With Caracalla’s grant of Roman citizenship throughout the empire (ad 212, see ch. 10), all Egyptians, in principle, became subject to Roman law. The papyri show that, in practice, change was patchy and gradual; while some indigenous legal practices, like brother-sister marriage, were prohibited, most were tacitly incorporated as local customs, or even formally enacted as imperial law (Honore 2004: 115-16; Garnsey 2004: 146; cf. Beaucamp 2007: 284, on Justinian). The initial requirement that all wills must be in Latin, using Roman legal formulae, was soon amended to recognize the validity of wills in Greek (e. g. P. Oxy. VI 907; in the interim, private copies or other records of Latin wills were written in Greek; e. g. P. Oxy. XXII 2348, ad 224). Contracts show little Roman influence, apart from inserting a ‘‘stipulatio clause’’ (‘‘when asked the formal question, I consented’’ and variants), which became obligatory after ad 221. References to women exempt from guardianship ‘‘by right of children’’ (the ius liberorum) according to the Augustan marriage laws appear commonly for more than a century after 212, while the number of women acting with a kyrios (‘‘guardian’’) declined sharply. The newly enfranchised provincials enthusiastically embraced this most distinctive feature of Roman guardianship, even if not entirely sure of the detailed differences from Greek guardianship (the use of kyrios for both Greek and Roman guardians encouraged confusion; Arjava 1996: 118-23).
From the third century, the emperor effectively monopolized the formation of law, leading to more frequent legislation and greater systematization, culminating with Justinian’s great project of codification: the Codex Justinianus (ad 529/34) compiled imperial legislation, updated by the Novels, and the Digest (533) collected opinions of earlier jurists (Stolte 2003). Scholars have debated whether imperial legislation generally, and specifically Justinian’s codification, made much impact on Egypt; current opinion is moving away from a minimalist line, while acknowledging that the impact was patchy and incomplete (see the excellent survey in Beaucamp 2007; failure to implement laws could be due to deliberate subversion rather than ignorance). The papers of Dioskoros of Aphrodito show the extent of legal expertise of a small-town notary, although arguably an untypical one (he twice visited Constantinople, and later became notary in the provincial capital of the Lower Thebaid, Antinoopolis). His papers include wills and other private legal documents in Greek and Coptic and drafts of imperial rescripts (responses) in favor of his home town, apparently composed by himself, and reveal awareness of recent legislation (van Minnen 2003, Beaucamp 2007: 272-5).
Late antique law was characterized by increasing professionalism, with governors assisted by well-trained lawyers in the courts of the provincial capitals, but this greater professionalism may have made the courts less accessible to the common man;
By the sixth century, papyrological evidence for court proceedings dries up, while that for settlements (dialyseis) arrived at through negotiation, mediation, or arbitration, increases (Gagos and van Minnen 1994; cf. Bagnall 1993: 162-4). These settlements offered a local, less expensive, and less protracted way to resolve disputes over matters such as inheritance. The documents are themselves not without legal sophistication and should be understood as complementary to the courts, not a sign that they had ceased to function (cf. Gagos and van Minnen 1994: 81-2).
FURTHER READING
On both administration and law, the scholarly bibliography is bafflingly large and many key works are in (often technical) German. Thomas 1975, 1982 provide English-speakers with general insights into the administration beyond their particular focus on the epistrategos; Verhoogt’s studies of the Menches archive (1998, 2005) similarly provide a general flavor of Ptolemaic village administration. My references here and in the chapter cannot attempt to be comprehensive, and concentrate where possible on work in English; Thomas' survey article (2001) provides references to all recent specialist studies of the various offices of the Roman Period. For those who can read German, Jcirdens 2009 is the best guide to the administration of the Roman province. The standard treatment of fourth-century administration is Lallemand 1964; Bagnall 1993: 54-67 provides a brief and lucid account in English.
On law, Keenan, Manning, and Yiftach-Firanko (forthcoming) will provide an accessible and comprehensive handbook to a confusing and technical field of study. Taubenschlag 1955 is now rather old. Wolff 1971, 1978, and 2002 are the definitive treatments; but his short essay in English (Wolff 1966) is still worth reading. Geller and Maehler 1995 is a useful collection of studies on Ptolemaic law. For a clear survey of Egyptian law in this period see Manning 2003a.
The online Leuven Homepage of Papyrus Archives (Www. trismegistos. org/arch/index. php, accessed November 2008) collects references to a great many documentary archives or dossiers of administrative or legal interest, accompanied in some cases with useful editorial essays. The online Greek and Latin texts themselves (in the Duke Data Bank: Http://scriptorium. lib. duke. edu/papyrus/texts/DDBDP. html, accessed November 2008) lack the translations and editorial matter provided in most printed papyrological volumes. The standard abbreviations of papyrus editions and associated material are listed in J. D. Sosin, R. S. Bagnall, J. Cowey, M. Depauw, T. G. Wilfong and K. A. Worp (eds.), Checklist of Editions of Greek, Latin, Demotic, and Coptic Papyri, Ostraca and Tablets [Last Updated 11 September 2008], Http://scriptorium. lib. duke. edu/papyrus/texts/clist. html.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
I am grateful for helpful comments and suggestions to Todd Hickey, and the Editor and other contributors to this volume; and to Livia Capponi and Jim Keenan for allowing me access to their work before publication.
World History
