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Judging Empire: Courts And Culture in Rome's Eastern Provinces

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 September 2012

Ari Z. Bryen
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Extract

In the middle of the second century CE, the satirist Lucian of Samosata (c. CE 125–180) composed a text known as the Bis Accusatus (“Twice Accused”) in which he describes a day of judgment. It begins with Zeus complaining to Hermes about the onerous nature of running the universe:

In the first place, I have to supervise the work of the other gods who have responsibilities under my regime, to make sure they don't slack in their duties. Then I have a million tasks to perform myself, scarcely manageable because of their complexity. It's not as though I simply have the major administrative tasks to perform, I mean managing and organizing the weather—rain, hail, wind, and lightning—before I can simply sit down and take a break from my assigned worries. I've got to do all this and keep a watch in all directions and supervise everything as though I were that herdsman at Nemea: people stealing, people perjuring themselves, people sacrificing. Has someone made a libation? Where's the sacrificial smell and smoke coming from? Who has called for me in sickness or at sea? But the most onerous task of all is being in so many places at the same time: Olympia for a hecatomb, Babylon for a battle, with the Getae to hail, with the Ethiopians to feast…

Take an example. We're so damned busy, we've got an enormous backlog of old lawsuits not dealt with. They've been stacked there so long, they've fallen apart with mildew and they're covered in spider's webs. I'm thinking in particular about the ones taken out against certain individuals associated with the intellectual arts and crafts. Some of them are absolutely ancient. The litigants themselves are bawling on every side, grinding their teeth, calling for justice and accusing me of tardiness. What they don't realize is that it's not through contempt that these decisions have passed their sell by date. It's because of the state of bliss that they think we live in. That's the name they give to our complete lack of spare time.

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Law and History Review , Volume 30 , Issue 3 , August 2012 , pp. 771 - 811
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Copyright © the American Society for Legal History, Inc. 2012

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References

1. Twice Accused, 2–3, trans. Sidwell, K., Chattering Courtesans and Other Sardonic Sketches (London: Penguin Books, 2004)Google Scholar.

2. agoran dikon, the standard translation of conventus. See further below, and Burton, G.P., “Proconsuls, Assizes and the Administration of Justice under the Empire,” Journal of Roman Studies 65 (1975): 92–106CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Inscriptions are abbreviated according to the system of the American Journal of Archaeology http://www.ajaonline.org/index.php?ptype=page&pid=8 (November 22, 2010). Papyri are abbreviated according to the system of the Checklist of Editions http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/papyrus/texts/clist.html (November 22, 2010). My documentation is necessarily selective.

3. For the link between Zeus and the Emperor, for example, Plutarch, Moralia 781B, Dio Chrysostom, Orations 1.37–41.

4. On the potential of lawsuits to get backed up, see Suetonius Vespasian 10; a description that purports to be Domitian's court in Rome can be found in Philostratus, Life of Apollonius of Tyana 7.31, although this may more accurately reflect its time of composition in the third century CE; Millar, Fergus, The Emperor in the Roman World, 31 BC–AD 337 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1977), 203–72Google Scholar gives the best overview of the duties of the emperor.

5. P.Yale 61.

6. Lewis, Naphtali, Life in Egypt Under Roman Rule (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983), 190Google Scholar.

7. See Horstkotte, Hermann, “Die 1804 Konventseingaben in P.Yale 61,” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 114 (1996): 189–93Google Scholar, for the details and typicality of this process.

8. See, for example, Preisendanz, PGM 2.224-25. See, Versnelgenerally, H.S. generally, H.S., “Beyond Cursing: The Appeal to Justice in Judicial Prayers,” in Magika Hiera: Ancient Greek Magic and Religion, ed. Faraone, Christopher A. and Obbink, Dirk (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 60–106Google Scholar, who reviews the evidence for the entire ancient world, including the Roman period.

9. See, for example, P.Oxy. VIII 1148 (AD I), an oracular question; Paul Canart and Pintaudi, Rosario, “PSI XVII Congr. 5: un système d'oracles chrétiens (‘sortes sanctorum’),” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 57 (1984): 85–90Google Scholar, an oracular response.

10. E.g., P.Fay. 124 (AD II), P.Oxy. II 294 (AD 22), P.Oxy. VI 936 (AD III), P.Oxy. VIII 1180 (AD III–IV), P.Oxy. XX 2276 (AD III–IV).

11. Sources collected in Meyer, Elisabeth, “The Justice of the Roman Governor and the Performance of Prestige,” in Herrschaftsstrukturen und Herrschaftspraxis: Konzepte, Prinzipien, und Strategien der Administration im römischen Kaiserreich, ed. Kolb, Anne (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2006), 169–70Google Scholar.

