A Large Estate In Egypt In The Third Century B.C.: A Study in Economic History

8/13/2019 A Large Estate In Egypt In The Third Century B.C.: A Study in Economic History

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UNIVER SITY OF WISCONSIN STUDIESIN THE SOCI L SCIENCESAND HISTORY

NUMBER 6

A LARGE ESTATE IN EGYPT IN THETHIRD CENTURY B C

A STUD Y IN ECONOMIC HISTORY

BY

MICHAEL ROSTOVTZEFFPROFESSOR OF HISTORY

M DISON922


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T

BERN RD P GRENFELL


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C O N T E N T S P A G EPreface. vii

ist o Abbreviat ions. . ixescription of Plate s. . xiHAPTER . In troduc tory . .

1 Ph i l ad e lp h ia . . 8111. Zenon and Apollonius. Th e Tw o EarliestPeriods in the Activity of Zeno n. 6IV. Zenon and Apollonius. Zenon in Alexan-ria 28

. L \ w p e a i 42VI. Th e Esta te of Apollonius a t Philadelphia.Preparat ion of the E sta te for C ul t ivat ion 56

VII . Th e Est ate of A pollonius at Philadelph ia.griculture.VI I I . Th e Esta te of Apollonius at Philadelphia .Vineyards Orchards and M arket Gardens 9I X . Th e Est a te of Apol lonius a t Phi ladelphia .Stockbreeding In dustry Commerce andT r an sp o r t a t i o n . . 107X . Conclusions. 26APPENDIX Th e Officials of the Arsinoite Nome men-tioned in the Correspondence of Zenon. 14711. Zenon under Euerg etes. 58111 Apollonius the Dioeketes as a Contrac torof Public Works ?. 67IV. The History of the Nbpo~ eXwvi~o i of

Pto lemy Phi ladelphus. 65V. The Breeding of Horses by PtolemyPhiladelphus 67Addenda e t Corr igenda. 16985


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P R E F A C Ehave but few poin ts to emphasize in th is shor t p reface .The m ost impor tan t is to express my conviction tha t the prog-

ress of our studies on papyrology, progress which is of thegreatest imp ortance for our knowledge of the ancie nt and th usof the modern world in general, largely depends on a syste maticexcavation of as many cities and villages of the Fayum aspossible. Wh at has been done up to this time is merely fairlysystematic d igging for papyri , hunt ing af ter documents, most lyregardless of other remains uncovered during the excavations.However the more we deal with the written docu ments the morewe feel the necessity of having before us the scenery in whichthe Greco-Egyptian life was led. For a better unde rstanding ofthe documents, sometimes for understanding them at all, weneed to have before us a full picture of one or more of thevillages of the Fayum, the ruins duly explored, mapped andphotographed, the remains of the furniture, th e implements andutensils of its inhabitants . Moreover I a m s u re t h a t s u c h a nexploration if s ystema tic and scientific will certainly yield m anynew papyr i o r a t least wi ll make i t cer ta in th at no m ore papyr ican be found in this place. I have often discussed this idea withMr. B. P Grenfell and he fully agreed with me. Some days agoI received a letter from M r. C. C. Edgar , another great au thor-ity in this domain. He writes as follows: The idea of syste-matically clearing one of the F ayu m sites has long att rac ted me.But i t would have to be done by a European or Amer icansocie ty ; the Egypt ian Government , I feel sure, will never und er-take i t . And i f i t i s to be done i t must be begun a t once, for thedestruction of all these sites has become more an d more rapid.In fact am af ra id i t i s too la te to do anyth ing of the sor t a tPhiladelphia, though papyri are still being found there (therewas another big find last year); but it might still be possible towork Batn Harit (Theadelphia).1s i t u topian to th ink th at there are m en and women in theUnited St ate s who may grasp th e importance of such excava-tions and may help one of the existing organizations to carryOut such an excavation?

v


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viii UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN STU IESThe second point not less important to me personally is to

express my warmest thanks to those who helped me in bringingtogether and explaining the important material which formsthe subj ect of th is book. I am greatly indebted to Mr. C CEdgar for sending me his valuable articles and for supplyingme with the photographs of th e Cairo papyri which are repro-duced on pl. I1and 111. Dr. H. J. Bell was kind enough to lendme his copies of th e Zenon papyri of th e British Museum. Pro-fessor P. Jouguet has sent me the phot ograp h of t he top of P.iile 1 reproduced here on pl. I. But my greatest thanks are

due to my colleague and friend Professor E. H. Byrne whohelped me in the most unselfish way to give to my Englishrespectable form. Many thank s are also due to Professor W L.Westermann who was good enough to read the proofs of thi sbook. Th e Index was compiled by my wife Mrs . S Rostovt-zeff.

L I S T O F A B B R E V I A T I O N S~ ~ ~ H . - - A r c h i vur Papyr~bsjorschung, herausgegeben von U . Wilcken , I-VI ,

1901-1920.B . U.-Aegyplische Urkunden aus den Mwee n zu Berlin, herausgegeben vonder Generalverwaltung. Griechische Urkunden, I- IV, 1895-1912.~1 ~~ 1O MA TA .- D ik ai or na ta , zwzugc azhs Alexaltdrinischen Geselzen und

Verwdnung en in einem Papy rus dcs Philologischen Seminars der UniversitiitHdle mil einem Anhang weiterer Papyri derselben Sammlung, herausgegebenvon der Graeca Halensis, Berlin, 1913.

p. ELEpH.-Elephantine-Papyri, bearbeitet vo n Rubens ohn, mit Beitragenvon Sc hubart und Spiegelberg, Berlin, 1907. (Special volume o f B. G. U.)

p. FRE1B.-llfiltheilungen aus der Freiburger Papyr ussam mlung , 1-11. Silz-wgsbericlzte der Heiddbergcr Akademie d e ~ dssenschajten 1914 2 Abhand-lung (Ptolemn ischeKleruchenurkunde, herausgegeben von M . Ge lzer).p. GEN.--Les papyrus de GenLve, transcrits et publies par J . Nicole, I GenEve,

1896-1906.P. G1ESS.-Griechische Papyr i m Museum des Oberhessischen Gesclrichrsver-

eins zu Giessen, im Vere in mit 0 Eger herausgegeben und erklart von E.Kornemann und P. M . Meyer, I , Leipzig , 1910-1912.P. GRAD.-Griechische Papy ri der Sammlung Gradenzwilz, herausgegeb en vo nG. Plaumann. Sitzungsberichle der Heidelberger Akademie der Wissen-schajten, 1914 15 Abhandlung .P. GR EN FE LL I-An Alexandrian Erotic Fragment and other Greek Papyri

chiefly Pcolemaic edited b y B. P. Gre nfell, Ox ford , 1896.P. GR EN FE LL 11-New Classical Fragmenls and other Greek and Latin Papy ri

ed i ted b y B. P. Grenfe ll and A Hu n t , Ox f o rd , 1897.P. HAL.-See Dikaiomata.P. HAM B.-G riechi sche Papyruskunde n der Nanzburger Stadtbibliolhek, heraus-

gegeben und erklart von P. M . M ej er , I and 2 Leipzig, 1911 1913.P.HTB.-The IIibeh Papyri edited b y B . P. Gren fel l and A. Hunt , I , London ,

1906.P. LILLE--Papy rus Grecs publies sous la direc tion de P. Jouguet avec l

collaboration de P. Collart , J . Lesqu ier, M . Xoual , I , Paris, 1907; I1(Papy rus de Magdola, seconde Cdition par J. Lesquier), Paris, 1912.P. L o N ~ . - ~ r e e k Papyri in the British Museum. Catalogue with Texts, I,1893 and 11, 1898 ed i ted by F Keny on; 111 , 1907 ed . b y H I. Bell and

F. K en yo n : I V , 1910 a nd V , 1917 ed . by H. I . Bel l.P. LOND . 1NV.-unpublished papyri in the British Muse um (correspondenceo f Zenon) .P. L O U V R E - N O ~ ~ C ~ Sl Ezlrails des iMauuscrits grecs de la Biblio6hique lmperi-

ale v. XV III par Brunet d e Prcsle, Paris, 1865.P MAGD.-See P. Lille 11.


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P. MEYER, JURISTISCHE PAPYRI-Juristische Papyri. Erklarung vonUrkunden zur Einfuhrung in die juristische Papyruskunde von P. M.Meyer, Berlin, 1920.

P. MICH. 1NV.-unpublished Papyrus in the Library of the University ofMichigan (correspondence of Zenon).

P. 0XYR.-The Oxyrynchus papyri parts I-XIV, ed. B. P. Grenfell and A.Hunt. London, 1898-1920.

P. PARIS.-See P. Louvre.P. PETRIE-The Flinders Petrie Papyr i, with transcriptions, commenlaries and

index, I, I1 ed. by the Rev. J. P. Mahaffy, Dublin, 1891,1893; 111, ed. bythe Rev. J. P. Mahaffy and J. A. Smyly, Dubl in, 1905.

R L. or REV. LAWS-Revenue Laws o Ptolemy Philadelphus ed. by B. P.Grenfell. Oxford. 1896.

P. RYL.-Cddogue of the Greek Papyr i in the John Rylands Library, Manches-ter. Vol. 11 ed. by J. de M Johnson, V. Martin, A Hunt. Manchester.1915.

P. RYL. 8-unpublished Papyrus in the Rylands Library at Manchester (cor-respondence of Zenon).

P.S.1.-Pubblicazioni della Societci Itdi an a per la ricerca dei Pa pir i Ge ci eLatini in Egitto. Pap iri Gec i e Latini. Firenze vol. IV, V, 1917; VI,1920.

P. TEBT.-The Tebtunis Papyr i, Par t I ed. by 13 P. Grenfell, A. Hunt, J. ASmyly, London, 1902; Pa rt I1ed. by B. P. Grenfell, A. Hunt, J. Goodspeed,London, 1907.

P.2.-Selected Pap yri from the Archives of Zenon by C C. Edgar, Anndes drSendice des Antiquit de 1'Egyple XVIII, p. 159 ff., 225 ff.; XI X, p 13 .81ff.; XX,p. 19ff., 181ff.;XXI,p.89ff.

ROSTOWZEW, STUDIEN-Slld ien zur Geschiclzte des Romischen I-o lon atr svon M. Rostowzew, Erstes Reiheft zum Archiv fiir Papyrusforschung,Leipzig und Berlin, 1910.

SCHUBART, EIN F~~ HR UNG -W. chubart, Einjuhrung in die Papyrus-kunde, Berlin, 1918.

