The Hellenistic Period Historical Sources in Translation

by Bagnall, Roger S.; Derow, Peter

• ISBN13: 9781405101325
• ISBN10: 1405101326
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2003-10-17
• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell

Summary

Thousands of documents surviving on stone and papyrus help us to understand the complex society that took shape after the death of Alexander the Great. This book presents some of the most revealing of these documents in translation, allowing readers to form a direct impression of life in the Hellenistic world. The book contains 175 documents capturing the political, social, economic, and religious dynamism of the Hellenistic kingdoms and cities. It covers the entire Hellenistic world and draws extensively on the papyrus remains of the Ptolemaic kingdom in Egypt, which allow an unequalled depth of insight into daily life at every level of society

Author Biography

Roger S. Bagnall is Professor of Classics and History at Columbia University. He has edited numerous papyri and ostraka and his previous publications include Reading Papyri, Writing Ancient History (1995), The Demography of Roman Egypt (1994) and Egypt in Late Antiquity (1993).

Peter Derow is Hody Fellow and Tutor in Ancient History at Wadham College, Oxford and Lecturer in Ancient History in the University of Oxford. He has published on Hellenistic history and epigraphy and Roman republican history, and has a special interest in Polybius and dealings between Rome and the Greeks. He is co-editor with Robert Parker of Herodotus and his World: Essays from a Conference in Memory of George Forrest (2003).

Table of Contents

Table of Documents	ix
List of Illustrations	xv
Preface	xvii
Note on Editorial Practice	xxi
Abbreviations	xxii
Note on Reading Documents	xxiv
The Texts	1	(284)
I Political History	1	(110)
II The Foreign Possessions of the Ptolemies	111	(8)
III Life in Greek Cities	119	(25)
IV The Bureaucracy of Ptolemaic Egypt	144	(19)
V The Royal Economy of Egypt	163	(36)
VI The Military and Police of Ptolemaic Egypt	199	(7)
VII The Ptolemaic Legal and Judicial System	206	(23)
VIII Social Relations and Private Life	229	(18)
IX Religion	247	(38)
Appendix: Ptolemaic Administration	285	(4)
Tables and Charts	289	(4)
I Ptolemaic Kings	289	(1)
II Seleucid Kings to 96 BC	290	(1)
III Antigonid Kings	290	(1)
IV Attalid Rulers	291	(1)
V Months	291	(1)
VI Currency	292	(1)
Glossary and Index of Greek Terms	293	(8)
Concordance: Papyri	301	(4)
Concordance: Inscriptions	305	(4)
Concordance between Editions	309	(2)
Index of Persons, Places and Subjects	311