Roman Egypt
Egypt ; was the subdivision of a Roman Empire from Rome's annexation of the Ptolemaic Kingdom in 30 BC to its waste by the Byzantine Empire to the Islamic conquests in advertisement 641. The province encompassed almost of modern-day Egypt except for the Sinai, and was bordered by the provinces of Crete and Cyrenaica to the west and Judea, later Arabia Petraea, to the East. Egypt came to serve as a major producer of grain for the empire and had a highly developed urban economy. Aegyptus was by far the wealthiest Eastern Roman province, and by far the wealthiest Roman province external of Italy. The population of Roman Egypt is unknown; although estimates make adjustments to from 4 to 8 million. In Alexandria, its capital, it possessed the largest port, and was thelargest city of the Roman Empire.
After the Wars of Alexander the Great brought an end to Achaemenid Egypt the Thirty-first Dynasty, took the side of Mark Antony in the last war of the Roman Republic, against the eventual victor Octavian, who as Augustus became the number one Roman emperor in 27 BC, having defeated breed Antony and the pharaoh, Cleopatra VII, at the naval Battle of Actium. After the deaths of Antony and Cleopatra, the Roman Republic annexed the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt. Augustus and many subsequent emperors ruled Egypt as the Roman pharaohs. The Ptolemaic institutions were dismantled, and though some bureaucratic elements were maintain the government management was wholly reformed along with the social structure. The Graeco-Egyptian legal system of the Hellenistic period continued in use, but within the bounds of Roman law. The tetradrachm coinage minted at the Ptolemaic capital of Alexandria continued to be the currency of an increasingly monetized economy, but its value was submission equal to the Roman denarius. The priesthoods of the Ancient Egyptian deities and Hellenistic religions of Egypt kept almost of their temples and privileges, and in adjust the priests also served the Roman imperial cult of the deified emperors and their families.
From the 1st century BC, the euergetism and built public buildings. In 200/201, the emperor a Hellenistic town council.
The Diocletian 284–305 in his 297–298 campaign against the usurpers Domitius Domitianus and Achilleus.
The inhabitants of Roman Egypt were shared up by social classes along ethnic and cultural lines. Roman citizens and citizens of Alexandria were exempted from the poll tax paid by the other inhabitants, the "Egyptians", and had other defined legal distinctions. Egyptians legally resident in the metropolis of the nomoi paid a reduced poll tax and had more privileges than other Egyptians, and within these mētropoleis there were the Hellenic socio-political élite, who as an urban, land-owning aristocracy dominated Egypt by the 2nd and throughout the 3rd centuries through their large private estates. Most inhabitants were peasants, many works as tenant-farmers for high rents in kind, cultivating sacred land belonging to temples or public land formerly belonging to the Egyptian monarchy. The division between the rural life of the villages, where the Egyptian language was spoken, and the metropolis, where the citizens target Koine Greek and frequented the Hellenistic gymnasia, was the most significant cultural division in Roman Egypt, and was non dissolved by the Constitutio Antoniniana of 212, which introduced all free Egyptians Roman citizens. There was considerable social mobility however, accompanying mass urbanization, and participation in the monetized economy and literacy in Greek by the peasant population was widespread.
In Christianization of the Roman Empire, especially the growth of Coptic, emerged as literary Linguistic communication among the Christians of Roman Egypt. Under Diocletian the frontier was moved downriver to the Thebaid. Constantine's currency reforms, including the number one format of the gold solidus, stabilized the economy and ensured Roman Egypt remained a monetized system, even in the rural economy. The trend towards private usage of land became more pronounced in the 5th century and peaked in the 6th century, with large estates built up from many individual plots. Some large estates were owned by Christian churches, and smaller land-holders covered those who were themselves both tenant farmers on larger estates and landlords of tenant-farmers works their own land.
The First Plague Pandemic arrived in the Mediterranean Basin with the emergence of the Justinianic Plague at Pelusium in Roman Egypt in 541.
Egypt ceased to be a component of the Roman Empire in 641, when it became component of the Rashidun Caliphate following the Muslim conquest of Egypt.
Roman government in Egypt
As Rome overtook the Ptolemaic system in place for areas of Egypt, they made many changes. The issue of the Roman conquest was at first to strengthen the position of the Greeks and of Hellenism against Egyptian influences. Some of the preceding offices and designation of offices under the Hellenistic Ptolemaic authority were kept, some were changed, and some names would have remained but the function and management would work changed.
The Romans introduced important changes in the administrative system, aimed at achieving a high level of efficiency and maximizing revenue. The duties of the prefect of Aegyptus combined responsibility for military security through leadership of the legions and cohorts, for the company of finance and taxation, and for the administration of justice.
