{"title":"Police Procedures and Petitions in Roman Egypt: The Role of Village Officials","authors":"Roberto Mascellari","doi":"10.5871/bacad/9780197266779.003.0002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5871/bacad/9780197266779.003.0002","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter examines how far village officials were involved in the handling of crimes in the first three centuries of Roman rule in Egypt (AD I–III). Village officials played a primary role in the early enquiries, as they represented the main point of contact for any villager who sought guidance and support in case of offence. They were assigned well-defined tasks in the police system and were able, within fixed limits, to act independently from higher authorities. The evidence shows that the interaction between villagers and local officials after crime was reported often determined the adoption of a specific legal procedure by the offended party: frequently, the prompt submission of written complaints to higher officials. This study suggests that, contrary to some previous views, the work of village officials in dealing with crime was fundamental for the functioning of the broader police and legal system.","PeriodicalId":445369,"journal":{"name":"Village Institutions in Egypt in the Roman to Early Arab Periods","volume":"264 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-08-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132876432","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"‘Great Men’, Churchmen, and the Others","authors":"A. Papaconstantinou","doi":"10.5871/bacad/9780197266779.003.0012","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5871/bacad/9780197266779.003.0012","url":null,"abstract":"This article argues that in the early period after the Arab conquest, the primary communal self-ascription of the rural Christian population was to their village communities, and that authority was still firmly in the hands of secular elites. Based on evidence from papyri, this contradicts the later narrative sources which give the church a preponderant position in communal leadership – a reality they retroject from the ninth century and later, when they were composed.","PeriodicalId":445369,"journal":{"name":"Village Institutions in Egypt in the Roman to Early Arab Periods","volume":"5 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-08-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128425975","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}