WILCKEN CHREST. and WILCKEN GRUNDZ.-L. Mitteis und UWilcken, Gundzuge und Carestornathie der Papyruskunde I, 1 (Grund-ziige) , 2 (Chrestomathie), Leipzig, 1912.

DESCRIPTION OF PLATESI. P. Lille 1, recto. Ghoran. Om. 16 cent. xom. 31 cent.Year 27. Map and device of the irrigation work on th eest ate of Apollonius-Frontispiece.11 P.Z. 22. Philadelphia. Om. 245 mill. xom. 10 cent.Year 29. Lett er from Zenon to Panakestor p. 39.111. P.Z. 27. Philadelphia. Om. 19 cent. xom. 34 cent.Year 30. Lett er from Apollonius to Zenon p. 49.


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I INTRODUCTORYOf the Greek papyri from Egypt the PtoIemaic documentsform only a small portion, and among them are relatively few

of the third century, i. e. of the first period of the Greek domina-tion in Egypt. Most of the Greek documents bought andexcavated in Egypt, as is well known, belong to the Romanperiod, to the first three centuries A.D. Moreover the earlyGreek papyri of Egypt are mostly fragmentary and in a badstat e of preservat ion, having been extracted for the most par tfro m the cartonnages of mummies found in Greek cemeteries ofthe Ptolemaic p er i~ d. ~Most of t he early Ptolemaic papyri ar e found in the Fayum.Such are t he valuable documents collected by Petrie a t Guroband published by Mahaffy and Smyly in the three volumes ofthe Petrie PapyriL Another series was collected by Jouguetand Lefebvre in the south-west corner of the Fa yum, in th ecemeteries near the village of Magd01a.~ In the Fa yum probablywas found th e largest papyrus of the early Ptolemaic time, th evbpor T E ~ W V L K O ~f Ptolemy Philadelphus, his Revenue Laws,publishea by GrenfelL4 Some inte resting early Ptolemaic docu-ments were also extracted from the cemetery of Tebtunis in th esouthern par t of the Fayum and will shortly be published byGrenfell and Hun t in the third volume of the Tebtuni s Papyri.But the re are many and valuable documents of t he sameperiod which do not belong to the Fayum, e.g. the Dikaiomataof the time of Philadelphus published by th e Graeca ha lens is ^

On the finds of Pap yri in general, see the two best introductions to thestudy of the papyri, L. Mitteis and U. Wilcken, G rund zug e ~ n dhresto-mathie der Papyruskunde Leipzig, 1912), and W. Schubart, Einfuhrungin die Papyruskunde Berlin, 1918).

J. P. Mahaffy and J. G. Smyly, The Flinders Petrie Papyri 3 ~01s .Dublin, 1891-1905).P. Jouguet, P. Collart, J. Lesqujer, M. Xoual, Papyrus grecs 2 vols.

Paris, 1907-1912); the second volume contains the papyri of Magdola.B P. Grenfell, The Revenue Laws of Ptolemy Philadelphus Oxford,1896).Dikaiomata Auszuge aus Alezandrinischen Gesetzen und Verord-ungen herausg. von der Chaeca Halensis Berlin, 1913).


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the papyri of Elep hantine in Upper Egypt published byRubensohn; and those of Hibeh published by Grenfell andHunt.

The majority of these papyri are, as I have already pointedout, fragmentary, badly preserved and very difficult to read.But among them we have some large and comparatively wellpreserved documents of the greatest historical importance;also several series of letters and documents, addressed to thesame person, which probably belonged to a larger body ofeithe r private or official writings. Among those of the firstgroup should name the already mentioned Revenue Laws,the Dikaiomata, and a n unpublished document of the thirdcentury found in Tebtunis, instructions given by the dioeketes(Min ister of finances) of Euergete s to an oeconomus (Secre-tar y of finances) of the Fayu m (th e Arsinoite nome). To thesecond group belongs for example the correspondence of theengineers of Pt olemy Philadel phus and of Ptole my Euergetes,who worked in the Fayum, and created by their efforts theflourishing agric ultur al district,-the Arsinoite nome, formerlypartly desert, partly marshy land. Their names were Kleonand Theodorus. The documents of their archives were foundby Petrie at Gurob. Another series of connected documentsis the find of Magdola, scores of pe titions addressed to themilitary governor of the Fayum, the strategus. The y fqrmedproba bly for a while a part of the archives of th e governor a tthe capital of t he Fay um, Crocodilopolis, and later on were soldto some fabri cant of cartonnages who furnished the whole nomewith his products. Fragments of such extensive groups arefound everywhere among the documen ts of t he early Ptolemaicperiod, sometimes only two or three letters, sometimes a largergroup like some groups of th e papyri of Guaob, Hibeh a ndElephantine.

The importance of the early Ptolemai c documents is enor-mous. During the third centu ry B.C. the Ptolemies, especiallythe two first, Ptolemy Soter (the Saviour) and Philadelphus

0 ubensohn, Elephantine Papyr i Berlin, 1907 .. Grenfell and A. S . Hunt, The Hibeh Papyri London, 1906 ; cfG . Plaumann, Griechische Pafiyri der Sammlung Gradenwits Sitz.-Ber. derHeidelberger Akademie der Wis senschajten, 1914, Lief 15) .

(loving his sister), carrie d out a work of first rate importancenot only for their own land, Egypt, but for the ancient worldin general. In Egypt they met with multisecular traditions,with an organizat ion of the political, social and economiclife which had gr aduall y grown out of th e special condi-tions presented by this peculiar land of Egypt. Thi sancient native organization of Egypt, bu ilt up b y the mostcreative dynasties of the Ancient, Middle and New Egypt, wasof course shattered b y the long years of foreign domination,interrupted by national revolutions and by temporary reestab-lishments of a national monarchy , changes preceded andfollowed by years of struggle and of anarchy. Only par tialrestoration occurred in the periods of compara tive quiet, sotha t Egypt a t the time of Alexander and of his Egypt ian ex-pedition was no more a flourishing, well organized state as ithad been before the Assyrian and Persian conquest. It s agri-culture suff ered from years and years of irr egular work on thebanks and canals,-a question of life and deat h for Egypt ; itscommerce was almost entirel y in the han ds of foreigners bothGreeks and Phoenicians; its industry was to a great extentmonopolized by the temples and by the clergy, dominant inthe political, social and economic life of t he cou ntry.

The first Ptolemies, if t hey wanted to make Egypt the centreof a mighty State which would be able to compete with suchlarge and rich monarchies as Syria, the heir of t he PersianEmpire, and Macedon, the new ruler of the Greek world onthe mainland, were faced with the necessity both of restoringthe economic life of t he coun try and of consolidating i t bymeans of a good, properly organized administ ration. A mererestoration of the old adminis trati on was of course impossible.With the Ptolemies a new element came into the country, theGreeks. The y were the conquerors and on their strength wasbased the might and power of the Ptolemies. The y broughtwith them their own customs and habits, their own needs, andthey claimed the right to be or to become the dominant classin Egypt. On the other hand the organization of the nativeelement was far from perfect. Egypt a t the time of Alexander sconquest was no more the centralized and highly developedbureaucratic and autocratic sta te of t he Pharaohs of t he


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Eighteenth Dynasty. Feudal elements during the periods ofAssyrian, Babylonian and Persian domination had won onevictory afte r another over the idea of centralizat ion. AndEgy pt of the fo urth centu ry B.C., as far as we can judge, wasa land of man y almost independent temp le and feudal terri-tories ruled by the highest clergy and by some feudal lords fortheir own profit. Any restoration of order and prosper ity inEgy pt meant first of all the elimin ation of the se elements.

Th us the task of t he Ptolemies was in no way an easy one.And the lines which they would take would be decisive for thewhole future of Egypt, bo th as a separate a nd independentsta te and as a member of th e then established balance of powerin the Mediterranean.

The history of Egyp t during the last three centuriesB.C.shows th at the first Ptolemies did succeed in forming a.strongand well organized state. They were dominant in the Hellen-istic world for about a century and they preserved their inde-pendence against th e renewed atta cks of Syr ia and Macedonin th e following century. They were the last among the leadingHellenistic powers to succumb to the world domination of Rome,and the last battle fought by the Orient against the Occidentwas organized and prepared in Alexandria by the commonefforts of Antony and Cleopatra. This shows tha t Egyp tduring the Hellenistic period had strong vital forces based ona ration al exploitation of t he resources of th e country . t istherefore highly imp orta nt to know wha t were the devicesby which the Ptolemies restored to Egypt these vital forceswhich it seemed to have lost irretrievably.

The early Ptolemaic documents enumerated above give apartial answer to this question. They show how systematicand logically progressive was the work of rest oration a ndreformatio n of th e first Ptolemies in Egyp t and how lastingwere the foundations laid by them in their reforms. Thegeneral lines of this work were retained no t only by t heir succes-sors, the Ptolemies of t he second and first centuries B.C., butby the Romans as well. Even in the Byzantine and Arabicperiod some of t he remains of this thorough work of t he firs tPtolemies lived on.

cannot deal with this subject a t length. The reader willfind my ideas on this topic explained in my article on Ptolemaic

~ g y p tn the Journal of Egyptian Archaeology and in my bookon the Hellenistic world and Rome now in course of publi-cation.

But must emphasize the fact th at if the main lines of thereform work of the Ptolemies m ay be trac ed with some degreeo accuracy, many and highly important points remain stilldark and therefore hotly debat ed. One of the most imp orta ntand of the darke st questions is th at of the par t pIayed in theeconomic life of Eg ypt b y the Greeks and ot her foreigners, ofthe relation of th e new-comers to th e ancient p opulation ofEgypt , of th e importan ce of bo th elements in the restorationof the economic stren gth of the new Greco-Egyptian state .

This is just the poi nt which seems to be to a certain degreeelucidated by a recent find made in Egypt during the war.mean the discovery of a new and e xceptionally rich series ofdocuments of th e third cent ury B.C. made in 1915at Kharabetel Gerza in the Fay um, the s ite of the ancie nt village of Phil a-delphia. The new find forms a unit. All the Greek papyriwhich belong to it were filed and docketed by a certain Zenonand formed therefore a par t of his correspondence, his privat earchives. Th e discovery of these pap yri was accidental . Thediscoverers were Egyptian peasants, fellahin digging for sebakh(the fertilizing earth of the ancien t ruins used regularly by theEgyptian peasants for fertilizing their field^ .^

As usual the whole lot of docume nts (how many they origi-nally were, nobody knows) was acquired by dealers, specialistsin the papyri-trade, was divided by them int o many parts and

M Rostovtz eff, The Foundations of Social and Economic Life inEgypt in Hellenistic Times, Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, VI,(1920), 161 ffWe have no evidence about the conditions under which the find wasmade as the dealers were not willing to disclose their source of supply.What is known is related by C C Edgar, On the Dating of Early Ptole-maic Papyri, Anneles du Swuice des Antiquit de I'Egypte, XVII (1917)m; cf. the introductions to his subsequent articles in the Annales and the

prefaces of Vitelli in P .S .I . (see below, note 10). There is every probabil-ity for the belief that the papyri were found in the ruins of the house whichformerly belonged to Zenon, probably in the cellars. Another possibilityis that they were thrown out of the house at once and were preserved forcenturir? n one of the heaps of refuses.


