Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of maps, figures and tables
- Preface
- Abbreviations
- Units of measure
- Maps
- Part I ISSUES AND HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
- Part II REGIONAL CASE STUDIES OF LAND TENURE
- Part III INTERPRETATION
- Chapter 5 The Ptolemaic state, the land tenure regime, and economic power
- Chapter 6 The private transmission of land
- Chapter 7 Conclusions
- Appendix 1 Translation of the Edfu donation text
- Appendix 2 Ptolemaic demotic land transfers from Upper Egypt
- Appendix 3 Translation of P. Amh. gr. 49
- List of references
- Index of sources
- General index
Chapter 7 - Conclusions
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of maps, figures and tables
- Preface
- Abbreviations
- Units of measure
- Maps
- Part I ISSUES AND HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
- Part II REGIONAL CASE STUDIES OF LAND TENURE
- Part III INTERPRETATION
- Chapter 5 The Ptolemaic state, the land tenure regime, and economic power
- Chapter 6 The private transmission of land
- Chapter 7 Conclusions
- Appendix 1 Translation of the Edfu donation text
- Appendix 2 Ptolemaic demotic land transfers from Upper Egypt
- Appendix 3 Translation of P. Amh. gr. 49
- List of references
- Index of sources
- General index
Summary
It rained not only water where no drop of rain had fallen before, but also blood; and there were flashes of armour from the clouds as this bloody rain fell from them. Elsewhere there was the clashing of drums and cymbals and the notes of flute and trumpet, and a serpent of huge size suddenly appeared to them and hissed with incredible vehemence. Meanwhile comets were seen and dead men's ghosts appeared, the statues scowled and the Apis bellowed a note of lamentation and burst into tears.
Dio. Cass. 51.16.5, 17.4–5…. but let no man who builds a house or writes a book presume to say when he shall have finished. When he imagines that he is drawing near to his journey's end, Alps rise on Alps, and he continually finds something to add and something to correct.
Edward to Dorothea Gibbon, letter of May 1786 (reprinted in Norton 1956: 44)I have advanced in this book a neoclassical model of the Ptolemaic state. I have done so because I believe that this model better explains the development of the state over the course of the three centuries of the Ptolemaic regime. The rulers negotiated with local elites and institutions in exchange for revenue. A colonial model that understands Ptolemaic history as an imposition of a uniform political order throughout Egypt and without opposition is no longer tenable.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Land and Power in Ptolemaic EgyptThe Structure of Land Tenure, pp. 226 - 242Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2003