Synopses & Reviews
The historical studies of this second volume provide a new look at the economic and social history of Ptolemaic Egypt. The salt-tax registers of P.Count not only throw light on key aspects of the fiscal policy of the Greek pharaohs but also provide the best information for family and household structure for the Western world before the fifteenth century AD. The makeup of the population is thoroughly analysed here in both demographic and occupational terms. A constant theme running throughout is the impact of the Greeks on the indigenous population of Egypt. This is traced in cultural policies, in administrative geography, in the realm of stock-rearing and in the changing religious affiliations traceable through the names that parents gave their children. The extent to which Egypt is typical of the Hellenistic world more widely is the final topic addressed.
Synopsis
Important new study of the economic and social history of Ptolemaic Egypt, based on the salt-tax registers of P.Count.
About the Author
Willy Clarysse is a Fellow of the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium and teaches in the Departments of Classics and the Ancient Near East at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. He is the author of Prosopographia Ptolemaica IX, Addenda et corrigenda au volume III (1981), The Petrie Papyri (second edition), I. The Wills (1991) and of the Leuven Database of Ancient Books (htpp://ldab.arts.kuleuven.ac.be).Dorothy J. Thompson, a Fellow of the British Academy, teaches ancient history in the University of Cambridge where she is Isaac Newton Trust Lecturer in the Faculty of Classics and a Fellow of Girton College. She is the author of Memphis under the Ptolemies (1988).