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UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN STUDIES ROSTOVTZEFF A L R G E ESTATE IN EGYPTthese parts were sold to different purchasers gradually onelot after another. A large part came through the late Gentillito Florence anot her was acquired by the Museum of Cairowhich is still buying up one lot after another; two importantlots were acquired by the British Museum and one by theLibrary in Manchester. One papy rus of th e same series came toHamburg. Some offered for sale to different inst ituti ons werenot purchased and may still remain in the hands of the dealersor may have been sold to one or another private collector. I tis indeed urgent t ha t everybody who possesses papy ri of thecorrespondence of Zenon should notify the editors of t helarger lots and not hide the documents for years and years asmany collectors of papyri sometimes do.

War time was not very favourable for th e publication ofpapyri nor is the time we are living in any better. Neverthe-less the energy of Vitelli and his collaborators in Ita lylo and ofEdgar in Cairon has resulted in the publication of most of thebest preserved documents of th e Itali an an d Cairo collectionsand Bell and Grenfell will do the same for th e documents whichare now in England. Thank s to the kindness of Bell andGrenfell have seen their copies of the English part of theZenon archives and am acquainted with their content. Thepapyrus which came to Hamburg was published by P. Meyer.12

Thus we have already a body of more tha n three hundredand fifty documents published and partly explained. Manynew ones will soon appear in the next volume of t he Pap yriof the British Museum a nd in t he next articles of Edgar. Theywill certainly bring to light valuable new information on the

o Pubblicazioni della Societd Ztaliana per la ricerca dei p apiri greci elatini in Egitto. Papir i Greci e Latini IV, V, and VI (Firenze, 1917, 1920 .Quoted as P S I with the number of the papyrus, without the number ofthe volume.

11 C C Edgar, Selected Papyri from the Archives of Zenon, Annalesdu Service des Ant. de ZJEgypte XVIII and XIX (pt. I, nos. 1-10, vol.XMII p. 159 ff ; pt. 11, nos. 11-21,vol. XVIII, p. 225 ff ; pt. 111, nos. 22-36,vol. XIX, p. 13 f f . ; pt. IV, nos. 37-48, vol. XIX, p. 81 f f . . Quoted P. Zwith the number of the papyrus or pt. I, etc., and the page. The papyrifrom Zenon's archives now in London are quoted by the Inventory numberof each.

1 P. M. Meyer, Griechische Papyrusurkunden der Hamburger Sladl-bibliothek 2 parts (Leipzig, 1911 and 1913 , no. 27

affairs of Zenon some fragments will fit int o already publisheddocuments and make it easier to understand them. Manyquestions of chronology and of detai ls will certainly arisefrom the new evidence. Under such conditions it may seemunwise to deal a t present with the correspondence as a wholefrom the historical point of view or to try before the series iscomplete to point out its scientific value an d it s enormousimportance for our knowledge of the early Ptolemaic Egypt.

Nevertheless I have decided to take up th is question a tonce and to publish the results of my investigations. Myreasons for doing so are as follows. We possess alrea dy suffi-cient evidence for forming a conception of th e correspondenceas a whole and the conception which I have formed by meansof a close study of the published documents is very muchdifferent from th at which was formed by th e editors of thedocuments. should like therefore to make my conceptionaccessible to the editors of t he new documents subject it t otheir criticism and thu s make their work of publishing th enew evidence easier since the reading of t he new pieces of evi-dence and commenting upon them depends very much for itsvalue on the right understanding of th e series as a whole.Furthermore am not afraid of committ ing mistakes. shouldbe very gIad to correct my statemen ts in the light of any newevidence and to modify my opinions. But for the successfulprogress of the work of editing and commenting on the newpapyri in general it is urgent that the new documents be com-pared with the old ones and that this new evidence be assignedits place in the already known series of the same time and t hesame place. We shall see how close is the connection of theZenon papyri with those of t he Petrie lot on th e one hand andwith the Revenue Laws on the other. I t will appear also tha tmany of the Lille papyri explain and are explained in theirturn by the Zenon papyri. I therefore do not regard my laborin compiling this article as a waste of time. Science progressesstep by step and nobody should be afra id of commit tingmistakes in dealing with new and unexplained mater ialassuming that his stud y of thi s material is thorough animatedby a sincere desire to find the truth and founded on a wellestablished general conception.


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11 PHILADELPHIAThe place where the Zenon correspondence was found is well

known to the papyrologists and to the dealers in papyri. Phila-delphia (Gerza near the modern Rubba yat) , like Karanis andSoknopaiu Nesos and some other sites in the F ayum, was one ofthe first places to be attacked by the sebakh diggers and papyriplunderers in the eighties of th e last century. Many papyriin a good state of preservation found in the ruins of Philadelphiawere sold in Europe t o the Museums of Berlin, London, andGeneva.l3 Most of them are published in the papyri publica-tions of Berlin, London and Geneva. Nobody tried to collectthem all an d to give a picture of Phi ladelphia and i ts economicdevelopment. The task is not an easy one as the papyri fromPhiladelphia are but few in number and only a pa rt of themmeation the name of th e village. New evidence about theearlier times of Philadelphia was brought by the Petrie papyriand some Lille papyri extracted from the cartonnages ofPtolemaic mummies. Most of th e Petrie and the Lille papyriprobably belong to the archives of Crocodilopolis, the capitalof the Arsinoite nome, and some of th em mention Philadelphiaamong the other villages of th e Fayum.

The systematic excavations in the Fayum which were begunby Petrie, developed in the nineties of the last century byGrenfell, Hunt and Hogarth, and later on by the Frenchscholars Jouguet and Lefebvre and by the administration of theCairo Museum, never touched the site and th e ruins of Phila-delphia. In 19 Grenfell and Hunt tried to excavate thenecropolis of Philadelphia but soon became discouraged by t hebad s tate of thi s cemetery which had been repeatedly plunderedby the fellahin and papyri dealers." The ruins of the cityitself seemed to be entirely exhausted and not worth theexpenditure on them of time and money.

1 Grenfell and Hunt, Fayum Towns and their Papyri Introduction, p.11; Grenfelland Hunt, Tebtunis Papyri 11, 345;Archaeological Records ofthe Egypt Exploration Fund 1900-1901 p. 6 81 Grenfelland Hunt, Arch. Rep. loc. cil

Nevertheless the acti vity of the commercial excavators atphiladelphia did not cease. Some papyri from Philadelphiaappeared again lately on the market, thus testifying to a re-newed act ivi ty of th e sebakh diggers in Gerza. Some of themwere bought by the Library of Ham burg and published recentlyby p . Meyer, some by Mrs. Rylands. Among the Hamburglot there was already one of the Zenon papyri . No doubt theZenon find was one of the results of the ac tiv ity of papyrirobbers.

No wonder therefore if our knowledge of the dest inies ofPhiladelphia is scan ty and fragmentary The name of Phila-delphia shows that the village belonged to those which werefounded under t he second Ptolemy as the result of his work ofdrainage and irrigation in the marshes and sandy land on theshores of Lake Moeris. Philadelphia was one of th e manycreations of the Ptolemies in the Fayum. We know how exten-sive and successful this work of th e Ptolemies was. In th elist of the villages of the Fayum which already existed therein the early Ptolemaic epoch and which are mentioned in theGreek papyri of the Fayum, th e list compiled with great careby Grenfell in P. Tebt. 11, there are found 114 names of largerand smaller settlements (I take the villages only and leaveaside the smaller places: 76~01,hroi~ta,xwpia etc.). Of these114 villages 66 have Greek names and only 48 Egyptian. Buteven the villages with Egypt ian names are in no way altogetherpre-Ptolemaic. Most of them as well as the villages with Greeknames are creations of the Ptolemies. I t is shown by the facttha t many, perhaps most of them, bear the same names as somelarger and smaller cities in the Delta and in Middle Egypt. Inthe Fayum as in th e United States of America, another greatland of colonization, we meet with village after village homony-mous to celebrated cities, in this case cities of Lower and MiddleEgypt with their partly Hellenized, partly native names:A*6XXwvos ?r6X~s h pq,Ep~(oi,6Xcs ~hpv,HXiou ?rbXts ~h pr ],KvvijvrbXls K ~ L L V ATTOGS T ~ X S~bpv,Mkp4ts ~h pv ,NeiXov n6Xts ~&pqon the one hand and 'Aepi@~s,oi@acr~os,ovuiprs, Mkvsvs, O(bpwTxa, ~~/~cvv~,Tos ,~ V L S ,ap@aiOos, etc., on the other. No doub tthese names recall the names of the places whence the newsettlers came to the Fayum, perhaps of the nomes to which they


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1 UNIVERSITY O F WISCONSIN STUDIES ROSTOVTZEFF A LARGE ESTATE IN EGYPT 11

formerly belonged, as th e recorded names are names of the capi-tals of th e nomes of t he Del ta and of Middle Egypt . Otherpurely Egyp tian names of t he villages of th e Fayum ma y havebeen borrowed in the same way from other less conspicuousplaces of Egypt . Bu t this point requires furt her investigation.The only difference between the settlements with Greek andthose with Egyptian names is probably this, that the formerhad a Greek majority among the new settlers, the latter anEgyptian one, i. e., t ha t th e former were mostly settlements ofGreek soldiers, the lat ter of Egy ptian crown-peasants, theJau~Xi~oiewpyoi. We shall retain this fact a s one which is

very charact eristic of th e history of t he colonization of th e Fay-um of which I shall speak more fully later on.

