The financial administration of Egypt was so important that, in addition to the prefect, several equestrian procurators were also involved. Just exactly what each official did is now somewhat difficult to determine because the responsibilities of the various officials overlapped, or we lack the vital information that would clarify the situation. That is why, despite recent studies of the dioiketes, the epistrategos, the iuridicus, and the archidicastes, we are still seeking more evidence (see J. D. Thomas 2001: 1246).
Here it will suffice to highlight one of these offices, the idios logos, whose regulations are known primarily through one long, yet fragmentary papyrus (the Gnomon of the Idios Logos), containing more than a hundred rules that were enforced by the ‘‘Privy Purse’’ whose administrator was appointed by the emperor himself (= BGUV 1210, after 149 ce; another shorter fragment, P. Oxy. XLII 3014, dates to the first century ce; while P. Oxy. XLIII 3133 shows that the office survived as late as 239 ce [Bowman 1976: 163-4; Swarney 1970 on the duties of this official]). Although the Idios Logos began in the Ptolemaic period as a special account that recorded income received from the sale of ownerless or confiscated land, the office had expanded by the middle of the second century ce, and until its possible abolition during the sweeping reforms of Philip the Arab in the middle of the third century, its holder assumed responsibility for virtually all aspects of administration (religious, civil, and financial) in Roman Egypt. The implications of the records of this official for our understanding of not only Egypt under Roman rule, but potentially for the Roman state as a whole, are far-reaching, since the picture that we get would tend to undermine the standard view that the Roman state was uninterested in local administration. As Naphtali Lewis has pointed out, ‘‘perusal of the stringent regulations [of the Gnomon] leaves no doubt that a prime objective set by Augustus and maintained by his successors for two hundred years was to impede social mobility and keep the several population strata as discrete and immutable as possible: divide et impera' (Lewis 1983: 32). The Romans defined class and status on the basis of descent and wealth. The following excerpts demonstrate the social, fiscal, and legal implications of the various class distinctions: Romans, Alexandrians, gymnasials (members of the Greek gymnasium), metropolites (the elite of the nome metropoleis), and villagers:
5. Property bequeathed by Alexandrians to persons not qualified is given to those who can legally inherit from them, if such there be and if they claim it at law.
8. If to a Roman will is added a clause saying ‘‘whatever bequests I make in Greek codicils shall be valid,'' it is not admissible, for a Roman is not permitted to write a Greek will.
14. A metropolite cannot bequeath to his freed slaves more than five hundred drachmae or an allowance of five drachmae a month.
18. Inheritances left in trust by Greeks and Romans or by Romans to Greeks were confiscated by the deified Vespasian; nevertheless those acknowledging their trust have received the half.
19. Bequests made to freedmen who have not yet acquired their emancipation are confiscated. It is legal emancipation if the person freed is over thirty years old.
23. Romans are not permitted to marry their sisters or their aunts, but marriage with their brother's daughters has been allowed. Pardalas, indeed, when a brother married a sister, confiscated the property.
38. Children of a metropolite mother and an Egyptian father remain Egyptian, but they can inherit from both parents.
39. Children of a Roman man or woman married to a metropolite or an Egyptian assume the lower status.
53. Egyptian women married to discharged soldiers are, if they formally style themselves Romans, subject to the article of nonconformity to status.
55. If an Egyptian serves in a legion without being detected, he returns after his discharge to the Egyptian status. Discharged oarsmen return likewise, except only those belonging to the fleet of Misenum. (translations taken from Sel. Pap. II 206 and Bowman 1986: 127-8)
World History
