By this reign the new administration was reasonably well established, with a system that functioned in writing and a sufficient number of Greek-writing scribes to impose a comprehensive declaration of property. 80 Both the extent of the involvement of private individuals in these procedures and the degree of paperwork involved are notable. Even if professional scribes were employed, as was certainly the case, the pervasiveness of the written declarations envisaged in these royal orders belongs to a developed bureaucratic system. It is hardly surprising that registration of the population was joined to that of land and property. Secondly to note is the fiscal application of all these forms of registration. It was in a fiscal context that household declarations were made, and though only a handful survive they would seem to indicate a full-scale census operation. As suggested above, experience gained in earlier operations was probably applied on later occasions. Thirdly to note is the repetition of royal orders for different registrations. Similar royal orders issued both in 229 and 209 BC,and possibly even earlier, for the registration and valuation of property may suggest that operations 75 W.Chrest. 224.1-11 (12 December 209 BC), declaration of Sebthos daughter of Haros; on the changing rates of the transfer tax, see Vleeming (1992). 76 The basilikos grammateus: W.Chrest. 222 (16 November 209 Be); P.Edfou 5 (January 208 BC); the oikonomos and the basilikos grammateus: W.Chrest. 224 (12 December 209 BC); P.Lond. VII 2189 (IO Dec. 209 BC); P.Cair.inv. 10295; the epimeletes: UPZ I 116 (209/208 BC). 77 P.Edfou 5 (January 208 Be), for problems and some extension allowed by the dioiketes Theogenes; cf. P.Tebt. III 705 (209 BC), for the circulation of similar information (again by Theogenes). 78 W.Chrest. 221 = UPZ I I 16 (209/208 BC), Memphis; P.Lond. III 1200 (pp. 2-3) (20 Oct. 209 BC), Thebaid, payment record (with archiphylakites and topogrammateus involved); W.Chrest. 222 (16 November 209 BC), Arsinoite; P.Lond. vn 2189 (IO Dec. 209 BC), Arsinoite; W.Chrest. 224 (12 December 209 BC), Arsinoite; cf. C.Ord.Ptol. All. 28-32. 79 SB xxn 15370.8-16 (151/150 or 140/139 Bc), declaration of grain made to the basilikos grammateus by a cavalry cleruch within eight days, according to the established order (apographomai kata to ekkeimenon prostagma). 80 Most early declarations of animals are in demotic, see below Chapter 6, n. 6.

CENSUS

OPERATION

of this kind took place on occasion rather than on a regular basis. 81 The same was probably the case with household declarations. The early history of the census in Egypt under the Romans further suggests that the system they inherited was spasmodic rather than regular. It is clear from their survival that personal declarations formed part of the Ptolemaic census, but how universal was this system and how early did it start? The number of scribes involved, the degree of Greek literacy and the familiarity of the general population with a bureaucracy that functioned in writing are all relevant considerations. Egypt had long been a country of scribes; a system of bureaucratic records was nothing new. This was not the first time Egyptian scribes had switched to a conqueror's language and language flexibility is a feature of scribal classes. In whichever language a declaration was made it could easily be written down in Greek. The first language of a household-head required to make a declaration was not therefore crucial. Universal competence in Greek was no prerequisite for such a system. It could well have started earlier despite the fact that records survive only from under Ptolemy II. How such a system might function is nowhere recorded. Householdheads responsible for a written declaration may have been required to attend a central office in their own village or, perhaps, the central village of their tax-district. 82 Alternatively, peripatetic officials may have turned up at the doors of houses in the village to record the oral declarations of their occupants. The latter scenario seems more likely. The composition of the house-by-house tax-registers and the parallel structure of the landsurvey suggest a degree of official involvement on the ground. Tht interesting division of responsibility in data-collection that is outlined above in the rulings concerned with the apomoira is suggestive in this context. It was royal scribes who were primarily responsible for registering the vineyards and orchard-land subject to this levy; cleruchs, however, and other estate-holders were allowed to take responsibility for their own registration. 83 It could well be that outside the cities a similar practice of registration by royal officials was followed in the household census, while within the cities personal declaration was the rule. This would be consistent with surviving declarations. On the other hand, the parallel practice of property registration might suggest that the universal submission by household-heads of written declarations was the rule, at least from the reign of Ptolemy II. Only the discovery of further documents will allow us to know for sure whether personal household declarations were universally 'required in the Ptolemaic census, as later under the Romans. Even if this 81

The twenty-year interval is probably uot significant; as more documents are found, the picture tends to change. 82 For these units, see Chapter 4 below. 83 Seen. 72 above.

27

2 THE

CENSUS

were the case, the royal decree affecting Phoenicia and Syria discussed above suggests that official checking round the villages is likely to have formed part of a double system of data-collection. 84 Surviving evidence, in this respect, has served us ill; the argument from silence is never compelling. Nevertheless, from the handful of declarations that do survive it is clear that full household declarations tied to the salt-tax levy were required from time to time, for at least a limited section of the population - the army perhaps and the city-dwellers who feature in these examples. As such, these examples may form an important indication of the way that the bureaucratic tide was running; they may indeed stand as evidence for an operation that was more widespread. 85 On the whole, the evidence seems in favour of an irregular household census compiled on the basis of written declarations, together with household listing according to occupation. How early this started is on present evidence unknown, though the general system probably went back before the conquest. Under the Ptolemies information on the country's population remained important in the levy of labour for dyke work. 86 The Ptolemaic innovation was the close connection of the population census to a salt-tax paid in cash. The documents supporting such a view are all from the third century BC, from the reigns of Ptolemy II and Ptolemy III. This is likely to represent the result of chance. As was the case with the land-survey, operations of this kind, even if in changing form, probably continued as long as the Ptolemies ruled. Whether or not declarations were universally required for the Ptolemaic census, population lists based on such information were certainly prepared by responsible officials. The identity of these officials, who were further involved in the fiscal application of the operation, may now be considered.

The officials involved

Officials involved in census matters at village level, whether or not they played a prime role in the original counting operation, were always important in the control that they exercised over population listings. For unless a counting from first principles is to take place on an annual basis, the updating of existing lists is a key activity and one which affects the lives of all who pay taxes within that community. In either case, the role was a 84 C.Ord.Ptol. 21-22 (260 BC). 85 From Roman Egypt, more declarations survive from the towns than from villages, Bagnall and Frier (1994), 6. 86 UPZn

157 (242/241 BC), records those exempted through absence, age, incapacity, or protected occupation; for those incapable, adynatoi (1.23), cf. the 'miserabili' of Florence, Herlihy and KlapischZuber (1985), 19.

28

THE

OFFICIALS

INVOLVED

responsible one, one also that was open to abuse. In the land survey it was the village scribe (kiJmogrammateus) who was responsible for penning the different surveys, though these were probably compiled with the aid of professional surveyors who made a round of villages, as in the preparation of the crop survey.87 The village scribe may well have been the key person also for population registers, which ended up together in the same office. In one case, from the second century BC, a salt-tax register is specifically prepared by the village scribe of the south Fayum villages of Berenikis Thesmophorou and Ibion Argaiou. 88 Earlier references are inexplicit, though suggestive: a village scribe with some form of authority in a salt-tax dispute and village scribes mentioned together with the royal scribe at the start of a salt-tax register. 89 It was, then, most probably from the village scribe's office that population lists were prepared for the central offices for the later use of those involved in the subsequent collection of taxes. Within the village, their local knowledge would serve these scribes well in the collection and checking -of information. They knew the streets and where the houses lay, the families who lived there and those that had moved. Some villages or hamlets were, however, too small to have a village scribe; where responsibility lay for these smaller hamlets may well have been contested.9° Under the general supervision of the name's royal scribe, the village scribe was in an influential position as he drew up these lists. His, perhaps, was the final decision as to what constituted a household. In the compilation of the second form of register, lists by occupation (kat' ethnos), the cooperation of local representatives of different professional groups must have been essential. We can only speculate as to who had the final deci~ion on the category chosen in cases where an individual had dual employment.9' Perhaps this lay with the village scribe. Such categorisations might have had important fiscal implications and if it was the village scribe who decided, then one of the advantages of the post is clear. This was an appointment in the new administration that men competed to obtain. 92 And once in post, 87 Most clearly seen in the second-century BC Kerkeosiris surveys penned by Menches, Crawford (1971), 11, 29-30; Verhoogt (1998), 133-9. 88 51.1-4 (181/180 or 157/156 BC), a register organised by individual and occupation (kat' andra kai kat' ethnos). For population registers from the same office as land surveys, see 46 and 49 verso; P.Tebt. 1 24.53-54 (117 BC), village scribes responsible for both crop summary and population registers (kat' andra graphai). 89 P.Cairo Zen. II 59275.18 (251 BC); 12.5-6 (243-217 BC). 9° 3.56-7 (229 BC), village scribes in 4 out of 7 villages,in district B; 184-5, in 4 or more out of 7 villages of district C. The practice of describing some settlements as 'around' (peri) another may 1 indicate the base of their responsible scribes, cf. P.Sorb. r 56.6, 13, 19, 20 (215 BC). 9' See above n. 45, for possible double registration of the same individual. In a category register of sculptors, family members recorded in different registers are specified, P.Tebt.inv. 14190 + 14234.i.9-rn, carpenters; ii.13, blacksmith (250/249 Bc). 92 For a second-century BC example, cf. P.Tebt. 19 ( 119 BC), Menches' payment to obtain appointment in Kerkeosiris.

29

2 THE

CENSUS

we may assume that village scribes would use their positiou to protect their family interests. Such, perhaps, is the explanation for the three blank liues that follow the name of the village scribe in 4.65 (254-23 I BC).By keeping his own family off the relevant lists, a village scribe might benefit his family, just as he offered protection to others, to the detriment of the royal revenue. There were other, less obvious, ways in which those connected might benefit from a relative's post in the administration. In grouping under his household a large number of family dependants, a village scribe could exteud to these the status that he himself enjoyed; there were no trade taxes that we know of to be paid by scribes. Such may be the explanatiou for the unusually large household of 13 (7 of them male) under the rubric of village scribe in one recorded village in 229 Bc.93 The village scribe may have played a primary role in the census operation, with personal responsibility for going round to register the population, or his may have been a secondary role, the compilation of local registers from iudividual declarations, as required from time to time, and keeping these up-to-date. In either case, census responsibility will have been an important aspect of the job. But the village scribe was not alone iu this exercise. The one recorded addressee of a household declaration is not a village scribe but almost certainly a tax-collector. 94 Just as property declarations were made to a range of officials - to the epimeletes, the oikonomos and the royal scribe 95- so it may be that household declarations were directed to more than oue recipient. But we do uot know for sure. It remains extremely difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish the operations of census and the fiscal activities that followed. Those involved with each belonged to the administration and were all of them, potentially, men of influence. Within a bureaucracy control of those in post is normally built into a hierarchical structure. How far the role of village scribe was controlled by superior officers is hard to discern. In the census, as in the operation of the land-survey, within the villages of Egypt it was the village scribe who appears to have played a key role. How the Ptolernaic ceusus operated in the towns and cities rernaius unknown. 96

SEPARATE

COUNTING

ou active service. Separate army ceusus makes administrative sense, though in Republicau Rome, where the military role of the census was so irnportaut and the roles of citizen and soldier were so entwiued, separate listing was the exception rather than the rule.97 In Egypt, the fiscal emphasis was more irnportaut. Reservist troops settled on the land as cleruchs with plots of land (their kleroi) retaiued au army affiliation to facilitate their call-up for active service. This military organisatiou affected many aspects of their land and lives. A separate army census is clear both from the separate numbers for army uuits in the summary figures for the Arsinoite norne preserved in 1.32-58 and from the separate listing of household details for army families (including their livestock but without their children) in 2 (229 BC).98 In the same text, army details are again kept separate from civilian figures in the report for the village of Per-Herner filed late by Phanesis son of Haros. 99 Discrete records might also be made for army groups. 47.1-2 (230 BC), the Greek record of a group of epigonoi, 100 is actually headed 'registration for the salt-tax' (apographe halikon); the same term was also applied to the fuller form (including children) of iudividual household declarations.' 0 ' The verso coutains a listiug of cavalry households. It appears that the army authorities were responsible for collecting this information and passing it on. Since, however, the army units - or at least the cleruchs - were scattered amougst the villages, this method of registration no doubt also served to set these Greeks apart from the rest of the rural population. Those actually involved iu these operations are rarely recorded. In 1.48 an army scribe (grammateus) Herrnokrates is named as the sourct of the figures for serving cavalry. Elsewhere army scribes were concerned with army pay. 102 In a similar but somewhat later text, epistatai are connected with taxatiou on the land of cavalry cleruchs settled in the countryside. 103 It is clear that, at least iu the third century BC, separate officials were responsible for controlling the census of army families with respect to both their land and their households. As already noted, census information might be compiled in many differeut forms, sometimes separate, sometimes overlapping. A variety oflistings took place and the form of the register affects the uature of the listing. In

Separate counting Some groups appear to have undergone a separate census. The most important of these is the army, both those settled on the land as cleruchs and those 93 3.56-57 (229 Be); see below Chapter 3, n. 106 for a similar case (paidotribai). 94 Theophilos: P.Frankf. 5 verso (241/240 BC),with n. 64 above. 95 See, most recently, P.Heid. vn 390-J92, introduction. 96 See Bagnall and Frier (1994), 18, for differences in the towns and the villages of Roman Egypt.

30

97 Nicolet (1980), 67. 98 2.278-411 (cavalry), 412-440 (cavalry veterans), at the end of the tax-district, cf. Chapter 5, n. 146; for the civilian population, livestock details were excerpted and added at the end of a village, 2.216267; in 45.1 (243-217 BC),army details precede civilian figures. 99 2,453-455. JOoFor epigonoi, see below Chapter 5, n. 153. JOI P.Tebt. m 814,45 (227 Be?). rn2 Lesquier (19JI), rno-1; UPZII 206.1-2; 207.1-2 (130 BC),from Thebes. w3 P.Petrie III 72 (d).IO (late third century BC),hoi kath' hipparchian epistatai; cf. P.Tebt. III 746.33 (243 BC).

