One is tempted to imagine that he grated more than just a little on the other members of his village.
Figure 1. P.Mich. III 174. Digitally reproduced with the permission of the Papyrology Collection, Graduate Library, University of Michigan.
In addition to his habit of complaining to high authorities about the unacceptable behavior of his neighbors, it appears that Ptolemaios also fancied himself a bit of a litterateur: this petition—like his others—is marked by odd syntax and a general bombast largely absent from petitions of the second century, though somewhat more common in late antiquity (that is, from the fourth century on).7 He enjoys odd words: when describing Isidoros as “reckless” Ptolemaios prefers an archaism (τολμήεις, rather than the more typical τολμηρός); Ammonios is not just an attendant or a subordinate (ὑπηρέτης) but a “henchman” (ὑπόβλητος), a term which also—and probably this is intentional—means “suppositious child,” and which therefore also constitutes an insult to Ammonios’ family.8 “Goon” would capture it well in English. In other petitions, he is prone to clichéd platitudes: “Of all the horrid things in life, the worst is for free men to suffer violence”—a sentiment repeated, with only minor variation, in two of his petitions.9 Whatever he was, Ptolemaios was not a simple peasant suffering under the weight of official venality, begging abjectly to retain a shred of rights in his person and property.
It is harder, however, to decide where to place Ptolemaios on a social scale. The editor of one of his other petitions had originally concluded from a fragmentary line that he was a veteran, or at least a child of veterans settled in the Fayyum, but this has become doubtful, and others suspect that the papyrus in question has been misread.10 This, unfortunately, leaves us with little. It is probably of some significance that his petition was answered in the first place. Of the many petitions presented to the prefect in the first five centuries of Roman rule, probably only a minority ever received any sort of decisive action; the rest were shuffled to the desks of other officials in an ancient ritual of buck-passing.11 Even to get access to the prefect (or even a member of his staff) to deliver a complaint usually meant lining up with what must have been a loud, unruly throng of people once a year when the prefect made his annual assizes (an event known by its Latin name conventus; the Greek inhabitants of Egypt called it the “settling of accounts”—dialogismos—or, in Ptolemaios’ case, simply his “entrance”—eisodos). Within several days of work at the conventus, many hundreds of petitions would have been reviewed and processed. One crucial papyrus gives a number: more than 1,800 petitions were submitted over three days at a stop in the conventus of 209.12 The prefect would not handle most of them in person, though members of his staff would, provided that the petitioners got the documentation right and brought the relevant supporting evidence, and that they were heard before the Nile began to flood (it being considered sacrilegious for the ruler to travel along it during that time).13 In this case, Ptolemaios’ complaint had reached the prefect despite (or because of?) this lack of attendance in the nome.14 Special cases—that is, those of great importance or, perhaps more likely, those of important people—might be heard at this time, but more likely would be passed down the chain of command, as was the petition of Ptolemaios.
The prefect was not the only individual who would receive petitions. Some could be sent to the epistrategos, another Roman official, whose reply was probably as likely as that of the prefect himself. Most often petitions were sent to the strategos, the chief magistrate of the nome. However, individuals could also petition centurions, especially if they lived in out-of-the way places; certain high-ranking soldiers if their cases concerned abuses by military officials; officials of the church (in late antiquity); and a number of other individuals (such as the eirenarch, riparios, or nyktostrategos) who composed what I will simply refer to as the “legal system” in Roman and late antique Egypt.15
With the endorsement from the prefect’s office on his petition, Ptolemaios could then go to the strategos of the nome, who would be under pressure to hear his case. He could have gone to the strategos in the first place, and possibly have received the same thing, but given his evident dissatisfaction with the structures of local government it makes a certain degree of sense that he would seek to go to the top first. If the local strategos was in fact sympathetic to those who felt that they were being harassed by him and his constant petitions, the prefect’s signature was a meaningful goad. If the strategos ignored Ptolemaios (again), Ptolemaios might choose to complain again to the prefect, though this time not about Isidoros, but about the state of the administration of justice in the nome. Going directly to a higher authority would, most likely, make sure that the local officials had an extra incentive to pay attention to his complaint.
If Ptolemaios succeeded in getting the attention of the strategos, this would have been the beginning, rather than the end of his legal headaches. Isidoros and Ammonios might have been “summoned” to appear before the relevant magistrates; they may also have been arrested and confined before trial.16 But what this process might have actually achieved at the end of the day is remarkably unclear. One of the most frustrating aspects of the papyrological record is that, while we have numerous papyri that preserve complaints, we have little in the way of evidence for how the process was subsequently handled, and even less that might tell us how, or even if, conflicts and disputes were brought to a close.
For the present purposes, however, it is sufficient to speculate on the possibilities, even if this means pushing beyond the limits of what Ptolemaios’ petition actually tells us. On the assumption that the strategos chose to bring the relevant parties in for a hearing, there may have been some sort of a trial. There are a fair number of these “reports of proceedings” preserved on papyrus, but none that can be shown to be the outcome of a specific petition.17 If there were proceedings, Ptolemaios’ assailants could choose not to show up, which would complicate things further, or the relevant magistrate might choose to send the petition to other officials—perhaps even back to the prefect. But if by some fortuitous accident all went as planned—the strategos chose to hold a hearing, and the assailants attended—what might have come of this is still somewhat obscure.
The position of strategos was an unenviable one. His title was a relic of the Ptolemaic period, but in the Roman period he was in charge of a number of things, not least of which was that he had to oversee the payment of taxes, as well as being the magistrate of both first and equally often final resort for civil cases (such as interpersonal violence, which was classified as a private relationship of obligation between two people, rather than a crime). He was usually an urban Greek-speaker, drawn from the ranks of a local ruling class, serving a term of roughly three years. He would have been, until probably the start of the fourth century when he ceases to be attested in the papyri, appointed by the prefect and epistrategos to serve in a nome other than the one from which he came.18 This was a reasonable policy designed to prevent favoritism. But the end result was probably that the strategos worked in a vacuum.19 This would have had the effect of making the administration of justice risky, not least because it would necessarily be grounded in a policy of mollifying the local bigwigs on whom he was dependent for the collection of taxes. Most likely, he would have been tempted to ignore certain people; still, if pushed to decide a case, or even to punish, the strategos could be brutal.20 Ptolemaios himself knew this, and in another petition makes clear that the strategoi were capable of applying whippings and beatings.21 It would be rare, however, and probably counter-productive, to use corporal punishment on a man like Isidoros—at least if we trust Ptolemaios’ description of his position. Ammonios—again, if we choose to believe Ptolemaios—would likely have been beatable—if he was not under Isidoros’ protection. The attackers might alternatively be forced to pay a monetary penalty to Ptolemaios, or they might have been let off with a warning, after being forced to make a humiliating statement that they would no longer
