THE MILITARY OCCUPATION OF UPPER EGYPT
IN THE REIGN OF DIOCLETIAN
In a recent article I made some brief allusions to the military situation in Egypt at the end of the third century.' Those remarks were not
intended to be more than tentative and I hope that it serves some purpose
to return to the subject in greater depth and to indicate more fully the
present state of the evidence. There are several good reasons for doing so.
It is now fourteen years since the publication of the Chester Beatty Papyri
from Panopolis which constitute our most important source of evidence
for the military and civil administration in Upper Egypt in the reign of
Diocletian; but it might fairly be said that they have not yet received sufficient attention.2 In particular, little has been done to relate them to other
important pieces of evidence some of which have been available for many
years. Recent work3 has clarified some of the major military and political
issues at stake in Egypt in this period so that, whilst we cannot claim to
know all the answers, we can at least claim to have a better notion of the
questions which are susceptible to answer. Not since the work of
I "Papyri and Roman Imperial History, 1960-75," JRS 66 (1976) 171-72.
2 T. C. Skeat, Papyri from Panopolis in the Chester Beatty Library. The editor
stresses the need, in particular, for an extended historical commentary. The documents are
discussed by A. H. M. Jones, The Later Roman Empire (hereafter LRE) 623; D.
Van Berchem, "L'occupation militaire de l'haute Egypte sous Diocl6tien," (hereafter
"L'occupation") Roman Frontier Studies 1967 (Proceedings of the VIIth International
Congress, Tel-Aviv 1971) 123-27; A. K. Bowman, The Town Councils of Roman Egypt
(American Studies in Papyrology XI [1971]) Index IV, p. 186; R. P. Duncan-Jones, "Pay
and Numbers in Diocletian's Army," forthcoming.
3 In particular, T. D. Barnes, "Imperial Campaigns, A.D. 285-311," Phoenix 30 (1976)
174-93; J. D. Thomas, "The Date of the Revolt of the L. Domitius Domitianus," ZPE 22
(1976) 253-79; and "A Family Dispute from Karanis and the Revolt of Domitius Domitianus," ZPE 24 (1977) 233-43. Cf. Bowman, JRS 66 (1976) 158-60.
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