The core of the argument of this engagingly written monograph is presented in the second half of its fourth chapter. To wit: the interpretation of the context and significance of PTebt 2.302 (a fragmentary petition from the priests of Soknebtunis concerning their ability to continue farming a plot of land that had previously passed into state ownership) envisioned by B. Grenfell and A. Hunt in their editio princeps was misguided and has engendered unnecessary confusion about what happened to Egyptian religious institutions when the emperor Augustus transformed the Ptolemaic kingdom into a Roman province. The ‘confiscation narrative’ of wholesale expropriation of temple landholdings during the prefecture of P. Petronius (24–22 bce) arguably rests upon these editors’ interpretation and conjectural restoration of this single text. On C.'s view, such an undertaking would have been out of character for the Romans, not to mention disastrous for the Egyptian economy as a whole, and should therefore be abandoned as a standard premise for histories of the period.
Grenfell and Hunt's original text and translation of PTebt 2.302, along with photographs and a new transcription of the papyrus, are presented in an appendix that readers will want to consult regularly as they follow C.'s arguments. C. stops short of offering a new edition of his own, although he does make the case for various alternative supplements in the course of the main body of his text (e.g. p. 56: ἱερέ]ω̣ς for κωμογραμματέ]ω̣ς in l. 15, on the grounds that a priest was more likely to have consulted the temple archives regarding the status of the land in question than a local bureaucrat).
The remainder of the book provides a wide-ranging elaboration of its central thesis, touching on several important themes relevant to the study of Roman Egypt and of Roman provincial administration generally. Following an introductory Chapter 1, which provides a lucid primer not just on the ‘confiscation narrative’ but also on the basic conditions in and around Tebtunis, the work is divided into two parts. Part 1, ‘Contexts’, is essentially an extended commentary on the text of PTebt 2.302. Chapters 2 and 3 follow current trends in the study of ancient administrative documents in highlighting the rhetorical dimensions of priestly petitions, with Chapter 2 centred on issues of authority and legitimacy and Chapter 3 on more distinctively Egyptian concerns about decline and the status of traditional religious institutions as a bulwark against chaos. This section culminates in Chapter 4, which focuses on the legal issues raised by PTebt 2.302 and offers a more prosaic explanation of the grounds for the priest's appeal than that required by the aforementioned ‘confiscation narrative’.
Part 2, ‘Barking Anubis’, derives its title in part from the famous observation of Sherlock Holmes about the dog that did not bark in the night. Here C. conducts a more direct assault against the confiscation narrative, arguing first (in Chapter 5) that the supposed motivations for such a policy on the part of Augustus and his administrators do not hold water and second (in Chapter 6) that the consequences of this move (given the likely scale and complexity of temple landholdings) would have resulted in profound disruptions for the Egyptian economy, which would have had to leave more extensive traces in the administrative record than what has been recovered. Chapter 7 acts as something of a coda to the work as a whole, situating the origins of the ‘confiscation narrative’ within the context of contemporary discourses of British imperialism, particularly regarding the situation in Egypt under Lord Cromer, whose anxieties about indigenous religious institutions as a source of resistance and rebellion can be detected in their retrojection onto the Augustan administration's supposed attitude towards the temples.
The logic of these arguments is generally compelling, and historians of Roman Egypt should certainly discard any illusions of a wholesale confiscation (or reappropriation) of temple land under Augustus. One nevertheless gets a sneaking sense that this ‘confiscation narrative’, as C. frames it, has been transformed into something of a straw man. This tendency is more marked in the second part, where inter alia C. expends a considerable amount of time and argument repudiating the notion of Augustus’ supposed ‘hatred of Egyptian religion’ (pp. 121–34). Such framing of the question evades the possibility of nuance: an absence of active hostility is not the same as sympathy and need not imply a willingness on the part of Augustus to place the perceived interests of the temples above his own or those of the Roman state. Chapter 6 opens with similarly exaggerated rhetoric, comparing the consequences of any supposed confiscation to those of the massive asteroid impact that wiped out the dinosaurs.
All this leads one to wonder whether the alternatives offered in C.'s title, ‘confiscation or coexistence’, represent a false dichotomy. What if confiscation could be framed as something less dramatic (but nevertheless significant) – perhaps a meteor shower rather than an extinction-level event? There is no denying that Augustus took control of an Egypt that had been in turmoil for a long time. Political upheaval inevitably engenders conflicts over property that would have to be resolved as order was re-established by the new regime. Under these conditions, it does not seem impossible that one or another of Augustus’ prefects may have discovered (alleged) improprieties in certain temples’ claims to royal lands, with the result that confiscation could still have been justified in a limited number of cases. A scenario along these lines would be consistent with C.'s portrait of the aims and the conduct of the Roman administration and need not have led to the destabilising effects on the province's economy that he envisions under wholesale confiscation. That C. does not consider this sort of alternative hypothesis is understandable given his immediate aim of demolishing the ‘confiscation narrative’ as it currently stands. With that goal accomplished, the question remains of what should be set up in its place.
