Fighting crime and corruption? Police forces, army and society in Late Hellenistic and Roman Egypt.

Following the final defeat of Marc Antony and Cleopatra in 30 BC, Egypt became a province of the Roman Empire. Some traditions remained unbroken, but fundamental changes were made to the criminal justice system – including the police. In spite of what historians have long assumed, Egypt had a police system, although nothing like modern police. The evidence shows a wide spectrum of officials carrying out police work. The Roman rulers not only introduced various new types of police officials, but also disbanded Egypt’s professional police, which had long since existed. Roman soldiers henceforth acted as the strong arm of the law alongside local policemen. This project seeks to examine how the coming of Roman rule transformed the role of police and army in Egyptian society, addressing the gap in the secondary literature on the impact of Empire. To assess the role of the police in Egypt, I will discuss how effectively the police system dealt with violence and other threats to public order, and how the interaction between people and police influenced or even interfered with their efficiency. Recent studies on the effectiveness of the police system tend to generalise conclusions, drawn from particular evidence or police duties, to the police system as a whole. I will offer a more systematic treatment of the complex social context of the police system in Late Hellenistic and Roman Egypt by introducing a new approach, taken from the concept of social control from sociology.