As noted above, Egypt was invaded from the north-east in ad 270 by Palmyra, which had temporarily broken away from the Roman Empire in the aftermath of the defeat and capture of the emperor Aurelian by the Sassanian Persians. The ancient sources (SHA Divus Claudius 11.1-2; Probus 9.5; Zosimus 1.44.1-2) present rather confused accounts of the Palmyrene takeover as a foreign military invasion, although there is a good deal of evidence of continuity and collusion between the Roman and Palmyrene administrations (see Potter 2004 : 167, 170). Whatever its exact nature, this was the last external attack on Egypt from the north until the Arab invasions, and,
Figure 24.2 The Roman fort in the settlement of Dionysias, built or reactivated in the Tetrarchic Period. After Schwartz 1969. Courtesy IFAO, Cairo.
As in the Principate, repelling external invasion was not required of the late Roman army in Egypt. Nevertheless, concern about invasion from the north may have influenced the deployment of the units named in the Notitia Dignitatum for Aegyp-tus (Lower Egypt), with bases on routes from Syro-Palestine, along the east and west sides of the Nile Delta and major routes across it, and at centers of strategic importance such as Babylon and Alexandria (Price 1976).
Conflict with nomadic peoples on the borders of the Egyptian provinces was more significant. There is only limited and scattered evidence for such conflict with nomads from the west (P. Princeton II, 29, ll. 5-7 on the Fayum, ad 258 ; P. Oxy. 46.3292 on the Oxyrhynchite Nome, ad 259-64 ; see Wagner 1987, 394-400 on these, and attacks on the western oases). However, the situation in the south was much more serious, as significant conflict with the peoples known to Graeco-Roman writers as Blemmyes and Nobotai seems to have developed in the mid-third century ad (SHA Probus 17.2, 6 = Eide et al. 1998, no. 284. Zosimus 1.71.1 = Eide et al. 1998, no. 323, all discussed in detail in Eide et al. 1998: 1052-66), to the point where Diocletian was forced to abandon the Roman presence in the Dodekaschoinos and establish the Roman frontier at Syene (Aswan) (Procopius, Wars 1.19.27-37 = Eide et al. 1998 : no. 328). Continuing threats from the south and the Eastern Desert provided one rationale for the concentration of troops in the Late Roman Thebaid and cavalry units deployed along the eastern Nile Valley.
Another rationale for the dispositions of troops in the Thebaid and, indeed, throughout Egypt, was internal security. Diocletian’s reforms took place in the aftermath of two major revolts, the first apparently restricted to Upper Egypt, perhaps in AD 293-4 (Jerome, Chronicle ed. Helm 226a mentioning Koptos and ‘‘Busiris’’/ Boresis ; Barnes 1976 : 180-1; 1982 : 62; 1996 : 542; Bowman 1978 : 26-7; 1984; 2005 : 316). The second was the revolt of L. Domitius Domitianus throughout Egypt, probably in ad 297/8, and brought to an end by a siege of Alexandria commanded by Diocletian himself (Jerome, Chronicle ed. Helm 226e; Thomas 1976; 1977; Bowman 1978 ; 2005 : 316; Barnes 1982 : 54-5; 1996 : 543-4). As in the Principate, Egypt remained a potentially turbulent part of the empire in late antiquity, and the Notitia Dignitatumls picture of an army spread through Egypt with concentrations in strategically important locations such as Alexandria, Babylon, and the Thebaid probably reflects that perception.
On an even lower level, the day-to-day activities of the ala V Praelectorum and its commanding officer, Flavius Abinnaeus, based at Dionysias in the Fayum, are described in considerable detail for the years ad 342-51 by the papyrus documents of the Abinnaeus archive (Bell et al. 1962). Many of these documents show the army performing basic administrative tasks, such as administration of the tax system and low-level policing. Abinnaeus himself is shown judging disputes between civilians as well as cases involving civilians and soldiers. On the basis of this and similar evidence, Van Berchem (1952 : 69-71, and also in Bell et al. 1962) argued that the primary functions of the auxiliary alae and cohorts in Egypt at this time were essentially nonmilitary, and only the higher status legionary and cavalry units were actually intended to engage major threats to the security of the provinces. In fact, the absence of major external enemies over much of Egypt throughout the Roman Period probably enabled units to take on a range of functions that they were not originally intended to perform. As in the Principate and the Ptolemaic Period, control of Egypt itself, its population and resources, was always perhaps the most important role played by the army.
FURTHER READING
There are no comprehensive modern monographs on either the Ptolemaic or Roman armed forces to rival the scope of Lesquier’s (1911; 1918) work, and the French scholar’s work still includes much of value, as does Van Berchem’s (1952 ; 1971) subsequent work on late
Antiquity. Besides addressing the theme of soldier-civilian relations, Alston (1998) provides a valuable introduction to the Roman army in Egypt, with some consideration of most major issues. Various sections of the Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Warfare (de Souza 2007a; 2007b; Sekunda 2007; Serrata 2007) provide very general but useful background on Ptolemaic issues, and Van’t Dack (1977) an overview of the development of Ptolemaic military institutions. Otherwise there are specialist studies, with Clarysse and Thompson (2006) providing fascinating detail on kleruchy, and the work of Cuvigny, Maxfield, Sidebotham and others supplying new perspectives on the Eastern Desert. For a broad-ranging survey account of the Egyptian frontier areas see Jackson 2002.
World History