Among the new settlements in the Fayum with Greek andnative names Philadelphia occupies a rather exceptionalposition. I t belongs to the small class of Greek settlementswith names derived from the names of t he rulers of Egypt,-the Ptolemies. It seems strange th at in a region settled mostlyby mercenary soldiers dynastic names form rather an exception.But the fact in itself is beyond any doubt. In the wholeFayum we have only fourteen ~ijpaiwith dynastic names outof 66 with Greek names, namely two Bepavi~is, wo Apcrivb, oneEkpya~is,one Bea66Xqicta, five II~oXepais, one @LXWTE~LS one+iAosdr~wpand one @~Xa6CX+eia.Much more usual is it to giveto th e villages names derived either from t he names of somegods (e. g., Ba~xths,H$aicr~ihs--disguised Egypt ian gods?) orfrom the names of persons not connected with t he royalhouse, some of whom seem t o hav e belonged to the class ofhigher officials of Egy pt in general and th e Fayu m in particu-lar. It is very likely, e. g., that 'A~oXXwv~dsas named afterthe dioeketes Apollonius, the Qeoykvovs ~ h p qfter the dioeketes ofEuergetes I Mq~poGOpov~Opq ft er th e oeconomus of the Fayurnof the same t ime, a nd some other ~G pa i fter th e vopdrpxac ofthe Fayum. We shall come back to this special point later on.

The rarity of the dynastic names can be explained only bythe supposition th at i t was not free to the new settlers to take adynastic name without special permission and that a dynasticname implied a kind of patron age of the King and th e Queen,perhaps even the institution of a royal cult by the settlers.

We shall see lat er on that such special connection with theroyal house very probably existed in th e case of Phi ladelphia.

Beside the mere fact of its foundation und er Ptolemy Phila-delphus we knew very little abou t the early history of Phila-delphia before the discovery of Zenon's correspondence. SomePetrie papyri testify that important works were carried out inthe neighborhood of Phil adelphia by the royal engineers Kleonand Theodorus,I5 tha t the place was surrounded by settlementswith Egyptian names, probably colonies inhabited by royalpeasants as they bear names derived from some famous placesin the Delta: Bubastus, Tanis, Patsonthis,16 and tha t it soonbecame an imp orta nt ce ntre of wine production.17 UnderEuergetes I Philadelphia was the chef-lieu of a toparchy, theresidence of a toparch.18 Under Philo pator we meet with awholesale merchant, resident in Philadelphia who has a largeherd of sheep.lg At th e same time it had a comparativ elylarge population of soldiers serving in the cav alry.20 Compara-tively large sums paid by the inh abitant s of Philadelphia for thetax on internal commerce (laOv~ov)~'nd for the tax on W?T~OV~'may allow us to suppose tha t the communit y was thriving andhad developed a certain amoun t of commercial and industrialactivity (the weaving industry, for example, the virpov beingused for washing cloth).

The Roman documents add but few new features to thismeagre picture. Under the Roman emperors Philadelp hiastill remained an imp ort ant centre of vintag e and gardening.Th e culture of olive trees seemed to prosper there, a s we hearoften of tXaiDves and iXaiwvoaaph6eiaoi and palm p lan tat ion s

l P. Petrie II,4, 4-I II, 42, 6, irrigation of the region b?rdQ~Xa Acpeiasws~ ~ T U ; V ~ E W S .P. Petrie 11, 46 b)-ILI, 57 a) and (b); 111, 105; 117 j); 117 k);11, 28-111, 66 a) .

l7 P. Petrie 11,46 b)-III, 57 a) and b).l P. Lille 3, col. IV, 1 73 .l9 B . G. U. 1012 170 B . C.?).o P. Petrie 111, 105.

P. Petrie 111, 117 j ) : k?r vrov is the tax on the sale of products in themarket.

P. Petrie 111, 117 k ) ~


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12 UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN STUDIES ROSTOVTZEFF-A LARGE ESTATE IN EGYPT 3owned by the inha bita nts of the ~illage.~ asture land andcattle breeding seem to have played an important part in theeconomic life of the settle ment.Along with Karanis, Bacchias and Soknopaiu Nesos andother localities situated on the verge of the desert and con-nected with Memphis by a caravan road, Philadelphia was oneof the places where custom-duties on import and expor t werelevied by the finance administration of Egypt. But th escan ty amount of custom- duties receipts discovered at Phila-delphia in comparison with those discovered at Soknopaiu Ne-sos show th at Philadelphia was not situ ated o n the main road oftraffic.2s I t is possible t o infer from one of the Zenon papyrithat this customs station at Philadelphia was created as earlyas th e foundati on of the village itself (see P. Z. 46, year 35of Phi ladelphus, cf. ibid., V, p. 21) .A peculiar feature in t he history of Philadelphia, as wasshown recently by the Hamburg and Ryland papyri, part ofwhich belong to the first century A. D. (most of th e Romanpapyri belong to a later epoch-the third and fourth centuriesA. D.), is the fact tha t a large part of th e territory of thisvillage after the Roman conquest came into the hands oflarge landowners eithe r members of the family or favorites ofAugustus and his successors. The large estates (obuiai) e. g.those of Germanicus, Maecenas an d Seneca, included largeparcels of land in the terr itor y of Philadelphia. All thisland was confiscated by Vespasian an d formed a special class ofthe st ate or imperial land in general (y i ofut a~~i )xploited by aspecial class of crown peasants, the ytwpyoi ob ut a~ oi .~ ~

=See, e. g., P. Hamb. 5 89 A. D . ) ; B . G. U. 603 , 14 168 A . D . ) , cf. 604;P. Lond. 111 p. 69 and p. 44 e 173 A.D. ); P. Hamb. 40-53 213-219 A. D. ) .These plantations still existed in the fourth century A. D., B. G . U., 519,1. 13; 456; 1049, cf. 1022 which testifies to the existence of oil factories inPhiladelphia.

P. Hamb. 40-53 213-219 A. D . ) .See Wilcken, Grundzuge, p. 191.P . Hamb. 3 74 A. D.); P. Ryl. 11 383 (second century A. D . ) ; P.

Gen. 42, 16 224 A. D. ) : BaorA rtoilrtai oiwrartoi rtai a pw du co i [ Y W P Y ~ O ~x pm l t A 3 t X c p e l a s . Cf. M. Rostowzew, Studien zur Geschichte des Romiscken Kolonals (Leipzig, 1910) pp. 119 f f . 218.

Along with this class of -rown peasant s other par ts of t hephiladelphian land were farmed by 6qp6atot and @aatXi~oiycwpy o~, fact which testifies t hat a n important part of theterritory remained in the hand s of the stat e and was rentedby the state directly. But along with this state land the sameterritory included many parcels, mostly vineyards and gardens,owned by private persons among whom we notice some de-scendants of t he Ptolemaic military s ettlers and many Romanveterans, the l atter mostly well to do landowner^.^^Like most of th e villages of th e Fayum, especially thosewhich were situated on the border of the desert, Philadelphiadid not prosper for very long. A constant and progressivedecay of the economic life is felt in Philadelphia a s in man yother villages of t he Fay um as early as th e second centur yA. D. I t is explained probably by th e negligence of t headministration to maintain the dikes and canals in good orderand by gradual impoverishment of the population overbur-dened by taxes and liturgies, a process which is ch aracteristic ofmost of t he cities and villages in Egy pt from th e second cent uryA. D. onwards. This process has been repeatedly describedand explained by myself and oth er scholars.2s

l P. Hamb. 5 89 A. D.) and 40-53 213-219 A. D . ) ; he last group ofdocuments forms a splendid parallel to the do cuments which were investi-gated by W. Westermann in his excellent article, An Egypt ian Farmer,'University of Wisconsin Sludies, Language and Literature, no. 3, p. 171 ff .The papyri Rylands also brought ou t a large amount of material whichcharacterizes theagricultural activit y of the Roman veterans in the Fayum.One of the most interesting documents, a register of taxes on land, latefirst century A. D . , deals with the territory of Philadelphia and the neigh-boring villages Tanis and Hephaestias, P. Ryl. 11 202, cf. 386 (secondcentury). The land owned by the veterans belonged mostly to the class ofcatoecic and cleruchic land and thus was formerly owned by the soldiersof the Ptolemaic army who were deprived of their property fo r the sake ofthe Roman veterans. But there are also Greek names in the register men-tioned above (cf. P. Ryl. 1881, probabl y those of the descendan ts of thecatoeci and cleruchi of the Ptolemaic period. I t is noteworthy tha t thefamou s letter of Apion (B. G . U. 423; Wilcken, Clrrest., p. 480) was foundat Philadelphia. The whole question of veterans as landowners shouldbe investigated anew, even after the treatm ent of this question by Lesquier,L armte romaine dJEgypte (Paris, 1919). The Greek, and later the Rom ancharacter of the population seems thus to be a feature of Philadelphia allthrough the seven centuries of its existence.

Ro: towzew, Studien, p. 206 ff.


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14 UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN STUDIESFor Philadelphia this fact is well illustrated by one of theHamburg papyri of 160 A. D. (no. 35 . I t i s a p e t it i on to t h egovernor of th e nome from three m en and their associates whowere en trusted by the governor to ~ p o a r a 9 i j v a i pqs PiXa6eXpeias.These are their complain ts: "Inasmuch as the ar rears of th isvillage are big and we need help bitterly, an d most of the hea dsof the village neglect their du ty of collecting taxes, especially

the field-guards, we beg you to make an inqu iry into the ma tteran d to order a more careful collection of the m."In the th ird century the si tuat ion becomes a larming . T h eamo unt of dry land increases steadily. I n t h e f o u r th cen tur ythe ru in is a lmost complete , as is shown by some Geneva papyr iwhich mention a special class of land entirely unproductivebooked by the officials under the heading of Z i ~ o p o v r L?rbp pwvbvo,ub~wv,--entirely nproductive land.29 Very soon the placebecame completely depopulated and was never settled again.No papyr i la ter t han the four th century A. D. were discovereda t Phi ladelphia . At th is t ime the v il lage was abandoned by i tsinhabi tan ts and became again a pa r t o f the sandy deser t as itwas before the tim e of the first Ptolemies and as it remained tothe time of th e discovery of it s papyri b y the sebakh diggers.Such are the scanty data which we possess on the history ofPhiladelphia. And we mus t say tha t in this respect Philadel-phia is not an exception. Th e history of most of the places inthe F ayum is the same a s far as we know it. And yet this poorp ic ture does not cor respond to the t ru th . Phi ladelphia had i tstime of feverish act ivit y, of gre at plans a nd projects , of inter -esting att emp ts. Th e accidental discovery of the correspond-ence of Zenon illuminates this epoch with ma ny minu te detailsand enables us to follow the destinies of th is typical place fromthe very beginning of its development. I t is a fascinatingstud y to follow these destinies. I t is of course local history,history of a small place which never was connected with thegreat historical eve nts; but how much light it throws on man yhistorical questions of first importance; how many new d ata i tgives for our appreciation of the H ellenistic period in general;

ROSTOVTZEFF A L A R G E ESTATE IN EGYPT 5and how instruc tive it is for our conception of t he ancient worldin generalBut before we take up this subject let me deal first withZenon, with his career and his relations to the ma ny persons withwhom he was connected.

