Transformation and change in the Roman province of Egypt from the early to late imperial periods: The Chester Beatty Papyri from Panopolis

罗马统治着一个庞大的帝国，但几乎没有直接证据表明它是如何管理的。尽管如此，人们普遍认为罗马行省的管理是“没有官僚主义的”，到公元2世纪和3世纪，效率达到了顶峰。这是建立在第一，少数罗马官员陪同省长，第二，越来越多的法律机构与省政府有关，保存在法典中。但这些观念具有误导性，尤其是将“官僚主义”与政府内部活跃的官员或“公务员”数量等同起来是不准确的。这些观点并没有考虑到保存在罗马埃及纸莎草纸上的大量文献记录，这些记录生动地描绘了一个省是如何在地面上管理的，这与公元三世纪以后罗马帝国的研究特别相关，因为埃及越来越多地融入罗马帝国，行政税收结构与其他省份一致。该项目利用了来自帕诺波利斯的切斯特比蒂纸莎草纸的证据，这两份长文件保存了大约87封书信和公告，这些信件和公告是在公元三世纪和四世纪初在埃及高级政府官员的办公室里产生的。这些和其他当代文件提供了一个详细的画面，省级政府在一个重要的历史时期工作，一个转型和变化。的确，“官僚主义”一词，其原意是“局的内容”，特别适合描述这些信件，因为它们是作为记录保存的通信副本，可能是在高级官员的办公室里。根据这些文件，本项目考虑了埃及的行政系统，各级政府官员之间的互动和交流，官员之间通常肤浅的关系，这些国家官员与负责地方政府的主要机构，镇议会及其治安官之间的不稳定关系，以及罗马国家如何通过公告传播信息。这些信件的内容，实际上是他们那一代人的内容，表明了罗马政府的现实不是效率，而是经常相反。由于我们从埃及获得的大量文件，我们很容易认为行政管理起了作用，但更多的时候没有。罗马官员，就像他们现代行政环境中的同行一样，花了大量的时间追逐逾期的报告，并哄骗无组织或不感兴趣的官员。纸莎草纸还揭示了罗马政府在提高政府效率方面的无能，很大程度上是因为他们未能消除许多问题的根源：地方政府中的利益冲突，这些人经常违背他们的意愿，而且在这个过程中，他们需要遵守他们的指示，但又不疏远自己的人民。我们的证据表明，官员，甚至国家本身，对他们的下属没有真正的制裁，因为一再要求采取行动的要求被忽视。如果我们以行政制度的设计确保官员为罗马国家的目标和利益做出贡献为基础来判断罗马官僚制的成功，那么比蒂纸莎草纸表明，罗马官僚制未能取得这样的成功。这个项目使用纸莎草纸来研究罗马官僚机构和地方政府的机制。它还评估了戴克里先在埃及的行政和税收改革的意义和目的，把它们放在更广泛的历史背景下。该项目产生的专著将代表对这些重要文件的第一次主要研究，并将对罗马省政府的研究做出重大贡献。

Rome controlled a vast empire, yet there is little direct evidence for how it was administered. Despite this, there is a commonly held belief that Roman administration in its provinces was 'without bureaucracy', and that by the second and third centuries AD had reached its zenith in terms of efficiency. These are founded on first, the small number of Roman officials accompanying provincial governors, and secondly, the increasing body of laws relating to provincial government preserved in law codes. But these notions are misleading, not least in that it is inaccurate to equate' bureaucracy' and the number of officials or 'civil servants' active within government. These views do not take into account the extensive documentary record preserved on the papyri of Roman Egypt, which provide a vivid picture of how a province was administered at ground level, and is particularly relevant to the study of the Roman empire in the period after the third century AD, for Egypt becomes more incorporated into the Roman empire and administrative a tax structures came into line with other provinces. This project utilises the evidence of the Chester Beatty papyri from Panopolis, two long documents preserving some 87 letters and public announcements generated in the office of senior government officials in Egypt at the turn of the third and fourth centuries AD. These and other contemporary documents provide a detailed picture of provincial government at work in an important period of history, one of transformation and change. Indeed, the term 'bureaucracy', in its original meaning of the 'content of a bureau', is particularly apt to describe these letters, for they are copies of correspondence kept as records, presumably in the office of a senior official. This project considers, in the light of these documents, the administrative systems of Egypt, interaction and communication between state officials at various levels, the often superficial relationship between officials, the uneasy relationship between these state officials and the principal body responsible for the local government, the town council and its magistrates, and how, through public announcements, the Roman state disseminated information. The content of the letters, in fact their very generation, shows that the reality of Roman government was not one of efficiency, but very often the opposite. Because of the extent of documentation we have from Egypt, it is all too easy to assume that administration worked / more often it did not. Roman officials, like their modern counterparts in administrative environments, spent a good deal of their time chasing overdue reports and cajoling disorganised or disinterested officials. What the papyri also reveal is the inability of the Roman state to increase the efficiency of government, largely because they failed to remove the root cause of many problems: the conflict of interests felt by those in local government, who were often serving against their will and also in the position where they needed to adhere to their instructions but not alienate their own population in the process. Our evidence suggests that officials, and even the state itself, had no real sanction over their subordinates, for repeated requests for action are ignored. If we judge the success of Roman bureaucracy on the basis that administrative systems were designed to ensure that officials contributed to the goals and interests of the Roman state, then the Beatty papyri show that Roman bureaucracy fell short of achieving such success. This project uses papyri to study the machinery of Roman bureaucracy and provincial government. It also assesses the significance and purpose of Diocletian's administrative and tax reforms in Egypt, placing them in their wider historical context. The monograph resulting from the project will represent the first major study of these important documents and will make a major contribution to the study of Roman provincial government.