31

2 THE

CENSUS

THE

CENSUS

CHARACTERISED

some surveys military men appear integrated amidst the civilian population. So, in a house-by-house survey from sometime after 251/250 BC, cleruchs (settlers with 25 and roo arouras), some other soldiers and army veterans are found recorded as household-heads amongst others of the village. rn4 In several later registers, epigonoi are listed alongside civilian occupational groups. rnsThe ambiguity of the status of these army settlers may be seen in these differing listings. They lived intermingled with the regular villagers of the Egyptian countryside, but in respect of the census and taxes they might receive different treatment. A second group for whom some separate census listing may have taken place is the work-force on the large estates of government officials, as illustrated particularly in the Zenon archive from the middle of the third century BC. On the estates of Apollonios, dioiketes of Ptolemy II, the authority of his local steward Zenon appears often to have replaced that of the regular royal officials. A letter to Zenon dated r April 257 BC suggests that representatives on these estates had some responsibility for ensuring the registration of their workers: rn 5

lists, however, on which these dependants were inscribed were probably the regular lists of the villages where they lived. In this respect, perhaps, they differed from the army. We are left with one further group which causes problems to anyone who attempts to organise a census: those with no regular address. Those away from home, on a temporary or a long-term basis, nomads too and other homeless people, are well placed to escape a counting, especially if no specific date is set aside for a census. The special provisions for those visiting an area, as for those away from home or under arms, which are made in Ptolemy III' s order for property declaration rn 7 suggest that, by then at least, the administration was well aware of the problem. How, and how far, this was solved for counting the people is not yet clear. It is possible that allophyloi in kat' ethnos lists, used both as an individual and as a category designation, are 'those from elsewhere' as temporary residents in a place. This is far from certain and the problem remains. rns

Nikon to Zenon, greetings. As you wrote, we have registered with those in charge of the salt-tax [number] of persons, together with those who came from you. Farewell. Year 28, Mecheir 8.

As we have seen, the existence under the Ptolemies of a census, as opposed to just fiscal registers, 10 9 is implied by surviving household declarations that register not just adult taxpayers but also all the children living at home. Though certainly applied to fiscal ends, the operation had a wider scope. Under the Romans, at least from AD 47/8, a recount took place every fourteen years. 1 rn Under the Ptolemies, it seems likely, a periodic census was not yet in place. How often a recount occurred is as yet unclear. c Once the population was counted, the information was passed on up the line to Alexandria. The different stages ofrecord - village, meris, nome may be indicated by the tax-registers (see Chapter 4 below), but little raw census data has survived. From the Ptolemaic period there is nothing like the composite census rolls, the tomoi synkollesimoi, of the Roman period made up of individual household declarations, glued together in a strip, which might be copied for transfer to central records. m Once the capital had moved from Memphis, an office in Alexandria will have been the final destination of these data. Whether this was the katalogeion where, from the reign of Philopator, priests of Dionysus were required to register their cultic

[Docket on back:] Year 28, Dystros I I. For Zenon. Nikon on persons registered for the salt-tax.

The month ofMecheir (April) was right at the start of the financial year, and at this time Zenon was travelling in the Delta north of Mendes, together with Apollonios. His concern shown here for the proper registration of workers on the Memphite estate of his master is that of a careful official with promotion clearly in mind. In these early days, when the distinction between private and official functions was regularly blurred, the cooperation of men of influence in the institutions of the state might be counted on and even required. With a network of their own employees on the ground, the big men of the area like Apollonios might play their part in aiding a key operation - the registration of all - so taxes could be collected. The census

The censns characterised

104

9.6, 8, 16, 18, 21, 26, 28, 36, 67 (after 251/250 BC), cf. 9, 13, 68, ('men without fields', perhaps those awaiting a kleros); note the shrine of Anoubis in the midst of this military settlement and cf. P.Mon.inv. 344 + 346 (c. 180 BC). w 5 15.2 (third or second century BC), at the start, cf. 9, machimoi; 49.221 (second century BC), among other designations; 50.51, 375 (second century BC), perhaps at the end; cf. 51.6 (181/180 or 1571I56 BC), for rno-aroura cleruchs at the start of a village list; P.Mon.inv. 243.viii.17 (c. 180 BC) and 347.iii.1 (second century BC), among other ethne. 6 P.Lond. VII 1936.1. I0

32

108 C.Ord.Ptol. 28.19-23 (229 BC). See further Chapter 5, 'Allophyloi', below. So Rathbone (1993), 92. ':'i:wBagnall and Frier (1994), 2-5, possibly preceded by four general censuses at seven-year intervals under Augustus. m E.g. P.Brux.inv. E.7616, edited by Hombert and Preaux (1952); see Shelton, P.Cair.Mich. II p. 2, on cross referencing.

w1

w9

33

2 THE

CENSUS

duties, is uncertain. If not this, then some similar office formed the final resting place for the hundreds of rolls which were periodically forwarded from throughout the land to the capital of the country. What real purpose these served or how they were employed will be discussed in the next chapter. A final feature of the census we may consider is the administrative language developed in this context. For as bureaucratic operations become established and multiply, those who run them also learn to use a technical language. In the land-survey, different categories of land and the different forms of survey acquired a special terminology. m So, in the operation of the census there soon developed a new bureaucratic vocabulary in Greek. Somata, 'persons', the word elsewhere used for slaves, was now the unit of reckoning in the census and related operations; rmt ('men') served as the demotic equivalent. rr 3 Somata were further defined as thelyka ('female')II4 or arsenika (male), s-J:zm.tor J:zwtin demotic. rr5 Ethnos in the sense of 'occupation' or 'category' will be discussed further below. Like land, persons exempted from a tax were termed hypologoi; below the taxable level is the implication here.' 16 In the translations of our texts, we have retained this somewhat stilted vocabulary as an important indication of a special language, the use of which would serve to mark and set apart the bureaucratic class of scribes and other officials involved. With origins obscure and timing uncertain, the Ptolemaic census nevertheless marked an important change in the government of Egypt under the new Macedonian regime. In counting the people, the aim of the new rulers was now the levy of taxes rather than the exploitation of labour, as earlier under the pharaohs. The dim outlines of the census, known mainly from its later application, are evidence for a system of which written documentation was a defining feature. The system itself was a fluid one and surviving documents suggest that information on the population of Egypt may have been gathered in several ways; both counting and classification formed part of the census.

THE

CENSUS

CHARACTERISED

The registration of real estate in this period appears to belong to a separate system. As the Ptolemaic bureaucracy developed, with Greek increasingly the language of preference, a distinctive terminology evolved. The written declarations of the census and the registers it produced form an important part of this process. Their fiscal application is the subject of the next chapter.

rr 2 E.g. abrochos, embrochos, chersos, halmyris, as categories of uncultivated land; on kata phyllon, see Cuvigny (1985), 107-8. Bonneau (1993), 3, rightly points out that the vocabulary of irrigation must have preceded Alexander. For similar expressions in demotic, see de Cenival (1980), 194 and 199, n. 3. 113 See P.Count indices. For rmt or rmt-s: 8.1, 9; 53.51, 103, etc.; for sOma in this sense: UPZ II 157.5 (242/241 BC), logizomena sOmata; WChrest. 55 = C.Pap.Jud. 33.7 (third century BC); WChrest. 198.6 (240 BC). Hanauer (1987) translates sOmata as 'Steuersubjekte'. Gogol's (dead) souls come to mind; cf. CPR xxn 38.14 and 18 (eighth century AD),psychai ('souls') in a similar context. 11 4 Only in 49 (second century BC) is gynaikeia used in the place of thelyka. 115 2.398-399 (229 BC). 116 The physical lay-out of a tax-register or survey, where exemptions came below a global figure, may also be involved, 22.u; 23.12, 14 (254-231 BC); cf. P.Petrie 114 (II).3 (254 BC), for the related verb hypologein.

34

35

THE

3

The salt-tax and other taxes

And in wealthhe would surpass all other kings, So much each day reaches his rich halls from all around Theocritus,Idyll xvn 95~97 At Elephantine in Upper Egypt on 12 February 246 BC, Philon's daughter Philotera and her new man Akesandros son of Nikanor drew up a prenuptial agreement. Still dated by the recently deceased Ptolemy II Philadelphus, the ungrammatical and somewhat fragmentary contract ran as follows: 1 Philotera daughter of Phil on, a woman of Crete, makes an agreement with Akesandros son of Nikanor, a Macedonian. If I start out at your place before I am through with Peron I agree to pay Akesandros 40 drachmas. And, on the understanding that Akesandros has both my interests and wellbeing in mind, Philotera undertakes to bring into the marriage for him all that belongs to her. Year 39 Choiach 22 (12 February 246 BC). Philotera will come to join Akesandros on Tybi r (21 February). [Akesandros son of Ni]kanor, Macedonian, makes an agreement with Philotera daughter of Philon, [a woman of Crete], to take you as my wife and to provide for you the clothing of[ ... that] I have, shoes, [... ]. Akesandros will feed her, making provision for her salt-tax [ ].

...

Whatever the circumstances that preceded this agreement, in undertaking to meet his wife's salt-tax Akesandros drew attention to what will have been one of her more pressing needs. Along with food and clothing, payment of a wife's annual salt-tax was a valid charge on a husband. (What of course this couple could not have known was that in a few years its rate would be halved.) The word for salt-tax, halike, here stands as the object of the verb sitopoiein, 'to provide food (or flour)', and it may be that in this somewhat strange construction reference was being made to the actual salt for which the monetary tax was levied. For although in practice the salt-tax became a standard capitation charge, some form of connection with actual salt remained. Salt, along with bread, has always been recognised as a necessity of life. Needed for healthy survival by both man and animal, through most 1

BGU vr 1463 + BL (246 BC);Ptolemy III Euergetes I had probably succeeded in Alexandria on 28 January, OGIS 56. 15- I 6. Note the (standard) virilocal nature of what appears to be a second marriage (on the term virilocal, cf. p. 234).

SALT-TAX

AND OTHER

TAXES

of history it has also served for the preservation of food: for meat, fish and vegetables, in ancient Egypt as elsewhere.2 The sharing of salt (as of bread) has regularly been considered a mark of friendship, of hospitality and esteem. To share salt is to bury differences, to join together or to belong. When in the difficult later years of Ptolemy VIII and his two wives, troubles between the neighbouring communities of Krokodilon polis and Hermonthis were eventually brought to a close, the two delegations of young men shared salt as a sign of their new accord. 3 Two millennia later in British India, a contract iu the mercenary army was metaphorically expressed as 'having eaten the Company's salt'; 4 it was in protest at the British monopoly on the mannfacture and sale of this commodity that in Gujarat Mahatma Gandhi initiated his Salt March in 1930.5 III other, symbolic, contexts, salt has positive connotations: salaries and 'being worth one's salt' may both be thought desirable. Such a vital commodity is an obvious object for tax. Its production needs some investment; this might be organised, even monopolised, by the state. Most important of all, salt-pans, deposits and quarries can all be easily checked. Not surprisingly, therefore, taxation of salt has a history as far back as records go. Direct taxes on production but also consumption, taxes on transport or trade, monopolies at different levels and levies on distribution are all known from different periods and places as methods of revenue-raising, imposed ou either a long-term basis or for a limited period only. In sixth-century BC Ephesus, for instance, the temple of Artemis was built in part from revenue from the taxing of salt, and under the Roman Republic the efficient censors of 204 BC raised a new tax in RoQ1eand Italy, described as an annona salaria. 6 The city of Byzantium is reported as gaining a third of its revenues from state monopolies, which included the sale of salt,7 though Lysimachus' attempt to impose such a tax at Tragasae in the Troad was foiled. 8 Similarly in near contemporary China under the Former Han (second and first centuries BC), a state monopoly of the salt-indnstry was practised; the money raised from this monopoly together with one on iron paid for the Great Wall.9 In India, according to Pliny, salt produced greater royal revenue than did either gold or pearls. rn And later in France, the notorions 'gabelle' (from the Arabic word for 'tax', )

2

Herodotus II 77; Pliny, HN xxxr 41.88. Lovejoy (1986), 1-IO, provides an excellent introduction to the subject; in Egypt, as in the central Sudan studied by Lovejoy, many different forms of salt occur naturally. 4 Cohn (1987), 640, 5 Kurlansky (2002), 343-53. 3 WChrest. I 1.A.55-59 (123 BC). 6 Jeffery (1990), 339,344, 414-15, no. 53, pl. 66, Ephesus; Livy xx1x 37.3, the censors M. Livius 'Salinator' and C. Claudius; Rostovtzeff (1953), 309, with further examples. 7 [Aristotle], Dec. n 2.20 (1346b). 8 Athenaeus III 73d, the salt disappeared, only to reappear when the tax was lifted. 9 Twitchett and Loewe (1986), 104; Kurlansky (2002), 3r. 10 Pliny, HN XXXI77; 73-89 is of general interest.

37

3

THE

SALT-TAX

AND

OTHER

TAXES

al-qabala) was a salt-tax introduced in the fourteenth century, developed and expanded to produce an increasing revenue under the Ancien Regime. With a brief interlude during the Revolution, the gabelle continued in different local forms for some six hundred years; it was only abolished in 1945. 11 The gabelle is just one example of the taxability of this crucial commodity. Throughout history and from all over the world, there are many, further examples.

Salt in Ptolemaic Egypt In Ptolemaic Egypt salt came in two main forms: it was either mined or panned. 12 At Pelousion on the Mediterranean coast, the pickling factories mentioned by Herodotus were probably accompanied by salt-pans; '3 mined salt in contrast came from various sources and special barges were used for its transport. 14 'Carrier of [?] salt', perhaps 'carrier of mined salt' was a recognised occupation; in villages where such carriers are found a sizeable group might be involved in this task. ' 5 The commerce of salt was controlled, though nothing comparable to the detailed price-fixing of the later Tebtynis salt-merchants is known from under the Ptolemies. 16 At least in the second century BC, the retail trade of salt was put up for auction by the royal administration, 17 and some texts have been taken to show that some form of tax on salt consumption was also in operation. 18 But the main salt-tax

Bergier (1982), 199; Kurlansky (2002), 225-37. On different modes of salt production, see Lovejoy (1986), 53-88. 13 Herodotus II 15; 113; cf. Diodorus Siculus I 60.7-8, on salt at Rhinokoloura, with Carrez-Maratray (1999), 429-30. 1 4 P.Sorb. I 35 = SB XVI 12416.8---g(225 BC), hats oryktos, probably from Arsinoe in the Themistos division, see Cadell (1966), 274---6,280; TCD Pap.Gr.inv. 273.11 (second century Be), ed. McGing (2002), hats oryktos pounded illegally; for salt-barges, kerkouroi halegoi, in practice filled with wheat, see P.Erasm. II 25.8; 37.7 (152 BC); 44.5 (151 Be); cf. P.Hib. I 152 (c. 250 BC), a cargo of salt and lotus. 15 2.rn1-145, 191 (229 BC), 43 (22 of them male) attached to one village. Their separate listing, following the total of other occupations (cf. line 100, 'the end'), perhaps suggests that they travelled between different locations. 16 P.Mich. v 245 (AD 47). The quarter of the capital of the Arsinoite name named for its salt-stores (halopOlia) is again only known for the Roman period, Daris (1981), 143. On Ptolemaic hals, see Bogaert (1998---g),78; Davies (2001), 24---6,discusses salt as a key commodity. 1 7 P.Tebt. III 732 (c. 142 BC). 18 Preaux (1939), 249-50, quoting P.Petrie III 121 (b) ii.I (third century BC), ep(Onia) halos, cf. l.5; cf. P.Tebt. III 701.192 (236 BC), halos, 290 dr. I ob. in a list of taxes collected for the first six months of the fiscal year. Neither reference is necessarily to salt; both may refer to the regular salt-tax, the halike, cf. P.Hal. 1.264 (c. 256 Be), tau halos to telos; 290 dr, 1 ob. in P.Tebt. III 701.192 could represent the halike for some 629 individuals (319 m. + 310 f.) at Crate. For ep6nia halikOn as the salt-tax on Apollonios' estate, cf. P.Cairo Zen. II 59206.45-47 (254 BC). There is no good evidence here for any tax on salt as a commodity. II 12

