The Provinces of the Roman Empire 35

The Provinces of the Roman Empire 35

The linguistic arrangement in Egypt remained essentially under the

Romans as the Ptolemies had settled it. Apart from the military,

among whom the Latin alone prevailed, the business-language for the

intercourse of the upper posts was the Greek. Of the native language,

which, radically different from the Semitic as from the Arian

languages, is most nearly akin perhaps to that of the Berbers in North

Africa, and of the native writing, the Roman rulers and their governors

never made use; and, if already under the Ptolemies a Greek translation

had to be appended to official documents written in Egyptian, at least

the same held good for these their successors. Certainly the Egyptians

were not prohibited from making use, so far as it seemed requisite

according to ritual or otherwise appropriate, of the native language

and of its time-hallowed written signs; in this old home, moreover, of

the use of writing in ordinary intercourse the native language, alone

familiar to the great public, and the usual writing must necessarily

have been allowed not merely in the case of private contracts, but

even as regards tax-receipts and similar documents. But this was a

concession, and the ruling Hellenism strove to enlarge its domain.

The effort to create for the views and traditions prevailing in the

land an universally valid __EXPRESSION__ also in Greek gave an extension

to the system of double names in Egypt such as we see nowhere else.

All Egyptian gods whose names were not themselves current among the

Greeks, like that of Isis, were equalised with corresponding or else

not corresponding Greek ones; perhaps the half of the townships and a

great number of persons bore as well a native as a Greek appellation.

Gradually Hellenism in this case prevailed. The old sacred writing

meets us on the preserved monuments last under the emperor Decius about

the middle of the third, and its more current degenerated form last

about the middle of the fifth century; both disappeared from common use

considerably earlier. The neglect and the decay of the native elements

of civilisation are expressed in these facts. The language of the

land itself maintained its ground still for long afterwards in remote

places and in the lower ranks, and only became quite extinct in the

seventeenth century, after it--the language of the Copts--had, just

like the Syriac, experienced in the later imperial period a limited

regeneration in consequence of the introduction of Christianity and

of the efforts directed to the production of a national-Christian

literature.

 

[Sidenote: Abolition of a resident court.]

 

In the government the first thing that strikes us is the suppression

of the court and of its residency, the necessary consequence of the

annexation of the land by Augustus. There was left doubtless as

much as could be left. On the inscriptions written in the native

language, and so merely for Egyptians, the emperors are termed, like

the Ptolemies, kings of upper and lower Egypt, and the elect of the

Egyptian native gods, and indeed withal--which was not the case with

the Ptolemies--great-kings.[215] Dates were reckoned in Egypt, as

previously, according to the current calendar of the country and its

royal year passing over to the Roman rulers; the golden cup which

every year the king threw into the swelling Nile was now thrown in

by the Roman viceroy. But these things did not reach far. The Roman

ruler could not carry out the part of the Egyptian king, which was

incompatible with his imperial position. The new lord of the land

had unpleasant experiences in his representation by a subordinate

on the very first occasion of his sending a governor to Egypt; the

able officer and talented poet, who had not been able to refrain from

inscribing his name also on the Pyramids, was deposed on that account

and thereby ruined. It was inevitable that limits should here be

set. The affairs, the transaction of which according to the system

of Alexander devolved on the prince personally[216] not less than

according to the arrangement of the Roman principate, might be managed

by the Roman governor as by the native king; king he might neither be

nor seem.[217] That was to a certainty deeply and severely felt in

the second city of the world. The mere change of dynasty would not

have told so very heavily. But a court like that of the Ptolemies,

regulated according to the ceremonial of the Pharaohs, king and queen

in their dress as gods, the pomp of festal processions, the reception

of the priesthoods and of ambassadors, the court-banquets, the great

ceremonies of the coronation, of the taking the oath, of marriage, of

burial, the court-offices of the body-guards and the chief of that guard

(ἀρχισωματοφύλαξ), of the introducing chamberlain (εἰσαγγελεύς), of

the chief master of the table (ἀρχεδέατρος), of the chief master of

the huntsmen (ἀρχικυνηγός), the cousins and friends of the king, the

wearers of decorations--all this was lost for the Alexandrians once

for all with the transfer of the seat of the ruler from the Nile to

the Tiber. Only the two famous Alexandrian libraries remained there,

with all their belongings and staff, as a remnant of the old regal

magnificence. Beyond question Egypt lost by being dispossessed of its

rulers very much more than Syria; both nations indeed were in the

powerless position of having to acquiesce in what was contrived for

them, and not more here than there was a rising for the lost position

of a great power so much as thought of.

 

[Sidenote: The officials.]

