Revolts, Resistance, and the Materiality of the Moral Order in Ptolemaic Egypt

Abstract

Abstract As a counterpoint to socio-economic explanations of revolts in Ptolemaic Egypt as ‘natural’ responses to material and social privations, Chapter 6 re-examines material and documentary evidence that illuminates the indigenous cultural and moral frameworks through which historical actors justified and articulated resistance. In documentary reports, and damaged documents themselves, it is possible to catch a glimpse of meaningful symbolic actions, undertaken in public ways and places in order to contest the legality or legitimacy of the regime. Such actions are a more humble counterpart to recondite prophetic texts such as the Demotic Chronicle or the Oracle of the Potter. The withdrawal of farmers from unfair contracts and the issuance of their refusal from the precinct of a temple suggests not irrational flight, but the quasi-formal registration of protest in a place that was often used for the administration of justice. Evidence of the intentional defacement of inscribed versions of the Canopus decree, erected in the open areas of Egyptian temples, likewise suggests a public rejection of loyal priests’ praise for the Ptolemies as good pharaohs. Rebels who forced a guardian of contracts publicly to burn them intended not only to disrupt legal agreements, but also to reject the authority backing them. Though fleeting, these bits of evidence offer insights into the local ethical orientations of specific acts of resistance, acts that should be read as far as possible in their own terms.

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