38

RECONSTRUCTING

THE

PTOLEMAIC

SALT-TAX

levied in this period was the capitation tax that was known in Greek as halike, 19 dni ~m3 or ~g,~m3 in demotic.2° The connection between this salt-tax and the actual provision of salt remains mysterious, though a recently published papyrus from Dublin throws some light on the subject. In a deposition addressed to Ptolemaios, (royal) friend and epimeletes, from one Demetrios, Demetrios is named as the registrar or controller, the antigraphomenos, of the halike of the Lykopolite nome. 21 He describes catching a local, a certain Tothoes, in the act of pounding up quarried salt in his own home. Tothoes was arrested, the salt confiscated and his house put under seal. Some matter was still outstanding, and Demetrios complains about some workers from Arabon Kome in the same nome. Much is obscure but what Demetrios' report makes clear is that, to some degree, the salt-tax and salt distribution came under the same administration, at least in the second century BC. 22

Reconstructing the Ptolemaic salt-tax The main Ptolemaic salt-tax, the halike, is first known from Year 22 of Ptolemy II Philadelphus (264/263 BC). 23 It may of course have started earlier, though the survival of receipts for other taxes from earlier in the reign suggests it was an innovation at this time, when it may have replaced the earlier 'yoke-tax', a capitation charge on males (only). 24 These were years when Ptolemy II, perhaps with a Syrian war already in mind, was actively interested in the tax-regime of his kingdom. 25 The new salt-tax involved a comprehensive charge that lay at the centre of the Pt@lemaic tax-structure. With very few exceptions (to be discussed below), all adults, both male and female, were liable to this tax. 1

9 For the term, see P.Count index I viii. Hals and halika are alternatives; for different forms used together: 12.135, halikcin, 213, halikes (243-217 Be); P.Tebt. III rn61.24, hal[i]kes, 30, halikan, the same sum (for two males) (c. 226 Be); 30.60, halikan samata, 82, halikes (254-231 BC). 20 !dni !fm3 occurs in ostraka from Elephantine and Pathyris; /;g.!zm3 is used in Thebes. 21 TCD Pap.Gr.inv. 273 (second century Be): Clarysse (1979), rn3; McGing (2002), for edition and discussion. 22 The very damaged demotic tax-undertaking published by Smith and Tait (1984), 43---g,may be relevant here; lines 3 and 4 seem to record a salt-store; the 'work (for) salt' of lines 4 and 12 may involve the provision of salt. 2 3 The earliest salt-tax receipt to date is a demotic ostrakon, 0.Berlin P 6359, from 9 Tooth Year 23 (5 Nov. 263 BC) for the salt-tax for Year 22. In demotic, receipts were normally issued for the tax named as that of the previous fiscal year, so Vleemiqg (1994a), 39, rejected however by Muhs (1996), 183-4; Greek receipts use the fiscal year. As always with this material, new texts and the republication of earlier ones may modify the picture. 2 4 So Muhs (1996), 178-82, the nhb or nht-tax is last found in Yem·21; cf. (1998), 82-3, for a more cautious expression. The rate f~r the y·;ke-tax may have been 4 kite (8 dr.) or even higher, Muhs 25

(1998), 82 n. 87. P.Rev. 36--37, royal decrees of 5 Daisios and 2[] Dias Year 23 (14 June and Dec. 263 BC).

39

3 THE SALT-TAX

AND

OTHER

TAXES

Where precisely the notion of a salt-tax came from is not known, but that salt was a basic requirement - and one that was borrowed, stolen or purchased 26 - is nothing new for this period. The Seleucids had a salt-tax at least from the third century BC, but whether, as argued by Rostovtzeff, these contemporary charges shared a common Persian origin 27 or whether the Seleucids borrowed from the Ptolemies (or indeed vice versa) remains obscure.2 8 A Macedonian origin for a salt-tax should also be considered; this too could explain the ubiquity of salt-taxes in the Hellenistic world. In Hellenistic Macedon some degree of royal control of salt most probably existed, adopted by the Romans on their victory at Pydna in r 68 BC, 2 9 but evidence for an actual tax on salt is lacking until the Byzantine period. 3° Origins, then, are elusive for the Ptolemaic salt-tax, and from nowhere else but Egypt in the ancient Mediterranean world is a salt-tax known to have functioned as a poll tax, a monetary tax, that is, that was levied on almost 1 all adults. More important than origins, and certainly more sure, is the nature of the Ptolemaic halike as a tax that was levied in cash. As a monetary tax in Egypt, the haliki! is likely to be a Ptolemaic innovation. As we have seen, with the Ptolemies Egypt first experienced a currency of its own and an economy that increasingly functioned in cash as well as in kind. A second essential aspect of the Ptolemaic salt-tax was its intimate connection with the census. Census details might have helped in the levy of other taxes too, but it was the halike in particular at which the census was aimed. The registers published in P.Count were originally compiled for the salt-tax levy; it is the halike that links the texts of volume r of our study. To reconstruct the history of the Ptolemaic salt-tax is to attempt a jigsaw lacking some vital pieces. And the pieces that do survive come in different shapes. First, as for many Ptolemaic taxes, we have the receipts that were written on pieces of broken pot or ostraka, some in Greek, some bilingual, the majority penned in demotic. These receipts allow the reconstruction of

LIABILITY

FOR THE

SALT-TAX

the changing rates of the tax. There remains more work to be done on this material, and only when the totality of surviving receipts has been studied by period, payers and provenance can more progress be made.3' Surviving papyrus records, mainly in Greek, provide other pieces to our jigsaw. The issue of a receipt acknowledges the prior payment of tax, and important for the reconstruction of this operation are the dossiers of those involved in salt-tax collection. The publication of CPR XIII in 1987 introduced, for the first time, an extensive tax-collector's dossier from the Themistos meris of the Arsinoite nome in the period 254-231 BC.32 Earlier records were scattered and mainly from the military sector of the population. 33 When put together with the contemporary evidence of P.Lille dem. III ror (4), 34 the Vienna texts published by Harrauer brought to light the collection side of the operation. The final pieces of the jigsaw, as far as they survive, are contained in this edition. These are the bilingual tax-lists drawn up within the administration for use in both the calculation of the salt-tax and its collection. It is these records, made both by household, kat' oikian, and by occupation, kat' ethnos, which underlie this chapter and our study of the salt-tax. 35 Their content and the implications they raise for the history of the salt-tax will be discussed further below.

Liability for the salt-tax Only adults were liable for the salt-tax. This must be the conclusion not only from parallels at other periods of time but also from the family patterns in tax-records that survive (see Chapter 7, below). The poll tax in Roman Egypt was only paid by men. Under the Ptolemies, by contrast, though there were differential rates for the two sexes, both men and women were li~ble. The age at which this liability started is nowhere reported, nor is a cut-off point known. 36 In Roman Egypt, males became liable for poll tax

26

PDryton 29 (rn5 BC), loan of 6 artabas. Possibly the same man is on another occasion found guilty of the theft of salt, 0. Tempeleide dem. I 25 (98/97 BC); perhaps he was a pickler by trade. P Tebt. v n53.71 and n55.19 (114 BC), purchase of salt. 27 Rostovtzeff (1953), 309, with 470; his argument was based on extensive finds of clay halikt-seals from Umk and Seleukeia on the Tigris from the reign of Seleukos II (246-225 BC);cf. Mollo (1996), for more recent finds. For Palestine, see I Mace. 11.35, taxation of salt-pans; rn.29-30, remission for Jews by Demetrios I of tributes (phoroi), the payment on salt (time tou halos) and crown payments (stephanoi). (The repmt by Josephus, AJ XII 142, of an earlier remission made by Antiochus III to the Jews of the salt-tax depends on a textual emendation; if correct it would be an earlier Ptolemaic tax that was being remitted by the Syrian king.) 28 On the Seleucid tax-system more generally, see Sherwin-White and Kuhrt (1993), 71. 29 Livy XLV29. I I, I 3, evidence for state interest in salt, rather than for a specific tax. On the Macedonian tax-system under the kings, see Hatzopoulos (1996), 1437-42. 3° JG x 2:1.24.1, 9, 13, 15 (c. AD 688), halike in Thessalonica.

31 See Clarysse and Thompson (1995), for a preliminary study; cf. Muhs (1998). We hope to study these data further in the future. 32 These texts are re-edited in P.Count as 22-44 and we acknowledge the help of the original editor. 33 E.g. P.Petrie III 72 (226-218 nc); I08 (third century BC); rn9 (249/248 BC); III (238 BC); 112 (222/221 BC); I 17 (third century BC); 121 (third century Be); SB llI 6278 = P.Grad. 5 (230/229 Be); SB llI 6279· = P.Grad. 6 (223/222 BC). 34 The importance of this account was noted by Martin (1986), 166. 35 The te1m kat' oikian, taken from the later Roman census, does not occur in Ptolemaic texts; kat' andra, as in 51.4 (181/180 or 157/156 BC),may be the Ptolemaic term, cf. P.Tebt. I rn3 = W.Chrest. 288.2 (94 or61 BC),with laographia. For the term kat' ethnos, see 3.148 (229 BC)and 51.4 (181/180 or 157/156 BC);for the demotic equivalent of ToVTwv KaT E0vooboltax, tax-payments were beginning to move towards an amalgamated charge. This might be the start of what in the second century BC went under the name of syntaxis. 86 That term, however, is a very general one and is used in a range of contexts. 87 Both halike and syntaxis are found as separate charges 80 81

4.121.

4.145, 149; 34,pastophoros, and 124, servant of the ibis, are both absentee landlords not liable to tax. 82 See 4.6 I n., on Monimos son of Kleandros. 83 P.Cairo Zen. III 59451.1-5 (Ptolemy II), cat-keepers quote a royal exemption; W.Chrest. 385 UPZn 157.25, 34 (242/241 BC), religious dancers, cat-buriers and libation-pourers. 84 OG/S 56.13-15 (238 BC). 8S On this development, see Uebel (1966), 345; van Reden (forthcoming). s6 See Clarysse and Thompson (1995), 226. P.Tebt. I 103 = W.Chrest. 288.1-2 (94 or 61 BC), laogr(aphia) Theogo(nidos) kat' andra telou[nt]On syntaxin, may be relevant; the list of names resembles earlier registers, with family details and some occupations added; the syntaxis rate is uncertain, cf. P.Tebt. r 189 descr. (early first century BC), a logeutes' return for 272 male individuals for syntaxis and epistatikon with three different rates recorded; cf. 209 descr. (first century nc), syntaxis pai(dOn). 87 See Tcherikover (1950), 181-2. On the Ptolemaic syntaxis, see futther Rathbone (1993), 91-2, rightly stressing that only males pay; Tcherikover (1950), 186, a local capitation tax (hardly

=

49

3 THE SALT-TAX

AND

OTHER

in the Roman period, and all in all it seems unlikely that the Ptolemaic halike actually changed its name, despite the growing tendency for other taxes to be paid along with it. 88 There were many different capitation charges in Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt and, despite the absence of receipts, we may be confident that the halike continued to be charged. 89 The most common tax for which joint receipts are known is that on fleeces (erea) which regularly stood at 3.75 obols; this was normally paid by women. 90 Other taxes, with which the salt-tax is found, are the rhabdophorikon (a police-tax for the 'staff-bearers' or 'heavies' who accompanied officials) which stood at an obol,9' the tax on compulsory services (leitourgikon or er/) charged at the high rate of 2 dr.,92 a tax for the inhabitants of Syene (logeia Syeniton) again charged at 2 dr., the income of a server-tax 93 and the so-called veil-tax, both of which are known only from demotic ostraka and texts. 94 Since er/ is also used as the demotic for the logeia Syeniton it may be that this logeia was the local version of the tax known in Thebes as leitourgikon.9 5 Apart from the Syene inhabitants' tax, paid at the Elephantine tax-office, all examples are from Thebes. A preliminary listing of composite receipts, shown in Table 3:2, provides a sense of the changing picture.9 6 Besides these examples of joint receipts, as we shall find below, there are tax-collectors' records which show a whole range of taxes collected and paid together with the salt-tax. As appears the case with the obol-tax, joint contracts for collection and joint administration were most probably involved. So, at Elephantine the salt-tax was reckoned with the shawl or veil-tax (in-sn), standing at 2.75 obols and charged on women only, and in convincing); Wallace (1938), 430, 434, a new poll tax under Philopator (without support). The mysterious epikephalion of P.Tebt. III 701.186 (235 BC)is also in no way relevant to the history of the salt-tax (or the Roman laographia), cf. line 192; so, rightly, Evans (1957), 262. In the Pergamene kingdom after Apamea, a syntaxis was charged on all adult taxpayers, see Ashton ( 1994) with n. 193 below. 88 The Roman halike was (again) charged at 4 obols but on men only and was in addition to the much higher laographia, e.g. P.Amst. I 59.3 (first century BC-AD);P.KOlnII 95.8, 14a (second-third century AD);all examples to date are from the Arsinoite nome. Roman syntaxis: W.Chrest. 200.A.8 (19 Bc), cf. Tcherikover (1950), 188--9. 89 51.3 (181/180 or 157/156 BC);SB XXII 15370.9, 16, 19, 25, 38 (151/150 or 140/139 BC). 9° In O.Tait Bodl. 16 and 0.Tait Bod!. 25 Haroeris may pay for his wife (1.5 ob. salt-tax+ 3.75 ob. fleeces-tax); Uebel (1966), 330, takes the name as that of a woman. 92 Vleeming (1994a), 10. 91 a.Tait Bodi. 14 (236 BC),for rate. 93 Server-tax: Vleeming (1994a), 29-31. Recorded rates, assuming always a salt-tax at rate C, are: 0.0119340 (241 BC), 7 1/3 + 1/8 ob.; 19328 (236 Bc), 7 1/2 + 1/8 (dem.) or 1/4 (gr.) ob.; 19345 (233 BC),7 1/3 + 1/8 ob.; 0.Varia 54 (c. 232 BC),7.5 ob.; 0.IFAO dem. 3-11 (231BC),71/4 1/8 ob. 94 Veil-tax: P.Berl.Eleph.dem. III 13537 verso.9-10 (217 BC), implies a rate of 2.75 obols charged on women only; Muhs (2005), 51-4 (Chapter 3. 1.B), identifies this with the tax on fleeces ('wool-tax'); cf. 2.269 n.; see further, n. 97 below. 95 O. Varia 25.4 and 8 (219 BC),with discussion of the editor. 96 The reading of the second tax in O.OI. 19328 (236 BC)is unclear; Brooklyn 12768 1707 (260 BC), from Pathyris, is even less certain and has not been included here.