12. See, for example, Apuleius, Metamorphoses 3.2–10; 10.6–8. For perspectives from the Hellenistic period compare Chaniotis, Angelos, “Watching a Lawsuit: A New Curse Tablet from Southern Russia,” Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 33 (1992): 69–73Google Scholar; and Engelmann, Helmut, The Delian Aretalogy of Serapis, trans. Osers, Ewald (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1975), lines 81–83CrossRefGoogle Scholar: all' opote chronos ixe dikaspolos, egreto naois pasa polis kai panta polymigeo<n> hama phyla xeinon, describing the audience of a trial for a religious offense.

13. Thomas, J.D., “Subscriptions to Petitions to Officials in Roman Egypt” in Egypt and the Hellenistic World, ed. Van't Dack, E., Van Dessel, P., and Van Gucht, W. (Leuven: Orientaliste, 1983), 369–82Google Scholar; Lewis, Naphtali, “The Prefect's Conventus: Proceedings and Procedures,” Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists 18 (1981): 119–29Google Scholar,; Lewis, Naphtali, “Judiciary Routines in Roman Egypt,” Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists 37 (2000): 83–93Google Scholar; comprehensive treatment in Haensch, R., “Die Bearbeitungsweisen von Petitionen in der Provinz Aegyptus,” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 100 (1994): 487–545Google Scholar.

14. Compare Philostratus, Lives of the Sophists, 532 on Polemon the sophist's attempts to keep lawsuits from leaving the city. For one attempt at theorizing this problem, see Bryen, Ari Z., Violence in Roman Egypt: An Interpretation (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, forthcoming, 2012)Google Scholar, chapter 6.

15. Kokkinia, C., “Ruling, Inducing, Arguing: How to Govern (and Survive) a Greek Province,” in Roman Rule and Civic Life: Local and Regional Perspectives, ed. Ligt, L. De, Hemelrijk, E.A., and Singor, H.W. (Amsterdam: J.C. Gieben, 2004), 39–58Google Scholar.

16. On the consequences of these developments for jurisprudence, see Ando, Clifford, Law, Language, and Empire in the Roman Tradition (Philadephia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011), 1–36Google Scholar.

17. Meyer–Zwiffelhoffer, Eckhard, Politikos Archein: Zum Regierungsstil der senatorischen Statthalter in den kaiserzeitlichen griechischen Provinzen (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2002), 9Google Scholar; understands politikos in Strabo 17.3.24 as indicating, among other things, a commitment to the rule of law. The scope of the term, however, is much broader, and only in select instances includes anything resembling a “rule of law” (c.f. LSJ s.v. politikos). In his extended discussion of examples, however, he is undoubtedly correct that governors worked within the bounds of the law; however, it is no accident that his examples are all much later than Strabo. See further below.

18. The classic proof text is Tacitus, Agricola 21, which would seem rather to indicate a deep ambivalence about the ways in which indigenous cultures changed with Roman intervention; see further Webster, Jane, “Creolizing the Roman Provinces,” American Journal of Archaeology 105 (2001): 210–17CrossRefGoogle Scholar, with additional references.

19. Cicero, Duties 2.8.27 On “the world” and “the empire” compare Letters to Friends 3.8.4: sed in publico orbis terrae consilio, id est in senatu. Richardson, J.S., “Imperium Romanum: Empire and the Language of Power,” Journal of Roman Studies 81 (1991)CrossRefGoogle Scholar: 6. Roman understandings of their empire are, of course, complex: see Brunt, P.A., “Laus Imperii,” in Roman Imperial Themes (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), 288–323Google Scholar, and more recently, Richardson, John, The Language of Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

20. The judgment of J.E. Lendon seems to me quite correct. See, “The Legitimacy of the Roman Emperor: Against Weberian Legitimacy and Imperial 'Strategies of Legitimation,'” in Herrschaftsstrukturen und Herrschaftspraxis: Konzepte, Prinzipien, und Strategien der Administration im römischen Kaiserreich, ed. Kolb, Anne (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 55.

21. Aeneid 6.851–53. See also Horace, Carmen Saeculare, contrasting bellante/hostem…iacentem, with Feeney, Denis, “The Ludi Saeculares and the Carmen Saeculare,” in Roman Religion, ed. Ando, Clifford (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2003), 113–14Google Scholar; the text of the oracle [Jacoby 257F37, 167–9], which prompted Horace's Carmen, gives tauta toi en phresin eisin aei memnemenos einai, kai soi pasa chthon Itale kai pasa Latinon aien upo skeptroisin epauchenion zygon hexei; a very different set of claims. The edict of Tiberius Julius Alexander (OGIS II 669 = IGRR I 1263 = Chrest.Mitt. 102 = FIRA I 58 = SB V 8444, with parts preserved as BGU VII 1563 makes the case for regulations for Egypt based not on peace, but on prosperity.

