Ptolémaïs (Egypt)

See also: Ptolémaïs

Ptolémaïs , located in High-Egypt at approximately 120 km downstream from Thèbes, on the site of current the Menshiyeh, is, with Naucratis and Alexandria, one of the three Greek cities of the ancient Egypt.

Founded by Ptolémée {{Ier}} to be the capital of Thébaïde, in the place of Thèbes, the site of an indigenous village called Psoï , it receives the statute of Greek city right from the start. The worship of its founder is still attested at the time Roman. To differentiate it from other agglomerations having received the name of Ptolémaïs, it was sometimes indicated like Ptolémaïs Hermiou.

Just like Alexandria, the city was divided into tribes and Dème S, and its citizens seem to have enjoyed the same privileges as the Alexandrines. The functions of Nomophylax and Thesmophylax existed there at the time ptolémaïque, as in Alexandria. At the time Roman, the city had the Council, an Popular Assembly ( demonstrations ), an executive council of six prytanes annual ( koinon ) and courts specific.

The Sammelbuch 9016 (Papyruses Fouad {{Ier}} inv. 211) makes it possible to better know the privileges granted the city. It is about the copy of an official report of audience of a business carried in 160 in front of the antarchiereus , namely the civil servant who holds the place of the archiereus , the director of the worships, senior official alexandrine. The local authorities of Coptos (in the north of Thèbes) and Ptolémaïs were opposed about the privilege, received by Ptolémaïs of the Ptolémées, to appoint by decree the priests of the temple of Ptolémée 1st Sôter in Coptos and to perceive the benefit of them. The papyrus joins together three documents: one emanating from the prefect, the two others of a Idiologue, which were sentences delivered in favor of this right and presented like precedents. The sentence of the antarchiereus is lost, because of mutilation of the text, but it is probable that it was also favorable to Ptolémaïs. In the column, the papyrus allots to the épistratège, imperial civil servant, and not with the local civils servant, the right to inspect the furniture and the offerings of the temple: if Ptolémaïs had preserved a certain administrative autonomy and if the Roman capacity recognizes the privilege of the city, this one does not exert of it less one control on the urban businesses.

Random links: