Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

624 21c. egypt
was a time of special tribulation. One Blemmyan captive in this period was
the exiled ex-patriarch Nestorius. 43 There followed a revolt by the
Blemmyes and Nobades, suppressed by the Romans in 451 and concluded
by a treaty whose terms included the ransom-free return of Roman captives.
44 The treaty was soon violated. Sixth-century papyri point to more
trouble with the desert tribes, establishing that ‘in the olden times of our
parents’, probably around 500, ‘the vile Blemmyes’ had ransacked
Antaiopolis in middle Egypt, destroying its basilica and its public baths;
that the Blemmyes had likewise, later in the sixth century, pillaged the city
of Omboi in upper Egypt. By mid century a unit of ‘Justinian’s Numidians’
(Numidae Iustiniani), 508 men strong, had been stationed by the emperor’s
orders at Hermopolis for the purpose of protecting the Thebaid and for
the ‘repulse of every barbarian attack’. 45 But events and measures like these
and like the third Blemmyan war (563–8) must in the end be set against the
backdrop of generally peaceful relations between Romans and Blemmyes,
the peace achieved by Athanasius, duke of the Thebaid, in the early 570s
not long after the drafting of Theodore’s will, the tranquil conduct of business
between Romans and Blemmyes in Latopolis, and the apparent calm
in the First Cataract frontier zone with its garrisons of local militia at Syene,
Elephantine and Philai. 46
Third, Theodore’s position shows him to have been a bureaucrat who
served in the same provincial government as his father, that of the
Thebaid, under its duke. His father, dead by 567, had been a lawyer (scholasticus)
of the ‘Thebaid’s Forum’, forum Thebaidos. Another document may
establish that Theodore had a brother serving the same provincial court
that his father had served. 47 This tendency of sons to follow their fathers
into government service is evidenced elsewhere in the papyri. 48 It was a
natural and easy course, but it was also one that came to the attention of
late imperial social legislation, especially in the fourth century. 49 By one
view, the laws, and particularly C.Th. vii.22.2 (331), aimed to enforce hereditary
service among staff officials; but by another, the aims were more
limited. They were to keep officials from jumping from one officium to
another, to ensure that sons enrolled in the same officium in which their
fathers had served, and to see to it that wealthy staff officials on retirement
did not escape certain financial obligations to the crown. 50
43 W.Chr. 6, in the new edition by Feissel and Worp (1988) (p. 104 for Nestorius’ captivity); Shenoute,
Opera ed. Leipoldt, iii.67–77, with Leipoldt (1902–3). 44 Priscus fr. 21 (Dindorf).
45 Antaiopolis: P.Cair.Masp. i 67009 v 16–20; Omboi: P.Cair.Masp. i 67004; Hermopolis: P.Cair.Masp.
iii 67321, P.Lond. v 1663, SB v8028.
46 Gascou (1975) esp. 206; P.Cair.Masp. i 67097 v bc, with MacCoull, Dioscorus 113–15 (Athanasius);
BGU iii 972 (Latopolis contract); Keenan (1990) esp. 144–5.
47 P.Cair.Masp. ii 67169�iii 67169 bis. 48 P.Lond. v1714; BGU i 306�SB vi 9592.
49 Generally, Keenan (1975).
50 Jones, Roman Economy ch. 21, 396–418,at403–4; Jones, LRE 594–5.
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