22. Letters to Quintus 1.1.20.

23. Watson, A., The Digest of Justinian (Philadephia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1985)Google Scholar (hereafter Digest) 1.16.9.2–4. Compare P.Oxy. XXXVI 2754 (AD 111), a prefectural edict (or extracts from a longer edict) regulating behavior at the conventus.

24. Lewis, “Judiciary Routines,” 92–93.

25. Price, S.R.F., Rituals and Power: The Roman Imperial Cult in Asia Minor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984)Google Scholar.

26. Ando, Clifford, Imperial Ideology and Provincial Loyalty in the Roman Empire (Berkeley/Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2000)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

27. I realize that the question of the nature and extent of social mobility is vexed: I rely here on the important discussions of Woolf, Greg, “Monumental Writing and the Expansion of Roman Society in the Early Empire,” Journal of Roman Studies 86 (1996): 22–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Tacoma, Laurens Ernst, Fragile Hierarchies: The Urban Elites of Third-Century Roman Egypt (Leiden: Brill, 2006)Google Scholar.

28. Suetonius, Galba 9 is an excellent example of the divergence between practice and theory. See also SB V 7523 (AD 153). For procedural details on appeals to the emperor in civil cases, see Oliver, James H., “Greek Applications for Roman Trials,” American Journal of Philology 100 (1979): 553Google Scholar, concerning Cos (AE 1974: 629)

29. Hopkins, Keith, “Divine Emperors or the Symbolic Unity of the Roman Empire,” in Conquerors and Slaves (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978)Google Scholar, 222; Brunt, P.A., “Charges of Provincial Maladministration under the Early Principate,” Historia 10 (1961): 189–227Google Scholar. Brunt presents evidence of forty cases; twenty-eight produced conviction (if suicides are counted as convictions). The lack of specificity in the allegations of cruelty (saevitia) would seem to be indicative of a general disinterest. Of preserved cases, Volesus Messala (Seneca On Anger 2.5.5) beheaded 300 in one day; Marius Priscus (Pliny Letters 2.12) accepted bribes to convict a Roman eques, whom he later had strangled in prison. Tacitus, Annals 13.52 seems to suggest that saevitia was not a terribly interesting accusation.

30. Michael Peachin rightly suggests that this violence was not incidental to Roman strategies of rule. See “Attacken und Erniedrigungen als alltägliche Elemente der kaiserzeitlichen Regierungspraxis,” in Herrschen und Verwalten: Der Alltag der römischen Administration in der Hohen Kaiserzeit, ed. Haensch, Rudolph and Heinrichs, Johannes (Köln: Böhlau Verlag, 2007), 120Google Scholar.

31. Letters to Quintus 1.7.19. On the details of the sack see further Radin, Max, “The Lex Pompeia and the Poena Cullei,” Journal of Roman Studies 10 (1920): 119–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Compare the violence of the governor in P.Flor. I 61 = Chr.Mitt. 80 (AD 85) and P.Oxy. IV 706 (AD 73?).

32. Digest 1.16.9.3. See also the late antique evidence collected by Brown, Peter, Power and Persuasion in Late Antiquity (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1992), 35–70Google Scholar.

33. Demonax 50.

34. Against Flaccus, 53–54, translated by van der Horst, P.W., Philo's Flaccus: The First Pogrom (Leiden: Brill, 2003)Google Scholar.

35. This may serve to explain the “two embassies” of Jews sent to the Emperor Claudius as a result of this violence. Andrew Harker summarizes the problem and earlier scholarship; see Loyalty and Dissidence in Roman Egypt: The Case of the Acta Alexandrinorum (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008)Google Scholar, 26.

36. Against Flaccus 78–80, trans. van der Horst.

37. See Mélèze–Modrzejeski, Joseph, “The Septuagint as Nomos: How the Torah Became a ‘Civic Law’ for the Jews of Egypt,” in Critical Studies in Ancient Law, Comparative Law, and Legal History, ed. Cairns, John W. and Robinson, O.F. (Oxford: Hart, 2001), 183–99Google Scholar.

38. I intentionally ignore here the complex and controversial question of the “unity of Greek law”: a question that has its roots, I suspect, in precisely the same package of conceptual problems that I think characterizes scholarship of the Roman world.

39. In helping me to pose these questions, I owe a debt to Constable, Marianne, The Law of the Other: The Mixed Jury and Changing Conceptions of Citizenship, Law, and Knowledge (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994)Google Scholar.