50

SALT-TAX

TAXES

RATES

Table 3:2 Salt-tax paid with other taxes Thebes

With the tax on fleeces (erea): O.Tait Bodi. 14 (236 BC), plus rhabdophorikon; O.Tait Petrie 36 (236 Bc);

o.Wilck. 308 (235 BC); a.Tait

Bodi. 16 (234 BC); o.Witek. 1227 (231 BC); O.Ont. I l (230 BC); a.Tait Bodi. 25 (230 BC). With the rhabdophorikon: O.Tait Bodl. 14 (236 BC), plus tax on fleeces; 17 (232 BC). With the tax on compulsory services (leitourgikon, crt): 0.Ashm. Shelton 2 (240 BC). , With the income of a server-tax ('q rmt iw-f-sms): 0.IFAO dem. 3-ro (250 BC), with the obol-tax; 0.0I 19340 (241 Bc); 19328 (236 BC); 19345 (233 BC); 19309 (231/230 BC), plus veil-tax;97 0. Varia 54 (232 BC); O.IFAO dem. 3-II (232 BC), With veil-tax (in sn): O.OI 19309 (231/230 BC), plus server-tax. Elephantine With the tax on inhabitants of Syene (logeia Syeniton, 'rt?): 0. Varia 27 (231 BC); 25 (219 Bc); cf. P.Berl.Eleph.de;,. III 13537 verso.8 (217 BC), for joint collection plus veil-tax.98

217 BC together with the er/ tax, charged on the inhabitants of Syene;99 at

Per-Herner in the Themistos meris of the Arsinoite nome, the place where the salt-tax was paid served also for the guard-tax. roo Those thus involved in taxation, both taxpayers and tax-collectors, were concerned with a range of different charges. , Before leaving the evidence of the ostraka, we may return to the question of how these receipts were used and of why they suddenly came to an end in 219 BC, although the salt-tax levy continued, as indeed did the issue of receipts for other taxes. Developments in the operation of the salt-tax, a process of simplification and procedural innovations, may be the cause. New ways of recording payments may have led to the abandonment of written receipts, thus depriving taxpayers of their earlier proof of payment. It is also worth considering the possibility that salt-tax receipts had earlier

97 Information on texts from the Oriental Institute, Chicago, comes from Brian Muhs, who is to publish them (Muhs (2005)); we should like to thank him for sharing this information. 98 P.Berl.Eleph.dem. III 13535 + 23677.5 (236 BC),records joint responsibility for salt-tax and veiltax (in-ln). C. J. Martin in Porten (1996), 363-5, C32 introduction, interprets in-sn as a tax on cloth paid by weavers; the liability of females only, cf. P.Berl.Eleph.dem. III 13537.9 (217 BC),is against this interpretation. M. Smith, in contrast (1997/8), 199, would prefer to read in-nw in the earlier text: a cloth-tax. 99 P.Berl.Eleph.dem. III 13535 + 23677.5 (236 BC), salt-tax and veil-tax; 13537 verso.9 (217 BC), outstanding dues for salt-tax, veil-tax and crt-tax. 100 2-449 (229 BC),P3 spsp ~m3 P3 cq rs, probably the phylakitikon.

51

3 THE SALT-TAX

AND

OTHER

TAXES

in some way served in the acquisition of salt. On this hypothesis purchase might be spread out over the year with separate receipts for different family members employed on different occasions. This might be a further factor in the separate payment-records for different members of the family. Rarely, however, are the find-spots of ostraka recorded, so whether these derive from a central office or site where once they were handed over in return for salt or, rather, from a private context is seldom known. IOI

Special categories Of capitation charges in Ptolemaic Egypt, the salt-tax was the most pervasive. Most adults, both male and female, were liable for this charge. There were just a few exceptionsrn 2 and it was through the grant of a special tax-status that the Ptolemies privileged certain groups in the new society they were building. To be exempt from the salt-tax was probably the most favoured status. It was also an exemption that affected all family members, not just the individual concerned. The changing groups which enjoyed this privilege form an interesting guide to the development of Ptolemaic policies. The groups concerned will be discussed in greater detail in Chapter 5. Here the emphasis is simply on their identity and on the different processes involved in their exemption. There were important changes in the course of the third century BC, as rates for the salt-tax changed and different groups were added to those exempted, but special tax categories are known from early in the system. From the reign of Ptolemy II Philadelphus a decree of exemption from the salt-tax for certain key categories has been preserved in a letter from the dioiketes Apollonios to one Zoilos, probably oikonomos of the Arsinoite nome:rn 3 Apollonios to Zoilos, greetings. We have exempted the [teachers] of letters, the athletic coaches, th[ ose practising] the affairs of Dionysus, and victors at the games in Alexandria, both the dynastic games and the Ptolemaic festival-games, in accordance with how [the king] has decreed, from the tax on salt, both these individuals and [their household members]. Farewell, Year [ 1.

See O.Elkab gr. pp. 27-8. The comparative rarity of family groupings may suggest the former. The allophyloi deducted from the total of those liable in the Arsinoite nome in 1.16-19.(254-231 BC) were liable in their home names. 103 P.Hal. 1.260-265 (c. 256 BC), A1ro/\/\Wv1osZwl/\w1 xaipEtv. 6:qieiKaµ[Ev] ToV[s TE616acrK6:flovs] TC0vypaµµ6:Twv Kai Tolls1rm60Tpi~as [K]ai T[alls EmTT]8EVovTas] TOmpi T6v /:::,.16vvcrov Kal Tolls VEVtKT]K6[T]as T[6v EvAi\E£av6pEiai]6.y&-iva,Kai TO Bacri/\EtaKai TO TTToi\E[µ]a[i]a,K[a06:mp 0 ~acrii\EVS] 1rpocrTETaXEV, ToCi6:/\0sT6 TEflosrnJToVsT[E]Kai [oiKElous]. Eppw[cro.](hous) [.]. For EmTTJ6EVovTas in line 261, cf. Diodorus Siculus IV 5.4; Artemidorus, Oneir. I 18; for ToVs VEVJKT]K6[T]as T[Ov Ev AflE£av6pelm] 6:y&va in line 262, see Thompson (2000), 393 n. 31; cf. C.Ord.Ptol. All. 15; Le Guen (2001), I 344-5, 1L 16, with different supplements. For Zoilos 'in charge of (the Arsinoite) nome', see P.Lond. VII 1955.1-2 (257 BC); PSI v 509.8-9 (256 BC), as oikonomos. IOI

102

52

SPECIAL

I}

CATEGORIES

The date is broken off, but since Zoilos is recorded in the period 258256 BC this ruling apparently belongs to the same period as the Zenon archive and the earliest years of the salt-tax levy in Egypt (at rate A). In application, the exemption of schoolteachers (didaskaloi) is found in the tax-collectors' texts of 22-23. Here in the records ofliability of the villages of Trikomia and Lagis in the Themistos division of the Arsinoite name teachers are recorded as exempt (hypologoi) and their salt-tax du~s ar~ deducted from the total liability of the village. I 04 Schoolteachers recur in texts from the reign of Ptolemy III Euergetes, when rate C for the salt-tax applied, and it is clear from these that the special status continued in this later period. rns Of the other categories exempted by the royal decree of Ptolemy II, surviving registers record only the athletic coaches, the paidotribai. In the district kat' ethnos listing preserved in 3.40 (229 BC), a single household of paidotribai is recorded consisting of one male with nine females. Whether the women were family or staff is unknown but it is probably the special tax-status of the household-head which explains this unusual menage; like the household-head, all household members would enjoy immunity from the salt-tax. rn6 Those whose concerns were the realm of Dionysus are most likely those involved with the theatre. rn7 Neither these nor victors in tlje different dynastic games of the capital are to date recorded in the occupational salt-tax registers. Yet in the cultural, religious, athletic and dynastic spheres represented by these salt-tax exemptions, we find highlighted particular concerns of Ptolemy II. The king who developed the Museum and Library at Alexandria employed a wide-ranging system of taxes to finance these cultural activities; at the same time, a royal policy of tax-privileges throughout the country emphasised the value given to features of life that were particularly Greek - the language and literature taught in school, the plays performed at religious festivals, the gymnasium and the trained athletes, who now could compete in Alexandria in games that formed part of various new dynastic festivals. In this way, special tax-privileges were used to support both the cultural aims and the administrative needs of the early Ptolemies. An emphasis on things Greek was favoured through the tax-system; a Greek education would be accessible to those now needed to run the new administration. This emphasis on Greek culture was, however, just one side of Ptolemaic policy. rn4 22.12, 18 with Table; 23.13, 30 (254-231 BC) with Tables B:1 and C:1. rns 2.97, 190,461,490; 3.32, 86-87 (229 BC); 8.6 (243-217 BC). Cf. Harris (1989), 132, n. 79, for a possible tax-immunity for teachers at Lampsakos. 106 3.40 (229 BC);cf. 2-486 (229 BC),sixteen doctors (another special category) of whom only six are male. rn7 Rather, for instance, than priests of Dionysus.

53

3

THE

SALT-TAX

AND OTHER

SPECIAL

TAXES

At the same time, control was required; the country needed policing. Again the tax-system was employed and the police of Ptolemaic Egypt, although not exempted in the same way as the categories just considered, were in practice not liable to the salt-tax, since this was set against their wages. ros From the point of view of the tax-collector, police were exempt in much the same way as were the teachers. This is clear from the records of 22 and 23, where (at rate B) policemen and their wives were dedncted from the total of adults in the village. This deduction might come in the initial calculation of the salt and obol-tax liability, as in one example from the village ofTrikomia, ro 9 or else might be made in the form of a credit item at the end of a three-month collection or bank-inpayment record. rro A toparchic register from the period ofrate C for the salt-tax shows that what lay behind this form of record was a simple book transfer, whereby their dues were in effect credited to the tax-collector and set against the policemen's wages as allowances (opsi5nia). m From the point of view of the police, therefore, they were not required to pay the tax, and this privilege was represented as (at least part of) their pay, just as in the case discussed above of the payment for the urgent work required on the Samareia-Kerkeesis dyke in 254 BC. It is for this reason that police are found registered with a liability for the salt-tax, as are the gl-sr in 4 (254-23 I BC). m In practice their liability would be commuted but, from the point of view of the king, this was a book-keeping transaction rather than a real grant of exemption. And further if, as is possible, the allowance was in practice financed in part by the levy of the guard-tax, the phylakitikon, then apparent costs to the crown will have effectively been cancelled out. There is one further aspect to note for the police. In the earlier records, those of rate B, both males and females in this category were in effect deducted. In the later period, at rate C, it was only males who were listed. At the same time as the range of special categories was being extended (see below), the degree of special treatment for police and guards became limited to males, no longer including their wives and other female household members. Salt-tax rates had dropped, the obol-tax had been subsumed but, for the police, change was not altogether change for the good. We can chart the differences, but the rationale for such changes eludes us. In subtle

CATEGORIES

moves, the royal administration was adjusting and changing track; for us the implications of the fine-tuning often remain obscure. A demotic register for a tax-district from the period ofrate C for the salttax provides clear evidence for an extended range of tax-exemptions at this later date. Six categories are recorded here, both male and female, which appear to be special categories that were either exempt from the tax or, if not actually exempt, like the police were at least not liable for it. u3 Together with schoolteachers, are listed doctors (swnw. w) and various, rather unusual, temple appointments, two priestesses of the goddess Demeter and personnel in the Egyptian ibis-cult. Two further categories could unfortunately not be deciphered. In all, these special categories total just 16 (12 male) out of 1,760 adults in the district, less than I per cent of the adult population. 114 The heading to this section differs from that which later introduces the tax-credits made for male members of two groups of guards. 115 Given the inclusion of teachers, it is probably safe to conclude that all the different groups listed here were truly exempt from the salt-tax. Doctors, therefore, and at least two priestly groups had joined the special categories. Whether the extension to doctors was another act of the euergetism of Ptolemy III, we carmot be sure. Already in the period of the B rate for the salt-tax, like policemen and some other professionals, doctors might be identified as such in the registers. u 6 It is, however, only under rate C that special treatment is firmly recorded, both in this demotic listing and in a bilingual register from the Themistos meris where Greek doctors are separately noted. 117 These will be further discussed in Chapter 5. Priestly groups form the second addition to the privileged sector, in the period of salt-tax rate C. 118 From the Polemon district in 8.7-8 (243217 BC), as just noted, two rather specialised groups of priests are specified. Just why the sw-rd.f of the ibis and the priestesses of Demeter should be especially singled out in this district is unclear, 119 though additional priestly groups perhaps lie hidden in the two further illegible entries. 120 It may be relevant to the date of their exemption that these four categories are single-gender records; only the priests themselves were apparently 113

ws Thompson (1997a), 962-3, based on 22.13, 19; 23.24, 28, 43 (254-231 Bc); 12.146-151 and 8.II-12 (243-217 BC). w 9 22.13, 19 (254-231 BC)with Table. llO 23.24, 28, 43 (254-231 BC),Trikomia (Table B) and Lagis (Table C). m 12.146-151, with comm.; cf. 8.11-12 (243-217 BC), a similar demotic record where the tax for rs. w, both those of the village and those of the desert, is recorded as already in the bank. rn 4.47 (absent), 48-51, 55 (absent), 58 (absent), 73, 77, 80 (absent), 86, 97, 114, 117, 126 (absent), 129, 132, 136 (absent), 137, 140, 151 (absent), 152,_155, 162, 174 (absent), 175 (female, cf. 73 and 77 for her brothers), 180, 185 (254-231 BC),in all 18 per cent of those recorded in this list of dues.

8.5--9 (243-217 BC). If male guards /police are added (22 of them, 8.11-13),just over 2 per cent of adults in this district were exempt. 115 8.5,p3y=f Sp (n) ip, 'received on account', cf.8.11,p3 Sp-ip n3 rs.w nty ?zrp3sl:Jn,'the sum received on account(?) for the watchmen, which is in the bank'.' 6 4.53, 81,130 (254-231 BC). II II? 2.485-487 (229 BC), Greek doctors (swnw Wynn) in three out of five districts: 6 (3 male), 16 (6 male) and 4 (2 male). nS Any connection between this status and the tradition reported by Plutarch, Quaest. Conviv. 8.8 (Mor. 729a-b ), of priestly abstention from sea~salt must remain speculative. 11 9 Ibis-buriers figure among special categories listed in an added column in 3o42-43 (229 BC). 120 8.7-8 (243-217 BC).

