For a very long time, until the early 2000s, the predominant scholarly view was that in the first years after the conquest of Egypt, the Roman State confiscated the property of the Egyptian temples. It was assumed that the Romans either relinquished control of the temple land by receiving an annual state subvention (syntaxis) or gave the land back to the temples in exchange for an annual rent. But this far-reaching theory was actually founded on just one testimony—papyrus P. Tebt. II302 (year 4 of emperor Vespasian), which is very fragmentary and heavily supplemented by the first editors.
An exception was the PhD thesis of Penelope M. Glare from 1993 on temples in Egypt.[1] She also recognises the poor, uncertain state of the evidence, limited to only one location in Egypt. Glare denies an aggressive overall confiscation and proposes rather a “reclassification of land.” Furthermore, she points out that state interference in sacred land would be no innovation. There was always a distinction between land directly controlled by the temples and land mostly in private hands. And the proportion of temple land would not have been as significant as is often assumed (p. 76). In his 2012 book From the Ptolemies to the Romans, Andrew Monson addresses the temples and their position in the administrative and economic changeover of that time.[2] He too reflects discomfort with the evidentiary base and follows Glare when he concludes that “the Roman confiscations were aimed at temple land under its direct administration, typically on some form of hereditary or short-term leasehold. But there was no disruption of tenure on privately owned land within the temple’s fiscal domain” (p. 137).
Andrew Connor wishes to follow a completely new path: “We should not only set aside the notion of a total confiscation, but we should set aside the idea of a confiscation at all” (p. 10). His argument is based on the assumption, that the text of P.Tebt. II 302, which was edited for the first time in 1907 by Bernard Grenfell and Arthur Hunt, was over-supplemented so that the content of the text would have been misunderstood.
The study refers mostly to the documentary sources—that is to say, Greek and (some) Demotic documents. Connor points to the archaeological evidence that has to be examined together with the papyri. But he cautions that archaeological remains cannot provide evidence for property relations. This seems to me too narrow a perspective. I believe that the large temple complexes which were constructed during the reign of Augustus (and his successors) provide strong evidence for the economic and social power of the temples and the priests. And they make clear that Augustus was very concerned to have good relations with the priests, as this aided the establishment and maintenance of his rule in the province of Egypt.[3]
The volume consists of two parts, each divided into three chapters. The first part (chapters 2, 3 and 4) takes up the larger part of the book. It examines all the available texts that have been claimed to reference the confiscation of temple property. It centres around P. Tebt. II 302 and comments on and interprets the text in detail. The subject of the second part of the book (chapters 5, 6, 7) is the wider context of Roman attitudes towards the conquered regions in the early Empire. An appendix presents two photographs of the papyrus (upper and lower part), the very sketchy text as it survives on the papyrus, the text in its most supplemented form and Grenfell and Hunt’s translation. It is followed by an Index of sources and a General Index. The book also contains two maps and one illustration.
Chapter 2 (Bastards and Temple: Legitimacy and Rhetoric in Priestly Petitions) examines the legal and administrative procedure of the time and considers how priests at the end of the first century AD communicated with Romans. The text centres around the important question of the priests’ legitimacy. The Romans categorized the priests of Egypt into those who were “legitimate” and those who were not, which was accompanied by a general restriction on access to that legitimate class. But the priests themselves were equally concerned about their class affiliation, because the allocation of benefits depended on status. Connor refers to the system of evidence and the registration of documents used by the priests to prove their legitimacy.
Chapter 3 (Crocodile Tears: A Rhetoric of Loss and of Chaos) examines the special rhetorical techniques employed by priests in contact with official authorities. They practiced a language of loss, the so-called chaos-discourse which has deeper roots in the ancient Egyptian tradition. The authorities to whom it was directed were required to act according to their traditional role as saviours and benefactors. It is instructive to observe how one particular aspect of the Egyptian religious mentality may have shaped or influenced the temple petitions. But it is impossible to guess the prefect’s reaction and it ultimately does not affect the confiscation question.