40. The theory of slave manumission is certainly more easily apprehended than its actual practice: certainly others thought it remarkable (ILS 8763, Philip V to the Larisaeans). The relative proportion of citizens who obtained their franchise through manumission is probably impossible to ascertain.

41. Nicholas, Barry, An Introduction to Roman Law (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962)Google Scholar, 195: “The possibility becomes a certainty after the Constitutio Antoniniana of AD 212, when vast numbers of new citizens who previously had followed the Greek practice of written acts found it necessary to accommodate themselves to Roman forms. Finding that, to all appearances, the Roman law was satisfied by a written contract to which was appended, in words which were common form, an allegation of the exchange of a stipulatory question and answer, they simply added to their documents this common form phrase. Here begins the vulgar law.”

42. Pliny, Letters 10.96; Acts 22:25 with Sherwin–White, A.N., Roman Society and Roman Law in the New Testament (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1963), 57–70Google Scholar.

43. See, for example, Georgy Kantor, “Roman Law and Local Law in Asia Minor in the Early Roman Empire” (MPhil diss., Oxford, 2004).

44. See Ando, Clifford, “Aliens, Ambassadors, and the Integrity of Empire,” Law and History Review 26 (2008): 494–95CrossRefGoogle Scholar The trend toward seeing the civil law as a systematic phenomenon seems to begin in the late first century BCE: Gellius (Attic Nights 1.22.7 notes that Cicero composed a treatise “On Reducing the Civil Law to a System” (De Iure Civili in Artem Redigendo).

45. Meyer, E.A., “Diplomatics, Law, and Romanization in the Documents from the Judaean Desert,” in Beyond Dogmatics: Law and Society in the Roman World, ed. Cairns, John W. and du Plessis, Paul J. (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007), 53–82Google Scholar.

46. Kantor, “Roman Law and Local Law.”

47. On the late third century situation, see Connolly, Serena, Lives Behind the Laws: The World of the Codex Hermogenianus (Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, 2009)Google Scholar.

48. On punishments, see Garnsey, Peter, “Why Penalties Became Harsher: The Roman Case, Late Republic to Fourth Century Empire,” Natural Law Forum/American Journal of Jurisprudence 13 (1968): 141–62Google Scholar; Macmullen, Ramsey, “Judicial Savagery in the Roman Empire,” in Changes in the Roman Empire: Essays in the Ordinary (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990 [originally published 1986]), 204–17Google Scholar. Also Millar, Fergus, “Condemnation to Hard Labour in the Roman Empire, from the Julio-Claudians to Constantine,” in Government, Society, and Culture in the Roman Empire, volume 2: Rome, the Greek Word, and the East, ed. Cotton, Hannah M. and Rogers, Guy M. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004), 120–50Google Scholar.

49. See also Coudry, Marianne and Kirbihler, François, “La lex Cornelia, une lex provinciae de Sylla our l'Asie” in Administrer les provinces de la république romaine, ed. Barrandon, Nathalie and Kirbihler, François (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2010), 133–69Google Scholar, with a collection of evidence for other provincial laws at 135–37.

50. Modrzejewski, Joseph, “La règle de droit dans l'Egypte romain (état des questions et perspectives de recherches),” in Proceedings of the Twelfth International Congress of Papyrology, Ann Arbor 1968, ed. Samuel, Deborah H. (Toronto: A.M. Hakkert, 1970), 317–77Google Scholar remains the best treatment.

51. Rajak, Tesse, “Was There a Roman Charter for the Jews?” Journal of Roman Studies 74 (1984): 107–23CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

52. See, for example, OGIS 435, from Pergamon.

53. Lintott, Andrew W., Imperium Romanum: Politics and Administration (London: Routledge, 1993)Google Scholar provides the most sophisticated discussion; mine is clearly indebted to his.

54. Oliver, James Henry, Greek Constitutions of Early Roman Emperors from Inscriptions and Papyri (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1989)Google Scholar, no. 8 with further bibliography.

55. Cicero 2 Verrine 2.2.12.

56. It is worth noting that a similar attempt at maintaining distinct jurisdictions, which eventually collapsed, seems to have taken place also in Ptolemaic Egypt. Ptolemy II (probably) attempted systematic reforms of the legal systems of Egypt by having representatives of these local communities codify their laws, and then set up a system in which it was not personality, but language that would determine the venue for judgment. In this system, Egyptian-language contracts would be judged in Egyptian courts (those of the laokritai), Greek-language contracts by Greek judges (dikastai). See Wolff, Hans Julius, “Plurality of Laws in Ptolemaic Egypt,” Revue Internationale des Droits de l'Antiquité 3 (1960): 191–223Google Scholar; Manning, J.G., The Last Pharaohs: Egypt Under the Ptolemies, 305–30 BC (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009), 165–201Google Scholar. This system, however, would not stay so neatly separate, and cases eventually tended to move to the court of royal appointees, that of the chrematistai, eventually reducing the regulations to those of “a certain type of court” (Wolff, “Plurality,” 217, italics removed). A comparison of the shifts in the two systems––one based on the organization of distinct courts under royal sponsorship and one based a law of personality determined by an individual magistrate in the case of all but Roman citizens––could prove fruitful.