54

55

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listed. In this they resemble the watchmen or police, but unlike the police, whose tax-payment came in the form of a credit transfer, these priests, both male and female, would seem to have enjoyed a real exemption .. What is striking about these groups is the very small number involved. The pastophoroi, for instance, and the theagoi that are found in numbers elsewhere are not recorded here. m The two ibis-priests together with two Demeter priestesses represent only 0.2 per cent of the district total of adults.122 This, it would appear, was a very special exemption. A wider priestly exemption from the salt-tax, probably introduced in the early years of Ptolemy III Euergetes, is suggested by 16.3-7 (third century BC), recording 'sacred groups (hiera ethne) of those not liable to tax (me telounton)' .123 Before the list breaks off, priests (hiereis), (sacred) bastards (nothoi), and sacred scribes (hierogrammateis) are named. A wide-ranging salt-tax exemption for priestly categories may be supported by the final groups recorded in the summary section of 2 (229 BC). Here, somewhat randomly, are listed some, but not all, of the sacred groups of the area (bearers of the gods of Souchos, Geb and Thoeris, servants of the falcon, Chnoum priests, and slaves of the ibis). 124 Under the new tax-regime of Ptolemy III there was a growing number of special groups to copy out each time; sometimes a scribe got tired. Here our knowledge of exemptions becomes yet more insecure, with just one register, the bilingual text 2 + 3 (229 BC), providing what further evidence we have for the extension of tax-exemptions under Ptolemy III Euergetes. The coincidence, however, between some of the groups - the teachers, the doctors and priests - specified elsewhere as exempt during the period of rate C of the salt-tax and those listed on the verso of 2 (cols. xx-xxiii) is reasonably secure. This seems also to be the case for some at least of those listed in the added column ii in the Greek section of the same text, 3.32-53 (229 Bc). 125 The salt-tax status of other categories listed separately on the verso of 2 is more puzzling. We expect to find the athletic coaches, who are known at r21 See Table 5:7 below. 122 The figure rises to 0.4 per cent if the two illegible groups were also priests. 12 3 Cf. 1.4, logos me telountOn. For ethnos as 'category', see 3.148 (229 Be); PBodl. I 59b.1 (third century BC); PTebt. III 701.297 (236 BC); PKiiln VI 260.3 (213 Be); VII 315b.3 (later third century BC),in a wider sense; 51.4 (181/180 or 157/156 BC); UPZn 162 = PTor.Choach. 12.ii.24 (117 BC); PRyl. II 265.1 (67 Be?); OGIS 190.16-17 (196 BC), hiera ethne. The salt-tax is not specified but the type of record fits well in the pattern of documentation for this tax. On these different categories, see Chapter 5 below. 12 4 2.516-537 (229 BC). For other sacred groups in the tax-area not listed here, see 3.12a-13, 46 and 181-183, pastophoroi; 14, prophets of Aphrodite; 42-43, ibis-buriers; 49-53? and 158-159 (229 BC), Isis priests. 125 3.32, teachers; 34, ephodoi; 40, athletic coaches; 42, ibis-buriers; 46, pasto(phoroi); 49-53, probably priests.

SPECIAL

CATEGORIES

least from district B, and possibly victors in games; like the police, they are missing from this section which starts instead with a listing of those with Hellenic tax-status. In addition to straightforward Hellenes who earlier, in the period of rate B, were exempt from the obol-tax, Hellenic doctors, teachers and fullers are detailed together with a puzzling group of syql:z whose identity is unclear (perhaps barbers); finally, come those described as 'men of Elephantine' and 'men of Philae', possibly members of detachments of border-police, who make up the total of those in the Hellenic section (2.478-505). There follow Persians and Arabs, who like Hellenes were earlier exempt from the obol-tax (though not the salt-tax) in the period of rate B (2.506-515). 126 Exemptions from the obol-tax together with the tax itself will be considered further below (pp. 71-2 ), but when the register 2 was drawn up in 229 BC this tax no longer existed. What, then, is to be made of the appearance of these Hellenes, Persians and Arabs? Were these categories now freed from the salt-tax? For since the salt-tax levy is the main purpose of the record, that is the most obvious tax from which exemption might be recorded. On the other hand, it is clear that those in the army continued to pay the salt-tax even after the overall change to rate C. 127 Given that the military was the most privileged group in society, it is unlikely that civilians would be offered a more substantial tax-break. Another explanation is needed. In detailing further occupational groups whose members enjoyed Hellenic status - the fullers, the syql:z (perhaps barbers connected to the gymnasium), 128 together with borderpolice (if such they were) - the scribe who drew up this register may have been as much concerned with trade taxes and other charges made on the different occupational groups as with the standard salt-tax. It may well be that Hellenic status conferred exemption from these further taxes, as earlier from the obol-tax. In any event, all these groups appear as special categories even when the exact nature of their privilege is far from clear. Others too are singled out in the salt-tax registers as special categories. In column xviii of 2.456-467 (229 BC), in the village of Per-Herner certain groups are detailed who again appear to be in some way special. Besides the Greeks, Medes (or Persians), watchmen (rs), teachers, Isis priestesses, fullers and police already identified as members of privileged groups, we find village scribes, shopkeepers and brewers, who might all be considered 126 See 30.62-63 cf. 80-83 (254-231 BC), fourteen male H(dlenes and Arabs deducted from obol-tax totals; for Persians, see 23.5, 32 (254-231 BC). On these groups, see further Chapter 5 below. 12 7 PTebt. III 1061.24, 30 (c. 229 BC), with n. 77 above; PPetrie III 112 (a) i.IO, 30, 36, ii.2, 9; (b) 5; (c) I, 4, 7, 20, 22, 24, 26; (d) i.3, ii.5, 7; (e) i.I, IO, ii.II, 17, 21, 27; (f) 2, 5, II, 12, 21; (g) IO, 13, 14, 18; (h) 2, 3, 6, 7, 8; (e) verso i.18 (222/221 BC), a nome-wide record; PGrad. 6 = SB III 6279 (223/222 Be), Alexandros, Persian, is probably military, cf. Uebel (1968), no. 1275. 128 Fullers: 2o497; barbers: perhaps the syqf:iof 2,488 with note, cf. 3.38, with Greek barbers in added column ii.

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as involved in the section of society later specified as 'those involved in tax-revenues'. 129 Earlier at rate B, scribes were already considered as part of the Hellenic sector, 130 but not yet so the priests. 131 Later, at rate C, were these further groups now privileged, and if so how? The question remains open. One thing is certain. Once a privilege had been granted, whatever its 132 import, it was hard to remove. Later registers detail still more groups; once gained, privileges were jealously guarded. 133 When, under the Romans, four priests from Bousiris complain that their privileges respected in the last years of the Ptolemaic regime, 'even at the time of the queen', were now being ignored, 1 34 we can clearly see the impact of the new regime, 135 which moved to limit the number of tax-exempt priests in each temple. 136 Under Rome some of the earlier tax-privileged groups remained, but more generally the Romans introduced a tighter set of exclusions. One final observation should be made on the growth of special categories. An individual may be defined in different ways: by occupation, by status designation or by tax category. Sometimes these different designations might overlap or even conflict, with significant consequences both for the individual and the state. As we have seen, for instance, those with Hellenic status enjoyed a favoured tax-category. For straightforward Hellenes no occupation was relevant to the tax authorities; for others, Hellenic status most probably involved exemption from the different taxes attached to their occupation. So too with priests. Whatever an individual might do for a living, 1 37 registration as a priest would result in a favoured tax-category. The different interests involved could well be a source of tension and as the number of privileged occupations increased so too would the problem 129

130

P.Tebt. 1 5.139-140, 156-157, 211 (II8 ec), hoi epipeplegmenoi tais prosodois. The sifters (koskineutai) and possibly the camel-drivers from the added column of 3-44, 47 (229 BC),might represent other such groups, cf. the exemption from dyke-work of 'those in the thesauroi in charge of standard measures' (more senior thesauros-workers), W.Chrest. 385 = UPZ IT 157.26-27 (?242/241 BC); on the camel-drivers, who may have been noted later as an itinerant group whose registration and liability needed report to neighbouring districts, see 3.32-53 n. 4.42, the topogrammateus Petechonsis lacks an obol-tax, cf. 65 (254-231 BC), details not yet

provided. 131 26.202-215 with nn. (254-231 BC), two brewers, six ibis-breeders, and one dancer among those wrongly classified as Hellenes (adika). 132 15 (third or second century BC) includes epigonoi and Jews, who earlier would have been Hellenes 133

134 135 136 137

(cf. Chapter 5 below), plus machimoi. BGU XIV 2429.13 (96--94 or 63---61BC), Hellenes are still charged tax at a preferential rate, at 69 rather than 92 dr. I ob; the tax concerned is, however, unknown, see introduction. BGU IV 1198, payment of the laographia in question here (5/4 BC). E.g. P.Tebt. u 298 W.Chrest. 90.11 (AD rn7/8), 50 for the temple of Soknebtynis at Tebtynis.

=

Johnson (1936), 532-3. In Kerkeosiris, for instance, many carrying the label of 'crown farmer' are known to have served as priests, Crawford (1971), 123, with Tables ix and xi.

58

DOCUMENTING

TAXES

THE

SALT-TAX

of assigning categories to those individuals who in their regular lives held multiple occupations. This is an aspect of the system which is not to be found in the records as we have them, but which, given the nature of Ptolemaic society, must have been problematic. If the choice of category was left to each individual, 138 we might expect, for example, a larger number of priests than if it was r9yal officials who controlled these designations. For ethnic designations, the adoption or change of a title was closely controlled by the state; those who claimed Hellenic, Persian or other such status were subject to investigation by royal officials. 139 For occupational designations, we cannot trace this sort of control in action. We may, however, conclude that the application of tax-categories represented an area where the conflicting interests of the individual and the state could well be played out. And, as in other aspects of the levy of taxes (see below), a third interest will have been represented by the officials involved at different levels.

Documenting the salt-tax In 1944, in his introduction to P.Mich. v 245 (AD 47), A. E. R. Boak wrote that for the salt-tax under the Ptolemies 'neither the principles according to which it was levied nor the methods of collection have been determined with any degree of certainty'. In papyrology, the publication of new texts, the definition of typologies, the collation of similar texts written in Greek and demotic, and their recognition among both published and unpublished collections, 140 all combine to further understanding. One of the aims of the collection of texts of P.Count is to attempt to answer the questions posed by Boak, but before considering the actual process of salt-tax colle~tion, a brief survey of our documentation may serve to introduce the administrative framework within which this took place. 14 1 As we found for the census, this documentation is patchy and far from complete, and it raises as many problems as it solves. Nevertheless, the recognition and joining of the Greek and demotic parts of a single roll, 142 2 + 3 (229 BC), has allowed us to piece together the administrative organisation of this tax to a degree not earlier known. From this we gain a sense of the different forms oflisting employed in the calculation of the tax, the different administrative levels involved in its record, and the household and occupational categories in which the people were counted. Within this initial framework, other texts take on new n:ieanings, and the picture begins 138

So Franklin D. Rposevelt, when President of the United States, was registered as 'tree-farmer' in the census (information from W. H. Harbaugh). 1 39 See below Chapter 5, n. 114. 140 E.g. 8 (243-217 BC), recognised by Vleeming in Trier; 48 (third century BC), by Luft in Vienna. 141 See Thompson (1997b), for an introductory discussion. 142 See 2-3, introduction.

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to come together. Our resulting classification of texts, the database as it were, on which the following reconstruction is based, is to be found in the Appendix (pp. 350-6 below). Who was responsible for producing the different forms of register detailed in that Appendix? To answer this question is to understand the administrative organisation of the levy of monetary taxes, in which two strands may be identified in the period for which we have evidence. It is the points where these strands intertwine that are of particular interest. First, there is the collection of data and secondly the use of that data in the actual collection of tax. The royal administration was involved in both operations. To establish the tax-registers was the task of the regular royal administration, and in this respect recording the salt-tax payers was an operation comparable to preparing the land-survey. Data-collection at the local level was the responsibility of village scribes (komogrammateis), who themselves came under the control of the royal scribes (basilikoi grammateis), answerable in tum to the dioiketes. 143 Those officials intimately involved in the second stage of the operation, as also in its documentation, are the tax-officials, responsible for the collection of the taxes for which the registers served. As in classical Athens, tax-collecting in Ptolemaic Egypt was locally farmed. Different taxes were auctioned off at a local (toparchic) level; 1 44 the successful tax-farmers, telonai, then carried responsibility for gathering in the dues for which they had bid. Unlike the situation of earlier Greece, however, where tax-collection was exclusively a matter for the tax-farmers, in Egypt the royal administration was also involved in the process of tax-collection. A mixture of private and public input characterised the new Ptolemaic system. On the ground, further royal appointees, logeutai, helped the telonai collect the taxes for which they had put up their surety. 145 It is, we assume, the teli5nai who were normally named on the

DOCUMENTING

THE

SALT-TAX

tax receipts, but logeutai helped them in tax-collection. 146 Logeutai were reasonably well-paid officials, 147 who came under the supervision of the local oikonomos and the antigrapheus, his controller, officials who in the Arsinoite nome were appointed on a meris basis. 1 48 Probably bilingual, logeutai will have enjoyed the support of local officials, as they played their part as intermediaries between the tax-farmers and local Egyptian villagers. 149 The presence of ephodoi, police inspectors, was a further feature; protection was needed for them all. 150 Apart from the telonai, who played an essential role in guaranteeing collection, all the other officials involved were part of the royal administration. In the last chapter we identified two areas where normal census procedures did not apply: Apollonios' gift-estate and the army. In the case also of tax-collection, third-century BC evidence suggests that these two areas were to some degree outside the normal administrative system. On Apollonios' estate - as probably others like it - his local manager Zenon and other representatives appear themselves to have been involved with the collection of dues. 151 Documents record separate collection by estate officials of the salt-tax along with other taxes. 152 At times different interests arose and estate-workers might be protected in problems over the salt-tax: 153

146

43 See Verhoogt(1998), 72, Table 10. Village and royal scribes: 12.4-5 (243-217 BC); 51.1-4(181/180 or 157/156 BC); W.Chrest. 262 verso ii.9 (223 BC), village scribe involved in a logeutic dispute; Petosiris of 5.1 may be a village scribe; P.Berl.Eleph.dem. III 13535 + 23677.6 (236 BC), 'in the house of pharaoh's (i.e. the royal) scribe', cf. Clarysse (1997b), 368; cf. P.Rev. 20.9, 36.3 (259 BC), the royal scribe provides lists of orchards and vineyards for the apomoira; in P.Koln VII 315 a.1-2 (third century BC), the name of this official is supplied. The dioiketes is not named in our texts; topogrammateis, though not named, would also be involved. 1 44 On the occasion of the auction, see P.Koln VI 260 (213 BC), with Thompson (2001c), 1261-3; P.Kdln VII 315 a.4-5 (second half of third century BC), topoi, cf. Chapter 4 below. 1 45 In the absence of specification it is often difficult to know whether te!Onai or logeutai are named. Possible teli5nai: 2o450 (229 BC), Phanesis son of Haros (for salt-tax + phylakitikon); 12.132 (243-217 BC), Theodoros; P.Berl.Eleph.dem. III 13537.1, verso.3 (217 BC), Teas (also a priest); P.Berl.Eleph.dem. III 13535 + 23677.1 (236 BC), Harpaesis, Espmethis, Parates (for salt-tax and veil-tax); CPR XIII31.21 (254-231 BC), Epimachos; for teli5nai actively involved at all levels oftaxcollection, see Bingen (1978), 16. Probable logeutai: 13 (243-217 BC), Apollonides, Apollonios, Psenobastis, Harsythes, fuarous, Orsenouphis, Horns and Pasis (involved in collection of salt- and beer-taxes); Agathon of line 65 might be a telones or a banker; 30.22-24, Nechthneibis, Paris, Chairemon.

