Mechanics of Empire: the Karanis Register and the Writing Offices of Roman Egypt
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Mechanics of Empire: the Karanis Register and the Writing Offices of Roman Egypt by W. Graham Claytor VI A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Greek and Roman History) in the University of Michigan 2014 Doctoral Committee: Associate Professor Ian S. Moyer, Co-Chair Professor Arthur Verhoogt, Co-Chair Professor Sara Forsdyke Professor Terry G. Wilfong © W. Graham Claytor 2014 To my parents. ii Acknowledgements I have benefitted enormously from the support of my friends and family, as well as the wonderful community of scholars in History, Classical Studies, and Papyrology. Above all, I must give profound thanks to my co-chairs Arthur Verhoogt and Ian Moyer for their guidance throughout my time at Michigan. They have been instrumental in shaping my conceptions about the ancient world and steering this work in the right direction. I am grateful also to the other members of my committee, Terry Wilfong and Sara Forsdyke, for drawing on their diverse expertise to offer instructive insights and suggestions. My first steps in papyrology came under the direction of Roger Bagnall and Rodney Ast, whom I thank for this initiation and their continued support. Since arriving in Ann Arbor, 807 Hatcher has been a home away from home for me. The late Traianos Gagos welcomed me with open arms and gave me my first opportunities to work with the collection, for which I am eternally grateful. Arthur encouraged me to pursue diverse research projects in the collection and was always willing to lend his eyes to tricky passages. The edition of the Karanis Register would been all the more difficult without the help of conservators Leyla Lau-Lamb and Marieka Kaye, whose expert work I admire and appreciate. The departments of History and Classical Studies have made for a stimulating and supportive environment during my time here. I am grateful to the professors who opened up new vistas for me in the classroom and helped me become a better teacher. My fellow graduate students have simply been wonderful people. I thank them all for the camaraderie and all the entertaining diversions over the years. Special thanks are due to Jonathan McLaughlin, contubernalis et amicus, for making these past six plus years so memorable. From afar, David Ratzan has been a constant sounding board for many ideas in this work (and beyond) and I thank him for all his feedback and suggestions. I happily acknowledge the love and support of my family throughout this process. And to Killeen, for her kindness and love, I owe the greatest thanks. iii Contents Dedication ii Acknowledgements iii List of Figures v List of Tables vi Abbreviations and Editorial Conventions vii Chapter One: The Karanis Register in an Imperial Context 1 Chapter Two: Contract Regulation and the Ptolemaic State 24 Chapter Three: The Writing Offices of Roman Egypt 55 Chapter Four: Material and Textual Analysis of the Karanis Register 83 Chapter Five: Edition of the Karanis Register 124 Chapter Six: Conclusions 170 Appendix: Rogue Notaries? Two Unusual Contracts from the Late Ptolemaic Fayum 176 Bibliography 189 iv List of Figures 1. P.Eleph. 3 (282 BCE), rolled and sealed. 31 2. The threshold papyri in situ. Kelsey Museum Photographic Archive 5.1790. 85 3. Extract from the Record of Objects (24-5026D-C). 85 4. Detail of threshold papyri in situ with inv. 4384 highlighted. 87 5. Detail of inv. 4384 in situ. 87 6. Detail of inv. 4384 recto as currently preserved. 87 7. P.Mich. inv. 4385 recto. 90 8. Dating formula for Trajan's 19th year on the recto of inv. 4385. 91 9. Karanis Register, col. i-iii (P.Mich. inv. 4390b verso). 161 10. Karanis Register, col. vii-x (P.Mich. inv. 4385 verso). 162 11. Karanis Register, col. xi-xiii (P.Mich. inv. 4385 verso). 163 12. Karanis Register, col. xiv-xviii (P.Mich. inv. 4383 verso). 164 13. Karanis Register, col. xix-xxi (P.Mich. inv. 4391+4386a verso). 165 14. Karanis Register, col. xxii-xxv (P.Mich. inv. 4384 verso). 166 15. Karanis Register, col. xxvi-xxvii (P.Mich. inv. 4382b verso). 167 16. Karanis Register, col. xxviii-xxx (P.Mich. inv. 4382a verso). 168 17. Karanis Register, col. xxxi-xxxiii (P.Mich. inv. 4387 verso). 169 18. Cat. Gen. 10825 (P.Fay. 240 descr.). 187 19. P.Mich. inv. 3380. 188 v List of Tables 1. First attestations of Arsinoite grapheia in the Ptolemaic period. 51 2. Incomplete early Roman grapheion contracts. 70 3. Diplomatics of late Ptolemaic and Roman grapheion contracts 72 4. Estimated totals of contracts per month in the Karanis Register. 99 5. Comparison of contract volume in the grapheia of Tebtunis and Karanis. 99 6. Contract typology and frequency in the Karanis Register. 