Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

egypt 617
praeses of Thebaid had, according to the Notitia Dignitatum, 12 a chief ( princeps),
adjutants (cornicularius, adiutor), an accountant (numerarius), several
types of clerks (commentariensis, ab actis, a libellis, exceptores) and other officials
(cohortalini). The papyri serve to confirm and extend, and to some extent
clarify, the often confusing vocabulary of late imperial bureaucracy, but
their evidence almost exclusively derives from the provinces of Arcadia
and Thebaid. This is due to the often-remarked accidental nature of the
finds. Arcadia is familiar because Oxyrhynchus, its capital, 13 is a rich source
of late papyri. The Thebaid is well-known because of papyri from its
capital, Antinoopolis, but more so because of papyri from other Thebaid
provenances, especially Hermopolis and Aphrodito.
This papyrus evidence tends to be casual and scattered and private in
nature. A herald ( praeco) on the staff of the praeses in Antinoopolis, for
example, borrows money from an Antinoopolite widow; a clerk (scriniarius)
on the staff of the duke of the Thebaid, originating from Hermopolis, buys
part of a house in Antinoopolis; a ‘stenographer’ (tacugra* ov) on the
staff of the praeses of Arcadia, whose home is in the Arsinoite, rents a flat
in Oxyrhynchus, no doubt to secure a residence near his workplace. 14 But
there are occasions when the evidence on staff officers is more focused. In
one private letter, for example, a stenographer (exceptor) is seen travelling in
the company of his superior, the provincial governor ( rcwn), probably
the praeses of Arcadia; the stenographer writes to his mother in
Oxyrhynchus. The letter indicates that communication, official and private,
was being conducted through aides called symmachoi (armed messengers)
and singulares (despatch riders). Another letter, addressed to an exceptor,
mentions a praeses ( rcwn), probably (again) the governor of Arcadia, and
various members of his officium: an ab actis, anumerarius and officiales. 15 Still
more important is a late-fifth-century list of officials belonging to the staff
of the praeses of the Thebaid: two lawyers (scholastici) and an assistant lawyer,
three chief clerks ( proximi), an ‘assistant in the secretariat’, an ‘underassistant’
(subadiuva), two stenographers (exceptores), five despatch riders
(singulares) and one or more ‘couriers’ (cursores). 16
Given the variety of titles, it will not be surprising to learn that there were
distinctions in grade and rewards among these civil servants, partly depending
on the importance of the staff to which they were assigned, partly on
whether their work was clerical or not. 17 This is well illustrated in two wills.
In one, from sixth-century Oxyrhynchus, Flavius Pousi, a courier (cursor)
attached to the praesidial (i.e. civil) officium of Arcadia, leaves shares of his
12 Or. xliv 6–15, cf. Jones, LRE 593–6.
13 P.Oxy. lviii 3932.6 n., citing Georgius Cyprius, Descriptio orbis romani ed. H. Gelzer (Bibl. Teubner),
745. 14 P.Mich. xi 607 (569), P.Berl.Zill. 6 (527/65), P.Oxy. xvi 1965 (553).
15 P.Oxy. lviii 3932, P.Mich. xi 624 (both sixth century).
16 CPR xiv 39 (late fifth century); cf. P.Cair.Masp. i 67054, P.Oxy. viii 1108. 17 Jones (1949).
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