I Am Wronged: Petitions and Related Documents from Ptolemaic Egypt (332-30 BC)

This doctoral dissertation aims to expand our knowledge of the socio-legal and administrative side of the Ptolemaic society (332-30 BC) through a study of the Ptolemaic petitioning system. Petitions are official documents through which (groups of) individuals address special requests to the authorities, mostly in relation to interpersonal conflicts: family disputes, official misconduct, violent crime, theft, etcetera. They constitute one of the best represented types of papyri from Ptolemaic Egypt (ca. 900 published texts) and offer a privileged insight into the daily problems and aspirations of life and the interactions between private persons and the authorities in this society. Despite their enormous potential for research, a recent survey of these documents is missing; this doctoral dissertation aims to fill that gap. Under Ptolemaic rule, three text formats were used to write petitions: the ἔντευξις, the ὑπόμνημα and the mḳmḳ. Most petitions are written in Greek (ἐντεύξεις and ὑπομνήματα), a smaller group in Demotic (mḳmḳ). All three formats were also used for communications with other purposes than petitioning, however. The core of this doctoral dissertation consists of an overview of all Ptolemaic ἐντεύξεις, ὑπομνήματα and mḳmḳ, both with and without petitioning function: lists of all examples of these types of texts and surveys of their addressees, form and content. Additionally, this dissertation discusses some specific topics related to Ptolemaic petitions and other ἐντεύξεις, ὑπομνήματα and mḳmḳ: the personal delivery of these documents to their addressee, the processing of petitions addressed to the king by government officials, and the relation between the ὑπόμνημα and the προσάγγελμα. In this way, this work provides a solid basis for further research regarding these intriguing documents.

Publication year:2017

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