Z P. Gen. 66 67 69 70; Wilcken, Chresl., 380 381 I follow Wilckenin hi s explanat ion of the term iirrop h v b ~ a r a f. Nochlrdge p. V I I .


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ROSTOVTZEFF A LAR GE ESTATE IN EGYPT 17

1 11 . Z E N ON AND APOL L ONI USTHETWO AR L I E STE R I ODSN THE ACTIVITYF Z E N O NTh e archives of Zenon were found at Philade lphia. B u tman y of th e letters kept by Zenon in his archives were notaddressed to him in the Fayum. Th e dates, addresses, docketsand conten ts of m any letters show tha t they were written beforeZenon settled dow na t Philadelphia (the second half of the year29 of P hiladelphus), a t a period when he resided partl y inAlexandria, partly in th e Syrian provinces of the Ptolemies.I t i s ev iden t tha t he b rought these le t ters wi th h im to Ph i la-delphia and kep t them in his archives for one reason or another.Thi s fact explains the paucity of our evidence abo ut Zenonan d his affairs before his activity in Philadelphia. Zenontravelled very much d uring the first periods of his life. No

wonder if during these travels he did no t keep all the letterswhich he received. Mo st of them naturall y disappeared andwhat remained were no t a lways the most impor tan t . Suchis the impression left on us by the remains of the correspondenceof Zenon before his coming to Philadelphia. The fu r ther wego back from this dat e the scantier the remains. We can hard lyexpect th at this impression would be very much m odified by thepublicati on of the other pa rts of Zenon's archives . Zenonmight have kept his archives in o rder; it is even possibletha t the le t ters were found ar ranged accord ing to some system.Bu t the order in which the lette rs fell into the h ands of thedifferent purchasers shows that this order was not observedby the diggers, th at in selling the docume nts the dealers mixedthem up hopelessly.A mere glance a t the correspondence of Zenon shows th atduring all the time of his active intercourse with his correspond-ents he was in close and uninterrupted relations with hischief, Apollonius the dioeketes of King P tolem y I1 Philadel-phu s, i.e., t he man ager in the nam e of the king of the economiclife of Eg yp t. Before the discovery of Zenon's pap yri weknew but little of Apollonius and his career. H e was firstmentioned in the year 27 of Ptolem y Philadelphus , and the

6

last mention of his name belonged to the year 34. Zenon'sallows us to define more accurately both thetime of his appointm ent to the d ut y of dioeketes and the timewhen he left thisp.S.1. 324 and 325 (cf. 322 note 1) show t ha t Apollonius wasalready dioeketes in the year 25 of Ph iladelphus. On the o therhand in the R.L. of Philadelphus which were published in theyear 27 rob ably by Apollonius, we have in t he section on theapomoira as an appendix to the rpbypappa and Grhypappa ofthis year, two earlier documents dated in the year 23 by whichtwo declarations prelimina ry to th e collectibn of a pomoira wereprescribed: a n inventory of th e persons who had already paida part of their yield of the vineyards a nd gardens to th e temples,and an inven tory of all the vineyards and gardens. Theseinventories were ordered to be delivered to those who workunder Satyrus (70% rap & Zaripou ~payparew pivors)l andthe first one moreover to t he account ants who work underDi ony sod oru s (rois aa ph Atovvuo6Opou reraypClivois &y )t oy tu ra ~s ,R.L. col. 36, 10 an d 37, 11-12). From P.Z. 44 (year34) we know that Dionysodorus was in this year the chief sub-ordin ate of Apollonius (c f. P.Z. 14, 8, year 29)' the chief eglogistin Alexandr ia . There is no doubt therefore tha t Satyrus andnot Apollonius was dioeketes in the year 23. As in the year5 Apollonius was already dioeketes, it is clear that he wasappointed to this office between the two dates, probably inthe year 24.

When did he leave thi s office? He was still dioeketes in thelast year of Philadelphus (P.S.I . 383), but no longer in the firstYears of Euergetes. Thi s I deduce f rom P. Petr ie I I ,42a-111'43, 1. This docum ent is a notification by the autho r of th edocument to all the officials of t he Fa yum telling them th atAlmost nothing has been written on Apollonius. His name does notappear in the Indices of Wilcken s and Schubart s introductions to papy-ology. Even the careful book of BouchC-Leclercq, Histoire des Lagides(Paris 1903-1907), mentions his name only once (vol. 111, r. 266 cf. p.381, note 2 and IV p. 342) irr 4peaking of the Revenue Laws. The papy riwhere Apollonius is mentioned have been quoted by many scholarsbut mostly in the notes; he seemed unworthy of mention in the text.See, e. g., Preisigke, Klio VII, p. 241, note; P. Hib. 44, note 3; Dikaiomaia.P. 260; P.S.I. 383, note 12 (Vitelli).


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18 UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN STUDIES ROSTOVTZEFF A LARGE ESTATE IN EGYPT 19instead of Kleon, Theodorus had been appointed by him chiefengineer of the nome. Kleon occupied in the nome a veryhigh position and was subordinate to the dioeketes only, bywhom he was appointed, if not b y the King himself. Now thedocument in question was sent out not b y Apollonius, who wasstill dioeketes in the las t year of Philadelphus, but b y Kleandrus,no doubt the dioeketes at t he time when the letter was written.The letter of course is not dated. Bu t many documents show(P. Petrie 111 43, 2 ff. th at in the second year of EuergetesTheodorus is the acting chief engineer of the F a y ~ m . ~ ~hushe was appointed not later than in the second year of Euergetes,probably in his first year. It is only natural tha t the new Kingwanted to have a new manager of his finances, a ma n personallydevoted to him. We may find a corroboration of this hypothesisof mine in P. Petrie 111, 53,-a badly preserved private letter.This lett er twice mentions the King, once a man called Diotimus,who, as we know, was one of the local dioeketae under Apol-lonius and remained hypodioeketes under Euergetes for sometime (see Appendix I), and once a man of the name of Klean-drus. With Diotimus the writer of th e letter was on goodterms, but Kleandrus is named in a connotation which seemsto imply a different att itu de of our man towards him alth oughthe passage is unfortunately very fragmentary. The autho rof the letter is in great anxiety. His main fear is to lose

s1 P. Lond. Inv. 2089 shows that Theodorus fulfilled the duties of chiefengineer of the Arsinoit e as early as the year 36 of Philadelphus. In hisletter to A.[ Ipiar he asked for a salary not less than the salaryreceived by Kleon and promised in this case to do everything possible forthe dioeketes and for the man to whom the letter is addressed. If there-fore he was appointed as early as the year 36 as the chief engineer of th eGrsinoite, the lett er of Kleandrus was written for the purpose of reappoint-ing him, after Kleandrus h ad taken the office of Apollonius; or rather forthe purpose of informin g the officials of the nome th at Theodorus had beenmaintained by him in his commission of the chief engineer of the nome.But it is possible also that Theodorus' commission in the year 36 was onlytha t of a sub-engineer. In this case the letter (P. Lond. Inv. 2089 howstha t as such he claimed a salary from the es tate of Apollonius equivalentto what was given to Kleon, probably in a priv ate way, as a kind of bribe.Theodorus may have received the special commission to care for the dykeswhich were built in the estat e of Apollonius. Be that a s it may, the newdocument changes nothing in my statement ab out th e career of Apollonius.

his KT pa. Was he not one of the higher officials, a sub-ordinate of Kleandrus and Diotimus who has lost his commis-s io n c o ~ te mp o ra n e ~ ~ ~ lyith Apollonius?

We may safely assume therefore that Apollonius who wasappointed about the year 24 remained in th e office as long asthe rule and life of Philadelphus lasted, enjoying during histime t he fu ll confidence of his King and being his chief collabo-rator for some 15 years. Under Euergetes the conditions weredifferent. In the year 5 the post of the dioeketes is occupiedno longer by Kleandrus but by Theogenes (P. Petrie II ,3 8 (b)-111, 53 (e) cf. P. Lille 4, 5; P.S.I. VI, p. 70, note I), in the year10 the dioeketes is Eutychus (P. Petrie 11, 15, 2; 111, 43, 7, cf.Hib. 133), in the year 18, Chrysippus (P. Petrie 111, 5 (1 andm), cf. P. Grenfell 11, 14 (b) 2) and our information is probablyfar from complete. I t is possible that in these few years therewere more than three dioeketae. This comparison betweenthe two reigns, th at of Philadelphus and that of Euergetes, isnoteworthy since it shows the g reat influence of Apolloniuswith the King and their close friend~hip.~~n the lett er ofPhilon to Zenon of t he year 34 (P.Z. 44) there is of course aremark which could let us suppose tha t temporarily a t leastApollonius had lost his appointment. Philon adds to hisletter you must know th at Apollonius took over all the matt ersin Alexandria and tha t Dionysodorus act s as the eglogistes,but this postscript implies no more than a temporary but longabsence of both the individuals mentioned from Alexandriaduring which time somebody else acted as dioeketes andeglogistes.

Of the nature of the previous activi ty of Apollonius, we areignorant. But we may safely suppose that if he was in theservice of Philadelphus before he was appointed dioeketesand was not invited b y Philadelphus from abroad (we know of

Athenian refugees in the service of Phi ladelphus occupy-ing influential positions, see Ferguson, Hellenistic Athens, 188,Ote cf. 197 and Edgar, P.Z. VII, p. 91, note I), he prob-

This influence is illustrated by the last section of the Dikaiomata 1lS f f . ~.260 B.,-a lett er of Apollonius to Zoilus about the privilege of not

subject to the salt tax, d X ~ 4 ) ,granted t o some persons of liberalprofessions. The tone of the letter is noteworthy. I t seems as if i t is notApollon ib, but the King who speaks.


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ably served in the Ptolemaic army. At that time there was nosharp distinction between the military and civil career and thestaff of the king bore an almost purely military characte r, j ustas in the time of the early Roman principate which was aspersonal and as military as was the Hellenistic kingship ofthe first two generations. The only difference was tha t thehouse or the court, to use either the Greek or the Oriental

word for it , of t he Hellenistic kings was never filled to such anextent with slaves and freedmen, as was tha t of the early prin-cipes, heirs in this respect of th e Republi can magnates withtheir husbandry based on slavery.

