Alexandrian Citizenship During the Roman Principate (American Classical Studies) [Paperback]

Diana Delia (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (May 1, 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1555405266
• ISBN-13: 978-1555405267
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.8 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 1.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,779,498 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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1.0 out of 5 stars When "Scholars" Really Need a Good Reader, June 16, 2009

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This review is from: Alexandrian Citizenship During the Roman Principate (American Classical Studies) (Paperback)

Lately, I've been reading about the city of Alexandria as background for the work I'm doing on the theologies of Philo, Origen, and Athanasius, all of whom resided there. I've read Dorothy Sly's Philo's Alexandria (Routledge, 1996) and Christopher Haas' Alexandria in Late Antiquity: Topography and Social Conflict (Johns Hopkins, 1997). Both are excellent. I then decided I needed some background on Alexandria during the Principate and began to consult a number of works, among them Alexandrian Citizenship During the Roman Principate by Diana Delia (American Philological Association, 1991).

To be fair, Delia's book is not of the same genre as Sly's and Haas'. It's more "technical," in that Delia restricts herself generally to the explicit use of papyri and ostraka to determine what the cursus of Alexandrian citizenship was and how it differed from Roman citizenship in the same period. Delia does not make any attempt to provide a narrative context or to integrate her research into a wider frame. So, clearly, it's a book for specialists (and a computer dump with a few discursive sentences, which surround the data). But even so, this does not excuse the opaque writing style and the flawed approach, which even I, clearly a non-specialist in Roman social history, discerned immediately.
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To be sure, I was helped immeasurably by Jane Rowlandson's review of Delia's book, which alerted me to many of its problems. Unfortunately, Delia's biggest problem is her main thesis: to differentiate between the requirements for Alexandrian and Roman citizenship and then to delineate the relative status vis-a-vis Rome among those residing in Egypt. The central question is: were the astoi (Alexandrian citizens) more favored than the aiguptioi (indigenous Egyptians) when it came to Roman citizenship and the Roman administration?

Without really thinking through the evidence, Delia constructed a solution that was a mirror-image of the problem she encountered. Here's what Rowlandson wrote: "In particular, consistent misuse of 'peregrini' as equivalent to the Grek term Aiguptioi (35ff.) vitiates D.'s whole discussion of the (favoured) positions of the astoi in the Roman administration's categorization of the population of Egypt. The Gnomon of the Idios Logos and other administrative regulations meticulously differentiated citizens of the Greek poleis from Aiguptioi; but Alexandrian citizens, like all other Greeks, remained peregrini in Roman law unless specifically granted Roman citizenship" (JRS 83, 1993, 251).
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Now here is what Delia did in her book. She writes: "In place of the categories Roman, Alexandrians and Egyptians, we must endorse a broader set of legal status distinctions as valid for Egypt as for the balance of the eastern Roman empire, namely Romans, astoi and peregrini" (p. 35).

Delia has done nothing to change the discussion here; she has merely changed the names of her referents: Romans, astoi (Alexandrians) and peregrini (Egyptians). Simply using fancier (Greek) terminology does not solve the problem. Delia has retained the same system as that she claims she is revising. Rather than question whether, in fact, there were three divisions of citizenship, she merely substituted new names. And her claim that her new terminology is valid for the "balance of the eastern Roman empire" is unduly bold, considering that she provides no evidence to substantiate it.
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What Delia might have done is illustrated by an exhibition, curated by Elisabeth O'Connell, called Ethnic Identity in Graeco-Roman Egypt. O'Connell begins from the premise that ethnic identity was just as fluid in Graeco-Roman Egypt as it was during the Ptolemaic period and that compiling evidence on the basis of names alone is not sufficient: "Willy Clarysse has documented the increase of "irregular filiation" and the use of Hellenized and double names during the Ptolemaic period. Irregular filiation describes the trend whereby parents with Egyptian names gave their children Greek names or parents with Greek names gave their children Egyptian names. . . . In one case, a man with a Greek name receives a modest tax break, while his brother, who bears an Egyptian name, does not (P. Count. 4.138-144). Such instances both illustrate that ethnic labels were not necessarily fixed according to descent and, at the same time, indicate that these distinctions might have had fiscal implications. . . . A number of texts from Tebtunis demonstrate the impermanence of these ethnics, which allowed people to move from one category to another. Given the diversity of identities encompassed by "Greek," it may have only become a meaningful category when it was opposed to "Egyptian," although these boundaries were themselves permeable."

If this sort of complexity can arise from a small garrison city, such as Tebtunis (southwestern corner of the Fayum), imagine the orders of magnitude that must be the case for Alexandria, particularly since much of its evidence has disappeared due to the poor climate.
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As O'Connell notes: "More so than the use of "Greek" or "Egyptian" in Egypt, "Roman" originally marked a legal status (citizenship), which carried distinct rights (voting, favored tax status) and obligations (military service). When Egypt became a province of the empire, the Roman legal system adapted and recapitulated the class structure in place under the Ptolemies and, to some extent, articulated difference in ethnic terms. After Roman citizens, the "citizens" (astoi) of Alexandria and, to a slightly lesser degree, those of the Greek civic foundations (Ptolemais, Naucratis and, later, Antinoopolis) were granted privileges over and above "Egyptians" (Aigyptioi). Among Egyptians, a sub-class variously termed metropolites (mêtropolitai) or Greeks (Hellênes) formed a privileged group constituted by residents from major towns."
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There it is, in a nutshell. Of course, O'Connell is not speaking directly to the concerns Rowlandson had and Rowlandson's caution still applies. Delia's primary fault is that she was not precise about the vantage point from which she was speaking. If the arena is Alexandria, then it makes sense to speak of Romans, Alexandrians (and those of other Greek settlements), and Aiguptioi. But if she is referring to Rome, then it only makes to sense to see the situation in terms of Roman citizens and peregrini, which was everyone else. Delia was not specific enough about this and it makes her work unclear. And, as Rowlandson says, Delia also mis-defined peregrini and that makes all the difference to her thesis. She cannot accurately reflect the social history of Alexandria when she herself cannot understand their terms. I think Delia did not understand the evidence she had to work with and simply latched onto a tripartite paradigm that referred to the city's internal relations, but adopted it for the city's external relations without evaluating it to see if it squared with the evidence she had. I'm glad she wasn't working on Alexandria's theological tradition, which has several orders of complexity to it as well.
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Delia also spent most of her time comparing Alexandria to Athens. Now, in view of the Tebtunis finds, I wonder if she might have better spent her time working more within the Greek sites in Egypt.
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One remark Delia made caught my eye (as it did Rowlandson's): "In short, this suggestion ought to be abandoned on the grounds that it fosters muddy, legal self-definition" (p. 21). I don't even understand this sentence. There is no such thing as "legal self-definition." The whole point of the law is to establish points and parameters that are valid for all, that go beyond the individual. The law represents (to some extent, anyway) society. "Muddy, legal self-definition" is a meaningless phrase.
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If it had been up to me, I would have let Rowlandson read Delia's manuscript before publication and then made Delia rewrite it. Too many times, so-called scholars publish books like this with grand theses, which say very little and only "muddy" the waters further, to use one of Delia's favorite words. As hard as it is to establish the salient facts of Alexandria, not just times and dates, but data on its social and cultural history, only the best scholars should be writing about it.
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Delia's book has several appendices that are of value - for the person who wants to do a competent study of Alexandrian citizenship during the Principate.