INTRODUCTION

The term Acta Alexandrinorum has been extended to cover a wide range of ‘documentary’ and ‘literary’ texts which concern the politics of Alexandria under Roman rule. Among these writings are a core group which conform to the definition of the Acta Alexandrinorum proper given in chapter 1: capital trials of Alexandrians citizens in the imperial court reported in the form of minutes. I refer to the other similar literary forms as Acta related literature. The Acta Alexandrinorum proper and Acta related literature range from apparently verbatim copies of documents through historical writings to literary compositions similar to novels.

In this chapter I will list, survey and discuss the Acta Alexandrinorum and Acta related literature. I have divided the texts into categories for ease of discussion, although some texts could legitimately be placed into more than one of these. I begin at what should be the ‘documentary’ end of the spectrum of these writings, examining copies of official documents, ‘documents’ and ‘literature’ inspired by imperial visits to Alexandria, and reports of Alexandrian embassies to Rome. I end at the ‘opposite’ end of the spectrum with the three types of trial scenes commonly associated with this literature: the ‘trials’ of prefects and the trials of Alexandrians set firstly in Alexandria and secondly in Rome. This latter group includes the Acta Alexandrinorum proper.