11:00 am – 1:00 pm
The Italian Academy, 5th floor seminar room
François Gerardin
University of Basel
The Papyrology of Greek Cities in Egypt
Friday, October 25, 2024
11:00 AM
Abstract
The vast amount of papyri retrieved from the sands of Egypt are often associated with the administrative machinery of the Ptolemaic kingdom, and then Roman rule, but less so with the—admittedly few—Greek poleis found in Egypt. The partial publication of the city archive of Euergetis, a new polis founded in the 130s BCE in Middle Egypt, not only adds up to this corpus of “polis papyri;” it raises the question of the extent, depth, and exemplarity of the political form known as the Greek city-state in Greco-Roman Egypt before and besides the so-called “municipalization” of Egypt. Against this background, this paper will discuss evidence for polis institutions and civic life at Antinoopolis, Hadrian’s foundation in Middle Egypt, combining close reading of papyrus texts with interpretive issues concerning the integration of Greek cities into Egypt’s administrative fabric.
