Logistics and Crises: Understanding Roman Military Logistics and Procedures from the Unit Level and Upwards in 2nd to 4th Centuries CE Egypt Using the Surviving ‘Paperwork’

The current article wishes to focus on receipts and reports from Roman Egypt in order to reconstruct the bureaucratic procedures in this region or, more precisely, the bureaucratic procedures of the Roman military logistical system, from the unit level and upwards. This examination will aid in understanding the complexity of the Roman system and the Roman mindset, while highlighting how the lack of modern technology was overcome to maintain a highly organised and vast Empire. This will strengthen and support the assumption that an office organising military supply and their records most probably existed at multiple levels; the nome, the province and Empire. Moreover, the article inspects whether the logistical system endured the many crises of the 2nd and 3rd centuries CE. As there was no significant change during or after these events, this may indicate the resilience of the Roman system. It could also suggest that some of these crises were not deemed as such by the Romans, and/or that the military structure, especially its logistical-bureaucratic side, was not blamed for these military disasters.