Private Associations and Village Life in Early Roman Egypt

The papyrological evidence from early Roman Egypt shows that there was a close relationship between private associations and village life. Associations were very much intertwined and influenced each other. They belonged to the most important local institutions for socio-economic and cultural life at village level and played an important role for the construction of feelings of community. In an environment void of civic designations, associations could also provide the frame for the assertion of specific identities, just like membership in the priestly groups or the army, as well as facilitate relations with the state in areas such as taxation or compulsory services.

The Association of State Farmers and Its Role in Village Administration in Roman Egypt

This paper examines the role of the state farmers, their organisation and changes as a village institution in Roman Egypt. Since the cultivation of public land in Roman Egypt constituted one of the major sources of the income for the province, it is not surprising that the state farmers, usually called demosioi georgoi (public farmers), were one of the most important groups of the rural population. As public land was usually cultivated through a hereditary lease, the rural population saw the plots which were attached to their villages as their own property. It was, therefore, a natural consequence that the state farmers became involved in the management of their village’s affairs and in doing so cooperated with the local administrative officials.

Police Procedures and Petitions in Roman Egypt: The Role of Village Officials

This chapter examines how far village officials were involved in the handling of crimes in the first three centuries of Roman rule in Egypt (AD I–III). Village officials played a primary role in the early enquiries, as they represented the main point of contact for any villager who sought guidance and support in case of offence. They were assigned well-defined tasks in the police system and were able, within fixed limits, to act independently from higher authorities. The evidence shows that the interaction between villagers and local officials after crime was reported often determined the adoption of a specific legal procedure by the offended party: frequently, the prompt submission of written complaints to higher officials. This study suggests that, contrary to some previous views, the work of village officials in dealing with crime was fundamental for the functioning of the broader police and legal system.

Introduction

This chapter provides a overview of the state of research on rural institutions in the ancient world, with a focus on Egypt. It is divided in three main sections. The first section explores the reasons behind the scholarly importance of studying village institutions in Egypt in the longue durée, from the early Roman to the Arab period. The second section includes a review of the most representative village studies of the ancient world and their key features and shows how this volume stands out from existing works. Finally, the last section examines the best attested village institutions as they are investigated in the eleven papers of this volume.

Elders (Presbuteroi) of the Farmers and of the Village in Roman Egypt

This chapter examines the nature and role of the elders of the public farmers (presbuteroi georgon) and the village elders (presbuteroi komes) at Bacchias and Karanis in the first two centuries of Roman rule (AD I-II), using the Greek papyri. Although geographically very close, lying by the same canal, these two villages were very different in historical and socio-economic terms, which makes a comparative investigation of their elders particularly interesting.

Fiscal Institution or Local Community?

The abundant papyrological evidence surviving from late antique Egypt (4–8th c.) includes thousands of documents in Greek and Coptic on village life. These sources shed light on aspects of rural realities barely known from other areas of the ancient Mediterranean. Village administration and government are especially well documented. Late antique villages in Egypt were organised in a fiscal community (koinon) which was collectively liable for the payments of the taxes incumbent on the village and the cultivation of their land. This institution was governed by a body of officials consisting of members of the village elite. This chapter discusses the relationship of the fiscal village community, administration and elite in Byzantine and early Islamic Egypt.

Village or Town? Did It Matter for Making Wills in Roman Egypt?

This chapter examines whether and in what ways legal practice differed in villages and metropoleis in Roman Egypt. A key question that will be asked if whether people living in villages and metroploeis could access the same legal instrumenta and if so, whether this involved higher costs for villagers. The focus will be the wills, since in both Roman law and local legal practice this type of document required a certain level of solemnity and had original character in comparison with other legal deeds.

Private Banks in Villages of Roman Egypt

This paper examines the evidence concerning private banking in the villages of Roman Egypt and aims to demonstrate that the presence of private banks in some villages depended on their location in respect to the district capital, Ptolemais Euergetis. Villages that were located further away from the district capital were more likely to have a private bank in order to facilitate access to banking services for its inhabitants.

Record-Offices in Villages in Roman Egypt

Record-offices called grapheia are documented in villages in Egypt as early as the second century BC until well into the third century AD. This chapter investigates the role and nature of the grapheia documented in villages in the first three centuries of Roman rule (AD I-III), with a focus on Tebtunis, in order to establish what difference they made to the functioning of villages as independent communities and to what extent they provided village society with some form of self-administration.

Festivals and Ceremonies in the Countryside

In Egyptian festival culture, celebrations in honour of gods and rulers were the most important ones. In the case of villages, however, both written evidence and archaeological record regarding festivals are poor. Festivals are normally mentioned in contracts whereby associations and individuals made formal agreements about the engagement of entertainers. Nevertheless, the festive calendars of santuaries, along with oracle inquiries and certificates of victims, allow us to drawn a general picture of the festival culture in the Egyptian countryside. It emerges that, at least for the Roman imperial period, similar features are found in the rural settlements of Asia Minor.