UNESCO Ancient Civilizations of Africa (Editor G. Mokhtar)

Egypt under Roman domination
had a horse to feed or not, and so on). During the Ptolemaic period
the system had already suffered from the inevitable exploitation. In the
Roman period it changed completely. The paid official gave way to the
honorary magistrate. At the same time colleges were formed of persons who
all had the same duties and were all collectively responsible. Beside the
sirategos stood the archontes and commandants; beside the komogrammateus,
the village scribe, stood the elders, the presbyteroi.
Although the state no longer maintained the government or paid its
expenses, the small and middle-sized private estate was enlarged by the
distribution of land which until then had been royal or usufructuary (the
kleroi had paid the public servants). There grew up therefore a class of
property holders from whom were elected the unpaid magistrates who
fulfilled their functions as a duty, a munus, for which they had been
reimbursed in advance by the property rights which they had been given.
To this class of property owners and potential administrators the empire
entrusted the defence of its interests, choosing one social group to favour
and setting it against the others. Under the firstPtolemies the Greeks had,
defacto, occupied a privileged position which had declined considerably
after the battle of Raphia in —217, when Egypt's national troops had
been soundly beaten, and even more during the difficult times of the
dynasty's last kings.
The Roman occupiers, in their need to set group against group, resorted
to the ancient custom and restored to the Greeks their privileged position,
this time not only in fact but also in law. The Egyptians paid a poll-tax
(the laographia to which a man was liable merely by existing) from which
the Greeks were exempt. The inhabitants of the provincial capitals, the
métropoles, paid less than villagers; peasants might not leave the land they
tilled, the idia. So the important thing was to belong to a Greek-educated
family. A man could claim this only if he could show by documents that
his two grandfathers had both attended a gymnasion, a Greek school. Under
the Ptolemies this was a free institution; after them it became restricted
to metropolitans and was controlled by the state. A man could only call
himself a graduate of a gymnasium {apo tou gymnasiou) after a scrutiny
(epikrisis) of his genealogical title. If he proved his claim he was regarded
as one of a Greek-speaking urban bourgeoisie as opposed to country folk,
who were mostly peasants and Egyptians. The right of the Egyptians
as such disappeared in this new social setting, the chief purpose of which
was to organize a solid middle class with a stake in the future of the
empire.
It will be convenient here to mention the particular status of the
autonomous cities (poleis) under the Ptolemies, such as Ptolemais in Upper
Egypt and the ancient and glorious Naucratis 3 in the Delta. The third
polis, Alexandria, was still the greatest port in the Mediterranean, rivalling
3. A Greek colony dating from the Saitic period.
211