57. As could cities: see Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights 16.13.1–9, esp.6–9, with the discussion of Boatwright, Mary T., Hadrian and the Cities of the Roman Empire (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000), 55–56Google Scholar (who also provides this translation): “And so ‘municipes’ are Roman citizens from municipalities, using their own regulations and laws, sharing only honorary duty with the Roman people… But the relationship of colonies is something else; for they come into the Roman state not from abroad nor do they grow from their own foundations, but they are, so to speak, grafted from the Roman state and they have all of the laws and institutions of the Roman people, not of their own determination. Which status, all the same, although it is more exposed to constraint and less free, nevertheless is considered better and more preferable because of the greatness and majesty of the Roman people, whose little likenesses and reflections, so to speak, these same colonies seem to be, and at the same time, because the laws of the municipalities are obscure and forgotten, out of ignorance they [the townspeople] can no longer use them.”

58. See, further, Ari Z. Bryen, Violence in Roman Egypt (forthcoming), chapter 4.

59. Compare, for instance, the decision of the prefect in Chr.Mitt. 372.v.4–11 (= Jur.Pap. 22 = BGU I 114 = FIRA III 19, a decision of 142 CE but collated by a third party later) in the case of Alexandrians who served in the military and the status of their children: “Today, having considered the relevant circumstances, I confirm the opinion I gave yesterday. Whether this man served in a legion, a cohort, or an ala, the child born to him cannot be his legitimate son; moreover, since he is not the legitimate son of his father, who is an Alexandrian citizen, he cannot be an Alexandrian citizen. Therefore this boy, who was born to Valens while he was serving in a cohort is illegitimate [literally: ‘he is foreign (othneios) to him’] and he cannot be admitted to Alexandrian citizenship.” (trans. Campbell, Brian, The Roman Army, 31 BC–AD 337: A Sourcebook (London: Routledge, 1994), 155–56)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

60. Weaver, Paul, “Consilium Praesidis: Advising Governors,” in Thinking Like a Lawyer: Essays on Legal History and General History for John Crook on his Eightieth Birthday, ed. Mckechnie, Paul (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 43–62CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

61. Eck, Compare Werner, “Zur Durchsetzung von Anordnungen und Entscheidungen in der hohen Kaiserzeit: die administrative Informationsstruktur,” in Die Verwaltung des Römischen Reiches in der Hohen Kaiserzeit, ed. Frei–Stolba, R. and Speidel, M.A. (Basel/Berlin: F. Reinhardt, 1995 [originally published 1992]), 55–79Google Scholar, on the question of the infrastructure for communication; and Moatti, Claudia, “Translation, Migration, and Communication in the Roman Empire: Three Aspects of Movement in History,” Classical Antiquity 25 (2006): 126–36CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

62. Brunt, P.A., “The Administrators of Roman Egypt,” Journal of Roman Studies 65 (1975): 124–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Saller, R.P., “Promotion and Patronage in Equestrian Careers,” Journal of Roman Studies 70 (1980): 44–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Millar, Fergus, “The Equestrian Career Under the Empire” in Rome, the Greek World, and the East, vol II: Government, Society, and Culture in the Roman Empire, ed. Cotton, Hannah M. and Rogers, Guy M. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004), 151–59Google Scholar.

63. Pliny, Letters 10.56, 58; and Kantor, Georgy, “Knowledge of Law in Roman Asia Minor,” in Selbstdarstellung und Kommunikation: die Veröffentlichtung staatlicher Urkunden auf Stein und Bronze in der römischen Welt, ed. Haensch, Rudolph (Munich: C.H. Beck, 2009), 258–62Google Scholar. Kantor's conclusions are different than mine. See, also, Millar, Emperor, 261, and generally Millar, Fergus, “Trajan: Government by Correspondence,” in Government, Society, and Culture in the Roman Empire, vol. II: Rome, the Greek World, and the East, ed. Cotton, Hannah M. and Rogers, Guy M. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004 [2000]), 23–46Google Scholar. See, also, Aristides, Regarding Rome, 32.

