Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- Preface
- Introduction
- 1 Egypt and the political economy of empire
- 2 The Apion archive: economic structure and estate accounts
- 3 Labour and administration: the evidence of the contractual papyri
- 4 Letters and petitions: social relations in the sixth-century Oxyrhynchite
- 5 The Apiones and their analogues
- 6 On the margins of magnate power: Dioscorus and Aphrodito
- 7 Landscapes of power: the great estate beyond Egypt
- 8 The historiography of the great estate
- 9 The great estate and the imperial authorities
- 10 The rise of the great estate
- 11 Economy and society in the age of Justinian
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
4 - Letters and petitions: social relations in the sixth-century Oxyrhynchite
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 July 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- Preface
- Introduction
- 1 Egypt and the political economy of empire
- 2 The Apion archive: economic structure and estate accounts
- 3 Labour and administration: the evidence of the contractual papyri
- 4 Letters and petitions: social relations in the sixth-century Oxyrhynchite
- 5 The Apiones and their analogues
- 6 On the margins of magnate power: Dioscorus and Aphrodito
- 7 Landscapes of power: the great estate beyond Egypt
- 8 The historiography of the great estate
- 9 The great estate and the imperial authorities
- 10 The rise of the great estate
- 11 Economy and society in the age of Justinian
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
ESTATE STRUCTURE AND THE CONDITION AND ORGANISATION OF LABOUR
The contractual papyri and estate accounts enable us to delineate the economic structure of the Apion family's Oxyrhynchite landholdings in the sixth century and the terms on which certain at least of the household's workers and administrators were employed. It is through the epistolary papyri and petitions that survive from the archive, however, that we gain our most vivid insights into the reality of life on the Apion estates. This is particularly the case as regards the condition and organisation of labour. The estate accounts and contractual papyri, for example, can be seen to convey some sense of the highly insecure position of the Apion georgoi with respect to the lands of the ktemata that they rented from the household. But nothing illustrates the full extent of this insecurity more eloquently than P.Oxy. XVI 1941, a letter dating from the fifth or sixth century and written to a georgos by the name of Praous, resident on the epoikion of Adaeus. The letter is written by Serenus, who was probably either a pronoetes or the phrontistes in charge of production on Praous' settlement. Praous is curtly ordered to leave the irrigated plot that had been assigned to him (ἀποστῆναι τῆς γεωργίας μηχανῆς) so that it could be given ‘to another georgos for lease’ (ἑτέρῳ γεωργῷ ἐπὶ μισθώσει).
Quite why Praous was dismissed from his tenancy is not clear. Perhaps he had fallen into arrears with his rent.
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- Economy and Society in the Age of Justinian , pp. 71 - 80Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2006