This book investigates the linguistic and formal aspects of more than a thousand requests for justice and protection preserved in Egyptian papyri of the Roman Principate, mainly written in Greek. For many centuries in Egypt, from the Ptolemaic period to the late Roman Empire, petitions addressed to the judicial authorities shared the same textual structure and made use of recurring lexical formulas. Such uniformity was the result of the adherence by scribes and legal advisers to repertoires that had wide circulation. This study evaluates the correspondence between the formulas of the petitions and legislation, normative conventions, and spoken and literary language, and how these factors interacted with each other over the centuries.
By re-examining several papyrological documents and proposing various corrections, this article establishes that the word εὐτύχει is no longer used as closing farewell in petitions after 117 CE, when διευτύχει takes over.
This chapter examines how far village officials were involved in the handling of crimes in the first three centuries of Roman rule in Egypt (AD I–III). Village officials played a primary role in the early enquiries, as they represented the main point of contact for any villager who sought guidance and support in case of offence. They were assigned well-defined tasks in the police system and were able, within fixed limits, to act independently from higher authorities. The evidence shows that the interaction between villagers and local officials after crime was reported often determined the adoption of a specific legal procedure by the offended party: frequently, the prompt submission of written complaints to higher officials. This study suggests that, contrary to some previous views, the work of village officials in dealing with crime was fundamental for the functioning of the broader police and legal system.
Edition of a fragment of a petition found in Tebtunis, probably related to an act of violence perpetrated by a group of people. The bottom of the document is preserved, with the standard request formulae, the identification of the petitioner, and the date (22nd September 98 AD).
Certificazione scientifica delle Opere Tutti i volumi pubblicati sono soggetti a un processo di referaggio esterno di cui sono responsabili il Consiglio editoriale della FUP e i Consigli scientifici delle singole collane. Le opere pubblicate nel catalogo FUP sono valutate e approvate dal Consiglio editoriale della casa editrice. Per una descrizione più analitica del processo di referaggio si rimanda ai documenti ufficiali pubblicati sul catalogo on-line (www.fupress.com).
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