Hellenistic and Roman Egypt: Sources and Approaches(Variorum Collected Studies)

This second collection by Roger Bagnall brings together a further two dozen of his studies, this time covering Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine Egypt, published over the last thirty years. Many of the articles deal with issues of historical and papyrological method: the restoration of papyrus texts, the direction of archaeological work in Egypt, economic models for Roman Egypt, the usefulness of postcolonial theory, and approaches to the defective literary tradition for the Library of Alexandria. Others concentrate on particular bodies of evidence, ranging from inscriptions to ascetic literature, from registers to women's letters.

Table of Contents:
Contents: Preface. Questions of Method: Archaeological work on Hellenistic and Roman Egypt, 1995-2000; Restoring the text of documents; Evidence and models for the economy of Roman Egypt. Hellenistic Egypt: The date of the foundation of Alexandria; Papyrology and Ptolemaic history: 1956-1980; Decolonizing Ptolemaic Egypt; Archagathos son of Agathocles, Epistates of Libya; The origins of Ptolemaic Cleruchs; Alexandria: library of dreams; Dioskourides: three rolls; An unrecognized date by the rebellion of 131 B.C. Roman Egypt: Publius Petronius, Augustan prefect of Egypt; The beginnings of the Roman census in Egypt; The people of the Roman Fayum; Egypt and the Lex Minicia; A trick a day to keep the tax man at bay? The prostitute tax in Roman Egypt; Managing estates in Roman Egypt: a review article; Army and police in Roman Upper Egypt. Late Antiquity: Public administration and the documentation of Roman Panopolis; The date of the Hermopolite land registers: a review article; Les lettres privées des femmes: un choix de langue en Égypte byzantine; Monks and property: rhetoric, law, and patronage in the Apophthegmata Patrum and the Papyri; Women's petitions in late antique Egypt; Greek papyri and Coptic studies, 1990-1995. Index.

About the Author :
Roger S. Bagnall is Professor of Classics and History in the Department of Classics, Columbia University, USA.

Review :
'The Papyrological work done by Bagnall is one of the most valuable tools for the study of Eastern Mediterranean History in Late Antiquity. This group of most valuable articles, some of them already well known to and praised by scholars interested in Roman and Byzantine Egypt, is an excellent survey of research conducted in the field over the last three decades... deserves to be read widely by Classical scholars, Byzantinists, Roman historians and those working on related subjects.' Bryn Mawr Classical Review