Administration

Roman Egypt was divided into about thirty administrative units called ‘nomes’, a system inherited from the preceding Ptolemaic era. Each had a governor or strategos, appointed by and answerable to the Prefect or governor of Egypt, via one of four epistrategoi, the regional administrators. The Prefect was assisted by procurators responsible for finance and by other officials.

Each of the nomes had a capital town or metropolis, where the seat of local government was located. Unfortunately we do not know very much about these, as the urban topography of Roman Egypt has been little studied. The two best understood are Oxyrhynchus and Arsinoe, whence the evidence is derived from papyri. It appears that they were places of some sophistication and wealth. Thus, Oxyrhynchus had a gymnasium, public baths, a theatre, and about twenty temples, while Arsinoe had running water supplied by two reservoirs into which water was pumped from an arm of the Nile.

During the first two centuries ad, the nomes and their metropolises enjoyed little in the way of self-government, but in ad 200 Septimius Severus ordered the creation of town councils in each nome, a step towards upgrading the metropolises to municipia (a municipium being, in essence, a self-governing borough). This, however, led to consider-

Diagram showing the bureaucratic structure of Roman Egypt

Able resentment, for with increased responsibility came increased financial burdens to the holders of office.

Under Roman rule, all males between the ages of 14 and 60 were obliged to pay a poll tax annually. Roman citizens were exempt, but these probably only formed a minor part of the population. The upper classes, the ‘metropolites’, paid at a reduced level. Class was, thus, a subject of some consequence and at the age of 14 a metropolite boy would be required to present his credentials.

The Army

As in other provinces, the main agent of control was the army. The epi-graphic and papyrological evidence that Egypt provides furnishes an unrivalled picture of the functioning of a provincial army, to which can be added the archaeological evidence of the forts from which the army operated. Many of these, preserved by the desert, still stand to their wall tops.

One of the major early historical sources on the disposition of troops was Strabo (17.1.12), who, in a much-cited passage, states:

There are three legions of soldiers, one in the city and the others in the chora. In addition there are nine Roman cohorts, three in the city, three on the border with Ethiopia at Syene, as guard for those places and three elsewhere in the chora. There are three horse units which are likewise positioned in important places.

The city is, of course, Alexandria, where the fort of Nikopolis, about 5 km. east of the centre, stood until the late nineteenth century. Today a few fragments remain in the Khedival palace that was built on the site and all but obliterated it. Another legion seems to have been stationed in the fortress of Babylon (fragments of which can still be seen in the grounds of the Coptic museum in Cairo), while the third had the task of guarding the Thebaid. The legions deployed include the XXII Deiotariana, the III Cyrenaica, the II Traiana, and the XV Apollinaris.

Strabo is much less specific about the auxiliary units, but here it is possible to fill in the detail from a variety of sources within and outside Egypt. The evidence includes dedications, diplomas, tombstones, and other inscriptions, as well as papyri and ostraca, the latter two more or less restricted to Egypt itself During the first three centuries ad there seem to have been, on average, three to four alae (cavalry units) stationed in the country, as well as about eight cohorts, which accords remarkably well with Strabo’s claims.

The units changed and moved from one part of the empire to another, and between different places within Egypt, and in some cases it is possible to reconstruct their history. Thus, the ala Vocontorium is one of the earliest and best-attested auxiliary units in Egypt. Prior to AD 6o it seems to have been based in the Koptos area and there is also evidence for its presence in the fort at Babylon in ad 59. During the Flavian period it may have served on the German frontier, returning to Egypt by ad 105. It was later deployed in the Eastern Desert at Mons Porphyrites (ad 116), then again in the Nile Valley, until it disappeared from the records in ad 179.

Another example is the cohors II Ituraeorum, which is attested in Syene (Aswan) in ad 28 and ad 75 and later at various other places in the Syene area, before ending up at Mons Claudianus in ad 223-5.

The tasks that the army had to perform were multifarious. Defence of the empire was obviously important. According to Strabo, the areas to the south and east of Egypt were peopled by tribes largely identified to the Romans by their eating habits. There is little doubt that the troops stationed at Syene (Aswan) would have been charged with securing the southern limits of the state. Equally, desert security might have been, in some measure, the responsibility of units based along the Nile in Upper and Middle Egypt. There were certainly forts in parts of both the Eastern and Western Deserts, but they seem as much related to mineral exploitation and the promotion of trade as to security.

However, the army based in Egypt played a major role in most of the eastern military campaigns, such as the annexation of Arabia in ad 106 and Trajan’s Parthian War. It was also called on to quell the Jewish revolts of the first and second centuries ad. Here the legions at Nikopolis and the units stationed at Pelusium in northern Sinai would have played a significant part, as they could have moved with relative rapidity to eastern trouble spots. Alexandria was undoubtedly the key military base. The legions based nearby would have been charged with controlling the unruly Alexandrian mob, securing this jewel of a city against attack, policing the countryside, and playing a part in the wider problems of the empire.

In fact, a major role of the army everywhere was to act as a police force. There is a substantial number of ostraca, principally referring to the Eastern Desert, that specify guard duties and the manning of skopdoi or watch towers. It appears that the guards were organized into dekanoi, which were controlled by curatores, who in turn were responsible to centurions. Movement along desert roads seems to have been Very strictly controlled, with need for permits, written on an ostracon, or perhaps sometimes papyrus. Undoubtedly this was a measure to limit the banditry for which Egypt was notorious. This enduring problem must have been a major preoccupation of the army, with units of soldiers under the command of the strategos hunting down both the bandits and their sympathizers in the general population. Banditry would have been particularly prevalent in the mountainous parts of the Eastern Desert, where there would have been ample opportunity to hide, and rich picking to be had from the caravans of oriental luxuries travelling from Berenice or Myos Hormos (Quseir el-Qadim) on the Red Sea coast to the Nile. This undoubtedly accounts for the string of forts between Berenice and Koptos and particularly for the forts and numerous watchtowers on the road between Quseir el-Qadim and Koptos.

The army seems to have been involved in many other activities, such as the supervision of grain boats travelling down the Nile to Alexandria, guarding the ever unpopular tax collectors while executing their duties, and supplying and supervising quarrying and mining enterprises in the desert. Here, the evidence from Mons Claudianus suggests that they lived alongside civilians and were an integral part of the extractive system. They were charged, amongst other things, with supervising the skopeloi, with guarding valuables such as iron tools, and perhaps with the maintenance of structures.