One word more abou t the circumstances i n which the career ofApollonius ended. New light is thrown on this question by aninteres ting letter of Zenon's correspondence (P. Lond. Inv.2087 no date). A certain Sosicrates (cf. P.S.I. 614) writes toZenon and gives him t he order to arrest the slaves who formerlybelonged to the ex-dioeketes Apollonius and now belong to acertain Paideas (1.2: r i j v ~pbrepov VTWVAaoXXwviou r oc [[~LoL]]EYO-pCvov ~ L O L K ~ T O ~i ~ '6vr~vTIatGiov). There are four slaves: Pin-darus from Lycia, a nd Philonides, alias Beltenuris, and moreovertwo who formerly belonged to Alexander, who had been ahostage probably at Alexandria. This singular order, itsappearanc e of has te, the fac t th at th e writer cancelled 706 ~ L O L -~ q r o i ) nd wrote instead 706 yevopkvou ~ L O L K ~ T O ~ ,hat Zenon is stillin Philadelphia managing the estate, furthermore t hat manyslaves of Apollonius having fled from Alexandria are supposedto be in Philadelphia,-all this taken together shows that acatastro phe happe ned in the household of Apollonius a t Alex-andri a afte r his dismissal. can explain it in one way only:that Apollonius was not only dismissed but that his propertywas confiscated and some of hi s slaves came into the hands ofPaideas, four of whom used this oppo rtuni ty for escaping. Th eofficial and pe rhaps t he physical life of Apollonius ended there-fore with a catastrophe, King Euergetes having deprived himof his commission and his fortune.

Interesting also is the mention in the same document ofsome slaves who had come into th e hands of Apollonius fro m theprope rty of a cert ain Alexander residing at Alexandr ia as ahostage. A hostage who possessed many slaves,-one a Baby-

lonian, a bath-rubber by profession, another a Median coach-man, could not be an ordinary man. He must have been a great

probably of royal origin. would suggest that theman in question was Alexander, t he son of Lysi machus and hisOdrysian wife; after t he dea th of Lys imachus he remained inAsia (see App. Syr. 64; BouchC-Leclercq, Histoire des Lagides, I,149, 4). I t has always been a puzzle to me how this man couldremain quiet in th e troubled times after the death of Lysimachusand afte r the seizure of power by Ptolemaeus Keraunus . We maynow suppose that Ptolemaeus Keraunus seized Alexander andhaving concluded an arrangement with Philadelphus deliveredAlexander to him. Alexander was then kept a t Alexandria as ahostage in the same way as Demetrius Poliorketes had beenkept in Syria. Philadelphus had an interest in having the manin his power, first to secure the throne of Asia and Macedon forKeraunus, thus eliminating a rival to Euergetes, and secondlyas a good weapon against Kerau nus. Alexander probably diedvery soon at Alexandria when his possessions came int o thehands of Philadelphus and his courtiers.For an understa nding of t he correspondence of Zenon, hisposition, the affairs which he managed an d his personal relationswith the dioeketes it is necessary to have a clear notion of wh atthe office of the dioeke tes was. As the word dioeketesshows, this official was the manager of the economic affairs ofthe king an d therefore of the kingdom. We must not forgettha t the rule of t he Hellenistic Kings was a purely personal one.They were not appointed by anybody nor even elected by thepopulation. As generals of Alexander they were his s atra psand the y retaine d their satrapi es because of their mi litarystrength and their personal influence on the troops, the deifica-tion coming much later . This personal rCgime brought w ith itas a logical consequence the idea that the kingdom as such wasthe personal prop erty of the Kings, acquired by force of arm s.This idea was almost exactly identical with the idea prevailingin Egypt as regards the relations between S tate and King withthis as the only difference: t he Egy ptian roy alty was based onreligious ideas an d ha d a religious legitimation which of coursethe Hellenistic Kings were forced to borrow from their pre-decessors. Egyp t was thu s the priv ate property of the Ptole-


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22 UNIVERSITY O F WISCONSIN STUDIES ROSTOVTZEFF-A LARGE ESTATE IN EGYPT 23mies, their estate, so to say, and the dioeketes was the managerof th is estate.

In the close collaboration of the King an d his minister i t isnot easy to make out what belongs to the King and what t o hisminister, as everything which touched the economic manage-ment of the Sta te passed throug h the hands of the dioeketes.For understanding therefore the atmosphere in which bothApollonius and Zenon lived and worked we must first realizethe purel y personal cha racte r of the office held by Apollonius,and on th e other hand the leading ideas of the King on theeconomic management of his lands. I t is not an easy task tograsp these leading ideas, our information being scanty andfragmentar y. Moreover we have more or less good informati ononly for the second half of the reign of Philadelphus and almostnone for the first half, not t o speak of t he times of Soter andAlexander. It is a striking phenomenon th at t he Greek papyriof t he early Ptolema ic time rarely belong to the first 50 or 6 0years of the Greek domination. Is this phenomenon accidental ?Should we not deduce from this very fact t hat the Greek bureau-cracy whose act ivi ty created the Greek archives of t he Ptolemiesall over the coun try was itself a creation of the second Ptolemy?

The facts agree perfectly with this assumption. There i>every reason to assume tha t Soter, and Philadelphus in his earlyyears, were rather generals of the late Alexander tha n kings ofEgypt. Both were entirely absorbed in the affairs of Alexan-der s world-state a nd took active part in the conduct of worldaffairs. Of course Soter was the first to claim for himself a nindependent position in his satrap y, which was Egypt, butneverthele ss he never dissociated himself entirely from the affairsof t he other generals. Th e policy of Phila delphus, based onsecuring for Egypt the vital conditions of the existence of Egyp tas a self-sufficient, st rong state,33 was not free from imperialistictendencies. Th e Syrian war and the first failures of Ptol emy

See my remarks in the Journal of Eg. Arch . VI, 1920), p. 172.In these remarks I have emphasized too strongly the non-imperialistic ideasof the first Ptolemies. The first Ptolemies certainly had no intention ofcreating a world State; nevertheless Philadelphus, and after him Euergetes,pursued an imperialistic policy aiming at hegemony on the sea, which ofcourse was a vital question for Egypt.

philadelphus in carrying out his imperialistic program obligedphiladelphus to realize for the first time tha t his safety dependedcompletely on Egypt and t hat his first task was to consolidatethe foundation of his power, i.e., to organize Egypt as firmlyand as consistently as possible. Hence his energetic activ ityin ~ ~ y p tfter the first Syrian war and the minute elaborationof the peculiar economic and administrative system character-istic o his time. I do not mean that the main leading ideaswere all his, that Alexander and Soter had not previouslytraced the main outlines, but I am convinced that P hilad el~hu swas the man who shaped these ideas into the Greco-Egyptianforms which permeated the whole administration as we know itfrom the papyri of his later years. I shall speak of this organi-zation of his later on, in my last chapter , but I wish here toemphasize the point that t he fifteen years of Apollonius term ofoffice were a time of strenuous work, of energetic activ ity onpartl y new lines, the main result being the Hellenization of t heEgyptian administrative an d economic life as far as the outwardforms were concerned. The subst ance of course could not, andwas not intended to be changed or even hellenized.

Such then, was the spirit of the time and the atmospher e inwhich Apollonius, and with him Zenon, worked for fifteen years.Let me now return to the correspondence of Zenon.

For the period of t he life of Zenon before the year 25 ofPhiladelphus we have almost no evidence. The earliest docu-ment of the archives of Zenon dat es from the year 12 of Phila-delphus and is preserved in two copies (P.S.I. 321 and P.Z. 1 .This document, a loan contract which does not even mentionZenon, presents no evidence on his affairs and may have comeinto the hands of Zenon subsequent ly (cf. P.S.I. VI, p. IX) .More interesting is the second earliest document,-a lette raddressed to Zenon by a certain Horus, which mentions theYear 13 and is dated b y Vitelli in the year 14 of Philadelphus(P-S.1. 551 ; the lett er of course may be of a much later date.Horus describes his interviews and his talks with the King

a vineyard of his own. One of these interviews.took place on a silverpooped light ship ( p~bX~ov)f the King,-the way a good illustrat ion of the well known description

of the wealth of Phi lad el~ hus iven by Appian (Prooem. l o ,


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24 UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN STUDIES ROSTOVTZEFF A LARGE ESTATE IN EGYPT 25where Appian mentions 800 gold-prowed an d gold-pooped cabin-ships used by Philadelphus for his travels. For the biographyof Zenon the lette r has some interest as it shows tha t Zenon wasalready a mem ber of th e court circle; whether or no t he wasconnected with Apollonius at this time will probably be shownby papyr i no t y e t pub l ished .Th e second period in th e life of Zenon begins with the ye ar25 an d lasts through the years 26 an d 27. Th e evidence is fullerbu t s t i l l scan ty . For the f i r st t ime we ge t in format ion abou tthe personal position of Zenon. He was a Caria n Greek,citizen of K aunus , the son of Agreophon (P.Z. 3, comp. P . Lond.Inv. 2092). Through h is wife he had connect ions in the c i tyof Kalynda. His b ro ther Epharmostus was a lso in Egypt(P.S.I . 331). Zenon had children: one son, Kleon, is knownto us from some letters. Zenon was therefore a resident of oneof the foreign provinces of th e Ptolemies an d of course tr ied t oplace as man y of his relatives and c ompatriots a s he could inthe service of t he Ptolemies. I t would be o f g rea t in terest toknow wh at was the mo ther-country of Apollonius himself.J4One of the letters of the yea r 26 (P.Z. 2) shows Zenon alread yin relations with Apollonius, and through a letter of the year27 we ascertain his semi-official title: he is 7Gv epi 'AnohXhvwvor nap' 'AaoXXwviov (P.Z. 3), one of th e age nt s of Apo llonius .Such t i t les a re very common in the Greek papyr i of th is t imeand denote merely a subordinate position in general: one maybe ra p' oi~ov6pov r vophpxov or even one of the a gen ts of a lessconspic uous official as well as one of the a gen ts of A pollonius.The title moreover does not imply a position in the serviceof the State.Th e conten ts of the letters of this period first show us Zenonon h is way to Syr ia and then in Syr ia and Palest ine . TWOdocume nts of the year 25 (P.S.I . 324, 325), which are notaddressed to Zenon , dea l wi th g ra in t rade and are wr i t ten b yApollonius. Th e letters contain orders from Apollonius to twodifferent persons to make certain merchants who export grainf rom Syr ia pay t o the b ank e i ther the fu l l p r ice of the g ra in o r