64. John 18:31–5. If Rensberger, David, “The Politics of John: the Trial of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel,” Journal of Biblical Literature 103 (1984): 395–411CrossRefGoogle Scholar, is correct, there is a dark undercurrent of systemic attempts at humiliation in Pilate's treatment of the Jews here. Useful on all of these points is Croix, G.E.M. de Ste., “Why Were the Early Christians Persecuted?” Past & Present 26 (1963): 11–14CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

65. Acts 18:12–17, New International Version. See further Sherwin–White, A.N., Roman Citizenship and Roman Law in the New Testament (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963), 99–104Google Scholar.

66. P.Oxy. XLVI 3285. See also P.Fay. 22 (AD I), a fragmentary copy of some Ptolemaic marriage laws, the purpose of which is similarly unclear.

67. Published by Willetts, R.F., The Law Code of Gortyn (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1967)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, who pays no attention to the later context, instead hypothesizing a classical or archaic law court in the place of the Roman odeion. The suggestion of Harrison, G.W.M., The Romans and Crete (Amsterdam: Hakkert, 1993), 151–56Google Scholar, that this inscription and others like it represent “dissatisfaction” with Roman rule would seem to be undermined by his citation of ICr IV 331, recording a Trajanic restoration of the odeion.

68. Oliver, James H., Marcus Aurelius: Aspects of Civil and Cultural Policy in the East (Princeton: American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 1970)Google Scholar 48, 54, 57; and Oliver, James H., “Roman Emperors and Athens,” Historia 30 (1981): 419Google Scholar. Oliver's evidence does not warrant his conclusions. Presumably he bases his claim on Hadrian's oil law, IG II2 1100 = Oliver, Greek Constitutions 92, but I cannot see how this works. Mary T. Boatwright, Hadrian and the Cities of the Roman Empire, 91–92 is appropriately skeptical.

69. Yiftach–Firanko, Uri,  Marriage and Marital Arrangements. A History of the Greek Marriage Document in Egypt. 4th century BCE – 4th century CE (Munich: C.H. Beck, 2003)Google Scholar.

70. See, for example, P.Oxy. XLII 3061 (AD I), P.Mich.Mchl. 12 (AD 162) = SB XXIV 16252, P.Oxy. XIV 1681.

71. P.Oxy. III 578 is a highly fragmentary transcript of a trial proceeding in which a iuridicus and a nomikos are mentioned in consecutive (?) lines; unfortunately the papyrus was never given a complete publication, and more cannot be divined. PSI V 450.36 (AD II/III) appears to attest a consultation of a nomikos by a strategos.

72. I bracket here the question of the legal expertise of advocates in provincial courts, as my attention is directed to lawmaking bodies. The material for advocates is assembled by Crook, J.A., Legal Advocacy in the Roman World (London: Routledge, 1995)Google Scholar.

73. Chr.Mitt. 316 = BGU I 326 (AD 189–94), which, moreover, is a Roman will; also ChLAnt XI 486 (AD 249), a petition for possessio bonorum; BGU I 361.iii.2, iii.15 (AD 184).

74. Chr.Mitt. 91 = BGU II 388 (AD II).

75. See, for example, Chr.Mitt. 372.iii.28 = BGU I 114 (AD 142); P.Oxy. XXXVI 2757 (post AD 79); P.Oxy. XLII 3015 (AD II); Stud.Pal. XX 4 (AD 124). SB V 7696 (AD c.249) will be discussed further below.

76. Evidence for individual nomikoi (and their Latin-speaking counterparts, the iuris periti) is collected by Wolfgang Kunkel, Die Römischen Juristen: Herkunft und soziale Stellung (Köln: Böhlau Verlag, 2001, originally Herkunft und soziale Stellung der römischen Juristen, 2nd edition, 1967), 263–70 with discussion on 354–65. Kunkel is less schematic and more appropriately skeptical than is Taubenschlag, Rafael, “The Legal Profession in Greco-Roman Egypt,” in Opera Minora II (Warsaw: Państwowe Wydawn Naukowe, 1959), 161–4Google Scholar. See also Hengstl, Joachim, “Rechtspraktiker im griechisch-römischen Ägypten,” in Recht gestern und heute: Festschrift zum 85. Geburtstag von Richard Haase, ed. Hengstl, Joachim and Sick, Ulrich (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2006), 123–29Google Scholar.

