PTOLEMAIC EGYPT

This book is about land tenure and the structure of the Ptolemaic state (332 bce–30 bce). The taxation from agricultural production was an important element of Ptolemaic wealth – a common theme in Hellenistic literature – and the assignment and use of land was the primary method of establishing rents (i.e. income) for the bureaucratic, temple, and military hierarchy. The relationship of the ruler to the elite constituencies and to the local population is one of the key subjects in Hellenistic history, for which Ptolemaic Egypt provides important evidence. A study of the organization of land tenure, therefore, raises questions about the nature of social power in the state, and the economic structure of the land tenure regime. Most models of the Ptolemaic state have assumed that it was a highly centralized, rational bureaucratic state imposed on a passive rural peasantry.