I3.63 (243-217 BC). P.Rev. 12.14 (259 BC), misthos of 30 dr. a month for logeutai, 20 dr. for their assistants; cf. UPZ 1 I 12.v.3, opsi5nia for those fulfilling the fru.m (203/202 BC). 1 8 4 For local oikonomoi: P.Lille dem. 6.2, for the dny.t (Greek meris) of Themistos; P.Petrie6pos noir a la cour d' Apollonios le dioecete', JJP 22, 47-56. Mueller, K. 2002 'Ptolemaic settlements in space. Settlement size and hierarchy in the Fayum', Archiv 48, rn7-25. 2003a 'Places and spaces in the Thernistou meris (Fayum/ Graeco-Roman Egypt). Locating settlements by multidimensional scaling of papyri', AncSoc 33, 103-25. 2003b 'Mastering matrices and clusters. Locating Graeco-Roman settlements in the meris of Herakleides (Fayum/Egypt) by Monte-Carlo-Simulation', Arch iv 49, 2 18-54. Mueller, K. and Lee, W. 2005 'From mess to matrix and beyond: estimating the size of settlements in the Ptolemaic Fayyum/Egypt', Journal of Archaeological Science 32,

59-67.

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I,

I'

I

II

I, .. !

377 i,

I

INDEX

Index

accounting, features of 67 accounts, see taxes, Vienna actors 96, 97, 124, 129, 135-8 tax-status of 88 in Roman world I 36 see Dionysus administration 6-7, 347 and Greeks 145, 156 occupations in 201 royal 60-1 see bureaucracy, census, documents, geography, registers, taxes ages, recorded 7, 24, 236 unrecorded 227 agriculture 18,305 intensification of 90 pigs in 209 workers in 190-201, 241,261,273, 285, 294,316,346 see calendar Alabanthis I 20 Alexander (of Macedon) 15, IOI and Dionysus I 37-8 and education I 32n Alexandria 25, 342 anny in IOI as capital 1, 3, 6, 8, 13, 33, 70,201 citizens of 44, 89, 146 demes in 90 developments in 69 doctors in 162n festivals in 217, see Ptolemaia games in 52, 88, 124, 129, 134, 135n and livestock 209n as market 209,217, 225 Museum and Library at 53 pogrom in 17 police in 173 population of IOI, 141

records in 64n, I 02 Roman embassy to I 6 AlexandrouNesos 119 allophyloi 33, 96, 98, 151n, 186-7 alphabetisation 15, 69 see literacy Amarna, pigs at 209 Amasis (Saite pharaoh, 570-526 Be) 14, 21,141 Amenemhet III (r. 1831-1786 BC) 109 as Marres 340 Ammon (god), oracle of 321 Amphictyonic League 71 anakleteria 42 Andriantes 92, I I 9 Andromachis 120 animal cults 182 see crocodiles, ibis, falcon animals 206-25 for sacrifice 208,217, 225 see livestock Ankhsheshonq, 'Instruction' of 217,231, 262,267,285,293,301,304 Anoubias 72, II5, 120 tax-collection in 75 Anoubis (god), dog-buriers of 182 palm-bearers of 182 shrine of 32n, 288n Antigonos Gonatas 87 Antinoopolis, citizens of 89 Apamea, battle of (188 BC) 71 Aphrodite (goddess), phoibetai of 56n, 183,185,200,202 Aphrodites Berenikes Polis I I 2n Aphrodites Polis II5, II9 Apias 90, I 19 apographe 17, 18, 2m, 31 Apollonias I I 9, 340 Apollonios (dioiketes) 32, 52 his gift-estate 61-2

Apollonopolis (Arsinoite) 121n Apollonopolite nome, toparchies in 118 Arabon Kome 39, I 19, 159 Arabs 125, 159-61,224n,288,345 as guards 172, 175-6 occupations of 161 representatives of I 60, 204 tax-status of 57, 66, 72, 138, 143, 155 see nomenclature Arcadians 14m Archelais 120 population size 105, 107 archiphylakites 26n Areos Kome II5, II9 Argeas 120 army IO, 25, 28, 48, 61, 62, 148-54 documentation for 1 18 groups in 67, 141,320 and gymnasium 133 privileges for 57, 87, 343-4 separate registration for 130 settlement 90 and sex ratios 3 I o size 139 and taxes 73, 88 see Arsinoite nome, census, cleruchs, laika, politeumata, soldiers, veterans army scribes 3 I, 67 Arsinoe by Ammonias (Herakleides meris) II9, 121 Arsinoe (Themistos meris) 90, 112n, I 15, II9, 122 population size 104, 107 teachers in I 29 Arsinoe II (queen), cult of 25, 208n adoption of name 325 Arsinoite nome 3-4, I 39 administrative geography of 2, 5, 92, 97 allophyloi in I 86 army in 31, 92-5, 140, 149, 151-3, 155 atypicality of 153 documents from 229 and passim extent of 90 family structure in 256-60 Hellenes in 156 Persians in 157 police in 169 population size 92-5

settlement in go- 122 stockholding in 219, 224 teachers in I 26 village names in 90-2 see Herakleides, Krokodilon polis, Polemon, Themistos, villages Artemis, temple of 37 associations, for trades 204-5 Athenaeus I see procession, Ptolemaia Athenas Kome 72, II5, II9 Arabs in 159 Hellenes in I 39, I 56 police in I 69 population size 104, 107 tax-collection in 75 Athens 15 Kleisthenes from 117n education at 133 population density 10m slaves in 265n symmories in I I 7 athletes 53 see victors athletic coaches (paidotribai) 52-3, 56, 96, 97,124,129, 133-5, 199 tax-status of 88 Athribis I 19 Attalids, and education 132n see Pergamon auction, of salHrade 38 of taxes 74 see tax-farming audit, impossibility of 63, 69-70 Augustus (Roman emperor) 19, 88 Babylon 2 Bahr Nezla rn8 Bahr Wardan 121 Bahr Yusuf 98 Bakchias II5, II9, 121 bakers 183 bank 49, 54n, 77-8, II 2, 167 as housing 292 officials in 74 see counting house bankers 77, I 21 in Thebes 326

379

:I

INDEX

barbers 57, 146, 189, 199 see hairdresser barge, for salt 38 bastards (nothoi) 56, 179-80 Bastet (goddess), shrine of 252, 288n baths 112, 199,202,288,292 bathhouse managers, female 202 Bats drain 121 bearers of the gods (theagoi) 56,181,200, of Souchos 181, 185 ofThoeris 178-9, 181, 185 beekeepers 193,200 beer 199 beer-sellers, female 202, 304 Berenikis Thesmophorou 29, 282-3 allophyloi in 187 baths in 202 cleruchs in 151 Berenikis (Themistos meris) 120 Berkeley (CA) 4 bias 3 social 237 see protection bigamy 252, 299-300, 316 bilingualism 6 in records 70, 166, 206 blacksmiths 29n, 178n boat, see barge boatmen 14 Boubastis (goddess) 182 see dancers Boubastos 22, 112n, 119, 122n Jews in 148 Boukolon Kome 120 Bousiris 115 bread 36 brewers 58n, 145n, 199n, 268, 288 as Hellenes 146 brewery 300 as housing 292 building projects 14 bureaucracy 4, 5, 27,207 establishment of 17 development of 26, 35, 344-5 features of 69, 75 language of 34,231 structure of 30

butchers 188, 199 Byzantium 37 calendar, agricultural year 78, 86 Egyptian (or regnal) year 18, 75, 76 financial (or fiscal) year 18, 23, 32, 75 see dating system calves, see cows camel-drivers 58n, 199, 200 work on 172 camels 208n canals 110, 114, 117 capital 63 see Alexandria capitation taxes 46, 50, 64, 71, 73, 74 see guard-tax, obol-tax, poll tax, yoke-tax carpenters 29n, 178n carpet~weavers 201,304 female 202 carpets 225 cartonnage 3, 16, 23 cartwright I 99 cases, use of 7, 19, 67 cash, for investment 225 royal 175n shortage of 173 taxes in 11, 17, 28, 123 see money cattle 217-19 biennial count of 11, 218 royal 218 see cows cavalry 24, 3 1 Arsinoite 93-4, 96, 98, 148-50 as cleruchs 93, 96, 148, 238 families of 272 households of 292-3 nomenclature 320 see veterans censors, Roman 37 census 10-35,65,342,348 British 12 Chinese 11 Florentine (AD 1427) 19, 63n, 245, 255-6,3ro,3r5,349 Indian (nineteenth century AD) 12, 19n, 20

INDEX

pre-Ptolemaic II, 13-14, 16, 21 Ptolemaic 2, 12-17, 347 in Roman Egypt 2, 7, IO, 13, 19, 21, 27, 28n,33,64n,67,69,94,227-8,240, 245,247,266,294,347 in Rome 10, 16, 24, 31 categories established by 12 declarations for 12 documentation for 7 features of 33-5, 68 fiscal application of 12, 14-15, 30, 31 oflivestock 13, 31 officials involved in 28-30 operations of 9, 18-28 periodic 7, 15, 23, 33 purposes of 10-12 separate for army 30-2 separate on gift-estates 32-3 undercount in 12, 1II, 229 see registration, salt-tax Chabrias 14 Chalkorych[ia] 120 change, in cleruchic system 176 in clothing 222 in diet 225n in economy 8, 86, 224 in language 8 in regime 343 in stockbreeding 209n, 217,225 in tax-system 54, 224 check-marks 21, 63 see revision chickens 208n children 33, 227, 249-52 in census 12 treatment of 346 China, salt-monopoly in 37 see census Chnoum (god) 56 cult of 178, 338, 341 ram-hurlers of 182 chOra, see countryside choachytai, see libation-pourers chrematistai 142 cities, Greek (in Egypt) ro citizens, see Alexandria, Rome classification, systems of 188-95, 214, 215,216

see typology cleruchic land 25, 62 for police 176 cleruchs 22, 25, 27, 31, 32, 48, 49, 62, 97, 102, 112 Arsinoite 150- 1 and livestock 210, 212, 214-15, 217, 220-1 settlement of 111, 130, 141 and taxes 73 see cavalry climate 3 clothing 36, 225 coinage 2, 8, 44 bronze 44n, 76 commerce, occupations in 201 contracts 18 demotic 128,271,289,305 language of 142 of necropolis workers 284 prenuptial 36 register of 12m for wetnurses 270- 1 competition 1 cook 146 Coptic, Greek words in 132 corvee 10, 42, 123 exemption from 49, 140 Cos, battle of 87 counting, see census, registration, tax-registers counting house 77, 79, 82, 112 see bank countryside 102 habitation in 108, 346 monetisation of 347 occupations in 187-201 troubles in 48 see differences (urban/ rural), hellenisation cowherds 22,218,261,273 female 202, 304 cows 211~12 see cattle crocodiles, cults of 112, 340 danger from 208n mummified 3n, 181 see Souchos, Soknebtynis, Phernroeris

ii, ,I,

w

i

'I

! I

I,

,I l',I' INDEX

INDEX

cult, dynastic 133, 137 culture, Greek 53, 124, 132, 136, 342 cuneiform 2 currency, system 76 Cyrene, dialect of 321 Cyreneans 153, 246, 256, 300 as Greeks 322 names of 318, 320-1 dancers 202, 304 sacred 49, 58n, 145n, 182, 185,252 slave-owner 264 data-collection 10, 27, 60, 62-5, 102 date-palms 288 dating system, in demotic 18 in Greek 18 see calendar deben76 declaration, of births and deaths 19 of crops 22 of grain 24 of property 21, 24-7, 30 in Roman Egypt 21, 2 3, 24 see household, livestock decrees, priestly 49 see Kanopos, Rosetta royal 25-6, 28, 39n, 52, 142, 206n, 347 dedications, of self 180 Deir el-Medineh 13 Delta 141 Demeter (goddess), festival of 208n priestesses of 55, 183, 185,202 Demetrios of Phaleron 15 demography 2, 226-317 demotic, see documents, language use, names dependants (non-kin) 260-1, 285 experience of 283-5 in Greek households 253, 275-82 differences, demographic 345 Greek I Egyptian 226-7, 240-1, 243-6, 248-60,272,275,300,310,312, 314-17 in housing 292-3 local 2, 7, 256-9, 276-8, 316, 340-1, 348--9

Ptolemaic / Roman 255-60, 290-2, 315 social 10 in theophoric names 334 urban/ rural 228, 260, 294, 308 see language use Dikaiou Nesos 120n Diodorus Siculus, on child-rearing 311 on population 203n on priests 298 dioiketes 5n, 60 see Apollonios, Theogenes Dionysias 108n, II5, II9, 121 population size 105, 107 Dionysus (god), artists of 52, 53 techniteuma of 205n see actors and the arts 137 and dynastic cult 135, 138 as Osiris 209n priests of 33 doctors 55, 57, 162-4, 171 Egyptian 162, l 99 Greek 161 tax-status of 88, 342 see oculist documents 2-7 bilingual 40 demotic 6 Greek 6 features of 5, 34, 63 and passim donkey-drivers 69, 74, 199,201,319 donkeys175n,208n doorkeeper, female 202, 282, 304 drachma 76 drainage 43 see irrigation dykes 14, 19n,28,54 exemption from work on 42, 42n, 58n see corv6e, irrigation economy, nature of 7-8, 18, 347 Edfu nome 95n, see Apollonopolite education, Egyptian 127-9 for girls 131 Greek 53, 124, 130-3, 147 and marriage 294

musical 133 occupations in 201 staff-student ratio 130-1 see school-teachers Egyptians 344 defined by language 142-3 as slaveowners 264-5 status of 10 as tax-Hellenes 145, 155, 342 and theophoric names 333 Elephantine 36, 50 'men of' 57, 154-5 Eleusis II5, 120n entertainment, occupations in 191-201 Ephesus 37 ephodoi61,99, 167-8, 170, 174-5, 177, 194 epigonoi 31, 32, 58n, 93n family structure 255 households of 278-81, 292-3 identity of 154 and mixed marriage 328 register of 302 sex ratio among 31o epimeletes 30, 39 epistatai 3 l, l 72, 322 Epoikion Herakleidou 115n ergasteria, see workshops ethnic designations 59, 140, 142, 345 requirement for 147 status 58 ethnic groups 201, 203, 345 and occupation 293 ethnicity, Greek 140n see identity ethnos, as occupation 188 membership of 203-5 see ethnic groups euergetism 48, 55 see Ptolemy III Euhemeria II2, II9, 133n baths in 199n excavation 4 exemptions 28n see corvee, tax-exemption exo Pseur (village) 122n exposure 312,317, 346 see infanticide

falcon, servant of 56 see Horus family 226-317 definition of 230 designations 231-7 make-up 231-7 Roman 255-60 size of 237-41 types 246-60 famine II, 87, uo farm labourers 22 see agriculture farmers 14, 66, 107, 189, 191-4, 200, 201, 261,273,323 scribe of 204 see peasants Fayum, see Arsinoite nome fellahin, see fanners, peasants females 7 deficit in 253,297, 3II, 316,346 excess of 255 hazards for 307 large household of 134 tax-rate for 45, 47 in tax-registers 67, 68 see sex ratio, women fertility 237 festivals 53, 225 see Isis, Ptolemaia fish 208n fishermen 202 fishmongers 188, 189, 199 fodder, provision of 175 food II, 36 in cult 182 and sacrifice 206 friri?.ches247,254,296,313 fullers 57, 164, 165 Greek 146, 161 gabelle 37 games, see Alexandria, Ptolemaia Gandhi, Mohandas Karamchand 37 gaoler u2n, 173 gardener 146 garland makers 203, 304 gannent-sellers l 99 gatehouse 292