In chapter 4 (No one can claim the Priestly Land) Connor draws on other texts which examine the relationship between Roman rule and temples concerning land. He outlines the complex nature of temple landholding which was essential for the religious and social functions of temples in Egyptian society. This explains the extensive documentation of long-running disputes concerning ownership, working, or inheritance of land, and access to it, often in relation to temples in Roman Egypt. P. Tebt. II 302 may be considered within this context. Having reconsidered the extensive and ambitious supplements of the first editors, Connor concludes that what we have here is simply a property dispute concerning some small part of the temple’s possessions, rather than an indication of a province-wide confiscation of religious property.
In chapter 5 (Barking Anubis) Connor looks at possible motives behind the idea of confiscation and explores them in detail. These might include fear of rebellion, hatred of Egyptian religion, or economic motives. Are such motives consistent with the behaviour of the Romans in other provinces? And are they in keeping with Augustus’ treatment of the empire and the empire’s religions? The confiscation of land would have contradicted Augustus’ carefully considered policy, whereby he tied elites into the administration of the province. As for religion, there is no evidence for a monolithic hatred of Egyptian religion or the Egyptian gods among the Roman population. To convert temple lands into imperial states would have required a long-term strategy and more levels of management.
Chapter 6 (Unforeseen Consequences: Confiscation in Practice) aims to test the hypothesis. Connor reflects how such a confiscation model—removing land in exchange for subleasing land or receiving regular payment—would have worked (or not worked), and what consequences it would have had in practice. A large-scale seizure of temple property in the entire country would involve enormous personnel and financial resources. Furthermore, it is improbable that the income from confiscated land would be greater than the tax income. And we see no immediate consequences for the temples, because income continued to flow in, in some form or another, to fund the rituals, priests, and maintenance of temples. And last but not least, the Romans would have celebrated this confiscation, and this would have been reflected in the documentary, archaeological or literary records.
The final chapter (Tear the Monument of Such a Monster in Pieces: Creating a Modern Confiscation) illuminates the historical setting of the early 20th century, when the papyrus was published for the first time. It explains why the theory of a province-wide confiscation of religious property was so readily accepted and why it was so successful. It was the high point of European colonial expansion, just after the Urabi Revolt and the Mahdist War in Egypt and Sudan. Many scholars and politicians considered themselves heirs to the Romans. And just like the Romans, they believed that they were facing a timeless, foreign, culturally and religiously backward Egypt that they had to adapt to the requirements of the time.
Connor’s excellently written and well-argued book enables us to overcome the old idea that there was a large-scale removal of temple property. It reveals a profound knowledge of the papyrological tradition as well as the economic and social history of Roman Egypt. Furthermore, it offers a fresh look at the relationship between the Roman Empire and the Egyptian temples, as represented by the priests. One might now ask how the distribution of land ownership and the relation between Romans and temples developed during the following centuries—in the context of the temples of the various regions of Egypt. But these are questions for future research, and Connor’s study is a very good starting point for such an undertaking.
Notes
[1] Glare, Penelope Mary, Temples of Egypt: the impact of Rome, Doctoral Dissertation University of Cambridge 1993.
[2] Monson, Andrew, From the Ptolemies to the Romans: Political and economic change in Egypt, Cambridge 2012; cf. ibid., Taxation and fiscal reforms, in: Katelijn Vandorpe (ed.), A companion to Greco-Roman and late antique Egypt, Chichester 2019, pp. 147-162, especially p. 158.
[3] Cf. Hölbl, Günther, Altägypten im römischen Reich: Der römische Pharao und seine Tempel I-III, Mainz 2000-2005Herklotz, Friederike, Aegypto Capta. Augustus and the Annexation of Egypt, in: Christina Riggs (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Roman Egypt, Oxford: OUP 2012, pp. 11-21; Minas-Nerpel, Martina, Egyptian Temples, ibid. pp. 362-382.