102 7. Grammatikon by contract type in the Karanis Register. 117 8. Percentage of names by type in the Tax Rolls and the Karanis Register. 120 9. Comparison of name types between party A and party B in the registered 120 contracts of the Karanis Register. vi Abbreviations and Editorial Conventions Papyri are cited according to the Checklist of Editions of Greek, Latin, Demotic, and Coptic Papyri, Ostraca, and Tablets, originally published in periodic print and online editions (last 1 June, 2011: edd. J.D. Sosin, R.S. Bagnall, J. Cowey, M. Depauw, T.G. Wilfong, and K.A. Worp, http://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/scriptorium/papyrus/texts/clist.html), but now curated online through Papyri.info: http://papyri.info/docs/checklist (accessed 13 October, 2014). The forthcoming Papyri from Karanis: the Granary C123 (P.Mich. XXII) (edd. W.G. Claytor, S. Lash, and A. Verhoogt) is cited as P.Mich. XXII, forthcoming. The transcription of Greek texts follow the Leiden conventions: [ ] indicates a lacuna in the text ( ) indicates the resolution of an abbreviation or symbol { } indicates a cancellation by the editor of the text ⟨ ⟩ indicates an omission by the ancient scribe ⟦ ⟧ indicates a deletion by the ancient scribe \ / indicates an interlinear addition by the ancient scribe ̣ ̣ ̣ dots under letters indicate that the editor’s reading is uncertain; plain dots indicate the approximate number of illegible or lost letters. vii Chapter One: The Karanis Register in an Imperial Context 1.1 A Notary’s Papers The Karanis Register was never meant for public consumption. It may have been seen by only a few pairs of eyes before it was tucked neatly within a wooden threshold in the Egyptian village of Karanis and forgotten. It was of little interest to contemporaries; although the Register belonged to the village notary, a prominent local figure who leased the right to operate the grapheion (“writing office”) from state authorities, it contained only his private accounts, much like those of other well-to-do individuals in the village, the province, and across the Roman Empire. The notary drew up thousands of documents of lasting value for his clients and thereby helped fill the archives in the regional capital and in Alexandria itself, but the rolls containing these accounts stayed with him in Karanis until they were no longer needed. At that point, the papyri were virtually worthless: they had already been patched together from old rolls and were now written on both sides. Blank spaces could still be used as scrap paper,1 or the rolls might serve as packaging or even fire starter, which they manifestly were not. Why the papyri ended up in the threshold we cannot say.2 The fundamental task of the Karanis notary3 was to produce contracts and other documents for clients on request. His task was not a light one: Karanis was a large village of some 3,600 inhabitants at the time the Register was drawn up in the early second century CE,4 and our notary and his small staff worked virtually every day, producing a few thousand documents over the course of the year in question.5 He may have formed a partnership to run the office and perhaps 1 Part of the side opposite the accounts was used to practice a dating formula: Chapter 4.4. 2 See Chapter 4.2 for the archaeological context of the rolls. 3 We are not sure of his name or even to what extent he shared his duties with partners. The two most prominent individuals in the account are Aphrodisios and Sokrates, who might therefore be the partners who are implied by the account’s single first-person plural verb (col. xxiv.24; see below, Chapter 4.8). Even in the case of the best-known partnership, that of Kronion and Eutychas, Kronion plays a dominant role; for this reason and for the sake of simplicity, I speak here of “the Karanis notary.” 4 Rathbone 1990, 134, supported by Bowman 2012. For the dating of the Register see Chapter 4.4. 5 See Chapter 4.11, where I estimate the year’s total of registered contracts to be between 1,025 and 1,075. Other documents, including sworn statements (χειρογραφίαι), are also prevalent in the account, but more difficult to quantify (4.13). 1 had financial backing from rich associates; regardless, there seem to have been only a handful of individuals directly involved in day-to-day operations of the grapheion. Although under state license, the Karanis notary had a fair degree of discretion as to how he would operate his business. He was allowed to charge a variable fee for his writing services, which comprised the primary source of his office’s income and his only hope of turning a profit from the endeavor. The income entries in his account list the contracting parties, the type of contract, and, most importantly, the scribal fee paid.