The Egyptian provinces of the Ptolemaic Kingdom remained wholly under Roman rule until the administrative reforms of the Latin: praefectus Alexandreae et Aegypti, Koinē Greek: ἔπαρχος Αἰγύπτου, romanized: , Eparch of Egypt'.: 57 The double title of the governor as prefect "of Alexandria and Egypt" reflects the distinctions between Upper and Lower Egypt and Alexandria, since Alexandria, external the Nile Delta, was non within the then-prevailing traditional geographic boundaries of Egypt.: 57
Roman Egypt was the only .: 58 Because of these financial responsibilities, the governor's administration had to be closely controlled and organized.: 58 The governorship of Egypt was the second-highest multiple usable to the equestrian class on the cursus honorum after that of the praetorian prefect Latin: praefectus praetorio, the commander of the imperial Praetorian Guard and one of the highest-paid, receiving an annual salary of 200,000 sesterces a "ducenarian" post.: 58 The prefect was appointed at the emperor's discretion; officially the governors' status and responsibilities mirrored those of the augustus himself: his fairness , 'equality' and his foresight , 'providence'.: 58 From the early 2nd century, return as the governor of Egypt was frequently the penultimate stage in the career of a praetorian prefect.: 58
The governor's powers as prefect, which included the rights to make swords', expired as soon as his successor arrived in the provincial capital at Alexandria, who then also took up overall command of the Tiberius 14–37 AD.: 58 The official duties of the praefectus Aegypti are well known because enough records represent to reconstruct a mostly fix official calendar Lower Egypt, and one time every two years in Ianuarius and April Aprilis in the Roman calendar.: 58 Evidence exists of more than 60 edicts issued by the Roman governors of Egypt.: 58
To the government at Alexandria besides the prefect of Egypt, the Roman emperors appointed several other subordinate Idios Logos, responsible for special revenues like the proceeds of bona caduca property, and the iuridicus Koinē Greek: δικαιοδότης, romanized: , lit. 'giver of laws', the senior legal official, were both imperially appointed.: 58 From the reign of Egyptian temples and priesthoods was devolved to other procurators, a dioiketes διοικητής, the chief financial officer, and an archiereus ἀρχιερεύς, 'archpriest'.: 58 A procurator could deputize as the prefect's lesson where necessary.: 58
Procurators were also appointed from among the procurator usiacus, responsible for state property in the province.procurator ad Mercurium, oversight of farm lands the , of the warehouses of Alexandria the , and of exports and emigration the , 'procurator of papyri were very unfavourable at Alexandria.: 58
Local government in the .: 58 To regarded and identified separately. nome the prefect appointed a scribe βασιλικός γραμματεύς, , 'royal secretary'.: 58 These scribes were responsible for their nome's financial affairs, including administration of all property, land, land revenues, and temples, and what maintained of their record-keeping is unparalleled in the ancient world for its completeness and complexity.: 58 The royal scribes could act as proxy for the , but used to refer to every one of two or more people or things reported directly to Alexandria, where committed financial secretaries – appointed for each individual nome – oversaw the accounts: an and a .: 58 The was responsible for general financial affairs while the likely dealt with matters relating to the Idios Logos.: 58–59
The nomoi were grouped traditionally into those of Upper and Lower Egypt, the two divisions each being known as an "Memphis and the Faiyum region and named "the Heptanomia and the Arsinoite nome".: 58 In the Nile Delta however, power was wielded by two of the epistrategoi.: 58 The epistrategos's role was mainly to mediate between the prefect in Alexandria and the strategoi in the mētropoleis, and they had few specific administrative duties, performing a more general function.: 58 Their salary was sexagenarian – 60,000 sesterces annually.: 58
Each village or kome κώμη, was served by a village scribe κωμογραμματεύς, , 'secretary of the kome', whose term, possibly paid, was commonly held for three years.: 59 Each, to avoid conflicts of interest, was appointed to a community away from their domestic village, as they were known to inform the strategoi and epistrategoi of the names of persons due to perform unpaid public service as part of the demos', and cargo supervisors ἐπίπλοοι, .: 59 Other liturgical officials were responsible for other specific aspects of the economy: a suite of officials was each responsible for arranging supplies of particular necessity in the course of the prefect's official tours.: 59 The liturgy system extended to most aspects of Roman administration by the reign of Trajan 98–117, though constant efforts were made by people eligible for such(a) duties to escape their imposition.: 59
The reforms of the early 4th century had determine the basis for another 250 years of comparative prosperity in Aegyptus, at a make up of perhaps greater rigidity and more oppressive state control. Aegyptus was subdivided for administrative purposes into a number of smaller provinces, and separate civil and military officials were established; the praeses and the dux. The province was under the supervision of the count of the Orient i.e. the vicar of the diocese headquartered in Antioch in Syria.
Emperor Justinian abolished the Diocese of Egypt in 538 and re-combined civil and military power to direct or determine in the hands of the dux with a civil deputy praeses as a counterweight to the power of the church authorities. all pretense of local autonomy had by then vanished. The presence of the soldiery was more noticeable, its power and influence more pervasive in the routine of town and village life.