On Zenon and his family relations see Edgar, pt I p 160 Edgarquotes some unpublished papyri testifying to Zenon's relations withKalynda.

a par t o f the sum as a pledge . We may suppose tha t the twoletters of Apollonius were intended to be hande d over in Sy ria tothe addressees, were given to Zenon to carry with him to Syriaand were never delivered: they h ave no dock ets testifying recep-tion, We may suppose therefore that in the year 25 Zenon wason h is way to Syr ia . In the year 26 he isa l ready somewhere inSyria or in Palestine. Th e only published letter of this year( p . ~ . , is the already mentioned first letter of Apollonius tohim informing him of th e sending of tw o persons to Syria an dordering h im to p repare a sh ip fo r them and to pay them the i rsalaries.More evidence exists from the following year. One le t te r ,(p.S.1. 327), deals with some goods which were sent from Sy riato Palestine for Apollonius, and contains the valuation thereof,probably for the custom-house. Some docume nts of this yearcarry us to Palestine. One, (P.Z. 3), is a contra ct of sale.Zenon bought a t Birth a in the Amm anitis from a soldier of thecavalry corp s of Tu bia s a girl-slave of 7 years of the nam eSphragis. We shall meet the same Tubia s later . He wasprobab ly an in f luen t ia l na t ive she ikh en trusted by Pto lemywith the comm and of an Egyp tian cavalry regiment. Anotherletter of th e same year, P.Z. 4), spea ks again of priv ate a ffairs ofZenon and his staff. A certain St rato n, one of Zenon's staff(6 aapd Z vwvos), tries to get back some money lent by him orby Zenon to a native of a n Amma nitis village by name Jeddu s(probab ly an in f luen t ia l she ikh again). The a t t emp t th is t imewas unsuccessful; S trato a, in spite of his military escort and aletter from Zenon, was ejected from t he village with violence.

Finally in the last letter of this period, (P .S.I . 406), whichbears no da te b u t re fers to the same loca l i ty and m ust be da tedin the same year, we m eet some individuals of less importancebut turbu lent and wicked indeed. Th ey are coachmen(cvvwp~o~ai)nd g rooms ( imro~ b~oc)ho e i ther be long to the armyOr to a special corps of m en buying u p horses in the prairie land

the Am manitis for the supp ly of t he Ptolem aic arm y. T h edocument i s f ragmentary and wr i t ten in bad Greek , bu t we seehow undisciplined and greedy this class of people were andhow badly they behaved in the conquered land. Th ey drink,and p robably steal girls, violate the m and disappear with


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26 UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN STUDIES BOSTOVTZEFF A L A R G E ESTATE IN EGYPT 27them and with the beas ts in their care. Zenon seems to betheir chief and to him is addressed this complaint of the foremanof thes e robbers , H e ra k l e i de ~ . ~~I t is not an easy task to form a judgment about the dutieswhich Zenon performed in Syria and Palestine. Does hebelong to the regular administration of the province? I s heacting a s an envoy of Apollonius the dioeketes or as the priv ateagent of the same dioeketes? We may assume both, but wehave n o proofs for either of these assumption^.^^ The Syrian

On this l etter see Wilcken, Arch. VI, 393,449; cf. P.S.I. 616. Wilckenassumes tha t the two robbers were agents of Zenon hunt ing for slaves.But th is buying and stealing of slaves is just what Herakleides, the chiefof the robbers, objects to. Herakleides did not lend them a carriage withtwo horses: he does not speak of such a loan in his lette r bu t exclusively ofxr/rvq, horses, which were neglected by the two scoundr els, and of a donkeyand a wild ass which were sold by them. This implies that t he two menwere keepers of n s q and not professional slave buyers. We shall see lateron th at importation of slaves into Egypt from Syria was not allowedby th e government.

Almost nothing is known about the organization of the Ptolemaicadministration in Syria, Phoenicia an d Palestine. See D. Cohen, Dcmagistratibus Aegypti is externas Lagidaru m regni provincias adm inis-trant ibw Hagae 1912), p. 98 ff Therefore all the more important are thelette rs of th e correspondenc e of Zenon. They seem to show that no regularfinancial administ ratio n of the country was sent to the dis trict of Ammani-tis from Egypt. The Ammanitis seemed to have been ruled by nat ivechiefs. The same is shown for Palestine by the well known story of theruler of Palestine, Josephus. Josephus probably received Palestine fromKing Euergetes I or from Philopator as a kind of l o p c b with the obligationto pay to the King a kind of tribu te, just as th e nephew of Euergetes-Ptolemy t he son of Lysimachus, received from him Telmessus in Lyciasee below p. 45 ff notes 50, 51). T his kind of financial autonomy does not

exclude military occupation of th e land by the Ptolemies. But even in thisrespect the Ammanitis seems to have enjoyed a kind of autonom y, as isshown by the fact that the sheikh Tubias held a military command ofEgyptian troops. The system of th e Ptolemies in ruling the cities andlands on the seashores was ~r o b a b l ~ifferent. The Ptolemies certainlydrew a regular income from th e custom-duties of these ancient commercialcities. I cannot understand the attitude of Cohen towards the story toldby Flavius Josephus. If some farms t v a i ) of s pecial revenues were sold inthe provinces of Asia Minor and Thrace i t does not imply th at Palestinecould not be handled in a different way and its revenues sold en bloc inAlexandria to the representatives of the country itself. I t may be thatalong with th is general farming of the revenues separate hr i of special

grain bought by the merchants might have been State grainor the private proper ty of Apollonius. Th e horses might havebelonged to the army but might have been bought by Apol-lonius for sale afterwards to the State. We shall see th at thedocuments of the following period rathe r speak for th e hypothe-sis that Zenon had no official commission in Syria an d Palestinebut was a private agen t of Apollonius. Bu t we must not insistupon this distinction for there is no definite line between priv ateand public in the Ptolem aic administration, where the Kingdealt with the State as with his private estate; his subordinatesof the higher ranks hardly drew a shar p line between theirprivate affairs and the affairs entrusted to them by the King.We meet with the same confusion in the early Roman Empire.Wha t statu s had the procurators of Augustus, o ~ a p d i~~oburou?Of course they were usually his private agents but in the sena-torial provinces they had probably more importance than theproconsuls.Probably in the same year 27 Zenon came back to Egypt .A letter of Apollonius of thi s year spe aks of send ing a ship toGaza for him to bring him back to E gypt P .S .I . 322, comp.P.S.I. VI, p. X). Th e date of this letter is not preserved,bu t 1 would suggest the year 27 or 28 rather than the year 25which is proposed by Vitelli.taxes and of custom-duties in the harbo urs were sold separately. Therewas no one system of provincial administration at the court of the Ptolemies.The systems were adapted to local conditions and may have been changed

often according to circumstances. We have no right to postulate sucha uniform organization for the Ptolemaic epoch, individual and informalas it was; a regular system of provincial administration first grew up in thelb ma n world State; the process of its formation was slow and in its begin-nings it was very similar to the Ptolemaic system or rather to thePtolemaic lack of syst em.


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ROS TOVTZEF F A LARGE ESTATE IN EGYPT 9

IV. ZENON AND APOLLONIUS

Th e next two years of the act ivity of Zenon are much bette rknown to us. In the years 28 and 29 Zenon was again inEgypt, now in Alexandria, now on a long journey through thenorth ern and middle par ts of Egypt.37 The lette rs of this periodare comparatively numerous and may be easily subdivided intoclasses which fully illustrate the ac tivit y of Zenon in Alexan-dria, living the life of a n influential, perhaps th e most influentialmember of the house (oixia) of Apollonius. Bu t very soonApollonius and with him Zenon left Alexandria and began along journey throu gh ma ny different places in Lower and Mid dleEgypt. They stopped often and spent days and days in thesame place. Of these halts of the travelle rs we know something.A comparatively long time was spent at a landing place on theriver or on one of th e main canals, Btpevixqs 8ppos,-perhapsa new foundation of the Ptole mies; the location of this place isunknown. Afterwar ds Apollonius and Zenon resided for sometime at Bubastus and at Mendes, visited Memphis and came toAlexandria, stopping perhaps at Tanis and certainly at Nau-cratis. This itinerary is of course not complete and we shallprobab ly learn more of i t after th e whole of Zenon's correspond-ence has been published.3Y The stopping places were fixedby th e aim of t he journey which seems evident enough. Thenew administrative and economic system introduced byPhiladelphus and Apollonius required constant watching by i tsauthors, steady control and readjustment of the new bureau-crati c machine and therefore th e occasional presence on thespot of th e chief manag er and executive power, the dioeketeshimself.

The dates of the documents a re quoted in this article according tothe regnal years of Philadelphus, since the question of th e calendar and othe dat es of t his reign have been hotly debated an d are still the subject ofcontroversy. See Edgar, pt. IV, 93, and Wilcken, Arch . VI, 447.

On the itinerary of Zenon see Edgar, pt. I, p. 174;pt. IV, p. 81; cf.Wilcken, Arch. VI, 448.

~ u tpollonius during his travels was occupied not alone byhis organization of th e public economy an d by ot her affairs ofState. He had various private affairs of his own on handand during his travels he attende d to them constantly. Weshall see that for this purpose especially he had taken Zenonwith him.

In one of the letters, writt en from Alexandria to one of themembers of Zenon's staff, we meet with the title which Zenonbore at that time (P.Z. 16). He is of course still a a p d A?roXXo-YioV but a t the same time he is the oixovbpos of Apollonius.This title is given to him in this document only, wherein theofficial title (~70Xdlpxqs s given to one of his colleagues. Wemay therefore conclude that oixovbpos is also an official title.The designation oi~ovbpos s very vague indeed and has manymeanings. It s origin must be sought in the domain of privateeconomy, the oeconome being the manag er of th e house,corresponding to the latin vilicus, the manager of a villa. I nthe Egyptian administration this title was given to the directrepresentat ives of the dioeketes in the administr ative regionsof Egypt, the nomes, or to his representative in the foreign prov-inces. I t is impossible to assume tha t Zenon was one of theseEgyptian or provincial oeconomes. The letters do not showthat Zenon had any special official connection with any placeeither in or outside of Eg ypt . Th e following investigati on ofthe correspondence of Zenon for these two years will showprecisely what the title did mean.

