Roman provincial government economized on manpower by co-opting the elites of the provincial cities to control the local population, including collecting many taxes. In Egypt it seems that Augustus did not regard the nome capitals (metropoleis, such as Oxyrhynchos or Hermopolis) as sufficiently urban or ‘‘Greek’’ to fulfil this role. Below the small group of Roman officials, therefore, the existing nome administration was retained in modified form, with Alexandrian Greeks initially occupying the key positions of strategos and basilikogrammateus, but the Roman policy of developing the urban and Hellenic status ofthe nome capitals and their elites soon created an identifiably Hellenized elite among the ‘‘Aigyptioi" of the chora (the gymnasial class: see Ch. 10), from whom by the second century ad the strategoi and other nome officials were also drawn. The progressive assimilation of the metropoleis to the full status of cities is the major development in the administrative history of Roman Egypt, with implications for the administrative relationship of town and countryside, and of Alexandria to the chora as a whole.
Beneath the superficial continuity in the names of most officials from the Ptolemaic to the Roman Period lie significant changes to their status and duties, and to the fundamental structures of the system. One important change of principle was that officials should serve away from their home area for quite short terms of office (typically two or three years). Thus strategoi and basilikogrammateis always governed a different nome from where they lived and owned property, and even komogrammateis seem to have served away from their own village in the second century (Derda 2006: 149-50). This would reduce their scope to wield influence over their districts as men like Menches or Pachom had done, although strong characters could still manipulate local networks to their advantage.
The second general change was the progressive spread (in common with the rest of the empire) of the system of liturgies, i. e. the compulsory imposition of state services on persons in virtue of their possession of the requisite property qualification. Starting with some tax collecting posts in the first century AD, the liturgical system expanded over the next two centuries to include most official posts in the chora (but apparently never the strategos and basilikogrammateus; Lewis 1997; Thomas 2001: 1249-51 succinctly outlines the issues). This resulted in the increasing perception of administrative office as an undesirable burden rather than a source of advancement; appointees were vociferous in appealing against unfair nomination, and, when in the third century civic magistracies became compulsory, an appointee might prefer to give up his property rather than serve (e. g. P. Oxy. XXXVIII 2854; Tacoma 2006: 265-68).
The Prefect and other Roman officials were appointed by the emperor. With few exceptions (suchasTiberius Julius Alexander), they were not native to the province but held one or more posts there as part of an ‘‘equestrian’’ career (Brunt 1990, Thomas 1982: 54-6). Although based in Alexandria, like all Roman provincial governors the Prefect travelled annually to hold assizes (conventus) at major provincial centers: Alexandria itself (for the western Delta, in June-July), Pelusium (eastern Delta, in January), and for the rest of the country normally at Memphis (late January - April; occasionally at Arsinoe, Antinoopolis or Koptos instead - note the strong bias towards the north). At the conventus, the Prefect audited local administration and finance as well as holding court and receiving vast numbers of petitions (1,804 in just over two days at Arsinoe: P. Yale I 61). The Prefect also had overall charge of the Roman military forces, but all other officials discussed here had purely civilian powers (the epistrategoi and strategoi losing the military role they held in the Ptolemaic Period).
Of the other equestrian officials, a rare Roman innovation was the post of dikaiodotes (Latin iuridicus) in charge of civil law and head of a permanent tribunal in Alexandria. The idios logos (‘‘private account’’), formerly in charge of the Ptolemies’ private possessions, now dealt with irregular revenues including properties confiscated by the state (an ever-expanding portfolio, hence the elaborate rulebook drawn up to assist him, the Gnomon: see Ch. 10; Swarney 1970). Whereas in the early Roman Period dioiketai were minor local officials, under Hadrian the office of dioiketes was restored to something of its former importance with financial responsibility over the chora (Hagedorn 1985, with Thomas 2001: 1246). The number of epistrategoi was increased to three, responsible for the Delta, Heptanomia, and Thebaid (later perhaps four, dividing the eastern and western Delta; Thomas 1982: 29-39), with duties linking the central and nome administration. They assisted at the Prefect’s conventus, judged cases on their own, and were involved in some appointments to liturgical offices and metropolitan magistracies, and appeals, especially those concerning Antinoite citizens (dealt with by the epistrategos of the Heptanomia).
