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

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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.