Before we deal with the conten t of t he man y lette rs of thes etwo years we must first st op and look a t the surr oundings ofZenon, at his constant corresponden~swho also formed a partof Apollonius' staff. This survey will bring us into the mids tof the court of Apollonius, which was not very different fromthe court of th e King himself.The best known members of the cou rt of Apollonius and th eclosest colleagues of Zenon were the following. An impo rta ntPost was occupied by Am y ~ t t a s man probably of Macedo nianorigin. According to the cont ent of t he lette rs which he wroteto Zenol17he manage d large numbers of domestics employed byApollonius. His official title is not menti oned in Zenon'sbut the cont ents of his letters leave no doubt


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30 UNIVERSITY O F WISCONSIN STUDIES ROSTOVTZEFF A L A R G E ESTATE IN EGYPT 31of the chara cter of his commission. One of the most amusingof his letters runs as follows (P.S.I . 329, year 28): Amy ntasto Zenon greetings. You must know tha t the cook whoin youbought ran away tak ing wi th h im the 80 drachmae which hereceived for buy ing hay for the horses. He was met by somepeople near Athribis. He is now with the Cappadocians whohave the i r camp there . You wou ld do well if you wouldannounce to a l l our servan ts , and if you would write to every-body whom you f ind usefu l , to ca tch h im and to help in send inghim to you (or to me). 39 I t i s in terest ing to see tha t thehousehold of A pollonius consisted, a t least in par t, of slaveswho were dispersed all over the cou ntry and th at this householdwas const antly being enlarged by new purchases of slaves.We m ay conclude from this letter t ha t one of the ta sks of Zenonwas to buy slaves for Apollonius' household and that slaverywas gradual ly in t roduced in to Egypt by the new fore ignelements in the country .Similar information is derived from the letter P.S.I . 483;here we find Am yntas qua rreling with one of th e carpenters ofthe household. In anoth er letter (P.Z. 10, year 28), he givesorders to pay salaries to some Greek members of the household,am on g oth ers to an Art em ido rus the BXharpos,--the ma nag er ofthe table, an d to the gardener, probably chiefs of the correspond-ing departm ents of th e household.Some papyri , (P.Z. 8 and 9 and P.S. I . 533 ; cf . P . Lond . Inv .2305), deal with preparations for a river journey. A m y n t a sasks Zenon to p repare severa l sh ips fo r th is journey and to buy

The text of th is le t te r i s pr in ted by Vite l l i wi th some lacunae andsome unsa t isfac tory supplements. I give i t wi th the correc t ions ofWilcken, Arch., VI, 386 and with my own. ' A p b vras Z jvw vr Xa lp er [ v .T ~ W U K ~T L b p a ] ye r p os Sv 6 p t i s 4 x p i a u [ 8 t ] / X a @ Bv x a X ~ o tB p a xp d s x 6 u r [ ce is X 6 p ~ a u p ] a o is Yu iro rs b xo 6& 6p ar [ e . u vv jv ] / r r l r c 6; rrutv xepi AOXrBrv' 6s ra l& u r rv [ r a p & ] r oi s K a u x b B o ~ r o i s & r e [? e l ] / v o w t v . r a X G s b v o i iv x o r j u ar s r o i s~ [ e ] a r u i u t u r G ta yy ci Xa s ~ a i pi [+ as ?rp6s] / ofis hv 6iroXapBQvqrs xp+u rw re b [ a r ~ ] K W P v o i u a p l j p& v C x ~ X a p ~ [ h v w v ] / ~ a rbroG u v v a v r ~ ~ & B ~ v ~ a [16700 r]araur a@fiva r abrbv apb[s 6p/rSs]. 'Eppwu o. ~ V Verso. bow) K?Aburpou 4v MCvGqrr. 'Apb vras xcpi TOG payeipou/roG Cao6pbvros.-Zjvovr.Cf. P.S.I., VI, p. X; in 1. 3, Vitelli proposes: & re [? u r d p 6 v Z ] / ~ o w r , hichm a y be accepted if th e x in 1 4 i s ce rta in . In 1. 5 Edgar and Vite l l i readelv[ ar i ]v a cjs Bv 1 et cetera.

certain equipment and some pieces of furniture. If the planswere made for the journey by A myn tas himself, as seems likely,~ ~ o l l o n i u so t be ing in Alexandr ia a t tha t t ime, we cannot bu twonder at th e high requirements of this cou rtier of second rankand at th e comfort of his travels.Oth er officials of high ran k were Aristeus an d Artemidorus.The first was the treasurer, the second i ~ i j s ix ias, i.e.,a kind of manag er of the palace of Apollonius, similar to suchmanagers as were formerly m embers of the households of theRussian Grand Duke s. All of these officials are named in P.S.I .331. Very amusing is the letter P.S.I . 411. A four th mem-ber of the court, Kriton , of whom I shall speak later, informsZenon that : Apol lon ius has opened the t reas ury0 and hasmissed seven tale nts of silver an d ordered th e accoun ts ofAristeus and Artemidorus verified. I have wr i t ten th is to youso tha t you may accord ing ly make your own accounts ready .Apollonius was especially angry that the money was recordedas paid, without his order. I t seems th at the prospect of beingcal led up fo r accounts wi thout p repara t ion was no t a verypleasant one for the members of Apollonius' cou rt.The same Artemidorus is named also in P.Z. 26 (year 30)along with another Artemidorus, the chief secretary. Anotherpapyrus where we meet some of th e sam e individuals and somenew ones is P.S.I . 340, while the same subject is discussed inP.Z. 11 and perhaps in P.S.I . 391 (b) (cf. also P. Lond. Inv .2096). Unfortuna tely the letter P .S.I . 340 is not completeand is badly pres erved; the first part of th e letter is missing andthe part which we have in full contains m ore hints a t wellknown fact s tha n the facts themselves. Who the writer of theletter was we do not know; it is addressed to Artemidorus thedoctor, probably th e house doctor of Apollonius. Ther e aresome difficulties concerning a palaestra. The au thor of theletter is involved in these difficulties. Th e question is, will thePalaestra be opened or not? Th e writer is afraid tha t the Kingwould become aware of the open ing of the palaestra an d tha t

O ' P i o r o r (chest) seems to be a comm on word in the Hel lenist ic periodand espec ial ly in Alexandria; i t designa tes the t reasury . See Ps. Aristeas,33 and the Lexica, cf. P. Lond. In v. 2312, 1 11. Josephus, A J. , XII 2, 4translates it as K @ W T ~ F ;f. Cohen, De nragis~ralzbus egypl i i s p. 102.


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32 U N I V E R S I T Y O F WISCONSIN STUDIES ROSTOVTZEFF A LARGE ESTATE IN EGYPT 33he, the writer, would be held responsible for it . The cause ofall these troubles is a ce rtai n Metrodorus (1. 4: 2arc C uocndrvrwv r i j v KQKGV ~ T L O S MqrpbSwpos). Further on thisM etr od oru s is defi ned a s a n iivOpwaos drveXe69epos a ma n wit h-out culture , a parvenu in the circle of the highly civilizedcourtiers of Apollonius. Bu t he can do much harm if Am ynta sand the addressee will not interfere a nd if Hegemon will notwrite to Apollonius. If all these efforts remain unsuccessfuland a certain Ptolemaeus does not receive the management ofthe palaestra the writer would be obliged to resign (1. 17:~ K X U ~ ; VK 7;s oi~ias). Some lines in this letter are worthy ofquotati on in full, as they t hrow a splendid search-light oncond itions prevailing i n the house of Apollonius , 1. 7 ff.: Idid not know of all th at ( the intrigues of Metro dorus). Bu tnow when I learn of it I pro test and I say: Apollonius spendsmost of his time in the country (xcLpa as opposed to Alexandria);Amyntas does no t l ive in the house; he has recen t ly beenmarried and a bab y has been born to him; he is therefore beyondsuspicion. According ly i t i s against me th at the ar row is sho t ,against me who lives in the house.Wh at kind of palaestra is mean t in this and the related lette rsquoted above I do not know. I t seems to be a palaestra wherethe children of the higher officials were trai ned , the veavia~ocfrom the ran ks of whom the officers of the ar my an d the higherofficials were recruite d, a kind of page co rps closely conn ectedw i th t h e h ou se of A p o l l ~ n i u s . ~ ~And now to consider the last and perhaps the m ost in terest ingmember of this company. I mean Kriton the stolarclzes, thecom man der of the fleet. His t i t le i s ment ioned in the le t terquoted above (P.Z. 16 , year 28). The t reasurer Ar is teuswrites to Aratus who accompanied Apollonius on his journey, t oremind Zenon and K r i ton no t to fo rget to buy var ious k inds o fcloth , some of which were sp ecialities of the city of T an is.His commission as com mander of the fleet is reflected in hisshort and friendly letter to Zenon (P.Z. 17), where he urges

On these v c a v i o ~ o r ee the last article of the late Lesquier, Le papyrus7 de Fribourg, Rev d. t lu es gr . XXXII (1921) 367 On the v e c r v i u ~ o r

a o r X ~ ~ o iee Rostowzew, Die romischen Bleitesserae, Klio Beihef t 3(1905) p. 78

Zenon to retu rn t o one of t he sailors his pledge, lest the sailorrefuse to work . But the m ost inst ruct ive are the le t ters P.S. I .494 and 495 (bo th of t he year 28) which form a unit w ith someletters writte n to Zenon (P.Z. 12 and 14, both of t he year 29)and to Apollonius himself (P.S.I . 330, year 28). Th e lettersp.S.1. 495 and P.Z. 14 were written b y a certain Heraclitus;p.S.1. 494 by Zoilus, P.Z. 12 by Krotus. Moreove r in P.S.I .614 is mentioned Heragorus whose name is connected with oliveoil in the agenda of Zenon P.S.I . 430, 3. These m en veryof ten ment ion each o ther . Al l wr i te f rom abroad , f rom Syr iaand Palest ine . Kr i ton h imself t ravels very o ften and is o ftenabroad (P.S. I . 614) . They ment ion in the i r le t ter s Ake(Ptolemais) (cf. P.S.I . 612), an d Tripolis, Joppe, G aza, Tyre,Sidon, the plain Maaubas, between the Lebanon and the Anti-lebanon. Some of these places, Gaza, Ptolemais, Rha bata m-mana, and moreover some cities of Asia Minor, Ka unus, Miletus,Halicarnassus, are mentioned also in P.S.I . 616, in connectionwith . trade in cloth. All the letters spe ak of comm ercialtransactions, of purchases and sales of different kinds of goods,of quarrels w ith th e custom-houses. Th e le t ter P.Z. 14 showsthat much t rade was done in s laves, bu t tha t expor ta t ion ofslaves was subject to certain formalities, the exporters beingobliged to have a special license, 1. 10 ff.: Menecles, the manin Tyre , to ld me t hat he h imself

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