,1'

,,1

'i.l

INDEX

INDEX

Geb (god) 56 geese 208n protection of 72 gender 2 see also males, females, women Gharaq basin 121 Ghoran (cemetery) 4, 24 gift-estate (d6rea) 25, 32 see Apollonios goats 211,213, 219-24 gods 8, see names, theophoric goosegirls 202, 304 gooseherds 69, 193,200,204 grain, collection 115n granary 112 guard 173n royal 22 Greeks, elite status of 245-6, 260, 28 1, 292,315,316,345 houses of 289-90 identity of 140-3 and livestock 320 sector of community 57, 344 as slaveowners 264, 265-7 and theophoric names 332-3 troops 152 see army, differences, documents, Hellenes, immigrants, language use, nomenclature, settlers greengrocers 199,288 female 202, 304 groom 146, 261 guard-posts 150, 167, 170 guards 55 and salt-tax 88 various 173 see geese, granary, police, taxes Gurob (cemetery) 4 gymnasium 53, 57, 112; 124 and Greekness 133-4, 147 and ruler cult 137 in Roman Egypt 133n Hadrian (emperor) 88 hairdresser 203 halike, see salt-tax hamlets 4, 29, rn2 population of 103- 13, 346

harassment 89n harvest 75 and taxes 18 Hathor (goddess), cow-buriers of 182 Haueris (Hawara) rn3n, 115, 340 Heliopolis, cattle in 218n Helioupolis (Herakleides meris) 115, 119 population size rn4 Hellenes (tax category) 57, 58, 66, 78, 125-48, 155,189,200,344 tax-status of 72, 143,319 see Greeks hellenisation, of countryside 147 in onomastics 144, 147, 325-8 of police 320, 344 Helvetii rn Hephaistias 90, 103 Herakleides meris 5, 95-100 administrative divisions 111, 115, 116-17, 119-21 cleruchs in 150 police for 172 tax-collection in 43, 82-4 teachers in 126 troops in 150 villages in rn3-9, 111 Herakleidou Epoikion 121n Herakleopolite nome 3, 4, 99n Jews in 148 local names 340 tax-areas in 116-17, 118 herding 217, 219 and Arabs 161 and Greeks 156 see livestock herdsmen 14,241,261,273, 285 see cowherds, goatherds, gooseherds, shepherds, swineherds Hermaphilou Kome 115, 120 population size rn5, rn7 Hermes (god), as Thoth 182 Hermonthis 37 Hermopolite nome, toparchies in 118 Hermoupolis (Themistos) 115, 120, 120n population size 104, 107 Herodotus, on population 14, 66, 176, 203

Riera Nesos (Herakleides) 119 logeuterion at 79n Riera Nesos (Polemon) 115n Homer270 horses, for racing 129n Horus (god), falcon-breeders of 182 see falcon house-by-house registers (kat' oikian) 20, 27,143, 151,282,288-9,319 household declarations 2, 7, 20, 21-4, 26, 27,30 content of 33 household-head 20, 21 female 23, 301-3, 316,328 and identification 328 and occupation 66, I 24 responsibility of 25, 27 tax-status of 237 household·registers 7, 20, 28, 64, 350 household waste 209 households 63, 226-317 composition of 17 in death 283-5 definition of 230 non-kin members 260-83 houseowners, female 301, 316 houses 285-93, 316 Egyptian 292 Greek 289-90 Roman 255-60 and households 285-93, 316 rented 151, 171,187,203 size of 152, 241-6, 253 and taxation 92 types 246--60 hypothecation 166n ibioboskoi, see ibis-breede_rs Ibion Argaiou 29 Ibion Eikosipentarouron 120n lb ion ton Pentarouron 121n ibis, cult of 55, 288n priest of 55 servant of (sefm) 49 slaves of (b3k) 56 see Thoth ibis-breeders 58n, 145n, 179, 264

ibis-buriers 55n, 56n, 179, 185 identity, control of 146 ethnic 2, 142, 203 personal 205 Illahfin (Ptolemais Hmmou) 4, 150 immigrants 140--1, 145 Arabs as 161 see settlers immigration 102n experience of 153 India 37 wealth of 37 see census individuals, definition of 58 interests of 59 infanticide 311-12 see exposure infantry, Arsinoite I 5 I, 153 inheritance 296 innkeeper, female 202, 304 innovation 8, 28, 40, 70, 343 administrative 122,347 calendric 75 chattel slavery as 263 in record-keeping 45, 51 in livestock 209n, 225 in taxation 87, 117, 123, 344, 348 Roman 19 intermarriage 297, 327-8, 313,341 interpreters 14 inundation 75 see Nile Ionians 141 irrigation rn, 90, rn2, 110 see canal, drainage, dykes Isieion 119 Isieion of the Aigialos 115, 120 population size rn5, rn7 isionomoi, see Isis (priests) Isis (goddess), cult of 183 festival of 208n hives Qf 205n hymn to 123n priests of (m.+f.) 560, 57, 183, 185, 198,200,202,288 shrine of 288 see Isieion

I

INDEX

INDEX

Island of the Dog 120 see Alexandrou Nesos Italy 37 Jews 58n, 145, 147-8, 155,220,288, in Herakleopolite nome 270 and names 321-2 persecution of 17 as tax-Hellenes 145, 148 tax-remission for 40n see representatives Jouguet, Pierre 4 Julius Caesar 19

345

Kahun13 Kalliphanous Epoikion 115, 121n Kallixeinos (of Rhodes) rn Kaminoi 74, 92 Kanopos (village) II9, 120 Kanopos Decree (238 BC)49, 75n, 87 Karanis r 15, I 19 houses in 29 I Karnak, ostrakon from r 6 kat' ethnos, see occupational registers Kerkeesis 43, 54 population size 109n Kerkeosiris 5, 58n, 90, 12m land-surveys from 288 population size r 09n Kerkesoucha 115n, 119 logeuterion at 79n Kerkethoeris 90 Kerkeusiris r 20 kids, see goats kite 76 Kleomenes (satrap) 15 Kleon (engineer) 43 Koile Syria, prisoners from 102n Krokodilon polis (Fayum) 5, 22, 82, 90, l22Il, 129 as nome capital 95- 100, 129 bank at I 12n baths in 199 gymnasium in 133n logeuterion at 79n, 99 property in 203 registry office in 145 theatre in 124, 129, 136

population make-up 98-100, r 10-11, 134,162, 1740,264 population size 103 register from 228 in Roman period 99n, 100n Krokodilon polis (Upper Egypt) 37 Krotou Ibion II5, 120 population size r 04, I 07 Labyrinthos 1030, r 15 Lagis II5, II9 population make-up 126, 130-1, 139, 156, 157, 169 population size 80, 104, 107 tax-collection in 75, 77-82 laika, identity of 93, 149 Lampsakos, teachers in 530 land, cultivation of 3 expansion in 153 and Greeks 156 reclamation of 90, 150, 153 taxes on 89 see agriculture, cleruchic, sacred land-survey 5, 13, 16, 25, 27, 30, 60, 62, 63, 117 accounting in 67 language of 34 operation of 28, 29, 342 revision of 19 language, of accounts 55n, 64n, 76n, 77,

78n,8on,84 of census 17 of tax-registers 43n Egyptian 7, 17, 128n, 168,207,211, 212,219 equivalencies 39, 92, II6n, 126, 164,

166,168, 178---9,231,261-2,268 Greek 168 see demotic, literacy language-use 6-7, 8 differences in 187,222, 223n, 231-3, 273 Egyptian 142n flexibility in 27 Greek 8, 13, 35, 53, 77n, 147 scribal 70 see cases, bilingualism, bureaucracy, multilingualism

386

laographia, Ptolemaic 17 see poll-tax laokritai 142 Laslett, Peter 247 laundrymen r 65 see fullers legal rulings 142 Letouspolis 119 Libya, troops from 152, 153 libation-pourers, Theban 204, 284 libraries, and gymnasia 133n see Alexandria literacy, Greek 27, 124 see education, writing literature, Greek 53 liturgies, exemptions from under Rome 88 livestock 2, 22, 63, 206-25, 342 declaration of 22, 23, 24, 43, 206-7 and Greeks 156, 210,217,219 occupations involving 201 protection for 72 registration of 16,207,218 and salt-tax 43,206, 207 see census, herding, pasturage tax local knowledge 20n, 29, 64, 344 lodgers 230, 286n in Roman Egypt 257 lustrum l l Lykopolite nome 3, 4, 6, 39 cult in 178, 183 family structure in 256-9 herding in 221-2 names from 326, 341 Lysimachis II5, 120, 121n population make-up 139, 156, 157, 203 population size 80, 104, 107, 130 tax-collection in 75, 77-82 Lysimachus (general) 37 Macedon, gymnasium in 134n salHax in 40 and taxes 40n Macedonians 143n machimoi 173 Magais II5, II9 population size 104, 107 Magdola (Medinet-en-Nehas) 4, 92

maidservant, see slaves males, excess of 312-13, 317 hazards for 307 tax-rate for 45, 47 see sex ratio manufacture, development of 222 markets 112, 199, 217 see Alexandria marriage 226, 293-300, 316,346 age at 294 consanguineous 297, 331-2 uxorilocal235,295-6 virilocal 234, 295-6 see bigamy, intermarriage, polygamy Medes, see Persians Medinet-en-Nehas, see Magdola Megalopolis I o medicine, Egyptian 162 see doctors Memphis (city), animals in 209,218, 218n Hellenomemphites of 141 high priest of 42, 298, 340 population make-up 186n Serape um in r 32 chattel slavery in 262 Memphis (Polemon) 92, II5n, 120n meris 5, 61, 92 as administrative unit 63, 103, I16-I7, 353 logeuterion in 79 see Herakleides, Polemon, Themistos mercenaries 141 Metrodorou Epoikion II5, II9, 122n population size 104 metropoleis, of Roman Egypt 100, 257-60, 346 citizens of ro migrants 230 Milera Limne 97n, 150n, 172 Miletos, schooling in r32n, 134n millers 200 Moeris (canal) 98 army post on 150 Moeris, Lake II5, 121 monarchy 346-7 money 8, 344-5, see cash monetisation 8, 225, 347 monopoly, for salt 37

I" '1,

'

INDEX

INDEX

mothers, dependent 253 see widows

for slaves 266, 322 see names numbers, use of 69,118

Mouchis rngn, II5, 119, 121 logeuterion at 79n, rnon wool-workers in 202

nurses 202,241,261, 316 resident 251 see nomenclature

multilingualism 3 multiplier 94, IOI, rn6, 152,240 mummification, of crocodiles 3n human 204, 284-5 priests involved in 183

oaths 77 obol 76

mummifiers 3, 4, 284 see cartonnage

obol-tax 47, 49, 54, 71-2 collection rate 74 exemption from 57, 71, 123, 125 liability for 93 see Arabs, Hellenes, Persians

names, change of 146, 344 demotic transcribed in Greek 6, 319

occupational registers (kat' ethnos) 7, 20,

divine 338, 345 double 318, 323

28,65-6,73, 138,350-1 compilation of 29

dynastic 321,326,327,333 and ethnicity 238, 319-28 local 318,323,342 from oracles 333 repetition of 302, 331 theophoric 178,318,326, see nomenclature

267-72, 285, 304,

332-41

Naulcratis 141, 342 citizens of 89, 146, 209n chattel slavery in 262 Neith (goddess), and bee-keeping 205n Neiloupolis I 12n

occupations 2, 123-205, 342 endogamy within 203, 283, 297, 332 and household structure 292, 293 multiple 179 part-time 173, 184n registration by 14, 15, 63, 161, 195-201 specialisation in 188 oculist 151,322 offices in Alexandria 33 bilingual 6

Nile flood 78, 81, 87,305, 342

local 3, 4-5, 7

water 307 nomads 33, 186n nomarch 5n nomarchies, Arsinoite 88 of Aristarchos 99, r 22 of Diogenes 120n

meris sn

nome 92,353 level of 63, 70 nomenclature 341 of Arabs 160 Greek 151, 319 Egyptian 144, 323 Jewish 234 of Persians 158 family traditions in 328-31, 332 filiations in 323-5 for nurses 269, 272, 322 for police 170, 174, 320

tax-office (tel6nion) 5 officials, royal 59, 62, 64 see census, salt-tax

oikonomos 30, 61, rn3n, 175 declarations to 206 of meris 1 19n see Zoilos oil-salesmen 11 In old age, see parents orchards 25, 27 ostraka 2, 8, 15 evidence of 88, 343

see receipts Oxyrhyncha 92, rn9n, 115, 119, 120n, 121 allophyloi in 187 wool-workers in 202 Oxyrhynchite nome 3, 4, 153

388

cleruchs in 256, 320- 1 records from 229, 302 toparchies in 1 18 see Cyreneans, epigonoi

paidotribai, see athletic coaches palaestra 129, 133, 134 Palestine, taxes in 40n palm-bearers 182 papyri 2 from cemeteries 3-5 evidence of 88, 228-9, 343 recycled 3, 4, 8 see documents, registers and passim

pastophoroi 48, 56, rn7, 181, 185, 198, 200 include nothoi I 80 ofChnoum 178 parents, elderly 226, 237, 304-7 pay, see wages peasants 14 see farmers Pelousion 119 pen 70 reed 6 rush 6, 318 Pergamon 50n, 71 Per-Herner 31, 51, 57, 63n, 68n, 103n, 120 population make-up 126, 139, 150, 156, 157, 165, 169, 189 population size 104, rn7 Persea 63n, 83n, 83, 119 population size 104 Persepolis 3n Persia In, 40 Persians 57, 66, 125, 155, 157---9,345 in army 159n as Greeks 142, 322 identity of 158-9' tax-status of 72, 138, 143, 157 see nomenclature Petechonsis son of Imouthes

(topogrammateus) 144, 264-5 Petrie, W. Flinders 4

athletic coach from 134 canal at 208n gymnasi~m in 133n Roman registers from 291 Philae, dedication from 155 'men of' 57, 154-5 Philagris 115, 119 population size I05, 107 Philopator (village) 120

i I : i

I Ii

I

Philoteris 90, 115, 119 population size 105, 107 Phoenicia 16, 28 prisoners from rn2n slaves from 263n Phylakitike Nesos 115 pickling 38 pigs 208-17 protection of 72 vocabulary for 207, 212- 16 see livestock plays, Greek 53 poets 1, 90 in actors' guild 137 in education 132 Polemon meris 4, 5, 95, 96, 97-8, rn3 administrative units in 114, 115, 117, 119-21 cleruchs in 150 police for 172 tax-collection in 75 teachers in 126 troops in 149 villages in rn9, 111 police 57, 96, 97, 165-77, 189,269,346 border-police 57 as civilians I 76 at Fayum entrance 150 as Hellenes 144, 264-5 households 292-3 occupations in 201 and salt-tax 78, 84, 88 in tax-collection 80 tax-crydits for 54, 99, 166 see ephodoi, nomenclature, taxes, watchmen police-post 106

Pharbaitha/os 23, 119, 122n Phemroeris (god), altar of 288

politeumata 205

Philadelpheia 19, 90, 119, 121

Jewish 148

I, ; !