The competence of some officials of Alexandria also extended over the chora; this was true of the hypomnematographos (who dealt with issues of personal status; Whitehorne 1987), the archidikastes, in charge of the law courts and archive of private contracts (katalogeion), and the exegetes, whose various duties included the appointment of guardians for women and children (Alston 2002: 188-9). The prominent Alexandrians who held these posts were often, but not necessarily, also Roman citizens.
As overall head of the nome administration, responsible for everything from investigating suspicious deaths to posting up lists of those appointed to public office, a strategos was kept as busy as the Ptolemaic oikonomos had been, but he was nevertheless expected to put in an appearance at a flower-festival in one of the villages under his supervision (P. Oxy. XLII 3074, 3025, LII 3694). The basilikogrammateus deputized, if necessary, for the strategos, but his main responsibilities were, as in the Ptolemaic Period, concerned with administrative record-keeping. A survey of his duties, therefore, encompasses virtually the entire administration of the nome, from the census to lists of temple property or the distribution of seed (Kruse 2002; on census procedures, see Bagnall and Frier 1994: 1-30).
Most types of document were submitted in multiple copies addressed to different officials (usually at least the strategos, basilikogrammateus, and komogrammateus), so producing them was a veritable industry. The long Egyptian tradition of bureaucratic administration reached its apogee in the early Roman Period (cf. Parsons 2007: 159-71). However, the functional literacy of lower officials (not to mention the population generally) varied immensely, from Petaus, komogrammateus of Ptolemais Hormou, who struggled to sign his name, to the learned tax collector Sokrates, who amused himself by translating Egyptian names in his tax records into obscure literary Greek (P. Petaus, Youtie 1966; Youtie 1970; Harker 2008: 113-14. On the organization of tax collection generally see Sharp 1999).
Outdated administrative records were sold or taken home by officials at the expiry of their office, often reusing the reverse for copying works of literature (for instance, Pindar’s Paeans on the back of a census register, P. Oxy. 984; Bagnall et al. 1997), but Prefects showed great concern for preserving both public and private documents in an increasingly sophisticated system of public archives in the villages, metropoleis, and at Alexandria (Cockle 1984; Burkhalter 1990). The working of a village record-office (grapheion) is well-known from the survival of many papyri from the Tebtunis office in the mid-first century ad including contracts, abstracts (eiromena), indexes (anagraphai), and accounts (published in P. Mich. vols. II and V; Toepel 1973). The same registrars wrote both Greek and Demotic documents, and the position was effectively hereditary, following Egyptian custom (Muhs 2005).
Around ad 70, a registry office for private property (bibliotheke enkteseon) was created separately from the public archives in the metropoleis. Mettius Rufus (Prefect AD 89; Sel. Pap. II 219) ordered all property to be registered within six months of acquisition, and all mortgages and other claims, including the entails (katochai) held by wives and children on the property of their husbands or parents following Egyptian tradition, but, despite repeated orders by subsequent Prefects, many properties went unregistered for generations. The registrars of these archives ( bibliophy-lakes) were appointed from the metropolitan elite but nevertheless might be hounded by their superiors; Mettius Rufus’ demand that the Arsinoite Public Archivists repair some documents damaged by heat and worms (copying where necessary from the versions held in the central Alexandrian archive) led to a protracted legal wrangle which lasted to the next generation (P. Fam. Tebt. 15 and 24).
Because the metropoleis were subordinate to the nome officials, scholars have sometimes seen them as no more than big villages, administratively speaking. However, at least from the mid-first century ad, innovations appear which increasingly marked their distinct civic identity (Bowman and Rathbone 1992 trace this trend right back to the first definition of an hereditary metropolitan class and the concentration of gymnasia in the metropoleis under Augustus). For example, between ad 72 and 74 the topogrammateis and komogrammateis of Oxyrhynchos were renamed ‘‘scribes of the city’’ (P. Oxy. LXV 4478; Hagedorn 2007: 203 n.2). The metropoleis were already organized into administrative districts (amphoda) on the Roman model (Alston 2002: 130-44). Towards the end of the century appears the first evidence for the exegetes, kosmetes, and gymnasiarch as true municipal officials (Hagedorn 2007; note their responsibility for the civic waterworks of Arsinoe attested in a document of ad 113: Habermann 1997). Scholars now agree that, well before Septimius Severus granted them councils, the metropoleis possessed much of the civic organization as well as the physical appearance of Greek cities.
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