THE CROWN-TAX IN ROMAN EGYPT *
The crown-tax, or aurum coronarium is attested for Egypt most
abundantly during the first three centuries, though there is some evidence
for it in other periods. The very name suggests a connection with royal
crowns, and the origin of this tax was the pre-Roman custom of offering
golden crowns to the Ptolemies on accession 1; from the time of the
Roman occupation the offerings lost their voluntary character and became
simply another source of regular revenue. I have collected all the documentary evidence I can find relating to this tax in the first three centuries.
This evidence is itemised in the tables appended below, and any discussion of this important tax must depend thereon. Much of it had already
been collected by S.L. Wallace 2; the significant additions here are the
Bodleian Ostraka3, and an unpublished document, P. Yale inv. 213.
I shall proceed from a few general remarks about the tax to a discussion of P. Fay. 20 in the light of the evidence in the tables. The problem
is. this. There is plenty of evidence for payment of the tax in the early
third century. P. Fay. 20 dates to the beginning of the reign of Alexander
Severus, and is an edict of remission concerning the crown-tax. Yet we
have documentary evidence for the payment of this tax during his reign.
I shall attempt to show, by consideration of the wording of the crucial
passage in this papyrus and of the detailed evidence in the tables, that
in reality there were two distinct aspects of this tax, and that Alexander
Severus intended, as he expressly says, to remit this tax only in one of
its aspects, being unable to afford complete remission; that the practice
of holding extraordinary levies of crown-tax was suspended forthwith,
*1 wish to thank Professors Alan E. Samuel and F.M. Heichelheim for their
help in the preparation of this article.
1. See U. Wilcken, Griechische Ostraka aus Aegypten und Nubien, (= WO),
I, p. 295 ff.
2. S.L. Wallace, Taxation in Egypt -from Augustus to Diocletian, (=Wallace,
Taxation), pp. 281-4, 470-2.
3. J.G. Tait and C. Prbaux, Greek Ostraka in the Bodleian Library at
Oxford, (=O. Bodl.), II, nos. 1105-15.
