Abstract
We must now turn to the central problem concerning the Ptolemaic epistrategos: the essential nature of the office and the power which its holder possessed. In particular, did an official who was given the rank of epistrategos thereby become one of the most powerful figures in the Ptolemaic administration or was it in practice nothing more than an empty honour? We may conveniently begin our enquiry into this problem by examining the position held by the epistrategos in the hierarchy of Ptolemaic officials.
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Nos. 24 and 28 of the texts re-edited by Mitford, Opusc. Ath. i (1953) 156–7 and 160-1 (= BSA lvi (1961) 28-9).
Notably Martin 73-7, cf. 176 n. 1 (referring to Apollodoros and Lochos), Van’t Dack 1952, 442 (Ptolemaios)
Peremans-Van’t Dack, Stud. Hell. ix (1953) 12ff., Berneker, Prozeßeinleitung 26 (Apollodoros); Fraser, Ptol. Alex., II 190f., tentatively agrees for Lochos (but not for Ptolemaios). Against a cursus Collomp, Chancellerie, 46-9 (for Ptolemaios) (but cf. p. 208) and Otto-Bengtson 8 n. 1 (for Apollodoros-a cursus is ‘eigentlich ausgeschlossen’).
Cf. pp. 21-2. Mitford, JHS lxxix (1959) 121, has an alternative idea, namely that Lochos was hypomnematographos for Euergetes II at a time when the king’s chancery was in Cyprus.
Cf. Bingen, CE xlv (1970) 377.
Aymard in his review of Bengtson (REA lv (1953) 135-6) was quite right to seize on this as a fundamental weakness in Bengtson’s case.
On these powers see Bengtson, Chap. iv. Cf. Wilcken, quoted by Taubenschlag, Opera Minora II (1959) 608.
A suggestion on these lines is put forward by Jouguet, REG xxv (1912) 229f. In Roman terms we might say that his imperium was defined as maius in respect of the other strategoi.
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© 1975 Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden
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Thomas, J.D. (1975). The nature of the office: the central problem. In: The epistrategos in Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt. Papyrologica Coloniensia, vol 6. VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-663-14297-3_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-663-14297-3_3
Publisher Name: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden
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