 

The administration of the land lay, as has been already said, in the

hands of the “deputy,” that is, the viceroy; for, although the new

lord of the land, out of respect for his position in the empire,

refrained as well for himself as for his delegates of higher station

from the royal appellations in Egypt, he yet in substance conducted

his rule throughout as successor of the Ptolemies, and the whole civil

and military supreme power was combined in his hand and that of his

representative. We have already observed that neither non-burgesses

nor senators might fill this position; it was sometimes committed to

Alexandrians, if they had attained to burgess-rights, and by way of

exception to equestrian rank.[218] We may add that this office stood at

first before all the rest of the non-senatorial in rank and influence,

and subsequently was inferior only to the commandership of the imperial

guard. Besides the officers proper, in reference to whom the only

departure from the general arrangement was the exclusion of the senator

and the lower title, thence resulting, of the commandant of the legion

(_praefectus_ instead of _legatus_), there acted alongside of and

under the governor, and likewise for all Egypt, a supreme official

for justice and a supreme finance-administrator, both likewise Roman

citizens of equestrian rank, and apparently not borrowed from the

administrative scheme of the Ptolemies, but attached and subordinated

to the governor after a fashion applied also in other imperial

provinces.[219]

 

All other officials acted only for individual districts, and were

in the main taken over from the Ptolemaic arrangement. That the

presidents of the three provinces of lower, middle, and upper Egypt,

provided--apart from the command--with the same sphere of business as

the governor, were taken in the time of Augustus from the Egyptian

Greeks, and subsequently, like the superior officials proper, from the

Roman knighthood, deserves to be noted as a symptom of the increasing

tendency in the course of the imperial period to repress the native

element in the magistracy.

 

Under these superior and intermediate authorities stood the local

officials, the presidents of the Egyptian as of the Greek towns, along

with the very numerous subalterns employed in the collecting of the

revenue and the manifold imposts laid on business-dealings, and again

in the individual district the presidents of the sub-districts and of

the villages--positions, which were looked upon more as burdens than

as honours, and were imposed by the higher officials upon persons

belonging to, or settled in, the locality, to the exclusion, however,

of the Alexandrians; the most important among them, the presidency of

the nome, was filled up every three years by the governor. The local

authorities of the Greek towns were different as to number and title;

in Alexandria in particular four chief officials acted, the priest of

Alexander,[220] the town-clerk (ὑπομνηματογράφος),[221] the supreme

judge (ἀρχιδικαστής), and the master of the night-watch (νυκτερινὸς

στρατηγός). That they were of more consequence than the _strategoi_ of

the nomes, is obvious of itself, and is shown clearly by the purple

dress belonging to the first Alexandrian official. We may add that they

originate likewise from the Ptolemaic period, and are nominated for a

time by the Roman government, like the presidents of the nomes, from

the persons settled therein. Roman officials of imperial nomination

are not found among these urban presidents. But the priest of the

Mouseion, who is at the same time president of the Alexandrian Academy

of Sciences and also disposes of the considerable pecuniary means

of this institute, is nominated by the emperor; in like manner the

superintendency of the tomb of Alexander and the buildings connected

with it, and some other important positions in the capital of Egypt,

were filled up by the government in Rome with officials of equestrian

rank.[222]

 

[Sidenote: Insurrections.]

 

[Sidenote: In the Palmyrene period.]

 

As a matter of course, Alexandrians and Egyptians were drawn into

those movements of pretenders which had their origin in the East,

and regularly participated in them; in this way Vespasian, Cassius,

Niger, Macrianus (p. 103), Vaballathus the son of Zenobia, Probus,

were here proclaimed as rulers. But the initiative in all those cases

was taken neither by the burgesses of Alexandria nor by the little

esteemed Egyptian troops; and most of those revolutions, even the

unsuccessful, had for Egypt no consequences specially felt. But the

movement connected with the name of Zenobia (p. 107) became almost

as fateful for Alexandria and for all Egypt as for Palmyra. In town

and country the Palmyrene and the Roman partisans confronted each

other with arms and blazing torches in their hands. On the south

frontier the barbarian Blemyes advanced, apparently in agreement with

the portion of the inhabitants of Egypt favourable to Palmyra, and

possessed themselves of a great part of upper Egypt.[223] In Alexandria

the intercourse between the two hostile quarters was cut off; it was

difficult and dangerous even to forward letters.[224] The streets were

filled with blood and with dead bodies unburied. The diseases thereby

engendered made even more havoc than the sword; and, in order that

none of the four steeds of destruction might be wanting, the Nile also

failed, and famine associated itself with the other scourges. The

population melted away to such an extent that, as a contemporary says,

there were formerly more gray-haired men in Alexandria than there were afterwards citizens.