77. Although notably, the term is primarily used in Luke's gospel (7:30, 10:25, 11:45–52, 14:3).

78. There is evidence for people recognizing a concept of local law before the second century, but it appears in private documents that appear to have been uncontested before local authorities: BGU IV 1148 (13 BC), contract; and P.Oxy. IV 795 (AD 81–96), marriage contract. The evidence for official recognition of these local laws is later: P.Oxy. IV 706 (= Chr.Mitt. 81, AD 115–17); P.Oxy. XL 3015.2–3 (post AD 117); P.Tebt. II 488 (AD 121–2); Stud.Pal. XX 4 (= Chr.Mitt. 84, AD 124). An exception is P.Oxy. II 237.vii.38, from the first century (87 CE), but perhaps not accidentally the iuridicus chooses to ignore the law.

79. I will address these questions in greater detail in another essay: “Tradition, Precedent, and Power in the Papyri,” in Official Epistolography and the Language(s) of Power, ed. S. Procházka et al. (forthcoming 2013).

80. Chr.Mitt. 188 = P.Oxy. I 34.

81. For elucidation of the system, see Cockle, W.E.H., “State Archives in Roman Egypt from 30 BC to the Reign of Septimius Severus,” Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 70 (1984): 106–22CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

82. AE 1976.673 (44 AD), the decree of Quintus Veranius providing violent punishments of the public slaves of Tlos responsible for the maintenance of the archives.

83. P.Oxy. II 237.viii = Sel.Pap. 219

84. I bracket here, for lack of expertise, the question of the origins of the Mishnah, and the complex question of the existence and evolution of oral torah.

85. The judgment of Millar, Emperor, 260 seems most correct: “Imperial pronouncements of whatever kind, if they survive on inscriptions, do so because cities (or private persons) had them inscribed; and they had the pronouncements inscribed if and only if they were of direct interest or advantage to themselves.” For a tantalizing example in which a provincial population may have changed the wording of an imperial subscription, see Hauken, Tor, Petition and Response: An Epigraphic Study of Petitions to Roman Emperors, 181–249 (Bergen: Norwegian Institute at Athens, 1998)Google Scholar, 26, concerning the phrase ne plus quam ter binas operas in the petition of the coloni of the Saltus Burunitanus (ILS 6870).

86. Petition of Dionysia: P.Oxy. II 237 (186 AD); Apollinarion: P.Oxy. VI 899 (AD 200). I will address Dionysia's petition in greater detail in “Tradition, Precedent and Power” and in “Dionysia's Complaint: Finding Emotions in the Papyri,” in Emotional Display, Persuasion, and Rhetoric in the Papyri, ed. C. Kotsifou. (in progress).

87. Ando, Imperial Ideology, 374.

88. See, for example, SB V 7601; on this papyrus see further Katzoff, Ranon, “Precedents in the Courts of Roman Egypt,” Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte-–Romanistische Abteilung 89 (1972): 279–80Google Scholar.

89. Jolowicz, H.F., “Case Law in Roman Egypt,” Journal of the Society of Public Teachers of Law 14 (1937): 1–16Google Scholar; and Ranon Katzoff, “Precedents,” 256–92.

90. Private collections of legal documents likely include: Chr.Mitt. 372 (post. AD 142), P.Phil. 1 (AD 104–7), P.Princ. II 20 (AD II), with Reinmuth, O.W., “Two Prefectural Edicts Concerning the Publicani,” Classical Philology 31 (1936): 150–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar; P.Oxy. XXXVI 2757 (post AD 79). Possible also are P.Oslo III 78 + 79 (post AD 136), P.Oxy. XLI 2954 (AD III, citing edict of Heliodorus, AD 137), and SB V 7601. P.Oxy. XLII 3017 (AD 176–77) is an edict of T. Pactumeius Magnus relating to procedures, which is written on the opposite side of a petition dating from 218 CE (P.Oxy. XXXIII 2672); the precise interrelation between these two documents (if any) is unclear. Possible is also SB XIV 11348 (AD II) with Parássoglou, G.M., “Four Official Documents from Roman Egypt,” Chronique d'Égypte 49 (1974): 332–41CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See, also, Ando, Imperial Ideology, 73–130; and Harries, Jill D., “Resolving Disputes: The Frontiers of Law in Late Antiquity,” in Law, Society, and Authority in Late Antiquity ed. Mathisen, Ralph W. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 68–82Google Scholar.

91. P.Oxy. II 237 (AD 186).

92. Bowman, Alan K. and Rathbone, Dominic, “Cities and Administration in Roman Egypt, Journal of Roman Studies 82 (1992): 119–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar. A single papyrus (Chr.Wilck. 27) seems to indicate that the Antinoopolites used the laws of Naukratis, but the proper interpretation of this statement is, to my mind, still unclear.

93. P.Lond. 256, before AD 5–15. Text from H. Lloyd–Jones and P. Parsons, Supplementum Hellenisticum 982; translated after D.L. Page, Select Papyri, III 113.