INDEX

INDEX

poll tax (laographia), in Roman Egypt 19, 41,44,46,47,88-9,348 at Telmessos 7 I in UK 12n salt-tax as 40 see laographia Polydeukeia I 20 population size rn5, rn7 polygamy 297-300, 346 pompe, see procession population, civilian I 88 classification of 14 see Herodotus, Strabo Hellenic sector 154-7 occupational make-up 124, 187-201 rural 31 size of roo--2 urban 28 see Arsinoite nome, differences (urban I rural) postal service 174 Potter's Oracle 173 potters 199, 200 poultry 208n see chickens, geese Pramarres' Epoikion 120 price-fixing 38 priestess 304 see Aphrodite, Demeter priests 14, 171, 177-86, 323,342, 345, 346 part-time 194, 345 privileges of 48-9 tax-status of 55-6, 58, 88 in Roman Egypt 58 prison 112 see gaoler procession In and temples 182 see Ptolemaia production, occupations in 201 property, see declaration, houses, taxes prostitutes 202 sacred 180 protection, within family 30 of Fayum entrance 175 in tax-levy 61

for transport 174

see livestock, police, taxes, workshops provenance, different meanings of 3-4 Psammetichus I (pharaoh, 664-6rn Bc) 141 Psenru:psenesis 115, 119 Psenaryo 120n Psentrempais 119 Psenyris 112n, 115,119 Jews in 148n population size rn4 Pseonnophris 122n Psinachis 120 sheep in 221 Psya 115, 119 population size I 04 Pterophorou Epoikion 115, 119 population size 104 Ptolemaia (festival) 1, 52, 129n, 1350, 137 Ptolemais (city) 342 actors in 136-7 citizens of 146 temple ruling from 311 Ptolemais (Herakleides) 90, 115, 119 Ptolemais (Polemon) 115 Ptolemais (Themistos) 115, 120 tax-collection in 75 Ptolemais of the Arabs 112n, 159, 175 Ptolemais Drymou 1 19 Ptolemais Hormou rn3n, 115, 150 see Illahfin Ptolemies, see Arsinoe II, monarchy, wealth Ptolemy I Soter (son of Lagos, r, 304-283/282 BC) l census under 15 expansion under I 1 1 Ptolemy II Philadelphus (r. 285~246 BC)

390

5 annual revenue of 1 census under 16 Chremonidean War 87 cultural policy of 53, 135 expansion under r 11 and salt-tax 39, 86-9 and financial year I 8 institutes cult of Arsinoe II 25 and Ptolemaia 1

embassy from 15 Republican 37 see census royal scribe 25, 27, 30, 60 role of 29, 78 ruler cult, see cult, dynastic

Ptolemy III Euergetes (r. 246-221 BC) 5 and toparchies 120, 122 tax-exemptions under 56 epithet of 87 visits south 154 see euergetism Ptolemy IV Philopator (r. 221-204 BC) 135 army of 152 decree of (209 BC) 25 pogrom under 17 Ptolemy VI Philometor, and politeumata 205 Pydna, battle of (168 BC)40, 44n Pyrrheia 119 P'llty (village) 119 racism 143 Raphia, battle of 152 receipts 8, 15, 40, 44-5, 51-2, 64 bilingual 70 for salt-tax 18, 70 see ostraka records, composite 351-2, 355 detailed 350-1 keeping of 2 summary 352-3, 355-6 recycling, see papyri registers, see tax-registers registration, of people 9 of slaves 263 see census, livestock rents, collection of 8 religion 345 occupations in 190-201 popular 332-41 representatives, of Hellenomemphites 204n of Jews 148, 160, 204n occupational 21, 29 revenue-raising 17, 37, 89 see census, taxes Rhodes, schooling in 132n revision, see land-survey, tax-registers Rhodes 10 Rifeh, papyri from 4, 219 Roman Egypt, see census, declaration, poll-tax, priests, tax-registers,. taxes Rome, citizens of I o corn doles in 19

sacred land 25 sacred scribes 56, I 80 salesmen 188, 199 salt 36--g barges for 38n and friendship 37 quarries 37, 39 provision of 305 salt-tax connection 52 salt-carriers 38,201 salt-merchants 38 salt-pans 37, 38 salt-tax 2, 36---70,89, 342, 347 in India 43n census connection 16, 23, 28, 40, 93, 95 collection of 41, 64, 74-86, 167 collection rates 74, 81-4 exemptions from 12, 34, 42, 52-3, 87-8, 123, 124 history of 39-40, 86 levy of 12, 18, 28, 75 liability for 2, 41-4, 52-9, 68, 93 officials involved 32 and other taxes 70-4 part-payments 47, 82 rates 44-52, 87-8, 207 see livestock, tax-registers Samareia 43, 54, 92 bank in 100n gymnasium in 133n herding in 220n school, in Serape um 128n, 132n texts 132 school-teachers 52-3, 56, 57, 96, 97, 124, 125,33, 199 Egyptian 127~ as Hellenes 146 numbers of 134 pay of 132 tax-status of 71, 88, 342

391

, I I

INDEX

scribes 6, 7, 19, 27 Egyptians as 344-5 priestly 178 role of 26, 189 see army scribes, royal scribe, sacred scribes, village scribe, writing sculptors 17n, 29n, I 84n seals, as evidence 343n Sebennytos 92, II9, 122n seed-time 75 Seleucids 2, 15n, 343n and taxes 40 Seleukeia on the Tigris 40n Sethrempais I 19 Setne, demotic tale of 128, 340 settlers 102,343 privileged 342 see cleruchs sex ratio 99, I 06, I I o, 226, 307- I I, 316-17 sheep 2II, 213, 219-24 protection of 72 shepherds 22, 146,220,221,223, 261, 269,273,288 shops 112 shopkeepers 57,288 see tradesmen shrine, as housing 292 sifters II2n, 193,200 slaves 21n, 24, 34, IOI, 144,226,234,241, 251,261,262-7,282-3 female 145, 202, 270 Greek ownership of 156, 253, 316 household 285 registration of I 6, 42 tax-rate for 46 and taxes 263 vocabulary for 262 in workshops 281,283 in Roman Egypt 266, 270 see nomenclature Soknebtynis (god) 58n Soknopaiou Nesos 90, II5, II9, 121 houses in 289 priests of 143n, 186n soldiers 14, 32, 49 Solon 14 Souchos(god)56

in names 338, 340 his nome 123 his villages 105, II2, 181 see bearers of the gods spies 176 standardisation, lack of 7 statues, repatriated 87 stockholding 208, 224-5 and Greeks 156 see livestock storekeepers 22 female 202, 304 Strabo, on child-rearing 3_11 on population 178, 203n strategos 25, I 18n surety, for tax 74 swineherds 14, 216 female 202, 304 Syene (Aswan), 'men of' 154n syntaxis 4-9,49n Syria 16, 28 slaves from 263, 263n see Koile Syria Syrian War, First (274-271 BC)87 Second (260-253 BC)16, 39, 87 Third (246-241 BC)87 Fourth (219-217 Bc) 153 Sixth (170-168 BC)174 Syron Kome 92, 103n, II5, 122n Takona 320 Tali 12In Talithis 12m Tanis 92, I 19 Taos (pharaoh 362-360 Bc) 14 Taurinou Kome 63n, 1 19 tax-area 82, 92, 103, II6--22 level of353 centre of I I I see toparchy tax-credits 54, 55 see police tax-collectors (logeutai) 19, 23, 30, 41, 60, 62,65,71,74,76-81,84 nomenclature of 77 records of 144, 350, 353-6 rounds of 102 tax-district 63, 69, 92, 102

392

INDEX

and administration 70, II3-15, 352 Themistos 75 tax-farmers (telonai) 74, 76-7, II3 Greek names of 77 liability of 82 tax-farming Sn, 60, 63, 344, 348 excluding army 62 in Athens 15, 60 tax-Hellenes, see Hellenes tax-registers 2, 4, 13, 18 civilian 130 classification of 350-6 compilation of 10, 60, 63-70, 97, 123, 216 features of 227-9 fiscal concern of 26, 229 Hellenes in I 38 and livestock 208,219 priests in I 77 revision of 7, 18, 19, 28, 63, 66 in Roman Egypt 64 tax-status, multiplicity of 146 taxation, forms of 89 privileged categories in 124-86 system of 92, 102, 122,347 taxes 2,342 apomoira 25, 27, 74n beer-tax 85 on compulsory services (leitourgikon) 50-1,73 dyke-tax (chi5matikon) 61n on fleeces 50 guard-tax (phylakitikon) 17n, 51, 54, 72-3, 167 collection rate of 74 for livestock 72, 207 on inhabitants of Syene 50, 73 medical tax (iatrikon) 61, 162 pasturage tax (ennomion) 6m, 73, 207, 212 pig-tax 6m on property 23, 25 renewal tax 22 rhabdophorikon 50, 73 sales tax 6rn, 85 server tax 50, 73 on sheep 207 slave taxes 263

veil-tax 50, 73 yoke-tax 39 see obol-tax, salt-tax, syntaxis, trade taxes collection of 8, 60-1, 74-86, 120,173, 348 levy of 4, II, 12, 60 payment of 8, 49-5 I revenues from 58 royal interest in 7 written off 84 in Athens 44n, 46n, r 17 in Roman Egypt 50, 58 see census, registration taxpayers, experience of 85 teachers, see school-teachers Tebetnou 43, I 15 Tebtynis 4, 5, 38, 109n, II5n, 12m gymnasium in 133n priests at r 86 registry office in 27 I salt-merchants in 204 temple at 58n, 180 wool-workers in 202 telonion, see offices temples, Egyptian 128, 180 role of 177 Teos, actors in 136n schooling in 13rn, 132n, 134n textiles 73n, 222, 266n, 281 see weavers theagoi, see bearers of the gods Theadelpheia 90, I 12, I 19 gymnasium in 133n theatre 124, 129, 138 Thebes 13, 289n cattle in 2 1Sn population in 186n taxes in 50, 73 see bankers, libation-pourers Themistos meris 4, 5, 95, 96, 97-8, 103, II6-17, II9-21 administrative units in So, 114, 115 cleruchs in 150 Hellenes in 139 police for 172 teachers in 126 villages in 103-10, I II

393

INDEX

INDEX

Theocritus 1, IO, 36, 90, 123, 135 Theogenes (dioiketes) 26n Theogonis rn9n, 120n, 12 m camp at 98, 150 taxes from 79n Theoxenis 115, 120 population size rn4, rn7 Thessalians I4In Thoeris (goddess) 56 see bearers of the gods Tholthis 4n, 320 Thoth (god), as Hermes r82 see ibis Thracians 22, I4In, 145, 2rn, 345 as Hellenes 145, 322 toparchy 5, 88, ro3 and administration 60, 63, 69 introduction of 113, 116, 206 logeuterion in 79 ofPanetbeus 119,121 of Tesenouphis 120 see tax-area toparchs rn3, 120 topogrammateus 26n, 58n, rn3, rn3n, 119n, 120, l21Il declarations to 206 as Hellene 144 trade, retail 38 trade taxes 30, 57, 58, 64, 65, 73-4, 89 exemption from 74 levy of 74 tradesmen 14 see shopkeepers transport 174, 206 and canals 217 occupations in 2or tribute rn Trikomia 6, 54, 115, 120 cleruchs in 130-1 Hellenes in 139, 145-6, 156,320 Jews in 130n, 147 police in 169 population size 143, 321-2, 344 teachers in 126 property in 203 quarter of Maron ro4n, 139, I45 population size 80, rn4, rn7 tax-collection in 75, 77-82 Tutun basin 121

typicality 2, 348-9 see bias typology, Cambridge family 247-60 undertakers 183,204 Uruk 40n veterans 32, 151, 238 cavalry ro4n, 150 and livestock 211,212, 220 in Per-Herner 155 victors (in games) 52, 53, 57, 96, 97, 124, 129,135 tax-status of 88 Vienna, papyri from 72, 73, 74, 76, 78, 155 village headmen 112 village scribe 5, 5n, 6, 57, 60, 112 of Krokodilon polis 98n role of 29-30, 1 ro villages 3-4, 92 and administration rn2, 112-13 and cult 112 and economy 246 'free men' of 220 house size in 292 names of ro6 number of 11o- 1 1 population size rn3-13, 346 records from 228, 352 and society 112 specialised 199-201, 346 vinedresser 300 vineyards 25, 27, 199 see taxes, apomoira

weavers, female 202, 304 and taxes 73 welfare, occupations in 201 wetnurses, see nurses widows296,304-7,316,346 as houseowners 301 see household-head wine merchants 112, 199,238,320 women 245, 345 Egyptian 237 as houseowners 303 and names 338 in tax-registers 301-4 and taxes 2, 50 in workforce 124, 125, 201-3, 304 see females, household-head

wool-workers rn9n, 202, 304 workshops 121n protection of 72 slaves in 285 writing, uses of 8-9, 15, 21, 26, 34 see language use, literacy, scribes Zenon 61 athletic interest of 134 from Caunos 14m complaint to 300 and livestock 220 Zenon archive 32, 161, 172, 218 hired labour in 274 on slave trade 263 on stockholding 214,224 Zoilos, identity of 52

Wadi Nezla 121 wages 46 for ephodoi 174 for police 54, 172-3 watchmen 37 of the desert 167 in tax-collection 80 of the village 167 water-carriers 199 wealth 1, 4, 7-8, 225 and household size 315 of settlers 246 of temples 14

394

395