94. See, for example, Johnson, Janet H., “The Demotic Chronicle as a Statement of a Theory of Kingship,” Journal of the Society for the Study of Egyptian Antiquities 13 (1983): 61–72Google Scholar.

95. Roman perceptions of the richness of Egypt require no footnote, except to note a passage too rarely cited: Historia Augusta, Firmus 7.4–8.10 is one of funniest passages in the entirety of Roman prose literature.

96. “‘Licet enim,’ inquiunt, ‘legibus soluti sumus, attamen legibus vivimus,’” Justinian, Institutes 2.17.8. The emperors in question are Septimius Severus and Caracalla.

97. SB V 7696 (AD 249); Skeat, T.C. and Wegener, E.P., “A Trial Before the Prefect of Egypt Appius Sabinus, AD c.250,” Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 21 (1935): 224–47Google Scholar.

98. See, for example, SB V 7601. In the epigraphic record, subscriptions to petitions seem to be more common. See Tor Hauken, Petition and Response.

99. Digest 3.2.20 (Papinian, Responsa book 1

100. Similar ejaculations by governors that would have caused infamia: BGU IV 1024: su moi dokeis [psychen e]chein theriou kai [o]uk anthropou, [mallon d]e oude theriou; a parallel can be found in van Minnen, Peter, “The Earliest Account of a Martyrdom in Coptic,” Analecta Bollandiana 113 (1995): 13–38CrossRefGoogle Scholar: ene-thyrion n-akrion “you make yourself like the wild animals”. The precise status of the BGU text is unclear; in my view, it is possibly a literary text, not a legal one. See, further, Keenan, James G., “Roman Criminal Law in a Berlin Papyrus Codex (BGU 1024–1027),” Archiv für Papyrusforschung 35 (1989): 15–23Google Scholar and James G. Keenan, “Roman Criminal Procedure,” in Law and Society in Egypt from Alexander to the Arab Conquest, 332 BC–AD 640, ed. J.G. Manning, Uri Yiftach–Firanko, and James G. Keenan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming)

101. See, for example, Cicero Letters to Quintus 1.1.16.

102. Thomas, Yan, “Se venger au forum: Solidarité familiale et procès criminel à Rome (premier siècle av.-deuxième siecle ap. J.C.,” in La Vengeance: études d'ethnologie, d'histoire, et de philosophie, vol. III, ed. Verdier, Raymond and Poly, Jean-Pierre (Paris: Editions Cujas, 1984), 65–100Google Scholar; Gleason, Maud W., “Truth Contests and Talking Corpses,” in Constructions of the Classical Body, ed. Porter, James I. (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1999), 287–313Google Scholar; Shaw, Brent D., “Judicial Nightmares and Christian Memory,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 11 (2003): 533–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

103. See, for example, the elaborately constructed document recording rights granted to members of athletic guilds from the late third century: Pap.Agon. 1.

104. Cicero, On Duties 1.10.32–33; compare to Terence The Self Tormentor 796: ius summum saepe summa est et malitia, cited by Frier, Bruce W., The Rise of the Roman Jurists: Studies in Cicero's Pro Caecina (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985), 123CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

105. Burns, Robert P., A Theory of the Trial (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999), 3Google Scholar.

106. Complete study in Peachin, Michael, Iudex vice Caesaris: Deputy Emperors and the Administration of Justice During the Principate (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1996)Google Scholar.

107. Kertzer, David I., Ritual, Politics, and Power (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988)Google Scholar is persuasive on this point.

108. Smith, Jonathan Z., “The Bare Facts of Ritual,” in Imagining Religion: From Babylon to Jonestown (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982 [originally published 1980])Google Scholar, 54, italics in the original.

109. Digest, Const. Deo Auctore 5, 1.

110. The standard study of the Justinianic codifications remains Honoré, Tony, Tribonian (London: Duckworth, 1978)Google Scholar; on general developments in Late Antiquity, see Honoré, Tony, “Roman Law AD 200–400: From Cosmopolis to Rechtstaat?” in Approaching Late Antiquity: The Transformation from Early to Late Empire, ed. Swain, Simon and Edwards, Mark (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 109–32Google Scholar.

111. Schiller, A.A., “The Courts Are No More,” in Studi in onore di Edoardo Volterra, vol. I (Milan: Giuffre, 1968), 469–502Google Scholar, with important modifications by Gagos, Traianos and van Minnen, Peter, Settling a Dispute: Toward a Legal Anthropology of Late Antique Egypt (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1994)Google Scholar and Palme, Bernhard, “Law and the Courts in Late Antique Egypt,” in Aspects of Law in Late Antiquity (Oxford: Privately printed, 2008), 68–76Google Scholar.